Open letter to the masses in the USA- defend the Palestinian masses

We salute the hundreds of staffers and interns from the lowest levels of state up to the President’s office, for taking a principled stand to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and justice for Palestinians. You are standing on the proud traditions of the American people who rose up, weapons in hand, and decisively broke through revolutionary mass action, from the oppressive, colonial British crown in 1775.

We call on you to rebuild these traditions that monopoly capital and its iron grip on the state apparatus, has trampled upon.

We remind you of the Second Amendment and its history. Please read up again on it (see extract below from the US Congress website).

The Second Amendment in full states:

‘ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’

The context was that the British monarch abused his power and used the standing army to silence dissidents and to enhance colonial rule and oppression. The American people correctly had a distrust of the standing army and was in favour of the general arming of the people as the only safeguard against a state usurping power and using it against the people.

There are a number of important conclusions that follow from the Second Amendment:

Why is US imperialism so intent on wiping out the Gaza masses?

A call for an emergency international conference in support of Palestine and to end the genocide.

Let us be clear. US imperialism consistently arms Israel with at least $3bn each year. In addition, companies like Anglo American deliberately sends much of the world’s diamonds to Israel adding another billion dollars every year to its arms industry and billions more to its GDP. Most imperialist banks and industry channel funds via Israel by supporting its arms industry which has the reputation of being tested and proven on Palestinians and the broader Arab masses.  It also artificially keeps Israel alive. Annual imports of Israel are worth $90 bn while its annual exports are $60 bn. This means an annual subsidy of $30 bn to keep Israel alive. Any other state would long have faced the wrath of a structural adjustment programme of the IMF and World Bank. Not so Israel. It is a country on life support, kept alive by imperialism. Without this support by imperialism Israel would not exist, overnight. Imperialism thus controls its every move.

US imperialism is spearheading the genocide of the Palestinians, using the Zionist regime as their battering ram

Before 1948 there was no Israel. There was Palestine. It was British imperialism that began a policy of forced immigration of Jews to Palestine, long before the Holocaust. A united mass in the Middle East posed an existential threat to the oil industry that imperialism divided up among themselves. Candidates for a homeland for Zionists was in the USA, or here in Africa or South America. It suited imperialism to use Palestine due to the militancy of the masses and the need to subdue them. 1948 marked a turning point when gangs of Zionists, armed by imperialism, set about expelling 700 000 Palestinians from their homes. After the second imperialist war was when US imperialism started to supplant British imperialism all over the world. Thus, while British imperialism initiated the Nakba, the mass expulsion of Palestinians, it is centrally US imperialism that sustains it. Israel acts as the regional policeman, with an armed population, most of whom are militarised. US imperialism gives $3bn every year to Israel just for arms. All of imperialism subsidize Israel. Anglo American, for example, exports most of its uncut diamonds to Israel. These diamonds directly contribute an additional $1bn to the Israeli arms industry every year. Imperialism thus controls every act and decision of Israel, irrespective of it having so-called democratic institutions. The biggest refugee population in the world today are the 7 million Palestinians outside of ‘Israel’. There are about 2million Palestinians integrated as semi-citizens in Israel.

Every war that Israel has ever conducted was directed by US imperialism and supported by the other imperialisms.

On the 7^th October 2023 Palestinian uprising

On the 7^th October 2023 waves of Palestinian militants broke down parts of the wall that besieges Gaza and launched a military operation in the south of occupied Palestine. They targeted military bases, overwhelming 21 of them including the southern command of the Zionist army. They also targeted police stations. In other words the core of the operation was purely military, against the state apparatus that is not only oppressing millions of Palestinians but also keeping millions of Jewish workers in enslavement, albeit on more ’democratic’ basis.

The load-shedding scam 2023- analysis and plan of action

The central problem with electricity generation worldwide and in South Africa is the system of commodity production. This means that production is for exchange to gain profit and not centrally for social use.

From the beginning of Eskom it was set up to provide electricity for the mines which were, and up to now, controlled by international capital (imperialism). In the beginning it suited imperialism to have Eskom under state control so that the state could subsidize the production of electricity so as to reduce input costs for mining. This meant that from the beginning of Eskom it was the working class and the middle class that were subsidizing cheap electricity in South Africa. Eskom was nationalised under capitalist state control but not under workers’ control. This was not a uniquely South African phenomenon but a world strategy of imperialism capitalism.

However as the crisis of falling profits and stagnating development deepened in the 1970’s imperialism changed their strategy to begin to privatize state assets. [We argue that as soon as imperialism controlled the world since about 1900, there was a permanent decline of capitalism] Nationalised state assets were a trade-off by monopoly capitalism to grant concessions due to working class resistance. So certain democratic gains were won by the working class but the trade-off was that the capitalists would remain in control. In other words the commodity system would continue if certain democratic gains were conceded to the working class and middle class. The pace of privatization varied in each country depending on the strength of the working class and various factors needed by imperialism to remain in control.   

In South Africa, electricity was first rolled out to the mines and formal housing that was necessary for mining and agricultural extraction. The essence of Eskom remains the production of electricity to support the mines and the imperialist plunder of South Africa. The form of control was slave capitalism which meant that the vast majority of the working class was excluded from formal housing and thus also excluded from electricity.

One of the concessions of the 1994 transition to ‘free capitalist relations’ was that there would be free mass housing. However the agreement between the ANC, the NP (now the DA) and imperialism was that existing property relations would remain intact. It followed from this that the mass housing was to be in the apartheid ghettoes to the extent that a pool of reserve, cheap labour was required. Inherent in this was that mass shack dwellings would be a feature of post 1994 capitalist relations. Electricity would only be rolled out to the little that capitalism could get away with- until the revolutionary wave post-1985 had died down. The free water and electricity units to the masses after 1994 was a temporary gain necessary to calm the masses at the time. By 1996 the Mandela-unity government placed GEAR on the table. This was a structural adjustment programme of imperialism that continued the privatization process that the NP govt had started.

The 2007 world economic crisis and the consequences for the working class

Public (State) debt internationally rose from 70% of world GDP in 2007 to 124% in 2020. Over the same period, private debt, while quite high, only rose from 164% of GDP in 2007 to 178% by 2020. This shows that essentially the state coffers were used to bail out the banks from their crisis.

The Brazilian public debt rose from $306bn in 2002 to $1,5 trillion by 2018. This is an increase of 500% (5 times). From 2007 the debt of China rose from 150% of GDP to 300% by 2020. The debt of China doubled in this period while the debt of the Euro area and the USA rose from 220% to 300% of their GDP. Meanwhile the public debt of South Africa rose from 23% in 2008 to 71% by 2020, an increase of 300% or by three times.

For an independent Soviet Ukraine

On the 17^th February 2022 USA President, Joe Biden, announced that within days Russia would attack the Ukraine. Let us analyse the events to see just who are attacking the masses in Ukraine and who is benefiting from it.

Inter-imperialist rivalry in Ukraine

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 brought with it a scramble by imperialism for the nationalised assets in the former USSR. It was German imperialism that took the lead in Russia, buying the cream of Russian industry. Several industries were collapsed but there was a fightback by the working class in defence of the last gains of nationalised property. A section of the Russian stalinists morphed into the Russian mafia and placed itself at the head of the best of the remaining nationalised industry and the best industries that were privatised. The aim of imperialism was and still is to turn the nationalised property into commodities for capitalist exploitation. Today German imperialism has over 6100 companies in Russia and has effective control over the oil and gas industry. German imperialism is the main supplier of weapons to Russia, followed by French imperialism. Russia has been reduced to a semi-colony primarily of German imperialism while French, and US imperialism are openly contesting for control.

Call for solidarity with the Swazi masses

On the 17^th May 2021 the death of student, Thabani Nkomonye, at the hands of the Swazi police, sparked a revolutionary uprising that is still sweeping across Swaziland. By the 28^th June the hated King Mswati III fled the country. The masses are demanding an end to the monarchy and for democracy and an end to unemployment and hunger.

Background to the revolution

According to D Hugh Gillis’s book, The Kingdom of Swaziland, the country used to be 10 times bigger than what it currently is today. If it was not for land grabs by the Boer republics and British imperialism, Swaziland would have included parts of Mpumalanga and KwazuluNatal provinces of South Africa.

The story of Swaziland is the story of Africa. By 1880 imperialism only controlled 10% of Africa. By 1913 it controlled 90%. It gained control by force, by lies, by subterfuge, by blatant robbery. The land had to be converted to capital; the masses had to be dispossessed and there had to be a creation of a reserve army of labour, a proletariat. That the different imperialist powers gained total control of the world by 1913 laid the basis for the fundamental decline of capitalism as the only way further expansion could now take place was through direct inter-imperialist war. This laid the basis for the first and second world imperialist wars that killed hundreds of millions of the masses. The epoch of war also laid the basis for civil wars and revolutions as the masses are not passive players in history.

10 Marikanas per day- the banning of Ivermectin in South Africa

On the 15^th August 2012, the then board member of Lonmin, Cyril Ramaphosa, urged the police, in an email, to launch ‘concomitant action’ against ‘criminals’, strikers who were gathered in an open field outside of company premises. On the 16^th August 2012, 34 mineworkers were shot down by tactical units of the police drawn from around the country. The current net worth of Ramaphosa is estimated to be R6.4 billion ($450 million). The effect of the Marikana massacre was to demonstrate clearly, that in time of crisis, when workers are demanding their democratic rights to a living wage, the ANC-SACP-Cosatu alliance and the ANC in particular, stands on the side of monopoly capital, for the profits, even over the dead bodies of the working class. The ANC stands for the continued enslavement of the working class. The annual declared profit of Lonmin is about R4.5 bn. The annual profits of the large companies in SA is more than R1 trillion or more than R1000bn.

The Department of Health in SA reported a further 300 covid 19-related deaths on the 24^th Jan 2021. This is roughly equivalent to 10 Marikana massacres occurring daily.

Yet there is an immediate prophylaxis (preventative) and treatment that could drastically reduce the numbers of deaths and the numbers of infections. Ivermectin. It is a very cheap treatment, costing virtually nothing, that has been thoroughly tested over the past 35 years, with minimal side effects and its impact and limitations are well established. It has recently been scientifically tested and there is overwhelming evidence of its usefulness to fight covid-19 infection. [1]. The Front Line Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) recently made a submission to to the National Institute of Health in the USA on ivermectin. As a result, the National Institute for Health, NIH, changed its designation from being ‘against’ to being ‘neither for nor against’. This is a profound change as it puts ivermectin on a par with convalescent plasma (purified antibody extract from survivors of covid 19) which can both now be recommended on prescription by Doctors in the USA. This is such an important step as the cost of a tablet of ivermectin is less than R10. This fight has important international significance as a victory in SA can help open up assistance to the masses throughout the world who are currently being terrorised by the giant pharmaceutical companies and the international banks that control them. Health care is a public good and should be in public hands not in the hands of capitalist companies. On the other hand, the suppression of ivermectin shows that the ANC protects the interests of the international banks.  

Divisions in the ranks of US imperialism?

The question must be answered: On what social and political base does US imperialism rest and how has it evolved to now?

That segregation was overturned in the US only by 1965 means that the rise and development of US imperialism to world domination took place based on the continued enslavement of the black working class and broader black masses. Since 1965 the black ghettoes have largely remained. Black people form a much greater number in jail than the proportion in the US population. These factors reflect an ongoing slave capitalist relation that is inherent in US imperialism. The question is thus if the abolition of slave capitalist relations can be achieved within a capitalist framework in the current stage of imperialist decay. Or looked at another way, is it possible, in this period of capitalist decay, for democratic demands of the masses to be attained even in the imperialist centres, within the capitalist framework?  

It follows that the core of the base of US imperialism is the ‘slave holder’-minded/’overseer mentality’ white worker and white middle class. In the context of the slave capitalist relations in the USA, the white working class also played the role of a labour aristocracy.

It is this core of reaction that has underpinned many invasions and toppling of bourgeois democratic regimes in the semi-colonial world after world war 2. The ongoing class struggle in the US and around the world against slave capitalist relations, bringing with it greater democratic measures up to the point of having a black president and incorporating sections of the black workers and black middle class into the state apparatus has brought with it a tension with the reactionary white core that US imperialism historically rests upon.

On the class character of the Morales regime and a response to IWL-FI statement of 12th Nov 2019

The International Workers’ League (Fourth International) claims that it is the biggest Trotskyist group in the world. Its statement on Bolivia of the 12^th Nov 2019 (Down with the coup in Bolivia! Organise the resistance to defeat the coup! For free elections!) shows a lack of faith in the working class in determining its own destiny. In fact, it bows to a bourgeois framework and directs the mass action of the working class into a bourgeois dead-end, elections.

Here is an organization that has work among the working class sectors in Bolivia. Yet these sectors are tied behind a call for bourgeois elections. The IWL also calls for no support for Morales, even though they say that he should be allowed to participate. In other words, the workers should not vote for Morales and are left to choose between the other bourgeois candidates, including the right wing ones and the ones behind the coup. There is no call even for preparing the grounds for a general strike.

On the coup in Bolivia

On the 12^th Nov 2019 Evo Morales was forced by the Bolivian military and police, to step down as President, even though his term officially ran until January 2020. Try as they did to argue that it was not a coup, the Economist demonstrates the opposite. Further evidence of a coup is that by the 12^th November 2019, even though there was no parliamentary quorum, Jeanine Anez declared herself acting President. There has been no evidence of electoral fraud to the scale that would justify a second round of the bourgeois elections. The US, the EU and Russia have recognised the coup regime under Anez, showing how desperate imperialism is to prop it up.

Here is a practical programme to root out gender violence :

We publish below a discussion article produced for the SRWP (it is not their official position). 

The roots of gender violence, how it is sustained and how to fight it

A brilliant source is the work by Engels and Marx on ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’. It is our duty as revolutionary Socialists to study this work. A copy can be downloaded from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/origin_family.pdf

We summarise the origin of the family and how it developed over time and how the state developed as a means of perpetuating violence against women.

It is interesting that the word ‘family’ has Greek origin:

‘Familus’ means domestic slave of the man

‘Familia’  means a group of the man’s slaves

The rise of the gens/ clan.Group marriage/ ‘Punaluan’ relations

Relations within society are influenced by the level of technical and economic development.

Homo Sapiens can be traced to Morocco (300 000 years ago), to Sterkfontein (Homo Naledi, 250 000 years ago) and Ethiopia (200 000 years ago). They were all using stone tools but the Morocco remains show smaller brain size. The predecessors of Homo Sapiens had been around for millions of years. From Ethiopia, Homo Sapiens spread into Europe and the rest of the world.  There is evidence of Homo Sapiens mating with their predecessors, the Neanderthals. There were several different human species at the time but they all died out and only Homo Sapiens survived.

The stone age lasted until about 12 000 years ago, even though their use of stone tools and weapons still persisted in lesser form even by 1066 (the battle of Hastings), but by then it was not in widespread use. Even in the period from 300 000 years ago until 12000 years ago there was the gradual discovery of metals and development of metalwork (copper and bronze) and the gradual development of techniques of domestication of animals and growing of food. These led to the development of villages and towns, which began to replace the migratory groups.

Racism at Stellenbosch University- a working class perspective

In March this year 5 white, female researchers from Stellenbosch University published an article in an international journal. They argued that women of colour are less intelligent than white people. It turns out that several of the staff have written similar articles. In fact it seems they have made a career out of racist ‘science’. It should be remembered that racism is a social tool of violence by international capital and imperialism to justify their domination and control.

Another group of 5 researchers, from outside the University, which included a provincial executive member of the SRWP, launched a counter-offensive. They launched a petition calling for the article to be withdrawn. Within a short space of time the petition gathered over 10 000 signatures.

The Psychology Society of South Africa and the Psychology Department at Stellenbosch also called for the article’s withdrawal. Naturally there was and still is widespread anger at the racist article. The editors withdrew it and the university has just adopted measures for modules on anti-racism for all first-year students, new guidelines for research by staff as well as taking steps to establish full departments on Gender and Critical race studies. These are all substantial steps forward. However, important questions and challenges remain.

Response on the Draft Expropriation Bill 2018

Introduction

Contrary to the name of the Bill, namely ‘Expropriation’, it is actually a draft that protects private property of monopolies, the banks and mining houses. It defines the terms of compensation for land expropriation as being with compensation that is linked to market value and must be ‘just and equitable’ as per section 25 of the Constitution. In other words the commanding heights such as banks, mines, and other monopolies are safe from expropriation  as the state would not be able to afford the ‘market value’ which is currently artificially so much inflated that only imperialism would be able to afford to pay for it.

Furthermore the mineral rights are specifically excluded from all forms of expropriation, even in terms of the so-called public interest clauses.

There is only a narrow list of cases where compensation can be excluded.

Thus the draft Expropriation Bill is a sham aimed at fooling the masses that their democratic aspirations for land, housing, jobs, a decent life for all, is going to be addressed with this legislation.  In other words it serves as a means for imperialism capitalism to buy some time to remain in control and to continue to plunder SA and the rest of the continent.  We also respond to Pallo Jordan’s recent position on the land question.

We deal with the clauses below, exposing also the misleading position by the EFF on land and outline our proposals for our approach.

On the Sudan revolution

Danger to the Sudanese revolution

What has brought the fall of dictator al Bashir has been the working class and revolutionary youth in Sudan. It has not been the political leadership of the ‘opposition parties’. Yet these same ‘opposition parties’ now have signed a highly problematic agreement that keeps the military in direct control for the next 2 years and keeps the security forces, including the army and the rapid support forces (janjaweed), in the hands of the very military leaders who have been responsible not only for the massacre of 3^rd June 2019 but for the past decades of rule of Omar al Bashir. In effect the next 2 years is set to be a continuation of the Al Bashir regime but without Al Bashir.

The rank and file ‘bread and dignity’ committees around the country should discuss the proposed ‘deal’ and set their own conditions.

There cannot be bread for all if the large food, oil and mining companies are still under the control of the generals and other capitalists.

There cannot be dignity and peace while Sudanese militias are in Yemen fighting on behalf of the Saudi regime and imperialism.

An urgent task is the setting up of a national coordinating centre of the revolution, comprised of delegates from the rank and file ‘bread and dignity committees from around the country. The hand of friendship should also be extended to the local committees in South Sudan. Delegates should be elected on the basis they are subject to instant recall and not earning more than the wage of an average skilled worker. This national coordinating committee can coordinate struggles as well as be the watchdog over any developments in the country.

We republish an old article from 2007, which is still relevant today. We wish to emphasize that Eskom has sufficient income. There is no reason for any debt and there is no reason for any increase in tariffs for household users. Rather the central theme should be that the subsidy to big capital, who still pay less that 20 cents per KWh, should be ended. Currently househols pay over R1.60 per Kwh. Business uses 80% of electricity but only pay for 57% of the cost. Eskom should be placed under workers control, not privatised. we have updated some elements of the article, such as our email address. It's lessons are still relevant. Unfortunately no one took us serious in 2007. Hopefully the workers' movement can wage an intense struggle to stop the privatization of electricity and for expanded subsidy to the unemployed, pensioners and working class. Essentially, it need a political solution, namely the removal of the ANC-DA governments from power. 

WIVL 15.2.2019

The Blackout scam- How workers are subsidizing big capital

It costs Eskom 16 cents per KiloWatt Hour (KWh) to produce electricity. It charges industry only 16 cents per KWh while the general public has to pay 44 cents per KWh. Large customers of Eskom like BHP Billiton, pays even less, about 12 cents per KWh. This means that the working and lower middle class are subsidizing the electricity cost of big capital. Residential use of electricity is only 19%, while industry uses about 80% of the overall total. But in terms of cost, residential users pay 43% while industry pays only 57%. In the past year BHP Billiton made a profit of R 6 Billion. Clearly the entire working class are subsidizing their profits.

The developments in Venezuela shows how the lack of a revolutionary working class party leads to imperialism and capitalist forces filling the vacuum with its own agencies. The key to the Socialist revolution in Venezuela lies in the establishment of such a party. The central motive force is, despite all the plans and wishes of imperialism, the working class and its struggles and level of organization and consciousness. The revolutionary working class party is nothing else but the organization of the best vanguard working class elements, leading and/or vying for leadership of the struggle, in the interests of the working class, namely for the establishment of Socialism. Such a party still needs to be established in Venezuela today. At the same time it is not sufficient to only have such a party in Venezuela but of necessity in the rest of Central and South America and the neo-colonial world but also in the imperialist centres. The party of Chavez, the PSUV (Socialist Workers Party Unified- Venezuela), despite its name, is a nationalist party, which with Socialist rhetoric, gives a few social gains to the working class, while perpetuating conditions for imperialism-capitalism to extract its super-profits. Its control over the oil industry is a form of state capitalism as there was no workers control anywhere in the commanding heights of the economy. The continued imperialist plunder of Venezuela under Bolivarianism/Chavism is the central reason for its lack of broad industrialisation and development. It is a neo-colony of imperialism. Due to the long stagnation of the world capitalist economy, any real development in Venezuela would mean a decline in the rate of profit in the imperialist centres. Rather than support its own potential competitor, imperialism ensures the permanent subjugation of the masses in Venezuela. The form that it takes is dependent on the working class struggle and the extent that imperialism is able to keep it under control. When one agency is unable to maintain control over the masses for imperialism, they seek other forms. This is why they are preparing a coup. It is all about installing, by any means, a regime that can guarantee continued plunder of the oil and minerals of Venezuela under increased exploitation.

Updates and where to find older articles

We apologise for the long delay in adding our older articles to this site. We will prioritise this in the first 6 months of 2019. Meanwhile we have created a link to the hundreds of articles which we have written over the years. 

We will also be updating our website more regularly henceforth. 

We welcome feedback, comments and criticism on any of our work. 

Note that while we have changed our name to Party, we are still very much a League. For us, our strategic objective is to help build the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) while maintaining our perspective of rebuilding the Fourth International. 

To access our older articles, go to www.workersinternational.org.za/workersold 

14.1.2019

Statement on Zimbabwe crisis

Workers International Vanguard League condemns the use of live ammunition and other repressive methods to suppress the masses who were protesting against the election results in Zimbabwe. At latest count 6 unarmed protestors were killed in cold blood by the military.  Mnangagwa was at pains to deny that he had taken power through a military coup, yet at the first sign of protests he unleashes the army to shoot down opposition protestors. Under the guise of an election, imperialism is continuing with a military dictatorship. Down with the military dictatorship of Mnangagwa.

In 2017 there was yet again an intensification of the class struggle.  Both MDC and Zanu-PF are long discredited. The Zanu-PF leaders had split and there was every possibility of the struggle developing into a revolutionary uprising. Imperialism responded by a military coup to remove Mugabe, who, up to then, had been their trusty and loyal servant. Neither MDC nor Zanu-PF offered any hope of advancing any of the democratic and Socialist aspirations of the masses. Both these parties offered only a capitalist option.