ADVANCE THE LIBYAN REVOLUTION: PROGRAM FOR PERMANENT REVOLUTION

End of Gaddafi Regime

The Libyan revolution is the re-opening of a national, democratic, anti-imperialist revolution, notwithstanding NATO military intervention. This is proved by the defeat of the 42-year-long pro-imperialist Gaddafi semi-fascist dictatorship at the hands of the popular militias. While NATO softened up Gaddafi's forces and co-opted the TNC to impose a 'democratic transition', it has yet to show it can contain the popular armed militias and hold on to Libya as an imperialist oil colony. NATO will brag about its success in Libya in defeating Gaddafi but we give the ranks of the revolutionaries the major credit for this victory, and unlike most of the Western liberal ‘left’ recognise their historic revolutionary agency.

The revolutionary communists never equated the base of the rebellion with the pro-imperialist TNC nor said that the intervention of NATO would be the deciding factor in this war. We always saw the rebellion as the reopening of the national revolution that to succeed would have to become permanent revolution. But against this revolutionary perspective much of the Western 'left' operates with a schematic view of the national question which separates it from the class question. This schema has its material base in the social imperialism of the labour aristocracy. The reformists have illusions in 'democratic' imperialism while the 'third worldists' have illusions in progressive national leaders. Both are the 'left' version of the imperialist (Eurocentric, Orientalist) 'civilising mission'.

Western liberal reformists are tied by their class interests to 'democratic' imperialism. The idea that imperialism could, especially in its UN guise, be 'humanitarian' and intervene to prevent a massacre in Benghazi is to argue that in some situations imperialism can be 'progressive' in offering a helping hand to sponsor 'democracy'. But since imperialism came on the scene in the 19th century it has been the enemy of bourgeois democracy. It has fought thousands of wars to stop the bourgeois national-democratic revolutions from coming to fruition. It is doing so today notably in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The intervention of NATO at the invitation of the TNC was no different. It took sides with one faction of the Libyan national bourgeoisie against Gaddafi, for the purpose of containing and limiting the national-democratic revolution and to impose a new neo-colonial regime. The fact that it doesn’t in Bahrain, Saudia Arabia or Syria simply means that imperialism is not yet ready for regime change in those countries.

More dangerous than the openly pro-imperialist liberal reformists is the deceptive reverse side of social imperialism - 'third worldism' - the view that a section of the national bourgeoisie can lead a popular front or an anti-imperialist united front to a victorious revolution. This explains why the most fake Trotskyists lined up with black nationalists and the '21st century socialists', Castro and Chavez, to back Gaddafi against imperialism and the insurrection. It also explains why the left reformist SWP thinks that NATO in backing the TNC faction of the national bourgeoisie has usurped the revolutionary agency of the 'rebels' and that the counter-revolution has won. For these Mensheviks if there is no progressive bourgeois faction in place, then there is no leadership of the national revolution. Social imperialism in both guises denies revolutionary agency to the semi-colonial masses and misplaces it in the petty bourgeois intelligentsia of the imperialist countries.

History will consign these social imperialists to the dustbin. The Libyan revolutionaries who had taken a strong anti-imperialist position in the early days of the rebellion had little choice but to enter into a military bloc with NATO against the semi-fascist Gaddafi. At this point the semi-fascist Gaddafi regime has been defeated by the insurrection. It remains to be seen the extent to which the revolutionaries have illusions in 'democratic' imperialism or how far their opposition to imperialism takes on the form of Islamic radicalism. To defeat the TNC and its imperialist backers the revolutionary forces must continue the armed struggle at this point directly against imperialism, and all the pro-imperialist factions of the national bourgeoisie squabbling for the imperialist franchise, to finally win national independence and set the example for the other Arab states in their ongoing national, anti-imperialist revolutions. The only road to liberation is forward from the Arab national revolution to permanent revolution and the Socialist United States of North Africa and the Middle East!

From national democratic revolution to permanent revolution

The Libyan revolution is the reopening of a national democratic revolution during a global capitalist crisis in which there are no national solutions to the national question. It is a national revolution against Gaddafi who has run for 42 years a national bourgeois crony capitalist regime negotiating terms for sale of oil with imperialism and pocketing the profits for his family, tribe and cronies. Gaddafi froze the national revolution by acting as imperialism's bourgeois agent in Libya. He masked the brutal nature of his regime behind the fiction of 'socialism'. His response to the protests in Benghazi in February exploded the myth that the regime was popular, progressive or anti-imperialist. A Bonapartist caught between the Arab Revolution and imperialism, he opted for imperialism in the hope that he could negotiate a new deal around the 'war on terror' against al Qaeda. It was his decision to annihilate the opposition that caused the armed insurrection that within 6 months was able to defeat Gaddafi's forces on the ground.

Those who wanted to subordinate this armed rebellion against Gaddafi to a military bloc with him against NATO ignored the reality that NATO was taken by surprise by the Arab Spring and forced to act to suppress an armed revolution from spreading to the whole of North Africa and Middle East. By helping to take out Gaddafi as their ‘rogue dictator' they hoped to wipe their hands of him, regain control of the revolution, and impose a more suitable pro-imperialist regime with 'democratic' credentials. However, this plan by imperialism to divert the reopened national revolution to a 'democratic' transition is far from certain. It will have to subordinate the armed democrat insurgents to keep Libya as an oil colony of the EU and in doing so prove that the way forward is a complete break with imperialism and its bourgeois agents in Libya.

It’s obvious that the outcome in Libya is far from settled. The TNC (or its successor) is balanced between imperialism(s) and the hostility of the popular uprising to imperialism(s) on the ground. It will have to negotiate between the different imperialisms, notably the US which needs more bases in its contest with China for Africa, China's multi-billion investments in Libyan oil, and the desperation of declining France, Italy and Britain to sign and enforce preferential agreements, on the one hand, and an armed populace that is now carrying the hopes of advancing the Arab revolution, which has the power to demand a radical redistribution of the oil profits, on the other. In other words the TNC (or its bourgeois successor) will be a Bonapartist regime trying to do the impossible in a global capitalist crisis with rising inter-imperialist rivalry over oil etc namely, reconciling the two sides of the basic contradiction, revolution and counter-revolution, that is now becoming activated regionally, continentally and globally.

The global imperialist crisis

The global crisis facing imperialism is in direct contradiction to bourgeois democracy. The crisis of falling profits means that the price of oil becomes critical in capitalism’s return to profitability. The imperialist demand for oil at a time of global crisis will allow no room for substantial democratic reforms, especially with the damage to oil production during the war. This is an important point, because the social imperialists think that even in the midst of the crisis the TNC can free up frozen Libyan funds so that goods can be paid for to meet the immediate needs of the Libyan masses and 'buy' legitimacy for the new regime overseeing the 'democratic transition'. The TNC blames imperialism for not releasing these funds and risking the failure of the 'democratic transition'. They have illusions in imperialism to deliver democracy in Libya and do not see that imperialism cannot deliver democracy when it is driven to restore the rate of profit. In the wider global economy this fits with the liberal bourgeois view that 'austerity' is a policy option not a precondition for capitalist survival.

Thus the TNC regime installed in place of Gaddafi has no room for manoeuvre. The NATO powers, particularly France and Italy, are scrambling among themselves for new oil contracts that freeze out a surgent China. They have already signed deals with the TNC which has in turn said it will honour all of Gaddafi’s contracts. Italy and France are declining imperialism’s and will quickly resort to military invasion to enforce their contracts. Britain is a major financial centre that is now faced with the beginnings of popular opposition to its austerity measures and will also deploy its troops to protect its interests in Africa and support the US in its rivalry with China. They will also demand that the TNC regime stops the flood of refugees to the EU.

China in Africa is pursuing an imperialist policy and is now the most influential great power in that continent. It has billions invested in Libya to develop oil production and infrastructure and has belatedly along with Russia recognised the TNC in an attempt to protect its assets. If the TNC turns its back on China we can expect it to look for support in other sections of the Libyan bourgeoisie. It won't back Gaddafi's crony capitalism directly as he is a spent force with the African Union coming out against him. But some of Gaddafi's faction could easily re-emerge to promote preferential deals with China in the same way that it has done deals with other fake left bourgeois factions in Africa like ZANU-PF to swap scarce and valuable minerals for rapid infrastructure development.

China then, is in a good position to strike a deal to swap oil in exchange for rebuilding the now war ravaged infrastructure of Libya. Thus the global capital crisis means that weak declining imperialist powers such as France and Italy will put strict terms on the TNC regime which will not allow economic independence of Libya and impose austerity and state repression on the people at the same time that China will offer much more preferential investment to develop the economy. This is likely to create rivalry between factions of the Libyan bourgeoisie jockeying to serve competing imperialisms. No doubt France and Italy have their champions in the TNC, but who will champion China and Russia and win the admiration of Castro and Chavez?

The insurgent masses

The other side of the contradiction is the Arab Revolution, not limited to the popular militia in Libya. The armed people’s militia has shown that it is has only recently come under a unified command, with Misrata and the Western mountain insurgents remaining largely outside the Benghazi command. Much has been made in the capitalist media of the dependence of the popular militia on NATO, and the gutter press has engaged in jingoistic tales of ‘special ops’ leading the fight. This is rubbish. Imperialism intervened in Libya to prevent the insurrection from turning into a rebellion. For this reason is did not arm the rebellion to allow it military superiority. Its objective was to take away Gaddafi's military advantage and force him and the TNC to negotiate a solution. Gaddafi did not oblige, and nor did the revolutionary fighters submit.

While NATO helped to bring about the defeat of Gaddafi as necessary to contain the revolution, it and the TNC its new agent, has not gained control of the revolutionaries. In particular the Misrata fighters and those of the Western Mountains made up of both Arabs and Berber are refusing to take orders from TNC appointees. The ongoing battle to destroy the Gaddafi forces will favour these independent forces and limit the ability of NATO and the TNC to determine the outcome in imperialism's favour. For the first time in the Arab revolution we now have an armed people’s militia that has removed a dictator and created the conditions for the national revolution to become permanent!

We must honour the revolutionary spirit of the revolutionary fighters especially its youth ranks who have born the brunt of battle and paid the price in human life of the campaign to defeat Gaddafi. One battle has been won, but two battles remain. These battles are conjoined. The first is to stop imperialism imposing a new neo-colonial regime through the TNC. The second is to fight to create a workers and peasants republic that will complete the anti-imperialist revolution as a socialist revolution. We need to continue to call on the people's militia that actually exists on the ground to refuse to disarm, to form their own organs of self-government, to form a national workers and soldiers assembly with the tasks of controlling and planning the national economy, and to carry the revolution forward to a complete break with imperialism and all of its local bourgeois agents of all colors and creeds. So we offer a program for the revolutionaries and support those among them who are prepared to fight to retain their arms and form a popular militia to defend their February victory and open the road to their October.

The Libyan revolution cannot succeed without the victory of the Arab Revolution

All the big questions are ahead of us not behind. NATO did not turn the Arab revolution into a counter-revolution. It has yet to put a lid on this revolution. The questions are:

• Can imperialism facing deepening crisis concede reforms sufficient to meet the expectations of the revolution? We say no. The global crisis of capitalism in its extremity cannot fulfil the demands of the democratic revolution, it will be forced to resort to ‘boots on the ground’ to disarm the democratic revolution.

• Will the revolutionaries agree to subordinate themselves to a new regime that does not renegotiate all the oil contracts and meet the demands for a democratic constitution? No! The first test will be to reject the constitution drafted by the unelected TNC in collusion with imperialism! If this imposed we say it will be necessary to counter-pose a revolutionary Constituent Assembly which allows for every citizen, male and female, above the age of 16 years to participate.

• How will the victory of the Libyan revolution affect the Arab revolution in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Syria? We say that it will strengthen those who are prepared for armed resistance against those who hope that pacifism will lead to a UN intervention.

• Whither the Zionist regime? Already the Zionist regime is in crisis as its borders on all sides are less secure. It is lashing out in the West Bank and Gaza because it knows no other way to survive but fears outright attacks will push the Arab revolution further. The large middle class demonstrations against price rises have tiny minorities in them that are pro-Palestine, so it remains the Arab revolution, not left Zionism that will bring down Israel.  

• Will the Arab revolution fuel uprisings in Sub Saharan Africa? The anger of the impoverished youth masses is ready to explode. Mass demonstrations in Swaziland and Malawi have been put down by brutal police force. In Zimbabwe socialists are on trial for watching videos of the Arab Spring and the regime is holding down food prices in fear of an uprising. In South Africa the popular front ANC regime is under attack from its opportunist Youth League under the pressure of the millions of black youth raging against the imperialist recolonising of Africa behind the 'humanitarian' UN resolution 1973.

• Will there arise in time a revolutionary Marxist organisation in all of these countries that is capable of leading permanent revolution? The onset of the many mass movements rising up to oppose the austerity measures of capitalism in crisis are met everywhere by autocratic regimes or popular fronts that prepare the masses for defeats. To open the road to revolution we revolutionaries must devote our utmost energy and commitment to urgently rebuilding a revolutionary international.

Why we need a revolutionary party

Revolutionary party and program are essential conditions for permanent revolution. A revolutionary program only exists because of the fusion of theory and practice in a party organisation. Such a party based on democratic centralism can test the program in struggle and keep it alive. Our program comes from the experience of the Bolsheviks and was continued by Trotsky and the 4th International up to his assassination in 1940. That program contains the lessons of revolutions, both successes and failures. We say that in the epoch of imperialism oppressor countries continue to oppress other countries such as Libya. Therefore so long as imperialism prevents the fulfilment of the national tasks of economic independence, land reform, bourgeois democracy etc then the national question is still on the agenda.

The national democratic revolution to realise its objectives must pass over to a socialist revolution. We call this process permanent revolution. It is the class question as national liberation can only mean proletarian liberation. Only the working class leading the poor peasants and all oppressed people can break with imperialism and its national bourgeois agents. What passes for Bolshevism today is insufficient to keep that program alive because it is not part of the working class and does not recognise its historic agency as we have seen in the case of the Arab revolution. Most of the remnants of self-proclaimed Leninism or Trotskyism have retreated from the proletarian dictatorship and opt for postmodern brands of bourgeois and petty bourgeois socialism. It is no wonder this new batch of Mensheviks is heavily infused with social imperialism in attributing to imperialism (NATO/UN) or its agents (Gaddafi) an historic progressive role rather than the popular masses leading the national revolution.

Therefore the urgent task in this current global capitalist crisis is to rebuild a new international Bolshevik party based on democratic centralism and the program of the Fourth International of 1938 that is able to intervene decisively in all struggles and test its program as capable of being the guide to socialist revolution today.

A program for permanent revolution in Libya

• Refuse to disarm; disband the Gaddafi army, form a popular national militia!

• For the formation of local, regional and national councils of action to implement the immediate needs of the masses for food, health and housing; for equal participation of women and youth; for a Workers and Soldiers Assembly! For a Workers' and Farmers' Government!

• UN and NATO out of the country; all imperialist trade ties revoked and all contracts cancelled; return Libya's assets; seize non-compliant imperialist assets; socialisation of all privatised assets!

• Down with the TNC/Imperialist draft Constitution! This Constitution is imposed by imperialism not the revolutionary masses! Boycott the ratification of this Constitution! For a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly!

• The crimes of Gaddafi and his cronies, and the alleged crimes of the revolutionary forces, to be judged by Libyan peoples' courts, not the imperialist International Criminal Court!

• For opening of the borders between all the Arab states from Tunisia to Syria!

• For the national, ethnic and cultural rights of historic peoples such as the Berber; for full democratic rights to all migrant and displaced peoples! For equal rights of women and youth!

• For socialisation of oil and banks as part of a national plan to develop the economy as part of the wider economy of the whole region.

• For a Socialist Federation of Workers Republics of North Africa and the Middle East!

HUMANIST WORKERS FOR REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM (USA)

COMMUNIST WORKERS GROUP (Aotearoa/NZ)

REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS GROUP (Zimbabwe)

REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST ORGANISATION FOR LIBERATION (Austria) 

Note from the RKOB: While we fully support the resolution’s line and programme for the Libyan Revolution we want to point out that we do not share some formulations in the resolution (e.g. we consider the Gaddafi-regime not as semi-fascist but as bourgeois-bonapartist; we characterise the British SWP as centrist, not left-reformist). We also believe that the sentence – “The Libyan revolutionaries (…) had little choice but to enter into a military bloc with NATO against the semi-fascist Gaddafi.” – is misleading. In fact it was a weakness of the Rebels that they did not look for an alternative strategy and did not issue a strong appeal to the mass movements in the Arab countries and the international workers movement for volunteers and material and military aid.


September 10 2011

END NATO-US INTERVENTION! DEFEAT QADDAFFI! BREAK WITH THE TNC! ARM THE WORKERS AND YOUTH TO DEFEAT IMPERIALISM IN NORTH AFRICA

Class Contradictions in the North African Revolution

Decades of crony capitalism, funded by the flow of petro-dollars to despots, sheiks, reactionary Bathists, and fake socialist regimes alike, have underdeveloped the Maghreb (North Africa) and the Near East. These regimes have held back the “democratic” aspirations of the people and closed book on the Pan-Arab nationalist revolution that appeared to threaten imperialism 30 years ago. Even while posing as anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist, regimes throughout the region have made their peace with both and have become imperialism’s willing pawns. All have done their part to suppress the masses, and in particular the Palestinian revolution, the working class, minorities (tribal and religious), and women. The role of these regimes, today threatened by their own people, has been to maintain the status quo, keeping oil flowing to imperialism’s oil cartels, and dollars and gold flowing back to a small elite concentrated around the inner circles of the dictators, their families, and their military and security organizations.

The aspirations of Pan-Arabism – national independence (from imperialism and Zionism), secular democracy, and social progress – were destined by the weakness of the national bourgeoisie to collapse. Since this occurred, social equilibrium has been enforced by a well-balanced distribution of the carrot and the stick. In Libya, oil wealth allowed a relatively larger portion of “carrots” to be allotted the masses. In Saudi Arabia, extra “carrots” were quickly distributed at the last moment when the monarchy realized that this equilibrium could not withstand the crisis of capitalism and the uprisings of 2011.

The unfulfilled expectations of the masses, the desire for “democratic” freedoms, and the consequences of high unemployment exploded this winter/spring in a revolutionary upsurge whose leading actors were the under-employed youth, students, and workers (both private and public sector), closely followed and joined by the petty bourgeoisie (small business people, shop owners, professionals and academics). Usurpers to the mantle of leadership, like ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the TNC in Libya, emerged not from the heterogeneous masses who first bared their chests to the bullets of reaction, but only after the initial uprisings, in hope that they would get the nod from imperialism and emerge at the top of the heap.

It is essential to understand that democracy and freedom have different meanings to different social classes. For the workers, basic democratic rights, such as the right to organize and control over one’s conditions of labor, are primary. For the small and large capitalists, bourgeois academics, and intellectuals, the right to exploit labor and participate in the market free from the dictates of crony capitalism, alongside the desire for political, cultural and intellectual freedom, turned them against the regimes. Although each country has its own unique dynamics, these uprisings, which spread across the region in a firestorm of historic consequence unlike anything since 1848, contain the contradictory aspirations of two opposing classes: one consigned forever to be pawns of imperialism, the other burdened with the historic task of defeating it.

These contradictions are subsumed in this re-emergence of the Arab-national revolution, but they can not be resolved by the emergence of “constitutional democracy”. The aspirations of the mass base that ignited the revolution cannot be successfully met if the revolution limits itself to the fight for “freedom and democracy,” as defined by western imperialism and embraced by the petty bourgeoisie, the academics, and wannabe imperialist lackeys like ElBaradei in Egypt and the TNC in Libya.

For imperialism to maintain its financial position, workers must not be permitted to control the conditions of their own labor or the economy, or even be apportioned their proper share of the economic benefit from the natural wealth of these nations. To achieve this end, a willing pawn is required, one who will feign left (advance “political freedom”), but strike to the right (crush the workers’ movements and administer exploitative deals with imperialism).

In Libya, despite the higher GDP and limited gains of women under the “Green Revolution,” the masses, led by unemployed youth and inspired by the events across North Africa, stood up against the repression of Qaddaffi’s brutal regime. The masses no longer believe the lie that Qaddaffi is fighting imperialism and building “Green-Socialism.” Decades of harshly enforced crony capitalism, and Qadaffi’s capitulation to imperialism in 2003, assured that once unleashed, the protests spread across Libya even to Tripoli, where the masses faced an unrelenting violent repression unlike any seen in Tunisia or Egypt. The fantasy of a peaceful “Jasmine” revolution came to an abrupt end. The masses armed to defend themselves from the cruel regime’s commitment to maintaining the status quo – i.e., its deals with imperialism and its hording of wealth at the expense of social programs and political freedom.

In the early days of the Libyan rebellion, two forms of organization emerged: on the one hand, councils of the heterogeneous mass of rebels, organizing in the streets and neighborhoods – embryonic workers’ councils like those we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt – and on the other, a bourgeois council which has now been transformed into the TNC – a rotten menagerie of defectors, monarchists, tribalists, intellectuals and capitalists. As a consequence of decades of repression, these councils are extremely disorganized, and tendencies within them have not fully consolidated. The rapid escalation of military events outpaced the ability of the working and lower classes to self-identify and differentiate from the TNC, particularly since the latter includes military deserters from the regime who appeared to promise sorely needed military leadership, arms, and forces.

The contradiction between the aspirations of the masses and the TNC are reflected most recently in the refusal of the TNC to arm militant youth who stake their lives driving out to the front. Imperialism sees the contradictory nature of the “rebel force” and is having a hard time differentiating who they can trust, hence the hesitancy in sending arms for fear that they fall into the hands of the working masses and unemployed youth.


Libya: A Test of Revolutionary Marxist Method

Recent events in North Africa have caught the Left playing catch-up. Libya in particular has most of the Left stumbling over itself. The contradictions outlined above are quite obvious in the unfolding of events in Egypt and Tunisia, where the workers, democratic militants, and women are already experiencing the reaction of the interim regimes as they try to keep Egypt and Tunisia “safe” for imperialism by preventing workers’ revolution. But in Libya, the left was caught off guard.

Imperialism is intervening in Libya to remove Qaddaffi, a dictator whose brutality has aroused an armed insurrection that threatens to overshoot the US-desired “orderly transition” to bourgeois democracy, and to become a workers revolution. Imperialism’s objective is to replace Qaddaffi with more a “democratic” bourgeois leadership, including ex-Qaddaffi cronies, that can and will keep a lid on the revolution. Both bourgeois factions are appealing to imperialism to be the chosen regime, using the young rebels and the mercenaries as bargaining chips and missile fodder. But Qaddaffi’s shelf life has long since expired, and the TNC has yet to prove its viability. This instability invites an imperialist-dictated partition of the country, a NATO-US “boots on the ground” invasion under the guise of peacekeeping, or both.

Presented with this spectacle – a semi-fascist dictator currently doing imperialism’s bidding, faced off against a second willing pawn waiting in the wings – the Left has floundered. The self-proclaimed Bolsheviks (in the Spartacist family) claim workers have no side. Other spin-offs from the Healyite legacy revive the fantasy that Qaddaffi is defending the gains of the 1969 revolution against Monachist restorationists and agents of imperialism. Both these tendencies reject the righteous indignation of the workers, the poor, and the oppressed, and attribute the uprising entirely to persistent and ever-present imperialist/CIA/MI6 instigation.

Apparently, unless these outfits are themselves in the leadership of a rebellion, they view the masses as the mere fodder of history, to be abandoned to their fate. No, comrades, Marxism does not teach an abstentionist internationalism. Marxism as a method for analysis and intervention guides revolutionaries to act in the historic interest of the working class – an impossible task for centrists, who cannot distinguish the revolutionary agents in this struggle from the stooges of imperialism. We in HWRS and the CWG stand in contrast to those on the left who are blind to the class distinction between the bourgeois leadership of the TNC and the working class youth core of the rebels. Instead, we condemn all attempts to co-opt the youth and exclude them from the military action against Qaddaffi’s forces; we advocate the rebellion’s political and military independence from the TNC leadership; and we urge internationalist workers everywhere to come to the aid of and arm the struggle of the youth and the workers. In other words, as Marxists, we stand for the independence of the working class in its armed insurrection, supporting its promise of defeating Qaddaffi; breaking from the TNC’s “alternative” regime, and then – as the revolution requires – joining with other Arab revolutions to defeat imperialism in the Maghreb.

Despite Qaddaffi’s attempts to paint himself as anti-imperialist, his actions long ago proved his interests lie with imperialism and not with the Libyan masses. His attempt to wipe out the popular revolt of the working people, the only class force that can defend what gains remain from 1969 and defeat imperialism, was initiated both on behalf of his imperialist patrons and his gang of crony capitalists. Unlike the “thirdworldist” left (Castro/Chavez), we do not bloc with Qaddaffi militarily against imperialism (though we do advocate that the working class base of Qaddaffi’s forces defect and join the anti-imperialist fighters).

We are for the defeat of imperialist intervention in every nation oppressed/invaded or bombed by imperialism. The main responsibility for this defeat is in the hands of the workers’ movements in the imperialist countries and their allies in NATO. Therefore, we are against the entire social imperialist left who find excuses for intervention, “humanitarian” or not, of an oppressor country, when they perceive it as necessary to defeat semi-fascism or dictatorship in an oppressed country.

Indeed, the social imperialists (like the German Greens who support the NATO bombing) and the “thirdworldists” are in reality two sides of the same coin. Neither puts any faith in the capacity of the semi-colonial masses, and especially the revolutionary youth, to fight for and win the national revolution as a social revolution. They have a pseudo-revolutionary version of the bourgeois civilizing mission. They believe that either the imperialist bourgeoisie, or the national bourgeoisie in the semi-colonies, can play a progressive role. In either case, their analysis ignores and dismisses the agency of the working masses as the only possible progressive subjective factor in history.

The liberal and progressive pacifists, a sorry strain of social imperialism, place their hopes on NATO/US “humanitarian” intervention. But imperialism cares not one whit for the humanitarian needs of civilians. This lesson – apparently lost on these idealists – has been proved over and again by history: Hiroshima, Vietnam, “Shock and Awe,” “Cast Lead,” Rwanda, and even today in the Congo today. But in the case of the present Libyan war, the perceived threat of massacre has given imperialism a chance to both “toot its humanitarian horn” and find a road to consolidation and victory for their pawn of choice (or last resort), the TNC. Both the pacifist interventionists and the sectarian abstentionists, with their grand pronouncements, ignore the independent role of the working class, and are thereby opening the road for the only other “realistic” solution: imperialist intervention.


The Tasks at Hand

To defeat imperialism, Libyan workers and their allies in Tunisia, Egypt, the Middle East, and Europe must give their IMMEDIATE attention to these urgent tasks facing every working class in the region:

1. Independent mass political organization is essential. A body such as an All-Libyan Conference of Workers’ Councils must be formed, with the explicit project of taking sole, unitary political power throughout the country.

2. Underground and exiled workers’ forces should be represented with delegates, so that the population in Qaddaffi-controlled territory will know that it is not the working class that is bargaining with imperialism over a division of Libya into two poverty-stricken semi-colonial, countries! OPPOSE PARTITION! FORWARD TO THE FEDERATED SOCIALIST REPUBLICS OF NORTH AFRICA AND THE NEAR EAST.

3. Workers must found and build a revolutionary Marxist party now, to delineate a programmatic response to the revolutionary crisis, to popularize the program among the masses, and to win the majority of the Workers’ Councils to support its demands and objectives.

4. No to “power sharing” and to “national” or “people’s” fronts. Each of these is a bayonet pointed at the working class! The TNC’s program is civil war in place of class war. This means a thousand kilometers of desert to cross, at a military disadvantage even with on-again/off-again imperialist air support. This is all the TNC has to offer imperialism, and all it can possibly offer in return for imperialism’s support.

5. Without independent political organization, the working class and youth can expect to be ground between two bourgeois millstones – the old goons of Qaddaffi, and the new goons of the TNC – in a war of exhaustion and elimination. Meanwhile, the young fighters’ relatives who are in Qaddaffi’s hands will pay with their lives. It is only an independent workers’ political program that will cause new revolts in Qaddaffi’s rear and advance the workers’ front line to the door of his tent!

6. Victory over imperialism, Qaddaffi ,and the TNC will require an independent military organization subordinate only to the Workers’ Councils. The TNC leadership will attempt to turn its troops on the youth and the workers tomorrow. Should the youth be so fortunate as to bring Qaddaffi’s head back to Bengazi on a plate, the TNC would soon enough fête the heroes with firing squads! Workers must assume that getting the TNC leaders to commit to class warfare is the true mission of the envoys Washington has sent, in place of arms or Libya’s impounded funds. Neither will be released to the workers and the youth! Not by Washington, and not by the French bourgeoisie, who may invade their country to save it from them! Right now, Washington has a shortage of available troops, and the E.U. NATO countries have even bigger money worries. We say to the Libyan workers: You must build your own workers’ army! Only in this way you can persuade them to give up their invasion plans and return to their secret agent plots.

7. All internationalist fighters must appeal immediately to the unions and sympathetic troops of Tunisia and Egypt to send arms of all calibers, and to form up brigades of trained worker-soldiers to come to the aid of the Libyan revolution! Libyan workers must pledge to return the solidarity when their comrades’ own national bourgeoisies try to loose the professional armies on them! Meanwhile, workers in the imperialist countries have an obligation to wage class struggle against every design the exploiters and their smiling “public servants” have upon your lives, labor and national treasure! This is more possible now than it has been at any time since 1946-47. European workers trained in conscript armies have the experience to form up armed internationalist workers brigades and join the revolution! Workers of Europe and the USA: the victory of the North African workers’ revolution depends to a large extent on our ability to arrest imperialism’s bloody death grip!

In an epoch when imperialism is facing an ever-deepening crisis, the interests of the capitalist imperialist class and its semi-colonial agents can only be realized by intensifying reaction and counter-revolution. Only a national revolution that fulfills the tasks of the permanent revolution can defeat the counter-revolution and open the way to socialism – in the Maghreb, in the Near East, and worldwide.

For the workers to live, imperialism must die! Victory to the Libyan and Arab masses!
Defeat US/NATO in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan! Reignite the Palestinian revolution!

Victory to the popular uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and Jordan!
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statement of Liaison Committee of Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism (USA) and Communist Workers' Group (Aotearoa/NZ)

Libya: Imperialist Hands Off!

 

The US and EU are planning a military intervention to protect their oil interests!

Libya is on a knife edge poised between victorious workers revolution that can defeat both the dictatorship and imperialism, and turn the Arab Revolution into socialist revolution in the whole region, and the counter-revolution that will halt, reverse and defeat the Arab Revolution and prevent the formation of a United Socialist States of North Africa and the Middle East. The outcome will depend on whether or not the international working class can stop the US and EU imperialists from invading Libya and imposing a new compliant national leadership.

The uprising of unemployed youth has won control of much of the country by sacrificing their lives in the thousands to the Gaddafi dicatorship. Not until the youth had stormed the military base in Benghazi and taken the airport did the Libyan army split and sections of it come over to the rebels. Even then the Generals and Ministers who defected did not take command of the situation and organise a national popular militia to defeat the regime. This tells us much of the old guard that is thoroughly discredited by its immersion in the dictatorship and which should not be trusted an inch. It has been left to the worker youth who armed themselves and the ranks of the military and other workers who have joined them to form local militias.

The gains of the revolution are entirely due to the sacrifice and martrydom of the unemployed working class youth. First in Tunisia to the West where youth laid down their lives to remove the Ben Ali dictatorship. And in Egypt to the East where the youth sufferred more than 1000 martyrs to remove Mubarak. Now the Libyan youth have lost 1000s of dead to seize the leadership of the Arab Revolution. They have led the furious fight that has brought down on them the military might of the Gaddafi regime.

Such was the ferocity of this repression, employing the special forces and foreign mercenaries, that its failure to intimidate and defeat the unemployed youth rebellion forced the military to split. The defection of the Generals who had long been cronies of Gaddafi was forced only by the rebellion of the rank and file soldiers who refused to fire on the masses and were in turn executed by the Gaddafi forces.

The young workers proved themselves to be the leaders of the workers' revolution and they alone must form the backbone of a national popular militia drawing on the workers, the poor farmers and the soldiers. The working class internationally must make the Libyan revolution its own revolution to prevent imperialism from intervening on the pretext of 'humanitarian disaster' to roll back the advance of the revolution and install a new regime that retains the oil wealth for imperialist super-exploitation.

In the last analysis, the violence of the reaction of the regime to prevent a revolution at all costs is the creation of imperialism and its subordination of the Arab countries to dictatorships to maintain its economic dominance. In Libya it is unquestionably oil that interests imperialism, and its current concern to stop a 'humanitarian disaster' is entirely motivated to prevent a revolution from coming to power and kicking out its oil companies and socialising Libyan oil for the benefit of the people.

We call on the ranks of the army, the airforce and navy who have defected to the opposition to take their place in the popular militia and turn over their weapons, planes and ships to the cause of the revolution.The terrorisation of Tripoli must end. Use the ships to bombard Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli! Use the planes to strafe the armed goons who are driving around in their SUVs murdering unarmed youth with impunity!

We call on the Arab revolution that is under way in Egypt and Tunisia, and is beginning to rise up in Algeria and in the Middle East, to immediately send material and military aid to the liberated part of Libya to strengthen the revolution against the regime's extreme repression, to complete the revolution and stop mass murder of workers on an even greater scale.

We call on the workers in the imperialist countries to take immediate steps to oppose the military intervention in whatever form in Libya. Imperialism is the No 1 enemy of the Libyan people. Gaddafi is a creature of imperialism. His 1969 revolution had the guise of a national socialist liberation but in reality it installed a national bourgeois crony capitalist regime to serve imperialism.

All those who on the left who gave support to Gaddafi in the name of Communism or Trotskyism and were responsible for disarming the Libyan people in their long resistance to Gaddafi must be exposed and condemned.  They share a large part of the blame for the failure to build a revolutionary workers party in Libya and the others states of the region to play a leading role in the Arab Revolution.


Imperialist hands off Libya!

No to sanctions!

No to aerial overflights!

No to cynical US, EU and UN military invasion in the name of 'human rights' which are always sacrificed in the interest of the oil monopolies!

For international workers support of the Libyan revolution!

For material and military aid to the revolutionary working class fighters!

For strikes and mutinies to stop any imperialist intervention that will only take over the counter-revolution from Gaddafi and defeat the revolution in Libya and stop it from setting an example for all the world's workers to follow!

For an international revolutionary party to coordinate the struggles of workers, youth, poor farmers and street vendors in every country!

Forward to the Socialist Revolution in Libya that socialises crony capitalist and imperialist property and creates a genuine socialist plan based on a democratic national assembly of working peoples' committees and militias!

Forward to a Socialist United States of North Africa and the Middle East!


Statement of the Liaison Committee of CWG (NZ) and HWRS (USA) 
24 February 2011