Il Partito Comunista 403

Industrial development and the exploitation of wage labor inevitably lead to the development of large industrial and service concentrations. Here the production process concentrates human masses from which it draws the workforce that alone generates surplus value.

In this way, the districts where proletarian families live, made up of active workers, pensioners, and the unemployed, are segregated in the cities: in all the metropolises of the world, the division between bourgeois and working class is also expressed in the occupation of territory.

The residential neighborhoods of the bourgeoisie are opposed to the working-class neighborhoods and shantytowns where the unemployed, those who live on irregular jobs, and the underclass are housed.

Sometimes immigrant neighborhoods are formed, divided by country of origin: in the United States the ghettos of Asians, Irish, Latinos, Blacks.

But often, in the proletarian neighborhoods, families of different skin colors or nationalities are mixed. In Latin America the separation of the proletariat according to race is not the rule as in North America.

Racial differences have their social weight among members of the bourgeoisie and part of the petty bourgeoisie, but in the proletariat they count for little because it is largely a mixed population with a significant presence of Blacks and natives.

In the Caribbean a large population is black, as in Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Curaçao, Grenada, Guyana, as well as in some regions of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

In Central and South America there is also a large presence of crossbreeds of whites, blacks and natives.

In countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay the indigenous population is significant.

In most countries on the American continent, the supply of labor significantly exceeds demand.

In addition to the unemployment measured by statistics there is the hidden unemployment of workers in the so‑called «informal economy».

This is why wages are low: the bourgeoisie has huge reserve armies of labor in America that allow it to pay the «minimum wage» and even much less.

Here the social conflict arises, mostly because of the competition between a country’s indigenous wage earners and immigrants. Even workers from different regions of the same country may compete for jobs.

The same commodity in different containers

This contrast between employed and unemployed proletarians is a structural component in the functioning of the capitalist system, which allows the bourgeoisie to keep wages low and defend its profits.

Everything is instrumental to divide the labor supply market by opposing class brothers and sisters: gender, race, nationality, religious faith, age, political opinion, etc.

The bourgeoisie encourages and exasperates every slightest difference within the labor force commodity.

They apply unequal wages and working conditions while saving on costs. This also delays unitary organization and union struggle.

The bourgeois media never fails, on the other hand, to superimpose a particular non‑class motivation on every proletarian struggle. If farm workers in northern Mexico strike for better wages, the press paints them as natives in revolt.

The opportunist parties, the current regime unions, the media, the church, the film industry, the entire capitalist superstructure impose an ideology that pushes the proletariat towards division and economic and social submission.

Traditions of history, ethnicity and nationality are superimposed onto physical characteristics to create the myth of racial difference. But in the increasingly interconnected capitalist society these racial and cultural determinations would tend to lose more and more importance.

If this does not happen, if on the contrary the division is often exasperated by forcing us to relive «a past that does not pass», it is for precise class interests, for social reasons.

If capital had an interest in treating men with red hair, which is a hereditary characteristic, as it treats Black people in the United States or the Rohingya in Burma, there would be the race of the red‑haired.

This even if for the functioning of the mode of production and for the accumulation of capital race and nationality are irrelevant. What is relevant is that one social class has control of the capital and means of production, and another has only labor-power to provide in exchange for a wage.

The workers, male or female, child or adult, with any skin color, of any ethnicity or nationality, are all carriers of the same commodity, but for capital everyone has their “price».

What is the class answer?

Against this capitalist monstrosity that has reduced man to a commodity, the ideal and material revolt of the working class must impose itself, which in the end, in a communist society that is no longer a wage society, will disclose the banal evidence that a person, without mercantile mediation, is simply a person.

Today, instead, the bourgeois and false working-class parties and the regime’s trade unions do nothing, if not recriminations, to overcome these divisions of the proletariat.

Several times in the history of the workers’ movement, in the phases of weakness and dispersion of the general class organizations, movements have arisen aimed at the defense of workers of only a certain race or nationality, to oppose mistreatment, harassment and exploitation by the bourgeoisie and their state.

In addition to strictly trade union defense, there are inter-classist associations for the protection against police harassment or the defense of the interests and rights of, for example, Black communities in the United States, or Native Americans, or immigrants.

Clearly, a trade union that thus arises separately by ethnic group, by company, by branch of industry, by trade, is totally inadequate to deal with the general class of bosses, just as a trade union that leaves out the retired and unemployed.

A class union tends to group together all workers without distinction of race, nationality, occupation, gender, religious faith or political opinion. And it is organized by location and not by company, so as to embrace the entire class of workers.

The International Communist Party, among its militants and in its worldwide organized structure, knows no distinction and is composed of communists without any other specification.

The party promotes action of the united proletariat above all borders against the bourgeoisie, and tends to resolve the reasons for division in the ranks of the working class, from economic struggles to the political struggle for power.

And the party denounces as opportunist and counter-revolutionary any other party that calls itself worker or communist but admits the clash between workers for religious or racial differences, or national differences for the defense of the homeland.

Must we communists be indifferent to the mobilization of Blacks, immigrants and indigenous people in the face of repression and oppression by bourgeois governments? The answer is certainly no; we are not indifferent to these expressions of resistance against cowardly and odious discrimination, which are always instrumental in preserving the present regime.

In the case of purely workers’ movements, even if guided by opportunism and used to give vent to pacifist, democratic, inter-classist ideologies, the party must engage with its militants and give its clear direction that, without denying any struggle, even weak and partial, opens it to the prospect of mobilization and general class union organization.

In this we know we will clash with all the positions that distort the struggle of the proletariat and keep it trapped in dispersed actions by distracting the workers from the central confrontation with the capitalist masters and their governments.

Instead, in the face of real movements, of the inter-classist type, against equally real subjection, such as that of Blacks in the United States – which are limited to the demand for civil rights and respect for the constitution, and for democracy against fascism, for some legal or electoral reform or a different president or parliament – the party, depending on the circumstances, may feel that it does not have to oppose and fight them, when mobilizations are really directed against the harassment of the present regime. But the party keeps strictly outside, in its clearly distinct and visible structures, and invites the workers not to join them, and those involved to leave them, to organize themselves independently in their exclusively proletarian formations.

This attitude of the party derives from its century old experience: inter-classist parties and political groups, no matter how subversive or even violent they may appear, in the end will never yield to proletarian views and needs, and when confronted with the decision on which side of the struggle is to be supported, they inevitably, and also obviously, choose the bourgeoisie. But in the meantime they will have diverted precious proletarian energies from the real struggle. Which after all is the historical function of opportunism.

The party must therefore be ready, from its firm working class stance, to orient towards communism, and to thrust against the bourgeois regime, any real movement, even if interclassist but provided it is a consequence of actual social submission, such as those of women or of national or ethnic minorities.

Only with the resumption of the defensive class struggle will it be possible to oppose, in the working-class environment, racism and xenophobia and all expressions and movements of division and mutual distrust.

But only with the overthrow of the political power of the bourgeois class and its state, and in the communist society that will be able to emerge from it, will all hostile sentiment of man towards man be definitively overcome.

«According to the British National Cyber Security Centre, hackers linked to the Russian government have attacked British, American and Canadian organizations to steal information about the testing of a vaccine against the coronavirus» — ANSA.

«The State Department has announced that it has obtained the indictment of two alleged Chinese hackers accused of stealing information about the research for the coronavirus vaccine» — The Washington Post.

When the whole of humanity is in distress and suffering from the spread of an epidemic whose development is impossible to predict and whose consequences could prove catastrophic, capitalism finds it entirely right and legitimate that the protection of business secrets should hinder and delay the preparation of a vaccine.

Every discovery, even if partial, every result of difficult experiments and data collection and analysis, the result of the work of an army of technicians and scientists engaged in difficult study, is not the property of the workers, but of the capitalist masters. And if the workers dare to talk about it outside the corporate environment, they are liable to criminal charges, according to the law, and for damages, like thieves, like the worker who pockets one pair of socks out of the thousands she makes every day.

The clinical trials are also kept secret, multiplying infinitely the number of poor people who must be subjected to the test of effectiveness and tolerability. Each «firm» proceeds against the others, does everything in its power to damage them, divert them, delay them.

Its hurry is not to get there first to save lives from a horrible death by asphyxiation, but to win contracts. The vaccine must not be the most effective and the safest, but the one that arrives on the market before the others. And they speak of prices from $40 (Reuters) to $210 (Bloomberg) per dose!

Of course, we do not confuse Russian and Chinese hackers for a new Robin Hood, as they also steal secrets to sell them.

Humanity, now fully international, needs to free science and technology from the anguish, arbitrariness, and demented selfishness of capital, which now tyrannizes the world of the living as a monstrous alien force.

Free it, yes, but not to decamp from materialism and the scientific method, to fall back on ignorance, irrationalism, the rejection of the unity of knowledge and the experimental method. No, not to go back from bourgeois science, but to go further, to overcome it in diligent study, towards a knowledge and practice for the first time truly disinterested, open, and, simply, human.

In the Middle East as a whole, many explanations of the current arrangements come from the partial and probably temporary withdrawal of the United States from the region, which has already had significant effects.

The US-Iranian co-management of Iraq

In Iraq, US forces concentrated in two main bases after a reduction in personnel.

In the drone attack that at the beginning of January had resulted in the death of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Qods militia of the Pasdaran, the US was not aiming for war with Iran and we were not mistaken in this reading and forecasting of the facts, while much of the information spoke of inevitable war. In reality there was only one Iranian demonstrative missile attack, agreed with the enemy, against two US bases in Iraq.

The elimination of Soleimani was a warning: Iran does not delude itself that it is taking too much advantage of the partial US withdrawal, since its military power, integral and well-oiled, can strike you at any time, from any side and on any target. Dissuasion of Iran’s regional aims was achieved with a minimum expenditure of energy. But we also think of the internal balance of the Tehran regime.

On the other hand, the Iranian regime continues to use the elimination of Soleimani for internal propaganda purposes: to arouse the perception of encirclement and compact the home front, the Iranian media denounce plots hatched by the United States. Two Iranians were executed in July on charges of spying for the CIA and the Mossad.

This non-contingent trend in Washington policy certainly responds not to the spectacular traits of the «head» of the White House but to the need to deal with the sharing of oil revenues.

Moreover, behind the semblance of the all-out confrontation between Iran and the United States, there is no shortage of under-the-table exchanges. This explains the brutal joint co-management of Iraq starting in the years immediately following the second Gulf War. The appointment of the new Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on 7 May is a success for US policy in the area. An old opponent of Saddam Hussein’s regime, he was raised by the Atlantic establishment. Since 2016, he has been the head of the Iraqi secret services. Since taking office al-Kadhimi has taken steps to forge better relations with Saudi Arabia, and Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi has already reached an agreement to supply electricity from his powerful neighbor.

At the same time, the US offered Iran something in return: economic sanctions were eased, with the official reason for the Covid-19 emergency, and a Luxembourg court released the frozen Iranian accounts following the sanctions imposed since 2018.

But any Iraqi government policy cannot free the country from Iranian influence. There are great economic interests at stake and a considerable trade exchange: in the first quarter of 2020 Iraq imported from the neighboring country for a value of 1.45 billion dollars. In addition, in the current hot summer, Iraq is suffering from a shortage of electricity due to the drop in production per thousand megawatts compared to last year due to poor maintenance of some power plants. Here then is that the Iraqi premier flew to Tehran at the end of July where he signed two important contracts in the energy field: Iran will deal with the repair of the electricity distribution network of the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala and a large supply of transformers.

Meanwhile, discontent continues to spread among the proletariat and the semi-proletarian strata of Iraqi society. The protests, after a partial pause due to Covid-19, have recaptured the urban center of the main cities. On Sunday 26 July in Baghdad the security forces returned to shoot and kill the demonstrators, two or three depending on the sources. And to say that a short time before, al-Kadhami, in order to divert responsibility for the massacres from the government security forces (the deaths are about 600 since October 1, 2019, when the street protests began) had stated that they had been the work of the Iranian militias and for this he had threatened to attack the headquarters of the pro-Iranian Shiite militias Kataib Hezbollah. Evidently it was a cynical diversion for the square, without even bothering Iran too much. On the other hand, both the Iraqi security apparatus and the pro-Iranian militias were responsible for the massacres and the mutual accusations of shedding the blood of the Iraqi proletarians is not considered a cause of ignominy by any of the delinquent bourgeois factions involved.

Partial folding

    The persistent dispute between the United States and the other major oil countries, namely Russia and Saudi Arabia, has for now imposed a policy aimed at evading excessive collisions susceptible to military outlets. Of course, this did not exclude proxy wars with the direct and indirect involvement in them of the crude oil-producing powers for the sharing of the rent. But if every war, wherever it takes place, redefines to some extent or reaffirms the hierarchy among states, the last decade has marked the weakening of the influence of the United States in the Middle East, while that of the Russia. The emergence of the persistent elements of ambiguity that characterize the link between Turkey and NATO contributed to the creation of new balances.

The so-called oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia that characterized the first months of this year now seems a long way off also thanks to the collapse in demand due to Covid-19. All the major producers have given up part of their production. That of Saudi Arabia is 7.5 million barrels per day, 4.8 less than last year’s production and at the lowest of the last 20 years. So Riyadh, in order to cope with the drop in revenues, has decided to increase VAT from 5 to 15%. A fact that could have serious internal repercussions.

The reasons for the partial withdrawal of the United States from the Middle Eastern scenario are also linked to the progress of the economic cycle, with the chronicization of the effects of the 2008 crisis. The manufacturing production of the United States is still significantly below the maximum peak reached in 2007. Since then, US capital has sought compensation for stagnation in domestic oil production, from the exploitation of oil and gas from oil shale, which has contributed to an increase in production of four million barrels per day over the past four years. But, when domestic production was developing, the United States, in a context of substantial stagnation of world demand, had to try to limit the production of countries that have been sidelined by wars, as in the case of Iraq and Libya, or Iran, which is experiencing a new phase of international isolation, mitigated in part by political economic relations with Russia and China. But even this was not enough to keep the US economy afloat.

Meanwhile, Tehran, following Trump’s unilateral breakdown of the nuclear pact and the attitude of acquiescent submission of the European Union countries to the sanctions imposed by the United States, appears increasingly inclined to develop relations with China, which has already a few years ago it was Iran’s first trading partner with an exchange volume of around $ 52 billion. A strategic partnership agreement is now in the offing for the next 25 years. The document circulated last month and, albeit without an official sanction, provides a significant picture of the progress of bilateral relations between China and Iran. The sectors most affected by the cooperation will be on the one hand the energy and petrochemicals, with China which would become the main buyer of Iranian oil, and on the other the infrastructures that will see Iran take part in Chinese projects in the context of the Road of Silk.

The agreement also provides for military collaboration, although at least for now there is no mention of Chinese bases along the Iranian coasts of the Persian Gulf and Oman. Probably Beijing does not want to disturb economic relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, sworn enemies of Iran but excellent trading partners of China, which buys oil from them.
China’s influence on the Middle East, the world’s largest oil importer, will only continue to grow. At the same time, Iran is also looking to Moscow, so much so that some partisans of European Atlanticism, worried by the decline of US influence in the region, are convinced of the birth of an integrated military alliance between Iran, China and Russia, aimed at redesign the political structures of the Middle East. For now this possibility does not seem so close, more a need for propaganda. Like China, Russia also intends to maintain good relations with the petromonarchies of the Gulf, archrival of Tehran.

The diplomatic and political match in the Middle East for now is being fought more on the maintenance of precarious equilibrium than on the preparation of an open armed confrontation between rival imperialist fronts.

We want to begin this assembly by returning to talk a little about our Coordination.

Ours is not the only initiative that calls for unity. And it is certainly not our intention to compete with other initiatives similar to ours, which would be in blatant contradiction with our raison d’être.

There are, however, characteristics that we believe distinguish our Coordination from most other similar initiatives. We would like to emphasize and explain these differences, not for the sake of distinguishing ourselves, but because we believe that they are the right way to achieve the common goal that we all demand: the unity of the workers.

In the meantime, it is appropriate to say that the word «unity» is one of the most abused and therefore dangerous. It must always be made clear what kind of unity we are talking about.

Typically, in the face of economic crisis, employers call for national unity, that is, unity between the workers and their exploiters, in order to pass on the effects of the crisis to the workers and defend their social privilege and political domination.

National unity is also the dogma of collaborationist trade unionism: the most recent example is the call for a «social contract» by the Secretary General of CGIL. From the years of post-war reconstruction to the supposed post COVID-19 revival, the litany has always been that of the «social pact» between workers and bosses in «defense of the national economy».

But collaborationist trade unionism also evokes another type of unity: that of trade unions. This means unity between the three great trade unions of the regime: CGIL, CISL and UIL. This unity has as its objective the recognition on the part of the employers of the exclusive right of these unions to negotiate, and it contains a promise of social peace -in other words, the control that these unions have over the workers to prevent their fight.

Class unionism promotes the unity of the working class in terms of struggle, a struggle which, being directed against the ruling class and its political regime, breaks national unity.

Also for this reason, our Coordination speaks not of mere «unity of the workers» but of «unity of action of the workers and of combative unionism». Workers’ “unity of action» because, for example, we believe in general (but not absolutely) that this must be pursued also with those workers who still follow the mobilizations promoted by the regime’s trade unions. This is in order to relate with them and bring them to the point of real struggle.

The «unity of action of combative trade unionism» is an indispensable took to achieve the highest degree of unity of action among workers. Not through a mere summation of acronyms — according to a weak criticism that has been addressed to us several times — but by fighting for this objective «from below». We have learned from decades of  militance that the majority of union leaders are opposed to it.

And here we come to the last important distinction that is necessary when we speak of unity, and which characterizes our Coordination and the road we propose. We argue that this unity of action should be sought among workers and among the forces of combative, class-based trade unionism, and not in the sphere of political parties. In other words, we believe that a Coordination, a United Front, must be of a trade union nature and not a trade union-party one. This is not because we support apolitical union action. Not at all. On the contrary, every trade union action has a political value. But political militants who are also workers active in the trade union struggle must be able to demonstrate the validity of their political orientation, to point out the most suitable practical means to fight for the immediate objectives that are of interest to workers. That is to say, they must act in the trade union struggle, which does not feed on political programs but on economic objectives and «short-term» gains in working and living conditions.

If, on the other hand, a party or an alliance of parties are included among trade union forces, the result is to inhibit workers of different political orientations, or without a political orientation, from approaching the group; and on the other hand, to provoke a boycott of the initiative by those trade union groups directed by political forces opposed to those included in the trade union-party front or coordination.

In a nutshell:
     – If all the political militants who are workers make the effort to translate their political guidelines into practical terms of trade union struggle, and in this way — certainly hard and tiring — they try to gain the trust of the workers, then, on the one hand, the unity of trade union forces is possible, certainly not excluding debate and confrontation between the various directions of immediate struggle that are proposed, and on the other hand the conditions are guaranteed so that we can address a wider audience of workers.
     – If, alternatively, we choose the path of mixed trade union-party fronts, what will be reflected in them will be the inevitable divisions on the party level, with the result of generating as many coordination, fronts, and pacts «for the unity of the workers» as there are parties.

This approach of ours also determines the modalities of our relationship with other initiatives that refer to the objective of unity of action of the workers, but pursue it in both trade-unionist and partisan fields. We have affirmed, and confirm again, our willingness to cooperate with these initiatives wherever and for as long as they act in the union field.

As the comrades after me will state in a more complete way, our coordination moves substantially within it limits and respecting its own strengths. That is, we responsibly avoiding taking on commitments that we are not able to handle.

On the one hand, we are promoting work on two specific topics and related initiatives, to which we invite delegates of combative trade unionism and workers who are members or non-members of trade unions. These areas are health and safety in the workplace, and the health issue.

On the other hand, our comrades fight within their respective trade union organizations for the unity of action of combative trade unionism.

The worker’s movement has found itself being realized in the most remote parts of North America. Yakima, Washington has found itself caught in the midst of a massive wave of strikes from agricultural workers.

Yakima County is the leading county in the nation in apple production with over 55,000 acres of apple orchards producing premier apple varieties.

The protests began on May 7 at the Allan Bros Fruit Co. when 50 workers walked off the job voicing concerns over the company’s response to Covid-19.

On May 13, 2020 strikes by agricultural workers in Yakima County continued, with a walkout at Manson Fruit Company in Selah, Washington. Workers complained of unsafe working conditions including a lack of supply of protective equipment, sanitization and social distancing. Workers stated that, inside the facility, workers were required to work in close proximity to one another and that their employers failed to inform them when co-workers tested positive for the Coronavirus.

Shortly thereafter, workers walked out of three additional fruit packing company facilities for the same reasons. Jon Devaney, President of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association said that the association “asked for the State’s help with protective gear”. No explanation was given for why employers and owners of fruit packing facilities could not themselves provide protective gear, given that the production of fruit such as apples constitutes perhaps the largest segment of commercial agribusinesses in the state of Washington. Devaney appeared to lay blame on the workers, stating that workers complain about lack of social distancing while inside but, during protests outside congregate in large numbers in close proximity.

On May 28, 2020 Washington state Governor Jay Inslee issued an Executive Order regarding agricultural workers and Covid-19, presumably intended to address health concerns of the workers. Unfortunately, the Executive Order exempted food processing and meat packing plants, the latter being perhaps the place which, nationwide, has had among the highest levels of Covid-19 contracted by its workers.

The proletariat finds its strength in association; the language used by the workers signifies this.

On July 3rd, workers at the Pearl District Whole Foods Market (owned by Amazon) in Portland, Oregon walked off work in protest of Covid-19 conditions and the death of one of their co-workers. The walk-out was organized by the workers themselves without an official union and show a good sense of class consciousness. Workers coming to start work joined with those already out on pickets.

They stated:
     Whole Foods and its parent company Amazon have repeatedly demonstrated that it cares more about profits over the Team Members who put their lives on the line every day they clock in for a shift and we will not stand for it.
     The grievances of the service workers of Whole Foods are a deeper reflection of the working class as a whole, and in the time of a global pandemic we see that the flow of customers is far more important than Team Members safety. You treat us as disposable, even following the death of one of our own…Team Members make your profits so put us first.

Unlike many of the “Advocacy Campaigns” at such stores as Walmart and Target, heavily promoted by capitalism’s left, these workers themselves drew up demands on management that are straight forward and actionable. “Following the passing of our friend and coworker», they wrote, «we have experienced a tepid response to health and safety concerns and are now demanding justice.”

The workers’ demands read:
— We seek the re-instatement and increase of hazard pay as cases of Covid continue to grow and we continue to put our health and well-being at risk.
— We demand that every customer be required to wear a mask or opt for a personal shop to be carried out by a Team Member to prevent exposure to customers who do not wear masks.
— We demand strict enforcement of capacity limits no matter how well staffed we are and enforcement of directional signage.
— We expect that all punitive actions expire on their original timeline and not be extended to make-up for the leniency allowed during the uncertain times of a global pandemic.
— We expect the right to express our support for marginalized communities, via buttons, pins, flare, and other apparel without punitive action being taken.
— We stand in solidarity with Team Members all across the country who have been forced to leave their shifts or have been suspended for voicing their support for Black lives.

Well done and much needed, fellow workers!

The worsening of the crisis of world capitalism increases tensions between the two main imperialist powers: China and the United States. In addition to the trade war that did not end with the agreement signed last January, they are deployed in arms in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The confrontation unfolds in an area that includes the East and South China Seas, the control of which is disputed, particularly in the straits and on the tiny islands which have become important strategic positions.

Also in the area is the large island of Taiwan, which plays a crucial role.

The island, following the events of the civil war fought at the end of the Second World War between the armies of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang, still proclaims itself the «real China», as opposed to the People’s Republic. But its current status, quite peculiar, should not be considered on the basis of historical or diplomatic rights, with all the consequent ideological paraphernalia, but as the product of a relationship of forces — and not between Beijing and Taipei but between the two centers of world imperialism, the People’s Republic and the United States. The Taiwan issue represents an open rift in the clash between the two powers, and the ongoing skirmishes in the area reveal the fierce struggle to determine its fate, which can only be resolved by force, in the general clash between bourgeois states.

The role of Taiwan

Although only 150 kilometers off the Chinese coast, Taiwan has belatedly developed stable relations with the mainland. Inhabited for about thirty thousand years by Austronesian peoples, it remained for centuries on the margins of the Chinese imperial power, unitary since 221 BC, which did not care about this large island, instead used by merchants and continental pirates as a refuge against the imperial center and base of their operations throughout East Asia. The Chinese Empire, which based its economy on well-organized agricultural production, had no relevant interests in maritime trade, much less expansion towards the lands beyond the surrounding seas: with its political strength it had established a subjugation of its peoples resembling a modern tax system. Instead, it had to fear the threat of invasion by nomadic peoples from the north.

Taiwan’s importance emerged with the beginning of the maritime and commercial expansion of the European powers. Dutch merchants arrived there in 1623, built fortifications there, and attempted to enslave the local population. Nascent European capitalism needed commercial bases in the Far East, but was not yet able to touch a solid and well-organized power like that of the Chinese Empire. In fact, the Dutch stay in Taiwan lasted less than forty years: in 1662, after nine months of siege, the Dutch were expelled by the forces of Koxinga, a military leader from a wealthy family of merchants also dedicated to piracy. A kingdom was born that lasted until 1683, when the Manchu dynasty of the Qing, now ruler of China, subdued the island of Taiwan.

Imperial rule over Taiwan lasted two centuries, but was unstable due to the presence of proud indigenous peoples in the mountains of the hinterland, who could never be compelled to pay imperial taxes.

When inter-imperialist pressure on the Chinese Empire led to wars, Taiwan was invaded: in 1840 by the British during the First Opium War, and by the French in 1884 in the Franco-Chinese War. Between 1894 and 1895 the island was involved in the Sino-Japanese war: with yet another «unequal treaty», the Treaty of Shimonoseki, China, in addition to renouncing any claim on Korea, ceded the Liaotung peninsula, the Pescadores Islands and Taiwan to Japan.

The Japanese ruled Taiwan for 50 years, until the end of World War II. The Taiwanese resistance displayed two different trends: Chinese nationalism and the Taiwanese self-determination movement. But the strong Japanese military was able to crush any rebellion. Under Japan, industries and infrastructures were built in Taiwan: towards the end of its rule, industrial production had overtaken agricultural production.

U.S. Protection

With Japan’s defeat in World War II, Taiwan returned to China, then ruled by the Kuomintang. The civil war between the CCP and the Kuomintang, which had fought together in an anti-Japanese alliance, soon resumed. The nationalist government of the Kuomintang, after its defeat by the armies of the CCP, which proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic on October 1, 1949, withdrew to Taiwan along with what was left of its army, the bureaucratic apparatus, and many leading lights of the Chinese bourgeoisie. Taiwan, ruled by the Kuomintang, became an independent state with the name of the Republic of China. Since 1949, Taipei has claimed the territory of mainland China and Mongolia, while Beijing considers the island of Taiwan to be its own rebel province. The PRC grants diplomatic relations only to states that do not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Washington has entered this opposition, guaranteeing the existence of Taiwan against the otherwise safe aggression and annexation to the PRC. The events from 1949 to the present show that only the protective umbrella of American imperialism has prevented the PRC from extending its control over Taiwan.

The Kuomintang, in retreat, had occupied and left armed forces on the islands of Hainan, Kinmen (or Quemoy), and Matsu, a few kilometers from the Chinese coast. A few months later, between March and May 1950, Beijing launched a military operation against the island of Hainan. Although the landing was carried out by fishing boats — Maoist China did not yet have a real navy — the operation was successful, and Hainan was snatched from the nationalists, an action made possible by American non-intervention.

But with the outbreak of the war in Korea in June 1950, the United States strengthened its position by identifying the island of Taiwan as a fundamental base for operations in Asia — «an unsinkable aircraft carrier», in the words of General MacArthur. The United States imposed the «neutralization» of the Strait of Formosa and sent the Seventh Fleet there. In addition to guarantees of protection, the US began to supply Taiwan with armaments. From its earliest months, the survival of nationalist Taiwan depended on the protection of American imperialism.

This condition was confirmed between 1954 and 1955 during the so-called First Crisis of the Strait of Formosa when, in response to a massive mobilization of nationalist troops on the archipelagos of Kinmen and Matsu, the People’s Republic responded by bombing them. The protection of the United States took the concrete form of a Mutual Security Pact, which also gave a glimpse of the possibility of a total war with Maoist China, up to the use of atomic weapons. Faced with such a threat, Beijing stopped bombing.

The truce lasted three years: in August 1958, the Chinese army resumed striking with Quemoy artillery, starting a Second Crisis in the Strait. Along with the massive bombings, preparations for a landing also began. But, in addition to the strenuous resistance of the Nationalist army, the Americans responded by strengthening the Seventh Fleet in the waters of the Strait. Weapons, ammunition, and supplies reached the Taiwanese army. Already, towards the end of September, Beijing was forced to negotiate a truce, and on October 6 declared a unilateral ceasefire.

Hostilities between Beijing and Taipei continued until 1979, but the armed clashes were replaced by a propaganda war between the two governments. Meanwhile, in 1971, the People’s Republic had achieved an important diplomatic victory, with the approval by the UN General Assembly of a resolution that withdrew the recognition of Taiwan and recognized the People’s Republic as the only legitimate government of China.

In the 1970s, relations between Beijing and Washington stabilized on the basis of three conditions imposed by the People’s Republic: respect for the principle of «one China», which prohibits any country from having diplomatic relations with Beijing and Taipei at the same time; cancellation of the previous mutual defense treaty between the United States and Taiwan; and withdrawal of American troops from the island. After the further rapprochement that took place in 1972, the communiqué for the normalization of bilateral relations between the United States and mainland China arrived in 1979.

But in the same year Washington enacted the Taiwan Relations Act, a series of bilateral relations — formally «with the people of Taiwan», not with the State of the Republic of China — which guaranteed their safety by committing to the supply of armaments. The clear ambiguity of the United States was motivated by its desire to use Beijing against Moscow, without, however, abandoning Taiwan, a fundamental pawn for maneuvers in the Far East.

In any case, towards the end of the seventies a new phase began in China that gradually led to its integration with the world economy. The new bourgeois China put aside the ardor of its early years, in need of commercial relations to give vent to the development of national capitalism. With respect to Taiwan, there was a commitment to the United States for a peaceful and long-term reunification, in exchange for the reduction of arms supplies to the island. Obviously, the proclamations of diplomacy only serve to conceal the real interests of the states, and their agreements are ready to be torn up for the needs of capital or as soon as their balance of power changes.

That pacification in the area is not possible was demonstrated by a Third Crisis of the Strait in the mid-1990s, originating from a series of Chinese missile tests between 1995 and 1996 in order to influence the first presidential elections in Taiwan. Also on this occasion the United States intervened by sending two aircraft carriers into those waters: once again China had to retrace its steps. The time for a confrontation was not yet ripe — the gap that separated it from the enormous war power of the United States was too great.

But China has continued its economic growth at a dizzying pace, and at the same time has been able to invest huge resources in the modernization of its army and navy, achieving, even if not a strength comparable to that of the United States, a rearmament capable of competing with its rival. Influence in the Western Pacific, control over «its» seas and islands is only possible by countering the military presence of the United States. In this context, Taiwan represents the main objective of Chinese expansionism: annexing Taiwan means wresting that «unsinkable aircraft carrier» off its coasts, opening the way to full control of the South and East China Seas first, then to expansion into the Pacific.

So, although China officially aims at a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, proposing the formula of «one country two systems», there are documents in which it states that one of the main purposes of its rearmament is to develop an apparatus sufficient to take Taiwan by force. And in recent times, official tones have also shown greater aggression, comparing Taiwan to separatist regions such as Xinjiang, and denouncing it as a threat to national security. The latest defense «White Paper», dated July 2019, states that it has become necessary to oppose the «independence of Taiwan». Xi Jinping himself at the 19th CCP Congress referred to Taiwan in particularly harsh tones: “Separatist efforts will be condemned by the Chinese people and punished by history […] every inch of the territory of our great homeland cannot and must not remain separate from China ”. If the «resurgence of the nation» promised by China’s false “communists” is to succeed in its goal of national unification, Taiwan will be the first of what nationalists in the PRC call the «six wars» that China will have to fight to regain «unredeemed» territories.But a war for Taiwan cannot be confined to a local war, due to the nature of the place, due to the size of the states involved, because fighting for Taiwan means competing for dominance in the Pacific: there would not only be the intervention of the United States, but of all the other forces in the region interested in countering Chinese hegemony…

To be continued in the October edition of The Communist Party.