Il Partito Comunista 307

The Iraqi Working Class and the Various Guises of its Bourgeois Enemy

Sixteen months ago, the United States, aided by Great Britain, invaded Iraq. Then they were joined by lesser bourgeoisies, including Italy, who though of the second, third and fourth order proved to be no less criminal, cynical and bloodthirsty. Indeed if anything their hypocrisy was even more disgusting.

The reasons given for the war were entirely spurious: the Iraqi regime was portrayed as a danger to the entire ‘International community’ because of its arsenal of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, which were later shown not to exist, and its links with, and the fact it was supposedly harbouring – again, never proved – the increasingly mysterious Al Qaeda ‘terrorist’ organisation.

The real reasons for the invasion lay elsewhere, in the competition between the imperialist powers: of much more importance was to occupy an area which was both of strategic importance and one of the foremost producers of oil, so that the economies of the biggest global blocs – China, Japan, India and Europe – could be put under pressure. The present oscillations in the price of crude oil show the operation to have been successful.

The entire country was occupied within the space of a few weeks, both due to the superiority of the forces deployed by the Anglo-American alliance, and – and possibly this is the main reason – because the Iraqi army, much larger though it was, deserted en masse. Quite rightly these proletarians in uniform didn’t see why they should make even a minimum sacrifice in the interests of their bourgeoisie and their national State, let alone get killed: they knew then, and they know now, that they have nothing to gain from any ‘victory’ by their country.

For the occupiers, the trouble started after the ignominious collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime. Holding on to the territory has proved to be an extremely costly exercise for the troops of the Western coalition. Even with a presence of around 200,000 men it hasn’t managed to carry out its work of ‘pacification’. Soon the number of Western soldiers killed by a well-equipped guerrilla force, due partly to the large quantity of easily arms left lying around after the war, would far exceed the number of military personnel killed during the invasion.

The parties of the ‘left’ (not just Rifondazione in Italy but everywhere, including groups which claim to be part of the communist tradition) consider the action of the armed bands sacrosanct and exalt the gesture of ‘resistance’ against the occupation; they incite the global proletariat to sympathise with the proletariat in Iraq and support it, in the name of Iraqi national independence, Democracy, Liberty…

Genuine communism cannot but oppose this tragically mistaken perspective.

The Iraqi proletariat – which boasts a long tradition of trade-unionism and social struggle – is certainly capable of seeing through those who talk of ‘Liberty’ whilst simultaneously dropping ‘smart-bombs’ on the civilian population.

Their worst fears about the intentions of the ‘liberators’ have been confirmed by the first few months of occupation. The disruption caused by the war has further damaged the economy of the country, and it is the unemployed, now hugely increased in number, who are going to have to pay the cost. The dissolution of the army, and the sacking of the enormous bureaucracy linked to the old regime, has caused tens of thousands of additional families, suddenly without income, to face the prospect of poverty and starvation. The targeted devastation and looting, hitting a country impoverished by more than ten years of sanctions and by the preceding wars, is causing serious discomfort to the general population, deprived of electric power and finding it difficult to obtain water, and even petrol. On the other hand, the administration of the occupiers has spent virtually nothing on getting the basic infrastructures up and running again, still serviceable and efficient but which it means to ‘reconstruct’.

As well as the armed battles between the forces of the coalition and their puppet government on the one side, and the guerrilla bands on the other, both sides are using the strategy of terrorism against the general population. As well as being subjected to searches and indiscriminate arrests it is the civilian population, the proletariat and the urban masses, which is most affected by the heavy reprisals which are the inevitable consequence of this strategy.

The denunciation of the sad effects of the military occupation on the Iraqi proletariat is naturally more than justified. The Iraqi government, a direct expression of the occupiers, headed by Allawi, the ex-CIA agent, has shown the workers that it is no better than Saddam Hussein’s. And the Iraqi proletariat knows that very little will change even when the government of the country issues from a parliament which has been elected after formal, multi-party, democratic political elections.

The fact of the matter is that in Iraq a war is being fought between the various imperialist powers to divide up the loot, from theft of the petrol revenue to the ‘awarding’ of lucrative ‘reconstruction’ contracts. The cowardly and impotent Iraqi bourgeoisie gets along by supporting one imperialism here, another imperialism there, and, if possible, more than one at the same time. It is Baathist and it is anti-Baathist, it is lay and it is Islamic, it is democratic and it is fundamentalist.

What is really at issue is the ‘right’ to exploit the Iraqi proletariat. Therefore, for the Iraqi proletariat, the struggle against the military occupation is in itself an objective of no significance: it is a blind alley down which they want to push the proletariat to distract it from its immediate economic interests, in order to subject it, terrorise it and use it as cannon fodder in their dirty, reactionary bourgeois games.

The Iraqi State – totally bourgeois despite being an American puppet – is condemned by the oil locked within its subsoil to remain firmly in the sights of the major global capitalist powers. After the departure of British troops from the country in 1956 its independence has been merely formal, apart maybe from the brief few years in which a young nationalist bourgeoisie attempted to attain a relative autonomy by taking advantage of the divergences between the blocs in the ‘Cold War’ period.

The Islamic clerics are not an alternative to the bourgeois regime but rather serve as cover for it; their fiery invective serves merely to hide their collusion with the dominant economic forces and the secret chanceries of the imperialist countries.

If the proletariat in the West had been less corrupted by decades of opportunism, it would be putting the struggle against militarism, against war, and against the occupation of other countries at the top of its list of priorities and it would be denouncing the imperialist lies of its own bourgeoisie. It would be denouncing the fact that even in the aggressor, interventionist countries it is the class of workers who end up paying the material costs of the war.

Equally, the Iraqi proletariat would be steering clear of collaborating with bourgeois movements, which we won’t even dignify with the name of ‘nationalist’ – whose anti-proletarian ferocity has been demonstrated again and again precisely in Iraq.

War between bourgeois States destroys solidarity amongst proletarians, sent to the fronts to slit each others throats, but not solidarity between the opposing bourgeoisies who will always place their common class interests, and the preservation of their domination over the working class, over the national interest.

An example of such bourgeois solidarity occurred in Iraq in 1991. Following their defeat in the war against Kuwait, thousands of Iraqi soldiers in the South and the North turned their weapons against the hated regime which had for so long been sending them off to be massacred, and they would find support for their revolt amongst the proletariat. The American battalions who were going up against Baghdad would stop their offensive, cease their bombardment of divisions of the Republican Guard, loyal to Saddam, and support the repression of the revolt. The bloodthirsty Saddam Hussein saved his position, and his skin, precisely because he was held to be indispensable to ensure both social peace in Iraq, and the interests of the western powers.

The war currently in progress is another act in this same drama with the same actors. It is why the Iraqi workers must denounce the present war as well, from both sides. The war may be happening in Iraq, but more and more it is taking on the characteristics of a preparation for a generalised third world war, that is: an imperialist, anti-proletarian conflict.

The Iraqi ‘resistance’ represents one of the fronts on which a part of the bourgeoisie is lined up, supported more or less explicitly by a coalition of States opposed to United States hegemony. Communists and the Iraqi and international working class shouldn’t align with either one of them, but rather oppose them both.

In any case, given the instability of the current political and social situation, which is skilfully manipulated from both inside and outside the country, a sudden withdrawal of the occupying troops from Iraq wouldn’t improve the situation of the impoverished masses one bit. The Americans leaving would be of no advantage to the Iraqi working class since they would find themselves being squeezed in an even worse way by an openly Islamic regime, as in Iran, or in a totally arbitrary way, as in Somalia. Behind the apparent chaos they would still both have the national bourgeoisie, in whatever guise, on their backs, and remain in the clutches of the imperialist robbers.

The outlook for the proletariat in Iraq today, same as in all other countries, has be something other than that. The Iraqi working class must defend its own interests and organise itself separately in strong trade unions, and indeed it is already fighting an extremely courageous battle to do precisely that.

On the political level it is necessary for the proletariat to reconstitute its international party on the basis of the original, unabridged Marxist communist programme. A party which will have drawn all the lessons of the Stalinist counter-revolution and its terrible effect on our movement both in the industrialised countries and in those areas which reached the stage of modern capitalism later. Only when equipped with such a party, and solidly linked to it, will it be possible for the working class to emerge victorious.

The task of the International Communist Party today, whilst remaining in a state of almost total isolation, is to firmly uphold these cardinal points of communism.

The Terrorist Attack in Madrid

In this issue we are publishing a short note concerning the bloody and murderous terrorist attack on March 11 against a train in Madrid.

Reaching us today comes news from Ossetia about yet another analogous terrorist act, described by the loudhailers of the opposing bourgeois regimes as one more episode in the struggle, as inexplicable as it is ‘inevitable’, between different ‘civilizations’, religions, and races. Meanwhile, many of the more authoritative amongst them reiterate, with ill-concealed satisfaction, that ‘it signals the start of the Third World War’, due to an ‘aggressive act’ which ‘everybody’ will be ‘forced’ to ‘defend themselves’ against.

Ossetia obliges us once again to point out that the victims of ‘terrorism’ are proletarians and proletarians alone. As always, the instigators of such actions have carefully avoided attacking the symbols, personnel, and apparatus of those States which have declared themselves to be, in words, their ‘enemies’.

On the other hand, ‘our side’, the military forces of ‘those who have been attacked’, don’t think twice about helping the ‘fanatical Islamists’ to crush any proletarians unfortunate enough to be caught, literally, between the two competing sets of homicidal maniacs. In Ossetia so it is in Iraq and in Palestine: the ‘terrorism’ which never declares itself behind any political programme or social group is always useful as propaganda for capitalist militarism; useful to the Putins and the bearded Chechins, to the Bush-Bin Laden gang, to the old accomplices, complementing and collaborating with one another, Sharon-Arafat.

It’s true: it is a war. It is their war. A general war against the global working class to draw them way from their own struggles and their own organisation; against that same working class which, where-ever it may be found, in the North and the South, Europe and the Middle East, in the USA, Russia and Asia, is objectively the only really important, powerful and irresistible enemy of this putrefying and murderous society.

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The number of civilian casualties caused by large-scale capitalist armed conflicts has gradually risen as capital extends its mercantile laws throughout the planet, constantly perfecting its means of production, and destruction. This is shown by comparing the number of civilian casualties in the Franco-Prussian War (the first imperialist conflict in Europe between fully capitalist states) with those in the First and Second World Wars. And the effect on the population of the so-called ‘minor conflicts’, which have raged uninterrupted since the surrender of the Axis troops in 1945, also needs to be taken into consideration.

Since for Capital the proletariat is simply a commodity, to be suppressed whenever necessary, it is highly probable that future inter-imperialist conflicts will find the mass of the civilian population, that is the proletariat, defenceless and incapable of responding. Such has been the case in the recent Balkan Wars, in Africa and, by means of terrorism, as we know only too well, in Spain,.

The terrorist attacks of March last year in Madrid must be considered as a machination by those who are used by the various bourgeois States to attain their ends by clandestine means; and those organisations which make of terrorism their modus operandi lend themselves very well to this type of activity due to their secretive character. There is practically no organisation of this type, anywhere, which doesn’t maintain, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, some kind of link with one state apparatus or another.

Low cost, high impact Terrorist attacks are the ideal as far as this criminally capitalist logic is concerned. Thus it is that the trains on the outskirts of Madrid, which were packed with workers during the rush hour, were the perfect target. The explosives, which were obtained through a criminal/police informer, were placed in the trains in rucksacks with the sleeping victims totally oblivious of their deadly contents. The bombs were packed with grapeshot to cause the maximum number of casualties and exploded with the outcome we all know.

That it was an attack against our class there can be no doubt. It wasn’t an attack against Spaniards, since many of the victims, both dead and wounded, were of other nationalities, and nor was it an attack against Christianity as that meddling priest Rouco Varela has implied. The only factor common to all the victims was their shared condition of being workers; wage slaves who have to procure their sustenance by travelling often hundreds of miles a day in order to work long hours for little pay.

In those moments, Madrid returned to being the martyred city it was in the far off days of the Civil War, when fascist bombardments would accompany the daily activities of its working inhabitants. Even back in those days it was the working class districts which were the hardest hit, by the Francoist artillery and air bombardments. And, as happened then and as so often happens amongst humble folk in moments of adversity, a spirit of solidarity emerged: that characteristic of the human species which has stayed with us from the time of tribal communism through to the horrible class society of today. In a totally spontaneous way, everything that could be done, was done. Some gave First Aid to the wounded in the zone of the tragedy, others, in their thousands, gave blood to staunch this enormous haemorrhage suffered by the working class of Madrid and the world. Fleeting gestures these, certainly, but significant insofar as they serve to remind us that the spirit of communism hasn’t been entirely extinguished, after thousands of years of class society founded on inequality and exploitation of man by man. These are instincts which help to reinforce our faith in the revolution, and as a consequence of the historical dialectic, a society without classes.

Later, after the emotion, came reflection. Who was responsible for this terrorist attack? What motivated them to do it?

Given that we can only move in the realm of conjecture and in light of the outcome, we may hypothesise that the aim was to re-orientate Spanish foreign policy, this time utilising so-called Islamic terrorism.

Occurring a few days before the general elections, the terrorist attacks were bound to have a decisive effect on their outcome, a fact borne firmly in mind by the bourgeois PP government from the very beginning. Hence the pathetic efforts to blame ETA, and thus allay suspicion that it was in fact an Islamic reprisal for the support given by Spain to the United States in the invasion of Iraq. We are left with the impression that the PSOE achieved an election victory which was unexpected, and in a certain sense, not really wished for, given the PSOE’s prudent silence before the attack and its previous lack of criticism of the government’s lies.

And it would be these same lies and the shameless manipulation of the facts before the elections which would propel thousands of people, on the night before the elections, onto the streets. That the aim of most of these people was nothing other than bringing about the fall of the PP government would be confirmed by the victory of the PSOE, which in fact had tried to stop any demonstrations. However, this was no ‘mass action’ of major importance as some would cheerfully maintain. In reality what occurred, entirely compatible with democratic norms, was simply a transfer of the reins of the Spanish State from one bourgeois party to another. As a consequence, since there is nothing strange in the PSOE profiting from an opportunity offered to it on a plate, we are now witnessing rhetorical embellishments which Aznar’s ‘further to the right’ government would have been incapable of pronouncing: that is, greater links with European rather than with United States imperialism, liberalisation of the laws governing abortion, but not immediately, the making of the teaching of religion in schools optional rather than obligatory; and it might end up with equal rights for homosexual couples, but that will be that. As regards what is really important, the laws on work and political economy, everything will stay the same; or rather that will depend on the level of combativity of the working class, which has currently reached an all time low in Spain as elsewhere.

To sum up: yet again proletarian blood has been spilled in the name of aims which are not its own, but those of its class enemies. We honour our fallen, and we continue our fight against this abominable society.

Terrorist Attacks in London

In the early hours of July 7, three bomb explosions on the London Underground and one on a double-decker bus announced the latest round of terrorist attacks.

By Saturday the number of confirmed deaths had reached 49, with further victims still trapped in the wreckage. For the most part the victims were workers, tragically cut down as they fought their way through the rush hour, but the entirely random nature of these bomb attacks meant that members of all classes, and all races, fell victim to these attacks.

The self-sacrifice and heroism which ‘ordinary people’ exhibited in the aftermath of these events was, as is usual on such occasions, startling and impressive; but it was not long before such community spirit would be harnessed to a sense of national, rather than class identity – soon we were informed the bombs had been planted by… foreign terrorists; and it would not be long before reports were coming in of attacks on Muslims, and even on groups such as Sikhs not remotely connected with the prime suspects, al-qu’ida.

What is truly disgusting is that the English establishment is now parading the broken bodies, and the grieving relatives, in order to redound to its own credit. It postures as the protector of the community, the guardian of so-called Western virtues against all those backward, barbarous foreigners who know nothing of freedom and democracy and who need to be ‘taught’ such values.

And indeed just such a lesson did the British establishment, in its capacity as junior partner to American Imperialism, recently impart to the Iraqi proletariat. Here, the latter were supposed to learn that 100,000 lost lives were a small price to pay if a dictatorship were to be overthrown; even if it was a dictatorship installed by their liberators in the first place!

But if the recent terrorist attacks were in some way meant to avenge the imperialist invasion, then clearly they were not a class response, but rather one pandering to one or another of the national interests in the Middle East; exactly whose, it is still not clear, and probably it never will be.

All wars that aren’t class wars are wars against the working class. Both the terrorist attacks of isolated groups, who by circuitous routes are generally linked to some state interest or other in any case, and the officially sanctioned State terrorist attacks, like the invasion of Iraq, leave proletarians dead and dying on the battlefield.

Capitalism is in its period of senile decay. It is a system which is unable to resolve any of the problems it has given rise to, and can only perpetuate itself by an unceasing succession of large and small wars whose main aim is destruction: only through destruction can the different capitalist factions make room for themselves and their commodities in the increasingly congested global market place.

In peace and in war, and when the two phases become increasingly indistinguishable as during the London bombings, the proletariat must seek to retain its identity as a class for itself; an international class with a world yet to win.

If we now condemn the terrorist attacks in London which have so cruelly destroyed so many lives, including those of Muslims, and taken them in such a pointless way; if we feel for the countless grieving friends and relatives, we condemn equally the capitalist state which steps forth as the defender of ‘order’ in the face of these attacks; a state whose collusion with terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland (another area where the difference between peace and war is difficult to discern) is not seriously in doubt, and whose participation in countless acts of officially sanctioned State Terror, the latest of which in Iraq, has ruined countless more proletarian lives.

Bourgeois Terrorism Against the International Proletariat

The fable of an international terror network, with distinct political objectives and activity of its own, is used to distract the proletariat from its own class problems. The aim today, by intimidating the proletariat with war psychology, is to get it to accept the current war undertakings of various States. Tomorrow, by brandishing the banners of nation, race and religion, the aim will be to get it to accept the future imperialist world war.

Contrary to what they would have us believe, terrorist organisations are pawns in the hands of bourgeois States, which, as well as attacking the working class, will use any and all means to fight its wars: the protagonists might be groups of fanatics, but the people giving the orders are to be found throughout the world in the chancelleries of the various State powers.

The “religious fanaticism” of the Islamic extremists is one more beguiling delusion to fool proletarians; in the West and in the Muslim countries. Everyone knows that these organisations depend on powerful oligarchies of finance capital. Yesterday, in Afghanistan, they allied with the USA against a supposedly communist Russia; today they are certainly in the pay of all the imperialist powers, manoeuvring in a changing game of alliances within a permanent war. In the Arab countries the “Islamic revolution” is a grim ideology which is simply a cover for reaction: there, too, the ultimate aims are the classic anti-working class ones of every bourgeoisie.

If today war takes on a terrorist guise, it is mainly because of Washington’s clear military supremacy over every other imperialism. That isn’t to say that the USA won’t have recourse to the methods of its enemies, but the future transition to open warfare between the imperialist powers, after an adequate rearmament, is nevertheless a certainty. All bourgeois States are warmongers and in favour of using massacres to destabilise their enemies.

The slogan “War on Terrorism” is therefore totally meaningless. It is impossible to wage war on something which is just a particular way of fighting wars. The only way Capitalism can survive, can tackle its economic crises, is through perpetual war. Today it happens to take the form of terrorism. The only real “War on Terrorism” is the one against capitalism: the communist revolution. If you accept capitalism, you have to accept its wars, and its terrorism.

But surely a capitalist State should stop ordinary workers being massacred? History proves otherwise: here in Italy as well it was organs of the State which implemented the “Strategy of Tension”. Each terrorist attack is used by government to reinforce the anti-terrorist laws, all the while maintaining a democratic façade, which are then used against striking workers and communists. As in time of war, proletarians are lulled into accepting the strengthening of their State in the illusion that it will protect them from further atrocities, but instead they are ensuring better health to their own executioner.

The bourgeois world tries to persuade us wars are caused by madmen. Yesterday it was the Nazis, today it is either Islamic fundamentalists or the warmongering clique gathered around the Bush family. The bourgeoisie won’t admit that the factors which determine wars aren’t cultural, but economic; factors arising from the capitalist mode of production. That admission will have to be forcibly wrung out of them by the proletariat. It will be down to the proletariat to organise itself on an international level, both politically and within the unions, and convert the wars fought between states – the bombardments of cities during the 2^nd World war, both conventional and atomic, were terroristic as far as the workers were concerned – into an international class revolution.