Almost 200 delegates and visitors from 25-odd countries in every continent met for a week in January in the small North Sea town of Niewport, Belgium for the 9th World Congress of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). The CWI is the international body of socialist parties and organisations that SP in Australia is affiliated to. Australia was represented by Yarra Councillor Stephen Jolly, Unite Secretary Anthony Main, and Melbourne rank and file branch member, Tony Mason.

Some of our stronger sections of the CWI include Nigeria – where the CWI party, the Democratic Socialist Movement, is the largest socialist party in Africa. Sweden, where we have hundreds of members and several elected Councillors. Britain, where our comrades have a big influence in several keys unions and a growing student base. Ireland with one national MP, Joe Higgins, who visited Australia in 2004 and severely embarrassed John Howard during his visit to Dublin last year. Sri Lanka where we have the only party with both Tamil and Singala members - the United Socialist Party.

Debate on China

There was full agreement by delegates that China’s drive to a market economy had come at both a massive cost to the environment and through a huge polarisation in wealth. 5000 miners die in accidents every year. 400,000 people die every year from air pollution. 53% of the water in major waterways is unfit for human consumption. The living standards of millions in rural areas are going backwards because the ‘iron rice bowl’ of free health and education that characterised the Mao years has been smashed. Millions more urban workers slave in Dickensian–conditions.

There was, however, debate amongst delegates on the class character of the Chinese state today. A minority of delegates argued that China was capitalist both economically and politically. This is a view held by many other left wing groups (such as the Alan Woods-led organisation who used to be in the CWI and the Australian DSP).

The majority view in the CWI was that while the economy was moving since the 1979 changes in a clear market, capitalist direction – the state was still essentially the same Communist Party state machine as then. This meant that, unlike the crushed CP’s in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, it had control over the military and big influence over even allegedly privatised State-Owned enterprises. Under the pressure of the US downturn, for example, or a surge in domestic revolt from the rural poor or working class, the State could attempt to slow down or alleviate the impact of the market changes – although going back to the Mao era is not a possibility. It is therefore better to describe China as a hybrid economy (as even much of the serious western financial press does).

Iraq: Most important political issue on the planet

“The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam” were the words Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam war veteran used to describe Bush’s latest revised Iraq strategy. Hagel, however, is not only a Vietnam War veteran but is also a US senator for Bush’s Republican party.
Iraq was described at Congress as the hub of a wheel the spikes of which reach out to many crises. With the US military death toll close to 3,000 Bush has made the decision to escalate with an extra 20,000 troops and thereby ignore the Baker report which recommended the start of a pullout and talking to Iran and Syria. This ‘surge’ will not work. As Irish SP MP Joe Higgins explained at Congress, NATO had 40,000 troops to ‘deal’ with Kosovo which had a population of 2 million. Using this ratio, the US needs 500,000 troops in Iraq today!

The problem for the US is that the (Shitte and Kurdish-dominated) Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, partially rests for support on the sectarian Shiite Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. So the US needs the Iraqi government forces to attack their own support base to stop the sectarian killings! In fact Saddam was handed over the the Mahdi army to be lynched in order to keep its support for the Iraqi government.

US ally Saudi Arabia, with a Sunni population, fear the growing influence of Shiite Iran in Iraq via its support for various Shiite forces there. The Saudis have threatened to intervene military in any vacuum created in Iraq by a US withdrawal. The US face an insurgency, but one that’s mainly restricted to the 5 million Sunni Arabs. The Kurds and Shias, who make up a majority of Iraq, have for different reasons either supported the US-led invasion (Kurds) or tolerated it (Shias).

There is a possibility of three undemocratic, military dictatorships arising through a break-up of Iraq with a partitioned Kurdish area in the north, a Sunni statelet in the centre and a Shiite one in the south. The cowardly Democrats who now run the US House of Representatives and Congress might be pushed by public opinion into cutting the funding for Bush’s ‘surge’ in Iraq. The Iraq war has left a legacy of bitterness and hatred towards US imperialism amongst the majority of the world’s population.

Latin America: The most advanced area of struggle today

The announcement to nationalise Electricidad de Caracas, CANTV and place the lucrative oil projects in the Orinoco basin under the control of the government comes after the re-election of Chavez for a third term last December. Chavez said “We are moving towards a socialist republic of Venezuela” but also referred to the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. “I am very much of (Leon) Trotsky’s line – the permanent revolution,” he said.

The statements by Chavez and his proposal to rename Venezuela as a “socialist Bolivarian republic” are extremely significant for the workers’ movement in Latin America and internationally. It is a measure of how the idea of socialism has re-emerged in the struggle against capitalist and imperialist exploitation.

However, although the social programs introduced by the Chavez government have helped the poor, a growing feeling of frustration and distrust points to the failure of the policies so far to solve the fundamental problems of the majority of Venezuelans. 25% of the population is still living on less than US$1 a day.

Pressure is building up as more and more people are disgusted by what they see as the enrichment of a layer of pro-Chavez bureaucrats and temporary friends of the government who make vast amounts of money out of government-sponsored projects.

Up to the present, there have been very limited nationalisations when the government has taken over a majority shareholding in some factories under the banner of ‘cogestión’ (co-management) between the state and the workers. Chavez has also talked about imposing state control of the central bank, more price controls and control of interest rates and foreign exchange. The incoming finance minister, Rodrigo Cabezas, said “regulation of earnings is a priority for us”. “We ask for understanding from financial and economic sectors but if there’s no understanding…we’ll make the necessary reforms.” However, the building of a half way house between Capitalism and Socialism endangers the gains made for the working class and invites the counter-revolution to organise and strike.

The Guardian in the UK reports (10/01/07): “After nearly eight years of Chavez’s government the private sector until now has actually been a bigger share of the economy. This may now change but not very quickly or drastically.” The latest announcements of nationalisation would only apply to those strategic sectors which were privatised in the early 1990’s.

There are historical lessons which could be drawn with the Allende government in Chile which nationalised 40% of the economy or the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua which nationalised 25% of all industrial capacity. In both cases, failing to expropriate the expropriators meant that the capitalist class still had control over the economy. Having terrified the bourgeoisie by supporting the mass movement and taking partial measures against their interests, the failure to disarm the ruling class economically and politically opened the way for the counter-revolution. In Nicaragua and in Chile the ruling class, in conjunction with US Imperialism, started a campaign to sabotage the economy, spread chaos and paved the way for the defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the military dictatorship in Chile.

While the masses have saved Chavez on three occasions, the threat of counter-revolution has not disappeared. Imperialism can still intervene by proxy, fermenting and financing counter-revolutionary forces in Venezuela, supporting paramilitary organisations along the border with Colombia or preparing right-wing forces in the state machine and the military.

Chavez seems to be trying to emulate some features of what was done in the Cuban revolution only in slow motion. However, the historical experience of the working class has repeatedly shown that it is not possible to tiptoe towards socialism. A socialist revolution needs the conscious and concentrated participation of the working class to seize political power, in alliance with the peasantry. The first step is to expropriate the ruling class from its political and economical power and for the working class to build its own independent institutions of the working class. That process can not be step by step, as a matter of subsequent reforms which end up in socialism.

Much of what Chavez has been able to achieve so far has been financed by the high price of oil. But currently the oil price is falling; if the world economy slows down, let alone stagnates or goes into recession, it could fall much further. This could undermine the reforms and strengthen reaction, something that can only be prevented by socialist policies that finally break the power of capitalism and have an internationalist appeal.

The realisation of genuine workers’ democracy can only be achieved on the basis of the mass participation of the working class in the political process and the building of instruments to control, manage and plan the economy and the resources available. Committees would need to be established in every workplace, university and borough. On these bodies, representatives would be elected, subject to recall and, if paid, would not receive more than the average wage of a skilled worker. The linking up of these committees on a city, regional and national level would be the basis for the establishment of a workers and peasants’ government.

A train of socialist social progress would have an electrifying effect on the masses in Latin America and spread a new language of socialism, a fluent language of social and economic progress, expressed in the amount of houses built, tonnes of food distributed, jobs created and democracy ensured. This would be the best guarantor to secure the national and international defence of the Venezuelan revolution and its linking up with other Latin American states to form a socialist federation of Latin America as a first step towards a world federation of democratic socialist states.

Sri Lanka

Our comrades in the United Socialist Party in Sri Lanka are under grave danger. There is a growing drift towards civil war between the (Singla-dominated) central government in Colombo and the Tamil minority in the North. Our comrades are the only party with workers from both sides of the national divide (plus the other minority, the Muslims) in their ranks.

Party leader Siri (who had a successful visit to Australia with us in 1999) came third in the Presidential election in late 2005. Now extremist Singala forces are targeting our party and Siri in particular. A recent rally we helped organise was attacked by over 100 thugs led by a anti-Tamil Cabinet minister and Siri was lucky to escape with his life. While he was at the CWI World Congress, the Sri Lankan government spread rumours he was meeting with the Tamil Tigers.