Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1 · Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1...

Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1

( Continuedon page2 )

Nr 13Autumn-Winter2016

- £1 / US$1,5 / 1,5 -

Organ of the International Communist Party

Summary

-Petty-Bourgeois Terrorism on an Is-lamic Matrix Strikes Brussels Twice.TheProletarianResponseMust not beSolidarity with Governments and theCapitalistsbuttheClassStruggleagainstallSocialManifestations ofCapitalism,PettyBourgeoisTerrorismIncluded!-France: Nice after the Killings. No to

National Unity! No to Imperialist War!Class Struggle to End the MurderousSocietyof Capital!-Mexico: Bloody bourgeois Repres-

sion and the «Danse Macabre» of the«Far» Left-«Dirty»Duterte.TheBloodyNewFace

of Bourgeois Democracy in the Philip-pines-IronFist in Turkey-ReferendumonEurope:BritishProle-

tarians Have noSide to Support!-«Worker-Communism»orPetty-Bour-

geoisDemocratism?( Continuedon page16 )

AMADEO BORDIGA

The Goals of the CommunistsThis article appeared on February 29, 1920 in the columns of «Il Soviet» organ

of the «Communist Abstentionist fraction» of the Italian Socialist Party. At that timethe PSI, which had joined the Communist International, was led by a left wingcalling itself «maximalist». Traditionally in the social democratic parties the«maximum» program was that of the final goal; socialism, it was reserved forSundays and holiday speechifying while there was a «minimum» program bearingon improvements and reforms. Compatible with capitalism, this minimum programconstituted the real program for action of these reformist parties. And although itsaid it wanted to fight for the maximum program, in reality the majority tendencyin the SocialistParty remained on the terrain of the struggle for reforms: it belongedto that particular variety of reformism that the Bolsheviks called «centrism» –revolutionary in words, reformers in fact. To go towards the birth of a true communistparty, the Communist Left was organized as a fraction leading the struggle againstthe theoretical and political confusion reigning in the PSI.

The fundamental perspectives that the article brings to our attention have notchanged after 90 years, and they indicate an invariant line which cannot be modifieddespite all the “innovators”, all the propo-nents of a “socialism of the twenty-first

American democracy prepares to tighten the screwsFrom the Democrat Obama to the Republican Trump,

different methods for the same imperialistic objectives

The Electoral Victory of RepublicanTrump has surprised the greater part ofthe American and European Intelligent-sia who thought that the victory of Hilla-ry Clinton was certain, all the more so inthat she had received the support of notonly the outgoing President Obama butalso of the major means of Americaninformation .

Yes, we can! was the slogan whichsymbolized the accession of the firstBlack politician to the presidency of theUnited States. And although all the sur-veys, beyond temporary oscillations,continually gave the advantage to Clin-ton, this is the same slogan that summa-rizes in reality the campaign of Trump:Yes,we can,we canwin despite thepolls,despite the fact that until the end theRepublican Party was rather hostile to-wardTrump.Thepoliticalorganizationofthe United States is organized in such awaythatelectoraldemocracy(avoice foreach elector) bends to various specific

interests (the States, the financial-eco-nomic lobbies). The fact thatsome Stateshaving a less numerous population withthe right to vote, weigh more than theothers, constitutes an imbalance that cancompletely change the final result. Themost recent examples are those of G.W.Bush who had thus been able to snatchthe victory from his opponent and thevictoryofTrump againstHillaryClinton,although both she and Al Gore obtainedhundreds of thousands more votes intotal than their opponent. This veritablemasquerade, bourgeois democracy, notonly systematically mystifies the largemasses by making them believe thatthrough it they can decide the political ,economic, financial, social and militaryguidelines of governments, but it evenmanages to surprise the major bourgeoisaccustomed to manipulate the electionsaccording to their interests in the shortterm or the long term!

The billionaire Trump is not a new-

comer to politics; at the end of the70’s hewasoneof themainsupportersofRonaldReagan in thepresidential elections; sub-sequently, according to the needs of hisbusiness interests, he has been a memberof the Republican Party, the Reform Par-ty, and the Democratic Party, before re-turning to the Republican Party. His la-test entry into the political arena whichsaw him elected as President of the Uni-ted States, shows that in an America stillsuffering the consequences of the crisisof 2007 (of which the detonator was thebursting of the subprimes bubble – i.e.the real estate sector where the Trumpfamily has always waded), the violentcontradictions that have characterizedand which have struck the broad layersincluding of the middle classes, haveopened the door to the more reactionarytendencies. Tendencies which «deman-ded « to be represented by personalities

Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 20162

external to the traditional political esta-blishment, not involved directly in theinstitutions, but sufficiently well-knownin order to be able to attract the favor oflarge masses disappointed by Obama’spolitics.

Trump,withhiseclecticism,his trivia-lity,hissexism,his racism,combinedwithhis success in business and his realityshow experience, has thus become «theman of the Day»; his tenacity in pushingto extremes his duel with Clinton, a truerepresentative of the establishment, hasultimately paid off and he has won. Hehad previously attempted the same thingin 2012 before abandoning the attemptdue to bad poll results.But in2016 thingshave been different. When they havebeen called by the electoral circus to«choose» the new President, the pettybourgeoisie ruined by the crisis, full ofhatred toward the undocumented immi-grant proletarians, and fiercely attachedto the possession of weapons to defendtheir private property; along with themosthighlyskilled laboraristocracy, andsmall farmers manhandled by the fiscalauthorities, plunged into insecurity intheir jobs, threatened with a miserablelife, have given their support to the onewho said more loudly than the other thathewas apartisanof the loweringof taxes,opposed to arms control, to the reformsof «Obamacare», partisan to the expul-sion of millions of undocumented immi-grantsand,on the levelofexternalpolicy,opposed to «aid» to foreign countries, toagreements with Iran and China and par-tisan to the fightagainst terrorism– equa-ted with Islam.

TheimperialistbourgeoisieintheU.S.has found in Trump the character produ-ced by its electoral theater; he is a billio-naire and he is therefore part of the bigbourgeois class; he is versatile enoughto be able to incarnate, depending on thesituation, the inflexible or the negotiator,the slave-driver or the magnanimous; hecarries on as if he is in a bar and talks likea bargainbasement yahoo; Yankee to thecore, he ispermeatedwith the ideologyofGreat America power which, at a timewhen the USA is experiencing a certaindecline at the international level, will beused to prepare the «American people»tosuffer evenmore tomorrowthan today,but for a great ideal, the ideal of an Ame-rica that the whole world must fear.

It is still impossible to know what thepoliticalandeconomicprogramofTrump

will really be, once he is installed in theWhite House, and he probably does notknow the answer himself. He is in theprocessofforminghisgovernmental teamand he must make the compromises nee-ded to have the support of Congress,given that the elected representativeswere not favorable to him. But it is morethan certain that his government willdefend his own interests as real estatemagnate and the interests of economiclobbies who supported him and who willget more opportunities for their busi-ness, but at the same time the globalinterests ofAmerican capitalism.Will hemeet with difficulties in Europe, Asia,LatinAmerica, theMiddleEast? Withoutdoubt, as Obama has met with in spite ofthe apparent agreements and the roundsof handshakes with the leaders of thesecountries. Will he find an area of agree-ment with Putin? Probably, because theymayfind common interests in the MiddleEast and Asia. The international situa-tion is destined to change, not because ofthe decisions of the «unpredictable»Trump, but because the current worlddisorder prepares the formationofallian-ces that will compete in the third worldwar – war which is not yet on the agenda,butwhosearrivalcould beaccelerated bythe next International economic crises.

Todaytheworkingclass isstill totallyabsent from the American scene (and notonly American). Absent as a social classdefending its own demands and makingitssocialweight felt.Theeconomiccrisesthat have marked the past forty yearshave not been sufficient to lead to theformation in the American working classof proletarian nuclei able to represent itsclass interests and constitute the basisfor the development of the revolutionaryproletarian struggle in the most impor-tant capitalist country in the world. TheAmerican proletarians are largely disin-terested in social and political issues; orthey are left deceived each time by thepreachers of the moment, political or re-ligious, but always draped in the illusorybourgeois ideology according to whicheach is responsible for his own destiny,that foreach, «where there’s awill there’sa way». It is impossible to guess howmuch time it will take for the Americanworkers, women and men, white, black,Hispanic, Asian, to feel that they are partof the same class, a class exploited by thebourgeoisie (it also male, female, white,black, Hispanic, Asian), a class whichlives in a permanent antagonism with theconditions of exploitation to which it is

subject, but whose members are pushedto respond by bourgeois means andmethods: competition between proleta-rians, individualism,worship ofthedollargod, respect for the rich and the power itgives them.

It is only by recognizing themselvesas a separate class, with a historical pers-pectivecompletelyopposed to bourgeoisperspectives; understanding that onlythe anti-capitalist class struggle, therefo-re anti-democratic and anti-bourgeois,can allowit to effectively combat exploi-tation, poverty and hunger; that onlythrough this struggle is it possible tofight against the war mobilizations of thebourgeoisie; it is only by understandingthe need to oppose the class strugglethat the bourgeoisie conducts each dayagainst the workers, by the class struggleof the proletariat united beyond the dif-ferences of nationality, race, sex, age,qualification; it is only under these con-ditions that the American working classcan conquer their human dignity, freethemselves from the condition of being aworking beast and become the actorof itsown future: a future marked by the end ofany exploitation and any oppression,whether racial, sexual or national.

The bourgeoisie sustains, and it de-monstrates in its own way, that theredoes not today exist an alternative to itssociety of money, of the market, privateproperty, capitalist competition,domina-tion by the stronger: indeed capitalism

(Continuationfrompage1 )

American democracy prepares to tighten the screwsFrom the Democrat Obama to the Republican Trump,

different methods for the same imperialistic objectives

N O T I C E

The lack of space in this issue does notallow us to publish all the availablearticles. However, you can find the fol-lowing articles on our website(www.pcint.org) under the headings«Position papers» and «Texts and the-ses»:

- Flint (Michigan, USA). The real poi-son is Capitalism. The remedy, its Des-truction. (March, 14th 2016)

- Enough of endless «Days of action»,Marches and Ritual Demonstrations!Time for Open Class Struggle! (May,29th 2016)

- May Day, the day of struggle ofLaboragainst Capital, has becomea cele-bration of the enslavement ofWorkers byCapital! When will the Workers get theirMay Day Back? (May, 1st 2016)

- Theses on the Historical Task, Ac-tion and Structure of the World Commu-nist Party, according to the positions thathave been the historical patrimony of theCommunist Left for over half a century(Theses of Naples, 1965)


Petty-Bourgeois Terrorism on an Islamic MatrixStrikes Brussels Twice

The Proletarian Response Must not be Solidarity withGovernments and the Capitalists but the Class Struggle

against all Social Manifestations of Capitalism, PettyBourgeois Terrorism Included!

On March 22 at 8 am two kamikazesblow themselves up at the Brussels Za-ventem Airport; a little over an hour lateranother explosion occurred in the Mael-beek subway station, near the EU build-ing. There are 34 dead and over 300injured including 61 critically, the deathtoll can only rise.

«We were expecting it!» the Belgianleaders stated after the attacks; indeednot only the Belgian Government but theFrench, German, Italian, British and Span-ish had anticipated something for a longwhile. After the attacks in Paris, FrenchPresident Hollande stated on behalf ofall the western imperialist governments:«We are at war!». At war, but againstwhom?

The war that each and every capital-ism conducts is a war of pitiless compe-tition, it is a war that takes place simulta-neously on different levels: economic,political, financial and increasingly fre-quently through military interventions,in countries in the distant or immediate«periphery» of imperialism dependingon the interests in play. And now a warthat «jihadist» terrorism, itself the off-spring of the great bourgeois terrorismof the imperialist metropolises, has takenupon itself leading to attacks includingthose of the suicide variety, in the heartof the imperialist metropolises: New York,Madrid, London, Paris and Brussels.

Brussels, capital of the European in-stitutions, has most recently become aprime target of Islamic terrorism. Prior tothe current massacre, on December 23,2011, a jihadist opened fire on a street inLiege, leaving 5 dead and 125 wounded;on May 24, 2014 a bombing at the Jewish

Museum in Brussels left 4 dead; on Jan-uary 15 in Verviers a jihadist cell that waspreparing a series of attacks in Europewas dismantled .

By means of these attacks petty-bourgeois terrorism of an Islamic matrix,and not always directly linked to al Qae-da or the black Caliphate of Al Baghdadi,intends to respond to western powersfor the decades of terrorizing its popula-tions by being bombed or by being oc-cupied by one or another Middle or FarEastern countries. The latest situation inIraq and Syria is characterized by impe-rialist military intervention – in whichBelgium participates with its air force –and a continuous massacre of inhabit-ants by bombing, attacks by militias, andby governments supported by imperial-ism; this gives greater vigor to forcesthat have accumulated military experi-ence and who thrive in the chaos of theongoing wars in carving out plots ofpower over the cities and territories theysystematic bleed , finding profits fromtrafficking arms or human beings, oil ordrugs. To attract young people willing toserve them against the forces of majorcountries like the United States or Euro-pean, these organizations need not onlyfinancial support and arms supplies; theyalso need ideals. Islamic fundamental-ism pushes them to heroic gestures, likeself-immolation and the sacrifice of one’slife in attacks deemed necessary to «pu-rify» oneself and to «purify» a corruptand degenerate world.

This type of terrorism not only re-cruits its followers from among youthmade desperate by unemployment andpoverty; it also recruits from the petty-

bourgeois strata from which emerge ele-ments, which in order to give meaning toa rhythm of life marked by the dailysearch for the money to live, by theloathsome arrogance… of the richest, bydaily vexations of a racist or religiousnature, clinging to the myth of a divinejustice that should prevail on this earthlyterrain, justice for which they are readyto become instruments of revenge. It isno coincidence that these attacks are notdirected against specific individuals,against representatives of political oreconomic powers found guilty of specif-ic acts, but against the anonymous crowd,against anyone being by chance in agiven place at a given time; attacks thatsow death among «innocent people» asinnocent as those who die in the bomb-ings in Iraq, Syria, Libya, believing thatsomehow their attacks will change thecourse of things.

In reality this petty-bourgeois terror-ism is only the flip side of the terrorism ofthe big bourgeois, the terrorism of themajor states through their wars of rapeand pillage, or those proxy wars wagedby smaller states, in order to perpetuatetheir domination and above all support-ing the domination of capitalism and itslaws over the entire planet. After theattacks in Paris, and especially after theseries of successful or failed attempts, itwas clear to everyone that Islamic terror-ism could easily spread in Belgium – thisEuropean country artificially created bythe powers of the time, especially Germa-ny and France, as a « buffer state « anda country where there has never been a

( Continued on page 4 )

dominates everywhere in the world. Butit can perpetuate its domination, in spiteof the crises and wars, only if it managesto have on its side most of the exploitedmasses, although they are massacred,hungry, reduced to miseryeverywhere inthe world (given the understanding thattheUnitedStates iscertainlynotacountrywhere exploitation, misery, unemploy-ment, hunger and massacres are unk-nown!).

Will it take crises much worse thanthose which until now have shaken theUnited States for the working class ofAmerica wake up from its long torpor,

emerge from its intoxication with demo-cracyand individualism?Without doubt;and it is written in the history of bour-geois society: «The development of mo-dernindustryThereforeundermines,cutsfrom under its feet, the very foundationon which the bourgeoisie produces andappropriates products. What the bour-geoisie, therefore, produces, above all,are itsown grave-diggers. Its falland thevictory of the proletariat are equallyinevitable».

These words of the Communist Ma-nifesto ofMarx-Engelsmayprovoke lau-ghter among many people, just as many

smirked at the words of Lenin before theOctober Revolution in Russia. The dateof the funerals of bourgeois society is notwritten down: we are materialists, notvisionaries. But it is toward these fune-rals that the communists are working andstruggling, certain that it is capitalismitselfwhich will create theobjective con-ditions that will lead irrepressibly, regar-dless of what country in which this willfirst happen, for theproletariat to raise itshead and take to the path of the classstruggle and of the revolution.

November,19th2016


real «national» integration betweengroups of different origins, Walloon,Flemish, and German and where, besidesthe monarchy, there is no real govern-mental centralism in the country. The«We were expecting this» of the Belgianleaders did not mean that they werepreparing for this eventuality; it was astatement of feebleness as it amountedto an entreaty for the tutelage of a morepowerful and better organized state; andindeed it is the French state that came tothe forefront, if only because the terror-ists of November and January in Pariscame from Brussels and especially theMolenbeeck neighborhood where theBelgian police don’t even dare enter.

The bourgeois press itself declaredbefore the Brussels attacks that Belgiumwas a «failed state», a weak state built ona precarious «national sentiment». Acountry where many objective reasonsexplain the formation of a humus fertilefor the birth of jihadist groups: largeMuslim community with very few inte-grated and with high youth unemploy-ment, easy availability of weapons, po-lice inefficiency, poorly equipped anddivided by different levels of administra-tive autonomy and rivalry between Flem-ish and Walloons (1). And preciselybecause Belgian national unity was pre-carious it was selected by major Europe-an states to be the seat of the Europeaninstitutions: France would never haveaccepted that this office be in Germanyand the inverse is equally true. Brusselsappeared to be sufficiently inserted intothe front for the defense of Europeanimperialist interests (as evidenced by itscolonial history), but with a nationalismtoo weak to challenge the interests of bigstates: therefore it has been «naturally»selected to become the institutional cap-ital of Europe.

But the Belgian proletariat, bothWalloons and Flemings, immigrants ornaturalized, cannot have any illusions:the democracy and autonomy recognizedin Belgium cities and neighborhoods arenot those elements which provide for aharmonious civilian life. If ever they en-gage in anti-capitalist class struggle, theywould be facing not only the forces ofthe «bankrupt» state, but also the mili-tary forces of Paris or Berlin, confrontingmore powerful and seasoned States thatwould replace the Belgian State to de-fend a bourgeois regime against the dan-ger of a classist rupture that could spreadto neighboring countries.

The exploitation that always and es-pecially characterizes the capitalist modeof production never ceases because it isthrough the exploitation of the workersthat capital derives its profit. This exploi-

tation is part of a war that was neverdeclared openly, a hidden and general-ized war masked under the veil of classcollaboration in the name of defendingsociety and the national economy, civi-lization and democracy – a lying misrep-resentation of popular sovereignty whichonly serves to consolidate the chainsbinding the workers of all nationalities,all races or religion to the capitalist modeof production.

When the fate of their profits are atstake, the capitalists never hesitate tocut corners on safety measures, to dis-miss arbitrarily, to participate in the ex-ploitation of proletarians of other coun-tries, to intervene militarily around theworld; if participation in an thieves alli-ance necessitates the participation inbombings in Iraq, they order the F16’s totake off and bombard – the media nevershow the faces of those who are bombed.Capital commands, the capitalists obey;and in their noble mission to preserveCapital and assure the valorization ofcapital and in maintaining their profits,they act with all the cynicism possible inthis bourgeois world.

We are in a period where the proletar-ians of Europe, intoxicated by decadesof democracy and enjoying conditionsnotably superior to those of the proletar-ians of the countries on the periphery ofimperialism, are not yet aware that thebourgeoisie will never allow its politicaldominance to be challenged; in a periodwhen the imperialist bourgeoisie can stillboast of the alleged superiority of itscivilization by concealing the actual rob-bery detrimental to the overwhelmingmajority of the population of the world,in order to make the proletarians believethat a community of values and interestsunite them to the capitalists in the nameof the «homeland»; but as a matter of factwhole generations of proletarians wereforced to shed their blood in the name ofthe homeland, peace, freedom, brother-hood, without getting anything in returnother that the perpetuation of their ownexploitation! At a time when many col-laborationist forces can still distort theproletarian interests in peppering themwith the bourgeois values of democra-cy, nation, peace – a peace that thecontradictions of capitalism will neverguarantee!

Petty-bourgeois terrorist reaction isalso serving the rule of capital, becauseit obeys the same laws, the only differ-ence being that it is in favor of bourgeoisfactions who want to rip territory awayfrom the dominant bourgeois powers.Bourgeois against bourgeois, they arefighting to seize the riches which arenothing other than the product of humanlabor, the wage-labor of generations ofproletarians.

The war between imperialist bour-geois and «terrorist» bourgeois is not awar in which the workers should partic-

ipate and for which they should sacrificetheir lives, their interests, their cause.Their cause, that is, the cause of a classthat produces all the wealth of societybut which is immediately seized by theclass enemy, the capitalist bourgeoisie.The cause of the proletariat is historical-ly antagonistic to that of the bourgeoi-sie: this is not an ideological belief, buta reality that demonstrates itself eachand every day in capitalist society. Theproletariat will have to learn that in orderto assert its class interests it must con-front the forces of bourgeois conserva-tion which are unleashed against it everytime it tries to escape the exploitation towhich it is doomed– not by choice, butby the social constraint of bourgeoisrule that only in this manner can extractsurplus value from wage labor.

The response of the proletariat to theterrorist attacks cannot be uniting withthe capitalists and their governments todefend a political system that is funda-mentally anti-proletarian. The proletari-an answer can only be waged on theterrain of the class struggle, organizingitself for the exclusive defense of classinterests and by recognizing as alliesand class brothers the proletarians ofother countries.

This prospect may seem utopian andinsufficiently «concrete» today; but it isactually the only one that can be takenup again for the resumption of the prole-tarian struggle, centered on the interestsof its own class, on its own historicalcause, which is to put an end once andfor all to the system of exploitation ofman by man, to the capitalist system thathas no purpose other than capital, thevalorization of capital, and which oblig-es all human beings to satisfy its imper-atives, the imperatives of the market, andnot the needs of humanity.

No solidarity with the capitalists andtheir governments on the pretext of thestruggle against terrorism!

No solidarity with imperialism, glo-bal terrorist entities which hold in theirclaws entire populations who they mas-sacre and ravage to enrich themselves!

No justification for acts of petty-bourgeois terrorism in whatever form itpresents itself!

Class organization for the sole de-fense of proletarian anti capitalist in-terests!

Fortheresumptionof theclassstrug-gle in all countries!

Fortheworldcommunistrevolution,theonlyhistorical solution forthe eman-cipationofwage-laborfromexploitationand all bourgeois oppression!

March, 27th 2016

(1) See http:// www. politico.eu/ arti-cle/ belgium- failed- state- security- serv-ices- molenbeek- terrorism/

Brussels . . .( Continuation from page 3 )


France: Nice after the killingsNo to National Unity! No to Imperialist War!

Class Struggle to End the Murderous Society of Capital!

Almost as soon as news of the mas-sacre of scores of people in Nice wasknown and when by their own admissionthe motives of its author were still un-known to them, the French governmentofficials issued appeals to «nationalunity» to «war» against «Islamic terror-ism». In a televised statement that night,President Hollande said France would«reinforce[its] actions inSyriaand Iraq».

The government itself so underlinedthe existence of a causal link betweenterrorist attacks in Franceand imperialistmilitary intervention in Iraq and Syria(and Libya). Since the summer of 2014,along with a number of soldiers presenton the ground, the French air force hasbeen involved inbombings carried out inIraq by the coalition led by the UnitedStates; sinceSeptember 2015, the FrenchAir Force has taken part in the bombingin Syria. According to an NGO, bomb-ings by coalition aircraft in both coun-tries caused in only 6 months (December2015-May 2016) the deaths of between1100and 1560civilians (1).

Also for months French «SpecialForces»commandos havebeen «active»,more or less clandestinely, in the fightingin Syria and Libya, alongside the US andBritishmilitary.

It is this warlike intervention in theMiddle East that the government wantsto reinforce, cynically using the emotioncaused by the carnage in Nice to ensureits legitimacy and support among thepopulation. With almost total media sup-port which multiply the martial declara-tions, this bourgeois propaganda wasenhanced by the debauch of nationalismwhich reached unprecedented levelsduringtherecentEuropeanfootballcham-pionship.

To denounce the military interven-tion ofFrench imperialism, to reject callsfor national unity with the capitalists andthe bourgeois state, to oppose all at-tempts to divide the workers accordingto nationality, race or religion, to mani-fest solidarity with the struggles of un-documented workers and migrants: suchare the elementary requirements of thestruggle of the proletariat against theeconomic and social and political warlead by the government on behalf of thebosses and national and internationalcapitalism. Capitalism, whatever its na-tionality, is moved only by sordid bour-

end the bloody society of capital and tomove towards communism, a societywithout war or oppression, without mar-kets or money, without classes or states.

But for this solution to become pos-sible, the proletariat will have to engageon the path of the class struggle: the pathof struggle and organization for the ex-clusivedefenseofits immediateand long-term interests, in direct opposition tointerests of the propertied classes andwith complete independence from theforces and institutions linked in one wayor another to social conservation. Onlyits reorganization into a class and conse-quentlyintoaparty (theCommunistMan-ifesto),will enable it to fight successfullyagainst the capitalists and their state andto cease being sacrificed on the altar ofthe destructive rivalries and deadly con-tradictionsof thebourgeoisie. Itwill alsogive the proletariat the opportunity tolead at least some of the petty bourgeoisstrata ruined by the crisis, intoxicated bythe degeneration of present society, inthis anti-capitalist struggle – those whootherwise can be driven into the worstreactionary dead ends – by offering theconcrete and in no way illusory objec-tiveof thecombat to gain a societywhichis at last really human,

If this seems a distant perspectivetoday, it is the only realistic one.

For the resumption of the proletarianclass struggle!

Down with the society of capi-tal, long live the world communistrevolution!

July,16th 2016

(1) cf:airwars.org/news/internation-al-airstrikes-and-civilian-casualties-in-iraq-and-syria-december-2015-to-may-2016. If the majority of the bombing inIraq was the work of the Americans (eg5850airstrikes inIraq), thecoalitionallieshavenotremained inactive:761 airstrikesby the Britishand 670 by the French 670.

Our InternetSite:www.pcint.org

Our e-mail address:[email protected]

geois interests and its imperialist foreignpolicy is only the continuation of itsanti-proletarian domestic policy.

To place trust in the bourgeois stateand its political representatives in orderto obtain a «protection» against terror-ism whether this is the work of a partic-ular Middle Easternforce orofmentally-deranged individuals, can only mean forthe proletariat to accept remaining thepassive cannon fodder of guns or bombsby putting its fate into the hands ofthose who live by its exploitation, andwho are its class enemies.

What is demonstrated by the kill-ings in Nice and Orlando, the attacks inParis or Brussels, is that even in therichest and most powerful imperialistcountries, those who dominate andplunder the planet with impunity; thebourgeois democratic political systemis less and less able to prevent theexplosion of the growing contradictionsof capitalism and the manifestations ofthe violence that is the basis of all socialrelations. The bourgeois ideologicalmyths of social progress, peace, free-dom, equality and fraternity, has grow-ing difficulties in hiding the reality ofthis oppressive, murderous, exploita-tive capitalist society, where the funda-mental law is the mad dash for profitwhich inevitably leads to contempt forhuman life; this contempt is found notonly in police repression, military inter-ventions by States and the bombing ofcities, but also in terrorist violence byvarious reactionary groups, and evenin the relationships between individu-als and domestic violence.

As a means to escape this viciouscircle of killings and military interven-tions that will otherwise lead inevitablytoa thirdworld war, it wouldbe tragicallyutopian to seek to reform capitalism:throughout its existence, it has withoutcessation immersed humanity in evermore deadly wars and disasters. Onlytraitors or sold-out lackeys can try tohoodwink us about a «democratization»of capitalism and a «pacification» of itsinternational relations.

The only solution is based on theclass war against capitalism, the inter-national proletarian revolution to estab-lish the power of the oppressed andexploited, the dictatorshipof theprole-tariat, the transition phase necessary to


MEXICO:Bloody Bourgeois Repression

and the «Danse Macabre» of the «Far» Left

Mexico shaken by bourgeoisviolence... and workers’ struggles

These assassinations are part of theclimate of violence which has affectedMexico for years.

This country of 120 million peoplehas witnessed a capitalist developmentthat makes it the 2nd largest economicpowerinLatinAmerica (afterBrazil), buthas been plagued by massacres foryears. The proletarians and peasantssuffer violent oppression and are alsovictims of clashes between bourgeoisforces (many of which are linked to drugtraffickers). The last decade was markedbymore than185,000culpablehomicidesin Mexico (and over 30,000 disappear-ances). But the internal situation is notlimited to crime.

The Mexican proletariat is raising itshead to face the exploiters. Multiple re-cent struggles testify to this.

Wave of strikes in industryand agriculture

In the San Quintin valley in BajaCalifornia,theagriculturallaborerswageda 12 week-long strike against their boss-es who impose poverty wages and work-ing days which can go up to 18 hours.They also employ children to pick thefruit and tomatoes crops, primarily forthe US market. Farm workers number80,000 in the valley and many are immi-grants, often of indigenous origin, fromthe southern states. The workers block-aded the main road connecting the re-gion to California, leaving crops to rotand causing millions of dollars in lossesto capitalist agribusiness. Despite thebrutal police repression, workers haveseen their overall situation improve.BerryMex, the largest producer in theregion, had to increase wages whichhave become the highest in Mexicanagriculture. Other companies now pay

contributions to social insurance andoffer certain benefits to their employees.However, many producers continue torefuse to implement the wage increase.The strike also allowed the creation oftwo agricultural unions independent ofthe employers and the charros unions(«sell-outs» to the State and the IRP(Institutional Revolutionary Party).

Labour unrest also affects the maq-uiladoras in Ciudad Juarez. The strug-gles began at Eaton Bussmann, an elec-trical transformer manufacturer,with theobject of increasing wages and improv-ing working conditions (paymentof pre-miums, installationofair conditioning inthe workshops ...) Then, workers of theScientific Atlanta plant, a subsidiary ofFoxconn, have mobilized for wage in-creases, lunch breaks, the end of harass-ment by foremen, paid holidays, and theright toformaunion.WorkersatLexmarkmanufacturing printers, have at the sametime, began protests demanding higherwages and protest against sexual har-assment by the company’s agents. Ciu-

dad Juarezworkers havesuffered severeemployer repression which has translat-ed into strikers being fired.

35000 minersofArcelorMittal, in thestate of Michoacan also embarked on astrike for a week in March 2016. Theminers entered into struggle against re-dundancies and violation of their collec-tive agreement.

The1,700workersof theNissanplantin the «industrial city of CuernavacaValley» (Civac) in the State of Morelosconducted a two-day strike in April andachieved a 4%increase and 500 full-timehires.

Workersof theTelmextelecommuni-cations giant, obtained a raise throughthe threat of a strike, although the mobi-lization was sabotaged by the yellowunions.

Despite therepressionandthemaneu-vers of the charros, it is clear that theyoung Mexican proletariat is fightingcourageously in a verydifficult situationthat mixes insecurity, lack of rights andbrutal repression. This is also the casewith education workers.

A long struggle againstthe educational «reforms»

Since 2013, the CoordinationofEdu-cation Workers (CNTE) has foughtagainst the establishment of an educa-tionreformwhich, aselsewhere, resultedin lower funding, competition betweenschools (by measuring the «perform-ance» against each other) and a militari-zation of teachers with a new evaluation

The Mexican bourgeoisie has once again shown its bloody face.OnSunday, June19, atNochixlan, heavilyarmed federalpolice murdered a dozen

striking teachers and villagers who supported themin cold blood. Theywere blockinga highway in the south to prevent federal police from going to the capital of the stateof Oaxaca, where striking teachers organized a encampment.

Faced with protesters who had nothing but sticks and stones to defend them-selves, cops used tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition and helicopters. Policeprevented ambulances from accessing the site during the hours of the confrontationand blocked the protesters who were trying to take the injured to hospital.

The massacre of Nochixtlan is not an aberration or an exceptional event, but thesymptom of the development of struggles in Mexico and the bourgeois violence thatseeks to curb them.


system(which will punish recalcitrants).This reform is a translation of the

«Mexico Plan»thatPresidentPeña Nietosigned with his party (the InstitutionalRevolutionary Party, member of the So-cialist International) and its opponents/partnersofthePRD(DemocraticRevolu-tion Party, also amember of the SocialistInternational) and the PAN (NationalAction Party, clerical right).

For months, teachers, breaking withthe yellowSNTE union, have engaged incombat against the federal governmentbut also against the regional govern-ments run by the opposition. The fightmainly developed in the southern states,the poorest regions in which the indige-nous population predominates.

The strikers attacked the premises ofthe bourgeois parties behind the «PlanMexico» but also openly the yellow andultra-corrupt unions such as the CTM(affiliated to the very collaborationistInternational Trade Union Confedera-tion)andtheSNTE(affiliatedtotheequal-ly collaborationist Education Interna-tional). They blocked economic activity(refinery, fuel depots, airports, roads,hydroelectric ...) and occupied symbolicplaces, likeMexico City’scentral square,the Zocalo.

The repression was extremely fero-cious even before June 19. Protesterswere confronted by hordes of cops.Thousands of teachers have been sackedfor refusing to pass evaluation tests orfor striking. Hundreds of trade unionistsare in prison. This is the case for twoleaders of the CNTE arrested June 12 inMexico City, by six heavily armed menwearing balaclavas, when they were ex-iting a meeting of the CNTE. They wereimmediately transferred to the high se-curityHermosillo.

RECIPES OF THE «FAR» LEFTAGAINST PROLETARIAN

STRUGGLE

Faced with this strike, we could seeall thecomponentsof the Mexicanfar lefttake anti-proletarian positions each oneno better than the other. These «revolu-tionaries» agitated in every manner inorder not to confront the bourgeoisieand to divert the proletariat fromresump-tion of open warfare.

Recipe n°1: the united frontwith the bourgeoisie

In this climate of unrest, a new bour-geois party tries to surf the discontent.This is the Movement of National Re-generation (Morena) of Andrés ManuelLópezObrador(AMLO), formerleaderofthe PRD and former head of the FederalDistrictofMexico.

The leadersof theCNTE,evenif theyhead up a heroic struggle, are advocatesof class collaboration. They hope aboveall for the election of AMLO who nowplays the small nationalist and populistmusic in the style of Chavez. The CNTEorganized jointly with Morena a largeprotest in Mexico against repression.This allowed AMLO to advance his de-mands, resignation of the Minister ofEducation, the punishment of the guilty,but also the formation of a «transitionalgovernment» with the current president.

Of course, the Trotskyists havejumped at the chance to be the watercarriers of the populist demagogue. Thisis particularly the case of the IzquierdaSocialista (member of the InternationalMarxist Tendency) which stands for theestablishment of a «national front ofstruggleof rural and urbanworkers» thatwould combine«peoples’organizations,social organizations, unions, students,farmers and organizations like Morenawhich have chosen the electoralroute»(«RepresiónenOaxaca, ¡debecaerla contrarreforma educativa y este gobi-erno de asesinos!» www.laizquierda so-cialista. org, June19, 2016).This «front»aims to bring AMLO to power because,according to the SI, it willbe «impossibleto win the presidential election withouta mass movement in the streets» («Mov-ilización masiva en defensa de la CNTE,hacefaltaaterrizarlaen laacciónunitaria,balance de la marcha», June 27, 2016)

Other Trotskyists have not yetpledged allegiance to Morena, but evenso defend a nationalist and populist line.This is particularly true of what remainsof the two large international Trotskyistcurrents: the FourthInternational (Usec)and the Lambertists.

TheseTrotskyistshave acted for dec-ades as the left-wing of the bourgeoisparties, having for a long time beingmembers of the PRD. Today they aretrying to regain their organizational in-dependence by creating a Political Or-ganizationofWorkersandPeople(OPT),driven by the SME electricians’ unionactivists. The Revolutionary WorkersParty (PRT), affiliated to the Fourth In-ternational, the Lambertist Socialist Or-ganisation of Workers (OST) and otherTrotskyist groups, but also «activists ofthe movement of the users of electricpower, CUT activists and individualsfrom the experience of community self-organization of the peoplesof Guerrero»involved in the OPT. («Au Mexique,avec ou sans reconnaissance légale,l’OPT est en marche», europe-solidaire.org, 21 February2014).

The OPT demands «a reopening ofthe dialog». This is worthy of theworst traitors who weep when theyare deprived of the sacrosanct «social

dialog»!Although it calls for a «socialization

of the means of production», OPT has afully bourgeois program: defending na-tional sovereignty, developing the na-tional economy and a «participatory andpopular» democracy. The motto thatadorns their website is symptomatic:«Fornational liberationand social eman-cipation». All this accompanied by aMexicanflag! (Opt.org.mx).

ThePRT, theISor theOSTare totallyalien to proletarian combat, but they aremerely one component of bourgeois na-tionalism.

Alongside them, other currents wishto be more orthodox but defend equallyanticommunist positions. This is partic-ularlythe caseof theheirsof the Commu-nist Party of Mexico.

Recipe n°2: «people power»

The Communist Party of MexicoPCM, whichparticipates in the «Interna-tionalGatheringofCommunistand work-ers’ parties» with the remnants of thepro-SovietCP,especiallytheGreekCom-munist Party (KKE), strikes revolution-ary posturesdenouncing indiscriminate-ly the PRI, the PRD, PAN and Morenadescribed as «a new social democracy»and asserting that capitalism «is not re-formable». It also argues that it is neces-sary to «end the government of PeñaNieto, but not in favor of an anti-neolib-eral government touting supporters ofKeynesian management of capitalism»and claims to deny «inter-classist alli-ances» ( «El PCM con los trabajadoresde la educación» elcomunista. nuevara-dio. org, 23 June 2016)

These proclamations are strictly forshow: the PCM is faithful to the oldpetty-bourgeois line of«struggle againstthemonopolies».ThePresidencyofPeñaNieto is denounced as a «monopolypower» against which we must build an«anti-monopoly, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist front»(«ElEstado mexicano:violencia organizada para garantizar theganancia y el poder de los monopolios»May 31, 2016). This front is of course aninter-class alliance because the «PCM isconvinced that such a task can be sup-ported by the working class, by all em-ployees,unemployedworkers, immigrantworkers, forging an alliance with thepopular sectors, in favor of workers’power and a people’s economy»(«ElPCM con los trabajadores de la edu-cación», June23, 2016).

AnotherCPfromMexico, thePCdeMdefender of Cuba promotes the sameinterclassist line. Its program emphasiz-es the dictatorship of the proletariat but

(Continuedonpage8)


this is limited to conference documents.Not only does it not defend a class ori-entation in the current struggle by mix-ing «rights of workers» and «defense ofpubliceducation»(«Pronunciamiento delPCdeM sobre la represión en contra delmagisterio», partido comunistademexi-co. wordpress.com, 23 June 2016), but,again, its objective is«to build a nationalAssemblyof People’s power»(«in lugarde votar, construir poder popular» 30-30, April-May 2015). This «people’spower» is inspired by the legacy of apeasant leader – and not Marxist – of theMexican Revolution: «The thought andthe example of Emiliano Zapata give usmany keys that today are fundamental toachieve theunityofall theexploited, (...)and form one great classist front [sic]against the capitalists, where each ex-ploited sector, women, men, youth,Métis, indigenous people, the workers,peasants, etc., has a place in the strug-gle» (« Emiliano Zapata y su su legadoejemplo a 97 años de su asesinato»April10,2016).

Finally, the Maoists of the Revolu-tionaryCommunistOrganisation defendthe same perspective. They advance apopulist vision in which the proletariatdisappears, «the exploitation and op-pression of the vast majority of peopleby a small class of big capitalists, dom-inated by the world capitalist-imperial-ist system» («De Ayotzinapa los«Porkys» crímenes of a perverso Esta-do al servicio de un sistema oppressive¡Luchemos contra el poder y la revolu-ción preparemos» aurora-roja. blogspot.fr!). To fight against this, theiranswer is a «new synthesis of commu-nism developed by Bob Avakian», thecaudillo of the Revolutionary Commu-nist Party of the United States. Thissummary is nothing other than a rehashof the old indigestible plate of the «Peo-ple’s Republic» and the «united front»of workers / peasants / middle class /middle bourgeoisie (LaRevolución Lib-eradora. Orientación estratégica y pro-grama básico).

In different ways, these rejects ofStalinism dream only of a «popular»capitalism, that is to say a bourgeoisregime that would grant a fewcrumbs tothe proletariat.

Recipe n° 3: the constituentassembly

Other organizations take up onceagain a classic of reformism: the constit-uent assembly.

This is particularly the case of twogroups that seemingly are completely atodds: the PCM (Marxist-Leninist) issu-ing out of the pro-Albanian current andmember of the International Conferenceof Marxist-Leninist parties and organi-zations, and the Workers’Movement forSocialism,memberoftheTrotskyistFrac-tion - Fourth International, one of themain components of which is the Argen-tine PTS.

The PCM (ml) and the MTS defend a«political general strike» thatwould leadto a «provisional government» based ona «popular and democratic» constituentassembly for these «marxist-leninists» («De la Asamblea Nacional Popular a laNueva Constituyente», Vanguardia Pro-letaria, 15-31 January2015) or «free andsovereign» for the «fourth internation-alists»(fromTribunaSocialista,Novem-ber14,2014).

The constituent assembly can onlyserve to channel the workers’ strugglesinto abourgeoisparliamentaryand coun-ter-revolutionarysolution. AsLenin saidin his report to the Third Congress of theComintern: «The Constituent Assemblyis a dirty word for them. Not only for theconsciouscommunists, but alsofor peas-ants. Life has taught them a ConstituentAssembly and the White Guards, are thesame thing; the first inevitably entailsthe latter»(Report on the tactics of theCommunistPartyofRussia, July5,1921).

This democratic slogan mustbe firm-ly fought because it is a dead end divert-ing the revolutionary struggle to bringdown the bourgeois state. This is whatthe Bolsheviksdid in1917 andit allowedthem to overthrow the bourgeois power:without the violent overthrow of powerit is impossible that the bourgeoisieleaves power quietlyto another power: italready responds with brutal violence tostrikes, it will do even more so when itcomes to the question of power!

Recipe n° 4: «workers andpeasants government»

Finally, the fraternal enemies of theSpartacist Group of Mexico (GEM) andthe Internationalist Group (IG) rejectthe Constituent Assembly to opposeto it the «workers’ and peasants» gov-ernment.

In the Communist International as inthe Fourth International, the «workers’government»or «workers and peasants»is something other than the proletarianrevolutionarypower, ie, thedictatorshipof theproletariat.

It suffices to cite the TransitionalProgrammeofwhich theSpartacistswishto be the Temple guardians:

«Of all parties and organizationswhich base themselves on the workers

and peasants and speak in their name,we demand that they break politicallyfrom the bourgeoisie and enter upon theroad of struggle for the workers’ andfarmers’ government. On this road wepromise them full support against cap-italist reaction. At the same time, weindefatigably develop agitation aroundthose transitional demands whichshould in our opinion form the programof the «workers’ and farmers’ govern-ment.

Is the creation of such a governmentby the traditional workers’ organiza-tions possible? Past experience shows,as has already been stated, that this is,to say the least, highly improbable.However,one cannotcategorically denyin advance the theoretical possibilitythat, under the influence of completelyexceptional circumstances (war, defeat,financial crash, mass revolutionarypressure, etc.), the petty bourgeois par-ties, including the Stalinists, may gofurther than they wish along the road toa break with the bourgeoisie. In anycase one thing is not to be doubted: evenif this highly improbable variant some-where at some time becomes a realityand the «workers’ and farmers’ govern-ment» in the above-mentioned sense isestablished in fact, it would representmerely a short episode on the road to theactual dictatorship of the proletariat».(MIA, pt.2 «Workers’ and Farmers’Government»)

This government is the governmentof the «united front» that is to say acoalition between the Communists andthe bourgeois parties that they are beg-ging to «break with the bourgeoisie» toimplement state control of the economy,opening the account books or popularcredit. This is a perspective that Trotskyadvanced with many reservations butthat his disciples repeat at any time, it isillusory at best, at worst totally suicidal!

History has shown that it is a sloganof confusion which reinforces the beliefin the possibility of the proletarians torely on collaborationist organizations tofight against capitalism. But this is noth-ing but a mortal illusion! Advocates ofclasscollaborationwillneverfightagainstcapitalism: they have always opposedand they will always oppose attacksagainst the bourgeois system. In factthis slogan is only used to prevent thevanguard elements that emerge in prole-tarian struggles from breaking with thedominance of counter-revolutionary re-formism.

In Mexico, as elsewhere, only ONEISSUE: the proletarian revolution

against all reformist impasses

All these hucksters of the «far» left


MEXICO ...


trying to foist their adulterated junk ontheproletarians:national liberation, con-stituent assembly, popularpower, work-ers’ government ...

Claiming to fight against bourgeoisterror, democratization of power and re-formists lies, is to confine oneself in thestraitjacket that the bourgeoisie wantsto impose to exorcise the workers’ strug-gles. Casting such calls to the proletariatis ask it to commit suicide in order toavoid being assassinated, it is to behaveas its worst enemy.

The cycle of struggles for nationalemancipation has been completedaround the world, and the young work-ing classmust lookdirectlyto the unique-ly proletarian revolution. It can only dothis against the democratic bourgeoisieand its supporters. Without doubt theproletariat has also the historic task ofpushing through to completion, espe-cially in agriculture, «bourgeois demo-cratic» tasks, that is to say, the liquida-tion of the old pre-capitalist oppressionwhich the bourgeoisie still has failed toachieve. But this second task should beassumed without attenuatingor renounc-ing the primary goal, because it is transi-tory and subordinated to the proletarianrevolution, for which the proletarians ofthe cities have no other reliable alliesthan the agricultural workers. The smallpeasant proprietorswill beatbest, likeallpetty-bourgeois, only uncertain fellow-travelers, always ready to turn to thebourgeoisie.

Communists, therefore call on theworkers of Mexico as of all countries toreject dangerous reformist illusions andto avoid the grave error of consideringthose who spread them as possible allies

Revolutionaries say to the proletari-ans that they must accept the struggleon the terrain where they defy the bour-geoisie, and to prepare the responsewhich will require workers’ self-defenseforces capable of responding to vio-lence with violence and to arms witharms. Such a response can only havemeaning if it is indissolubly linked to theperspective of the revolutionary offen-sive, more or less long term, against thebourgeoisie and its state, to establishthe dictatorship of the proletariat. Theycall on the most conscious and mostcombative to participate in thehard workof the constitution of a party genuinelyrevolutionary and Marxist, internation-alist and international, one capable ofachieving this preparation and to leadthis combat, the party of which the pro-letariat has been so cruelly deprived fordecades.

There is no other way, there cannotbe any other way!

July,10th 2016

«Dirty» DuterteThe Bloody New Face

of Bourgeois Democracyin the Philippines

CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENTAND PROLETARIAN MISERY

This development, touted by inter-national institutionsconcealssevereeco-nomicbackwardness and poverty.About30% ofthe workforce is still employed inagriculture but, despite this, the countryis not self-sufficient; it must import rice(it is one of the world’s biggest import-ers) to feed its rapidly growing popula-tion (75 million Filipinos in 2000, 100million today). The country is heavily indebt and corruption is endemic.

The majority of the population stilllives in miserable conditions. Accord-ing to official statistics, a quarter of thepopulation lives on less than a dollar aday and according to the IBON Founda-tion, almost three-quarters live on lessthan two dollars. While according to thegovernment, unemployment is around7%, it isactuallymore than25%ifwetakeinto account imposed part-time workbelow the living wage. Finally, a largepart of the urban population lives inslums. Some estimate that six of thetwelve million inhabitants of the capitalManila live in these shantytowns. Theylive amidst mountains of garbage thatpollute the air, water and soil, and faceexpulsion policiespursued bythe publicauthorities (as in Quezon City in 2014).

Like many capitalist countries, thePhilippines has been implementing «ne-oliberal» measures of privatization andderegulation. Among measures imple-mented within this framework, there isthe «contractualization» system, nick-named «Endo» (end of contract), whichprevents workers from obtaining guar-anteed employee status by recruitingthem to contracts (often successive) of

less than five months. In the specialeconomic zones (SEZ’s) thathave multi-plied, workers are deprived of almostevery right and are subject to severecorporate despotism; in addition, inter-nationalorganizations have regularlyde-nounced the use of forced labor in smallenterprises and in agriculture (especial-ly in sugar cane plantations)

The Philippines is also one of themain sources of emigration in the world:there are onaverage 6000 departures perday.ElevenmillionFilipinosliveabroad,including three million in the UnitedStates, two million in Saudi Arabia, andsome 700,000 in Canada. Moreover300,000 Filipino seafarers are plying theoceans on merchant ships.

The integration of the Philippines inthe capitalist world economy was facili-tated by the close links of the countrywith its former colonial power, the Unit-ed States.

The Philippines, formerly a Spanishcolony, was conquered by US imperial-ism in a bloody war between 1899 and1902. The US military devastated thecountry, leadingreal«exterminationcam-paigns» and the internment of civiliansinconcentration camps,all accompaniedby a racist discourse to celebrate thesuperiority of the Americans, descend-ants of «Aryan ancestors». This coloni-al genocide was responsible for the mur-derof250-750,000civilians(RobertGer-warth and Stephan Malinowski «Theanteroom of the Holocaust», TwentiethCentury. History Review,No. 99,2008).

The country was a US colony untilthe end ofWorld War IIbefore becomingformally independent only to be run by

The Philippines, whose economy was once primarily agricultural, has recentlyexperienced asignificant industrialization. In 1980,over 37%ofexportswere agricul-tural products; in 2015 they accounted for no more than 7%, while industrial productsaccounted for over 70% of exports (electronic products alone represented 44% ofexports).

Classified in the category of «newly industrialized countries», the Philippinesranks among what bourgeois economists call the «Tigers» who, in the wake of the«Dragons»(South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan) are integrated into thecapitalist world market thanks to offshore relocations attracted by a cheap labor-force. In 2015, the country experienced the highest growth rate after China.

The Philippines specializes in shipbuilding, automotive equipment, electronics,computers, chemistry and call centers. Mining with copper, gold, silver and nickel isalso booming. The country also benefits largely from remittances from the verynumerous Filipino emigration.

Over the last thirty years, the working class has largely developed; the numberactive in the «manufacturing» industry has more than doubled to 15%.

(Continuedonpage10)


«Dirty» Duterte ...


a succession of pro-American leaders —the most famous and the most ferociousbeing thedictatorFerdinandMarcos whoruled the country with an iron fist from1965to1986.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE:VICTORY OF «LAW AND

ORDER»

In early May, Rodrigo Duterte waselected president with nearly 40% of thevotes in the second round. He won aclear victory bysix millionvotes ina pollwith a high degree of participation.

Duterteconducted ademagogic cam-paign centered around issues of securi-ty, based on his record as mayor ofDavao. In this city, he brought «order»by setting up death squads, the AlsaMasa militia composed of former sol-diers and thugs, and the Davao DeathSquad. These groups are accused ofmurdering over a thousand people, in-cluding street children, in the 1990s, inthe name of the war against drugs.

ByearlySeptember, this terror policyhad been widely implemented on a na-tional level and nearly 2,500 people hadbeen executed by the joint attacks of themurderers from the police and those ofthe death squads.

Although sometimes claiming to beleft-wing, Duterte said during his cam-paign that his political model was thedictator Marcos who was overthrown inthe so-called «popular revolution» of1986 resulting in a «democratization»that broke the hegemony of his clan onpower, but in favor of other bourgeoisforces. Misogynist through and through,he glorifies rape, declaring «jokingly»that he would participate in the gangrape of an Australian nun, or in sayingthat he had 2 wives and 2 mistresses...

It is not by chance that this reaction-ary demagogue has been dubbed «DirtyDuterte» by the media in reference toDirty Harry, the cop using expeditiousmethods, played by Clint Eastwood, and«The Punisher» in reference to a Marvelsuper-hero using ultra-violence againstcriminals.

Economically and socially, he madepromises to the poor and the workers,denouncing in particular the system of«contracts» as «anti-popular» (whilerefusing to make awritten commitment).Duringhiselectioncampaignhe receivedthe support of the trade union confeder-ations TUCP (Trade Union Congress ofthe Philippines, the largest confedera-tion) KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno, Union

of May, supposedly more combative,linked to the Maoist PCP) etc, while oth-ers were taking no position. In his gov-ernment he appointed Joel MaglunsodMindanao, the vice president of theKMU, as Undersecretary of State forLaborand Employment.

But this «social» image of defenderof the poor and the support given him bythe union bureaucrats, cannot hide hisdecades-long support for neoliberal pol-icies. He proposed to develop «public-private partnerships» to fund infrastruc-ture spending, to increase the «compet-itiveness» of the economy to attract for-eign investment, to remove protection-ist measures...

His real feeling about the proletariatwas proven when, at a meeting in Febru-ary, he warned the KMUnot tryto organ-ize toorganizeEPZworkers:«Weareonein ideology. [But] do not do that [or-ganize the workers] because you willdestroy my administration. If you dothat, I will kill you all». (Http://www.equaltimes.org/what-can-workers-in-the?lang=en#.V-L0MBJUXs1).

KMUbureaucratshavecomplied,butthe threat has already been realized else-where. OnSeptember 17,Orlando Aban-gan, a trade union activist of the PartidoManggagawa(PM),wasmurdered («PMCondemnsvigilante-stylekillingofalead-er», partidongmanggagawa 2001. blogspot.fr) keeping with the entrenched tra-dition of the Phillipines ruling class ofrepression of the proletariat. The mostbrutal anti-union practices remain com-mon; as of today the promises made byDuarte to the workers have not beenadhered to, and when a trade union del-egation went to remind Maglunsod ofthe promise to end the Endo system, theunder-secretary was only able to answerthat he would forward the demand to theMinister...

Duterte is therefore a totally bour-geois politician even if he occasionallypresents himself as a «socialist». Thisdoesnotpreventhimfromreceivingmoreor less open support from multiple par-ties claiming to be communist.

THE MAOIST PC OFFERSITS SERVICES TO DUARTE –

WHO ACCEPTS THEM...

The pseudo-radical face of Dutertegave a pretext to the Maoist CommunistParty of the Philippines (CPP) to pros-trate themselves before him in the nameof the «democratic revolution». TheCPP has championed an «alliance»withDuterte because his election «opens upprospects for meaningful change»(«Struggle and alliance under the Du-terte regime», Bayan, English edition,June 7,2016). Thisalliance is justified in

the name of nationalism: Duterte, «notfully subject to US imperialism» wouldbe «the only opportunity of ending 70years of government under the UnitedStates». The Maoists have a totallybourgeois and reactionary program of«national unity, peace and develop-ment» that is to say unity behind thebourgeoisie, social peace and develop-ment of the national capitalist economy(«Prospects under Duterte’s presiden-cy», Bayan, English edition, 15 May2016). Theexiled leaderof theparty saidduring the campaign, that he hopesDuterte «will actually serve the Filipi-no people in their fight for nationalliberation, democracy, social justice,development»; he is willing to support«all the patriotic and progressive pol-icies and acts of the Duterte presiden-cy. (http://josemariasison.org/inter-view-with-prof-jose-maria-sison-on-the-election-of-duterte-as-president/May11, 2016).

TheCPPwillquicklyberewardedforits support. Duterte offers a cease-fire totheNewPeople’sArmy(NPA),aguerillaorganization which has several thou-sand fighters and which had been carry-ing out a «people’s war»since1969. Thenew president also appoints three repre-sentatives of the «National DemocraticFront», i.e. the union of the «mass» or-ganizations of the CPP («3 NDFP nomi-nees to sit in new cabinet», Bayan, Eng-lish edition, June 7, 2016). The Maoistsget the ministries of Agrarian Reformand Labour and Employment, for theleaders of their peasant union the KMPand of the KMU.

It is true that the CPP has distanceditself from the bloody police terror initi-ated by the new president («No morecooperation with Duterte’s undemocrat-ic and anti-people ‘drug war’», cpp.ph,communiqué of 12 August 2016). It alsoaccuses his of being a «reactionary re-gime» whichbetrays itspromises, whichcapitulates to «big business, the US, themilitary and capitalist bureaucrats»while defending a «tactical alliance»with him («Duterte is Undermining theopportunity for change and peace»,cpp.ph, communiqué of August 7).

So it remains a partisan (barely criti-cal) of this reactionary demagogue: theCPP greeted his «peaceful and inde-pendent foreign policy» when Dutertedenounced the US military presence onPhilippinesoil («Positive significance ofDuterte’s avowal to uphold an independ-ent foreign policy»cpp.ph, communiquéof11September2016). It callsonDuterteto make the Philippines an «independ-ent and non-aligned country» («All USmilitary forces in entire country must gohome», cpp.ph, statement of 13 Septem-ber 2016) which should conclude trade


agreements with Venezuela, Iran, Cuba,Russia, North Korea and China («Posi-tivesignificanceofDuterte’savowal ...»).

While it may seem radical by its useofviolenceand itspseudo-Marxist refer-ences, the CPP is a bourgeois force thatdefends an independent capitalist de-velopment as part of a union of«patrioticforces», which is precisely an inter-classalliance that chains the workers to theinterests of the bourgeoisie.

THE «FAR» LEFT OFFERS«CRITCAL» SUPPORT

Besides theCPP, thereareotherpseu-do-revolutionary parties.

On the one hand there is the formerpro-Soviet party – the PKP-1930 (Par-tidoKomunistangPilipanas-1930,Com-munist Party of the Philippines since1930). The PKP sharply criticized thecandidate Duterte considered as reac-tionary a candidate as the others («Pros-pects for the Philippines in the wake ofthe May 9 general elections»,solidnet.org). But less than a monthlater, the party congratulated PresidentDuterte! The PKP – like its enemybroth-ers of the CPP– offered its services: «wesupport all efforts of your administra-tion to fulfill your campaign promise»to fight against crime. The bloodthirstywork of the death squads probably sat-isfied these false communists. All thisis, once again, justified by a completelybourgeois program «to build a pros-perous country in peace, national sov-ereignty, democracy and social jus-tice» («Open letter to President electRodrigo R.Duterte»pkp1930 .org).Thisturnaround was justified by the factthat «his electoral victory reflects thehope of many voters»....

Thereare also forces fromsplits fromthe PKPfromtheearly ‘90’s.These splitswere made on the question of the natureof the revolution in the Philippines. Forthe «rejectionists», especially represent-edbyFilemonLagman, thePhilippines isnot a «semi-colonial and semi-feudal»capitalist country but a country in whicha workers’ revolution must take power.

Despite this tactical change, theseforces – the Partido Lakas ng Masas(PLM Partyof the LaboringMasses) andthe Partido Manggagwa (PM, LaborParty) – are equally as alien to classistproletarian positions as the PKP.

The PLM estimates that the «politi-cal situation [is] extremely interestingand challenging» and responds posi-tively to the advances of the Maoists for«a government of national unity, peaceand development» defending a «strug-gle for a national program against thedominance of the neoliberal elite»(«Philippines left facing a Duterte-CPP

coalition government», masa.ph, May28,2016).

PM does not provide open politicalsupport to the government or to the PCPbut asked Duterte to «wage war againstcontractualization as vigorous as thewar against drugs» («Group Asks Du-terte for big names of endo lords in thecountry», August 2, 2016, partidongmanggagawa2001.blogspot.fr). It alsodemands that union activists be official-lygiven the roleof labor inspectors («PMwants union officers deputized as laborinspector for endo campaign», August5, 2016). It would not be too difficult tofind a stronger critique of Duterte gov-ernment!

For its part, the Trotskyist FourthInternational (Usec)hasmanagedtobuildasection in the Philippines froma split inthe CPP: the Revolutionary WorkersPartyofMindanao (RPM-M).This partyhas responded favorably to the advanc-es of the leaders of the CPP, which itcalled «comrades in struggle for theliberation of the oppressed». RPM be-lieves it has «a difference of method»with the Maoists but common – bour-geois!– objectives:«democraticreformsput forward without losing sight of theeliminationof theoppression of themass-es» (16 June 2016 rpm-m.org «Responseto Jose Ma Sison’s Call for Dialogue»).It’s the old programofsocial democracy:reforms today and socialism in an inde-terminate time!

All these pseudo-revolutionary cur-rents, completelyreformist in reality, areonly gadflies buzzing around the PCPitself prostrated before the Philippinebourgeoisie and its current head Du-terte; they are, like the PCP obstacles tothe proletarian struggle.

But thereexists inthe countrya groupthat claims to represent the CommunistLeft, «Internatyonalismo». Is there aclass alternative to this pro-bourgeois«far left»?

INTERNATYONALISMO:ROAD TO NOWHERE

Since 2009, in fact, the InternationalCommunist Current (ICC) has had a sec-tion in the Philippines. Under the title«The Duterte regime in the Philippines,appeal to ‘the strong man’ and weaknessof the working class», the ICC websitepublished inJune anarticle fromits Phil-ippine section on the presidential elec-tion, also including positions taken ear-lier.

Far from putting forward a real clas-sist perspective, all Internatyonalismohas to offer its readers is whining about«the impotence [the] despair, [the] lackof perspective [and] loss ofconfidence inthe unity of the working class and the

struggles of the laboring masses».«Onenegativeeffectofdecadentcap-

italism in its decomposing stage is therise of desperation and hopelessnessamong the poverty-stricken masses. Oneindication is the lumpenisation of partsof the toiling masses, increasing numberof suicides, rotten culture among theyoung and gangsterism. All of these aremanifestations of the increasing dis-contentment of the masses in the currentsystem but they don’t know what to doand what to replace it with. In otherwords, increasing discontent butno per-spective for the future. That’s why thementality of ’everyone for himself’ and’each against all’ strongly influences asignificant portion of the workingclass».

Internatyonalismo condemnstheDu-terte regime as «a rabid defender ofnational capitalism» and «a govern-ment of the capitalist class for the cap-italist class»; but faced with this bour-geois power, what is the perspective?«For us, what is important is to analyseand understand as communists why sig-nificant numbers of the population areready to accept Duterte as dictator and‘Godfather» initially. And then, «perse-vere with theoretical clarification, or-ganisational strengthening and mili-tant interventions to prepare for thefuture struggles at the internationallevel». Wait and see...

Added to this there are the carica-tures of struggle which the ICC sectionprovides as an example to the proletari-ans: «solidarity movements (anti-CPEmovement in France [student struggle],the Indignados in Spain, the class strug-gle in Greece, the Occupy movement inthe United States)».

The logic behind this is that the Phil-ippines is not «ripe» for the proletarianrevolution. This is what was explainedby the ICC in an article hailing the crea-tion of the section («Salut to the newsections of the ICCin thePhilippines andTurkey», 5 March 2009). In it the ICCreaffirmed its position on the dominatedcountries enunciated in 1982 («The pro-letariat of Western Europe at the centerof the generalization of the class strug-gle», International Review 31):

«Only by attacking its heart andhead will the proletariat be able todefeat the capitalist beast. For centu-ries, history has placed the heart andhead of the capitalist world in WesternEurope. The world revolution will takeits first steps where capitalism took itsfirst steps. It’s here that the conditionsfor the revolut-ion, enumerated above,can be found in the most developedform. (...) It is thus only in Western



Europe, where the proletariat has thelongest experience of struggle, whereit has already been confronted for dec-ades with all the ‘working class’ mys-tifications of the most elaborate kind,that there can be a full development ofthe political consciousness which isindispensable in its struggle for revo-lution».

For the ICC, the revolution will beEuropean or it will not be! The proletar-ians of the young capitalist countriesbut also of the United States or Japan,have to be patient and wait for the con-scious European proletariat to resumethe fight. So the onlyprospect remainingin the Philippines is the development ofstruggles on the bourgeois democraticterrain (such as the Indignados, Occu-py, or Podemos which is its legitimateoffspring)or reformist (such as the «classstruggle» in Greece that was made – and

was defeated – under the leadership ofSyriza and the KKE).

It is clear that ultimately Internatyo-nalismo is unable to offer a class per-spective to the Filipino proletariat, a tru-ly communist perspective.

FOR A PROLETARIANPERSPECTIVE

For communists, it is neither the ho-rizon of bourgeois revolution (even rad-ical) nor the impotent waiting for thereawakening of theEuropean proletariatwhich are on the agenda. Today, all re-gions of the world have been thrown intoturmoilby the capitalist modeofproduc-tion. Imperialism has caused capitalismto penetrate into everyporeofPhilippinesociety.

The proletarian revolution has longbeen maturing in this eastern Asiaplowed in every direction by the irresist-ible movementof capitalist expansion. Itmeans, as elsewhere, the destruction ofall mercantile and wage relations, and allstates erected to defend them.

Wherever it erupts and whatever

the greater or lesser importance of theresidues left by the limits of the capital-ist transformation of societies, this rev-olution will find in the violent shockwith the capillary network of imperial-ism – as celebrated by bourgeois hacksunder the name of «globalization» – thematerial conditions of a rapid dissemi-nation, which will eventually have tolay siege to and destroy the strong-holds of the counter-revolution in NorthAmerica and Europe.

This longer perspective that is ours,theone based on materialism, implies therebirth of the class party, faithful to au-thentic Marxism and enjoying a stronginfluence among the ranks of the prole-tariat. This party will be able to lead theworking class in the Philippines as else-where toward the assault against capi-talism, only on the base of the exclusivedefense of the interests of the proletariatand the exploited masses, in oppositionto alldemocratic, reformist and interclas-sist illusions conveyed by the false de-fenders of socialism.

September,25th2016

«Dirty» Duterte ...


IRON FIST IN TURKEYIt’s enough to read just a few lines of

the bourgeois press to get an idea ofwhat will happen after the failed coup of15 July, «The iron fist of Erdogan afterthe failed coup in Turkey: I am ready toreinstate the death penalty. 8000 policeofficers were suspended, opponentswere stripped naked and hog-tied. TheEuropean Union: If executions resume,Turkey will not enter Europe»(1).

Naturally the E.U. in which Erdog-an’s Turkey has long sought member-ship, speaks only of «executions»; it canthus save face by maintaining ties withthe repressive Turkish regime and otherrepressive European regimes.

The vendetta of «Sultan» RecepTayyip Erdogan will be terrible; it’s whathe swore after the events. And that’s apromise he intends to accomplish with-out being restricted to the Armed Forcesand police who have stood against hispower, but is spreading to all sectors ofsociety. The attempted coup has cer-tainly not surprised Western chanceller-ies and certainly not the American, Ger-man, English, French or Russian govern-ments – imperialist powers have manyeconomic, financial and political inter-ests in Turkey and throughout the re-gion, with the inevitable conflicts be-tween them. They are partly forced toundergo the initiatives and maneuversof Erdogan and are simultaneously ac-complices and allies of the emergence ofTurkey as a regional middle power. No

imperialism that has a minimum interestin the vast region stretching from NorthAfrica to Central Asia can ignore thiscountry and what happens there. Thefact that the Turkish state continues tobomb Kurdish cities under the pretext ofcombattingPKK guerrilla actions or thatfor years it has let fighters of the IslamicState pass through its territory, was metwith purely formal protests from West-ern powers.

In all probability, if it had succeeded,the coup prepared for some time by somesectors of the Armed Forces, would havegiven Turkish policy an orientation ap-preciated in a very different manner bythe United States and NATO (2); but themilitary coup plotters did not take intoaccount, nor probably did Western im-perialism, that the bourgeois factions ofwhich Erdogan is the representative en-joyed strong popular support: Erdoganand his Prime Minister were followedwhen they made the»call to the people»to «resist» and to «defend» the legitima-cy of the elected president(3).The west-ern imperialisms did not react immediate-ly; they waited to see the results of thecoup (which normally would have liqui-dated or imprisoned the president), be-fore, after its failure, uttering platonicstatements in defense of «stability» andsupport to the legitimate «democraticorder» of the country.

On the night of July 15 to 16, severalmilitary detachments, particularly in

Ankara and Istanbul, and guided bytheir officers under the command of a«leading staff» of a few generals at-tempted to overthrow Erdogan (4).

Their «official» motives? To restoresecularism and democracy in Turkeyagainst the growing Islamization.

Their real motives? To restore thesocial and political influence that theArmed Forces have always had in Tur-key, but which the governments of theAKP (the ruling party) have sought toreduce. The international media has ex-plained that the heads of the militaryunits that participated in the coup fearedan impending purge at one moment oranother because of their hostility to Er-dogan; the failure of the coup could beexplained because the imminence of thisoperation would not have left time to thegenerals involved to constitute a unifiedoperation center. In five hours the putschfizzled out, while the soldiers who occu-pied the Istanbul airport refused to fireon the crowd who had gathered thereafter crossing the Bosphorus.

This was a struggle for power withinthe ruling class: bourgeois power inTurkey is not limited to the Army and theIslamist factions, including the «Gulen-istes» (4) opponents of Erdogan whohave some significance.

As of July 19th the purge involved50,000 firings and 10,000 arrests. It af-fects not only the Army, the Police andthe Judiciary, but concerns all public


administrations and, of course, schools,universities and religious organizations.The possibility of reintroducing thedeath penalty, as requested by the AKPand numerous deputies, is a terroristthreat brandished to have a deterrenteffect on fractions which have made anattempt in one way or another onthe»legitimacy of the constituted pow-er»; but that does not mean that thisstep will not actually be taken by theparliamentary majority who supportsErdogan.

What could the proletarians haveexpected from a successful coup andwhat can they expect after the victory ofErdogan’s supporters?

Two bourgeois factions with oppos-ing interests clashed in a struggle forpower and the proletariat had nothing todo with either of them. The secularismand democracy brandished by the mili-tary putschists are along the same bour-geois themes as religion and authoritar-ianism. But what is more, democracy andits political mechanisms– true modernideological intoxication by which thebourgeoisies of all countries distract andparalyze social movements, particularlythe labor movement by reducing it toimpotence– are increasingly serving aninexorable political centralization of bour-geois power; This is even more evidenttoday than it was in the past when theyopened the door to fascism.

Besides an increasingly ruthless ex-ploitation by the capitalists, proletariansnow have to await the systematic restric-tion of «civic rights» and ever morewidespread militarization of social life bythe bourgeois regime. This happens notonly in countries withan economic andpolitical recent development like Tur-key, but in those with a long democratictradition as in France as well; and thepretext is obviously the same. The fightagainst «terrorism» internally and exter-nally, the fight against «subversion»!

The workers have long suffered aspate of economic, social and politicalanti-worker attacks, imposed by all Statesto «fight the crisis», that is to say indefense of capitalist profits over a pro-tracted period; they have the most diffi-culty finding the impetus for an effectivefight against these measures and theirconsequences in terms of unemploy-ment and lower wages because the «work-ers’» trade unions s are overwhelminglycollaborationist and put the defense ofsocial order ahead the class interests ofthe proletariat. The situations wherepolitical and trade union collaboration-ism has driven down the proletarians inFrance and in Turkey, in Italy as in Egypt,are tragically negative. Their immediatefuture is determined by capitalist objec-tives because the trade union and polit-ical organizations that deal with proletar-ian interests drown them instead in theinterests of national capitalism.

Certainly as long as bourgeois pow-er is capable of ensuring the country’sworkers an income slightly above basicsurvival and maintain at least a layer ofthe proletariat under more favorable con-ditions than those of the mass, the rulingclass can rest on an important materialbasis for influencing the proletarians.But the economic crises that are insepa-rable from the functioning of capitalism,the internal contrasts between bourgeoisfactions and external contrasts with thebourgeoisies of other countries, thestruggle of imperialist competition, al-ways more lurid and violent, are them-selves material factors that tend sooneror later to turn social contrasts into op-positions between antagonistic classes,between the bourgeois and the proletar-ian class, inevitably polarizing the socialantagonisms that have existed in capital-ist society since its birth.

It will not be easy for the proletariat,in Turkey, iin the very «civilized» Europeor elsewhere, to engage in the path ofclass struggle, the only way to open theprospect of a future without exploita-tion, without oppression, without coupsor wars.

This will not be the result of a general«awareness» by the proletarians who«choose» not to trust democracy, or«social peace» in the «supreme interestof the country»in the»fatherland» orany «cultural identity» taken as an his-torical and eternal rationale for»the peo-ple»; it will not be the result of a progres-sive and gradual development of «de-mocracy» through which the «people»could would make its»will» felt, throughstreet demonstrations or the ballot box,against all existing financial, political andmilitary powers, put bluntly – againstbourgeois power.

The class struggle is determined bythe explosion of the contradictions ofcapitalist society, which set all socialstrata in motion in an inexorable andconfused manner causing them to comeinto collision; in this social turmoil therenecessarily emerge the forces that mate-rially and historically represent the twodeterminanttendencies: the forces ofsocial conservatism against the forcesof the social revolution, the bourgeoisforces against those of the proletariat.

The proletariat will learn and learnover once again to fight for itself, for itsown class interests, because it will beforced to fight against its total subservi-ence to capitalist power, against the vi-olence, exploitation and oppression ofthe bourgeoisie which holds it under itsyoke; it will recognize the need to fight soas not to be turned into cannon fodderwhenever inter-bourgeois and inter-im-perialist rivalries evolve from economicviolence intowarring violence.

All this will not happen by spontane-ous generation, under the stimulation ofconspiratorial organizations or by a grad-

ual and peaceful classist organization ofthe proletariat. Even this necessary clas-sist reorganization will be the result of ahard struggle against pacifist and demo-cratic habits «inoculated» by opportun-istic organizations, against the illusionsof the «one big night» where the rebel-ling workers could get rid of the dictator-ship of servitude in the wink of an eye,or a «direct democracy» which wouldallow the spontaneity of the masses tofind the orientation for the struggle.

The history of the labor movementteaches that the class interests aroundwhich the proletariat organized their forc-es are not the heritage of the masses assuch, nor of their spontaneity. The pro-letarian class interests are defined by thehistory of many years of labor strugglesand the history of its union and politicalorganizations, a history of which onlythe class political party – because itdoes not let dictate its orientation by thecontingency of the ebb and flow of strug-gles, their victories and their defeats –was able to take stock and condense it inits theses and its program and has thetask of reintroducing into the proletarianranks the struggle against contingent-ism, movementism and spontaneitism ,all the opportunist deviations which,given the ideological and material bour-geois pressure are constantly reborn inthe proletariat.

Even though the signs of recoveryof the proletarian class struggle havenot yet manifested, either in the coun-

El ProletarioÓrgano del partido comunista

internacionalNo 11 - Agosto - septiembre -

octubre de 2016

•-¿Fuera de tono?•-Esclavos del cielo•-Venezuela: ¿Estado de Emergencia?¡Emergencia de la lucha proletaria!•-«La materia nunca muere»•-Otro terremoto devastador sacude elcentro de Italia: por enésima vez, preven-ción inexistente y terreno fértil para lasespeculaciones de la emergencia y de lareconstrucción•-Sobre la carnicería de Niza. ¡No a launión nacional! ¡No a lasguerras imperia-listas! ¡Lucha de clase para acabar con lamortífera sociedad del capital!•-¡México: Sangrienta represión burgue-sa y danza macabra de la «extrema» iz-quierda•-Tesis para la propaganda entre las mu-jeres (extracto). III Congreso de la Inter-nacional Comunista –Julio de 1921•-La mujer. August Bebel

Precio del ejemplar: Europa : 1,5 , 3FS; América latina: US $ 1,5; USA yCdn: US $ 2.



tries hit by crises and war as the MiddleEast or in those still somewhat prosper-ous as in Europe or North America, in theeconomic sub-terrain the factors of acrisis that according to the bourgeoisthemselves, looks disastrous, revivingthe specter of a third world war, accumu-late ever more acutely. The only forcethat can impede this global conflict, orwho can fight it and stop it, as occurredin 1917, at the time of the Russian revo-lution, is the proletariat lead by its classparty.

There is no alternative: war or revo-lution, bourgeois and imperialist dicta-torship or dictatorship of the proletariat.History knows no half measures.

July, 19th 2016

(1) See Il Corriere della Sera, 07/19/2016

(2) We must not forget that there are

TURKEY .. .(Continuationfrompage13 )

24 NATO bases in Turkey, the most im-portant, that of Incirlik, comprises 5,000US soldiers; on these bases are posi-tioned more than 100 tactical nuclearbombs. The strategic position of Turkeyfor control of the eastern Mediterranean,the Black Sea and the Middle East is agiven.

(3) The success of Erdogan relies onclear economic results: «In 13 years Er-dogan revolutionized the country. Hecreates a new urban middle class whichadores him. The average income per per-son under him has risen from $2,000 peryear to $11,000. If you do not understandthat, you cannot understand how hesurvived the coup. « Il Corriere dellaSera, 07/18/2016.

(4) «The putschists are not an isolat-ed group, as it was said by judging on thespeed with which they were arrested.Quite the contrary. We find among themthe commanders of the Second and ThirdArmy deployed along Syria, the mostimportant border and most unstable coun-try which includes the Incirlik air base,from where US jets and their allies NATObombed the positions of the Islamic State.

Recent surveys indicating that a ma-jorityofvotersare in favor ofBrexit havealso caused not only a decline in theBritish currency, but a bear market, andnot just in Europe, concerned about theconsequences such an event would haveon aglobal economyalready infull slow-down. Britain is indeed one of the majorEuropean economies, and the inevitableeconomic perturbations that would beengendered byitsexit fromtheEUwouldnot be negligible, at least for now. Thisis why international organizations likethe IMFor theOECD warned against thispossibility, joiningsimilar scaremonger-ing refrains by Prime Minister Cameronor the Bank of England (the central bankof the United Kingdom).

Given that the bulk of British trade iswith the European Union (depending onthemonth, from38 to48%ofexports, and47 to55%ofimportsaccordingto officialcustoms statistics), it is understood that

Referendum on Europe:British Proletarians Have no

Side to Support!

the most important capitalist sectors ofthe country, whether the largest enter-prises or the City of London – veritablefinancial center of Europe – are in favorof staying in the European Union; 80%ofmembers of the ConfederationofBrit-ish Industry, which includes the largestcompanies, are of this opinion. Duringhis official visit to Britain in April, Pres-ident Obama urged the British to stay inthe European Union; He thus expressedthe interests of many US firms that areestablished in the country in order tohave more convenient access to the Eu-ropean market (a marketofover500 mil-lion people), while enjoying a linguistic,legal and social environment more simi-lar to that of their countryoforigin: thesecompanies would inevitably suffer fromthe loss of free access to this market.

However, the fact that major bour-geois political forces (understood to in-cludecurrentgovernmentministers)have

The site also found that operate special-ized commandos from helicopters, per-sonnel of the police and gendarmerie, thetank battalions, entire squadrons of air-craft. «The problem was that all the forcesthat make up the best part of our armylacked a unified command and a politicalleader who can speak to the nation out-side the military language. They are likeghosts of the past» explainedOrhanBur-sah, Hurriyet newspaper commentator.«They thought it was enough to capturethe Chief of Staff Gen. HulusiAkar andforce him to make a public statement tothe nation in their favor to win consen-sus. But they went a bit too fast. Akar,already in their hands before Friday mid-night, refused to cooperate. And othercommanders of the Army responded withforce. The most important among them isthe General UmitDudar, chief responsi-ble for Istanbul, who ordered the armedresistance».

(5)The imam Fethullal Gulen, residentfor years in the US, representing an Islam-ist faction which was at first an ally andthen opponent of Erdogan, is consideredby him as the «brain» of the coup.

declared in favor of Brexit, is explainedby the fact that this would be in theinterests of some capitalist sectors; thisis particularly the case among small andmedium enterprises (SMEs) producingfor the local market (or that of the Com-monwealth, the restof the former coloni-al empire), and who see in the Europeanregulations unnecessary constraints totheir business: about half of the manag-ers of these SMEs are in favor of Brexit.

One can find an expression of thisdivision among the British bourgeoisiein the fact that the British Chamber ofCommerce has declared its neutrality onthe issue (after its president, who there-fore had to resign, declared himself asupporter of Brexit in speech given at ameeting where Cameron had come toplead for staying in the EU!). In themilieus of supporters of abandoning theEU, some believe that the future of Brit-ish capitalism will be played out more innon-European markets, Asian or other,since the proportion of trade carried outwith the European Union has been indecline for the last fifteen years; whileothers think that free of the constraintsof the ‘single market’ Europe would in-crease the competitiveness of goodsmade in Great Britain compared to Eu-ropean goods...

BREXIT OR MAINTAININGMEMBERSHIP IN THE EU:

A FALSE ALTERNATIVE FORBRITISH PROLETARIANS

PrimeMinister Cameronhad without

The referendum campaign on whether Britain should remain within or exit theEuropean Union has become increasingly more animated in recent weeks, whereasbefore it was met with a certain indifference, especially among proletarians and thelaboring population. Supporters of «Brexit» (out of EU) beside their traditionalargument of the defense of British sovereignty have increasingly brought to theforefront of their propaganda the «threat» that the flow of European and non-European migrant workers into the country represents, fueling nationalist andchauvinist sentiments; the side that favors maintaining EU membership seeks todramatize the risks of economic crisis that would be represented by leaving the EU.


le prolétaireNº 521

(Septembre-Octobre 2016 )

•-Lamobilisationcontre laLoi Travaila été conduite dans une impasse. Lesluttes futures devront se mener surdes positions de classe!•-Alstom. Défendre les travailleurs,pas l’entreprise!•-Espagne. Esclaves du ciel•-Après latueriedeNice.Nonàl’unionnationale !Non auxguerres impériali-stes ! Lutte de classe pour en finiravec la meurtrière société du capital !•-Aéroport de Notre-Dame-des-Lan-des: un «grand projet inutile», résul-tat normal des lois du capital•-«Dirty» Duterte. Le nouveau visagesanglant de la démocratie bourgeoiseaux Philippines•-Quand Lutte Ouvrière fait du grin-gue à Monsieur le maire...•-Où va «où va la cgt ?». A touteblinde vers l’union sacrée !

Precio: 1 euro / 4,5 FS / £ 1,5 / 60 DA /10 DH / 500 F CFA [email protected]

doubt decided on holding the referen-dum for domestic political reasons; buthe also used the threat of calling the votefor Brexit to obtain concessions fromotherEuropeanstates (whichmakesquitea bit less credible his assertions aboutthe catastrophic consequences of leav-ing the EU). Notably he has obtainedsatisfaction on the possibility of notgranting social allowances for a numberofyears to workers comingfromEurope,that is to say, to make this part of theproletarians living in the countrya sourceof cheap manpower, super-exploitableby Britishcapitalism. Social benefits arenot a gift granted by the bourgeoisie tothe proletariat, but arewhat is referred toas the «indirect wage», i.e. the part of thesalary that is notpaid directlyto workers:to lower this share drives down the realwages paid by the capitalists to theiremployees. After granting it – withouttoo much trouble! – to the British bour-geoisie, theEU leaders reaffirmed main-taining ... the special status of Britain inthe EU; obtained by previous govern-ments it translates to the fact that thecountry is not part of the euro zone norof the «Schengen area» (which allowsthe free movement of persons) and itenjoysexemptions fromEU rules in crit-ical areas for it, such as finance; wheth-er Labour or Conservative, successivegovernments have always effectivelydefended the interests of British capi-talism against their proletarians as wellas against their European competitors-partners! It will be the same in the future,whatever the outcome of the referen-dum...

The conclusion is clear: the support-ers of Brexit as well as those wishing tostay in the EU are divided on the bestway to defend the bourgeois interests.The proletariansofBritaindo nothave tosupport one or the other because theyare both equally their class enemies.Against the defenders of British sover-eignty who are threatened by the Euro-pean Union, as against supporters ofkeeping this alliance of bourgeois statesthat is the European Union to preservenational capitalism, the onlycamp whichthey must take part in is that of classindependence and the international uni-ty of the proletariat.

But this is not what the so-called«revolutionary» groups present in thecountry are saying to the proletarians:on the contrary virtually all of them ap-peal for mobilization infavor ofeither ofthe two bourgeois camps!

The groups that wallow in the wakeof the Labour Party are campaigning,just like the latter and the union appara-tus for a vote in favor of remaining in theEU; this is true of the Trotskyists of«Socialist Action» and those of «Social-

ist Resistance», justifying this in thename of the fight against racism: Yes, avote for Fortress Europe that is respon-sible for the deaths of thousands ofproletarians immigrants seeking to crossthe Mediterranean, would be a voteagainst racism!

However most of the groups andparties of «far»-left call for the Brexitchoice either openly in the name of sov-ereignty as do the «Marxist-Leninists»of the CommunistPartyofBritain Marx-ist-Leninist, or because they claim theEU is the main capitalist force threaten-ing the workers and that Brexit wouldweaken the Conservative party: this isthepretext of the SocialistWorkers party(leading partyof the far left), theSocialistparty or the Spartacists of InternationalCommunist League.

For these contortionists for one orthe other side, participation in the refer-endum and supporting bourgeois forc-es would be a clever move for the pro-letariat! They thus demonstrate thatthey are completely foreign to the pro-letarian cause: to support a bourgeoiscamp and to call to participate in theelectoral mystification means in effectopposing the class positions that areessential for the proletarian struggle.Their positions on the issue of the Eu-ropean referendum are the demonstra-tion of the anti-proletarian nature ofthese various so-called socialist or com-munist groups.

In Britain there is another Trotskyistgroup, the «Socialist Equality Party» (amemberof the«International Committeeof theFourthInternational»betterknownby its website wsws.org), which has themerit of denouncing both contendingsides and participation in the referen-dum as contrary to the interests of work-ers. However this is not sufficient to bedefined as an authentically class posi-tion; Indeed, in its statements it calledwithout hesitation for opposition to theEU, but it condemns only «British na-tionalism» and nowhere does it call foropposition to the British state! Besidesopposition to the EU and British nation-alism, its slogans are for the unity ofBritishand Europeanworkersand for theSocialist United States of Europe.

But an important part of the proletar-ians present in Europe and Britain arenon-European, proletarians who are Af-ricans, Arabs, Turks, Pakistanis, Indi-ans, etc., represent a significant fractionof the working class of Europe and are aliving link which connects to the prole-tarians of these countries: the Europeanproletariat is actually in part extra-Euro-pean and any political orientation whichtakes for its framework bourgeois Eu-rope’s borders means the rejection ofpart of the proletariat and restricting its

international nature.The main enemy of the proletariat in

Britain, no matter what their race andtheir nationality is «their» own bour-geoisie, with its tradition of exploitationand imperialist pillage well established,and its state strengthened to a solidityhistorically unequaled in the world.

Theonlyalliesonwhomtheycan relyin the fight against this very tough andvery experienced enemy, are preciselythe proletarians of other European andnon-European countries which all sidessee as a menace. To reject bourgeoispropaganda, to be free of illusions in thebenefits of bourgeois democracy, to re-ject all false alternatives presented tothem by capitalists with the help of theirlackeys on the left or far left, is a basicrequirement in order to go forward to thereconquest of the class independencewhich they were the first to set an exam-ple of before being subjugated by thepower of their capitalism then set toconquer the world market. In undertak-ing this path, the proletarians of Britainwill also have to reconnect again to thecombat begun by their glorious prede-cessors for the constitution of the partyand class organizations whichare fierce-ly anti-bourgeois, once more bringing tolife the old but always immanent watch-words: Pro le ta r ians o f a l l co un-t r i es , uni te !

June, 8th 2016


« Il Comunista »Nr.145 - Settembre 2016

Nell’interno

•-Il mito dell’europa unita e la palude delmercato mondiale•-Un altro devastante terremoto sconvol-ge il centro Italia: per l’ennesima volta,prevenzione inesistente ma terreno ferti-le per le speculazioni dell’emergenza edella ricostruzione!•-Messico:Lasanguinosarepressionebor-ghese e la danza macabra dell’«estrema»sinistra•-Pugno di ferro in Turchia•-La presa di posizione del partito difronte alla carneficina di Nizza. Sullacarneficina di Nizza No all’unione nazio-nale!No alle guerre imperialiste!Lotta diclasse per mettere fine alla mortifera so-cietà del capitale!•-A cent’anni dalla prima guerra mondia-le. (3)•-Piacenza: Muore un operaio investitoda un camion, durante un picchetto allaGLS.•-Con i morti ancora caldi e i vivi agoniz-zanti sotto le macerie, il giorno dopo ilterremoto nel centro Italia già si parla di«ricostruzione».•-La Sinistra comunista d’Italia sottopo-sta al supplizio borghese dei «Dizionaribiografici»•-Tra pace e guerra

Periódico bimestral. Precio del ejemplar:1,5 ; £ 1; 5FS; Suscripción: 8 ; £ 6; 25FS;Suscripción de solidaridad: 16 ; £ 12

AMADEO BORDIGA

The Goals of the Communists(Continuationfrompage1 )

* * *

The socialist revolution takes placewhen, in capitalist society, the conflictbetween producers and the productiverelations has become intolerable andthere are forces tending to establish anew system of relations.

This revolutionary tendency runsup against armed force, of which polit-ical institutions centralized in the bour-geois state regulate the organizationand the operation, and by which thedominant class prevents the existingrelations – that it finds beneficial topreserve – from being modified.

For the revolution to accomplish itseconomic task, it is first necessary todestroy the political system that cen-tralizes power, the only means availableto the oppressed class for this is toorganize and to unify itself in a politicalparty.

The historic goal of Communists isprecisely the formation of this party andthe struggle for the revolutionary con-quest of power.

This will release latent forces capa-ble of generating a new economic sys-tem based on technical advances byproductive forces which are nowsqueezed by the political structure ofcapitalism.

The task which is the purpose of theCommunist Party is therefore charac-terized by two basic principles:

1) universality, because it containsthe largest possible number of proletar-ians and acts on behalf of the class andnot for vested interests and local groupsof workers;

2) attachment to the final goal, themaximum program, because it is a resultthat is not immediate and cannot beachieved gradually.

Without doubt during its evolutionbourgeoisie society provides partial so-lutions to specific problems, but theyhave nothing to do with the full andfinal solution pursued by the Commu-nist Party.

Even the interests of the proletariat,where the interest is contingent andlimited to more or less extensive groups,may, to some extent, be satisfied withinthe bourgeois world.

The conquest of these particularsolutions is not the concern of the Com-munists. It is a task which is spontane-ously allocated to from other organiza-tions of the proletariat, such as unions,

cooperatives, etc. ...The communist party intervenes in

these partial conquests to focus theattention of the masses on the generalproblem of the final conquest of power.As the “Manifesto of the CommunistParty” states, “The real fruit of theirbattles lies, not in the immediate result,but in the ever expanding union of theworkers.”

After the revolutionary conquest ofpower, the productive forces latent inthe stifling yoke of the capitalist systemwill be liberated.

Even then, the main concern of theParty will not be a task of economicconstruction, to which the extraordi-nary explosion of organisms will spon-taneously contribute: the bearers of theenergy of a new world which was al-ready in force in the conflict betweenproducers and forms of production andwhich the political revolution does noth-ing other than allow it to grow. The realtask of the Party will still be the politicalstruggle against the bourgeoisie; van-quished, but still seeking to regain pow-er; and the struggle for the unificationof the proletariat beyond selfish andcorporatist interests .

This second activity will take onincreasingly greater importance duringthis period.

Today the existence of a commonenemy, the power centralized in thestate, the omnipresent capitalist in thefactory, naturally cement proletariansolidarity that stands up against theformidable organized solidarity of theowners.

Tomorrow, when the workers of afactory, a city, an occupational grouphave been freed from the menace of thecapitalist exploiter by the force of pro-letarian power, it is possible that localinterests will take on more power andvirulence until all acquire communistpolitical consciousness in its univer-sality.

This is perhaps the reason for theaction taken by the Russian Soviet Stateand which the bourgeois press has an-nounced as the dissolution of the fac-tory committees.

The most difficult problem of thecommunist tactic has always been toadhere closely to these characteristicsof finality and generalitywhich we talkedabout earlier.

Instead of focusing all their strengthand despite all the difficulties in the

implacable Marxist dialectic of the rev-olutionary process, the Communistshave often yielded to deviations wheretheir action is lost and crumbled in so-called concrete achievements and anoverestimation of certain institutions,which seem to constitute an easier bridgeacross to communism than the terrify-ing leap into the abyss of the Revolu-tion, the “Marxist catastrophe fromwhich will arise the renewal of human-ity.”

Reformism, revolutionary syndical-ism, the cooperative movement are thisand nothing else.

Some current maximalist trendswhich, faced the difficulties of the vio-lent destruction of bourgeois power,search for a terrain to achieve and toconcretize their activity, to render itpossible technically, as well as initia-tives that overestimate the anticipatedcreation of organs of the future econo-my such as factory committees, fall intothe same mistakes.

Maximalism will only experience itsfirst victory with the conquest of allpower by the proletariat. Before that, ithas nothing else to propose that theever more vast, ever more consciousorganization of the proletarian class onthe political terrain.

century” who claim to discover new ways when they are merely following the oldbeaten track of the eternal revisionists and traitors, the “centrists” of yesterday andtoday.


«Worker-Communism»or Petty-Bourgeois Democratism?

The «Worker-Communist» currenthas acquired a certain notoriety interna-tionally over the past several years; inaffirming to represent a resolutely com-munist, anti-Stalinist critique of the usu-al positions of the so-called «far» left,Trotskyist or otherwise, this current canentice militants or proletarians in searchof truly revolutionary positions. But we’llsee that in a package that may seemattractive the merchandise on offer isadulterated.

This current is also known under thename: «Hekmatist»; Mansoor Hekmat(now deceased) was indeed his leaderand theoretician, and his authority isalways asserted by the various groups ofthis current. We will refer mainly to theWorker-CommunistPartyof Iran (W-CPI),because it is the organization most knowninternationally; present in the Iranianemigration in many countries, it publish-es texts in several languages. In addition,we will quote the text of an organizationwhich is in its orbit, the French group«Worker-Communist Initiative», whosepublication is called Worker-Communism(1). The texts or statements of MansoorHekmat are available in Persian on theinternet, the most important being trans-lated into English (2).

THE «UNITY OF COMMUNISTMILITANTS»

According to the Hekmatists, theircurrent dates back to the group «Unity ofCommunist Militants» founded in De-cember 1978, in the period following thefall of the Shah, by Hekmat and his com-rades. According to Hekmat: «The UCM,formed in December 1978 and initiallycalled Sahand started a vigorous theo-retical campaign against the national-ist and populist theories and concep-tions of the radical Left. It called the‘national bourgeoisie’ a myth and thedevelopment of an ‘independent’, ‘na-tional’ capitalism a reactionary utopia.It rejected the concept of a democraticrevolution with the task of solving theagrarian question and developing forc-es of production, and saw the task of thecurrent revolution as creating politicaland social conditions necessary for asocialist mobilization of the workingclass and an uninterrupted march to-wards a socialist revolution» (3).

The UCM therefore marked a rupturewith the existing so-called revolutionarypolitical currents in Iran which were sodeeply marked by Stalinism and nation-alism and for whom support for the «na-tional bourgeoisie» was a basic credo.

But a reading of the theses of Hek-mat: «The Iranian revolution and the role

of the proletariat» (1978) adopted by theUCM, demonstrates that this break wasat best, incomplete.

Thesis 3, (b) affirmed: «the revolu-tion in Iran is democratic since the rul-ing imperialist system in the dominatedIran, has given a democratic content tothe Iranian revolution, from the point ofview of the objective conditions (intenseeconomic exploitation and violent po-litical repression of the working classand other toiling classes: peasants, ur-ban petty-bourgeoisie...) and also fromthe point of view of the subjective condi-tions (the presence of classes alongsidethe working class – mainly the peasants– prepared, as a result of the objectiveconditions of their social existence, toaccept revolutionary methods of strug-gle against the existing system)»

And thesis 4: «the revolution in Irancannot be, in its practical content, «di-rectly» and immediately, a socialist rev-olution». Therefore, the objective wasthe establishment of a «people’s demo-cratic republic» (4), that is to say, ac-cording to Marxism, a regime that re-mained bourgeois. Its refusal to see inthe supporters of Khomeini an expres-sion of the «anti-imperialist nationalbourgeoisie» that would be supporta-ble, the position of many pseudo-social-ist currents in Iran (and outside of Iran),thus did not go so far as to reject aconception of the revolution «by stag-es» (first the bourgeois-democraticstage, then the socialist stage), directlyinherited from Stalinism.

THE ANONYMOUS WORKOF THE PARTY

Another point that is emphasized byhis supporters is that Hekmat then be-gan publishing articles under his ownname: «Before this, following a traditionof the Iranian left – wrote his biographer– his writings were published anony-mously. The publication of articlessigned by the author was one of theresults of the critique of the practices ofthe Iranian left, whose leaders had as arule remained anonymous» (5)..

«Unlike Bordigist anonymity, withthe preeminence of the party over theindividual until the complete absorptionof the first into the second – wrote anoth-er Hekmatist – Mansoor Hekmat affirmsthe necessity of known and identifiablepolitical figures: ‘After all, if you wantpeople to come with you, you have toshow yourselves to them. You can’t dothis without a political name, identityand image. To mobilize 2 million peo-ple, you need 10,000 real people withknown identities and faces, with influ-

ence and respect among the people»(...). It is the entire conception of therelationship between the individual, theparty and society that is at stake: «Inpolitical struggle the individual is im-portant. The individual is what gives aface to trade unions, political partiesand movements; it makes them tangiblefor and accessible to people. When youlook at an organisation, you look at notonly its functions, role, programme andraison d’ètre, but also at the people whomake it up. This is crucial in making therelation of society with that organisa-tion concrete and real.(…) Being lockedup in the closet, being faceless andexisting on the margins are not marks ofcommunism. (...) For Marxists, appear-ing as real people, is indeed socialism;it is a duty of socialism; it is the startingpoint of socialism. Everything else isnot socialism’ « (6).

«Bordigist anonymity» does not meanthat the militants are «hidden, faceless,»that is to say clandestine! Its function isthe struggle against the absolutely bour-geois individualism whose extreme formis the cult of the leader, the cult of person-ality, whose ravages were immense in therevolutionary proletarian movement.

Historically linked to Stalinism, theleadership cult is found in varying de-grees in all bourgeois parties, democrat-ic or dictatorial, but also in a number ofparties and organizations that claim to berevolutionary but where political issuesgive way to quarrels between individu-als and personal agendas. Converselyanonymity means giving primacy to thecollective character of the work of theParty. No one can serve the party forpurposes of career or personal prestige(even if it is only the prestige in the verysmall circle of the «revolutionary» mi-lieu!). All militants do not have the sameabilities or the same opportunities towork; but all give the best of themselvesto the party, this collective and imper-sonal organ which seamlessly integratestheir efforts beyond the limits and thevicissitudes of individuals, because theyknow that they collaborate in the greathistoric goal of the emancipation of theproletariat, and thereby that of the wholeof humanity.

The class party must not and cannotbase its influence within the proletariatby attempting to earn «respect» throughthe popularity or prestige of individualsand big names, including the most fa-mous: This is not socialism, this is theantithesis of socialism! The party canand must only expect to win an influencethrough its political, theoretical and prac-



tical activity in all areas consistent withproletarian interests, knowing that this«conquest» depends on the capacity ofthe workers in a given period to enter intostruggle to defend their interests.

THE FUSION WITH KOMALAAND THE FOUNDATION OF THE

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRAN

The crisis of the various organiza-tions of the Iranian «far left» with the ebbof the social movement and the rise andconsolidation of Khomeini’s power, re-inforced the audience of the UCM. Inparticular it came in contact with Komala:a «pro-Albanian» party in existence forseveral years in Iranian Kurdistan. Thisparty, along with its rival the DPIK (Dem-ocratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, or-ganization of nationalist bourgeois no-tables), had participated in armed strug-gle to achieve autonomous status forKurdistan after the fall of the Shah.

For a whole period the new Iraniancentral government failed to establishcontrol over an area held by the fightersof various Kurdish organizations (Koma-la, DPIK, Peoples’ Mujahideens); manyopponents of the Khomeini regime, in-cluding UCM militants, took refuge thereto escape the increasingly strong re-pression in the major cities.

After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraqwar, Komala received the support ofSaddam Hussein’s regime which allowedit to install bases in Iraq; but a veritablewar between Komala and the DPIK facil-itated the victory of the Iranian armyagainst both. In late 1984, there were nolonger «liberated zones» in IranianKurdistan, although guerrilla groups stillexisted there. In the meantime, Komalabegan to revise its political positionsduring its 1981 congress, allowing a con-vergence in politics and of «joint work»with the UCM (7). The merger betweenthe two organizations in 1983 led to theformation of the Communist Party ofIran, the Komala organization in IranianKurdistan being its armed wing; the lead-er of Komala was appointed general sec-retary of the new party.

We do not have the documents onthe political and programmatic founda-tions of this unification, but what we saidabout the theses of the UMC is enoughto understand that this could not havebeen on a truly Marxist basis. Further-more all the differences between the twoorganizations had probably not beenconfronted and resolved: the very factthat Komala continued to exist as part ofthe CPI indicates that the creation of thenew party was more a matter of a compro-mise between organizations than a true

fusion.Regardless, the differences within

the CPI, revolving – it seems – particular-ly around the Kurdish question (8), tooka sharp turn in 1989 when Hekmat re-signed from the party leadership to forman internal faction. He was re-elected tothe leadership, but differences eventual-ly led to a split in 1991. Considering thatKurdish nationalism had become domi-nant in the CPI, Hekmat and his com-rades then founded the Worker-Com-munist Party of Iran (9); in 1993, a sisterorganization, the Worker-CommunistParty of Iraq was formed on the samepolitical and programmatic bases by thefusion of the «Communist Current» (thisgroup originally had also been pro-Al-banian) and the «League for the Emanci-pation of the Working Class» issuingout of the old Iraqi Communist Party (10).It is from this moment and in the yearsfollowing that Hekmat developed andmade more precise the particular con-ceptions known as «Worker-Commu-nism».

But immediately after his death in2002, a major crisis struck the Hekmatistmovement.

That same year, the new secretary-general of the W-CPI advanced the per-spective of participating in a «provision-al government guaranteeing publicfreedoms» (11) – that is to say participa-tion in a bourgeois democratic govern-ment, which met opposition from otherparty leaders. The emergence of a strongwave of agitation in Iran in 2003 exacer-bated the differences to the point wherea split occurred in the W-CPI; neither ofthe confronting tendencies was hostilein principle to the participation in such agovernment, but the splitters felt it desir-able as a first step to increase the strengthof the party and to prevent the possiblecollapse of the Islamic regime leading toa situation like the one in Lebanon (the«black scenario»), at a time when thesocialist revolution was not possible;they accused the others of a lack of«voluntarism» (12).

For these ones, participation in aprovisional government was not to beexcluded on principle; but it was onlyeventually possible on the basis of anexisting relationship of forces in thestreet, the normal perspective beingthe «immediate establishment of so-cialism» (13); we will return to this lastposition. The scissionists created theWorker-Communist Party of Iran-Hek-matist. They received the support ofthe Worker-Communist Party of Iraqfrom which a faction then detached toform the Left Worker-Communist Par-ty, linked to W-CPI.

As we know the Islamic regime didnot collapse and neither of the two fac-tions, and then the two parties have hadthe opportunity to put their positionsinto practice...

* * *

This presentation of the genesis andlife of the Hekmatist current is no doubtschematic; but the troubled history ofthis current has already demonstratedthat its claims to embody a current enlist-ed within the historical continuity of thecommunist struggles of the proletariatand further, to have discovered the ex-planation of proletarian defeats and theirremedy, should be held to close account.If we examine the theoretical texts of«Worker-Communism,» we will find thekey to a political practice that is not inreality classist but opportunist.

PROGRAM OF THE WORKER-COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRAN

This program was written by Hekmatin 1992 after the formation of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran (14); it has al-ways been affirmed as their basic text bythe different groups that are related toWorker-Communism, in Iraq, Iran andelsewhere. Its critique is thus instruc-tive, as we will see from reading its gen-eral theoretical and political sections.

The text was clearly written with ref-erence to the Communist Manifesto andother phrases lifted from fundamentalMarxist texts can be found there, but thecopy is not worthy of the original, farfrom it!

We reproduce the first paragraph,«A Better World»:

«To change the world and to createa better one has always been a profoundaspiration of people throughout humanhistory. It is true that even the present-day so-called modern world is dominat-ed by fatalistic ideas, religious as well asnon-religious, which portray the presentplight of humanity as somehow givenand inevitable. Nevertheless the actuallives and actions of people themselvesreveal a deep-seated belief in the possi-bility and even the certainty of a betterfuture. The hope that tomorrow’s worldcan be free of today’s inequalities, hard-ships and deprivations, the belief thatpeople can, individually and collective-ly, influence the shape of the world tocome, is a deep-rooted and powerfuloutlook in society that guides the livesand actions of vast masses of people.Worker-Communism, first and foremost,belongs here, with the unshakable beliefof countless people and successive gen-erations that building a better world anda better future with their own hands isboth necessary and possible.»

Basically, everything is already saidhere, and we could dispense with theeffort of reading any further to concludethat we are in the presence of an idealis-tic, non-Marxist, document: «the livesand actions» of the «people» would be«guided» by a «belief «; in a few sen-tences Hekmat has disappeared histori-

«Worker-Communism» . . .(Continuationfrompage17 )


cal materialism according to which it isthe struggle between classes (not «theaction of a large number of people»)which is the motor of the history ofhumanity and materialism for which it isnot the world of ideas that determineshuman action, but rather their actionsunder the weight of material determina-tions, which determine their ideas.

The consequences of this view areimmediate: if it is ideas that are decisive,then the struggle of ideas becomes apriority and, for example, religion canthen be pushed back by waging an «ide-ological» struggle, including, work alongwith bourgeois atheist associations; oryou can explain the events that led to thedegeneration of the Russian Revolutionby the simple fact that the Bolshevikleaders did not have clear ideas aboutwhat they should have done. It’s worthnoting in passing that this hope of abetter future is constantly generated bycapitalism itself which revolutionizes theproduction process, presenting theseinnovations as a continuous progresswhich is trumpeted about by reformistforces claiming that capitalism can beimproved and reformed.

But one could argue that we drawconclusions too quickly from too few, orawkwardly written sentences, or oneswritten in a «popular» vein so as to moreeasily reach the masses. In our opinion,in the case of a text deemed important bysupporters of Worker-Communism, thisargument would be of no value. Howev-er let’s continue reading the text...

Things get worse still with the fol-lowing paragraph, entitled «Freedom,equality, prosperity».

The Worker-Communist programthus takes up the motto of the bourgeoisrevolution (Freedon, Equality, Fraterni-ty), replacing only the last term with«prosperity»! Marx and all Marxists af-ter him have long explained that themotto expressed the bourgeois programto end the unequal foundations andmultiple barriers of the feudal systemthat blocked free capitalist development;«fraternity» is an ideal of peace andharmony between the classes, it couldnever be realized in the new relations ofproduction. The replacement of «frater-nity» with «prosperity» does not make itany less a bourgeois motto, it just addsa twist to the typical petty-bourgeoisflavor (it is the petty-bourgeois whoaspire to prosperity within the frame-work of capitalism).

Therefore, zero Marxist critique inthis paragraph, but these few consider-ations: «However, throughout humanhistory certain ideas have always cometo the fore as the measures of humanhappiness and social progress, so muchso that they are today part and parcel ofthe political vocabulary worldwide assacred principles. These ideals formprecisely the intellectual foundations

of Worker-Communism. Worker-Com-munism is a movement to change theworld and build a free, equal, humane,and prosperous society».

We have received their confession:these completely bourgeois ideals, arethe intellectual foundations of Worker-Communism!

REFORMISTS ANDREVOLUTIONARIES

The next chapter, «Class struggle,proletariat and bourgeoisie», seems atfirst glance more in line with classicMarxist positions: the author remembersand states that «the history of all soci-eties (...) has been a history of classstruggle» etc.

But the concepts are blurred andwhen things are not clear there is alwaysa hidden agenda. In many texts the Work-er-Communists repeat that their concep-tion of the relationship between reformand revolution is one of the things thatmost characterizes them. Let’s see whattheir program says.

According to Hekmat, present-daysociety is divided into two «camps».«The camp of the proletariat, of work-ers, for all the variety of thoughts, ide-als, tendencies and parties in it, repre-sents the will to change the system infavour of the oppressed and the poor.(...) Worker-Communism emerges out ofthis class struggle. It belongs to thecamp of the proletariat». So the differ-ent thoughts (sic!), parties and tenden-cies currently present among the prole-tarians, all represent the «will» (re-sic) tochange the system? The forces of inter-classist collaborationism that are pre-dominant today in the proletariat, wouldbe surprised to be informed of this!

What we have here is a very specificattitude vis-à-vis the reformist partiesand organizations, which we are toldare in the same camp as the Worker-Communists.

Lenin, spoke of «bourgeois work-ers’ parties»: these organizations andparties are «workers’» in the sense thatthey recruit at least part of their member-ship among workers, but they are polit-ically bourgeois, because their funda-mental political activity consists of sup-port to the bourgeois order and power.They are therefore not part of the same«camp» as the party and class organiza-tions, but they belong to the enemycamp; to use another formula used bythe Bolsheviks, they are not «the rightwing of the proletariat, but the left wingof the bourgeoisie»; or rather, they arethe «labor lieutenants of the bourgeoisiewithin the proletariat». The problem thenis how to detach the proletariat from theinfluence of these agents of thebourgeoisie.What is the actual positionof Worker-Communism in relation tothese parties and organizations?

The program is careful not to say soopenly, but we can already see that itdoes not repeat the Bolshevik thesesthat we have just recalled. In a speech atthe first conference of W-CPI cadres(15), Hekmat said: «The question of therelationship between revolution andreform, and hence the relationship ofthe revolutionary element with move-ments and organisations geared to so-cial reform, is one of the main pillars ofour outlook». What does it means?

«Supporting trade unions and hav-ing close relationships with their Leftwing, strengthening the labour move-ment as a whole against the bourgeoi-sie, is a vitally important task. But, wemust scrutinize, as communist workers,the visions, the policies, and the viewsof working-class organisations and

The fundamentals ofRevolutionary Marxist

Communism in the Doctrineand in the History of the

InternationalProletarian Struggle

( Brochure A5, 56 pages, October 2010,Price: 2 , 2,5 US$; 4 FS)

– TABLE OF CONTENTS –

-Presentation-Premise-Part One. Party and Class State,

essential forms of the communistrevolution-Part Two. The economic organi-

zations of the proletariat are nothingbut pale substitutes for the revolu-tionary party-Part Three. Petty bourgeois dis-

tortions of the characteristics ofcommunist society in the "syndi-calist" and "enterprise socialist"conceptions-Conclusion



their leaders».He would therefore support – while

scrutinizing them carefully! – existingorganizations of the working class andtheir leaders. Yet there is no need toscrutinize them carefully to understandthat these organizations (which Hekmatcalled the «labor movement as a whole»)are class-collaborationist organiza-tions, they are ultimately the transmis-sion belt of bourgeois influence withinthe class.

This is however not the opinion ofHekmat, who say: «The radical leadersof the workers in the USA, Canada,Germany, Britain, etc., should be con-fronted with the question as to why theyare not communists; why they have noth-ing to say and nothing to do concerningthe economic foundations of the presentsystem, the state, religion, the educa-tional system, the equality of sexes, thewar drive of the Powers, and so on, andso forth. We do not criticise the sectar-ian isolationism of the non-worker Leftonly to bow, in the next step, to thevocational and equally isolationist at-titudes of the reformist workers’ move-ments, and to their alienation from thegeneral cause of the working-class so-cial revolution». But it is the Worker-Communists that should be confrontedto the question of how they imagine thereformist organizations and their leaders– even «radical» – could no longer bereformist, that is to say not be supportersof the capitalist system?

Reformism, is not a set of misconcep-tions, it is a material force whose power,drawn from the capitalist system, i.e.drawn from the exploitation of wage la-bor, allows it not only to corrupt certainindividuals, certain organizations, buteven some sectors of the proletariat,those that Marxism called the labor aris-tocracy. The «alienation from the gener-al cause of the working-class social rev-olution» that is to say, if we are not afraidof words, the counter-revolutionarynature of reformist organizations, there-fore arises from material causes as pow-erful as capitalism itself. Someone whoclaims to be a revolutionary, must relent-lessly warn the workers that these organ-izations and their leaders are actuallytheir adversaries who will do anything toprevent them from taking the road ofclass struggle, including by bringingbourgeois repression down on them, asthey have done repeatedly in the past.

Hekmat produces a voluntary confu-sion between the struggle for reforms(better: immediate demands, partial, lim-ited, etc.) that, indeed, the communistsmust not distain, and the attitude to-wards the reformist organizations,

agents in the collaboration between theclasses and opponents of the revolu-tion. These are two completely differentthings, because it is in the struggle forthese demands that communists can andmust combat the reformists in order tohave the opportunity to snatch the pro-letariat from their influence.

The reformist parties and organiza-tions are not sincere but pig-headedsupporters of the workers’ struggle, theyare its adversaries; they always try toprevent it or, if this is not possible, tocontrol, to divert it into abortion as quick-ly as possible.

However, to maintain their influence,their members, and the justification fortheir existence (including in the eyes ofthe bourgeoisie!), these organizationsare constrained to pretend to defend theinterests of workers and to claim to betheir «representatives». They thereforecannot but take up and defend, at least inwords, some proletarian demands; buton the condition that they are compatiblewith capitalist interests and that they canbe obtained through «social dialogue»and political compromise, the workers’mobilizations eventually organized bythem serving primarily as a safety valveand secondarily as a means of pressurein the well-established framework of col-laboration between the classes.

If the W-CPI program manages toavoid remembering all this when it deliv-ers its platitudes about the struggle forreforms, it is not by chance or lack ofinformation. It is because the «Worker-Communists» are none other than oneof these «centrist» parties as they werecalled by the Bolsheviks, pseudo-revo-lutionaries incapable of breaking withreformism, parties that have not only«close relationships with [its] Leftwing», but are part of the left wing ofreformism!

* * *

The fourth chapter, «Worker-Com-munism» is a confusing tracing over ofthe Communist Manifesto. Without giv-ing a detailed critique, we will only notethe most important confusion that comesup very often in Worker-Communisttexts: «Worker-Communism is the so-cial movement of the proletariat» (em-phasis added).

In the speech quoted above, Hek-mat says that Marxism is a «social move-ment»; and speaking of «objective so-cialist character of worker socialism», heexplains: «worker-socialism is an inde-pendently existing social movement andnot a derivative of the activity of Marx-ists or communists. (...) Socialism is (...)first and foremost, a framework for acertain social struggle that is beingwaged inevitably and independently ofthe presence or absence of a party; ... asocial endeavour that has continuednearly throughout the nineteenth and

the twentieth centuries, and is still, to-day, clearly observable. There is al-ways a part of the working class who arenot content with a defensive struggle,who do not believe (...), who think that(...), who think that (...) and finally be-lieve that (...). This is nothing but thevery definition of worker socialism».

So this famous objective social char-acter turns out ultimately to be essen-tially subjective: the thought of a partof the working class! As Marx said: «Itis not a question of what this or thatproletarian, or even the whole prole-tariat, at the moment regards as its aim.It is a question of what the proletariatis, and what, in accordance with thisbeing, it will historically be compelledto do.» («The Holy Family», ch. IV, 4,Critical Comment n°2)...

Let’s go on:«Even behind the activities of right-

wing trade unions, behind the words oflocal labour leaders, however naïve[sic!] and timid [re-sic!] such words maybe, we recognise certain facts pertain-ing to the socialist tendency and thesocialist struggle of the working class».

So trade union bonzes who havesold out to capitalism somehow expressthe existence of a tendency and a social-ist struggle of the working class?

«Worker-socialism is the tendencywithin the class which creates radicalleaders [sic! always with the accent onpersonalities and chiefs...], and main-tains the constant pressure of radical-ism on non-radical leaders. To recog-nise and emphasise, therefore, the exist-ence of an objective, socialist endeav-our within the working class itself, not-withstanding the intellectual expres-sion [sic!] it might find in different peri-ods, is one of our important character-istic features as a current and a politi-cal tradition. (...) The party we are form-ing to-day (...) is formed in the traditionof workers’ struggle for economic equal-ity in society [sic!] – a socialist strugglethat has been constantly waged in cap-italism–- and only in there does WCPIseek the source of its power andstrength» (16).

Let’s go over this again: there wouldexist permanently in the working class asocial movement intellectually aspiringto socialism (or, which is the reverse, toeconomic equality in bourgeois socie-ty!) in various expressions (we wouldfind its mark even in the reformist organ-izations, which would then be one of itsexpressions): Worker-Communism,Marxism. W-CPI would be based on thissocial movement, this tradition of strug-gle for economic equality. What we havehere is a pure profession of spontaneistand immediatist faith.

In reality, according to genuine Marx-ism (not the Marxism turned into por-ridge by Hekmat), there exists perma-nently in this society a class struggle

«Worker-Communism» . . .



because it is capitalism that generatessocial antagonisms. This struggle issometimes hidden, sometimes open, ithas its ups and downs; in periods ofeconomic prosperity in the richer coun-tries, the bourgeoisie that consciouslyand scientifically conducts this strug-gle, manages to obtain and maintain averitable social peace for a longer orshorter period. Social antagonisms havenot disappeared, but they appear onlyindirectly by acts that are classified un-der «miscellaneous», «social problems»,etc. In these periods where the domina-tion of the counter-revolution seemstotal, there does not exist a social move-ment aspiring to socialism; in these pe-riods, revolutionaries are reduced tosmall minorities against the current, iso-lated and misunderstood including bythe proletarians.

Wanting to constitute a party on thebasis of the existence of a social move-ment within the class, that is to sayaccording to Hekmat, on the basis ofwhat the proletariat «thinks» or «ex-presses» at a given time, means tailingthe contingent state of mind of the pro-letariat, a mindset that changes accord-ing to the situation. It is then natural thatthe party can have a «proximity» with thereformists, these prison guards of thebourgeois order, because at a given timethey enjoy a preponderant influenceamong the workers... The real commu-nist party, is alien to this opportunism: itcan and must be based on the non-contingent basis of the historical bal-ance sheet of the class struggle, of theMarxist theory and program (a specifi-cally political program and not a socialmovement) to synthesize its lessons andlead the way to the future proletarianemancipation. With the full conscious-ness that this implies in some more orless lengthy periods and under certaincircumstances, to fight against the cur-rent, to remain isolated from the broadmasses subdued by the class enemy,mystified by the power of its propagan-da machine and disoriented by the falseworkers’ parties, sold-out to the enemy.

This party is then capable of notsuccumbing to the ideals of freedom andequality and to understand their bour-geois nature (the Communists do notfight for economic equality for workerswith non-workers, for their freedom inrelation to the bourgeoisie, but for theabolition of classes and the capitalistmode of production); knowing that, asEngels said in Anti-Dühring, the de-mand for equality is a deformed expres-sion for the proletariat of demanding theabolition of social classes.

REVOLUTION IN ONE COUNTRYAND THE IMMEDIATE

TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM

Another highlight of the program

often put forward by Hekmatists is thenotion of the immediate transition tosocialism, contrary to thesis 4 of theUCM we cited in the preamble above:«The immediate aim of the worker-communist party is to organise the so-cial revolution of the working class. Arevolution that overthrows the entireexploitative capitalist relations andputs an end to all exploitations andhardships. Our programme is for theimmediate establishment of a commu-nist society» (17).

It must first be noted that this state-ment is in contradiction with the secondpart of the program where a number ofpolitical and social reforms extensivelyand painstakingly enumerated are pre-sented as «immediate» demands. Wellthen is the immediate goal the socialrevolution or democratization of the ex-isting state? This second part of theprogram says, «as long as and where-ever capitalism prevails the-worker-communist party also struggles for themost profound and far-reaching politi-cal, economic, social and cultural re-forms that raise the living standard ofpeople and their political and civilrights to the highest possible level. Thesereforms, as well as the strength andunity gained in the struggle for theirrealisation, will make it easier for theworking people to deliver the final blowto the capitalist system».

So the reforms, which would actuallybe able to increase the standard of livingof the people (of which classes of thepeople?), will be the preparation of therevolution: This is just what the reform-ist used to say to justify their abandon-ment of revolutionary politics. Accord-ing to Marxism, the fight for immediatedemands by the proletariat (or reformsaddressing its needs) must be «the com-munist school of war»; Communists mustalways remember the proletarians thatthe demands or reforms that are obtainedcan only be precarious, still at risk ofbeing imperiled, and that they must nev-er lose sight of the generalized and rev-olutionary struggle for the overthrow ofcapitalism. On reading the Hekmatistprogram, one has the impression that thebig words on immediate revolution areused to justify the possibility of a reform-ist practice...

Let’s return to the thesis of the imme-diate transition to socialism; while it couldnot be more radical in appearance, itconstitutes an open rupture with thematerialist Marxist positions. We shallsee this by examining another text byHekmat: «The experience of the workers’revolution in the Soviet Union. Outlineof a socialist critique»(18); we do nothave space here to criticize this in suchdetail as should be done, so we will limitourselves to address the most signifi-cant features.

After having rightly refuted the ex-

planation that the victory of the counter-revolution was caused by the bureauc-ratization of the state, the degenerationof the party, etc., Hekmat states that oneshould look for the cause elsewhere.According to him, after the victory of therevolution in 1917, «The building of so-cialism in Russia, in the true and Marx-ist sense of the term, not only was possi-ble but was also imperative for the con-tinuation and consolidation of the rev-olution». «the backward Russia of theclose of nineteenth century could be-come a capitalist or a socialist Russia inthe twentieth century»; «Given the con-ditions of Russia, both alternatives en-joyed the historical possibility for theirrealisation». It is because the Bolshe-viks had «not built a socialist society inthe Soviet Union» that the counter-rev-olution triumphed. Hekmat rejects con-ceptions «which base their analyses onthe ‘impossibility’ of the economic trans-formation of the Russian society afterthe seizure of power by the workingclass be it formulated as the ‘necessityof world revolution’, the ‘backward-ness of Russia’ or else, because suchoutlooks basically deny the very raisond’etre of the working-class revolutionin Russia».

We’ll repeat this: if a socialist trans-formation was not possible in the coun-try, then a workers’ revolution had nottaken place. Essentially Hekmat sees theworkers’ revolution as a purely nationalphenomenon.

The Mensheviks who shared thissame position, said, since the comingrevolution can only be bourgeois, theproletariat must allow the bourgeoisie tolead it. The Bolsheviks said: the proletar-iat must strive to lead the revolution, notto establish socialism which is materiallyimpossible, but to ensure the victory ofthe anti-feudal revolution in Russia andpush for the workers’ socialist revolu-tion in the developed capitalist coun-tries of Europe.

This international vision of the rev-olution is completely foreign to Hekmatwho defends what might be called thethesis of «the revolution in a singlecountry»: The question comes down towhat was possible in Russia, and ac-cording to him two alternatives werepossible for the «modernization» of thecountry, the proletarian alternative orthe bourgeois alternative.

Under the leadership of Social-de-mocracy (which was at the time the nameof the revolutionary class party) the pro-letariat « of the ‘modernist’ [bourgeois -Editor’s note] opposition, and acquiredand took up its own independent ideas,perspectives and horizon on social andpolitical issues»; but, says Hekmatt,«whilst this separation had occurredcompletely in the ideological and polit-



ical terrains, a corresponding thoroughseparation did not take place in theeconomic thinking, i.e. with regard tothe perspective of the economic devel-opment of the post-Tsarist Russian soci-ety. There was no essential polemic be-fore the 1917 revolution in which theeconomics of the post-revolutionarysociety was clarified».

Russian Social-democracy sufferedfrom an «incomprehension» of socialisteconomic tasks because its critique ofcapitalism focused on the anarchy inproduction: The «vanguard workers»didn’t have «an alternative economicvision and [were not] immunized againstthe bourgeois perspective in the matterof economic development». It is only«when the issue of Russian economyand its course of development effective-ly became a pressing question, that thecommon elements between the old ide-als of the Russian anti-Tsarist bour-geoisie, namely modernism, industrial-isation, etc., and the economic expecta-tions of the advanced rank of Russianworkers - an issue so far uncriticised –made their presence felt. At the histori-cal and decisive juncture of the ’20s itwas these common elements whichblocked the forward march of the prole-tarian revolution in the economic ter-rain, and led the proletarian revolutiononto the main road of capitalist devel-opment in Russia». «The workers’ par-ty, lacking a clear vision for the revolu-tionary transformation of the produc-tion relations, and under the economicand political pressures of the capitalistsystem both domestically and interna-tionally, retreated to the commongrounds of its economic stands with theperspective of the bourgeoisie».

This whole analysis reveals an in-credible ignorance of the discussionsand inflamed polemics in the Russianand international socialist movement onthe possibility of the establishment ofsocialism in Russia; and not only at thetime of Lenin but also in the previousperiod. Hekmat apparently knows noth-ing of the work and conclusions of Marxand Engels; he writes that in the Commu-nist Manifesto and The German Ideolo-gy, Marx «had established the feasibil-ity of buildong socialism 60 years be-fore [the Bolshevik leader] Zinoviev de-nies it to Russia».

Let us recall first that Marx and En-gels never spoke of «building» social-ism, Stalin’s term dating from the timewhen Russia was in reality building...State capitalism. Socialism is first de-struction – destruction of capitalism sonew production relations can flourishbetween people and new forms of pro-

duction; but in order for capitalism to bedestroyed, it must be the dominant modeof production, that is it must first takethe place of pre-capitalist modes of pro-duction!

The question of the possibility of thetransition to socialism in Russia was oneof the central issues to be addressed forthe establishment of the first Marxistgroups in the country. The «populist»petty-bourgeois current estimated thatRussia was in an exceptional situation: itcould proceed directly to socialism wi-thout going through capitalism as inEurope, thanks to existing communalrelations in the rural Russian «commune»(the Mir).

Based on a profound study of thesocio-economic structure of the coun-try, Marx came to the conclusion that itwas theoretically possible that the Rus-sian commune, in which forms of primi-tive communism still existed, could playthat role, allowing Russia to leap overcapitalism; but the condition was thatthe Russian revolution give the signalfor the European proletarian revolution,directly Socialist, that would provide theproductive forces necessary for this gi-gantic historical leap.

But a few years later, Marx and En-gels concluded that due to the accelerat-ed degeneration of the commune and thedevelopment of bourgeois mercantileforms, this possibility no longer existed;there was no longer a Russian «excep-tionalism», it was no longer possible toavoid the transition to capitalism since«Russia can only accelerate the course[NB: accelerate, not establish] towardsocialism in seizing the opportunity thatthe anti-feudal revolutions historicallygives the proletariat, on the base of thehelp of a triumphant social revolutionin Europe» (19).

Hekmat makes pretense to a material-ist analysis, but he does not care toanalyze the economic and social condi-tions of Tsarist Russia to determine ifthey allowed the transition to socialism:he regresses not only in relation to Marxand Engels, but even in relation to thepopulists who, if they drew false conclu-sions, at least founded their perspectiveon existing social structures (the ruralcommune).

Furthermore, his analysis takesplace, as we have already noted, in apurely national context, solely the his-tory of Russian society: he does notsuspect that the Marxist perspective isinternational, both at the level of pol-itics and in terms of economic analysis.He is therefore perfectly incapable ofunderstanding that the Russian Revo-lution was the combination of two rev-olutions (or more): the anti-tsarist na-tional revolution long maturing in thevery guts of the country, a bourgeoisrevolution whose protagonist was es-sentially the peasantry (a class totally

absent in his analysis); and the social-ist proletarian revolution, whose pro-tagonist was the working class andwhose arena was international; themeager Russian capitalism was the«weak link» of the international capital-ist system, broken by the revolutionarywave after the terrible events of theWorld War.

Propelled to the head of the revolu-tionary movement, the proletariat had topush the bourgeois revolution to theend, in close alliance with the peasantry;but in terms of the socialist revolution, inwhich, due to the weak degree of priorcapitalist development, it was not possi-ble in the economic field to take morethan a few steps forward, the Russianproletariat could only count on the vic-tory of its European class brothers.

The fate of the proletarian revolu-tion in Russia was therefore inextrica-bly linked to the fate of the internationalproletarian revolution for which it hadto do everything it could: «the perspec-tive to which everything must be subor-dinated, was the extension of the revo-lution and the communist dictatorshipbeyond the Russian borders. The ad-ministration policy of Russia, eventhough it was a precarious intermedi-ary management, was correct, becausethe well-known fundamental principleof the world communist perspectivewas that the Russian economy couldnot move towards socialism along withthe greater part of Europe, but onlyafter her. The economic practice of theparty had a simple instruction: to waitin the fortress of the captured power; ithad not the one to transform, much lessthe idiotic prevailing instruction: tobuild» (20).

All of this tragic problematic overwhich the proletarian power in Russiawas finally broken is absolutely ignoredby Hekmat. The «building of socialismin one country», moreover a backwardand largely feudal one where the prole-tariat is only a small minority, is possibleand even necessary, he states, «Theestablishment of socialism is the imme-diate and vital task of any workingclass which succeeds to win politicalpower in a given country».

One might ask why we need a transi-tion period that Marxism defines as thedictatorship of the proletariat, if the es-tablishment of socialism is immediatelypossible ?

In fact to our author, false Marxistand true idealist, no matter the materialconditions necessary for the transitionto socialism, whether a country is pre-dominantly peasant and still at a pre-capitalist stage; no matter the require-ment that the revolution has triumphed«at least in the major countries of theworld and the workers there have con-centrated in their hands at least themost important productive forces»




(Marx, Engels, «Address to the CC of theCommunist League», 1850);

No, what is determinant is the ideas,the freedoms of «choice», the will tomove in one direction or another. The«fundamental theoretical inadequacy»of the Bolsheviks was that they had notreflected on «the question of which spe-cific production relations and whicheconomic forms should be establishedin Russia» (as if these relations could beestablished at will!), so they let them-selves be captivated by «bourgeoisthinking» and then they made the«choice of the bourgeois option for thedevelopment of Russian society.»

And forces in opposition to Stalin-ism who were convinced of «the neces-sity of world revolution and the impos-sibility of socialism in one country»were, therefore, not internationalists toHekmat: their «refusal to advance theRussian revolution (…) was itself tan-tamount to refusing to promote the Rus-sian workers as active and effectiveinternationalists».

This is logical: if it was really possibleto establish socialism in Russia, oppo-nents must be denounced as enemies ofthe proletariat as well as the Stalinistswho had «chosen» the path of bour-geois development.

Let’s summarize. For the Hekmatists,socialismcan be immediately implement-ed in one country, even backward, re-gardless of the victory of the revolutionin other countries, so regardless of theinternational revolution.

This is a position which is not Marx-ist: to envision the proletarian revolu-tion as an essentially national phenom-enon, is all at once non-materialist, vol-untarist, and in essence nationalist. In-ternationalism is not only, as Hekmatsays, to believe «in the internationalcharacter of the working class and [todefend] the workers’ revolution any-where, i.e. [to defend] these revolutionsbecause of their working-class charac-ter»; internationalism is to understandthat the fate of the workers and theirstruggles of all countries are strictlydependent on each other, conditioningthem; if the proletariat must first attackand vanquish its own bourgeoisie, thecommunist revolution has by definitionan international character; materializingin the victory in one country or another,it will be victorious or vanquished at theinternational level.

There can be no question for thecommunist revolution of peaceful coex-istence with the capitalist order, onlyperiods of truce, and any victory in onecountry is only temporary: it is not forany other reason that the CommunistManifesto puts forward the imperative:Workers of all countries, unite!

Upon coming to power the proletar-iat of course must immediately imple-ment all concrete steps possible to begin

to uproot capitalism and move towardsthe socialist transformation of society: ifa country has reached a sufficient de-gree of capitalist development, there isnothing in theory to prevent the socialisttransformation of its economy.

But the proletariat should not imag-ine that this transformation can be quickand easy, and with even more reason,immediate and complete: the economiesof various countries are now so inter-linked that we can only consider theestablishment of socialism on an inter-national scale; and above all it must notbe imagined that national and interna-tional bourgeoisies will tranquilly let itwork towards the establishment of so-cialism.

This is why its most important imme-diate task is to make every effort tospread the revolution to other coun-tries, to support the workers who arefighting there, in a word to foment theinternational revolution. Otherwise de-feat, in one form or another, is inevitablein the long run.

Lenin wrote that the proletarian pow-er in Russia could hold on for 10 to 20years provided they maintained goodrelations with the peasantry (the major-ity of the population), until the victory ofthe proletarian revolutions in Europe.

During this period, in which the eco-nomic and social backwardness (not justthe degree of industrialization as Hekmatimagines) forbade thinking of establish-ing socialism, the power had to orient thedevelopment of capitalism (the neces-sary basis for any future development ofsocialism) in the direction of state capi-talism. The situation was extraordinarilydifficult because the proletarian partythus had to manage and control capital-ist forms. We know what happened: it iscapitalism that finally took control of thestate apparatus and the party, finding inthe Stalinist faction its instrument and inthe theory of socialism in one country,its flag.

Contrary to Hekmat, the solution tothis drama could not be national, butinternational: the destiny of the proletar-iat and the revolution in Russia depend-ed on the European proletariat.

Now even though the European pro-letariat undertook great and arduousstruggles in the first postwar period, itdid not have the strength to overthrowthe bourgeois power (other than in atransitory fashion as in Hungary) andafterward it had the greatest difficultiesin breaking with the reformist forces andof organizing itself firmly on class bases;these difficulties were exacerbated bythe more and more elastic tactical orien-tation that the CI took in seeking toartificially speed the maturation of situ-ations.

Our party has repeatedly said thatthe highest conquest of the OctoberRevolution was the establishment of this

International, which was renewing theprogram and the revolutionary praxisbetrayed by the parties of the SecondInternational. And among the most im-portant lessons to be learned for thefuture of this revolution, there is thebalance sheet and evaluation of the con-stitution of the International and its ac-tion with its limitations, weaknesses anderrors. What has Hekmat to say about it?Nothing...

Or rather, he says something: theinsistence of the Bolsheviks on the in-ternational revolution (the revolutionin Germany) is «one of the reasons forthe lack of any concrete steps beingenvisioned by the Bolsheviks in regardto the question of economic transfor-mation in Russia itself. The Bolshevikshad indeed made the realisation oftheir own economic horizon depend-ent on the success of the German revo-lution. (...) it is also understandablewhy in opposition to the traditionalvision in the party which awaited thecoincidence of revolution in Germany

The Tragedyof the German Proletariatafter the First World War

( BROCHURE A5, 60 PAGES,JANUARY 2010, PRICE: 2 , 4 FS)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

•-Introduction•-Germany 1918-1919: the tragic retardof the party (“le prolétaire”, No. 491,Nov. - Dec. 2008 / Jan. 2009)•-The tragedy of the German proletariatafter the first World War (Report to ageneral meeting of the party - 1972)•-The situation in Germany and thecommunist movement (“Il Soviet”, No18, 11 July 1920.)•-Postscript: Berlin 5 January 1919



and Europe, Stalin’s line identified itsoutlook with socialism in one coun-try». Hekmat has discovered this: theRussian Revolution ultimately failed be-cause the Bolsheviks had been too in-ternationalist!

We can see how unfounded wasHekmat’s pretense to situate himself inthe continuity of Marxism. His thesis ofthe immediate introduction of socialismin a national framework that may seemvery radical in the eyes of an inattentivereader, is actually the echo of the «con-structions» of «socialism in one coun-try» of the Stalinist or Maoist matrix.This text and the program we have brief-ly reviewed show that Hekmat and itssupporters, whatever their affirmations,are foreign to the true communist posi-tions. We will proceed to find confirma-tion in the facts.

WORKER COMMUNISM PUTTO THE TEST OF THE FACTS

A text which we have quoted abovestates that the Worker-Communist ac-tivists do not regard «Marxism and itsvarious theoretical texts as clerics seethe Torah, the Bible or the Koran» (21)In other words, for them Marxism andtheoretical texts have a relative value,and it is not too serious not to take themas the exact truth. But actually the liber-ties taken in respect of Marxism inevita-bly have critical consequences for poli-tics and activity. Marxism, the theoreti-cal texts, is not a luxury or an activityreserved for the «high Marxists»: theyare the indispensable compass for orien-tation in daily action, to analyze situa-tions and define political lines and thedirectives for practice in action. Con-tempt for theory is always the character-istic of «concretists» and «practition-ers» who boast their supposed ability toconduct «mass work» in contrast to theactivity of «bookworms». We will notrecall here the attacks of this kind thathave taken swipes at Marx Lenin or Bor-diga, only recalling Lenin’s formula:«without revolutionary theory, no revo-lutionary movement».

Their Marxist or «radical» state-ments melting like snow in the sun, theWorker-Communists rallied withouthesitation to the petty-bourgeois re-formist movements emerging in recentyears. We shall see this by taking a fewsignificant examples.

THE «REVOLUTION» IN IRAN

The W-CPI analyzed the major pop-ular demonstrations in Iran in June 2009against the regime as the beginning of

the revolution. A few months later, inDecember 2009, as protests were re-pressed in blood, at the conclusion of its7th Congress it published a «Manifestoof the Iranian Revolution.» The text isoverfull with the most bourgeois clichés:

«The Iranian revolution (...) is avoice shouting Liberty, Equality, Hu-man Identity.(...) The Iranian revolu-tion is, first and foremost, against reli-gious and Islamic rule. It is deeply sec-ular and opposed to the rule of igno-rance, superstition and the clergy. Inthis respect it is pursuing, in a radicalway, the unfinished, or forgotten, tasksof the French Revolution.(…) The rev-olution in Iran is about freedom. Therealisation of the most radical and hu-man definition of individual, civil, cul-tural and political freedom is the imme-diate task of the ‘Twitter’ and ‘Face-book’ generation which has risen up inrevolt. It does not accept any restrictionon freedom of expression, assembly,strike and organisation or other polit-ical freedoms. (...) In one word, as wesaid from day one, this is «a humanrevolution for a human rule». We learnthat the revolution «stands for a global,human and modern culture. In this sense,the nearest counterpart of the Iranianrevolution are the 1960s’ and 70s’ civilrights movements in the USA and West-ern Europe, with the difference that thisrevolution along with Marx goes fur-ther than «civil society», and aims for a«human society» or «social humani-ty»» and so on...

While the revolution is on the marchaccording to the W-CPI, the manifestodoes not speak of the famous immediatetransition to socialism; there is nothingin it about the class struggle, nothingabout the overthrow of capitalism, noth-ing on the precise tasks of the proletar-iat for the seizure of power, etc. Butinstead, references (hollow) to theFrench bourgeois revolution of 1789,and the struggles for civil rights! At atime that, according to it, would be de-cisive, the W-CPI abandons all its Marx-ist rhetoric to show an integrally petty-bourgeois visage...

«OCCUPY» 2011

Since the «Occupy» movement inthe United States and Canada in 2011,the W-CPI endorsed the ridiculous slo-gan «All Power to the 99%!», whichreplaces class divisions and class strug-gle by a «struggle» of almost all of thepopulation against a handful of billion-aires. But if the famous 1% were eliminat-ed, the capitalist structure of societywould not be altered and nor would thestate apparatus, etc.; capitalism wouldstill be present, as in the state capitalistcountries, the working class would stillbe exploited, etc. It’s not only the imme-diate transition to socialism that disap-

pears in the prose of W-CPI, but theproletariat!

In a hysterical call for May 1, 2012:«Citizens [sic: citizens, not proletari-ans!] of the world! Stop work on MayDay!», the W-CPI called on protesters to«get ready for the taking of politicalpower by the 99%» (!) and advanced theslogans of «abolition of the State of the1%» and «direct rule by people’s gener-al assemblies» (22). The statement of the8th Congress of the W-CPI (03/22/2012),to its militants, was equally fantasticallyoptimistic about the scope of the Occu-py movement and the Arab Spring («Thestormy 2011 will be recorded in humanhistory as the start of a global wave ofrevolutions of the 21st century for theemancipation of humanity», «this glo-bal revolutionary wave has alreadyoverturned the old dominant percep-tions of the last few decades and changedthe political and ideological balanceto the advantage of revolution, with fargreater changes still to come», etc..). Itwas however a bit more precise, as itreferred to the destruction of the stateapparatus and the political and eco-nomic expropriation of the bourgeoisie;but it remained just as interclassist inessence:

«The requirement for the victory ofthis global movement for human liber-ation is the political and economic ex-propriation of the bourgeoisie aroundthe world (...).The first condition of peo-ple’s victory is the total destruction ofthe bourgeoisie’s state machinery, fromits army to its bureaucracy, and theestablishment of the rule of councilsand other organs of people’s directpower». «In the West too there is noother road to liberation than in the firststep expropriating the dictatorship ofcapital and the rule of the banks and the1%, which is exercised in the name ofdemocracy and parliament, and by leav-ing people’s lives in their own hands, totheir own direct rule» (23).

The dictatorship of the proletariat isobviously a concept that must be ig-nored if we take the petty-bourgeoistheory of the union of 99% into account;and it is better to be silent on the seizureof power, not by the «people» or by «theoverwhelming majority» but by the pro-letariat which necessarily involves theuse of violent insurrection, when seek-ing a hearing in these fundamentallyreformist and pacifist milieus...

THE COUP IN EGYPT

We have already had occasion toclosely examine their position on theoverthrow of Morsi by the Egyptianmilitary government; in its statement ofJuly 2013, the W-CPI said that this over-throw was actually the work of millionsof demonstrators who had «directlyexercised their will» (through the mili-

«Worker-Communism» . . .(Continuationfrompage23 )


tary!). Affirming that this overthrowdealed «a fatal blow to the myth of therule of the ballot box, i.e. the rule of thebourgeoisie [!]», it claimed it was an«important step forward for the peopleof Egypt, the Middle East and the wholeworld», and «a historic watershed whichwill bear the name of the Egyptian rev-olution», etc. (24). It’s enough to justcast a glance at what happened in Egyptsince then, to establish that it could nothave been more wrong! This is not asmall (!) accidental «error», that could beeasily rectified, but the result of a pureand simple alignment on interclassistand reformist movements. To believeand to make-believe that the «people»(the»99%», «the overwhelming majori-ty») could «take power» and «directlyexercise» it, reflects the most stupid pet-ty-bourgeois propaganda; but it is aboveall to mislead the proletarians while acommunist organization worthy of thename must relentlessly call them for theindependent classist organization andfor the need to break with the interclas-sism which paralyzes them. The worker-communists of the W-CPI thus fall inwith the falsely «left», «communist» or«workers» forces who in practice op-pose the return of the proletariat onto itsclass terrain, the only one giving it theability to actually fight and win.

GREECE AND TSIPRAS

After the electoral victory of Syrizain Greece, on 02/02/15 the W-CPI sent apublic letter of congratulations toTsipras, the newly elected Prime Minis-ter. It read «your victory is a blowagainst austerity and a big step for-ward for the people of Greece. Howev-er, its effects will go beyond one coun-try. It is a promising return of theradical left to the mainstream politicalscene and the emergence of a newproactive political communism, whichis going to have a decisive impact onthe political situation of Europe andthe world. We are already witnessingthe positive effects of your victory inSpain with Podemos [a new reformistparty- Ed], and this is only the begin-ning. (…)You are at the beginning ofthis road; a long and tortuous strugglethat can only be won by relying onpeople and the «power of the street»,which has already been a decisive fac-tor in your victory. In this journey andat every step forward, the people of theworld, the camp of the 99%, are withyou standing by you» (25)...

A few months later, the W-CPIseemed to have lost a little of its enthu-siasm; but on the eve of the June refer-endum on the exigencies of the Troika, itfelt compelled to answer «some left crit-ics of Syriza in Greece and outside [who]think that talks with the creditors andthe referendum are useless, and say that

the solution is revolution against cap-italism.» He conceded that there was nodoubt that the solution is the revolutionagainst capital, «or more precisely, thepolitical and economic expropriationof the capitalist class, the ruling 1%.»However, «revolution does not happenout of the blue. The class struggles haveto escalate and deepen and becomepolarised over capital’s very existence».(26) There is the need to move fromcritique of austerity to the critique ofcapitalism. «Only a radical communistand interventionist party, engaged insociety’s everyday struggles, can andmust be the agency for driving this agen-da forward [the perspective of the ex-propriation of the capitalist class]. Thisforce is not the Syriza government».Finally, one might think, clear language,calling for class struggles, that the W-CPI had unfortunately forgotten when itwelcomed Tsipras!

But faced with this precise politicalquestion: what attitude to take in relationto the referendum? the supposed claritysoon disappears and we realize what«struggle» it speaks of: «The referen-dum this Sunday, just like the election ofSyriza six months ago, is a link in thechain of the deepening struggle be-tween the two camps of labour and cap-ital in Greece».

Denouncing the myth of the powerof the ballot box is no longer an issue,the elections are now part of the strug-gle! And to drive the point home: «What-ever form and shape this may take, theconditions for the rise of a revolution-ary left pole in society are becomingmore favourable day by day. The refer-endum itself could provide the condi-tions for the development of such aforce». Elections can be used to createa «revolutionary left pole»: Is this pre-tense different than the rest of the elec-tioneering far left?

Opportunism when it suits us then…

WORKER COMMUNISM ANDTHE STRUGGLE AGAINST

RELIGION OR A CONFESSIONOF UNVARNISHEDINTERCLASSISM

We saved the best, or rather theworst for last: the fight against religion.As we know religious ideology takes apreponderant place in bourgeois ideolo-gy and propaganda in Iran and through-out the region, so this is an importantissue for any party which wants to berevolutionary. But this is not a new prob-lem for the Marxist workers’ movement:it has always had a clear position on this:rejection of any alliance with bourgeoissectors under the pretext of fightingagainst «obscurantism», denouncingbourgeois anti-clericalism as a diversionfrom the class struggle, understandingthat the decline of the reactionary influ-

ence of religion on the proletarian mass-es cannot be achieved chiefly by a strug-gle of ideas, by anti-religious propagan-da, but fundamentally through the de-velopment of workers’ struggles. Theposition of the Worker-Communists isexactly the opposite: alliance with bour-geois democracy, even with bourgeoisgovernments!

The Worker-Communist Party ofIraq had sent a letter to Jen-Pierre Raf-farin, then French reactionary PrimeMinister, to congratulate him on theenactment of a law prohibiting the wear-ing of the islamic veil by pupils (27)! TheW-CPI has not gone that far but it hasnever hesitated to ally with the bour-geois, including the right, in the name ofthe struggle against Islam.

Through the intermediary of its lead-ers in France it has participated in sev-eral events and meetings with formerMinisters Corinne Lepage (centrist) andYvette Socialist Party), such as at themeeting of the «feminist and secularcoordination» of 5/2/04 to support thelaw against the veil (28) or the rallyoutside the Embassy of Canada in 2005(among the personalities who were call-ing, there was Elisabeth Badinter, bour-geois heiress of one of the largest for-tunes of France, Fadela Amara, futureminister of the rightwing PresidentSarkozy, etc.) (29); or, in April 2006, themeeting organized by Corinne Lepageand Catherine Fourest (radio columnistand specialist in denouncing veiledwomen) against Islamist fundamental-ism in the very bourgeois «CercleRépublicain» (30).

In March 2006 it signed a «Manifes-to of the 12»: «Together against thenew totalitarianism» with rigthwingauthor Bernard-Henri Levy, Philippe Val(journalist close to French PresidentSarkozy), Catherine Fourest and others(31). In 2009 he participated in the «Ren-contres Laïques Internationales», aconference organized by the «Union ofLay Families» with the collaboration ofthe «Grand Orient de France» (mainorganization of the Freemasons inFrance) and other bourgeois secularorganizations (32), etc.

This is a practice which is everythingexcept recent or accidental. In the cri-tique of a British Trotskyist group whichreproached the W-CPI, in addition tosigning the «Manifesto of the 12», itsparticipation in London in a «March forFreedom of Expression» following theaffair of the caricatures of Muhammad,notably with an extreme-right anti-work-er group, its leader Maryam Namaziereplied that this criticism was the «pur-ism» of not doing anything, which «main-tain this Left’s irrelevance by giving itthe excuse it needs to turn its back on thepower struggles taking place on cru-



cial issues over the fate of society».But it’s another activist of the W-

CPI which put the dot on the i: «Accord-ing to the Manifesto [of the 12 - Editor’snote] (...) the war is between liberty andIslamism in the Islamic world itself(...).Is it possible to unite with «classenemies» to fight for liberty, or shouldwe fight with a working-class inde-pendent banner?

(...) Mansoor Hekmat, founder ofour party and current in Iran and Iraq,was that he removed the condition of«accepting our programme» for join-ing the party, and at the same time hestarted to promote several organisa-tions in defense of women’s liberty,refugee rights, etc. Everybody, includ-ing our «class enemies» [!], was wel-come to join and to fight for specificrights! Mansoor Hekmat, the founderof our party and our current in Iran andIraq fought for the acceptance of ourprogram to no longer be a conditionfor joining our party. (...)But can’t wemake a coalition with people from dif-ferent classes for specific campaigns?I think we can» (33) Splendid profes-sion of opportunist faith!

Only incorrigible Democrats can im-agine that the real conflict is between«freedom» (Lenin would say: Freedomfor whom? For what class?) and Islam-ism: the real conflict is taking place inthe most varied fields and even if it isvery often...veiled, between the prole-tariat and the bourgeoisie. In all matters,critical or not, that arise in society, es-pecially on any problems that may inter-est many classes, such as women’sissues, political freedoms, oppressionand repression, the most various socialproblems, the communists must alwaysfight interclassism, tirelessly insist onthe need for proletarian class independ-ence. To participate in a coalition withits class enemies, even if it is supposed-ly for limited and temporary goals is forthe proletariat, the exploited andcrushed class, to allow it to be boundand gagged. Never, for any reason andin any circumstance, must it be allied toits class enemies, if it does not want tobe their consenting victim!

Those who pretend the contrary,those who call, whatever their justifica-tion, for a union with other classes,those who see the struggle for classindependence as impotent purism, thosewho pose the most deceitful bourgeoisclichés as objectives in the struggle,those who defend and diffuse the posi-tions most harmful to workers’ strugglemaywell call themselves «Worker-Com-munists»: they are in reality nothing butfundamentally anti-worker petty-bour-

(1) www.worker-communism.info. Of-ficially the group says it has no specialrelationship with anyof the existing Hekma-tist parties, it seems however nearest the W-CP of Iran.

(2) See Marxists.org and Hekmat. pub-lic-archive.net/. On the latter site, there arealso translations into Arabic, Turkish andKurdish. However many texts are not trans-lated, eitherbecause the site managersdo notagree with them, or because they considerthem of little interest to the non-Iranianreader.

This is for example the case of the text:«In opposition to abortion» that only existsin Persian. Hekmat affirms that abortion isa «despicable act and we must understandthat we are talking about a heinous actagainst humanity»and it does not agree thatfree abortion with free access are women’srights, «the woman who destroys an embryoonly succumb to the violence inherent in thissociety», etc.

Responding to the argument that a lot ofpeople are in favor of abortion rights, hesays, «many people are working overtime,but I’m not willing to put those extra hoursinto our program. I’m for the ban on over-time». Hekmat manifests here a quite stag-gering misunderstanding of what this de-mandmeans,especiallyforproletarianwomen(according to him it is rather bourgeois whoare most concerned, being the situation of theworking class not changed in the countrywhere the right to abortion was recognized),and of the struggles that were carried out toget it. The 1992 programof the PC-IO, whilestating that the party «is against abortion»,however demands its legalization.

(3) https://bataille socialiste. wordpress.com/english-pages/1987-left-nationalism-and-working-class-communism-hekmat/

(4) The thesis ended with the followingslogans that well synthesize the fundamen-tally populist, interclassist, character of thetext despite its references to the workingclass: Forward towardsUnitywith theWork-ing Class Movement! Forward to the estab-lishment of the Communist Party of Iran!Victoryto theAnti-Imperialist Struggleof thepeople of Iran! For a People’s Democratic

Republic!(5) see: «The Unity...», op. cit.(6) see: «Worker-Communism councils

and parties», www. communisme-ouvrier.info/?Communisme-ouvrier-con-seils-et. The article referred to Hekmat’s«Party and society» (1998): http://hekmat.public-archive.net/en/1900en.html

(7) see:«Komala»fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komala We refer to articles on Wikipediabecause they are obviously written by theactivists of various groups.

(8) Ibid. Komala still exists today, butaccording to this article, it calls itself social-democratic and aspires to join the SocialistInternational; it is looking for financial sup-port from the United States.

(9) It seems that the war of the USagainst Saddam Hussein contributed to thissplit. Komala then had its bases in Iraq andthe Secretary General of the CPI proposedthat the party support the PUK (PatrioticUnion of Kurdistan, the traditional organi-zation of the Iraqi Kurdish bourgeoisie)who sought American support in the strug-gle against Baghdad; but the US left thetroops of Hussein crush the Kurdish rebel-lion. see «Komala», op. cit.

According to the same article, within theCPI, «it is not really a split that occurs, butan amicable withdrawal,avoiding clashes».Anything except a «principled struggle»against nationalism...

(10) see: «Worker-Communist Party ofIraq», fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parti_ Commu-nist-ouvrier_d’Irak

(11) see: «Worker-Communist Party ofIran Hekmatist» fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parti_communiste-ouvrier_ Iran _-_ Hek-matist.

The text wanted that the W-CPI, in caseof the collapse of the Islamic regime, whichseemed plausible at the time, put forward «aplan for apeaceful anddemocratic transitionto a system desired by the people and reduc-ing thepossibilityof black scenario»:«a planincluding a provisional government, + aconstituentassembly +a referendum,may beacceptable to the party». In the event of theestablishment of a provisional government,the party «should not demand the violentoverthrow of the government» but «an-nounce» that if a number of points wereestablished «it would participate in the gov-ernment or itself constitute such a govern-ment», etc. WPI briefing n°158, 9.29.2004.

(12) see: «Worker-Communist Party ofIran Hekmatist» op. cit.

(13) To the question: what is wrong withthe perspectives and solutions advocated bythe scissionists, that is to say «that the partycould also come to power by means of nego-tiation and diplomacy. Has the W-CPI notconsidered the fact that it may have to join acoalition government it does not like?» Ha-mid Taghvaee, the party leader, replied: «Ofcourse, it’s possible. This is not a prohibitedarea for us. The party can, according to itsanalysis and the relationship of forces, par-ticipate in a coalition government. Howeverit is a different thing to make this the basis of



geois democrats.Its «proximity» not only with re-

formist forces, but directly with bour-geois forces, probably explains themagnitude of the means at the disposalof the W-CPI, probably the only organ-ization in the world calling itself revolu-tionary to have a satellite televisionchannel (34)! It is especially importantto tear off its pseudo-communist mask.

For the proletarian vanguard mili-tants in Iran, Iraq or elsewhere, a returnto the Marxist revolutionary programand the reconstruction of the classparty, international and international-ist does not pass through so-calledWorker-Communism!


Registration number to the “commissionparitaire de presse”: 52926. ManagingEditor: Dessus. payments: by checks orinternational money, order to: Dessus.Printed on our press.

PARTY’s PRESS•-“leprolétaire”- (bimonthly in French)-•-Price per copy £ 1 / 1 / Sfr 3.Subscription: £ 5 / 7,5 / Sfr 30. Subs-cription support: £ 9,5 / 15 / Sfr 60.•-“programme communiste” - (Theo-rical review in French)-•-One copy £ 3 /

4 / Sfr 8 . Latin America: US $ 2 / USAet Cdn: US $ 4. Subscription: price for4 copies. Subscription support: £ 20 /40 /Sfr 80 / Latin America: US$ 10 / USAand Cdn: US $ 40.•-“il comunista” - (bimonthly in Ita-lian)-•-one copy: £ 1 / 1,5 / Sfr 5.Subscription: £ 6 / 9 / Sfr 35. Subscrip-tion support: £ 12 / 19 / Sfr 70.•-“el programa comunista” •-one copy:£ 2 / 3 / Sfr 8 / Latin America: US $ 0,5/ USA and Cdn: US $ 3 . Price support,one copy: £ 4 / 6 / Sfr16 /Latin America:US $ 1 / USA and Cdn: US $ 6.•-“el proletario” •-one copy: Europa:1,5 / 3 Sfr / £ 1,5 . Latin America: US $1,5 / USA and Cdn: US $ 2.•-“Proletarian” - (Supplement in englishto “le prolétaire”) •-price per copy : 1,5

, US $ 1,5, £ 1, 3 CHF.

your party line and your strategy». The W-CPI thus admitted the possibility of a gov-ernmental alliance with the bourgeois par-ties, depending on the situation and thebalance of power: and for what other reasondid the Menshevik Party, in 1917, opposethe Bolsheviks and denounce themas traitorsto socialism? See: «Documents on the SplitofWorker-Communist Partyof Iran & Iraq»,WPI Briefing n° 153 (special issue on thesplit), 06/09/2004.

One can perhaps find an allusion to thisquestion of the provisional government in alater text by a French Hekmatist author:«Why we define ourselves as Worker-Com-munists?» «By so defining ourselves asWorker-Communists, we also affirm ourwill, not to build a circle of Marxist-as-specialists, but a movement and a partytruly implanted in society and in the workingclass, and thereby able to take power and tochange society and the world . We wish alsoto add to this lastaspect: too often the far Lefttends to view power as something that is‘haram’... which means leaving it to this orthat faction of the bourgeoisie». See: www.communisme-ouvrier.info/?Pourquoi-nous-nous-definissons

It is unclear what is referred here, but werecall that for Marxism, it is to participate ina bourgeois government that is «unlawful»(haram)!

(14) see: Mansoor Hekmat, https://www.marxists.org/ francais/hekmat/ works/1994/07 /hekmat_ 19940700.htm

(15) Speech given on 05.01.1992. cfwww.communisme-ouvrier.info/?-The-fun-damental characteristics

(16) Ibidem(17) see: «A Better World», op. cit.(18) see: Mansoor Hekmat, «The expe-

rience of the workers’ revolution in the So-viet Union. Outline of a socialist critique»http:/ /hekmat.public-archive.net /en/2500en.html

(19) see «The great historical problemsof the revolution in Russia», ProgrammeCommuniste No. 96. We refer the reader toour many works on this topic.

(20) see: Struttura della Economica eSocialdellaRussiad’Oggi,quoted in «histor-ical and international lesson of the proletar-ian revolution and the bourgeois counter-revolution against» P.C. No. 96.

(21)cf.communisme-ouvrier.info/?Pour-quoi-nous-nous-definissons

(22) see http: // worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.fr/2012/04/may-1st-reclaim-world-for-99.html

(23) see http://worker- communistpartyofiran.blogspot.fr/ 2012_ 03_ 01_ ar-chive. html

(24) cf. http://worker- communistpartyofiran.blogspot.fr/2013_ 07_ 01_ ar-chive. html

There was also praise with regard to the«magnificent Tamarod movement» i.e. theorganization that prepared the overthrow ofMorsi, starting with a petition campaign.There was no need to wait for the laterrevelations that the secret services were in-

volved in the creation of this organization,funded also bycapitalists, to understand thathis activity was in the service of the bour-geois order. The W-CPI still does not seemto have understood this because it did notcorrect its position, nor has it publishedanything else that we know of about theevents in Egypt.

(25) see http://worker-communistpartyofiran.blogspot.fr/ 2015_ 02_ 01_archive.html In early March, the W-CPI hasalso, as usual, launched a petition campaign«in solidarity with the people of Greece»:«We, the people of Greece, Europe and theworld, say to the ECB, the IMF and otherinternationalandnational lenders:PeopleofGreece don’t owe you! Drop the debt!». Thepetition is the typical practice of those whobelieve in the power of «public opinion» orjust want to feel good without having to enterthe struggle. In this case there is a perfectcorrespondence between an impotent prac-tice and a hollow theme... see http: //www.communisme-ouvrier. info /? In-solidarity-with-the-people-in

(26) Ibidem(27) see: http://solidariteirak.org/

spip.php?article5. We recall that theW-CP of Iraq had split from the W-CPI(W-CP of Iran).

The W-CP of Iraq has a deeply ingrainedinterclassist political line. A few years ago itconstituted the Iraqi Freedom Congress, anassociation «above classes and parties» (ieinterclassist) whose aim is the establish-ment of a democratic (ie bourgeois) regimein Iraq; it heads a union to which the pro-imperialist US trade union AFL-CIO hasgranted sympathizer organizational status.Its leaderYanar Mohammed won in 2008 therecognition of the US imperialists with theEleanor Roosevelt prize (the name of thewife of a former president of the UnitedStates) for the Rights of Women of theWorld, awarded by an institution linked tothe US Democratic Party, and the Gruberprize for Women’s Rights, awarded by afoundation created in the Cayman Islands bythis Wall Street billionaire financier (such aprize being richlyendowed, according to thewikipedia page on behalf of Yanar Moham-med), etc.

Recently it called for the formation of an«armed force to confront both the IslamicState,USpolicyandthatofthecountriesof theregion». This «communistarmed force» willnot aim for the seizure of power by theproletariat, but for the creation of «an atmos-phere [!] conducive to the seizure of powerand therestoration of humanity» and «to findhope for the working class and the toilingmasses». It is therefore not intended todefend by force a proletarian class policy,but to «defend every inch of thehuman spirit,to center the will of the masses to self-deter-mination» for «human politics, against thedark forces». See: solidariteirak.org/spip.php? article866 (08.28.2014)

No comments...(28) see: http://bu-fonds-spe.univ-

angers.fr/images/meeting-de-la-coordination-

f%C3%A9ministe-et-la%C3%AFque-le-5-f%C3%A9vrier-2004

(29) see: http: // libertefemmepalestine.chez-alice.fr/Charria_Canada.html

(30) see:. http://www.prochoix.org/cgi/blog/index.php/2006/04/04/460-conference-le-6-avril-sur-la-liberte-dexpression-face-a-lintimidation-integriste

(31) see: http://www.prochoix.org/cgi/blog/index.php/2006/03/01/412-manifeste-des-douze-ensemble-contre-le-nouveau-to-talitarisme

(32) see:http: //www.laicite-republique.org / 2nd-rencontres- secular, 964. Html.Also present were Brard, French Commu-nist Party mayor of Montreuil and otherorganizations well known for their hostilitytowards immigrant proletarians. In its earlyyears, the Communist International foughtagainstFreemasonryasbeing, liketheLeagueof Human Rights, a particularly dangerousbourgeoisorganization ofclasscollaborationbecause it sought to attract the workers’leaders. But that was before the onset ofWorker-Communism!

(33) see: http: //www.mondialisme. org/ spip.php? article850

(34) According to the Wikipedia page,from 1999 the W-CPI had a radio station(Radio International) which broadcasted«from Russia and Norway, and finally theUnited States of America». It is hard toimagine that you can emit from these coun-trieswithout an agreement with their govern-ments... Today’s it has a satellite TV chan-nel, New Channel TV, which broadcasts 24hours a day.


PROGRAMOFTHEINTERNATIONALCOMMUNISTPARTY

The International Communist Party is constituted onthe basis of the following principles established at Leg-horn in 1921 on the foundation of the Communist Party ofItaly (Section of the Communist International):

1. In the present capitalist social regime there developsan increasing contradiction between the productive forcesand the relations of production, giving rise to the antithesisof interests and to the class struggle between the proletar-iat and the ruling bourgeoisie.

2. The present day production relations are protect-ed by the power of the bourgeois State, that, whateverthe form of representative system and the use of elec-tive democracy, constitutes the organ for the defense ofthe interests of the capitalist class.

3. The proletariat can neither crush or modify themechanism of capitalist production relations from whichits exploitation derives, without the violent destructionof the bourgeois power.

4. The indispensable organ of the revolutionary strug-gle of the proletariat is the class party. The CommunistParty consists of the most advanced and resolute part ofthe proletariat; it unites the efforts of the working massestransforming their struggles for group interests and contin-gent issues into the general struggle for the revolutionaryemancipation of the proletariat. It is up to the Party topropagate revolutionary theory among the masses, to or-ganize the material means of action, to lead the workingclass during its struggle, securing the historical continuityand the international unity of the movement.

5. After it has smashed the power of the capitalistState, the proletariat must completely destroy the oldState apparatus in order to organize itself as the rulingclass and set up its own dictatorship; meanwhile depriv-ing the bourgeoisie and members of the bourgeois classof all political rights and functions as long as they sur-vive socially,founding the organs of the new regimeexclusively on the productive class. Such is the programthat the Communist Party sets itself and which charac-terizes it. It is this party therefore which exclusivelyrepresents, organizes and directs the proletarian dicta-torship. The requisite defence of the proletarian stateagainst all counter-revolutionary initiatives can only beassured by depriving the bourgeoisie and parties whichare enemies of the proletarian dictatorship of all meansof agitation and political propaganda and by equippingthe proletariat with an armed organization in order torepel all interior and exterior attacks.

6. Only the force of the proletarian State will be able tosystematically put into effect the necessary measures forintervening in the relations of the social economy, by meansof which the collective administration of production anddistribution will take the place of the capitalist system.

7. This transformation of the economy and conse-quently of the whole social life will lead to the gradualelimination of the necessity for the political State, whichwill progressively give way to the rational administra-tion of human activities.

* * *

Faced with the situation in the capitalist world and theworkers’ movement following the Second World War theposition of the Party is the following :

8. In the course of the first half of the twentieth centurythe capitalist social system has been developing, in theeconomic field, creating monopolistic trusts among the

employers, and trying to control and manage productionand exchange according to central plans with State man-agement of whole sectors of production. In the politicalfield, there has been an increase of the police and militarypotential of the State, with governments adopting a moretotalitarian form. All these are neither new sorts of socialorganizations in transition from capitalism to socialism,nor revivals of pre-bourgeois political regimes. On thecontrary, they are definite forms of a more and more directand exclusive management of power and the State by themost developed forces of capital.

This course excludes the progressive, pacifist interpre-tations of the evolution of the bourgeois regime, and con-firms the Marxist prevision of the concentration and theantagonistic array of class forces. So that the proletariatmay confront its enemies’ growing potential with strength-ened revolutionary energy, it must reject the illusory reviv-al of democratic liberalism and constitutional guarantees.The Party must not even accept this as a means of agita-tion ; it must finish historically once and for all with thepractice of alliances, even for transitory issues, with thebourgeois or petit-bourgeois parties, or with pseudo-work-ers’ parties with a reformist program.

9. The global imperialist wars show that the crisis ofdisintegration of capitalism is inevitable because it hasentered the phase when its expansion, instead of signify-ing a continual increment of the productive forces, is con-ditioned by repeated and ever-growing destruction. Thesewars have caused repeated deep crises in the global work-ers’ organizations because the dominant classes couldimpose on them military and national solidarity with one orthe other of the belligerents. The opposing historical solu-tion for which we fight, is the awakening of the classstruggle, leading to civil war, the destruction of all interna-tional coalitions by the reconstitution of the InternationalCommunist Party as an autonomous force independent ofany existing political or military power.

10.The proletarian State, to the extent that its appara-tus is an instrument and a weapon of struggle in a histor-ical epoch of transition does not derive its organizationalstrength from constitutional rules nor from representa-tive schemas whatsoever.The most complete historicalexample of such a State up to the present is that of theSoviets (workers’ councils) which were created duringthe October 1917 revolution, when the working classarmed itself under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party.The Constituent Assembly having been dissolved, theybecame the exclusive organs of power repelling the at-tacks by foreign bourgeois governments and, inside thecountry, stamping out the rebellion of the vanquishedclasses and of the middle and petit-bourgeois layers andof the opportunist parties which, in the decisive phases,are inevitably allied with the counter-revolution

11. The defense of the proletarian regime against thedangers of degeneration inherent in the failures and pos-sible retreats in the work of economic and social transfor-mation – whose integral realization is inconceivable withinthe limits of only one country – can only be assured by theconstant coordination between the policy the workers’State and the united international struggle, incessant intimes of peace as in times of war, of the proletariat of eachcountry against its bourgeoisie and its State and militaryapparatus.This co-ordination can only be secured bymeans of the political and programmatic control of theworld communist party over the State apparatus where theworking class has seized power.

Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1 · Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1...

Documents

Transcript of Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1 · Proletarian No 13 / Autumn-Winter 2016 1...