Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Defend Malalai Joya!



“The USA is not concerned with the main cause behind terrorism in Afghanistan. That is why our people don't consider the US as "liberator" of our country. The US itself killed thousands of our innocent civilians during its so-called "war on terror" and continue to target civilians.

… my country is still in chains of bloody and terrorist fundamentalists. The situation in Afghanistan and conditions of its ill-fated women will never change positively as long as the warlords are not disarmed and both the pro-US and anti-US terrorists are removed from the political scene of Afghanistan.

I think that no nation can donate liberation to another nation. Liberation is not money to be donated; it should be achieved in a country by the people themselves. The ongoing developments in Afghanistan and Iraq prove this claim. People of other countries only can give us a helping hand and support.”

These were the words of the courageous anti-imperialist, anti-fundamentalist Malalai Joya, Member of the Afghan parliament, in Adelaide on March 13 2007.

Malalai was here as part of a world tour to expose the continuing oppression of Afghan women by the thugs and criminals helped into power by the US imperialists.

Now this brave fighter for the rights of her people has been thrown out of the Afghan parliament and has restricted freedom of movement.

Death threats, which she has endured before, continue to be made by her enemies.

Please read the full text of her Adelaide speech here.

Visit her website for further information.

Below is a proposed letter of protest to be sent to the Afghan authorities. Please use the text (amend it as you feel appropriate) and email it to the following addresses:

President Hamid Karzai
khaleeq.ahmad@gmail.com
president@afghanistangov.org

Supreme Court of Afghanistan
mailto:hidayatr@moj.gov.af
Feedback Form of the Supreme Court

Afghanistan's Parliament
hasib_n786@yahoo.com

Interior Ministry
moinews@gmail.com
mailto:wahed.moi@gmail.com+

Justice Ministry of Afghanistan
info@moj.gov.af
hidayatr@moj.gov.af

Defense Committee for Malaia Joya
webmaster@malalaijoya.com

---------------------------------------------

May 2007

Dear sir,

I was shocked and distressed when I heard that on 21st May 2007, after an interview on TV in which she once more exposed the war criminals that are present in the Parliament, Afghan MP Malalai Joya was suspended from the Parliament of Afghanistan and the Interior Ministry has been directed to restrict her movements within the country. I also learnt that the Parliament ordered the High Court to file a case against her.

Malalai Joya is known throughout the world for her indefatigable support of ordinary Afghan people against the actions of warlords, drug barons and criminals. She has repeatedly demanded that those responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths during the last 30 years be tried before an independent court.

I express my support for and solidarity with Ms. Malalai Joya, member of the Wolesi Jirga, ardent defender of human and women's rights and outstanding example of resistance of women against fundamentalism.

Since her famous speech of 2003, when she spoke at the Loya Jirga accusing many of the elected members of being war criminals, Malalai Joya has suffered four attempts on her life and many death threats and even physical aggression in Parliament. This is hardly the freedom of expression that Afghanistan claims to have established.

I urge you to do your best to cancel the resolution of the Parliament that expelled Malalai Joya from the assembly and do your best to guarantee her security, which is further compromised after the last events.

Yours sincerely,

………………………………………………

The Afghan masses are responding to Malalai Joya’s defence. The photo below shows a demonstration in Kabul yesterday (May 30, 2007).

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Democratic Socialism is Capitalism Part 2



(This is the second part of Wu Bing's reply to Xie Tao on the question of democratic socialism. Earlier sections can be accessed by scrolling down)



2. Violent revolution is the only way to realise socialism

Opposing violent revolution and advocating “peaceful evolution” is one of the main fallacies of democratic socialism and revisionism. In the “Preface”, Mr Xie Tao takes great pains to play the same old tune again. He says: “The relationship between socialism and capitalism is a relationship of continuation and development, and is not a relationship of overthrow and elimination,” “this truth already proves the shining rise to prominence of Western European democratic socialism and the eclipse of the violent socialism of the former Soviet Union.” He believes that democratic socialism “turns the socialist movement into a peaceful, rational evolutionary process,” and lies that “Social Democrats have successfully created in the democratic framework of the developed capitalist countries a path for the peaceful transition to socialism”, thus, “the working class has no need to rise in revolution, and can be ‘liberated’ along with the development of the advanced productive forces.”

The replacement of capitalism by socialism is merely “a relationship of continuation and development” - but is it not “a relationship of overthrow and elimination”? Was socialism actually realised by way of “peaceful evolution” or by way of “violent revolution”? What is the law of human historical development? How should we look upon the differences between Marxism and democratic socialism on these major questions of principle? This author thought, there were two points like this – this is probably a platitude, but in order to clarify the rights and wrongs, there is still need for discussion.

Firstly, looking at it from the theoretical level. Marxism believes that the proletariat requires complete liberation to establish a socialist system without exploitation and oppression, and after that to realise the broad ideals of communism. The proletariat must first of all, by way of violent revolution and the armed seizure of power, replace capitalism with socialism, but it simply must not take the reformist path of “peaceful evolution to socialism”. On this question, the written works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong all contain brilliant expositions, which occupy an important place. So as to deepen my ideological knowledge there is no harm in taking several excerpts:

Marx said: “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” (Marx, Capital, Vol 1 p. 828, 1963 Chinese ed.) “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” “The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” (Marx, Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party.)

Engels said: “That force, however, plays yet another role in history, a revolutionary role; that, in the words of Marx, it is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one, that it is the instrument through the aid of which social movement forces its way through and shatters the dead, fossilized political forms…” (Engels, Anti-Duhring, 1957 Chinese ed., p 190). “Revolution is without doubt the most authoritative thing in the world. Revolution is one part of the people using the rifle, the bayonet and the cannon in an extremely authoritative way to force another part of the people to accept its will.” (Engels, On Authority, Marx, Engels Complete Works Vol 18 p. 344 Chinese ed.) “The working class deeply believes, on the basis of its own experience, that to arrive at any lasting improvement in their status, that they are unable to rely on others, but must strive for it themselves, and the first method they must adopt is the seizure of political power.” (Engels, The 10 Hour’s Question, Marx and Engels, Complete Works, Vol 7 p. 247).

Lenin said: “…to renounce the revolutionary seizure of power would be madness on the part of the proletariat, both from the theoretical and the practical-political points of view; it would mean nothing but a disgraceful retreat in the face of the bourgeoisie and all other propertied classes. It is very probable - even most probable – that the bourgeoisie will not make peaceful concessions to the proletariat and at the decisive moment will resort to violence for the defence of its privileges. In that case, no other way will be left to the proletariat for the achievement of its aims but that of revolution.” (Lenin, A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy, Collected Works Vol 4 p. 242 Chinese ed.) “Indeed, what is revolution from the Marxist point of view? The violent break-up of the obsolete political superstructure, the contradiction between which and the new relations of production caused its collapse at a certain moment.” (Lenin, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, The Lenin Anthology, Vol 1 p. 691, 1965 Chinese ed.)

Stalin said: “In order to overthrow capitalism it was not only necessary to remove the bourgeoisie from power, it was not only necessary to expropriate the capitalists, but also to smash entirely the bourgeois state machine and its old army, its bureaucratic officialdom and its police force, and substitute for it a new, proletarian form of state, a new, Socialist state.” (Stalin, Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.), Problems of Leninism, p. 752 Chinese cloth ed.)

Mao Zedong said: “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle of revolution holds good universally, for China and for all other countries.” (Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, Vol 2 p. 529 Chinese ed.) “Defending the path of Marxism-Leninism opened up by the October Revolution, under the present international circumstances is of especially great significance. Imperialism declares that it wants to “change the nature of world communism”, and what they must change is precisely this revolutionary path. For the past several decades, everything proposed by the revisionists or the anti-Marxist-Leninists, all the right opportunism that has been spread around is precisely to avoid this sole path for the liberation of the proletariat. All the tasks of the communists focus on uniting the proletariat, uniting the people, firmly repelling the fierce attacks by the imperialists on the socialist world, and firmly advancing along the path opened up by the October Revolution.” (Manuscripts of Mao Zedong Since the Founding of the Nation, Vol 6 p. 283-284, Chinese ed.)

This author believes that it is not necessary to further quote from the Marxist classics, that these passages of brilliant exposition can completely demolish the cliches of Mr Xie Tao.

As for all of Mr Xie Tao’s talk of “proof from historical and textual research that Marx and Engels in their later years were democratic socialists, that they were the first to advocate ‘peaceful evolution to socialism’, that democratic socialism is legitimate Marxism”, this is obviously a groundless fabrication.

Look at it again from the practical level. History has already confirmed the correctness of the Marxist theory about “violent revolution”. From the victory of the October Revolution led by Lenin in the early 20th Century to the success of the Cuban socialist revolution in the 70’s of the 20th Century, we can say that all countries practising socialism without exception have relied on the barrel of the gun and on the military for the seizure of political power, and that up until now, the world still does not have any country whatsoever that is socialist by “peaceful evolution”, nor will it have one in the future.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Democratic Socialism is Capitalism Pt. 1

(This is the first section of Wu Bing's "Democratic Socialism is Capitalism". For the introduction and chapter headings, scroll down on this blog)

1. The real features of democratic socialism

As soon as it begins, Mr Xie Tao’s article clearly places democratic socialism in the position of the “pinnacle of human theory in the 20th Century”. According to him, since the most intense class struggles of the 18th Century, not only is there “competition for the public choice of the most advanced social system”, moreover “the result of the competition is a victory for democratic socialism, even with developed capitalism and developed communism, it is democratic socialism that is changing the world.”

Therefore, democratic socialism is already regarded as different to both socialism and the “third path” of capitalism.

And which countries are those that have had this “victory” of democratic socialism? Mr Tao has listed the United States, England, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Portugal, Holland, Italy, Denmark, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg and so on. Mr Xie Tao is quite particular in pointing out that of the 15 European countries, 13 are democratic socialist countries, and thus it can be seen that its battle formation is huge, its momentum is developing, and it has an unlimited future. As Mr Xie Tao describes with such excitement, Europe is already in a “surging red tide”, “an economically booming, politically stable and socially harmonious new Europe” has appeared, and he flatters them for having “added some bright colours to the world”.

What actually is this treasure that Mr Xie Tao boasts is so dangerous and which he holds so highly? Let us see how in the political domain of world history, the decision already taken on this is annotated: “Democratic socialism: flaunted socialism, publicly opposed the ideological trend of Marxist reformism. It came about after the First World War. After the Second World War, the English Labour Party and the right wing leading cliques of some other countries’ socialist parties, in order to oppose Marxism and the proletarian revolutionary movement, and in order to make democratic socialism the slogan of their own guiding principles, convened the 1951 Frankfurt Congress of the Socialist International and publicly proposed in the manifesto of their publication “The Goals and Tasks of Democratic Socialism” that they use democratic socialism to oppose scientific socialism, to deny that classes and class struggle exist in capitalism, to oppose the proletarian revolution, and to oppose the destruction of the system of the private ownership of the means of production. They believe that in democratic Europe, Marxism would never again act as the effective strength of the theory of proletarian revolution. “Instruct them in the theory of evolutionary socialism”, “never again be able to take Marx’s famous maxim ‘expropriate the expropriators’ as their goal”. They spread a kind of special “third path” that was different to capitalism and to the “democratic socialism” of communism. They thought they could “strip the political category of revolution of any practical content”, that “as long as there was continuing reform, society could undergo changes.” They spoke highly of the “socialisation” of the functions of capital and the national economy. They proposed a “Second Industrial Revolution”. They declared that under the leadership of governments of Social Democratic parties, public ownership under capitalism was already a socialist system of ownership.” (“Concise Sociological Dictionary”, Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 1982, p 2292.) Referring to the Dictionary’s explanation, to sum up, we can clearly see that the essence of so-called democratic socialism is: in politics, to oppose socialism and pass off the so-called “new capitalism” and “the third path” as scientific socialism; in economics, oppose “expropriating the expropriators” and pass off reformist private ownership as socialist public ownership; in theory, oppose the theory of surplus value and historical materialism and pass off opportunism as Marxism; in questions of class struggle, use class reconciliation, cover up the class struggle and oppose violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. To summarise it in a single sentence: democratic socialism is imperialism in the moribund stage of capitalism; it does not even remotely connect with socialism.

Comparing Mr Xie Tao’s “Preface”, we can clearly see what the “Preface” promotes, and on the whole it is in the field of these several “opposes”. The “Preface” puts forward the so-called “mixed private ownership” of “the pattern of constitutional democratic socialism”, which is just private ownership; the so-called “democratic constitution” which is just the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; the so-called “socialist market economy” and the “system of welfare protection”, which is the capitalist economic system.

Monday, May 21, 2007

SCHOOLS FACE EXTRA COSTS, MINISTERS GET EXTRA MINDERS

Two pieces of information reveal the self-serving hypocrisy of our elected leaders in South Australia.

Today’s capitalist press has revealed that the State’s Labor Party Government has increased the number of minders appointed to Ministerial offices by 44 per cent over five years. Nearly 100 extra staff have been appointed to work in the personal offices of Ministers, most as advisers and media monitors.

That is, they provide the spin that enables Ministers to look good. They exist to protect Ministerial butt.

Their role is to serve the political needs of Ministers, as distinct from public servants who work in Government Departments and who are meant to be “above politics” and of service to the Government of the day, regardless of which party constitutes that Government.

So we have an expense growth of perhaps $25 million on additional party political salaries over four years paid, not by the Party, but by the taxpayer.

Compare this with the same Government’s commitment to quality public education.

So-called “savings measures” required from the Education Department, called for in the last State Budget, are now being identified by an Education Efficiency and Effectiveness (EEE) Group whose only role is to decide whether to cut off an arm or a leg.

They have been told by Education Department officials of a number of measures to cut Department costs by transferring costs to schools.

South Australian schools are now “locally managed” with a “global budget” that includes staff salaries. Out of that global budget is now to come a 1% levy on the salaries component to cover staff workers compensation payments.

Note that schools are not the employers of their teaching and support staff. The Department remains the central employing authority and has until now accepted responsibility for workers compensation (WorkCover) claims.

But now, claims costs will be attributed to the sites where the injury occurred. Sites will pay for the first four weeks of lost time wherever there is any new accepted claim but will not be provided with additional temporary relieving teachers to cover the absence of the injured staff member.

School Governing Councils, the majority of whom are parent volunteers, will be responsible for the WorkCover levy and must register separately with WorkCover. They will be responsible for paying injured workers their salaries as required by WorkCover.

This should be a matter for great concern on the part of any parent who has a child in a Government school in South Australia.

It follows closely on the heels of other Government cuts, for example to the small schools grant, and the proposed axing of swimming and instrumental music programs.

Parents of children in Government schools in SA should ring their child’s principal, ask how much the transfer of WorkCover responsibility to their school is likely to cost, both financially and in terms of workload, and then write to their local Member of parliament to express their concerns.

As for the Principals, if they have any guts and any sense at all, they will work through their respective Associations and alongside the Australian Education Union and get out into the streets and onto the steps of Parliament House and tell the Department to do its job, and let them get on with theirs.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Democratic Socialism Is Capitalism - Introduction

(Some time ago I came across this article on www.maoflag.net - one of the websites maintained with apparent official sanction by supporters of Mao Zedong Thought in China today. The article reminds me of the series initiated by Chairman Mao in the early stages of the skirmish with the Soviet revisionists and published under the title The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement in Beijing in 1965, a year before the launching of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. I am not a translator - I have fulltime job and lots of comittee memberships - but I know a little bit of Chinese, and I've decided to try my hand at translating the 80 or so pages of the original of this article. Where I just can't understand a reference, or where I just can't get at what the Chinese original is trying to say, I'll add a little note of my own so that you'll know I've run into trouble. But I hope enough of what follows is clear so that some idea of current ideological struggle in China comes through. You might like to look at my post Chinese Marxist-Leninists Oppose the Sale of Xu Gong in the December 2006 archive (see link opposite and scroll down to article) so that you can see a practical example of how the restorationists are dismantling the socialist state established in Mao Zedong's time and handing it over to the capitalists and the imperialists. I'm not a quick translator: some days I get a couple of sentences done, and maybe on a weekend I can do a page or so, so don't hold your breath waiting for each new section t be completed. The table of contents (below) will give you some idea of the scope of this work, so if you're interested, keep coming back and seeing how far I've got up to. Mike)




Democratic Socialism Is Capitalism
A criticism of Xie Tao’s "Only Democratic Socialism Can Save China"
Wu Bing
Contents:

1. The real features of democratic socialism
2. Violent revolution is the only way to realise socialism
3. The superiority of socialism over capitalism cannot be denied
4. The main difference between socialism and capitalism is public ownership and private ownership
5. Antagonism between socialist and capitalist systems of distribution
6. On how the question of the two systems of ownership and the two systems of distribution are compared
7. Shamelessly tampering with and distorting the fundamentals of Marxist theory
8. Distorting the New Economic Policy and attacking Leninism
9. Misrepresenting "The Three Big Transformations", Negating Mao Zedong Thought
10. Promoting the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and wanting China to take the path of Western constitutional government
11. Confusing black and white and reversing the verdict on new and old revisionism
12. Be sure not to forget the mistakes of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries
…………………………………………………………………….
Early last December, the author saw People’s University former Deputy Principal Mr Xie Tao’s preface written for Mr Xin Ziling’s "Mao Zedong: A Century of Merits and Faults", on the internet, entitled "Only Democratic Socialism Can Save China" (hereafter referred to as "The Preface"). This "Preface" was reprinted in the February 2007 edition of "Yan Huang Chun Qiu". This magazine possibly considered it should "play it safe", and made a slight change to the title renaming it "The Pattern of Democratic Socialism and China’s Future", besides concealing Mr Xin Ziling’s title "Mao Zedong: A Century of Merits and Faults" and engaging in "technical processing" of some individual barefaced words and sentences. However, no matter how this magazine tries to conceal it, Mr Xie Tao is completely unmasked for opposing socialism, opposing Marxism, opposing the proletarian revolution and the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It can be said that everyone who has read this article has the same kind of response: this is one of the wildest and most undisguised reactionary articles in our domestic open publications. This article touches on several major theoretical and practical questions: what is socialism, and should China continue along the socialist road; what is Marxism, and should China continue under the direction of Marxism; what is the dictatorship of the proletariat, and should China continue to persist with the dictatorship of the proletariat? What is most annoying and also most laughable is that this trumpeter of capitalism unexpectedly resorts to all means of fabricating rumours about and attacks on the teachers and leaders of the proletarian revolution, talking rubbish about Marx and Engels being some sort of "social democrats", some sort of originators of "peaceful evolution to socialism" in their old age; talking rubbish about Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong being the "greatest revisionists"; and moreover legitimising the founder of revisionism, Bernstein, as "Marxism"?! Shameless slander like this that distorts the facts floods through the article from beginning to end. Chairman Mao said: "All mistaken ideas, all poisonous weeds, all monsters and demons should be subjected to criticism and under no circumstances be allowed to spread unchecked." Following this guidance, the author makes some superficial analyses and commentaries on several of the main points of view and falsehoods respectively, of this "strange piece of writing".