Democratic Socialism is Capitalism Part 3

(This is Section 3 of Wu Bing's rebuttal of an article by Xie Tao. For the Introduction, and Parts 1-2, scroll down).

3. The superiority of socialism over capitalism cannot be denied

In the Preface, Mr Xie Tao makes no secret of his praise for or defence of capitalism, and plays down the bourgeois world view and political stand of the denial of socialism. He attacks Soviet and Chinese socialism, founded by Lenin and Mao Zedong, as so-called “violent socialism” that pales into insignificance by comparison with democratic socialism. He says: “Seeing the vigorous development of our capitalist economy, some call out in alarm ‘It’s a disaster, capitalism is restored in China!’ If there was no slavery in ancient times, there’d be no modern Europe today. Without the material wealth created by capitalism, socialism here would be forever a fantasy, forever at the level of the lowest common denominator.”

He says: “Owing to its ‘equality of poverty’, bringing about socialism “creates several decades of stagnation and decline in production”, “the so-called ‘superiority of socialism’ is always only partially emerging, smashing the ‘socialist’ signboard etc etc”.

Indeed, the development of capitalist economy has created the material conditions for the realisation of socialism; it can also be said that capitalism is the mother of socialism.

At quite an early stage, Marxism has further elaborated in relation to this truth. The goal of Mr Xie Tao is not in this passage - it is that while thoroughly negating violent revolution, to completely deny the superiority of socialism, to deny the magnificent achievements of socialism. Isn’t Mr Xie Tao saying that for humanity, the “model competition” for the most outstanding social system in the long run, is to hear their words and watch their deeds, and by comparison make rational judgements and decisions?

Ok then, let’s use historical facts to make the judgement.

Firstly, the socialist countries over a number of decades of speedy economic development and magnificent achievements, have fully demonstrated the superiority of the social productive forces of the system of public ownership. Take the Soviet Union and China as an example. The Soviet Union began the implementation of Five Year Plans in 1928, and by 1938 had increased production by over 7.5 times, reaching first place in Europe and second place in the world, providing the important material guarantee for the victory of Soviet troops in the anti-Fascist Second World War. During the war, the losses suffered by the Soviet Army compared to those of England, France and other Western countries, were much more serious, but the speed with which it restored its post-war economy was much quicker than them. Prior to the October Revolution, Russia’s gross value of industrial output was only 6.9% of that of the U.S. By the 1980’s it was more than 80% of that of the U.S. Other socialist countries also obtained a relatively large growth in their national economies. The achievements of socialism in China over several decades attracted worldwide attention. Capitalism was carried on in old China for nearly 100 years, with the result that national capital only occupied 20% of the fixed capital of the national industry, transportation and shipping industries. The major part of China’s economic lifeline and finances and banking were controlled by imperialism and bureaucrat-capitalism. Up until the eve of Liberation, national industry was in a hopeless situation, and not only did factories in the chemical, electrical and other departments go bankrupt one after the other, but even the spinning and weaving and flour industries that Chinese national capital depended on for its growth were also smothered and could not gain a foothold. At the time of the Liberation of the whole nation in 1949, we received from the hands of the Guomindang, an economy in collapse, a shambles in which people could not earn a living. Many imperialist elements asserted that China would be unable to heal the terrible wounds created by war, and would be incapable of changing the stagnant conditions of the last couple of centuries. However, it only took two years to restore industrial and agricultural production to the highest pre-war levels. Then we started planned economic development, winning our fastest development. From 1949-1978, the total output value of our country’s heavy industry grew by 90.6 times compared to that before Liberation. The total output value of light industry grew 19.8 times, total agricultural output increased by 2.4 times. Industry’s fixed assets grew by more than 20 times. The total output value of industry and agriculture over 30 years averaged an annual increase of 9.5%. In less than 30 years we covered the distance that it took many capitalist countries half a century or even 100 years to traverse, and had established the beginnings of an independent category of a relatively complete national economic system and by the 1980s already had more than 300,000 industrial and communications enterprises. Not only is Old China’s economy unable to match all of these, it cannot even be done by the capitalist world. Not only are the economic achievements of the two great socialist nations, the Soviet Union and China, huge, moreover the entire socialist world tasted the superiority of socialism. Up until the 1980’s, with an original economic basis of almost one third of the world’s total population, the majority of which were all relatively backward socialist countries, the gross value of industrial output had already reached 2/5 of the world’s gross output value, and national income had already reached 1/3 of the total world national income. How can it be said that these facts are “overshadowed”? Comparing the two types of system, it is not the socialist countries that are “overshadowed”; rather, it is the capitalist countries.

Secondly, what is even more important in the superiority of the socialist system over capitalism is that the socialist system eliminated the bourgeoisie’s exploitation and oppression, and the working class and the broad mass of labouring people truly obtained democracy and freedom and had people’s rights and truly became masters of the country, controlling their own destiny. Is this Mr Xie Tao’s so-called “fantasy”? A “Utopia”? No, this is an absolutely true fact.

Thirdly, the existence and development of socialism stops and defeats imperialist wars of aggression and is a mighty force and mainstay for protecting world peace. In the Second World War, the people of the Soviet Union made the biggest contributions and greatest sacrifices in fighting against German, Italian and Japanese fascism.

In the US-initiated wars of invasion in Korea and Vietnam, the Chinese people stood together with the Korean and Vietnamese peoples and crushed the imperialist aggressors and safeguarded Asian and world peace. In the more than half a century since the ending of World War Two, the existence and development of the socialist countries and the emerging strength of the Third World supported by them have been the decisive factor in determining that there has been no new world war. This could not be imagined if there was no socialism.

Fourthly, with the rise of the socialist countries, their great historical significance lies in the strength of their example, allowing the people of the whole world to see the light, to see hope. With the vigorous promotion and support of the socialist countries, the national democratic liberation movements of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples have developed vigorously, seriously attacking and shattering the imperialist and colonial systems. After the Second World War, more than 100 colonial countries achieved national independence and liberation, and the Third World quickly became a great political force that the world could not ignore. Today people often say that this phase of history is the so-called “Cold War”. The reason why this “Cold War” phase emerged, looked at in a certain sense, is precisely explained by the emergence and development of the socialist countries and the destruction of the pattern of world imperialism, leading to a serious attack on and weakening of the political, economic and military strength and ideology of imperialism, to a great reduction in their spheres of influence, forcing them over a long period of time to not dare to act rashly or in a self-serving manner.

Fifthly, we obviously completely affirm the historical inevitability of the replacement of capitalism with socialism, and at the same time completely affirm the superiority of socialism overt capitalism; we also need to keep a clear head and remain sober-minded. On the one hand we must see that socialism is still in the initial stage of communism, still needs to be constantly perfected and needs to constantly make progress. As Marx pointed out in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, owing to the fact that “it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” So, as it advances along the road to the higher stage of communism, it still needs to continue the revolution, continue the struggle. On the other hand, owing to the fact that socialism first of all wins victory in the relatively economically backward countries, the economic basis of the socialist countries compared to the developed capitalist countries which have had several centuries of growth, is therefore quite weak and still pursuing a higher stage. In addition, owing to the existence of imperialism and class struggle, the road stretching out in front of the socialist countries is covered with prickles and thorns and hazardous tests. The struggle over “who defeats who” between the two social systems and the two main classes has still not finished nor has it relaxed; it will be conducted intensively.

Sixthly, in Mr Xie Tao’s view, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries took a path backwards, restored capitalism, and this is a so-called “defeat for violent revolution”, “violent socialism is at the end of its tether”, but it is a “victory for democratic socialism” which is “changing the world”. This is purely a prejudice of the bourgeoisie. It is clear that with a slight understanding of the ABCs of Marxism and of historical facts, that the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the drastic changes in Eastern Europe certainly is not a defeat of the socialist system itself, even less is it a fault of Marxist theory; in fact, it’s just the opposite, it is precisely because of the betrayal of Marxism by the revisionist cliques in the Communist Parties of the original socialist countries and their departure from the correct path and the correct line of socialism, giving rise to tragedy and great social regression for the defeated parties and nations. On this question, aren’t the revisionists and the cream of the reformists in our country also in there shouting out loudly that the socialism of the Soviet Union and our country was not real socialism, but so-called “Stalinism” and “the Stalin model”? In the same year that Chairman Mao directed a powerful rebuff at the Krushchov renegade revisionist clique’s total repudiation of Stalin, he incisively pointed out: “So long as we have an all-round view of the problem, then, if we need to talk of “Stalinism”, we can say, firstly, it is communism, it is Marxism-Leninism. This is the main aspect.” (Manuscripts of Mao Zedong Since the Founding of the Nation, Vol 6 p 283-284 Chinese ed.). This passage of Chairman Mao’s was not only an objective and correct appraisal of Stalin and “Stalinism”, but moreover has firmly defended the historical status of Marxism and socialism. In addition, these “masters of reform” accused socialism in our country of being premature, of making a mess of things, saying that we needed to draw a so-called “lesson” from the economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe having failed to “move forward”, and advocating “making up the lesson missed from capitalism” and going by way of “the Caudine Forks” etc etc. Although these fallacies are all rubbish that disregards basic facts and are not even worth glancing at, this trend of thought certainly has a market in our country, and is bearing down menacingly! This is probably decided by the “big international environment” and the “small international environment”. (The Battle of the Caudine Forks occurred in 321 BC when a superior Roman force was ambushed and surrounded by the Samnites. The Samnites had the choice of freeing the Romans or of killing them all. They chose to free them, but forced them to depart by passing under a yoke, thus humiliating and demoralising them. Marx referred to this in his letter to Vera Zasulich in March 1881, when he said that the ancient form of the Russian commune, in the international environment of advanced capitalist production and technology, might enable the Russian people to leap over the Caudine Forks and proceed directly to socialism, i.e. without getting caught in, and having to proceed through, a capitalist stage, a Caudine Forks. A Uighur friend told me that the debate over whether or not China had to go through a capitalist stage had occurred in the Chinese Communist Party in the late forties and early fifties of the last century, and that Liu Shaoqi and others had argued that it should. The debate resumed at several stages in the life of the People’s Republic of China, and has re-emerged recently, with a Google search in Chinese revealing more than 134,000 hits for “Caudine Forks”. Xie Tao is here accused by Wu Bing of being amongst those who are arguing that China needs to go through the Caudine Forks of capitalism before it can begin to build socialism – Trans.)

In short, Mr Xie Tao actively opposes and negates “violent socialism”, and truly represents the “demands for the development of the advanced productive forces”, whilst we must support and guard scientific socialism; moreover, he actively advocates so-called democratic socialism, and was basically unable to represent the “demands for the development of the advanced productive forces”; this is real capitalism and fake socialism. Therefore, putting this together leads to our topic below: where are the main expressions of the differences between socialism and capitalism?

Education Rallies Successful

Two and a half thousand teachers, parents and students crowded on to the steps of Parliament House yesterday to oppose the State Labor Government’s latest cuts to public education.

AEU President Andrew Gohl compared the huge reductions in payroll tax – demanded by big business – with what the government was taking away from schools, and declared that Labor Premier Rann had forfeited the right to be called the “Education Premier”.

Similar rallies were held in regional centres throughout the State. Two hundred rallied in Port Lincoln. A similar number, representing some 30 Riverland schools, rallied in Berri. There were large turnouts in other centres as well.

Despite the Parliament House rally being large enough to block eastbound traffic along North Terrace, it was completely ignored by the Murdoch-owned sole local daily, the aptly-named Advertiser.

Gohl told the crowd that Education Department bureaucrats had said that there was to be no negotiation over the cuts when they met with Principal organizations, yet the Minister had only just stated on radio that “the matter hadn’t been decided” and the WorkCover issue – the major source of the cuts – “is yet to be resolved”.

He said this was testimony to the pressure already applied by the decision to hold an after-hours rally, but that if the matter was not properly resolved in the next week or so, teachers would be balloted for a strike.

(The main rally in Adelaide, above, and below, in the Riverland town of Berri)

Norman Bethune and The Communist’s Daughter

As an Australian, I have always admired those who renounced the perceived comforts of their advanced capitalist country to seek out the truth of revolutionary struggles in China during the desperate years of the thirties and forties.

I sort of resented, I suppose, that our claim to a link with China was through fin-de-siecle Morrison of Peking, whereas they had Rewi Alley (New Zealand), Edgar Snow and Agnes Smedley (the US), and, of course, Norman Bethune (Canada).

Of these and other foreign friends of China, Bethune stands out because he made the ultimate sacrifice in order to serve the Chinese people, a fact noted and commemorated by Chairman Mao in the months after the Canadian’s death.

Put simply, Bethune was a doctor and a Communist.

He served in World War 1, and in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1937), where he pioneered the development of mobile blood transfusion services at the front. In 1938 he was sent by the Communist Party of Canada to China. He traveled to Yan’an and met Mao Zedong and then threw himself into the midst of the War of Resistance Against Japan, conducting hundreds of life-saving operations in his mobile field hospital.

He contracted septicemia from one such operation, and died after a brief illness.

Bethune’s own writings show his character as a Communist. The post below is one of his short writings, Wounds.

Unfortunately, none of its fine sentiments surface in the portrait of Bethune created by Canadian writer Dennis Bock in his latest novel The Communist’s Daughter.

I began reading this with great enthusiasm, and have no argument with the author’s literary style or his ability to evoke, for example, battlefield conditions in France, Spain or China.

But I do take exception to his portrayal of Bethune. The great man would not know himself as the man depicted by Bock. He would despair that there was so little of his Communist passion and conviction on display.

Instead, as Bock himself says on his website, it is a story of a “man at war with himself”. This cliché of bourgeois literature is voiced through a series of letters that this “Bethune” writes to his “daughter”.

“Bethune did not have children”, admits Bock, but the possibility was “too good to ignore”. “Good” for whom? For the real Bethune and his memory? For the causes for which he fought?

In an Acknowledgement at the end of the novel, Bock offers this justification: “the aesthetic concerns of storytelling often outweighed the more standard historical versions of the Bethune story.”

For Bock, aesthetic concerns and historical fact are in contradiction with each other.

That is because his “aesthetics” are bourgeois, whilst the historical facts of this story are on the side of the proletariat.

Instead of exploring Bethune and his role in the struggles that he supported, Bock explores the man’s supposed “internal struggle”. “Obfuscation,” he writes, “indirect truths, outright lies - they are all within Bethune’s repertoire.”

This, from an author whose “aesthetic” creation is itself an acknowledged lie: there is no daughter and the whole story is just a fabrication, book-ended, as it were, and as a major admission of Bock’s personal hostility to his subject, by the supposed writing of Lu Dingyi, a real figure in Chinese Communist history.

Bock’s “Lu Dingyi” introduces the “letters” to the reader by way of a request that members of the Chinese Communist Propaganda Department at Yan’an read them and forward recommendations for their distribution and use.

Bock’s “Lu Dingyi” casts his own judgement on the “letters” and on Bock’s “Bethune” at the close of the book when he writes to Mao Zedong, on 19 December, 1939: “…this committee has found that they (the letters) cannot be used to serve the People in their struggle against the Japanese Imperialist invaders or the Nationalist Kuomintang Army…certain of his (Bethune’s) actions and beliefs can be viewed as less than exemplary of and likely harmful to the Communist ideal, as it is so clearly and inspiringly detailed in the Chairman’s own political writings…It is advisable that these documents remains sealed…However, given the revolutionary and international importance of Doctor Bethune’s life, a brief, more idealized biography or political eulogy of the subject might prove extremely beneficial to the present war effort, and find continuity in the larger canon of the Chairman’s political and philosophical writings.”

This piece of poison kills a number of birds with one dose: firstly, it “endorses” the book’s portrayal of Bethune as significantly less than the Communist that he was in real life; secondly, it depicts Communists as people for whom the truth is not something to be sought but something to be concealed; thirdly, it reinforces the Western bourgeois stereotype of Mao as a person requiring fawning and flattery; and fourthly, and given that Mao’s eulogy for Bethune was written on December 21, 1939, it suggest that it was a duplicitous, hurried and offhand creation that Mao penned, less for his own sorrow at Bethune’s passing, and more for the expediency of an “idealized biography” that suited the war effort. Nasty commies - the end always justifies the means!

If you have the time to read this book, please do so. It is an education in the bourgeois world view.

But read also, Bethune’s Wounds (below), and Mao Zedong’s In Memory of Norman Bethune here.

(Poster: a true "daughter" of Comrade Norman Bethune!)

Wounds - by Norman Bethune

By Dr. Norman Bethune, written in 1939; published in 1940.

The kerosene lamp overhead makes a steady buzzing sound like an incandescent hive of bees. Mud walls. Mud floor. Mud bed. White paper windows. Smell of blood and chloroform. Cold. Three o'clock in the morning, December 1, North China, near Lin Chu, with the 8th Route Army. Men with wounds. Wounds like little dried pools, caked with blackbrown earth; wounds with torn edges frilled with black gangrene; neat wounds, concealing beneath the abscess in their depths, burrowing into and around the great firm muscles like a dammed-back river, running around and between the muscles like a hot stream; wounds, expanding outward, decaying orchids or crushed carnations, terrible flowers of flesh; wounds from which the dark blood is spewed out in clots, mixed with the ominous gas bubbles, floating on the fresh flood of the still-continuing secondary haemorrhage.

Old filthy bandages stuck to the skin with blood-glue. Careful. Belief moisten first. Through the thigh. Pick the leg up. Why it's like a bag, a long, loose red stocking. What kind of stocking? A Christmas stocking. Where's that fine strong rod of bone now? In a dozen pieces. Pick them out with your fingers; white as a dog's teeth, sharp and jagged. Now feel. Any more left? Yes, here. All? Yes; no, here's another piece. Is this muscle dead? Pinch it. Yes, it's dead, Cut it out. How can that heal? How can those muscles, once so strong, now so torn, so devastated, so ruined, resume their proud tension? Pull, relax. Pull, relax. What fun it was! Now that is finished. Now that's done. Now we are destroyed. Now what will we do with ourselves?

Next. What an infant! Seventeen. Shot through the belly. Chloroform. Ready? Gas rushes out of the opened peritoneal cavity. Odour of feces. Pink coils of distended intestine. Four perforations. Close them. Purse string suture. Sponge out the pelvis. Tube. Three tubes. Hard to close. Keep him warm. How? Dip those bricks into hot water.

Gangrene is a cunning, creeping fellow. Is this one alive? Yes, he lives. Technically speaking, he is alive. Give him saline intravenously. Perhaps the innumerable tiny cells of his body will remember. They may remember the hot salty sea, their ancestral home, their first food. With the memory of a million years, they may remember other tides, other oceans, and life being born of the sea and sun. It may make them raise their tired little heads, drink deep and struggle back into life again. It may do that.

And this one. Will he run along the road beside his mule at another harvest, with cries of pleasure and happiness? No, that one will never run again. How can you run with one leg? What will he do? Why, he'll sit and watch the other boys run. What will he think? He'll think what you and I would think. What's the good of pity? Don't pity him! Pity would diminish his sacrifice. He did this for the defence of China. Help him. Lift him off the table. Carry him in your arms. Why, he's as light as a child! Yes, your child, my child.

How beautiful the body is: how perfect its pads; with what precision it moves; how obedient, proud and strong. How terrible when torn. The little flame of life sinks lower and lower, and with a flicker, goes out. It goes out like a candle goes out. Quietly and gently. It makes its protest at extinction, then submits. It has its day, then is silent.

Any more? Four Japanese prisoners. Bring them in. In this community of pain, there are no enemies. Cut away that blood-stained uniform. Stop that haemorrhage. Lay them beside the others. Why, they're alike as brothers! Are these soldiers professional man-killers? No, these are amateurs-in-arms. Workman's hands. These are workers-in-uniform.

No more. Six o'clock in the morning. God, it's cold in this room. Open the door. Over the distant, dark-blue mountains, a pale, faint line of light appears in the east. In an hour the sun will be up. To bed and sleep.

But sleep will not come. What is the cause of this cruelty, this stupidity? A million workmen come from Japan to kill or mutilate a million Chinese workmen. Why should the Japanese worker attack his brother worker, who is forced merely to defend himself. Will the Japanese worker benefit by the death of the Chinese? No, how can he gain? Then, in God's name, who will gain? Who is responsible for sending these Japanese workmen on this murderous mission? Who will profit from it? How was it possible to persuade the Japanese workmen to attack the Chinese Workman - his brother in poverty; his companion in misery?

Is it possible that a few rich men, a small class of men, have persuaded a million men to attack, and attempt to destroy, another million men as poor as they? So that these rich may be richer still? Terrible thought! How did they persuade these poor men to come to China? By telling them the truth? No, they would never have come if they had known the truth. Did they dare to tell these workmen that the rich only wanted cheaper raw materials, more markets and more profit? No, they told them that this brutal war was "The Destiny of the Race," it was for the "Glory of the Emperor," it was for the "Honour of the State," it was for their "King and Country."
False. False as hell!

The agents of a criminal war of aggression, such as this, must be looked for like the agents of other crimes, such as murder, among those who are likely to benefit from those crimes. Will the 80,000,000 workers of Japan, the poor farmers, the unemployed industrial workers - will they gain? In the entire history of the wars of aggression, from the conquest of Mexico by Spain, the capture of India by England, the rape of Ethiopia by Italy, have the workers of those "victorious" countries ever been known to benefit? No, these never benefit by such wars. Does the Japanese workman benefit by the natural resources of even his own country, by the gold, the silver, the iron, the coal, the oil? Long ago he ceased to possess that natural wealth. It belongs to the rich, the ruling class. The millions who work those mines live in poverty. So how is he likely to benefit by the armed robbery of the gold, silver, iron, coal and oil from China? Will not the rich owners of the one retain for their own profit the wealth of the other? Have they not always done so?
It would seem inescapable that the militarists and the capitalists of Japan are the only class likely to gain by this mass murder, this authorized madness, this sanctified butchery. That ruling class, the true state, stands accused.

Are wars of aggression, wars for the conquest of colonies, then, just big business? Yes, it would seem so, however much the perpetrators of such national crimes seek to hide their true purpose under banners of high-sounding abstractions and ideals. They make war to capture markets by murder; raw materials by rape. They find it cheaper to steal than to exchange; easier to butcher than to buy. This is the secret of war. This is the secret of all wars. Profit. Business. Profit. Blood money.

Behind all stands that terrible, implacable God of Business and Blood, whose name is Profit. Money, like an insatiable Moloch, demands its interest, its return, and will stop at nothing, not even the murder of millions, to satisfy its greed. Behind the army stand the militarists. Behind the militarists stand finance capital and the capitalist. Brothers in blood; companions in crime.
What do these enemies of the human race look like? Do they wear on their foreheads a sign so that they may be told, shunned and condemned as criminals? No. On the contrary. they are the respectable ones. They are honoured. They call themselves, and are called, gentlemen. What a travesty on the name, Gentlemen! They are the pillars of the state, of the church, of society. They support private and public charity out of the excess of their wealth. They endow institutions. In their private lives they are kind and considerate. They obey the law, their law, the law of property. But there is one sign by which these gentle gunmen can be told. Threaten a reduction on the profit of their money and the beast in them awakes with a snarl. They become ruthless as savages, brutal as madmen, remorseless as executioners. Such men as these must perish if the human race is to continue. There can be no permanent peace in the world while they live. Such an organization of human society as permits them to exist must be abolished.

These men make the wounds.

Support Growing for Rally

Support is growing for a rally to be held tomorrow outside South Australia’s Parliament House against cuts to education.

The cuts, introduced in last year’s state Budget, are dressed up as “efficiency dividends” and were praised by Standard and Poor’s when they blessed State Treasurer Foley’s latest Budget, delivered a week ago, with a triple-A rating.

The latest budget was noted by what Foley, a Labor Treasurer, was pleased to call “the biggest reduction in payroll tax in South Australia’s history.”

Typical! Public education paying for a big business windfall.

I covered part of this in a May post: “Schools face Extra Costs, Ministers Get Extra Minders”.

Principals are desperately trying to quantify the cots of the ‘efficiency dividends” to their schools but there are so many variables that it seems they are finding it hard to make a confident prediction: two high schools with similar (approx. 1150) enrolments have estimates of $153,000 per year and $189,400 per year.

Although they are correct in their opposition to the cuts, and are cooperating with the Australian Education Union over the issue, the principals are pretty much hoist on their own petard (from the French petard to break wind; a small bomb made of a metal or wooden box filled with powder, used to blow in a door or make a hole in a wall).

They were generally enthusiastic in their embrace of “local school management” when it was introduced some years ago. This saw the transfer of some operational responsibility to schools and puffed the egos of those who aspired to be bosses over, rather than colleagues of, teaching and non-teaching staff in schools.

In particular, schools were given a “global budget” so that salaries, water and power costs etc were passed on to the school and managed by the principal and the bursar/finance officer.

Essentially, the Education Department washed its hands of a whole lot of work, passed that down the line to the schools, and tickled the principals under the chin by telling them how important they were as “leaders”.

Now they’re finding that their “global budgets” aren’t worth a pinch of the proverbial, that they don’t have a voice when it comes to the crunch with the bean-counters, and they they’ve got to... shudder... work with the union to try and clear up the mess.

Let’s look at their recent track record in the context of passing costs onto schools. The principals associations “negotiated” with the Department a few months ago over the question of advertising principal positions nationally. No-one wants to be a principal these days it seems, “quality” candidates are lacking locally.

Now, you’d think the principals would want to keep open career paths for local educators, and at the very least they and the Department would ask teachers why they no longer want to take up principal positions, and do something to address the problem.

But they got sucked into the idea of advertising in the bigger, national market place.

Fair enough, but wouldn’t you think that somewhere in these negotiations, the principal association representatives would have asked “Who pays for national advertising when a school needs to advertise for a new principal?”

No, they’ve got such a cozy relationship with the Department that it never occurred to them! And now they find out that it is the school, not the employer (ie the Department) which picks up the tab.

Local school management has afforded the Department a mechanism for cutting its own expenditure at the expense of schools. The biggest component of the two figures quoted above is the WorkCover (workers compensation) levy of 1% of a school’s salary allocation.

Schools shouldn’t have to fund and manage the operation of the employer’s liability for WorkCover - it’s the employer’s responsibility! And the Department has a lousy record for WorkCover claims and poor Occupational Health and Safety.

But now it’s the school’s responsibility, and staff will have to negotiate WorkCover claims with their principals who have a direct incentive for keeping their staff off WorkCover – they get 0.6 of the 1 percent rebate back if there are no claims.

And they wonder why no self-respecting teacher wants to be a principal these days!

Dean Mighell and the Australian Labor Party

Dean Mighell is the Victorian State Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union. He was forced to quit the Labor Party by leader Kevin Rudd on May 30 following the disclosure to the capitalist media of private comments in which he had boasted of getting extra money off the bosses for his members.

Mighell’s comments had been secretly taped at a meeting of construction workers six months ago, probably by the Australian Building and Construction Commission, an organization created by the Howard Government to destroy construction unions and their militancy.

Mighell was referring to a 1993 victory in which he won extra gains for his members by engaging in “pattern bargaining” where claims are won across an entire industry by extracting concessions from weaker bosses and using them as a precedent against the stronger.

These tactics were perfectly legal in 1993, but both Liberal (the current Federal Government) and Labor (positioning itself to win office in the next federal election) have declared them illegal.

Speaking to an audience of adult workers, Mighell let the “fuck” word drop a few times in the course of his talk. For better or worse, any child can hear that word these days on television, on CDs and DVDs, but it became an issue for Mr “Sqeaky Clean”, Labor leader Kevin Rudd and his senior colleagues, Julia Gillard (Deputy Leader) and Wayne Swan (shadow Treasurer).

The temperate trio then remembered that Dean Mighell had said some nasty things about Australian Prime Monster John Howard a few weeks ago at the Labor Party Conference (“…Howard is a skidmark on the bedsheets of Australian politics”) and decided that he would have to be expelled from the Labor Party.

Rudd (and remember that his wife is a multimillionaire, one of whose companies had recently been found to have underpaid workers by 45 cents an hour) declared Mighell’s comments “obscene at every level”. Get the full flavour of his outrage here: http://www.alp.org.au/media/0507/tviloo300.php

Gillard accused Mighell of “going over the line”. Pleeease do yourself a favour and look at her radio interview on the subject here: http://www.alp.org.au/media/0507/ridlop310.php It’s the best belly laugh you’ll have in years.

Swan described Mighell’s views as “repugnant…he should his mouth out with soap”. Don’t believe it? It’s here: http://www.swanmp.org/swanmp/2007/05/transcript_pers.html

The irony of Mighell’s expulsion is that it came virtually five years to the day from his own walkout from the ALP on March 17, 2002 in protest against the State and Federal ALP’s adoption of economic rationalist policies and their “desertion” of the working class.

He joined the Greens for a while, but then rejoined the ALP.

His in-again-out-again history of ALP membership invites some comment on the nature of the ALP.

In his book “The Labor Party?”, E.F. (Ted) Hill noted that it had multiple origins.

On the one hand, “It arose in the particular historical conditions of Australia where the young colonies in which capitalism was developing had by no means established even nominal independence from England…Australian capitalists were seeking greater independence. The historic task to unify Australia fell upon the Australian Labor Party.”

On the other hand, “The Labor Party …bears the name ‘Labor’…because its origins go back to the birth and struggle for existence of the trade unions and because there is a good deal of interchangeability in the personnel of the leaders of the ALP and the trade unions (and it) presents itself as a workers’ party.”

These two features of its origins and development confused many in the working class movement. For a long time, the old Communist Party of Australia depicted the ALP as a “two class party”. Only with the formation of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) was a clear analysis made of the nature of the ALP, which was subsequently characterized by Hill as “…in fact a party of capitalism”.

Hill added: “Because of its Labor appearance, the bourgeoisie uses it to impose bourgeois policies on the workers in the name of Labor. This is based on the assessment (correct to a degree and in certain circumstances) that the workers will accept from a Labor government anti-popular actions which they will not accept from a party like the Liberal-Country Party.”

It should therefore come as no surprise that a multimillionaire husband can explain away his wife’s theft of money from her workers, yet describe as “obscene on every level” the words and actions of a trade union leader who has won extra gains for his members.

It should come as no surprise that the multimillionaire husband, whom media baron Rupert Murdoch has said “would make a pretty good Prime Minister”, should stay as leader of the Labor Party whilst the trade union boss (“a thug” according to Gillard) should be shown the door.

This is more than a factional clash, although the ALP is the party of factional clashes.

Hill’s October 1974 book, from which I have quoted, explains the turbulence and factional strife inherent in the ALP: “Instability is a characteristic of the Labor Party. Its instability is born of the instability of capitalism and its institutions and born of the conflict between the bourgeoisie whom it really serves and the working class whom it pretends to serve.”

As for Mighell, he has vowed to fight on for his members.

‘I make no apologies for fighting for my members. And it's what I'll continue to do, regardless of which political party is in Government.”

Only through a genuine party of the working class, a Marxist-Leninist party, can this genuine class attitude become not just a force for the good of this or that union and its members, but a force for the liberation of the entire working class and for the genuine anti-imperialist independence of the country, protected by a socialist state and government.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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".

Remembering Alex

For S., with thanks

Last night, more than 50 comrades gathered to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the passing of a mate and comrade.

That mate was Comrade Alex, who was shot and killed on the Cooper Pedy opal fields on April 14, 1982.

Alex was one of the first of our generation of youthful Marxist-Leninists who, in the late 1960’s, rallied to the call of the Party and united to fight capitalism and imperialism.

Alex stood out. For a start, he was a tall bloke (first from right in photo above, looking at camera), but his presence went beyond his height. He could light up a room with his dry sense of humour, his famous one-liners and ascerbic wit.

Alex was a practical bloke and made the smoke bombs for demos, handing out recipes for molotovs and generally looking for ways to push the envelope against the coppers. If they were there taking photos of marchers, Alex was there taking photos of them.

One of the coppers who specialised in harassing young left-wing opponents of the US imperialist war of aggression against Vietnam was "Curly" Marshall. "Curly" wasn’t big for a copper, but he let us know that he was on our tail night and day, often brushing past us in a pub and asking casually about something we had said or done the previous day.

One of those at the commemoration recalled how he had been helping Alex with an offset printer one day when "Curly" and another Special Branch copper arrived and started niggling Alex, trying to bait him into saying or doing something to warrant an arrest. For over half an hour this kept up, with Alex keeping his cool throughout, defusing their antagonism with his humour until they left.

When the situation was in his favour, Alex wasn’t quite the gentleman as far as the cops went. A number of them wore bruises that corresponded to the shape of Alex’s big knuckles after having rashly waded into lines of anti-war demonstrators.

Unfortunately for Alex, he was very much influenced by one particular friend who had a dominant personality and a tendency to commit a few too many political mistakes. One of those mistakes was not taking the women’s movement seriously. But there were other major errors on this friend’s part too. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the friend arrived a day late for a conference of the Worker-Student Alliance, entered disruptively, refused to heed warnings of the Chair, and responded to a female comrade with "I think you might find the dictatorship of the proletariat a bit too physical". In the end it was decided that the friend and Alex should be expelled from a particular organisation which expected a higher level of discipline and understanding. To the friend, this was water off a duck’s back; to Alex, it was devastating. He had not thought that silly behaviour could carry such consequences, and he wept as the decision was delivered.

Within WSA, it was only the friend who was expelled. Alex bounced back and continued to make his valuable contributions to the revolutionary socialist movement.

However, it was clear that Alex was a marked man in Adelaide and that the cops would make it difficult for him to keep a job and provide for the family that he was building.

So Alex left for Cooper Pedy, a frontier town in the outback where law and order was pretty much provided by the miners themselves.

Alex had some success and started building a small business. Despite the remoteness of Cooper Pedy from Adelaide, Alex remained devoted to the cause of the people. I remember when WSA members at the big Chrysler plant in Adelaide were involved in a rank and file dispute with the management. There had been a strike, an occupation, and several arrests. Alex sent down two thousand dollars to the rank and file to help see them through the dispute, a characteristically selfless act of genuine commitment.

Those of us who met yesterday to remember Alex – and there were some from interstate and overseas – did so with great love and respect for the man.

He died too young in a lawless town.

He left a gap in all of our lives, and it was fitting that Henry Lawson’s poem "The Glass on the Bar" should have been read in his memory:

Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn,
And one of them called for the drinks with a grin;
They’d only returned from a trip to the North,
And, eager to greet them, the landlord came forth.
He absently poured out a glass of Three Star,
And set down that drink with the rest on the bar.

"There, that is for Harry," he said, "and it’s queer,
‘Tis the very same glass that he drank from last year;
His name’s on the glass, you can read it like print,
He scratched it himself with an old piece of flint;
I remember his drink – it was always Three Star" –
And the landlord looked out through the door of the bar.

He looked at the horses, and counted but three:
"You were always together - where’s Harry?" cried he.
Oh, sadly they looked at the glass as they said,
"You may put it away, for our old mate is dead;"
But one, gazing out o’er the ridges afar,
Said, "We owe him a shout – leave the glass on the bar.

They thought of the far-away grave on the plain,
They thought of the comrade who came not again,
They lifted their glasses, and sadly they said:
"We drink to the name of the mate who is dead."
And the sunlight streamed in, and a light like a star
Seemed to glow in the depth of the glass on the bar.

And still in that shanty a tumbler is seen,
It stands by the clock, ever polished and clean;
And often the strangers will read as they pass
The name of a bushman engraved on the glass;
And though on the shelf but a dozen there are,
That glass never stands with the rest on the bar.

1889

DUSTBOWL - Environment vs Capitalism

April 14 1935 is the day, so Woody Guthrie reminds us, that the Great Duststorm swept over Kansas and Oklahoma as the dustbowl took its vengeance on capitalist farming in the United States.

John Steinbeck chronicled that double disaster - the disaster of nature and the disaster of capitalism -in his powerful novel The Grapes of Wrath; Guthrie captured both disasters and the sweep and import of the novel in his Dustbowl Ballads, some of which namechecked Preacher Casey and Tom Joad, characters from the novel.

Woody was a communist who never joined the Party. He is famous for the slogan "This machine kills fascists!" that he emblazoned on his guitar.

On this day we commemorate Woody and the tragedy of the Dustbowl by reprinting the lyrics to The Great Duststorm (Great Storm Disaster).

Dust Storm Disaster(The Great Dust Storm)

On the 14th day of April of 1935,
There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky.
You could see that dust storm comin', the cloud looked deathlike black,
And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track.

From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line,
Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande,
It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down,
We thought it was our judgement, we thought it was our doom.

The radio reported, we listened with alarm,
The wild and windy actions of this great mysterious storm;
From Albuquerque and Clovis, and all New Mexico,
They said it was the blackest that ever they had saw.

From old Dodge City, Kansas, the dust had rung their knell,
And a few more comrades sleeping on top of old Boot Hill.
From Denver, Colorado, they said it blew so strong,
They thought that they could hold out, but they didn't know how long.

Our relatives were huddled into their oil boom shacks,
And the children they was cryin' as it whistled through the cracks.
And the family it was crowded into their little room,
They thought the world had ended, and they thought it was their doom.

The storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night,
When we looked out next morning, we saw a terrible sight.
We saw outside our window where wheat fields they had grown
Was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown.

It covered up our fences, it covered up our barns,
It covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm.
We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in,
We rattled down that highway to never come back again.

Support the Struggle of the Nandigram Peasants

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has recently released its report on the second wave of killings of peasants in the Nandigram region. Nandigram is approximately 150 kilometres south of Kolkata (Calcutta), the state capital of West Bengal.

The killings have been carried out by thugs organised by the revisionist CPI (Marxist)-led Left Front Government, which has sought to create a series of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as a means of attracting foreign investment capital into West Bengal.

The Nandigram area was previously very pro-CPI(M). The only reason why this very strong mass base suddenly turned against the CPI(M) was the proposed land acquisition for an SEZ to built by the Indonesian MNC Salem International.

The founder of the Salim Group is Liem Sioe Liong. Reportedly the richest man in Indonesia, Liem owes much of his fortune to privileges granted him by the fascist dictator Suharto, whom he befriended in the 1940s.

It was precisely because Nandigram was emerging as a model for anti-SEZ, anti-corporate-land grab resistance that it invited such horrible repression. It had become a sore spot and a source of concern and anxiety, not just for local CPI(M) leaders or the LF Government, but for all Governments all over the country.

The repression started with a massacre of villagers on January 7, 2007. In Singur, police arrested nearly 500 Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation activists at a January 8 solidarity protest.

Then the goons came back on March 14 and conducted a further massacre over a three-day period. On March 23, the CPI(ML) launched a nationwide campaign in solidarity with the Singur and Nandigram struggles.

An excellent in-depth analysis of this struggle can be found here on the Marxist-Leninist Lists website.

The Right to Food website has asked all concerned people to write letters of protest to the national and state authorities in India and West Bengal:

Recipient of letter:

Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
Chief Minister
Government of West Bengal
Writers' Building,
Kolkata 700001
India

Shri Abdur Rezzak Mollab
Minister In Charge
Land and Land Reforms Department,
Government of West Bengal
Writer's Building
Kolkata - 700001
India

Hon'ble Justice Shri Shyamal Kumar Sen
Chairperson
West Bengal Human Rights CommissionIndia

Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
South BlockRoom No. 152
New Delhi- 110001
India

Rat

I know it is the prerogative of editorial cartoonists to caricature their subjects, but surely this depiction of the Australian Prime Minister as a rat goes too far. My son had a pet rat which was decent and clean, and to compare it to the Prime Minister is most unfair.

Howard is Australia's worst Prime Monster.

Couldn't say "Sorry" to the Stolen Generation (indigenous children stolen from their parents by Government "welfare" officers mid-last century).

Wouldn't say "Welcome" to asylum seekers (demonising them as illegal immigrants, placing them in concentration camps for years on end, depriving them of all rights).

Didn't ask "Why?" - just said "how high?" when told to join Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq.

Attacked the working class by legislating for "unAustralian Workplace Agreements" that have stripped workers of defence against unfair dismissal, slashed overtime and penalty rates, and taken away holiday and sick leave.

Was the originator of the racist policies of Pauline Hanson's "One Nation Party" with his "one nation, one people" bullshit.

Grovelled to Dick Cheney for the early trial of David Hicks, held for five years at Guantanamo, when it became evident that Australian public opinion was strongly behind Hicks being given a "fair go"; achieved that and an order that will see Hicks in goal in Australia until just after this year's Federal election, and unable to comment to the media for a year. What a gift from the US overlords!

Even members of his own Government have allegedly described him as a "lying rodent":

Mr Galt told Channel 9 that Senator Brandis said Mr Howard was a "lying rodent" and that the party would have to "cover his arse" again over the children overboard affair. Mr Galt has given the network a signed statutory declaration of his version of events at the meeting.
It quotes Senator Brandis as saying of Mr Howard: "He is a lying rodent" and "we’ve got to go off and cover his arse again on this".

But then, I've never heard a rodent lie, have you?

Eternal Mao Zedong

(Reverence for Comrade Mao Zedong still runs high in China despite, or perhaps because, of the activities of the restorationists to deny his proletarian revolutionary legacy. I have translated the poem below from the "maoflag" website. My Chinese is not too good, but I think I've got the gist of it)

By Ren Ping
5/9/2006

No military strategist can
Compare to you in courage:
You led an army of 30,000
And walked the most difficult 25,000 li
From then on
The Long March became
The eternal motif of the Chinese Revolution

"On Protracted War"
Showed how a small force
Can defeat a strong,
Became a marvel of military matters,
Winning the admiration of foreigners.
From then on
Asian, African and Latin American peoples
Began to raise the curtain
On their independence and liberation.

No leader can
Compare to you as a thinker.
Your family sacrificed
Six young lives for the revolution,
Your lovely wife
Even your beloved son.
Your tears flowed
Your grief lying quietly in
The depths of your heart.

No ancient Chinese emperor can
Compare to your lofty dignity.
You are a leader of a nation
Keeping in your mind
From beginning to end
The broad masses of the people.
The power and strength of the nation
The sufferings of the people
Down to the final moment of your life
You were still pondering deeply.

Who can be rated as a great person?
Inspiration in the waving hands.
No explanation is necessary
In the hearts of the people
You are the eternal leader.

Notes:

"Your lovely wife": Yáng Kāihuì (Traditional Chinese: 楊開慧; Simplified Chinese: 杨开慧; courtesy name: Yúnjǐn 云锦; 1901 – November 14, 1930) was the second wife of Mao Zedong from 1920 to 1927. She was born in Bancang village, Changsha, Hunan and was the daughter of Yang Changji, head of the Hunan First Normal School and one of Mao's favorite teachers. She joined the Communist Party of China in 1921. In October 1930, the Kuomintang captured her with her son, Anying. The KMT put them in prison. Anying, then 8, was forced to watch as the KMT tortured and killed her. (Source: Wikipedia)

"Even your beloved son": Mao Anying (Chinese: 毛岸英, Pinyin: Máo Ànyīng) (October 24, 1922 – November 25, 1950) was the eldest son of Mao Zedong and Yang Kaihui. Educated in Moscow, he was killed in action by an air attack during the Korean War. (Source: Wikipedia)

Photo L-R: Mao Zedong, daughter Li Na, son Mao Anying and his wife Liu Songlin