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Editorial: Why North Korea Needs Nuclear Weapons

By Stephen Gowans

Is North Korea’s recent nuclear test, its third, to be welcomed, lamented or condemned? It depends on your perspective. If you believe that a people should be able to organize their affairs free from foreign domination and interference; that the United States and its client government in Seoul have denied Koreans in the south that right and seek to deny Koreans in the north the same right; and that the best chance that Koreans in the north have for preserving their sovereignty is to build nuclear weapons to deter a US military conquest, then the test is to be welcomed.

If you’re a liberal, you might believe that the United States should offer the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name) security guarantees in return for Pyongyang completely, permanently and verifiably eliminating its nuclear weapons program. If so, your position invites three questions.

• Contrary to the febrile rhetoric of high US officials, the United States is not threatened by North Korea. North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability is a defensive threat alone. The DPRK’s leaders are not unaware that a first-strike nuclear attack would trigger an overwhelming US nuclear retaliatory strike, which, as then US president Bill Clinton once warned, “would mean the end of their country as we know it”. Since a North Korean first-strike would be suicidal (and this is not lost on the North Korean leadership), whether Pyongyang has or doesn’t have nuclear weapons makes little difference to US national security. What, then, would motivate Washington to offer genuine security guarantees? It can’t be argued that US national security considerations form the basis of the guarantees, since the threat to the United States of a nuclear-armed North Korea is about the same as a disarmed North Korea—approximately zero.

• How credible could any security guarantee be, in light of the reality that since 1945 Washington has invested significant blood and treasure in eliminating all expressions of communism and anti-imperialism on the Korean peninsula. The argument that the United States could issue genuine security guarantees would have to explain what had transpired to bring about a radical qualitative shift in US policy from attempting to eliminate communism in Korea to détente with it.

• Why is it incumbent on North Korea alone to disarm? Why not the United States too?

The conservative view, on which I shall not tarry, is simple. Anything North Korea does, except surrender, is blameworthy.

Finally, you might lament Pyongyang’s nuclear test for running counter to nuclear non-proliferation, invoking the fear that growth in the number of countries with nuclear weapons increases the risk of war. But this view crumbles under scrutiny. The elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq didn’t reduce the chances of US military intervention in that country—it increased them. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s voluntary elimination of his WMD didn’t prevent a NATO assault on Libya—it cleared the way for it. The disarming of countries that deny the US ruling class access to markets, natural resources, and investment opportunities, in order to use these for their own development, doesn’t reduce the risk of wars of conquest—it makes them all the more certain.

The radical view locates the cause of wars of conquest since the rise of capitalism in the drive for profits. This compulsion chases the goods, services and capital of corporate-dominated societies over the face of the globe to settle everywhere, nestle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere, irrespective of the wishes, interests, development needs and welfare of the natives. If territories aren’t voluntarily opened to capital penetration through trade and investment agreements, their doors are battered down by the Pentagon, the enforcer of last resort of a world economic order supporting, as its first commitment, the profit-making interests of the US ruling class.

Background

Because North Korea has long been vilified and condemned by the Western press as bellicose, provocative and unpredictable, it’s difficult to cut through the fog of vituperation that obscures any kind of dispassionate understanding of the country to grasp that the DPRK represents something praiseworthy: a tradition of struggle against oppression and foreign domination, rooted in the experience of a majority of Koreans dating back to the end of WWII and the period of Japanese colonial rule. This tradition found expression in the Korean People’s Republic, a national government, created by, for, and of Koreans, that was already in place when US troops landed at Inchon in September, 1945. The new government was comprised of leftists who had won the backing of the majority, partly because they had led the struggle against Japan’s colonial occupation, and partly because they promised relief from exploitation by landlords and capitalists. The USSR, which occupied the north of the country until 1948, worked with the KPR in its occupation zone, but the United States suppressed the KPR in the south, worked to exterminate leftist forces in its zone, and backed conservatives reviled by Koreans for their oppressions and collaboration with the Japanese. By 1948, the peninsula was divided between a northern government led by guerrillas and activists who fought to liberate Korea from Japanese rule, and a southern government led by a US-installed anti-communist backed by conservatives tainted by collaboration with colonial oppression. For the next 65 years, the essential character of the competing regimes has remained the same. Park Geun-hye, the incoming South Korean president is the daughter of a former president, Park Chung-hee, who came to power in a military coup in 1961. The elder Park had served in the Japanese Imperial Army. Kim Il Sung, grandfather of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-eun, was an important guerrilla leader who, unlike the collaborator Park, fought, rather than served, the Japanese. The North represents the traditions of struggle against foreign domination, both political and economic, while the South represents the tradition of submission to and collaboration with a foreign hegemon. Significantly, there are no foreign troops stationed in North Korea, but are in South Korea. North Korean troops have never fought abroad, but South Korea’s have, odiously in Vietnam, in return for infusions of mercenary lucre from the Americans, and later in Iraq. As regards repression, South Korea’s authoritarianism on behalf of rightist causes is long and enduring, typified in the virulently anti-communist National Security Law, which metes out harsh punishment to anyone who so much as publicly utters a kind word about North Korea. The South Korean police state also blocks access to pro-North Korean websites, bans books, including volumes by Noam Chomsky and heterodox (though pro-capitalist) economist Ha Joon-chang, and imprisons anyone who travels to the North.

Pressure

Since the Korean War the United States and South Korea have maintained unceasing pressure on North Korea through subversion, espionage, propaganda, economic warfare and threats of nuclear attack and military invasion. Low-intensity warfare sets as its ultimate objective the collapse of the North Korean government. Unremitting military pressure forces Pyongyang to maintain punishingly high expenditures on defense (formalized in the country’s Songun, or “army first” policy). Massive defense expenditures divert critical resources from the civilian economy, retarding economic growth. At the same time, trade and financial sanctions heap further harm on the economy. Economic dislocations disrupt food supplies, make life harsh for many North Koreans, and breed discontent. Discontent in turn engenders political opposition, which is beaten back and contained by measures of repression and restriction of civic and political liberties. In response, Washington disingenuously deplores Pyongyang’s military expenditures at a time North Koreans “are starving”; denounces Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program as a “provocation” (rather than a defense against US military threat); dishonestly attributes the country’s economic difficulties to allegedly inherent weaknesses in public ownership and central planning (rather than sanctions and financial strangulation); and chastises the DPRK for its repressive measures to check dissent (ultimately traceable to US pressures.) In other words, the regrettable features of North Korea that Washington highlights to demonize and discredit the DPRK are the consequences, not the causes, of US North Korea policy. To view US policy as a reaction to the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program, economic difficulties, and repressions is to get the causal direction wrong.

US foreign policy

US foreign policy aims to secure and defend access to foreign markets, natural resources and investment opportunities and deny communists and nationalists control because access might be blocked, limited or freighted with social welfare and domestic development considerations.

As a general rule, the American government’s attitude to governments in the Third World …depends very largely on the degree to which these governments favour American free enterprise in their countries or are likely to favour it in the future…In this perspective, the supreme evil is obviously the assumption of power by governments whose main purpose is precisely to abolish private ownership and private enterprise…Such governments are profoundly objectionable not only because their actions profoundly affect foreign-owned interests and enterprises or because they render future capitalist implantation impossible [but also] because the withdrawal of any country from the world system of capitalist enterprise is seen as constituting a weakening of that system and as providing encouragement to further dissidence and withdrawal. [1]

North Korea is one of the few countries left that commits “the supreme evil.” Allowed to develop in peace, unimpeded by military pressure and economic warfare, it might become an inspiration for other countries to follow. From the perspective of the US ruling class, the United States’ North Korea policy must have one overarching objective: the DPRK’s demise. Asked by The New York Times to explain the aim of US policy on North Korea, then US under secretary of state for arms control John Bolton “strode over to a bookshelf, pulled off a volume and slapped it on the table. It was called ‘The End of North Korea.’” “‘That,’ he said, ‘is our policy.’” [2]

On top of profit-making goals, and crippling North Korea economically, politically and socially to prevent its emergence as an inspiring example to other countries, Washington seeks to maintain access to its strategic position on a peninsula whose proximity to China and Russia provides a forward operating base from which to pressure these two significant obstacles to the United States’ complete domination of the globe.

Threats of nuclear war

According to declassified and other US government documents, some released on the 60th-anniversary of the Korean War, from “the 1950s’ Pentagon to today’s Obama administration, the United States has repeatedly pondered, planned and threatened the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea.” [3] These documents, along with the public statements of senior US officials, point to an ongoing pattern of US nuclear intimidation of the DPRK.

• The United States introduced nuclear weapons to the Korean peninsula as early as 1950. [4]

• During the Korean War, US president Harry Truman announced that the use of nuclear weapons was under active consideration; US Air Force bombers flew nuclear rehearsal runs over Pyongyang; and US commander General Douglas MacArthur planned to drop 30 to 50 atomic bombs across the northern neck of the Korean peninsula to block Chinese intervention. [5]

• In the late 1960s, nuclear-armed US warplanes were maintained on 15-minute alert to strike North Korea. [6]

• In 1975, US defense secretary James Schlesinger acknowledged for the first time that US nuclear weapons were deployed in South Korea. Addressing the North Koreans, he warned, “I do not think it would be wise to test (US) reactions.” [7]

• In February 1993, Lee Butler, head of the US Strategic Command, announced the United States was retargeting hydrogen bombs aimed at the old USSR on North Korea (and other targets.) One month later, North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. [8]

• On July 22, 1993, US president Bill Clinton said if North Korea developed and used nuclear weapons “we would quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate. It would mean the end of their country as we know it.” [9]

• In 1995, Colin Powell, who had served as chairman of the US joints chiefs of staff and would later serve as US secretary of state, warned the North Koreans that the United States had the means to turn their country into “a charcoal briquette.” [10]

• Following North Korea’s first nuclear test on October 9, 2006, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice reminded North Korea that “the United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range—and I underscore full range of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan [emphasis added].” [11]

• In April 2010, US defense secretary Leon Panetta refused to rule out a US nuclear attack on North Korea, saying, “all options are on the table.” [12]

• On February 13, 2013, Panetta described North Korea as “a threat to the United States, to regional stability, and to global security.” He added: “Make no mistake. The US military will take all necessary steps to meet our security commitments to the Republic of Korea and to our regional allies [emphasis added].” [13]

As the North Koreans put it, “no nation in the world has been exposed to the nuclear threat so directly and for so long as the Koreans.”[14]

“For over half a century since early in the 1950s, the US has turned South Korea into the biggest nuclear arsenal in the Far East, gravely threatening the DPRK through ceaseless manoeuvres for a nuclear war. It has worked hard to deprive the DPRK of its sovereignty and its right to exist and develop….thereby doing tremendous damage to its socialist economic construction and the improvement of the standard of people’s living.” [15]

Economic warfare

The breadth and depth of US economic warfare against North Korea can be summed up in two sentences:

• North Korea is “the most sanctioned nation in the world” — George W. Bush. [16]

• …”there are few sanctions left to apply.” – The New York Times [17]

From the moment it imposed a total embargo on exports to North Korea three days after the Korean War began in June 1950, the United States has maintained an uninterrupted regimen of economic, financial, and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea. These include:

o Limits on the export of goods and services.
o Prohibition of most foreign aid and agricultural sales.
o A ban on Export-Import Bank funding.
o Denial of favourable trade terms.
o Prohibition of imports from North Korea.
o Blocking of any loan or funding through international financial institutions.
o Limits on export licensing of food and medicine for export to North Korea.
o A ban on government financing of food and medicine exports to North Korea.
o Prohibition on import and export transactions related to transportation.
o A ban on dual-use exports (i.e., civilian goods that could be adapted to military purposes.)
o Prohibition on certain commercial banking transactions. [18]

In recent years, US sanctions have been complemented by “efforts to freeze assets and cut off financial flows” [19] by blocking banks that deal with North Korean companies from access to the US banking system. The intended effect is to make North Korea a banking pariah that no bank in the world will touch. Former US president George W. Bush was “determined to squeeze North Korea with every financial sanction possible” until its economy collapsed. [20] The Obama administration has not departed from the Bush policies.

Washington has also acted to sharpen the bite of sanctions, pressing other countries to join its campaign of economic warfare against a country it faults for maintaining a Marxist-Leninist system and non-market economy. [21] This has included the sponsoring of a United Nations Security Council resolution compelling all nations to refrain for exporting dual-use items to North Korea (a repeat of the sanctions regime that led to the crumbling of Iraq’s healthcare system in the 1990s.) Washington has even gone so far as to pressure China (unsuccessfully) to cut off North Korea’s supply of oil. [22]

Drawing the appropriate lesson

On the day Baghdad fell to invading US forces, John Bolton warned Iran, Syria and North Korea to “draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq.” [23] There can be no doubt that Pyongyang drew a lesson, though not the one Bolton intended. The North Koreans did not conclude, as Bolton hoped, that peace and security could be achieved by relinquishing WMDs. Instead, the North Koreans couldn’t fail to grasp the real lesson of the US assault on Iraq. The United States had invaded Iraq only after Saddam Hussein had cleared the way by complying with US demands to destroy his weapons of mass destruction. Had he actually retained the weapons he was falsely accused of hiding and holding in reserve, the Americans would likely have never attacked.

Subsequent events in Libya have only reinforced the lesson. Muammar Gaddafi had developed his own WMD program to protect Libya from Western military intervention. But Gaddafi also faced an internal threat—Islamists, including jihadists linked to Al Qaeda, who sought to overthrow him to create an Islamist society in Libya. After 9/11, with the United States setting out to crush Al Qaeda, Gaddafi sought a rapprochement with the West, becoming an ally in the international battle against Al Qaeda, to more effectively deal with his own Islamist enemies at home. The price of being invited into the fold was to abandon his weapons of mass destruction. When Gaddafi agreed to this condition he made a fatal strategic blunder. An economic nationalist, Gaddafi irritated Western oil companies and investors by insisting on serving Libyan interests ahead of the oil companies’ profits and investors’ returns. Fed up with his nationalist obstructions, NATO teamed up with Gaddafi’s Islamist enemies to oust and kill the Libyan leader. Had he not surrendered his WMDs, Gaddafi would likely still be playing a lead role in Libya. “Who would have dared deal with Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein if they had a nuclear capability?” asks Major General Amir Eshel, chief of the Israeli army’s planning division. “No way.” [24]

Having unilaterally disarmed, Gaddafi was hailed in Western capitals, and world leaders hastened to Tripoli to sign commercial agreements with him. Among Gaddafi’s visitors was the South Korean minister of foreign affairs, and Ban Ki-moon, later to become the UN secretary general. Both men urged the “rehabilitated” Libyan leader to persuade the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons. [25] Whether Gaddafi acceded to the Koreans’ request is unclear, but if he did, his advice was wisely ignored. In the North Korean view, Gaddafi fell prey to a “bait and switch.” The lesson the DPRK drew from Libya was that the only guarantee of peace on the Korean peninsula is a powerful military, backed by nuclear weapons. [26]

This is neither an irrational view, nor one the West, for all its pieties about nuclear non-proliferation (for others), rejects for itself. Britain, for example, justifies its own nuclear weapons program with reference to the need “to deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression against our vital interests that cannot be countered by other means.” [27] If the UK requires nuclear weapons to deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression, then surely the North Koreans—long on the receiving end of these minatory pressures—do as well. Indeed, the case can be made that the North Koreans have a greater need for nuclear arms than the British do, for whom nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression are only hypotheticals.

General Kevin P. Chilton, head of the US Strategic Command from 2007 to 2011, told Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus in 2010 that, “Throughout the 65-year history of nuclear weapons, no nuclear power has been conquered or even put at risk of conquest.” [28] On the other hand, countries that comply with demands to abandon their WMDs soon find themselves conquered, by countries with nuclear weapons aplenty and no intention of giving them up. Pincus used Chilton’s words to advocate a pre-emptive strike on North Korea to prevent the country from developing a large enough nuclear arsenal to make itself invulnerable to conquest. That no nuclear power has been conquered or put at risk of conquest is “a thought others in government ought to ponder as they watch Iran and North Korea seek to develop nuclear capability,” Pincus wrote. [29]

Conclusion

Nuclear arms have political utility. For countries with formidable nuclear arsenals and the means of delivering warheads, nuclear weapons can be used to extort political concessions from non-nuclear-armed states through terror and intimidation. No country exploits the political utility of nuclear weapons as vigorously as the United States does. In pursuing its foreign policy goals, Washington threatened other countries with nuclear attack on 25 separate occasions between 1970 and 2010, and 14 occasions between 1990 and 2010. On six of these occasions, the United States threatened the DPRK. [30] There have been more US threats against North Korea since. (The United States’ record of issuing threats of nuclear attack against other countries over this period is: Iraq, 7; China, 4; the USSR, 4; Libya, 2; Iran, 1; Syria, 1. Significantly, all these countries, like the DPRK, were under communist or economically nationalist governance when the threats were made.)

Nuclear weapons also have political utility for countries menaced by nuclear and other military threats. They raise the stakes for countries seeking to use their militaries for conquest, and therefore reduce the chances of military intervention. There is little doubt that the US military intervention in Iraq and NATO intervention in Libya would not have been carried out had the targets not disarmed and cleared the way for outside forces to intervene with impunity.

A North Korean nuclear arsenal does not increase the chances of war—it reduces the likelihood that the United States and its South Korean marionette will attempt to bring down the communist government in Pyongyang by force. This is to be welcomed by anyone who opposes imperialist military interventions; supports the right of a people to organize its affairs free from foreign domination; and has an interest in the survival of one of the few top-to-bottom, actually-existing, alternatives to the global capitalist system of oppression, exploitation, and foreign domination.

1. Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, Merlin Press, 2009, p. 62.

2. “Absent from the Korea Talks: Bush’s Hard-Liner,” The New York Times, September 2, 2003.

3. Charles J. Hanley and Randy Hershaft, “U.S. often weighed N. Korea nuke option”, The Associated Press, October 11, 2010.

4. Hanley and Hershaft.

5. Hanley and Hershaft.

6. Hanley and Hershaft.

7. Hanley and Hershaft.

8. Bruce Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History, W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. p. 488-489.

9. William E. Berry Jr., “North Korea’s nuclear program: The Clinton administration’s response,” INSS Occasional Paper 3, March 1995.

10. Bruce Cumings, “Latest North Korean provocations stem from missed US opportunities for demilitarization,” Democracy Now!, May 29, 2009.

11. Lou Dobbs Tonight, October 18, 2006.

12. Hanley and Hershaft.

13. Choe Sang-hun, “New leader in South criticizes North Korea,” The New York Times, February 13, 2013.

14. “Foreign ministry issues memorandum on N-issue,” Korean Central News Agency, April 21, 2010.

15. Korean Central News Agency, February 13, 2013.

16. U.S. News & World Report, June 26, 2008; The New York Times, July 6, 2008.

17. Neil MacFarquhar and Jane Perlez, “China looms over response to nuclear test by North Korea,” The New York Times, February 12, 2013.

18. Dianne E. Rennack, “North Korea: Economic sanctions”, Congressional Research Service, October 17, 2006.http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl31696.pdf

19. Mark Landler, “Envoy to coordinate North Korea sanctions”, The New York Times, June 27, 2009.

20. The New York Times, September 13, 2006.

21. According to Rennack, the following US sanctions have been imposed on North Korea for reasons listed as either “communism”, “non-market economy” or “communism and market disruption”: prohibition on foreign aid; prohibition on Export-Import Bank funding; limits on the exports or goods and services; denial of favorable trade terms.

22. The Washington Post, June 24, 2005.

23. “U.S. Tells Iran, Syria, N. Korea ‘Learn from Iraq,” Reuters, April 9, 2003.

24. Ethan Bronner, “Israel sense bluffing in Iran’s threats of retaliation”, The New York Times, January 26, 2012.

25. Chosun Ilbo, February 14, 2005.

26. Mark McDonald, “North Korea suggests Libya should have kept nuclear program”, The New York Times, March 24, 2011.

A February 21, 2013 comment by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (“Nuclear test part of DPRK’s substantial countermeasures to defend its sovereignty”) noted that,

“The tragic consequences in those countries which abandoned halfway their nuclear programs, yielding to the high-handed practices and pressure of the U.S. in recent years, clearly prove that the DPRK was very far-sighted and just when it made the option. They also teach the truth that the U.S. nuclear blackmail should be countered with substantial countermeasures, not with compromise or retreat.”

An article in the February 22, 2013 issue of Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers Party (“Gone are the days of US nuclear blackmail”) observed that “Had it not been the nuclear deterrence of our own, the U.S. would have already launched a war on the peninsula as it had done in Iraq and Libya and plunged it into a sorry plight as the Balkan at the end of last century and Afghanistan early in this century.”

27. http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/AC00DD79-76D6-4FE3-91A1-6A56B03C092F/0/DefenceWhitePaper2006_Cm6994.pdf

28. Quoted in Walter Pincus, “As missions are added, Stratcom commander keeps focus on deterrence,” The Washington Post, March 30, 2010.

29. Pincus.

30. Samuel Black, “The changing political utility of nuclear weapons: Nuclear threats from 1970 to 2010,” The Stimson Center, August 2010, http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/Nuclear_Final.pdf

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Categories China, Colonialism, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Editorials, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Republic of Korea, Revolutionary History, Russia, Soviet Union (USSR), Syria, United Kingdom, United States History, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Why Socialism?

16 Apr

by J. Bialek

The spectre which once haunted Europe long ago in 1848, materialized in corporeal form in 1917 and was seemingly exorcized in 1991 has returned in force. This time the “spectre of communism” is haunting the entire world. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Manifesto of the Communist Party, also called The Communist Manifesto, in order to explain to the population at large the general beliefs of communists, and to differentiate communists from liberals and other social movements which existed during that revolutionary era.

Today it cannot be denied that we are once again living in a revolutionary era. As capitalism continues to degenerate, demonstrating with each passing day that it has outlived its usefulness to the vast majority of humankind, we see violent explosions of popular rage, ranging from peaceful demonstrations to chaotic riots. The ruling class and its “free” press would have us believe that even in these dark times progress is being made. We have the Arab Spring, a series of revolutions supposedly made possible thanks to the help of the Western-developed Twitter and Facebook. The Occupy protests, which complained of a media blackout during its infancy, soon managed to capture the attention of the world and to make its mark on the year 2011. As the media would have it, all that is necessary to solve the ills of the world are “democratic” revolutions in certain countries such as Egypt, but not in others such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or Yemen, and of course maybe a little more participation for “the little guy” in American politics. While the press has in recent years admitted that there are some flaws in the global economic system, those who have been paying attention since the start of this crisis might have noticed an explosion of increasingly shrill anti-communist propaganda.

The renewed interest in Marx and his theories, along with a rising tide of dissatisfaction and nostalgia for pre-1989 life within the former Eastern Bloc nations and the ex-U.S.S.R., has clearly sent chills down the spines of Europe’s elite. Their message could not be more clear. On one hand the media concedes that something is broken with the capitalist system, but on the other hand it warns the working class not to consider alternatives to capitalism. They are once again trying to exorcize this spectre that is haunting them, and indeed terrifying them; they insist that the working class limit their protests against the system so as to fit within the boundaries established by the ruling class. For them the greatest tragedy would be the rejection of the slogan that there is no alternative to capitalism and the assumption that mankind has reached its peak of societal evolution in the system of free markets and commodity trading. So here we are again, so far from 1848, and communists are again compelled to disclose their ideas and distinguish themselves from all other factions who claim to have a solution to our present crisis.

In these times of crisis it comes as no surprise that working people find themselves faced by a large number of proselytizers from a wide spectrum of ideological backgrounds preaching the superiority and explanatory power of their ideas. Each has an explanation as to why we are in this crisis today and a set of proposals which can supposedly solve the problem. In this marketplace of ideas, Marxists cannot pretend as though we sit above the fray, treating our theory as some kind of esoteric revealed knowledge in a manner similar to many of those aforementioned ideologues. We have an explanation, a theory, but what sets us apart is not simply our assertion that these are true, but rather that what we are truly offering is not so much a set of pre-packaged answers which constitute some kind of universal truth, but rather a methodology of analysis which allows people to find what can reasonably be judged as true. This is not to state that we do not believe in the correctness of our theories, but that Marxism is a living theory to which we add our observations and experiences year after year, rejecting that which has been found to be no longer accurate and adopting that which is relevant and observable.

Other ideologies will claim that our problems stem from lack of regulation, too much regulation, the Federal Reserve, hierarchical authority, the Illuminati, the breakdown of the family, “multiculturalism” and a whole host of other scapegoats either real or imagined. By contrast, while Marxist analysis has identified certain laws or truth about the history of human society and the capitalist system, it is up to us in modern times to apply this analysis to our changing world, and to come up with answers based on our analysis rather than simply accepting some alleged axioms and then setting about to envision our ideal world. In this sense, Marxism does not reject all ideas outside of itself; in fact it does acknowledge the validity of many other ideas or concepts. However, Marxists see in many of these other ideological strains the neglect, either by accident or design, of certain factors which, without being accounted for, cause these other ideological analyses to be lacking and one-sided.

If we consider as an example neo-classical or “mainstream” economics, we cannot fault its proponents for ignoring class struggle, denying the existence of exploitation, and not dealing with the question of creating a more egalitarian, just society. Neo-classical economics was never intended to deal with these matters, and indeed, a common answer to questions about inequality and social injustice under capitalism is that these problems are outside the realm of economics, which of course means neo-classical economics, and that these are issues for sociologists to discuss. Marxism, on the other hand, sees all things in the world as being interrelated; any effect can have potentially infinite causes and any cause can have potentially infinite effects. This is important to keep in mind when one encounters a common straw man argument against Marxism, such as the claim that Marxism is “economic determinism,” or that Marxism sees class struggle as the main focal point of all human history. Marxism sees many factors influencing human society. On the other hand, class has been, via observation of history, a crucial factor in understanding inequality within society, and thus if one wants to change society in order to eliminate inequality and exploitation, Marxist theory says we must take this into account as a crucial factor. Of course, if one is not interested in changing society in such a way that deals with these problems, then class isn’t so important. Every individual who professes a political ideology insists that they want a more just society, but justice to the worker differs greatly from the justice of the owners of capital.

For the sake of argument, let us assume a position that declares the world as it is to be unjust, and in need of a significant change. From this starting point, let us now deal with the questions, “Why socialism? Why do we need revolution and why can’t we do something else?” For practical purposes this text will deal primarily with “left-wing” objections to socialism under the assumption that bearers of such arguments are at least sympathetic to ideals such as social justice and equality. However, while they really deserve to be dealt with in separate articles, we will have a look at some objections coming from the right and even the far-right. Right-wing reactionaries have a history of clothing their arguments in populist language so as to propagate their message among otherwise unsuspecting people who would never give them the time of day if they knew exactly who they were dealing with.

A word of caution – the reader should not assume that what follows is a false dichotomy insisting that Marxism is the only path out of the current crisis. Crisis is both inherent and cyclical in capitalism, and thus we can assume that the current crisis will eventually work itself out. This process may be violent, and in the end yesterday’s winners may be tomorrow’s losers, but the system will go on. It is important to understand that a system’s ability to perpetuate itself isn’t necessarily a merit; it only means that humans simply do not give up and resign control over their society. What this text argues is not simply “socialism or else,” but rather that while other solutions may have progressive and positive outcomes, so long as capitalism and its core contradictions are not dealt with these same painful effects will only return a few years down the road. Furthermore, these ad hoc solutions will not resolve some of capitalism’s cruelest effects such as starvation, war, imperialism, death due to preventable diseases, and the like. The second thing this text will not attempt to do is try to play a logical game so as to lead the reader to the idea that Marxism is “right” based on formal reason alone. If one does not see inequality or exploitation as morally wrong or at worst a necessary evil, no amount of logical arguments can convince them that socialist revolution is necessary. Logic dictates that those who stand to benefit from the system as it is are likely to defend it.

Why do we need revolution? Why can’t we fix the problem through the electoral system? You have to work within the system to make changes otherwise you’re just a dreamer who’s wasting everyone’s time.

Here we have typical arguments from lifelong supporters of the Democratic Party. They acknowledge that they too are disappointed in their hero Obama, but they warn us that things will be much worse under a Republican president. When we express our disapproval of Obama, they accuse us of being dreamers and spoiled children who are now throwing a fit because we didn’t get everything we wanted from the president. Communists find this argument somewhat amusing, seeing as how we never expected anything from Barack Obama. Communists do not see Obama in a vacuum, but rather as part of a clear and obvious rightward trend within the Democratic Party. The truth about “what Obama has done so far” is not a matter for this article. Media outlets such as the outstanding Black Agenda Report have easily cut through the excuses and lies of Obama and his party lackeys. For those pressed for time, sites like obamatheconservative.com catalogue nearly every hard right turn this supposedly “progressive” president has made, complete with sources for each item. Mainstream leftists often label Obama’s compromises with the radical right as “disappointments” at best and “betrayals” at worst. To communists on the other hand, everything is going as intended, not because these actions are part of some secret plan, but because the state is merely carrying out the very function it was designed to do. In other words, our opposition to supporting Obama has nothing to do with Obama himself; it is in fact opposition to voting for anybody. The state is designed to provide a foundation for a capitalist society, and however much “freedom” it may permit in its best moments, it will never permit the freedom to abolish capitalism and its relations of production. The system is meant to self-perpetuate, and the system inevitably favors the wealthy.

To some this might sound like political cynicism, but this is a readily observable fact throughout history. Let us first consider the remedies that liberals have offered us thus far in the endeavor to limit the influence of wealth in American society. Some demands will simply never be fulfilled. Congressmen are not going to consciously eliminate their own perks, including those which they gain from courting lobbyists both when they are in office and after they leave or retire from public service. The idea that politicians can be convinced to give up the vast privileges they gain from their relations with corporations and lobbyists simply based on an appeal to their conscience about “fairness” is simply laughable, and even more so when it comes from the mouth of an Obama supporter who chides leftists for not being realistic.

What of regulation, which will supposedly keep banks and corporations in line? Any attempt to pass such regulation through Congress will inevitably be met with a massive blitzkrieg by lobbyists, but for the sake of argument let’s say they somehow pass. What comes next? The advocates of regulation are fond of referring back to some earlier period in American history when various regulations of industry and banking still existed. The massive trend of deregulation since the 1980s is responsible for our problems, these people say. In this case we are forced to ask, if regulations can solve our economic problems, how did this deregulation take place to begin with? Perhaps more importantly, what will ensure that the new regulations won’t be overturned ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road? How can we be sure the exact same thing won’t happen again? As to why the regulations failed, we are again faced with the reality that the republican system we live under in the United States of America favors those with money, which inevitably means corporations and wealthy individuals. It cannot do otherwise. Some have suggested measures such as ending corporate personhood, but this is about as realistic as limiting or abolishing access for lobbyists. The politicians are not going to cut their own throats.

There are some on the so-called “left” who accuse us of being unrealistic, overly-cynical, and counter-productive by not working within the system. We are accused of wanting our way or no way, and that if we were really serious about change we would participate in the political process and then perhaps we would get the change we wanted, if only incrementally. First, the change we seek is radical; it is revolutionary and not a matter of reforms. Does this mean that we totally reject any participation in the political system as it is, or that we reject any reform in favor of total revolution? Absolutely not; every reform that the working class can squeeze out of the state for their benefit is a small victory. On the other hand, we will not cede massive ground to the right in exchange for a few crumbs from the table, nor will we line up to support candidates that do not represent our interests. To those who say we should stop complaining and vote “our people” into office, we may respond thusly: we would happily cast our vote for “our people,” that is candidates who represent our working class interests, but we will not vote your people into office. Moreover, if we somehow manage to find “our people” to vote for, we will reject all your attempts to blame us for the failure of your people if they should fail. You cannot accuse us of being unrealistic contrarians for not using the choices we supposedly have, and then condemn us when our choice differs from yours.

Getting to the bottom line, we must acknowledge that if we dare to say our problems stem from capitalism, as an increasingly larger segment of mainstream liberals and “leftists” are, we must set about finding a way to abolish capitalism, the root of the problem. By extension, we cannot expect to abolish capitalism via the very same state structure which serves as its foundation and defense. On this point we must agree with the anarchists who say “smash the state.” Politics can be likened to a sort of game, wherein players are permitted to make various decisions and perform actions so long as they do not violate the rules of the game. You can make many moves in chess but you cannot substitute its rules for those of another game, and you must make your moves on the chessboard. If for any reason we can achieve meaningful goals within the rules of the game, we will happily use these opportunities so long as they do not compromise our end goals. What we will not do, is accept the assumption that the game cannot be changed entirely and that we must forever struggle to achieve our gains within the confines of a system which is stacked against us.

Why can’t we fix capitalism? Can we not eliminate the negative effects of capitalism while keeping its benefits?

This is a relatively easy question, which has been somewhat answered in the previous section. However, it is worth taking a closer look at this argument because one can propose a radical change in government without necessarily eliminating capitalism and its trappings, or as we call them, its relations of production. Here we won’t bother debunking the efficacy of reforms or regulations, but rather we will pose a question ourselves, along with a novel answer. People have been working against the ills of capitalism ever since its emergence in human society, yet to this day we still experience the same problems, oftentimes on a worse scale than before. Awareness of poverty, super-exploitation of workers in developing countries, and even modern-day slavery is higher today than it was in previous decades, but has any of this actually solved these problems? It is simply untrue that the resources necessary to solve these ills do not exist; rather it is one of capitalism’s hallmarks that resources necessary for life can be created in abundance, yet those who are in charge of their creation will not do so unless it proves profitable to them. In fact “relief” is often itself a very profitable industry, to the point that experienced relief workers often warn donors to carefully evaluate charity organizations before handing over their money. In any case, the solution to these problems lies not in increasing charity, but rather eliminating the conditions which make charity necessary.

Finally on this point, when we speak of eliminating the ills of capitalism while preserving its benefits, we would assert that this does describe socialism to an extent. We seek to create a society in which the great productive power brought into being by capitalism is put to use by the masses, for the benefit of the masses, as opposed to a minority of owners and investors. So long as these means of production are owned by a minority of individuals driven by the quest for profits, this cannot happen. Socialism is a synthesis which arises from the struggle to eliminate the contradictions inherent to capitalism, and when it triumphs, we will ultimately be left with capitalism’s benefits without its disadvantages. This may be a long, arduous process, but we have no reason to assume that it cannot be done. And if our struggle for a better, more just world never achieves our highest ideals, what does it matter so long as we strove to achieve all that we could?

The problem isn’t capitalism! We don’t live in a capitalist society! Our society is corporatist, or even socialist!

This kind of objection is as absurd as it is common in today’s discourse. It has often been propagated by Libertarians (typically followers of the Ron Paul cult), fellow admirers of the Austrian school of economics, and all manner of right-wing populists. We might ignore such absurd claims were they only espoused by such reactionaries, but because of their propensity for attempting to inject their ideas into left-wing movements, and the mainstream left’s susceptibility toward superficially radical attacks on everything “corporate,” we cannot avoid addressing such claims. Granted, this is a subject which demands its own article, and in fact many on this subject already exist. Here we will deal with it for the benefit of an audience which sees itself as left-wing or progressive, and we will do so in an abbreviated manner.

If capitalism is not the system under which we live now, then we must ask not only what capitalism is, but also when it has existed. If one asserts that it has never existed, as a few fanatical libertarians will occasionally admit under pressure, this is in itself an indictment of capitalism. Who can fault the U.S.S.R. for not achieving communism in seventy years if people have been championing the idea of capitalism for several centuries without ever having established it anywhere? But we need not concern ourselves with this rarer, ludicrous argument. Instead we will deal with the assertion that our modern system has transformed from some kind of “good” capitalism into something more grotesque. This assertion is especially troubling for those progressives and even more “radical” leftists who assert this argument, as it logically implies that there was some better time in the past, which is remarkably similar to the claims of right-wing ideologues.

The corporation, which earns so much hatred from the mainstream left, did not fall out of the sky one morning. It came into being through a natural process of capitalism’s evolution. The claim that our system is different than it was thirty, forty, or fifty years ago, regardless of who is making the argument, is based on a wholly metaphysical view of the world and in particular of capitalism. It presents capitalism as defined by a particular ideal, and then asserts that if reality should differ from this ideal, then reality must then be something other than capitalism. This way of thinking does not allow one to see capitalism as a system which went through changes from its inception to the present day. It is essential to deal with capitalism as it exists today, and as it has existed hitherto, as opposed to some abstract ideal.

In limiting our objections to this argument only as it is asserted by “leftists” as opposed to reactionary free market fanatics, then we find that we have come full circle back to the idea of “fixing capitalism.” To attack corporations and champion small and local business amounts to attacking the weeds without pulling up the roots. Again, these corporations did not fall from the sky one day, fully formed. To deny the connection between small businesses and multi-national corporations is akin to an economic Intelligent Design theory, as though the latter were once called into existence as they appear today. Even small local businesses will put their money into banks which will loan it out all over the country, if not the world. Communists seek not to cut the weeds of capitalism, but rather to uproot it entirely.

Can’t we subvert capitalism by changing our lifestyle and choices as consumers?

From the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s emerged an idea which began as a bastardization of Marxist thought, one that has recently gained popularity again, stripped of any hint of Marxism whatsoever. The gist of this idea goes like this: capitalists and by extension the capitalist system itself are compelled to sell their products in the market, and thus must ensure that consumers will continue to spend money on an ever-increasing array of products. Many of these products are not necessary to human life, and some wholly unnecessary, making it essential to somehow convince people they need such products. The conclusion of these observations is that capitalism requires conformity in order to survive. Via aggressive and seemingly omnipresent advertising, people are encouraged to follow trends and buy what other people are buying. This leads to the rise of what is generally termed “consumerism,” a lust for ever more material goods that always seems to afflict other people, as opposed to the person decrying it.

From this argument it follows that this system can be subverted via a revolt against consumerism, and in particular, the “jamming” of cultural messages which promote this lifestyle, namely advertisements. We allege that these theories are nothing but idealistic nonsense, wholly divorced from even a superficial analysis of how capitalism works. Capitalism does not require that people act alike and have the same tastes; on the contrary, it thrives when people seek to express their individuality via their lifestyle and purchases. There will always be a capitalist willing to fulfill some desire so long as there is profit to be had. Decades of counter-cultural rebellion have failed to put a dent in the capitalist machine, and there is no reason to believe that “fair trade” products, defaced advertisements, and the occasional street rave will succeed at overthrowing capitalism in the future. Moreover, making the struggle against capitalism a matter of purchases is little more than funneling money from big capitalists to small or medium-sized capitalists.

Aren’t you reducing everything down to economics? What about feminism, the struggle for people of color, and so on?

Marxists fight for an egalitarian society which means we fight against racism, xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and all other social ills which create division and conflict within the working class. Despite this, we are still continually accused of reducing all matters to economics or class struggle, which is a woefully bad interpretation of Marxist theory. This accusation comes from a variety of directions but occasionally it is voiced by some die-hard followers of certain identity politics movements. Some, but by no means all or even a majority, put the struggle of their particular group above all others. History has shown identity politics to be largely a failure when it comes to achieving equality, much less overthrowing capitalism and its systematic division and oppression of people based on ethnicity, gender, sex, and so on. While many recognize the role of class in the oppression of their particular group, there are those who prefer to spend their time bickering over redefinitions of what it means to be a part of this or that group, who is more oppressed and how, and tit-for-tat arguments about who is “co-opting” their movement.

Marxists on the other hand recognize a historically observable fact that oppression of women, ideas of race, caste systems, and other forms of systematic oppression are very much rooted in class society. They all serve the purpose of maintaining, in one form or another, a system whereby one class exploits another. We may liken class society to a disease, and things like sexism, racism, and so on represent symptoms of that disease. History has shown that struggles for civil rights and the liberation of women have often failed because they focused on symptoms without having any kind of historical material analysis of that which they were struggling against. In many cases, this often led dedicated fighters into alliances with their class enemies, all in the name of liberation for a particular repressed group. The promised liberation has yet to come. Marxists do not reduce every issue down to class struggle, but if we are analyzing two particular subjects, specifically the history of human society and formulating a way to build a better one, we see that class plays a major role in relation to both.

Of course this should not be taken to mean that problems like racism or patriarchy will simply disappear once the capitalist class is overthrown. Some forms of oppression are quite old; patriarchy, in particular, dates back to the dawn of class-based society. And while a struggle must be waged during and after the revolution to right these wrongs, one thing is clear- we simply cannot ultimately triumph over these social ills until we overthrow that system and its ruling class which has a vested interest in maintaining a complex society of privileges designed to divide the exploited class and incite them against one another. This having been said, Marxists have an obligation to set the standard for the kind of society they wish to live in by waging the day-to-day struggle against forms of oppression such as racism and patriarchy both inside and outside of their organizations and parties. Those who feel that this question can be put off till “after the revolution” are shirking their responsibility and not setting a good example of what could be possible once the system of class-based organization is overthrown.

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Categories Bahrain, Economic Exploitation, Economics, Egypt, Former Eastern Bloc, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Internet, Labor, Media & Culture, Myths About Socialism, Reactionary Watch, Revolutionary History, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Science, Soviet Union (USSR), Theory, Women's Rights, Workers Struggle, World History, Yemen
Author The Red Phoenix

‘New race for colonies begins in Africa’

23 Feb

Earlier this week, France sent its special forces to Cameroon in search of seven French tourists who were kidnapped in the north of the country on Tuesday. Paris accused the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram of being behind the abduction. On Thursday, the kidnapped tourists were reportedly found alive in an abandoned house in Nigeria.

France – whose presence in Africa used to be rather strong – still has several military bases and hundreds of troops on the continent. In the past several years, Paris’ has intensified its activity in former colonies.

First, there was its mission in the Ivory Coast. And in January this year, France launched a military operation in Mali to help the local government fight Islamist rebels. Finally, this week its troops entered northern Cameroon.

RT asked Ken Stone from Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War if French involvement in West Africa has become a trend.

Ken Stone: Yes, I’m afraid so. And the trend is called ‘neo-colonialism.’ It’s a part of the old colonial powers reaching back to Africa for its resources where they used to operate a century ago.

France was the colonial power in West Africa and during its many decades there it literally enslaved the people of West Africa to work in their mines, in their factories and on their plantations. In fact, slavery wasn’t even abolished in Mali until 1905.

After WWII, the colonial powers of Africa were kicked out by national liberation movements which were somehow supported by the former Soviet Union.

However, after the Soviet Union collapsed and the US war on terror began, the former neo-colonial powers were once again flexing their muscles. And they were starting to reach back to Yugoslavia, and to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now into West Africa.

If the main product of Mali, for example, were mushrooms, there would be no French troops there or in Niger. But the main export is uranium. And that’s very important to the French. And that’s why the French are there, that’s why NATO is there, that’s why – unfortunately – Canada is there as well.

I think the main point is this is unfortunately a trend. Like the 19th century race for colonies, we have we have the 21st century race for colonies beginning. That’s a tragic fact.

RT: With militants being active in Algeria, Mali, Nigeria, and Cameroon – what is really happening in West Africa?

KS: It’s a complicated situation. Many of the national boundaries that were drawn by the colonial powers have no parrying at all on the location of the indigenous nations of Africa. So, people are divided on different sides of boundaries. Most people don’t even recognize many of the boundaries in the Saharan region and the sub-Saharan region.

There’s a further problem. The West has introduced Al-Qaeda-type terrorists into Africa where they want them, where they didn’t exist in any significance before. So that has created a can of worms.

The main point though is that the Western powers – the European neo-colonial powers, the US and NATO – have no right to act as the police of the world.

In the 19th century race for colonies, they said that they had the white man’s burden to carry on their shoulders to civilize the people of Africa. In the 21st century they call it the “humanitarian intervention to protect the human’s rights.” Those are both frauds and the Western countries really have absolutely no say in what goes on in West Africa. They should have no say.

RT: What are the chances the special-forces deployment in Cameroon could escalate into a full-scale operation, like in Mali?

KS: It could. But it’s not likely. Ever since their colonial rule ended, the French’s had a policy of ‘force de frappe’ – which is striking force, an expeditionary force, a special force – where they go in and they deal with a certain immediate problem and they leave. They do not have the stomach to maintain an occupation for a long period of time.

The problem for neo-colonial powers like France is that the so-called ‘rebels’ or Jihadists or whoever it may be, merely have to melt into the bush wait and out the expeditionary force. And when the expeditionary force leaves they come right back in. And the problem is that there is no permanent fix to this.

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Categories Afghanistan, Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Colonialism, France, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Soviet Union (USSR), Statements
Author The Red Phoenix

The Rise and Fall of Third Worldism – Part 1

1 Jan

PART ONE: “Two, Three, many Vietnams”: National Liberation and the Rise of the Third World (1945 – 1991)

Asia, Africa and Latin America in the Early Years of the Century

With the exception of Latin America, and several noteworthy cases in Africa and Asia, the pre-1945 history of what came to be known as the “Third World” is overwhelmed by the fact of imperialism. Native voices were silenced and native cultures nearly eradicated.

In Asia, Japan was the only country to industrialize, and thus the only country to emerge as a major player in world affairs. Although at first resistant to Western influences; by the middle of the 19th century Japan had embarked on a major modernization program. Building upon traditional values, Japan built an army and navy powerful enough to challenge Russia over Korea at the turn of the last century; and strong enough to join the British, French, Germans, and Americans in carving out a sphere of influence in China. A hybrid of feudal/warrior institutions and modern technology would characterize Japan throughout most of the 20th century. Some argue that this mixture would enable Japanese economic success.

China, the most populous nation on earth, with a culture going back some 5,000 years, was weak and felt herself victimized by the Great Powers. Unlike Japan, China had not modernized. Chinese institutions had frozen. The Manchu dynasty which had ruled China for some 300 years seemed more interested in maintaining itself in power than in bettering the lot of its people; the majority of whom lived in conditions of appalling poverty. Although there was a strong feeling against foreign domination, which periodically erupted into mass uprisings such as the Boxer Rebellion; China had been effectively divided up amongst the Great Powers, who controlled large areas known as ‘concessions’ where they enjoyed trade monopolies. The corrupt and infirm Manchu dynasty fell underneath its own weight in 1911. The collapse of Manchu rule created a power vacuum which was filled by ambitions local strongmen, the ‘warlords,’ who became a law unto themselves in China’s vast outlying regions and frustrated any attempt at national unification.

Only two nations in Africa escaped colonial rule: Liberia and Ethiopia. Liberia, created by American abolitionists in 1825 as place to which future freed slaves could be “repatriated,” existed as a small anomaly to the general imperialist trend. Ethiopia, the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia, continued as a feudal monarchy surrounded by European protectorates and outright colonies.

Latin America was the great exception. By 1821, most of the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies had become independent states. Most of the 19th Century, in Latin America was consumed by a fierce struggle between traditional elites who favored a continuation of the old colonial plantation system and modernizers who wished to institute capitalist economics and bring in contemporary technologies and ideas. This conflict was further complicated by the beginning of the 20th Century by the active involvement of the United States in the region. Going back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1825, the United States had seen Latin America as its “back yard”; and American investments and interests in Latin America grew exponentially.

In Central America and the Caribbean, the battle between Conservatives (traditionalists) and Liberals (modernizers) lasted, in some case up to the 1930s. The ever increasing US presence stunted indigenous development and encouraged the rise of military dictatorships which maintained a precarious balance between repressing domestic dissent and ensuring continued US support. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, Spanish colonial rule was replaced, in the first instance by an apparent independence masking the reality of outside control, and in the second case, by direct US annexation.

Different scenarios were played out north and south of Central America. To the north, Mexico, which had, shortly after independence, lost much of its territory to the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1842, developed a strong, albeit contradictory state. In 1911, the Mexican Revolution overthrew the 40-year military dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and inaugurated a period of titanic political/economic/social struggle. Populist radical leaders such as Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata vied with conservatives such as Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregon as ad hoc revolutionary armies fought against whom ever happened to constitute the government at the time and each other. Eventually, the radicals were either marginalized or destroyed, and power settled into the hands of a conservative, modernizing elite composed of political strongmen and their followers. This elite held power through the mechanism of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRI oversaw the secularization and modernization of Mexican society. By 1945, Mexico was a contradictory mixture of large cities with modern industries, and a poor, backward countryside; a strong national sense of self, and control by a coterie of politicians and businessmen; an independent foreign policy, and a sharp awareness of the presence of the United States. In one way or another, this pattern would come to characterize not only Mexico, but much of Latin America.

In the south, Brazil and Argentina were becoming industrial power houses – albeit conflicted ones. Brazil seemed to follow the pre-established Mexican pattern: large, sprawling urban areas surrounded by impoverished rural zones. Brazil’s industries were concentrated in the north and along the coast; the wealth of the interior was only sporadically exploited. Argentina, with its large immigrant population (mainly Italian and Eastern European) provided something of a contrast. Heavy industry had appeared at the dawn of the century; the immense volume of European immigrant coming to work in those industries. The immigrants brought with them European ideas and social relations; both of which conflicted with traditional values. By 1945 the dictatorship of Juan Peron which combined a fascist core with modernizing elements initiated a period of military rule which would, by and large, characterize Argentina until the 1980s.

Imperialism and Colonialism Revisited

The decisions of the Versailles Conference of 1919 dismantled the Turkish, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, but kept the British and French Empires intact. Not only that, but the Portuguese continued to rule Angola and Mozambique in Africa; the Belgians continued to rule the Congo; and the Dutch continued to govern Indonesia. The Middle East was divided between British French spheres of influence and protectorates. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand did become independent commonwealths – and Ireland did fight her way to a disunited independence – but, by and large, imperialism remained intact after World War I.

It wouldn’t be until after World War II that powerful drives towards independence and de-colonization would shatter the old European empires and create the modern states of Asia and Africa. The Second World War, with its anti-fascist and democratic aspirations, would impel the peoples of the colonial world to demand the same.

National Independence Struggles

In some cases, indigenous forces had played a major role in the defeat of the Axis powers. In Vietnam and Indonesia, Ho Chi Minh and Sukarno (respectively) emerged from the war as venerated national leaders. After the war, the French attempted to restore their rule in South East Asia. This misguided attempt came to an end in 1954 when, at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, Vietnamese forces under the Communist leader Ho Chi Minh which had previously defeated the Japanese; now prevented the French from returning. When the Americans tried to supplant the French, they too came to grief. A similar situation unfolded in Indonesia when the Dutch tried to restore the pre-war order. A similar outcome resulted: Sukarno, who had led resistance to the Japanese, now oversaw the independence of Indonesia.

The British came out of World War II in no condition to hold their empire together. In India, the Congress Party, under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah had been the focus of the independence movement there for decades. Their moment arrived in 1948 when the British pulled out and Indian independence was declared. But independence brought crisis. Perhaps with British encouragement, Jinnah led a faction which demanded that a separate Muslim state be created. In multi-religious, polyglot India, this demand led to massive disruption, forced resettlement of huge amounts of people, and a great amount of ethnic and sectarian bloodshed. In the end, India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim) were created as two separate – and mutually hostile – states.

In Africa, decolonization quite often led to extended periods of instability. Independence leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Julius Nyere (Tanzania), and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) strove to modernize their countries by following a socialist model of development. In the Congo, Patrice Lumumba failed to establish a fully independent state, at the cost of his life. In many parts of Africa, the pull out of the colonial powers created confusion, chaos, and ethnic strife. Often this was caused by old imperial states themselves, as they continued to try to exert influence in their former possessions by sponsoring ethnic and political rivalries. Portugal refused to divest itself of its colonies, with the result that it took nationalist guerrilla movements until the 1970s to establish the independent nations of Mozambique and Angola. In the former British colonies of Rhodesia and South Africa, the white settler population refused to yield to demands for civil equality for the native Africans. Fighting lasted until 1975 when Rhodesia became the majority-African governed Zimbabwe (under Robert Mugabe); and until 1989 when the racist apartheid system was destroyed in South Africa (under Nelson Mandela).

In the Middle East, the Algerian Revolution of 1956 forced the French out of that country. In Egypt, Gamel Abdel Nasser came to power with a promise to encourage “Arab unity” and “Arab Socialism.” Nasser’s ideas spread to Syria and Iraq, where a movement claiming to champion Arab Socialism, but in fact more reminiscent of Italian Fascism took hold, Baathism. In many cases, interference by Western powers led to the displacement of radical, modernizing regimes with repressive conservative governments. The neutralization of the Left and the bankruptcy of the Right led many to see radical Islam as a viable political alternative.

The creation, by UN mandate, of the state of Israel in 1948 exacerbated the crises endemic to the area. The flow of immigrants to the new Jewish state led to the displacement of much of the native Palestinian population. The new Israel developed into a thoroughly militarized state, eventually going to war with the surrounding Arab states in 1967 and 1973.

The movement for de-colonization was strongly affected by the Cold War. Many independence movements had adopted one or another variety of socialism as its ideology, and many post-independence regimes sought Soviet aid. Other, more conservative post-independence governments became allies of the United States. Some changed sides. Thus, movements such as the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, Frelimo in Mozambique, and the MPLA in Angola saw themselves as Marxist; Israel, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia were in the US camp; while governments in Algeria, Egypt, and the Congo (Zaire) switched from Soviet to American sponsorship. The proxy conflict between the US and USSR was played out in the post-colonial world. Soon, two other forces, China and Cuba, would enter the fray.

The Chinese Revolution

China has seen a century of revolution – and some would say that it’s far from over. Revolution overthrew the decrepit Manchu dynasty in 1911. The newly created Chinese Republic, under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), wanted to create a united, modern, and democratic China. The first step in achieving this would be the cancellation of foreign concessions and the bringing to heel of the regional warlords. It was ‘simple’ enough to ask the British, French, etc. to leave; the second part of that equation was more difficult to achieve. The warlords were ensconced in remote areas, unseating them would require a trained, professional army. In order to raise an officer class capable of leading such an army, the Whampoa military academy was established in 1920. The Whampoa academy attracted many young, patriotic Chinese of all political persuasions. Many of China’s future leaders would come out of the Whampoa Academy. At the head of the academy, as director, was Sun yat-Sen’s protégé, Chiang Kai-Shek. By the end of the 1920s, the “Northern Expedition,” as the anti-warlord campaign was termed, was largely successful. By that time, however, a new conflict had developed.

The new China was alone in the world. The former imperial powers, who had just been asked to leave, weren’t about to render any aid. Desperate for support, China turned to another nation just then going through a revolution of their own, the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed to provide political and military aid to China, but at a price: that the Kuomintang bring into the government, as partners, the newly-created Communist Party of China. Sun Yat-Sen agreed, and the Communists were essential to victory in the Northern Expedition. However, Sun Yat-Sen’s lieutenant Chiang Kai-shek vehemently disagreed with any cooperation with the Communists. After Sun’s death in 1925, he was succeeded by Chiang who jettisoned any pretense of democracy, making himself military dictator. Chiang also wanted to get rid of the Communists at the first available opportunity.

In November of 1927, Chiang struck. Nationalist troops unexpectedly turned on their Communist fellows. In all of China’s major cities, Communists and their sympathizers were massacred in the streets. Overnight, the Chinese Communist Party was almost exterminated. In a state of confusion and disarray, the surviving Communists, made their way to the southern province of Jianxi where, a local Communist leader, an ex-librarian named Mao Tse-tung, had managed to hold the party together.

Organizing Communist guerrilla forces into a Red Army, Mao managed to hold off the Nationalists long enough to force an escape out of Jianxi. Known as the “Long March,” the Communists embarked on a 6,000 mile trek over rivers, mountains, and deserts, fighting Nationalists troops all the way. Finally, the Communists found sanctuary in the area of Yenan in China’s northern mountains. This, then, became their base. The Long March solidified Mao as the unquestioned leader of the Communist Party. From Yenan, Mao’s Communists engaged Chiang’s Nationalists in guerrilla warfare, and extended the Communist-controlled zone.

The full-scale Japanese invasion of China brought a temporary truce between the Communists and Nationalists, as they agreed to join forces against the foreign occupiers. Overall, as American advisers during World War II pointed out, the Communists were the more effective fighters against the Japanese. Chiang seemed to be more afraid of the Chinese Communists than he was of the invading Japanese; and American aid sent to Chiang often ended up in the pockets of Nationalist politicians. The end of the war and the defeat of Japan signaled a resumption of hostilities between the Nationalists and Communists. After an intense four-year civil war, Communist forces gained the upper hand. Chiang’s Nationalists were forced to flee the mainland; establishing themselves, as the republic of China, on the island of Taiwan – where they have remained to this very day. On October 10, 1949, from Beijing, Mao proclaimed the creation of the new, communist, Peoples Republic of China.

Communist China became a new and powerful ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In fact, Chinese troops entered the Korean War against the United States. Domestically, the Communists embarked on numerous developmental and modernization campaigns. Campaigns to eliminate infectious disease and illiteracy, as well as campaigns to ensure the equality of women were, in great part, successful. Attempts to industrialize China’s economy were less so. The best known of these, the “Great Leap Forward” (1959), which tried to jump start China’s development through mass participation in the form of things such as encouraging the building of backyard blast furnaces to produce steel, was a failure.

Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union and his policy of Peaceful Coexistence with the West met with disapproval in Beijing. Mao felt that the new Soviet leaders were abandoning revolutionary principles and bowing to the US. Tensions within the Communist camp came to the breaking point in 1961 when, at a meeting of Communist parties in Moscow, the Chinese and Albanian delegations denounced the Soviets and their supporters and walked out. The Sino-Soviet split divided the world Communist movement and led to the creation of new, more militant Communist groups dedicated to the Chinese position. China felt itself to be the new center of the world revolutionary movement and, as such, supported and encouraged revolutionary parties and guerrilla groups in the Third World. The Cold War was developing into a three-cornered fight.

Within the Communist Party of China itself, Mao feared that elements similar to those represented by Khrushchev in the USSR would derail his revolutionary vision. Starting in 1964, Mao moved to isolate “conservative” and “pragmatic” elements in the Party. His attempt at a mass mobilization to reinvigorate revolutionary enthusiasm resulted in the upheaval known as the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” The Cultural Revolution consumed China in chaos as radical and moderate forces, through the medium of youth organizations known as “Red Guards,” jostled each other for power and influence. Reaching a crescendo in 1966 – 1967, the Cultural Revolution involved pitched armed battles between rival Red Guard units. Mao called a halt to the anarchy in 1969, castigating some of the excesses of the more extreme radicals. However, tension and conflict between the more radical and the more pragmatic members of Mao’s inner circle remained.

The same year, 1969, that Mao rolled back the Cultural Revolution saw an intensification of the Sino-Soviet crisis as the Chinese and Soviets came to blows over a border dispute. This event seems to have convinced Mao that the Soviet Union was a greater threat to China than the United States. China offered the United States an opportunity to begin a normalization of relations; an opportunity the American President Richard Nixon took advantage of. In 1972, Nixon traveled to China, met with Mao and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, and the thaw in the Chinese- American Cold War began.

Chou En-lai’s, a protector of the moderates in Mao’s circle, death in 1976, followed by Mao’s own passing later that year renewed the conflict between radicals and moderates within ruling Party circles. After a brief and intense power struggle, the radicals were defeated. Deng Xiaoping, who had been exiled as a “capitalist roader” during the Cultural Revolution emerged as China’s new leader. Deng’s policies not only reversed the Cultural Revolution, but effectively dismantle communism itself. Throughout the 1980s, China more and more embraced a pro-market orientation, encouraging foreign investment and development of key industries. By the 1990s, China had emerged as a major economic force, exporting goods across the globe. Although the People’s Republic of China is still ruled by the Communist Party, it has, in fact, become a modern capitalist power.

The Cuban Revolution

Although conducted on a much smaller scale than the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution of 1959 would send even stronger shock waves throughout the Third World. On New Year’s Eve of 1959, guerrilla forces led by Fidel Castro overthrew the long-standing government of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista had been supported by the United States since 1933; and, under his leadership, the island had become a haven for US interests which virtually managed the Cuban economy.

Castro’s victory signaled major reform, including land redistribution, literacy and public health campaigns, and the nationalization of major utilities and industries. These latter reforms incurred the ire of American corporations which lost their investments in Cuba. The United States’ severing of diplomatic relations followed by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and an economic embargo against Cuba caused the Castro government to fully enter the Soviet orbit. However, the relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union was far from smooth. Having come to power in through a guerrilla movement in a peasant society, Cuba had much in common with China. Both China and the USSR courted Cuba to support them in their struggle with each other. Cuba was, for a time, caught between the feuding Communist powers. Instead, Cuba developed a unique image and presented itself as a model for Third World nations to follow. This pleased neither China nor the Soviet Union. Adding to the conflict with the Soviets was Cuba’s support for armed guerrilla movements, especially in Latin America, which threatened Soviet attempts at a rapprochement with the US.

In the wake of the Cuban Revolution guerrilla and national liberation movements emerged, aiming at spreading the Cuban example in Latin America. Castro’s right-hand-man, the Argentine born Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was central to this endeavor. Guevara personally led Cuban-trained guerrillas in Africa; and, in an attempt to foment revolution in South America, died while organizing a guerrilla force in Bolivia, becoming a revolutionary icon in the process. Although most of the guerrilla organizations spawned in the 1960s failed, they had the unexpected consequence of producing a severe reaction in the form of repressive military regimes devoted to their destruction. Thus, in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Argentina, extremely violent military dictatorships characterized those nations in the 1970s. In Chile, the election and subsequent overthrow of a Socialist president, Salvador Allende, produced a similar phenomenon. Cuban advisers trained guerrillas in other parts of the world, as well, namely Angola and South Africa.

Cuban attempts at developing an independent, diversified, modern economy met with failure. By the 1970s, Cuba had abandoned overtly encouraging armed struggle and integrated itself into the Soviet system. This would continue until the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

In the 1950s, Indian Prime Minister Nehru stated that the modern world was divided into “Three Worlds.” The “First World” consisted of the United States and the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe; the “Second World” was the Soviet Union and its Communist Bloc allies; the “Third World” was the poor, underdeveloped nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Fought over by both the First and Second Worlds, Nehru urged the Third World to develop an independent stance, find its own voice, and put forward its own demands and aspirations. Thus, the “Non-Aligned Movement” came into being.

Led by India’s Nehru, Yugoslavia’s Tito, and Egypt’s Nasser, Non-Alignment did not mean neutrality. India leaned to the West, Cuba (who later joined the Non-Aligned Movement), leaned towards the Soviets; instead, Non-Alignment meant that the Third World countries recognized that they shared a commonality of interests. Indeed, many of the Non-Aligned nations were bitter rivals; India and Pakistan readily come to mind. However, despite sometimes serious differences, the Non-Aligned nations managed to bring questions of development and industrialization, debt and poverty, national independence and self-determination to the world’s attention.

Although the Non-Aligned movement seems to have greatly dissipated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of a unipolar world dominated by the United States, non-alignment did shift world politics from the East vs. West emphasis of the Cold War to the North vs. South conflict that persists to this very day.

FORTHCOMING:

PART TWO: “The coming of the new international:” Third Worldist Theory in the 1950s – 1970s.

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Categories Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colonialism, Congo, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Economic Exploitation, Economics, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Former Eastern Bloc, France, Ghana, Guatemala, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, India, Indonesia, International, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Republic of Korea, Revolutionary History, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Science, Second World War, South Africa, Soviet Union (USSR), Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Theory, U.S. Military, United Kingdom, United States History, Vietnam, Workers Struggle, World History, Yugoslavia, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Zionism
Author The Red Phoenix

Privatization in Ex-Communist Countries Killed Over One Million People

30 Dec

As many as one million working-age men died due to the economic shock of mass privatisation policies followed by post-communist countries in the 1990s, according to a new study published in The Lancet.

The Oxford-led study measured the relationship between death rates and the pace and scale of privatisation in 25 countries in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, dating back to the early 1990s. They found that mass privatisation came at a human cost: with an average surge in the number of deaths of 13 per cent or the equivalent of about one million lives.

The rapid privatisation programme, part of a plan known by economists as ‘shock therapy’, led to a 56 per cent increase in unemployment, which the study says played an important role in explaining why privatisation claimed so many lives. Many employers provided extensive health and social care for their employees, so through privatisation workers experienced the ‘double whammy’ of losing not only their livelihood but also their means of surviving the crisis.

David Stuckler from Oxford, and colleagues Dr Lawrence King from Cambridge University and Professor Martin McKee, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, took death rates reported by the World Heath Organisation for men of working age (15-59 years) in 25 post-communist countries and compared them to the timing and extent of participation in mass privatisation and other transition policies.

The team took into account other factors that might affect rising death rates (such as economic depression, initial conditions and health infrastructure). They also examined other measures of privatisation from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a bank which gave loans in support of radical mass privatisation.

During the 1990s, former communist countries underwent the world’s worst peacetime mortality crisis in the past 50 years – with over three million avoidable deaths and 10 million ‘missing’ men, according to the United Nations.

However, while life expectancy plummeted in some countries, like Russia and Kazakhstan; the populations’ health steadily improved in other countries, such as Slovenia. Previous research shows that unemployment and levels of alcohol consumption are major factors behind these differences, but this study is thought to be the first to isolate aspects of the reforms process that might cause these variations. It finds that death rates are linked to the speed and type of privatisation and resulting unemployment – and also to the level of social support available. If at least 45 per cent of the country’s population were members of at least one social organisation, such as a church or trade union, they were better protected from the economic shocks, the authors found.

David Stuckler, from Oxford’s Department of Sociology, said: ‘Our study helps explain the striking differences in mortality in the post-communist world. Countries which pursued rapid privatisation, or ‘shock therapy’, had much greater rises in deaths than countries which followed a more gradual path. Not only did rapid privatisation lead to mass unemployment but also wiped out the social safety nets, which were critical for helping people survive during this turbulent period.’

Professor Martin McKee said: ‘As variants of rapid reform policies are being debated in China, India, Egypt and other developing and middle-income countries, including Iraq, our study reminds us that radical economic reforms affect ordinary people and, in some cases, cost them their lives.’

Source

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Categories Economic Exploitation, Economics, Former Eastern Bloc, History, Imperialism, International, Reactionary Watch, Revolutionary History, Soviet Union (USSR), Workers Struggle, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Leave the Vladimir Lenin’s Monuments where they are! Hands off Lenin!

28 Nov

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Petition by
ILYA BORTNIKOV
Sosnovoborsk, Russian Federation

Reputable mister President! Vladimir Vladimirovich!

Russian lawmakers believe it’s time to remove monuments to the leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Vladimir Lenin, from town and city squares across the country.

We, who has signed that petition, are not agreed with the arguments of the anti-Lenin campaign which has place to be in the Lower House of Parlament.

Vladimir Lenin is not a hooligan or a criminal as some people try to present his personality. He is a great and well educated son of the Russian Fatherland who had an aristocratic background but scorned it totally for the sake of justice. Vladimir Lenin is the founder of Soviet Russia on which behalf the Russian government nowadays has place and sits in the United Nations!

By the same logic of the lawmakers, should be removed the monuments of Nikolay Chernyshevsky whoes works had a huge influence on the future ideas of Vladimir Lenin? Should the Russians forget the true and own history?

Vladimir Lenin developed the Karl Marx’s economical and social ideas to leninism! Thanks to Lenin such countries as Poland, Finland and Latvia got their own independence and sovereignty. Thanks to Vladimir Lenin and the Revolution (the policy of secularism) the Russian Orthodox Church got back the institute of patriarchate after the Synodal period.

Vladimir Lenin is a glory, honor and a treasure of the Russian nation! Its past and present! We believe Vladimir Lenin is a bright example for the future generations of Russian people and for people all around the world!

Don’t ruin a big part of Russian historical glory!

To:
Ilyinka Street, building 23 porch 11, Moscow, Russia, 103132 (Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia)

Leave the Vladimir Lenin’s Monuments where they are! Hands off Lenin!

Sincerely,
[Your name]

Source

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Categories Editorials, History, Imperialism, International, Media & Culture, Revolutionary History, Russia, Soviet Union (USSR), Statements, Uncategorized, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Editorial: Pussy Riot and the Media Bandwagon

18 Sep

by George Bialek

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
— H. L. Mencken

As an American living in Moscow I have often been a witness to concrete examples of how the Western press, in particular that of the U.S. and U.K., grossly distort the narrative of major events in Russia. One of the most glaring examples occurred during the explosion of opposition protests which followed the rigged Duma elections of last December.

Within Russia, anyone who bothers to pay attention to politics knows that the largest opposition is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), which has been the case for quite some time. The KPRF has been holding anti-Putin and anti-United Russia demonstrations for years, with little attention from the Western press. I had attended several of their sanctioned demonstrations long before the more broad-based opposition rallies of last December, and during the two December demonstrations I attended they made a strong, if less dominant showing. These initial opposition rallies were specifically in response to the obviously suspicious results of the Duma election held on December 4th, 2011, and it is by no means a stretch to say that had these elections been fair, KPRF’s gains would have been far larger, if not enough to secure a majority of seats in the Duma. The claim is of course debatable, but it is far more credible than the narrative the U.S. and U.K. press was telling at the time.

As I compared news coverage in Russia as well as my own personal observations to Western reporting, I noticed a widening gap between reality on the ground and the story that was being told to observers outside of Russia. From outside of Russia, it seemed that the political conflict was one between Putin on one hand, and Western-inspired liberals on the other. I could find very few mentions of KPRF or its presidential candidate, Gennady Zyuganov. Liberal organizations which are still obscure even to Muscovites today were readily quoted or mentioned at length. Worse still, the darker side of the opposition movement, which was in large part the reason why I abandoned the movement, was ignored. Specifically I am referring to the growing presence of nationalists and even neo-Nazis in the opposition’s ranks.

“Anti-corruption” blogger Alexei Navalny, an individual whose nationalist and xenophobic ideology as well as his connection to far-right nationalist groups are well known to anyone in Russia, was presented to the world by the Western press as a leading figure in the “democratic” opposition. While ignoring Gennady Zyuganov, oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who has been publicly quoted as wanting to impose a 60-hour work week in Russia, was portrayed as the most important opposition figure running for president against Vladimir Putin.

Around the time of the presidential election, this enthusiastic but utterly distorted Western coverage played right into the hands of Putin, whose media flacks skillfully homed in on a minority of opposition activists and isolated them from the masses outside Moscow. The opposition movement was labeled as an attempted “Orange Revolution” orchestrated by the United States and other Western nations. It is not clear how many Russians actually believed these claims, but it certainly did not help that a small minority of privileged Moscow hipsters, some of the most insipid and oblivious people in the world, were elevated by both the Russian and Western press to the “leadership” of the opposition movement.

Recently, a new scandal erupted in Russia over the conviction of Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, three members of the so-called “feminist” punk rock group Pussy Riot. They were arrested back in February of this year (2012) for performing their so-called “Punk Prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and were ultimately charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and they have been sentenced to two years each.

As with the opposition rallies last year, the Western press royally distorted many of the facts surrounding the case. What was different this time around, however, was that the Pussy Riot case was turned in to a cause célèbre, or more accurately a liberal bandwagon, on which jumped not only journalists and writers but also major entertainment figures and musicians from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Paul McCartney. Some leftists have been so influenced by this coverage so as to believe that Pussy Riot are in fact revolutionaries of some kind, and that they deserve the utmost moral support of leftist activists around the world. It was at this point that I could no longer remain silent on the matter. Before the real left elevates these heroines to sainthood, a few facts need to be considered.

First of all, a disclaimer is in order. Some writers, many of which may never have visited Russia, have taken the government’s side in this matter for any number of reasons. I have no intention of defending the court’s decision and I can say that assuming my opinion on this even matters, I personally oppose it. While it is important to remember that those who engage in civil disobedience must accept the potential legal consequences of their actions, in this case the legal consequences should have been a fine ( fines for hooliganism run between about 1500-2500RUB, about $50 to just over $80, and at most fifteen days confinement).

I couldn’t care less that their actions were an offense to the Russian Orthodox Church, as I find the Church offensive. Atheistic Bolsheviks brought Russia kicking and screaming into the 20th century, even into space. By contrast, the Russian Orthodox Church is dragging the country back down into the mud from which it arose, poisoning the minds of the youth with hypocrisy, mysticism, superstition, and a false version of Russian history. Pussy Riot craved attention and by interfering in their case, the Russian Orthodox Church and quite possibly Putin himself ensured that they got it.

Despite all of this, however, I have no intention of venerating these “martyrs.” Aside from the fact that Pussy Riot should have known who they were dealing with and performed their actions voluntarily, thus tacitly accepting the consequences come what may, I simply do not see this group as being worthy of leftist solidarity, and many others would agree if they knew the truth surrounding the group. This is largely a distraction from far more important issues at hand, both inside and outside of Russia. Again, just to make this entirely clear, my target is not the band, but rather the bandwagon. Pussy Riot itself doesn’t matter, but the discussion and the questions their case raises do matter a lot.

Distortion of the Facts

We begin with a number of facts which, though seemingly trivial, are essential to forming a realistic opinion on the matter. From the various articles I’ve read, the members of Pussy Riot on trial supposedly charged with “blasphemy,” making statements against Putin, making statements against the church, and the like. In fact there is no such crime as “blasphemy” in the Russia.

The group’s statement was obviously anti-Putin, but they have on several occasions tried to claim that they meant no disrespect to the church, and their own explanation of the “prayer,” which we shall examine in detail later, seems to imply that they claim not to oppose Orthodox Christianity but rather the alleged co-opting of the church by Putin. Most annoying is the media’s constant use of the word “feminist” to describe the band. It is when we examine Pussy Riot’s version of feminism that we first start to see grave problems with the idea that leftists, much less revolutionaries, should support them.

You Call That Feminism?

Drowned out by the cacophony of support for Pussy Riot are the real feminists, some of whom have dared to question the feminist credentials of the punk group. Noting that the mainstream media generally treats feminism as a dirty word, some radical feminists have expressed very justified suspicion at the Western media’s sudden enthusiasm for identifying Pussy Riot as feminists. I cannot say that I have conducted deep investigation into the writings of the group members; I can at the moment only judge their feminist credentials by their past actions.

However, from what I have seen so far, the best evidence for those credentials consists of them apparently calling themselves feminists and occasionally singing lyrics such as “Virgin Mary become a feminist,” a line from their now famous “Punk Prayer.” But as always, actions speak louder than words, and the actions of some of Pussy Riot’s members easily drown out their claims of being feminists.

In 2008, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, her husband, and several other members of the “artist” collective known as “Voina” (War) engaged in group sex in the Timeryazev State museum of biology. Their claim was that this was a work of performance art against Dmitriy Medvedev, who became president of the Russian Federation that year. To those more versed in feminist politics, this orgy appeared more as a group of men using their female partners’ bodies as a prop in a disgusting display of male dominance. The photos of this performance, which are quite widespread throughout the Russian-speaking internet, could have easily been mistaken for run-of-the-mill internet porn. It’s a bit of a stretch to imagine feminists engaged in the manufacture of hardcore pornography. It’s also difficult to imagine that the women came up with this idea on their own; it’s far more likely their male partners had a hand in convincing them that this would be a work of art and a political statement.

Is this the goal of Russian feminism? To get more women to humiliate themselves publicly, after Russian women have already suffered more than twenty years of public humiliation and hyper-sexualization in their own society and abroad? Does this advance the dignity of Russian women or detract from it? Only someone totally disconnected from reality could agree with the former.

In an interview with Spiegel magazine dated 3 September, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova defended her actions in the museum.

SPIEGEL: Some see you as heroes, taking a creative approach to challenging Putin’s rigid political system. Others consider your actions tasteless. While pregnant, you took part completely naked in a group sex event at Moscow’s Biological Museum to mock the Kremlin’s desire to increase Russia’s birth rate.
Tolokonnikova: Everyone has his or her own taste. Our performances are modern art and only experts can assess whether what we do is tasteless. Anything else is simply the expression of subjective opinions.

The attitude of superiority, total disregard for others, and postmodernism is a matter which will be analyzed in depth later, as with many of the claims made in this same interview by Tolokonnikova. What is pertinent here is the total absence of juxtaposition between feminism and the actions of Voina. It should also be noted that this is by no means the only example demeaning, misogynistic “art” from Voina. In an infamous video an unidentified female member of Voina accompanied by her husband and young child shoplifted a frozen chicken from a St. Petersburg market by stuffing it into her own vagina. Outside the shop, Voina supporters cheered the performance. The name of this work of “art?” How To Snatch A Chicken: The Tale Of How One Cunt Fed The Whole Group. Feminism!

As if that weren’t enough, Voina initiated another “work” in 2011 entitled “Kiss Garbage,” garbage being the slang term for cops in Russian. However, this wasn’t directed against all cops, but rather specifically against policewomen. Female members of the group assaulted policewomen in metro stations and trains, kissing them unexpectedly. The incident was largely looked at as an innocent prank, but real life examples are rather disturbing to watch. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T-Bcgkmo0M&amp.

Once again, it is important to notice two features of this “protest.” Women were specifically targeted, and women were the ones carrying out the actions, risking arrest. For the men of Voina, women are clearly props to use in their “art” performances. They bear all the risk and consequences while the men brag about their courageous stunts.

All this may be confusing to radical feminists in the West, who may be understandably shocked and outraged at the idea of people promoting humiliation and violence against women calling themselves feminists. As someone living in Russia, it’s disturbing, but not exactly surprising. Since the fall of the U.S.S.R., Russia has experienced a large growth of movements inspired by the outside world, some positive, but many negative. Many of these movements appear somewhat like the cheap knockoff products one finds in the markets of China or many other parts of the world. The label says “feminism,” but the product contains male domination, humiliation of women, and misogynistic violence. In Russia it is common to see people who admire something in the west, appropriate the superficial trappings, and wear a label which doesn’t reflect the contents.

There is another aspect to all the talk of Pussy Riot’s feminism, which despite being overshadowed by the actions of the related Voina movement and their common members, is still worth mentioning. Pussy Riot’s claims about the ‘Punk Prayer’ still largely cast it as an action against Vladimir Putin. Nobody in their right mind would claim that Putin is a figure in the struggle for women’s rights, but on the other hand he and his regime haven’t really shown themselves to be crusaders against feminism. Tolokonnikova claims otherwise, in her interview with Spiegel.

‘Russian women are caught somewhere between Western and Slavic stereotypes. Unfortunately, Russia is still dominated by the centuries-old image of the woman as keeper of the hearth, and of women raising children alone and without help from men. That image continues to be cultivated by the Russian Orthodox Church, which turns women into slaves, and Putin’s ideology of “sovereign democracy” aspires in the same direction. Both reject everything Western, including feminism. But Russia, too, had a tradition of a Western-style women’s liberation movement, which Stalin smothered. I hope it rises again — and that we can help that happen.

Like many of her statements to Spiegel, this needs to be picked apart in detail. First off, while there is a stereotypical image of women in Russia, both inside and outside of the country, most Russian women do not aspire to be housewives. I can’t claim to be an expert on Russian media in the last twenty years, but I highly doubt that Russia has an equivalent to the decades of anti-feminist, pro-housewife propaganda carried out by the American media and well-documented by Susan Faludi in her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women.

There is no doubt that the traditional image of Russian women that the Russian Orthodox Church promotes is patriarchal and negative, but what is the image that Pussy Riot and Voina give as an alternative? A woman, encouraged by her husband, shoves a chicken into her vagina while he records the whole thing on video? This is no alternative; in fact it is quite similar in every way to the other stereotype about Russian women, one held commonly outside of Russia, that they are amoral nymphomaniacs happy to play the role of a sex doll for any foreign man who comes along. What has Pussy Riot done to fight that image, I wonder?

On the question of Putin making women slaves, there is little evidence that he has “enslaved” women any more than men. The claim that Putin rejects everything “Western,” besides exposing a belief in the supremacy of the West, is patently false, and it is ridiculous to pretend that feminism somehow belongs to the West. Men of the West, bolstered by higher incomes, have provided an insatiable customer base for prostitution, both in their own countries and abroad. Many of these prostituted women come from Russia and the former U.S.S.R., which means prostitution and women trafficking ought to be a number one priority for any Russian citizen claiming to be a feminist or supporter of feminism.

In addition to the “enlightened” Western men who come to Russia and former Soviet countries on sex tours, thousands of these women have been imported to work in the brothels and massage parlors of those progressive Western nations which are so admired by Pussy Riot and their supporters. Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic are three countries which have legalized the sex trade. Many other nations are considering legalization or simply turn a blind eye.

And what of the state of feminism in the enlightened West? If we look to the United States, in particular, we can see over thirty years of repeated salvos against feminism in the media. The various controversies over birth control and abortion in the United States right now tell you how firmly entrenched feminism is in the West. One can go on the most lighthearted English-speaking forums frequented by young males and watch massive eruptions of misogynistic hatred when the word feminism or sexism is mentioned. As if that weren’t enough, a so-called “Men’s Rights” movement has arisen, preposterously portraying men as being oppressed.

Some Russians may be confused, noting that the motivation of many men who come to Russia or Ukraine seeking brides come with idiotic claims of abuse at the hands of American or Western women who are supposedly all feminists. The fact that so many Western men carry these ridiculous ideas ought to disprove the idea that feminism is a dominant idea in the West; if it were, more Western men would be embracing the term feminism, rather than running to Russia claiming that they are trying to escape the crushing dominance of women. In the United States at least, the media and political groups from all over the mainstream spectrum worked tirelessly to keep women subjugated and make them feel ashamed for having ever demanded equal rights. It has largely succeeded.

The claim that Stalin “smothered” Russia’s supposedly “Western-style” women’s movement is simply and ignorant lie, so that leaves us with the comment about the Russian Orthodox Church and its influence on women. While it is common for nearly every Russian one meets to claim the Orthodox faith, for most people it seems this means simply wearing a cross around one’s neck. Go into any Orthodox Church and the women you are most likely to see there (and it is mostly women from my experience) are elderly. This does not mean that the Russian Orthodox Church is harmless. It is certainly responsible for spreading all kinds of myths about Russian history which either apologize for or support the current regime. The Russian Orthodox Church definitely deserves criticism, but there’s just one problem with that. Pussy Riot’s jailed members can’t seem to decide whether or not they are criticizing the church.

Standing up to the Russian Orthodox Church…or Not?

Pussy Riot’s alleged opposition to the Russian Orthodox Church is rather ambiguous, possibly intentionally so. It seems that the group is happy to have some supporters think that they were criticizing the Church, while on the other hand letting other people believe that the “Punk Prayer” wasn’t an attack on the Church but rather a purely political protest against Putin. To examine the question of whether they deserve credit for standing up to this unbelievably corrupt institution, I shall first present some points made by Pussy Riot member and defendant Yekaterina Samutsevich in her closing statement to the court, and then compare them to some of Tolokonnikova’s subsequent statements in her Spiegel interview.

‘The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be used openly as a flashy setting for the politics of the security services, which are the main source of power [in Russia].’

Here we see the clear manifestation of Pussy Riot’s on-again-off-again claim that the “Punk Prayer” wasn’t directed against the Church per se, but rather against the Russian Orthodox Church’s relationship with Putin’s regime. Here we have a bit of a problem, and once again we have to look to Russia political culture not often understood or even known in the West to understand what’s wrong with this statement.

The Russian Orthodox Church did not become corrupt with the rise of Putin, and certainly not with the rise of Patriarch Kirill. It has always been corrupt, since its resurgence in the early 1990’s. The reason for the association with Putin can be explained by a readily observable technique used by Russian liberals and Putin supporters alike. Put briefly so as not to digress to far, this technique involves severing Putin from the legacy of Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor. Putin supporters compare his regime with that of Yeltsin, while anti-Putin liberals frequently pretend as though problems which cropped up on Putin’s watch didn’t exist before 2000. The cozy relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state began with Yeltsin, not Putin.

In any case, Vladimir Putin was chosen by Yeltsin himself to be prime minister and thus succeed him as president, on the advice of gangster turned “Kremlin-opponent” Boris Berezovsky. Both sides in many debates would like to pretend this whole connection doesn’t exist, but the fact is that with no Yeltsin, there is no Putin. In any case, permission to rebuild the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was obtained by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990 from the Soviet government, with much of the construction occurring in the Yeltsin era. Thus the idea of Putin using the cathedral as some kind of symbol to bolster his power, or anything for that matter, is simply ridiculous. Moving on with Samutsevich’s statement:

‘Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetics?’

Again, one can reasonably infer that Orthodoxy is just the victim of the exploiter, Putin. Now we move on to a few key statements on this topic from Tolokonnikova’s interview:

SPIEGEL: Can you understand that many Russians feel their religious feelings have been hurt, when you perform a wild dance in front of a church altar?
Tolokonnikova: The video clip and the accompanying text, which describes the political motivations behind our performance, were hardly the kind of thing to hurt religious feelings. It’s the distorted picture presented in the state-run media that changed the situation, accusing us of religious hate. I’m sorry it has come to that. Ultimately, both we and our critics have become victims of Putin’s propaganda machine.

Here she clearly denies that this action was aimed against religion, and claims it was a politically motivated performance. In fact, since they were on trial for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” it’s a little difficult for supporters who claims they are not guilty to simultaneously claim that they were actually criticizing the church and religion. Samutsevich also said in her statement:

In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to unite the visual imagery of Orthodox culture with that of protest culture, thus suggesting that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch, and Putin, but that it could also ally itself with civic rebellion and the spirit of protest in Russia.

So the “Punk Prayer” was aimed at uniting Orthodox believers with the “spirit of protest.” Not only does this call into question the idea that they were criticizing religion in Russia, but it also raises the question of how their actions affected the feelings of Orthodox believers. Lastly, let us turn back to Tolokonnikova’s interview for one more important point on this matter.

SPIEGEL: Do you welcome the fact that people in Russia are now toppling crosses, supposedly in a show of support for you?

Tolokonnikova: Definitely not. That’s not something we’re happy about. Pussy Riot has never acted against religion. It’s Putin’s ideologues who have stuck the label of religious hate on us. Our motivation was purely political.

Well there you have it, folks. They’ve never acted against religion. So please stop telling me how they’re standing up to the Russian Orthodox Church and its interference in the state; at best they’re making it seem as if the real crime is the state interfering in the church. Also, while I’m definitely not a supporter of cutting down crosses, I have to ask why not support it? Remember, as long as you claim something had a subversive political message, it can be revolutionary “art!” If having a public orgy in a museum can be a valid political statement that only “experts” are allowed to judge, what is wrong with chopping down crosses?

Contempt for Workers, Self-Righteousness, and Nihilism – the Antithesis of Capitalist Russian Society, or its Product?

Of the many passengers riding the crowded Pussy Riot bandwagon, many are self-identified leftists, including anarchists and self-proclaimed Marxists. Some express solidarity simply out of opposition to Putin’s regime, a position which is principled and respectable. Self-proclaimed Communists have lauded these three women despite their fawning references to the reactionary Alexander Solzhenitsyn and other anti-communist figures in their court statements. Indeed, the members of Pussy Riot themselves would like us to think they are revolutionaries. Again from the Spiegel interview:

SPIEGEL: What does Pussy Riot hope to achieve?

Tolokonnikova: A revolution in Russia.

What sort of revolution could they possibly hope to accomplish with random publicity stunts? Perhaps we will never know. From a worker’s perspective though, groups like Pussy Riot and Voina are hardly the types to lead a revolution of any sort. Again we must look to the actions of Voina, who on 1 May 2007, showed their solidarity with Russian workers by throwing live cats over the counter of a McDonalds restaurant. Many of my American readers have no doubt done their stint in fast food, if not McDonalds. I did myself, when I was in high school. As a fast food worker you have more than enough hassles without someone throwing live animals at you.

Incidentally, many of Voina’s members either don’t work, or are students. Some of them voluntarily choose to live a vagrant lifestyle, but nobody forced this upon them. Voina’s actions show not only contempt for women, but ordinary workers as well, and it is this same elitist, contemptuous attitude which is palpable in the statements of the members of Pussy Riot.

In reading the statements of the three defendants, one gets a very clear sense of their contempt for ordinary Russians as well as the liberal basis of their beliefs. There is a constant derision of “conformity” just as they are sure they are not conformist. In America we have seen what several decades of trying to escape “conformity” has led to. The struggle against this ill-defined conformity, far from being a subversive threat to the capitalist system, turned out to be a major boon to the market. These days it seems like everyone is a nonconformist, and each and every individual who proclaims themselves thus is sure that everyone else is a conformist sheep. Alyokhina lets her attitude slip in her final statement to the court.

“These people . . . this is yet another confirmation that people in our country have lost the sense that this country belongs to us, its citizens. They no longer have a sense of themselves as citizens. They have a sense of themselves simply as the automated masses. They don’t feel that the forest belongs to them, even the forest located right next to their houses. I doubt they even feel a sense of ownership over their own houses. Because if someone were to drive up to their porch with a bulldozer and tell them that they need to evacuate, that, “Excuse us, we’re going raze your house to make room for a bureaucrat’s residence,” these people would obediently collect their belongings, collect their bags, and go out on the street. And then stay there precisely until the regime tells them what they should do next. They are completely shapeless, it is very sad.”

Of course, it’s all the other Russians who are automatons.

And what of the “nonconformists” who see the actions of people like Pussy Riot or Voina as disgusting and worthless? Well let’s remember what Tolokonnikova had to say about that.

‘Everyone has his or her own taste. Our performances are modern art and only experts can assess whether what we do is tasteless. Anything else is simply the expression of subjective opinions.’

Only “experts” get to judge!

Is it true that shocking acts of performance art can be used to grab attention and direct it toward political goals, as some leftists have claimed? Well let’s look to the words of one Voina member. “People watch us and are simply shocked.” Well, that sure gets people to think about politics doesn’t it? The fact is that propaganda is a two way street; there’s the message you are trying to send and the message the audience will infer. The most profound message, conveyed by seemingly irrational and ambiguous means, can turn out utterly worthless as it is lost on the audience.

If I were going to include in this article every quote from the defendants or their comrades in Voina which could serve as evidence that they are elitists, not revolutionary, and in some cases not even “leftist”, this text would go on for pages. To split the difference, I’ve included the sources of their statements to let the reader judge for his or herself. There remains, however, a point which must be made about the activities of these “revolutionaries,” and it is a point which requires the first-hand observation of post-Soviet Russian culture.

There are many different ideologies fighting for attention within modern Russia, but even casual observation of society and particularly young people reveals a very strong sense of nihilism. So many of Russia’s problems on nearly every level stem from a general condition of simply not giving a damn about anyone else. Both Voina and Pussy Riot represent not a form of resistance against that nihilism, but rather nihilism itself. They aren’t subverting the system because they are in fact nothing more than a by-product of that system. What right do such people have then to complain about corruption in Russia? If someone thinks it’s perfectly fine to have public sex in a public museum or throw cats at low-paid workers because they are a nonconformist, why get angry about another individual whose “tastes” and subjective opinions lead him or her to solicit and collect bribes and steal government property? If the “tastes” of Voina include humiliating women in public, who is to complain about the pimp and trafficker who do the same under the guise of a business? Put simply, Pussy Riot, Voina, and their ilk do not expose and condemn the extremely atomized, anti-social attitude that 20 years of post-Soviet kleptocracy have created, but rather they celebrate it. Who’s to say that a new regime run by people with similar thinking would be any better?

Conclusion

I began writing this article when the Pussy Riot verdict was still fresh in the news. It was late because, as a person living in Russia and wanting to give the reader the benefit of my experience, I deliberately held back my opinions until I could sufficiently observe the case. By the time you read this, the bandwagon will have gone over the hill and it is unlikely that Pussy Riot will be heard of anywhere outside of Russia barring some kind of new development in their case. Personally I hope they are freed or at least have their sentences drastically reduced so that life can return to what passes for normal. I hope that the lesson we as leftists take away from this whole episode is that we need to choose our struggles more carefully.

All this energy which was expended on Pussy Riot might have been better put to use for the sake of specialist Bradley Manning, who remains in confinement without having been brought to trial. This holds especially true for American activists. It’s easy to get caught up in the furor when the media starts banging their anti-Putin drum, but the reality is that Putin is and always has been a willing collaborator with capital. Also, we need to be careful with labels like “revolutionary,” “feminist,” and “resistance,” less we apply them to those who don’t deserve them. Next time the media bandwagon crests the hill, take a breath and try to get all the facts before going for a ride.

Sources

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/07/23/us-russia-art-idUSL1650947620080723

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/brown/voina4-29-11.asp

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100177322/like-all-punks-pussy-riot-are-insufferable-snobs-but-that-shouldnt-be-a-crime/

http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-pussy-riot-activist-nadezhda-tolokonnikova-a-853546.html

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Categories Czechoslovakia, Editorials, Germany, International, Internet, Media & Culture, Netherlands, Reactionary Watch, Russia, Soviet Union (USSR), TV, U.S. News, Ukraine, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, Women's Rights, Workers Struggle
Author The Red Phoenix

UN outlaws praising Nazis (Baltic states disagree)

10 Sep

The United Nations General Assembly has passed a Russia-sponsored draft resolution against the glorification of Nazism and attempts to rewrite WWII history.

The document states that any attempts to revise the history for war, the Nuremberg decisions and to whitewash former Nazis must be considered as violations of the UN Charter and the principles on which it was established, reports Itar-Tass.

The resolution on “Inadmissibility of certain practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” was supported by 120 states in the Third Committee of the UN GA. Twenty-two countries – including the Baltic states – said “no” to the document, while 31 UN members abstained.

It becomes increasingly frequent that monuments to the Nazis are unveiled in a solemn atmosphere, the days of liberation from the Nazi forces are declared days of mourning, and people who oppose the trend face arrests, Russia’s representative to the UN Grigory Lukyantsev pointed out prior to the vote.

“To add more, in some countries they are trying hard to raise to the rank of …heroes of the national liberation movement those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition or collaborated with the Nazis,” he is quoted as saying.

Lukyantsev stressed that it is “not about political correctness, but very frank and cynical blasphemy towards those who liberated the world from the horrors of National-Socialism.” It is also about criminal acts within the meaning of Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The Russian representative called “untenable” attempts by some politicians to convince the international community that the glorification of the Nazism is only an implementation of the right to freedom of expression and Nazi marches – the freedom of assembly and association.

Lukyantsev suggested that authors of such statements should “read once again the UN Charter, the human rights provisions of which are a direct response to the horrors of World War II and to the horrific crimes committed by the Nazi regime.”

“Let’s not forget about what has been worked out in suffering and written in blood in the literal sense of the word,” he concluded.

Nationalist and neo-Nazi movements have been on the rise in some former Soviet republics since the disintegration of the USSR. It has become a common trend in, for instance, western Ukraine and the Baltic states to claim that the Soviet period was even worse than the Nazi occupation.

SS marches glorifying Nazi legions are no longer uncommon in Latvia and Estonia. Not long ago, a small town in the western Ukrainian Lvov region changed the name of Peace Street to the Nachtigall Battalion Warriors Street, which is named after members of the auxiliary formation that fought alongside the Nazis in WWII.

The victory in the bloodiest war in the history of humanity – where representatives of different nationalities and religions fought shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy – cost the Soviet Union over 20 million lives.

Source

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Categories History, International, Racism, Reactionary Watch, Russia, Second World War, Soviet Union (USSR), Ukraine, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

“Iran and Everything Else” by Michael Parenti

9 Aug

Occasionally individuals complain that I fail to address one subject or another. One Berkeley denizen got in my face and announced: “You leftists ought to become aware of the ecological crisis.” In fact, I had written a number of things about the ecological crisis, including one called “Eco-Apocalypse.” His lack of familiarity with my work did not get in the way of his presumption.

Years ago when I spoke before the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in New York, the moderator announced that she could not understand why I had “remained silent” about the attempt to defund UNESCO. Whatever else I might have been struggling with, she was convinced I should have joined with her in trying to save UNESCO (which itself really was a worthy cause).

People give me marching orders all the time. Among the most furiously insistent are those fixed on 9/11. Why haven’t I said anything about 9/11? Why am I “a 9/11 denier.” In fact, I have written about 9/11 and even spoke at two 9/11 conferences (Santa Cruz and New York), raising questions of my own.

Other people have been “disappointed” or “astonished” or “puzzled” that I have failed to pronounce on whatever is the issue du jour. No attention is given by such complainers to my many books, articles, talks, and interviews that treat hundreds of subjects pertaining to political economy, culture, ideology, media, fascism, communism, capitalism, imperialism, ecology, political protest, history, religion, race, gender, homophobia, and other topics far too numerous to list. (For starters, visit my website: www.michaelparenti.org)

But one’s own energy, no matter how substantial, is always finite. One must allow for a division of labor and cannot hope to fight every fight.

Recently someone asked when was I going to “pay some attention” to Iran. Actually I have spoken about Iran in a number of interviews and talks—not to satisfy demands made by others but because I myself was moved to do so. In the last decade, over a five year period, I was repeatedly interviewed by English Radio Tehran. My concern about Iran goes back many years. Just the other day, while clearing out some old files, I came across a letter I had published over 33 years ago in the New York Times (10 May 1979), reproduced here exactly as it appeared in the Times:

To the Editor of the New York Times:

For 25 years the Shah of Iran tortured and murdered many thousands of dissident workers, students, peasants and intellectuals. For the most part, the U.S. press ignored these dreadful happenings and portrayed the Shah as a citadel of stability and an enlightened modernizer.

Thousands more were killed by the Shah’s police and military during the popular uprisings of this past year. Yet these casualties received only passing mention even though Iran was front-page news for several months. And from 1953 to 1978 millions of other Iranians suffered the silent oppression of poverty and malnutrition while the Shah, his family, and his generals grew ever richer.

Now the furies of revolution have lashed back, thus far executing about 200 of the Shah’s henchmen—less than what the Savak would arrest and torture on a slow weekend. And now the U.S. press has suddenly become acutely concerned, keeping a careful account of the “victims,” printing photos of firing squads and making repeated references to the “repulsion” and “outrage” felt by anonymous “middle-class” Iranians who apparently are endowed with finer sensibilities than the mass of ordinary people will bore the brunt of the Shah’s repression. At the same time, American commentators are quick to observe that the new regime is merely replacing one repression with another.

So it has always been with the recording of revolutions: the mass of nameless innocents victimized by the ancien régime go uncounted and unnoticed, but when the not-so-innocent murderers are brought to revolutionary justice, the business-owned press is suddenly filled with references to “brutality” and “cruelty.”

That anyone could equate the horrors of the Shah’s regime with the ferment, change and struggle that is going on in Iran today is a tribute to the biases of the U.S. press, a press that has learned to treat the atrocities of the U.S.-supported right-wing regimes with benign neglect while casting a stern self-righteous eye on the popular revolutions that challenge such regimes.

Michael Parenti
Washington, D.C.

There is one glaring omission in this missive: I focused only on the press without mentioning how the White House and leading members of Congress repeatedly had hailed the Shah as America’s sturdy ally—while U.S. oil companies merrily plundered Iran’s oil (with a good slice of the spoils going to the Shah and his henchmen).

A few years before the 1979 upheaval, I was teaching a graduate course at Cornell University. There I met several Iranian graduate students who spoke with utter rage about the Shah and his U.S.-supported Savak secret police. They told of friends being tortured and disappeared. They could not find enough damning words to vent their fury. These students came from the kind of well-off Persian families one would have expected to support the Shah. (You don’t make it from Tehran to Cornell graduate school without some money in the family.)

All I knew about the Shah at that time came from the U.S. mainstream media. But after listening to these students I began to think that this Shah fellow was not the admirably benign leader and modernizer everyone was portraying in the news.

The Shah’s subsequent overthrow in the 1979 revolution was something to celebrate. Unfortunately the revolution soon was betrayed by the theocratic militants who took hold of events and created their Islamic Republic of Iran. These religious reactionaries set about to torture and eradicate thousands of young Iranian radicals. They made war upon secular leftists and “decadent” Western lifestyles, as they set about establishing a grim and corrupt theocracy.

U.S. leaders and media had no critical words about the slaughter of leftist revolutionaries in Iran. If anything, they were quietly pleased. However, they remained hostile toward the Islamic regime. Why so? Regimes that kill revolutionaries and egalitarian reformists do not usually incite displeasure from the White House. If anything, the CIA and the Pentagon and the other imperial operatives who make the world safe for the Fortune 500 look most approvingly upon those who torture and murder Marxists and other leftists. Indeed, such counterrevolutionaries swiftly become the recipients of generous amounts of U.S. aid.

Why then did U.S. leaders denounce and threaten Iran and continue to do so to this day? The answer is: Iran’s Islamic Republic has other features that did not sit well with the western imperialists. Iran was-—and still is—a “dangerously” independent nation, unwilling to become a satellite to the U.S. global empire, unlike more compliant countries. Like Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran, with boundless audacity, gave every impression of wanting to use its land, labor, markets, and capital as it saw fit. Like Iraq—and Libya and Syria—Iran was committing the sin of economic nationalism. And like Iraq, Iran remained unwilling to establish cozy relations with Israel.

But this isn’t what we ordinary Americans are told. When talking to us, a different tact is taken by U.S. opinion-makers and policymakers. To strike enough fear into the public, our leaders tell us that, like Iraq, Iran “might” develop weapons of mass destruction. And like Iraq, Iran is lead by people who hate America and want to destroy us and Israel. And like Iraq, Iran “might” develop into a regional power leading other nations in the Middle East down the “Hate America” path. So our leaders conclude for us: it might be necessary to destroy Iran in an all-out aerial war.

It was President George W. Bush who in January 2002 cited Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an “axis of evil.” Iran exports terrorism and “pursues” weapons of mass destruction. Sooner or later this axis would have to be dealt with in the severest way, Bush insisted.

These official threats and jeremiads are intended to leave us with the impression that Iran is not ruled by “good Muslims.” The “good Muslims”—as defined by the White House and the State Department—are the reactionary extremists and feudal tyrants who ride high in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirate, Bahrain, and other countries that provide the United States with military bases, buy large shipments of U.S. arms, vote as Washington wants in the United Nations, enter free trade agreements with the Western capitalist nations, and propagate a wide-open deregulated free-market economy.

The “good Muslims” invite the IMF and the western corporations to come in and help themselves to the country’s land, labor, markets, industry, natural resources and anything else the international plutocracy might desire.

Unlike the “good Muslims,” the “bad Muslims” of Iran take an anti-imperialist stance. They try to get out from under the clutches of the U.S. global imperium. For this, Iran may yet pay a heavy price. Think of what has been happening to Iraq, Libya, and now Syria. For its unwillingness to throw itself open to Western corporate pillage, Iran is already being subjected to heavy sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies. Sanctions hurt the ordinary population most of all. Unemployment and poverty increase. The government is unable to maintain human services. The public infrastructure begins to deteriorate and evaporate: privatization by attrition.

Iran has pursued an enriched uranium program, same as any nation has the right to do. The enrichment has been low-level for peaceful use, not the kind necessary for nuclear bombs. Iranian leaders, both secular and theocratic have been explicit about the useless horrors of nuclear weaponry and nuclear war.

Appearing on the Charlie Rose show when he was visiting the USA, Iranian president Ahmadinejad pointed out that nuclear weapons have never saved anyone. The Soviet Union had nuclear weapons; was it saved? he asked. India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons; have they found peace and security? Israel has nuclear weapons: has it found peace and security? And the United States itself has nuclear weapons and nuclear fleets patrolling the world and it seems obsessively preoccupied with being targeted by real or imagined enemies. Ahmadinejad, the wicked one, sounded so much more rational and humane than Hillary Clinton snarling her tough-guy threats at this or that noncompliant nation.

(Parenthetically, we should note that the Iranians possibly might try to develop a nuclear strike force—not to engage in a nuclear war that would destroy Iran but to develop a deterrent against aerial destruction from the west. The Iranians, like the North Koreans, know that the western nuclear powers have never attacked any country that is armed with nuclear weapons.)

I once heard some Russian commentators say that Iran is twice as large as Iraq, both in geography and in population; it would take hundreds of thousands of NATO troops and great cost in casualties and enormous sums of money to invade and try to subdue such a large country, an impossible task and certain disaster for the United States.

But the plan is not to invade, just to destroy the country and its infrastructure through aerial warfare. The U.S. Air Force eagerly announced that it has 10,000 targets in Iran pinpointed for attack and destruction. Yugoslavia is cited as an example of a nation that was destroyed by unanswerable aerial attacks, without the loss of a single U.S. soldier. I saw the destruction in Serbia shortly after the NATO bombings stopped: bridges, utilities, rail depots, factories, schools, television and radio stations, government-built hotels, hospitals, and housing projects—a destruction carried out with utter impunity, all this against a social democracy that refused to submit to a free-market capitalist takeover.

The message is clear. It has already been delivered to Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, and many other countries around the world: overthrow your reform-minded, independent, communitarian government; become a satellite to the global corporate free-market system, or we will pound you to death and reduce you to a severe level of privatization and poverty.

Not all the U.S. military is of one mind regarding war with Iran. While the Air Force can hardly contain itself, the Army and Navy seem lukewarm. Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, actually denounced the idea of waging destruction upon “80 million Iranians, all different individuals.”

The future does not look good for Iran. That country is slated for an attack of serious dimensions, supposedly in the name of democracy, “humanitarian war,” the struggle against terrorism, and the need to protect America and Israel from some future nuclear threat.

Sometimes it seems as if U.S. ruling interests perpetrate crimes and deceptions of all sorts with a frequency greater than we can document and expose. So if I don’t write or speak about one or another issue, keep in mind, it may be because I am occupied with other things, or I simply have neither the energy nor the resources. Sometimes too, I think, it is because I get too heavy of heart.

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Categories Anti-War, Bahrain, Economic Exploitation, Economy, Government, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, India, International, Internet, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Media & Culture, Pakistan, Qatar, Reactionary Watch, Revolutionary History, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Soviet Union (USSR), Statements, U.S. News, United States History, World History, Yugoslavia, Zionism
Author The Red Phoenix

Review of “Animal Farm” (1954 & 1999 Films)

26 Jul

Introduction

Hailed by capitalist literary critics, Trotskyites and anarchists as a masterpiece, the mediocre book Animal Farm has served a very important role in distorting the history of socialism in the Soviet Union. Modern editions of the book hail author George Orwell’s selfless journalistic integrity in producing the work, which is said to be a totally accurate portrayal of life under socialism.

But a close examination tells differently. Especially important in understanding the true reason Animal Farm is still crammed down the throats of the public are the two film versions of Animal Farm.

“The CIA obtained the film rights to “Animal Farm” from Orwell’s widow, Sonia, after his death and covertly funded the production as anti-Communist propaganda. Some sources assert that the ending of the story was altered by the CIA (in the book, the pigs and humans join forces) to press home their message[.]” [1].

The CIA agent Howard Hunt, who bought the film rights, also helped set up production of the 1984 movie, which also changed the ending of the original book to be more anti-communist.

“The head of the CIA operation to obtain the film rights was none other than E. Howard Hunt, later famous as Nixon’s Watergate burglar. As part of the deal, Sonia Orwell requested that she get to meet her idol, Clark Gable; this was arranged. A large portion of the budget ($300,000 out of a cost of over $500,000) was supplied by the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Policy Coordination, through one of its shell corporations, Touchstone Inc” [2].

Animal Farm has become a classic of capitalist propaganda. First published during World War II, it conveniently packages decades’ worth of lies about socialism in the U.S.S.R., and more specifically the leadership of Joseph Stalin, into an easy-to-understand book small enough to fit in your pocket. Animal Farm is supposed to be a classic satire and critique of socialism; however, George Orwell never went to the U.S.S.R., and received all the information he knew from anti-communists. The book is not journalism at all, and should not be considered the be-all end-all of learning about Soviet socialism.

Plot Summery

The original book and the two films have roughly the same basic plot. Subtitled “a political fable,” Animal Farm tells the tale of the poor and ill-run Manor Farm, managed by the drunken farmer Jones, who abuses the animals. The neglected creatures are called to a meeting by a wise old pig named Old Major, who tells them that if they will rise up together, they can overthrow Jones and create a new world where all animals will be free and equal. Led by a clever pig named Snowball, the beasts run Jones off the farm and take all his property for themselves, proudly renaming the plot Animal Farm.

Conditions improve at first, but the pigs (smartest of the animals) begin to keep certain luxuries, like apples, for themselves. The greedy and mediocre pig Napoleon uses a gang of trained dogs he has brainwashed to run Snowball off the farm and institute a new, terrifying society not at all like the one envisaged by Old Major. Life for the pigs gets better and better, but the other animals are murdered and starved and battered into an oppression worse and more horrifying than existed when Jones ran the farm.

Orwell made no attempt at subtlety – even children can see without much difficulty that Animal Farm is a crude metaphor for the Soviet Union – Napoleon is Stalin, and Snowball is Stalin’s rival Leon Trotsky, who was justly exiled from the U.S.S.R. in the mid 1920s.

Review of Both Films

The first of the two films based on the book, released in 1954 and made possible by funding from the notorious American Central Intelligence Agency, is a dark and gloomy cartoon that, true to the book, paints a disgusting picture of Animal Farm and the struggle between the white pig Snowball and the black and conniving Napoleon.

The second film, released in 1999 and produced by Hallmark, is a live action film boasting a cast of stars including Patrick Stewart, Seinfeld’s Julia-Louis Dreyfus and Fraiser’s Kelsey Grammer. Both of these films have been made easily available to anyone with a computer, with the first film streaming for free on Hulu and the second on services like Netflix and YouTube.

What makes these films important is the way they deviate from Orwell’s book, especially when it comes to the endings. In his original work, Orwell closes the novel with a scene in which the animals realize that they are no longer able to tell their bloated pig leaders from the human farmers who oppressed them. It is a closing of cynical misery, driving home Orwell’s anti-revolutionary idea that any attempt by the workers to create a better world for themselves would only end in the same kind of tyranny they overthrew.

But both of the films go a step further. The 1954 animated ends quite differently than the book. The mistreated animals from many farms join together and, instead of attacking their human owners, march defiantly to Animal Farm and kill Napoleon. We must bear in mind who it was that funded this change – the CIA. The message is simple, and directed at the Soviet peoples – “Not only is your new government atrocious, you can and must overthrow it now!” The CIA, of course, was ever working for this to happen, but failed miserably during the Soviet Union’s time as a socialist country.

The 1999 live action version was made decades after the Stalin era, and does not bother leaving the plot and end open to interpretation. In the ending sequence, in a clumsy attempt to be poetic, a heavy rain “washes away” Napoleon’s government, the animals welcome a loving new human family to the farm to boss them about, command them, consume them and exploit them. The film closes with a shot of the sickeningly stereotypical family driving up to what was once Animal Farm, their smiles suggesting that the problem all along was just that Jones was a bad owner. All the animals really needed was to be owned and exploited by a family more like the Cleavers.

In these films, the biased and deceitful nature of Animal Farm is laid bare. Going a step further than the slanders of Orwell’s book, they openly call for violent counterrevolution in the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

The films themselves – taken as art – are as bad as their message. It is a real chore to sit through the creepy “Dr. Dolittle” talking animals of the 1999 Hallmark film or the poorly animated and clumsily sinister tone of the 1954 release. The dialogue is absolutely painful, and the voice performances, even Patrick Stewart as Napoleon, are phoned-in and uninspired.

The artistic elements are secondary, both for us and for the people who made them. What is important to understand about films like Animal Farm is why they are made – for propaganda. Both films, as well as the original book, have no appeal as art whatsoever other than their obvious metaphor for the Soviet Union. Without that, the films are hollow.

The pseudo-history of the U.S.S.R. presented in Animal Farm is junk, but we are pushed to accept it as fact. Many people do, since Animal Farm is a fictional work, there is no need for citations and it can be difficult for the defenders of socialism to argue against its more specific, ludicrous claims because they are hidden within a fairy tale. Worst yet, many people accept the attitude of Animal Farm, believing like the film’s donkey Benjamin that no matter what they do or how hard they fight, things will only end up worse than before.

The two Animal Farm films are worth seeing only as a way to get to know what you’re up against and as a great glimpse into how the capitalist media uses popular culture to promote its ideological objectives. But as films in their own right, they are contrived and soulless. Anyone looking for a good film to relax with for an hour or so should look elsewhere.

Sources

(1) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047834/trivia

(2) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/031800-02.htm

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Categories Books, Government, History, Imperialism, International, Media & Culture, Movies, Reactionary Watch, Revolutionary History, Second World War, Soviet Union (USSR), TV, United States History, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) Interview with Jacob Jugashvili

21 Jul

[Translated by PC (AP)]

INTERVIEW
JACOB JUGASHVILI, THE GREAT GRANDSON OF THE MAN OF STEEL
Vladimir Ilich Lenin Cell
Chilean Comunista Party (Proletarian Action) PC (AP)
La Serena – Chile

Jacob Jugashvili is a graduate professional artist, his native country Georgia and Russia. Today his artistic life developed in parallel with politics. Jacob is the son of the historian and retired colonel in the Soviet air force Yevgeny Jugashvili, who is the grandson of comrade Stalin and son of Jacob. The meet and to strengthen ties of friendship and camaraderie is an important point for those who demand the fundamental role of Comrade Joseph Stalin in the construction and consolidation of scientific socialism in the USSR.

For you, our readers, we felt it is necessary to let them know more about this important young offspring, in whose veins runs the blood of the great chief of the international proletariat -only comparable to the great genius of Lenin- the Comrade Supreme Commander Iosif Vissarionovich Jugashvili, known worldwide as Stalin, man of steel.

PERSONAL HISTORY

1. Jacob, before anything, on the name of Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian action) we would like to thank you for giving us this interview.

It is my pleasure.

2. How have your life been as a great grandson of one of the four most important men of the Universal History and modern socialism?

Indeed! The importance and progressivness of his ideas and things he managed to do during his life, gives no rest to those who wishes to prevent the world from knowing the truth about Stalin, and therefore, they invest heavily into the creation of lies about Stalin and USSR history of its Stalin period.

3. Have you ever been discriminated against by people as the Stalin’s great grandson?

Very little and it doesn’t worth to be remembered. But would like to tell some funny story happened to me few months ago.
I participated in major TV show on Russian TV. I took part in a discussion there and spoke for about 30 minutes (in total). The program was dedicated to the death of Svetlana Allilueva(Stalin’s daughter). I spoke about her major role in spreading of the Khrushchov’s antistalinist lies. When the program went on air I wasn’t in there at all, as if I never been there. I’m not sure if it can be considered as discrimination but I think it’s a good occasion to tell this particular story, which describes official Russian media’s attitude to our family.

4. After Stalin’s death, was your family harassed by the government in USSR?

Stalin’s older son Vassily was arrested twice and sentenced to imprisonment. He correctly guessed that Stalin was murdered and Krushchov – likely Stalin’s murderer, was quite nervous about it. My father met with Vassily after his first imprisonment was over. He was looking very unhealthy. He died soon after his second imprisonment in Kazan.

5. From a political perspective, is your father Colonel Yevgeny Jugashvili involved in any political project at present?

No.He is no longer doing public life. His health is not good enough for that kind of life any more.

CULTURE

6. When did you realise that your life was linked to art? 7.What artistic style, particularly, painting style do you follow?

I started painting “seriously” after i saw works by Pavel Filonov and Francis Bacon. Something happened in me, as if I had a great massage. I was fascinated HOW these artists worked. Painting today, on my view, is no longer serves the aims it used even 50 years ago. With modern technology you can make images of any level of complexity. Painting must not be considered as a competitor to the technologies. The painting is something that is done by the human. Human make mistakes. SO the ability of the human (artist) to correct those mistakes during the working process, by finding unpredictable solutions, ability to resist his weaknesses during the working process makes the painting valuable and unique. Painting is about HOW at first place and WHAT after..

POLITICS AND SOCIETY

7. In December 21th, 2011, in Chile, It was carried out by Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) an event to commemorate the birth of Stalin and it was officially published one of his most important work, “Foundation of Leninism”. What activities were carried out in Russia and Georgia to commemorate Stalin’s birth?

I think the best way to celebrate Stalin’s birthday is to unmask the lies about him and USSR history of his time. There are few major lies that used in accusation of Stalin as “criminal”. One of the fundamentals of those lies is the fact that people (as well those who create those lies) is totally unaware about the type of management of the USSSR, therefore consider Stalin a dictator. There was no personal dictatorship in the USSR. There was a dictatorship of the communist party. More than that. It was not a dictatorship of the party itself but its apparatus – Central Committee’s organ – Politbureau. SO Stalin never was a dictator, even after he became the head of the Soviet government in May of 1940. Stalin was not a dictator but a leader. Criminal can not be a leader. If Stalin was even linked to a single crime(sanctioned the punishment of the innocent or supported unfair decision etc) the Soviet people wouldn’t have choosen him as a Leader, especially when the very existence of the people was in danger. All peoples, not only Russians, if they face the danger and realize it, they choosse only most justiful and clever person as the Leader. The understanding of the difference between those two notions is crucial for understanding of the true history of the USSR and Stalin’s role in it. You can easily destroy The antistalinist lies after you understand this.

8. What is the level of struggle against present government in communist organizations in ex USSR lately?

There are a lot of organizations who call themselves “communists” but if you ask them what is communism they can’t tell.. Like parrots they repeat what Marx, Lenin or Stalin wrote but without understanding it. Let me explain. When you are about to built a house, before you make a project, you must have an idea of it in your mind already, at least an overall idea. After that you begin doing project, hire workers, buy materials. The same with communism. How can you build a society which you have no idea how it will look in its basic parameters? How are you going to make propaganda among people? How are you going to persuade people to join your party and build together the society you have no idea about? I can not trust those kind of organizations. They will not lead us to communism.

9. What political organization or party do you belong to? Could you talk a little bit about it?

I do not belong to any political organization. I’m the part of the public movement called IGPR (Iniciativnaia Gruppa Po Provedeniu Referenduma) former Army of the Will of the People. We aim to organize a referendum in Russia. By means of the referendum we would like to set knew rule(a law) in our country. Shortly I’d explain this way. According to Russian Constitution People of Russia is the master, whilst hired by it, by means of elections, President and Parlament deputies are the servants of the people. What makes a Master a Master? What is the difference between Master and No master? Master has a power over his servants which means the master has a right and ability to punish its servant for the bad work and award him for the good work. This is an essential of the management philosophy. In todays Russia the master – People, has no POWER over its servants, that is why the Russian authorities do what they want without fear been punished by the people. We would like to set a rule which will force the authorities to serve its people and not, for example, International Monetary Fund or other criminal groups around the world as well as inside of the country. Please note, that the fall of the USSR was nothing else but the result of the dictatorship of the Communist party which by the end of 80-s formed as a new type of exploiters (a collective exploiter) of the Soviet people. Our idea is a result of almost 30 years of analysys of philosophical experience of the previous generations including Marxism.
Here is the English explanation of our idea in details http://www.igpr.ru/eng

10. What would you tell us about your political experiences in Belarus and Pridniestrovie ? Are they really socialist?

I’m not well informed. Sorry.

11. Corea received a gesture of solidarity from our party in relation to the death of its leader King Jong IL. However, some left wing parties took a revisionist attitude. What attitude did your organization take in relation to King Jong Il‘s death?

We do not do such activities. My personal attitude is not clear as I’m not informed about N/Korea.

12. What is the position of today’s youth of your country in relation to work together to create a socialistic, progressive and fairer society?

The problem with youth and people in general that there is no one definition of what is “fairness”, “progressivness” etc.. Different people give absolutely different definitions. Before thinking of making “something” people must have at least an overall idea(must have a picture in the mind) what this “something” is. Before that, all attempts of such improvements are in vain.

13. Considering that nowadays it doesn’t exist a dreamed soviet way of life and carried out by Lenin and Stalin. What are political, social and economic problems that affect people from Russian Federation and Georgia?

Economic problems rooted in political problems. I have already talked about it above. The authorities of former USSSR countries do not serve their people, because there are no rules and mechanisms that would force them to do so.

14. We know that Nacional “Bolcheviks” are an openly fascist movement that uses communist symbols as an strategy to attract confused and declassed people to their group. What do you think about those kind of organizations and problems that they create within proletariat in the former USSR?

You pay too much attention to that organization. I understand why: its head – Limonov is quite popular with Russian and Western media, so people around the world think of him as of “important” figure in Russian politics. It’s a big mistake, and I wouldn’t advise you to think that way. You call them fascists and you are very welcome to do so if it makes any sense to you, but the word “fascist” doesn’t explain anything to me, its just a word which still needs definition. I think they are silly and do not know what they fight for. Besides, they are not fighting but make an illusion of it in front of tv cameras. I’ve already mentioned that such kind of organizations and their leaders like Limonov from Nacional Bolcheviks or other “leftists” or “communist”organizations can not explain what society they want to built and how. So how they can “attract” people to join them? Can they be trusted after all? Of course not.

15. What political actions have communist organizations taken against Putin – Menvedev rule?

True communists (NOT those who call themselves communists just because they belong to organization with the word “communist” in its name) understand that Putin Medvedev are not the trouble of modern Russia. They are just a consequence and not the root of the trouble. The tragedy of all modern democracies, including Russia, is that there is no mechanism that would force the servants of the people- president and parlament, to serve their master – People. So the true communists try to explain to the people the necessity of giving the people a real POWER over its servants: the possibility to JUDGE the authorities depending on the results of their rule. True communists are those for whom the communist society is the society in which the power belongs to ALL members of the society and not its part, class or other group of people. Stalin was a true communist because he wanted to return the rule in the USSSR to its people. I think you should read Grover Furrs article about Stalin’e reforms to get my point http://jugashvili.com/press/Stalin_and_struggle_for_democratic_reforms_I.html and http://jugashvili.com/press/Stalin_and_struggle_for_democratic_reforms_II.html

16. What position was taken by your organization on the nomination of Gennadi Ziugánov?

Our public movement to which I belong did not nominated Zuganov for presidency run. We nominated Boris Sergeevich Mironov http://www.borismironov.ru The central electorial Committee unlawfully refused his registration as a candidate, so he was not allowed to the rally. He was only one who was refused because of his ideas. HE was the only one among all candidates who understood the necessity of the true POWER of the people, I spoke about above.

17. Finally, what do you know about the political and social processes of Latin America and Chile?

Almost nothing.

18. Jacob, we thank you for your time and we hope to strengthen ties of friendship and camaraderie. A big hug to you, your family, and the comrades who are fighting for the overcoming of the capitalist tyranny in the former USSR

* Edit Note: This interview was conducted by Vladimir Ilich Lenin Cell on behalf of his party and his comrades.

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Categories Chile, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, History, International, Revolutionary History, Soviet Union (USSR), Theory, Workers Struggle, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Partido Comunista Chileno (Acción Proletaria) Entrevista con Jacob Jugashvili

21 Jul

ENTREVISTA
JACOB JUGASHVILI, EL BISNIETO DEL HOMBRE DE ACERO
Por
Celula Vladimir Ilich Lenin
Partido Comunista Chileno PC (AP)
La Serena-Chile

Jacob Jugashvili es un artista (pintor) profesional graduado en su país natal Georgia e Inglaterra. Hoy en día su vida artística se desarrolla en paralelo con la actividad en movimientos ciudadanos.

Jacob es el hijo del historiador y coronel retirado de la Fuerza Aérea Soviética Yevgeny Jugashvili, que es el nieto del camarada Stalin.
El conocer y fortalecer los lazos de amistad y camaradería es un punto importante para aquellos que exigimos y reclamamos el papel fundamental del camarada Stalin en la construcción y consolidación del socialismo científico en la URSS.
Para ustedes, nuestros lectores, pensamos que es necesario hacerles saber más acerca de este importante joven, por cuyas venas corre la sangre del gran jefe del proletariado internacional, sólo comparable con el gran genio de Lenin, el camarada y comandante supremo Iosif Vissarionovich Jugashvili, conocido mundialmente como Stalin, el hombre de acero.

HISTORIA PERSONAL

1. PC (AP): Jacob, antes que nada, en el nombre de Partido Comunista Chileno (Acción Proletaria), nos gustaría darte las gracias por concedernos esta entrevista.

J. Jugashvili: Es un placer.

2. PC (AP): ¿Cómo ha sido su vida como un bisnieto de uno de los cuatro hombres más importantes de la Historia Universal y el socialismo moderno?

J. Jugashvili: Por supuesto! La importancia y progresividad de sus ideas y las cosas que tuvo que solucionar durante su vida, no da descanso a los que desean evitar que el mundo sepa la verdad sobre Stalin, y por lo tanto, invertir fuertemente en la creación de mentiras sobre Stalin, la URSS y la historia del período de Stalin.

3. PC (AP): ¿Alguna vez has sido discriminado por la gente como el bisnieto de Stalin?

J.J. Muy poco y no merece la pena ser recordado. Sin embargo, quisiera relatar una historia divertida que me pasó hace unos meses.

Participe en programa importante en la televisión rusa. Participe en una discusión allí y se habló durante unos 30 minutos (en total). El programa fue dedicado a la muerte de Svetlana Allilúeva (la hija de Stalin). Hable de su papel fundamental en la difusión de mentiras antiestalinistas de Jruschov. Cuando el programa salió al aire no estaba allí en absoluto, es como si nunca hubiera estado allí. No estoy seguro de si puede considerarse como una discriminación, pero creo que es una buena ocasión para contar esta historia en particular, que describe la actitud de los medios de comunicación oficiales de Rusia para nuestra familia.

4. PC (AP): ¿Después de la muerte de Stalin, su familia fue hostigada por el gobierno en la URSS?

J.J. El hijo mayor de Stalin, Vasili fue arrestado dos veces y sentenciado a prisión. Él adivinó correctamente que Stalin fue asesinado y Kruschov – asesino probable de Stalin- estaba muy nervioso al respecto. Mi padre se reunió con Vassily después que su primer encarcelamiento se había terminado. Él se veía muy saludable. Murió poco después de su segundo encarcelamiento en Kazan.

5. PC (AP): ¿Desde una perspectiva política, su padre, el coronel Yevgeny Jugashvili participa en algún proyecto político en la actualidad?

J.J. No. El ya no está haciendo vida pública. Su salud no es lo suficientemente buena para ese tipo de vida.

CULTURA

6. PC (AP): ¿Cuándo te das cuenta de que su vida estaba vinculada con el arte?, ¿Qué estilo artístico -sobre todo la pintura- sigues?

J.J. Empecé a pintar “en serio” después de haber visto las obras de Pavel Filonov y Francis Bacon. Algo pasó en mí, como si tuviera un buen masaje. Yo estaba fascinado cómo estos artistas trabajaron. La pintura de hoy, en mi opinión, ya no es útil para los objetivos que se utilizan hasta hace 50 años. Con la tecnología moderna puedes hacer imágenes de cualquier nivel de complejidad. La pintura no debe ser considerada como un competidor de las tecnologías. La pintura es algo que se lleva a cabo por el ser humano. Los humanos cometen errores. La capacidad del ser humano (artista) para corregir esos errores durante el proceso de trabajo, mediante la búsqueda de soluciones impredecibles, capacidad de resistir a sus debilidades durante el proceso de trabajo hace que la pintura sea valiosa y única. La pintura es acerca de cómo en el primer lugar y después de que.

POLÍTICA Y SOCIEDAD

7. PC (AP): El 21 de diciembre 2011, en Chile, que se llevó a cabo por el Partido Comunista Chileno (Acción Proletaria) un evento para conmemorar el nacimiento de Stalin y fue publicado oficialmente uno de sus trabajos más importantes, “Fundamentos del leninismo”. ¿Qué actividades se llevaron a cabo en Rusia y Georgia para conmemorar el nacimiento de Stalin?

J.J. Creo que la mejor manera de celebrar el cumpleaños de Stalin, es desenmascarar las mentiras acerca de él y la historia de la URSS de su tiempo. Hay pocas mentiras importantes que se utilizan en la acusación de Stalin como “criminal”. Uno de los fundamentos de esas mentiras es el hecho de que la gente (y también los que crean esas mentiras) son totalmente inconscientes sobre el tipo de gestión de la URSS, por lo tanto, consideran a Stalin un dictador. No hubo dictadura personal en la URSS. Había una dictadura del partido comunista. Más que eso. No fue una dictadura del partido mismo, pero su aparato – órgano del Comité Central – Politburó. Así que Stalin nunca fue un dictador, incluso después de que él se convirtió en el jefe del gobierno soviético en mayo de 1940. Stalin no era un dictador, sino un líder. Un criminal no puede ser un líder. Si Stalin estaba vinculada incluso a un solo delito (sancionado el castigo de la decisión, inocente o apoyo desleal) el pueblo soviético no lo habría escogido a él como líder, especialmente cuando la existencia misma de las personas estaba en peligro. Todos los pueblos, no sólo rusos, si se enfrentan el peligro y se dan cuenta de ello, eligen a la única persona más justa e inteligente como el líder. La comprensión de la diferencia entre esos dos conceptos es fundamental para la comprensión de la verdadera historia de la URSS y el papel de Stalin tuvo en la misma. Usted puede fácilmente destruir las mentiras antiestalinistas después de entender esto.

8. PC (AP): ¿Cuál es el nivel de la lucha contra el actual gobierno en las organizaciones comunistas en la ex URSS últimamente?

J.J. Hay un montón de organizaciones que se autodenominan “comunistas”, pero si se les pregunta qué es el comunismo ellos no te dicen nada .. Al igual que los loros que repiten lo que Marx, Lenin o Stalin escribió, pero sin entenderlo. Me explico. Cuando estás a punto de construir una casa, antes de hacer un proyecto, debes tener una idea en tu mente ya, por lo menos una idea general. Después de que usted comience a hacer del proyecto, los trabajadores de alquiler, compra de materiales. Lo mismo con el comunismo. ¿Cómo se puede construir una sociedad que no tiene idea de cómo se verá en sus parámetros básicos? ¿Cómo vas a hacer propaganda entre la gente? ¿Cómo vas a convencer a la gente a unirse a su partido y construir juntos la sociedad si no tienes idea de esto? No puedo confiar en ese tipo de organizaciones. No nos llevará al comunismo.

9. PC (AP): ¿A qué organización o partido político pertenece usted? ¿Podría hablarnos un poco acerca de ello?

J.J. Yo no pertenezco a ninguna organización política. Soy parte del movimiento social llamado IGPR (Iniciativnaia Gruppa Po Provedeniu Referenduma) anterior del ejército de la Voluntad del Pueblo. Nuestro objetivo es organizar un referéndum en Rusia. Por medio del referéndum, nos gustaría establecer conocida regla (una ley) en nuestro país. Lo explicare un poco de esta manera. De acuerdo con la Constitución de Rusia el pueblo de Rusia es el maestro, mientras que (el pueblo) contrató, por medio de elecciones, los diputados del Parlamento y presidente los cuales son los servidores del pueblo. ¿Qué hace que un maestro sea un maestro? ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre el maestro y señor? El maestro tiene un poder sobre sus siervos lo que significa que el maestro tiene el derecho y la capacidad de castigar a su servidor por el mal trabajo y premiarlo por el buen trabajo. Este es un elemento esencial de la filosofía de gestión. En Rusia, el maestro de hoy – el pueblo- no tiene poder sobre sus empleados, es por eso que las autoridades rusas hacer lo que quieren sin temor a ser castigados por el pueblo. Nos gustaría establecer una regla que obligue a las autoridades para servir a su pueblo y no como por ejemplo, el Fondo Monetario Internacional u otros grupos criminales en todo el mundo, así como en el interior del país. Tenga en cuenta que la caída de la URSS no era más que el resultado de la dictadura del partido comunista, que al final del 80-s formó un nuevo tipo de explotadores (un explotador colectivo) del pueblo soviético. Nuestra idea es el resultado de casi 30 años de análisis de experiencia filosófica de las generaciones anteriores, incluyendo el marxismo.

Aquí está la explicación de nuestra idea de inglés en los detalles: http://www.igpr.ru/eng

10. PC (AP): ¿Qué nos puedes decir acerca de sus experiencias políticas en Belarús y Pridniestrovie? ¿Son realmente socialistas?

J.J. No estoy bien informado. Lo siento.

13. PC (AP): Corea recibió un gesto de solidaridad de nuestro partido en relación con la muerte de su líder Kim Jong Il. Sin embargo, algunos partidos de izquierda tuvieron una actitud revisionista. ¿Qué actitud tomo tu organización en relación con la muerte de Kim Jong Il?

J.J. Nosotros no hicimos actividades. Mi actitud personal no es tan claro ya que no estoy informado acerca de N / Corea.

14. PC (AP): ¿Cuál es la posición de la juventud actual de su país en relación con el trabajo en conjunto para crear una sociedad socialista, progresista y más justa?

J.J. El problema con los jóvenes y las personas en general que no hay una definición de lo que es la “justicia”, “progresista”, etc. Distintas personas dan definiciones absolutamente diferentes. Antes de pensar en hacer “algo” la gente debe tener al menos una idea global (deben tener una imagen en la mente) de lo que es este “algo”. Antes de eso, todos los intentos de estas mejoras son en vano.

15. PC (AP): Teniendo en cuenta que hoy en día no existe un modo de vida soviético soñado y llevado a cabo por Lenin y Stalin. ¿Cuáles son los problemas políticos, sociales y económicos que afectan a la gente de la Federación de Rusia y Georgia?

J.J. Los problemas económicos enraizados en los problemas políticos. Ya he hablado de ello anteriormente. Las autoridades de los países ex URSS no sirven a su pueblo, porque no hay reglas y mecanismos que les obligan a hacerlo.

16. PC (AP): Sabemos que los Nacional “Bolcheviques” son un movimiento abiertamente fascista que utiliza símbolos del comunismo como una estrategia para atraer a los confusos y desclasados su organización. ¿Qué piensa usted acerca de ese tipo de organizaciones y los problemas que se crean dentro de proletariado en la URSS?

J.J. Se presta demasiada atención a esa organización. Entiendo por que su cabeza – Limonov- es muy popular entre los medios de comunicación rusos y occidentales, así que la gente de todo el mundo piensa en el como una “importante” figura en la política rusa. Es un gran error, y yo no le aconsejo que piensen de esa manera. Usted los llama fascistas y que son muy bienvenidos a hacerlo si tiene algún sentido para ti, pero la palabra “fascista” no explica nada para mí, es sólo una palabra que todavía necesita definición. Creo que son tontos y no saben por que luchar. Además, no están luchando, pero hacen la ilusión de que frente a las cámaras de televisión. Ya he mencionado que este tipo de organizaciones y sus líderes, como Limonov de los Nacional Bolcheviques u otros “izquierdistas” y organizaciones “comunistas” no puede explicar la sociedad que quieren construir y cómo la quieren construir. Así que ¿en que forma pueden “atraer” a la gente a unirse a ellos? ¿Se puede confiar después de todo? Por supuesto que no.

17. PC (AP): ¿Qué acciones políticas adoptaron las organizaciones comunistas contra el gobierno de Putin – Menvedev?

J.J. Para los verdaderos comunistas (no los que se llaman comunistas sólo porque pertenecen a la organización con la palabra “comunista” como nombre) comprenden que Putin -Medvédev no son el problema de la Rusia moderna. Ellos son sólo una consecuencia y no la raíz del problema. La tragedia de todas las democracias modernas, incluida Rusia, es que no existe ningún mecanismo que obligue a los servidores del pueblo, presidente y Parlamento, a servir a su amo – El Pueblo-. Así que los verdaderos comunistas tratan de explicar a la gente la necesidad de dar al pueblo un poder real sobre sus siervos: la posibilidad para juzgar a las autoridades, dependiendo de los resultados de su gobierno. Los verdaderos comunistas son aquellos para los cuales la sociedad comunista es la sociedad en la que el poder pertenece a todos los miembros de la sociedad y no a una de sus partes, de clase o de otro grupo de personas. Stalin era un verdadero comunista porque quería devolver esa regla en la URSS a su pueblo. Creo que usted debe leer el artículo Grover Furr acerca de las reformas democrática de Stalin. Para ver mi punto: http://jugashvili.com/press/Stalin_and_struggle_for_democratic_reforms_I.html y
http://jugashvili.com/press/Stalin_and_struggle_for_democratic_reforms_II.html

18. PC (AP): ¿Qué posición fue tomada por su organización sobre la designación de Gennadi Zuganov como candidato a la presidencia?

J.J. El movimiento social al que pertenezco no nomino a Zuganov para la carrera presidencial. Hemos nombrado Boris Mironov Sergeevich: http://www.borismironov.ru

El Comité central electoral ilegalmente a denegado su solicitud de registro como candidato, por lo que no se le permitió manifestarse. Era el único (candidato) al que se negó a causa de sus ideas. Él fue el único entre todos los candidatos que comprendió la necesidad de que el verdadero poder es del pueblo, hablé anteriormente de esto.

19. PC (AP): Por último, ¿qué sabe usted acerca de los procesos políticos y sociales de América Latina y Chile?

J.J. Casi nada.

20. PC (AP): Jacob, te damos las gracias por tu tiempo y esperamos fortalecer los lazos de amistad y camaradería. Un gran abrazo a usted, su familia y a los compañeros que luchan por la superación de la tiranía del capitalismo en la ex URSS.

* Nota de edición: esta entrevista fue realizada por la Célula Vladimir Ilich Lenin en nombre de su Partido y sus camaradas.

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Categories Chile, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, History, Imperialism, International, Revolutionary History, Soviet Union (USSR), Theory, Workers Struggle, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Nearly a million Russians have committed suicide since collapse of Soviet Union

26 Apr

An urgent public health campaign must be launched as rates are dangerously high, warn experts

Russia’s number of suicides has reached nearly a million since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Although the rate has dropped from 42 per 100,000 in 1995, just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, experts have warned the number of Russians committing suicides is still dangerously high.

In 2010, the suicide rate reached 23.5 per 100,000 people, the sixth highest in the world and well above the ‘critical’ limit of 20 set by the World Health Organisation, Boris Polozhy of the Serbsky psychiatric hospital told a news conference in Moscow yesterday.

Russia’s suicide rate hit its peak during the economic and social maelstrom of the 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union, when the rate rose to 42 per 100,000 in 1995.

But the high rates have remained stable among children, with the suicide rate standing at 20 per 100,000 among 15-19 year-olds, against a global average of 7.3, said Polozhy, who heads a mental health research centre at the hospital.

The world average suicide rate for adults is 14 per 100,000, Polozhy told journalists.

Experts urged Russia to introduce a public health campaign aimed at prevention of suicides, which they said could be put in place in the next two years.

But they complained that the Russian government was too slow to change and had not made any real progress.

It will likely take Russia ‘five to 10 years’ to launch a state-funded programme, said Zurab Kekelidze, the health ministry’s chief psychiatrist and the acting head of the hospital.

Source

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Categories History, International, Russia, Soviet Union (USSR), World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Juan Perón and Social-Fascism in Argentina

5 Mar

President Perón at his 1946 inaugural parade.

History of the Terms “Social-Democracy” and “Social-Fascism”

The term “social-democracy” has been used by the left since the time of Marx and Engels. The term is a pejorative one today, since it has become almost synonymous with liberal reformism. About a century ago, “social-democrat” was a word to describe other appendages of the socialist movement. Everyone who was an adherent to either the First or Second Internationals before 1914-1919 would be called a “social-democrat,” regardless if they were supporters of the revolutionary Marxism of V.I. Lenin in Russia or the reformist Socialist Party of America.

The Second International under Karl Kautsky failed to rally the working class when it encouraged supporting “one’s own” governments during the inter-imperialist First World War. It encouraged this viewpoint among the international socialist movement, many of whom began supporting the war. This amounted to betrayal of the working class and conciliation towards the capitalist system. This caused a split in the social-democratic movement, eventually leading to the formation of the Third International, also called the Communist International or Comintern, in 1919. The Third International was primarily led by the revolutionary wing of Russian social-democracy, the Bolsheviks under V.I. Lenin, who had seized power and led the first successful socialist revolution in the world in October of 1917. They opposed the World War as an imperialist war between capitalist powers and called for “turning imperialist war into civil war,” meaning into revolution.

After the foundation of the Third International, revolutionary social-democrats the world over abandoned the term “social-democrat” and called themselves “communists.” The term “social-democracy” became the viewpoint of surviving adherents of the Second International, including many socialist parties who had adopted reformist lines. “Social-democracy,” then, changed from being a term meaning the ideology of the entire socialist movement to mean bourgeois reformism that was in opposition to the working class and the revolutionary science of Marxism-Leninism.

The term “social-fascism” came from a theory supported by the Comintern of the 1930′s that social-democracy was the “left-wing of fascism.” This perception became commonplace after the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the crushing of the Spartacist Uprising, which resulted in the murder of the German socialists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht among many other revolutionaries by a social-democratic German government, assisted by right-wing paramilitaries called the Freikorps. While some historic applications of this theory were incorrect, there is a trend in modern social-democracy that gave support to fascism and tends toward fascism even while using left-wing or populist rhetoric.

While modern social-democrats have appealed to centrists and center-leftists, there are a few that make full-on attempts to sway the revolutionary left by appealing to social programs, economism and trade unionism as a way of disorganizing the left’s revolutionary determination. While raising wages and improving the populace’s immediate standing of living, the class nature of the state remains the same: in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Labor is still treated as a commodity and surplus value is still extracted from the workers for the sake of “incentive” and private profit. It’s common practice for bourgeois politicians to appeal to those who demand change and progress, only to surrender to the status quo and multinational corporations upon seizing power. Modern capitalist politicians are very skilled at making public appeals to the progressive sections of the populations, only to turn their backs on the same people who voted them into office.

Argentina’s government under Juan Perón is frequently portrayed by the bourgeois media by many misguided “leftists” as a socialist government where the working class had power. Others have described it as a social-democracy, as some alternative form of fascism less offensive than the Hitlerite variety, or even as some kind of “compromise between capitalism and communism.” Argentina’s Perónist period is perhaps the most fitting example of social-fascism in practice.

Juan Perón’s Early Life and Rise to Power

Born in Buenos Aires on October 8, 1895, Juan Domingo Perón had a staunch Catholic upbringing. In 1911, at the age of 16, he was sent to the Argentine National Military College. In 1938, he was sent overseas as a military advisor to the Axis powers and their allies, collaborators and colonies including Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Albania and Yugoslavia. It was there that he first came into contact with the fascist government of Benito Mussolini, whom Perón vigorously endorsed.

According to Robert J. Alexander in his book Juan Domingo Perón: A History, Perón’s advisory role to Italy “gave him a chance to study in some detail and at first hand the way in which the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini had reorganized, or tried to reorganize, Italian society” [1].

Even more damning are Perón’s own words:

“Italian Fascism led popular organizations to an effective participation in national life, which had always been denied to the people. Before Mussolini’s rise to power, the nation was on one hand and the worker on the other, and the latter had no involvement in the former. [...] In Germany happened exactly the same phenomenon, meaning, an organized state for a perfectly ordered community, for a perfectly ordered population as well: a community where the state was the tool of the nation, whose representation was, under my view, effective. I thought that this should be the future political form, meaning, the true people’s democracy, the true social democracy.”[3]

Perón returned to Argentina in 1941 and became a colonel of Ramon Castillo’s Military. It was then that the “Group of United Officers” or “GUO” was formed in order to prevent the succession of Castillo’s rampantly corrupt regime. The GUO staged a coup prior to the year’s presidential election. This brought an end to Castillo’s conservative traditionalist regime and brought about the military government of Argentina.

Upon first coming to notoriety in 1943, Perón’s policies were embraced by a variety of tendencies all across the political spectrum, although the corporatist character of Perónism drew attacks from socialists who accused his administration of preserving capitalist exploitation and class division. This viewpoint shared by the leftists turned out to be prophetic, as capitalist production relations remained intact despite the raising of wages and the generally elevated status of the Department of Labor, including the department obtaining secretariat status under Perón’s leadership.

The main opposition to Perón came from the Socialist International-affiliated Radical Civic Union, the Socialist Party of Argentina and the Comintern-affiliated Communist Party of Argentina, although the conservative National Autonomist Party also showed opposition to Perón by relying on support of the financial sector of the economy, as well as the Argentine Chamber of Commerce.

Populist Tactics of Juan Perón: With the Workers and the Capitalists

The colonel served under three different military government administrations: those of Arturo Rawson, Pedro Pablo Ramirez, and Edelmiro Farrell. All throughout his political career, Perón maintained the reputation of a pro-labor military man, constantly bolstering up the labor unions, engaging in pushing through social programs such as greater unemployment and health care benefits, and urging the “leading role” that labor played in the economy of Argentina.

Upon ascending to the status of President of Argentina on June 4, 1946, his outspoken goals were comprised of very leftist and pro-labor sentiments, including the need for a five-year plan, increase in salaries, giving priority to pensions, economic independence and diversification and investment in public transportation.[2]

Perón even encouraged striking amongst laborers who employers did not grant labor benefits. With the abundant amount of vocal support from the General Conference of Labor, or “CGT,” they followed his word. Strike activity led to a loss of 500,000 work days in 1945, which leapt to 2 million days in 1946 following his election, and to over 3 million lost days in 1947. This stress put on the advancement of Labor’s status in the Argentine economy consequently led to a boom in the amount of members among the CGT. The ranks grew to 2 million active dues-paying members by 1950 [3]. It seemed at this point that Perón was truly a man of his word. However, we shall delve further into his career to show that he was not, by any means, a friend of international socialism or the working people.

Juan Perón as a Friend of Fascism

While urging “neutrality” in the face of the Second World War, Perón’s foreign and domestic policies were much closer to the fascist and military governments of Europe than anything resembling full-hearted socialism. Perón not only traveled to, but admired Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. He seems to have no objections to their invasion and colonization of countries such as Austria, Hungary, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia and Albania.

If this was not alarming enough, it was and still is common knowledge that escaped Nazi war criminals sought refuge and lived fairly comfortable lives in Argentina, turning the country into a sort of haven for Nazis perpetrators and collaborators. Among those whom Perón openly welcomed:

Emile Dewointine (who manufactured Luftwaffe aircraft, later seeking refuge under Franco before arriving in Argentina) [4]
Josef Mengele (the infamous Nazi doctor who performed notoriously sick-minded medical experiments on concentration camp inmates)
Adolph Eichmann (one of the chief bureaucrats of the Holocaust)
Franz Stangl (Austrian representative of Spitzy in Spain)
Charles Lescat (editor of Je Suis Partout in Vichy France)
SS functionary Ludwig Lienhart
German industrialist Ludwig Freude

Aside from Nazi war criminals, members of the genocidal Croatian Ustaša, a pro-Nazi puppet government responsible for the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma in Croatia and Bosnia, took refuge in Argentina, including their notorious leader, Ante Pavelić, and Milan Stojadinović. The latter was allowed to spend the rest of his life as presidential advisor on economic and and financial affairs to governments in Argentina, and was the founder of the financial newspaper, El Economista [5].

In “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Latin America,” authors Leandro Narloch and Duda Teixeira wrote:

“It is still suspected that among her [Eva Perón's] possessions, there were pieces of Nazi treasure that came from rich Jewish families killed in concentration camps”.

They add that,

“Perón himself even spoke of goods of ‘German and Japanese origin’ that the Argentine government had appropriated”.

In 1947, the first lady of Argentina, Eva Perón, traveled across Europe in an attempt to boost her husband’s regime abroad. It was here that she is believed to have opened a Swiss bank account to deposit funds and other valuables she received from Nazi war criminals in exchange for Argentine passports to the aforementioned [6].

Juan Peron Makes Overtures to the Left

On June 15, 1955, Pope Pius XII excommunicated Perón after the fifty-nine year old military President described himself as “not superstitious”. The following day, Perón called for a rally of support on the Plaza de Mayo, a time-honored custom among Argentine presidents during a challenge. However, as he spoke before a crowd of thousands, Navy fighter jets flew overhead and dropped bombs into the crowded square below before seeking refuge in Uruguay. This effectively ended Juan Perón’s second term in office. First seeking refuge in Venezuela, and later Panama, he eventually settled in Francoist Spain. Desperate to reclaim his position in government, Perón began making appeals to the revolutionary left.

In his book, “La Hora de los Pueblos,” he made his appeal to internationalists:

“Mao is at the head of Asia, Nasser of Africa, De Gaulle of the old Europe and Castro of Latin America [7].”

Throughout the late 60s and early 70s, Perón started aligning himself with more militant unions and maintained close links with Montoneros, a “leftist” Perónist Catholic grouping who later kidnapped and assassinated anti-Perónist President Pedro Aramburu in retaliation for the June 1956 mass execution of a Perónist uprising against the ruling military junta.

However, while attempting to play both sides of the coin, Perón hailed the far-right as well. He supported the conservative leader of the UCR, as well as members of the Tacuara Nationalist Movement. Political tendencies did not play a role in the man’s mind when it came to power grabs and smooth talk.

Following Perón’s example, the Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara, or the Tacuara Nationalist Movement, was a right-wing extremist guerilla group in Argentina formed in the 1960s. Although initially opposed to Perónism, it later adopted Juan Perón’s idea of “Special Formations (gathering right-wing radicals in the TNM as well as the Argentine Iron Guard),” and the movement was directly inspired by the anti-Semitic Catholic Julio Meinvielle’s writings (Meinvielle not only blamed Martin Luther, but also both the French and October revolutions for the decline of Catholicism).

As such, the TNM defended nationalist, Catholic, anti-communist, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic ideologues, such as Primo de Rivera (the founder of the fascist Falange in Spain). The guerilla group’s routes can be traced back to the “Nationalist Students Union Side” (UNESCO) as well as the “Alliance of Nationalist Youth,” both centrally based in the capital of Buenos Aires [8].

The group opposed the secularization of schools that occurred under Perón and admired both Hitler and Mussolini [9]. Entrenched in anti-Semitic hatred, the group gained notoriety for kidnapping and injuring a number of Jewish students including 15 year old Edgardo Trilnik, and 19 year old Graciela Sirota, who was subject to torture and was eventually scarred with Swastika insignias [10].

In 1963, a TNM commando group robbed the Polyclinic Bank, killing two employees, wounding fourteen and taking for themselves fourteen million pesos, the equivalent of one-hundred thousand U.S. dollars. The TNM’s objectives were to afford a boat to travel to the Falkland Islands so that they may establish a guerrilla base in Formosa. All were arrested after seven months after one of the perpetrators spend a portion of the spoils at a brothel in France. While the group was formally outlawed in 1963, most of those imprisoned for the robbery were released in May 1973 when the Perónists returned to power and President Hector Campora decreed a broad amnesty for political prisoners [11]. Most of the former group’s leaders dead, imprisoned, disillusioned with the right-wing, or seeking other professions (one of the TNM’s strongest supporters of anti-Semitism, Alberto Ezcurra Uriburu, became a Catholic priest in 1964 and later joined the “Argentine Anticommunist Alliance” death squad).

The Class Nature of Perónism

Perónism is an opportunist and Third-Positionist ideology geared at dismembering and demobilizing the revolutionary workers through attempts of reformism, economism and pacifism. A military government, no matter how “worker friendly” it may initially appear to be, only opens the way for further exploitation of the working class, more coup attempts and power grabs. While championing himself to be an ally of the working masses of Argentina, Juan Perón simultaneously aided in the protection of some of the most notorious war criminals of World War II.

While Juan Perón’s government did not completely match up with those of Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco, what they all have in common is militarism, nationalism, appeals to emotionalism and class collaborationism. A state based on these principles simply cannot offer working people anything other than defeat. The experience in Argentina is a shining example “social-fascism,” of the fusion between social-democracy and fascism, of failed reformism and corporatism.

Though the Argentine President boasted about giving the leading role in government to the working class of Argentina, put a strong emphasis on “social justice” and even nationalized key industries, this does not earn Perón’s government the title of socialist. The protection of the far-right, along with the numerous left groups that exposed Perón’s fascist leanings (including both the Argentine Socialist and the Communist parties) offers material and historical evidence as to why social-democracy and/or Third-Positionism can and most likely will lead to a fascist state.

Perón’s coming to power did not consist of a revolution, let alone the organization of the proletariat as the leading class in society to whom the means of production are to belong. Rather, a military coup was what brought this fascist-sympathizing military colonel to political standing. The “peaceful path” of social-democracy was not only a political slogan, but also a method of demobilization that is directed at the workers movement. Its aim is to deny the inevitability of armed struggle when the class struggle reaches a higher stage and the question of power comes to the forefront. It has historically been used as an anesthetic; a vice that claims to solve the contradictions of the rule of capital.

However, history is on the side of the revolutionary workers in this day and age. Millions of people all across the world have witnessed these instances of class collaboration over struggle, economism over theory, and idle reformism over revolutionary change. The next tide of revolution will not succumb to these illnesses.

Sources

[1] http://biography.jrank.org/pages/3418/Per-n-Juan-1895-1974-Former-Argentine-President-Began-Military-Training.html

[2] Rock, David. Argentina, 1516–1982. University of California Press, 1987

[3] Los mitos de la historia argentina 4. Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta. Pg. 28

[4] American Jewish Yearbook, 2006. Pg. 266

[5] Mark Falcoff, Perón’s Nazi Ties, Time, November 9, 1998, vol 152

[6] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033084/First-lady-Eva-Peron-allowed-Nazis-hide-Argentina-exchange-treasures-looted-rich-Jewish-families.html

[7] http://nuevomundo.revues.org/35983

[8] http://www.fabio.com.ar/verpost.php?id_noticia=1548

[9] Daniel Gutman, Tacuara. Historia de la primera guerrilla urbana argentina (Ediciones B Argentina, 2003, p.58)

[10] http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-51068-2005-05-15.html

[11] http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2004/04/12/g-04001.htm

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Albania, Argentina, Britain, Chile, Economic Exploitation, Economics, France, Germany, Government, Health Care, History, Hungary, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Labor, Poland, Racism, Revolutionary History, Science, Second World War, Soviet Union (USSR), Spain, Theory, U.S. News, United Kingdom, Workers Struggle, World History, Yugoslavia
Author The Red Phoenix

Taliban Warns US to Learn From Soviet Defeat

18 Feb

It was 23 years ago this week that the Soviet occupation forces finally gave up on a bloody decade-long war in Afghanistan, limping out of the country with their own economy in tatters, and the Soviet-backed Afghan government on the brink of collapse.

If that sounds familiar, it should, according to the Taliban’s latest statement. A decade into their own bloody occupation of Afghanistan, NATO and the United States are in a bad way, and the Taliban is predicting the “same future the Russian invaders faced in the past.”

The Taliban statement urged the US to learn a lesson from the Soviet defeat and to stop fighting a “meaningless battle,” instead withdrawing as soon as possible. They also presented the US agreement on talks as evidence of their eventual victory.

The lesson could well have been learned long ago, but despite Taliban confidence there is little sign NATO is “getting it” in Afghanistan, as US officials negotiate to keep troops in the nation through 2024 even as they present limited power transfers to the war-weary voting public.

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Categories Afghanistan, Anti-War, Colonialism, Economic Exploitation, Government, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Soviet Union (USSR), United States History, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

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PART ONE: “Two, Three, many Vietnams”: National Liberation and the Rise of the Third World (1945 – 1991)

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Juan Perón and Social-Fascism in Argentina

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PART ONE: “Two, Three, many Vietnams”: National Liberation and the Rise of the Third World (1945 – 1991)

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