In the last weeks of 2009 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that the government would be nationalising eight banks. These banks represented 8% of the financial sector in Venezuela and held a significant percentage of Government deposits.

These Government nationalisations however have not been in response to the global financial crisis- as in some other countries. They have been made in response to a recent investigation into banking practices that uncovered corruption and embezzlement of deposits reaching up into to the highest levels of the Government.

By Denise Dudley, Socialismo Revolucionario Venezuela

Four of the banks that were taken over were owned by Ricardo Fernandez, who was a fervent supporter of Chávez. Fernandez is known as the King of Mercal for his role during the 2003 bosses lockout in which he provided trucks and services to the Government to distribute food. Mercel is the Government owned and operated food distribution service which provides discounted basic food items.

Fernandez has, until now, continued to be rewarded by the Government for his role during this time and forms part of what is known as the ‘Boli- bourgeoisie’- people who have benefited financially through the Bolivarian Revolution.

Among others both from within the public and private sector to be charged with banking fraud is Arne Chacon, the brother of now ex- minister for Science and Technology and close ally of Chávez, Jesse Chacon.

The actual figure of deposits that have disappeared from these banks is yet to be announced and uncovered, however the Government has guaranteed almost all deposits. Such a guarantee can only be fulfilled by using money that the Government may have otherwise had available as public funds.

The Government nationalisation of these banks should be welcomed, as should any measures taken to fight corruption that exists in both the public and private sector. However the best way to combat corruption, as well implementing socialism, is to nationalise 100% of the banking sector under the democratic management and control of the working class.

Only days after his December 1st announcement that a second surge of 30,000 troops would be sent to Afghanistan, US President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. According to Obama, “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”

By Andrew Grant, Socialist Party

The reality of the past 60 years of US imperialism is far removed from the fantasy that Obama and the rest of the American ruling class would like us to believe. Despite the promises of protecting its citizens from terrorism and promoting the spread of democracy, the core agenda of the US is no different in the Afghanistan war than it has been in any other. Their aim is to extend their influence in order to secure new resources and markets.

The economic decline of the US and inter-imperialist rivalries are the key reasons for the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. As the US struggles to maintain its global influence it has been forced to use its military to control resources and territory at the expense of competing nations.

Kevin Rudd’s promise to increase Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan following Obama’s announcement demonstrates the commitment of the Australian ruling class to US imperialism. Big business in Australia sees supporting the US as a necessary payment in order to secure markets in the region and benefit from the potential strategic and economic gains to be made in the Middle East and South-Central Asia.

Meanwhile, far from solving any problems in Afghanistan, the war has led to more and more chaos and corruption. The backwards regime of the Taliban has not been replaced by a western style democracy as the White House promised, but instead the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai, who runs the country with the aid of warlords and drug traffickers.

The idea of democracy is a joke with Karzai recently allowing the passing of an ultra-reactionary law which has massively restricted the rights of women in Afghanistan’s Shia community. After over 8 years of war, causing tens of thousands of deaths and creating millions of refugees, Afghanistan’s government is still hardly any more progressive than the Taliban.

The effect that the war has had on Al Qaeda’s ability to organise and carry out terrorist attacks is also largely unknown. But the immense destruction of life and property at the hands of western forces has only strengthened radical Islam and galvanised anti western sentiment in the region. This has without a doubt increased the desire of the certain sections of the population to carry out terrorist attacks in response to western imperialism, thus further jeopardising the lives of civilians in western countries.

The reality is that the increase in troops will not bring any solution to the present situation in Afghanistan. In fact it will only prepare the ground for more violence in the future. The only way out of this crisis is through the independent struggle of workers and the poor in Afghanistan to remove the occupiers and the corrupt Afghan government. Such a movement could challenge the power of the corrupt and backwards regime that rules Afghanistan and create a socialist state based around ensuring equality and meeting human need.

In Australia socialists will continue to campaign for all troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan and for the building of independent and democratic organisations of workers and the poor.

Review of Jeyakumar Devaraj’s “Malaysia at the Crossroads, a Socialist Perspective” by Peter Taaffe

Jeyakumar Devaraj, member of the Central Committee of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) and Member of Parliament for Sungai Siput, published a book on perspectives for Malaysia in August 2009. Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party (CWI in England and Wales) and member of the International Secretariat of the Committee for a Workers’ International, reviewed it in a letter to Jeyakumar.

We are carrying a slightly edited (shortened) version of the review which deals with important questions of method, analysis and perspectives for Marxists in the struggle - to overthrow capitalism in Malaysia, Asia and worldwide.

“Malaysia at the Crossroads, A Socialist Perspective” by Jeyakumar Devaraj is available at the bookshop of the Socialist Party (England and Wales) or the PSM.

Letter from Peter Taaffe to Jeyakumar Devaraj, 5th October 2009

Dear Kumar,

Many thanks for the invitation to review your book, Malaysia at the Crossroads; A Socialist Perspective (Ipoh: Parsosma Enterprise, 2009).

While we admire the determination and self-sacrifice of the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Socialist Party of Malaysia – PSM) – including its leading cadres like yourself – we have never hidden our criticisms of the PSM on some important issues relating to both Malaysia and internationally. Likewise, the PSM has criticisms of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), implicitly expressed in your comments on ‘internationalism’, although you have not clearly set these out, particularly in written form. Perhaps this analysis of your book – which I hope you will see as friendly, if critical, but honest – will lead to a proper discussion and clarification of issues.

Method and perspectives

The first point that we would make is on the question of method. There is much in the book with which I would agree. Indeed there are some excellent articles, papers and material that are very informative, particularly on specific issues like privatisation, of which you are obviously have great expertise and a tremendous record along with the PSM.

However, you have entitled the book a “socialist perspective”, which is misleading. From my point of view and that of the CWI and the Socialist Party, a perspective would thoroughly analyse – in popular language – the current overall state of Malaysia, the stage which the economy is passing through, in the context of the overall position of the world economy and particularly in Asia, class relations and how they have changed and what the perspectives are for the class struggle. Necessary also are comments and criticisms not just on the main ruling capitalist parties but on the opposition ‘coalition’ as well.

Your approach, it seems to me, is empirical, without a clear theoretical anchor, which is partly shaped by the origins of yourself and the PSM. This approach is reinforced by the fact that the book comprises different papers and contributions written at different times, rather than an overall current analysis. You have evolved from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) tradition, the hallmark of which in Malaysia, as in the rest of the neo-colonial world and for that matter now in the advanced industrial countries as well, is to concentrate on the struggle, often very heroically. However, this approach either ignores, holds in disdain or even shows contempt for those who attempt to start from a theoretical understanding of the objective situation.

In general, the NGOs – some of their best workers – start off as reformists in the sense that they consider that their own individual or collective actions – piecemeal reforms – can effect necessary lasting changes. The best of them push against the limits of this approach and search for a more general alternative. Some even evolve towards a clearly-defined Marxist position but in the process are forced to discard the hallmark of NGOs, which is to concentrate on the ‘day-to-day’ tasks at the expense of an overall theoretical perspective. They consider Marxists who proceed from theory as “commenting from the sidelines”, “hurling quotes”, and refusing to engage in the “real struggle” (taken from the introduction to your book). Some ‘Marxists’ do sin on this score but not the CWI. In fact, Marx himself emphasised “theory as a guide to action”.

Of course, his ideas have been distorted and mangled by many of his alleged adherents who are incapable of proceeding beyond the limits of their studies or small meeting rooms to engage in the real struggles of the working class. But it remains an incontestable historical fact that in Russia, it was not those who were armed with ‘action’ – the bullet and the bomb of the Social Revolutionary terrorists – or those who limited themselves to the day-to-day ‘struggle’, the Economists, who were able to carry out the greatest single act in human history up to now, the Russian revolution. It was the Bolsheviks, proceeding first from a theoretical premise, who carried this out. I think the PSM has evolved – and you, in particular – away from the NGO tradition but there are still elements of an empirical, perhaps more accurately a ‘pick and mix’ approach, which reveals a weakness from a consistent Marxist point of view in some of the material contained in your book. To give it its correct name, this is an eclectic approach, borrowing ideas from here or there, in what becomes a political and theoretical patchwork quilt rather than a consistent rounded-out Marxist approach.

You may consider these comments somewhat harsh but your book itself reveals this approach. You borrow a little bit of Maoism, some Castroism, even from Trotskyism and the approach of the CWI, to fit the needs of what you see are your tasks in Malaysia. The consequence of this, revealed in the book, is that despite your recent success, you make unnecessary political concessions to opponents and therefore can make mistakes. On the first page of the book – in the Foreword – Lim Kean Chye states: “Shouting slogans and quoting from Lenin is of no help. Gramsci has warned that ‘for the proletarian ideology – Marxist theory – to triumph it must win the battle for hegemony and become “common sense”’.” He also quotes the writer Diana Raby who argues that “the abstractions [!] of Marxist theory must gel with the popular democratic traditions of a specific country”.

I do not know the individuals involved – who are not PSM members but are nevertheless quoted without rebuttal. The Socialist Party and Militant have a very long record of ‘gelling’ with the workers’ movement, most notably in the Liverpool struggle of 1983-87, and in particular in the battle to defeat the poll tax and the government of Thatcher, who was the fountainhead of world ideological counter-revolution at that time (see Marxism in Today’s World). Nevertheless, I repeat, we understand Lenin’s “quotes” in their proper historical context and did not use them in an opportunist or sectarian fashion. Allied to the body of ideas and methods bequeathed by Trotsky, this allowed us to have this mass effect.

We have recently repeated this in the spectacular triumph of Joe Higgins in Ireland in the recent Euro-elections. He has now emerged as the standard bearer of not just the Irish working class but, in a certain sense, for the most militant sections of the European workers’ movement. We achieved this and sustained an organisation in the difficult period since 1990 by an attentive, indeed meticulous, approach not by ‘parroting’ the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky but applying their method to the contemporary world and drawing all the necessary conclusions.

Ethnic and national question

The foreword also states: “The main task facing socialists today is the removal of the clique of multi-millionaires calling themselves UMNO [United Malays National Organisation] from political power.” Do you agree with this, Kumar? If so, we have a difference. This clearly posits a ‘stages’ approach, which in your book you oppose. The removal of UMNO is an important task but is it the main task? The UMNO government will be removed from power but the alternative, of Anwar Ibrahim and a Pakatan Rakayat (PR) government that he proposes, will not solve the problems of the Malaysian masses. This conclusion is implied but not spelt out in some of the material in your book. The main task for Marxists in Malaysia today is to emphasise the class independence of the working class, to build a mass alternative along these lines, which we concede is difficult – but not impossible – given the history of British imperialism and of UMNO in perpetuating the policies of ‘divide and rule’.

We were first attracted to the PSM because of the principled position on class unity, the refusal to base itself exclusively on one of the ethnic groups in Malaysia (although it is fair to say that most of your members came, and perhaps still do, from the Indian section of the population). Indeed, if the PSM had made any of the concessions that others, such as the SWP in Britain, did in relation to the ill-fated courting of Muslims as Muslims through Respect and not as part of the generality of the working class in Britain, then our relations would not have been the same. But a simple proclamation on the need for ‘class unity’ is not enough. This is because of the deep ‘divide’ along ethnic lines that still persists in Malaysia, as you point out, 50 years after ‘independence’.

The first section of your book on ethnic politics and national unity is, in general, very good. The trenchant criticism made of the role of various sectarian-based parties and organisations, who reinforce and play up divisions, is informative. However, even in your treatment on how the British and then UMNO managed to achieve the rigid segregation – in effect, apartheid – is not adequately explained.

History

There is a tendency by the PSM and yourself – which I noticed when I visited Malaysia – to remain silent on what I consider were the mistakes made by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) in the liberation struggle. I outlined a number of these in what you commented was in general a good and sympathetic approach towards the biography of Chin Peng and verbally when I visited you. The MCP – in accordance with Stalinist ‘theory’ – supported and carried out the ‘stages’ theory: first liberation – in an all-class alliance – with ‘socialism’ as the music of the future. It is correct, as you say in another part of the book, to point to the fact that the majority of Malays were then based on the land with the urban centres, particularly the working-class areas, dominated by the Chinese. The MCP’s main base was amongst the Chinese working class but was it inevitable that this should always remain so? I do not think so; the peasantry may appear to be ‘conservative’ – in the case of Malaya they are ‘beholden’ to the feudal sultans and the regime.

But the same situation existed in Russia. The Bolsheviks were based on a smaller minority – the urban working class, which accounted for no more than 10% of the population – than was the MCP. The MCP at the end of the Second World War had more support than the Bolsheviks amongst the working class. But the Bolsheviks had a programme for not just winning the working class but linked this to gaining support from the peasantry ‘as a whole’ and succeeded. The MCP failed because it did not have the necessary theoretical ammunition to emulate the Bolsheviks and it was under the sway of the incorrect ideas of Stalinism, including Maoism, which was and remains a Chinese form of Stalinism. Mao personally condemned Khrushchev in 1953 for denouncing the crimes of Stalin. The same Mao urged Khrushchev to drown the Hungarian revolution of 1956 in blood – the working class had outlined a programme of workers’ democracy not a return to capitalism – because he feared correctly that the success of the Hungarian revolution would shatter all variants of Stalinism, including that of his own regime.

The fact that the MCP was heroic in its battle against British imperialism and particularly comrades like Chin Peng has to be recognised, as we did in the review of his book. But the rural guerrillaist method pursued by the MCP – even when it led to ‘success’ as with Mao – is not that of genuine Marxism. Mao succeeded because of the vacuum in Chinese society and, moreover, did not have the aim in the first instance of constructing ‘socialism’ or even a workers’ state. He was pushed empirically into taking over industry and the land but his regime had nothing in common with the Bolsheviks’ workers’ democracy of 1917-1923. Mao started where Stalin finished and from the outset constructed a state in the image of Moscow. In the case of Malaysia there was less justification for guerrillaist struggle than in China because the MCP was largely based upon an ethnic minority of the population, the Chinese working class.

Nowhere in history has a struggle of this kind – with similar limitations – been successful. Mao at least had a majority of the Chinese behind him – who were concentrated in the countryside. Castro’s small band of predominantly rural guerrillas earned the support of decisive sections of the peasantry and only in the latter stages, the support of the working class to his victory. Yet I find nothing in the PSM material which makes any criticisms of this character. On the contrary, Mao is quoted approvingly without any qualifications.

When the PSM deals with the MCP it is too emotive, concentrating on the fact they were prepared to sacrifice in the struggle against the British and their agents. But if you do not take up and criticise a method which is wrong – particularly in the case of Malaysia where history lies on the brain of the living “like an alp [mountain]”, as Marx said – then you risk the next generation repeating those mistakes. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It is possible, even in Malaysia, where the objective basis for guerrilla-type methods has largely evaporated because the majority of the population is now based in the urban areas, as you point out, that a layer of youth, through frustration, could resort – as they could also in the ‘advanced’ industrial countries – to the similarly mistaken methods of terrorism, dressed up as guerrillaism. This question of guerrillaism is linked, particularly in the context of Malaysia, to a wider question: the baleful heritage of Stalinism, which has not yet unfortunately disappeared, as I will seek to explain when dealing with Venezuela.

Hindraf campaign

The section of the book on ethnic politics and national unity is in general very good. Particularly welcome is the emphasis given by you, Kumar, and the PSM on your attempts to counter the ethnically-based capitalist and petty bourgeois parties and the Malaysian capitalists as well as the struggle to prevent further polarisation along ethnic lines historically, and the role of these parties today. Equally, the material on the change in the ruling class, as well as the ‘proletarianisation’ of formerly middle layers, the steadily increasing impoverishment of the poorer sections of society – particularly the Malays – is very good. Moreover, the role of the PSM in taking a principled stand in general is emphasised. But you also write: “We cannot combat racism by mobilising along racial lines. We may be able to resist certain unfair policies, but we would also be deepening the racial divide, and we would get trapped in the ethnic politicking that the BN thrives on… We need to refute the positions of some activists who argue that we need to resolve the issue of cultural and linguistic oppression first before we can move on to the social transformation of society. A form of the ‘two-stage’ theory!” You go on to make a very important statement: “We need to address inter-ethnic issues as they arise, but this should take place within a strong multi-ethnic workers’ movement that is actively fighting for the betterment of workers of all ethnic groups. Only then will this dialogue process lead to better understanding among the races.”

These are very good and fine sentiments but, unfortunately, in the next chapter where you set out your critique of the ‘Hindraf Campaign’, all the necessary conclusions, particularly the nuances, from these general statements are, in our opinion, missing. The critics of the PSM are, I am afraid, correct over your stance on the Hindraf campaign. You outline the discrimination against the Indian population, the crucial role of the Indians in the working class, of whom 70% are proletarian. But in this campaign and the PSM’s approach, the general statements that you make on the need for multi-ethnic based struggle led you to, in effect, boycott this campaign. We thought, and still think, this was a mistake; you have elevated a generally correct principle to an abstract and therefore erroneous level, which cut you out of intervening effectively in influencing, at a time of heightened interest, a particularly important section of the population, the Indian workers and youth, who feel heavily discriminated against. It should go without saying that we oppose the intention of the Hindraf campaign to form another ethnic party, this time an Indian one. By intervening in the campaign, you may have been able to cut across this development.

The Marxist approach to class and ethnic unity does not proscribe fighting for the interests of a discriminated-against minority and even proposing concrete steps to improve their position. We have stood firm against those who bend to racial, religious and ethnic pressure and emphasised the need to forge class unity. But this did not preclude us from intervening in concrete circumstances in defence of minorities, to put forward demands that echo their aspirations. Sometimes these are minimal, reformist demands which do not fundamentally challenge the basis of capitalism but are nevertheless legitimate. This does not mean that we support all the demands of minorities or the manner in which they are presented. Often a petty-bourgeois or upper-caste layer in the leadership will seek to advance their own position, seek ‘privileges’ at the expense of the majority. But we, if we intervene correctly, can counter this with a class position, hopefully winning over the best workers.

Class unity

As you are aware, we have successfully intervened in Ireland for unity between the majority ‘loyalist’ (Protestant-based) working class and the ‘nationalist (predominantly Catholic) section of society in Northern Ireland. But at the outset of the ‘civil rights’ struggle in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we did support the demands in general of the Catholics for equality. We also pointed out that these could not be at the expense of the ‘loyalist’ working class – “a sharing out of misery”. Our programme was for removing discrimination against Catholics but also for boosting expenditure on jobs, services, etc., for the benefit of all workers. We approached this in a transitional fashion, emphasising that real egalitarianism, ‘equality’ between Catholics and Protestants, would only really be achieved in the context of changing society and abolishing capitalism. But we were able to make these arguments and create a sympathetic audience because we participated in the struggle of the minority who were discriminated against, while at the same time always stressing class unity.

Then there is also the successful work of our comrades in Sri Lanka. This involved from the outset resisting Sinhala chauvinism, which took away some of the rights of the Tamils, including language rights, and we demanded their restoration. The subsequent actions of different governments laid the basis for the Tigers’ terrorist and separatist struggle and the civil war which followed. We now have a new situation which compels our Sri Lankan comrades – particularly Siritunga Jayusiriya, leader of the United Socialist Party, who faces death threats continuously from Rajapaksa’s murder gangs – to defend the Tamils’ human and democratic rights. Through all of this, it has not stopped us from calling and organising class unity and at the same time criticising the Tamil leaders.

In the case of the Hindraf campaign you did, I am afraid, ‘stand on the sidelines’ and therefore missed an opportunity to engage in a real struggle, making friendly criticism, in opposing the more incorrect demands while supporting the general aims. You missed a big opportunity to make contacts, probably before a new audience, that you would not have been able to reach otherwise. You counterpose to this in a rather bald, unskilful and therefore an incorrect fashion the need for class unity to the Indian population. You write for instance: “We should not forget that, apart from racial discrimination, the majority of Indians face economic discrimination because they are workers in a system that favours the businessmen and the capitalists. About 70% of Malaysian Indians are workers.” You then go on to enumerate how they are discriminated against on the basis of class.

But this does not exhaust the issue, because the Chinese and the Indians, as far as I can see – specifically the working-class and rural sections of these communities – are doubly oppressed as workers but also from racial and ethnic points of view. Should we just take up the direct class issues rather than the others dealing with oppressed layers? In that case, it was wrong for the civil rights movement in the US to campaign against the discrimination of the black (Afro-American) community. The same thing would apply to the above example in Northern Ireland. If interpreted in this one-sided fashion, Marxism becomes an arid dogma unrelated to the real movement of the working class.

Bolsheviks on the national question

This does not mean, however, that we should not intervene in order to try and cut across this. The Bolsheviks on many occasions defended oppressed minorities – the Jews, for instance, from pogroms – which linked them in a bloc with even petty-bourgeois and bourgeois Jews on the purely practical issue of defending an oppressed minority from attacks, in this instance at the hands of the Black Hundreds. You also dismiss “affirmative policies” for the Malaysian Indians, which have been demanded in the Hindraf campaign. Similar demands have been made by, for instance, the black population in the US and have actually been attained in some instances. A similar process has developed in Britain with the demand for “affirmative action” for minorities discriminated against.

We would not give indiscriminate and blanket support to “affirmative action” but we try to separate out those demands that can be fought for, both by the oppressed minority and also which gain a certain resonance amongst the majority. In Britain, at one stage, we opposed the general demand for “affirmative action” – led as it was by the black and Asian petty bourgeois with their own narrow aims at that stage – which gave the impression of ‘concessions’ at the expense of the rest of the working class. But when Labour, with our significant influence, was in power in Liverpool between 1983 and 1987, a form of “affirmative action” was introduced. We were compelled by the pressure of the situation – a history of discrimination against the black population – to give jobs, particularly to the black youth of Toxteth who had been systematically shut out of opportunities. But this was done through trade union action – the committees with majority trade union involvement – that allocated the jobs and then campaigned for these steps amongst the local authority workforce and the wider working class. This was seen as ‘fair’ although very limited – because of the limits of capitalism itself. The point we are trying to make here is that one must engage in the given situation we inherit, not one that we would wish. This, in turn, means you have to listen, learn from movements and alter your approach as long as you do not infringe your principles.

You say: “The PSM salutes all those who have thrown off their apathy to stand up for their rights despite the threats made by the BN government in the media.” You “salute” this movement but limit yourselves to criticism of its ethnic limitations. Yet you say, “These local fightbacks must continue.” You also say that the “PSM will continue to support opposition to the eviction of Indians,” which is very good, as is your invocation: “Do not retire from the struggle! Just reorient it to make it multi-racial and fight for the justice of all the ordinary people of Malaysia!”

But you want the Hindraf members to come to this position themselves without participating in the struggle. It seems to me that you adopt a rather abstract, quietist approach rather than advocating intervening through your own activity, propaganda and advice, and, through the necessary leadership, seek to “reorient” it in the right class direction. In “Culture or Economy – Wherein Lies the Primary Contradiction?” you recognise that there is considerable criticism from “friends and supporters” who do question whether the “PSM is losing touch with the masses” on this issue. You are correct in arguing in this section against the ‘stages theory’ and especially those like the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and others who say first of all “solve the national-ethnic problem” and then socialism at a later stage. You are also doubly correct in arguing that the “primary contradiction is that of class … [while] there are many axes of oppression in Malaysia today”.

Language

Ethnic oppression and division cannot be described as merely a “sideshow”, as you suggest. While the “UMNO elite” enriches itself through capitalist exploitation, a vital, indeed crucial, element of the mechanism that allows them to do this is through the policies of ‘divide and rule’ and the ‘cultural oppression of minorities’ that flows from this. It is not possible by the simple enunciation of a class policy – without taking into account the different divisions within the working class and the masses in general – to guarantee success and the building of a mass socialist and revolutionary force.

You are absolutely correct to reject the idea of Mao that the “Primary Contradiction can shift from time to time from one to another of the contradictions existing in society”. This was merely a rationalisation by Mao because he based himself upon other classes apart from the working class – the peasantry, the national capitalists, the so-called national bourgeoisie, etc. – in the guerrillaist struggle he conducted following the failure of the Chinese revolution of 1925-27. But it does not mean to say that Marxism does not take account of what you call the “other contradictions” apart from the basic class contradictions in society. The Russian revolution would never have triumphed if Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks had adopted this approach. In fact, as Trotsky emphasised later, without Lenin’s approach to the national question, which he applied in an extremely sensitive fashion, then the Russian revolution would never have taken place.

Socialism

It is also a mistake to urge: “We should avoid trying to win arguments by quoting leaders such as Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Mao.” Merely quoting even great figures is not sufficient to win an argument, it is true. But your aim that “socialists must above all be rational and argue their case based on a thorough analysis of their current situation” is totally in accord with correctly understanding the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, and also the mistakes, profound ‘mistakes’, of Mao and other ‘thinkers’ who are uncritically quoted. Of course, to quote any of these leaders out of context and without taking account of the historical setting, the change in circumstances, etc., is the hallmark of dogmatists and sectarians. If a mere ‘quote’ was sufficient to settle an argument every sectarian would be a master strategist.

I also think you are mistaken in appearing to dismiss all issues of “language rights”, which could come up again and again in Malaysia because of the discriminatory policy of the government. I will not develop this point but it is an important issue as part of the national programme of a genuine Marxist force.

There are a few other important issues I would like comment on: one, the question of Stalinism in general and your explanation of how this relates to regimes like Venezuela or Cuba today. The second point is on the question of coalition which you deal with quite extensively in the penultimate chapter: “The left in coalition politics.” A third point is the issue of an international organisation.

You answer the question, “What do we in the PSM mean by socialism?” in the following manner: “We mean, I think, a society where there are these three elements:

Production meets the need of the rakyat [people] and is not driven by the profit motive. This necessarily means that the Means of Production cannot be held or controlled by a few rich people. The State has to hold the means of production in the name of the people.

There is provision of all the basic needs of all sections of society. Special care is taken to look after the more vulnerable sectors/groups e.g. indigenous people, disabled, elderly etc.

There is fully functioning worker democracy, based on elections at the workplace level with representatives from the workplace holding majority positions at town/city, state and national levels.”

This programme is OK as far as it goes but is very general. The last point on “workers’ democracy” is good and represents a step forward for the PSM and separates you from Stalinist ideas but is not completely adequate in explaining how a democratic, socialist planned economy would be organised. There is a certain confusion, not just in your ranks, but generally in the workers’ movement internationally as to what socialism is. There is also the tendency to mix up the transitional stage towards socialism (which is a workers’ state, workers’ democracy being the political form of organising this state) and the beginnings of socialism.

“Socialism”, according to the schema devised by Marx, is when society on a world scale reaches a higher degree of productivity of labour and therefore, ultimately, the living standards of the masses, than the highest stage reached under capitalism. This would mean that the beginning of socialism would have to stand at a higher level – we emphasise on a world scale – than the current levels of the United States, Japan or Europe in general. The forms of governments and the states on which they rest are transitions from capitalism to socialism. The only form this can take is the establishment of democratic workers’ states on a national basis and, in time, on a world scale.

It is legitimate to talk about such governments as “socialist” in the sense that, ideally, their tendency and intention would be to move towards the beginning of socialism. The first workers’ state in Russia was, in this sense, a “socialist state”. But as Lenin pointed out, it was not strictly “socialist” in Marxist terms because the beginning of socialism, or the lowest stage of communism, would see the beginnings also of the withering away of the state, of classes and the eventual dissolution into a self-governing commune.

This is a question of theoretical clarity indicated by terminology. You identify the regimes which existed in Eastern Europe and Russia as “socialist”, without qualification. There could be no greater means of discrediting socialism than to describe these regimes in this way. They were Stalinist – a monstrous bureaucratic elite albeit resting on a planned economy – with no real connection to genuine socialism. The terrible crimes such as the purge trials of the 1930s and the attendant slave labour camps, etc., meant that these regimes actually moved further away from socialism when compared to the regime of Lenin and Trotsky from 1917 to 1923. You will not find in the terminology of the CWI any concession to these regimes, any description of them as ‘socialist’ even when we defended the ‘progressive’ elements against imperialism. It is true that they rested on a planned economy but we described them as “deformed workers’ states”.

Venezuela and Cuba

You have, we regret, the same uncritical attitude towards Chávez in Venezuela, even though this regime has not established a planned economy. In the enumeration of Venezuela’s progress in comparison to Brazil, there is not an iota of criticism of Chávez or his regime. And yet we and others, while defending these regimes – Cuba has not yet turned back to capitalism, although Venezuela has not yet broken from capitalism – at the same time our comrades in Venezuela and the CWI generally put forward the idea of Venezuela effecting a complete break with capitalism by nationalising the key firms, the institution of a state monopoly of foreign trade and a real socialist plan of production. In the process, the country could link up with Cuba and Bolivia (if the latter country breaks with capitalism) in a socialist confederation. We demand workers’ democracy, not as a ‘luxury’ but as an absolute necessity for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

Not just in Russia but everywhere – and particularly in culturally and economically deprived underdeveloped countries such as Malaysia – the question of bureaucracy and how to control it is a fundamental issue. It is particularly important because of the terrible heritage of Stalinism. Even in an advanced industrial country bureaucratism in the trade unions plays a baleful role. Everywhere after the socialist revolution, the need to control the state, the fight to keep the trade unions both as a support for the new workers’ state but also a defence against that state by fighting for its independence, is vital.

You are in one line in favour of “workers’ democracy”. But you do not spell out exactly what this is, as we do. You may say that this is not necessary in a work of this kind. But if the PSM grows as a significant mass force then searching questions will be asked by your opponents. “What do you mean by workers’ democracy?” If you reply as we do, the election of all officials, the right of recall, etc. the next question will be “Why then do you support a one-party regime in Cuba or not demand at least workers’ democracy? Do you support the arrest of trade unionists in Venezuela for going on strike?” It will not be sufficient, as you argue in relation to the comparison between Chávez and Lula, “Frankly I do not have the answer because I do not know enough of these two societies.” Surely there is sufficient knowledge to form an opinion, not least that provided by the CWI, which has published extensive material on the class character of the state and indeed one of the sources you mention is Tony Saunois’ book on Venezuela.

There are some excellent points at the end of this chapter as you seek to apply the programme of workers’ democracy to Malaysia. I think that you have drawn on the analysis of others such as Trotsky and the CWI on this issue. But you do not apply the same method towards Venezuela and Cuba, which means that you could be found wanting, I repeat, when these issues are posed to you as to what you consider “progressive” and what is not. Both on Venezuela and Cuba, unfortunately, you do not present a rounded-out Marxist position.

Coalitions and the united front

The chapter “The Left in Coalition Politics” discusses a crucial question at this time, not just for Malaysia but for the working class movement and particularly the left, specifically the Marxist left, internationally. This is partly a question of language. “Coalition” in the Marxist lexicon, particularly the ‘advanced’ countries, usually means the sharing of governmental power with capitalist parties, something to which we are implacably opposed doing. A united front is something entirely different. It usually means collaboration between workers’ organisations – parties, trade unions, etc. – for specific, mostly limited aims.

In general, we – that is Marxists – oppose a lasting political pact with non-workers’ organisations. The opportunists argue that the need for an ‘alliance’ between parties of the working class or the ‘left’, and those based on the petty bourgeois is necessary in order to forge an alliance between the two classes. But Trotsky pointed out that this, a ‘popular front’, was a “strikebreaking conspiracy”. Moreover, the leaders of the petty bourgeois were “the political exploiters” of the middle class, ultimately responding to the demands of the big capitalists and betraying their base. It is necessary, therefore, for the working class parties to win the middle class – either in support or neutralising them – in a struggle against these leaders.

When facing the ferocity of tsarism, the Bolsheviks never participated in a ‘political bloc’ with parties allegedly representing the peasants, such as the ‘Social Revolutionaries’. They did sometimes engage in practical actions for specific purposes but no permanent or semi-permanent blocs, no mixing up of banners, but intransigent class independence; this was the policy of Lenin that led to the victory of the working class. If we do not start from first principles then mistakes and defeats, as history shows, are inevitable.

The kind of work the PSM has been involved in is actions of a basic united front character on specific issues. I think you have been very successful on the evictions and retrenchment issues, as well as on privatisation, etc. But this is entirely different to a political bloc with parties or formations which can prevent the Marxists from fully advocating and fighting for their ideas. We have formed specific political blocs, for instance a platform for the European assembly elections with the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union, the RMT, a working class organisation, in Britain in ‘No2EU’. Both the name and the programme represented a compromise, which is entirely legitimate if it pushes the struggle forward. But this was on condition that we were able to use separate material which went further than the official platform and sought to explain our position. We did this systematically throughout this campaign.

What is involved here is the ‘united front’ approach. But it is not just a question of accepting the ‘united front’ method; there are united fronts which are legitimate and those which claim to be a ‘united front’ that are not. Respect in Britain was an unprincipled compromise on the part of the SWP with the ‘Muslim community’ – or what they imagined was the ‘Muslim community’ – and themselves and others on the left. They did not warn about Respect leaders’ deficiencies – such as George Galloway – and paid a price. Respect did not break down sectarian divisions but, if anything, reinforced them.

Present position

As you correctly point out, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition is a “reformist formation that will not challenge the private ownership of the means of production within the country or corporate-led globalisation and unequal terms of trade internationally”. But earlier you say: “While not a member of the newly formalised Pakatan Rakyat coalition the PSM is now associated with the State Government in two states. How have we defined that relationship?” You go on to state that you have maintained your separate identity but is it not true that you were elected through the benediction of these parties, who will demand a political price for their support?

You say you decided to “uphold your separate identity”. But this, I fear, Kumar, is not enough. It is necessary to show concretely your independence to the working class by criticising the Pakatan Rakyat parties not in a ‘strident’ fashion but to demand specific measures – some of which you have outlined but not all. However, the impression you give in this book – confirmed by your actions on the ground – is that you are not sufficiently and openly critical of the parties in Pakatan Rakyat. The job of a Marxist formation – particularly in a neo-colonial country where the liberal bourgeoisie under the pressure of the situation can adopt radical-sounding phraseology – is to warn about the limits of governments like the PR which remain within the framework of capitalism.

From a Marxist point of view, ‘betrayal’ is inherent in reformism. It would of course be entirely wrong to draw from this the conclusion that therefore we immediately denounce in a sectarian fashion the PR state governments or the PR in the run-up to the national elections. You say “the majority of Malaysians are rooting for the PR”, which may be true given the diminishing support for UMNO. But victory for PR in the election is not a foregone conclusion. You go on to say: “The PSM has taken a position that we should give the PR government some room to implement its policies, and not be overly critical of it.” In the first period of a PR government it is correct that the masses may give it some latitude to implement its programme. But I believe it is a mistake to give hostage to fortune by writing in advance that we “would not be overtly critical”. Does this mean that we should be “covertly critical”, which amounts to keeping quiet, even when the PR presides over pro-capitalist policies and attacks on the masses?

The masses will be critical and will demand action, particularly because of the economic crisis. It is not sufficient just to say that you speak up when members of the state government in Perak were involved in the eviction of 12 urban pioneers. It is also necessary to warn now even before the election that this can happen with a PR government if it remains within the framework of capitalism, as it will. The PSM should warn that only by the masses building independent organisations, by the building of a mass force embracing all ethnic groups, particularly the working class, in Malaysia, will we be prepared for the next difficult period. This means balanced but forceful criticism of PAS and the DAP, which I am not sure you do, or do forcefully enough.

Elections

On elections, under the heading ‘Principles of engagement in coalition politics’, you write:

“If there are so many difficulties and dangers inherent in coalition politics involving non-socialist parties why even consider taking part in such endeavours?

“The PSM did consider not participating in the electoral process. But most Malaysians take elections seriously. There is a tremendous mobilisation of the public during the few weeks prior to elections and for a time afterwards. We decided that we need to participate and use the carnival-like atmosphere to popularise our symbol and highlight our analyses. Not participating might keep us ‘pure’ but also might render us irrelevant in the eyes of the public.

“Participating and losing is alright the first time around. Or even the second time. But a party cannot keep on losing in every election it participates in. That would make us seem ineffectual and a bit of a joke! But winning and being associated with the ruling government, even at state level, is quite a different ball game.”

It is obligatory for serious parties of the working class to seek to stand in elections, particularly if parties are legally accepted, as is the case with the PSM after you were registered. We campaigned energetically for this, as you are aware. We are compelled to be where the masses are and in a non-revolutionary period – which is still the situation, although with elements of a ‘pre-revolutionary’ situation in some areas – the mass of the working class look towards the electoral plane for change.

However, the CWI in particular in the recent period has warned against the danger of ‘electoralism’, especially with new working-class formations. By this we mean an overconcentration on the electoral front, the winning of elections, the drive to get representatives in parliament at the expense of other tasks. The industrial struggle and the general social struggles of the working class and the poor masses outside of parliament are as crucial and, in some situations, more important than the electoral struggle itself. Nevertheless, even in a revolutionary period, as the experience of the Russian revolution demonstrates, the Bolsheviks were compelled to participate in elections – to raise, for instance, the idea of a revolutionary constituent assembly – even when the working class, the army and the peasants had created a network of soviets throughout the country.

You write: “Participating and losing is alright the first time around. Or even the second time. But a party cannot keep on losing in every election it participates in. That would make us seem ineffectual and a bit of a joke! But winning and being associated with the ruling government, even at state level, is quite a different ball game.”

You seem to be suggesting that only if a party gets “success” quickly is it therefore justified to participate. If it doesn’t then elections must be boycotted. This seems to be the argument you are making. Such an approach would be wrong and, in fact, paradoxically can lead to generating illusions in a party that electoral success is the only, even the main, criteria for a socialist party. It can lead to impatience and this in turn can often generate an opportunist approach. We do not “win elections” so we must water down our policies, be prepared to serve in capitalist coalitions, etc. It is therefore necessary to participate in elections in most situations that we can envisage today. If there is a general feeling amongst the working class and the labour movement that the electoral laws and constitution are so blatantly undemocratic that a conscious mass boycott is posed, then a different approach may be necessary. But even where the electoral laws are ‘unfair’ it would be wrong to boycott if the workers’ movement can gain a platform.

Participation does not mean opportunism per se. The electoral struggle must be seen as part of the general struggle and not elevated into something it is not, the be-all and end-all of our activity. Indeed, the extra-parliamentary struggle, which is always vital, can become far more important at certain stages than the purely electoral struggle, which can be an auxiliary to this main movement outside of parliament.

Internationalism

On internationalism you write the following:

“As for Internationalism, we agree that the struggle for socialism has to be an international effort as the enemy is global in its reach. However we feel it would be counterproductive to become a formal member of any particular ‘International’ grouping. National strategies have to be developed from listening to and understanding our own societies. Wise men sitting in Europe, however well versed they are in the writings of the ‘masters’ should not imagine that they hold the formulae for successful organising of socialist transformation of society. Society has changed massively from the time of the Bolshevik revolution, and we should not give too much weight to looking for parallels in the ‘classics’ to answer particular problems we are facing.

“We believe that we can learn from the experience of others, and intend to pursue dialogue with other groups working towards the socialist transformation of their society. But we believe it is crucial that we maintain our capacity to innovate and think creatively while being guided by the principles of socialist theory.”

This is the most disappointing, not to say short-sighted, section of your book. Don’t you think that in opposing what you imply, but do not spell out, is in effect a ‘Eurocentric’ position you risk falling into an equally regrettable ‘Asia-centric’ position? The CWI is not ‘Eurocentric’ but is organised on all continents. Neither the “wise men” sitting in Europe nor in Malaysia and their parties will be able to effectively comment on and fight the “global reach” of the capitalist “enemy” by themselves. This is why we – i.e. the working class – need not just parties organised nationally but on an international level as well. Only by sharing ideas and actions, discussing and debating them in a comradely way in a common organisation is it possible to forge the necessary national and international leadership and organisations which are capable of defeating the capitalist enemy who are organised on an international scale: the G20, International Monetary Fund, etc. The fear of being “dictated to” from “outside” – real enough given the heritage of Stalinism on this score – can only be countered by having a thoroughly democratic organisation and procedure as well as correct policies. You have a right to disagree – with the CWI for instance – but also a duty to say on what you disagree, so we can all be enlightened and learn.

Your “Internationalism” is purely passive, a knife without a blade. It consists, in the main, of solidarity actions but not of trying to work out common ideas, strategies and tactics. You see the need to organise on a national scale but not internationally. You in effect reject the need for an international organisation, which from Marx’s first steps to found the First International, all genuine Marxists have seen the need for. You may find that all the existing ‘Internationals’ are inadequate. Then why not try to improve on them by criticising their inadequacies and suggesting alternatives? A vague “network” on an international level is not enough to combat a ruthless capitalist, centralised enemy on a world scale. The CWI – while not the last word – is aiming to create with the working class mass parties linked together in a mass International.

It is an evasion to drag in by the hair references to “wise men” and their alleged “formulae” for the “successful organisation of the socialist transformation”. If you disagree with the CWI’s ideas, say specifically where and with what you disagree and we can discuss them. This is our method – the only honest one, we believe – which we have sought to adopt in this reply to your book. You stress the need to “innovate” and “think creatively”, which we agree with. But the CWI membership and our sections are not prevented from doing this. In fact, the hallmark of the CWI today is that we do have viable independent leaders and sections, capable of arriving at and formulating clear strategy and tactics for intervening successfully in mass action. They also value the role of the International in helping this process.

We hope that you will continue the dialogue that has been initiated and we can look forward to a common struggle for socialism.

Comradely,

Peter Taaffe

SP Newsletter No.296

Recent opinion polls have shown that support for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) remains at just over 70%, despite 70% of respondents admitting they “don’t know enough” about Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

This coincides with 76% of Australians being ‘concerned’ about climate change, with over half the population seeing it as a ‘critical threat’.

What these figures illustrate is the confusion between taking action on climate change and supporting an ETS.

What is an ETS?

Most ETS’s operate under a system called ‘cap and trade’: a carbon cap is set and ‘carbon permits’ (licences to pollute) are distributed and traded amongst the big industrial polluters.

The concept is that over time the cap will be reduced, hiking up the price of carbon permits and, therefore, creating an economic incentive for big business to reduce emissions.

The market component of an ETS actually does nothing to reduce emissions. It simply allows the profitable polluters to purchase their right to continue polluting.

It is only when the cap is reduced (by governments or regulatory bodies) and the amount of carbon permits is lessened that an actual reduction in emissions is encouraged. At least this is the theory.

Business as usual

The European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has become the world’s largest carbon market, worth US$63 billion in 2008. But has it reduced carbon emissions? The unfortunate answer is: no.

Firstly, EU governments succumbed to industry pressure and handed out an over-supply of polluting permits for free! This has also happened with practically every ETS so far. It means that even the most polluting companies make profits off the scheme without even reducing emissions!

Secondly, many companies have actually increased their pollution through “offsetting”. Instead of cutting emissions, companies finance ‘emissions-saving projects’ outside the capped area. The UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the largest scheme of this nature.

Aside form the obvious problem of shifting the problem to ‘cheaper’ developing nations, with an ETS there is no incentive for big polluters to switch to lower-emitting technology. Pollution continues unabated in one area, assuming that emissions savings will happen elsewhere. This is highly speculative and many of these projects have failed to reduce carbon emissions, with some even increasing emissions!

What has been successful about the ETS’s worldwide is the ability to provide massive profits for big polluters. Citigroup financial analyst Peter Atherton concluded that the European Union ETS had “done nothing to curb emissions” but had helped put “prices up, emissions up, [and] profits up”.

Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS)

The ETS the Rudd Government is proposing is no better that those already failing to reduce emissions around the world.

In many ways the CPRS is worse! Under the scheme, pollution permits, of which 95% will be handed out free, are defined as property rights. This means that if the reduction target is increased, polluters will have to be compensated by taxpayers!

The exclusion of agriculture, the second highest carbon emitting industry in Australia, and the dismal target of a 5%-15% reduction on 2000 levels, shows the CPRS is not capable of impacting on climate change.

The scheme grants over $16 billion dollars in compensation to polluting industries, while they jack up the price of their goods and rake in massive profits.

The Rudd Government’s plan, while lining the pockets of the biggest polluters, ensures that ordinary people get stuck with a bill estimated at $120 billion with no guarantee of carbon reductions!

People and the environment before profit

It’s clear we need a solution that seriously reduces emissions, not one that simply creates new, profitable markets.

Instead of propping up big-business polluters, we need investment into renewable energy technology and public transport. Not only will this facilitate a move away from fossil-dependency, but will also provide thousands of sustainable jobs.

This should go hand in hand with the rapid phasing out heavy polluting industries, like coal-fired power stations, while retraining those workers for jobs in the renewable sector.

But none of this is possible on the basis of a market system that puts profits before all else. Only planned production in the interest of human need, not profit, can tackle the vast and deepening issue of climate change. This is why socialists stand for public ownership and democratic control of production to ensure a sustainable future.

Upcoming SP meetings

The Melbourne Branch of the Socialist Party meets every Wednesday 7pm at Trades Hall on the corner of Lygon & Victoria Streets Carlton South. Upcoming meetings include:

10/2 – Building SP in 2010
17/2 – A socialist attitude to the sex industry
24/2 – Perspectives for class struggle in Indonesia
3/3 – Immigration: Is Australia full?
10/3 – Film night: Capitalism a love story
17/3 – Fighting for GLBTI rights

For more information or for details of meetings in other parts of Australia contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111.

News links:

Turkey: Solidarity with heroic struggle of TEKEL workers!
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2010/02/0402.html

Canada: Conservatives use anti-democratic powers to suspend parliament
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2010/02/0401.html

Hong Kong: Five resign from ‘pseudo parliament’ in push for universal suffrage
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2010/02/0301.html

Join the Socialist Party

If you agree with what you have read in our newsletter or on our website you should consider joining SP. The Socialist Party has branches in Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and Perth as well as members and supporters in all other states.

We are involved in trade union work and student work. We also run community, anti-war and environmental campaigns. But most of all we want to build a party that will fight to get rid of the capitalist system, the system that is at the root of all of these problems. We fight for socialism - a system that will bring an end to wars, poverty and environmental destruction. To join SP contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111 and we will send you a membership application form.

Subscribe to ‘The Socialist’ newspaper!

Support the Socialist Party by subscribing to our monthly newspaper ‘The Socialist’. Subscription rates are only $10 per year or $20 solidarity price. You will receive 11 copies per year delivered to your door every month. You will also receive our email newsletter every week and you will know that you are supporting an organisation that is at the fore of fighting against the capitalist system. To subscribe to ‘The Socialist’ contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111 and we will send you a subscription form.

Socialist Party contact details

Melbourne: Phone Anthony on 0396399111.
Sydney: Phone Gary on 0297287727.
Newcastle: Phone Samantha on 0249681545.
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Perth: Phone John on 0894020728.
Rest of Australia: Phone our National Office on 0396399111.
Rest of the world: Phone our International Office on ++ 44 20 8988 8760.

The Socialist Party is the Australian section of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). The CWI is organised in over 40 countries across the world.

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On Wednesday December 23 asylum-seeker George Jacob Samuel Christin died. Christin was one of the 254 Tamil asylum-seekers facing horrific conditions in the Indonesian port of Merak. A spokesman for the asylum seekers said Christin was showing signs of severe illness, but was “neglected by the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and the Indonesian navy”. It took a seizure to finally get Christin taken to hospital. By then it was too late, Christin died from a stomach illness at 11:30pm, only six hours after being discharged from hospital.

By Corey Snoek, Socialist Party

The Tamil refugees were travelling on route to Australia on October 11 when they were intercepted by the Indonesian Navy. Kevin Rudd openly requested that the Indonesian Navy stop the ship before it reached Australian waters. Since then the asylum-seekers have refused to leave their boat, demanding refugee status in Australia. A stalemate has ensued with aid, media and legal representation being withheld from the refugees. The IOM has ignored them, and the Rudd Government has shifted all blame and responsibility to Indonesia.

With the election of Rudd in 2007, Howard’s mandatory detention and temporary protection visas disappeared from mainland Australia. Horrific detention centres such as Woomera, Curtin, Port Hedland and Baxter have been closed down. While these changes were to be supported, they did not mark a fundamental shift away from Howard’s approach to refugees. The ALP supported Howard’s refugee policies whole heartedly while in opposition. It should also be remembered that it was the Keating Labor government in 1992 that first introduced mandatory detention.

In reality Howard’s ‘Pacific solution’ was never abandoned by Rudd. Detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru may have been closed but Christmas Island remains and its use has been stepped up. Built to house 400 detainees, it is now operating at “surge” capacity of 1,200 with the government hoping to expand it further before the end of the year. Mandatory detention still exists on Christmas Island and isolation cells are still in use.

More serious however is the fact that Rudd’s so called “Indonesian solution” is stepping up the practice of offshore processing. Rudd is attempting to subcontract the job of processing Australia’s asylum seekers out to Indonesia, a country that has refused to sign the UN Refugee Convention. The Rudd government is even funding the appalling detention centres within Indonesia, as well as the Indonesian IOM. It is ridiculous to pretend that the refugee problem can be addressed by just outsourcing the processing to Indonesia. Australia must take full responsibility for the refugees that capitalism and imperialism is creating.

A study by the Network of Asylum Seeker Agencies (NASA Vic) showed that 70% of asylum seekers have skills needed in Australia. Rudd has called for a population increase to 35 million before 2050 but Labor is refusing the mere 254 people stranded in Merak. The hypocrisy is everywhere but the answer is simple.

Media hype and Rudd’s claims of “protecting Australia’s boarders” have diverted attention from the root problems that create refugees. Most refugees coming to Australia are from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Two places where wars supported by the Rudd government have displaced thousands of ordinary people. War, poverty and increasingly global warming, are major issues of our time and all are creating refugees. The cause of these problems can be traced back to capitalism’s ever growing quest for profits.

Australia could easily take in the refugees at our doorstep and more. Asylum seekers actually have the potential to boost our economy and to contribute positively to society. The issue of refugees in Australia is being used as a political football. Labor wants to handball off the problems to Indonesia so that the Australian Government do not have to answer up to their faults.

The UN conference on climate change (Cop15), held in Copenhagen 7-18 December, was a fiasco. The Independent called it “a historic failure that will live in infamy”. After years of preparation, the representatives of 193 countries discussed and wrangled for two weeks. In the closing hours, leaders such as Barak Obama and Wen Jinbao (plus Rudd and Brown) flew in, supposedly to break the deadlock.

Editorial from February 2009 edition of Socialism Today

All of them accepted the urgency of reaching agreement. Unless global warming is limited to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the planet faces catastrophe. But no agreement was reached, let alone the framework for a binding international treaty, Cop15’s original aim. Backroom discussions between the US, China and a handful of neo-colonial states (Brazil, India, South Africa, etc) produced an ‘accord’ – a brief memo of vague aims and even vaguer pledges. Completely sidelined, the Cop15 assembly merely ‘noted’ the accord. Almost immediately, China’s representative, Su Wei, announced that, as it was not a formal UN agreement, China reserved the right to repudiate even the accord.

This fiasco again demonstrates the impotence of the UN on important issues. Unless the major powers agree on a course of action – ruled out in the case of reducing carbon emissions – the UN cannot take effective action. The failure of the Cop15 assembly to produce an agreement was not merely the result of manoeuvres by this or that recalcitrant government. It reflects the inevitable clash of interests between rival national states, each pursuing its own power, prestige and economic advantage. They may seek to guard themselves against the worst effects of global warming, but they want to dump the costs onto other states.

The fate of Cop15 lay in the hands of the two dominant powers, the US and China, who are jointly responsible for half of all world carbon emissions. Neither could broker a deal. Neither would sign up to any regulatory regime not designed to meet their own requirements. Their tactics made any consensus agreement in the Cop15 assembly impossible, and resulted in the vacuous accord.

The role of the US

Obama poses as a champion of action to curb global warming. But the US, still the only global superpower, no longer has the authority to broker even a half-effective deal between the major powers, let alone forge a consensus in the Cop15 assembly. This underlines the decline of US imperialism. Contrast Obama’s failure on climate change with the position of the US at the end of the second world war. At that time, US imperialism sponsored the framework institutions of the post-war capitalist order: the United Nations itself, the Bretton Woods money system based on the dollar, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the IMF, World Bank, etc. Its role at that time rested on the power and prestige it had accumulated during the second world war and in the broad upswing of the world capitalist economy.

Today, the US’s position is very different. Its intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere has undermined its authority. Economically, it is massively in debt to China. On climate change, moreover, the US has a truly abysmal record. Under Bush and before, the US refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol or endorse other international agreements. The US has the highest per capita emissions, twice the level of Europe and Japan, and four to ten times the levels of China and India. Yet, the US has the technology and the infrastructure to turn to more energy-efficient methods and renewable sources of energy. But the majority of big business refuses to curtail its profit-making activities in order to move in this direction.

Obama arrived in Copenhagen with pathetically limited proposals for carbon reduction: a 17% cut over 2005 levels, the equivalent of a mere 4% reduction over 1990 levels, the benchmark being used by most other countries. At the same time, the US tried to bully poor countries and semi-developed industrial economies, like India and Brazil, into accepting more stringent targets than the US is prepared to accept itself. This tactic pushed a group of the poorer countries (the so-called G77) into aligning itself with China. This allowed China, in the backroom talks, to formulate an accord that placed no binding targets on China or anyone else.

Obama and Chinese Premier, Wen Jinbao

China’s role

China’s delegation made sure that the Cop15 conference did not produce any effective agreement. In the closed-door, backroom discussions they even objected to other countries pledging themselves to any specific objectives. They were determined to prevent even the preliminary formation of an international regulatory regime that might, in the future, tie them to strict targets and international inspection. ‘A smoking dragon in sheep’s clothing’, the Chinese representatives sheltered behind a number of poor countries, notably Sudan, which are hostile to any kind of UN-sponsored arrangement.

China is developing a big wind and solar industry. The regime is undoubtedly concerned about the adverse effects of global warming and other environmental degradation, particularly its potential for fomenting social unrest. For now, however, it is not prepared to accept any slowing of its industrial growth which is overwhelmingly based on coal-fired energy production.

Europe was more or less sidelined at Cop15. The EU could afford to make grand, symbolic gestures, for instance, for a 20% reduction of carbon emissions by 2020 and $15 billion a year to poor countries – if matched by the US. But Europe’s promises were conditional on a UN agreement. Without a deal, Europe’s promises may remain essentially symbolic.

Catastrophic failure

Nicholas Stern, who was commissioned by Britain’s New Labour government to report on climate change, said that “climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen”. Failure to effectively tackle the environmental problems, he warned, would have catastrophic economic and social consequences. Effective measures, he noted, will be very expensive: but the longer they are postponed the more of a burden they will be. The serious strategists of capitalism accept these conclusions, which are based on an overwhelming body of scientific evidence. Some sections of big business also recognise the dangers and, moreover, see the development of green technology as a new and highly profitable field of investment. Yet overwhelmingly, big business, driven by short-term profitability, refuses to accept even minimal overhead costs of countering global warming.

”System change, not climate change!”

The Copenhagen fiasco shows that capitalist governments are incapable of overcoming the short-sighted resistance of big business to effective action. The failure of capitalist leaders everywhere to effectively tackle global warming and other environmental problems is an expression of the underlying contradictions of capitalism. The technological potential exists to switch to renewable forms of energy and reduce energy use while increasing production. Under economic planning, technological solutions could be rapidly developed for most existing problems, despite the legacy of capitalist destruction. However, capitalist relations of production stand in the way, above all, the private ownership of the means of production and the fetters of the nation state.

National economies are dominated by a handful of big banks and industrial monopolies. World trade is dominated by giant multinational corporations. They produce and trade for profit and regard the social costs – environmental destruction and social degradation – as ‘off-balance-sheet’ items. As far as they are concerned, someone else can pick up the bills.

Global warming that affects the planet’s atmosphere, the seas, and the climates of whole continents, cannot be dealt with within the framework of nation states. This is particularly true given the enormous disparities of power and wealth between different states.

Many of the 100,000 demonstrators on the streets of Copenhagen (including a large contingent from the CWI) recognised that global warming cannot be overcome within the framework of capitalism. ‘Our planet, not your profits’, ‘System change, not climate change’, were prominent slogans.

Combating global warming requires worldwide economic planning, which is impossible on the basis of the market, which operates through anarchic competition. Planning requires the public ownership of the big banks and industrial monopolies. To ensure they are run in the interests of society as a whole, there should be democratic planning bodies of elected representatives of workers, consumers and the wider public. International trade and investment would also have to be planned to overcome the grotesque inequalities that exist. The planned use of resources would ensure that economic growth would not be at the expense of further environmental damage. Human society would begin to develop in harmony with nature.

Is this just a dream? In reality, the forces for change are already on the move. Internationally, workers, poor farmers, the dispossessed, and sections of the middle class are being forced into struggle against the intolerable conditions imposed by a pathologically decaying capitalist system. Increasingly, system change – the idea of an alternative socialist form of society – is gaining support as the guiding aim of struggle. The alternative is the nightmare of climate disaster and social catastrophe.

In recent years most states in Australia have introduced new ‘anti-graffiti’ laws. Western Australia followed suit on January 1 with state wide legislation that threatens graffiti artists with up to two years jail or fines of $24,000.

Retailers in WA will also risk fines of $6,000 for selling spray cans or markers to people under the age of 18. In Victoria, where similar laws exist, police have used the legislation to charge more than 120 young people with 1310 offences in the past year.

By Dean Roberts, Socialist Party

Governments argue that graffiti is a type of anti-social behaviour and costs millions of dollars a year to clean up. According to the big parties, and their big business allies, graffiti makes people feel unsafe and ‘undermines our social fabric’.

Apparently it is not the profit system or the policies of privatisation and cuts that makes people feel alienated but instead it is a little bit of paint sprayed on a wall! While moral outrage is aimed at young people, attention is diverted away from those who are actually undermining our standards of living.

But diverting peoples attention away from the problems associated with the system is not the only reason for the introduction of the laws. NSW Attorney General, John Hatzistergos, for example, has described graffiti as “serious acts of violence against property”.

While the NSW government claims it is unnecessary to jail negligent employers for industrial manslaughter, young people can be locked up for merely scribbling on a wall. Anti-graffiti laws should not be supported because they discriminate against people on the basis of age and class.

Already in most states it has been reported that young people have faced increased harassment and have been continually stopped by the police purely on the basis of their age and appearance.

It seems that while private advertising covers every corner, graffiti is banned unless there are profits to be made. For example big business is happy to use graffiti to sell everything from music to energy drinks. In recent years we have also seen graffiti art sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in some of the worlds most exclusive galleries.

Graffiti in Melbourne’s laneways is also used by the tourism industry to generate profits by attracting thousands of tourists every year. In fact a poll by Lonely Planet found that Melbourne’s street art was the most popular cultural attraction in the nation!

Socialists don’t support the idea of people being able to paint all over individual personal property. While we are opposed to anti-graffiti laws we also call for local councils to provide public places where graffiti and other forms of street art can be legally displayed.

These laws will do nothing to improve public safety or strengthen the fabric of society. They will more than likely lead to further alienation as more young people are jailed unnecessarily and fines are issued to people who are not in a position to pay them.

With the worst economic crisis in 80 years rocking the world many workers and young people are starting to question the capitalist system. Capitalism, which dominates the globe, is a system that allows a tiny minority of bosses to own and control the vast amounts of wealth that is produced by billions of ordinary workers.

Even before the heightened levels of suffering and misery wrought by the latest global downturn hit, no one could say that capitalism was ‘working’ for the majority of people. Even during the so-called ‘boom time’ 3 billion people, half of the worlds population, lived on less then $2 per day. 70% of the 1.3 billion living in absolute poverty are women and every second child that is born in the world lives in poverty. This situation is getting worse not better.

Even in ‘advanced’ countries like Australia ordinary people were, and still are, being attacked with increasing education fees, rising unemployment, and worsening working conditions including high rates of casualisation and low wages.

This is not to mention the global warming crisis or the brutal conflicts occurring in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan. And now, all over the world, ordinary people are being told to grit their teeth and bear an even higher burden thanks to the economic crisis. Apparently ‘there is no alternative’.

All of this boils down to the basic fact that capitalism is a system that puts profit before human need. The fundamental problem with the capitalist system is that workers do not get paid for all of the wealth that they produce. Therefore working people can never afford to buy back the goods that they produce. This leads to a situation where more is produced than can be sold, and in turn, economic booms and slumps occur.

One way that this problem is temporarily overcome is by making cheap credit available to people. Obviously this is only a short term solution and at some stage the money will have to be paid back. This is one of the main reasons that the current crisis has been so deep and will be so drawn out.

Because capitalism is a system that puts profits above all else, bosses are constantly forced to try and boost their own profits however they can. This often takes the form of forcing workers to take pay cuts, work extra hours without pay, or work faster.

Bosses also try to have services like education or healthcare privatised so that they can make money from them, and so that they don’t have to pay for these services through taxes. This means that young people and workers are in a constant struggle with bosses over how society’s wealth is used. While bosses attack essential services, wages and working conditions, ordinary people must fight back in order to maintain and advance these necessities.

Ordinary people will never be free of this day-to-day struggle for survival and a decent life until they are free of the system that produces these contradictions. Despite the rhetoric of capitalist politicians, there is an alternative.

A saner system would be based on human need instead of profit. Such a system could allocate societies resources through democratic planning by ordinary people, and alleviate the horrors of capitalism while taking humanity forward. This system is known as socialism, and this is what the Socialist Party is fighting for.

Upcoming SP meetings

The Melbourne Branch of the Socialist Party meets every Wednesday 7pm at Trades Hall on the corner of Lygon & Victoria Streets Carlton South. Upcoming meetings include:

3/2 – 70 years since World War Two
10/2 – Building SP in 2010
17/2 – A socialist attitude to the sex industry
24/2 – Perspectives for class struggle in Indonesia

For more information or for details of meetings in other parts of Australia contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111.

News links:

Middle East: In solidarity with the masses of Gaza
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2010/01/2701.html

Belgium: Victory for Inbev workers
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2010/01/2502.html

Climate change: Capitalism’s climate fiasco in Copenhagen
http://socialistworld.net/eng/2010/01/2501.html

Join the Socialist Party

If you agree with what you have read in our newsletter or on our website you should consider joining SP. The Socialist Party has branches in Melbourne, Sydney, Newcastle and Perth as well as members and supporters in all other states.

We are involved in trade union work and student work. We also run community, anti-war and environmental campaigns. But most of all we want to build a party that will fight to get rid of the capitalist system, the system that is at the root of all of these problems. We fight for socialism - a system that will bring an end to wars, poverty and environmental destruction. To join SP contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111 and we will send you a membership application form.

Subscribe to ‘The Socialist’ newspaper!

Support the Socialist Party by subscribing to our monthly newspaper ‘The Socialist’. Subscription rates are only $10 per year or $20 solidarity price. You will receive 11 copies per year delivered to your door every month. You will also receive our email newsletter every week and you will know that you are supporting an organisation that is at the fore of fighting against the capitalist system. To subscribe to ‘The Socialist’ contact our National Office on 03 9639 9111 and we will send you a subscription form.

Socialist Party contact details

Melbourne: Phone Anthony on 0396399111.
Sydney: Phone Gary on 0297287727.
Newcastle: Phone Samantha on 0249681545.
Adelaide: Phone David on 0883441474.
Perth: Phone John on 0894020728.
Rest of Australia: Phone our National Office on 0396399111.
Rest of the world: Phone our International Office on ++ 44 20 8988 8760.

The Socialist Party is the Australian section of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). The CWI is organised in over 40 countries across the world.

http://www.sp.org.au
http://www.socialistworld.net
http://www.myspace.com/socialistpartyaustralia
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20461960776

The quake has caused Haitians, who have struggled under decades of poverty and imperialist intervention and exploitation, even deeper suffering. Approximately 75% of Haitians earned less than US$2 per day and 56% of Haitians – around 4.5 million people – earned less than US$1 per day. Most Haitians live in houses made of adobe and mud.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. The poverty is caused by the imperialism and neo-liberalism that has been oppressing the nation for centuries. The Haitian people has continuously struggled against this oppression. The 400,000 African slaves on the colonialists’ sugar and coffee plantations were among the first to fight against slavery and, in the early 19th century, won their struggle: Haiti became the first independent Afro populated nation previously colonized by France. However, the newly independent nation was forced to pay 150 millions Francs in “damages” to its former colonial master, France.

For decades, the Haitian people suffered under and struggled against US-puppet dictatorships and regimes. In 2004, after eventually winning democratic presidential elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a US-backed coup and then ostracized by the US administration. Neo-liberal policies were enforced on the population: education and health services were privatized and import tariffs on rice were severely cut to pay Haiti’s foreign debt.

Under the pretext of helping Haiti to recover from the earthquake, the US is now trying to retake power in Haiti and redesign the political and economic situation to suit international capital. This is not the first time the US has done this: New Orleans, smashed by Hurricane Katrina, and Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand, devastated by the great tsunami in 2004, have faced a similar situation to Haiti. Natural disasters are used to legitimize “aid” that has neo-liberal requirements attached, such as privatization and the selling of public assets.

The US has sent 3000 fully armed troops to Haiti. Soon, it will increase that number to around 15,000 troops. This intervention is based on the declaration of an Emergency Situation, which was forced on Haiti by the US when Hillary Clinton visited Haiti on 16 January 2010. Very quickly afterwards, the US took control of the airport: it is now deciding what goes in and out of Haiti.

US troops are not mobilized for the sake of humanity. Instead the US military’s mission is to preserve the reactionary social order for US corporations and to protect the wealthy few. This is evident by the failure to use US warships to take care of the injured people.

The increase in US troops in Haiti is closely related to the US’ economic and political interest in Latin America as a whole, where it is attempting to strengthen its power and is developing military bases. We note the bilateral agreement between the US and Colombia, which gives the US wide access to Colombia’s military bases and increases US forces stationed in Colombia, as the latest example of this.

The next stage of the US’ post-disaster program in Haiti is redesigning the country’s economy. This is indicated by the IMF’s announcement of a US$100 million loan to Haiti that requires the implementation of more neo-liberal programs, including increasing electricity tariffs, freezing state workers’ wages and reducing inflation. That loan will greatly increase the burden on Haiti, which already has a debt of US$165 million.

Based on this, we, the undersigned, extend our solidarity to the people of Haiti, including humanitarian aid and support for the Haitian people’s struggle for freedom from imperialist exploitation.

Furthermore, we demand:
- The immediate and unconditional cancellation of Haiti’s debt;
- That the government in our country give substantial, untied and unconditional humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti;
- That the humanitarian aid will support and be used to reconstruct Haiti in a way that will empower the people of Haiti to establish democracy and genuine independence for their nation.
- We condemn the United States government’s exploitation of the disaster to advance the US’s economic and political interests by making disaster as a relief industry.

We are calling all democratic and progressive organizations around the world to unite to build true solidarity with the people of Haiti. This includes helping to end the Haitian people’s oppression by the imperialist states, and full support for the restoration of freedom and sovereignty for the people of Haiti.

The above statement has so far been signed by the following Left groups.

Committee for a Workers’ International Malaysia, Confederation Congress of Indonesia Union Alliance (Indonesia), Partido Lakas ng Masa (Philippines), Partido ng Mangganggawa (Philippines), Peoples Democratic Party (Indonesia), Socialist Party of Malaysia, Socialist Alliance (Australia), Socialist Alternative (Australia), Socialist Party (Australia), Socialist Worker (New Zealand), Solidarity (Australia), Working Peoples Association (Indonesia).

The Committee for a Workers’ International has also written the following articles which analyse the situation in Haiti and put forward socialist solutions to the problems facing the struggling masses.

Haiti: Disaster compounded by capitalism

Haiti: Earthquake kills thousands

Bankers to pocket $100 billion in bonuses, while impoverished Haitians struggle to cope with disaster

The humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen Haiti beggars belief. The powerful earthquake that struck on 12 January left many thousands dead, with estimates running to 200,000 and more. The flimsy slum dwellings in Port-au-Prince, the capital, collapsed, as did public buildings, including schools and hospitals. Many thousands are still missing and more are badly injured.

Power supplies and communications were destroyed and only one airport runway operates. It is estimated that some three million people, most of whom have been made homeless, are in dire need of water, food, clothes, shelter and essential medicines.

By Niall Mulholland, CWI

The desperately poor country has few resources to deal with the catastrophe. People are reduced to trying to rescue victims from rubble with their bare hands.

Like grotesque scenes from a medieval battlefield, thousands of bloated bodies piled up high in the streets of Port-au-Prince. There are no basic state services to deal with the dead with any dignity, let alone rescue the living or see to the survivors.

Poor suffer more

Many Haitians are now in rudimentary outdoor ‘informal camps’, described as “insanitary” and “dangerous”. A lack of clean drinking water, food and sanitation means that infectious and deadly diseases can spread. Medical staff are overwhelmed. The injured, often with broken bones, are facing limb amputations or death due to a lack of basic medicines and treatment.

It is very different for the rich; their large homes in the “cool, green suburb” of Petionville were “mostly spared” and they have food “supplies to last” (Washington Post, 18/01/10). International rescue workers report being directed first to find foreign nationals in collapsed large luxury hotels. The Washington Post predicts that the rich in Petionville will “receive a large portion of the US and international aid and reconstruction money”.

Working people around the world are understandably horrified and appalled at this heartbreaking humanitarian tragedy. Many people instinctively and generously rushed to give donations to aid relief efforts. Compare this to the paltry funds promised by the UN and biggest world powers. The UN initially said it would raise $550 million in aid for Haiti - a mere fraction of the over $100 billion that is being paid out worldwide in bankers’ bonuses this year. No doubt in an act intended as ‘good PR’, the New York-based bank, Citigroup, said it will give $250,000 to the American Red Cross that can be used for immediate relief in Haiti. Yet Citigroup’s overall 2009 ‘bonus pool’, mainly for top managers, is expected to be about $5.3 billion.

At the same time, the slow response of the major powers, particularly from Haiti’s rich neighbour, the US, is causing growing frustration and anger around the world. Despite the rhetoric from Washington, little aid arrived for days after the earthquake, when most needed and when people trapped under collapsed buildings were still alive. Furious at the paltry aid provided, some Haitians resorted to protesting with road blocks made from dead bodies and construction debris. Many Port-au-Prince residents have given up all hope of overseas aid and are fleeing by foot to the countryside.

The US administration and the UN repeatedly claim that their abysmal response is due to the lack of infrastructure and coordination in Haiti. Even though this excuse for inaction is undoubtedly vastly exaggerated, Haiti certainly was already in a very poor state prior to the earthquake. It is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has a history of destructive natural disasters. But whose fault is this? It is the baleful role of US imperialism, along with a series of corrupt, pro-US Haitian regimes, which has left the country so impoverished and vulnerable to natural disasters.

Although the earthquake measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, the scale of the human disaster was due to Haiti’s poverty. The country has just two fire stations and no ‘quake-proof’ housing. Similar earthquakes have much less impact on neighbouring Dominican Republic, where building regulations are much better enforced or in nearby Cuba, where emergency management is “infinitely” better.

In Haiti, some 80% live below the poverty line and the country’s GDP per capita in 2009 was just $2 a day. Joblessness sits at a staggering 75%. The survival rate of newborns is the lowest in the western hemisphere. “For many adults, the most promising sources of income are likely to be drug dealing, weapons trading, gang membership and kidnapping and extortion”, commented the Guardian (15/01/10).

Rather than rush in large scale emergency relief and aid to Haiti, the White House embarked on a large-scale armed intervention. The US refers to “widespread looting” to justify the need for thousands of US soldiers and marines. But with shops destroyed or shut, this is the only way for many to get water and food. To date, according to the Guardian (18/01/10), “warnings that Port-au-Prince would descend into anarchy have not materialised”.

Military manoeuvres

The US “military’s takeover of emergency operations in Haiti” meant US military aircraft were given priority at Port-au-Prince’s airport, forcing many non-US, humanitarian flights to divert to the Dominican Republic. This provoked a furious response from other powers with an interest in the region, including Brazil and France. The French foreign minister accused the US of treating the airport as an “annexe of Washington”.

Fearing mass riots and protests as aid fails to reach survivors, the US is putting troops on the ground to maintain ‘law and order’. This could mark the start of what, in effect, will be US military rule, which will be used against the people of Haiti, just as the 9,000 strong UN forces were employed in Haiti before the devastating earthquake.

Given that the Obama administration and other powers failed for several crucial days to provide even the most basic aid needed by the Haitian masses, who can seriously believe they will provide the major resources needed to rebuild and modernise the country, including making its buildings ‘quake-proof’? The US, the UN and the foreign NGOs - already widely ridiculed by Haitians for creaming off 50% of their income on “overheads” - will only be further discredited in the eyes of the poor.

For decades, Haiti has been plagued by poverty, joblessness and military dictatorships (see below). Only the masses of Haiti, with the working class playing the leading role, can find a way out of the endless impoverishment, violence and coups.

Today, more than ever, a workers’ and poor people’s mass alternative has to be constructed in opposition to the tiny rich elite. The earthquake disaster and abject failure by big powers to provide aid and a proper ‘reconstruction programme’, will cruelly highlight to the Haitian masses the need for democratic control of the resources in society.

On the basis of capitalism, the vast majority of people will remain impoverished, jobless, illiterate and hungry and living in shantytowns. This existence means that the mass of people will remain highly vulnerable to ‘natural disasters’.

Workers and the poor in Haiti need their own independent class organisations, trade unions and a mass party with a socialist programme, to fight for real fundamental change, making an appeal to the working class and poor across the Caribbean and the whole Americas.

Imperialism’s rotten role

The current government of President René Préval is widely seen as corrupt and feeble. But this descent into a “failed state” was not inevitable or somehow to do with the ‘national character’ of the Haitians, as some western politicians and sections of the mass media would have it.

In the 1780s, under French rule, Haiti exported 60% of all the coffee and 40% of all the sugar consumed in Europe. Just over 200 years ago, the black masses abolished slavery in Haiti and won national independence from France; deeds that inspired the masses of the Caribbean and the world.

But the world powers were vengefully determined that the ‘black republic’ would fail and embarked on a series of interventions and endless meddling. In 1825, Haiti was saddled with paying enormous ‘reparations’, which it was paying until 1947!

US marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Between 1957 and 1986, the US backed the notorious regimes of ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, until the hereditary tyranny was overthrown by a mass movement of workers and students.

Instability

A series of highly unstable and short-lived regimes followed. Unfortunately, these years of radical urban movements did not have a revolutionary socialist leadership that could take power, sweep away capitalism and realise the demands of working people.

Last week, President Obama was joined by former US presidents Clinton and Bush, promising to meet Haiti’s “moment of need”. This was in fact a moment of nauseating hypocrisy, given the role Clinton and Bush played when in office in deepening Haiti’s poverty and corruption.

Jean Bertrand Aristide won Haiti’s 1990 presidential elections by promising to tackle poverty and social injustice. His initial reforms were popular with the poor, if timid by the standards of what is actually needed to end poverty and joblessness. Nonetheless, Aristide was viciously opposed by the reactionary rich elite.

US interventions

Aristide was subsequently overthrown by General Cedras, in 1991, but returned to power, in 1994, on the back of 20,000 US troops after the Clinton administration eventually lost patience with the general’s volatile and defiant Haitian regime. Clinton ensured that Aristide would not threaten vital US interests or the continuation of the rule of the Haitian elite.

In 2000, Aristide was again elected president with over 90% support but his support lessened as he failed to make any real change to poverty conditions and as allegations of corruption and vote rigging increased.

The Bush administration nevertheless opposed Aristide and blocked international aid to Haiti. The reactionary opposition mounted an uprising in 2004, with the support of members of the Republican Party in the US, and Aristide was bundled out of Haiti by US troops.

The years since Aristide’s removal have seen continuing crisis and violence and a succession of prime ministers. In 2006, René Préval was announced winner of the presidential vote. The increase of foreign troops, led by Brazil (playing a regional imperialist role), saw bitter clashes between UN troops and armed gangs in Cité Soleil, one of the largest shanty towns. Food riots, in April 2008, forced the government to announce a plan to cut the price of rice.

Despite President Préval’s description as “a champion of the poor” he has not tackled the deep inequalities in Haiti. The huge social gap between the poor Creole-speaking black majority, that make up 95% of the population, and the French-speaking mulattos, 1% of whom own nearly half the country’s wealth, remains unaddressed.

Exploitation

Trade policies imposed by international financial agencies left Haiti dependent on food imports, particularly from the US. Soaring rice prices and other staples in 2009 hit the Haitian people very hard. Haiti is burdened with $50 million a year in debt servicing. Last week, a $100 million IMF “emergency loan” was granted but on condition of a public sector pay freeze.

Before the earthquake Bill Clinton, UN special envoy to Haiti, was promoting yet more sweatshops, from which US and Canadian corporations and Haiti’s elite would profit.

The CWI calls for:

-Immediate massive funding for earthquake disaster relief and reconstruction
-Democratic control over all aid and emergency assistance - rescue, relief and rehabilitation of the affected people - and massive reconstruction programmes, through elected committees of workers, land labourers and poor people in every area
-Build good quality, quake-proof standard, housing, hospitals, schools, roads and infrastructure, and other vital public resources and services
-The cancellation of all foreign debts and unjust trade policies
-State subsidies for struggling small farmers
-Jobs and a living wage for all
-Bring the economy into public ownership, under democratic workers’ control and management
-US and UN forces out of Haiti - End imperialist meddling
-Build independent unions and a new mass party of the working class and poor, with socialist policies
-For a socialist Haiti, as part of a voluntary and equal socialist federation of the Caribbean

Haitians abandoned, bankers rewarded: Fight for a socialist world

By Dave Carr, Socialist Party

While desperate survivors in Haiti’s destroyed capital of Port-au-Prince tried to find food, water and shelter, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton breezed into the main airport for a photo opportunity, diverting aid relief flights which included a field hospital from the charity Médecins Sans Frontières.

The US government has brushed aside the Haitian government of René Préval, taken over the main airport and sent in 10,000 troops. Aid has barely trickled out from the US/UN guarded stockpiles to the millions of Haitian refugees.

The United Nations - which has been occupying the island state for the last six years - seems instead to be concentrating its efforts on policing the wealthier and commercial areas of the capital.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon visited the devastated capital and in the face of hungry and thirsty people blithely told them to be “patient”. But patience has run out and people have desperately been sifting the ruins to find food and water. Yet much of the western media condemned their efforts as ‘criminal looting’.

Ordinary people worldwide have dug deep into their pockets to donate to the emergency. But despite pouring trillions of dollars into rescuing the capitalist world’s banks and financial institutions, western governments have only donated a few millions.

And why is it that this earthquake can claim 200,000 lives but a similar sized earthquake claimed only 63 people when it struck northern California in 1989? The answer is obvious. California is in a rich country but Haiti is the poorest country in the western world with three quarters of its population scraping by on only $2 a day.

And whereas in California sound construction materials, building methods and regulations have been brought about over decades through public pressure on the authorities, Haiti has been subject to the exploitative rule of a corrupt local elite, favoured by US and French imperialism, which has made massive profits and siphoned off investment and aid money.

Haiti’s richest 1% owns nearly half the country’s wealth. Western companies have also used Haiti as a sweatshop to produce cheap agricultural goods and manufactures.

And when poor Haitians voted in the radical president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to change the situation he was removed (for a second time) in a 2004 coup by the rich elite, supported by the Bush administration.

Under the domination of imperialism, few Haitian people will benefit from any reconstruction. But the alternative is not to despair. Haiti has a revolutionary heritage going back two centuries, when a slave revolt led by Toussaint L’Ouverture defeated the country’s French colonial rulers. Today it is that tradition that Haitians need to draw on to liberate themselves from poverty, destitution and exploitation.

Bankers award themselves obscene ‘bonuses’

As the top bankers worldwide award themselves obscene ‘bonuses’ to feed their greed-fuelled, decadent lifestyles, the workers and poor people of Haiti suffer conditions of unimaginable horror. The billions of pounds, euros and dollars the banking fat cats are taking for themselves should be confiscated and used to meet the desperate needs of the injured, orphaned and homeless in Haiti!

And in the richer countries of the world in which the major banks are based, how about some of the excessive banking profits going to the victims of the recession, an economic crisis that these banks have worsened through their profiteering and speculation? For instance, to the rapidly growing number of unemployed and to all those who can’t make ends meet, through no fault of their own?

Yet the British government even refuses to ban outrageous top salary levels and bonus payments in the failed banks it was forced to take effective ownership of, like RBS. The chief of RBS, Stephen Hester, has an astounding potential pay packet of £9.7 million.

In 2010, many trade unionists will take industrial action to defend their living standards. Also, working class people in a number of areas will have an opportunity to express their anger through the ballot box, in the areas where the newly formed Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition stands a candidate in the general election. The coalition argues for taxing the rich and for the banks to be brought into “true public ownership and democratic control, instead of huge handouts to the very capitalists who caused the crisis”.