Class Struggle 132, Autumn (March-May) 2020

   CS 132 Autumn 2020 by Dave Bedggood on Scribd

Climate Crisis: From Capital to Commune

While most capitalists still deny that climate change is anything to do with them, increasingly the world is now facing up to the truth of climate change. Yet most don’t understand the cause and therefore cannot grasp the solution. The default position of Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and climate science in general is that the problem is Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). And the solution is to make that abstract ‘man’ human again. We argue that ‘man’ is not to blame; it is capitalism. So we should at least be talking of the Capitalocene. Yet what is understood by capitalism today makes all the difference as to what we do about it. We argue that capitalism cannot be reformed. It has to be overthrown and replaced with the Commune.

Read More on Living Marxism 
https://livingmarxism.blog/2019/10/30/climate-crisis-from-capital-to-commune/

FROM THE CORONAVIRUS TO THE COMMUNE: HOW TO RESCUE HUMANITY FROM DESTRUCTION

The response to the coronavirus pandemic cannot be read in isolation of capitalism in terminal decline. In a sentence it is another example of nature biting back against its destruction at the hands of capitalism over centuries which is exploding today. So, a coronavirus that has jumped species from bats via other animals to humans is but one of the many breakdowns of capitalism in terminal crisis which needs to be traced back to its fundamental cause in order to eliminate it with a socialist revolution.

We can work back from the pandemic through immediate causes to intermediary causes all the way to the fundamental causes of terminal crisis so as to then discover the knowledge necessary to build a new society.

To illustrate this, the virus itself has probably been around in bats for a long time. Not as long as the viruses that lurk beneath the tundra that are about to be spread through methane bombs. But bats and humans had distinct ecologies, and co-existed with their viruses, until the late 19th century when global capitalism began to invade and eliminate human and other species boundaries. This has been turbocharged by the effects of extreme climate change forcing species migration from existing habitats.

All this this apparent chaos is not the function of globalization, overpopulation or neo-liberalism as such. They are symptomatic of deeper causes. Globalization is global capitalism, the effect of the rise of global imperialist exploitation of colonies and semi-colonies to plunder and extract human and physical resources to the point of ecological collapse.

Nor is overpopulation more than a symptom. It ignores the way in which people are distributed by imperialism – into overdeveloped rich nations and underdeveloped poor nations and regions. The demographic of the rich nations is of a declining white race. That of the poor nations is an impoverished, overcrowded and black and brown reserve army of cheap labour.

Nor is the so-called free market of ‘neo-liberalism’ more than a symptom of capitalism in its end days privatizing public assets and destroying the historic gains of the labour movement to restore profits. A futile effort when the conditions for profitability are being terminated by the capitalocene in extremis.

Capitalism in decline has exposed in all its hubris, many chaotic forces over which it has no control and which destroy the conditions for its own existence – in sum a functioning ecosphere. Taking off for planet B is a rich man’s Silicon Valley sci-fi fantasy.

Obviously, these same chaotic forces are manifest as pandemics, drought, famine, floods, nuclear meltdowns, ecological collapse, wars etc., and threaten the extinction of all life on the planet. Yet despite such forces being beyond capitalism’s control, they do not absolutely determine the fate of humans who have the capacity to free themselves from the chaos of dying capitalism.

What separates humans from other species is the capacity for reflective thought and planned action. This can be seen when politicians, representing capital-in-general, act to defend capitalism’s conditions of existence, i.e. a population of healthy workers and consumers necessary for profits.

Thus, China, Taiwan and Singapore used proactive authoritarian methods to lock down and screen population movements to mitigate if not stop the spread of the latest coronavirus. Other nations caught up with more ‘democratic’ pretensions, have waited on advice from the WHO and failed to proactively mitigate or contain the spread. Iran and India are theocratic dictatorships who put social control before public health.

What this illustrates is that capitalist state-led responses can go some way to mitigate pandemics that threaten capitalism’s existence. But at the same time, they cannot become truly collective, certainly not democratic, driven by an informed public based on the best science, unless they break with the interests of the capitalist ruling class which refuses to fund public science and a health system that can cope with let alone prevent pandemics.

This is evident in the failure of capitalist governments to respond adequately to climate science on the capitalocene. These responses will be too little, too late, uncoordinated, meet resistance from below, and be overwhelmed by the manifold accumulating effects of a collapsing capitalism world economy.

Therefore, the only hope of humans surviving this tidal wave of destruction is to eliminate the root cause, the deadly inertia of a dying capitalism with its hidebound institutions locked into the short-term profiteering of the tiny ruling class.

We can turn globalisation from imperialist destruction, into global unity of working and oppressed peoples. We can turn overpopulation from slums, disease and famine, into communes everywhere capable of building sustainable habitation. We can turn the chaotic capitalist market into its opposite, the economic and social plans of the communes, representing the democratic will of the people globally to build a new society in harmony with nature.

This is the logic of humanity rescuing itself from disaster. It needs to happen, and it is already happening now, in the migration of peoples from poor to rich countries;  the spontaneous uprisings against military dictatorships; the millions on the streets fighting for basic rights; the women and youth mobilizing against dying capitalism; but what is lacking it a clear vision of the new society and how to get there.

There is only one vision of a society beyond capitalism that has shown the way forward, and is capable of learning from the lessons of history. That is revolutionary socialism in the form of a revolutionary international party and program  representing and applied by workers of all nations. The party applies the program and tests it in the struggle to open the road to the socialist revolution from the most immediate demands to the overthrow of the capitalist system.

That is the urgent discussion we need now, today, because it will sort out those who are prepared to fight together for survival from those who represent the dying past, and release our amazing human potential to imagine and create a liberating future.

Reblogged from :

https://situationsvacant.blog/2020/03/09/from-the-coronavirus-to-the-commune-how-to-rescue-humanity-from-destruction/

Idlib: Victory to the Syrian Revolution!

 

The Syrian revolution at the cross roads

Will the Syrian people succumb to the Assad/Putin counterrevolution to recover Idlib, or will they be victorious over Assad/Putin and create a new base for the revolution to take root and revive itself as part of the suppressed permanent revolution of the region? It is necessary to assess the balance of the forces of revolution and counter-revolution as they fight to the death. Into this mix we factor in the potential game-changer of Turkey objectively taking the side of the revolution.

On the side of the revolution we have the majority of the Syrian people who have stood against and been martyred by every assault from March 2011 to today. This includes the ‘civilians’ who remain resolute and the ‘moderate’ and ‘Islamic’ militias who despite being politically at odds, are in a military bloc against the regime. Internationally support is weak (never sufficient to properly arm and augment the militias), sporadic (US, Turkey and Arab states arming militias but at odds with the revolution) and ineffective (EU and Arab states attempts at diplomacy) and must be unless it actively takes the revolutionary side in the war against the regime. The question of whether Turkey’s military intervention measures up to that standard is currently being tested on the ground and in the air in Idlib.

On the side of the counter-revolution the Assad regime is backed by Russia. Without it, the regime would have been defeated in 2015 when the rebels held most of the country and several large cities including Aleppo and Idlib. The Arab states that suppressed the Arab Spring in their countries sided with the Assad regime but were incapable of defeating the Syrian revolution. Iran is a special case, as it was instrumental in engaging Russia to intervene in Syria. Therefore, in the absence of any major imperialist power siding with the revolution, Russia’s intervention swung the balance of forces decisively in favour of the counter-revolution.

Russia and Turkey strategic partners?

Until recently, Russia and Turkey have developed as strategic partners, with Russia supplying Turkey with missiles and long-term energy. Russia collaborated with Turkey’s campaign to create a buffer zone along its border with Syria to prevent the Kurd ‘terrorists’ from creating an autonomous Kurdish republic and strengthen the PKK’s fight for self-determination inside Turkey. Imperialist Russia and semi-colonial Turkey made a deal that served the interests of both, but at the expense of the Syrian Revolution. The Astana agreement expresses that compromise deal. Russia is mainly interested in destroying the revolution in the name of the ‘war on terror’. Turkey supports the revolution only insofar as it can be used against the Kurds to create a buffer zone. Iran was interested in further spreading its influence from Iraq to Palestine. But there was a contradiction at the heart of that deal.

Russia wants Turkey to use the moderate rebels in Idlib under its influence to destroy the Islamic “terrorists” while Turkey wants to use those same rebels to set aside their differences and help create a buffer zone against Kurd autonomy. Such a contradiction was suppressed while the Astana deal held with neither side pressing its main interest. This stalemate was broken when Russia decided to join with Assad to invade Idlib against the ‘terrorists’ and take it by force. Both sides accused the other of breaking the Astana deal while professing to want a further negotiated outcome.

Russia and Turkey explode the contradiction

But the die was cast. Putin and Assad were against the ‘terrorists’ surviving anywhere. Astana was never observed on the ground and the gains made by the regime backed by Russian and Iranian forces tore it up. Assad’s revenge as elsewhere in Syria, was the total destruction of towns and cities and the targeting of civilians, men women and children, schools and hospitals. This was to be the total destruction of the revolution. Turkey’s response was to defend its buffer zone, by invoking a humanitarian crisis of the million refugees camped on its borders, and defending its authority under Astana to maintain observation posts inside Idlib. This situation then quickly escalated within weeks from a few soldiers on the ground to masses of tanks and infantry, and then F-16s in the air.

Is Turkey’s military intervention on the side of the Syrian revolution? Certainly, the Syrian masses in Idlib and elsewhere declare it to be so. They are ecstatic in support of Turkey defending their lives and towns, schools and hospitals from destruction by the regime and Russian forces. Moreover, Erdogan has opened Turkey’s border to the West to allow Syrian refugees to gain access to the EU if they can. In this he is responding to the EU breaking its agreement to support Turkey for stopping the near 4 million Syrian refugees leaving for the EU. Objectively then, despite Erdogan’s overwhelming national interests, his intervention in Idlib is on the side of the revolution against counter-revolution.

Defeat Russia in a war with Turkey 

Revolutionaries who claim the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky must agree. We support the Syrian Revolution against the counter-revolution. The revolutionary people who refuse to live under Assad can make use of any support offered their cause, whether or not their long-term objectives with their allies are the same. The revolution must live to fight another day, just as the militias who surrendered to Assad in return for safe passage to (ultimately) Idlib.

Yet, in defending Turkey’s military intervention on the side of the revolution we do not agree with its bourgeois national pro-imperialism, its political regime, nor its oppression of the Kurds. And if the war escalates into a wider war between two main protagonists, Russia and Turkey, we take the side of the oppressed semi-colonial nation against the imperialist oppressor nation.

For a Socialist Union of the Middle East! 

We unconditionally take the side of the workers and poor farmers who are the life blood of the revolution. We call for a ceasefire and a workers’ and farmers’ government in Idlib supported by all the Arab masses, and defended by workers internationally.

But for this to succeed the workers of the Middle East, in particular of Turkey and Iran must overthrow their authoritarian regimes and take the leadership in the anti-imperialist fight, breaking with their imperialist masters and overthrowing their pro-imperialist bourgeois ruling classes.

We demand that the workers of Europe, and the other imperialist powers, fight to open their borders to migrants and refugees fleeing the exploitation and oppression of centuries, and build antifascist militias and workers councils capable of overthrowing their ruling classes, liberating the oppressed semi-colonies as part of the global socialist revolution, under the leadership of a new revolutionary communist international.

3 March 2020

Statement by the International Leninist Trotskyist Tendency (formerly the LCC)