Class Struggle 95

June/July 2011

Class Struggle 95

June/July 2011
SkyCity Entertainment Group is a very profitable MNC. It makes its profits from 'gaming' the euphemism for gambling and designates its mission as 'entertainment. What a sick society that promotes this venture as defining the new Auckland, when working class families in Auckland are hit be high unemployment, declining wages and savaged welfare. No problem! A few thousand will find work in building the Centre, and a few can even die in industrial accidents for the privilege. Some will get employment as low paid service workers to 'entertain' the international high spenders who come for 'Conventions'. Those who miss out can exercise their right to take the food out of their kids mouths to gamble on their hopes and dreams up on the pokeys at the SkyCity.

Brief Stuff
SkyCity wins Jackpot
NZ is a parasite's paradise. Leading gambling MNC is to build a $350 New Zealand Convention Centre in deal to relax gambling laws. The Prime Gambler John Key is very relaxed about that, so much so he forgot to tell us he made this deal before the last election to siphon pokey proceeds to his favourite charity - big business. So SkyCity is to spend $350 gambling profits extracted from the family budgets of the poorest workers in exchange for relaxing controls on gambling - more pokey machines and an extended licence. So NZs quaky capitalism is building flashy facades to 'National Pride' that will never cover-up the destruction of working class families. What else do you expect in a country run by banksters. The liberal left claims that this is deal is bordering on corruption resulting from lobbying cronies parliament. A new law is needed they say. http://bit.ly/p2qohO But changing the law on lobbying is waste of time. The NACTs in power change the law at will. The NACTs dont need lobbyists when their Cabinet Ministers are already major shareholders in NZ casino capitalism. Look how the NACTs and Rugby World Cup has hi-jacked a massive subsidy from workers whose wages and benefits are being savaged. SkyCity now defines Downtown Auckland as shop window of the new Supercity. NACT and the banksters are rewriting our National identity as cheaplabour entertainers of rich tourists and tax cheats. Note: Lord Ashcroft, best mate to the Prime Gambler. The NZ economy is defined by the parasite finance capitalists who bet on the currency, the intensity of the quakes and the weather. Lets face it we are a destination for parasites and destined to be serfs and servants. But not all is in their favour. Their bets dont always pay off. Fundamentally NZ is a posterboy for Disaster Capitalism. Not a classic neo-colony, but one fallen from OECD grace, and rapidly turning into the Chinese Great South Islands. If not this year then next, when the Chinese working class stands up, the earthquake in the South Islands will make a bigger impact on the NZX than any earthquake in Canterbury. Sad but predicable, the Labour opposition hasnt condemned this major jackpot win for casino capitalism. Not surprising as the 'Problem Gambling Foundation' applauds the Convention Centre while objecting to any relaxing of gambling laws. What do you expect from an organisation that does not recognise gambling itself as a problem but thinks that gamblers are the 'problem'.

Youth Rates Outrage

NACTs want to bring youth rates back up to age 24. They say that employers wont pay Labour/Green/Mana $15 dollars an hour, so to find jobs for the unemployed youth rates need to be reinstated. Seems that Prime Minister Key is relying on the 'evidence based' data of his High Priest Chief Science Advisor who says that youth are impulsive and don't make good decisions as their brains don't mature until around age 24. So employers cant get as much work out of youth so shouldnt pay an adult wage. What they really mean is by age 24 they hope that youth will have been beaten down by unemployment, discrimination, low wages and long hours and grown up1To accept the system. Competition for scarce jobs driven by starvation will do the trick. We know that 10.6% of youth 15-24 are registered as unemployed, but NEARLY 40% are not working and unregistered. http://bit.ly/pRkV5C Even allowing that many of this 40% not in work will be still in the education system, they are not earning and probably raking up massive debt. Hows that for a breeding ground for frustration, rage and self-harm? Of course you couldnt engineer a self-fulfilling prophesy like this without the hidden hand of the market. When youth rise up against the system it will be sure proof that they need strong discipline to bring to maturity. Why not slave labor in private prisons? Real youth unemployment and marginalisation of youth is 1000 times more likely to lead to breakdown and suicide than brain tsunamis. As is the response of the NACTs to youth unemployment - youth rates to create jobs on slave wages for 90 day hire and fire churning, assuming that they make it onto the job seeker allowance before they end up dead. Hey Chief Science Advisor, banksters and servile politicians - turn on your internet and see the world and the new 'evidence base' that the young workers are coming to get you - how immature is that? http://bit.ly/pJzImD

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June/July 2011

Wikileaks-Three Strikes
Wikileaks http://bit.ly/oIrLDb shows that US diplomats and nationals in Aotearoa are intensively lobbying the NACT regime to impose its 3 strikes brand of baseball cultural imperialism. http://bit.ly/oUlB7K. Hullo what is new? Writing labour law. Writing internet law. And the TPPA taking over control of Intellectual Property. How is this different from living in WarnerBrosland? First we get Three strikes for crime! This is the export of the US zero tolerance approach to crime in a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world and prison slave labor in a privatised prison industry for profit. Now being exported to Aotearoa and welcomed by the Maori Party with Iwis running jails as well as having shares in Casinos. Now we get Three Strikes for breaching copyright! The US has been pushing for years to impose a draconian system of heavy fines for freeloading in the internet.
The U.S. involvement in New Zealand's ISP liability provisions, which included regulations for terminating subscriber access (three strikes) also comes out in the cables. In an April 2009 cable, the U.S. notes the decision to scrap the approach due to public opposition. The U.S. is anxious to bring the provisions back, proposing regular talks with government officials and offers to help drafting new provisions: Throughout the final stages of the law's (near) implementation, the Embassy continued to meet with IPR stakeholders and GNZ officials to ascertain progress and encourage resolution. To determine how a "workable" section 92A provision can be secured, Econoff met with Rory McLeod, Director at Ministry of Economic Development (MED) with responsibility for IPR within GNZ along with Paula Wilson, Deputy Director for Trade Negotiations at MFAT, and was given assurance that the government remains committed to redrafting Section 92A. Embassy will continue to stress with GNZ officials the need for a shorter rather than protracted timeline for the redraft and will ascertain the details of a notice and comment period for public submissions once released by GNZ. During this hiatus we've proposed holding DVC(s) between NZ and U.S. interlocutors to possibly help with drafting and as a public diplomacy tool to dispel public misperceptions about proper role of IPR protection. http://bit.ly/owsbEs.

Biologism & Fascism

Biology is Destiny. Women born to nurture, men to war. Maori born violent. Underclass biological rejects should be euthanized. Its in the genes so it cant be changed, they say on redneck radio. At a time when human intervention is about to destroy nature why does the capitalist ruling class use science to claim that gender, race, class and age factors are largely biologically determined and not socially determined? Because biologism means we cant change it. Its about finding a scientific reason in a global crisis to justify driving down wages by labelling subgroups of the working class as not worthy of normal adult, male wages. At issue here is the old nature vs nurture debate, or biological or genetic determinism. Are we no more than our genes? Today increasingly behaviour is explained by reference to genetic development than to social development. For example the research of Chief Science Adviser to John Key, Prof. Gluckman, has been used by the NACTs to justify reinstating youth rates because youths brains do not mature until age 24. In the case of race, class and gender, science has a harder job justifying slave wages. It has to show that its natural for women to nurture rather than compete in the marketplace; that Maori blood causes violent behaviour; that the underclass is made up of social defectives. In each case, the role of social factors including class, politics and culture are pushed aside by genes. The message is that genes are our fate and short of genetic engineering, there is little we can do about it. Besides it means there is no point throwing money at it. This is important when the capitalists are facing crisis and meeting growing resistance to their bankrupt system. Its convenient to use biologism to target youth rebels, feminist fighters, pushy migrants etc as making up the underclass which poses a threat to society. This is no more or less than the ideology of fascism. Fascism is the last refuge of the bankrupt capitalists to avoid paying for their crisis especially a social crisis made 1000 times worse by the ecological crisis when human intervention in nature is about to bring about human extinction! Rather than abandon social intervention we need an all out social revolution to rescue nature! To settle this debate its necessary to perform a major social experiment. We need to throw a lot of money at the inequalities in society. For that we have to expropriate the expropriators. Once we have eliminated the social and environmental deficits we can see whether fascists are born or made by capitalism. (See Spirit Level Debate in this issue).

Well do we get pissed off that NZs neo-colonial subservience to the US is exposed for the world to see? Yeah we do, and we respond by kicking out the NACTs as the US cronies who allow the US Embassy to dictate policy and then we kick out the US Embassy as the arm of the US imperialist state that is occupying other countries, killing millions to keep its grip on the worlds scarce resources, and dragging Aotearoa onto its side in the fight with China. We dont want to take sides in the fight between the US and China. Both are imperialist powers that are parasitic on the labour and lives of workers everywhere. Our answer? Three Strikes against US imperialism. #Copyleft! #Hack US imperialism! #Free Bradley Manning!

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June/July 2011

SAS US Mercenaries
New Zealands Special Air Service (SAS) handed prisoners over to US and Afghan forces who tortured them. Metro magazine published evidence that the SAS is fully involved in war crimes breaching the Geneva convention by handing prisoners over to other forces who were known to use torture; and killing civilians (Metro magazine article Eyes Wide Shut). The US and Afghan states human rights abuses are known, with successive New Zealand governments covering up the real role of the SAS. Journalist exposes SAS
Journalist Jon Stephenson, uncovered details of three incidentsone in 2002 and two in 2010when the SAS handed prisoners over - against the imperialists rules. In May 2002, an SAS mission resulted in at least 3 deaths and the capture of 55 others. The detainees were transferred to US custody, to be mistreated and tortured. One of the prisoners, Abdul Wahid, told they beat us very badly, they cut off our hair...our beards and moustaches. Others said they were bound and hooded, threatened with dogs and paraded naked in front of Americans. They were later released without charge. Last year a prisoner handed over to the Afghan National Army, was tied behind a vehicle to be dragged down a metal road. The SAS stopped this and instead handed the prisoner to the Afghan Crisis Response Unit (CRU), who then passed him to the Afghan secret police, the National Directorate of Security (NDS). The SAS raided the equipment supply company Tiger International and killed two security guards claimed to be in self-defense. Several Tiger employees were taken prisoner and handed over to the NDS. The UN Convention bans torture and inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners. The military should not transfer prisoners unless they are satisfied they will be treated properly. The US has said they refuse to treat Al Queda as warriors and so refuse to honour the Geneva Convention. A British court has banned British forces from giving prisoners to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) following evidence that hundreds of detainees transferred to its custody were tortured. Allegations included the amputation of limbs, electric shocks, deprivation of sleep, water and food, beatings by rod and cable, scorching and killings. The SAS knew what would happen when prisoners were handed to Afghan or US forces. They had personally witnessed head-shaven prisoners in jumpsuits in US custody. One soldier reported, It looked like Guantanamo Bay.

They denied, they lied.

A Defence Force spokesman claimed the incidents described in the article were either inaccurate or did not happen. Prime Minister John Key attacked the messenger, not credible. Key claimed last August that the SAS made sure their prisoners would not be tortured. http://bit.ly/p4RT4q Among the other deniers is NZs next Governor-General, formerly Chief of Defence Force (NZDF) Jerry Mateparae. He has defended the SAS and blocked Metros Official Information Act requests for further details of SAS activity and defense forces investigations. Stephenson replied to Mateparae refuting the NZ Govts official line. http://bit.ly/mW8sSV The former Labour Governments Defence Minister was Phil Goff also justified NZ military involvement in Afghanistan. He supported the SAS in Afghanistan and personally lost a nephew killed in action. http://bit.ly/qN3CSP Now as leader of the Labour opposition he says its time to withdraw the SAS because its no longer a fight against Al-Qaida of opium production.

but a civil war over http://bit.ly/p9PtN9

control

Following the controversy over Stephensons revelations Defence Minister Wayne Mapp was forced to back down on one of the official lies (that SAS dont take prisoners) admitting that the SAS took a Taliban prisoner who was transferred to the US Bagram Theater Internment facility. This is the same place where US soldiers had murdered two prisoners (Mullah Habibullah, an Islamic Clergyman, and Dilawar of Yakubi a 22 year old Pashtun taxi driver) in 2002. The US were forced to admit they held 645 prisoners in January 2010, none of whom are given prisoner of war status by the US. By May 2011 it is claimed the US held over 1700 prisoners there. http://bit.ly/nIbxwV Mapp has also admitted there was mistreatment in 2002, and shifts the blame onto former Phil Goff former Minister of Defense and the US for the mistreatment.

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The Reconstruction team in Bamyan is also a lie. Every time they make the news it is about an incident while on Patrol. Reconstruction was always just a pretence an excuse for their invading presence, when the reality is military patrols. Defence Minister Wayne Mapp admitted that the SAS were involved in a revenge attack killing 12 people they believed were responsible for the death of a NZ Lieutenant ODonnell in August 2010 while on reconstruction patrol. But he denied the killing of civilians. While the locals claimed six civilians were killed; and an ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) report said a gunsight malfunction occurred when the wrong building was attacked.

June/July 2011
Standard who talk about unionising the army as if professional soldiers are workers in uniform. http://bit.ly/o44jsq No, the professional army is not some branch of the public service that should be defended in any sense. Its not a branch of the state that acts to reproduce or protect the vulnerable from war. The army serves to defend the state which acts to defend private property, mainly from the foreign enemy, but increasingly from the so-called enemy within. In the last analysis the army functions to suppress revolution against an exploitative and oppressive ruling class. This is clearly seen in the Middle East and North Africa today where Gaddafi, Assad and the Saudi princes use obsolescent tanks to shell innocent civilians on the streets and their dwellings. It is in this role that the NZ army is today for hire as UN or NATO mercenaries to police borders (Sinai) UN protectorates (Timor Este) or fight insurgents in countries oppressed by imperialism, as in Afghanistan. So how the army allocates its resources internally is the bosses business. Workers dont have a say in who is on the Business Roundtable. And its certainly not the business of those who claim to be on the left unless they too plan to use it to stop revolutionaries rallying the masses and taking up arms against social democracy in power as we see happening in Greece today. In Aotearoa, the army was used to defeat Maori resistance in the land wars, and to strike break and suppress militant unions during general strikes or imperialist wars. To unionise the hired thugs of the state is to turn unions craven organs of the bosses state and to disarm the working class in the war with the ruling class. Socialists should be for the abolition of the standing army and for a popular militia. How you go about abolishing the army is the point. Not by unionising it, or seeing it as an equalopportunity employer, but by conducting campaigns to stop conscription or recruitment as a vocation, such as the military visiting schools to recruit the young, especially Maori; by campaigns that expose the real role of the military; and in the event of wars calling on the ranks to mutiny (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq) cutting off funding; calling on the ranks to support popular movements rather than obey orders to suppress them (Egypt, Libya, Syria etc).

SAS to be redeployed as US hired killers

The latest move in the ongoing controversy over deploying the SAS is Prime Minister Keys statement that he will take into account the views of the troops on deployment! That means that Afghans continue to be arrested and killed by the NZ SAS in support of the Afghan forces. NZ troops are just propping up the US-backed puppet regime in Afghanistan. The invading army in Afghanistan serves the interests of US imperialism and its EU partners, to compete with Russia and China for the scarce resources in the Central Asian region. The SAS are predators trained killers assassins. We should expect nothing less than murder and involvement in torture from them. As the situation deteriorates in Afghanistan and the US is on a planned withdrawal handing over to Afghan forces, NZs role is exposed as a blatant guns for butter trade-off just as the TPPA negotiations come to a head. While the US is talking to the Taliban to construct a puppet government that includes them, NZSAS is being deployed in killing Taliban insurgents in Kabul. This makes the NZ military no more than subcontracted killers to the US military a role played historically by colonial troops. To rub in NZs neo-colonial subservience, Prime Minister Keys on his recent visit to the US, arranged for future visits of US Marines and Coastguard to NZ to celebrate the 70-year anniversary of US troops occupation of NZ during World War 2! The symbolism is striking. The role of the Marines is to invade and occupy foreign territories; that of the Coastguard is to guard US territories!

To unionise, or abolish, the army

To cover the mercenary role of the NZ military the Government tries to turn soldiers into ordinary blokes. The outpouring of sentiment when NZ soldiers are killed tries to humanise those who are no more than hired killers. Inviting soldiers to express an opinion on their deployment has a similar effect treating them as ordinary citizens. This humanising of soldiers also infects some Labour lefts on The

All Imperialist Troops out Now! NZ out of all imperialist alliances! No to UN peacekeeping or reconstruction! Bring the SAS murderers back home: arrest the generals and politicians! Abolish the military! For a Workers Government and Peoples Militia

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June/July 2011

Breivik is a fascist
Breiviks massacre shocked the con-liberals into denying that he was the new face of 21st century fascism. As the Mayor of London Boris Johnson said, Hes an evil nutcase...its not about ideology. http://tgr.ph/nmpXrv Meaning of course he was mad and evil and we could not blame liberal multiculturalism, migrants, or the now respectable ideology of Islamophobia in the West of the sort that paints Obama as Osama, with his head in a target. Breivik was just an inadequate young man, says Boris. Personalising fascist terror as a game for losers is typical of the conservatives and Blairite warmongering liberals who have spent the last 20 years since the first gulf war making hatred of Islam a new crusade. But Boris misses the point as fascism exploits such personal problems and psychology to turn losers into winners. They are the fascist shock troops that are being mobilised to turn Islamophobia from racial hatred into violence. They do the dirty work for the bourgeoisie whose system is in crisis. Their task is to attack and smash the working class which defends universal values of race equality, gender equality and the rights of all minorities from demonization and scapegoating which of course requires the overthrow of capitalism. Thats why the bourgeois establishment does not want to give a name to the reemergency of 20th century fascism in the form of Breiviks individual terror and tries to write it off as his personal problem. You can change the name but you cant change the game. Fascism is fascism is fascism! Are Fascists born or made?
Its not about evil as some inborn lurking troll waiting for the right moment to jump out. Evil is something society does to people. And in particular capitalist society which reduces people to ciphers in the market devoid of humanity. This involves the alienation of the individual from work, their labour, from themselves and others. What passes today for humanity is what survives that dehumanisation process. We see it in the Middle East when people fuse as a single force to fight dictatorship. The particular evil that kills people to defend racial purity has been searched into most deeply by those who asked why fascism? in the 19202n and 1930s. One in particular Wilhelm Reich a Marxist psychoanalyst in his books like Listen Little Man. What seems like some inborn evil force is in reality an authoritarian personality that is the product of capitalism where people are raised as passive victims of an exploitative and oppressive system, and when being offered a plausible reason for their pain, the alien, the Jew, the criminal, the communist, then submit themselves to authority and follow the strong leader. Hence the Authoritarian Personality (more commonly known as passive/aggressive) is normal under capitalism. http://bit.ly/ppEl1S Such a personality type explains better the willingness of masses of people to submit to inhuman actions in the name of some greater good such as racial purity, family values, the national spirit etc all the so-called values that underpin 20th century fascism, and for some of them to become the shock troops of violent reaction.

What is Fascism?
Fascism is a social movement that comes into existence when capitalist crises raise the prospect of socialist revolution, and the ruling class must mobilise social support in disaffected elements to smash that threat. That is why while particular scapegoat groups are chosen, Jews, Muslims, etc the real target is always the working class. While today most people write off the working class as revolutionary, the ruling class knows better. What scares them shitless is the threat of communism as the post-capitalist moment of modernity when all the old divisions, especially that which underlies all that is evil in capitalism private property - are replaced by the commune. Thats why Breivik and all those who appeal to such exclusive and particularistic values against the rise of modernity hate cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. They are neo-fascists targeting the biggest threat of all, the revolutionary working class. Because they know that behind the socialist, cultural Marxist - even social democratic political currents, there are the masses straining at the leash against the system that dehumanises them, ready and willing to overthrow it and replace it with a new society based on real freedom and equality.

How workers fight fascism

To make that happen it is necessary to be clear about how to fight fascism. Fascism is the last resort of the bourgeoisie to divide and smash the working class as a threat to its hegemonic rule. Workers make no concessions to the bosses or the state. We have no illusions that the capitalist state can

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stop fascism. The interwar period proved that the state supports fascism. The working class has to organise independently of the state to smash fascism by mobilising on the streets to stop the fascists rallying and holding meetings. Even more clearly, the fascists use any method to destroy the working class movement. They are always calling on their shock troops to use violence including arms. Fascist gangs are recruited to kill the leaders of the labour movement as we can see from Colombia to Syria. Even relatively isolated individuals like Breivik are part of an international fascist movement which sees the need to kill the class enemy. Therefore, to defend themselves from fascism, workers must form armed self-defence squads. Any qualms they may have about training in the use of arms, and carrying arms, is to

June/July 2011
surrender to fascist violence. As Trotsky said in the 1930s, the only way to stop the fascists is for armed squads of workers to acquaint their faces with the pavement. http://bit.ly/r5x6q3 So when it comes to defeating fascism, revolutionaries are not exponents of pacifist cultural marxism which is a bastardised form of pseudo-Marxism that appeals to bourgeois parliament to reform capitalism. Revolutionaries build an armed, independent working class movement dedicated to overthrowing the bourgeois state and defeating its fascist gangs, paramilitaries and mercenary killers, paid to terrorise and assassinate innocents as well as the leaders of the revolution. We have no illusions that the weapon of ideas can only be defended by the idea of weapons.

Welfare Nazis
Revival of old hit by the #Welfare #Nazis coming to Aotearoa soon. Sponsored by NACTs, Maxim Institute and UK Centre for Social Justice. Lineup: Ian Duncan-Smith, Paula Rebstock, Paula Bennett, Janet Grossman. First came to prominence as the Chicago Boys in the '70s, with smash hit 'Pinochet', then the Reaganites Contra band in the '80s with No1 hit #WisconsinWay. Went on in the '90s to record "Welfare to Work" a cover of the 1930s Depression hit by Fred Hayek. Revived for current world tour by global crisis, rising austerity, impending bankruptcy to raise the stocks of the declining old bands, and try to counter the popular appeal of the new genre of #indignatos sweeping the world #worldrevolution.#fb
Ian Duncan-Smith, founder of the British think tank Centre for Social Justice, visited Aotearoa recently as guest of the Maxim Institute. As the Con-Dem Minister of Work and Pensions he is now responsible for implementing the policies generated by his think tank. Explain what these are work-fare basically. The NACT regime is basing much of its approach to welfare on the same politics of welfare-to-work. This originated in the US in particular the Wisconsin Way, and was picked up by a 1997 Beyond Dependency Conference in NZ. These ideas are derived ultimately from the revival of liberal political economy of the Austrian school, in particular Von Mises and Hayek. http://bit.ly/mZTo92 Today, the NACTs are drawing inspiration from British neo-liberal theory on welfare being implemented by the Con-Dem regime. They have head-hunted one of the UK senior officials, Janet Grossman, responsible for implementing a shift from Jobcentres to Callcentres, cutting jobs, saving money by putting services online and creating financial disincentives to getting benefits. Here's a quote from a British parliamentary committee before which Ms Grossman appeared: "...let us congratulate Ms Grossman, shall we - if we read her CV we see that: "Under Janet's leadership, the Pension Service operations have improved efficiency and customer service, reducing staff numbers by 26% whilst improving service levels in the last 18 months". She has done a fantastic job and I pay tribute to her. When we need to summon you back in a couple of years' time, which I will obviously do, will you be able to tell us that Ms Grossman has been promoted and received a pay rise but those responsible for a lagging performance elsewhere have been sacked and moved on?" http://bit.ly/oS732S The transcript is hilarious, especially the cross questioning by one Austin Mitchell, Labour MP for Grimsby (of Quarter-acre-Pavlova Paradise fame) who asks are the customers told midway thru their phone call how much it is costing them? That was 2006, so its likely she has probably turned 100s of jobcentres into callcentres to get people to chase jobs over the phone or online (with services contracted to the private sector where Ms Grossman has much experience). Sounds like she's been head hunted to do the same job here getting people off welfare into workfare! Which Bennett is already doing eh? When 2/3rds of 'youth not working' are not registered as unemployed. The pay off here will be outsourcing IT solutions, forcing customers to pay for long phone calls assuming you have a landline, and why would you with a cellphone anyway. Its keep your cellphone lose your benefit. Then theres the compulsory detox or else. Then employing Union-organised security guards to harass them off the streets. Crazy capitalism where efficiency is chopping people off the books while outsourcing the methods so that only social services that can make a profit survive.

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June/July 2011

ACT Party: Dinosaur or fascist?

Brashs leadership coup in the ACT party and his immediate attack on Te Mana and Hone Harawira has raised concerns that he is a racist extremist, a dinosaur out of place in contemporary NZ. The trouble with the argument about ideological extremes is that it tends to treat ideas as separated from historical and material reality. ACTs history represents attempts to impose radical capitalist solutions to falling profits in the period since Douglas and co hijacked the 4th Labour Govt and National took over the mantle under Ruth Richardson. Its project is to complete the so-called neo-liberal revolution. ACT is not a 'dinosaur' but a 'proto-fascist Party.
ACT has been successful as part of the NACT regime making big gains for its class, but falling short of what is required to solve the crisis facing NZ as a weak and declining semi-colony. To do that they need an all out attack on workers, gutting welfare, driving down wages, eliminating rights and preparing to suppress the inevitable working class resistance. Workers will not take the austerity attacks on their living standards lying down as the uprisings in MENA and Europe show. So the NACT regime cannot win majority support for these attacks. The Capital Gains Tax is a no brainer, asset sales to mums and dad have been exposed as derisory. There is growing hostility to cabinet dictatorship in Christchurch and in attacks of basic freedoms such as Three Strikes on downloading from the internet. Hence the NACT bloc (NACT clearly need ACT to govern) has to break up the working class majority by separating the moderates from the militants (as has been done repeatedly in NZ history) by making more extreme attacks on Maori, women, youth, unionists, migrants in the name of the 'nation'. The 'underclass', 'Maori radicals', unruly youth, 'criminals' and 'boat people' are all targets which are designed to divide petty bourgeois and redneck sections of the working class against the most militant and advanced sections. Drawing on whacko theories or fake science (e.g. biological arguments misused to rationalise patriarchy etc) to prove that these categories of people are more backward, stupid, dangerous, inferior (or just conveniently different) etc provides the populist rationalisations for attack on the working class. Brash showed in 2003 that he was part of this reactionary underbelly with his 'one law for all' which blames Maori, women, youth etc for their 'failure' to compete as equals so that 'special treatment' is a threat to national unity. The ruling class attacks on the working class threat to its class rule at a time of crisis, by demonising sections of the working class and mobilising a redneck brigade of chauvinist workers and petty bourgeois to divide and defeat it has a name its called fascism. ACT is not a throwback to the 20th century or a 'dinosaur' out of its time in the 21st century in the sphere of ideas that can be defeated by liberal ideas. That fails to understand its real material base and its potential threat which can only be defeated by cutting its material roots. ACT is a proto-fascist party that is consciously adopting fascist type appeals in an attempt to build popular support. It has clear material roots in the ruling class confronting a crisis to its class rule. Its object is to create a social movement capable of smashing the working class. NZ historically is a heavily class divided society in which the petty bourgeois have been rallied to smash militant workers. Those lessons need to be revived today. In recognising fascism as a growing threat the working class can organise itself confront it and smash it before it becomes a decisive force. Just as Breivik is not merely a crazy person but someone recruited to neo-fascism, Brash is a right wing politician making racist attacks in a proto-fascist manner. Whatever the personal and internal divisions on the far left and right, global crisis is actually setting the agenda, not the individuals caught up in it. There is no split between dry economics and social conservatives in ACT after Brash. Brash in 2004 showed that he was both. The Brash coup is about forcing unity and organisation onto a dysfunctional ACT to pull the NACT bloc (it is a bloc despite appearances) together to counter the emergence of a far left pole that can pull Labour to the left. Why? Well it obvious that the NACT economic agenda requires massive attacks on workers. The weakness of capital in NZ explains the increasing foreign domination by Australia, US and now China. The NACTs are mere agents for this penetration via the complete deregulation of capital and labour markets.

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This will inevitably revive working class resistance. Labour reflects that pressure weakly but has made some small shifts to the left to claim majority support for its economic management of capitalism. The Maori Party play for the iwi leaders to be indigenous agents for foreign capital took it far right and caused the split and formation of Mana, which despite its leaders baggage, is being forced be the class polarisation to fight on a united class line. Now the NACTs cannot defeat Labour on CGT which is a no brainer or privatisation which has been exposed, so to regain power to push its finance capital agenda, it has to disguise its dry economics in a cocktail of reactionary, and I would say proto-fascist, attacks on various components of the working class, Maori radicals, the underclass, women as inferior, youth as immature, boat people as terrorists etc to divide and disorganise that class. The centre of petty bourgeois and aspirant workers is not so much vacant as torn by class polarisation pulling in two directions. Usually in times of economic and social crisis whoever wins the petty bourgeois will win the class war. NZ has plenty of historic instances. On economics alone, the left would win easily as workers are under attack and the petty bourgeois are being badly squeezed. Its only in the domain of domination of cultural politics that the right can win the swinging middle. Key did it last time with smile and wave attacks on political correctness, but he has pretty much blown his stocks here. This time it will take a much more deliberate attempt to cover his hard-right economics and mobilise the angry petty

June/July 2011
bourgeois and elements of the working class by blaming the tradition enemies of capital in the working class, the militant (Mana), the unruly (women and youth), the morally defective (underclass), the alien mob (boat people). Brash signalled in 2004 that he was the one to provide the ideological rational for this proto-fascist politics. One Law, One Nation, One People. This interprets the Treaty as a founding document for capitalist universality and therefore all those enemies of modernity who must be excluded. So despite the apparent disarray of ACT and Mana, it is not the subjective elements of personalities and factions that in times of crisis set the agenda but the objective class struggle that to a large extent takes place behind our backs. We are now in a period of open class struggle such as NZ has experienced before of crisis in the period before WW1 and the 1930s, and the immediate post WW2 period. Today, like in each of these former times of upheaval the forces that propelled the classes into action in NZ are largely external. This time is it the global crisis of capitalism that brings with it increasing competition between the imperialist powers to redivide the world. NZ is caught between the vice of the old hegemonic power, the US, and the rising hegemonic power, China. The NZ ruling class is trying to appease both powers, but the result is the total selling out of NZs political sovereignty and the impoverishment of its working class. That is why in NZ the class struggle that has been always present as a dull rhythm driving NZs history, has come to the surface, like the Christchurch earthquakes, causes large fissures and much liquefaction. http://bit.ly/jWA3S7

Zimbabwe

Revolutionary Workers Group

The National Coordinating Council (NCC) of the International Socialist Organization of Zimbabwe (ISO-Z) met on the 28th of June for the sole purpose of launching an Organization whose name reflects our detachment with the IST as well reflecting our evolved ideology and program. The RWG is the logical successor of the ISO that split in 2009 and withstood a high jacking attempt in 2010 after the initiation of the reconstitution agenda in 2008 when a new leadership was elected. Through discussions and debates both internally and externally and interfacing with our collective experience we managed to evolve from a semi Trotskyite to a Trotskyite platform that utilizes the theory of Permanent Revolution as its political framework on the basis of a Transitional program that guides workers for the sole purpose of seizing power and laying a dictatorship of the proletariat. Central to this is the application of the dialectic as the best tool for social diagnosis and prognosis and provide a revolutionary program that differs from those of a variety of reformist and pseudo Trotskyite groupings whose main aim is to hijack the revolutionary fervent and channel it into a cynical reformist alley that has brought so much misery and sorrow for generations of the toiling masses.

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Our program has as its basis the needs of the masses and the best way of mobilising them as well as exposing their class enemys elements. These include a sliding scale of wages and prices, price controls on all goods and services, nationalization of all key sectors of the economy, redistribution of land to the poor peasants, state projects to employ the unemployed, a working peoples convention of rank and file organizations of workers to write a new constitution, a workers government on the basis of the armed masses. To implement all this, war are for building a Trotskyite organization as part of a revolutionary center, against reformism and Stalinism, and a national revolution as part of a regional onslaught on capital and no to US and Chinese led imperialisms.

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Internally but to a minor extent Zanu has managed to lay control of the National Bourgeoisie and thereby putting it against imperialism though the true nature of the relationship still has to be verified. Zanu will definitely lose any election that is to be held in accordance with a strict adherence to an agreed roadmap as this will more or less be a repetition of March 29 2008 though this time both the MDC and its handlers are cleverer. Any election that is not endorsed by SADC or has elements of what the US and its allies call an unfair poll will be disastrous for the regime as this will provide the political grounds for Imperialism to intervene. The splits in Zanu as to the holding of the election is testimony of how the party has been manipulated by the west as a basis for an internal crisis necessary for invasion and its probable that the same is true for the military despite its public utterances. We would like to extend our revolutionary gratitude to the Liaison Committee comprising the HWRS of America and CWG of New Zealand for their comradely support during this difficult time and we look forward to developing our relationship into one that ensures the revolutionary coordination of struggles in the different regions we come from. This is only the start for our role as the vanguard of the working class to whom we lay all our efforts and gifts as we embark on this historic mission. This to all intents and purposes is the launch of the first Trotskyite Organization in this country and probably in the region and we are prepared to share our experience and struggles with our brothers in the region as we prepare for a revolution in Southern Africa as part of the African and world revolution. Despite the institutional challenges that we face we possess the most critical elements for any revolutionary body worth its name that is ideological and political clarity as well as a committed membership. We still face a challenge in setting up a fully functional office as well as producing a workers paper and we appeal to all working class organizations and individuals who share our objectives of smashing the capitalist system to help. Indeed the global imperialist system is facing a deep crisis that today is threatening key countries like Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Even in the heartland of America the protests by workers is taking on a political character not to mention the aggressive and brutal wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya over natural resources. The recent revolts in the Arab countries clearly shows the limitations of the capitalist system in its decaying phase. Closer home the protests last year in Mozambique and South Africa and the recent ones in Swaziland as well as the current struggles on Botswana proves the inability of this system to play any progressive role. RWG(EX ISO-Z) NEC 30th May 2011

The various so called leftist or socialist organizations in Zimbabwe as a reflection of the international situation have reduced themselves into sectarian, reformist and centrist formations with nothing in common with the revolutionary tradition and agenda. Since the election in 2008 and especially since our special congress in August last year we made a deliberate effort to clarify our outlook and political tools before attempting to claim to be seriously championing the interests of the workers. This launch marks the end of that period as we now focus on political work in view of the impending clash between the workers and capital that is represented by the inclusive government. Zimbabwe is limping from a position of a semi colony under economic siege in a degenerating capitalist system that is forced to resort to brutal wars in order to guarantee some stability in a perspective of impending collapse for a system that has ruined livelihoods and survives thanks to the betrayals of the so called workers leaders. With the working class demoralized and betrayed by these so called leaders the national end game is now firmly in the hands of the two poles of imperialism as witnessed by the so called u turn by SADC on Zimbabwe which is nothing but a logical outcome of a managed transition that excludes or uses the masses of any nation. China has decided to sacrifice its interests in Zimbabwe for those of South Africa which can be threatened by a shift of political ground in that country and it is also probable that America promised not to threaten the interests of China.

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The Syrian Revolution

The imperialists and their local stooge dictators are trying to contain the Arab Revolt. In Tunisia and Egypt the revolution has been steered into a parliamentary transition by the military so far successfully co-opting the majority against the more militant minority. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia the ruling class has used its military to squash protest and to terrorise dissidents with jail and torture. In Libya, imperialism has directly intervened when it was clear that Gaddafi could not defeat the armed rebellion he provoked, and is now trying to contain the rebellion behind a new pro-imperialist TNC regime. In Syria we have a revolution that is facing brutal repression which continues to galvanise mass opposition in the streets leading to increasing splits in the army and the prospect of an organised popular revolution. But the Syrian opposition has not yet learned the lesson of the Arab revolt. Imperialism and its stooges will not give up power peacefully. There is no peaceful compromise. In Syria, then, we see the most advanced front in the Arab Revolution halted by the oppositions illusions in a peaceful settlement. The fate of Hama is the acid test.

Hama: Regime vs Opposition

Hama is the key to the fight between the regime and the opposition. The Barthist Regime (which came to power in 1963 based on the tinyl Alawite Shia sect) blames the large Sunni majority and radical Islamicists. Sacking of the rebellion in Hama in 1982 with 20,000 killed (Robert Fisks estimate) proves that the regime only retains power by a dictatorship and cannot be brought down peacefully. Though there are still liberal academics who say that if Assad purges his regime of those more responsible for the killings of 1982 and today, a negotiated settlement is possible. http://aje.me/nyFbbd The regime has killed at least 1,500 since the Days of Rage in February, and in the last days of July, maybe thousands more. http://bit.ly/nfco98 Promises of new era democratic reforms, the lifting the state of emergency imposed in 1963, and planned negotiations, are just ruses to confuse and divide the opposition. These all failed as the demand of the opposition to end the regime became more popular. http://bit.ly/nfco98 As for the domestic opposition, it has fallen short until now and has been slow to organize itself. It is organized into two main groups: the Damascus Declaration group and the National Democratic Gathering. Each group includes several political parties. These groups are the organized domestic Syrian opposition. In addition, youth coordinating committees (tansiqiyyat) today form the backbone of the entire Syrian opposition. Youth are organized within the framework and context of the work and mission they are carrying out: the organization of marches and protests, while also confronting the violence of the regime. They have matured politically. An important document published by these local coordinating committees is until now the best written statement issued by any Syrian side, including opposition political parties. The Union of Coordinating Committees has issued a similar statement, but in lesser detail. It includes over eighty percent of the coordinating committees. Furthermore, the organization now has official spokespersons... Everyone believes in the "three no's" that I mentioned earlier and have one goal. The goal is democracy and the "three no's" are: no to military intervention; no to sectarian strife; and no to the use of arms in any way. http://bit.ly/rmWLfT A number of individuals and sections from the army have defected, some claiming to have formed a Free Syrian Army. As yet there does not appear to have been any organised armed defence. The central city of Hama became the symbol of this popular opposition as its inhabitants occupied and barricaded it against the entry of tanks for xxx weeks. The situation in Hama could have opened up the possibility for the formation of armed defence squads to man the barricades against the tanks. Here was an embryonic commune that could have created a militia to defend itself. But it did not; the ban on arms remained and the lessons of other revolutions, including Libya were not heeded. Then Assad sacked the Mayor for not putting down this occupation and for inviting foreign visitors to the city. Now the regime has once again turned to open repression. On the 29 of July the regime moved its tanks in shooting indiscriminately at protestors and dwellings. What are the lessons? First we have to say clearly that this regime, like that of Gaddafi in Libya, is a semi-fascist regime. It responds to democratic protest to its repressive rule by military attacks on civilians. We have to reject the lies spouted by Chavez, Castro etc who believe that because the Assad regime claims to be socialist and against Israel so that it is to be defended against imperialism and Israel. Israel is facing big demonstrations at the moment and may use the old ploy it charges Assad with, of seizing

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on a military operation against Syria to clamp down on its domestic troubles. Second, the Baathist regime cannot defend Syria from imperialism and Israel. Again like Gaddafi, Assad has opened up to imperialism and introduced neo-liberal measures which reward the regime elite and punish the people. Second, the Baathists like all Arab ruling classes have made peace with Israel and do not actively support the Palestinians. Thus the Baathists are not Arab nationalists but stooges of imperialism and Israel. Only a national revolution lead by the armed workers can defeat the regime and its imperialist allies. Third, the way forward for the opposition is to follow the lead of Libya to build a popular militia to defend the uprising, splitting the ranks of the army from the high command, and building popular committees in every town and city. Assad will fall as he relies on the Alawite minority (6-12%) against Sunni (3/4 of population) and Kurd minority as the base of his army. Already the level of defection has forced Assad to use mercenaries like the (Shabbiha =ghosts) to terrorise the population to form a national leadership that can defeat the regime create a new government based on the workers and peasants.

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and poor peasant masses and defeating any attempt by imperialism and its gendarme, Israel, to stage a military counter-revolution. Revolutionary communists (not Stalinists who have betrayed the cause of communism) call this process Permanent Revolution. It is based on a transitional program. We support the democratic demands but say that even these demands for freedom of speech, assembly, the rights of citizens, workers, etc cannot be realised by any bourgeois government in Syria. To do so would be to give the masses more control over the economy and put limits on the ruling regimes profits from the economy that has undergone neo-liberal reforms. Such neo-liberal reforms cannot be removed without the nationalising of the economy under workers control.

Permanent Revolution
The liberal view of the revolution is that the regime must either increase the level of violence or negotiate a settlement. It argues that once the merchants, businessmen, professionals etc. side with the opposition Assad can negotiate the terms of democracy. http://bit.ly/rmWLfT But it is obvious that for the masses it is too late for that, especially after the new attacks at the end of July. The call for the end of the regime now means all of those who have been implicated in the regime over its bloody history. Its not a situation like Egypt where the army feigned neutrality and staged a quiet coup. The army is too far embedded in the Assad Regime as most of the officers are Alawite sect loyal to Assad. There can only be two outcomes. 1. Either, the regime uses total violence and kills 10s of thousands, forcing many more into exile or underground. This may or may not spark military intervention. If the UN decides to intervene under some humanitarian resolution, the imperialists will substitute a UN authorised puppet regime in the place of the Baathists to make a transition to democracy. This does not change the outcome, as only imperialisms local agent is changed. The Baarthist dictatorship is replaced by a UN sponsored military protectorate. Or, the opposition organises an armed insurrection, wins over large sections of the ranks of the army, makes clear that those who killed innocent civilians will face justice, but offers amnesty to those who have not taken an active part in the killings. In this way the people can form a popular militia capable of taking power and forming a government based on the working class

Already the revolution has proven this to be correct. Basic Democratic and Economic demands have been met with military repression. And despite recent talk of a new era of reforms, this has been a bluff, and the military has again moved into the cities and towns to smash all resistance. It is necessary to reject the call for no arms and build armed self-defence committees. It is necessary to organise all those who defect from the army, to get access to their weapons, to stage mutinies and taking over of arsenals. In this way a popular militia can be build capable of resisting and defeating Assads mercenaries. To do this it is necessary for the youth committees to take the leadership. Even in the absence of a world revolutionary party, that leadership needs to understand the necessity for a Transitional Program: to call for a national assembly of all the organisations in struggle including the youth, workers, peasants and soldiers committees, to put forward a program for a workers government based on representatives of all the committees of workers, peasants and oppressed people.

2.

For a World Party of Socialist Revolution based on the Transitional Program of 1938! For a Workers and poor peasants Government in Syria and for a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Middle East!

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USA after Michigan:

Which way Forward?

Prepare for a General Strike!
Our unions' leaderships are not prepared to fight and win in the current economic crisis. They lack an analysis of the nature of the crisis and are therefore incapable of mapping a road forward. They have buried themselves so far inside the corporate Democratic Party that they cant see they are feeding the hand that bites us! They believe their own mythology that corporate capitalism can be run in a moral manner, and that rational pressure exerted in the traditional manner can resolve the crisis in the interest of the working class. Not only are they mistaken at every step in the road, but their strategy and tactics are leading the working class to defeat and preventing the independent political action needed for the working class to defend and advance our own historic interests. After serving as a tool of class peace for so many decades, these leaders do not know how to respond to the objective fact that the bosses have declared class war on us, and this is a fight to the death! prison industrial complex housing two million prisoners who are disproportionately people of color, and overwhelmingly come from the poorest layers of the working class. As the crisis heads into what is termed a double dip recession, imperialism has its tentacles spread thin. Three wars, responsible for countless tens of thousands of civilian deaths, are being run by the Democrats, while covert actions and drone strikes cross more borders than Wikileaks can keep up with. The workers of North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and China are attacking their governments and taking massive strike and protest actions. With the collapse in the bailouts of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and the potential downgrading of the USA.s bond rating by Moodys, it is clear the big bosses of the world economy see no way out except imposing massive austerity measures, which they expect the trade union leaders, the Social Democrats, the Labor Parties, and, in the USA, the Democratic Party to administer. And the class traitors at the head of our unions are following right along witness SEIU Local 1000.s endorsement of Governor Browns regressive tax plans in California. The bosses current strategy translates into attacks on all workers. The halving of UAW auto workers pay has set a new lower wage standard for American industrial and manufacturing work. The increase in class sizes and tuition for students, the cuts in public services, the gutting of public health and other essential governmental services and the scapegoating of the public worker have become standard measures across the nation. The attack on the last and largest bastion of the American labor movement, the public employee sector, is an all-out class war launched by big capitalists with the intention of imposing a historic defeat on the American working class. In order for market forces (remember the free hand of the market) to drive American workers compensation down to the price point where capital can rationally invest here again, the market demands gutting of defined benefit pension plans, driving down public sector wages, cutting the social wage (government benefits), and shifting the burden of the crisis further onto the backs of the poor, workers, and the oppressed. The market requires the destruction of the unions and any organizations that organize the working class, the poor, and the oppressed. Todays union leaderships are not prepared for this onslaught. In fact, these class collaborators act in diametric opposition to the interests of the working class; they are doing everything they can to stop us from organizing independently of the bosses political parties, from launching solidarity actions, and from striking at all let along building for the widespread, indefinite general strikes that will ultimately be needed to confront the bosses attacks.

What the Labor misleaders dont want workers to know

Labor leaders bemoan the decline of the middle class, but the real crime is that they went along with academic sociology and the TV culture which for decades has told workers they are not a working class, defined by their social/economic relationship to the means of production, but rather a middle class defined by income level and the culture of consumerism. In the face of the economic decline of the American empire and the realignment of economic power toward a rising China, the middle class expectations of the American labor movement are no longer affordable in a profit first driven economy. Our expectations have burst the limits of capitalism! This objective fact leaves the labor tops with nothing to offer workers today! The international economic crisis has not been resolved. Billions were thrown at banks and none of it trickled down to jobs. Rather the big banks, speculators and corporate elite used it for personal bonuses, to continue speculative trading and to rationalize their companies, increasing capital expenditure and cutting employees to assure returns for stockholders. As American workers wage packages (wages, COLAS, pensions and healthcare) are slashed in an employers market here at home, across the world in China workers. wages are rising under the pressure of a working class which holds, on average, 435 strikes a day. Businesses, The Economist tells us, are seeking to set a price point in their purchase of labor power (the commodity that workers sell) on the international market, before they can bring jobs back to the USA. But even the most optimistic economists predict that lowering American wages would not bring back enough industrial manufacturing, or even service jobs, to put the 12-20% unemployed back to work, much less to preserve the much vaunted middle class lifestyle. The result is a marginalized youth, black and Latino population with no prospects for inclusion in the productive economy, and a

A failed strategy for Labor

In the period of the expansion of the US Empire during and after WWII, the labor tops made peace with the American

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ruling class. Under the threat of rising working class rank and file militancy in the 1930s (the rise of the CIO; general strikes in Minneapolis and San Francisco), Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act much lauded as a victory for workers, as it guarantees the right to organize, but the actual purpose of which was to corral the working class into reliance on a state structure rather than our own self activity. The NLRA was followed quickly by anti-labor laws such as the Taft-Hartley Act, which constrains labor by making it illegal to offer solidarity to other workers in the form of strike action. Today we see the result: the MUNI rank and file rejected a sell out contract, only to have the impartial arbitrator impose it over their objection. If workers in the Bay Area can be stripped of the right to collective bargaining without a fight, it exposes the role of the sell-out labor leaders, which is to constrain the working class during the imposition of austerity. We need to shut down the entire Bay Area transportation grid to defend our MUNI drivers, but solidarity strikes are against the Taft-Hartley law and the craven leadership uses that law to keep the rank and file in line. As long as the preeminent position of US imperialism brought home super-profits after WWII, infrastructure, education, technology and industry (particularly the military-industrial complex) created a high demand for labor. Rising wages increasingly came with labor peace, enabling the labor bureaucracy to transform itself into a self-perpetuating dues collection agency that acted in its own interests, abandoning class conflict for the rational road of arbitration, lawsuits, legislation, and buying politicians. This worked well for about 25 years, but the laws of capitalist economics precluded the fantasies of the labor bureaucracy from enduring. As the economy changed and wages started to stagnate in the early 1970s, the illusion began to evaporate. There never was a middle class; we had been workers all along, and we could pay for the new consumerist culture of a middle class American dream only by sending the women of the household to work, by taking second jobs, and by incurring debt in the form of student loans, credit cards, and second mortgages against our houses. Now all these stopgaps are running out, and the explosion of the speculative stock market and inflated housing bubble economy is gutting the standard of living of the American working class. Wages have been flat or declining for decades; we work more hours than before; we have less vacation; we are less secure, and all the money has floated to the top 0.01% while we are scrounging to hold on to a declining paycheck. The labor bureaucracy was not prepared for this! They still cling to their failed strategy of class collaboration with the Democrats, reliance on the courts, and lobbying legislators to tax the rich. This strategy is not just a mistake. Rather, the union tops are doing their job, as defined for them by the bosses. legal system. They will do everything possible to keep workers from taking strike action, and from mounting solidarity actions with workers with workers in other unions, counties, districts, states or nations. The labor bosses see the upsurge in rankand-file militancy as a threat, which they can only contain by corralling it into electoral politics. Thus, the popular sentiment for a general strike in Wisconsin was diffused into a recall campaign, which prevents immediate militant action, and steers workers into placing faith and hope in the Democrats rather than in our own self-organized mass actions. Thus, the AFL-CIO forbids any mention of opposition

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to foreign wars as they prepare to rally the troops for the 2012 electoral cycle.

How to prepare for a General Strike

The current crop of union leaders is not going to prepare for a general strike. Instead, they spend most of our dues dollars selling concessionary contracts to the members, while giving the rest to lobbyists and lawyers, leaving our strike funds dry and our membership unorganized, frustrated, and demoralized. For the working class to avoid the historic defeat the Koch brothers have planned for us, we must first take back control of our unions! New militant rank and file leaders not afraid to confront Taft-Hartley through strike action must rise in the ranks to replace the functionaries and careerists who sap our dues while shedding crocodile tears about their inability to mobilize the membership and bring home the bacon. Effective strike action and general strikes cannot be organized unless we first either take over our unions, or else build new unions and other workers organizations with a new leadership. Our current union misleaders attitude is that they are only responsible to act in the interest of the duespaying membership not the future members, not the unorganized workers, not the unemployed, and certainly not the workers of the world, oppressed, exploited and brutalized as we are by Wall Street and the military industrial war machine. But our class can only survive and win if we take up the old Knights of Labor slogan: An Injury to One Is an Injury to All! Solidarity is our only power, and the ability to strike in the historic interest of the class is our strongest weapon. When the leaders of todays unions spurn these tools of the international working class, they act as the agents of the ruling class in our organizations, and must be driven out and replaced. That means we need rank-and-file class struggle caucuses to promote a new militant leadership, to fight for working class independence, and to build a fighting workers/labor party that unites the entire working class and all our allies nationally and internationally to strike as one against the rule of the exploiters and build a movement for workers. power and workers ownership of the means of production. The drive to build for a general strike must be pursued in conjunction with the democratization of the unions and/or the formation of new workers organizations. As the current leaders continue to mislead the masses, workers frustration will rise, and the opportunity to form class struggle rank-andfile caucuses that can challenge for power will grow. To win, these caucuses must advance strategy, tactics, and demands that unite the entire working class, and forge independence, and must prepare for and take united strike actions. Demands such as no concessions, no take aways, and pay me my COLA are of immediate concern. Demands such as jobs for all and 30 hours work for 40 hours pay can unite labor with the unemployed and those on furloughs and reduced hours. Demands for universal health care, not handouts to the insurance companies, will unite the organized with the underinsured. Demands to nationalize the banks and major industries under workers control to provide immediate access to capital for job creation offer solution to the crisis of market control. Demands to end imperialist interventions abroad can unite our organizations with the workers across

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the planet who struggle against the same corporate criminals who are crushing us! These demands cannot be won by the current leaders, but can be when we take back and rebuild rank and file workers democracy. The fight to defend the working class from the bosses class war requires that labor must clean its own house! Drive out the functionaries, corporatists, and class collaborators! imperialists,

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independent militant organizations corresponding more closely to the tasks of mass struggle against bourgeois society; and, if necessary, not flinching even in the face of a direct break with the conservative apparatus of the trade unions. If it be criminal to turn ones back on mass organizations for the sake of fostering sectarian factions, it is no less so passively to tolerate subordination of the revolutionary mass movement to the control of openly reactionary or disguised conservative (progressive) bureaucratic cliques. Trade unions are not ends in themselves; they are but means along the road to proletarian revolution. Leon Trotsky, The Transitional Program (1938) Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism www.HumanistsForRevolutionarySocialism.org hw4rs@yahoo.com http://www.facebook.com/pages/HumanistsforRevolutionar ySocialism/8013446 Labor Donated

Then we can remake our unions into a militant organizing force in the fight for the historic interest of the working class!

[T]he sections of the Fourth International should always strive not only to renew the top leadership of the trade unions, boldly and resolutely in critical moments advancing new militant leaders in place of routine functionaries and careerists, but also to create in all possible instances

June 17, 2011

Review:

The Great Wrong War: New Zealand Society in WW1.

By Stevan Eldred-Grigg. (Random House NZ) Future generations of New Zealanders may well thank
Stevan Eldred-Grigg for setting the record straight about many aspects of WW1 crucial to understanding its true nature and its adverse impact on NZ society. His book proves beyond reasonable doubt that Nzers were misled into the war in both senses of the word misled. (i) The chauvinistic leadership of the country by the Reform/Liberal coalition government was irresponsibly inept in that it failed in its duty to rationally consider the consequences of NZs involvement, and (ii) it misled our citizens about its real reasons for involving them at all. Above all he exposes the big lie that the war was fought to defend freedom, justice and democracy. It is better described as an aggressive war of imperialist expansion in which any properly informed and genuinely freedom loving populace would be ashamed to participate. Amongst the relevant historical facts of which this reader was hitherto unaware, and for which he is grateful to Eldred-Grigg for having brought to his attention are that even while British propaganda was fabricating stories of German atrocities in Belgium British troops were massacring peaceful protesters in Nigeria; while Britain supposedly went to war because it was bound by treaty to defend Belgiums neutrality. a similar treaty supposedly guaranteeing the neutrality of African colonies was also violated- not by Germany, but by Britain. And had German or Turkish occupying armies treated civilians in the way that New Zealand occupiers treated Egyptians and Palestinians, the Ententes propaganda machine would certainly have accused them of barbarism. That such facts have not hitherto been widely known is undoubtedly due to their having been suppressed because they nullify the states claim to be fighting in defence of freedom, democracy and civilisation against unfreedom and barbarity. At the outset of the war the claim to be defending freedom and democracy was suspect to the classconscious workers on account of the alliance with the Tsarist autocracy in Russia. (It was already suspect to most Maori who had experienced colonialist justice in the Land Wars and their aftermath.) Eldred-Grigg shows that after the fiasco in Gallipoli became exposed-not by any candid admission of defeat by the government, but by the undeniable facts of the numbers of horribly mutilated troops returning from the campaign. The wider working class became increasingly sceptical and derisive of government war propaganda, and increasingly reluctant to volunteer for the armed forces. Having no popular mandate to wage war and unable to meet its commitments with volunteers the government imposed conscription in 1916. Opposition to the

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war thereafter manifested itself mainly in protests resistance to conscription, and politically in increasing support for the Labour Party, which in its youth was socialist and internationalist in outlook. The Federation of Labour also opposed conscription. Eldred-Grigg relates many instances of resistance to the draft by individuals and anti-conscription leagues, and the severe penalties imposed, both on the draft dodgers and those who assisted them with practical acts of solidarity. Eldred-Grigg says there is no way to accurately estimate the extent of opposition. However with general elections suspended until after victory, the only elections held were byelections, and theses were all won by anti-conscription candidates. Beyond being grossly wasteful of life and limb, which has long been widely acknowledged, the war had a corrosive effect on free thought and democratic institutions. With the co-option of the parliamentary opposition the war in defence of democracy increasingly became an assault on democracy within, with the criminalisation of dissent, the censorship of the press, the passage of laws restricting freedom of speech and movement, the introduction of passports, the spying on citizens, and the indefinite postponement of elections. Had Eldred-Griggs book been written under Masseys government it would have been banned and its author charged with sedition and sentenced to years of hard labour. The demand for wool and meat to clothe and feed the armies at the front meant the after the initial dislocation of world trade farmers and merchants prospered greatly during the war. Although wages also nominally also rose, the inflation caused by government requisitions and borrowing and its printing of money far exceeded wage rises, and the families of unskilled workers and disabled returned soldiers suffered considerable hardship. The government financed its war effort by internal

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and external borrowing from the middle class. It is a measure of the magnitude of the surplus extracted from the working class that it was able to do so. The effect of this policy was to place a burden on the working class for years to come. According to Eldred-Grigg., before the war a large and increasing share of NZs wool exports were going to Germany and German shipping lines were poised to enter the trade with NZ. But for the war NZ could have become a global trader sixty years before the UK joined the EEC. Instead it became totally dependent on the British market and at the mercy of the British shipping monopoly. Other aspects of the war that Eldred-Grigg covers comprehensively are the connections of the elite with the UK, the class composition of the officer corps, the annexation of Samoa and Nauru,,the persecution og aliens and the transformation of womens role from domestic to industrial worker Also the global influenza epidemic that was incubated in the front lines of the Western Front and devastated NZ and its newly acquired colonies. Far from forging New Zealand's nationhood WW1 intensified New Zealands colonial dependency both economically and psychologically. Far from being a war to defend freedom and democracy it was an aggressive war of imperialist expansion which extended the territories coming under the colonial yoke, and New Zealanders were active in the conquest. Far from being the source of pride New Zealanders participation in the war should be a source of profound regret, insofar as which it was coerced, and of deep shame insofar as it was voluntary. Eldred is to be congratulated for a book which so effectively demolishes the pervasive and longstanding myths about New Zealands participation in World War One.

Review:

Moralilty and Statistics: The Spirit Level Debate

The bland morality and statistics approach of The Spirit Level approach to inequality is already at least a halfcentury behind events. The 1960s in NZ marked the end of the post-war boom and the return of social classes once thought to have been banished by the first Labour Government. A number of analyses of the causes of inequality began to be published from that time and continue to this day. Most operated at the same level of analysis as The Spirit Level i.e. measuring the distribution of income and of wealth and tracing its social effects. By the 1970s Marxist critiques of this sort of distributional analysis were appearing. For example critiques of the Alternative Economic Strategies published regularly by the FOL and CTU slammed the reformist illusions in regulating and pacifying capitalism. The basic cause of inequality was argued to be the capitalist system itself and its developmental processes. Aotearoa was no less driven by capitalist laws of motion as any other country. The idea that NZ was more equal than others was a myth based on a few aberrant upturns, in particular the Postwar Boom. Equally, the possibility of making capitalism equal was also a myth. So the solution to capitalist inequality was the overthrow of capitalism itself. The Keynesian centre fell into disfavour and the battle was now between the far left Marx and far right Hayek. Fast forward 40 years and Hayek has been pushed aside by the right who have appropriated Keynes to bail out the banks. But in the process the market has exposed its hand: it was always handy to have a state to manipulate the market. Now Marxs books are selling a commodity boom.

But capitalism will not fall down by itself. As we see countries will be bailed out so long as they have governments that will mortgage future generations of workers to pay back the debt plus compounding interest. And so long as workers let them get away with murder.

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The real problem is that capitalism is no longer a progressive force for change but a destructive force. It was progressive so long as it destroyed feudalism and other pre-capitalist modes of production and gave us the industrial revolution. But since start of the 20th century, capitalism has become a top heavy, destructive juggernaut that grinds the masses under it wheels. It survives only by wars and counter-revolutions that smash the masses rebelling against its rule. Its productive capacity is on a long decline punctuated by depressions and wars that only kick start upturns by the sheer destruction of physical and social capital. The current so-called great recession is a deep cyclic recession among a series of such cycles since the end of the post-war boom, itself no more than a long-upturn brought about by the destruction of physical and social capital by the Great Depression and WW2. If there is another cyclic upturn following this recession it will be weak and rapidly swing downwards again. The reason for this is not overpopulation, underconsumption, or the bubble banking system, which are no more than surface symptoms of capitalism in terminal decline. The underlying cause of capitalist crisis is that it can no longer as a global system extract sufficient surplus from human labour power to produce profits on the total capital accumulated. Since profit is the driving force of capitalist production the motivation to invest stops. Keynes solution to prime the pump by paying workers to consume to leads to stagflation that only delays the decision as to when bosses stop investing. That is why the only real productive growth is now in East Asia and the other BRICS where the conditions of early capitalism, low wages, and technical innovation allows labour to be exploited profitably for the moment. And yet even this productive burst will lead to stagflation which will produce a real test of state capitalist systems to survive. In the rest of the world where capitalism has been long established, despite falling wages and new technology, productivity is lagging. Hence, surplus capital that is not shipped off to China etc. must be diverted into speculation in existing commodities. This is a giant Ponzi scheme to try to delay the inevitable devaluation of money that is not invested productively. No new value is added to these commodities, and their rising prices represent fictitious value or capital. Hence when these fictional bubbles burst, the accumulated surplus money is devalued massively. It is a consequence not cause of the current crisis. The only thing keeping capitalism alive at the moment is the capacity of the ruling capitalist classes to use THEIR state to siphon the wages and taxes of workers to pay for the bad

June/July 2011
debts run up by speculation. Bailing out private capital debt, turning it into sovereign debt, shifts the burden of repaying the debt onto the working class its total effects now referred to as austerity. But this trick of making the working class pay for the huge costs of capitals survival is reaching its limit. The contradiction of workers both producing the wealth, and then propping up a system that destroys it, has dawned when austerity drives the masses of workers into poverty and misery. The ability of capitalism to mask this destruction of society and nature as natural and necessary no longer works. Capitalism is losing its clothes. The unions and social democratic parties that have long kept the lid on workers struggles are as bankrupt as capitalism. Spanish and Greek workers have lost their faith in this political class. The corrupt power of the system of bosses, bankers, media barons and the armies of bureaucrats who keep the lid on popular discontent is being blown apart.

But as the melodrama of media magnate Murdoch in the dock shows, the bosses still have a lot of power to spray bullshit over the most damaging revelations. They pretend not to be naked and a lot of people refuse to open their eyes. Capitalism will stagger from one crisis to the next so long as we let it. Capitalism wont die until we bury it alive and drive a stake through its heart.
We will see bigger rebellions, general strikes, and working class struggles against fascist movements to keep capitalism alive in the next years. For workers to win they have to pull off the scales that capitalism places over their eyes and open their eyes to the nature of the enemy so as to be able to defeat it. This includes rejecting the superficial analysis that The Spirit Level represents. This applies even more to the superficial analysis of its rightwing opponents. http://bit.ly/nhTG8J

That is why the Marxist critique of Capital is as essential today is it was when it was first written some 150 years ago. We have to replace The Spirit Level with a Chain Saw.
http://thestandard.org.nz/keys-own-goal-on-poverty

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June/July 2011

The Lesson of Spain by Leon Trotsky

[The current Spanish Revolution is very different from the first Spanish Revolution of the 1930s but the lessons of the First are vital to the success of the Second. 75 years after the Spanish Republic was defeated by the Fascist General Franco the lessons of this defeat must be learned to avoid the same fate today. Written in 1936 this article warns of the dangers of the fascist counter-revolution overwhelming the Republican forces which were betrayed by their leaders. Of course these lessons apply not just to Spain today but all the uprisings in MENA and Europe] soldiers would tie their officers hand and foot and hand them over to the nearest headquarters of the workers militia. But the bourgeois ministers cannot accept such a program. Curbing the social revolution, they compel the workers and peasants to spill ten times as much of their own blood in the civil war. And to crown everything, these gentlemen expect to disarm the workers again after the victory and to force them to respect the sacred laws of private property. Such is the true essence of the policy of the Peoples Front. Everything else is pure humbug, phrases and lies! Many supporters of the Peoples Front now shake their heads reproachfully at the rulers of Madrid! Why didnt they foresee all this? Why didnt they purge the army in time? Why didnt they take the necessary measures? More than anywhere else, these criticisms are being voiced in France, where, however, the policy of the leaders of the Peoples Front is in no way to be distinguished from the policy of their Spanish colleagues. In spite of the harsh lesson of Spain, one can say in advance that the Leon Blum government will accomplish no serious purge of the army. Why? Because the workers organizations remain in a coalition with the Radicals and consequently are the prisoners of the bourgeoisie.

The Officers CorpsThe Role of the Peoples Front The Workers Revolution
EUROPE has become a harsh and terrible school for the proletariat. In one country after another events have unfolded, which exacting great and bloody sacrifices from the workers, have up to the present moment ended in victory for the enemies of the proletariat (Italy, Germany, Austria). The policy of the old labor parties clearly shows how impossible it is for them to lead the proletariat, how incapable they are of preparing for victory. At the present time, while this is being written, the civil war in Spain has not yet terminated. The workers of the entire world feverishly await the news of the victory of the Spanish proletariat. If this victory, as we firmly hope, is won it will be necessary to say: the workers have triumphed this time in spite of the fact that their leadership did everything to bring about their defeat. All the greater honor and glory to the Spanish working class! In Spain the Socialists and Communists belong to the Peoples Front which already betrayed the revolution once, but which, thanks to the workers and peasants, once again attained victory and in February created a Republican government. Six months afterwards the Republican army took the field against the people. Thus it became clear that the Peoples Front government had maintained the military caste with the peoples money, furnished them with authority, power and arms, gave them command over young workers and peasants, thereby facilitating the preparations for a crushing attack on the workers and peasants.

Peoples Militia Must Replace Officers Corps

It is naive to complain that the Spanish republicans or the socialists or the communists forsaw nothing, let something slip. It is not at all a question of the perspicacity of this or that minister or leader, but of the general direction of the policy. The workers party which enters into a political alliance with the radical bourgeoisie, by that fact alone renounces the struggle against capitalist militarism. Bourgeois domination, that is to say, the maintenance of private property of the means of production, is inconceivable without the support of the exploiters by the armed forces. The officers corps represents the guard of capital. Without this guard the bourgeoisie could not maintain itself for a single day. The selection of the individuals, their education and training make the officers as a distinctive group uncompromising enemies of socialism. Isolated exceptions change nothing. That is how things stand in all bourgeois countries. The danger lies not in the military braggards and demagogues who openly appear as fascist; incomparably more menacing is the fact that at the approach of the proletarian revolution the officers corps becomes the executioner of the proletariat. To eliminate four or five hundred reactionary agitators from the army means to leave everything basically as it was before. The officers corps in which is concentrated the centuries-old tradition of enslaving the people must be dissolved, broken, crushed in its entirety, root and branch. It is necessary to replace the troops in the barracks commanded by the officers caste with the peoples militia, that is, with the democratic organization of the armed workers and peasants. There is no other solution. But such an army is

Peoples Front Curbs Social Revolution

More than that: even now, in the midst of civil war, the Peoples, Front government does everything in its power to make victory doubly difficult. A civil war is waged, as everybody knows, not only with military but also with political weapons. From a purely military point of view, the Spanish revolution is much weaker than its enemy. Its strength lies in its ability to rouse the great masses to action. It can even take the army away from its reactionary officers. To accomplish this it is only necessary seriously and courageously to advance the program of the socialist revolution. It is necessary to proclaim that, from now on, the land, the factories and shops will pass from the capitalists into the hands of the people. It is necessary to move at once toward the realization of this program in those provinces where the workers are in power. The Fascist army could not resist the influence of such a program for twenty-four hours; the

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incompatible with the domination of exploiters big and small. Can the republicans agree to such a measure? Not at all. The Peoples Front government, that is to say, the government of the coalition of the workers with the bourgeoisie, is in its very essence a government of capitulation to the bureaucracy and the officers. Such is the great lesson of the events in Spain, now being paid for with thousands of human lives.

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the offensive against the working masses, and, if victorious, will crush the miserable remnants of bourgeois democracy and extend their hands to Hitler for a common struggle against the U.S.S.R. The articles appearing in Populaire and LHumanite on the events in Spain fill one with rage and disgust. These people learn nothing. They do not want to learn. They consciously shut their eyes to the facts. The principal lesson for them is that it is necessary at all costs to maintain the unity of the Peoples Front, that is to say, unity with the bourgeoisie and friendship with Daladier.

Defense of Republic is Defense of Capitalism

The political alliance of the working class leaders with the bourgeoisie is disguised as the defense of the republic. The experience of Spain shows what this defense is in actuality. The word republican, like the word democrat, is a deliberate charlatanism which serves to cover up class contradictions. The bourgeois is a republican so long as the Republic protects private property. And the workers utilize the Republic to overthrow private property. In other words: the Republic loses all its value to the bourgeois the moment it assumes value for the workers. The radical cannot enter into a bloc with workers parties without the assurance of support in the officers corps. It is no accident that Daladier is at the head of the Ministry of War in France. The French bourgeoisie has entrusted this post to him more than once and he has never betrayed them. Only people of the type of Maurice Paz or Marceau Pivert can believe that Daladier is capable of purging the army of reactionaries and Fascists, in other words, of dissolving the officers corps. But no one takes such people seriously. But here we are interrupted by the exclamation. How can one dissolve the officers corps? Doesnt this mean destroying the army and leaving the country disarmed in the face of Fascism? Hitler and Mussolini are only waiting for that! All these arguments are old and familiar. Thats how the Cadets, the S-Rs and the Russian Mensheviks reasoned in 1917, and thats how the leaders of the Spanish Peoples Front reasoned. The Spanish workers half-believed these ratiocinations until they were convinced by experience that the nearest Fascist enemy was to be found in the Spanish Fascist army. Not for nothing did our old friend Karl Liebknecht teach: The main enemy is in our own country!

Daladier and the Generals

Unquestionably Daladier is a great democrat. But can one doubt for a moment that side by side with the official work in Blums ministry, he is working unofficially in the general staff of the officers corps? There one finds serious people who look facts in the face, who do not get drunk on hollow rhetoric the way Blum does. These people are prepared for every eventuality. No doubt Daladier and the military leaders are coming to an understanding with respect to the necessary measures to take in case the workers take the road toward revolution. To be sure the generals are of their own accord far ahead of Daladier. And among themselves the generals say: Lets support Daladier until we are through with the workers and then we will put a stronger man in his place. At the same time the socialist and communist leaders repeat from day to day: Our friend Daladier. The worker ought to reply to them: Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are. People who entrust the army to that old agent of capital, Daladier, are unworthy of the workers confidence. Certainly, the Spanish proletariat like the French proletariat, does not want to remain disarmed before Mussolini and Hitler. But to defend themselves against these enemies it is first necessary to crush the enemy in ones own country. It is impossible to overthrow the bourgeoisie without crushing the officers corps. It is impossible to crush the officers corp without overthrowing the bourgeoisie. In every victorious counter-revolution, the officers have played the decisive role. Every victorious revolution, that had a profound social character destroyed the old officers corps. This was the case in the Great French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and this was the case in the October Revolution in 1917. To decide on such a measure one must stop crawling on ones knees before the Radical bourgeoisie. A genuine alliance of workers and peasants must lie created against the bourgeoisie, including the Radicals. One must have confidence in the strength, initiative and courage of the proletariat and the proletariat will know how to bring the soldier over to its side. This will be a genuine and not a fake alliance of workers, peasants and soldiers. This very alliance is being created and tempered right now in the fire of civil war in Spain. The victory of the people means the end of the Peoples Front and the beginning of Soviet Spain. The victorious social revolution in Spain will inevitably spread out over the rest of Europe. For the Fascist hangmen of Italy and Germany it will be incomparably more terrible than all the diplomatic pacts and all the military alliances.

Purging Army of Fascists An Illusion

LHumanite tearfully begs that the army be purged of Fascists. But what is this plea worth? When you vote credits for the maintenance of the officers corps, when you enter into an alliance with Daladier and through him with finance capital, confide the army to Daladierand at the same time demand that this entirely capitalist army serve the people and not capitalthen you have either become a complete idiot or else you are consciously deceiving the working masses. But weve got to have an army, repeat the socialist and communist leaders, because we must defend our democracy and with it the Soviet Union against Hitler! After the lesson of Spain it is not difficult to foresee the consequences of this policy for democracy as well as for the Soviet Union. Once they have found a favorable moment, the officers corps, hand in hand with the dissolved Fascist leagues, will assume

July 30, 1936 http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/07/spain.htm

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What We Fight For

Overthrow Capitalism
Historically, capitalism expanded world-wide to free much of humanity from the bonds of feudal or tribal society, and developed the economy, society and culture to a new higher level. But it could only do this by exploiting the labour of the productive classes to make its profits. To survive, capitalism became increasingly destructive of "nature" and humanity. In the early 20th century it entered the epoch of imperialism in which successive crises unleashed wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions. Today we fight to end capitalisms wars, famine, oppression and injustice, by mobilising workers to overthrow their own ruling classes and bring to an end the rotten, exploitative and oppressive society that has exceeded its use-by date.

For a Revolutionary Party

The bourgeois and its agents condemn the Marxist party as totalitarian. We say that without a democratic and a centrally organised party there can be no revolution. We base our beliefs on the revolutionary tradition of Bolshevism and Trotskyism. Such a party, armed with a transitional program, forms a bridge that joins the daily fight to defend all the past and present gains won from capitalism, to the victorious socialist revolution. Defensive struggles for bourgeois rights and freedoms, for decent wages and conditions, will link up the struggles of workers of all nationalities, genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations, bringing about movements for workers control, political strikes and the arming of the working class, as necessary steps to workers' power and the smashing of the bourgeois state. Along the way, workers will learn that each new step is one of many in a long march to revolutionise every barrier put in the path to the victorious revolution.

Fight for Socialism

By the 20th century, capitalism had created the preconditions for socialism a world-wide working class and modern industry capable of meeting all our basic needs. The potential to eliminate poverty, starvation, disease and war has long existed. The October Revolution proved this to be true, bringing peace, bread and land to millions. But it became the victim of the combined assault of imperialism and Stalinism. After 1924 the USSR, along with its deformed offspring in Europe, degenerated back towards capitalism. In the absence of a workers political revolution, capitalism was restored between 1990 and 1992. Vietnam and China then followed. In the 21sst century only Cuba and North Korea survive as degenerate workers states. We unconditionally defend these states against capitalism and fight for political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy as part of world socialism.

Fight for Communism

Communism stands for the creation of a classless, stateless society beyond socialism that is capable of meeting all human needs. Against the ruling class lies that capitalism can be made "fair" for all; that nature can be "conserved"; that socialism and communism are "dead"; we raise the red flag of communism to keep alive the revolutionary tradition of the' Communist Manifesto of 1848, the Bolshevik-led October Revolution; the Third Communist International until 1924, the revolutionary Fourth International up to 1940 before its collapse into centrism. We fight to build a new, Fifth, Communist International, as a world party of socialism capable of leading workers to a victorious struggle for socialism.

Defend Marxism
While the economic conditions for socialism exist today, standing between the working class and socialism are political, social and cultural barriers. They are the capitalist state and bourgeois ideology and its agents. These agents claim that Marxism is dead and capitalism need not be exploitative. We say that Marxism is a living science that explains both capitalisms continued exploitation and its attempts to hide class exploitation behind the appearance of individual "freedom" and "equality". It reveals how and why the reformist, Stalinist and centrist misleaders of the working class tie workers to bourgeois ideas of nationalism, racism, sexism and equality. Such false beliefs will be exploded when the struggle against the inequality, injustice, anarchy and barbarism of capitalism in crisis, led by a revolutionary Marxist party, produces a revolutionary class-consciousness.

Class Struggle is the bi-Monthly paper of

the Communist Workers Group of New Zealand/Aotearoa, in a Liaison Committee with Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism. Online at: http://redrave.blogspot.com Phone 0064 0272800080 Email cwg006@yahoo.com http://communistworker.blogspot.com/

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