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  • Training: Neither Politics nor Education

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    As an employee at a large state university, I have to attend a myriad of trainings, on everything from fire safety to preventing workplace discrimination.  The mood at these trainings is typically sour, the participation minimal and perfunctory, and the information provided mostly inadequate to the topics discussed.  I know what P.A.S.S. stands for, but that knowledge is not going to make me any less terrified if I ever have to use a fire extinguisher.  That being said, at least I know what the purposes of these trainings are: to give a false sense of security, to prevent lawsuits, to feed the bureaucratic apparatus, etc.  They’re excruciating to sit through, but their existence makes enough sense.

    The same cannot be said of the trainings I encounter in my other life as a political actor, where I am always hearing about trainings on subjects like “how to organize,” “how to use social media to mobilize,” or “how to tell our story in a powerful way.”  These trainings, put on by unions, non-profits, and other community organizations, are often pervaded with a compulsory excitement, though they bear all the trappings of bureaucratic self-maintenance.  I was recently fortunate enough to be a delegate at the 2017 convention of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), where we were split up regionally for the first “Workshop Block” and subjected to one such training entitled “Values, Strategy, and Structure.”  It was later revealed that this training was only one of a host of other non-issue-based and remarkably abstract trainings like “Building through Relationships” and “Community and Culture” that comprised a proposed “National Training Strategy” for the DSA.  I left the convention generally hopeful about the possibilities for the organization but very concerned that a significant portion of our membership wanted to devote our growing but still relatively small resources to “training.”

    Now no doubt training has its uses: if I am going to phonebank for a candidate or go knock on doors to talk about a particular bill or issue, I am very appreciative of a rap training and some practice time.  But the kind of training I have in mind here is more abstract and purportedly educational.  The implied promise is that sufficient training prepares you to hit the ground running, as if the often painful trial and error of actually doing political work were simply an application of training knowledge rather than the education itself.  The very real danger here is that people are set up with an overly simple model of organizing and activism, and then disappointed, defeated, and bewildered when political reality doesn’t meet their expectations.  Especially in the era of social media, when leftists can happily exist in their self-righteous echo chambers, we desperately need to break out of any cloistered spaces that are safely sequestered from this reality.

    ***

    I was first introduced to the pushy demand to be trained at my first job at an immigrant rights organization in Chicago, where most of the organizers had been trained at the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization founded by Saul Alinsky.  The problems with “Alinskyanism” – the philosophy centered on “apolitical ‘single-issue’ campaigns that focus on ‘winnable demands’ run by a well-oiled, staff-heavy organization” – have been well-charted elsewhere.  Under the auspices of “realism” and “pragmatism,” Alinsky encouraged organizers to be anti-ideological, to focus on very small victories, and to avoid dealing with larger systemic problems – all points that are more or less inimical to socialist politics.  Jane McAlevey sees the failures of New Labor after 1995, including its corporate campaigns and top-down decision-making, as a result of their adoption of “Alinsky’s extreme pragmatism and his embrace of ‘ends justify the means’ tactics, [which] enabled New Labor’s leaders to rationalize accords with big business that stripped workers and their communities of the ability to defend themselves against their employers.”

    Less emphasized in the literature on Alinsky is his maniacal focus on training, a concern that animated the writing of his well-known Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals in 1971 and which became the central focus of the Industrial Areas Foundation around that same time.  In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky describes the “major problem of [his] years of organizational experience” to be “the finding of potential organizers and their training,” and proudly holds up his “special training school for organizers” (one that is still in existence today) as a crowning achievement.  Alinsky was always adamant that a good organizer is “suspicious of, and antagonistic to, any idea of plans that work from the top down.  Democracy to him is working from the bottom up.”  But there is an important paradox in his position: the organizer always works from the bottom up, but it is only the organizer who is properly qualified to recognize what is at the bottom from their position at the top.  Proper training endows the organizer with a special expertise – Jeffrey Stout tellingly compares organizers to soccer coaches – that establishes an implicit hierarchy, and it is only within this schema that “bottom-up” issues are identified.

    In a comprehensive and exacting critique of Alinskyanism, Aaron Petcoff argues that professional organizers bear a “relatively constrained field of vision in which the rank and file appears hopelessly disorganized and conservative.”  This is a very subtle point: if one is a psychiatrist, one will walk into a consulting room ready to fit patients into certain diagnostic categories.  (The history of psychiatry bears some amusing anecdotes where this process has gone awry: for instance, when Emil Kraepelin interpreted a patient’s mocking retorts to be non-sensical gestures of “catatonic excitement.”)  The same basic problem goes for trainers, and this was in abundant evidence at the DSA’s “Values, Strategy, & Structure” training, where many “trainees” objected to the infantilizing nature of the trainings and refused to participate.  Armed with the notion that their job was to bring order to disorder, the trainers – no doubt well-intentioned, but some of whose qualifications entailed only recently having gone through the training themselves – chided the disobedient and pushed on with the training, as if the participants were acting like children rather than lodging reasonable complaints.

    One might pass this off as a specific problem of tin-eared trainers, but it is the very structure of training that encourages this kind of behavior.  A hierarchy is established wherein workers, organizational members, and community leaders are the raw material to be shaped by organizers and trainers, rather than political agents in their own right.  Of the many damaging things Alinsky introduced into left discourse, this paternalism, veiled by claims about “working from the bottom up,” is one of the most insidious, and it is part of the fabric of the whole training model of politics.

    ***

    This is not, of course, to say that we all don’t have a great deal to learn, merely that you learn political work by doing political work.  Canvassing, for instance, isn’t just for the experienced: properly organized, canvasses can be used to onboard newcomers, and in such a way that exposes them to the reality of people’s everyday issues, struggles, and hopes, rather than the make-believe world created in trainings.

    One might nonetheless think that training offers a good model of political education, but here again it offers only a simulacrum of the thing itself.  Any socialist model of education must transcend what Frances Reade has identified as the “sit and get” or “drive-by” model of learning and create spaces wherein people are really encouraged to communicate, out of a respect for the autonomous capacities of ordinary people.  It should not encourage the selling, pitching, or packaging of the basics of socialism because the possibility of a better society is only truly internalized through slow reflection on and discussion of everyday experiences in the harsh world of late capitalism.

    The training model, by contrast, is profoundly disrespectful of the capacities of the people who are supposedly “served” by it.  Training material is typically Powerpointed into slides that offer the most cursory of power analyses or concept explanations, any audience participation is highly structured in such a way as to prevent real conversation, and the time where dialogue is allowed is often devoted to activities like practicing political sales pitches.  Capitalist society, especially in its neoliberal phase, encourages us to think about other people as unintelligent and at best to be manipulated for our own ends.  Training, in assuming that we “meet people where they are” by obsessively directing and limiting conversation, participates in this deep disrespect for human autonomy that is inherent in contemporary society.

    To be clear, to reject the training model of political education is not to affirm the quasi-Talmudic Marxist reading group as the standard we should all strive for.  Full immersion in political economy, great in itself, is certainly not a precondition for being a socialist, but a good socialist education model will discourage oversimplification and encourage reading, reflection, and discussion amongst peers.  On both counts, training fails miserably, and if we follow the logic of Doug Henwood, Liza Featherstone, and Christian Parenti’s classic article, “Action Will Be Taken,” this should come as no surprise.  Undergirded by the kind of non-profit culture that pursues “specific politely meliorative schemes” while avoiding any systemic focus, training “fosters an array of mind-killing practices,” and in so doing participates in the general anti-intellectualism that so dominates American life.

    A more recent Parenti article, “If We Fail,” does a spectacular job of illustrating what an incomprehensibly important political moment we live in.  The reconstitution of the left in the wake of Bernie and in the face of Trump is tremendously exciting, but the intensifying climate crisis, the worrying reemergence of regressive ideologies, the threats of new wars, etc. means that we must think and act with clarity.  The process of being trained – somewhat like exercising on a stationary bike while watching the news on television, in that two perfectly good activities are debased in being combined – dulls both thought and action.  Forgive the extended metaphor, but the topic elicits the facile: we cannot afford to spin our wheels at such a critical juncture.

     

  • In Latin America: A New Left, A New Marxism?

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    This is an excerpt from Webber's article From Nuestra América to Abya Yala: Notes on Imperialism and Anti-imperialism in Latin America across Centuries in the newest issue of Viewpoint.

    The richness of the extra-parliamentary cycle of revolt, and the contradictions of subsequent left-government rule, unsurprisingly spurred a new period of Latin American Marxism (2000–). It is perhaps imprudent to make summative judgements on key features of the theory and praxis generated thus far, and assuredly over hasty to determine whether the phase of Marxism begun in 2000 is drawing to a close in tandem with the end of the political cycle of the latest Left turn. But one tentative conclusion might be hazarded – the latest season of Latin American Marxism has been characterized by the kind of bursts of originality and profundity last witnessed after the Cuban Revolution, and, at the same time, signs of sclerotic rigidity and formulaic dogma that preceded it. Winds of transformation and restoration wrestled each other indeterminately through this latest storm of the region’s Left.

    Some of the intellectual highs and lows are visible in the outpouring of recent works on imperialism and anti-imperialism. We can document such polarities, at least in a preliminary fashion, through a comparative juxtaposition of recent work by two of the region’s weightiest theoreticians: Atilio Borón and Claudio Katz, both highly acclaimed Argentine Marxists. What is most striking in examining their distinct treatments of contemporary imperialism and anti-imperialism are their different theorizations of the relationship between capitalism and imperialism. Borón, on the one hand, implicitly absorbs a number of Realist axioms from orthodox academic debates in North American International Relations, the most important being the near-total separation of the sphere of “geopolitics” from the laws of motion of capital accumulation as they unfold unevenly in and through the world market. This is not merely a heuristic separation for analytical purposes in Borón’s analysis, but purports to document a real separation. Thus a window is opened to hyper-contingent and, at times, conspiracist readings of U.S. domination and its ostensible decline over the last few decades. For Katz, by contrast, the economic and the political are often out of sync in their specific temporalities, but there is nonetheless always a dialectical relation between the two. A better balance between objective determination and historical contingency is thus possible in this framework. Capitalist dynamics running through the world market over different phases of capitalist development internationally are understood to set limits on political maneuver for the asymmetrically positioned, constitutive parts of the totality. The same capitalist dynamics contain internal contradiction, and tend toward recurrent systemic crises, potentially opening up political opportunities.

    América Latina en la geopolítica del imperialismo, by Borón, is perhaps the most eminent contribution to the latest wave of work in this area.51 The book received a conspicuous boost in stature when it won the 2012 Premio Libertador al Pensamiento Crítico prize, established in 2005 by Hugo Chávez, and administered by the Red de Intelectuales, Artistas y Movimientos Sociales en Defensa de la Humanidad (Network of Intellectuals, Artists, and Social Movements in Defence of Humanity).

    Audacious in ambition, Borón’s panoramic vision in this text moves in and out of broad theoretical controversies – classical and contemporary – and the concrete historical and political terrains of Latin America. He surveys classical questions of Marxist imperialist theory since the late 19th century and offers a novel synthetic framework for understanding the present machinations of global geopolitics. On that backdrop, Borón makes a first foray into more concrete analytical claims surrounding the general crisis of capitalism that erupted in 2007–08 and the questions it posed and poses for the apogee or decline of American empire. Regarding Latin America, he tracks the strategic centrality of the region in U.S. foreign affairs, from the Monroe Doctrine of the early 19th century to the Free Trade Area of the Americas initiative in the early 21st. This explains, for Borón, why the intensified militarization of American power around the globe includes an impressive tentacular reach – through military bases, covert operations, joint military exercises, and the “war on drugs” – into Mexico, across Central America, and throughout parts of South America.

    A series of interwoven thematics are at the center of Borón’s account: the question of natural resources, both as a strategic motivation for U.S. intervention and domination, but also as a source of debate and contestation between social movements and left-wing governments over the character of “extractivism” during the accelerated commodities boom of 2003–2011; the specificities of U.S. military extension into Latin America; the difficulties of periodizing recent cycles of popular movements in the region and their relationship to anti-imperialist resistance; and tentative interpretive outlines of a “new epoch” of geopolitical politics on a world-scale.

    Much of the book is anecdotal and patchily organized. Intellectuals of lesser renown could ill afford its breezily assertive style. Fundamental theoretical elements – relative U.S. decline, rise of the BRICS, progressive orientation and transformative potential of extant leftist regimes – are more opening gestures than elaborated theses, with internal inconsistencies and soft-spots for conspiracy. But the political conclusions resonate with the most “statist” inflections of Latin American Marxism in recent years – i.e. those closely aligned with governments in office. Leftist opponents of the intensification of extractive capitalism under progressive governments – Raúl Zibechi, Eduardo Gudynas, and Alberto Acosta especially – are caricatured and ridiculed, while indigenous critics of capitalist mining expansion are portrayed as naïve romantics – pachamamistas – in a section relying heavily on a sycophantic reading of recent writings of Bolivian Vice President, Álvaro García Linera.52

    In his strongest thread of argumentation, Borón offers a cartography of military expansion – the agreement between Barack Obama and Álvaro Uribe to establish seven new military bases in Colombia, the vigilant patrolling of the Caribbean basin by U.S. forces, the broad encircling of Venezuela with U.S. military outposts – in the north, in Colombia, and the Dutch Antilles; in the south, bases in Paraguay; in the west, bases in Peru; in the east, those in Guyana, Surinam, and French Guyana.53 He demonstrates how Plan Colombia, Plan Puebla-Panama, and Plan Mérida, among others, have enabled joint military exercises with local armed forces.54 Borón also points out the expansion and decentralization of U.S. military bases in recent decades with the U.S. Southern Command’s “forward operating locations,” which are little more than specialized landing strips and crude accompanying infrastructures. With local communications facilities around these strips quickly enabled by the monumental network of U.S. satellites around the world, and the use of enormous C-17 Globemaster transport planes, what appear to be more or less empty sites could be retrofitted, Borón contends, with operational U.S. troops and tanks within hours in most parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.55 Such insights into the military dimensions of imperialism, however, are underspecified in relation to the dynamics of global capitalism. In an unacknowledged echo of mainstream “realist” theories of North American International Relations theory, geopolitics for Borón appear frequently as a wholly distinct sphere. Each time economics seems poised to enter the analysis, the narrative short circuits back to diplomatic intrigue.

    In a degrading turn, which dishonours his landmark early books, Borón lends credence in América Latina en la geopolítica del imperialismoto 9/11 truther theses in several discrete moments of his argument.56 What accounts for sustained celebration of this book, nonetheless, is perhaps the easy ideological veil it offers the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. All three processes are said to be advancing toward “a socialism of a new type,” a description which for Borón is flexible enough to cover Vietnam and China, despite decades of capitalist restoration57The state, so this thesis goes, remains in control and dominance over private capital in these countries, and thus they cannot be described accurately as capitalist. Such a perspective also allows Borón to accept as necessary the totality of market reforms introduced recently in Cuba.58

    The strategic political conclusions Borón draws from history are of a kind with his economic conceptualization of market socialism. From the Allende period in Chile, for example, we are to conclude that the activities of the “most intransigent and radicalized” sections of the Chilean Left, unwittingly and in spite of themselves, “converged” with the interests of imperialism and the domestic Right in the early 1970s, precipitating the 1973 Pinochet coup. This must not be allowed to happen again, he stresses, particularly in contemporary Bolivia, Ecuador, or Venezuela.59 Allende’s moderation was apparently a plausible exit for that conflictual period, had it not been for radicals to his Left. By contrast, the great historian of the Allende years, Peter Winn, contends that,

    in Chile, it was the counterrevolutionaries – not the revolutionaries – who utilized political violence and state terror as a conscious strategy. In the face of this violent counterrevolution, the determination of Allende, the bulk of the Popular Unity to keep to the nonviolent road to socialism may have doomed that strategy to ultimate failure – and condemned Chile to suffer the darkest night of political violence in its history.60

    In the first version, Allende went too fast, reached out insufficiently to his Right, and did so because of the intransigence of the Chilean radical Left. In the second, Allende’s excessive moderation, faith in leadership from above, trust in the established institutions of the capitalist state and the bourgeois opposition’s commitment to democratic continuity, and especially his suspicion of unleashed capacities of those from below and to his Left, are what led to the preventable Pinochet disaster.

    Doubling down on key analytical features of his book – the statist conception of socialism, the demonization and caricature of left-oppositional forces in Latin American countries with progressive governments, and the tendency to radically reduce each Latin American conjuncture to the geopolitical expression of imperial power – Borón has more recently compared the 2017 elections in Ecuador to the Battle of Stalingrad, eschewed the possibility of independent left forces in Venezuela critical of Maduro, and interpreted Trump’s arrival to the White House as the “end of the cycle” of neoliberalism, and thus an opportunity for progressive forces in Latin America.61

    In Borón’s theorization and historicization of imperialism, burdened by a geopoliticist idealism, diplomatic positioning by state managers in the core of the world system is granted excessive explanatory power, as is, in terms of resistance, action by progressive state managers of certain Latin American states with centre-left or left administrations. These state managers become the privileged potential agents of emancipation. Class struggle from below is largely eclipsed, despite occasional gestures to the contrary. This eclipse is as true of Borón’s treatment of the United States as it is of Latin America, and it is in part what allows him, finally, to wade into conspiracist waters.

    Beneath the Empire of Capital

    The two latest books by Claudio Katz are of incomparable sophistication, whatever their internal tensions and misfires. Bajo el imperio del capital, published in 2011, contributes to the latest period of international theorization of contemporary imperialism (drawing on debates in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English), while Neoliberalismo, neodesarrollismo, socialismo, published at the end of 2016, links the wider imperial context to narrower political and economic debates surrounding the last 15 years of leftist experimentation in Latin America.62

    Perhaps the most consequential element in Bajo el imperio del capital is Katz’s careful periodization and characterization of the distinct phases of imperialism since the late nineteenth century – classical (1880–1914); post-war (1945–1975); and neoliberal (1980s–present).63 Drawing on the theorizations of Lenin, Kautsky, Luxemburg, and Hilferding64 – at times overlapping, and at others competing – Katz characterizes the classical era as one of ferocious capitalist expansion, with private enterprises playing a protagonist role, in which peripheral territories still external to capitalist laws of accumulation were brought into the system’s orbit through colonial conquest.65

    Here Katz scrutinizes the specificity of distinct modes of production and distinguishes his account from those historians who pay exclusive attention to the rise and decline of empires across centuries – from Rome to Great Britain – without cognizance of the dramatic dissimilarities of the domestic social relations underlying each expansionary state. Following Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Empire of Capital, Katz stresses the analogous relationship between specific forms of domestic social relations and various forms of imperial rule.66 History suggests that there has been a close association between both capitalist and non-capitalist societies, on the one hand, and their imperialisms, on the other. Non-capitalist colonial empires of the past – such as the feudal Portuguese and Spanish Empires in Latin America between the late 15th and early 19th centuries – like feudal lords in their relations with peasants, dominated territory and subjects through military conquest, often direct political rule, and therefore extensive extra-economic coercion; in contrast, capitalist imperialism “can exercise its rule by economic means, by manipulating the forces of the market, including the weapon of debt.”67 It is obvious, all the same, that capitalist imperialism continues to require coercive force. As Colin Mooers suggests, “force remains indispensable both to the achievement of market ‘openness’ where it does not yet exist and to securing ongoing compliance with the rights of capital.”68

    Neoliberal capitalism, Katz stresses, witnessed the transformation of the old international division of labor through the internationalization of production and the modularization of global value chains. The systematic transfer of manufacturing activities toward Asia intensified competition and reduced production costs.69 Massive multinational corporations emerged as key agents in this process. However, contra theses of monopoly capital, the augmentation in size of companies is not synonymous with monopoly control or suppression of competition. Instead, capitalism systematically recreates competition and oligopoly in complementary forms through reciprocal recycling. At certain moments of intense inter-firm rivalry, specific companies introduce transitory forms of supremacy, but these cannot be maintained in the face of new competitive battles just around the corner. This dynamic, Katz insists, is constitutive of capitalism and will persist so long as this particular mode of production survives.71

    Technologically, an information revolution has facilitated the various neoliberal mutations of capitalism, with the generalization of the use of computers in manufacturing and the financial and commercial management of mega-corporations. Radical innovation has increased productivity, cheapened transportation, and enlarged communications networks.72 However, the internationalization of capital has also enabled more rapid and total transmission of disequilibria in the global system – witness Japan in 1993; Mexico in 1994; Southeast Asia in 1997; Russia in 1998; the so-called dot-com bubble in 2000 in the United States; and Argentina in 2001. This list of regional precursors to the 2008 Great Recession is hardly exhaustive.73

    As in all earlier phases of capitalism, neoliberalism is based on competition and fierce economic rivalry between firms for control of markets. Yet, in the classical phase of imperialism a certain proportionality existed between economic and military rivalry, whereas in the post-war and neoliberal epochs this proximate relationship has been partially displaced and fractured through the military supremacy of the United States.74 The present system of imperialism is sustained in part through American military intervention and a historically unprecedented global military presence and attendant capabilities.75

    At the same time, U.S. hegemony in the 21st century is much reduced relative to its near-absolute dominance in the first-half of the 20th century. The effectiveness of its military superiority is increasingly in doubt, as the fallout from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq partially demonstrate.76 Part of the explanation for U.S. military belligerence in the neoliberal period, generally, and the temporally and geographically indefinite character of the “war on terror,” specifically, can be understood as a compensation for declining industrial competitiveness and productivity. In the present moment U.S. military power is employed in part to redress economic deterioration.77 The United States must constantly reaffirm its global leadership through new wars, Katz insists, but the results of each war are impossible to anticipate, and the instrumentalization of each bloody conflict has become more difficult with the absence of compulsory conscription.78

    The great advantage of Katz’s framework relative to Borón’s is the attentiveness it affords to the underlying character of shifting epochs of capitalist development globally, alongside careful defence against crude economic determinism. Capitalist dynamics in the world system in different historical periods are never reduced to empty abstractions, as though they mechanically determined political outcomes. Katz, following Marx, rises from the abstract to the concrete as he introduces new, specific determinations and mediations across capitalist phases, as these determinations and mediations arise in different regions of the world, in different ways. Class struggle – from above, and from below, and within both dominant and dominated countries – features at the heart of Katz’s historical narrative and theoretical premises. Thus history is open, if not wide-open.

     

  • Fossil Fuels and Toxic Landscapes – Issue Launch and Panel

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    Monday, February 26 at 7:00pm

    Verso Books

    20 Jay St., Brooklyn, NY

    Please RSVP Here!

    A year after President Trump's inauguration, our worst climate policy nightmares have become a reality. Fossil fuel interests have hijacked every part of the new administration—the State Department, Department of Interior, Environmental Protection agency, Department of Energy and National Economic Council, and the list goes on and on. Meanwhile, the intensity of global-warming fueled devastation increases daily as over a century of fossil-fueled war and violence against labor and nature rages on. Latin America is familiar with this kind of violence.

    Join us for a discussion that brings together contributors from NACLA's latest issue, Fossil Fuels and Toxic Landscapes, with internationally recognized activists and organizers for a discussion on the fight for environmental justice, sustainable energy, and a livable future across border—from New York to Houston to Oaxaca.

    • Elizabeth Yeampierre, UPROSE
    • Bryan Parras, Beyond Dirty Fuels, Sierra Club
    • Todd Miller, Independent Journalist
    • Alexander Dunlap, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
    • Moderated by Nicole Fabricant (Towson University) and Bret Gustafson (Washington University)

    And join us on Facebook!

    Sponsored by the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), New Politics, and the Democratic Socialists of America Climate Justice Working Group.

  • Solidarity with Afrin, al-Ghouta, Idlib Against All Military Attacks

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    We, the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, oppose the various military attacks on Afrin, Idlib and Eastern Ghouta and support all the innocent civilians in Syria. . . There has been a consensus between all the international and regional powers on the necessity to liquidate the revolutionary popular movements initiated in Syria in March of 2011 . . .

    Solidarity with Afrin against Turkish military intervention

    January 23, 2018

    Since January 20, 2018, Turkish military assisted by pro-Turkish Syrian opposition militia groups have launched a large scale air and ground offensive, dubbed “Operation Olive Branch” on Afrin province located in northwest  Syria with a Kurdish majority population and controlled by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG).  At least 30 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the operation.

    Afrin has welcomed many Internaly Displaced Persons from other regions of the country which has led to a doubing of its population to 400,000 and 500,000, because it was relatively spared from the war and agressions of the Assad’s regime forces.

    This attack comes after months of tensions and agression by the Turkish military against Afrin. The Turkish army used as a pretext, an announcement by a military spokesman for the US-led global coalition against the Islamic State (IS) to build a 30,000-strong border force under the command of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led by People’s Protection Units (YPG). In Ankara’s opinion, the US decision meant that  the US-YPG partnership would not end with the collapse of the IS, as the Turkish government had hoped.

    Ankara considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and PYD in Syria, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the United States, the European Union and Turkey have labeled a terrorist organization.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Afrin operation would be followed by another against Manbij. Erdogan also threatened any critical voices in Turkey against the “Operation Olive Branch,” notably stating in reference to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), “that wherever you go out on the streets our security forces are on your necks.”  With the exception of the HDP, the rest of the main parties in Turkey, including the fascistic National Movement Party (known as MHP) and the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (known as CHP), support Turkey’s military intervention.

    Despite a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry expressing “concern” and calling on the parties “to show mutual restraint,” Moscow, which controls large large parts of Syrian air space, has actually given Turkey the green light for this invasion and has withdrawn its forces from the areas targeted by Turkish forces. Russian officials had demanded that the YPG hand over Afrin to the Syrian regime to “stop” the Turkish attacks on the region.

    The USA has remained rather passive, only urging Turkey to exercise restraint and ensure that its military operations remain limited in scope and duration. At the same time, Russian, Iranian and Turkish diplomats met to prepare for the Syrian “National Dialogue Congress” to be held in Sochi, Russia on January 30, and seek to consolidate a so-called peace process in which the Assad regime’s  structures would be maintained.

    The Syrian National Coalition Of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (known as the Etilaf), composed mostly of liberal and Islamic conservative and fundamentalist groups and personalties, have not only supported the Turkish military intervention and continued their previous chauvinist policies against the Kurds in Syria, but are also participating in this operation by calling on Syrian refugees in Turkey to join the Syrian armed opposition groups fighting in Afrin.

    The current Turkish military operation against Afrin and the very recent failed Kurdish independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, have shown that international and regional powers have no willingness to see any Kurdish national or autonomist aspirations come to fruition. It is evident that the previous support of Moscow and and Washington for the YPG, and the YPG’s support for the Russian air and military campaign alongside the Assad regime launched at the end of September 2015, did not prevent Ankara’s military aggression against Afrin.

    More broadly, the Afrin operation reflects the weakness of all democratic and progressive actors in Syria in the face of the Assad regime and its allies’ destruction of the Syrian revolution, and the consequent renewed power of this regime which has received acceptance by all International actors.

    Solidarity with Idlib and al-Ghouta against the attacks by the Assad regime and its Russian ally

    At the same time, we condemn the Assad regime’s attacks on Eastern Ghouta and Idlib, areas which are supposedly considered “de-escalation zones” according to the Astana “peace” negotiations, led by Russia, Iran and Turkey.

    Since mid-November 2017, the nearly 400,000 people in Eastern Ghouta have been subjected to airstrikes, shelling and bombardment on an almost daily basis by regime forces and its allies. At least 21 civilians have been killed by regime airstrikes and shelling of Eastern Ghouta between January 20 and 22. This brings the death toll to more than 200 civilians since the regime escalated its offensive against this area on December 29. According to the local Civil Defense, regime forces reportedly fired nine shells carrying suspected chlorine gas on Douma city on January 20 and injured 21 people. As a reminder, this region has been under siege by the Syrian regime and allied militias since 2013.

    Opposition groups in al-Ghouta have also shelled various districts of Damascus, resulting in the killing and injuring of a dozen civilians these past few weeks.

    In addition to this, following regime advances, in southern Idlib and northern rural Hama, over 200,000 civilians have been displaced in the past month. while more than 100 people were killed in the fighting.

    In both Idlib and al-Ghouta, socialists need to stand in solidarity with the civilians against the authoritarian rule of Salafist and Jihadist movements, respectively Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam.

    There has been a consensus between all the international and regional powers on the necessity to liquidate the revolutionary popular movements initiated in Syria in March of 2011 and to stabilize the murderous and authoritarian  regime in Damascus with Bashar al-Assad at its head in the name of the “war on terror.” It is this consensus which has given the latest “carte blanche” for these crimes.

    In the face of this counter-revolutionary consensus, what is desperately needed is solidarity between all (Arabs, Kurds and all other ethnic minorities) revolutionaries who are against the Assad regime and all the regional and international imperialist powers and support the struggles for social justice, women’s rights and the rights of oppressed minorities.  

    The Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists supports the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people in Syria and in other countries. This does not mean that we take an uncritical stand  on the policies of Kurdish parties leading these struggles, whether the PYD or the Kurdish Democratic Party or others, notably regarding violations of human rights against civilians.

    Oppose all forms of sectarianism and racism

    Our destinies are linked

    Join the Alliance’s Campaign in Solidarity with Middle Eastern Political Prisoners:

    https://www.allianceofmesocialists.org/14964/

    January 23, 2018

    Originally posted here.

  • UFT shows how Not to protect unions and the public sector

    ImageIn its January meeting, after a pro-forma discussion, the Delegate Assembly of the UFT (United Federation of Teachers), which still has the legal right to bargain collectively on behalf of New York City's teachers, voted down a resolution to work with community groups to support Black Lives Matter in the schools in February. LeRoy Barr, UFT's assistant secretary, co-staff director, and Chairperson of the Unity Caucus, gave the UFT leadership's rationale for rejecting the motion. Support for BLM was, he contended, a splinter issue, divisive, at a time when the union had to stay focused on what was key, the Janus decision and the threat to collective bargaining rights.

    UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, opened the Delegate Assembly warning teachers about the threat of the Janus decision, which may decimate membership of public employee unions. Mulgrew and the Unity Caucus, which controls the UFT apparatus, explain Janus threatens the union’s mission, “standing together and taking care of each other.”  However, what they mean by “stand together” — as workers, teachers, public employees, union members — is what’s called “business unionism,” the conception that has brought us to this precipice, paving the way to Janus.  

    In his remarks, Barr referenced (inaccurately) how the UFT and Albert Shanker had navigated the divisions of the Vietnam War. A better analogy is AFT’s long-time refusal to support the rights of gay teachers for forty years until the issue was made “safe” by activists, many of them teachers acting as individuals. They changed the minds, hearts, and laws of this country, without their union’s  support or encouragement. They did it by taking to the streets, educating people about their right to be equal in all regards, then pushing for laws that advanced the struggle.

    I pursued this privately with AFT President Randi Weingarten after a panel in which she and I appeared at New York University, because Weingarten had used the recent legal victories about gay marriage as an example of how we could win on controversial issues — if we backed off of confrontation. Was the AFT right to refuse to support gay teachers' rights in the 1970s, when we had first raised it, I asked? The AFT's argument was that the issue was unpopular, divisive, and would distract from the union's core purpose — protecting teachers.  “I wasn’t around then,” she hedged, annoyed. I pressed her, asking if, in retrospect, the union's decision had been morally and politically right, if she would defend it now. She said “No.” Had those of us who pushed the AFT to take a stand been correct? "Yes," she said, even more frustrated at the turn of conversation.

    LeRoy Barr erred about supporting Black Lives Matter protests using same reasoning that places the AFT and the UFT on the wrong side of every social justice struggle that challenges inequalities embedded in capitalism — until the cause is made respectable by activists. To take strong positions on social justice issues, the union needs its members' loyalty and trust. To do that it has to fight, hard, for its members’ economic interests. As the summary of the business taken up by January Delegate Assembly shows, that doesn't happen. Unwilling and/or unable to defend teachers’ dignity on the job, the union leadership is afraid to alienate teachers who don’t see that systemic racism is a union concern, especially in a school system that is majority "minority."

    Teachers are human and are not immune to toxic social prejudices and bigotry. In response, unions often assume the irreversibility of members’ current beliefs, adopting what seem pragmatic policies. In reality these seemingly “practical” policies undercut possibilities of successful resistance by alienating our potential allies and demoralizing the most politically conscious union members. Barr's position and the DA's vote to support it makes building support for union struggles that affect kids' lives in classrooms harder.  Their position weakens the union at the moment teachers and public employees most need to build trust in communities of color.

    Randi Weingarten admits that the AFT was wrong to delay its support for gay rights. LeRoy Barr should acknowledge that he and the UFT are repeating that mistake. The time is now, Brother Barr.

  • How to Legalize Marijuana in New Jersey

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    The victory of Democrat Phil Murphy in the New Jersey gubernatorial election this past November makes it quite likely that recreational marijuana will be legalized in the Garden State. Public opinion in the state has clearly been ready for a change in the drug war model of prohibition – with even Murphy’s Republican opponent having called for decriminalization.

    Murphy quite rightly made racial justice his central argument for legalization: In New Jersey African Americans are three times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession despite similar usage rates – a disparity that has been growing over time. And the consequences of these arrests can be significant. As the ACLU noted,

    Even for individuals who are never incarcerated, collateral consequences that flow from their arrests and convictions—such as lost jobs, ineligibility for public housing, suspended driver’s licenses, and restrictions on access to federal student loans—can significantly derail their lives. A “criminal history” built on minor marijuana convictions can categorize defendants as “career criminals” for sentencing purposes in subsequent cases, thereby triggering harsh mandatory sentences.

    Decriminalization would also address some of these concerns, but that policy has several disadvantages compared to legalization. (I leave aside the problem that in many cases decriminalization isn’t real: New York supposedly decriminalized marijuana back in 1977, but its marijuana-related arrest rate in 2013 was twice the national average. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the issuing of summonses instead of arrests for minor possession, which lowered the arrest tally for a while, but the numbers soon went up again.) Decriminalization means that users are still getting their marijuana from illegal drug cartels, thereby contributing to the profits of vicious organizations that have done so much to undermine democracy and social justice in Latin America.[1] Decriminalization means that users still directly get their marijuana from illegal dealers, who are far more likely than legal ones to also be selling other illegal and more dangerous drugs. And decriminalization means that it is difficult to regulate the quality of the marijuana (for example, to ensure the absence of contaminants) or the conditions of purchase. And decriminalization foregoes tax revenues, which are estimated at $300 million a year in New Jersey.

    But if legalization is better than decriminalization and both are far better than the war on drugs approach, this still doesn’t tell us what kind of legalization would be best. The way that legalization has been carried out across the nation thus far has been far from optimal.

    I.

    In Colorado, Washington, and most recently California, marijuana production and sales have been placed in the hands of private entrepreneurs. One doesn’t have to be a committed socialist to realize that the capitalist profit motive is not the way to maximize social welfare. The free market can of course be tamed to some degree by government regulations, but it has been well documented over many years that regulatory agencies under capitalism are susceptible to being captured by – and becoming beholden to – the very industries they are supposed to regulate. It may be more gross under Trump, but it has been a constant feature of modern capitalism. So regulation of an industry will rarely be as successful as public control of that industry in furthering the public interest, given that a regulated industry (as long as it is profitable) still retains the financial clout to lobby and tame regulators.

    The relative ineffectiveness of regulations has been particularly evident with respect to the tobacco and alcohol industry. Private alcohol and tobacco corporations have ferociously worked to expand their user base, especially among young people who can become lifetime customers. These corporations also know that a major portion of their sales come from heavy users, so they push those people to use even more. And the corporations deploy their substantial financial resources to oppose any public health measures that might cut into their profits.

    For years cigarette companies were able to use part of their immense profits to buy politicians to protect them from any legislation that might interfere with their narco-trafficking. When finally the scientific evidence of tobacco’s health effects could no longer be suppressed, the cigarette companies were banned from advertising on TV and radio. But they moved their massive advertising budgets to other media. In 2014 tobacco companies spent more than $9 billion on marketing (50 percent more than the obscene $6 billion spent on marketing candidates in the 2016 election). Today, they cram the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, with its substantial teen-age readership, with their tobacco ads; they manufacture candy-flavored e-cigarettes and cigars to lure kids. (E-cigarettes might offer a valuable means of helping smokers reduce the use of regular cigarettes, but in 2013 more than a quarter of a million high school kids who had never smoked cigarettes were using e-cigarettes.) Cigarette ads invariably feature beautiful models in order to make smoking more glamorous. When critics appealed to the companies' social conscience and asked them to stop this practice, the Tobacco Institute responded, "What do they want us to use for a model, a hobo wearing a torn raincoat and standing in front of a porno store? We have a product to sell."[2] This, of course, is precisely the problem: they have a product to sell. And this doesn’t get into the even more horrendous record of U.S. tobacco companies overseas.

    The alcohol industry too spends billions of dollars on advertising, and there is plentiful evidence that ads glamourizing alcohol – on TV and elsewhere – contribute to the prevalence of binge drinking and hazardous drinking behaviors. Such behavior is clearly not socially valuable, but it is extremely profitable for the alcohol companies.

    The only way to really end drug advertising and promotion is to nationalize the alcohol and tobacco companies. Admittedly, this is not on the agenda today. However, as marijuana legalization creates a new industry, we have the opportunity to do this one right from the start, and avoid establishing a privately-owned special interest that, once established, will be very difficult to control given that private profits will be spent to oppose any restrictions on those profits.

    To be sure, government-owned operations can also behave irresponsibly. In the United States, state government advertising for their state lotteries has been vile. And state entities are exempt from the Federal Trade Commission’s truth-in-advertising regulations. But while it’s been very hard to limit private advertising – the Supreme Court has generally supported “commercial free speech” – state agencies are more subject to public control, either as a result of political pressure or as part of their enabling legislation, or both. That is, the law legalizing marijuana could specify that the state agency set up to handle marijuana would be prohibited from all advertising. In addition, legislation could put the agency under the Department of Health, rather than an economic development department, to make sure that public health considerations would be given top priority.

    II.
     
    Many drug policy experts agree that a government-run agency has many advantages from public health and public policy points of view, but they suggest that, “alas,” this option is not currently available in the United States because marijuana remains illegal under federal law throughout the country.[3]
     
    To understand this objection, and why it’s not compelling, the complex legal status of marijuana must be clarified. Under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana has been classified as a Schedule 1 narcotic, with a high likelihood of addiction, no medical benefits, and no safe dosage. Marijuana is thus in the same category as heroin, LSD, and Ecstasy, and in a more restrictive category (prohibiting, for example, clinical trials) than cocaine, oxycodone, or methamphetamines. Under the U.S. Constitution, states have no obligation to pass laws in conformity with federal law – that is, they don’t have to make marijuana distribution, possession, and use state crimes – nor do they have to enforce federal law, but at the same time they do not have the authority to change or override federal law and make marijuana legal under federal law.
     
    During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama hinted that he might be more tolerant of marijuana. Early in his administration, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden released a memo indicating that, unlike under George W. Bush, federal resources would not be focused “on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” But when California put a referendum question on the ballot in 2010 to legalize recreational marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder warned that if the measure passed, he would not show the same forbearance. The referendum question, which had been leading in the polls until that point, went down to defeat.  The next year the Justice Department released another memo, the Cole Memo, which explained that the Ogden Memo was not intended to shield the medical marijuana business from federal law; and federal agents cracked down on legal medical marijuana. However, when in 2012 Colorado and Washington passed referenda legalizing recreational marijuana, the Justice Department issued yet another memo, Cole Memo II, declaring that – given their drug enforcement priorities – they would not enforce the federal CSA in states that passed their own marijuana laws as long as state laws met federal priorities (keeping marijuana from minors, keeping revenues from going to gangs, preventing violence, preventing drugged driving, and exacerbation of other public health consequences, etc.).[4] But of course, as legalization advocates had long argued, all these priorities were better addressed with regulated legalization than with unregulated criminalization.
     
    Nevertheless, the disconnect between state and federal law still caused serious problems. Banks would not give loans to marijuana entrepreneurs for fear they would run afoul of federal anti-money laundering legislation. Most lawyers would not provide legal assistance to marijuana companies for fear of being disbarred for aiding and abetting an illegal enterprise. Credit card companies are hesitant to offer their services to marijuana retail outlets. And when a Coloradan was fired by a company for using marijuana in his off hours, despite any evidence that he was ever impaired at work, the state Supreme Court ruled that the firing was justified because the state’s statute prohibiting termination for lawful off duty conduct didn’t apply given that marijuana is not legal.[5] And it was at least questionable whether contracts – say a contract between a marijuana grower and retailer – could be enforced for nonperformance as long as marijuana remained formally illegal.
     
    Thus, all state legalization programs have run up against this legal difficulty. Anyone who distributes, possesses, or uses marijuana will remain in violation of federal law regardless of state law. But whether or not they will be prosecuted depends on what the Justice Department does. On January 4, 2018, Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced that he was rescinding the Obama-era guidance and that U.S. Attorneys were now directed to enforce all laws enacted by Congress regarding marijuana.
     
    It would of course be hard for the federal government to enforce the CSA in a legalization state – it simply doesn’t have enough federal officers to do the job (the vast majority of marijuana arrests are made by state and local law enforcement officers). But it would be trivial for the federal government to close down the “legal” market. Arresting a single retailer and confiscating her or his assets (as drug laws allow) would immediately drive the marijuana business back underground.
     
    But Sessions is going to get a lot of political pushback. 29 states – including many “Red” states – plus the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana to some degree and almost two thirds of Americans – including a majority of Republicans! – favor legalization of recreational marijuana. A more detailed poll carried out by an anti-legalization organization found that “Only 16 percent of Americans favored keeping the current policy. About 29 percent backed only medical legalization, 5 percent backed decriminalization, and 49 percent backed full legalization. The remaining 1 percent were not sure.” Even among Republican voters, only 25% favored the current war-on-drugs policy.
     
    In Congress, there is broad criticism of Sessions and a bi-partisan bill has been introduced to deny the Justice Department funds for carrying out marijuana enforcement in violation of state laws. A bi-partisan group of California House members has called on the state’s U.S. Senators to refuse to confirm any Justice Department appointees until Sessions reinstates the Cole II memorandum. How this will play out, we don’t yet know.
     
    The question, however, is not whether legalized marijuana in any state is vulnerable to a federal decision to close it down – of course it is – but whether a state-run legalization program is more vulnerable than a free market model. It is hard to see why this would be the case.
     
    Consider the most extreme federal action: where they not only close down legal marijuana, but act to punish those who worked in the industry while it was legal under state law. Yes, in principle the federal government could arrest every state employee who worked in the state-run marijuana industry and prosecute them for violation of the CSA. Having facilitated marijuana use by many people they could theoretically be charged with being major distributors. States could pass laws giving employment protection and pension guarantees for anyone charged only under federal marijuana laws, but they couldn’t keep them out of prison if the feds were determined to punish them.

    But the same is true of participants in a free market legalized marijuana industry: anyone who owned or worked in a marijuana retail establishment, a marijuana processor, a marijuana growing establishment, a firm transporting marijuana from farm to processor to retail – all these people would be (and are) potentially at risk of a vindictive federal government deciding to charge them retroactively as major drug dealers. Moreover, even under the free market model, there are still many state employees who are involved in the industry: the regulators who verify the quality of the marijuana, the police who offer protect to the participants in the marijuana business (the enforcers for illegal drug cartels are aiding and abetting drug trafficking even if they are not actually trafficking themselves), the staff who maintain the California Cannibas Portal. All of these folks are potentially subject to vindictive federal enforcement policies.

    Say instead the feds don’t try to punish people for what they did under the legalization regime, but simply force it to close. Under a state-run model, the state as a whole would bear the financial loss (unneeded facilities rented, goods and services purchased, etc.), while under the free market model the burden would fall hardest on the individual participants who laid out the money. There would be job losses in both cases, but presumably the state can take better care of its former employees than of independent operators. Many supporters of a legalized free market model urge that special efforts be made to recruit minorities and the poor to these businesses (as a way to partially compensate communities who have borne the brunt of the drug war). To the extent that this diversification is successful, the costs of failure will be especially borne by the most vulnerable. The poor will not have been able to get bank loans for their small marijuana stores, so they may have pooled family resources to make a go of it. In the event of forced closure, those resources would be wiped out. State stores forced to close would impose a financial burden on the state as a whole, and (especially if the millionaires’ tax that Murphy promised is enacted) not on those worst off.

    Do governors violate their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution when they set up a state-run marijuana operation, given that such operations conflict with a ban in federal legislation? Perhaps, but so do governors who authorize state employees to regulate the quality of marijuana, which aids and abets those carrying out an activity that conflicts with a ban in federal legislation. In both cases it might be argued that the legalization measures actually reduce the things that the CSA is most concerned about (people being harmed by drugs, drugs supporting organized crime, etc.), and thus comport with the spirit if not the letter of the federal legislation. Whether this argument is persuasive or not is a political question, not a legal one. If Congress and the Justice Department want to close down legal marijuana, they will do so, whether that legal marijuana is provided by the free market or a state-run program.

    III.

    Some will wonder why marijuana should be treated as a public health concern at all. Isn’t it true that the dangers of marijuana have been grossly exaggerated, with “reefer madness” propelled by a mixture of racism and hypocrisy? The racial history here is clear – and if we needed it, Republican Kansas state representative Steve Alford provided vivid proof that the racism is not just a thing of the past, when he urged a tightening of marijuana laws because of African Americans’ character make-up and genetics. And the hypocrisy too is clear, given that marijuana is vastly less harmful than tobacco or alcohol.

    But less harmful doesn’t mean harmless. Given the sordid history and the hypocrisy and the ways the war on drugs has devastated poor communities, it is understandable why many on the left dismiss all health concerns about marijuana. Nevertheless, one needs to follow the science, wherever it may lead.  And one needs to be wary of the claims of those with a financial interest. The counterculture made many valuable critiques of traditional medicine and practices, but once the alternatives have become industries of their own (like the dietary supplements industry) they too lobby, they too oppose regulations and oversight, and ignore science and the public interest in their quest for profits.

    In short, it is imperative to look at the public health evidence in a non-ideological way.

    So first the good news. Marijuana is not just less harmful than many other substances, but likely has a substitution effect with more harmful substances. That is, it seems that people who use marijuana reduce their use of alcohol and opiates, leading to a substantial public health gain.

    But though alcohol impairs driving far more than marijuana does, the joke that the only problem with marijuana is that potheads will stop at the green understates the very real dangers of driving under the influence of marijuana (and the even greater dangers of driving under the combined influence of alcohol and marijuana). So strict enforcement of laws against intoxicated driving is essential. Marijuana presents special challenges in this regard because blood level measurements are not accurate indicators of impairment. So, it makes sense for field sobriety tests to be the basis for sanction, not blood or breathe tests. Ideally, all cars would be equipped with devices that would prevent driving if there were driver impairment for any reason (alcohol, drugs, tiredness).

    There are many other issues related to legal marijuana: what should the price be set at, should THC levels be regulated, and so on. The key to all these questions is that public health concerns should be paramount, and not private profit or the need for tax revenues. And that means make the marijuana industry state-run rather than private and house it in the public health department.

    IV.

    Legalization would mean an end to one part of the incredibly destructive war on drugs that has ravaged poor and minority communities. But it is essential that to the maximum extent possible the past harm of the drug war be rectified. This means that anyone serving a sentence for marijuana possession and low-level distribution should be immediately released; anyone serving or having served a sentence for one of these crimes should have their convictions expunged and be eligible for state-funded job training and other support programs.

    Some have proposed that the funds derived from taxing marijuana should be earmarked for the poor and minority communities that have suffered the most from the drug war. The need to re-invest in and re-build the State’s impoverished communities is indeed an urgent moral obligation, but it is unclear whether earmarking marijuana funds is the way to do this. (The evidence is mixed as to whether earmarking lottery revenue for K-12 education actually raises education spending.[6]) In this case, would earmarking encourage legislators to view marijuana proceeds as the only source of funds for inner cities? Would it leave the rebuilding of poor communities dependent upon the unsettled legal status of marijuana? Would we be setting up a system under which the desire to raise funds to help poor communities would create pressures on the government to encourage greater drug use?

    What is clear is that the war on drugs has been a disaster in so many respects. We now have a chance to chart a new course: it’s important that it be done right.

     

    [1] Analysts differ as to the effect of U.S. drug legalization on the Mexican cartels. The Rand Corporation estimated that legalization in the US would not have a very dramatic effect on the cartels’ profits, while other sources differ. Many people, however, would prefer not to contribute to the cartels’ profits in either case. One recent study found that medical marijuana laws lead “to a reduction in violent crime in markets that are traditionally controlled by Mexican drug trafficking organisations.”

    [2] Elizabeth M. Whelan, A Smoking Gun: How the Tobacco Industry Gets Away With Murder, Philadelphia: George F. Stickley Co., 1984, p. 186.

    [3] Jonathan P. Caulkins, et al., “High Tax States: Options for Gleaning Revenue from Legal Cannabis,” Oregon Law Review, vol. 91 (2013), p. 1050; Transform Drug Policy Foundation, How to Regulate Cannabis A Practical Guide, 2nd ed., Updated Oct. 2016, , pp. 26, 54, 173; Sam Kamin, “Legal Cannabis in the U.S.: Not Whether but How?” UC Davis Law Review, Vol. 50, Dec. 2016, 617, n25.

    [4] Armikka R. Bryant, “Taxing Marijuana: Earmarking Tax Revenue from Legalized Marijuana,” Georgia State University Law Review, vol. 33, Spring, 2017, 659, pp. 670-76.

    [5] Kamin, “Legal Cannabis in the U.S.,” p. 631.

    [6] Neva Kerbeshian Novarro, “Does Earmarking Matter? The Case of State Lottery Profits and Educational Spending,” Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, SIEPR Discussion Paper No. 02-19, Stanford University: December 2002 (“a dollar of lottery profits earmarked for education increases current educational spending by roughly 36 cents more than a non-earmarked dollar”); Louis Pantuosco, William Seyfried, and Robert Stonebraker, “The Impact of Lotteries on State Education Expenditures: Does Earmarking Matter?” Review of Regional Studies, vol. 37, no. 2 (2007), 169-185 (“earmarking lottery proceeds for K-12 education has little or no impact on actual state K-12 funding”).

     

  • Solidarity with the popular protests in Iran!

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    We, the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, support the popular protests in Iran and call on progressives in the region and throughout the world to stand in solidarity with them as well. We believe it is an absolute necessity to build regional and global solidarity with anti-authoritarian struggles for democracy, social justice and equality, and to oppose patriarchy, racism, sectarian or homophobic discrimination and prejudice. We hope that the current protests in Iran will force the Iranian regime to withdraw its military and financial support for the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and to end its reactionary interventions in the region. We also hope that the efforts by some elements to inject anti-Arab chauvinism into the movement will be rejected in order to reach out to grassroots struggles across the region.

    Solidarity with the popular protests in Iran!

    Statement from Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists

    January 11, 2018

    Since December 28, 2017, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been shaken by a wave of social protests unprecedented since the 2009 Green Movement. The protests first erupted in Mashhad, a holy city and Iran’s second largest city near the northeastern border. Protesters opposed the rise in prices of basic goods and increasing poverty, chanted “death to Rouhani”,  “death to the dictator [Ayatollah Khamenei]” and called for an end to Iran’s military intervention in Syria and Lebanon. Protests quickly spread to more than 100 cities and villages throughout Iran, including the capital city of Tehran.

    So far, at least 22 individuals have been killed (three in detention) and the violent security forces have arrested more than 3700 persons including 1000 in the southern city of Ahvaz, and many women who have been actively involved in the protests. Iran’s authoritarian regime has also blocked access to Telegram and Instagram instant messaging, which are heavily used, and has limited access to the internet by creating interferences. At least 100 student activists, especially leftists and progressives, have been arrested and some have been released.  Security forces have surrounded and in some cases invaded university campuses. Other students and labor activists are being hunted and kidnapped from their homes and dorms. Those captured may well face torture.

    The Iranian regime, similar to other authoritarian regimes of the region, has accused the protesters of being part of an international conspiracy led by the USA, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

    The protests are rooted in socio-economic problems, notably poverty, unemployment, and political repression, lack of democratic freedoms such as freedom of speech and assembly.  Furthermore, discrimination against women and national and religious minorities is intensifying opposition in an ethnically diverse population that has an 87% literacy rate and is connected to the world through the internet. 40% of the population lives under the relative poverty line and 90% of Iran’s workers are contract workers without any rights and benefits.  The minimum wage of $230 per month, which is one fifth of what is needed to support a family of four, is not even enforced. Many subsidies for basic food items and essential services were abolished between 2010 and 2014, during the presidencies of Mahmoud Ahamadinejad and Hassan Rouhani. At the same time the prices of basic foodstuffs are exploding. The share of healthcare in the budget has been slashed. Energy prices are going up. All this, combined with rising general inflation (12% according to the regime and 40% in fact) is a new blow to the purchasing power of workers and the poorest segments of society.

    At the same time, billions of dollars in the budget are going to institutions/foundations related to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These non-accountable and tax-exempt foundations are among the largest holding companies in the Middle East. These foundations or “parastatal institutions” are in fact run by the state and led by the dignitaries of the regime and the leadership of the IRGC, Iran’s de facto military. They hold more than 80% of the Iranian economy.  Furthermore, in 2103, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, controlled about 95 billion dollars through the Setad (“Setad ejraiye hazrate emam” or “Seat for the execution of the orders of the Imam”). It has shares in virtually every sector of the country’s economy, from finance to oil, real estate and telecommunications.

    Large portions of the profits which the state/IRGC extract from the Iranian/Middle Eastern labor force are spent on direct and indirect military intervention and ideological propaganda in the region as well as funding security/police/basij forces inside the country.

    The latests protests have actually been preceded by over a year of almost daily actions and strikes by workers against non-payment of wages and terrible working conditions, protests and strikes  by impoverished retirees, teachers, nurses as well as those who have lost their meager savings in bankrupt banks and financial institutions. Many political prisoners, including Reza Shahabi, a labor leader, have been on hunger strike off and on for several years.

    Two statement by independent labor organizations have declared their support for the most recent popular protests. These statements have been issued by the Tehran Bus Workers Union and the Haft Tapeh Sugarcane Workers Union, as well as five other independent labor organizations (Free union of Iranian workers, Association of Electrical and Metal Workers of Kermanshah, Association of Painters of Alborz Province, Labor Defenders’ Center, Committee for the Pursuit of the Establishment of Labor Organizations). We support their views which are summed up in the following passage:

    “We, together with the toiling masses of Iran, shout something that should be clear: Our demands for an end to poverty and misery should be realized; all oppression and prisons should end; all political prisoners should be freed and predators of social wealth and those responsible for oppression should be prosecuted and tried, no matter what position they hold; the wealth stolen from people by financial institutions should be given back; the minimum wage of workers and employees of both public and private sectors be increased fivefold and the massive income of government authorities be slashed; the right of workers to form independent trade unions and civil organization and their unconditional freedom of speech and press and freedom of political parties is to be guaranteed and the demands of millions of Iranian masses be realized.”

    Most protesters have raised slogans against all factions of the authoritarian regime, whether the so-called “reformists” or the hardliners, while calling for democracy, social justice and equality symbolized by the slogan “Bread, Work and Freedom.”  Although the wave of street protests has receded after two weeks under the pressure of state repression, the struggle has now turned toward labor strikes and other industrial actions.  Many women’s rights activists, teachers, families of political prisoners, various well-known intellectuals and artists are also publicly defending the protests.  Families of political prisoners have been protesting outside the Evin prison in Tehran and other prisons to demand their release.

    Similar to the uprisings and popular protests in the region of Middle East and North Africa since 2010-2011, these protests are a response to both economic impoverishment and political and social repression. They have the added feature of opposing the military interventions of the Iranian regime in other countries of the region, especially Syria, symbolized by the slogan “Leave Syria Alone, Pay Attention to Us”.

    The Islamic Republic of Iran cannot be reformed. Since 1979 when the Iranian revolution quickly transformed into a counter-revolution, Iranian youth, women and workers have been subjected to a capitalist, reactionary and theocratic regime that represses, tortures and physically and systematically eliminates its opponents.

    This is why we, the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, support the popular protests in Iran and call on progressives in the region and throughout the world to stand in solidarity with them as well. We believe it is an absolute necessity to build regional and global solidarity with anti-authoritarian struggles for democracy, social justice and equality, and to oppose patriarchy, racism, sectarian or homophobic discrimination and prejudice. We hope that the current protests in Iran will force the Iranian regime to withdraw its military and financial support for the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and to end its reactionary interventions in the region. We also hope that the efforts by some elements to inject anti-Arab chauvinism into the movement will be rejected in order to reach out to grassroots struggles across the region.

    We oppose all foreign imperialist interventions and demand an end to the sanctions against Iran, which affect firstly and mostly the popular classes of the country.

    We demand the release of all protesters, trade-unionists and other political prisoners.

    Solidarity with the popular protests in Iran for democracy, social justice, and secularism!

    Solidarity with our comrades!

    No to Capitalism! No to Patriarchy! No to Racism! No to Sectarianism! Yes to the unity of the popular classes!

    Our destinies and our emancipation are linked!

    Originally posted by the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists.

  • The Iran Protests: The Revolution is Dead. Long Live the Revolution!

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    An Alternative to the Politics of “National Security” Emerges

    Days of protests in Iran have caught statesmen, analysts and observers by surprise, even though the anti-austerity and anti-establishment sentiments behind this primarily working-class revolt have been brewing for years. All the same, surprise is not a common reaction across the media.

    An early analysis expressed in a tweet by the popular and self-styled Marxist pundit, Ali Alizadeh, captures a sentiment which is common to an array of responses to these events by individuals and groups as disparate, in both aim and ideas, as the Iranian reformists, the Iranian postcolonial left, and middle-class Iranians both inside and outside Iran. Alizadeh asks: “Do you realize that it is because [Iran’s] [national] security is [safeguarded by the Islamic Republic of Iran], and [because] external threats [to Iran’s regional security] have been minimized [by the policies of the IRI], that the right to protest [inside Iran] is now recognized [by the IRI government]?…[This is why I] insist that [regional] security is the prerequisite to everything else, including [civil, political and personal] freedoms.”

    Here, Alizadeh suggests that the prerequisite to the growth of democracy inside Iran is the long term stability of the IRI state, given that the many international and civil wars that plague the region have imperilled the prospects of long term security and democracy in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Libya. Over the years, reformist, postcolonial and conservative commentators have employed narratives similar to Alizadeh’s as a key reason for supporting the Iranian reformist movement. Offering itself as the only viable alternative for political change in Iran that does not jeopardize the safety and stability of the Iranian people and state, the Iranian reformist movement has largely deployed Alizadeh’s narrative toward establishing hegemony over articulations and mobilizations of dissent inside Iran. The reformists claim that concrete political change inside Iran, and any transfer of power from the conservative faction of power spearheaded by Ayatollah Khamenei to the Iranian people, is possible only via their gradualist and revisionist agenda.

    The IRI’s priority of internal security over regional stability is, however, inverted in Alizadeh’s analysis. In reality, the signature strategy of the IRI’s foreign policy is to police the Middle East region in order to police dissent inside Iran: as long as the Middle East is unstable and the IRI must take an active part in securing its interests all over the region, all political projects for change inside Iran must take a backseat to the contingencies of national security. Therefore, and without reducing the role of international and regional players such as the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia in destabilizing the Middle East, it is necessary to foreground how the reformist inversion of the strategic relation between Iranian regional and internal security (which Alizadeh here articulates for the mass media) only works to erase the role of IRI as a neoliberal state and expansionist force in the Middle East region.

    On one hand, the inverted reformist narrative promotes a reductive dichotomy between the Iranian state and international threats to its regional hegemony. On the other, it establishes an anti-democratic antagonism between the Iranian state and grassroots movements for radical change inside Iran. Alizadeh and others employ this inversion to suggest that the new round of protests in Iran only advances the agendas of IRI conservatives and Washington neoconservatives, because any form of dissent that projects itself outside the accepted avenues of reformism ultimately undermines Rouhani’s reformist-backed presidency. Evidently, the inverted narrative also overrides the agency of subaltern classes to present an alternative to the Iranian middle class’s reformist agenda, a strategic and tactical platform that has delivered little in plans and promises in the 22 years of its hegemony over the discourse of political dissent in Iran. The recent protests have highlighted the erasure of the agency of the subaltern Iranian classes through the hegemonic reformist narrative: prior to these events, the IRI regime seemed to be at its peak power and stability, and any challenge to its domestic and regional ambitions appeared as utterly futile.

    The new round of protests offers an alternative path for political change inside Iran. The most defining characteristic of this new movement is precisely its differences, in both form and demands, from the majority middle-class, reformist movements that have appeared in recent years. From the Green Movement to the many online and electoral campaigns that promote a mainly liberal agenda, the reformist protests of the past evolved from and revolved around liberal economic and political demands, with an emphasis on nonviolence as a tactic of political dissent. The new protest movement is not only primarily working-class, with demands centered around social and economic justice, but also more defiant, visibly less conciliatory in tone, and equipped with a strongly anti-establishment array of slogans.

    Importantly, it is the homegrown and subversive character of the recent wave of protests which defies any simplistic, reductive and disempowering classification of this as an “imported,” “co-opted” or “supervised” project of “regime change” devised and navigated by the West and its regional allies. Although the slogans of this movement do, in many instances, openly call for “regime change,” these subversive chants for the overthrow of the “clerical hierarchy,” as well as the songs which refuse the proffered choice of the reformist/conservative dyad, are different in demands and aspirations from similar expressions found in the political language of exiled opposition and monarchist groups.

    The new protest movement’s calls for an outside alternative to the options tabled by the reformist/conservative status quo harbours a transformative potential for a third, and more effective, movement for political change in Iran. Its transformative character is evident, first and foremost, in its unwillingness to confine its political options to the political gradations and horizons fixed by the IRI state; these protesters chant, “Conservatives, Reformists, One Way or Another / It’s All Over!”. Their counternarrative is significant despite the Iranian reformists’ track record as the more “progressive” and “moderate” faction of the IRI’s ruling clique – reformist ‘virtues’ duly instrumentalized by an Iranian middle-class seeking open dialogue and interaction with the West to advance their class agenda. Antonio Gramsci famously remarks that “appearances are historical necessities.” The new protest movement’s anti-establishment counternarratives should be interpreted as such “necessary” expressions of a deep divide and disconnect between the Iranian working and middle class movements. These new slogans are rendering all Iranians inescapably aware of deep socioeconomic contradictions within their ranks. No matter the outcome of these protests, the Iranian reformists can no longer claim to represent the political interest and aspiration of all Iranians.

    If the growing debate over a “third path” of “transition” from reformism which presently occupies Iranian statesmen, analysts and observers is essentially a concern with the implications of the new protest movement’s political counternarrative, it is because neither the reformist nor the conservative factions of power in Iran can possibly offer a long-term solution to the unequal labour conditions and subsistence issues and demands of the Iranian working-class. The Iranian economy is structurally incapable of catering to these demands in the long run, as we will demonstrate, and the neoliberal exigencies of Iran’s transition to the global markets will only exacerbate the shortcomings that plague the lives of Iranian subaltern classes. It is necessary to situate the political consciousness of Iran’s new protest movement in the context of the Iranian working-class’s long-term view of the economic policies of the IRI state over the past four decades, which have led to the present impasse in Iranian politics.

    The IRI’s Violent History of Eliminating Political Alternatives

    The IRI has historically confined the limits of the language of political dissent and organization inside Iran to a choice between its own conservative and reformist/centrist political factions. And, despite internecine power struggles between these two factions, which have on occasion led them to conflicts as serious as the contentions over the results of the 2009 elections, in practice and overall strategy these two groups have functioned as a unified clique of power. This clique has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution and upholds a tacit, but inviolable, inter-factional agreement regarding the “principles of the IRI state” (Ayatollah Khamenei’s favorite terminology).

    The ruling IRI clique consolidated its hold over power in the post-revolutionary 1980s by way of eliminating all left, liberal, secular and “Islamist-socialist” (Mujahedin-e Khalq) parties that participated in the 1979 revolution. By the time the Serial Killings of Iranian intellectuals were carried out in 1998, and after the leaders of Iran’s Kurdish Democratic Party were assassinated in Berlin in 1992, all domestic alternatives to the rule of the IRI clique had been exterminated from the post-revolutionary political stage. Nonetheless, the IRI’s template for consolidating power was first cast and put into practice prior to the 1990s, throughout the Iran-Iraq war. In the name of resisting Western imperialism and “paving the road to Al-Quds through [the Iraqi city of] Karbala,” the ruling IRI clique led by Ayatollah Khomeini extended and protracted a largely won and waning war campaign against Saddam Hussein’s retreating army, only to domesticate the military security and ideological imperatives of fighting a war against the US-backed Iraq in order to exterminate all political opposition that threatened the internal security of the Iranian state, thus inaugurating Iran’s notorious and bloody “80s.” This wage war and rule strategy would later set the template for the current hegemonic “national security” discourse, which justifies political oppression inside Iran in the name of securing the strategic “Shi’a Crescent” that extends from Iran to Israel through Northern Iraq and central-southern Syria.

    However, the post Iran-Iraq war era imposed its own imperatives on the IRI’s economic agenda. Having already nationalized and monopolized revenues from big industries such as oil, and having confiscated the assets of the capitalist class loyal to the Pahlavi regime in the immediate years after 1979, the IRI clique had managed to significantly “bridge” the class divides that it had inherited from the Pahlavi era throughout the early and mid- 1980s. Nevertheless, the high costs of the protracted war campaign and the need to rebuild the state and country after the war were simultaneous to the devastating 1980s oil glut and the drop in the global demand for energy.

    The loss in oil revenues, coupled with Khomeini’s sudden death, served to intensify the conflict between two competing interpretations of the IRI’s foundations and its future: the centrist-conservative faction led by the then-president Khamenei and speaker of parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, who advanced the cause of the structural adjustment programs of the IMF and the World Bank; and the left-Islamist (now reformist) faction led by figures including the prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who instead promoted a statist program of economic reform and rejuvenation. In this conflict, the latter camp was ultimately sidelined from power, and the neoliberal phase of the IRI’s existence was inaugurated. Significantly, the privatization and deregulation policies carried out under this neoliberal economic regime favoured the economic interests of the ruling power clique and its affiliates, with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which had found its way to political and strategic decision-making power during the Iran-Iraq war, as a primary beneficiary. This change of fortunes would transform the IRGC into a powerbroker of the Iranian economic, military and political spheres over the following decade.

    Nonetheless, the conservative faction’s economic reform program – officially dubbed “The Reconstruction Era” – was essentially only a continuation of the Pahlavi regime’s own development program, one that favoured the expansion of industry and services to the urban metropolises at the expense of under-developing the peripheries and margins of Iranian urban geography. The neoliberal version of the Pahlavi economic agenda pursued by the IRI during the 1980s and 90s produced the same results as in its earlier political incarnation under the Shah: it bloated the urban middle class at the expense of the working and marginalized classes. Ultimately, “The Reconstruction Era” led the country’s economy to such a degree of inflation and recession that a first round of working-class revolts erupted in 1992 from the urban and economic peripheries.

    This first round of working-class revolts, coupled with the legitimacy crisis that the Iranian state was dealing with as a result of the Mykonos court’s revelations and the pressure of Bill Clinton’s “D’Amato” round of economic sanctions, forced the conservative faction of the IRI to reinvite the sidelined reformist faction to a power sharing project aimed at restoring the legitimacy of the IRI state. This feat was accomplished with a landslide vote in the 1997 elections, when Iranians appointed Mohammad Khatami – deemed the “Chief of Reform” – to the office of the president. But this time around, the reformists were only loyal to the neoliberal economic agenda of the ruling IRI clique. And even though the reformist government did allow for controlled expression of criticism within liberal media and culture, the conservative faction remained in firm control of key state institutions such as the Judiciary, the Guardian Council, the IRGC and, most importantly, the office of the Supreme Leader. As a result, Khatami and his reformist faction managed little in the way of critical reforms during their two terms in the president’s office; they rarely challenged the conservative factions’ monopoly over state power, and even gradually lost ground on the media and cultural reforms that they had initially implemented.

    The critical shortcomings of the “Reformist Government” of Mohammad Khatami alienated core demographics of its support base, and particularly its middle-class power base. In the absence of middle-class support, the conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rode a populist wave of working-class dissatisfaction with the reformists’ prolongation of the IRI’s neoliberal economic agenda to surpass the reformist candidates in the first round of the 2005 elections. In the second round, a strong “no” vote cast by the working-class against Hashemi Rafsanjani (the reformists’ coalition partner at the time) in favour of Ahmadinejad, returned the control of the president’s office to the conservative faction.

    Proving more strategic in his economic plans for the subaltern classes, Ahmadinejad implemented popular subsidiary, housing and loan policies backed by a sudden upsurge of oil prices in the international markets. Nonetheless, it was ultimately Ahmadinejad’s notorious “surgical” cuts to many essential subsidies that inaugurated a new era of austerity politics in Iran that culminated, initially, in the rise and crackdown of the working-class “Bread Revolts.” Ahmadinejad’s two terms in office were also simultaneous with the inauguration of a notorious era of economic profligacy, corruption and consolidation of capital by the IRI clique, especially the IRGC military-industrial complex, which took advantage of Ahmadinejad’s popular mandate to extend its influence to every significant economic and political institution of the IRI.

    The fear of Ahmadinejad’s corrosive corruption, the dire economic consequences of the US sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, as well as growing concerns over the IRGC’s widening influence, mobilized the middle classes to rally around the resurrected reformist-backed candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, during the 2009 elections. Facing the possibility of a humiliating defeat and – at a critical juncture when the IRI was under international pressure for accelerating the development of its nuclear program – the transfer of power to a more conciliatory reformist “nuclear rhetoric”, the conservative faction backing Ahmadinejad hijacked the results of these elections in an organized coup d’état sponsored by the Supreme Leader and the IRGC, and went on to violently suppress the reformist Green Movement that disputed this anti-democratic takeover. Needless to say, the IRI’s clique’s costly support of Ahmadinejad’s hawkish politics, and its increasing belief in the necessity of acquiring nuclear technology as a matter of national security, were only directly correlated with the presence of American forces all around Iranian borders in the post 9/11 era.

    Despite mass discontent with the IRI’s state apparatuses in the aftermath of revelations about the violent crackdown of Green Movement protesters, in 2013 the Iranian middle class once again voted for the reformist-backed candidate, Hassan Rouhani. This time, it was the crippling and isolating effects of the Obama round of sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program, and the plummeting of the oil price as a result of Saudi Arabia’s increased production, which sent the Iranian demos back to the voting booth. As for the IRI hierarchy, they were already negotiating the foundations of the 2015 nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) in secret via Omani mediation, and appointed Rouhani – Iran’s chief negotiator during the initial round of nuclear talks in 2003 – the candidate to bridge a consensus over the seemingly irreconcilable divide between the IRI state and the Iranian nation.

    In the meantime, and throughout Ahmadinejad’s second term and Rouhani’s first, the IRI state media – and many reformist websites and papers – had waged an effective campaign to convince Iranians that US sanctions against the nuclear program were the primary obstacle to improving their deteriorating livelihoods.[1] This propaganda campaign effectively transformed an increasingly subversive disillusionment with the IRI’s economic and political record into popular support for the nuclear program as a matter of “national security” and “sovereignty”, invoking historical comparisons with Mohammad Mossadegh’s Pahlavi-era decolonization of the oil industry in the reformist media. If Iran’s economy were to improve, the Iranian people were convinced that they would have to fully support the IRI throughout the bargaining process with the Americans. In the process, the IRI also manufactured the expectation that, with the end of economic sanctions against its nuclear program, the economic situation of the country would also drastically improve. Though the dismal effects of the US sanctions on the lives of Iranians cannot be undermined, it was the IRI’s media campaign that galvanized legitimate sentiments against these sanctions into support for Iran’s nuclear program and regional ambitions.

    This domestic media campaign was twinned with a foreign policy strategy that ultimately forced America’s hand during the nuclear negotiations. Obama’s “Shift to the Pacific”, the decisive interventions in Syria and Crimea by Russia, Iran’s ally, the rise of ISIS, an ineffective US foreign policy in Iraq and the Gulf states (which had handed Iraq over to Iranian control and spread IRI influence in the mainly Shi’ite nations of Bahrain and Yemen) and finally the upheavals of the Arab Spring movements in northern Africa, had altogether destabilized the established balance of power in the Middle East and jeopardized American control over strategic waterways in the Black, Mediterranean, Oman and Red Seas that were essential to the movements of its navy and the flow of oil to international markets. Throughout this strategic shift, Iran’s unilateral support for the Assad government in the form of intelligence and policing aid had led an initially peaceful Syrian protest movement down the path of the current civil war. The IRI tactics went even as far as transferring Al-Qaeda leaders held captive in Iran to Syria, all in order to “radicalize” the protest movement and justify Assad’s crackdown against Syrian opposition. The IRI therefore kept the Shi’ite crescent intact by maintaining its vital and threatening access to Israel via Lebanon’s Hezbollah; Assad-controlled regions of Syria; and, during Iraq’s civil war, Baghdad-controlled areas of Iraq. Moreover, the IRI’s orchestrations in Syria helped nurture the violent spectre of ISIS as a straw man with which to frighten the residents of both the Middle East and the West into cynicism and submission – a feat accomplished only with the help of other regional powers that pursued their own political ends in Syria, as well as, critically, the regional and global backlash against a violent history of Western imperialism in the region.

    The stark ‘success’ of the IRI’s strategy affirmed the status of Iran as an “island of stability in the region” (Alizadeh’s popular reappropriation of Carter’s terminology) and rallied popular support for its “national security” campaign, forcing the US government into a tactical checkmate: having already conceded part of its control over the Middle East, the Americans now had to resign themselves to the new status of Iran as a legitimate nation-state and unacknowledged regional partner. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015 soon followed, because the continuation of the Iran – US dynamic of hostilities was no longer plausible in its traditional forms and rhetoric.

    Having effectively set its strategic depth and borders outside Iran and across state lines in the region, not only had the IRI secured its bargaining rights over the nuclear deal and pushed back against US sanctions, but it also appeared for a time (prior to the new round of protests) that the IRI had finally established and consolidated itself as the legitimate, rightful representative of the Iranian people. With the success of Iran’s regional project, it was also inevitable that the likes of the security discourse expressed by Alizadeh would be utilized by the IRI regime and its reformist intellectuals as a tactical and ideological measure against those expressions of dissent inside Iran that threaten the IRI hierarchy and the ‘stability’ this regime provides for Iranians through its policing of the Middle East region. In this hegemonic security discourse, the reformists are then framed as the “rational” and “moderate” faction of Iranian politics that can secure both the IRI’s regional and international ambitions, without risking the economic and political costs incurred by hardliners such as Ahmadinejad.

    Naturally, Iran’s renewed access to global markets secured through the nuclear deal could only materialize through further deregulation and neoliberalization of the labour and finance markets inside the country. A welcome prospect for many middle class Iranians who sought renewed ties to the West after years of international isolation, Rouhani’s campaign promises of rejuvenating the post-sanction Iranian economy and international image – such as lowering the inflation rate to “below 25%,” raising the “minimum wage,” and “improving bilateral ties” with regional actors such as Saudi Arabia – secured a second term in office for him in 2017. But, having already weathered the storms of the nuclear sanctions and the wars in the Middle East, the two factions of the IRI’s ruling clique waged a vicious election campaign against each other prior to Rouhani’s landslide win. With a bounty of new economic deals with Europe and the rest of the world at stake in this runoff, the reformists and conservatives aired each other’s dirty laundry during presidential debates live-streamed on Iranian State TV, exposing the Iranian public to a disillusioning array of scandalous, corrupt and nepotistic practices by both sides.

    Last month, in order to justify cutting subsidies on foodstuff and petrol, Rouhani’s team leaked an overlooked component of his government’s budget. The list of offices, institutions and religious, military and paramilitary persons and organizations connected to the office of the Supreme Leader and the IRGC – all of whom pocket a large segment of Iran’s annual budget – provoked a wide wave of popular discontent with the direction and policies of his government that swept the print and online media landscape. The timing of this leak was critical to the events that followed: over the course of the months leading up to the new protest movement in Iran, close to a thousand protests and strikes had been staged all over the country by various labour and retiree unions who were disenfranchised by the economic policies of the Rouhani government, as well as by ordinary citizens who had lost their life savings to fraudulent or bankrupt financial institutions. The climate of domestic public opinion about the IRI was ripe for an abrupt shift.

    Retaliating against Rouhani’s leak, a hardline cleric connected to the conservative factions reportedly staged a protest in the city of Mashhad to underline Rouhani’s poor track record with the poor, and further undermine the reformists’ flagging reputation with the subaltern classes. Staged against a background of dissatisfaction and impatience with the slow pace of economic recovery after the lifting of US sanctions – an expectation formed by IRI’s own propaganda during the nuclear negotiations – the events in Mashhad quickly triggered rounds of working-class protests all over Iran that lasted several days and spread to more than ninety cities.

    As expected, protests were carried out in the margins and cities peripheral to Iranian urban centres, and their central rallying cry of “Bread, Work, Freedom!” has translated the marginalized Iranians’ economic concerns into an emergent political program. Interestingly, when these protesters vandalized public and private property, their targets consisted of venues which were symbolic of the IRI’s state power, such as patrols of Basij (an IRGC-affiliated paramilitary organization), banks and offices of the Supreme Leader’s clerical representatives in their cities. So far, more than twenty protesters have been reported killed, and close to a thousand more are believed to be in prisons and detention centres all over Iran. To brand this movement as simply a “plot” orchestrated by the Saudis, the West or the Iranian conservatives against the Rouhani government only erases the wider and recent histories that inform the political spirit and demands of these protesters.

    The Necessity of a Third Path to Political Change

    In a live interview with Vahid Yaminpour, an Iranian state TV host and IRGC affiliate, Alizadeh spoke from London, England, to stress the need to recognize and “manage” the legitimate anti-corruption demands of the working class, only to then suggest that the radical and anti-establishment overtones and slogans of this movement had to be repressed, for “any riot” in England or the US deserves this fate. Echoing this mindset, some leftist, postcolonial and pro-reformist Iranian academics inside and outside Iran have equally undermined the new protest movement by reducing its political demands to “diffuse” expressions of ideological or purely economic “grievances.” Critically, these commentators erase these protesters’ deep consciousness of their treatment by the IRI, a long history from which their new movement draws its radical aspirations.

    Marxist and postcolonial commentators on Iranian politics should instead focus on countering the right-wing and orientalist narratives offered by Western policymakers and the mass media, without overlooking the many critical nuances of political developments inside Iran. In overemphasizing the role of the United States and other global actors in shaping the economic hardships endured by Iranians – which also underestimates the aforementioned histories of the plundering and brutalizing of the Iranian subaltern classes by the Iranian ruling clique – these leftist, postcolonial and reformist commentators risk complicity in reproducing the very conditions of suffering denounced by Iranian protesters.

    In the name of reconciliation with the West and the global markets, the reformist Iranian middle class has been likewise complicit in Rouhani’s economic policies and the IRI’s expansionist agenda in the Middle East. In instigating market reforms and subsidy cuts, Rouhani’s policies have only jeopardized the livelihood of working class Iranians. In a climate of dissent, where many of the leaders of the working class movement are in prison for charges of “acting against national security” and Rouhani’s popular foreign minister repeats that “there are no political prisoners in Iran,” the Iranian working class is now articulating its own distinct social movement in order to distinguish its demands from the middle class support for the IRI’s overall agenda; their new protest loudly chants, “Leave Syria Alone / Do Something for One of Your Own!”

    Reformist commentators may very well argue that it is the heavy presence of anti-riot forces and machinery in the capital and major urban centers, and the recent painful memory of the Green Movement crackdown, which has prevented the middle class from joining their fellow working class Iranians. They also highlight how the heavy presence of the IRI task force in the center has left its disciplinary organs in the peripheries thin and under-equipped, thus allowing the new working class movement to fill the power void. But regardless of how the Iranian middle classes choose to heed the chants of their fellow working class Iranians – “Don’t just observe us from up there/ Come and join us down here!” – the Iranian people as a whole know well enough that the radical economic and political character of the recent protests is rooted mainly in the long-standing and cumulative discontent of subaltern classes from the margins, and that their anger is the expression of a deep discontent with the entirety of the ruling clique and its capitalist, authoritarian and expansionist rule over many years.

    The political aspirations behind the economic slogans of the new protest movement are directed at the IRI’s economic corruption and political repression. However, outside the heavily moderated presidential elections and the choice between reformists and conservatives, there are no other established venues for democratic dissent within the Iranian political space. Neither will the IRI tolerate any political education and organization outside the reach of its own state apparatus, leaving the Iranian working class with a lacking, or poorly-equipped, language of dissent. The question of transition from reformism must therefore contend with three future possibilities, the first two of which will not bring these groups any nearer to their aims and demands, namely, that the new protest movement may fall prey to the populist promises and plans of the likes of Ahmadinejad once more, or that the classes behind this movement may risk other rounds of protests in the future only to risk even more arrests and killings. But there is also a third possibility, that of transforming the new protest movement’s class consciousness into a radical platform for political change in Iran. The stakes for such a practice are high, and the strategic field for its implementation is mined and muddied with danger, but the tactics of Dual Power and Democratic Confederalism are proven possibilities in the Middle Eastern political scene and could very well form the strategy for this radical political transition.

    The Iranian middle class voted for Rouhani just four years after the Green Movement, despite his collusion with the state oppressors at the height of the crackdowns, and there is no guarantee that, in the absence of a political alternative, the middle class will not empower the reformists, its traditional representative in Iranian politics, once again. What is more, the structural and political deficits that characterize the dichotomies of Iranian politics are only symptomatic of a late capitalist milieu of confinement to what we might term the “Clintonite”-“Trumpist” dyad, which currently haunts neoliberal politics from the US, to France and Japan. The Iranian people would do well to articulate their own transition out of this international impasse, toward an egalitarian principle of democratic self-governance and international politics.

    [1] For example, the ban against medicine – one of the most unpopular items on the US sanctions list – was not on the US Treasury’s official list of sanctions against Iran. Controversial revelations by Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, Ahmadinejad’s health minister, regarding the IRGC’s ‘mismanagement‘ of funds earmarked for medicinal supplies from abroad, were followed (after her removal) by Seyed Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi’s concession that “The medicine problem is caused by ourselves, it is not related to sanctions at all.” The Iranian public had been led to believe that the drug shortages were mainly due to the US sanctions.

    This article was first published in New Socialist.

    *Fouad Oveisy is a PhD student in Critical Theory and Comparative Literature at University of California, Irvine. His research is broadly focused on the intersections between realpolitik and critical theory and, in specific, on the role of post-revolutionary literatures that shaped the historical space of the modern and pre-modern Iranian state. 

    *Behnam Amini is a PhD student at York University, Toronto in the program of Social and Political Thought. His research is mainly focused on democratic theory, the Kurdish question and decolonization.

     

  • “Smitten Gate," a Brutal Anti-war Novel

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    The author himself lets you know at the start that this book is going to be very harsh. After the end of the chapter titles, Stan Goff writes, “Warning to readers who have experienced violent trauma or sexual assault. This book contains portrayals of extreme violence, including combat, murder, and rape.” His purpose is not to titillate, but to reveal. There are some brief loving sexual passages, but the descriptions of sexual violence and killings are there to repel you.

    I had no idea what the title was about until after I finished the book. I was thinking Watergate or something, but the book is not about a scandal. I took another look at the dedication, which mentioned a passage in the bible, Isaiah, section 24:10 which reads, “Broken down is the city of chaos, every house is shut against entry.” Looking up Isaiah 24 one reads further in 24:12, “In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction.” So there it is. The “city” could be read as the “Camp Virtue” of the novel or as the whole U.S. military.  This is no Tom Clancy gung-ho adventure story. 

    The book flips back and forth between Belize, Honduras, Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Carolina and forward and backward and time. I admit I sometimes got confused, but halfway through the book I couldn’t put it down. The story follows Abner Dale, a Master Sargent in the U.S. Army Special Forces, sent to Afghanistan to shape up a unit in disarray. It does not go well. His soldiers are pretty nasty and he himself is falling apart because of the strain between the decency of his family and his “job” which he sees more and more as killing for corporations. In the midst of this his unit is sent off to capture or kill a high profile Taliban target.

    Goff does not glorify “elite” units. His character, Abner, tells his daughter, “’There are a lot of Rangers that really hate black people.’ His heart clutched when he saw her change of expression. ‘I know, I haven’t told you this part, have I? A lot. Including in the chain of command. There’s this goddamn Soldier of Fortune Klan Shit subculture there that stays just below the radar.’”

    He goes further challenging the “support the troops” brand of so-called patriotism.  At one point in the novel there’s an argument among journalists in Kabul in which the French journalist is called “anti-American”.  The journalist fights back and says:  “You worship America, a kind of golden calf that demands human sacrifice. Some of us do the same for Mere France. Secondly, the idea that the armed forces in the United States are doing anything thankless is ludicrous . . . wait, hold on . . . it is ludicrous, because your culture worships them. It worships the soldier. You refer to them reflexively as heroes—as ‘our’ heroes—even though the vast majority of them have done nothing that could be construed as heroic.”

    There are passages full of military lore and slang, weapons descriptions and talk about Rangers and Special Forces and other top notch units. A raid is described in detail with all of its electronics and choreography. The author has the cred to write about this because he was in the military for over 25 years, until 1996. Goff fought against the Vietnamese during the last years of our invasion. Then he was in the Rangers, the Special Forces and Delta Force. He event taught for a time at West Point. His experiences “liberating” Haiti turned him anti-war and anti-capitalism.  He wrote a book about it “Hideous Dream-A Soldier's Memoir of the U.S. Invasion of Haiti.”

    A lot of this book is about the attitude of soldiers towards women. Afghan women are more or less seen just as meat. Feelings towards female soldiers and women generally are on the ultra-crude level. Dale isn’t like that. He has a family back home, a wife and a daughter, and it all tears him apart.

    There are acts of decency and acts of revenge in Smitten Gate, but unfortunately no organizing against the war. I guess that’s just the way it was. This is not a group of Vietnam draftees in 1968. It’s 2010 in Afghanistan in a “volunteer” military and the long hoped for soldier anti-war movement did not develop.

    It would be nice if Americans had the same distrust of standing “professional” armies as did our “founding fathers”, men like George Washington for instance.  It would be nice if they could remember Vietnam.  About ten years ago Seymour Hersh talked at Yale about how he uncovered the My Lai massacre.  He talked about going to Indiana to interview one of the soldiers who shot scores of women and children.  Hersh told the audience an anecdote that he wrote about later in The New Yorker. The distraught American soldier’s mother looked at Hersh and said, “I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer.”  As Trump and his four star generals talk tough about victory in Afghanistan, Americans would do well to read Smitten Gate. E ven if they don’t care about the Afghans they might want to see what the war there is doing to our soldiers.

    You can buy Smitten Gate from online vendors for well under $20.

    * Stanley Heller is host of "The Struggle" TV News and author of The Uprising We Need (Amazon.com).

     

  • Vivek Chibber’s "Road to Power" Is Not

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    Vivek Chibber’s “Our Road to Power” published recently in Jacobin—oddly enough written as a commemoration of the Russian Revolution of October 1917—codifies a strategy for what is one of the dominant tendencies in the American left today: social democracy. The principal argument of “Our Road to Power” (a title chosen by Jacobin’s editors, perhaps alluding to German Social Democrat Karl Kautsky’s The Road to Power) is that a “ruptural strategy” is off the agenda. By “ruptural strategy” Chibber means one that is predicated upon a crisis of the economic and political system leading to the breakdown or to the overthrow of the state. Chibber believes that since the power of the state is so great today—because of its legitimacy, its coercive power, and its power of surveillance—a revolutionary strategy is ruled out. It would be, he says, “hallucinatory” to think otherwise.

    Since the power of the state is so great and we can expect no fundamental crisis of the capitalist system, then what we are dealing with today is not a crisis of capitalism itself, but rather a crisis of neoliberalism, says Chibber. Our task then, he suggests, is to organize to bring about social democratic reforms such as those achieved by the Nordic social democracies in the 1970s. This will be done by building strong labor unions, constructing a mass socialist party, and participating in elections. The strategy will be one of “non-reformist reforms, revolutionary reforms,” but “whatever you call it,” it will be “gradual.” The end goal of such a struggle will not be the revolutionary left’s historic objective of a democratically planned economy, but some sort of market socialism. So, Chibber writes, “precisely because a ruptural strategy isn’t on the table, we must start down the road to social democracy and then to market socialism.”

    We have arrived it seems at classical social democracy. Or if we haven’t, then what does Chibber actually have in mind? What differentiates his position from social democracy? Nothing in this article would suggest that there is any difference.

    The Marxist Strategy

    The Marxist strategy of the road to power is altogether different. It is based on the notion that economic and political crises, sudden changes in present conditions, lead working people to take action, perhaps at first in small numbers but then on a mass scale, and that the experience of struggle—usually at first a struggle for reforms—changes their consciousness. Working people become class conscious. When that happens, things can change very rapidly, even suddenly. The classic example of such behavior is, of course, the mass strike about which Rosa Luxemburg wrote so eloquently. The development of class-consciousness facilitates the adoption of socialist objectives and ideals; and that in turn leads to broader mass action, which may become political and even revolutionary. But, in any case, such action always tends to overflow the narrow channels of labor union contract negotiations and parliamentary elections, escaping the control of bourgeois and of social democratic politics that are predicated upon the gradual pursuit of reforms.

    Such a vision of the relationship between crises, action, and consciousness as well as their dynamic interaction is completely at odds with a social democratic strategy such Chibber advocates. In fact, the strategy that Chibber outlines has historically led labor union bureaucracies, socialist parties, and other political institutions to attempt to control and oven repress such radical movements from below because they threaten the gradual, peaceful, legal march to reform and socialism.

    Classical Social Democracy and Its Contradictions

    The positions that Chibber asserts are those of classical social democracy. They are based on the notion that capitalism can resolve its economic crises, or at least regulate and soften them, and that it can maintain the prosperity that forms the basis for reformism. These views have been put forth often before: in the 1890s by the German Social Democratic revisionists, such as Eduard Bernstein; again in the 1930s by the Stalinist Communist International in the period of the Popular Front; and later by both the Socialists and the Eurocommunists in the 1980s.

    While the analysis was somewhat different in each case, they all had the commonality of accepting and acquiescing to the strength and stability—the virtual permanence—of the capitalist economy and the liberal state, and the conclusions were much the same: a rejection of revolutionary possibilities and a turn toward gradual reform to be achieved through labor unions and electoral politics. Each of these social democratic projects was, however, disrupted by the experience of economic and political crises of capitalism.

    Influenced by British Fabianism, Bernstein foresaw the end of capitalist crises and an evolutionary path to socialism—his utopian dream was interrupted by the crisis of the First World War that led to the overthrow Kaisers, Tsars, and Sultans and the fall not just of states but of entire empires. In the 1940s, the American Communist leader Earl Browder, whose slogan was “Communism is Twentieth Century Americanism,” foresaw American capitalist prosperity and democracy and working hand-in-hand with the Soviet Union bringing about world peace and eventually socialism, until his dream was interrupted by the outbreak first of the Cold War and then of the Korean War.

    François Mitterand, elected by a Socialist and Eurocommunist coalition in 1981, pursued social democratic policies until trapped by the contradiction between pro-labor policies and pressures to adopt austerity in the emerging neoliberalism of the mid-1980s. While Mitterand survived in office until 1995, he and his Socialist Party found themselves administering neoliberal programs and imposing austerity. Bernstein, the Popular Front Communists, and the Socialists and Eurocommunists of the 1970s and 1980s all held views similar to Chibber’s. Chibber’s project would face the same difficulties, for crises and ruptures will occur, and capitalists will take action to block the peaceful socialist march to power.

    Crisis and Collapse Off the Agenda

    Why does Chibber argue for this social democratic strategy? Chibber writes that revolution has been off the agenda since the 1950s, when the state began to become legitimate, grew stronger, and developed greater powers of surveillance. Though of course in the 1950s we had the Bolivian and Cuban revolutions, and since then we have seen a series of economic and political crises that led to revolutions and brought down states in societies as different as Iran and Nicaragua, as well as overturning governments in Portugal, Spain, and the Soviet Union. And throughout the last half of the twentieth century we had the decolonization movement, driven by mass movements from below, that contributed to the breakup of empires and led to the creation of dozens of new independent states in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

    Not all of these—in fact very few of these—had progressive upshots. But they did demonstrate the continuing importance of economic and political crisis and the fact that states do sometimes collapse or can in the right circumstances be overthrown. And we saw as well a whole series of political crises and nearly revolutionary working class upheavals in France in May-June 1968, in Italy in 1970-71, Portugal in 1974-5, in Poland in 1980, demonstrating the continuing significance of crises, the vulnerability of states, and the power of movements from below, even if those movements failed. And though it is true that they failed, they were not defeated by strong states using their repressive power but rather by Communist and Socialist parties pursuing social democratic strategies, parties that protected the existing states and the capitalist system while working to break the momentum of the radical movements from below. The Communists and Socialists did so because genuine democratic and socialist movements from below threatened their road to power sharing in a capitalist government.

    To assert today, the strength of the capitalist system and the stability of capitalist states after the economic crisis of 2008, given the current menace of nuclear warfare with Korea, and in the face of the threatening planetary environmental disaster seems incredibly naïve or, perhaps, well, hallucinatory. We live in an unstable era that constantly produces crises. We have experienced in the last few years the movement of the plazas in Spain; Tahrir Square and the Arab Spring; Syntagma Square and the Greek movement. All sprang up as reactions to economic and political crises, escaping the hold of traditional party politics. All of these shook the state, if they did not shatter it. The movements in Europe led to the emergence of new political parties such as Syriza and Podemos, but insofar as those attempted to become new, reformist social democratic parties, they tended to undermine the struggle.

    The Legitimacy of the State

    Chibber’s claim that the contemporary state is more legitimate is astonishing given experiences like the Arab Spring, the growth of rightwing populism in Hungary, Poland, Germany, and France, as well as in Turkey and India too, and the current rightwing upheavals in Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil, not to mention the demands for autonomy among the Kurds of Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, and among the Catalans in the Spanish state. Look at Iran at this very moment where mass movements from below are challenging the theocratic state. And didn’t Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders recently demonstrate just how little sense of legitimacy not only the Republican and Democratic Parties, but also the capitalist state has for millions in America? The modern state, whether in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, or the Americas enjoys little legitimacy among tens or even hundreds of millions, and in many place it is reviled. As well it should be.

    But, for the sake of argument, let’s accept the proposition that the modern state is as strong as Chibber says. If that were the case, then how could the social democratic strategy ever be successful? As the labor and socialist movements grew and began to make political inroads, challenging the power of the banks and corporations and of the politicians and the military, the powers-that-be would begin to use the powerful modern state to resist and if necessary to crush movement. Or perhaps a fascist movement would prove capable of taking control of the state and institute a reign of terror. When push comes to shove, as it must, any attempt at building reform movements that aims to bring about social democracy or genuine socialism, can expect to come into conflict with the state. All roads to socialism seem to inevitably lead to a rupture. All lead to a revolutionary situation, which requires a revolutionary strategy.

    A Crisis of Neoliberalism or of Capitalism

    But in fact, the state is not as strong as Chibber argues. The state lacks legitimacy in large part because of capitalism and its crises. Chibber writes at one point, “Today, the political stability of the state is a reality that the Left has to acknowledge. What is in crisis right now is the neoliberal model of capitalism, not capitalism itself.” Chibber’s view, that the crisis today is a crisis of neoliberal capitalism but not a crisis of capitalism itself, leaves one pondering. After all, neoliberalism is not some sort of add-on to what might be called basic capitalism. The crisis of laissez-faire capitalism in the 1930s, was not just a crisis of the laissez-fair model, but of the capitalist system itself at that time. Similarly the crisis of New Deal or Social Democratic capitalism in the 1970s was not a simply a crisis of the Keynesian social welfare system, but of capitalism of that day. Today neoliberalism is the contemporary form, the current avatar of capitalism, and, we should be clear, of imperialism as well.

    The crisis of neoliberalism then is the crisis of capitalism today. The neoliberal system itself developed out of the earlier crisis of profitability that began in the late 1960s and continued into the mid 1970s, leading to economic stagnation and a falling rate of profit. The neoliberal solution to the crisis of profitability—privatization and deregulation, open markets, cuts in social welfare, and an attack on the labor unions—created in turn a crisis for the working classes. This was precisely the crisis of the Socialist Mitterand government, which had imposed neoliberal reforms in order to create economic growth would provide basis for social democratic reforms, neoliberalism quickly becoming austerity and overwhelming social liberalism.

    If then we struggle against neoliberalism, we are struggling against the capitalist system; and, if we fight to end neoliberalism, then we are fighting to end capitalism. We may and we must carry out this fight as one for democracy and social reform, even though it is not at all clear what we can win. But at the same time, we are fighting to end capitalism as a system, a system that is not necessarily seen as legitimate, where the state is vulnerable, and in which a revolutionary alternative—a structural rupture—still remains a possibility, even if it is not on the agenda at the moment.

    Consequently any road to power requires alternatives. Some, and apparently Chibber among them, think that we can go back to the New Deal or back to Nordic social democracy. But those political-economic compromises, and the social pacts on which they were based, arose out of a particular period of economic prosperity and expansion. They were the political expression of what has come to be called “The Thirty Golden Years.” Perhaps we will see another period of economic expansion, but if it happens soon it will be within the structure of neoliberalism or whatever follows it, and so it will be altogether different. And he himself, in one of the many contradictions of his piece, suggests that the social democracy, which he advocates, was “a spent force by the 1980s,” and so, even if we could go back there, we wouldn’t.

    So what are we fighting for then? Chibber suggests that part of our fight is the defense of bourgeois democratic rights. He writes that, “It was a calamitous mistake to denigrate liberal rights as ‘bourgeois’…” This view, Chibber argues, made it easier for Lenin and Stalin to extinguish those rights. Those so-called bourgeois democratic rights, Chibber claims were won not by the capitalists but by the working class. And he is right about that. “Any left worth its salt,” he writes, “has to protect and deepen those rights, not throw them aside.” This is absolutely true—but also completely one-sided.

    What leftists should continue to denigrate is the notion that it is possible within a capitalist society, within the constraints of bourgeois democracy and bourgeois rights, to win socialism and to see the complete fulfillment of human potential. Bourgeois democracy not only established rights, it also set limits to those rights, even when challenged by working peoples, oppressed racial or ethnic groups, women, and others who pushed those limits. Bourgeois democracy, the liberal state, is the form through which the capitalist class defends it property, profitability and the accumulation of capital—and through which it rules. And while we fight to defend and to expand our rights within the capitalist system and the liberal state, we must also fight to push the limits, to break through, and to go beyond the bourgeois democratic state, to create a more democratic government that represents working people.

    Beyond Capitalism

    And what do we fight for that goes beyond the capitalist system and state? Is is Soviet style Communism? No. Chibber suggests, quite correctly, that we have to examine the experience of the Soviet Union asking why its central planning failed. We should. In fact a large body of literature suggests that Communist totalitarian planning failed because the bureaucracy could not get accurate information from technicians, managers, and workers who lied and cheated to protect their department, plant, and industry in order to make their quotas, to protect their positions, and their very lives. But we should certainly continue the autopsy of bureaucratic Communism, though all of the lessons after the early 1920s appear to be not only negative but also actually disastrous, both economically and socially.

    The other alternative of the twentieth century was Social Democracy, the broad outlines of its strategy recapitulated by Chibber. Yet he writes, “but social democracy was a spent force by the 1980s; its parties degenerated into a managerial ethos; their reformist agenda was halted and then reversed; and they have proven to be largely uninterested in revitalizing their own legacy.” Absolutely true. Still, Chibber wants to reexamine the Meidner Plan, the Swedish Social Democrats’ program for preventing the accumulation and concentration of private capital. Well, yes, everything should be reexamined. It was that ambitious plan, of course, that led the Swedish capitalist class to mobilize quite successfully to defeat the Social Democrats, whose program for a more egalitarian society was reduced to much smaller proportions and modest reforms, until in the 1980s even the Nordic welfare state began to go into crisis and turn neoliberal. As Chibber himself writes, “we also need to see why it was defeated, and why the Social Democratic Party became increasingly conservative in the following years.”

    Nordic Social Democracy had a lot to recommend it in terms of social policy and democracy. Certainly one would rather have lived in Social Democratic Sweden than in the Soviet Union. But Nordic socialism could only exist as an insular social welfare state—actually a collection of states—within the capitalist world. Its highly educated and skilled workforce kept the Nordic socialist island humming, producing Volvo, Electrolux, and Ericsson products and making a profit by selling them to the capitalist states of Europe and North America. The Nordic island could only exist because Europe and North America controlled the wealth of the world, exploiting their own working classes, and extracting oil, minerals, lumber, and labor from the developing world. Nordic socialism stood firmly on capitalist legs, and capitalism rested on imperialism around the world.

    Chibber suggests that given the experience of Communism and disappointments of Nordic social democracy, we should turn to market socialism. Market socialism, of course, is not a so much single concept as an array rival visions that are embraced by everyone from anarchists and left liberals to some socialists. The most important experiment in market socialism, Communist Yugoslavia, proved successful for a time during the post-war period because of the Balkan nation’s integration into the capitalist market. It was not so much market socialism that was successful as post-war capitalism. And inside Yugoslavia Communist politicians, factory managers, technicians, and highly skilled workers gradually pushed aside the majority of industrial ad service workers. Meanwhile over a million Yugoslavians went off to Germany as guest workers. The Yugoslav Communist elite, their 1%, ruled the country’s market socialist system whose prosperity depended on the post-war economic boom.

    The Struggle for Socialism

    Chibber dismisses the idea of a centrally planned economy. “We can want planning to work, but we have no evidence that it can,” he writes. “In other words, we have to seriously consider the possibility that planning as envisioned by Marx might not be a real option.” The Marxist idea, of course, was the notion of a democratically planned economy, and it was not simply one of a long list his favorite thoughts. The idea of the democratically planned national economy stands at the very center of Marx’s concept of socialism. The working class, having through a long struggle become “fit to rule,” destroys the capitalist state and creates a new state where working people and then the people as a whole govern. The working class, democratically, through a system of representation, probably one involving rival parties and programs, takes control of a new kind of state that reorganizes and plans according to the needs and desires—and the votes—of the entire population.

    While Marx did not elaborate much on this, we can say that this might be done through the nationalization of industries, through the coordination of cooperatives, and might even involve some private ownership of highly regulated smaller firms. A national economic plan might even permit and require some market mechanisms to strengthen central, democratic planning. But democratic planning of the economy stands at the center of Marxian socialism. The central philosophical notion is that when human beings take conscious control of the entire national economy they can end both alienation and exploitation that characterize capitalism. Democratic planning, the notion that a new more democratic government takes command of the economy for the sake of the people and the planet, is the very definition of socialism.

    Fighting for Social Democracy with a “Leninist Party”

    Chibber might have called his essay “The American Road to Socialism.” That’s a title taken it from one of the many Communist parties, which in different nations declared in various decades a French or Spanish or Chilean “Road to Socialism.” The various Communist national roads were generally social democratic, though the Communists may have aspired to their transformation into Soviet-style states. I suspect that in fact the Communist model may have had as great an influence on Chibber as the Social Democrats. This is the odd twist in Chibber’s essay, the call for a “Leninist” party to fight for social democracy.

    Though we take it up here at the end of our critique, Chibber’s essay actually opens with a discussion of Lenin and his party. Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks, Chibber thinks, may have been more democratic in their earliest days—that’s true—but its successors in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, the “Leninist parties” became authoritarian. That is true too. But, Chibber avers that they provided us with what became the universal model of efficient and successful parties of all sorts: “a mass cadre-based party with a centralized leadership and internal coherence.” He writes, “no other model has come anywhere so close to being politically effective.” Problematic as it is, Chibber writes, “given our experience, we don’t really have a basis to reject our most accomplished model.”

    But are they really “our most accomplished model??” Those post-Lenin “Leninist” parties—Stalinist in inspiration, Communist in practice, that is, bureaucratic, authoritarian-centralist organizations—proved to be powerful machines for both taking power and keeping more democratic movements from doing so. They are the kinds of parties that ruled in quite similar ways—i.e. one-party states with nationalized economies—in the Soviet Union, in Eastern Europe, in China, Vietnam, and North Korea, as well as Cuba. None of those places were or are examples of either socialism or democracy.

    But as Chibber suggests, the “Leninist” parties did became the model for cadre-based mass parties in the modern era, eventually ruling in dozens of nations from Africa and Asia to Latin America. If they were politically effective, as he suggests, it was principally in keeping power, whether they imposed Communism or authoritarian capitalist governments. The record of achievement of the “Leninist” parties in terms of social well-being is no better than that and perhaps even worse than that of looser social democratic parties such as the British Labour Party and the French Socialist Party. Whatever the party model, they faced the same challenges of capitalist crisis and the same pressures toward neoliberalism and austerity; they also contributed their part to the ecological catastrophe that threatens us today. None of them represents a democratic model that might further a genuinely socialist society.

    Another Road

    We can agree with Chibber that we need to rebuild the workers’ movement to fight for democratic and social reforms. Chibber is, however, offers no advice two key issues. What should be the left’s attitude toward and involvement with the Democratic Party? And how should it deal with the labor bureaucracy? Would Chibber’s “Leninist” party, like the Communist Party USA, embed itself in the Democratic Party? Or would it like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) today experiment in Democratic and independent campaigns? Or would it support the Green Party? Or would it work to build an independent working peoples’ party? In America, these are central strategic questions.

    And, while we agree that we need a stronger labor movement, what is to be done about the labor officialdom, which works in partnership with capital, often fails to organize and to take action, or sometimes inhibits the workers’ movement? Does Chibber urge collaboration with the labor officialdom or the building or rank-and-file movements in the unions to make them more democratic, mlitant, and anti-capitalist? This question too is strategially central.

    Conclusion

    To conclude, Chibber’s view, as far is it is laid out in this article, doesn’t reflect the reality of the profoundly unstable character of contemporary, crisis-ridden capitalism, which can suddenly open new perspectives. There is in his approach no appreciation of that dynamic interplay of crisis, working class action, and a change in consciousness that forms the basis of a revolutionary movement for socialism from below. And, even when revolution is not immediately on the agenda, of a revolutionary method for fighting for reform. Historically, it has been revolutionaries fighting for socialism whose struggles often produced the most important reforms. Social Democracy in post-war Europe was largely a result of the anti-Nazi Resistance, whose slogan was “From Resistance to Revolution,” and of the left, which led mass strikes and fought for socialism.

    A revolutionary understanding means that we fight not only to win reforms but also to prevent the establishment of new social pacts, institutions, and governments that would become a block to the further radicalization of the movement. It is not simply a matter of trying to push the movement one step further, but of trying to build the forces to break the framework of the existing system. Chibber’s strategy, combining what he calls a “Leninist” cadre party with a mass base and a social democratic program, has historically produced governments that not only fail to carry reform as far as the might go, but actually become obstacles—as they have in the past—to more radical reforms and to revolutionary change.

    Vivek Chibber has sketched out not a road to power, but a highway to frustration or to defeat. We can certainly join the fight for democracy and for social reforms alongside Chibber. We can work together to build labor unions, join in strikes, support movements such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements. Yet, looking farther down the road, Chibber seems to see a relatively smooth road that leads through labor unions and electoral action to social democracy and market socialism, and he will turn that way—but it is a mirage. In fact, the road to power is hardly a road at all, it is a path made by walking that passes over the broken terrain of crises and the breakup of illegitimate states, perhaps through a contest with fascism, but in any case involves a massive upheaval from below, a path that leads to a “rupture” of the system, and eventually leads to revolution. There are no guarantees about the future. Nothing is inevitable. But if we want socialism, that is the road to power.

     

     

     

  • Future History: Women’s Revolt Sparks Global Revolution

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    The Future Historians’ International Study Group and Collaborative Writing Project has obtained the following excerpts from the 2117 high school history book “Then, Now and How.” The title of this chapter is “#MeToo and the origins of today’s egalitarian society.”

    For more information, go to http://futurehistorians.org/doku.php?id=start.

    “… It is often difficult for today’s students – raised in societies where equality, and gender equality in particular, is the norm – to comprehend the oppressive  conditions under which women workers were forced to labor just a century ago. Twenty-one seventeen was the year things started to change when numbers of female employees in Western media, business and government circles came forward to accuse their bosses – prominent, powerful men – of perpetrating predatory sexualized violence on them; 2118 was the year they were finally heard.”

    It was then that, thanks partly to social media, the ancient wall of silence surrounding male violence and bosses’ “right” to compel sexual favors with impunity had been breached. That breach was first opened up by women in the celebrity class, whose names gave them credibility. Through that breach poured a vast army of angry, indignant lower-ranking female workers and employees who were tired of suffering fear, humiliation or sexual violence on the job and were now also demanding justice. This flame of women in revolt spread from one country to another and eventually grew into an international mass movement to put an end to male predation in the workplace and to contest the patriarchal power on which the then-existing class system was based.

    Celebrity Sex Scandals

    The spark that lit the flame in 2017 was the publication in early October, of a NY Times story detailing numerous accusations of sexual harassment against a powerful movie producer named Harvey Weinstein, whose films had won a number of Academy Awards. The story detailed three decades' worth of sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact accusations made against Weinstein by a number of women, including actress Ashley Judd. The story started a flood of new accusations from dozens of other women, including some who said Weinstein had raped them.

    Weinstein’s predatory behavior had been an open secret in Hollywood for years, but his victims were cowed by his threats of retaliation, and the industry establishment had kept his secret.

    At last the genie of “sexual harassment” was out of the bottle. Under the hash tag #MeToo, thousands of U.S. women began outing famous predators, and the rebellion spread to France, where the taboo protecting males was deeply entrenched, under the hash tag #balance ton porc (“out your pig”). Among the upstanding Americans outed were a liberal talk-show host and media icon named Charlie Rose (who preached “character”) and Alabama Senatorial Candidate Roy Moore – who as a judge had famously placed the Ten Commandments in front of his court (a breach of the Constitutional separation of church and state), for which he was twice fined. Moore, a racist reactionary accused of molesting teenage girls, was strongly defended by President Trump – a self-confessed “pussy grabber” whom sixteen women had accused of sexual harassment.

    At first this rebellion against sexualized workplace violence played out in the celebrity spheres of politics and entertainment where the media, had a field day publicizing ever-new sex scandals about the rich and famous. The underlying labor issue of power and inequality in the workplace was downplayed.

     “It is not at all the same thing to tweet in 140 characters and to bring a complaint in court,” said Marilyn Baldeck, a lawyer with the European Association Against Violence Against Women at Work in France, where legal procedures enabling female employees to sue their bosses for sexual harassment were quietly being further restricted. These legal procedures generally lead to more humiliation and paltry results, and in any case ordinary working women with children to feed were too scared to complain and find themselves fired, as was often the case when women did complain, a process that often led to more humiliation and paltry results. Acting on legal precedent, U.S. courts routinely dismissed cases brought by workers who claim their supervisors propositioned them, kissed them or grabbed their breasts. The judges declared that the conduct does not constitute harassment in a legal sense, and refused to let the cases go to trial. [1]

    Collective Resistance

    Low-wage women, too poor to bring a lawsuit and too obscure to interest the media, struck back collectively. They picked up the one method of struggle they were familiar with: the picket line. First in NY, then in Paris and around the world, “Out Your Pig!” picket lines began springing up in front of McDonald’s and other fast-food emporiums. Indignant women carried  picket signs demanding predators be fired including the names (and photos) of the bosses they were outing. While guilty supervisors cringed inside and desperately called headquarters for help, customers, both female and male, turned away or joined the pickets. Local media had a field day covering the picketing, videos of confrontations went viral, and “Out Your Pig” picket lines sprung up outside hospitals, factories, retail stores wherever bosses and supervisors were using their power to abuse their workers.

    These images of working women in revolt soon spread around the globe. The pent-up indignation of super-exploited female workers in sweatshops from Central America to South-East Asia, long brutalized and sexually humiliated by their bosses, exploded into direct action. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, scene of the disastrous 2012 garment factory fire, a sewing machine operator, trapped in the stockroom by her supervisor who expected her to submit to his advances instead called loudly for help. Her fellow workers came to her defense, swarmed over the supervisor, and, laughing, pulled down his pants to shame him! This predatory supervisor was never seen again, and his colleagues suddenly began acting more respectful. A video showing him trying to run away with his bottom bare and his pants around his ankles soon went viral. “How em-bare-assing!

    This boss’ humiliation gave a new meaning to the expression “out your pig,” and from then on there was no way to stop the swarming and de-pantsing scenario from repeating itself all over the world. When the factory women informed the press that their company was making clothes for famous brands like Timmy Hilfiger, women in the U.S. declared a boycott to pressure management to clean up their act.

    In the midst of this crisis, women across the world took to the streets during the 2017 International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Crowds poured into the streets in Peru, Mexico, France, Sweden, Spain, Mozambique, and other countries and protest femicide, rape and sexual harassment. In Turkey, thousands of women clashed with police in Istanbul during the protest. “They do not even let this (march) happen. They cannot even tolerate this. They do not want us, the women, to be free. But we will not leave the streets, as long as we can.”

    In France and Morocco, the outing of vastly popular Moroccan singer Saad Lamjarred exposed the underlying culture when the women he raped was vilified and the King supported the rapist. “This case is a little summary of the reality in Morocco,” said Saida Kouzzi, a founding partner of Mobilizing for Rights Associates, a nongovernmental organization based in Morocco. “We can be tolerant about rape and forget all moral and religious values when it concerns men,” she added, “while at the same time we are not willing to protect women.” Marital rape is not a crime in Morocco, and sex outside of marriage is illegal. Both rules discourage rape victims from coming forward because of the fear of being incriminated, advocates said. “Going to the police to file a complaint about rape can also become an admission of having sex outside of marriage,” Ms. Kouzzi said.[2]

    Women and the Labor Movement

    The womens’ new-found power naturally sparked further struggles for better wages and conditions. Historically, women workers’ resistance to the boss’ sexual predations had been at the origins of the organized labor movement. In 1905, many of the women who hand-painted the world-famous Limoges vases and figurines went on strike in France — not because they were poorly paid or toiled long hours, but because they were prey to the factory overseer’s sexual urges. In the 19th century similar struggles brought together young women textile workers in Massachusetts, U.S.A. in 1844 and so continued on.

    In the U.S., the women workers’ revolt grew out of the developing 21st century culture of social-movement style labor organizing among low-paid workers. These underpaid jobs had long been consigned to women and oppressed minorities. Since 2012, the “Fight for $15” movement, backed by progressive unions like SEIU, had grown from a walkout by 200 fast-food workers in New York City to a global movement of home health aides, child care teachers, airport workers, adjunct professors, retail employees – and underpaid workers in over 300 cities on six continents demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage. Soon the ardent demand for gender justice was grafted on to a movement which was already allied with the movement for racial justice. The change to “$15+Dignity” seemed hardly a big jump for this movement of largely female workers.

    Although in that period it was nearly impossible for low-paid workers to actually strike and legally win union rights under US labor laws, they were able to win victories by adapting the tactics of the civil rights movement through “direct action, taking to the streets, organizing” Indeed, the alliance between labor and the Black liberation movement went back to the 1960s, and you may have read Martin Luther King met his assassination when went to Memphis, TE to support a municipal strike of Black garbage workers in1968. This alliance was renewed in Memphis in 2017 by a public alliance between the ASCME union and #Black Lives Matter. The women’s revolt for dignity completed the picture.

    Women Take the Lead

    In the early 21st century, the most dynamic unions remaining on the dismal US labor scene were movements of majority female workers led by women, like the Chicago Teachers Union, the California Nurses and the Social Service Employees. In contrast, membership in traditional, male-dominated bureaucratic unions was at an all time low. Thus a new alliance, between labor, civil rights and the gender justice movement was being formed in the struggle against the male violence, openly racist billionaire class war offensives of the Trump era.

    From the very beginning, women had taken the lead in uniting the fractured elements of the U.S. resistance to misogynist Trump. On January 21, 2017 the day after Trump was inaugurated, a national Woman’s March brought millions of women and their allies into the streets in Washington, New York, and six hundred cities in the U.S. and world-wide. As Trump’s support plummeted to 32% in the polls, the New York Times reported that the women’s protest was three times the size of the Inauguration crowd.

    The Women’s March had been organized, rather spontaneously, soon after Trump’s election, by a bunch of women who got together via social media, started the ball rolling and created a loose federation of networks and social movements. The Women’s March brought together unprecedented masses to state loud and clear their solidarity with all oppressed people – women, exploited workers, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities, civilian casualties of American imperialist wars abroad. In the words of actress America Ferrera:

    We are gathered here and across the country and around the world today to say, Mr. Trump, we refuse. We reject the dehumanization of our Muslim mothers and sisters. We demand an end to the systemic murder and incarceration of our black brothers and sisters. We will not give up our right to safe and legal abortions. We will not ask our LGBTQ families to go backwards. We will not go from being a nation of immigrants to a nation of ignorance. We won’t build walls, and we won’t see the worst in each other. And we will not turn our backs on the more than 750,000 young immigrants in this country currently protected by DACA.

    Against Trump’s open misogyny and racism, the marchers maintained that women’s oppression is the basis of all oppressions. The speakers and signs proclaimed mutual solidarity among the social movements they represented – while at the same time maintaining each own group’s demands. Many signs took up the 2011 slogan of Occupy Wall Street: “This is what America Looks Like.” The most original feature of the demonstration was the proliferation of knitted Pussy Hats – a charmingly feminine satirical jibe at America’s pussy-grabber-in-chief that actually warmed peoples heads.

    The Harvey Weinstein scandal broke out nine months later, nine months into the Trump regime, which turned out to be more horrendous, but also more divided than had been imagined by the January pussy hat marchers. And so the stage was set for a showdown…

    EDITORS’ NOTE: In further chapters, we will discuss how women spearheaded the popular mass revolts that provoked a split in the U.S. ruling classes when the Trump administration called upon Federal troops to brutally disperse their demonstrations and sentenced activists to long prison terms. We will also study the origins of the famous March 8 International Assembly of Working Women, which inaugurated the first global strikes against  multinational corporations which forced them to their knees through a bottle-neck strategy interrupting their global supply-lines.

    Topics For Further Discussion:

    Faced with an entrenched social evil, the media consensus in 2017 America was to indict “human nature” (which of course could not be changed!) instead of indicting politically sanctioned workplace oppression and inequality. Thus, the Times which first broke the story published an essay a month later entitled “The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido[3]”. The author, one Steven Marche, apparently blind to the power and impunity of a self-protective male establishment, accused “the nature of men in general” and concluded that “the problem at the heart of all this [is] the often ugly and dangerous nature of the male libido.”

    Thus the Times, at the time considered the mouthpiece of US liberalism, was unwittingly spouting the same party line as the Saudi Arabian Wahhabist Imams, who also used that “dangerous male libido” as a pretext to lock up all Muslim women in the home and “protect” them by denying them civil rights and basic freedoms.

    By now 22nd century readers are naturally asking: Was all this violence about sex? Or about power? Young people today are growing up free to explore and express your individual sexuality at your own pace. You live in a world where cooperation has replaced domination, and you understand that sex is about caring and sharing, about pleasure, adventure, lust and love. So you ask yourselves: what is “sexy” about a creapy powerful male dominating, humiliating and violating his helpless female subordinates? From your 22nd century viewpoint, it seems obvious that the male predation behavior of earlier historic times had more to do with power than with pleasure, with domination than with sex, with class society than with human nature.

    Historically, male-dominated societies, priestly, royal or capitalist, had from earliest times proclaimed their rule to be ordained by the Gods, or more recently as “natural,” but this was propaganda. Modern archeologists and anthropologists have supplied ample evidence of the existence of stable matriarchal and matrilineal societies both in ancient history and among groups that remained isolated from Western influence well into the 20th century. Indeed, it was Morgan’s 19th century study of the Iroquois that inspired Friedrich Engels to conclude in The Origins of Private Property, the Family and the State (1884) that the rise of male dominance within previously egalitarian clans and the transformation of cattle, women and children into the personal property of the dominant male was the basis of all future class societies.

    Under European feudalism, the lords of the manor gave themselves the “right” to compel the sexual services of the young women who worked and lived in their domains. In the U.S., whippings, beatings and the fear of having their children sold down the river, compelled enslaved African-American women to submit to their masters. The same oppression prevailed under capitalism, where bosses routinely expected female workers to submit to their lusts if they wanted to keep their jobs. In addition, despite legal “equality” under capitalism women were made to do most of the work, both as wage earners, as informal workers and as unpaid home-makers, cooks, child-care and elder-care providers.

    No wonder why the elite men who ran those violent class societies united to keep women “in their place” and closed ranks against them. No wonder why many subordinate men, themselves exploited and humiliated in the workplace, were tempted to oppress and exploit the women this male culture placed under their power. And no wonder so many guilty men in those dark times unconsciously hated women, feared their power, and used violence to humiliate and subdue them.

    Today in 2117 in our egalitarian society where women no longer fear male violence, where women are free to openly express their own libido and where social labor is cooperative and mostly voluntary, the question of “human nature” and the allegedly “uncontrollable male libido” seem curiously antiquated. The early pioneer of psychanalisis, Dr. Freud, mistakenly wrote the women suffered from “penis envy,” when it was the men who were suffering from the terror of the womb, from which they all came and the power of woman to give and sustain life.

    Richard Greeman is a Marxist scholar long active in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, environmental and labor struggles in the U.S., Latin America, France, and Russia. Greeman is best known for his studies and translations of the Franco-Russian novelist and revolutionary Victor Serge (1890–1947). Greeman also writes regularly about politics, international class struggles and revolutionary theory. Co-founder of the Praxis Research and Education Center in Moscow, Russia, and director of the International Victor Serge Foundation, Greeman splits his time between Montpellier, France and New York City.

    Originally published by The Indypendent. 

  • What’s behind the protests in Iran and what can you do?

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    Over the New Year, a wave of protests has erupted in Iran, as people in towns all over the country took to the streets to air their grievances.

    Many protests were about basic economics – unemployment or low pay, high prices for basic foodstuffs like eggs – but there have also been reports about political aspects to the protests.

    And because the protests have been led by ordinary Iranians (unlike protests led by students, whose language skills make them easier for some western journalists to report), they have proved more difficult to interpret, allowing people like President Trump to impose their own agenda.

    So what’s really going on in Iran, and what can you do about it?

    The emergence of these street protests is no surprise to trade unionists working on Iran. We have been reporting on the situation facing Iranian workers for years, and supporting the struggles waged by a small but important group of independent trade unions in the country. The International Trade Union Confederation has ranked Iran a ‘category five’ country – the worst level for a non-failed state – because there is no guarantee of workers’ rights.

    Despite western portrayals of the regime as an Islamic theocracy, the struggles of trade unionists in Iran show that the country is in fact more of a kleptocracy. Iran’s rulers represent people who want to loot the economy by refusing to pay decent wages or, in some cases, any wages at all.

    Workers’ protests over non-payment of wages – one of the causes of the current demonstrations – have been commonplace, although other workplace issues are also problematic. Workers often go without wages for as much as three months, and companies intimidate them, harass them and dismiss them for protesting.

    Trade unionists at the Haft Tapeh sugar refinery have not received wages for more than four months. And when worker Aube Aghaabi recently took the company to court after a serious workplace accident, management retaliated by firing him along with 50 relatives or workers with a similar last name. The factory is under constant surveillance by the security forces.

    Police violence is common. On 19 September 2017, workers protesting against non-payment of wages were attached with sticks in Arak. They were employed at Hepco and Azarwater companies and were arrested.

    The Revolutionary Guard which has thrown itself into attacking protesters is not just an Islamic militia, but a huge business organisation, defending not just its political influence, but also its economic position at the heart of the kleptocracy.

    There is a ban on independent trade unions in Iran. The only authorised national workers’ organisation is the Workers’ House, set up and backed by the authorities and employers. The 1990 Labour Law stipulates that an Islamic Labour Council can be established at any workplace, or alternatively a workers’ representative can be appointed. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is obliged to form the Islamic Labour Councils in units which have more than 35 permanent employees.

    But the regime has reacted to the formation of independent trade unions by jailing its leaders, not for any actual crimes but for their expression of loyalty to each other, to other workers, rather than to the regime itself. Hence the use of ‘revolutionary’ rather than civil courts to convict trade unionists, and charges such as ‘enmity to god’ which usually means practicing and promoting solidarity rather than unquestioning loyalty to the regime itself.

    Trade unionists have been arrested and given harsh prison sentences on trumped-up charges, including ‘spreading propaganda against the system’, ‘gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security’ and ‘forming a group with the purpose of disrupting national security’.

    Court verdicts against trade unionists reveal that Iran cites peaceful activities as ‘evidence’ of ‘acts against national security’ and ’anti-revolutionary propaganda’. These activities include organising peaceful gatherings, attending peaceful protests against low wages, receiving invitations to international meetings, or simply meeting with international trade union figures.

    Trade unionists in jail

    One of the first protests in Iran this season was not reported by the global media. It was a protest rally on Boxing Day outside the Ministry of Labour in Tehran, to address the deteriorating health conditions of Reza Shahabi, the jailed Treasurer of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company.

    The gathering was brutally attacked by security forces and 51 people, including many women such as Robabeh Rezaee, Reza’s wife, were arrested and later released. Others were hospitalised. Earlier, on 22 September 2017, members of the Tehran bus union undertook peaceful actions in solidarity with Reza. Actions included flashing headlights and slowing down their vehicles. In response, several vehicles were seized and one worker was detained for distributing pamphlets.

    Reza is just one of the trade unionists we have been supporting for years. He was imprisoned in 2010 on charges of ‘propaganda against the regime and conspiracy against national security’. After spending four years in prison, and after solidarity campaigns around the world, Shahabi was released on medical leave on 6 October 2014.

    On November 2016, Shahabi began to face pressure to return to prison to complete his sentence (initially for a further three months then extended unilaterally by the prosecution for five months). On 9 August 2017 Shahabi was forced to return to prison. He started a hunger strike to protest against his unjust imprisonment, and suspended it after 49 days, on 27 September 2017 after receiving promises about improvements to his conditions. The Boxing Day protest resulted from a failure to honour those commitments. He is believed to have suffered a stroke in the last few weeks.

    Another jailed trade union leader is Esmail Abdi, a Maths teacher from the Iranian Teacher Trade Association. He was sentenced to six years in jail on false charges in October 2016 after organising peaceful protests. On 30 April 2017, Abdi started a hunger strike to protest against the continued, unlawful repression. After 38 days of hunger strike he was transferred to hospital for two days, then returned again to prison. He was released on a bail in June but rearrested on 27 July 2017.

    On 1 November, security forces went to Alireza Saghafi’s house to arrest him on a 3 years imprisonment verdict for organizing May Day gathering in Laleh Park on International Labour Day 2009. Around 150 workers and labour rights activist were arrested on May Day 2009.

    And the regime continues to attack leaders of Reza Shahabi’s bus workers’ union. Ebrahim Madadi, vice-president, was sentenced to five years and three months in August 2016. He been summoned to appear at Branch 36 of the Revolutionary Court’s Appeals Court of the Islamic Revolutionary court on 3 December 2017.

    And Davoud Razavi, a member of the board of directors of the union, was sentenced to five years in prison in February 2016.  He appeared in the Appeals Court of the Islamic Revolutionary court on 4 November 2017, without the presence of his lawyer.

    But what can we do?

    First, of course, we can reject the crocodile tears of those like President Trump whose tweets about the Iranian masses struggling for freedom mask an agenda of external interference in the country. He still wants to unstitch the deal over Iran’s nuclear ambitions put together by the EU which have led to the lifting of sanctions on Iran.

    Iranian workers opposed to the current regime are rightly also opposed to the intervention of outsiders. They know that opposing such interference would be the regime’s best defence against internal calls for democracy and workers’ rights.

    Instead, we can show practical solidarity with those Iranians who are and have been calling for a change in the rules governing Iran. That means backing the independent trade unionists who are suffering state repression for their views and activities.

    Until recently, Mahmoud Salehi would have been on the list of jailed trade unionists above. But, partly as a result of international trade union campaigns, he was released from jail on 23 November 2017.Mahmoud has spent several periods in prison for over a decade because of their legitimate and peaceful activities as trade union activists and human rights defenders. He is the spokesperson for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, representing bakery workers in Saqez.

    He was originally arrested after a peaceful demonstration to celebrate May Day 2004. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and three years’ internal exile in the city of Ghorveh, Kordestan. At his trial, the prosecutor reportedly cited his trade union activities as evidence against him, and referred to a meeting he had held with officials from international trade unions shortly before the May Day demonstrations.

    He has been in and out of jail ever since, becoming an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience along the way. But as his recent release shows, solidarity campaigns can work.

    So here are some actions you can take today

    Esmail Abdi has become the latest Iranian trade unionist prisoner of conscience who is the subject of an Amnesty International campaign with global union support. You can craft your own message or simply sign up to the Amnesty call for his conviction to be quashed.

    The global food workers’ union IUF is campaigning to help the Haft Tapeh sugar refinery workers mentioned above. You can join their campaign to call on the authorities to ensure that all current and retired workers are paid the wages they are due and that all charges against workers protesting wage arrears be dropped.

    And closer to home, the Iranian regime is not just attacking workers in Iran. One of the best sources of information about what is currently going on in Iran comes from the BBC Persian staff – members of our own National Union of Journalists – who are facing reprisals for their work, including asset freezes and blocks on international transactions and the harassment of their families in Iran. See the NUJ website for updates and ways to back the campaign.

    And you can keep up to date on what’s going on in Iran – with media reports from the BBC, and with trade union reports on LabourStart.

    Originally posted at the Trade Union Congress (UK) website.

  • To The People of the World

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    Since Thursday December 28 the Iranian people have engaged in extensive protests against the government of religious despotism in Iran. These protests have continued in full force in tens of Iranian cities, from north to south and from east to west of the country. The protests started with slogans against poverty, rising prices and unemployment, and in no time attacked the entire Islamic Republic as the prime destroyer of people’s lives.

    Skirmishes have occurred between government forces and the protesting people on the third day of these protests and several people have been killed and wounded in the city of Doroud in Lorestan province as a result of shooting by the police. The protesting people have responded to such violent acts by attacking centres of government suppression and by setting fire to the pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei as symbols of the system, and by shouting slogans against Khamenei and Rouhani and the government and it two factions as a whole.

    The fundamental truth is that the Iranian people do not want the Islamic Republic, and are screaming this in these protests through slogans such as “Down with the Islamic Republic!”, “Death to Khamenei and Rouhani!”, “Death to the dictator!” and, “Bread, jobs, freedom!” Various ranks of the people who have had enough of economic pressures and political and religious injustice, and women who have been deprived of their most basic rights, are participating in these demonstrations. These protests are the rightful response to thirty nine years of deprivation, disenfranchisement, poverty, disrespect and execution and torture. The people want to topple this government and establish a non-religious, free and secular state that would guarantee the welfare of the people and equal rights for women, and commit itself to all political and civil rights of the citizens.

    The active participation of women in these demonstrations is an important and proud aspect of these protests. Women were also in the forefront of the protests to challenge the government of sexual apartheid in the 2009 uprising of millions of Iranians. One day before the start of the recent protests in Iran a young woman in Enghelab Avenue in the centre of Tehran, in protest at the compulsory veil, took her headscarf off and waved it in the air as a banner. And now, the supporters of women’s rights have called on women to discard their head cover as symbols of their disenfranchisement.

    We call on you to support the just protests of the courageous men and women in Iran. Show your solidarity by participating in the gatherings that will be organised in various cities in support of the struggle of the Iranian people. Put pressure on European governments to desist from making concessions to the Islamic Republic, cut off their diplomatic ties with this government and shut down their embassies; to demand the release of political prisoners and those arrested in the recent gatherings, and to condemn the violent reaction of the Islamic government to the protestors. The Islamic Republic is an important bastion of the reactionary and terrorist movement of Political Islam. Its overthrow in Iran would, within a short period of time, shorten the lifespan of this vicious movement elsewhere in the world. The Iranian people deserve your support throughout the world.

    Worker-communist Party of Iran

    December 31, 2017

    Originally posted at the Worker-communist Party of Iran website.

  • On the One Hundredth Anniversary of Two Revolutions: Russia and Georgia, Bolshevism or Menshevism

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    Eric Lee. The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution, 1918-1921. London: Zed Books, 2017. 259 pages. Timeline. Notes. Index. (For further information see: http://www.ericlee.info/theexperiment/)

    In his new book The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgtten Revolution, 1918-1921 the journalist and historian Eric Lee does two things. First, he tells the little known and complicated story of the Georgian Revolution and the short-lived independent state that it created.

    Second, Lee uses the Georgian experience of those years to argue for the superiority of its Menshevik Social Democratic government over the Bolshevik or, later, Communist government of Soviet Russia. Lee argues that the Georgian Menshevik government was more both democratic and therefore more genuinely socialist than the Communist government of Russia. While Lee, who has been writing about this subject since 1987, does an admirable job of telling the story of the Georgian revolution, and does so in a highly readable and engaging fashion, I find his arguments for the superiority of Menshevism unconvincing and, in fact, the evidence he provides out of a scrupulous adherence to the facts often undermines the case he wishes to make.

    The Background

    Georgia, which had voluntarily become a Russian protectorate in 1783, had started by 1801 to become absorbed by the Tsarist Empire. Without a doubt Georgians became an oppressed national minority within the Russian “prison house of nations,” as it was often called. The circumstances and events leading to the collapse of the Tsarist Russian empire are well known: the authoritarian government, the country’s backwardness, the tremendous economic and social inequality, the country’s failures in World War I, and then the February Revolution of 1917. All of that made possible the revolutions in both Russia and in what had been the imperial province of Georgia. In Russia, including Georgia, the elections to the Constituent Assembly were held and the Menshevik, or more moderate faction, of the Russian Social Democrats (for some years actually an independent party) was victorious in Georgia.

    In Russia, however, the Bolshevik faction, also now an independent party, overthrew the provisional government, thrust power on to the soviets or councils of workers, peasants, and soldiers, and then dispersed the new elected Constituent Assembly. The Bolsheviks would have been the second most important party (24 percent) in the Constituent Assembly after the Social Revolutionary Party (40 percent), while support for the Mensheviks throughout the former empire as a whole was quite small (less than 3 percent). But the Bolsheviks overthrew the Constituent Assembly arguing that the soviets, where they had a majority, represented a more democratic form of organization that empowered the laboring classes. Vladimir Lenin, head of the new government of soviets in which the Bolsheviks had won a majority, declared that Soviet Russia was beginning the construction of socialism. The Georgian Mensheviks rejected the Bolsheviks as usurpers who had carried out a coup d’état in Russia and established a dictatorship of their party. This view strengthened their determination to go on their own independent course.

    As the Tsarist regime collapsed, the Ottoman Empire moved into Georgia, while at the same time the Georgians, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis formed the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic led by the Menshevik Nikolay Chkheidze. The federal state lasted only a few months and on May 26, 1918 Georgia declared independence; it held elections for a Constituent Assembly, in which the Mensheviks won the majority, with the party’s leader Noe Zhordania becoming prime minister. It was in this context of war and revolution that, under the leadership of the Mensheviks, Georgia convoked its own Constituent Assembly, established its own military, and began to govern along the lines advocated historically by European Social Democracy.

    The Georgian Ordeal

    The Georgian project was fraught with difficulties and surrounded by dangers. First, Georgia was a small, backward, agricultural nation located between two much larger nations: the Ottoman Empire (later Turkey) and Imperial Russia (later Soviet Russia). Second, as World War I ended and Russia’s control collapsed, the other great powers, first the Ottoman Empire, next Germany, and then Great Britain attempted to take control of Georgia. Third, Georgia was part of the Caucasus region that included the people of Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as smaller groups of Ossetians and Abkhazians, each of which had their own national aspirations. Attempts to create a transcaucasian federation failed both because of ethnic rivalry and great power maneuvering, including by Soviet Russia. All of this meant that the Mensheviks, like the Bolsheviks, would attempt to create a nation in the midst of virtually continuous peasant rebellion, ethnic uprisings, and international warfare.

    Who were these Mensheviks who aspired to lead a national revolution in Georgia? Who were their leaders? What was their social base? And what was their program? Unlike European Social Democratic Parties, which were almost always based on the labor unions, the Georgian Menshevik leaders, as Lee explains, were upper or middle class and mostly intellectuals. He quotes one historian who describes them as “former nobles, merchants, lawyers, graduates of Church seminaries and children of priests.” The leading German Social Democrat Karl Kautsky, a friend of the Georgian Mensheviks, enumerated the occupations of the 102 Mensheviks in parliament: “thirty-two workers, the rest intellectuals: twenty teachers, fourteen journalists, thirteen lawyers, seven doctors, three engineers and thirteen officials.” (p.  114) The Mensheviks’ petty-bourgeois leadership had, however, established strong ties to the labor unions and to the peasantry, giving their party the power to shape the national political agenda.

    Like other Social Democrats, the Mensheviks believed that a workers’ socialist revolution could only take place once capitalism and bourgeois democracy had been established. That then was their program: the establishment of capitalism and democracy. But just as had happened in Russia, the revolution created both a parliament and a soviet, and consequently a contest between bourgeois democracy and workers power. While Lee suggests that no dual power existed in Georgia because the Mensheviks coordinated an alliance between the parliament and the soviet, other historians disagree. Ronald Grigor Suny argues that the Bolsheviks had a following both among the soldiers and among the Russian workers in Georgia, and that the Bolshevik presence tended to grow and become more significant.[i] Be that as it may, the Georgian Constituent Assembly led by the Mensheviks did become dominant and stood as a bulwark against soviet power. The Menshevik leader Noe Zhordania stated at the time, “The present revolution in its content is not the affair of some class; the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are together directing the affairs of the revolution.” (p. 35). As Lee writes, this was classic Menshevism, classic social democracy.

    The Georgian Mensheviks’ social democratic program included the establishment of a republic, the carrying out of an agrarian reform that would distribute land to the peasantry, recognition of the labor unions, and universal suffrage for both men and women. Under the circumstances much of this program was more aspirational than realizable, though they did briefly make good on a good deal of it. Land was taken from large landowners without compensation and then sold to peasants, but the nobility held on to much of its land and remained intact as a social class. Zhordania explained to Ethel Snowden of the British Labour Party (she was the wife of Philip Snowden, a Labour Party leader), that the agrarian reform “was for all alike, the rich as well as the poor, and those who had more must give to those who have none” (p. 179). The Mensheviks did not nationalize significant private property, but they encouraged the creation of cooperatives. The Mensheviks called on the unions to produce more in order develop the country economically and were largely successful in winning the workers’ support, even though the coal and manganese mines and other industries remained in private hands.

    The Georgians Mensheviks, while fighting against domination by Turkey or Soviet Russia, were nationalists who at the same time fought to dominate the other ethnic groups in the Caucasus, leading to wars or minor conflicts, not only with Armenia but also Abkhazia, Adjara, and Ossetia. They did better with the Jews who had no territorial ambitions, though they kept a Zionist party out of parliament. As the author concedes, the Georgians became a minor imperial power in their region, unwilling to concede independence to the national minorities and dealing violently with them when they rebelled. As Lee writes, the Georgians relations with the other ethnic groups in and around their republic constituted the Mensheviks’ Achilles heel, making it impossible for them to establish the transcaucasian unity that might have provided the political basis for military resistance to their enemies.

    More important, from the beginning, the Georgian Mensheviks faced a decision: support the Bolsheviks in Russia or to ally with one or another of the imperial powers that were striving to crush Bolshevism? Leading a national revolution in a small country and seeking to maintain their independence from Turkey and from Soviet Russia, they sought an arrangement first with the German Imperial government and then with the British Empire, both of which were interested in the resources of the Caucasus: the oil field of Baku (today the capital of Azerbaijan) located on the Caspian sea and in the manganese mines in Chiatura and other areas of western Georgia. First the Germans, whom the Mensheviks preferred, and then the British—both of which expressed a willingness to protect Georgia from foreign intervention—intervened, carrying out a military occupations of Georgia and other parts of the Caucasus as they took control of the mines and oil. In his conclusion, Lee writes, “By 1921 the Georgians had demonstrated an over-reliance on diplomacy, in particular regarding the great powers, as part of their survival strategy” (p. 234). This is understatement indeed. In allying with one and then another of other imperial powers, the Mensheviks were, of course, simply repeating the disastrous history of the complicity of Social Democracy in the World War. They stood with imperialism against the attempt in Russia to create a socialist society with the aid of European workers’ revolutions.

    Stalin and Georgia

    While Lee generally takes the high road and writes his history and makes his argument for Menshevism from the facts, even facts that undermine his case, he does occasionally disappoint us. For example, he spends two and a half pages discussing whether or not Stalin had been a Tsarist police agent, an accusation which, he concedes, historians have rejected. This should have been a sentence and a footnote, not a textual discussion. Lee’s prejudices, generally subdued, do nevertheless intrude at various points. When Mensheviks lead peasant revolts, they are providing leadership, but when Bolsheviks do so, they are manipulative. When the Bolsheviks organize the soldiers, they are preying upon their exhaustion and bitterness, which Mensheviks presumably did not do. When the Bolsheviks repress the Mensheviks, it is unjust; but when the Mensheviks repress the Bolsheviks it is not only acceptable but in fact right do to so, because the Bolsheviks represent a foreign power and—note that we are talking about the period from 1918 to 1921 here—a totalitarian system. While the Soviet Union did become a totalitarian state, it was not yet such a regime in the period of 1918-1921.

    Lee has to be commended for quoting extensively from Trotsky’s critiques of the Georgian Mensheviks, even though he disagrees with the politics. And while he condemns the Soviet invasion and conquest of Georgia in 1921 as an expression of Communist totalitarianism, Lee points out that Soviet attack on Georgia was not initiated and carried out by Soviet leaders; Lenin was by then “sick and inactive” while Leon Trotsky, the head of the Red Army, was on an inspection tour in the Urals. It was Joseph Stalin, himself a Georgian but utterly unsympathetic to both the Mensheviks and Georgian aspirations for independence, who decided to invade, organizing an internal uprising and calling it a civil war in order to justify the military invasion. Lee concedes that “[i]n Moscow, the Bolshevik leaders themselves were also late to learn about what was happening in Georgia” (p. 196). Lenin and Trotsky, presented with a fait accompli, were both surprised and angry, but because the intervention was being justified by Stalin as support for Communists in a civil war, they did not act to stop if. Following a five week war, Georgia had become a Soviet Republic led by the Georgian Communist Party and part of what would become the Soviet Union.

    One wishes that Lee had continued his book through 1922 in order to deal with the “Georgian affair;” that is, the conflict between Stalin and Lenin over the relationship between Soviet Georgia and the Soviet Union. The Georgian affair, which is discussed in detail in Moshe Lewin’s Lenin’s Last Struggle (1968), refers to Stalin’s attempt to thwart the Georgian Communist Party’s aspirations for national autonomy within the new Soviet Union, established in 1922. Lenin, who was a genuine advocate of the right to self-determination, though he was quite ill, opposed Stalin. A discussion of the Georgian affair in Lee’s book would have demonstrated the difference between Lenin and Stalin on the national question, and as Lewin makes clear would have shown that these moments of Lenin’s “last struggle” represented the beginnings of Stalinism and the setting in place of the foundation what indeed became a totalitarian system. In my view, the Russian Revolution did eventually lead to a bureaucratic counter-revolution and totalitarianism, but that did not begin until the late 1920s and was not complete until a decade later.

    Lee’s The Experiment is both a good read and basically a good history, though in my view he fails at his defense of Menshevism. We should know more about the Georgian experiment. And at this moment, as we are watching the Kurdish and Catalan struggles for independence, thinking about the Georgian case might make us more sensitive to the many issues involved in the world’s many questions of ethnic or national autonomy or independence.

    Thanks to Eric Blanc for his suggestion that I read the Ronald Grigor Suny article. – DL

    [i] Ronald Grigor Suny, “Social Democrats in Power: Menshevik Georgia and the Russian Civil War,” in: Diane P. Koenker, William G. Rosenberg, and Ronald Girgor Suny, Party, State, and Society in the Russian Civil War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 324-48.

     

  • Hugo Blanco: The Future Is Indigenous

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    On a gray Saturday afternoon in Lima, Peru, this past April, I received a phone call from Hugo Blanco, veteran guerilla and survivor of multiple death sentences. “You wanted to talk?” he asked. “Come over now.” An hour later, after a ride through the city’s torturous streets, I was in the plaza in front of his house, an unpretentious single-level in a middle-class neighborhood north of the colonial center. I knocked and collected myself; I hadn’t actually expected him to respond to my request.

    Blanco is a peer of the Marxist Latin American revolutionaries Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (he and Guevara were on opposite sides of a few debates). In the early 1960s, he organized peasant unions to seize land from feudal-style hacienda owners in the central Andean sierra. He was imprisoned for years by the Peruvian government, charged with the murder of a policeman who was killed during the struggles (Blanco has denied the charge). While in prison, he wrote Land or Death, a book that proposed how to build a communist insurgency on the back of land reform efforts in the Andes. His radical ideas earned him death threats from many quarters, and he spent years in exile in Chile, Sweden, and Mexico. In recent years, he’s been able to return to Peru.

    What drew me to Blanco was not so much his insurgent past as his activist present. Spurred by the global environmental crisis and the encroachment of private industry on native-held land—a pattern that played out recently in the confrontations in the US at Standing Rock—Blanco has become an advocate for indigenous movements across the world.

    Blanco grew up in the Cusco region of Peru, speaking the indigenous language, Quechua. In 2007, he founded the periodical Lucha Indígena (Indigenous Struggle), which covers the political and economic forces that conflict with indigenous groups. He continues to trumpet the successful ways in which indigenous communities have countered global neoliberal forces that threaten the environment. “The indigenous movement is in the vanguard,” Blanco told the journal Sin Permiso. “[I]t’s the most advanced sector in the struggle against the system and in the construction of an alternative organization of society.”

    Now, at eighty-three years old, Blanco told me that he doesn’t get out much anymore, even though he had just returned from a month-long trip to Mexico to visit anti-mining activists.His home was sparsely decorated, filled with old books and magazines; his manner was low-key and inviting. We sat alone at his dining room table. In conversation, he is polite but direct, anchoring his ideas with anecdotes culled from years of travel and exile.

    The era of Latin American Marxist insurgency may seem distant now, but Blanco sees connections to the issues of today. During our discussion, in Spanish, he spoke passionately about Trump, global warming, nature rights, and the significance of indigenous movements in today’s global political climate.

    —Ted Hamilton for Guernica

    Guernica: For years you’ve focused your efforts on wealth distribution and social justice. Why is climate change a pressing issue for you now?

    Hugo Blanco: I’ve always fought for social equality. But now there’s a more important problem: the survival of my species. One hundred more years of rule by transnational companies and they’re going to exterminate the human species as they’ve exterminated other species.

    The objective of these large transnational companies is to make the greatest amount of money possible in the shortest time possible. To this end they attack nature. They use technological and scientific advances with this objective, including in the United States, where fracking poisons the water that people have to drink. Governments, to a greater or lesser degree, also represent the interests of international companies. Even the progressive ones capitulate to them.

    Guernica: You’ve said that indigenous groups can play an important role in combating global warming. How so?

    Hugo Blanco: These days the attack on nature is strong, so there are more people defending ecosystems. And ecologists have respect for the indigenous because they defend nature, and give less importance to things like money. I’m a Quechua indigenous person, and we have a principle of love and the worship of nature, which in Quechua we callPachamama, or Mother Nature. But there are indigenous people all over the world in Oceania, in Africa, in Asia, and in the north of Sweden and Finland. And the characteristics of indigenous peoples are that they have a great love for nature, solidarity, and collective rather than individual mandates.

    For example, there is a story of an anthropologist who was working with indigenous children in South Africa. He put some candies and fruit in a tree and he told the children, “Run, and the first one to get there gets everything.” The children ran there holding hands and split everything among themselves. “Why are you so silly? I said the first one to get there gets everything.” And they answered him: “If there were one of us who was left without candy or fruit, we’d all suffer. I exist because you exist.”

    The faculty members at a university in Cusco who study agronomy have learned that when they go to the agricultural fairs of the campesinos [peasants], they shouldn’t give prizes to the person who makes the biggest potato, or the largest quantity of potatoes, but instead to whomever produces the most varieties, because the indigenous think that’s more important. And when you ask, “What do you produce on your land?” they say, “Everything,” because they’ve got avocado next to the river, all the way up to the potato at the peaks.

    There are certain mushrooms that only appear during the rainy season in Peru. And there was a campesina selling little mountains of them in the Cusco market. I told her, “I’ll buy all of them without asking for a discount,” which was a good deal for her, because usually you pay less for more quantity. But she told me, “No. If I sell you all of them, what am I going to sell everyone else?” Selling wasn’t just business, but a social relationship.

    I cite these examples to show that there is something to being “indigenous.” Some people call us indigenous people “primitives,” and they’re right. Because we preserve the primitive organization that all of society once had, which is horizontal. They call us “savages,” and I think they’re right there, too, because the savage is the one who’s not domesticated. The condor is a wild animal, but the rooster is domesticated. I’d rather be a condor than a rooster.

    Guernica: Is it possible to harness that type of collective power on an international scale?

    Hugo Blanco: I’m for the idea that the global population self-governs. It’s the only salvation against global warming and against the destruction of nature. For that reason, indigenous peoples have more esteem than ever.

    There is a philosophical principle that Marx got from Hegel. First is the affirmation, which is the thesis; then there’s the negation, which is the antithesis; then there’s the synthesis, which brings back the thesis and incorporates some of the elements of the antithesis. The thesis is primitive society: horizontal, not hierarchical. After came [the antithesis], civilization: caste systems, and in Europe vertical classes, led by those who command and who rule to their own benefit. And the synthesis is the resurrection of the thesis, or once again horizontal society, enriching it with some of the elements of the antithesis, or all the advances of society that have not put the survival of the species at risk. I think we need to arrive at this synthesis. And we’ll be there when all of society governs.

    I don’t believe in leaders or caudillos [strongmen] or managers. But I think that what we need to push forward is the movement for collectivity. That’s what I believe in: power from below. And that organized society can be like that.

    Guernica: Can you give me some examples?

    Hugo Blanco: I’ve seen it in Limatambo, a district of campesinos near Cusco, in Mexico, and in Greece. In Limatambo, the campesinos asked, “Why are the mayors always the sons of thehacienda owners? Why can’t we nominate ourselves?” So they had a secret ballot, and they won their elections. But it wasn’t so that the individuals could govern. It was so that the community assemblies could govern. This is the mandate of the people, which is the same thing that the Zapatistas in Mexico have.

    The Zapatistas have three levels of government: the community, the municipality, and the region. Many thousands of indigenous people govern themselves democratically with the principle of “lead by obeying.” The people choose a group of women and men as governors, but they don’t choose a president or a secretary general; all those chosen have the same rank. After a period of time they change out everyone, there’s no reelection, so everyone is at the head and there’s no indispensable person. When there’s a very important question, they convene a general assembly so that the collective decides. No authority at any level gets a cent. They’re like farmers and each gets their ration. Drugs and alcohol are forbidden. I don’t know if you would call this socialism, anarchism, or communitarianism. Nor does it interest me.

    I liked what one comrade told me: “They elected me. If they’d elected me as a community manager, it wouldn’t have mattered, because then I could still cook for my husband and my kids. But they elected for the municipality. So what was I going to do? I had to travel. I had to teach my kids how to cook, and that was good, because now my sons’ wives can accept a post far away, and my sons know how to cook.” So they’re advancing.

    We were there [with the Zapatistas] and they were explaining how they feed themselves, how they take care of themselves, how they’ve brought back indigenous knowledge. But they haven’t rejected Western medicine, so they’ve gathered surgeons and doctors from other areas who taught them how to build and operate a clinic. And they also accept not just Zapatistas, but partidistas [people affiliated with political parties]. But the partidistas have to pay for their medicine—the Zapatistas are treated completely for free. And recently a Zapatista told me, “Well, in the clinics there are more partidistas than Zapatistas—because since we feed ourselves well, we don’t get sick.”

    There are also indigenous people in a town called Cherán, in Mexico, who chose to self-govern. One day, when there were municipal elections across Mexico, and parties came to do campaign propaganda in Cherán, the citizens said, No, we don’t want parties, we don’t accept any propaganda. And then they decided to elect somebody of their own choice, so they elected another governing council, also without general secretary or president who governed everything. And Mexican President Peña Nieto had to recognize them and say, “Well, since they’re an indigenous population, they have the right to follow their customs and traditions.” And so they have the municipal council, which has at its command the armed municipal guard protecting the frontier and the internal order.

    In Greece, I’ve seen that in face of the government austerity, there’s a rise in activity from the base. For example, the government abandoned the state television channel and in Thessaloniki the workers took it in their power and they interviewed me. Later, because they were closing clinics, health workers—nurses and doctors—met up and made clinics. There is also a publishing house in the hands of its workers. There are many restaurants in Athens that are in the hands of their workers. There is a cooperative that receives goods from the countryside and sells them, avoiding intermediaries. And I told them, “You’re doing here in the city what the Zapatistas are doing in the countryside: creating power.”

    So that’s it. The government of everyone. Not the government of one party, one person, or one leader.

    Guernica: Are indigenous groups the only groups well-suited to fight capitalist interests?

    Hugo Blanco: Of course not. You can see activism in the United States with the fight against the [Keystone] pipeline, where not just the indigenous but other defenders of the water came from all over the US. Of course, Trump has now ordered that they [build the pipeline]. But there is resistance. What’s more, I believe that the strongest part of the resistance has been the Women’s March. The greatest anti-Trump protest was the Women’s March. In Peru, the biggest march in the history of the country was the Ni Una Menos march in Lima, a women’s march. In Rosaria, Argentina, there was a march of women. In Poland, too, they’re fighting for their right to abortion. I think that women are an important part of the vanguard now.

    We’re constructing a new world here. Not only us, the fighters for social justice, but also those who work to produce ecological products, those who practice alternative medicine and alternative education, those who take over factories and become their own managers. All of them, too, are fighting for a new world.

    Guernica: An Indian court recently recognized the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers as having legal rights. The rights of nature also appear in the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia, and they’re considered important by many indigenous groups. What do you think of the idea?

    Hugo Blanco: We have to defend [nature rights] because we form part of nature.

    The New Zealand authorities have taken an important step in the defense of nature and humanity, which should be followed by other governments. The Whanganui River [on the North Island of New Zealand] is now a “legal person,” and as such it has rights and obligations under a pioneering agreement signed by the New Zealand Parliament. This means that the river, which has been venerated by the Maori people for a long time, will have the same rights as a person. The Maori Whanganui tribe has been fighting for about 150 years for the river, the third-largest in the country, to be recognized as an ancestor—that is, a living entity. And now the parliament has finally approved a law that recognizes it as such.

    Also, in 2014, Alberto Acosta [former minister of energy and mining in Ecuador] called for recognition of nature rights here in Lima. He said we’re not going to wait for the neoliberal governments to do this, because they’re never going to recognize them. And he organized a meeting for the defense of nature here in Lima.

    Guernica: What are your hopes for indigenous groups in the coming years?

    Hugo Blanco: There are indigenous struggles on all continents against the racist and colonial mentality and politics that defend the capitalist system. What’s been happening for twenty-three years in Chiapas, Mexico, in the Zapatista zone, makes me optimistic. I hear what the Zapatistas say: “Please don’t copy us. Everyone in their place and in their time will know how it’s done.”

  • The Workers of the World Do Need to Unite

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    Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have written a book about the city of Richmond, California, where you live, prefaced by Senator Bernie Sanders: Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City. This book shows us the experience of this city that has won struggles such as raise the local minimum wage, defeat a casino development project, challenge home foreclosures and evictions, and seek fair taxation of Big Oil and Big Soda. Can we say that the Richmond experience should inspire progressive activists in other cities around the world?

    Steve Early: The struggle to revitalize and democratize Richmond, CA, a multi-racial, working class city of 110,000 near San Francisco, is part of a larger municipal reform trend in the U.S. This current emerged during a period of political deadlock at the state and federal level during the Obama Administration.

    Under Donald Trump, we’ve gone from bad to worse, forcing progressive city hall leaders to deploy the limited resources of local government to fight poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation because government at higher levels is failing to address such problems or, in the Trump era, making them worse.

    In other countries, there is a similar trend toward “going local”—for example, left-wing mayors and city council members have been elected in cities like Barcelona and Madrid, on a similar program of promoting direct citizen participation in municipal affairs.

    In electoral politics at the national level in the U.S., those with the most donor clout—what Bernie Sanders calls “the billionaire class”—are well positioned to win, whether their preferred presidential candidate comes in first or second.

    The longer-term success of current grassroots “resistance” to Trump depends on building a broader organizational base for the U.S. left in local politics, labor organizing, and social movement building. “What we need,” Sanders argues, “is a 50-state strategy, which engages people—young and working class people—to stand up and run for school board, to run for city council, and the state legislature, so government, at all levels, starts listening to ordinary people instead of campaign contributors.”

    “Taking over city hall in Richmond or any other city won’t, by itself, keep big money out of politics,” Sanders points out. “It can’t stop climate change, eliminate economic injustice and racism, or stop all law enforcement abuses. Addressing those problems requires broader movement building, national and global in scale.” But “rebel cities” are one key place where that movement building can develop and become stronger.

    According to you, doesn’t the fight against big capital pass today by local struggles against multinationals, banks, etc.? Isn’t there a need to reinvent the struggle?

    I think progressives today are not so much re-inventing this struggle as reviving a political tradition and organizing strategy more than a century old.

    Before World War I, we had a mass-based Socialist Party in our country that boasted nearly one hundred thousand dues paying members. It grew in part through labor militancy but also by challenging local business interests for control of city hall.

    Socialist mayors were elected in seventy-five cities in twenty-four states. Overall, about twelve hundred socialists served in public office and used their municipal positions to improve services for workers and the poor, including public housing, sanitation, and street repair. They also encroached on the private market by taking over local power and water companies and making them publicly owned utilities, some of which survive to this day.

    These left-wing gains were reversed when the U.S. government cracked down on socialists opposed to military conscription and US participation in the imperialist slaughterhouse of World War I.

    To curb radical influence at the local level, many cities, like Richmond, also switched to a city manager form of government. The number of elected, full-time mayors, whether socialist or not, was reduced throughout the nation. More city council members became part-time, were elected at large, citywide (rather than from their own working class neighborhoods) and, in office, were limited to setting general policies carried out by trained, business-oriented professionals.

    Only after the movements of the 1960s, did U.S. radicals begin regaining ground in local politics—first, in university towns like Berkeley and Santa Cruz, CA., Madison, Wisconsin, and Burlington, Vermont. Socialist Alternative city councilor Kshama Sawant in Seattle, Richmond’s two-term Green Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, black radical mayor Chokwe Antar in Jackson, Miss. and many others like them represent a more recent and larger wave of left-wing insurgents.

    What they all have in common today is a commitment to challenging corporate power—and the corporate Democrats and conservative Republicans who are its equally dutiful servants.

    From what I read about you, you advocate an original idea, namely to organize struggles at the local level, in particular by structuring the progressive forces at the city level, and then build a large national movement. For you, are local struggles necessary as a first step towards a general change?

    I don’t want to make too much of a virtue out of the momentary necessity of “municipalism.” One way that progressives in Richmond have responded to Trump’s election last Fall is by joining forces with like-minded former Bernie supporters in the post-Sanders campaign network known as Our Revolution (OR).

    In November 2016, Our Revolution helped raised thousands of dollars for the two city council candidates backed by the Richmond Progressive Alliance. Both won seats on the council, giving it a RPA “super-majority” of five out of seven members.

    If OR is going to achieve its full potential as a force for change inside or outside the Democratic Party, it will need two, three, many local groups like the RPA’s or the Vermont Progressive Party, the very successful third party formation in Vermont inspired by Sanders own career in the state.

    The RPA voted to formally affiliated with OR in January and is now doing outreach to other like-minded local groups in California. Richmond progressives know they have to become part of a broader progressive movement to defend past municipal gains and make real change at levels of government higher than Richmond city hall. So one founder of the RPA, former Richmond mayor Gayle McLaughlin is running for Lieutenant Governor of California as a progressive independent; vice-mayor Jovanka Beckles is campaigning, with RPA support, as a “corporate free” candidate for the state legislature.

    In your book The Civil Wars in US Labor: Birth of a New Workers’ Movement of Death Throes of the Old, you put your finger on the wound by showing the shortcomings of the American union movement which, instead of defending the interests of the workers, has lost itself in internal struggles which are prejudicial to the workers’ struggle. Can we say that we must reform or radically change the functioning of the American union movement?

    In the early 1950s, nearly of third of the U.S. workforce was unionized. Today, that’s down to less than 7% in private industry and 12% overall.

    Until recently, union militants here often made a distinction between “external organizing”—the process of recruiting workers currently lacking collective bargaining rights—and “internal organizing.” The latter refers to shop floor efforts among existing union members aimed at strengthening their collective agreements with employers through workplace mobilization activity, including strikes or other protests on the job.

    This distinction doesn’t exist, of course, in many other countries, like France, where union membership is voluntary, more fluid, and multiple unions compete and/or cooperate in the same workplace or enterprise. Building organizational strength in a workplace, new or old, where there is little or no union presence requires the same kind of one-on-one recruitment of co-workers, followed by displays of solidarity.

    In the U.S., as a result of mounting legal and political setbacks, virtually all labor organizations now face the same challenge as French unions. Throughout the country, right-wing forces have made it harder for unions to secure financial support from the 14.6 million workers they still represent in the private and public sector.  To survive, much less succeed, in this new workplace environment, unions must return to their roots and begin to function again like they did before passage of the 81-year old Wagner Act, the federal law enacted under the pressure of left-led industrial union organizing in the 1930s.

    One downside of the Wagner Act model was making unionization too much of an “all or nothing” phenomena; if an organized minority of workers tried to act collectively in an otherwise “non-union” workplace, management was not legally obliged to address their demands and, very often, unions provided little sustained backing for the shop-floor activity of non-dues payers.

    In addition, federal labor law in the U.S. greatly favors incumbent unions, which means it’s much too difficult for workers to switch from one union to another, if they are dissatisfied with their workplace representation and support. Once insulated from the threat of membership defection, U.S. union officials became much too free to ignore rank-and-file complaints and problems, while promoting, in some industries, labor-management “partnerships” of questionable value to workers.

    Doesn’t your essential book Save our Unions: Dispatches from A Movement in Distress call for a re-founding of the trade union movement for more combativeness and efficiency in order to defend the interests of the working class against big capital?

    There is a now nearly 40-year old network of labor activists in the US that has promoted such a “re-founding” through the vehicle of Labor Notes.

    Along with others from my union, I have been a longtime time Labor Notes supporter. It functions as an independent, rank-and-file oriented labor education project producing a monthly newsletter and holding local, regional, and national training sessions which promote greater union democracy and militancy to better defend the interests of workers against big capital.

    The next Labor Notes conference—attended in recent years by more than 2,000 trade unionists, from the U.S. and abroad—will be held in Chicago, on April 6 to 8. For more information, see here. There’s no better crowd to be part of, if you want to put “the movement back in the labor movement.”

    Embedded with Organised Labour: Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home goes over the history of the union movement in the USA and how it has been able to crystallize the struggles of the working class in the past. In your opinion, can we say that the labor movement must learn the lesson of its past experiences in order to be efficient? Is there a need to give a new impetus to the trade union movement?

    The increasingly defensive battles of U.S. workers suggest that a new model of union functioning is both possible and necessary for labor movement survival. As more unions come under attack, rank-and-file members are realizing they can’t just be passive consumers of union services. In workplaces lacking “union security” or formal collective bargaining, workers themselves are taking greater leadership and initiative, while depending far less on full-time officials and staff.

    Throughout the U.S., it will take far wider and more concerted worker mobilization for “organized labor” to remain “organized” without the state or federal legal protections of the past. In politics, as well as on the job, it’s time for new directions and less dependence on Democrats who have been largely useless in the fight against union busting and resulting open shop conditions.

    In Democratic presidential primary voting during the spring of 2016, many labor militants were among the 13 million Americans who cast their ballots for the most pro-worker member of the U.S. Congress and its only socialist—Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont.

    Sanders left-wing electoral insurgency has attracted support from disillusioned Democrats, independents, and even some working class Republicans. By focusing attention on “billionaire class” domination of both major political parties, Sanders’ grassroots campaign fostered long-overdue debate and discussion among labor militants about the need for union transformation—in the workplace, the community, and politics too.

    The national network that some of us helped form to assist his campaign—known as “Labor for Bernie”—has morphed into a group called “Labor for Our Revolution.” In the six or seven national unions that backed Bernie and the far greater number of AFL-CIO affiliates that settled for Hillary Clinton, there is continuing questioning of labor’s past approach to politics.

    You have a long experience in the union movement, especially in the Communications Workers of America (CWA). What can you tell us about your experience with this organization?

    I’m proud to report that the union I’ve belonged to for 37 years was the largest in the U.S. to support Sanders for president. When I first went to work for CWA in 1980, it was not the type of union to endorse a Jewish socialist atheist, former anti-war activist who’s never been a Democrat.

    So that’s one sign of change within labor right there. It reflects, in CWA’s case, a broadening of the union’s membership based over the last four decades. What began as an enterprise-based union within the telephone industry—composed almost entirely of telecom workers—is now a far more diverse, amalgamated organization of private and public sector workers, white collar and blue collar employees, with members in manufacturing, the media, higher education, health care, and the airlines.

    That greater diversity has contributed to greater political pluralism and support for progressive politics.

    In your opinion, can we appeal for the establishment of a union front on the global level to counter global neoliberalism and imperialism?

    Globalization, corporate restructuring, deregulation or privatization, and myriad forms of outsourcing have created new workplace terrain that’s distinctly unfavorable for workers, in the U.S. and many other countries. Labor organizations, rooted in a single nation-state, have been forced to re-think their organizing and bargaining strategies, and how they’re structured.

    More have come to realize the importance of cross-border solidarity and international union ties. My own union, CWA has invested a lot of resources in sustaining relationships with like-minded labor organizations in Canada, Mexico, Germany, and other countries where we deal with common employers, like T-Mobile, the cellular phone service provider.

    The workers of the world do need to unite, as a famous 19th century radical economist once argued. And, fortunately, in the 21st century, we have a lot more tools for faster communication, better information, and closer coordination of union action on a cross-border basis. The challenge, of course, is making sure those linkages actually do involve workers themselves, as opposed to just the labor officialdom.

    Don’t you think that a corrupt union is the best ally of the ruling classes?

    In a country lacking any statutory entitlement to universal health insurance, pensions, vacations, or other paid time off, collective bargaining still makes a big difference in the lives of 16 million people. Union contracts spell out wages, employment conditions, “fringe benefits,” and a procedure for contesting unfair discipline; most non-union workers have nothing like it and powerful employers are free to dictate terms of employment, as they see fit. Or redefine the nature of employment, leaving millions of people mistreated and exploited as casualized labor in all its various forms.

    Whenever unions themselves are guilty of organizational misbehavior—particularly in the form of leadership involvement in financial corruption—that greatly undermines and discredits the idea that collective action is absolutely necessary for workplace improvements and improving working class living standards.

    So, in that sense, a corrupt union is an ally of the corporate ruling class in its never-ending fight to reduce union influence in the U.S.

    Don’t you believe that capitalist society and its mode of consumption only lead to the alienation of the dominated classes?

    I’m not much of a theorist but that formulation sounds right to me.

    Can humanity survive another capitalist century?

    I’m not a futurologist, but if I was, I would say the future does not look good, for planetary survival, after another capitalist century.

    Are not the reformers of the capitalist system sellers of the mirage and the dream? In your opinion, can the capitalist system be reformed?

    To save the planet from the devastating human and environmental impact of climate change is going to take more than “reform” of the system. There have always been lots of reasons—worker exploitation, imperialism, war, et al.—to replace capitalism with something better. Global warming, rising sea levels, extreme weather leading to drought, famine, fires, and/or flooding, plus animal species extinction, provide an over-arching rationale for fundamental economic change.

    You are both a man of action and a man of theory and your career is very rich and atypical: labor activist, journalist, author, lawyer, you serve on the editorial advisory committees for four labor-related publications—Labor Notes, New Labor Forum, WorkingUSA and Social Policy, you are a member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) in your city and you are involved in struggles within the local community. For you, as a modern leftist and trade unionist, is it a necessity to be at one and the same time on several fronts?

    In Richmond, as I describe in Refinery Town, there’s a lot of overlap and inter-connection between labor, community, and environmental issues—so it’s a good place to be remain involved in union solidarity, while becoming more active in local campaigns for environmental and economic justice.

    Originally posted at the American Herald Tribune.

  • Walter Benjamin and the Political Practices of the Alt-right

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    The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

    Walter Benjamin was one of the great analysts of liberal capitalism during a time when its days seemed numbered and fascism was ascendant across Europe. Much of his work is taken up with looking at how the cultural products and processes characteristic of a civilization are reflective of the inner psychic and spiritual tensions roiling beneath the surface of hegemonic ideologies.

    In his seminal 1936 essay “The Work Of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Walter Benjamin discusses how works of art are created and reproduced in different era. He traces how works of art were once meticulously reproduced by craftsmen working under a master, and compares that to the modern world where art can be reproduced and disseminated with incredible rapidity.  Benjamin also discusses the impact that this has on society. Because art can now be reproduced and spread across the body politic with incredible speed, it has become and powerful tool for the maintenance of power structures. Those who have power in society can quickly and cheaply produce ideologically loaded aesthetic works, which can quickly be deployed as tools of distraction and propaganda. 

    But notably, Benjamin made another and far deeper point at the conclusion of his essay. Noting how the rise of reactionary fascism was in part dependent on the paradoxical use of the most powerfully modern technologies to deploy propaganda, he pondered what this said about the subjects of fascist regimes. His conclusion was quite striking. The capacity of modern societies to reproduce artistic materials had become so pronounced that in fascist countries it had produced a very new type of social organization. Fascism was essentially a society that had transformed itself into entertainment. The alienated masses of people were turned to self-distraction to prevent them from recognizing the insidious forces of exploitation that continued to efface their individuality. As he puts it in the Epilogue:

    “The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.”

    Benjamin’s essay was published in 1936 as the cinema was just cresting in its cultural influence. Films such as Triumph of the Will overtly deployed technology to produce a new aesthetics of distraction, most of which reached a pitch in the call for war and violence. Anticipating Stanley Kubrick’s black comedy Dr. Strangelove many years in the future, Benjamin suggests that we would so plunge into the distraction of our darkest impulses that even acts of wanton destruction and annihilation would increasingly be regarded as acceptable because they drew people out of themselves for a brief period of time.  The connection between such an aesthetics and support for an increasingly authoritarian and paranoid political culture isn’t hard to discern.  Moreover, as we shall see, it also plays an integral role in the formation of broader historical narratives which must also be analyzed and challenged.

    The Modern Aesthetics of Distraction and the Alt-Right          

    Benjamin’s endlessly provocative essay is a useful starting point for thinking about the modern aesthetics of distraction deployed by the alt-right and its various affiliates.  But while Benjamin is a useful place to start, we need to go beyond his analysis. We must examine how what is effectively post-modern conservatism uses the now exponentially more powerful technological tools of digital media and communications to disseminate its paranoid messages.

    The alt-right emerged as the product of complex conditions in society, but its first instantiations were online. Individuals felt increasingly alienated in a society which no longer conformed to their expectations, often dealing with disappointment at their inability to live up to the American Dream in a climate of economic decline. Moreover, they came to feel that the triumphalist historical narratives about American supremacy, often affiliated the ascendency of white protestant norms to the status of universal ideology, were increasingly being challenged. The psychic protection these alienated individuals felt by affiliating with this triumphalist historical narrative about American greatness was undercut by counter narratives about the persistence of past wrongs towards groups like women, African Americans, and the developing world more broadly.  These counter narratives were promulgated by seemingly alien groups within society who were simultaneously both all-pervasive and hegemonic, while also not embodying the traits of “real” Americans.

    As the historical narratives about American greatness were undercut, and the psychic defense it provided against alienation faded, many in the future alt-right turned to distraction to express their resentment. This took the form of a dizzying and growing array of right wing aesthetics whose primary purpose was no longer to present a clear and consistent political ideology.  Classical conservatism, while certainly preceding the alt-right, was at least concerned for present itself as an intellectually consistent system of thought. William F. Buckley’s snide pretensions shouldn’t distract from the fact that many took his unique blend of moralistic Protestantism, support for unbridled individualistic capitalism, and robust international interventionism, to be a genuinely plausible worldview. But the alt-right was never concerned with that. This is why, despite its apparent hatred of post-modernity, the alt-right is very much a post-modern movement. Its relativism and distrust of any “truth” but that which flows from the communications bubble is indicative of the conditions of its birth.

    Digital technologies, with their capacity to simultaneously open up new spaces for thought while enabling individuals to increasingly live within a communications bubble, meant that most alt-righters never needed to concern themselves with the intellectual salience of their ideology.  They could concern themselves increasingly with distraction; the most satisfying of which was often to undermine and stereotype all those they felt were responsible for their sense of alienation. Intellectuals, Women, LGBTQ individuals, Muslims, Democrats, Hollywood celebrities. Each was targeted in turn by memes, pod-casts, videos, fake news.  This was all designed to present a minimum of intellectual content in the most affective manner possible. In other words it was designed as ideological entertainment which played to the psychic desires of alt-righters to have their resentments stokes. 

    Of course many the alt-right could not give plausible reasons why these groups were dangerous.  The most offered was that these groups were taken as representative of everything that was holding back “real” Americans; an idealization drawn from stereotypes and clichés that never had much basis in reality.  But that is what Benjamin taught us long ago, and what is more clearly important than ever before. The aesthetics of distraction is designed for affect on the masses; it distracts feelings of resentment and anger towards reactionary actions rather than the critical evaluation of power.  In the immediacy of resentment one can temporarily efface the loneliness of alienation.  But once one steps beyond immediacy, the greater historical problems of an aesthetics of distraction become clear.

    The aesthetic tools of distraction do more than just provide an outlet for the resentments of the alienated. Though this is their day to day function, they serve another purpose. They allow the alt-right the opportunity to reconstruct an account of history which superficially redeems and resurrects the formerly triumphalist narrative.  “Make America Great Again” is a call to return to a triumphalist narrative by ridding the state of those whose mere presence increasingly challenges it by serving as a reminder of American sins past and present.  This also demonstrates the fundamental impotence of the alt-right, what Hannah Arendt might have called its “impotent bigness.” It wishes to redeem a triumphalist historical narrative by removing those who threaten its credibility.  But removing and attacking those same people one serves to reinforce their point about American shame. Few things demonstrate this better than the very election of Donald Trump; sending a trust fund sex-offender to the White House to stick it to those progressives who say rich white men tend to get ahead.

    Conclusion

    I will conclude by looking at another dimension of Benjamin’s work; that concerned with history as a whole and its potential redemption.  In his Theses on the Philosophy of History, Benjamin innovatively pushed against the idea of historical progress.  Unlike liberal narratives which parroted the inevitable triumph of world-wide capitalism, and even their Marxist counterparts who remained firmly committed to the utopian belief in the communist society to come, Benjamin presents us with a far more pessimistic image of the past as a chaos yet to be redeemed.

    “There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so, to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.”

    Benjamin’s solution to the problem of historical progress as chaos is messianic; we can only redeem the broken history of the past by effacing its alienation in the present.  In doing so, we establish a present in which “splinters of messianic time” are shot through.  Accomplishing this means turning people from the aesthetics of distraction and to confrontation with the real sources of their alienation and the complex histories underpinning them.  We can start by demonstrating that as long as the alt-right attempts to redeem a false narrative of American greatness through embodying the must ugly characteristics found in America’s history, it is doomed to impotent failure. 

     

  • Right Hooks

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    David Neiwart, Alt-Right: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump. Verso Books, 2017.

    Think of this book as a basket of deplorables. It’s thick on illuminating descriptions of renascent white nationalists, gun-enamored militia poseurs, conspiracy-theory mongers, Ku Klux Klansmen and women, Christian Identitarians and proto-Nazis benefitting from and legitimized by the sordid presidency of Donald Trump. It’s thin on explaining why such phenomena persist or have arisen as political thuggery in 21st-century America.

    Journalist David Neiwert’s Alt-Right: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump is certainly required reading. He’s a widely respected expert on the American far right, author of five previous books on the right and repression of immigrants, as well as a frequent guest on CNN and MSNBC and a contributor to the Washington Post. The book’s breadth of detail is exhaustive and almost singular in focusing on the racist far-right movement that has often been presumed dead, but got a jolt of growth hormones from the Trump campaign, who mainstreamed what Neiwert calls their “eliminationist rhetoric” as applied to immigrants, people of color and Jews.  Some even refer to Trump as “Glorious Leader,” language the author doesn’t harp on but that harkens back to the fuhrerprinzip, or notion of the leader as above all law. Neiwert also notes the munificent funding of far-right causes from wealthy grandees like the Coors family and the Koch brothers.

    Where Neiwert is at his best is in charting and quantifying the mainstreaming of white-nationalist ideas, where even Nazis were free to join and lead Tea Party efforts. Teabagger ideology was broadcast not just by lunatics like Alex Jones, obvious racists like David Duke and pervasive social-media trolls, but by seemingly respectable Fox News. The Oathkeepers, in effect a revived ’90s-style militia, could masquerade and be accepted as “just another community-watch organization.”

    Trump’s condemnation of “dangerous Mexicans” and his fancied immigrant crime wave won him unwavering support from white nationalists, including Nazi wannabe Andrew Anglin, who wrote on his website “The Daily Stormer” (named after a fanatical 1930s Nazi newspaper), “I urge all readers of this site to do whatever they can to make Donald Trump president.” (Luke O’Brien also ably profiles Anglin in the December 2017 Atlantic.) Peter Brimelow’s white-nationalist website, vdare.com followed suit, headlining “We Are All Donald Trump Now,” while Richard Spencer’s Radix Journal, in acknowledging it considered Trump “a troll,” claimed he was their troll. “We need someone who can break open public debate,” Spencer wrote. “The fact that Trump himself is part of this same farce is utterly irrelevant.”

    “White people are realizing they are becoming strangers in their own country and they do not have a major political voice speaking for them,” Rachel Pendergraft, a national organizer of the Knights Party of the Ku Klux Klan, told Neiwert. “Trump is one example of the alternative-right candidate [whom] Knights Party members and supporters have been looking for. And we feel that through continued grassroots mobilization, more candidates will arise who will speak out for white Christian America.”

    As Neiwert commented, “All the long-suppressed hatreds and resentments, all the deep anger and black fears about the nation and the changing shape of American society, came bubbling up and bursting into public view in predictably ugly ways. Trump’s rhetoric seemingly gave permission for the unleashing of an eliminationist flood.” Meanwhile, the right-wing media set the scene by “creating a self-affirming community.”

    Alt-Right: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump is a thorough review. It’s not the first work to posit the connection between Trump and the mainstreaming of white nationalist movements; Neiwert and Sarah Posner anticipated some of the book’s revelations in an October 2016 article in Mother Jones, as did Andrew Marantz’s October 2017 New Yorker profile of fascist shock-jock and virulent Jew-hater Mike Enoch. But Neiwert’s book masterfully exposes so many of the interstices between Trump, the far-right nationalists and the toxic manipulators of social media, each feeding off the others.

    Illustration by Oliver Martinez.

    The book, however, never tries to give a theoretical explanation of why such banal ideas fester. Why, for example, does a movement so tied to Christian Identitarianism ignore Jesus’s key injunction that “what you do unto the least of them, you do unto me?” Why the fetishistic clinging to a “white” identity and a “white European” heritage? Neiwert does digress briefly to explore a useful distinction by the psychologist Robert Altmeyer between authoritarian “followers” and “dominators,” the former looking only for order and peace, while the latter lust for power. That might be the beginning of a useful discussion, but it would be aided by referring to some standard works on authoritarianism, such as Theodor Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality and Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism.

    For all its keen attention to right-wing movements—much of Neiwert’s sourcing is augmented by the excellent work of the Southern Poverty Law Center — the book is decidedly apolitical. It does not acknowledge a left-wing movement arising precisely as resistance to Trump and the far right. It rejects the idea of physical opposition to a mobilized far right, despite a proud leftist history of such resistance. Nor does it give credence to the idea that mainstream liberalism has failed, making great cultural strides since the 1970s but being beaten back politically and economically by international capital. Trump may be a false solution to a real problem, but Neiwert doesn’t acknowledge that capital, its depredations and its enablers in the two major parties are the cause of that problem.

    Neiwert’s only attempt at a political solution to an emboldened far right is for liberals — he makes no mention of a left — to talk nicely and persuasively to right-wing neighbors and associates, starting with family members at the Thanksgiving table. If only it were that simple.

    Originally posted at The Indypendent.

  • Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists – Founding Statement of Principles

    ImageWe are an alliance of Middle Eastern socialists opposed to all the international and Middle Eastern regional imperialist powers and their wars, whether the U.S., Russia and China or Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. We also oppose other authoritarian regimes such as Assad’s in Syria and El Sisi’s in Egypt as well as religious fundamentalism whether of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood. Although the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah consider themselves gradualists and oppose the Jihadism of Al Qaeda and ISIS, all of these organizations share the goal of establishing a state based on Shari’a Law and preserving the current capitalist order.

    We oppose capitalism, class divisions, patriarchy/sexism, racism, ethnic and religious prejudice and speak to the struggles of women, workers, oppressed nationalities such as Kurds and Palestinians, oppressed ethnic and religious minorities, and sexual minorities. We also oppose Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

    We stand for socialism as a concept of human emancipation and an affirmative vision distinguished from the authoritarian regimes that called themselves “Communist.”

    The effort to create an Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists, originally started in March 2016 as an Alliance of Syrian and Iranian Socialists with a trilingual website (English/Arabic/Persian) to help express the aspirations of “the Other Middle East” and to offer analyses of critical issues and new dialogues and bonds of solidarity between Syrians and Iranians opposed to their authoritarian regimes.

    Since the destinies of people are linked across borders, important developments in the region –some terrifying and some hopeful—have compelled the formation of a broader Alliance.

    *What was left of the Syrian revolution has been completely destroyed. The Assad regime, with the help of Iran and Russia has declared victory and is being recognized as a “legitimate” government despite the fact that it is responsible for the death of over 500,000 innocent people and the internal and external displacement of over 12 million or half of Syria’s population. One million people remain under siege by this regime and at least 100,000 political prisoners are facing daily torture and dying mostly in the Assad regime’s prisons.

    *The claim by many on the left that the Rojava project of Kurdish democratic confederalism in Northern Syria could continue in co-existence with the Assad regime, seems increasingly unsustainable as the Assad regime has stepped up its pressure on Kurdish areas ever since it was reassured of having crushed the Syrian revolution. At the same time, all regional and international states have refused to support the self-determination of the Kurdish people, in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. Turkey has increased its threats and interventions against Kurdish areas in Syria and continues to assault Kurdish areas in Turkey itself. The Israeli government supports the idea of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan for opportunistic reasons to find a new ally in the region against Iran.

    *Regionally, authoritarian regimes are engaging in more repressive campaigns and consolidating their forces against the interests of the popular classes. This drive can be seen in Saudi Arabia’s bloody war in Yemen; the Turkish government’s campaign of mass arrests and imprisonment of all opposition forces; and the Egyptian military government’s imposition of a level of repression that even exceeds that of the Mubarak regime before 2011. In the case of Egypt, some leftists supported the 2013 military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government at the time. Instead of presenting a democratic and principled opposition to all forms of state and non-state repression, they sided with the new military government’s repression of the Muslim Brotherhood.

    *Two new coalitions, one consisting of Saudi Arabia and its allies, now including Israel, and the other consisting of Iran, Turkey, Qatar and their allies are vying for control of the region and its capital. Saudi Arabia and its allies count on the support which Donald Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East and a $110 billion U.S. arms contract with Saudi Arabia has offered them. Iran and its allies are counting on support from Russia. Russia and China have also found ways to benefit from helping both sides.

    *The new U.S. president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are intensifying their war threats against Iran. While the Trump administration claims to be against the Assad regime, its imperialist intervention is in fact helping the Assad regime and further intensifying the bombing of innocent civilians in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, which began with the Bush and Obama administrations. Trump’s and Netanyahu’s call for “regime change” in Iran are for their own imperialist gains. Their campaign will only lead to war and the destruction of genuine progressive struggles inside Iran.

    * Israel’s colonialism, militarism, apartheid and racism is repressing and killing Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and what was Historic Palestine or “Palestinian territories of 1948.” The Occupation and militarization are also normalizing increasing class inequality, sexism and racism within Israel. Neither the two-state solution nor the secular one-state solution seems realizable given the Israeli occupation, Israel’s extreme right-wing leadership, and the alliance between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. which aims to destroy the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.

    Some hopeful developments however show that the desire for human emancipation has not been quelled in the region:

    *New and persistent labor protests in Iran are opposing the increasing poverty and horrible working conditions that the Iranian regime wants to hide in its effort to expand its imperialist intervention in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Although the existing labor struggles are not directly connecting the impoverishment of the bulk of the population to Iran’s militarism and regional imperialism, they do offer a potential for a progressive mass movement for social justice.

    * Labor struggles and struggles for democratic rights continue in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, despite increasing repression.

    *Feminist and LGBT struggles have expressed themselves in Turkey as part of the mass protests against the authoritarian and reactionary Erdogan regime which has aimed to create a virtual police state after the July 2016 coup attempt. In Egypt, feminist/human rights activists such as Mahienour El-Massry and LGBT activists fight for social justice despite imprisonment by the state. In Lebanon, women’s rights activists organized a campaign to repeal the “marry your rapist” law. In Iraq, women are fighting against a parliamentary amendment that aims to abolish women’s rights in family law. In Iran, imprisoned feminists such as Narges Mohammadi, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee and Kurdish women’s rights activist, Zeynab Jalalian continue to speak out for human rights.

    * Popular mobilization in the Moroccan Rif continued throughout 2017, has spread to several of the country’s towns, despite repression by security forces and the regime’s attempts to discredit the movement.

    * The Kurdish struggle for self-determination continues and needs to be defended. This struggle has taken diverse forms such as the call for independence, federalism, confederalism or the demand for the recognition of the Kurdish people as an entity with equal rights within a state. All socialists do not agree with the idea of an independent Kurdistan, and some have valid criticisms about various Kurdish parties for their authoritarian policies/practices and collaboration with various imperialist countries. However, critical solidarity with Kurdish parties and organizations that oppose capitalism/imperialism and defend women’s rights, secularism and the rights of other oppressed minorities is urgently needed.

    In the face of these developments, we have come together in an Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists on the basis of the following goals.

    1.Opposition to capitalism, militarism, authoritarianism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, patriarchy/sexism/heterosexism, racism, ethnic and religious prejudice.

    2. Developing connections and active forms of solidarity between labor, feminist, anti-racist, LGBT, student and environmental struggles in the Middle East region and internationally.

    3. Tackling the deep and historical problems of Middle Eastern socialism. The region has been so plagued by the politics of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” that any effort to develop an affirmative vision of a humanist alternative to capitalism around universal concepts and goals has been missing. As a result, revolutionary or progressive movements that do emerge, most recently those that arose in 2011, have been destroyed by authoritarian capitalist systems, religious extremism and sectarianism, with the assistance of various regional and global imperialist forces.

    We have come together to address these issues in a collective way in a joint website and through joint conferences and other possible activities. We see this Alliance as a place for debate toward the aim of finding real solutions that are not trapped within the capitalist mindset. Those who wish to join us can contact us at info@allianceofmesocialists.org

    Signatories:

    Omar Abbas, Syrian student, U.S.A.

    Frieda Afary, producer of Iranian Progressives in Translation, U.S.A.

    Said Afshar, Iranian journalist, Europe

    Masud Amiri, Holland

    Leila Asadi, Student, U.S.A.

    Roya Assadpour, Iranian member of Swedish Left, Europe

    Joey Ayoub, Lebanese scholar and writer, Europe/Lebanon

    Bibi, Syrian artist and writer, Occupied Tongva, North America

    Sara Dehkordi, Lecturer in Political Science and activist at Manjanigh, Europe

    Joseph Daher, Swiss-Syrian academic & activist and creator of Syria Freedom Forever, Europe

    Walid Daou, Lebanon

    Mahtab Dehqan, Iranian sociologist and journalist, Europe

    Amin Doroudgar, Iranian scholar, translator and journalist, Europe

    Razan Ghazzawi, Syrian Palestinian scholar and activist, Europe

    Hushang Golab, Iranian Sociology graduate, writer and poet, Sweden

    Iranian jurist

    Latith Itmaiz, Writer and Journalist, Ramallah, Palestine

    Hamid Jahanbakhsh, Iranian journalist, Europe

    Idrees al-Jeddah, Lebanon

    Marwan El Khazen, Socialist Forum, Lebanon

    Amir Kianpour, Iranian philosophy scholar and journalist, Europe

    Farah Koubaissy, Researcher, Socialist Forum, Lebanon

    Rima Majed, Sociology professor, Lebanon

    Ghassan Makarem, Socialist Forum, Lebanon

    Nisreen Mazzawi, Anthropologist and Eco-Feminist activist, Palestine

    Fatemeh Mostufi, Iranian history scholar, Europe

    Nahid Misaghi, Iranian psychologist, U.S.A.

    Yasser Munif, Syrian sociology professor, U.S.A.

    Peshraw Mohammed, socialist leading activist from Socialist Center Review in Iraqi Kurdistan and Germany

    Hossayn Nedavash, Labor Activist, Iran

    Ahmad R., Syrian student, Europe

    Abdul Rahman Rasul, Kurdish author and journalist, France,

    Fouad Roueiha, Syrian Italian journalist, Europe

    Tareq Samman, Syrian activist

    Azadeh Shurmand, Iranian women’s studies scholar, Europe

    Socialist Forum, Lebanon

    Sina Zekavat, Anti War Committees in Solidarity with Struggles for Self-Determination, U.S.A.

    Women’s Rights Activist, Iran

    Originally posted by the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists.

     

  • US vs Free Syrian Army vs Jabhat al-Nusra (and ISIS)

    The US administration has annexed the Syrian conflict to its own war on terror. It has tried to impose its battle on Syrians so that they will abandon their own battle against the tyrannical discriminatory Assadist junta. … [but] the war on terror is centred around the state; it is a statist conception of the world order which strengthens states and weakens communities, political organizations, social movements, and individuals… In the record of this endless fight against terrorism there has not been a single success, and thus far three countries have been devastated over its course (Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria).”[1]

    – Yassin al-Haj Saleh, former Syrian Communist dissident who spent 16 years in Assad’s dungeons

    Introduction

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    This article deals with a specific aspect of the US role in the Syrian conflict: its drive to co-opt the Free Syrian Army (FSA) into a proxy force to fight only the jihadist forces of Jabhat al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, or JFS) and the Islamic State (ISIS/Daesh), while giving up their fight against the Assad regime.

    This reality sharply contrasts with the comic-book view widely expressed in tabloid journals of the mainstream, left and right, that alleges the Syrian rebellion against the dictatorship of Bashar Assad is a conspiracy involving both the US, al-Qaida, the Gulf states, Turkey, Israel, George Soros and many others.

    In reality, the US and the al-Qaida spin-offs have been involved in Syria on opposite sides from the outset. It is a particularly bad case of “alternative news” when the US is depicted as “supporting” the forces it bombs in Syria – the Islamic State and Nusra/JFS (and often mainstream rebel groups[2]) – while supposedly “trying to overthrow” the Assad regime which is untouched by US bombing.

    Both the US and Nusra/JFS are enemies of the Syrian revolution and the FSA; yet both act to undermine it through maintaining some kind of relationship with it. In this they play a different tactical role to the direct counterrevolutionary role of Russian imperialism and Iran, and also of the Islamic State.

    But in this process of “soft” undermining of the revolution from within, the US and Nusra/JFS have been in radical conflict with each other, forcing the FSA and other rebels to walk a fine line, given the overwhelming military superiority of their enemy.

    Overview: US policy on Syria

    This story of deceit, conflict and betrayal involving the triangle US-FSA-Nusra is only one aspect of the US role in the Syrian conflict, so an overview of general US policy on Syria will be presented first.

    Fundamentally, the US has always been hostile to the revolution, for the same reason imperialist powers generally oppose people’s uprisings against “stable” capitalist regimes that serve their interests. The starting point needs to be an understanding that the long-term, multi-faceted, all-encompassing Syrian uprising is a revolution, regardless of the limitations of political leadership; and even more so, when looking at where the revolution has been at its strongest, that class has been the more decisive factor than sect and other issues that often appear to superficially dominate.

    Yassin al-Haj Saleh sums up the regime as “an obscenely wealthy and atrociously brutal neo-bourgeoisie, which has proved itself ready to destroy the country in order to remain in power forever”. Moreover, “in its relationship with its subjects, this regime reproduces the structure of imperial domination” which “is a thousand times more telling than any anti-imperialist rhetoric”.[3]

    This is central to understanding the American view, which was highlighted when US State Secretary Hilary Clinton’s asserted that Bashar Assad was a “reformer”[4] as Assad was gunning down peaceful protest in early 2011.

    At the same time, the US has no special love for particular representatives of such a “brutal neo-bourgeoisie”, if in destroying its country it cannot crush the masses and instead only intensifies the revolutionary instability – the US assassination of its client, South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Diem in 1963 being a case in point. So eight months and thousands of deaths later, President Obama finally called on Assad to “step aside”.

    This “Yemeni solution” – named after the arrangement in Yemen whereby former dictator Saleh ceded power to his deputy to preserve a cosmetically ‘reformed’ regime – was spelled out when US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, in July 2012, stressed that when Assad leaves, “the best way to preserve stability is to maintain as much of the military and police as you can, along with security forces, and hope that they will transition to a democratic form of government”.[5] This has been US policy from Geneva I and II through recent rounds in close cooperation with Russia, in which even Assad himself could remain in a “transitional” government.[6]

    US leaders understood that Assad cannot completely crush the uprising, and if the FSA were crushed it could only lead to further growth of Islamist and jihadist formations to absorb the dispossessed Sunni majority, given the real divisions among the population and the exploitation of them by the regime.

    For a reformed capitalist regime to stabilise the country for capitalist rule would therefore, in this context, require it to incorporate some conservative sections of opposition leadership. Therefore, the more ideologically heterogeneous sections of the opposition, such as the FSA, should not be crushed, but weakened enough to be susceptible to co-optation; the search was on for a Syrian Abbas.

    Thus bare survival for the FSA was the purpose of US aid: and the minimal level of this aid demonstrated this: it was never even remotely of the quantity or quality necessary for the FSA to win even tactical victories on the ground (let alone win outright), or to allow a permanent “balance” with the regime.

    Till late 2013, the US only provided non-lethal aid (which was regularly cut off),[7] such as binoculars, radios, “ready-meals” and tents.[8] When the CIA arrived on the Turkish and Jordanian borders in mid-2012, its role was blocking others from supplying the advanced weapons that the FSA needed,[9] especially anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons;[10] often the US blocked any weapons getting to the FSA.[11]

    The US embargo on anti-aircraft weapons remains today; given that Assad has been waging an air war since 2012, this is a fundamental aspect of US intervention; even when FSA groups tried to buy portable anti-aircraft missiles (manpads) on the black market, “somehow, the Americans found out and our purchase was blocked”.[12]

    When the US finally began providing some “vetted” rebels with light arms in late 2013 – i.e. the kind of weaponry which they already manufactured or captured[13] – reports of rebels being supplied 16 bullets a month exemplified the limited objectives of this “support”.[14] As for the concurrent CIA training program, many rebels who already knew how to fight felt the main American interest was surveillance.[15]

    The rest of the essay will look at the main purpose of this “aid” to some Syrian rebels: the main US aim has been to try to re-direct them away from fighting Assad into its own “war on terror” as a deliberate counter-revolutionary strategy.

    Some background: the US-FSA-Nusra triangle of conflict

    Two lines on the question of dealing with jihadism have been in conflict throughout the war.

    The first is the Syrian revolutionary line. The rebels see the Assad regime as their main enemy, and believe attempting to defeat the jihadists without defeating Assad would be unsuccessful, because the regime is responsible for conditions leading to jihadism. However, they have clashed with Nusra/JFS throughout the conflict on their own terms, defending themselves or their communities against Nusra/JFS attacks. At the same time, they often cooperate militarily against the massively more powerful regime; and have refused US prodding to launch a frontal attack on Nusra/JFS, which they see as suicidal for the anti-Assad forces. However, the dramatically more violent terror against the Syrian people launched by ISIS led the rebels to make their own decision in late 2013 to launch an all-out frontal attack on it; but did not view this war as taking precedence over their war against the regime: they fight the dual counterrevolution.

    The opposing US-backed line was the imperialist-Sawhat line, named after the Sunni militias recruited by the US in 2006-07 to defeat al-Qaida in Iraq. Mobilising Sunni fighters to fight Sunni jihadists was a positive step for the US compared to its previous reliance on Iranian-backed Shiites, which encouraged sectarian slaughter. However, the US-Iranian backed Shia-led regime dropped its promises to incorporate Sunni into the regime once al-Qaida was defeated, hence its negative connotations. In Syria, the Sawhat’s key differences with the revolutionary position are that, firstly, the US has pushed the FSA to launch a full frontal attack on Nusra as well as ISIS, and secondly, to gain US support even for their own war against ISIS, the US demands the rebels fight ISIS only and end their fight against the regime.

    For most part the FSA has walked this fine line successfully – defensively fighting Nusra attacks, while rejecting US demands to launch a frontal offensive on Nusra, launching its own war against ISIS while rejecting US demands to stop fighting the regime – highlighting the absurdity of claims that the FSA is either a CIA or an al-Qaida front.

    The FSA is the armed expression of the 2011 uprising, composed of troops who decided to protect fellow Syrians rather than killing them, and popular forces who armed themselves for protection against Assad’s violence. Its main goal is the overthrow of the Assad dictatorship. But the Islamic State set up its own murderous dictatorship which also must be overthrown. The problem with the US line – of fighting ISIS only – is that the very conditions that led to the rise of ISIS in eastern Syria and western Iraq – the large-scale political and social dispossession of Sunni Arabs by the Assad regime and its allied, US-backed Iraqi sectarian regime – are thereby entrenched. Syrian revolutionaries therefore see the overthrow of Assad as a prerequisite for the destruction of ISIS – the very reverse of the US strategy.

    Sporadic early FSA clashes with Jabhat al-Nusra

    To demonstrate this, we will first review the early clashes between the FSA and Nusra. The first main cause was when Nusra tried to capture FSA-controlled regions. In March 2013, for example, fighting broke out between the FSA-aligned Farouk Brigades and Nusra in Tal Abyad, as the latter attempted to seize the Turkish border post from the FSA.[16]

    The other reason for clashes was to defend communities from Nusra, accompanied by popular demonstrations against theocratic repression. In Idlib, protests and clashes began in late 2012.[17] In Raqqa, liberated in March 2013, demonstrations broke out against Nusra, including women’s demonstrations;[18] heated discussions between FSA and Nusra cadres highlighted the tensions, but also the fact that Nusra was unable to forcibly impose its rule.[19] When Nusra executed three captured military officers, local coordination committees organised demonstrations, chanting “Not Sunni and not Alawite, our revolution is for civil freedom”. In Kafranbel in Idlib, demonstrators raised a banner reading “Executions in Raqqa, and lashing in Saraqib. Who’s given you legitimacy to rule the people?” In Aleppo they chanted “The Sharia Committee has become the Air Force Intelligence”, or “What a shame, what a shame, shabbiha have become revolutionaries”.[20]

    FSA units often went to the aid of protestors. In June 2013, in the Jabal al-Wastani region of Idlib, Nusra assassinated two civilians, accusing them of owning a bar, and tried to arrest someone they accused of working for the regime. Fighters from the National Unity Brigade of the FSA prevented them, and seven FSA battalions forced Nusra out. When Nusra tried to force a checkpoint in another village, they were arrested and barred them from the region.[21]

    During a battle in the Damascus region, an FSA soldier got angry and cursed God. When a Nusra chief demanded he be charged with blasphemy, the local FSA battalion kicked Nusra out of the area. An FSA activist stated “If Nusra are going to be extremist, their services are not wanted”. In the village of Museifra in Daraa, Nusra executed a local man they accused of working for the regime. Civilians “surrounded the al-Nusra court with heavy weapons and forced the jihadists out of the village”. In in the village of Medineh, when a local was ordered to appear before a Nusra “sharia council”, he “drove his car by the relevant building and threw a bomb inside, killing five Nusra militants”.[22]

    In September 2013, FSA units defeated Nusra in the eastern city of Abu Kamal. The ceasefire forced Nusra to expel foreign fighters, established that security would be handled by FSA-affiliated groups, prohibited Nusra checkpoints, and stipulated that a court order was required for house-raids, which could only be performed by FSA brigades. These clashes make nonsense of assertions that the FSA is part of a “jihadi” conspiracy. But they also revealed that Nusra was unable to impose its full control, and that it could be defeated. Following the Abu Kamal events, Nusra issued a two-page apology to the people of Abu Kamal![23]

    This was the start of a softening of Nusra views and actions. Nusra leader al-Jouliani “denounced transgressions by al-Nusra fighters and called for redressing how the civilians in Nusra-controlled areas are dealt with”.[24] The context was the split between Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) around mid-2013. Nusra’s most reactionary elements, and most foreign fighters, went with ISIS. Nusra’s relative moderation reflected the pressure of its mostly Syrian base, many of whom only joined Nusra due to its superior funds, arms and organisation compared to the FSA, rather than due to ideological commitment;[25] many quit FSA units to join Nusra for these reasons. “If you join al-Nusra, there is always a gun for you but many of the FSA brigades can’t even provide bullets for their fighters”, according to a fighter in Idlib.[26]

    In September 2013, the entire 11th Division of the FSA, based in Raqqa, joined the smaller, but better-armed Nusra branch, to better resist ISIS.[27] When a rebel coalition led by this “Nusra”, stuffed with FSA ranks, briefly liberated Raqqa from ISIS in January 2014, they removed the black flags which ISIS had placed on the spires of Christian churches.[28] In April 2014, this Raqqa Revolutionaries Brigade re-emerged from “Nusra”, and became the main FSA ally of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) defending Kobani against ISIS.

    This highlights the contradiction between the sectarian Nusra leadership and many of its ranks.

    From mid-2013 until late 2014, FSA-Nusra clashes virtually ceased; both focused on fighting the regime, alongside various mainstream Islamist brigades.

    US drive to turn FSA into the ‘Sawhat’ against Jabhat al-Nusra

    These sporadic clashes with Nusra demonstrate that the FSA is not some “jihadi” organisation. But the other side of this equation was the policy being pushed by the US.

    As shown above, the limited US “support” to the FSA demonstrated its hostility to the latter’s revolutionary objectives, but the US is also hostile to the jihadist forces. However, this hostility to the latter is used as cover for its hostility to the whole revolution. “We can’t send arms to the FSA because they might end up with the jihadists.” Yet when this becomes “we need to send some arms to FSA moderates to boost them against the jihadists”, such arms are severely inadequate.

    What better way to deal with both than to prematurely set the “moderate” FSA against the jihadists, and let them kill each other, in the face of the regime’s overwhelming power, sapping the FSA’s revolutionary potential by turning it into a Syrian “Sawhat”?

    When rebel commanders met US intelligence officers in late 2012 to discuss getting US arms, the US officers were only interested in discussing drone strikes on Nusra, and enlisting the rebels to join the attack. When the FSA members said that unity against Assad’s more powerful forces was paramount at present, the US officers replied: “We’d prefer you fight Al Nusra now, and then fight Assad’s army” [later].[29] This has been the main condition on which the US has offered to send a few guns to select FSA units ever since.

    The G8 communique in June 2013 made no mention of the regime but called for the expulsion from Syria of “al Qaida and any other non-state actors linked to terrorism”, while French president Francois Hollande demanded rebels expel “extremist” groups as a condition for getting any French arms.[30]

    So, if the FSA’s clashes with Nusra showed it was not a “jihadist” organ, was it a “CIA” organ willing to carry out these US orders? Not at all: FSA clashes with Nusra had been on their own terms, and defensive in nature. According to FSA Colonel Akaidi, from the Aleppo military council, if the US wants to turn the FSA “into the Sahwat” and thus “help us so that we kill each other, then we don’t want their help”.[31]

    The FSA wanted to avoid full-scale war with Nusra to prevent anti-Assad fighters killing each other in the context of Assad’s massive military superiority; the contradictory nature of many of Nusra’s anti-Assad ranks was another reason. It was Nusra that was provoking conflict with its reactionary consequences, while the US, from the opposite side, was also pushing for a full-scale confrontation.

    Even when the US first listed Nusra as a “terrorist organisation” in December 2012, many Syrians took to the streets claiming “There is no terrorism in Syria except that of Assad”,[32]though other revolution activists disapproved of slogans which could imply sympathy for Nusra. But their message was that, given Assad’s greater terror, the US could not tell them who their enemy was: hardly the message of CIA proxies.

    Thus the imaginary US-FSA-al-Qaida conspiracy against Assad collapses on both sides.

    The FSA and rebel war on ISIS

    But the period of relative peace with Nusra was not the end of the FSA’s war on jihadism. While Nusra’s Syrian base acted to partially moderate its behaviour, the split had the opposite effect on ISIS, whose base among foreign jihadi fighters, whose very presence in Syria was dependent on their sponsor, facilitated its imposition of open terror.

    While Nusra focused on fighting the regime, ISIS and the regime largely ignored each otherto concentrate their fire on the rebels.[33] The second half of 2013 saw a growing war as the FSA acted to defend the masses in liberated zones from ISIS attempts to impose theocratic tyranny.

    From the outset, ISIS was far more brutal than Nusra, firing into demonstrations with live ammunition and brutally killing rebels.[34] When ISIS assassinated senior FSA leader Kamal al-Hamami in Latakia on July 11 2013, the FSA declared “war” on ISIS.[35] When it seized control of Raqqa, ISIS acted with wanton violence, leading the FSA Raqqa Revolutionaries Front to launch resistance.[36] In August, ISIS drove the Ahfad al-Rasoul brigades out of Raqqa by destroying their headquarters with car bombs, and in September launched a campaign of “Purification of Filth“ aimed at destroying the FSA. Clashes erupted in Deir Ezzor; in Aleppo, where 44 fighters were killed in October; in Azaz, where the FSA Northern Storm resisted an ISIS drive to seize the border; and throughout the country. [37]

    The survival of the revolution required decisive action. On January 2014, the major FSA and Islamist brigades launched a full-frontal war on ISIS throughout Syria,[38] Significantly, this was triggered by nation-wide demonstrations against ISIS on January 3,[39] calling ISIS “alien invaders” and demanding their expulsion.[40] This was evidence of a continued link between the civil uprising and its military reflection.

    Within weeks, the rebels had driven ISIS entirely from Idlib, Hama, Latakia and most of Aleppo, then in the east from Deir Ezzor and briefly even Raqqa, the biggest and most rapid defeat suffered by ISIS any time in the war. Western Syria has remained free of ISIS ever since.

    Not only did the rebels achieve this without US air support, the Assad regime bombed them in support of ISIS, even helping ISIS reconquer towns it had been driven from.[41] Areas that were untouched by regime bombs while under ISIS control were immediately subjected to regime bombing once under rebel control.[42]

    After refusing to arm the FSA because jihadists who fight alongside the FSA might get their hands on the arms, now the US refused to arm the FSA because these jihadists might get their hands on the arms while fighting against the FSA! Although the FSA attacked ISIS with its own agenda, one might assume US leaders would be pleased it was doing what they had been demanding, yet the US was reluctant “to boost assistance to moderate groups battling ISIS until the fighting in northern Syria ends”.[43]

    The New York Times explained that “neither of the two sides in the rebel fighting presents a particularly attractive face to Western policy makers”,[44] while James Clapper, US director of national intelligence, asserted that Nusra, then aiding the rebels against ISIS, had aspirations to attack the US – an absurd proposition.[45]

    An explanation more in keeping with US policy was that the US refused to aid the rebels even against ISIS unless the rebels dropped the fight against the regime.

    This same pattern – Assad bombing to help ISIS against the rebels and the US refusing to aid the rebels against ISIS – continued when ISIS made a comeback in eastern Syria following its windfall of advanced US weaponry seized in Mosul in June. In June-July, rebels held out in the city of Deir Ezzor for weeks against an ISIS siege, during which the Assad regime bombed the rebels in tandem with ISIS, helping it seize the city.[46]

    The US, already bombing ISIS in Iraq, refused to aid the Deir Ezzor rebels against ISIS. Yet, from the time conflict between the regime and ISIS over Deir Ezzor began in November 2014, the US has been bombing on the side of the regime.[47]

    The myth that the CIA and Pentagon programs were in conflict

    The secret CIA program of supplying light arms and “training” to “vetted” FSA groups from late 2013 is often contrasted to the $500 million Pentagon program, launched later in 2014, to equip an armed force to fight ISIS only and not the regime.

    As we will see, the Pentagon’s “full Sawhat” collapsed: attracting anti-Assad fighters to a force banned from fighting Assad was a logical disaster.

    The CIA program, by contrast, is usually presented as anti-Assad, aimed at helping the rebels exert military pressure on the regime. We even read that the CIA and Pentagon were working at cross purposes.

    However, a closer look shows that this was façade: not only because the weapons were grossly inadequate for the purpose of pressuring a regime with such massively superior killing equipment, or for defending already held positions; but also because the purpose of the CIA’s co-optation was for a more round-about, yet more effective, route to the same destination as the absurd Pentagon program. The CIA understood the need to “sweeten up” viable rebel groups first before bending them into a viable Sawhat.

    CIA’s TOW program: Helping fight Assad or same old Sawhat?

    Once the rebel war on ISIS had reached its limits, the US did begin a program of tightly controlled delivery of “TOW” anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to several of the “vetted” FSA groups who had defeated ISIS.

    The delivery of TOWs does not prove the US is supplying them; most are supplied by Saudi Arabia from its own stocks.[48] However, it is understood that the Saudis must have US permission to deliver US-made weapons, though the reality may be more tug-o-war at times.

    This followed a two-year CIA-enforced embargo on US allies supplying anti-tank weapons to the rebels[49] (meanwhile, the US has continued to vigorously maintain its embargo on anti-aircraft weapons).[50] But the rebels’ increasing ability to capture anti-tank weapons from the regime anyway, [51] and use them effectively, pushed the US to change direction and instead try to take some control of this supply as a co-option tool (and the TOWs were less efficient than Russian-made Konkurs and Kornets which the rebels have captured).[52]

    The first TOWs were delivered in April 2014, and the number of groups receiving TOWs soon spread to nine,[53] though they only received “a few dozen TOW antitank missiles” between them, “resulting in a minimal effect on the battlefield”.[54] By the end of the year it was down to only four groups,[55] with few weapons actually being delivered to anyone.[56]What occurred in between?

    The large Idlib-based FSA coalition, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF), is often referred to as one of the “US-backed” TOW recipients. However, it was not on the initial list of groups receiving TOWs, and its leader, Jamal Maarouf, claimed “We have received lots of promises from the US, but so far nothing more”.[57] The SRF, which had successfully driven ISIS from Idlib, was also dedicated to overthrowing Assad.

    But while Maarouf’s “immediate group of fighters” did not receive TOWs, “some of the other factions who pledged allegiance to his front did”. An April video depicting cadre from an SRF component, the Ghab Wolves Brigade, training in the use of TOWs, helps explain why, when a fighter reveals: “The weapons are sent by the Americans…and they only give weapons to those who specifically fight ISIS. They are not giving us weapons to fight Assad, they give us weapons to fight ISIS”.[58]

    In June 2014 Nusra suddenly ended the year-long truce and launched a murderous attack on the SRF in Idlib. In response, the SRF, Harakat Hazm and other local FSA groups (Division 13, Division 101, Fursan al-Haq, etc.) decided to “suspend any and all forms of cooperation and coordination with the Jabhat al Nusra”.[59]

    However, there was a difference between not cooperating with Nusra and the US demand to wage war against it. The SRF stressed that “despite al-Nusra’s atrocities, the SRF has no intention to carry weapons against al-Nusra, as it is busy fighting the Syrian regime”,[60] thus refusing to become a Sawhat brigade.

    The US initially had more faith in another northern FSA coalition, Harakat Hazm (some of whose member groups had quit the SRF), to which the first TOWs were delivered in April 2014. But the TOWs were few and far between, with shipments containing “only three or four missiles”, which were “no better than the Russian weapons” they captured from the SAA. Hazm leaders admitted to still fighting alongside Nusra, despite the declaration ending cooperation, since “the failure of the U.S. to deliver adequate weapons leaves them unable to refuse whatever allies come their way, including those with opposing politics”.[61]

    Hazm was caught in a vice: the paucity of US support forced them to maintain some cooperation with Nusra; yet this cooperation was used by the US to wind down support.

    The real goal of this US “support” was explained by a former Hazm member: “by September 2014 the United States started to pressure us to leave the battle field against Assad and to send all our forces to fight ISIS. We had no problem to go fight ISIS, but wouldn’t agree to stop fighting Assad. From then on, our relations with the Americans went from bad to worse and eventually they stopped backing us. When Jabhat al-Nusra attacked us, we had already lost all foreign support…because we dared to disobey the Americans”.[62]

    US launches war on ISIS and Nusra and dumps FSA

    The test came when the US-led Coalition started bombing ISIS in September; the US also bombed Nusra from the first day, even though Nusra, with all its faults and crimes, was not engaged in the kinds of near-genocidal activities that ISIS and the regime were. Since Nusra was based in many of the same regions as the rebels, US bombs hit other rebels, especially Ahrar al-Sham,[63] and killed numerous civilians. The regime was untouched by US bombs, and welcomed the US intervention,[64] collaborating with it via intelligence sharing[65] and coordinated bombing.[66]

    Now was the time for “US-backed” groups who had received handfuls of TOWs to aid the US in destroying the jihadists. Yet despite their own war against ISIS, and conflict with Nusra, they refused to endorse a campaign that targeted only these groups but not the regime.

    Harakat Hazm issued a powerful statement condemning the US bombing as “a violation of national sovereignty and an attack on the revolution”.[67] The SRF joined a dozen large FSA-linked and Islamist brigades and denounced the US air strikes as aiding Assad.[68] Most FSA and rebel brigades denounced the US intervention.[69]

    Failing this US proxy test, the FSA was excluded from the start from any voice in the US-led coalition to fight ISIS;[70] John Allen, the general in charge of the coalition, confirmed that “there is no formal coordination with the FSA”,[71] while Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declared the US does not “have a willing, capable, effective partner” in Syria.[72] This lack of coordination led to near-strikes against the FSA.[73]

    This was the background to the reports by late 2014 showing the US had virtually halted all support to the FSA.[74]

    Nusra launches war on the FSA, US throws them under a bus

    The US attack on Nusra also provides background to Nusra’s destruction of the SRF in Idlib in November and Harakat Hazm in in Aleppo in January 2015. Most Nusra cadres in Deir Ezzor had fled to Idlib following their defeat by ISIS in July; battle-hardened fighters, weapons and experience flooded in, suddenly making Idlib a new Nusra stronghold. But the SRF was a competitor in Idlib, and Nusra does not like competition.

    The bombing led to a surge in support for Nusra, seen as the martyr of an unjust US attack that benefited Assad. In mass demonstrations throughout Aleppo, Idlib, and Homs, demonstrators chanted “We are all Nusra” or “Nusra came to support us when the world abandoned us”.[75]

    Nusra used this surge in moral authority to turn on the SRF and Hazm. Its propaganda claimed that any groups that had accepted US weapons were US proxies. Despite their refusal to be the Sawhat, Nusra’s case was helped by the very vocal way in which the US advocated the FSA use its weapons against Nusra.

    Demonstrations in support of the SRF broke out in the SRF heartland, with a strong role played by women,[76] but Nusra’s martyr status neutralised opposition to Nusra’s attack elsewhere in Idlib. It also militated against the SRF putting up stiff resistance; it maintained its established policy to avoid soaking the province in fratricidal bloodshed.

    Meanwhile, the winding down of US support meant that the SRF, Hazm and the FSA were in a weaker military position had they wanted to confront Nusra, while in a weaker position politically due to Nusra being bombed by what was seen as their US backer. As one FSA official put it, “We have a huge American flag our back but not a gun in our hand”.[77]

    Faysal Itani sums up this US policy:

    US airstrikes on JAN immediately produced a new and powerful rival to already vulnerable moderate forces. By striking JAN without sufficiently strengthening its moderate counterparts first, and promising (publicly, no less) to use them to fight JAN and not the regime, the United States made the opposition appear just threatening enough to provoke JAN, but not so threatening as to deter the jihadist group.[78]

    State of the Free Syrian Army at the outset of 2015

    Nusra’s crushing of the SRF and Harakat Hazm did not end the FSA in the north. There were other large FSA units in the Idlib and Aleppo regions (e.g. Division 13, Fursan al-Haq and others who formed the 5th Brigade coalition) and countless smaller units. In addition, there were various rebel groups with some kind of “Islamist” reference but were not “Salafist”, such as Jaysh al-Mujahideen, Jabhat al-Shamiya and the MB-linked Faylaq al-Sham.

    The 10-20,000 SRF and Hazm troops did not just disappear. Many went to these other FSA groups; many Hazm cadre in Aleppo joined Jabhat al-Shamiya; some SRF cadre in Idlib joined an expanded Ahrar al-Sham (Nusra’s aggression against the SRF was condemned by Ahrar al-Sham leaders).[79] Some SRF cadre deserted to Nusra at the outset, but even some cadre who had opposed Nusra’s takeover subsequently fought under Nusra purely as a powerful vehicle to keep fighting the regime, another indication of the fluidity of group membership.[80]

    Relative strengths led to markedly different military coalitions. In Aleppo, the Fatah Halab (Aleppo Conquest) coalition of over 30 major brigades – FSA, soft-Islamist, and Ahrar al-Sham – excluded Nusra from membership. Nusra’s disagreements with other rebels led it to largely withdraw from northern Aleppo province and Aleppo city.[81] Nusra remained in a strong position in south-west Aleppo bordering Idlib, but even there was continually challenged by popular protest, especially in towns such as al-Atarib.[82]

    In contrast, Idlib now became Nusra’s main base. While it did not “rule” Idlib, the exclusion it faced in Aleppo was impossible. The new military coalition, Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), comprised eight groups, of which Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham were the two largest. Others (Faylaq al-Sham, Ajnad al-Sham) were part of the ‘soft-Islamist’ middle; while Jaysh al-Sunna was a “non-ideological” brigade of Homsi exiles.[83] In the string of major victories in early 2015 (Idlib city, Jush al-Shugr, etc.), the major FSA Idlib brigades (Division 13, Fursan al-Haq) fought alongside Jaysh al-Fatah, but were not members.

    South of Idlib, FSA brigades were more prominent: in northern Latakia province, the FSA First Coastal brigade; in northern Hama, the FSA Nasr Brigades; in Homs, the new Homs Liberation Front.

    US allies and proxies against ISIS: whoever does not fight Assad

    When the US ground down its support to northern FSA groups in late 2014, it shifted its support in several directions. What these different forces had in common was that they did not fight Assad.

    In the north, the Pentagon announced its $500 million plan to train and equip “vetted” individual rebels (rather than FSA units) to form a new force from scratch to fight ISIS.[84] It collapsed in a heap. The vetting process reduced the initial 1200 fighters interested to 125, the rest either rejected by the US or quit. While more than willing to fight ISIS, they rejected the US demand that they sign a declaration pledging that their weapons would only be used against ISIS and not against the regime.[85]

    Even worse, the Pentagon first engaged in a week of bombing Nusra in northern Syria before dispatching the first 54 fighters of “Division 30” into that very region.[86] Not surprisingly, they were captured by Nusra. In a statement concerning the attack on Division 30, Nusra claimed the captured fighters admitted that their job was to fight Nusra “and other terrorist groups”, and accused them of spotting for the US air strikes.[87]

    Of course, “confessing” while Nusra captives is hardly reliable, but the context makes these assertions plausible. They also blend with suspicions among Syrian rebels; several weeks earlier, the MB-connected Liwa al Haqq warned that “all the checkpoints need to inspect those coming from Turkey. There are stray dogs the Americans have finished training that will enter Syria soon. Their mission is spying and assassinations”.[88]

    Whether this disaster was US incompetence or malice was the only question. One local activist noted that “sending in the 54 and then bombing JAN a few miles away from their positions – implying the 54 acted as spotters for the US Air Force – looks like constructing a case that “See, all our well-meant support is hopeless”, justifying the US abandonment of the FSA even for Sawhat purposes.[89]

    Meanwhile, in the south, the US cobbled together the New Syrian Army. In November 2015, the NSA, backed by US air strikes, expelled ISIS from the al-Tanf border crossing with Iraq, releasing a video showing copious US weaponry. Later it launched a failed raid on Abu Kamal, where the going was tough, because many Deir Ezzor rebels “distrust its American backers”, especially because the NSA’s introductory video made no mention of fighting the regime.[90]

    Meanwhile, while backing these toothless ventures, the Pentagon refused to provide air cover the FSA and allied rebel forces in their ongoing conflict with ISIS east of the strategic frontline rebel-held towns Mare and Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo province. In June 2015, the Syrian air force bombed the rebels “assisting an Islamic State offensive on rebel-held areas”.[91]

    Explaining why the US did not aid the rebels against ISIS, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said the rebels are not a “willing partner on the ground”.[92] But according to the Syrian American Council, US officials gave “the astounding reason that aiding the rebels in Aleppo would hurt Assad, which would anger the Iranians, who might then turn up the heat on U.S. troops in Iraq”.[93]

    However, a year later, the US did launch several air strikes in support of a new north Aleppo rebel brigade attacking ISIS. The Mu’tasim Brigade also became the first ever rebel brigade in Syria to receive airdropped weapons from the US, insignificant quantities. This US support is explained by the views of the brigade’s leader, Mu’tasim Abbas: “When extremist groups started festering in our society… We redirected our battles just to fighting ISIS and other extremists … Once we get rid of ISIS, then the regime will crumble”.[94]

    However, by late 2014 the main US ally on the ground had shifted to the Kurdish-based Peoples Protection Units (YPG), led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), already involved in its own war against ISIS in northeast Syria. In 2015, the US helped hammer together the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), consisting overwhelmingly of the YPG alongside small numbers of Arab fighters from rebel or non-rebel groups in northeast Syria.

    Since late 2014, every YPG (and SDF) offensive against ISIS has been heavily backed by fully coordinated US air strikes; the YPG/SDF is the only group in Syria with the right to call in US air strikes; US arms have been dropped directly to them in the field; hundreds of US special forces have been sent in to work with them;[95] and several US air bases have been built in their territory.[96]

    The YPG/SDF are not US proxies. They have their own goals, centred around a Kurdish autonomy expanded into what they call a ‘democratic confederalist’ entity that incorporates non-Kurds and promises a revolutionary model for post-Assad Syria. It is not the aim of this essay to assess the realities of this project. The point is merely that the US and the YPG/SDF are currently allied as their interests have converged.

    Spokespeople for both sides claim that the US provides air cover for the YPG/SDF because they are the “most effective” fighters against ISIS. They were indeed effective, especially when fighting to liberate Kurdish-populated territory from ISIS tyranny. However, as we saw above, the FSA/rebels drove ISIS out of the whole of western Syria without any US air strikes to aid them.

    Thus both the FSA/rebels and the YPG/SDF have been effective fighters against ISIS, due to their real roots among the populations they represent. Both have done a much better job than the Assad regime, whose only victory against ISIS was the reconquest of Palmyra (after spectacularly losing it), with the aid of Russian air strikes; Assad then lost it again, and the second reconquest was carried out with the aid of both Russian and US air strikes.[97]

    Rather, the issue is what the YPG/SDF has in common with the US proxy forces: it fights only ISIS, and not the Assad regime. In its case, this is their own decision; the Assad regime made a pragmatic deal with the PYD in 2012 to withdraw its forces from the three main concentrations of Kurdish-majority territory, leaving them to the PYD. This was not due to Assad’s love for Kurdish autonomy; it merely enabled Assad to concentrate his fire on revolutionary forces elsewhere; nor to any PYD love for Assad –not getting barrel-bombed like everyone else has its advantages.

    Nevertheless, this policy of not fighting the Assad regime meant that the US condition imposed on ex-rebel proxies was already met by this far more significant fighting force of its own accord. Thus the US-PYD alliance makes war on ISIS in eastern Syria, while both can ignore Assad and Russia bombing the revolutionary populations in western Syria.

    US subversion of the Southern Front

    Though the main US shift, when it dumped the FSA in the north, went towards proxies or the YPG, another subtle shift was towards the real FSA in the south, the Southern Front, based in Daraa province. With 35,000 troops in over 50 brigades, the SF carried out a string of victories in in late 2014 and early 2015.

    The SF’s democratic, secularist anti-sectarian politics,[98] alongside its dominance over jihadist groups in the south, is often cited as the reason for this new US support, as the numbers of TOWs increased among SF groups, as they were drying up in the north.

    However, like the abandoned SRF and Hazm, and unlike the YPG and the Pentagon proxies, the SF’s main enemy was the regime. Did this indicate actual US support for anti-Assad resistance in the south?

    In mid-2015, the SF released a declaration rejecting “any military or [ideological] cooperation or rapprochement with the Al-Nusra Front or any takfiri [ideology] adopted by any group among the ranks of the Syrian rebels”,[99] provoked by Nusra claiming “victories” that had been made by the SF. Like all Syrian rebels, the SF vigorously condemned the massacre of some 20 Druze in Idlib by a Nusra unit and announced “its readiness to protect Druze villages”.

    However, this was well within FSA-revolution, rather than ‘Sawhat’, parameters. The SF made clear that ceasing cooperation with Nusra “is not a declaration of war” and would not “face off” with Nusra.[100] So, like the SRF-Hazm-FSA non-cooperation statement in Idlib, and the exclusion of Nusra from Fatah Halab in Aleppo, this highlights the fine line the FSA tries to walk between the demands of the jihad and the demands of the Sawhat.

    US support to the southern FSA, coordinated via the Military Operations Centre (MOC) in Amman, consisting mostly of US, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence officers, had not always been forthcoming. In May 2013, for example, MOC deliberately held back arms to rebels facing a strategic battle in the southern town Khirbet Ghazaleh, leading to its capture by Assad.[101] Throughout summer 2013, the US failed to supply “a single rifle or bullet to the FSA in Daraa”, and “actively prevented deliveries” of Saudi arms and ammunition.[102] It also involved training a group of people to maintain order in the event of a catastrophic collapse of the Assad regime, rather than to fight Assad.[103]

    The new US interest in arming the SF was connected to the war on ISIS. Unlike the Pentagon shambles, the CIA wanted to work through viable military organisations, all of which were fighting the regime. The US strategy appears to have been to allow the SF to feel some victories, then once a level of dependence was created, turn on the screws.

    After the SF’s string of victories in early 2015 (taking the Jordanian border crossing at Nasib, Sheik Miskeen, Nawa, the historic town of Bushra al-Sham, and regime base 52), the US and MOC imposed a series of “red lines”, where the SF was not to go.[104] These included the central area of Daraa city, the neighbouring province Suweida, north towards the city of Sasa, and any attempt to link up with the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

    SF offensives to take Daraa city, and the Thala airbase, were unsupported,[105] or blocked.[106] According to some reports, if the SF violated the “red line” against advancing towards Damascus, it would come under US attack.[107]

    By mid-2015 the MOC had scaled back support for the SF,[108] and use of TOWs trickled off in late 2015 “and totally vanished in the first two weeks of 2016”, though SF spokesman Isam El Rayyes denied this was new; rather “MOC-licensed resupplies have remained as low as they ever were”.[109] Reports in early 2016 indicated that Jordan had “forced the Southern Front to halt all military actions”. The context included Jordan’s acquiescence with the Russian invasion, and indications that Jordan would be happy with the Assad regime re-taking the entire region from the SF. [110]

    When the US and Russia jointly tasked Jordan with listing “terrorist” organisations to be excluded from talks, Jordan’s list included some 160 rebel groups.[111]

    However, a full regime reconquest of Daraa would be a major undertaking; as long as the SF is held back by red lines and arms freezes, it posed no problem to the regime’s aim of destroying the main revolutionary centres there (East Ghouta, Moadamiya, Darayya, etc.).

    The US-Jordan strategy involved the familiar Sawhat: in January 2016, MOC officials told the SF to stop attacking regime forces and instead focus their efforts on the jihadists, and fighting Nusra was even more important than fighting ISIS. If they did as demanded, they were promised new weaponry.[112]

    In May, the MOC tasked some 4500 SF troops with driving ISIS-connected militia out of some pockets around Daraa, telling the SF it was “tired of your excuses” for “delaying” these operations, and warning it would cut cash flows until they scored victories over ISIS.[113]

    In March 2016, the SF took part in the US-Russia facilitated nation-wide ceasefire. In reality, however, it was only a lull in bombing: so while the regime continued bombing at lower intensity – particularly in Aleppo and Darayya in the Damascus suburbs – “maintaining the ceasefire” became the new rationale for holding back the SF.

    In May 2016, new US/MOC “red-lines” were set in a meeting with rebel groups from around the country, deeming the “destruction of military and security structures” in Syria a “red line”, and called on rebels, as part of a peace process, to “join the ranks of the Syrian Army in its fight against Jabhat al-Nusra and all armed groups that refuse to join the Army”.[114]

    The betrayal of Darayya

    In mid-2016 Assad’s troops marched into the iconic revolutionary town of Darayya, one of the key centres remaining wedded to the ideals of the 2011 uprising. Thousands of residents still remaining after years of bombing, starvation and dispossession, but also heroic resistance, were deported to other parts of Syria.

    While 748 barrel bombs were dropped on Darayya in June 2016 alone,[115] and the other Damascus suburbs were also being furiously bombed, besieged and starved, just a little to the south the once mighty Southern Front was forced to abide by the “ceasefire”.

    Many popular forces demanded the SF reactivate the fronts against Assad. According to one pro-Islamist rebel declaration, “conspiracies against the Revolution can’t be foiled except by opening up the Damascus front. … And Deraa [i.e. the SF] won’t act except with a “white/soft coup” against the MOC”.[116]

    How this US/MOC intervention against the SF betrayed Darayya is explained by this piece that appeared just a few weeks before the surrender:

    [T]he MOC summoned leaders in the Southern Front for an emergency meeting in which they were warned against launching an offensive to seize Sheikh Maskin, a town lies along a motorway that run northward from Daraa’s provincial capital toward Damascus… The same month that the town fell into government hands, the MOC ordered the Southern Front to halt its operations against the Syrian regime in the Daraa province in order to focus its fight on ISIS-affiliated groups in the region.

    [A]n official in Ahrar al-Sham issued a fiery warning to Free Syrian Army-affiliated rebels in southern Syria, saying they were culpable for the regime’s recent advances into the besieged western Damascus suburb of Darayya.[117]

    Conclusion: CIA and Pentagon programs had same goal

    To sum up, therefore, as with the CIA-program and the delivery of TOWs in the north, the much heralded CIA “support” to the once magnificent Southern Front turned out to be a long way round to the same goal as the Pentagon program: to end the rebel war against Assad and turn them into US proxies against the jihadists only. With results such as the crushing of two large FSA coalitions in the north, the demobilisation of the Southern Front, and the crushing of Darayya, the CIA program was more effectively counterrevolutionary than the Pentagon program, precisely because the latter could mobilise no significant forces (except the YPG) from the start.

    So let’s lay to rest the myth of the “anti-Assad” CIA program being at odds with the anti-ISIS Pentagon program.

    Return to the north: How does Euphrates Shield fit this picture?

    Between the crushing of Darayya and the crushing of eastern Aleppo later that year, attention must swing back to the north. Does Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation fall within the “Sawhat” strategy?

    Turkey’s Erdogan regime had been one of the strongest supporters of the anti-Assad rebellion. While Turkey’s anti-Kurdish policy is usually given as a main objective of its intervention in Syria, this explains little. Erdogan had a very strong relationship with Assad until 2011, and Assad could be relied upon to crush Kurdish Rojava once he crushed the rest of the rebellion; and until mid-2015, Erdogan had been involved in a half-hearted “peace process” with the PKK anyway.

    But Turkey could not sit by as millions of refugees from Assad’s slaughter poured across the border. Overwhelmed, Turkey’s government eventually decided that the cause of this massive instability needed to be removed. And a regime pushing a soft-Islamist discourse at home and regionally allied to the Muslim Brotherhood would lose credibility if it ignored Assad’s wholesale slaughter of mostly Syrian Sunnis.

    Turkey initially put forward its plan to evict ISIS from Azaz to Jarablus in the northern Aleppo border region and set up a “safe zone” in mid-2015. Erdogan’s plan was partly to relieve the refugee burden by allowing refugees to settle, safe from air strikes, in northern Syria. However, his alliance with the rebels, who were to patrol the zone, meant that Turkey’s intervention threatened to go beyond its border issues, and provide back-up for the rebels war against the regime. Therefore this was rejected by the US, which insisted “there are no U.S. plans for a safe zone, a no-fly zone, an air-exclusionary zone, a humanitarian buffer zone or any other protected zone of any kind”.[118]

    Yet in mid-2016, when Turkey launched the Euphrates Shield operation in alliance with FSA and Islamist militia to evict ISIS from the Azaz to Jarablus strip, it was supported by both US and even Russian airstrikes, even though its theoretically resolute anti-Assad policy clashed with both US and Russian objectives.[119]

    Ironically, it was YPG actions that laid the basis of this US/Russian. In February 2016, the YPG seized a chunk of Arab-majority northern rural Aleppo from the FSA and rebel groups with the direct aid of Russian air cover, including the iconic revolutionary town of Tal Rifaat. This cut rebel-held eastern Aleppo city off from rebel-held northern Aleppo regions around Mare and Azaz and from the Turkish border.

    So the Azaz-Mare rebels, squeezed between the Turkish border, the YPG to the west and south and ISIS-held northeast rural Aleppo, attacked east and seized the border town of al-Rai from ISIS.[120] Turkey meanwhile had been gathering rebels across the border to drive ISIS from Jarablus.[121] Turkey’s decision to evict ISIS from this zone thus coincided with the need of the Azaz-Mare rebels to break their isolation.

    However, because the YPG was occupying Tal Rifaat, and ISIS held al-Bab, there was no route for the Turkey-FSA offensive to link up with and help defend fellow rebels in Aleppo city from Assad.

    Therefore, as it had no way of fighting Assad, this FSA operation against ISIS could gain both US and Russian support, regardless of the rebels’ desires; they could support an “unintentional Sawhat”.

    However, for Erdogan it may have been less unintentional. Following the botched coup attempt in mid-2016, the AKP began moving in a more conventional Turkish nationalist direction, symbolised by its new alliance with the far-right Turkish-chauvinist MHP. This push into northern Syria offered this nationalist consensus an influence in this heavily Turkmen-populated region, an opportunity to block the YPG’s threat to “link” its Kurdish cantons of Kobane and Afrin by seizing this non-Kurdish zone in between, and a potential zone to push Syrian refugees into[122]– while offering no danger of a clash with Assad.

    This new Turkish policy made it easier for Erdogan to reconcile with Putin, and Turkey became a key partner, with Russia and Iran, in a new “peace process” launched in the Kazak capital Astana. For Russia, ensuring the process worked in the regime’s favour involved facilitating Assad’s victory in Aleppo, meaning the rebels entered the process drastically weakened.

    The question then was whether Euphrates Shield weakened the rebels in the face of the decisive Aleppo showdown. One might argue that, given the Azaz-Mare rebels were already cut off from Aleppo, driving back ISIS was the best they could do, and did no harm to the Aleppo front.

    However, Euphrates Shield not only involved the Azaz-Mare rebels, but also several thousand rebels Turkey had recruited from across its northwest border, from rebel-held Idlib and southwest rural Aleppo, while “60 percent of Turkmen fighters pulled out of Aleppo [city] in August to take part in Euphrates Shield”.[123] This left east Aleppo drastically weakened when Assad reimposed total siege.

    Accusations of Turkish betrayal came from various quarters. Abu Abd, the final leader of rebel forces in Aleppo city claimed that due to “the orders of the sponsor a lot of fighters from Aleppo left it to fight in the northern countryside;”[124] Ahmed Hussein, from Ahrar al-Sham, noted that despite the regime’s “worst attack so far … we have not received any significant support to counter them;”[125] while Abdul Ilah al-Fahed, the opposition National Coalition, claimed that “Aleppo’s fall was facilitated in an international agreement”.[126]

    Possibly some of the rebels who moved north imagined that expelling ISIS from northeast Aleppo could open the front against Assad from the north. This would have required Euphrates Shield seizing al-Bab from ISIS, yet that operation only began once Aleppo was crushed. Whatever the subjective intentions of the rebels or Turkey, the effect was the same: Aleppo was abandoned.

    Turkey was also abandoning traditional positions. Turkish leaders now stated their agreement with the US position that Assad could play a role in the “transitional government”,[127] a point on which they had previously differed. During the siege, Turkish leaders repeated the demand made by the US [128] and Russia that the rebels “separate themselves” from JFS and expel it from Aleppo.[129] Yet there were only 8-900 JFS fighters of the rebel force ten times that number in Aleppo, and were only inside the city at all due to their role in breaking Assad’s first siege of Aleppo from the outside. In the context of apocalyptic regime and Russia bombing, the demand to expel JFS was a demand on the rebels to weaken their own defences.

    Clashes between Syrian rebels and HTS jihadists early 2017

    In this context of Euphrates Shield, the crushing of Aleppo, Astana, the intensified US war on Nusra, and Donald Trump’s new pro-Putin US administration, new clashes erupted between different groups of rebels in Idlib and western Aleppo in early 2017.[130] On one side was the new Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alliance, formed by JFS (which split from al-Qaida in mid-2016) and four small rebel groups. On the other were the majority of rebel groups, including Ahrar al-Sham, which expanded as six moderate Islamist brigades joined it,[131]and the FSA.

    These clashes did not last long; the need to avoid all-out conflict, in order to focus on Assad, the Russian and Iranian invaders and ISIS, reasserted itself. At the time, however, analyses of this conflict ranged from the idea that it represented a “new revolution against al-Qaida”,[132] to the claim that HTS was leading a struggle against rebel leaderships trying to end the revolution in the service of Turkey, Russia and the US.[133]

    As we have seen, the struggle against Nusra/JFS in Idlib both by the FSA/rebels and popular struggle has been ongoing, sharpening with Nusra attacks on demonstrations bearing the flag of the revolution and on FSA Division 13 early in 2016.[134] This legacy lends legitimacy to the “new revolution” discourse.

    Complicating this picture, however, was that Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation was allied to a range of rebel groups most of whose Idlib chapters were in conflict with JFS, while Turkey was involved with the Astana process with Russia and Iran. Astana aimed to trap the opposition into accepting a “transitional” role for the Assad regime, while pushing them to turn all their guns against both ISIS and JFS: classic Sawhat.

    After the Astana meeting of January 23-24, Russia, Turkey and Iran released a statement that “reiterate[d] their determination to fight jointly against ISIL/DAESH and Al-Nusra [i.e. JFS] and to separate from them armed opposition groups”.[135] According to one source, this clause “transformed the positions held by al-Nusra into a cake that the regime forces and opposition factions are trying to annex”.[136]

    However, while taking part in the discussions, the rebel leadership resisted capitulation at Astana. Stressing they “were not party to this agreement”, the FSA’s Osama Abu Zaid noted that the “three countries can sign any agreements they want to”.[137]

    The opposition delegation “refused to talk about confrontation with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in Syria, before removing the foreign, “Iraqi, Afghan and Iranian” militias from Syria”.[138]Likewise, the Syrian Coalition stressed that only “areas controlled by the ISIS extremist group”, should be excluded from the ceasefire, i.e., not areas with JFS presence.[139]

    The rebels also continued to reject any role for Assad in a “transitional” regime,[140] and declared their aims at Astana were to achieve basic preconditions for real negotiations, including the release of captives and an end to regime sieges.[141]

    However, caught in a bind, the rebels abided by the ceasefire for the sake of the civilian population, despite its terms legitimising regime, Russian and US attacks on JFS-controlled territory; yet the Assad regime refused to abide by any ceasefire, and continued to furiously bomb East Ghouta and Wadi Barada.[142]

    Furthermore, some statements from the exile-based Syrian Coalition were less principled than the rebels’ positions. For example, in one statement the Coalition called for “the formation of an international coalition to oust all terrorist organizations from Syria”.[143]

    JFS began its attacks on rebel groups that very week; either JFS believed it had to pre-emptively attack the rebels before they coveted its territory, or could use this clause as a pretext to attack its adversaries.

    Astana was in full accord with the US position. Over December 2016 and January 2017 the US stepped up its war against JFS, killing hundreds their cadres,[144] as well as allied fighters from the Nour ed-Din al-Zinki brigade,[145] and plenty of civilians, though it also bombed Ahrar al-Sham, JFS’s main opponent.[146]

    Along with being the main target of US bombing, JFS was also the only significant armed group that opposed the Turkish intervention and Astana process.[147] Together with a small degree of moderation which has crept into its governance [148] and its discourse [149] since breaking with al-Qaida, this has allowed JFS to project itself as the only true “resistance” to Astana and capitulation.

    Trump continues and intensifies the Obama-Kerry legacy

    While Trump’s Syria policy shows much continuity with the Obama legacy, his open praise for Putin’s and Assad’s alleged “fight against ISIS” suggested an even greater counterrevolutionary role for the US.[150]

    Under Trump, the bombing of JFS in Idlib and western Aleppo reached its most horrific point with the slaughter of some 57 worshippers in a mosque in western Aleppo [151]– which Trump’s Russian friends defended as aimed at “terrorists”,[152] while the nature of the “war on ISIS” was highlighted with massacre of dozens of displaced people in a school in Raqqa,[153] and the mass killing of hundreds of civilians in Mosul.[154] Meanwhile, the US role alongside Assad, Russia and Iran in the latest reconquest of Palmyra was widely reported;[155] and a calculation US bombings in February from CentCom (i.e. the US-led Coalition bombing Syria) shows that while 60 percent were carried out in coordination with the SDF, most of the other 40 percent was in alliance with Assad in Deir Ezzor, Palmyra and Idlib, some 195 of the 548 strikes.[156]

    Then in the very days before Assad’s chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, three prominent US leaders announced that the US was “no longer” (sic) focused on removing Assad, whose “longer term status will be decided by the Syrian people”, but is for now “a political reality that we have to accept”.[157]

    Assad mistook this encouragement to mean that even the use of sarin would pass, resulting in the first ever US strike on the regime, on the airfield from where the sarin was launched. After this singular US “credibility” strike on Assad – following 7,899 strikes on anti-Assad targets – all wings of the US leadership scrambled to emphasise that it was a one-off, that “we’re not going into Syria”, that it was only in response to sarin, that the US had no interest in Assad’s continued use of his other weapons of mass destruction, that defeating ISIS remains the priority, that tensions with Russia would “not spiral out of control”,[158] and that there was “no change in US policy”.[159]

    National Security Advisor HR McMaster clarified that if there were any “regime change” it would be carried out by Russia, and that the US goal was limited to “a significant change in the nature of the Assad regime and its behavior in particular”.[160]

    Conclusion

    It is not surprising that key revolutionary centres that continually resist the jihadists – Ma’arrat al-Numan,[161] Atareb,[162] Kafranbel, Darayya and so on – centres where revolutionary councils have been most successful, have been continually targeted by regime airstrikes.

    It is also not surprising that the US again cut off its meagre “support” to the rebels when the latest conflict erupted with JFS, allegedly “to ensure that supplies do not fall into extremist hands”.[163] This may seem counterintuitive, given US pressure on the rebels to fight Nusra, but is logical when we remember that the rebels refused to drop the fight against Assad.

    These facts indicate that both the US and Assad see the real revolution as the main threat, with “anti-jihadism” a useful propaganda device. But this regime, Russian and US bombing boosts the standing of JFS amid false ‘ceasefire’ processes. As Felix Legrand points out, “the very inverse dynamic” from that intended has resulted from these ceasefires, as Nusra/JFS “emerged indisputably strengthened from the failure of the agreement between the regime and the non-jihadist opposition”.[164] Because Assad continues to slaughter through the ‘ceasefires’, when the rebels try, for good reason, to respect them, JFS gains points as the “true resistance”.

    A genuine ceasefire, especially one based on a more positive relationship of forces than at present, would aid the democratic revolutionary forces, because the jihadists thrive on military struggle; every time there is some lull in the fighting, the masses return to the streets with the flag and slogans of the revolution. A revival of the civil movement would provide a chance to overcome the sectarian atmosphere; massive slaughter is not conducive to rebuilding harmony.

    At this point, the military side of the struggle appears to be largely lost; the long-term US drive to divert the revolution to the “war on terror” and other forms of sabotage, and the undermining of the struggle by other alleged foreign “friends”, alongside the massive Russian and Iranian intervention and the rise of ISIS, have all led to this point.

    Of course, there is no military “solution” (and the arguments that some Syrians fear certain rebel formations “taking power” in Damascus are as unreal as fears of Hamas emerging from Gaza to rule in Tel Aviv). However, the military balance on the ground is a decisive factor: it is the difference between a ceasefire leading to a political arrangement in which the opposition can demand the release of political prisoners, the end of sieges, keeping their weapons, providing security and democratic governance to the areas they control and so on, compared to one in which the regime is able to deny these basics: in other words, the difference between a ceasefire that leaves the door open to non-military revolutionary possibilities and one that slams it fully shut.

    At the same time, the severe political limitations of the opposition leaderships are also crucial factors; the issue is not merely military. But it is beyond the scope of this article to analyse this question; the point here, however, is that the sabotage of the FSA’s military position has also had profoundly negative impacts on the relationship of political forces within the Syrian opposition. It imposes a false choice between total capitulation, dressed up as the only acceptable form of “moderate” politics (so reminiscent of Palestine), and nihilistic rejectionism and jihadism as the as the face of “continuing the struggle”.

    Such an evolution of the political situation within the anti-Assad camp does not bode well for the revolutionary possibilities of a genuine ceasefire, even one based on a more favourable military balance than at present. However, from afar, we can do little but provide solidarity with both the military and political struggles that do presently continue, and not give up on the revolution while its sparks continue to rage throughout Syria, in some cases to amaze.

     

    Read more on Syria by Michael Karadjis at his Syrian Revolution Commentary and Analysisblog.

     

    Notes

     

    [1] Yassin al-Haj Saleh, “The Syrian Cause and Anti Imperialism”, Al-Jumhuriya, 5 May 2017, http://aljumhuriya.net/en/critical-thought/the-syrian-cause-and-anti-imperialism.

    [2] Michael Karadjis, “Who Has the US Bombed, Bombed For and Bombed Within Syria?”, Syrian Revolution Commentary and Analysis, 3 September 2015, https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/who-has-the-us-bombed-for-in-syria/.

    [3] Yassin al-Haj Saleh, “The Syrian Cause and Anti Imperialism”, Al-Jumhuriya, 5 May 2017, http://aljumhuriya.net/en/critical-thought/the-syrian-cause-and-anti-imperialism.

    [4] Patrick Goodenough, “Syrian President Assad Regarded As a ‘Reformer,’ Clinton Says”, CNSNews, 28 March 2011, http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/syrian-president-assad-regarded-reformer-clinton-says.

    [5] “U.S. defense chief: Syria military must remain intact when Assad goes”, Reuters, 30 July 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-syria-crisis-usa-idUKBRE86T1KF20120730.

    [6] “US sees Assad staying in Syria until March 2017”, The Daily Star, 6 January 2016, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2016/Jan-06/330448-us-sees-assad-staying-in-syria-until-march-2017.ashx.

    [7] Serene Assir, “Western-backed Syria rebels in disarray as aid halted”, The Daily Star, 12 December 2013, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Dec-12/240840-syrian-rebel-spokesman-decries-us-uk-aid-decision.ashx#ixzz2oVu4wg8J.

    [8] Lauren Williams, “U.S. to tighten mechanisms for FSA aid delivery”, The Daily Star, 25 November, 2013, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Nov-25/238779-us-to-tighten-mechanisms-for-fsa-aid-delivery.ashx#axzz2lSxxMMwy.

    [9] Nour Malas, “Syrian Rebels Get Missiles; Fears Rise That Portable Antiaircraft Weapons Could Wind Up With Terrorists”, The Wall Street Journal, 17 October 2012, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443684104578062842929673074.

    [10] John Follain and Tony Allen-Mills, “CIA polices weapons entry to Syria as spooks invade Turkey”, The Australian, 13 August 2012, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/cia-polices-weapons-entry-to-syria-as-spooks-invade-turkey/story-fnb64oi6-1226448705909.

    [11] Joanna Paraszczuk, “The US-Saudi Conflict over Arms to Insurgents”, EA Worldview, 23 June 2013, http://eaworldview.com/2013/06/syria-special-the-us-saudi-conflict-over-arms-to-insurgents/.

    [12] Charles Lister, “Russia’s Intervention in Syria: Protracting an Already Endless Conflict”, The Huffington Post 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-lister/russias-intervention-in-s_b_8350266.html.

    [13] Caitlin Hu, “Syrian rebels’ homemade weapons are getting bigger”, Quartz Media, 19 March 2015; Marlin Dick, “Syria’s ‘Western-Backed’ Rebels? Not in Weapons”, The Daily Star, 31 May 2014, https://qz.com/365934/syrian-rebels-homemade-weapons-are-getting-bigger/.

    [14] Adam Entous, “Covert CIA Mission to Arm Syrian Rebels Goes Awry”, The Wall Street Journal, 26 January 2015, https://www.wsj.com/articles/covert-cia-mission-to-arm-syrian-rebels-goes-awry-1422329582.

    [15] Raja Abdulrahim, “Syria rebels, once hopeful of U.S. weapons, lament lack of firepower”, Los Angeles Times, 7 September 2014, http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-harakat-hazm-20140907-story.html#page=1.

    [16] David Enders, “Islamists, secular rebels battle in Syria over Nusra Front’s call for Islamic state”, The Miami Herald, 26 March 2013, http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article1948577.html.

    [17] Hanna Mourtada and Anne Barnard, “Jihadists and Secular Activists Clash in Syria”, The New York Times, 26 January 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/world/middleeast/syria-war-developments.html.

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    [130] Scott Lucas, “Rebel Battle v. Jihadists of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in Northwest”, EA Worldview, 24 January 2017, http://eaworldview.com/2017/01/syria-developing-rebels-fighting-v-jihadists-of-jabhat-fatah-al-sham-in-northwest/.

    [131] Alex MacDonald, “Analysis: Why Fateh al-Sham is lashing out at Syrian rebels”, Middle East Eye, 26 January 2017, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-jabhat-fateh-al-sham-fighting-other-rebels-syria-1902636393.

    [132] Leila Alwan, “Anti-Nusra Front demo in Idlib ‘start of new revolution’”, Al Arabiya, 4 February 2017 https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2017/02/04/Activist-says-anti-Nusra-Front-demo-in-Idlib-beginning-of-new-revolution-.html.

    [134] Sadik Abdul-Rahman, “Rebel Idlib’s 100 Days of Protest Against Al Qaeda”, Al-Jumhuriyah, 16 August 2016, accessed at isqatannizam blog, https://isqatannizam.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/rebel-idlibs-100-days-of-protest-against-al-qaeda/.

    [135] “Joint Statement by Iran, Russia, Turkey on the International Meeting on Syria in Astana, January 23-24, 2017”, Al Jazeera, 25 January 2017, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/astana-joint-statement-iran-russia-turkey-full-170124133951063.html.

    [136] Paula Astih and Nazeer Rida, “Nusra Confronts Syrian Factions in Response to ‘Secret’ Astana Clause”, Asharq Al Awsat, 25 January 2017, https://english.aawsat.com/paula-astih-and-nazeer-rida/news-middle-east/nusra-confronts-syrian-factions-response-secret-astana-clause.

    [137] Scott Lucas, “Russia-Turkey-Iran Pledge Ceasefire, But Assad Regime Says No”, EA Worldview, 25 January 2017, http://eaworldview.com/2017/01/syria-daily-russia-turkey-iran-pledge-ceasefire-assad-regime-no/.

    [138] “The Opposition Delegation in Astana refuses to talk about “JFS” till Iran-backed militias Get out of #Syria”, Eldorar Alshamia, 23 January 2017, http://en.eldorar.com/node/4536.

    [139] National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, “Nirabiya: We Reject Iran as Guarantor of Ceasefire Agreement”, 23 January 2017, http://en.etilaf.org/all-news/news/nirabiya-we-reject-iran-as-guarantor-of-ceasefire-agreement.html.

    [140] “Jaysh Al-Mujahideen: We will not accept of al-Assad in a transitional phase”, Eldorar Alshamia, 10 January, 2017, http://en.eldorar.com/node/4375.

    [141] Adham Kako, “Syrian opposition negotiator speaks to Anadolu Agency”, Anadolu Agency, 20 January 2017, http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/syrian-opposition-negotiator-speaks-to-anadolu-agency/731380.

    [142] Scott Lucas, “Russia-Turkey-Iran Pledge Ceasefire, But Assad Regime Says No”, EA Worldview, 25 January 2017, http://eaworldview.com/2017/01/syria-daily-russia-turkey-iran-pledge-ceasefire-assad-regime-no/.

    [143] National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, “We Call on our People to Denounce Terror and Support Establishment of One Legitimate Military Front”, 27 January 2017, http://en.etilaf.org/press/we-call-on-our-people-to-denounce-terror-and-support-establishment-of-one-legitimate-military-front.html.

    [144] “Pentagon: We killed 250 members of al-Qaeda in Idlib since the beginning of this year”, Eldorar Alshamia, 21 January 2017, http://en.eldorar.com/node/4506.

    [145] Scott Lucas, “US Claims Airstrike Killed 100+ Jihadists and Rebels”, EA Worldview, 21 January 2017, http://eaworldview.com/2017/01/syria-daily-us-claims-airstrike-killed-100-jihadists-and-rebels/.

    [146] Scott Lucas, “Report: US-Led Airstrike Kills Ahrar al-Sham Commander”, EA Worldview5 February 2017, http://eaworldview.com/2017/02/syria-daily-the-race-to-capture-al-bab-from-islamic-state/#almasri.

    [147] Alex MacDonald, “Former al-Qaeda affiliate urges Syrian rebels to oppose Turkish invasion”, Middle East Eye, 23 September 2016, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/former-al-qaeda-affiliate-calls-opposition-oppose-turkish-invasion-324667843.

    [148] Ammar Shawki and Roy Gutman, “A Letter From Rebel Controlled Idlib, Syria”, The Nation, 1 December 2016, https://www.thenation.com/article/letter-from-rebel-controlled-idlib-syria/.

    [149] Murtaza Hussain, “Militant Leader Talks About Break With Al Qaeda and Possible Syrian Rebel Merger”, The Intercept, 24 August 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/08/23/militant-leader-talks-about-break-with-al-qaeda-and-possible-syrian-rebel-merger/.

    [150] Bethan McKernan, “Donald Trump signifies he will end US support for Syrian rebels despite their pleas to him for help”, The Independent, 12 November 2016, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-president-elect-donald-trump-support-assad-putin-syria-remove-rebel-backing-a7413346.html.

    [151] Christiaan Triebert, “Confirmed: US Responsible for Aleppo Mosque Bombing”, Bellingcat, 16 March 2017, https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/03/16/us-missile-remains-reportedly-recovered-from-site-of-aleppo-mosque-bombing/.

    [152] “Russian Foreign Ministry No doubt US airstrikes in Syrian village targeted terrorists”, Tass, 17 March 2017, http://tass.com/politics/936193.

    [153] “Dozens dead in US-led north Syria airstrike as coalition meets”, Daily Star, 22 March 2017, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2017/Mar-22/398618-33-dead-in-us-led-airstrike-on-north-syria-activists.ashx.

    [154] Alessandro Accorsi, “US coalition ‘kills hundreds’ of Mosul civilians in one week: Report”, Middle East Eye, 8 March 2017, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-led-coalition-already-killed-hundreds-civilians-west-mosul-one-week-march-1271386570.

    [155] Scott Lucas, “With Russia & US Help, Regime Takes Palmyra from ISIS”, EA Worldview, 3 March 2017, http://eaworldview.com/2017/03/syria-daily-regime-with-russian-us-help-retakes-palmyra-from-isis/.

    [157] Michael Gordon, “White House Accepts ‘Political Reality’ of Assad’s Grip on Power in Syria”, The New York Times, 31 March 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/us/politics/trump-bashar-assad-syria.html; Michelle Nichols, “U.S. priority on Syria no longer focused on ‘getting Assad out’: Haley”, 30 March 2017, http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1712QL; “Tillerson says Assad’s fate up to Syrian people”, Daily Mail, 31 March 2017, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4364592/Tillerson-says-Assads-long-term-status-Syrian-people.html.

    [158] Varghese K. George, “Mattis No danger of conflict with Russia; Defeating ISIS still main priority”, The Hindu, April 12 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/no-danger-of-conflict-with-russia-mattis/article17957314.ece.

    [159] Brooke Seipel, “Tillerson: Strikes don’t signal change in military action policy in Syria”, The Hill blog, 6 April 2017, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/327741-tillerson-strikes-dont-mean-weve-changed-our-policy-posture-on.

    [160] Colin Wilhelm, “McMaster: U.S. eager for regime change in Syria”, 9 April 2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/hr-mcmaster-syria-regime-change-237038.

    [161] Sadik Abdul-Rahman, “Rebel Idlib’s 100 Days of Protest Against Al Qaeda”, Al-Jumhuriyah, 16 August 2016, accessed at isqatannizam blog, https://isqatannizam.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/rebel-idlibs-100-days-of-protest-against-al-qaeda/

    [162] Joseph Daher, “Demonstrations in al-Atareb, Aleppo countryside, against attempts by jihadist group of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham to take over the oven of the town”, Syria Freedom Forever, 3 February 2017, https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/demonstrations-in-al-atareb-aleppo-countryside-against-attempts-by-jihadist-group-of-jabhat-fateh-al-sham-to-take-over-the-oven-of-the-town-مظاهرة-في/

    [164] Felix Legrand, “The strategy of Jabhat Al-Nusra / Jabhat Fath Al-Sham in regarding the truces in Syria”, 2 October 2016, Noria, http://www.noria-research.com/strategy-regarding-truces-in-syria/.

    Originally posted at Marxist Left Review.

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  • Bolshevism, Real and Imagined: A Reply to Mitchell Cohen

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    The greatest flaw of Mitchell Cohen’s “What Lenin’s Critics Got Right” in the most recent Dissent is that it repeats what Lars T. Lih, independent researcher and author of Lenin Rediscovered:‘What Is To Be Done’ In Context (Haymarket, 2008) and a biography of Lenin (Reaktion Books, 2011), calls the “standard textbook interpretation” of Lenin’s thought and, by extension, Bolshevism as a movement.

    Cohen reprises the usual claim that via the publication of What Is To Be Done? (hereafter WITBD?) in 1902 and the 1904 split in the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RDSLP) Lenin and his “Bolsheviks” (the 1904 majority faction) created a “party of a new type”— a despotically centralized “vanguard” party of “professional revolutionaries” (supposedly ex-student intellectuals, not “real workers”) dominated by an all-powerful central committee. Cohen contrasts this “Leninist” vision of the Marxist party to that of a democratic Marxist party to which the Bolsheviks’ rivals in the Menshevik (minority) faction of the RSDLP, like Julius Martov, purportedly held. Lih calls this the “worry about the workers” reading, based on Lenin’s supposed view that workers, through their daily political struggles, would never achieve “revolutionary consciousness.”

    I’m afraid that Cohen just isn’t “up” on the latest research on Lenin and Bolshevism; for that matter he doesn’t consult older sources that might contradict, say, Orlando Figes. At least since Marcel Liebman’s Leninism Under Lenin (1975) it’s been evident that the 1904 Bolshevik-Menshevik split did not create two separate parties, only public factions of the RSDLP; hence, the authoritarian “vanguard party” allegedly outlined in WITBD? didn’t, and in fact couldn’t, exist in real life before White Terror and the Russian Civil War led to what would best be called “panic” on the part of Bolshevik leadership. And considering that Lenin himself became uninterested in defending WITBD?, claiming in 1907 that “The basic mistake made by people who polemicise with What is to be Done?…is that they tear this production completely out of specific historical context, out of a specific and by now long-past period in the development of [the RDSLP],” one is left wondering what to make of this ostensibly important pamphlet that “gave birth” to “Leninism.”

    In Lenin Rediscovered Lih offers the first logical explanation for the “peculiarity” of WITBD?: it is the victim of mistranslation of key Russian terms. All that Lenin was actually arguing for, Lih clarifies, was a Marxist working-class party modeled after the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). Lih calls Lenin’s political orientation “Erfurtian,” after the Erfurt Program adopted by the SPD in 1891. Lenin may have used the phrase “vanguard party,” but as Lih explains, this term merely described “the common understanding of what Social Democracy was all about.[…] WITBD did not advocate hyper-centralism or an elite, conspiratorial party restricted to professional revolutionaries from the intelligentsia. The positions advanced in WITBD were not the cause of the [RSDLP] split in 1904. The centrality of political freedom [emphasis added] in Lenin’s platform makes it impossible to draw a direct link between WITBD and Stalinism,” as Cohen does.

    Yes, Russian Marxists faced conditions of illegality and police persecution. Hence, building a revolutionary party involved a significant activist cadre becoming professial'nyi revoliutsioneri. Normally translated as “professional revolutionaries,” it really means “revolutionaries by trade.” In the late 19th and early 20th century professii or professial'nyi were words applied in Russian to skilled workers “in an efficient organization.” There’s nothing innately elitist about such terms. Following the SPD model, these underground activists “will rise from worker ranks.” Such revolutionaries must become expert in the skills of konspiratsiia. This term doesn’t actually mean an elitist “conspiracy,” merely “the techniques of illegal political work.” If for the underground as a whole, Lih elucidates, the “professional revolutionary” gains authority because he’s “tough enough to be arrested and escape,” for Lenin “the revolutionary by trade gains authority because he is smart enough not to get arrested in the first place.”

    But what about the dismissal of “trade unionism” and “spontaneity” in WITBD? Doesn’t Lenin say that mere “spontaneous” trade unionism reinforces bourgeois dominance? No. Tred-iunionizm doesn’t mean “trade unionism” in the general sense of supporting or creating trade unions, but the specific politics of the right wing of the British labor movement, which—when WITBD? was written—opposed forming a labor party and lacked a class-struggle orientation to politics. Today we might call such an orientation “business unionist.” It’s this particular type of trade unionism that Lenin considers “bourgeois” and ultimately apolitical, not all trade unionism. Moreover, he believes that Russian Marxists can effectively challenge tred-iunionizm precisely because, in Lih’s words, he has “more confidence in the [Russian] workers than his opponents [in the Russian revolutionary movement].”

    As for “spontaneity,” the original Russian term is stikhiinost. Lih explains that stikhiinost refers to elemental forces: “stikhiinost connotes the self's lack of control over the world, while spontaneity connotes the world’s lack of control over the self.” Russian Marxists used stikhiinyi and stikhiinost prior to WITBD? in two ways: negatively, in reference to “elemental,” purposeless eruptions of mass anger which didn’t represent working-class self-organization; and positively, in reference to the rise of the “worker masses that are straining at the bit…toward socialism and political struggle.” Lenin was actually arguing for the notion that Social Democrats must catch up with those workers whose “spontaneous” struggle was progressing briskly and might leave the RSDLP behind.

    What about the “democratic centralist” party, which—even before the Civil War—supposedly involved quasi-military discipline, gave extraordinary powers to its central committee, and—if it allowed internal dissent at all—didn’t allow dissidents to express their views publicly? At this point Rosa Luxemburg’s criticism of Lenin’s “ultra-centralism” is usually quoted (Cohen cites the Luxemburg of 1918, not 1904, but his aim is the same). Apparently Cohen doesn’t know that the Mensheviks were the first Russian socialists to invoke “democratic centralism.” Lenin merely adopted the idea for the Bolsheviks. Before the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920, when it was redefined, for both RSDLP factions “democratic centralism” merely meant that democratically-elected party congresses had the power to make binding decisions on all party committees and members. This isn’t authoritarian. Moreover, Alexander Rabinowitch’s The Bolsheviks Come to Power (1976) already made it clear that the Bolsheviks had public debates. Why does Cohen repeat what’s been long discredited? Why doesn’t he question the incongruity between Lenin’s initial objective of political freedom in Russia and the “vanguardist” strategy he supposedly favored as a way to reach that goal? Was Lenin stupid? He was certainly never stupid enough to advocate “socialism in one country” a la Stalin, as Cohen implies. (And can we please finally admit that Luxemburg was misinformed about “Leninism” in 1904?) The evidence is clear: for most of his life Lenin was merely an “Erfurtian,” a “Kautskyist,” no more authoritarian than Karl Kautsky himself (Lenin would never have called Kautsky a “renegade” from Marxism had he not loved Kautsky’s writings for so long). He was not an original political theorist.

    Space in this blog doesn’t permit an interrogation of Lenin’s The State and Revolution and its flaws (its naïveté, for one) or other writings, most of which are of no contemporary relevance. But let’s state some facts. The soviets of 1917 through mid-1918 consisted of legal rival parties. In November 1917 Lenin also promoted the idea that workers’ and peasants’ organizations should be entitled to free press resources. (Cohen should also investigate how the Bolsheviks treated General Krasnov and his soldiers, who attempted armed overthrow of the Soviet government on October 31. It was very “soft.”) I won’t justify every action the Bolsheviks took during the Civil War. And of course the October Revolution was a “gamble” on Western European proletarian revolution. That failed. But Martov’s alternative—a Menshevik-Socialist Revolutionary government based on the Constituent Assembly—was impossible. The actual alternative was either many policies the Bolsheviks implemented, including coercion of the peasantry to provide food, Red Terror (partly designed to control and restrain terror “from below” by peasants), etc., or the rule of White generals and White Terror. The main “tragedy” isn’t the Bolsheviks’ actions; it’s the ad-hoc justifications of these actions as norms in Comintern resolutions, adopted by “Leninist” organizations. Those, of course, must be thoroughly rejected if we’re to have a democratic radical left.

    Cohen will surely disagree, but Lenin was simply never a sufficiently innovative theorist to merit his own “ism.” But for those of us who are sure that humanity’s ultimate choice really is socialism or barbarism and that if the global working class (now larger than ever before) doesn’t take political power we are condemned to continued economic and ecological crises, studying the history of Bolshevism—for both negative and positive lessons—is a must.

    Jason Schulman is co-editor of New Politics and the editor of Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Legacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He is the author of Neoliberal Labour Governments and the Union Response: The Politics of the End of Labourism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).