THE REUNION OF THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM AT PORTO ALEGRE

We reprint here an important article from Workers Democracy N8 January 22 on the role of the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre held in the first week of February. We do not necessarily agree with all of the analysis, for example Workers Democracy’s decision to boycott the alternative forums held by the LBI and PO. We do agree with the call an international conference to found a new Zimmerwald. A front to prevent the advance of the Latin American and world-wide revolution, in the service of the imperialistic powers and their lackeys, the Latin American bosses´ regimes.

Yankee imperialism has begun, with the support of the European imperialistic powers and its gendarme the state of Israel, a counter-revolutionary war to try to smash the great revolution of the working class and the Palestinian people. The Israeli genocidal army has entered with blood and fire the Palestinian city of Tulkarem, occupying it, and totally unmasking the farce of a "Palestinian state" co-existing next to Israeli state.

While it threatens to intervene militarily in Colombia, and after bomb-blasting Afghanistan, Bush has jailed in Guantanamo -with the support of Fidel Castro- the heroic internationalist militias that went to fight in Afghanistan.

With these counterrevolutionary blows and offensives, the imperialistic butchers try to give a lesson to the workers and the oppressed peoples of the world, and thus, also to discipline still more their own working classes. It is the counterrevolutionary answer to the great Palestinian Revolution, and to the revolution that has begun in Argentina and whose example and expansive waves represent a threat with the reopening of working class and farmers' struggles in the whole of Latin America.

If some time ago Yankee imperialism needed to extract from the exploitation and plundering of the semi colonial countries US$ 1000 million daily to maintain its cycle of growth, now under thee blows of the world-wide economic and financial crisis that has hit the US economy, it needs to go bombing and smashing his way like in Afghanistan, attacking its own working class with millions of layoffs, and take on a re-colonizing offensive against the oppressed peoples of the world, so as to maintain its dominant power against the competition of the European powers and Japan.

It needs to eliminate the old borders of the post Second War period, imposing new protectorates like in Kosovo or Afghanistan, with massacres like in East Timor (Indonesia) and sending whole countries into bankruptcy to make them again into colonies, with their economies under the direct control of a board of the big bankers and the imperialistic organizations such as IMF, WB, WTO, etc., as it intends to do in Argentina.

But its counter-revolutionary policy is incomplete if simultaneously the imperialist butchers do not use counterrevolutionaries of all colors in their paid service, so that they strangle from inside the revolutions in their course and restrain the fight of the workers and the exploited. For that reason, (at the same time that the imperialistic strategists reunite in NY for another stage of the Davos round. ) these paid agents and their aides reunite again in February, in the forum of Porto Alegre, Brazil, to form the counterrevolutionary "international".

There, under the auspices of the governments of the European imperialistic regimes, meet the representatives of Fidel Castro and the Cuban restorationist bureaucracy, who support Bush in its "war against terrorism" and are co-responsible for the imprisonment of the internationalist militia fighters for Afghanistan, in the Yankee Military Headquarters in Guantanamo Bay; thus Fidel and his restorationist clique are completing their tasks to buy their right to recycle themselves as bourgeoisie and accomplish the total restoration of capitalism in Cuba.

Going also re the representatives of the FARC and Latin American Stalinism in all its variants, and even the French imperialistic multimedia Le Monde, and also the Church, which while it speaks of "peace", blesses the bombs and the weapons of the imperialistic butchers and the defeats of the oppressed peoples, like in Malvinas (so-called Falklands by its long robbers, the British imperialists. NT).

There also will be the European Social Democracy that, with Tony Blair, Jospin, Schroeder, administer the imperialistic European businesses, and the social Democratic and Stalinist union bureaucracy of France, Spain, Italy, etc., who bind the working class of those countries in social pacts to subordinate them each one to their "own" imperialistic bourgeoisie, preventing these workers from supporting the workers and the oppressed peoples, like in the wars in the Balkans and also in Afghanistan.

There also will be the union bureaucracy of the North American AFL-CIO that supports Bush in his war against Afghanistan and his reactionary National Front (that is, the use of great power chauvinism to poison workers’ consciousness and subordinate them to their bosses’ counterrevolutionary and imperialistic plans.), allowing the ferocious attack on its own North American working class, with millions of layoffs, wage cuts and "flexibilization".

Next to these will be the union bureaucracies of all the American Continent: the CGT and the CTA of Argentina, the CUT of Brazil, the PIT-CNT of Uruguay, the Chilean CUT, etc., elbow to elbow with the employer’s association of the PyMes (Little and Medium-sized Enterprises.) of Argentina, and bosses’ representatives of other countries in all the continent. There will be the leaders of the farmers’ movement of Ecuador, of Bolivia, of the MST (Landless farmers) of Brazil, alongside, for example, the "unions" of the Brazilian police, the same ones the constitute the "death squads" who have assassinated the leader of the Brazilian PT, Celso Daniel, or who protect and arm the white guards of the landowners who have just shot in the back the leader of the MST, Jose Rainha.

"Not love, but fear holds them together"

What is it that explains the meeting of such like-minded counterrevolutionary leaderships, originating from all points of the planet? How do we understand the uniting in the same Forum of the union bureaucracy of the North American AFL-CIO, agent of Bush and the Yankee monopolies, with the European Social Democracy and union bureaucracies, agents each one of the imperialistic monopolies of France, Germany, Italy, etc? How is it explained that they all meet together, when their respective heads, Yankee imperialism and the European powers are joined in a ferocious commercial war for markets, raw materials and zones of influence, in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa, in the ex-workers states in liquidation like China and Russia?

The explanation is that there is no longer, like before, the great world-wide counter revolutionary apparatus directed and centralized by the Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR whose role was to contain the world-wide revolution. That Stalinist bureaucracy was recycled as a bourgeoisie, and gave the old worker states of Russia, China and the Eastern European countries over to capitalist restoration. For that reason, there must be a Sacred Union of the Social Democracy in the imperialist countries and the recycled Stalinists who are now the agents for each one of their own bourgeoisies, along with all the treacherous union bureaucracies, as well as the Church, so that they facilitate their role of containment of the world wide revolution.

While today they all attend this forum out of their common interests, that will not prevent them tomorrow to take sides with their respective imperialistic bourgeoisies in the defense of the latter’s separate interests to strengthen each one its master in the coming inter-imperialistic disputes. Moreover, in this same meeting, each imperialistic power is already instructing its own agents to defend its particular interests and businesses.

This "counter-revolutionary International" exists for the sake of strangling the fight of the masses with Popular Front policies of class collaboration.

All these counter revolutionary agents meet in Porto Alegre to discuss how to strangle and to restrain the revolutions and the struggles of the workers and the exploited. Speaking of "humanized Capitalism", "peace", "participatory democracy", "anti-neoliberalism", they prepare sleep-inducing popular front policies, of class collaboration, to deceive the masses with sweet talk, to thus give time to the imperialistic powers, and to the bourgeois regimes and governments, so that they can prepare their schemes, counter revolutionary attacks and blood baths.

They speak of "peace" to disarm the working class and the exploited farmers wherever they have begun to arm themselves or where they have joined militia, Like in Palestine, and also in order to prevent workers and poor farmers from arming where they are just beginning to think of doing so or even where there is the slightest shadow of a possibility of workers and people arming themselves.

They are definite foes of the self-organization and direct democracy of the masses, they hate the idea of the exploited and oppressed taking into their own hands the resolution of their problems. For that purpose they make social pacts, they divide the working class from the farmers and the ruined middle-class, make them subservient to the different fractions of the bourgeoisie, destroy at each stage what the masses win in the fight. They force them to fight country by country, separate the working class of the semi-colonial countries from their class allies in the imperialistic powers they support, and subordinate these working classes to the interests of their "own" imperialistic bourgeoisies.

Arafat and the national bourgeoisie of Palestine speak of "peace", say that they want a "Palestinian State" next to the Israeli Zionist state, while they request the UN to intervene with "peace keeping troops", try to disarm the working class and the people, and keep them separated from their brothers and sisters, the exploited in the whole Middle East. They have given imperialism and the State of Israel and its genocidal army a precious time allowing them to commence the counterrevolutionary war that attempts to smash the Great, Heroic Palestine Revolution.

In Ecuador the Stalinist leadership of the peasants movement and the working class, aborted the revolution. Along with the bourgeoisie, they set a trap for the exploited ones emboldened after throwing out two presidents in less than three years, the peasant masses –separated from the working class, which the Stalinist leaders of the unions had tied up hands-to-feet- were left to carry put revolutionary actions in mid 2000. They had been misguided by their leaders to think the task would be very easy, and sincerely believed their leadership was equally committed to overturn president Noboa as they were. But the bourgeoisie was prepared: it used the army to remove the peasants from the streets and defeated the masses, negotiated with the peasants’ leaders and passed the dollarization of Ecuadorian economy.

In Colombia, the Stalinist leadership of the FARC governs in the territories it occupies with a popular front in collaboration with the national bourgeoisie that controls the cocaine business. It also blocs with the landowners, whose private property is respected in exchange for a "revolutionary tax", and keeps the peasants separated from the working class in the cities. While, the Stalinist leadership of the unions controls the working class movement, so preventing it from uniting its struggles with the peasants’ and leaves both workers and peasants at the mercy of Pastrana’s government and the paramilitary gangs that assassinate at close range their political leaders and union activists.

In Brazil, Lula and the PT, and the leaders of the CUT –hosts to the Forum of Porto Alegre- speak of "peace" and "participative democracy", while they tie the hands of the working class with social pacts, divide it from the landless peasants, support the repressive government of Cardoso, while the white guards massacre in the fields and the police death squads reappear to attack the workers’ organizations and the left.

In Chile, the Communist Party that controls the unions and the student federations, supports the "conciliationist" government of Lagos and the cosmetic reforms made to the Constitution of the 80’s, so that the Pinochetist regime can remain unchanged under the mask of an allegedly "democratic" one. In El Salvador and Nicaragua, the FLMN and the Sandinists, respectively, after having bargained the revolution to its enemies in those countries in the 80’s with the Fidelista counterrevolutionary pacts in Esquipulas and Contadora, have transformed themselves into political parties that, in the municipalities and national governments alike, are the administrators of the plans of the IMF.

All together they prepare now to also strangle the Argentine revolution: they are getting ready a popular front of class collaboration with bourgeois politicians like Elisa Carrio and the priest Farinello, with union bureaucrats, Stalinism in its different variants, a deceitful front with which, despite the weakness of the government of Duhalde they will try to induce sleep in the masses to give time to imperialism and the national bourgeoisie to enlist a caste of (military) officials and the paramilitary gangs and killers so that a blood bath is being prepared.

The "International" to fight against the proletarian internationalism.

Against all the affirmations of the secretary of the Yankee Treasury O’Neill, who said that Argentina’s crisis is "isolated", the tidal wave of the Argentine revolutions has begun to strike in Latin America and the world.

In the first place, in Spain; the imperialistic monopolies of that country lost US$ 2000 million in a day in the Madrid stock-market, the collapse of the shares of Telefonica, Repsol, and the Spanish banks is self-demonstrative. It is clear now that the supposed "Spanish miracle" was nothing but a "false midwinter summer" of "sweet money" based on the enormous windfall profits made by these bloodsuckers at the expense of the super exploitation of the workers and people of Argentina and all Latin America, where they are left with most of the privatized companies!

The imperialistic butchers fear that the tidal wave of the Argentine revolution will revive the worker and popular uprising that began in Latin America in the heat of the Ecuadorian revolution, and that that struggle which was strangled by the action of the union bureaucracies and the Stalinists, now resurrects and regains momentum and in much better conditions, because the worldwide economic and financial crisis already goes to the heart of the United States.

And that wick has begun to ignite: the Bolivian workers and farmers have risen up again in Cochabamba, entering a true civil war with the army and the police, arming themselves and responding to the murder of their companion farmers with the execution of the military that fall into their hands. The university and high school students of Ecuador won the streets confronting the police assassins sent by president Noboa against them, as harbingers of the return to combat of the heroic workers and farmers. The workers and people of Peru persist with a great working class and popular offensive. Yesterday they threw out Fujimori and today they resist the weak government of Toledo.

The imperialists shake their knees in fear to think that, like in the decade of the 70’s, the working class of the Southern Cone, retains the enormous combat efficiency and revolutionary fist that terrorized the bourgeoisie and imperialism in that decade!

The Argentina workers and people need to unite to fight across the borders with our class brothers and sisters in the whole of Latin America, in concerted combat to defeat imperialism and the lackey governments and regimes. We must unite our most powerful class battalions, our brothers and sisters of the North American and European working class, in the first place –with its most exploited sectors, Latino, Blacks, Arabs, Africans, etc.- who are treated as pariahs in those countries, because they can strike at the same heart of these butchers and bloodsuckers.

It is a matter of life or death for the workers and the people that initiated the revolution in Argentina, because there, in the forum of Porto Alegre, are those who are preparing to strangle it. What is more, if we advance and we manage to make our revolution triumph, the imperialistic powers will no doubt try to smash us dropping their bombs, as they did in Afghanistan, and in the Falklands. Can we hope that the AFL-CIO that supports Bush in his re-colonization war against Afghanistan and in the attacks against its own working class, will call upon that class to rise in our support? Can we hope that Fidel Castro, who supports the imprisonment of the internationalist militias in Guantanamo, will call upon the whole continent to rise against imperialism?

Can we hope that the reformist union bureaucracies of the European countries will call on the working class to stop the imperialistic military machine, with a boycott, a general strike and confronting its own bourgeoisie and the imperialistic regimes, when they have allowed them to bomb and massacre in Iraq, in the Balkans, and in Afghanistan?

In order to win the unity of the working class and the exploited people of Latin America, it is necessary to defeat the union bureaucracies and Stalinism. We cannot be united with our class brothers and sisters in the United States, France, or Spain, without the defeat of the labor aristocracy and the union bureaucracy of the AFL-CIO and the European unions.

Down with the "counter revolutionary International" of the Porto Alegre Forum!

It is necessary to rebuild the IV International, the one revolutionary International, today usurped and besmirched by the centrists, opportunists and Pabloites! The usurpers of Trotskyism kneel down before this "counter revolutionary International of the Porto Alegre Forum"! Long live the IV International! For an International Conference of principled Trotskyism to rebuild the IV International regenerated and re-founded!

The Porto Alegre forum is the International to that we could call "Fifth and a Quarter": because it is not only the Second International –the Social Democracy-, the remains of the third International –the Stalinists-, but also has "a quarter" in it, contributed by the centrists, opportunists and Pabloites that usurp the banners of Trotskyism and the Fourth International.

The French LCR will be there, and its leader Alain Krivine, deputy to the den of thieves that is the European "Parliament" –already a defender of the interests of their own imperialistic bourgeoisie; alongside will be the fraternal parties, Bandiera Rossa of Italy, the Spanish LCR that is in the United Left with the Stalinists, and the Democratic Socialists of Brazil, that are in government in Porto Alegre with the PT of Lula.

There will also be Self-determination and Freedom, party of the renegade "Trotskyist" deputy Luis Zamora –today a left-democrat-, the "The Militant" current, the British SWP, the UIT-CI which is supporting the MST of Argentina (long ago a partner of Stalinism in Izquierda Unida, United Left, NTO, the LIT-CI with its PST-U of Brazil and the FOS of Argentina. Also the Workers Party (Partido Obrero) of Argentina, that repeats its shameful tradition as a founder of the Forum of San Pablo, that predecessor of the treacherous Forum of Porto Alegre.

Other currents of self-proclaimed Trotskyists will participate in the "alternative forums" meeting in the outskirts of the official Forum, that are no more that the "left" cover of the counter-revolutionary "international", that were held at last year’s Forum by the PTS of Argentina and the LBI of Brazil.

The centrists, opportunists and Pabloites run to put themselves on the feet of the Forum of Porto Alegre, showing that their international policy is but the expression of their national policy. Each one of them, in its own country, has adapted to the bourgeois regimes, the union bureaucracy and the Stalinists. The Porto Alegre Forum, that International " Fifth and a quarter", is "their" International!

In 1989, the centrist and opportunist currents of the Trotskyist movement -who bowed before Stalinism while the soviet bureaucracy was going into the restorationist camp –exploded in a thousand pieces. Under the weight of great world-historic defeats suffered by the working class with the loss of the workers states at the hands of the capitalist restoration, those currents made a brutal right turn to revisionism and bureaucratic centrism.

But today the revolution in Palestine, Argentine, and the confrontation between revolution and counterrevolution that has become the center of the world stage, under the conditions of stock market crash, economic depression and wars, these currents unmask themselves quickly, and will further explode, have ruptures, crisis and divisions. It is as if they are gasping like fish out of water: nothing of what they write, say and do, has to do with the aspirations, the necessities nor with the combat of the workers and the exploited people. They are exposed by the force of reality: It is not possible to speak in the name of the IVth international, and at the same time to run to put oneself at the feet of the counterrevolutionary International of Porto Alegre!

Today, like yesterday, the principled Trotskyists of the COTP-CI say: Long Live the explosion!, because we know that out of those ruptures and crisis, the lively struggle of tendencies and fractions inside the Trotskyist movement, will come the healthy forces to rebuild the Fourth International. From the Organizing Committee of Principled Trotskyism (Fourth International) and from Workers Democracy, we make an urgent call to oppose this "Fifth and a quarter International" of the treason an to come to gather in an International Conference of Principled Trotskyists. It is necessary to rebuild the Fourth International!

A New Zimmerwald

An International Conference on the lessons and the strategy opposed to the colonial war in Afghanistan, an international campaign for the immediate liberation of the internationalist, anti-imperialist militias imprisoned in Guantanamo, on the lessons and the revolutionary program for the Palestine Revolution, and the revolution that has begun in Argentina. A Conference that raises the fight so that the working class of the United States, the European imperialistic powers and Japan can defeat the AFL-CIO and the reformist union bureaucracies and confront their own imperialistic bourgeoisies, and in this way, unite with the ranks of workers and the oppressed people of the semi-colonies and colonies that today are at the vanguard of the anti-imperialist fight and the world-wide revolution.

In 1914-15, the Second International –Social Democracy- voted for war credits, making the German, French, English and Russian workers kill each other in that slaughter, subordinating them to the interests of their respective imperialistic bourgeoisies. In those black hours for the world-wide working class, a small group of internationalist revolutionaries –Lenin, Rosa Luxembourg, Trotsky, Karl Liebknecht, among other, met in Kienthal and Zimmerwald, confronting the treason of Social Democracy and calling on the workers of the nations at war to turn their guns against their own bourgeoisie and to transform the war into the beginning of the revolution.

It was that handful of internationalists that then applied to the Russian revolution of 1917 the internationalist program of Kienthal and Zimmerwald: to turn the guns against one’s own imperialistic bourgeoisie and to transform the war into socialist revolution, meant in Russia the fight for "All the power to soviets", the insurrection and the seizure of power by the Bolshevik party supported by the armed soviets of workers, peasants and soldiers.

There, in Kienthal and Zimmerwald, was formed the basis of the revolutionary 3rd International that was to soon bring about the triumph of October!

Today, the time has come for the working class of the world to directly oppose revolution to counterrevolution. From COTP-CI and Workers Democracy, we call urgently to make this International Conference the new Kienthal-Zimmerwald where the principled Trotskyists can recognize themselves and regroup, and put up together an international centralized leadership that unifies the combat against the usurpers of Trotskyism, as the way to regenerate and re-found the Fourth International on a principled basis.

A Kienthal and Zimmerwald which makes the Soviet strategy to fight by, so that the working class and the exploited peoples create their organs of direct democracy and dual power, and that in the heat of that fight can form in the different countries, and in Argentina, revolutionary and internationalist workers parties that are able to prepare the insurrection as an art and to take the working class on to victory. Only with such a fight, only with an international leadership of principled Trotskyists, can we advance on that road!

ARGENTINA IS THE LABORATORY OF WORKERS' REVOLUTION

Applying the lessons of history:

Argentina's current crisis hit the headlines over the new year period as the US war against Afghanistan wound down. What had appeared to be a massive victory for the US in its first round of the war against terrorism, became upstaged by the Argentinean masses as they brought down three governments, and four presidents within two weeks. What is going on there? Is this some isolated crisis brought on by local conditions? The national character of a volatile Southern European migrant population? The failure of economic policy? The bourgeois press looks around desperately for explanations that blame Argentina or the mismanagement of international finance by the IMF. What they try to ignore is that what is happening in Argentina is merely one example of a mass rebellion building up against global capitalism. This means that what is happening in Argentina sets the pace for what can happen anywhere as the anti-capitalist mood spreads and mounts against world capitalism.

But just as the victory of the US in Afghanistan consolidated its hegemony as the dominant imperialist power, the revolt in Argentina opened up a weak flank against US imperialism in the heartland of the Empire, Latin America.

The Argentinean revolution has begun and it can either become a victorious workers' revolution as an example for all of us to follow, or it can fail under the combined pressure of local reaction and imperialist intervention. This is why the situation in Argentina is so crucial. Here workers can make history provided they adopt the correct strategy and tactics. But they can also be defeated if they become victim to counter-revolutionary forces.

Revolution and Counter-revolution

To understand the causes of the current crisis is it necessary to know why the workers are rebelling and what it will take to turn a rebellion into a socialist revolution. To do this is it necessary to apply Marxist theory and practice to the situation and to put to the test the competing versions of Marxism, and the various tendencies within the reformist, centrist and revolutionary left. Then, the correct answers to these questions can be formulated in time to create a new vanguard party capable of leading a victorious Argentine revolution. Readers should look to Trotsky’s writings on the Civil War in Spain for invaluable lessons that apply today to Argentina.[see article on Argentina and Anarchism’.]

Argentinean workers are rebelling because imperialism sucks out more and more of their surplus value to fill the coffers of the multinational companies. Marx called this the absolute law of accumulation. As capitalism develops it concentrates wealth at the centre and impoverishes the periphery. Argentina, like most of the former colonial and semi-colonial world has experienced relative impoverishment as its wealth is transferred to the imperialist center. This leaves Argentinean workers relatively poorer and in debt as the country borrows to live and taxes workers to pay back the IMF, the World Bank and other banks.

It is important to recognise that debt is just a symptom of workers borrowing to live. Personal debt becomes combined as the national debt. The need to borrow results from inadequate income in the first place. But it is the bosses who borrow expecting works to pay the debt. This is the effect of the super-exploitation of workers in colonies and semi-colonies where more and more of the value they produce being siphoned off as surplus-value. And when high profits cannot be made any more, production stops, jobs are lost and a growing reserve army of unemployed gets bigger and bigger. As Marx said the fantastic accumulation of wealth at one pole is opposed to the massive misery of the poor at the other pole. This polarisation has grown fantastically worse in the last twenty years.

Globalisation only makes it worse

What today is called 'globalisation' or 'neo-liberalism' is the deliberate policy of imperialism to intensify its super-exploitation of colonies and neo-colonies over the last twenty years. This policy was necessary to try to offset the falling profits that followed the end of the post-war boom. Countries like Argentina and New Zealand benefited from the post-war boom because their economies were protected by tariffs and their main exports were in demand at high prices. Workers real living standards rose during this period also.

But the end of the boom and the onset of a general crisis of capitalism in the early 1970's saw these export markets and prices slump. To offset the balance of payments deficits, more and more money was borrowed increasing the national debt. This forced a change of policy, and Argentina like NZ deregulated its economy and opened up to direct foreign investment. The process of super-exploitation became intensified and spedup under the IMF and World Bank which oversaw the economic reforms ('structural adjustment') and the attacks on workers living standards. The result was dramatically falling living standards, rising debt and loss of jobs.

So the immediate causes of the rebellion of the picqueteros (unemployed) and low paid and unpaid workers, as well as the petty bourgeois whose savings have been confiscated to pay off the debt, is relative impoverishment and immiseration.

This is not some freak event or accident. It is a fundamental fact of capitalist development, and intensified by neo-liberal globalisation over the last two decades. This is why those in rebellion have raised the demands for jobs, wages, savings, etc. Flowing from these demands are those that offer solutions: nonpayment of the external debt, nationalisation of the banks, the re-nationalisation of the privatised companies; the end to corrupt and repressive governments, and opposition to devaluation because it will further reduce living standards.

The bosses’ state

No bourgeois government can meet these demands. Bourgeois governments are committed to defending the rights of capitalist property including the owners of industry and the banks. While they may also be filled by corrupt and incompetent politicians, replacing them with honest and competent ones will not change anything.

This is because the state must serve the capitalist economy by guaranteeing by force the rights of private property and the operation of the market. Any breach of these rights and market mechanisms are in themselves therefore anti-capitalist. So honest and competent politicians are better servants of capitalism than dishonest and incompetent ones.

Because workers do not spontaneously recognise that exploitation takes place at the point of production, they see their exploitation as the result of inequalities that are unjust even in capitalist terms. They therefore look to honest and competent governments that will meet their needs. They will vote for parties that promise they can act in the workers interests. But since nationalisation, nonpayment of debt etc represent an infringement on capitalists property rights, no bosses government can make more than token moves in this direction. When workers find that instead of reforms they get repressed and cheated they ask what other solution is there? While socialism is one solution, fascism is another.

This is the situation that faces workers in Argentina in February 2002. They have brought down 3 governments and 4 presidents who have proven incapable of meeting their demands. Now Duhalde has been 'elected' by the combined parties in the legislature as a President of a government of 'national salvation'. Duhalde is a member of the Peronist party, a former vice President under Menem in the 1980's and the unsuccessful opponent of de la Rua who was elected President in 1999. His ‘election’ is an attempt to revive Peronism’s left credentials with the labour aristocracy and petty bourgeoisie and to head off revolution and to pave the way for fascism.

Semi-Bonaparte Duhalde?

The Argentine ruling class parties have appointed Duhalde with support from the reformist left, in consultation with the US ruling class. His job is to buy time and support from the 'middle class' to isolate and contain opposition to the state in preparation for a full scale attack on rebelling workers. To understand this tactic on the part of the bosses it is necessary to understand several important concepts such as the 'popular front', Bonapartism and fascism.

Because the contradictions and crises of capitalism always polarise the two main classes and mobilise workers as a potential revolutionary force, the bosses try to hide class conflict under the blanket of nationalism. The class that takes a leading role in trying to manage class antagonism within a nationalist framework is the petty bourgeois. Their class interests are to own their own independent property and to become personally wealthy. As capitalism constantly squeezes them downwards into the working class they are antagonistic to workers and see them as the causes of their own economic insecurity or bankruptcy.

The Popular Front

The bosses usually attempt to rig the electoral law to keep majority workers parties out of power. Failing that where workers have won proportional representation they are pushed into coalitions in which petty bourgeois or even bourgeois parties set limits to their programs so that do not challenge capitalist property rights. Any combination of worker parties with petty bourgeois or bourgeois parties is called a popular front. Usually it is also a patriotic front where the class interests of the parties are buried under the concept of the 'national interest'. The role of the popular, patriotic front is to prevent workers parties from becoming independent class parties challenging capitalist property rights.

During economic crises when the petty bourgeois is being squeezed downwards they can become allies of workers struggles since they too are defending their living standards, savings etc. Whether they join in with workers, or turn against workers, depends on which class can promise them the most. One the one hand, workers can promise petty bourgeois salvation by building a revolutionary movement that will replace the anarchic capitalist economy with a planned socialist economy. Even if they won't be petty bourgeois any more at least they will be alive and kicking.

On the other hand, bosses will promise salvation with an economic package which claims to protect the welfare and rights of the petty bourgeois from monopoly capital and monopoly labour. The bosses bribe them to kick the workers. In reality the workers pay for these bribes not the bosses. Thus the petty bourgeois become bureaucratic or paramilitary forces that act in the interests of the property holders. They act for monopoly capital by taking strong measures against 'anarchists' and 'communists'.

Where the attempts to form popular front governments fail it is necessary to create governments that personify the patriotic front in the office of a strong leader usually a President or General. Argentina has a history of such governments and leaders, Peron being the best known. To create a government of 'national salvation' that can manage the crisis in the interests of the bosses by retaining the loyalty of the petty bourgeois requires a strong state.

To be convincing and win mass support this state has to appear to be genuinely class neutral and put limits on both big capital and big labour. This form of state is called a Bonapartist state after the French Napoleon Bonaparte III who ruled France in this manner in the 1830's. Full blown Bonapartism usually results when a minority takes power with the passive support of the majority a so-called coup d etat. Semi-Bonapartism is constitutionally created: Duhalde is a semi-Bonaparte because he was elected to the job by the legislature.

Such a government is necessary because the two main classes are at roughly equal strengths. The Bonapartist policy is to win over the petty bourgeois and tip the scales in favour of the bosses. Duhalde's government has a policy that is designed to do just this; to split the rebellious petty bourgeois from the militant workers and unemployed. And in the process to isolate the workers and prepare for an open counter-revolution or civil war to defeat the revolutionary threat of a socialist revolution.

Defeating Bonapartism

Bonapartism is attractive to the petty bourgeoisie because it offers strong and decisive leadership. Yet under conditions of extreme crisis, default, massive devaluation etc Duhalde's government cannot keep these promises and defend the economic interests of the petty bourgeoisie.

This is why Duhalde is advocating constitutional reform. He knows that the popular rejection of all bourgeois governments is such that only radical reforms will restore any legitimacy to the state. His proposals to reform the Constitution are designed to appeal to the Peronist workers in the unions and the petty bourgeois and split them away from the poor workers and unemployed. By doing this he hopes to isolate and marginalise the main sources of the rebellion and so mobilise support to restore social order by police or military repression.

If these measures fail to win support from the ‘middle class’ (i.e. labour aristocracy, petty bourgeoisie) the question becomes, can Duhalde retain their loyalty by attacking organised labour? Here the question of workers strategy and tactics in response to Bonapartism is of crucial importance.

To win the class war against the bosses, workers must take strong action. Only a revolutionary proletariat can stop Bonapartism and fascism. Therefore this action must not be moderated out of fear of losing the support of the petty bourgeois. The line of least resistance is the most disastrous. The petty bourgeois can only be won over by proving that the workers solution to the crisis is better than the bosses. The way to defeat Bonapartism is not to play dead in the hope that it will go away. This is the same as saying that the class struggle will go away, and that capitalism can live in a state of suspended animation. To refuse to defend workers under attack by Bonapartism, proves to the petty bourgeois that bosses are going to win and they want to be on the winning side.

The Constituent Assembly

One tactic that unfortunately leads to passivity and defeat in the current situation is that of diverting the working class response to Bonapartism into a campaign for a Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly is a special parliament that is called so that all the people can work out the most democratic form of bourgeois government. It is an important demand to mobilise workers to fight for democracy when workers have yet to experience bourgeois democracy. But this is a backward move at a time when the workers are building an offensive that already shows they have few illusions in bourgeois democracy.

The advent of Bonapartism represents a defensive move for capital against a working class offensive that has shown the ruling class to be divided and desperate. That offensive follows decades of the development of a capitalist semi-colony in which the working class is now the huge majority, where capitalist agriculture has largely eliminated the peasantry, and where the petty bourgeoisie has become increasingly disguised wage labour.

Moverover, the 'defensive' struggles of the last decades against military dictatorships and the austerity Peronist governments that followed, show that the current offensive is firmly based upon the working class methods that are based on occupations, blockades, strikes and demonstrations.

Why then, with the bosses forced to resort to a Bonapartist regime should workers turn back from creating workers’ councils (soviets) and generalising strike action? What is the point of the Constituent Assembly?

Like any democratic right, the Constituent Assembly is based on the ideal of bourgeois individual rights. But it is important to defend those rights only insofar as they advance the cause of revolution. The CA is useful in situations where workers or peasants still have illusions in bourgeois democracy as capable of meeting their interests.

In Russia, China and Spain in the early part of the 20^th century, the Bolshevik-Leninists used the tactic as a way of bringing peasants and workers who had little or no experience of bourgeois democracy into the struggle for socialism. By calling for the CA. based on the secret ballot for all over the age of 18, a single legislative chamber and combined legislative and executive powers, workers would find that despite such radical 'democracy', their needs for land, bread and peace could not be met.

Today in Argentina where an advanced working class has long experience of democracy and dictatorship and is mobilising in their own proto-soviets and fighting outside parliament it is already clear to the militant minority that no bourgeois 'democracy' is going to meet their needs. The best way to win over the remaining workers to a revolutionary perspective is to prove that independent working class struggle works.

Those who are calling for the CA in Argentina are saying that a CA can take power and win workers what they want. They say that the socialist revolution can be won without overthrowing the bourgeois state They say that the Argentine people can get rid of imperialism and bring about the reforms they need.

On the contrary, the completion of the national democratic revolutionary tasks of independence, cancellation of the debt, nationalisation of the banks most of which are foreign owned, as well as the elementary democratic rights of freedom from imperialist backed military dictatorships, cannot be won short of a socialist revolution.

For a Workers' Government

The correct response to the bosses' Bonapartism must be to intensify to the fullest extent possible, the methods of working class struggle. To take the boldest initiatives and firmest action possible. To build on the organisations and methods that have so far proven successful in forcing the bosses to a Bonapartist solution. To build the Popular Assemblies into working class councils or soviets. To form workers' militia and food distribution committees. To raise a program of demands for the expropriation of the bosses and the creditors, for workers control, for the unlimited general strike, and for a workers' government.

It should be clear that a ‘workers’ government’ is the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a government that comes to power after taking power and smashing the bosses’ state including its armed forces. A revolutionary program must state what its objective is and how to get there. The limiting of demands to immediate or democratic demands does not point the way forward to socialism and leaves room for the reformists to win support.

To go from the popular assemblies and strike action which spontaneously develop, to soviets and the unlimited general strike which is aimed at the overthrow of the state, is a qualitative leap from bourgeois to socialist consciousness. This leap cannot develop without the intervention of already class conscious workers. Such a development requires a correct program and in turn a revolutionary party. A revolutionary program states what workers need now and shows step by step how to meet these needs by mobilising class struggle. It adapts concrete demands and tactics to concrete situations quickly in response to the changing conditions.

This can only be done by a party that combines theory and practice in the program. Why? Because without such theory and practice there can be no living program capable of applying lessons from the past and testing them in practice. How? This requires a vanguard party and democratic centralism.

A vanguard party by definition is a layer of workers whose understanding of Marxism in theory and practice makes them class conscious and qualifies them to act as a leadership.

Democratic centralism is the method by which the leadership leads. Democracy requires full discussion and debate with all differences allowed and tested. Centralism means unity and discipline in action around the agreed program so that it can be tested in practice. Lack of unity and discipline means that no conclusions can be scientifically drawn about the correctness of a program.

What is the Transitional Program?

Democratic, transitional and socialist demands must all be present as a complete package to allow workers to see the necessary transition from one to the other. For example the CA is a democratic demand and should always be accompanied by transitional demands such as jobs for all, a living wage etc. and by socialist demands such as nationalisation of the banks under workers control.

The necessity for a Workers Government to come to power to make this happen has to be stated from the outset to make it clear that only an independent armed workers movement can resolve the crisis in favour of workers and prevent a counter-revolution from smashing the revolution.

[from Class Struggle 43 February/March 2002

STOP IMPERIALIST STATE TERROR

Why we need to stop the Terrorism Suppression Bill

The Terrorism Suppression Bill is now before the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. It is a Bill designed to make the NZ state conform to the US policy against Terrorism rammed through the UN Security Council in the days following the September 11 atrocities. While we condemn these acts of terrorism as anti-worker, we see the ‘war against terrorism’ that the US then declared to be infinitely worse. The US ruling class has given itself a blank cheque to go to war against any state, group or individual its own intelligence services (CIA) designate as terrorists.

The US interpreted Article 51 of the UN Charter which allows states to defend themselves if attacked justify its ‘war against terrorism’. It then ignored the requirement to bring this war under the authority of the Security Council. Effectively it rendered the Security Council a rubber stamp for US policy. In the process it has bullied its rival big powers Britain, the EU and Japan, and its traditional allies including Britain, Australia and NZ to accept this justification and to join in this war. It has bribed and corrupted weak powers formally hostile to it, Russia, China, India and Pakistan to back the war. No state, apart from Cuba and Iraq has condemned the ‘war on terrorism’ as an act of state terrorism itself. Even Libya went along with it because it could be directed at Ghaddafi’s internal rivals.

At one stroke the US made public its contempt for any multilateral action in which the UN would represent the ‘international community’. It showed that the US had bought the UN lock stock and barrel and with it the loyalty of vast majority of states. The US has also it has also gone to war against terrorism at home. Immediately after September 11 the US the Security Council passed two resolutions UN 1368 and UN 1371 requiring its member states under Article 4 to 'criminalise the financing of terrorism' i.e. freeze the financial assets of persons thought to be 'terrorists', to stop the financing, joining or supporting of terrorist groups. It required its member states to ‘report’ on measures taken within 90 days?

In a rapid response the NZ Labour/Alliance Coalition introduced legislation to amend the Terrorism (Bombings and Financing) Bill before the house. These amendments were secret until Green Party MP Keith Locke exposed their existence.

Goff’s secret amendments

The amendments to the renamed Terrorism (Bombings and Financing) Bill are now available to the public only after an outcry over plans to keep these amendments secret from public scrutiny! Goff intended to show these amendments to 9 groups including Civil liberties, CTU, Bankers’ Association, only as a check to see if they had any problems with the legislation? They could look the amendments over and submit suggestions but not disclose their content without breaching parliamentary privilege! He wanted the lawyers to OK the suspension of lawyer-client privilege. He wanted the Bankers and Accountants to agree to act as the state’s agents in seizing the financial assets of suspected terrorists. He wanted the Civil Liberties groups to give their blessing to some limitations on civil rights justified by the ‘seriousness’ of the September 11 attacks.

What he got instead from the CTU and Council for Civil liberties was a refusal to participate in this Star Chamber exercise. He also got a blast from Green MPs and Alliance Ministers in Cabinet. Goff agreed to back down and make the amendments public for written submissions until the end of November and for oral submissions until February.

In the Explanatory Note to the Bill, Phil Goff as the Minister in charge tried to excuse the secrecy on the grounds that all the UN required was Regulations that would have been made in secret anyway under the powers of Chapter V11 of the UN Charter to which NZ is bound! Goff now claims that because of the "seriousness" of the 'war against terrorism' and having a convenient Bill to attach them to, the Government would legislate instead.

According to this reasoning we should be thankful for the 'war on terrorism'. Its "seriousness" means that you no longer have your rights secretly regulated away but legislated away. At least you can now register your opposition in public before parliament. Meanwhile Goff has passed the Regulations anyway until they are replaced by the new law.

This is a very bad Bill that gives new powers to the state to interfere in our lives. The pretext is to stop terrorism, but the effect will be to stop legitimate political protest. We have little more than 3 months to stop this Bill becoming law. That could be interesting because preventing a Government from acting in the national interest is one of the criteria of terrorism in the Bill!

US shows how to terrorise

Already the US has shown what the new anti-terrorist legislation looks like. What is called 'homeland security' amounts to a massive attack on the rights of individual citizens. 1000s have been locked up indefinitely after S11. One Congressman John Conyers has said: "Today we stand on the verge of a civil liberties calamity in this country. The Administration and the Attorney General have taken a series of constitutionally dubious actions that place the Executive Branch in the untenable role of legislator, prosecutor, judge and jury."
In other words George Bush and Co is Sheriff, posse, judge and hangman.

Congress passed the anti-Terrorism Bill, dubbed the 'USA Patriot Act' on Oct 26 giving the Attorney General the power to detain and deport any suspects accused of terrorism. Since then new regulations allow the authorities to intercept communications between lawyers and clients, including in jail. After S11 many political prisoners such as Philip Berrigan, serving a term for hammering a warplane, were put in isolation and held incommunicado; in the words of one Prison Guard "you are terrorists and you hate the government". On Nov 9 the US Administration started a policy of ‘racial profiling’ i.e. racist discrimination in the issuing of visas to young men of 'middle eastern' origin. On November 13 a policy to try foreigners suspected of terrorism before military tribunals was announced. Military tribunals do not have to prove ‘guilt beyond reasonable doubt’. Note that this guilt on the part of aliens and anybody who is designated 'terrorist'.

Worst features in the NZ Bill

The amendments to the Terrorism (Bombings and Financing) Bill are to put the above UN resolutions into effect. They mean that individuals can be 'designated' terrorist on the basis of secret information and may never get to face their accusers. The burden of proof is reversed. The presumption of innocence is replaced by the presumption of guilt. Worse, guilt is established at the level of the military tribunal i.e. ‘probably cause’ rather than guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Worse still, individuals designated terrorists cannot even defend themselves against the evidence because that is likely to remain secret! So the principle that ‘homeland terrorism’ can be dealt with by military tribunals in the US is now to be exported to all the state that sign up to the Security Councils’ resolutions on terrorism!

The presumption of guilt follows clearly from the section of the Bill that states that people can be designated 'terrorists' on the basis of 'good cause'. "The Prime Minister must treat the information as sufficient evidence…unless the contrary is proved" [17K (2)]. This is Catch 22 because you cannot defend yourself against secret charges. How can you prove your innocence when the evidence against you is ‘classified’? However, there is a small problem. It’s no use having these powers unless you have a definition of terrorism that fits the Bill, i.e. includes anti-state subversion of all sorts but excludes the CIA, Mossad, SIS, MI5 type state terrorism. It must not designate the CIA as the no 1 terrorist organisation in the world with a record surpassing 1000 bin Ladens that stretches from the deposing of the Shah of Iran in 1956 (check) to today.

So the definition must exclude ‘state terrorism’ such as wars, economic sanctions, and the genocide that was caused by these e.g. in Iraq and Afghanistan. For such actions are legimitated by the UN or big power politics in defence of the interests of the ruling classes. This lets the national intelligence agencies off the hook because they are held to be protecting the national interests of their respective states. Yet according to the Explanatory Note to the Amendments, UN resolution 1373 "does not define... terrorism". Oops. This might leave the door open to the inclusion of ‘state terrorism’ . So it will be necessary to add a 'new definition' of 'terrorist act' to fit the Bill. This definition is modeled on the UK Terrorism Act 2000 and the Anti-Terrorism Bill currently before the Canadian Parliament. In both cases new legislation is also being rushed through as required by the UN resolutions. What is really clear is that the new wider definition of terrorism that is contained in this new legislation is designed to turn a wide range of political dissent into ‘terrorist acts’ to allow the state to suppress political opposition.

Terrorist act defined Subsection 2

There are three broad criteria of terrorist act defined in Section 5. . First, in Subsection 2 a terrorist act is any intention, for ideological, political or religious reasons, to intimidate a population or force a lawful government to act, or not act, and which causes any or more of death, injury, serious public health and safety risk, destruction, serious damage or disruption to property, the economy or environment, and interference or disruption to infrastructure. (disruption of infrastructure facility).

The other two definitions are first, the various terrorism conventions that are listed in Schedule 3 of the Bill and are 7 Conventions dating from 1970 to 1988 that cover specifically Aircraft, diplomats, hostages, Airports, Ships and oil plafforms., and second, terrorist acts in armed conflict situations where armed force is used to ‘intimidate populations’ and ‘compel governments’ or cause death or injury to civilians. These latter definitions are fairly standard and have been around for some time. What is objectionable is the Section 2 definition rushed in after September 11.

This is an extremely broad definition of terrorist act. It could include Rogernomics where a population was intimidated and where a lawful government was compelled by international finance capital to act in ways that caused death, injury serious destruction of the economy and disruption of the infrastructure. Or it could include the UN sanctions against Iraq or the bombing of Afghanistan that caused all of the above and were designed for political reasons to intimidate and compel lawful governments.

It all depends on who is doing the intimidating and who defines what is lawful. We can be sure that it is the opponents of Rogernomics and the Sanctions and bombings of Iraq and Afghanistan that would be the target of this definition. Opponents of privatised water could be accused of terrorism for reconnecting water supplies and preventing a lawful government from acting to cut off those water supplies.

CIA defines legitimate dissent

In an attempt to head off opposition to the new Subsection 2 definition of ‘terrorist act’ Goff introduced Subsection 4 that exempts lawful and/or peaceful dissent. Exempted are: "(a) any protest, advocacy, or dissent that is lawful, or that is unlawful but peaceful: (b)any strike or lockout:(c)any other act that is authorised or required by law: (d)any act that occurs in a situation or armed conflict and is, at the time an in the place that it occurs, in accordance with the rules of international law applicable to the conflict.

Note how the 'let-out' clause for protest, dissent etc allows it to be unlawful but peaceful. But we know who will define what 'peaceful' is. The police can decide that any protest that results in (does not have to intend) serious damage, death, injury etc as under Subsection 2 cannot be ‘peaceful’. Some of the anti-Sprinkbok Tour protests of 1981 could be defined as ‘terrorist acts’ because the disruption to economy and threat to public health and safety would be defined as a ‘breach of the peace’. Any 'intention' to take an action that could be construed by the police as a breach of the peace becomes potentially 'terrorist'.

Strike and Lockouts are exempted. But only those defined in the Employment Relations Bill. Wildcat strikes, political strikes etc would be unlawful but not ‘terrorist’ unless they were considered ‘breaches of the peace’. Any serious picket line during a legal strike could also become ‘unlawful’ and if resulting in threatened serious economic disruption or damage, deemed ‘terrorist acts’.

Note also that if the cops or military engage in some 'armed conflict' to prevent protests they are covered by (4) (e) and (d). So the use of 'justifiable force' such as that used on Steven Wallace could become standard for ‘suspected terrorists’. Again if you think that this is fanciful look at what is already happening in the 'war against terrorism'. On the basis of the CIA designation of Osama bin Laden as ‘terrorist’ Afghan kids become 'collateral damage'. Helen Clark is on record as saying that civilian casualties are 'inevitable' in this war. How many civilian casualties are OK in the 'war against terrorism' at home?

Intending, planning, preparing and carrying out terrorist acts
Section 17F says (1) For the purposes of this Act, a terrorist act is carried out if 1 or more of the following occurs: (a) any planning or other preparations to carry out the act, whether it is carried out or not: (b) a threat to carry out the act, whether it is actually carried out or not: (c) any attempt to carry out the act: (d) the carrying out of the act.

These provisions are to be used to massively increase the level of surveillance over ordinary citizens. How is it possible to spy on those planning or preparing for an ‘act’ of terrorism, unless surveillance techniques are used. When the Prime Minister gets into you 'mind' courtesy of the CIA or Echelon (which intercepts emails) of as beefed up SIS and NZ Police who will be able to intercept phone calls on a normal basis, she can then 'designate' persons or groups as terrorists on the basis of this secret or classified security information. In the US millions have been spent to upgrade telephone tapping and other snooping. In NZ we can expect a boost to spending on the SIS. This means more 'spying' to gain advance information about terrorists 'plans' and an integration of spying among all of the 'allies' in the war against terrorism.

Secret informants can accuse you

17L Classified security information defined: "In this Act, classified security information means information -

(a)about the threat to security, public order, or public interest posed by terrorist acts that an identifiable entity will or may carry out, or participate in the carrying out of, or facilitate the carrying out of; and (b)held by a specified agency (as defined in section 4: ie (a) an intelligence and security agency as defined in section (2)1 of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1996; or (b) the New Zealand Police) and (c) that, in the opinion of the head of the specified agency, cannot be divulged in the entity in question or to other persons, because - (i)the information is information of a kind specified in subsection (2): and (ii) disclosure of the information would be disclosure of a kind specified in subsection (3)

In other words, you can be accused of being a terrorist on the basis of secret information provided by any secret service approved by the UN or by the NZ police on the basis of secret informants, and you can never find out what this information says about you.

There follows a long list of reasons why such information must remain secret such as to protect its source (we might discover that Mossad runs the CIA which runs Helen Clark), operational methods of the agency (so as not to reveal another botched invasion like Iran or Somalia), not to blow cover of future operations (more botched invasions -where? Indonesia?).

The US has its sights set on 50 countries said to harbour terrorists); is secret in another country (eg USA) and they say no! (they would wouldn't they); not to prejudice the security or defence of NZ (this is unlikely to include the Save our Squadrons) or be a breach of trust between NZ and some other country (you did say 500,000 tonnes of lamb); interfere with the ‘fair operation’ of the law (like ‘fair’ trade) and endanger the safety of any person (i.e. a spook or informant).

What if you are 'designated'?

Individuals accused of being terrorists can ask for a 'review' of this designation only with the Prime Minister or Inspector General of Security and Intelligence (a High Court Judge). Normal reviews through the courts involving 'classified' information are not allowed. The Government is even 'sounding out' the legal profession to see if client-lawyer privilege can be waived in this Bill given the 'seriousness' of terrorism. The decision of the Inspector-General can be appealed on matters of law only to the Court of Appeal. That is, was the Judge drunk in charge at the time of the Review. Not was the CIA informant a liar! Talk about Secrets and Lies.

This Bill makes it obvious that NZ is part of the 'Western' war on terrorism that brings that war home to its own shores with new powers and a wider definition of terrorism. Despite the 'let out' for 'legitimate protest' that is 'peaceful', the definition of what is 'peaceful' should it involve 'classified' information about somebody's 'intentions or plans' (eg to blow up a Nuclear plant in Australia which figured in a recent case in Auckland where two Afghans were falsely charged with being terrorists) cannot be decided in open court but goes to the secret tribunal of the Inspector-General of spooks, spies and sundry pie eaters (that's a reference to the famous case of a spy leaving his briefcase at a bus stop containing (the briefcase that is) a 'girly mag' and a 'meat pie'.

How to fight this Bill

Cynicism and a desperate Boondocks black humour is healthy in these times, but we need a hell of a lot more than that to stop this Bill. There needs to be a war on the war on terrorism at home. If workers lose these rights and freedoms it becomes easier for us to be turned into passive victims of the 'new world disorder' and stomped on by the ruling class and its state forces. It is important therefore to know what we are fighting for.

Communists defend bourgeois democracy not for its own sake but only insofar as it allows the working class to organise politically for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist society. Against the widespread illusion that capitalism can coexist with democracy we have to prove that this is false. That the bosses will only defend democracy while it is their interests. We say that the Terrorism Bill is evidence that the bosses are quite prepared to suspend democracy in order to fight terrorism not because of any aberration or flaw in the system, but because it is necessary to defend their class interests at a time when opposition to the system is becoming a real threat. War is an extension of politics and politics is concentrated economics. So war always has a final economic cause. And imperialist always creates revolutionary and counter-revolutionary possibilities.

Imperialist crisis means world war

Why is this happening? Opposition to capitalist rule is becoming a threat to its survival for one basic reason. The system is experiencing a major economic crisis of falling profits. To revive those profits and allow the system to survive, it is necessary to cheapen the costs of both raw materials and of labour. But this means competition between the major imperialist powers for for raw materials and cheap labour and the inevitability of war.

The usual methods of economic competition rely on the WB, IMF and WTO to force down barriers to trade so that prices fall. These methods are insufficient to overcome the latest downward surge in profits in the world economy. All the imperialist powers need cheap oil and a cheap, reliable and disciplined labour force to revive their profits. Going to ‘war against terrorism’ achieves all of these. The US ruling class has found a way to force its economic rivals, Japan and the EU, to accept its dominance and to go along in the hope that they will get a share of the booty. This avoids unnecessary direct conflict between the big powers. This applies also to the lesser states such as Russia, China, India and Pakistan who get bribed by promises of loans, gifts and other benefits such as membership of the WTO.

It also anticipates and deals with opposition from the masses in all of these countries. They are the ones who bear the cost of these measures. Even US workers will suffer massive attacks on their rights and living standards. And in Latin America and in Asia there is a long record of popular uprisings against imperialist rule. In an age when imperialists do not rule directly, neo-colonies need to be kept under control with puppet regimes kept in place by proxy wars that remove mavericks and install compliant alternative regimes.

Still the oppressed fight back

The US has found a way to police these states in the name of defending democracy and human rights and now in the name of the ‘war against terrorism’. But in doing so it runs the risk of exposing the hypocrisy of propping up or replacing client regimes whose ‘terrorism’ is the direct result of imperialist intervention in the first place.

Already the fact that the US imperialist ruling class is using state terrorism at home and abroad to smash all political opposition that it designates as ‘terrorist’ is now widely recognised as hypocritical. The fact that al Queda and bin Laden as well as the Taliban are the creation of US policy cannot be escaped. The fact that behind the cover of the ‘war on terrorism’ the US and its allies are prepared to bomb Afghanistan shows what the real purpose of the war is – to create a compliant regime that will allow the US oil interests to build a pipeline from the Caspian region to the Indian Ocean.

So it is easy to be cynical about the US ruling class especially with Bush as its figurehead. It is revealing its class interests so clearly that what is called ‘anti-Americanism’ is now the standard position among the 3^rd World masses and support for bin Laden is widespread. Respected liberal journalists like Robert Fisk and John Pilger as well as long-standing critics of US imperialism like Edward Said and Noam Chomsky are published in the mainstream media. So if the imperialist ruling class is showing up their class interests why should the masses who are suffering economic exploitation and political repression not seize the opportunity to challenge this rotten system?

Rotten role of Reformists

Exploited and oppressed workers and poor peasants are the vast majority of the world’s population. They would easily overthrow the system that rules them if it were not for the existence of institutionalised mass reformist parties committed to propping up capitalism even as it decomposes. The reformist line is that it is not possible to overthrow capitalism either because the working class is not able to do this (always a convenient excuse because it substitutes the petty bourgeois in this historic role) or because this will lead to a worse system (such as Soviet-type ‘communism’) so therefore it is necessary to reform capitalism. The reformists argue that popular parties can make governments responsive to the interests of the popular masses and rein in the ruling elites. All they need is to inform and mobilise the masses and parliamentary democracy can be made to work in their interests.

They say the Terrorism Bill is an aberration caused by the rogue US state imposing its will on the UN and small democracies like NZ. The solution, they say, is to mobilise direct democracy from below and win over a majority of MP’s to amend the Bill and remove its worst attacks on basic liberties (legitimate dissent; presumption of innocence; due process in courts of law; racial equality etc).

When it comes to the vote, just as all the MP’s voted for war except the Greens, most MP’s will vote for this Bill because they owe their pay to the bosses. The Alliance MP’s voted for the war against the membership of the party to keep their salaries. Most of them even stopped putting 10% of their salaries into paying for party activists! They will endorse the main features of the Terrorism Bill for the same reason; they are the bought men and women of the bourgeoisie.

The Green’s may be opposed to the present Government’s war and the Terrorism Bill. But their role is to divert workers from taking class action today to stop the war and to stop the Bill and to put their faith in a future ‘peoples’ government. Meanwhile millions of Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis and any other unfortunate people targeted by this war will be dead. The Greens don’t even pretend to represent workers. Their supporters are a range of social movements, environmentalist, women’s groups etc. They draw on a mixture of well-off workers, self-employed and ‘socially responsible’ or not-for-profit capitalists. They will always ‘compromise’ around the interests of small, sustainable, businesses. But small businesses are no alternative to capitalist production, and often exploit workers as much or more than big businesses.

For a workers’ state!

Fundamentally, Parliament functions as an institution that hides the class interests of the bosses behind the façade of the rule of the majority of citizens. This is clear to us from the lessons of history. It is also clear today in Bushes own election, the war on terrorism, that the politics of the working class majority will remain dominated by the wealth and power of the ruling class minority until workers are broken from ruling class ideology.

Communists believe that to break workers from this ideology it is necessary to make use of democratic rights both to defend them for as long as possible to allow open political opposition, and to prove to those who have illusions in parliamentary democracy that the Bill is no aberration and that capitalism cannot tolerate democracy when its class interests are under threat. Therefore submissions that condemn the Bill and demand that it be voted down by MPs are necessary to show these MP’s up as anti-democratic.

Those who argue that by mobilising the majority around a clear anti-capitalist program we can take back power and create a truly democratic government over look the fact that that ruling class will not give up without a fight. The Terrorism Suppression Bill is evidence of that we have been put on notice that if we dissent we can be labeled terrorists. We are now in an open class war situation. We have to refuse to sign up to this state terrorist war in Asia or at home. We must go AWOL from the bosses' state terror. We must organise our own class resistance to state terror. We must declare war on ruling class terror.

Class Struggle 42 December 2001/January 2002

NO MAORI SUPPORT FOR US/UN WAR!

Maori War Resistance Betrayed

Six weeks after the Sept 11 attacks in the USA, the NZ Army began a Marae based recruiting drive. According to its promoters, the aim was to tackle the problem of high youth unemployment among Maori. Considering the timing, it is laughable to suggest that such sentiments have been taken seriously. Unfortunately or indeed shamefully the fact remains that some Maori leaders have taken on board, aided by pro-US media hype, the sales pitch delivered by the state and military toward recruiting young Maori. More insulting, is the launching of this campaign in the Waikato, the starting point of the Maori resistance to forced conscription in 1917.

Betrayal and misleadership

At the outbreak of the First Imperialist World War in 1914, it was determined by the N.Z. Government that no organised Maori contingent would take an active combat role because the war was considered a conflict between white men. The prospect of ‘natives’ killing whites was inconceivable, at least for the expedient short term. By 1915 and the beginning of the Gallipoli campaign, soldiers of the 1^st Maori Contingent were taking an active role in the slaughter on behalf of British Imperialism.

With the mounting toll numbering in the million for British and Allied troops from Passchendaele, the Somme to the Dardenelles, the urgent need for more cannon fodder was required. ‘Press ganging’ natives for this was instituted by the N.Z. government in 1917. The primary target being the forced conscription of men from the Waikato, since men from most other tribal areas had already volunteered for the first Maori Contingent and Pioneer Battalion.

The immediate response from the Waikato was a resounding rejection of the N.Z. government decision by the Te Ariki Te Puea Herangi, the tribe’s paramount chief and leader of the Kingitanga. By refusing to allow men from the Waikato to partake in the Imperialist’s war, she upheld the staunch belief that to serve the interests of the thieves and confiscators of Waikato land (and hence their economic and spiritual base), would be an insult to the massive sacrifices made by her people during the post ‘Te Tiriti o Waitangi’ colonial land wars of the previous century.

The rounding up and imprisonment with hard labour of hundreds of Waikato men was to be entirely expected, considering there was nothing left to steal. It however could never contain the spirit to resist peacefully, a tradition that had been handed on from early in the 1800’s by the prophet pacifist of ‘Pai Marire’ Te Ua Haumene to Titokowaru, Te Whiti, Tohu and more poignantly for the Waikato, the prophet chief Tawhiao. It was in the spirit of Tawhiao that Te Puea took the stand on behalf of her people.

A little more than thirty years after the last pitched battles were fought in Aotearoa, Maori ‘Kupapa’ leaders such as the four Maori MPs, Apirana Ngata, Eastern Maori; Maui Pomare, Western Maori; Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter Buck), Northern Maori and Taare Parata, Southern Maori, were determined to raise a Maori contingent to be blooded as a part of NZ’s contribution to the British Imperialist War effort. They went so far as to form a 'Native Contingent Committee’, with the help of another Kupapa leader Sir James Carroll under the auspices of the NZ government, to organise Maori cannon fodder for the up coming war.

Meanwhile elsewhere in Aotearoa, there were calls from conscientious objectors such as Archibald Baxter calling on workers not to go to kill for the likes of greedy war-mongers. People who became social pariahs because of the strong stand that they took against the war and the punishment that they suffered.

In Europe a rising revolutionary voice was being heard when Karl Liebknecht, an MP in the German Parliament and leader of the Spartacist League together with Rosa Luxemburg lead a May Day anti-war march consisting of 10,000 workers in Potsdam in 1916 shouting ‘Down with the war’. Their call was for soldiers of opposing sides to stop fighting one another to save their imperialist bosses. Liebknecht was jailed but his and Luxemburg’s days were numbered.

In stark contrast, the highly educated and bankrupt idiotic stand taken by the Maori leaders calling to support the war was nothing short of a shameful bloody disgrace. ‘Sir’ Apirana Ngata’s now infamous 1943 essay on ‘The Price of Citizenship’, will go down as one of the worst pieces of writing in Maori literature. In it he wrote that Maori should go off to fight for the interests of Imperialism in order to earn the ‘right of citizenship’ in Aotearoa, forgetting that the price had already been paid fighting Imperialism at home.

The legacy of colonisation

When N.Z. once again climbed on board the Imperialist war bandwagon in 1991, Tainui leader Bob Mahuta echoed the call from Te Puea by stating that N.Z. should stay out of the conflict and the Maori service personnel should refuse to go. However commendable the stand taken by Bob Mahuta was over the Gulf War, it was completely undone by the time US President Bill Clinton visited NZ for the 1999 APEC conference.

His welcoming to Aotearoa and stepping foot on the "Whenua" (land) of Tainui, was an affront to the anti imperialist stand taken by Te Puea. Clinton had already at that point been indicted on war crimes against humanity by an international body of jurists, legal entities and progressive workers organisations over his continuing war against the people of Iraq. Human Rights and humanitarian organisations had already made extensive catalogues of crimes and atrocities committed by the US and it’s UN lackeys against the people of Iraq, all of which was made publicly available.

In spite of this, calls by so-called Maori leaders, who essentially are ‘brown table’ capitalists and bureaucrats, to welcome the leader with the blood of millions on his hands, was their chance for a bit of prestige and to make more bucks. Insult was added to injury when the US president was welcomed to Turangawaewae Marae in the heart of the Waikato.

The holistic Maori world view, (the recognition of the connection of human relations to environment, past, present and future historical contexts), was put temporarily on hold for this purpose; so as to cloud and blind a people already desensitised by the pro-imperialist and consumerist clap trap being promoted by the U.S. President.

‘Kupapa’ (collaborators etc.), is a term too easily applied to leaders who actively sought favour with people in financial power and positions of authority, because many of the Maori communities that they serve, survive on the barest minimum of resources. Caught between a rock and a hard place, many see no choice beyond the meagre handouts by government, Lotto and so on to sustain a means of independence and identity. A situation forced by capital because it ensures that by complying with its demands co-operation will come at the drop of a hat.

Caught in this web are those who remain and not necessarily the best qualified ‘politically’ to serve their communities. These individuals are charged with conveying policies and forms generally imposed from outside the tribal structures. In order to conform to the ‘norms’ of these outside influences some have embellished themselves beyond their personal financial means by expropriating funds meant for other uses.

Whether innocently or otherwise, this layer of bureaucrats has ended up substituting itself in place of the traditional structures as the voice of ‘Maoridom’. Linked to a bourgeois political support base, many have the task of relating party policies to their home communities. They serve no other purpose than acting as party functionary go-betweens linking bureaucracy to the people.

Maori MP’s Betrayal

This brings us full circle back to the beginning of our story. When the Labour/Alliance Government announced it’s full support for the US lead war against the people of Afghanistan in October in the name of ‘Fighting Terrorism’, the position of Maori MP’s in Parliament and particularly in Government were put on notice. As expected, without exception, all of the conservative right wing members voted in support, together with the ex Airforce mechanic from Tai Tokerau, Labour Party hawk, Dover Samuels.

Alliance member and Mana Motuhake leader Willie Jackson made a lame duck and ambiguous response in October by saying that he was not in favour of a combat role for NZ forces but offered moral support for Maori soldiers serving in the SAS, who were by that stage already committed. Since the SAS largely consists of Maori and it’s ethos is ‘take no prisoners’, it is ludicrous to suggest that Jackson can be taken seriously.

For the rest, the response has been tacit and muted, with the exception of Te Tai Hauauru Government MP Nanaia Mahuta and Waiariki Government MP Mita Ririnui. As a Waikato member of the Kingitanga and relative of Te Puea, Mahuta’s stand or concern was based on the position taken by Te Puea against conscription. However, being unable to voice more serious dissent by crossing the floor on the issue she succumbed to the tight internal ruling of the Labour Party council.

Mita Ririnui’s objections were based on his Ratana religious convictions where he sought to find peaceful means to solve the crisis. By the time of the December 1^st Labour Party conference there were no rumblings from either quarter. Anti war protests outside the conference venue could not encourage any further response from the Maori MP’s. They had been silenced. Their intermediary function between government and their people had been performed admirably.

Marae Recruitment

The ‘brown bureaucracy’ was to acquit itself well when on the 26^th of October it lead a high powered contingent onto Nga Tai Erua Marae in the North Waikato to begin the state’s war drive recruiting campaign. At it’s head was the Tainui environmental wing – the Huakina Trust, who were earlier approached to put the initiative into action. With some trepidation and misgivings from some individuals, the task was carried out.

Other Marae such as Mangatangi have resisted approaches by the military and many are in two minds. The strength to resist lies in the political enlightenment of all the people and their leaders of the communities affected. Armed with the example set by Te Puea and linking it to the present situation is at least a beginning but by no means an end to the matter.

That enlightenment is understanding the nature of Imperialism and the way that it shuts down the links between peoples’ immediate experiences and those of their past. By individualising the immediate experience as the responsibility of an individual, the effect is a closing down or shutting off of a reality that is too hard to handle only to be replaced by prejudiced perceptions, the product of fantasy but presented as fact.

Imperialism is about divide and rule.By placing Maori in uniform on one side against Maori who stand to assert their rights as Tangata Whenua and as workers fighting for the rights of working people, the situation becomes bleak. Like the shamefaced Maori cops on Bastion Point in 1978, many knew that what they were doing was wrong but chose to go against their consciences in the service of the state. Since the end of the land wars in the 1800’s, Maori have taken part in every British and more recently US lead Imperialist war on the poorest elements of humanity around the world, while forgetting the plight of their own ancestors battles and their resulting legacy of colonialism.

NO MAORI SUPPORT FOR US/UN WAR
NO MARAE SUPPORT FOR ARMY RECRUITING
FOR RANK AND FILE REFUSAL TO GO TO WAR

from Class Struggle 42 December 2001/January 2002

"THE EMPIRE OF THE WEST"

Reviewing Hollywood’s Wars

(Starring Clint Eastwood as George W Bush, Charlton Heston as George Bush Senior, James Earl Jones as Colin Powell, Dick Chaney and Osama Bin Laden as themselves. Fox Corporation 2001, Directed by Roger Donaldson, Produced by Clint Eastwood, Screenplay by George Orwell. R20 poor language and no sex scenes)

The world since S11 2001 has resembled a gigantic replay of the American Wild West. First a line up of super violent war films put on hold while the Indians were located. Now with the ‘war against terrorism’ being scripted by the White House and Pentagon, and watched by peak audiences round the clock on CNN, NBC, ABC etc. Hollywood doesn’t want to miss out on the billions of bucks riding on the rawtide of patriotism. Not since Vietnam have a spate of war films and TV series flooded the screens. Not to be outdone by the Patriot Bill passed by Congress, Holygook is moving rapidly to release new films on Somalia and Bosnia and now the Bush banger of them all ‘The Empire of the West". It attempts to present a gung ho history of Amerikkka the Great since the Second World War. We bring you a preview of this film before it has hit the streets, or is it kasbahs or markets, or caves, or schools, or refugee camps, or mission hospitals. Anyway this is the true story of the new wild west starring the Bush administration as sheriff, judge, jury and executioner in a ‘holy war against terrorism’.

The Bush family is old Eastern capital but they have boosted their wealth by becoming leaders of the midwest capital based on Texas oil. The history of Texas oil is one of genocidal wars against Native Americans and wars of conquest against Mexico. The most powerful grouping of US capital is now concentrated in the oil and armaments industries and they will stop at nothing to build their personal business empires. Their profits dictate the policies of the Empire. We see the opening shot of Bush reading in Spanish to school kids in a Texas migrant workers’ camp somewhere on the border.

The US became the no 1 world power by pushing its continental frontier to the Pacific. We see images of genocidal attacks on native Americans as ‘collatoral damage’. Today the US pushes its global frontier to the East to take in the whole of Asia. The stakes are still the same but only a thousand times bigger. The natives who can’t escape are starved, bombed and subjected to cluster bombs disguised as food parcels. For what is at stake today is not Texas but the whole of Asia.

This 'Wild West' tale is a neverending story. The Monroe Doctrine of the 19^th century pushed the US frontier down into Latin America where US sponsored elites ruled the neo-colonies. US ‘sponsoring’ includes a montage of bombs, marine invasions, CIA drug cartels and Holygook culture. Today most LA states are virtual dependencies of the Empire. We see shots of desperate migrants holding up greenbacks to bribe the US border guards.

The march into Europe began with the Marshall Plan and NATO. It was stopped by the Red Army getting to Berlin first and then sealing off Eastern Europe. Now Amerikkka has no choice but to declare a ‘cold war’ on the Red heathen. Christian fundamentalists like Foster Dulles put together the first Western ‘coalition’- the so-called "Washington Consensus" of freedom loving deputies and their dogs to hunt down and eliminate the evil Red empire. The US collaborated with Nazis to begin the arms race that led to the world of Dr Strangelove.

The move into East Asia began with the nuclear bombing of 500,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki but was blocked by the victory of the Chinese peasant army led by Mao in 1950 and by a Vietnamese war of liberation led by Ho Chi Min. In 1973 at the battle of Saigon the cowboys got badly defeated and retreated in disarray to the sound of Wagner played backwards. This episode is cast by Holygook as the bloody coming of age of Pax Americana but most of the blood was Asian blood.

Despite CIA subversion in Indonesia in 1965 where between 500,000 and a million died and in East Timor in 1975 where more than 250,000 died, the East Asian masses remained relatively free of the Empire until their economies were brought to the knees by the so-called Asian crisis that forced them into the arms of the US ruling class. Images of Daihatsus with Jeep badges and Megawati Sukarnoputri backing the US in its war against terrorism.

In the Mid-East and central Asia the US stepped in to back Israel when the British empire crumbled in the Suez crisis in 1956. As always oil was at stake. When Mossadeg nationalised oil interests in Iran, the US staged a coup and put the Shah in power. When the Shah was overthrown the US backed Iraq in its long war with Iran, and then supported Pakistan in launching the Taliban to remove Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

But in Iran and Afghanistan the US failed to establish trusty client states to open up central Asia. Despite the best efforts of Rambo to help the Taliban to remove the Russians, the ‘natives’ in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran refused to be stooges of the US Empire. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Central Asian frontier was reopened to the Western cowboys. There was a new Western expansion from Europe and the Pacific into Asia to get access to the only large reserves of oil left in the world.

The US had two problems. How to beat off its rivals, Japan and the EU for the spoils of oil? Second, how to pacify the natives? The solution was to declare war against native resistance to the Empire as terrorism and force all the Western powers to join in. This meant re-defining terrorism as any action that targeted civilians or the economic infrastructure and making sure that Western terrorism was unreported or redefined as UN peacekeeping.

The model of covert intervention in Iran (1956), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1990) became open wars against drug barons such as Plan Colombia. UN intervention against 'rogue' states from Korea (1950), Congo (1960) to Somalia (1990) continued but as no more than a series of one-off actions.

These tactics were too limited to produce decisive wins for imperialism. What was needed was a more global enemy than drug barons or rogue states. It was now common knowledge that the drug barons were themselves the product of Western policy. The UN ‘peacekeeping’ in rogue states was also exposed as part of the problem not the solution. What was needed was a universal enemy to replace ‘communism’ as the threat to freedom. That ideal enemy would be the religion that is used by the largest number of freedom fighters on the Eastern frontier - Islam. The new generic enemy became the Islamic 'terrorist'.

The model for the war against Islamic terrorism was being prototyped in Palestine. The Stern Gang was a notorious Zionist posse. The Wild West had to be updated to the modern world. The US backed fundamentalist Zionist regime had since 1948 demonstrated that the 'West' in the mid 20^th century could occupy the territory of natives by force and get away with it in the name of democracy and human rights. UN advocacy of human rights proved toothless in the face of US patronage. Thus the just war of resistance of the natives, rather than the white settler occupiers, became first defined as 'Islamic terrorism' in Palestine. Islam rather than Zionism was the evil 'fundamentalism'.

So the war against terrorism was first officially declared by the Bush administration, not on Sept 11 2001, but in December 1990 in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein. The war was reported by CNN and filmed by Holygook. ‘Getting Saddam’ became the first test of the US ‘new world order’ unilateral policy. It used the UN as a front against terrorism to pressure the other big powers to join up. The UK when along, other EU states such as France held back, and Russia and China resisted. Never mind, the concept had been launched and Iraq quarantined as on object lesson to other uppity natives. But this did not yet neutralise Russia and form a chain of client states as oil platforms to open up Asia. Solution?

Try again in Yugoslavia. Here the rival EU and Russia had a strong influence. It was to the benefit of both the EU and US that Yugoslavia was broken up, Russia's influence broken, and client states established to provide a bridgehead into Asia. This was achieved by backing Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims (at this stage bin Laden was an ally) against the Russian backed Serbia.

The partition of Bosnia and then the NATO bombing and occupation of Kosovo destroyed Serbian resistance and created NATO protectorates as stepping stones into Central Asia. The recent NATO intervention into Macedonia was designed to create another military base. As a result under the auspices of NATO Europe was extended towards the East and Russia neutralised as part of a wider Europe, and the US strategy of total dominance advanced another step.

September 11 2001 according to the Bush administration changed the World. What happened was that the plan to fight a war against Islamic terrorism now blossomed like a ‘daisy cutter’. After decades of the oppression of the masses in the middle east and Asia and after years of deliberate provocation, the 'evil' of Islamic Terrorism was no longer associated with particular rogue states or individual personalities like Saddam or Milosovic, but a universal evil personified in Osama Bin Laden and al queda. The attack on the World Trade Centre allowed the ruling class to move into high gear and introduce a war against terrorism to destroy all enemies of the Empire abroad and at home.

Now the former rivals to the US Empire were "totally supportive" of a military attack on the Taliban and Bin Laden, and prepared to accept 'civilian casualties'. Asian regimes that were offside with the Empire, like Pakistan and India, were bought off with loans and promises of aid from the Empire. China was promised membership of the WTO. Australia and NZ Deputy and dog saddled up for the posse.

Official workers’ organisations in the West were prepared to put their opposition to capitalism aside, justify the war and allow new state powers to limit the civil rights to combat terrorism at home. Some were prepared to endorse the use of torture to this end. In one swift move the Empire disarmed its most vocal critics in the East as well as the West. Those who were wavering were promised a role in a UN administered post-Taliban Afghanistan and bought off with promises of a share in the oil booty.

But unknown to the secret services of the Empire an underground resistance movement was emerging; basing itself on the ancient lessons of resistance of natives since the original European invasions, and on the historic workers revolutions that succeeded in defeating the Empire in the 20^th century. Making full use of the great technological advances of previous centuries this rag bag army of subversives and dissidents is growing daily in its influence on the masses. The Empires days are numbered. Fox will bring out the movie ‘End of Empire’ next year.

From Class Struggle 42 December 2001/January 2002