Class Struggle 127 Summer 2018/19

Your text here

Class Struggle # 127
Briefs
Climate Emergency
Yes, we are in a climate change emergency. I
think Paul Beckwith declared this emergency
about three years ago. In 2009 we used the term
‘dire emergency’ when we explained that the
problem was capitalism not climate change.
Why? Because climate change is the effect and
capitalism is its cause. Eco-socialists and
Marxists have been calling for an end to
capitalism for this reason for decades. If we are
not doomsters then we must believe in stopping
it before the point of extinction and that can
only mean ending capitalism and building a
democratic, sustainable global society over the
next 20 years.
But this won’t be done by appealing to
‘radicalism’ or ‘populism’ since these terms are
too vague to divert the working majority from
playing its revolutionary role in what is actually
a class war. Working people who create the
wealth that is then used to destroy them are the
only agency of social revolution and they need
pride in understanding and believing it.
‘Radicalism’ in the context of capitalism means
ripping out the roots. So why not specify this as
anti-capitalism or revolutionary socialism in
clear opposition to the right-wing
radical/national/populism that we see
spreading across the globe?
Some people are hung up on the word socialism.
Why? It means different things to different
people. But we can define its as revolutionary
socialism and spell out how to get there.
Radical/green/socialism is OK, except when it
is subordinated to parliamentary politics and
the bourgeois state. Naomi Kline’s Green New
Deal falls short because it promotes illusions in
parliamentary solutions. Voting will not stop
the climate emergency. Parliament is a fraud.
And the sooner we spell this out the better the
chances we have of winning.
If we don’t spell it out now, we waste precious
time confusing people by holding out the
illusion that we can still use the existing bosses
state to end capitalism. It should be obvious that
as the dual crisis of economic crash meets
climate emergency the right will mobilise its
2
December/January 2019
state forces against the working majority. The
state forces have always collaborated with
fascist movements against the working
majority. It misrepresents itself as in defence of
‘nation’ and ‘democracy’, even ‘socialism’ while
building fascism.
The youth who are the driving force of
Extinction Rebellion, are being somewhat
indulged by the state forces, but as soon as their
direct action threatens bosses’ rule, linking up
with existing workers movements, and anti-
racist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist
movements, the fascist fist inside the
‘democratic’ glove will come out. The first step
to revolutionary change is in our consciousness.
We now, belatedly, have the majority that
believes in the climate change emergency. We
now need an anti-capitalist majority that
believes that all of us can survive to build the
new society if we act now!
Mental Health Review
The Review is doomed by its focus on individual
causation and treatment. We get genetic and
psychological causes highlighted, and social
causation is reduced to individual choice. Even
talking about ‘mental health’ in medical terms
assumes individual causation. This method is
empiricism, - measuring superficial behavior
and spawning social policy that fiddles with fiscal
symptoms while the Earth burns. There can be
no solution to ‘mental illness’ while capitalism
exists. Capitalism destroys nature and humanity.
Against bourgeois empiricism we have Marxist
dialectics. Capitalist society is based on the
exploitative production of value which it masks
as equal market relations. This inverted reality is
the basis of bourgeois ideology and reflects the
alienation of the producers from their labour.
Labour as the creator of value is measured as it
appears on the surface as divided into wages,
profits and rent that can be distributed ‘fairly. It
follows that workers are separated from control
over their own labour power except as a
commodity which they sell on the market
(commodity fetishism). This causes a sense of
powerlessness or loss of agency. In this context
individuals are isolated, categorised and made
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
‘suitable for treatment’, while the actual causes are always ultimately class wars. It was the
of their social alienation are ignored. workers of the world who were defeated, not
Thus, the bourgeois medical labels used by the because they were unwilling and unable to win
AMA are in most cases mere symptoms of an open class war, but through the failure of
alienation. Of course, individual differences in communists to convince enough workers to turn
biology and psychology express degrees of their guns on their own ruling classes.
resistance to alienation and its symptoms. For First, workers were drafted to fight one another
example, David Fergusson claims that cannabis in a bosses' war. The downside was that millions
smoking in susceptible youth contributes to died for profits. But the upside was that workers
adolescent psychosis. His definition of psychosis were armed, mobilised and capable of fighting
– extreme anxiety, depression, paranoia and for revolution. This was proved in Russia in
hallucination - are symptoms of ‘mental October 1917 where the new workers
illnesses’ based on the psychologist Hans government took power and immediately called
Eysenck’s description of personality traits. a halt to the war with Germany, appealing early
Eysenck’s method is pure empiricism – attaching in 1918 for German workers under arms to turn
labels to individuals (extraversion, neuroticism their guns on their own ruling class.
and psychoticism) and rejecting social causation. Second, the bosses on both sides called the war
The Marxist critique of ‘mental illness’ explains to a halt only because the success of the Russian
that such ‘traits’ mask the role of alienation as a revolution of October 1917 created a climate of
capitalist social condition. Anxiety and insurrection among the troops who fraternised
depression are not personal ‘traits’ but responses with the 'enemy' against orders, staging mutinies
to the stresses of capitalist life which impact that turned into insurrections late in 1918.
individuals differently according to secondary The bosses’ main fear was their common enemy,
social and personal conditions (youth, poverty, the international proletariat. Revolutions would
family, genes etc.). If not overcome by social overturn their governments and expropriate
resistance and class solidarity these individuals their capitalist private property, as in Russia. So,
may internalize their powerlessness to the point they signed a hasty armistice and started
of paranoia and hallucination towards the
collaborating to invade Russia from all points of
agencies that they think ‘control’ them. the compass to smash the Bolshevik revolution
Therefore, any solution that does not go to the as the living example of the socialist alternative
root cause and eliminate capitalist alienation is to capitalist crises, wars and genocides.
doomed. We say that only the end of capitalism In Germany, the suppression of the
and the creation of socialist society will bring an revolutionary uprisings from 1918 to 1923 put a
end to alienation and ‘mental illness.’ stop to another Bolshevik Revolution
World War 1 against Workers succeeding. The communist leadership was
jailed or assassinated and the treacherous social
November 11, Armistice Day brings us to the end democratic government collaborated with the
of the bosses’ official WW1 centenary white guards and fascist gangs to smash any
commemorations. But it was not the bosses’ attempt at a Bolshevik type revolution.
ceasefire we should recognize, it was the workers’
As a result, the Russian revolution became
revolutions that finished the war. WW1 was
about the imperialists scrapping over re-dividing isolated and its ability to lead a world socialist
the world into their own sphere of interest. But revolution was compromised. This led to the
degeneration of the revolution as the
as it turned out workers did not all rush off to die
for their countries. And as the war dragged on it bureaucratic caste under Stalin maneuvered into
became clear that its objectives were to sacrifice power. The ramifications of this defeat
reverberate through the international working
workers under arms to serve the interests of the
class to this day.
tiny ruling classes in all the imperialist powers.
The war began as an imperialist war between the
The 'main losers' were not countries - of course
one set of nations 'won' while the other 'lost'. It rival powers, it ended only when insurrections
was a matter of which class won. Capitalist wars among the armed workers under their command
3
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
threatened socialist revolution to bring a nasty Aussie banks, Vodaphone, NZME (NZ Herald),
end the reign of global capital. The quarantining and other corporates, as well as pro-police
of revolution in Russia without the support of a queers and Ponsonby businesses are boycotting
victorious revolution in Europe meant that the the parade. Pride, as well as appealing for funds
ultimate losers of WW1 were not any particular from supporters to replace the corporate
capitalist nation, but the world's workers. sponsors, should reject sponsorships from
That's why all commemoration of imperialist employers, politicians and the sold-out media
wars has a class character under all the patriotic “commentariat” who all serve the interests of
fervour. It celebrates the victory of the capitalism.
imperialist ruling classes, ganging up in a Why? Because power and privilege under
military alliance to defeat the rise and spread of capitalism serves only to boost profits. Women
socialist revolution. Better to call a rapid halt to have suffered gender oppression for millennia
the war, concede some redistribution of profits and their unpaid and underpaid labour is still
and stocks until another crisis brings the next vital for capitalist profits. Having cops and other
world war, and redirect the immediate war effort state agents on the parade would mean that Pride
into a holy war against the 'reds' and socialist is pink-washing that history of struggle against
revolution, the real existential enemy of all gender oppression and homophobia.
imperialist ruling classes. It is one thing to see the cops as representing the
The result was the destruction of the state of the class enemy. But how to overcome
German Revolution, the isolation of the the divisions in our own ranks and organize an
Russian Revolution, and its weakening by effective resistance. We have to overcome
imperialist military invasion. But despite gender, ethnic and other divisions that
these defeats, the world’s workers capitalism manufactures to divide us and destroy
remained undefeated and once again in our working-class unity.
WW2, relied on Russia to defeat the All oppressed groups need to realise that their
Germans, and had to marshal their troops oppression has the same common cause -
to smash post-war revolutionary capitalism needs compliant wage labour and
uprisings in Greece and Italy.
unpaid domestic labour to make its profits or it
We say that despite its power and wealth, cannot function. That is why women’s
the next time the imperialists go to war, oppression is at the root of all sexual repression
the proletariat will win and put an end to and gender oppression. Legalising
capitalism and its destruction of nature. homosexuality does not remove the roots of
gender oppression because homophobia is
Pride bans Cops in Uniform reproduced daily by capitalist/patriarchal social
Good on Pride for banning cops in uniform. The relations.
police were politely asked not to wear uniforms We say the fake ‘inclusion’ of the powerful and
until they stopping their violent attacks on queerprivileged in Pride broadcasts their pink-
people. The police responded with an ultimatum, washing message that capitalism can give us ALL
uniforms or no police participants. No wonder freedom of choice including our sexuality. That
Pride stood firm against such abuse of their is why we are for excluding exploiters like banks
independence. Now they should ban cops out of and corporates, and their agents in government
uniform too unless they parade against orders! such as cops and politicians, who act as their
Cops serve the interests of capital and act enablers.
as first line oppressors of all victims of the We should unite in one anti-capitalist
patriarchy and capitalism. Cops who want workers' front to oppose state
to fight the oppression of LGBTQI should oppression, and to fight for an end to
leave the force. capitalism and the creation of a society in
Who is calling for ‘inclusion’? People of power which those who produce the wealth are
and privilege, and their servants and agents like paid a living wage, and allowed to live
academia and the media. No wonder that big their sexual lives in total freedom and
privacy.
4
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
NZ Labour Coalition
Creatures of Capital
The Labour Coalition has acted exactly as we predicted. It is no longer a bourgeois-
workers party that identifies with the working class in order to betray it. Labour is
now a common liberal bourgeois party, openly serving the bosses. Far from being
serving the unions, it reverts to the Liberal policy of the 1890s where workers’ wages
are constrained by the demands of capital. That is why it no longer has a majority of
workers putting it into parliament but has to build a coalition with petty bourgeois
capitalist parties like the Greens and NZ First. Far from these coalition partners
forcing Labour to compromise with capital, Labour is in most situations to the right
of its partners on most issues. Here we reprint an article from situations vacant blog
which argues that Labour is to the right of bourgeois ideologues like Thomas Piketty
and Matthew Hooton. The Labour Party like all other capitalist parties are “creatures
of capital”. To break from these parties, we urgently need to build a mass workers
party!
Thomas Piketty has up against whatever
discovered that all party the ruling class
post-war elections in puts up.
France, UK and US NZ is no different.
have been won by one The clear class
of two political differences that
parties with a small separated Labour
margin of victory in from National
all cases. He has
between the wars
worked out that both became less and less
two main rivals evident after WW2.
represent the 1% Today, the two main
leaving the 99% parties under MMP are still separated by a small
unrepresented. He predicts that these twin margin and need other parties to form
capitalist parties will be replaced by two parties governments. But none of the small parties show
that essentially represent Wall St and Main St. any sign of becoming bigger after spending time
He calls them “multiple elite parties”. in coalitions. In most cases they disappear.
For Marxists this is nothing new, the What will happen to make the working majority
ruling class dominates politics and steers (most estimates of the broad working class in NZ
it into a parliamentary talk-shop cum put it at around 80%). Piketty’s book Capital in
circus. This means the proletariat (all the 21st Century, argued that the widening gap
those who work for a wage or salary) as a between rich and poor would be the main
class is broken up into individual disrupter of the status quo. So, we can assume
bourgeois citizens who swing about that both main capitalist parties must exhaust
between various ‘elite’ parties, or abstain, their capacity to con the working majority so that
on the basis of small promises that are frustration and anger builds to a point where a
seldom kept. break with the elite parties becomes inevitable.
Piketty implies that this system will work until Marxists agree, but say that frustration and
the 99% get fed up and build their own mass anger are not sufficient. Anger alone, can lead to
parties. Neither elite parties of ‘left’ and ‘right’ isolated protests and populist politics that risks
will survive as such. When the 99% get tired of the rise of fascism as a reactionary solution to the
being conned they will form their own mass party crisis. To make a break towards a mass workers’
5
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
party that can fight for their class interests a investment in the production of new
revolutionary perspective is needed to steer the value. New debt is a normal part of
masses towards anti-capitalism. Not an anti- investing in new production, but for that
capitalism that preaches faith in making to happen Capital needs a guarantee that
capitalism work equitably, but an anti-capitalism it will not pay this debt out of future
that fights to end capitalism. profits, but that it will be paid out of the
future wages of working families. For this
This means that the ruling class ideology of both
reason, productive capital wants to push
main parties which defend capitalism ‘because
its burden of debt onto the state but at the
there is no alternative’ has to be critiqued and
same time make the working class pay for
exposed. Workers have to be won to the Marxist
it.
standpoint that bourgeois democracy is no more
than a mask covering the naked rule of capital This is the logic of the flat tax and its ‘social’ twin
over the majority. We can start by proving that the UBI (Universal Basic Income). Taxes on
the present Labour Coalition is committed to profits, interest, rents and wages that are not
putting the interests of international finance hidden away in tax havens, are ‘flattened’ to the
capital first, and those of the working majority a same rate as the tax on wages, say 20%. The UBI
distant second. is a negative tax for those who are pushed out of
work by capital’s tendency to destroy labour.
Hooton gives Robertson advice
Productive capital can live with increased state
In Friday April 6th NZH business section, right- debt so long as it doesn’t have to pay for it.
wing pundit Matthew Hooten offered some Banking capital is overjoyed because debt-
advice to Grant Robertson on Labour’s financed investment in production of goods and
conservative approach to debt. Robertson should services will always create more interest on bank
drop his debt reduction target, i.e. “his promise loans and hence bank profits.
to reduce government debt to 20 per cent by
2022…” So Hooten is advising Labour to drop the neo-
liberal fetish of balancing the budget for fear that
He asks, why commit to this promise when it will debt will cause inflation, devalue the currency,
make it almost impossible for Labour to meet its and destroy investor confidence. Neo-liberalism
election spending promises? Finance Minister in the 80s and 90s restructured global capitalist
Robertson is clear: to placate the “business production by cheapening inputs of both raw
community and financial markets”. materials and labour-power. But at the same
He claims the better course is for Robertson and time, it ran down the infrastructure and
Ardern to more confidently own Labour’s necessary services to offset the fall in profits.
commitment to higher spending and begin the But even this restructuring and the fall of the
process of gently stretching out the debt Soviet bloc did not revive capitalist profits to
reduction target. If they manage that process their post-war level. And since the long
well there will be not the slightest blip in eitherdepression began in 2008, neo-liberal policies
the dollar, the NZX or investor or business have been overtaken by massive state bailouts of
confidence, but a necessary protection of bankrupt banks and corporates. Today, unless
Labour’s ratings at the polls. the state intervenes to subsidise both these
Why would ‘right’ conservative Hooten be so inputs for Capital, there will be no incentive to
concerned as to advise ‘left’ progressive invest in new production. What Capital needs
Robertson to spend more to keep Labour’s now is neo-interventionism.
election promises and not worry so much about Robertson is the heir of Rogernomics and the
debt? You can be sure it’s not to see Labour neo-liberal monetary framework of ‘fiscal
retain its working-class voter base. So, what’s is responsibility’ – balancing the budget by
in it for Hooton? reducing taxes on profits and cutting social
The real game is to steer the Government spending. Taxes that finance state spending that
towards meeting the current interests of does produce profits are a drain on profits. And
capital which globally is in big trouble and while the Keynesian ‘multiplier’ may increase
needs more state intervention to boost demand it cannot overcome the limits to profit.
6
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
Hooten is aware that the Labour Coalition is spending on new roads, rail, housing,
reluctant to run up debt to do this job because it health and education will boost labour
has to prove itself as reliable to business before it productivity allowing labour to claim a
can distribute some dividends to its worker ‘fair’ share provided that profits get their
voters. But says Hooten, you can do both with no ‘fair’ share first.
fear. In this period of global instability, Labour
does not need to push at an open door. And there “Win-win” is actually “zero-sum”
is no risk of the heirs of Rogernomics revertingOstensibly ‘win-win’ state management of the
to the failed Keynesian printing of money to market results in increased productivity and
stimulate production. Hooten knows that he and capital growth. Debt can be financed out of more
Robertson as ‘elitists’ both take for granted that
goods and services sold on the global market.
the working class will pay for Government The rewards for increased productivity can be
subsidies to business to restore profitability. fairly shared by both labour and capital. Here is
After all, since the 1980s labour adopted the the holy grail of bourgeois economics, that wages
Blairite philosophy of neither conservatism nor and profit shares can be ‘win-win’ and not ‘zero-
socialism, but rather the sum’.
‘middle way’. Robertson is Mr But the holy grail is
Middle Way. If we dig into this unattainable because the
doctrine. we find forerunners relation between wage-labour
like onetime CTU boss Ken and capital is necessarily ‘zero-
Douglas in the early 1990s sum’. ‘Win-win’ is the
stating he could work with both bourgeois myth that the
National and Labour, and that distribution of income can be
the role of unions was to ensure shared ‘fairly’ between wage-
that labour productivity labour and capital. ‘Zero-sum’
increased as the basis for ‘fair’ is the bourgeois reality that
shares of wages as well as Labour is zero and Capital is
profits. sum. Labour is ‘zero’ because it
So as long as the Government’s alone creates value and as a
social spending supports result pays for the value of its
capital expansion by building own wage. You cannot have
new infrastructure and efficient services that win-win distributional shares when productive
lower the costs of production including that of relations are zero-sum!
wage labour, a budget deficit financed by debt
Labour creates value, both as wage-labour, and
will be paid for by increased taxes in a growing
indirectly as domestic labour and the paid labour
economy. And Labour will not tax profits or
of state workers who provide the social wage.
capital gain, but further shift the burden onto
Wage-labour produces commodities by selling
consumption taxes. Labour would then proveits labour-power, the only commodity that
that is was able to manage capitalist growth
produces more value than its own value. The
better than National and even please the difference is surplus-value. But the market value
‘business community and finance capital’. of labour-power does not include unpaid
The difference between the National and domestic labour, or state paid labour that
Labour Governments has always been contributes to its reproduction, both of which
about how best to manage capitalism. reduce the value of labour-power.
National’s ‘zero-sum’ politics runs down Capital does not create value. It pays the wage in
the social wage and frees the market to advance expecting to be paid back out of the
drive down wages to boost profits. Labour surplus-value it expropriates from workers.
‘win-win’ politics is committed to spend Unpaid domestic labour that contributes to the
on increasing labour productivity so that reproduction of labour-power remains unpaid as
wages and profits can both get ‘fair’ a subsidy to capital. Nor does capital pay for the
shares of the national income. So, any subsidy of state workers to the reproduction of

7
Class Struggle # 127
labour-power. Therefore, Capital is the sum of
accumulated value created by Labour both in the
form of wage labour, unpaid domestic labour,
and state reproductive labour.
To facilitate the fate of workers who produce
value but retain zero value, debt originates as
money borrowed to pay wages in advance of their
repayment out of new value created. Interest
paid on borrowed money is deducted from
surplus value before profit. So it is entirely
consistent that wage-labour (and domestic
labour) should pay all capitalist debt, including
the public debt, to avoid a drain on profits.
That is why Marxists call for the “Why then have any science at all”.
cancellation of debt. Instead of tying
workers to capitalist parties that promise
to redistribute income, we say that all
income is derived from value created by
workers. Debt incurred in producing,
reproducing and accumulating that value
is part of the value appropriated from
labour and should therefore be
expropriated back by labour.
The Labour Coalition Government is part of the
problem since it operates as part of the capitalist
state to reproduce capitalism. But instead of
managing capitalism to provide a ‘human face’ it
reproduces Capital at the expense of Labour.
Hooten has shown that Capital can take different
forms depending on the conditions. In the 1930s
Labour adopted a national capitalist policy to
protect its infant industry. By the 1980s the
deregulation of NZ’s state insulated economy
was necessary to restructure NZ capital to face
the globalised world market. Today, the survival
of capital requires a move towards more state
intervention, but of the sort that openly serves
the interests of Capital against Labour.
The only economies that are growing
significantly today are those where the state
takes a key role in steering and managing the
market. China is the best example. It has
restored capitalism after decades as a
bureaucratically managed state and powered its
way to a world-beating dynamic economic
expansion on the basis of its state-owned capital.
Neo-liberalism is bankrupt and Capital now
requires a return to strong state intervention to
survive. But we need to be clear that state
intervention to spend more money on
infrastructure and social services is not about
December/January 2019
‘fair shares’ or reducing inequality. It is about
creating the conditions for capitalism to survive
facing a dual existential crisis – a global bust and
climate catastrophe.
Their crisis is our opportunity
Marxists see the existential crisis of capitalism as
an opportunity to convince workers that
capitalism has reached the end of its shelf-life.
We need to break from the Labour Party and
build a mass workers party committed to ending
capitalism and building socialism. As Marx
pointed out in 1868, the “vulgar economists”
take all appearances to be true. So, says Marx,
“The vulgar economist has not the faintest
idea that the actual everyday exchange
relations cannot be directly identical with
the magnitudes of value. The essence of
bourgeois society consists precisely in
this, that a priori there is no conscious
social regulation of production. The
rational and naturally necessary asserts
itself only as a blindly working average.
And then the vulgar economist thinks he
has made a great discovery when, as
against the revelation of the inner
interconnection, he proudly claims that in
appearance things look different. In fact,
he boasts that he holds fast to appearance,
and takes it for the ultimate. Why, then,
have any science at all?
Yet it is science, the critique of political
economy, that dispenses with the
“sycophantic babblers” to prove that
“existing conditions” will collapse well
before workers rise up and prove it in
practice.
But the matter has also another
background. Once the interconnection is
grasped, all theoretical belief in the
permanent necessity of existing
conditions collapses before their collapse
in practice. Here, therefore, it is
absolutely in the interest of the ruling
classes to perpetuate a senseless
confusion. And for what other purpose are
the sycophantic babblers paid, who have
no other scientific trump to play save that
in political economy one should not think
at all?
8
Class Struggle # 127
Better Red than Dead
Capitalism is on its last legs and can only survive by making us, the vast majority of
working people the world over, pay for it by giving up our livelihoods and our lives.
For that reason, we have to get over our magical thinking that capitalism can be saved
from itself, and fight for survival socialism. That means going to the root of the
problem – the subordination of everything to making more profits even if that leads
to human extinction. Capitalists would rather be dead than Red. Well, we think it’s
better to be Red than dead.
In Aotearoa/NZ our salvation means
nationalising the land and all production of
energy and essential commodities, and
organising the economy on a democratic,
egalitarian sustainable way. We start with the
most obvious, minimal demands dealing with
the anarchy of land use and its environmental
and climate costs.
–Removal of agricultural subsidies and
imposition of a carbon tax.
–A land tax on the ‘unearned increment’ to
subordinate profits to sustainability by cutting
speculative profits.
–A capital gains tax on the parasitic private
banks, and the formation of a single State bank
that backs the money supply against a measure
of PSP – Planned Sustainable Production.
To take even such minimal steps we need a
government that will take on the vested
interests of the landed gentry and the capitalist
shareholders to keep the rip, shit, bust economy
staggering on. Yet no capitalist government will
do this, even under the pressure of climate
change, because they defend growing profits as
the measure of economic success.
So, all attempts at such serious reforms will fail,
and those who mobilise against these
governments, for a workers’ government that
does fight for serious reforms, will be met with
state force and fascist mobs. This is why the
logic of the current capitalist crisis forces us to
choose between survival socialism or capitalist
barbarism.
Climate Change Denial
The IPCC has always been way behind the
leading edge of climate science which means
that we have to treat climate change today as an
9
December/January 2019
emergency that requires immediate large-scale
social change.
Paul Beckwith (“climate change emergency”)
points out that the IPCC report has changed the
base line from 1750 to the average of 1850- 1900
to measure the 1.5 target. But if we stick with the
1750 baseline, we are already at 1.2-1.3 not 1.0
degree C. No wonder 1.5 looked OK for a while
and is now seen as already crippling.
Second, the IPCC makes light of methane. It
may have a short life c.f. CO2 but it’s around 100
times more powerful as a greenhouse gas. And
at the current 1-1.3 degrees above baseline is
being released in much larger amounts.
We already know that the climate change
denying reactionary capitalist regimes that are
coming to power globally are preparing for
social collapse as the climate quickly breaks
down under their plans to burn and drown us
all.
The election of Bolsonaro in Brazil will usher in
an openly fascist regime that will privatise
everything and wipe out much that is left of the
Amazon - the biggest forest carbon sink in
existence. This means that the global capitalist
crisis as it hits Brazil will be solved by armed
fascists terrorising of the masses unless they
organise and fight back and build a workers’
united front to overthrow the fascist regime.
So, there is no left or centre left that can use
parliamentary democracy as the basis to resist
the alt right. Who is putting any bets on which
left or centre party in NZ has the political will to
call an emergency now and start rapidly
reducing carbon and methane uptake as well as
massive planting to extract CO2? Jacinda’s
‘nuclear moment’ was just that, a moment.
Class Struggle # 127
Vulgar Economics
Marxism, socialism and other bogie words, had
frightened most people from believing socialism
will work. They are stuck with looking for
magical fixes to recession and global warming as
our way out. Michael Roberts has a few words
for such delusions. For a start Roberts agrees
that the IPCC is lagging behind acceleration
climate change, and that radical measures are
needed now to avoid 1.5 degrees. But mostly he
is critical of those mainstream economists who
sow illusions in doomed economic reforms
which only divert attention from the critical
policies that are necessary to reverse climate
change.
This is because they are like high priests
worshipping at the shrine of neo-classical
economics, or as Marx called it, vulgar
economics. They all assume that the market will
come up with solutions, new ideas and
technologies, and for that reason they are
comfortable with the current laggard responses.
All of their assumptions are magical thinking
because they fail to see that capitalism as a
system, where a small ruling class extracts all
the wealth from nature and the huge producing
classes, is the problem and not the solution.
Roberts shows how neo-classical and Keynesian
economics falls far short of overcoming the
problems of both the terminal crisis of
capitalism, and its twin, climate collapse. So,
who is ready for survival socialism?
Is Aotearoa/NZ ready for Revolution?
Many on the left are demoralized by the lack of
radical left politics in this country. Labour has
moved to the centre as a liberal party leaving the
working people unrepresented. But we can never
write off workers who get angry with total system
failure manifest by global economic crisis and
climate collapse. Even the Bolsheviks were taken
by surprise when 20,000 women textile workers
in the Putilov works went on strike in February
1917. This was echoed in NZ by workers
resistance to WW1 and Maori resistance to the
draft.
However, there is no point in denying that NZ is
far from prepared for revolution. NZ is not the
idea place for a socialist revolution. It is a tiny,
declining neo-colony of the US and China. It’s
role in the global economy is producing cheap
10
December/January 2019
food and entertaining tourists. Production is
therefore in small firms, with larger firms usually
foreign-owned.
As such its class system is disproportionately
petty bourgeois which produces a culture of
escaping wage-labour into small business. This
means petty bourgeois ideals and interests clash
with frequent business failure, for which the
workers or bankers are blamed, as in the case of
small family farmers who walked off the land in
every depression. In a word: a populism of the
petty bourgeois class against the class above and
the class below.
Key to organising for revolution in Aotearoa, is
uniting Maori with other workers around
collective production on the land and in re-
building the unions run by the rank and file as
the basis for strong working-class communities.
This would create the power-base for
campaigning for the program of demands to
change society outlined above.
Meanwhile, every instance of oppression and
exploitation by class, gender, race, sexuality etc.,
has to be resisted and all these struggles united
around one common objective, replacing the tiny
ruling class exploiters with a united front of the
oppressed producers, in the home, on the land
and in industry, seeking to take control of the
economy and planning production as the means
of surviving by sustainably reproducing human
and other species.
Because of Aotearoa/NZs settler colonial history
and class dynamics, those who own and control
the wealth will fight new land wars to defend
their property rights, and join in the populist
clamour for a Trump/Bolsonaro alt right or
fascist regime. But as we can see in such
situations, the poor masses will never agree to
pay for the twin crises of capitalism.
Let’s see how revolutionary movements develop
in these much bigger, politically mobilised
countries, and how workers in Aotearoa can
join forces with the working masses and unite
internationally to fight for a revolutionary
solution. The problems we face are global, our
solutions have also to be global – a global
revolution of the oppressed and exploited for
survival socialism. Workers of the world have
nothing to lose but the chains that are dragging
them to extinction.
Class Struggle # 127
Brazil: Election Balance Sheet, the Failure of the
Left and the Need for a Revolutionary Leadership
The rise of the extreme right and the election of a
Bonapartist figure like Bolsonaro are the result of the
aggravation of the crisis of capitalism in Brazil. This
signifies the exhaustion of the Workers' Party (PT)
and the Popular Front (PF) in their function of
pacifying the workers who fight against the attacks of
the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Global capitalism,
faced with its terminal crisis, resorts to Bonapartism
and fascism as a means of getting workers to pay the
price of the crisis.
With a populist and conservative discourse,
Bolsonaro exploited the discontent of the petty
bourgeoisie and the unemployed with the current
crisis situation. As a characteristic of Bonapartism, it
has placed itself above the parties and institutions
that are demoralized and worn out in the eyes of the
population. Corruption, the privilege of politicians
and bargaining in the spheres of power, as the
population suffers from unemployment and falling
living conditions, was the main reason for the votes
for an “anti-system” candidate. The PT was the party
most associated with this system. “Anti-petismo”
(anti-PT) was the election campaign flag of Bolsonaro
and several candidates to the parliament and to the
state governments. However, all the major parties
that have governed the country since the re-
democratization, especially PSDB (Brazilian Social
Democracy Party) and PMDB (Party of the Brazilian
Democratic Movement), suffered with rejection in
these elections.
Corruption, privileges of a political oligarchy and
attacks on workers. This is the “system” established
with the 1988 Constitution and the bourgeois
democratic regime. This is all capitalism can give in
the imperialist epoch. Obviously, the PT is not
responsible for corruption and for this “system” as
the bourgeoisie and Lava-Jato want to believe, but
the PT entered this system when joining the
bourgeoisie to govern the country for more than 13
years. Lula/PT and the so-called "progressive"
governments of Latin America rose to power in a
moment of world economic growth, boosted by the
sale of commodities to China. Far from breaking with
capitalism, these governments were able to give
crumbs to the workers and poor people while
applying neoliberal measures. Far from being “anti-
imperialist,” these governments lined up and
increased their dependence on Chinese imperialism.
Bolsonaro was elected by a great feeling of change
and promising to end the corruption, that the
population sees as cause of the worsening of the
11
December/January 2019
conditions of life. We know that neither the inherent
corruption of capitalist relations nor the economic
crisis will resolve itself, and it will have to attack the
working class hard. The instability generated by the
capitalist crisis has already led to the impeachment of
Dilma and the unpopular government of Temer who
had moments on the tightrope. Bolsonaro is a veteran
of the military regime and has announced several
military personnel to compose his ministry. Ending
the illusion of Bolsonaro's promises, a regime of
exception may be the only "change" the bourgeoisie
will have to offer.
The biggest challenge of the working class to fight
Bolsonaro and fascism is to break with the Popular
Front. For what divides the working class is the
bourgeoisie. The working class will remain divided as
long as the opportunist leadership directs large
numbers of workers to join the bourgeoisie and
abandon class independence, shifting the struggle to
illusions in parliament. Workers need a united front,
to organize the class in an independent and
democratic way, to assume the traditional methods of
direct struggle, the only way to combat fascism and
imperialism.
Left Parties capitulate to Popular Front
The PT and a large part of the left are today the
greatest defenders of the demoralized bourgeois
democratic regime to combat Bolsonaro and the
threat of fascism. In the second round of elections,
almost all leftist organizations supported the Popular
Front (PF) by voting for the PT. Including
organizations claiming to be revolutionary, such as
PSTU (Unified Workers' Socialist Party), MES
(Socialist Left Movement), CST (Socialist Workers'
Current) and MRT (Revolutionary Movement of
Workers). These false Trotskyists evoked the struggle
of the Bolsheviks against Kornilov's fascist coup to
justify their support for the Popular Front. Lenin and
Trotsky were relentless combatants against the PF.
While fighting Kornilov, they called for the United
Front precisely to expose the betrayal of the
Mensheviks who were part of the provisional
government of the PF!
The left abandoned any prospect of struggle for the
Brazilian revolution. The main policy of these
organizations for the elections, and now after the
elections, is the call for the “Broad Front” of the PT to
defend (bourgeois) democracy! That is, the only way
out for the working class against Bonapartism and
fascism would be the alliance with so-called
Class Struggle # 127
“democratic” or “progressive” sectors of the
bourgeoisie.
Guilherme Boulos and the PSOL (Socialism and
Liberty Party) leadership capitulate to the PT and
have been the major mouthpieces of the populist
front politics. With the electoral process polarized
between Bolsonaro and the PT, Boulos’s candidacy
was the true auxiliary line of the PT. Boulos and PSOL
spent the year 2017 constructing the “VAMOS”
platform on a front with PDT (Democratic Labour
Party), PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party) and other
bourgeois sectors that they say are “progressive”. In
the second round he called a vote for the PF,
consistent with his defense of bourgeois democracy
vs. fascism. The PSOL is a split from the PT and was
opposed to its government, but it is a reformist party
and, in fact, never was against the policy of the
popular front. Socialism is a word that does not exist
in the vocabulary of Boulos. The program advocated
by him and the PSOL leadership on the VAMOS
platform is openly reformist, posing as the greatest
advocates of “better” capitalism and accusing as
divisive and sectarian those defending class
independence, the Frente Única and a revolutionary
strategy.
The PSTU supported the bourgeoisie’s maneuver to
overthrow the PT as a “democratic right,” and Lava-
Jato as a “fight against corruption.” For the PSTU, to
stand against impeachment was to support the PT
and the PF, as there was no threat from the extreme
right and fascism in Brazil. In the second round
they supported the popular front by calling
for a PT vote against the far-right candidate
who “defends a dictatorship project for our
country”, a threat that a few months ago they
said did not exist! We warned that the PSTU was
only masking its opportunism with sectarianism and
its logic would lead to the defense of the PF against
fascism. We said that the rise of the extreme right and
fascism is fought with class independence and
methods of direct struggle of the workers and not
with the PF that serves to demobilize the workers and
open the way to fascism. We did not support the PT
and the PF and were against the impeachment and
maneuvers of the bourgeoisie. We are against the
narrative of the coup that disarms the working class
in the struggle against a real coup and a fascist
regime. The PSTU did this disarming denying a
fascist threat and then supporting the PF in the
elections.
Bolsonaro’s Pro-imperialist Policy
The new president defends a policy of alignment with
American imperialism. Following the anti-China line
of Trump, he says that the Asian country is not
investing but rather “buying” Brazil. The editorial of
the Chinese government aligned newspaper was
12
December/January 2019
considered a warning against some of the new
government’s plans to cancel deals with China.
Bolsonaro’s nationalist rhetoric contrasts with his
economic team of notables led by economist “Chicago
boy” Paulo Guedes, who hastily said that business
with China is important to the country and will not be
affected. Bolsonaro’s statements against China were
also seen as a risk by businessmen and sectors who
fear for their business. While Bolsonaro says he does
not understand economics and Paulo Guedes is the
one who decides in this area, the other ministries
have been filled with conservative and military
figures, closer to his far-right politics. Bolsonaro’s
nationalism cannot go beyond its subordination to
imperialism.
The global crisis of capitalism shakes the hegemony
of US imperialism established in World War II and
stirs up the dispute with the ascendant imperialisms
of China and Russia. The actual crisis, of commercial
and military wars, affirms Lenin’s Marxist theory of
imperialism which explains the destructive character
of capitalism in the imperialist era, when the world is
already divided between the great powers that must
go to war to survive. The dispute between the US/EU
and China/Russia blocs is an inter-imperialist one in
which workers must maintain their class
independence and the unity of the workers of the
world in the struggle for socialist revolution, the only
revolution capable of defeating both imperialist
blocs, avoiding their wars and the destruction of the
environment.
Much of the left, especially the Stalinists, defend the
China/Russia bloc claiming an “anti-imperialist”
struggle for a “multipolar” world. We say that this is
nothing more than revisionism of a traitorous left.
We affirm Marxism and Trotskyism that there is no
“progressive” bourgeoisie in the imperialist era and
that the democratic demands and independence from
imperialism can only be achieved by the workers with
the permanent revolution. It is not possible for a
semi-colony to become imperialist. China and
Russia were able to develop their productive forces
with the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, so they
returned to the capitalist sphere as imperialist
countries. The reactionary national bourgeoisie are
unable to develop the productive forces and fear the
working class and the revolution more than they fear
imperialism.
For the reformist left, Bolsonaro and fascism are
fought on the national level, by means of a PF with
the “progressive” national bourgeoisie. On the
international scene, they are part of a big PF with
China and Russia to fight against American
imperialism. Defending Chinese and Russian
imperialism as an alternative to the US is to take sides
Class Struggle # 127
in the imperialist dispute and abandon class
independence and revolutionary strategy.
The Workers’ Struggles
Contrary to what the reformists say, the workers and
poor people have staged various struggles and
resistance. However, these struggles are becoming
subordinated to the reformist strategy of struggle
within parliament and the PF. Class independence
and traditional methods of struggle are boycotted
and impeded by the opportunist leaderships of the
movement.
With the outbreak of the crisis in 2008 and the
announcement of thousands of layoffs in the
metallurgical sector, the CUT (Central Única dos
Trabalhadores) rushed to defend the PT government
and dismantle the resistance, while the main leader
of the PSTU metallurgists in São José dos Campos,
got on the sound truck with the well-known union
bureaucrat Paulinho Da Força, starting his policy of
alliance with the trade union bureaucracy and their
bourgeois parties that lasts until today. In the years
that followed, teacher strikes spread throughout the
country and the need to unify these struggles was
diverted by CUT/CNTE into a 3-day general strike in
defense of the National Education Plan (PNE) and
this diversion was supported by the entire left. The
PNE was precisely the neoliberal plan for
privatization or outsourcing of education throughout
the country! In 2012, the university strike and more
than 400,000 federal workers were isolated and
demobilized by the CUT/PT with the help of the left,
which was said to be opposed to the PT government
but was not politically independent of the PT and the
union bureaucracy.
In 2013, during the rise of the youth against the
increase of bus fares, which led to mass
demonstrations and became known as the June Days,
again the left that claimed to be the opposition to the
government, such as PSTU and PSOL, did not have
any independent policy from the PT and many ended
up supporting the government and the media by
calling the demonstrators “vandals”.
The June Days followed with numerous strikes all
over the country, some historic, including in Porto
Alegre, Rio de Janeiro (RJ), such as Rio’s bus drivers
and teachers, in the middle of the “Não Vai Ter Copa”.
All this movement of resistance of the workers was
attacked and boycotted by the central trade unions,
CUT and CTB. So did the left that claimed to be
opposition to the government, keeping the strikes
isolated by category, with economist guidelines and
preventing any attempt to include “Não Vai Ter Cup”
in the strike agenda, a slogan that was shouted at the
assemblies and raised in posters by workers. On the
eve of the opening of the World Cup in São Paulo, the
13
December/January 2019
leadership of the subway union, led by PSTU and
PSOL, ended the strike, and the MTST (Homeless
Workers' Movement) leadership ended the
occupation of the “People’s Cup’, two movements that
brought the city to a stop.
On the opening day of the World Cup there were
marked demonstrations throughout the country. In
Porto Alegre, striking municipal workers who had
concentrated in the center of the city a month before,
were diverted to a distant action, in a clear example
of the union’s leadership isolating the movements. In
Sao Paulo, demonstrators were attacked by the police
who prevented them from entering the subway and
receiving shelter from the transit workers union. The
workers’ strikes were isolated and defeated, and the
youth and some independent movements were left
alone in the resistance against the World Cup and the
government, resulting in 23 convictions under
the Anti-terrorism law approved by Dilma.
The true United Front formed in strikes, school
occupations, Block of Fights in Porto Alegre or the
Fight Forum in Rio, were dismantled all over the left.
However, the struggles did not end, and 2016 was
marked by school occupations by high school
students. After Temer’s inauguration, the “Out With
Temer” movement took to the streets of the cities,
and in Porto Alegre there were 50 thousand
demonstrators, as well as in São Paulo, Rio and
several cities across the country. The demonstrations
were all controlled by the PT and its allies and
diverted by the strategy of pressuring the government
and contesting the bourgeois elections. At that
moment, the capitulations to the PT and the PF of the
currents that claim to be to the left and in opposition
to the PT government were already enormous and the
total absence of an alternative policy by these
organizations became clearer. The struggles against
the Reformation of Secondary Education, the PEC of
the Ceiling of the Expenses and Labor Reform of
Temer were subordinated to the “unity of action” of
the opportunist leaderships in a bureaucratic bloc
among the union federations. CSP Conlutas, which
emerged as an alternative to the CUT’s governing
bureaucracy, is today the largest advocate of this
unity with the opportunist leadership of the
movement. In the metalworkers’ union led by CSP
Conlutas, while keeping strikes isolated by factories
and with an economist agenda, the CSP leaders leave
the agenda of the General Strike, Against the Reforms
and government attacks, in the hands of the trade
union bureaucracy and their Popular Front alliances.
The minority movement is another example of
struggle and resistance that is also controlled by the
opportunist leaderships that lead the working
women’s movement in subordination to bourgeois
feminism. The #EleNao movement, which generated
Class Struggle # 127
demonstrations throughout the country with
thousands of women against Bolsonaro’s candidacy
and fascism, was channeled into the bourgeois
elections and the defense of Haddad’s PT candidacy.
Faced with the deep crisis that the country is going
through, it is not only the workers and the poor and
oppressed people who show their revolt and
indignation. Sectors of the bourgeoisie and petty
bourgeoisie are also dissatisfied and outraged by the
situation. This outrage was capitalized on by the right
and extreme right in 2015 in the move that led to
Dilma’s impeachment. Reactionary sectors are also
dissatisfied, leading to “police strikes” generating
chaos in the states and getting support from several
leftist currents! But the most emblematic movement
was the truckers’ strike in May, 2018. The indignation
of the autonomous truck drivers who cannot keep
their livelihood was led by transport entrepreneurs
who are also not at all pleased with the high fuel
prices. These reactionary sectors also wanted a
“solution” to the crisis, but their solution had nothing
to do with the interests of the workers, demonstrated
by the number of factions in the truckers’ strike that
called for “Military Intervention Now”.
The truck drivers' strike lasted 10 days, causing a
supply crisis bringing the country to a stop with great
popular support, threatening the already weakened
Temer government. All the left came out in support
of the “strike,” consistent with its policy of unity with
“progressive” bourgeois sectors. The CUT was
paralyzed in the first week of the strike and after the
movement rejected the unions’ agreement with the
government to end the strike, the CUT then began to
mobilize the tankers, the sector it organizes, and to
raise the slogan of “against Petrobras’ price policy”
and “Down With Parente” (the president of the oil
company) and there followed 3 days of strike by the
trade. The slogans of the CUT/PT became a force in
the movement and were picked up by the truck
drivers, including the fall of Parente. On the day
marked for the strike of the oil tankers, the leadership
of the truck drivers’ movement ended the strike. The
roads that had been taken by trucks on the first day
of the oil tankers’ strike were totally empty. The oil
tankers’ strike did not last the 3 days, and was totally
demoralized.
Does the fact that the truckers’ strike was a
movement of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie
mean that the workers should not mobilize and
strike? No, on the contrary. Popular support for the
truckers’ strike showed the feeling of indignation of
the population, especially the workers and the
poorest people and showed the need for an
independent movement of the working class. The
phrase most heard on the days of the truckers’ strike
14
December/January 2019
was “have it for everything,” it was a great moment
for an independent movement of the working class
for a General Strike to call on the workers to break
with the bourgeois sectors and unite the sectors of
workers. The support of the CUT and the call to join
in the strike was not a call for class unity, but to unity
with bourgeois and petty bourgeois sectors, which left
the movement in the hands of the transport bosses
and the bureaucracy of the truckers’ unions,
inevitably leading to the defeat of the movement.
Conclusion
The new government has not yet assumed office and
already shows all its fragility. The formation of its
team of ministers is surrounded in several
controversies of dispute between its allies and
Bolsonaro’s party, showing that the “give and take”
that it said it would fight continues. Just as the
allegations of corruption which implicates his future
minister of the interior, and in recent days, the
denunciations made by the media involving his son
who is a deputy, and the undue receipt of money by
his wife, his deputy, General Mourão makes
statements saying that Bolsonaro has to explain the
origin of the money. Police in the state of Roraima are
on strike, the government has announced federal
intervention in the state and the truckers who
threaten further paralysis.
There is no way out for the workers within capitalism.
And to defeat capitalism, class independence and its
traditional methods of struggle are required. Workers
need to form committees for workplace, study and
housing and organize self-defense committees. A true
united front is needed that brings together workers
and social movements for State and National
Congresses, with delegates elected at the base, to
discuss a program of struggle for the working class.
-No to pension reform and privatization!
-Defend public servants and the public
service!
-No to fiscal adjustment!
-For the Nationalisation of big corporates
and banks without compensation and
under workers’ control!
-For a Revolutionary Workers’ Party!
-For a Workers’ United Front! For state
and national congresses of workers, with
workers elected by the rank and file under
workers democracy!
-For a Revolutionary General Strike to
defeat the bourgeoisie and install a
Workers’ Government!
-For a Brazilian Revolution and a Socialist
Latin America!
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019

Reclaiming Marx 200: Part 3

Marx Today
Has Marxism survived Marx’s death and those who followed him claiming to be
Marxists? Part one showed that Marx took exception to the term “Marxism” as not
representing his views. Part Two argued that Lenin took responsibility for defending
and developing Marxism within the second generation of Marxists. In the
concluding part we ask: who would Marx recognise as Marxists today? To answer
this question, it is necessary first to reprise the essentials of Marx and Lenin’s
thinking as the litmus test of those who claim to be a Marxist today.

The legacy of Marx and Lenin class struggle to overthrow capitalism and
impose the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’.
Marx’s method was to abstract from the surface
appearances of capital as commodity exchange, Entering the C20th Lenin was the main
to the essence of the commodity. In Vol 1 he dealt continuator of Marx’s project. He studied Hegel
with the production of value as commodities, and to fully understand Marx’s dialectical method.
in Vol 2, the circulation of commodities between He needed to explain the rise of imperialist
production and consumption. By Vol 3 he was nations and the implications for Marxist theory.
actually constructing a working model by Nor did he have to start from scratch to develop
introducing competition between capitalists to Marx’s theory. For example, he was not the first
advance labour productivity which led in turn to to argue that capitalism had made a transition
the relative rise of constant capital, the TRPT and from its competitive stage to one of state
recurring crises. Of course, Marx planned to monopoly capitalism in the late C19th. Marx and
write three further volumes on the State, Foreign Engels had laid the foundations.
Trade and World Market, to reconstitute the Capitalism as an historic mode of production was
‘concrete’ reality of ‘everyday life’. He was not progressive only so long as it developed the
fussed about failing to complete these volumes as forces of production. The Vol 3 theory of crisis as
others could apply the method and theory to one of falling profits explained why the export of
complete the analysis and explain the ‘many capital was necessary to restore profits and why
determinations’ of surface appearances as rival national capitals would be driven to the
‘actual’, and the basis for revolutionary practice.partition the world economy leading to the
Not only that, while he was producing Capital, he destruction of the forces of production.
wrote many articles on the contemporary class Lenin took Marx’s theory in Vol 3 and condensed
struggle, notably India, the US, and the Civil War the contents of the unwritten volumes in his
in France, in which class relations were exposed theory of Imperialism - the highest stage of
in their ‘many determinations’ e.g. the capitalism. Only socialism could develop the
Commune, testing and requiring changes in the forces of production beyond capitalism in its
Communist program (e.g. smash the state). In decline. In particular, Lenin applied Marx’s
that sense Capital was clearly a C19th work of theory of rent to the concrete political task of
social science where Marx not only developed his explaining how state-backed monopolies could
theory but saw it tested it in practice. The logic extract super profits, manipulating the market
was: method (dialectics) > theory/program and partially suppressing competition by
(Marxism) > practice (the Communist Party). It diplomatic, political and military means. It was
is clear that the objective of Marxism is to form the theory of imperialism that allowed the main
an international communist party, grounded in features of the highest stage of monopoly capital
democratic centralism, that develops the theory in the early C20th to be understood as the basis
by appying it as a program to lead the organized
15
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
for the program of the Russian communists Historical materialism recognises social
drawn into a major imperialist crisis and war. being as independent of the social
consciousness of humanity. In both cases
So, we have the legacy of Marx in the C19th and
consciousness is only the reflection 0f
that of his successor Lenin in the C20th to lay the
being, at best an approximately true
foundations for C21st Marxism facing the
(adequate, perfectly exact) reflection of it.
terminal crises of the economy and climate
From this Marxist philosophy, which is
change. Let’s see what Marxism today looks like.
cast from a single piece of steel, you
Again, we use the criteria of the continuation and
cannot eliminate one basic premise, one
development of the fundamental lessons of Marx
essential part, without departing from the
and C20th Marxists as the basis for judging who
objective truth, without falling a prey to
stands for Marx today. Let’s evaluate these
bourgeois-reactionary falsehood.
developments on the basis of fulfilling the
[Materialism and Empririo-Criticism
demands of Marxist method, theory and
Chapter 6, p 326].
practice.
Lenin concludes his polemic against empirio-
On Dialectical Method criticism:
Marx took Hegel’s dialectical method and stood
“The genius of Marx and Engels lies
it on its feet. Instead of historical development precisely in the fact that during a very long
enacting the will of God (idealism) it was the period nearly half a century, they
result of class struggle “the motor of history” developed materialism, further advanced
(materialism). Here we have the unity of
one fundamental trend in philosophy, did
opposites, capital as a social relation between not rest content with repeating
labour and capital, causing the contradiction epistemological problems that had
between the social relations and the forces of already been solved, but consistently
production. In turn this contradiction drove the
applied – and showed how to apply – this
proletariat as the revolutionary subject to same materialism in the sphere of the
transcend that contradiction by means of social
social sciences, mercilessly brushing aside
revolution. In place of Hegel’s idealist worship of as rubbish all nonsense, pretentious
God as the ‘subject’ of history, dialectics
hotchpotch, the innumerable attempts to
grounded in material life was the method of the ‘discover’ a ‘new’ line in philosophy, to
revolutionary subject, the proletariat. Hence the invent a ‘new’ trend and so forth. The
term dialectical materialism. verbal nature of such attempts, the
In 1908, Lenin defended Marx’s materialism scholastic play with the new philosophical
against a current of Russian Marxism, influenced ‘isms’, the clogging of the issue by
by Machism, that rejected Marx’ premise that pretentious devices, the inability to
there existed a material reality independent of comprehend and clearly present the
thought. Bogdanov and others retreated back struggle between the two fundamental
toward Kant claiming that the premise of a epistemological trends – this is what
material world was about an ‘unknown Marx and Engels persistently tracked
nothingness’ and was therefore ‘metaphysical’ or down and fought against throughout their
idealist. Lenin rubbished this, labelling it activity.” [M&E-C, 336]
‘empirio-criticism’ and a break from the Lenin’s philosophical critique of empirio-
‘historical materialism’ of Marx and Engels. He criticism established a firm dialectical
argued that ‘being’ is not the product of materialist foundation for Russian Marxism and
‘consciousness’ but the reverse.
the method of the program of the Bolshevik
“Materialism in general recognises party. However, it was the betrayal of the 2nd
objectively real being (matter) as International in August 1914 that drove Lenin to
independent of the consciousness, an intensive study of Hegel to understand the
sensation, experience etc., of humanity. philosophical basis of the opportunism of the
16
Class Struggle # 127
international’s historical betrayal and provide
the grounding for a new revolutionary
international. The results were his ‘Conspectus
of Hegel’s Science of Logic’, included in Lenin’s
Philosophical Notebooks, written between mid-
1914 and 1916.
He summarised dialectics as follows:
“Dialectics is the teaching which shows in the 2 International was explained at the level
December/January 2019
embrace the world. Continuation of the
work of Hegel and Marx must consist in
the dialectical elaboration of the history
of human thought, science and
technique.” (Bk 2, 146)
Lenin took this “dialectical elaboration” to new
heights. The retreat from Marxism to empiricism
nd

how opposites can be and how they of method. Empiricism took surface appearances
happen to be (how they become) identical as reality and suppressed the contradictions that
- under what conditions they are identical, drove the class struggle. ‘Evolutionary socialism’,
becoming transformed into one another, - or Menshevism, was the result. Workers must
why the human mind should grasp these collaborate with the bourgeoisie and use the
opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, state to legislate for socialism. Against this attack
conditional, mobile, becoming on Marxism, Lenin’s critique of Plekhanov,
transformed into one another.” (Bk 1, Kautsky, the role of the state, of the Mensheviks,
and so on, ‘elaborated’ the theory/practice of the
109)
Bolshevik Party.
“(1) Ordinary imagination grasps
difference and contradiction, but not the Therefore, there can be no question that Lenin
transition from one to the other, this and Marx were in complete agreement in their
however is the most important. conception of the revolutionary party as the
2) Intelligence and understanding. ‘vanguard’ developing class ‘consciousness’ in
Intelligence grasps contradiction, understanding and embracing the world as a
enunciates it, brings things into relation contradictory ‘unity of opposites’. Armed with
with one another, allows the “concept to this Marxist program and practice, Bolshevism
show through the contradiction,” but does and the 3rd International until Lenin’s death in
not express the concept of things and 1924 represented the highest expression of
their relations. Marxism. Dialectical materialism enabled the
(3) Thinking reason (understanding) party to create a program that was tested in
sharpens the blunt difference of variety, practice culminating in a successful revolution.
the mere manifold of imagination, into
essential difference, into opposition. Only Bolshevism vs Menshevism
when raised to the peak of contradiction, Only correct method can lead to correct program
do the manifold entities become active
and practice. Who can claim to follow Marx and
and lively in relation to one another - they
Lenin on dialectics? Very few, including self-
receive/acquire that negativity which is
the inherent pulsation of self-movement proclaimed Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyists.
and vitality.” (Bk 2, 143) First among equals, Trotsky was critical in
defending this continuity. The Lessons of
“If I am not mistaken, there is much October and the History of the Russian
mysticism and empty pedantry in these Revolution, condenses Bolshevism as living
conclusions of Hegel, but the basic idea is Marxism. After the death of Lenin and with the
one of genius: that of the universal, all- revival of Menshevism in the bureaucratic
sided vital connection of everything with dictatorship of Stalin, the struggle of Trotsky and
everything and the reflection of this the Left Opposition kept dialectics alive until its
connection – Hegel materialistically defeat with the exile of Trotsky in 1927 and the
turned upside down - human concepts, death of other leading communists. From that
which must likewise be hewn, treated, point on the International Left Opposition
flexible, mobile, relative, mutually survived as ‘Bolshevik-Leninists’ fighting the
connected, united in opposites, in order to degenerating 3rd International under Stalin.

17
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
But method and theory do not amount to more petty bourgeois for the proletariat as the
than ideas unless united with revolutionary historical agency of socialist revolution.
practice in a healthy communist international.
Trotsky’s Bolshevik/Leninists fought to restore
Menshevism and Western Marxism
workers democracy in the USSR and in the Most of what passes for Marxism today is one or
Comintern until 1933 when Stalin’s policy of other form of Menshevism that goes back to the
voting with the Nazi’s against the ‘social fascists’ Paris Commune of 1871 and Gotha 1875. The
(social democracy) in Germany helped bring subordination of the proletariat to the
Hitler to power. bourgeoisie in the name of the evolutionary
socialism that led to the successive betrayals of
For the Bolshevik/Leninists this amounted to a
the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Internationals. Kautsky was a
clear betrayal of the international proletariat as
left-Menshevik, as was the majority of the ‘old’
complete as August 1914. Trotsky immediately
Bolshevik leadership. Lenin split the Russian
broke with the Comintern and called for a new
Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP)
revolutionary international which led to the
party to combat Menshevism and those who
foundation of the 4th International in 1938. Its
compromised with it (e.g. Trotsky for a period).
Transitional Program is the most developed
expression of Bolshevik/Leninism that survived The split was necessary because Menshevism
Trotsky’s assassination by Stalin in 1940. replaced the proletarian party with the petty
Embodying dialectics, the transitional method of bourgeois intelligentsia as the agent of
raising demands mobilised workers to fight for revolutionary change (Marx’s ‘petty bourgeois
what they need immediately, so that they learned socialism’). Mensheviks were against the
from their experience that class struggle must goOctober Revolution. They conspired with
all the way to socialist revolution to transcend imperialism to defeat the Revolution. Western,
the contradiction between labour and capital. or Euro-Marxism is the direct descendant of
Menshevism committed to the ‘failure’ of
But the 4th International failed to materialize
into a revolutionary international after the war Bolshevism, and the retreat to the ‘half-way’
house of parliamentary socialism
capable of advancing the interests of the
revolutionary proletariat – backsliding into C20th‘Western Marxism’ is enlisted to the
‘Pabloism’ under a petty bourgeois leadership counter-revolution by suppressing dialectics and
adapting to Stalinism as a modern form of the reviving evolutionary socialism. Lukacs
old one-sided evolutionary Menshevism. defended Lenin and the revolution only to
Maoism was another expression of modern succumb to Stalin and the bureaucratization of
Menshevism as it was based on Stalin’s theory of the revolution. Gramsci defended Stalinism and
‘a bloc of four classes’ – the popular front of the ‘long march through the institutions’ of the
workers, peasants, ‘progressive’ bourgeois and ‘Eurocommunist’ batch of Mensheviks. The
petty bourgeois, to strangle the proletariat. Frankfurters from Adorno to Marcuse
abandoned the proletariat for ‘revolutionary’
Meanwhile most ‘Western Marxists’ in
the C20th judged Bolshevism as an petty bourgeois intellectuals. Why? because they
aberration if not abomination. And of substituted the contradiction between labour
course, they junked dialectics. Why? and capital as a living class struggle for the
‘contradiction’ between an abstract ‘nature’ and
Because dialectics is the method of the
revolutionary proletariat that requires an capitalist society. Sartre found the young
organized vanguard party to advance its ‘humanist’ Marx and ignored the late
class interests in socialist revolution. ‘determinist’ Marx. Althusser rejected the
‘humanist’ young Marx for the Marx of Capital,
Against dialectics the method of
Mensheviks is that of bourgeois logic – and the class struggle for ‘theoretical’ struggle.
idealism, and its twin, empiricism. This All broke with dialectics to end up in the camp of
creates a reactionary theory/program the Mensheviks.
and the anti-Marxist substitution of the
18
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
So, what are we left with? Who is Marx, and what communism, and is part of the failure of socialist
is Marxism, 200 years on? Our objective is to revolutions. Therefore, the ‘communist
reclaim Marx at 200. What do we keep, what do movement’ must act to check the ‘communist
we junk? party’ degenerating into the party-state. But is
the ‘communist movement’ outside the Party
Academic and Post-Marxism capable of ‘checking’ and ‘correcting’ the
If we look at the self-proclaimed Marxists today democratic centralism of the ‘communist party’?
what do they stand for, Marxism, or Post- Is this the “new beginning for Marxism”?
Marxism? Post-Marxists invariable revert to No! Revolution is not possible without
pre-Marxist doctrines to ‘improve’ on Marx. democratic centralism that unites all
Remember Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program communists in the vanguard party. The
– ‘why revert’. Academic Marxists reply ‘why problem of the failure of key 20th century
not’. As a result, they revive the idealist reactions revolutions in Russia and China cannot be
to Marxism of Marx and Lenin’s time for overcome today by a ‘communist
consumption today. Take Zizek’s revival of movement’ separate from the ‘communist
Hegelian idealist ‘master’ (Lenin) to serve the party’ because since 1848 any ‘movement’
Menshevik project. itself is only possible as the result of the
Add the hybrids like Derrida who revise social vanguard party fusing theory and practice
democracy out of strange liaisons with post- in the dictatorship of the workers’ state.
structuralism and Marxism where social In sum, Western Marxism (and its Eastern
determination is outlawed. This born-again
Maoist analogue) is counter-revolutionary along
Marxism rejects the proletariat as the historic
with all other Menshevik and fake Marxist-
gravedigger of capitalism for the idealist re-
construction of the ‘great leader’, the Young Leninist and Trotskyist tendencies claiming to be
Marx or the messianic Lenin who can inspire the the descendants of Marx. There is a failure of
masses to spontaneous world-historic events. revolutionary leadership when the masses
wallow in the swamp of social-imperialism,
Academic Marxism is the factory that produces social democracy, crypto-Stalinism and ‘red-
and reproduces modern Menshevism, cutting brown’ politics.
and pasting Marx and Lenin accordingly. For
example, David Harvey has a reputation for The counter-revolution is not confined to the
reproducing Capital faithfully, yet rejects Marx’s ‘West’ – the euphemism for imperialism – as the
theory of crisis for a surreptitious Keynesian antithesis to the international permanent
underconsumption theory that can acted-on by revolution. The short C20th is a retreat from
parliamentary socialism. Even Michael Roberts Marx that parallels and conspires with counter-
who staunchly defends Marx crisis theory based revolution. The early C21st is a retreat from the
on Capital 3 against Harvey, cannot in practice 20th in toto and marks its lowest point yet – the
apply value theory to the real world when he fails bitter fruit of the restoration of capitalism in the
to grasp the significance of the law of value in Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and before
restoring capitalist/imperialist China to the long the DPRK.
global class struggle. The ‘crisis of leadership’ that Trotsky
However, beyond the academy where Marxism is spoke of in the 1930s persists today and
removed from the everyday world, some until such time as new generations of
celebrity ‘Marxists’ are attempting to bridge that Marxists take up the true legacy of Marx
gap with a call to return to communism as a real and Lenin and build a new Communist
social movement. Let’s take the French Maoist International capable of leading the
Badiou who argues that today, the Marxism we workers of the world to socialist
must build is a ‘communist movement’ as if that revolution to end capitalist destruction
is distinct from the ‘Communist Party’. In his and climate collapse, and to build a future
view, the ‘party-state’ has proven a barrier to communist society.

19
Class Struggle # 127
Capitalism and Extinction
Review of IPCC Report on Climate Change
Since 2009 Class Struggle has responded to the threats to the planetary ecosystems
with the slogan: ‘For the Planet to Live, Capitalism must Die!’
The IPCC Report on Climate Change recently
released by the UN backs up this call with hard
science. The report warns that because of the woeful
inadequacy of governments in backing their
commitments to reduce carbon emissions the Earth
has now only decades to prevent planetary mean
temperature rise of the 2 deg C above which
catastrophic runaway warming is predicted.
The only optimistic note is that the technological
means to sufficiently curb emissions is now available
and the task therefore achievable. What is needed,
the report says, is the level of commitment shown by
governments in the
20th Century when
mobilising social
resources to win world
wars.
Since that report was
released, we have
been informed that
carbon emissions
have increased again
since the economic
upturn following the
GFC. It took nearly a
decade of depression to create an illusion of progress
in limiting carbon emissions.
Meanwhile in Aotearoa/NZ the new government’s
commendable moratorium on deep-sea drilling has
been attacked by the usual suspects in the columns of
NZ’s leading newspaper. In one column, the policy
was condemned by Mike Hosking, a rightwing
talkback shock-jock, who accuses the government of
“economic sabotage”, insisting that the “economic
engine will seize up under an oil ban.”
A brain that is incapable of conceiving that runaway
global warming is more than capable of ruining not
just the economy but Hosking and all his descendants
with it can hardly be expected to entertain any
alternatives to the political economy that renders a
global holocaust inevitable.
To quote the ‘science direct’ website:
20
December/January 2019
“Scientists have argued that no more than 27 GtC (IPCC,
2013) of the world’s reserves of fossil fuels of 746 GtC can
be produced in this century if the world is to restrict
anthropogenic climate change to ≤2 C ...While any reserve
analysis is subject to uncertainty, we demonstrate that
production of these reported reserves will result in
emissions of 440 GtC of carbon dioxide, or 160% of the
remaining 275 GtC carbon budget.”
The other critic, who was described as a financial
consultant, advanced reasons why the policy was
doomed to unintentionally result in effects opposite
to those its authors aimed at. Those reasons have
nothing to do with the physics of the biosphere or the
technology of
manufacture but
everything to do with
the social relations of
production and
property tenure in
the current capitalist
order.
What he was
predicting is that
investors who stood
to lose by a ban on
their investment in
drilling would actually order an increase in
production to maintain their market share against
competitors (His explanation as to why they would do
that eludes me, but let’s accept it for the sake of
argument.)
Both of these writers, whose careers have been built
on serving the capitalist system, implicitly agree that
the planet can go to hell in order to save the capitalist
class and its investments. Class Struggle argues the
reverse.
Where does the Green Party stand on this? A little
more than a decade ago, the Party banned use of the
word ‘capitalism’ in its forums, proving that it put
greater faith in business than in some of its veteran
activists, and provoking them to resign in disgust.
Before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ the Global
Financial Crisis struck, proving that their starry-eyed
faith in capitalism was totally unwarranted.
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019

Why Zionists are anti-Semites

Book Reviews on Zionist History and Ideology. J.M.N. Jeffries Palestine: The
Reality, and Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People
J.M. Jeffries was a war correspondent during the they heeded the call for jihad emanating from
Great War when his work first took him to the Constantinople, with potentially disastrous
Palestine front and he became acquainted with result for the Entente. Their best hope of averting
the treachery of British diplomacy in the such a catastrophe was to cultivate the Turkish
contradictory promises it made to the Arabs, the empire’s pan-Arab liberation movement, and the
French and the World Zionist Federation. He promise of support for its goals was given in
was the first British citizen to see the McMahon- exchange for an undertaking to revolt against
Hussein correspondence of 1915 (Britain’s Turkish rule. Beyond giving military support
promise to the Arabs under Ottoman rule to (which British General Allenby subsequently
recognize an Arab state including all of what is declared invaluable), Hussein, in his influential
now Saudi Arabia, Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, capacity of Sharif of Mecca, countermanded the
Syria and Iraq) and the first to have excerpts of it jihad proclamation. This action alone may have
published in The Daily Mail twenty years before been crucial for the outcome of the whole war.
the British cabinet dared publish it. While the Arab nationalists throughout the
The typical response of Zionist apologists ever Levant were preparing to revolt, Britain, instead
since has been to dismiss the Hussein-McMahon of showing its gratitude for Hussein’s immense
agreement as not having the force of a treaty, but favour, was heeding French demands for rule
at the post-war Peace Conference that Lloyd over portions of Syria and Lebanon, ostensibly
George actually acknowledged in one of his because France had a traditional role in
speeches that Britain did indeed have a treaty protecting ethnic and religious minorities in
with the Arabs. those regions. A non-traditional motive was
So thorough was Jeffries’ expose of British ruling French interest in access to the oilfields of Mosul.
class duplicity that it took until 1938 to complete When Hussein was informed of the French
his magnum opus. For this reader, its interest, he was prepared to give assent to French
comprehensive account answered all the occupation of northern Syria on a temporary
questions that other reading had left basis- i.e. only for the duration of the war. The
unanswered. infamous Sykes-Picot agreement was signed
Jeffries relates how before WWI the Zionist secretly only weeks before the pre-assigned
movement had had limited success in settling launching date of the Arab Revolt. The secrecy
Jews in Ottoman controlled Palestine. Most of served the purpose of preventing the Arabs from
the refugees from the pogroms in Tsarist Russia reconsidering their plans and from cancelling
had preferred to emigrate to western Europe and them in disgust. It wasn’t for another year that
the USA., and it was only in eastern Europe that the victorious Bolsheviks discovered the
Zionism was popular. The entry of Turkey into evidence of British perfidy in the Tsarist files and
the war raised the prospect of eventual British exposed it to the world.
control of Palestine, and Zionist leaders wasted Before then the Entente was again close to defeat
no time in seizing the opportunity to lobby the on the Western Front and desperate for the USA
British government to support Jewish settlement to join the alliance. UK Foreign Secretary
in Palestine. While the outcome of the Near East Balfour’s promise of British support for a Jewish
war still uncertain, both the western and the homeland in Palestine is best explained as an
central powers saw advantage could be gained by attempt to appeal to the constituency of US Jews
mobilising the sympathies of world Jewry, and in the hope they would influence Woodrow
thought this could be achieved by the promise of Wilson to join the war.
a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land. Before the war the Zionist cause had been little
After the Dardanelles debacle Britain was fearful heeded outside of Eastern Europe and among
that its loss of prestige amongst millions of Jewish immigrants to the USA. The leaders of
Anglo/French Muslim subjects would lead to UK’s Jewish community were, for instance,
their mass defection to the Ottoman empire as critical of Zionist aims, as were many of New
21
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
York’s rabbis. While admitting that he’d been the romantic Zionist PR hype about kibbutz
unable to fully investigate the matter, Jefferies dwelling pioneers draining the swamps and
eventually discounted the theory that it was making the deserts bloom, most of the Jewish
Jewish electoral pressure on Woodrow Wilson immigrants settled in the coastal cities where
that was crucial in influencing him to commit the they took employment as factory workers and
USA to join the Anglo-French alliance. However, suffered the same vicissitudes of global economic
Wilson did have a close friend in Zionist crises as elsewhere in the capitalist world. One
spokesman Judge Louis Brandeis, whom he’d particularly significant investment was the
appointed to the Supreme Court. Rutenberg concession, whereby a former
Russian Socialist Revolutionary engineer was
Once UK Foreign Secretary Balfour had got
granted (by Winston Churchill) a monopoly- not
cabinet approval for his plan, he virtually handed
only of the Jordan river waters to generate hydro
over the drafting of his declaration to Zionist
power, but over those industries that consumed
committees on both sides of the Atlantic, even
it. In consequence, Palestinian agriculture was
permitting diplomatic mail and telegraph to be
deprived of irrigation water. In Zionist
used by Zionists. Each word of the declaration
propaganda, the resulting detrimental effect on
was examined and if necessary revised. One
Palestinian productivity was attributed to lack of
significant revision was the replacement of the
the industriousness compared with that of the
phrase “Jewish state” (in Palestine) by “Jewish
colonisers - yet another variation of the “lazy
homeland”. It was realised that at a time when
nigger” stigma.
the Jewish population of Palestine was less than
10%, talk of a Jewish state would be too During the decades of the British mandate a
provocative. number of Arab delegations lobbied the
Zionist participation in the making of British Administration and travelled to London- to no
foreign policy continued post-war in the drafting effect. As the Zionist–majority administration
of Britain’s League of Nations mandate over over-rode the League imposed obligations
Palestine, which even under Sykes-Picot ought toward the citizens by permitting more and more
not to have been placed under British rule. Jewish immigration the Arab street protests
Colonial Secretary Churchill subsequently mounted, increasingly taking the form of rioting.
played a nefarious role in distorting the The Zionist response was to form the militias
which subsequently became the IDF.
boundaries
Britain dispatched a series of commissions of
Although obliged by the League to consult with
inquiry which failed to identify the obvious cause
the inhabitants and to refrain from acting
of the troubles as the determination of the
contrary to their interests, Britain set up a civil
Zionists to displace the indigenous population by
administration with half its members appointed
the immigrants. Palestinian rage culminated in
and half elected. The “favour” it awarded to
the revolt of 1936-8. Besides just limiting
Zionism in the Balfour declaration was displayed
immigration as Palestinians demanded, the final
in favouritism toward the minority Jewish
commission recommended the partition that the
settlers. The stacking of Zionist appointees in the
post-war United Nations subsequently
administration caused the Arabs to boycott the
approved, with the consent of the majority
election, leaving the Zionists completely
“moderate “Zionists over the protests both of
dominating it. The so-called seventieth
most Palestinians and the extreme right-wing
anniversary of the Israeli state would more
Zionist parties. The latter resorted to the
accurately be described as a centenary. Marx’ in
terrorist attacks on British rule that began
the Communist Manifesto Marx wrote
subsequent to the time Jeffries’ book was
“The bourgeoisie… compels all nations, on pain published. Since then Israeli citizens have seen
of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of fit not only to elect a succession of former
production; it compels them to introduce what terrorists to their premiership, but to claim a
it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to monopoly on the right to do so.
become bourgeois themselves”.
Early in his book Jeffries reviewed the historical
Apropos of this, Jeffries relates the role of Zionist knowledge available in his time regarding the
colonisation, backed by international capital, in Jewish connection with the “holy” land since
transforming an agrarian economy of peasant ancient times, noting how limited in
producers into a capitalist industrial one. For all
22
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019
geographical extent and duration were any explained by emigration (whether voluntary or
independent Hebrew states, and how few Jews otherwise) and no ancient empire had the
inhabited the land between the Roman resources to deport whole nationalities. The only
destruction of Jerusalem and the twentieth plausible explanation for the magnitude of the
century. Jewish population outside Judea is conversion of
gentiles. It was early Christian fathers who first
Shlomo Sand in his earlier book The Invention of
mistook the diaspora for an exile, using the
the Land of Israel agreed that the Zionists’
biblical precedent of the Babylonian exile to
assertion of a right to re-establish a Jewish state
teach that the apparent Roman exile was a
based upon this ancient ancestral connection
manifestation of divine wrath for the crucifixion
was preposterous considering the thousands of
of Christ.
years of continuous habitation by non-Jewish
ethnic groups. He went further in citing the The expulsion of Jews by Romans and the
archaeological findings of Israel Finkelstein and subsequent supposedly involuntary Exile is thus
Neil Ashers’ David and Solomon to dismiss as a Christian Myth and an anti-Jewish one to boot.
legendary the biblical accounts of an extensive The corollary of this is that most descendants of
empire under those monarchs. His researches of 1st Century Judeans still live in Palestine, and
rabbinical literature during the middle ages of have done continuously from that time. All that
Christendom discovered that far from changed was their religious identity as Jews.
“generation after generation” of Jews striving to Sand believes they mostly converted to Islam in
return to their ancient home (as the Israeli the 7th Century CE or later, and now identify as
declaration of independence puts it) there was Palestinians.
virtual unanimity amongst rabbis in As for Israeli settlers, far from having any ancient
condemning as impious any recolonization of ancestral connection with the land, they are
Palestine by Jews before the biblically mostly descended from gentile converts to
prophesied advent of the messiah. Judaism. Thus, what we have seen over the last
In his later book The Invention of the Jewish century is European descendants of gentiles
People Sand goes on to demolish four foundation invoking a spurious ancestral connection with
myths of Zionism that are inculcated into the the land to justify driving out genuine
minds of Israeli schoolchildren as part of the descendants of the ancient Hebrew patriarchs
state curriculum. (1) that Jewish people in the and indigenous Canaanites (who, according to
modern era are mostly descended from the the biblical account, survived the genocidal post-
biblical patriarch Abraham; (2) that Judaism is Exodus invasion of the Israelite tribes).
not and never has been a proselytizing religion; It is perhaps not so remarkable that the Israeli
(3) that after suppressing the Jewish revolt of 65- education system uses religious scriptures as
70 CE and destroying the Jerusalem temple the textbooks of secular history- no other evidence
Romans expelled the Jews from Judea, since being available to support Israeli claims of
which time Jews lived in involuntary exile for exclusive Jewish indigeneity in Palestine, which
1800+ years. (4) after devastation by the resting entirely on a literal interpretation of
vengeful empire, Judea remained a virtually scripture requires that equal credence be given
uninhabited desert until the Arabs invaded it, to divine sanction for genocide.
doing little in subsequent centuries to cultivate
the land productively (so that along with other Like Jeffries’ book, Sands’ books are well-
terrae nullii, it called out for industrious researched and cogently argued. He is the first to
Europeanised colonists). admit that evidence of ancient historical events
is sparse, but he claims that his theses are better
Instead he asserts that in the years, ca 200 BCE supported by all the evidence available than any
to 800 CE, Judaism was indeed a very successful to the contrary.
at proselytising, converting the ruling elites of
several states including in Idumea, Yemen, Syria Auckland Public Library’s only copy of Sand’s
and Khazaria and gaining a large following in book has gone missing in transit. Draw your own
Egypt, Cyrenaica, Morocco, Spain, Cyprus and conclusions.
many Mediterranean seaports. The Jewish Further Reading: John Stone, ‘Against Zionism’.
diaspora even before 70 CE was too large to be

23
Class Struggle # 127 December/January 2019

For the World Party of Socialist Revolution!

Liaison Committee of Communists

Class Warrior: Theoretical Journal of LCC http://www.cwgusa.org/?page_id=594
Revolutionary Workers Group of Zimbabwe (RWG-ZIM)
Email: rwg.zimbabwe@gmail.com
Website: www.rwgzimbabwe.wordpress.com
Revolutionary Worker (Paper of RWG-Zimbabwe)

Communist Workers Group- New Zealand/Aotearoa (CWG-NZ)

Email: cwg006@yahoo.com
http://redrave.blogspot.com )
Websites: Class Struggle
http://livingmarxism.wordpress.com
Revolutionary Workers Group of Brazil (RWG-BR)
Email: gtrevolucionarios1@gmail.com
Site: https://grupodetrabalhadoresrevolucionrios.wordpress.com
Guerreiro da classe Trabalhadora (Paper of the RWG-BR)

Communist Workers Group – USA (CWG-US):

Email: cwgclasswar@gmail.com Website: Class War http://www.cwgusa.org/?page_id=16

All issues of Class Struggle are online at https://www.redrave.blogspot.com

Phone +64272800080 cwg2007anz@hotmail.com
Archive of publications before 2006 http://communistworker.blogspot.com/

24