US imperialism sets the agenda at the Group of Seven

Once upon a time the Group of Seven (G7) had some purpose – at least for the leaders of the Western world – in providing a platform for the masters of imperialism to present a common economic front to challenge the Soviet Union and the Third World during the Cold War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 the G7, like the Trilateral Commission and the World Economic Forum that meets in Davos, was used by the Western powers to by-pass the United Nations in their bid to rule the world at the turn of the century. 

That American dream brought death and destruction to the Balkans and the Arab world until finally brought to a halt on the streets of Baghdad and Aleppo. No-one talks about the “New World Order” these days – not even at the G7 which claims to uphold the shared values of what they call pluralism, liberal democracy, and representative government. 

These mythical “values”, which are simply a mask to cover the oppression and exploitation of capitalism at home and abroad, have few takers beyond the heartlands of the Western world that lives off the backs of the Global South it seeks to plunder and exploit.

The G7 now is simply another forum for US imperialism to set out its agenda to the leaders of the other imperialist powers – Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada – that do the bidding of whoever is in the White House at the time.

No Western get-together can be without the presence of Vladimir Zelensky and this year’s G7 in Hiroshima was no exception. Zelensky turned up in person – invited, it is said, at the initiative of the British government – to appeal for more guns and money to keep his war with the Russians going.  Zelensky says that escalation is the key to victory but he’s hardly a military expert. And in any case everybody knows he is merely parroting the wishes of the Biden administration in Washington.

This is Biden’s war. And as retired Italian general Marco Bertolini pointed out the other day, if Western arms supplies to Ukraine had stopped “the war would have ended a year ago and would not have cost hundreds of thousands of lives”. 

Zelensky says he’s a “servant of the people”. That was the name of the TV comedy show he starred in when he was still an actor. It’s now the name of Zelensky’s own political platform. And it’s true, Zelensky is a servant of the “people”. But they are clearly not Ukrainians. 

The people Zelensky serves are the Americans behind Joe Biden – the venal and aggressive war-party of American industrialists, bankers and landowners that still believes in world domination. 

There is, of course, division and opposition to the Ukraine war within the American ruling class. We see it in the dissident voices of investigative journalists, politicians, retired generals and diplomats that even include Nixon’s scheming foreign minister, Henry Kissinger. We also see it amongst the Republican opposition.

The two Republican front-runners set to challenge Biden at the next election are former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Both are opposed to Biden’s proxy war. And they’re not the only ones.

This is why Boris Johnson has gone to Texas. He’s in Dallas trying to sway leading Republican politicians, donors and businessmen away from what the war-lobby see as a deviant line from the Trump camp.

Sadly the dead hand of the bourgeois gurus, the social democrats and the bogus left that also serve imperialism has stifled open debate on the Ukraine conflict in the media and more importantly, within the labour movement itself. 

Communists like us, working with other genuine left anti-war forces, can make the difference, and indeed we must, to build the campaign to halt the British role in the war and build solidarity with the fighting people of the Donbas.

Poland: the road to tyranny

 by Konrad Rękas

Some scholars describe Poland's current political system as “illiberal”, i.e. as preserving the external appearances of neo-liberal parliamentary democracy, but with a limited level of human and civil rights. This analysis seems incomplete. Poland is not an exception to the Western system, some relic of an own authoritarian past or a freak of local populist authoritarianism. On the contrary, the example of Poland can be used to trace the evolution that will almost certainly be shared by other countries subject to the neo-liberal domination of the United States and the UK.

Dismantling the last vestiges of parliamentarism and the rule of law is an inherent feature of the present stage of imperialism. They become redundant, as historically they only secured the smooth functioning of capitalist mass production, which is no longer needed today in the realities of global financialised capitalism. The ruling class now has no need for social consensus or the acceptance of left-wing parties and trade unions that give a certain scope of freedom of expression and organisation.

Poland shows that in the next phase of imperialism there will be an attempt to strengthen it through authoritarianism – a mono-party system (now poorly concealed by the false division into ‘ruling party / parliamentary opposition’) and possible references to populist and outright fascist content, while of course maintaining neo-liberal slogans and phraseology.

Nazism

In Poland, these processes have been accelerated, especially as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, when surveillance, censorship and repression are carried out under the pretext of “fighting against Russian influence”. The Polish prosecutor's office and courts willingly refer to the law penalising “incitement to hatred on the basis of national, ethnic and racial differences” while recognising that it prohibits also criticising the Banderite ideology, which is only the Ukrainian form of Nazism.

These days the Polish courts regard “Banderite” as synonymous with “Ukrainian”. People are prosecuted for recalling the Volhynian Massacre (the mass genocide perpetrated by the Ukrainian Nazis on Poles, Jews and Ukrainian anti-fascists during the Second World War). They include Katarzyna Sokołowska and Andrzej Łukawski, who have been campaigning to commemorate the victims of Nazi crimes. Four residents on the Polish-Ukrainian borderland were arrested for trying to organise civic patrols to protect neighbours from attacks of aggressive Ukrainian immigrants bearing Nazi symbols. Although formally Nazi signs are prohibited in Poland, neither the courts nor the police react to their increasing presence, claiming that they are currently “justified by the Ukrainian defence against Russian aggression”. Protesting Poles face up to two years in prison.

peace prohibited

“Praising Russian aggression against Ukraine” now considered a crime in Poland and it’s used to stifle the anti-war campaigners like Henryk Mikietyn a 72-year-old pensioner and one of the former leaders of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP).

The KPP is banned in Poland, and the mere use of communist emblems can be punished. Groups referring to the heritage of communist Poland have taken part in anti-war actions under the banner the Polish Left Movement (PRL). This probably prompted the Court in Legnica to sentence Comrade Mikietyn to three months imprisonment conditionally suspended for a probationary period of two years. His mobile phone was confiscated as a “crime tool”. And under the supervision of a probation officer Mikietyn has to now do six months “voluntary service” in “an entity providing assistance to residents of Ukraine affected by the effects of the war”.

The blogger Najjjka was sentenced to five months restriction of freedom (ordered to do unpaid social work by the Court) for saying, quoting the Bible, that she would not allow Ukrainian Nazis into her home.

Similar judgments have been handed down in other cases in Krakow, Wrocław, Świdnica and in many other Polish cities. The prosecutor's office is now focusing on activists of the Polish Anti-War Movement (PRA), such as Piotr Panasiuk from Lublin, who describing the alleged “Bucha Massacre” as a Ukrainian hoax.

In addition to the police and the prosecutor's office, critics of Poland's unilateral involvement in the Ukrainian conflict are pursued by numerous non-governmental organisations, mostly financed by the Polish government and its Western sponsors.

Neither Amnesty International nor the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights took any action to defend those convicted and detained for criticising Nazism. On the contrary, the Helsinki Foundation publicly praised the new practice of the Polish Government as an example of the "fight against hate speech”!

the fight intensifies

Mateusz Piskorski PhD, a former MP and then founder and leader of the anti-imperialist, left-wing CHANGE party was arrested in 2016 and for three years he was held in prison without trial on charges of “cooperation with the Russian and Chinese intelligence”. He was released after intervention of the United Nations Working Group, which investigated the lack of rule of law in Poland. To this day, however, Piskorski is under strict police surveillance, he cannot leave the country, and his court case is pending.

Janusz Niedźwiecki, a human rights activist, has been in prison for the last two years accused of “espionage for China”.

Further amendments to the Polish Penal Code are on the cards including introducing criminal liability for the “unintentional form of espionage” (up to five years in prison), as well as for the crime of “disinformation involving the dissemination of false or misleading information” (up to eight years in jail). The scope of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), a branch of the secret police, will be significantly expanded.

It can therefore be assumed that the number of political prisoners in Poland can only increase in the coming months.

No DU shells to Ukraine!

The Kremlin warned Britain of the grave consequences of supplying Ukraine with depleted uranium (DU) shells. Some said this simply meant escalation. Others, the gurus of the bourgeois media who pose as ‘military experts’, told us that they posed no danger to Ukrainian civilians and that, in any case, this was just another empty threat from the Russians who would soon be on their knees following a Ukrainian spring offensive. What none of them foresaw was that the “grave consequences” that would follow would be the taking out of the DU ammo dumps and the possible release of deadly radiation into the air.
    That’s exactly what happened when a Ukrainian military depot was totally destroyed by a Russian ballistic missile this week. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says reports that radiation levels have risen in the aftermath of the Russian strike are wrong.
    Whether deadly gamma rays really were released when the warehouse went up is a matter of indifference to the hapless citizens of Khmelnitsky. They stampeded to the shops to buy iodine pills and are being told not to drink the tap water. They're seeing patrols going around the streets with radiation dosimeters after the explosion. They were not prepared to give their authorities the benefit of the doubt. Neither should we.
    Sadly Labour’s leaders and most of the trade union bureaucrats think otherwise. They spend their time thinking of new ways to take the UK back into the European Union and drivelling on about the “human rights” they believe can only exist under the rule of the bourgeoisie. These days many of those who pose as socialists have also become cheer-leaders for imperialism and its lackeys in Israel, south Korea and, of course, Ukraine.
    No treaty explicitly banning the use of DU is yet in force, however repeated UN General Assembly resolutions have highlighted serious concerns over the use of DU weapons. Needless to say, the UK, together with the USA, France and Israel, are the only states that have consistently voted against the resolutions.
    Sadly, the influence of the venal social-democrats and the bogus left stretches far beyond the union movement. Its dead-hand stifles debate in academia and within the traditional anti-war and peace movements in Britain.
    CND and the Stop the War campaign are in the doldrums precisely because they refused to take a principled stand when the Russians intervened to defend the people of the Donbas last year. But genuine communists, such as the New Communist Party, along with anti-imperialists and revolutionary socialists, stepped up their solidarity work in support of the Donbas people’s republics and the underground Ukrainian anti-fascist resistance.
    More people are now seeing through the lies of the imperialists and their willing tools in the peace and labour movement. Stop the War, which originally called for an end to the fighting on NATO’s terms, is shifting. CND to its credit has called on the Sunak government to put an immediate end to its use of DU. They say “inflicting it on the people of Ukraine is the last thing they need” – it’s the last thing we need too.

Odessa Solidarity Campaign

 

Odessa Solidarity Campaign “Supporting the antifascist people of Ukraine since 2016” A project of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality PO Box 23202, Richmond, VA 23223 USA - https://odessasolidaritycampaign.org Ph: 1-804-644-5834 - Email: DefendersFJE@hotmail.com

Statement by the Odessa Solidarity Campaign on the 9th anniversary of the Odessa Massacre

Each year, the Odessa Solidarity Campaign has promoted actions on May 2 to mark the date in 2014 when a right-wing mob led by openly fascist organizations murdered at least 42 anti-fascists at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, Ukraine. The Odessa Massacre took place just a few months after the violent coup that replaced a pro-Russian president with a pro-U.S. one. Not surprisingly, the U.S. was heavily involved in promoting the coup. Today Ukraine has an authoritarian government that openly collaborates with neo-Nazi organizations, incorporating them into its military and promoting the memory of Ukrainian fascists who shamefully collaborated with the World War II Nazi occupation of their country. The birthday of the notorious Nazi collaborator Stefan Bandera is now a national holiday. His image graces a national stamp. Major streets have been renamed in his honor and Bandera statues have replaced monuments to Soviet war heroes. For years, relatives of those who were murdered on May 2, 2014, regularly visited the site of the massacre and kept repeating their demand for an international investigation into the atrocity, something  the Ukrainian government has never allowed. Today it is impossible for them to come into the streets without risking arrest or physical attacks. The Odessa Solidarity Campaign was founded in 2016 to support the anti-fascist people of Odessa, and now Ukraine as a whole. That was the year we traveled to Odessa to stand with the Council of Mothers of May 2 as they defied threats of attack by the same fascist organizations that had murdered their daughters and sons.  Today, as the world is inundated with pro-U.S. and pro-NATO propaganda about the war in Ukraine, we believe it is more important than ever to keep alive the memory of the Odessa Massacre and the fact that not all Ukrainians support the current reactionary government and its pro-U.S./NATO stance.

We are asking that all freedom-loving people everywhere please post this message on your websites and social media sites along with the above graphic that was created by a young Ukrainian to promote the anti-fascist message. Please make the graphic your Facebook image for the day and share it on your Instagram, Tic-Toc and Twitter accounts. And as for the war itself, we call on the U.S. and NATO, which are responsible for provoking this devastating confrontation, to stop sending arms to Ukraine and stop using the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder in their proxy war against Russia.   Remember the Odessa Massacre! U.S. Out of Ukraine! NATO Out of Existence! If you or your organization post this message and/or graphic, please let us know: ODESSA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN PO Box 23202, Richmond, VA 23223 - USA Phone/Text: 1-804-644-5845 Email: DefendersFJE@hotmail.com Web: https://odessasolidaritycampaign.org

No grounds for complacency

Last week’s local elections were bad news for the Tories. The Conservatives lost control of more than 40 councils in the poll which Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says has set them "on course for a Labour majority at the next general election".
    It was certainly good for Labour but there’s no grounds for complacency. Labour ended up nine per cent ahead of the Tories picking up more than 500 seats and winning control of 22 more councils on the night. But the swing is nothing like the astronomical levels recorded by the pollsters at the beginning of the year and though the Conservatives lost over a thousand council seats nearly half of them went to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.
    Though there’s still a year or more to go until the next general election if nothing changes a nine per cent swing will not be enough to give Labour an overall majority in the House of Commons. Starmer says Labour isn’t interested in cutting a deal with the Liberal-Democrats or the nationalists but this hasn’t stopped speculation in Westminster and in the bourgeois media about a coalition to avoid a hung parliament.
    The Liberal Democrats did join hands with the Tories to form a coalition under David Cameron. But it ended in tears at the 2015 general election with loss of 48 seats in the House of Commons, leaving them with only eight MPs. Nevertheless the Lib-Dems would still like to be king-makers if Starmer won’t play ball, Rishi Sunak might have no choice.
    Though local elections generally reflect national issues local issues sometimes benefit campaigns like the Canvey Island Independence Party that increased their share of seats on their local council. But unlike the Scottish or Welsh nationalists the only “independence” they want is that of their old Canvey district council in Essex.
    Needless to say the left posers who call themselves part of an imaginary “revolutionary left” were well down with the also-rans in this election. The reality is that these “alternative left” parties are rejected time and again by the same working class their programmes claim to advance. There isn’t even a remote possibility of any of them taking office as the rhetoric and wild promises of these parties do not reflect reality.
    The glittering display of pomp and circumstance for the coronation of King Charles at Westminster Abbey may have thrilled the royal fans and the gaping tourists who delight in these spectacles but it did nothing to change the lives of the millions of working people trying to cope with the cost of living crisis.
    In ancient days the slaves were kept quiet with free food and entertainment in the arenas and circuses whose ruins can still be seen across what was once the Roman Empire. When the going was good even the barons and their feudal church would provided feast days, religious holidays and sports for the peasants who tilled the land that kept the lords in clover. But the workers get nothing from the capitalists.
    The incompetence, greed and indifference towards the unemployed and the homeless sums up all that is rotten within the British ruling class.
    We don’t want the ‘austerity-lite’ of Starmer & Co. We don’t want a mealy-mouthed compromise with the worthless Liberal-Democrats that the liberal bourgeois pundits who pose as friends of the working class are now advocating. What we want is an end to austerity and the restoration of trade union rights. Saving the NHS, capping rents and building cheap council homes, raising wages, getting rid of the need for foodbanks, saving our schools, restoring the right to independence for the disabled, restoring proper care for the elderly and restoring legal aid to bring justice for all – restoring the public sector, cutting the defence budget and taxing the rich to make them pay for the crisis of their own creation will pay for all of this and more.
    Getting rid of capitalism and replacing it with socialism is the ultimate objective of working people. Getting rid of austerity and replacing it with social justice must be the immediate objective of the working class.

Defend Diane Abbott!

Rising prices and soaring inflation. Doctors, teachers and railway workers on strike for higher pay. Tens of thousands of young people marching through London to demand action on climate change. Yet for Sir Keir Starmer top of the agenda is the suspension of Diane Abbot from the Parliamentary Labour Party for some ill-chosen words on racism that she subsequently retracted. 

     The veteran black Labour MP perhaps unwisely sent a letter to the Observer that some claimed downplayed the Holocaust or was even anti-semitic. Starmer certainly thinks so.
In fact all that her letter in the Observer said was “Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.
    "It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships”.
    There’s confusion between “prejudice” and “racism” and silly talk about “redheads” while any reference to the “prejudice” against Jewish people is incomplete without reference to the Holocaust.
    Prejudice and racism are, of course, not quite the same. But one often leads to the other. Adolf Hitler hated Jews but he didn’t talk about extermination during the Nazi rise to power in Germany after the first world war. But there’s a certain inevitability once you establish the creed of the “master race” and state that Jews were “sub-human” enemies of the entire human race.
    Yes Diane Abbott’s letter is insensitive, crass and historically wrong. But it’s certainly not anti-semitic.
    The left social-democratic Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) network points out “ No individual has suffered more from racism over her 40 years as an MP than Abbott and to even think of characterising her as racist is grotesque political chicanery”.
    Or as Caribbean Labour Solidarity rightly says: “Whether you agree with the formulation of Diane’s letter...or not, we must be clear that this is not the real issue at stake here. She has been suspended from the Labour Party for being a socialist who opposes the class-collaborationist position of the Starmer leadership. We may wish to discuss with Diane the terms in which we discuss the nature of racism, we do not doubt her commitment to the struggle against racism in all its manifestations. We cannot say the same about Keir Starmer. She has apologised and withdrawn the statement. Let that be the end of the matter. We demand that she be reinstated forthwith”.
    Starmer & Co now seems determined to purge Labour of all the remaining Corbynistas including the tiny band of Labour MPs who still support the former Labour leader in the House of Commons. But Starmer should beware. Diane Abbott is a highly respected London MP. Kicking her out of the Labour Party will cost Starmer votes – not just in her north London constituency and not just amongst the Black ethnic minority communities either.