Tag Archives: democratic revolution

Multipolarity, the Mantra of Authoritarianism (reprinted from ‘The India Forum: a journal-magazine on contemporary issues’ (December 2022)

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I just wish the term ‘pseudo-left’ would be used instead of ‘Left’. Those who support the autocrats and fascists against the people struggling for democracy can never be regarded as on the left, no matter how they might self-identify.

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Multipolarity,

the Mantra of Authoritarianism

The Left’s advocacy for ‘multipolarity’ against a US-led unipolar order has, in effect, defended authoritarianism across the world. The Left must reflect on how its language enables such regimes.

KAVITA KRISHNAN

DECEMBER 20, 2022

Multipolarity is the compass orienting the Left’s understanding of international relations. All streams of the Left in India and globally have for long advocated for a multipolar world as opposed to a unipolar one dominated by the imperialist USA.

At the same time, multipolarity has become the keystone of the shared language of global fascisms and authoritarianisms. It is a rallying cry for despots, that serves to dress up their war on democracy as a war on imperialism. The deployment of multipolarity to disguise and legitimise despotism is immeasurably enabled by the ringing endorsement by the global Left of multipolarity as a welcome expression of anti-imperialist democratisation of international relations.

By framing its response to political confrontations within or between nation states as a zero-sum option between endorsing multipolarity or unipolarity, the Left perpetuates a fiction that even at its best, was always misleading and inaccurate. But this fiction is positively dangerous today, serving solely as a narrative and dramatic device to cast fascists and authoritarians in flattering roles.

The unfortunate consequences of the Left’s commitment to a value-free multipolarity are illustrated very starkly in the case of its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The global and the Indian Left have legitimised and amplified (to varying degrees) Russian fascist discourse, by defending the invasion as a multipolar challenge to US-led unipolar imperialism.

The freedom to be fascist

On 30 September, while announcing the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, Russian President Vladimir Putin spelt out what multipolarity and democracy meant in his ideological framework. He defined multipolarity as freedom from the attempts by Western elites to establish their own ‘degraded’ values of democracy and human rights as universal values; values ‘alien’ to the vast majority of people in the West and elsewhere.

Putin’s rhetorical ploy was to declare that the concepts of a rules-based order, democracy, and justice are nothing more than ideological and imperialist impositions by the West, serving merely as pretexts to violate the sovereignty of other nations.

As Putin played to the justifiable outrage at the long list of crimes by Western countries – including colonialism, imperialism, invasions, occupations, genocides, and coups – it was easy to forget that his was not a speech demanding justice and reparations and an end to these crimes. In fact, by asserting the self-evident fact that the Western governments did not have “any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about democracy,” Putin skilfully cut people out of the equation.

People of the colonised nations are the ones who fought and continue to fight for freedom. People of the imperialist nations come on the streets to demand democracy and justice, and protest racism, wars, invasions, occupations committed by their own governments. But Putin was not supporting these people.

…[B]y asserting the self-evident fact that the Western governments did not have “any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about democracy”, Putin skilfully cuts people out of the equation.

Rather, Putin has signalled “like-minded” forces all over the world — far-right, white-supremacist, racist, anti-feminist, homophobic and transphobic political movements — to support the invasion, as part of a project advantageous to them all: of overturning the “unipolar hegemony” of universal values of democracy and human rights and “to gain true freedom, a historical perspective.”

Putin uses a “historical perspective” of his own choice to support a supremacist version of a Russian “country-civilisation” where laws dehumanise LGBT persons and where references to historical events are criminalised in the name of “strengthening (Russia’s) sovereignty.” He asserts Russia’s freedom to deny and defy the democratic norms and international laws defined “universally” by bodies like the United Nations. The project of “Eurasian integration,” which Putin projects as a multipolar challenge to the “imperialist” EU and western unipolarity, can be properly understood only as a part of his explicitly anti-democratic ideological and political project. (It is another matter that the aspect of competition between the US and Russia as Big Powers, is complicated here by the shared political project represented by Trump in the US and Putin in Russia. 

A common language 

The language of ‘multipolarity’ and ‘anti-imperialism’ also finds resonance in Chinese hyper-nationalist totalitarianism. 

A joint statement by Putin and Xi in February, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, stated their shared rejection of universally accepted standards of democracy and human rights, in favour of culturally relativist definitions of these terms: “A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its […] traditions and unique cultural characteristics […] It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one.” These ideas were explicitly credited by the statement to “the efforts taken by the Russian side to establish a just multipolar system of international relations.”

For Xi, the “’universal values’ of freedom, democracy, and human rights were used to cause the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, the ‘colour revolution,’ and the ‘Arab Springs’, all caused by the intervention of the US and the West.” Any people’s movement that demands widely accepted human rights and democracy, is treated as an inherently illegitimate imperialist colour revolution.

The demand for a democracy meeting universal standards, raised by protesters in the China-wide movement against repression in the name of “Zero-Covid”, is significant in light of the culturally relativist standards favoured by the government of China. A White Paper in 2021, on “China’s Approach to Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights” defined human rights as “happiness” thanks to welfare and benefits, not as protections from unbridled government power. It conspicuously omits the right to question the government, dissent, or organise freely.

Defining “China-specific” democracy as “good governance” and human rights as “happiness” allows Xi to justify the suppression of the Uyghur Muslims. His claim is that concentration camps to “re-educate” these minorities and remould their practice of Islam so that it is “Chinese in orientation”, has provided “good governance” and greater “happiness”.

Even amongst the Hindu-supremacist leadership in India, there are strong echoes of the fascist and authoritarian discourse of a “multipolar world” – where civilisational powers will rise again to reassert their old imperialist glory, and the hegemony of liberal democracy will give way for right-wing nationalism.

Mohan Bhagwat, head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said admiringly that “in a multipolar world” that challenges the US, “China has now risen. It is not bothered about what the world thinks about it. It is pursuing its goal… (returning to the) expansionism of its past emperors.” Likewise, “In the multipolar world now, Russia is also playing its game. It is trying to progress by suppressing the West.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi too has repeatedly attacked human rights defenders as anti-Indian even as he declares India is the “mother of democracy.” This is made possible by viewing India’s democracy not through a “western” lens but as part of its “civilisational ethos.”A note circulated by the government links India’s democracy with “Hindu culture and civilisation,” “Hindu political theory”, “Hindu state”, and traditional (and often regressive) caste councils that enforce caste and gender hierarchies.

Such ideas also reflect attempts to incorporate Hindu-supremacists into a global network of far-right and authoritarian forces. The Russian fascist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin (much like Putin) states that “Multipolarity […] advocates a return to the civilizational foundations of each non-western civilization (and a rejection of) liberal democracy and human rights ideology.”

Modi has repeatedly attacked human rights defenders as anti-Indian while declaring that India is the “mother of democracy”, and India’s democracy must been viewed not through a “western” lens but as part of its “civilisational ethos.”

The influence goes both ways. Dugin favours the caste hierarchy as a social model (Dugin 2012). Directly incorporating the brahminical Manusmriti’s values with international fascism, Dugin sees “the present order of things”, represented by “human rights, anti-hierarchy, and political correctness” as “Kali Yuga”: a calamity which brings with it the blending of castes (a miscegenation which in turn is brought about by women’s freedom, also a calamitous aspect of Kali Yuga) and the dismantling of hierarchy. He has described Modi’s electoral success as representing a victory for “multipolarity”, a welcome assertion of “Indian values,” and a defeat for the hegemony of “liberal democracy and human rights ideology.”

Yet the Left continues to use “multipolarity” without betraying the slightest awareness of how fascists and authoritarians couch their own aims in the same language.

Where left meets right

Putin’s language of “multipolarity” is meant to resonate with the global Left. Its comforting familiarity seems to prevent the Left – which always did an excellent job laying bare the lies underpinning the “saving democracy” claims of US imperialist warmongers – from applying the same critical lens to Putin’s anti-colonial and anti-imperialist rhetoric.

It is odd that the Left has made the language of polarity its own. The discourse of polarity belongs to the Realist school in international relations. Realism sees the global order in terms of the competition between the foreign policy objectives, assumed to reflect objective ‘national interests’, of a handful of ‘poles’ – Big Powers or aspiring Big Powers. Realism is fundamentally incompatible with the Marxist view which is premised on the understanding that ‘national interest’, far from being an objective and value-neutral fact, is defined subjectively by the “political (and therefore moral) character of the leadership strata that shapes and makes foreign policy decisions” (Vanaik 2006).

The CPI [ML] welcomes the rise of non-western Big Powers even if they are internally fascist or authoritarian, because it believes that these powers offer a multipolar challenge to US unipolarity.

For instance, Vijay Prashad, one of the most prominent enthusiasts and advocates on the global Left for multipolarity, approvingly observes that “Russia and China are seeking sovereignty, not global power.” He does not mention how these powers interpret sovereignty as freedom from accountability to universal standards of democracy, human rights, and equality.

A recent essay by Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (CPI [ML]) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya presents similar problems as it explains the party’s decision to balance solidarity with Ukraine with its preference for multipolarity and its national priority of resisting fascism in India. (Disclosure: I had been a CPI [ML] activist for three decades and a member of its Politbureau till I left the party earlier this year, due to differences that came to a head in the wake of the party’s lukewarm solidarity for Ukraine.)

Bhattacharya’s formulation is that “Regardless of the internal character of competing global powers, a multipolar world is certainly more advantageous to progressive forces and movements worldwide in their quest for reversal of neoliberal policies, social transformation and political advance.” To restate, the CPI [ML] welcomes the rise of non-western Big Powers even if they are internally fascist or authoritarian, because it believes that these powers offer a multipolar challenge to US unipolarity.

Such a Left formulation offers no resistance at all to the fascist/authoritarian projects which describe themselves as champions of anti-imperialist “multipolarity”. In fact it offers them a cloak of legitimacy.

Bhattacharya perceives whole-hearted support for Ukrainian resistance as difficult to reconcile with the “national priority” of “fighting fascism in India.” The understanding that the Left’s duties of international solidarity must defer to its perceived ‘national priority’, is a case of Marxist internationalism being muddied by Realist ‘national interest’, applied this time not only to nation states but to the national Left parties themselves.

But how is unstinting solidarity with Ukraine against a fascist invasion at odds with fighting fascism in India? Bhattacharya’s reasoning is forced, roundabout, and oblique. He takes a puzzling detour into the need for communist movements to beware of the dangers of “prioritizing the international at the expense of the national situation.” Bhattacharya inaccurately 1  attributes the Communist Party of India’s 1942 mistake of remaining aloof from the Quit India movement to its having prioritised its international commitment to the defeat of fascism in World War II, over its national commitment to overthrowing colonialism by Britain, which was then an ally in the war against fascism.

The only plausible purpose of this detour seems to be to make an analogy with the Indian Left’s current predicament vis a vis the invasion of Ukraine. Since the Narendra Modi regime’s primary foreign policy alliance is with the US-led West, it is suggested, the fight against Modi’s fascism would be weakened if Russia, a ‘multipolar’ rival of the US, was routed by the Ukrainian resistance.

Tyrannical regimes construe support for people resisting them, as support for foreign/imperialist “interference” in the “sovereignty” of those regimes.

This convoluted calculus obscures the simple fact: a defeat for Putin’s fascist invasion in Ukraine would embolden those fighting to defeat Modi’s fascism in India. Likewise, a victory for people resisting Xi’s majoritarian tyranny would inspire those resisting Modi’s majoritarian tyranny in India.

In the words of Martin Luther King Jr, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We weaken our own democratic struggles when we choose to view the struggles of others through a distorting campist lens. Ours is not a zero-sum choice between unipolarity versus multipolarity. In every situation, our choices are clear: we can either support the resistance and survival of the oppressed – or we can worry about the survival of the oppressor.

When the Left takes upon itself a ‘duty’ to support the survival of ‘multipolar’ regimes (in Russia, China, and for some on the Left, even Iran), it fails in its actual duty to support people fighting to survive genocide by these regimes. Any benefit the US might get from its material or military support to such struggles, is outweighed by far by the benefit of survival for people who would otherwise face genocide. We would do well to recall that US material and military support to the USSR in World War II played a part in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Tyrannical regimes construe support for people resisting them, as support for foreign or imperialist ‘interference’ in the ‘sovereignty’ of those regimes. When we on the Left do the same, we serve as enablers and apologists for those tyrannies. Those in life-or-death struggles need us to respect their autonomy and sovereignty to decide what kind of moral/material/military support to demand/accept/reject. The moral compass of the global and Indian Left needs an urgent reset, so that it can correct its disastrous course that finds it on speaking the same language as tyrants.

Kavita Krishnan is a Marxist feminist activist and author. 

This article was last updated on December 23, 2022

The India Forum

The India Forum welcomes your comments on this article for the Forum/Letters section.
Write to: editor@theindiaforum.in

References

Dugin, Aleksandr. The Fourth Political Theory. London: Arktos 2012.

Vanaik, Achin. “National Interest: A Flawed Notion”. Economic and Political Weekly 41 (49). 9 Dec 2006.

Russian socialists support war on war… Support Ukraine!

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This is an excellent statement but I wish the term ‘pseudo-left’ had been used instead of ‘left’ for those who effectively side with Putin fascism and Russian aggression against the Ukrainian resistance. The conclusion is spot on: Any call for peace that does not include the demand for Russian withdrawal from Ukrainian territories is disingenuous.

We Say: War on War!

War in Ukraine / Statement by Russian Socialist Movement (emigration branch)

Friday, 17 February 2023 / Russian Socialist Movement (emigration branch)

For a year now, Vladimir Putin’s regime has been killing Ukrainians, sending hundreds of thousands of Russians to their deaths, and threatening the world with nuclear weapons in the name of the insane goal of restoring its empire.

For us Russians who oppose Putin’s aggression and dictatorship, it has been a year of horror and shame over the war crimes committed daily in our name.

On the one-year anniversary of this war, we call all those who yearn for peace to turn out for demonstrations and rallies against Putin’s invasion.

Unfortunately, not all the “peace” rallies taking place next weekend will be actions of solidarity with Ukraine. A large part of the left in the West does not understand the nature of this war and advocates compromise with Putinism.

We have written this statement to help our comrades abroad understand the situation and take the right stand.

A counterrevolutionary war

Some Western writers attribute the war to causes like the collapse of the USSR, the “contradictory history of the Ukrainian nation’s creation,” and geopolitical confrontation between nuclear powers.

Without denying the importance of these factors, we are surprised that these lists overlook the most important and obvious reason for what is happening: the Putin regime’s desire to suppress democratic protest movements throughout the former Soviet Union and in Russia itself.

The 2014 seizure of Crimea and hostilities in the Donbas were a response by the Kremlin to the “revolution of dignity” in Ukraine, which overthrew the corrupt pro-Russian administration of Viktor Yanukovych, as well as to Russians’ mass demonstrations for fair elections in 2011–12 (known as the Bolotnaya Square protests).

Annexing the Crimean Peninsula was a domestic policy win for Putin. He successfully used revanchist, anti-Western, and traditionalist rhetoric (as well as political persecution) to expand his social base, isolate the opposition, and turn the Maidan into a bogeyman with which to frighten the population.

But the popularity boost that followed the annexation was short-lived. The late 2010s saw economic stagnation, an unpopular pension reform, and high-profile anti-corruption revelations by Alexei Navalny’s team that dragged Putin’s ratings back down, especially among young people.

Protests swept the country, and the ruling United Russia party suffered a series of painful defeats in regional elections.

This context has driven the Kremlin to place all its bets on conserving the regime. The 2020 constitutional referendum (which required rigging unprecedented even by Russian standards) effectively made Putin a ruler for life. Under the pretext of containing the COVID-19 pandemic, protest gatherings were finally banned. An attempt was made to poison extra-parliamentary opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which he miraculously survived.

The popular uprising of summer 2020 in Belarus confirmed the Russian elite’s belief that the

“collective West” is waging a “hybrid war” against Russia, attacking it and its satellites with “color revolutions.”

Of course, such claims are nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Social and political discontent in Russia has been growing due to record social inequality, poverty, corruption, rollbacks of civil liberties, and the obvious futility of the Russian model of capitalism, which is based on a parasitic fossil-fuel oligarchy appropriating natural resource rents.

If there’s one thing we can blame the “collective West” for, it’s its longstanding pandering to Putinism, including on the Ukrainian issue. For decades, European and American elites have sought to do “business as usual” with Putin’s Russia, which has allowed a dictatorship to emerge, redistribute wealth upwards, and conduct foreign policy with complete impunity.

Conceding to Putin will not lead to peace

Invading Ukraine was an attempt by Putin to repeat his 2014 Crimean triumph—by securing a speedy victory, rallying Russian society around the flag with revanchist slogans, finally crushing the opposition, and establishing himself as hegemon in the post-Soviet space (which Putin’s imperialism views as part of “historical Russia”).

Ukrainians’ heroic resistance thwarted these plans, turning the “short, victorious war” of the Kremlin’s dreams into a protracted conflict that has worn down Russia’s economy and busted the myth of its army’s invincibility. Backed into a corner, Moscow is threatening the world with its nuclear weapons while simultaneously urging Ukraine and the West to negotiate.

Moscow’s rhetoric is parroted by certain European and American leftists who oppose supplying arms to Ukraine (to “save lives” and prevent a nuclear apocalypse). But Russia is not willing to withdraw from the territories it has captured, a condition that Kyiv and 93% of Ukrainians consider non-negotiable. Must Ukraine instead sacrifice its sovereignty in order to appease the aggressor, a policy that has very dark precedents in European history?

Saving lives?

So is it true that Ukraine’s defeat, an inevitability if Western aid is withdrawn, will help prevent more casualties? Even if we accept the non-obvious (from a socialist perspective) logic that saving lives is more important than fighting tyranny and aggression, we believe that this is not the case.

As we know, Vladimir Putin has laid claim to the entire territory of Ukraine, asserting that Ukrainians and Russians are “one nation” and that Ukrainian statehood is a historical mistake. In this context, a ceasefire would merely give the Kremlin time to rebuild its military capacity for a new assault, including by forcing yet more Russians (mostly poor and ethnic minority) into the army.

If Ukraine continues to resist the invasion even without arms supplies, it will lead to innumerable casualties among Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. And terror, the horrific remains of which we saw in Bucha and elsewhere, is what awaits any the new territories seized by Russia.

Multipolar imperialism

When Putin speaks about getting rid of American hegemony in the world and even about “anticolonialism” (!), he is not referring to the creation of a more egalitarian world order.

Putin’s “multipolar world” is a world where democracy and human rights are no longer considered universal values, and so-called “great powers” have free rein in their respective geopolitical spheres of influence.

This essentially means restoring the system of international relations that existed in the runup to World Wars I and II.

This “brave old world” would be a wonderful place for dictators, corrupt officials, and the far right.

But it would be hell for workers, ethnic minorities, women, LGBT people, small nations, and all liberation movements.

A victory for Putin in Ukraine would not restore the pre-war status quo, it would set a deadly precedent giving “great powers” the right to wars of aggression and nuclear brinkmanship. It would be a prologue to new military and political catastrophes.

What would a victory in Ukraine for Putinism lead to?

A Putin victory would mean not only the subjugation of Ukraine, but also the bending of all post-Soviet countries to the Kremlin’s will.

Within Russia, a victory for the regime would preserve a system defined by the security and fossilfuel oligarchy’s rule over other social classes (above all the working class) and the plundering of natural resources at the expense of technological and social development.

In contrast, the defeat of Putinism in Ukraine would likely lend momentum to movements for democratic change in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet countries, as well as in Russia itself.

It would be overly optimistic to claim that defeat in war automatically leads to revolution. But Russian history is replete with examples of military setbacks abroad that have led to major change at home—including the abolition of serfdom, the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and Perestroika in the 1980s.

Russian socialists have no use for a “victory” for Putin and his oligarch cronies. We call on all those who truly desire peace and still believe in dialogue with the Russian government to demand that it withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territories. Any call for peace that does not include this demand is disingenuous.

End the war! Stand in solidarity against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

End the draft! Russians are not cannon fodder.

Free Russian political prisoners!

Free Russia!

15 February 2023

Ukraine is leading the Global War Against Fascism – and knows it.

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Nothing to add. Watch it all. Only some excerpts from the end are below.

Update: I could not find proper translation of Zelensky’s speech to Ukraine Parliament of December 28 when I posted excerpts from New Year’s speech below. Above link explains even more clearly than below that Ukraine is leading the global democratic revolution as well as the war against fascism – and knows it.

We are all one family.

One Ukraine.

This is the year when Ukraine changed the world.

And the world discovered Ukraine.

We were told to surrender.

We chose a counterattack!

We were told to make concessions and compromises.

We are joining the European Union and NATO.

The world heard Ukraine.

European Parliament, Bundestag, the UK Parliament, Knesset, the US Congress.

The world felt Ukraine.

Ukraine in the media.

In the hearts of people.

At the top of Google search.

The world saw Ukraine.

On the main squares in Toronto, New York, London, Warsaw, Florence, Sydney and other cities.

Ukraiinians surprise.

Ukrainians are applauded.

Ukrainians are inspired.

Is there anything that can scare us?

No.

Is there anyone who can stop us?

No.

Because we are all together.

It is what we are fighting for.

One for each other.

The best salute for us is at the warehouses of the occupiers.

The best gift is the numbers  in the report of the General Staff.

We do not know for sure what the new year 2023 will bring us.

But ready for anything.

New achievements?

We will be happy.

New hits?

We will be steadfast.

Continuation of the fight?

We will fight.

And when we win, we will hug.

Dear Ukrainians!

A few minutes remain until the New Year!

I want to wish us all one thing – victory.

And that’s the main thing.

One wish for all Ukrainians.

Let this be the year of return.

The return of our people.

Soldiers – to their families.

Prisoners – to their homes.

Immigrants – to their Ukraine.

Return of our lands and the temporarily occupied will become forever free.

Return to normal life.

To happy moments without curfew.

To earthly joys without air alerts.

The return of what has been stolen from us.

The childhood of our children, the peaceful old age of our parents.

So that grandchildren come to visit their grandparents during the holidays.

To eat watermelons in Kherson and the cherry in Melitopol.

So that our cities are free.

Our friends are faithful.

And so that our main figure and main success appeared in reports near the figure of 100,000 destroyed enemies, thousands of units of destroyed Russian equipment – it is 603,628 square kilometers.

The area of independent Ukraine, as it was since 1991.

As it will always be.

May the New Year bring all this.

We are ready to fight for it.

That’s why each of us is here.

I’m here.

We are here.

You are here.

Everyone is here.

We are all Ukraine.

Glory to Ukraine!

Happy New Year!

Iran – where there is repression, there is resistance

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My only disagreement with this article is the author’s use of the word ‘leftists’ to describe those in alliance with the Iranian clericalist regime. She should use the term ‘pseudo-leftists’, as that is accurate…. B York

Iran: A New Wave of Mass Protests and Strikes

(written by Frieda Afary, reprinted from her blog ‘Iranian progressives in translation’)

Iran: A New Wave of Mass Protests and Strikes

Iran is experiencing another wave of mass protests and strikes as economic, social, political, environmental and health problems make it impossible for the large majority of the population to have the bare minimums needed to live.

Petrochemical Strikes, Protests Against Water Shortage

A new wave of mass protests over severe water shortage in the mainly ethnic Arab province of Khuseztan began on July 15.   Protesters’ slogans have included: “Down with Dictatorship.”,  “Down With Khamenei”, “We Don’t Want An Islamic Republic”, “The People Want the Regime to Fall.”  Government security forces have shot and killed at least 8 protesters and injured and arrested many others.   However, solidarity protests have started in Azarbaijan, Kurdistan, Isfahan, Sistan & Baluchistan and Tehran.  Iranian filmmakers, teachers and writers’ groups have co-signed a joint statement in support of the protests. (https://iranwire.com/en/features/9985)

In the words of a statement of solidarity by the Tehran Bus Workers’ Syndicate:  “The lack of water in Khuzestan today is rooted in the unprofessional, rapacious and profit-centered policies of the prior decades of capitalism in oil extraction and use of water for the steel industry, the income from which does not go to the people.  These insatiable policies have deprived the people of Khuzestan of safe drinking water.  Water is shut off for long hours and it is lacking for basic needs.  Farmers and cattle growers have also been damaged and lost their livelihoods.”  (https://www.akhbar-rooz.com/%d8%b3%d9%86%d8%af%db%8c%da%a9%d8%a7%db%8c-%d8%b4%d8%b1%da%a9%d8%aa-%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%ad%d8%af-%d8%b3%d8%b1%da%a9%d9%88%d8%a8-%d9%88-%da%a9%d8%b4%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%b1-%d9%85%d8%b1%d8%af%d9%85-%d8%ac%d8%a7/)

The latest protests have followed a series of nationwide strikes of temporary contract workers in Iran’s oil and gas industry which is also heavily based in Khuzestan.   The strikes which began on June 19 and have spread to a hundred production sites,  are demanding permanent employment status, a $500 monthly wage, safe working conditions and the right to organize and be free of police surveillance.  Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers on strike in Khuzestan are also asking for COVID vaccination and expressing solidarity with protests against the lack of water.

Economic Crisis and COVID Pandemic

Iran continues to suffer from a massive economic crisis  brought about by the costs of its regional imperialist  interventions in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, its nuclear and missile programs and the effects of U.S. economic sanctions.   The official  minimum wage is approximately $120 per month in a country where the cost of bare necessities for a family of 4 is  $500 per month.   Electricity is shut off for several hours on a daily basis.  Access to the internet is becoming more limited or impossible for many because of the cost and government repression.

In this situation the COVID pandemic has been wreaking havoc on the population.    The Delta variant of COVID continues to spread widely.   Over 95% of the population is not vaccinated and has no access to any vaccines, much less safe ones.  (https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/iran/) The official number of deaths is approximately 88,000, but the real numbers are much higher. (https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/ ) A large part of the population of 83 million has been infected.  However, no accurate figures exist because of government repression.

COVID is spreading rapidly in Iran’s prisons, which have an official population of 190,000. Women prisoners are also suffering from and dying from COVID. They include journalists, teachers, feminist and labor  activists,  students, environmentalists, Kurdish and Arab civil right activists, as well as  Baha’i and Sufi women.

Women Prisoners and Afghan Refugees

Nasrin Sotoudeh, imprisoned feminist human rights attorney and defender of the “Girls of Revolution Avenue” is suffering from a variety of health problems in addition to COVID. Narges Mohammadi, feminist activist against the death penalty who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was released last year after a long prison sentence, only to receive another prison sentence which also includes  80 lashes for continuing to oppose the death penalty and “endangering national security.”  She has been fighting  this sentence, and has attended protests in solidarity with the people of Khuzestan,  striking workers and the families of political prisoners.  In a recent interview, she called Iranian women’s struggles “the Achilles heel of the Iranian regime”. (https://www.facebook.com/voicesofwomenforchange/videos/241864884051720)  Sepideh Gholyan, feminist labor activist , imprisoned in Khuzestan, continues to write about the plight  of ethnic Arab women  prisoners. She has been savagely beaten in prison and is now on hunger strike.

Afghan migrants and refugees who number approximately 3 million in Iran continue to be expelled ( 450,000 expelled since 2020).  The Iranian regime has been holding negotiations between Taliban and the Afghan government under the direction of Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif  (https://www.radiozamaneh.com/676068/) and is helping the Taliban strengthen their  power even though the Taliban have been killing members of the Shi’a Hazara population in Afghanistan.  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghanistan-hazara-taliban/2021/06/30/fae16a60-d815-11eb-8c87-ad6f27918c78_story.html)

Iran’s Continuing Regional Ambitions and U.S. Imperialism’s “Solutions”

In the midst of all these crises and protests, the Iranian government maintains its regional imperialist interventions in Syria, Iraq, and  Lebanon.   It promotes its plots to kidnap and assassinate opposition activists in exile. (https://iranhumanrights.org/2021/07/foiled-kidnapping-of-dissident-part-of-irans-ramped-up-campaign-to-crush-dissent/) It continues to develop its nuclear and missile programs and has stopped its negotiation with the U.S. Biden administration  on returning to the JCPOA nuclear agreement.

The “election” of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s next president had the lowest rate of mass participation even by Iran’s standards which were very low to begin with.  Raisi was previously the head of Iran’s judiciary and immediately prior to that,  the head of GHORB, the construction conglomerate  of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).    He is infamously known as a member of the “Death Commission” which ordered the executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.  Under his watch,  approximately 1500 people were killed by government forces during the November 2019 uprising. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-protests-specialreport/special-report-irans-leader-ordered-crackdown-on-unrest-do-whatever-it-takes-to-end-it-idUSKBN1YR0QR)   Amnesty International has condemned him for committing crimes against humanity (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/iran-ebrahim-raisi-must-be-investigated-for-crimes-against-humanity/)

U.S. New York Times columnist, Thomas Freedman reveals imperialist inhumanity in his recent column on Iran where he offers a “solution”  that is “the best anyone can hope for with Iran.”  (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/opinion/iran-biden-nuclear-deal.html?searchResultPosition=1) He argues that the U.S. with the help of Gulf states  should give more financial aid to the Assad regime to kick Iran out of Syria, maintain Russia and Turkey as dominant powers and assure the continuation of the Assad regime. This he says would reduce Iran’s danger and satisfy the U.S. and Israel.  To him, the people of the region, the Syrian Arabs and Kurds and the Iranian population, are mere pawns on the U.S. and global Imperialist chessboard.

Needed Progressive Solidarity with Struggles inside Iran

No less cynical are those leftists and so-called socialists around the world who support the Iranian regime as “anti-imperialist” or refuse to criticize it.

Those who limit their solidarity to calling for the removal of U.S. sanctions,  refuse to recognize the complexity of the problems in Iran.  They do not address the fact that these problems are rooted both in the external imperialism of the U.S.,  Russia. China and  internal capitalist militarism and religious fundamentalism.

Any effort to engage in solidarity with the struggles inside Iran begins not only with  calling for the removal of U.S. sanctions and an end to Israel’s attacks,  but also simultaneously holding the Iranian regime accountable for its repression and  exploitation of  the people and environment of the region.     That recognition demands calling for the immediate release of political prisoners, expressing solidarity with striking workers, feminist and environmental struggles, oppressed ethnic, sexual and religious minorities,  and demanding Iran’s withdrawal from Syria, Iraq  and an end to its interventions in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen.

Frieda Afary

July 25, 2021

We are all nobody…

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“It’s time to become a revolutionary hero!” Tang thought, evoking the heroic tales from her textbooks of communist martyrs who were killed in the civil war, or by the invading Japanese. 

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The iconic image of a heroic rebel blocking a tank in Tiananmen Square 30 years ago is inspirational to any people, anywhere, fighting oppression. The identity of that person, and what became of him, are unknown. In that sense, he is ‘nobody’.

Of course, an individual can’t overthrow tyranny but, as history shows, you need masses of people with courage and willingness to make sacrifices under certain circumstances.

I came across this cartoon at the facebook page of Rose Tang, a veteran of Tiananmen Square. Her reminiscences of the event are worth reading.

‘Nobody can change anything’ – ‘nothing changes’ – are catch-cries of conservatism. The preference for stability, even under conditions akin to fascism, is also a hallmark of the pseudo-left. It is a particularly obnoxious attitude when those expressing it do not live under such conditions but the under the more preferable situation of bourgeois democracy.

We are indeed all nobody. Together, as nobodies, we can win the world!

And never forget: the young rebels in the Square 30 years ago included ‘The Internationale’ among the songs of defiance they sang.

 

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Twilight Zone Trump

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Politics today frequently makes me think I’m in the Twilight Zone. The words were made famous by a television anthology series that I loved in the 1960s and continue to re-watch today (on DVD). It dealt with bizarre and fantastic themes, often in a social realist setting and with a twist at the end.

Rod Serling, the show’s creator and main writer, was a small ‘l’ liberal. He was progressive on some key issues in the 1950s and 1960s, such as civil liberties and opposition to racism, and opposition to the US war in Vietnam. I’ve read a few biographies about him and he was an internationalist, cosmopolitan, opponent of tyrants and supporter of basic democracy: all values that Trump opposes. Serling would be in the globalist camp today.

This meme is too good not to share…

Serling on Trump meme

 

The Prague Spring 1968 – it is right to rebel!

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Czech 1968

“Discarding all its fig-leaves, its so-called ‘Marxism-Leninism’, ‘internationalism’, etc., the Soviet revisionist leading clique has brazenly resorted to direct armed aggression and intervention and is trying to create puppets with the help of guns. It is exactly what Hitler did in the past in his aggression against Czechoslovakia and the U.S. imperialism of today is doing in its aggression against Vietnam. The Soviet revisionist clique of renegades has long since degenerated into a gang of social-imperialists and social-fascists”.                                            – Premier Zhou En Lai, August 1968

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Fifty years ago this month a dramatic people’s uprising in Czechoslovakia took place., in support of democratic reforms. It was made all the more dramatic because of the attempt by the Soviet Union’s ‘Red Army’ to suppress the pro-democracy movement.

Estimates vary but up to 500,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia to thwart the efforts by the Czech Communist Party government, led by Alexander Dubcek, to introduce reforms such as abolition of censorship and multi-party competitive elections.

The uprising by the Czech people was part of the great global disruption that happened in the landmark year, 1968.

Those of us on the left in Australia, who were building a movement in solidarity with the Vietnamese against US and allied aggression, supported the Czech rebellion. In the Czech workers and students, we saw the struggles of peoples everywhere fighting for freedom from imperialist aggression – and we saw ourselves, our own struggle for greater freedom.

Of all the governments around the world, none was as vehement as the Chinese Communist Party in its condemnation of the invasion. The Chinese government was highly critical of Dubcek’s revisionism too, in part because it did not go far enough in urging and organizing people’s struggle against the invaders.

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At the time, as a 17 year old, I found the invasion confusing, initially. There was appeal in the conspiratorial line spread by pro-Soviet revisionists that it was all a CIA plot to destabilize socialism. Conspiracy theories are alluring in that way: if something happens that you cannot make sense of, the conspiracy theory is always there to make sense of it for you. The problem is that it is usually wrong as it is plucked out of thin air.

Eventually, when I went to university, I met an impressive Marxist-Leninist named Dave Muller who I looked up to enormously. He patiently explained to me how the Soviet Union had abandoned socialism long ago and was now basically state capitalist and social-imperialist. I looked further into this – did some reading and arguing – and was even able to persuade my father that the Soviet Union had ‘gone bad’.

The bottom line for me at that time, as someone not well versed in theory, was that people were rising up – as we were, as the Vietnamese were, as the South Africans were, as the black Americans were – against unjust regimes and seeking something better. Czechoslovakia pushed a few of us already on the left in the Maoist direction. Including me.

Expressing the Chinese party line, Premier Zhou En Lai’s speech, made in August 1968, is worth reading in full. It is worth noting too how today’s pseudo-left takes the opposite view to the one we took back then on the elementary question of international solidarity and support for people’s struggle against unjust and oppressive regimes. The Arab Spring was seen by the pseudo-left as a CIA plot, as the Czech uprising was.

The speech in full:

“A few days ago, the Soviet revisionist leading clique and its followers brazenly dispatched massive armed forces to launch a surprise attack on Czechoslvakia and swiftly occupied it, with the Czechoslovak revisionist leading clique openly calling on the people not to resist, thus perpetrating towering crimes against the Czechoslovak people.

“This is the most barefaced and most typical specimen of fascist power politics played by the Soviet revisionist clique of renegades and scabs against its so-called allies. It marks the total bankruptcy of Soviet modern revisionism.

“The Chinese Government and people strongly condemn the Soviet revisionist leading clique and its followers for their crime of aggression- the armed occupation of Czechoslovakia- and firmly support the Czechoslovak people in their heroic struggle of resistance to Soviet military occupation.

“Over a period of time, modern revisionism with the Soviet revisionist leading clique as its center has been beset with internal contradictions and riddled with crises. The aim of the Soviet revisionist leading clique in brazenly invading and occupying Czechoslovakia is to prevent the Czechoslovak revisionist leading clique from directly hiring itself out to the Western countries headed by U.S. imperialism and to prevent this state of affairs from giving rise to uncontrollable chain reactions. This is an inevitable result of the great-power chauvinism and national egoism practised by the Soviet revisionist clique, and of the Khrushchev revisionism the Soviet revisionist clique of renegades has practised over the years.

“Discarding all its fig-leaves, its so-called ‘Marxism-Leninism’, ‘internationalism’, etc., the Soviet revisionist leading clique has brazenly resorted to direct armed aggression and intervention and is trying to create puppets with the help of guns. It is exactly what Hitler did in the past in his aggression against Czechoslovakia and the U.S. imperialism of today is doing in its aggression against Vietnam. The Soviet revisionist clique of renegades has long since degenerated into a gang of social-imperialists and social-fascists.

“The Soviet revisionist leading clique has all along pursued the counter revolutionary policy of U.S.-Soviet collaboration for world domination. Since the Glassboro talks, not to mention anything earlier, U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism have struck a series of dirty deals on such important questions as Vietnam, the Middle East and the prevention of nuclear proliferation. The present Czechoslovak incident is no exception. It is a result of the sharpening contradictions in the scramble for and division of spheres of influence by U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism in Eastern Europe; it is, moreover, a result of the U.S.-Soviet collusion in vain attempt to redivide the world. The aggression by Soviet revisionism was carried out with the tacit understanding of U.S. imperialism. Since U.S. imperialism has acquiesced in the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet revisionism, how is it possible for Soviet revisionism to oppose the forcible occupation of south Vietnam by U.S. imperialism? In fact, Soviet revisionism has long become the No. 1 accomplice of U.S. imperilaim in its aggression against Vietnam and the rest of the world. That a big nation should have so wilfully trampled a small nation underfoot serves as a most profound lesson for those harbouring illusions about U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism.

“The armed aggression by Soviet revisionism has brought calamity to the Czechoslovak people, but it has also educated them, enabling them to realize gradually that revisionism is the root cause of this calamity. This is likewise a very good lesson for the people of the Soviet Union, the other East European countries and the rest of the world.”

 

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World Cup Pussy Riot protest – ‘the heavenly policeman’

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A few hours ago, four members of Pussy Riot ran onto the soccer field during the World Cup final match, to protest against the Putin regime. They have been arrested.

They are very brave and their demands, as expressed on facebook after the protest, deserve support.

Youtube has apparently taken down a video of the protest, put up by Pussy Riot, due to copyright complaints by FIFA. But here is other footage:

 

My only gripe with the Pussy Riot demands is that there is no mention of Russia’s military aggression in Syria, no demand for an end to Russian military adventures.

Still, the other demands deserve the support of every leftist worthy of the label.

Here’s what they put on their facebook page:

Today is 11 years since the death of the great Russian poet, Dmitriy Prigov. Prigov created an image of a policeman, a carrier of the heavenly nationhood, in the russian culture.

The heavenly policeman, according to Prigov, talks on the two-way with the God Himself. The earthly policeman gets ready to disperse rallies. The heavenly policeman gently touches a flower in a field and enjoys Russian football team victories, while the earthly policeman feels indifferent to Oleg Sentsov’s hunger strike. The heavenly policeman rises as an example of the nationhood, the earthly policeman hurts everyone.

The heavenly policeman protects baby’s sleep, the earthly policeman persecutes political prisoners, imprisons people for “reposts” and “likes”.

The heavenly policeman is the organizer of this World Cup’s beautiful carnival, the earthy policeman is afraid of the celebration. The heavenly policeman carefully watches for obeying the game rules, the earthly policeman enters the game not caring about the rules.

The FIFA World Cup has reminded us of the possibilities of the heavenly policeman in the Great Russia of the future, but the earthly policeman, entering the ruleless game breaks our world apart.

When the earthly policeman enters the game, we demand to:

1. Let all political prisoners free.
2. Not imprison for “likes”.
3. Stop Illegal arrests on rallies.
4. Allow political competition in the country.
5. Not fabricate criminal accusations and not keep people in jails for no reason.
6. Turn the earthly policeman into the heavenly policeman.

 

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