ALLIANCE! A
Revolutionary
Communist Quarterly
Published
by
Alliance Marxist-Leninist (North America) – Summer 2005
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
TRADE
UNION AND WORK FRONT
Walkout Threat Forces
Angelica Corporation to Give Concessions
ARAMARK:
Serving
Up Injustice
Boycott of Taco Bell Ends in
Victory for Farmworkers
HISTORY
OF THE USSR
On The Character Of The USSR
State In The Stalin Years
INTERNATIONAL
FRONT
The Case For Impeachment
After
The Leaked British Memos
The Revolution In Nepal: An
Overview
Reactionary
Terror Continues
In Lebanon By Garbis Altinoglu
Fighting For
Peace And Democracy - American Style – Guantanamo Bays World Wide
ALLIANCE
NEWS
Organizing Alliance
Marxist-Leninist in North Carolina By Comrade MP
CORRESPONDENCE
October Communist Organization of Spain
On the London Bombings
________________________________________________________________________________________________
TRADE UNION AND WORK FRONT
Walkout Threat Forces Angelica Corporation to Give Concessions
May 5th UNITE-HERE was poised to launch
the biggest
healthcare laundry strike in US history, which would have included
workers at a
plant in Durham, North Carolina, servicing the Duke Health System. Seven plants would have been involved in
all, in Stockton, Fresno, and Antioch (California), Batavia (New York),
Dallas
and Wichita Falls (Texas), and Durham.
Workers at eight other plants promised not to cross picket lines
if
strikers came there and workers at the rest of Angelica’s facilities
staged
actions in support. The Service
Employees International Union pledged not to service Angelica trucks at
hospitals and Angelica truck drivers in the Teamsters International
Union
promised not to drive that day. The
strike was called off because Angelica management was willing to
negotiate with
the union and because the Company had extra linens and temporary
workers to
break the strike, according to Union organizers. A
settlement was announced June 14th.
According to Bishara Clark, a UNITE-HERE organizer in Durham, 66 community members representing many worker and social justice organizations protested at the Durham plant from 5am to 5pm that day in support of the union. According to the Durham Herald-Sun, organizers estimated that 8 to 10 workers would strike, in the face of recent firings and harassment of pro-union workers. About 80% of the workforce has signed cards in 2004 for unionization. UNITE-HERE represents about 440,000 workers and its Angelica campaign has been going on for about 18 months.
<>California, where over half of hospitals contract with Angelica, a strike would have disrupted hospital activity. Most laundry contracts allow termination with only 60 day notice.
Angelica contracts for a fourth of its potential market in most areas. This further pressured Angelica.
In late May workers in Wichita Falls (Texas) walked out and did not work to protest Angelica’s refusal to follow the pre-existing contract between the Union and National Linen,
the former owner of that plant. Management responded by locking workers out the next day. There was also a 4-hour wildcat walkout by first shift workers in Batavia (New York)
to demand progress in gaining a contract and to protest firings done without official hearings. The Company retaliated by not giving the workers eight hours worth of holiday pay,
promised for Memorial Day (Fernando Bribiezca and the World Socialist Web Site).
The new agreement creates a process for the unionization of non-union Angelica plants. Unionization will be decided by card check, with organizers being given contact
information for employees and access to Angelica’s facilities. A third party will review the cards and any other disputes will be resolved by the Federal Mediation Center.
A problem is that the card signatures must match signatures on a worker’s I-9 form, which reveals immigration status. Only after union dues are withheld from pay will the
Company know who voted for the Union, and since North Carolina is a “right-to-work” state, workers are not required to belong to the union representing them. Workers
at the seven plants with open contracts gained wage increases, retroactive to May 30th, and a pension plan. There will be paid health and safety committees and rights to
refuse unsafe work and to challenge production standards as unfair. In New York an engineer will determine the reasonableness of production quotas there. Angelica and
UNITE-HERE will cooperate to fix other health and safety problems. Regarding immigration status, the Company cannot check workers’ papers and papers can be
changed without loss of seniority up to three times. Before the agreement, workers who changed status were treated as new employees, losing their seniority and
vacation time. Employees with seniority will not be fired based on skill or ability. A new card check will begin in Durham soon (organizers and Mary Grant, of Duke SAS).
Angelica Corporation performs laundry
services,
predominantly for healthcare facilities.
It is the largest US linen service company.
It employs 5575 workers in 35 plants in 13 states.
UNITE-HERE already represents workers at
2/3rds of Angelica facilities but how the union can expand was not
negotiated
(until now). The Union wanted to use
the card check procedure for unionization, in which 50% plus one of the
workers
at a plant have to agree before a union is formed, versus a National
Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) secret ballot election, which Angelica wanted. Each side said the other party’s procedure
allows for pressure and intimidation of workers. Card
check is a much faster method than an NLRB election.
Another difference is that an NLRB election
can be won based on getting a majority of votes while victory in a card
check
requires a majority of eligible voters.
UNITE-HERE accused Angelica of
endangering the
health and safety of employees and customers and treating its workers
poorly. Angelica workers handle linen
contaminated with blood, wastes, and sharp objects from medical
facilities. In one shift a worker could
be exposed to 10,000 pieces of linen. As the sources of individual
items are not
identified, identification of risks is difficult if a worker is exposed. The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) has cited Angelica in 17 different investigations
of
unsafe conditions and Angelica may have to pay up to $435,000 dollars
in
federal and state fines. In 2004 the
National Workers’ Rights Board found that Angelica did not have safe
and
healthy operations. In Phoenix a worker
went over a year without getting vaccinated after being exposed to
potentially
contaminated blood, while the vaccination is supposed to be gotten
within ten
days of exposure, according to Union organizer Fernando Bribiezca. The Union says that prior to its campaign
Angelica required workers to refuse vaccination for the blood-borne
disease
Hepatitis B. Many workers have had
repetitive strain injuries and amputations because of high-speed
equipment. In Vallejo, California the
Company removed guards from a machine and removed a quick stop button,
and a
worker then lost a finger in the machine.
Angelica is accused of moving carts of dirty laundry through
washed
linen storage areas and of not having consistent procedures for washing
after
employees work with contaminated linens.
Facilities are cleaned by raking trash and compressed air “blow
downs”
of surfaces, according to UNITE-HERE.
This leads to the Union’s accusation that Angelica sacrifices
quality
for quantity.
Angelica had financial troubles a few
years ago but
is now stronger, since January 2004 having expanded its credit rating
from $70 to$150
million dollars and having bought seven new facilities.
The new CEO since September 2003 received a
$25,000 bonus after a year, increasing his salary to $405,000 dollars.
Most
workers make less than $10 dollars an hour.
Angelica spent $1.1 million dollars opposing UNITE-HERE in 2004. NLRB finds merit in 47 complaints of unfair
labor practices at Angelica filed by workers.
The campaign in Durham started after Duke
University
outsourced its linen services to Angelica April 16, 2004.
AFSME Local 77 represented these workers
before privatization, which it could not stop, but was able to have
workers
moved to other Duke jobs (according to Local 77 President William
McKnight). Ten temporary workers remained
after
privatization and asked UNITE-HERE to help them. When
Angelica took over wages dropped, by about a dollar for most
people. Disrespectful treatment of
workers increased, such as a manager yelling at a worker, reducing her
to
tears. A worker complained about pain in his hands but was told to rest
a
moment, not by a doctor, and then to return to work.
After work he was told that he should see a doctor.
Several workers have been fired or had
pay cuts,
allegedly for union activity. The NC
Division of Labor fined Angelica $1,925 dollars for problems with its
linen
conveyor system and poor worker training, three citations, after a bag
of
laundry weighing more than 100 pounds fell 15 feet on to a worker’s
foot. Workers complain about favoritism,
the speed
of work, disrespect by managers, and sexual harassment of pro-union
employees. UNITE-HERE says safety
training is inadequate and that caution signs were not posted.
Five anti-union workers are allegedly
given the
easiest jobs, using machines that make work less strenuous, according
to
Bribiezca. New workers are placed with
the anti-union workers to persuade them to oppose unionization. Pro-union workers are given less overtime,
reducing their income. Organizers say
workers are separated racially, so that units are composed of mostly
black or
Latino workers, instead of being more mixed.
A Latino supervisor allegedly discriminates against blacks, and
management has not answered complaints about this.
Duke Students Against Sweatshops have been very supportive of the Union and are demanding that the University support card check, which it has refused to do,
claiming that it is neutral. The University ignored growing evidence of Angelica’s bad practices. Angelica took out a newspaper ad locally to oppose the Union’s
demand for card check. The community organized a 5am protest at the plant in support of pro-union workers September 9, 2004. Management had given workers
Labor Day off to prevent an earlier protest; Angelica nationally did not recognize the holiday. Previously two workers had testified to the Durham County Board of
Commissioners, saying they were paid $7.50 dollars an hour, violating the applicable County rule requiring contractors to pay at least a $9.51 dollar an hour
“living wage.” causing the Company to lose its $44,928 dollar annual County contract. The Company then sent five union leaders home before their shift was
half done and said there would be further discipline if production did not increase. It also told workers to blame these workers for problems.
During a very cold period in January
there was a
spontaneous walkout because management would not turn on the heat. It was so cold that a frozen towel broke
into pieces, and workers had to bundle up, allowing their clothes to
become
contaminated. A walkout was being
planned because of harassment of union supporters, arbitrary work
hours,
etc. The five workers involved were
illegally suspended for four hours and written up.
An old attendance policy was suddenly enforced after OSHA came
to
investigate workers’ complaints and was used to fire Darrelle Lindsey
and
Reggie Cameron, walkout participants, who have been given jobs as local
volunteer organizers for the Union.
Management increased harassment of two workers for legally
participating
in a bargaining conference in California in April.
Five workers have been fired, including Juwana Ross, the main
union leader, who was fired in late May.
27 complaints, mostly relating to the walkout have been filed
with the
NLRB and found to have merit, but Angelica settled the charges out of
court.
The organizers have high praise for the
fighting
spirit of the workers in Durham.
Angelica workers have testified at worker’s rights board
hearings
organized by Triangle Jobs with Justice, including one in March during
the
annual statewide Pilgrimage for Justice and Peace.
For more information about the national
campaign see
www.unitehere.org.
Duke SAS’ website is www.threadonline.net/community/dukesas.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ARAMARK:
Serving
Up Injustice
Workers, students, and
community members accuse the ARAMARK Corporation, which runs dining
services at
the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Duke University, of
wrongly
firing workers, treating workers without dignity, cheating customers,
and
unsanitary operations, mirroring problems seen nationally.
ARAMARK is a $10 billion dollar company with
200,000 employees providing food service at schools, stadiums,
hospitals, and
prisons, uniforms, childcare, healthcare, and periodical distribution. It has a major role in profiting from
prisons, according to the Engaged Zen Foundation. In
2002 ARAMARK was the third largest food service company
globally and the second largest uniform rental company in the country. It also operates in Belgium, Canada, the
Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Spain, and Britain.
ARAMARK grew rapidly after
its founding in 1959. Between then and
now it was also charged with monopolistic practices and corruption. According to an article in MIT’s Thistle
newspaper and business
directories, in 1964 ARAMARK agreed with the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) to
sell $7.7 million dollars worth of its recently acquired vending
machine
holdings to prevent monopoly charges.
In 1973 the FTC again found the ARAMARK to be monopolistic and
required
the Company to sell some of its vending and periodical holdings, as
well as
needing FTC permission to expand in certain businesses.
In 1979 the FTC won a $300,000 dollar civil
penalty from ARAMARK for violating the 1973 agreement and further
divestments
of holdings. In another lawsuit the
Company was fined $80,000 dollars for conspiring to fix cigarette
prices in
Ohio and Georgia. In Hawaii a former
ARAMARK official admitted to trying to under-bid rivals and then raise
prices
once they were crushed. The Human Rights Campaign says ARAMARK
systematically
discriminates against and fires queer employees. In
Texas, Colorado, and California ARAMARK has faced fines,
lawsuits, and decertification for major violations of nursing home
regulations.
There have been several workers’ rights lawsuits or disputes with the
company
nationwide in recent years.
According to the Thistle, in
1977 ARAMARK admitted to
giving out $393,000 dollars between 1970 and ‘76 to influence state
contract
bids and to having received $504,000 dollars in shady or illegal
rebates during
the same time. In 1983 a Boston School
Committee member admitted to extorting $50,000 dollars from ARAMARK
after
giving it a $40 million dollar contract.
ARAMARK paid a former employee and FBI agent $167,000 dollars
and lawyer
fees so he would not discuss ARAMARK’s ties to the mafia.
The Case of Lezlie Sumpter
ARAMARK took over at UNC
in 2001 from Sodexho, another service company with bad labor practices,
according to United Students Against Sweatshops. It
had lost an earlier contract at UNC. June
11, 2004 ARAMARK fired Lezlie Sumpter, a long-time employee
at Lenoir dining hall’s Ram Cafe after she complained to management
about
sexual harassment by a manager. She was
fired for “making malicious allegations against a manager” and
“improper
personal conduct,” because she allegedly violated a company gag rule,
according
to her termination notice. She claims
that managers were improperly discussing her case and not thoroughly
investigating her complaint. She says
this manager similarly harassed other employees at work and at his
apartment. Another employee has confirmed
for this
article that she was harassed similarly.
This manager is now moving to UNC’s massive new Rams Head
Center, behind
Kenan Stadium, due to open in March.
Last May when an employee was accused of sexually harassing an
Upward
Bound student, he was quickly fired.
Students believe Sumpter was fired because she was an outspoken
employee
and had disputes with management in the past.
An evaluation a few weeks before she was fired had given Sumpter
high
marks.
Sumpter says she was
threatened by a manager in March 2003 for telling police to include
that
manager in a theft investigation. In
August 2003 an account was mixed up and a different manager threatened
Sumpter
and improperly discussed business outside of work.
When UNC reduced the hours of the cafe in November 2003,
managers
wanted to demote Sumpter from supervisor to dishwasher.
Sumpter refused to take the position and was
able to remain at the Ram Cafe (now Java City), but as a food service
worker.
Allegations of Worker
Mistreatment, Cheating of Customers, and Unhealthy Conditions
Managers at UNC have
allegedly avoided paying earned overtime (since resolved), wrongfully
labeled
full-time workers as part-time, and discriminated against Latino
employees. An employee and a former
student worker say
that Latino workers were given the worst jobs and treated
disrespectfully by
managers and other workers because of language problems.
ARAMARK does allow workers to take a course
to learn English, but reportedly it has been made more difficult to
attend. A manager using racial slurs
was fired and there are allegations that there was another official
using
slurs, who was fired for an unrelated reason.
Although many complaints have been resolved, still employees
were
transferred or fired, allegedly for advocating unions. Workers see
managers as
systematically using intimidation, overwork, arbitrary transfers, and
firings
while other managers cover this behavior.
Employees and students
allege that ARAMARK cheated its customers.
In summer 2002 and sporadically afterward a regular house blend
of
coffee was sold as a more expensive gourmet blend in Java City,
according to
Sumpter, a current employee, and a former student worker at Java City. The manager who is accused of harassment is
said to have told employees to make the substitution.
This was allegedly done because the store is neglected and often
out of necessary materials. Only UNC
would benefit from the extra profit according to Mike Freeman.
There are also allegations
of unsanitary conditions, although Lenoir dining hall consistently gets
good
sanitation grades and has pest control programs. Sumpter
says there was a cockroach infestation, which managers
treated lightly. At the Rams Head Center
shortly after opening there was a clogged drain, which was found to
contain
maggots. Workers say that managers did
not act promptly to prevent the possibility of maggots getting to food
on lower
floors once the drain had been opened up.
Signs that a rat was living under a salad bar were ignored until
the rat
literally came out on a weekday afternoon last spring.
Mike Freeman says that the rat may have come
from a nearby building under renovation, using a building code
violation at
Lenoir. A former student worker say
rodents once or twice, meaning there could be a rodent infestation. Spilled food is allegedly re-used. A sickness on Campus last spring was cause
by a Norwalk virus, indicating that it was not necessarily ARAMARK’s
fault.
Activists representing
student, community, and national groups protested ARAMARK at Lenoir,
including
marching inside the building, November 22nd.
They demanded that Sumpter be compensated and that her name be
cleared
and they advocated a contractor code of conduct. ARAMARK
and University officials have not commented on the
specific charges.
A National Union
Organizing Campaign Comes to North Carolina
Since then this issue has
become part of a vibrant community campaign supporting ARAMARK workers’
right
to organize and for a worker allegedly targeted because she was
pro-union. Student Action with Workers /
Students
Against Sweatshops (SAW) organized the campaign working with a
coalition of
student and community organizations.
The Chapel Hill NAACP has been working with Sumpter in
negotiating with
ARAMARK’s lawyers on the basis of new and old evidence of her
allegations. Associate University Counsel
Joanna Carey
Smith is interested in meeting with her after Sumpter spoke at a
meeting
between SAW and administrators.
A joint campaign by the
Service Employees International Union and UNITE-HERE to organize food
service
workers nationwide began this year.
This campaign to organize Service Workers United targets
Compass,
ARAMARK, and Sodexho service workers in schools, prisons, hospitals,
and
corporations. Organizing is going on in
California, Phoenix, Florida, Boston, New York, Chicago, and elsewhere. In North Carolina Meredith, St. Mary’s,
UNC-Greensboro, and other colleges have organizing campaigns, and
service
workers at a pharmaceutical company.
In North Carolina ARAMARK
is the dominant food service company and it is one of the largest
employers in
Orange County, where UNC is located, having 380 employees.
ARAMARK is officially neutral on unionization
and 19% of its workforce is already unionized.
About 70% of the workers have signed cards to organize a union
so
far. The union wants workers to be able
to vote for the union by card checking, with ARAMARK and UNC being
neutral on
the vote, while ARAMARK wants a National Labor Relations Board vote. An NLRB vote happens after 30% of the
workers in a unit request an election and can take years because of
bureaucratic hurdles, giving a company time to intimidate or fire union
supporters, and allowing the company to lobby against the union,
according to
SAW. Card checking results in
unionization after one worker over 50% of the workforce signs a union
card. An NLRB election can be won based
on getting a majority of votes while victory in a card check requires a
majority of eligible voters. ARAMARK
says card checking could pressure workers.
Student Campaigning
Organizing at UNC took off
this year and community meetings began in February.
March 2nd
ARAMARK sent a letter to its employees saying that the company cared
for their
interests and misrepresenting how unions work, according to students. SAW wrote a counter-letter.
A national email campaign has sent 947 emails
to UNC officials supporting SAW’s demands, as of April 11th
(see
www.unionvoice.org). There have been
small disputes between students and ARAMARK (and a manager at the
Student
Store) over distributing flyers and wearing union paraphernalia. SAW organized daily events during Labor
Solidarity Week/Farmworker Awareness Week in late March, culminating in
a large
demonstration Monday, April 4th.
The protest focused on
supporting popular Lenoir cashier Vel Dowdy after she was suspended
with pay
for alleged felony food embezzlement.
Dowdy was interviewed by investigators March 2nd and removed in
handcuffs by Campus Police March 25th.
Dowdy and her boyfriend are pro-union and activists believe she
was
watched and targeted to intimidate other workers. According
to officials she was filmed allowing students to eat
free four times and was suspended after weeks of investigation. Only
managers
have the right to treat customers with company cards.
Mike Freeman, Directory of UNC’s Auxiliary Services, which
oversees CDS, says he discovered her crime by coincidence, was required
to
report it, and that ARAMARK might have been more lenient.
Many students love Dowdy and felt she was
one of the best parts of the CDS.
According to union organizers Dowdy accepted a plea bargain and
no
longer works at UNC and is barred from coming on Campus, but has a new
job
nearby. The Union was prepared to
defend her in court and thought she had a strong case.
More than 300 people
protested to support Dowdy, Sumpter, and workers’ right to organize
April 4th,
supported by the Black Student Movement, Campus YMCA, Carolina Hispanic
Association, Chapel Hill NAACP, UE Local 150, a former student body
presidential candidate, and others.
Protesters met at the Pit in front of Lenoir dining hall and
then walked
through the building, to Chancellor Moeser’s South Building office, and
then
returned to the Pit and ARAMARK’s new Rams Head Center.
A petition with more than 700 signatures
supporting the union’s demands and Dowdy was given to a University
secretary. SAW requested a meeting between
the
Chancellor, ARAMARK, and SAW. About 12 activists and workers had a
meeting with
two University officials and a University observer on April 12th.
SAW viewed lower level
meetings as Moeser stalling, so it began a wait-in the next day at
South
Building in which students continuously occupied the lobby. After three-and-a-half hours the Chancellor
agreed to a meeting between the Administration, ARAMARK, and SAW. Moeser claimed that it would be illegal for
the University to endorse card checking, which SAW disputes. The University set up a meeting between
itself and ARAMARK and requested that the Company meet with the
students. ARAMARK set up the meeting with
little
notice and would not meet with workers and students together, claiming
workers
would be intimidated, so it met with each group separately. They agreed to resolve specific complaints
but not to allow card checking, which did not satisfy SAW.
SAW protested at South
Building to pressure the administration to meet with workers. On the 21st the union organized a
workers’ demonstration in the Pit, through Lenoir, to South Building,
where 14
workers met with Carey Smith. Workers
spoke to the Chancellor again at his annual open house, dominating the
meeting,
according to activists. About 50
workers recently requested a meeting with Evan Clingman, ARAMARK’s UNC
general
manager, but it was cancelled at the last minute because of an
emergency, but
workers found him in his office and request a new meeting. [ ]
Duke University has a
similar situation following privatization of eateries in 2001,
according to
Duke’s Chronicle newspaper. A
problematic manager from Lenoir dining
hall was recently sent there to streamline operations. The firing of a
19-year
Marketplace employee has caused open worker discontent.
Managers reportedly intimidate and overwork
employees, according to the Chronicle.
AFSCME Local 77 represents the Duke’s ARAMARK workers and agreed
to
privatization but is dissatisfied because ARAMARK does not provide all
of the
promised training and incentives according Local 77’s President William
McKnight. Student government has
censured ARAMARK for low quality service.
The Chronicle reports
that ARAMARK has similar problems at several
other universities. At the University
of Michigan ARAMARK broke a pre-existing contract with AFSCME Local
1583 and
fired or moved 39 employees. 125
students at Sam Houston State University got food poisoning from
ARAMARK food. 127 students contracted
salmonella at an
Aramark eatery at Pomona College. At
Clarmont McKenna College ARAMARK is accused of age, gender, and racial
discrimination and violating workers’ rights.
SAW held weekly solidarity
events during the spring (see www.uncsolidarity.org).
There may be SAW activities during the
summer sessions.
Watch for future local
updates in Triangle Free Press.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Boycott of
Taco
Bell Ends in Victory for Farmworkers
On March 8th a four-year
boycott of Taco Bell
called by the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) ended. The CIW won an agreement to increase tomato
harvesters’ wages by a surcharge of a penny per pound (a 70% wage
increase, up
from 1.4 cents per pound of tomatoes, according to The
Courier-Journal
of Louisville, Kentucky) and amendments to Yum! Brands, Inc.’s Supplier
Code of
Conduct. Suppliers are now strictly
required to operate lawfully, to not practice slavery, and unannounced
inspections will be held. Yum! can now
end a contract based on violation of the Code of Conduct.
The pay increase will only cost Yum! about
$100,000 dollars, to be absorbed by the Company. This
agreement is between CIW and suppliers, similar to the
agreement ending the Farm Labor Organizing Committee’s boycott of the
Mount
Olive Pickle Company (see Alliance! December 2004). Yum! is the owner of Taco Bell, A&W
All-American Food Restaurants, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Long John Silver’s
and is
the largest fast food company in the world, in the number of
restaurants. The CIW and Yum! will jointly
monitor
agreement compliance. The two parties,
with the Florida Tomato Committee, a growers’ organization, will lobby
for
stronger Florida laws regarding working conditions.
Yum! will encourage other companies, including supermarkets, to
increase farmworker wages.
About 1500 workers will be affected by
the
agreement, out of about 3500 workers in the tomato industry, according
to the
CIW. This victory occurred just days
before the CIW’s second Taco Bell Truth Tour reached Yum! Brands’
headquarters
in Louisville, Kentucky for a demonstration March 12th .
During the
Tour about 80 Immokalee workers spoke at 15 cities on their way to
Kentucky.
The CIW is based in southwestern Florida,
a major
agricultural region, and has about 2500 members, mainly Latino,
Haitian, and
Guatemalan Maya immigrants who harvest fresh tomatoes and citrus in
Florida and
other states. After tourism,
agriculture is Florida’s largest industry.
Many of the workers are employed by Immokalee companies but work
as far
away as Pennsylvania during the harvesting season.
Florida supplies 95% of all American grown tomatoes consumed
domestically between October and June and 45% of yearly consumption. The Coalition was formed in 1993.
It succeeded in raising wages 13-25% by
1998, to the pre-1980 tomato piece rate, and exposed slavery and
indentured
servitude, freeing about 1000 workers.
The CIW helped expose five slave operations in 6 years, the most
recent
one in November 2002, resulting in three crewleaders from Lake Placid,
Florida
being sentenced to a total of 31 years and 9 months in federal prison
and
confiscation of $3 million dollars. The
men had threatened to kill workers and pistol-whipped and assaulted
drivers for
a service transporting farmworkers. 700
workers were freed after two years of investigation by the CIW. More enslaved farmworkers have been found by
other groups since. The Coalition was a
founder of the Freedom Network Institute on Human Trafficking, a
national
group, and belongs to two state anti-slavery organizations.
The CIW organized three general strikes
in Immokalee
and it publicized its cause through a month long hunger strike by six
members
in 1998, a 230-mile march in Florida in 2000, and other actions. According to Campus Progress, these methods
were not very effective on the employers targeted, so the CIW targeted
Taco
Bell. The CIW demanded that the piece
rate be increased by 1 cent per pound and that working conditions be
improved. The Taco Bell boycott, begun in
April 2001
after Taco Bell ignored the CIW’s requests, was the first
farmworker-led
boycott of a large fast-food company.
Campaigns like the CIW’s have succeeded in pressuring companies
like
Starbucks, chocolate producers, and now Taco Bell.
In 2003 75 farmworkers and students fasted for 10 days outside
of
Taco Bell’s headquarters in Irvine California, one of the largest such
actions
in American history. At one point 33% of Yum!’s shareholders endorsed a
resolution calling for the Company to report on the labor and
environmental
impact of its supply chain. 3-7% is the
usual percentage of votes in shareholder campaigns of this kind.
Taco Bell has 6,500 restaurants in the
USA and made
about $3.10 billion dollars in sales in 2004, serving 35 million
customers a
week (from a joint press release and Standard and Poor’s catalogue of
companies).
Tomato pickers are paid 40 –50 cents per
32 lb.
bucket harvested, requiring harvesters to pick 2 tons of tomatoes to
earn $50
dollars. This piece rate has been in
decline since 1978 due to inflation while company profits increase,
according
to the CIW and Oxfam America. The
uninflated wage was only 1/3rd of what it was in 1985
(Campus
Progress, March 18, 2005). A piece rate
of 40 cents in 1980 equals 92 cents today.
According to Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation,
farmworkers’ pay has dropped greatly nationally, for example in
California,
where wages have halved since 1980, adjusting for inflation.
Wages are variable because of weather,
travel time,
pay by piece rate, etc., and there is often cheating by employers,
although the
piece rate is legally required to be at or above minimum wage. The CIW says this makes Taco Bell’s claim that
some workers are paid well, at $9 dollars an hour, misleading. In 2000 farmworkers had a median annual
income of $7500 dollars, much less than the national poverty level,
according
to the US Department of Labor.
Farmworkers also lack benefits, many
legal
protections, such as overtime (they are not covered by the National
Labor
Relations Act), and the many immigrant farmworkers have even fewer
legal
protections.
Taco Bell argued that, since it did not
employ
farmworkers, and because it was a minor purchaser of Florida tomatoes
(10
million pounds, less than 1% of the 2004 harvest), it was not part of
the
problem. The CIW argued that Taco Bell
was complicit in and benefiting from the poverty of farmworkers and
that it had
the leverage to change the conditions.
Taco Bell is part of Yum!’s Unified Foodservice Purchasing
Co-op, which
uses Yum!’s combined purchasing power to decrease prices of materials,
making
Taco Bell’s share of the Florida tomato harvest irrelevant. The Co-op is the largest organization of its
kind in the quick service restaurant industry, according to its
website, and it
spends $4.35 billion dollars a year.
According to the CIW Yum! and other businesses use this buying
power to
decrease supply costs and the suppliers try to profit by decreasing
labor
costs, since they can’t control prices.
This effect is illustrated by the fact that in 1990 tomato
suppliers
received 41% of the consumer price of tomatoes, while ten years later
they
received only about 25% of the final cost, according to Oxfam America. This is similar to the situation in the beef
industry and other agribusinesses, where suppliers lose control of the
price
because they face a single buyer in their market (monopsony), meaning
the
buyers can set the price (see Alliance! April [??] 2004).
Taco Bell probably has contractual
control over its
suppliers. This information is usually
confidential, but it has been revealed that Taco Bell has a long-term
contract
with Six L’s Packing Company, an Immokalee tomato supplier and one of
the
largest American fresh tomato suppliers.
Six L’s Packing pays a low 40 cent piece rate.
The Company monitored suppliers for food safety and quality, but
not working conditions.
Taco Bell refused to meet the CIW’s
demands but on
other issues it was more forthcoming.
It required its suppliers to treat livestock more humanely. Yum! was one of the first companies to stop
advertising during ABC’s Desperate Housewives because of moral
concerns.
Taco Bell targets the 18-24 year old age
group, so
students were the focus and major players in the boycott.
The Student Farmworker Alliance’s Boot the
Bell campaign involved about 300 college and universities about 50 high
schools, and 11 national student groups.
The campaign’s first victory was at the University of Chicago,
followed
by UCLA, Notre Dame, Cal State San Bernadino, the University of Texas –
Austin,
and others. Ultimately twenty-one
universities refused to contract with Taco Bell. Boycott
committees were formed in almost every state. The
National Council of Churches (representing
50 million people), the Presbyterian Church (USA), Christian Church
(Disciples
of Christ), the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church,
Catholic
churches in Louisville, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for
Human
Rights supported the campaign.
President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center was involved in the
negotiations. Actors such as Jeffrey
Bridges, Martin Sheen, and Susan Sarandon joined.
Taco Bell says that the boycott did not
hurt its
sales figures (which increased greatly over the last three years), but
when it
found suppliers willing to meet the CIW’s demands it ended its
opposition. Yum!’s senior vice president
for public
affairs, Jonathan Blum, told The Courier-Journal that the
Company had
proposed similar reforms before, but did not have growers willing to
implement
them. Yum! initially claimed that it
could not increase wages without the entire industry agreeing to do it. This is very similar to what happened when
the Farm Labor Organizing Committee demanded that the Mt. Olive Pickle
Company
work to improve the condition of farmworkers.
In 2004 Yum! tried to pay the CIW about $110,000 dollars, to
cover the
one cent surcharge, which the CIW refused (according to an article from
Washington
University). After the agreement Blum
said that Yum! was “taking a leadership role within the industry to be
part of
the solution.” Todd Howland, director
of the RFK Memorial Center, said that Yum! “has shown that companies
can and
should reach for a higher standard than their bottom line,” not
profiting off
poverty. This victory follows the
victorious end of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee’s 5-and-a-half
year Mt
Olive pickle boycott last September.
CIW is pressuring McDonald’s, subway, and Burger King to follow
Taco
Bell’s example, and emails can be sent from its website, www.ciw-online.org, under
“Breaking
News”).
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
HISTORY OF THE
USSR
CORRESPONDENCE:
JUNE 2005.
ON THE CHARACTER
OF THE USSR STATE IN THE STALIN YEARS
Recently on the e-list `Stalinist', there
has been an exchange on whether or not the
USSR in the period of
Stalin was a "military
dictatorship'.
A few brief quotations
from three
notes are provided:
Firstly from CmL on 22
June 2005:
"I believe that it is
pretty
much obvious that in history Stalin – [represented – ED] a Military
dictatorship. I also believe (in a
shortened version) that
as long
as the dictator is not crazed and evil, such as in the case of Hitler,
the
people of a country will
feel safer, in turn be
more
productive, which will allow the people of foreign nations to see the
productivity and ask "Why not my
country?", and join their
Communist or Socialist parties, get involved, and in time get enough
people to
understand so that they
are capable of having
such
government. To me, military dictatorship represents stability and
safety, and
under a Communist system, you do not have to worry about your rights
and values
being in jeopardy as is the case with the United States (i.e they tell
you how
great your freedom is, they destroy your economy, keep you from getting
a good
education that would allow you to advance in social class, and FINALLY,
if you
question or oppose them in any public way, you can expect to be thrown
in jail,
followed, or monitored constantly).
Look at rivalry between
dictatorships though. Look at WWII. Stalin crushed the Germans (as
powerful as
they were) because the people
were so ambitious and
proud. They
had such pride in their homeland, and marched all the way to Berlin
fueled by
this. Even though you
can look at it and say
"Ya,
well, the Americans and British were fighting Germany too.", you have
to
look at how they were doing what
it was taking two other
countries
to do, and they arrived in Berlin first.
If war had broken out
during the
Cold War era, the Soviets would have prevailed, because of this same
enthusiasm. They had
written plans to keep
their
factories and facilities running even in the event of nuclear war. If
the
military dictatorship assembled by Stalin had not existed, then Russia
would
have never became the great industrial power that it is today. It would
still
be a rural backwards nation,
with oppressed people if
not for
Stalin. His effective dictatorship industrialized that country in a
matter of
years, what had taken
other nations half a
century to
achieve. If you look at this, then it gives politicians plenty of
reason to be
jealous of him, and to
make up stories of awful
things,
so people do not see the true man and his genius.
Military dictatorships
(in the
right hands) are the most effective form of government in the long run.
Best Regards
Secondly from `Mouse' in two notes, on
the 21st June and the 26th
June, we read:
`Stalin did represent a militaristic
dictatorship. It is through such a
political system that he accomplished as much as he did. He planted the
seeds
of national pride in his people alongside balancing and righting the
economic
market and so forth. Stalin did not use his militaristic penchant to
oppress
his people – although you are of course free to decide that for
yourself. I
understand that he used it to protect his people from outside threats
and
furthermore to maintain structure, order, and fair class balance.
I support a militaristic
dictatorship because as much as I relish a good fight I am just as
interested
in realizing my personal
potential. I
desire a strong leader that is proficient on the international scene
but also
dedicated to taking care of business at home. Someone that inspires the
classes
into a respectable harmony and opens the door for a productive and
constructive
co-existence. I am being
sensible. It is my dream to focus on making a difference in my life and
although fighting class oppression is a large part of that, I am not
content to
stop there. I long for a leader to restore order so that I may become
that
something more and do more to help my people and my country.
I do not reckon that is
so
outrageous. I am not a traitor. I do not lend a hand to the bourgeois
fat cats.
I am only being realistic. It makes no sense to me to fight, in simple,
for the
sake of it. I long for resolution and closure. I thought that was the
point of
being a Communist. I thought our cause was to fight to restore order so
that
our people could, at the end, find peaceable contentment. In a
militaristic
dictatorship, as in Stalin's Soviet Union, the bourgeoisie could not
abuse the
proletariat because of the strict guidelines that opposed it. .."
‘Mouse’ later writes also as follows:
"I agree with Chase and the Political
Philosopher. In a militaristic
dictatorship there is a strong focus on national pride and
structure. In the
obtainment and
establishment of structure you in turn provide the people a set order
and that
breeds a sense of
safety and security.
People can
not feel safe in the absence of structure and order. In society, the
founding
and application of
disciplined boundaries is
the
impetus of a productive populace. One is not going to be capable of
motivation
or ambition if he resides
in a perpetual state of
chaos. In
respect to pride, that is the identity of the people ... and of course,
in
groups as in
individuals, the absence
or loss
of identity is the fundamental catalyst for crisis, discordance and
desperation.
….I concur that
in the right hands, a dictator is the best political option. For one,
once he
is in office, he stays. You do
not find yourself biting
your
nails because of the relentless and exhausting custom of political
"musical chairs." Second, it establishes set order and structure and
therefore a more grounded and stable populace. C. is right – in a
militaristic
dictatorship both production
and personal potential goes through the roof. People at last understand
their
surroundings and no longer harbour the fears and doubts they once had.
People
become accomplished and proud – and because of that you get the result
cited on
Berlin. In a democracy, you have, in simple, disorganized chaos. People
can not
become accomplished or productive under such a system. It is in our
nature to
be structured and ordered. It is the deciding factor that lets us
explore and
realize our potential – both as individuals and as a populace. It is
basic human psychology. Mouse;
Saturday 25 June 2005
Summarised, these letters opine that:
1) military
dictatorship is preferable to any other form of government on behalf of
the
working class;
2)
Democratic forms of
government are unable to be effective in harnessing the potential of
humans.
3) That
human
psychology is a fixed entity and cannot be changed.
4) That
Stalin was a
military dictator.
The editors of Alliance
consider
that the exchange has been to date quite un-dialectical, and one
un-informed of
prior debates. It certainly appears to us that the correspondents are
either
forgetting the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or
have never
grasped it.
We believe it is not
inappropriate therefore to first of all, revise some of the principles
embodied
in this theory that although first initiated by Marx and Engels, was made
easily accessible by V.I.Lenin in
"State and Revolution", first published in December 1918. The year of
publication is not an accident, since Lenin was grappling with the
creation of
a new society.
Having reviewed these
principles
we will attempt – all too briefly at this juncture – to show how far
Stalin valued
the `democratic' aspect of the `dictatorship of the proletariat',
before two
key events occurred. These were the onset of the Yezhov purges which
were
directed at the best of the proletariat, peasants and Bolsheviks – in
order to
undermine the steps towards socialism. And secondly the war.
Some Key
Principles underlined by Lenin in `State
and revolution’
Lenin's work is easily
accessible
to all who wish to pursue the question of the character of socialist
democracy
and the nature of
the dictatorship of the
proletariat, in more detail. Our task here is to synopsize the main
points to
assess whether or not,
the `dictatorship of the
proletariat' is the same as a `military dictatorship'? At the same time
we will
explore the meaning of the
term `dictatorship' in
relation
to the term `democracy'.
Before these objectives
can be
met, we must first address the question `What is the State'?
Lenin himself started
from the
definition of Frederick Engels:
"Let us being with the
most
popular of Engels' works, The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the
State, the sixth edition of
which was published in
Stuttgart
as far back as 1894….. Summing up his historical analysis, Engels says:
"The state is, therefore,
by
no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it
'the
reality of the ethical
idea,' 'the image and
reality of
reason,' as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a
certain
stage of
development; it is the
admission
that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction
with
itself, that it has
cleft into irreconcilable
antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these
antagonisms, classes with
conflicting economic
interests,
might not consume themselves and society in sterile struggle, a power,
seemingly standing above
society became necessary
for the
purpose of moderating the conflict, of keeping it within bounds of
'order'; and
this power, arisen out
of society, but placing
itself
above it, and increasingly alienating itself more and more from it, is
the
state." (Pp.177-78, sixth
German edition)".
Lenin V.I: "State and
revolution" at: http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/SR17.html;
Or in Volume 2 Selected
Works; Moscow; 1977;
p.243;
The bulk of Lenin's article is aimed at
unraveling the way in which the
socialist state was to develop; concretely, in the circumstances
following the 1917
seizure of
power by the Bolsheviks in the new Soviet state. Lenin was dealing with
the
objections from anarchist
and Mensheviks, that the
new
state should be one that was "state-less", or `withered away'.
Opponents of the Bolsheviks argued for
the disintegration of the
state,
justifying it by citing Engels - who had used the term the `withering
away of
the state". Lenin put
it this way:
"Engels' words regarding
the
"withering away" of the state are so widely known, they are often
quoted, and so clearly reveal the
essence of the customary
adulteration of Marxism to look like opportunism that we must deal with
them in
detail. We shall quote
the whole argument from
which
they are taken:
"The proletariat seizes
the
state power and transforms the means of production in the first
instance into
state property. But in doing this, it puts an end to itself as
proletariat, it
puts an end to all class differences and class antagonisms; its puts an
end
also to the state as state. Former society, moving in class
antagonisms, had
need of the state, that is, an organization of the exploiting class at
each
period for the maintenance of its external conditions of production;
that is,
therefore, mainly for the forcible holding down of the exploited class
in the
conditions of oppression (slavery, villeinage or serfdom, wage labor)
determined by the existing mode of production. The state was the
official
representative of society as a whole, its summation in a visible
corporation;
but it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which
itself,
in its epoch, represented society as a whole: in ancient times, the
state of
slave-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, of the feudal nobility; in
our
epoch, of the bourgeoisie. When ultimately it becomes really
representative of
society as a whole, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is
no
longer any class of society to be held in subjection; as soon as, along
with
class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the
anarchy
of production hitherto, the collisions and excesses arising from these
have
also been abolished, there is nothing more to be repressed which would
make a
special repressive force, a state, necessary. The first act in which
the state
really comes forward as the representative of society as a whole -- the
taking
possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at
the same
time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state
power
in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another,
and then
ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the
administration
of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state
is not
'abolished,' it withers away. It is from this standpoint that we must
appreciate the phrase 'a free people's state' -- both its temporary
justification for agitational purposes, and its ultimate scientific
inadequacy
-- and also the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state
should be
abolished overnight." (Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science
[Anti-Duhring ], pp.301-03, third German edition.)".
Lenin in Ibid p. 248-9.
Lenin traces the
evolution of
this thought from an early period of the work of Engels and Marx. So
for
instance Marx points out in an
early work that:
"In The Poverty of Philosophy Marx wrote:
"The working class in the
course of its development will substitute for the old bourgeois society
an association
which will
exclude classes and their
antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly
so-called, since
political power is
precisely the official
expression
of class antagonism in bourgeois society." (P. 182, German edition,
1885.)"
Cited by Lenin; Ibid p.
251.
But also early on in
1847, in the
`Communist Manifesto', Marx and Engels wrote that the purpose of state
seizure
by the communists was
to seize power in order
to `win
the battle of democracy' by becoming the "ruling class":
"In depicting the most
general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the
more or
less veiled civil war, raging
within existing society,
up to
the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the
violent
overthrow of the
bourgeoisie lays the
foundation
for the sway of the proletariat…. "We have seen above, that the first
step
in the revolution by the
working class, is to
raise the
proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of
democracy. ….
The proletariat will use
its
political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the
bourgeoisie, to
centralise all
instruments of production
in the
hands of the State, i.e., of proletariat organised as the ruling class,
and to
increase the total
of productive forces as
rapidly
as possible." (Pp. 3I and 37, seventh German edition, 1906.)"
Cited by Lenin; Ibid p. 251.
Lenin cites Marx's letter to Weydemeyer
in order to drive home the distinct
feature of Marxists – who recognise the need for
a `dictatorship of the
proletariat':
" In 1907, Mehring, in
the
magazine Neue Zeit (Vol. XXV, 2, p.164), published extracts from a
letter from
Marx to Weydemeyer dated
March 5, 1852. This
letter, among
other things, contains the following remarkable observation:
". . . And now as to
myself,
no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in
modern
society, nor yet the struggle
between them. Long before
me
bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this
struggle
of the classes and bourgeois
economists the economic
anatomy
of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: 1) that the
existence of
classes is only bound up
with particular
historical phases
in the development of production [historische Entwicklung sphasen der
Produktion
]; 2) that the class
struggle necessarily
leads to the
dictatorship of the proletariat; 3) that this dictatorship itself only
constitutes the transition to
the abolition of all
classes and
to a classless society. . . ."
Lenin Ibid p. 261-2
Lenin ends by putting it
clearly
that to be Marxist, it is necessary to recognise the need for the
dictatorship
of the
proletariat:
"For the doctrine of the
class struggle was created not by Marx, but by the bourgeoisie before
Marx, and
generally speaking it is
acceptable to the
bourgeoisie.
Those who recognize only the class struggle are not yet Marxists; they
may be
found to be still within
the boundaries of
bourgeois
thinking and bourgeois politics. To confine Marxism to the doctrine of
the
class struggle means
curtailing Marxism,
distorting
it, reducing it to something which is acceptable to the bourgeoisie.
Only he is
a Marxist who extends the
recognition of the class
struggle
to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is what
constitutes the most
profound difference
between the
Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois."
Lenin Ibid p. 261-2.
But what form was this
`dictatorship of the proletariat' to take? This is needed to
understand, as the
terminology of Mouse and CmL –
`military dictatorship' –
might
superficially be appear to be vindicated by this view of Lenin's.
However this
is only true IF we
are to accept the
substitution of
the "armed people" – for the standing army to be
inferred by the term `military dictatorship";
and if one were to accept
that
under the dictatorship of the proletariat there was no democracy. We
will argue
that neither can
be accepted.
Lenin put it that Marx and Engels
had no pat answers as to how exactly
in every day terms the dictatorship of the proletariat would
operate. But they did have at
least five governing principles,
which they largely derived from an acute analysis of the successes and
failures of the Paris Commune.
The first principle was
the need
for the suppression of the bourgeois standing army and its substitution
by the
armed people:
". . . The first decree
of
the Commune . . . was the suppression of the standing army, and the
substitution for it of the armed people."
Cited by Lenin; Ibid p.
267
The second principle was
the
right of recall of elected officials:
"All officials, without
exception, elected and subject to recall at any time, their salaries
reduced to
the level of ordinary "workmen's
wages" -- these simple
and
"self-evident" democratic measures, while completely uniting the
interests of the workers and the majority of
the peasants, at the same
time
serve as a bridge leading from capitalism to Socialism. These measures
concern
the reconstruction
of the state, the purely
political reconstruction of society; but, of course, they acquire their
full
meaning and significance only in
connection with the
"expropriation of the expropriators" either being accomplished or in
preparation, i.e., with the transformation
of capitalist private
ownership
of the means of production into social ownership.
"The Commune," Marx wrote, "made that
catchword of
bourgeois revolutions, cheap government, a reality, by destroying the
two
greatest sources of
expenditure
-- the standing army and State functionarism." ""The
Commune," Marx wrote, "was to be a working,
not a parliamentary,
body,
executive and legislative at the same time. . . ." ". . . Instead of
deciding once in three or six years which member
of the ruling class was
to
represent and repress [ver- und zertreten ] the people in Parliament,
universal
sufferage was toserve the people, constituted in Communes, as
individual
suffrage
serves every other
employer in
the search for the workers, foremen and bookkeepers for his
business.""
Cited by Lenin Ibid; p.
269- 70
Third it was necessary to
maintain an `un-free state' in the transition period:
"One of the most, if not
the
most, remarkable observations on the state in the works of Marx and
Engels is
contained in the following
passage in Engels' letter
to
Bebel dated March 18-28, 1875. … Engels wrote to Bebel criticizing that
same
draft of the Gotha
Program which Marx also
criticized in his famous letter to Bracke. Referring particularly to
the
question of the state, Engels said:
".. Taken in its
grammatical
sense, a free state is one where the state is free in relation to its
citizens,
hence a state with a
despotic government. The
whole
talk about the state should be dropped, especially since the Commune,
which was
no longer a state
in the proper sense of
the word.
… As, therefore, the state is only a transitional institution which is
used in
the struggle, in the revolution, in order to hold down one's
adversaries by
force, it is pure nonsense to talk of a free people's state: so long as
the proletariat
still uses the state, it does not use it in the
interests of freedom but
in order
to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to
speak of
freedom the state as such
ceases to exist. We would
therefore propose to replace state everywhere by the word 'community'
[Gemeinwesen ], a good old German
word which can very well
represent the French word 'commune.'" (Pp.32I-22 of the German
original.)". Lenin Ibid p. 284
As Lenin points out, Marx explicitly uses
the term the of dictatorship of
the proletariat to mean the period of transition:
"Between capitalist and
communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation
of the
one into the other. There
corresponds to this also
a
political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the
revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat"
Cited by Lenin p. 301.
Logically Lenin poses the
question as to how this `dictatorship' related to `democracy'?
"What, then, is the
relation
of this dictatorship to democracy? …..
In capitalist society,
providing
it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or
less
complete democracy in
the democratic republic.
But this
democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist
exploitation, and consequently
always remains, in
reality, a
democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for
the rich.
Freedom in capitalist
society always remains
about the
same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the
slave-owners.
Owing to the conditions of
capitalist exploitation
the
modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot
be
bothered with democracy,"
"they cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary peaceful
course of events the majority of the population is debarred from
participation
in public and political life. "…..
Democracy for the vast
majority
of the people, and suppression by force, i.e., exclusion from
democracy, of the
exploiters and
oppressors of the people
-- this
is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism
to
Communism. ….
Thus, in capitalist
society we
have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false; a democracy only
for the
rich, for the minority.
The dictatorship of the
proletariat, the period of transition to Communism, will for the first
time
create democracy for the people,
for the majority, along
with the
necessary suppression of the minority -- the exploiters. Communism
alone is
capable of giving
really complete
democracy, and
the more complete it is the more quickly will it become unnecessary and
wither
away of itself. "
Lenin; Ibid p. 301; 303
Lenin points out that
Marx had
explicitly pointed to the need for realistically dealing with the
long-standing
effects of capitalism
on the psyche of the
people:
"In the Critique of the Gotha Program
…Marx makes a sober estimate of
exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs.
Marx proceeds to make a
concrete
analysis of the conditions of life of a society in which there will be
no
capitalism, and says:
"What we have to deal
with
here" (in analyzing the program of the workers' party) "is a
communist society, not as it has developed on
its own foundations, but,
on the
contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in
every
respect, economically,
morally and
intellectually, still
stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it
emerges." …
"Equal right," says
Marx, we indeed have here; but it is still a "bourgeois right,"
which, like every right, presupposes inequality. Every right is an
application
of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are
not
equal to one another; that is why "equal right" is really a violation
of equality and an injustice. In deed, every man, having performed as
much social
labour as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned
deductions).
But people are not alike:
one is
strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not, one has more
children,
another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is: ". . .
with
an equal performance of labour, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund,
one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another,
and so on. To avoid all these
defects, right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."
Cited by Lenin Ibid;
p.304-6.
Fourthly, after the
transition
period, a higher stage can be envisaged where indeed the state is no
longer needed, and `withers':
"Marx continues:
"In a higher phase of
communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual
to the
division of labour, and
therewith also the
antithesis
between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has
become not
only a means of life but
life's prime want; after
the
productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of
the
individual, and all the
springs of cooperative
wealth
flow more abundantly -- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois
right be
crossed in its entirety and
society inscribe on its
banners:
'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!'"
Only now can we appreciate to the full
the correctness of Engels' remarks
in which he mercilessly ridiculed the absurdity of
combining the words
"freedom" and "state." So long as the state exists there is
no freedom. When there will be freedom, there will
be no state.
The economic basis for
the
complete withering away of the state is such a high stage of
development of
Communism that the antithesis
between mental and
physical
labour disappears, when there, consequently, disappears one of the
principal
sources of modern
social inequality -- a
source,
moreover, which cannot on any account be removed immediately by the
mere
conversion of the means of
production into public
property,
by the mere expropriation of the capitalists. This expropriation will
create
the possibility of an
enormous development of
the
productive forces. And when we see how incredibly capitalism is already
retarding this development, when we
see how much progress
could be
achieved on the basis of the level of technique now already attained,
we are
entitled to say with the
fullest confidence that
the
expropriation of the capitalists will inevitably result in an enormous
development of the productive
forces of human society.
But how
rapidly this development will proceed, how soon it will reach the point
of
breaking away from the
division of labour, of
doing away
with the antithesis between mental and physical labour, of transforming
labour
into "the prime
necessity of life" -- we
do
not and cannot know. "
Lenin p.307-8.
Of course UNTIL this higher stage
arrives, there is no question of an
abdication of control by the working class. And this is exercised
by a "state of armed
workers":
" Until the
"higher" phase of Communism arrives, the Socialists demand the
strictest control by society and by the state of the
measure of labour and the
measure
of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of
the
capitalists, with the
establishment of workers'
control
over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of
bureaucrats, but
by a state of armed
workers. Ibid; p. 309.
Finally, the dictatorship
of the
proletariat encompasses a democracy that transcends the `bourgeois
state
democracy':
"Democracy is of enormous
importance to the working class in its struggle against the capitalists
for its
emancipation. But democracy
is by no means a boundary
not to
be overstepped; it is only one of the stages on the road from feudalism
to
capitalism, and from
capitalism to Communism.
Democracy means equality.
The
great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of
equality
as a slogan will be clear if we correctly
interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means
only
formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of
society
in relation to
ownership of the means of
production, that is, equality of labour and equality of wages, humanity
will
inevitably be confronted with
the question of advancing
farther, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the
operation of the
rule, "from each according
to his ability, to each
according
to his needs." By what stages, by means of what practical measures
humanity will proceed to this
supreme aim -- we do not
and
cannot know. But it is important to realize how infinitely mendacious
is the
ordinary bourgeois
conception of Socialism
as
something lifeless, petrified, fixed once for all, whereas in reality
only
under Socialism will a rapid,
genuine, really mass
forward
movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the
population,
commence in all spheres of
public and personal life.
Democracy is a form of
the state,
one of its varieties. Consequently, it, like every state, represents on
the one
hand the
organized, systematic use
of
violence against persons; but on the other hand it signifies the formal
recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to
determine the
structure of, and
to administer, the state.
This,
in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the
development of
democracy, it first welds
together the class that
wages a
revolutionary struggle against capitalism -- the proletariat, and
enables it to
crush, smash to
atoms, wipe off the face
of the
earth the bourgeois, even the republican bourgeois, state machine, the
standing
army, the police
and the bureaucracy, and
to
substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state
machine
nevertheless, in the shape of the
armed masses of workers
who
develop into a militia in which the entire population takes part.
Here "quantity turns into
quality": such a degree of democracy implies overstepping the
boundaries
of bourgeois society, the
beginning of its
socialist
reconstruction. If really all take part in the administration of the
state,
capitalism cannot retain its
hold. And the development
of
capitalism, in turn, itself creates the premises that enable really
"all" to take part in the administration
of the state. Some of
these
premises are: universal literacy, which has already been achieved in a
number
of the most advanced
capitalist countries,
then the
"training and disciplining" of millions of workers by the huge,
complex, socialized apparatus of
the postal service,
railways, big
factories, large-scale commerce, banking, etc., etc.
Given these economic
premises it
is quite possible, after the overthrow of the capitalists and the
bureaucrats,
to proceed immediately,
overnight, to supersede them in the control of production and
distribution, in
the work of keeping account of labour and products by the armed workers,
by the whole of the armed
population. …..
From the moment all
members of
society, or even only the vast majority, have learned to administer the
state
themselves, have
taken this work into
their own
hands, have "set going" control over the insignificant minority of
capitalists, over the gentry who wish
to preserve their
capitalist
habits and over the workers who have been profoundly corrupted by
capitalism --
from this moment the need
for government of any
kind begins
to disappear altogether. The more complete the democracy, the nearer
the moment
approaches when it
becomes unnecessary. The
more democratic
the "state" which consists of the armed workers, and which is
"no longer a state in the proper
sense of the word," the
more
rapidly does every form of state begin to wither away. "
Lenin Ibid p.311 313
Summary
It is readily seen that
in the
work `State and Revolution' – Lenin effectively deals with the points
raised by
the recent correspondence. In contrast to the un-dialectical approach
of ‘Mouse’
and CmL, Lenin maintains that:
i) A dictatorship of the
proletariat is not incompatible with the highest forms of democracy,
and one
that empowers people to grow both materially and in their capacity to
take
control;
ii) That there should be
no
substitution for the `armed people' – certainly not a substitution by a
military clique.
iii) That in the
transition
between the early stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the
state is
not `free', but requires guarding.
To what extent was the
reality
under the period of Stalin's life time any different from how Lenin
viewed this?
PART TWO: An
illustration of how Stalin Viewed
the Democratic process in the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
In this part, we wish
only to
point out one matter. That is that the type of active participation in
daily
life that the people were
enabled to take part in –
up to
the Yezhov purges – show that the concept of a `military dictatorship'
was far
from reality as perceived by the peoples.
Both Lenin and Stalin
endorsed
the fight of the working class and peasantry as one for a dictatorship
. But it
was for a very particular form of a dictatorship. It was one of a
dictatorship
of the proletariat, and not one of the "military". Those on the
Marxist-Leninist left who propose that Stalin was a `military dictator',
feed into the combined
Trotskyist
and bourgeois view of the USSR under Stalin.
Even the most objective
of
bourgeois historians, accede to the view that the general notion of
Stalin as a
`dictator' in a `totalitarian' state, is convenient for the bourgeois
ruling classes.
This is made clear by Lewis Siegelbaum, who points out that scholars
who were
labeled as "revisionist" realised that the conventional view was
incorrect.
"For several decades following the Second
World War, American and more
generally Western sociology viewed the Stalin era through the
prism of totalitarianism.
Under
Stalin, it was argued, the Soviet Union became a full-blown
totalitarian
society in which formal legality was a mere smokescreen for the
dictatorship of
the Communist Party and the caprice of ties general secretary, Stalin"….
"Other scholars more
directly challenged the usefulness of the totalitarian
conceptualization.
Relying heavily on the Soviet press
and the Smolensk Party
Archive,
which had been captured by the Germans in 1941 and subsequently by the
Americans,
these "revisionists"
rejected the .. image of the Stalinist state as monolithic and
all-powerful. It
was in their views riddled with internal tensions and contradictions."
Siegelbaum L, Sokolov A:
"Stalinism as a Way of Life"; New Haven Yale 1970; p.3, 4
Introduction.
The
USSR Was a State of Letter Writers
One small illustration of how the state
was perceived by the people, is
the sheer volume of letters that were written to the leaders of
the party and state.
The amount of
correspondence was
staggering:
"One of the chief
revelations to come from the opening of the Soviet Archives is the
sheer volume
of letters received by newspapers, as well as party and state leaders
and
institutions. We now know that in the not atypical month of July 1935,
Krest'ianskaia Gazeta (the peasants newspaper) received approximately
26,000
letters. Mikhail Kalinin who as president of the Central Executive
Committee of
the Soviets was one of the most frequent recipients of letters,
received an
average of 77,000 a year between 12923 and 1935. Throughout 1936 Andrei
Zahdanov Leningrad Party secretary received 130 letters a day. The
regional
party secretary in Denpropetrovsk, Mikhail Khataevich, reported,
perhaps with
some exaggeration that he received 250 letters per day. Letters also
poured in
to other newspapers, municipal soviets, procurators' offices, the
Peoples Commissariat
of internal Affairs (NKVD), party and state commissions, and the
offices of
Politburo members and government leaders including Stalin."
Siegelbaum; Ibid;
Introduction p.
9.
Irrespective of how one
views the
USSR, it is somewhat improbable that a military dictator would evince
billet-douxs
addressed in familiar tones
as follows:
"The familiar even
intimate
tone of many of the letters also suggested the link between the
personal and
the political. .. One notes for example, that letters sent to Mikhail
Kalinin
president of the Executive Committee of the Soviets, addressed him as
`all-Union elder (starosta) – a term combining Soviet and village
communal lexicons
– and more
frequently as `dear uncle' and `grandfather'. Nadezhda Krupskaya,
Lenin's widow
and an important official in the
RSFR's Commissariat of
Education
becomes `Dear NK".."
Lewis Siegelbaum and
Adrei
Sokolov `Stalinism as a Way of Life'; Yale New Haven, 2000;
Introduction p. 22.
Siegelbaum is simply an academic, he is
not a communist. Yet even he does
not dispute that these letters are real. Scholars have repetitively
discussed
the torrent of letters to both high officials, local officials and the
various
presses. When the Nazi army invaded into the USSR, it captured various
Soviet
archives in
the city of Smoklensk.
These were
shopped to Germany, where the USA army seized them at the end of the
war.
Many of these letters
were used
as "the jumping off point for an investigation" [Merle Fainsod;
`Smolensk Under Soviet Rule'; London 1958; p.379]. Several examples are
given
by Fainsod of instances where abuses, both in the kolkhoz and in
factories –
were highlighted by letter writers, and which forced Soviet authorities
to make
redress. Fainsod refers to the case of D.V.Gapeshin ` a senior
stableman in the
`perelom' kolkhoz, who wrote to raikom
secretary [ie secretary
of an
intermediate administrative layer] on the drunkenness and mismanagement
of
kolkhoz chairman Volkov. Redress followed, although not without a
protracted
course [Fainsod p.380-383].
Clearly, high echelons of
the
party were closely watching what the people were saying. They were in
fact
encouraging them to speak up
and loudly. Previously we
have
web-archived Stalin's 1937 rebuke of the un-Bolshevik behaviour of the
bureaucrats:
From: J.V.Stalin: "Speech
In
Reply To Debate" On Bureaucracy 5 March 1937; In `Works'; Volume 14;"
Red Star Press Edition;
London; 1978. or at: http://www.allianceml.com/STALIN-TXT/Stalin-bureaucracy.htm
"Two examples to
demonstrate
the correctness of Lenin's thesis. This happened several years ago. We,
the members
of the Central Committee, were discussing the question of improving the
situation in the Donetz Basin. The measures proposed by the People's
Commissariat
of Heavy Industry were obviously unsatisfactory. Three times we sent
the
proposals back to the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. And
three times
we got different proposals from the
People's Commissariat of
Heavy
Industry. But even then we could not regard them as satisfactory.
Finally, we
decided to call several workers and lower business and trade union
officials
from the Donetz Basin. For three days we discussed matters with these
comrades.
And all of us members of the Central Committee had to admit that only
these
ordinary workers, these "little people," were able to suggest the
proper solution to us. You no doubt remember the decision of the
Central
Committee and of the Council of People's Commissars on measures for
increasing
coal output in the Donetz Basin Well, this
decision of the Central
Committee
and the Council of People's Commissars, which all our comrades admitted
was a
correct and even a remarkable one, was suggested to us by simple people
from
the ranks. The other example. I have in mind the case of Comrade
Nikolayenko.
Who is Nikolayenko? Nikolayenko is a rank-and-file member of the Party.
She is
an ordinary "little person." For a whole year she had been giving
signals that all was not well in the Party organization in Kiev; she
exposed
the family spirit, the philistine petty-bourgeois approach to workers,
the
suppression of self -criticism, the prevalence of Trotskyite wreckers.
But she
was constantly brushed aside as if she were a pestiferous fly. Finally,
in
order to get rid of her they expelled her from the Party. Neither
the Kiev organization nor
the
Central Committee of the C.P. of the Ukraine helped her to bring the
truth to
light. The intervention of
the Central Committee of
the
Party alone helped to unravel the knot. And what transpired after the
case was
investigated? It transpired
that Nikolayenko was
right and
the Kiev organization was wrong. Neither more nor less. And yet, who is
Nikolayenko? Of course, she
is not a member of the
Central
Committee, she is not a People's Commissar, she is not the secretary of
the
Kiev Regional Organization, she is not even the secretary of a Party
cell, she
is only a simple rank-and-file member of the Party.
As you see, simple people
sometimes prove to be much nearer to the truth than some high
institutions. I
could quote scores and hundreds of similar examples. Thus you see that
our
experience alone, the experience of the leaders, is far from enough for
the
leadership of our cause. In order to lead properly the experience of the leaders
must be supplemented by the experience
of the Party membership, the experience of the working class, the
experience of
the toilers, the experience of the so-called "little people." But when is it possible to do that? It is
possible to do that only when the leaders are most closely connected
with the
masses, when they are connected with the Party membership, with the
working class,
with the peasantry, with the working intelligentsia.
Connection with the
masses,
strengthening this connection, readiness to heed the voice of the
masses –
herein lies the strength and invincibility of Bolshevik leadership. "
We also should reiterate Stalin's defense
of open and full criticism
of abuses, in his reply
to Gorky
who felt this was open to misuse
against the USSR:
"Dear Alexei Maximovich,
Heaps of apologies, and
please
don't be down on me for my tardy (too tardy!) reply. I am dreadfully
over-worked. What is more, I have not
been altogether well.
That, of
course, is no excuse. But it may serve as a sort of explanation.
1) We cannot do without
self-criticism. We simply cannot, Alexei Maximovich. Without it,
stagnation,
corruption of the apparatus, growth of bureaucracy, sapping of the
creative
initiative of the working class, are inevitable. Of course,
self-criticism
provides material for our enemies. You are quite right about that. But
it also
provides material (and a stimulus) for our advancement, for unleashing
the
constructive energies of the working people, for the development of
emulation,
for shock brigades, and so on. The negative aspect is counter-balanced
and
outweighed by the positive aspect.
It is possible that our
press
gives too much prominence to our shortcomings, and sometimes even
(involuntarily)
advertises them. That is possible and even probable. And, of course,
it is.
bad. You demand, therefore, that our shortcomings should be
counterbalanced (I
would say: outweighed) by our achievements. You are, of course, right
about
that too. We shall most certainly repair this defect, and without
delay. You
need have no doubt of that.
2) Our youth are of various kinds. There
are the grumblers, the tired and
the despairing (like Zenin). There are those who are cheerful,
high-spirited,
of strong will and indomitably determined to achieve victory. It cannot
be the
case that now, when we are breaking the old relations in life and
building new
ones, when the customary roads and paths are being torn up and new,
uncustomary
ones laid, when whole sections of the population who used to live in
plenty
are being thrown out of their rut and are falling out of the ranks,
making way
for millions of people who were formerly oppressed and downtrodden—it
cannot be
the case that the youth should represent a homogeneous mass of people
who
sympathise with us, that there should be no differentiation and
division among
them. Firstly, among the youth there are sons of wealthy parents.
Secondly,
even if we take the youth who are our own (in social status), not all of
them have the hardiness,
the
strength, the character and the understanding to appreciate the
picture of the
tremendous break-up of the old and
the feverish building of the new as a picture of something which has to
be and
which is therefore desirable, something, moreover, which has little
resemblance
to a heavenly idyll of "universal bliss" that is to afford everyone
the opportunity of "taking his ease" and "basking in
happiness." Naturally, in such a "racking turmoil," we are
bound to have people who are weary, overwrought, worn-out, despairing,
dropping
out of the ranks and, lastly, deserting to the camp of the enemy.
These are the unavoidable
"overhead costs" of revolution.
The main thing now is
that the
tone among the youth is set not by the grumblers, but by our militant
Young
Communist Leaguers, the nucleus of a
new and numerous generation of Bolshevik destroyers of capitalism, of
Bolshevik
builders of socialism, of Bolshevik deliverers of all who are oppressed
and
enslaved. Therein lies our strength. And therein lies the pledge of our
victory.
3) That, of course, does
not mean
that we should not try to diminish the number of grumblers, whiners,
doubters,
and so on, by bringing organised
ideological (and all other) influence to bear on them…."
Stalin: Letter to
A.M.Gorky;
January 17 1930; Works; London Red Star edition; nd; Volume 12;
pp179-193.
Finally, we have previously pointed to
Stalin's insistence that he was
only one of a group of leaders operating under the principles of
democratic
centralism:
"Ludwig: Sixteen chairs are placed around
the table at which we are seated.
Abroad people know, on the one hand, that the U.S.S.R. is a country in
which
everything must be decided collectively, but they know, on the other
hand, that
everything is decided by individual persons. Who really does decide?
Stalin: No, individual
persons
cannot decide. Decisions of individuals are always, or nearly always,
one-sided
decisions. In every collegium, in every collective body, there are
people whose
opinion must be reckoned with. In every collegium, in every collective
body,
there are people who may express wrong opinions.
From the experience of
three
revolutions we know that out of every 100 decisions taken by individual
persons
without being tested and
corrected collectively,
approximately 90 are one-sided. In our leading body, the Central
Committee of
our Party, which directs all our Soviet and Party organisations, there
are
about 70 members. Among these 70 members of the Central Committee are
our best
industrial leaders, our best co-operative leaders, our best managers of
supplies, our best military men, our best propagandists and agitators,
our best
experts on state farms, on collective farms, on individual peasant
farms, our
best experts on the nations constituting the Soviet Union and on
national
policy. In this areopagus is concentrated the wisdom of our Party. Each
has an opportunity
of correcting anyone's individual opinion or proposal. Each has an
opportunity
of contributing his experience. If this were not the case, if decisions were taken by
individual persons, there would
be very serious mistakes in our work. But since each has an opportunity
of
correcting the mistakes of individual persons, and since we pay heed to
such
corrections, we arrive at decisions that are more or less correct.
"TALK WITH THE GERMAN AUTHOR EMIL LUDWIG
December 13, 1931Stalin J;
Works" Volume 13; Originally published
Moscow 1955; by Foreign
Languages
Publishing House; reprinted by Red Star Press; London in facsimile
form; circa
1976; p.106-125.; or at:
http://www.allianceml.com/STALIN-TXT/All-InterviewsJVS.htm
We know that Stalin therefore was in
favour of the voice for the masses
being heard.
Perhaps the best example
of this
was the full discussions that took place over the Stalin Constitution.
As
Siegelbaum puts it:
"The draft of the Stalin Constitution in
1936, the subject of the third
chapter, occasioned something akin to a national referendum on the
Stalin
version of socialism. Seizing the opportunity presented by the
Constitution's
incorporation of a language of rights, letter writers and participants
in
formal discussions projected their own ideas, hopes, and resentments
onto the
document. … "
Introduction Siegelbuam;
Ibid; p.
7.
That some of the correspondence was
highly critical to the state, is clear:
"On the basis of recent
archival research, it had become clear that practically every major
state
initiative of the 1930's was accompanied by some form of popular
resistance. In
the case of the full scale collectivization, which commenced in late
1929, resistance
was massive. It ran the gamut from insurgencies and other acts of
violence to
murders of collectivizers and their local collaborators, to vociferous
protests
by women the so-called bab'I bunty), frequently in connection with
raion soviet
decisions to close churches and/or confiscate church property, to the
razbazarivanie
(`squandering") of livestock and other property
through slaughter and
sale, the
destruction of collective farm buildings, the liberation of arrested
kulaks,
the reacquisition of confiscated property, and the disbandment of
collective
farms.";
Siegelbaum; Introduction
Ibid p.
12.
This criticism reinforces two points.
Firstly that Stalin, at
least on
the basis of his reply to Gorky was aware of the mass of such
correspondence
and did not wish to shut it down. His praise of this type of
correspondence
showed that he wished to use it against the dangers of a sterile
bureaucracy.
The discussions on the
proposed
new Soviet Constitution were very significant.
"The discussion and
adoption
of a new Soviet Constitution was one of the most important public
events of the
1930's. .. the Constitution was designed to consolidate the principles
of the
new socialist state and social system";
Siegelbaum Ibid; p. 158.
It differed from the first federal
constitution adopted under Lenin's
guidance, but after his death – some 13 years earlier. The
Constitution of 1936:
`reflected the new
`correlation
of class forces in the USSR' – that is the elimination of landlordism,
kulaks
and capitalist in the intervening periods – it proclaimed a system of
universal secret ballot suffrage, albeit under the aegis of the
Communist
party… the new basic law of the land also reflected changes in official
thinking about the role of law in a socialist society.. the main
spokesman for
the new approach was A Ya Vyshinsky, whose appointment as
Procurator-General of
the USSR in 1935 symbolized the ascendance of that philosophy. Taking
his cue
from Stalin's assertion that the ` withering of the state will not come
through
a weakening of state authority, but through its maximum
intensification".
Siegelbaum Ibid p. 159.
Despite Siegelbaum's insistence that this
debate was `controlled' from
above, and that the numbers are `inflated' - the statistics of
its depth are astounding.
It is
clear that even Siegelbaum is impressed.
"The figures on the
participants in the discussion of the draft are mind-boggling.
According to
official data 623,334 meetings were held around the country; they were
attended
by 42,372,990 people who produced 169,739 proposals comments, and
prospective
amendments. … the campaign's organizers themselves resisted the
temptation to claim
that every individual participated in debating the constitution… for
example it
was reported form Moldavia that
the "the discussion
involved
70.5 % of voters", from Vonronezh Oblast meeting of working people have
been attended by1,130,000 people or 71 % of voters.."
Siegelbaum Ibid p.162.
Now some documents cited by Siegelbaum
purport to show how warped the
process is. For example, a letter from I.Vasil'ev to
Krest'ianskaia Gazeta, on
how a
move showing was hijacked by some officials in the Kabardino-Balkarian
Oblast
[p.164-165].
But it must be obvious
that
writing to the newspapers so openly and so sarcastically hardly betrays
a fear
of a `military dictatorship'. And in stark contrast to that note, are
the
examples such as the Letter from kolkhoznik P.I.Vornov to the same
newspaper, endorsing
"Stalin's' Constitution with great joy", while submitting
concrete proposals for
revisions
[p.168-169].
The obvious retort by
bourgeoisie
and Trotskyites is that this was all a shibboleth; that the purges and
their
injustices showed that
this was hypocrisy.
At this stage, we will
only
reiterate our previous documented views, that the state was subverted
by Yezhov
who was acting in cahoots
with the hidden
capitalist class.
It was under a person that Stalin trusted – Lavrenti Beria – that a
wide-spread reversal of the arbitrary and improper abuses led to
freedom for
those imprisoned incorrectly.
Conclusion:
We believe that it is a
serious
mistake to view Stalin as the head of a military dictatorship. Those
arguing
that this was the case are unwittingly perhaps, but definitely –
assisting in
the character sabotage of Stalin. But more importantly, they place
themselves outside
of any pretence of an alliance of Marxist-Leninist
politicians with the
masses. This
is surely no accident, since at the heart of the comments lies an
inability to
rely on the masses and their strength in defending the dictatorship of
the
proletariat.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
The
Case for Impeachment
after the Leaked British Memos
The Constitution gives the people of the
United
States, through our representatives, the legal power to stop officials
who
commit criminal or other dangerous acts.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, one of six places in
the
Constitution mentioning impeachment, says that the President and others
can be
impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Calls for impeachment or threats of
impeachment
have been common throughout our history for various reasons. Definitions of impeachable conduct have
ranged from only serious felonies to President Ford’s definition of it
as being
anything the majority of the House of Representatives defines it as.
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark
has called
for the impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary
of
Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Gonzalez (see
www.votetoimpeach.org). The following
are some of the charges.
Waging a war of aggression against Iraq
in violation
of the Constitution, the UN Charter (which is part of the Law of the
Land under
Article VI, Paragraph 2 of our Constitution), and the rule of law in
general. Bombing Iraq to generate a
pretext for war. Violating the
sovereignty of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries.
Lying to Congress to justify this war. Bribing
and coercing individuals and
governments to make war. Knowingly
allowing attacks on civilians, assassinations, and torture. Preparing and threatening to use nuclear
weapons.
Ordering the illegal detention of
citizens, in
violation of the Constitution and of their human rights, and indefinite
detention of non-citizens and foreigners.
Refusing to disclose who is being held, and where, including in
response
to a Congressional request. Refusal to
release INS detainees found to be wrongfully held by the judiciary. Spying on confidential attorney-client
communications without court order or criminal charges being made. COINTELPRO-style domestic spying on citizens
and groups because of their legal activities.
Making racial and religious profiling common government practice.
Seizing the assets of organizations by
Executive
fiat. Not releasing information
necessary for Congressional oversight of the Executive branch. Withdrawing from treaties and agreements
without Congressional approval.
In 2003 the National Lawyers Guild
charged the
Administration with similar impeachable offenses. The
Green Party, Veterans for Peace, Ralph Nader and others have
called for impeaching Bush. According
to John C. Bonifaz, a constitutional lawyer, if the Downing Street Memo
is true
then Bush violated a federal anti-conspiracy law, 18 USC 371 (making it
a
felony to “defraud” the government), and The False Statements
Accountability
Act of 1996, 18 USC 1001 (making lying to Congress a felony) in his
March 18,
2003 letter to Congress. This letter
invoked Congress’ October 2002 Joint Resolution on Iraq (this was when
Congress
ceded its responsibility for declaration of war), saying that the
Resolution’s
criteria to justify an attack had been met (which was untrue). According to Take Back the Media!
(www.takebackthemedia.com) If Bush lied in his State of the Union
speech, which
was under oath and an official responsibility to the Congress, it would
break
the same two laws. Others point to the
Administration usurping Congress’ control of the Treasury when in late
July
2002 it moved money appropriated for Afghan operations to something
else
(www.rawstory.com/exclusives/muriel/path_of_war_timeline_613.htm). These charges refer to official acts or
constitutional duties, making them serious, as well as having caused
the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of people, the destruction of countries, and
the waste
of billions of dollars. There are many charges Bush and his partners
could be
impeached for, Congress just has to have the will.
Bush’s loss of popularity, splitting of
the
Republican Party over the Administration’s neo-conservative policies,
and the
outcome of the mid-term Congressional elections could give Congress the
will. www.impeachbush.tv
points out that a
clear case for impeachment will force Congress to either expose itself
as
ignoring the Constitution or it will have to vote to impeach. The last three Presidents to have a second
term were all tried for crimes or threatened with impeachment. Most or all of the Bush Administration can
be impeached and any neo-conservatives left would be too exposed and
illegitimate to do any major damage.
May 1st the Times of London
printed the first of several leaked memos of meetings between British
and
American officials (see the memos at www.afterdowningstreet.org). Although the corporate media has largely
ignored
them, these memos show that the Administration planned to attack Iraq
long
before it claimed to be trying to find a peaceful solution, that it
tried to
create a pretext for war and that it “fixed” intelligence to argue for
aggression. Many have taken this as
proof that the Administration knew it was lying in its rationale for
the Iraq
War. A May 22, 2002 memo says that the
Administration could not prove that Iraq was working with al-Qaida or
making
WMDs, making the Administration’s argument for war before Congress and
the UN a
deliberate lie. In Britain the leaked memos have created an uproar
against
Prime Minister Tony Blair.
June 16th Representative John
Conyers
(D-MI) held a hearing on the memos and presented a petition with over
540,000
signatures demanding answers from the Administration about the Memos. The questions of Conyers and 88 other
members of Congress earlier in May were blown off by the White House as
not
worth answering.
The next step is for Congress to
investigate these
allegations and, if they are true, to do its constitutional duty and
begin
impeachment proceedings against Bush and his Administration. To impeach, the House of Representatives
needs to make a Resolution of Inquiry telling the House Judiciary
Committee to
look at the charges and see if they are impeachable offenses. Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) is writing
a Resolution of Inquiry, but it is not for impeachment.
Afterdowningstreet.org suggests several
grassroots
actions to take. Representatives should
introduce or support a Resolution and thank Conyers for his efforts.
Senators
should call for a Resolution in the House, sign a letter being
circulated by
John Kerry, and thank Senator Ted Kennedy for his efforts.
The war of choice launched by Bush,
probably to
dominate Iraq out of greed and hegemonic geopolitical reasons, has
killed up to
100,000 Iraqis, more than 1700 US soldiers, as well as contractors and
soldiers
from other nations. It is time for the
American people to stand up and stop this.
In the Triangle area of North Carolina, Alliance
Marxist-Leninist (a
supporter of the After Downing Street Coalition) is calling upon local
groups
to lobby Representative David Price to support an investigation. Price signed Conyers’ letter to Bush on the
memos. Other groups should join in this effort, which can unite all of
those
campaigning for the rule of law and social justice.
A victory in impeachment would be a great success for every
progressive movement and even without victory it will weaken the
legitimacy of
Bush and those who refuse to support impeachment.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Revolution in Nepal: An Overview
Since February 13, 1996 the Communist
Party of Nepal
(Maoist) has been fighting a guerilla “People’s War” against the royal
government
ruling the landlocked Himalayan country, situated between China and
India. Nepal is the second poorest
country, with
71% of the population living below the poverty line, and 60% of its
gross
domestic product devoted to its foreign debt.
46.5% of the national income belongs to 10% of the population. 81% of the labor force is engaged in
“backward agricultural occupations” according to the CPN (M), and 60%
is
illiterate. Unemployment is at 10% and
60% are underemployed or in masked unemployment. The
country lacks infrastructure despite government efforts and
for three decades the growth rate in food grains production has been
decreasing. In ten years of democracy,
the country has had 10 prime ministers.
Nepal has known peaceful and armed
struggles for
change in the recent past. In 1951
direct monarchical authority was returned to Nepal through armed and
other
forms of struggle that began in November 1950.
After one year of royal democracy it was replaced by the
powerless,
semi-democratic panchayat system when King Mahendra arrested
the Cabinet
December 15, 1960. The king controlled
appointments, the military, what legislation was considered, veto power
over
the 90-member Panchayat national assembly and the Supreme Court, and he
could
change the constitution at will.
Political parties were outlawed and Nepal became an absolute
monarchy. Thirty years of protest later
forced some democratic reforms.
In 1990 49 days of mass demonstrations,
in which 500
people were killed, forced King Birendra to abolish the panchayat
government
and Nepal became a constitutional monarchy.
Nepal has had up to 48 “communist” parties (Neelesh Misra, End
of the
Line) along with many other kinds of political parties. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) was
formed from an underground group disagreeing with the 1990 constitution
in the
mid-90’s.
The Maoist Program
The umbrella group of the guerillas, the
United
Revolutionary People’s Council, presents the minimum revolutionary
demands in
its Common Minimum Policy & Programme (www.cpnm.org/worker/issue8/urpc.htm). The Maoists’ new-democratic or people’s
democratic revolution, a bourgeois revolution, is to destroy what
remains of
feudalism and imperialist relations in Nepal.
A new-democratic revolution targets the landlords and comprador
capitalists and also imperialism and thus represents an intermediate
step
before a revolution for socialism is launched.
The Maoists plan to overthrow and dispossess the comprador
capitalists,
those who are employed by foreign capital, while cooperating with
locally based
national capitalists, and to end subservience to foreign powers. They see this as uniting demands for democracy
and independence. These demands are
portrayed as being contradictory by the comprador capitalists, claiming
to be
for democracy, and the feudalists, claiming to represent independence,
according to the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement’s A World
To Win
magazine.
The program calls for a constitutional
convention,
to be elected by universal suffrage.
Locally the revolutionaries are establishing People’s Committees
composed of workers, peasants, guerillas, petty bourgeoisie, national
capitalists, oppressed nationalities, women, Nepalese émigrés,
leftists, Dalits
(lowest caste), and patriotic or nationalist groups, including
parliamentary
opponents. The government will have
spaces for different classes, nationalities, regions, women, and
important
popular figures. On a national basis there is a National Conference in
control
until a national House of People’s Representatives is elected. Representatives will be subject to recall
and there will be no professional army.
The program calls for freedoms of speech
and press,
gathering, movement, to organize political groups, to contest
elections, and of
religion and irreligion (which the Maoists see as “a personal matter”). Employment, health, and education are
considered rights; education and healthcare will be made universal and
free. Society will care for disabled
people, children, the poor, and the elderly.
There will be equal opportunity, equal pay for equal work, and a
40-hour
work week. A minimum wage will be
enforced and housing provided to squatters.
The new-democratic state will not discriminate on race,
ethnicity,
religion, language, or gender and there will be forms of affirmative
action for
Dalits and women. Oppressed
nationalities and regions will be given autonomy within the Nepalese
system
(autonomous areas were created in Maoist controlled areas in January
2004) and
involvement in decision-making.
Counterrevolutionaries will be disempowered for a period of time
(but
this will not be punitive against innocent family) and institutions
like
religion cannot be used for counterrevolution.
Citizens will have the duties to defend the country, serve in
the PLA,
pay taxes, follow the new constitution, preserve national property, be
lawful,
and keep labor discipline.
A cornerstone of this republic is to be a
revolution
in agricultural relations. Feudal
obligations will be ended and land confiscated without compensation
from
landowning feudal organizations and some capitalists.
This land will be distributed as private property to peasants on
the basis of how much land they already have.
This will be done with local participation.
Generally the revolution is envisioned as nationalizing large or
basic industries and financial organizations while other sectors will
be
jointly owned and peasants, small capitalists, law-abiding financial
firms, and
traders will be private. They hope to
establish “socialism-oriented capitalist relations.”
The Maoists plan to improve agriculture and create more markets
for produce. They will annul the debts
of poorer peasants. Where they cannot
do this yet they limit land ownership by wealthier peasants, as they
will do
after gaining power, reduce interest, land rent is set at 1/3, tenants’
rights
are enforced, and feudal lands are made “governmental.”
The Maoists hope to balance industrial,
agricultural, urban, and rural development, use land rationally, and to
develop
sustainably. They also seek
self-sufficiency to guard against imperialist sanctions.
The other pillar of Maoist development is
quick, but
balanced, industrialization, “the leading sector of the economy.” They will expropriate the “misused” capital
of the comprador class while encouraging the few national bourgeoisie
and petty
bourgeoisie and freeing Nepal’s market for Nepalese.
Workers will participate in business management.
Consumer cooperatives will be encouraged and
prices and interest will be kept stable and more equitable. Industry will be designed to use Nepal’s
large labor force and local technologies.
Nepal’s abundant hydroelectric possibilities will power
industrialization but in smaller-scale and more multi-purpose ways than
in
current development schemes. Foreign
trade and trade in “basic goods” will be state controlled.
The Maoists welcome tourism but they want it
to benefit the people.
The Maoists want education to produce
progressive
and skilled citizens for Nepal’s development.
A new-democratic culture will foster patriotism, respect for the
masses
and workers, belief in science, and a sense of responsibility for
national
property. They want to ease the
division between intellectual and manual work.
Education will be compulsory and literacy programs will be
developed. They encourage herbal medicine
and denounce
unspecified foreign medicines but say traditional healing systems ought
to be
discarded. Abortion will be a
right. Nepal’s cultural heritage will
be preserved. The Maoists call for the
prohibition of “vulgar and obscene literature and films.”
The program promises freedom of the press
and editorializing but with the qualification that it be “objective.”
The program says marriage should only be
for mutual
love and calls for the prohibition of polygamy. Divorce
will be allowed and it says that divorced fathers of
children should be responsible for 2/3rds of their care.
They do not accept current foreign debts
and will
nullify oppressive treaties. They say
Nepal’s resources belong to the Nepalese people and will take back
water
resources given to India. They perceive
many international NGOs as fronts for imperialist meddling and have
disrupted
their activity, but are not against NGOs in general.
Maoist foreign policy is to be based on “peaceful
coexistence.” This means respect for
sovereignty and territory, non-interference in domestic matters,
equality, and
mutually beneficial relationships.
Simultaneously they support national liberation and
revolutionary
movements. They advocate a South Asian
Soviet Federation.
The Course of the Revolution
The first step of the Maoist insurgency
was 5,500 actions
targeting feudal, comprador, and state interests. The
CPN (M)’s chairman is the supreme commander of the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA), formed in the fall of 2001, whose purpose is to
make
revolution and afterward to serve as a political organizer and economic
developer. Paramilitaries of the
powerful Nepali Congress Party attacked rural areas and blamed the
Maoists, as
well as being scouts for the police, so they were attacked. The guerillas were and are outnumbered but
they attacked police stations, driving the police into a few fortified
posts. The Maoists have successfully
raided several of these militarily fortified posts, the first in April
2000. This weakened police morale and
they welcome defectors to their ranks.
The Maoists are popular in rural areas. In November 2002 10 out of 24 million
Nepalese lived in Maoist-controlled areas.
The insurgency is most powerful in the west and soon had the
78,000-member Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) on the defensive there and the
URPC is
the government in the western districts Rukum, Rolpa, Jajarkot, and
Salyan. The Maoists are also active in
the Terai, the plains of Nepal where the government is more powerful,
and in
the cities. They are able to call successful bandhs, or general
strikes. There were
negotiations
during a cease-fire between December 1999 and October 2000. During the cease-fire elections were held in
Maoist areas and there were mass rallies, including in the capital,
Kathmandu. Soon after the cease-fire ended
the CPN (M)
captured a military base in the district capital of Dang, which was
western
Nepal’s major base.
June 1, 2001 Crown Prince Dipendra shot
King
Birendra, Birendra’s family, and himself, supposedly because they
objected to
whom he wanted to marry. The Maoists
believe the shootings were a coup by King Gyanendra Shah, Birendra’s
brother,
who they say represents comprador interests.
The Maoists partially supported King Birendra, considering him a
nationalist, and because he refused to deploy the RNA, instead using
militarized
police. A cease-fire was again
declared, from July to November.
November 6, 2001 to August 28, 2002 there was a state of
emergency, but
the country remains militarized. The
government imposed a state of emergency, arrested people, shut down
newspapers,
and banned gatherings of more then two people in the capital. Later the Maoists were declared
terrorists. The Maoists say that
government forces attacked and beheaded civilians and blamed the
Maoists to
draw them out.
The gains of 1990 ended October 4, 2002
when
Gyanendra dropped the constitution and indefinitely postponed
elections. The
Maoists destroyed several district headquarters, assassinated the
national
police chief in Kathmandu, and held a successful university student
strike and bandhs. Model revolutionary
governments and economic
development projects were established.
From January 29 to August 27th 2003 there was another
truce
for negotiations. The Maoists want a
roundtable conference, to serve as an interim parliament, an interim
government, and elections for a constituent assembly, as well as
proposing
social changes. The CPN (M) stopped
taxation and cancelled a plan bandh to show goodwill, but accuses the
RNA of
continuing to attack Maoists and acting aggressively.
A joint agreement on conduct during the cease-fire was routinely
violated by the government forces, according to the Maoists. At one point government negotiators said
that the RNA would not move more than 5 km from its bases, leaving it
with only
18% of Nepal’s territory. The
government later tried to retract this but the public forced acceptance
of the
proposal, A World To Win. The
RNA killed 19 activists on the day of the third set of negotiations and
ten
days later the Maoists ended the violated ceasefire.
Fighting increased in intensity after the truce and now about 10
people are killed everyday. More
decentralized operations in the Terai and cities were launched by the
PLA. September 17-20 a bandh was observed
countrywide, including in the capital, which cost the country $10
million
dollars a day. October 2-10 the Maoists
unilaterally observed a ceasefire for the important festival of Dashain.
August 20, 2003, during a cease-fire, a
senior
member of the CPN (M)’s Politbureau, Chandra Parhash Gajurel (also
known as
Gaurav) was arrested at Chennai airport in southern India for
possessing
illegal travel papers. He was
clandestinely traveling to Europe to dialogue with the EU.
Normally this is a minor matter but he is
still being held and is remanded to custody every 15 days by the court. He may be extradited to Nepal, violating
the1962 Extradition Act and endangering his life, according to the
CPN(M). Matrika Prasad Yadav, a member of
the CPN
(M) Central Committee’s Politbureau and leader of the Madhes Autonomous
Government, and Suresh Ale Magar, a Central Committee alternate member,
were
later arrested by India and deported without trial.
In the 70’s India did not extradite Nepali Congress members
accused of hijacking and bank robbery.
The Maoists encourage progressives to protest this case by
writing to
the Indian government.
During the 2003 peace negotiations, the
USA listed
the Maoists as possible terrorists, gave military aid to Nepal, and
concluded a
5-year anti-terrorist agreement. Christina
Rocca, the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia said, “The US
and India
can help Nepal defeat the ‘ruthless’ Maoist rebels.”
US and UK diplomats exhorted parties to rally around the
monarchy. The Maoists believe external
pressure encouraged the government to go on the offensive.
In May protests forced Gyanendra to restore
the government dissolved in October 2002.
February 1st King Gyanendra
dissolved the
elected government, cut off communications, and imposed heavy
censorship. Gyanendra claimed to be acting
for democracy
and peace and said the control was to be for 100 days.
According to Amnesty International, 3000
civilians had been arrested by April, and that some were tortured. The USA, UK, EU, India, China, and others
condemned the action and stopped military and other aid and the US
threatened
sanctions, but it was slow to cut off aid.
The Maoists called three general strikes to encourage other
parties to
protest. Military aid by India has now
resumed. According to Asia Times,
about 11,000 people have been killed so far.
The Maoists and others charge the RNA
with killing
POWs and civilians, whom it claims are Maoists, arbitrary arrests,
torture, and
mass rape. A recent report by Amnesty
International
documented 250 “disappearances” and the Maoists claim 500 disappeared
in
custody. The Maoists usual release
POWs.
The government charges the Maoists with
killing
about 900 civilians judged “enemies of the revolution,” hostage taking
for ransom,
the killing of POWs, recruitment of children, possibly making up 30% of
insurgent forces, and forced recruitment.
The Maoists deny recruiting youths below 18.
Imperialist Aid to the Government
The USA, India, other countries are very
involved in
this civil war. Under a treaty of 1965
India supplies Nepal with arms or recommends others.
It has supplied helicopters and other arms.
Nepal borders some of the areas of long
running Indian Maoist (Naxalite) guerrilla fighting.
The chief of the Indian army visited Nepal and was given
briefing
papers on the fighting. India’s much
criticized Prevention of Terrorism Act has been used to arrest émigrés
and
wounded Maoists for extradition without due process.
The USA gave Nepal $40 million dollars in
aid and
the UK gave $22 million. Between 2001,
when aid increased dramatically, and 2004, the US has given the
government $29
million dollars to buy American weapons.
In fiscal year 2004 Bush wanted $10.6 million dollars for aid
and $45
million in aid, 10% for security, had been given in that fiscal year to
September 2004. This fiscal year $44
million dollars, 1/3rd for security, has been called for. Many Nepalese Gurkhas serve in the British
military.
US military personnel surveyed Nepal and
were caught
serving with the RNA during offensives.
The FBI has an office in Kathmandu and a military base has been
proposed. The Maoists were declared
terrorists after the September 2004 bombing of the American Center in
Kathmandu
and were compared to the Taliban and Al-Qaida.
October 31, 2003 the US responded to threats by the Maoists
against US
activities in Nepal by freezing any assets in the US and advising
wariness. The Maoists say they have
never attacked tourists and welcome foreigners. Up
to 50 special forces are in Nepal training the RNA in
counter-insurgency, along with British and Indian military advisors. According to Commondreams.org, the US is
giving Nepal a total of 10,000 M-16 rifles and Belgium is illegally
supplying
5,500 machine guns.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
REACTIONARY
TERROR CONTINUES IN
LEBANON
By Garbis Altinoglu
Bombings and assassinations continue in
Lebanon. The
latest victim of this wave of terror was the 67-year old George Hawi,
former
leader of the Lebanese Communist Party, who was killed on June 21st,
when a
bomb devastated his car. The White House immediately accused Damascus
and
angrily linked Syria's 'long and continued presence' in Lebanon to
George
Hawi's assassination and demanded a formal investigation into his
death.
"These are not random killings, these are targeted assassination of
political figures," charged White House spokesman Scott McClellan. On
June
22nd, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Syria and prompted
it to
end destabilization activities in Lebanon, obviously referring to
George Hawi's
assassination.
The assassination of Hawi is and very
probably will
be only one of several links in the chain of terrorist actions aimed at
destabilizing Lebanon, pushing this unfortunate country into a spiral
of
renewed civil war and isolating the Syrian regime and forcing it into
capitulation. The recent despicable acts of terror began with the
killing of
billionaire capitalist and former prime minister Rafiq Hariri on
February 14th,
2005. On March 19th, a bomb explosion in the Christian suburb of Beirut
wounded
11 people. On March 23rd, another bomb killed three people in the
Christian
town Kaslik north of Beirut. On April 1st, a bomb explosion wounded
seven
people in Broumana, a mountain resort overlooking Beirut and the
Mediterranean
coastline.
After a lull in May, bombings have begun
once again.
On June 2nd, Samir Qaseer, a prominent journalist of An-Nahar newspaper
was
killed after a bomb destroyed his car in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood of
Beirut.
And this was followed by the assassination of George Hawi.
In almost all these cases, Lebanese
reactionaries,
US imperialists, some Western powers, especially Britain and France,
plus the
Western corporate media immediately blamed Syria. The Damascus regime
was
accused of attempting to maintain its hold over Lebanon even after it
had
withdrawn its forces there; it was accused of attempting to intimidate
its
opponents in Lebanon and aiming to destabilize its smaller neighbor.
Everybody
in the corporate media has automatically assumed Syrian culpability as
proven
and a foregone conclusion. As expected, none of these mouthpieces of
imperialist robbers have mentioned the names of the US and Israel among
possible suspects. This has been so, despite the fact that, Washington
and Tel
Aviv terrorists have openly been advocating and practicing a policy of
preventive strike and targeted assassination of their opponents,
especially
after the events of 11 September 2001. Besides, a survey of the
historical
record and day to day conduct of US imperialists and their Zionist
stooges
provide us with innumerable instances of such acts of provocation and
terror. Indeed, it will not be an exaggeration to argue that,
they have
long adopted state terrorism, including bombings and targeted
assassinations as
a regular way of "neutralizing" and defeating their opponents or
intimidating and pressuring them into submission and capitulation.
Furthermore,
they have enriched the ancient art of provocation utilized throughout
history
by the ruling classes and their intelligence agencies. These masters of
deceit
regularly undertake terrorist actions, which frequently are blamed on
their
enemies and opponents, by means of disinformation campaigns. Here, it
would not
come amiss to remind the reader that most of the armed attacks in the
present-day Iraq targeting ordinary people, mosques, aid workers,
reporters,
gruesome killings of hostages and actions targeting country's already
crumbling
infrastructure, are conducted either by certain sections
of the occupying US military and/ or the private
"security" firms and puppet Iraqi elite forces under their control.
By committing bloody and loathsome terrorist acts imperialist powers
and their
intelligence agencies aim to discredit and vilify revolutionary forces
and
resistance movements and to undercut their mass support. They also
utilize such
methods to build up some sort of reactionary mass support and to
accuse, weaken
and isolate their bourgeois opponents, such as Syria, which seems to be
the case
in the present-day situation in Lebanon.
However, the sharpening of all basic
contradictions
of capitalist-imperialist system and the growth of fascist and
militarist
sentiment among the most aggressive sections of finance capital, has
been
laying bare the terrorist nature of its advance guard, comprised of the
US,
Britain and Israel. In fact, in January 2003, Israel openly announced
its
intention to conduct a campaign of so-called targeted killings in the
US and
other friendly countries, in the context of a "more aggressive role in
the
war on terrorism". Eight months before the September 11 attack, in
fact,
US Representative Robert L Barr Jr had introduced a "Terrorist
Elimination
Act", which designated even the so-called al-Qaeda fundraisers as
legitimate
targets for assassination. After the events of 11 September 2001 and
the
subsequent declaration of the war on terrorism, American neo-fascists
laid
claim to unprecedented global jurisdiction. They vowed to pursue Osama
bin
Laden's followers with force wherever they may be or hide.
One should not, however, be led to
believe that, the
US and Israel have begun to tread a path of terrorism, that is a path
of
provocation, assasination and massacres especially after the events of
11
September 2001. This feature has been inherent in the nature of the
internal
and external policies of all property-owning and exploiting classes
throughout
history. Reactionary bourgeosie and its apparata of repression have
further
refined and developed this practice in the age of imperialism. One
should only
remember the massacres conducted by the death squads in El Salvador and
Guatemala, planned and financed by the US military, the numerous
attempts of US
intelligence agencies on the lives of foreign leaders, such as Congo's
Patrice
Lumumba, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier, Indonesia's
Sukarno, South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem, the Dominican Republic's
Rafael
Trujillo and Chilean Chief of Staff Rene Schneider. CIA-led Operation
Phoenix
in Vietnam, in which nearly 20,000 local leaders, such as mayors,
doctors,
teachers suspected of revolutionary sympathies were killed. In 1986, US
President Ronald Reagan himself ordered the bombing of the Libyan
leader's
compound, remarking that he would shed no tear if Muammar Gaddafi were
killed.
Another terrorist President of the US, George Bush Sr made a similar
remark in
hitting Saddam Hussein's palace in Baghdad in 1991. At the time he
stated that,
"No one will weep for him when he is gone." His successor, President
Bill Clinton prepared a secret memorandum expanding the use of deadly
covert
actions and authorizing in 1998 lethal force against al-Qaeda.
As to Israel, its brief political life
span has been
characterized by a rich inventory of state terrorism, including,
torture,
provocation, assassination and massacres. Let's take a look at a few
instances
of the record of the Zionist state.
After the creation of Israel in 1948,
Zionists
worked relentlessly to create fear among Jews in the Arab countries to
insure the
migration of the Jews of Middle Eastern countries into Israel. This
tactic of
terror was successfully employed in Yemen, Morocco, Iraq, Algeria,
Libya,
Tunisia. According to the detailed accounts of Naim Giladi, for
instance, to
provoke the departure of Jews from Iraq, Zionist agents carried out
bombings
against synagogues and other Jewish institutions in Baghdad at the
beginning of
the 1950s. Zionists were also successful in inducing through bribes the
puppet
Iraqi government to pass anti-Semitic laws which further encouraged
Jewish
immigration into Israel.
In July 1954 Israeli government agents
conducted
several acts of sabotage against British & US property in Egypt.
Israel
aimed at incriminating "Egyptian terrorists", thus driving a wedge
between Britain & Egypt, and postponing British evacuation of the
Suez
Canal. The plan failed. Several Israeli agents were caught by Egyptian
authorities and made confessions during their trials. This fiasco led
to the
resignation of the Israeli "Defence" Minister Pinhas Lavon resigns in
February 1955.
On 27 of April 1997 Yediot Aharonot
published a 1976
interview with Moshe Dayan. Dayan, who was the defense minister in
1967,
explains there what led, then, to the decision to attack Syria. At the
time of
the Six Day War of June 1967, Syria was portrayed as a serious threat
to the
security of Israel, and a constant initiator of aggression towards the
population of northern Israel. But according to Dayan, neither before
1967, not
after that date did Syria constitute a threat to Israel. "Just drop
it", he says, "I know how at least 80% of all the incidents with
Syria started. We were sending a tractor to the demilitarized zone and
we knew
that the Syrians will shoot. If they did not shoot, we would instruct
the
tractor to go deeper, till the Syrians finally got upset and start
shooting.
Then we employed artillery, and later also the air-force... I did
that... and
Itzhak Rabin did that, when he was there (as commander of the Northern
front,
in the early sixties)."
The instances of systematic bombing of
Palestinian
and Lebanese civilian population by the Israeli army, use of car bombs
to
eliminate Israel's opponents, launching of missiles from armed
helicopter and
warplanes at the leaders and members of resistance movements,
demolition of
homes of the people by armed bulldozers and destruction of Palestinian
and
Lebanese economy and infrastructure etc. are too numerous and too well
known to
be mentioned separately here. Therefore, it is obvious that -together
with its
American boss and partner- the terrorist Israeli state is a much more
likely
candidate for the recent terror attacks in Lebanon.
Especially under the present
circumstances, Syria,
Iran or the Lebanese Hezbollah did not have anything to gain form the
assassination of Rafiq Hariri on February 14th and they do not have
anything to
gain from the bombings and assassinations that have followed it. One,
however,
cannot say the same for the US and Israel, who more or less openly
pronounce
their intentions of redrawing the map of the Middle East in accordance
with
their interests, their aim of securing the control of oil and natural
gas
sources and their "right" to assassinate, destroy and terrorize all
who stand in their way.
The Significance of the
Assassination of
Rafiq Hariri in the Light of the Strategic and Tactical Objectives of
Israel
By
Garbis Altinoglu
Introduction
A very professionally executed act of
assassination
resulted in the death of Rafiq Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon
on
February 14th by a very powerful bomb. A hitherto unheard of
organization
called "Victory and Holy War in Syria and Lebanon" claimed
responsibility for the assasination. Right after the event, the US,
Israel and
the imperialist media put the blame on Syria. In tandem with this
propaganda
campaign, the reactionary Lebanese opposition led by Maronite
Christians and
their opportunistic allies (mainly "Progressive Socialist Party" of
Druzes and some Sunni politicians) took to the streets to demand the
withdrawal
of Syrian troops and an end to the Syrian domination over Lebanon. US
Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice upbraided Syria, while Margaret Scobey, the
American
ambassadress in Damascus was withdrawn. Already, the Bush clique and
its
mouthpieces had for months repeatedly marshalled their lies and
slanders with
regard to the support Syria was allegedly providing to the enemies of
the US and Israel; Damascus was being
accused of helping the Iraqi resistance, harboring Iraqi Baathist
chiefs and
weapons of mass destruction, supporting the Palestinian resistance and
Hezbollah terrorists", which had to be disarmed, if progress was to be
made towards a "peace" between Palestine and Israel.
The Current Significance of Hariri Assassination
The causes and motives behind this
assassination
cannot be understood by observing solely Lebanon, where the wounds of
the long
drawn-out civil war have not been healed entirely. Neither can these
causes and
motives be understood by solely observing the present-day Middle
Eastern scene.
These latest developments in Lebanon can only be understood in the
light of the
decades-long imperialist-Zionist strategy of liquidation of Palestinian
revolution, almost two decades-long imperialist-Zionist strategy of
dismemberment of Iraq and present imperialist-Zionist aggression
targeting the
Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese resistance movements and the regimes in
Syria
and Iran.
Moreover, the track record of the Zionist
bourgeoisie has clearly shown and continues to show that it can go to
any
lengths to achieve its evil ends. These include torture, systematic
killing of
civilians, including children, poisoning of wells, assassination of
both
opponents and "friends", systematic use of provocations, widespread
deception and disinformation, violation of all international treaties
and
trampling of all known norms of civilized conduct, massive bombings of
residential areas etc.
In view of these incontrovertible facts,
we can
start to discuss the matter and ask that classical and salient
question: Who
has gained from the assassination of the multibillionaire capitalist
and the
former prime minister and whose agenda has been served and promoted
through
this barbaric act? Who stands to profit from the ignition of the flames
of
civil war of 1975-1990 in this country, where tens of thousands had
been killed
and the economy and infrastructure was thoroughly destroyed? Was not
this civil
war provoked by Israel, who held its southern half under a brutal
occupation
for 22 years? Was not this country the target of several military
operations
and invasions of Israel, whose policy included systematic killing of
political
and military leaders of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, by car
bombs,
armed helicopters and missile strikes?
It is patently clear that neither
Hezbollah and
Palestinian resistance, nor Syria and Iran, who have been declared as
enemies,
terrorists, rogue states etc and targeted by the axis of evil comprised
of the
US, Israel and Britain and therefore are under threat of aggression, do
not
stand to gain anything from the assassination of Rafiq Hariri; it is
beyond a
shadow of doubt that this act of assassination benefits only:
a) Israel, who has been acting in keeping
with the
fascist principle of "preventive war" and been preparing its plans of
aggression against Syria and Iran in front of the whole world,
b) the US imperialism, the
boss and partner of
Israel and
c) the reactionary Maronite
bourgeoisie of Lebanon, the lackey of the US and
Israel.
The Syrian bourgeoisie, who already has
been pushed
into a corner and accused of various attempts to undermine the
Israeli-Palestinian "peace" process and the US effort to crush Iraqi
resistance, cannot be expected to be behind this act of assassination
and play
into the hands of its enemies, who are looking for excuses to further
isolate
Damascus and move against it; nor can it be expected to alienate its
vacillating neghbors in Lebanon and the Arab world in general and help
to push
cowardly and hypocritical Western European and Russian imperialists
into the
arms of Washington and Telaviv. So, these allegations do not amount to
anything
beyond third rate disinformation work.
Flynt Leverett, who served on the
National Security Council
under George W. Bush as the Senior Director for Mideast Affairs, from
February
2002 to March 2003 conceded this state of affairs to a certain extent
in his
article "Don't Rush on the Road to Damascus", published in New York
Times on March 2nd, 2005. In this article, he urged the Bush
administration to
move cautiously in any attempt to force Syria out of Lebanon, citing
pitfalls
that could well result in the strategy backfiring; he drew attention to
the
fact that any effort to engineer pro-Western Lebanese government would
be
resisted by Hezbollah, largest party in Lebanon's Parliament, which
because of
its record in fighting Israel is at least as legitimate in Lebanese
eyes as the
anti-Syrian opposition and contended that efforts to establish
pro-Western
government would fail, creating more instability in region when the US
can ill
afford it. There is, however, very little data indicating that the more
realistic views of this representative of the more cautious sections of
American imperialism are heeded.
By putting the blame on the shoulders of
Syrian
bourgeoisie for the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, imperialist and
Zionist
reactionaries are in reality targeting armed Palestinian, Iraqi and
Lebanese
resistance and to a certain extent the nuclear ambitions of Iran. That
is the
real reason behind the endless reactionary bourgeois demagogy over
terrorism,
rogue states, democracy, women's rights, proliferation of nuclear
weapons,
dictatorship etc.
A Look at The Recent Past
The invasion of Iraq and its
neutralization as a
potential threat to Israel, had been planned years, if not decades
before. The
embargo enforced upon Iraq in the wake of the Second Gulf War of 1991,
which
led to the death of more than 1 million people in this country
according to the
UN, destruction of Iraq's economy, infrastructure and public services
and
banning of the entry of Iraqi armed forces into Iraqi territory north
of the
36th parallel (that is Southern Kurdistan) and south of 33rd parallel
(that is
part of the region inhabited by Iraqi Shiites) constituted a sort of
prologue
to the invasion of Iraq and the operation to redesign the map of the
Middle
East. Therefore, the Clinton years when there occurred a slow-motion
genocide
of Iraqi people was in essence no different than the reign of
neo-fascist Bush
clique following the elections of 2000.
Still, these neo-fascist forces, who
represented the
most reactionary sections of American finance capital were raising
their voices
even during the Clinton era; they were for pressing for a more
aggressive
policy vis-a-vis other imperialist powers for the "protection" of the
positions of the US, for strengthening and extension of the control of
the US
on oil and natural gas resources of the Middle East and Central Asia,
for taking
more radical steps to improve the strategic position of Israel and for
crushing
the resistance of workers and of peoples through more naked, extensive
and
systematic military aggression. For instance, David Wurmser, Vice
President
Dick Cheney's Middle East Advisor, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of
Defence for
Policy, Richard Perle, former Chairman of the Defence Policy Board and
a member
of the Advisory Board of JINSA (=Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs) had published a report to be presented to the Israeli Prime
Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu back in July 1996. The report, entitled "A Clean
Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", urged the Zionist bourgeoisie
to
abandon the traditional of "land for peace" formulation and to adopt
a more aggressive policy. Smearing the Hezbollah-led resistance of
Lebanese
people against the UN-condemned Israeli occupation as "aggresion" and
advocating the weakening of Syria and the overthrow of the Saddam
Hussein
regime, the report told us that:
initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:
*striking Syria's drug-money and
counterfeiting
infrastructure in Lebanon, all of which focuses on Razi Qanan.
*paralleling Syria's behavior by establishing the precedent that Syrian
territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli
proxy
forces.
*striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove
insufficient, *striking at select targets in Syria proper.
Israel also can take this opportunity to
remind the
world of the nature of the Syrian regime. Syria repeatedly breaks its
word. It
violated numerous agreements with the Turks, and has betrayed the
United States
by continuing to occupy Lebanon in violation of the Taef agreement in
1989.
Instead, Syria staged a sham election, installed a quisling regime, and
forced
Lebanon to sign a "Brotherhood Agreement" in 1991, that terminated
Lebanese sovereignty. And Syria has begun colonizing Lebanon with
hundreds of
thousands of Syrians, while killing tens of thousands of its own
citizens at a
time, as it did in only three days in 1983 in Hama.
Israel can shape its strategic
environment, in
cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even
rolling
back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power
in Iraq
- an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a
means of
foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
In 1997, that is more than three years
before the
Bush clique took the reins of power, American, Israeli and Lebanese
neo-fascist
forces had organized the USFCL (=United States Committee for a Free
Lebanon)
chaired by Ziad K. Abdulnoor, a Lebanese Christian banker. The USFCL,
which had
the support of Christian fundamentalist and pro-Zionist
organizatations, such
as JINSA, Project for a New American Century, American Enterprise
Institute,
Center for Security Policy, US Institute for Peace, stated its purpose
to be
"to rid the Middle East of dictatorships, radical ideologies, border
disputes, political violence and weapons of mass destruction." In fact,
the forces who formed and supported the USFCL were none others than
those who
in October 1992 had formed and supported the Iraqi National Congress,
led by
Ahmad Chalabi. In 1998, during the Clinton administration, US
imperialists, who
had been responsible for the death of more than a million Iraqi
children, women
and elderly due to the UN embargo had proclaimed "The Iraq Liberation
Act" and
thus prepared the political infrastructure for the invasion of this
country in
March 2003.
In 2000, David Wurmser helped draft a
somewhat
similar document entitled "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: the US
Role?" This document called for a confrontation with the regime in
Damascus, which it accused of developing "weapons of mass
destruction." Among those signing the document were Feith and Perle, as
well as Elliott Abrams, Bush's chief advisor on the Middle East, who
was
recently appointed deputy national security advisor.
This document urged the use of US military force, claiming that the
1991
Persian Gulf War had proven that Washington "can act to defend its
interests and principles without the specter of huge casualties." It
continued: "But this opportunity may not wait, for as
weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities spread, the risks of such
action will
rapidly grow. If there is to be decisive action, it will have to be
sooner
rather than later." In April 2003
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz warned: "There's got to be a
change in Syria." And in December
2003, Bush administration passed "The Syria Accountability and Lebanese
Sovereignty Restoration Act" into law with the support of the US
Congress
and thus prepared the political infrastructure of the coming invasion
of Syria
and/ or the overthrow of the Syrian regime.
In brief, at least part of the ruling
classes of the
US, Israel and Britain had decided upon the destabilization and if
possible
invasion and dismemberment of Syria and Iran along with Iraq, long
before the
events of 11 September and before the advent of George W. Bush's
presidency.
This observation, however, will not take us to the origin of the story.
A
cursory examination of the process of formation and history of Israel,
shall be
enough to disclose the fact that the policy and strategy of this
illegitimate
child of British and US imperialists has all along been characterized
by naked
aggression as well as plots and intrigues against the countries and
peoples of
the region. As Edward W. Miller had said in his May 1996 article,
titled
"Lebanon, Israel's Killing Fields", "The basic Zionist plot is
unchanged, only new players have appeared on Israel's stage."
Expansionist Strategy of the Zionist Bourgeoisie
Zionist chiefs had formulated their
ambitions toward
Lebanon, decades before the formal foundation of Israel. In 1918 during
their
discussions with the British authorities, they had demanded the
extension of
the northern borders of Palestine, then under British mandate, to the
Litani
river in Southern Lebanon. At the time of the armed clashes between
Palestinian/ Arab and Jewish forces in 1947-48, Zionist military units
had
approached the Litani river, but had to retreat under intense
international
pressure. In 1954, during the discussions with the representatives of
Eisenhower administration, Ýsraeli leaders had gone so far as to
threaten the
use of force against Lebanon in case it utilized the waters of the
Litani river
for the economic development of Southern Lebanon.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe
Sharett's
diaries, which were published posthumously by his son in the face of
the
threats of Zionists, expose the targets and intrigues of Israel. In her
book,
Israel's Sacred Terrorism, Livia Rokach presents extensive excerpts
from the
Sharett's diaries. "Sharett's Diary, however," says Rokach,
"provides the entire documentation of how in 1954 Ben Gurion developed
the
diabolic plans to 'Christianize' Lebanon, i.e., to invent and create
from
scratch the inter-Lebanese conflict, and of how a detailed blueprint
for the
partition and subordination of that country to Israel was elaborated by
Israel
more than fifteen years before the Palestinian presence became a
political
factor in Lebanon."
In another section of the book, we come
across
another facet of Zionist aggression:
"On May 16, during a joint meeting of
senior
officials of the defense and foreign affairs ministries," writes
Sharett,
"Ben Gurion again raised the demand that Israel do something about
Lebanon. The moment was particularly propitious, he maintained, due to
renewed
tensions between Syria and Iraq, and internal trouble in Syria. Dayan
immediately
expressed his enthusiastic support:
"According to him [Chief of Staff Moshe
Dayan]
the only thing that's necessary is to find an officer, even just a
Major. We
should either win his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to
declare
himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army
will enter
Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory, and will create a
Christian
regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the
Litani
southward will be totally annexed to Israel and everything will be all
right.
If we were to accept the advice of the Chief of Staff we would do it
tomorrow,
without awaiting a signal from Baghdad... (16 May 1954).
"The Chief of Staff supports a plan to hire a
[Lebanese] officer who will agree to serve as a puppet so that the
Israeli army
may appear as responding to his appeal 'to liberate Lebanon from its
Muslim
oppressors.' This will of course be a crazy adventure.... We must try
to
prevent dangerous complications. The commission- must be charged with
research
tasks and prudent actions directed at encouraging Maronite circles who
reject
Muslim pressures and agree to lean on us." (28 May 1954)
Zionist bourgeoisie has consistently
followed a line
of gradual colonization of Palestine and seizing Palestinian land by
naked
force; moreover, it has always conducted a strategy of "divide and
rule" vis-a-vis its other neighbors, including Lebanon and that of
supporting separationist movements of non-Arab minorities in Arab
countries, a
strategy of expansionism, terrorism and war. Oded Yinon, a former
senior
analyst with the ministry of foreign affairs of Israel stated the
position of
the Zionist bourgeoisie quite frankly in an article published in
February 1982
in a journal called Kivunim (=Directions). Here he tells us:
"In reality, however, Egypt's power in
proportion both to Israel alone and to the rest of the Arab World has
gone down
about 50 percent since 1967. Egypt is no longer the leading political
power in
the Arab World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without
foreign
assistance the crisis will come tomorrow... Egypt, in its present
domestic
political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into
account
the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially
into
distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the
Nineteen
Eighties on its Western front.
"Egypt is divided and torn apart into
many foci
of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even
the
more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form
and will
join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian
Coptic
State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very
localized
power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a
historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement
but which
seems inevitable in the long run.
"The Western front, which on the surface
appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated than the Eastern
front,
in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking
place
recently. Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a
precedent
for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian
peninsula is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and
Iraq
later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in
Lebanon, is
Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the
dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary
short
term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and
religious
structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that
there
will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the
Aleppo
area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor,
and the
Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly
in the
Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the
guarantee for
peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already
within
our reach today.
In his article, "Israel: The Ultimate
Winner", Palestinian political scientist Saleh Abdel-Jewwad examined
the
strategy of the Zionist bourgeoisie vis-a-vis its Arab neighbors. His
article
published in the 634th issue of Al Ahram in 17-23 April 2003, confirmed
the
conclusions of Oded Yinon's analysis:
"For this reason, successive Israeli
governments have adopted policies based on the principle of supporting
non-Arab
ethnic minorities such as the Kurds in Iraq or the Maronites in
Lebanon.
Literature on the Zionist movement -- particularly those published at
the end
of the 1930s and the beginning of the Arabisation of the Palestinian
question
-- indicate that the Zionist leaders in general, and yeshiva leaders in
particular, placed their hopes and concerns on on establishing
relationships
with every minority within the Arab world and neighbouring non-Arab
countries.
"Since the end of the 1930s, Ben Gurion
articulated some principles which would become indisputable Zionist
tenets:
'1. The Arabs are the primary enemy of
the Zionist
movement. To confront this chief enemy, it is necessary for Zionism to
search
for allies in the East to stand with its allies in the West. These are
needed
to act as a counter force and support the power of the Zionist project
when
faced with this (primary) confrontation. At the end of the day it is a
'bloody
struggle between us and them'. Therefore, any group or sect which
opposes Arab
nationalism - 'the primary enemy of the Jewish people'-- or is prepared
to
fight against it, is an ally which helps Zionism implement its
settlement and
state-driven policies...
"It is against this backdrop that Israel has
supported secessionist movements in Sudan, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon and
any
secessionist movements in the Arab world which Israel considers an
enemy. Yet
the concern for Iraq and its attempts to weaken or prevent it from
developing
its strengths has always been a central Zionist objective. At times,
Israel
succeeded in gaining a foothold in Iraq by forging secret yet strong
relationships with leaders from the Kurdish movement. In sharp contrast
it
failed to gain allies amongst the Coptic community in Egypt primarily
because
of the historical continuity of the Egyptian state."
Zionist Aggression Against Lebanon
This strategic approach of Israel to
Lebanon, the
weakest link in the Arab world, has found its expression in almost
interminable
interference in the internal affairs of this country and aggresion
against its
people. In fact, the history of Lebanese-Israeli relationship is a
history of
the military aggresion of Zionist bandits against Lebanon under
the
protective wings of US and British imperialists. Here I mention the
most
significant instances of such acts.
*In 1969, under the pretext of
retaliating against
the killing of an Israeli citizen in Athens by an Arab, Zionist forces
bombed
the newly built Khalde airport of Beirut. The airport complex and 13
civilian
airplanes were destroyed as a result of this attack.
*At the beginning of the 1970s, Zionists had started to launch more or
less
regular assaults on PLO bases in Southern Lebanon. This was directly
related to
the relocation of the main body of Palestinian resistance in Lebanon in
the
wake of the Black September days of 1971 in Jordan.
*In 1975-1976, a civil war took place in Lebanon between reactionary
and
fascist forces defending mainly the interests of Maronite bourgeoisie
and the
progressive and leftist forces, defending mainly the interests of Druze
and
Sunnite Muslim toilers allied with Palestinian resistance. This war,
which led
to the death of tens of thousands of people and the destruction of the
economy
and infrastructure of Lebanon was instigated by Zionists. In fact, as I
have
mentioned above, as far back as 1954, the latter were preparing plans
to
dismember Lebanon and establish a pro-Western and pro-Israeli Christian
state
there. On 27 February 1954, Ben Gurion, the founding father of Israel,
wrote a
letter to Prime Minister Moshe Sharett. He said:
will find support in wide circles in the Christian world, both Catholic and Protestant. In normal times this would be almost impossible... But at times of confusion,
or revolution or civil war, things take on another aspect, and even the weak declares himself to be a hero. Perhaps (there is never any certainty in politics) now is
the time to bring about the creation of a Christian State in our neighborhood. Without our initiative and our vigorous aid this will not be done. It seems to me that
this is the central duty - for at least one of the central duties, of our foreign policy. This means that time, energy and means ought to be invested in it and that
we must act in all possible ways to bring about a radical change in Lebanon. Sasson ... and our other Arabists must be mobilized..." (Italics mine) The growth
of the progressive movement in Lebanon, with the support of the Palestinian resistance in the first half of the 1970s alarmed not only reactionary Maronite
bourgeoisie, but their Zionist and American backers as well. It was time for Zionists to implement their strategic plan of dismemberment of Lebanon.
Long before the first shots were fired in the civil war of 1975-1976, Israel had been secretly supplying weapons and military training to the Lebanese rightists
for several years. Israel, like the United States, wanted to see the Palestinians defeated in Lebanon. In April 1975, when a reporter asked Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin why Israel did not failed retaliate against a Fatah attack on a Tel Aviv hotel, he replied, "We have chosen not to reply to this operation because
we are planning on and waiting for a confessional war in Lebanon which would have the same result."
*Zionist forces once more invaded Lebanon
in March
1978 up to the Litani river in Southern Lebanon. Around 1,000 people,
mostly
civilians were killed during the clashes and Israeli bombing of
villages and
towns. More than 250,000 civilians were forced to flee their homes. As
a result
of international pressure, Zionists were compelled to evacuate most of
the
territory they invaded. However, they formed a 100 km-long and 8 to 10
km-wide
"security belt" at the Lebanese-Israeli border before they retreated.
This "security belt" was manned by a puppet Christian mercenary
force, called South Lebanese Army and led by the so-called Major Saad
Haddad.
*In July and August 1979, Israeli army conducted a heavy bombardment
against
Southern Lebanon, on the pretext of retaliating against the actions of
Palestinian guerillas. This assault was followed by the bombardment of
Beirut
in July 1981. Hundreds of people lost their lives and thousands were
wounded as
a result of these piratical acs of aggression.
*On 6 June 1982, Zionist forces began another major assault on Lebanon
under
the pretext of retaliating against an assasination attempt targeting
the
Israeli ambassador in London a few days before. During the assault
nicknamed
"Operation Peace in Galilee", Israeli aggressors occupied a major
part of Lebanon after bombing the Palestinian guerilla bases in
Southern
Lebanon and then proceeded to encircle Beirut itself on 13 July. The
capital of
Lebanon was pounded by Israeli artillery, tanks and warplanes for
almost two
months and reduced tu rubble. 650 Israeli soldiers and 20, 000 Lebanese
and
Palestinians, most of whom were civilians, are estimated to have died
as a
result of this military operation.
In the wake of the retreat of Palestinian
guerillas
from Southern Lebanon and Beirut in the second half of August, Bashir
Jemayel,
the leader of reactionary "Lebanese forces" and a close ally of
Israel was elected president of Lebanon. Jemayel was assassinated on 14
September 1982. This immediately triggered a bloody attack by the
Phalange
militia of Bashir Jemayel on unarmed Palestinian civilians residing in
the
Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in West Beirut. In the
Zionist-inspired and
planned Sabra-Shatilla massacre, these reactionary mercenaries killed
in cold
blood approximately 3,000 women, elderly and children under the
protection and
supervision of the Israeli army.
*After the killing of 5 Israeli soldiers
in the
so-called "security belt" in Southern Lebanon, Zionist forces
conducted another military operation against Lebanese people in July
1993.
During this assault, called "Operation Accountability", around 130
people, most of whom were civilians, were killed and 300,000 people
forced to
flee their homes.
*On 11-27 April 1996, Israeli army conducted another military operation
against
the Lebanese resistance led by the Hezbollah. During this attack,
nicknamed
"Operation Grapes of Wrath", 154 people were killed and 351
wounded.
However, all these operations leading to
the death
of thousands of people proved powerless to crush and stop the
resistance of
Lebanese people to occupation. The same can be said about the
incarceration,
torture and killing of thousands of other people in the notorious Khiam
prison/concentration camp -directed by the SLA and supervised by the
Israeli
military intelligence- in Southern Lebanon. On the contrary, this
oppression
fueled the resistance and contributed to its victory. In the end,
Zionists and
their mercenary puppets, who were continuously harassed and forced into
a
defensive position through guerilla warfare, were unceremoniously
thrown out of
Lebanon as a result of well-planned and coordinated military attack on
23-25
May 2000. In fact, the defeat of the Israeli army in Southern Lebanon
in
mid-2000, was and remains the first instance of Zionist aggressors
being
militarily beaten and thrown out of an occupied Arab territory. This
victory of
the Lebanese resistance in turn, would contribute to the reawakening of
the
dormant Palestinian resistance, the second intifadah would begin in
earnest in
September 2000, four months after the liberation of Southern Lebanon.
In
passing, let me stress that, this is one of the main
reasons behind the fanatical insistence of Israel and the US and their
henchmen
in the so-called international community on the disarming of the
Hezbollah.
Conclusion
At least since the formation of Syria as
a sovereign
state, after the termination of the French mandate in 1943, the Syrian
bourgeoisie had voiced its intentions to reunite with Lebanon; it had
argued
that, historically Lebanon was a part Syria and was torn away from the
main
body of the country at the end of the First World War, when the
defeated Turkey
was compelled to leave all Arab territories to the victorious Allies.
To
achieve its objective, throughout the last decades Damascus has entered
into a
variety of shifting, unprincipled and opportunist alliances with
various
fections in Lebanon and at times it has not refrained from acting in
unison
with the US and even Israel to prevent the supremacy of
anti-imperialist and
democratic forces as was the case during the civil war of 1975-1976.
Without
discussing the pros and cons of the historical claims of the Syrian
bourgeoisie, we can say that, it is the Lebanese workers and toilers of
different nationalities and religious confessions, who have the right
to
determine the destiny of their countries and to decide on the content
and form
of the relationship of Lebanon with Syria. No outside force, including
Syria
has the right to impose its will upon the Lebanese people.
On the other hand, it should be made patently clear that US
imperialists, the
main enemy of workers, other toilers and oppressed nations of the
world, have
no right whatsoever to interfere in the internal affairs of Lebanon or
any
other country. Neither US imperialists, who have massacred tens of
millions of
workers and other toilers, planned and executed hundreds of
anti-democratic and
fascist coups d'etat, committed countless provocations and war crimes
against
the toiling humanity, nor their bloodthirsty Zionist partners and
lackeys have
the right to do so.
The position of Syria and its policy with
respect to
its small neighbor, cannot make us forget, even for a moment, the
fact
that US imperialism and Israeli Zionism are and remain the main enemies
of
Lebanese, Palestinian and Iraqi workers and other toilers. This is
especially
true at present, when the US, Britain and Israel have declared and
initiated a
new world war against the workers and peoples of the world and have
been trying
to pressure and threaten all political forces and states to toe their
line
under the motto of "you are either with us or with the terrorists."
Under the present circumstances, states such as Syria, Iran, North
Korea etc.
objectively become indirect, though vacillating and questionable
reserves of
the workers and peoples of the world, depending upon the extent of
their
resistance against and the level of their rejection of the threats and
blackmails of the neo-fascist axis of evil of US-Britain-Israel.
Therefore, all class-conscious workers
and
consistent revolutionary forces should decisively reject the so-called
democratization
game of the Lebanese reactionary bourgeios forces inspired by the US
and its
allies. They should unequivocally oppose the possible aggression of the
axis of
evil on these countries, notwithstanding the anti-democratic and
reactionary
nature of these regimes and wish the victory of these regimes against
American-Israeli-British aggression in case such an open aggression
becomes a
reality.
so on, these would be 'just', and to 'defensive' wars, irrespective of who would be the first to attack; any socialist would wish the oppressed, dependent
and unequal states victory over the oppressor, slave-holding, predatory 'Great' Powers."
("Socialism and War", Collected Works, Vol. 21, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1974, pp. 300-01)
Such a stand cannot in any way be
portrayed as an
endorsement of these bourgeois regimes, which are ready to cooperate
with the
US and do so to a certain extent. Therefore, Marxist-Leninists and
consistent
revolutionaries do not for a moment forget the fact that, only under
the
leadership of the communist party of the working class, can
imperialist-Zionist
aggression be defeated and democratic and socialist demands of the
masses of
exploited and oppressed people of the Middle East be met.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fighting
for Peace and Democracy
-
American style – Guantanamo Bays World Wide
A recent UK newspaper article (Levy A,
Scott-Clark
C. "Beyond Guantánamo." (Guardian
Weekend, March 19th, 2005. p19-25) graphically illustrates the
realities of
the US ‘war on terror’ by providing a chilling account of how
Afghanistan is
now the hub of a global network of detention centres. While Washington
holds up
the example of Afghanistan as a ‘rogue regime’ replaced by democracy,
outside
Kabul, the country is more inaccessible and lawless than it was under
the
Taliban, and US forces preside over a system of detention centres where
prisoners are held incommunicado amidst widespread allegations of
torture.
According to the US legal watchdog Human Rights First, the detention
system in
Afghanistan exists entirely outside international norms and is part of
a far
larger and more sinister jail network.
In an interview with a regional director
of the
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission it was revealed that many
thousands
of Afghans have been rounded up and detained by the occupying forces.
Those who
were freed frequently comment that they were held together with foreign
detainees
who have been brought to Afghanistan to be processed. No one is
charged, no one
is identified and no international monitors are allowed into these US
jails.
Bodies of dead detainees have been returned to families with no
explanation,
and in scores of cases people have simply disappeared. Prisoner
transports
crisscross the country connecting camps in Gardez, Khost, Asadabad,
Jalalabad
and Kandahar. In addition, there are 20 more facilities in outlying US
compounds, and CIA centres at Bagram and near Kabul, together thought
to be
holding more than 1500 prisoners from Afghanistan and many other
countries.
Personal accounts of detention include
that of an
Afghani employee of the BBC world service who found himself locked up
with
suspects from many countries. Moved around from one base to another
while
hooded, he and the other prisoners had to maintain complete silence.
Eventually
released after the intervention of the BBC, he had been detained in
Bagram; the
US military said it had been a misunderstanding. In fact, what is
happening in
Afghanistan can be seen as an attempt to replace Guantánamo Bay – a
detention
centre beyond the reach of the US constitution and the Geneva
convention. Legal
wranglings over Guantánamo have undermined its usefulness, and a global
prison
network built up over the past few years, beyond the reach of American
and
European judicial process, has suddenly received a boost. This process
became
explicit when the US government announced that many Guantánamo inmates
were
being transferred to prisons in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Since September 11th 2001, one of the
US’s chief
strategies of the “war on terror” has been to imprison anyone
considered
suspect on whatever grounds. To that end it commandeered foreign jails,
built
cell blocks at US military bases and established covert CIA facilities.
This
network has no visible infrastructure – no prison rolls, visitor
rosters, staff
lists or complaints procedures. In the opinion of an unnamed Afghan
government
minister, “ . . .the US military has deliberately kept us down, using
our
country to host a prison system that seems to be administered
arbitrarily,
indiscriminately and without accountability”. Outside Afghanistan, most
countries hosting these invisible prisons are already partners in the
US
coalition. Others, notably Syria, are pragmatic associates working
privately
alongside the CIA and US Special Forces, despite bellicose public
statements
from Bush condemning Syria for pro-terrorist activities.
One thing that unites host countries is
their poor
human rights record, enabling interrogators to operate without
restrictions.
Prisoner letters, declassified FBI files, legal depositions, witness
statements
and testimony from UK and US officials indicate that methods used
across the
network include shackles, hoods, electrocution, whips, mock executions,
sexual
humiliation and starvation. Although there are a few high profile
terrorist
operatives identified as being held within the system, many others have
few, if
any, provable connections to any outlawed organisation. Former
prisoners claim
they were released only after naming names, coerced into making false
confessions that led to the arrests of more people unconnected with
terrorism.
The floating population of “ghost detainees”, according to US and UK
military
officials, now exceeds 10,000.
The origins of the prison network can be
traced back
to the legal status of the first terror suspects detained in the wake
of
September 11th. Guantánamo prisoners were designated “unlawful
combatants” enabling
the US administration to claim it was entitled to sidestep the Geneva
conventions and normal legal constraints. Regimes previously condemned
by the
US for their use of torture, were now welcomed into the fold so long as
they
signed up to the ‘war against terror’. According to one former US
counterterrorism agent, Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia,
Pakistan,
Uzbekistan and Syria were all asked to make their detention facilities
and
expert interrogators available to the US.
In the UK, the home secretary withdrew
Britain from
its obligation under the European human rights treaty not to detain
anyone
without trial; the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act extended the
government’s powers of arrest and detention. Within 24 hours ten men
were seized
from their homes and imprisoned. Subsequently the Foreign Office
modified
internal guidance to diplomats, enabling them to use intelligence
obtained
through torture. This approach not only encourages and promotes torture
but is
contrary to the UN Convention Against Torture.
Although the extent of the US extra-legal
network is
only now becoming apparent, suspects began to disappear as early as
2001 when
the US asked its allies to examine their refugee communities in search
of
possible terror cells. Ahmed Agiza was an Egyptian asylum seeker who
had been
living in Sweden with his family for three years. Arrested by Swedish
intelligence acting on a request by the US, he was handed over to an
American
aircrew and flown out of Sweden on a private executive jet. Six months
later
his mother in law was allowed to see him in a Cairo prison where he
related
details of his abduction. Held in solitary confinement, Agiza was
subjected to
beatings, electric shocks and other forms of torture; he remains in
prison. The
executive jet has been identified as belonging to Premier Executive
Transport
Services, incorporated in Delaware, a paper company with nonexistent
directors.
Its flight plans always begin at an airstrip in Smithfield, North
Carolina, and
end in some of the world’s hot spots. An ex-CIA officer explained that:
“We
pick up a suspect or we arrange for one of our partner countries to do
it. The
suspect is placed on a civilian transport to a third country, where,
let’s make
no bones about it, they use torture. If you want a good interrogation
you send
someone to Jordan. If you want them to be killed you send them to Egypt
or
Syria. Either way the US cannot be blamed as it’s not doing the heavy
work”.
The jet has been tracked over 70 times including a flight in June 2002
when it
landed in Morocco to pick up a German national Mohammed Zamar who was
“rendered” to Syria, his country of origin, where he disappeared.
American
interrogators are described as working freely within foreign jails by
ex-detainees, who also report torture and sexual humiliation. Legal
depositions
indicate that at least 400 prisoners are being held at the request of
the US in
Pakistani jails.
Confessions made under torture implicate
innocent victims
with disastrous consequences. On September 26, 2002, Maher Arar, a 34
year old
Canadian computer scientist was detained by immigration staff at New
York
airport on his way to Montreal for a job interview. He was “rendered”
in a
private jet to Jordan where he was detained at a US run interrogation
centre
before being handed over to Syria, a country he had left at the age of
17. He
spent the next year being tortured and in solitary confinement, unaware
that
someone he barely knew had named him as a terrorist. Arar was
eventually
released in October 2003 when a Syrian court threw out a coerced
confession in
which he said he had been trained by al-Qaida. These and other examples
demonstrate that the “war on terror” represents an indiscriminate
system that
has the potential to seize anyone implicated in terrorist activity by
however
tenuous evidence. Reflecting on the American War of Independence when
Americans
were arbitrarily arrested and detained by British forces, James
Madison, one of
the architects of the US constitution observed that the “accumulation
of all
powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands may
justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny”. His comment could have been
a
prescient insight into modern America.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ALLIANCE NEWS
Organizing Alliance Marxist-Leninist in North Carolina By Comrade MP
As the only Alliance member in the
Triangle area of North
Carolina (around Durham, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh) I have been trying
to
publicize the Party, with the goal of forming a local branch. I have mainly been working among students
and members of social justice organizations and unions.
First I posted flyers at local colleges,
public libraries, independent bookstores, and other places. Alliance! has been publicized on
activist email listserves when relevant.
Literature was given to people riding Durham’s bus to national
events
such as the Million Worker March October 17th and anti-war
demonstrations. I passed out some
literature at these events, October 16th at the Palestine
Solidarity
Movement’s conference at Duke University, and elsewhere.
Alliance! is distributed free at
local bookshops and a co-op.
This year I started tabling at events for
Alliance. Alliance was one of about 160
co-sponsors of the annual Students United for a Responsible Global
Environment
(SURGE) Conference (www.surgenetwork.org). Alliance was also given publicity in the
Conference packet. This year the
Conference had a very large tabling fair and about 300 participants. Most of the participants are students and
youth from North Carolina, but there are a range of ages and
out-of-state and
international participants. The
Conference has been held annually since the late 90’s.
I also tabled at the March 20th
anti-war demonstration in Fayetteville, which had at least 4800
participants
(www.ncpeacejustice.org). People were
interested and came by the table each time and took literature, though
admittedly it was only a handful of people.
A student group in Asheville was interested in getting our
literature
for their library. Tabling at the SURGE
Conference had the best results; in Fayetteville my set-up did not get
much
attention. I tabled in a peripheral
spot, without an actual table, and it might have been better if I
stayed at my
post longer instead of looking around.
Now I am building up to an information
meeting or
meetings in early September to gauge interest in Alliance.
I will flyer more widely and distribute Alliance!
at more events and locations this summer.
Having an active campaign would be a good organizing tool, so I
suggest
that we start a US campaign to impeach Bush, highlight election fraud
and
reform, to repeal or limit the PATRIOT Act, or something else. Since July 4th is coming up these
issues are appropriate, and they are current.
The campaign could be done at the local level, working with
other
groups, and coordinated nationally by working with a pre-existing
coalition. A campaign would also give
us the opportunity to collaborate with other Marxist parties to work
for
principled unity. I am starting a
campaign to lobby Representative David Price and others to support
investigation of the Downing Street Memo. The Durham Bill of Rights
Defense
Committee likes the idea and I am hoping that other groups will
participate.
Alliance will work on this at the national level with the After Downing
Street
Coalition (www.afterdowningstreet.org). Such an investigation could be the first
step in impeaching Bush. Alliance also
joined a statewide coalition against the Dominican Republic - Central
America
Free Trade Agreement, soon to be voted on by Congress before July 4th. There are at least 7 Marxist groups in the
area and I am discussing cooperative projects with the Freedom Road
Socialist
Organization and Solidarity.
I am also interested in creative agitprop
methods
and making more use of the Internet, through blogging, a state Alliance
website, and trying to adapt the model of online activism created by
groups
like MoveOn.org.
Send questions or comments to me at: alliance_trianglenc@hotmail.com
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Correspondence
and Communications
The following
communication, from the OCTOBER COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION of Spain was
received by
Alliance Marxist-Leninist.
Editors.
On the
London Bombings
While the imperialists and their guests
were meeting
at the so-called G-8 Summit Conference, a series of explosions rocked
London
this morning. Although the exact number
of victims is unknown, there is every indication that that number is
high. Once again, fanatical terrorism has
struck
at defenseless citizens. Once again,
just as occurred in Madrid on the 11th of March last year it is the
peoples,
the workers and their familias who are the victims – just as happens on
a daily
basis in Iraq.
Neither the police or military forces,
nor the
political centers of the imperialist oligarchy were targeted by the
murders: Their target was the
people. This criminal violence had as
its goal to cause the greatest harm possible to the citizens of
London., those
self same citizens who, two years ago, marched in the streets by the
millions
demanding peace and denouncing "Her Gracious Majesty's Government's"
terrorist aggression against the Iraqi people.
The G-8 member states, with Bush and
Blair at the
head, have tried to characterize their militant "crusade" against the
rights and liberties of the peoples as a "just response to
terrorism." In fact, it is their
own imperialist policies which creates the conditions that breeds this
terrorism – often inspired by their own actions.
The citizens of Madrid and of all Spain
know how to
give a sharp response to the reactionary Aznar government; mobilizing
not only
against terrorist fanaticism, but also against the vile manipulations
of the
Spanish oligarchy.
We wish to express our solidarity with
the British
working people. Let us unite our forces
and push forth a popular and progressive struggle against imperialism
and
reaction.
Madrid,
7 July 2005
October Communist Organization
Translated from the Spanish, for Alliance
M-L, by H.D. Benoit
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________