Barcelona mayor Ada Colau announces that the European metropolis will put all institutional relations with Israel on hold. (Photo: Lyle Hausman, Supplied)
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website iswww.ramzybaroud.net
A succession of events starting in Barcelona, Spain, in February, and followed in Liège, Belgium, and Oslo, Norway, in April sent a strong message to Israel: The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) is alive and well.
In Barcelona, the city’s Mayor canceled a twinning agreement with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The decision was not an impulsive one, although Ada Colau is well-known for her principled positions on many issues. It was, however, an outcome of a fully democratic process, initiated by a proposal submitted by left-wing parties at the city council.
A few weeks after the decision was made, specifically on February 8, a pro-Israeli legal organization known as The Lawfare Project, announced its intentions to file a lawsuit against Colau because she, supposedly, “acted beyond the scope of her authority”.
The Lawfare Project meant to communicate a message to other city councils in Spain, and the rest of Europe, that there will be serious legal repercussions to boycotting Israel. To the organization’s – and Israel’s – big surprise, however, other cities quickly advanced their own boycott procedures. They include the Belgian city of Liège and Norway’s capital city, Oslo.
Liège’s local leadership did not try to conceal the reasons behind their decision. The city council, it was reported, had decided to suspend relations with the Israeli authorities for running a regime “of apartheid, colonization and military occupation”. That move was backed by a majority vote at the council, proving once more that the pro-Palestinian moral stance was fully compliant with a democratic process.
Oslo is a particularly interesting case. It was there that the ‘peace process’ resulted in the Oslo Accords in 1993, which ultimately divided the Palestinians while giving Israel a political cover to continue with its illegal practices, while claiming that it has no peace partner.
But Oslo is no longer committed to the empty slogans of the past. In June 2022, the Norwegian government declared its intention of denying the label “Made in Israel” to goods produced in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in Occupied Palestine.
Though Jewish settlements are illegal under international law, Europe did not mind doing business – in fact, lucrative business – with these colonies over the years. In November 2019, the European Court of Justice, however, resolved that all goods produced in “Israel-occupied areas” had to be labeled as such, so as not to mislead consumers. The Court’s decision was a watered-down version of what Palestinians had expected: a complete boycott, if not of Israel as a whole, at least of its illegal settlements.
However, the decision still served a purpose. It provided yet another legal base for boycott, thus empowering pro-Palestine civil society organizations, and reminding Israel that its influence in Europe is not as limitless as Tel Aviv wants to believe.
The most that Israel could do in response is to issue angry statements, along with haphazard accusations of anti-Semitism. In August 2022, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt requested a meeting with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, during the former’s visit to Israel. Lapid refused. Not only did such arrogance make a little difference in Norway’s stance on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but it also opened yet more margins for pro-Palestinian activists to be more proactive, leading to Oslo’s decision in April to ban imports of goods made in illegal settlements.
The BDS movement explained, on its website, the meaning of Oslo’s decision: “Norway’s capital … announced that it will not trade in goods and services produced in areas that are illegally occupied in violation of international law.” In practice, this means that Oslo’s “procurement policy will exclude companies that directly or indirectly contribute to Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise – a war crime under international law.”
Keeping these rapid developments in mind, The Lawfare Project would now have to expand its legal cases to include Liège, Oslo and an ever-growing list of city councils that are actively boycotting Israel. But, even then, there are no guarantees that the outcome of such litigations will serve Israel in any way. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true.
A case in point was the recent decision by the cities of Frankfurt and Munich in Germany to cancel music concerts of pro-Palestinian rock and roll legend, Roger Waters, as part of his ‘This is Not a Drill’ tour. Frankfurt justified its decision by branding Waters as “one of the world’s most well-known anti-Semites”. The bizarre and unfounded claim was rejected outright by a German civil court which, on April 24, ruled in favor of Waters.
Indeed, while a growing number of European cities are siding with Palestine, those who side with Israeli apartheid find it difficult to defend or even maintain their position, simply because the former predicate their stances on international law, while the latter on twisted and convenient interpretations of anti-Semitism.
What does all of this mean for the BDS movement?
In an article published in Foreign Policy magazine last May, Steven Cook reached a hasty conclusion that the BDS movement “has already lost”, because, according to his inference, efforts to boycott Israel have made no impact “in the halls of government”.
While BDS is a political movement that is subject to miscalculations and mistakes, it is also a grassroots campaign that labors to achieve political ends through incremental, measured changes. To succeed over time, such campaigns must first engage ordinary people on the street, activists at universities, in houses of worship, etc., all done through calculated, long-term strategies, themselves devised by local and national civil society collectives and organizations.
BDS continues to be a success story, and the latest critical decisions made in Spain, Belgium and Norway attest to the fact that grassroots efforts do pay dividends.
There is no denying that the road ahead is long and arduous. It will certainly have its twists, turns and, yes, occasional setbacks. But this is the nature of national liberation struggles. They often come at a high cost and great sacrifice. But, with popular resistance at home and growing international support and solidarity abroad, Palestinian freedom should, in fact, be possible.
In an exclusive interview for Al Mayadeen, the Cuban President touches on the Cuban Revolution, its challenges, and achievements, as well as US manipulations.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel
Al Mayadeen Media Network Chairman Ghassan Ben Jeddou conducted an exclusive interview with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, during which the latter discussed the Cuban Revolution and its challenges, international relations, the situation in Latin America, and the blockade imposed on Cuba.
In the first part of the interview, the Cuban President touched on the concepts on which the Cuban Revolution was based and Cuba’s position on the progressive, revolutionary, and resistance currents in the world, as well as the protests that the country witnessed in 2021 and Cuba’s policies toward the new generations.
The Moncada and the Revolution
Speaking about the pre-revolutionary period in the country, Diaz-Canel told Al Mayadeen that the 50s was a terrible decade for Cuba and the Cuban people, as it came after years of imperial domination of Cuba where the country had turned into an American colony.
He pointed out that whatever strategies were put in to camouflage this situation and its essence, the situation stemmed from the frustration of the struggle for Cuban independence in 1895.
He specified that at the last moment of the war for independence when Cuba had practically defeated Spain, the first imperialist war occurred, referring to the US interference in the Spanish-Cuban War, which was later called the Spanish-Cuban-American war.
Diaz-Canel continued that “far from achieving its real independence, Cuba became a colony of the United States government,” and since then, the country has been ruled by a number of submissive governments and agents of the empire, administrative corruption prevailed, and an oligarchy — that did not defend the interests of the country or the Cuban people, but rather was defending the interests of the United States — became more enrooted.
Back then, according to the Cuban President, the United States seized practically all of the country’s natural resources and started investing in Cuba. Thus, the Cuban people reached a very complicated situation where illiteracy increased and no one practically owned a home.
The situation back then was described by Fidel Castro in his self-defense document titled “History Will Absolve Me,” thus, the Moncada was the program that Castro developed for launching the Revolution, Diaz-Canel said.
Speaking about the pre-revolutionary period in the country, Diaz-Canel told #AlMayadeen that the 50s were a terrible decade for #Cuba and the #Cuban people, as it came after years of imperial domination of Cuba where the country had turned into an #American colony. pic.twitter.com/POeMZxGyDy
The Cuban leader considered that in the case of Cuba in particular and the complex situation that it was living in, the Revolution was necessary with no other solution available, and therefore, it was very acceptable — a revolution that completes the true independence of Cuba.
Diaz-Canel explained that for this reason, the Revolution, which meant primarily making profound changes in Cuban society, was accepted by the majority of the Cuban people and was a completely dynamic and liberating process that gave Cuba true independence, sovereignty, and self-determination.
Thus, the revolutionary process began to advance along a set of social achievements, which gave the right to free education, free health, and sports for everyone, as well as the spread of world and Cuban culture, he indicated.
“It was a process of reaffirming the cultural values on which the Cuban nation was built, throughout its years, basing all its actions on the law, that is, always defending what is just,” he added.
He pointed out that one of the basic concepts of the Revolution has always been achieving the greatest possible amount of social justice, taking into account culture in its broadest sense, and not referring only to artistic and literary creativity, but rather taking into account the values that have formed in the Cuban nation over many years, and highlighting the best of those values enjoyed by its people in the revolutionary process.
Likewise, Diaz-Canel asserted that the Revolution never deceived the people. In fact, the Revolution asked the people to read in order to believe and granted them the right to learn, he said.
All of this was linked to the thought of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro and his legacy and the continuity that General Raul Castro later attributed to the revolutionary process, Diaz-Canel added.
The Revolution renewing itself
The Cuban President said the Revolution was in a state of continuous boiling and was constantly transforming and changing, adapting to all the complex historical moments that it had to pass through.
According to Diaz-Canel, one must ask how this Revolution, which was born besieged and encircled since its inception, by the main imperialist power and the most powerful superpower in the world, could resist all the sieges, sanctions, aggressions, and currently the tightened siege and widespread media attacks that seek to discredit the Revolution and undermine its authority and model.
He said that when one thinks about the attitude the US adopted in its dealing with the Revolution that only wants the well-being of the Cuban people, there is only one answer for that: It did so out of hatred and malice because it was disturbed by the model of this Revolution.
The Cuban President stressed: “I believe that we are continuing the Revolution, and the Revolution will continue to advance despite the difficulties,” highlighting that “the majority of the Cuban people will continue to support this Revolution, and for that, we must continue in a state of revolution within the Revolution.”
On the other hand, the Cuban President explained that the world is witnessing a very difficult situation and is full of uncertainty. “We have just suffered from an epidemic that destroyed the models of neoliberalism,” he considered.
He said that despite the many years of neoliberalism and the promotion of a lot of propaganda that supports it – when a complex moment has come – the world found that neoliberalism is unable to solve all the problems of the epidemic with equality and inclusion of all people.
Diaz-Canel pointed out that health systems in the most advanced capitalist countries had collapsed, and a question was raised about how to explain the neoliberal world’s failure to provide alternatives to the majority.
“Since the world has just gone through a pandemic, I think we still cannot talk about the post-pandemic stage, as there are still more than 20 countries in the world that have not even been able to vaccinate 10% of their population, and we see that there is a lot of inequality,” the Cuban leader explained.
He noted that amid the pandemic, there was a very selfish attitude on the part of the oligarchy, and the rich became richer while the poor became poorer.
“This is why we see this inequality that arises in the capitalist societies themselves, and then this inequality leads to rebellion and leads above all to the rebellion of the youths, and the new generations as well,” he added.
Diaz-Canel stressed that regardless of the way it is implemented, the Revolution will continue to be an alternative and will remain an aspiration for the youth.
However, he underlined that it will inevitably be necessary to take into account the historical stages and to conduct a critical analysis of revolutionary experiences, not to see revolutions from an idealistic point of view, but from all their contradictions and the situations they overcame.
The Cuban President highlighted that in today’s world, there is a deep revolutionary feeling and an embrace of Marxist ideas, and one sees that there is much hope for these generations to build a better world.
He noted that he felt that because he had the opportunity to talk to many young people who visit Cuba from different parts of the world.
Diaz-Canel pointed out the need to preserve the environment as an indispensable condition for preserving the human race, pointing out that all these trials and deep reflections on the multidimensional crisis that the world is going through today give an answer that revolution is still an alternative.
Cuba and the revolutionary progressive currents
When asked about the new progressive left in Latin America and the world, the Cuban President said that in the region, there is a historical reference that indicates the need to delve deeper into these ideas and provides the basis for the continuity of these progressive leftist ideas.
Diaz-Canel believes that a huge part of the people of Latin America has embraced these ideas, noting that in recent years “we have witnessed stages that express this historical continuity in the independence experiences of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
He explained that the situation that the US, with its neoliberal practices, led the region to saw an increase in inequality in Latin America and subjected the population of most Latin American countries to a very complicated situation.
The Cuban President considered that it has become necessary for revolutionary experiences to take place, just as a decade passed in which a whole group of revolutionary experiences arose in response and as an alternative to this situation.
According to Diaz-Canel, the exemplary experience in this sense was the Venezuelan experience, where Hugo Chavez, who was a well-established Bolivarian and well-versed in Latin American history, carried out a Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.
He continued that, at that time, the experience of the Bolivarian Revolution coincided with the Nicaraguan Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Cultural Revolution in Bolivia, and the Citizenship Revolution in Ecuador, as well as the experience of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and that of Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, among others.
When asked about the new progressive left in #LatinAmerica and the world, the #Cuban President said that in the region, there is a historical reference that indicates the need to delve deeper into these ideas and provides the basis for the continuity of progressive leftist ideas. pic.twitter.com/eqWRZZxPYp
Diaz-Canel noted that there was also a progressive president in Paraguay and Uruguay, which allowed the consolidation of a whole set of integration measures in Latin America and the Caribbean where millions of Latin Americans no longer suffered from hunger and were able to change their social status after all these progressive governments initiated measures of a social and economic nature in the interest of the majority.
However, the Cuban President pointed out that imperialism did not stand idly by and tried to undermine those movements that were an expression of those progressive and leftist ideas, pointing to the countless vicious, divisive acts that the US government, with the support of its huge media, applied to bury these experiences.
“We all know how they carried out a parliamentary coup in Paraguay, how they caused the impeachment of the President of Brazil, Dilma [Rousseff], and how they also prosecuted a group of Latin American leaders politically,” Diaz-Canel said.
“We are still witnessing judicial persecution against [former Argentine Vice President] Cristina Kirchner, and how they tried to carry out a coup under the auspices of the Organization of American States against the Bolivian experiment led by Evo Morales,” he noted.
But the Cuban leader indicated that Latin America is witnessing a cycle in which the defense of those leftist ideas and work to strengthen them began again.
He said that in the decade in which all the aforementioned experiences converged, an integration mechanism for Latin America was achieved, highlighting that through this mechanism of integration in less than ten years, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador were able to win the battle of eradicating illiteracy.
First illiteracy-free region in Latin America and the Caribbean
According to the Cuban President, this achievement holds much significance for Cuba, which declared itself the first illiteracy-free region in Latin America and the Caribbean, pointing out that it took more than 50 years with authentic and real complementary experiences in Latin America and with human, revolutionary, and progressive ideas, for other countries to realize what previously seemed like a figment of the imagination.
Diaz-Canel said that for many people in other parts of the world, this is still a dream and an out-of-the-reach matter.
He recalled that with this process of integration between Latin American countries, what was known as Operation Miracle was achieved, restoring sight to millions in Latin America who would not have had it in the circumstances that they were living in countries implementing neoliberal projects and programs.
The Cuban leader explained that Petro-Caribbean projects became consolidated on the basis of sharing energy resources in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Diaz-Canel also highlighted that other consultation mechanisms were established, such as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), where for the first time, 33 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean sat down to discuss their problems together without the US presence or participation.
He also pointed out that Latin America and the Caribbean have now decided for themselves freely, on the basis of the concept of unity within diversity, to announce the document declaring Latin America and the Caribbean a region of peace.
This was specifically approved during the summit held by the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Havana, which also guarantees or proposes the full political will of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, according to Diaz-Canel.
He underlined that Cuba supports and respects these experiences, stressing that his country will continue to defend, understand, and respect everything that can be done in order to achieve a better world based on the most humane, revolutionary, liberating, and comprehensive stances.
The new generations
In the same context, the Cuban President pointed out that the new generations today that lead leftist courses have learned lessons from history, having analyzed the historical watersheds of the left in the world, thus understanding the need to unite while accounting for diversity, in order to establish a robust framework for the revolutionary struggle.
According to the Cuban President, valuable lessons have been drawn on why socialism has failed in Eastern Europe, and lessons have been drawn from revolutionary endeavors in the world.
He added that the claims and intentions of imperialism at this time have also been analyzed, confirming that it is not possible to talk about a new left or a renewed left or a left that gives continuity to historical milestones if this left is uncertain of its course, what it seeks, or its origin.
“We must bear in mind that imperialism today is developing a whole concept of world domination, and therefore it is ideologically based on an integrated program to restore the momentum of capitalism, neoliberalism, and cultural colonialism,” he said.
“The only means that imperialism employs to abolish identity and destroy nations, culture, and the roots and essence of our peoples is precisely through cultural penetration [ideological subversion] that lures people into skepticism and dismisses all their ideas as obsolete,” Diaz-Canel said.
“Understanding these attitudes is what unites us all to defend our essence, in a common defense of culture and identity, to avoid cultural colonialism and the domination of only one thought that prevails in the world, which is why it is also important to analyze the problems of the left, which, in itself, is lost in problems of neoliberal globalization,” he added.
The Cuban President added, “If we ask what has been globalized? Selfishness has been globalized; it is the language of war. Aggression has also been globalized, leaving social inequality in its wake. It is the imperialist logic, and in the face of this imperialist logic, the logic of the left, or progressive logic, must prevail.”
“In our case, we have a socialist logic, however, we never turn down criticism of our ideology, but I believe it is fundamental to eliminate human exploitation of man to have equality among all the inhabitants of the planet and to distribute wealth in a better manner,” Diaz-Canel said.
“It is very difficult to understand today that in this world of inequality, where so many are impoverished, millions and millions of dollars are being employed in war budgets or spent on armaments,” he said.
“How much more can the world do for the benefit of all its people if these funds are used for other purposes? How much more can be accomplished if there is more integration, if there is mutual respect, and if there are genuine decolonization programs and programs that actually create opportunities for all,” he wondered.
Challenges the Revolution faced
The Cuban President said, “When I was elected President of the Republic, I said that before anything else, we stand as the generation of continuity; [historical] continuity in the dialectical sense of the word, the kind that stands up for the essence of the Revolution that shall lead the Revolution to perfection as well.”
He further explained, “In other words, it was not a generation that wanted to maintain a rigid pace in the development of the Revolution, so in this concept of continuity, a set of values from the historical legacy of the Revolution is also adopted.”
Diaz-Canel believed that “among those values stands out the courage that Fidel and Raul engraved in us; courage that extends throughout our wars for independence and our decision to firmly defend sovereignty and independence and defend the right to self-determination of the Cuban people. In the same sense, the concept of broader communication with the people stands out.” According to Cuba’s leader, the aforementioned constitute elements that shall always distinguish the stance that “we, the revolutionary cadres and fighters, will take in our lives, especially in the most difficult moments.”
“We will always stand up against adversity, we will always stand up against the most difficult, most complex moments, with courage yet calmly because they are moments that we should consider deeply and analyze thoroughly. Such moments cannot be handled in an indecisive spontaneous, disorderly, or arrogant manner,” the Cuban President stressed.
He went on to say that “such are moments in which you must study the reasons and contradictions that are inflicted on the facts, before anything else, followed by looking for the best solutions with the participation of everyone.”
He added, “I always say that none of us can know more than what we all, combined, know, and I believe that the Cuban people have proven throughout their history that they enjoy the talent, strong will, and valor… that they are heroes who regard their dignity highly.”
Diaz-Canel pointed out that the Cuban people have been under siege for more than sixty years, and continued that his generation, which was born after the Revolution, is “a besieged generation since then. We have lived under siege, but this is something that we shared with our children and grandchildren.”
Furthermore, the Cuban President indicated that “the generations that were born after the Revolution are generations that lived their entire lives under the pressure of the blockade, under the aggression of the blockade, under the repercussions of the blockade, but still, the Revolution did not stop, and it stood in the face of the blockade and was able to develop its programs and projects, although the blockade stood out as the main obstacle in the face of achieving all the aforementioned.”
It goes without saying that “the blockade is a fait accompli that slows down our aspirations and the realization of our projects and dreams,” he tersely stated.
Diaz-Canel added that, starting from the second half of 2019, a very delicate situation prevails, whereby the Trump administration announces more than 243 measures against the Cuban Revolution, which intensified the blockade.
He continued, “Therefore, we are not talking here about the blockade imposed in the sixties or the seventies, nor about the blockade in the ‘delicate period (the nineties).’”
“We are talking about a very intense siege that the world is still experiencing, and based on scrutiny and analysis that we conducted within the leadership of the Revolution at the time, we explained to the people, within a long notice, the problems that we will face,” he added.
The Cuban President stressed that “we have prepared our people in a way that makes it clear to them that we are stepping into a stage full of complications, in which we will face a shortage of food, medical supplies, fuel, spare parts, and foreign currency that enables us to obtain the necessary supplies for our basic productions, as well as providing food and solving the people’s basic problems.”
With Trump’s 243 measures, all sources of the country’s foreign financing were suddenly cut off, and at the same time, the United States initiated up-close monitoring at the level of finances and energy resources against the country with the US government making every effort to prevent, by all means, the entry of fuel into Cuba or that Cuba obtain credit or any sort of financing regardless of how scarce it may be, according to the Cuban President.
Diaz-Canel recalled how, in January 2020, Trump placed Cuba, just a few days before the end of his term as President, on the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” which is a made-up, fake list. The reason is that, according to the Cuban President, when a country is arbitrarily included in that list, all banks and financial institutions agencies start to sever ties with the relevant country, thus weakening most of the sources of foreign financing, which are already affected by Trump’s other measures.
He explained how up to this very day, a lot of effort is required if any Cuban tries to conduct business dealings or settle certain payments, “because almost no bank wants to be involved in that ever since the sanctions were imposed.”
According to the Cuban President, Trump’s sanctions included activating Chapter Three of the Helms-Burton Act, which imposes the internationalization of the blockade and punishing countries across the world, meaning that the “Great Empire” even imposes restrictions on the rest of the world [in their dealing with Cuba].
He further explained how the insistence on applying these sanctions over time, as pursued by Biden’s administration, without any change is causing a more severe shortage in supplies of medicines, fuel, and raw materials necessary for Cuba’s main production operations and electricity generation, not to mention hindering the rest of the production and service processes in the country.
Attempts to fail the Revolution
The Cuban President pointed out that alongside these intense problems, which have social repercussions, leading people to develop a sense of resentment and misunderstanding of the situation that started to occupy their lives, the Corona pandemic hit in March 2020.
Therefore, almost all the conditions for a perfect storm were in place, paving the way for a social explosion that the US government longed for in order to fail and put an end to the Cuban Revolution, he further explained, revealing that all this was accompanied by a large-scale US intel operation.
Diaz-Canel stressed that Cuba has evidence and information which clearly show how they led an intense campaign aimed at discrediting the Cuban Revolution on social networks seeking to spread frustration and create estrangement and misunderstanding, knowing that the campaign was directed particularly at the youth category.
“It must be noted that at the beginning of the pandemic which was indeed exacerbating in light of this whole situation, we still dispatched medical teams to countries with pandemic hotspots, as we learned a lot about the disease and were immediately able to develop a plan to combat it, which allowed us primarily by the end of 2020 to reduce the number of infected cases so as to curb a major outbreak,” he further detailed.
The Cuban leader pointed out that they decided to open the borders in 2020, and when they actually did, the Delta strain took over, and since they had not obtained their vaccines at the time, the result was a Delta-instigated pandemic that lasted for about a year.
“All this happened amid the [dire] situation we were in,” he said.
Shedding light on the effect of US sanctions, Diaz-Canel went on to say, “We pursued our program to confront the pandemic, and when we decided to open new intensive care units that we were in dire need of, the United States government prevented companies that manufacture ventilators which are extremely necessary in intensive care rooms or units from selling them to Cuba. Thus, we came across an oxygen-supply crisis, because consumption was higher due to the high number of patients and because our factories faced major setbacks.”
During his interview for Al Mayadeen, the Cuban President stressed that the United States government pressured companies in Latin America not to sell us the medical oxygen that Cuba desperately needed and prevented the arrival of medications and vaccines as well.
He went on to say that amid this entire dire situation, they launched a hypocrisy, disinformation, and slander campaign under the title of “SOSCUBA” at the level of international networks.
Speaking about the pre-revolutionary period in the country, Diaz-Canel told #AlMayadeen that the 50s were a terrible decade for #Cuba and the #Cuban people, as it came after years of imperial domination of Cuba where the country had turned into an #American colony. pic.twitter.com/POeMZxGyDy
The Cuban President assessed that all the aforementioned factors, coupled with the dire situation of the Cuban population, have conditioned the Cuban scene for cooptation.
According to Diaz-Canel, Cuba tolerates criticism of the government and provides citizens with suitable mechanisms and platforms for doing so, but what happened in 2021 was something else.
The protests were far from peaceful, and this became clear very soon. After the authorities began their investigations, they uncovered the underpinnings of these protests, revealing the monetary incentives for rioting and vandalizing.
This was what happened on July 11, 2021, the Cuban President said, adding that some had gone out to protest oblivious of the underpinnings, while others were paid to riot and vandalize. “These were not peaceful protesters; they attacked shops and public security forces, trying to disrupt social stability. They were trying to destroy the most significant element of Cuban society that the Cuban citizens are largely fond of: tranquility and reassurance,” he added.
He pointed out that “these were unpleasant times, but lessons were learned, because here, unlike other places in the world, the security forces or the armed forces did not go down to the streets to crack down on the rioters. Instead, they were the revolutionary Cuban people who came out to defend the Revolution.”
“We were the first to arrive at one of the outposts from where the protests broke out, and we explained to the people the situation we were living in,” he said, stressing that “in one day, practically all the nodes of subversive protests were contained and eventually dissipated.”
He added that on the second day, in a neighborhood in Havana, another subversive stunt was pulled but it was short-lived.
“There was a whole scenario prepared by the ’empire’, which was to manufacture an inflated scene of social unrest that would serve as the necessary pretext for the United States to intervene by ‘providing humanitarian assistance’. And we have already seen how the United States ‘provided humanitarian assistance’ for other countries of the world,” the Cuban leader highlighted.
“There are many examples in the Arab world and in Africa, when the United States came with its humanitarian aid in brackets, the conditions of the recipient people and governments deteriorated if anything. It was not humanitarian aid; it was effectively invasions, aggressions, and military interventions – that was the case in Libya and Iraq and other places, and we also have the dirty war that they waged against the Syrian people and nation,” he said.
“These events unfolded like a scenario whereby if Cuba calls on the population to defend the Revolution, then they would have called for a civil war,” Diaz-Canel said, explaining, “Never ever has anyone come out here with weapons to suppress anyone. Had the armed institutions intervened, it would have been possible to say that there was police and armed repression.”
“The second part of the scenario was that when people were to be tried before the law as any country in the world would do in cases of rioting, they would be advertised as political prisoners of the ‘regime’ as they like to portray us. No one has been arrested here, and no one has been subjected to judicial proceedings for simply protesting the situation in Cuba,” he said.
Diaz-Canel stressed that in Cuba, there has never been police repression, unlike the situation in the United States, adding that “they also tried to manipulate the situation, claiming that we were harsher with Blacks than with whites, when, in Cuba, we have programs contending all form of discrimination, especially racial discrimination.”
“It was all just manipulation and fake news; they broadcast these lies to discredit our achievements that are not subject to their purposes and objectives, he said, explaining that had there been supposedly a case of large-scale social unrest in Cuba, the United States would have capitalized on any chance to prove the failure of the Revolution.”
“Despite this, what did they do on social media? They posted pictures of a supposed demonstration that was actually a football festivity in Argentina, and they took pictures of the people demonstrating in support of the Revolution, claiming that they were against it. It was unbelievable: Gerardo Hernández, one of our iconic five heroes, was at a pro-Revolution demonstration, and they still presented it as anti-revolutionary,” he added.
“Does the truthful use such cheap tools to discredit an enemy? Only the US government does it, and it does it out of hatred and insolence,” Diaz-Canel said, stressing that this is the reality of the manipulated events.
Evaluation and social transformation
“What happened next? We learned a lot, made our assessments, went to a debate, and the same palace halls we visited today were spaces for exchanging ideas with representatives of various sectors of Cuban society, including young people,’ the Cuban President highlighted.
“We have also gone on a process of social transformation in Cuban neighborhoods where inequalities have accumulated. We also have people and families in vulnerable situations, regardless of all the social actions of the Revolution, but this is the case because we have lived for years with many needs, even with a lot of deprivation as a result of the tightening of the blockade.”
According to Díaz-Canel, “All the proposals of the population are transmitted to their municipal councils, where citizens are represented on the grass-root level. Then the things that have been approved go back to those neighborhoods, and the residents of the neighborhoods participate in the transformation that they have themselves proposed, and they also exercise popular control we increasingly seek to improve our democracy, and here we have provided essential participation to our youth.”
“How does the story continue? I had to ask our scientists if the production of a Cuban vaccine would be sufficient to be sovereign in the fight against Covid, which was one of the catalysts for this whole situation. I did it in March 2021, and also in July, just three months later,” he said.
The Cuban President added, “A few weeks later, Cuban scientists had already obtained the first vaccine bulb, and then we had five vaccine candidates, today there are three vaccines with tremendous efficacy, so we started a huge vaccination campaign, after conducting clinical trials, emergency studies on vulnerable groups.”
He went on to say, “When we got the vaccines, we had achieved this amid all this crisis. Despite the pressure and the tight blockade, we achieved the highest vaccination rates in the world, and today, we rank second among countries that have provided the largest number of vaccine doses per patient, we are among twenty countries with more than 90% of the population fully vaccinated, and with the reinforcement, we were the first in the world to vaccinate children over the age of two.”
“What are the results? Today we have 0.67% deaths, knowing that the mortality ratio is the ratio of deaths to the number of COVID cases. The average mortality ratio in the world is 1.05%; in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is 1.45%.”
He stressed that Cuba had more competently handled the pandemic and had a more successful strategy in the face of the pandemic than the government of the United States and many developed countries in the world that adopted a neoliberal line. Cuba outperformed all these developed countries in a difficult position and under a tight blockade.
The Cuban president added, “Who was caring for the most vulnerable people in neighborhoods during the pandemic? They’re the young Cubans, no one else.”
Development of public policies
“We have never stopped [engaging in] dialogue with the Cuban youth, as we constantly engage with them and visit universities, and they participate in the basic tasks of the Revolution. We take part in discussions and conferences held by the youth and youth organizations, and the Cuban youth groups are represented in parliament by their peers,” Cuba’s President said in his interview for Al Mayadeen.
He further explained that young Cubans participate in temporary action groups that work on developing public policies, which later lead to the emergence of laws approved by the National Assembly.
“We are currently in an endeavor with the participation of young people, as we set a general policy for youth and childhood, which allows us to reach a law in which we provide more guarantees for the youth and children,” Diaz-Canel added.
He also pointed out that “the main issue is how to continue to work with our youth on the basis of the Revolution-founded values so that the generational difference between those who launched the Revolution and those who defend it today and the new generations does not turn into an ideological difference and a rift.”
The Cuban leader stressed that this matter is “a challenge ahead of us and herein lies its beauty, but I believe that we will achieve it because we are already doing it today and the majority of our youth are with the Revolution, regardless of whether they live today in a society whose capabilities are limited in a way that does not allow the full realization of the aspirations of their projects in life.”
He further told Al Mayadeen, “All of this has led me to wonder: How can a country living under such dire circumstances, in which chaos would have prevailed had the schemes plotted against it succeeded, defeat Covid? The country has now reached a post-pandemic stage, and we started to revitalize our economic and social life, and still, the measures meant to tighten the blockade are still in place.
According to the Cuban President, the Cuban people have developed the capacity for resistance, which is not only to resist and endure the blockade; rather, it is the resistance that prevailed in the past year and shall move forward, overcoming the current adversities by relying on the talent and efforts of the Cubans.
“This is how Covid was defeated. Armed with the notion of everyone works for everyone, we focused on saving the lives of Cuban men and women, and we achieved that,” Diaz-Canel emphasized.
He went on to say, “And just as we succeeded in the case of Covid, we will continue to succeed, and we will continue to make achievements with the participation of our youth.”
Private Dialogue | Miguel Diaz Canel Bermudas – President of the Republic of Cuba – Part One
A Spanish journalist has been rotting in a Polish prison for the past year. And nobody knew or cared, Stephen Karganovic writes.
Those who watched Duran associate Alex Christoforou’s podcast the other day [at 18 to 19:45 minutes] must have been as taken aback as I was by Alex’s revelation of the unsavoury fate of Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzales in European “values” stronghold Poland.
Gonzales, a Spanish (another “EU values” country) citizen, it turns out has been rotting in a Polish prison for the past year. Not a week, not a month or even a couple of months, but for just over a year. And nobody knew or cared. He is not being detained on any specific charges to which he could mount a legal defence. He is listed simply as “under investigation” for the somewhat vague offence of being an agent of Russia. If that is what indeed he is, so far it seems no judicially cognisable evidence to support such an allegation has been produced by the Polish authorities. After just over a year that Gonzales has been kept in prison, the Polish “investigation” has failed to turn up any incriminating facts that might form the basis for even a flimsy indictment. As a result, no charges have been filed and no trial is in prospect for Gonzales. As trite as that may sound, it is also disturbingly accurate: in the Europe that, with its gallant overseas allies, fights for democracy in Ukraine, European journalist Pablo Gonzales is languishing in a Kafkaesque predicament.
In his expose, Alex Christoforou asks the natural question, “Where is the Spanish government in all this?” [at 19:20 minutes]. The answer is bound to disillusion everyone who imagined that in situations such as this morality had any influence over political decisions. It all comes down to the odious principle of raison d’état. Spain has issues with Catalan and Basque troublemakers and is loath to create a precedent that would provide foreigners a pretext to meddle in the way it treats its prisoners. For Spain the convenient solution therefore is to downplay the incarceration in Poland of one of its own citizens and hope that no one will notice.
Thankfully, Alex Christoforou did. And he informs us that since February of last year, in Poland, Spanish and EU citizen Gonzales has been kept in solitary confinement in an EU country, his wife and children have been denied all but a few brief visits, his lawyer’s efforts to communicate with his client have been systematically thwarted, and that, scandalously, the prisoner has been left essentially without consular protection. The Spanish government has signalled its disinterest to Gonzales’ Polish jailers.
As for the international media silence, broken belatedly by Christoforou, it has been shameful. It would perhaps be too bold to expect a moral colossus like Greta Thunberg to bother taking up Gonzales’ cause, but how about Amnesty International? This sordid case, replete with human rights violations of every imaginable sort, would seem to be right up their alley. On the AI website we read the following unctuous lines: “Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights … Amnesty International finds the facts, exposes what’s happening, and rallies people together to force governments and others to respect everyone’s human rights.” Well Amnesty, do something then.
Pablo Gonzales would undoubtedly appreciate a smidgeon of attention and support from a Nobel Prize winning human rights conglomerate such as Amnesty International. A quick check of the AI website, however, while producing an appeal for financial donations laced with a tear-jerking reminder that “after one year, Russian missiles are STILL raining down on families and children in Ukraine . .. Help us document human rights violations and war crimes – your gift will be matched,” does not mention Pablo Gonzales. And what was that about “after one year”? Ukrainian missiles have been raining down indiscriminately on families and children (it is a moot point whether Ukrainian or Russian, all the victims are human beings); not, however, since last year but since 2014, and at last count killing about 15,000 people. But Amnesty International’s eagle eyed human rights monitors missed that, just as they missed the plight of NATO and EU Poland’s prisoner of conscience, Pablo Gonzales.
It turns out that Pablo’s case is not unique.
In Serbia, there is another “prisoner of conscience” and hardly anyone has heard of him, either. He is also a journalist, like Pablo Gonzales, and is similarly doing time without any charges or judicial procedure. His name is Dejan Zlatanovic and he is rotting not in an EU but a Balkan dungeon. True, unlike Poland Serbia is not a part of EU and strictly speaking is not obligated to adhere to EU “values,” whatever they are. But as an aspiring EU member, it could at least try. Unfortunately, as the treatment of Zlatanovic shows, it is trying and succeeding remarkably well, except not by adhering to those values in beautiful theory but by copy-pasting the deplorable Polish practice.
In essence, what happened in Serbia is the following. On February 15, 2023, Serbian police arrested Dejan Zlatanovic, editor of internet news portal Srbin-Info, for a remark he made at a protest rally in Belgrade. Denouncing the possibility that government officials might sign an agreement to recognize the secession of Kosovo, and under the naïve impression that public expression of his views was constitutionally protected speech, Zlatanovic remarked: “Whoever signs is sure to be killed.” The reference was to an entirely reasonable apprehension shared by many Serbs, both those who attended the rally and those who did not. They suspect that high government officials are preparing to sign off on a European “peace” plan which requires Serbia to recognize the secession of NATO occupied Kosovo, considered the heart of Serbian identity, culture, and spirituality.
Both in the original and in translation, Zlatanovic’s remark was general and did not mention any political functionary by name. Furthermore, even on the strictest reading it could not even remotely be framed as a threat, imminent or implied. Rather, it contemplated the possible outcome of a hypothetical action. To anyone with a legal background, that much is clear. But for saying publicly only that and no more, as he was being arrested Zlatanovic was beaten to a pulp by the police, which cared not for the fact that he is a congenitally handicapped person.
The actual moments of Zlatanovic’s arrest can be heard in a mostly audio recording where he screams in anguish “Vucic’s thugs are kidnapping me!”
Zlatanovic has been kept in detention ever since. Apparently being applied is the “values” manual from the Gonzales case. No formal charges have been filed. Zlatanovic’s open ended incarceration was decreed on the basis of police authorities’ gratuitous interpretation that his statement constituted a direct threat to assassinate the country’s President and to violently overthrow the government. So far, a month into the illegal detention, no court hearing to present charges and air the evidence has been held, so it is uncertain what Serbian judges, who presumably do have some legal training, might have to say about the police interpretation of the prisoner’s words.
But is anyone listening? Another quick check reveals that on the website of Amnesty International there is no record of Dejan Zlatanovic or comment about his case.
The operational similarities that connect these two cases of human rights abuse are striking and they do no honour to the governments involved, the “values” hypocritically invoked, or the international advocacy organizations pretending not to notice.
The Aztec Empire, also known as “the Triple Alliance” or “the Empire Mexica,” was one of the most powerful blocks in pre-Columbian America. At their peak, the Aztecs controlled much of present-day Mexico and parts of Central America. Then, at the dawn of the 16th Century, 11 shiploads of Europeans arrived.
Despite the Aztecs’ supreme confidence in their spiritual, technological, and economic lizardry, their Empire of 500 tribes —or 3.2 million people—ultimately collapsed due to political infighting, foreign interference, immigration of young men from Europe, and, above all, the ridiculous ‘Welcome Policy’ of the idiot Aztec ruler Moctezuma II.
IMAGE 0 Some Say, Woke King ‘Mocti’ Moctezuma II Single-Handely Dropped the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas
Contrary to common belief, the Aztecs were not an Ancient civilization on par with, say, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Xia Chinese, or the Hindu Guptas. The Aztecs under Moctezuma II were still a relatively young, recent “Empire” that lasted 170 years (about 1350 till 1521), comparable, perhaps, to the first unified German Empire under Wilhelm I, but which only lasted 47 years (1871-1918) [and could be #stillweeping from its shallow grave, not sure].
In most history books today, it is written that the Aztec Empire’s fate was sealed when the Spanish megalomaniac Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519. We read stories, always repeated by the same clique of Western scholars, about how the Aztecs initially “welcomed the Spanish as possible representatives of the god Quetzalcoatl”—as if the Mexica people were that illustrious and funny. Moctezuma’s ‘Welcome Policy’ and collaboration with the first batch of sextourists “led to a fatal misunderstanding,” we are told; the misunderstanding being that the foreign invaders probably did not want your land, your gold, and your ladies.
IMAGE 1 Left Cortez Enters the Lizardman City Right Aztec Dictator – As Imagined in Tabletop Wargaming in the West
At last, “Conquistador Cortés” [literally: “Corti the Conqueror”] and his 500 men force-clarified the misunderstanding. He ultimately praised Moctezuma II for “his commitment to the Spanish ‘Inclusion, Diversity and Multiculturalism-Act’, as pronounced by the late Pope Clement the VII or whomever in Rome, Italy.” The Spanish occupiers used Mocti as a puppet governor, much like the American occupiers used Tirard to govern the German Rhineland in 1918.
Well, we all know that the Germans rose up against the foreign occupation. This ended badly for the Germans, leading to the greatest bloodshed the world had ever seen, World War 2 and Germany’s spectacular downfall.
Believe it or not, the Aztecs did the exact same thing, just 400 years earlier, which led to their own unique, spectacular demise. It so happened that a dictator rose against the Spanish occupation. He was Moctezuma’s own brother, Cuitlahuac—someone we today would call Un fascista—who declared himself the Leader and said he “would drain the swamp” and “make Aztecs great again.” He expelled the foreign money lenders, geared up the Aztec war economy, and declared a brand-new 1000-Years-“AztecReich”. Symbols matter big time. He didn‘t consider the rolling Swastika, though, because Buddha wasn’t a thing yet in the drenches. Thus, he picked the moving Ollin, basically an eye of cunning Toad-God Xolotl.
IMAGE 2 The Ollin Eye of Toad Xolotl (Way Cooler Than The Buddha Wheel)
Sadly, the 30,000 men strong Aztec army was too blase, too friendly, and no real match for the Spanish refugees who by now had European-sponsored 30 horses, 100 guns, and 3 advanced cannons. Worse, the Spanish were no longer just Spanish, but also Portuguese, Italian, slave Negroes, other European mercenaries, and allied Mexica turncoats.
The Aztec Empire’s fall was impressive. If you trust the history books (don’t!), an estimated 95% of all Aztecs “disappeared.” The Europeans, to this day, insist that they did NOT mass-murder, starve, or brainwash the Mexica into infertility in any way, shape, or form. Rather, just like with all the other Mesoamerican civilizations conquered, the Europeans claimed that the Aztechnicians simply “had zero immunity to the diseases brought to you by our modern sailors,” sorry! [We come back to that in a minute.]
Part II. The Clean Sweep
In modern times, Aztec parallels can be drawn with the situation in Europe. Of course, the European Union did not start as a “Triple Alliance,” but as a “Sextuple Alliance” between Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Rome, Luxembourg, and The Hague. Under US occupation and US-NATO expansion, the Alliance grew eastwards and to an impressive 27 members. But those new members are not at all native Germanic tribes, and not at all loyal. It is a bit as if we added to the Aztecs also the Olmec, the Incas, the Mayas, and —while we are at it— the Apache, Comanche, Cherokee, Seminoles, and all those other “Native American tribes,” collectively known as “the missing Indians.”
Europe is of course politically unified; I am not denying that. However, Europe is also being militarily, culturally, and economically occupied by the US Empire of Sanctions [and Lies], partly since 1918, totally so since 1945. The United States made sure to reward pro-American traitors, install pro-American puppet regimes in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Rome, Luxembourg, and The Hague, and to punish any nationalist uprising (Nazis! Communists! Terrorists! Racists!…)
The modern times “Moctezuma” in Europe was Angela Merkel, the German chancellor from 2005 to 2021. She collaborated with the US foreign occupiers, the international money lenders, and various other foreign interest groups and, finally, in 2015, she initiated the “Open Borders” policy for Germany and all of Central and Northern Europe. Syria alone sent 1.5 million “conquistadors”—men of military age. Once the foreign men arrived, they were instructed to ask their siblings, parents, uncles, and even multiple wives to join them. Germany steadily grew by 1 million Muslims and/or Arabs and Africans each year, while 500,000 native Germans a year left for better shores. If today you visit the city centers of Berlin, Duisburg, Cologne, Dortmund, Essen, Bochum and hundreds more, they clearly look decapitated and Oriental.
IMAGE 3 Germany‘s Insane Welcome Refugees Mass Hypnosis and Open Borders Madness
The 2015 invaders were euphemistically called “poor refugees” and the next round of settlers in 2018 were tarnished as “cultural enrichment.” They quickly subjugated the locals and dominated schoolyards, shopping malls, swimming pools, and New Year parties. The next five million foreign invaders, from 2020 onwards —were called Facharbeiter, figuratively: “trained experts.” And while in any other country in the world, work permits for foreigners are often extremely hard to get by, Germany actually pays 5,000 euros a month [$5k] to the invaders for not working. After a while, the bred-and-fed migrant forces also demanded more land, better housing, easy women, positions of power, and, always always, privileged treatment.
Just as the deluded Aztec leadership “welcomed the Spanish as possible representatives of their gods,” the retarded German leadership welcomed the poor refugees with open arms as if they were sent by Jesus the Christ. The Germans even gave away their apartments, schools, gym halls, free transport, free medicare, and expenses accounts to these poor, strong foreign men. It felt so good to “share wealth” and to “give back” to complete strangers. In return, those strangers looked so pretty with their dark hair and caramel-chocolate skin, and everything German they touched they made “a better person” indeed. Said the Aztec Social Democrat Martin Schulz from the European El Dorado, in 2016: “What the migrants bring us is more valuable than gold!”
The parallels are hilarious. The indigenous Germans pay for their leaders’ betrayal just like the indigenous Aztecs did. They already live a slave-like existence and must part 50% of their incomes to the rulers. With the rest, they pay rent, charges, fees, arbitrary fines, transport to work. They pay income tax, property tax, consumer tax, solidarity tax, inheritance tax, tax on tax. And the rulers take all that unearned money, send most of it to America and the money lenders, and the rest they trickle into the pockets of the “New Germans.”
In effect, the classical Germanic tribes, the “Old Germans,” the Teutons, the Franks, the Saxons, the Goths, the Norse, and so on, are now economically drained, dispossessed, and spit on their racist graves. And, would you believe it, many Germans now apparently die “suddenly and unexpectedly,” due to “the lack of immunity from some foreign-born virus,” you’ve heard that scholarship before.
With new masters in town, you cannot simply arrest the new masters, right? Police, courts, and political parties were ordered to tiptoe around them and turn a blind eye on the crimes and misbehaves of the new settlers, and prosecute the indigenous people more for being “a witness and a nuisance to the alienation and Great Replacement.”
The official German narrative is that of the invaders being just innocent, traumatized victims, having found their deserved Eden Europe, “where everyone wants to live,” we are told, because “we Europeans are so nice and tolerant to everyone.” [Interestingly, the King of Spain, Charles I, back then in 1521 said the same about “the nicest and most tolerant Mexica people.”]
And just as Moctezuma collaborated with hostile outsiders, so did Angela Merkel collaborate with the historic adversaries of the Germans, which led to a number of irreversible consequences, including the rise of right-wing populists (the resistance movement) and, increasingly, anti-immigrant sentiments. These, of course, would be crushed ruthlessly. This “torture” of the indigenous Germans had commenced much earlier, in the 1960s, with birth control, the destruction of the family, and miscegenation policies [interbreeding]. However, 2015 was the critical tipping point, when the center of gravity passed outside of what the few remaining Germans could support as “Vaterland”—land of thy fathers. Between 1977 and 2015, the number of German babies born had halved. For every two comrades I had in my childhood, one is not born today. The Germans born in 2022 have no comrades. They sit opposite one Oriental and another Asian usurper, who turn increasingly antagonistic.
IMAGE 4 Germans, Know, When It Is Time To Give Up
Example 1. The Turkish diaspora in Germany’s industrial belt of North-Rhine Westphalia alone now numbers in the 4.5 million. Those “German-Turks” still have their motherland, Turkiye, which has 85 million inhabitants, more than Germany. Do not fall for the “official” German regime statistics, they are totally fake and manipulated. For example, one year they just list 1.2 million Turkish nationals, while in reality, another 3.3 million Turks in North-Rhine Westphalia are “sleeper Turks” with German passports.
If the US Empire of Sanctions [and Lies] one day so decided to punish Berlin for disobedience, like not joining the war against Iraq, Russia, or China, far away Ankara, also a US-NATO satellite, could be asked to mobilize the 4.5 million Turks in Germany and break up most of the Ruhr region, and turn cities like Hagen, Wuppertal, and Hamm complete hostile. You don’t believe it? A ‘color revolution’ is easily provoked. For instance, “German authorities are desperately suppressing Turkish language and culture!” You didn’t know that? This message could make global headlines tomorrow morning. This is totally out of control from the German leadership. The German US-puppet regime wants to keep the German-Turks largely out of power, understandably, but how long, you think, this can last, once the Zionist sow first discontent? The Turks want what is theirs, now, in 10 years, or in 30 years. Doesn’t matter when, but it will matter if—blackmail! Already Berlin reckons another 2,200 mosques will have to be built in West Germany by 2040. Islam is now everywhere. So, just wait and see.
Example 2. Over 60% of children born in 2020 in major German cities like Berlin or Frankfurt now have a so-called migration background. They are non-white. Naturally, the non-whites call the remaining white Germans “racists” and “anti-foreign,” and demand so-called “people of color” to replace the hateful German natives in public offices, in the police force, in hospitals, in nurseries, in schools, on company boards, but also on TV and in advertising and film. The German rulers must persecute the Germans to get favors from the invaders… until the invaders will usurp the rulers. It is that simple. Ask Moctezuma II. He gave his last shirt and favorite daughter to Cortés.
In two or three generations, most remaining German women will either choose a dominant migrant man with so-and-so-many privileges and god-like status to procreate with… OR she will have no children at all with defeated, emasculated, and disenfranchised native men. Ask Hernán Cortés. He took 20 more Aztec spouses and forced thousands of childless indigenous men to slave on his brand-new foreign plantation.
Part III. The Turnover
“Not too fast,” objects the German regime. “There is one big difference between the two situations,” so the defenders of inclusion, diversity, and multiculturalism exult: “The Aztecs,” they say, “were overwhelmed by a technologically superior military force!” And, this: “The European Union is a developed and affluent continent!” So, they claim, in essence, that the millions of migrants from Africa, South-East Asia, and the Middle East are unfit and below Europe.
That is a rather risky position for any government to take worldwide, though, because it rates the ambitions, intelligence, and creative prowess of half-whites, non-ideal whites, and associate-whites as subpar too. Weren’t the Irish to America once pisspoor and considered mental gretchins? Even if the Ghanaian, Afghans, or Iraqis really were mentally inferior and without guns, all it takes is one intelligent leader, right? As to the guns, Germans bear no weapons either. The United States disarmed the Germans, starting in 1948. Besides, didn’t the American history books just tell us that 95% of the Aztecs did not die from gunfire but from diarrhea and Spanish measles?
The defenders of total subjugation further argue that present-day European countries are more equipped to handle and integrate our immigrants than the Aztecs were capable of appeasing their immigrants. But that argument is prejudiced, too. It says, in so-and-so-many other words, that if it’s a monkey, we have European rules for monkeys to follow. The “monkey’s now boxed, Madam Merkel!”
And isn’t this “boxing” of all creatures, stuff, and thinking the very imperialistic quintessence of European control —that dehumanizing bureaucracy! Even without saying “foreigners” or “monkeys,” most of us know exactly what a ‘migrant economy’ entails. The ‘migrant economy’ in Germany is worth 100 billion euros, more than the war in Ukraine costs [which, by the way, brought us another 2 million refugees, this time Slavs]. It entails soulless human farming. The regime just promoted slave laborers to laboring expert Facharbeiter slaves or whatnot. The basis of such downplaying of [the trope of] ‘helpless victim migrants’ is that the Europeans somehow believe that other races cannot conquer them, at all, because Europeans are so well organized, technologically advanced, and intellectually superior. Tell this to the organized, advanced, and very superior rulers of Athens in Greece who were run over by dilapidated barefoot Spartans on Persian subsidies. Hence the Greeks transpired the important lesson of ὕβρις ‘hubris’—Latinized, this: @#$%&! Outrage”!
This @#$%&! probably was the last Mesoamerican cry of defiance, too; and that of the superior Sinitic and Hindu and Roman civilizations before them: “We can handle any foreign barbarians,” Empress Dowager Cixi once boasted. “We are so brilliant! We are the El Kitai for gold-diggers! See, they come to us, because we are the richest and bestest! It is evident!” she bragged. Then, three summer solstices later, Qing China broke to pieces… @#$%&! Outrage.
So what?—better domesticate your people: No pride, No patriotism, No Honor! This is really happening in Germany, since I was born and can remember. They have been telling us since childhood that bloodline, hereditary, and history are but grotesque “Hitlerian” ideas and concepts— and very antisemitic and undemocratic! “You must unlearn them!” As to the motive of (childless) tyrant Merkel, her case is proven clear: Forget about the horrible ideas of homeland and ancestry. “Everyone who lives here,” she told the leaders of the world, “is the People.” Which is exactly what Moctezuma also said, back then. He said: “Aztecia is a land of immigrants!” That’s what he said, yes! [He couldn’t write, though.]
IMAGE 5 German Merkel Gave Total Control To Washington and the Iews Then Finished The Germans
With a backstabbing leader like this, who needs foreign invaders with primitive bullet dispensers? Modern migrants are handed advanced weapons such as US smartphones, foreign interest groups cheering you on, your family networks, US intelligence support systems, massive globalist propaganda media, and US-NATO military to protect your migrant human rights interests. What can ordinary Germans do against this, nothing! It is over.
The Merkel retired in 2021, but the Germans are so finished. She is respected by all foreign powers in the world, just like Moctezuma was hailed ‘the God of Rainbows’ and ‘Him who held us all together’, just not his own people whom he sold down the river. Merkel even prognosticated that all 10 million aliens in Germany would be handed German passports soon, probably by 2024! And isn‘t that exactly what Mocti did in Tenochtitlan? When his councilors said, “Look, the Spaniards raped chief Xhotl’s daughter, and gave her the flu, too,” the Emperor smacked them over their heads and cried: “You fools, there are no Spaniards here, we are all Tenochtitlans!”
Diversity is our strength, Inshallah! If I were to draw an unfair comparison, I would say that the 900,000 Muslim “experts and skilled workers” being cheap-bussed, container-shipped, and air-trafficked into Bonn, Stuttgart, and Nuremberg every year since 2018 are far more effective and better equipped for total take-over than the illiterate 30 or so Spanish conquistadors back then in Inner Aztec City. People without a university degree just read too many textbooks. They have no clear idea about how many people are required to do what exactly? Example: 9 people left in charge by Cortés made speech laws for 140,000 Tenochtitlans. Another example. Cortés was never just once assaulted by his unhappy 3,000 workers slaves. It just takes one to rule many, in all situations, each and every time.
If you are still unsure about the severity of the German transformation, because Washington, Brussels, Berlin, and the US-NATO media propaganda machine are lying to you non-stop and saying you’ve got nothing to fear from the 60 million migrants from Ham and Eden ready to march into EU-Idiotistan, consider this: They are telling you “The 60 million refugees have nowhere else to go because of climate change.” Just how naïve you have to be…, for there are 1.4 billion of Ham and Eden people who stayed home… also because of climate change!
There is one time-proven, sure-fire test to find out how “outraged the Greeks truly are”: If in “the most tolerant and diverse Europe of all time,” you cannot criticize US endless wars, regime changes, and the deliberate attack on our civilization, and if that would make you instantly a right-wing extremist Aztec conspiracy theorist, that means that 95% of you will probably die in the next 100 years. Just saying.
Which brings me to my final issue with history textbooks for today. Think! If 95% of the Mexica people REALLY disappeared, how come they grew from 3 million in 1519 to @#$%&! 132,354,424 in 2023? It’s a hoax, that’s what it is.
Let me explain this phenomenon about those allegedly missing people in world history: What the 95%-propaganda historian really wanted to disguise was ‘the turnover’. A former Aztec people in (almost) its entirety was simply turned over to a new, Spanish historian. It’s a metaphor.
So, this new historian, figuratively speaking, erases 95% of the Aztec Empire’s stock there, and adds them to his Spanish Empire here. And every corrupt scholar hence simply repeated this outrageous numbers hoax. European History, which is World History really, is actually a set of heterogeneous [varying] data with vast amounts of legacy source [say, Christianity] still using the LATIN alphabet on pressed cellulose fibre (books). Aztec history, on the other hand, was conspicuously burnt absent or never found. What you think you’ve read about pre-European Mesoamerican history is actually postconquest rewrite. You don’t believe that court historians are bullshitting us, and all the time? Here’s just twelve academic textbooks purporting to the 95% Aztec/Mesoamerican “extinction hoax” (see image):
IMAGE 7 The Fake 95 Percent Extinction Myth Perpetuated By Court Historians
Likewise, it is perfectly “scholarly” to say that “the Germans as a civilization are finished,” with 95% of them likely to go extinct (as did Professor Sieferle alluded to in his Finis Germania), while the next ‘EU reset-historian’ is pining for a whopping 100-million-people-strong Centerland. No contradiction here, just a new, “trusted” court historian at the black board. Who was the first person a few thousand years ago who added or subtracted negative numbers; was it a Greek, or a Brahmin, or a Mandarin? Well, let me tell you this… a “little secret,” if you will… about our bought-and-paid-for ‘textbook academicians’: Those manipulators regularly add or subtract negative people. [You didn’t know this, did you?] It is perfectly academic to write that 3,000,000 Mesoamericans were massacred there, and show up again here.
IMAGE 8 Systematic Demolition of Reich (Realm), Germanness, Christianity, and Historic Persons
Any cry from the negative natives for help, any lament from the negative native women, any fight of resistance against the positive dark hordes from the East, is now persecuted as “unforgivable racism and despicable hate crime.” Our new court historians will make them the Process.
Conclusion
The public discourse is thus closed on this matter. The old historians who protected you died. The two truly evil psychopaths, Moctezuma and Merkel, who destroyed their countries and their people without remorse, so much alike in bringing forth the downfall of their wonderful civilizations, simply declared that “the migration crisis and the policies to deal with it are too complex and too multifaceted to discuss, and […] with no clear resolution anyway, and so it would not be right to draw a direct parallel between the collapse of the Aztec empire and the current collapse of Europe.” And that’s that. The court gets a new court historian. Yuval Noah Harari, perhaps?
IMAGE 9 Crackdown and Persecution The Victims Of Conquest Will Be Called The Racists
The very name “Deutschland” (land of the Germans) is non-inclusive, discriminatory, and outright offensive to the 25 million non-German people who now live here. Away with “Deutschland”! And so is the distinction “das Volk” (the People), because it is former Nazi-speak and evokes strong nationalism. Away with “das deutsche Volk”!
The Spanish conquistadors never recognized any Aztec realm. It had to be dismantled. An Aztec nation would really be racist and offensive. Similarly, American conquerors couldn’t allow a sovereign German realm to exist. I‘m not saying what follows will not be important. Just saying there’s a turnover, and things will first get a lot more messier. The Germans, as well as the Europeans, already possess neither Germany nor Europe.
Note: the first part of this interview was posted here
Foreword: Apologies for the delay in contributing to the interview part 2 – I had to be busy with my professional life. Coming back to this interview, I feel that, adding supporting documents, statements and excerpts to my arguments has always been my strength. I’m extra careful this time while responding the questions put down by The Saker in the interview part 2 – each argument has been justified with logic, rationality, besides (as usual) facts and figures. I followed the suggestions of Mark Grimsley, who once remarked “A statement that fits an accepted world view requires little explanation and can therefore be outlined in a few words. In order to have any chance of being persuasive, a statement that challenges an accepted world view needs more than a sound bite.“
This write-up covers the significant Marxist socialist movements and its leaders during the period of 1860 to 1955 CE. If Almighty wishes, interview part-3 will cover 1955 to the present times.
During the course of this discussion, I will mention WEST EUROPE time and again. It may be noted that, I have assumed (from north to south) the western border of Finland, eastern coastline of Baltic Sea, the western border of the countries Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece as the eastern limit of West Europe.
Question: Was there any Marxist movement in Europe in 19th / 20th Century? Why it failed in the advanced West Europe?
Let me recall from the texts of part I of this interview –
“The Communist League, the FIRST MARXIST COMMUNIST PARTY with an international presence was established in June 1847 in London, Britain through the merger of the League of the Just and the Communist Correspondence Committee. It was on behalf of this party that, Marx and Engels wrote the ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ late in 1847” … “The Communist League was formally disbanded in November 1852 CE, following the Cologne Communist Trial. Hence, even if Marx and Engels represented one of the ‘communist’ groups among the early socialists, both of them mostly used the term ‘socialist’ in their works – it helped them to avoid uncalled for legal problems. Socialism was the word predominantly used by Marxists until WW-I, after which Lenin made the decision to restart use of the term communism (renaming the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the All-Russian Communist Party).”
Both Marx and Engels being German, hence their writings needed to be translated into other major European languages like English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian etc. for the Europeans living in different west and east European kingdoms, empires, later on nation-states, and world-wide colonies before the nascent ideology propagated by Marx and Engels could make any impact among the politicians, revolutionaries, and trade-unionists (beyond Germany and Austria). In order to assess the Marxist movements in the 19th century Europe, we need to turn our attention to the political economy and society in Europe till 1914 CE (i.e. outbreak of WW I)
(A) Political Economy, and Social Structure in Europe till 1917 CE
To comprehend the status of Europe in the 19th century, one must take a glance backward to find that the early modern world including Europe was “one vast peasantry, where between eighty and ninety percent of the people lived from the land and from nothing else” (refer ‘Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century Volume I’ by Fernand Braudel). However, Europe was also the home to the thriving mercantile capitalism (though Bubonic Plague temporarily caused a damage) till 16th century CE particularly in the Italian Peninsula, the Low countries, and the Baltic coast. Economic historian John Day (1987) wrote “By the mid-14th century, merchant capitalism has already perfected the instruments of economic power and business organization that were to serve it for the next four hundred years: foreign exchange, deposit banking, risk insurance, public finance, international trading companies, commercial book-keeping”. Another ‘variant’ of capitalism, agrarian capitalism was in full bloom in England, and the Low countries 15th century CE onwards. Medieval era practice of farming on large open fields (and cultivation by individual yeomen or tenant farmers on strips of land) got transformed into enclosed holdings ‘consolidated into individually-owned or rented fields since late 15th century in England. Initiatives to enclose came mainly from England estate-owners (to maximise rental from their estates), with tenant farmers as a distant second (objective to improve their farms). Hence we come to know from the British parliament statistics that, “Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 enclosure Bills were enacted by Parliament which related to just over a fifth of the total area of England, amounting to some 6.8 million acres.” (refer link: https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/landscape/overview/enclosingland/) What happened that transformed the society in Europe (to start with), and thereafter whole world towards urban industrial civilization? There have been intense debates among economists and historians about the evolution of human society (in Europe) from feudalism in the medieval ages to industrial capitalism after 1760 CE primarily in England, France, Low countries, and Germany – Dobb-Sweezy debate, and Brenner debate being most remarkable among them. The ‘endogenous’ side represented by Maurice Dobb and Robert Brenner locate the generative sources of capitalist social relations in the internal contradictions between serfs and landlords of feudal European societies, while the ‘exogenous’ side led by Paul Sweezy and Immanuel Wallerstein view capitalism as having developed from the growth of markets and trade in Europe over the 16th Century. It appears very logical that, both the ‘endogenous’ and the ‘exogenous’ factors played their roles simultaneously in the transformation towards industrial capitalism.
We notice two fundamental changes in the characteristics of how the sovereign political entities (like principalities, kingdoms, and empires) in Europe carried out their foreign affairs 1450 CE onwards –
Firstly, unlike the ancient and early medieval era when ruling aristocracy of a country would invade the contiguous lands and sea regions to annex the same and its people, and treat them as its own subjects, the late medieval era European entities would invade a distant land and proactively slaughter as many local people as possible (Portugal, probably was an exception in this matter – it invaded distant lands to set up colonies, but lacked the genocidal nature). Then they would setup a ‘colony’ in the new territory populated by their own elites and other people to control the annexed land and remaining local population in the newly acquired dominion – all of these were aimed at exploring new land, people, and natural resources for the sake of business and commercial interests (which itself gave rise to second aspect mentioned hereafter);
Secondly, the commercial relations were no longer established on the basis of spontaneous human endeavour to fulfil the necessities of common people and the political entities, but ‘economic systems’ occupied a central place around which most of the activities will get coordinated. The invader would engage remnants of the local population and would deploy slaves (people who were forcibly migrated from their society in Africa and Asia) in economic activities in the colony, benefit of which would be appropriated by the invading aristocracy and the exchequer of the kingdom. Thus, while the monarchy, and the aristocracy of Spain, and Portugal expropriated mineral resources and profited from plantation of cash crops in American colonies, in case of Holland, England, and France the beneficiaries primarily included joint-stock companies, beside the monarchy, and the aristocracy. In ‘The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation’Daron Acemoglu, and James Robinson stated that, “the main purpose of the extractive state was to transfer as much of the resources of the colony to the colonizer, with the minimum amount of investment possible.” Let us also quote Karl Marx from ‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I’ to throw light on how capitalism took root in Europe, “The discovery of gold and silver in America, the expiration, enslavement and entombment in mines of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of blackskins, are all things which characterize the dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief moments of primitive accumulation….The different moments of primitive accumulation can be assigned in particular to Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England, in more or less chronological order. These moments are systematically combined together at the end of the seventeenth century in England; the combination embraces the colonies, the national debt, the modern tax system, and the system of protection. These methods depend in part on brute force, for example, the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the state, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition.” Between 1490s and 1890s CE ‘plantation capitalism’ (wherein the businessmen of west European colonial empires setup plantations of commercial corps like cotton, sugarcane, rubber, indigo, poppy in the invaded territories in North America, South America, Asia, Africa continents using slaves who were Africans forcefully evicted from their villages in African coasts or landless poor Asians) was in vogue. Similarly, during the same period ‘extractive capitalism’ (wherein the businessmen of west European colonial empires will setup a number of mining apparatus to extract gold, silver, mica etc. in the invaded territories in North America, South America, Asia, Africa continents using African slaves and Asian labourers) got developed as another vulgar expression of capitalism driven by the European capitalists. Substantially high portion of the benefits from the colonies would enrich the state coffers in each of the colonial empires which would engage in continuous struggle among themselves in order to expand their empire across the world.
The industrial capitalist society in the modern era originated in west Europe after 1760 CE with the First Industrial Revolution that brought mechanisation of factory production using steam power – weaving looms powered by steam engines, and steam-powered locomotives and ships introduced the practice of large-scale production of goods in factory (for consumption by general population and for usage by other factories as input materials) and moving goods across long distance in short time. Let me note down how the key aspects of the industrial capitalist system was facilitated by the previous forms of capitalism in Europe and its colonies:
Finance Capital – By 1650 CE, the flow of precious metals from the colonies in Americas that reached Europe is estimated to be around at least 180 tons of gold and 17,000 tons of silver. This provided the capital for European merchants’ trade with Asia in textiles and spices, which in turn generated huge accumulation of capital that was later on channelled into industrial capitalism. It is said that, ‘The plundering of the Americas thus functioned as a central means of so-called primitive accumulation on a European wide basis. For throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain and Portugal acted as conduits for the transfer of much of the American bullion into the coffers of financiers in London, Amsterdam, Paris and Genoa. It is perhaps no coincidence that almost half of the gold and silver acquired by Spain ended up in Holland, the first state to experience a bourgeois revolution, ending up Marx’s ‘model capitalist nation of the seventeenth century’.’
Labour – the (African) slave-trade by European traders provided the labour required to operate plantations and mines in the colonies in the Americas. Back home, surplus landless poor who were evicted from their rural households during the onset of agrarian capitalism in Europe formed the ‘labour class’ who will work for 12 hours in factory to earn a meagre wage
Raw materials – not only European lands, but all colonies in South America, North America, Africa, Asia provided the raw materials like coal, minerals, and agro-products. By 1800, 25 percent of the cotton that landed in Liverpool, Britain originated in the USA (former colony of Britain); 50 years later, by 1850, 72 percent of the cotton consumed in Britain was grown in the USA
Finished Goods market – large number of factory workers, and unemployed people became the source of ‘domestic demand’ (for finished goods). But more importantly, the colonies and large slave population became source of ‘external demand’ that propelled the industrial manufacturing system. Europe itself being too small a landmass, it possessed limited consumer markets (beside limited source of raw material and energy). With Asia, Africa, and Americas continents under the European empires, industrial capitalism boomed.
During the first wave of Industrialization, power of steam was harnessed (through burning of coal) and various consumer goods as well as industrial goods were manufactured using cotton (textile), and iron (heavy engineering). Britain led the way in textile, mining, shipping, railways with application of new technology to enhance productivity. As per Christian (2005), time taken for 100 pounds of cotton spinning was reduced from 300 hours in 1790s to 135 hours in 1830. British production of pig iron quadrupled between 1796 and 1830, and quadrupled again between 1830 and 1860 (Darwin 2009: 19). British foreign direct investment, rose from $500m in 1825 to $12.1b in 1900 and $19.5b by 1915 (Woodruff 1966: 150; Sassen 2006: 135-6).
After 1870, a second wave of industrialization took place, during which German and USA took the lead to explore new frontiers in electrical, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals. Energy from petroleum acted as catalyst to industrialization – the use of refined petroleum as liquid fuel ‘provided an impetus to the development of cars, planes, and ships’. Communication and transportation transformed beyond imagination – “by 1840 there were 4,500 miles of track worldwide, expanding to 23,500 miles by 1850, and 130,000 miles by 1870, by the end of the century, there was half a million miles of track worldwide, over a third of which was in Europe; Communication times between Britain and India dropped from a standard of around six months in the 1830s via sailing ship, to just over one month in the 1850s via rail and steamship, to the same day in the 1870s via telegraph”. The agrarian fear of famine was joined by modern industrial concerns of overproduction, and price collapse, as well as financial crisis (Hobsbawm 1975: 209). The 19th century’s great depression between 1873 and 1896 was the precursor to 20th century economic cycles (Hobsbawm 1975: 85-7). As a whole during the 19th century, global trade increased twenty-five times over (Darwin 2007: 501).
The socio-political environment of west Europe in modern times witnessed the rise of four new categories of SOCIAL ELITES in the society – (a) owners of manufacturing industry and related business, (b) controllers of banking and finance, (c) leaders of political parties, and bureaucrats who jointly controlled the state apparatus, (d) specialists who operated factories and mines in the era of industrial capitalism like engineers, managers, accountants – over and above the traditional five groups of social elites prevalent in medieval period like (a) aristocracy and state-officials which owned estate/land and controlled the state apparatus, (b) traders, and moneylenders, (c) clergy who controlled the Church and the religious affairs, (d) big farmers who owned much more land than required for subsistence, (e) burghers including guild craftsmen, legal and medical professionals. The new sub-class didn’t get created one fine morning, rather it was a slow but steady process of transformation of the old elite sub-classes into the new elites (which was again reclassified by Marx and Engels as ‘bourgeois’ and petit-bourgeois depending on their ownership of the means of production in the new economy). Apparently, between 1450 and 1870 CE there were significant social transformations that took place in the upper strata of the European society:
Most of the families in medieval elite category (a) moved towards modern elite category (a), (b), (c)
Most of the families in medieval elite category (b) moved towards modern elite category (a), (b)
Most of the families in medieval elite category (c) moved towards modern elite category (c), (d)
Most of the families in medieval elite category (d) moved towards modern elite category (b), (c).
Most of the families in medieval elite category (e) moved towards modern elite category (a), (d).
During the same period, COMMONERS, the plebs so to say, were found to be loosely grouped into (a) peasants, (b) unskilled general population, (b) especially skilled population, (c) industrial workers, (d) slave population. Unskilled general population would be toiling in their various professions that will require low degree of skill but needed physical labour for their livelihood (such as services like helper in farming, cart-pulling, garbage cleaning etc.), while the especially skilled population would have relatively better lifestyle through earning by providing services related to carpentry, tailoring, bakery, or selling grocery items etc. A significant part of the unskilled general population would remain unemployed, and would always be ready to grab any opportunity of temporary work. The serfdom of the medieval Europe got abolished in Europe only to be replaced by slavery in the colonies in Americas, Africa, and Asia established as a result of imperialist invasions. Between 1760 CE, the onset of industrial economy and 1914 CE, when the ENTIRE world was reeling under competitive European imperialism, the nine categories of elites of Europe morphed into a structure where a core group of plutocrats (around 0.1% of population) became ‘masters’ surrounded by a well-knit team of ‘managers’, ‘engineers’, and ‘accountants’ (may be around 2% of population). This bourgeois ‘entity’ which was ‘localised’ in the sense of becoming the (bourgeois national) motive force behind each of the European countries, was simultaneously taking shape into a global force by means of interdependency in the banking and finance; it had two primary objectives:
(i) continue to wield power in every country of Europe and, the world
(ii) continue to accumulate wealth through economic activities in every country of Europe and, through robbery (disguised as commerce) across the world.
The bourgeois revolutions in England and France actually defeated the feudalist forces conclusively and brought the bourgeois forces near to the political power that was still with the aristocracy. As Hobsbawm mentioned, ‘Would it lead to the advance of civilization in the sense in which the youthful John Stuart Mill had articulated the aspirations of the century of progress: ‘a world, even a country, more improved; more eminent in the best characteristics of Man and Society; farther advanced in the road to perfection; happier, nobler, wiser’?. In a sordid tale of broken promises, outright lies, sneaky deception, and odious hypocrisy, the west European liberal and radical ‘revolutionaries’ first used the ‘social contract theory’ (advocating rights of citizens) during 17th and 18th centuries (embellished by Locke and Rousseau earlier) to find grounds for rejecting the conservative feudal beliefs and for destroying the social and political systems that rested on them through the English Revolution and the French Revolution, and then retreated to the ‘classical liberal theory’ (in which economic liberalism, laissez faire featured prominently) for establishing world-wide imperialist colonies either by butchering almost entire existing population (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) or by stationing military garrison (India, Myanmar, Indonesia, and many other Asian countries, and entire Africa except Ethiopia). Thus, during the 150-year period from 1760 to 1914 CE, while European societies slowly converted themselves into ‘bourgeois liberal democratic republics’ where structures of government and processes of governance across Europe got transformed, the entire world became the arena of their ‘capitalist imperialism’. During this period, interplay of six vectors of political economy in Europe shaped the political and economic contour of the modern world:
Subjugation of science and technology to the interests of capital, as a result of which industrial capitalism made tremendous progress on using energy and machinery to replace human efforts; research and innovation became a permanent feature of both state-funded education system and private capital owning industrialists – ‘General Electric set up a research lab in commercial dynamos in 1900, followed by DuPont’s chemicals lab in 1902’ (even after passing of another century i.e. in the 2010s government funded research labs and private capitalist multinational corporations carry out pioneering developments in west Europe and USA in every sphere of knowledge to explore business benefits);
Struggle among the ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, and ‘radical’ lines of political thought, where the liberals imbued with democratic concepts (in reality, that was ‘bourgeois liberal democracy’) increasingly outmanoeuvred the conservatives who were still trying to balance feudal sentiments with (bourgeois capitalist) democracy AND the radicals trying to make sense of different hues of socialism; monarchy in Europe in the beginning of 19th century steadily transformed into bourgeois liberal democracy which took root along with the industrial capitalist economy in Europe (and Anglo-colonies like USA, Canada, Australia) – 80% population (the commoners) were hoodwinked to believe that they exercise their voting rights during ‘free and fair’ elections for electing their representative to country’s parliament and that their ‘democratic rights’ are non-violable and that the country’s elected government operates in their best interest (even after passing of another century i.e. in the 2010s people in Europe and Anglo-colonies behave similarly);
The emergence of industrialization helped the governments on collection of large amount of tax revenue which was spent on modern infrastructural developments and poverty alleviation programmes. System of governance was further strengthened through civil services using which the state apparatus exercised its authority and controlled its people through modernised methods of repression. ‘States provided the institutional guarantees for market transactions, and assumed the monitoring and coercive functions required for capitalist expansion’. Simultaneously, ‘rational’ and ‘welfare’ state-policies were developed by the staunchly elitist ruling oligarchy to (a) provide a sustained pro-commoner façade of the government (b) influence the group of people with radical socialist views towards reformism;
As noted by Marx, in peasant societies before the development of any form of capitalism, people lived off the crops they produced in their own plot, and exchange played a significant role only for rural artisans (only insignificant amount of surplus crops were sold at the local market). With the advent of capitalism, most of the rural (peasant) producers and urban industrial workers produce commodities targeted for exchange in the market. Capitalist class relations dictate that (unlike slaves bonded to their master or feudal serfs bonded to their lord’s estate) direct producers are neither personally tied to their exploiter nor have any significant ownership of means of production. But this ‘freedom’ is more than nullified by the fact that the industrial and farm workers are compelled to sell their labour to (bourgeoisie) class owning the means of production to secure their material necessities of survival. As the new era engulfed the European societies more and more people from rural areas internally migrated to urban regions to escape the poverty in village life, ending up in slums and ghettos of industrial towns and trading cities of Europe; thus between 1800 and 1900 CE, London grew from just over 1 million to 6.5 million inhabitants, while he population of Berlin rose by 1000%;
Fake ideologies that legitimised brutal occupation, systematic extermination in imperialist colonies for making profits as nothing but mission to civilize the ‘uncivilized’ Africans, Asians and Latin Americans (the concept was mockingly called ‘the white men’s burden’), as a result of which elites/aristocrats of the victim societies became unabashed proponents of such western ‘missions’ and ‘values’; it must be noted that in some regions like Africa, and India the European imperialist ventures, western education and Christian missions gave rise to new social elite class that derided the commoners of their own countries. Virtually the whole of the other world belonged to west Europe, except for Japan, systematically ‘westernizing’ since mid-1800 and overseas territories settled by large populations of European descent;
Political repression and economic deprivation in Europe resulted in massive forced migration of about “50 million Europeans … between 1800 and 1914, most of them to the United States, helping to increase the population of the US from 5 million in 1800 to 160 million in 1914” (refer Rosenberg 1994: 163-4, 168) who collectively became the torchbearer of industrialisation of USA, and unwittingly helped USA becoming the leader in Zionist-Capitalist world order.
A.1 Political Economy of Imperialism in the Era of Industrial Capitalism:
The extent of colonial empires built by west European powers can be guessed from Imperialism (edition 2) penned by J A Hobson. Table A.1.1 provide details of the comparative colonisation by the Western nations in 1905 (compiled from Statesman’s Year Book for 1900) and in 1935 (compiled from the Statesman’s Year Book for 1935, the Armaments Year Book for 1935, the League of Nations Year Book for 1934-35); the data for Britain and France colonies in 1876 CE has been picked up from V I Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism:
Table A.1.1
Country
No. of Colonies
Mother countryArea (sq. mile)
ColoniesArea (sq. mile)
Mother countryPopulation
ColoniesPopulation
Britain: 187619051935
—
—
8,687,250
—
251,900,000
50
120,979
11,605,238
40,559,954
345,222,239
—
94,633
13,270,793
46,610,000
449,378,000
France: 187619051935
—
—
347,490
—
6,000,000
33
204,092
3,740,756
38,517,975
56,401,860
—
212,750
4,617,514
41,880,000
65,179,000
Netherlands: 19051935
3
12,648
782,862
5,074,632
35,115,711
—
13,128
791,907
8,290,000
60,971,000
Germany: 19051935
13
208,830
1,027,120
52,279,901
14,687,000
—
181,822
—
65,350,000
—
Italy: 19051935
2
110,646
188,500
31,856,675
850,000
—
119,696
906,213
42,217,000
2,393,000
Portugal: 19051935
9
36,038
801,100
5,049,729
9,148,707
—
35,699
807,637
7,090,000
8,426,000
Spain: 19051935
3
197,670
243,877
17,566,632
136,000
—
194,216
10,993
24,242,000
1,000,000
USA: 19051935
6
3,557,000
172,091
77,000,000
10,544,617
—
3,026,000
711,726
126,000,000
15,014,000
The outright loot and banditry that the west European colonial countries engaged in since 1760 CE resulted in a stunning reversal of economic state of affairs across the world – Bairoch (1981) estimated that, total GNP 35 billion USD of Europe and Anglo-colonies in 1750 increased more than 12 times to reach 430 billion USD in 1913 while the colonised continents‘ combined GNP didn’t even see a twofold rise!
Table A.1.2
Year
Total GNP (billion $)
GNP per capita ($)
Developed countries
Third world
World
Developed countries
Third world
World
1750
35
112
147
182
188
187
1800
47
137
184
198
188
191
1830
67
150
217
237
183
197
1860
118
159
277
324
174
220
1880
180
164
344
406
176
250
1900
297
184
481
540
175
301
1913
430
217
647
662
192
364
To understand the mechanism of such massive transfer of wealth from every region of world to west Europe, as a case study, let’s look at the significant aspects of the economy of Indonesia when it was a colony of the Netherlands. Wikipedia mentions (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies), “Between 1830 and 1870, 840 million guilder (€8 billion in 2018) were taken from the East Indies [by Dutch East India Company – by the interviewee], on average making a third of the annual Dutch government budget. The Cultivation System, however, brought much economic hardship to Javanese peasants, who suffered famine and epidemics in the 1840s … Dutch private capital flowed in after 1850, especially in tin mining and plantation estate agriculture. The Martavious Company’s tin mines off the eastern Sumatra coast was financed by a syndicate of Dutch entrepreneurs, including the younger brother of King William III. Mining began in 1860. In 1863 Jacob Nienhuys obtained a concession from the Sultanate of Deli (East Sumatra) for a large tobacco estate (Deli Company). From 1870, the Indies were opened up to private enterprise and Dutch businessmen set up large, profitable plantations. Sugar production doubled between 1870 and 1885; new crops such as tea and cinchona flourished, and rubber was introduced, leading to dramatic increases in Dutch profits. Changes were not limited to Java, or agriculture; oil from Sumatra and Kalimantan became a valuable resource for industrialising Europe … The colonial exploitation of Indonesia’s wealth contributed to the industrialisation of the Netherlands, while simultaneously laying the foundation for the industrialisation of Indonesia. The Dutch introduced coffee, tea, cacao, tobacco and rubber … The Dutch East Indies produced most of the world’s supply of quinine and pepper, over a third of its rubber, a quarter of its coconut products, and a fifth of its tea, sugar, coffee and oil. The profit from the Dutch East Indies made the Netherlands one of the world’s most significant colonial powers.” All three factors responsible for the success of Dutch imperialists – (a) superiority of European military technology, (b) modern technology based infrastructure, and (c) forced marketization of production relations in Indonesian society – were so absolute that, Dutch government had to spend a measly sum to govern Indonesia – in 1900 CE, only 250 European and 1,500 indigenous civil servants, 16,000 Dutch officers and 26,000 hired native troops, were required to rule 35 million colonial subjects.
Another example of extraordinary imperialist sophistry by British government was India. After 1814 CE Indian textiles were almost banned from Britain, while textiles manufactured in Britain were forcibly imported in India without duty – thus between 1814 and 1828, British textile exports to India rose from 800,000 yards to over 40 million yards, while during the same period, Indian cloth exports to Britain halved (refer J Goody 1996: 131).
In the colonies across the continents of Asia, Africa, and South America, forced transformation of agrarian class relations, forceful commercialization of agriculture, introduction of industrial economy, introduction of market, ebbs and flows of European metropolitan markets, commodity speculations and price fluctuations created havoc where old agrarian production was the cornerstone of economy. Famines and epidemics in the 1870s and 1890s killed millions of people around the world (Davis 2002: 6-7). In India, lands were privatized under British rule so that they could be used as a taxable resource. Simultaneously, communal granary was forcibly removed from villages so that basic food grains could be marketed. When droughts hit in 1877, at least 15 million people in India starved to death. “The British reacted by reducing rations to male coolies to just over 1,600 calories per day – less than the amount later provided in Nazi experiments to determine minimum levels of human subsistence” (Davis 2002: 38-9). Similar processes took place in China (whose normal granaries were closed to pay for trade deficits caused by military defeat in the Opium Wars and the unequal treaties signed with European powers.
Britain was the largest imperialist power in Europe controlling about 12 million sq. mile of foreign lands by 1905.One couldn’t fail to notice that two of the expenditure categories – military and national debt servicing – consumed between 70% to 80% of the annual net national expenditure of Britain for the period 1870 to 1901 CE (refer J A Hobson’s Imperialism edition 1). British bourgeois politicians never got tired to extol the virtues of modern imperialism. V I Lenin stated in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, “Chamberlain advocated imperialism as a “true, wise and economical policy”, and pointed particularly to the German, American and Belgian competition which Great Britain was encountering in the world market. Salvation lies in monopoly, said the capitalists as they formed cartels, syndicates and trusts. Salvation lies in monopoly, echoed the political leaders of the bourgeoisie, hastening to appropriate the parts of the world not yet shared out. And Cecil Rhodes, we are informed by his intimate friend, the journalist Stead, expressed his imperialist views to him in 1895 in the following terms: “I was in the East End of London (a working-class quarter) yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for ‘bread! bread!’ and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism…. My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists.” Writing in 2013 in ‘The global transformation: the nineteenth century and the making of modern international relations‘ (published in International studies quarterly, 59/1) Buzan, Barry and Lawson, George said, “During the mid-to-late 19th century, the industrial powers established a global economy in which the trade and finance of the core penetrated deeply into the periphery. During the century as a whole, global trade increased twenty-five times over (Darwin 2007: 501). As the first, and for a time only, industrial power, it was British industrial and financial muscle that led the way. British production of pig iron quadrupled between 1796 and 1830, and quadrupled again between 1830 and 1860 (Darwin 2009: 19). British foreign direct investment, led by London’s role as the creditor of last resort, rose from $500m in 1825 to $12.1b in 1900 and $19.5b by 1915 (Woodruff 1966: 150; Sassen 2006: 135-6). The industrial economy was constructed on the back of improvements engendered by railways and steamships, and by the extension of colonization in Africa and Asia – between 1815 and 1865, Britain conquered new territories at an average rate of 100,000 square miles per year (Kennedy 1989: 199). The opening-up of new areas of production greatly increased agricultural exports, intensifying competition and pushing down agricultural incomes (Davis 2002: 63). The agrarian fear of famine remained. But this fear was joined by modern concerns of overproduction, price collapse, and financial crisis (Hobsbawm 1975: 209).
While attempting to define modern capitalist IMPERIALISM, V I Lenin noted in his Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, “Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is three-fold: imperialism is
(1) monopoly capitalism;
(2) parasitic, or decaying capitalism;
(3) moribund capitalism.
The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms:
(1) cartels, syndicates and trusts – the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists;
(2) the monopolistic position of the big banks – three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany;
(3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital);
(4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves – until war re-divides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial political partition of the world;
(5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.”
Identifying the distinct stages of the transformation of ‘competitive’ capitalism into ‘monopoly’ capitalism, Lenin mentioned (refer Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism), “the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following: (1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. (2) After the crisis of 1873, a lengthy period of development of cartels; but they are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon. (3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03. Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.”
Looking into the presence of concentration of industrial production and business through the big corporates and industrial organisations, Lenin provided interesting readings on Germany and USA. He mentioned (refer Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism), “If we take what in Germany [in 1907] is called industry in the broad sense of the term, that is, including commerce, transport, etc., we get the following picture. Large-scale enterprises [those employing more than 50 workers], 30,588 out of a total of 3,265,623, that is to say, 0.9 per cent. These enterprises employ 5,700,000 workers out of a total of 14,400,000, i.e., 39.4 per cent; they use 6,600,000 steam horse power out of a total of 8,800,000, i.e., 75.3 per cent, and 1,200,000 kilowatts of electricity out of a total of 1,500,000, i.e., 77.2 per cent.” …
“[In USA] in 1904 large-scale enterprises with an output valued at one million dollars and over, numbered 1,900 (out of 216,180, i.e., 0.9 per cent). These employed 1,400,000 workers (out of 5,500,000, i.e., 25.6 per cent) and the value of their output amounted to $5,600,000,000 (out of $14,800,000,000, i.e., 38 per cent). Five years later, in 1909, the corresponding figures were: 3,060 enterprises (out of 268,491, i.e., 1.1 per cent) employing 2,000,000 workers (out of 6,600,000, i.e., 30.5 per cent) with an output valued at $9,000,000,000 (out of $20,700,000,000, i.e., 43.8 per cent).” …
Various estimates suggest that ‘the share of the leading 100 companies in British output rose from 15 per cent in 1907 to around 26 per cent in the later 1920s’.
Analysing the genesis of big corporates and industrial organisations, Lenin mentioned (refer Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism), “a very important feature of capitalism in its highest stage of development is so-called combination of production [integrated value chain – by the interviewee], that is to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry, which either represent the consecutive stages in the processing of raw materials (for example, the smelting of iron ore into pig-iron, the conversion of pig-iron into steel, and then, perhaps, the manufacture of steel goods) – or are auxiliary to one another (for example, the utilisation of scrap, or of by-products, the manufacture of packing materials, etc.).”
“Combination,” writes Hilferding, “levels out the fluctuations of trade and therefore assures to the combined enterprises a more stable rate of profit. Secondly, combination has the effect of eliminating trade. Thirdly, it has the effect of rendering possible technical improvements, and, consequently, the acquisition of super-profits over and above those obtained by the ‘pure’ (i.e. non-combined) enterprises. Fourthly, it strengthens the position of the combined enterprises relative to the ‘pure’ enterprises, strengthens them in the competitive struggle in periods of serious depression, when the fall in prices of raw materials does not keep pace with the fall in prices of manufactured goods.”
Tracing the development of cartels, Lenin (refer Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism) wrote, “Cartels come to an agreement on the terms of sale, dates of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc.” …
“The number of cartels in Germany was estimated at about 250 in 1896 and at 385 in 1905, with about 12,000 firms participating. But it is generally recognised that these figures are underestimations. From the statistics of German industry for 1907 we quoted above, it is evident that even these 12,000 very big enterprises probably consume more
than half the steam and electric power used in the country. In the USA, the number of trusts in 1900 was estimated at 185 and in 1907, 250. American statistics divide all industrial enterprises into those belonging to individuals, to private
firms or to corporations. The latter in 1904 comprised 23.6 per cent, and in 1909, 25.9 per cent, i.e., more than one-fourth of the total industrial enterprises in the country. These employed in 1904, 70.6 per cent, and in 1909, 75.6 per cent, i.e., more than three-fourths of the total wage-earners. Their output at these two dates was valued at
$10,900,000,000 and $16,300,000,000, i.e., 73.7 per cent and 79.0 per cent of the total, respectively.” …
“Monopolist capitalist associations, cartels, syndicates and trusts first divided the home market among themselves and obtained more or less complete possession of the industry of their own country. But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial connections and “spheres of influence” of the big monopolist associations expanded in all ways, things “naturally” gravitated towards an international agreement among these associations, and towards the formation of international cartels”.
In his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin referred to the German economist, Kestner, who listed the methods the monopoly cartels/associations resort to for fending off competition: “(1) stopping supplies of raw materials … “one of the most important methods of compelling adherence to the cartel”); (2) stopping the supply of labour by means of “alliances” (i.e., of agreements between the capitalists and the trade unions by which the latter permit their members to work only in cartelised enterprises); (3) stopping deliveries; (4) closing trade outlets; (5) agreements with the buyers, by which the latter undertake to trade only with the cartels; (6) systematic price cutting (to ruin “outside” firms, i.e., those which refuse to submit to the monopolists. Millions are spent in order to sell goods for a certain time below their cost price; there were instances when the price of petrol was thus reduced from 40 to 22 marks, i.e., almost by half!); (7) stopping credits; (8) boycott”.
As industrial organisations grew in to monopoly cartels, there was a parallel transformation of numerous modest funding agencies into a handful of powerful banking monopolies “having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also the larger part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in any one country and in a number of countries.” In 2012 USA had two very big banks – Rockefeller and Morgan – who controlled a capital of 11,000 million marks. As per Eugen Kaufmann, in 1909 in France three very big banks (Crédit Lyonnais, the Comptoir National and the Société Générale) had a total of 1229 branches/offices with 887 million francs own capital and 4,363 million francs deposits. At the end of 1913 in Germany, Schulze-Gaevernitz estimated the deposits in the nine big Berlin banks at 5,100 million marks (49%) out of a total of about 10,000 million marks. Taking into account not only the deposits, but the total bank capital, this author wrote: “At the end of 1909, the nine big Berlin banks, together with their affiliated banks, controlled 11,300 million marks, that is, about 83 per cent of the total German bank capital.” In the next forty-eight mid-sized banks (with a capital of more than 10 million marks) 36% of total deposits were kept. One of the largest German bank, the Deutsche Bank group comprises directly and indirectly, 87 banks; and the total capital under its control was estimated at between 2000 and 3000 million marks. The Deutsche Bank had … > direct or 1st degree dependence in 30 other banks >
14 of the 30 had 2nd degree dependence in 48 other banks >
6 of the 14 had 3rd degree dependence in 9 other banks.
Commenting on the rise of finance capital during the 1890s and beginning of 20th century, in Finance Capital book R. Hilferding said, “A steadily increasing proportion of capital in industry ceases to belong to the industrialists who employ it. They obtain the use of it only through the medium of the banks which, in relation to them, represent the owners of the capital. On the other hand, the bank is forced to sink an increasing share of its funds in industry. Thus, to an ever greater degree the banker is being transformed into an industrial capitalist. This bank capital, i.e., capital in money form, which is thus actually transformed into industrial capital, I call ‘finance capital’.” … “Finance capital is [monopoly – by the interviewee] capital controlled by banks and employed by industrialists.”
In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin explored the same phenomenon as, “At the same time a personal link-up, so to speak, is established between the banks and the biggest industrial and commercial enterprises, the merging of one with another through the acquisition of shares, through the appointment of bank directors to the Supervisory Boards (or Boards of Directors) of industrial and commercial enterprises, and vice versa. The German economist, Jeidels, has compiled most detailed data on this form of concentration of capital and of enterprises. Six of the biggest Berlin banks were represented by their directors in 344 industrial companies; and by their board members in 407 others, making a total of 751 companies. In 289 of these companies they either had two of their representatives on each of the respective Supervisory Boards, or held the posts of chairmen. We find these industrial and commercial companies in the most diverse branches of industry: insurance, transport, restaurants, theatres, art industry, etc. On the other hand, on the Supervisory Boards of these six banks (in 1910) were fifty-one of the biggest industrialists, including the director of Krupp, of the powerful “Hapag” (Hamburg-Amerika Line), etc. From 1895 to 1910, each of these six banks participated in the share and bond issues of many hundreds of industrial companies (number ranging from 281 to 419).”
“The “personal link-up” between the banks and industry is supplemented by the “personal link-up” between both of them and the government. “Seats on Supervisory Boards,” writes Jeidels, “are freely offered to persons of title, also to ex-civil servants, who are able to do a great deal to facilitate (!!) relations with the authorities.”… “Usually, on the Supervisory Board of a big bank, there is a member of parliament or a Berlin city councillor.”
Lenin in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism quoted the German economist, Heymann to describe the holding system in detail, “The head of the concern controls the principal company (literally: the “mother company”); the latter reigns over the subsidiary companies (“daughter companies”) which in their turn control still other subsidiaries (“grandchild companies”), etc. In this way, it is possible with a comparatively small capital to dominate immense spheres of production. Indeed, if holding 50 per cent of the capital is always sufficient to control a company, the head of the concern needs only one million to control eight million in the second subsidiaries. And if this ‘interlocking’ is extended, it is possible with one million to control sixteen million, thirty-two million, etc.” Thus it was sufficient to own 40 per cent of the shares of a company in order to direct its affairs, since in reality a number of small and geographically scattered shareholders (of the company) would not be able to influence its business. In 1912, General Electric Company, Germany (A.E.G.) held shares in 175 to 200 other companies, dominating them through controlling a total capital of about 1,500 million marks. In Imperialism, … Lenin went on to add, “The “democratisation” of the ownership of shares, from which the bourgeois sophists and opportunist so-called “Social-Democrats” expect (or say that they expect) the “democratisation of capital”, the strengthening of the role and significance of small scale production, etc., is, in fact, one of the ways of increasing the power of the financial oligarchy.”
Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, quoted from the book Big Banks and the World Market written by E. Agalid, who divided the big Russian banks into two main groups: (a) banks that come under the “holding system”, and (b) “independent” banks (meaning independence of foreign banks). Agalid divided the first group into three subgroups: (1) German holdings, (2) British holdings, and (3) French holdings, and found that out of approximately 4,000 million roubles of invested capital of the big banks in Russia, more than three-fourths i.e. more than 3,000 million, belonged to banks which in reality were just “daughter companies” of foreign banks.
(a) banks under the “holding system”: Total Capital Invested 3,054.2 million roubles in October 1912. Break-up:
Four banks with German holdings – Siberian Commercial, Russian, International, Discount Bank – total 1,272.8 million roubles as ‘Capital Invested’
Two banks with British holdings – Commercial & Industrial, Russo-British – ‘Capital Invested’ total 408.4 million roubles
Five banks with French holdings – Russian-Asiatic, St. Petersburg Private, Azov-Don, Union Moscow, Russo-French Commercial – had total 1,373.0 million roubles as ‘Capital Invested’
(b) “independent” banks: Total Capital Invested 895.3 million roubles in October 1912. Break-up:
Eight local Russian banks: Moscow Merchants, Volga-Kama, Junker and Co., St. Petersburg Commercial (formerly
Wawelberg), Bank of Moscow (formerly Ryabushinsky), Moscow Discount, Moscow Commercial, Moscow Private.
Commenting on the extraordinarily high rate of profit obtained from the issue of bonds/securities (one of the principal features of finance capital) Lenin noted in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, “Neymarck estimates the total amount of issued securities current in the world in 1910 at about 815,000 million francs. Deducting from this sum amounts which might have been duplicated, he reduces the total to 575,000-600,000 million, which is distributed among the various countries as follows (I take 600,000 million):”
Table A.1.3
Financial Securities Current in 1910 (billion Francs)
Country
Securities
Country
Securities
Country
Securities
Britain
142
Russia
31
Japan
12
USA
132
Austria-Hungary
24
Belgium
7.5
France
110
Italy
14
Spain
7.5
Germany
95
Holland
12.5
Switzerland
6.2
Hence, in 1910 four of the richest capitalist countries owned about 80% of world’s finance capital. Lenin analysed the transformation: capitalism 🡪 monopoly capital 🡪 surplus finance capital 🡪 export of finance capital and noted in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, “Capitalism is commodity production at its highest stage of development, when labour-power itself becomes a commodity. … England became a capitalist country before any other, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, having adopted free trade, claimed to be the “workshop of the world,” the supplier of manufactured goods to all countries, which in exchange were to keep her provided with raw materials. … On the threshold of the twentieth century we see the formation of a new type of monopoly: firstly, monopolist associations of capitalists in all capitalistically developed countries; secondly, the monopolist position of a few very rich countries, in which the accumulation of capital has reached gigantic proportions. An enormous “surplus of capital” has arisen in the advanced countries.”
“As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will be utilised not for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists, but for the purpose of increasing profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap. The export of capital is made possible by a number of backward countries having already been drawn into world capitalist intercourse”
While British capital were invested in the British colonies, French capital exports went mainly into Europe including Russia. Germany exported capital that were evenly between Europe and America (which were not colonies). The export of capital becomes a means of the export of commodities. Lenin mentioned in Imperialism… “A report from the Austro-Hungarian Consul at San-Paulo (Brazil) states: “The Brazilian railways are being built chiefly by French, Belgian, British and German capital. In the financial operations connected with the construction of these railways the countries involved stipulate for orders for the necessary railway materials.”
Table A.1.4
Approximate Distribution of Foreign Capital in Different Parts of the Globe in 1910 (trillion marks)
Region
Britain
France
Germany
Total
Europe
4
23
18
45
Americas
37
4
10
51
Asia, Africa, Australia
29
8
7
44
Total
70
35
35
140
Writing about Britain’s income from investments in colonies and other foreign countries Hobson noted (refer his Imperialism), “no exact or even approximate estimate of the total amount of income … is possible. We possess, however, in the income-tax assessments an indirect measurement of certain large sections of investments”.
Table A.1.5
Income From Foreign Investments Assured to Income Tax (British Pounds)
Elements
1884
1892
1900
From Indian public revenue
2,607,942
3,203,573
3,587,919
Indian Rails
4,544,466
4,580,797
4,693,795
Colonial and foreign public securities etc.
13,233,271
14,949,017
18,394,380
Railways out of UK
3,777,592
8,013,838
14,043,107
Foreign and colonial investments
9,665,853
23,981,545
19,547,685
Total
33,829,124
54,728,770
60,266,886
During mid-19th century in six European countries did agriculture employ less than a majority of the male population – and these six: Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany were the core of the original industrial capitalism. Interestingly, except Britain, in all other five countries agriculture provided employment to about 40 – 45% of total employment. While industrial capitalism became the dominant driver of the economy of those six European countries in mid-19th century, it will take another half a century for USA to move into the same club. (it needs to be pointed out that these industrially advanced countries transformed their agriculture by implementing technology-driven commercialized farming).
While USA burst into the world of exports with both agricultural produces and manufactured items, the west European powers like Britain and France witnessed a steady shift of economic fortunes from the agriculture to industrial manufacturing and service activities which was made possible through colonial imperialism. As P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins noted in British Imperialism 1688-2015, “the predominance of non-landed wealth over land was not apparent until the end of the century; but since the statistics are for fortunes declared at death it can usually be assumed that the greater part of this wealth had been accumulated a generation earlier and that 1880 is roughly the point at which land ceased to be the outstanding source of great wealth in Britain. Working on the same generational principle, it is also apparent that there was a strong surge in the growth of large fortunes made in manufacturing, if the food, drink and tobacco industries are included, but that these sectors did not make further relative gains during the next 30 years.”
Table A.1.6
Non-landed fortunes at death, 1860 to 1939 (people who owned 0.5 million British Pound or more)
Source of Wealth
1860-79
1880-99
1900-19
1920-39
Wealth
%
Wealth
%
Wealth
%
Wealth
%
Manufacturing and mining
44
35.7
82
36.7
124
34.2
153
30.4
Food, drink, and tobacco
3
2.4
36
16.1
48
13.2
97
19.3
Finance
40
32.5
47
21.1
79
21.9
90
17.9
Commerce
29
23.5
47
21.1
101
27.9
138
27.4
Other
7
5,6
11
4.9
10
2.8
24
4.8
Total non-landed
123
—
223
—
362
—
502
—
(Land)
(280)
—
(174)
—
(140)
—
(91)
—
Hobson further explored in Imperialism on how British economic power actually fared poorly vis-à-vis other West European industrial powers in terms of exports while remaining parts of the world became the destination of its exports (Fig. 5.5). Needless to say that, British power found the new challenges from the industrial powers like Germany unpalatable, and that became one of the most formidable backgrounds of WW-I.
Table A.1.7
Country
British trade in manufacturing, 1913 (in million British Pound)
Imports
Exports & Re-exports
Net exports
Germany
( – ) 56.1
( + ) 30.2
( – ) 25.9
Belgium
( – ) 17.4
( + ) 9.0
( – ) 8.4
France
( – ) 29.6
( + ) 19.2
( – ) 10.4
Switzerland
( – ) 9.2
( + ) 4.4
( – ) 4.8
Other Foreign Countries
( – ) 58.0
( + ) 196.0
( + ) 138.0
British Empire
( – ) 23.4
( + ) 181.0
( + ) 157.6
Total
( – ) 193.7
( + ) 439.8
( + ) 246.1
A.2 Military Face of Imperialism in the Era of Industrial Capitalism:
The enmeshing of ‘big capital’ (primarily owned by capitalist industrialists-bankers, and to a lesser extent the landed aristocracy) and the ‘big state’ (primarily managed by a combination of monarchy, bureaucracy, bourgeois liberal democratic political parties), shaped by protectionism in trade and commerce ratcheted up geopolitical competition after 1870. The proximity of industry and the state became a crucial factor to establish imperialist colonies.
Barry Buzan and George Lawson (in the paper ‘The global transformation: the nineteenth century and the making of modern international relations’ published in International studies quarterly, 59/1) gave a categorical description how even very small European country/ society like Belgium could transform into a colonial power: “Although many important changes to military techniques, organization, and doctrine took place in the centuries preceding the 19th century (Parker 1988; Downing 1992), modernity served as a new foundation for achieving great power standing. Manpower still mattered, so that a small country such as Belgium could not become a great power no matter how industrialized it was (although it could still become an imperial power). But the level of wealth necessary to support great power standing could now come only from an industrial economy. Equally important was the way in which industrial economies supported a permanent rate of technological innovation. Firepower, range, accuracy, and mobility of existing weapons improved, and new types of weapons offering new military options began to appear … The transformation from wood and sail to steel and steam took just fifty years. Across this half-century there was: a 33-fold increase in weapons range from 600 yards (HMS Victory 1850) to 20,000 yards (HMS Dreadnought 1906); a 26-fold increase in weight of shot from 32 pounds solid shot to 850 pounds explosive armour-piercing shell; more than a doubling of speed from 8-9 knots (HMS Victory) to 21 knots (HMS Dreadnought); and a shift from all sail (HMS Victory) to steam turbines (HMS Dreadnought), permitting all-weather navigation for the first time.” A ruthless western wit put it, with a little oversimplification: “Whatever happens, we have got || the Maxim Gun, and they have not” (refer Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire). Mentioning the extent of military expenditure by European powers, J A Hobson collated the following table in ‘Imperialism’ to show how they were armed to the teeth:
Table A.2.1
Country
Military Expenditure in 1869-1870 (million L)
Military Expenditure in 1897-1898 (million L)
Military Expenditure in 1934 (million L)
Britain
22.44
40.09
114.2
France
23.55
37.00
90.0
Germany
11.21
32.80
43.8
Austria
9.10
16.04
46.4
Italy
7.07
13.51
—
Hobson specifically mentioned in Imperialism how Britain spent exuberantly to achieve unparalleled military power during initial two decades of 20th century – in Britain, at the lowest, the contribution of military expenditure towards gross expenditure was 30.4% during 1920 CE, while highest 67.8% was registered during 1914 (at the start of WW-I):
Table A.2.2
Year
Britain – Net National Expenditure during 1904 to 1920 (in million British Pound)
Ratio of Military & Total Expr.
Military & Munitions
Civil Services & Cost of Collection
Education
Grant to Local Authority
National Debt
TOTAL
1904
66.05
11.04
15.57
12.12
31.36
136.17
48.5%
1906
59.19
8.42
16.94
12.53
35.93
133.05
44.4%
1908
59.02
13.04
17.36
9.82
34.91
134.17
43.9%
1910
67.83
26.59
18.74
9.88
29.24
152.31
44.5%
1912
72.43
29.12
19.53
9.65
34.85
165.59
43.7%
1914
361.15
118.83
20.03
9.52
22.66
532.22
67.8%
1915
1001.33
530.03
20.28
9.75
60.24
1561.40
64.1%
1916
1414.28
697.77
20.09
9.89
127.25
2269.30
62.3%
1917
1767.55
954.31
24.70
9.73
189.85
2946.15
60.0%
1918
1977.75
820.11
25.71
9.68
269.96
3103.23
63.7%
1919
959.19
645.20
42.61
10.74
332.03
1989.79
48.2%
1920
386.49
462.14
58.31
10.78
349.59
1267.34
30.4%
The academia and media in the post-industrial era never seriously traced the root cause of the prevailing geopolitical tensions in the world – however, anybody with the basic understanding of the history of the modern era will unanimously point out to the era of colonial imperialism as the root cause of all evils plaguing the society. In 2013, in ‘The global transformation: the nineteenth century and the making of modern international relations‘ Buzan, Barry and Lawson, George pointed out the five features of international relations that attempted to trace its origin to the era of brutal colonial imperialism:
“a) the emergence and institutionalization of a core-periphery international order which was first established during the global transformation;
b) the ways in which global modernity has served to intensify inter-societal interactions, but also amplify differences between societies;
c) the closeness of the relationship between war, industrialization, rational state-building, and standards of civilization;
d) the central role played by ideologies of progress in legitimating policies ranging from scientific advances to coercive interventions; and
e) the centrality of dynamics of empire and resistance to the formation of contemporary international order.”
(B) Socialist Movements & Marxist Inspiration in the Post-1848 Europe till 1917 CE
Revolutions of 1848 CE began in Sicily and spread to France, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, German states, Italian states, the Netherlands, the Austrian Habsburg Empire, and Romanian Principalities. Failure followed by state repression became the norm. Liberal (bourgeois) democrats and nationalists joined at the hip, looked to 1848 as a democratic revolution with demands for more participative democracy and reorganization of Europe into nation-states. Non-Marxist Socialists and Marxist Communists demanded better living standards and economic rights for the working class – but they were neither united nor organized. There was no dearth of revolutionary ideas and impetus during 1848 uprisings across Europe, but the most important aspects were certainly absent – political ideology and political organisation.
‘Communists denounced 1848 as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie indifferent to the legitimate demands of the proletariat’. And, the Communists were NOT off the mark! English Revolution initiated the process of removing the feudalist aristocracy from power (to be replaced by bourgeois elites), French revolution repeated the process, finally 1848 Revolution cleared the path for the bourgeois elites to wrest power (allying with the transformed feudalist aristocracy). Thus, the journey that commenced in 1640 CE to crush the monarchy as the epitome of European feudalism (by the agents of bourgeois class) ended around 1890 CE through establishment of liberal (read, capitalist) democracy where social-political-economic power would be bestowed upon a ‘political party’ (created and managed by the feudalist aristocracy, capitalist bourgeois, wealthy petty-bourgeois, and the Church elites). However, during this entire process spanning across two and a half centuries, 90% of the European population – the peasants, artisans, small shopkeepers, low-skilled industrial workers, jobless lower middle class people – didn’t have any platform, ideological and/or political to organize and rebel against their lords and exploiters! Not only the bourgeois reactionaries, but a sizeable section of the upper middle-class petty-bourgeois radicals took such confusing stand that ultimate failure of revolutions were foreseen by most of the rebel leaders half-way through the struggle.
Repressions were swift. Among the feudal monarchies, the Prussian Junkers, the House of Habsburg, and the House of Romanov were particularly repressive, working overtime to destroy any semblance of revolutionary and socialist ideas.
Astute readers of European history can’t help but notice that, the three modern society ‘phenomenon’ – ‘nationalism’ (quest to achieve ‘nation-states’), ‘democracy’ (quest to achieve universal suffrage), and ‘mass media’ (vehicle to form public opinion) – blossomed all over European landmass all of a sudden after 1848 CE. It was not that those concepts were entirely new (as a matter of fact, the concept of ‘democracy’ was about two and a half millennia old), but those concepts stole the thunder away from revolutionary enthusiasm. As if some invisible Director suddenly decided to introduce a new scene of the drama being staged on the socio-political arena of Europe. Through it, the common plebs of Europe were dragged out from the ‘dangerous’ association of revolutionary ideas – to control them ‘nationalism’, ‘democracy’ and ‘mass media’ were rapidly introduced which would actually prove to be the permanent infatuations (at least till now!). Meanwhile, the invisible drama Director – the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy – merrily chugged along the track of colonial imperialism and industrial capitalism that militarily occupied the entire globe and siphoned off wealth from all possible sources. With the help of sheer luck, the economy took an upward turn and maintained the positive vibes till 1914 CE except some temporary setbacks – a part of the European plebs got miniscule share of the global-scale loot (in Hobsbawm’s words, “… the small but genuine improvement which the great capitalist expansion brought to a substantial part of the working classes in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. And the gap which separated them from the bourgeois world was wide – and unbridgeable.”) and hence rapidly the popular mood swung away from revolution against the oligarchy to collaboration with the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy – exceptions were there in Paris and in Germany, but that only prove the general environment.
B.1 Spread of Marxism-inspired Movements in Europe and Anglo Colonies till 1914
After 1948, largest trade union of that era, the Chartist movement in Britain, friendly societies, syndicalist movements, anarchists, and other radical groups died out primarily because non-Marxist socialist thinkers turned out to be more philosophers than political activists during the eventful mid-19th century. Governments’ fear of the social problem resulted in ‘pressures for absolutism to become more ‘enlightened’ and for parliamentary systems to become more republican fostered demands for political representation (met by successive British Reform Acts), the provision of welfare (as in Bismarck’s ‘social insurance’ scheme), and mass education (which helped to increase rates of literacy and, in turn, fuel the rise of the mass media). Some of this was ‘decoration’ as old regimes sought to maintain their authority (refer Tombs 2000: 11). Marx-inspired Socialist movements took root in post-1848 Europe which can be traced more appropriately and thoroughly if we identify the movements, institutions and the political parties that were formed directly by Marx and Engels or formed by local figures with support from Marx and Engels.
First International
In 1864 CE the International Association of Workingmen was formed in London under the guidance of Karl Marx. The ‘liberal-radical British trade-union Owenites’ and ‘left-wing French union militants’ and ‘old continental revolutionaries’ combined into one association couldn’t however co-exist for long. At its peak the First International reported having 8 million members. But, there was a wide and growing gulf between the ultimate goal of the First International, the communist revolution, and its immediate activities, coordination of the labour movements of the workers in different European countries. Thus, there were two principal contradictions within the First International:
(i) contradiction among the five different groups – Marx’s communist/socialist group, British liberal-radical Owenites, Proudhonist militant group, Blanquist proletarian revolutionaries, and Bakunin’s anarchist group;
(ii) ideological objectives of the association and day-to-day practice of labour movements
Unable to control the association, in 1872 CE Marx and Engels quietly transferred the First International’s headquarters to New York, where it was officially dissolved in 1876 CE. Founding the First International in London, in my opinion, was one of the major political mistakes in the life of Marx and Engels. Marx actually had a negative view of Blanquist proletarian revolutionaries in France, since he could never accept their underground mode of organization. It was one of the historic irony that Marx praised the Paris Commune (of 1871 CE) as a model of “proletarian revolution” (where Blanquists were in the forefront). Marx and Engels should have analysed beforehand that among all the groups of early socialists, and early communists, Blanquists would be the most promising partners for Marxist communist/ socialist groups to coordinate proletarian revolution across different European countries. Hence, instead of founding the headquarters of the International in London, Marx and Engels should have selected Paris.
Marxist Socialist Movement in Germany
General German Workers’ Association founded in 1863 CE by Ferdinand Lassalle and Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany founded in1869 CE by Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel joined together in 1875 CE to create Social Democratic Party of Germany, the first politically powerful Marxist socialist party in the world. Under the universal suffrage implemented by Bismarck, the socialist party became so popular (102,000 socialist vote in 1871 crossed 0.5 million in 1877) that Bismarck prohibited socialist political activity by law. Marx and Engels opined that elections in a democracy might provide a ‘peaceful power transfer’ to workers’ political party in Britain, and USA.
In one of the most profound and far-reaching turn of history, the mighty SPD took a path towards reformist ideology where nationalist and democratic tenets initially diluted the Marxist socialist ideology, and finally transformed SPD into an apologist of German colonialism-imperialism-capitalism at the onset of WW-I. (‘With two or three exceptions Socialist papers daily point out to the German workingman that a victory of the German arms is his victory. The capture of Maubeuge, the sinking of three English warships, or the fall of Antwerp aroused in the Social Democratic press the same feelings that otherwise are excited by the gain of a new election district or a victory in a wage dispute. We must not lose sight of the fact that the German labour press, the Party press as well as the trade union papers, is now a powerful mechanism that in place of the education of the people’s will for the class struggle has substituted the education of the people’s will for military victories’) It was foretold by Marx and Engels in a private circulation letter (First drafted by Engels) written in September 1879 to German SPD leadership – Bebel, Liebknecht, Fritzsche, Geiser, Hasenclever, Bracke – in response to an August 1879 article written by Karl Hochberg, Eduard Bernstein, and Carl August Schramm, entitled “Retrospect on the Socialist Movement in Germany” that advocated transforming the German Social-Democratic party from a revolutionary to a reformist platform — “It is inconceivable to us how the party can any longer tolerate in its midst the authors of that [Hochberg, Bernstein, Schramm] article. If the party leadership more or less falls into the hands of such people, the party will simply be emasculated and, with it, an end to the proletarian order.” Trotsky lamented (1923) in ‘The New Course’, “History offers us more than one case of degeneration of the “Old Guard.” Let us take the most recent and striking example: that of the leaders of the parties of the Second International. We know that Wilhelm Liebknecht, Bebel, Singer, Victor Adler, Kautsky, Bernstein, Lafargue, Guesde, and many others were the direct pupils of Marx and Engels. Yet we know that in the atmosphere of parliamentarism and under the influence of the automatic development of the party and the trade union apparatus, all these leaders turned, in whole or in part, to opportunism. We saw that, on the eve of the war, the formidable apparatus of the social democracy, covered with the authority of the old generation, had become the most powerful brake upon revolutionary progress.”
Marxism-inspired Socialist Movements in Rest of Europe
Socialism became increasingly associated with newly formed trade unions, and later with newly formed political parties. Between 1871 and 1900 CE, about 30 parties representing as many European nationalities were formed that called themselves as social democrat, or socialist or labour party, some of which were:
(1) Portuguese in 1871
(2) Danish in 1876
(3) Czech in 1878
(4) French in 1879
(5) Spanish in 1879
(6) Dutch in 1881
(7) Belgian in 1885
(8) Norwegian in 1887
(9) Armenian in 1887
(10) Swiss in 1888
(11) Austrian in 1889
(12) Swedish in 1889
(13) Hungarian in 1890
(14) Bulgarian in 1891
(15) Italian in 1892
(16) Serbian in 1892
(17) Polish in 1893
(18) Romanian in 1893
(19) Independent Labour Party in UK was founded in 1893
(20) Croatian in 1894
(21) Slovenian in 1896
(22i) Russian in 1898
(23) Finnish in 1899
(24) Ukrainian in 1899
Hobsbawm mentioned, “The prospects of revolution, let alone socialist revolution, in the developed countries of Europe, were no longer a matter of practical politics and, … Marx discounted them.” For Marx and Engels, the main task became to help the union and political leaders of the European socialist and socialist-dominated parties to strengthen their respective parties’ (ideological and organisational) position in their own countries. But their efforts were in vain – not long after Marx and Engels departed, these parties took decisively ideologically reformist turn while being part of the Second International.
Second International
The Second International was formed in July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which 384 delegates from 20 countries representing about 300 labour and socialist organisations participated. Out of the three prominent proletarian political groups in the then Europe, anarcho-syndicalist group was excluded from the beginning (because of non-reconciliatory antagonistic relationship between Anarchists and Marxists), while the other two factions – revolutionary Marxists and non-revolutionary reformist Possibilists – somehow managed to co-exist in the International till 1914 CE. The Possibilist faction of the Federation of the Socialist Workers of France was supported by the British Social Democratic Federation, and the Marxist faction of the Federation of the Socialist Workers of France was supported by the German SPD, the British Socialist League, and most of the other European delegates.
According to Moira Donald, for the nine congresses, France contributed 26%, Germany 16%, UK 16%, Belgium 9%, Switzerland 5%, Austria 4.5%, Russia 3.5%, Italy/ Sweden/ Bohemia/ Poland/ Denmark/ the Netherlands almost 3% of the delegates. Among the Second International’s far-reaching actions were its 1889 declaration of 1st May as the International Workers’ Day, and the international campaign for the eight-hour working day.
But the Second International finally turned into a den of reactionary apologists for militarism and imperialism. As Wikipedia noted, in July 1914, [..they..] declared “that it shall be the duty of the workers of all nations concerned not only to continue but to further intensify their demonstrations against the war, for peace, and for the settlement of the Austro-Serbian conflict by international arbitration.”’ But, the factional rift in 1889 CE developed into an unbridgeable gulf by 1914 CE – all the parties / unions who subscribed to the revolutionary Marxist concepts in 1889 were found to had transformed into reformist non-Marxist socialist nationalist outfits, while Russian social democrats and break-away group of German socialist democrats were found to defend revolutionary Marxism. The Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy who were the main power behind every ruling party in Europe always camouflaged its imperialist colonialist objectives of expanding its territory to find raw materials, get markets for its produces, and indulge in highly profitable business of selling military machinery, behind high-sounding sloganeering like ‘defending our nation against aggressors’ and ‘defending democracy against autocracy’ etc. while rushing ahead in WW-I. Due to treacherous upper level leadership of social democrat parties, the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy got full support from the established social democrat parties of belligerent nations. As a result, immediately after the outbreak of WW-I, German SPD and most of the major socialist parties in belligerent nations had issued statements in full support of war. Only Russian social democrats and Romanian social democrats proved to remain truly Marxist. And, few leaders like Lenin and Trotsky in Russia, and Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany raised their voice of Marxist reasoning and internationalist proletarianism against the imperialists’ war WW-I.
The last congress of the Second International was held at Geneva in July 1920. The WW-I split the Second International into three factions:
the pro-war social democratic parties in the Central Powers
the pro-war parties of the Triple Entente
the anti-war parties, including the pacifist parties in neutral countries and revolutionary socialist parties
After the war, three international associations were created after realignment of ideological factions:
The Communist International founded in March 1919 in Moscow led by Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International ] — the communist parties of Russia (Bolsheviks), Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, Estonia, Armenia, the Volga German region; the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party (the opposition), Swiss Social Democratic Party (the opposition), Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation; Norwegian Labour Party, Zimmerwald Left Wing of France; the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French and Swiss Communist Groups; the Dutch Social-Democratic Group; Socialist Propaganda League and the Socialist Labour Party of America; Socialist Workers’ Party of China; Korean Workers’ Union were the main participants
The International Working Union of Socialist Parties founded in February 1921 in Vienna led by Friedrich Adler, Otto Bauer, and Julius Martov – the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO), the Independent Labour Party (ILP) of Britain, the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SPS), the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), and the Federation of Romanian Socialist Parties (FPSR, created by splinter groups of the Socialist Party of Romania), the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, the Maximalist faction of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) were the significant constituents of this what was also called as Vienna International
The Labour and Socialist International founded in 1923 in Hamburg led by Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, Rudolf Hilferding (of the Social Democratic Party of Germany), Arthur Henderson, Sidney Webb (of the British Labour Party); Friedrich Adler, Otto Bauer, Karl Renner (of Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria),as a merger between the Vienna International and the former Second International [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_and_Socialist_International ] — Social Democratic Party of Germany, Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Social Democratic Workers Party of Austria, Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers Party (in Austria), Belgian Labour Party, British Guiana Labour Union, Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party (Broad Socialists), Social Democratic Party of China, Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers Party, German Social Democratic Workers Party (in Czechoslovakia), Hungarian-German Social Democratic Party (in Czechoslovakia), Polish Socialist Workers Party (in Czechoslovakia), Social Democratic Federation of Denmark, Estonian Socialist Workers Party, Social Democratic Party of Finland, French Section of the Workers’ International, Social Democratic Labour Party of Georgia, Labour Party of Britain, Independent Labour Party (ILP) of Britain, Socialist Party of Greece, Hungarian Social Democratic Party, Világosság Socialist Emigrant Group, Social Democratic Party of Iceland, United Socialist Party of Italian Workers, Italian Socialist Party, Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party, Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, Workers Party of Luxembourg, Social Democratic Workers Party of the Netherlands, Social Democratic Labour Party of Norway, Norwegian Labour Party, Polish Socialist Party, German Socialist Labour Party of Poland, Independent Socialist Workers Party of Poland, General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland, Ukrainian Socialist-Radical Party (in Poland), Portuguese Socialist Party, Romanian Social Democratic Party, Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks), Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia, Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, Social Democratic Labour Party of Sweden, Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, Socialist Party of Yugoslavia, Independent Socialist Party of Turkey, Ukrainian Social Democratic Labour Party, Socialist Party of Uruguay, Socialist Party of Argentina, Socialist Party of America were the significant constituents
B.2 Failure of Marxism-inspired Movements in Europe and Anglo Colonies till 1914
To mention that any other socialist/similar movement also failed in Europe would be fairly unnecessary but for the fact that ALL of those socialists (followers of leaders like Owen, Fourier, Saint-Simon and Condorcet), and anarchists (followers of leaders like Proudhon, and Bakunin) actually got completely marginalised through self-inflicted damages (like lack of robust political objectives and planning for execution) by 1900 CE.
As Eric Hobsbawm wrote in ‘Age Of Revolution 1789 -1848’ about early (non-Marxist) Socialists, “Indeed, the ‘utopian’ socialists (the Saint-Simonians, Owen, Fourier and the rest) tended to be so firmly convinced that the truth had only to be proclaimed to be instantly adopted by all men of education and sense, that initially they confined their efforts to realize socialism to a propaganda addressed in the first plate to the influential classes — the workers, though they would undoubtedly benefit, were unfortunately an ignorant and backward group — and to the construction of, as it were, pilot plants of socialism—communist colonies and co-operative enterprises, mostly situated in the open spaces of America, where no traditions of historic backwardness stood in the way of men’s advance. Owen’s New Harmony was in Indiana, the USA contained some thirty-four imported or home-grown Fourieristic ‘Phalanxes’, and numerous colonies inspired by the Christian communist Cabet and others. The Saint-Simonians, less given to communal experiments, never ceased their search for an enlightened despot who might carry out their proposals, and for some time believed they had found him in the improbable figure of Mohammed AIi, the ruler of Egypt. … The extraordinary sect of the Saint-Simonians, equally suspended between the advocacy of socialism and of industrial development by investment bankers and engineers, temporarily gave him their collective aid and prepared his plans of economic development.”Hobsbawm further mentioned, “In France men who were to be the captains of high finance and heavy industry (the Saint-Simonians) were in the 1830s still undecided as to whether socialism or capitalism was, the best way of achieving the triumph of the industrial society. In the USA men like Horace Greeley, who have become immortal as the prophets of individualist expansion (‘Go west, young man’ is his phrase), were in the 1840s adherents of Utopian socialism, founding and expounding the merits of Fourierist ‘Phalanxes’”.
Theoretically and philosophically Marx and Engels provided documented inputs, which, even if were incomplete, nevertheless adequate to create an everlasting hope for a new dawn in human civilization. Having said that, I must point out towards the five key factors that frustrated the entire political processes in Europe between 1860 to 1914 CE that were being undertaken by the Marxism-inspired trade unions and socialist parties. Because of that the socialist movements in industrially advanced west Europe didn’t taste any success to seize state political power on their own.
1) Organizational factor – Appearance of “Labour Aristocracy”
Frederick Engels first mentioned about the “labour aristocracy” in a number of letters to Marx (late 1850s through the late 1880s). Engels argued that the British workers who established trade unions in factory – skilled workers in the iron, steel, machinery industries, cotton textiles – constituted a privileged and “bourgeoisified” layer of the working class, that can be termed as a “labour aristocracy.” British capital’s industrial and financial monopoly (discussed in the section A) permitted the employers to provide a better remuneration to the leaders of workers. Engels found the resulting privilege, as the material basis of the growing conservatism of the British labour movement (unlike Chartist movement).
Lenin expected that the European socialist leaders would oppose their ruling classes’ militarism with labour strikes and disruption. But he noted the triumph of opportunism in the socialist labour movements. In his article ‘The Collapse of the Second International’, Lenin argued: “The period of imperialism is the period in which the distribution of the world among the ‘great’ and privileged nations, by whom all other nations are oppressed, is completed. Scraps of the booty enjoyed by the privileged as a result of this oppression undoubtedly fall to the lot of certain sections of the petty-bourgeoisie and the aristocracy and bureaucracy of the working class.” This segment represents “an infinitesimal minority of the proletariat and the working masses”. While writing the preface to the French and German Editions of ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’ Lenin mentioned categorically “Obviously, out of such enormous super profits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of the country) it is possible to bribe their labour leaders and an upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the ‘advanced’ countries do bribe them: they bribe them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.”. In the most scathing appropriate and accurate analysis Lenin laid bare how the labour aristocracy among the socialists turned into stooges of the then Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy, “This stratum of bourgeoisified workers or ‘labour aristocracy,’ who have become completely petty-bourgeois in their mode of life, in the amount of their earnings, and in their point of view, serve as the main support of the Second International and, in our day, the principal social (not military) support of the bourgeoisie. They are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, the real carriers of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers. take the side of the bourgeoisie, the ‘Versaillese’ against the ‘Communards’.”
The theory of the labour aristocracy was/is an important explanation of the tendency of labour unions and socialist parties towards reformism and conservatism in European countries. While the Communist Parties distanced themselves from the notion of the labour aristocracy since 1914, in course of time some pro-reformist factions also grew within the Communist Parties. During the post-WW-II period, this has been analysed again and again. In an incisive article with a mischievous headline ‘The Myth of the Labour Aristocracy – Part 2’, Charles Post (first published in ‘Against the Current’, No. 124, September–October 2006) deconstructed the background and architecture of labour aristocracy:
“The working class cannot be, as a whole, permanently active in the class struggle. The entire working class cannot consistently engage in strikes, demonstrations and other forms of political activity because this class is separated from effective possession of the means of production, and its members compelled to sell their labour power to capital in order to survive. They have to go to work!
“Put simply, most workers, most of the time are engaged in the individual struggle to sell their capacity to work and secure the reproduction of themselves and their families – not the collective struggle against the employers and the state. The “actually existing” working class can only engage in mass struggles as a class in extraordinary, revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situations. Because of the structural position of wage labour under capitalism, these must be of short duration. Most often, different segments of the working class become active in the struggle against capital at different times.
“In the wake of successful mass struggles, only a minority of the workers remain consistently active. Most of this workers’ vanguard – those who “even during a lull in the struggle…do[es] not abandon the front lines of the class struggle but continues the war, so to speak, ’by other means’” – attempts to preserve and transmit the traditions of mass struggle in the workplace or the community. However, a sector within this active minority, together with intellectuals who have access to cultural skills from which the bulk of the working class is excluded, must take on responsibility for administering the unions or political parties created by periodic upsurges of mass activity.
“This layer of fulltime officials – the bureaucracy of the labour movement – is the social foundation for “unconditional” reformist practice and ideology in the labour movement. Those workers who become officials of the unions and political parties begin to experience conditions of life very different from those who remain in the workplace.
“The new officials find themselves freed from the daily humiliations of the capitalist labour process. They are no longer subject to either deskilled and alienated labour or the petty despotism of supervisors. Able to set their own hours, plan and direct their own activities, and devote the bulk of their waking hours to “fighting for the workers,” the officials seek to consolidate these privileges.
“As the unions gain a place in capitalist society, the union officials strengthen their role as negotiators of the workers’ subordination to capital in the labour-process. In defence of their social position, the labour bureaucracy excludes rank and file activists in the unions and parties from any real decision-making power… The preservation of the apparatus of the mass union or party, as an end itself, becomes the main objective of the labour bureaucracy. The labour bureaucrats seek to contain working-class militancy within boundaries that do not threaten the continued existence of the institutions which are the basis of the officials’ unique life-style.
2) Organizational factor – Inadequate Support Base
In Europe during the 19th century Britain (the UK) was the most industrially advanced country, hence considering Britain will not be an appropriate approach for discussion – we also avoid non-industrialised countries of east Europe for the same reason. Hobsbawm in ‘Age of Empire’, “Though with a few special exceptions towns were more numerous and played a more significant role in the economies of the first world, the ‘developed’ world remained surprisingly agricultural. In only six European countries did agriculture employ less than a majority – generally a large majority – of the male population: but these six were, characteristically, the core of the older capitalist development – Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland. However, only in Britain was agriculture the occupation of a smallish minority of about one-sixth; elsewhere it employed between 50 and 45 per cent.” Let me consider France as an archetypal case, and draw the readers’ attention to the following table B.2.1 that provides economy sector-wise percentage of employment in France between 1806 to 1931 as available in ‘French Occupational Structure, Industrialisation, and Economic Growth, 1695 to The Present’ authored by Alexis Litvine [refer link 🡪 https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/occupations/outputs/preliminary/france_1695_present_al.pdf ]:
Table B.2.1
Economy Sector
Year-wise Percentage of Occupation in France
1806
1831
1851
1881
1911
1931
Primary
66.7
62.5
58.6
48.5
39.0
32.0
Secondary
19.3
22.1
24.4
28.4
32.7
36.5
Tertiary
13.8
15.5
17.0
23.2
28.3
31.5
Active Population * (million)
—
—
—
13.24
19.71 (1906)
—
Total Population ** (million)
29.10
32.57
35.78
37.62
39.60
41.52
Note:
* marked data sourced from ‘Classifying Individuals by Their Participation in the Production System: The ‘Active’ and ‘Inactive’ Populations in Late 19th-Century France’ by Agnès Hirsch, Translated by Paul Reeve in ‘Population’ Volume 77, Issue 1, January 2022 [refer link 🡪 https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-population-2022-1-page-113.htm ]
Marxism not only identified the working-class people i.e. the proletarian class as the most exploited one, but more importantly Marx and Engels assigned the leading role of social transformation to the proletarian class (who should lead the other classes into a socialist/communist class-less society in the long run). As an astute observer noted, “In the decades leading up to the First World War, socialists influenced by Marx brought to workers in towns, villages, and urban precincts a new “single identity: that of ‘the proletarian’” along with a conveyance for acting upon that identity: the party or the trade union.” Hence, the socialist parties in Europe who used to call themselves as socialist / social democrat / labour party, officially represented the group of working people who were working in the secondary economic sector – however, in absolute numbers, secondary sector represented the minority portion of the total employed population. Whether France was still having Agriculture (i.e. primary) as dominant industry sector in 1831 or Industry (i.e. secondary and tertiary) fully dominated the economy as in 1931, France always had the manufacturing (i.e. secondary) employing less number of people than primary and tertiary combined. Further, if the ratio of secondary occupation and total population is considered, which in my opinion is the MOST IMPORTANT ratio – as per the information given in table B.2.1, in 1881 CE, in France people belonging to secondary occupation formed only 10% of the total population. In contrast, if primary and secondary occupation could join hands (meaning 77% of the working active people), in 1881 France, it would had meant 27% of the total population. (Any guess, what would had happened in Paris Commune?)
Most of the European leaders and activists of Marxist/socialist movements were drawn from secondary sector of economy with a few of them from the tertiary sector. It was not that the Marxists/socialists were unaware of the problem. In reality, ‘how the peasants can be pulled into the socialist political movement’ was a question that every top ideological / philosophical leaders had pondered with at some point of time. Alas, no one built a suitable organisational structure to get the entire primary classes of toiling mass on board!
3) Political Economy factor – Establishment of a New World-System Centred on USA
The imperialist colonies and empires built by the UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany witnessed substantial economic growth after 1850 CE that catapulted the industrial capitalism into the forefront of the global trade and commerce. Soon USA joined the fray and replaced the UK as the top most economy in terms of GDP output and technology base. The following tables provide key statistics on total population, immigrated population, total labour force, key sector-wise break-up of employment etc. of USA during 1830 to 1930 CE.
During the 17th century, approximately 400,000 English people migrated to the central part of North America continent, which came to be known as USA. They comprised 83.5% of the white population at the time of the first census in USA in 1790 CE (out of a total of 3,929,214). 400,000–450,000 of the 18th century migrants were Scots, Scots-Irish from Ulster, Germans, Swiss, French Huguenots – they made up about 16% of the white population at 1790 census. As Wikipedia mentioned [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States ], “The National Origins Formula was a unique computation which attempted to measure the total contributions of “blood” from each national origin as a share of the total stock of White Americans in 1920, counting immigrants, children of immigrants, and the grandchildren of immigrants (and later generations), in addition to estimating the colonial stock population descended from the population who had immigrated in the colonial period and were enumerated in the 1790 census.” Following this concept, the population that each national origin had contributed to the total stock of the USA population in 1920 CE has been presented below in table B.2.2:
Starting from mid-1840s USA experienced very high degree of population growth that continued till mid-1930s. As a result of which, during the 1920 census it was concluded that the post-colonial era migration (between 1790 and 1920 CE) resulted in about 56% of the population in 192. Now, the data related to the labour force and industry sector-wise employment has been presented below in table B.2.3 from ‘Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States after 1800’ edited by Dorothy S. Brady [refer link 🡪 http://www.nber.org/books/brad66-1 ]:
Table: B.2.3
Year
Total Population (million)*
1st Gen. Immigrant (million)**
Labour-force (million)
Industrial sectors of employment (in millions)
Agricul
Mining
Constr
Manuf
Trade
Railwy
Teacher
Domestc Services
1830
12.785
0.11
4.20
2.96
0.02
—
—
—
—
0.03
0.16
1840
5.66
3.57
0.03
0.29
0.50
0.35
—
0.04
0.24
1850
23.191
2.24
8.25
4.52
0.10
0.41
1.20
0.53
0.02
0.08
0.35
1860
11.11
5.88
0.17
0.52
1.53
0.89
0.08
0.11
0.60
1870
12.93
6.79
0.18
0.78
2.47
1.31
0.16
0.17
1.00
1880
50.155
6.68
17.39
8.92
0.28
0.90
3.29
1.93
0.41
0.23
1.13
1890
23.32
9.96
0.44
1.51
4.39
2.96
0.75
0.35
1.58
1900
75.994
10.34
29.07
11.68
0.63
1.66
5.89
3.97
1.04
0.43
1.80
1910
37.48
11.77
1.07
1.95
8.33
5.32
1.85
0.59
2.09
1920
41.61
10.79
1.18
1.23
11.19
5.84
2.23
0.75
1.66
1930
122.775
14.20
48.83
10.56
1.01
1.99
9.88
8.12
1.66
1.04
2.27
1940
56.29
9.57
0.92
1.87
11.31
9.33
1.16
1.08
2.30
1950
65.47
7.87
0.90
3.03
15.65
12.15
1.37
1.27
1.99
Note: * and ** marked data has been provided from Wikipedia.
A couple of points need to be noted from tables B.2.2 and B.2.3:
A total population of 12.78 million (0.8% from 1st generation immigrants) and labour force of 4.20 million in 1830 CE jumped to a total population of 50.15 million (13.3% from 1st generation immigrants) and labour force of 17.39 million in 1880 CE showed that the immigration from Europe contributed immensely to 400% increase in the population and labour force of USA in just 50 years
Whether colonial-period settlement before 1790, or post-colonial immigration after 1790, Europeans flocked to USA as a result of which 94% of the 94.82 million population of USA in 1920 belonged to the European ethnicities
In 1830, 70% of the workforce belonged to agriculture occupation, while only 26% of the labour force were engaged in agriculture during 1920; it has been proved in research on 19th century work-force in USA, that the descendants of the colonial-period settlers were mostly reluctant to join the secondary economic sector as proletarian and semi-proletarian workforce – the economic transformation of the USA from an agriculture economy in 1830 to world’s leading industrial state in 1920 happened largely due to the emigration from European states who left Europe to settle in USA in droves!
People from all over Europe who were unemployed, destitute, low-skilled workers, skilled workers with low-pay jobs made a beeline for migrating to USA (and to an extent to other Anglo colonies like South Africa, Australia, Canada), where industrial capitalism firmly spread its wings and a huge workforce got employed at somewhat decent salary/ wages. Even if Marx himself was actively organising socialist trade unions and/or revolutionary communism in USA, it never took roots there because of ‘labour aristocracy’ and conspiratorial murders of organisers. More or less, the largest section of USA urban population was from the working class and they found themselves as a privileged class (when compared to most of the urban Europe of that era except Britain, the Netherlands, and France). The not-so-secret charm of finding a better lifestyle in the ‘new world’ for the European proletarians, semi-proletarians, and petty bourgeois families proved to be more compelling than joining in the struggle against bourgeois Zionist-Capitalists in Europe!
In Imperialism, Hobson provided detail data to show how USA became a dominant country (which had only few colonial ventures unlike most of the west European powers) in the world export within four decades, with a very rapid rate of growth (even though exports net of imports would be a more robust parameter, in case of USA with abundant natural resources it can be safely assumed that imports were at very low level, hence exports as the parameter is appropriate):
Table B.2.4
Year
Exports of USA (million dollar)
Total
Crude (raw) materials
Crude (raw) foodstuffs
Manufactured foodstuffs
Semi Manufactures
Finished Manufactures
Ratio of Raw Material / Total Exports
1880
663.6
213.9
158.8
161.9
30.1
98.7
56.1%
1885
774.6
261.6
162.7
197.4
37.0
115.7
54.7%
1890
725.6
276.7
108.7
181.5
40.0
118.7
53.1%
1895
876.3
295.0
150.8
238.5
55.3
136.4
50.8%
1900
1136.0
296.6
214.7
272.7
109.5
242.3
45.0%
1905
1427.0
432.0
173.9
316.2
161.2
343.5
42.4%
1910
1750.9
554.7
155.8
317.3
249.1
473.8
40.5%
1915
2716.1
591.2
506.9
454.5
355.8
807.4
40.4%
1920
8080.4
1882.5
917.9
1116.6
958.4
3204.8
34.6%
We should take a pause and ask a question: since 1495 CE Spain and Portugal has been brutally expanding their empire in North and South America that in course of time created a new variant of capitalism – plantation capitalism – apart from the ubiquitous mercantile capitalism, but in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th century the lands which we know as Brazil, Argentina, Peru, or Colombia no USA type state sprang up which will challenge the European industrially advanced states and within 50 years surpass all of them in economic output and technology! So, was there any special traits in the Europeans who entered the USA as immigrants? Was there a magic wand with the USA ruling party leadership? Answer is resoundingly, NO. It was the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy based in west Europe who understood after 1848 that the European masses can actually turn against the oppressors and exploiters someday in future, and made two simultaneous moves – firstly, corrupt the leadership of socialist unions and parties, and co-opt them so that they became lackeys instead of fighters for proletarians, secondly, create a new ‘core’ for capitalist economy where finance-trade-manufacturing all will grow unhindered in a new country that has large landmass, huge natural resources, free from socialist ideological past, and central banking controlled by the Zionist-capitalist oligarchy. History of 1914 to 1920 proved that both these moves ended in complete success both across Europe, and the USA!
It was said that ‘Imperialism has the tendency to create privileged sections among the workers, and to detach them from the broad masses of the proletariat’ – it was true with those European proletariats who moved to USA. But even those European masses who migrated to USA and their descendants realised much later that they were simply pawns in the game of political economy (of the Zionist-capitalist oligarchy) – history didn’t record their silent reactions on the ‘great depression’ that swept the USA economy during 1929 for at least half a decade. As it happened, during an economic growth phase, industry workers in the secondary and tertiary economic sectors employed by the large monopoly/ duopoly/ oligopoly business houses (the bourgeois owners of these business entities started controlling the state governments, political parties, media in order to establish firm ownership of the raw materials, energy, and markets in foreign lands) would be paid much better compared to the highly competitive medium/ small organisations – so the workers silently join the reformist trade union leaders (labour aristocracy). During economic downturn those workers would be worse off, but still better than the fiercely competitive medium & small sector workers. Only during closure of a factory, those employees would stare at a ruinous future – however, at that point of time those same opportunists corrupt labour leaders turn their follower’s attention towards a few ‘bogeyman’ of foreign (country) enemy and different ethnic or religious communities of same society and suggest that those bogeyman’ were responsible for the economic downturn. This privileged class of workers in Europe and USA (before 1914 CE there were hardly any modern industrial facility in Africa, Asia, and South America continents) simply never understood their potential as vanguard of revolutionary change in the way human civilization functions – instead many in Germany, Italy, USA became ultra-nationalist and racist. Moreover, the religious-minded workers would compare their lifestyle with the unemployed people and low-paid workers of Europe (their original home) and conclude that, God has given them a better lifestyle! The mass of workers seldom understood Marxist concepts and tenets let alone philosophy!
There were a few other aspects of the then Europe-centred global economy which favoured the Zionist-Capitalist programmes immensely:
(1) Discovery gold deposits in California and Australia that encouraged the expansion of credit. As noted by Hobsbawm, “within seven years the world gold supply increased between six and sevenfold, and the amount of gold coinage issued by Britain, France, and the United States multiplied from an annual average of 4.9 million pounds in 1848-49 to one of 28.1 million in each year between 1850 and 1856. Joining the UK as the Core — Sudden upward turn in economy & supply of credit after 1848
(2) In 30 years railways not only became the most stable and fast medium of transportation, but it opened a new area of business in capital sector. Between 1845 when Britain exported 1.29 million tons of rail iron and steel and 4.9 thousand tons of rail machinery and 1875 when the corresponding figures were 4.04 and 44.1, Britain achieved a mind-blowing growth of 3 times and 9 times!
(3) In two decades, between 1850 and 1870 world trade increased by 260%. It was ‘immaterial’ that the Chinese empire didn’t want opium in their country, but British Zionist-Capitalists earned astronomical profits from opium trade (exported from British India to Qing China)! It was a boom time for British and French foreign investments.
4) Political factor – Conspiracy by the Zionist-capitalist Oligarchy Against Marxists
With the successive publications of books/pamphlets on communism/socialism and active participation in 1848 CE revolutions by Marx and Engels, the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy of west Europe identified both of them as the long-term intellectual threat to their wealth-power-prestige. The publication of Marx’s ‘On the Jewish Question’ in February, 1844, the publication of Engels’ ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ in 1845, the publication of Marx’s ‘Wage Labour and Capital’ in April, 1849, and finally the publication of ‘The Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in February, 1848 convinced the new bourgeois class (mostly Jews, crypto-Jews, and Anglos) as well as the old feudal aristocrats (mostly Anglo-Saxon, French, German) that their future plan of JOINTLY maintaining the political power and controlling the economy and trade-commerce would be in jeopardy unless the new movement of Marxist socialist/communist groups can be discredited and nullified. The members of the oligarchy (joined through common aspirations) found out that the ‘new addition’ (followers of Marx-Engels) to the list of existing (early) socialist groups was a tough nut to crack – the communists led by two scholar-activists expressed deep empathy with the toiling masses which was tempered with rationality, they proposed an ideology that was rooted in the history-sociology-economics of Europe, they built the organizations and created support base that were reinforced by flawless logic! The Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy noted that, the socialist and communist leaders before Marx and Engels appeared on the horizon, would either approach the oligarchs requesting for funds/lands for setting up cooperative communities or would lead movements for more wage or would petition for voting rights or would hatch conspiracy to overthrow a government, none of which had potential to become long-term existential threat. Marxist communists (realised as existential threat to capitalist system and its beneficiary, the oligarchy), because of their robust ideological basis backed by facts, reason and logic, soon became the target for obliteration through disinformation, hate, and violence campaigns.
Bourgeois capitalists, feudal aristocrats, and bankers influenced the governments in countries across Europe so that they put up maximum resistance to the bourgeoning movements led by Marxist communists, in every possible way – detention by department of internal security, blind judiciary denying natural justice, summary execution etc. all types of state-sponsored repressions. The Zionist-Capitalist ruling oligarchy deployed a more sinister programme to destroy Marxist communist movements. They recruited two outstanding intellectual-activists (who were scholars of Marxism, socialism) as agents within the Marxist communist/socialist organisations at an early stage when the socialist movement was on the upswing, who would work for creating confusion within the ranks and derail the movement. The third element of the troika was not a human being, but a British organisation called Fabian Society.
Eduard Bernstein – [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Bernstein ] Bernstein was a former Rothschild banker and private secretary to “gold uncle” Karl Höchberg, a wealthy donor to the German SPD. It seems Bernstein was the first recruit of the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy much before the death of Marx in 1883. From 1896 to 1898 Bernstein wrote a series of articles “Problems of Socialism” in the SPD party theoretical journal, Der Neue Zeit, suggesting that Marxism needed a ‘revision’, he wanted to purge it of what he considered to be its dogmatic errors. He laid out his ideas in Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus and die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie in 1899 which was partially translated into English as Evolutionary Socialism and published in 1909.
Karl Kautsky – [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Kautsky ] It appears that Kautsky was recruited following the death of Engels’ in 1895. One of the close associates of Engels, Kautsky actually blocked publication of some of the works of Engels after his death. He wrote in 1887 ‘The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx’ in which Marxism was presented as an economic theory. Kautsky reduced the Marxist historical dialectic to a sort of (social) evolutionism. He rejected the idea of an alliance between the working class and the peasantry. From 1905 Kautsky turned into an avowed opportunist reformist.
Berstein-Kautsky duo went on to become the main conspirators against the revolutionary wing of the German communists (which ended in killing of the revolutionary leaders). During the Socialist revolution of 1918, Bernstein’s disciple Friedrich Ebert became Germany’s new Chancellor and later President. Bernstein was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Treasury, while his collaborator Kautsky was appointed to the Foreign Office.
Fabian Society – [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society ] It was founded in January 1884 in London as an offshoot of a society founded a year earlier, called ‘The Fellowship of the New Life’. Most prominent contemporary figures like Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Arthur Henderson, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Charles Marson, Sydney Olivier, Oliver Lodge, Ramsay MacDonald were members of the society. Britain’s Fabian Socialists who preached “evolutionary Socialism” were assisted by Kautsky and Bernstein regularly. British socialists who were reformists, created the Labour Party (that always considered Fabian Society as their basis/ foundation).
An observer noted, “The Fabians’ financial backers who held interests in mining, industrial plants, railway networks and other international ventures across the globe were leading advocates of “moral capitalism” and “liberal or enlightened imperialism”. In other words, they were at the forefront of the principal force that was transforming the world: the monopolistic tendencies within capitalism which secretly aimed to control natural resources, industries, markets and economies through financial means, while publicly calling for policies claiming to be “for the public good”. While the Fabians benefitted from the imperialists’ financial support, the imperialists used the Fabians’ “impartial” intellectual and academic output, such as works on international government, to legitimise their own internationalist policies.”
A prominent sponsor of Fabianism was David Rockefeller who in the 1930s wrote a senior thesis on Fabian Socialism at Harvard and did a post-graduate at the Fabians’ London School of Economics that was funded by Rockefeller family. While pursuing a successful banking career, he was also a leading sponsor of Fabian projects across the world. Willy Brandt, the German Chancellor ‘became president of the Fabians’ Socialist International and was appointed by US presidential adviser and World Bank president Robert McNamara, a Rockefeller associate, as chair of the UN Independent Commission on International Development Issues. In this role, he worked closely with Rockefeller associates such as Peter G Peterson, chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb (an ally of Rockefeller and Rothschild), on a new plan to restructure the world economy’ in line with the policies of the international bankers.
Frederick Engels (in Letters to Sorge, pg. 390) wrote about the Fabians on January 18, 1893: “a band of careerists who have understanding enough to realise the inevitability of the social revolution, but who could not possibly entrust this gigantic task to the raw proletariat alone. . . . Fear of the revolution is their fundamental principle“
And on November 11, 1893 (in Letters to Sorge, pg. 401), he wrote: “these haughty bourgeois who kindly condescend to emancipate the proletariat from above if only it would have sense enough to realise that such a raw, uneducated mass cannot liberate itself and can achieve nothing without the kindness of these clever lawyers, writers and sentimental old women.”
5) Ideological factor – Emergence of Britain as a ‘Model’ Nation-State
Earlier I mentioned that three modern society ‘phenomenon’ – ‘nationalism’ , ‘democracy’, and ‘mass media’ blossomed all over European landmass all of a sudden after 1848 CE. Certainly the European elites, aristocrats, intelligentsia, and Zionist-Capitalist bourgeois wanted to see a state that can be projected as a role model incorporating all three aspects. U.K. (as the core of British empire across the globe) soon became the poster boy for modernity or more aptly ‘the model nation-state in the modern era’.
The first electoral reform bill was introduced in Parliament in March 1831 and adopted in June 1832 that officially put an end to the political monopoly of the landed aristocracy, bankers and usurers. The doors of Parliament were opened only to the representatives of the industrial bourgeoisie. The proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie remained disfranchised. The second electoral reform law adopted in August, 1867 granted the franchise only to house-owners, householders and tenants of flats who paid an annual rent of no less than £10. Thus the petty bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy were enfranchised. The urban proletariat, the small farmers, and the rural proletariat did not receive the right to vote. The third reform carried out in 1884 extended the 1867 law to rural district. Still about two million men and all women were barred from the polls.
Every single word V I Lenin wrote in his ‘Imperialism and The Split in Socialism’ was 100% accurate and appropriate for Britain and all other European states which were busy copying the British model, “On the economic basis referred to above, the political institutions of modern capitalism—press, parliament associations, congresses etc.—have created political privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic office employees and workers, corresponding to the economic privileges and sops. Lucrative an soft jobs in the government or on the war industries committees, in parliament and on diverse committees, on the editorial staffs of “respectable”, legally published newspapers or on the management councils of no less respectable and “bourgeois law-abiding” trade unions—this is the bait by which the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives and supporters of the “bourgeois labour parties”.
“The mechanics of political democracy works in the same direction. Nothing in our times can be done without elections; nothing can be done without the masses. And in this era of printing and parliamentarism it is impossible to gain the following of the masses without a widely ramified, systematically managed, well-equipped system of flattery, lies, fraud, juggling with fashionable and popular catchwords, and promising all manner of reforms and blessings to the workers right and left—as long as they renounce the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of bourgeoisie. I would call this system Lloyd-Georgism, after the English Minister Lloyd George, one of the foremost and most dexterous representatives of this system in the classic land of the “bourgeois labour party”. A first-class bourgeois manipulator, an astute politician, a popular orator who will deliver any speeches you like even r-r-revolutionary ones, to a labour audience, and a man who is capable of obtaining sizable sops for docile workers in the shape of social reforms (insurance, etc.), Lloyd George serves the bourgeoisie splendidly, and serves it precisely among the workers, brings its influence precisely to the proletariat, to where the bourgeoisie needs it most and where it finds it most difficult to subject the masses morally.”
The following table provides the economic interests of the MPs in British House of Commons – most of the MPs were from elite, aristocrat, and bourgeois class. Could anything else happen? No. Because democracy, nationalism and mass media jointly acted as a glue to pull the plebs, the proletariat, semi-proletariat, and petty bourgeois classes towards the political parties that were the facades of the wealthy patricians, the landed aristocracy, bourgeois, military services etc.
Table: B.2.5
Question: Are you for Gulags, political repressions, class warfare and world revolution?
The question and its choice of words clearly points out to the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, even if that has not been stated explicitly. Well, let me respond only with appropriate facts and figures.
After the departure of the two great masters of Marxism/socialism/communism, the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy influenced and indirectly established ideological control over most of the socialist/labour/social democrat parties and unions in European countries through the troika I mentioned above under section B.2. The minority factions of those European parties/unions who still thought revolutionary socialism was the only way, parted ways with the parent organisations. And, THIS WAS THE SITUATION IN EVERY COUNTRY OF EUROPE FROM BRITAIN IN THE WEST TO RUSSIA IN THE EAST. Marx and Engels were present with all their revolutionary concepts within the books in libraries! In 1910 CE, in the political/ economic/ social life of Europe, Marx and Engels didn’t make any difference whatsoever.
It was Lenin, a leader of the minority revolutionary faction of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in the first decade of 20th century, who rediscovered the original thoughts of Marx and Engels through a careful study of their works. It was Lenin who analysed theories of Marxism/socialism/communism, explored how the concepts can be practically implemented using a political party as a vanguard, formulated the strategies for successful takeover of the state power, analysed how capitalism manifested itself through colonial imperialism, and prepared for a revolution at the world stage. If Marx and Engels were the theoretical leaders, Lenin was the implementer of what the world came to know as Marxist Communism! Lenin brought Marx and Engels to the centre stage of the world politics in 1905 CE with the failed First Russian Revolution, ever since Marx-Engels-Lenin simply refused to move away from the limelight!
During the entire decade of 1901 to 1910, Lenin handled all the deficiencies that plagued the European socialist/labour/ social democratic parties. In ‘What Is To Be Done?’ in 1902 Lenin called for a party of professional revolutionaries, disciplined and directed, capable of defeating the police whose aim should be to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. For Lenin Russian revolutionary workers’ movement must include the peasants – in 1903, at the third congress of the party, he secured a resolution to this effect, after which ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ became ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry’.
Lenin’s interpretation of Marxism (termed as ‘Leninism’ by Martov in 1904) was surely an orthodox one. Like Marx and Engels, he firmly believed that, ‘humanity would eventually reach pure communism, becoming a stateless, classless, egalitarian society’ where workers would be free from exploitation and alienation, people would control their own destiny, and abided by the rule “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” According to Volkogonov, Lenin deeply believed that the path he was setting Russia on would ultimately lead to the establishment of this targeted communist society. In order to build socialism, and then communism, Lenin thought bringing the Russian economy under state control to be the primary task of Bolshevik Party. ‘He believed that the representative democracy of capitalist countries gave the illusion of democracy while maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’. He described the representative democratic system of the USA as the “spectacular and meaningless duels between two bourgeois parties led by astute multimillionaires”.
In 1908, in an article dedicated to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Karl Marx, Lenin characterised reformism as “It is quite natural that the petty bourgeois world outlook should again and again break into the ranks of the broad workers’ parties. It is quite natural that this should be so, and it will always be so, until the climax of the proletarian revolution; for it would be a great mistake to think that the “complete” proletarianisation of the majority of the population is necessary in order to bring about such a revolution. What we now experience more often on the mental plane only — discussions with theoretical additions to Marx what now emerges in working practice only on certain particular questions of the labour movement as tactical differences with the revisionists and splits on these grounds — the working class will have to experience to an immeasurably greater extent when the proletarian revolution makes all debatable questions acute, concentrates all the differences upon points which have most direct significance in determining the attitude of the masses and compels us, in the heat of the battle, to separate enemies from friends, and to expel bad allies in order to deliver decisive blows against the enemy.”
In ‘The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx’ published in 1913 CE Lenin mentioned, “Socialist parties, basically proletarian, were formed everywhere, and learned to use bourgeois parliamentarism and to found their own daily press, their educational institutions, their trade unions and their co-operative societies. Marx’s doctrine gained a complete victory and began to spread. The selection and mustering of the forces of the proletariat and its preparation for the coming battles made slow but steady progress.
“The dialectics of history were such that the theoretical victory of Marxism compelled its enemies to disguise themselves as Marxists. Liberalism, rotten within, tried to revive itself in the form of socialist opportunism. They interpreted the period of preparing the forces for great battles as renunciation of these battles. Improvement of the conditions of the slaves to fight against wage slavery they took to mean the sale by the slaves of their right to liberty for a few pence. They cravenly preached “social peace” (i.e., peace with the slave-owners), renunciation of the class struggle, etc. They had very many adherents among socialist members of parliament, various officials of the working-class movement, and the “sympathising” intelligentsia.
“We do not regard Marx’s theory as something complete and inviolable,” wrote Lenin “on the contrary, we are convinced that … socialists must develop it in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life.”
(C) Russia Showed the Way to Marxism-inspired Socialism After 1917 Revolution
During the most eventful 8 months of Russian Revolution during 1917 CE, too many events of small and great significance happened in Russia which were part of history. I found Stalin’s version the main events as the most concise and crisp write-on on this subject. J V Stalin wrote (refer Trotskyism OR Leninism? … speech delivered at the Plenum of the Communist Group in the A.U.C.C.T.U. on November 19, 1924):
“Let us briefly review the history of the preparation for October according to periods.
1) The period of the Party’s new orientation (March-April). The major facts of this period:
a) the overthrow of tsarism;
b) the formation of the Provisional Government (dictatorship of the bourgeoisie);
c) the appearance of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry);
d) dual power;
e) the April demonstration;
f) the first crisis of power.
The characteristic feature of this period is the fact that there existed together, side by side and simultaneously, both the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry; the latter trusts the former, believes that it is striving for peace, voluntarily surrenders power to the bourgeoisie and thereby becomes an appendage of the bourgeoisie. There are as yet no serious conflicts between the two dictatorships. On the other hand, there is the “Contact Committee.” …
2) The period of the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses (May-August). The major facts of this period:
a) the April demonstration in Petrograd and the formation of the coalition government with the participation of Socialists;
b) the May Day demonstrations in the principal centres of Russia with the slogan of “a democratic peace”;
c) the June demonstration in Petrograd with the principal slogan: “Down with the capitalist ministers!”;
d) the June offensive at the front and the reverses of the Russian army;
e) the July armed demonstration in Petrograd; the Cadet ministers resign from the government;
f) counter-revolutionary troops are called in from the front; the editorial offices of Pravda are wrecked; the counter-revolution launches a struggle against the Soviets and a new coalition government is formed, headed by Kerensky;
g) the Sixth Congress of our Party, which issues the slogan to prepare for an armed uprising;
h) the counter-revolutionary Conference of State and the general strike in Moscow;
i) Kornilov’s unsuccessful march on Petrograd, the revitalising of the Soviets; the Cadets resign and a “Directory” is formed.
The characteristic feature of this period is the intensification of the crisis and the upsetting of the unstable equilibrium between the Soviets and the Provisional Government which, for good or evil, had existed in the preceding period. Dual power has become intolerable for both sides. The fragile edifice of the “Contact Committee” is tottering. “Crisis of power” and “ministerial re-shuffle” are the most fashionable catchwords of the day. The crisis at the front and the disruption in the rear are doing their work, strengthening the extreme flanks and squeezing the defencist compromisers from both sides. The revolution is mobilising, causing the mobilisation of the counter-revolution. The counter-revolution, in its turn, is spurring on the revolution, stirring up new waves of the revolutionary tide. The question of transferring power to the new class becomes the immediate question of the day. …
3) The period of organisation of the assault (September-October). The major facts of this period:
a) the convocation of the Democratic Conference and the collapse of the idea of a bloc with the Cadets;
b) the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets go over to the side of the Bolsheviks;
c) the Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region; the Petrograd Soviet decides against the withdrawal of the troops;
d) the decision of the Central Committee on the uprising and the formation of the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet;
e) the Petrograd garrison decides to render the Petrograd Soviet armed support; a network of commissars of the Revolutionary Military Committee is organised;
f) the Bolshevik armed forces go into action; the members of the Provisional Government are arrested;
g) the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet takes power; the Second Congress of Soviets [from which the Mensheviks and the SRS and the Menshevik Internationalists all walked out leaving Bolsheviks in power] sets up the Council of People’s Commissars.“
Side-lining the endless discussions on the economic stage (i.e. feudal or capitalist or semi-feudal) at which socialist revolution would be successful in a society, Lenin held his ground convincingly, broke with the majority within RSDLP, and continuously year after year preached that the proletarians could organize and lead the democratic revolution in a predominantly agriculture economy if organisation and strategy are appropriate (so that the peasants join the revolution from the beginning). By then Lenin’s faction already became majority and came to be known as Bolsheviks.
The adversaries of Bolshevik communism, who also saw through the despicable lies of the Zionist-Capitalist media, noted the undeniable integrity of the Russian Bolshevik revolutionaries. “The Russian Communists,” wrote the American sociologist, Edward Alsworth Ross, after few years of the revolution, “were men with a vision of a regenerated society which they sought to realize. All the party leaders who in November, 1917, laid rude hands on Russian society to remould it by force were sincere men, since, for the sake of their ideal, they had made themselves targets for the inhuman persecutions that went on under the Czars. When freedom arrived in March, nobody had any standing with the Russian masses who had not stood up for them in those ghastly years when every spokesman for the robbed toilers had to skulk and run and burrow if he would remain at large. These fire-tested revolutionaries had behind them a record of personal disinterestedness and heroism which should put to the blush our smug captains of conservative opinion, who have never risked their lives or freedom for others yet affect to dwell on a higher moral plane than the Russian fighters.” (published in The Russian Soviet Republic, pg.8. New York, 1928.)
Pic C.1: Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, January 1918.
Lenin and his communist revolutionary comrades captured the state power in Russian, which finally proved that a Marxist movement could become a reality in a state. I will not discuss in detail how the Bolshevik Party led the workers’, peasants’, and soldiers’ into Russian Revolution in 1917 – for that, so many well-documented books are available in the market. I will, instead, discuss the significant milestones and the myths that were constructed and propagated by the media and academia during the 20th century in European languages owned by the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy.
MYTH 1 – Since 1917 CE, there had been a consistent media and academia campaign across the world that, the Russian Revolution in November 1917 was a coup engineered by a ‘tiny group of zealots’ or ‘small band of conspirators’ unconnected to the Russian masses.
“I found that far from being the small band of “conspiratorial followers by the numbers” of Lenin in seizing power, from February on the Bolsheviks tried to develop a mass party. They grew enormously among workers and soldiers. They made a great effort to build connections with factory committees in factories and in trade unions getting strength and among garrison troops. More than any other party they were concerned with building roots among the masses and they helped shape mass views but they also were shaped by mass views. The party and in 1917 – far from being a centralized troop movement that …, they became a mass party and a decentralized party with relatively democratic decision-making and this was terribly important in their success. It almost was catastrophic in July 1917 during the abortive July uprising when the left-wing of the party tried to overthrow the Provisional Government and transfer power to the Soviets too early. My sense was that Lenin was opposed to that and that was part of the price of having a decentralized party. But in the long run that internal democracy and that decentralization was critical to the party’s success. On two or three occasions in July, in September and October, Lenin issued orders to overthrow the Provisional Government which leaders on the spot turned down because they could see that it was very risky and probably doomed to failure with Trotsky helping lead and Lenin giving general directions from his hiding place in Finland they developed a strategy that ultimately led to their coming to power, their successful seizure of power. All the moves against the Provisional government were made in the name of “All power to the Soviets,” in the name of “Immediate peace” in the name of transferring power to the Constituent Assembly. When they came to power they got widespread support precisely because the masses were concerned that there would be another counter revolutionary attempt. There had been one attempt in August – the abortive Kornilov coup – they were afraid of another and they looked at the Bolsheviks not as “All power to the Bolsheviks” – that was never said – but “All power to the Soviets,” multi-party Soviets. What enabled the Bolsheviks to take power by themselves was that the Mensheviks and the SRS and the Menshevik Internationalists all walked out of the second Congress of Soviets that proclaimed the new government. The Left SR’s [and Menshevik-Internationalists’ – by the author] refused to get into the government with the Bolsheviks and so the Bolsheviks were able to form a government of their own …
“The April conference, Bolshevik conference, was the first conference after the revolution of the party and Lenin was able to participate. It was sharply divided into a Leninist, a center group and moderate Bolsheviks, right wing Bolsheviks — people like Kamenev and Zinoviev. They fought it out and while Lenin sort of won the main fight regarding the direction of the revolution and the continuation of the revolution and transfer of power to the Soviets, the voice of the moderates was very strong and almost half of the Central Committee were made up of moderates. And when some people on the Left said “Well wait a minute we don’t want all those moderates,” Lenin said, “No we need them. They have ties to the masses and Kamenev’s voice is important.” You’ll find that in the April conference protocols. So that Lenin tolerated that lively debate and that lively debate was essential in September when Lenin called for the immediate seizure of power in mid-September. It was way too early — it’s clear to all historians now that would have been too early — and a majority of the Central Committee and there was a National Conference in Petrograd at the time — a majority of it voted to ignore Lenin’s directives and that was to the good of the party. After the Revolution Lenin more or less conceded it.”
Organisation, not doctrine, was the chief contribution of Lenin’s Bolshevik communism to changing the world. So, three fundamental myth-busting points came out of the above excerpts:
(a) there was a well-established political organisation – RSDLP (Bolshevik communists/socialists) – which was steering the movement
(b) the Bolshevik party also had factions – left wing, centre wing, right wing – which engaged in lively debates before finalizing the course of action
(c) the Bolshevik party was indeed a mass-based party where workers, peasants, soldiers of Russia were preparing to seize power alone since Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries refused to join
MYTH 2 – Since 1917 CE, there has been a consistent campaign across the media world that, the top atheist leaders of Russian Revolution – Lenin and Trotsky – were stooges of Jewish bankers in USA and west Europe, who were instructed to utilise the money given by those bankers to wreck Tsarist Russian empire, Orthodox Church, and Orthodox society.
Reality –
After a decade of investigation into 10 largest archives in USSR, Dr. Alexander Rabinowitch stated, “what I found was that the Bolsheviks came to power not simply without an authoritarian legacy but also without a preconceived plan or concept of how they would govern.… The fact is that the Petrograd Bolsheviks had to transform themselves from rebels into rulers without benefit of an advance plan or even a concept.… Soviet political system were the realities the Bolsheviks faced in their often seemingly hopeless struggle for survival“
As it happened, after the Paris Commune, where for the first time in world history, a leftist revolutionary committee seized power and operated government from 18 March to 28 May 1871, Bolshevik communists repeated that feat for the second time in November 1917 – however, there was NO concept, plan, policy, or procedure of socialist/ communist governance that were successfully followed by the Paris communards or documentation prepared by any other source, for the Bolshevik leadership to refer to. Trotsky and Lenin took loans from the international banking families for managing the expenditures during 1917 revolution, which were repaid by the Bolshevik government after they came to power (post-revolution). But Lenin outmanoeuvred the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy and their governments like the USA, the UK, and France completely. Their revulsion about Lenin was so complete that they refused to recognise USSR while Lenin was alive! Only after his death on 21st January 1924, USSR was recognised by European and American imperialist powers – UK on 2nd February 1924, France on 28th October 1924, Italy on 7th February 1924, and USA on 16th November 1933. It was a completely different affair during the 1917 March revolution – within 12 days of abdication by Tsar, USA, UK, France, Italy governments recognised the Russian government by 24 March 1917.
For at least two centuries, Russian empire was one of the most unequal oppressive hierarchical feudal society, and people from industrial working class, peasantry, soldiers were spontaneously agitating for most basic of the rights – right for food. Historian Alexander Rabinowitch summarised the causes of February 1917 revolution: “The February 1917 revolution… grew out of pre-war political and economic instability, technological backwardness, and fundamental social divisions, coupled with gross mismanagement of the war effort, continuing military defeats, domestic economic dislocation, and outrageous scandals surrounding the monarchy”.
In ‘How The Bourgeois Utilises Renegades’ that was published in September 1919, Lenin copied from a letter written by an American observer that would provide an honest depiction of political instability and violence in Soviet Russia during the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution:
“ Sir:
The Allied governments have refused to recognise the Soviet Government of Russia because, as they state:
1. The Soviet Government is — or was — pro-German.
2. The Soviet Government is based on terrorism.
3. The Soviet Government is undemocratic and unrepresentative of the Russian people.
Meanwhile the Allied governments have long since recognised the present whiteguard Government of Finland under the dictatorship of General Mannerheim, although it appears:
1. That German troops aided the whiteguards in crushing the Socialist Republic of Finland, and that General Mannerheim sent repeated telegrams of sympathy and esteem to the Kaiser. Meanwhile the Soviet Government was busily undermining the German Government with propaganda among troops on the Russian front. The Finnish Government was infinitely more pro-German than the Russian.
2. That the present Government of Finland on coming into power executed in cold blood within a few days’ time 16,700 members of the old Socialist Republic, and imprisoned in starvation camps 70,000 more. Meanwhile the total executions in Russia for the year ended November 1, 1918, were officially stated to have been 3,800, including many corrupt Soviet of officials as well as counter-revolutionists. The Finnish Government was infinitely more terroristic than the Russian.
3. That after killing and imprisoning nearly 90,000 socialists, and driving some 50,000 more over the border into Russia — and Finland is a small country with an electorate of only about 400,000 — the white guard government deemed it sufficiently safe to hold elections. In spite of all precautions, a majority of socialists were elected, but General Mannerheim, like the Allies after the Vladivostok elections, allowed not one of them to be seated. Meanwhile the Soviet Government had disenfranchised all those who do no useful work for a living. The Finnish Government was considerably less democratic than the Russian.
And much the same story might be rehearsed in respect to that great champion of democracy and the new order, Admiral Kolchak of Omsk, whom the Allied governments have supported, supplied and equipped, and are now on the point of officially recognising.
Thus every argument that the Allies have urged against the recognition of the Soviets, can be applied with more strength and honesty against Mannerheim and Kolchak. Yet the latter are recognised, and the blockade draws ever tighter about starving Russia.
Stuart Chase Washington, D.C.
An American liberal [Stuart Chase – author] realises — not because he is theoretically equipped to do so, but simply because he is an attentive observer of developments in a sufficiently broad light, on a world scale — that the world bourgeoisie has organised and is waging a civil war against the revolutionary proletariat and, accordingly, is supporting Kolchak and Denikin in Russia, Mannerheim in Finland, the Georgian Mensheviks, those lackeys of the bourgeoisie, in the Caucasus, the Polish imperialists and Polish Kerenskys in Poland, the Scheidemanns in Germany, the counter-revolutionaries (Mensheviks and capitalists) in Hungary, etc., etc.”
Moreover, Lenin did NOT possess any extra feelings or agenda against the Orthodox religion or society other than his disdain for all that were part of bourgeois society and culture. In ‘Socialism and Religion’ published in Novaya Zhizn, No. 28, December 3. 1905, Lenin stated some obvious sociological facts and simply suggested that atheism could NOT be a programme even in a communist party [personally I had to agree to these statements even if I’m a deeply spiritual person – author], “Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven.
Religion must be declared a private affair…. Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating themselves with our Party. We shall always preach the scientific world-outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various “Christians”. But that does not mean in the least that the religious question ought to be advanced to first place, where it does not belong at all.
Everywhere the reactionary bourgeoisie has concerned itself, and is now beginning to concern itself in Russia, with the fomenting of religious strife — in order thereby to divert the attention of the masses from the really important and fundamental economic and political problems, now being solved in practice by the all-Russian proletariat uniting in revolutionary struggle. This reactionary policy of splitting up the proletarian forces, which today manifests itself mainly in Black-Hundred pogroms, may tomorrow conceive some more subtle forms. We, at any rate, shall oppose it by calmly, consistently and patiently preaching proletarian solidarity and the scientific world-outlook – a preaching alien to any stirring up of secondary differences.”
I would also like to put to rest another myth which is an offshoot of this myth#2 – that the Russian Revolution is a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the Russian orthodox society. It was true that (Ashkenazi) Jews were a persecuted ethnic community across European states – mostly because they were hated across the European societies for being in the business of usury. It was / is true that the world-wide banking and financing system had been under the Jewish oligarchs since past one millennium. But there can be NO simple arithmetic calculation that ALL JEWS were banking elites. On the contrary there would be probably 200 such Jewish families across the world. Hence, majority population of the European Jewish community, who lived in urban ghettos, were still in petty-bourgeois or proletarian class in 19th and 20th century. They were drawn to revolutionary ideas more easily than the rural population of ethnic Europeans. Thus in Russian Revolution, Jews were in disproportionately high numbers compared to ethnic Russians and other minorities. It can’t be ruled, however, that a few of the Jewish leaders of Russian Revolution also formed close coterie (like Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky) and carried out repression against ethnic Russian people (as vengeance) which were NOT part of the Bolshevik Party agenda! That would be completely un-communist behaviour of those leaders, if true.
MYTH 3 – Since 1917 CE, there has been a consistent media and academia campaign in English, French, and Russian language that the leaders of Russian Revolution – the Bolsheviks – were selling out to Germany through signing of the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Reality –
At the onset of WW-I in 1914, Russian Empire consisted of the following regions which are geographically Europe:
• North-Eastern Warsaw-Lublin region of Poland
• Finland
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Moldova (and Transnistria region)
• Russia (west of Ural Mountains)
• Ukraine except Galicia in western end
• Crimea
• Belorussia
German-Austrian advance was stopped at the end of 1915 on the line Riga–Dvinsk–Dünaburg–Baranovichi–Pinsk–Lutsk–Ternopil. Thus, the Russian Empire already lost the following regions/countries in Europe before 1915:
• Lithuania
• Large part of Ukraine
• Large part of Belarus
• Large part of Poland
Russian front line did not change significantly until March 1917 when ‘February Revolution’ was instigated by 3 parties – RSDLP-Menshevik (support base: industrial labour, intellectuals), Socialist Revolutionary Party (support base: peasantry, agrarian labour), and Constitutional Democratic Party (support base: professionals, academicians, lawyers) – to form a Provisional Government in Petrograd by the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. Gross industrial production in 1917 decreased by around 36% of what it had been in 1914. Real wages (inflation adjusted) fell to about 50% compared to what they had been in 1913. In and around Petrograd, discontent with the monarchy erupted into mass protests mainly against food rationing on 23 February (8 March). Mass demonstrations, violent clashes with police and gendarmes, industrial strikes continued for days. On 27 February (12 March) mutinous Russian forces sided with revolutionaries – 3 days later on 15 March Tsar Nicholas II abdicated ending Romanov dynastic rule. In the new post-Tsarist era, State Duma was led first by Prince Georgy Lvov and then by Alexander Kerensky. UK, France, Italy governments recognised the new Russian government on 24 March 1917, while recognition from USA government reached on 22 March.
Various estimates suggest Russian empire had around six million casualties (dead, missing, and wounded) during WW-I before January 1917. On the war front, by January 1917 everything was bleak – inadequate supply of arms-ammunition, food, incompetent officers, war-weariness among soldiers, mutinies among soldiers demanding end to war efforts, abnormally low level of morale among officers and soldiers, etc. And, on the home front burning issues like inflation, poverty, scarcity of food and consumer goods, overstretched railway network, and millions of refugees from German-occupied Russia combined to bring a nightmare in Russian empire. To restore Army’s morale Kerensky launched an offensive (Kerensky Offensive) on 1st July which ended in a military catastrophe – morale of the Russian Army went down further. The utter failure of Kerensky government in all aspects actually became a boon for Bolshevik party.
As soon as Bolshevik party came into power, Lenin issued The Decree on Peace called “upon all the belligerent nations and their governments to start immediate negotiations for peace” – peace may be decorative item for oligarchy and aristocracy, but peace is an essential element of plebeian life. Lenin’s call for cessation of hostilities in WW-I was backed by hard realities of poverty among common Russians and shortage of supplies for Russian Army – Lenin was neither swayed by the aristocratic ‘glory and glamour’ of the Tsarist empire nor influenced by ritualistic ‘patriotism’ parroted by bourgeois and Menshevik socialist politicians.
Trotsky was appointed Commissar of Foreign Affairs in new Bolshevik government. Trotsky appointed Adolph Joffe to represent the Bolsheviks at the peace conference with the Central Powers. The key events were:
(i) An armistice between Russia and the Central Powers (German empire, Austro-Hungarian empire, Bulgaria, and Ottoman empire) was concluded on 15th December 1917. A week later peace negotiations started in Brest-Litovsk
(ii) Kaiser Wilhelm II, Chief of Imperial German Army Paul Hindenburg, Army General Max Hoffmann, Army General Erich Ludendorff, Foreign Minister Richard Kuhlmann, these five high priests of German imperialism were the main actors on German side during negotiation. On the Russian side Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Stalin were main actors during negotiation.
(iii) Germany agreed to Russian demand of peace with “no annexations or indemnities”, but with proposition that Poland and Lithuania will be independent on the basis of ‘self-determination’ (obviously both the so-called independent state will align with German empire). One of the Russian negotiation team member, noted Marxist historian Mikhail Pokrovsky wept and asked how they could speak of “peace without annexations, when Germany was tearing eighteen provinces away from the Russian state”
(iv) On 1st January 1918, the Kaiser discussed with Hoffmann on future German-Polish border during which Hoffman suggested Germany should take a small slice of Poland. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were of different opinion who, being the winning side, wanted much more territorial acquisitions including Baltic countries. Ukrainian Rada declared independence from Russia, and demanded the Polish city of Cholm and its surroundings.
(v) During 1st week of February 1918, a group of ‘Left’ Communists comprising of Nikolai Bukharin and Karl Radek wanted to continue the war with a newly-raised revolutionary force while wait for socialist revolution in Germany, Austria, and Turkey. Trotsky wanted to “announce the termination of the war and demobilization without signing any peace”. Lenin advocated for signing an early deal rather than having even more disastrous treaty after a few more weeks of military defeats.
(vi) Peace negotiation started on 10th February 1918 and Trotsky proposed the German side his concept of ‘no war and no peace’, and abstained from drawing any conclusion
(vii) German General Hoffmann notified Russian team on 16th February 1918 that German Army would resume their attack on Russia because peace treaty was not signed. On 18th February 1918 Lenin’s resolution that Russia sign the
treaty was supported by Central Committee. Lenin convinced the majority of Bolshevik party leadership (most of whom, as a first choice, wanted a new war to be waged against imperialist Central Powers) that a peace treaty with the Central Powers is a must for the new Bolshevik revolution to sustain in the long run – historical facts show, extremely unfavourable environment at that point of time in Russia because (a) Food shortage was rampant which created large scale civil unrest, (b) Tsarist Army was in complete disorder while Red Army was being built from scratch, and (c) lack of strength of German socialist party to compel their government to cease offensive (as part of WW-I) on Russian front
(viii) Germany launched Operation Faustschlag on 18th February 1918. General Hoffmann advanced further into Russian territory till 22nd February 1918, and on 23rd February 1918 he tabled new terms for peace treaty that included withdrawal of all Russian troops from Finland and Ukraine
(ix) Trotsky resigned as foreign minister. Sokolnikov arrived at Brest-Litovsk to represent Soviet Russian Bolshevik government, and the peace treaty (called as Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) was signed on 3rd March 1918
(x) With this treaty, Russia had to renounce all territorial claims in
• Finland
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Ukraine
• Crimea
• Belarus
• Bessarabia
• Russian part of Poland (was under possession of White Army);
Russia was also fined 300 million gold marks. Consequently, Russia lost one third of its population, half of its industrial land, one-fourth of its railway, three quarters of iron ore, and nine-tenth of its coalfields as German side insisted that
Russia has to cede more than 150,000 sq. km. of territories.
(xi) This treaty was annulled by the Armistice of 11th November 1918 when Germany surrendered to the Entente Powers (excluding Russia). The Bolshevik legislature (VTsIK) annulled the treaty on 13th November 1918.
There exists a view shared by so-called “nationalist” and “patriotic” leaders of past and present Russia – had Bolshevik party led by Lenin not interfered with Russia’s involvement in WW-I to sign a peace treaty with Germany (and its allies), Russia would have been in the ‘winning team’ of the Entente Powers and would have got a share of the booty flowing out of the Versailles Treaty signed just 8 months later. This view is untenable when scrutinised deeply. Had Russia been active on the WW-I war front even after February 1918, they could have lost even more territory that could include Russia proper. ‘By 1916, Russian Army was not only hopelessly short of food, clothing, ammunitions, and other logistics in the war front, but Russian Army morale was, to a large extent, shattered; moreover, Red Army was not yet in complete shape. Strategically, Lenin proved to be far-sighted – he could sense that, with USA officially entering the WW-I on 6th April 1917, Entente Powers would win against Central Powers, and those Zionist-Capitalist powers would directly control the vast east European territories (earlier part of Tsar Russia, but lost to Germany during WW-I). Lenin assessed that concluding a peace treaty with Germany in February 1918, while control of at least Russia proper was still with Bolshevik party, was administratively better than, simultaneously facing onslaught of German Army (in absence of a peace treaty) plus assault of White Army buttressed by active support from anti-communist governments of about 15 countries that included significant imperialist power like: UK, France, Italy, Japan, USA etc. History proved Lenin’s sagacity – after the conspiracy by British diplomat Bruce Lockhart to sabotage the Bolshevik government in 1918 got exposed, from 1918 till 1921 the Zionist-Capitalist hyenas were out to dismember Russia proper in dozens of pieces using the White Army generals Yudenich, Kolchak, Denikin, and few others, but with German Army neutralized along most of the front, the Red Army valiantly fought against them for unification of Soviet Russia.’
MYTH 4 – Since 1917 CE, there has been a world-wide propaganda across ALL European, Asian language media and academia about how Soviet Communist Party top leaders indulged in unlimited repression thereby murdering twenty to eighty millions of Russians from 1917 to 1942, of which Gulag was a special type.
Reality –
As per the first and only census done by Tsarist Russian empire, total population in January 1897 across entire empire was 125.640 million. Deducting the population of Poland (including western Ukraine and western Byelorussia), Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Romania, part of Bulgaria which were under the Russian Tsar empire but not part of Soviet Union after World War I when Bolshevik party came into power, the population in January 1897 was only about 95.602 million.
As per the first full census done by USSR after World War I, total population in December 1926 across entire union was 147.028 million – almost 50% increase from the corresponding figure of 95.602 million in 1897. Within this period during 1914 to 1917, WW-I killed-in-action, missing-in-action, and prisoner-of-war caused about 9 million reductions in population:
A study by the Russian military historian G.F. Krivosheev estimated the total mobilization as 15,378,000. Total war dead at 2,254,369 (killed in action 1,200,000; missing and presumed dead 439,369; died of wounds 240,000, gassed 11,000, died from disease 155,000, POW deaths 190,000, deaths due to accidents and other causes 19,000). Wounded 3,749,000. POW 3,343,900.
The USA War Dept. figures for Russian casualties are: Total mobilized force 12,000,000. Total casualties 9,150,000 (including Killed and died 1,700,000, wounded 4,950,000, prisoners and missing 2,500,000).
The UK War Office based on a telegram from Petrograd to Copenhagen in December 1918 listed military casualties of 9,150,000 (including 1,700,000 killed, 1,450,000 disabled, 3,500,000 wounded and 2,500,000 POW).
Apart from WW-I, there was another source of loss of population during the 1897 to 1926 period: loss of population during the civil war between 1917 and 1922 in Russia and other Soviet Union states due to terror-war-disease-famine-emigration. Anti-Bolshevik groups landowners, bankers, middle-class citizens, monarchists, army senior officers, and politicians like liberals-conservatives-democrats as well as non-Bolshevik socialists aligned against the Bolshevik Communist government. The anti-Bolshevik groups were collectively known as ‘White Army’ who controlled significant majority parts of the former Russian Empire between 1918 and 1920. White Army was actively supported by the anti-communist governments of about 15 countries that included UK and its colonies Australia-Canada, France, Italy, Japan, USA, Czechoslovakia, Romania etc. The infamous ‘Red Terror’ of Bolsheviks was actually a response to the ‘White Terror’ unleashed by the anti-revolution forces. The Red Terror was really initiated on August 30, 1918 following attack on Lenin. As the counter-move to the formation of White Army, Lenin entrusted Trotsky the task of creating the Red Army. From 1917 revolution to 1922 formation of the USSR, loss of population could be to the tune of 6 million:
4 million civilian deaths due to disease and famine
1 million deaths due to civil war including red terror and white terror killings
1 million emigrations of elites and aristocrats sympathetic to the ‘White Army’
Let’s do a simple arithmetic calculation as below:
Census population in 1897 adjusting for loss of lands in WW-I = 96 million
Average annual rate of population growth till 1917 = 1.8%
In 1917, calculated population would become = 137.16 million
Deduct 9 million losses in WW-I, revised population in 1917 = 128.16 million
Average annual rate of population growth till 1922 = 1.8%
In 1922, calculated population would become = 140.11 million
Deduct 6 million losses in civil war, revised population in 1922 = 134.11 million
Average annual rate of population growth till 1926 = 1.8%
In 1926, calculated population would become = 144.0 million
Census population in 1926 = 147.0 million
My assumption that the Russian population experienced an annual growth rate of 1.8% during 1897 to 1926 period is probably an over-optimistic one, for Russian regions had notoriously low rate of survival due to extremely heavy death rates on account of disease, cold, and liquor. And, if that assumption holds good, the assumption on loss of population must have been slightly inflated that resulted in calculation of lower than actual population in 1926!
Now, let’s move into the next period 1927 to 1942. During 1927 to 1942 period there were two primary sources of unnatural reduction of population:
The Soviet famine of 1930–1933 was a famine in the major grain-producing regions of Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region, Kazakhstan, South Urals, and West Siberia. Wikipedia noted, “Estimates conclude that 5.7 to 8.7 million people died of famine across the Soviet Union. Major contributing factors to the famine include: the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union of agriculture as a part of the First Five-Year Plan, and forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialization and a decreasing agricultural workforce. Sources disagree on the possible role of drought”. In 2008, the Russian State Duma issued a statement about the famine, stating that within territories of Povolzhe, Central Black Earth Region, Northern Caucasus, Ural, Crimea, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus the estimated death toll was about 7 million people.
It is very easy to identify Stalin as the leader who made terrible mistake about the forced collectivization and the first 5-year plan. But, it is very difficult to point out the alternatives to Stalin even after 90 years! Hobsbawm wrote in his ‘Age of Extremes’, “One of the most sophisticated socialist economists of the 1930s, Oskar Lange, returned from the USA to his native Poland to build socialism, until he came to a London hospital to die. On his death-bed he talked to the friends and admirers who came to visit him, including myself. This, as I recall, is what he said: “If I had been in Russia in the 1920s, I would have been a Bukharinite gradualist. If I had advised on Soviet industrialization, I would have recommended a more flexible and limited set of targets, as indeed the able Russian planners did. And yet, as I think back, I ask myself, again and again: was there an alternative to the indiscriminate, brutal, basically unplanned rush forward of the first Five-Year Plan? I wish I could say there was, but I cannot. I cannot find an answer.” The First Five Year Planning truly changed USSR beyond recognition. “The vast scope of industrialization in the Soviet Union, as against a background of stagnation and decline in almost the whole capitalist world, appears unanswerably in the following gross indices. Industrial production in Germany, thanks solely to feverish war preparations, is now returning to the level of 1929. Production in Great Britain, holding to the apron strings of protectionism, has raised itself 3 or 4 per cent during these six years. Industrial production in the United States has declined approximately 25 per cent; in France, more than 30 per cent. First place among capitalist countries is occupied by Japan, who is furiously arming herself and robbing her neighbours. Her production has risen almost 40 per cent! But even this exceptional index fades before the dynamic of development in the Soviet Union. Her industrial production has increased during this same period approximately 3 1/2 times, or 250 per cent. The heavy industries have increased their production during the last decade (1925 to 1935) more than 10 times. In the first year of the five-year plan (1928 to 1929), capital investments amounted to 5.4 billion roubles; for 1936, 32 billion are indicated.
If in view of the instability of the rouble as a unit of measurement, we lay aside money estimates, we arrive at another unit which is absolutely unquestionable. In December 1913, the Don basin produced 2,275,000 tons of coal; in December 1935, 7,125,000 tons. During the last three years the production of iron has doubled. The production of steel and of the rolling mills has increased almost 2 1/2 times. The output of oil, coal and iron has increased from 3 to 3 1/2 times the pre-war figure. In 1920, when the first plan of electrification was drawn up, there were 10 district power stations in the country with a total power production of 253,000 kilowatts. In 1935, there were already 95 of these stations with a total power of 4,345,000 kilowatts. In 1925, the Soviet Union stood 11th in the production of electro-energy; in 1935, it was second only to Germany and the United States. In the production of coal, the Soviet Union has moved forward from 10th to 4th place. In steel, from 6th to 3rd place. In the production of tractors, to the 1st place in the world. This also is true of the production of sugar.”
Repression of Communist Party led by Stalin certainly caused huge numbers of death between 1934 and 1940. But question remains – how many? Equally important question remains – why the CPSU led by Stalin had to resort to execution in a large scale? The media and academia owned and controlled by the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy had been propagating the outright lies on 10 to 20 million deaths due to ‘Stalinist repression’ during this period in the USSR. To dispel the west European myth, in table 3.1, I will quote extensively from “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years”, written by an international team consisting of Viktor N. Zemskov (Russian researcher), Gabor T. Rittersporn (French researcher), Peter A. Coclanis, J. Arch Getty, James L. Huston, Marc Raeff, Paul W. Schroeder, Carl Strikwerda (all USA professors) and first published in American Historical Review, October 1993. The statistics in table 3.1 shows not even 1 million deaths happened between 1934 and 1942. The statistics in table C.2 shows that only 12% to 33% of the Gulag inmates were due to politically motivated imprisonment
Table: C.1
Table: C.2
I wonder, after considering the above mentioned statistics, how could anybody continue to preach that Lenin-Stalin-Trotsky murdered 20 to 60 million Russians! However, I’m sure about a few of the commenters who will shut their eyes and repeat ad nauseam. HENCE IT IS CLEAR THAT THE ENTIRE GLOBAL MEDIA & ACADEMIA HAD BEEN LYING FOR OVER A CENTURY ABOUT THE COMPLETELY FABRICATED TALE OF A MASS MURDER BY THE BOLSHEVIK PARTY… AND THE FRAUD IS STILL GOING ON! – BUT EVEN IF THE ENTIRE WORLD REPEAT THE SAME LIE, THE LIE DOES NOT BECOME TRUTH!!!
A crucial point still remains to be discussed – why did Stalin resort to large scale repression after 1934? The most profound tragedies of pre-WW-II USSR were intertwined – (i) Sergei Kirov, the most brilliant communist leader among the youth, was killed in 1934 at the age of 48 years by a conspiracy in which most senior Bolshevik leaders (many of them were comrades of Lenin) were involved, (ii) Marshall Tukhachevsky, the most brilliant military general of the Red Army conspired with Nazi Germany to seize state power from CPSU and thereafter surrender large tract of the then USSR to Germany to make peace, (iii) many of the senior leaders of CPSU who were organisers of the revolution and ideologues, including Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov, Radek conspired with militarist German and Japanese leaders to stage a coup and wrest state power from CPSU led by Stalin. People who would like to say that, all those tragedies were not real but fabrication by Stalin need to go through the well-researched book ‘Khruschev Lied’ by Grover Furr [refer link 🡪 https://ia802707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf ].
Moscow trials – ‘Trial of the Sixteen’ in August 1936, ‘Trial of the Seventeen’ in January 1937, ‘Trial of the Twenty-One’ in March 1938 – conclusively proved that the defendants were guilty of conspiracy to overthrow the communist government of USSR. The defendants were neither threatened, nor tortured for any false confessions. The Zionist-Capitalist stooges among CPSU leadership of post-Stalin era (like Khrushchev, and Gorbachev) tried in vain to discredit the Moscow trials and prove the defendants’ confessions were false. However, the truth couldn’t be falsified!
Even considering and acknowledging the facts that:
After 1930 when Trotsky and other leaders of his coterie were completely thrown out of CPSU, they started conspiring with the Zionist bankers based in Europe/USA as well as German/Japanese leaders in order to create disturbances in USSR which would further weaken the USSR economy, and finally Trotsky could capture power, and Marshall Tukhachevsky and his team of Generals tried to seize state power with the help of German/Japanese military leaders
It must be mentioned that somewhat paranoid and autocratic behaviour of Stalin created a problem within the CPSU in terms of organisational disarray which pushed more and more senior leaders to become uneasy with Stalin’s style of functioning, that again created even more distrust in Stalin who finally resorted to massive purge; faced with impending purge, those senior leaders grouped among themselves and conspired, which got finally exposed. The organisational weaknesses were to be covered through increasing bureaucratisation. Hence during the Stalin-era, party congress was NOT held regularly – the 16th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 26 June to 13 July 1930, the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 26 January to 10 February 1934, the 18th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 10 to 21 March 1939, finally the 19th Congress of the CPSU was held from 5 to 14 October 1952, the last under Stalin’s leadership.
MYTH 5 – Since 1924 CE, especially in the Russian, German, and English language media and academia there had been a continuous campaign that Lenin wanted to remove Stalin from leadership position in his ‘last testament’ and entrust Trotsky to lead the party, but Stalin manipulated to stay on.
Reality –
Lenin’s last testament on December 25, 1922 was taken down by M.V; Lenin didn’t want it to be published an discussed other than the CC; it was first published in 1956 in Kommunist (No. 9). It read:
“Our Party relies on two classes and therefore its instability would be possible and its downfall inevitable if there were no agreement between those two classes. In that event this or that measure, and generally all talk about the stability of our C.C., would be futile. No measure of any kind could prevent a split in such a case. But I hope that this is too remote a future and too improbable an event to talk about.
I have in mind stability as a guarantee against a split in the immediate future, and I intend to deal here with a few ideas concerning personal qualities.
I think that from this standpoint the prime factors in the question of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I think relations between them make up the greater part of the danger of a split, which could be avoided, and this purpose, in my opinion, would be served, among other things, by increasing the number of C.C. members to 50 or 100.
Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People’s Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.
These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly.
I shall not give any further appraisals of the personal qualities of other members of the C.C. I shall just recall that the October episode with Zinoviev and Kamenev was, of course, no accident, but neither can the blame for it be laid upon them personally, any more than non-Bolshevism can upon Trotsky.
Speaking of the young C.C. members, I wish to say a few words about Bukharin and Pyatakov. They are, in my opinion, the most outstanding figures (among the youngest ones), and the following must be borne in mind about them: Bukharin is not only a most valuable and major theorist of the Party; he is also rightly considered the favourite of the whole Party, but his theoretical views can be classified as fully Marxist only with great reserve, for there is something scholastic about him (he has never made a study of the dialectics, and, I think, never fully understood it).
As for Pyatakov, he is unquestionably a man of outstanding will and outstanding ability, but shows too much zeal for administrating and the administrative side of the work to be relied upon in a serious political matter.”
In the above note (known as Lenin’s Last Testament) Lenin didn’t assign any role to Trotsky other than mentioning that Trotsky probably was the ‘most capable man’ among the leaders. Neither Lenin mentioned that Stalin had to resign from the position of Secretary-General of the party. He was concerned with the possible break-up between two top leaders, and he was more concerned about the negative characteristics of each of the young promising leaders! The supporters of Trotsky made the entire episode look like Stalin plotted against Trotsky.
Let us consider the track record of Stalin in Bolshevik Party – one of oldest members of the party and a man of the organisation who never distanced himself from the party, Stalin had support of the maximum numbers of the lower and middle level party leaders and activists. Stalin had been one of Lenin’s closest associates all along. Lenin valued Stalin’s traits like ‘firmness of character, tenacity, stubbornness, even ruthlessness and craftiness’.
Trotsky wasn’t a Bolshevik to begin with. Trotsky left the Menshevik Party and would join the Bolshevik Party only during the month of October’1917 when he became sure about the impending revolution. Undoubtedly Trotsky had been one of the most brilliant socialist revolutionary of that era, but his associations proved that he always desired power and position – in 1896 he was a Nardonik, in 1898 he joined RSDLP, in 1903 he joined the Menshevik faction, in 1904 he became a neutral social democrat, in 1915 he came back to the Menshevik Party, in October 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party, in 1923 Trotsky led the Left Opposition faction of Bolsheviks, in 1926 he was part of the United Opposition of the Bolshevik Party. Thus, even if Trotsky played a leading role in both the Russian Revolution of 1905 and that of 1917, after Lenin’s death he fell out with Stalin primarily on the question of party leadership. After Lenin’s death Stalin would submit his resignation from the Politburo (of the CC):
“August 19, 1924
To the Plenum of the CC RCP
One and a half years of working in the Politburo with comrades Zinoviev and Kamanev after the retirement and then the death of Lenin have made perfectly clear to me the impossibility of honest, sincere political work with these comrades within the framework of one small collective. In view of which I request to be considered as having resigned from the Political Buro of the CC.
I request a medical leave for about two months.
At the expiration of this period I request to be sent to Turukhansk region or to the Iakutsk oblast’, or to somewhere abroad in any kind of work that will attract little attention.
I would ask the Plenum [of the C.C. – GF) to decide all these questions in my absence and without explanations from my side, because I consider it harmful for our work to give explanations aside from those remarks that I have already made in the first paragraph of this letter.
I would ask comrade Kuibyshev to distribute copies of this letter to the members of the CC.
With communist greetings,
J. Stalin.”
Not only the rank and file of the Bolshevik Party, but most of its leaders supported Stalin as the Secretary-General, because it was Stalin with whom they struggled shoulder-to-shoulder during two and a half decades – it was obvious that any newcomer like Trotsky would not be as familiar as an old comrade! Had Trotsky accepted that reality, things would not become too messy for him in future – it was a crying shame that the a revolutionary communist leader like Trotsky, the proponent of the theory of ‘permanent revolution’ (complementing Lenin’s attempt of world revolution) would stoop so low as to join hands with Fascist foreign leaders and Zionist international bankers for the sake of wresting political power in USSR.
MYTH 6 – This myth was created and transformed as a new curriculum in the subject of history in European languages – how the Communists under Stalin befriended the Fascists under Hitler to grab good old Poland. God knows how many PhD. Thesis were written and approved in Europe during past 80 years using this myth!
Reality –
It was the master plan of the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy who created the Nazi war-machinery in Germany so that it would fight against the USSR, and when both the sides would become weak due to continuous war of attrition, the Zionist-Capitalist dominated countries like the USA, the UK, and France would appear in the horizon as ‘peace-maker’ and occupy the Eurasian landmass – something which they tried during the Russian civil war but failed miserably!
Mao ZeDong wrote in ‘The Identity of Interests Between The Soviet Union And All Mankind’ on September 28, 1939,
“Some people say that the Soviet Union does not want the world to remain at peace because the outbreak of a world war is to its advantage, and that the present war was precipitated by the Soviet Union’s conclusion of a non-aggression treaty with Germany instead of a treaty of mutual assistance with Britain and France. I consider this view incorrect. The foreign policy of the Soviet Union over a very long period of time has consistently been one of peace, a policy based on the close links between its own interests and those of the overwhelming majority of mankind. For its own socialist construction, the Soviet Union has always needed peace, has always needed to strengthen its peaceful relations with other countries and prevent an anti-Soviet war; for the sake of peace on a world scale, it has also needed to check the aggression of the fascist countries, curb the warmongering of the so-called democratic countries and delay the outbreak of an imperialist world war for as long as possible. The Soviet Union has long devoted great energy to the cause of world peace. For instance, it has joined the League of Nations, signed treaties of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia and tried hard to conclude security pacts with Britain and all other countries that might be willing to have peace. After Germany and Italy jointly invaded Spain and when Britain, the United States and France adopted a policy of nominal “non-intervention” but of actual connivance at their aggression, the Soviet Union opposed the “non-intervention” policy and gave the Spanish republican forces active help in their resistance to Germany and Italy. After Japan invaded China and when the same three powers adopted the same kind of “non-intervention” policy, the Soviet Union not only concluded a non-aggression treaty with China but gave China active help in her resistance. When Britain and France connived at Hitler’s aggression and sacrificed Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union spared no effort in exposing the sinister aims behind the Munich policy and made proposals to Britain and France for checking further aggression. When Poland became the burning question in the spring and summer of this year and it was touch-and-go whether world war would break out, the Soviet Union negotiated with Britain and France for over four months, despite Chamberlain’s and Daladier’s complete lack of sincerity, in an endeavour to conclude a treaty of mutual assistance to prevent the outbreak of war. But all these efforts were blocked by the imperialist policy of the British and French governments, a policy of conniving at, instigating and spreading war, so that eventually the cause of world peace was thwarted and the imperialist world war broke out. The governments of Britain, the United States and France had no genuine desire to prevent this war; on the contrary, they helped to bring it about. Their refusal to come to terms with the Soviet Union and conclude a really effective treaty of mutual assistance based on equality and reciprocity proved that they wanted not peace but war. Everybody knows that in the contemporary world rejection of the Soviet Union means rejection of peace. Even Lloyd George, that typical representative of the British bourgeoisie, knows this. It was in these circumstances, and when Germany agreed to stop her anti-Soviet activities, abandon the Agreement against the Communist International and recognize the inviolability of the Soviet frontiers, that the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty was concluded. The plan of Britain, the United States and France was to egg Germany on to attack the Soviet Union, so that they themselves, “sitting on top of the mountain to watch the tigers fight”, could come down and take over after the Soviet Union and Germany had worn each other out. The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty smashed this plot. In overlooking this plot and the schemes of the Anglo-French imperialists who connived at and instigated war and precipitated a world war, some of our fellow-countrymen have actually been taken in by the sugary propaganda of these schemers. These crafty politicians were not the least bit interested in checking aggression against Spain, against China, or against Austria and Czechoslovakia, on the contrary, they connived at aggression and instigated war, playing the proverbial role of the fisherman who set the snipe and clam at each other and then took advantage of both. They euphemistically described their actions as “non-intervention”, but what they actually did was to “sit on top of the mountain to watch the tigers fight”.
None could express the geopolitical setup of Europe more succinctly than Mao did, as noted above. 1934 Onwards, the period when Hitler went on a steady military build-up in Europe, UK (world’s foremost colonial empire) Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Ramsay MacDonald as well as French (world’s second largest colonial empire) leader Edouard Daladier followed a compromising policy towards Nazi Germany – it was known as the ‘policy of appeasement’ (with German Nazi government). Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, who led foreign policy initiatives since 1934 (centred on concept of ‘collective security’ among all big European powers), commented on such policy of appeasement, “England and France are now unlikely to retreat from the policy they have set out for themselves, which boils down to unilateral satisfaction of the demands of all three aggressors – Germany, Italy and Japan. They will present their claims in turn, and England and France will make them one concession after another. I believe, however, that they will reach a point where the people of England and France will have to stop them. Then, probably, we will … return to the old path of collective security, because there are no other ways for preserving peace“.
Stalin delivered a speech that was broadcast on Soviet Union television on 10th March 1939, in which he not only identified the policy of appeasement, but, he also outlined the objectives of such policy, “The war is being waged by aggressor nations, which in every way infringe upon the interests of non-aggressor states, primarily England, France, and the United States, and the latter withdraw and retreat, making concession after concession to the aggressors. Thus, we are witnessing a blatant carving up of the world and its spheres of influence, at the expense of the non-aggressor states, without any attempt at resistance, and with even a bit of their acquiescence.”
Britain, France and Poland continued to sabotage the collective security talks proposed by Soviet Union. UK and France wouldn’t give any guarantees of attacking Germany in the West in case of war – on the contrary, the Zionist-Capitalist Anglo oligarchy was, in fact, in collusion with Nazi Germany. Poland was generally viewing Russia as a victim for its own colonial war (war between Russia and Poland after Russian Revolution over the Tsarist territory claims counterclaims
still were resonating with Polish leader Pilsudski) and Poland saw Germany as an ally for such an adventure. Poland would not agree to let the Red army engage Germans on Polish territory. Basically the USSR was offered nothing but would have to declare a war on Germany and wait till Germany is done with Poland and invades the USSR.
On March 18 1939, Litvinov again suggested convening a pan-European conference to be attended by Britain, France, Poland, Russia, Romania, and Turkey. During March and April 1939 Europe witnessed hectic parleys over possible tripartite alliance among UK-France-USSR as suggested by USSR through a documented proposal. In the UK Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy on 24th April 1939, Neville Chamberlain opposed the Soviet proposition saying that, “The Soviet’s present proposal was one for a definite military alliance between England, France and Russia; It could not be pretended that such an alliance was necessary in order that the smaller countries of Eastern Europe should be furnished with munitions… Then there was the problem of Poland.” (Who oppose any agreement with USSR based on which USSR participate in fighting against Nazi Germany within Poland boundary). Communist USSR’s Joseph Stalin removed Maxim Litvinov and installed Vyacheslav Molotov thinking Molotov to be a dynamic negotiator. Molotov spent May and June 1939 to work out on the same tripartite alliance, but in vain.
In July 1939 Germany proposed a non-aggression pact to Molotov in which they suggested USSR can get control of most part of the former Tsar empire like:
The western parts of Ukraine and Byelorussia following the Curzon line of demarcation discussed during closure of WW-I (both erstwhile Tsar empire provinces, part of which were taken by Poland between 1918 to 1922)
Bessarabia (erstwhile Tsar empire province, part of which were taken by Romania),
Karelia (part of erstwhile Tsar empire Dutchy of Finland),
Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania in Baltic (erstwhile Tsar empire provinces, independent countries after WW-I)
And, as per the German proposal, rest of the East Europe will come under Nazi Germany sphere of influence either by direct annexation or formation of protectorate. Soviet leadership, after exasperating failure of 5 years of discussions on military pact with UK and France, and in the midst of a massive war since May 1939 with Japanese empire in Khalkhin Gol near Mongolian border, couldn’t miss ‘opportunity’ of getting few extra years (before Nazi assault). On 23rd August 1939 the German–Soviet nonaggression pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) was signed.
USSR regained control of western part of Ukraine and western part of Byelorussia in September 1939 from Poland, and Karelia region from Finland in November 1939. Then USSR moved into Baltic region and Bessarabia in June 1940. While discussing on the land annexation by Soviet Union, on 4th October 1939 Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax said in the House of Lords “… the Soviet government’s actions were to move the border essentially to the line recommended at the Versailles Conference by Lord Curzon… I only cite historical facts and believe they are indisputable.”
Formal military alliance i.e. ‘Berlin Pact’ was signed by Germany-Italy-Japan in September 1940 (original Axis Power). Later on Hungary joined in November 1940, Romania joined in November 1940, Bulgaria joined in March 1941. When Nazi Wehrmacht launched ‘Operation Barbarossa’, the largest military operation in documented history of humankind on 22nd June 1941 (officially authorized by Adolf Hitler on 18 December 1940, but got delayed due to delay in finishing Balkan campaign) across western border of USSR along a 2,900-kilometer war-front with nearly 4 million military personnel from ‘Berlin Pact’ countries, USSR found itself in life-death struggle against the Nazi Wehrmacht. After Red Army won in the most terrifying land battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad, it was the Battle of Kursk (largest tank battle in history) in July 1943 which completely turned the tide in favour of Soviet Red Army. Every passing day the Red Army became unconquerable force that decimated Nazi Wehrmacht single-handedly and liberated entire east Europe before capturing Berlin in May 1945. As analysed by Mikhail Meltyukhov (Russian military historian working at the Russian Institute of Documents and Historical Records Research), during a period of two and half years (from 1 January 1939 to 22 June 1941) when the non-aggression pact with Germany was in effect, USSR increased their military strength assiduously that finally helped the final destruction of Nazi Germany in their eastern front:
• Battle Divisions increased from about 131 to 316 (140% increase)
• Military Personnel increased from 2,485,000 to 5,774,000 (132% increase)
• Battle Tanks increased from about 21,100 to 25,700 (22% increase)
• Aircrafts increased from about 7,700 to 18,700 (143% increase)
On 28th April 1942, FD Roosevelt addressed to the USA: “These Russian forces have destroyed and are destroying more armed power of our enemies – troops, planes, tanks, and guns – than all the other United Nations put together.”Considering the four key perspectives – mobilization, viciousness of struggle, loss of life, and loss of infrastructure – Eastern front was far more significant compared to Western front of WW-II. In the opinion of Norman Davis: “German losses on the Eastern Front accounted for about 80 per cent of the total…”. At the end of the WW-II, Soviet Union had lost about 27 million people, Western Allies lost less than 2 million, Germany lost around 4 million troops in the Eastern front and 1 million on the Western front. Europe and indeed, the world was saved from Fascism by the Soviet citizens.
MYTH 7 – Stalin not only proposed a theory of ‘socialism in one country’ but practically went on to wreck the world revolution after he fell out with Trotsky. The same Zionist-Capitalist media and academia which castigated Stalin for causing harm to Soviet Union society with his ‘authoritarian rule’ simultaneously propagated that Stalin ditched the world revolution to establish order at home!
Reality –
Lenin advocated the core principles of Marx and Engels at every possible opportunity. While writing in ‘Opportunism And The Collapse of The Second International’ that was published in January 1916 in Vorbote No. 1, he mentioned, “What is the economic substance of defencism in the war of 1914-15? The bourgeoisie of all the big powers are waging the war to divide and exploit the world, and oppress other nations. A few crumbs of the bourgeoisie’s huge profits may come the way of the small group of labour bureaucrats, labour aristocrats, and petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers. Social-chauvinism and opportunism have the same class basis, namely, the alliance of a small section of privileged workers with “their” national bourgeoisie against the working-class masses; the alliance between the lackeys of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the class the latter is exploiting.
Opportunism and social-chauvinism have the same political content, namely, class collaboration, repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, repudiation of revolutionary action, unconditional acceptance of bourgeois legality, confidence in the bourgeoisie and lack of confidence in the proletariat. Social-chauvinism is the direct continuation and consummation of British liberal-labour politics, of Millerandism and Bernsteinism.
The struggle between the two main trends in the labour movement — revolutionary socialism and opportunist socialism — fills the entire period from 1889 to 1914. Even today there are two main trends on the attitude to war in every country. Let us drop the bourgeois and opportunist habit of referring to personalities. Let us take the trends in a number of countries. Let us take ten European countries: Germany, Britain, Russia, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Belgium and France. In the first eight the division into opportunist and revolutionary trends corresponds to the division into social-chauvinists and internationalists. In Germany the strongholds of social-chauvinism are Socialistische Monatshefte and Legien and Co., in Britain the Fabians and the Labour Party (the I.L.P has always been allied with them and has supported their organ, and in this bloc it has always been weaker than the social-chauvinists, whereas three-sevenths of the B.S.P. are internationalists); in Russia this trend is represented by Nasha Zarya (now Nashe Dyelo ), by the Organising Committee, and by the Duma group led by Chkheidze; in Italy it is represented by the reformists with Bissolati at their head; in Holland, by Troelstra’s party; in Sweden, by the majority of the Party led by Branting; in Bulgaria, by the so-called “Shiroki” socialists; in Switzerland by Greulich and Co. In all these countries it is the revolutionary Social-Democrats who have voiced a more or less vigorous protest against social chauvinism. France and Belgium are the two exceptions; there internationalism also exists, but is very weak….
Lenin, while preparing for the revolution in Russian Empire, was fervently looking forward to world revolution. Like Marx and Engels, Lenin was a complete internationalist and a keen supporter of world revolution. He wanted to reverse the direction of Euro-socialism that was nothing but opportunist treachery against the toiling masses, with a sincere belief that in a socialist society, the world’s nation-states would inevitably merge and result in a single world government.
While Lenin was abreast of the world-wide politics, economics, and cultural trends, and consequently he could clearly see the reasons for failure of the socialist parties and unions in Europe to seize power at state-level (discussed in detail in this write-up under section B.2 ‘Failure of Marxism-inspired Movements in Europe and Anglo Colonies till 1914’) we don’t have enough evidences to conclude if Lenin could see through the designs of the then Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy in creation of a new world-system centred on USA. However, I still feel had Lenin seen through those sinister plannings (post–1848 Revolutions) of the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy, he would certainly had postponed the world revolution at least for five years until the USSR mustered enough (economic and social) strength internally.
Under the direct guidance of Lenin, the Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was founded at a Congress held in Moscow on 2–6 March 1919 that advocated world-wide communism through world revolution. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to “struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state”.
During Lenin’s lifetime there were three significant failures of the revolutionary movements by the communists in European states as noted below [refer link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International ]:
In Germany the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg led the party activists into a general strike and armed struggles in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. It was against the SPD led by Friedrich Ebert (and Bernstein-Kautsky duo) programmes of social democracy. In 1914 Liebknecht and Luxemburg had founded the Marxist Spartacus League (Spartakusbund). The revolt was crushed by the overwhelming strength of government/paramilitary troops. The leaders – Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered in cold blood with the approval of SPD leaders;
The Hungarian Soviet Republic, a short-lived Communist state existed from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919 which controlled about one-fourth of the Hungary’s historic territory. The leaders Sándor Garbai (head of the government) and Béla Kun (the foreign minister) from the Hungarian Communist Party led the government where in the beginning the majority were socialists. The governing councils exercised power in the name of the working class. The new regime failed to reach an agreement with the Triple Entente that would lead to the lifting of the ongoing economic blockade. A small volunteer army was organized primarily from Budapest factory workers who attempted to recover the lost territories at the hands of neighbouring countries. Initially, with support from the citizens and officers, the republican forces advanced against the Czechoslovakians. However, they finally lost out to the Romanian Army who managed to stop the offensive, and reached Budapest. After a few days, the soviet republic ended on 2 August.
The Italian revolutionary period (Biennio Rosso) between 1919 and 1920 was followed by the violent reaction of the fascist blackshirts militia and eventually Benito Mussolini marched to wrest power at Rome in 1922. The economic crisis at the end of the WW-I with rising inflation, high unemployment and political instability in Italy was characterized by mass strikes and ‘self-management experiments through land and factories occupations’. The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the socialist trade union, the General Confederation of Labour (Confederazione Generale del Lavoro, CGL) increased its membership along with the anarchist Italian Syndicalist Union (Unione Sindacale Italiana, USI). In Turin and Milan, factory councils – which Antonio Gramsci considered to be the Italian equivalent of Russia’s soviets – were formed and many factory occupations took place under the leadership of revolutionary socialists and anarcho-syndicalists. ‘The agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrests, and armed conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias. Industrial action and rural unrest increased significantly: there were 1,663 industrial strikes in 1919, compared to 810 in 1913. More than one million industrial workers were involved in 1919, three times the 1913 figure. The trend continued in 1920, which saw 1,881 industrial strikes. Rural strikes also increased substantially, from 97 in 1913 to 189 by 1920, with over a million peasants taking action. On July 20–21, 1919, a general strike was called in solidarity with the Russian Revolution. In April 1920, Turin metal-workers, in particular at the Fiat plants, went on strike demanding recognition for their ‘factory councils’, a demand the PSI and CGL did not support.’ By 1921, the movement was declining due to massive layoffs and wage cuts. The Fascist blackshirts militia created a reign of terror with the support of Italian industrialists and landowners. The March on Rome of Benito Mussolini installed the first fascist government in October 1922.
It was not that the socio-economic conditions of the common people in the states like Germany, Hungary and Italy were good due to which the people didn’t provide enough support to the revolutionary socialist/communist leaders – on the contrary, the organisational preparedness and campaign among the toiling masses were inadequate in those countries during 1918 to 1922 period. That was the single biggest reason for the successive defeats for the communist internationalists. And, it was also true that just one more success story (apart from Russia) would have created a domino effect in the European continent. After Lenin’s death in January 1924, Trotsky and Zinoviev didn’t find enough support within the Bolshevik Party to continue the programmes on world revolution. Stalin and Bukharin both became doubtful about communist success in Europe. The abandonment of world revolution was finalized as the state policy with Bukharin’s article ‘Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the Absence of the Victory of the West-European Proletariat? (April 1925)’ and Stalin’s article ‘On the Issues of Leninism’ (January 1926). Thereafter Comintern’s main objective became ‘defending the USSR’ while communist takeover of the state was turned into the secondary objective.
Geoff Eley summed up the change in attitude at this time as follows (refer p. 228 of ‘Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000’ published by Oxford University Press): “By the Fifth Comintern Congress in July 1924 […] the collapse of Communist support in Europe tightened the pressure for conformity. A new policy of “Bolshevization” was adopted, which dragooned the CPs toward stricter bureaucratic centralism. This flattened out the earlier diversity of radicalisms, welding them into a single approved model of Communist organization. Only then did the new parties retreat from broader Left arenas into their own belligerent world, even if many local cultures of broader cooperation persisted. Respect for Bolshevik achievements and defence of the Russian Revolution now transmuted into dependency on Moscow and belief in Soviet infallibility. Depressing cycles of “internal rectification” began, disgracing and expelling successive leaderships, so that by the later 1920s many founding Communists had gone.”
Stalin’s political purges of the 1930s affected Comintern activists. At his direction, the Comintern was infused with Soviet secret police and foreign intelligence operatives, which impeded the normal revolutionary activities by the local activists. To an extent this was also the response of the Bolshevik Party towards the saboteurs implanted by the foreign powers.
On 15 May 1943, a declaration of the Executive Committee was sent out to all sections of the third International, calling for the dissolution of the Comintern. In the international media and academia, the dissolution of Comintern was interpreted as Stalin’s message to his WW-II allies – FD Roosevelt and Winston Churchill – for full cooperation and to ‘keep them from suspecting the USSR of pursuing a policy of trying to foment revolution in other countries’ especially which were allies of the USA and the UK.
It won’t be out of place to discuss a VERY SIGNIFICANT BACKGROUND of the world revolution. Marx and Engels definitely suggested world-wide revolution in which the proletarian class would seize power from the bourgeois class. But, none of them actually wrote that the proletarians would win the power struggle directly with the semi-feudal/ feudal class. Lenin and Trotsky opined that in world revolution, the proletarians could win the power struggle directly with any of the feudal / semi-feudal / bourgeois class. Lenin insisted that the proletarians must join with peasant (semi-proletariat) class to be successful while Trotsky’s original theory of permanent revolution assigned the lead role only to the proletarians. After 1917, Trotsky revised his permanent revolution theory to accept Lenin’s thesis. Interestingly, approach-wise Lenin created a new way which assumed that the bourgeoisie domination of the world was complete with the emergence of world-wide colonial imperialism in the late 19th century (something which Marx and Engels didn’t experience in totality), and hence at the national level the struggle could be against any of the classes that was in power. The relationship between international and national parameters in relation to capital and class remained uncertain and disputed during the 19th and 20th century world. WE WOULD COME BACK TO THIS POINT AGAIN IN ‘SECTION D’ TO DISCUSS HOW MAO ZEDONG OF CHINA WENT EVEN FURTHER TAKING A CUE FROM LENIN!
A note on Economic & Social Rejuvenation of the USSR Till mid-1950s
Since 1917, the Bolshevik Party had to go through a very unstable and unorganised turn of events which impacted the economy and the wellbeing of its citizens. The economic events, management of economy, and economic planning in Soviet Union had always been a much debated subject. Instead of following a standard process of describing what happened and how it happened (such descriptions were/are widely available), I’m more interested in providing some thoughtful clue as to conclude how much the Soviet leaders did correctly and what went wrong. In an article named ‘The rise and decline of the Soviet economy’ (published in Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 34, No. 4, November 2001), Robert C. Allen of University of British Columbia wrote:
“In 1928 the country had a small capital stock and a large, ineffectively employed, rural population. The rapid accumulation of capital was the key to rapid growth. The investment rate was pushed up from 8 per cent in 1928 to over 20 per cent in the mid-1930s (Moorsteen and Powell 1966, 364). As a result, the capital stock grew rapidly,” (table C.3).
Table C.3
Parameter
Period: 1928 to 1940
Period: 1950 to 1960
GNP
5.8
5.7
Labour
3.3
1.2
Capital
9.0
9.5
Land
1.6
3.3
Total inputs
4.0
4.0
Productivity
1.7
1.6
Allen continues, “The central issue is explaining this rise in investment. There are three policies or institutions that need to be analysed. The first was the allocation of producer goods. In the 1930s the Five Year Plans increased the fraction of producer goods – machinery and construction – allocated to the producer goods sector itself. Steel and machinery output were high priorities, and their output expanded explosively as the ever greater volumes of steel and machines were ploughed back into those sectors. How much of the accumulation was due to this investment policy?
The second was the collectivization of agriculture. In the industrialization debate of the 1920s Preobrazhensky (1926) is famous for having advocated that heavy industry be financed by the state’s turning the terms of trade against the peasants. In the ‘standard story’ Stalin accomplished this by herding the peasants into collective farms where they were forced to hand over a large fraction of agricultural output at low prices dictated by the state (Millar 1970). While important features of this story have been refuted – for example, agriculture’s terms of trade actually improved during the first Five Year Plan, owing to the thirty-fold inflation of food prices on the unregulated farmers’ markets (Ellman 1975) – the question remains whether investment could have been increased without impoverishing the rural population…
The third was the use of output targets and the corresponding provision of soft budgets to direct industrial enterprises. During the New Economic Policy, industry was organized into trusts and directed to maximize profits. Soft budgets first appeared in the mid-1920s, when the state tried to increased agricultural sales by lowering the prices of manufactured goods (Johnson and Temin 1993). In the 1930s soft budgets became general, as firms were given output targets and the bank credits to finance them. Kornai (1992) criticized these practices in the 1980s, when there was full employment. The question is whether employment-creating policies like soft budgets may have accelerated growth under the surplus labour conditions of the 1930s.”
Allen carried out extensive economic simulations, as he wrote in that article, “The simulations show that collectivization had a negative effect on all indicators – GDP, investment, consumption, and, of course, population – in the mid-1930s. However, collectivization pushed up the growth rate enough in the rest of the decade to raise GDP, capital accumulation, and consumption above the 1939 levels they would have realized had the agrarian system of the
1920s been preserved. Collectivization raised growth by increasing rural-urban migration: First, low procurement prices lowered farm incomes below the level they would have otherwise reached. Migration increased in consequence, since it was a function of the ratio of urban to rural income. Second, the deportation of ‘kulaks’ and state terrorism in general increased the rate of rural-urban migration at every ratio of urban to rural consumption. Terrorism increased economic growth to that small degree.”
Allen’s findings point towards three significant conclusions about economic development of the USSR under Stalin:
“The New Economic Policy, which involved the preservation of peasant farming and a market relationship between town and country, was a conducive framework for rapid industrialization. Collectivization made little additional contribution to this effort”
“The autarchic development of the producer goods sector was a viable source of new capital equipment. Exporting wheat and importing machinery – that is, following comparative advantage – was not necessary for rapid growth
“The central planning of firm output in conjunction with the soft-budget constraint was effective in mobilizing otherwise unemployed labour. This additional employment made a significant contribution to output as well as distributing consumption widely”
The above inferences were more nuanced than the conclusions which were drawn from a position of bias – in short they proved (a) Central planning was effective as a concept and resulted in significant gains, (b) NEP was not an ineffective programme at all.
On the social front, Soviet Union achieved a tremendous success in improving the key index of ‘total life expectancy at birth’. Due to government-sponsored food-for-all, healthcare-for-all, education-for-all, housing-for-all programmes, the commoners benefitted the most – the life expectancy at birth increased phenomenally till 1958 CE (Figure C.1 as given below).
Figure C.1
‘By 1953 when Stalin died, USSR already changed beyond imagination. A country that had, 30 years back, one of the most oppressive society with extreme poverty, widespread illiteracy, very high mortality, and high concentration of wealth within the aristocracy, got transformed into a society where ALL citizens had guaranteed food-education-healthcare-housing-employment-vacation facilities. Soviet Union was the second most powerful country in terms of scientific research, atomic research (second country to test atomic bomb), space research (first country to send space craft), military machinery, and industrial machinery.’ Within three decades, the Communist party under Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into world’s second most powerful state struggling almost singlehandedly against the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy, their governments in Europe and colonies, and their monstrous Fascist offspring. Born to a shoemaker and a house cleaner, with a few years of studies in an Christian Orthodox seminary in Georgia, Stalin turned into a true anti-elitist Marxist Leninist revolutionary who even sacrificed his son during WW-II by refusing to exchange him (in German captivity) with German General (in Soviet captivity).
(D) Communist Party of China Followed Soviet Union With A Splendid Victory
The prospect of partitioning China by the colonial imperialist powers during the end of 19th century elicited from J A Hobson (refer Imperialism, London, 1902) the following economic appraisal: “The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods: all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and semi-manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa…. We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance of Western states, a European federation of Great Powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of agriculture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory [he should have said: prospect] as undeserving of consideration examine the economic and social condition of districts in Southern England today which are already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by the subjection of China to the economic control of similar groups of financiers, investors [rentiers] and political and business officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very probable; but the influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards such a consummation.”
Among all the passionate groups of political activists around the world who would consider themselves as communists and/or Marxists, the Communist Party of China (CPC) was the most outstanding for two reasons: (a) the young leaders were very knowledgeable and analytical about the realities of their society from the Marxist point of view – apart from the Bolshevik leaders such capabilities were indeed rare, (b) those youthful leaders and their followers had tremendous perseverance that was matched ONLY by two other parties in the then world – Russian Bolshevik Party led by Lenin, and Vietnamese Communist Party led by Ho Chi Minh.
CPC leaders were quick to understand the social stratification and the political economy of China during 1920s – with the formal abolition of empire just a decade back, rise of a bourgeoisie democratic party, Kuomintang (KMT) few years back, and foreign imperialist powers recklessly manipulating the economy for their gain, the CPC leaders did their homework quite assiduously as Mao ZeDong wrote in March 1926 in ‘Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society’:
“What is the condition of each of the classes in Chinese society?
The landlord class and the comprador class. In economically backward and semi-colonial China the landlord class and the comprador class are wholly appendages of the international bourgeoisie, depending upon imperialism for their survival and growth.
The middle bourgeoisie. This class represents the capitalist relations of production in China in town and country. The middle bourgeoisie, by which is meant chiefly the national bourgeoisie, … the idea cherished by China’s middle bourgeoisie of an “independent” revolution in which it would play the primary role is a mere illusion.
The petty bourgeoisie. Included in this category are the owner-peasants, the master handicraftsmen, the lower levels of the intellectuals–students, primary and secondary school teachers, lower government functionaries, office clerks, small lawyers–and the small traders.
Although all strata of this class have the same petty-bourgeois economic status, they fall into three different sections. The first section consists of those who have some surplus money or grain, that is, those who, by manual or mental labour, earn more each year than they consume for their own support… while they have no illusions about amassing great fortunes, they invariably desire to climb up into the middle bourgeoisie.
The second section consists of those who in the main are economically self-supporting. They are quite different from the people in the first section; … They feel they cannot earn enough to live on by just putting in as much work as before. To make both ends meet they have to work longer hours, get up earlier, leave off later,
The third section consists of those whose standard of living is falling. Many in this section, who originally belonged to better-off families, are undergoing a gradual change from a position of being barely able to manage to one of living in more and more reduced circumstances…. They are in great mental distress because there is such a contrast between their past and their present.
The semi-proletariat. What is here called the semi-proletariat consists of five categories: (1) the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants, (2) the poor peasants, (3) the small handicraftsmen, (4) the shop assistants and (5) the pedlars. … They feel the constant pinch of poverty and dread of unemployment, because of heavy family burdens and the gap between their earnings and the cost of living;
The proletariat. The modern industrial proletariat numbers about two million. It is not large because China is economically backward. These two million industrial workers are mainly employed in five industries–railways, mining, maritime transport, textiles and shipbuilding–and a great number are enslaved in enterprises owned by foreign capitalists…. The coolies in the cities are also a force meriting attention. They are mostly dockers and rickshaw men, and among them, too, are sewage carters and street cleaners…. By rural proletariat we mean farm labourers hired by the year, the month or the day. Having neither land, farm implements nor funds, they can live only by selling their labour power. Of all the workers they work the longest hours, for the lowest wages, under the worst conditions, and with the least security of employment.
To sum up, it can be seen that our enemies are all those in league with imperialism – the warlords, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them. The leading force in our revolution is the industrial proletariat. Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie. As for the vacillating middle bourgeoisie, their right-wing may become our enemy and their left-wing may become our friend but we must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks.”
In another interesting writing, Mao in May 1930 gave an instruction to party comrades about the approach of problem resolution in a relatively unknown pamphlet ‘Oppose Book Worship’:
“Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense.
It must be borne in mind that the bourgeois parties, too, constantly discuss their tactics of struggle. They are considering how to spread reformist influences among the working class so as to mislead it and turn it away from Communist Party leadership, how to get the rich peasants to put down the uprisings of the poor peasants and how to organize gangsters to suppress the revolutionary struggles.”
With such categorical understanding of the social-economic-political tenets of Marxism and problem-solving as noted above, it was no wonder that the disastrous policies of the Third International (Comintern) couldn’t result in complete rout of the CPC after the Shanghai massacre of April 1927 when the KMT butchered about 5000 CPC cadres followed by execution of another 10,000 communists in Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Changsha during June 1927. The Soviet Union was forced to officially terminate its cooperation with the KMT. In August 1927 CPC founded the Red Army to fight the KMT military, that grew under Mao Zedong and Zhu De to about 130,000 in 1933 before going down to about 8,000 after three Red Army fronts successfully completed their retreat journey over 8000 kilometre to north-west China in October 1935 escaping from the KMT forces (history called it as the Long March). Holding that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” Mao ZeDong and Zhou EnLai emphatically followed Leninist principle of revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people (read proletarians and peasants) against the exploiting classes. Lenin added peasants to the original leading force of proletarians, Mao did the opposite – China being completely feudal agricultural economy with minimum industrial output, he created peasant army in rural China, waged guerrilla warfare, and simultaneously formed unions in the urban centres who would support the armed struggle by the Chinese Red Army (later renamed as People’s Liberation Army).
It was only a matter of time before the CPC bounced back into action. It won’t be an exaggeration to state that CPC was the most loyal follower of Lenin’s teachings – in July 1937 Mao wrote a pamphlet ‘On Practice: On the Relation Between Knowledge And Practice’ in which he stated: “From the Marxist viewpoint, theory is important, and its importance is fully expressed in Lenin’s statement, “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” But Marxism emphasizes the importance of theory precisely and only because it can guide action. If we have a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it and do not put it into practice, then that theory, however good, is of no significance. Knowledge begins with practice, and theoretical knowledge is acquired through practice and must then return to practice… Stalin has well said, “Theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory.“
On 1 October 1949, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong formally proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of China at the new nation’s founding ceremony and inaugural military parade in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. During the long and protracted civil war Mao Zedong lost his wife, a son, two brothers, and sister, Zhou Enlai lost all his children, while Zhu De found decapitated head of his pregnant wife nailed to the city gate. At the time, China was a backward agrarian economy with widespread poverty, lawlessness and illiteracy; of its five hundred million people, eight in every ten people were illiterate, one in every eight people was drug addict. It was a time when peasants had to give away two-thirds of their produce in rent/tax, and people sold themselves to avoid starvation.
The successful Chinese Revolution was a confirmation of the interplay between theory and practice – not in a static state but under a dynamic condition where managing the contradictions became the key to success. Mao was a perfect and sincere student of the teachings of Marx-Engels-Lenin so far his intellectual orientation was concerned. Blended with, what we can call as the Chinese characteristics, Mao and Zhou were in perfect position to implement the Marxist tenets under Chinese conditions. Mao revised the Marxist theory to relate it to the Chinese socio-political conditions. An observer remarked that, “In the 1930s, when Mao talked about contradiction, he meant the contradiction between subjective thought and objective reality. In Dialectal Materialism of 1940, he saw idealism and materialism as two possible correlations between subjective thought and objective reality. In the 1940s, he introduced no new elements into his understanding of the subject-object contradiction. In the 1951 version of On Contradiction, he saw contradiction as a universal principle underlying all processes of development, yet with each contradiction possessed of its own particularity”.
In one of the most outstanding declaration in the post WW-II world, Zhou EnLai in December 1953 (during discussions with India about how to maintain relationship) outlined the shortest but most thoughtful policy of international relations in ‘Five Principles For Peaceful Coexistence’: “The principles that should govern relations between our two countries were put forward soon after the founding of New China, namely, the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
A note on PLA Till mid-1950s
To assess the role of armed struggle in communist-dominated revolutions would be in itself a humongous task. In Russia, during 1917 Revolution ‘Red Army’ was created from scratch primarily under Trotsky; it fought against the White Army + forces of all bourgeois democratic European countries; after winning the civil war in December 1922 Soviet Union was proclaimed; it went through transformation after Marshal Tukhachevsky’s conspiracy was unearthed – Stalin rebuilt the Red Army; during the WW-II Red Army singlehandedly crushed combined European forces under Nazi command and USSR regained most of Tsar era lands by 1945. SO, ANY SERIOUS READER WOULD FIND THAT RED ARMY WAS A KEY INSTRUMENT OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY TO GAIN POWER IN USSR.
In China, the role of armed struggle was even MORE important. Unlike Russia, the Communist Party of Chinese created and nurtured Red Army / Peoples’ Liberation Army much early in the process. During 1927 ‘Red Army’ was created; it fought the civil war against the Kuo Mintang forces and undertook the ‘Long March’ in order to create a safe base by 1934; during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945, the Red Army formed two units (the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army) and battled the Japanese forces as a united front (with Kuo Mintang); after Japanese surrender in WW-II the two units of Red Army was merged and renamed as Peoples’ Liberation Army which resumed their fight against the Kuo Mintang forces; regular fighting in which PLA (assisted by the USSR) was engaged with the Kuo Mintang forces aided by the USA and the UK went on till 1950; from October 1950 to July 1953 the volunteer forces of PLA fought alongside the army of North Korean workers party/communists against the UNO forces led by the USA – PLA lost more than 100 thousand of soldiers, Mao ZeDong’s son being one of them. AGAIN, A DISCERNING READER CAN CONCLUDE THAT RED ARMY / PLA PLAYED A STELLAR ROLE IN ESTABLISHING THE COMMUNIST PARTY TO GAIN POWER IN CHINA.
A note on Economy of the PRC Till mid-1950s
Initial acts after taking over the state power, were swift and effective. The banking system was nationalized and People’s Bank of China became the central bank for the country. The government tightened credit, established value of the currency, implemented centrally controlled government budgets – all of these ensured that inflation was under strict control. CPC undertook a land reform programme through which 45% of the arable land were redistributed to the 65% of peasant families who owned little or no land. These peasants were encouraged to form sort of mutual aid teams among 7-8 households. CPC also nationalised most of the industrial units as soon as they came to power. By 1952, 17% of the industrial units were outside state-owned enterprises compared to about 65% during Kuo Min Tang government.
Senior leaders like Mao, Zhou, and Liu and their factions debated exhaustively on what would the 1st stage of socialism look like and how to achieve that. ‘Marx-Engels-Lenin mostly engaged in deliberating the advent of capitalism in European society, hence theoretical discussions and writings on socialism in ‘Asiatic’ society remained a far cry from what was expected by the 20th century socialist revolutionaries in China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. ‘Treading on the same path taken by Soviet Union, 1949 onwards China went on to implement a mode of production which was essentially ‘state capitalism’. Soviet Union as a state was the owner of the means of production and ‘commodity’ (which by definition is integrated with exchange-value i.e. ‘price’ in the ‘market’) that were produced. Following similar model, China created a new economy that also revolved around commodity production by state-owned enterprises, agricultural output production by state-owned communes and accumulation of capital by the state (through extraction of surplus from the rural agriculture and light industry). In Soviet Union and China, the ideologues termed it ‘socialist commodity’, however, socialism’ can’t theoretically accommodate production of ‘commodity’ that inherently refers to ‘market’. In fact, as Marxism suggests, the concepts of ‘commodity’, ‘market’, ‘capital’ and ‘surplus capital’ are intricately joined with ‘ownership’ of means of production. Marx and Engels were clear that these concepts don’t have place in socialist/ communist society. It is not true that ownership pertains to only ‘private’ citizens, even ‘state’ can own assets to be used as ‘capital’ and the profits out of business gets appropriated by the state authority and its close followers. Undoubtedly, Stalin and Mao being the most committed followers of philosophy and ideology of Marx-Engels-Lenin, were well aware of the final destination of the Marxist journey.’ But then for both of them, accumulation of enough capital was the first milestone which would provide opportunity to implement socialism afterwards. Mao wrote in ‘On State Capitalism on July 9, 1953 (as a comment on a document of the National Conference on Financial and Economic Work held in the summer of 1953), “The present-day capitalist economy in China is a capitalist economy which for the most part is under the control of the People’s Government and which is linked with the state-owned socialist economy in various forms and supervised by the workers. It is not an ordinary but a particular kind of capitalist economy, namely, a state-capitalist economy of a new type. It exists not chiefly to make profits for the capitalists but to meet the needs of the people and the state. True, a share of the profits produced by the workers goes to the capitalists, but that is only a small part, about one quarter, of the total. The remaining three quarters are produced for the workers (in the form of the welfare fund), for the state (in the form of income tax) and for expanding productive capacity (a small part of which produces profits for the capitalists). Therefore, this state-capitalist economy of a new type takes on a socialist character to a very great extent and benefits the workers and the state.”
‘The First Five-Year Plan (1953–57) followed the Soviet Union model which assigned primacy to development of heavy industry. Government of China controlled about 67% as directly state-owned enterprise and 33% as joint state-private enterprise. There was no more privately owned company. Key sectors like Coal and Iron ore mining, Electricity generation, Heavy Machinery manufacturing, Iron and Steel manufacturing, Cement manufacturing etc. were modernised by construction of hundreds of new factories with help from engineers sent by Soviet Union. Growth of industrial production increased at average rate of 19% per year during this period. During this period, more than 90% of cottage/handicraft industries were organized into cooperatives.’
The agricultural sector however didn’t perform as per expectation and only clocked average growth rate of 4% per year. From loosely constructed ‘mutual aid teams’, peasants were encouraged to form ‘cooperatives’, in which individual families still received some income on the basis of their contribution of land. In the next stage, ‘collectives’ were formed on which income was based only on the amount of labour contributed by each family. In addition, each family was allowed to retain a small plot to grow vegetables and fruit for their personal consumption. By 1957 the collectivization process covered 93% of all farm households.
A note on Chinese ‘New Democracy’ & Its Possible Impact On World Revolution
Under section C, while writing on MYTH 7, I discussed about the ‘world revolution’ from theoretical perspective – Marx-Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Bukharin were the main theorists on this VERY SIGNIFICANT subject. And, Mao took the thread from Lenin and developed it further with ingenuity. [I have never indulged in simulations on future geopolitics, before I started writing in The Saker. Here also, I couldn’t help myself but note down a very interesting ‘what-if’ scenario built on the last century. What would had happened if Stalin lived another 10 years when Mao was leading China? Possibility of almost entire Asia and Africa forming a socialist / revolutionary democratic block with USSR as the ‘leader’ and China as the ‘manager’ was VERY REAL! That was not really because of military strength, but because of two fundamentally important vectors in the then international relations – (a) entire Asia and Africa were reeling under colonial imperialism of the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy and its pet bourgeois democratic governments in Europe and the USA, to those oppressed countries 1945 to 1965 was the period of liberation, (b) Lenin’s hypothesis which was further embellished by Mao in 1940 could potentially line up all classes of the Asian and African nations against the colonial imperialist European powers during their liberation struggle. And, it need not be stated that, both Stalin and Mao had that capability, sagacity, and sincerity to complete the journey of ‘world revolution’ in the lands where three-fourth of the world’s population lived!]
The theory Mao suggested in ‘On New Democracy’ in January 1940 contained the following key concepts:
(i) “In terms of social classes, it was a united front of the proletariat, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the [national – by author] bourgeoisie.”
(ii) “a socialist state [USSR – by author] has been established and has proclaimed its readiness to give active support to the liberation movement of all colonies and semi-colonies”
(iii) “In this era, any revolution in a colony or semi-colony that is directed against imperialism, i.e., against the international bourgeoisie or international capitalism, no longer comes within the old category of the bourgeois-democratic world revolution, but within the new category. It is no longer part of the old bourgeois, or capitalist, world revolution, but is part of the new world revolution, the proletarian-socialist world revolution.”
(iv) “Although such a revolution in a colonial and semi-colonial country is still fundamentally bourgeois-democratic in its social character during its first stage or first step, and although its objective mission is to clear the path for the development of capitalism, it is no longer a revolution of the old type led by the bourgeoisie with the aim of establishing a capitalist society and a state under bourgeois dictatorship. It belongs to the new type of revolution led by the proletariat with the aim, in the first stage, of establishing a new-democratic society and a state under the joint dictatorship of all the revolutionary classes. Thus this revolution actually serves the purpose of clearing a still wider path [means development and accumulation of initial capital – author] for the development of socialism. In the course of its progress, there may be a number of further sub-stages, because of changes on the enemy’s side and within the ranks of our allies, but the fundamental character of the revolution remains unchanged.
(v) “Such a revolution attacks imperialism at its very roots, and is therefore not tolerated but opposed by imperialism. However, it is favoured by socialism and supported by the land of socialism and the socialist international proletariat…Therefore, such a revolution inevitably becomes part of the proletarian-socialist world revolution.”
I would like to conclude with my understanding on this issue in a few simple and straight-forward sentences –
If a communist revolutionary has to follow Marx-Engels line-by-line and word-by-word, then Marxism would essentially become another religion with a dedicated band of followers who will worship Marx and Engels along with coded rituals.
Lenin created the channels that will route the ‘sacred texts’ of Marxism towards practical implementation – he had established that (i) the proletarians could ONLY win in a revolution if they get the peasants, (ii) under a bourgeois-led imperialist economy a semi-feudal (industrially) backward country i.e. Russia, the communists could stage a revolution.
Mao went a step further and proved that (i) the combination of the proletarians, the peasants, the petty-bourgeois, the national bourgeois could ALSO win a revolution where the proletarians+the peasants would lead, (ii) in a semi-feudal semi-colonial (industrially) backward country i.e. China the economic growth would be supported by the inclusion of the national bourgeois, only if the proletarians+the peasants dominate the governance.
None of the Marxist leader-cum-theorists however seriously tried to develop any hypothesis/theory on how to achieve the first stage and second stage of communism. We will have to wait.
ANNEXURES
A note on annexures:The two great masters (Marx and Engels) penned dozens of books, and hundreds of pamphlets, all of which are priceless repository for Marxism-Socialism-Communism; outstanding leader-cum-philosophers (controversial or not) of Marxist movements like Lenin, Mao, Gramcsi, Lukács contributed hundreds of serious documents. I have selected 15 pieces — from the writings of the Marxist thinkers and leaders like Engels, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Trotsky & few modern intellectuals like Robert Brenner, Charles Post — all of which, in my opinion, should be read, analysed and debated by every Marxist and non-Marxist political-social activists (who firmly believe in a new humanitarian dawn for the society will come through socialism/communism). These articles / thesis / chapter of book provide the most penetrating analysis regarding the significant undercurrents of history-economic-politics-sociology of the human society in the modern world – it is not that these are unquestionable, far from it, these call for lively debates through which the Marxist and non-Marxist revolutionary movements across the world can LEARN TO WIN IN FUTURE!!!
Annexure1: The English Elections by Frederick Engels
[First published in Der Volkstaat 4 March 1874 (published in book format in ‘Marx Engels On Britain’ by Progress Publishers in 1953)]
The English Parliamentary elections are now over. The brilliant Gladstone, who could not govern with a majority of sixty-six, suddenly dissolved Parliament, ordered elections within eight to fourteen days, and the result was — a majority of fifty against him. The second Parliament elected under the Reform Bill of 1867 and the first by secret ballot has yielded a strong conservative majority. And it is particularly the big industrial cities and factory districts, where the workers are now absolutely in the majority, that send Conservatives to Parliament. How is this?
This is primarily the result of Gladstone’s attempt to effect a coup d’état by means of the elections. The election writs were issued so soon after the dissolution that many towns had hardly five days, most of them hardly eight, and the Irish, Scotch and rural electoral districts at most fourteen days for reflection. Gladstone wanted to stampede the voters, but coup d’état simply won’t work in England and attempts to stampede rebound upon those who engineer them. In consequence, the entire mass of apathetic and wavering voters voted solidly against Gladstone.
Moreover, Gladstone had ruled in a way that directly flouted John Bull’s traditional usage. There is no denying that John Bull is dull-witted enough to consider his government to be not his lord and master, but his servant, and at that the only one of his servants whom he can discharge forthwith without giving any notice. Now, if the party in office time and again allows its ministry, for very practical reasons, to spring a big surprise with theatrical effect on occasions when taxes are reduced or other financial measures instituted, it permits this sort of thing only by way of exception in case of important legislative measures. But Gladstone had made these legislative stage tricks the rule. His major measures were mostly as much of a surprise to his own party as to his opponents. These measures were practically foisted upon the Liberals, because if they did not vote for them they would immediately put the opposition party in power. And if the contents of many of these measures, e.g., the Irish Church Bill and the Irish Land Bill, were for all their wretchedness an abomination to many old liberal-conservative Whigs, so to the whole of the party was the manner in which these bills were forced upon it. But this was not enough for Gladstone. He had secured the abolition of the purchase of army commissions by appealing without the slightest need to the authority of the Crown instead of Parliament, thereby offending his own party. In addition he had surrounded himself with a number of importunate mediocrities who possessed no other talent than the ability to make themselves needlessly obnoxious. Particular mention must be made here of Bruce, Minister of Home Affairs, and Ayrton, the real head of the London local government. The former was distinguished for his rudeness and arrogance towards workers’ deputations; the latter ruled London in a wholly Prussian manner, for instance, in the case of the attempt to suppress the right to hold public meetings in the parks. But since such things simply can’t be done here, as is shown by the fact that the Irish immediately held a huge mass meeting in Hyde Park right under Mr. Ayrton’s nose in spite of the Park ordinance, the Government suffered a number of minor defeats and increasing unpopularity in consequence.
Finally, the secret ballot has enabled a large number of workers who usually were politically passive to vote with impunity against their exploiters and against the party in which they rightly see that of the big barons of industry, namely, the Liberal Party. This is true even where most of these barons, following the prevailing fashion, have gone over to the Conservatives. If the Liberal Party in England does not represent large-scale industry as opposed to big landed property and high finance, it represents nothing at all.
Already the previous Parliament ranked below the average in its general intellectual level. It consisted mainly of the rural gentry and the sons of big landed proprietors, on the one hand, and of bankers, railway directors, brewers, manufacturers and sundry other rich upstarts, on the other; in between, a few statesmen, jurists and professors. Quite a number of the last-named representatives of the “intelligentsia” failed to get elected this time, so that the new Parliament represents big landed property and the money-bags even more exclusively than the preceding one. It differs, however, from the preceding one in comprising two new elements: two workers and about fifty Irish Home Rulers.
As regards the workers it must be stated, to begin with, that no separate political working-class party has existed in England since the downfall of the Chartist Party in the fifties. This is understandable in a country in which the working-class has shared more than anywhere else in the advantages of the immense expansion of its large-scale industry. Nor could it have been otherwise in an England that ruled the world market; and certainly not in a country where the ruling classes have set themselves the task of carrying out, parallel with other concessions, one point of the Chartists’ programme, the People’s Charter, after another. Of the six points of the Charter two have already become law: the secret ballot and the abolition of property qualifications for the suffrage. The third, universal suffrage, has been introduced, at least approximately; the last three points are still entirely unfulfilled: annual parliaments, payment of members, and, most important, equal electoral areas.
Whenever the workers lately took part in general politics in particular organisations they did so almost exclusively as the extreme left wing of the “great Liberal Party” and — in this role they were duped at each election according to all the rules of the game by the great Liberal Party. Then all of a sudden came the Reform Bill which at one blow changed the political status of the workers. In all the big cities they now form the majority of the voters and in England the Government as well as the candidates for Parliament are accustomed to court the electorate. The chairmen and secretaries of Trade Unions and political working-men’s societies, as well as other well-known labour spokesmen who might be expected to be influential in their class, had overnight become important people. They were visited by Members of Parliament, by lords and other well-born rabble, and sympathetic enquiry was suddenly made into the wishes and needs of the working-class. Questions were discussed with these “labour leaders” which formerly evoked a supercilious smile or the mere posture of which used to be condemned; and one contributed to collections for working-class purposes. It ,thereupon quite naturally occurred to the “labour leaders” that they should get themselves elected to Parliament, to which their high-class friends gladly agreed in general, but of course only for the purpose of frustrating as far as possible the election of workers in each particular case. Thus the matter got no further.
Nobody holds it against the “labour leaders” that they would have liked to get into Parliament. The shortest way would have been to proceed at once to form anew a strong workers’ party with a definite programme, and the best political programme they could wish for was the People’s Charter. But the Chartists’ name was in bad odour with the bourgeoisie precisely because theirs had been an outspokenly proletarian party, and so, rather than continue the glorious tradition of the Chartists, the “labour leaders” preferred to deal with their aristocratic friends and be .’respectable,” which in England means acting like a bourgeois. Whereas under the old franchise the workers had to a certain extent been compelled to figure as the tail of the radical bourgeoisie, it was inexcusable to make them go on playing that part after the Reform Bill had opened the door of Parliament to at least sixty working-class candidates.
This was the turning point. In order to get into Parliament the “labour leaders” had recourse, in the first place, to the votes and money of the bourgeoisie and only in the second place to the votes of the workers themselves. But by doing so they ceased to be workers’ candidates and turned themselves into bourgeois candidates. They did not appeal to a working-class party that still had to be formed but to the bourgeois “great Liberal Party.” Among themselves they organised a mutual election assurance society, the Labour Representation League,[1] whose very slender means were derived in the main from bourgeois sources. But this was not all. The radical bourgeois has sense enough to realise that the election of workers to Parliament is becoming more and more inevitable; it is therefore in their interest to keep the prospective working-class candidates under their control and thus postpone their actual election as long, as possible. For that purpose they have their Mr. Samuel Morley, a London millionaire, who does not mind spending a couple of thousand pounds in order, on the one hand, to be able to act as the commanding general of this sham labour general staff and, on the other, with its assistance to let himself be hailed by the masses as a friend of labour, out of gratitude for his duping the workers. And then, about a year ago, when it became ever more likely that Parliament would be dissolved, Morley called his faithful together in the London Tavern. They all appeared, the Potters, Howells, Odgers, Haleses, Mottersheads, Cremers, Eccariuses and the rest of them — a conclave of people every one of whom had served, or at least had offered to serve, during the previous Parliamentary elections, in the pay of the bourgeoisie, as an agitator for the “great Liberal Party.” Under Morley’s chairmanship this conclave drew up a “labour programme” to which any bourgeois could subscribe and which was to form the foundation of a mighty movement to chain the workers politically still more firmly to the bourgeois and, as these gentry thought, to get the “founders” into Parliament. Besides, dangling before their lustful eyes these “founders” already saw a goodly number of Morley’s five-pound notes with which they expected to line their pockets before the election campaign was over. But the whole movement fell through before it had fairly started. Mr. Morley locked his safe and the founders once more disappeared from the scene.
Four weeks ago Gladstone suddenly dissolved Parliament. The inevitable “labour leaders” began to breathe again: either they would get themselves elected or they would again become well-paid itinerant preachers of the cause of the “great Liberal Party.” But alas! the day appointed for the elections was so close that they were cheated out of both chances. True enough, a few did stand for Parliament; but since in England every candidate, before he can be voted upon, must contribute two hundred pounds (1,240 thaler) towards the election expenses and the workers had almost nowhere been organised for this purpose, only such of them could stand as candidates seriously as obtained this sum from the bourgeoisie, i.e., as acted with its gracious permission. With this the bourgeoisie had done its duty and in the elections themselves allowed them all to suffer a complete fiasco.
Only two workers got in, both miners from coal pits. This trade is very strongly organised in three big unions, has considerable means at its disposal, controls an undisputed majority of the voters in some constituencies and has worked systematically for direct representation in Parliament ever since the Reform Acts were passed. The candidates put up were the secretaries of the three Trade Unions. The one, Halliday, lost out in Wales; the other two came out on top: MacDonald in Stafford and Burt in Morpeth. Burt is little known outside of his constituency. MacDonald, however, betrayed the workers of his trade when, during the negotiations on the last mining law, which he attended as the representative of his trade, he sanctioned an amendment which was so grossly in the interests of the capitalists that even the government had not dared to include it in the draft.
At any rate, the ice has been broken and two workers now have seats in the most fashionable debating club of Europe, among those who have declared themselves the first gentlemen of Europe.
Alongside of them sit at least fifty Irish Home Rulers. When the Fenian (Irish-republican) rebellion of 1867 had been quelled and the military leaders of the Fenians had either gradually been caught or driven to emigrate to America, the remnants of the Fenian conspiracy soon lost all importance. Violent insurrection :had no prospect of success for many years, at least until such time as England would again be involved in serious difficulties abroad. Hence a legal movement remained the only possibility, and such a movement was undertaken under the banner of the Home Rulers, who wanted the Irish to be “masters in their own house.” They made the definite demand that the Imperial Parliament in London should cede to a special Irish Parliament in Dublin the right to legislate on all purely Irish questions; very wisely nothing was said meanwhile about what was to be understood as a purely Irish question. This movement, at first scoffed at by the English press, has become so powerful that Irish M.P.’s of the most diverse party complexions- Conservatives and Liberals, Protestants and Catholics (Butt, who leads the movement, is himself a Protestant) and even a native-born Englishman sitting for Golway — have had to join it. For the first time since the days of O’Connell, whose repeal movement collapsed in the general reaction about the same time as the Chartist movement, as a result of the events of 1848 — he had died in 1847 — a well-knit Irish party once again has entered Parliament, but under circumstances that hardly permit it constantly to compromise A la O’Connell with the Liberals or to have individual members of it sell themselves retail to Liberal governments, as after him has become the fashion.
Thus both motive forces of English political development have now entered Parliament: on the one side the workers, on the other the Irish as a compact national party. And even if they may hardly be expected to play a big role in this Parliament — the workers will certainly not — the elections of 1874 have indisputably ushered in a new phase in English political development.
Annexure2: The Peasant Question in France and Germany by Frederick Engels
[Written: between November 15-22, 1894; First Published: in Die Neue Zeit, 1894-95; Translated: by Progress Publishers; Transcribed: by director@marx.org, October 1993]
Part 1: France
The rural population in which we can address ourselves consists of quite different parts, which vary greatly with the various regions.
In the west of Germany, as in France and Belgium, there prevails the small-scale cultivations of small-holding peasants, the majority of whom own and the minority of whom rent their parcels of land.
In the northwest — in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein — we have a preponderance of big and middle peasants who cannot do without male and female farm servants and even day labourers. The same is true of part of Bavaria.
In Prussia east of the Elbe, and in Mecklenburg, we have the regions of big landed estates and large-scale cultivation with hinds, cotters, and day laborers, and in between small and middle peasants in relatively unimportant and steadily decreasing proportion.
In central Germany, all of these forms of production and ownership are found mixed in various proportions, depending upon the locality, without the decided prevalence of any particular form over a large area.
Besides, there are localities varying in extent where the arable land owned or rented is insufficient to provide for the subsistence of the family, but can serve only as the basis for operating a domestic industry and enabling the latter to pay the otherwise incomprehensibly low wages that ensure the steady sale of its products despite all foreign competition.
Which of these subdivisions of the rural population can be won over by the Social-Democratic party? We, of course, investigate this question only in broad outline; we single out only clear-forms. We lack space to give consideration in intermediate stages and mixed rural populations.
Let us begin with the small peasant. Not only is he, of all peasants, the most important for Western Europe in general, but he is also the critical case that decides the entire question. Once we have clarified in our minds our attitude to the small peasant, we have all the data needed to determine our stand relative to the other constituent parts of the rural population.
By small peasant we mean here the owners or tenant — particularly the former — of a patch of land no bigger, as a rule, than he and his family can till, and no smaller than can sustain the family. This small peasant, just like the small handicraftsman, is therefore a toiler who differs from the modern proletarian in that he still possesses his instruments of labour; hence, a survival of a past mode of production. There is a threefold difference between him and his ancestor, the serf, bondman, or, quite exceptionally, the free peasant liable to rent and feudal services. First, in that the French Revolution freed him from feudal services and dues that he owed to the landlord and, in the majority of cases, at least on the left bank of the Rhine, assigned his peasant farm to him as his own free property.
Secondly, in that he lost the protection of, and the right to participate in, the self-administering Mark community, and hence his share in the emoluments of the former common Mark. The common Mark was whisked away partly by the erstwhile feudal lord and partly by enlightened bureaucratic legislation patterned after Roman law. This deprives the small peasant of modern times of the possibility of feeding his draft animals without buying fodder. Economically, however, the loss of the emoluments derived from the Mark by far outweighs the benefits accruing from the abolition of feudal services. The number of peasants unable to keep draft animals of their own is steadily increasing.
Thirdly, the peasant of today has lost half of his former productive activity. Formerly, he and his family produced, from raw material he had made himself, the greater part of the industrial products that he needed; the rest of what he required was supplied by village neighbours who plied a trade in addition to farming and were paid mostly in articles of exchange or in reciprocal services. The family, and still more the village, was self-sufficient, produced almost everything it needed. It was natural economy almost unalloyed; almost no money was necessary. Capitalist production put an end to this by its money economy and large-scale industry. But if the Mark emoluments represented one of the basic conditions of his existence, his industrial side line was another. And thus the peasant sinks ever lower. Taxes, crop failures, divisions of inheritance and litigations drive one peasant after another into the arms of the usurer; the indebtedness becomes more and more general and steadily increases in amount in each case — in brief, our small peasant, like every other survival of a past mode of production, is hopelessly doomed. He is a future proletarian.
As such, he ought to lend a ready ear in socialist propaganda. But he is prevented from doing so for the time being by his deep-rooted sense of property. The more difficult it is for him to defend his endangered patch of land, the more desperately he clings to it, the more he regards the Social-Democrats, who speak of transferring landed property to the whole of society, as just as dangerous a foe as the usurer and lawyer. How is Social-Democracy to overcome this prejudice? What can is offer to the doomed small peasant without becoming untrue to itself?
Here we find a practical point of support in the agrarian programme of the French Socialists of the Marxian trend, a programme which is the more noteworthy as it comes from the classical land of small-peasant economy.
The Marseilles Congress of 1892 adopted the first agrarian programme of the Party. It demands for propertyless rural workers (that is to say, day laborers and hinds): minimum wages fixed by trade unions and community councils; rural trade courts consisting half of workers; prohibition of the sale of common lands; and the leasing of public domain lands to communities which are to rent all this land, whether owned by them or rented, to associations of propertyless families of farm laborers for common cultivation, on conditions that the employment of wage-workers be prohibited and that the communities exercise control; old-age and invalid pensions, to be defrayed by means of a special tax on big landed estates.
For the small peasants, with special consideration for tenant farmers, purchase of machinery by the community to be leased at cost price to the peasants; the formation of peasant co-operatives for the purchase of manure, drain-pipes, seed, etc., and for the sale of the produce; abolition of the real estate transfer tax if the value involved does not exceed 5,000 francs; arbitration commissions of the Irish pattern to reduce exorbitant rentals and compensate quitting tenant farmers and sharecroppers (me’tayers) for appreciation of the land due to them; repeal of article 2102 of the Civil Code which allows a landlord to on the distraint crop, and the abolition of the right of creditors to levy on growing crops; exemption from levy and distraint of a definite amount of farm implements and of the crop, seed, manure, draft animals, in shirt, whatever is indispensable to the peasant for carrying on his business; revision of the general cadastre, which has long been out of date, and until such time a local revision in each community; lastly, free instruction in farming, and agricultural experimental stations.
As we see, the demands made in the interests of the peasants — those made in the interests of the workers do not concern us here, for the time being — are not very far-reaching. Part of them has already been realised elsewhere. The tenants’ arbitration courts follow the Irish prototype by express mention. Peasant co-operatives already exist in the Rhine provinces. The revision of the cadastre has been a constant pious wish of all liberals, and even bureaucrats, throughout Western Europe. The other points, too, could be carried into effect without any substantial impairment of the existing capitalist order. So much simply in characterisation of the programme. No reproach is intended; quite the contrary.
The Party did such a good business with this programme among the peasants in the most diverse parts of France that — since appetite comes with eating — one felt constrained to suit it still more to their taste. It was felt, however, that this would be treading on dangerous ground. How was the peasant to be helped — not the peasant as a future proletarian, but as a present propertied peasant — without violating the basic principles of the general socialist programme? In order to meet this objection, the new practical proposals were prefaced by a theoretical preamble, which seeks to prove that it is in keeping with the principles of socialism to protect small-peasant property from destruction by the capitalist mode of production, although one is perfectly aware that this destruction is inevitable. Let us now examine more closely this preamble as well as the demands themselves, which were adopted by the Nantes Congress in September of this year.
The preamble begins as follows:
Whereas according to the terms of the general programme of the Party producers can be free only in so far as they are in possession of the means of production;
Whereas in the sphere of industry these means of production have already reached such a degree of capitalist centralisation that they can be restored to the producers only in the collective or social form, but in the sphere of agriculture — at least in present-day France — this is by no means the case, the means of production, namely, the land, being in very many localities still in the hands of the individual producers themselves as their individuals possession;
Whereas even if this state of affairs characterized by small-holding ownership is irretrievably doomed (est fatalement appete’ a dispaitre), still it is not for socialism to hasten its doom, as its task does not consist in separating property from labour but, on the contrary, in uniting both of these factors of all production by placing them in the same hands, factors the separation of which entails the servitude and poverty of the workers reduced to proletarians;
Whereas, on the one hand, it is the duty of socialism to put the agricultural proletarians again in possession — collective or social in form — of the great domains after expropriating their present idle ownership, it is, on the other hand, on less its imperative duty to maintain the peasants themselves tilling their patches of land in possession of the same as against the fisk, the usurer, and the encroachments of the newly-arisen big landowners;
Whereas it is expedient to extend this protection also to the producers who as tenants or sharecroppers (me’tayers) cultivate the land owned by others and who, if they exploit day laborers, are to a certain extent compelled to do so because of the exploitation to which they themselves are subjected —
Therefore the Workers’ Party — which unlike the anarchists does not count on an increase and spread of poverty for the transformation of the social order but expects labour and society in general to be emancipated only by the organisation and concerted efforts of the workers of both country and town, by their taking possession of the government and legislation — has adopted the following agrarian programme in order thereby to bring together all the elements of rural production, all occupations which by virtue of various rights and titles utilise the national soil, to wage an identical struggle against the common for: the feudality of landownership.
Now, for a closer examination of these “whereases”.
To being with, the statement in the French programme that freedom of the producers presupposes the possession of the means of production must be supplemented by those immediately following: either as individual possession, which form never and nowhere existed for the producers in general, and is daily being made more impossible by industrial progress; or as common possession, a form the material and intellectual preconditions of which have been established by the development of capitalist society itself; that therefore taking collective possession of the means of production must be fought for by all means at the disposal of the proletariat.
The common possession of the means of production is thus set forth here as the sole principal goal to be striven for. Not only in industry, where the ground has already been prepared, but in general, hence also in agriculture. According to the programme, individual possession never and nowhere obtained generally for all producers; for that very reason, and because industrial progress removes it anyhow, socialism is not interested in maintaining but rather in removing it; because where it exists and in so far as it exists it makes common possession impossible. Once we cite the programme in support of our contention, we must cite the entire programme, which considerably modifies the proposition quoted in Nantes; for it makes the general historical truth expressed in it dependent upon the conditions under which alone it can remain a truth today in Western Europe and North America.
Possession of the means of production by the individual producers nowadays no longer grants these producers real freedom. Handicraft has already been ruined in the cities; in metropolises like London, it has already disappeared entirely, having been superseded by large-scale industry, the sweatshop system and miserable bunglers who thrive on bankruptcy. The self-supporting small peasant is neither in the safe possession of his tiny patch of land, nor is he free. He, as well as his house, his farmstead, and his new fields, belong to the usurer; his livelihood is more uncertain than that of the proletarian, who at least does have tranquil days now and then, which is never the case with the eternally tortured debt slave. Strike out Article 2102 of the Civil Code, provide by law that a definite amount of a peasant’s farm implements, cattle, etc., shall be exempt from levy and distraint; yet you cannot ensure him against an emergency in which he is compelled to sell his cattle “voluntarily”, in which he must sign himself away, body and soul, to the usurer and be glad to get a reprieve. Your attempt to protect the small peasant in his property does not protect his liberty but only the particular form of his servitude; it prolongs a situation in which he can neither live nor die. It is, therefore, entirely out of place here to cite the first paragraph of your programme as authority for your contention.
The preamble states that in present-day France, the means of production — that is, the land — is in very many localities still in the hands of individual producers as their individual possession; that, however, it is not the task of socialism to separate property from labour, but, on the contrary, to unite these two factors of all production by placing them in the same hands. As has already been pointed out, the latter in this general form is by no means the task of socialism. Its task is, rather, only to transfer the means of production to the producers as their common possession. As soon as we lose sight of this, the above statement becomes directly misleading in that it implies that it is the mission of socialism to convert the present sham property of the small peasant in his fields into real property — that is to say, to convert the small tenant into an owner and the indebted owner into a debtless owner. Undoubtedly, socialism is interested to see that the false semblance of peasant property should disappear, but not in this manner.
At any rate, we have now got so far that the preamble can straightforwardly declare it to be the duty of socialism, indeed, its imperative duty,
“to maintain the peasants themselves tilling their patches of land in possession of the same as against the fisk, the usurer and the encroachments of the newly-arisen big landowners.”
The preamble thus imposes upon socialism the imperative duty to carry out something which it had declared to be impossible in the preceding paragraph. It charges it to “maintain” the small-holding ownership of the peasants although it itself states that this form of ownership is “irretrievably doomed”. What are the fisk, the usurer, and the newly-arisen big landowners if not the instruments by means of which capitalist production brings about this inevitable doom? What means “socialism” is to employ to protect the peasant against this trinity, we shall see below.
But not only the small peasant is to be protected in his property. It is likewise
“expedient to extend this protection also to the producers who, as tenants or sharecroppers (Metayers), cultivate the land owned by others and who, if they exploit day laborers, are to a certain extent compelled to do so because of the exploitation to which they themselves are subjected”.
Here, we are entering upon ground that is passing strange. Socialism is particularly opposed to the exploitation of wage labour. And here it is declared to be the imperative duty of socialism to protect the French tenants when they “exploit day laborers”, as the text literally states! And that because they are compelled to do so to a certain by “the exploitation to which they themselves are subjected”!
How easy and pleasant it is to keep on coasting once you are on the toboggan slide! When now the big and middle peasants of Germany come to ask the French Socialists to intercede with the German Party Executive to get the German Social-Democratic Party to protect them in the exploitation of their male and female farm servants, citing in support of the contention the “exploitation to which they themselves are subjected” by usurers, tax collectors, grain speculators and cattle dealers, what will they answer? What guarantee have they that our agrarian big landlords will not send them Count Kanitz (as he also submitted a proposal like theirs, providing for a state monopoly of grain importation) and likewise ask for socialist protection of their exploitation of the rural workers, citing in support “the exploitation to which they themselves are subjected” by stock-jobbers, money lender, and grain speculators?
Let us say here, at the outset, that the intentions of our French friends are not as bad as one would suppose. The above sentence, we are told, is intended to cover only a quite special case — namely, the following: In Northern France, just as in our sugar-beet districts, land is leased to the peasants subject to the obligation to cultivate beets, on conditions which are extremely onerous. They must deliver the beets to a state factory at a price fixed by it, must but definite seed, use a fixed quantity of prescribed fertilizer, and on delivery are badly cheated into t he bargain. We know all about this in Germany, as well. But,if this sort of peasant is to be taken under one’s wing, this must be said openly and expressly. As the sentence reads now, in its unlimited general form, it is a direct violation not only of the French programme, but also of the fundamental principle of socialism in general, and its authors will have no cause for complaint if this careless piece of editing is used against them in various quarters to their intention.
Also capable of such misconstruction are the concluding words of the preamble according to which it is the task of the Socialist Workers’ Party
“to bring together all the elements of rural production, all occupations which, by virtue of various rights and titles, utilize the national soil, to wage an identical struggle against the common foe: the feudality of landownership”.
I flatly deny that the socialist workers’ party of any country is charged with the task of taking into its fold, in addition to the rural proletarians and the small peasants, also the idle and big peasants and perhaps even the tenants of the big estates, the capitalist cattle breeders and other capitalist exploiters of the national soil. To all of them, the feudality of landownership may appear to be a common foe. On certain questions, we may make common cause with them and be able to fight side by side with them for definite aims. We can use in our Party individuals from every class of society, but have no use whatever for any groups representing capitalist, middle-bourgeois,or middle-peasant interests. Here, too, what they mean is not as bad as it looks. The authors evidently never even gave all this a thought. But unfortunately they allowed themselves to be carried away by their zeal for generalization and they must not be surprised if they are taken at their word.
After the preamble come the newly-adopted addenda to the programme itself. They betray the same cursory editing as the preamble.
The article providing that the communities must procure farming machinery and lease it at cost to the peasants is modified so as to provide that the communities are, in the first place, to receive state subsidies for this purpose and, secondly, that the machinery is to be placed at the disposal of the small peasants gratis. This further concession will not be of much avail to the small peasants, whose fields and mode of production permit of but little use of machinery.
Furthermore,
“substitution of a single progressive tax on all incomes upward of 3,000 francs for all existing direct and indirect taxes”.
A similar demand has been included for many years in almost every Social-Democratic programme. But that this demand is raised in the special interests of the small peasants is something new and shows only how little its real scope has been calculated. take Great Britain. There the state budget amounts to 90 million pounds sterling, of which 13.5 to 14 million are accounted for by the income tax. The smaller part of the remaining 76 million is contributed by taxing business (post and telegraph charges, stamp tax), but by far the greater part of it by imposts on articles of mass consumption, by the constantly repeated clipping of small, imperceptible amounts totalling many millions from the incomes of all members of the population, but particularly of tis poorer sections. In present-day society, it is scarcely possible to defray state expenditures in any other way. Suppose the whole 90 million are saddled in Great Britain on the incomes of 120 pounds sterling = 3,000 francs and in excess thereof by the imposition of a progressive direct tax. The average annual accumulation, the annual increase of the aggregate national wealth, amounted in 1865 to 1875, according to Giffen, to 240 million pounds sterling. Let us assume it now equals 200 million annually; a tax burden of 90 million would consume almost one-third of the aggregate accumulation. In other words, no government except a Socialist one can undertake any such thing. When the Socialists are at the helm there will be things for them to carry into execution alongside of which that tax reform will figure as a mere, and quite insignificant, settlement for the moment while altogether different prospects open up before the small peasants.
One seems to realize that the peasant will have to wait rather long for this tax reform so that “in the meantime” (en attendant) the following prospect is held out to them:
“Abolition of taxes on land for all peasants living by their own labour, and reduction of these taxes on all mortgaged plots.”
The latter half of this demand can refer only to peasant farms too big to be operated by the family itself; hence, it is again a provision in favor of peasants who “exploit day laborers”.
Again:
“Hunting and fishing rights without restrictions other than such as may be necessary for the conservation of game and fish and the protection of growing crops.”
This sounds very popular, but the concluding part of the sentence wipes out the introductory part. How many rabbits, partridges, pikes, and carps, are there even today per peasant family in all rural localities? Would you say more than would warrant giving each peasant jut one day a year for free hunting and fishing?
“Lowering of the legal and conventional rate of interest” —
hence, renewed usury laws, a renewed attempt to introduce a police measure that has always filed everywhere for the last two thousand years. If a small peasant finds himself in a position where recourse to a usurer is the lesser evil to him, the usurer will always find ways and means of sucking him dry without falling foul of the usury laws. This measure could serve at most to soothe the small peasant, but he will derive no advantage from it; on the contrary, it makes it more difficult for him to obtain credit precisely when he needs it most.
“Medical service free of charge and medicines at cost price” —
this at any rate is not a measure for the special protection of the peasants. The German programme goes further and demands that medicine too should be free of charge.
“Compensation for families of reservists called up for military duty for the duration of their service” —
this already exists, though most inadequately, in Germany and Austria and is likewise no special peasant demand.
“Lowering of the transport charges for fertilizer and farm machinery and products” —
is on the whole in effect in Germany, and mainly in the interest — of the big landowners.
“Immediate preparatory work for the elaboration of a plan of public works for the amelioration of the soil and the development of agricultural production” —
leaves everything in the realm of uncertitude and beautiful promises and is also above all in the interest of the big landed estates.
In brief, after the tremendous theoretical effort exhibited in the preamble, the practical proposals of the new agrarian programme are even more unrevealing as to the way in which the French Workers’ Party expects to be able to maintain the small peasants in possession of their small holdings, which, on its own territory, are irretrievably doomed.
Part 2: Germany
In one point our French comrades are absolutely right: No lasting revolutionary transformation is possible in France against the will of the small peasant. Only, it seems to me, they have not got the right leverage if they mean to bring the peasant under their influence.
They are bent, it seems, to win over the small peasant forthwith, possibly even for the next general elections. This they can hope to achieve only by making very risky general assurances in defence of which they are compelled to set forth even much more risky theoretical considerations. Then, upon closer examination, it appears that the general assurances are self-contradictory (promise to maintain a state of affairs which, as one declares oneself, is irretrievably doomed) and that the various measures are either wholly without effect (usury laws), or are general workers’ demands or demands which also benefit the big land-owners or finally are such as are of no great importance by any means in promoting the interests of the small peasants. In consequence, the directly practical part of the programme of itself corrects the erroneous initial part and reduces the apparently formidable grandiloquence of the preamble to actually innocent proportions.
Let us say it outright: in view of the prejudices arising out of their entire economic position, their uprising and their isolated mode of life, prejudices nurtured by the bourgeois press and the big land-owners, we can win the mass of the small peasants forthwith only if we can make them a promise which we ourselves know we shall not be able to keep. That is, we must promise them not only to protect their property in any event against all economic forces sweeping upon them, but also to relieve them of the burdens which already now oppress them: to transform the tenant into a free owner and to pay the debts of the owner succumbing to the weight of his mortgage. If we could do this, we should again arrive at the point from which the present situation would necessarily develop anew. We shall not have emancipated the peasant but only given him a reprieve.
But it is not in our interests to win the peasant overnight, only to lose him again on the morrow if we cannot keep our promise. We have no more use for the peasant as a Party member, if he expects us to perpetuate his property in his small holding, than for the small handicraftsman who would fain be perpetuated as a master. These people belong to the anti-Semites. Let them go to the anti-Semites and obtain from the latter the promise to salvage their small enterprises. Once they learn there what these glittering phrases really amount to, and what melodies are fiddled down from the anti-Semitic heavens, they will realize in ever-increasing measure that we who promise less and look for salvation in entirely different quarters are after all more reliable people. If the French had the strident anti-Semitic demagogy we have, they would hardly have committed the Nantes mistake.
What, then, is our attitude towards the small peasantry? How shall we have to deal with it on the day of our accession to power?
To begin with, the French programme is absolutely correct in stating: that we foresee the inevitable doom of the small peasant, but that it is not our mission to hasten it by any interference on our part.
Secondly, it is just as evident that when we are in possession of state power, we shall not even think of forcibly expropriating the small peasants (regardless of whether with or without compensation), as we shall have to do in the case of the big landowners. Our task relative to the small peasant consists, in the first place, in effecting a transition of his private enterprise and private possession to cooperative ones, not forcibly but by dint of example and the proffer of social assistance for this purpose. And then, of course, we shall have ample means of showing to the small peasant prospective advantages that must be obvious to him even today.
Almost 20 years ago, the Danish Socialists, who have only one real city in their country — Copenhagen — and therefore have to rely almost exclusively on peasant propaganda outside of it, were already drawing up such plans. The peasants of a village or parish — there are many big individual homesteads in Denmark — were to pool their land to form a single big farm i order to cultivate it for common account and distribute the yield in proportion to the land, money, and labour contributed. In Denmark, small landed property plays only a secondary role. But, if we apply this idea to a region of small holdings, we shall find that if these are pooled and the aggregate area cultivated on a large scale, part of the labour power employed hitherto is rendered superfluous. It is precisely this saving of labour that represents one of the main advantages of large-scale farming. Employment can be found for this labour in two ways. Either additional land taken from big estates in the neighborhood is placed at the disposal of the peasant co-operative, or the peasants in question are provided with the means and the opportunity of engaging in industry as an accessory calling, primarily and as far as possible for their own use. In either case, their economic position is improved and simultaneously the general social directing agency is assured the necessary influence to transform the peasant co-operative to a higher form, and to equalize the rights and duties of the co-operative as a whole as well as of its individual members with those of the other departments of the entire community. How this is to be carried out in practice in each particular case will depend upon the circumstance of the case and the conditions under which we take possession of political power. We may, thus, possibly be in a position of offer these co-operatives yet further advantages: assumption of their entire mortgage indebtedness by the national bank with a simultaneous sharp reduction of the interest rate; advances from public funds for the establishment of large-scale production (to be made not necessarily or primarily in money but in the form of required products: machinery, artificial fertilizer, etc.), and other advantages.
The main point is, and will be, to make the peasants understand that we can save, preserve their houses and fields for them only by transforming them into co-operative property operated co-operatively. It is precisely the individual farming conditioned by individual ownership that drives the peasants to their doom. If they insist on individual operation, they will inevitably be driven from house and home and their antiquated mode of production superseded by capitalist large-scale production. That is how the matter stands. Now, we come along and offer the peasants the opportunity of introducing large-scale production themselves, not for account of the capitalists but for their own, common account. Should it really be impossible to make the peasants understand that this is in their own interest, that it is the sole means of their salvation?
Neither now, nor at any time in the future, can we promise the small-holding peasants to preserve their individual property and individual enterprise against the overwhelming power of capitalist production. We can only promise then that we shall not interfere in their property relations by force, against their will. Moreover, we can advocate that the struggle of the capitalists and big landlords against the small peasants should be waged from now on with a minimum of unfair means and that direct robbery and cheating, which are practiced only too often, be as far as possible prevented. In this we shall succeed only in exceptional cases. Under the developed capitalist mode of production, nobody can tell where honesty ends and cheating begins. But always it will make a considerable difference whether public authority is on the side of the cheater or the cheated. We, of course, are decidedly on the side of the small peasant; we shall do everything at all permissible to make his lot more bearable, to facilitate his transition to the co-operative should he decide to do so, and even to make it possible for him to remain on his small holding for a protracted length of time to think the matter over, should he still be unable to bring himself to this decision. We do this not only because we consider the small peasant living by his own labour as virtually belonging to us, but also in the direct interest of the Party. The greater the number of peasants whom we can save from being actually hurled down into the proletariat, whom we can win to our side while they are still peasants, the more quickly and easily the social transformation will be accomplished. It will serve us nought to wait with this transformation until capitalist production has developed everywhere to its utmost consequences, until the last small handicraftsman and the last small peasant have fallen victim to capitalist large-scale production. The material sacrifice to be made for this purpose in the interest of the peasants and to be defrayed out of public funds can, from the point of view of capitalist economy, be viewed only as money thrown away, but it is nevertheless an excellent investment because it will effect a perhaps tenfold saving in the cost of the social reorganization in general. In this sense, we can, therefore, afford to deal very liberally with the peasants. This is not the place to go into details, to make concrete proposals to that end; here we can deal only with general principles.
Accordingly, we can do no greater disservice to the Party as well as to the small peasants than to make promises that even only create the impression that we intend to preserve the small holdings permanently. It would mean directly to block the way of the peasants to their emancipation and to degrade the Party to the level of rowdy anti-Semitism. On the contrary, it is the duty of our Party to make clear to the peasants again and again that their position is absolutely hopeless as long as capitalism holds sway, that it is absolutely impossible to preserve their small holdings for them as such, that capitalist large-scale production is absolutely sure to run over their impotent antiquated system of small production as a train runs over a pushcart. If we do this, we shall act in conformity with the inevitable trend of economic development, and this development will not fail to bring our words home to the small peasants.
Incidentally, I cannot leave this subject without expressing my conviction that the authors of the Nantes programme are also essentially of my opinion. Their insight is much too great for them not to know that areas now divided into small holdings are also bound to become common property. They themselves admit that small-holding ownership is destined to disappear. The report of the National Council drawn up by Lafargue and delivered at the Congress of Nantes likewise fully corroborates this view. It has been published in German in the Berlin Sozialdemokrat of October 18 of this year. The contradictory nature of the expressions used in the Nantes programme itself betrays the fact what the authors actually say is not what they want to say. If they are not understood and their statements misused, as has already happened, that is of course their own fault. At any rate, they will have to elucidate their programme and the next French congress revise it thoroughly.
We now come to the bigger peasants. Here as a result of the division of inheritance as well as indebtedness and forced sales of land we find a variegated pattern of intermediate stages, from small-holding peasant to big peasant proprietor, who has retained his old patrimony intact or even added to it. Where the middle peasant lives among small-holding peasants, his interests and views will not differ greatly from theirs; he knows, from his own experience, how many of his kind have already sunk to the level of small peasants. But where middle and big peasants predominate and the operation of the farms requires, generally, the help of male and female servants, it is quite a different matter. Of course a workers’ party has to fight, in the first place, on behalf of the wage-workers — that is, for the male and female servantry and the day laborers. It is unquestionably forbidden to make any promises to the peasants which include the continuance of the wage slavery of the workers. But, as long as the big and middle peasants continue to exist, as such they cannot manage without wage-workers. If it would, therefore, be downright folly on our part to hold out prospects to the small-holding peasants of continuing permanently to be such, it would border on treason were we to promise the same to the big and middle peasants.
We have here again the parallel case of the handicraftsmen in the cities. True, they are more ruined than the peasants, but there still are some who employ journeymen in addition to apprentices, or for whom apprentices do the work of journeymen. Let those of these master craftsmen who want to perpetuate their existence as such cast in their lot with the anti-Semites until they have convinced themselves that they get no help in that quarter either. The rest, who have realized that their mode of production is inevitably doomed, are coming over to us and, moreover, are ready in future to share the lot that is in store for all other workers. The same applies to the big and middle peasants. It goes without saying that we are more interested in their male and female servants and day laborers than in them themselves. If these peasants want to be guaranteed the continued existence of their enterprises, we are in no position whatever to assure them of that. They must then take their place among the anti-Semites, peasant leaguers, and similar parties who derive pleasure from promising everything and keeping nothing. We are economically certain that the big and middle peasants must likewise inevitably succumb to the competition of capitalist production, and the cheap overseas corn, as is proved by the growing indebtedness and the everywhere evident decay of these peasants as well. We can do nothing against this decay except recommend here too the pooling of farms to form co-operative enterprises, in which the exploitation of wage labour will be eliminated more and more, and their gradual transformation into branches of the great national producers’ co-operative with each branch enjoying equal rights and duties can be instituted. If these peasants realize the inevitability of the doom of their present mode of production and draw the necessary conclusions they will come to us and it will be incumbent upon us to facilitate, to the best of our ability, also their transition to the changed mode of production. Otherwise, we shall have to abandon them to their fate and address ourselves to their wage-workers, among whom we shall not fail to find sympathy. Most likely, we shall be able to abstain here as well from resorting to forcible expropriation, and as for the rest to count on future economic developments making also these harder pates amenable to reason.
Only the big landed estates present a perfectly simple case. Here, we are dealing with undisguised capitalist production and no scruples of any sort need restrain us. Here, we are confronted by rural proletarians in masses and our task is clear. As soon as out Party is in possession of political power, it has simply to expropriate the big landed proprietors, just like the manufacturers in industry. Whether this expropriation is to be compensated for or not will, to a great extent, depend not upon us but the circumstances under which we obtain power, and particularly upon the attitude adopted by these gentry, the big landowners, themselves. We by no mens consider compensation as impermissible in any event; Marx told me (and how many times!) that, in his opinion, we would get off cheapest if we could buy out the whole lot of them. But, this does not concern us here. The big estates, thus restored to the community, are to be turned over by us to the rural workers who are already cultivating them and are to be organized into co-operatives. They are to be assigned to them for their use and benefit under the control of the community. Nothing can as yet be stated as to the terms of their tenure. At any rate, the transformation of the capitalist enterprise into a social enterprise is here fully prepared for and can be carried into execution overnight, precisely as in Mr. Krupp’s or Mr. von Stumm’s factory. And the example of these agricultural co-operatives would convince also the last of the still resistant small-holding peasants, and surely also many big peasants, of the advantages of co-operative, large-scale production.
Thus, we can open up prospects here before the rural proletarians as splendid as those facing the industrial workers, and it can be only a question of time, and of only a very short time, before we win over to our side the rural workers of Prussia east of the Elbe. But once we have the East-Elbe rural workers, a different wind will blow at once all over Germany. The actual semi-servitude of the East-Elbe rural workers is the main basis of the domination of Prussian Junkerdom and thus of Prussia’s specific overlordship in Germany. It is the Junkers east of the Elbe who have created and preserved the specifically Prussian character of the bureaucracy as well as of the body of army officers — the Junkers, who are being reduced more and more to ruin by their indebtedness, impoverishment, and parasitism, at state and private cost and for that very reason cling the more desperately to the dominion which they exercise; the Junkers, whose haughtiness, bigotry, and arrogance, have brought the German Reich of the Prussian nation [3] within the country into such hatred — even when every allowance is made for the fact that at present this Reich is inevitable as the sole form in which national unity can now be attained — and abroad so little respect despite its brilliant victories. The power of these Junkers is grounded on the fact that within the compact territory of the seven old Prussian provinces — that is, approximately one-third of the entire territory of the Reich — they have at their disposal the landed property, which here brings with it both social and political power. And not only the landed property but, through their beet-sugar refineries and liquor distilleries, also the most important industries of this area. Neither the big landowners of the rest of Germany nor the big industrialists are in a similarly favorable positions. Neither of them have a compact kingdom at their disposal. Both are scattered over a wide stretch of territory and complete among themselves and with other social elements and compete among themselves and with other social elements surrounding them for economic and political predominance. But, the economic foundation of this domination of the Prussian Junkers is steadily deteriorating. Here, too, indebtedness and impoverishment are spreading irresistibly, despite all state assistance (and since Frederick II, this item is included in every regular Junker budget). Only the actual semi-serfdom sanctioned by law and custom and the resulting possibility of the unlimited exploitation of the rural workers, still barely keep the drowning Junkers above water. Sow the seed of Social-Democracy among these workers, give them the courage and cohesion to insist upon their rights, and the glory of the Junkers will be put to an end. The great reactionary power, which to Germany represents the same barbarous, predatory element as Russian tsardom does to the whole of Europe, will collapse like a pricked bubble. The “picked regiments” of the Prussian army will become Social-Democratic, which will result in a shift of power that is pregnant with an entire upheaval. But, for this reason, it is of vastly greater importance to win the rural proletariat east of the Elbe than the small peasants of Western Germany, or yet the middle peasants of Southern Germany. It is here, in East-Elbe Prussia, that the decisive battle of our cause will have to be fought and for this very reason both government and Junkerdom will do their utmost to prevent our gaining access here. And should, as we are threatened, new violent measures be resorted to to impede the spread of our Party, their primary purpose will be to protect the East-Elbe rural proletariat from our propaganda. It’s all the same to us. We shall win it nevertheless.
Annexure3: British Pacifism and the British Dislike of Theory by V I Lenin
[Written in June 1915, First published in Pravda No. 169 on July 27, 1924]
Political freedom has hitherto been far more extensive in Britain than elsewhere in Europe. Here, more than anywhere else, the bourgeoisie are used to governing and know how to govern. The relations between the classes are more developed and in many respects clearer than in other countries. The absence of conscription gives the people more liberty in their attitude towards the war in the sense that anyone may refuse to join the colours, which is why the government (which in Britain is a committee, in its purest form, for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie) are compelled to bend every effort to rouse “popular” enthusiasm for the war. That aim could never be attained without a radical change in the laws, had the mass of proletarians not been completely disorganised and demoralised by the desertion to a Liberal, i.e., bourgeois, policy, of a minority of the best placed, skilled and unionised workers. The British trade unions comprise about one-fifth of all wage workers. Most trade union leaders are Liberals; Marx long ago called them agents of the bourgeoisie.
All these features of Britain help us, on the one hand, better to understand the essence of present-day social-chauvinism, that essence being identical in autocratic and democratic countries, in militarist and conscription-free countries; on the other hand, they help us to appreciate, on the basis of facts, the significance of that compromise with social-chauvinism which is expressed, for instance, in the extolling of the slogan of peace, etc.
The Fabian Society is undoubtedly the most consummate expression of opportunism and of Liberal-Labour policy. The reader should look into the correspondence of Marx and Engels with Sorge (two Russian translations of which have appeared). There he will find an excellent characterisation of that society given by Engels, who treats Messrs. Sidney Webb & Co. as a gang of bourgeois rogues who would demoralise the workers, influence them in a counter-revolutionary spirit. One may vouch for the fact that no Second International leader with any responsibility and influence has ever attempted to refute this estimation of Engels’s, or even to doubt its correctness.
Let us now compare the facts, leaving theory aside for a moment. You will see that the Fabians’ behaviour during the war (see, for instance, their weekly paper, The New Statesman[2]), and that of the German Social-Democratic Party, including Kautsky, are identical. The same direct and indirect defence of social-chauvinism; the same combination of that defence with a readiness to utter all sorts of kindly, humane and near-Left phrases about peace, disarmament, etc., etc.
The fact stands, and the conclusion to be drawn—however unpleasant it may be to various persons—is inescapably and undoubtedly the following: in practice the leaders of the present-day German Social-Democratic Party, including Kautsky, are exactly the same kind of agents of the bourgeoisie that Engels called the Fabians long ago. The Fabians’ non-recognition of Marxism and its “recognition” by Kautsky and Co. make no difference whatever in the essentials, in the facts of politics; the only thing proved is that some writers, politicians, etc., have converted Marxism into Struvism. Their hypocrisy is not a private vice with them; in individual cases they may be highly virtuous heads of families; their hypocrisy is the result of the objective falseness of their social status: they are supposed to represent the revolutionary proletariat, whereas they are actually agents charged with the business of inculcating bourgeois, chauvinist ideas in the proletariat.
The Fabians are more sincere and honest than Kautsky and Co., because they have not promised to stand for revolution; politically, however, they are of the same kidney.
The long history of Britain’s political freedom and the developed condition of her political life in general, and of her bourgeoisie in particular, have resulted in various shades of bourgeois opinion being able to find rapid, free and open expression in that country’s new political organisations. One such organisation is the Union of Democratic Control, whose secretary and treasurer is E. D. Morel, now a regular contributor to The Labour Leader, the Independent Labour Party’s central organ. This individual was for several years the Liberal Party’s nominee for the Birkenhead constituency. When Morel came out against the war, shortly after its outbreak, the committee of the Birkenhead Liberal association notified him, in a letter dated October 2, 1914, that his candidature would no longer be acceptable, i.e., he was simply expelled from the Party. Morel replied to this in a letter of October 14, which he subsequently published as a pamphlet entitled The Outbreak of the War. Like a number of other articles by Morel, the pamphlet exposes his government, proving the falseness of assertions that the rape of Belgium’s neutrality caused the war, or that the war is aimed at the destruction of Prussian imperialism, etc., etc. Morel defends the programme of the Union of Democratic Control—peace, disarmament, all territories to have the right of self-determination by plebiscite, and the democratic control of foreign policy.
All this shows that as an individual, Morel undoubtedly deserves credit for his sincere sympathy with democracy, for turning away from the jingoist bourgeoisie to the pacifist bourgeoisie. When Morel cites the facts to prove that his government duped the people when it denied the existence of secret treaties although such treaties actually existed; that the British bourgeoisie, as early as 1887, fully realised that Belgium’s neutrality would inevitably be violated in the event of a Franco-German war, and emphatically rejected the idea of interfering (Germany not yet being a dangerous competitor!); that in a number of books published before the war French militarists such as Colonel Boucher quite openly acknowledged the existence of plans for an aggressive war by France and Russia against Germany; that the well-known British military authority, Colonel Repington, admitted in 1911 in the press, that the growth of Russian armaments after 1905 had been a threat to Germany—when Morel reveals all this, we cannot but admit that we are dealing with an exceptionally honest and courageous bourgeois, who is not afraid to break with his own party.
Yet anyone will at once concede that, after all, Morel is a bourgeois, whose talk about peace and disarmament is a lot of empty phrases, since without revolutionary action by the proletariat there can be neither a democratic peace nor disarmament. Though he has broken with the Liberals on the question of the present war, Morel remains a Liberal on all other economic and political issues. Why is it, then, that when Kautsky, in Germany, gives a Marxist guise to the self-same bourgeois phrases about peace and disarmament, this is not considered hypocrisy on his part, but stands to his merit? Only the undeveloped character of political relations and the absence of political freedom prevent the formation in Germany, as rapidly and smoothly as in Britain, of a bourgeois league for peace and disarmament, with Kautsky’s programme.
Let us, then, admit the truth that Kautsky’s stand is that of a pacifist bourgeois, not of a revolutionary Social-Democrat.
The events we are living amidst are great enough for us to be courageous in recognising the truth, no matter whom it may concern.
With their dislike of abstract theory and their pride in their practicality, the British often pose political issues more directly, thus helping the socialists of other countries to discover the actual content beneath the husk of wording of every-kind (including the “Marxist”). Instructive in this respect is the pamphlet Socialism and War,[1] published before the war by the jingoist paper, The Clarion. The pamphlet contains an anti-war “manifesto” by Upton Sinclair, the U.S. socialist, and also a reply to him from the jingoist Robert Blatchford, who has long adopted Hyndman’s imperialist viewpoint.
Sinclair is a socialist of the emotions, without any theoretical training. He states the issue in “simple” fashion; incensed by the approach of war, he seeks salvation from it in socialism.
“We are told,” Sinclair writes, “that the socialist movement is yet too weak so that we must wait for its evolution. But evolution is working in the hearts of men; we are its instruments, and if we do not struggle, there is no evolution. We are told that the movement [against war] would be crushed out; but I declare my faith that the crushing out of any rebellion which sought, from motive of sublime humanity to prevent war, would be the greatest victory that socialism has ever gained—would shake the conscience of civilisation and rouse the workers of the world as nothing in all history has yet done. Let us not be too fearful for our movement nor put too much stress upon numbers and the outward appearances of power. A thousand men aglow with faith and determination are stronger than a million grown cautious and respectable; and there is no danger to the socialist movement so great as the danger of becoming an established institution.”
This, as can be seen, is a naïve, theoretically unreasoned, but profoundly correct warning against any vulgarising of socialism, and a call to revolutionary struggle.
What does Blatchford say in reply to Sinclair?
“It is capitalists and militarists who make wars. That is true. . . ,” he says. Blatchford is as anxious for peace and for socialism taking the place of capitalism as any socialist in the world. But Sinclair will not convince him, or do away with the facts with “rhetoric and fine phrases”. “Facts, my dear Sinclair, are obstinate things, and the German danger is a fact.” Neither the British nor the German socialists are strong enough to prevent war, and “Sinclair greatly exaggerates the power of British socialism. The British socialists are not united; they have no money, no arms, no discipline”. The only thing they can do is to help the British Government build up the navy; there is not, nor can there be, any other guarantee of peace.
Neither before nor since the outbreak of the war have the chauvinists ever been so outspoken in Continental Europe. In Germany it is not frankness that is prevalent, but Kautsky’s hypocrisy and playing at sophistry. The same is true of Plekhanov. That is why it is so instructive to cast a glance at the situation in a more advanced country, where nobody will be taken in with sophisms or a travesty of Marxism. Here issues are stated in a more straightforward and truthful manner. Let us learn from the “advanced” British.
Sinclair is naïve in his appeal, although fundamentally it is a very correct one; he is naïve because he ignores the development of mass socialism over the last fifty years and the struggle of trends within socialism; he ignores the conditions for the growth of revolutionary action when an objectively revolutionary situation and a revolutionary organisation exist. The “emotional” approach cannot make up for that. The intense and bitter struggle between powerful trends in socialism, between the opportunist and revolutionary trends, cannot be evaded by the use of rhetoric.
Blatchford speaks out undisguisedly, revealing the most covert argument of the Kautskyites and Co., who are afraid to tell the truth. We are still weak, that is all, says Blatchford; but his outspokenness at once lays bare his opportunism, his jingoism. It at once becomes obvious that he serves the bourgeoisie and the opportunists. By declaring that socialism is “weak” he himself weakens it by preaching an anti-socialist, bourgeois, policy.
Like Sinclair, but conversely, like a coward and not like a fighter, like a traitor and not like the recklessly brave, he, too, ignores the conditions making for a revolutionary situation.
As for his practical conclusions, his policy (the rejection of revolutionary action, of propaganda for such action and preparation of it), Blatchford, the vulgar jingoist, is in complete accord with Plekhanov and Kautsky.
Marxist words have in our days become a cover for a total renunciation of Marxism; to be a Marxist, one must expose the “Marxist hypocrisy” of the leaders of the Second International, fearlessly recognise the struggle of the two trends in socialism, and get to the bottom of the problems relating to that struggle. Such is the conclusion to be drawn from British relationships, which show us the Marxist essence of the matter, without Marxist words.
Annexure4: Marxism and Revisionism by V I Lenin
[Published in 1908 in the symposium Karl Marx—1818-1883. Transcription by Marxists Internet Archive]
There is a well-known saying that if geometrical axioms affected human interests attempts would certainly be made to refute them. Theories of natural history which conflicted with the old prejudices of theology provoked, and still provoke, the most rabid opposition. No wonder, therefore, that the Marxian doctrine, which directly serves to enlighten and organise the advanced class in modern society, indicates the tasks facing this class and demonstrates the inevitable replacement (by virtue of economic development) of the present system by a new order—no wonder that this doctrine has had to fight for every step forward in the course of its life.
Needless to say, this applies to bourgeois science and philosophy, officially taught by official professors in order to befuddle the rising generation of the propertied classes and to “coach” it against internal and foreign enemies. This science will not even hear of Marxism, declaring that it has been refuted and annihilated. Marx is attacked with equal zest by young scholars who are making a career by refuting socialism, and by decrepit elders who are preserving the tradition of all kinds of outworn “systems”. The progress of Marxism, the fact that its ideas are spreading and taking firm hold among the working class, inevitably increase the frequency and intensity of these bourgeois attacks on Marxism, which becomes stronger, more hardened and more vigorous every time it is “annihilated” by official science.
But even among doctrines connected with the struggle of the working class, and current mainly among the proletariat, Marxism by no means consolidated its position all at once. In the first half-century of its existence (from the 1840s on) Marxism was engaged in combating theories fundamentally hostile to it. In the early forties Marx and Engels settled accounts with the radical Young Hegelians whose viewpoint was that of philosophical idealism. At the end of the forties the struggle began in the field of economic doctrine, against Proudhonism. The fifties saw the completion of this struggle in criticism of the parties and doctrines which manifested themselves in the stormy year of 1848. In the sixties the struggle shifted from the field of general theory to one closer to the direct labour movement: the ejection of Bakuninism from the International. In the early seventies the stage in Germany was occupied for a short while by the Proudhonist Mühlberger, and in the late seventies by the positivist Dühring. But the influence of both on the proletariat was already absolutely insignificant. Marxism was already gaining an unquestionable victory over all other ideologies in the labour movement.
By the nineties this victory was in the main completed. Even in the Latin countries, where the traditions of Proudhonism held their ground longest of all, the workers’ parties in effect built their programmes and their tactics on Marxist foundations. The revived international organisation of the labour movement—in the shape of periodical international congresses—from the outset, and almost without a struggle, adopted the Marxist standpoint in all essentials. But after Marxism had ousted all the more or less integral doctrines hostile to it, the tendencies expressed in those doctrines began to seek other channels. The forms and causes of the struggle changed, but the struggle continued. And the second half-century of the existence of Marxism began (in the nineties) with the struggle of a trend hostile to Marxism within Marxism itself.
Bernstein, a one-time orthodox Marxist, gave his name to this trend by coming forward with the most noise and with the most purposeful expression of amendments to Marx, revision of Marx, revisionism. Even in Russia where—owing to the economic backwardness of the country and the preponderance of a peasant population weighed down by the relics of serfdom—non-Marxist socialism has naturally held its ground longest of all, it is plainly passing into revisionism before our very eyes. Both in the agrarian question (the programme of the municipalisation of all land) and in general questions of programme and tactics, our Social-Narodniks are more and more substituting “amendments” to Marx for the moribund and obsolescent remnants of their old system, which in its own way was integral and fundamentally hostile to Marxism.
Pre-Marxist socialism has been defeated. It is continuing the struggle, no longer on its own independent ground, but on the general ground of Marxism, as revisionism. Let us, then, examine the ideological content of revisionism.
In the sphere of philosophy revisionism followed in the wake of bourgeois professorial “science”. The professors went “back to Kant”—and revisionism dragged along after the neo-Kantians. The professors repeated the platitudes that priests have uttered a thousand times against philosophical materialism—and the revisionists, smiling indulgently, mumbled (word for word after the latest Handbuch) that materialism had been “refuted” long ago. The professors treated Hegel as a “dead dog”,[2] and while themselves preaching idealism, only an idealism a thousand times more petty and banal than Hegel’s, contemptuously shrugged their shoulders at dialectics—and the revisionists floundered after them into the swamp of philosophical vulgarisation of science, replacing “artful” (and revolutionary) dialectics by “simple” (and tranquil) “evolution”. The professors earned their official salaries by adjusting both their idealist and their “critical” systems to the dominant medieval “philosophy” (i.e., to theology)—and the revisionists drew close to them, trying to make religion a “private affair”, not in relation to the modern state, but in relation to the party of the advanced class.
What such “amendments” to Marx really meant in class terms need not be stated: it is self-evident. We shall simply note that the only Marxist in the international Social-Democratic movement to criticise the incredible platitudes of the revisionists from the standpoint of consistent dialectical materialism was Plekhanov. This must be stressed. all the more emphatically since profoundly mistaken attempts are being made at the present time to smuggle in old and reactionary philosophical rubbish disguised as a criticism of Plekhanov’s tactical opportunism.[1]
Passing to political economy, it must be noted first of all that in this sphere the “amendments” of the revisionists were much more comprehensive and circumstantial; attempts were made to influence the public by “new data on economic development”. It was said that concentration and the ousting of small-scale production by large-scale production do not occur in agriculture at all, while they proceed very slowly in commerce and industry. It was said that crises had now become rarer and weaker, and that cartels and trusts would probably enable capital to eliminate them altogether. It was said that the “theory of collapse” to which capitalism is heading was unsound, owing to the tendency of class antagonisms to become milder and less acute. It was said, finally, that it would not be amiss to correct Marx’s theory of value, too, in accordance with Böhm-Bawerk.[3]
The fight against the revisionists on these questions resulted in as fruitful a revival of the theoretical thought in international socialism as did Engels’s controversy with Dühring twenty years earlier. The arguments of the revisionists were analysed with the help of facts and figures. It was proved that the revisionists were systematically painting a rose-coloured picture of modern small-scale production. The technical and commercial superiority of large-scale production over small-scale production not only in industry, but also in agriculture, is proved by irrefutable facts. But commodity production is far less developed in agriculture, and modern statisticians and economists are, as a rule, not very skilful in picking out the special branches (sometimes even the operations) in agriculture which indicate that agriculture is being progressively drawn into the process of exchange in world economy. Small-scale production maintains itself on the ruins of natural economy by constant worsening of diet, by chronic starvation, by lengthening of the working day, by deterioration in the quality and the care of cattle, in a word, by the very methods whereby handicraft production maintained itself against capitalist manufacture. Every advance in science and technology inevitably and relentlessly undermines the foundations of small-scale production in capitalist society; and it is the task of socialist political economy to investigate this process in all its forms, often complicated and intricate, and to demonstrate to the small producer the impossibility of his holding his own under capitalism, the hopelessness of peasant farming under capitalism, and the necessity for the peasant to adopt the standpoint of the proletarian. On this question the revisionists sinned, in the scientific sense, by superficial generalisations based on facts selected one-sidedly and without reference to the system of capitalism as a whole. From the political point of view, they sinned by the fact that they inevitably, whether they wanted to or not, invited or urged the peasant to adopt the attitude of a small proprietor (i.e., the attitude of the bourgeoisie) instead of urging him to adopt the point of view of the revolutionary proletarian.
The position of revisionism was even worse as regards the theory of crises and the theory of collapse. Only for a very short time could people, and then only the most short-sighted, think of refashioning the foundations of Marx’s theory under the influence of a few years of industrial boom and prosperity. Realities very soon made it clear to the revisionists that crises were not a thing of the past: prosperity was followed by a crisis. The forms, the sequence, the picture of particular crises changed, but crises remained an inevitable component of the capitalist system. While uniting production, the cartels and trusts at the same time, and in a way that was obvious to all, aggravated the anarchy of production, the insecurity of existence of the proletariat and the oppression of capital, thereby intensifying class antagonisms to an unprecedented degree. That capitalism is heading for a break-down—in the sense both of individual political and economic crises and of the complete collapse of the entire capitalist system—has been made particularly clear, and on a particularly large scale, precisely by the new giant trusts. The recent financial crisis in America and the appalling increase of unemployment all over Europe, to say nothing of the impending industrial crisis to which many symptoms are pointing—all this has resulted in the recent “theories” of the revisionists having been forgotten by everybody, including, apparently, many of the revisionists themselves. But the lessons which this instability of the intellectuals had given the working class must not be forgotten.
As to the theory of value, it need only be said that apart from the vaguest of hints and sighs, à la Böhm-Bawerk, the revisionists have contributed absolutely nothing, and have therefore left no traces whatever on the development of scientific thought.
In the sphere of politics, revisionism did really try to revise the foundation of Marxism, namely, the doctrine of the class struggle. Political freedom, democracy and universal suffrage remove the ground for the class struggle—we were told—and render untrue the old proposition of the Communist Manifesto that the working men have no country. For, they said, since the “will of the majority” prevails in a democracy, one must neither regard the state as an organ of class rule, nor reject alliances with the progressive, social-reform bourgeoisie against the reactionaries.
It cannot be disputed that these arguments of the revisionists amounted to a fairly well-balanced system of views, namely, the old and well-known liberal-bourgeois views. The liberals have always said that bourgeois parliamentarism destroys classes and class divisions, since the right to vote and the right to participate in the government of the country are shared by all citizens without distinction. The whole history of Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the whole history of the Russian revolution in the early twentieth, clearly show how absurd such views are. Economic distinctions are not mitigated but aggravated and intensified under the freedom of “democratic” capitalism. Parliamentarism does not eliminate, but lays bare the innate character even of the most democratic bourgeois republics as organs of class oppression. By helping to enlighten and to organise immeasurably wider masses of the population than those which previously took an active part in political events, parliamentarism does not make for the elimination of crises and political revolutions, but for the maximum intensification of civil war during such revolutions. The events in Paris in the spring of 1871 and the events in Russia in the winter of 1905 showed as clearly as could be how inevitably this intensification comes about. The French bourgeoisie without a moment’s hesitation made a deal with the enemy of the whole nation, with the foreign army which had ruined its country, in order to crush the proletarian movement. Whoever does not understand the inevitable inner dialectics of parliamentarism and bourgeois democracy—which leads to an even sharper decision of the argument by mass violence than formerly—will never be able on the basis of this parliamentarism to conduct propaganda and agitation consistent in principle, really preparing the working-class masses for victorious participation in such “arguments”. The experience of alliances, agreements and blocs with the social-reform liberals in the West and with the liberal reformists (Cadets) in the Russian revolution, has convincingly shown that these agreements only blunt the consciousness of the masses, that they do not enhance but weaken the actual significance of their struggle, by linking fighters with elements who are least capable of fighting and most vacillating and treacherous. Millerandism in France—the biggest experiment in applying revisionist political tactics on a wide, a really national scale—has provided a practical appraisal of revisionism that will never be forgotten by the proletariat all over the world.
A natural complement to the economic and political tendencies of revisionism was its attitude to the ultimate aim of the socialist movement. “The movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing”—this catch-phrase of Bernstein’s expresses the substance of revisionism better than many long disquisitions. To determine its conduct from case to case, to adapt itself to the events of the day and to the chopping and changing of petty politics, to forget the primary interests of the proletariat and the basic features of the whole capitalist system, of all capitalist evolution, to sacrifice these primary interests for the real or assumed advantages of the moment—such is the policy of revisionism. And it patently follows from the very nature of this policy that it may assume an infinite variety of forms, and that every more or less “new” question, every more or less unexpected and unforeseen turn of events, even though it change the basic line of development only to an insignificant degree and only for the briefest period, will always inevitably give rise to one variety of revisionism or another.
The inevitability of revisionism is determined by its class roots in modern society. Revisionism is an international phenomenon. No thinking socialist who is in the least informed can have the slightest doubt that the relation between the orthodox and the Bernsteinians in Germany, the Guesdists and the Jaurèsists (and now particularly the Broussists) in France, the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party in Great Britain, Brouckère and Vandervelde in Belgium, the Integralists and the Reformists in Italy, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in Russia, is everywhere essentially similar, notwithstanding the immense variety of national conditions and historical factors in the present state of all these countries. In reality, the “division” within the present international socialist movement is now proceeding along the same lines in all the various countries of the world, which testifies to a tremendous advance compared with thirty or forty years ago, when heterogeneous trends in the various countries were struggling within the one international socialist movement. And that “revisionism from the left” which has taken shape in the Latin countries as “revolutionary syndicalism”,[4] is also adapting itself to Marxism, “amending” it: Labriola in Italy and Lagardelle in France frequently appeal from Marx who is understood wrongly to Marx who is understood rightly.
We cannot stop here to analyse the ideological content of this revisionism, which as yet is far from having developed to the same extent as opportunist revisionism: it has not yet become international, has not yet stood the test of a single big practical battle with a socialist party in any single country. We confine ourselves therefore to that “revisionism from the right” which was described above.
Wherein lies its inevitability in capitalist society? Why is it more profound than the differences of national peculiarities and of degrees of capitalist development? Because in every capitalist country, side by side with the proletariat, there are always broad strata of the petty bourgeoisie, small proprietors. Capitalism arose and is constantly arising out of small production. A number of new “middle strata” are inevitably brought into existence again and again by capitalism (appendages to the factory, work at home, small workshops scattered all over the country to meet the requirements of big industries, such as the bicycle and automobile industries, etc.). These new small producers are just as inevitably being cast again into the ranks of the proletariat. It is quite natural that the petty-bourgeois world-outlook should again and again crop up in the ranks of the broad workers’ parties. It is quite natural that this should be so and always will be so, right up to the changes of fortune that will take place in the proletarian revolution. For it would be a profound mistake to think that the “complete” proletarianisation of the majority of the population is essential for bringing about such a revolution. What we now frequently experience only in the domain of ideology, namely, disputes over theoretical amendments to Marx; what now crops up in practice only over individual side issues of the labour movement, as tactical differences with the revisionists and splits on this basis—is bound to be experienced by the working class on an incomparably larger scale when the proletarian revolution will sharpen all disputed issues, will focus all differences on points which are of the most immediate importance in determining the conduct of the masses, and will make it necessary in the heat of the fight to distinguish enemies from friends, and to cast out bad allies in order to deal decisive blows at the enemy.
The ideological struggle waged by revolutionary Marxism against revisionism at the end of the nineteenth century is but the prelude to the great revolutionary battles of the proletariat, which is marching forward to the complete victory of its cause despite all the waverings and weaknesses of the petty bourgeoisie.
Annexure5: Marxism and Reformism by V I Lenin
[Published on September 12, 1913 in Pravda Truda No. 2. Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala. Credit “Marxists Internet Archive”]
Unlike the anarchists, the Marxists recognise struggle for reforms, i.e., for measures that improve the conditions of the working people without destroying the power of the ruling class. At the same time, however, the Marxists wage a most resolute struggle against the reformists, who, directly or indirectly, restrict the aims and activities of the working class to the winning of reforms. Reformism is bourgeois deception of the workers, who, despite individual improvements, will always remain wage-slaves, as long as there is the domination of capital.
The liberal bourgeoisie grant reforms with one hand, and with the other always take them back, reduce them to nought, use them to enslave the workers, to divide them into separate groups and perpetuate wage-slavery. For that reason reformism, even when quite sincere, in practice becomes a weapon by means of which the bourgeoisie corrupt and weaken the workers. The experience of all countries shows that the workers who put their trust in the reformists are always fooled.
And conversely, workers who have assimilated Marx’s theory, i.e., realised the inevitability of wage-slavery so long as capitalist rule remains, will not be fooled by any bourgeois reforms. Understanding that where capitalism continued to exist reforms cannot be either enduring or far-reaching, the workers fight for better conditions and use them to intensify the fight against wage-slavery. The reformists try to divide and deceive the workers, to divert them from the class struggle by petty concessions. But the workers, having seen through the falsity of reformism, utilise reforms to develop and broaden their class struggle.
The stronger reformist influence is among the workers the weaker they are, the greater their dependence on the bourgeoisie, and the easier it is for the bourgeoisie to nullify reforms by various subterfuges. The more independent the working-class movement, the deeper and broader its aims, and the freer it is from reformist narrowness the easier it is for the workers to retain and utilise improvements.
There are reformists in all countries, for everywhere the bourgeoisie seek, in one way or another, to corrupt the workers and turn them into contented slaves who have given up all thought of doing away with slavery. In Russia, the reformists are liquidators, who renounce our past and try to lull the workers with dreams of a new, open, legal party. Recently the St. Petersburg liquidators were forced by Severnaya = Pravda[1] to defend themselves against the charge of reformism. Their arguments should be carefully analysed in order to clarify an extremely important question.
We are not reformists, the St. Petersburg liquidators wrote, because we have not said that reforms are everything and the ultimate goal nothing; we have spoken of movement to the ultimate goal; we have spoken of advancing through the struggle for reforms to the fulness of the aims set.
Let us now see how this defence squares with the facts.
First fact. The liquidator Sedov, summarising the statements of all the liquidators, wrote that of the Marxists’ “three pillars” two are no longer suitable for our agitation. Sedov retained the demand for an eight-hour day, which, theoretically, can be realised as a reform. He deleted, or relegated to the background the very things that go beyond reforms. Consequently, Sedov relapsed into downright opportunism, following the very policy expressed in the formula: the ultimate goal is nothing. When the “ultimate goal” (even in relation to democracy) is pushed further and further away from our agitation, that is reformism.
Second fact. The celebrated August Conference (last year’s) of the liquidators likewise pushed non-reformist demands further and further away—until some special occasion—instead of bringing them closer, into the heart of our agitation.
Third fact. By denying and disparaging the “old” and dissociating themselves from it, the liquidators thereby confine themselves to reformism. In the present situation, the connection between reformism and the renunciation of the “old” is obvious.
Fourth fact. The workers’ economic movement evokes the wrath and attacks of the liquidators (who speak of “crazes”, “milling the air”, etc., etc.) as soon as it adopts slogans that go beyond reformism.
What is the result? In words, the liquidators reject reformism as a principle, but in practice they adhere to it all along the line. They assure us, on the one hand, that for them reforms are not the be-all and end-all, but on the other hand, every time the Marxists go beyond reformism, the liquidators attack them or voice their contempt.
However, developments in every sector of the working-class movement show that the Marxists, far, from lagging behind, are definitely in the lead in making practical use of reforms, and in fighting for them. Take the Duma elections at the worker curia level—the speeches of our deputies inside and outside the Duma, the organisation of the workers’ press, the utilisation of the insurance reform; take the biggest union, the Metalworkers’ Union, etc.,—everywhere the Marxist workers are ahead of the liquidators, in the direct, immediate, “day-to-day” activity of agitation, organisation, fighting for reforms and using them.
The Marxists are working tirelessly, not missing a single “possibility” of winning and using reforms, and not condemning, but supporting, painstakingly developing every step beyond reformism in propaganda, agitation, mass economic struggle, etc. The liquidators, on the other hand, who have abandoned Marxism, by their attacks on the very existence of the Marxist body, by their destruction of Marxist discipline and advocacy of reformism and a liberal-labour policy, are only disorganising the working-class movement.
Nor, moreover, should the fact be overlooked that in Russia reformism is manifested also in a peculiar form, in identifying the fundamental political situation in present-day Russia with that of present-day Europe. From the liberal’s point of view this identification is legitimate, for the liberal believes and professes the view that “thank God, we have a Constitution”. The liberal expresses the interests of the bourgeoisie when he insists that, after October 17, every step by democracy beyond reformism is madness, a crime, a sin, etc.
But it is these bourgeois views that are applied in practice by our liquidators, who constantly and systematically “transplant” to Russia (on paper) the “open party” and the “struggle for a legal party”, etc. In other words, like the liberals, they preach the transplanting of the European constitution to Russia, without the specific path that in the West led to the adoption of constitutions and their consolidation over generations, in some cases even over centuries. What the liquidators and liberals want is to wash the hide without dipping it in water, as the saying goes.
In Europe, reformism actually means abandoning Marxism and replacing it by bourgeois “social policy”. In Russia, the reformism of the liquidators means not only that, it means destroying the Marxist organisation and abandoning the democratic tasks of the working class, it means replacing them by a liberal-labour policy.
Annexure6: Imperialism and the Split in Socialism by V I Lenin
[Published in Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata No. 2, December 1916. Transcription by Marxists Internet Archive]
Is there any connection between imperialism and the monstrous and disgusting victory opportunism (in the form of social-chauvinism) has gained over the labour movement in Europe?
This is the fundamental question of modern socialism. And having in our Party literature fully established, first, the imperialist character of our era and of the present war, and, second, the inseparable historical connection between social-chauvinism and opportunism, as well as the intrinsic similarity of their political ideology, we can and must proceed to analyse this fundamental question.
We have to begin with as precise and full a definition of imperialism as possible. Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms:
(1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists;
(2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany;
(3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital);
(4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world;
(5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.
Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in America and Europe, and later in Asia, took final shape in the period 1898–1914. The Spanish-American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) and the economic crisis in Europe in 1900 are the chief historical landmarks in the new era of world history.
The fact that imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism is manifested first of all in the tendency to decay, which is characteristic of every monopoly under the system of private ownership of the means of production. The difference between the democratic-republican and the reactionary-monarchist imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated precisely because they are both rotting alive (which by no means precludes an extraordinarily rapid development of capitalism in individual branches of industry, in individual countries, and in individual periods). Secondly, the decay of capitalism is manifested in the creation of a huge stratum of rentiers, capitalists who live by “clipping coupons”. In each of the four leading imperialist countries—England, U.S.A., France and Germany—capital in securities amounts to 100,000 or 150,000 million francs, from which each country derives an annual income of no less than five to eight thousand million. Thirdly, export of capital is parasitism raised to a high pitch. Fourthly, “finance capital strives for domination, not freedom”. Political reaction all along the line is a characteristic feature of imperialism. Corruption, bribery on a huge scale and all kinds of fraud. Fifthly, the exploitation of oppressed nations—which is inseparably connected with annexations—and especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of “Great” Powers, increasingly transforms the “civilised” world into a parasite on the body of hundreds of millions in the uncivilised nations. The Roman proletarian lived at the expense of society. Modern society lives at the expense of the modern proletarian. Marx specially stressed this profound observation of Sismondi. Imperialism somewhat changes the situation. A privileged upper stratum of the proletariat in the imperialist countries lives partly at the expense of hundreds of millions in the uncivilised nations.
It is clear why imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism: monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism. The tremendous socialisation of labour by imperialism (what its apologists-the bourgeois economists-call “interlocking”) produces the same result.
Advancing this definition of imperialism brings us into complete contradiction to K. Kautsky, who refuses to regard imperialism as a “phase of capitalism” and defines it as a policy “preferred” by finance capital, a tendency of “industrial” countries to annex “agrarian” countries. Kautsky’s definition is thoroughly false from the theoretical standpoint. What distinguishes imperialism is the rule not of industrial capital, but of finance capital, the striving to annex not agrarian countries, particularly, but every kind of country. Kautsky divorces imperialist politics from imperialist economics, he divorces monopoly in politics from monopoly in economics in order to pave the way for his vulgar bourgeois reformism, such as “disarmament”, “ultraimperialism” and similar nonsense. The whole purpose and significance of this theoretical falsity is to obscure the most profound contradictions of imperialism and thus justify the theory of “unity” with the apologists of imperialism, the outright social-chauvinists and opportunists.
We have dealt at sufficient length with Kautsky’s break with Marxism on this point in Sotsial-Demokrat and Kommunist. Our Russian Kautskyites, the supporters of the Organising Committee (O.C.), headed by Axelrod and Spectator, including even Martov, and to a large degree Trotsky, preferred to maintain a discreet silence on the question of Kautskyism as a trend. They did not dare defend Kautsky’s war-time writings, confining themselves simply to praising Kautsky (Axelrod in his German pamphlet, which the Organising Committee has promised to publish in Russian) or to quoting Kautsky’s private letters (Spectator), in which he says he belongs to the opposition and jesuitically tries to nullify his chauvinist declarations.
It should be noted that Kautsky’s “conception” of imperialism—which is tantamount to embellishing imperialism—is a retrogression not only compared with Hilferding’s Finance Capital (no matter how assiduously Hilferding now defends Kautsky and “unity” with the social-chauvinists!) but also compared with the social-liberal J. A. Hobson. This English economist, who in no way claims to be a Marxist, defines imperialism, and reveals its contradictions, much more profoundly in a book published in 1902[4] . This is what Hobson (in whose book may be found nearly all Kautsky’s pacifist and “conciliatory” banalities) wrote on the highly important question of the parasitic nature of imperialism:
Two sets of circumstances, in Hobson’s opinion, weakened the power of the old empires: (1) “economic parasitism”, and (2) formation of armies from dependent peoples. “There is first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence.” Concerning the second circumstance, Hobson writes:
“One of the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism [this song about the “blindness” of imperialists comes more appropriately from the social-liberal Hobson than from the “Marxist” Kautsky] is the reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France, and other imperial nations are embarking on this perilous dependence. Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the fighting by which we have won our Indian Empire has been done by natives; in India, as more recently in Egypt, great standing armies are placed under British commanders; almost all the fighting associated with our African dominions, except in the southern part, has been done for us by natives.”
The prospect of partitioning China elicited from Hobson the following economic appraisal: “The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England, in the Riviera, and in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods: all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and semi-manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa…. We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance of Western states, a European federation of Great Powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of agriculture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory [he should have said: prospect] as undeserving of consideration examine the economic and social condition of districts in Southern England today which are already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by the subjection of China to the economic control of similar groups of financiers, investors [rentiers] and political and business officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very probable; but the influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards such a consummation.”
Hobson, the social-liberal, fails to see that this “counteraction” can be offered only by the revolutionary proletariat and only in the form of a social revolution. But then he is a social-liberal! Nevertheless, as early as 1902 he had an excellent insight into the meaning and significance of a “United States of Europe” (be it said for the benefit of Trotsky the Kautskyite!) and of all that is now being glossed over by the hypocritical Kautskyites of various countries, namely, that the opportunists (social-chauvinists) are working hand in glove with the imperialist bourgeoisie precisely towards creating an imperialist Europe on the backs of Asia and Africa, and that objectively the opportunists are a section of the petty bourgeoisie and of a certain strata of the working class who have been bribed out of imperialist superprofits and converted to watchdogs of capitalism and corruptors of the labour movement.
Both in articles and in the resolutions of our Party, we have repeatedly pointed to this most profound connection, the economic connection, between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the opportunism which has triumphed (for long?) in the labour movement. And from this, incidentally, we concluded that a split with the social-chauvinists was inevitable. Our Kautskyites preferred to evade the question! Martov, for instance, uttered in his lectures a sophistry which in the Bulletin of the Organising Committee, Secretariat Abroad[9] (No. 4, April 10, 1916) is expressed as follows:
“…The cause of revolutionary Social-Democracy would be in a sad, indeed hopeless, plight if those groups of workers who in mental development approach most closely to the ‘intelligentsia’ and who are the most highly skilled fatally drifted away from it towards opportunism….”
By means of the silly word “fatally” and a certain sleight-of-hand, the fact is evaded that certain groups of workers have already drifted away to opportunism and to the imperialist bourgeoisie! And that is the very fact the sophists of the O.C. want to evade! They confine themselves to the “official optimism” the Kautskyite Hilferding and many others now flaunt: objective conditions guarantee the unity of the proletariat and the victory of the revolutionary trend! We, forsooth, are “optimists” with regard to the proletariat!
But in reality all these Kautskyites—Hilferding, the O.C. supporters, Martov and Co.—are optimists… with regard to opportunism. That is the whole point!
The proletariat is the child of capitalism—of world capitalism, and not only of European capitalism, or of imperialist capitalism. On a world scale, fifty years sooner or fifty years later—measured on a world scale, this is a minor point—the “proletariat” of course “will be” united, and revolutionary Social-Democracy will “inevitably” be victorious within it. But that is not the point, Messrs. Kautskyites. The point is that at the present time, in the imperialist countries of Europe, you are fawning on the opportunists, who are alien to the proletariat as a class, who are the servants, the agents of the bourgeoisie and the vehicles of its influence, and unless the labour movement rids itself of them, it will remain a bourgeois labour movement. By advocating “unity” with the opportunists, with the Legiens and Davids, the Plekhanovs, the Chkhenkelis and Potresovs, etc., you are, objectively, defending the enslavement of the workers by the imperialist bourgeoisie with the aid of its best agents in the labour movement. The victory of revolutionary Social-Democracy on a world scale is absolutely inevitable, only it is moving and will move, is proceeding and will proceed, against you, it will be a victory over you.
These two trends, one might even say two parties, in the present-day labour movement, which in 1914–16 so obviously parted ways all over the world, were traced by Engels and Marx in England throughout the course of decades, roughly from 1858 to 1892.
Neither Marx nor Engels lived to see the imperialist epoch of world capitalism, which began not earlier than 1898–1900. But it has been a peculiar feature of England that even in the middle of the nineteenth century she already revealed at least two major distinguishing features of imperialism: (1) vast colonies, and (2) monopoly profit (due to her monopoly position in the world market). In both respects England at that time was an exception among capitalist countries, and Engels and Marx, analysing this exception, quite clearly and definitely indicated its connection with the (temporary) victory of opportunism in the English labour movement.
In a letter to Marx, dated October 7, 1858, Engels wrote: “…The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.” In a letter to Sorge, dated September 21, 1872, Engels informs him that Hales kicked up a big row in the Federal Council of the International and secured a vote of censure on Marx for saying that “the English labour leaders had sold themselves”. Marx wrote to Sorge on August 4, 1874: “As to the urban workers here [in England], it is a pity that the whole pack of leaders did not get into Parliament. This would be the surest way of getting rid of the whole lot.” In a letter to Marx, dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks about “those very worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by, the bourgeoisie.” In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: “You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.”
On December 7, 1889, Engels wrote to Sorge: “The most repulsive thing here [in England] is the bourgeois ‘respectability’, which has grown deep into the bones of the workers…. Even Tom Mann, whom I regard as the best of the lot, is fond of mentioning that he will be lunching with the Lord Mayor. If one compares this with the French, one realises, what a revolution is good for, after all.”[10] In a letter, dated April 19, 1890: “But under the surface the movement [of the working class in England] is going on, is embracing ever wider sections and mostly just among the hitherto stagnant lowest [Engels’s italics] strata. The day is no longer far off when this mass will suddenly find itself, when it will dawn upon it that it itself is this colossal mass in motion.” On March 4, 1891: “The failure of the collapsed Dockers’ Union; the ‘old’ conservative trade unions, rich and therefore cowardly, remain lone on the field….” September 14, 1891: at the Newcastle Trade Union Congress the old unionists, opponents of the eight-hour day, were defeated “and the bourgeois papers recognise the defeat of the bourgeois labour party” (Engels’s italics throughout)….
That these ideas, which were repeated by Engels over the course of decades, were so expressed by him publicly, in the press, is proved by his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1892. Here he speaks of an “aristocracy among the working class”, of a “privileged minority of the workers”, in contradistinction to the “great mass of working people”. “A small, privileged, protected minority” of the working class alone was “permanently benefited” by the privileged position of England in 1848–68, whereas “the great bulk of them experienced at best but a temporary improvement”…. “With the break-down of that [England’s industrial] monopoly, the English working class will lose that privileged position…” The members of the “new” unions, the unions of the unskilled workers, “had this immense advantage, that their minds were virgin soil, entirely free from the inherited ‘respectable’ bourgeois prejudices which hampered the brains of the better situated ‘old unionists’” …. “The so-called workers’ representatives” in England are people “who are forgiven their being members of the working class because they themselves would like to drown their quality of being workers in the ocean of their liberalism…”
We have deliberately quoted the direct statements of Marx and Engels at rather great length in order that the reader may study them as a whole. And they should be studied, they are worth carefully pondering over. For they are the pivot of the tactics in the labour movement that are dictated by the objective conditions of the imperialist era.
Here too, Kautsky has tried to “befog the issue” and substitute for Marxism sentimental conciliation with the opportunists. Arguing against the avowed and naive social-imperialists (men like Lensch) who justify Germany’s participation in the war as a means of destroying England’s monopoly, Kautsky “corrects” this obvious falsehood by another equally obvious falsehood. Instead of a cynical falsehood he employs a suave falsehood! The industrial monopoly of England, he says, has long ago been broken, has long ago been destroyed, and there is nothing left to destroy.
Why is this argument false?
Because, firstly, it overlooks England’s colonial monopoly. Yet Engels, as we have seen, pointed to this very clearly as early as 1882, thirty-four years ago! Although England’s industrial monopoly may have been destroyed, her colonial monopoly not only remains, but has become extremely accentuated, for the whole world is already divided up! By means of this suave lie Kautsky smuggles in the bourgeois-pacifist and opportunist-philistine idea that “there is nothing to fight about”. On the contrary, not only have the capitalists something to fight about now, but they cannot help fighting if they want to preserve capitalism, for without a forcible redivision of colonies the new imperialist countries cannot obtain the privileges enjoyed by the older (and weaker) imperialist powers.
Secondly, why does England’s monopoly explain the (temporary) victory of opportunism in England? Because monopoly yields superprofits, i.e., a surplus of profits over and above the capitalist profits that are normal and customary all over the world. The capitalists can devote a part (and not a small one, at that!) of these superprofits to bribe their own workers, to create something like an alliance (recall the celebrated “alliances” described by the Webbs of English trade unions and employers) between the workers of the given nation and their capitalists against the other countries. England’s industrial monopoly was already destroyed by the end of the nineteenth century. That is beyond dispute. But how did this destruction take place? Did all monopoly disappear?
If that were so, Kautsky’s “theory” of conciliation (with the opportunists) would to a certain extent be justified. But it is not so, and that is just the point. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism. Every cartel, trust, syndicate, every giant bank is a monopoly Superprofits have not disappeared; they still remain. The exploitation of all other countries by one privileged, financially wealthy country remains and has become more intense. A handful of wealthy countries—there are only four of them, if we mean independent, really gigantic, “modern” wealth: England, France, the United States and Germany—have developed monopoly to vast proportions, they obtain superprofits running into hundreds, if not thousands, of millions, they “ride on the backs” of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people in other countries and fight among themselves for the division of the particularly rich, particularly fat and particularly easy spoils.
This, in fact, is the economic and political essence of imperialism, the profound contradictions of which Kautsky glosses over instead of exposing.
The bourgeoisie of an imperialist “Great” Power can economically bribe the upper strata of “its” workers by spending on this a hundred million or so francs a year, for its superprofits most likely amount to about a thousand million. And how this little sop is divided among the labour ministers, “labour representatives” (remember Engels’s splendid analysis of the term), labour members of War Industries Committees, labour officials, workers belonging to the narrow craft unions, office employees, etc., etc., is a secondary question.
Between 1848 and 1868, and to a certain extent even later, only England enjoyed a monopoly: that is why opportunism could prevail there for decades. No other countries possessed either very rich colonies or an industrial monopoly.
The last third of the nineteenth century saw the transition to the new, imperialist era. Finance capital not of one, but of several, though very few, Great Powers enjoys a monopoly. (In Japan and Russia the monopoly of military power, vast territories, or special facilities for robbing minority nationalities, China, etc., partly supplements, partly takes the place of, the monopoly of modern, up-to-date finance capital.) This difference explains why England’s monopoly position could remain unchallenged for decades. The monopoly of modern finance capital is being frantically challenged; the era of imperialist wars has begun. It was possible in those days to bribe and corrupt the working class of one country for decades. This is now improbable, if not impossible. But on the other hand, every imperialist “Great” Power can and does bribe smaller strata (than in England in 1848–68) of the “labour aristocracy”. Formerly a “bourgeois labour party”, to use Engels’s remarkably profound expression, could arise only in one country, because it alone enjoyed a monopoly, but, on the other hand, it could exist for a long time. Now a “bourgeois labour party” is inevitable and typical in all imperialist countries; but in view of the desperate struggle they are waging for the division of spoils it is improbable that such a party can prevail for long in a number of countries. For the trusts, the financial oligarchy, high prices, etc., while enabling the bribery of a handful in the top layers, are increasingly oppressing, crushing, ruining and torturing the mass of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat.
On the one hand, there is the tendency of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists to convert a handful of very rich and privileged nations into “eternal” parasites on the body of the rest of mankind, to “rest on the laurels” of the exploitation of Negroes, Indians, etc., keeping them in subjection with the aid of the excellent weapons of extermination provided by modern militarism. On the other hand, there is the tendency of the masses, who are more oppressed than before and who bear the whole brunt of imperialist wars, to cast off this yoke and to overthrow the bourgeoisie. It is in the struggle between these two tendencies that the history of the labour movement will now inevitably develop. For the first tendency is not accidental; it is “substantiated” economically. In all countries the bourgeoisie has already begotten, fostered and secured for itself “bourgeois labour parties” of social-chauvinists. The difference between a definitely formed party, like Bissolati’s in Italy, for example, which is fully social-imperialist, and, say, the semi-formed near-party of the Potresovs, Gvozdyovs, Bulkins, Chkheidzes, Skobelevs and Co., is an immaterial difference. The important thing is that, economically, the desertion of a stratum of the labour aristocracy to the bourgeoisie has matured and become an accomplished fact; and this economic fact, this shift in class relations, will find political form, in one shape or another, without any particular “difficulty”.
On the economic basis referred to above, the political institutions of modern capitalism—press, parliament associations, congresses etc.—have created political privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic office employees and workers, corresponding to the economic privileges and sops. Lucrative an soft jobs in the government or on the war industries committees, in parliament and on diverse committees, on the editorial staffs of “respectable”, legally published newspapers or on the management councils of no less respectable and “bourgeois law-abiding” trade unions—this is the bait by which the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives and supporters of the “bourgeois labour parties”.
The mechanics of political democracy works in the same direction. Nothing in our times can be done without elections; nothing can be done without the masses. And in this era of printing and parliamentarism it is impossible to gain the following of the masses without a widely ramified, systematically managed, well-equipped system of flattery, lies, fraud, juggling with fashionable and popular catchwords, and promising all manner of reforms and blessings to the workers right and left—as long as they renounce the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of bourgeoisie. I would call this system Lloyd-Georgism, after the English Minister Lloyd George, one of the foremost and most dexterous representatives of this system in the classic land of the “bourgeois labour party”. A first-class bourgeois manipulator, an astute politician, a popular orator who will deliver any speeches you like even r-r-revolutionary ones, to a labour audience, and a man who is capable of obtaining sizable sops for docile workers in the shape of social reforms (insurance, etc.), Lloyd George serves the bourgeoisie splendidly,[6] and serves it precisely among the workers, brings its influence precisely to the proletariat, to where the bourgeoisie needs it most and where it finds it most difficult to subject the masses morally.
And is there such a great difference between Lloyd George and the Scheidemanns, Legiens, Hendersons and Hyndmans, Plekhanovs, Renaudels and Co.? Of the latter, it may be objected, some will return to the revolutionary socialism of Marx. This is possible, but it is an insignificant difference in degree, if the question is regarded from its political, i.e., its mass aspect. Certain individuals among the present social-chauvinist leaders may return to the proletariat. But the social-chauvinist or (what is the same thing) opportunist trend can neither disappear nor “return” to the revolutionary proletariat. Wherever Marxism is popular among the workers, this political trend, this “bourgeois labour party”, will swear by the name of Marx. It cannot be prohibited from doing this, just as a trading firm cannot be prohibited from using any particular label, sign or advertisement. It has always been the case in history that after the death of revolutionary leaders who were popular among the oppressed classes, their enemies have attempted to appropriate their names so as to deceive the oppressed classes.
The fact that is that “bourgeois labour parties,” as a political phenomenon, have already been formed in all the foremost capitalist countries, and that unless determined and relentless struggle is waged all along the line against these parties—or groups, trends, etc., it is all the same—there can be no question of a struggle against imperialism, or of Marxism, or of a socialist labour movement. The Chkheidze faction, Nashe Dyelo and Golos Truda in Russia, and the O.C. supporters abroad are nothing but varieties of one such party. There is not the slightest reason for thinking that these parties will disappear before the social revolution. On the contrary, the nearer the revolution approaches, the more strongly it flares up and the more sudden and violent the transitions and leaps in its progress, the greater will be the part the struggle of the revolutionary mass stream against the opportunist petty-bourgeois stream will play in the labour movement. Kautskyism is not an independent trend, because it has no roots either in the masses or in the privileged stratum which has deserted to the bourgeoisie. But the danger of Kautskyism lies in the fact that, utilising the ideology of the past, it endeavours to reconcile the proletariat with the “bourgeois labour party”, to preserve the unity of the proletariat with that party and thereby enhance the latter’s prestige. The masses no longer follow the avowed social-chauvinists: Lloyd George has been hissed down at workers’ meetings in England; Hyndman has left the party; the Renaudels and Scheidemanns, the Potresovs and Gvozdyovs are protected by the police. The Kautskyites’ masked defence of the social-chauvinists is much more dangerous.
One of the most common sophistries of Kautskyism is its reference to the “masses”. We do not want, they say, to break away from the masses and mass organisations! But just think how Engels put the question. In the nineteenth century the “mass organisations” of the English trade unions were on the side of the bourgeois labour party. Marx and Engels did not reconcile themselves to it on this ground; they exposed it. They did not forget, firstly, that the trade union organisations directly embraced a minority of the proletariat. In England then, as in Germany now, not more than one-fifth of the proletariat was organised. No one can seriously think it possible to organise the majority of the proletariat under capitalism. Secondly—and this is the main point—it is not so much a question of the size of an organisation, as of the real, objective significance of its policy: does its policy represent the masses, does it serve them, i.e., does it aim at their liberation from capitalism, or does it represent the interests of the minority, the minority’s reconciliation with capitalism? The latter was true of England in the nineteenth century, and it is true of Germany, etc., now.
Engels draws a distinction between the “bourgeois labour party” of the old trade unions—the privileged minority—and the “lowest mass”, the real majority, and appeals to the latter, who are not infected by “bourgeois respectability”. This is the essence of Marxist tactics!
Neither we nor anyone else can calculate precisely what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will be revealed only by the struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution. But we know for certain that the “defenders of the fatherland” in the imperialist war represent only a minority. And it is therefore our duty, if we wish to remain socialists to go down lower and deeper, to the real masses; this is the whole meaning and the whole purport of the struggle against opportunism. By exposing the fact that the opportunists and social-chauvinists are in reality betraying and selling the interests of the masses, that they are defending the temporary privileges of a minority of the workers, that they are the vehicles of bourgeois ideas and influences, that they are really allies and agents of the bourgeoisie, we teach the masses to appreciate their true political interests, to fight for socialism and for the revolution through all the long and painful vicissitudes of imperialist wars and imperialist armistices.
The only Marxist line in the world labour movement is to explain to the masses the inevitability and necessity of breaking with opportunism, to educate them for revolution by waging a relentless struggle against opportunism, to utilise the experience of the war to expose, not conceal, the utter vileness of national-liberal labour politics.
In the next article, we shall try to sum up the principal features that distinguish this line from Kautskyism.
Annexure7: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V I Lenin
[Chapter VII. Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism.
Written: January-June, 1916. Published: First published in mid-1917 in pamphlet form, Petrograd.Transcription\Markup: Tim Delaney & Kevin Goins (2008). Credit – Marxists Internet Archive]
We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly. Free competition is the basic feature of capitalism, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale industry and forcing out small industry, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale industry, and carrying concentration of production and capital to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of millions. At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system.
If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up.
But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up the main points, are nevertheless inadequate, since we have to deduce from them some especially important features of the phenomenon that has to be defined. And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all definitions in general, which can never embrace all the concatenations of a phenomenon in its full development, we must give a definition of imperialism that will include the following five of its basic features:
(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital,” of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
We shall see later that imperialism can and must be defined differently if we bear in mind not only the basic, purely economic concepts—to which the above definition is limited—but also the historical place of this stage of capitalism in relation to capitalism in general, or the relation between imperialism and the two main trends in the working-class movement. The thing to be noted at this point is that imperialism, as interpreted above, undoubtedly represents a special stage in the development of capitalism. To enable the reader to obtain the most well-grounded idea of imperialism, I deliberately tried to quote as extensively as possible bourgeois economists who have to admit the particularly incontrovertible facts concerning the latest stage of capitalist economy. With the same object in view, I have quoted detailed statistics which enable one to see to what degree bank capital, etc., has grown, in what precisely the transformation of quantity into quality, of developed capitalism into imperialism, was expressed. Needless to say, of course, all boundaries in nature and in society are conventional and changeable, and it would be absurd to argue, for example, about the particular year or decade in which imperialism “definitely” became established.
In the matter of defining imperialism, however, we have to enter into controversy, primarily, with Karl Kautsky, the principal Marxist theoretician of the epoch of the so-called Second International—that is, of the twenty-five years between 1889 and 1914. The fundamental ideas expressed in our definition of imperialism were very resolutely attacked by Kautsky in 1915, and even in November 1914, when he said that imperialism must not be regarded as a “phase” or stage of economy, but as a policy, a definite policy “preferred” by finance capital; that imperialism must not be “identified” with “present-day capitalism”; that if imperialism is to be understood to mean “all the phenomena of present-day capitalism”—cartels, protection, the domination of the financiers, and colonial policy—then the question as to whether imperialism is necessary to capitalism becomes reduced to the “flattest tautology”, because, in that case, “imperialism is naturally a vital necessity for capitalism”, and so on. The best way to present Kautsky’s idea is to quote his own definition of imperialism, which is diametrically opposed to the substance of the ideas which I have set forth (for the objections coming from the camp of the German Marxists, who have been advocating similar ideas for many years already, have been long known to Kautsky as the objections of a definite trend in Marxism).
Kautsky’s definition is as follows:
“Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control or to annex all large areas of agrarian [Kautsky’s italics] territory, irrespective of what nations inhabit it.” [1]
This definition is of no use at all because it one-sidedly, i.e., arbitrarily, singles out only the national question (although the latter is extremely important in itself as well as in its relation to imperialism), it arbitrarily and inaccurately connects this question only with industrial capital in the countries which annex other nations, and in an equally arbitrary and inaccurate manner pushes into the forefront the annexation of agrarian regions.
Imperialism is a striving for annexations—this is what the political part of Kautsky’s definition amounts to. It is correct, but very incomplete, for politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and reaction. For the moment, however, we are interested in the economic aspect of the question, which Kautsky himself introduced into his definition. The inaccuracies in Kautsky’s definition are glaring. The characteristic feature of imperialism is not industrial but finance capital. It is not an accident that in France it was precisely the extraordinarily rapid development of finance capital, and the weakening of industrial capital, that from the eighties onwards gave rise to the extreme intensification of annexationist (colonial) policy. The characteristic feature of imperialism is precisely that it strives to annex not only agrarian territories, but even most highly industrialised regions (German appetite for Belgium; French appetite for Lorraine), because (1) the fact that the world is already partitioned obliges those contemplating a redivision to reach out for every kind of territory, and (2) an essential feature of imperialism is the rivalry between several great powers in the striving for hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly for themselves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his hegemony. (Belgium is particularly important for Germany as a base for operations against Britain; Britain needs Baghdad as a base for operations against Germany, etc.)
Kautsky refers especially—and repeatedly—to English writers who, he alleges, have given a purely political meaning to the word “imperialism” in the sense that he, Kautsky, understands it. We take up the work by the English writer Hobson, Imperialism, which appeared in 1902, and there we read:
“The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire the theory and the practice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political aggrandisement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests.” [2]
We see that Kautsky is absolutely wrong in referring to English writers generally (unless he meant the vulgar English imperialists, or the avowed apologists for imperialism). We see that Kautsky, while claiming that he continues to advocate Marxism, as a matter of fact takes a step backward compared with the social-liberal Hobson, who more correctly takes into account two “historically concrete” (Kautsky’s definition is a mockery of historical concreteness!) features of modern imperialism: (1) the competition between several imperialisms, and (2) the predominance of the financier over the merchant. If it is chiefly a question of the annexation of agrarian countries by industrial countries, then the role of the merchant is put in the forefront.
Kautsky’s definition is not only wrong and un-Marxist. It serves as a basis for a whole system of views which signify a rupture with Marxist theory and Marxist practice all along the line. I shall refer to this later. The argument about words which Kautsky raises as to whether the latest stage of capitalism should be called imperialism or the stage of finance capital is not worth serious attention. Call it what you will, it makes no difference. The essence of the matter is that Kautsky detaches the politics of imperialism from its economics, speaks of annexations as being a policy “preferred” by finance capital, and opposes to it another bourgeois policy which, he alleges, is possible on this very same basis of finance capital. It follows, then, that monopolies in the economy are compatible with non-monopolistic, non-violent, non-annexationist methods in politics. It follows, then, that the territorial division of the world, which was completed during this very epoch of finance capital, and which constitutes the basis of the present peculiar forms of rivalry between the biggest capitalist states, is compatible with a non-imperialist policy. The result is a slurring-over and a blunting of the most profound contradictions of the latest stage of capitalism, instead of an exposure of their depth; the result is bourgeois reformism instead of Marxism.
Kautsky enters into controversy with the German apologist of imperialism and annexations, Cunow, who clumsily and cynically argues that imperialism is present-day capitalism; the development of capitalism is inevitable and progressive; therefore imperialism is progressive; therefore, we should grovel before it and glorify it! This is something like the caricature of the Russian Marxists which the Narodniks drew in 1894-95. They argued: if the Marxists believe that capitalism is inevitable in Russia, that it is progressive, then they ought to open a tavern and begin to implant capitalism! Kautsky’s reply to Cunow is as follows: imperialism is not present-day capitalism; it is only one of the forms of the policy of present-day capitalism. This policy we can and should fight, fight imperialism, annexations, etc.
The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) advocacy of conciliation with imperialism, because a “fight” against the policy of the trusts and banks that does not affect the economic basis of the trusts and banks is mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism, the benevolent and innocent expression of pious wishes. Evasion of existing contradictions, forgetting the most important of them, instead of revealing their full depth—such is Kautsky’s theory, which has nothing in common with Marxism. Naturally, such a “theory” can only serve the purpose of advocating unity with the Cunows!
“From the purely economic point of view,” writes Kautsky, “it is not impossible that capitalism will yet go through a new phase, that of the extension of the policy of the cartels to foreign policy, the phase of ultra-imperialism,” [3] i.e., of a superimperialism, of a union of the imperialisms of the whole world and not struggles among them, a phase when wars shall cease under capitalism, a phase of “the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital.” [4]
We shall have to deal with this “theory of ultra-imperialism” later on in order to show in detail how decisively and completely it breaks with Marxism. At present, in keeping with the general plan of the present work, we must examine the exact economic data on this question. “From the purely economic point of view,” is “ultra-imperialism” possible, or is it ultra-nonsense?
If the purely economic point of view is meant to be a “pure” abstraction, then all that can be said reduces itself to the following proposition: development is proceeding towards monopolies, hence, towards a single world monopoly, towards a single world trust. This is indisputable, but it is also as completely meaningless as is the statement that “development is proceeding” towards the manufacture of foodstuffs in laboratories. In this sense the “theory” of ultra-imperialism is no less absurd than a “theory of ultra-agriculture” would be.
If, however, we are discussing the “purely economic” conditions of the epoch of finance capital as a historically concrete epoch which began at the turn of the twentieth century, then the best reply that one can make to the lifeless abstractions of “ultra-imperialism” (which serve exclusively a most reactionary aim: that of diverting attention from the depth of existing antagonisms) is to contrast them with the concrete economic realities of the present-day world economy. Kautsky’s utterly meaningless talk about ultra-imperialism encourages, among other things, that profoundly mistaken idea which only brings grist to the mill of the apologists of imperialism, i.e., that the rule of finance capital lessens the unevenness and contradictions inherent in the world economy, whereas in reality it increases them.
R. Calwer, in his little book, An Introduction to the World Economy, made an attempt to summarise the main, purely economic, data that enable one to obtain a concrete picture of the internal relations of the world economy at the turn of the twentieth century. He divides the world into five “main economic areas”, as follows: (1) Central Europe (the whole of Europe with the exception of Russia and Great Britain); (2) Great Britain; (3) Russia; (4) Eastern Asia; (5) America; he includes the colonies in the “areas” of the states to which they belong and “leaves aside” a few countries not distributed according to areas, such as Persia, Afghanistan, and Arabia in Asia, Morocco and Abyssinia in Africa, etc.
Here is a brief summary of the economic data he quotes on these regions.
Principal economic areas
Area
Population
Transport
Trade
Industry
Millionsq. mile
Millions
Railways (thou. km)
Mercantile fleet(mill. ton)
Import-export (thou. mill. mark)
Output
Number of cotton spindle (million)
Of coal(mill. ton)
Of pig iron (mill. ton)
1) Central Europe
27.6 (23.6)
388 (146)
204
8
41
251
15
26
2) Britain
28.9 (28.6)
398 (355)
140
11
25
249
9
51
3) Russia
22
131
63
1
3
16
3
7
4) Eastern Asia
12
389
8
1
2
8
0.02
2
5) America
30
148
379
6
14
245
14
19
NOTE: The figures in parentheses show the area and population of the colonies.
We see three areas of highly developed capitalism (high development of means of transport, of trade and of industry): the Central European, the British and the American areas. Among these are three states which dominate the world: Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. Imperialist rivalry and the struggle between these countries have become extremely keen because Germany has only an insignificant area and few colonies; the creation of “Central Europe” is still a matter for the future, it is being born in the midst of a desperate struggle. For the moment the distinctive feature of the whole of Europe is political disunity. In the British and American areas, on the other hand, political concentration is very highly developed, but there is a vast disparity between the immense colonies of the one and the insignificant colonies of the other. In the colonies, however, capitalism is only beginning to develop. The struggle for South America is becoming more and more acute.
There are two areas where capitalism is little developed: Russia and Eastern Asia. In the former, the population is extremely sparse, in the latter it is extremely dense; in the former political concentration is high, in the latter it does not exist. The partitioning of China is only just beginning, and the struggle for it between Japan, the U.S., etc., is continually gaining in intensity.
Compare this reality—the vast diversity of economic and political conditions, the extreme disparity in the rate of development of the various countries, etc., and the violent struggles among the imperialist states—with Kautsky’s silly little fable about “peaceful” ultra-imperialism. Is this not the reactionary attempt of a frightened philistine to hide from stern reality? Are not the international cartels which Kautsky imagines are the embryos of “ultra-imperialism” (in the same way as one “can” describe the manufacture of tablets in a laboratory as ultra-agriculture in embryo) an example of the division and the redivision of the world, the transition from peaceful division to non-peaceful division and vice versa? Is not American and other finance capital, which divided the whole world peacefully with Germany’s participation in, for example, the international rail syndicate, or in the international mercantile shipping trust, now engaged in redividing the world on the basis of a new relation of forces that is being changed by methods anything but peaceful?
Finance capital and the trusts do not diminish but increase the differences in the rate of growth of the various parts of the world economy. Once the relation of forces is changed, what other solution of the contradictions can be found under capitalism than that of force? Railway statistics [6] provide remarkably exact data on the different rates of growth of capitalism and finance capital in world economy. In the last decades of imperialist development, the total length of railways has changed as follows:
Regions
Railways (000 kilometres)
1890
1913
Net Addition
Europe
224
346
+122
U.S.
268
411
+143
All colonies
82
210
+128
Independent and semi-independentstates of Asia and America
43
137
+94
TOTAL
617
1104
Thus, the development of railways has been most rapid in the colonies and in the independent (and semi-independent) states of Asia and America. Here, as we know, the finance capital of the four or five biggest capitalist states holds undisputed sway. Two hundred thousand kilometres of new railways in the colonies and in the other countries of Asia and America represent a capital of more than 40,000 million marks newly invested on particularly advantageous terms, with special guarantees of a good return and with profitable orders for steel works, etc., etc.
Capitalism is growing with the greatest rapidity in the colonies and in overseas countries. Among the latter, new imperialist powers are emerging (e.g., Japan). The struggle among the world imperialisms is becoming more acute. The tribute levied by finance capital on the most profitable colonial and overseas enterprises is increasing. In the division of this “booty,” an exceptionally large part goes to countries which do not always stand at the top of the list in the rapidity of the development of their productive forces. In the case of the biggest countries, together with their colonies, the total length of railways was as follows:
Country / Empire
Railways (000 kilometres)
1890
1913
Net Addition
USA
268
413
+145
British Empire
107
208
+101
Russia
32
78
+46
Germany
43
68
+25
France
41
63
+22
TOTAL
491
830
Thus, about 80 per cent of the total existing railways are concentrated in the hands of the five biggest powers. But the concentration of the ownership of these railways, the concentration of finance capital, is immeasurably greater since the French and British millionaires, for example, own an enormous amount of shares and bonds in American, Russian and other railways.
Thanks to her colonies, Great Britain has increased the length of “her” railways by 100,000 kilometres, four times as much as Germany. And yet, it is well known that the development of productive forces in Germany, and especially the development of the coal and iron industries, has been incomparably more rapid during this period than in Britain—not to speak of France and Russia. In 1892, Germany produced 4,900,000 tons of pig-iron and Great Britain produced 6,800,000 tons; in 1912, Germany produced 17,600,000 tons and Great Britain, 9,000,000 tons. Germany, therefore, had an overwhelming superiority over Britain in this respect. [7] The question is: what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the other?
Annexure8: ON CONTRADICTION by Mao ZeDong
[First published in August 1937; Credit – Marxists Internet Archive]
I. THE TWO WORLD OUTLOOKS
The metaphysical or vulgar evolutionist world outlook sees things as isolated, static and one-sided. It regards all things in the universe, their forms and their species, as eternally isolated from one another and immutable. Such change as there is can only be an increase or decrease in quantity or a change of place. Moreover, the cause of such an increase or decrease or change of place is not inside things but outside them, that is, the motive force is external. Metaphysicians hold that all the different kinds of things in the universe and all their characteristics have been the same ever since they first came into being. All subsequent changes have simply been increases or decreases in quantity. They contend that a thing can only keep on repeating itself as the same kind of thing and cannot change into anything different. In their opinion, capitalist exploitation, capitalist competition, the individualist ideology of capitalist society, and so on, can all be found in ancient slave society, or even in primitive society, and will exist for ever unchanged. They ascribe the causes of social development to factors external to society, such as geography and climate. They search in an over-simplified way outside a thing for the causes of its development, and they deny the theory of materialist dialectics which holds that development arises from the contradictions inside a thing. Consequently they can explain neither the qualitative diversity of things, nor the phenomenon of one quality changing into another.
As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectively combats the theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advanced by metaphysical mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism. It is evident that purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, that is, to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another. As a matter of fact, even mechanical motion under external force occurs through the internal contradictoriness of things. Simple growth in plants and animals, their quantitative development, is likewise chiefly the result of their internal contradictions. Similarly, social development is due chiefly not to external but to internal causes. Countries with almost the same geographical and climatic conditions display great diversity and unevenness in their development. Moreover, great social changes may take place in one and the same country although its geography and climate remain unchanged. Imperialist Russia changed into the socialist Soviet Union, and feudal Japan, which had locked its doors against the world, changed into imperialist Japan, although no change occurred in the geography and climate of either country. Long dominated by feudalism, China has undergone great changes in the last hundred years and is now changing in the direction of a new China, liberated and-free, and yet no change has occurred in her geography and climate. Changes do take place in the geography and climate of the earth as a whole and in every part of it, but they are insignificant when compared with changes in society; geographical and climatic changes manifest themselves in terms of tens of thousands of years, while social changes manifest themselves in thousands, hundreds or tens of years, and even in a few years or months in times of revolution. According to materialist dialectics, changes in nature are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in nature. Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society by the new. Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.
…
The famous German philosopher Hegel, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, made most important contributions to dialectics, but his dialectics was idealist. It was not until Marx and Engels, the great protagonists of the proletarian movement, had synthesized the positive achievements in the history of human knowledge and, in particular, critically absorbed the rational elements of Hegelian dialectics and created the great theory of dialectical and historical materialism that an unprecedented revolution occurred in the history of human knowledge. This theory was further developed by Lenin and Stalin.
II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF CONTRADICTION
The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end.
Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena. But does contradiction also exist at the initial stage of each process?
What is meant by the emergence of a new process? The old unity with its constituent opposites yields to a new unity with its constituent opposites, whereupon a new process emerges to replace the old. The old process ends and the new one begins. The new process contains new contradictions and begins its own history of the development of contradictions.
III. THE PARTICULARITY OF CONTRADICTION
In order to reveal the particularity of the contradictions in any process in the development of a thing, in their totality or interconnections, that is, in order to reveal the essence of the process, it is necessary to reveal the particularity of the two aspects of each of the contradictions in that process; otherwise it will be impossible to discover the essence of the process.
In studying a problem, we must shun subjectivity, one-sidedness and superficiality. To be subjective means not to look at problems objectively, that is, not to use the materialist viewpoint in looking at problems. I have discussed this in my essay “On Practice”. To be one-sided means not to look at problems all-sidedly, for example, to understand only China but not Japan, only the Communist Party but not the Kuomintang, only the proletariat but not the bourgeoisie, only the peasants but not the landlords, only the favourable conditions but not the difficult ones, only the past but not the future, only individual parts but not the whole, only the defects but not the achievements, only the plaintiff’s case but not the defendant’s, only underground revolutionary work but not open revolutionary work, and so on.
Not only does the whole process of the movement of opposites in the development of a thing, both in their interconnections and in each of the aspects, have particular features to which we must give attention, but each stage in the process has its particular features to which we must give attention too.
It can thus be seen that in studying the particularity of any kind of contradiction–the contradiction in each form of motion of matter, the contradiction in each of its processes of development, the two aspects of the contradiction in each process, the contradiction at each stage of a process, and the two aspects of the contradiction at each stage–in studying the particularity of all these contradictions, we must not be subjective and arbitrary but must analyse it concretely. Without concrete analysis there can be no knowledge of the particularity of any contradiction. We must always remember Lenin’s words, the concrete analysis of concrete conditions.
IV. THE PRINCIPAL CONTRADICTION AND THE PRINCIPAL ASPECT OF A CONTRADICTION
There are still two points in the problem of the particularity of contradiction which must be singled out for analysis, namely, the principal contradiction and the principal aspect of a contradiction.
There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions.
For instance, in capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction. The other contradictions, such as those between the remnant feudal class and the bourgeoisie, between the peasant petty bourgeoisie ant the bourgeoisie, between the proletariat and the peasant petty bourgeoisie, between the non-monopoly capitalists and the monopoly capitalists, between bourgeois democracy and bourgeois fascism, among the capitalist countries and between imperialism and the colonies, are all determined or influenced by this principal contradiction.
Hence, if in any process there are a number of contradictions, one of them must be the principal contradiction playing the leading and decisive role, while the rest occupy a secondary and subordinate position. Therefore, in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to funding its principal contradiction. Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved. This is the method Marx taught us in his study of capitalist society.
the principal and the non-principal aspects of a contradiction transform themselves into each other and the nature of the thing changes accordingly. In a given process or at a given stage in the development of a contradiction, A is the principal aspect and B is the non-principal aspect; at another stage or in another process the roles are reversed–a change determined by the extent of the increase or decrease in the force of each aspect in its struggle against the other in the course of the development of a thing.
in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction between the economic base and the superstructure, the economic base is the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist conception…. in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role. When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role.
V. THE IDENTITY AND STRUGGLE OF THE ASPECTS OF A CONTRADICTION
Identity, unity, coincidence, interpenetration, inter-permeation, interdependence (or mutual dependence for existence), interconnection or mutual co-operation–all these different terms mean the same thing and refer to the following two points: first, the existence of each of the two aspects of a contradiction in the process of the development of a thing presupposes the existence of the other aspect, and both aspects coexist in a single entity; second, in given conditions, each of the two contradictory aspects transforms itself into its opposite.
The contradictory aspects in every process exclude each other, struggle with each other and are in opposition to each other. Without exception, they are contained in the process of development of all things and in all human thought. A simple process contains only a single pair of opposites, while a complex process contains more. And in turn, the pairs of opposites are in contradiction to one another.
The fact is that no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation. Without its opposite aspect, each loses the condition for its existence. Just think, can anyone contradictory aspect of a thing or of a concept in the human mind exist independently? Without life, there would be no death; without death, there would be no life. Without “above”, there would be no “below” without “below”, there would be no “above”. Without misfortune, there would be no good fortune; without good fortune, these would be no misfortune. Without facility, there would be no difficulty without difficulty, there would be no facility. Without landlords, there would be no tenant-peasants; without tenant-peasants, there would be no landlords. Without the bourgeoisie, there would be no proletariat; without the proletariat, there would be no bourgeoisie. Without imperialist oppression of nations, there would be no colonies or semi-colonies; without colonies or semicolonies, there would be no imperialist oppression of nations. It is so with all opposites; in given conditions, on the one hand they are opposed to each other, and on the other they are interconnected, interpenetrating, interpermeating and interdependent, and this character is described as identity. In given conditions, all contradictory aspects possess the character of non-identity and hence are described as being in contradiction. But they also possess the character of identity and hence are interconnected.
When we said above that two opposite things can coexist in a single entity and can transform themselves into each other because there is identity between them, we were speaking of conditionality, that is to say, in given conditions two contradictory things can be united and can transform themselves into each other, but in the absence of these conditions, they cannot constitute a contradiction, cannot coexist in the same entity and cannot transform themselves into one another. It is because the identity of opposites obtains only in given conditions that we have said identity is conditional and relative. We may add that the struggle between opposites permeates a process from beginning to end and makes one process transform itself into another, that it is ubiquitous, and that struggle is therefore unconditional and absolute.
The combination of conditional, relative identity and unconditional, absolute struggle constitutes the movement of opposites in all things.
VI. THE PLACE OF ANTAGONISM IN CONTRADICTION
Contradiction and struggle are universal and absolute, but the methods of resolving contradictions, that is, the forms of struggle, differ according to the differences in the nature of the contradictions. Some contradictions are characterized by open antagonism, others are not. In accordance with the concrete development of things, some contradictions which were originally non-antagonistic develop into antagonistic ones, while others which were originally antagonistic develop into non-antagonistic ones.
Economically, the contradiction between town and country is an extremely antagonistic one both in capitalist society, where under the rule of the bourgeoisie the towns ruthlessly plunder the countryside, and in the Kuomintang areas in China, where under the rule of foreign imperialism and the Chinese big comprador bourgeoisie the towns most rapaciously plunder the countryside. But in a socialist country and in our revolutionary base areas, this antagonistic contradiction has changed into one that is non-antagonistic;
The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and therefore also the fundamental law of thought. It stands opposed to the metaphysical world outlook. It represents a great revolution in the history of human knowledge. According to dialectical materialism, contradiction is present in all processes of objectively existing things and of subjective thought and permeates all these processes from beginning to end; this is the universality and absoluteness of contradiction. Each contradiction and each of its aspects have their respective characteristics; this is the particularity and relativity of contradiction. In given conditions, opposites possess identity, and consequently can coexist in a single entity and can transform themselves into each other; this again is the particularity and relativity of contradiction. But the struggle of opposites is ceaseless, it goes on both when the opposites are coexisting and when they are transforming themselves into each other, and becomes especially conspicuous when they are transforming themselves into one another; this again is the universality and absoluteness of contradiction. In studying the particularity and relativity of contradiction, we must give attention to the distinction between the principal contradiction and the non-principal contradictions and to the distinction between the principal aspect and the non-principal aspect of a contradiction; in studying the universality of contradiction and the struggle of opposites in contradiction, we must give attention to the distinction between the different forms of struggle. Otherwise we shall make mistakes.
Annexure9: ON THE TEN MAJOR RELATIONSHIPS by Mao ZeDong
[Written April 25, 1956 ; Credit – Marxists Internet Archive]
In the past we followed this policy of mobilizing all positive factors in order to put an end to the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism and to win victory for the people’s democratic revolution. We are now following the same policy in order to carry on the socialist revolution and build a socialist country. Nevertheless, there are some problems in our work that need discussion. Particularly worthy of attention is the fact that in the Soviet Union certain defects and errors that occurred in the course of their building socialism have lately come to light. Do you want to follow the detours they have made? It was by drawing lessons from their experience that we were able to avoid certain detours in the past, and there is all the more reason for us to do so now.
I will now discuss the ten problems.
I. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEAVY INDUSTRY ON THE ONE HAND AND LIGHT INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE ON THE OTHER
The problem now facing us is that of continuing to adjust properly the ratio between investments in heavy industry on the one hand and in agriculture and light industry on the other in order to bring about a greater development of the latter. Does this mean that heavy industry is no longer primary? No. It still is, it still claims the emphasis in our investment. But the proportion for agriculture and light industry must be somewhat increased.
What will be the results of this increase? First, the daily needs of the people will be better satisfied, and, second, the accumulation of capital will be speeded up so that we can develop heavy industry with greater and better results.
II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INDUSTRY IN THE COASTAL REGIONS AND INDUSTRY IN THE INTERIOR
About 70 per cent of all our industry, both light and heavy, is to be found in the coastal regions and only 30 percent in the interior. This irrational situation is a product of history. The coastal industrial base must be put to full use, but to even out the distribution of industry as it develops we must strive to promote industry in the interior.
III. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEFENCE CONSTRUCTION
One reliable way is to cut military and administrative expenditures down to appropriate proportions and increase expenditures on economic construction. Only with the faster growth of economic construction can there be greater progress in defence construction.
IV. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE STATE, THE UNITS OF PRODUCTION AND THE PRODUCERS
The relationship between the state on the one hand and factories and agricultural co-operatives on the other and the relationship between factories and agricultural co-operatives on the one hand and the producers on the other should both be handled well. To this end we should consider not just one side but all three, the state, the collective and the individual …
It’s not right, I’m afraid, to place everything in the hands of the central or the provincial and municipal authorities without leaving the factories any power of their own, any room for independent action, any benefits….
What proportion of the earnings of a co-operative should go to the state, to the co-operative and to the peasants respectively and in what form should be determined properly. The amount that goes to the co-operative is used directly to serve the peasants….
In short, consideration must be given to both sides, not to just one, whether they are the state and the factory, the state and the worker, the factory and the worker, the state and the co-operative, the state and the peasant, or the co-operative and the peasant.
V. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CENTRAL AND THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES
The relationship between the central and the local authorities constitutes another contradiction. To resolve this contradiction, our attention should now be focussed on how to enlarge the powers of the local authorities to some extent, give them greater independence and let them do more, all on the premise that the unified leadership of the central authorities is to be strengthened….
There is also the relationship between different local authorities, and here I refer chiefly to the relationship between the higher and lower local authorities. Since the provinces and municipalities have their own complaints about the central departments, can it be that the prefectures, counties, districts and townships have no complaints about the provinces and municipalities?
VI. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE HAN NATIONALITY AND THE MINORITY NATIONALITIES
The minority nationalities have all contributed to the making of China’s history. The huge Han population is the result of the intermingling of many nationalities over a long time. All through the ages, the reactionary rulers, chiefly from the Han nationality, sowed feelings of estrangement among our various nationalities and bullied the minority peoples.
VII. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARTY AND NON-PARTY
In our country the various democratic parties, consisting primarily of the national bourgeoisie and its intellectuals, emerged during the resistance to Japan and the struggle against Chiang Kai-shek, and they continue to exist to this day. In this respect, China is different from the Soviet Union. We have purposely let the democratic parties remain, giving them opportunities to express their views and adopting a policy of both unity and struggle towards them. We unite with all those democratic personages who offer us well-intentioned criticisms. We should go on activating the enthusiasm of such people from the Kuomintang army and government as Wei Li-huang and Weng Wen-hao, who are patriotic. We should even provide for such abusive types as Lung Yun, Liang Shu-ming and Peng Yi-hu and allow them to rail at us, while refuting their nonsense and accepting what makes sense in their rebukes. This is better for the Party, for the people and for socialism.
VIII. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION
The suppression of counter-revolutionaries still calls for hard work. We must not relax. In future not only must the suppression of counter-revolutionaries in society continue, but we must also uncover all the hidden counter-revolutionaries in Party and government organs, schools and army units.
IX. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG
A clear distinction must be made between right and wrong, whether inside or outside the Party. How to deal with people who have made mistakes is an important question. The correct attitude towards them should be to adopt a policy of “learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones and curing the sickness to save the patient”, help them correct their mistakes and allow them to go on taking part in the revolution
X. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHINA AND OTHER COUNTRIES
Our policy is to learn from the strong points of all nations and all countries, learn all that is genuinely good in the political, economic, scientific and technological fields and in literature and art. But we must learn with an analytical and critical eye, not blindly, and we mustn’t copy everything indiscriminately and transplant mechanically. Naturally, we mustn’t pick up their shortcomings and weak points.
We must firmly reject and criticize all the decadent bourgeois systems, ideologies and ways of life of foreign countries. But this should in no way prevent us from learning the advanced sciences and technologies of capitalist countries and whatever is scientific in the management of their enterprises.
…
In my opinion, China has two weaknesses, which are at the same time two strong points.
First, in the past China was a colonial and semi-colonial country, not an imperialist power, and was always bullied by others. Its industry and agriculture are not developed and its scientific and technological level is low, and except for its vast territory, rich resources, large population, long history, The Dream of the Red Chamber in literature, and so on, China is inferior to other countries in many respects, and so has no reason to feel conceited. However, there are people who, having been slaves too long, feel inferior in everything and don’t stand up straight in the presence of foreigners.
Second, our revolution came late. Although the Revolution of 1911 which overthrew the Ching emperor preceded the Russian revolution, there was no Communist Party at that time and the revolution failed. Victory in the people’s revolution came only in 1949, some thirty years later than the October Revolution. On this account too, we are not in a position to feel conceited.
Being “poor” and “blank” is therefore all to our good. Even when one day our country becomes strong and prosperous, we must still adhere to the revolutionary stand, remain modest and prudent, learn from other countries and not allow ourselves to become swollen with conceit.
…
These ten relationships are all contradictions. The world consists of contradictions. Without contradictions the world would cease to exist. Our task is to handle these contradictions correctly. As to whether or not they can be resolved entirely to our satisfaction in practice, we must be prepared for either possibility; furthermore, in the course of resolving these contradictions we are bound to come up against new ones, new problems.
Annexure10: Analysis of The Classes in Chinese Society, by Mao ZeDong
[Written March 1926; Transcription by the Maoist Documentation Project. HTML revised 2004 by Marxists.org]
Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution. The basic reason why all previous revolutionary struggles in China achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies. A revolutionary party is the guide of the masses, and no revolution ever succeeds when the revolutionary party leads them astray. To ensure that we will definitely achieve success in our revolution and will not lead the masses astray, we must pay attention to uniting with our real friends in order to attack our real enemies. To distinguish real friends from real enemies, we must make a general analysis of the economic status of the various classes in Chinese society and of their respective attitudes towards the revolution.
What is the condition of each of the classes in Chinese society?
The landlord class and the comprador class.[1] In economically backward and semi-colonial China the landlord class and the comprador class are wholly appendages of the international bourgeoisie, depending upon imperialism for their survival and growth. These classes represent the most backward and most reactionary relations of production in China and hinder the development of her productive forces. Their existence is utterly incompatible with the aims of the Chinese revolution. The big landlord and big comprador classes in particular always side with imperialism and constitute an extreme counterrevolutionary group. Their political representatives are the Étatistes [2] and the right-wing of the Kuomintang.
The middle bourgeoisie. This class represents the capitalist relations of production in China in town and country. The middle bourgeoisie, by which is meant chiefly the national bourgeoisie, [3] is inconsistent in its attitude towards the Chinese revolution: they feel the need for revolution and favour the revolutionary movement against imperialism and the warlords when they are smarting under the blows of foreign capital and the oppression of the warlords, but they become suspicious of the revolution when they sense that, with the militant participation of the proletariat at home and the active support of the international proletariat abroad, the revolution is threatening the hope of their class to attain the status of a big bourgeoisie. Politically, they stand for the establishment of a state under the rule of a single class, the national bourgeoisie. A self-styled true disciple of Tai Chi-tao [4] wrote in the Chen Pao, [5] Peking, “Raise your left fist to knock down the imperialists and your right to knock down the Communists.” These words depict the dilemma and anxiety of this class. It is against interpreting the Kuomintang’s Principle of the People’s Livelihood according to the theory of class struggle, and it opposes the Kuomintang’s alliance with Russia and the admission of Communists [6] and left-wingers. But its attempt to establish a state under the rule of the national bourgeoisie is quite impracticable, because the present world situation is such that the two major forces, revolution and counter-revolution, are locked in final struggle. Each has hoisted a huge banner: one is the red banner of revolution held aloft by the Third International as the rallying point for all the oppressed classes of the world, the other is the white banner of counterrevolution held aloft by the League of Nations as the rallying point for all the counter-revolutionaries of the world. The intermediate classes are bound to disintegrate quickly, some sections turning left to join the revolution, others turning right to join the counter-revolution; there is no room for them to remain “independent”. Therefore the idea cherished by China’s middle bourgeoisie of an “independent” revolution in which it would play the primary role is a mere illusion.
The petty bourgeoisie. Included in this category are the owner-peasants, [7] the master handicraftsmen, the lower levels of the intellectuals–students, primary and secondary school teachers, lower government functionaries, office clerks, small lawyers–and the small traders. Both because of its size and class character, this class deserves very close attention. The owner-peasants and the master handicraftsmen are both engaged in small-scale production. Although all strata of this class have the same petty-bourgeois economic status, they fall into three different sections. The first section consists of those who have some surplus money or grain, that is, those who, by manual or mental labour, earn more each year than they consume for their own support. Such people very much want to get rich and are devout worshipers of Marshal Chao; [8] while they have no illusions about amassing great fortunes, they invariably desire to climb up into the middle bourgeoisie. Their mouths water copiously when they see the respect in which those small moneybags are held. People of this sort are timid, afraid of government officials, and also a little afraid of the revolution. Since they are quite close to the middle bourgeoisie in economic status, they have a lot of faith in its propaganda and are suspicious of the revolution. This section is a minority among the petty bourgeoisie and constitutes its right-wing. The second section consists of those who in the main are economically self-supporting. They are quite different from the people in the first section; they also want to get rich, but Marshal Chao never lets them. In recent years, moreover, suffering from the oppression and exploitation of the imperialists, the warlords, the feudal landlords and the big comprador-bourgeoisie, they have become aware that the world is no longer what it was. They feel they cannot earn enough to live on by just putting in as much work as before. To make both ends meet they have to work longer hours, get up earlier, leave off later, and be doubly careful at their work. They become rather abusive, denouncing the foreigners as “foreign devils”, the warlords as “robber generals” and the local tyrants and evil gentry as “the heartless rich”. As for the movement against the imperialists and the warlords, they merely doubt whether it can succeed (on the ground that the foreigners and the warlords seem so powerful), hesitate to join it and prefer to be neutral, but they never oppose the revolution. This section is very numerous, making up about one-half of the petty bourgeoisie.
The third section consists of those whose standard of living is falling. Many in this section, who originally belonged to better-off families, are undergoing a gradual change from a position of being barely able to manage to one of living in more and more reduced circumstances. When they come to settle their accounts at the end of each year, they are shocked, exclaiming, “What? Another deficit!” As such people have seen better days and are now going downhill with every passing year, their debts mounting and their life becoming more and more miserable, they “shudder at the thought of the future”. They are in great mental distress because there is such a contrast between their past and their present. Such people are quite important for the revolutionary movement; they form a mass of no small proportions and are the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie. In normal times these three sections of the petty bourgeoisie differ in their attitude to the revolution. But in times of war, that is, when the tide of the revolution runs high and the dawn of victory is in sight, not only will the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie join the revolution, but the middle section too may join, and even tight-wingers, swept forward by the great revolutionary tide of the proletariat and of the left-wing of the petty bourgeoisie, will have to go along with the “evolution.” We can see from the experience of the May 30th Movement [9] of 1925 and the peasant movement in various places that this conclusion is correct.
The semi-proletariat. What is here called the semi-proletariat consists of five categories: (1) the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants, [10] (2) the poor peasants, (3) the small handicraftsmen, (4) the shop assistants [11] and (5) the pedlars. The overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants together with the poor peasants constitute a very large part of the rural masses. The peasant problem is essentially their problem. The semi-owner peasants, the poor peasants and the small handicraftsmen are engaged in production on a still smaller scale than the owner-peasants and the master handicraftsmen. Although both the overwhelming majority of the semi-owner peasants and the poor peasants belong to the semi-proletariat, they may be further divided into three smaller categories, upper, middle and lower, according to their economic condition. The semi-owner peasants are worse off than the owner-peasants because every year they are short of about half the food they need, and have to make up this deficit by renting land from others, selling part of their labour power, or engaging in petty trading. In late spring and early summer when the crop is still in the blade and the old stock is consumed, they borrow at exorbitant rates of interest and buy grain at high prices; their plight is naturally harder than that of the owner-peasants’ who need no help from others, but they are better off than the poor’ peasants. For the poor peasants own no land, and receive only half the harvest or even less for their year’s toil, while the semi-owner` peasants, though receiving only half or less than half the harvest of land rented from others, can keep the entire crop from the land they own. The semi-owner peasants are therefore more revolutionary than the owner-peasants, but less revolutionary than the poor peasants. The poor peasants are tenant-peasants who are exploited by the landlords. They may again be divided into two categories according to their economic status. One category has comparatively adequate farm implements and some funds. Such peasants may retain half the product of their year’s toil. To make up their deficit they cultivate side crops, catch fish or shrimps, raise poultry or pigs, or sell part of their labour power, and thus eke out a living, hoping in the midst of hardship and destitution to tide over the year. Thus their life is harder than that of the semi-owner peasants, but they are better off than the other category of poor peasants. They ate more revolutionary than the semi-owner peasants, but less revolutionary than the other category of poor peasants. As for the latter, they have neither adequate farm implements nor funds nor enough manure, their crops are poor, and, with little left after paying rent, they have even greater need to sell part of their labour power. In hard times they piteously beg help from relatives and friends, borrowing a few tou or sheng of grain to last them a few days, and their debts pile up like loads on the backs of oxen. They are the worst off among the peasants and are highly receptive to revolutionary propaganda. The small handicraftsmen are called semi-proletarians because, though they own some simple means of production and moreover are self-employed, they too are often forced to sell part of their labour power and are somewhat similar to the poor peasants in economic status. They feel the constant pinch of poverty and dread of unemployment, because of heavy family burdens and the gap between their earnings and the cost of living; in this respect too they largely resemble the poor peasants. The shop assistants are employees of shops and stores, supporting their families on meagre pay and getting an increase perhaps only once in several years while prices rise every year. If by chance you get into intimate conversation with them, they invariably pour out their endless grievances. Roughly the same in status as the poor peasants and the small handicraftsmen, they are highly receptive to revolutionary propaganda. The pedlars, whether they carry their wares around on a pole or set up stalls along the street, have tiny funds and very small earnings, and do not make enough to feed and clothe themselves. Their status is roughly the same as that of the poor peasants, and like the poor peasants they need a revolution to change the existing state of affairs.
The proletariat. The modern industrial proletariat numbers about two million. It is not large because China is economically backward. These two million industrial workers are mainly employed in five industries–railways, mining, maritime transport, textiles and shipbuilding–and a great number are enslaved in enterprises owned by foreign capitalists. Though not very numerous, the industrial proletariat represents China’s new productive forces, is the most progressive class in modern China and has become the leading force in the revolutionary movement. We can see the important position of the industrial proletariat in the Chinese revolution from the strength it has displayed in the strikes of the last four years, such as the seamen’s strikes, [12] the railway strike, [13] the strikes in the Kailan and Tsiaotso coal mines, [14] the Shameen strike [15] and the general strikes in Shanghai and Hong Kong [16] after the May 30th Incident. The first reason why the industrial workers hold this position is their concentration. No other section of the people is so concentrated. The second reason is their low economic status. They have been deprived of all means of production, have nothing left but their hands, have no hope of ever becoming rich and, moreover, are subjected to the most ruthless treatment by the imperialists, the warlords and the bourgeoisie. That is why they are particularly good fighters. The coolies in the cities are also a force meriting attention. They are mostly dockers and rickshaw men, and among them, too, are sewage carters and street cleaners. Possessing nothing but their hands, they are similar in economic status to the industrial workers but are less concentrated and play a less important role in production. There is as yet little modern capitalist farming in China. By rural proletariat we mean farm labourers hired by the year, the month or the day. Having neither land, farm implements nor funds, they can live only by selling their labour power. Of all the workers they work the longest hours, for the lowest wages, under the worst conditions, and with the least security of employment. They are the most hard-pressed people in the villages, and their position in the peasant movement is as important as that of the poor peasants.
Apart from all these, there is the fairly large lumpen-proletariat, made up of peasants who have lost their land and handicraftsmen who cannot get work. They lead the most precarious existence of all. In every part of the country they have their secret societies, which were originally their mutual-aid organizations for political and economic struggle, for instance, the Triad Society in Fukien and Kwangtung, the Society of Brothers in Hunan, Hupeh, Kweichow and Szechuan, the Big Sword Society in Anhwei, Honan and Shantung, the Rational Life Society in Chihli [17] and the three northeastern provinces, and the Green Band in Shanghai and elsewhere [18] One of China’s difficult problems is how to handle these people. Brave fighters but apt to be destructive, they can become a revolutionary force if given proper guidance.
To sum up, it can be seen that our enemies are all those in league with imperialism–the warlords, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them. The leading force in our revolution is the industrial proletariat. Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie. As for the vacillating middle bourgeoisie, their right-wing may become our enemy and their left-wing may become our friend but we must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks.
Annexure11: The Year 1905 by Leon Trotsky
[Chapter4: The Driving Forces of the Russian Revolution; First Published 1907 as part of Our Revolution; 1909 in German; 1922, first full edition, revised, in Russian. This edition by Vintage, by permission of Ralph Schoenman; Translated: Anya Bostock; Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters; Credit – Marxists Internet Archive]
A population of 150 million people, 5.4 million square kilometers of land in Europe, 17.5 million in Asia. Within this vast space every epoch of human culture is to be found: from the primeval barbarism of the northern forests, where people eat raw fish and worship blocks of wood, to the modern social relations of the capitalist city, where socialist workers consciously recognize themselves as participants in world politics and keep a watchful eye on events in the Balkans and on debates in the German Reichstag. The most concentrated industry in Europe based on the most backward agriculture in Europe. The most colossal state apparatus in the world making use of every achievement of modern technological progress in order to retard the historical progress of its own country.
In the preceding chapters we have tried, leaving aside all details, to give a general picture of Russia’s economic relations and social contradictions. That is the soil on which our social classes grow, live and fight. The revolution will show us those classes at a period of the most intensive struggle. But there are consciously formed associations which intervene directly in a country’s political life: parties, unions, the army, the bureaucracy, the press and, placed above these, the ministers of state, the political leaders, the demagogues and the hangmen. Classes cannot be seen at a glance – they usually remain behind the scenes. Yet this does not prevent political parties and their leaders, as well as ministers of state and their hangmen, from being mere organs of their respective classes. Whether these organs are good or bad is by no means irrelevant to progress and the final outcome of events. If ministers are merely the hired servants of the “objective intelligence of the state,” this by no means relieves them of the necessity of having a modicum of brain inside their own skulls – a fact which they themselves are too often apt to overlook. On the other hand, the logic of the class struggle does not exempt us from the necessity of using our own logic. Whoever is unable to admit initiative, talent, energy, and heroism into the framework of historical necessity, has not grasped the philosophical secret of Marxism. But, conversely, if we want to grasp a political process – in this case, the revolution – as a whole, we must be capable of seeing, behind the motley of parties and programs, behind the perfidy and greed of some and the courage and idealism of others, the proper outlines of the social classes whose roots lie deep within the relations of production and whose flowers blossom in the highest spheres of ideology.
The Modern City
The nature of capitalist classes is closely bound up with the history of the development of industry and of the town. It is true that in Russia the industrial population coincides with the urban population to a lesser extent than anywhere else. Apart from the factory suburbs which, for purely formal reasons, are not included within the boundaries of towns, there exist several dozen important industrial centers in the countryside. Of the total number of existing enterprises, 57 per cent, employing 58 per cent of the total number of workers, are located outside the towns. Nevertheless the capitalist town remains the most complete expression of the new society.
The urban Russia of today is a product of the last few decades. During the first quarter of the eighteenth century Russia’s urban population was 328,000, that is, approximately 3 per cent of the total population of the country. In 1812, 1.6 million people were living in towns, which still represented only 4.4 per cent of the total. In the middle of the nineteenth century the urban population amounted to 3.5 million people, or 7.8 per cent. Finally, according to the census of 1897, the urban population by then already amounted to 16.3 million or approximately 13 per cent of the total. Between 1885 and 1897 the urban population had grown by 33.8 per cent, whereas the rural population had increased by only 12.7 per cent. The growth of individual cities during this period was more dramatic still. The population of Moscow rose from 604,000 to 1,359,000, that is, by 123 per cent. The southern towns – Odessa, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinoslav, Baku – developed at an even faster rate.
Parallel with the increase in the number and size of towns, the second half of the nineteenth century saw a complete transformation of the economic role of the town within the country’s internal class structure.
Unlike the artisanal and guild towns of Europe, which fought with energy and often with success for the concentration of all processing industries within their walls, but rather like the towns of the Asian despotic systems, the old Russian cities performed virtually no productive functions. They were military and administrative centers, field fortresses or, in some cases, commercial centers which, whatever their particular nature, drew their supplies entirely from outside. Their population consisted of officials maintained at the expense of the treasury, of merchants, and, lastly, of landowners looking for a safe harbor within the city walls. Even Moscow, the largest of the old Russian cities, was no more than a vast village dependent on the Tsar’s private lands.
The crafts occupied a negligible position in the towns, since, as we already know, the processing industries of the time took the form of cottage industries and were scattered over the countryside. The ancestors of the four million cottage craftsmen listed in the census of 1897 performed the productive functions of the European town artisan but, unlike the latter, had no connection whatever with the creation of manufacturing workshops and factories. When such workshops and factories did make their appearance, they proletarianized the larger part of the cottage craftsmen and placed the rest, directly or indirectly, under their domination.
Just as Russian industry has never lived through the epoch of medieval craftsmanship, so the Russian towns have never known the gradual growth of the third estate in workshops, guilds, communes, and municipalities. European capital created Russian industry in a matter of a few decades, and Russian industry in its turn created the modern cities in which the principal productive functions are performed by the proletariat.
The Big Capitalist Bourgeoisie
Thus large-scale capital achieved economic domination without a struggle. But the tremendous part played in this process by foreign capital has had a fatal impact on the Russian bourgeoisie’s power of political influence. As a result of state indebtedness, a considerable share of the national product went abroad year by year, enriching and strengthening the European bourgeoisie. But the aristocracy of the stock exchange, which holds the hegemony in European countries and which, without effort, turned the Tsarist government into its financial vassal, neither wished nor was able to become part of the bourgeois opposition within Russia, if only because no other form of national government would have guaranteed it the usurers’ rates of interest it exacted under Tsarism. As well as financial capital, foreign industrial capital, while exploiting Russia’s natural resources and labour power, had its political basis outside Russia’s frontiers – namely, the French, English, and Belgian parliaments.
Neither could our indigenous capital take up a position at the head of the national struggle with Tsarism, since, from the first, it was antagonistic to the popular masses – the proletariat, which it exploits directly, and the peasantry, which it robs indirectly through the state. This is particularly true of heavy industry which, at the present time, is everywhere dependent on state activities and, principally, on militarism. True, it is interested in a “firm civil rule of law,” but it has still greater need of concentrated state power, that great dispenser of bounties. The owners of metallurgical enterprises are confronted, in their own plants, with the most advanced and most active section of the working class for whom every sign that Tsarism is weakening is a signal for a further attack on capitalism.
The textile industry is less dependent on the state, and, furthermore, it is directly interested in raising the purchasing power of the masses, which cannot be done without far-reaching agrarian reform. That is why in 1905 Moscow, the textile city par excellence, showed a much fiercer, though not perhaps a more energetic, opposition to the autocratic bureaucracy than the Petersburg of the metalworkers. The Moscow municipal duma looked upon the rising tide with unquestionable goodwill. But when the revolution revealed the whole of its social content and, by so doing, impelled the textile workers to take the path that the metalworkers had taken before them, the Moscow duma shifted most resolutely, “as a matter of principle,” in the direction of firm state power. Counter-revolutionary capital, having joined forces with the counter-revolutionary landowners, found its leader in the Moscow merchant Guchkov, the leader of the majority in the third Duma.
The Bourgeois Intelligentsia
European capital, in preventing the development of Russian artisanal trade, thereby snatched the ground from under the feet of Russia’s bourgeois democracy. Can the Petersburg or Moscow of today be compared with the Berlin or Vienna of 1848, or with the Paris of 1789, which had not yet begun to dream of railways or the telegraph and regarded a workshop employing 300 men as the largest imaginable? We have never had even a trace of that sturdy middle class which first lived through centuries of schooling in self-government and political struggle and then, hand in hand with a young, as yet unformed proletariat, stormed the Bastilles of feudalism. What has Russia got in place of such a middle class? The “new middle class,” the professional intelligentsia: lawyers, journalists, doctors, engineers, university professors, schoolteachers. Deprived of any independent significance in social production, small in numbers, economically dependent, this social stratum, rightly conscious of its own powerlessness, keeps looking for a massive social class upon which it can lean. The curious fact is that such support was offered, in the first instance, not by the capitalists but by the landowners.
The Constitutional-Democratic (Kadet) party, which dominated the first two Dumas, was formed in 1905 as a result of the League of Landed Constitutionalists joining the League of Liberation. The liberal fronde of the Landed Constitutionalists, or zemtsy, was the expression, on the one hand, of the landowners’ envy and discontent with the monstrous industrial protectionism of the state, and, on the other hand, of the opposition of the more progressive landowners, who recognized the barbarism of Russia’s agrarian relations as an obstacle to their putting their land economy on a capitalist footing. The League of Liberation united those elements of the intelligentsia which, by their “decent” social status and their resulting prosperity, were prevented from taking the revolutionary path. The landed opposition was always marked with pusillanimous impotence, and our Most August dimwit was merely stating a bitter truth when, in 1894, he described its political aspirations as “senseless dreams.” Neither were the privileged members of the intelligentsia, those directly or indirectly dependent on the state, on state-protected large capital or on liberal landownership, capable of forming a political opposition that was even moderately impressive.
Consequently, the Kadet party was, by its very origins, a union of the oppositional impotence of the zemtsy with the all-around impotence of the diploma-carrying intelligentsia. The real face of the agrarians’ liberalism was fully revealed by the end of 1905, when the landowners, startled by the rural disorders, swung sharply around to support the old regime. The liberal intelligentsia, with tears in its eyes, was obliged to forsake the country estate where, when all is said and done, it had been no more than a fosterchild, and to seek recognition in its historic home, the city. But what did it find in the city, other than its own self? It found the conservative capitalist bourgeoisie, the revolutionary proletariat, and the irreconcilable class antagonism between the two.
The same antagonism has split to their very foundations our smaller industries in all those branches where they still retain any importance. The craft proletariat is developing in a climate of large-scale industry and differs only little from the factory proletariat. Other Russian craftsmen, under pressure from large-scale industry and the working-class movement, represent an ignorant, hungry, embittered class which, together with the lumpenproletariat, provides the fighting legions for the Black Hundreds demonstrations and pogroms.
As a result we have a hopelessly retarded bourgeois intelligentsia born to the accompaniment of socialist imprecations, which today is suspended over an abyss of class contradictions, weighed down with feudal traditions and caught in a web of academic prejudices, lacking initiative, lacking all influence over the masses, and devoid of all confidence in the future.
The Proletariat
The same factors of a world-historical nature which had transformed Russia’s bourgeois democracy into a head (and a pretty muddled head at that) without a body, also determined the outstanding role of Russia’s young proletariat. But, before we inquire into anything else, how large is that proletariat?
The highly incomplete figures of 1897 supply the following answer:
NUMBER OF WORKERS:
Mining and processing industries,transport, building and commercial enterprises
3,322,000
Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and hunting
2,725,000
Day laborers and apprentices
1,195,000
Servants, porters, janitors etc.
2,132,000
Total (men and women)
9,272,000
In 1897, the proletariat, including dependent family members, comprised 27.6 per cent of the total population, that is, slightly over one-quarter. The degree of political activity of separate strata within this mass of workers varies considerably, the leading role in the revolution being held almost exclusively by workers in group A in the table above. It would, however, be a most flagrant error to measure the real and potential significance of the Russian proletariat by its relative proportion within the population as a whole. To do so would be to fail to see the social relations concealed behind the figures.
The influence of the proletariat is determined by its role in the modern economy. The nation’s most powerful means of production depend directly on the workers. Not less than half the nation’s annual income is produced by 3.3 million workers (group A). The railways, our most important means of transport, which alone are able to convert our vast country into an economic whole, represent – as events have shown – an economic and political factor of the utmost importance in the hands of the proletariat. To this we should add the postal services and the telegraph, whose dependence on the proletariat is less direct but nonetheless very real.
While the peasantry is scattered over the entire countryside, the proletariat is concentrated in large masses in the factories and industrial centers. It forms the nucleus of the population of every town of any economic or political importance, and all the advantages of the town in a capitalist country – concentration of the productive forces, the means of production, the most active elements of the population, and the greatest cultural benefits – are naturally transformed into class advantages for the proletariat. Its self-determination as a class has developed with a rapidity unequaled in previous history. Scarcely emerged from the cradle, the Russian proletariat found itself faced with the most concentrated state power and the equally concentrated power of capital. Craft prejudices and guild traditions had no power whatsoever over its consciousness. From its first steps it entered upon the path of irreconcilable class struggle.
In this way the negligible role of artisanal crafts in Russia and of minor industry in general, together with the exceptionally developed state of Russia’s large-scale industry, have led in politics to the displacement of bourgeois democracy by proletarian democracy. Together with its productive functions, the proletariat has taken over the petty bourgeoisie’s historical role as played in previous revolutions, and also its historical claims to leadership over the peasant masses during the epoch of their emancipation, as an estate, from the yoke of the nobility and the state fiscal organization.
The agrarian problem proved to be the political touchstone by which history put the urban political parties to the test.
The Nobility and Landowners
The Kadet (or, rather, former Kadet) program of enforced expropriation of large and medium landholdings on the basis of “just assessments” represents, in the Kadets’ view, the maximum of what can be achieved by means of “creative legislative effort.” But in reality the liberals’ attempt to expropriate the large landed estates by legislative means led only to the government’s denial of electoral rights and to the coup d’état of June 3, 1907. The Kadets viewed the liquidation of the landowning nobility as a purely financial operation, trying conscientiously to make their “just assessment” as acceptable as possible to the landowners. But the nobility took a very different view of the matter. With its infallible instinct it realized at once that what was at stake was not simply the sale of 50 million dessyatins, even at high prices, but the liquidation of its entire social role as a ruling estate; and, therefore, it refused point blank to allow itself to be thus auctioned off. Count Saltykov, addressing the landowners in the first Duma, cried: “Let your motto and your slogan be: not a square inch of our land, not a handful of earth from our fields, not a blade of grass from our meadows, not the smallest twig on a single tree from our forests!” And this was not a voice crying in the wilderness: the years of revolution were precisely the period of estate concentration and political consolidation for the Russian nobility.
During the time of darkest reaction, under Alexander III, the nobility was only one of our estates, even if the first among them. The autocracy, vigilantly protecting its own independence, never for a moment allowed the nobility to escape from the grip of police supervision, putting the muzzle of state control on the maw of its natural greed. Today, on the other hand, the nobility is the commanding estate in the fullest sense of the word: it makes the provincial governors dance to its tune, threatens the ministers and openly dismisses them, puts ultimata to the government and makes sure that these ultimata are observed. Its slogan is: not a square inch of our land, not a particle of our privileges!
Approximately 75 million dessyatins are concentrated in the hands of 60,000 private landowners with annual incomes of more than 1,000 roubles; at a market price of 56 billion roubles, this land produces more than 450 million roubles net profit per annum for its owners. Not less than two-thirds of this sum is the nobility’s share. The bureaucracy is closely linked with land ownership. Almost 200 million roubles are spent annually on maintaining 30,000 officials receiving salaries of more than 1,000 roubles. And it is precisely in these middle and higher ranges of officialdom that the nobility is noticeably preponderant. Lastly, it is once more the nobility which is in full control of the organs of rural local government and the incomes derived therefrom.
Whereas, before the revolution, a good half of the rural administrations were headed by “liberal” landowners who had come to the fore on the basis of their “progressive” activities in the rural sphere, the years of revolution have entirely reversed this situation, so that, as a result, the leading positions are now occupied by the most irreconcilable representatives of the land owners’ reaction. The all-powerful Council of the United Nobility is nipping in the bud all attempts by the government, undertaken in the interests of capitalist industry, to “democratize” the rural administrations or to weaken the chains of estate slavery which bind our peasantry hand and foot.
In the face of these facts, the agrarian program of the Kadets as a basis for legislative agreement has proved hopelessly utopian, and it is hardly surprising that the Kadets themselves have tacitly abandoned it.
The social democrats criticized the Kadet program principally on the grounds of the “just assessment,” and they were right to do so. From the financial viewpoint alone, the purchase of all landed estates bringing in a profit of over 1,000 roubles a year would have added a round sum of 5 to 6 billion roubles to our national debt, which already amounts to 9 billion roubles; which means that interest alone would have begun to swallow up three-quarters of a billion roubles a year. However, what matters is not the financial but the political aspect of the question.
The conditions of the so-called liberation reform of 1861, with the help of the excessive redemption fees paid for peasant lands, in fact compensated the landowners for the peasant “souls” lost (roughly to the extent of one-quarter of a billion roubles, that is, 25 per cent of the total redemption fees). On the basis of a “just assessment” the important historical rights and privileges of the nobility would really have been liquidated; the nobility therefore preferred to adapt itself to the semi-liberation reform, and was quickly reconciled to it. At that time, the nobility showed correct instinct, as it does today when it resolutely refuses to commit suicide as an estate, however “just” the “assessment.” Not a square inch of our land, not a particle of our privileges! Under this banner the nobility has finally acquired dominance over the government apparatus so badly shaken by the revolution; and it has shown that it is determined to fight with all the ferocity of which a governing class is capable in a matter of life or death.
The agrarian problem cannot be solved by means of parliamentary agreement with the landed estate, but only by means of a revolutionary onslaught by the masses.
The Peasantry and the Towns
The knot of Russia’s social and political barbarism was tied in the countryside; but this does not mean that the countryside has produced a class capable, by its own forces, of cutting through that knot. The peasantry, scattered in 500,000 villages and hamlets over the 5 million square versts of European Russia, has not inherited from its past any tradition or habit of concerted political struggle. During the agrarian riots of 1905 and 1906, the aim of the mutinous peasants was reduced to driving the landowners outside the boundaries of their village, their rural area and finally, their administrative area. Against the peasant revolution the landed nobility had in its hands the ready-made weapon of the centralized apparatus of the state. The peasantry could have overcome this obstacle only by means of a resolute uprising unified both in time and in effort. But, owing to all the conditions of their existence, the peasants proved quite incapable of such an uprising. Local cretinism is history’s curse on all peasant riots. They liberate themselves from this curse only to the extent that they cease to be purely peasant movements and merge with the revolutionary movements of new social classes.
As far back as the revolution of the German peasantry during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the peasantry placed itself quite naturally under the direct leadership of the urban parties, despite the economic weakness and political insignificance of German towns at that time. Socially revolutionary in its objective interests, yet politically fragmented and powerless, the peasantry was incapable of forming a party of its own, and so gave way – depending on local conditions – either to the oppositional-burgher or to the revolutionary-plebeian parties of the towns. These last, the only force which could have ensured the victory of the peasant revolution, were however (although based on the most radical class of the society of that time, the embryo of the modern proletariat) entirely without links with the rest of the nation or any clear consciousness of revolutionary aims. They were without them because of the country’s lack of economic development, the primitive means of transport, and state particularism. Hence the problem of revolutionary cooperation between the mutinous countryside and the urban plebs was nor solved at that time because it could not be solved; and the peasant movement was crushed.
More than three centuries later, correlations of a similar kind were seen again in the revolution of 1848. The liberal bourgeoisie not only did not want to arouse the peasantry and unite it around itself, it actually feared the growth of the peasant movement more than anything else, precisely because this growth would have the primary effect of intensifying and strengthening the position of the plebeian, radical urban elements against the liberal bourgeoisie itself. Yet these elements were still socially and politically amorphous and fragmented and consequently were unable to displace the liberal bourgeoisie and place themselves at the head of the peasant masses. The revolution of 1848 was defeated.
Yet, six decades previously, the problems of revolution were triumphantly resolved in France, precisely through the cooperation of the peasantry with the urban plebs, that is, the proletariat, semi-proletariat, and lumpenproletariat of the time. This “cooperation” took the form of the Convention, that is, of the dictatorship of the city over the countryside, of Paris over the provinces, and of the sans-culottes over Paris.
Under contemporary Russian conditions, the social preponderance of the industrial population over the rural population is incomparably greater than at the time of the old European revolutions, and further, a clearly defined industrial proletariat has replaced the chaotic plebs. One thing, however, has not changed: only a party which has the revolutionary urban masses behind it, and which is not afraid, out of pious respect for bourgeois private property, to revolutionize feudal ownership, can rely on the peasantry at a time of revolution. Today only the Social Democrats are such a party.
The Nature of the Russian Revolution
So far as its direct and indirect tasks are concerned, the Russian revolution is a “bourgeois” revolution because it sets out to liberate bourgeois society from the chains and fetters of absolutism and feudal ownership. But the principal driving force of the Russian revolution is the proletariat, and that is why, so far as its method is concerned, it is a proletarian revolution. Many pedants who insist on determining the historical role of the proletariat by means of arithmetical or statistical calculations, or establishing it by means of formal historical analogies, have shown themselves incapable of digesting this contradiction. They see the bourgeoisie as the providence-sent leader of the Russian revolution. They try to wrap the proletariat – which, in fact, marched at the head of events at all stages of the revolutionary rising – in the swaddling-clothes of their own theoretical immaturity. For such pedants, the history of one capitalist nation repeats the history of another, with, of course, certain more or less important divergences. Today they fail to see the unified process of world capitalist development which swallows up all the countries that lie in its path and which creates, out of the national and general exigencies of capitalism, an amalgam whose nature cannot be understood by the application of historical cliches, but only by materialist analysis.
There can be no analogy of historical development between, on the one hand, England, the pioneer of capitalism, which has been creating new social forms for centuries and has also created a powerful bourgeoisie as the expression of these new forms and on the other hand, the colonies of today, to which European capital delivers ready-made rails, sleepers, nuts and bolts in ready-made battleships for the use of the colonial administration, and then, with rifle and bayonet, drives the natives from their primitive environment straight into capitalist civilization: there can be no analogy of historical development, certainly, but there does exist a profound inner connection between the two.
The new Russia acquired its absolutely specific character because it received its capitalist baptism in the latter half of the nineteenth century from European capital which by then had reached its most concentrated and abstract form, that of finance capital. The previous history of European capital is in no way connected with the previous history of Russia. In order to attain, on its native ground, the heights of the modern stock exchange, European capital had first to escape from the narrow streets and lanes of the artisanal town where it had learned to crawl and walk; it was obliged, in ceaseless struggle with the Church, to develop science and technology, to rally the entire nation around itself, to gain power by means of uprisings against feudal and dynastic privileges, to clear an open arena for itself, to kill off the independent small industries from which it had itself emerged, having severed the national umbilical cord and shaken the dust of its forefathers from its feet, having rid itself of political prejudice, racial sympathies, geographical longitudes and latitudes, in order, then, at last to soar high above the globe in all its voracious glory, today poisoning with opium the Chinese craftsman whom it has ruined, tomorrow enriching the Russian seas with new warships, the day after seizing diamond deposits in South Africa.
But when English or French capital, the historical coagulate of many centuries, appears in the steppes of the Donets basin, it cannot release the same social forces, relations, and passions which once went into its own formation. It does not repeat on the new territory the development which it has already completed, but starts from the point at which it has arrived on its own ground. Around the machines which it has transported across the seas and the customs barriers, it immediately, without any intermediate stages whatever, concentrates the masses of a new proletariat, and into this class it instills the revolutionary energy of all the past generations of the bourgeoisie – an energy which in Europe has by now become stagnant.
During the heroic period of French history we see a bourgeoisie which has not yet realized the contradictions of its own position, a bourgeoisie upon which history has placed the leadership of a struggle for a new order, not only against the outdated institutions of France, but also against reactionary forces in Europe as a whole. The bourgeoisie, personified by all its factions in turn, gradually becomes conscious of itself and becomes the leader of the nation; it draws the masses into the struggle, gives them slogans to fight for, and dictates the tactics of their fight.
Democracy unifies the nation by giving it a political ideology. The people – the petty bourgeoisie, the peasants and the workers – appoint the bourgeoisie as their deputies, and the orders issued to these deputies by the communes are written in the language of a bourgeoisie becoming conscious of its Messianic role. During the revolution itself, although class antagonisms become apparent, the powerful momentum of revolutionary struggle nevertheless consistently removes the most static elements of the bourgeoisie from the political path. No layer is stripped off before it has handed its energy over to the succeeding layers. The nation as a whole continues during all this time to fight for its objectives, using increasingly more radical and decisive means. When the uppermost layers of the property-owning bourgeoisie cut themselves off from the national nucleus which had thus been set in motion, and when they entered into an alliance with Louis XVI, the democratic demands of the nation, now directed against the bourgeoisie as well, led to universal franchise and to the Republic as being the logically inevitable form of democracy.
The great French Revolution was truly a national revolution. But more than that: here, within a national framework, the world struggle of the bourgeois order for domination, for power, and for unimpaired triumph found its classic expression.
By 1848 the bourgeoisie was already unable to play a similar role. It did not want to, and could not, assume responsibility for a revolutionary liquidation of the social order which barred the way to its own dominance. Its task – and this it fully realized – consisted in introducing into the old order certain essential guarantees, not of its own political dominance, but only of co-dominance with the forces of the past. It not only failed to lead the masses in storming the old order; it used the old order as a defence against the masses who were trying to push it forward. Its consciousness rebelled against the objective conditions of its dominance. Democratic institutions were reflected in its mind, not as the aim and purpose of its struggle, but as a threat to its well-being. The revolution could not be made by the bourgeoisie, but only against the bourgeoisie. That is why a successful revolution in 1848 would have needed a class capable of marching at the head of events regardless of the bourgeoisie and despite it, a class prepared not only to push the bourgeoisie forward by the force of its pressure, but also, at the decisive moment, to kick the political corpse of the bourgeoisie out of its way.
Neither the petty bourgeoisie nor the peasantry were capable of this. The petty bourgeoisie was hostile not only to the immediate past, but also to the possible future – to the morrow. Still fettered by medieval relations, but already incapable of resisting “free” industry; still centering itself on the cities, but already yielding its influence to the middle and higher bourgeoisie; sunk in its prejudices, deafened by the roar of events, exploiting and exploited, greedy and impotent in its greed, the provincial petty bourgeoisie was incapable of directing world events.
The peasantry was deprived of independent initiative to a still greater extent. Dispersed, cut off from the cities which were the nerve centers of politics and culture, dull-minded, its intellectual horizons hedged in like its meadows and fields, indifferent towards everything that the cities had created by invention and thought, the peasantry could not assume any leading significance. Appeased as soon as the burden of feudal tithes was removed from its shoulders, it repaid the cities, which had fought for its rights, with black ingratitude: the liberated peasants became fanatics of “order.”
The democratic intellectual, devoid of class force, trotted after the liberal bourgeoisie as after an older sister. It acted merely as its political tail. It abandoned it at moments of crisis. It revealed only its own impotence. It was confused by its contradictions – which had not yet fully ripened – and it carried this confusion with it wherever it went.
The proletariat was too weak and had too little organization, experience, and knowledge. Capitalist development had gone far enough to necessitate the destruction of the old feudal relations, but not far enough to advance the working class, the product of the new production relations, to the position of a decisive political force. The antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had gone too far to enable the bourgeoisie to assume the role of national leadership without fear, but not far enough to enable the proletariat to grasp that role.
Austria provided a particularly acute and tragic example of this political unreadiness in the revolutionary period. The Vienna proletariat in 1848 gave evidence of selfless heroism and great revolutionary energy. Again and again it faced the fire of battle, driven solely by an obscure class instinct, having no general idea of the objective of the struggle, groping its way blindly from one slogan to the next. Surprisingly, the leadership of the proletariat passed into the hands of the students, the only democratic group which, because of its active nature, enjoyed considerable influence over the masses and, consequently, over the events.
But although the students could fight bravely on the barricades and fraternize sincerely with the workers, they were quite incapable of directing the general progress of the revolution which had handed over to them the “dictatorship” of the streets. When, on the twenty-sixth of May, the whole of working Vienna followed the students’ call and rose to its feet to fight against the disarming of the “academic legion,” when the population of Vienna took de facto possession of the city, when the monarchy, by this time on the run, had lost all meaning, when, under the people’s pressure, the last troops were removed from the city, when it seemed that Austrian state power could be had for the asking, no political force was available to take over. The liberal bourgeoisie consciously did not wish to seize power in so cavalier a fashion. It could only dream of the return of the Emperor, who had betaken himself from orphaned Vienna to the Tyrol. The workers were courageous enough to smash the reaction, but not organized nor conscious enough to become its successors. The proletariat, unable to take over, was equally unable to impel the democratic bourgeoisie – which, as often happens, had made itself scarce at the most crucial moment – to take this historic and heroic action. The situation which resulted was quite correctly described by a contemporary writer in the following terms: “A de facto republic was established in Vienna, but unfortunately, no one saw this . . .” From the events of 1848-49, Lassalle drew the unshakable conviction that “no struggle in Europe can be successful unless, from the very start, it declares itself to be purely socialist; no struggle into which social questions enter merely as an obscure element, and where they are present only in the background; no struggle which outwardly is waged under the banner of national resurgence or bourgeois republicanism, can ever again be successful.”
In the revolution whose beginning history will identify with the year 1905, the proletariat stepped forward for the first time under its own banner in the name of its own objectives. Yet at the same time there can be no doubt that no revolution in the past has absorbed such a mass of popular energy while yielding such minimal positive results as the Russian revolution has done up to the present. We are far from wanting to prophesy the events of the coming weeks or months. But one thing is clear to us: victory is possible only along the path mapped out by Lassalle in 1849. There can be no return from the class struggle to the unity of a bourgeois nation. The “lack of results” of the Russian revolution is only the temporary reflection of its profound social character. In this bourgeois revolution without a revolutionary bourgeoisie, the proletariat is driven, by the internal progress of events, towards hegemony over the peasantry and to the struggle for state power. The first wave of the Russian revolution was smashed by the dull-wittedness of the muzhik, who, at home in his village, hoping to seize a bit of land, fought the squire, but who, having donned a soldier’s uniform, fired upon the worker. All the events of the revolution of 1905 can be viewed as a series of ruthless object lessons by means of which history drums into the peasant’s skull a consciousness of his local land hunger and the central problem of state power. The preconditions for revolutionary victory are forged in the historic school of harsh conflicts and cruel defeats.
Marx wrote in 1852 (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte)
“Bourgeois revolutions storm swiftly from success to success; their dramatic effects outdo each other; men and things seem set in sparkling brilliance; ecstasy is the everyday spirit; but they are short-lived; soon they have attained their zenith, and a long crapulent depression lays hold of society before it learns soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period. On the other hand, proletarian revolutions … criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses and paltrinesses of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again, more gigantic, before them, recoil ever and anon from the indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created in which all turning back is impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out:
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!”
Annexure12: Marxism and the National Questio by J V Stalin
[Chapter 1. The Nation, Chapter 2. The National Movement; First Published: Prosveshcheniye, Nos. 3-5, March-May 1913; Transcription/Markup: Carl Kavanagh; Credit: Marxists Internet Archive]
I. THE NATION
What is a nation?
A nation is primarily a community, a definite community of people.
This community is not racial, nor is it tribal. The modern Italian nation was formed from Romans, Teutons, Etruscans, Greeks, Arabs, and so forth. The French nation was formed from Gauls, Romans, Britons, Teutons, and so on. The same must be said of the British, the Germans and others, who were formed into nations from people of diverse races and tribes.
Thus, a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people.
On the other hand, it is unquestionable that the great empires of Cyrus and Alexander could not be called nations, although they came to be constituted historically and were formed out of different tribes and races. They were not nations, but casual and loosely-connected conglomerations of groups, which fell apart or joined together according to the victories or defeats of this or that conqueror.
Thus, a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration, but a stable community of people.
But not every stable community constitutes a nation. Austria and Russia are also stable communities, but nobody calls them nations. What distinguishes a national community from a state community? The fact, among others, that a national community is inconceivable without a common language, while a state need not have a common language. The Czech nation in Austria and the Polish in Russia would be impossible if each did not have a common language, whereas the integrity of Russia and Austria is not affected by the fact that there are a number of different languages within their borders. We are referring, of course, to the spoken languages of the people and not to the official governmental languages.
Thus, a common language is one of the characteristic features of a nation.
This, of course, does not mean that different nations always and everywhere speak different languages, or that all who speak one language necessarily constitute one nation. A common language for every nation, but not necessarily different languages for different nations! There is no nation which at one and the same time speaks several languages, but this does not mean that there cannot be two nations speaking the same language! Englishmen and Americans speak one language, but they do not constitute one nation. The same is true of the Norwegians and the Danes, the English and the Irish.
But why, for instance, do the English and the Americans not constitute one nation in spite of their common language?
Firstly, because they do not live together, but inhabit different territories. A nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after generation.
But people cannot live together, for lengthy periods unless they have a common territory. Englishmen and Americans originally inhabited the same territory, England, and constituted one nation. Later, one section of the English emigrated from England to a new territory, America, and there, in the new territory, in the course of time, came to form the new American nation. Difference of. territory led to the formation of different nations.
Thus, a common territory is one of the characteristic features of a nation.
But this is not all. Common territory does not by itself create a nation. This requires, in addition, an internal economic bond to weld the various parts of the nation into a single whole. There is no such bond between England and America, and so they constitute two different nations. But the Americans themselves would not deserve to be called a nation were not the different parts of America bound together into an economic whole, as a result of division of labour between them, the development of means of communication, and so forth.
Take the Georgians, for instance. The Georgians before the Reform inhabited a common territory and spoke one language. Nevertheless, they did not, strictly speaking, constitute one nation, for, being split up into a number of disconnected principalities, they could not share a common economic life; for centuries they waged war against each other and pillaged each other, each inciting the Persians and Turks against the other. The ephemeral and casual union of the principalities which some successful king sometimes managed to bring about embraced at best a superficial administrative sphere, and rapidly disintegrated owing to the caprices of the princes and the indifference of the peasants. Nor could it be otherwise in economically disunited Georgia … Georgia came on the scene as a nation only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, when the fall of serfdom and the growth of the economic life of the country, the development of means of communication and the rise of capitalism, introduced division of labour between the various districts of Georgia, completely shattered the economic isolation of the principalities and bound them together into a single whole.
The same must be said of the other nations which have passed through the stage of feudalism and have developed capitalism.
Thus, a common economic life, economic cohesion, is one of the characteristic features of a nation.
But even this is not all. Apart from the foregoing, one must take into consideration the specific spiritual complexion of the people constituting a nation. Nations differ not only in their conditions of life, but also in spiritual complexion, which manifests itself in peculiarities of national culture. If England, America and Ireland, which speak one language, nevertheless constitute three distinct nations, it is in no small measure due to the peculiar psychological make-up which they developed from generation to generation as a result of dissimilar conditions of existence.
Of course, by itself, psychological make-up or, as it is otherwise called, “national character,” is something intangible for the observer, but in so far as it manifests itself in a distinctive culture common to the nation it is something tangible and cannot be ignored.
Needless to say, “national character” is not a thing that is fixed once and for all, but is modified by changes in the conditions of life; but since it exists at every given moment, it leaves its impress on the physiognomy of the nation.
Thus, a common psychological make-up, which manifests itself in a common culture, is one of the characteristic features of a nation.
We have now exhausted the characteristic features of a nation.
A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.
It goes without saying that a nation, like every historical phenomenon, is subject to the law of change, has its history, its beginning and end.
It must be emphasized that none of the above characteristics taken separately is sufficient to define a nation. More than that, it is sufficient for a single one of these characteristics to be lacking and the nation ceases to be a nation.
It is possible to conceive of people possessing a common “national character” who, nevertheless, cannot be said to constitute a single nation if they are economically disunited, inhabit different territories, speak different languages, and so forth. Such, for instance, are the Russian, Galician, American, Georgian and Caucasian Highland Jews, who, in our opinion, do not constitute a single nation.
It is possible to conceive of people with a common territory and economic life who nevertheless would not constitute a single nation because they have no common language and no common “national character.” Such, for instance, are the Germans and Letts in the Baltic region.
Finally, the Norwegians and the Danes speak one language, but they do not constitute a single nation owing to the absence of the other characteristics.
It is only when all these characteristics are present together that we have a nation.
It might appear that “national character” is not one of the characteristics but the sole essential characteristic of a nation, and that all the other characteristics are, properly speaking, only conditions for the development of a nation, rather than its characteristics. Such, for instance, is the view held by R. Springer, and more particularly by O. Bauer, who are Social-Democratic theoreticians on the national question well known in Austria.
Let us examine their theory of the nation.
According to Springer, “a nation is a union of similarly thinking and similarly speaking persons.” It is “a cultural community of modern people no longer tied to the ‘soil.’” [5] (our italics).
Thus, a “union” of similarly thinking and similarly speaking people, no matter how disconnected they may be, no matter where they live, is a nation.
Bauer goes even further.
“What is a nation?” he asks. “Is it a common language which makes people a nation? But the English and the Irish … speak the same language without, however, being one people; the Jews have no common language and yet are a nation.” [6]
What, then, is a nation?
“A nation is a relative community of character.”
But what is character, in this case national character?
National character is “the sum total of characteristics which distinguish the people of one nationality from the people of another nationality – the complex of physical and spiritual characteristics which distinguish one nation from another.”
Bauer knows, of course, that national character does not drop from the skies, and he therefore adds:
“The character of people is determined by nothing so much as by their destiny…. A nation is nothing but a community with a common destiny” which, in turn, is determined “by the conditions under which people produce their means of subsistence and distribute the products of their labour.”
We thus arrive at the most “complete,” as Bauer calls it, definition of a nation:
“A nation is an aggregate of people bound into a community of character by a common destiny.”
We thus have common national character based on a common destiny, but not necessarily connected with a common territory, language or economic life.
But what in that case remains of the nation? What common nationality can there be among people who are economically disconnected, inhabit different territories and from generation to generation speak different languages?
Bauer speaks of the Jews as a nation, although they “have no common language”; but what “common destiny” and national cohesion is there, for instance, between the Georgian, Daghestanian, Russian and American Jews, who are completely separated from one another, inhabit different territories and speak different languages?
The above-mentioned Jews undoubtedly lead their economic and political life in common with the Georgians, Daghestanians, Russians and Americans respectively, and they live in the same cultural atmosphere as these; this is bound to leave a definite impress on their national character; if there is anything common to them left, it is their religion, their common origin and certain relics of the national character. All this is beyond question. But how can it be seriously maintained that petrified religious rites and fading psychological relics affect the “destiny” of these Jews more powerfully than the living social, economic and cultural environment that surrounds them? And it is only on this assumption that it is possible to speak of the Jews as a single nation at all.
What, then, distinguishes Bauer’s nation from the mystical and self-sufficient “national spirit” of the spiritualists?
Bauer sets up an impassable barrier between the “distinctive feature” of nations (national character) and the “conditions” of their life, divorcing the one from the other. But what is national character if not a reflection of the conditions of life, a coagulation of impressions derived from environment? How can one limit the matter to national character alone, isolating and divorcing it from the soil that gave rise to it?
Further, what indeed distinguished the English nation from the American nation at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when America was still known as New England? Not national character, of course; for the Americans had originated from England and had brought with them to America not only the English language, but also the English national character, which, of course, they could not lose so soon; although, under the influence of the new conditions, they would naturally be developing their own specific character. Yet, despite their more or less common character, they at that time already constituted a nation distinct from England! Obviously, New England as a nation differed then from England as a nation not by its specific national character, or not so much by its national character, as by its environment and conditions of life, which were distinct from those of England.
It is therefore clear that there is in fact no single distinguishing characteristic of a nation. There is only a sum total of characteristics, of which, when nations are compared, sometimes one characteristic (national character), sometimes another (language), or sometimes a third (territory, economic conditions), stands out in sharper relief. A nation constitutes the combination of all these characteristics taken together.
Bauer’s point of view, which identifies a nation with its national character, divorces the nation from its soil and converts it into an invisible, self-contained force. The result is not a living and active nation, but something mystical, intangible and supernatural. For, I repeat, what sort of nation, for instance, is a Jewish nation which consists of Georgian, Daghestanian, Russian, American and other Jews, the members of which do not understand each other (since they speak different languages), inhabit different parts of the globe, will never see each other, and will never act together, whether in time of peace or in time of war?!
No, it is not for such paper “nations” that Social-Democracy draws up its national programme. It can reckon only with real nations, which act and move, and therefore insist on being reckoned with.
Bauer is obviously confusing nation, which is a historical category, with tribe, which is an ethnographical category.
However, Bauer himself apparently feels the weakness of his position. While in the beginning of his book he definitely declares the Jews to be a nation, he corrects himself at the end of the book and states that “in general capitalist society makes it impossible for them (the Jews) to continue as a nation,” by causing them to assimilate with other nations. The reason, it appears, is that “the Jews have no closed territory of settlement,” whereas the Czechs, for instance, have such a territory and, according to Bauer, will survive as a nation. In short, the reason lies in the absence of a territory.
By arguing thus, Bauer wanted to prove that the Jewish workers cannot demand national autonomy, but he thereby inadvertently refuted his own theory, which denies that a common territory is one of the characteristics of a nation.
But Bauer goes further. In the beginning of his book he definitely declares that “the Jews have no common language, and yet are a nation.” But hardly has he reached p. 130 than he effects a change of front and just as definitely declares that “unquestionably, no nation is possible without a common language” (our italics).
Bauer wanted to prove that “language is the most important instrument of human intercourse,” but at the same time he inadvertently proved something he did not mean to prove, namely, the unsoundness of his own theory of nations, which denies the significance of a common language.
Thus this theory, stitched together by idealistic threads, refutes itself.
II. THE NATIONAL MOVEMENT
A nation is not merely a historical category but a historical category belonging to a definite epoch, the epoch of rising capitalism. The process of elimination of feudalism and development of capitalism is at the same time a process of the constitution of people into nations. Such, for instance, was the case in Western Europe. The British, French, Germans, Italians and others were formed into nations at the time of the victorious advance of capitalism and its triumph over feudal disunity.
But the formation of nations in those instances at the same time signified their conversion into independent national states. The British, French and other nations are at the same time British, etc., states. Ireland, which did not participate in this process, does not alter the general picture.
Matters proceeded somewhat differently in Eastern Europe. Whereas in the West nations developed into states, in the East multi-national states were formed, states consisting of several nationalities. Such are Austria-Hungary and Russia. In Austria, the Germans proved to be politically the most developed, and they took it upon themselves to unite the Austrian nationalities into a state. In Hungary, the most adapted for state organization were the Magyars – the core of the Hungarian nationalities – and it was they who united Hungary. In Russia, the uniting of the nationalities was undertaken by the Great Russians, who were headed by a historically formed, powerful and well-organized aristocratic military bureaucracy.
That was how matters proceeded in the East.
This special method of formation of states could take place only where feudalism had not yet been eliminated, where capitalism was feebly’ developed, where the nationalities which had been forced into the background had not yet been able to consolidate themselves economically into integral nations.
But capitalism also began to develop in the Eastern states. Trade and means of communication were developing. Large towns were springing up. The nations were becoming economically consolidated. Capitalism, erupting into the tranquil life of the nationalities which had been pushed into the background, was arousing them and stirring them into action. The development of the press and the theatre, the activity of the Reichsrat (Austria) and of the Duma (Russia) were helping to strengthen “national sentiments.” The intelligentsia that had arisen was being imbued with “the national idea” and was acting in the same direction….
But the nations which had been pushed into the background and had now awakened to independent life, could no longer form themselves into independent national states; they encountered on their -path the very powerful resistance of the ruling strata of the dominant nations, which had long ago assumed the control of the state. They were too late!…
In this way the Czechs, Poles, etc., formed themselves into nations in Austria; the Croats, etc., in Hungary; the Letts, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, etc., in Russia. What had been an exception in Western Europe (Ireland) became the rule in the East.
In the West, Ireland responded to its exceptional position by a national movement. In the East, the awakened nations were bound to respond in the same fashion.
Thus arose the circumstances which impelled the young nations of Eastern Europe on to the path of struggle.
The struggle began and flared up, to be sure, not between nations as a whole, but between the ruling classes of the dominant nations and of those that had been pushed into the background. The struggle is usually conducted by the urban petty bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation against the big bourgeoisie of the dominant nation (Czechs and Germans), or by the rural bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation against the landlords of the dominant nation (Ukrainians in Poland), or by the whole “national” bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations against the ruling nobility of the dominant nation (Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine in Russia).
The bourgeoisie plays the leading role.
The chief problem for the young bourgeoisie is the problem of the market. Its aim is to sell its goods and to emerge victorious from competition with the bourgeoisie of a different nationality. Hence its desire to secure its “own,” its “home” market. The market is the first school in which the bourgeoisie learns its nationalism.
But matters are usually not confined to the market. The semi-feudal, semi-bourgeois bureaucracy of the dominant nation intervenes in the struggle with its own methods of “arresting and preventing.” The bourgeoisie – whether big or small – of the dominant nation is able to deal more “swiftly” and “decisively” with its competitor. “Forces” are united and a series of restrictive measures is put into operation against the “alien” bourgeoisie, measures passing into acts of repression. The struggle spreads from the economic sphere to the political sphere. Restriction of freedom of movement, repression of language, restriction of franchise, closing of schools, religious restrictions, and so on, are piled upon the head of the “competitor.” Of course, such measures are designed not only in the interest of the bourgeois classes of the dominant nation, but also in furtherance of the specifically caste aims, so to speak, of the ruling bureaucracy.
But from the point of view of the results achieved this is quite immaterial; the bourgeois classes and the bureaucracy in this matter go hand in hand – whether it be in Austria-Hungary or in Russia.
The bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation, repressed on every hand, is naturally stirred into movement. It appeals to its “native folk” and begins to shout about the “fatherland,’; claiming that its own cause is the cause of the nation as a whole. It recruits itself an army from among its “countrymen” in the interests of … the “fatherland.” Nor do the “folk” always remain unresponsive to its appeals; they rally around its banner: the repression from above affects them too and provokes their discontent.
Thus the national movement begins.
The strength of the national movement is determined by the degree to which the wide strata of the nation, the proletariat and peasantry, participate in it.
Whether the proletariat rallies to the banner of bourgeois nationalism depends on the degree of development of class antagonisms, on the class consciousness and degree of organization of the proletariat. The class-conscious proletariat has its own tried banner, and has no need to rally to the banner of the bourgeoisie.
As far as the peasants are concerned, their participation in the national movement depends primarily on the character of the repressions. If the repressions affect the “land,” as was the case in Ireland, then the mass of the peasants immediately rally to the banner of the national movement.
On the other hand, if, for example, there is no serious anti-Russian nationalism in Georgia, it is primarily because there are neither Russian landlords nor a Russian big bourgeoisie there to supply the fuel for such nationalism among the masses. In Georgia there is anti-Armenian nationalism; but this is because there is still an Armenian big bourgeoisie there which, by getting the better of the small and still unconsolidated Georgian bourgeoisie, drives the latter to anti-Armenian nationalism. .
Depending on these factors, the national movement either assumes a mass character and steadily grows (as in Ireland and Galicia), or is converted into a series of petty collisions, degenerating into squabbles and “fights” over signboards (as in some of the small towns of Bohemia).
The content of the national movement, of course, cannot everywhere be the same: it is wholly determined by the diverse demands made by the movement. In Ireland the movement bears an agrarian character; in Bohemia it bears a “language” character; in one place the demand is for civil equality and religious freedom, in another for the nation’s “own” officials, or its own Diet. The diversity of demands not infrequently reveals the diverse features which characterize a nation in general (language, territory, etc.). It is worthy of note that we never meet with a demand based on Bauer’s all-embracing “national character.” And this is natural: “national character” in itself is something intangible, and, as was correctly remarked by J. Strasser, “a politician can’t do anything with it.” [7]
Such, in general, are the forms and character of the national movement.
From what has been said it will be clear that the national struggle under the conditions of rising capitalism is a struggle of the bourgeois classes among themselves. Sometimes the bourgeoisie succeeds in drawing the proletariat into the national movement, and then the national struggle externally assumes a “nation-wide” character. But this is so only externally. In its essence it is always a bourgeois struggle, one that is to the advantage and profit mainly of the bourgeoisie.
But it does not by any means follow that the proletariat should not put up a fight against the policy of national oppression.
Restriction of freedom of movement, disfranchisement, repression of language, closing of schools, and other forms of persecution affect the workers no less, if not more, than the bourgeoisie. Such a state of affairs can only serve to retard the free development of the intellectual forces of the proletariat of subject nations. One cannot speak seriously of a full development of the intellectual faculties of the Tatar or Jewish worker if he is not allowed to use his native language at meetings and lectures, and if his schools are closed down.
But the policy of nationalist persecution is dangerous to the cause of the proletariat also on another account. It diverts the attention of large strata from social questions, questions of the class struggle, to national questions, questions “common” to the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. And this creates a favourable soil for lying propaganda about “harmony of interests,” for glossing over the class interests of the proletariat and for the intellectual enslavement of the workers.
This creates a serious obstacle to the cause of uniting the workers of all nationalities. If a considerable proportion of the Polish workers are still in intellectual bondage to the bourgeois nationalists, if they still stand aloof from the international labour movement, it is chiefly because the age-old anti-Polish policy of the “powers that be” creates the soil for this bondage and hinders the emancipation of the workers from it.
But the policy of persecution does not stop there. It not infrequently passes from a “system” of oppression to a “system” of inciting nations against each other, to a “system” of massacres and pogroms. Of course, the latter system is not everywhere and always possible, but where it is possible – in the absence of elementary civil rights – it frequently assumes horrifying proportions and threatens to drown the cause of unity of the workers in blood and tears. The Caucasus and south Russia furnish numerous examples. “Divide and rule” – such is the purpose of the policy of incitement. And where such a policy succeeds, it is a tremendous evil for the proletariat and a serious obstacle to the cause of uniting the workers of all the nationalities in the state.
But the workers are interested in the complete amalgamation of all their fellow-workers into a single international army, in their speedy and final emancipation from intellectual bondage to the bourgeoisie, and in the full and free development of the intellectual forces of their brothers, whatever nation they may belong to.
The workers therefore combat and will continue to combat the policy of national oppression in all its forms, from the most subtle to the most crude, as well as the policy of inciting nations against each other in all its forms
Social-Democracy in all countries therefore proclaims the right of nations to self-determination.
The right of self-determination means that only the nation itself has the right to determine its destiny, that no one has the right forcibly to interfere in the life of the nation, to destroy its schools and other institutions, to violate its habits and customs, to repress its language, or curtail its rights.
This, of course, does not mean that Social-Democracy will support every custom and institution of a nation. While combating the coercion of any nation, it will uphold only the right of the nation itself to determine its own destiny, at the same time agitating against harmful customs and institutions of that nation in order to enable the toiling strata of the nation to emancipate themselves from them.
The right of self-determination means that a nation may arrange its life in the way it wishes. It has the right to arrange its life on the basis of autonomy. It has the right to enter into federal relations with other nations. It has the right to complete secession. Nations are sovereign, and all nations have equal rights.
This, of course, does not mean that Social-Democracy will support every demand of a nation. A nation has the right even to return to the old order of things; but this does not mean that Social-Democracy will subscribe to such a decision if taken by some institution of a particular nation. The obligations of Social-Democracy, which defends the interests of the proletariat, and the rights of a nation, which consists of various classes, are two different things.
In fighting for the right of nations to self-determination, the aim of Social-Democracy is to put an end to the policy of national oppression, to render it impossible, and thereby to remove the grounds of strife between nations, to take the edge off that strife and reduce it to a minimum.
This is what essentially distinguishes the policy of the class-conscious proletariat from the policy of the bourgeoisie, which attempts to aggravate and fan the national struggle and to prolong and sharpen the national movement.
And that is why the class-conscious proletariat cannot rally under the “national” flag of the bourgeoisie.
That is why the so-called “evolutionary national” policy advocated by Bauer cannot become the policy of the proletariat. Bauer’s attempt to identify his “evolutionary national” policy with the policy of the “modern working class” is an attempt to adapt the class struggle of the workers to the struggle of the nations.
The fate of a national movement, which is essentially a bourgeois movement, is naturally bound up with the fate of the bourgeoisie. The -final disappearance of a national movement is possible only with the downfall of the bourgeoisie. Only under the reign of socialism can peace be fully established. But even within the framework of capitalism it is possible to reduce the national struggle to a minimum, to undermine it at the root, to render it as harmless as possible to the proletariat. This is borne out, for example, by Switzerland and America. It requires that the country should be democratized and the nations be given the opportunity of free development.
Annexure13: The Problem of Reformism by Robert Brenner
[First published in Against the Current, No. 43, March/April 1993]
I WAS ASKED to talk about the historical lessons of revolution in the twentieth century. But since we are primarily interested in historical lessons that are likely to be relevant to the twenty-first century, I think it would be more to the point to consider the experience of reform and reformism.
Reformism is always with us, but it rarely announces its presence and usually introduces itself by another name and in a friendly fashion. Still, it is our main political competitor and we had better understand it.
To begin with, it should be clear that reformism does not distinguish itself by a concern for reforms. Both revolutionaries and reformists try to win reforms. Indeed, as socialists, we see the fight for reforms as our main business.
But reformists are also interested in winning reforms. In fact, to a very large extent, reformists share our program, at least in words. They are for higher wages, full employment, a better welfare state, stronger trade unions, even a third party.
The inescapable fact is that, if we want to attract people to a revolutionary-socialist banner and away from reformism, it will not generally be through outbidding reformists in terms of program. It will be through our theory—our understanding of the world —and, most important, through our method, our practice.
What distinguishes reformism on a day-to-day basis is its political method and its theory, not its program. Schematically speaking, reformists argue that although, left on its own, the capitalist economy tends to crisis, state intervention can enable capitalism to achieve long-term stability and growth. They argue, at the same time, that the state is an instrument that can be used by any group, including the working class, in its own interests.
Reformism’s basic political method or strategy follows directly from these premises. Working people and the oppressed can and should devote themselves primarily to winning elections so as to gain control of the state and thereby secure legislation to regulate capitalism and, on that basis, to improve their working conditions and living standards.
The Paradox of Reformlsm
Marxists have, of course, always counterposed their own theories and strategies to those of reformists. But, probably of equal importance in combatting reformism, revolutionaries have argued that both reformist theory and reformist practice are best understood in terms of the distinctive social forces on which reformism has historically based itself—in particular, as rationalizations of the needs and interests of trade union officials and parliamentary politicos, as well as middle-class leaders of the movements of the oppressed.
Reformism’s distinctive social basis is not simply of sociological interest it is the key to the central paradox that has defined, and dogged, reformism since its origins as a self-defined movement within the social democratic parties (evolutionary socialism) around 1900. That is, the social forces at the heart of reformism and their organizations are committed to political methods (as well as theories to justify them) that end up preventing them from securing their own reform goals—especially the electoral legislative mad and state-regulated labour relations.
As a result, the achievement of major reforms throughout the twentieth century has generally required not only breaking with, but systematically struggling against, organized reformism, its chief leaders and their organizations. This is because the winning of such reforms has, in virtually every instance, required strategies and tactics of which organized reformism did not approve because these threatened their social position and interests—high levels of militant now action, large-scale defiance of the law, and the forging of increasingly class-wide ties of active solidarity—between unionized and ununionized, employed and unemployed, and the like.
The Reformist View
The core proposition of the reformist world view is that, though prone to crisis, the capitalist economy is, in the end subject to state regulation.
Reformists have argued—in various ways—that what makes for crisis is unregulated class struggle. They have thus often contended that capitalist crisis can arise from the “too great” exploitation of workers by capitalists in the interests of increased profitability. This causes problems for the system as a whole because it leads to inadequate purchasing power on the part of working people, who cannot buy back enough of what they produce. Insufficient demand makes for a “crisis of underconsumption”—for example (according to reformist theorists), the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Reformists have also argued that capitalist crisis can arise, on the other hand, from “too strong” resistance by workers to capitalist oppression on the shop floor. By blocking the introduction of innovative technology or refusing to work harder, workers reduce productivity growth (output/worker). This, in turn means a slower growing pie, reduced profitability, reduced investment, and ultimately a “supply-side crisis”—for example (according to reformist theorists), the current economic downturn beginning at the end of the 1960s.
It follows from this approach that, because crises are the unintended result of unregulated class struggle, the state can secure economic stability and growth precisely by intervening to regulate both the distribution of income and capital-labour relations on the shop floor. The implication is that class struggle is not really necessary, for it is in the long term interest of neither the capitalist class nor the working class, if they can be made to coordinate their actions.
The State as Neutral Apparatus
The reformist theory of the state fits very well with its political economy. In this view, the state is an autonomous apparatus of power, in principle neutral, capable of being used by anyone. It follows that workers and the oppressed should try to gain control of it for the purpose of regulating the economy so as to secure economic stability and growth and, on that basis, win reforms in their own material interests.
Reformism’s political strategy flows logically from its view of the economy and the state. Workers and the oppressed should concentrate on electing reformist politicos to office. Because state intervention by a reformist government can secure long-term stability and growth in the interests of capital, as well as labour, there is no reason to believe that employers will stubbornly oppose a reformist government.
Such a government can prevent crises of underconsumption by implementing redistributive tax policies and prevent supply-side crises by establishing state regulated worker-management commissions in the interest of raising productivity. On the basis of a growing, increasingly productive economy, the state can continually raise spending on state services, while regulating collective bargaining so as to insure fairness to all parties.
Reformists would maintain that workers need to remain organized and vigilant—especially in their unions—and prepared to move against rogue capitalists who won’t be disciplined in the common interest: ready to take strike action against employers who refuse to accept mediation at the level of the firm or, in the worst case, to rise en masse against groups of reactionary capitalists who can’t abide giving over governmental power to the great majority and seek to subvert the democratic order.
But presumably such battles would remain subordinate to the main electoral-legislative struggle and become progressively less common since reformist state policy would proceed in the interest not only of workers and the oppressed, but of the employers, even if the latter did not at first realize it.
Responding to Reformism
Revolutionaries have classically rejected the reformists’ political method of relying on the electoral/legislative process and state-regulated collective bargaining for the simple reason that it can’t work.
So long as capitalist property relations continue top, the state cannot be autonomous. This is not because the state is always directly controlled by capitalists (social democratic and labour party governments, for example, often are not). It is because whoever controls the state is brutally limited in what they can do by the needs of capitalist profitability … and because, over any extended period, the needs of capitalist profitability are very difficult to reconcile with reforms in the interest of working people.
In a capitalist society, you can’t get economic growth unless you can get investment, and you can’t get capitalists to invest unless they can make what they judge to be an adequate rate of profit. Since high levels of employment and increasing state services in the interest of the working class (dependent upon taxation) are predicated upon economic growth, even governments that want to further the interests of the exploited and the oppressed—for example social democratic or labour party governments—must make capitalist profitability in the interest of economic growth their first priority.
The old saying that “What’s good for General Motors is good for everyone,’ unfortunately contains an important grain of truth, so long as capitalist property relations continue in force.
This is not of course to deny that capitalist governments will ever make reforms. Especially in periods of boom, when profitability is high, capital and the state are often quite willing to grant improvements to working people and the oppressed in the interests of uninterrupted production and social order.
But in periods of downturn, when profitability is reduced and competition intensifies the cost of paying (via taxation) for such reforms can endanger the very survival of firms and they are rarely granted without very major struggles in the workplaces and in the streets. Equally to the point, in such periods, governments of every sort—whether representative of capital or labour—so long as they are committed to capitalist property relationships, will end up attempting to restore profitability by seeing to it that wages and social spending are cut, that capitalists receive tax breaks, and so forth.
The Centrality of Crisis Theory
It should be evident why, for revolutionaries, so much is riding on their contention that extended periods of crisis are built into capitalism. From this standpoint, crises arise from capitalism’s inherently anarchic nature, which makes for a path of capital accumulation that is eventually self-contradictory or self-undermining. Because by nature a capitalist economy operates in an unplanned way, governments cannot prevent crises.
This is not the place for an extended discussion of debates over crisis theory. But one can at least point out that capitalist history has vindicated an anti-reformist viewpoint Since the later nineteenth century, if not before, whatever type of governments have been in power, long periods of capitalist boom (185Os-187(, 1890s-1913, late 1940s.c.1970) have always been succeeded by long periods of capitalist depression (1870s-1890s, 1919-1939, c1970to the present). One of Ernest Mandel’s fundamental contributions in recent years has been to emphasize this pattern of capitalist development through long waves of boom and downturn.
During the first two decades of the postwar period, it seemed that reformism had finally vindicated its political world view. There was unprecedented boom, accompanied by—and seemingly caused by—the application of Keynesian measures to subsidize demand, as well as the growing government expenditures associated with the welfare state. Every advanced capitalist economy experienced not only fast-rising wages, but a significant expansion of social services in the interest of the working class and the oppressed.
In the late ’60s or early 170s, it thus appeared to many that the way to insure continually improved conditions for working people was to pursue “class struggle inside the state—the electoral/ legislative victories of social democratic and labour parties (the Democratic Party in the United States).
But the next two decades entirely falsified this perspective. Declining profitability brought a long-term crisis of growth and investment Under these conditions, one after another reformist government in power—the Labour Party in the late 70s, the French and Spanish Socialist Parties in the ’80s, and the Swedish Social Democratic Party in the ’80s—found itself unable to restore pros-parity through the usual methods of subsidizing demand and concluded that it had little choice but to increase profitability as the only way to increase investment and restore growth.
As a result, virtually without exception, the reformist parties in power not only failed to defend workers’ wages or living standards against employers’ attack, but unleashed powerful austerity drives designed to raise the rate of profit by cutting the welfare state and reducing the power of the unions. There could be no more definitive disproof of reformist economic theories and the notion of the autonomy of the state. Precisely because the state could not prevent capitalist crisis, it could not but reveal itself as supinely dependent upon capital.
Why Reformism Doesn’t Reform
It remains to be asked why the reformist parties in power continued to respect capitalist property rights and sought to restore capitalist profits. Why didn’t they instead seek to defend working class living and working standards, if necessary by class struggle? In the event that that approach led capitalists to abstain from investing or to capital flight, why could they not then have nationalized industries and moved toward socialism? We are back to the paradox of reformism.
The key is to be found in the peculiar social forces that dominate reformist politics, above all the trade union officialdom and the social democratic party politicos. What distinguishes these forces is that, while they are dependent for their very existence on organizations built out of the working class, they are not themselves part of the working class.
Above all, they are off the shop floor. They find their material base, their livelihood, in the trade union or party organization itself. It’s not just that they get their salaries from the trade union or political party, although this is very important The trade union or party defines their whole way of life—what they do, whom they meet—as well as their career trajectory.
Asa result, the key to their survival, to the fluctuations in their material and social position, is their place within the trade union or party organization itself. So tong as the organization is viable, they can have a viable form of life and a reasonable career.
The gulf between the form of life of the rank and file worker and even the low level paid official is thus enormous. The economic position—wages, benefits, working conditions—of ordinary work-era depends directly on the course of the class struggle at the workplace and within the industry. Successful class struggle is the only way for them to defend their living standards.
The trade union official, in contrast, can generally do quite well even if one defeat follows another in the class struggle, so long as the trade union organization survives. It is true that in the very long run the very survival of the trade union organization is dependent upon the class struggle, but this is rarely a relevant factor. More to the point is the fact that, in the short run, especially in periods of profitability crisis, class struggle is probably the main threat to the viability of the organization.
Since militant resistance to capital can provoke a response from capital and the state that threaten the financial condition or the very existence of the organization, the trade union officials generally seek studiously to avoid it The trade unions and reformist parties have thus, historically, sought to ward off capital by coming to terms with it.
They have assured capital that they accept the capitalist property system and the priority of profitability in the operation of the firm. They have at the same time sought to make sure that workers, inside or outside their organizations, do not adopt militant, illegal, and class-wide forms of action that might appear too threatening to capital and call forth a violent response.
Above all, with implacable class struggle ruled out as a means to win reforms, trade union officials and parliamentary politicians have seen the electoral/legislative road as the fundamental political strategy left to them. Through the passive mobilization of an election campaign, these forces thus hope to create the conditions for winning reforms, while avoiding too much offending capital in the process.
This is not to adopt the absurd view that workers are generally chomping at the bit to struggle and are only being held back by their misleaders. In fact, workers often are as conservative as their leaders, or more so. The point is that, unlike the trade union or party officials, rank and file workers cannot, over time, defend their interests without class struggle.
Moreover, at those moments when workers do decide to take matters into their own hands and attack the employers, the trade union officials can be expected to constitute a barrier to their struggle, to seek to detour or derail it.
Of course, trade union leaders and party officials are not in every case averse to class struggle, and sometimes they even initiate it The point is simply that, because of their social position, they cannot be counted on to resist Therefore, no matter how radical the leaders’ rhetoric, no strategy should be based on the assumption that they will resist.
It is the fact that trade union officials and social democratic politicians cannot be counted onto fight the class struggle because they have major material interests that are endangered by confrontations with the employers that provides the central justification for our strategy of building rank and file organizations that are independent of the officials (although they may work with them), as well as independent working class parties.
Reformism Today and Regroupment
Understanding reformism is no mere academic exercise. It affects just about every political initiative we take. This can be seen particularly clearly with respect both to today’s strategic tasks of bringing together anti-reformist forces within a common organization (regroupment) and that of creating a break from the Democratic Party.
Today, as for many years, Solidarity’s best hope for regrouping with organized (however loosely) left forces comes from those individuals and groups which see themselves as opposed from the left to official reformism. The fact remains that many of these leftists, explicitly or implicitly, still identify with an approach to politics that may be roughly termed “popular frontism.”
Despite the fact that it was framed entirely outside the camp of organized social democracy, popular frontism takes reformism to the level of a system.
The Communist International first promulgated the idea of the popular front in 1935 to complement the Soviet Union’s foreign policy of seeking an alliance with the “liberal” capitalist powers to defend against Nazi expansionism (“collective security”). In this context, the Communists internationally put forward the idea that it was possible for the working class to forge a very broad alliance across classes, not only with middle class liberals, but with an enlightened section of the capitalist class, in the interest of democracy, civil liberties, and reform.
The conceptual basis for this view was that an enlightened section of the capitalist class preferred a constitutional order to an authoritarian one. In addition, enlightened capitalists were willing to countenance greater government intervention and egalitarianism in order to create the conditions for liberalism, as well as to insure social stability.
Like other reformist doctrines, the popular front based itself, in economic terms, on an underconsumptionist theory of crisis Underconsumptionism was in fact receiving a wide hearing in liberal, as well as radical-socialist, circles during the 1930s, receiving a particularly strong boost with the promulgation and popularization of Keynes’ ideas.
In the United States, the implication of the popular front was to enter the Democratic Party. The Roosevelt administration, containing as it did certain relatively progressive establishment types, was seen as an archetypical representative of capitalism’s enlightened wing. And the imperative of working with the Democrats was very much increased with the sudden rise of the labour movement as a power in the land.
The Communists had originally been in the lead in organizing the CIO, and had, in fact, spectacularly succeeded in auto largely by virtue of their adoption, for a very brief but decisive period (1935-early 1937), of a rank-and-file strategy much like that of Solidarity today. This strategy had, at the start, found its parallel in Communist refusal to support Roosevelt.
But by 1937, soon after the adoption of the popular front with its implied imperative not to alienate the Roosevelt administration, the CF had come to oppose labour militancy (sitdown strikes, wildcats) in the interest of the classically social democratic policy of allying with the “left wing of the trade union officials.
The implication of this policy was to reject the notion that the labour officialdom represented a distinct social layer that could be expected to put the interests of its organizations ahead of the interests of the rank and file—a notion that had been at the core of the politics of the left-wing of pre-World War I social democracy (Luxemburg, Trotsky, etc.) and of the Third International since the days of Lenin.
Instead, trade union officials ceased to be differentiated in social terms from the rank and file and came to be distinguished (from one another) by their political line alone (left, center, right).
This approach fit very well with the Communists strategic objective of getting the newly-emergent industrial unions to enter the Democratic Party. Of course, much of the trade union officialdom was only too happy to emphasize its political role inside the emergent reform wing of the Democratic Party, especially in comparison with its much more dangerous economic role of organizing the membership to fight the employers.
The dual policy of allying with the left” officials inside the trade union movement and working for reform through electoral/legislative means within the Democratic Party (hopefully along. side the progressive trade union leaders) has remained to this day powerfully attractive to much of the left.
A Rank-and-File Perspective
In the trade unions during the 1970s, representatives of tendencies that eventually ended up inside Solidarity were obliged to counterpose the idea of the rank-and-file movement independent of the trade union officials to the popular front idea of many leftists of supporting the extant “progressive” leadership.
This meant, in the first place, countering the idea that the progressive trade union officials would be obliged to move to the left and oppose the employers, if only to defend their own organizations.
Revolutionaries contended that, on the contrary, precisely because of the viciousness of the employers’ offensive, trade union officials would for the most part be willing to make concessions in the interest of avoiding confrontation with the employers. They would thereby allow the bit-by-bit chipping away of the labour movement virtually indefinitely.
The latter perspective has been more than borne out, as officials have by and large sat on their hands as the concessions movement has reached gale proportions and the proportion of workers in trade unions dropped from 25-30% in the ’60s to 10-15% today.
Equally to the point, revolutionaries in the trade union movement had to counter the popular front idea that the trade union leaders were “to the left of the rank and file. If you talked with many leftists in that period, sooner or later you’d get the argument that the rank and file were politically backward.
After all, many “progressive” trade union leaders opposed U.S. intervention in Central America (and elsewhere) more firmly than did the membership, stood much more clearly than did the membership for extensions of the welfare state, and, even, in a number of cases, came out for a labour party.
Our response to this argument was to contrast what “progressive” trade union leaders are willing to do verbally, “politically,” where relatively little is at stake, with what they are willing to do to fight the bosses, where virtually everything may be at risk It cost the well-known head of the IAM William Winpisinger virtually nothing to be a member of DSA and promulgate a virtually perfect social democratic world view on such questions as the reconversion of the economy, national health care, and the like.
But when it came to class struggle, we pointed out, Winpisinger not only came out clearly against Teamsters for a Democratic Union, but sent his machinists across the picket line in the crucial PATCO (air controllers) strike.
Over the past decade or so, many leftists have broken with the Soviet Union or China and become open to reexamining their entire political world view. But this does not mean that they automatically move in our direction. For their popular front political strategy corresponds in central ways with a still (relatively) powerful and coherent political trend—Le. social democratic reformism.
If we are to win over these comrades, we will have to demonstrate to them, systematically and in detail, that their traditional popular front strategy of working with the trade union “lefts” and penetrating the Democratic Party is in fact self-defeating.
Annexure14: The Myth of the Labour Aristocracy Part 1 by Charles Post
[First published in Against the Current, No. 123, July–August 2006]
THE PERSISTENCE OF reformism and outright conservatism among workers, especially in the imperialist centers of North America, Western Europe and Japan, has long confounded revolutionary socialists. The broadest outlines of Marxist theory tell us that capitalism creates its own “gravediggers” – a class of collective producers with no interest in the maintenance of private ownership of the means of production. The capitalist system’s drive to maximize profits should force workers to struggle against their employers, progressively broaden their struggle and eventually overthrow the system and replace it with their democratic self-rule.
The reality of the last century seems to challenge these basic Marxist ideas. Despite occasional mass militancy and even proto-revolutionary struggles, the majority of the working class in the developed capitalist countries have remained tied to reformist politics – a politics premised on the possibility of improving the condition of workers without the overthrow of capitalism.
While living and working conditions for workers in the “global North” have deteriorated sharply since the late 1960s, the result has not been, for the most part, the growth of revolutionary consciousness. Instead we have seen reactionary ideas – racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism, militarism – strengthened in a significant sector of workers in the advanced capitalist countries. Since the late 1970s, nearly one-third of U.S. voters in union households have voted for right-wing Republicans. (1)
This paradox poses a crucial challenge for revolutionary Marxists. However, we need to avoid “mythological” explanations, imagined explanations for real phenomena, whether to interpret natural events or to explain the nature of society. Unfortunately, one of the most influential explanations within the left for working class reformism and conservatism – the theory of the “labour aristocracy” – is such a myth.
Theory of the “Labour Aristocracy”
Frederick Engels first introduced the notion of the “labour aristocracy” in a number of letters to Marx stretching from the late 1850s through the late 1880s. (2) Engels was grappling with the growing conservatism of the organized sectors of the British working class. He argued that those British workers who had been able to establish unions and secure stable employment – skilled workers in the iron, steel and machine making industries and most workers in the cotton textile mills – constituted a privileged and “bourgeoisified” layer of the working class, a “labour aristocracy.”
British capital’s dominance of the world economy – its industrial and financial “monopoly” – allowed key employers to provide a minority of workers with relatively higher wages and employment security. Engels saw the resulting relative privilege, especially when compared with the mass of poorly paid workers in unstable jobs, as the material basis of the growing conservatism of the British labour movement.
The contemporary theory of the labour aristocracy is rooted in the work of V.I. Lenin on imperialism and the rise of “monopoly capitalism.” Lenin was shocked when the leaders of the European socialist parties supported “their” capitalist governments in the First World War. The victory of what he called “opportunism” (his term for reformism) confounded Lenin, who had dismissed the development of “revisionism” (Edward Bernstein’s challenge to classical Marxism in 1899) as the ideology of socially isolated, middle-class intellectuals. Lenin believed the “orthodox Marxist” leadership of the socialist parties and unions had long ago vanquished the revisionist challenge.
Lenin had therefore expected that the European socialist leaders would fulfill their pledge, ratified at numerous congresses of the Socialist International, to oppose their ruling classes’ war drive with strikes and social disruption. By 1915, Lenin had begun to develop his explanation for the victory of opportunism in the socialist and labour movements. In his article The Collapse of the Second International, Lenin argued:
“The period of imperialism is the period in which the distribution of the world among the ‘great’ and privileged nations, by whom all other nations are oppressed, is completed. Scraps of the booty enjoyed by the privileged as a result of this oppression undoubtedly fall to the lot of certain sections of the petty-bourgeoisie and the aristocracy and bureaucracy of the working class.” (3)
This segment “represents an infinitesimal minority of the proletariat and the working masses” whose “adherence … with the bourgeoisie against the mass of the proletariat” was the social basis of reformism.
Lenin located the economic foundation of the labour aristocracy in the “super-profits” generated through imperialist investment in what we would today call the “third world” or “global South.” According to his 1920 preface to Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism:
“Obviously, out of such enormous super profits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of the country) it is possible to bribe their labour leaders and an upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the ‘advanced’ countries do bribe them: they bribe them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.
“This stratum of bourgeoisified workers or ‘labour aristocracy,’ who have become completely petty-bourgeois in their mode of life, in the amount of their earnings, and in their point of view, serve as the main support of the Second International [the reformist socialists – CP] and, in our day, the principal social (not military) support of the bourgeoisie. They are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, the real carriers of reformism and chauvinism.” (4)
The theory of the labour aristocracy remains an important explanation of working-class reformism and conservatism for important segments of the far left in the industrialized countries. While the mainstream Communist Parties generally distanced themselves from the notion of the labour aristocracy as they moved toward reformist politics in the late 1930s (5), certain left-wing opponents of the Communist Parties continue to defend the theory.
Thus, in the “New Communist Movement” of the 1970s and 1980s, various currents defended the notion that a layer of U.S. workers shared in the “super profits” of imperialism and monopoly capitalism. Max Elbaum (the author of the influential Revolution in the Air (6)) and Robert Seltzer, then leaders of the prominent “new communist” group Line of March, published a three part explication and defence of the theory of the labour aristocracy in the early 1980s. (7)
More recently, Jonathan Strauss of the Australian Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), one of the larger revolutionary organizations in the English-speaking world whose origins lie in Trotskyism, has published a series of articles in the DSP sponsored journal Links (8) that elaborates upon Elbaum and Seltzer’s defence of the theory of the labour aristocracy.
Important groups of activists, in particular those working with low-wage workers, are also drawn to the theory of the labour aristocracy. Four members of the People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a workers’ center organizing mostly “low-wage/no-wage” workers of color in the San Francisco area, argued that:
”Another feature of imperialism that distinguishes it from earlier eras of capitalism is the imperialist powers’ creation of a ‘labour aristocracy.’ The dominant position of the imperialist nations allows these nations to extract super-profits. The ruling elite of imperialist nations use some of the super-profits to make significant economic and political concessions to certain sectors of that nation’s working class. Through higher wages, greater access to consumer goods and services and expanded social wage such as public education and cultural institutions, the imperialist elite are able to essentially bribe those sections of the working class …
”For a contemporary example of this, all we have to do is look at the 2004 presidential elections. Statistics show that working class whites in the United States voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush in an election that could be read as a referendum of the empire’s war on the Iraqi people. An analysis that solely focuses on class would suggest that working class whites had and have an interest in opposing a war that, if nothing else, is costing them billions in dollars. But clearly that ain’t what happened. Working class whites voted overwhelmingly in support of the war on the Iraqi people. The majority of working class whites, despite their own exploitation, tie their own interests to white supremacy and the dominance of “America” in the world.” (9)
Most current versions of the labour aristocracy thesis recognize some of the grave empirical problems (see below) with Lenin’s claims that higher wages for a significant minority of workers in the imperialist countries comes from the super profits earned from the exploitation of lower paid workers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. (10) Instead, they tend to emphasize how the emergence of “monopoly capitalism” allows large corporations that dominate key branches of industry to earn super profits, which they share with their workers in the form of secure employment, higher wages and benefits.
Contemporary defenders of the labour aristocracy thesis argue that prior to the rise of large corporations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, capitalism was in its “competitive” stage. Under competitive capitalism most branches of industry saw a large number of relatively small firms competing with one another through price cutting.
If any particular firm or industry began to experience higher than average profits because of the introduction of new machinery, it was relatively easy for its competitors to either adopt the new technology or shift investment from industries with lower profits to industries with higher profits. Through this process of competition within and between branches of production, new technology was rapidly diffused and capital easily moved between different sectors of the economy, resulting in uniform technical conditions within an industry and equal profit rates within and between industries.
According to Elbaum and Seltzer, Marx’s analysis of the equalization of the rate of profit (11) applied to the “competitive” phase of capitalism:
”In the era of competitive capitalism, profits above the average rate, i.e. surplus profits, were generally spasmodic and temporary. They were usually derived as a result of technological advances that enabled a capitalist to reduce costs below the industry average, or entrepreneurial skills that opened new markets. However, an abnormally high rate of profit by an individual firm, or in a particular branch of industry, was soon undermined by an inflow of capital seeking the higher rate of profit or by the relatively rapid adoption of cost-cutting innovations by competitors.” (12)
The rise of large scale corporations in the 20th century create “institutional or structural restrictions of this process” which “result in monopoly super profits.” (13) “Monopoly” or “oligopoly” – where a small number of firms dominate a given industry – replaced competition. Specifically, the enormous cost of new capital’s entering these industries (auto, steel, etc.) – the barriers to entry – allow these firms to limit competition and sustain above average profits in several ways.
These barriers to entry prevent the rapid diffusion of new methods of production across industries, creating what Ernest Mandel called “technological rents” or super-profits (14) for these monopoly corporations. These barriers also prevent capital from moving from low profitability to high profitability industries, blocking the equalization of profit rates. Finally, barriers to entry and restricted competition allow corporations to raise prices above their prices of production, securing super profits for the largest firms in the economy. (15)
In this view competition does not disappear under monopoly capitalism, but tends to operate primarily in those sectors of the economy where large numbers of relatively small firms continue to predominate. Cut-throat competition and the rapid depression of above average profits to the average rate persist in the “competitive” sectors (garment, electronics, etc.) of the economy. There the small scale of investment necessary to start a competitive firm lowers barriers to entry and allows a large number of small firms to survive.
The result is a “dual economy,” with two distinct profit rates:
”In the monopoly stage of capitalism, the tendency to form an average rate of profit still exists, since monopoly doesn’t obliterate competition in the system as a whole. But it is modified by monopoly power. Therefore, the surplus value of society is distributed both according to size of capital through inter-industry competition (which yields equal profit on equal capital as in competitive capitalism); and according to the level of monopolization (which yields monopoly super profits). Monopolies receive both the average profit and monopoly super profit. Consequently, there arise the phenomena of a relatively permanent hierarchy of profit rates ranging from the highest in the strategic industries with large-scale production and the strongest monopolies, to the lowest in weaker industries with small-scale production, intense competition and market instability.” (16)
According to Strauss, Elbaum and Seltzer, monopoly super profits become the primary source of the “bribe” for the contemporary labour aristocracy. The monopoly industries’ higher than average profit rates allow these firms to provide higher than average wages and benefits and secure employment to their workers. By contrast, competitive industries earn average (or below average) profit rates and doom workers in these industries to below average wages and benefits and insecure employment.
From this perspective, effective unions are only possible in the monopoly sector of the economy, where the absence of competition creates super profits and allows corporations to “bribe” workers with higher wages and more secure employment. Given the realities of racism and national oppression, “white” workers tend to be overrepresented in the higher paid sectors of the economy, while workers of color tend to be overrepresented in the lower paid sectors of the economy.
The labour aristocracy, as today’s theorists see it, is no longer made up primarily of skilled machinists and other industrial workers, as was the case in the early 20th century. Today, the more highly paid workers in the unionized monopoly and public sector constitute a labour aristocracy whose higher wages derive from the super-exploitation of workers in the competitive sectors of the advanced capitalist economies. (17)
Despite its intellectual pedigree and longevity, the labour aristocracy thesis is not a theoretically rigorous or factually realistic explanation of working-class reformism or conservatism. This essay undertakes an examination of the theoretical and empirical economic claims of the labour aristocracy thesis.
We will first evaluate the claim that super profits pumped out of workers in the global South underwrite a “bribe” in the form of higher wages for a minority of the working class in the global North. The essay then evaluates the claim that limits on competition flowing from industrial concentration in key sectors of the economy produces differential profits rates and wages. We will conclude our critique of the theory of the labour aristocracy with an analysis of the actual history of radical and revolutionary working-class activism in the 20th century.
Finally, I will present an alternative explanation of the persistence of working class reformism and conservatism – one rooted in the necessarily episodic character of working-class self-organization and activity, the emergence of an officialdom (bureaucracy) in the unions and pro-working class political parties, and the inability of reformist politics to effectively win or defend working-class gains under capitalism. (18)
Investment, Wages and Profits
Imperialist investment, particularly in the global South, represents a tiny portion of global capitalist investment. (19) Foreign direct investment makes up only 5% of total world investment – that is to say, 95% of total capitalist investment takes place within the boundaries of each industrialized country.
Of that five percent of total global investment that is foreign direct investment, nearly three-quarters flow from one industrialized country – one part of the global North – to another. Thus only 1.25% of total world investment flows from the global North to the global South. It is not surprising that the global South accounts for only 20% of global manufacturing output, mostly in labor-intensive industries such as clothing, shoes, auto parts and simple electronics.
Data for profits earned by U.S. companies overseas do not distinguish between investments in the global North and global South. For purposes of approximation, we will assume that the 25% of U.S. foreign direct investment in labor-intensive manufacturing in Africa, Asia and Latin America produces profits above those earned on the 75% of U.S. foreign direct investment in more capital-intensive production in western Europe, Canada and Japan. It is unlikely, however, that more than half of the profits earned abroad by US companies are earned in the global South.
Thus, assigning 50% of foreign profits of U.S. companies to their investments in the global South probably biases the data in favor of claims that these profits constitute a significant source of total U.S. wages. Yet even accepting such a biased estimate, the data (Table I and Graph I) for the period 1948–2003 supports Ernest Mandel’s assertion that U.S. profits from investment in the global South “constitute a negligible sum compared to the total wage bill of the American working class.” (20)
Prior to 1995 total profits earned by U.S. companies abroad exceeded 4% of total U.S. wages only once, in 1979. Foreign profits as a percentage of total U.S. wages rose above 5% only in 1997, 2000 and 2002, and rose slightly over 6% in 2003. If we hold to our estimate that half of total foreign profits are earned from investment in the global South, only 1–2% of total U.S. wages for most of the nearly 50 years prior to 1995 – and only 2–3% of total U.S. wages in the 1990s – could have come from profits earned in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Such proportions are hardly sufficient to explain the 37% wage differentials between secretaries in advertising agencies and “labour aristocracy” machinists working on oil pipelines, or the 64% wage differentials between janitors in restaurants and bars and automobile workers. (21)
Does this analysis mean that imperialism – rooted in the export of capital (and capitalist class relations) across the globe – has no impact on profits and wages in the global North? No – but the impact is quite different from what the labour aristocracy thesis predicts.
In Capital, Volume III (22), Marx recognized that foreign investment was one of a number of “countervailing” tendencies to the decline of the rate of profit. Put simply, the export of capital from the global North to the global South, especially when invested in production processes that are more labour intensive than those found in the advanced capitalist countries, tends to raise the mass and rate of profit in the North. There is indeed some evidence that foreign profits – from investments in both the global North and global South – constitute an important counter tendency to declining profits in the United States.
Profits earned abroad by U.S. companies as a percentage of total U.S. profits (Table I and Graph I) have risen fairly steadily since 1948, rising from a low of 5.19% in 1950 to a high of 30.56% in 2000. (23) The proportion of U.S. profits earned abroad jumped sharply after the onset of the long-wave of stagnation in 1966, jumping from 6.43% in 1966 to 18.36% in 1986.
Even more indicative is the relationship between annual percentage changes in domestic and foreign U.S. profits (Table II). In a number of years (1967–1970, 1972–1974, 1978–1980, 1986–1990, 1994–1995, 1997–2001, 2003), the annual percentage change for foreign profits was higher than the annual percentage change for domestic profits. In some of these years (1967, 1969–1970, 1974, 1979–1980, 1989, 1998, 2000–2001), total profits earned in the U.S. declined while total profits earned abroad increased.
Higher profits result in more investment across the board in the industrialized countries. More investment eventually brings a growing demand for labour (within limits set by investment in newer, more capital intensive technology), falling unemployment and rising wages for all workers in the industrialized capitalist countries.
Put simply, this means that imperialist investment in the global South benefits all workers in the global North – both highly paid and poorly paid workers. Higher profits and increased investment mean not only more employment and rising wages for “aristocratic” steel, automobile, machine-making, trucking and construction workers, but also for lowly paid clerical, janitorial, garment and food processing workers. As Ernest Mandel put it, “the real ‘labour aristocracy’ is no longer constituted inside the proletariat of an imperialist country but rather by the proletariat of the imperialist countries as a whole.” (24) That “real ‘labour aristocracy’” includes poorly paid immigrant janitors and garment workers, African-American and Latino poultry workers, as well as the multi-racial workforce in auto and trucking. (25)
Clearly, these “benefits” accruing to the entire working class of the industrialized countries from imperialist investment are neither automatic nor evenly distributed. Rising profits and increased investment do not necessarily lead to higher wages for workers in the absence of effective working- class organization and struggle.
During the post-World War II long wave of expansion, the industrial unions that had arisen during the mass strike wave of 1934–37 were able to secure rising real wages both for their own members and the bulk of the unorganized working classes. However, since 1973, the labour movement in the United States and the rest of the industrial countries has been in retreat.
Real wages for U.S. workers, both union and nonunion, have fallen to about 11% below their 1973 level, despite strong growth beginning in the late 1980s. (26) Higher than average profits have accrued, first and foremost, to capital, allowing increased investment; and to the professional-managerial middle class in the form of higher salaries.
Nor are the “benefits” of increased profitability and growth due to imperialist investment distributed equally to all portions of the working class. As we will see below, the racial-national and gender structuring of the labour market result in women and workers of color being concentrated in the labor-intensive and low-wage sectors of the economy.
Whatever benefits all workers in the global North reap from imperialist investment in the global South are clearly outweighed by the deleterious effects of the expansion of capitalist production on a world scale. This is especially clear today, in the era of neoliberal “globalization.”
Although industry is clearly not “footloose and fancy free” as some theorists of globalization claim – moving from one country to another in search for the cheapest labour (27) – the removal of various legal and judicial obstacles to the free movement of capital has sharpened competition among workers internationally, to the detriment of workers in both the global North and South.
The mere threat of moving production “off-shore,” even if the vast majority of industrial investment remains within the advanced capitalist societies, is often sufficient to force cuts in wages and benefits, the dismantling of work rules and the creation of multi-tiered workforces in the United States and other industrialized countries. Neoliberalism’s deepening of the process of primitive accumulation of capital – the forcible expropriation of peasants from the land in Africa, Asia and Latin America – has created a growing global reserve army of labour competing for dwindling numbers of fulltime, secure and relatively well paid jobs across the world.
Put simply, the sharpening competition among workers internationally more than offsets the “benefits” of imperialism for workers in the global North. (28)
Annexure15: The Myth of the Labour Aristocracy Part 2 by Charles Post
First published in Against the Current, No. 124, September–October 2006
Explaining Working-Class Reformism
How do we explain the fact that most workers, most of the time, do not act on their potential power? Why do workers embrace reformist politics – support for bureaucratic unionism (reliance on the grievance procedure, routine collective bargaining) and Democratic party electoral politics – or worse, reactionary politics in the forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism, militarism?
The key to understanding working-class reformism (and conservatism) is the necessarily episodic nature of working-class struggle and organization. The necessary condition for the development of class consciousness is the self-activity and self-organization of the workers themselves. The experience of mass, collective and successful struggles against capital and its state in the workplace and the community is what opens layers of workers to radical and revolutionary political ideas. (5)
The working class cannot be, as a whole, permanently active in the class struggle. The entire working class cannot consistently engage in strikes, demonstrations and other forms of political activity because this class is separated from effective possession of the means of production, and its members compelled to sell their labour power to capital in order to survive. They have to go to work!
Put simply, most workers, most of the time are engaged in the individual struggle to sell their capacity to work and secure the reproduction of themselves and their families – not the collective struggle against the employers and the state. The “actually existing” working class can only engage in mass struggles as a class in extraordinary, revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situations. Because of the structural position of wage labour under capitalism, these must be of short duration. Most often, different segments of the working class become active in the struggle against capital at different times.
In the wake of successful mass struggles, only a minority of the workers remain consistently active. Most of this workers’ vanguard – those who “even during a lull in the struggle…do[es] not abandon the front lines of the class struggle but continues the war, so to speak, ’by other means’” (6) – attempts to preserve and transmit the traditions of mass struggle in the workplace or the community. However, a sector within this active minority, together with intellectuals who have access to cultural skills from which the bulk of the working class is excluded, must take on responsibility for administering the unions or political parties created by periodic upsurges of mass activity.
This layer of fulltime officials – the bureaucracy of the labour movement – is the social foundation for “unconditional” reformist practice and ideology in the labour movement. Those workers who become officials of the unions and political parties begin to experience conditions of life very different from those who remain in the workplace.
The new officials find themselves freed from the daily humiliations of the capitalist labour process. They are no longer subject to either deskilled and alienated labour or the petty despotism of supervisors. Able to set their own hours, plan and direct their own activities, and devote the bulk of their waking hours to “fighting for the workers,” the officials seek to consolidate these privileges.
As the unions gain a place in capitalist society, the union officials strengthen their role as negotiators of the workers’ subordination to capital in the labour-process. In defence of their social position, the labour bureaucracy excludes rank and file activists in the unions and parties from any real decision-making power. (7)
The consolidation of the labour bureaucracy as a social layer, distinct from the rest of the working class under capitalism, gives rise to its distinctive political practice and world-view. The preservation of the apparatus of the mass union or party, as an end itself, becomes the main objective of the labour bureaucracy. The labour bureaucrats seek to contain working-class militancy within boundaries that do not threaten the continued existence of the institutions which are the basis of the officials’ unique life-style.
Thus what Ernest Mandel called the “dialectic of partial conquests,” the possibility that new struggles may be defeated and the mass organizations of the working class weakened, buttress the labour bureaucracy’s reliance on electoral campaigns and parliamentary pressure tactics (lobbying) to win political reforms, and on strictly regimented collective bargaining to increase wages and improve working conditions.
The labour bureaucracy’s stake in stable bargaining relationships with the employers and their credibility in the eyes of the capitalists as negotiators further reinforce their conservative ideology and practice. From the bureaucracy’s point of view, any attempt to promote the militant self-activity and organization among workers must be quashed. At this point, the bureaucracy’s organizational fetishism (giving priority to the survival of the apparatus over new advances in the struggle) produces a world-view that demands the workers’ unquestioning obedience to leaders who claim they know “what is best for the workers.”
While the unconditional ideological commitment to reformism grows organically from the privileged social position of the labour officialdom, how do we explain the conditional reformism of most workers? Why do most workers, most of the time accept reformism? Put bluntly, why is this conditional reformism the normal state of working class consciousness under capitalism?
In “normal times” – of working class quiescence and passivity – the majority of workers come to accept the “rules of the game” of capitalist competition and profitability. They seek a “fair share” of the products of capitalist accumulation, but do not feel capable of challenging capitalist power in the workplace, the streets or society. For most workers during “normal times,” mass, militant struggle seems unrealistic; they tend to embrace the labour officialdom’s substitution of liberal and reformist electoral politics, institutionalized collective bargaining and grievance handling.
However, the continued hold of reformism over the majority of workers requires that labour officials “deliver the goods” in the form of improved wages, hours and working conditions. As Bob Brenner points out:
”(G)iven even a minimum of working-class organization, reformism tends to be widely attractive in periods of prosperity precisely because in such periods the threat of limited working-class resistance – symbolized by the resolution to strike or a victory at the polls – actually can yield concessions from capital. Since filling orders and expanding production are their top priorities in the boom, capitalists will tend to find it in their interests to maintain and increase production, even if this means concessions to the workers, if the alternative is to endure a strike or other forms of social dislocation.” (8)
When capitalism enters one of its unavoidable periods of crisis and restructuring – like the one that began in the late 1960s through most of the capitalist world – the paradox of reformism becomes manifest. In a world of declining profits and sharpened competition, capitalists throughout the world went on the offensive at the workplace and at the level of the capitalist state. The restructuring of the capitalist production along the lines of lean production, and the neoliberal deregulation of capital and labour markets (9), required all-out war against workers and their organizations across the capitalist world.
At this point, reformism becomes ineffective. Workers can and have made gains against their employers in the past fifteen years – the success of the UPS strike and the “Justice for Janitors” campaigns in various cities cannot be ignored. However, these victories often required substantive rank-and-file organization and mobilization – including independent organizations, like Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU).
In fact, the reformist officialdom of the unions and social-democratic parties embraced realpolitik – adapting to the new “reality” of declining living and working conditions. As Mandel pointed out:
”(T)he underlying assumption of present-day social-democratic gradualism is precisely this: let the capitalists produce the goods, so that governments can redistribute them in a just way. But what if capitalist production demands more unequal, more unjust distribution of the ’fruits of growth’? What if there is no economic growth at all as a result of capitalist crisis? The gradualists can then only repeat mechanically: there is no alternative; there is no way out.” (10)
Eschewing militancy and direct action by workers and other oppressed people, the labour bureaucracy and reformist politicians in the West have no choice but to make concessions to the employers’ offensive and to administer capitalist state austerity. The spectacle of reformist bureaucrats shunning the struggle for reforms has been repeated across the capitalist world in the last three decades, with tragic results.
Again and again, the reformist bureaucrats have surrendered to the requirements of capitalist profitability. The Italian Communist party embraced austerity in the 1970s. The U.S. AFL-CIO officials have accepted concession bargaining since 1979, usually without even the pretense of struggle. Social-democratic regimes across Europe (Mitterand and Jospin in France, Blair in Britain, Schroeder in Germany) embraced neoliberal realism – cutting social services, privatizing public enterprises, and deregulating capital and labour markets.
Nor has the reformist retreat been limited to the imperialist countries. In the early 1990s, the ANC-COSATU-led government in post-apartheid South Africa has embraced what some have called the “sado-monetarism” of the IMF and World Bank. The debacle of the Lula regime in Brazil – attacking workers’ rights, opening the agricultural economy to transnational investment and systematically retreating from its promise of popular reform – fits the pattern all too well. Today, even the most moderate forms of social-democratic gradualism have become utopian, as the labour bureaucracy across the world has been unable to defend the workers’ past gains much less win significant new reforms in an era of crisis and restructuring.
Why Working-Class Conservatism?
The inability of reformism to “deliver the goods” for most working people also helps us make sense of the appeal of right-wing politics – racist, sexist, homophobic, nativist and militarist – for a segment of workers. The objective, structural position of workers under capitalism provides the basis for collective, class radicalism and individualist, sectoralist and reactionary politics.
Bob Brenner and Johanna Brenner point out, “workers are not only collective producers with a common interest in taking collective control over social production. They are also individual sellers of labour power in conflict with each other over jobs, promotions, etc.” As Kim Moody put it, capitalism “pushes together and pulls apart” the working class. As competing sellers of labour power, workers are open to the appeal of politics that pit them against other workers – especially workers in a weaker social position:
It appears possible for the stronger sections of the working class to defend their positions by organizing on the basis of already existing ties against weaker, less-organized sections. They can take advantage of their positions as Americans over and against foreigners, as whites over and against blacks, as men over and against women, as employed over and against unemployed, etc. In so doing, working people may act initially only out of what they perceive to be their most immediate self-interest. But over time they inevitably feel the pressure to make sense of these actions and they adopt ideas which can make their actions reasonable and coherent. These ideas are, of course, the ideas of the right. (12)
Bruce Nelson’s recent study of steelworkers details how relatively white workers in the steel industry struggled to defend their privileged access to better paying and relatively more skilled work after the establishment of industrial unionism. The rise of the CIO opened the possibility of classwide organization that began to reduce the racial/national segmentation of the working class.
As the CIO offensive ground to passed its peak by the late 1930s, and the industrial unions became bureaucratized during the second world war, white workers increasingly moved to defend their privileged access to employment (and with it housing, education for their children, etc.) against workers of color. In the steel industries, white workers militantly defended departmental seniority in promotion and layoffs against demands of Black and Latino workers for plant wide seniority and affirmative action in promotions in the 1960s and 1970s. (13)
As Marxists, we understand that such strategies are counter-productive in the medium to long term. Divisions among workers and reliance on different segments of the capitalist class only undermine the ability of workers to defend or improve their conditions of life under capitalism. (14) However, when reformism proves incapable of realistically defending workers’ interests – as it has since the early 1970s – workers embrace individualist and sectoralist perspectives as the only realistic strategy.
This is particularly the case in the absence of a substantial and influential militant minority in the working class that can organize collective resistance to capital independently of, and often in opposition to the reformist labour officials. (15)
Conclusion
Kim Moody has pointed out that everyday working class “common sense” is not “some consistent capitalist ideology” but instead:
”a clashing collection of old ideas handed down, others learned through daily experience, and still others generated by the capitalist media, education system, religion, etc. It is not simply the popular idea of a nation tranquilized by TV and weekends in the mall. “Common sense” is both deeper and more contradictory because it also embodies experiences that go against the grain of capitalist ideology.” (16)
Only through the experience of collective, class activity against the employers, starting at but not limited to the workplace, can workers begin to think of themselves as a class with interests in common with other workers and opposed to the capitalists. Workers who experience their collective, class power on the job are much more open to class – and anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-militarist, anti-nativist – ways of thinking.
As Marx pointed out, it is through the workplace and union struggles that the working class “becomes fit to rule” – develops the organization and consciousness capable of confronting capital. Such organization will require a struggle not only against “backward ideas” among workers, but against the officialdom of the unions and other popular mass organizations that are committed to reformist strategies, no matter how blatantly ineffective.
Workers’ self-organization and self-activity in the workplace struggles is the starting point for creating the material and ideological conditions for an effective challenge to working class reformism and conservatism. Clearly, militant workplace struggle is not a sufficient condition for the development of radical and revolutionary consciousness among workers. Struggles in working-class communities around housing, social welfare, transport and other issues; and political struggles against racism and war are crucial elements in the political self-transformation of the working class.
Successful workplace struggles, however, are the necessary condition for the development of class consciousness. Without the experience of such struggles, workers will continue to passively accept reformist politics or, worse, embrace reactionary politics.
This does not mean that workers of color, women and other oppressed groups in the working class should “wait” to fight until white and male workers are ready to act. White and male workers, because of the temporary but real advantages they gain in the labour market – preferential access to better jobs -are not likely to initiate struggles against racism, sexism or homophobia in the workplace or anywhere else. Self-organization and self-activity of racially oppressed groups are crucial to the development of anti-racist struggles and anti-racist consciousness.
However, a mass working-class audience for anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-militarist ideas will most likely be created in the context of mass, class struggles against capital. Today, the main audience for the idea that workers need to stand up to right-wing ideas and practices are the small layer of rank and file activists who are trying to promote solidarity, militancy and democracy in the labour movement.
Only if these activists, with the help of socialists in the labour movement, can succeed in building effective collective fight back will these ideas – the politics of class radicalism – achieve mass resonance.
An artificially-imposed union in unnatural borders is known as ‘a construct’. Constructs are artificial, as they are populated by different peoples, who speak different languages and have different cultures, and who would prefer to live in their own common nation-state because of those differences. For these reasons constructs are always imposed top-down for ‘reasons of State’ and rejected by those who are oppressed by them at the grassroots. Constructs are only ever popular among the elites which invent them and make money from them. They rarely achieve more than 50% popularity, usually far less. They are always rejected by the people at the bottom of the pile. This is why constructs never last.
1. The USA as a Construct
For instance, the USA, founded on exploitation, gun-law, slavery and the genocide of its native peoples, is a construct. Its straight-line borders are artificial, the result of wars and treaties, forced on others by historical circumstances or illegal occupations, for example as in Alaska and Hawaii. Much of its southern territory is Spanish-named and was stolen from Mexico and is now – such is the justice of history and the reward of patience – being reoccupied by Spanish speakers.
As for the northern border, that was fixed because basically the lands northwards were cold and uninviting. The vast majority of them, except for a very narrow strip close to the US border, spread up to the Arctic and were uninhabitable. Thus, the US elite left them to the unwanted whom they called ‘Canadians’, who presented no threat to them.
As regards its ‘United’ States, they are the result of an incredibly bloody Civil War, leaving as many as one million dead, the equivalent of ten million today. It was directed by an industrial elite in the North-East and the result, enforced by genocide, was by many never accepted. That elite was Zionist (not Jewish, though many of its financiers were Jews) in its proclamation that it was exceptional and that its ‘manifest destiny’ (i.e. manifest only to themselves) was to spread ‘from sea to shining sea’.
2. Europe and its Constructs
Europe (meaning by etymology ‘the west’) is also a construct, its identity going back to an ancient Greek myth. For the Romans 2,000 years ago, it did not exist separately from Asia and Africa. Indeed, it is artificially separated from Asia (meaning by etymology ‘the east’), from where its peoples emigrated. There is no natural border between the European peninsula and Asia: its eastern border is purely political and for the moment fixed in the Ural Mountains and the Caucasus.
Moreover, nearly all of its languages are ‘Indo-European’ and have their origins in a language spoken in today’s Turkey (Asia Minor) or even further east, well over 5,000 years ago. The historically recent contempt of ‘Europe’ for anything ‘Asian’, contemptuously termed ‘Asiatic’ or ‘barbarian’, is simply a rejection of its own origins and a self-justification for its artificial state of separation.
In the early 90s the then French President, Chirac, called on all: ‘Creeons l’Europe, Faisons l’Europe, il faut construire l’Europe’ (Let us create Europe, Let us make Europe, We must build Europe’). This was simply an open admission that Europe did not exist. It does not.
Within contemporary Europe the EU, the UK and the Ukraine are obviously constructs. The EU goes back only to 1993, the Ukraine to 1992, and the UK to 1922. In other words, they are all temporary inventions of the twentieth century. Now we are in the twenty-first century, we can see that they will not last much longer.
a. The EU
Taking the most recent construct first, we can see that many of the now 27 countries of the EU, which the UK left after 47 turbulent years, experiencing it and its predecessors as a straitjacket, are constructs. We would make exceptions only for some small countries: Portugal, the Czech Lands, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Malta and the five sparsely-populated Nordics: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland, the latter both Non-EU. (The total population of the five Nordics is just 27 million, 40% of the population of France or the UK).
Spain is a construct, Catalans and Basques reject it. France is a construct, Basques, Bretons, Occitans, Corsicans and Alsaciens reject it. Belgium, Italy and Germany are constructs that go back no further than the nineteenth century and Germany has been reinvented radically over that time, as the Second Reich of 1871 disappeared in 1918 and the Third Reich of 1933 lasted only twelve years, after which the borders of Germany changed radically.
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were constructs. Czechoslovakia split into its two natural entities, but the fate of the far more complex Yugoslavia is far from resolved. Yugoslavia disintegrated into a number of states, most of which have unnatural borders, not unlike several other European countries, for example, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. And here we do not even mention the unresolved problem of occupied Cyprus. Obviously, those who claim to be in favour of self-determination are not.
The EU elite comes from the borderlands of Latin-Germanic/Protestant-Catholic Europe. These run through Belgium, Luxembourg and eastern France (the Brussels-Luxembourg-Strasbourg axis). This elite was US-formed, like Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer. As the former President of France, Giscard d’Estaing, stated, the Common Market (predecessor of the EU) was until the 1970s little more than a ‘Neo-Carolingian Empire’. In other words, it was a recreation of the ‘Empire’ of Charlemagne, who was not a French leader or founder of the French educational system, as French State schoolbooks claim. He was a vicious and illiterate German barbarian who spoke no French and was tall, so called Karl the Tall, disguised by the French name ‘Charlemagne’.
His EU ‘Empire’ with its violent warrior class of Franks was recreated a millennium later by other Fascistic tyrants, Napoleon and Hitler; hardly a recommendation for the EU, though EU membership and territory are almost identical to their blood-soaked Empires. Moreover, both those Empires failed because they too tried to invade Russian territory. Although it is not necessary or inevitable, history does in fact repeat itself, simply because of the greatest human stupidity – not to learn the lessons of history. And so it goes on and today the earth of the Ukraine is soaked in blood again.
b. The Ukraine
Although the word ‘Ukraine’, meaning borderland, is ancient, the concept of a country called ‘the Ukraine’, like its Austrian flag, goes back only to the Austro-Hungarian Imperialism of the late nineteenth-century. The Ukraine as a nation-state is an even more recent construct.
The Ukraine was invented largely by Non-Russian Communist dictators for political reasons, in 1922, 1939 and 1954, and has existed as a separate state only for thirty years. It has never been an independent state, having been completely dependent on a Jewish oligarchic elite over its thirty years of existence. And since 2014 it has been a US conquest-state and so vassal.
Constructs are dangerous things (1). Just as the construct of ‘Belgium’ (the southern Netherlands and part of northern France) was used as a pretext for World War I in 1914, the construct of ‘Poland’ (then consisting of Poland and large and oppressed parts of Belarus and Galicia) was used as a pretext for World War II in 1939, so the Ukraine was used as a pretext for what we call World War III (2014 – present).
From 2014 on, for eight years, a huge Ukrainian force, over 500,000 strong, was gathered, trained, dug in and armed by NATO in order to invade Russia from the eastern Ukraine. This is the origin of the present Third World War, which is now in its ninth year and slaughtered nearly seven million in its biological warfare (covid) phase alone. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians is now on the hands of the USA, its vassals and their foreign financiers.
c. The UK
The UK in its present form, England, Scotland, Wales and an occupied piece of north-eastern Ireland, was founded in the same year as the Soviet Ukraine – 1922. However, its origins go way back to the violence of a Viking-Norman elite, financed by Jewish merchants from Rouen. (Until 1066 there were no Jews in any of the Four Nations, England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland).
Those Normans are nothing to do with contemporary Normandy and Norman people. Those ‘Normans’ (= Northmen) were a cosmopolitan, French-speaking Viking elite, temporarily based in north-western France. They marauded all over Europe, notably in Sicily, Southern Italy and England, wherever, in fact, as conquistadors they could see opportunities for power and gold. The ships they used to invade were in fact Viking drakkar, dragon-ships, as can be seen from pictures of them in the eleventh-century English-made Tapestry, at present in Bayeux in Normandy.
In 1066 and after, the Normans, led by William the Bastard/Conquistador, conquered England by genocide, though most of his mercenary force consisted of Flemings and Bretons, the bandit scum of north-western Europe. In other words, only the leadership elite were ‘Normans’. Their alliance of pillaging bandits went on to conquer Wales, Scotland and, in the twelfth century, Ireland, where they were known as ‘Anglo-Normans’.
Then they created a ‘Hundred Years War’ with France and intervened in other interminable wars on mainland Europe. However, their much later racial and ideological descendants and adepts, of all nationalities, went on to conquer worldwide territories in what became known as ‘The British Empire’. In fact, this was ‘The Norman Empire’. Noted for its ‘raiding and trading’, that is, pillaging and looting, it was the ultimate Viking enterprise, violent warriors replaced by ruthless traders, battle-axes by trade monopolies, excommunications by trade sanctions.
The Constructing Elites
The elites who have imposed these constructs all have something in common – their intolerance. We would call them ‘Exceptionalists’ to describe that unique intolerance, because that is how they consider themselves and they actually use their imagined ‘exceptionalism’ to justify the darkest of deeds. According to them, all who are different have to be destroyed – ‘cancelled’. ‘We are best, and therefore…’. This is only the racism of Hitler: ‘We are Aryans, and therefore…’. They call themselves ‘Judeo-Christians’. The Saker very aptly calls them Anglo-Zionists. Again we repeat that here we must distinguish between Jews and Zionists. Many Jews are anti-Zionist and many Zionists are not at all Jews (2). Let us give two examples.
I remember talking many years ago to an Englishman, then aged 102, a true Victorian, who told me that he was convinced that God was English. And he was serious. I told him that after the US provocation of Pearl Harbour in December 1941 (when American infamy entered a new phase), surely his god had changed nationalities and become American. He replied to me that English and Americans were the same anyway. He was a Zionist, but he was not a Jew. Then about twenty years ago an 80 year-old Dutchman from Alkmaar told me that: ‘After the War (= 1945) the world’s policeman was no longer English, but American’. (He never explained to me why the world needed a policeman and who had chosen him). He too was a Zionist, but not a Jew.
All of this of course is known as ‘cultural prejudice’ or, more simply, ignorance and bigotry. Thus: ‘We want to steal Iraq’s oil and gas. Because we are Americans, we are exceptional and we have the right to do this. This is the international rules-based order which we have established’. These people are Zionists, but they are not necessarily Jews.
Conclusion: Reconstruction
It is a spiritual law (also known as ‘common sense’) that you do not destroy anything, until you have something better to replace it with. In other words, you do not deconstruct, if you are not first ready to reconstruct. What exactly the future of the USA is I could not say, though I would say that it will fall back into its natural components, for that is the destiny of all constructs – they de-compose, as artifice is always taken over by nature – like a corpse in the grave. All constructs become corpses, some quite rapidly, as in today’s deeply tragic Ukraine.
Europe’s destiny is to rejoin Asia, which is its origin in every sense, including the origin of Christianity. For Christianity is not by origin European. The defection of Western Europe from Christian Tradition almost exactly 1,000 years ago (3) and its construct of ‘Catholicism’ (4), which 500 years later split into a myriad of State-moulded sects (5), which have lasted another 500 years and are now rapidly dying out, signified its schism from Asia. It was only from the eleventh century on that the word ‘Europe’ began to be used to define a geographical entity, being firmly established only by 1300 (6).
Western Europe even began to call the old Christian Capital of New Rome/Constantinople on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, symbolised therefore by a double-headed eagle, ‘Byzantium’. It even invented the word ‘Byzantine’ to describe its own labyrinthine bureaucracy and convoluted hypocrisy. (There is nothing so ‘Byzantine’ as perfidious Albion). Then, in 1204, the new Judeo-Christian ‘Catholics’ sacked the Christian Capital, weakening it and so enabling it to be conquered by the Muslim Ottomans in 1453.
Now comes the, as yet faint, possibility of Europe’s return to its roots after its thousand-years of captivity. In order to do this, Europe has to free itself from the dictatorship of the atheist elite, now based in the USA, but with important offshoots in Western Europe, especially in post-Protestant north-western Europe.
Europe has to recognise the Four Asian Civilisations, founded on religion and rooted in history, which have given Asia and the world its history. Chronologically, these are: the Hindu world of the Subcontinent (Hindustan), the Confucian-Buddhist-Taoist Chinese world, the Orthodox Christian world (today based in Russia, but which spreads southwards to its origin in Jerusalem and beyond) and the Muslim world of Asia and North Africa. They represent three-quarters of the world. You will never get away from them. Stop fighting among yourselves and fighting against them and learn to live with them.
9 November 2022
Notes:
1. We also have the example of the construct of Kuwait, artificially divided from artificial Iraq, designed with its straight lines by British cunning and greed. It was the pretext for the First Genocide in Iraq in 1990-1991.
3. The Pope of Rome whose name was permanently removed from the lists (‘diptychs’) of Orthodox Christian leaders in Rome by the Orthodox Christian Patriarch of Constantinople was the Germanising Benedict VIII (1012-1024). Since him no further Popes of Rome have been recognised and commemorated as Orthodox Christians in the Orthodox world.
4. Today’s ailing Roman Catholic leader, Pope Francis, is said to be the last Pope. This is according to the Prophecies of St Malachy, though that document is much disputed and considered by many to be pure fiction.
5. As one English writer, writing of his own country, put it nearly a century ago: ‘Religion (in the late sixteenth century) was not about conversing with the Eternal, but keeping people quiet in the Eternal’s name’. And: ‘Religion then was not building churches, it was preparing to smash churches and put up conventicles where one could hate one’s neighbour as oneself’.
6. See ‘The Europeanization of Europe’, Pp. 269-291 in The Making of Europe by Robert Bartlett (1993).
Mainstream media reporting on Islam, and especially on “security threats” linked to Muslim actors, are often criticized for their bias and the way they promote Islamophobia.
All studies on media reports on Muslims and Islam show, to a greater or lesser extent, that the mainstream media across Europe are often biased against Muslims and involved in spreading Islamophobic ideas, especially the alleged relationship between Muslims and extremism and radicalization.
Why are the media racist?
But what causes this? The new report of which I am a co-author analyzes in detail the factors that cause the widespread dissemination of anti-Muslim reports in the media. In general, academic studies agree that reports are influenced by the pressures of advertising and marketing, the political orientation of publishers, and especially, from the owners of the media. Another key influence on reporting is journalists’ dependence on a narrow range of apparently authoritative sources.
Mastery of “official” sources
Research shows that these “official” definitions of the “problem” of “radicalization” and “extremism” dominate the media. Actors who enact these views can be called “primary definitions” of problems. The phrase was coined by Stuart Hall and his colleagues in the 1970s. He sees the media as “secondary” definers, who are in “structured subordination” to “primary definitions.
But who are these “primary” definers in the case of Muslims? First, the state anti-terrorist apparatus; police, intelligence services, and a wide range of other “counterterrorism” officials. They are supported by neoconservative and anti-extremism pressure groups and expert groups.
The report examines how Islam is treated in the press in five European countries: the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. A long sample period of twenty years was able to detect changes in the reports and if they were related to policy changes, to verify/falsify the thesis that official sources were the most important influence.
The evolution of anti-terrorism policy
The United Kingdom adopted a “Prevention” policy on the fight against terrorism in 2003. This was quickly followed by the EU and the Netherlands in 2005. France ( 2014 ) and Spain ( 2015 ) took another decade to introduce similar policies. Only Italy did not adopt a “prevent” style policy at the time of the study. One was almost approved in 2016 / 7, but the government collapsed before it was enacted.
Coverage of “extremism” and “radicalization” in Europe
The first significant spike in coverage of “extremism” in the UK occurred in 2005 – 2006. 2005 was the year of the London bombings on 7 July, after which Prime Minister Tony Blair said “the rules of the game are changing” and at that time the “Prevention” policy was already in force . A second peak from 2011 corresponded to a later iteration of “Prevenir”, which was a significant movement in a neoconservative direction.
French reports show an increase in attention to “radicalization” from 2012 when a political debate on radicalization began to emerge, followed by an exponential increase in 2016. This process preceded the attack in France against Charlie Hebdo ( January 2015 ) and the Bataclan ( November 2015 ). ) and is more obviously related to the launch of the new anti-terrorism strategy in April 2014.
Spanish data shows that coverage started later and peaked in 2017, one year after France. The beginnings of the increase go back to the discussion and subsequent launch of the new anti-terrorism strategy in January 2015.
Italian data shows the inverted relationship, with reports of “extremism” always higher than those of “radicalization. Given that the term “radicalization” is particularly associated with official anti-terrorism policy, this trend possibly reflects the relative lack of such a policy in Italy. The start of the “radicalization” increase in 2014 coincides with the publication of reports by neo-conservative expert groups, with an exponential increase during the attempt to approve the “Prevent” bill.
What official sources are cited in the media
But what sources were cited in the twenty-year sample? In the UK, the data showed the prominence of intelligence agencies. MI5, the national intelligence agency, and MI6, the foreign agency, stood out. Together they totaled almost six percent of the total appointments of the top one hundred.
The think tanks they were prominent in the UK, with the Quilliam Foundation, often criticized for its proximity to the British state, and the Henry Jackson Society, often described as “Islamophobic, that was presented regularly.
Civil rights organizations such as the Islamic Commission on Human Rights, ranked 96, or Cage, which is not among the top 100, were cited very little. This reflects his critical position on anti-terrorism policy and the UK government’s “radicalization” approach.
France – Intelligence-led coverage with Muslim groups captured by the state
In France, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure ( DGSI ), the national intelligence agency, was the most cited. Its external equivalent, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure ( DGSE ), was presented at 28. Government ministries obtained a relatively high ranking and generally, ( were cited more widely with 26 percent of citations ) than the EU ( 17 percent ) or the UN ( eight percent ).
Muslim civil society groups were relatively prominent with six percent of the appointments in total. On closer inspection, each of them was effectively a government spokesperson. By contrast, genuine Muslim civil rights organizations such as “Le Collectif Contre l’islamophobie” in France were not among the hundred most cited groups.
Spain – Official sources and think tanks neoconservatives
In Spain, the Ministry of the Interior is the second most cited body. It should be noted that the neoconservative think tank Fundación Real Instituto Elcano was one of the most cited organizations, standing above the think tanks of the rest of the countries. The Neo-Conservative Foundation for Social Analysis and Studies ( FAES ) also featured prominently, receiving more appointments than any Muslim civil rights organization in Spain. The president of FAES is José María Aznar, former president of the Government of Spain. Aznar is also NewsCorp director for Rupert Murdoch, responsible for a number of Islamophobic news media around the world, as well as being involved with various Zionist groups.
Italy: lack of official Italian sources
In Italy, unlike the other countries, the highest Italian ministry cited was the Ministry of Economy and Finance ( 11o ). He was cited less frequently than six international government organizations: the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, Europol and the European Commission. This shows that if the Italian state did not promote the perspective of “radicalization”, the Italian media would resort to other official international sources. US intelligence agencies – the CIA and the FBI – were more cited than the Italian national intelligence agency, Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza ( DIS ), not listed at all in the sample. Italian data also included some quotes from neoconservative organizations.
Official sources as holders of power
In general, the role of the security state is absolutely central to the way the media operates on issues related to Muslims and security. In each case, we examine what this was, unlike media factors such as ownership, editorial control, or “reality” ( world events ), which provided the main impetus for the direction and tone of the coverage.
Changes in anti-Muslim reporting date back to the adoption of “Prevent” style policies. This reflects the crucial role of official sources, specifically government institutions associated with the anti-terrorist apparatus and intelligence agencies, in determining what is being reported and how. This was particularly key in the dominance of intelligence sources in the French and British reports. The role of neoconservative think tanks and against extremism was also significant as defenders of the security state, for example in Spain and the United Kingdom.
The “primary definitions” of Islamophobic news media coverage are, therefore, the central institutions of the security state in relation to which the media are in structured subordination as “secondary” defining.
In terms of politics, the bottom line is that problems of racism or media bias cannot be solved only at the level of media reform. Reform of the State and anti-terrorism policy is also necessary.
European Parliament, which is investigating the use of “Israeli” spyware by EU governments, has slammed the Tel Aviv regime for a lack of transparency in allowing the sale of Pegasus to European governments to use it against critics.
The European lawmakers condemned the approach of the Polish government for refusing to meet and talk with them during the meeting of the fact-finding committee in Warsaw, which ended on Wednesday.
“It is regrettable and we condemn the fact that the Polish authorities did not want to cooperate with our investigation committee,” Jeroen Lenaers, the head of the delegation, said at a news conference in Warsaw.
“We think it also is a telling sign of the complete lack of importance this government attaches to checks and balances, to democratic scrutiny, and to dialog with elected representatives.”
The European Union’s fact-finding committee is investigating the use of the entity’s Pegasus spyware and other invasive surveillance tools by the European governments, saying the technology poses a serious threat to democracy in European countries.
Pegasus is “Israeli” spyware that was designed and developed by the entity’s NSO group and is used to break into mobile phones and spy on a large part of personal information including text messages, passwords, locations, and microphone and camera receivers.
The “Israeli” company marketed this technology as a tool to target its desired targets in the world.
Many European governments have used this controversial software to suppress dissidents, journalists, and political opponents around the world.
In Europe, some cyber detectives have found traces of the use of Pegasus or some other spyware in Poland, Hungary, Spain, and Greece.
Sophie in ’t Veld, the rapporteur of the inquiry, said the committee found out in its research that the NSO group sold this spyware to 14 European Union member states with official permission from Tel Aviv.
According to reports, Poland and Hungary are not allowed to buy this spyware from NSO due to some political issues, details of which remain unclear.
“Why can we not say with certainty that Poland was one of the two countries of which the contract has been terminated?” she said.
“Why is it that NSO is allowed to operate in the European Union, conduct its finances through Luxembourg, sell its products to now 12 member states, products that have been used to violate the rights of European citizens and to attack democracy of the European Union?”
Recently, Greece revealed that Nikos Androulakis, a member of the European Parliament and the head of the third largest political party in Greece, was monitored using Predator software last year when he was running for the leadership of the PASOK party.
It is said that a journalist from Mali was also under surveillance.
Recently, it was revealed that Poland, Hungary, and some Catalan separatists in Spain were using this software to suppress their critics and opponents.
The 10-member delegation of the EU’s fact-finding committee during its trip that began on Monday met with Poles targeted by the Pegasus spyware, including a prosecutor and a senator, and some members of the opposition-controlled Senate.
A report of the obtained results as well as some recommendations and solutions are supposed to be published on November 8 of this year.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned of the threat posed by spying programs such as the Pegasus spyware to UN human rights activists in a report to be released next week.
In recent days, Pegasus and some other spyware have threatened a group of UN human rights activists.
Guterres warned that the increase in digital surveillance by governments and some non-governmental sources has affected the activities of civil society activists in providing reliable information to the world body and has made them vulnerable to fear and threats of retaliation.
“United Nations actors have pointed to growing and concerning evidence of online surveillance, privacy intrusion, and cyberattacks by state and non-state actors of victims and civil society communications and activities,” the UN chief noted.
“The lack of trust in the digital sphere among those sharing information and testimony with the United Nations on sensitive issues can discourage future cooperation.”
The findings are part of an annual report that tracks the challenges facing those seeking to work with the organization and focuses on April 2021 to May 2022.
During this period, much of the UN’s activities following the Covid-19 pandemic have gone digital, and at the same time, espionage threats have increased.
According to UN officials, this software has also spied on the activities of Palestinian, Bahraini, and Moroccan organizations and some human rights activists of the UN during this period.
In his recent report, Guterres warned that in 2021, the mobile phones of employees of three prominent Palestinian NGOs – Addameer, Al-Haq, and Bisan Center for Research and Development – were hacked using Pegasus spyware.
The “Israeli” NSO Group has earned notoriety for trying to have its spy apparatuses maintain an edge over their international counterparts.
The regime makes extensive use of Pegasus and other locally-made spyware for espionage.
According to observers, Tel Aviv has treated NSO as a de-facto arm of the regime, granting licenses for the sale of the spyware to countries to forge stronger security and diplomatic ties.
In January, the New York Times reported that the FBI had purchased Pegasus software in 2019.
It also stated that in 2018 the CIA had purchased Pegasus for the government of Djibouti to conduct counterterrorism operations, despite that country’s record of torturing political opposition figures and imprisoning journalists.
A spectre is haunting Europe – it is the spectre of poverty. The bets are now on as to which European country will collapse first. Among the front runners you will find Portugal, Latvia, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Moldova, Spain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, France and Slovakia. But perhaps none of them is more likely to fall first than the UK. For it has a new Prime Minister, who, unthinkably, is an even greater clown than the last one and even threatens to press the nuclear button. Let me digress for a moment with a visit to the islands off the coast of North-Western Europe.
MissTrust Rules
My visit to the UK, after Wiesbaden in Germany, came at a time when the English peasants were revolting, but the governing elite did not yet know it.
In one last Marie-Antoinette farewell moment the unlate, unlamented Mr Johnson advised the revolting peasants of the UK to spend £20 buying a new and more economic kettle, so that after two years (if the Chinese-made kettle lasted that long) they could save £10 a year on their £2,500 + annual energy bills. ‘Let them eat cake’, he may as well have shouted to the breadless masses.
The effete and wealthy Tory Party never understood the people. Johnson’s unelected replacement, MissTrust, for whom we should beg the CIA (which has long funded Nobel Prizes) to fund a Nobel Prize for Geography (after all Mr Obama won a Nobel Prize for Peace), faces many challenges:
Firstly, there is the self-inflicted mess Mr Johnson made of Brexit, notably by separating Northern Ireland from Great Britain as regards imports and exports and failing to impose any laws for necessary immigration and against unnecessary immigration. It was the Tory Party that imposed on the British people the then Common Market (later becoming the EU) in 1973. The people never asked to join – they were never consulted.
Secondly, there is the self-inflicted covid chaos. Tory-imposed lockdowns bankrupted many and were hated by even more. The much-vaunted vaccines turned out to be useless after three months, and even extremely harmful to some. Today a million vaccinated Britons have covid week in, week out. The people never asked for lockdowns and false vaccines – they were never consulted.
Thirdly, there is the self-inflicted energy crisis and the spiralling energy and food prices, caused by illegal Tory government sanctions against the Russian decision to rescue Russians from Kiev’s genocide and persecution. The people never asked to be cold and hungry – they were never consulted.
Fourthly, there are the self-inflicted dramatic problems of always underfunded national infrastructure, whether that of the Health Service (people dying in their homes and in ambulances because the hospitals are so full that they have to wait for many, many hours before they can be admitted), the ‘privatised’ electricity, gas, water and telecom companies, airports and railways, which are all breaking down. The people never asked for public services which are appalling because they are private – they were never consulted.
Don’t worry. MissTrust has what she calls a ‘bold solution’. It is called another £150 billion of extra debt. But perhaps, after this digression to the islands, Continental Europe can provide a remedy for such idiocy through a long-ago victory over the Franco-German elite?
Inspiration for Freedom: Roncevaux III
The peoples of UK Europe will have to fight for their freedom. And so will the peoples of EU Europe. They might all find their inspiration in the long, long ago Native European defeat of the Franco-German elite, whose descendants now rule in Brussels. I speak of the victory of the Native Europeans – the original inhabitants of Europe long before the Greeks, Romans, Celts and Teutons – the Basques. Surviving as a group of some three million on the French-Spanish border, centred on the wild western Pyrenean mountains, they speak a unique, pre-Indo-European language, the original language of Europe. You have heard of Native Americans? Well, the Basques are Native Europeans. The rest are invaders. You have heard of General Custer? Well, you need to hear about his ancestor, General Roland. Sadly, the barbarian knight Custer was not defeated, but the barbarian knight Roland was.
With the rise of Charlemagne (747-814), the French name for the ‘Holy Roman Emperor’, ‘Karl der Grosse’, ‘Karl the Tall’, Frankish imperialism tried to invade and control ever more territory in Western and Central Europe in a feeble attempt to imitate the pagan Roman Empire. The attempt by these barbarians failed, but it was the forerunner of all future pagan Western Empires, haunted and formated by pagan Rome, from the Portuguese to the Spanish, from the Dutch to the French, from the British (Roman Britannia) to the American via the Fascist Italian and the Nazi German. (Why do you think the Washington White House has the form of a Roman temple and they talk of the myth of ‘Pax Americana’?)
In the 770s the future unHoly, unRoman and unEmperor, Charlemagne had his barbarian army encroach into the Duchy of Aquitaine in what is now south-west France. The Basques (Vascones or Gascons) in the territory south of the River Garonne, northern Gascony, remained largely free. However, from 778 on Charlemagne expanded the Frankish takeover of Aquitaine to present-day Gascony (the northern Basque Country), appointing Franks, Burgundians and Frankish ‘Church’ officials to the main posts.
Seeing an opportunity to expand by allying himself with Muslim dissidents, headed among others by the Arab traitor Husayn of Zaragoza (so much for Charlemagne’s much-vaunted ‘Christianity’), in 778 Charlemagne marched across the Pyrenees ‘at the head of all the forces he could muster’ to Spain. The Muslims under Abd ar-Rahman of Cordoba sent their best general to stop the Frankish invasion. However, the traitor Husayn managed to defeat and imprison him.
Then Husayn decided not to yield his new privileged status to the Franks and refused to surrender the city of Zaragoza to Charlemagne, claiming he had never promised him anything. Husayn tried to bribe Charlemagne by giving him the imprisoned general from Cordoba and a large tribute of gold, but Charlemagne was not satisfied. He laid siege to Zaragoza, but eventually he accepted the gold and the release of several prisoners from Husayn, in return for which he lifted his siege.
Before running away from Spain (Kabul), Charlemagne decided to terrorise the Basque country. Intending to eliminate opposition from the native Basques, he gave orders to destroy the walls of the Basque capital Pamplona (Mariupol) or even, according to some, destroy the city altogether, and he also razed many Basque towns. He placed forts and military outposts (Remember Custer) throughout their territory and his invading Franks treated the Basques harshly during his occupation (Remember the Native Americans).
After imagining that he had conquered the region (the Ukraine), Charlemagne (Obama) marched for the Pyrenees mountain pass of Roncevaux in order to return to France (Poland). Many of his lords, such as Roland, Anselm and Eggihard, were placed in the rearguard to protect the retreat and the baggage train. The Basques sent their soldiers after him in retaliation for the destruction of their towns and the Basques’ local knowledge helped them overtake the Franks.
On the evening of 15 August 778 Charlemagne’s rearguard was set upon by the Basques as they crossed the mountain pass. The Franks were caught unawares as they tried to escape. The Basques (Afghans) managed to cut off the Frankish rearguard and the baggage train from the rest of the retreating Army. As Charlemagne tried to rescue his Army, Roland and the others held out until the Basques finally massacred them, killing them to the last man. The Basques then plundered the baggage left behind and took advantage of the night to disappear, so that the Franks could not find them the next morning.
The Battle caused great losses among the Frankish (Ukrainian) troops, including several of the most important aristocrats (officers) and the sack of the baggage (military equipment), probably with all the gold given by the Muslims in Zaragoza. Charlemagne (NATO) lost huge quantities of treasure and men (mercenaries). Never again would Charlemagne take it upon himself to lead an army to battle in Spain (the Ukraine), having to rely instead on his generals (CIA/MI6) for future campaigns. The Franks had failed to capture Zaragoza and suffered a great defeat at the hands of the Basques (DNR/LNR).
Later, lands in the Pyrenees would be ruled by Charlemagne’s officials, and distributed among colonisers (Hunter Biden/Monsanto) and to the Frankish Church (Woke fanatics) allied to Charlemagne (Biden). However, the Basques would finally consolidate their independent Kingdom of Pamplona in 824 after new resistance to Frankish rule. In that year the Basque Army defeated another Frankish Army in the same mountain pass. The Second Battle of Roncevaux was almost identical to the first, with the Basques again taking advantage of the terrain, but against a much larger Frankish force. Unlike the first Battle in which most of Charlemagne’s Army managed to escape, the invaders, led by the Frankish vassal Aeblus, were trapped and routed, and a larger number of their men were slaughtered than in 778.
Thus, the Battle of Roncevaux (literally, ‘Brambly Valley’) in the Pyrenees in 778 saw the Basque freedom-fighters defeat Charlemagne after his invasion. The Basques celebrate this victory to this day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmr3apxS87E). However, the death of Roland and his warriors gave the Western elite role models for their barbarous knights of the Western Middle Ages. Over the years the Battle was hyped into a struggle between Catholics and Muslims, although the Basques of the period were mainly pagan and the Franks were allied to some of the Muslims.
The Native European victory at Roncevaux is retold with regret in the eleventh-century work of Frankish propaganda, ’The Song of Roland’. It is recalled in the Italian Orlando (= Roland) Furioso and inspired Western Establishment composers like Lully, Vivaldi and Handel. The Western elitists, who today fly Ukrainian flags from their Establishment buildings, government offices, town-halls, castles and Catholic and Protestant churches in Western Europe and name their children ‘Roland’ and ‘Orlando’, will tell you that ‘Roland’ is a Western hero, a Zelensky from the past.
Conclusion: Europequake
Western and Central Europe faces a turning-point. Its Native Peoples face defeat or victory. The first great Basque/Native European victory over the invading elite took place in 778, the second in 824. The 1200th anniversary of Roncevaux II is approaching fast. May the anniversary of this great victory of Native Europeans be inspirational to the peoples of Europe today. The Native Europeans defeated the Frankish elite then; so we can again today. The 1200th anniversary of Roncevaux II is coming in 2024. Let us make that Roncevaux III.
EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders stated in a letter dated July 25 that Apple alerted him in November 2021 of possible hacking of his smartphone by the Israeli Pegasus software.
Israeli cyber firm NSO Group’s exhibition stand at an Israeli security expo in “Tel Aviv” (Reuters)
The European Commission, the EU executive’s arm in Brussels, has discovered indications that the phones of some of its top officials have been targeted with spy software designed by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group.
EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders stated in a letter dated July 25 to Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld that Apple alerted him in November 2021 of possible hacking of his smartphone by the Israeli Pegasus software.
Pegasus is Israeli spyware that targeted prominent and influential figures all around the globe, including politicians and journalists.
The Israeli NSO Group-developed spyware leaks stated that there are more than 50,000 records of phone numbers that NSO clients selected for surveillance since 2016.
An internal investigation did not “confirm that Pegasus had succeeded in infecting the devices, personal or professional,” of him or other EU employees as per Reynders’ letter.
But “several device checks led to the discovery of indicators of compromise”, the letter said, stressing that “it is impossible to attribute these clues to a specific perpetrator with certainty.”
The letter did not provide further details on the outcome of the Commission’s investigation, which is still ongoing, citing security concerns.
It is worth noting that in ‘t Veld is part of an EU Parliament investigation into Pegasus, which is looking into allegations of Pegasus spyware used by EU governments, including Hungary, Poland, and Spain.
After a scandal involving the use of Pegasus to hack top politicians’ mobile phones, Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, vowed last month to tighten oversight of the country’s secret services.
The scandal broke in April, when Citizen Lab, a Canadian cybersecurity watchdog, revealed that the phones of more than 60 people associated with the Catalan separatist movement had been tapped with Pegasus spyware.
Reynders stated that the commission had sent requests for additional information on Pegasus usage to Hungary, Poland, and Spain.
Almost a year now, the world continues to react to the Pegasus spyware scandal as press reports continue to reveal how it aimed to target powerful and prominent figures, including politicians, journalists, and activists.
Wow, too much information out there in addition to the world happenings. Today and tomorrow we have the G7 in Germany and NATO on June 29-30 in Madrid. Various threats will surface from these two meetings as well as childish foot-stomping and brave statements on steriods. Mr Lavrov’s short statement has relevance: ‘We have few illusions that EU’s Russophobic policies will change’ – FM Lavrov
We leave you with one image
And on the battlefront, the news is coming in so fast that it is almost impossible to keep track of. Of main importance on the front line and from the Russian MoD report:
On June 25, the cities of Severodonetsk and Borovskoye, the settlements of Voronovo and Sirotino passed under control of the Lugansk People’s Republic. The localities liberated from the Kiev regime are inhabited by about 108,000 people. Total area of the liberated territory is about 145 square kilometres.
Success of the Russian army and the units of people militia of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics considerably diminish moral and psychological condition of the Ukrainian army personnel.
In 30th Mechanised Brigade deployed near Artyomovsk, there are mass cases of alcohol abuse, drug use and unauthorised abandonment of combat positions.
If you take a look at that MoD Report it is becoming so clear that the attrition rate now is counted in brigades.
Attacks have resulted in neutralising 65th, 66th mechanised brigades and 46th Airmobile Brigade from AFU strategic reserves that were finishing their preparation at those training grounds.
Take a look at Larry Johnson’s latest: “Some die hard neo-cons continue to manifest their ignorance of military affairs by pointing to Russia’s slow progress in taking Severodonetsk as evidence of Russia’s incompetent, weak army. What they fail to understand is that Russia was trying to avoid killing the civilians still inside Severodonetsk, who were being used as human shields by the Ukrainians. Putin and the Russian commanders are placing a higher value on saving civilians rather than unleashing their full military might in order to show the world what they can really do. This is a remarkably mature military strategy.” https://sonar21.com/even-the-uks-sky-news-is-reporting-on-the-ukrainian-debacle-in-the-donbas/
Also of note is the strikes on Kiev from the Caspian Sea & from the airspace of Belarus. The Russian Federation used Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers. They launched X-101 missiles, which can fly up to 5500 km. At the same time, Russian warships fired up to 50 missiles at targets all over Ukraine — targeting Ukrop bases, manufacturing sites of air to air missiles in Kiev disguised as “residential buildings” & other military targets
We leave this for you as an open thread for reporting updates.
Europe’s dependency on Russian natural gas has been a contentious issue for European Union (EU) policy makers for decades. Dozens of policies have been proposed over the years to diversify the continent’s gas supply, or to switch to green energy sources in order to minimize reliance on Russian gas.
There are only two ways to transport natural gas – via pipelines, or by liquifying the gas, transporting it as cargo, then re-gasifying it at the destination. Both processes require time and considerable infrastructure investment.
Pipelines: In 2021, Russian natural gas accounted for about 46 percent of the EU’s total natural gas imports with an amount of 155 bcm (billion cubic meters). Figure 1 shows that Russian pipelines provided about 41 percent (about 139 bcm) of these gas imports to the EU over the same period.
Norway is Europe’s second-biggest natural gas supplier, followed by pipelines from North Africa and Azerbaijan.
LNG: Imports of LNG constitute about 21 percent of total European natural gas imports.
Figure 2 shows the sources for the LNG shipments that were imported by the EU in 2021. It is important to note that the United States represents the main supplier for LNG to the EU, and is likely to be the main beneficiary if Russian gas pipelines cease operations. The US only commenced exports of LNG to the EU in 2016, but rapidly reached 22.3 bcm in 2021, representing 23 percent of all LNG exports from the US.
Europe’s dependency
Before the conflict in Ukraine, Russia was still a major supplier for LNG in Europe with about 20 percent of the total LNG imports (equivalent to 16 bcm). This means the EU imported a total of 155 bcm of natural gas from Russia annually – 139 bcm via pipelines and 16 via LNG. This accounts for almost half of all European natural gas imports.
This strategic failure in achieving independence from Russian natural gas was mainly due to lack of a coherent and unified strategy among EU members. As shown in Figure 3 the dependency on Russian natural gas varies from one European country to another.
Countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Hungary are fully dependent on Russian natural gas, while the countries that import the largest quantities like Germany, France, Italy Poland, and Greece are semi-dependent, and countries like Portugal are quasi-independent.
With intense pressure from Washington, this issue of over-reliance on Russian resources became further securitized following the conflict in Ukraine. Even after the west announced sanctions on Russian imports, the EU imported 39 billion euros worth of fossil fuel from Russia, until as recently as mid-May.
Reducing reliance on Russia
According to a Flash Eurobarometer survey for the European Commission (EC), 85 percent of Europeans believe that the EU should reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil as soon as possible to support Ukraine. Meanwhile the EC, international agencies, and independent think tanks have proposed short term plans to decrease the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels by the end of 2022.
The main three short term plans are the EC’s REPowerEU Plan under which two-thirds of Russian gas (101.5bcm/155bcm) could be replaced by next winter; the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) ten-point plan which proposes a one-third (50bcm / 155bcm) reduction of the Russian natural gas imports, finding alternative sources, and switching to renewable energy; and economic think tank Bruegel’s plan which says, in theory, the EU should be able “to replace Russian [gas] flows entirely,” even in the short term, by calculating Europe’s spare gas import capacity. Realistically, however, Bruegel calls for a reduction (86 bcm/155 bcm) by possibly switching electricity production to nuclear and coal, while applying energy saving policies.
What’s the plan?
Essentially, what these plans all have in common is a call for the EU to diversify its natural gas imports portfolio, switch to renewable energy, and apply policies for energy saving. Of the aforementioned plans, the REPowerEU strategy appears to be the most feasible.
The plan suggests cutting Russian natural gas imports to 101.5 bcm from 155 bcm in 2021 – in theory, by increasing non-Russian gas supply by 63.5 bcm, and reducing gas demand by 38 bcm.
To increase non-Russian gas supply by 63.5 bcm, the plan assumes the following can be achieved:
Increase non-Russian LNG imports by 50 bcm
Increase non-Russian pipeline imports by 10 bcm.
Increase biomethane production by 3.5 bcm.
Complimentary to this, they also recommended reducing gas demand by 38 bcm. For this, they proposed 4 points:
Energy savings to cut demand by 14 bcm
Rooftop solar power to reduce gas demand by 2.5 bcm
Heat pumps to reduce gas demand by 1.5 bcm
Deploying wind and solar in the power sector to reduce gas demand by 20 bcm.
The first problem with the EC study is that it expects the demand for gas in Europe in 2022 to remain the same as in 2021. Studies shows that the continent may need around 20-25 bcm more than in the same period last year. So, the target gas requirement is actually 121.5 – 126.5 bcm – not just replacing the Russian imports of 101.5 bcm.
Increasing non-Russian LNG
By far the most important metric here is the EU’s current regasification capacity. As mentioned above, when imported as LNG, the liquified gas needs to be regasified by specialized plants in ports in order to be reinjected into pipelines. All combined, the EU countries had around 74 bcm spare regasification capacity last year.
The problem is that about half this spare capacity is concentrated in Spain and Portugal, which are linked to the rest of the EU with a pipeline of just 7.5 bcm/year capacity. Therefore, the EU has insufficient re-gasification plants to import an additional 50 bcm of LNG.
The proposed solution is to use the UK (now, officially outside the EU) – which has around 29 bcm spare regasification capacity – as a land bridge to import LNG and then reexport it to the EU via pipelines. In this scenario, the EU may succeed in importing an extra 50 bcm of LNG.
But even if Europe overcomes the regasification obstacle, is there enough LNG supply in the world to cover the demand?
Switching dependency from Russia to the US
Due to many export plants struggling with technical and feed gas issues during the year, global LNG export capacity actually declined in 2021, despite the continued rise in capacity in the US. At the beginning of 2022, it was estimated that the LNG global export capacity will increase by some 43 bcm if all plants that had technical issues and shutdowns were to come back online.
In the second quarter of this year, the International Energy Agency’s gas market report estimated that the EU’s LNG imports may increase by a maximum of 25 bcm and that 65 percent of this quantity will be supplied by the US.
If this transpires, US LNG exports will increase by a whopping 19 percent, making it the global leader of LNG exports overnight. Meanwhile, Africa, Europe, Central and South America and Eurasia will have smaller contributions to global LNG supply growth in 2022, while the supply of the Asia Pacific and West Asian regions are expected to decline.
If we take Qatar as an example, despite its leading role in LNG markets and close relations with western states, Qatar is unable to supply Europe with extra large quantities in the short term because it suffers from a lack of spare LNG export capacity. Furthermore, over 70 percent of these exports are sold to Asian buyers via long term contracts. Europe would have to wait until 2024-25 to be able to count on Qatari LNG supplies.
This high-level demand for LNG projected by Europe will saturate the market and increase the competition for flexible LNG cargoes. In order to attract more LNG cargoes, spot prices in Europe should be $2-3/MMBtu higher than the Asian markets. This is leveling now at $35/MMbtu for the rest of 2022 which is more than five times their five-year average.
The bottom line is that it will be impossible for the EU to increase their LNG imports by the crucial 50 bcm milestone. Even if the EU overcomes the technical issues represented by the regasification capacities and the interconnections between the EU countries and Britain, the supply in the global LNG market simply cannot meet the demand.
Although Europe may receive an extra 25 bcm of LNG, it will come attached to a very high price tag, while prices in North America will be largely unaffected. The US is the big winner in this scenario, raking in exorbitant profits while establishing itself as the world’s biggest LNG exporter.
Where are the non-Russian gas pipelines?
Norway: As the main non-Russian gas supplier of natural gas to Europe via pipelines, Norway’s total capacity of supply is 94.3 bcm per year. Only 86.3 percent of this capacity was used in 2021, theoretically leaving 12.9 bcm of spare annual capacity.
However, in the first two quarters of 2022, the pipelines have been working close to effective full capacity, and this capacity is expected to be lower in the summer, as previous records indicate.
North Africa: The other source of pipeline natural gas to Europe is via three pipelines from North Africa: The Medgaz pipeline from Algeria to Spain, the Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline (also known as Transmed which carries Algerian gas from Tunisia to Italy), and the Green Stream pipeline, from Libya to Italy. A fourth pipeline, the Gas Pipeline Maghreb-Europe (GME), runs from Algeria to Spain via Morocco, but has not been used since 1 November 2021, following the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco that August.
The flow in Medgaz pipeline to Spain can increase by around 2 bcm, after increasing its capacity. These extra quantities can cover a part of the quantities that have been delivered via GME in 2021. However, Algeria has also recently suspended trade ties with Spain over the latter’s decision to side with Morocco over the disputed Western Sahara territory, which has exacerbated tensions between Rabat and Algiers.
The Transmed pipeline to Italy has around 10 bcm spare capacity, but recent analysis shows that Algeria will not be able to offer additional gas quantities since reaching its production capacity and needing to address its own growing domestic demand.
Exports in Libya ranged around 5 bcm before 2020 but declined to 3.2bcm in 2021. A recovery can offer the extra 1-2 bcm, but ongoing political instability in Libya can offer no such guarantees.
As a result, North Africa is not foreseen to provide any extra-large quantities of gas to Europe in 2022.
Azerbaijan: In 2021, the EU started receiving natural gas from Azerbaijan via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). The capacity of TAP is around 11 bcm, and flows in 2021 totaled 8.1 bcm, meaning there is extra capacity of around 2.5 bcm.
Overall, the EU plan is based on making a year-on-year increase of 2-3 bcm from Azerbaijan, 2-3 from Algeria, and 4-5 bcm from Norway. These appear to be achievable with regards to the pipelines’ spare capacities, but ambitious in terms of gas production quantities for the suppliers.
Trading dependencies
This European demand for non-Russian gas will mainly be covered by the United States which is the only player that stands to gain economically. It is therefore in Washington’s interests that Europe converts a big part of its gas imports from Russian pipelines into LNG. It is also why the US has remained determined for years to stop the Russia-to-Germany NordStream 2 pipeline from becoming operational – which it succeeded in doing in February, as tensions over Ukraine worsened.
As the US has its own independent pricing system, it is not affected by the international gas prices, which are expected to rise significantly in the European and Asian markets, bringing instant value to LNG production activities in the US.
The EU plan to cut two-thirds of its Russian gas imports and replace it elsewhere – by the end of 2022 – is very optimistic. Closer scrutiny shows it will come with a very high cost – around five times the price that Europe used to pay. Whichever plan the EU implements, Europe will have to acknowledge that it will be neither an energy independent or politically independent continent for the foreseeable future.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The hardship of white Ukrainian refugees was humanized by the United States and Europe, while the West showed racism and double standards when it came to hosting refugees from the global south that were escaping western funded wars in the first place.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov described Ukrainian refugees as Europeans concluding “These are intelligent individuals”
The Ukraine crisis has caused one of Europe’s greatest and fastest refugee migrations since World War II ended. A massive amount of people had fled to neighboring countries. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as many as four million people could evacuate the country in the next weeks. The European Union (EU) estimates that there will be seven million refugees by the end of the year.
It has revealed significant disparities in the treatment of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, particularly Syrians who arrived in 2015. However, Europe’s radically divergent responses to these two crises serve a warning lesson for those seeking a more humane and generous Europe. The distinctions also explain why some of those fleeing Ukraine, particularly African, Asian, and Middle Eastern, are not receiving the same lavish treatment as Ukrainian citizens (Tayyaba, 2022).
However, we are aware that this is not how the international protection regime has worked in Europe, particularly in countries now hosting Ukrainian refugees. Racist and xenophobic language towards refugees and migrants, particularly those from Middle Eastern nations, pervades public discourse in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, and hostile actions such as border pushbacks and draconian detention measures have been taken in the past.
Notably, Hungary, since the 2015 refugee crisis, the country has refused to accept refugees from non-EU countries. Non-European refugees, according to Prime Minister Victor Orbán, are “Muslim invaders” and migrants are “a poison”, and Hungary should not welcome refugees from diverse cultures and religions to preserve its cultural and ethnic unity.
More recently, in late 2021, the atrocious treatment of refugees and asylum seekers stranded on Belarus’s borders with Poland and Lithuania, most of whom were from Iraq and Afghanistan, provoked an outcry across Europe. Belarus has been accused of turning these people’s misfortune into a weapon by luring them to Belarus to travel to EU countries in retribution for EU sanctions.
Whereas hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian migrants pour into neighbouring nations, clutching their children in one arm and their valuables. And leaders from nations like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Romania have greeted them.
While hospitality has been praised, it has also brought significant disparities in the treatment of migrants and refugees from the Middle East, particularly Syrians who arrived in 2015. Some of them claim that the language used by politicians currently welcoming refugees is upsetting and cruel.
According to Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, “These are not the refugees we’re familiar with. These are Europeans. These are intelligent individuals. They are well-educated individuals. This is not the type of refugee surge we’ve seen before, with people whose identities we didn’t know, people with murky pasts, and even terrorists”.
However, when over a million individuals walked into Europe in 2015, there was initially a lot of support for refugees fleeing crises in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There were also instances of animosity, such as when a Hungarian camerawoman was caught on camera kicking and potentially tripping migrants near the country’s Serbian border (CNC, 2022)
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Arab Uprisings of 2011 increased the number of refugees attempting to enter Europe. Even Turkey, which already hosts over 4 million migrants and asylum seekers, including 3.6 million Syrians, could not effectively accommodate them. However, the reception of these minority refugees in European countries has been overwhelmingly unfavourable.
Hundreds of Afghan, Syrian, Iraqi, and other asylum seekers were stranded in Poland-Belarus woodlands and marshes in 2021, without shelter, food, or water in subzero temperatures and facing constant assaults from Polish and Belarusian border authorities. At least a dozen people were killed, including children. Yet, the European Union refused to open the border.
Significantly, although walls are an inadequate means to handle the movement of refugees and migrants, wall-building has been on the rise in the region since the 1990s. Then, the European continent celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall. According to a 2018 Transnational Institute analysis, the primary goal of these walls is to dissuade refugees and asylum seekers from the Global South.
Greece finished building a wall along its border with Turkey in 2021 to keep Afghan asylum seekers out. The Spanish government now intends to construct the world’s tallest wall in northern Morocco, where it claims the power to block migrant access into Spain, which is only 250 miles away.
Lithuania has been constructing an 11-foot-high steel fence with 2-inch-thick razor wire on its border with Belarus since 2021 to prevent migrants from the Middle East and North Africa from entering the country. EU states have agreed to accept Ukrainian refugees for up to three years without requiring them to seek asylum. Poland has stated that it will absorb 1 million Ukrainians. Lithuania, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Moldova, Greece, Germany, and Spain are among the countries that have already opened their borders.
Unfortunately, these double standards have shown in the attitude of non-Ukrainians leaving Ukraine’s conflict. Students and refugees from the Middle East have been subjected to racist abuse, obstruction, and violence while attempting to exit Ukraine in increasing numbers. Many others said they were barred from boarding trains and buses in Ukrainian cities because Ukrainian nationals were given precedence; others said they have violently moved aside and halted by Ukrainian border guards when attempting to pass into neighbouring countries.
There were tales about non-white refugee communities that had gone unrecorded and unpublished. Despite their huge number and agonizing battles across countries and continents, millions of Syrian refugees remained anonymous and blankly depicted in the media. While standing in line at the border and seeking to get crucial services, a number of non-Ukrainians of colour, including Africans, Afghans, and Yemenis, have experienced prejudice.
The astonishing double standards were on full display in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis and the early phases of the conflict that followed. The hardship of white Ukrainian refugees was humanized by the United States and Europe, as well as their different political spectrums. When the refugees were Arabs or Muslims, Black or Brown, however, it remained vehemently divided.
Moreover, the Polish authorities detained people and refused them to enter the country. The refugee crisis in Ukraine provides Europe with not only an important opportunity to demonstrate its generosity, humanitarian values, and commitment to the global refugee protection regime, and it also provides a critical opportunity for reflection, Can Europe’s people overcome widespread racism and hatred and embrace the universalist spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention? All member states must apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion, or country of origin.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
“The peasant was a Bonapartist because the Great Revolution, with all its benefits to him, was, in his eyes, personified in Napoleon.” – Karl Marx
(This is the third chapter in a new book, France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values. Please click here for the article which announces this book and explains its goals.)
To be against Napoleon Bonaparte in the 19th century was to totally reject grassroots, democratic French opinion, and thus to be against the French Revolution itself. It was to cede the view of Napoleon Bonaparte to his enemies: the English snob, an in-bred Austrian king, a colluding and traitorous Italian noble, a Hungarian aristocrat, etc.
Modern Western political history simply makes no sense – it loses the thread of expanding power away from the absolute ruler – if we do not take the view that Napoleon Bonaparte was a leftist, as his citizen contemporaries did. Making Napoleon a demon of bloodlust and ambition, just another fascistic military man, a secret reactionary, etc. – all is designed to obscure the importance of 1789 and to reverse it.
The willing desire to lose the thread of progressive history was especially evident in the awful reporting surrounding the 200th anniversary of his death, in 2021. The coverage in France was surprising sparse and can be summed up with three words: “tyrant” and “controversial legacy”. A fake-leftist, and thus totally deluded, view was routinely proffered, typified by state media France24’s article: “Napoleon: Military genius or sexist, slaving autocrat?”
The official anti-Napoleon smokescreen was personified by President Emmanuel Macron’s speech on the bicentenary, which ended with: “I have no intention to say if Napoleon realised or instead betrayed revolutionary values. I will of course steer clear of such territory.” Of course he will steer clear – Western Liberal Democrats always do, because they are the ones who work to ensure that the revolutionary values of 1789 are never realised.
Here is your simplest retort to those who accuse “tyrant”: Napoleon was voted First Consul for life and then emperor by millions of people, and the “voted” part is what made it these appointments spectacular political advances for its era. The other monarchs of this era were merely more unelected dictators. Secondly, his constitutions were also ratified by many millions – another spectacular leftist advance. These things simply cannot be dismissed because it would be more than a century before they would be emulated in most of Europe. The number of referendums on monarchy in global history only total a few dozen, and nearly all were after 1950.
Simply ask if the king of Saudi Arabia, Morocco or the behind-the-scenes monarchs of Europe would ever put themselves to a public vote? When it comes to the schism between the Muslim and Western worlds perhaps the single largest problem is that the latter totally forgets the violent threat, the crude insult, the perpetual crime which is hereditary monarchy. Because the West forgets this they also fatally misunderstand their own European history since 1789, and they fail to see Napoleon Bonaparte as a leftist hero.
Making Napoleon Bonaparte worse than his absolute monarch peers is a preposterous revision of history and totally excludes the political view of the European peasant and working class. Ask a subject who never voted for his monarch: There is no “controversial legacy”.
Yellow Vest: “We are here to protest against the abusive government and this kingship-presidency of Emmanuel Macron. The Yellow Vests are here to promote a true vision of democracy and to redistribute our nation’s wealth. Every election there is more and more abstention because people don’t believe in mainstream politics anymore.”
(Note: this book intersperses over 100 quotations taken from actual, marching Yellow Vests which were originally published in news reports on PressTV.)
What an objective view reveals is this: Revolutionary France saw not just one but seven “Coalition Wars” to restore monarchy, privilege, feudalism, torture, inequality, racism and the oppression of an aristocratic elite. From 1792-1815 Europe’s elite refused to make peace with the socio-political advances of the French Revolution, which the French people democratically chose again and again and again. England was the only nation which participated in every war, and it repeatedly paid off other nations to join them.
The simplest retort to those who call the French Revolution “imperialist” is this: The French Revolutionary Empire at its greatest height – in 1808 – was the result of defensive wars which it won. All the Empire’s territory was gained as punishment for aggressive wars against France or lost by rebelling populaces choosing to side with France, with the sole exception of Portugal. All seven Coalition Wars were attacks on France, all to prevent democracy from spreading across autocratic Europe.
The “Napoleonic Wars” have absolutely no reason to be set off from the more accurate “European Wars Against the French Revolution” unless that reason is obfuscation. This 23-year period must be looked at as a whole, because it wouldn’t have mattered if it was Napoleon in charge or not as long as the ideals of the French Revolution were being employed – the Revolution would have always been aggressed. Like Iran, Cuba and the USSR know, 23 years of military invention by royalists or Western Liberal Democrats to stifle progressive, anti-elite political systems is simply de rigeur.
This chapter is not a whitewashing of Napoleon Bonaparte, but a refusal to say that his entire revolutionary career from 1789 to 1815 should be judged on the basis of the last few years. Napoleon’s primary leftist and anti-revolutionary failure was his development of dynastic intentions. However, we are not taking about this turn to personal gain until 1810, when he married Marie-Louise, a princess of the Austrian Hapsburgs, the corrupt and wasteful absolute monarch ruler of most of the continent. In Napoleon: The Myth of the Savior, Jean Tulard, perhaps the pre-eminent French historian of this era (and not a pro-Napoleon one in my estimation) wrote, “On St. Helena, Napoleon, ‘brutally awakened from his dream of monarchic legitimacy’ confided that he should have married a French woman and, above all, not a princess. He saw clearly, but too late.” Napoleon’s error was in forgetting that he already enjoyed more leftist legitimacy than any monarch ever – he was the first to be voted in. The counter-revolutionary monarchs of everywhere else would never accept that because the French Revolution was – above all – against unsanctioned autocracy. Similarly, putting his brothers in charge of countries which willingly joined France was another leftist error in line with dynastic intentions, but this wasn’t really unpopular until the imposition of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, who replaced the feudal Bourbons, in 1808. Napoleon himself said that one of his greatest mistakes was reintroducing the ranks of the nobility, also in 1808. The three criticisms here are all related – the restoration of elite privilege and hereditary oligarchy – but we would be inaccurate and unfair to not emphasise that this trend occurred two decades into Napoleon’s spectacularly successful revolutionary career!
Was Napoleon’s vision of the French Revolution that of the left of the Revolution, epitomised by Robespierre and the Jacobins? No, but calling a lifelong revolutionary soldier like Napoleon Bonaparte a “non-revolutionary” because he was not completely on the left side of the revolutionary spectrum is to absurdly say there is no “revolutionary political spectrum”. It is to say that the “revolutionary political spectrum” is the same as the non-revolutionary, typical “political spectrum”, in a total falsehood. It is to undemocratically excise the revolutionary viewpoints of his millions of comrades, and also of the democratic majority of his time. What is certain is that it is to reveal essentially no first-hand experience with any real revolution at all, as such a view of revolution is a fool’s fairy tale of pure idealism.
By distorting Napoleon – by saying that Elvis was always “fat Elvis” and never the king of rock and roll who shook the world – today’s 1% can keep 1789 totally dead. Napoleon is the key to keeping 1789 alive and continuing to implement its most progressive, leftist ideals.
It is simply astounding that the left doesn’t find so much to embrace in Napoleon Bonaparte. As much as I would like to write 10,000 words about Napoleon’s career in order to give a modern leftist appraisal, I simply do not want to alienate readers (and translators, LOL). I promise that I could. What I list before the conclusion section is only the absolutely critical facts of his political career which demonstrate his leftism.
The 1790s: Napoleon’s leftism was vetted over and over by the revolution
Prior to the Revolution Napoleon was born a minor noble in Corsica, putting him in the top 2% of France. However, being a minor noble in poor Corsica was to have title and little property – it’s not Burgundy. When half of France’s nobles exiled themselves over the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Napoleon was already in the 1%. Napoleon Bonaparte – like Mao, Castro and others – was another leftist hero who defied the dominant view of his elite class.
Napoleon grew up in the aftermath of the repression of Corsica’s independence movement. The incredibly progressive Corsican Republic (1755-69) included a liberal constitution, the first implementation of female suffrage and was the first-ever practical application of the modern political ideas of people like Voltaire and Rousseau. France took control of the island, and they were a big improvement from the previous landlord, Genoa. When the French Revolution began Napoleon saw it as capable of bringing even more progress to Corsica. Thus Napoleon was one of the very first of many “foreigners” (he was born shortly after France took control of the island, and thus was truly French) to seek domination not by France but by the ideals of the French Revolution.
As the 1790s went by Napoleon was obviously vetted over and over by the Revolution. In 1793, Napoleon was friendly with none other than Augustin Robespierre, Maximilien “The Irreproachable” Robespierre’s brother, who surely would have sniffed out someone not committed to the ideals of 1789. When the brothers were executed in 1794, marking the end of the leftist Jacobin era and the start of the Directorate era (1794-99), the Directorate tried to get him to quit by downgrading him to the infantry.
Lucky for them Napoleon refused to leave: in Paris on October 5, 1795, he would save the Revolution from a major royalist revolt using what was the undoubted foundation of his military genius – his knowledge of new artillery technology.
He became a national hero, and thus the Directorate spied on him to check for dangerous traits. Their spying general wrote back to the Directorate: “It is a mistake to think he is a party man. He belongs neither to the royalists, who slander him, nor to the anarchists, whom he dislikes. He has only one guide – the Constitution.” Facts: Robespierre was anything but an anarchist, and being a constitutionalist in Europe in 1796 made one a revolutionary. Failure to accept this will create misperceptions which will extend to misunderstandings of our present day.
Confidence renewed, the Directorate gave Napoleon command of the Army of the Alps. He started by immediately court-martialling two of his soldiers for shouting “long live the king”.
Of course the Italians and others embraced the revolution being offered by France’s peasant army! In liberated lands we find the same actions of the French Revolutionaries: feudal dues and tithes abolished, Jews not forced to wear the star of David and Muslims no longer second-class citizens, the first uncensored newspapers allowed to open, slavery abolished, the first constitutions legalised. Keep all that in mind the next time you read of how Napoleon “enslaved Europe” – such total reversals of reality are only used for the truly great leftist leaders. It was so popular ex-Papal states petitioned to join the new Cisalpine Republic. “In annexed countries teaching was allowed to keep its own identity; French did not become an obligatory second language, there was no attempt to destroy the soul of conquered provinces,” writes Tulard. The French Revolution, itself intensely patriotic, fostered patriotism elsewhere – this would be called “nationalism” and is part of the reason the French were eventually forced out in annexed countries, ironically.
The great man-ism inherent in Western Liberal Democracy wants to talk about Napoleon’s military genius in things such as issuing bold flanking orders. It’s foolish: We can credit Napoleon’s military genius for doing something without precedent – storming a bridge under heavy fire – or we can credit the revolutionary inspiration of the actual troops that did the storming. Napoleon’s ability to inspire (well-known, and real) is still not at all the same as the zeal inspired by revolutionary principles.
Napoleon biographer Vincent Cronin writes in Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: “In analysing why Napoleon won battles in Italy, one is also analysing why he always – or nearly always – emerged successful from a battlefield. The first quality was discipline. Napoleon, with his legal forbears, was a great person for law and order. He insisted that officers issue a receipt for everything requisitioned, be it a box of candles or a sack of flour. … In letter after angry letter he condemned sharp practice by army suppliers…. Napoleon was merciless towards these men and when one of them made him a gift of fine saddle horses, hoping that would close his eyes to embezzlement, Napoleon snapped: ‘Have him arrested. Imprison him for six months. He owes us 500,000 ecus in taxes.’” Here we see the moral legitimacy which won him followers in the army, and that is better than issuing bold flanking orders.
Egypt: After examining and giving up the idea of invading England, invasion of Egypt was
the best way of striking always counter-revolutionary England, and not mere adventurism. Napoleon read the Koran on the way to Egypt and declared it “sublime”. He was inspired enough to say in his first declaration, “Cadis, sheiks, imams – tell the people that we too are true Muslims.” The French Revolution was universal in scope, like Islam, and Napoleon did not believe in the Trinitarianism of Roman Catholicism, like Islam. The muftis found Napoleon sincere as a person but not actually willing to become a Muslim – they proclaimed Napoleon’s God messenger and a friend of the Prophet. With humanitarian ideals and actions, and replete with the famed scientific corps, it is thus totally different from France’s imperialist invasion of Algeria in 1830.
In August 1799 he got his first news from Europe (due to the British blockade) that the 2nd European War Against the French Revolution had begun and that France was collapsing: Russian-Anglo forces in the Netherlands (which had joined the Revolution willingly), Austro-Russian forces in Switzerland (joined willingly as well) and Italy (joined willingly as well), Turco-Russian force in Corfu, Greece. Napoleon waded into that for personal glory, some say – to save the Revolution, say the less cynical.
As First Consul: Good leaders get elected and then re-elected – this truly all started with Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon made a political alliance with none other than Abbot Emmanuel Sieyès, the same “abbé Sieyès” whose 1789 manifesto What is the Third Estate became the manifesto of the French Revolution and the literal groundwork for the entry of the lower class into politics. (The pamphlet begins, famously: “What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing. What does it desire to be? Something.”) Still not leftist enough for some, though…?
The undoubtedly revolutionary principle of constitutionalism upon which Napoleon rested is reflected in the poster put up after his participation in the coup of 1799 (Coup of 18 Brumaire) and the start of the Consulate era (1799-1804): “THEY HAVE ACTED IN SUCH A WAY that there is no longer a Constitution.”
Was constitutionalism the only demand of the French Revolution from 1789-1799? No, it was simultaneously revolutionary and “middle-of-the-road”. Napoleon never did side with the royalists – that would have been undeniable betrayal of the Revolution – nor with the Jacobins, nor with their executors the less-leftist Thermidorians who ran the 5-man Directorate (one of whom was currently asking for 12 million francs to restore the Bourbons). Instead, Napoleon placed himself above party politics and alongside the concept of constitutionalism which, along with his repeated military defences of France and the Revolution, won him popular acclaim. Of course Napoleon embraced many other primary political ideals of the Revolution: an end to feudalism, an end to absolute monarchy, the division of common land, civil equality, the suppression of tithes and seigniorial rights, and nationalisation of the property of the Roman Catholic Church. What’s vital to recognise is that the social aspects of the revolution – free education, health care, food – weren’t even much discussed until 1796, via leftist hero Gracchus Babeuf, the continuer of the Robespierreian left. Faulting Napoleon for not holding out for free education for the masses is to critically forget that these social questions were in the infancy of political expression, and certainly were limited to the progressive vanguard of an already unprecedentedly progressive revolution.
In 1800 his coup and his constitution were both overwhelmingly approved by millions in a vote – a vote totally unprecedented in scope, reach and political progress. People who wish to ignore these votes are simply baffling, and biased. The coup was bloodless, as well. Napoleon – the alleged new dictator – is credited with giving the new constitution the idea of universal male suffrage and not just for property owners.
France won the Second European War Against the French Revolution – a bit of peace, finally. Napoleon the general became Napoleon the elected public servant. His administrative energy was as amazing as his martial energy: “The ox has been harnessed – now it must plow,” he said.
Napoleon took great interest in consolidating the best of Roman, custom/precedent and Revolutionary laws into the new Code Civil: equality before the law, end to feudal rights and duties, right to choose one’s work, inviolability of property, right to divorce and freedom of conscience. All were unprecedented leftist advances. The Code Civil is not at all the “Napoleonic Code” but more accurately the “French Revolutionary Code”. It was “an instrument of war against feudalism,” to quote Tulard, and its influence is inestimable and global.
Napoleon curbed widespread brigandage and pacified rebellions which had lasted years. He brought peace to France after a decade of civil war, and yet he did not give the army a privileged position. He even forbade them from getting involved in civil matters, something he considered “madness”.
He declared an amnesty for those living abroad, which anyone personally familiar with revolution knows has an inestimable positive effect, but also some negative ones.
Napoleon ended yet another war in 1801, when French churches finally reopened after the signing of the Concordat. The agreement okayed French nationalisation of Church lands (the sales of which did the most to effectuate the economic revolution downwards), maintained religious freedom, did not declare Roman Catholicism the official religion of the state, allowed the French state to pay clerical salaries (giving them a decent standard of living), had the clergy swear an oath of allegiance to the state, and banned nearly all the monasteries (viewed as parasitical and useless in France, whereas the useful teaching nun orders would soon be doubled). Of course, this recently-installed Pope would ultimately side with the monarchists against the Revolution, but there’s no doubt that Napoleon secured the Revolution’s aim in neutering the Church’s power in France, a major goal.
On only two occasions did he involve himself in local governance of the prefects: one of them was to stop a prefect from forcing vaccinations. Draw your own inference regarding the coronavirus epidemic of 2020-22.
The currency never had to be devalued, the cost of living became stable, he spent more on education than anything else, built three great roads, canals and ports each, attained full employment, stable prices, positive trade balance, increasing population, and presided over a 180-degree shift in public spirit after a decade of civil violence.
So of course he was popular – he was making the principles of the French Revolution law, which broke with the absolute monarchy which reigned essentially everywhere else.
Elected emperor: Democracy combines old forms with new ideas – conservatives are overdramatic
By 1802 Napoleon had committed the crime of making the Revolution workable, peaceful and – worst of all – attractive. A Third Coalition was declared; at home royalists keep trying to assassinate him.
“Thus the need to establish monarchical power in France for the sake of permanent peace was put forward. The word ‘form’ was essential. The spirit of the Revolution would be respected but the outwards appearances of executive power would need changing; it required a a title which would fit in with those of other European countries,” writes Tulard.
In 1802 he was was voted Consul-for-life by 3.5 million people (against 0.008 million opposed), a staggeringly progressive occurrence for the time – ignoring this is to lose the entire thread and principles of the French Revolution! However, it’s easy to lose this thread when one ignores the constant attacks on your country’s revolution, which is not allowed to evolve in peace.
“It was in fact precipitated by the renewal of conflict with England (in 1803). … Rather, there was a tendency to increase his power in order to ensure the defence of the land. A dictatorship of public safety was needed. How could it be entrusted to anyone other than Bonaparte? At this moment the Royalists inopportunely chose to renew their plotting…. The revolutionaries saw in the consolidation of the First Consul’s power… the only bulwark against attempts to restore the monarchy.”
It is with this lifetime appointment in 1802 that many Republicans were dismayed and many leftists say the Revolution ended. If one wants to call it “despotism”, it’s false: it’s “elected despotism”. It’s a paradox, it’s revolutionary, it’s provoked by foreign aggression, it’s better than anyone else’s around, it’s an emperor and empire but it’s still leftist! “It seemed, above all, to be the surest means of maintaining a stable government putting an end to intrigue and plotting. This in no way represented the acceptance of a Bourbon-style dynasty. The Empire was first and foremost a dictatorship of public safety, designed to preserve the achievements of the Revolution.” Again, that’s from an author who is not strongly pro-Napoleon – he is, however, a Frenchman who understands his country’s history.
Napoleon has still not betrayed the revolution at this point in any serious way! In a move which was preceded by much discussion, he took the crown of Emperor from the Pope’s hands in a public coronation (another first) not because of the bosh about how it was his own arrogant and usurping personal power which won the crown, but because it was the people which had crowned him, and no one else. This is all a huge difference from the divine, theocratic right of kings, which Prussia, Russia, Austria and countless other local kings would insist on in total autocratic form until 1914.
If the French Revolutionary Emperorship was a typical emperorship – and thus no ideological threat – why did it not cause the European Wars Against the French Revolution to stop? The answer is obvious to those who are objective.
In 1806 the Fourth Coalition saw Prussia and Russia attack – France wins again and Prussia is compelled to finally renounce serfdom.
In 1808, popular revolt against the Spanish king in the “Tumult of Aranjuez”, which is still celebrated today, ended the Bourbon dynasty. The overthrow of the Bourbons, and the sheltering of the new ideals of the French Revolution, allowed Latin America to win their independence.
The French Revolution has spread to the New World. It had already spread to the oldest of the Old World: Mohammad Ali founded modern Egypt in 1805 after France had defeated the Mamluks.
The French Revolution starts to topple – revolutionary zeal starts to wane following decades of foreign attacks
This is where things start to turn badly: 1808 Spain is not yet at the point of 1789 France. Proof? After 1815 Spain is the only place where feudalism would actually be restored. The guerrilla war saps France, which is supported by Spain’s progressives, abolished the Inquisition and ended feudal rights – hardly a terrible legacy.
The war in Spain coincides with when Napoleon starts to let the emperorship go to his head and thinks more of preserving his dynasty than of the Revolution – he is always thinking of France, however. His Continental Blockade against England would have bankrupted them… if France didn’t also have to fight in Spain and Russia, too. The French Revolution is always attacked from all autocratic sides – this must be remembered because it so greatly shapes their possible choices. After a few years the Continental Blockade turns into pro-French economic imperialism, in a non-leftist mistake. Spain, the Blockade, dynasty – these are the three key mistakes Napoleon made. However, he does not deserve a permanent “Ogre” caricature for these three because two of them are fights against autocracy.
The Fifth Coalition of 1809 saw the awful Hapsburgs’ last stand, the arrival of huge modern wars of attrition, conscripted armies, and the growth of nationalist movements which Revolutionary France had expressly fostered.
Tsar Alexander refuses to allow Napoleon to marry into the royal family, so he marries into the Hapsburgs instead. The marriage did not cement an alliance for peace – which was entirely the aim – because Austrian royalty, like the simply awful Metternich, were not only Teutonic racists but completely aware that France represented revolutionary change which was incompatible with autocracy. It was Metternich (who takes the mantle from France’s Talleyrand as the most dreadful and shameless politician of his generation) who is credited with the propaganda theme of “Napoleon as mere personal ambition”.
France invades Russia because Moscow refused to end their threats to the revolution – first Russia, then England, then peace, finally, was the plan.
Why didn’t the French Revolution free the serfs? Certainly leftists today would have acclaimed Napoleon more. He said: “They wanted me to free the serfs. I refused. They would have massacred everyone; it would have been frightful. I warred against Tsar Alexander according to the rules; who would have thought they’d ever burn Moscow?” Such objections miss the entire point of the French invasion of Russia – to force the Tsar to accept peace towards the French Revolution, and there would have been no peace if the serfs had been freed. France was already trying to administer the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and other places – how could they administer huge Russia as well?
Indeed, who could have guessed that the Tsar would defeat his own peoples in order to defeat Napoleon, i.e. the scorched earth tactic, which Clausewitz proved “were only applied accidentally by headquarters,” per Tulard. Say slaver monarchs defeated Napoleon – it makes fools of Russian serfs to say that their sacrifices were correct instead of manipulated; they would get their revenge against such misguided, brutal managers a century later.
Napoleon was keeping 250,000 seasoned troops in Spain at this time, let’s recall. He said his two main mistakes were not wintering in Vitebsk, Belarus, and and instead going to Poland. He ignores the original option – staying in Moscow – which had plenty of noble-abandoned supplies to live off of. The second was in trying to get peace from the Russian monarchists, who never wanted peace, like all monarchists. “I thought that I should be able to make peace, and that the Russians were anxious for it. I was deceived and I deceived myself.” The Tsars liked their autocracy, old Nap!
After the disastrous retreat the monarchs of Europe jumped on Revolutionary France in 1813 with the immediate Sixth Coalition, the first knockdown blow to the French Revolution after 20 years of trying. Not far from Paris Napoleon resolved to die in battle – to pass the throne on to his son – and though he went where fire was thickest and his uniform was tattered by shot he was not killed.
The fall of Paris was shocking: Paris, which hadn’t seen a foreign invader since Joan of Arc 400 years earlier, spectacularly fell without even a full day of fighting because the re-propertied nobles had spread defeatism, paid for subversion and colluded to reverse the French Revolution, which of course they still hated. The elitist concept of royalism would still play a major role in French politics for another 65 years, keep in mind.
After decades of fighting not only were his marshals old and worn out, but so was the original revolutionary generation. What Napoleon needed was a Cultural Revolution to refresh the ideals of the French Revolution, but of course such a thing had not been invented yet. Such a leftist idea would have led to more civil war in France, which was only able to end its civil war with the moderate Napoleon adopting many of the forms of monarchism, after all.
Banished to Elba, he famously returned. When France saw that the Bourbons wanted to push the clock back to 1788 this did have the immediate effect of a Cultural Revolution, restoring the vitality of the ideals of the French Revolution. Napoleon landed and dared people to fire on him all alone, ever the anti-civil war patriot. He was literally pushed all the way to Paris by the peasants and urban proletariat – the army would only rally to him later. He entered like a hero and totally avoided bloodshed – all it took was the sight of him in his overcoat and bicorne hat. It’s really rather stunning, and something only a leftist – a man of the people – could have ever done.
The Bourbons fled, of course. The “Additional Act” was added on to the Constitution, which added checks to the power of Napoleon, granted total freedom of expression, an enlarged electoral college (Napoleon again oversees a broadening of democracy), the right to elect mayors in towns less than 5,000 inhabitants, trial by jury and was approved by 1.6 million voters. It wouldn’t be until 1867 that Britain’s electorate would reach that size.
The vote enraged royalist autocrats continent-wide, and they resolved to immediately overturn the progressive democratic will of France, again. Metternich spread the fiction of Napoleon as ambition personified and rejecting peace.
Above all, what France needed was a period of peace to consolidate these changes – Napoleon’s aura was not the same, liberal ideas were taking further root and France had been awakened to the fact that their revolution was powerful but not invincible. They almost had it: Wellington declared Waterloo “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life”, but instead of wiping out Wellington the next day Napoleon spent the morning visiting the wounded – Napoleon the quick had become a sentimental old soldier. The Coalition refused to make peace – of course. Instead of dissolving the National Assembly, as a dictator would, he trusted it and asked for full powers: they told Napoleon to abdicate or be deposed.
Now the French Revolution was truly over. It would be 33 years until there would be another vote.
The defeat of Napoleon – tyrant, slaver, sexist – heralds not a left-wing renaissance, but a right-wing one, really?
Just as Napoleon and the French had warned for decades, the clock was wound back across Europe: Poland was re-wiped off the map by Russia and Prussia, Hapsburgs in north Italy, Bourbons in Naples and Spain, Pope Pius VII restored the Inquisition and the Jewish ghettoes, England responded to calls for parliamentary reform with the massacre at Peterloo – vicious counter-revolution everywhere. The censorship imposed by Metternich is total, with spies everywhere – Europe is a true police state for the benefits of monarchs and aristocrats… again. The French Revolution was truly over because a monarchical oligarchy conspired to stop it.
In 1821, living in cruel imprisonment imposed by Britain on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon died of stomach cancer, like his father, at the age of 51. His last words: “France – army – head of the army – Josephine”.
They act as if Napoleon waged wars on the peoples of Europe, instead of on the autocrats of Europe?
They act as if he won his royalty by birth, marriage or violence, instead of by vote?
They act as if his administration was marked by corruption instead of revolutionary ideas, progress and domestic unity?
Bah… the haters of Napoleon – what can be done? He deserves the longest chapter in this book, because to smear Napoleon Bonaparte is to smear the French Revolution. The two are not synonymous, as Napoleon once claimed – but now, I think, you know what he meant.
In 1823 his memoirs, The Memorial of Saint Helena, would become the 19th century’s best-selling book, moulding the worldview of several generations.
It is truly amazing how relatively few things there are in France named after Napoleon. However, his stunning tomb at Invalides is – thankfully – not a military shrine but a monument to his 10 greatest achievements as a domestic revolutionary politician. It’s truly amazing: comparing the negative view which so many have Napoleon, and the 10 progressive political advances etched in marble at Invalides.
The common leftist criticism that Napoleon Bonaparte used foreign war to liquidate the revolution, domestic conflict and class conflict completely ignores the fact that the Seven European Wars Against the French Revolution were defensive and not initiated by France.
The criticism which equates Bonaparte with Bourbon – calling them two absolutist systems, with the former merely being more allied with the nouveau riche bourgeois class – completely ignores the historic votes, constitutions, and the quality of governance. It also totally ignores the peasant gains stemming from the French Revolution’s ending of feudalism.
The claim that the French Revolution was “imperialist” totally ignores the fact that the French Revolution wasn’t even “French”: Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium – these are just the countries where the people were able to join the Revolution, and certainly many more wanted to.
All great revolutions are always externalised – ideas do not know national boundaries. The 1979 Iranian Revolution, for example, both spread and was a part of an idea that spread: in 1978 the Saur Revolution in Afghanistan established the socialist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan; in 1979 the Grand Mosque of Mecca was under siege for two months to oppose the House of Saud monarchy; in 1982 Saddam Hussein committed the massacre of the Islamic Dawa Party, the crime for which he would be ultimately sentenced to death. Where does Iran 1979 fit in this, who can say with total precision? France, Haiti, the Cisalpine Republic, the Batavian Republic (Netherlands 1795-1806) even the USA and League of Iroquois – where does 1789 France fit, precisely? What makes France and Iran different is that their revolutions succeeded and lasted, and thus they must be celebrated and learned from.
In a quote of Trotsky’s which sounded the death knell of capitalism entirely too early, Napoleon Bonaparte represented “the bourgeoisie’s impetuous youth”. We must, therefore, look at the “impetuous youth” of Bonaparte’s bourgeois victory as a victory for the people precisely because it was the only victory which could be permanently extracted in that awful autocratic era – the liberal rights which 1789 fought for were advancements; bourgeois rights were advancements; peasants, not nobles, getting land should not be derided as a “bourgeois revolution” but wereadvancements. It is the West’s total blind spot regarding the social evil of monarchy – which is the only accurate standard of comparison Napoleon and the French Revolution can be compared to: their peers – which blinds them to the obvious historical truth.
We can expect the right to paint Napoleon poorly, but what the left seems to ignore is that what every historian eventually admits is that the peasants and the working class – the mass of the people – wanted, trusted, elected and re-elected Napoleon Bonaparte as the French Revolution’s chief. This makes Napoleon Bonaparte just like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Khomeini, etc.
Now we grasp the Western Liberal Democratic campaign against Napoleon’s legacy: he was a true, beloved leftist.
Napoleon truly must be reclassed with those figures along the left. We cannot allow reactionaries to say that Napoleon, the dominant personage of that 26-year era – somehow did not embody it, but rather embodied its negation. What an absurdity!
Perhaps the whole point of this chapter – to fellow leftists – is to prove: We can admire Robespierre, Danton, Marat and Babeuf while also admiring Napoleon. Napoleon certainly must be reclaimed from today’s aristocratic bourgeoisie – this chapter should make it clear why they would never even want a leftist like him.
Gaining the trust of the democratic mass explains – more than any other factor – how Napoleon was able to lead France to stability in 1799 and beyond. Western Liberal Democrats haven’t been able to do either – gain the trust of the masses or provide stability for them – from its very conception. As de Tocqueville observed:
“On coming to power Bonaparte imposed an additional 25 centimes of tax and nothing is said. The people do not turn against him; on the whole what he did was popular. The Provisional Government was to take the same measures in 1848 and was to be cursed immediately. The former was making a much-desired revolution, the second was making an unwanted one.”
What was unwanted across Europe in 1848 was the success of the counter-revolutions, which successfully refused to implement the ideals of 1789. In France, however, what was quickly unwanted was the first implementation of Western Liberal Democracy.
<—>
Upcoming chapter list of the brand-new content in France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values. The book will also include previous writings from 2018 through the 2022 election in order to provide the most complete historical record of the Yellow Vests anywhere. What value! Publication date: June 1, 2022.
Pre-orders of the paperback version will be available immediately.
كان حلم الساسة والقادة العسكريون الفرنسيون، بعد احتلالهم للجزائر سنة 1830، ورغم تحدي الثورة الكبرى التي قادها المجاهد الكبير، الأمير عبد القادر الجزائري، ضدّ هذا الاحتلال… وكذلك أنظارهم تتجه غرباً، نحو المغرب الأقصى، الذي يعرف بالمملكة المغربية حالياً.
وقد تحقّق هذا الحلم الفرنسي فعلياً، بعد انعقاد مؤتمر برلين ، الذي عقد في الفترة ما بين 26/2/1885 حتى 15/11/1884 والذي جرى خلاله تقاسم أفريقيا، بين القوى الاستعمارية الأوروبية آنذاك. اذ اتفقت الدول المشاركة على ان تكون المغرب والصحراء الغربية من حصة فرنسا واسبانيا. وهو ما دفع مواطني المغرب الى رفض هذه القرارات والبدء بثورة مسلحةٍ ضد الوجود الاسباني، في شمال المغرب، وذلك سنة 1839، وهي الثورة التي اطلق عليها اسم: حرب الريف، خاصة أنّ اسبانيا كانت تحتلّ مدينة مليلة المغربية والواقعة على ساحل المتوسط منذ عام 1497، والتي تبعتها حرب الريف الثانية 1909 بعد ان بدأت القوات الاسبانية تتمدد خارج مدينة مليلة وتسيطر على محيطها، تمهيداً للسيطرة على كامل الساحل المغربي على المتوسط.
وفي ظل تصاعد المقاومة المغربية للاحتلالين الاسباني والفرنسي عقد اتفاق اسباني فرنسي، سنة 1912، لتقاسم الاراضي المغربية بشكل نهائي ومتفق عليه، بهدف توحيد جهود الدولتين الاستعماريتين، ضد قوات الثورة المغربية في الريف (شمال البلاد بشكل خاصة).
لكن هذه الثورة تواصلت وتصاعدت، خاصة بعد انتهاء الحرب العالمية الأولى، وزيادة النشاط الاستعماري في المغرب من قبل دولتي الاحتلال، فرنسا واسبانيا، الى ان وصلت تلك المقاومة ذروتها في ثورة 1921، التي يطلق عليها اسم: حرب الريف الثالثة، بقيادة الأمير محمد عبد الكريم الخطابي واستمرت هذه الثورة حتى سنة 1926. ولَم تتمكن جيوش الاحتلال الاسبانية (في شمال المغرب) من قمع هذه الثورة الا بعد أن شنت حرب إبادةٍ جماعية، ضد الشعب المغربي في الشمال، مستخدمة الاسلحة الكيماوية وغاز الخردل بالتحديد، حيث قصفت بمدفعية الميدان ومدفعية البوارج الحربية، والطائرات الحربية أيضاً، كل شمال المغرب، قصفاً عنيفاً استخدمت خلاله ما مجموعه عشرة آلاف قذيفة من غاز الخردل، وذلك انطلاقاً من استراتيجية الأرض المحروقة، بحيث تصبح الأرض غير صالحة للحياة عليها لسنوات طويلة، الأمر الذي سيؤدي، حسب خطط المجرمين الاسبان وشركائهم الفرنسيين، الى فقدان الثوار للإسناد الشعبيّ وبالتالي للرفد بالمقاتلين.
وهو ما أدى الى أن ما يقرب من 80% من مرضى السرطان، الذين يعالجون في مركز السرطان الوطني في الرباط حالياً، هم من أهالي الأقاليم الشمالية، التي تعرّضت لهذا الكمّ الهائل من السلاح الكيماوي، قبل مئة عام. وهذا ما تثبته ليس فقط الجهات المغربية المعنية، وإنما هو مثبت رسمياً في أرشيف وزارة الدفاع الاسبانية، ولدى العديد من المنظمات الدولية المختصة (في الوقت الحالي وليس قبل مئة عام). وهذا ما يجعل من الضروري قيام حكومة المغرب بمطالبة اسبانيا بتعويضات مالية عن كل الخسائر المادية والبشرية، التي نجمت عن جرائم الحرب هذه.
وبالعودة الى الأحلام الفرنسية، في ثلاثينيات القرن التاسع عشر، بمتابعة الزحف من الجزائر غرباً، باتجاه المغرب، فإنّ هناك حالياً أحلاماً أميركية شبيهة بتلك الفرنسية، ولكن بالاتجاه المعاكس. أيّ الزحف من المغرب شرقاً باتجاه الجزائر، وذلك لأجل تحقيق أهداف المشروع الصهيوأميركي في المغرب العربي، او ما يسمّى حالياً عملية “التطبيع” الجارية بين المغرب و”إسرائيل”.
وهي في الحقيقة ليست عمليّة معزولةً، عن بقية المسار الاستراتيجي للخطط الأميركية، التي تهدف الى حصار الدول التي تعارض الهيمنة الأميركية في “الشرق الاوسط”، كـ إيران في الشرق والجزائر في الغرب، خاصة أنّ الولايات المتحدة قد أصبحت عاجزةً عن الدخول في مواجهة عسكريةٍ مباشرةً مع هذه القوى، لأسباب عديدة لا مجال للغوص فيها حالياً.
فما هي أهداف المشروع الأميركي الحالي، وأدواته الأعرابية والصهيونيّة والعثمانية، في منطقة “الشرق الأوسط” بكاملها؟
1
ـ محاولة خلق موجة جديدة من الفوضى الداخلية المسلحة، في عموم المنطقة، وذلك من خلال إشعال المزيد من الحروب والفتن الطائفية، يكون هدفها العاجل والمباشر إيران في الشرق والجزائر في الغرب، بحيث توكل إدارة وتسعير هذه الحروب الى “إسرائيل”، التي لن تزجّ جيشها ليقاتل على الجبهات، وإنما هي ستقوم بقيادة جيوش من المرتزقه المحليين، التي يطلق عليها اسم جيوش وخاصة في الخليج الفارسي، بحجة مواجهة الخطر الإيراني والتصدّي له!
وهذا يعني إشعال حربٍ “عربية” ضدّ إيران، خدمة للمشروع الأميركي، ولكن دون تدخل أميركي مباشر في هذه الحرب، مما يعني خوض حربٍ أميركيةٍ بالوكالة، ضدّ إيران ومحور المقاومة.
وما موجة التطبيع الخليجية الإسرائيلية، وما تبعها من توقيع اتفاقيات تعاون بين الطرفين وفِي مختلف المجالات، إلا جزء من التحضيرات لنشر الفوضى، خاصة أنّ “إسرائيل” قد بدأت فعلاً ببناء قواعد تجسس وأخرى عسكرية لها، في الإمارات العربية والبحرين والأجزاء التي تحتلها السعودية والإمارات في اليمن وخاصة جزيرة سوقطرى ذات الموقع الاستراتيجي.
2
ـ وكما اخترعت القوى الصهيوأميركية عدواً وهمياً، لدول الخليج الفارسي في المشرق العربي، أسمته إيران، ها هي قد اخترعت بؤرة صراع جديدة في المغرب العربي، ترتكز الى الوضع الراهن في الصحراء الغربية، التي تطالب جبهة البوليساريو باستقلالها الكامل عن المغرب.
وما اعتراف الرئيس الأميركي، دونالد ترامب، باعتبار هذه المنطقة جزءاً من المملكة المغربية، وخضوعها للسيادة المغربية الكاملة، إلا الخطوة الأولى على طريق تصعيد عمليات التطويق الاستراتيجي لجمهورية الجزائر الديمقراطية الشعبية، التي ترفض الخضوع للمشروع الصهيوأميركي الهادف لتصفية القضية الفلسطينية. وهي قد أعلنت موقفها هذا عبر أكثر الناصرين للقضية الفلسطينية من كبار المسؤولين الجزائريين.
وبنظرة سريعة، لخريطة الجزائر، يلاحظ المراقب انّ فلول داعش في دول الساحل الأفريقي، والتي تناور بهم واشنطن، عبر ما يسمّى أفريكوم / قيادة أفريقيا في الجيش الأميركي / وذلك على حدود الجزائر الجنوبية، في كلّ من مالي والنيجر وتشاد، حيث توجد غرفة عمليات أميركية/ إسرائيلية مشتركة في نجامينا، عاصمة تشاد لتنسيق تحركات عناصر داعش وتقديم الدعم والإسناد اللازم لها، لتنفيذ عمليات إرهابية، كتلك التي نفذتها هذه المجموعات، ضدّ أهداف نفطية ومحطات غاز طبيعي في جنوب الجزائر أكثر من مرة سابقاً.
ومن نافل القول التذكير بالخطر الإرهابي الذي يهدّد الحدود الجزائرية من ناحية الشرق، ايّ عبر الحدود الليبية الشرقية وعبر الحدود التونسية شمال شرق الجزائر. علماً انّ هذه الحدود تشهد اشتباكات شبه يومية بين الجيش التونسي ومجموعات من داعش وغيرها، تحاول بشكل دائم اختراق الحدود الجزائرية، التي بقيت مؤمّنة بالكامل نظراً ليقظة الجيش الشعبي الجزائري وقدراته القتالية العالية…
3
ـ وانطلاقاً من معرفة القوى الصهيوأميركيّة بالقدرة العسكرية الكبيرة للجيش الجزائري، وبالنظر الى انه يملك أكبر سلاح للجو والبحر في أفريقيا وبالنظر للتصريحات المتكرّرة لقادة حلف شمال الأطلسي، والمتعلقة بالمخاطر التي يشكلها سلاح الجو الجزائري وسلاح البحرية الجزائرية، على الحركة الجوية والبحرية لقوات الحلف، في البحر المتوسط، فإنّ قوى العدوان الأميركي الصهيوني قد لجأت الى اختراع صيغة الصراع الجديدة، المشار اليها في البند السابق، والتي تتضمّن تطويق الجزائر من الغرب أيضاً.
وهو ما بدأته هذه الدوائر قبل مسرحية التطبيع، بين المغرب و”إسرائيل”، وبالتحديد منذ أن اتخذ المغرب، بالتنسيق مع واشنطن وتل أبيب، من خلال مستشار ملك المغرب الخاص، اندريه أَزولاي، نقول منذ ان اتخذ المغرب قرار إنشاء القاعدة العسكرية العملاقة في منطقة لاوينات، التابعة لبلدية مدينة جراده، التي تبعد 38 كيلومتراً عن الحدود الجزائرية، وذلك حسب ما جاء في المرسوم الصادر عن رئيس الوزراء المغربي، والمنشور في عدد الجريدة الرسمية المغربية رقم 6884، بتاريخ 21/5/2020، والذي أعلن فيه استملاك الحكومة المغربية مساحة 23 هكتاراً (الهكتار يساوي عشرة آلاف متر مربع) من الأراضي الخاصه لإقامة هذه القاعدة عليها.
4
ـ ولا بد هنا من التأكيد على درجة الخطورة العالية، لهذه القاعدة على الأمن الوطني الجزائري، وذلك لسببين هما:
أ) انها ستدار من قبل عدد كبير من الضباط الإسرائيليين، من أصل مغربي، وعلى رأسهم رئيس أركان الجيش الإسرائيلي السابق، الجنرال غادي آيزينكوت، وهو ابن يهودية مغربيّة من مدينة الدار البيضاء وأبٌ يهودي مغربي من مدينة مراكش، هاجرا الى فلسطين بداية خمسينيات القرن الماضي، وذلك الى جانب ضباط الجيش المغربي.
علماً انّ العدد الإجمالي لليهود المغاربة وأبنائهم في فلسطين المحتلة يربو على مليون شخص. وقد تبوّأ العديد منهم مراكز عليا في إدارة دويلة الاحتلال، مثل وزير الخارجية الأسبق ديفيد ليفي، ووزير الحرب الأسبق عامير بيريتس، ورئيس الأركان السابق الجنرال آيزينكوت، ومستشار الأمن القومي الحالي مائير بن شابات، الذي ترأس الوفد الإسرائيلي إلى المغرب يوم أمس (الأول)، وهو مولود لأبوين مغربيّين هاجرا إلى فلسطين المحتلة، في خمسينيات القرن الماضي.
وبالنظر الى أنّ القانون المغربي يعتبر جميع هؤلاء اليهود، المقيمين حالياً في فلسطين المحتلة، مواطنين مغاربة أيضاً، ويحق لهم حمل الجنسية المغربية، فإنّ دمج عدد منهم، او خدمة عدد منهم، في الجيش المغربي سيكون “قانونياً” أيضاً. وهذا ما يضاعف الخطر الكارثي على الأمن الوطني الجزائري. وهو الأمر الذي كرّره العديد من المسؤولين الجزائريين، عندما أشاروا في تصريحات لهم، خلال الشهرين الماضي والحالي، بأنّ ما يقوم به المغرب، من عملية تطبيع، ليس إلا نقلاً للجيش “الإسرائيلي” الى حدود الجزائر.
ولا بدّ في هذا السياق من التذكير بأنّ سلاح الجو الإسرائيلي قد حاول، بتاريخ 10/8/1988، بالاعتداء على الأجواء الجزائرية، لقصف اجتماع للمجلس الوطني الفلسطيني، الذي كان منعقداً في العاصمة الجزائر، حيث صدرت التعليمات لتشكيل جوّي جزائري، مكوّن من مقاتلات اعتراض طراز ميغ 25، بالتصدّي للطائرات الإسرائيلية، من طراز ف 16، والتي اكتشفتها وسائل الدفاع الجوي الجزائرية يومها وهي على بعد 400 كم من الأجواء الجزائرية. وكذلك الأمر فانّ بطاريات الدفاع الجوي، من طراز ، التي كانت قد وضعت في حالة تأهّب قصوى قبيل انعقاد المؤتمر، قد ضبطت الأهداف المعادية، ما أجبرها عملياً على أن تقفل راجعة الى قواعدها في فلسطين المحتلة، بعد اكتشافها انها في مرمى صواريخ الدفاع الجوي وطائرات ميغ 25 الجزائرية.
كما لا بدّ من التذكير أنّ سلاح البحرية الإسرائيلي كان قد نفذَ محاولة اقتراب، من الموانئ الجزائرية شرق العاصمة، وذلك بتاريخ 7/4/1984، بحجة أنّ مجموعة كوماندوز بحري تابعة لقوات العاصفة / فتح / قد انطلقت من تلك الموانئ الجزائرية. وقد تصدّت السفن الحربية الجزائرية ايضاً يومها لزوارق الصواريخ الإسرائيلية الأربعة، التي شاركت في محاولة العدوان الفاشلة، وردّتها على أعقابها من دون تحقيق أي هدف.
اذن فما نقوله ليس “هلوسات” متحمّس وإنما وقائع ميدان تاريخية، تثبت نيات العدوان الإسرائيلي المدعوم أميركياً، ضدّ الجزائر، منذ زمن بعيد. وهو ما يجعلنا ننظر ببالغ الخطورة، الى موضوع إعلان التحالف المغربي الإسرائيلي العسكري، الذي يهدّد الاستقرار في كلّ منطقة المغرب العربي.
ب) اما مصدر الخطر الثاني، على الأمن الوطني الجزائري، والمنبثق من هذه القاعدة، فهو انها ستضمّ قاعدة جوية، تخدم الطائرات المسيّرة في المرحلة الأولى. ولعلّ المتابعين يتذكرون ما صرّحت به مصادر في البنتاغون الأميركية، يوم 19/12/2020، من أنّ الولايات المتحدة ستبيع المغرب أربع طائرات بدون طيار من أحدث طائرات التجسّس الأميركية، التي لا يحتاجها المغرب للتجسس على الصحراء الغربيّة، وإنما للتجسّس على الجزائر، التي ترفض الانخراط في مشروع تصفية القضية الفلسطينية. أي المشروع الذي يُطلق عليه اسم “صفقة القرن”.
وغني عن القول طبعاً بأنّ “إسرائيل” سوف تلعب دوراً اساسياً، في تشغيل هذه الطائرات وغيرها من طائرات التجسس الإسرائيلية الصنع، والتي سيتمّ نشرها في هذه القاعدة، استكمالاً لدور طائرات التجسّس الأميركية، التي تعمل انطلاقاً من القاعدة الجوية التونسية الأكبر في البلاد، في سيدي أحمد، شمال غرب ميناء بنزرت التونسي، على البحر المتوسط، والتي تنكر وجودها (الطائرات الأميركية في جزء من القاعدة) كلّ الحكومات التونسية منذ عام 2011 وحتى الآن، والتي تسمّيها البنتاغون: القاعدة رقم 722، حسب ما نشرته مجلة “ذي ناشيونال انتريست” الأميركية في وقت سابق.
5
ـ وقد يقود العرض السابق، للمخطط الصهيوأميركي والدور الإسرائيلي في تنفيذه، الى طرح سؤال محقّ حول ما اذا كانت “إسرائيل” تملك جيشاً يوازي الجيش الأميركي في عدده وعدّته، كي تتمكن من الاضطلاع بهذا الدور الإقليمي الكبير، والجواب بالتأكيد هو: كلا كبيرة. إنّ “إسرائيل” لا تملك القدرات العسكرية، لبسط سيطرتها على كلّ هذا الإقليم او العالم العربي. كما انّ المخطط المشار إليه أعلاه لا يعطي الكيان الصهيوني دور نشر جيشه، وإنما مستشاريه العسكريين والأمنيين، في كلّ بلدان العرب التي دخلت نفق التطبيع معها.
كما أنّ من الضروري ان يفهم المرء انّ عملية التطبيع ليست هدفاً أميركياً إسرائيلياً بحدّ ذاته، وإنما هي وسيلة لدمج “إسرائيل” في المحيط العربي وجعلها كياناً مقبولاً، لا بل حليفاً، “يساعد” الحكام المطبّعين عسكرياً وامنياً، في التصدي للأخطار التي تواجههم سواء من شعوبهم او تلك الآتية من إيران وحلف المقاومة، كما يتصوّرون!
وهو الأمر الذي دفع بالقوى الخفيّة الداعمة لهذا المشروع، حتى قبل الانتخابات الأميركية، بالبدء بالتفكير في صيغة تسمح بضمّ الكيان الإسرائيلي الى منطقة صلاحيات او عمليات القيادة المركزية الأميركية . وهو الموضوع الذي يسمّى بلغة البنتاغون: او منطقة العمليات. الأمر الذي يجعل “إسرائيل” وجيشها في مقام جزء من القوات المسلحة الأميركية، وهو ما قد يُعتبر بديلاً لوجود عسكري أميركي مباشر في “الشرق الاوسط”، من قبل بعض المخططين الاستراتيجيين الأميركيين، خاصةً اذا ما اخذنا بعين الاعتبار انّ تل ابيب سوف تبرم اتفاقيات تعاون عسكري وأمني، مع كلّ الدول العربية التي تعلن تطبيع علاقاتها معها. ما يعني عملياً، وضع القوات المسلحة لتلك البلدان تحت قيادة “إسرائيل” وبتصرفها، وبالتالي تحويلها الى قوات احتياط (بما في ذلك الجيش الإسرائيلي) بإمرة القياده المركزية الأميركية، التي مركزها الدوحة.
علماً انّ “إسرائيل” حالياً تعتبر جزءاً من القيادة الأوروبية في الجيش الأميركي) ولا علاقة لها بالقيادة المركزية، المسؤولة عن “الشرق الاوسط”.
وهذا ما دفع الضابط السابق في البنتاغون، وهو المدير الحالي للمعهد اليهودي للأمن القومي الأميركي ، ميخائيل ماكوڤسكي لكتابة مقال يطالب فيه بضمّ “إسرائيل” الى منطقة عمليات القيادة المركزية في الجيش الأميركي. وهو يقول إنّ هذا الموضوع قد بحث مرات عدة في السابق، لكن الظروف المحيطة به قد تغيّرت في “الشرق الاوسط”، خاصة بعد توقيع ما يسمّى اتفاقيات أبراهام!
وفِي إطار الاستعدادات لتنفيذ هذه الخطوة عملياً فإنّ القيادة المركزية قد نفذت ثلاثة تدريبات جوية مشتركة، مع سلاح الجو الإسرائيلي، هذا العام، مستخدمةً طائرات أميركية، من طراز F 35، مرابطةً في قاعدة الظفرة الإماراتية.
6
ـ لكن الأمر لا يقتصر على ما حدث حتى الآن، بشأن ضمّ “إسرائيل” الى منطقة عمليات القيادة المركزية في الجيش الأميركي، وانما يجب على الكونغرس الأميركي تضمين هذا البند، في برنامج المساعدات العسكرية الأميركية للكيان، بالاضافة الى ضرورة ان تقوم الولايات المتحدة بزيادة كميات الأسلحة الدقيقة الموجهة، التي تزوّد “إسرائيل” بها وتختصر باسم ، يقول ميخائيل ماكوڤسكي، في هذا الصدد.
لكنه يضيف ان ضمّ “إسرائيل” لمنطقة عمليات القيادة المركزية، في الجيش الأميركي، سيسمح لها، في أوقات الحرب، باستخدام مخازن احتياط الذخيرة الأميركية، المخزنة في قواعد عسكرية متقدمة في “إسرائيل” لأوقات الحرب (بالنظر اليها من الولايات المتحدة)،: .
وهذا يعني، حسب ماكوڤسكي انّ هذه الأسلحة الأميركية تبقى تحت قيادةٍ أميركية في ظروف يسمح فيها لاستخدام هذه الذخائر، اذا ما وقعت حرب مع إيران او حزب الله.
7
ـ ويتابع قائلاً إنّ جعل “إسرائيل” جزءاً من منطقة عمليات القيادة المركزية الأميركية، التي تشمل العراق وافغانستان أيضاً، وهما دولتان لا تقيمان علاقات مع “إسرائيل”، إنما سيثير جدلًا، او بعض الإشكاليات، حول الدور الأميركي في هاتين الدولتين، خاصةً أنّ الولايات المتحدة الأميركيّة تواجه تهديدات إيرانيّة، عبر “الميليشيات” المدعومة من إيران، حسب زعمه. وربما تستخدم إيران هذه المسألة (ضمّ “إسرائيل” للقيادة المركزية) كحجة للقيام بتصعيد عسكري ضدّ القوات الأميركية في العراق.
ولكن الأمور ربما تتغيّر، نحو الأفضل، بعد تسلم الجنرال لويد اوستين وزارة الحرب الأميركية في ادارة الرئيس المنتخب بايدن، وهو الذي كان قائداً للقيادة المركزية الأميركية، في الدوحة، من سنة 2013 وحتى 2016، وتربطه علاقات وثيقة بـ “إسرائيل” ويعرف جيداً الأهمية التي تتمتع بها دويلة الكيان الصهيوني في المنطقة.
8
ـ وبناءً على كلّ ما تقدّم فإننا نكاد نجزم انّ جميع الزيارات، التي قام بها كبار العسكريين الأميركيين، خلال الشهرين الماضيين لكيان الاحتلال، قد تمحورت حول هذا الموضوع، وذلك لتحويله الى أمر واقع، قبل رحيل إدارة ترامب من البيت الأبيض، ايّ لوضع هذا المخزون الاستراتيجي الأميركي، من الذخائر (صواريخ) الموجهة الدقيقة تحت تصرّف “إسرائيل”، كي تقوم باستخدامه كما يحلو لها ويخدم مصالحها وليس لخدمة المصالح الأميركية. خاصة أنّ اهتمامات بايدن الاستراتيجية ستختلف تماماً عن اهتمامات ترامب، التي اقتصرت على عقد الصفقات المالية والاستعراضات الدبلوماسية، التي اطلق عليها اسم اتفاقيات التطبيع بين الدول العربية و”إسرائيل”. تلك الاتفاقيات التي لن تقود الى اية حلول لمشاكل المنطقة، وفِي المقدمة منها القضية الفلسطينية ولا تحدي محور المقاومة، الذي يُصرّ على مواصلة استراتيجيته، الرامية الى تحرير فلسطين وإنهاء الوجود الاستيطاني الاحتلالي الإسرائيلي فيها.
وفِي هذا الصدد، يكفي ان نستمع الى التصريحات النارية التي أطلقها بايدن في هذه الأثناء، ضدّ روسيا، والمتعلقة بالهجمات السيبرانية المتواصلة في كلّ أنحاء الولايات المتحدة ومؤسساتها المدنية والأمنية والعسكرية والصناعية بشكل فعّال!
ما يعني أنّ الرياح الآتية من واشنطن لا تأتي على هوى أشرعة سفن نتن ياهو، التي بدأت في هذه الأثناء بالغرق، وذلك بعد حلّ الكنيست وقرار إجراء انتخابات تشريعية جديدة، لن تأتي بنتن ياهو رئيساً للوزراء قطعاً. لا بل إنها ستمهّد الطريق لدخوله السجن لقضاء ما تبقى من حياته هناك.
وهذا يعني أنّ كلّ المؤامرات والألاعيب، التي مارسها ويمارسها نتن ياهو، مع جاريد كوشنر وأعراب النفط، مضافاً اليهم ملك المغرب، الذي يريد “تحرير” الصحراء الغربية، من سكانها العرب والأمازيغ الأصليين، بينما لا يحرك ساكناً لتحرير سبته ومليلة، المحتلتين من قبل اسبانيا منذ قرون، نقول إنّ كلّ تلك المسرحيات ليست لها علاقة بالواقع الميداني، المتعلق بالصراع الاستراتيجي الشامل، الدائر حالياً بين الدول الرافضة لاستمرار الهيمنة الأميركية في العالم، وفِي مقدمة هذه الدول، مع الصين الشعبية وروسيا، إيران وسورية وحلفاؤهما في المنطقة، وفي العالم مثل فنزويلا وكوبا وبوليفيا، في أميركا اللاتينية.
خلاصة نقول إنّ التطبيع حرب استنزاف فتنوية خاسرة بالتأكيد رغم كلّ مظاهر نجاحها الإعلانية البراقة…!
ذلك لأنّ العالم تغيّر كثيراً واهمّ متغيّراته تحوّل محور المقاومة الى لاعب دولي رئيسي بمقام دولة كبرى في المعادلات الدولية بعد أن ظلت منطقتنا مجرد تابع يتلقى الأوامر من سفراء وقناصل الدول الكبرى!
As an intellectual exercise let’s think of an imaginary state, “State A.” Our fictional State A is devastated that 100 of its citizens are infected with Covid-19. For this exercise, we accept that these 100 citizens are representative of State A‘s demography, classes, ethnicities and so on. Apparently, State A’s nightmare is just the beginning because out of its 100 Covid-19 carriers, not one survives the next three weeks.
Let’s now imagine another case, we will call “State B.” State B is similar to state A in terms of its size, population, geography, climate, culture, ethnicity, nutrition, etc. In State B 100 citizens also tested positive for Covid-19. Following the experience of State A, State B braces itself for the possibility that all its infected citizens may perish but then for reasons that are not yet clear to us, no one in state B dies. And if this is not different enough, hardly any of the 100 develop any symptoms.
The crude difference between State A and B may tell us something about the herd immunity in States A and B. It is easy to detect that the ratio created by the number of fatalities (F) divided by the number of those infected (I) is an indication of the level of immunity or ‘herd immunity’ in a given region or a state.
State A: F/I = 100/100=1 State B: F/I = 0/100=0
State A’s immunity ratio equals 1. This means that anyone who contracts the virus in State A will likely die. In state B, on the other hand, one is likely to survive the virus. In fact, they may, without knowing it, have already survived.
But let us now consider some more realistic cases. In “State C,” again, a state similar to A and B, out of 100 who tested Covid-19 positive, 10 people died within the next few weeks.
State C: F/I=10/100=0.1
The herd immunity ratio in State C is 0.1. In terms of herd immunity, State C is far better off than State A as a virally infected subject may benefit from a 0.9 chance to survive. But State C’s situation is not as good as in State B where no one is expected to die as the F/I ratio in State B is O. We can see that the smaller the F/I ratio is, the greater is the herd immunity in a given state or a region.
But let us look at another realistic case. In “State D” out of 100 patients only 1 died within a few weeks.
State D: F/I=1/100=0.01.
This means that in State D the herd immunity is close to perfect. Someone who contracts the Covid-19 virus has only a remote chance that he will lose his life. In other words, the survival rate is 0.99
State C and D are not completely imaginary cases. The F/I ratio in State C is a good representation of the numbers we saw in Northern Italy, NYC, Spain, UK and other vulnerable regions that have suffered heavily in the last few weeks. The ratio in State D is very similar to South Korea and Israel. Though many people are identified with Covid-19 in these two states alone, very few have died.
Such a methodical search for herd immunity ratio may help to identify the survival rate in different states, regions and cities. It may help us to determine policy; to decide who, what and how to lockdown or maybe not to lockdown at all. It can also help to locate the origin and the spreaders of the disease as we have a good reason to believe that the regions with the most immunity to a given viral infection have likely experienced the disease in the past and have developed some form of resistance.
In reality, this model is problematic for many reasons and can hardly be applied. As things stand (in reality), we are comparing data that was collected under different circumstances and using various procedures designed with completely different strategies and philosophies. Both Israel and South Korea, for instance, conducted testing on mass scale and hence, identified many more carriers. More crucially both Israel and S. Korea made a huge effort to identify super spreaders and applied strict isolation measures to those spreaders and those who were infected by them. Britain, USA and Italy on the other hand conducted limited testing and have generally tested those who developed symptoms or were suspected of being infected.
Dr. Erickson COVID-19 Briefing – “millions of cases, small amount of death, millions of cases, small amount of death..”
But there is a far greater problem with the above herd immunity ratio model. It assumes that we know what we are dealing with i.e., an infectious viral situation, while the evidence may point otherwise.
The Radioactive Clock
It has become clear that the health crisis we are facing isn’t consistent with anything we are familiar with. Those who predicted a colossally genocidal plague weren’t necessarily stupid or duplicitous. They assumed that they knew the root cause of the current crisis. They applied recognized models and algorithms associated with viral pandemics. They ended up eating their words, not because their models were wrong but because they applied their models to the wrong event. While no one can deny the alarming exponential growth of the disease, it is the unusual ‘premature’ curve-flattening point and then the rapid decline of infections which no one explained. In fact, some still prefer to deny it.
Many of us remember that our so-called ‘experts’ initially tended to accuse China of ‘hiding the real figures’ as no one could believe that the virus, all of a sudden, pretty much ran out of steam. Some also claimed that Iran was faking its figures to make its regime look better. Then came South Korea and the scientific community started to admit that despite its initial rapid exponential growth, for an unexplained reason, the ‘virus’ seems to run out of energy in an unpredictable fashion: the curve straightens out almost abruptly and starts to drop soon after, almost literally disappearing to the point where even a country as enormous as China passes days without diagnosing a single new Covid-19 carrier.
When Italy experienced its Corona carnage, every health ‘expert’ predicted that when the ‘virus’ slipped out of the rich Lombardy region and made it to the poor south, we would see real genocide. That didn’t happen.
Rarely we see scientists sticking their necks out telling the truth. This interview with Swedish Prof. Johan Giesecke is a must watch!
We have also started to notice that lockdowns have not necessarily saved the situation and that adopting relatively light ‘lockdown’ measures doesn’t translate into a total disaster as Sweden has managed to prove. The ‘virus,’ appears to stop spreading according to its own terms rather than the terms we impose upon it.
Thinking about the anomalies to do with the virus in analytical mathematical terms, as opposed to seeing the virus in biological or medical terms, has made me believe that a paradigm shift may be inevitable. We seem to have been applying the wrong kind of science to a phenomenon that is not really clear to us. This may explain what led a British ‘scientist’ to reach a ludicrous and farfetched estimate that Britain could be heading towards an astronomic death figure of 510.000. Following the same flawed algorithm, Anthony Fauci advised the American president that America could see two million dead. Both scientists were wrong by a factor of 25-40 times. Such a mistake in scientific prediction should be unforgivable considering the damage it inflicted on the world’s economy and its future. One might say that the good news is that our governments are finally listening to scientists, the tragedy, however, is that they are listening to the most idiotic scientists around.
Looking at the tsunami of raw data regarding worldwide spread of Covid 19 reveals a lot, perhaps more than we are willing to admit at this stage. The numbers, the shape of the Corona growth curve and the manner in which it flattens and declines suggests to me that something different may be at play. It seems as if the disease is shaped by an autonomous internal clock that determines its time frame and that it is not impeded by any form of organic resistance such as antibodies or herd immunity. The curve’s rise toward that flattening instant is indeed characterized by consistent and exponential growth. But then, in a seemingly arbitrary manner, the disaster stops its increase and the numbers of those infected by Covid-19 starts to drop.
Looking for such a pattern that produces an exponential growth that comes to a sudden end calls to attention the concepts of radioactivity in general and of the half-life in particular.
Each radioactive isotope has its own decay pattern. The rate at which a radioactive isotope decays is measured in ‘half-life.’ The term half-life is defined as the time it takes for one-half of the atoms of a radioactive material to disintegrate. Radioactive decay is the disintegration of an unstable atom with an accompanying emission of radiation. The change from an unstable atom to a completely stable atom may require several disintegration steps and radiation will be given off at each step.
Half-life is a measurement of time (set by the radioactive isotope) that involves a repeated release of radiation. Each time radiation is released the radioactive isotope is splitting in half, this repeats until it either reaches stability or maybe becomes ineffective. If you bear the half-life dynamic in mind you can see how one person can ‘infect’ or shall I say, radiate an entire stadium a few times over during a two hour football match. All it takes is a radioisotope with a half-life cycle of a few seconds.
Once the atom reaches a stable configuration, no more radiation is given off. For this reason, radioactive sources become weaker with time, as more and more unstable atoms become stable atoms, less radiation is produced and eventually the material will become non-radioactive. I wonder whether this could provide an explanation for the abrupt curve flattening that is associated with Covid-19
What may be possible is that Covid 19 is not the root cause of the current disease, it may instead be a by-product of a radioactive interaction. I am not in any position to substantiate this theory. Instead, I offer an alternative way of thinking about the problem that may shed light on the situation. If Covid-19 is a by-product of radiation, then the sudden decrease in radioactivity due to the nature of half-life reactions can explain why the virus loses its growth energy when it seems as if it has become unstoppable. If this theory has any merit, then we are misdiagnosing the Corona crisis, misapplying the science and implementing the wrong strategies. It may also indicate that herd immunity won’t work, as we are not dealing with a viral infection but instead becoming ourselves, a source of radiation.
This theory may help explain why Israel and South Korea (State D) were so successful in combating the crisis. It wasn’t the lockdown that saved these countries. It was their aggressive search for and quarantine of super spreaders and those who were potentially radiated by them. Consciously or not, rather than stopping the virus they isolated the catalysts that were leading to the creation of the virus.
Our world is in a grave crisis and could benefit from thinkers who are slightly more creative, sophisticated and responsible than the characters who currently occupy the World Health Organisation, the CDC and London’s Imperial College. But more than anything else, I reiterate once again: we need to escalate our response to the Corona crisis into a criminal investigation so we can figure out every possible error or malevolent act that led humanity into the current grim situation .
In late January China sealed off Wuhan an industrial centre of about 11 million people . Though the Chinese government’s actions have been described as “Draconian” by some, with the passage of time they have also proven to be right.
As corona virus spread many countries tried to follow in China’s footsteps but were unable to and so the virus raged that the world might witness an immense corona virus explosion as reports indicate that in some poorer countries corona virus remains undetected or if detected has not been treated with the seriousness that it deserves.
The effects of the pandemic have not been limited to the health sector only but have had a volcanic effect on the world as we know it.
It revealed weaknesses in both countries and individuals where so many countries hid behind the glamour of their state of the art technologies and their capitalist systems, corona came forcing them into the nude and depriving them of what they had thought of as “inalienable rights”. Maybe corona will change world order and countries that consider themselves in the lead will reconsider that claim. For to be in the lead is not only to have an abundance of guns and bombs, neither is it the ability to bully other countries into submissiveness but it is to have the backbone to stand straight in times of duress. It is never to forget our human compass, but foremost it is the ability to hold on to our principles, our ethics and our morals.
With the rise of corona crime has in general plummeted. However, insecure and afraid people have resorted to theft to secure their needs. Malls have been broken into and their goods stolen (Providence Mall, U.S.A. March23). Panic buying has led to many buying far more then their needs require, thus depriving others. But it is a more serious crime that should be looked into, for it seems that piracy has retuned to the forefront of the crime list. Countries have resorted to committing acts of piracy, stopping ships loaded with medical equipment and stealing what is on board. The U.S. was accused of diverting a shipment of masks intended for the German police. Others ships destined for particular countries never docked in the ports of these countries and their cargo was stolen.
Blame was distributed and distributed unjustly – China was blamed for the spread of corona when in reality the response of European countries and the U.S.A was sluggish almost slow motion. Panic spread like wildfire and attacked health systems that were unprepared for the onslaught. The U.S. and the E.U. blamed each other and Trump’s decision to ban travel to the European Union (except for the UK, which has a rising number of infections) created an antagonistic atmosphere.
Bitterness spread amongst the countries of the E.U. Spain and Italy felt that they had been betrayed by the rest of the E.U. Italy witnessed the burning of EU flags on its streets, as well as Spain.
Russia and China however have rushed into help with China sending shipments of necessary medical supplies to European countries and even to the United States (though Trump has unceasingly referred to corona virus as the “Chinese Virus”).
The actions of both Russia and China have clearly portrayed to western countries that stereotyping is downright wrong and that they should, post corona, re think major aspects of intra European countries and should also specifically re think their strained relations with Russia and China. In this particular aspect capitalism has lost the war.
In the Middle East dealing with corona was never prioritized until late March. With so much fighting and confrontations going on, corona was dealt with as if it were a hazy danger one that couldn’t possibly be more threatening than all the shooting, killing and explosions that were already happening. As a young reporter from Aleppo (Lama Al Khaly) put it “we have witnessed so much horror, seen so much bloodshed, prayed so much for our kidnapped ones and wept endlessly over our martyred loved ones that it has become so difficult to grapple with the idea of fighting an invisible enemy like the corona virus”. The idea of self isolation for Syrians who have lost their homes due to terrorism is sadly almost laughable. Many large families are cramped into one room with almost no help from UN humanitarian organizations and so the idea is simply not workable.
However the Syrian government took the necessary precautionary methods thus reducing the risk of corona virus infections. It imposed a curfew, reduced the work load, banned all kinds of gatherings whether for joy or sorrow and suspended prayers. It will be a shy Ramadan this year for the Syrian lacking in its usual celebratory style. Even the ritual of Haj has been suspended this year (Haj is approximately two months and ten days after the end of Ramadan). Though banning Friday communal prayer and Sunday mass are thorny issues for most Syrians, they were accepted as they came within the package of precautionary measures in the fight against corona.
However for Syria the problem of fighting corona is for more complex and requires much more than imposing a curfew or a ban. Heavy sanctions imposed on Syria including ones in the pharmaceutical- field have led to shortages in many medicines (not forgetting that many factories that were specialized in the manufacture of medicines, mainly located in Aleppo were either dismantled and transported to Turkey or simply destroyed by the war. Syria prior to the war covered 97% of its own medical needs, even exporting to Arab and foreign countries). The U.S. and western medical sanctions on Syria have resulted in Syria having fewer ventilators then the bare minimum required- fewer raw medical supplies from which to produce effective medicine and fewer medical instrument. These sanctions are pointless as they have in no way affected the flow of the war but they have hit civilians hard-which makes them coercive and downright cruel. This collective punishment of a whole population during a pandemic is simply barbaric. Even the passage of aid ships to Syria has been forbidden.
There have been many calls made by Syria’s representative to the U.N to lift off international sanctions against Syria as they obstruct the country’s efforts to fight the corona virus.
Others joined in call for lifting the sanctions against Syria. Like Chine, Russia, the EU parliament and many other countries. The World Health Organization has also asked that sanctions be lifted off Syria. Up till now all these calls have fallen on deaf ears, as corona continues to spread worldwide.
Like all counties in the world the economy of Syria has been adversely affected. Many Syrians are day laborers and that pay has stopped with the current Corona. Businesses have shrunk and restaurateurs are out of work as all restaurants, coffee shops and eateries have been closed more than a month. Gingerly, Syria is reopening again, but the situation on the ground remains tense and Syrians are in need of a solution that is hard coming- a solution not only related to the corona virus but one that will ease their lives and allow them the medicaments they deserve to lighten the suffering of the ill.
أول ما يجب الاعتراف به في الحديث عن أزمة كورونا العالمية هو أن هذه الأزمة كاشفة بامتياز، كاشفة لحقيقة قوّة البلدان وأولوياتها وقدرة القيادة في هذه البلدان وعلاقتها بالشعب الذي تحكمه، ومدى تجاوب هذا الشعب مع أوامر قيادته واقتناعه بها.
فقد قسّمت هذه الأزمة العالم وفق خطوط غير تقليدية أبداً وغير معروفة من قبل، وطرحت معادلاتٍ جديدة على الساحة الدولية، لا بدّ وأن تؤخذ بعين الاعتبار كي يتمّ إرساء الأسس السليمة للمرحلة المستقبلية المقبلة. فمن كنا نعتقد أنه قويّ أظهر علامات ضعف مؤكّدة لا جدال فيها، ومن كنّا نعتقد أن تصنيفه يأتي في آخر السلّم قفز إلى أعلى السلّم بقدراته التي لم نكن نعرف عنها شيئاً. ولا شكّ في أنّ الإعلام الغربي المضلّل يتحمّل جزءاً كبيراً من مسؤولية هذه المفاجآت لأن الإعلام الغربيّ ما فتئ يكرّر مفاهيم لسنوات طوال حتى آمن الناس بأنّ هذه المفاهيم هي الحقائق بعينها إلى أن اصطدمت هذه المفاهيم اليوم بوقائع مغايرة تماماً على الأرض فتهشّمت. وهذا أيضاً مصدر أساسيّ من مصادر المفاجآت الكاشفة التي تتعرّض لها البشرية اليوم. فقد كان معظم البشر يعتقدون أنّ #الولايات المتحدة، والتي ما زالت البلد الأقوى عسكرياً واقتصادياً، هي الأقدر اليوم على مواجهة أيّ جائحة أو وباء، وأنّ مؤسساتها وأساليب عملها ستكون النموذج الأهمّ في العالم، ولكنّ الواقع الحقيقي أظهر أنّ هذه الدولة القويّة ذات القواعد العسكرية المنتشرة في العشرات من دول العالم لا تملك إلّا نسبة ضئيلة مما تحتاجه من الأقنعة #الطبية مثلاً، ولا تملك الألبسة الطبية لممرضيها، ولا اختبارات كافية لهذا الفيروس الذي ينتشر كالنار في الهشيم، فضلاً عن الأزمة الاقتصادية الخانقة التي سبّبها الحجر، وتسريح العمال والموظفين من أعمالهم، وتضخّم دائرة الفقر والعَوَز في بلد يعتبر من أغنى بلدان الأرض.
كما أنّ إيطاليا و إسبانيا قد فاجأتا العالم بعجز النظام الصحي في كلتيهما، وارتفاع نسبة الوفيات فيهما وفي الولايات المتحدة بشكل أثار دهشة العالم واستغرابه. بينما أبلت البرتغال واليونان مثلاً بلاءً ممتازاً نتيجة الإجراءات الاستباقية التي اتخذتاها، وتكاتف الحكومة والمجتمع لمواجهة هذا الخطر الداهم على الجميع.
وفي هذا المجال برهنت ألمانيا أيضاً اختلاف نظامها عن النظم الغربية من خلال تقديم الفحص مجاناً للجميع؛ الأمر الذي ساعدها على تخفيف حدّة الإصابات، واحتواء الجائحة إلى حدّ بعيد. ولكن ولا شكّ، فإنّ النموذج الأبرز والأهمّ في التصدّي لهذا الفيروس بخطوات متناسقة بين الحكومة والشعب والمؤسسات والعمل الطوعي هو الأنموذج الصينيّ، والذي أدهش العالم أولاً بحرص القيادة الصينية على وضع إنقاذ حياة البشر فوق كلّ اعتبار مهما كلّف ذلك الدولة من أعباء، كما أدهش العالم بالتقدم التكنولوجي الذي وصلت إليه الصين، والذي تمّ استخدامه بذكاء ومهارة بالغَين لاكتشاف انتشار الفيروس وحصر الحالات وتضييق دائرة الانتشار.
كما أدهشت الصين العالم باستعداد شعبها للتطوّع والتضحية ووضع المصلحة العامة فوق كلّ اعتبار، وكذلك بتصرّفها المسؤول دولياً؛ بحيث وضعت نتائج أبحاثها في متابعة الأصول الجينية لهذا الفيروس في خدمة علماء العالم من أجل توفير الوقت واستكمال الأبحاث التي توصل العالم إلى اختراع اللقاح أو الدواء. وكانت الخطوات الصينية المتّخذة دائماً متاحة للجميع كي يتعلّموا منها، كما منعت السفر إطلاقاً خارج البلاد.
وحين انتشر الوباء في إيطاليا وإسبانيا وغيرها قدّمت الصين و روسيا و كوبا المساعدات السخية لهذه البلدان لمساعدتها على احتواء الجائحة والحدّ من انتشارها. لا شكّ في أنّ هذا المسار للأحداث قد كشف للعالم أجمع شخصية جمهورية الصين كبلد متقدّم حديث، ومع ذلك محافظ على إنسانيته وعلى دوره على الساحتين الإقليمية والدولية كعامل مساعد للأسرة الدولية وكعنصر فاعل فيها لمواجهة هذا الخطر القاتل.
ولا شكّ في أنّ الناس في كلّ أنحاء المعمورة بدأوا بإجراء المقارنات بين القوة العظمى، وهي الولايات المتحدة والتي تحاول دائماً تشويه صورة الصين، وبين الصين التي تظهر للمرّة الأولى على الساحة الدولية بكلّ مقدّراتها، ليس فقط الاقتصادية وإنما التعبوية والإنسانية والأخلاقية والقيمية التي تحكم كلّ تصرفاتها وأعمالها. بالمقابل، فإنّ الولايات المتحدة وإلى حدّ اليوم لم تستجب لنداءات العالم لرفع العقوبات عن الجمهورية الإسلامية الإيرانية، وعن الجمهورية العربية السورية، ودول أخرى أيضاً لتمكين هذه الدول من مواجهة هذا الوباء.
ومع أنّ المسؤولين في الولايات المتحدة يمارسون قوّتهم وسلطتهم لمنع الدواء عن هذه الدول، فهم لا يعلمون مدى خسارتهم الأخلاقية والقيمية، إذ لا يوجد عاقل في العالم يمكن أن يؤيدهم في استمرار هذه الإجراءات العقابية الظالمة أصلاً في الوقت الذي يعرفون فيه أنهم يسبّبون الموت لأناس أبرياء. وفي هذه الحال، وحالات لا تُحصى يُدرك الجميع في قرارة أنفسهم أنّ النظام الليبرالي يعيش أسوأ أزمات حياته وتاريخه، وأنّ الإعلام الغربي الذي كان يمجّد هذا النظام قبل كورونا لن يتمكّن من فعل ذلك بعد كورونا، وأنّ زمن كورونا قد يكون الإنذار الحقيقي لصلاحية الأنظمة الليبرالية، والتي برهنت خلال هذه الفترة أنها غير جديرة بأن تكون مؤتمنة على حياة البشر، وخاصةً الفقراء منهم. ولعلّ إدراك مراكز الأبحاث الغربية لعمق هذه الحقيقة وأهميتها والتي ستزداد حضوراً في كلّ الساحات العالمية، هو الذي دفعها إلى تحويل الأنظار عمّا يجري في بلدانها، واختلاق التهم للصين، ورفع الدعاوى القضائية على الصين بذرائع وحجج واهية لا تصمد أبداً أمام المنطق السليم. وبدلاً من التركيز على نقاط ضعفها، والتي جعلت الولايات المتحدة الرقم الأول في عدد الوفيات، تلقي بأخطائها على الآخرين، وتحاول التعرّض للصين من خلال مسارين،الأوّل هو اتهام الصين بالمسؤولية عن انتشار الوباء، والثاني هو محاولة سحب الصناعات الأميركية من الصين كي يسهل استهدافها، وفي الحالتين وقبلهما بكثير، من الواضح أنّ مسؤولي الولايات المتحدة قلقون، وعلى مدى السنوات الأخيرة من التقدّم المطّرد الذي تحققه الصين في المجالات كافة، وخاصة في مجال التطوّر التكنولوجي والـ 5G على وجه التحديد. والسجالات الأميركية مليئة بمقولة: الصين هي العدوّ. وحتى حين تتمّ مقابلة مسؤول في الكونغرس السؤال عن الصين هو سؤال أساسي لمعرفة موقفه من هذا الموضوع الأساسي الذي يشغل بالهم.
لا شكّ في أنّ البشرية اليوم على مفترق طرق، وفي الوقت الذي يصارع فيه معظم دول العالم للتخلّص من هذا الوباء، فإنّ الأمر الذي لا يقلّ أهمية هو إلى أين يتّجه العالم بعد القضاء على هذا الوباء؟ هل سيتّجه إلى الإفادة من الدروس التي وفّرتها هذه الأزمة، بحيث يعكف كلّ بلد أو طرف على معالجة نقاط ضعفه، وترميم جدرانه التي توشك على الانهيار؟ أم سيحاول إنكار الواقع والعودة إلى المكابرة والتضليل الإعلامي والذي دفعت البشرية ثمنه أرواحاً بريئة وفي أكثر من مكان، وإلقاء عبء المسؤولية على الآخرين، والدفع باتجاه حروب كي تغطّي نقاط الضعف هذه، وتشغل أذهان العالم بمعارك مصطنعة هدفها الهروب من الواقع وعدم مواجهته؟ إذا كانت المراجعة ضرورية في هذه المرحلة، فيجب أولاً مراجعة قرارات الحرب غير المشروعة، والتي دمّرت بلداناً بكاملها من أفغانستان إلى العراق وليبيا واليمن.
وإذا كان هناك من عدالة على الأرض، فيجب أن نرى هذه الشعوب البريئة والتي لم تقترفْ ذنباً تنال حقّها، كما يجب أن نرى وقف أسلوب العقوبات وتهديد سيادة الدول وسلامتها، سواء من خلال أدوات إرهابية مصطنعة، كما كانت الحال في سوريا وليبيا واليمن، أم من خلال التهديد المباشر لفنزويلا دولة وحكومة وشعباً اليوم، وللجمهورية الإسلامية الإيرانية أيضاً. وعلى الولايات المتحدة دفع تعويضات لضحايا حروبها الإرهابية والاقتصادية على سوريا والعراق وليبيا واليمن وكوبا وإيران وفنزويلا.
إذا كانت هناك دروس مستفادة يجب أن نستخلصها من أزمة كورونا الكاشفة، فهي أولاً وقبل كلّ شيء دروس يجب أن تعيد الاعتبار إلى كرامة الإنسان وإلى المنظومات القيمية والأخلاقية التي تعزّز سيادة الدول وكرامتها، وأن تُنتزع القدسيّة عن الإعلام الغربيّ الذي ينشر الأوهام عن النظم الليبرالية الغربية، والذي برهن خلال هذه المحنة أنه لا يتقن إلّا فنّ صناعة الثروات، وأنّ البشر والذين هم خلائف الله على الأرض يقعون في أدنى سلّم اهتماماته. في الوقت الذي أشرقت فيه شمس الصين على العالم من خلال هذه المحنة، وأظهرت التزاماً أخلاقياً ومجتمعيّاً، وتقدّماً مهنياً وتكنولوجياً، ومواكبة عراقة الحضارة لتسخير آخر مبتكرات الإنسان لإنقاذ حياة البشر وتأمين صحتهم وسلامتهم، لن يتمكّن أحد من إطفاء هذا الضوء الساطع. ومن العبث الانشغال بترّهات محاسبة أو محاولة تهميش ما أثبت الواقع أنّه حقيقة أكيدة ومقنعة، وفي هذا الإطار تبدو الحاجة ماسّة إلى تعاون دولي غير مسبوق يناقش كلّ هذه المعطيات والمستجدات، ويرسم خارطة طريق لتعاون دولي مستقبلي يستند إلى الرّكائز الواقعية التي أفرزها زمن كورونا بعيداً عن الإعلام الغربيّ المضلّل، وادّعاءات الديمقراطيات الليبرالية الغربيّة، التي استنزفت أسباب وجودها، وأصبحت الحاجة ملحّة اليوم إلى اجتراح نظام عالمي جديد تسوده الحكمة و الإنسانية، وليس المال والثروات المادّية.
Despite its charter proclaiming mutual defense and security, the NATO military alliance is showing a rather unbecoming dog-eat-dog individualistic reaction in coping with the coronavirus pandemic.
The United States, the top dog in the 30-member pack of nations, is accused of “modern piracy” after it nabbed consignments of face masks which were bound for allies Canada, France and Germany to help those nations fight against soaring epidemics of the disease.
To think too that only last year, NATO celebrated the 70th anniversary of its founding in 1949 with lots of fanfare and vain self-congratulations of how noble the alliance is. Skeptics, though, see the bloc as a Cold War relic whose security claims are but empty Orwellian excuses for warmongering and propping up obscenely wasteful corporate militarism.
The latest incident involved the alleged commandeering of 200,000 anti-infection surgical masks by the US which had been originally ordered by German authorities for police officers in Berlin. The shipment was intercepted in Thailand and directed to the US instead.
It appears that the US firm, 3M, which sources the facial masks in China, was mandated by the Trump administration to increase its exports to the US due to the emergency circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, thereby over-riding the transaction with Germany.
However, Berlin state minister Andreas Geisel condemned the US intervention as “modern day piracy”.
There have been similar reports of medical equipment bound for Canada and France also being intercepted by US authorities. Last week, a planeload of masks about to take off from Shanghai for France was bought up by American officials who turned up at the airport at the last minute wielding wads of cash.
Washington has denied the American actions are underhand. Well, maybe not underhand, but the Wild West-style capitalism of outbidding others with bigger bucks over life-saving medical material certainly seems unethical. And what about all that jive about mutual defense and security? Where’s the fraternal coordination in a crisis?
It’s not just the US which is seen as saving its own skin in a panic. Germany and France have also imposed export bans on their companies sending medical supplies to other European countries. That has led to grievances voiced by Serbian leader Alexander Vucic and others complaining that there is no European solidarity.
Even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was obliged to rebuke EU states for not displaying sufficient solidarity and for closing off borders and supplies to others in need from the pandemic.
In Italy and Spain, where deaths have soared above 10,000 in recent weeks, there has been popular outrage over the lack of collective response from European and NATO allies.
Given the rapidly growing threat to public health from the Covid-19 pandemic it is understandable that nations are taking desperate measures. From an initial indifference towards the disease in the US, the authorities there are now increasingly fearful that the infections and death toll may spiral out of control.
Last week, the global infection number surpassed one million with more than a quarter of those being in the US. The American death toll may peak at multiples of what we have seen in China or Europe. This is especially because of the deprived social conditions of American workers and due to under-resourced for-profit public health services.
Coming in an election year, President Trump is seeing his reelection hopes potentially going up in smoke along with the economy hit by coronavirus. That no doubt compels his administration to pull out all the stops to contain the pandemic, which would explain the snatching of vital medical equipment from allies.
No doubt too that was why Trump gratefully accepted medical aid sent from Russia last week. The US has also received supplies from China. Which puts into perspective how tawdry are American sanctions on Moscow and Trump’s trade-war wrangling with Beijing is.
Russia and China have both despatched medical aid to Italy to help it cope with the crisis. The Italian government and public have acknowleged the show of solidarity with gratitude.
Ironically, and cheaply, some US media outlets and European parliamentarians have accused Russia and China of exploiting the pandemic for alleged propaganda purposes. It is claimed that Russian and Chinese media are spreading disinformation over Covid-19 with the objective of undermining NATO and the European Union. That’s just another iteration of the usual anti-Russia mentality which is fixated on the notion of a supposed Kremlin plot to “destroy Western democracies”.
NATO and the EU are doing a pretty fine job of undermining themselves, never mind purported input from Russia or China.
The only time NATO seems to show “solidarity” is when its member-nations attack and destroy weaker foreign countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Somalia – at the behest of top-dog USA. When the chips are down, however, and survival instincts kick in, then it’s dog-eat-dog with a snarling “Screw You!”
The saga of stealing masks from one another is surely truth-by-parody.
“And the unbelievers plotted and planned, and God too planned, and the best of planners is God” Quran, Sura Al-Imran (The Family of Imran) – 3:54
It has been pretty obvious for many years already that the AngloZionist Empire was not viable, that it had to tank sooner or later. There were two main scenarios which were typically considered for this collapse: an external crisis (typically a major military defeat) or an internal one (economic collapse). Personally, I always favored the first scenario (specifically, as described here). I even had a “favorite” location for such a catastrophic military defeat (for the US): Iran and the Middle-East. Irrespective of the scenario one preferred, this was obvious:
The Empire was not viable
The Empire was not reformable
The same is true of the US political system, by the way.
There was one huge problem, however. The quality and sheer size of the AngloZionist propaganda machine was very successful in keeping most of the people in the West in total ignorance of these realities. The faster the Empire was collapsing, the more Obama or Trump peppered their patriotic flag-waving ceremonies (aka “press conferences”) with references to an “indispensable nation” providing “vital leadership” thanks to its “the best economy in history”, the “best military in history” and even “unbelievable CEOs”, “incredible politicians” and even “incredible conversations”. The message was simple: we are the best, better than all the rest and we are invincible.
Then COVID19 happened.
The initial reaction in the US to the pandemic was to either dismiss this completely, or blame it on the Chinese. Another exceptionally dumb theory was that the virus only affected Asians. This one tanked pretty quickly. Other myths, and even outright lies, proved much more resilient, at least for a while.
Then “Italy” happened. Soon followed by Spain and France.
Some folks started to change their tune. Other still thought that the EU was not as “incredible” as the US.
Then “New York” happened and all hell broke loose for the “indispensable nation” and the “imperial parasite” this nation was hosting. Even the Idiot-in-Chief switched from “it will be over by Easter” to talk about saving “millions” of (US) “Americans” (the US does not care about non-Americans).
I predict that this process will now only accelerate.
Here are a few reasons for this conclusion:
First, the imperial propaganda machine is simply unable to conceal the magnitude of the disaster, even in countries like the US or the UK. Oh sure, initially doctors and even USN ship commanders were summarily fired for speaking the truth, but even those cases proved impossible to conceal and public opinion got even more suspicious of official assurances and statements. The truth is that most of the entire planet already realized that this is a huge crisis and that countries like Russia or China responded almost infinitely better than the US. The planet also knows that the US “health notcare” system is broke, corrupt, and mostly dysfunctional and that Trump’s initial optimism was based on nothing. BTW – Trump haters have immediately instrumentalized the crisis to bash Trump. The sad thing is that while they are no better (and most definitely not the braindead Uncle Joe), they are right about Trump being completely out of touch with reality. In the age of the Internet this is a reality which even the US propaganda machine is unable to conceal from the US public forever.
Second, and that is now quite obvious, it is becoming clear that the capitalist ideology of free markets, globalism, consumerism, extreme individualism and, above all, greed, is totally unable to cope with the crisis. Even more offensively to those who still believed in an ideology based on the assumption that the sum of our greeds will create an optimal society, countries with stronger collectivist traditions of solidarity (whether “enhanced” by Marxist or Socialist ideas or not) did much better. China for starters, but also Cuba and even Russia (which is neither Marxist nor Socialist, but which has very strong collectivist traditions) or South Korea or Singapore (both non-Marxists with strong collectivist traditions). Even tiny Venezuela, embattled and under siege by the Empire, managed to do much better than the US or the UK. Not only did these countries all fare much better than much richer, and putatively much “freer”, countries, they did so while under US sanctions. And, finally, just to add insult to injury, these supposedly “bad” countries proved much more generous than those incorporated into the Empire: they sent many tons of vitally needed equipment and hundred of specialized scientists and even military personnel to help those countries most in need (Italy, Spain, Serbia, etc.).
Eventually, even the US has to accept aid from Russia: the contents of two huge military AN-124 transporters:
The Russian military delivers aid to the “indispensable nation”
Think of the irony! The country whose economy was supposed to be “in tatters” (Obama) delivers humanitarian aid to the “indispensable nation” (Obama again). Not only was this aid delivered from a country under US sanctions, the gear delivered was produced by a Russian company also under US sanctions. The “grateful” US media immediately declared that this was a Russian PR action, especially since 50% of the cargo was paid for by the US (the rest, including transportation costs, were paid by Russia).
At least in Italy questions began arising why the US, NATO or the EU did absolutely *nothing* to help them when they were in such dire need of help, and why countries which did generously help (Russia, China, Cuba) were all under sanctions, including Italian ones! Good questions indeed. It was answered by Serbian President Vucic who declared that European solidarity was a “fairy tale“. He is quite correct, of course.
Third, then we all saw the ugly sight of various western “democracies” literally stealing vital medical gear from each other, over and over again. In fact, under a purely capitalistic logic, this kind of “competition” was both inevitable (true) and even desirable (false): major Med & Pharma companies all have used this financial windfall to maximize their profits (which is, after all, what all corporations have to do in a capitalist system: get as much money as possible for their shareholders). Even states and countries are competing against each other for medical equipment now! As long as all was well and the West was free to plunder the rest of the planet, Capitalism could be seen as a promise of a better future (just like Communism was, by the way). But now that this big “propagandistic house of cards” is tumbling down and capitalism shows its true face (an ideology created by the rich to screw the poor), the comparison with (supposedly “backward”) collectivistic societies is most embarrassing yet inevitable.
Fourth, we also witness the raw nastiness of the imperial propaganda machine in articles about how “Russia sent useless gear to Italy”, that “Chinese equipment did not work” or about how all the countries which responded better and sooner were all lying about the real numbers (which is utter nonsense, the Chinese have been very open, as have the Russians: the truth is that in the early phases of a pandemic it is impossible to get real numbers, that can only be done much later). This is as false as the “Iraqi incubators”, “genocidal Serbs” or “Gaddafi’s Viagra” and time will prove it.
Fifth, then there is the issue of poverty. We see the first signs that this pandemic (like all pandemics) is affecting the poor much harder than the rich. Hardly a surprise… For example, in the US cities like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Miami or New Orleans have a lot of poor neighborhoods and that people there are getting hit very hard. But this is only the beginning, there are much bigger slums in other countries, including in Latin America and, even probably worse, Africa. Barring a miracle of some kind, the death-toll in the third world slums will be absolutely horrendous. And, you can be pretty sure that collectivistic poor countries will do much better than those in the grip of the delusions of the free market economy. Again, there will be major political consequences in all those countries: I predict that we will see some cases of regime change in the not too distant future.
Sixth, just like the Empire itself, NATO and the EU are also in free fall, both clueless as to what to do and in a panic about doing anything proactive. Besides the flag-waving Idiot-in-Chief, I also took the time to listen to both Macron and Merkel. They are both in a full-freak-out mode, Macron speaks over and over about a “war” while Merkel declared that the pandemic is the most serious challenge facing Germany since WWII! Still, the most amazing contrast to the US might well be Russia. Putin has made several special appeals to the Russian people, and his mood was both clearly determined and clearly somber. I took this screenshot of Putin’s latest message to the Russian people, and see his expression for yourself:
As for the main MD in charge of the COVID19 crisis in Moscow, he told Putin that Russia needs to prepare for what he called “the Italian scenario in order to avoid it”, even though at the time (March 30th) there were only 1,836 confirmed COVID19 cases in Russia, including 9 death and 66 recoveries. Let’s compare the three countries:
Furthermore, the Russian special medical teams of the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces are now on full alert and even though there is no shortage of specialized ABC/NBC medical gear in Russia, the Russian Armed Forces are now building 16 special hospitals in various locations in Russia. Russia is also almost completely shutting down internal air and rail traffic. A lot of that was predictable, since Moscow is much richer than any other Russian region, Moscow is doing fine, in spite of being a huge population (about 12 million in the city, plus another 7 or so in the Moscow Oblast’). Here are the official Russian numbers for the Moscow area: (also as of March 30th!!)
Does it not strike you as very strange that a country like Russia, which clearly is faring much better than the US (even in per capita indicators) is preparing for the worst? What do the Russians know that the US leaders are not telling you?
Of course, the anti-Russian propaganda machine has an explanation. For example, it claims that the Russians are lying about everything. There is even a psyop going on with western agents of influence impersonating Russian MDs claiming that there are thousands of hidden deaths, that Russia has no equipment and that the Russians are clueless. One previously sober-minded analyst now even claims that “Putin is losing control“.
To be totally honest, I have never in my life seen such a tsunami of nonsense, false information, unfounded rumors, and, last but certainly not least, shameless clickbaiting. For some, this crisis is clearly a chance to regain some visibility. It is shameful, really, a total disgrace: just a new form of profiteering from a crisis.
I am not medical expert for sure. But I know the Russian government and its “body language” if you wish, and I can tell you that the Russians are preparing very, very seriously, for what might well become a huge crisis even for Russia(having the Ukraine and Belarus both sitting in deep denial will obviously not help!).
Seven, in the US, the contrast between the Federal government and the state authorities is quite startling. As much as the Federal government is terminally dysfunctional, state governors have often had to use a lot of out of the box thinking to get supplies and specialists. For example, the governor of FL, Ron DeSantis (R) had to call a friend of his in Israel to get the giant Israeli pharma company Teva Pharmaceuticals to send in desperately needed medical gear to Florida. Similar things are happening in other states I believe. This is one of the reasons why Americans are typically very suspicious of the Federal government but much more supportive of their local authorities (again, as a general rule, there are, of course, exceptions to this). There are many reasons for the contrast between the Federal and State authorities, including the fact that governors are much “closer” to their constituents on a local level than on the national one.
While not as dramatic as the contrast between societies based on pure greed and societies based on solidarity, this contrast between the local and national level will also contribute to the collapse of the imperial system, albeit more indirectly.
Conclusion: NWO, globalism and US “leadership”- RIP
The first (non-human) victim of this pandemic will be the so-called “New World Order” promised by several US presidents. The same goes for its underlying globalist ideology. If the putative “Illuminati world government” imagined by some really did trigger this pandemic, then it shot itself right in the foot and is now quickly bleeding out.
The US is now showing to the world that the so-called “US leadership” is nothing but a crude lie to conceal what I would describe as a the rule of one, single, narcissistic world hegemon who will screw over even its closest “allies” (really colonies) to get any advantage.
Right now most of what we see are only warning signs, say like the EU members closing their borders. But irrespective of how this pandemic progresses, what will happen next is a huge economic crisis which will dwarf both the Great Depression, the crash after 9/11 and 2008.
Of course, the world will, sooner or later, recover from this pandemic and economic collapse. But the kind of world which we will then see will be dramatically different from the one we have lived in until now.
For the time being, there are still observable manifestations of the “US leadership”: the US tries hard to rob medicine and medical gear from other countries, the US imposes sanctions on countries like Iran and Venezuela who desperately need meds, and the US re-plays the Noriega scenario with Maduro. This foreign policy of “US leadership” can be summed up in terms like evil, immoral, hypocritical, dysfunctional, narcissistic. etc. Whatever label one chooses to apply to it, it is always a morally repugnant and practically self-defeating policy.
Right now, after blaming China, Trump is now pointing fingers at the WHO. Truly, a noble soul and a brilliant, 5D, chess player…
There is no more hiding it. The SARS-COV-2 achieved that which even RT or PressTV could not: it put a bright spotlight on the true nature of the AngloZionist Empire.
As the Quran says, God is the better planner.
UPDATE: I was wrong, I admit it. The US government does not only think about itself. It CAN be very generous, but only in one special case. In fact, it appears that the US has send ONE MILLION masks to… … Israel, of course!
This makes sense, after all – Israel is far, far more important to Trump and his gang than the first responders, doctors or suffering people of the USA.
Table: B.2.5
April 10, 2020
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 