Category: News

The Palestinian People Have No Choice But To Resist Israeli Aggression

The attack on Israel by the armed forces of the Palestinian people is an action which has been provoked by seventeen years of Gaza being under siege by the Israeli armed forces. This follows the dispossession and humiliation that the Palestinian people have had to endure for over 75 years since the Israeli state forced hundreds of thousands from their ancestral lands in the brutal act of ethnic cleansing known as “the Nakba”. Gaza has been turned into a prison for over two million Palestinians since 2006 when the US and British government rejected the result of elections held there which saw Hamas become the largest party. Following this the US and Britain backed the Israelis in imposing a state of siege on Gaza in order that the Palestinians should suffer collective punishment for daring to vote the “wrong way”. This siege has continued up to this day. Israel controls access to Gaza and even has the ability to completely cut off the electricity, as Netanyahu has just done yet again. Gaza has been bombed repeatedly by the Israelis, sometimes intensively such as in 2014 and sometimes for a day or a few hours but the threat of violent death always hangs over the heads of the Palestinian population.

A Mass Demonstration of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP supporters

Faced with imprisonment, terror and routine humiliation the Palestinian population has been left with no choice but to resist. There are those in Britain and the US who claim that this should only be done via peaceful methods. These critics ignore the fact that the Palestinians have tried this method repeatedly over the years and have always been met with brute violence by the Israeli government. Most recently this was tried in 2018 – 2019 where Palestinians marched peacefully up to the border fence surrounding Gaza. The response of the Israelis was to kill two hundred and twenty three of those who tried the peaceful protest route so routinely suggested by western liberals.

Any worker in this country knows very well the petty humiliations that can be inflicted by employers, by the police and by the government’s bureaucracy. Now imagine all those frustrations magnified by about one thousand times combined with the constant fear of violent death and you can start to imagine how life for the Palestinians really is. Being unable to exercise full control over our workplaces and communities is an issue for all of us but not even having a country to call your own is an even bigger problem. Seeing the land that your ancestors lived on for hundreds of years be stolen and then being shot down when you try to protest, being seen as less than human by Israel and its supporters in London and Washington would be enough to make any of us rebel. This is what we must all bear in mind when being asked to “condemn” the armed uprising of the Palestinians. What would we do if we had to face 75 years of such treatment? For most of us it would mean having no choice but to fight back.

United Auto Workers are expanding their strike to put additional pressure on General Motors and Ford, playing the three largest automakers against each other

On September 29, United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain announced that 7,000 more unionized auto workers are going out on strike, to join the 18,000 workers already participating in the “Stand Up Strike” against the three largest automakers in the United States.
​
Since 146,000 UAW auto workers saw their master contract expire with the three largest automakers (Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors) on September 14, the UAW has implemented the unique “Stand Up Strike” method. Instead of sending all 146,000 Big Three auto workers out on strike in one fell swoop, the union is having workers walk off the job in waves. This ensures that the companies are always on their toes—already causing the corporations to miscalculate and prepare for strikes at the wrong plants.The two additional plants called out on strike are General Motors’ Lansing Delta Township Assembly in Michigan and Ford’s Chicago Assembly plant. The union decided to go easier on Stellantis this time around, although the union had originally planned to expand the strike for all the Big Three this Friday. Shortly before Shawn Fain was to make his weekly Stand Up Strike announcement, Stellantis sent some last minute emails to the union, acquiescing to worker demands around cost of living allowances (COLA), the right not to cross a picket line, and the right to strike over product commitments and plant closures.

Ford was spared last week because of significant progress the union had made on its central demands at that company, and UAW instead elected to send all Stellantis and Ford parts distribution centers out on strike. But as Jane Slaughter writes in Labor Notes, “Today the UAW once again called out workers at Ford and GM, putting some muscle behind its bold demands—a big wage boost, a shorter work week, elimination of tiers, cost-of-living adjustments tied to inflation, protection from plant closures, conversion of temps to permanent employees, and the restoration of retiree health care and benefit-defined pensions to all workers.”

In his announcement of the 7,000 workers newly on strike, Shawn Fain referenced US President Joe Biden’s visit to a UAW picket line this week, marking the first time a sitting US President has ever visited a picket line. During his visit, Biden expressed open support for UAW’s demand for a 40% wage increase.

“Companies were in trouble, now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too,” Biden said to striking workers, referencing the 2009 government bailout of the auto industry. “You deserve what you’ve earned. And you’ve earned a helluva lot more than what you’re getting paid now.”

But Fain was not about to give Biden a pat on the back simply for showing up. On Friday, the UAW leader was frank about what it took to get the President of the United States to show unequivocal support for striking workers. “The most powerful man in the world showed up for one reason only: because our solidarity is the most powerful force in the world.”

On Friday, Fain referenced the historic plant that Biden had visited, the GM Willow Run facility in Michigan, “where UAW members built the B24 Liberator bombers during WWII.”

“Our union was essential in building what was called the arsenal of democracy,” he said in a Facebook Live address to all UAW members and the rest of the public. “Just like 80 years ago, today our union is building a different arsenal of democracy. But this war isn’t against some foreign country. The frontlines are right here at home. It’s the war of the working class versus corporate greed. We are the new arsenal of democracy.”

“The workers are the liberators and our strike is a vehicle for liberation,” he declared.

Workers hold the line for a fair dealWhile the Stand Up Strike model has proven effective, the sheer excitement and anticipation of each non striking Big Three worksite is testament to the fighting spirit of these autoworkers.

Peoples Dispatch spoke to Jeffrey Parcell, President of UAW Local 3039, whose members work at a Stellantis PDC in Tappan, New York. Tappan auto workers were asked to go out on strike after the first week, on September 22. When asked what it was like to work while the strike was ongoing, Parcell candidly said, “We were pissed. We wanted it to be us.” Finally walking out at noon last Friday was extremely satisfying to workers, Parcell said. Management had anticipated that if there were to be a walkout, it would happen at midnight, like it did with the first strike wave on September 14. Instead, Fain ordered Stellantis and GM PDCs to go on strike at noon Eastern Time.

Parcell describes how underprepared management was, and how workers left everything on the shop floor and walked out at midday. At one point while workers were on the picket line, a supervisor walked out of the PDC, and workers reminded him that he wasn’t on break, telling him to get back inside and get back to work. In an economic system where the roles are almost always reversed, strikes offer a unique opportunity to give the bosses a taste of their own medicine.

“The day we walked out, you know, we were ready to go,” Parcell said. The workers in Tappan are ready to hold the picket line for as long as it takes to reach a fair contract. “We’re prepared to go as long as we gotta go man. We dealt with the rain over the weekend, a lot of storms and stuff like that. We’re still out there 24/7 around the clock.”

Patrick Paisley, a worker at the Tappan PDC for five years, was impressed with the solidarity other working people have shown on the picket line and at solidarity rallies in the surrounding area. “It’s not just for us,” he told Peoples Dispatch. “A lot of people have been taken for granted, you know. I’m hoping that the bigger heads can see that people want to be recognized, or at least compensated, or appreciated, whatever, you know?”

---

Every child knows that any nation that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labour. —Karl Marx [1] [2]

Every child in Marx’s day might have heard about Robinson Crusoe. That child might have heard that on his island Robinson had to work if he was not to perish, that he had “needs to satisfy.” To this end, Robinson had to “perform useful labours of various kinds”: he made means of production (tools), and he hunted and fished for immediate consumption. These were diverse functions, but all were “only different modes of human labour,” his labor. From experience, he developed Robinson’s Rule: “Necessity itself compels him to divide his time with precision between his different functions.” Thus, he learned that the amount of time spent on each activity depended upon its difficulty—that is, how much labor was necessary to achieve the desired effect. Given his needs, he learned how to allocate his labor in order to survive. [3]
​
As it was for Crusoe, so it is for society. Every society must allocate its aggregate labor in such a way as to obtain the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of its needs. As Marx commented, “In so far as society wants to satisfy its needs, and have an article produced for this purpose, it has to pay for it.… It buys them with a certain quantity of the labour-time that it has at its disposal.” [4] It must allocate “differing and quantitatively determined” amounts of labor to the production of goods and services for direct consumption (Department II) and a similarly determined quantity of labor for the production and reproduction of means of production (Department I).

To ensure the reproduction of a particular society, there must be enough labor available for the reproduction of the producers—both directly and indirectly (for example, in Departments II and I, respectively)—based upon their existing level of needs and the productivity of labor. This includes not only labor in organized workplaces, which produce particular material products and services, but also necessary labor allocated to the home and community and to sites where the education and health of workers are maintained. Every society, too, must allocate labor to what we may call Department III, a sector that produces means of regulation, and may contain institutions such as the police, the legal authority, the ideological and cultural apparatus, and so on.

In addition to the labor required to maintain the producers, in every class society a quantity of society’s labor is necessary if those who rule are to be reproduced. Thus, the process of reproduction requires the allocation of labor not only to the production of articles of consumption, means of production, and the particular means of regulation, but, ultimately, to the production and reproduction of the relations of production themselves.

REPRODUCTION OF A SOCIALIST SOCIETY

Consider a socialist society—“an association of free [individuals], working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force.” [5] Having identified the differing amounts of needs it wishes to satisfy, this society of associated producers allocates its differing and quantitatively determined labor through a conscious process of planning. In this respect, it follows Robinson’s Rule: it apportions its aggregate labor “in accordance with a definite social plan [that] maintains the correct proportion between the different functions of labour and the various needs of the associations.” [6]

The premise of this process of planning is a particular set of relations in which the associated producers recognize their interdependence and engage in productive activity upon this basis. “A communal production, communality, is presupposed as the basis of production.” Transparency and solidarity among the producers, in short, underlie the “organization of labour” in the socialist society with the result that productive activity is consciously “determined by communal needs and communal purposes.” [7] The reproduction of society here “becomes production by freely associated [producers] and stands under their conscious and planned control.” [8]

To identify their needs and their capacity to satisfy those needs, the producers begin with institutions closest to them—in communal councils, which identify changes in the expressed needs of individuals and communities, and in workers’ councils, where workers explore the potential for satisfying local needs themselves. Those needs and capacities are transmitted upward to larger bodies and ultimately consolidated at the level of society as a whole, where society-wide choices need to be made. On the basis of these decisions (which are discussed by the associated producers at all levels of society), the socialist society directly allocates its labor in accordance with its needs both for immediate and future satisfaction.

Driving this process is “the worker’s own need for development,” “the absolute working-out of his creative potentialities,” “the all-around development of the individual”—the development of what Marx called “rich” human beings. [9] This goal is understood as indivisible: it is not consistent with significant disparities among members of society. In the words of the Communist Manifesto, “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” [10] Accordingly, given the premise of communality and solidarity, this socialist society allocates its labor to remove deficits inherited from previous social formations. The socialist society, in short, is “based on the universal development of individuals and on the subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth.” [11]

Conscious planning—a visible hand, a communal hand—is the condition for building a socialist society. This process does more, however, than produce the so-called correct plan. Importantly, it also produces and reproduces the producers themselves and the relations among them. What Marx called “revolutionary practice” (“the simultaneous changing of circumstances and human activity or self-change”) is central. Every human activity produces two products: the change in circumstances and the change in the actors themselves. In the particular case of socialist institutions, the labor-time spent in meetings to develop collective decisions not only produces solutions that draw upon the knowledge of all those affected, but it is also an investment that develops the capacities of all those making those decisions. It builds solidarity locally, nationally, and internationally. Those institutions and practices, in short, are at the core of the regulation of the producers themselves (Department III activity). They are essential for the reproduction of socialist society. [12]

REPRODUCTION OF A SOCIETY CHARACTERIZED BY COMMODITY PRODUCTION

But what about a society that is not characterized by communality, a society marked instead by separate, autonomous actors? Such a society’s essential premise is the separation of independent producers. [13] Rather than a community of producers, there is a collection of autonomous property owners who depend for satisfaction of their needs upon the productive activity of other owners. “All-around dependence of the producers upon one another” exists, but theirs is a “connection of mutually indifferent persons.” Indeed, “their mutual interconnection—here appears as something alien to them, autonomous, as a thing.” Yet, if these “individuals who are indifferent to one another” do not understand their connection, how does this society go about allocating its “differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labour” to satisfy its “differing amounts of needs”? [14]

Obviously, such a society does not utilize Robinson’s Rule: it cannot directly allocate its aggregate labor in accordance with the distribution of its needs. “Only when production is subjected to the genuine, prior control of society,” Marx pointed out, “will society establish the connection between the amount of social labor-time applied to the production of particular articles, and the scale of the social need to be satisfied by these.” [15] Although the application of Robinson’s Rule is not possible, its function remains. As Marx commented, those simple and transparent relations set out for Robinson Crusoe “contain all the essential determinants of value.” [16] In particular, the “necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific proportions” remains.

The necessary law of the proportionate allocation of aggregate labor, Marx insisted, “is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production.” Only the form of that law changes. As Marx wrote to Ludwig Kugelmann, “the only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves.” In the commodity-producing society, the form taken by this necessary law is the law of value. “The form in which this proportional distribution of labour asserts itself in a state of society in which the interconnection of social labour expresses itself as the private exchange of the individual products of labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products.” [17]

Since the allocation of society’s labor embedded in commodities is “mediated through the purchase and sale of the products of different branches of industry” (rather than through “genuine, prior control” by society), however, the immediate effect of the market is a “motley pattern of distribution of the producers and their means of production.” [18] Yet, this apparent chaos sets in motion a process by which the necessary allocation of labor will tend to emerge. In simple commodity production, some producers will receive revenue well above the cost of production; others will receive revenue well below it. Assuming it is possible, producers will shift their activity—that is, they will show a tendency for entry and exit. An equilibrium, accordingly, would tend to emerge in which there is no longer a reason for individual commodity producers to move. Through such movements, the various kinds of labor “are continually being reduced to the quantitative proportions in which society requires them.”

In short, although “the play of caprice and chance” means that the allocation of labor does not correspond immediately to the distribution of needs as expressed in commodity purchases, “the different spheres of production constantly tend towards equilibrium.” [19] Through the law of value, labor is allocated in the necessary proportions in the commodity-producing society. In the same way as “the law of gravity asserts itself,” we see that “in the midst of the accidental and ever-fluctuating exchange relations between the products, the labour-time socially necessary to produce them asserts itself as a regulative law of nature.” [20] There is a “constant tendency on the part of the various spheres of production towards equilibrium” precisely because “the law of the value of commodities ultimately determines how much of its disposable labour-time society can expend on each kind of commodity.” [21]

Can that equilibrium, in which labor is allocated to satisfy the needs of society, be reached in reality? If we think of a society characterized by simple commodity production, equilibrium occurs when all commodity producers receive the equivalent of the labor contained in their commodities. In fact, however, there are significant barriers to exit and entry: the particular skills and capabilities that individual producers possess will not be easily shifted to the production of differing commodities. Indeed, this process might take a generation to occur, in which case producers in some spheres will appear privileged for extended periods.

In the case of capitalist commodity production—the subject of Capital—the individual capitalist “obeys the immanent law, and hence the moral imperative, of capital to produce as much surplus-value as possible.” [22] Accordingly, there is a “continuously changing proportionate distribution of the total social capital between the various spheres of production…continuous immigration and emigration of capitals.” [23] Equilibrium here occurs when all producers obtain an equal rate of profit on their advanced capital for means of production and labor power. This tendency “has the effect of distributing the total mass of social labour time among the various spheres of production according to the social need.” [24] However, here again there is an obstacle to the realization of equilibrium—the existence of fixed capital embedded in particular spheres does not permit easy exit and entry.

Nevertheless, for Marx, the law of value (the process by which labor is allocated in the necessary proportions in capitalism) operates more smoothly as capitalism develops. Capital’s “free movement between these various spheres of production as so many available fields of investment” has as its condition the development of the credit and banking system. Only as money-capital does capital really “possess the form in which it is distributed as a common element among these various spheres, among the capitalist class, quite irrespective of its particular application, according to the production requirements of each particular sphere.” [25] In its money-form, capital is abstracted from particular employments. Only in money-capital, in the money-market, do all distinctions as to the quality of capital disappear: “All particular forms of capital, arising from its investment in particular spheres of production or circulation, are obliterated here. It exists here in the undifferentiated, self-identical form of independent value, of money.” [26]

Equalization of profit rates “presupposes the development of the credit system, which concentrates together the inorganic mass of available social capital vis-á-vis the individual capitalist.” [27] That is, it presupposes the domination of finance capital: bankers “become the general managers of money capital,” which now appears as “a concentrated and organized mass, placed under the control of the bankers as representatives of the social capital in a quite different manner to real production.” [28]

MARX’S AUTO-CRITIQUE

There is no better way to understand Marx’s theory of value than to see how he responded to critics of Capital. With respect to a particular review, Marx commented to Kugelmann in July 1868 that the need to prove the law of value reveals “complete ignorance both of the subject under discussion and of the method of science.” Every child, Marx here continued, knows that “the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labour.” How could the critic not see that “It is SELF-EVIDENT that this necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production!” [29] Similarly, answering Eugen Dühring’s objection to his discussion of value, Marx wrote to Frederick Engels in January 1868 that “actually, no form of society can prevent the labour time at the disposal of society from regulating production in ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.” [30] That was the point: in a commodity-producing society, how else could labor be allocated—except by the market!

Although Marx was clearer in these letters on this point than in Capital, he was transparent there in his critique of classical political economy on value and money. In contrast to vulgar economists who did not go beneath the surface, the classical economists (to their credit) had attempted “to grasp the inner connection in contrast to the multiplicity of outward forms.” But they took those inner forms “as given premises” and were “not interested in elaborating how those various forms come into being.” [31] The classical economists began by explaining relative value by the quantity of labor-time, but they “never once asked the question why this content has assumed that particular form, that is to say, why labour is expressed in value, and why the measurement of labour by its duration is expressed in the value of the product.” [32] Their analysis, in short, started in the middle.

This classical approach characterized Marx’s own early thought. It is important to recognize that Marx’s critique was an auto-critique, a critique of views he himself had earlier accepted. In 1847, Marx declared that “[David] Ricardo’s theory of values is the scientific interpretation of actual economic life.” [33] In The Principles of Political Economy, Ricardo had argued that “the value of a commodity…depends on the relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production.” By this, he meant “not only the labour applied immediately to commodities,” but also the labor “bestowed on the implements, tools, and buildings, with which such labour is assisted.” Accordingly, relative values of differing commodities were determined by “the total quantity of labour necessary to manufacture them and bring them to market.” This was “the rule which determines the respective quantities of goods which shall be given in exchange for each other.” [34]

Marx followed Ricardo in his early work. “The fluctuations of supply and demand,” Marx wrote in Wage Labour and Capital, “continually bring the price of a commodity back to the cost of production” (that is to say, to its “natural price”). This was Ricardo’s theory of value: the “determination of price by the cost of production is equivalent to the determination of price by the labour time necessary for the manufacture of a commodity.” Further, this rule applied to the determination of wages as well, which were “determined by the cost of production, by the labour time necessary to produce this commodity—labour.” [35] The same point was made in the Communist Manifesto in 1848: “the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production.” [36]

In the 1850s, however, Marx began to develop a new understanding. In the notebooks written in 1857–58, which constitute the Grundrisse, he began his critique of classical political economy. Marx concluded the Grundrisse by announcing that the starting point for analysis had to be not value (as Ricardo began), but the commodity, which “appears as unity of two aspects”—use value and exchange value. [37] The commodity and, in particular, its two-sidedness is the starting point for his critique and how he begins both his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Capital. [38]

THE BEST POINTS IN CAPITAL

The law of value as a “regulative law of nature” was not one of the best points in Capital, nor one of the “fundamentally new elements in the book.” After all, if the law of value is the tendency of market prices to approach an equilibrium in the same way as “the law of gravity asserts itself,” then this “regulative law of nature” was already present in Ricardo.

Rather, what Marx argued in Capital is that classical political economy did not understand value. “As regards value in general, classical political economy in fact nowhere distinguishes explicitly and with a clear awareness between labour as it appears in the value of a product, and the same labour as it appears in the product’s use value.” [39] But that distinction, Marx declared to Engels in August 1867, is “fundamental to all understanding of the FACTS”! That “two-fold character of labour,” he indicated, is one of the “best points in my book” (and indeed, the best point in the first volume of Capital). [40]

Marx made the same point in the first edition of the first volume of Capital about the two-fold character of labor in commodities: “this aspect, which I am first to have developed in a critical way, is the starting point upon which comprehension of political economy depends.” [41] Writing again to Engels in January 1868, Marx described his analysis of the double character of the labor represented in commodities as one of the “three fundamentally new elements of the book.” All previous economists having missed this, they were “bound to come up against the inexplicable everywhere. This is, in fact, the whole secret of the critical conception.” [42]

The secret of the critical conception, the starting point for comprehension of political economy, the basis for all understanding of the facts—what made the revelation of the two-fold character of labor in commodities so important? Very simply, it is the recognition that actual, specific, concrete labor, all those hours of real labor that have gone into producing a particular commodity, in themselves have nothing to do with its value. You cannot add the hours of the carpenter’s labor to the labor contained in consumed means of production and come up with the value of the carpenter’s commodity. That specific labor, rather, has gone into the production of a thing for use, also known as a use value. Further, you cannot explain relative values by counting the quantity of specific labor contained in separate use values. If you do not distinguish clearly between the two-fold aspects of labor in the commodity, you have not understood Marx’s critique of classical political economy.

MARX’S LABOR THEORY OF MONEY

“We have to perform a task,” Marx announced, “never even attempted by bourgeois economics.” [43] That task was to develop his theory of money—in particular, to reveal that money is the social representative of the aggregate labor in commodities. For this, Marx demonstrated that (1) the concept of money is latent in the concept of the commodity and (2) that money represents the abstract labor in a commodity and that the manifestation of the latter, its only manifestation, is the price of the commodity.

If adding up the hours of concrete labor to produce a commodity does not reveal its value, what does? Nothing, if we are considering a single commodity. “We may twist and turn a single commodity as we wish; it remains impossible to grasp as a thing possessing value.” [44] We can approach grasping the value of a commodity only by considering it in a relation. The simplest (but undeveloped) form of this relation is as an exchange value—the value of commodity A is equal to x units of commodity B, where B is a use value. We always knew A as a use value but now we know the value of A from its equivalent in B. (If we reverse this, we would say the value of B is equal to 1/x units of A, and here A is the equivalent.) The second commodity, the equivalent, is a mirror for the value in the first commodity. It is through this social relation that we may grasp the commodity as something possessing value.

Having established that the value of a commodity is revealed through its equivalent, Marx logically proceeds step-by-step to establish the existence of a commodity that serves as the equivalent for all commodities—that is, is the general form of value. It is a mini-step from there to reveal the monetary form of value: money as the universal equivalent, money as the representative of value. [45] In short, once we begin to analyze a commodity-exchanging society, we are led to the concept of money. This is what Marx identifies as his task: “We have to show the origin of this money form, we have to trace the development of this expression of value relation of commodities from the simplest, almost imperceptible outline to the dazzling money form. When this has been done, the mystery of money will immediately disappear.” [46] But this was a closed book to the classical economists; “Ricardo,” Marx commented years later, “in fact only concerned himself with labour as a measure of value-magnitude and therefore found no connection between his value-theory and the essence of money.” [47]

But what is money? To understand money, we need to return to the two-fold character of labor in commodities, that point upon which comprehension of political economy depends. We know that concrete, specific labor produces specific use values. Insofar as labor is concrete, we cannot compare commodities containing different qualities of labor. But we can compare them if we abstract from their specificities—that is, consider them as containing labor in general, abstract labor, “equal human labour, the expenditure of identical human labour power.” [48] The aggregate labor of society is a composite of many “different modes of human labour”: “the completed or total form of appearance of human labour is constituted by the totality of its particular forms of appearance.” [49] That “one homogeneous mass of human labour power,” that universal, uniform, abstract, social labor in general, “human labour pure and simple,” enters into each commodity. [50]

Think about the aggregate labor in commodities as so-called jelly labor, as made up of a number of identical, homogeneous units. A certain amount of this jelly labor goes into each commodity. The value of a commodity is determined by how much of this jelly labor—how much homogeneous, universal, abstract labor, that common “social substance”—it contains. Obviously, we cannot add up jelly labor simply, as we might attempt for concrete labor. How, then, can we see the value of a commodity? We have answered that already. The value of a commodity (that is, the homogeneous, general, abstract labor in the commodity) is represented by the quantity of money, which is its equivalent. Indeed, the only form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself is the money-form.

Every society obtains the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of its needs by devoting a portion of the available labor time to its production. As noted above, “in so far as society wants to satisfy its needs, and have an article produced for this purpose, it has to pay for it…[and] it buys them with a certain quantity of the labour-time that it has at its disposal.” [51] How do we satisfy our needs within capitalism? We buy them with the representative of the total social labor in commodities—money.

IGNORANCE BOTH OF THE SUBJECT UNDER DISCUSSION AND OF THE METHOD OF SCIENCE

As Michael Heinrich writes, “many Marxists have difficulties understanding Marx’s analysis.” Like bourgeois economists, “they attempt to develop a theory of value without reference to money.” [52] It is a bit difficult to understand why, however, given Marx’s criticisms of classical political economy about this very point. Ricardo, Marx commented, had not understood “or even raised as a problem” the “connection between value, its immanent measure—i.e., labour-time—and the necessity for an external measure of the values of commodities.” Ricardo did not examine abstract labor, the labor that “manifests itself in exchange values—the nature of this labour. Hence he does not grasp the connection of this labour with money or that it must assume the form of money.” [53]

That is why Marx undertook his task “to show the origin of this money form” and to solve “the mystery of money,” a task “never even attempted by bourgeois economics.” We need to understand the nature of money, and how we move from value directly to money. As he explained in chapter 10 of the third volume of Capital:

in dealing with money we assumed that commodities are sold at their values; there was no reason at all to consider prices that diverged from values, as we were concerned simply with the changes of form which commodities undergo when they are turned into money and then transformed back from money into commodities again. As soon as a commodity is in any way sold, and a new commodity bought with the proceeds, we have the entire metamorphosis before us, and it is completely immaterial here whether the commodity’s price is above or below its value. The commodity’s value remains important as the basis, since any rational understanding of money has to start from this foundation, and price, in its general concept, is simply value in the money form. [54]

To understand why Marx felt it was essential to solve the mystery of money, it helps to understand his method of dialectical derivation. Like G. W. F. Hegel, upon examining particular concepts, he found that they contained a second term implicitly within them; he proceeded then to consider the unity of the two concepts, thereby transcending the one-sidedness of each and moving forward to richer concepts. In this way, Marx analyzed the commodity and found that it contained latent within it the concept of money, the independent form of value—and that the commodity differentiated into commodities and money. Further, considering that relation of commodities and money from all sides, Marx uncovered the concept of capital. [55]

The concept of capital, in short, does not drop from the sky. It is marked by the preceding categories. Since money is the representative of abstract labor, of the homogeneous aggregate labor of society, capital must be understood as an accumulation of homogeneous, abstract labor. By understanding money as latent in commodities, we reject the picture of money juxtaposed externally to commodities as in classical political economy and therefore recognize that abstract labor is always present in the concept of capital.

However, all accumulations of abstract labor are not capital. For them to correspond to the concept of capital, they must be driven by the impetus to grow and must have self-expanding value (i.e., M-C-M´). How is that possible, however, on the assumption of exchange of equivalents? Where does the additional value, the surplus value, come from? The two questions express the same thing: in one case, in the form of objectified labour; in the other, in the form of living, fluid labor. [56]

The answer to both is that, with the availability of labor power as a commodity, capital can now secure additional (abstract) labor. This is not because of some occult quality of labor power, but, because by purchasing labor power, capital now is in a relation of “supremacy and subordination” with respect to workers, a relation that brings with it the “compulsion to perform surplus labour.” [57] That compulsion, inherent in capitalist relations of production, is the source of capital’s growth.

Let us consider absolute surplus value by focusing upon “living, fluid labor.” The value of labor power, or necessary labor, at any given point represents the share of aggregate social labor that goes to workers. The remaining social labor share is captured by capitalists. When capital uses its power to increase the length or intensity of the workday, total social labor rises; assuming necessary labor remains constant, capital is the sole beneficiary. The ratio of surplus labor to necessary labor—the rate of exploitation—rises.

Alternatively, let the productivity of labor be increased. To produce the same quantity of use values, less total labor is required. Accordingly, increased productivity brings with it the possibility of a reduced workday (a possibility not realized in capitalism). If, conversely, aggregate social labor remains constant, who would be the beneficiary of such an increase in productivity? Assuming the working class is atomized and capital is able to divide workers sufficiently, capital obtains relative surplus value because necessary labor falls. Alternatively, to the extent that workers are sufficiently organized as a class, they will benefit from productivity gains with rising real wages as commodity values fall. In Capital, this second option is essentially precluded because, following the classical economists, Marx assumed that the standard of necessity is given and fixed. [58]

In short, we need to understand money if we are to understand capital, and for that we need to grasp the two-fold character of labor that goes into a commodity. Unfortunately, many Marxists fail to grasp the distinction “between labour as it appears in the value of a product, and the same labor as it appears in the product’s use value”—the distinction Marx considered “fundamental to all understanding of the FACTS.” As a result, they offer a “theory of value without reference to money,” what Heinrich calls “pre-monetary theories of value,” which I consider to be pre-Marxian theories of value or Ricardian theories of value. [59]

Ricardian Marxists do not grasp Marx’s logic, or how Marx logically moves from the abstract to the concrete. The problem is particularly apparent when it comes to the so-called transformation problem. What those who attempt to calculate the transformation from values to prices of production fail to understand is that, rather than transforming actually existing values, prices of production are simply a further logical development of value. [60] The real movement is from market prices to equilibrium prices, that is, prices of production. As we have seen, this is how the law of value allocates aggregate labor in commodities, similar to a law of gravity. The failure of these Marxists to distinguish between the logical and the real demonstrates their “complete ignorance both of the subject under discussion and of the method of science.”

NOTES

1. In his fine introduction and interpretation of Capital, Michael Heinrich criticizes traditional and worldview Marxism in An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012). Heinrich further expounds the early sections of the first volume of Capital intensely in Michael Heinrich, How to Read Marx’s Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2021).
2. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1975), vol. 43, 68.
3. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1977), 169–70.
4. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3 (London: Penguin, 1981), 288.
5. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 171.
6. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 172.
7. Karl Marx, Grundrisse (London: Penguin, 1973), 171–72.
8. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 173.
9. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 772; Marx, Grundrisse, 488, 541, 708; Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 2 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Press, 1962), 24.
10. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6, 506.
11. Marx, Grundrisse, 158–59.
12. On this view of socialist society, see Michael A. Lebowitz, The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010) and Michael A. Lebowitz, Between Capitalism and Community (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020).
13. Discussion of the individual commodity producer applies as well to collective or group commodity producers (as in the case of cooperatives).
14. Marx, Grundrisse, 156–58.
15. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 288–89.
16. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 170.
17. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 43, 68.
18. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 476. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between the aggregate labor in commodities and the aggregate labor in society as a whole.
19. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 476.
20. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 168.
21. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 476.
22. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 1051.
23. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 895.
24. Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part II (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), 209.
25. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 491.
26. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 490. We are describing here so-called jelly capital.
27. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 298.
28. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 528, 491.
29. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 43, 68.
30. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, 515.
31. Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part III (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971), 500.
32. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 173–74.
33. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6, 121, 123–24.
34. David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (Homewood: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1963), 5–6, 12–13, 42.
35. Karl Marx, Wage Labour and Capital in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 9, 208–9.
36. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6, 491. Here, Marx accepted Ricardo’s symmetry in the production of hats and men, and he continued to hold that position in Capital. For a criticism, see Lebowitz, “The Burden of Classical Political Economy” in Lebowitz, Between Capitalism and Community, chapter 6.
37. Marx, Grundrisse, 881.
38. By the time of the writing of Capital, however, Marx had moved to identify that two-fold nature of the commodity as use value and value and explained that exchange value is merely the necessary form that value takes.
39. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 173n.
40. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, 407.
41. Albert Dragstedt, Value: Studies by Karl Marx (London: New Park Publications, 1976), 11.
42. Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, 514.
43. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 139.
44. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 138.
45. In classical political economy and in Marx’s time, gold was the money-commodity; however, Marx’s theory of money only requires social acceptance as the universal equivalent.
46. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 139.
47. Karl Marx, “Marginal Notes on Adolph Wagner’s Lehrbuch der Politschen Oekonomie” in Dragstedt, Value, 204.
48. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 129.
49. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 157.
50. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 129.
51. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 288.
52. Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital, 57, 63–64.
53. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part II, 164, 202.
54. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, 294–95.
55. See the discussion of the derivation of capital in Michael A. Lebowitz, Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 55–60.
56. “The rate of surplus-value is therefore an exact expression for the degree of exploitation of labour power by capital, or of the worker by the capitalist.” Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 326.
57. Marx, Capital, vol. 1, 1026–27.
58. See Lebowitz, Between Capitalism and Community, chapter 7.
59. Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital, 57, 63–64.
60. As Heinrich indicates, the transformation of values “represents a conceptual advancement of the form-determination of the commodity.” Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital, 148–49.

---

Author

Michael A. Lebowitz was a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver until his death on April 19, 2023. For information on his life and work, see the “Notes from the Editors,” Monthly Review, July–August 2023.

Republished from Monthly Review.

The first Uprising against the IMF! An uprising driven by the People and Class Consciousness, marking the genesis of Chavismo.

On 27F, Venezuela commemorates the National Day for Respect for Human Rights and Popular Power, in memory of the massacre’s victims.

1989 was globally turbulent. The Berlin Wall’s fall anticipated the Soviet Union’s collapse and the United States’ hegemonic ascendancy. That year, Venezuela resisted neoliberalism, predating Seattle’s anti-globalization events (USA, 1998) and the rise of Mexico’s Zapatista National Liberation Movement (1994).

This resistance was “El Caracazo”, the public’s first revolt against the IMF and the Washington Consensus.

Rebellion against the IMF and US imperialism 

The Caracazo stemmed from the 70s and 80s’ neoliberal policies, as symbolized by the IMF acting on behalf of US imperialism, in combination with Fourth Republic’s corruption and a rise in public impoverishment, plainly evident in escalating food costs and deteriorating public services.

By 1989, acute poverty crossed 30%, and over half the populace was marginalized. The earnings of the working class scarcely sustained them, the ideal for the capitalist class.

That year, inflation soared above 80%, as indicated by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), eroding Venezuelans’ purchasing power and causing a sharp drop in consumption. Many businesses faced insolvency and went bankrupt, due to plummeting sales.

People took to the streets of the injustices and inequalities perpertrated by the Adeco and Copeyan governments ruling that country’s Fourth Republic. The economic policies imposed by the economic cabinet on millions of working people ignited widespread indignation.

     

The Anger of an Overwhelmed People

The type of protest present in the Caracazo, on the 27th and 28th and subsequent days, was directed against the exploiters and oppressors, but at first the people appeared to take it out on themselves. Thus the supplier, the butcher shop and the passenger van – part of people’s daily lives – drew the ire of people on the streets. Widespread looting resulted from the various economic problems caused by the imposition of the austerity measures that the imperialists demanded through various foreign organizations like the IMF and World Bank.

The outbreak originated in Guarenas, a city in the state of Miranda, located in the so-called Greater Caracas, with a wave of spontaneous protests without leadership, led by the desperation and anger of the people. Looting quickly spread to the main cities of Venezuela.

This Caracazo resonance was felt in states like Vargas and Mérida and beyond. Within a week, many demonstrators were massacred by the state, in the name of upholding “representative democracy.”

Brutal Repression in a Hail of Bullets 

Four million bullets were unleashed on an unarmed populace. The Armed Forces and the Metropolitan Police deployed wartime weaponry against civilians, obeying Pérez administration’s directives.

Communities also underwent psychological warfare. Remnants of the onslaught, like the bullet-riddled buildings and maimed or traumatized citizens, persist to this day. Citizens recall taking refuge in hallways and sleeping in bathrooms to evade the Armed Forces’ onslaught.

This reign of terror persisted over a week, while the core unrest spanned just two days.

Weapons of War against the People

 

Official records cite 1,000 deaths, but unofficial estimates suggest figures surpassing 5,000, many interred in mass graves, such as Caracas’s General Cemetery of the South, in a sector called La Peste.

Mid-level officers in the National Armed Forces were profoundly affected by the people’s plight and the violent use of the Armed Forces, epitomized by Plan Ávila’s instructions to deploy wartime weapons against noncombatants.

President Hugo Chávez described El Caracazo as: “the spark that ignited the engine of the Bolivarian Revolution,” since the 27th of February led to the birth of the 4F civil-military rebellion and 27N, both movements that would deal devastating blows to the bourgeois Fourth Republic.

A decade post-Caracazo, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) recognized just 44 victims’ rights violations. The Bolivarian Venezuelan State would later greatly expand this compensation.

Since 2007, Venezuela began commemorating this date as the National Day for Respect for Human Rights and Popular Power.

When the people said: “Enough!”

In 2021, when commemorating the events of February 27 and 28, 1989, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said that “27-F was not a guarimba (terrorist ultra right) financed by the US Embassy, but a rebellious people shouting: enough is enough! A date on which Venezuelans carried out the unprecedented breaking of the moorings of Puntofijismo, a political stratagem that the Creole bourgeois oligarchy had established for practically three continuous decades against Venezuela.”

The first national leader compared these historical events, which shook Venezuela and the world, with the strategies of violence sponsored by foreigners that were recorded in recent years in the country, and which became known as the terrorist guarimbas of the political opposition.

“We must be very clear, because the united people will never be defeated!” Maduro said in characterizing the social explosion of the so-called Caracazo, an unprecedented event that changed the history of Venezuela.

Forbidden to forget

In the context of this 34th anniversary, Maduro stated on his official account on the social network Twitter @NicolasMaduro that, on February 27th, “the Venezuelan people do not forget the barbarism and injustice of Puntofijismo and North American Imperialism! It is a historic date, of rebellion against the disastrous neoliberal policies of the then president Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).” He ratified that 34 years ago, “the people, tired of injustices, rebelled against a government kneeling to the interests of the IMF.”

A historic turn

The unprecedented rebellion broke out in Guarenas, Miranda state, to spread throughout the country, with thousands of people protesting against the so-called “paquetazo” carried out by Carlos Andrés Pérez, who subordinated himself to the neoliberal measures strictly imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF forced the national government, in exchange for “loans” to the Republic for 4.5 billion dollars to 10 billion dolars in three years, to increase fares, release prices of essential products, arbitrarily privatize state companies, freeze salaries and wages and cuts in all “expenses” or budgets allocated to the social area, as well as a progressive increase in the national external debt.

Although it was ended with a massacre by right-wing governments during the so-called fourth republic, Venezuela thus starred in the first global rebellion against the neoliberal packages of the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The social explosion – and the consequent massacre – occurred when Venezuela was mistakenly believed to have the strongest democracy in the region. Although its economy did not suffer a financial blockade or imperial persecution, since the US governments declared themselves to be “unconditional friends” of Venezuela.

“A rebellion of millions, it was called the Caracazo, but it was the Venezuelan one, millions of rebels in the streets saying enough is enough!, after two centuries of betrayals, looting, repression of the fourth republic, which denied social rights to the people invisible and crushed, who were only sought after every 5 years to get their vote,” President Nicolás Maduro once stated.

 

The scream that is still heard

“…February 27 has not ended because it continues to raise its cry and its song of pain and hope and clamor for what has already been said for a better world that was a day of popular rebellion that was February 27, popular rebellion, it is a lie that it was an unconscious people or mob…” President Chávez stated in a speech.

“…Venezuelan historians, some from academia, with supposed status and a lot of knowledge, saying that this was a pillage, that there was no plan, that February 27 was not a political event. Wow, how wrong they are. February 27, 1989 was, from my modest point of view, the most significant political event throughout the 20th century in Venezuela, a people that broke the chains, ‘down with chains,’ shouted the Lord and the poor in their ranch. Freedom asked’; and the poor in the streets, not only in their hut or in their ranch, the poor in the streets, the rebellion of the poor, the class struggle, Karl Marx would say (…) they have wanted to falsify February 27, that is why we have to claim it every day…”

 

Testimony of Hugo Chávez on 27-F

On February 27, 1989, Commander Hugo Chávez witnessed a pivotal moment in Venezuelan history. This day marked a significant turning point for one of the wealthiest nations globally, known for possessing the world’s fifth-largest oil reserve. It was a day when the courageous people of Venezuela rose up against a neoliberal system and program that had pushed them into poverty and despair.

“I entered Fuerte Tiuna and I had to see it at war. I went to get gas with a friend, who was a colonel. I sat in his office and watched that disaster on the television. I go out to the patio: the soldiers running and some officers ordering formation and looking for the rifles. And I tell him: ‘My colonel, what are you going to do?’ ‘Oh, Chávez! I don’t know what’s going to happen here. But the order that came is for all the troops to go out into the streets and go to the people.’ ‘But how are they going to stop it?’ ‘With rifles, with bullets.’ He even said: ‘May God be with us, but it is the order.’ I saw the soldiers leave, the logistical soldiers, who are not trained soldiers. Those are the ones who make the food, the ones who serve the vehicles. They even took out the mechanics and gave them a rifle, a helmet and plenty of ammunition. What was coming was a disaster, as it was.”

 

The revolutionary spark

In 2011, Commander Hugo Chávez Frías confirmed that El Caracazo had been “the spark that ignited the engine of the Bolivarian Revolution.” The then head-of-state continued that the bourgeoisie “must not forget that one of the causes of El Caracazo was the increase in poverty (…) a product of neoliberalism that aspires to return to Venezuela.”

“That rebellion of the military youth, in the face of the tragedy that the people experienced, since then nothing and no one would have been able to stop it. It just has to be said that February 27 accelerated, it was a trigger, a catalyst. The rebellion of the people encouraged us, the patriotic military, even more, and on February 4, 1992, three years later, we went out to respond to the martyred people of February 27, 1989.”

 

Vindication and justice

As an act of justice, in November 1999 the Bolivarian Government recognized the responsibility of the Venezuelan State in these events. On November 11, 1999, more than ten years after El Caracazo, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognized the violation of the fundamental rights of 44 victims.

At the end of 2006, the Government of President Hugo Chávez Frías, through the Ministry of the Interior and Justice, announced mechanisms to also compensate the victims who were not accepted by the sentences, according to the book “Chronology of an Implosion.”

On April 30, 2007, Commander Chávez ordered the withdrawal of Venezuela from the IMF, completely canceling the foreign debt, and highlighted: “We closed a historic cycle of indebtedness with the IMF and the WB that began in 1989 by former president Carlos Andrés. Pérez, by signing an agreement…that caused the Caracazo.”

 

El Caracazo: Four million bullets fired against an unarmed People

Alexis traveled from Portuguesa to Caracas on February 28, 1989. His mother had called him desperate because that day the news had spread that they were releasing the prisoners from the Catia Retention Center to massacre them at the entrance of the prison, where his other son was serving time. There was already talk of a large number of dead inmates.

“When I tried to approach the checkpoint, along with other people, to find out about our imprisoned relatives, they shot us,” says Alexis, who later went with his mother to the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic to look for his brother’s name on the lists of those murdered in Venezuelan prisons.

To the relief of Alexis and her mother, in the endless lists of dead inmates, her relative’s name did not appear. And in the middle of the brawl, he preferred not to try to leave the extinct checkpoint, which is why he survived the massacre. Six years later he was released.

“There were a large number of dead people who don’t even know where they were buried. I imagine it was in La Peste, which was the large cemetery that was created here during the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP),” recalls Alexis.

A similar situation occurred in those days in other parts of the city against entire families. An example of this can be corroborated by the inhabitants of the 23 de Enero parish, who had to resist for almost a week the bullets fired at them by members of the Army and the Metropolitan Police (PM).

“When the CAP government decreed the curfew, they put a war tank in front of Block One with soldiers inside,” says Tirsia, a resident of Monte Piedad.

So much was the fear that prevailed during those days that many people’s apartments were reduced to the bathroom space, a narrow hallway or a corner of the living room, where they spent the night, so as not to be hit by bullets. “You couldn’t even look out the window, there were apartments that left you like a sieve for bullets,” says Tirsia.

“In those days I went out to hang clothes on the clothesline. I was wearing a watch that shone in the reflection of the sun. Surely the police and the Army thought it was a gun and that’s why they shot me. The bullet passed me very close, hit the wall and I jumped. A piece of the wall went into my arm.”

To buy food, the inhabitants of the blocks had to leave very early and queue behind a small food truck that was stationed on Avenida Sucre. “When the army and the PM troops started shooting we had to run. That was terrible, that was something that can never come again.”

The parish inhabitants witnessed the battle tank finally depart on March 6, 1989, the day of her eldest son’s birthday, Tirsia recalls.

These testimonies, told 21 years after the social outbreak known as El Caracazo, record the repression of the army and the police against the people who took to the streets to protest the economic measures implemented by the CAP government, the hoarding of basic necessities and the excessive increases in prices.

According to an investigation by the magazine Sic from the Gumilla Center— a collaboration among Jesuits trained in various disciplines, lay professionals from both academia and business, and leaders from popular organizations and civil society–over four million projectiles were fired at an unarmed populace.

NO volverán!!!

Workers of the World Unite! Hasta la Victoria Siempre! Venceremos!!!

21 years ago the Bolivarian People took to the streets in defense of President Hugo Chávez, in a popular gesture that would forever mark the historical future of the Bolivarian Revolution. With the slogans “Chávez, friend, the people are with you” and “Chávez did not resign, they have kidnapped him,” the Revolutionary People took over the streets adjacent to the presidential palace.

The Outset of the Coup and Public Response

After the coup d’état that began in Venezuela on April 11, 2002 with the Puente Llaguno Massacre, and the subsequent presidential self-swearing in of the head of Fedecámaras (the business union), Pedro Carmona Estanga, the Bolivarian People carried out a popular feat for the return to the power of Hugo Chávez that would forever mark the historical future of the Bolivarian Revolution and the political future of the country.

On Saturday, April 13, 2002, from the early hours of the morning, the followers of President Chávez began protests throughout the country demanding the return of the constitutional leader, who remained kidnapped by coup factors in the military base on the island of La Orchila.

In Caracas, protesters blocked the main highways that link the capital city with eastern and western Venezuela, while a crowd of citizens spontaneously descended from the popular neighborhoods on the hills in the direction of the Miraflores Palace (seat of Government).

With the slogans “Chávez, friend, the people are with you” and “Chávez did not resign, they have kidnapped him,” the revolutionary people filled the streets adjacent to the presidential palace under an intentional media silence from the main television channels that limited themselves to broadcasting cartoon movies and series.

Restoration of Chávez: Military and Civilian Unity

Around one and a half million people throughout the country demanded respect for the National Constitution and the return of Chávez, who had not officially resigned from the Presidency despite a statement from the coup group that had falsely reported this on the national network.

Meanwhile, the emblematic 42nd Parachute Infantry Brigade of the Venezuelan Army based in the city of Maracay in the state of Aragua, declares its adherence to the constitutional order and activates the National Dignity Rescue Operation, to which the Presidential Honor Guard in civil-military union with the People gathered in Miraflores adhere.

Upon noticing the movement of the troops and the crowd of citizens around the Government headquarters, the coup plotters who remained crouched inside the building began to flee hastily.

Once the facilities of the Miraflores Palace have been recovered, the then Constitutional Vice President, Diosdado Cabello, is sworn in as Provisional President of Venezuela in accordance with the provisions of Article 234 of the Magna Carta.

Hours later, in the early hours of April 14, a commando group made up of loyal soldiers rescued Chávez on Orchila Island in the Venezuelan Caribbean, and took the president to Miraflores where he was received by a crowd chanting “he came back, came back, came back, came back, came back, came back!”

Only 48 hours were enough for the people and the armed forces in perfect civil-military union to rescue the Leader of the Bolivarian Revolution and install him back in power, defeating the brief Oligarch Dictatorship forged by elements of the Venezuelan right, the business sector, the Catholic Church and American Imperialism.

Reflections and Ramifications: Two Decades Later

After more than two decades after that coup, with enough time to settle, history accumulates copious material to put together the story of the so-called April coup, which some add the adjective “media.” Among the conclusions of some analysts, it is supported that for the first time the three factual powers that usually revolved around coups d’état in Latin America were defeated: the economic, the military, the religious, all managed and supported from outside by force by the imperialism of the United States. Added to them is the power of the media, responsible for unleashing a dirty war, and preparing the emotional conditions for the blow. It is also stated that for the first time there is a civil-military union, a reaction that the coup plotters did not foresee, and that was not clearly present in the rebellion of young soldiers, commanded by Hugo Chávez, on February 4, 1992.

The images of the events that marked those days, before, during and after, are still clear and alive in the memory of those who, in the streets as protagonists or from their homes, experienced live and direct the plot of the Venezuelan Oligarchy against a Government and a democratically elected Leader, but who did not agree with the interests of the powerful groups.

Since then, the civil-military union has been the determining factor to prevent time and again the conspiratorial pretensions of Imperialism and the stateless right that now loom over the Government of President Nicolás Maduro in the form of a continued coup d’état.

They will not return!!!

If you’re not familiar with the Austrian political scandal involving an alleged Russian oligarch’s niece at an Ibiza hotel, don’t worry. Major English-language media outlets largely overlooked this scandal due to the overwhelming coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic and President Donald Trump’s presidency.

What exactly happened in Ibiza?

The Ibiza Scandal was a political controversy in Austria that implicated Heinz-Christian Strache, the former vice chancellor and leader of the Freedom Party, and Johann Gudenus, a former deputy leader within the party.

The scandal erupted in May 2019 with the release of a secretly recorded video from a meeting that took place in Ibiza, Spain, in July 2017. In the footage, Strache and Gudenus were seen discussing illegal strategies and motives of their party. They appeared receptive to proposals made by a woman who claimed to be Alyona Makarova, a niece of Russian businessman Igor Makarov. She discussed the possibility of providing favorable media coverage to the Freedom Party in exchange for government contracts. Strache and Gudenus also hinted at potentially corrupt political dealings involving wealthy donors supporting their party.

The meticulously planned nature of this apparent setup and the significant investment of time and resources led Germany’s Die Welt to speculate about the orchestrator behind this operation. It was designed to produce “Kompromat,” or holding damaging information about a political opponent until the right moment to use it for maximum impact. This material had been kept hidden for two years and was released just days before the European Parliament election scheduled for May 2019.

The Fallout:

On May 18, just one day after the video surfaced online, Strache resigned as Vice-Chancellor of Austria and Chairman of the Freedom Party. He initially characterized the video recording as an unlawful and unethical act by the media, vowing to pursue legal action against those responsible. But he later admitted his own misconduct. Gudenus also offered his resignation, expressing deep regret for his actions and the disappointment he caused.

The resignations didn’t end there. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz requested the removal of Minister of the Interior Herbert Kickl, known for his controversial stance within the Freedom Party, as he would have overseen the investigation into the Ibiza affair in his capacity as Interior Minister.

New Developments:

After the resignations, questions remained about who orchestrated the meeting and secret recording, as well as the true identity of Alyona Makarova. Russian businessman Igor Makarov denied any family ties with her, stating that he was the only child in his family.

The German tabloid Bild suggested that Austrian lawyer Ramin Mirfakhrai and Austrian private investigator Julian Hessenthaler may have organized the operation. Later, Ramin Mirfakhrai confirmed his involvement in commissioning the video. Hessenthaler later testified that he had recorded the video to create an impartial record in response to allegations and complaints, without attempting extortion or publicizing it.

The identity of the decoy responsible for the politicians’ resignations, Una Saukuma, a 40-year-old Latvian, has been revealed, but her connection to Hessenthaler remains unknown. Charges against Saukuma are pending, and Strache and Gudenus are considering pressing charges as well. The Vienna public prosecutor’s office has reopened the case against Saukuma, which was previously on hold, for multiple alleged offenses related to deceitful activities.

Authorities are still searching for Saukuma and aim to gather more information about Julian Hessenthaler, who is wanted for crimes such as cocaine trafficking and violating tax laws in the European Union. After six years and a series of embarrassing resignations, the Ibiza Scandal finally seems to be approaching its conclusion, with all involved parties and motives now identified.

The early 2000s until around 2015 Russell Brand was a darling of British Television. His comedic timing and his flamboyant style made him an instant hit with the viewing public. His fame started to grow after he hosted the (absolutely awful) reality show Big Brother’s spin off show Big Brother’s little brother. His fame arguably peaked around 2009-15 when he starred in such Hollywood films as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. Around this time, it felt like you could turn on any channel of British television and you’d see Brand.

Brand’s career trajectory was climbing higher and higher. Then all of sudden he seemed to take a turn towards becoming an activist/health and well being guru. At the start of this new direction it seemed he still hadn’t lost his lustre with his fans. Even being voted him as the world’s fourth most influential thinker! This speaks to a desperation amongst many workers for some kind of oppositional figure to emerge at a time when “democratic” choices have vanished.
During this time, he remained a controversial figure, but this was sold as part of his charm. He was open and honest about his drug and sex addiction which added to a lothario image that was promoted relentlessly by the very same British press that are now tearing him apart for behaviour they previously celebrated.

Over the past 3 years his activist image has increased and he’s been taking positions on politics and world events that the journalists, who once promoted him, would not dare take. He even had Seymour Hersh on his show to discuss his findings about the USA’s involvement in the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline which was undoubtedly an act of American terrorism. Hersh was vilified in the mainstream media, if they mentioned him at all, so for Brand to allow him, and others like him, on to his show was an act of defiance against the Anglo-American establishment and their narrative on the Ukraine war.

Over the past week it has been alleged that Brand has committed rape on multiple occasions over the last two decades, with allegations being publicised in the press from as far back as 2003.  Brand has denied all the allegations and has stated that he has never done anything that wasn’t consensual. The media has rounded on  Brand with all kinds of stories from different women about how the once titled ladies’ man is now an abuser of any woman he has ever come in contact with. All of these alleged acts had taken place around the height of his fame over a decade ago.

Now I am not here to hang Brand before his trial as the media and public opinion seems to have already done, but what we should ask is why now? Why, after ten years, has this just come out now? Why, if his perversions are such an open secret as the media will have you believe, has it only reached our ears this week in 2023, twenty years after the first allegation?

The answer is that he has now become an irritant to the establishment. His YouTube show has popularised issues that the capitalist media is not allowed to cover and his fame gave him a wider audience than any other alternative media sources. Previously any alleged misgivings that might have occurred, same with any famous star of his ilk, had  been swept under the rug to protect the star. Now that he has gone rogue with his voicing of anti-establishment opinions this protection has been removed. These accusations, true or not, are being used to silence a dissenting voice against capitalism and imperialism in a time where capitalism in such a crisis they can not allow even the most meagre defiance to continue for fear it will help the flow of anti-western capitalism that is sweeping over the world.

Brand is just another in a long line of journalists/activists that are being silenced for showing the public the ugly side of the western world. From the most high-profile Julian Assange and Tara Reade to Eva Bartlett and Patrick Lancaster, there’s a real attack on anyone who dares to speak out and if they can do this to rich and powerful people like Russell Brand, or even the attempts to silence a non-alternative in Donald Trump, what chance does the everyday worker have if they came for us?

“Dear Comrade Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez,

Dear Comrade and Master General of the Army Raúl Castro Ruz,

We wish to convey an affectionate greeting and a warm embrace, always in solidarity with the heroic people of Cuba, who once again today serve as the host par excellence for the Peoples of the South. Havana, the capital of the global South family, couldn’t be a more fitting location for our organization, the G77 plus China, to convene at the epicenter of the Resistance of the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, a legacy of Revolutionary Cuba, the Cuba of the People, and the Cuba founded by the great Fidel Castro Ruz.

Here we are in Havana, Mr. President, after a 28-hour journey, traveling from Beijing to Algeria and then to Havana, to be on time to extend our hand in friendship and share this gathering with our Family. I was speaking to an African President earlier, and I emphasized that this is our home, our family, a space where we are all equals. No one here attempts to impose themselves, dominate, plunder, despise, or exclude. This is the Great Family of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and the family of the peoples of the South.

The G77 is approaching its 60th anniversary, and with China joining next year, we anticipate the Southern Summit in Uganda. We extend our best wishes to Uganda and Africa for a successful and historic summit. Sixty years may pass quickly, but it’s a substantial amount of time. We should reflect on what has occurred in the world during these 60 years—how many struggles, battles, advancements, setbacks, pains, and hopes. Here we are, 60 years later, setting the tone for what should be a civilizational model promoting dialogue, inclusion, and integration. As the Peoples of the South, we must chart our own paths and political models without accepting dictates from any former or current power with colonial or domination ambitions.

The 21st Century must be Our Century! We must promote practical cooperation with a more significant impact, particularly in education, science, and technology. Science and technology cannot be separated from education, so we must link them and encourage practical collaboration between regions and countries. We must also turn to our brothers who have advanced further and request more support and assistance.

Having just visited China, I am genuinely impressed by the scientific and technological progress in all aspects of society, economics, and culture. We must appeal to the new Emerging Powers, who occupy a fundamental space in this 21st Century and are part of our family, including China, India, and others, to help us advance further. Access to knowledge and technology applied to health, agriculture, food production, industry, extraterrestrial space development, telecommunications, social networks, and the internet are all fundamental elements we cannot afford to neglect, regardless of the size of our countries.

If there’s an area where a significant gap exists, and all our People are aware of it, it’s the management of the internet. Who manages the internet, who controls the internet, who has imposed its dominance over social networks circulating in our countries without any regulation, legislation, or control? Just as social networks can profoundly impact the social and communication life of our countries, we need the National States to provide guidance and regulation, which is essential. Therefore, we must prioritize applying knowledge to science and technology to attain independence in communication within the internet and social networks.

Comrades, we must strongly advocate for a global initiative within the United Nations Organization to cease unilateral coercive measures against the People of the World and all countries. Today, we strongly advocate for the lifting of the Criminal Blockade that has been in place for more than 60 years against the People of Cuba!

The G77 must raise its voice louder and declare that it’s enough with the persecution of the People of the World who seek independence and wish to build their own models. We must do more, much more. In these 60 years of the G77, we have accumulated great experiences, and all the historical, political, and geopolitical conditions seem to be aligning for the Peoples of the South to raise our flags of Independence and Sovereignty in this 21st Century. We must build the 21st Century as Our Century, the Century of Free Peoples! No empires, no colonialism, no hegemonism! Free Peoples should shape our relationships based on solidarity, cooperation, knowledge, and permanent complementarity.

Comrade President Miguel Díaz-Canel, I deeply appreciate the invitation extended to our Homeland. Rest assured that Cuba can count on the G77+ China’s unwavering, militant, and active support in the noble causes of this 21st Century, which belongs to us, the Peoples of the South! Thank you very much!”

Cuba’s Struggle and Global Recognition

Cuba, as the largest of the Antilles, attracted the greed of Yankee Imperialism. The country’s arduous and protracted struggle to defend its sovereignty has garnered admiration and respect from people around the world. Recently, the member countries of the G77 and China gathered in Havana to establish a united front in defense of the rights of the Global South. Their goal is to confront the hegemony of the North and work towards a New International Order.

In Havana, representatives and leaders from 134 countries convened for two days at the G77 plus China Summit. They advocate for a fairer world order, new world governance with a balance of powers, a revamped financial architecture, and a sustainable economic model that ensures more dignified living standards for all the inhabitants of the planet.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel declared, “For all the time during which the North accommodated the world to its interests at the expense of the rest, it is now the South’s turn to change the rules of the game!”

The G77 plus China Summit: Advocating for Change

The G77 was established in 1964 during the Cold War within the Non-Aligned Movement, comprising 77 countries from the Global Majority. China joined in 1992, and their numbers have since expanded to 134, making it the largest alliance in the world. The group represents 80% of the global population and possess two-thirds of the votes within the UN and the WHO.

Since its creation, this group proposed to jointly solve the pressing problems for “Third World” nations, asserting the right to freely develop their economies and raise the standard of living of their population.

Cuba, once again hosting this event, remains at the forefront of the struggle for a New World Order. Now, almost 60 years later, the challenges are more urgent, as the nations of the Global South bear the brunt of problems generated by capitalism– including increasing global poverty, burdensome external debt, food insecurity, climate catastrophes, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, the digital divide, technological underdevelopment, and more. We are in a time when several African countries are fighting for liberation and more countries are embracing new centers of power like BRICS+, while rejecting unilateral coercive measures that infringe upon basic human rights such as food, health, and the right to development.

Leaders Call for a New, Fair World Order

Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel declared, “It will always be the time for Unity! But today it is an imperative, the greatest of all emergencies!” He added, “Count on Cuba and its commitment to work, tirelessly, in defense of the interests of our nations. Cuba has actively participated with significant contributions in different areas, promoting cooperation to contribute to equitable development. The island has had to endure a suffocating economic blockade by the Empire and its henchmen, in the face of this reality and with the limitations imposed by the aforementioned sanctions, aggressions, and current challenges for development, it has been able to be a leader in the field of science, technology and innovation.”

Canel denounced the current Economic Order imposed by Yankee Imperialism and its satellites as unjust and unsustainable. He called for the democratization of the international relations system, highlighting that many countries are wrongly labeled as poor when they should be recognized as impoverished due to neocolonial subjugation.

The Cuban president also urged the removal of barriers hindering knowledge-sharing with developing countries and questioned the global growth in military spending, arguing that these resources could be redirected to support populations. Estimates suggest that 9% of this spending could finance a decade of climate change adaptation, caused precisely by the greed of wealthy nations, while 7% could cover global vaccination against any health crisis, reducing inequality among the less fortunate.

For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said, “The G77 and China must promote a powerful initiative in the United Nations to end unilateral coercive measures against the countries of the world.”

“It is proposed to promote High Impact cooperation in: education, science and technology.” Maduro continued. “For example, during the pandemic, the North called all the companies that produced antivirals, medicines and that produced vaccines and threaten them not to sell something from Venezuela. We had to resort to the direct and supportive relationship that allowed Venezuela to have access to medicines, antivirals and then vaccines in the harshest moments of 2020 and 2021. And it was thanks to the solidarity of the support of China, Russia, Cuba, India and Turkey that Venezuela, blockaded and persecuted, was able to access the medicine it needed!”

In his speech, Lula Da Silva, President of Brazil and President Pro Tempore of G20, considered that: “The G77 Nations and China must strengthen themselves in light of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which revolves around the fields of artificial intelligence.” Lula added that, “A common vision must be forged that takes into account the concerns of low- and middle-income countries.” He also proposed “a joint action in order to ensure that the Energy Transition and the Industrial Revolution are not left in the hands of a handful of economies.” He pointed out that they already have a broad and detailed diagnosis of the problem; all that remains is to get to work as soon as possible.

Xiomara Castro, President of Honduras and CELAC Pro Tempore President, questioned the purpose of international organizations like the G77, World Bank, CELAC, and the United Nations if they cannot eliminate unjust blockades, sanctions, neocolonialism, the hegemony of capital over human welfare, and the war promoted by the military-industrial complex, causing immense suffering and pain in the world.

Argentine President Alberto Fernández echoed this sentiment. He stated that the Global South has a significant opportunity to demand equality in this changing era. He also urged the international community to create a new financial system, as the current one operates with a discriminatory logic of the past, perpetuating crises.

Fernández pointed out that American Hegemony is no longer what it once was, and Europe is in crisis. He identified the rise of two giants, China and India, which are reshaping international trade daily. And he emphasized the importance of BRICS+ as a vital actor in the New Order.

The Argentine President also highlighted the Health Crisis as an event that exposed prevailing inequality, with 90% of vaccines withheld by 10 countries. He revealed that 11 fortunes possess as much wealth as 40% of humanity, and 1.2% of adults own 50% of the world’s wealth. He stressed that inequality necessitates a rethinking of the world, where the G77 and China can play a significant role economically. Finally, Fernández condemned the policies of the Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The Imperative for Global Action

The UN Secretary General described the G77 and China as “The Voice of the Global South” and the largest group of countries on the international stage. During the Forum, Gutiérrez pointed out that the countries comprising this bloc have protected hundreds of millions of people. However, he also noted that the world has been failing developing countries, with increasing poverty, hunger, rising prices, exorbitant debt, and more frequent climate disasters.

Gutiérrez concluded that change is imperative, requiring global action to promote an international system that “defends human rights.” He acknowledged the view that the Security Council, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund belong to a past era when many developing countries were chained by a colonial order. He stressed that a new international system would necessary to address challenges.

UN Secretary General Antonio Gutiérrez warned that “the world is failing developing countries.” But this statement should be more precise: it’s not the world failing these countries but a handful of rulers who believe they own the planet’s lands, natural resources, and future.

Numerous leaders and representatives shared the need to strengthen unity among their nations and take the necessary actions to achieve a new Fair World Order.

The people of the Global South are rising with revolutionary conviction. With these positions and demands, the 134 Countries of the G77 plus China are currently presenting themselves at the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly, convinced that the time has come for the peoples!

Venceremos!✊🏽

Our party delegates visited a new housing estate in Guizhou province to see in practice some of the ways in which Chinese people are encouraged to take part in running and improving their own communities. Inset photos show the lily pond at the heart of the estate and a tai chi class run by and for local residents.

 

The CPC is working at the local level to build social cohesion and stability, deepening its connections with the people.

Since the election of Xi Jinping as leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, considerable efforts have been made to overcome the inequalities caused by the policy of reform and opening up (the reintroduction of the market to China’s economy) that was adopted in the 1979. It soon became clear after the opening up that the market that was meant to bring development and modernisation was also bringing its inevitable concomitants of exploitation and inequality. Something had to be done.

Comrade Xi’s message was that “no one should be left behind” if China was to achieve its goal of a becoming a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

Hence the Communist party set itself the task of adopting a system of governance that would enable it to respond effectively and rapidly to the needs of the entire population. A lot of misinformation is routinely spread in western bourgeois media regarding China’s style of governance, which is characterised as a one-man dictatorship in which Xi Jinping has absolute control over everything.

Our readers will probably have guessed that this is very far from the truth. Invited to China by the CPC to see for ourselves some of the results of the Chinese path to modernisation, members of our central committee had a chance in June to take part in a conference named ‘Strengthen the Modernisation of the System and Capacity for Community-level Social Governance’.

During a presentation that was given to international delegates in the CPC’s party school in the south-west province of Guizhou, Professor Qui Zhonghui explained the principle of the grassroots model of governance that the CPC has adopted.

Unlike in the west, where we are invited on specific dates to vote for our local representatives and are then completely ignored by those same representatives, China’s Communist party makes it a point of honour to listen to its people.

The CPC has set itself the important task of strengthening ideological and political leadership to broaden and deepen its connection with the Chinese masses, and is working to make sure it has a strong party organisation in every community. Party members are regularly sent from the cities to outlying rural areas and encouraged to adopt creative measures to help implement the three principles of self-governance, the rule of law and the rule of virtue.

 

Guiding principles of Chinese governance

Self-governance: CPC branches in the community are expected to adapt to the needs of local people, to serve them and to help them to participate in local government.

Rule of law: the CPC aims to improve workers’ understanding of Chinese law and access to legal systems of grassroots party members and cadres and the masses. This is seen as key to promoting social harmony and enabling the fair and timely resolution of conflicts between citizens.

Rule of virtue: the CPC aims to cultivate a socialist morality amongst the people. It expects its own members to uphold this virtue and promotes a campaign of emulation, bringing inspiring examples of socialist behaviours to the attention of the Chinese masses in all areas of life.

Visit to a new housing development

After our lecture, we were taken to a nearby housing development to see how the principles discussed are being applied in practice. With enthusiasm and passion, the general secretary of the local party branch took us around her estate, showing us the wide variety of grassroots activities in which she and her comrades are involved.

In this community, party members are divided into several workgroups in order to respond efficiently to residents’ needs, and digital and in-person feedback mechanisms have been set up to allow people to identify problems or suggest ideas for improvement of life on the estate.

In the centre of the Jinyuan estate, surrounded by leafy trees and next to a well-tended lily pond, a meeting place has been constructed, with a wooden roof to shade its occupants from the sun and a community screen displaying information and messages. Residents gather here socially, and can also use the screen to let the party know about their needs.

One of the party teams here is dedicated to legal work – to promoting the rule of law through such initiatives as a legal book corner, a voluntary legal aid team, and the running of monthly education classes in understanding China’s legal system.

Another group has been dubbed the Red Armband security team, also known as “the community’s non-staff police”. These volunteers are in charge of helping residents with all the small problems in life – whatever direct and practical problems members of the community may be most concerned about or areas in which they need help.

There is a reception in the main block of the estate where the residents can come to get direct access to a party member and report any issues they want help with. The foyer also includes a meeting room, a dancing room and a library amongst its facilities.

Another party group runs recreational activities, and focuses its efforts especially on retired residents, who might be on their own during the day. Activities they run include tai chi, calligraphy, music and traditional modelling.

The idea behind all these groups is to connect with, serve and educate the people, ensuring their needs are being met and creating a self-sufficient community in which everyone feels responsible for upholding the three principles outlined above.

In this way, the CPC builds social cohesion and stability and deepens its connections with the people.

Republished from TheCommunists.org

The story of American wildland firefighters is evident from the geography of the American West. Whether it’s the lush evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest or the towering Giant Sequoias of California, their beauty often bears the scars of fires and the resting places of working-class heroes who sacrificed their lives to protect North America’s natural resources.

The Yarnell Hill Fire Disaster

One tragically common tale of heroism and sacrifice involved the Granite Mountain Hotshots and the Yarnell Hill Fire. On June 28th, 2013, a lightning strike ignited a fire on a hillside near Yarnell, Arizona. Wildland firefighters from the Prescott Fire Department, part of the Granite Mountain Hotshot unit, were overcome by a rapidly spreading fire fueled by high winds. That day, nineteen out of twenty Hotshot crew members perished. Despite their attempts to deploy fire shelters, all succumbed to the flames as temperatures at their location soared beyond 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. In December 2013, the Industrial Commission of Arizona held the Arizona Forest Division responsible for the firefighters’ deaths: “state fire officials knowingly put protection of property ahead of safety and should have pulled crews out earlier.” The Forestry Division was fined $559,000. No criminal charges were filed against forestry leadership, and no compensation was provided to the families of these men, who had been earning wages well below the poverty line.

Firefighters’ Struggles: Underpaid and Overlooked

Wildland firefighting in the United States is a profession that is often overlooked, underrepresented, and underpaid. The majority of those combating the wildfires that afflict the West are employed by the United States Forest Service (USFS), an agency within the Department of Agriculture.

In 2021, President Joe Biden temporarily increased the minimum pay rate for these USFS employees to $15 per hour through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This means that a full-time firefighter would earn between $24,749 and $32,174 annually. While a significant raise from their previous wages, it still falls woefully short of the cost of living in Western states like California, Oregon, and Washington.

The crucial point to note, aside from the disappointingly meager pay increase, is that the Biden administration’s raise is only temporary, set to expire on September 30th at 11:59 PM. In response to this impending expiration, United States Senator Kyrsten Sinema, along with Senators Barrasso, Manchin, Daines, Padilla, and Tester, has introduced Senate Bill S.2272.

Senate Bill S.2272: Too little, too late

This bill, titled “The Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act,” seeks to permanently raise the pay scale for federal wildland firefighters employed by the United States Forest Service and the Department of the Interior. Although it only maintains the current temporary rate, acting as a band-aid on the massive wound that is emergency service workers living in abject poverty, it is essential to stop the functional collapse of wildland firefighting on the federal level.

Should this bill fail to pass, we are likely to witness a rapid reduction in forestry, fire prevention, and public safety related to natural resources at the state and federal levels, with these responsibilities shifting to the private sector. The intentional mismanagement of our nation’s natural resources has been occurring over decades and is a deliberate neoliberal policy. It is currently estimated that if the Senate fails to pass this bill by October 1st, the USFS expects to lose fifty percent of its firefighting personnel.

During my conversation with Christina, an “Engine Boss” at the United States Forest Service, regarding the impending pay cuts, she remarked, “many of the folks fighting forest fires are spending the night sleeping in a field full of cow shit. All after being fed a meal that was served out of a bucket… I love my job more than most and while the sunsets we see are stunning, they don’t pay the bills.”

This issue extends beyond the fight for a livable wage for emergency service workers; it is a pivotal concern for the American public. Failing to support those who safeguard our public lands will inevitably lead to their loss, either through deliberate deceit or the destructive force of Mother Nature.

 

​The key themes all reflect the four main vectors of the New Great Game as it’s being played across the Global South: energy and energy resources; manufacturing and labor; market and trade rules; and logistics. But they go way beyond – exploring the subtle nuances of the current civilizational war.

 

https://t.me/geopolitics_live/5330

 

Deterrence in action https://t.co/N0VMDO6jwx

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) September 18, 2023

The declaration omitted the use of the word aggression in the context of the Ukraine war, which had been a major point of contention. It recognized that the G20 is not the platform to resolve geopolitical and security issues while acknowledging their impact on the global economy

 

The 18th Summit of G20 (Group of 20) concluded in New Delhi with the adoption of a joint declaration on Sunday, September 10. The declaration reiterated the G20’s commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goals and raised the need to reform global decision-making with the inclusion of more voices from the Global South.​

The commander of French forces in the Sahel has discussed disengagement from Niger, yet Macron has refused to withdraw troops, whose continued presence in Niger was deemed ‘illegal’

 

“A class cannot exist in society without in some degree manifesting a consciousness of itself as a group with common problems, interests and prospects” – Harry Braverman

 

The Motion Being Presented On The Ukraine War Today Is Pure US Propaganda

The composited motion labelled ‘C21’ to be debated at the TUC Annual Congress this week, sponsored by ASLEF and the GMB entitled ‘Solidarity with Ukraine’ is defined by lies and distortions. Rather than being in solidarity with Ukraine, it is a motion that in reality seeks to align the British trade union movement with the priorities of British imperialism. In this article, we will demonstrate that this motion might as well have been written by the CIA and is yet another example of our (so called) trade union leaders putting the priorities of the ruling class ahead of ours and certainly ahead of Ukrainian workers.

The motion begins with the following assertion by citing:

“The systematic repression of free trade unions under Putin and Lukashenko, and their suppression in the occupied territories of Ukraine since 2014.”

Any brief search of the internet will of course show you that extensive trade union organisations do exist in both Russia and Belarus. In the case of the Russian Federation, they run a tripartite-style of industrial relations which is fairly common across western states that seeks to bring workers organisations, business and the state together to reach settlements on industrial issues. Russia is of course a capitalist country with all the contradictions that this brings and there are certainly numerous industrial struggles that go on across the country on a regular basis. Anyone can learn about these by simply looking at the material published on this by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the major opposition party, which (strangely) don’t get a mention in this motion at all. Belarus is a country about which very little is known in Britain today and that is quite deliberate – it is of course a small nation but it is notable because it managed to escape the chaos and violence inflicted upon Russia and Ukraine during the restoration of capitalism in the 1990s. In fact Amnesty International effectively summarise why this is, even though they are trying to condemn it.

Belarus has retained distinctly Soviet features since the break-up of the USSR. This includes the total domination of the economy by the state, which remains the biggest national employer

Trade Unions in Belarus do remain integrated into the state, but what is the nature of that state? The Presidency of Alexander Lukashenko has seen Belarus retain the industrial base that it inherited from the Soviet era and it has not been deindustrialised to the extent that Ukraine has. We are not going to claim that the system is without flaws, but it has retained workers greater collective bargaining power and a better overall standard of living than their unfortunate brothers and sisters in Ukraine. The assertion in the motion that trade unions are suppressed in Donbas is the most laughable lie of all though. The rebellion against the 2014 coup in Ukraine was led by workers, many of whom supported the Communist Party of Ukraine (which is now banned by the Zelensky regime) and who still had strong feelings of an older Soviet patriotism. The 2014 coup also saw a massacre of at least 48 people, carried out in Odessa after a fascist mob attacked an anti-coup demonstration in May of 2014. After this and the attempt by the Kiev regime to suppress all opposition to it, large sections of what was then Eastern Ukraine saw armed uprisings begin in Donetsk and Luhansk – again these were working class movements. Some of the leading forces in assisting these uprisings were the Communists of Ukraine and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The motion doesn’t find time to mention any of these inconvenient facts. We must ask, what trade unions are actually suppressed in Russia, Belarus and the regions which have voted to join the Russian Federation? The answer is simple: Those “free” trade unions that ASLEF’s and GMB’s leaders want the workers’ movement to support are those which act in alliance with the interests of US and British imperialism. The “free” trade unions of Belarus are in reality nothing of the kind, these organisations attempted to assist in carrying out in Minsk what was done in Kiev in 2014, namely a coup that was conducted in the interests not of workers, but of the US imperialists and their European vassal states.

We must also briefly highlight point 3 of the motion as an example of bureaucratic weasel wording. It states:

“That those who suffer most in times of war are the working class, and that the labour movement must do all it can to prevent conflict; however, that is not always possible.”

It is certainly the case though that the current war could have been stopped, on numerous occasions, after 2014. The Minsk agreement, which provided for an end to the war and conceded autonomy to the Eastern regions was one that the Kiev government signed along with the Russians and was also endorsed unanimously by the UN security council. It was the persistent failure of the Kiev government to implement this agreement that saw the war continue for 8 years before the beginning of the Russian special military operation in February of 2022. The movers of this motion of course do not see fit to mention any of this.

The distortion of working class history is also a feature of this motion as clearly demonstrated in point 4:

“The TUC’s proud history of solidarity with victims of fascist, imperialist aggression including its support for arms to the Spanish Republic. As trade unionists we are inherently anti-imperialistic, and our job is to fight imperialism and tyranny at every opportunity. We recognise that a victory for Putin in Ukraine will be a success for reactionary authoritarian politics across the world.”

There is absolutely no comparison between the long and heroic fight waged by the workers of Spain in the 1930s and the squalid, corrupt junta in Kiev that was imposed via a US-sponsored coup in 2014. The regime that this coup brought to power was one that acts in the interests of the most parasitic elements of Ukrainian capitalism, that has sold off huge amounts of state property to Wall Street giants such as Blackrock, has sold off Ukrainian land and whose leaders line their own pockets at the expense of Ukrainian workers. To make a comparison between this US puppet state and the struggle of the Spanish working class against the combined fascist powers in the 1930s is an utterly disgusting distortion of history which any decent trade unionist should be ashamed to make.

The motion goes on to peddle pure propaganda in point 6, where it claims that the Russians are engaging in a “programme of ethnic cleansing”. This is a complete inversion of the truth. In reality, it is the Kiev regime which was brought to power by ultra-reactionary militias and which has been systematically trying to erase the Russian language from public life in Ukraine. In the Russian areas formerly controlled by Ukraine, the Ukrainian language has equal status with Russian, with bilingual education provided to school children. There is indeed an attempt to erase a whole culture in Ukraine, but it is being done by the Kiev regime and its supporters in the west.

The biggest con trick of all though is in the way that this motion repeatedly presents the Ukrainian trade union movement as being “free”, when it is in fact utterly controlled by the state. The Ukrainian state which is run by fascist organisations and ultimately answerable to its paymaster, US imperialism. Just last year Zelensky passed a law banning collective bargaining rights at any business defined as having less than 250 employees.

As for the demand expressed that the “re-construction of Ukraine must have labour and union values at its centre”, this is simply a pipe dream given that the Zelensky government has signed “reconstruction” agreements with the big Wall Street firms who are the last to consider “labour and union values”. Since 2014 there has been one gigantic sell-off after another of formerly state-owned property. It has been a privatisation bonanza for the Ukrainian oligarchy and their masters in Wall Street and the City of London. The motion, again, ignores this reality and choses to peddle a fantasy version of what is happening in Ukraine.

The motion goes onto demand the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and thus conveninetly ignores the fact that it was the workers of Donbas who led the military resistance to the Kiev regime for 8 long years until 2022. The motion also ignores that that it was a demand of the Ukrainian and Russian Communist parties that the Russian state intervene to protect the people of Donbas from constant attacks by the NATO sponsored forces of the Ukrainian government. A Russian withdrawal now will not end the war, but take it to a new and horrifying level as the Ukrainian fascist elements would seek to break all resistance to their rule by targeting any and all working-class organisations which have opposed them in Donbas since 2014.

What this motion actually represents is not support for the Ukrainian people – it supports a government that was brought into power against the expressed democratic wishes of the Ukrainian people via the 2014 coup. It does not aid Ukrainian workers, but aids the Ukrainain ruling class who have been relentlessly attacking the living standards of the working class there since the fall of the USSR in 1991. The 2014 coup was a means of escalating this assault on the Ukrainian working class in order that the asset stripping of the country by the likes of the notorious firm Blackrock and others could continue without restrictions. The motion ignores all the working class resistance to the 2014 coup that has taken place in the Donbas and other areas and presents a totally distorted picture of what has happened since 2014. The sovereignty of Ukraine disappeared in 2014 when the US effectively handpicked a government that would act in their interests with the aim of turning Ukraine into an outsourced US military base to pursue their bigger aim of using Ukrainians as a battering ram against the Russian federation. If composite motion C21 passes, the British trade union movement will be aligning itself fully with those forces which have destroyed Ukraine since 2014 and it will be another horrific example of the trade union leaders using “leftist” language to hide their attempt to bind the British working class hand and foot to imperialism. This motion is stuffed full of grotesque deceptions and it must be rejected by all class conscious workers.

This article was republished from the Class Consciousness Project 

Nato war crimes in Donbass don’t stop at DU; Donbass civilians are routinely targeted by cluster bombs and petal mines

In May this year, a warehouse containing depleted uranium rounds that had recently arrived from Britain was blown up. As the resulting radiation cloud blew westward over Poland, radiation monitoring stations were immediately closed down. Nevertheless, experts predict that the long-term effects from the radioactive dust will be felt for decades in Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, Hungary and Germany, potentially reaching as far as Britain and delivering genetic damage and death such as was seen in Yugoslavia and Iraq – cancer, birth defects, miscarriage, infertility, lung damage and mental problems (Gulf War Syndrome).