Trump's Mafia Regime

Trump's regime in the US is a mafia regime, much like the regime of his associate Netanyahu and the Zionist/colonialist state in Israel. The Zionist state came into existence as a terrorist state, most clearly seen in the actions of the likes of the Stern Gang. It expanded its territory by terrorising the indigenous Palestinians, and seizing their land and property, a process it has continued ever since. Since its inception, it has also used the same kinds of mafia methods including against its own internal opponents, most notably its actions in kidnapping Mordecai Vanunu. Trump's mafia regime has been using the same tactics on the streets of US cities, as it has recruited into the paramilitary gangs of ICE, assorted thugs, who have then be released on to the streets of the US to simply snatch anyone who is not white, thousands of whom, are, then, disappeared, reminiscent of the way the death squads, supported by the CIA, operated in various Latin American countries in the past.

The kidnapping of Maduro by Trump's mafia regime is fully consistent with that approach. For Trump, and his mafia regime, the motivations seem clear. The idea that this was about drugs is clearly nonsense. The Venezuelan regime of Maduro may well have been involved in facilitating drug smuggling, particularly after several decades of sanctions by US imperialism, undermined its economy, and specifically its oil industry. But, compared to other countries in the region, its role, in that regard appears to be minor. Trump's claim that Venezuela was responsible for the large majority of fentanyl smuggled into the US, is just another typical Trump lie. It accounts for only around 1%. Remember that previously, Trump, in order to justify his imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico, had claimed that they too were responsible for a large part of the fentanyl smuggled into the US.

Moreover, Trump has just pardoned the former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, who actually had been involved in, and convicted of significant drug trafficking into the US. That was part of Trump's direct involvement in influencing elections in Latin America, as with, also, his sanctioning of Brazil for having indicted Bolsonaro for having attempted a coup, similar to that Trump attempted in the US in 2021, and his $40 billion gift to Milei's regime in Argentina ahead of its recent elections. As far as his concern with upholding democracy, it is clearly a joke, given Trump's admiration for every dictator across the globe, so long as he thinks they can serve his personal purposes for enrichment.

And that is a characteristic of Trump's mafia regime that demarcates it from previous US regimes. In the past, US President's essentially operated in the interests of US imperialism. As with all top level bourgeois politicians, the lining of their own pockets was taken for granted, as a perk of the job, but that is something that flows to them, after they leave office, in the form of lucrative positions on the boards of large companies and so on. Trump has no time for such niceties and conventions. He seeks to grab what he can, as quickly as he can. He reflects the same mindset as a petty-bourgeois in some developing economy, who finds themselves, in the fortunate position of access to the state's coffers and resources.

So, when Trump puts the squeeze on Zelensky's regime in Ukraine, it is the typical mafia style protection racket. Give us access to your vast mineral resources, or no more arms. Trump's threats to the EU are of the same kind, except, as the EU leaders have allowed themselves to tie their colours to Zelensky's corrupt regime, they are left trying to cajole Trump, and to promise to spend billions of dollars more on buying additional US weapons – 63% of EU arms spending goes to US weapons companies – as well as, having boycotted cheap Russian oil and gas, now having to buy billions of dollars more oil and gas from the US. Trump's support for the genocide in Palestine, which like the Ukraine war follows on from the policy of the Biden regime, is another clear example of this. The Zionist regime sees further sanctioned colonial expansion, whilst Trump sees the opportunity for his own business empire to expand into the provision of luxury resorts on Gazan prime beach front. He is reminiscent of Gene Hackman's portrayal of Lex Luthor, in the first Superman, who sought to explode nuclear weapons in California to cause a huge earthquake just for his own personal gain.

This is the way the original merchant adventurers and pirates operated, enriching themselves, whilst also acting as the vanguard of colonial powers, as they formed colonial empires across the globe in the 17th century. As I pointed out a while ago, that colonialism was the form that imperialism took in the era of mercantilism, and it came to an end when large-scale industrial capitalism became dominant at the end of the 19th/start of the 20th century, and established modern imperialism. But, in the last 40 years, in the developed economies of the West, that dominance of large-scale industrial capital has been undermined, as a ruling class of rentiers, has emerged – owners of fictitious-capital – concerned more to increase their nominal wealth via speculation, and capital gains, rather than by actual investment in the accumulation of capital.

In the end, as the owners of that fictitious-capital – shares, bonds, and so on – they are still dependent upon the creation of surplus-value/profits by large-scale industrial capital, but they are trapped in a vice. They have become addicted to those capital gains, and any expansion of real capital, now threatens those gains, much as happened in the period 1965-1985, when rising interest rates caused asset prices to fall, in real terms. Their long term wealth, revenues and power depends on capital accumulation, their short term interest, now, depends on restraining capital accumulation and economic growth, in order to avoid further crashes in asset prices like those of 1987, 1990, 1994, 2000, and 2008.

The ruling class owners of fictitious-capital seek to escape that vice, firstly by a delusional resort to perpetual inflation of the currency supply, so as to channel that liquidity into the purchase of their increasingly worthless paper assets, to keep up their prices. Secondly, they seek to boost realised profits without any equivalent increase in capital accumulation. To do that they have to reduce costs, by reducing trade frictions and so on. That is what globalisation was about, and it is what the EU was about. But, the consequence was that sluggish capital accumulation and economic growth, led to a relative expansion of the impoverished petty-bourgeoisie, as former industrial workers unable to find work as wage-labourers, became self-employed labourers, traders and so on – the gilets jaunes, or white van man. Many also, sank into the black economy, a growth that took off in the 1980's, with widespread smuggling of tobacco and alcohol, and of course, drugs.

It is this growth of the impoverished petty-bourgeoisie, which expanded by 50% since the 1980's, that is the social layer upon which the likes of Trump in the US, Farage in Britain, Le Pen in France, and so on has been based. The interests of this reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, are antagonistic to those of the ruling-class, as well as to the interests of the working-class. Indeed, as Lenin pointed out in his polemics against the Narodniks, the interests of the working-class, are far more aligned with the interests of the ruling-class, than with those of the petty-bourgeoisie. The first two classes look forward, whereas the latter looks backward. The only modification to that, now, as set out above, is that, whilst the working-class, and professional middle-class, as the collective owners of socialised capital, continue to look forward, the ruling-class, as owners of fictitious-capital, who have become addicted to speculation/gambling, are restrained in their forward horizons.

The global ruling-class continues to seek a continuation of globalisation, a removal of national barriers and trade restrictions, because that is the way to boost realised profits, by reducing costs, and raising the rate of turnover of capital. But, its own actions have created a monster that is eating it alive. That monster is not, today, the working-class, but the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie. It is the likes of Trump, Farage, Le Pen and so on, and worse, for that ruling-class, the reliance on the façade of bourgeois-democracy, on the power of the ballot, and of elected governments, has handed a powerful weapon to that reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, whose strength has always been in its numbers. The bankruptcy of social-democracy, has, therefore, led former conservative social-democrats, to seek to cling to office by appeasing that reactionary petty-bourgeois mass. Hence, Starmer's adoption of the reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist mantra of Brexit, and subsequent careening into the gutter politics of racism, and the scapegoating of migrants.

It is no coincidence, therefore, as I noted some weeks ago, that, as these political regimes, in the US and UK, have been captured by the forces of that reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and all of its attendant ideological baggage, associated with the period prior to the dominance of large-scale industrial capital, it has also begun to revert to the form of imperialism of that period, too, i.e. colonialism. That is most notable in relation to the proposal to establish a colonial regime in Gaza, under the control of the UK and US. Trump's fanciful claim that he is going to “run” Venezuela, is of the same kind.

Some of Trump's own propagandists are open in admitting that.

That is not to say that there cannot be some shared goals between this reactionary petty-bourgeois agenda, and those of the ruling-class. The ruling-class continued to utilise the existing colonial empires, and network of commercial operations for decades, for example. The reactionary petty-bourgeois regime of Zionism, and its colonialist agenda, has also been used by US imperialism, as it seeks to establish Israel as the major regional sub-imperialist power, and the creation of a single market, in the Middle-East and North Africa. Allowing Trump and his mafia regime to think its all about their own personal gain, is a small price for imperialism and the ruling class to pay to achieve that end, just as allowing the Zionists to think its all about their colonial expansion fulfils the same function.

For Trump, the mafia style kidnapping of Maduro is primarily about this same kind of personal gain. It is the same kind of mindset as the old colonialist land-grab. Trump embodies both aspects of those old colonial regimes, based upon mercantilism. Mercantilism was a transitional regime in which the old landed aristocracy, in rapid decline, allied with the rising commercial bourgeoisie. The old landed aristocracy used the merchant adventurers, to seize foreign lands. The merchants enriched themselves from the buying up of cheap cheap commodities, and their sale in their home markets, whilst the landed aristocracy expanded their estates overseas, and consequently their rental income. Trump wants to grab those cheap commodities – Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, for example, - and he, also, has his eye on further opportunities to acquire land on the cheap, to build his hotels, casinos, and golf resorts.

But, that is not the prime concern of the ruling-class, even just its US component. Ed Conway has noted that US imperialism has more than enough of its own oil, already, as a result of the development of shale oil, for example. A large rise in global oil supplies, which would reduce global oil prices, will actually undermine US shale oil production, because of its high costs of production. 

Trump with an eye on his rapidly collapsing electoral support, may well, see the short-term advantage of cheap petrol prices. As Ed Conway has noted, however, one concern of US imperialism, especially as the EU has become more dependent on US oil and gas, as a result of boycotting cheap Russian oil and gas, is that the US oil refineries are geared to the processing of the kind of heavy crude oil that comes from Venezuela. US production of this heavy oil has been declining, and so to run these refineries at economic levels, requires a supply of that Venezuelan oil.

Trump's colonialist agenda, therefore, aligns with the interests of US imperialism, even if the political representatives of that imperialism, i.e. the social-democrats, would have gone about it differently. As I pointed out last year, as globalisation broke down under the weight of its own contradictions, which had given rise to the growth of the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie in the developed economies, and a rapid expansion of large-scale industrial capital in Asia, Latin America, and increasingly Africa, the hegemony of US imperialism inevitably broke down, as it was challenged by the rise of Chinese imperialism. The rise of Chinese imperialism created new alliances, but also asserted the basic economic realities. Trade develops first and most intensively between near neighbours.

Imperialism requires large single markets. As US hegemony broke down, and imperialist rivalry intensified, Chinese imperialism expanded its influence across Eurasia. The EU, which was formed to create such a large single market, to compete effectively with the US, is, also, increasingly drawn towards its geographical neighbours in Eurasia, undermining its previous dependence on US imperialism. In the same way, those processes make, at least, North America, the rational minimum size of single market for US imperialism, and hence the former creation of NAFTA, which Trump has, also, undermined, as he seeks to assert a similar colonialist domination over it. As I also pointed out, although the propagandists of western imperialism have continually talked about Russian aggression and expansion – rather facile given the huge territory of Russia, and its own vast resources, and its very limited military capacity – it is not Russia nor China that has been involved in the majority of military adventures over the last 50 years, or even 20 years. It has been US imperialism. It is not Russia or China threatening to seize Greenland, Canada, or the Panama Canal, but US imperialism.

True, Russia did invade Eastern Ukraine, but the actions of US imperialism, now, rather expose all of the ridiculous claims of the western imperialists and their apologists about Russia having nothing to worry about in the aggressive expansion of US/NATO imperialism up to Russia's borders, based on the claim that NATO is a purely peace-loving, defensive alliance! For Trump's mafia regime, its all about personal gain, and ambition. The idea that Trump, whose political regime cannot even run the US, and is seeing its support collapse, even amongst its petty-bourgeois, MAGA base, could run Venezuela, is as ridiculous as the idea that Trump was going to end the Ukraine War in 24 hours, or his claims to have resolved more than 8 wars, including wars between countries that were never at war!

It does again show the thoroughly bankrupt nature of western social-democracy, and its formal and informal institutions. The UN, again, shown to be completely useless, unless it is serving the interests of a hegemonic US imperialism. Some EU governments have condemned Trump's gangster regime, but with no likelihood they will go any further. Unlike their sanctions against Russia, for example, they are unlikely to put sanctions on the US, even as Trump sanctions EU politicians, institutions and diplomats, and imposes tariffs on them. The pathetic Starmer regime cannot even bring itself to condemn Trump's terroristic actions, much as it could not condemn the genocide by the Zionist regime, which it has facilitated. I await the response of the snivelling Rutte, to the actions of the monster he calls “Daddy”.

The Nobel Committee could not, with a straight face, award the Peace prize to Trump as he had demanded, but appeased him by giving it to María Corina Machado, who they saw as a potential future puppet of western imperialism. She duly adopted the role of sycophant to Trump, much in the vein of Starmer, Rutte and so on. Much as Trump has done in repaying the sycophancy of European social-democrats, by treating them with the disdain they deserve, Trump's, first action having kidnapped Maduro was to heap the same kind of disdain on Machado, as a potential replacement, declaring that she did not have the required popular support in Venezuela. Given her association with Trump, that is, now, almost certainly true, as the actions of Trump, will have been one of the greatest boosts to the reactionary Venezuelan regime they could get.

Of course, the reactionary Venezuelan ex-patriots in the US, celebrated the actions of Trump, much as the former criminal classes that thrived uner the corrupt regime of Batista, in Cuba, have continually demanded, from the sidelines in Miami, that the US overthrow the Cuban regime, and allow them to return to their previous nefarious activities. For the likes of “Little” Marco Rubio, therefore, this gangster raid on Caracas, is not the main event. He sees it as the precursor to such an invasion of Cuba. But, for US imperialism, Cuba is irrelevant. Far more significant is the creation of a single North American market, and if that has to come via, a bellicose Trump colonialism, so be it.

Trump has already made clear his colonial ambitions in respect of Mexico, Canada and Greenland. The chance of a war with Mexico, let alone Canada, in the immediate future, to that end, seems remote, but already, members of Trump's mafia regime, have sent out images of US flags flying over Greenland, in the aftermath. Given the acquiescence of European social-democrats, as Wong admitted, what is there to stop him? Trump's belligerence is not intended to foreshadow an actual war with Mexico or Canada, as with its expansionist war with Mexico in the 19th century, but to intimidate and cow, as with his imposition of tariffs.

Canada has been looking to the EU, but the reality is that it cannot compensate for its trade with the US, by increased ties with Europe, any more than Britain can compensate for its trade with the EU by increased ties with the US. For workers in North America, the solution lies not in looking to the EU, but in looking to their fellow workers in the US, and Mexico. The voluntary creation of a unified North American state is a rational, progressive development, but one that should be championed by the workers of Noth America themselves, on the basis of class unity, against the interests both of the ruling class, and the colonialist ambitions of petty-bourgeois nationalists such as Trump, and his mafia regime.

Trump cannot run Venezuela, and as with some of his previous delusional statements seems to reflect his own mental deterioration. The kidnapping of Maduro has simply resulted in the Venezuelan Vice President taking over. Trump first seemed to suggest that she was going to facilitate him running Venezuela, but the reality is that, she took the first opportunity to go on TV and demand that Maduro be released and returned. Now, Trump's apologists are trying to suggest that the Venezuelan Vice President and government have fled the country. Apparently, also untrue. Rodrigues is in Russia, but as part of trying to garner external support. The idea that they could be bullied into compliance seems unrealistic, without an actual invasion, and boots on the ground, which the US has baulked at, and would require Congressional approval.

So, the next few days are likely to see Trump frustrated once more, as the delusions are confronted by the reality. It is all a long way from the hopes of Trump's MAGA base of an end to US imperialism's military adventures and forever wars.

A Reply To Fredtorssander

This is the last of the replies to comments on Michael Roberts' Blog that I promised to provide last week. It covers a number of issues. 

The discussion begins with my comment that many of those that have been most vociferous in arguing for economies to be closed down, in response to COVID19, are those that have also been arguing, prior to the outbreak, for borders to be closed, for globalisation to be ended, for free movement to stop, and so on. Fred says, quite rightly, that it is not many of these individuals and groups that have closed down the world economy, but global capitalism. Quite right, but I have never said anything different to that. My personal belief, expressed from the start, is that global capitalism has made a huge mistake in doing so. Its actions are not the result of some global conspiracy of uncertain purpose, but come down, instead, to global cock-up, of the power of group think, in causing irrational behaviour, of moral panic. As the well respected professor of medicine and epidemiology at Stanford University, John Ioannidis, wrote in the middle of March that it was shaping up to be “a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.”

My point, however, was that, as global capitalism, and individual national capitals all fell into line – apart from some notable exceptions such as Sweden – in admiring The Emperor's New Clothes, the opportunity was taken by reactionary elements to press their own case for economic nationalism, for the closing of borders, and so on. It was used by other right-wing elements to pursue their own xenophobic agendas, blaming China or Asian people for the virus. It allowed all the associated crazies to come out with their own conspiracy theories about the virus having been created in the lab by their own particular villain of the piece, be it the CIA for some, China for others, Iran for others, and I'm sure in there will be claims that Israel was behind it all. The whole moral panic constructed around what is, in actual fact, simply a virus that has killed only about the same number of people that flu would kill, on average, were we not to have vaccines against it, that has killed only a fraction of the people who die every year from other diseases, such as smoking related illness, that has affected almost exclusively a small, and identifiable cohort of the population, who could and should have been protected against it, has enabled a whole gamut of reactionaries to pursue their agendas on the back of it. 

The truth is that the number of deaths could have been kept to a tiny fraction of what they have been if governments had followed the advice I gave at the start. A look at the data showed from the beginning that it was only around 20% of the population that was at serious risk from the virus. That 20% comprised people who were elderly, or else who had other illnesses that compromised their immune system. The data is clear. The average age of people dying from COVID19 is 81. 53% of those dying are aged over 80, with a further 39% being over 60. So, 92% of all deaths are people over 60. Of the remaining 8%, 7% had known underlying health issues, meaning only 1% of deaths are people not in these categories, and if we examine that 1% in more detail, it will almost certainly be found that they too had some other contributing factor. 

To have slashed the number of deaths from COVID19, one simple measure was required. It was to isolate those in this 20% category from any potential contact with the virus. In fact, early on, I gave an analogy of people who suffer with serious nut allergies. If you have a serious nut allergy, then you might die from contact with nuts. The number of people with such allergies are a minority. We don't ban nuts, instead we enable people with such an allergy to be isolated from them.

What was also known, from what happened in Italy, was that the greatest threat to life came from the virus having become ingrained in its health and social care system. Not surprising, because, by definition, those in these establishments are a concentration of that 20%. Yet, for example, the British government said early on that people in Care Homes should be safe from the virus, precisely because they were already “locked down”, isolated from the general public, in these institutions. It reflected the fact that their whole emphasis had been on a misguided concern to prevent the spread of a generally innocuous virus amongst the general public, rather than trying to prevent those actually at serious risk from it being in contact with it. It was like a government spending all its time shutting down production of nuts and nut products, and telling people to avoid them in case they had a reaction to them, whilst failing to actually identify people with such an allergy, and keep them away from the nuts in their cupboards! 

What was worse, is that there was no immediate prospect of being able to protect those actually at risk from the virus, in the same way we protect people in those groups from the flu. Every year, anyone in an at risk group can get a free flu jab. Indeed, anyone can get a flu jab at little cost. But, there was no prospect of a COVID19 vaccine being available for around 18 months. That meant that everyone in the at risk group would be susceptible so long as the virus was at large. Being able to isolate 20% of the population, which in Britain amounts to around 13 million, becomes progressively more difficult the longer such isolation has to be maintained. But, this is where the misguided focus on trying to prevent the spread of the virus amongst the 80% of the population not at serious risk from it, was doubly damaging. 

Coronavirus is one of the viruses responsible for the common cold, which is just a generic term for the symptoms caused by these viruses. As with the common cold, the vast majority of people infected do not suffer any serious consequences. Around 80% of people infected with COVID19 – which is just one strain of coronavirus – either do not know they have it (they are asymptomatic) or else have only very mild symptoms. However, just as with the common cold, some people can be badly affected by it. As a child, I suffered badly with bronchial asthma. When I was 13, I contracted a cold, and it affected my chest, a prolonged bout of asthma causing all of my bronchi to become inflamed. Eventually, that resulted in me contracting pneumonia from which I almost died. 

Vaccination works by deliberately infecting people with a weakened dose of a particular virus, so that the body's own immune system produces antibodies that are able to kill the virus. Once these antibodies exist, if you come into contact with the virus again, the body produces sufficient antibodies to kill the virus, before it can make you ill. That means that, for any particular type of virus, it can never infect a sufficient number of hosts so as to be able to spread. It then dies out. That is exactly what was required in relation to COVID19, so that the period of time that the people in the at risk 20% needed to be kept in isolation so as not to be at risk from it, was minimised. However, in order to achieve that, given that no vaccine was likely for 18 months, it was necessary to create a process of natural vaccination, or what scientists call “herd immunity”. That is that the healthy members of the population, the people who comprise the 80% of the population not at risk from it, needed to become infected, so that their bodies would produce the antibodies required to kill the virus, and prevent it from spreading. 

In fact, this is how the idea of vaccination was developed by Jenner in the first place. Jenner noted that milk maids rarely suffered from smallpox, which was devastating populations. He discovered that the reason was that milk maids usually caught cow-pox as a result of milking cows. Cow-pox was a less deadly relative of smallpox, and so, having contracted cow pox, the milkmaids produced antibodies, which then gave them protection against smallpox. Having identified this Jenner was able to then deliberately infect people with cow-pox, which meant that they then developed immunity against smallpox. The more who obtained this herd immunity against smallpox, the harder it was for it to spread. In fact, even when I was a kid, it was common for parents to send their kids around to visit other kids that had mumps or chicken-pox, so they would also contract it, and gain immunity. These diseases were not serious for kids, but represented a much greater threat for people as adults, so it was better to have them when you were a kid. 

But, governments in the middle of a media generated moral panic over COVID19, were under pressure to be seen to be doing everything in their power to prevent the spread of the virus. A media more concerned with its own headlines and ratings than with public health knew bad optics when it saw it, and seized on the term “herd immunity” to create a further sense of moral outrage around it, and various political forces keen to seize political advantage also seized upon it as a means of attacking governments that had quite reasonably set out to pursue such a policy, which had been outlined to them by their scientific advisors. But, as soon as the politicians buckled under the pressure of the media's outrage over the strategy of developing “herd immunity”, it was clear that the scientists themselves, having been hung out to dry by those spineless politicians, were also not going to make themselves the sole target of public vilification. Only a few honourable exceptions have had the backbone to do that, and have continued to point out that the Emperor has no clothes on. 

So, when Fred says, 

“But no matter who or what is responsible for the choice of method or if the method is a result of the pauperisation of the medical infrastructure there is no reason to let COVID19 spread?” 

And, in a further comment, 

“This is no reason though to accept that capitalism and imperialism kill more people right now by letting the coronavirus have its way?” 

I disagree. Or at least, the statement needs to be amended. It should read, “there is no reason to let COVID19 spread to the 20% of the population for whom it could pose a serious risk”. There has never been any question of simply “letting the coronavirus have its way”, but the question is how to intelligently deal with it as a threat, and thereby remove that threat. The truth is that absent a vaccine, there is no way of protecting 100% of the population from COVID19, any more than its possible to protect 100% of the population from catching a cold. Instead, we rely on the fact that the vast majority of the population who catch a cold will have only minor symptoms from it, and will develop antibodies against it, causing “herd immunity” to develop, and the outbreak to subside. In fact, one reason we have never had a vaccine against the common cold is that because a number of different viruses are responsible for it, and because these viruses mutate, its not possible to cover all possible eventualities. Not even the flu vaccine is infallible in that regard. So, even if a COVID19 vaccine is developed, it doesn't mean that next year, the same problem will not exist with COVID20, or the following year with COVID21, and so on. So, what, are we going to keep the global economy closed down for the indefinite future? 

There are essentially three models of how to deal with COVID19, and its possible future variants. The first is that adopted by South Korea, Germany and others. That relied on widespread testing from the start, which identified the small number of infected people, isolated them, tracked those they had been in contact with, tested them, and isolated them if they too were infected. It also involves borders being closed, and anyone crossing the borders having to be tested before being granted entry. The second is the strategy that has been adopted by Britain, New Zealand and elsewhere of locking down the country, closing borders, preventing movement of people inside the country, and so on. The third is the option adopted by Sweden which has been to allow continued free movement and social interaction, allowing citizens to act on information to isolate themselves appropriately where they felt they were at potential risk. 

The problem with the first two approaches is that, absent a vaccine, they provide no immunity for the population. They rely on essentially the number of infected people falling to such a low level that the virus cannot spread rapidly. But, this virus is at large in the world, and is not going away. Absent a vaccine, these solutions cannot work, and, even with a vaccine, they may not work if the virus simply mutates so that the vaccine is inoperative against it. Both rely on a shutting down of economic activity that is not sustainable in the long run.

That is most clear in the second approach where large areas of social interaction are shut down. But, the farce of this approach is shown in Britain, where people are told that they can't go to the pub or the gym, and so on, but they are expected to continue to go to work, and to get to work they have to go on the bus, tube or train! Now recognising at least the farce of this latter element, the government is instead proposing the ridiculous idea that people should instead walk or cycle several miles to work and back, thereby risking their lives in other ways. A largely unfit population is not going to do that, and many of them would have heart attacks if they tried it, and workplaces are not geared up to dozens of their employees coming in to work covered in sweat, and requiring showers and changing rooms. Nor do those workplaces allow their employees to use bikes where they need to use transport for work, because the companies insurance companies will not insure them, considering the use of bikes as to risky, which anyone who has actually ridden a bike on Britain's roads knows to be only too true. 

In an economy based upon extensive social division of labour it was clear that its impossible to actually shut down production. If the government had been serious about everyone staying home, then within hours the electricity supply would have shut down, water supplies would stop without the electricity to power the pumps, and everyone would have seen immediately that such a condition could not be allowed. But, the power stations, the water companies and so on, require supplies, which means their suppliers also have to continue working, and the engineering companies that supply those companies have to continue working, and so on. All of the workers need food and other supplies, and because supermarkets only keep around 2-3 days of supplies, that means that the companies providing the food and other goods sold by the supermarkets have to keep working. And, because all these workers need to get to work then public transport has to keep working, and to fuel the public transport, or the cars that workers use individually, the petrol stations, and the oil refineries that supply the petrol stations have to keep working. That means that the suppliers of those companies, and the suppliers of those companies also have to keep working. And, if you have a health emergency then you can't exacerbate it by not having refuse collected, which means the bin men have to work, and if the bin men are working, the council staff in the offices that deal with the timesheets, buy in the materials, process the payroll, pay the accounts, and run the computer department and so on, also have to be at work. 

The idea that Britain has been in lock down as far as work is concerned is baloney. That is why GDP – the amount of labour being performed – has fallen by only around 30%. That 30% is the labour of those people in those businesses that have had to close down, such as the small shops, hairdressers, pubs, clubs, gyms and so on. The good thing about this is that, because the vast majority of workers have continued to work, and so to come in contact with each other, a large number of them will already have long since contracted the virus without ill effects and have obtained immunity against it. The bad news is that, because it has been done in this way, some of the workers actually pressured into working will have been themselves part of the at risk 20%, and because it has been done in this way, there has been no proper protocols to ensure adequate PPE, or physical distancing.  The most obvious examples of that has been in the hospitals and care homes, which have also become killing fields for their inhabitants.  Had Britain actually imposed a lockdown of its economy, then it would possibly have limited the proportion of its population that now has such immunity, but the economy would have been destroyed, and as soon as it lifted the lockdown, any remaining cases of the virus would have a huge field of potential unprotected people to infect. 

The first approach avoids this problem of a more widespread lockdown, but it requires that the number of infections be relatively small. It also requires that borders be at least partially closed so that no one entering the country can bring the virus into it. It again implies a prolonged restriction on the functioning of the economy that is not sustainable. Moreover, because it means that no natural immunity is established, it also means that these constraints can't be lifted, because, as soon as they are, the potential for an entirely unprotected population to be infected remains. 

The only sensible approach is that taken by Sweden. But, Sweden too made mistakes. It should from the start have recognised the danger to the at risk 20% of the population, and particularly to those people contained within its old folks homes. It didn't do that, and so, as everywhere, it has suffered from large numbers of old people in those institutions succumbing to the virus. Because it has larger more concentrated old folks homes and a larger population concentrated in Stockholm than its Nordic neighbours, that explains why it has had a higher per capita mortality rate, other than early on. But, because Sweden did not impose a lockdown, it has avoided some of the damage to its economy, though not entirely, because it is impacted by the damage done to its neighbours and the global economy in general. What is more, Sweden has now achieved herd immunity for its population in Stockholm with a consequent sharp drop in the number of deaths it is now experiencing. By contrast, all the countries that tried to prevent the spread of the virus will see it continue to exact a toll for many months to come. 

Finally, let me turn to Fred's comments about “the very few remaining proletarian socialist nations”. I already dealt with this, yesterday, in my response to Jlowrie, but let me deal with it more, in direct response to Fred. One very short comment I had posted to Michael Roberts' Blog that was blocked, asked him also, given his Trotskyist lineage, as a former senior member of the Revolutionary Socialist League on his opinion of these “socialist nations”. We will never know his answer. Of course, it would have been useful if Fred himself had listed exactly which nations he was including in this category, does it include North Korea, as well as China and Cuba, for example, and does it include Venezuela or perhaps even Iran? 

Fred says that my refusal to recognise any of these nations as “socialist” is ultra-left, but for a Marxist the term socialist has a specific meaning, and its hard to justify that description to any of these unspecified nations that Fred is referring to. The only one he mentions is Cuba, so I will confine myself to that example, before making more general comments. I continue to define Cuba as a deformed workers state. It is a workers' state by virtue of the fact that the other classes in Cuba were destroyed as a consequence of its revolution, and the ripping up of the social roots upon which those classes rested. It is deformed, because from the beginning the working-class itself has never held or exercised power, or control over the political regime in its own name. The revolution itself was originally a peasant war, not a proletarian revolution, and was led by a petty-bourgeois nationalist movement, not a revolutionary communist party. On this last point, I would refer Fred to the “ultra-Left” Lenin, and his Theses on the National an Colonial Questions, where he wrote of, 

“the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries; the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations. The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form;” 

Castro's movement was such a petty-bourgeois nationalist movement that operated on purely bourgeois liberal politics. The reason that Lenin and the Comintern argued that we give no left cover for such organisations is precisely because they are our class enemies, we make short-term tactical alliances with them, but certainly do not merge with them, as the Stalinists proposed, or implemented, in practice, via the Popular Front, only in order to obtain the immediate task of national liberation, but only in the context of permanent revolution, recognising that not only after any such liberation will such forces be our class enemy, but that even before such liberation, if truly revolutionary forces are likely to seize power, these petty-bourgeois forces will stab the workers in the back, just as they had done in 1848, as the Kuomintang did in 1927, an so on. 

The Cuban working-class has never held state power or control over the political regime, directly in Cuba. From the beginning political power has been in the hands of Castro's regime. It fell in with the USSR, only as protection from the US, which rather stupidly drove it in that direction. As with many other Third Worldist regimes Cuba modelled itself not on a healthy workers state, but on the deformed, bureaucratised Stalinist state in the USSR, whose client it became, and on which it depended. But, even if Cuba were a healthy workers' state, it would not at all mean that Cuba itself was socialist. As Stalin himself admitted before he developed the Theory of Socialism In One Country, and expunged his earlier writings, 

“For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are enough – to this the history of our own revolution testifies. For the final victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough – for this we must have the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries.” 

(The Foundations of Leninism) 

Socialism in one country, particularly a small, essentially peasant country, as Cuba was, is a reactionary delusion. Cuba never has been socialist. But, even if Cuba had developed beyond being an essentially peasant economy, even if it could be said to have had the support of other industrialised countries, what exists in Cuba could not be called Socialism, precisely because, Socialism depends upon the means of production being under the direct democratic control of the working-class, and also the state itself must be under the democratic control of the working-class, whilst no such condition exists in Cuba in either context. 

In fact, if we examine what Lenin says in Left-wing childishness, he notes the nature of the productive forces in Russia, and says that given their overall undeveloped nature, even state capitalism would represent a step forward. A Workers' state, almost by definition, inherits forms of property that are in transition, which means that they are not yet socialist forms of property. As transitional forms of property, there is always the danger that they may move backwards away from socialism towards capitalism, and that is precisely why Socialism In One Country is not possible. A Workers' State must also continue to operate in a global economy dominated by capital, and just as Lenin describes the way generalised commodity production and exchange leads inexorably towards competition, and thereby to the development of capital, capitalists and capitalism, so the continued operation of transitional forms of property, in a global capitalist economy, dominated by capital and commodity exchange, means that the transitional property is always being pulled in the direction of capitalism and away from socialism. The USSR, under Lenin, had to adopt the NEP; he tried to get multinational capital to invest in Russia, and ultimately the USSR collapsed. China has gone in the same direction. I don't know if Fred has been to Cuba, but I have, and he would see that it too, has lots of foreign investment, particularly in its hotels and tourist industry. I am not saying there is anything wrong with such investment, on the contrary, as Trotsky said, in relation to Mexico, even to build state capitalism, first capital is required. But, then, be clear that what exists is not socialism. 

Now, as I said, Fred doesn't actually tell us which countries he is referring to, when he talks about proletarian socialism, so its hard to respond. But, if we take another he might be referring to, such as Venezuela its again hard to in any way justify calling it socialist. Chavez himself was simply a petty-bourgeois nationalist, and his programme was that of petty-bourgeois nationalism, not Socialism. The creation of the PSUV as a mass workers party meant, as I said at the time, that Marxists had to relate to it, and enter it, in the same way we do with other mass workers parties, but without in any way giving it credibility as being a “Socialist” let alone “Communist” party. In the absence of any actual mass revolutionary party in Venezuela, it was necessary to work within it, precisely in order to stick with the Venezuelan workers, and to demonstrate in practice to them the true class nature of Chavez' regime as a petty-bourgeois nationalist regime, against which they would have to fight. 

The subsequent events in Venezuela, the almost inevitable destruction of the economy, despite the huge advantages the country had due to its huge oil industry, have again illustrated the reactionary nature of such regimes, and that has been compounded by the again inevitable turn of the regime to increasing levels of oppression against the Venezuelan masses, as it seeks to cling to power for its own interests. As I said, there is nothing socialist about these reactionary regimes.

US Hands Off Venezuela

US Hands Off Venezuela 

Venezuela is collapsing. The US is attempting to bring about a coup, and install a right-wing regime in the country sympathetic to US interests. Venezuela has been very badly served by the Bonapartist regimes of Chavez, and then Maduro, which brought about the current state of chaos and collapse, but the answer to that is not a reversion to the authoritarian, right-wing regimes that preceded Chavez, and certainly not a return to such regimes brought about by US interference in the country, in the way the US repeatedly intervened in the affairs of Latin America in the 1950's, through to the 1980's. Indeed, the decision of Trump's regime in the US to back the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, is likely only to fuel backing for Maduro, from sections of the Venezuelan masses, who remember US intervention in support of right-wing parties and politicians in the past. 

As, Trotsky pointed out in relation to the opposition to Hitler, by western imperialism, 

"The democracies of the Versailles Entente helped the victory of Hitler by their vile oppression of defeated Germany. Now the lackeys of democratic imperialism of the Second and Third Internationals are helping with all their might the further strengthening of Hitler’s regime. Really, what would a military bloc of imperialist democracies against Hitler mean? A new edition of the Versailles chains, even more heavy, bloody and intolerable. Naturally, not a single German worker wants this. To throw off Hitler by revolution is one thing; to strangle Germany by an imperialist war is quite another. The howling of the “pacifist” jackals of democratic imperialism is therefore the best accompaniment to Hitler’s speeches. “You see,” he says to the German people, “even socialists and Communists of all enemy countries support their army and their diplomacy; if you will not rally around me, your leader, you are threatened with doom!” Stalin, the lackey of democratic imperialism, and all the lackeys of Stalin – Jouhaux, Toledano, and Company – are the best aides in deceiving, lulling, and intimidating the German workers." 

(“Phrases and Reality”, in Writings 1938-9 , p 21) 

And, whilst Chavez' Left Nationalist regime, facilitated the economic collapse of the country via its programme of economic nationalism, which made it susceptible to external sanctions, and indeed made those sanctions almost inevitable, the reality is that the economic sanctions imposed by the US on Venezuela, exacerbated the economic crisis in the country, and helped bring about the current state of chaos. That, of course, is one reason that the policy of economic nationalism, and socialism in one country is such a reactionary one, that inevitably leads to external intervention, without having first focussed on building international working-class solidarity, and transnational solutions to the problems faced by workers. The programme of Chavez, of nationalism in general, and of Stalinism is doomed to failure, and we should learn those lessons for the future, but here and now, the immediate concern is to oppose US intervention. 

The Venezuelan masses need to deal with the oppression they are facing from the Maduro regime, but it is up to them to deal with that regime, not the US, or its allies, including the reactionary right-wing nationalist regime, now installed in Brazil. Again, as Trotsky put it, opposing liberal intervention in the Balkans, prior to WWI, 

“But it is not at all a matter of indifference by what methods this emancipation is being accomplished. The method of “liberation” that is being followed today means the enslavement of Macedonia to the personal regime in Bulgaria and to Bulgarian militarism; it means, moreover, the strengthening of reaction in Bulgaria itself. That positive, progressive result which history will, in the last analysis, extract from the ghastly events in the Balkans, will suffer no harm from the exposures made by Balkan and European democracy; on the contrary, only a struggle against the usurpation of history's tasks by the present masters of the situation will educate the Balkan peoples to play the role of superseding not only Turkish despotism but also those who, for their own reactionary purposes, are, by their own barbarous methods, now destroying that despotism... 

Our agitation, on the contrary, against the way that history's problems are at present being solved, goes hand in hand with the work of the Balkan Social Democrats. And when we denounce the bloody deeds of the Balkan 'liberation' from above we carry forward the struggle not only against liberal deception of the Russian masses but also against enslavement of the Balkan masses.” 

(War Correspondence, p 293-4) 

Who can doubt that Trump's intervention in Venezuela will enhance his reactionary agenda in the US itself. Less still, who can doubt that intervention in Venezuela by Brazil, will enhance the march of reaction under Bolsanaro in that country too. And, already, we see that, just as in the Balkans, and more recently in Syria, it is not just a matter of intervention on one side that threatens to rip the country apart spreading chaos and destruction. Whilst Trump is lined up on one side, the reactionary right-wing regime of Putin is lined up behind Maduro. Again as Trotsky put it, 

“It is necessary to vindicate the possibility for these peoples themselves to settle their own affairs, not only as they wish and see fit but also by their own strength, in the land where they are established. This means that European democracy has to combat every attempt to subject the fate of the Balkans to the ambitions of the Great Powers. Whether these ambitions be presented in the naked form of colonial policy or whether they be concealed behind phrases about racial kinship, they all alike menace the independence of the Balkan peoples. The Great Powers should be allowed to seek places for themselves in the Balkan Peninsula in one way only, that of free commercial rivalry and cultural influence. 

The Balkans for the Balkan Peoples! But this point of view signifies nonintervention. It means not only opposition to the territorial ambitions of the Great Powers, but also rejection of support for Balkan Slavdom in its struggle against Turkish rule. Isn't this a policy of narrow nationalism and state egoism? And doesn't it mean democracy renouncing its very self? 

Not at all. Democracy has no right, political or moral, to entrust the organisation of the Balkan peoples to forces that are outside its control – for it is not known when and where these forces will stop, and democracy, having once granted them the mandate of its political confidence, will be unable to check them.” 

(War Correspondence, p 148-52) 

By “democracy” here Trotsky was referring to the European Social-Democratic (Marxist) parties. And, Trotsky's argument, here, reflecting the position of the European workers' parties of the time, is valid today whether in relation to Venezuela, or to Syria or any other part of the world. The working-class cannot subcontract its historical tasks to the bourgeoisie, nor to imperialism, even when it lyingly presents itself as liberal-interventionism. The task of dealing with the repressive, reactionary regime of Maduro, in Venezuela, falls to the Venezuelan people itself, not to US imperialism, or any other imperialism, including that of Putin's Russia, or Xi's China, or Bolsanaro's Brazil. In fact, the road to their freedom resides in the Venezuelan masses uniting with the masses in the rest of Latin America, to throw off their collective chains of oppression, and to build a Socialist United States of Latin America. 

That is the agenda that workers in Venezuela needed to have adopted, as opposed to the economic nationalist agenda pursued by Chavez and Maduro. Marxists had a responsibility to intervene in the process, but, in fact, the Venezuelan masses were badly served by Marxists globally. On the one hand, large sections of what passes for the international Marxist movement, including some of those who today advise Corbyn, acted simply as cheerleaders for Chavez. That is a feature that has been seen repeatedly both at a national and international level, whereby “Marxists” largely distanced from the working-class, and devoid of any real influence on historical developments, have acted to jump on whatever the latest bandwagon has been. They have attached their fortunes to whatever has been the last best hope, even though in nearly every case that has proven to be to attach themselves to forces that are, in reality, thoroughly reactionary. Repeatedly, it has shown that, as Marx himself set out as early as The Communist Manifesto, to be “anti-capitalist” is not the same as being pro-socialist, and similarly to be anti-imperialist is not at all to be pro-socialist, or even progressive. 

By acting as cheerleaders for Chavez, these “left” forces cut themselves off from any necessary criticism of the limitations, and reactionary elements of his agenda. Inevitably, as that agenda leads to the current reactionary and disastrous consequences, many of those that acted as uncritical cheerleaders, rather than breaking clearly with the regime, are led to themselves act as its apologists, and thereby to drag themselves down into the swamp along with it. 

But, others in that community veered in the other direction. They adopted an Oehlerite sectarian stance in relation to the developments in Venezuela, and to the creation of the PSUV. On the basis that Chavez' regime did not meet their requirements for ideological purity, and the elements of Bonapartism apparent in the regime, they advised the Venezuelan masses to also boycott the PSUV, an organisation that was recruiting millions of Venezuelan workers to its ranks! The AWL, for example, argued that rather than joining the PSUV, the Venezuelan workers should join a tiny Venezuelan Trotskyist group that more people outside Venezuela had heard of, than had people in Venezuela itself. What was worse, the leaders of that tiny group, themselves then called on workers to join the PSUV. But, this was at a time when the AWL, were saying that the Labour Party was a stinking corpse that workers should give up all hope of resuscitating, and were standing their own candidates in General Elections, who proceeded to get far fewer votes even than the Monster Raving Loonies, and other such groups who stood unashamedly as cranks. 

There undoubtedly were Bonapartist elements of the Chavez regime, but as I wrote at the time, there are Bonapartist elements of every Presidential political system. Its not clear that the Presidential system in Venezuela was more Bonapartist than that in the United States or France, and in some ways, it was less so, because of the existence of a range of bodies based upon local direct democracy. Chavez regime was not a socialist regime, despite its claims. It was a left nationalist, but undoubtedly bourgeois regime, whose economic nationalism was based on promoting the interests of Venezuelan national capital. In that respect it was consonant with the left nationalist agendas promoted by Stalinism, as illustrated in the various Roads to Socialism, that Stalinist parties developed as their programmes in the 1970's. 

That programme relied heavily on nationalisation, and control by the capitalist state. Yet, in Venezuela, that also went along with a promotion of worker-owned cooperatives. But, as Marx points out in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, the revolutionary nature of cooperatives is derived not from their form, but by the fact that they are the creations of workers themselves. They reflect a maturity of the productive forces, but also of the maturity of the class consciousness and capacity of the working-class for self government. The whole revolutionary content of cooperatives is removed if they are simply things that are imposed from above by the state. 

As Trotsky pointed out in relation to the Second Six Year Plan in Mexico, it is quite acceptable, and indeed necessary for poor countries, seeking to industrialise to rely on foreign capital to assist in that process. 

“It is true that the realisation of the democratic agrarian revolution, i.e., handing over all the arable land to the peasantry, would increase the capacity of the domestic market in a relatively short time; but despite all that, the rate of industrialisation would be very slow. Considerable international capital is seeking areas of investment at the present time, even where only a modest (but sure) return is possible. Turning one’s back on foreign capital and speaking of collectivisation and industrialisation is mere intoxication with words.” 

And setting out the importance of making concessions to this foreign capital, Trotsky continues, 

“Lenin accorded great importance to these concessions for the economic development of the country and for the technical and administrative education of Soviet personnel. There has been no socialist revolution in Mexico. The international situation does not even allow for the cancellation of the public debt. The country we repeat is poor. Under such conditions it would be almost suicidal to close the doors to foreign capital. To construct state capitalism, capital is necessary.” 

And, the same could be said of Venezuela. Venezuela has many advantages. It has larger proven reserves of oil than even Saudi Arabia. If ever the programme of “left nationalism” of social-democracy in one country could work anywhere, it would have been Venezuela, particularly at a time when global oil prices, for much of the period of Chavez rule, were at more than $100 a barrel. Yet, Chavez failed to bring about the industrialisation of the country in a way that would have raised the mass of the population out of poverty. Instead a lot of the oil revenues were wasted, they were used essentially as rents to cover consumption rather than to finance investment. And, those rents were increasingly used by a corrupt regime to buy votes so as to keep Chavez cronies in office. Once oil prices fell that model collapsed, and it is that which has led to the current chaos within the country. 

But, it is precisely for those reasons that Marxists had to advocate neither simply cheer-leading Chavez and his regime, but also not standing in splendid, sectarian isolation from it. It was ridiculous, when the PSUV was first created, to argue, as the AWL did, that the 5 million workers that joined it were all, in some way, simply careerists and apparatchiks. Indeed, as I reported at the time, there were plenty of instances of rank and file PSUV members supporting strikes by workers, and of mobilising to reject Chavez loyalists for positions. It was necessary for socialists to have intervened in the PSUV, so as to retain the ear of the mass of Venezuelan workers, and to begin drawing them away from the Chavistas, by constant criticism of the politics of Chavez and his regime, and illustration of its limitations in practice, as they went through the struggle, and experience of daily life with those workers. Only in that way could a genuine mass workers party have been built in Venezuela. 

Those are lessons to be learned for the future, and to be applied elsewhere today. It is a lesson in Britain, not to be drawn in by a similar cult of personality, and Corbynismo, and thereby to act merely as cheerleaders for the Labour leader as the latest, last best thing, a fear I expressed right at the very beginning, when Corbyn announced his bid for leadership. There can be no confusing Corbyn with Blair, or the current situation in the Labour Party with that which existed for the previous 35 years. But, just because Corbyn represents an advance on that period does not mean that we should not criticise the deficiencies of his leadership, and of his politics and underlying ideology, because to do so is to invite a similar calamity to that seen elsewhere, most recently now in Venezuela. Criticising Corbyn is not to invite a return of Blair. Only the corrupt, the apologists, and the hard of thinking could believe such nonsense. It is the same mode of thinking as that which argued that it was not possible to criticise the regime in the USSR, for fear of giving succour to imperialism. But, in the end, the biggest gift to imperialism, the biggest friend of imperialism in setting back the struggle for socialism was the Stalinist regime in the USSR itself, as it discredited the name of socialism for nearly a century, and continues to do so today, long after its own demise. 

Daily Mirror Political Editor, Kevin McGuire, noted that former Labour MP, Dennis MacShane, on an official visit to Venezuela several years ago had noted from his meeting with opposition MP's that, “You could not meet such a nasty bunch of individuals”. It illustrates once again that “My enemy's enemy is not my friend.” Most of the forces that proclaim themselves “anti-imperialist” are far from being friends of the working-class or of socialism. They are mostly reactionary nationalists promoting a programme that would set the condition of the working-class in their respective countries back decades. The same is true of many of those that proclaim themselves “anti-capitalist” who, as Marx describes in relation to Sismondi, and Lenin describes in relation to the Narodniks, are reactionaries that seek to hold up capitalist development or even turn the clock backwards to some less developed form of capitalism, or worse. In fact, it is impossible to be a Marxist and to be “anti-capitalist”, because, in Marx's analysis, the road to socialism runs through capitalism, and is the product of its mature development. To pronounce yourself a socialist and “anti-capitalist” makes no more sense than to proclaim yourself in favour of children, but anti-parent! 

But, the same is true in the other direction. Maduro's regime is proving every day its reactionary nature, and is doing so via increasing repression. The intervention of the US, especially given the backing for Maduro from Putin, and other right-wing nationalists seeking their own strategic advantage in the region, is likely to lead to even greater repression, as Maduro, backed by the military, seeks to hold on to power. But, that fact does not make us indifferent to how the matter is resolved. A reversion in Venezuela to the right-wing regimes that existed prior to Chavez is not an alternative to the repressive regime of Maduro. Only a mobilisation of the Venezuelan masses, around a programme of socialist internationalism, and seeking to draw in the masses of the rest of Latin America, can provide a progressive road out of the current situation.

Iran – Splits in The Ruling Theocracy

The escalating protests of last week in Iran have opened up splits within the ruling theocracy as CNN reports here . Indeed, in another report last week CNN set out the degree to which the real combatants of the last week have been not Ahmedinejad and Moussavi, but Khamenei, and Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani’s daughter even yesterday was out on the streets, encouraging people to come out today to protest in a direct challenge to the Supreme Leader. Today, Moussavi’s wife is still calling people out on to the streets.

Interestingly, and tying in to the comments I made the other day - An Iranian Revolution? - Rafsanjani is according to CNN not just one of Iran’s richest men, but one of the world’s richest men. It is becoming clear that what I said there is a large part of the reason for the current divisions within the ruling clique, the Iranian bourgeoisie can no longer tolerate the effects on the economy of the clerical-fascist regime, and in particular of the effects of Ahmedinjad. For that reason, however, it is clear that the original figureheads of these demonstrations, will temper their criticisms, and attempt to channel the protests if they begin to feel that their own interests are threatened by the mass popular movement, and in particular if, as we are beginning to see in the actions of the Iran Khodro car workers, and the Tehran Bus Workers, the working class begin to mobilise and to press their own demands and interests. It is important, that the working class be prepared for such retreats by the bourgeoisie, and that they build their own independent action and organisations.

Today could be a significant turning point. After Khamenei’s threats yesterday at morning prayers, the first reaction seems to have been to defy his call for the protests to stop. Some of the other candidates have called off their rallies planned for today, but as CNN reports the range of groups and organisations in society joining the protests is growing by the day, as is the spread throughout the country of where those protests are taking place. The protest by Iran’s footballers in Korea, in wearing green wrist bans, itself is an indication of that, and given the degree of support for football throughout the country, could itself be a powerful propaganda victory in undermining the attempts to pass of the protests as just the work of vandals or foreign agents. But, the regime has reportedly stationed hundreds of armed police with machine guns ready to meet the protesters. Is that just a show of force, to try to face down the protest? Possibly. If not it is a big gamble. Opening fire on a peaceful demonstration of thousands of people, possibly led by Moussavi or Rafsanjani’s daughter would effectively be a declaration of Civil War. Moreover, Rafsanjani himself, who has a powerful position, as head of the Assembly of Experts – not to mention the power that always comes to those who have the kind of wealth that Rafsanjani has – is also reported to have his own military support within the Revolutionary Guard.

Either way, it demonstrates the need for workers to develop appropriate tactics. Workers strength lies not in the streets, but in the factories and in the workers districts. It is important to begin to develop Factory Committees, which can act to begin to impose workers interests and workers control in the factories and other workplaces. But, such committees will need to link up in each area to support each other, as well as linking up with workers neighbourhood committees that can begin to discuss in a truly democratic way the solutions to their problems. And, if the regime is stepping up its level of violence, the workers must be ready to meet it with their own. Its necessary to begin to develop workers militia under the democratic control of these Councils. Workers in the arms factories should begin to arm the workers so they can defend themselves.

One of the problems, in a country like Iran, is the level of militarisation of the society. But, in such societies the troops are often largely drawn from the peasantry, whilst the officer corps are drawn from the middle classes. The fact, that it is in the countryside where a large reservoir of reactionary support for the regime resides can be a problem in that respect. It is what makes it crucial that the workers find ways of relating to the needs of the peasants and rural poor. But, all armies always have links to the workers too. Usually, those fulfilling technical roles, engineers and so on, come from the ranks of the workers, and these sections have a vital role in winning over the armed forces to the revolution. That was the role that this section of the armed forces played in the Kronstadt Garrison, and elsewhere in 1917 in Russia, in winning the troops over to the revolution. Given the size of the armed forces in all its varieties, it is inevitable that individual troops will have family ties to those out on the streets demonstrating. That is always one of the first things to cause the troops to waver and then to crack. I remember back in 1974 during the Miners Strike when things were getting to a stage where it was being discussed to bring the troops out to break the strike, and when their were rumours of a military coup. Even with Britain’s professional army, I remember talking to a young squaddy from a mining area who said that if the officers told him to open fire on the miners as far as he and many of his comrades were concerned it would be the officer that got the first bullet.

But, workers cannot rely on the troops coming over. In fact, their own organisation, their own strength is the best means they have of bringing that about. If the protesters back down today, they have probably lost for now. However, this is just the latest in a series of protests against the vile clerical-fascist regime in Iran. If this one fails there will be more. No fascist regime can last for long, precisely because of its function in trying to repress the vast majority of society. This one will go sooner or later, just like all the others have done. We should do all we can to help the Iranian workers get rid of it sooner rather than later.

In a footnote, that should also be a lesson to all those – often the same people who supported Ahmedinejad and the other reactionaries as some kind of “anti-imperialist” friend of the workers – Hugo Chavez, has demonstrated his real politics by coming out in support of Ahmedinejad, and against the Iranian workers. That should tell the Venezuelan workers all they need to know about the bourgeois politics of Chavez. Socialists in the PSUV, should put forward motions of condemnation of Chavez, and motions at the least calling for his censure and a public retraction by him of these statements, or better still calling for his expulsion from what is after all a Worekrs’ Party!