“Power to the People”: The Lost John Lennon Interview

John Lennon would have been 70 on October 9, here’s an 1971 interview with him and the much maligned Yoko Ono by British socialists Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn, which was republished five years ago on Counterpunch.

By Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn

Editors’ Note: It was twenty-five years ago today  that John Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota building on Central Park West in New York City [This article was posted on CounterPunch on 8 December 2005, Lennon was killed in 1980]. We doubt many CounterPunchers have read the following 1971 interview with Lennon done by CounterPunchers Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn. It’s a lot more interesting that the interminable Q and A with Lennon done by Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner. Tariq and Robin allowed Lennon to talk and spurred him on when he showed signs of flagging. Lennon recounts about how he and George Harrison bucked their handlers and went on record against the Vietnam War, discusses class politics in an engaging manner, defends country and western music and the blues, suggests Dylan’s best songs stem from revolutionary Irish and Scottish ballads and dissects his three versions of “Revolution”. The interview ran in The Red Mole, a Trotskyist sheet put out by the British arm of the Fourth International. As you’ll see, those were different days. The interview is included in Tariq Ali’s Streetfighting Years, recently published by Verso. AC / JSC

Tariq Ali: Your latest record and your recent public statements, especially the interviews in Rolling Stone magazine, suggest that your views are becoming increasingly radical and political. When did this start to happen?

John Lennon: I’ve always been politically minded, you know, and against the status quo. It’s pretty basic when you’re brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere.

I mean, it’s just a basic working class thing, though it begins to wear off when you get older, get a family and get swallowed up in the system.

In my case I’ve never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days; that would be around ‘65 or ‘66. And that religion was directly the result of all that superstar shit--religion was an outlet for my repression. I thought, ‘Well, there’s something else to life, isn’t there? This isn’t it, surely?’

But I was always political in a way, you know. In the two books I wrote, even though they were written in a sort of Joycean gobbledegook, there’s many knocks at religion and there is a play about a worker and a capitalist. I’ve been satirising the system since my childhood. I used to write magazines in school and hand them around.

I was very conscious of class, they would say with a chip on my shoulder, because I knew what happened to me and I knew about the class repression coming down on us--it was a fucking fact but in the hurricane Beatle world it got left out, I got farther away from reality for a time.

Rehabilitating utopia and saving the future

From Blind Carbon Copy

Socialism used to be a rallying point for idealists, utopians, dreamers and those who were simply hopeful. It carried an almost millenarian promise of redemption and salvation. More importantly, it allowed its advocates to exercise their imagination. If socialism was to democratically realise the wishes of the common working people, why should they be restrained in their wishes?

There are pitfalls in utopian imaginings. George Orwell once said that “ ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” Inevitably, some utopian visions have been codified (and ossified) into cult dogma.


When the left banished utopia

But the 20th century left did not in the main succumb to utopian cults. Rather, it lost most of its creative imagination. The state socialist countries of the Eastern bloc as much as the social-democratic and labour movements in the West all succumbed to (or promoted) a grey economic reduction of the socialist vision.

Admittedly, even among the most authoritarian of the Stalinist parties, they never truly killed off creativity. The Communist Party of Australia had workers’ theatre. The USSR had Shostakovich and the Bolshoi Ballet and more. But the creative urge was de-coupled from the political project: it became a pressure relief valve for the masses. In the west, union campaigns for shorter work hours were probably the most creative movement, but the liberatory potential of freeing people from work was largely negated by the greater focus on wage rises and the related growth of consumerism.

The culture and dreams of working people have thus been privatised by the old, official “left”. State socialism and social democracy sought to out-compete the capitalists in economic growth and consumerism - without success. Clearly, if the aim was to enable working class people to be overweight, bored couch potatoes in front of a very big TV, capitalism won that competition.

Trotsky’s socialism

Seventy years ago the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was murdered.  

Esme Choonara looks at his life, ideas and his legacy

from Socialist Worker UK

Leon Trotsky addresses Red Army troops in 1918

Seventy years ago this week an agent of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin murdered the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky by smashing his skull with an ice pick. 

Trotsky was at his home in Mexico when the assassin came into his study and attacked him. This was not Stalin’s first attempt.

Only a few weeks earlier, a group of his Mexican followers had launched an armed attack on Trotsky’s household, killing a guard.

In fact, Stalin was so determined to crush Trotsky and his legacy that he had already murdered, or driven to suicide, most of Trotsky’s immediate family.

He forced Trotsky into exile in 1929 and slandered him as a fascist spy and enemy of the workers”.

An exhibition at a museum in St Petersburg last year exposed some of the ludicrous lengths the Russian regime went to wipe out any trace of Trotsky’s real legacy.

Among the exhibits was a teachers’ union scarf from 1925 bearing portraits of revolutionary leaders. The picture of Trotsky had been carefully cut out and replaced with blank cloth.

Hundreds of photographs from the revolutionary years were also doctored to remove Trotsky from his place in history.

Yet by the time he was killed Trotsky had been in exile for 11 years.

He had only a small handful of supporters scattered in different countries and no real influence on world events. His allies in Russia had either been killed or broken by Stalin’s terror.

So why did Stalin still see him as a threat?

Workers Lead the Way in Venezuela

From Eirigi

In the latest sign of the increasing radicalism of the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuela’s National Union of Workers [UNETE] has published a series of policy proposals calling for more workers’ control of industry.

 Among the proposals are:

• Full nationalisation of the banking and finance sectors
• Nationalisation of foreign commerce related to essential foods
• Readjustment of wages and prices to account for the cost of living and production
• Creation of a ministry for workers’ control and social production, directed by workers’ councils
• Introduction of a national maximum wage
• Introduction of an industrial transformation law that will see idle companies and land transferred to workers’ or peasants’ councils
• Demarcation of indigenous lands over the interests of transnational mining companies

UNETE is Venezuela’s primary union federation, having been formed in 2003 after the traditional federation CTV supported coup attempts against socialist president Hugo Chávez. Around 80 per cent of the country’s trade unions are affiliated to UNETE.

Early this month, president Chávez celebrated the first anniversary of the nationalisation of the Bank of Venezuela, which was bought over last year by the state and retained its entire workforce. It has also experienced tremendous growth since then.

Chávez said: “I don’t know if there has been any experience like it before in Venezuela of such growth. That means a lot of things. This throws out all of that information that is emitted from the laboratories of psychological warfare that global capitalism has set up in Venezuela… that manipulate and put fear in the minds of Venezuelans.”

Latin America & 21st Century Socialism

This is the forward to the July-August 2010 issue of US socialist journal Monthly Review. It provides a good summary of the origins of the Venezuelan revolution, and serves as an idroduction to the much longer essay “Latin America & Twenty-First Century Socialism: Inventing to Avoid Mistakes” by Venezuelan-based activists and author Marta Harnecker.

It’s important to be reminded that, to begin with, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution was not deliberately socialist, or even “anti-capitalist”, but certainly anti-neoliberal. Aiming to build, as Chavez put it, “an economic alternative to dehumanized capitalism”—to “humanize capitalism.”

This is similar to the stated aim of the recently released Council of Trade Unions Alternative Economic Strategy which states: “Capitalism is brutal but innovative and our aim is to retain and spread the benefits of innovation while policing its brutality.”

However, as John Bellamy Foster argues, “The main political thrust of the Bolivarian Revolution was, in fact, anti-capitalist in its underlying logic”, because it aimed to mobilise and empower the ordinary people.

That, rather than whether or not Chavez proclaimed himself for socialism or even against capitalism from the outset, appears to be the crucial factor.

Foreword

By John Bellamy Foster
from Monthly Review

I’m certain that this process is irreversible. This movement of change, of restructuring, of revolution, will not be stopped.

—Hugo Chávez, 20021

El Caracazo

In the eyes of much of the world, the year 1989 has come to stand for the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demise of Soviet-type societies, and the defeat of twentieth-century socialism. However, 1989 for many others, particularly in Spanish-speaking countries, is also associated with the beginning of the Latin American revolt against neoliberal shock therapy and the emergence in the years that followed of a “socialism for the 21st century.” This revolutionary turning point in Latin American (and world) history is known as the Caracazo or Sacudón (heavy riot), which erupted in Caracas, Venezuela on February 27, 1989, and quickly became “by far the most massive and severely repressed riot in the history of Latin America.”2

The Caracazo started in the early morning in the suburb of Guarenas in response to a 100 percent increase in transport fares. These transport hikes were part of a set of neoliberal shock policies introduced by the government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez. The object was to put Venezuela back in good standing with the IMF and international financial institutions, obtain their assistance in the servicing of its foreign debt, and provide “fresh money” for the oligarchy to rely on—all on the backs of millions of poor people. Outraged by the doubling of transport fares, the Caracas demonstrators hurled stones at the buses and overturned them. Motorcycle couriers joined in the protests, going from one part of the city to the other and spreading the message. Riots also broke out that same morning in nineteen other cities across the country.

By late afternoon in Caracas, public transport had come to a standstill. Hundreds of thousands of people were walking home and buses were burning. The protestors began to loot shops and supermarkets in order to obtain basic needs—food and clothing. That night, in what came to be known as “the day the poor came down from the hills,” the impoverished barrio-dwellers, joined in some instances by the police, engaged in a campaign of massive looting, first in the commercial center of Caracas and then in the privileged residential districts of the wealthy. From the standpoint of the majority of the Venezuelan poor, the looting was an act of social justice and retribution, an attempt to take back a little of what had been taken from them for decades—as they watched the oligarchy become ever richer, while they struggled to get enough merely to survive. (President Peréz’s ostentatious inauguration, only a few weeks before the announcement of the austerity program, was reported as “one of the grandest celebrations Latin America has ever known,” with a total of ten thousand invited guests attending, consuming 650,000 hors d’oeuvres, 209 sides of lamb, and twenty sides of beef—washing it all down with twelve hundred bottles of scotch, accompanied by immense quantities of champagne.)

In response to the widespread riot, President Pérez imposed martial law and a nighttime curfew. This was followed by a brutal repression of the population. Soldiers entered the barrios with orders to “reestablish order.” One soldier recounted that they were ordered to “shoot anything that moved, and shoot to kill.” One citizen recalled that the soldiers “didn’t say raise your arms or anything. But everything that appeared, they killed.” Hundreds, even thousands, of people were killed, with numbers of the dead ranging from 396 to 10,000, and with many thousands more wounded. The brutality of the retaliation stripped away any illusions about Venezuela’s fake democracy, and set in motion the struggle for a new society. As Richard Gott stated, it “marked the beginning of the end of Venezuela’s ancien régime.”3

Leninism 21 – Paul Le Blanc on the revolutionary party today

Dredging the internet for articles addressing the question “are Lenin’s ideas relevant today”, the name of US activist and academic and Paul Le Blanc comes up a lot.

He has written two books that address this issue, 1989’s “Lenin and the Revolutionary Party” and “Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience” in 2006, and these have been widely referenced and reviewed, particularly by socialists who, like Le Blanc himself (and UNITYblog) place themselves in the Trotskyist tradition.

In addition to this article, there’s an interview with Le Blanc from Monthly Review and a statement from him about why he decided to join the International Socialist Organization last year.

This article was published on the Canadian website Socialist Voice on June 25, 2008, the comments there are also worth reading.

Lenin and the revolutionary party today

by Paul Le Blanc

Paul Le Blanc was a guest speaker at the “Socialism 2008” conference of the International Socialist Organization in Chicago, June 20, 2008. This article is based on his talk.

We are focusing here on someone generally acknowledged to have been one of the greatest revolutionary theorists and organizers in human history: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, whose intimates knew him affectionately as “Ilyich,” but whom the world knew by his underground pseudonym — Lenin. He was the leader of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian socialist movement, and this revolutionary socialist wing later became the Russian Communist Party after coming to power in the 1917 workers and peasants revolution.

For millions Lenin was seen as a liberator. Appropriated after his death by bureaucrats and functionaries in order to legitimate their tyranny in countries labeled “Communist,” he was at the same time denounced for being a wicked and cruel fanatic by defenders of power and privilege in capitalist countries — and with Communism’s collapse at the close of the Cold War it is their powerful voices that have achieved global domination. But the ideas of Lenin, if properly utilized, can be vital resources for challenging the exploitation of humanity and degradation of our planet.

There are Marxist-influenced democratic socialists who would argue that “whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and political sense.” In fact, these are the words of Lenin himself. Many critics of Lenin have pointed to his repressive policies of 1918-1922, when the early Soviet republic was engulfed and overwhelmed by multiple crises, accusing him of being the architect of the Stalinist totalitarianism of later decades. Much of my recent book Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience (Routledge 2006) is devoted to disproving this grotesque distortion. Contrary to the claims of his detractors, Lenin’s writings reveal a commitment to freedom and democracy that runs through his political thought from beginning to end. They also reveal an incredibly coherent analytical, strategic, and tactical orientation that has relevance for our own age of “globalization.”[1]

In my remarks today I would like to do three things. First, I want to touch briefly on what I think are essentials of Lenin’s thought. Second, I want to touch on a couple of major problems that have cropped up in efforts to build organizations aspiring to be Leninist. Third, I want to talk about the necessity of building such an organization.

Leninism 21 – Hugo Chávez’s latest gift idea

Over the next month or so UNITYblog will be examining “Leninism in the 21st Century”.

We’re seeking the views of socialists and other radicals on the relevance of the Russian revolutionary’s theory of party organisation in today’s struggle against capitalism.

This week, we will start by posting articles from Marxists in the Leninist tradition who have taken a new look at Leninism over the last few years.

First up is “Hugo Chávez’s latest gift idea”, published in the US newspaper Socialist Worker, where researcher Lars Lih outlines his retranslation and re-interpratation of Lenin’s classic “What Is to Be Done?”

Has anyone heard if Chavez has presented “What Is to Be Done?” to Obama?



Hugo Chávez’s latest gift idea

Lars Lih, the author of Lenin Rediscovered: “What Is to Be Done?” in Context, which offers a new interpretation of Lenin’s 1902 book, comments on the news that Hugo Chávez has a new book ready to present to Barack Obama.

June 9, 2009

HUGO CHÁVEZ, the president of Venezuela, has announced on Venezuelan television that the next time he meets with President Barack Obama, he will give the American head of state a short book written in 1902 by one Lenin, entitled What Is to Be Done?

A surprising announcement. The last time Chávez showed his willingness to fill out Obama’s reading list, he gave him a topical book on the situation in Latin America. But what topical interest can be found in a book over a century old, written under the drastically alien circumstances of Tsarist Russia?

Besides, many of us will remember being taught about this book in a poli sci or history class. Isn’t What Is to Be Done? a “blueprint for Soviet tyranny”? Isn’t this the book in which Lenin expressed his contempt for workers--or, in any event, his worry that the workers would never be sufficiently revolutionary?

These worries, so we are told, led Lenin to advocate a party of “professional revolutionaries” from the intelligentsia that would replace a genuine democratic mass movement. All in all, isn’t What Is to Be Done? something of an embarrassment for the left--a book much better forgotten than thrust into the hands of world leaders?

Leninism 21 – Are Lenin’s ideas relevant in the 21st Century?

During the month of May (and possibly beyond) UNITYblog will examine “Leninism in the 21st Century”, and we’d like you to participate.

Contributions from Leftists (both Leninist and not) from Aotearoa (New Zealand) and around the world will be posted from the second week of May (In the first week we’ll post some existing articles off the net) [OK, running a bit behind schedule on that one!].


Old debates

Last Century versions of Lenin’s ideas were followed by socialists around the world. Many others, from left to right condemned Leninism as a fast road to dictatorship.

Even among those who call themselves Leninists, there are many interpretations of Lenin’s theory of socialist organisation. Some argue he wanted a “small party of professional revolutionaries” others a mass party of rank-and-file workers, but one where all members were committed to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Some say the aim of this party was to take all power in to its own hands, other to lead the working class to take power for itself.

These are old debates, but still important to anyone who sees Lenin’s ideas as relevant today – either as a guide to action, or something to argue against.

It’s the relevance of Lenin’s ideas, specifically his theory of party organisation, that UNITYblog would like your views on. What (if anything) should socialists, revolutionaries and other radicals take from Lenin and apply to the struggles of today, and what (if anything) should we reject?


New context

The context for asking these questions, include the rise of broad left parties and alliances in many countries, including Venezuela and Bolivia, where socialist revolutions are being led by broad alliances of parties and social movements, not a single Leninist organisation.

In a number of Western countries, some well-known Leninist groups appear to be abandoning Lenin’s principle of an exclusively revolutionary organisation.

Broad Left parties such as Denmark’s Red Green Alliance, Portugal’s Left Blog and German’s Left Party include revolutionary and non-revolutionary groups and individuals.

In France the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR – one of the world’s biggest Trotskyist groups) dissolved itself in order to establish the broader New Anti-Capitalist Party. Over in Australia, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) has also dissolved itself into the Socialist Alliance, which includes revolutionary and non-revolutionary socialists.

Here in Aotearoa, Socialist Worker, (publishers of UNITYblog) is one of several socialist groups who traditionally identify as “Leninist”. But we are also advocates of a broad left strategy and hope to see the formation of a “new workers party” or “broad left party” that includes not only reformist socialists, but also opponents of neo-liberal economics who are not socialists at all.



What is to be done (today)?

In raising the question of Leninism in the 21st Century? we are asking for your views on “what is the best way for the Left to organise today?” and “what is the relevance of Leninism to that?”

We’re asking these questions of a wide range of Leftists, many who are current or former members of Leninist groups, some who are not. So I am anticipating a wide range of interpretations about what Leninism is, let alone what is of value today.

You may find it helpful to answer the following questions, or you may prefer to address these issues in your own way. Either is fine by me:

• Are you (or have you ever been) a Leninist?

• How would you sum up Lenin’s ideas on socialist organisation?

• What are the greatest challenges facing the the Left today?

• Are Lenin’s ideas on organisation relevant in the 21st Century?

• How should we organise to meet those challenges?

Those of you who identify as Leninists or Marxists may also like to consider the following questions raised in UNITYblog’s first post on this topic Happy birthday Lenin:


• Have the former members of the LCR and the DSP have abandoned Leninism? Does it matter?


• What is the role of revolutionaries and Marxists within these broader reformists (or not explicitly revolutionary) parties?


• Was Lenin wrong to advocate organisational separation of Marxists from other socialists? Or was this idea right at the time, but not now?


Awaiting your response with interest,

David Colyer | colyer@pl.net
editor www.UNITYblognz.com

Offensive images?

A picture of Lenin in a party hat cropped from the first of these images accompanied last week’s post Happy Birthday Lenin, which announced UNITYblog’s up-coming discussion on Leninism in the 21st Century. A lively debate has already begun.

One contributor, Don Franks objected to the image of Lenin, seeing it as symbolic of UNITYblog’s supposed rejection of Leninism.

He writes:

“What is the point of that? Political images are not chosen randomly. To me it looks like you are putting some previously fun childish thing [Leninism] aside before getting on with the grown up business of the day.”

As I have said in the comments on this post, I chose the image because, “Making fun of an authority figure can open up space for critical discussion, which is my intention. I feel that this picture may help cut through the unhelpful duality of Lenin as a idol beyond question or a dictatorial hate-figure. I want to promote debate on Lenin’s legacy, from a wide range of Leftist perspectives.”

So for those who have not seen them before, here are the two “Communist Party” images. My only objection to them is that they include Stalin and Mao.

Meanwhile I have sent an open invitation to join the discussion on Leninism in the 21st Century to just about every Lefty on my email list and all members of the UNITYblog Facebook group. I'll be posting it here in a day or two.


David
UNITYblog editor

Happy birthday Lenin

April 22 was the birthday of Russian Marxist Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known to the world as Lenin.

Lenin was the founder of the Bolsheviks (later the Communist Party) and became president of USSR as a result of the 1917 October Revolution. The success of the Bolsheviks in founding the world’s first socialist government won wide support for Lenin’s ideas on how a socialist party should be organised.

But as an advocate of the overthrow of the social and economic order, Lenin was always going to be a hate figure for defenders of capitalism. Today the mainstream view (shared by many on the Left) is that Lenin was a dictator who, if not quite as bad as Stalin, certainly paved the way for him.

As for Lenin’s idea on party organisation, these are often seen as a blueprint for dictatorship, both within the party and in any country unfortunate enough to fall under Communist control.

Lenin’s fans – including UNITYblog – hold a different view. We remember that Lenin argued that “democracy is indispensable to socialism”, that he wanted “every cook” to help govern the new socialist state. That the Russian Revolution failed to achieve this goal, we argue, was because of many factors beyond Lenin and the Bolshivik’s control.

What about Lenin’s theory of party organisation?

The fundamental point was that revolutionary socialists / Marxists should form their own parties, independent from the “reformists” who rejected the idea of revolution, believing instead that the problems of capitalism could be solved through gradual reform.


Abandoning Leninism?

In the Western countries, a number of the most most well-known Leninist groups appear to be abandoning Lenin’s principle of an exclusively revolutionary organisation.

Broad Left parties such as Denmark’s Red Green Alliance, Portugal’s Left Blog and German’s Left Party include revolutionary and non-revolutionary groups and individuals.

In France the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR – one of the world’s biggest Trotskyist groups) dissolved itself in order to establish the broader New Anti-Capitalist Party.

Over in Australia, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) has also dissolved itself into the Socialist Alliance, which includes revolutionary and non-revolutionary socialists.

Here in Aotearoa, Socialist Worker is one of several socialist groups who traditionally identify as “Leninist”. But we are also advocates of a broad left strategy and hope to see the formation of a “new workers party” or “broad left party” that includes not only reformist socialists, but also opponents of neo-liberal economics who are not socialists at all.

This raises some big questions about Leninism and its relevance today:

Have the former members of the LCR and the DSP have abandoned Leninism? Does it matter?

What is the role of revolutionaries and Marxists within these broader reformists (or not explicitly revolutionary) parties?

Was Lenin wrong to advocate organisational separation of Marxists from other socialists? Or was this idea right at the time, but not now?

Over the next month or so UNITYblog will examine the problems of Leninism in the 21st Century.

We will start by posting several international articles from Marxists in the Leninist tradition who have taken a new look at Leninism, before sharing the views of leftists (both Leninist and not) from Aotearoa and elsewhere.

‘Beware! The end is nigh!’

Why global capitalism is tipping towards collapse,

and how we can act for a decent future¹

by GRANT MORGAN²

PART 1: HISTORY LESSONS

The fable behind the stereotype

Global capitalism tipping towards collapse? “C’mon,” goes the standard response, “don’t you know that’s been predicted for ages and it’s never happened?”

That standard response is reinforced by the mass media’s visual cliché of some crazed guy, usually wearing a monk’s cassock, preaching the Apocalyptic message: “Beware! The end is nigh!”

Behind this sneering stereotype lurk denials that global capitalism could suffer the same fate as all past civilisations.

Early capitalism grew amidst the slow-motion collapse of medieval Europe³ which, after lasting for a millennium, was being overwhelmed by market forces. Feudalism’s forerunner, the ancient slave-based epoch, lasted 4,000 years until the Western Roman Empire⁴ fell quickly in 476 after several centuries of internal decay and border wars.

Before perishing, past civilisations spawned fables about their everlasting nature. Those fables gave popular legitimacy to societies divided by class, gender, ethnicity, nationality and religion.

The tradition of ages is continued by capitalism. According to its ideologues, “flexibility” is so embedded in capitalism that collapse becomes impossible. Yet such claims fly in the face of history. We need to do our own thinking so that our minds cannot be colonised by anyone’s fables.

Histories of the four Internationals

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez [right] has called for the formation of a Fifth International to unite socialists around the world. The previous internationals were places of debate and action, established to strengthen the international socialist movement. Dan Swain of the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has writen a breif history of each one, arguing that we “can learn an enormous amount by studying them”.

The First International was forged in struggle On 28 September 1864, delegations of workers from different countries met in London to form the International Working Men’s Association. This was later known as the First International. The Second International: From class war to imperialist slaughter Divisions over the question of revolution led to the break up of the First International. The same problem was also of decisive importance to the fate of the next attempt to unite socialists across borders. The Socialist International, known as the Second International, was established in 1889. The Third International: Revolutionary hope crushed by Stalinism When the parties of the Second International voted to support the First World War many socialists were left uncertain about what to do next. From the carnage of the war, however, came a beacon of hope that inspired millions across the world. A revolution in Russia put workers in control in October 1917. The success of the revolution inspired the creation of Communist Parties across Europe. The Fourth International: Keeping the flame alive Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the Russian revolution, opposed Joseph Stalin’s increasing stranglehold on the Soviet Union and the Third International. As a result he was exiled from Russia. In 1938 he gathered together a small number of his supporters to form the Fourth International. You can read the full articles here on UNITYblog.

Video: Socialist Alliance conference in Australia

An excellent video of the 7th National Conference of the Australian Socialist Alliance, which features short interviews with participants, including Peter Hughes from Socialist Worker-New Zealand. Bronwen Beechey (SW-NZ) and Mike Treen, National Director of Unite, also attended the conference.

The conference marked the formal merger of the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) into the Socialist Alliance. The DSP was one of the initiators of the Socialist Alliance in 2001. See It's time for the DSP to merge into the Socialist Alliance by Peter Boyle.



The idea of bringing socialists from different backgrounds and traditions into one organisation is something that we should be considering in New Zealand. A New Zealand Socialist Alliance perhaps? Such a coming together would greatly improve the capacity of the socialist left in this country to give leadership at such a crucial time in history.

Peter Boyle: 'It's time for the DSP to merge into the Socialist Alliance'

from LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal

This report and summary, presented by Peter Boyle on behalf of the DSP National Executive, was adopted by the 24th DSP Congress on January 2, 2010.

We are proposing to take an important step forward in our party building effort, an effort that has now spanned some four decades. We propose, at this 24th Congress, to merge the Democratic Socialist Perspective into the Socialist Alliance, to take everything we have learned and built over these years of political struggle (organised through the DSP) into a broader political organisation, an organisation which has a majority of members who don't come from the DSP.

We see this as the next best step to advance our objective of building a mass revolutionary socialist party that is capable of organising the Australian working class to bring into being a socialist society through replacing the political rule of the capitalist class with a working people's government.

Continue

Hugo Chávez writes on 'The battle of Copenhagen'

by Hugo Chávez Frías
Translated by Kiraz Janicke for Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
20 December 2009

I

Copenhagen was the scene of a historic battle in the framework of the 15th Conference of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP15). Better said, in the beautiful, snowy capital of Denmark, a battle began that did not end on Friday, December 18, 2009. I reiterate: Copenhagen was only the beginning of a decisive battle for the salvation of the planet. It was a battle in the realm of ideas and in praxis.

Brazilian Leonardo Boff, a great liberation theologian and one of the most authoritative voices on environmental issues, in a key article, entitled What is at stake in Copenhagen?, wrote these words full of insight and courage: What can we expect from Copenhagen? At least this simple confession: We cannot continue like this. And a simple proposition: Let’s change course.

And for that reason, precisely, we went to Copenhagen to battle for a change of course on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA), and moreover, in defence of the cause of humanity and to speak, with President Evo Morales, in defence of the rights of Pachamama, of Mother Earth.

Evo, who together with yours truly, had the responsibility to be a spokesperson for the Bolivarian Alliance, wisely said: What this debate is about, is whether we are going to live or we are going to die.

All eyes of the world were concentrated on Copenhagen: the 15th Conference on Climate Change allowed us to gauge the fibre we are made of, where hope lies and what can we do to establish what the Liberator Simón Bolívar defined as the equilibrium of the universe, an equilibrium that can never be achieved within the capitalist world system.

II

Before our arrival in Copenhagen, the African bloc, backed by the Group of 77, denounced that rich countries were ignoring the Kyoto Protocol, that is, the only existing international instrument to fight global warming, the only thing that penalises the industrialised states and protects the developing countries.

It is necessary to recognise that the battle had already begun in the streets of Copenhagen, with the youth at the forefront protesting and proposing: I could see and feel, since my arrival in the Danish capital on December 16, the historic power of another world that for the youth is not only possible but absolutely necessary.

III

In Copenhagen, from the beginning, the cards were on the table for all to see. On the one hand, the cards of brutal meanness and stupidity of capitalism which did not budge in defence of its logic: the logic of capital, which leaves only death and destruction in its wake at an increasingly rapid pace.

On the other hand, the cards of the peoples demanding human dignity, the salvation of the planet and for a radical change, not of the climate, but of a world system that has brought us to the brink of unprecedented ecological and social catastrophe.

On one side, the victors of a mercantile and utilitarian civilisation, that is, the “civilised ones” who for a long time now have forgotten about human beings, and opted blindly for increasingly insatiable desires.

On the other hand, the “barbarians” who remain committed in believing and in fighting for radically changing the logic, that you can maximise human welfare, minimising environmental and ecological impacts. Those who sustain the impossibility of defending human rights, as raised by the comrade Evo Morales, if we don’t also defend the rights of Mother Earth, those who act with determination to leave a planet and future for our descendants.

I will not tire of repeating to the four winds: the only possible and viable alternative is socialism. I said it in each of my speeches to all the world representatives gathered in Copenhagen, the world's most important event in the last two hundred years: there is no other way if we want to stop this heartless and debased competition that promises only total annihilation.

Why are the “civilised ones” so afraid of a project that aspires to build shared happiness? They are afraid, let’s be honest, because shared happiness does not generate profit. Hence the crystal clarity of that great slogan of the Copenhagen street protest that today speaks for millions: “If the climate was a bank, they would have saved it already.”

The “civilised ones” do not take the necessary measures, simply because of this, it would oblige them to reverse their voracious pattern of life, marked by selfish comfort and that does not touch their cold hearts, which palpitate only to the beat of money.

That’s why the [US] Empire arrived late on December 18, to offer crumbs via blackmail, and through this, wash away the guilt marked on its face. In front of this strategy of buying support, you could hear throughout Denmark the clear and courageous voice of Vandana Shiva, the Indian thinker saying a great truth: “I think it is time for US to stop seeing itself as a donor and begin to recognise itself as polluter: a polluter must pay compensation for damages and must it pay its ecological debt. It is not charity. This is justice.”

I must say: in Copenhagen the Obama illusion was definitively destroyed. He was confirmed in his position as head of the empire and winner of the Nobel War Prize. The enigma of the two Obamas has been resolved.

Friday the 18th came to an end without a democratically agreed accord: Obama mounted the platform separately, in a further violation of UN procedures, for which we feel obliged to challenge any decision that does not respect for the validity of the Protocol Kyoto. To respect and enhance Kyoto is our motto.

An accord was not possible in Copenhagen due to the lack of political will of the rich countries: the powerful of this world, the hyper-developed, they do not want to change their patterns of production and consumption which are as senseless as suicide. “The world can go to hell if it dares to threaten my privilege and my lifestyle”, is what they appear to be saying with their conduct: that is the hard truth that they do not want to hear from those who act under the historical and categorical imperative to change course.

Copenhagen is not the end, I repeat, but a beginning: the doors have been opened for a universal debate on how to save the planet, life on the planet. The battle continues.

IV

We commemorated the 179th anniversary of the physical disappearance of our Liberator Simón Bolívar in an act of deep revolutionary content; I refer to the meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance with social movements in Denmark on December 17. There I felt, once again that Bolivar is not only a banner of Venezuela and Our America, but is increasingly a universal leader.

It is his living and combative legacy, now embodied in the Bolivarian Alliance, which is becoming a world heritage, that we took to Copenhagen to do battle for the Patria Grande, which is at the same time, to do battle for the sake of humanity .

In reality and in truth: Bolivar lives! In Copenhagen it was confirmed that his legacy is more alive than ever. And now he will overcome. Now we shall overcome!

Visions of a people-centred economy

These are the notes for a talk given by UNITYblog editor David Colyer on the subject of ‘Transitioning to a human-centred economy in Aotearoa’ at the Marxism Alive conference in Auckland, 27 June 2009. New Zealand is the world’s biggest exporter of dairy products, not because we produce more dairy products than any other country, but because unlike other countries, we produce much, much more than is used here. We are all now becoming increasingly aware of the environmental costs of producing all this “surplus” dairy produce for export: the pollution of our waterways, the drying up of streams, the greenhouse gas emissions from the belching cows. So why do we do it? Why keep producing so much more than we need if the costs are so high? Why the continuing push for even more dairy farms? Obviously the answer is that the dairy farmers and their investors want to make more money. We have a profit-centred economy, not an ecology-centred economy.

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Climate protests, capitalism and the working class movement

by Barry Kade
from Climate and Capitalism
8 December 2009

The working class movement will only be rebuilt as part of a new political response to the failures of neo-liberal capitalism – a response that includes addressing climate change and ecology

Considering normally climate demos only attract a few thousand, last Saturday’s protest in London and elsewhere of 50,000 was massive. This is because:

A) the capitalists and their governments look especially incapable of addressing the issue at the moment, around the Copenhagen summit which seems doomed, even from a ‘bourgeois climate politics’ perspective; and

B) the ideological right are fighting back with a massive campaign of denial and conspiracist wingnuttery thats gaining ground. In this situation people are more motivated to take to the streets, hence we get 50,000 rather than the usual 5,000.

But what next?

So far we have had a strategy of protest … i.e we started with the idea of making climate change an issue, ‘raising awareness’. protesting to ‘make the politicians listen’, to make them ‘do something’. But then the capitalists started to ‘do something’ – carbon trading, biofuels, nuclear power, etc. It’s now clear to many that there is no capitalist solution.

Therefore we also have a strategy of transition – a practical grassroots and locally oriented movement trying to make the ‘transition to a low carbon economy.’ This is inevitably attempted in a petite bourgeois way, through allotments, local trading schemes, etc. There is also the ‘climate justice’ movement with its more systematic anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist critique – although this at the moment remains confined to the ‘activist milieu’.

What about the workers?

And we have only just started to develop a programatic response from the working class movement – so now we have the trades union demand for millions of new green jobs, the TUC’s ‘just transition’ project etc. Of course the problem here is the existing weakness of the working class movement, (especially in the UK) after our decades of defeat and retreat.

The solution? I don’t think the working class movement will be rebuilt on a purely syndicalist or economistic basis. Workers fight when they see their resistance forming part of a wider political picture – when they have some form of coherent political perspective en masse (however flawed and contradictory that perspective may be). The collapse of left reformism/stalinism/social democracy in the face of neo-liberal globalisation has weakened grassroots working class resistance.

Thus the working class movement will only be rebuilt as part of a new political response to the failures of neo-liberal capitalism – a response that includes addressing climate change and ecology. When socialism re-emerges as a mass project it will be shaped by these questions. The emergence of environmental consciousness is one of the distinctive features of our epoch. That’s why the next socialism might be an ecosocialism.

Barry Kade is a former member of the British Socialist Workers Party, who says he is “currently experimenting with being a socialist in the ranks of the Green Party.” This article was published on December 8 in his blog, BarryKade.

A Green New Deal - dead end or pathway beyond capitalism?

from LINKS – International Journal of Socialist Renewal [Originally published in Turbulence, 8 December 2009] A Green New Deal is on everybody’s lips at the moment. US President Barack Obama has endorsed a very general version of it, the United Nations are keen, as are numerous Green parties around the world. In the words of the Green New Deal Group, an influential grouping of heterodox economists, Greens and debt-relief campaigners, such a ‘deal’ promises to solve the ‘triple crunch’ of energy, climate and economic crises. Frieder Otto Wolf, an eco-socialist and early member of the German Green Party, argues that the challenge for the global movements is to hijack the Green New Deal, rather than reject it. Tadzio Mueller, an editor of Turbulence and involved in the Climate Justice Action network, begs to differ. He looks instead to an emerging movement for ‘climate justice’. Turbulence sat the two of them down for a chat, and kicked off the debate by suggesting that a Green New Deal might actually offer a weak-looking global left a great opportunity. The conversation is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission. Tadzio Mueller: Before we start looking at the crisis of the (global) left, and whether or not a Green New Deal[1] might be an opportunity for its rejuvenation, I think there is a more important question to be answered first. Namely: to what extent is such a project a great opportunity for the rejuvenation of global capitalism? Profit rates (with the possible exception of those of bailed-out banks) are at rock bottom. And there is currently nothing – no sector (like cars), no technology (like IT), no process (like ‘globalisation’) – that is promising to push them back up again in the near future. Capital, in other words, is in crisis, and, as Nicolas Stern, author of a report on the costs and opportunities of climate change for the British government, argues, it needs ‘a good driver of growth to come out of this period, and it is not just a simple matter of pumping up demand’.

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Venezuela’s Chavez calls for '5th International' of Left Parties

by Kiraz Janicke Venezuelanalysis.com 23 November 2009 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for the formation of a “Fifth International” of left parties and social movements to confront the challenge posed by the global crisis of capitalism. The president made the announcement during an international conference of more than fifty left organisations from thirty-one countries held in Caracas over November 19-21. “I assume responsibility before the world. I think it is time to convene the Fifth International, and I dare to make the call, which I think is a necessity. I dare to request that we create my proposal,” Chavez said. The head of state insisted that the conference of left parties should not be “just one more meeting,” and he invited participating organizations to create a truly new project. “This socialist encounter should be of the genuine left, willing to fight against imperialism and capitalism,” he said. During his speech, Chavez briefly outlined the experiences of previous “internationals,” including the First International founded in 1864 by Karl Marx; the Second International founded in 1889, which collapsed in 1916 as various left parties and trade unions sided with their respective capitalist classes in the inter-imperialist conflict of the First World War; the Third International founded by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, which Chavez said “degenerated” under Stalinism and “betrayed” struggles for socialism around the world; and the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, which suffered numerous splits and no longer exists, although some small groups claim to represent its political continuity. Chavez said that a new international would have to function “without impositions” and would have to respect diversity. Representatives from a number of major parties in Latin America voiced their support for the proposal, including the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) of El Salvador, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua, and Alianza Pais of Ecuador. Smaller parties from Latin America and around the world also indicated their support for the idea, including the Proposal for an Alternative Society (PAS) of Chile, New Nation Alternative (ANN) of Guatemala, and Australia’s Socialist Alliance, among others. Sandinista leader Miguel D´Escoto said, “Capitalism has brought the human species to the precipice of extinction… we have to take control of our own destiny.” “There is no time to lose,” D’Escoto added as he conveyed his support for the proposal of forming a fifth international. “We have to overcome the tendency of defeatism. Many times I have noted a tendency of defeatism amongst comrades of the left in relation to the tasks we face,” he continued. Salvador Sánchez, from the FMLN, said “We are going to be important actors in the Fifth International. We cannot continue waiting – all the forces of the left. The aspiration of the peoples is to walk down a different path. We must not hesitate in forming the Fifth International. The people have pronounced themselves in favour of change and the parties of the left must be there with them.” Other organisations, including Portugal’s Left Block, Germany’s Die Linke, and France’s Partido Gauche expressed interest in the proposal but said they would consult with their various parties. A representative of the Cuban Communist Party described the proposal as “excellent,” but as yet the party has made no formal statement. Many communist parties, including those from Greece and Brazil, expressed strong opposition to the proposal. The Venezuelan Communist Party said it was willing to discuss the proposal but expressed strong reservations. The Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA) from Colombia expressed its willingness to work with other left parties, but said it would “reserve” its decision to participate in an international organisation of left parties. Valter Pomar, a representative from the Workers Party of Brazil (PT), said its priority is the Sao Paolo Forum – a forum of various Latin American left, socialist, communist, centre-left, labour, social democratic and nationalist parties launched by the PT in 1990. A resolution was passed at the conference to form a preparatory committee to convoke a global conference of left parties in Caracas in April 2010, to discuss the formation of a new international. The resolution also allowed for other parties that remain undecided to discuss the proposal and incorporate themselves at a later date. Chavez emphasised the importance of being inclusive and said the April conference had to go far beyond the parties and organisations that participated in last week’s conference. In particular, he said it was an error that there were no revolutionary organisations from the United States present. The conference of left parties also passed a resolution titled the Caracas Commitment, “to reaffirm our conviction to definitively build and win Socialism of the 21st Century,” in the face of “the generalized crisis of the global capitalist system.” “One of the epicentres of the global capitalist crisis is the economic sphere. This highlights the limitations of unbridled free markets dominated by monopolies of private property,” the resolution stated. Also incorporated was a proposed amendment by the Australian delegation which read, “In synthesis, the crisis of capitalism cannot be reduced to a simple financial crisis, it is a structural crisis of capital that combines the economic crisis, with an ecological crisis, a food crisis and an energy crisis, which together represent a mortal threat to humanity and nature. In the face of this crisis, the movements and parties of the left see the defence of nature and the construction of an ecologically sustainable society as a fundamental axis of our struggle for a better world.” The Caracas Commitment expressed “solidarity with the peoples of the world who have suffered and are suffering from imperialist aggression, especially the more than 50 years of the genocidal blockade against Cuba…the massacre of the Palestinian people, the illegal occupation of part of the territory of the Western Sahara, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, which today is expanding into Pakistan.” The conference of left parties also denounced the decision of the Mexican government to shut down the state-owned electricity company and fire 45,000 workers, as an attempt to “intimidate” the workers and as an “offensive of imperialism,” to advance neoliberal privatisation in Central America. In the framework of the Caracas Commitment, the left parties present agreed, among other things, to: • Organise a global week of mobilisation from December 12-17 in repudiation of the installation of U.S. military bases in Colombia, Panama and around the world. • Campaign for an “international trial against George Bush for crimes against humanity, as the person principally responsible for the genocide against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan”. • Commemorate 100 years since the proposal by Clara Zetkin to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, through forums, mobilizations and other activities in their respective countries. • Organise global solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution in the face of permanent imperialist attacks. • Organise global solidarity with the people of Honduras who are resisting a U.S.-backed military coup, to campaign for the restoration of the democratically elected president of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya and to organise a global vigil on the day of the elections in Honduras, “with which they aim to legitimise the coup d´etat.” • Demand an “immediate and unconditional end to the criminal Yankee blockade” of Cuba and for the “immediate liberation” of the Cuban Five, referring to the five anti-terrorist activists imprisoned in the United States. • Accompany the Haitian people in their struggle for the return of President Jean Bertrand Aristide “who was kidnapped and removed from his post as president of Haiti by North American imperialism.” See also Message from Socialist Worker-New Zealand to PSUV founding conference.

What is the socialist answer?

by Alan Maass From Socialist Worker US. “CAPITALISM IS evil, and you cannot regulate evil,” Michael Moore concludes in his new movie Capitalism: A Love Story. “You have to eliminate it and replace it with something else.” The film is an incredible indictment of the current system. But what is the “something else” that should replace it. We propose socialism. Socialism is based on a simple idea – that the vast resources of society should be used to meet people’s needs. We should use the tremendous achievements of human beings in all the realms of life, not to make a few people rich and powerful, but to make sure every person in society has everything they need to lead rich and fulfilling lives.

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