No 214 SPRING 2011 40p Newspaper of the Spartacist League
The following statement was issued by the International Security Council on Thursday to slaughter countless jugation of those areas. Recall that Italy, now provid Executive Committee of the International Communist innocent people in the name of "protecting civilians" and ing the use of its air bases for the attack, is responsible League (Fourth Internationalist) on 20 March. ensuring "democracy". French air strikes were quickly for the deaths of up to half the population of Cyrenaica The International Communist League (Fourth Inter followed by US and British missile attacks, while in eastern Libya during its colonial rule prior to World nationalist) calls on workers around the world to take Egypt's military regime is providing arms to the Ben War II. a stand for military defence of semicolonial Libya ghazi opposition forces. From Indochina and the Korean Prior to the current attack, the conflict in Libya had against the attack begun yesterday by a coalition of rapa peninsula to the US-led occupations of Iraq and taken the form of a low-intensity civil war, heavily cious imperialist governments. The French, British and Afghanistan today, the "democratic" imperialist rulers overlaid by tribal and regional divisions, between the US rulers, in league with other imperialist governments wade in the blood of millions upon millions of their vic Tripoli-centred government of strongman Colonel and with the blessings of the sheiks, kings and military tims. Recall that Britain and France historically carried Muammar el-Qaddafi and imperialist-backed opposi bonapartists of the Arab League, wasted not a moment out untold massacres in the Near East, Africa and the tion forces concentrated in the country's eastern areas. in acting on the green light given by the United Nations Indian subcontinent in order to pursue their colonial sub- continued on page 2
EgVlt under milita I
The downfall of strongman Hosni * Ivlubarak was brought about by a mass upheaval involving all classes in Egyptian society, including the oppressed women For a and the working class in the factories who had waged strikes on an unprecedented scale in recent years. However, the upsurge revolutionary resulted in the takeover of power by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Egypt's military- the backbone of the workers bonapartist capitalist state appara tus-now holds direct power, largely with the approval of the working class and party! oppressed. The democratic aspirations of the masses are a potentially explosive force for further protests, thus the mili tary rulers have been constrained to grant concessions such as putting certain fig ures from the old regime on trial and freezing the assets of some businessmen while promising that parliamentary and presidential elections will be held later this year. As yet, the generals have not resorted to outright repression against the working class, relying instead on appeals to the "national interest" to end strikes. However the military council has taken aim at the tens of thousands of workers at Egypt's MahalIa spinning and weaving factory, whose strikes played a key role in the overthrow of Mubarak. On 17 February, when MahalIa workers re-launched their strikes, the army closed the premises for three days. The following day Egypt's rul Women, soldiers pray during protest ing military council issued a warning that in Tahrir Square, 25 February. it "would not allow the continuation of Right: Suez Canal Company workers strikes harming the economy and national in Ismailia City strike, 9 February. ~ security" (ahram.org, 18 February). Wel C9 coming the army's statement, the head of Egypt's Federation ofInvestmentAssoci or affect the economy in any way" described their experiences of beatings, attacked a Cairo demonstration to cele ations, Mohamed Khamis, said "I think (ahram.org, 23 March). This effectively torture and degradation of young women, brate International Women's Day on 8 people will follow the instructions means all strikes and protests can be out- some of whom were subjected to "vir March, threatening women with slogans because they trust the army" (ahram.org, 1awed. ginity" tests. One report said: "According including "the people want women to step 20 February). Despite widespread illusions that the to eyewitnesses, thousands are still being down" and " the Quran is our ruler". A In an ominous threat of coercion, on army will not attack "the people", on held in the military camps with detainees few days earlier, Egypt's Coptic Christian 23 March the cabinet approved a law that 9 March the military violently removed packed inside the Egyptian Museum, minority were attacked by Islamic mobs criminalises demonstrations, protests the remaining protesters from Tahrir which has been turned into a torture in an incident leaving 13 dead and and sit-ins which are deemed to "inter Square. At a press conference a week chamber by the army" (ahram.org, 17 around 100 injured. The violence erupted rupt private or state-owned businesses later, many of those detained by the army March). Male chauvinist thugs violently continued on page 4 libva ... (Continued from page 1) Workers Vanguard no 976 (18 March), newspaper of the us section ofthe ICL, noted that "Marxists presently have no side in this conflict." But as the article continued: "In the event of imperialist attack against neocolonial Libya, the pro letariat internationally must stand for the military defense ofthat country while giv ing no political support to Qaddafi's cap italist regime." The civil war in Libya has now been subordinated to the fight of a neocolonial country against imperialism. Every step taken by the workers of the imperialist countries to halt the depreda AFP photos tions and military adventures of their Left: Rally in support of Libyan strongman Qaddafi outside Tripoli, 11 March. Right: Supporters of Libyan opposition in rulers is a step towards their own libera Benghazi call for imperialist intervention, 13 March. tion from capitalist exploitation, impov erishment and oppression. Defend Libya deformed workers state, gave tacit approval ist and theocratic Saudi monarchy, a key mythical "progressive" wing of the bour against imperialist attack! US Fifth to imperialist depredation, emboldening bulwark of US imperialist interests in the geoisie. Fleet and all imperialist military bases the very forces which seek to overturn the region. In the eyes of the imperialist We pledge today, as we did at the time and troops out of North Africa and the 1949 Chinese Revolution. rulers, Bahrain's Shi'ite majority and the ofthe US Reagan administration's bomb Near East! The crocodile tears shed by the impe Yemeni masses are less than human, with ing of Libya in 1986, to "undertake every Recall that the slaughter of well over a rialist rulers and their media mouthpieces no rights they are bound to respect. effort to propagandize the need for the million people in Iraq began with the over the Libyans killed by the Qaddafi Numerous social-democratic leftists, world working class to take the side of imposition of a UN-sponsored starvation regime during the recent wave of protests typified by the United Secretariat (USec) Libya" against its imperialist enemies embargo and a "no fly zone" in the 1990s. stands in sharp contrast to their muted and the British Cliffite Socialist Workers ("Under Reagan's Guns in Libya", Work The latest action by the Security Council, response to the continuing massacre of Party, have done their part to prepare the ers Vanguard no 401, 11 April 1986). In including the neo-apartheid South African protesters in Yemen-whose dictatorship ground for imperialist massacres in Libya the pursuit of profit and domination, the regime led by the African National Con is a key component of Washington's "war by cheering on the so-called "Libyan same capitalist ruling classes that brutally gress, underscores yet again the character on terror" - and their ongoing support to Revolution". Having urged support for exploit the working class "at home", only of the United Nations as a den ofimperi the Bahraini kingdom, which hosts the the cabal of pro-imperialist "democrats", to throw workers on the scrap heap dur alist thieves and their lackeys and semi headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. To aid CIA stooges, monarchists and Islamists ing periods of economic crisis, as today, colonial victims. The abstention by the in crushing mass protests, Bahrain last that comprise the Benghazi-based oppo carry out murderous imperialist attacks representative of China, a bureaucratically week invited in troops from the medieval- sition, these reformists now feign to balk abroad. The struggle against imperialist at imperialist military intervention in sup war cannot be conducted separately and port of the opposition. The New Anti apart from the class struggle. Only social Permanent revolution means the Capitalist Party, constituted in 2009 by ist revolution can overthrow the system of the USec's French section, signed a call capitalist imperialism which breeds war. dictatorship of the proletariat for a demonstration yesterday demanding Our path is that of the October Revolution In regard to Egypt today, reformists mouth that the Benghazi outfit be recognised as of 1917, led by the Bolshevik Party of the phrase "permanent revolution ", gutted of "the only legitimate representative ofthe Lenin and Trotsky, which was a beacon revolutionary content: the programme for Libyan people" - which French ruler of revolutionary internationalism for the socialist revolution. Writing at the time ofthe Sarkozy had already done! At the same proletariat everywhere. We struggle to 1905 Revolution in Russia, Leon Trotsky time, those left groups that have promoted reforge the Fourth International as an in advanced the theory and programme ofper illusions in Qaddafi's "anti-imperialist" strument that can lead the working masses, manent revolution, stressing that the agrarian pretensions - such as the Workers World from the Near East to the imperialist cen Party in the US - seek everywhere and at tres, forward to new October Revolutions TROTSKY revolution, political democracy and other LENIN tasks could not be realised by the weak and all times to chain the working class to a and a world socialist society.• dependent bourgeoisie. Rather, as Trotsky later summarised in generalising the perspective ofpermanent revolution to all dependent capitalist countries, the programme ofperma nent revolution takes as its starting point the need for the dictatorship ofthe proletariat. Partisan Defence~o ••ittee "With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colo nial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the lead ers of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses .... Salute to heroic "Without an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry the tasks of the democratic revolution cannot be solved, nor even seriously posed. But the alliance of these two classes can be realized in no other way than through an irreconcilable struggle against Japanese power the influence of the national-liberal bourgeoisie .... "The dictatorship of the proletariat which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic revolution is inevitably and very quickly confronted with tasks, the ful workers fillment of which is bound up with deep inroads into the rights of bourgeois property. The democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution and thereby We reprint below a 19 March letter sent by the Partisan Defense Committee in becomes a permanent revolution .... New York to the Federation of Electric Power Related Industry Workers Unions "In a country where the proletariat has power in its hands as the result of the dem ofJapan (Denryoku Soren). The PDC also sent the union a donation of$500, and ocratic revolution, the subsequent fate of the dictatorship and socialism depends in the encourages trade unions and others internationally to do the same. The union in last analysis not only and not so much upon the national productive forces as upon Japan can be emailed at [email protected]. the development of the international socialist revolution." - The Permanent Revolution (1929) Dear Brothers and Sisters, reprinted in The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects (1969) The Partisan Defense Committee (PDC) salutes the heroic members of your union who are risking their lives in an effort to control the dangerous situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the earthquake and tsunami. The PDC is a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist LeaguelU.S., which, along with the Spartacist Group Japan, are WORKERSIlAMMER~ sections of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). The valor and dedication of the Fukushima Dai-ichi workers stand in sharp con Marxist newspaper of the Spartacist League/Britain trast to the parasitism and greed of the owners and managers ofTEPCO and their For a federation of workers republics in the British Isles! unofficial spokesmen in the government. They have endangered the population For a Socialist United States of Europe! with their obfuscation and mismanagement. For the capitalists in every country and every industry, the overriding concern is their profits and not the safety of the The Spartacist League is the British section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). workers or the interests of society as a whole. EDITOR: Eibhlin McDonald All of this underlines the urgent need for trade-union control over safety and PRODUCTION MANAGER: Benjamin Monroe all working conditions at every level. If the labor of those who toil is to serve CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mick Connor the interests of society and not the bottom line of the bosses, it is necessary for Spartacist Publications, PO Box 42886, London N19 5WY the working class to take power and rule on the basis of a collectivized planned Email: [email protected] economy. Subscriptions: £3 for 1 year, Europe outside Britain & Ireland £5, overseas airmail £7 We intend to circulate this message to organizations within the workers move Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. The closing date for news in this issue is 2 April 2011. ment internationally and encourage them to likewise extend their support. Printed by Newsfax International Ltd (trade union) ISSN 0267-8721
2 WORKERS HAMMER War against Qaddali's libya: imperialist terror and lies
The following article is adapted from Workers Vanguard no 977, 1 April 2011. MARCH 31-For two weeks, US, British and French imperialist forces have pounded the semi colonial country of Libya with a brutal air bombardment and sea-based missile attacks. In attacking the military defences of bourgeois strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi's regime, the imperialist coalition is attempting to clear the way for the Libyan opposition -a motley bunch that includes monarchists, tribal leaders, Islamists, CIA assets, defecting military officers and former regime officials - to advance towards territory held by Qaddafi. Barack Obama and his French and British allies self-righteously proclaim that their military intervention into this oil-rich country is for the purpose of "protecting civilians" - the cover provided by a reso lution of the United Nations Security Coun Right: Bomb attack on cil. The US military, parroted by its agents Libya, 20 March. in the bourgeois press, routinely lies that the Above: 24 March Pentagon "precision" strikes have singed nary a hair briefing, as imperialists on the head of a civilian. Just three days continue to pound away in into the air war, Libyan villagers were shot support of their front men in by US Marines retrieving a pilot whose jet anti-Qaddafi opposition. crashed outside Benghazi. The civilian toll is sure to mount with the continuation of operations, now under NATO command. From very early on, Conservative prime minister David Cameron advocated a no-fly zone over Libya. On 21 March, again over Libya that truth is the first they are by protecting civilians, but by one suspected of opposing his rule. At the parliament overwhelmingly voted to sup casualty of war. Lurid tales-none veri slaughtering those standing in the way of same time, we have consistently defended port the military attack on Libya outlined fied - of a mass slaughter of Libyan their quest for profit and world domination Libya against imperialist attacks, as in the in the UN resolution. Intoning that mili civilians in the east were wielded as the - and by providing money, arms and 1986 US bombing under Ronald Reagan. tary action against Qaddafi was needed to casus belli. The New York Times editors "advisers" for their colonial and neocolo At that time, Qaddafi's daughter was killed "avert a bloody massacre", Cameron was who retail the line that the Western attack nial lackeys. While those protesting the in an attack on the family compound that backed foursquare by the Labour Party is about defending helpless people were oppressive US- and British-backed was clearly meant to assassinate him. For leadership under Ed Miliband who the ones who did Washington's bidding regimes in Bahrain and Yemen are gunned the US Cold Warriors, chief among described the bombing of Libya as "a just by knowingly suppressing the fact that down and dispossessed Palestinians face Qaddafi's "crimes" at the time was that he cause", saying of the Qaddafi regime: "We Raymond Davis, the man arrested in Pak a renewed wave of Zionist state terror, was a military client of the Soviet Union. have seen guns being used on unarmed istan earlier this year for killing two men, Cameron and Obama cry crocodile tears With their current attack on Libya, the demonstrators. We have watched warplanes was working for the CIA. for the Libyan rebels, whom they are now imperialists are jettisoning the rapproche and artillery being used against civilian An official of the North Korean considering arming. ment they reached with Qaddafi over the population centres". Miliband is uphold bureaucratically deformed workers state Richard Falk, a UN spokesman, pointed last decade, when his regime closely col ing the blood-soaked mantle of Tony Blair made the utterly rational statement that out that the Libyan uprising was "more laborated with Washington in the "global who was second to none in supporting US Libya's dismantling of its nuclear weapons in the nature of a traditional insurrection war on terror" and helped police the imperialism in the bombing of Serbia in programme had made it vulnerable to against the established order than a pop Mediterranean to keep African immigrants 1999, the invasion ofAfghanistan in 2001 military intervention by the West (New ular revolution inspired by democratic val out of Europe. and again of Iraq in 2003. York Times, 24 March). Thanks to that ues" (AI Jazeera, 23 March). He added For its part, the Libyan opposition is As noted in the International Commu intervention, which began eight years to that threats of intervention only arose angling to gain control of the country's nist League statement printed on page the day after the US-led "shock and awe" when "the domestic tide turned in favour substantial oil and natural gas wealth. one, what had essentially been a civil war assault on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the of Tripoli, which means that intervention Rebel forces have been rounding up, tor between Qaddafi's Tripoli-centred bour rebels have recaptured much of the terri was called upon to overcome the appar turing and killing anyone suspected of geois regime and an imperialist-backed tory they had earlier lost to the Libyan ent growing likelihood that Gaddafi being a Qaddafi supporter, especially black opposition based in the east of the coun government. Nevertheless, as we go to would reestablish order in his favour". Africans alleged to be his mercenaries. try-a conflict in which the proletariat press, Qaddafi's forces have repulsed the As Marxists, we have always politically Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch had no side - became subordinated to rebels' attack on his hometown of Surt. opposed Qaddafi's capitalist regime, a dic reports that fleeing Africans have been imperialist military intervention with the The imperialist powers did not get where tatorship that has brutally suppressed any- pushed off ships sent by European gov start of the bombing on 19 March. In the ernments to evacuate their nationals present conflict, the workers of the world ("The Battle for Libya", New York Review have a side: military defence of semi ofBooks, 7 April). In this, the opposition colonial Libya against imperialism and takes its cue, and then some, from the the opposition forces, which are acting on oppression of African migrants under the imperialists' behalf. As revolutionary Qaddafi. As for the "humanitarian" impe leader VI Lenin explained in Socialism rialists, European governments are ramp and War (1915): "If tomorrow, Morocco ing up efforts to prevent refugees from were to declare war on France, or India on making it to their countries. Britain, or Persia or China on Russia, and Even before the bombing began, we so on, these would be 'just,' and 'defen noted in "Imperialists Hands Off Libya!" sive' wars, irrespective of who would be (Workers Vanguard no 976, 18 March) the first to attack; any socialist would wish that the proletariat in Libya had been dev the oppressed, dependent and unequal astated as a result of the civil war, with states victory against the oppressor, slave migrant workers fleeing the violence and holding and predatory 'Great' Powers." racist attacks. The article continued: Imperialist brigands, "The future of the Libyan masses will be media hacks decided by working-class struggle that extends beyond the national terrain to Just as the capitalist press retailed include the proletariats of Algeria, Tunisia George W Bush and Tony Blair's lies and, especially, Egypt. That requires the about Iraqi "weapons of mass destruc forging of revolutionary working-class tion", the capitalist press is demonstrating French flag at 19 March Toronto demonstration built by International Socialists. continued on page 10
SPRING 2011 3 (bourgeois) democracy. The urgent task demands, spurred by the increasingly 1882. In 1952, a group of military officers Euvpt ... of revolutionaries in regard to Egypt is to intolerable conditions oflife. Workers are known as the Free Officers Movement, led (Continued from page 1) dispel illusions in the myth of a classless demanding bread and freedom. But the sit by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew the "democracy", which politically disarms uation has also created an opening for the monarchy and ended the British occupa over a relationship between a Christian and disorients the working class and is an reactionary Muslim Brotherhood. tion. Since that time the army has been man and a Muslim woman, which is taboo obstacle to building a revolutionary party With the dictators overthrown what viewed as a guarantor of national sover in Egypt. In a society where barbaric "hon in Egypt. happens now? There is no automatic eignty, particularly against the Zionist state our killing" is common, according to a 15 We print below an abridged version of progression from these upheavals to a of Israel. March BBC report the woman's father a presentation given by comrade Mick socialist revolution against the capitalist Nasser, a bourgeois nationalist, claimed was killed by a family member for failing Connor at a Spartacist League public meet order. Winning the most fundamental to be leader of a mythical "Arab socialism". to kill his daughter. ing in London on 26 February. necessities of life - decent jobs for all, His success in peddling this myth was The imperialist powers, who trembled * * * healthcare and education - requires the aided by the treachery of the Stalinist during the anti-Mubarak mobilisations, On 17 December last year, a young working class to emerge as the leader of Communist Party, which supported him. In have given a vote of confidence to Egypt's man named Mohamed Bouazizi was all the oppressed - the unemployed fact Nasser aimed to crush the combative military regime, which for decades ensured selling fruit and vegetables in the central youth, the impoverished peasant masses, Egyptian working class and within a that Egypt was a strategic ally of US im Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. He was the urban poor and the women - and to month of seizing power he delivered a perialism alongside Israel. British prime forced to work as a street vendor, because fight for power in its own name. Our massive blow to the workers movement. minister David Cameron visited Egypt in like countless other Tunisian youth he task as Marxists, through our propa When a textile workers strike broke out February, followed by US secretary of was unable to find any other employment. ganda, is to popularise the programme of in Kafr Al-Dawwar near Alexandria, state Hillary Clinton in March. Clinton For years he had been abused and socialist revolution, which alone can Nasser had two strike leaders hanged on intoned in Cairo that the people of Egypt harassed by the police, ostensibly for not address the felt needs and aspirations of the factory grounds. The Communist "broke barriers and overcame obstacles to having a permit to sell. On that day they the masses. The fight for socialist con Party was banned and strikes were out pursue the dream of democracy". Within confiscated his goods and beat him. In sciousness, and for a programme that lawed. Undeterred by the murder and days French, British and US armed forces protest at this treatment Mohamed will achieve the emancipation of the imprisonment of their own comrades, the unleashed the massive bombing of Libya, Bouazizi set himself alight. He died of his workers and the oppressed in North Stalinists continued to support Nasser, with the crucial backing of Egypt's pres injuries on 4 January. Africa and the Near East, means over finally liquidating into his Arab Socialist idential hopeful Abr Mousa who is sec The death of this young man was the coming many obstacles. Union in 1965. retary general of the Arab League. The spark that lit the blue touch paper across Chief among those obstacles today is The role of the military in Egyptian bombing of Libya is a bloody affirmation the Arab world, leading to the downfall of pervasive nationalism as was seen in the politics has remained the same under the subsequent dictatorships ofAnwar el Sadat and then Mubarak. While Mubarak was hated and despised, there are consid erable illusions even today in Nasserism, due largely to the betrayals of the left. For a revolutionary vanguard party! In fact there has been a significant wave of workers strikes over the past few years, notably in 2007. Over two million workers have taken part in more than 3000 strikes, sit-ins and other actions in the past decade, largely in response to privatisation which has brought increased misery to the working people. The strikes have been spearheaded by workers at the Mahalla al-Kobra tex tile mills, the country's largest industrial complex with a workforce of 40,000 work ers, including a large number of women. Mahalla workers walked out on the first day of the anti-Mubarak protests, directly opposing the regime for the first time. Around 6000 workers on the Suez Canal Grey Villet Reuters also went on strike. The Canal is one of Combined and uneven development in Egypt. Left: State-owned TV manufacturing plant, 1963. Right: Farmer in the Nile the world's strategic waterways, with Delta. Trotskyist programme of permanent revolution addresses these contradictions. around eight per cent of international trade passing through it. that the sham of imperialist "democracy" the dictator Ben Ali, which was the catalyst large number of Egyptian flags on the The proletariat is the only class with is but a mask to conceal the actual rela for the sequence of events that has been protests. A key task of revolutionary the social power and historic interest to tionship of the neo-colonial capitalist states unfolding in the past weeks across North Marxists is to combat nationalism, which overthrow the capitalist system. That to the imperialist powers: subordination. Africa. The most spectacular and impor is always antithetical to the interests of requires the working class to be trans The Egyptian military meanwhile is try tant ofthese events was the millions-strong the workers. Nationalism is used by the formed from a class in itself-simply ing to give the appearance of a transition protests in Egypt, preceded and capped by bourgeoisie to obscure the class divide defined by its relationship to the means of to "democracy". A series of amendments a wave of strikes, which finally succeeded between the tiny layer of obscenely production - to a class for itself, fully to the constitution, centred on minimal in toppling the hated strongman Hosni wealthy capitalist exploiters and the vast conscious of its historic task to seize state measures such as limiting the president to Mubarak - a strategically important ally majority of impoverished workers and power and reorganise society. two terms in office, were overwhelmingly of US and British imperialism. Mubarak peasants. The indispensable instrument for the approved by a referendum on 19 March. had ruled the country with an iron fist for Nationalism in Egypt is expressed in working class to take the lead is a revo This result benefits the most conservative nearly 30 years. the belief that the army is the "friend of lutionary, proletarian vanguard party elements in the society-the military, for The present situation in Tunisia and the people". But whose army is it? The which would defend the rights of all the mer president Mubarak's National Dem Egypt provides an important opening for military regime has denounced workers oppressed and downtrodden - women, ocratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood the working class and its organisations to strikes and told strikers to go back to work. Coptic Christians, ethnic minorities, homo - who campaigned for a yes vote. Posters come to the fore, and for the construction Not surprisingly therefore, the army take sexuals. A strategic task of a Leninist party by some Islamic organisations whipped up of revolutionary workers parties to fight over has been supported by all wings of is to champion women's emancipation in fears that a no vote would threaten article for socialist revolution. While the fall of the bourgeois "opposition", including the Egypt, where women's oppression goes two of the constitution which states "that the bloody dictators in Tunisia and Egypt Muslim Brotherhood. to the heart of society. Religion in Egypt Islam is the religion of the state and that has rightly been greeted with jubilation In all capitalist countries the army, is omnipresent and, like all religions every Sharia (Islamic law) is the main source of by the workers and oppressed, the brutal along with the police, judges and prison where, weighs heavily on women. Religion legislation" (ahram.org, 4 March). Calling system of capitalist exploitation and oppres guards constitute the core of the bourgeois and social oppression are rooted in back for a no vote were organisations that played sion remains intact. In Egypt, power was state, an organ of class oppression to wardness and reinforced by imperialist a key role in the February mass mobilisa handed over to the military, the central maintain through violence the rule of the subjugation. tions, such as the January 25 Youth Coali pillar of the repressive state apparatus. exploiters. To win state power the working The oppression of women in Egyptian tion. as well as the secular liberal organ Particularly because there are massive illu class will have to smash the bourgeois society is codified in law. The Constitution isations including the Wafd, Tagammu, sions in the army, we warn that the army state apparatus, including by splitting the declares: "The State shall guarantee coor Nasserist organisations and the Democratic will not hesitate to use its repressive power army along class lines-the conscripts dination between woman's duties towards Front But the so-called secular parties are against the working class in struggle if versus the bourgeois officer corps her family and her work in the society" politically bankrupt when it comes to com capitalist rule is threatened. winning the soldiers to the side of the and "the principal source of legislation is bating religious reaction: the January 25 The upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt working class. Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)". Polygamy Youth Coalition includes a wing of the drew in virtually all layers of society, Illusions in the army are a deadly is legaL as is repudiation (by which a man i\1uslim Brotherhood. excepting only the upper echelons of the danger to the working people and the can divorce his wife simply by saying The liberals and their left tails are in bourgeoisie closest to the regime. It is no oppressed but they run very deep. Egypt "I divorce you"). The woman, of course, the forefront of promoting illusions that table that despite the history of religious ian nationalism was born of British impe cannot repudiate her husband. Abortion is under mass pressure and "vigilance", the and ethnic conflict in the region the pro rialist subjugation and humiliation - the illegal in Egypt, with very few exceptions, Egyptian military will usher in a period of tests have centred on secular-democratic British had occupied the country from continued on page 9
4 WORKERS HAMMER Pandering to reactionarv Muslim Brotherhood
The following article is reprinted these are alternative ways of propping up from Workers Vanguard no 974, 18 Feb capitalist class rule, the system which ruary 2011. ensures vast wealth for its rulers and dire The ouster of Mubarak after years of CliHil8S EUVPI poverty for the urban and rural masses. We dictatorship has lifted the lid on Egyptian on look instead to the revolutionary mobili society and its many contradictions. The sation of Egypt's proletariat, standing at tremendous mobilisations of unemployed the head of all the oppressed, in a fight for youth, students, women and workers have socialist revolution, which alone can created space for the left and working address the fundamental problems facing class to engage more openly in political the masses. We oppose the ban on the activity - an opening that is directly Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, threatened by the military takeover. At the which bolsters their credibility and also same time, the upheaval has provided an 5 February fosters illusions in the "secular" credentials opening for the reactionary Muslim Muslim of the bourgeois nationalists while but Brotherhood, the country's largest oppo Brotherhood tressing the repressive powers of the cap "'~~;.,llI",~~.o..J!,.... .) sition movement. statement posted italist state. While many protesters say that they on Revolutionary The RS's criticisms of the Stalinists for would oppose the Brotherhood coming to -).;._." - ,,,,. Socialists reliance on the state are a cover for its power, in the absence of a viable revolu .:ro..~>~ ... ,,:u.:.s~~~..)oo. __._ .. 'J~~.;j~.-Y!.j J~~, .... '),~ .... ;J.$:J~JA"""-"~')·'-4A",,"fl..JJi' organisation accommodation to the Muslim Brother ,'.t" ..... ,~"..Jt..~,~,)o.~,.t,...... ».4S~~»J-j~J~ tionary proletarian alternative it could win '.:..;);,ii,';"J;J~",,~')""""'J,)jJJ,.:;)~~"Jl.iJ..tJ)l:..i,>_ ...... ,;o, website. hood. For our part, we understand that ,,".I~~ .. ,<~~~lf0J..;-l"""";"y ..... ~·.; .... {1~.JJ,...J a hearing among the desperate masses. ~~~~}~,;~!"~,,,';IfI,)'~""""'N bourgeois rule in semicolonial countries 4..I.::.l.&-'...q.!;.1.,J."l
SPRING 2011 5 Capitalist austeritv and anti-Muslim witch hunt
The following is translated from disproportionately affected by Hartz Spartakist no 185 (October 2010), IV. This is also the case for East Ger published by our comrades of the mans-who, at a rate of more than 17 Spartakist Workers Party ofGermany. per cent, are twice as likely to be The "Hartz IV" laws referred to in the Hartz IV recipients as the nationwide article are a series ofmeasures enacted average - and for single parents, ie, in 2003-05 by the former Social Dem mainly women. ocratic (SPD)/Green coalition govern For immigrants, the language barrier ment that greatly reduced unemploy compounds the effects of poverty, not ment and social welfare benefits. This only making it difficult to deal with translation is reprintedfrom Workers government officials, doctors and the Vanguard no 971, 7 January 2011. like, but also causing children to fail in school. Since in the west of Ger many in particular there are too few tl day care facilities, where attendance It' 7*,;j 'i' tj. also costs the parents money, these More than 80 billion euros [£70 bil children fail to learn the language as lion]: that is how much the "savings toddlers and are unable to follow package" put forward by the Christian instruction conducted in German once DemocratlFree Democrat (CDUIFDP) they go to school. By the time they government intends to cut from the have halfway mastered the language, federal budget by 2014. There is al they are hopelessly behind in the subject ready talk of further budget slashing of matter and many do not succeed in the same order for the following two Forge a multiethnic getting any secondary school diploma. years. The largest part of this, over a Without such a diploma these youth third, targets social welfare, ie, those are then condenmed to poorly paid, receiving unemployment benefits revolutionarv workers Darty! insecure jobs and are much more under "Hartz IV" laws. Their number likely to be funnelled into Hartz IV. climbed to 6.7 million in April 2010, includ This, and not some sort of racist garbage ing 1.7 million children. Society's poorest about genes, explains the cause of immi and weakest are being forced to pay for the grants' inferior education. crisis of capitalism. In a situation where Certain aspects of Sarrazin's hate there is massive popular rage directed at campaign that are harmful particularly banks fattened up by the state and at the from the standpoint of foreign policy government's "savings package", former have been condenmed by the CDU/FDP Bundesbank [federal bank] exec board government-eg, all his drivel about a member Thilo Sarrazin's inflarnmatory "definite gene" that "all Jews share". anti-Muslim tract Deutschland schaffi However, Sarrazin's overall thrust of sich ab [Germany does itself in], which turning all Muslims into scapegoats, in claims that Muslims have too many chil classic divide-and-rule manner, is finding dren and threaten to "take over" Germany support. In this way, rage over injustice by 2100, was like a gift from heaven. and poverty can be channelled away from The debate over Sarrazin speaks to an the bourgeoisie and its state. According to ominous new, brazen display of German Sarrazin's vile "social-Darwinist" logic, imperialism that started to become appar any attempt to improve the desperate ent early in 2010 with the Greek economic social situation of sections of the Muslims crisis. Germany had hitherto played the AP/Diether Endlicher (bottom) in Germany is condenmed in advance to paymaster whenever the European Union Top: IG Metall union rally demands equal pay for contract workers at Airbus failure. And while he spews venom over (EU) got into economic difficulty. But now in Hamburg, 18 August 2010. Bottom: Food line in Munich. the "Untergang" [decline] of Germany German capital allowed Greece to slide due to Muslims' supposedly having too more and more towards the very brink of scarf girls" (Lettre International, Sep education. The 2003 Programme for Inter many children, the government is elimi insolvency, blocking EU rescue plans while tember 2009). Demands were raised to national Student Assessment study con nating parental support money for Hartz interest rates on Greek bonds skyrocketed. increase the Hartz IV payments for chil firms once again "that in scarcely any IV recipients, thereby centrally targeting It was only when interest on Portugal's dren at the beginning of 2010 after the other comparable industrial country is impoverished Muslim families, along government bonds also began to rise, in Federal Constitutional Court declared the educational success so closely tied to with unmarried mothers. a scenario where Greek bankruptcy was rates unconstitutional (of course, not social origins as in Germany". The cut Far from Sarrazin being ostracised, his going to be followed very shortly by the because they were far too meagre but backs following capitalist reunification of garbage is being widely discussed, as if insolvency of Portugal, Spain and even solely for not being "transparent" enough). Germany [in 1990] have only increased this race "theory" were utterly harmless. Italy, that [German chancellor Angela] FDP foreign minister Guido Westerwelle this social discrimination: "Only six out In a 4 September 2010 commentary, the Merkel yielded, agreeing to an extortion rejected this as "late Roman decadence", of 100 working-class children commence Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung even ate "rescue package". Chauvinism of the while promptly discerning "socialist fea university study, while 49 out of 100 high springs to his defence: "His mention of a vilest sort was unleashed against the tures" in the discussion. Sarrazin criti school students from top-earning families 'Jewish gene' in an interview was reflex Greeks over "aid" payments for liabilities cised Westerwelle ... and then went him go on to attend university.... Between ively turned into a scandal-in reality, he held in large part by German banks. In one better. Hartz IV recipients, he opined, 1982 and 2003 the percentage ofuniver had asserted that 'Jews share more genetic other words, first and foremost the Ger could save money on water: "Showering sity students from the topmost social material with each other than with sur man banks were being aided, while the with cold water is really much healthier. layer has risen steadily, from 17 to 37 per rounding non-Jewish areas,' as researcher German state rakes in repayments with No one who takes hot showers has ever cent, whereas the share of students from Gil Atzmon says. This is indeed a politi compound interest clawed out of the gotten far in life" (Suddeutsche Zeitung, the lowest layer has decreased from 23 to cal event.. .not in Germany, however, but hides of the Greek populace. Such Ger 1 March 2010). 12 percent." rather in the Near East. The wave of pub man imperiaJ alTogance has not been seen SaiTazin's vile tract openly advances Immigrants brought here in the 1960s lic support for Sarrazin .. .is not for his for a long time indeed. classic race "theories" whereby intelli as "guest workers" for the most wretched biased or incorrect theses. It is for his Demagogic incitement is neither new gence is inherited and genetic differences jobs still predominantly belong, along depiction of abuse of the welfare state and nor surprising for Sarrazin, a member of between ethnic groups exist. Immigrants' with their German-born children and of a refusal to integrate, for which almost the SPD since 1973. Last year he was rav inferior education is supposedly based on grandchildren, to the lowest social layers everyone can cite examples." ing against Muslim immigrants in Berlin their genes, shifting attention away from of this racist capitalist society. Situated The German bourgeoisie, which brought "continually producing new little head- the social causes of the wretched state of primarily in the working class, they are Hitler to power and bears the responsibility
6 WORKERS HAMMER for the Nazis' race mania that led to the chancellor] Helmut Kohl, an important than aiming to defend "German jobs" in had been armed to the teeth by the CIA industrial murder of six million Jews, is contribution to driving capitalist coun competition against workers in other and were fighting against the Soviet Red again publicly and sympathetically dis terrevolution forward. For his "services" countries? Army after it rushed to the aid of the sec cussing race "theories" in its Frankfurt house he was made head of the Finance Min ular, modernising, left-nationalist PDPA organ. Racism and anti-Semitism are insep istry's technical oversight of the Treuhand Marx.21 and the anti-Muslim regime. Even today, the Cliffites regurgi arably linked to the ruling capitalist class. [agency established to privatise DDR witch hunt tate the imperialists' war propaganda Widespread receptiveness to Sarrazin's industry]. Almost 7000 state-owned com The supporters of Tony Cliff in the against those who fought for the most fun filth is the bitter fruit of the racist "war on panies were sold for a song to private Marx21 group have participated in vari damental rights of women and against the terror" proclaimed by the SPD/Green gov investors, 3700 firms were "liquidated", ous protests against anti-Muslim racism big landowners: "For the left, the [Soviet] ernment in the footsteps of US president 2.5 million DDR citizens were thrown and opposed banning the headscarf in invasion was a catastrophe whose effects George W Bush after 11 September, 2001. onto the streets, and industrial capital esti public service in Germany and the ban on are felt even today. The leftists had Abroad, the political construct of a "war mated at 600 billion euros was trans wearing the burqa in France, which they sought to carry out a land reform and on terror" is utilised to deploy the Bun formed into a mountain of debt exceeding rightly brand as racist. But in doing so forcibly introduce the liberation of deswehr [army] in the colonial war in 200 billion euros. This was accompanied they drop any opposition to the headscarf women. Hence, in the 1990s the terms Afghanistan. Domestically, people with a by a racist campaign against asylum seek and/or veil as an instrument for the 'feminism' and 'women's liberation' were Muslim background sit in the state's cross ers, leading to a state-organised pogrom oppression of women. In contrast, we equated by many Afghans with mass mur hairs: a racist dragnet was followed by in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August 1992. oppose the veil as part of our uncompro der. Everyone knew somebody who had raids on mosques, and thousands and At the same time, with its infamous Peters mising struggle for the liberation of been slain in the name of socialism and thousands of immigrants were subjected berg Resolutions, the SPD agreed to the women. We understand that state bans feminism" (marx21 , June 2008). For us to "checks without reason for suspicion" de facto elimination of the right to asylum. promote racism, deepen women's social Marxists, the Soviet military intervention by the police. Open season was declared There followed arson attacks in MolIn isolation and make it even harder for opened up the possibility of the social lib on German Muslims, who were kid and Solingen, where Turkish women and them to find jobs, strengthening their eration of the Afghan masses, in particu napped, tortured and incarcerated in girls were burned alive. dependence on husband and family and lar of women. This is why our call was prison hellholes like Guantanamo by the Following reunification, the bour reinforcing their oppression. We are for "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan! Extend CIA, with the approval and support of the geoisie also saw no necessity for main the separation of church, mosque and the gains of the October Revolution to the German government, as shown by the taining West Berlin as a display window synagogue from the state. Religion is a Afghan peoples!" cases of Murat Kurnaz and Khaled el to contrast with the DDR and in 1991 Sar private matter, and it is not the job of the Following capitalist reunification, Masri. Bourgeois reaction had thus once razin came out for dismantling federal sub state to decide who wears what. Simulta which the Cliffites had supported to the again created an internal and an external sidies to West Berlin. Ten years later, neously, as atheist Marxists, we fight best of their ability, Linksruck, the pre enemy in order to legitimise the demolition decessor organisation to Marx21, ardently of democratic rights, after Communism contributed to the 1998 electoral triumph September 9, 2010: cops mobilise in Potsdam had falsely been declared dead with the of the SPD, calling for years to vote for against anti-racist protesters outside "book capitalist counterrevolution in the DDR reading" by Thilo Sarrazin (inset), author of the SPD - which in 200 I proclaimed the [East Germany] and the Soviet Union. vile racist tract Germany does itself in. anti-Muslim "war on terror". Marx21 The murder of the young Egyptian (21 October 2009) established the con woman Marwa El Sherbini - before her nection between Sarrazin's demagogy three-year-old son's eyes-by an emaged and his role in the Berlin Senate: anti-Muslim racist in a German courtroom "As Berlin Finance Senator he continued in the summer of 2009 was a direct result the line of Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit ofthe state-led "war on terror". Sarrazin's (SPD), that it was necessary to carry out baiting fuels a pogrom atmosphere against savings 'till things squeak.' The interplay the Muslim minority and incites murder at the time between the two recalls the grilling method 'soft cop, hard cop.' Sarrazin ous racism. Recently, the police confiscated took on the role ofthe 'hard cop,' demand posters of the [fascist] NPD that claimed: ing in a consciously provocative way, sharp "Sarrazin Is Right!" Sarrazin pressed cuts in social benefits. This made it possible charges against the fascists, but they are for Wowereit to slip into the role ofthe 'soft just the spirits he has called forth himself. cop,' who puts a brake on the Finance Sen ator and institutes 'less harsh' cuts. Reformism whips up "The purpose of such politics is, however, nationalism and racism not just to evade responsibility for such policies by pointing to scapegoats. It is also A few years ago the filth that is now about splitting up resistance to social cuts being purveyed by Sarrazin was heard and racism in line with the motto 'Divide only from Nazi ideologues, and on 30 and rule'." August 2010 the SPD Executive initiated But the Marx21 group says not a word an expulsion process against Sarrazin for about the Left Party's responsibility for "having transgressed a boundary line in carrying out these assaults in coalition his statements on the genetic identity of with the SPD. (Like Wowereit, the Left peoples, ethnic groupings or religious Berlin was bankrupt. Today, its share of against any and all religious, nationalist Party plays the "soft cop" role and now communities". The social democrats are Hartz IV recipients, at 18 per cent of its and chauvinist prejudices, which regu rejects much of Sarrazin's filth.) No won polarised over this. Two Berlin SPD population, is higher than in any other fed larly lead to bloodshed and suffering. der: In 2006 it still called for re-electing motions to expel Sarrazin for his racist eral state. Add to this the ruin of the What is required is a socialist revolution the Left Party in Berlin, despite all the interview in Lettre International were Berliner Bankgesellschaft [one of Ger to eliminate capitalism as the material prior instances of the Senate's despicable rejected last year because, according to many's ten largest banks] due to the cor cause of poverty, wars and religion. attacks. Marx21 is deeply buried in the the party's arbitration commission, it rupt cronyism of the SPD/CDU Senate. As The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Left Party and has representatives on the could see "neither a party-damaging nor Finance Senator, Sarrazin then became the Marx21's British fraternal organisation, party executive. It spreads the illusion that a dishonourable act". The SPD Executive whip for the SPDlLeft Party Senate that capitulated even more openly to Islam. In there can be parliamentary governing was then deluged with hundreds of e-mails, took office in 2002 to "restructure" the city 2003, the SWP boasted of having organ coalitions - via the Left Party - that letters and phone calls. The majority came and its bank at the expense ofthe workers ised an antiwar meeting in Birmingham serve the interests of the oppressed. In from non-SPD members who defended and poor. Here he also excelled in dema with a separate seating area for women! fact, the German state serves the capital Sarrazin; the letters from SPD members gogic attacks on the Turkish-origin Muslim The SWP wanted to cash in on the huge ist class and, as Lenin explained in The were split half and half. populace in Berlin, which was suffering antiwar protests that were led by the Stop State and Revolution, it is the strategic At the beginning of September, massive unemployment due to industry the War Coalition (which the SWP had task of the working class to smash this according to a survey by the Berlin Info having decamped from West Berlin. Sar itself brought into existence) and were capitalist state through socialist revolution Institute of 1024 registered voters, 36 per razin did well for himself, however. Hav supported by Muslim organisations. With and replace it with a workers state. cent of the SPD voters and 43 per cent of ing "voluntarily" quit the Executive Board the "Respect" Coalition, which it founded the [reformist] Left Party voters thought of the Bundesbank, he now can claim a jointly with Labour Member of Parliament Hartz IV: an assault on the Sarrazin was more or less right (47 per monthly pension of 10,000 euros. George Galloway in 2004, the SWP entire working class cent ofSPD voters and 34 per cent of Left That Left Party voters agree with Sar sought to feed off the widespread hatred Sarrazin's hate campaign accompanies Party voters disagreed with him). Support razin is hideous but, alas, not surprising. for Tony Blair's Labour government and the government's attack on Hartz IV recip for Sarrazin springs from the logic of The Left Party's Keynesian programme its "war on terror" among the especially ients, which constitutes an assault on the social-democratic reformism, which func of using German capital to create more hard-hit Muslim populace. The SWP lead entire working class. Right now the Hartz tions as a doctor at the sickbed of capi jobs in Germany is fundamentally nation ers saw to it that Respect's founding pro IV "basic payment schedule" amounts to talism. This means arbitrating the struggle alistic. The same is true of the "Ossi" gramme did not even formally come out a pitiful 359 euros per month, from which of various groups of the needy for the [East German] nationalism that they for "socialism", and SWPers voted down all expenses except rent and heating must ever scantier crumbs from the table ofthe court. And let us recall [Left Party leader a motion for the elimination of the be met. For couples, each receives only capitalist rulers, who playoff one against OskarJ Lafontaine's int:'1mous speech at monarchy. Within Respect, the SWP tai 90 per cent of this amount, and children, the others: "Ossis" [East Germans] against Chemnitz in the summer of2005, where lored its demands to the mosques and as depending on their age, get 80, 70 or as "Wessis", Turkish immigrants against he launched chauvinist attacks on work good as buried the fight for women's lib little as 60 per cent. (Money for child sup East Germans and immigrants from the ers from Poland and other East European eration and homosexual rights. Nor did the port is also subject to the Hartz IV pay former Soviet Union, men against women, countries. claiming that "fathers of fam SWP contradict Gallowav on his declared ment schedu!c---ie, it disappears.) As etc All this necessarily promotes nation ilies and women arc losing their jobs opposition to abortion (see the Sp SPRING 2011 7 first to intimidate those who still have a to make concessions so as not to endanger work and for the complete integration of Germanv... job, so that they are thankful to the bosses German capital's competitiveness. contract workers into the workforce. This (Continued from page 7) and accept wage cuts and the worsening Not only has the labour bureaucracy struggle must be linked to one for full of working conditions, and also as moti allowed the low-wage sector to expand citizenship rights for all who live here. in the Federal Republic. In 2003, their vation for Hartz IV recipients to accept massively through the Hartz laws, but Only in this way can the struggle for equal expenses came to 828 euros, or to 526 even the most wretched jobs. In a form of countless sell-outs have caused the wage working conditions be extended to those euros after deducting the cost of rent and de facto forced labour, Hartz IV recipients level of the working class as a whole to driven into illegality by racist immigration heating. Politicians managed to scale these expenditures down to a basic payment of are threatened with having even these sink: while in the last decade gross wages laws. A class-struggle union leadership 345 euros essentially by categorizing some starvation payments slashed should they in Germany increased 21.8 per cent, in must be built. types of expenses of the poorest fifth of reject a job that the unemployment office the EU as a whole they rose 35.5 per cent; To counter the discrimination against one-person households as only partially considers "reasonable". for fringe benefits, the increase in Ger women and immigrants in the labour mar 'relevant to the payment schedule'." Every year more than 700,000 people many was a scant 9.3 per cent versus 38.5 ket, it is necessary to wage a struggle for For foodstuffs, 4.36 euros per day are are shuttled through one-euro jobs, per cent in the EU. This treacherous class union control of hiring according to the provided. In the case of children who, after destroying regular jobs and driving wages collaboration has not only brought about principle of first come, first served, so that all, are growing and need a balanced diet down. According to the June 2010 report an explosion in profits for the German no one can be turned down on the basis of for healthy development, it is - believe it of the Institute for Work, Skills and Training, bourgeoisie, but has also put massive sex or a "wrong" name. At the same time, or not-3.49 or as little as 2.62 euros per currently 17.9 per cent of all employed pressure on workers' wages and condi special programmes are necessary to day! Even worse, since the estimates for persons in the West and 39.3 per cent in tions in other European countries, caus compensate for the frequently inferior or many other necessary expenditures are the East are working in low-wage jobs. As ing a downward spiral of wages. non-existent professional training women much too low, Hartz IV recipients must with Hartz IV, those hardest hit are above and immigrants receive. It is necessary to make up for this out of their food money. all immigrants and their descendants, fight for the special needs of women and A result of this is the rapid growth of char along with East Germans and women. immigrants. itable food pantries in Germany, which Almost one in three working women is in We are resolute opponents of chauvinist either sell food cheaply or give away food a low-wage job and women constitute 70 forced assimilation, fighting instead for they get from supermarkets that carmot sell per cent of the low-wage sector. From the revolutionary integration. Therefore, we it (often because the sell-by date has start of the SPD/Green government in oppose making German the exclusive offi expired). An article in the trend online 1998 up to 2008, the low-wage sector ciallanguage in government offices and in newspaper (July/August 2010) reports: "In grew by 50 per cent, to 6.55 million, while schools, etc. However, it is clear that mas 1963 the first of such charitable food dis these low wages themselves sank. Thus tering German is a prerequisite for obtain tributions was set up in the USA; in Berlin the German bourgeoisie has succeeded in ing a job, and that without it, integration the first one was founded in 1993. By now constructing one of Europe's largest low is impossible. For this, free language there exist 800 pantries with more than wage sectors. courses must be made available to all. 2000 distribution points used by a million An adequate number of free, round people, approximately 30,000 mostly vol For class struggle against the the-clock kindergartens is needed so that unteer pantry activists and a few thousand "savings package" and Hartz IV! women can go to work. In 2008, a pro temp workers with one-euro jobs [paying The DGB trade union federation's gramme was armolU1ced to make childcare about one euro per hour in addition to leadership is now lamenting the fact that facilities available for 35 per cent of all unemployment benefits]." since the introduction of Hartz IV, the children under the age of three by 2013. Hunger and malnourishment have again number of full-time workers whose wages In and of itself, this was way too limited. become a mass phenomenon in Germany, have to be "supplemented" by the state has Trotskyists at 12 September 2010 In any case, hardly any deeds have fol the fourth-largest economy in the world. risen sevenfold to 355,000. Since 2005 the Berlin protest against racist anti lowed the announcement. Also, sending Seen as politically desirable, this situation state, they say, has had to ante up 50 billion Muslim campaign. your kids to day care costs money that was deliberately brought about by the "left" euros because of ''wage-dumping by unscru poor parents often lack. The crying need capitalist SPD/Green government under pulous employers". This again sheds light The DGB bureaucracy is organically for additional kindergartens, particularly [Gerhard] Schroder and [Joschka] Fischer on the goal of the Hartz "reforms", whose linked to the SPD and Left Party, which in the West, drives many single mothers with their Agenda 2010 "reform" package. main purpose was not to save money. are, as Lenin aptly put it, bourgeois work into Hartz IV or keeps the married ones Ever more untrammelled lust for profits Essentially, they play workers and the ers parties - ie, while they have a base in economically dependent on their husbands. this is how the bourgeoisie celebrates the unemployed against each other and act the working class, they have a bourgeois Day care centres as well as schools must, destruction of the DDR and Soviet Union as a battering ram to destroy the unions programme. For revolutionaries, the where needed, have instruction in more through capitalist counterrevolution. The and drive down the wages and working strategic task is to break the working-class than one language, so that immigrants' CDUIFDP "savings package", which is conditions of the working class, with a cor ranks from the bourgeois workers parties children can fully comprehend what they denounced hypocritically and in lukewarm responding rise in capitalist profits. In through intervention to drive forward the are being taught from the beginning. fashion by the SPD and Greens as 1867, Karl Marx had already analysed this class struggle, aiming to build a revolu It is necessary to break with the union "unsocial", is the linear continuation of question in Volume One of Capital and tionary multiethnic workers party. It was leadership'S "Standort Deutschland" ide their own Agenda 2010. The Left Party's roughly delineated the necessary response precisely the SPD's ties to the trade unions ology and, in internationalist solidarity declamations against the "savings pack by the working class: that made it so useful to the bourgeoisie with the working classes of other coun age" and Hartz IV are no less hypocriti "If its [capital's 1accumulation, on the one as a governing party, serving to minimise tries, wage an unyielding struggle for the cal, although this is not obvious to many. hand, increases the demand for labour, it proletarian resistance to the assaults. But interests of the workers, unemployed and All the Left Party's efforts are aimed at increases on the other the supply oflabour the increasing anger in the working class Hartz IV recipients. In the 1938 Transi administering the capitalist state, and where ers by the 'setting free' of them whilst at the over the attacks by the SPD-led govern tional Programme of the Fourth Interna same time the pressure of the unemployed it participates in governing individual ment plunged the SPD into a crisis and tional, Leon Trotsky elaborated a system compels those that are employed to furnish of transitional demands linking the strug states, as in Berlin and Brandenburg, it car more labour, and therefore makes the supply made support to the government by ries out and administers Hartz IV poverty oflabour, to a certain extent, independent of the trade union tops increasingly difficult. gle for the workers' daily demands, for the capitalist class. the supply of labourers. The action of the Part of the union bureaucracy broke which conflict with the ever more con Hartz IV expresses the murderous con law of supply and demand oflabour on this with the SPD in 2003 to found the stricted bounds of decaying capitalism, to tempt of the bourgeoisie and its political basis completes the despotism of capital. social-democratic WASG, which later the urgently necessary battle for socialist As soon, therefore, as the labourers learn minions for those who generate no profits fused with the ex-Stalinist PDS to form the revolution. He wrote: the secret, how it comes to pass that in the "Trade unions and other mass organiza for the capitalists and whom they hence same measure as they work more, as they Left Party, whose programme does not dif regard as "superfluous", profit-reducing fer qualitatively from that of the SPD. tions should bind the workers and the produce more wealth for others, and as the unemployed together in the solidarity of "sources of expenses". Moreover, the sit productive power of their labour increases, Basically, the Left Party is dreaming of a mutual responsibility. On this basis all the uation of those impoverished under Hartz so in the same measure even their function return to the SPD of the "good old welfare work on hand would then be divided IV is to be made even more intolerable: as a means of the self-expansion of capital state" before Schroder. among all existing workers in accordance becomes more and more precarious for To stop Hartz IV's worst excesses, the with how the extent of the working week them, as soon as they discover that the union tops are demanding a legal mini is defined. The average wage of every degree of intensity of the competition worker remains the same as it was under &, :7;3 .i (;J 3bi among themselves depends wholly on the mum wage. But instead of mobilising Nr.187 Marz2()11 1'1fC .'0 their rank and file, they want the SPD and the old working week. Wages, with a " pressure of the relative surplus popUlation; strictly guaranteed minimum, would fol Massenproteste stUrzen verbassten Mubarak as soon as, by Trades' Unions, etc., they try Left Party to push this through parlia low the movement of prices. It is impossi Agypten: Militar iibernimmt to organise a regular co-operation between ment. The IG Metall union, whose wage ble to accept any other program for the employed and unemployed in order to negotiations with the steel industry will kapitalistisches Regime destroy or to weaken the minous effects of present catastrophic period .... this natural law of capitalistic production set a pattern for other unions, has raised "If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the on their class, so soon capital and its syco the important demand that contract work demands inevitably arising from the phant, political economy, cry out at the ers receive the same wage as permanent calamities generated by itself, then let it infringement of the 'eternal' and so to say employees. This de facto call for "equal perish. 'Realizability' or 'unrealizability' is 'sacred' law of supply and demand." pay for equal work" is not just long over in the given instance a question ofthe rela tionship of forces, which can be decided Instead of uniting workers and the due. Holding to this basic union principle only by the stmggle. By means of this unemployed in the struggle for a decent would have required the most determined stmggle, no matter what its immediate life, the union bureaucracy suppOlted the class struggle against the introduction of practical successes may be, the workers SPD/Green government's Hartz "refonns" the Hartz laws. will best come to understand the necessity Publication of the Spartakist and throttled protests against them. Com Whether it is the minimum wage or of liquidating capitalist slavery." Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands mitted to capitalism, it attempts to rec equality for contract workers, what is nec We are fighting to break the most polit £5 for a one-year subscription oncile the interests of the working class essary is a fight to organise the lU1organised. ically advanced workers and youth from includes Spartacist (German edition) with those of the capitalists. In the name Talk about equal wages must not mean illusions in the SPD and, more particu of its nationalist bourgeois programme for silently accepting the firing of contract larly, the Left Party and to win them to the Order from/make cheques payable to: "Standort Deutschland" [Germany: the workers. Rather, contract workers must be task of building a revolutionary, multi Spartacist Publications, PO Box 42886, London N19 5WY place for industry and investment], the mobilised side by side with permanent ethnic workers party committed to the union bureaucracy pressures the workers workers in a battle for equal pay for equal struggle for new October Revolutions .• 8 WORKERS HAMMER tied - and cannot but be tied - by a mil desperately hoping that a new Egyptian Nasser's aura as an "anti-imperialist" EUVPI ... lion strings to world imperialism, which regime would ease their starvation. Prior is undeserved. He was once a bogeyman (Continued from page 4) benefits from the exploitation, oppression to 11 February, both Hamas in Gaza and for the imperialists, but at a time when the and degradation of its masses. For decades, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank existence of the Soviet Union as a counter and by law a woman is subordinate to the main prop of the Mubarak regime was had laboured to suppress any solidarity weight to US imperialism allowed extra her father or husband. Egyptian law treats US imperialism, for which Egypt is a demonstrations. A socialist revolution in ordinary latitude for bourgeois-nationalists adultery by a man and by a woman as two linchpin for its domination of the oil-rich Egypt would open a vista of national and such as Nasser to manoeuvre between the very different things, the latter being far Near East. Every year Washington pumps social liberation for the oppressed Pales imperialists on the one hand and the Soviet graver. $1.3 billion in military aid into Egypt tinian masses, and, extending a hand of Union on the other. Having been rebuffed "Honour killings" and female genital more than anywhere except Israel. Begin working-class solidarity to the Hebrew by the Americans, Nasser formed an mutilation are common practices, espe ning with Sadat's rule, Egypt has been a speaking proletariat ofIsrael, would help alliance with the Soviet Union. That cially in the rural areas where some 60 per strategic ally of Zionist Israel and in recent lay the basis for shattering the Zionist gar alliance was treacherous from the side of cent of the population lives. This is the years has aided in the starvation blockade rison state of Israel from within through the Soviet Stalinists, who politically sup case in both Muslim and Christian com of the Palestinians in Gaza, including by ArablHebrew workers revolution. ported Nasser's bourgeois regime. Nasser munities. While female genital mutilation sealing the border in Sinai. Crucially, a proletarian revolution in later turned on the Soviets and his suc is supposedly illegal, and the mosque au Egypt is a country of combined and Egypt would immediately face the need cessor Anwar el-Sadat kicked out the thorities have pronounced afatwa against uneven development. Alongside modem to extend to the advanced capitalist coun Soviet advisors. its practice, according to the United Nations industry there is a vast landless peasantry tries of Western Europe and North Amer The Stalinist Communist Parties 96 per cent of women in Egypt between ica, which would lay the throughout the whole region sacrificed the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone this basis for the elimination their proletarian bases on the altar ofbour barbaric operation. Egyptian socialist and of scarcity by estab geois nationalism and betrayed opportu feminist writer Nawal EI-Saadawi begins lishing an international nities for socialist revolution. This has her book "The Hidden Face of Eve: Wom planned socialist econ opened the door to reactionary Islamic en in the Arab World" with an anguished omy. In the advanced fundamentalists like the Muslim Brother description: capitalist countries too hood to posture as the only firm opponents "I did not know what they had cut off from the proletariat is facing of the regime. The Muslim Brotherhood my body, and I did not try to find out. I just the effects of the worst represents a deadly threat to the working wept, and called out to my mother for help. capitalist economic cri class, to the left, to the Coptic Christians But the worst shock of all was when I sis since WWII. The who make up a large minority of the pop looked around and found her standing by proletariat in Western ulation, to homosexuals and especially to my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mis taken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst Europe and North Amer women. While it plays little role in the of these strangers, talking to them and ica includes large num workers movement, it is entrenched in the smiling at them, as though they had not bers of immigrants from lumpenproletariat of the slums and among participated in slaughtering her daughter North Africa and the petty-bourgeois layers. The Muslim Broth just a few minutes ago." Near East, who are a erhood could get a hearing among des Women's oppression is rooted in the human bridge to the perate masses, especially because its char institution of the family and in class soci workers in their coun itable works-hospitals etc-provide ety. It can be eradicated only after a rev tries of origin. basic services that the capitalist govemment olutionary workers state has collectivised In fighting for working does not. the economy and laid the material basis class power, a M:!:xist The bankruptcy of Arab nationalism for replacing the family through the party in Egypt could shows the correctness of our programme socialisation of child-rearing and educa not simply reject the of permanent revolution, based on an tion. The fight for women's emancipation bourgeois-democratic internationalist, proletarian perspective. will playa vital role in the struggle for programme. After decades We have always defended the Palestinian socialist revolution in Egypt. of brutal dictatorship, people against Zionist terror and likewise Women are increasingly a crucial part there are deep-going illu against the Arab rulers who no less than of the working class, where they have sions in bourgeois democ the Zionists are merciless enemies of played a leading role in the strikes over racy. Revolutionary Marx Palestinian national emancipation. We the last decade, especially in the textile ists, applying Trotsky's say: Not Arab against Jew but class against industry. The Egyptian woman may be theory of permanent rev class! That means sweeping away not the slave of slaves, but she is also a vital olution, must put forward only the reactionary Zionist state through part of the very class that will lay the transitional demands link joint Arab/Hebrew workers struggle, but material basis for her liberation by break ing the masses' demo all the reactionary sheikhs, colonels and ing the chains of social backwardness and December 2006: Strike by thousands of textile cratic aspirations to the kings throughout the region. For a socialist religious obscurantism through socialist workers in Ghazl el-Mahalla, part of wave of labour struggle for proletarian federation of North Africa and a socialist revolution. struggle in Egypt in recent years. power and its interna- federation of the Near East! A Leninist party would also defend the tional extension. The kind of party that we seek to build rights of the Coptic Christian minority, under the thumb of ruthless landlords. Marxists must fight for mass, inclusive to lead the working class to power is mod which suffers discrimination and perse The country has a small layer of highly working-class organisations as embryonic elled on the Bolshevik party that led the cution at the hands of the state, abetted by educated youth who are technologically organs of proletarian state power. Our pur working class of Russia to power in the pogromist Islamic fundamentalists. In savvy. But the country's literacy rate is pose is to win the oppressed and down 1917 October Revolution. Led by the Bol December two Copts were shot dead by only 71 per cent, and only 59 per cent for trodden to the side of the working class, shevik party, the working class of Russia riot police after protesting against a deci women. counterposing its social power and overthrew bourgeois rule, freeing the sion that forbade them to set up a church Authentic national and social liberation leadership to all wings of the Egyptian country from the imperialist yoke, abol in Cairo. This brutal repression by requires mobilising the proletariat in revo national bourgeoisie and struggling to ishing private ownership ofland and free Mubarak's thugs gave a green light to the lutionary struggle against the imperialists break the masses from illusions in bour ing the myriad oppressed nations and peo bombing of an Alexandria church on New and the domestic bourgeoisie. A prole geois democracy. ples of the former tsarist empire. The Year's Eve that killed 23 people. tarian revolution in Egypt would have an In recent strikes, workers broke free from achievement of these democratic tasks was electrifying impact on workers and the the corrupt control of the corporatist union combined with the expropriation of the For permanent revolution! oppressed throughout North Africa, the leaders. In the course of their struggles they means of production by the workers state, A regional power in its own right, Near East and beyond. In Gaza, thousands formed strike committees and demanded laying the basis for the development of a Egypt is nonetheless a neocolony whose mobilised after Mubarak's resignation, trade unions independent of the capital collectivised planned economy. brutal and murderous bourgeoisie is waving Palestinian and Egyptian flags and ist state. There is a palpable basis to build Facing the military and economic pres broader organisations of the working sure of world imperialism, the young class, such as strike committees, workers Soviet workers state succumbed to a polit tmtnual'.®!$,j.m."!14M';tfflMM:Mttttd Available in Arabic! defence guards, popular committees to ical counterrevolution, beginning in 1924. ---- Near East, 19505 ---_ run food distribution etc. The emergence A parasitic bureaucracy, led by Stalin, Permanent Revolution vs. J~""';IJ~~'<"""IJ;;.)'yj....iJ-4 of such organisations, culminating in work usurped political power from the working Bourgeois Nationalism ~J-"'lZ.J.j! <.S~ ~~4 .t....;.LL:,J :J-'4-0 ers councils poses the question of which class and abandoned the internationalist 1J::...1 __ '--,...-l ~ ..... 'fl i..pJ.1 ~ class shall rule. Soviets would be organs programme of the October Revolution in I~JJ-l~l.-.'-:'!~I~!..,... of dual power, vying for power with the favour of building a mythical "socialism J ...... J.r>,.;...J...... JL...oJ~;...... _-)cL""f"""'.>--J"'l.: ...J ,",-~', ...... ':.;> ....:>.._~l ...... _~1 ..'~....:;w~._)I...... ,..,,: bourgeoisie. in one country". The Stalinist bureaucracy severely weakened the Soviet workers The myth of the "Arab revolution" state so that it finally succumbed to cap Reformist leftist groups have taken up italist counterevolution in 1991-92. Despite _u ." .~,,~ ___ < cheering for the "Arab revolution". In fact the subsequent disaster of capitalist coun '--'-' -'-~-"" "'--"-'--'"', -- "''"'"-;= the "Arab revolution" is an empty phrase. terrevolution the Soviet Union under Egypt: Mass upheaval The slogan was popular on the left when Lenin and Trotsky showed that workers challenges dictatorship Nasser and Qaddati were posturing as revolution is possible and necessary. It Workers Vanguard nos 740 & 741, Translated from Workers Vanguard "anti-imperialists". But the "Arab revo represented a beacon for the world's 25 August & 8 September 2000 no 973 (4 February 2011) lution" by definition was not a class working people in their struggle to throw revolution of the workers in the Arab off capitalist exploitation and oppression. 20p (photocopy) 10p (4 pages) countries against their bourgeois rulers. Uniquely today it is the International Com Order from/make cheques payable to: Instead it was directed against the Zion munist League that fights for new October Spartacist Publications, PO Box 42886, London N19 5WY ist bourgeois ruling class in Israel. Revolutions. Join us!. SPRING 2011 9 articles describing rebel-held Beng libva ... hazi as though soviets might have (Continued/i'om page 3) sprung up there - gushing about "revolutionary councils" which "offer parties as part of a genuine Trotskyist the possibility of deepening the revo Fourth International. which would link lution" (Socialist Worker, 5 March). the fight for socialist federations of Socialist Worker website published a North Africa and of the Near East to 20 March statement by the Revolu the struggle for proletarian revolution tionary Socialists (RS) of Egypt the in the imperialist centers." day after the UN approved the bomb Imperialism's "human rights" ing, which says: "The Security Coun canard cil has chosen military intervention as its first step, without even preceding Many commentators hark back to it by attempts to provide humanitarian the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia. aid or weapons to the rebels." The carried out under the pretext of pro imperialist powers in Washington tecting the Albanian Kosovars from and London are publicly discussing "gcnocide", which terrorised and arming the rebels, and both US and slaughtered Serbians, destroying a British undercover troops are oper hospital, power grids and other infra ating in Libya. The RS statement structurc. Thc bombing of Serbia Reuters expresses the political bankruptcy of was a signal act of the New Labour Top: Tripoli, April 1986. Libyan rescue workers sift through rubble of an refonnism --a touching faith in the govemment of Tony Blair that was elected apartment building after US bombing attack. Bottom: March 1986 Berkeley imperialist ruling classes as a force for in 1997. Internationally led by Democratic protest against Reagan administration's war provocations. humanitarianism. US president Bill Clinton, the bombing of The SWP's estranged American cousins Serbia exemplified the imperialists' ruse in the International Socialist Organization of carrying out their mass terror with a (ISO), which initially embraced the CIA veneer of "human rights". funded National Salvation Front with The notion of "humanitarian" military open anns, now claims to have discov interventions by the imperialist powers, ered that some pretty reactionary forces which became discredited by the bloody are in the leadership of the anti-Qaddafi occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, is opposition. The ISO spares a few words. now being refurbished over Libya. Liberal on paper. to express opposition to the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was bombing. But that does not prevent it gung-ho for the attack on Libya which he from continuing to embrace the opposi described as "liberal interventionism". On tion forces, no matter what atrocities the the left, the Alliance for Workers Liberty imperialists carry out on their behalf At (AWL) expresses the social-imperialist a 20 March forum in New York City, ISO line of support for the bombing in a leaflet honcho Ahmed Shawki declared: "Today, declaiming that: ''To oppose-that is, the West is bombing Libya as its way of demonstrate against. and make a serious getting a foothold back into the Middle effort to prevent --the limited military East. But we should have no truck what action again~t Qaddafi, is to tell the rebels soever to do with the Libyan regime or a in Benghazi 'you're on your own· ... defense of it, and join all of those Describing the imperialist bombing as "the involved in the Middle East people get one thing that might prevent untold Young Spartacus ting rid of its dictators." slaughter" the AWL statement is a from Libya. For Libya, a country that social-democratic group - established In Canada, where Conservative prime "humanitarian" cover for imperialist sub imports 75 per cent of its food and pays two years ago by the French section of minister Stephen Harper has contributed jugation of neo-colonial Libya. for it with oil revenues, this could mean the fake-Trotskyist United Secretariat half a dozen fighter-bombers to the impe With British and US forces already mass starvation. Meanwhile, the US has (USec) - achieved convergence with rialist assault force, the International stretched thin by their murderous occu made very clear that there will be no such French president Sarkozy, who wel Socialists (IS), affiliated to the British pations of Afghanistan and Iraq, bourgeois sanctions against the opposition, which, comed key anti-Qaddafi leaders in the SWP, also hailed Qaddafi's imperialist critics of the Cameron coalition govern soon after taking oil production and ship Elysee Palace on 10 March and declared backed opponents while claiming to ment are voicing concern over getting ping facilities in and around the town of the opposition National Council to be oppose the bombing. The utter hypocrisy involved in another endless quagmire. Brega, announced that they were open Libya's legitimate government. The day of this stance was exposed at a 19 March Britain's military chief of the defence for business. after the UN Security Council voted to demonstration in Toronto called by the staff, General Sir David Richards, has authorise the "use of force in Libya", the IS's creation, the Toronto Arab Solidarity Imperialism's social-democratic publicly disagreed with Cameron over NPA chimed in with an 18 March state Campaign, where the IS stood shoulder to drummer boys whether or not the UN resolution allows ment declaring that "the Libyan peo shoulder with people carrying huge for Qaddafi's removal. However, the Defence of Libya against imperialist ple ... should be given the means to French and Canadian flags and chanting simple fact is that what the imperialist bombardment should be elementary, not defend themselves and the weapons they "Kill Qaddafi!" A Trotskyist League of powers are up to is mass terror under the only for proletarian opponents of capitalist need to throw out the dictator". The NPA Canada comrade reported: "Once we saw UN banner. rule but for anyone repulsed by capitalist endorsed the call for a rally held the next the vile character of the demo, we The value that the imperialists place powers imposing their diktat on Third day in support of the imperialists' increased the size of our team: not to be on Libya has mainly to do with its enor World countries through overwhelming stooges in Libya, which took place as the part of it, but to make our opposition to mous reserves of high-grade oil and nat military might. Yet the bulk of the bombing started. this pro-imperialist carnival clearer and ural gas. For example, Italy, Libya's for "socialist" left internationally has worked While the NPA statement muttered that give it more impact. We stood to the side, mer colonial slave master, depends on to line up workers and youth behind the "military intervention is not the solution", Libyan oil for a quarter of its petroleum imperialist murderers by championing Gilbert Achcar, a London-based leftist needs. Caleulating its own interests, the opposition that is acting as their ground who associates himself with the USec and German imperialism under Christian troops. They have done this in the name the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Democratic chancellor Angela Merkel of the so-called "Libyan revolution". But had no such reservations. Echoing the abstained on the UN Security Council's what kind of "revolutionary" appeals to imperialists' lying pretext of "protecting war resolution, prompting 10schka Fis the imperialists to impose a "no-fly zone", civilians" from the vengeance ofQaddafi's cher. leader of the bourgeois Green launch air strikes or otherwise intervene forces, Achcar declared in a 19 March Party. to declare: "Germany has lost its militarily in their country, as opposition ZNet article that "no one can reasonably credibility in the United Nations and the leaders did? oppose" the UN resolution authorising the Middle East." Nevertheless, Germany, The French New Anti-Capitalist Party air attacks. along with other European Union mem (NPA) early on pledged its "total support Britain's David Cameron was backed bers. has called for an embargo on all oil to the insurgents". Over Libya, this by Labour behind which stands the house-trained reformists. the SWP, who counselled: "Instead of bombing Libya, Western governments could hand all the From Slavery to tI1a$$ IIw.Ircera!ion II Contact Addresses II assets they have seized from Gaddafi's PJ,(;tn The Cold War and tile Civil Rights Movement regime to the revolutionary forces" p..,.o:.~ Spartacist Group Ireland (Socialist Worker, 22 March). In other lIaili: lIlass Miserr Un~~f,!mperialisl Occupation' Spartacist League/Britain PO Box 2944, Dublin 6, Ireland words, the imperialist gangsters who have :: ,''''''' " " "d'::' ripped off the assets of a sovereign COUll PO Box 42886, London N19 5WY International Black History and the Class Struggle is Communist League try should hand them over to their Tel: 020 7281 5504 flunkeys. sent to all Workers Vanguard subscribers [email protected] Box 7429 GPO, New York, The SWP's line of "No to intervention New York 10116. USA in Libya!" but "Victory to Arab revo £1 (64 pages) .- -- ._ .. _-_._--_._ ... _-_._-_. ----"'----.-.. -~ lution,'" is laughable given that the Order from/make cheques imperialists are intervening 011 the side payable to: Visit the ICL website: www.spartacist.org J of the SWP's Libyan "revolutionaries". Spartacist Publications, PO Box 42886, London N19 5WY Socialist Worker has caITied deluded 10 WORKERS HAMMER with placards and chants, declaring being "anti-imperialist". The ANSWER 'Imperialists Hands Off Libya'." coalition, founded by the WWP and now The destruction of the Soviet degen DEfEND controlled by the PSL, recently staged a erated workers state in 1991-92 embold LIBYA series of demonstrations calling to "stop ened the imperialists, centrally the US, the bombing of Libya" and raising the to carry out a series of bombings, wars AGAINST refom1ist-pacifist demand that the impe and occupations against weaker countries. LIST rialist rulers spend money on jobs and Capitalist counterrevolution in the fOimer ATTAC/( I education, not war. This is the timeworn Soviet Union removed what had been the oNAI .. formula the WWP, PSL and others have used to build class-collaborationist "anti main impediment to imperialist depreda L(AGUE tions, today exemplified by the slaughter war movements" that unite "the people" of Afghans and Iraqis by US-led occu behind a supposedly more benign wing of pation forces. the blood-soaked. profit-bloated capitalist The social-democratic "left" helped ruling class. pave the way for these atrocities by hail Imperialist wars, occupations and ten'or ing the eounterrevolutionmy forces, from bombing campaigns are inherent to the Polish Solidamosc to Boris Yeltsin's system of capitalism in its decay. The quest Russian "democrats". Having discarded for cheap labour. raw materials and exclu even the pretence of advocating proletar sive markets that compcls the imperialist ian socialism, the reformists increasingly rulers to wage military adventures abroad and all the more openly march under the is accompanied by incessant attacks on the banner of bourgeois "democracy". The wages and conditions of workers on the USec, among others, promoted imperial Workers Hammer home front. The current worldwide capi ist military intervention against the Serbs Spartacist literature table at London TUC demonstration, 26 March. talist economic crisis has brought massive in 1995 under the guise of providing unemployment accompanied by wage humanitarian aid for workers in Bosnia. Indian CPI and CPI(M)-condemns the the imperialist intervention. slashing, elimination of social services and Four years later, the same characters were imperialist intervention against Libya The US Workers World Party (WWP) a full-bore assault on trade unions. The calling for a European imperialist expe and does not support the pro-imperialist and Party for Socialism and Liberation only way out is through a fight for prole ditionary force in Kosovo. opposition (which it simply avoids (PSL) voice similar opposition to the tarian revolutions against the decaying It is noteworthy that a 22 March mentioning). However, the statement fails attack on Libya, mainly driven by their capitalist order. This requires building rev "Joint Statement" by various Communist to call for military defence of neocolonial longstanding political support for bour olutionary workers parties like Lenin's Parties around the world - including the Libya, pushing instead a pacifistic appeal geois and petty-bourgeois forces in Third Bolsheviks-in the US, Europe, North Greek KKE, the Portuguese CP and the for "the peoples" to demand an end to World countries that make a pretence of Africa and around the world .• homosexuals and opponents of theocratic tion in the Soviet Union, in 1994 the Tailing the Muslim Brotherhood today rule in what was a historic defeat for the British SWP published a major article certainly does not prevent the Cliffites Clinites ... in International Socialism titled "The from keeping open the option of capitu (Continuedfi'om page 5) powerful Iranian proletariat. During the renewed anti-Soviet Cold Prophet and the Proletariat" by the late lating to "secular" Arab nationalism. An terra islamica. "They banned, clubs in War of the 1980s, the US imperialists mas Chris Harman, a leading Cliffite theo article in Socialist Worker (5 February) hand. anything that fell foul of their sively aimed and organised the Afghan retician. Harman coined the opportunist notes that "Nasser's brand of secular norms", writes Gilles Kepel in The mujahedin "holy warriors" against the slogan "With the Islamists sometimes, Arab nationalism still has many sup Prophet and the Pharaoh (1993). "Couples Soviet Union, using as a pretext the 1979 with the state never" and treated Islamic porters inside Egypt" and culogises the were physically attacked for violations of Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. We fundamentalist "mass movements" as rad bourgeois strongman Nasser as an anti upright Islamic morals; films could not hailed the Red Army, whose intervention ical petty-bourgeois nationalist formations imperialist, writing: "As president be shown; concerts and evening dances opened the way to the liberation of the which "have taken up anti-imperialist slo between 1956 and 1970 he stood firm could not be held." Afghan peoples, especially the miserably gans and some anti-imperialist actions". against imperialism and transformed In 1992, fundamentalists shot dead oppressed women. We called to extend the The notion that the Islamists are anti Egypt." Egyptian intellectual Farag Focta, a secular gains of the 1917 October Revolution to imperialist flies in the face of history. Here the Cliffites are retailing the opponent ofIslamic reaction. "The killing the Afghan peoples. In the first war in During the Cold War, the American illusions in Nasser and the mythical of Farag Foda was in fact the implemen modem history in which women's eman imperialists consciously sought to hamess "Arab Revolution" that the Stalinists tation ofthe punishment against an apostate cipation was a central issue, the Red Army the deeply anti-Communist Islamic reac fostered for decades. In reality, Nasser which the imam [referring to the president] battled the murderous imperialist-armed tionaries as a force against the Soviet came to power largely with the aim of has failed to undertake", declared the and -financed Islamic fundamentalists, Union as well as secular nationalist crushing the struggles of the combative govemment-sponsored religious body who threw acid in the faces of unveiled regimes. In Egypt, Islamic reactionaries working class. Neither the "secular" AI Azhar to justify this heinous crime. women and killed schoolteachers who worked hand in hand with the imperial nationalism of Nasser nor Islamism can Renowned novelist Naguib Mahfouz, taught young girls to read (see "The Rus ists and the Saudi monarchy to destabilise overcome the depredations of imperi whose books were deemed "blasphemous" sian Question Point Blank", Spartacist the pro-Moscow nationalist regime of alism or provide solutions to any of the by fundamentalists, was stabbed in 1994, [English-language edition] no 29, SUl11l11er Nasser. Muslim Brothers were put on the fundamental problems besetting the five years after a leading Islamic cleric 1980). We denounced the Kremlin Sta CIA payroll. And for the anti-Soviet oper working class and oppressed in Egypt had said he deserved to die. In 2000, linists' 1989 withdrawal of Soviet troops ation in Afghanistan, the CIA's largest today. What's needed is a revolutionary Islamic fundamentalists ignited riots in as a betrayal of women and the oppressed covert operation ever, the Brotherhood workers party to lcad the proletariat Cairo in opposition to the publication of Afghan peoples. provided a major contingent ofthe muja in a struggle for socialist revolution a novel that they considered "heretical" From their inception as a political ten hedin, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, now a against the military bonapartists, the (see "Banquet for Seaweed", Workers Van dency in Britain in the 1950s, the trade high-ranking leader of Al Qaeda. Today, religious fundamentalists and all bour guard no 770, 7 December 2001). mark of Tony Cliff and his followers was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has geois political forces. opening the road pro-imperialist anti-Sovietism, encapsu made clear that US imperialism can do to the emancipation of women and the From Iran to Afghanistan lated in their slogan "Neither Washington business with the Brotherhood in post liberation of all the oppressed and The RS portraycd the Muslim Broth nor Moscow". In Afghanistan in the Mubarak Egypt. exploited .• erhood as necessary allies in the struggle 1980s, this merged with their tailing of to bring down the Mubarak regime. The Islamic fundamentalist forces. They lusted lesson to be drawn from subordinating the for the bloodying of the Soviet Army class interests of the toilers for the sake of and prettified the mujahedin cut-throats maintaining an alliance with religious as fighters against imperialism. The US reactionaries has bccn written in blood by Cliffites of the International Socialist history. The Intcmational Communist Organization declared: "Just as socialists League (then known as the intemational welcomed the defeat of the U.S. in Viet Marxist Newspaper of the Spartacist League Spartacist tendency) warned from the out nam, we weleome thc defeat of the Rus set of thc I 97R-79 Iranian upheaval that, sians in Afghanistan. It will give heart to o 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer: £3.00 (Overseas subscriptions: absent a decisive break by the working all those inside the USSR and in Eastern Airmail £7.00; Europe outside Britain and Ireland £5.00) class from the Islamic forces. the struggle Europe who want to break the rule of 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer PLUS 22 issues of Workers would have a disastrous outcomc. Stalin's heirs" (Socialist Worker [US], May o Vanguard, Marxist fortnightly of the Spartacist League/US for £10.00 In sharp contrast to the rest of the left's 1988). The Soviet pullout was indeed the capitulation to mullah-led reaction, our precursor to the final collapse of the USSR All subscriptions include Spartacist, organ of the International Communist programme was summed up in the slo itself. And, to be sure. the Cliffites cheered League (Fourth Internationalist). All subscriptions to Workers Vanguard gans: "Down with the Shah! No support to the capitalist counterrevolution that include Black History and the Class Struggle. Khomcini! For workers revolution in destroyed the Soviet degenerated workers Iran!" We warned that Khomeini in power state - a historic defeat not only for the Name ______. ______would reimpose the veil, supprcss national peoples of the former Soviet Union but Address ______minorities and scek to crush thc left and the also for the international working class. workers movement as ruthlessly as did the Postcode Myth of Islamists' --- Shah. Tragically, the Iranian masses paid Email Phone the price. Khomeini's seizure and consol anti-im perialism ------2~,4 idation of power led to thc execution of Keeping pace with the rise of politi Make cheques payable/post to: Spartacist Publications, PO Box 42886, London N19 5WY thousands of leftists, Kurds, women, cal Islam in the wake of counterrevolu- SPRING 2011 11 WORKERS For class struggle to delend public sector jobs! On 26 March, a massive turnout of up to half a million trade unionists demonstrated in London against the savage budget cuts announced by David Cameron's government. The demonstration consisted of a sea of trade union banners, representing local council workers, teachers and lectur ers, health workers and firefighters - in a show of anger against the Con servative-Liberal Democrat govern ment's assault on healthcare, social services, pensions and much more. The public sector jobs massacre saw Reuters 132,000 jobs lost in 2010, while the overall unemployment figure stands a Labour government). When Ed officially at 2.5 million, the highest for Miliband won the Labour leadership 20 ycars. contest last year, they enthused that his Low-paid public sector workers, a win was "another avenue to bring pres high proportion of whom are women sure to bear on Labour to fight" and minOlities, are the core of the trade (Socialist Worker, 25 Septembcr union movement today. But rather than 2010). In the meantime a poster on a strategy to mobilise that social their website lists their own recom power for a class-struggle fight to mendations to the capitalist rulers, defend jobs, the TUC's "March for the "Why There's No Need to Slash Alternative" was intended to channel Spending". Cuts can be avoided by this anger into supporting another taxing the rich, clamping down on tax Labour government. For the first time evaders, and cutting defence spend in over a dozen years, a trade union SCtlttiSh Dhfi~dofl ing-the tired, hopeless call of re demonstration in Britain was ad fonnists everywhere to reorder the pri dressed by the Labour Party leader. Ed 1.,%\\ CAMPAiGNiNG orities of the capitalists in favour of the Miliband, who was elected leader last working class . Septcmber with the support of the trade . Atilpresenting workers The Socialist Party, after calling for unions, intoned on the platfonn that m retaifinf1_;1 distribution a one-day public sector strike and a "there is an alternative", adding that ;md ma; uffacturing 24-hour general strike, go on to show "there is a need for difficult choices, case their abiding faith in the capital and somc cuts" to rcducc the budget ist state, and Labour, approvingly deficit. but this govcnunent "is going quoting an article from Labourlist.org: too far and too fast". For a clue as "A cascade of 'no cuts' budgct dcci to what Miliband's "alternative" might sions by local authorities could bc the bc, onc only has to recall that before most effectivc resistance to the cuts so the last elcction Labour promised far'". TIle Socialist Party continues, "By cuts deeper and tougher than under using their reserves and borrowing Thatcher. powers to avoid making cuts, councils Dl:cp cuts, r:l~t or slow cuts: these can gain time to build a mass move are the "choices" bell1g offered to ment in their supporr", and "Ed the workillg class by the servile Miliband could promise that an trade union bureaucracy. Throughout incoming Labour government would Europe·- from Grcccc to Ireland and write off all local authority debts Spain - evcry capitalist govenmlent is incurred from avoiding cuts" (Social trying to force thc working class to pay ism Today, March 2011 ). for the worst economic crisis since the What is necessary to fight against Great Depression - a crisis that was Workers Hammer the massacre of public sector jobs and Hundred of thousands of trade unionists on TUC march against Tory cuts (above) caused by the capitalist system itself. social services is to mobilise the mul addressed by Labour leader Ed Miliband (right) proposing Labour cuts instead. An effective defence of jobs today tiethnic working class in a fight forjobs requires hard class struggle- strike for all, through a shorter work week action across the public sector. But the leaderships stood by and refused to lead mercial Sen ices union, which organises with no loss in pay, and to undertake trade union leadership is an obstacle to hattles against the Labour govemment. civil servants, offers similar counsel to union organising to draw into their ranks the kind of fight that is necessary because Recall then FBU leader Andy Gilchrist the bourgeois rulers including "We could all of the working class, including its they too share the political framework calling off the firefighters strike in 2002 free up billions of pounds by not renew minority and immib'Tant components. In expressed by Miliband, that the alternative when it threatened to "hinder" the anned ing Trident." the course of class struggle, workers must to "Tory cuts" are Labour government forces preparing to invade Iraq. The "socialist" outfits who ride replace the Labourite cringers atop the cuts. Visit any of the public sector unions' Labour's coattails look to none other than unions with workers' leaders who aim to The ground for the present devastating web sites and find "alternatives", not the bold class warriors of the TUC to call win battles on the picket lines. Striving to public sector cuts was prepared by 13 for a fight to beat back the rapacious a general strike, while cravenly rebuilding forge such a class-struggle leadership of years of Labour govenill1ents that relent bourgcoisie but for solving British cap illusions in the election of a Labour gov the unions is an integral part of the tight lessly attacked jobs, pensions, health and italism's budget deficit. Unison's recipe ernment. The Socialist Workers Party for a multi ethnic revolutionary workers cducation services; froze pay below infla calls for "a 50 per cent tax on bankers' (SWP) runs the National Right to Work party whose aim is no less than doing away tion and slashed tens of thousands of civil bonuses" and a "Robin Hood Tax" on coalition, whose slogan is "Break the Con with the entire system of capitalist wage service jobs. And all the while, the union bank transactions. The Public and Com- Dem Coalition!" (read: and replace it with slavery through socialist revolution .• 12 SPRING 2011