SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2023 AT 4 PM – 7 PM EST
International Working Women’s Day Emergency March
Elk and Canal, New Orleans

Stand Up Against

• Abortion Bans = 62% higher maternal death rates, increased poverty, and job loss. Capitalists push bans to control women while impoverishing families.
• 1.2 million Louisianans face cuts to SNAP in March & Medicaid in April­.
• Cuts to Child & Dependent Tax Credit from $8,000 to $2,100.
• Rising evictions in New Orleans are double the national average .
• 65% of U.S. budget goes to war profiteers.

Working Class Women Fight Back

For ourselves, our families, and all working class people and communities. Join us.

To boost their profits, the capitalists who control the bought-off Congress and the Louisiana Legislature plan to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Section 8, workers’ safety, union rights, SNAP, and environmental protections. While the billionaire owners of oil, gas, and military corporations get rich from war and high prices, they want us to starve. The Mayor and City Council are spending most of the city budget on cops and prisons and giving millions in taxes and exemptions to private corporations and developers. At the same time, rents and utility bills soar. We need a movement to unite and push them back.

We are fighting for

• The Right to Abortion, Contraception, Maternal Health Care
• Rent Control, Expanding Section 8, Stopping Gentrification
• Free Quality Childcare & Education
• Opportunities for Youth, Not Incarceration
• Sick Leave, Vacation Pay for Hospitality & All Workers
• Ending $1 Trillion US War Budget, Stop US/NATO War in Ukraine
• Saying No to Racism
• Stopping the Scapegoating of Immigrants
• Stopping Attacks on LGBTQ People

Contact us: louisianaforabortionrights@gmail.com

 

On February 6, 1976, Leonard Peltier was arrested in Hinton, Alberta, Canada. Monday, February 6, will mark the 47th anniversary of his arrest.

Following a controversial trial, Peltier was convicted of aiding and abetting the murder of two FBI agents and has been imprisoned ever since. Many people and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and others, believe Peltier is a political prisoner who should be immediately released.

To mark the anniversary, people worldwide will commemorate Monday as a Day of Solidarity for Leonard Peltier, who is currently incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Coleman, Florida.

As he enters his 48th year of incarceration, hundreds of his supporters will host “Rise Up for Peltier” events in numerous cities around the world, including Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Geneva, Switzerland.

In the United States, events will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Rapid City, South Dakota; Tampa, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tulsa, Oklahoma; San Francisco, California; and Washington, D.C.

Peltier is 78 years old and in deteriorating health with multiple serious ailments. Supporters have been asking President Joe Biden to grant clemency so that he can spend his final years with his loved ones and tribal community.

Source: Native News Online

Militant LGBTQ group Lakapati Laguna strongly objects to the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and reiterates people’s calls to junk the ruthless Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is currently in the Philippines to meet with Marcos Jr. and other government officials, with the advancement of the Indo-Pacific strategy and strengthening of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement or EDCA as part of his agenda.

Thirty-two years after the Philippine Senate voted against the idea to ratify a U.S. bases treaty between the two countries which led to the abolishment of U.S. military bases at the time, the U.S. is more eager than ever to reassemble its bases in the country in a true selfish, exploitative imperialist fashion.

Masquerading as “strengthening” the relation between two countries, Austin’s visit will be a way for the U.S. to get its troops back on the Philippine soil, build new facilities inside our territory, which will then be de facto military bases, and conduct various activities that are protected by the law — no matter what the activities may be. 

Nine EDCA bases are expected to be built in the country after his visit. EDCA serves as one of the U.S. instruments for its imperialist aspirations. It is the key to further widen U.S. domination in the Southeast Asian region, with gigantic foreign capitalists exploiting the Filipino people and benefiting from the agreement.

The presence of U.S. troops in different parts of the country normally causes the emergence of red-light districts where prostitution of Filipino women and LGBTQ are normalized and supported by the U.S. government. More women and LGBTQ will be subjected to sexual abuse as well as other forms of violence by the troops.

Additionally, the government of the U.S., with the support of the lapdog Marcos-Duterte administration, will surely use the renewed agreement and presence of U.S. troops to intensify the bloody counter-insurgency campaign of the state. Military operations of U.S. troops and the Armed Forces of the Philippines—attacking both the revolutionary movement and the legal democratic forces— will only make it difficult for the country to attain genuine social justice and lasting peace.

There is no other way to welcome an imperialist tool like Lloyd Austin but with much contempt. Lakapati Laguna joins the Filipino people in defending the country’s sovereignty, calling for the EDCA and all U.S.-Philippines agreements to be junked immediately, and in resisting the imperialist aggression and wars by the U.S.

Defend our sovereignty!

Down with U.S. imperialism!

Source: Lakapati Laguna

On Tuesday, January 31, workers from non-profit sectors in Belgium demonstrated in the capital, Brussels, to defend the future of the care, culture, and welfare in the country. More than 20,000 people participated in the march, which was organized by trade unions such as the Union of Employees, Technicians, and Managers (SETCa), General Labor Federation of Belgium (FGTB/ABVV) affiliate General Union of Public Services (CGSP), and Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (CSC)’s affiliate CNE, along with organizations such as La santé en lutte and Medicine for the People (MPLP).

The participants in the march demanded an increase in wages, better staffing, and refinancing of the health and non-profit sectors. Activists from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB), Communist Party of Belgium (PCB), and others also participated in the protest and extended their support and solidarity to workers.

Working class sections and other low-income households across Europe are reeling under an acute cost of living crisis. On top of that, workers in the non-profit professions in Belgium, especially public health care, are exhausted with overwork and insufficient wages. The plans proposed last year by Federal Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke to reform the organization and financing of hospitals haven’t evoked much enthusiasm among health workers as, according to the PCB, the reforms “only focus on ‘working better’ with the existing resources, but [include] no specific plans for more recruitment, increase in wages, and better working conditions.”

On January 24, Medicine for the People accused the health minister of “turning a blind eye to calls for help from staff, instead of assuring everyone of good working conditions such as a 30-hour week, recognition [that it is] a difficult job, better wages, and better hours.”

On January 31, the PTB said, “We are not machines. We want respect. For our work. And for our patients, our residents, our little ones..[we want] respect, time, and human and financial resources.”

“Care is not assembly line work. It is human labor. So, all [workers] ask for is: a decent work pace, better wages, better career endings. They have our full support,” the party added.

Julien Hannotte Morais from the leadership of the Communist Party of Belgium (PCB) told Peoples Dispatch that “after the COVID-19 crisis the workers in the non-profit sectors faced several difficulties with not enough people and materials; they keep struggling for more workers in healthcare, rest houses, nurseries, better conditions, and higher wages.”

Source: Peoples Dispatch

The chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, called for members of the U.S.-led military alliance to shift to a “war economy” in order to “increase the production in the defense industry.”

Left unsaid is that a “war economy” means austerity. A “war economy” is the NATO countries’ answer to the cost-of-living crisis sweeping Europe.

“We have to increase defense industry production and there are already more and more talks on the subject at the national level. This could mean prioritizing certain raw materials, certain production capacities needed for the defense industry rather than the civilian one. Those priorities should be discussed about, partially, a war economy in peacetime,” Bauer said in an interview with Portuguese television RTP broadcast on Jan. 28.

To carry out a war on Russia, Bauer continued, “we need to increase the production in the defense industry,” citing the wartime measures taken by the United States during World War II. 

Bauer added: “In the first four years in the United States in the Second World War, in the Ford factories, there was no civilian cars made, but only military production. … And that is, in a way, talking about a wartime economy,”

The war buildup was also reflected in the Czech Republic, where retired NATO General Petr Pavel has taken over as president. The BBC calls Pavel “a firm advocate of Czech membership of NATO and the EU.”

Bauer’s “war economy” tirade came just two days after U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified at a Jan. 26 Senate hearing. Nuland positively celebrated the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines due to a sabotage attack on Sept. 26 last year.

Replying to a question from Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Nuland said: “Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

Many believe that the U.S. was behind the destruction of the pipelines. For example, a top U.N. adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said of the attacks: “The main fact is that the European economy is getting hammered by this, by the sudden cut-off of energy. And now, to make it definitive – the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, which I would bet was a U.S. action, perhaps U.S. and Poland. … 

“I know this runs counter to our narrative — you aren’t allowed to say these things in the West, but the fact of the matter is all over the world, when I talk to people, they think the U.S. did it. “

NATO: an imperialist alliance

When Lenin wrote his pamphlet “Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism” in 1916, the world had a handful of imperialist countries — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. Britain was the leading imperialist power then, the empire on which the sun never set.

Since 1945, world capitalism has been politically and militarily dominated by the U.S. empire. Now they say the sun never sets on the U.S. empire. In addition to the United States, there are the imperialist satellite countries — Britain, Germany, France, Japan. As in Lenin’s time, these satellite imperialist countries extract super-profits from the oppressed countries.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the original basis for the NATO alliance no longer exists. The European satellite imperialists don’t need NATO. But the U.S. needs NATO. U.S. finance capital needs NATO in order to assert its interests on the European continent.

“The war in Ukraine is a lucrative cash cow for the U.S. ‘merchants of death,’” writes Professor Joseph Siracusa.

“European officials are accusing the U.S. of making war profits from the conflict, especially in the energy and defense sectors,” Siracusa continues. “All the while, they say, Europe is suffering.”

Politico reports: “Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer.

“‘The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more [natural] gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,’ one senior official told Politico.”

The U.S.-NATO proxy war on Russia, Politico adds, “is tipping European economies into recession, with inflation rocketing and a devastating squeeze on energy supplies threatening blackouts and rationing this winter.”

The cost-of-living crisis, as it is known across Europe, the austerity and cutbacks, have sparked a working-class upsurge. In France on Jan. 19 and Jan. 31, some 2 million workers participated in nationwide demonstrations and strikes.

In Britain, there’s been the greatest drop in living standards on record. The Financial Times reports, “Last year the lowest-earning bracket of British households had a standard of living that was 20% weaker than their counterparts in Slovenia.”

On Jan. 31, the biggest day of industrial action in over a decade, around half a million workers joined a mass strike. Thousands of schools were closed — about 85% of schools in England and Wales were said to be affected — and most trains in England were not running. The Daily Mail described “Walkout Wednesday” as a general strike in all but name.

Workers in Britain have been staging mass strikes since last summer — and since then, the scale of the strikes has only escalated.

Sam Marcy, a leading Marxist thinker and fighter of the second half of the 20th century, died 25 years ago on Feb. 1, 1998. To mark the occasion, Struggle-La Lucha is publishing a selection of Marcy’s articles that demonstrate the breadth and depth of his analysis and strategic thought on behalf of the workers and oppressed, while also providing insight into today’s struggles.

Marcy delivered the following statement on May 4, 1994, to a session of the International Seminar of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations in Brussels, Belgium.

We are submitting this statement in the hope it will contribute to a fuller discussion of the basic issue for our epoch — namely, what is the meaning of the collapse of the USSR?

There can be no question that this is the most important of all political issues. It would serve no purpose to shove it under the rug, even if that could be done, because the imperialist bourgeoisie and their kept press and media will invariably bring it up again and again. The movement would be defenseless without a thought-out approach to combat the propaganda of the bourgeoisie and their social-democratic helpers.

It is first necessary to understand that the contemporary struggle reduces itself in essence to a struggle between two diametrically opposed social systems based on two mutually antagonistic class structures.

It is impossible to have a discussion about the class struggle and the road to socialism unless we have some definite, although unfinished, view of Russia today and of how the greatest and most profound social and political revolution has been undone.

It would be most unfortunate if the discussion reduced itself to merely a defense of the positions of Stalin, Trotsky, Mao or others. Their importance in the historic evolution of the communist movement will not suffer if we proceed according to an evaluation of political and theoretical concepts, rather than the individual leaders who may stand for them. To do otherwise is not worthy of revolutionary communists who are seriously attempting to find their way out of the catastrophic predicament in which all socialists and revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in particular find themselves today.

Attributing the catastrophic destruction of the USSR solely to the policies of individual leaders, or even to a collection of them, is contrary to the materialist interpretation of history.

The ancient slave system, for example, produced many brilliant leaders. The bourgeois historians attribute the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to the fault of these leaders.

But what do Marxists say about the relation of these leaders to the ancient Roman and Greek empires? That slavery was becoming an outmoded social system. It was not the leaders who caused the collapse of these empires. It was the decay of slavery.

Bourgeois historiography puts the subjective causes first. They regard slavery, feudalism and especially capitalism as eternal categories. But the internal struggles of the leaders, the murders, the poisonings, all this symbolized the decay of the institution of slavery.

Nevertheless, we don’t want to deny the role of leadership. Leadership is crucial when the objective situation is ripe.

But leadership is not a substitute for the class. All history attests to that.

According to Marxist doctrine, no social system ever passes away without first fully exhausting its possibilities. The USSR had not exhausted its possibilities for growth. Its growth was aborted by a combination of internal corrosion and external pressures.

Does the collapse of the USSR undermine the nature of the contemporary struggle in capitalist society?

Of course, the overthrow of the Soviet Union enormously strengthened the power of capital all over the world, if only by virtue of the fact that it removed an enormous source of revolutionary energy, encouragement and material aid to the proletariat, oppressed peoples and all socialist countries.

Nevertheless, it must be very clearly affirmed that the nature of the class struggle as outlined by Marx in the Communist Manifesto remains wholly valid today.

The inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat on a world scale remains valid, despite the defeat in the USSR.

The main thing is to identify the basic forces in contemporary society. These still are the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. And what Marx said about them in 1848 is still basically true.

Should we return to Marx’s concept of the class struggle as outlined in the Communist Manifesto? That would also entail and fortify an understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the rule of the workers and oppressed masses.

The need is for all revolutionary communists to unite on the basis of a common struggle against capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression. It is not necessary for any grouping to abandon its propaganda in support of the views of individual leaders.

What is needed is the broadest united front of revolutionary communist groupings, as long as they adhere to the spirit of revolutionary class struggle as generally promoted by Lenin in his writings on admission to the Communist International.

In the course of further discussion, we will surely find out where we stand and how to continue the struggle for revolutionary Marxism-Leninism in this very difficult period.

The name of Lenin is a kind of synonym for revolutionary class struggle. The failure to agree on that is in reality a line of demarcation between communism and social democracy, with its various hues.

It would be a great achievement to be able to set aside secondary aspects and unite on the general understanding of the nature of our epoch and the tasks of the working class and the oppressed masses.

We must affirm in the strongest terms that the present expansionist period of U.S. monopoly capital is the most dangerous and aggressive since the collapse of the USSR. But the disintegration of the socialist camp does not necessarily add up to permanent stability for imperialism. It is unable to stabilize itself and the unbridled forces of capitalist production lead it inevitably into a new crisis.

What the collapse of the USSR confirms is that the world center of economic activity is and has remained in the imperialist countries — the “West” — whereas the revolutionary center of gravity has been in the “East” — the oppressed nations of the world, the bulk of humanity.

But today the material foundations are being laid for a return of revolutionary activity to the West.

The further development of monopoly capitalism in this stage will inevitably produce devastating convulsions within the imperialist system.

The present so-called capitalist prosperity in the United States, which the Clinton administration in particular is so boastful of, rests on a decrepit foundation. It conceals the extent of capitalist overproduction and the enormous debt that U.S. capitalist expansion has incurred.

For the moment, the analysts of imperialist finance capital have neglected to call this to the attention of the broad public. Such revelations coming at a time of high confidence could prove devastating to the so-called financial community.

It may be 1929 all over again. Whether this period is of a shorter or longer duration is impossible to say. What we have to prepare for is the next phase in this development. We must not be caught off guard.

Holding a firm position on the nature of monopoly capitalism — which, as Lenin pointed out, is really the precursor for socialist revolution — we can only view the future with confidence.

Source: Marxists Internet Archive

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On Jan. 29, a cold but sunny Saturday, organizations and individuals from across Baltimore city gathered at the corner of North and Charles streets to protest the brutal murder of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the Memphis Police Department. 

The protestors, numbered around 60, demanded justice for Tyre Nichols and the speedy conviction of his murderers. More broadly, the demonstration demanded justice for all victims of racist police terror, community control of the police, and the abolition of mass incarceration. 

Peoples Power Assembly and the Socialist Unity Party worked with community leaders like Rev. Annie Chambers, Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, and Towanda Jones to organize the emergency protest. 

All three gave tremendous speeches. Towanda Jones told the story of her brother, Tyrone West, who the police murdered in a very similar fashion to Tyre Nichols. These were both young Black men, both tragically and brutally beaten to death by cops. 

Jones demanded that no more suffer at the hands of racist policing: no more stories like Nichols or her brother. She raised a demand to open and investigate all local police killings where racist David Fowler was the medical examiner of record. 

Rev. Chambers and local trans activist Ellie McCrow raised the case of the 15-year-old squeegee worker who is being prosecuted for defending himself against a 48-year-old bat-swinging bigot. Both highlighted the need to fight for Black lives, as well as condemn racist police murders. 

Marvin “Doc” Cheatham highlighted the food desert crisis that deepens every day in Baltimore city. Doc again demanded that closing supermarkets be replaced and that the Black community be granted equal access to food. In reality, the deepening of food deserts is simply a form of apartheid. 

All the while, protestors chanted slogans such as “Jail killer cops now,” “Justice for Tyre Nichols! Say his name,” and, “No justice – no peace! No racist police!”

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Appeal to the World’s Conscience by the Network in Defense of Humanity

When many thought that the bitter lessons of the pandemic would lead political leaders to try to build a more caring, inclusive and generous world, exactly the opposite has happened. Perhaps there is truth in the rumor that this attitude is due to their aim of reducing the world’s population by 25%.

A war of unforeseeable consequences has broken out, amid the avalanche of lies spread through the media and social networks, and pressures from powerful forces opposed to any attempt to achieve peace. Sensible voices warn about the danger of a nuclear conflict and go unheeded, while the arms industry, bellicose speeches and the stimulation of fascism and xenophobia grow.

Other voices, equally unheeded, speak of famine and an imminent humanitarian catastrophe due to the uncontrolled rise in the prices of food, oil, gas, export and import operations and many vital services. The main victims will be the hundreds of millions of poor people barely surviving in subhuman conditions.

At the same time, the environmental crisis is worsening alarmingly, and the agreements and negotiations to halt the collapse of the planet are not only far from approaching the measures that urgently need to be adopted, but the issue is increasingly absent from political discourse and from media consortiums.

Meanwhile, a reinterpretation of fascism is being encouraged as a salvation plank in the face of the increasingly radical demands of the sectors excluded by capital; this is becoming more visible in the United States, in Europe and in various Latin American countries, as could be seen on Nov. 18-19, in an event of the international ultra-right in Mexico, convened by the Political Conference of Conservative Action, with the virtual or face-to-face participation of extremist figures of the new fascism. This reinterpretation is also presented as an urgent necessity to put an end to the supposedly disintegrating threats of a “communism” presented as cartoonish, immoral, destroyer of the family and of Christian values.

Today, social media plays a decisive role in manipulating the emotions and perception of reality of millions of human beings. Hate groups, racist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, and ultra-nationalist, proliferate on them, presenting themselves to young people as bearers of “new,” “modern,” “virile” messages, proper to the “victors.”

In this role of limiting the exercise of critical thinking and distorting the very meaning of the concept of democracy, the big corporate media, commercial advertising and the hegemonic entertainment industry also play a highly effective role.

Never before has the effort to erase or distort historical memory been so advanced. Never have we suffered such a devastating cultural and ethical crisis, which has mixed what is worthwhile, what we should preserve, love and remember, with a deluge of frivolous, irrelevant, “fun” messages. Never has culture been so degraded to mere merchandise, to mere empty pastime. Never has the colonial presence in our lives and in our subjectivity been so overwhelming. Never has the cultural hegemony of a small group of corporations that obtain multi-million-dollar profits while defending the interests of the system gone so far.

The Network in Defense of Humanity calls on all people who love peace and life to unite their voices to stop barbarism. All doors have not been closed. Power, no matter how absolute, has not succeeded in silencing the cry of the oppressed and, on the contrary, it has always been the people who survive empires. History shows that the greater their radicalism, the nearer their end. Today, a multipolar world is emerging, as evidenced by the desperation of the United States and its European allies in the face of what this world means for the maintenance of their hegemony.

Let us join our efforts so that there will never again be hegemony in the world. Let us validate and defend our cultural diversity against the pretension of subsuming ourselves in the consumerist monotony. Humanity is all peoples.

Therefore, let us say as the great troubadour Alí Primera claimed in his song “El despertar de la Historia” (“The Awakening of History”):

Help her, help her

Let humanity be human…

V International Conference for World Balance, Havana, Cuba, Jan. 24-28, 2023

Source: Network in Defense of Humanity

Llamamiento a la conciencia del mundo por la Red en Defensa de la Humanidad

Cuando muchos pensaron que las lecciones tan amargas de la pandemia llevarían a los líderes políticos a tratar de construir un mundo más solidario, más inclusivo y generoso, ha ocurrido exactamente lo contrario. Quizás sea cierto el rumor de que esa actitud obedece a su pretensión de reducir en un 25 % la población mundial.

Estalló una guerra de consecuencias imprevisibles, en medio de la avalancha de mentiras difundida a través de los medios y las redes sociales, y de presiones de fuerzas poderosas que se oponen a cualquier tentativa por lograr la paz. Voces sensatas advierten sobre el peligro de un conflicto nuclear y son desoídas, mientras crecen la industria armamentista, los discursos belicosos y la estimulación del fascismo y la xenofobia.

Otras voces, igualmente desoídas, hablan de hambruna y de una inminente catástrofe humanitaria por el alza incontrolada de los precios de los alimentos, del petróleo, del gas, de las operaciones de exportación e importación y de muchos servicios vitales. Las principales víctimas serán los cientos de millones de pobres que sobreviven en condiciones infrahumanas.

Se agudiza simultáneamente, de modo alarmante, la crisis medioambiental, y los acuerdos y negociaciones para frenar el colapso del planeta no sólo están lejos de acercarse a las medidas que habría que adoptar con urgencia, sino que el tema está cada vez más ausente del discurso político y de los consorcios mediáticos.

Al propio tiempo, se alienta una reinterpretación del fascismo como tabla de salvación frente a los cada vez más radicales reclamos de los sectores excluidos por el capital; lo  que se hace más visible en los Estados Unidos, en Europa y en diversos países latinoamericanos; tal como pudo verse los días 18 y 19 de noviembre, en un evento de la ultraderecha internacional en México, convocado por la Conferencia Política de Acción Conservadora, con la participación virtual o presencial de figuras extremistas del nuevo fascismo. Esta reinterpretación es presentada, además, como una urgente necesidad para poner punto final a las supuestas amenazas desintegradoras de un “comunismo” presentado como caricaturesco, inmoral, destructor de la familia y de los valores cristianos.

Hoy las redes sociales desempeñan un papel decisivo en la manipulación de las emociones y de la percepción de la realidad de millones de seres humanos. Proliferan en ellas los grupos de odio, racistas, misóginos, homófobos, antiinmigrantes, ultranacionalistas, que se presentan ante los jóvenes como portadores de mensajes “nuevos”, “modernos”, “viriles”, propios de los “vencedores”.

Se suman con gran eficacia en este papel de limitar el ejercicio del pensamiento crítico y distorsionar el sentido mismo del concepto de democracia, los grandes medios coreporativos, la publicidad comercial y la industria hegemónica del entretenimiento.

Nunca había avanzado tanto el empeño por borrar o distorsionar la memoria histórica. Nunca habíamos sufrido una crisis cultural y ética tan devastadora, que ha mezclado aquello que vale la pena, aquello que deberíamos preservar, querer y recordar, con un diluvio de mensajes frívolos, irrelevantes, “divertidos”. Nunca la cultura había sido tan degradada a mera mercancía, a mero pasatiempo vacío. Nunca ha sido tan abrumadora la presencia colonial en nuestras vidas y en nuestra subjetividad. Nunca había llegado tan lejos la hegemonía cultural de un pequeño grupo de corporaciones que obtiene ganancias multimillonarias mientras defiende los intereses del sistema.

La Red en defensa de la Humanidad convoca a todas las personas amantes de la paz y de la vida a unir sus voces para detener la barbarie. Nunca se cierran todas las puertas. Nunca el poder, por absoluto que sea, ha logrado silenciar el grito de los oprimidos y, por el contrario, siempre han sido los pueblos los que sobreviven a los imperios. La historia muestra que mientras mayor es la radicalidad de estos, más cercano está su final. Hoy, un mundo multipolar se está abriendo paso y lo prueba el desespero de Estados Unidos y sus aliados europeos ante lo que este mundo significa para el mantenimiento de su hegemonía.

Sumemos nuestros esfuerzos para que nunca más haya un hegemón en el mundo. Validemos y defendamos nuestra diversidad cultural frente a la pretensión de subsumirnos en la monotomía consumista. La humanidad somos todos los pueblos.

Por eso digamos como reclamó el gran trovador Alí Primera, en su canción “El despertar de la Historia”:

Ayúdenla, ayúdenla

Que sea humana la humanidad…

V Conferencia Internacional por el Equilibrio del Mundo, La Habana, Cuba, 24-28 de enero de 2023

Fuente: Red en Defensa de la Humanidad

Sam Marcy, a leading Marxist thinker and fighter of the second half of the 20th century, died 25 years ago on Feb. 1, 1998. To mark the occasion, Struggle-La Lucha is publishing a selection of Marcy’s articles that demonstrate the breadth and depth of his analysis and strategic thought on behalf of the workers and oppressed, while also providing insight into today’s struggles.

Dec. 15, 1994 — The movement of the working class originated more than 150 years ago. We are the inheritors of not only the ideology but also the traditions of revolutionary Marxism.

Our basic aim since the formation of the party has been to resuscitate, revive and continue under new conditions the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

In this historic struggle for socialism, there have been two great and undeviating tendencies. They become evident, in one form or another, in every continent and every country.

This struggle is over what tactics and strategy to employ. In Europe, one tendency in the socialist movement was led by Auguste Blanqui in France. The other was carried out later and with great success by Karl Marx.

The proletarian movement has to review its historical heritage and go back to its roots to understand the complexities of modern imperialism.

There are new forms of colonialism, a new rise of all sorts of oppression under capitalism, and a growing inevitability of imperialist conflicts, not only against the proletariat and oppressed peoples, but also among themselves.

Theory and action

Blanqui, unlike Marx, believed it wasn’t necessary to theorize. Theoretical conceptions are fine, he said, but are not the motor force of the struggle. He stood for action — not by the masses but by a small group of knowledgeable, dedicated and revolutionary leaders intent on overthrowing the capitalist system.

His view was that all the workers’ struggles, some of which Marx had already explained and written about, ended up in failure because of the leadership’s lack of determination and ability to master the art of conspiracy against the capitalist class.

The masses are great, he said, but need leaders. Sometimes what has to be done to overturn the capitalist class need not necessarily be explained to the masses. Small groups of dedicated and revolutionary leaders must be educated and prepared; and it is they who, by their vision and ability, will overturn the capitalist system.

This view is sometimes popularly known as “getting a few good men together” — never even thinking of mentioning women. The view may sound archaic, but nevertheless, it has prevailed for a long time. Think of the many coups d’etat of both a progressive and reactionary character that have taken place in our epoch.

But even progressive coups, with all their fervor, their dedication, have been unable to overturn the capitalist system in any modern capitalist country.

Blanqui would have been regarded as ridiculous were he not such a capable organizer. His “man of action” became a symbol for struggle rather than for prayer or theorizing.

Lenin on Blanqui

It was in the struggle between Marxism and Blanquism that Bolshevism was born. The old socialist movement had completely discarded any aspect of Blanqui’s teaching on organizing smaller groups or differentiating between the great mass of the people and the more educated, developed smaller groups.

In the old socialist and working-class parties in Europe, there was no clear-cut difference between the leadership and the masses. The leaders were selected from the masses. Blanqui’s view was that it was a task of the small group not only to give leadership but to do it with firmness, not to hesitate.

Blanquism was the theory of readiness, the vision of overthrowing capitalism not by legal or electoral means but by conspiracy.

Any number of conspiracies took place in old Europe. They overturned this or that government. But they didn’t overturn the system.

Marxism had to take from Blanquism everything that was progressive and necessary and discard what was not useful. At the same time, it had to discard what was old and inapplicable in the old socialist movement.

This was the task of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. They took the theoretical basis of Marxism and used it to educate the masses on the necessity for insurrection.

Before Lenin, insurrection was not regarded by the socialist movement as either necessary or desirable. The social-democratic parties were dependent exclusively on the electoral process.

Blanquism has to be distinguished from the old utopian movement, which was also fervently for socialism and for the masses — but had no vision of how it could be won, except by convincing the individual capitalists of the need to discard the system of capitalist oppression and institute the socialist system.

The ideas of the old utopian socialists were not practical. The ideas of Blanquism were more attractive to the young. But at the same time they could not overturn the capitalist system.

We have to bring this up because of the way the modern capitalist system is developing at this time.

What’s next in the U.S.?

In the modern-day U.S., what prevails is not the ideology of Blanqui or of Marx, but outright bourgeois ideology.

But the system is rapidly coming to a point of great crisis, and it is necessary for us to review our heritage to understand the forthcoming period. It is necessary not merely to anticipate a revolutionary struggle but to prepare for it.

In Marx’s time, and even in Lenin’s, the trade unions were considered the fundamental organ whereby the working class could organize itself. But the intervention of the world war showed that the slow process of winning the allegiance of the working class was illusory.

No matter how dedicated or strong, a party like the German Social Democratic party would fail in the end, unless it had a revolutionary perspective of overthrowing the capitalist system, not hesitating to use force and violence when that became necessary. That aspect was not well understood by the other European parties in Lenin’s time — only after the October Revolution in Russia.

Today, many of the ideas proposed to solve capitalism’s ills sound utopian in the old sense. They cannot overcome the system.

It is quite likely that as soon as a struggle breaks out, it will produce a modern version of Blanquism, not only among the youth but in major organizations of the working class. One must consider the devastating and annihilating violence the state could conduct against the working class, and most often against Black and Latino and other oppressed nationalities.

Our movement has to go back somewhat to an earlier epoch in order to understand what is developing in capitalist society today. We are witnessing a slow and gradual development. It seems that the revolutionary struggle is distant.

But we know that a capitalist crisis, especially a severe one, immediately brings into being dozens of organizations with the most fantastic ideas on how to undo the capitalist crisis. Some lead to attempting a violent overthrow without the necessary preparation of the working class as the principal instrument for overcoming capitalist exploitation.

In the coming struggle, we would have to pay attention to a possible Blanquist variant. But we would not be able to influence it unless our party itself is most vigorous, most relentless and most uncompromising in the struggle against capitalism and imperialism, of which, of course, racism is such a fundamental aspect.

We have to prepare ourselves not only in the sense of gathering more forces but seeing what the future may hold ideologically. Our party has to restudy the basic classics of Marxism and go back to the theory and tactics that Lenin employed.

What to do next

The art of revolutionary politics is knowing what to do next. It is okay to theorize about fascism or the strength of the right-wing. But our organization differs from a debating society. We must take a firm, indeed revolutionary, stance.

We are faced with the growing prospect of right-wing conspiracy on the part of big business and multinational corporations. They have taken the first step. This Rep. Newt Gingrich is a representative of it, and there are others — but that’s not the main thing.

Individuals can change, but the ruling class’s trend is toward repression, solidifying in the most undemocratic way possible its control over the resources of the country and indeed of the globe. U.S. imperialism is on the march everywhere. The devastating results fall on the backs of the workers at home as well.

What do we do? We know the right wing is moving, and that there is only a thin difference between the right and the ultra-right.

One of the great lessons of the 1930s was Leon Trotsky’s writings on the question of how to fight fascism. He stressed how important it is not to overlook what is happening, how it is possible to lose the historic moment and allow the ruling class to be victorious.

He delineated in a dramatic and readable way the steps that led to the victory of fascism in Germany.

In the U.S. at that time, there were only the beginnings of fascist groupings. No sooner did the wave of reaction sweeping Europe reach these shores than the great sit-down strikes among the workers wiped them out completely.

They were never able to get a foothold among the workers. The myriad of small fascist groups were washed away by the upsurge of the working class.

That is the surest way to end any fascist attempt to establish itself as a political force over the working class.

There’s been no experience here with fascism on a mass scale. So we are basically looking at a theoretical and ideological discussion.

Our task is not to wait until things happen, in which case you can be absolutely sure the liberal bourgeoisie as well as certain sections of the big bourgeoisie will get into it. Right now, the working class is either indifferent or apathetic in this great struggle.

The possibility for the growth of neofascism, if you can call it that, and for political reaction generally is in the soil because monopoly is growing. The contradiction between the forms of capitalist production and the forms of capitalist distribution grows wider and wider.

The struggle among the imperialist nations grows sharper. There is no tendency toward political equilibrium there.

None of the small countries that were actual colonies and became independent has shown any move toward economic independence. They would like to do it but cannot because of the monstrous growth and position of the big banks and corporations over the entire planet.

It is impossible for a small country to attain complete independence and at the same time grow economically strong and powerful. Not even Cuba can do that. We are all happy at the way it has conducted itself and won a position in world affairs and at home, but it is at great economic cost. Trying to get out of it little by little is difficult.

Cuba should be able to look toward an emancipated working class in the U.S. to help it. That’s our job.

Opportunity for a mass struggle

The right wing is on the march in the United States. But we now have a golden opportunity to intervene in the capitalist political process in a way we never have before.

We can become the most formidable representatives of the working class in the struggle against political reaction, if we build beginning with what we have.

A whole world of struggle awaits us. The false opposition, the false messiahs of struggle who are actually capitulators, are not yet on the scene. We have a clear road.

We are on the right path if we undertake a genuine, broad national opposition to the right wing and political reaction in general. It doesn’t mean we leave the liberals off the hook. It doesn’t mean we concentrate only on Gingrich or the others. It means we intensify our theoretical and political work.

We need to show where this country is moving, where the capitalist class is leading it, what the tendencies in it are, what the dangers are. We need an outpouring of the workers and oppressed masses. We need to prepare for that.

And we’re in better shape because the liberal bourgeoisie is asleep and afraid. A part of it becomes ultra-militant and revolutionary after we start doing things, but for the time being they are asleep.

We need to organize ourselves and make this the top priority in the organization and for our party.

We cannot start a serious campaign in the struggle against the far right without funds. We need full-time organizers, foot soldiers who can leave their jobs and go places and do things. The struggle can only come as a result of deeper self-sacrifice. The party needs a fighting fund of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We have to expand before the storm comes. Our own resources are relatively small but will grow as the struggle widens and deepens.

We can go to the masses and promote tremendous activity to challenge the capitalist class. We needn’t be fearful about going beyond the legal limits that the bourgeoisie constrains us to. On a picket line you never know when you’re going to get arrested, but you don’t say, “Don’t have the picket line.” That kind of talk leads to failure.

We are taking on the greatest capitalist enemy. They have a president but they are having second thoughts about him.

Clinton isn’t any different than earlier Democratic presidents. What is different is the situation of the bourgeoisie. They push one right-wing economic and political measure after another. And he is not a president to resist.

Should a capitalist economic crisis break out, it would accentuate the political crisis. If it catches us by surprise and we do not have an apparatus out in the field, then our hopes for building a strong and revolutionary organization will be considerably diminished until the next opportunity comes.

In the 1930s, the Communist Party and other organizations were very conscious of the growth of fascism. But to a large extent they were trying to win the big bourgeoisie to support the struggle against it.

There is nothing wrong with asking them to support the struggle against fascism, but it’s another thing to expect it from them. We have to explain this to the most oppressed and persecuted people, in the Black and Native and Latino districts. Fascism should not be an after-dinner conversation with bourgeois liberals.

The struggle against the far right and the struggle against racism are intimately interlocked.

We have to get our paper and our literature into the hands of thousands of workers. And to do that we need organizers.

We have to counteract the inroads of the capitalist monopolies. We have to support strikes and fight lockouts by employers. We have to redouble our activities on all fronts.

Marxism is as Marxism does. It is not merely an exposition of the tendencies in capitalist society that inevitably lead it to destruction. It is also a means for arming the workers and oppressed people on how to proceed in the next period.

Are we mainly directing our attention to the program of the right-wing Republicans? No. We shouldn’t leave the other Republicans and the Democrats off the hook.

To make it very clear, our struggle against the right wing is an extension of our general program and not some new development on our part. We are going to conduct a revolutionary and working-class struggle in the way we have conducted them before, with greater emphasis on developing an initiative in the struggle against the right wing and the neo-fascist tendencies that may spring up now and then.

Source: Marxists Internet Archive