Lev Davidovich Bronstein, best known to history as Leon Trotsky, was murdered today, 70 years ago in Mexico City by Catalan Stalinist Ramón Mercader, who infamously used a pickaxe for the crime (and almost failed).
Trotsky led, together with Lenin and other bolsheviks, the Russian Revolution which, for the first time in history, brought a party of the Working Class to power. He was particularly relevant in organizing the Red Army, which became able to withstand not just the reactionary White forces but also the invading armies of Western powers that landed at several locations at the Russian coasts in support of the reaction.
It was also responsible however for the eventual destruction of the Anarchist Free Territory in Eastern Ukraine, one of the two almost successful Anarchist large-scale socio-political experiences in the 20th century (the other was the revolutionary zone in Catalonia and Eastern Aragon during the Spanish Civil War).
But surely Trotsky is best remembered as the main leader of the genuine Revolutionary Bolshevik faction after the death of Lenin, which was eventually defeated by the nationalist and fascistoid tendency lead by Stalin. As such, Trotsky was expelled from the party and exiled. Trotsky first had to go to the remote Alma Ata (now Almaty in Kazakhstan), then to Turkey, France, Norway and eventually Mexico, after European authorities decided they did not want such a revolutionary leader in their territories.
In Mexico he was hosted by the famous couple of revolutionary artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Soon after breaking with Rivera, he moved to his final residence a few blocs away, where the infamous Mercader found and killed him.
Trotsky and US trotskyists in Mexico, 1940, soon before his death
As disillusion grew on Stalin's authoritarian and criminal tendencies, Trotsky became the main reference for genuine Leninism, which was often also called Trotskyism. The current was formalized in 1930 as the Fourth International. This current however has been often marred by schisms and sectarianism, although has also inspired many genuine revolutionary leaders such as Che Guevara.
Crucial concepts in Trotskyism are that the revolution should be permanent and international, that Stalinist USSR was not a genuine but a deformed or degenerated workers' state. Nowadays some Trotskyist sectors favor the creation of a new Fifth International, idea now promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
I remembered three days ago the sad anniversary of the coup in Honduras. Today I come to know that in the Central American republic hundreds of thousands went (again) to the streets to protest against it.
It did not happen only in Tegucigalpa but across the country.
Carlos Reyes, speaker of the National Front of People's Resistance (FNRP) the coup has been tried to be made invisible, both inside and outside the country. Not just the coup but the crimes of the military and the resistance of the people.
Today we are certain that we have been doing the right thing, said Reyes. We have to install a Constituent National Assembly. This was the pretext on which the military-oligarchic alliance removed President Zelaya.
Source: La Haine[es] (includes photos and videos). More photos here.
Not substantially different from what happened this past week at the Mediterranean but much less likely to reach the front pages, or even any page at all, of the international media.
I already reported a month ago on how a paramilitary gang, UBISORT, at the service of the Oaxacan oligarchy, lead by Governor Ulises Ruiz, attacked a civilian caravan in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, when they tried to breach their siege of the indigenous autonomous municipalities, murdering two, Betty Cariño and Jiry Jaakola.
Now the civil society of the southern Mexican state is willing again to risk their lives to challenge the impunity of the death squads and to bring emotional and material support to the isolated indigenous community of San Juan Copala, where several journalists and activists have already been murdered in the struggle between the democratic self-rule of the people and the landlords.
The risk is huge, like the Zionists, the paramilitary gangs at the service of the Mexican and multinational oligarchy are ready to kill. The members of the Misión Copala know this but still they march.
The Triqui people have no water, electricity, food nor medicines because of the siege by the death squads.
Spanish alternative information site La Haine is covering this new caravan on daily basis starting today (in Spanish language only).
The always interesting James Petras addresses at Voltaire Net the issue of the limits and frustration of the "revolutionary" governments in Latin America. It is a very critical article that emphasizes how far from socialism these governments are and how this is triggering increasing protests by the grassroots that are accused of "trotskism" or even of helping the reaction.
It is a very long article that I can hardly synthesize here but basically he's saying that these governments, in their diversity, are mostly populist developmentalist (nationalist) soft capitalist systems under a red banner, much like China (red outside, white inside), which have not even realized the much needed agrarian reform, with the partial exception of Venezuela.
Petras also mentions how the strong revolutionary movement that existed a few years ago in Mexico has fragmented and looks powerless against the narco-feudalization of the country for that reason. In this context, he also makes the controversial claim that mafias offer a way out of poverty by means of "armed struggle", which has obviously no pretense to have political implications but may be true for the subjectivity of the individual slum-dweller and his/her survival and potential success immediate needs.
Possibly the conclusions can be those outlined in this paragraph:
The workers and peasants are increasingly recognizing that they are not the beneficiaries of the economic successes, growth and stability, celebrated by the leaders of the developmental regimes. The left must encourage, organize and capitalize on the masses’ rising expectations for higher living standards in the face of record high commodity prices. In recent years, too often, the left has fallen prey to the ‘theater’ of a self-described “new left” and its “anti-neo-liberal” rhetoric, even as it increases the presence of multi-national capital (MNC). The new “state-MNC” partnerships exclude the working class from the profits and revenue which, instead, are distributed between new rising middle professional and technocratic classes and foreign investors.
Criticism of the Left by the Left, as it should be. The Right is obviously not out of the process yet but it is just a dead weight, unable to produce any socially meaningful project, just more robbery and exploitation of people and Earth, something that has become simply unbearable. So, in a sense, we can say that the Right is out of the process and fatally damaged by its own incapability of generating happiness.
However the institutional Left is also limited by its own subservience to Capital and their own political liabilities, including personality cult and lack of revolutionary ambition. On the other hand it's difficult to imagine how such peripheral economies (though every day less peripheral probably) can lead the revolutionary process, that at this stage can only be global.
As the pace of the Greek revolution speeds up, with the first casualties in a burned down bank office and the Greek Parliament besieged daily by the angry people, one may wonder why is people so angry. After all, according to the Imperial media, it's all their fault and the government is doing what it must do to save the nation.
The answer is logically that people is not so naive: they have barely, if at all, benefited from the bad practices that have triggered the crisis (rather the opposite) and they have yet to see any of those white collar criminals being brought to court and their properties seized to help pay the national debt.
The answer is that the whole nation is being held for ransom for the corruption of a handful of oligarchs and, what is maybe even more important, their international accomplices.
That's simply not acceptable.
And obviously this means a regime change in Greece: one that can effectively arrest the criminals and issue the appropriate international capture orders for their accomplices in Washington and Brussels.
One that has no problem in nationalizing the product of past years' robbery when possible.
One that dares to declare bankruptcy if need be.
So Greece is set for a revolutionary regime change and that is most unlikely to be prevented because there is no alternative. The only question is the pace and exact extension of this change.
But what about the rest or EU. EU can live without Greece but can it live without half of EU members? Because the speculators' aim is already set to other Eurozone states. It seems by the signals that the Iberian peninsula will be next but Italy, Ireland and the very UK (out of Eurozone but of great importance by its size) are clearly in the agenda.
The European Union today. Eurozone in blue, comitted to join the Eurozone in green, special statuses in red, non-EU states using the euro in purple. Stripes signify those states clearly targetted by the Transnational Capital to be ripped off in a "controlled demolition" (Latvia included because it's already suffering the IMF blackmail). Original map from Wikipedia (modified).
The goal is to recycle these countries into cheap labor zones for the Euro-Global Capital without these vampires losing a cent in the process. The 'problem' is that the plan may go awry and trigger a pan-European revolutionary process.
Maybe the level of popular organization is not yet high enough but, even if the Transnational Capital achieves its goals it can only be a temporary situation as the rage they will leave behind in some of the more privatized and less well-off states of EU, where people do already struggle to make ends meet, cannot really be contained in the mid run.
While the Greek spending spree may have been going on before the advent of the Global Crisis, in the rest of countries public spending has actually been a reaction, a much needed one, to this disintegration of the Capitalist World Order. Claiming that states have to cut spending in the midst of a general crisis is totally absurd: states must increase their spending to put up for the inability of the so-called "market economy" to generate jobs and salaries, which are after all the only ones that will generate demand for the beleaguered private companies, at least for most of them.
Cutting public acquisitive power is not an option, not even for German capitalists: it's a suicide.
If the European Bank must print more euros, so be it. If the euro has to be devaluated, that is not a problem but in fact good news for European companies, which would see their international competitivity improved greatly by such measure.
But EU institutions are not working for the good of the European common citizen (or should I say denizen?), EU institutions are only working for the good of some privileged elites and they don't care at all about the common European, not even about the common European small company. Only huge multinationals matter for them.
This situation obviously demands a regime change at EU level. A regime change that redefines EU as a social federation and not as a capitalist one, a regime change that establishes EU finally as a representative democracy and not a mere bureaucracy at the service of the transnational mafias.
It may take some time but it will be done. The only alternative is for EU to disintegrate completely and its various states (or fragments of states in some cases, as Spain for example is not going to survive this one in a piece, nor will the UK) let to fend off alone in the vast ocean full of sharks. That's not a realistic or at least desirable goal and it's something that goes against the common feeling of nowadays Europeans, for which a European union, this or another better one, is a default.
So the only alternative is pan-European revolution.
Let's do it, do you have a better plan for today, my dear unemployed bored and desperate reader?
_________
Note: you can read the declaration of a colleague of the dead bank workers blaming the deaths on the bank owners at Occupied London (in English) and Indymedia (original in Greek). Triggered by this tragic incident, the Greek bank workers are going to strike tomorrow even if the corporative guild forbids them to do so.
One one side he makes an analysis of the positions: the working class, the majority of the people wants some sort of radical change and is not willing to put up with the IMF-EU impositions that would cut pensions by even as much as 50%, among other Capitalist measures of the like of those imposed by Pinochet in Chile. The tamed labor unions and established "left" parties such as the Communist Party are just letting pressure go with limited demonstrations but don't seem willing to corner the "socialist" government and rather prefer to just pose the anger in the vague hope that the government will step back.
The problem is that the government cannot step back. After all social-democratic parties such as the PASOK are nothing but violin ones: supported by the left but played by the right. And making genuine left measures such as embargoing the debt and nationalizing companies and banks is well beyond their imagination and their real positioning.
Then Weston analyzes the opinion polls, which show that the PASOK is sinking but to the benefit of absolutely no other party: both the right (culprits of the ripoff and accomplices of the IMF-EU neocolonization) and the established left (the communist KKE and the 'new left' Syriza) remain static in vote intention. Here is where we come to know that 60% of voters would want 'a genuine left party' to vote for.
Easier say than done I guess but it's clear that there is popular demand, that the people is ready for such thing as a true socialist party that can face globalized Capitalism with some dignity for the good of the people.
The conditions are there: revolution is awaiting in Greece. How will it manifest.
PS- keep also an eye in neighboring Albania, where the right has rigged the elections bringing multitudes to protest in the streets of Tirana. We are now standing on a moment of uncertainty when everything becomes possible, except the old regime. It is impossible to predict how the situation will evolve locally and globally but we should expect many surprises and sudden twists. But of course expect growing discontent everywhere coalescing more or less rapidly into revolutionary options, which may eventually come to power.
It may be a realistic option considering the alternatives promoted by the FMI-EU tandem. Anyhow, after the BB+ rating by S&P it will not make much difference.
BBC reproduces a demonstrator's opinion, a bank worker's one to be more specific:
We should opt for bankruptcy. Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Wall Street, they lent us the money. (Far better) they lose their money and people don't lose their jobs.
But the case is: can small Greece, with only 10 million inhabitants and not so many natural resources other than sunny islands for turism survive alone? How?
I have little doubt that the Greek people have the organization to go in revolutionary spree. They may be the only ones in Europe in fact in such excellent revolutionary conditions. But, even if they succeed, what then?
A more realistic case may happen in Iberia, a far larger area and next on the list for catastrophic FMI-dictated austerity packages. Iberia does not have such a large well organized class struggle as of now but, in the case it would, it could indeed hold a very viable economically autonomous area (Spain alone is right now the 9th global economy by GNP, holding 2.5% of the World's GDP (nominal), almost half of Germany's). Even in the case of international ostracism it can find some economic space working with Latin America, largely a red zone already, for example. Geographically closer Arab countries such as Lybia and Syria are also potential partners for any ostracized Mediterranean power.
Of course, there are two problems:
One is the tight rope of the euro, which should be in fact the main problem to address at pan-European scale (from a liberal perspective), devaluating it significantly in order to boost exports, reduce imports and secure jobs and public services. The North European gang, lead by German Capital, is however getting too many benefits from this situation and unable to react fast enough to to protect the system they have created for their benefit. The fact that Germany exports mostly to EU countries says it all.
The other is military intervention. If anyone believes that the Empire is going to let countries leave without intervening, he/she is of course very wrong. The first line is indeed the local armies and police forces, normally with strong right wing, fascist-like tendencies. But they can succumb to popular pressure and nationalist feelings. They can indeed also be defeated by political ways or their intervention trigger organization of guerrillas and such. The second line is direct military intervention by NATO (with similar or even worse results).
Whatever the case, the foresight for the next years is drastic increase of class tensions and possibly revolutionary changes (or alternatively anachronistic, and hence doomed, fascist attempts) in Southern Europe (among other places: the oven is very hot everywhere).
This situation would be unthinkable just a couple of years ago but now it appears as almost unavoidable. Thank Goldman Sachs and the other global bankers for this.
Next the sight stops on other even more sizable countries: Italy, France, the UK... none of them too buoyant. A very bad scenario is also ripe for Eastern Europe (Latvia is the most outrageous case but the rest are not well off either) and even Northern Europe (Iceland could not scape the voragine either).
Sooner than later, Germany itself will have to face the consequences of this global disaster. Best would be to act at European level but the EU building is frail and patchy, undemocratic and controlled by the big corporations. It's not an instrument of change but of continuity.
However class organizations should coordinate and direct the fights at this level, as the state level is obviously too limited to produce results. So far workers in Greece, in Latvia, in the UK, in Italy... are fighting separate battles against the same enemy. This may help the collapse of EU but is not really an effective way of struggle. We should see masses of people striking at Madrid, Paris and Berlin in support of Greek workers... but it seems that this people's facet of Europe has yet to be created.
It will eventually because nowadays state governments are very much powerless and irrelevant, so the action has to be taken at pan-European levels, if not at global ones. But this stage has not yet arrived and hence it's easier to witness a collapse of EU than a pan-European revolution. Still I'd prefer the latter, strongly so, and I think it is the way to go.
Surely you have already read/watched/heard about the takeover of Kyrgyzstan by the opposition after some major clashes and of the growing and extremely daring pressure of the Red Shirtsin Thailand, who are in practice taking the capital in defiance of the state of emergency and even stormed Parliament yesterday.
These revolutions are reactions to poverty, nepotism, corruption and autocracy, of course. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, it seems to lack any effective revolutionary project (what may result in further instability), but it is not so clearly the case with the Thai Red Shirts movement.
Whatever the case, what is clear to me is that these revolutions (we'll see if the Red Shirts succeed but it looks rather likely) have geopolitical implications that we cannot ignore (besides our best wishes for dignity, justice and freedom for all): both countries are key US allies in Asia, hosting bases, and both are rather close to China.
In the Thai case, the implications are fairly clear: China supports Cambodia, which in turn supports the Red Shirts movement in a bid to fight from the inside its powerful and authoritarian Thai neighbor. In the Kyrgyz case the situation is slightly more complicated for the presence and interests of Russia, which stands between China and the Western bloc and also has a military base in the impoverished nation. Russia, naturally has denied any influence in the revolt but from the geopolitical viewpoint it cannot be ignored the recent developments in the former USSR region, all favorable to Russia (Georgia war, power shift in Ukraine). So it is difficult to say whether it's China or Russia or both the ones lurking behind the Kyrgyz revolution. In any case, it's not too favorable in principle to US interests, whose only base in Central Asia is precisely in that country.
Geopolitics apart, there is another lesson to be learnt in these revolutions: that a rotten autocratic government is a ripe fruit waiting to fall down, that revolutions can happen and do happen when the conditions are propitious. Whether these revolutions can solve the problems that caused them is another matter but certainly there is no such possibility if the causants of misery and oppression remain in charge.
In a still obscure incident, the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) has arrested German-Basque internationalist activist Walter Wendelin at his arrival to Caracas.
Walter Wendelin, who has German nationality but is member of Basque internationalist movement Askapena (Freedom), arrived to Venezuela from Mexico, where he had taken part in the congress of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). According to Solidaridad Pueblo Vasco (Solidarity Basque People) his journey to Venezuela was meant to explain the new proposals of the Basque Nationalist Left.
Walter Wendelin
According to the Venezuelan Association of Friends of the Basque Country, Wendelin has not been allowed access to an attorney and has been filtered that "he will be returned to Spain", what they protest that make no sense because he has never been charged with any offense in the European kingdom.
A demonstration has been called for tomorrow at the consulate of Venezuela in Bilbao.
This arbitrary arrest may be related to the pressure put by the Spanish regime upon Venezuela, with judges and media attacking the American republic on false grounds of collaboration with ETA and FARC.
PSUV leader resigns
In a mostly unrelated episode, Venezuela Analysis reports that the former vice-president of the ruling Socialist Unified Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Alberto Muller Rojas, has resigned from politics. His advanced age and delicate health partly explain the resignation but Muller also mentioned that in the last three months the revolutionary process in Venezuela has been wretched, "everything that is going on isn't healthy for the revolutionary process". He said that the PSUV is infiltrated by the bourgeoisie and that the government is turning away from internationalism and heading towards "petty bourgeois nationalism".
Alberto Muller said some time ago to Hugo Chávez that he sits on a scorpions' nest.
That is the impression I had in the past, as it is easy for me to compare the Iran of the ayatolahs with Franco's Spain. The totalitarian military-religious regime of Franco led to a Spain that massively deserted from religion and the army too. The reputation of such institutions has not recovered in 35 years.
Discussing with Iranians online, when this was still possible (they might be dead or imprisoned now for that, I have no way of telling), I also got that impression clearly: that Islam was not anymore a real force in Iran and that the young generation was uninterested or rather disdainful of religion. Some flirted with Zoroastrism (specially exiles in the very religious context of North America) but I don't really think it is any alternative.
But what has really confirmed me in that belief is reading to Eastern Kurdish activist Rahim Kaderi today at Gara with occasion of his visit to our little and similarly oppressed country:
... consider please that 70% of Iranians are now younger than 35 years. We knew from long ago that this was a time bomb for the regime but it is now when it is exploding. Imams have been complaining from some time now that the young ones do not go to the mosques. From being the "generation of the Revolution" that the theocracy hoped for, they have become in something radically opposed to the official religious and militaristic ideology. I understand that this is one of the main reasons behind the revolts and not the so much denounced "Western interference", which Teheran clings to stubbornly.
I don't think that it is an spontaneous revolt either because I see it as a very well organized movement, though I could not say who is behind. The West is only concerned about the Persian nuclear race, not human rights in Iran.
He is also hopeful that the political way will produce changes in Turkey. Not because it is what Turkey wishes for but because it will be reality which imposes itself: the reality of the existence of the Kurdish People.
Now and then seems wise to recall why poverty exists and is perpetuated in spite of the overproduction we have, including many countries that pay farmers to produce less, not more.
Vicenç Navarro picks one of the poorest countries in the world, Bangla Desh, as case study. Why is Bangla Desh poor? Does it not produce enough food? It does and even exports it because their inhabitants don't have enough money to pay for it. The crucial problem, like elsewhere, is that wealth is concentrated in very few hands: 16% of rural Bangladeshis own 75% of the land and this olygarchy rules the country (75% of parliament members own huge land swaths). These have absolutely no interest in redistributing even a fraction of that wealthin order to increase the internal demand: they are just interested in perpetuating their power and wealth.
So constitutionally land redistribution, what is just a self-evident need in order to create a "middle class" that can drive demand and serve as backbone of the country's sociology, is just illegal. No matter who wins in the polls (the usual clone-party pseudo-democratic regime, with the occasional military intervention), nothing can change. Only a violent revolution can in fact change things in such a country but the odds are against it and keeping people semi-illiterate and ignorant, and stranded in religious false promises, helps the olygarchy to perpetuate the status quo.
This is of course not just the case of Bangla Desh but of so many other countries through the world, in dire need of a revolution with some blood and specially some good wealth redistribution. And this applies, in my opinion, also to supposedly wealthy countries like the USA, that are in dire need of some wealth redistribution too. By the moment, all they got is further taxes to pay the bankers who suck their blood. Why not put them in jail, as they deserve? .
The final and much awaited return of President Zelaya to Tegucigalpa has indeed caused an increase of the popular revolt, with thousands defying the curfew to support their legitimate President at the Brazilian embassy. The usurpers can probably feel by now the end of their illegal and widely delegitimized (inside and outside) regime coming to an end and are going even more violent.
The armed forces bloodily quelled the popular demonstration at the Brailian embassy, with at least 20 injured and strong rumors of several killed and have also gone wild in the poor neighbourhoods of the capital, throwing tear gas inside homes with newborns inside and who knows what (the information is not yet too precise).
According to journalist Tim Russo, this doesn't look good; repression will only make people even angrier with Micheletti and the National Police.
The coupist regime has cut water and electricity to the Brazilian embassy, where at least some 20 supporters of Zelaya have entered, and seems to be preparing a long siege. What is not clear is if they will themselves withstand the siege that the Honduran people has estabilished on them.
The legitimate President of Honduras, Manuel 'Mel' Zelaya, has finally managed to return to the country's capital, Tegucigalpa, and is refuged in the Brazilian embassy.
This new step promises to heat up the protests in the Central American country, where the situation has been very tense, with continuous clashes between the people and the coupist authorities in what some have described as a revolutionary situation.
The news are still confuse but it seems that masses are gathering around the Brazilian embassy to welcome and support the President. I can only imagine that soon the coupists will have to flee the country or at least negotiate a return to legality, but guess that violence can ensue and the outcome is not fully clear yet.
It seems that the coupists have less support than they would like, other than the wealthy elite. The situation remains very tense with continuous riots.
Admittedly I had never heard before of this Argentine economist with cathedra in Besançon but his opinions fit surprisingly well with what I think, so I will try to echo some of his thoughts.
Under the appearence of a curious convergence of many "crisis" (economical, energetic, enviromental, state, urban, etc.) what is actually happening is a general crisis of the burgeueoise civilization. In its immediate origin we find a chronic overproduction crisis lasting for almost four decades (...). Even if this chronic overproduction crisis appears as the trigger, the final catalyst of this civilizational crisis, we must clearly differentiate both concepts. (...) It happens that each historical overproduction crisis left open injuries, structural damage, parasitary degenerations (...) that at the beginning of the 21st century are finally causing a "general subproduction crisis": the general incapability of the system to reproduce itself in an expanded manner anymore, to keep growing in the long term.
We are now going through the beginning of the end of a long historical transit (...). In principle we would be at the beginning of a long-lasting crisis-decadence but this is not more than a work hypothesis: History often turns out unexpected.
Financial bubble:
The global network of real state bubbles was evaluated in dossier at The Economist around 2005, soon before the debacle in the USA, as equivalent to the Gross Product of all rich countries together. This is a lot but it is littile when compared with the sum of derived financial products registered by the Bank of Basel that same year that were an speculative mountain worth 12 times the World Gross Product.
(...) they believed that the colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would give them the control of a vast Eurasiatic zone stretching from the Balcans to Afghanistan, at whose core, the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea basins, are located about 70% of the global oil reserves. (...) This imperialist offensive was pushed by the Military-Industrial Complex (...). Since Reagan's presidency it became entangled with parasitary and predatory business (...) conforming an oligarchic and mafious system that nowadays constitutes the backbone of the imperial power. All that was expressed in an almost caricaturesque manner by the government of George W. Bush and his hawks, now Obama, in spite of his populist gestures, is just a puppet of that highly irrational power whose dynamics push the system towards disaster. The new president (...) is more of the same: militarist business continue their triumphant march generating a fiscal deficit without precedents in US history whose continuation could even cause the bankrupticy of the imperial state in the mid term.
Senility crisis:
It is necesary to look before 1930: this crisis is much bigger even if we just ponder the financial-economical aspects. Never before in the history of Capitalism was such a huge speculative mass accumulated at all, not just in absolute terms but especially when compared with the World Gross Product. Capitalism today is a mere predatory-parasitary system and that sets an essential qualitative difference with the past. (...)
Never before did Capitalism suffer from such a huge crisis, which looks like the inverse phenomenon to the birth crisis of the modern system at the end of the 18th century (...). Now we face a senility crisis of the burgueoise world, with its economical system trapped in financial parasitism, with its imperial Military-Industrial Complex transformed in a decadent machine, its state structures degradated, etc.
China:
The talk about a "Chinese capitalist superpower of the 21st century" has been nothing but a mediatic hype that recycled the old and always failed illussion of reconversion of underdevelopement into develepoment thanks to the intensification of the burgueoise type transformations. Chinese growth, subordinated to the dynamics of global Capitalism, has arrived to its stagnation stage. (...) sooner or later, and it seems it will be very soon, the once prosperous Chinese industrial structure will enter in a deep crisis that will question in a very general manner the overall status quo.
Prospects:
Capitalism can survive but in a decadent manner, like has been doing for the last four decades. That will depend on the social and political convulsions caused by its decline (...). The neo-fascist coup attempt of the hawks does not need to be the last one of its kind: the US Industrial-Military Complex is suffering a severe cultural crisis: its internal prestige has declined but still has the instruments to generate a new reactionary alternative. This is a very serious possibility.
(...) The only thing they can do is to apply succesive doses of tranquilizers, of partial remedies, insufficient measures in wait of some miracle, that is what doctors usually do with their ailing patients.
Comparison with the fall of the Soviet Union:
It is a very good comparison, that we can extend to many other pre-modern civilizations, consumed by parasitism and that finally imploded.
Enviromental crisis:
Enviromental degradation is at the very center of the current civilization crisis: it is tightly associated to the process of predation of natural resources (...) whose ultimate cause is found in technological reproduction of Capitalism. This one has followed a trajectory of some two centuries of creative destruction-predation in the Shumpeterian sense of the concept, that is: with a positive net result from the viewpoint of the expansion of the productive forces... until it has arrived now to a phase of growingly negative redits in civilizational terms, including the enviromental aspect. (...)
Enviromental degradation is not a long term problem, a problem for the generations to come in a distant future: it is hitting now the economic activity, rural and urban life. Those who want to leave the matter aside in the name of economic urgencies have a very abstract vision, very detached from factual reality, from the problems of a possible reproductive reorganization, from the necessary energetic reconversion, etc.
How the Left should act:
We are right now immersed in the Capitalist crisis that looks as of long duration and without foreseable exit. Turbulences have just begun (...). In this new context, the Left should go into the offensive rapidly, developing a wide fan of struggles aiming to power. Gather the anti-system forces, de-estabilize the existing power systems, reduce their social legitimacy, make efforst of social and regional convergence.
It is very difficult, almost impossible, to outline a general project for all the left movements around the planet. Nevertheless we can find some common elements: for instance, political democratization at all levels, fracturing the elitist dynamics that defined the neoliberal era: grassroots democracy versus burgeuoise pseudodemocracy. And, beginning from that, recycling of the productive web: of finances, of internal and external trade, etc. That implies nationalizations (...), not to serve the interests of the elites but to transform them into truly public, that is: democratic, with strong imprints of self-management, of administrative transparency, of popular control. It is necessary to deal with the social redesign of economy: redefine consume styles based on quality and durability, rejecting the consumerist dehumanizing, individualist madness. Consume to live and not live to consume. This kind of approach would allow us to adress rationally the energetic issue: facilitating a reconversion that will take some time and that should go through huge energy savings. It should also allow for the developement of strategies of reconstruction in the enviromental aspect.
Socialism:
The way out of the crisis that I have just outlined is nothing else but a march to Socialism. But what should we understand today as Socialism? Certainly not the kind of statist Socialism experimented through the 20th century, prisioner of a decisive ideological dependency from the military-industrial burgueois statism in rise since the end of the 19th century. (...)
Now it is all changing very quickly: the burgueoise civilization drifts without direction, its great myths are beginning to collapse (...). Consequently Socialism today should adopt much more radical, revolutionary and democratic shapes than in the past (...)
The emancipation movement must be thought and tried from clearly Communist final goals (...). Socialism concieved as plural path, as process of creative destruction, of institutional breakages, demolitions that allow for the instauration of solidarious, fraternal social structures of production and consume, not anymore as humanist complement of Capitalism but as its revolutionary superation: estabilishing decentralized political structures, incrementing, multiplying direct democracy. Much of that can be found in the revolutioanry movements of Latin America, though I am persuaded it is not just a regional exception.
Marx:
(...) We are indeed returning to Marx: to critical thought rooted on the rebellion of the exploited, irreconciliable enemy of conformism, of pseudo realist adaptation to what conservatives define as "possible". To the true Marx, not to parrot him but surely to march beyond him. To the Marx without dogmatic ties, to the irreverent Marx, who wrote "I am not Marxist", rejecting that way to become a provider of infallible recipes and eternal truths.
Marx' ideas are necessary, unavoidable when we try to understand the current crisis, but they are also not enough. (...) when we try to understand the much more vast challenge of the civilization crisis, we lean on Marx to advance beyond his cultural universe. (...)
Banners, slogans:
(...) in the last decades we have been smashed by a conservative conformist avalanch that has no precedents in modern history because of its dimensions. It has been less than one decade that a slogan, which we would have laughed upon in the 60s and 70s because of its coyness, became rather popular: "another world is possible". We must begin thinking in terms of "revolution", "socialism", "postcapitalism", not as audacious ideas to share with some friends but as banners for action destinied to the great popular majorities. .
It's time to commemorate modern revolutions: today it's the 50th anniversary of the success of the Cuban Revolution, that created the only Leninist system still standing (Vietnam and China have surrendered to Capitalism, even if keeping the red banner by the moment, while Russia has become markedly fascist). Today is also the 15th anniversary of the Zapatista armed uprising in the Maya highlands of southern Mexico, a revolt that lightened the hearts of so many after the catastrophic failure of the rerform (Perestroika) in the Soviet Union.
After 50 years of revolution and blockade, Cuba has many challenges ahead but can proudly state that nobody suffers hunger, that everybody has free healthcare and, maybe more importantly, that every single Cuban citizen is well educated. It can also stand proudly of having resisted ll this time such a powerful neighbour and declared enemy as the USA.
In Mexico the process is still unfolding, the revolution still has to be done... but, as the country descends into the abyss of illegitimate governments, extreme corruption, organized crime and an economic alliance with the USA that brings nothing but greater poverty and abuses, the autonomous Zapatista region stands as the only light in such darkness, resisting quite incredibly the siege imposed by the conservative government.
Overall, around the world, the socio-economical siuation is clearly worsening, what is certainly bad news but also offers the opportunity to escape the illusion of unsustainable consumerism/productivism and of people becoming gradually more and more aware of the real problem: Caitalism and it's ficticious economy of scam, bubble and fraud, only intended to concentrate wealth and power in few hands. Even with the many shortcomings, today most people in the world can read and write, what means they can become aware and eventually arise with some knowledge of what is going on.
The time has not yet come maybe but it's approaching.
Happy New Revolutionary Year. Humankind shall prevail over the parasites within itself.
Now that another year comes formaly to an end, one may happen to ask, or even just accidentally stumble as I did, where were we 10 or 20 years ago, more or less. Not sure about you but these two images tell me where I was and that we made some difference by not being just passive sheep: .
The one above has no date but I'm pretty sure is like 18 years ago, more or less. The people who are occupying the tank (blocking a military parade or maneouvre in Gasteiz, what eventually took the tanks out from the streets) belonged to the same organization I was in. I can perfectly recognize the one facing the camera. I was not in that one but were in others... .
This one instead has a date and is like 12 years ago, center of Bilbao. Again I can recognize one of the main actors, a very outgoing and militant man. Homosexuality was, as you can see already more or less normalized by then - though there's always someone looking odd.
Nothing was like that when I was born, or even when I was a teen ager... we made a difference. We got the once arrogant army hiding into their barracks, we got the bishops to see their churches empty, we got ties and formal adresses very much supressed, we got informal sexuality to be much more common and accepted everywhere...
It is possible to make a difference. You just have to be right, get organized and persist. Things change... a lot. What you see now was made, is made, by people like you and me. For good or bad we are the actors of this story: we are the ones that make things happen.
__________________________
Images borrowed from this quite interesting collection of covers and content from the historical Basque Autonomist magazine Resiste. Now continued in electronic format as Eutsi(name that then was used for monographic issues only). .
Watching the news (example) and all seems eclipsed by the events in Greece: after three days, riots persist with full force. And are not anymore limited to the largest cities.
I can't but express my admiration for the Greek people and the antiauthoritarian faction within it, surely one of the strongest and best organized in all Europe. It brings me memories of the riots of 1991, that happened when I was visiting Thessalonikí (though the action was then all in Athens), but what really encourages me of all this is to see that after 17 years the capability of Greek antiauthritarians to challenge the system has not diminished at all. While it's probably not probably the moment yet, I must say that this is the substance of which revolutions are made and that I am really glad that somewhere in Europe there seems still to be such a strong class conscience and people power to resist Liberalism.
Maybe the most interesting stuff is on why these riots: obviously the trigger was the murder of a student by the police (not the first one certainly) but, as they mention at Nodo50, this is not something that 100 anarchists can set up, it implies widespread anger and frustration among huge sectors of the population. There's a major general strike called for next Wesdnesday and the speculation is that the riots won't settle before that day in the best case; the strike itself is an outburst of massive discontent, specially on light of new Liberal measures imposed by Brussels, like allowing private universities or privatizing certain airlines. Also another element appears to be the rise of the far right, whose combat squads recently killed a Pakistani bringing anarchists to clash with them in the streets of Athens. One of the triggers was precisely solidarity with 15 immigrants who are on advanced hunger strike demanding civil rights.
And certainly one of the most direct triggers was the policial challenge, who took up the Athenian neighbourhood of Eskarja, context in which the cold blood murder of a young anarchist happened.
There's also an interesting meditation by Kilnamen in Nodo50, where s/he compares the somewhat pitiful situation of Iberian anarchism, almost unable to react to a similar cold blood murder some months ago, and the admirable health of Greek antiauthoritarians or even the recent Italian uprising in a similar context. The author calls for a more direct approach of confrontation on daily basis and less factionalism to feed up again the Iberian libertarian movement and the much needed hope of revolution.
Found at SINC (in Spanish). Originally from the magazine Enviroment and Urbanization - author: David Satterthwaite, from the International Insitute for Enviroment and Developement.
Cities are not guilty of 80% of greenhouse gas emisions, just of 40%. The rest is divided between agriculture and deforestation (30%) and industry, rural affluent homes and electric centrals. The article ponders who are the consumers that demand so much electricity and products and it seems most of them are also a few wealthy people with wasteful lifestyles.
So, yeah, ecology and socialism go hand by hand. Let's sharpen the guillotine again... and get rid of two problems at once.
Very few people have like Che Guevara personified the dreams of the late 20th century but the social perception of his figure is mostly split between the idealization of his figure as active revolutionary and its trivialization as mere merchandise. Néstor Kohen at La Haine, reividicates the Argentinan revolutionary leader as much more than a man of action, military leader and popular icon. The hidden face of el Che is that of a deep, well formed and visionary political thinker.
Something I did not know and that will probably surprise most readers was that, in 1965, he predicted the return of the Soviet Union to capitalism. It is his extense book Apuntes Críticos de Economía Política (Critical Notes on Political Economy).
Another advanced idea of Che was that workers needed something more than their salaries to become ethusiastic about their jobs. Similar ideas developed in Japan years later were to create what has become the paradigm of the third stage of Capitalism (toyotism, or in Marx' terms: the total subsumption of work into capital) .
Che's writings are very extensive and largely unknown (except his diaries maybe). A selection of Guevara's texts in English can be found at marxists.org and (in Spanish) at amauta.lahaine.org. His books have been mostly published by Ocean Press and can be found here at pretty reasonable prices (some works in English, others in Spanish).
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Trotsky and US trotskyists in Mexico, 1940, soon before his death
