Peruvian Daniela Ortiz’s new children’s book titled “The ABC of Racist Europe.”
The ABC of Racist Europe
All posts by marshall
Comment le Front National, aujourd’hui présidé par Marine Le Pen, a lutté contre la Yougoslavie
Nous avons écrit auparavant sur l’implication du Front National dans la guerre Yougoslave des années 90. Nous avons vu qu’ils ont envoyé des volontaires et des convois humanitaires suspects. Nous avons décidé d’investiguer un peu plus sur leur rôle dans cette guerre et nous avons trouvé des informations très intéressantes.
Dans un de ces convois humanitaires parti le 19 décembre 1991 d’Avignon, nous trouvons : Alain Sanders, un journaliste qui couvre la guerre pour le quotidien catholique Chrétienté-Solidarité et le Présent, Bernard Anthony, dirigeant de Chrétienté-Solidarité et député européen du FN, Thibault de la Tocnaye, membre du comité central du FN et conseiller pour la région PACA, Jean-Marie le Chevallier, député européen du FN, et Jacques Barthélémy, un habitué des voyages en Croatie. A cette occasion ils ont rencontré Dobroslav Paraga et Milo Dedokavic du HSP (formation paramilitaire néonazi croate). Une autre information très intéressante est que les participants du convoi qui s’est fait arrêter à la douane slovène avec des armes, ont donné comme contact le numéro de téléphone de Jacques Bompard, un des fondateurs du Front National.1
Le fait que le rôle du FN dans cette guerre ne se limitait pas à l’aide humanitaire, est confirmé par Francis Bergeron, un journaliste et scénariste français, classé généralement à droite, membre du comité central du FN, qui est décrit par ses collègues comme quelqu’un qui a consacré toute sa vie au FN et qui a fidèlement défendu ses idées.2 Il avait déclaré pour le quotidien Présent du 10 octobre 1993 que « La Croatie s’est une aventure. C’est en Europe, à quelques heures de voiture, la possibilité pour nos jeunes militants de vivre une aventure utile grâce à l’action caritative ou de vivre une aventure militaire… Cette expérience-là quand on a 20 ans, il faut avoir eu l’occasion de la faire. »3
Et nombreux sont ceux qui ont saisi cette occasion-là. Parmi eux nous trouvons Gaston Besson, le filleul de Jean-Marie Le Pen. Gaston Besson a combattu dans le 6ème bataillon du HOS (formation paramilitaire néonazi croate),4 ensemble avec l’infâme Major Chikago, puis après le démantèlement du HOS, il sera intégré dans la garde nationale croate (HVO).5 Actuellement il habite à Pula, en Croatie, et il organise la formation paramilitaire, néonazi, ukrainienne Azov,6 qui combat au côté du gouvernement ukrainien. Dans une interview pour le RTS suisse il dit : « J’en ai marre de tuer des gens. J’ai passé l’âge », alors maintenant il est juste dans l’organisation du bataillon.7 Nous avons visité son compte facebook, ainsi que sa page, où nous avons trouvé des photos de guerre,8 des extrais de son livre autobiographique Ainsi va l’homme, dans lesquels il parle ouvertement des crimes de guerre commis à l’encontre des serbes. Dans un chapitre intitulé „Pas de prisonniers“, il raconte une bataille en Bosnie, en 1993, dans laquelle comme le titre le dit, ils n’ont pas fait de prisonniers, mais ont exécuté sommairement tout serbe qu’ils ont croisé sur leur chemin. Bruler des villages serbes et des églises chrétiennes orthodoxes ne lui ai pas étranger non plus.9 Parmi ses photos on le trouve dans son jeune âge, à côté de Jean-Marie Le Pen, 10 qui est devenu pour Besson, comme il l’explique, son parrain officiel après la mort de son père. Toujours d’après les mots de Besson, son père était un des fondateurs du FN et membre du groupe terroriste OAS, qui a opéré en Algérie avec l’intention de remettre l’Algérie sous la domination française, d’où vient la réciprocité avec les Le Pen. Il est intéressant de constater que malgré la campagne politique de Marine Le Pen, dans laquelle elle tente de se représenter comme plus modérée par rapport à son père, puis elle essaie de flatter la Russie, Gaston qui combat au côtés des néonazis ukrainiens la soutient quand même fortement.11
Parmi ces aventuriers nous avons également Michel Roch Faci, qui était chef du service d’ordre du FN, et dont nous avons déjà parlé dans le passé.12
Un autre personnage très intéressant lié au FN, qui a participé dans la guerre yougoslave en tant que combattant au côté croate est André-Yves Beck. En 1991 il a participé à la création de Nouvelle Résistance avec laquelle il a était parmi les premiers à rejoindre la Brigade Internationale. Nouvelle Résistance aurait maintenu sa présence auprès des croates de 1991 jusqu’à la fin de la guerre.13 Lors de son retour en France, il est devenu le responsable de la communication de Jacques Bompard, qui est comme nous l’avons mentionné plus haut un des fondateurs du FN et le personnage impliqué dans le convoi « humanitaire » chargé d’armes. Jacques Bompard a été maire d’Orange entre 1995 et 2013, et tout ce temps il a été fidèlement servi par André-Yves Beck. De 2014 à août 2016, Beck a été directeur de cabinet de Robert Ménard à Béziers. Rappelons que la candidature de Ménard a été soutenue par le FN. Pour le moment on ne sait pas où est-ce que Beck va continuer sa carrière politique, mais des rumeurs cours qu’il sera peut-être intégré dans le cabinet de Marine Le Pen.14
Un journaliste suisse du nom de Christian Würtenberg s’était infiltré dans cette Brigade internationale afin de la suivre de près. Il enquêtait sur leurs moyens de financement, leurs liens avec la droite européenne, et surtout le FN, ainsi que sur le trafic de drogues et d’armes à travers les Balkans. Au début de 1992 il a été découvert par Eduardo Rozsa Flores, qui l’a torturé et assassiné. Flores va par la suite participer au nettoyage ethnique des musulmans à Mostar. Ensuite il va combattre auprès de l’UNITA en Angola, pour réapparaitre au Kosovo dans l’uniforme de l’UCK, où il a assassiné cinq policiers à Korenica avec le but de provoquer une escalade du conflit. Aujourd’hui le monde peut dormir tranquillement en ce qui le concerne, car Eduardo Rozsa Flores s’est fait abattre par la police bolivienne en avril 2009 alors qu’il menait les séparatistes de Santa Cruz avec lesquels il avait planifié une série d’attentats, dont un contre le président Evo Morales en personne.
On se doit de constater que le fait que certains serbes de droite soutiennent aujourd’hui le FN avec sa présidente Marine Le Pen relève d’un énorme paradoxe. De cette manière ils crachent dans la figure d’autre gens qui ont parlé contre cette guerre et qui ont soutenu le côté serbe, car ils sont tous d’orientation marxiste : Michael Parenti15, Heather Cottin avec son mari Sean Gervasi, qui est décédé à Belgrade, Michel Collon, et bien d’autres. Nous avons également les minorités opprimés à l’Occident, comme Mumia Abu Jamal, qui a parlé encore à cette époque-là contre cette guerre, puis le magazine afro-américain The Burning Spear, qui a consacré tout un article à cette guerre dans son édition de avril 2003, où ils disent que « d’après le point de vue du Parti socialiste du peuple africain (African People’s Socialist Party), les nationalistes serbes qui veulent la Serbie libre et la paix dans les Balkans, doivent s’unir avec le reste du monde qui n’est pas blanc et combattre la suprématie blanche imposée par les Etats Unis et l’Europe.16
Et voilà qu’aujourd’hui nous avons certains serbes de droite qui veulent aller ensemble avec la droite européenne, qui a participé à des crimes de guerre contre les serbes, défendre maintenant une certaine Europe „blanche et chrétienne“. Nous leur disons „Non merci! Pas en notre nom!“
http://reflexes.samizdat.net/les-phalanges-du-desordre-noir/ ↩
http://www.fn42.fr/article-deces-de-francis-bergeron-61561512.html ↩
http://reflexes.samizdat.net/les-phalanges-du-desordre-noir/ ↩
https://www.facebook.com/gastonbessonpublique/photos/a.537793616292959.1073741835.537693449636309/1185100274895620/?type=3&theater ↩
https://www.facebook.com/gastonbessonpublique/photos/a.537793616292959.1073741835.537693449636309/1185940058144975/?type=3&theater ↩
https://www.facebook.com/gastonbessonpublique/photos/a.537793616292959.1073741835.537693449636309/1121719897900325/?type=3&theater ↩
https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/6686719–j-en-ai-marre-de-tuer-des-gens-j-ai-passe-l-age-.html ↩
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1206925046047765&set=pb.100001908435483.-2207520000.1487537504.&type=3&theater ↩
https://www.facebook.com/gastonbessonpublique/posts/1340836429322003AEoAQ ↩
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=794025914004349&set=a.412017018871909.96164.100001908435483&type=3&theater ↩
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=807282999345307&set=a.412017018871909.96164.100001908435483&type=3&theater ↩
http://www.princip.info/2017/02/13/ko-je-voda-nacista-sa-snimka-koji-je-predvodio-borbu-protiv-srba/ ↩
http://reflexes.samizdat.net/les-phalanges-du-desordre-noir/ ↩
http://www.midilibre.fr/2016/04/02/andre-yves-beck-un-expert-de-la-com-qui-aime-l-ombre,1310305.php ↩
https://archive.org/stream/BurningSpearVolume23Number1/spear-2003-04#page/n9/mode/2up ↩
Operating behind enemy lines
Corporate media reported a few weeks ago that Greek “leftists” and anarchists are behind the project of resettlement of African and Asian refugees in abandoned homes, which brings them to conflict with the owners of these buildings.1 We inquired about it amongst comrades in Greece, but none could confirm who the mentioned “leftists” are. What is certain is that anarchists have been involved in helping refugees with finding shelter and other necessities, for a while now. Also, in speaking to some immigrants from Molenbeek, the “infamous” Brussels neighborhood, we learned that, during violent racial and social unrest that shakes the peripheries of western European cities from time to time, it’s only the anarchists that offer (violent) actions of solidarity with minorities. Or, in their own words, “the only ones we sometimes let in”.
As this piece isn’t intended for broader masses but strictly Third worldist comrades, let’s not waste time on explaining the material conditions imperialism creates at home, such as social-chauvinism on the Left and lack of class interest amongst the western proletariat in abolishing capitalism-imperialism. In our previous piece “Creative Marxism and lumpen-proletariat”, besides the attitudes of great Marxist thinkers towards this class, we’ve shown what its possibilities and limitations are, in a variety of conditions. We’ve also recognized it as the only revolutionary subject in the West today, unable to overcome spontaneity without being organized by the forces of proletariat, and proposed linking it to objective revolutionary forces on the periphery.2
It may sound good in theory, but we were naive to think it might work in practice, considering the conditions of the revolutionary struggle on the periphery. Apart from a small number of revolutionary organizations that we might call the “objective forces”, anti-imperialist resistance in the periphery, although more and more widespread, has not reached the point of centralization and transnational coordination, which, in this global conflict, is of the utmost importance. Sure, the imperialists are being challenged today on more fronts then ever before. However, not by our own forces but mainly by radical islamists. To understand that, we need to ask ourselves what reasons lay behind the support they receive from the oppressed masses and why are they preferred over any type of leftist alternative currently on the table.
The reasons concern both doctrine and violence. The former touches on the influence of liberalism within our ranks – whose sprouts “must be removed from our heads”, which allows for the left to be viewed as an ally or tacit supporter of imperialism in the moslem world, unlike the islamists who not only do not require cultural transformation, but fiercely oppose it. The latter is of equal importance, and shows that under the conditions of occupation, you need not sell your doctrine as much as prove yourself efficient in fighting the enemy. We’ll address both issues in a higher stage of preparation for action.
In another article – “The dialectics of Trump”, we’ve shown how the antagonisms between the First and Second world powers tend to soften at the account of the Third world, which might further tighten our space for maneuver in deepening the contradictions between the imperialist powers and dearly restrict the diplomatic and armed actions of our peoples in the periphery. Yet, the cracks might open in the Center itself.3
Accordingly, it is the issue of refugees, that is of increasing importance for the development of the struggle against imperialism in countries of the imperialist Center.
Parallels with migrations during the period of primeval decolonization at the periphery are obvious. Landless laborers left the rural areas and moved towards the cities where they formed makeshift settlements – ghettos, that surround the city, from where they penetrated colonial cities and ports looking for work. The rebellion that later sprung up in rural areas infiltrated the cities through this layer of rural settlers, residents of the ghetto, lumpen-proletariat, which has not yet managed to find a way of gnawing the colonial bone. Gnawing the imperialist bone is equally made impossible to most of today’s African and Asian refugees in the West, which might be the key to penetrating the imperialist home soil and the possibility of future destabilization of the oppressing countries.
If “imperialism is the world system, the last stage of capitalism – and it must be defeated in a world confrontation; If a “the strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism”, let’s see what our role is. Che saw our role as “the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capitals, raw materials, technicians and cheap labor, and to which they export new capitals — instruments of domination — arms and all kinds of articles; thus submerging us in an absolute dependence”, and proposed opening several international fronts – creating “many Vietnams”.
However, he hasn’t neglected the importance of “operating behind the enemy lines”, which, according to the dominant opinion on the revolutionary left of his epoch, was wrongly assigned to Western proletariat, without proper social and economic analysis of conditions that could open up such a possibility. In studying those, the comrades from Danish KAK (later M-KA) understood quite properly that, under conditions at the time, the lever was to be applied only to the periphery. The dynamics of capitalism requires continuous analysis of ever-changing conditions for vanguard to direct the class struggle accordingly. Thus, the inflow of three million Arab and African refugees to Europe in the last two years (still pouring in) in addition to those already present on imperialist soil, cannot be neglected.
Those newcomers, for the most part, cannot escape the process of lumpen-proletarianization and social marginalization due to a number of factors such as unskillfulness, language barriers and, of course, racism. On the other hand, the Western proletariat has recently shown that in times of crisis it leans to fascism, and so the radicalization of refugees, as well as the already present racial minorities, isn’t even in question.
Without operating behind the enemy lines, our anti-imperialist resistance at the periphery, even if victories were achievable here and there, is not sustainable in the long term, due to our military, technological and economic inferiority, and every kind of isolation. Deeper contradictions between First world and Second world powers, played at our hands to some extent (it didn’t help the Iraqis nor Libyans but has benefited Syrians), in, partly, breaking up the global imperialist hegemony, and offering the possibility of practical assistance at the local level. In seeking to prevent imperialist aggressions, or sliding towards autarky, we tend to recognize that alliance as lesser evil, which raises the issue of prevention of further development towards socialism. Namely, this aid does not come for free and without concessions, and so involves tolerating a significant private sector. Instead of pushing towards total delinking, anti-imperialist governments and movements are forced upon a modified relinking.
In this sense only, it is in these anarchist organizations (Anarcho-syndicalists) in the West, that we’re gaining new allies. As with the aforementioned Danish group, the proletariat makes a negligible part of the membership of anarchist organizations in the West. These revolutionaries mainly arise from the ranks of the of the petty bourgeoisie – class traitors, primarily motivated by ideological, not material motives. The petty bourgeoisie in our ranks at the periphery (in post-colonial times) poses a risk of opportunism, precisely due to conflict of interest, while at the core countries it seems not to be the case. Conflicts of interest are equally represented among all classes in the core (except among those that we marked as revolutionary potential), but unlike the proletariat, which reacts and is led exclusively by interests, members of the petty bourgeoisie, as we see in practice, in small numbers and under certain circumstances, could work against their own class, driven by ideological motives.
Are we suggesting that anarchists organize African and Asian refugees in the West? Yes and no. Yes – because Marxism is dealing with objective antagonisms, based on what things are like, not what we’d like them to be, and these groups are the only ones pulling their weight in this matter of dear importance. No – because such a scenario is neither completely desirable nor possible. It is not desirable for well-known idealogical reasons – a necessity of Marxist training of the revolutionary subject, reactionary idealism and anti-materialism shown by most anarchists, favoring anti-authoritarianism over anti-imperialism, the risk of spontaneous and uncontrolled terrorism. It is not possible for political reasons – liberal anti-theism, lack of understanding of the necessity of particularity and it’s role in decolonization, as well as historical stages of human development, the passive attitude towards the anti-colonial and national liberation struggles, etc.
As we know, we’re still talking about the First world ideology based, ultimately, on the idea of superiority of the cultural heritage of the West, but incoherently, without the open support for (neo)colonial policy (unlike Trots). However, they seem to be the only ones who sniffed the revolutionary subject in Western Europe. Opposed to racism and motivated by humanism, they had played a progressive role in relation to refugees, providing concrete assistance, launching solidarity campaigns, and in few cases (France & Greece), inspired the frightened people to oppose police terror, and encouraged radicalization. Just as violent anti-imperialist uprisings at the periphery were “hijacked” by islamists, so is the “operation behind enemy lines” in the core, at least in it’s embryo, by anarchists.
Here, we have presented the opinion that in the imperialist center, under the conditions of imperialist super-profits, class character barely determines political attitude of an individual, therefore progressivism and radicalism are a thing of idiosyncrasy. We brought to light the importance of “operating behind enemy lines” and its achievability under the conditions of mass migrations. Finally we propose concrete measures of action towards building the International of Third worldist-Marxist organizations, centralizing the transnational anti-imperialist front and coordinating the revolutionary struggle in the periphery and the core, with a clear mission of creating many Vietnams and operating behind enemy lines.
Marx and the Three Basic Problems of Socialism
„Water, water everywhere
And all the boards did shrink
Water, water everywhere
Nor any drop to drink“
T. Coleridge
Communism everywhere
Yet all our hopes did sink!
Comunism everywhere
But all we need is think!
Before Lenin, Marxist theorists, for the most part, avoided the discussion on how a communist society should be structured. Marx’s work was primarily focused on identifying the contradictions of capitalism and explaining the inevitability of its collapse and the subsequent communist revolution. The main reason why Marx made this principled decision was that he was extremely frustrated with the Utopianism of French socialist thinkers so even though he shared their desires he agreed with the conservative dismissals of Saint Simon who was ridiculed as a person whose view was that under socialism, the Atlantic Ocean would turn into lemonade. However, Marx noticed an extremely important fact in his historical works, which is that revolutions are always midwives of history in the sense that in revolutionary times a new world is not created out of thin air; rather, the social relations which are already highly developed at that moment simply rise to the position of the dominant ones, which are in deep crisis. In that way, he explains the French Revolution as a moment in which the capitalist class, which had existed for several centuries before the revolution itself, overthrew the monarchy as the social arrangement which was in terminal decline. In that sense, it would be natural to expect from Marx to identify the social forces, formations and tendencies in capitalism that contain the elements of socialism which can be expected to overthrow the bourgeoisie in the moment of revolution.
Another important Marxist thinker, Vladimir Lenin, started where Marx had left off. His work was partly motivated by the recognition that Marx had left no sketch of a communist society that could be offered as a platform for revolutionary struggle. Therefore, Marx’s anti-Utopianism proved to be self-defeating because it left no clear idea for the revolutionary party in the sense of precise goals of the struggle. Lenin’s work in this domain was, of course, later motivated by the practical needs because his part managed to gain power in Russia through a revolution. To illustrate how a communist society should look like, Lenin once stated that the socialist society should function like the German postal system. In that sense, Lenin had identified an existing structure in the capitalist society, distilled its key features and determined that the principles on which it was organized would be useful for a communist society. Here, the goal will be to describe several forms of social relations in capitalism that provide a potential answer to the question of how to regulate the social relations in socialism. Of course, the sketch that will be given here represents merely an invitation for Marxist forces to further analysis, motivated by the realization that Marxism cannot entirely abandon its utopian or programmatic character. Based on the experience so far, we are also aware that many Marxists will criticize this attempt as pure Utopianism and ultra-leftism. However, following Lenin, we must realize that without any kind of general sketch or platform, we cannot expect the support of the masses for a dash into the unknown. As revolutionaries, we owe to the working class at least some kind of description about what we want to create. It should also be mentioned that the sketch that we are about to present refers to the goals that should be achieved without any discussion of how to achieve them, which is also a crucial topic for the discussion. It is certain that some of those solutions should be prioritized over others in the period of transition to socialism, but for now, we will not address the criteria according to which such prioritization should be carried out. Those problems will be left for some other occasion.
The sketch presented here is inspired by the answers to three crucial problems of capitalism which are analyzed in turns in three separate volumes of Marx’s Capital. First, is the problem of the capitalist production and exploitation of labor power (volume I). Second, the problem of capitalist distribution of the market economy (volume II). The third problem is the problem of money, banks and finance (volume III). From the perspective of the volume I of Capital and the problems of capitalist production, the key issue is the exploitation of labor power or the fact that in a capitalist enterprise, surplus value (profit) has to be created. The surplus value is produced by paying the worker less than the value that he created during in his working time. Therefore, we are dealing with exploitation. There we have the problem of alienation because workers are not owners of the products they make, they do not influence the decisions that affect their work and they are alienated from their co-workers who are mainly seen as competition for promotions and the like. In socialism, this problem has to be solved through elimination of exploitation and alienation, which means that workers have to collectively decide about the issues pertaining to their work and they have to be paid in accordance with the amount of work they complete.
There are historical examples of enterprises that have functioned this way in the framework of socialist countries as well as the examples of companies that work this way in capitalist economies. The example of workers’ self-management in former socialist Yugoslavia is one of the examples that are frequently cited. It can be said, as it has been frequently pointed out in the literature, that the problem of exploitation was solved quite successfully in the former Yugoslavia. However, Yugoslavia had a major problem from the perspective of volume II of Capital, which was the problem of the restoration of the market economy which resulted in stratification among enterprises and consequent inequality among individuals and regions. In essence, it can be said that Yugoslavia had a capitalist market and a socialist organization of enterprises. There are also examples of similar, worker-managed, enterprises operating inside capitalist economies. The best-known example is Mondragon in the Basque country in Spain, which employs around 100 thousand people. Mondragon has been competing very successfully with capitalist corporations for decades and it has been growing consistently. Of course, Mondragon is not a perfect model for a socialist enterprise because inequalities in income of different workers are significant and have been growing. However, what is very useful is the principle of worker’s self-management, which ensures a lot smaller income inequalities, almost complete protection from unemployment (even when it goes against the company’s profits), guaranteed education and professional development, collective solidarity in terms of healthcare, etc. There are many more examples of such firms that compete in the capitalist markets quite successfully, and just like in the case of capitalist firms – some of them thrive and some of them fail.
Next problem that needs to be solved is the problem of distribution or markets as mechanisms for the distribution of goods and services. The bulk of trade in goods and services in capitalist societies takes place in the market where those who have the money can buy practically anything while those who do not have the money are deprived from even the most basic necessities. In contrast to the liberal doctrine that the market leads to a balancing of prices, quality, supply and demand, as Marx argued, the market is a highly volatile system which constantly oscillates and periodically leads to crises. A completely free market can be thought of as a traffic system without signs and lights. Such a system is certainly good for those who drive tanks, but it is in no way desirable for those who ride bicycles. That way, markers naturally benefit the biggest and strongest companies that push the smaller firms out of the market competition, thereby forming monopolies and quasi-monopolies. Luckily, traffic systems are not organized according to market principles. Rather, detailed analyses are carried out in order to reduce the risks for all participants and ensure a relatively high level of security. Communist or socialist economies have to contain elements of planning. As the example of Yugoslavia has shown, good organization inside the enterprises does not reduce the risk of growing inequality because stronger companies grow bigger and the weaker ones collapse. The Soviet Union, in contrast to Yugoslavia, had a much stronger planning system, but it lacked the democratic organization of enterprises. In that sense, we can say that Yugoslavia had a better answer to the problems of volume I of Capital while the Soviet Union had a better solution in terms of volume II issues. However, it is necessary to resolve all the potential sources of contradictions in order to establish a stable socialist economy.
Here, it is necessary to address the widespread attack on the socialist planning as an example of “inefficiency”. This critique is completely mistaken for two reasons. First, the Soviet Union accomplished the industrialization of the country and rose into the status of a global power in just several decades thereby overtaking numerous capitalist countries that took centuries to get to where they were at the time. Moreover, the sacrifices of the working class in the Soviet Union were minimal in comparison to the victims of development in capitalist countries. In the Soviet Union, from the very beginning, there was an eight-hour workday, high degree of safety at work and relatively stable wages. During the Industrial Revolution, in capitalist countries the working day lasted for fourteen hours, workers regularly died at work and wages were miserable. Also, during WWII, only the Soviet planning economy could rise to the challenge of war and subdue the fascist militarized economy. It is also worth mentioning that the British and American economies were transformed virtually overnight into planned economies because it was clear that only a system of that sort can be appropriate for the given conditions. Therefore, the idea that planning is inefficient is a complete fabrication. Economic planning exists, of course, in capitalist societies as well. The multinational corporations, whose wealth and yearly output are often bigger than the total wealth and output of many countries, are organized as planned economies. For example, individual segments of Mercedes Benz do not trade among themselves on a market. They rater distribute parts and products among themselves according to a plan. If Mercedes Benz operated according to market principles, it would constantly face a surplus of small and simple parts and a shortage of electronic equipment, engines and the like. Therefore, the organization of corporations, as the central economic institutions in capitalism, shows that planning is far more efficient than markets but this glaring fact is almost never mentioned for obvious reasons. It is important to add that large corporations, in addition to planning internal distribution, also make plans about the demand. That is, since they are unable to exert complete control over the market (as much as they would like to) but they know that planning is necessary and they cannot always work in full capacity because they would be unable to sell all their products, corporations use complicated statistical methods of predicting demand. In those tasks, based on the data about the demand in previous years and quarters they make complicated and often imprecise planning about future demand and the production is then adjusted to those estimates. The imprecision in those estimates comes of course form the unpredictable changes in the market. Using techniques of planning developed by capitalist corporations and enriched with rich data which could be added to such calculations if there were no market oscillations, a socialist economy could make incredibly precise predictions about the social needs in the coming years. This would be a powerful way of harmonizing supply and demand. The modern information technologies which were not available in the Soviet Union could help enormously in those projects. Therefore, even today, we have systems of planning and planning technologies that could be used to optimize and arrange socialist economies. Finally, the caricatures of socialism presented by right wingers about the obsessive planning in socialism that would require predictions about the exact number of paint jobs on cars or small repairs in households are completely misplaced. There is no reason to think that socialism would require a complete eradication of small businesses that perform these kinds of jobs particularly when they do not involve employer-employee relationships (i.e. self-employment or family businesses) because as Lenin said, a million small businesses count for nothing, a few giant cartels count for everything.
The third and perhaps the most complex problem is the problem of creation and distribution of money. This problem has been shown to be one of the most difficult tasks for both capitalist and socialist economies. Traditionally, capitalist economies have relied on the assumption that gold has a certain real and stable value so for a long time all the money in circulation had to have its equivalent in gold. The problem was that the capitalist production and value creation are much faster than the expansion in the amount of gold available so the prices of goods and wages declined constantly when countries held on to the gold standard. This process is known as deflation. On the other hand, when this system faced a crisis, countries would begin to print money that would have no equivalent in gold and the prices of goods and wages would rise, which is known as inflation. Therefore, the oscillations in the market were reflected in the oscillations in the value of money and vice versa. In socialism, the problem was similar because countries like Yugoslavia had a market economy but no gold standard which meant a constant tendency towards inflation. In the Soviet Union, the supply of money was also planned and the problem in the planning of production and distribution meant that the process of planning in the domain of money creation failed as well.
Today’s capitalist superpowers have abandoned the gold standard a long time ago and now money is created as the central banks hand out loans to commercial banks each time a commercial bank finds an individual prepared to incur debt. Therefore, money is created through indebtedness. This system is efficient to the extent that it guarantees that individuals would be forced to give their best to repay the loans so a certain degree of stability in the value of money is assured. On the other hand, the money needed to repay the accumulated interest is never printed which automatically means that a large number of people cannot in principle pay back their loans. This of course leads to foreclosures and crises in the banking system. It is interesting to note that regardless of who carries the loan the money always has the same value so a loan of $10 000 creates the same amount of money regardless of whether it was taken by a doctor or a worker at McDonalds. This abandonment of the gold standard and the idea of money creation in response to people’s needs as well as “equality in debt” can find certain applications in the communist economy. It is necessary to replace debt as the guarantee for the value of money with the real basis of value which is human labor. Namely, Marx was a proponent of the labor theory of value according to which value is created through human labor. The fact that different kinds of labor are paid differently because of the market mechanisms of supply and demand, made the stability in the value of money under capitalism impossible. The lesson that we can draw from modern banks is that money can be created not on the basis of debt taken on by an individual but on the basis of labor that an individual has invested. In other words, in socialism, money supply would have to be enlarged each time wages are paid by the amount of new value that they have created through labor. That way, money supply would increase in proportion to the newly created value and the contradiction of capitalism tied to the instability of the money supply would be overcome. This kind of system could not lead to either deflation or inflation by definition as the value of money would always match the value of goods in the market.
Here, we have sketched only the basic structural mechanism which would have to exist in a socialist economy in order to ensure the stability and safety of the entire society. It should be noted that none of the items mentioned here is utopian because each of them is already employed in some fashion in the modern capitalist society. What should be done in socialism would be to arrange the existing components in such a way as to create a completely transformed society that would be far superior to the existing one. This rough sketch should certainly be developed in far greater detail but it can definitely represent a blueprint for a program of communist organization focused not just on the critique of capitalism but on the real transformation of society as well.
Communism and Violence
One of the most common ways to disparage communism has been to point to the violence which went into its making. Sometimes, the numbers of people who were killed by communist regimes like the one in the former Soviet Union have been exaggerated to a degree that can only be characterized as comical. Some historians have claimed that Stalin had killed almost 100 million people in his purges. This claim falls on its face immediately when one employs a minimum of basic logic. Given the fact that the Soviet Union lost about 27 million people during WWII and that its population was somewhere around 100 million people after the October Revolution, it would seem that the number of people Stalin killed would be greater than the total number of people who lived in the entire country, which is completely absurd. On the other hand, the numbers reported by some more serious historians should also gives us pause because, with the exception of WWII, the population of the Soviet Union was on the constant rise. In 1991, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the population of that country was the highest ever. It is also worth pointing out that number of people living in Russia declined significantly in the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union and has since then been recovering.
Despite all of this, there has undeniably been some violence in the Soviet Union particularly under Stalin but the number of people killed definitely pales in comparison to the actually reported numbers. Nonetheless, some would claim, one person killed is one too many. Well, let’s then take that argument and compare it to the history of capitalism. After all, in order to disparage communism, this argument is only valid if the rival system, capitalism, was much more peaceful and less violent than Soviet communism. However, when we actually take a look at the history of capitalism we find that the violence that went into its making was far greater than what went on in the Soviet Union even when we rely on the ridiculous figures cited above. There were many important pillars that were placed in the foundation of modern capitalist systems all of which included some degree of violence, but here I would like to tackle only thee of those.
First, it is by no means controversial that the process of Enclosure in Great Britain was a precondition for the rise of capitalism. The process of Enclosure involved violent seizure of the common land that peasants used for farming and raising livestock. During the 18th century, most of this land was seized by wealthier farmers in order to create vast possessions on which to raise sheep and produce wool for the rising textile industry. The unknown numbers of peasants were then forced to move to the city and become a cheap labor force that had to work under unimaginable conditions in order to survive. It is not at all surprising that the life expectancy of these people was under 30 in many cases. Essentially, they were simply worked to death. However, it is also not surprising that peasants revolted against this violent seizure of the land that they had been using for centuries and large numbers of them were simply killed in the revolts.
Secondly, the discovery of America was one of the key engines that drove the rise of capitalism. The abundance of resources in this country was the fuel that generated the enormous explosion of wealth, which in turn created the European bourgeoisie. The acquisition of these resources was not a non-violent process at all as North America was populated by millions of American Indians (today referred to as Native Americans). To acquire their land, Europeans in many cases had to fight them to death and in the process they wiped out virtually the entire population committing some of the most outrageous atrocities in human history. It is by no means an overstatement to say that this was the first case of genocide or holocaust in human history and that is something that has to be taken into account in every discussion of capitalism, socialism and violence, but unfortunately it is not. Next, the build up of America was also crucially dependent on Atlantic Slave trade in which by conservative estimates, about 11.5 million Africans were shipped to North America to work mainly on cotton plantations. These people were treated simply as natural resources and not as human beings. There were many instances when slaves were thrown overboard when a ship had to reduce its cargo faced with a storm or some other kind of challenge on the open sea. There is no available figure about the number of slaves who were killed this way. Also, those who did arrive to North America were also subject to various kinds of torture and treated as cattle that worked as much as it could and left to die after its strength disappeared.
Thirdly, to arrive at the status of industrial superpower, the United States, employing a capitalist mode of production had to exert tremendous force in order to keep the wages of workers low and secure their obedience. All of this is a part of 19th century US history, which is something everyone should learn in history books and yet it is often simply skipped. As a famed US historian Howard Zinn points out, the US had one of the most violent labor histories in the world. Often, the army was employed to shut down workers’ strikes. On numerous occasions, the army would open fire into the unarmed workers killing dozens of them at a time. Moreover, the conditions in which workers labored were so unsafe that industrial accidents like fires took thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of lives. In one such accident in 1911, in a shirt factory in New York, around 150 young girls lost their lives in a fire due to unsafe working conditions. It should be stated that during this entire period, workers had no rights, very little schooling and virtually no healthcare protection.
In the case of Soviet Union, it is worth pointing out that the country was transformed from a feudal agricultural economy with illiteracy of about 95% to an advanced industrial nation during several decades. This entire process took far less casualties than industrialization under capitalism in the West. Not only was industrialization quicker and more efficient but the workers had all the rights to organize and participate in decisions. They had a right to universal education and healthcare. Also, a lot of attention was paid to the working conditions.
The violence that took place in the Soviet Union was largely political and it was aimed at those who wanted to restore the Tzarist regime or opposed the progressive reforms. On the other hand, the violence that took place with the development of capitalism in the West was structural, which means that it was the result of the very process of capitalist industrialization. It was exerted through all the existing social institutions and aimed directly against the vast majority of the population – namely, the working class. This capitalist violence, if it did not kill people it left them alive only to work for as long as they can and then to die in utter destitution.
The argument against communist based on violence that went into its making is then simply a case of using double standards. Surely, there was some violence but this kind of violence pales in comparison with the atrocities that went into the making of capitalism.
A nationalism not directed against imperialism
An excerpt from the DHKC-P analysis on the PKK, written in 1999:
What we particularly want to touch on is why and how the transition has been made from a theory of colonialism to wanting integration into Turkey. Here, something else must be mentioned.
From the start the PKK described its aims on the basis of colonialism in the following way: “The revolution in Kurdistan is first of all targeted against Turkish colonialism. It is this that robs us of political independence, destroys and devastates the productive forces and pursues a policy of annihilating the Kurdish language, history and culture. This colonialism is supported from outside by the imperialists and internally by feudal compradors. These forces, closely connected to each other economically, are the targets of the revolution in Kurdistan. A movement that does not oppose first of all Turkish colonialism and its internal and external supporters at the same time cannot be considered to be revolutionary in Kurdistan.”
In and of itself, this statement is approximately correct. “Turkish colonialism”, imperialism and Kurdish collaborators are all described as a target, even if a correct and unambiguous formulation has not been used.
However, the PKK’s practice has never developed inside this framework. First of all, the PKK has in no way openly opposed imperialism, and if it is a question of “Turkish colonialism”, this is always presented as the main target. As a consequence of this logic, imperialism is always presented as a secondary target. In the PKK’s history there has never been a tactic of fighting imperialism.
It looks on the Turkish oligarchy as though it had seized colonies outside of Kurdistan’s borders, for example like the relationship between the USA and Vietnam. From this analogy, the liberation of Vietnam did not see the destruction of US colonial power as an aim. Also, the PKK sees overthrowing the oligarchy in Turkey as a secondary matter or shows no interest in it at all.
And if the oligarchy maintains itself in power, the PKK develops the strategy of trying to take Turkish Kurdistan away from it, and to impose this upon it. But the drawback of this is that the relationship between Turkey and Kurdistan is not the same as the relationship between the USA and Vietnam! Without taking account of the oligarchy’s relations with imperialism, and its economic, political, cultural and military dimension, one will get into endless difficulties if one tries to put the “Turkish” dimension of this in the foreground and build an entire strategy upon it.
Inside the oligarchy there is no “Turkish” national purity, despite all the bourgeois demagogy that is deployed. So for this reason it is clear that a strategy that is not aimed at overthrowing the oligarchy and the imperialism inseparable from it will not be able to free Kurdistan.
This is actually one of the most important contradictions in the PKK’s theory of colonialism. In China and Vietnam, which are always cited as examples by the PKK, an actual struggle against imperialism was conducted. Whereas in the quote above, the place of imperialism was not clearly defined.
One must ask what this analysis considers the influence of imperialism to be. Is Turkey, which is militarily, politically, culturally and economically dependent on imperialism, the determining force, or is it imperialism itself?
The publications of the PKK do not answer such questions. Today, no answer will be forthcoming. For the reason that the PKK sees the USA or Germany as forces that might resolve the Kurdish question. Now we have to ask whether the genocides and massacres the oligarchy has unleashed against the Kurdish people for years are independent of the politics of imperialism? Is that the case today?
This question is not clearly answered. If it was, the PKK would have to adopt a clear attitude towards imperialism, that is, struggling against it. But as we will later quote in detail, the peace politics of the PKK require it to have relations with imperialism.
Moreover, the PKK does not wage a serious struggle against the Kurdish rulers and major landowners, though it says it does. Nor has it waged a struggle based on the land question. This means that the class content of the struggle has completely disappeared and on all sides it is narrowing down to mere nationalism.
Latest Charlie Hebdo cartoons translated into communist language
Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Joann Sfar drew several cartoons on the occasion of the terrorist attack on Paris, which he published on Instagram. Its contents touched the hearts of many liberals, and so we did our best to translate them into the language of the proletarians of all countries – Marxism-Leninism, and see if the hearts of the “barbarians” are really as cold as ice.
1.France is technologically and militarily more advanced than your desert backwater.
2.Paris is our capital city. We are known for good cuisine, products from fermented grapes and porno movies. We eat, drink and screw like crazy while our own and our brothers’ armies bomb you. You don’t know what chateaubriand is. You eat with your hands.
3.Once I went to the morgue to identify a neighbor. A young man, obesity is evil. I found out that, death smells bad, or is it formaldehyde, who knows. Maybe my thoughts are somewhat disconnected because I am wasted from champaigne. My eyes are crossed. Drink for France!
4.I am not a racist. I like Jamaican music. Sean Paul, UB-40. My neice once dated a Romainian. Our national football team has as many wide noses as you wish.
5.But these people come here and go straight to the welfare. Laziness, I guess. And their howling prayers. Way to go, Orban!
6.Inherent, hierarchical, biological differences between ‘races’ do exist. Ask both Richard Dawkins and Walt Disney.
7.Huges waves pound the shores of Paris, but „Charlie don’t surf!“.
8.You don’t want to change your profile pics into our flag? You don’t want to pray for Paris? Well, you don’t have to. We don’t need religion anyway. If God existed, wouldn’t he have saved you from slavery and colonialism? Ah, all those things we’ve done to you – ask your grannies if their memory has not failed them. That Casanova reputation we maintained in Algeria, Mali, Vietnam …. I could go on. That’s life, joy … a bit of champaign then action. Btw, Paris Hilton is way overrated if you ask me.
9.Don’t ask why my handwriting is so tiny. I’ve been holding it for an hour. I need to take a SHIT so badly.
10.Did I mention that 14 African countries still pay us colonial tax? And there is this thing called colonial pact. It’s complicated, don’t want to get into it now, but the point is that former colonies still give use money and resources out of gratitude for all the token’s of civilizaitons that we brought to them. Their good will, of course.
11.Don’t even get me started on the Western left. They are always with us. They know that without your resources, we could not have achieved this standard of living. Some of them like to imagine that they will someday ‘revolt’ and overthrow their masters, but it ain’t gonna happen. Too dumb, too brainwashed, too fat, too lazy and there’s always something ‘good’ on TV or in the stadium to divert them. Add to this the fact that they’re overworked and sleep-deprived consumer bots and you’ve got an entire nation of eternal worker-slaves with good teeth.
12.How easy it is to build support for our neo-colonial projects, you wouldn’t believe it. All we need to do is continue promoting the superiority of the Western civilizaiton and its values over your barbarism, and no one asks us where we’re headed and who we’re going to bomb. We’ve got the media, you’ve got the megaphones.
13.This is one of those 12 ships that brought 40 billion dollars worth of gold from Haiti in 1838 in order for us to grant them independence. Do you know how much gold we have hoarded from various countries throughout history? Also, a smiliar one, only much more modern, aircraft carrier has just been sent to the Persian Gulf to bomb you back into the stone age. Now, let’s see what you can do.
Fotos: Joann Sfarr/Instagram