Class Struggle 123
We should see urgency for what it is class
Briefs
Parliament: Workers demand Urgency!
Parliament opened to the farce of selecting a new
Speaker and threats to use the Select Committees
to shut down the Government. The parliamentary
circus had come to town and the big show was the
clown: parliament as 'representative democracy'.
The NACT opposition had promised to de-stabilise
the Coalition Government by any means necessary.
Was this just a fit of pique by the gentrified elite
that runs NZ that is best ignored as a 'sore loser', or
was it really more like the first shots in a class war?
The way to deal with the NACTs threats to bring
down the Government is to drop the delusion of
parliament as bi-partisan and go into class war
mode. Parliament is a bourgeois institution
designed to defend the property rights of the
capitalist class. When their rights are challenged,
even meekly as in the case of the Coalition, they
respond with fire. So, anyone who is serious
about redistributing wealth in NZ has to meet fire
with fire.
Put all of the 100 days legislation into one Bill and
put it through under urgency, and then repeat
every 100 days for each year that the NACTs in
power ran their ruthless ruling class rule over
working people.
Some object that to use urgency like this would be
to turn the exceptional use by the NACTs into the
norm, and that 'democracy' would suffer as a result.
Yet how can the loss of the select committees under
urgency threaten democracy when they can be used
to sabotage the Coalitions mandate?
When the tiny minority corporate 1% and their
hangers-on can use dirty politics with impunity to
swing voters, when they control the corporate
media to amplify their lies, when most opinion
makers embed neo-liberal assumptions into the
popular culture, making a phony appeal to select
committees as democratic is hypocritical.
It is not a question of turning a bad precedent into
a bad practice at the expense of democracy.
Select Committees cannot be seen in isolation. The
NACTs used urgency to get their minority agenda
pushed through because the growing crisis of
international capital demands the jettisoning of
democracy to force working people to pay for the
crisis of capitalism.
2
Summer 2017-18
urgency. The NACTs used urgency to serve their
bourgeois class interests. The Coalition need the
guts to use urgency to serve the interests of working
people.
That why all the grass roots organisations that
have been vocal about the TPPA, inequality,
climate change, punitive welfare, water,
privatisation, suicide, jails, etc., have to double
down, coordinate their efforts in their own
select committees and tell the Coalition what
they need and why they need it now.
No need to rely on the government though. We
can run our own committees to assess actual
needs and decide levels of services. We can
demand our needs are really met; that Labour
actually do this! We can also build independent
organisations capable of taking action to deliver
and to expose the weakness of Labour.
Smash the neo-liberal state!
Neo-liberalism is naked capitalism on its death bed.
It preaches more market but actually uses more
state intervention. It will die only when capitalism
dies. Marxist economist Michael Roberts takes on
Noah Smiths claim that neo-liberalism is making a
comeback and is actually increasing GDPs and
reducing inequality. But to make that claim Smith
has to use China and India as examples of successful
neo-liberal economies. Roberts says that growth in
these two countries comes not from market reforms
but from heavy state intervention.
In fact, Roberts is making the mistake here. Neo-
liberalism is capitalism in extremis, not more or less
market. He overlooks the reality that from the turn
of the 20th century capitalism became state
monopoly capitalism, aka imperialism. The market
did not set prices as it did in the heyday of
competitive capitalism, but increasingly nation
states created trading agreements which influenced
prices. Nor has this led to a massive reduction in
poverty and inequality. 19th century capitalism
historically lifted workers out of poverty. But today
both rising inequality and rising poverty are
associated declining growth.
China stands out as the only large economy where
rapid growth is showing up in some reduction in
poverty. Neo-liberalism is therefore capitalism as
we know it today, the state concentrating all its
power behind the market to fix the crisis and
restore profits. But it cannot win in the long run.
Thats because for all its reactionary fury, the neo-
Class Struggle 123
liberal state attacks on workers has have not
restored enough profits to drag capitalism off its
death bed. That will be the job of our class of
revolutionary gravediggers, who refuse to pay for
capitalisms terminal decline by standing up and
overturning the system.
But capitalism wont die peacefully, it will try to
bust us and scramble onto our shoulders to avoid
paying for its rip-shit destruction of society and
nature. Are we going to be trampled by a panicking
ruling class pushing us into more wars for carbon, or
will we choose our historic mission of saving
humanity by putting capitalism out of our misery?
Brash bashing Maori for profit
Colonialism in NZ is not a relic of the past kept alive
in the minds of redneck racists like Don Brash.
Colonialism is alive and well in the colonial control
of the NZ economy by the imperialist powers, - US
and China - which can be observed as rising foreign
ownership and control of the economy.
Those imperialists and their NZ counterparts, the
political agents in all political parties that facilitate
the extraction of profits from NZ assets and labour,
justify today's colonialism (TPPA-II) because it is in
their material interests to do so.
To justify colonial exploitation of the land and other
vital resources, and defuse the most powerful
resistance to this, the awakening of Maori self-
determination around Treaty rights (Foreshore and
Seabed) has to be put down as 'racist' (separatist,
Maori privilege, particularistic, 'stone-age')
conspiracy against British civilization.
Therefore, as the global economy faces ongoing
stagnation, a new crash, and climate collapse,
colonial racist opinion-leaders like Brash and
Gallagher turn up the volume to rally redneck
support in defence of the parasitic rule of
'civilization' against 'barbarism'.
In reality capitalism in its death spiral is the
definition of 'barbarism', and all efforts to resist
and to build a democratic, sustainable, and fair
society, is what we should understand by the
term 'civilization'. That is: from each according
to their ability, to each according to their need,
where each doesnt only mean the human, but
all planetary species.
Cannabis: the opiate of the masses?
Its high time in the Beehive. The new Labour-led
Coalition is promising to move towards Medical
3
Summer 2017-18
Cannabis in the first 100 days, and push NZ First
proposal of a non-binding referendum on cannabis
by the 2020 election. Liberal NZ is ready for
legalization; 65% want the legalization or
decriminalization that is now common in many
countries. Not only is cannabis harmless, it is
positively a super food.
Reactionary die-hard NZ doesnt want reform
because looking through the bottom of its beer glass
it is convinced that reefer madness is a true fact
and that the madness appears everywhere as feral
behavior - violence, gangs, depression, even
schizophrenia in youth. Both sides claim the science
is on their side. Is this the case?
The liberals have tried cannabis and know it doesnt
make you mad let alone kill you. Far from causing
harm it prevents harm. But that evidence is called
anecdotal rather than scientific, and science is
what scientists do. So, the B-grade movie Reefer
Madness, is now dressed up in a lab coat and called
Cannabis Psychosis. The most frequent citation for
such a causal link is that of the Canterbury Health
and Development Study (CHDS) led by David
Fergusson.
The CHDS claims to prove that cannabis abuse is a
cause of adolescent psychosis, specifically
schizophrenia. Yet it has failed to show that a
correlation (those prone to schizophrenia also tend
to use cannabis) is also a cause because it has not
controlled adequately for confounding genetic
and social causes. The science is superficial.
Some scientists are critical of claims that have been
made: e.g. Cannabis and Psychosis: a Critical
Overview of the Relationship by Charles Ksir and
Carl Hart (Feb 2016) in Current Psychiatry Reports.
You will find Carl Hart an outspoken critic of how
science and drug research in particular has obscured
the real problems poverty, unemployment
(capitalism) and instead blamed people who use
(illegal) drugs
The most likely explanation is that cannabis use and
psychosis are co-dependent variables, that is, both
are the effects of more fundamental causes. We
expect as cannabis reform promotes better
scientific studies, evidence will accumulate that
proves beyond doubt that socially informed
cannabis use is not only harmless, but beneficial.
We argue that much cannabis use, like religion, is
as an opiate of the masses that workers use to dull
the pain of our alienated lives under capitalism. We
say socialist revolution is the only way to end
capitalist alienation and the need for opiates.
Class Struggle 123 Summer 2017-18

NZ: Anti-Capitalism vs Survival Socialism

It seems that the popularity of anti-capitalism that is growing around the world
has caught up with New Zealand. Like the word socialism, it is much abused. Usually
it is a critique of the symptoms, rather than the cancerous disease of capitalist
society. The election of the Labour led Coalition to power is a good test of the
futility of trying to heal capitalisms symptoms instead of eliminating the disease to
open the road to survival socialism.
The Labour led Coalition with the Greens and New capitalism cannot be rendered classless. For more
Zealand First is a better option to yet another NACT than a century it has been in a terminal,
regime, but only because it has promised to roll destructive, cataclysmic, decline. Either we go
back marginally some of NACTs reactionary policies. down with it or we fight to replace it with survival
socialism.
Working people should defend it from attacks by
the right but criticize it from the left when it fails When the new Coalitions promises to feed the
to deliver. Workers must learn to exercise their poor, build affordable houses, boost the unions,
independent class interests because the Labour clean up the water, drive the speculators out, etc.,
led Coalition cannot. are broken, it will because they are more scared of
their capitalist masters than they are of working
Working people will decide the future. From our
people they claim to represent.
experience of this capitalist Coalition we will learn
how far centre-left populism can go before risking Workers will understand that they have to form
the retaliation of international capital. their own working-class party to make the changes
needed to right the wrongs of poverty, inequality,
Not very far. For all the talk about capitalism
suicide, climate change, state surveillance and dirty
failing from Peters and Ardern, what they really
politics. A workers party would stand for what
mean is that the state has to intervene to correct
Labour once professed but has long renounced, the
the excesses of the market. Whats new?
socialization of the means of production,
This is the same promise made by all social distribution and exchange. That, would spell the
democrats for over a century. As part of the Liberal real end of capitalism (however it needs to happen
Government of the 1890s the Fabian socialists stood worldwide). That would turn anti-capitalism into a
for state intervention to control the market. This lets really do this!
led to the formation of the Labour Party in 1916 to
Whatever happens to this new Coalition
represent workers in parliament. Ever since social
government, New Zealands downward trajectory is
democracy has acted as a brake on workers political
part of a global capitalism in terminal decline. This
development.
means that workers have to take up our class
In Russia in 1917, the social democratic Provisional interests, reject the parliamentary circus, and
Government collaborated with the Tsarist generals organize. We need to build committees of working
to mount a coup to smash the soviets. It failed people (employed or not) around struggles to meet
because workers, soldiers and poor peasants agreed our needs. That is the immediate backbone to a
with the Bolsheviks program for all power to the genuine workers government.
soviets. In Germany in 1919 German social
Prepare to replace capitalism by working class
democracy collaborated with the ruling class to
taking control of the finance sector, big business
form a Government that repressed the armed
and strategic industry. For a programme of public
workers uprisings. It succeeded because no
works to build housing and deliver rapid
Bolshevik-type party existed capable of leading the
sustainable public transport systems, and for full
armed masses to victory.
employment on a living wage1
The lesson is that social democracy always serves
Only the organised movement of working people
capital before labour. Social Democracy always puts
led by a revolutionary Marxist party is capable of
profits before people. Its job is to manage
building survival socialism and playing a part in
capitalism by promising to reconcile the opposing
classes and make us all middle class. Yet rescuing humanity from extinction.
4
Chinas New Zealand Invasion
This reactionary NACT regime has sold out to China like the parasitic compradors
gentry dressed-down as jumped-up land agents they are. Nothing to do with one
party states, Red tides or yellow perils, but a born-again imperialist global
power sucking out profits. While we moaned about US oligarchs buying NZ
citizenship, the market socialists were scavenging NZs finite resources from its
neoliberal pimps. Rather than demonizing China, working people must reject all
attempts to resist China on racist, chauvinist terms, but recognize that what
motivates China is the same as all imperialist powers, the inexorable drive to
increase its capital wealth by super exploiting its own workers and its neo-colonies.

as in bed with Red China. No doubt Brady is siding

Bradys Magic Weapons vs WSWS dogma?
Lets look at the work of Anne-Marie Brady on
Chinas soft power as the Red menace invading her recent paper at a conference on democracy in
NZ. Brady is an academic with a foot in both the US
and NZ. Her analysis documents the growing formal
and informal ties with China which accompany the
increase in its economic stake in NZ. Her factual
analysis of the growing Chinese State/National
Government partnership in the management of the
NZ economy is one thing, but her political
conclusions are another.
For Brady Red China is a threat to Western
Democracy defended by the US and its allies such
as NZ. This reflects the rise of China and decline of
the US, marked by Chinas ability to use soft
economic power to out-compete the US forcing it
to resort to the hard power of military aggression.
This is the main thrust of the WSWS critique of
Bradys research being introduced into the recent
electoral campaign to stir up racist hostility to
Chinese immigrants and portray the National Party
with the US warmongering against China as a rival
power that threatens US hegemony she presented
Taiwan.
WSWS dogma
We too reject any attack on China by the US but not
in order to defend Red China. Red China exists
only as the bogey of the neo-liberals who want to
destroy it as a rival to US hegemony. Yet to the
dogmatic World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), Red
China is a restored capitalist state but far from
imperialist. China must therefore be a semi-colony
at the mercy of existing imperialist powers and has
to be defended in any war with US imperialism.
This is a dogma that unfortunately too many of the
crypto-Stalinist Western left hold all those who
still see Russia and China today as progressive
forces against Western imperialism. China (and
Russia) both restored capitalism in the 1990s by
opening up to the global capitalist market. From
Class Struggle 123
that point, the prices of goods and services in China
became set by the price of commodities on the
global market. Their value was set by the labour-
time required to produce commodities.
Over two decades China transitioned from state
socialism, to market socialism to state
capitalism. But because of its history as a deformed
workers state, a reborn capitalist China was able
to avoid re-colonization by Western imperialism and
turn its restored state capitalism into a new
imperialism.
Fight Racism and Fight Imperialism!
We will not side with China in a war with the US
because we recognize it is a new imperialist power.
Unlike Brady who wants us to go to war against
Red China, and WSWS who wants us to defend
semi-colonial China from the US, we say a curse
on both their houses. That means we wont fight in
any imperialist war on the side of China or the US.
We are for the defeat of both at the hands of their
own armed workers!
Yet, because we live in a small, weak neo-colony of
both the US and China, we cannot sit back and wait
to see who wins and gets NZ for its prize. As we
continue to point out with greater urgency, new
imperialist wars are between the rival ruling classes
that use national chauvinist appeals to drag their
working people into fighting their wars. A WW3 or
even regional wars such as we could see over the
DPRK, threatens the survival of humanity itself.
That is why when the debates about Chinas role in
NZ start to escalate we have to resist all attempts
by the NZ ruling class to pressure workers into new
imperialist wars on the side of any imperialist
power. Chinese expansion into NZ is motivated not
by any Red Menace to spread the communist
revolution, or Yellow Tide to spread the influence
of Chinese as a race.
China today is the antithesis of real socialism let
alone communism. Nor is China reviving the Middle
Kingdom. China is behaving like any other existing
imperialist power expanding globally to take
advantage of cheap labour and resources to
maximize profits.
In the debates about migration we have to
differentiate between Chinese capitalists who buy
their citizenship in NZ and Chinese workers who
come to settle and work. We should oppose the
entry of all capitalists whatever their country of
6
Summer 2017-18
origin, which includes NZ capitalists who promote
foreign ownership and investment. They are all the
agents of imperialist exploitation and oppression.
We should be for the free access of Chinese workers
No more imperialist war for imperialist spoil!
who come to NZ to find work rather than to escape
the working class. They are part of the international
working class that has no country.
Resist all imperialist wars!
Working people of all nationalities must defend
NZ as an oppressed neo-colony against all
attempts by any imperialist power, US, China,
Russia, Britain, Germany, Japan etc., to exploit
and oppress us. In doing so we are acting in unison
with Chinese, US, and workers everywhere,
against the threat of WW3.
It should be very clear after the recent election
that to do this we have to replace the existing
state that represents the interests of the
capitalist ruling class with a Workers State and a
socialist program which would include the
expropriation of all capitalist and imperialist
property!
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/for_
website_magicweaponsanne-
mariesbradyseptember2017.pdf
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/22/nzch-
s22.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/04/14/prob-
a14.html
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/china-
redyellow-peril.html
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/09/08/guest-blog-
dave-brownz-will-us-vs-chinarussia-end-in-ww3/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/08/14/guest-blog-
dave-brownz-trump-plays-with-fire-in-korea/
http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2016/03/china-and-
socialist-future.html
SYRIA: Break the Siege of Ghouta
The Syrian counter-revolution rallies in Sochi, Russia. The Russian troika with Iran
and Turkey meets in Sochi to make the next move in the Great Game. How to prop-
up Assad, kill off ISIS and al Nusra (HTS) and remove all terrorist threats to the
division of the oil spoils. The Syrian bourgeois democratic opposition compromises
with the counter-revolution in the hope of taking its share of the spoils from Assad.
The Kurds in the US controlled SDF want to join the Syrian national army in exchange
for an autonomous Rojava. The revolution is being slowly strangled as Assad,
backed by his hordes of foreign mercenaries and their military hardware, tightens
his grip on the rebel-held towns to force them into retreat. The relief of East Ghouta
in Damascus has become a rallying point for the survival of the revolution, and a
litmus test of revolutionaries everywhere. It proves at least two things. First, that
capitalism in its terminal crisis is resisted by popular movements. Second, we need
an internationalist revolutionary party with a program that draws the lessons of
history and guides the worlds workers towards a world socialist revolution.

A half-way revolution is lost

We warned at the outset of the uprising Syria in
2011 that it was the leading edge of the Arab
Revolution, and that its failure would be major
setback for not only that revolution but the world
revolution. The re-opening of the Arab Revolution
was the direct result of the global crisis of falling
profits being unloaded onto the shoulders of the
semi-colonies. The widespread extent of the
resistance from Tunisia to Bahrain, and the form it
took, armed or not, became the touchstone of the
revolution.
As the popular insurgencies moved from Tunisia to
Egypt and to the Levant, the Syria Revolution
became the leader of the Arab Revolution. It had But we also said that Gaddafis war against
the support of the Palestinian masses but not the imperialism is fake when he was busy killing rebels
sellout leadership of the PLO and Hamas whose to prove his usefulness to imperialism. That is why
bourgeois nationalist politics betrays the we gave military support to the rebels. True, the
Palestinian revolution for a dual-state shared with rebels were compromised by the intervention of
the Zionist state. It shared the basic democratic NATO, but in reality, the rebels stood for the most
demands of the Palestinian struggle, against basic bourgeois democracy suppressed by both
dictatorship and occupation, against outside imperialism and Gaddafi. Most of the Western left
interference, a right to peaceful resistance, and no by contrast defended Gaddafi against NATO and
sectarianism. It quickly overtook the leadership of claimed the rebels were really Islamic fascists
the Arab Revolution from the Palestinians when the and/or CIA assets.
extreme reaction of Assad to protest forced it to
arm itself to defend its survival. Today the outcome of the civil war against Gaddafi
is unresolved because it was isolated by the failure
We welcomed the popular uprising in Tunisia of revolutions in other MENA states and trapped by
following on the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, and infighting between rival bourgeois fractions
defended the rebels in Libya against Gaddafi. We maneuvering between two big imperialist blocs
defended Gaddafi against the NATO bombardment. US/NATO, and Russia/China. The popular uprisings
Class Struggle 123
in Tunisia and Egypt were also trapped in the half-
way houses of bourgeois democracy. The
democratic transition in Tunisia leaves the
situation that saw Mohamed Bouazizi kill himself
unchanged. In Egypt General Al Sisi has kept the
military bourgeois faction in power.
In Egypt, the survival of the military regime was
predictable given that the popular protests never
turned the occupation of Tahrir Square into workers
united fronts by building councils and militias. Nor
did they attempt to split the ranks of the army from
the officer high command, or prepare for a
revolutionary general strike. The International
Socialists gave a critical vote to Morsi. And when Sisi
overthrew Morsi, most Trotskyist groups called for
retreat to a bourgeois Constituent Assembly against
the military regime as the way forward.
The situation was different in Syria. In March 2011,
Assad began to violently repress peaceful
demonstrations and the movement was forced to
arm itself to survive. The sheer fact that the
peaceful mass protests could not be suppressed
spurred Assad to even more ruthless repression. This
led to many of his officers and ranks spontaneously
mutinying and joining the revolution. Of course, it
was still a democratic (i.e. bourgeois democratic,
revolution) but now it had escalated into armed civil
war. By civil war we mean the war between the
two main classes, bourgeoisie and proletariat, and
their various allies, inside and outside the country,
not merely a war fought among different fractions
of the national bourgeoisie.
The fate of the Syrian Revolution is therefore a
critical test of Marxism and its leadership of the
world revolution against all the forces of counter-
revolution. The lessons of history, in particular that
of 1917, prove:
(1) First: that the bourgeois democratic
revolution cannot be completed by the
bourgeoisie. The crisis-ridden imperialist system
must suppress workers basic rights when workers
fight back against capitalisms crisis of falling
profits. Hence, the class interests of the national
bourgeoisie are tied to imperialism as its agent in
guaranteeing the super-exploitation the masses
(2) Second: we can prove that from 1917
onwards, workers and oppressed people are
willing and able to spontaneously fight
oppression. We can prove that even to defend
basic democratic rights workers and oppressed
must fight as a class independently against
8
Summer 2017-18
imperialism and its agents. The workers, leading
the other oppressed, must carry that fight through
to the victorious socialist revolution, or suffer
fascist counter-revolution, i.e. the defeat and
destruction of the only historic class capable of
overthrowing the capitalist class and saving
humanity and the planet.
(3) Third: we can prove the crises and
spontaneous resistance to them are necessary pre-
conditions for revolution, but they are not
sufficient. Both necessary and sufficient is the
revolutionary vanguard party with a program
that embodies the historic lessons of revolution
and applies them practically in the struggle. This
will to prove to workers that socialist revolution is
the only way out of the impasse of a dying
capitalism, and so convince them to join the
revolution.
Permanent Revolution
How does the Syrian revolution demonstrate these
historic lessons, yet again? On the first point, the
Assad national bourgeois regime will stop at nothing
to destroy the revolution. He created the armed
opposition and was losing the civil war until he was
forced to call on massive direct intervention by
Russia, Iran and Turkey during 2016. Today, Assads
militias consist mainly of foreign mercenaries
organized by Iran while Russia provides the air
support. These invasions and occupations have
pushed back the revolution into besieged enclaves
such as Idlib and Ghouta so that the survival of the
revolution is in danger.
Second, as already noted, the Syrian revolution is a
popular uprising. We know this because of its
worker/peasant/small trader composition, and the
success of the armed militias in the years from 2011
until December 2016 when the fall of Aleppo
marked a major defeat for the revolution.
This defeat was made easier by many of the petty
bourgeois elements who broke with the revolution
to sell their services to any of a number of
imperialist and regional powers whose influence
over Assad opened up opportunities for other
scavenging bourgeois fractions to squabble over
dividing up the spoils of Syria and MENA as a whole.
As the FSA has split into many factions, some making
their peace with Assad or Turkey, the militias that
remain staunchly fighting Assad are facing almost
insuperable odds fighting on at least 3 fronts.
Class Struggle 123
First front: against both rival imperialist blocs in
Syria the US/NATO/Israel, and the Russia/China
bloc, that now includes the two main regional
powers, Turkey and Iran.
Second front: against the Islamic bourgeois factions
the IS and AQ, and the Kurdish bourgeois factions,
when they bloc with Assad against the revolution.
To do this, revolutionaries have to call for an end to
sectarianism, the recognition of the Syrian right to
national self-determination, and for religious
freedoms.
Third front: within the militias that are still fighting
Assad refusing to do deals at Geneva and Sochi to
carve- up Syria into protectorates, revolutionaries
must form military blocs where they can fight as one
armed united front against Assad, while at the same
time building workers councils and militias to be
organized democratically so that the program for
permanent revolution is raised and debated.
How to break the Siege of Ghouta
Ghouta is a test which separates the best from the
and worst of the self-proclaimed revolutionary left.
We argue that the worst of the left has failed the
test dismally. It demonstrates how not to break the
siege of Ghouta. We have written at length about
the failure of the Western left to support the Arab
Revolution except as a bourgeois democratic
revolution. The situation hasnt changed in broad
terms because the revolution is undefeated. But the
situation is critical and the revolution will be
defeated unless it has international support
necessary to win the civil war.
(1) Imperialist socialists
The worst of the left operate on auto-pilot and fly
by numbers. They are Jacobins because they think
the last serious revolution was the French
revolution. For them the Arab Revolution is trying
to catch up with the French Revolution. Assad is a
Jacobin because he fights to defend the
democratic republic of Syria from Islamic
fascism, feudal terrorism, or from the CIA. The
estimated 400,000 killed by Assad since 2011 and
the 400,000 civilians trapped in Ghouta are
hostages used by the Islamic rebels, and so are
justifiable fallout from the civil war. For their
service to the imperialists who are killing civilians
by the score every day in Syria, we call these fakers
imperialist socialists.
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Summer 2017-18
(2) Bourgeois socialists
Bourgeois socialists do not support Assad as a
progressive but see him correctly as a dictator
serving imperialism. The Syrian revolution is
progressive but only if led by workers and peasants
who replace the bourgeoisie in completing the
bourgeois revolution. This means support for a
democratic opposition only, and when this does
not exist or is dominated by the Islamic fascists,
the only revolutionaries that qualify as democratic
are already secular democrats (Workers Voice). In
other words, the revolution does not exist and
cannot be supported unless it fulfils an idealist
blueprint imposed by the petty bourgeois
democrats in the oppressor states. The end of the
siege of Ghouta is something that must fall from
socialist heaven (or the UNO) because the Western
left doesnt have a clue what to do beyond
preaching bourgeois democracy against Islamic
fascism.
(3) Bolshevik Leninists (real Trotskyists)
Bolshevik-Leninists condemn the fake Western left
sellout of the Syrian Revolution. Ours is the
tradition which tries to keep the Russian Revolution
alive today. We insist on the three preconditions for
revolution stated above: first, objectively the
bourgeoisie has no way out other than destruction
of civilization; second, objectively the proletariat
and its allies are ready and willing to fight for
bourgeois democracy; and third, what is missing is
the necessary and sufficient subjective factor -
an international vanguard party and program that
is able to advance the struggle directly to the
socialist revolution.
The Bolshevik-Leninist party is founded on the
theory/program of Permanent Revolution which
underlies Trotskys Transitional Program. In the
Arab Revolution and in Ghouta today, the anti-
imperialist united front calls on all anti-imperialist
forces to fight imperialism and its agents. This is a
military bloc which means that we must fight
alongside those who do not share our politics
including IS and HTS in Syria when they are fighting
imperialism and/or Assad and not the revolution
itself. In doing so, we raise the program of
permanent revolution to explain why the anti-
imperialist struggle must necessarily lead to a
break with the national bourgeoisie and all those
who give it left cover such as the imperialist and
bourgeois socialists Permanent Revolution!
Review: Mievilles October, Part 2 Victory
Picking up the Mivilles story in the month October, the pace of the revolution
speeds up, and events are counted in weeks, then days, and finally, approaching
the 25th and the Second Congress of Soviets, hours. As Trotsky says of that time:
events are measured not by the long yardstick of politics, but the short yardstick
of war. The Bolsheviks always judge events in terms of the impact of class struggle
on a revolutionary situation. Events rush forward and come to a climax as they are
forced to a head-to-head of the two classes in a fight to the death. Dual power now
reaches a stalemate and can only be broken by proletarian revolution or bourgeois
counter-revolution. (Parts 1,2,3)
positively criminal. The Moscow and Petrograd
Insurrection builds by weeks, days and hours
committees get the message despite the efforts of
As the climax builds during October, events are the CC. They do not endorse Lenins demand for
driven by the approaching war and the militancy of immediate insurrection, though in Petrograd, they
the masses, impatient for peace, land and bread. agree to take action to strengthen the Bolsheviks
The Bolshevik Central Committee (CC) fails to keep military preparations.
pace with the masses, while the Mensheviks and SRs
While the CC is determined to risk waiting for the
scheme to draw the Soviets into a Pre-Parliament as
2nd Congress they are being pressured by the
a precursor to the Constituent Assembly.
Bolshevik ranks to boycott the Pre-parliament as a
Meanwhile, chaos reigned as the Germans threaten
counter-revolutionary threat to the insurrection.
Petrograd and the counter-revolution builds. Lenin
This mass pressure is inflamed on 7 October by the
in hiding, fumes at the inaction. It is time for deeds
order of Kerenskys Chief of Staff, General
not words. On September 29 comes what Miville
Polkovnikov, to transfer a large part of the
calls the bombshell. Lenin sends a declaration of
Petrograd garrison to the front, now fast
war to the Bolshevik Central Committee and
approaching the city. That night the Pre-Parliament
tenders his resignation from the CC.
re-convenes. On the previous day the Bolshevik CC
In view of the fact that the CC has even left had voted for a boycott. Trotsky stands up to make
unanswered the persistent demands I have an emergency statement. Petrograd is in
been making for such a policy [take power danger, All power to the Soviets. All land to the
now!] ever since the beginning of the people! In the commotion that followed, 53
Democratic Conference, in view of the fact Bolsheviks rose as one and walked out. That same
that the central organ [Pravda] is deleting night, Lenin returned to Petrograd.
from my articles all references to such
Military Revolutionary Committee formed
glaring errors on the part of the BolsheviksI
am compelled to regard this as a subtle hint October 9, the Petrograd Soviet meets. The
that I should keep my mouth shut, and as a Menshevik Broido moves to prepare for the garrison
proposal for me to retire. I am compelled to to transfer to the front as a compromise with the
tender my resignation from the Central Provisional Government. Trotsky responds with a
Committee, which I hereby do, reserving for damning rejection of compromise. Down with
myself freedom to campaign among the rank Kerensky, for immediate peace and soviet power,
and file of the party at the Party Congress. calling on the garrison to prepare for battle against
both Germans and the Kornilovites. When the
No response. On October 1 Lenin sends another
motion is put to a packed plenum of workers and
message, this time including the Executives of the
soldiers delegates Trotsky prevails and the Soviet
Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. He weighs up the
gives its blessing to the formation of the Military
situation. The peasants and workers are rising up,
Revolutionary Committee to prepare for the
there are mutinies in the German ranks, while
insurrection. Miville says that Trotsky later refers
growing support for the Bolsheviks gives them a
to this decision as the silent revolution. But
mandate. Therefore, the postponement of the
Trotsky is more forthcoming in Lessons of October:
insurrection to the 2nd Congress of Soviets is
Class Struggle 123
From the moment when we, as the Petrograd
Soviet invalidated Kerenskys order transferring
two-thirds of the garrison to the front, we
actually entered a state of armed insurrection.
Lenin who was not in Petrograd, could not
appraise the full significance of this fact. So far
as I remember there is no mention of it in all his
letters during this period. Yet the outcome of
the insurrection of 25 October was at least
three-quarters settled, if not more, the moment
that we opposed the transfer of the Petrograd
garrison; created the MRC (16 October);
appointed out own commissars in all army
divisions and institutions; and thereby
completely isolated not only the general staff of
the Petrograd zone, but also the Government.
[Italics ours]
As of 9 October, however, the majority of Petrograd
Bolsheviks are not persuaded that the insurrection
should happen before the 2nd Congress. And the CC
is in two minds. The next night, 10th October, the
CC meets, and Lenin makes his first appearance in
Petrograd since July. He argues passionately for
immediate insurrection; the peasants and workers
are ready and waiting for the Bolsheviks to lead
them; the counter-revolution is imminent. Lenins
resolution: recognizing that an armed uprising is
inevitable and the time fully ripe, the CC instructs
all party organisations to be guided accordingly and
to consider and decide all practical questions from
this viewpoint, is passed. But no date for the
insurrection is set.
The CCs decision is communicated to Bolshevik
workers and soldiers who enthusiastically back the
preparation for insurrection. A full session of the
Petrograd Soviet on 16 October is convened to
confirm the formation of the MRC. Trotsky defends
it against angry charges from the Menshevik Broido,
that the MRC was a Bolshevik ruse to seize power.
Trotsky declares the MRC is an organ of the Soviet,
not the Bolsheviks, created to prepare the defence
of the revolution from the counter-revolution. The
MRC is confirmed by the Soviet.
But the Bolshevik ranks are not yet convinced that
an immediate insurrection would prevail. At a
Petrograd Committee meeting of delegates from
the city, doubts and fears that the revolutionary
ranks were not ready come from the Bolshevik
Military Organization a hotbed of militant soldiers
and sailors. The meeting votes down an immediate
insurrection 11 to 8. In view of this news, the CC is
urgently reconvened on the same day. Again, Lenin
demands immediate insurrection; the masses are
not unready but waiting; they trust the Bolsheviks
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and demand action not words! The usual objections
were raised, all effectively claiming that the
workers are not ready. Lenin did not insist on a
timeline, while Zinoviev held out for the 2nd
Congress (which had been postponed from the 20th
to the 25th). Lenin won, 19 for, 4 abstentions and 2
(Kamenev and Zinoviev) against.
Though Lenin had used the threat to resign from the
CC and go to the ranks these were an essential
aspect of internal party democracy. When Kamenev
tenders his resignation from the CC, unlike Lenin,
he does not raise his opposition inside the wider
party. He breaks party discipline and publishes the
CC decision to prepare for revolution in Gorkys
newspaper the next day (17 October):
At the present the instigation of an armed
uprising before and independent of the Soviet
Congress would be an impermissible and even
fatal step for the proletariat and the revolution.
Lenin reacts angrily: a shocking, damaging
transgression of party discipline and demanded
Kamenevs resignation. The moderates and right of
the party leadership fall into line. Larin and
Riazanov attack the CC line as premature. Stalin
objects to Kamenevs resignation and resigns
himself from the editorial board. All these threats
of resignation are ignored or rejected by the CC.
Chudnovsky reports that the Bolsheviks have no
support base on the Southern Front. A meeting of
200 soldier delegates opposes coming out, as does
the Peter and Paul Fortress. Stalin exclaims, our
whole position is contradictory!
In reality the party leadership is split only over the
question of timing; whether the urgency of the
revolution is outweighed by the legal cover of
waiting for the 2nd Congress. The real contradiction
is that of antagonistic class interests. Those for
insurrection (Bolsheviks and Left SRS) represent the
proletariat and the poor peasants whom they know
are ready and waiting for the right time. Those who
want to delay the insurrection on the basis that the
workers are not ready do so in the hope of winning
support in the Soviet for the Constituent Assembly.
They (Mensheviks and SRs) represent the utopia of
a bourgeois socialist democracy (half way house).
MRC turns words into action
Lenin finds the way to resolve Stalins
contradiction when, on his return to Petrograd,
he realizes that the MRC representing the majority
of the Soviet, is actually a front for the Bolshevik
CC, and the key to the insurrection. It is taking
Class Struggle 123
responsibility for organizing and preparing for the
seizure of power. While defending Petrograd, it is
upping the momentum for an insurrection sooner
rather than later. On the 20 October the CC
endorses the MRC and instructs all Bolshevik
organisations [to] become part of the revolutionary
center organized by the Soviet.
On 21st October, Trotsky opens the MRC Garrison
conference. He wins support for a declaration
calling on the 2nd Congress to take power. The Don
Cossacks cancel the next days procession to
commemorate the 105th anniversary of the
liberation of Moscow from Napoleons occupation
and declare that they would oppose the counter-
revolution. At midnight, a MRC delegation meets
Polkovnikov and asserts its right to veto
Headquarters orders. He refuses - we wont
recognize your Commissars. In the early hours of
the 2nd the garrison acclaims a MRC resolution to
take full responsibility for the defence of Petrograd.
Long live the Garrison!
Next day, the 22nd, is Petrograd Soviet Day. At mass
meetings throughout the city, Bolshevik speakers
rally support. Sukhanov reports that Trotskys
speech: Petrograd is in danger, workers and
soldiers must defend the city, generates a mood
bordering on ecstasy. Meanwhile, the counter-
revolution is also building. Polkovnikov orders
troops from the Northern front to the city. Kerensky
goes for the kill demanding that the MRC reverses
its declaration of power Long Live the Garrison or
face suppression.
23rd October. The MRC appoints its Commissars and
declares a veto over all military orders. MRC
delegates go to Peter and Paul to win its support. A
debate between the Commander, SRs and
Mensheviks vs the Bolsheviks goes on from 12 noon
to 8pm, changing venues to the Modern Circus, the
scene of Trotskys most famous 1905 speeches.
Finally, a vote is taken on the dance floor; for the
MRC move to the left; those against, move to the
right. Overwhelming victory! Or is it? Are the
soldiers too far ahead of the Soviet leadership and
even the moderate Bolsheviks who are holding out
against jumping immediately from the bourgeois to
the socialist revolution? Later that night a pre-
congress meeting of Petrograd delegates to the 2nd
Congress endorses the MRC role in defence of the
Congress. But Menshevik and other delegates
demand that the MRC withdraw its veto of
Headquarters orders, or, be derecognized by the
Central Executive Committee of the Soviet! The
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MRC reverses its declaration of veto power!! But
these are only words, roll on the action.
Early hours of 24th October. As Miville puts it: The
MRC had blinked. Kerensky struck. But a strange
army of cadets, members of the Womens Death
Battalion, horse artillery, assorted Cossacks,
bicycle units and war wounded, is the best he can
offer. The Bolsheviks are aroused from sleep by
Trotskys call to arms, Kerensky is on the
offensive! The CC decides to answer attack with
counter-attack. The pretext is the clownish
smashing of the Bolshevik press by the strange
army (along with two right-wing presses!) which
Trotsky seizes on to justify an armed response
because the Sovietcannot tolerate suppression of
the free word. But this is a counter-demonstration
only, proportionate to Kerenskys panic jab. Later
that day, Trotsky, speaking to the Bolshevik
delegates gathering for the 2nd Congress, re-affirms
that there will be no insurrection ahead of the
Congress, for there is no need to arrest the
Government when it is falling itself. This is
defence, comrades. This is defence.
Meanwhile, Kerenskys collapsing regime retreats to
the Winter Palace. It is surrounded by the guns of
the revolution waiting for the order to fire. On the
afternoon of the 24th, Headquarters orders all
bridges closed except for the Palace Bridge. But by
the evening two of the main bridges are back in the
hands of the revolution, along with the telegraph
office. Yet just down the road on the Nevsky
Prospect, middle class burghers promenade
unaware a new world in birth. The dual power is
wobbling. Lenin is still pushing hard to tip the
balance toward immediate revolution. We must
not wait! We may lose everything! ...The
Government is tottering. It must be given the death
blow at all costs. In whose name? Let the MRC do
it, he writes in an urgent message.
But the MRC, though controlled by the Bolsheviks,
is a Soviet institution and that is not yet controlled
by the Bolsheviks. The question of insurrection can
be solved only by force of arms on the streets. The
Mensheviks and SRs in the moribund Pre-Parliament
try to compromise with Kerensky. A Committee of
Public Safety is formed to remove Kerensky and
move toward the CA. At the same time the Left SRs
and Bolsheviks are in the streets taking power in
easy steps and meeting little resistance. The Pre-
parliaments compromising words dissolve like hot
air when armed sailors from Helsingfors take the
Telegraph Agency. Then around 9 pm the Pavlovsky
Class Struggle 123
Regiment barricades the Troitsky Bridge, and the
MRC Commissar in charge, Osvald Dennis
incredulously ignores the MRC command to pull
down the barricade.
Insurrection Day
Lenin can stand it no longer. He takes off for the
Smolny to play an active part in the revolution. He
enters around midnight disguised in a wig with his
face bandaged, both of which he has to remove
before being recognized. But words still try to
smother actions in the Soviet. In the All-Russian
Executive Committee, the Mensheviks take up the
Pre-parliament proposal for a Committee of Public
Safety route to the CA. The Left SRs and the
Menshevik-Internationists push for a Soviet
Government comprising a socialist coalition
(themselves). But now the Reds are also on the
move. The urgency of events and Lenins constant
demands, are forcing the MRC onto the offensive.
Around 2 am, MRC Commissar Dennis is ordered to
reinforce the barricade he has refused to remove,
and extend that barricade to the grounds of the
Winter Palace. MRC Commissar Faerman leads a
party to take the electric power station and cut-off
supply to Government buildings. Commissar
Kadlubovskys squad takes the post office. The Sixth
Engineers take the Nikolaevsky Station behind the
Winter Palace. At 3.30 am the cruiser Aurora
appears in the Neva near the Nikolaevsky Bridge just
south of the Palace. The Garrison is on alert and
more armed Reds are heading to Petrograd from
Kronstadt and Finland.
Dawn on the 25th. Revolutionary guards meet no
resistance in taking the Engineers Palace, the
Petrograd State Bank, the main telephone
exchange, and in freeing prisoners from the jails.
Later that morning the Kronstadt revolutionary
sailors set off in a squadron of destroyers and patrol
boats decked with the banners of revolution. In the
Smolny Lenin hastily drafts a proclamation in the
name of the MRC:
To the Citizens of Russia. The Provisional
Government has been overthrown. State power
has passed into the hands of the organ of the
Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers
Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee,
which stands at the head of the Petrograd
proletariat and garrison. The cause for which the
people have struggled the immediate proposal
of a democratic peace, the elimination of the
landlord estates, workers control over
production, the creation of a soviet government
the triumph of this cause has been assured.
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Long live the workers, soldiers and peasants
revolution!
11 am. As the proclamation is being pasted up all
over the city, Kerensky devoid of any military
backing, wangles a US embassy car to flee the city.
Mid-day. The Pre-parliament, beloved by the
compromisers as the road to the CA, is put out of its
misery by revolutionary guards who enter the
Mariinsky Palace and order the deputies out onto
the street. The Kronstadt forces arrive and the
Admiralty and its high command is stormed. By noon
the deadline set for taking the Winter Palace is
passed. The next deadline 2pm, the scheduled
opening of the 2nd Congress is also missed. But the
delegates already assembled demand to know what
is being done in the Soviets name.
At 2.35 pm Trotsky opens an emergency session of
the Petrograd Soviet: On behalf of the Military
Revolutionary Committee, I declare that the
Provisional Government no longer exists. Big
cheers. More cheers when Lenin appears briefly:
Long live the world socialist revolution! he
exclaims before departing.
The dual power situation has been resolved, but for
the task of tidying-up the Ministers of the Kerensky
Government. More useless deadlines come and go -
3,4, 6pm. Lenin sends off a barrage of notes to the
MRC demanding they finish the job. Without waiting
for the order, at 6.15pm, Commissar Blagonravov of
the Peter and Paul fortress delivers an ultimatum to
the Winter Palace. He gives them 20 mins to
surrender or suffer shelling from the Fortress and
the Aurora. It turns out that the Peter and Paul guns
are deemed unworkable. By 8pm most of the troops
defending the Winter Palace are fading away and
journalists, like John Reed, and all and sundry, can
enter the Palace at will. It is not until 9.40pm that
Blagonravov organizes a signal to the Aurora to fire.
A resounding blank sets off a long boom.
The Congress delegates will not suffer further
delays. Around 11pm the Second Congress of Soviets
is officially opened in the Assembly Hall of the
Smolny. While the revolution is being decided on
the streets by Red Guards, the Congress continues
its class war within. Of a total of 670 delegates, 300
are Bolsheviks; 193 SRs (most of which are Left SRs);
68 Mensheviks and 14 Menshevik-Internationalists.
Without the left SRs the Bolsheviks do not have a
majority. The Menshevik Dan speaking for the
outgoing presidium, immediately attacks the
insurrection in the name of the Soviet. A new
presidium reflecting the new composition of
Class Struggle 123
delegates is elected. 14 Bolsheviks, 7 Left SRs. The
Mensheviks refuse to take up their 3 positions. The
1 M-I position is left empty -pending events. Then
from offstage another boom sounds, this time from
Peter and Paul, starting a barrage of live shells and
the endgame at the Winter Palace.
At the Smolny the Soviet indulges in some theatre
of the absurd. Against the sound of gunfire, the
Menshevik-Internationalist Martov, calls for a
ceasefire and a cross-party, united, socialist,
government! Who will be in this cross-party
popular-front SUG? Mensheviks and SRs only? Then
the Left SRs and Bolsheviks endorse Martovs
motion. Why not, if victory is imminent, merely
waiting on the arrest of the Govt Ministers? The
victory of the revolution will determine who is in
the Soviet Government. Support for the motion is
unanimous. Then as the guns boom on, reality
intrudes upon the theatre.
The Duma [parliament] is split between the pro-
Government Kadets, Mensheviks, and Right SRs
marching to defend the Winter Palace, and the
Bolsheviks and Left SRs marching to join the Soviet.
In the Smolny the Mensheviks in the Congress arouse
themselves.
A criminal political venture has been going on
behind the back of the All-Russian Congress
The Mensheviks and SRs repudiate all that is
going on here, and stubbornly resist all attempts
to seize the government.
When they hear of the Duma decision from the
arriving Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks and SRs call for
the Soviet to join the march to the Winter Palace.
The left mocks and condemns them. They then act
on their words and leave the Soviet and the fate of
the SUG to the Bolsheviks and Left SRs. Now there
is a true Soviet majority of workers, soldiers and
poor peasants.
Then Martov (leader of the M-I) who has stayed
behind, criticizes the Bolsheviks for anticipating the
vote of Congress and moves again for his half-way
house SUG. Trotsky responds:
A rising of the masses of the people requires no
justification. What has happened is an
insurrection, and not a conspiracy. We hardened
the revolutionary energy of the Petersburg
workers and soldiers. We openly forged the will
of the masses for and insurrection, and not a
conspiracy. The masses of the people followed
our banner and our insurrection was victorious.
And now we are told: renounce your victory,
make concessions, compromise. With whom? I
14
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ask: with who ought we to compromise? With
those wretched groups which have left us or who
are making this proposal? But after all weve had
a full view of them. No one in Russia is with them
any longer. A compromise is supposed to be
made, as between two equal sides, by the
millions of workers and peasants represented by
this congress, whom they are ready, not for the
first time or the last, to barter away as the
bourgeoisie sees fit. No, here no compromise is
possible. To those who have left and to those
who tell us to do this we must say: you are
miserable bankrupts, your role is played out. Go
where you ought to go: into the dustbin of
history!
Martov, amid overwhelming applause and cheering,
utters a curse, one day you will understand the
crime in which you are taking part, and leaves in
search of his dustbin. The Left SRs are not yet ready
to join the other SRs in their dustbin. But when they
try to revive Martovs compromise proposal
arguing that the Bolsheviks do not represent the
majority of the peasantry nor the army, they come
up against the Bolshevik majority in the Soviet. The
Bolshevik reply is brief and pointed: how do you
compromise with those who walked out of the
Soviet?
2am, 26th October. The Winter Palace, the dustbin
of Tsarism and now of the Provisional Government,
falls over itself. The Bolshevik Antonov leads the
MRC Red Guards to arrest the remaining few
members of the Kerensky cabinet, then escorts
them to the safety of confinement in the Peter and
Paul. The news reaches the Soviet at 3am. An anti-
climax, compounded by the continued comic opera
of the semi-exiled M-Is reviving their pathetic
demand for a SUG to include the compromisers.
The fitting finale of the Second Congress is being
orchestrated by Lenin from elsewhere in the
Smolny. He drafts a resolution declaring victory to
the Revolutionary Government:
To all Workers and Peasants. The revolution will
deliver peace, land, bread and national self-
determination. But not unless all attempts at armed
counter-revolution are defeated. Soldiers,
Workers, Employees! The fate of the revolution and
democratic peace is in your hands! At 5am the
resolution becomes the will of the Soviet and the
dawn breaks to welcome a new Government, the
first workers state, and a new society. Yet all
remain precarious until the counter-revolution is
defeated.
To be Continued
Imperialism: Hands Off Venezuela!
Trump picks up where Bush and Obama left off training the guns of imperialism on
the populist leaders of Chavism in Venezuela. While giving no political support to
the Maduro popular front government and its fake 21st Century Socialism, which
is just a cover maintaining capitalism in the face of social misery and unrest, The
Communist Workers Group opposes US intervention, sanctions, covert and overt
plots and sabotage against the Venezuelan state and masses. In the USA we
advocate a labor led anti-war movement that breaks the confines of Taft-Hartley
and initiates solidarity strike actions to stop the movement of war materials and
the troops Trump is threatening to deploy. We call on workers to build a
revolutionary workers international party that coordinates the international
struggle against imperialism and for world socialism.

The following is an English translation from our comrades of the Revolutionary Workers Group
of Brazil (RWG-BR) of Brazil. The organizations, parties and individuals mentioned in the article
are summarized in the footnotes (9).

For an independent and revolutionary exit in
Venezuela
Venezuela today is certainly one of the countries
most affected by the current global crisis of
capitalism. The workers and the Venezuelan people
are falling into misery quickly. Inflation exceeds
900%, there is no access to food and other basic
living conditions such as health care. Faced with the
greatest capitalist crisis in history, twenty-first
century socialism is shown to be a true farce that
has nothing to do with socialism.
Chavismo came to power in 1999, and despite the
rhetoric of socialism, relied on the capitalist
economy of selling commodities, notably oil, which
reached high prices during the economic boom in
the international market. The oil income enabled
Chavismo to subsidize a range of compensatory
policies to assist the poorest people. From the same
boom in commodity sales, especially to China,
populist and grassroots governments in Latin
America such as Lula in Brazil and the Kirchners in
Argentina have benefited. The resurgence of the
global crisis of capitalism in 2008 brought to an end
the policy of compensatory measures and brought
on major crises of these governments.
The Chavez government has wide support from the
left. The reformist left always supported 21st
century socialism as a peaceful road to socialism
within the bourgeois democratic regime. One of the
main excuses for Chavisms defenders is that it
would be anti-imperialist. Although it has never
stopped selling oil to US imperialism, paying off
foreign debt and letting multinationals operate in
the country, the Venezuelan government defies the
US and even suffered a coup attempt in 2002. But
far from being anti-imperialist, despite Chavismo
cutting some ties with American imperialism, it
increasingly tightens its relations with Chinese and
Russian imperialisms. (1)
Faced with the aggravation of the economic,
political and social crisis in Venezuela, currents that
previously were in the opposition to the left of
Chavismo today defend the government as the
lesser evil in relation to the right opposition
linked to MUD (Table of National Unity ), like the
MAIS (Movement for an Independent and Socialist
Alternative) argues in their article (2). In Brazil,
although Lula and the PT do not maintain an anti-
imperialist rhetoric such as that of Chavez and
Maduro, much of the left defends PT governments
as less connected to imperialism; several
organizations and militants who said they opposed
the Popular Front government, like the PSOL,
before the crisis and the growth of the right, do not
have an independent policy and act as an auxiliary
ballot line of the PT. MAIS, after breaking with the
PSTU, also made this turn in Brazil, another
organization that called itself left opposition to the
PT, is now defending the popular front against the
coup of the right. As we said during the crisis of
the Dilma government (3), the PT government and
the Popular Front are not the lesser evil. The
Popular Front ties the workers to the bourgeoisie,
demobilizes and demoralizes the working class and
opens the way to the right and fascism.
Independent Venezuela?
One of the arguments of MAIS / Valrio to defend
the Maduro government, which generated a polemic
Class Struggle 123
with the LIT / PSTU, is that Chavismo would be
relatively independent from imperialism. Quoting
Nahuel Moreno and the Theses of the Second
Congress of the LIT, MAIS responds to the PSTU
stating that There are countries, politically,
independent, as evidenced by the fact that
imperialism attacks them. If they were dependent,
the US would not obviously initiate aggression
campaigns, such as those suffered by Libya, Angola,
Nicaragua, etc. (4).
In their reply, the PSTU agrees with the category of
independent countries, however, these would no
longer exist and would now be semi-colonies: In
these articles, Valerio makes a methodological
observation: the definition of independent
country(used by Nahuel Moreno in the 1980s) is a
category under construction, that is, in debate
and in the process of elaboration. But we do want
to refer to an empirical evidence: this category of
independent countries is in extinction (if not
extinguished). Therefore, those independent
countries that Moreno had defined (Algeria, Libya,
Angola, etc.) today are already semi-colonies. The
former workers states already fall into this
category or are in the process of becoming so (like
Cuba and China). (5).
The LIT / PSTU, contrary to the MAIS, says that it is
necessary to fight against Maduro, but, citing the
declaration of their section in Venezuela, shows
that the way out (of the crisis ed.) is inside the
bourgeois democratic regime and elections
already (sloganed.) Among other things, we
propose: immediate suspension of the payment of
external debt; money for decent wages; food,
medicine, health and education; investment in the
recovery of fields to produce food; rescue of basic
enterprises; nationalization of all oil; end of mixed
enterprises; respect for full democratic freedoms
with free elections and freedom for prisoners to
struggle; investigation of all acts of violence and
murders; repudiation of attacks on trade unions,
parties and social and popular organizations; State
intervention in trade unions; and elections already!
By a general strike and a venezuelao to
overthrow Maduro and change the country. It was
Maduro and his government of hunger and misery!
(6).
The independent semi-colonial country theory
of imperialism is yet another of the revisionist
and anti-Marxist theories of centrists such as the
LIT / PSTU and opportunists such as MAIS.
We are living today the biggest crisis of capitalism
that strongly shakes the American hegemony and
intensifies the inter-imperialist dispute between
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Summer 2017-18
the US / EU and China / Russia blocs. We have said
that China and Russia are imperialists, affirming
Lenin and Trotskys theories of Imperialism and
Permanent Revolution. In the imperialist era the
world is already divided among the imperialist
countries. There is no progressive bourgeoisie
capable of obtaining independence from capitalism.
The bourgeoisie is not capable of developing
productive forces and the imperialist phase is that
of capitalism, of crises, wars and revolutions. China
and Russia were deformed / degenerate workers
states and achieved independence from imperialism
through socialist revolution and expropriation of the
bourgeoisie. Capitalist restoration has not been
able to reverse all the gains made by the revolution,
and these countries return to the capitalist sphere
as emerging imperialist countries.(7)
The Arab nationalist bourgeoisies of the 1980s, like
the bourgeois Chavez government, have nothing
progressive to offer. These countries have always
been semi-colonies and continue to be. We must
defend the semi-colonies from imperialist
aggressions, but never give support to bourgeois
sectors. We must support democratic demands as
transitional demands for the Permanent Revolution.
In the imperialist era, the bourgeoisie is no longer
able to complete the bourgeois revolution, which
can only be completed as part of the permanent
revolution.
The Chavista regime is under pressure from US
imperialism and its imperialist allies. China and
Russia will not hesitate to support the regime and
all its repression. If there is a break in the army and
an attempted coup, we cannot support a proxy
war between the imperialist powers in Venezuela.
(8)
There is no way out for the working class and the
poor people, who suffer from the deep economic
crisis, within capitalism and the bourgeois
democratic regime. The way out for the working
class, which suffers from hunger, unemployment
and is now dying for lack of medicines, is to organize
itself independently, with committees and the
General strike for the seizure of power, the
expropriation of the bourgeoisie and a real workers
government. There is no way out for Venezuelan
workers in Latin American alliances with
imperialism, be it the US or China / Russia. Castro-
Chavism is the great barrier to the independence of
the working class and struggle against the
bourgeoisie and imperialism in Latin America (LA).
For footnotes see the CWGUSA post which also
includes the original Portuguese text.
Zimbabwe: For New October Revolutions!
This leaflet was distributed at the Marxism 2017 Conference, Crisis in Zimbabwe
and Global Capitalism One Solution Revolution Celebrating 100 years of the Great
October 1917 Russian Revolution held November 4th in Zimbabwe organized by the
International Socialist Organization Zimbabwe and other left and radical
movements and unions.
World imperialism is facing its terminal crisis of
falling profits and climate change. There is no way
out for the human race other than the overthrow of
global capitalism and creation of world socialism.
For that reason, workers and oppressed in every
country have to subordinate their national struggles
to the international workers struggle.
For imperialism to survive it downloads its crisis
onto the semi-colonies and the oppressed people of
the earth. All of the hardships faced by the masses
are caused by the degeneration of a rotten
capitalist system that no longer develops, but
rather destroys, the forces of production.
Africa demonstrates how the world is being re-
partitioned between Chinese imperialists on the rise
and the US/EU imperialists on the decline. China
(and Russia) are not friends of Africa but the new
colonial powers. They prop up the anti-worker
regimes as their agents in pumping out raw
materials and surplus value from Africa.
They send capitalist enterprises to Africa to build
infrastructure projects primarily to support
extraction of raw materials and staff these
enterprises with expat construction workers,
engineers, doctors and support staff. Promoted as
win-win deals and in Marxist terms Use Value 1917 and the lessons of October prove this. Unless
exchanges the outcome perpetuates the stunted
industrialisation and parasitic underdevelopment
model western imperialism practices, with a smile.
Zimbabwe is one of the most oppressed semi-
colonies. Its crisis is the downloading of Chinas
crisis. It is investing in infrastructure, cancelling
loans and bailing out the regime to hold down the
people while it extracts minerals (diamonds), crops
(tobacco) and cheap labour etc. At present the
only policy document is Zim-Asset, which covers all
areas, but without specific prioritisation. Zim-
Asset requires an estimated US$28 billion, which is
not available. (June 29 2016 The Herald).
In contrast the $4b promise of Chinese FDI will not
afford Zimbabwe a breakthrough to a modern
development. It will afford a continuation of the
current Chinese extraction model, building
infrastructure to aid extraction of resources. The
$4b for Agricultural development is intended to
double tobacco exports and replicate the tobacco
model to grow soy, cotton, and livestock products
for export. Trading western imperialism for eastern
imperialism leaves Africa undeveloped.
Workers and the oppressed must organise to fight
back and refuse to pay the costs of the imperialists
crisis. Spontaneous fightbacks must be coordinated
and organised by the rank and file in the unions,
nationally and regionally, and on the streets and in
the schools to defend the masses from economic
exploitation and state repression.
Workers and the poor masses should not wait for
elections to be held next year. The issues of factions
in the ruling party and coalitions in the opposition
are just machinations of imperialism in search of a
better way of controlling the masses. For this a mass
workers party, and other popular organisations such
as workers councils and workers self-defence squads
are necessary.
A mass workers party has to be independent of the
imperialists, the compradors and the middle class.
It can only do this by building an internationalist
revolutionary workers party on the Bolshevik model.
workers defeat the class enemy within the workers
organisations there can be no class independence.
These lessons must be translated to the Southern
African situation.
The Bolshevik party activates a transitional program
that develops revolutionary consciousness by raising
immediate demands necessary for living, food,
housing, health, education, continuing to advance
the struggle for maximum demands for the defeat
of imperialism, its comprador client regime in
Zimbabwe, and for the formation of a workers and
small farmers Government, i.e. permanent
revolution.
True national independence can only be achieved
by the spread of workers revolution across the
Southern cone and the formation of a federation of
Class Struggle 123 Summer 2017-18

socialist workers states of Southern Africa taking
the road of the October revolution.
A Workers and small farmers Government is
necessary to socialise the means of production and
create a socialist plan to rebuild the economy on
the basis of workers democratic control in industry,
agriculture, transport, finance etc. Only by this
means can the working people take control of and
develop the economy to meet their basic needs.
Zimbabwe cannot succeed as a socialist republic
within one country and must join forces with all
Southern African states and a wider union of African
socialist republics to create a new division of labour
for development. For that reason, in every country
international solidarity is forged by the formation of
a revolutionary international party as the general
staff to lead the revolution and defeat all the
imperialist general staffs.
A union of African socialist republics as part of a
global federation of socialist republics is necessary
to overcome national divisions, to unite and defend
the world revolution, end mass poverty, oppression
and the collapse of the ecosystem, and to save
humanity and nature.
Revolutionary Workers Group Zimbabwe
Website:www.rwgzimbabwe.wordpress.com
Email: rwg.zimbabwe@gmail.com

RWG Zimbabwe preliminary statement on military takeover.

The Revolutionary Workers Group of Zimbabwe(RWG-Z) condemns the military
takeover on behalf of the western sponsored and neo-liberal bourgeois faction of
ZANU-PF. A coup can never be a solution to the plight of the workers, poor
peasants and poor masses. This has only been done to protect the interests of a
certain wing of the comprador capitalists and their imperialist friends.

Workers and poor masses should organise against this coup just as they fought
Mugabe's regime. They should also not wait for the so-called intervention from
SADC. Instead we call for solidarity from workers and poor masses across the
region and globally. Only independent self-activity of the toiling masses can
conquer a good life for all. Furthermore, we call for an urgent meeting of the
revolutionary and radical left to organise opposition both to the coup and the
regime.

Form up workers and peasants councils that prepare the revolutionary

general strike!
Form councils of the street vendors and unemployed!
Advance the program of socialism: Quality Jobs, education, housing and
healthcare for all can be won by uniting the masses into independent
workers councils and militia!
For soldiers councils to arrest the bourgeois generals!
Elect rank and file officers to rout out corruption and arm the masses!
No faith in those who cut deals with imperialism at our expense. Seize
properties forfeited to imperialism!
Nationalize the economy under workers and peasants controls with no
compensation to the comprador and imperialists!
Build our revolution across borders for a federation of southern African
workers states!
RWG Zimbabwe 15th November 2017.

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Class Struggle 123
What We Fight For
Overthrow Capitalism
Historically, capitalism expanded world-wide to
free much of humanity from the bonds of feudal or
tribal society, and developed the economy, society
and culture to a new higher level. But it could only
do this by exploiting the labour of the productive
classes to make its profits. To survive, capitalism
became increasingly destructive of "nature" and
humanity. In the early 20th century it entered the
epoch of imperialism in which successive crises
unleashed wars, revolutions and counter-
revolutions. Today we fight to end capitalisms
wars, famine, oppression and injustice, by
mobilising workers to overthrow their own ruling
classes and bring to an end the rotten, exploitative
and oppressive society that has exceeded its use-by
date.
Fight for Socialism
By the 20th century, capitalism had created the
pre-conditions for socialism a world-wide working
class and modern industry capable of meeting all
our basic needs. The potential to eliminate poverty,
starvation, disease and war has long existed. The
October Revolution proved this to be true, bringing
peace, bread and land to millions. But it became
the victim of the combined assault of imperialism
and Stalinism. After 1924 the USSR, along with its
deformed offspring in Europe, degenerated back
towards capitalism. In the absence of a workers'
political revolution, capitalism was restored
between 1990 and 1992. Vietnam, China and Cuba
then followed. Today only North Korea (DPRK)
survives as a degenerate workers state. We
unconditionally defend the DPRK against capitalism
and fight for political revolution to overthrow the
bureaucracy as part of world socialism.
Defend Marxism
While the economic conditions for socialism exist
today, standing between the working class and
socialism are political, social and cultural barriers.
They are the capitalist state and bourgeois ideology
and its agents. These agents claim that Marxism is
dead and capitalism need not be exploitative. We
say that Marxism is a living science that explains
both capitalisms continued exploitation and its
attempts to hide class exploitation behind the
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Summer 2017-18
appearance of individual "freedom" and "equality".
It reveals how and why the reformist, Stalinist and
centrist mis-leaders of the working-class tie workers
to bourgeois ideas of nationalism, racism, sexism
and equality. Such false beliefs will be exploded
when the struggle against the inequality, injustice,
anarchy and barbarism of capitalism in crisis, led by
a revolutionary Marxist party, produces a
revolutionary class-consciousness.
For a Revolutionary Party
The bourgeois and its agents condemn the Marxist
party as totalitarian. We say that without a
democratic and a centrally organised party there
can be no revolution. We base our beliefs on the
revolutionary tradition of Bolshevism and
Trotskyism. Such a party, armed with a transitional
program, forms a bridge that joins the daily fight to
defend all the past and present gains won from
capitalism, to the victorious socialist revolution.
Defensive struggles for bourgeois rights and
freedoms, for decent wages and conditions, will link
up the struggles of workers of all nationalities,
genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations,
bringing about movements for workers control,
political strikes and the arming of the working class,
as necessary steps to workers' power and the
smashing of the bourgeois state. Along the way,
workers will learn that each new step is one of many
in a long march to revolutionise every barrier put in
the path to the victorious revolution.
Fight for Communism
Communism stands for the creation of a classless,
stateless society beyond socialism that is capable of
meeting all human needs. Against the ruling class
lies that capitalism can be made "fair" for all; that
nature can be "conserved"; that socialism and
communism are "dead"; we raise the red flag of
communism to keep alive the revolutionary
tradition of the' Communist Manifesto of 1848, the
Bolshevik-led October Revolution; the Third
Communist International until 1924, the
revolutionary Fourth International up to 1940
before its collapse into centrism. We fight to build
a new, Fifth, Communist International, as a world
party of socialism capable of leading workers to a
victorious struggle for socialism.
Class Struggle 123 Summer 2017-18

For a New World Party of Socialism!

Liaison Committee of Communists

Class Warrior: Theoretical Journal of LCC http://www.cwgusa.org/?page_id=594
Revolutionary Workers Group of Zimbabwe (RWG-ZIM)
Email: rwg.zimbabwe@gmail.com
Website: www.rwgzimbabwe.wordpress.com
Revolutionary Worker (Paper of RWG-Zimbabwe)
Communist Workers Group- New Zealand/Aotearoa (CWG-NZ)
Email: cwg006@yahoo.com
Websites: Class Struggle (Paper of the CWG-NZ) http://redrave.blogspot.com )
http://livingmarxism.wordpress.com
Revolutionary Workers Group of Brazil (RWG-BR)
Email: gtrevolucionarios1@gmail.com
Site: https://grupodetrabalhadoresrevolucionrios.wordpress.com
Guerreiro da classe Trabalhadora (Paper of the RWG-BR)
Communist Workers Group USA (CWG-US):
Email: cwgclasswar@gmail.com
Website: Class War (Paper of the CWG-US) http://www.cwgusa.org/?page_id=16

Class Struggle is online at https://www.redrave.blogspot.com

Phone +64272800080 cwg2007anz@hotmail.com Archive of publications before 2006
http://communistworker.blogspot.com/

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