The Aafia Movement-An Update

Background of Case Dr Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani mother of three , a brilliant scholar, PhD doctor of cognitive neuroscience Majoring in learning and imitation , improving efficacy of learning in children,  An educationist with a dream a dream to revolutionise the educational system in Pakistan,  one that would create a generation Of enlightened and intellectual youth in a country that needed it more than others.  Dr. Aafia earned her bachelor’s degree  from MIT and earned her doctorate from Brandeis University. Her doctoral thesis was “Learning through Imitation” in which she included her research on improving learning techniques for children. She was totally dedicated to her children and her academic studies revolved around how children learn. Unfortunately, Dr. Aafia became a victim of domestic violence during her marriage. In 2002, Dr. Aafia’s husband moved the family to Pakistan and soon divorced her while she was pregnant with the couple’s third child.  In 2003, Dr Aafia became a victim of a rendition operation was kidnapped along with her little kids.  Dr. Aafia is now 43 years old, a mother of three children (2 are US citizens), and is a Pakistani citizen. With no other citizenship Currently languishing in a US jail at FMC Carswell military base where her life is in constant threat.    Circumstances Surrounding the Case Briefly, here are some of the basic circumstances of Dr. Aafia’s case: In March 2003, Dr. Aafia and her three children, Ahmad (boy), six years old and an American citizen, Maryum (girl), four years old and also an American citizen, and baby Suleman (boy), six months old, kidnapped by unknown authorities in Karachi, Pakistan. On March 31, 2003 it was reported by the Pakistani media that Dr. Aafia had been arrested and turned over to representatives of the United States. In early April, this was confirmed on NBC Nightly News, among other media outlets. There was communication to the mother of Dr. Aafia from purported “agencies” that the family members should be quiet if they want to see Aafia returned alive. By the year 2008, many believed that after five years of being disappeared Dr. Aafia and her three children were most likely dead as was the case with thousands That were sold and victims of rendition operations by a dictator ruling Pakistan (his biography "in the line of fire") Then, in July of 2008,  three events occurred: 1. British human-rights reporter, Yvonne Ridley and former Bagram detainee and British citizen, Moazem Begg,  publicly spoke about a woman in Bagram screaming, a woman whom they named the “Grey Lady of Bagram” 2. A petition for habeas corpus was filed with the Pakistan High Court in Islamabad requesting that the court order the Pakistani government to free Dr. Aafia or to even admit that they were then detaining her. 3.  A wave of International out rage emerged as evidence of illegal detainees in bagram and other secret detention centres Began piling up. A request from the House of Lords in UK to inspect the Bagram facility and a meeting With prisoner 650 was sent by various human rights activists world wide echoed. It was in the midst of this whole scenario that a disoriented Aafia is found in Afghanistan and shot - a sinister Plot that makes one shudder. What Evidence , Investigation has uncovered? That Dr. Aafia was (and is) an innocent person who was abducted for money or based on false allegations or false conclusions derived from an unknown source. That, unfortunately, all evidence required for her defense and establishing legal proof of her detention would require full cooperation by the U.S. and Pakistani governments, and intelligence agencies, a cooperation that seems impossible. However the Person who kidnapped her has finally come forward And confessed to the heinous crime on the behest of her ex husband and the regime that stripped pakistan Off its dignity by selling its own citizens. That documents incriminating Dr. Aafia are either false documents or produced under torture or threat of harm to her children. That the Afghan police were looking for Dr. Aafia and her son based on a description given by an anonymous tip with a shoot on sight Order on the day she was detained in Ghazni. That had Dr. Aafia  been shot on sight on suspicion of being suicide bombers, this would have led to a convenient closure of the case of Aafia Siddiqui at a time when a massive outcry from international community and a petition for habeas corpus was pending in the High Court of Pakistan in Islamabad. Note that this court had been asked to order then-President Musharraf and the Pakistani government  (which would include anyone working with them) to release her or to reveal her whereabouts. That Dr. Aafia, who spoke no local language in Ghazni, was dressed so conspicuously in a manner to be easily identified and shoot on sight as a (falsely-accused) suicide bomber as a part of someone else’s plan. The forensic and scientific evidence presented during the trial in New York proved that Dr. Aafia could not have committed the crimes for which she was charged, still the the judges closing arguments jury disregarded the evidence and chose to agree with the prosecution due to fear and prejudice.   What Dr. Aafia’s detractors want? We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia, a respectable Pakistani woman in all ways, has links to terrorists from Pakistan; (NO terrorism charges against her)was voluntarily hiding under cover with three children acting as a terror field operative while at the same time leaving her family to believe for five years that she and her three children were dead. We are asked to believe that Dr. Aafia arranged this just after her father died, after finding out her husband cheating on her marriage was disintegrating, and after leaving her widowed mother alone in Pakistan. It is absolutely not plausible and does not even fit the traditional profile by law enforcement of female or male terrorists from that part of the world.   Current Situation In February, 2010, Dr. Aafia was tried and convicted in a US Federal court on charges of attempted murder and assaulting US servicemen in Ghazni, Afghanistan.  The official charges against Dr. Aafia were that she assaulted U.S. soldiers in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with one of the servicemen’s own rifles, while she was in their custody, waiting to be interrogated by them. No US personnel were hurt but Dr. Aafia was shot and suffered serious injuries including brain damage. Dr Aafia categorically denies these charges. The forensic and physical evidence denies those charges There were NO terrorism charges against Dr. Aafia. According to several legal observers, the trial of Dr. Aafia was littered with many inconsistencies and defects, chief among them being 1.No jurisdiction to try the case in the US. This was a result of a rendition operation. 2. Many rulings by the judge that strongly favored the prosecution and prejudiced the case against the defense. 3.These ranged from allowing much hearsay evidence and jury instructions that favored the prosecution. 4. In addition, Dr. Aafia was not represented by lawyers of her choosing and faced constant innuendos of terrorism when she was not charged with any such offence. 5. As a result of Judge Richard Berman’s framing of the case in a negative light, Dr Aafia was convicted despite ALL physical and forensic evidence that showed that she could not have committed the acts she was charged with. 6. On September 23, 2010, Dr. Aafia was sentenced to 86 years in prison by Judge Richard Berman who overruled the jury’s determination that there was any pre-meditation. The judge also added enhancements that were not part of either the charges against Dr. Aafia nor part of the conviction. After her sentencing, Dr. Aafia aasked that people not take any revenge or get emotional.  She asked that those who have wronged her be forgiven as she forgave Judge Berman. Dr. Aafia remains imprisoned, now at the notorious Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, Fort Worth, Texas where she is kept in the Special housing unit (SHU) which is the most severe confinement category. She is still not allowed communication with anyone she trusts, including family members. 7. Being a Muslim her religious book the Quran is desecrated, her clothes stripped, food urinated Upon and what could be a worse form of human coercion than tearing away little children from their mother And then threaten the mother of her children's safety ?   Dr. Aafia’s Children Dr. Aafia’s oldest son, Ahmed, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, was found in an American detention Centre , Afghanistan after public pressure and, in late 2008, was reunited with Dr.Aafia’s  sister in Karachi, Pakistan. Dr. Aafia’s daughter, Maryum, also a US citizen by birth, was recovered in April 2010 and dropped off in Karachi after being missing for 7 íyears.  She was traumatized and spoke only American accented English. Dr. Aafia’s youngest child, Suleman, a boy who would now be about 12 years old, remains missing; and is feared dead.   What Supporters and Family Seek? Dr. Aafia, an MIT and Brandeis laureate, is now a broken and mere shell of her former self. Under these circumstances, Family and supporters are asking the U.S. government to repatriate Dr. Aafia back to her home in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has formally made this request as this matter has become a major public issue and has support across Pakistani political and social spectrums. Supporters and people of conscience should press government officials to get Dr. Aafia reunited with her family as soon as possible. Aafia and her family seek no revenge as their faith is in vengeance is mine saith The Lord . Aafia's case Has become a glaring example Of thousands suffering from rendition operations, illegal detentions, false a Accusations and torture tactics that put barbarism to shame. Dr Aafia’s family and supporters still have hope in fair minded peoples commitment to mercy and justice to raise their voices with theirs so it be heard in the corridors of power. To help end the violations of basic human rights and let freedom ring. Justice for the past, for all Dr. Aafia has suffered, is hard to imagine.All that is asked for the future is for some measure of correction. If Dr. Aafia is repatriated, perhaps she can pick up some fragments of life with her family.   Closing We ask people to look into this case themselves, and to do so with an open mind. There is a lot of information out there on the Internet, and in the media. Many of the stories demonize Aafia, while some raise her to sainthood. Aafia is neither demon nor saint. Aafia is simply a mother, daughter and sister with a dream, trapped in an extraordinary nightmare. What is happening to Aafia and thousands others in the aftermath of 911 and the resulting "terror war" not happen to other innocents anymore.

From The Archives-International Women's Day, 1916;A Greeting of the Paris Action Committee of Socialist Women for Peace and Against Chauvinism

From The Archives Of Women And Revolution-

 

 

Markin comment:

The following is a set of archival issues of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting articles from the back issues of  Women and Revolution during Women's History Month in March and periodically throughout the year.

Women and Revolution-1971-1980, Volumes 1-20  


http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/w&r/WR_001_1971.pdf

From The Archives-International Women's Day, 1916;A Greeting of the Paris Action Committee of Socialist Women for Peace and Against Chauvinism

Markin comment:
The following is an article from an archival issue of Women and Revolution, Spring 2001, that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.


****
International Women's Day, 1916;A Greeting of the Paris Action Committee of Socialist Women for Peace and Against Chauvinism

We reprint below a statement of greetings from the Paris Action Committee of Socialist Women, an internationalist oppositional grouping within the French social democracy, on International Women's Day 1916. It is translated from the version published by the Gruppe Internationale, led by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and Leo Jogiches, in the illegal Spartacusbriefe (No. 17, 30 March 1916).


Following the definitive betrayal by the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) at the outbreak of World War I, when its entire Reichstag fraction (initially including even such revolutionists as Karl Liebknecht, who misguidedly yielded to considerations of party "discipline" and "unity") voted the war credits demanded by the government, the minority of revolutionary -internationalists within the party were reduced to tiny, isolated propaganda groups without a party press or a party apparatus.

"Without an organization," said Lenin, "the masses are deprived of the sole expression of their will." The task, then, which the left radicals in the German social democracy faced, was the creation of an organization that might begin to overcome the atomization of the working class. This task had to be accomplished under conditions of illegality and against the old party leadership which, in its fear of such attempts to reach the masses of disfranchised party members, had imposed a moratorium on all discussion and criticism of the "official" line and refused to hold the yearly party congresses required by SPD statutes.

Coinciding with the increasing class collaboration of the party executive from 1910 onward had been a cessation in the growth of party membership (indeed, membership would have dropped, for the first time ever, had it not been for disproportionate recruitment of women). The large masses of non-organized workers were unwilling to take risks for a party whose timidity had emboldened employers to ever harsher attacks on their living standards.

The SPD section for work among women led by Clara Zetkin constituted a laudable exception to the party's general drift to the right (see "Foundations of Communist Work Among Women: The German Social Democracy," Women and Revolution Nos. 8 and 9, Spring and Summer; 1975). While subscriptions to the central party press were falling off, Zetkin's Die Gleichheit ("Equality") was able to chalk up a large increase in subscribers; similarly, it was undoubtedly Zetkin's activizing radicalism which in large measure accounted for the growth in women members—an indication that the SPD's capitulation to national chauvinism was not an expression of the "will of the masses" but rather of the revisionist leadership's default of socialist principle.

But Zetkin was able to carry on her fight for socialist international working-class solidarity in the forum of Die Gleichheit only for a short time longer; with the collaboration of the Prussian authorities the party leadership was able to gain control, install a compliant editor and proceed to run the journal into the ground. Circulation fell off sharply, and soon Die Gleichheit was suspended.

The statement of the Paris Action Committee is of interest not merely for its uncompromising interna¬tional proletarian solidarity in the midst of the chauvinist hysteria of the imperialist holocaust but also for the solutions it advances to the crisis of proletarian leadership.

Revolted by the quiescence and then by the outright betrayal of the party leadership and correctly viewing the masses as far more revolutionary than this petty-bourgeoisified leadership, many revolutionists over¬reacted by adopting a theory of mass revolutionary initiative exemplified by the "spontaneism" of Rosa Luxemburg. According to this view, the party was to be primarily an educational organization, providing leadership when the masses did decide on their own to initiate the final collapse of capitalism.

Such glorification of the masses' undirected revolutionary will led the social-democratic lefts to downplay the role of proletarian leadership. Thus, Luxemburg could write in 1910, when the SPD party executive was throttling mass demonstrations in favor of electoral reform: "If the mass of party comrades comprehends and truly feels this [the need for militant struggle], then our leaders will also be found at their posts. 'It's the masses that are decisive'."

Similarly, in the Paris Action Committee's statement, there is the belief that the old social democracy will somehow be revived and reconstituted "from below." A complementary error was the divided left social-democrats' neglect of the crucial need for organiza¬tional unity achieved on a firm programmatic basis.

But the theoretical/organizational failings of the social-democratic left opposition display a deeper inadequacy: a failure to come to grips with the changed conditions generated by the dominance of imperialism by the turn of the century. In foreign affairs imperialism had meant an unprecedented aggressiveness of the major capitalist powers, posing an imminent threat of world imperialist conflict. Internally, the dominance of monopoly cartels interpenetrated with bank capital found reflection within the German Second Reich in a closing of ranks by the capitalist exploiters and an unparalleled intransigence toward the labor move¬ment. Now, for example, lockouts were financed by a joint fund set up by all significant German industry. This hard-nosed stance of the German bourgeoisie vis-a-vis the social-democratic threat found expression politi¬cally in a strengthening of the reactionary bloc between industry and the East Elbran junkers with the aim of excluding the SPD from parliament. Within the labor movement itself, imperialism was accompanied by increasing divisions within the working class—not only industrialist-fostered "yellow unionism" but also what Lenin termed a "labor aristocracy" of relatively well-paid workers.

In the face of this challenge, the German social democracy remained tied to its old policy of verbal militancy and practical impotence. In particular, the entire left still clung to the Kautskyan theory of the "party of the entire class," i.e., including both those backward, reactionary layers which had not even achieved trade-union consciousness and a labor aristocracy whose relatively, elevated status made it prone to accept the status quo. Proponents of proletarian "unity" overlooked the fact that backward and non-revolutionary layers in the party would certainly generate spokesmen for their views within the party leadership.

While the Gruppe Internationale, which published this greeting, consisted of uncompromising revolution¬ists who were to found the German Communist Party, in failing to lend an organizational form to their views, they could offer no real solution to the social-democratic betrayal of the SPD leadership. It was only in the codification of Bolshevik practice in the early Comintern (particularly in the "Theses on Tactics" and "Guidelines on Organization") that the division between maximum and minimum program, enunciat¬ed in the Erfurt Program of 1891, was to be transcended in the creation of a party of a new type, the Leninist vanguard party of the proletariat, in which a conscious leadership of professional revolutionaries would be able to intervene decisively at crucial world-historical junctures precisely because it rested on an alert, class-conscious rank and file. Not Kautskyan "unity"-mongering, but such tactics as the united front simultaneously unmasked the old social-democratic misleaders and achieved working-class unity around the achievement of particular shared, strictly limited goals.

The statement of the Paris Action Committee of Socialist Women reprinted below is thus essentially a backward-looking document, harking back to the great traditions of the Second International and attempting to preserve a synthesis—"the great socialist family"— that had been first eroded and then dissolved by a triumphant imperialism. But the Second International had died in an act of definitive class-collaborationist betrayal. It was the Third International which was to continue the fight for international proletarian revolu¬tion through the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war directed against the international bourgeoisie under the leadership of an effective and disciplined international party of the working class.

To socialist and proletarian women of all countries the Committee sends an expression of its warmest sympathy on International Women's Day. From the ' bottom of its heart it hopes and desires that a great many socialist women's organizations will succeed— more freely and openly than it has itself been able to— in calling upon women everywhere to express their dearest wish, the wish for an immediate end to the frightful struggle that for 19 months now has been inundating the world in blood, and in uttering in numerous mass meetings with a clear voice the, word "peace" tabooed in our country.

We feel ourselves in solidarity with the socialist proletarians of the so-called enemy nations, with the proletarians whom we no more confuse with their exploiters than we would be confused with our own hangmen. We feel this solidarity the more strongly the more zealously our own, our true enemies, the capitalists, strive to incite us against foreign proletari¬ans. Thus under the present conditions it is particularly to the socialist and proletarian women of countries at war with us and especially to the proletarian women of Germany that we offer the assurance of our most heartfelt, warmest sympathy, and above all to Clara Zetkin and all the women comrades who, heroically and inspired with glowing conviction, are struggling for socialism and for peace without counting the costs to themselves.

The Committee renews the vow of proletarian solidarity made by its members at the time of their entry into the great socialist family. To each and every one it sends fraternal greetings, sad, painful greetings, but greetings supported by the unshakable belief in the future of the proletariat.

For the Committee: Louise Saumoneau, Paris

 

 

 

In Honor Of International Women’s Day- A Loud Voice Of One’s Own

In Honor Of International Women’s Day- A Loud Voice Of One’s Own 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

She was not sure exactly how she was going to raise the rent money now that she had exhausted her unemployment benefits after having been laid off from the Excelsior Company as a line operator where for two good years she had made enough money to keep herself and her boys above water. Yes she was not sure at all. All she knew was that with three young boys, hungry young boys, nine, seven, and six, that she was going to make sure they were fed, properly fed, and she was equally sure that she and they were not going back out on the streets, the homeless streets not the whore streets if that is what you were thinking (although as a runaway teenager she had tried that whore streets thing, tried that for about two days before giving that idea the wind). She, they, had had enough of that, trying to stay here one night, there another, someplace else the third and the boys, her precious boys, missing their schooling, schooling that she swore that they would get, take advantage of , unlike her own sorry school-less story. Yes, Alma Larkin, was fresh out of ideas, apparently fresh of  luck and not exactly sure where she would turn to, hopefully not to the Sally’s (Salvation Army) again bless them like the last time.

Just that minute, and really for the first time in over two years Alma had to take stock of her situation, and she didn’t like it but the boys’ fate demanded such reflection. Alma knew two things though, come hell or high water, first, she was not going back to Harlan, Harlan down in deep coal country Kentucky where she was brought up, brought up kind of helter-skelter, kind of like some  mountain wind coming down the hills and hollows. She would be just too shamed-faced to face her kin after all these years and after all the big deal she made about putting nothing but distance between herself and the “hillbillies” (hell, she had called them, including her Pa, nothing but white trash more than once) when wild man hot-rod king walking daddy whiskey, corn whiskey if anybody is asking, runner Lance Lane swept her off her fifteen year old feet. Never to look back, that was the way she put it. And then Lance abandoning her in Lexington for some dishy big busted blonde and leaving her to fend for herself  (and that is where that experience of couple of days of street tricks came in, came in lonesome old Lexington).      

Second, even if she could find him, Alma was not going to call on Lennie Small, the father of her three boys, to do the right thing and take care of his own. Hell, she, they, they including Lennie had tried that, tried it a couple of times but it only left her homeless in the end. See Lennie was what he himself called a rolling stone (come to think of it so did Lance, except Lance at least had sense enough not to get her pregnant as part of his rolling stone act) and he refused in the end to gather any moss. That moss thing being some red-headed waitress who took a fancy to him when they moved to Springfield and had enough dough to make it stick, for a while. The last postcard she had received from him (no letters, so no hope of child support money enclosed) he was out in California with some cocktail waitress from Reno trying to “find” himself, and still not working. So Lennie was out, out for good this time.

Then Alma got an idea, got an idea that if she pressed the issue hard enough she would get something, get another job. So she went down to the Illinois State Department of Unemployment office and did her thing. That thing included, after waiting for a couple of hours for her interview and filling out a scad of paperwork, yelling to high heaven to the intake worker that she needed a job, needed it bad, was not going to go back on the streets (implying a little those whore streets for effect), and what was the great state of Illinois going to do about it. She figured that when the office manager came to the intake worker’s desk she had blown it, that she would be arrested and that was that. Instead that office manager, who had  three children of her own, called up the Republic Manufacturing Company and told them that she had right in front of her just the line operator they were looking for.  And so who knows what will happen next week, or next month, but Alma’ Larkin’s three boys will had food and a roof over their heads for a while …

And hence this honor to one righteous woman on this International Women’s Day. 

From The Partisan Defense Committee- A Visit with Mumia-Free Mumia Now!

Workers Vanguard No. 1083	12 February 2016

A Visit with Mumia

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

The following are edited remarks by the PDC’s Paul Cooperstein at the New York City Holiday Appeal.

Two weeks ago, PDC staff counsel Valerie West and myself visited Mumia in scenic Frackville, Pennsylvania. Last March Mumia was rushed to a hospital, on the verge of death, in a near-diabetic coma. For months he had had debilitating rashes all over his body; he had lost some 50 pounds. Mumia has active hepatitis C, and the prison has restricted efforts to get treatment. He has sued in federal court to compel them to provide such treatment, and before our visit, there was a three-day hearing in that lawsuit, with Mumia participating by teleconference.

We were pleased to see that Mumia is doing pretty well. He looked great; he has gained much of his weight back, he’s been working out at the gym. Mumia is writing his weekly commentaries. As he told us, if he’s able to do this, he feels he’s doing his job. He has a very healthy appetite and relished the chocolate bar he was eating, as he isn’t diabetic. Mumia doesn’t have diabetes. That near-diabetic coma was a response to steroids he had been given for his rashes. Mumia seemed a bit sleepy toward the end of the visit—but I often have that effect on people. Throughout the visit, other prisoners and some of their visitors came by and gave their greetings to Mumia. He was lively, talkative and funny; he actually has great comedic talents and does a very funny impersonation of Donald Trump and others.

The Corrections Department is very embarrassed over this lawsuit. Mumia was elated about the hearing. The judge slapped down the state’s attorneys. The department’s own doctor was turned into Mumia’s witness, and they got caught submitting an affidavit over a doctor’s signature that was not the one he signed. The prison conjured up a secret protocol for treating inmates with hepatitis C, which they didn’t want to have announced in open court, that calls for treatment to be only given after the liver is severely damaged, when cirrhosis has set in—that is, when it’s too late.

Mumia expects a decision in mid February. He’s cautiously optimistic, but he knows from his own long history that what is said in court often has no relationship to how the judge will rule. There’s no doubt that if the judge rules against them, the state will appeal, which will drag this out for another year or so. This will be a long fight, one on which Mumia’s life depends. We encourage people to contribute to his legal expenses. Contributions can be sent to the Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, care of the National Lawyers Guild Foundation, 132 Nassau St., Room 922, New York, NY 10038, earmarked “Mumia legal expenses

A View From The Left-Immigration, Racism and Anti-Communism

Workers Vanguard No. 1083	12 February 2016

Immigration, Racism and Anti-Communism

 

Reprinted below is an article from Spartacist Canada No. 187 (Winter 2015/2016), publication of the Trotskyist League/Ligue Trotskyste. The original article was based on a presentation given by Miriam McDonald at a Trotskyist League/Spartacus Youth Club class in Toronto on October 29.

 

One could not find a more powerful indictment of the present imperialist order than the waves of desperate people currently seeking refuge in racist “Fortress Europe.” The U.S.-led wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere have destroyed these countries, ravaged their economies and robbed their peoples of their already meagre livelihoods. Life is so intolerable that hundreds of thousands have chosen the deadly risks of this journey.

A good part of this talk will be about Canada’s reactionary history with regard to immigration. For now, I’ll note that the newly elected Liberal government is promising to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015. Such deeply hypocritical gestures should fool no one. Under Liberal and Tory regimes alike, the Canadian imperialists have taken part in most of Washington’s bloody wars across the Near East and Central Asia that have driven millions from their homes. And Canada’s immigration policies—who is let in and how they are treated once here—have always been marked by brutal racism and anti-Communism.

Canada’s rulers are the common enemy of all working people; in their own class interests, workers must champion the rights of immigrants and refugees, demanding full citizenship for everyone in this country! The working class must mobilize to defend their foreign-born class brothers and sisters against the racist violence that is intrinsic to capitalist class rule.

Because of the bloody civil war, more recently compounded by imperialist bombardment, something like four million people have been driven out of Syria. Close to eight million are internal refugees. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, desperate millions yearn to escape the grinding poverty inflicted by the imperialist subjugation of the neocolonial world. According to the UN, there are presently some 60 million people worldwide displaced by war and persecution, the highest number since World War II.

These facts underscore that the solution to this man-made catastrophe lies not in this or that country admitting a few thousand more immigrants, but in overturning the imperialist system that has created it. Our aim is to win workers and youth to the understanding that international proletarian revolution is the only way to secure a future for humanity.

The Imperialist System

In the Communist Manifesto—written in 1847, a few decades before the rise of the imperialist order—Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explained the driving forces of capitalism. Through free competition on the market, manufacturing and then large-scale industry swept away the old patchwork of handicraft systems from medieval times. Industrial production, communication and transportation were revolutionized. The bourgeoisie’s “heavy artillery,” as Marx and Engels put it, was the cheap prices of commodities which allowed it to penetrate the less developed regions of the world. The capitalist system, as the Manifesto declared, “compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.”

By the dawn of the 20th century, the “normal” capitalist exploitation of workers had been supplemented and intensified by the exploitation of entire nations, ruled directly or indirectly as colonies of one or another of the great powers. As Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin wrote in his 1916 pamphlet Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism:

“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”

This was an elite club which does not to this day admit new members. The powers established at that time remain the central imperialist powers today: the U.S., Germany, France, Britain and Japan, along with a constellation of smaller countries in Europe as well as Canada and Australia. The imperialists foment civil wars and communal slaughter, and topple or install as necessary the local despots whose task it is to ensure the uninterrupted flow of profits from the neocolonial world to the banks and stock exchanges of Wall Street, the City of London, Bay Street [center of Toronto’s financial district] and elsewhere.

Liberals like Naomi Klein and reformists parading as Marxists will denounce some of the crimes of the bourgeoisie. But they also push the false notion that imperialism is a policy that can be moulded depending on the politics of whatever capitalist party is in power. The corollary is that this system can be reformed to be more humane, less rapacious. It falls to us Marxists to expose this rubbish and to show that imperialism is an economic system, as integral to the modern world as skin and bones are to a person, and that it must be overthrown.

In the last century, rivalries among the bourgeoisies of the imperialist states twice engulfed the entire world in interimperialist war. Lenin’s pamphlet was written two years into World War I. Millions of young men were sent by their exploiters to die in a bloody scramble for markets and spheres of influence. In Lenin’s words, this marked the epoch of wars and revolutions. A year later, in 1917, his Bolshevik party led the proletariat to power in the world’s first successful workers revolution. They smashed the capitalist state, swept out the bankers, bosses and landlords, and inspired uprisings of workers and oppressed peoples in country after country.

For the rest of the 20th century, the imperialists were obsessed with reversing the Bolshevik victory and preventing its spread. The political counterrevolution led by Joseph Stalin beginning in 1923-24 performed a valuable service for imperialism by destroying the revolutionary Bolshevik party and the internationalist program it embodied. The Soviet Union was undermined and betrayed by the Stalinists’ twin nationalist dogmas of building “socialism in one country” and “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism. Yet the very existence of the Soviet workers state, with its planned economy and collectivized property forms, remained a beacon and a call to struggle for workers and the oppressed around the world.

The USSR also provided the nominally independent countries of the neocolonial world a breathing space to at least manoeuvre between the Soviets on one side and the imperialists on the other. Hence the 1991-92 destruction of the Soviet degenerated workers state removed an enormous military and diplomatic obstacle to untrammelled imperialist freebooting and militarism. This, perhaps more than any other factor, has contributed to the increased poverty and oppression that drives the massive tide of refugees that only grows year by year.

The 1990-91 U.S.-led war on Iraq, which began as the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR entered its terminal decline, opened an ongoing 25-year quagmire of imperialist-fomented slaughter, civil wars and ethnic cleansing in the Near East. This has been accompanied by more imperialist military adventures in Africa and Asia. During the 1992-93 UN “peacekeeping” invasion of Somalia, racist murder and torture of civilians was carried out by Canadian airborne troops who included known fascists. Under cover of the “war on terror,” the U.S. and its British, Canadian and other allies have laid waste to countries from Afghanistan to Iraq and Libya. In these bloody wars, the workers of the world had a side against the imperialist forces. Any military setbacks for the imperialists can provide some respite to the afflicted region and can stimulate opposition by the working class in the imperialist centres.

Immigration, Racism and the Working Class

Under capitalism, immigration is manipulated to suit the economic and political needs of the rulers; thus there can be no “progressive” immigration policy. Indeed, one of the prime roles of national borders and nation-states is to control the flow of goods, capital and people between countries. In times of boom, the capitalists import workers; in times of economic constriction, these workers are fired, scapegoated for the loss of jobs and often deported.

Concentrated at the point of production, workers have great potential social power: they can shut down production and stop the flow of profits to the bosses. Their collective organization and methods of struggle, such as strikes, require class unity and thereby undercut racial and ethnic divisions. The numerically tiny ruling class is well aware of this, and it uses all the institutions of bourgeois society—the media, schools, churches and courts—to disguise the truth about capitalism and to promulgate its reactionary ideology. Each group of workers is taught that the problems are not due to the profit system but are the fault of workers who are from a different country, have different religious ideas or have a different skin colour.

In the late 19th century, sparsely populated Canada brought in 15,000 Chinese workers to build the railway. When this was completed and their labour no longer required, the racist head tax was imposed on Chinese people to restrict immigration. During the 1907 recession, the Asiatic Exclusion League, a group formed by the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council, staged a race riot, storming through Vancouver’s Japanese and Chinese areas.

The union misleaders refused to organize non-white workers, crippling working-class unity against a common foe. There were important exceptions, like William “Big Bill” Haywood, leader of the Western Federation of Miners and later founder of the Industrial Workers of the World and prominent supporter of the Bolshevik Revolution. During a 1903 miners strike on Vancouver Island, Haywood cabled the union: “We approve of calling out any or all men necessary to win at Ladysmith. Organize Japanese and Chinese if possible.”

Labour Must Champion Immigrant Rights!

This history has lost none of its relevance. Today, thanks to the former Tory government, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has expanded the pool of superexploited labour with no rights. The TFWP especially targets low-wage agricultural workers, for example from Mexico, and live-in caregivers, mostly women from the Philippines. These workers toil as sub-minimum wage indentured servants. Any assertion of their rights can mean loss of employment, which usually means deportation since the TFWP worker’s permit is tied to the sponsoring employer.

Some 70,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada face deportation because they’ve been here for four years—and they may not reapply for another four years. A class-struggle labour leadership would demand an end to the TFWP and full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Against the capitalists’ attempts to play off one nationality against another, such a leadership would fight to unionize these foreign-born workers and for equal pay for equal work.

Instead the pro-capitalist union leaders promote nationalist protectionism—the false view that workers have a common interest with their capitalist exploiters. In 2012, several labour organizations in British Columbia opposed the entry of 200 Chinese temporary workers, with the United Steelworkers demanding “B.C. jobs for B.C. workers.” Such poison benefits only the bosses, since it pits worker against worker in a race to the bottom.

The Canadian bourgeoisie prattles about how Canada is a country of immigrants. That’s true, but this is not due to any ruling-class munificence. It was only in 1967 that the government finally lifted its official colour bar. Harper’s Tories are gone, but the history of the Liberal Party, which ran Canada for most of the last century, is replete with crimes against immigrants and ethnic minorities. It was the Liberals who refused admission to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler. It was they who interned 22,000 Japanese Canadians during World War II and after the war deported many of them to devastated Japan. And by the way, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), predecessors of the NDP [New Democratic Party], backed this racist atrocity.

The Tories’ nine-year rule was marked by crude xenophobia and racism. As they erected one new barrier after the other, it became increasingly difficult for immigrants to enter Canada. Thousands of refugees have been detained. Dual citizens, including native-born children of immigrants, may now lose their citizenship if found guilty of certain crimes. The bogus “war on terror” has seen a torrent of repressive, racist laws. These laws target Muslims in the first instance, but they are also an assault on democratic rights and the rights of labour and the left. It is in the interests of the working class to oppose the capitalists’ racist, anti-working-class moves against the foreign-born.

Immigration and Anti-Communism

Capitalist immigration policy is not simply an economic but also a political question, wielded to serve foreign and domestic policy ends. This is especially evident with respect to refugees. According to a New York Times Magazine article (20 September), the history of the modern right to asylum started with the 1917 Russian Revolution, after which “an unprecedented wave of 1.5 million Russians streamed into Europe.” As part of the drive to defeat the revolution, the imperialist powers opened their arms to these “Russian refugees,” many of them open counterrevolutionaries, for whom the League of Nations authorized “certificates of identity.”

The Times did not deem “fit to print” the fact that after the 1917 Revolution, workers from other countries were welcomed to become citizens of the new Russian workers state, then known as the RSFSR [Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]. Its 1918 constitution declared, “in support of the solidarity of the workers of all countries, the RSFSR grants all the political rights of Russian citizens to foreigners living on the territory of the Russian Republic and to members of the working class or peasants not using the work of others.” The infant workers state was guided in this by the internationalism of the heroic Communards of Paris in 1871, who also granted citizenship to foreign-born workers.

Anti-Communism has been a defining feature of Canadian immigration and refugee policies for almost a century, and it is still a factor. This fall the bourgeois media was awash with calls on the government to carry out the kind of large-scale mobilization on behalf of displaced Syrians that was undertaken in 1979 to bring in 50,000 Vietnamese “boat people.” A sign at a recent refugee rights rally invoked this history: “Canada accepted 50,000 Boat People and ??? Syrian refugees.” Aging former Tory cabinet ministers were wheeled out to reminisce about how they helped organize the exodus from the Vietnamese Revolution, which had just defeated the U.S. imperialists. One feels only revulsion at such “humanitarian” anti-Communism.

During U.S. imperialism’s long, losing war in Vietnam, the Canadian junior imperialists were “merchants of death,” profiting from $1 million a day in arms sold to the U.S. war machine. The Vietnamese first beat the French imperialists in 1954, leading to the creation of a deformed workers state in the north. Two decades later, in 1975, they defeated the U.S., the most powerful imperialist country on the planet. Our tendency raised the slogan: “All Indochina Must Go Communist!” We hailed the extension of the Vietnamese workers state to include the whole country, a victory for all the world’s workers.

What occurred in South Vietnam was a social revolution in which capitalist property relations were abolished. The big Vietnamese war criminals and mass murderers were spirited out with the aid of their U.S. masters right after the fall of Saigon in 1975. We were utterly opposed to giving any kind of sanctuary to these butchers, declaring, “No Asylum for Vietnamese War Criminals!” The wave of Vietnamese “boat people,” which came somewhat later, originated in a social layer which included former petty traders and entrepreneurs whose shops were nationalized. In the eyes of the U.S. and its allies, these would-be migrants were of marginal use and thus dispensable. At the same time, a racist outcry was whipped up against the “boat people.”

From the standpoint of defense of the Vietnamese Revolution, the exodus of thousands of skilled and educated people could be seen as damaging to the economic foundations of the deformed workers state. However, in the face of the nativist backlash, we concluded that “it could only be chauvinist to campaign against admission of the mass of the ‘boat people’” (“Imperialist Hypocrisy and the Boat People,” Spartacist Canada No. 38, August/September 1979). For the capitalist rulers, anti-Communism ultimately trumped racism, and a massive drive was undertaken to relocate these people in Canada, the U.S., Britain and Australia.

Quite another calculus was used for victims of right-wing terror. During this same period, the Canadian government targeted leftists for deportation, issuing dozens of “security certificates” to get rid of “subversives.” In Chile in September 1973, the military, with the direct assistance of the CIA, overthrew the democratically elected government headed by Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende. Thousands of leftists and workers were murdered. In contrast to the welcome given the Vietnamese “boat people,” in the 18 months following the coup—which caused over 200,000 to flee for their lives—Canada saw fit to accept just 1,188 refugees from Chile. The government claimed the total later climbed to 7,000, but the Canadian rulers’ attitude was best expressed by their ambassador to Chile in 1973, who smeared Latin American leftists as “riffraff” and expressed his relief that the Allende government was overthrown.

Anti-Communism and Union-Busting

World War II in Europe ended with the destruction of the Nazi forces by the Soviet Red Army and the concomitant liberation of East Europe from Hitlerite fascism. After the war, Canada eagerly gave haven to thousands of Nazi war criminals because they were hardened opponents of Communism and Soviet Russia. The subsequent Cold War against the USSR was spearheaded domestically by a ruthless witchhunt in the labour movement. The Communist Party (CP) had been in the forefront of the struggle to build the unions. The bosses recruited tens of thousands of hardened anti-Communists to undermine the CP’s influence. In purging the “reds,” the ruling class was fully aided and abetted by the CCF; many social democrats and labour fakers built careers on driving Communists and their supporters out of the unions.

Immigration helped to provide the capitalist class with the manpower to undertake this assault. In 1956, an incipient proletarian political revolution shook Stalinist bureaucratic rule in the Hungarian deformed workers state. The workers uprising had repulsed attempts by fascistic and monarchist elements which saw an opening for counterrevolution. However, the insurgent workers were finally overcome by the Soviet military.

Tens of thousands of overwhelmingly right-wing Hungarians fled the country. As with the Nazis, Canada welcomed this counterrevolutionary wave, taking in 37,000 in less than a year. A few years later, a significant number of these people were enlisted in the drive to destroy the CP-led Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union, which represented hardrock miners in northern Ontario. This campaign was a powerful illustration of the organic link between the bourgeoisie’s union-busting and its anti-Communist immigration policy. As we wrote earlier:

“With the help of the federal Department of Mines and Resources, which was then responsible for immigration, companies like International Nickel (Inco) actively sought out ‘former’ fascists to work in their mines in and around Sudbury. Meanwhile, the USWA [Steelworkers union] organized anti-Communist raids against Mine-Mill throughout the 1950s.”

— “For a Class-Struggle Fight Against Anti-Immigrant Racism!” Spartacist Canada No. 99, September/October 1994

In a showdown on August 26, 1961, a mob of 1,800 laid siege to Mine Mill’s Sudbury union hall, and the cops stood by as the rioters smashed every window. Years later, the Sudbury Star obtained an RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] report on the attack which revealed that “the mob on Saturday night was composed of former Hungarian freedom fighters and ex-Nazi storm troopers, who have been imported in considerable numbers by Inco in the past few years.”

By the 1980s, East Europeans could pretty much step off the plane in Gander airport in Newfoundland and gain asylum. But for leftists fleeing “free world” death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala and Chile the Canadian door was slammed shut.

Open Borders: A Liberal Utopian Response

As Marxist revolutionaries, we understand that there can be no progressive immigration policy under capitalism. It’s not our business to propose solutions to the imperialists, but rather to educate the working class in the need to overthrow their system. Not so our opponents on the left, who promote illusions that the same rapacious imperialists who have destroyed the Near East can be persuaded to come to the aid of their victims.

Today, many leftists—for example, the International Socialists and No-One Is Illegal—call for “open borders,” a demand increasingly raised as a solution to the present crisis in Europe. In reality, this call reflects illusions in the European Union, a reactionary imperialist consortium which we Marxists oppose on principle. In his Imperialism pamphlet, Lenin devoted a chapter to ridicule the “silly little fable about ‘peaceful’ ultra-imperialism,” which was pushed by Karl Kautsky, theoretician of the German social democracy and vociferous opponent of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The notion of a peaceful imperialist order without immigration restrictions is utterly utopian and tantamount to calling for the abolition of national states under capitalism. The modern nation-state with defined borders arose as a vehicle for the development of capitalism and it remains the basis of the capitalists’ economy and their state. No bourgeoisie will give up control over its territory or borders without a fight. This will be so until the capitalist order is destroyed through a series of workers revolutions.

Applied to small or neocolonial countries, the consequences of “open borders” can be reactionary, for example in advancing imperialist economic penetration. On a sufficiently large scale, mass immigration is incompatible with the right of national self-determination. Just look at Israel. The imperialist states closed their borders first to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and then to survivors of the death camps. Hundreds of thousands of European Jews were forced to go to Palestine. This mass influx resulted in the Palestinian Arab population being displaced and expelled from their homeland.

Some advocates of “open borders” argue that unlimited immigration can be a solution to world poverty. In “The Leninist Policy Toward Immigration/Emigration,” written more than 40 years ago, we explained:

“This is merely a variant of utopian egalitarianism—the belief that a just society can be established by sharing out the currently available wealth….

“In reality, the economic resources do not now exist to satisfy the material aspirations of mankind, and a policy of worldwide leveling would only intensify conflicts between the working masses of various countries.”

— WV No. 36, 18 January 1974

The realization of the Marxist program—a communist society—requires the eradication of economic scarcity. Replacement of capitalist property relations by collective ownership of the means of production and a worldwide planned economy will result in a vast increase in the productivity of labour and living standards, and this alone can lay the basis for the emergence of a classless society. The elimination of national borders will be possible in a communist society where material scarcity, national divisions and racism will be relics of the past.

Today, the working class in this country is thoroughly multiracial, from Punjabi port truckers in B.C. to black transit workers in Toronto. Workers must take up the cause of immigrants and ethnic minorities, who are key to the workings of the Canadian economy. Often more willing to fight for the rights of all workers, these workers can be a catalyst for broader class and other social struggles. This perspective requires a fight against the pro-capitalist union misleaders and the NDP, during which a new class-struggle leadership of the unions will be forged. The battles of a revitalized labour movement will in turn help to create conditions for the emergence of the multiracial vanguard party that is required to lead the workers to overthrow the capitalist order.

As The 100th Anniversary Of World War I Enters Its Second Year-The Anti-War Resistance Begins- Lenin

As The 100^th Anniversary Of World War I Enters Its Second Year-The Anti-War Resistance Begins-   

The events leading up to World War I (known as the Great War before the world got clogged up with expansive wars in need of other numbers and names and reflecting too in that period before World War II a certain sense of “pride” in having participated in such an epic adventure even if it did mow down the flower of European youth from all classes) from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their unimpeded share of the world’s resources had all the earmarks of a bloodbath early on once the industrial-sized carnage set in with the stalemated fronts (as foretold by the blood-letting in the American Civil War and the various “small” wars in Asia, Africa, and, uh, Europe in the mid to late 19^th century once war production on a mass scale followed in the train of other industrial production). Also trampled underfoot in the opposing trenches, or rather thrown in the nearest trash bin of the their respective parliamentary buildings were the supposedly eternal pledges against war in defense of one’s own capitalist-imperialist  nation-state against the working masses and their allies of other countries by most of the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations (Anarchists, Syndicalists and their various off-shoots)representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those imperialist capitalist powers and their hangers-on in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20^th century history. All those beautifully written statements and resolutions that clogged up the international conferences with feelings of solidarity were some much ill-fated wind once bullet one came out of gun one.

Other than isolated groups and individuals, mostly like Lenin and Trotsky in exile or jail, and mostly in the weaker lesser capitalistically developed countries of Europe the blood lust got the better of most of the working class and its allies as young men rushed to the recruiting stations to “do their duty” and prove their manhood. (When the first international conference of anti-war socialists occurred in Switzerland in 1915 one wag pointed out that they could all fit in one tram [bus].) Almost all parties assuming that the damn thing would be over by Christmas and everyone could go back to the eternal expressions of international working-class solidarity after the smoke had settled (and the simple white-crossed graves dug). You see, and the logic is beautiful on this one, that big mail-drop of a Socialist International, was built for peace-time but once the cannon roared then the “big tent” needed to be folded for the duration. Jesus.  

Decisive as well as we head down the slope to the first months of the second year of the war although shrouded in obscurity early in the war in exile was the soon to be towering figure of one Vladimir Lenin (a necessary nom de guerre in the hell broth days of the Czar’s Okhrana ready to send one and all to the Siberian frosts and that moniker business, that nom de guerre not a bad idea in today’s NSA-driven frenzy to know all, to peep at all), leader of the small Russian Bolshevik Party ( a Social-Democratic Party in name anyway adhering to the Second International under the sway of the powerful German party although not for long because “Long Live The Communist International,”  a new revolutionary international, would become the order of the day in the not distant future), architect of the theory of the “vanguard party” building off of many revolutionary experiences in Russia and Europe in the 19^th century (including forbears Marx and Engels), and author of an important, important to the future communist world perspective, study on the monopolizing tendencies of world imperialism, the ending of the age of “progressive” capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the term progressive in a historical materialist sense that capitalism was progressive against feudalism and other older economic models which turned into its opposite at this dividing point in history), and the hard fact that it was a drag on the possibilities of human progress and needed to be replaced by the establishment of the socialist order. But that is the wave of the future as 1914 turns to 1915 in the sinkhole trenches of Europe that are already a death trap for the flower of the European youth.  

Lenin also has a "peace" plan, a peace plan of sorts, a way out of the stinking trench warfare stalemate eating up the youth of the Eurasian landmass. Do what should have been done from the beginning, do what all the proclamations from all the beautifully-worded socialist manifestos called on the international working-class to do. Not a simple task by any means especially in that first year when almost everybody on all sides thought a little blood-letting would be good for the soul, the individual national soul, and in any case the damn thing would be over by Christmas and everybody could start producing those beautifully worded-manifestos against war again. (That by Christmas peace “scare” turned out to be a minute “truce” from below by English and German soldiers hungry for the old certainties banning the barbed wire and stinking trenches for a short reprieve in the trench fronts in France and played soccer before returning to drawn guns-a story made into song and which is today used as an example of what the lower ranks could do-if they would only turn the guns around. Damn those English and German soldiers never did turn the damn things around until too late and with not enough resolve and the whole world has suffered from that lack of resolve ever since.)

Lenin’s hard-headed proposition: turn the bloody world war among nations into a class war to drive out the war-mongers and bring some peace to the blood-soaked lands. But that advanced thinking is merely the wave of the future as the rat and rain-infested sinkhole trenches of Europe were already churning away in the first year as a death trap for the flower of the European youth.   

The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way as did the various German-induced wars attempting to create one nation-state out of various satraps almost could not be avoided in the early 20^th century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine. The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and range and the increased rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last wars. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas.

The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began the damn thing among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness.

A few voices, voices like Karl Liebknecht (who against the party majority bloc voting scheme finally voted against the Kaiser’s war budget, went to the streets to get rousing anti-war speeches listened to in the workers’ districts, lost his parliamentary immunity and wound up honorably in the Kaiser’s  prisons) and Rosa Luxemburg ( the rose of the revolution also honorably prison bound) in Germany, Lenin and Trotsky in Russia (both exiled at the outbreak of war and just in time as being on “the planet without a passport” was then as now, dangerous to the lives of left-wing revolutionaries), some anti-war anarchists like Monette in France and here in America “Big Bill” Haywood (who eventually would controversially flee to Russia to avoid jail for his opposition to American entry into war), many of his IWW (Industrial Workers Of the World) comrades and the stalwart Eugene V. Debs (who also went to jail, “Club Fed” for speaking the truth about American war aims in a famous Cleveland speech and, fittingly, ran for president in 1920 out of his Atlanta Penitentiary jail cell),  were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.

Those voices, many of them in exile, or in the deportations centers, were being clamped down as well when the various imperialist governments began closing their doors to political refugees when they were committed to clapping down on their own anti-war citizens. As we have seen in our own times, most recently in America in the period before the “shock and awe” of the decimation of Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 the government, most governments, are able to build a war frenzy out of whole cloth. Even my old anti-war amigo from my hometown who after I got out of the American Army during the Vietnam War marched with me in countless rallies and parades trying to stop the madness got caught in the bogus information madness and supported Bush’s “paper war” although not paper for the benighted Iraqi masses ever since (and plenty of other “wise” heads from our generation of ’68 made that sea-change turn with him).

At those times, and in my lifetime the period after 9/11 when we tried in vain to stop the Afghan war in its tracks is illustrative, to be a vocal anti-warrior is a dicey business. A time to keep your head down a little, to speak softly and wait for the fever to subside and to be ready to begin the anti-war fight another day. “Be ready to fight” the operative words.

So imagine in the hot summer of 1914 when every nationality in Europe felt its prerogatives threatened how the fevered masses, including the beguiled working-classes bred on peace talk without substance, would not listen to the calls against the slaughter. Yes, one hundred years later is not too long or too late to honor those ardent anti-war voices as the mass mobilizations began in the countdown to war, began four years of bloody trenches and death.                  

Over the next period as we continue the long night of the 100^th anniversary of World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak before the first frenzied shots were fired, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles after it in places like Russia, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the hodge-podge colonies all over the world map, in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.   

 

 

 

V. I.   Lenin

Revolutionary Marxists at the International Socialist Conference, September 5-8, 1915

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Published: Sotsial-Demokat No. 45–46, October 11, 1915. Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demokrat.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 389-393.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2003 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats:   Text • README

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The ideological struggle at the Conference was waged between a compact group of internationalists, revolutionary Marxists, and the vacillating near-Kautskyites, who formed the Right wing of the Conference. The unitedness of the former group is one of the most important facts and greatest achievements of the Conference. After a year of war, the trend represented by our Party proved the only trend in the International to adopt a fully definite resolution as well as a draft manifesto based on the latter, and to unite the consistent Marxists of Russia, Poland, the Lettish territory, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and Holland.

What arguments did the vacillating elements advance against us? The Germans admitted that we were advancing towards revolutionary battles, but, they said, we do not have to proclaim from the house-tops such things as fraternisation in the trenches, political strikes, street demonstrations and civil war. Such things are done, they said, but not spoken of. Others added: this is childishness, verbal pyro-technics.
The German semi-Kautskyites castigated themselves for these ridiculously, indecently contradictory and evasive speeches by passing a resolution of sympathy and a declaration on the need to “follow the example” of the members of the R.S.D.L. Duma group, who distributed Sotsial-Dernokrat, our Central Organ, which proclaimed civil war from the housetops.

You are following the bad example set by Kautsky, we replied to the Germans; in word, you recognise the impending revolution; in deed, you refuse to tell the masses about it openly, to call for it, and indicate the most concrete means of struggle which the masses are to test and legitimise in the course of the revolution. In 1847, Marx and Engels, who were living abroad-the German philistines were horrified at revolutionary methods of struggle being spoken of from abroad!-called for revolution, in their celebrated Manifesto of the Communist Party; they spoke forthright of the use of force, and branded as contemptible any attempt to conceal the revolutionary aims, tasks and methods of the struggle. The Revolution of 1848 proved that Marx and Engeis alone had applied the correct tactics to the events. Several years prior to the 1905 Revolution in Russia, Plekhanov, who was then still a Marxist, wrote an unsigned article in the old Iskra of 1901, expressing the editorial board’s views on the coming insurrection, on ways of preparing it, such as street demonstrations, and even on technical devices, such as using wire in combating cavalry. The Russian revolution proved that the old iskrists alone had approached the events with the correct tactics. We are now faced with the following alternative: either we are really and truly con-vinced that the war is creating a revolutionary situation in Europe, and that all the economic and socio-political cir-cumstances of the imperialist period are leading up to a revolution of the proletariat-in which case we are in duty bound to explain to the masses the need for revolution, call for it, create the necessary organisations, and speak fear-lessly and most concretely of the various methods of the forcible struggle and its “technique”. This duty of ours does not depend upon whether the revolution will be strong enough, or whether it will arrive with a first or a second imperialist war, etc. Or else we are not convinced that the situation is revolutionary, in which case there is no sense in our just talking about a war against war. In that ease, we are, in fact, national liberal-labour politicians of the S|dekum-Plekhanov or Kautsky variety.
The French delegates also declared that the present situation in Europe, as they saw it, would lead to revolu-tion. But, they said, first, “we have not come here to pro-vide   a formula for a Third international”; secondly, the French worker “believes nobody and nothing”; he is demoral-ised and satiated with anarchist and Hervéist phrases. The former argument is unreasonable, because the joint compromise manifesto does “provide a formula” for a Third International, though it is inconsistent, incomplete and not given sufficient thought. The latter argument is very impor-tant as a very serious factual argument, which takes the specific situation in France into account, nut. in the meaning of defence of the fatherland, or the enemy invasion, but in taking note of the “sore points” in the French labour move-ment. The only thing that logically follows from this, however, is that .the French socialists would perhaps join general European revolutionary action by the proletariat more slowly than others, and not that such action is un-necessary. The question as to how rapidly, in which way and in which particular forms the proletariat of the various countries ai+e capable of taking revolutionary action was riot raised at the Conference and could not have been. The con-ditions for this are not yet ripe. For the present it is our task to jointly propagandise the correct tactics and leave it to events to indicate the tempo of the movement, and the modifications in the mainstream (according to nation, locality and trade). If the French proletariat has been demor-alised by anarchist phrases, it has been demoralised by Mfllerandism too, and it is not our business to increase this demoralisation by leaving things unsaid in the mani-festo.
It was none other than Merrheim who uttered the characteristic and profoundly correct phrase: “The [Socialist] Party, Jouhaux [secretary of the General Confederation of Labour]^[1] and the government are three heads under one bonnet.” This is the truth, a fact proved by the experience of the year of struggle waged by the French international-ists against the Party and Messrs. 3 ouhaux, There is, however, only one conclusion to be drawn: the government cannot be fought unless the opportunist parties and the leaders of anarchosyndicalism are fought against. Unlike our resolution, the joint manifesto merely indicated the tasks in the struggle but did not say everything that should have been said about them.

Arguing against our tactics, one of the Italians said: “Your tactics come either too late [since the war has already begun] or too soon [because the war has not yet created the conditions for revolution]; besides, you propose to ‘change the programme’ of the International, since all our propaganda has always been conducted ‘against violence’.” It was very easy for us to reply to this by quoting Jules Guesde in En garde! to the effect that not a single influential leader of the Second International ever rejected the use of violence and direct revolutionary methods of the struggle in general. It has always been argued that the legal struggle, parliamentarism and insurrection are inter-linked, and must inevitably pass into each other according to the changes in the conditions of the movement. From the same book, En garde!, we quoted a passage in a speech delivered by Guesde in 1899, in which he spoke of the possibility of a war for markets, colonies, etc., and went on to say that if there were any French, German and British Millerands in such a war, then “what would become of international working-class solidarity?” In this speech Guesde condemned himself in advance. As for declaring propaganda of revolution “inopportune”, this objection rests on a confusion of concepts usual among socialists in the Romance countries: they confuse the beginning of a revolution with open and direct propaganda for revolution. In Russia, nobody places the beginning of the 1905 Revolution before January 1905,^[2] whereas revolutionary propaganda, in the very narrow sense of the word, the propaganda and the preparation of mass action, demonstrations, strikes, barricades, had been conducted for years prior to that. The old Iskra, for instance, began to propagandise the matter at the end of 1900, as Marx did in 1847, when nobody thought as yet of the beginning of a revolution in Europe.
After a revolution has begun, it is “recognised” even by the liberals and its other enemies; they often recognise it so as to deceive and betray it. Before the revolution, revolutionaries foresee it, realise its inevitability, make the masses understand its necessity, and explain its course and methods to the masses.
By the irony of history, Kautsky and his friends, who tried to take out of Grimm’s hands the initiative of   convening the Conference, and attempted to disrupt the Conference of the Left wing (Kautsky’s closest friends even went on a tour for this purpose, as Grimm disclosed at the Conference), were the very ones who pushed the Conference to the left. By their deeds, the opportunists and the Kautskyites have proved the correctness of the stand taken by our Party.

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