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Workers’ Voice newspaper: March-April edition
The U.S.-Israel war on Iran is a major escalation in the Middle East that has dangerous implications for working people everywhere. The brutality of the imperialist assault internationally is paired with the attack on civil liberties by the Trump regime inside the U.S. This includes the continued operations of ICE and Border Patrol, the threats to the 2026 mid-term elections, environmental rollbacks that deeply impact the Black community, and unchecked police brutality.
Our editorial in this issue warns us: “There is a great danger of underestimating the determination of the U.S. corporate elite to drive through this effort. We cannot rely on court rulings or upcoming elections to save us. We must organize now, not only for mass demonstrations and community networks against ICE violence, but to find our way to building a new working-class party through which we can organize our political defense on every plane and on every day.”
In this issue we also have articles on the Epstein files and the ruling class, the San Francisco teachers’ strike, and a review of the new album by U2.
The March–April 2026 edition of our newspaper is available in print and online as a pdf. Read the latest issue of our newspaper today with a free pdf download! As always, we appreciate any donations to help with the cost of printing.
Click on the image to read the paper or message us to get a hard copy:
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Hoopla audiobooks: A selection for workers’ political education
By ERWIN FREED
Workers’ Voice is adding what we hope will be a regular column with recommendations of audiobooks for workers interested in general studies and occasional fiction titles. All texts are available through the App/Website Hoopla. Hoopla is a free service offered by many libraries, with a surprisingly extensive collection of audiobooks, e-books, and movies.
This column is written by a factory worker and member of Workers’ Voice who is an avid consumer of audio books and other materials throughout the workday. In many shops and industries, from assembly lines to warehouses to kitchens and everything in between, workers complete hundreds of relatively menial and repetitive tasks over thousands of hours in a year. Karl Marx pointed out in “Capital” the tendency of capitalist development to separate the “hand” from the “brain” in the labor process. This has a double-sided effect. On the one hand, it alienates workers from the production-process, but on the other hand—with the advent of portable communications technology—it also frees up our mental facilities to learn and experience a wide array of cultural products while on the clock.
Hoopla is a helpful asset in this regard and points towards the possibilities under a socialist system for synthesizing culture, education, and material production, which is currently hampered by capitalist control of the media and the work process.
One specific difficulty with Hoopla on the level of “User Interface”/”User Experience” (UI/UX) design is that finding texts is almost impossible unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Part of the purpose of this column will be to collect and highlight readings already available for free on the app that can be politically enlightening or otherwise break up the working day. For this reason, we provide short summaries motivating the selections.
Recommendations for these texts is not an endorsement of the political line of the authors or books. It is instead based on the observation that their content can prove useful for general education on various topics or fiction that our contributors find particularly engaging.
This month’s picks:
- America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s, by Elizabeth Hinton (2021, Recorded Books, Inc., read by Shayna Small).
Elizabeth Hinton delves deep into the political economy of Black rebellion and police repression from the 1960s to today. “America on Fire” explores the dialectic of underdevelopment, overpolicing, and uprisings in Black communities with a number of important concrete examples. These range from the Watts Rebellion to the impact of the 1992 ceasefire between Grape Street and PJ Watts Crips and the Bounty Hunter and Hacienda Bloods on the Rodney King uprising in their neighborhoods. The text also includes a detailed overview of Black community self-defense efforts in Pyramid Courts in Cairo, Ill.—a shamefully understudied example of collective mass defense work.
- American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, by Adam Hochschild (2022, HarperAudio, read by Jonathan Todd Ross).
Hochschild is most well known for his 1998 book “King Leopold’s Ghost,” on the genocidal rule of the Belgian monarchy in the Congo. “The Great War” looks at imperialism from a different angle, namely the domestic crisis faced by the U.S. ruling class and President Wilson during World War I. “The Great War” does an excellent job of removing the mask of “Wilsonian liberalism” and exposing the repressive apparatus that lay underneath. The book provides a trove of insights into the methods of police spying on workers’ and socialist organizations, particularly the Industrial Workers of the World, and U.S. capitalists’ reactions to the Russian Revolution in 1917. Students of the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will also be interested in Hochschild’s extensive look at the founding of its predecessor, the Bureau of Investigations. In particular, the foundational importance of the anti-worker “Palmer Raids” is also covered well in the book.
- Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution, by RF Kuang (2022, HarperAudio, read by Chris Lew Kum Hoi and Billie Fulford-Brown).
In a slight departure from the previous texts, “Babel” is a book of fiction that blends history, magical realism, and anti-colonial struggle. Set primarily in the “Royal Institute of Translation” at Oxford, the book follows a small cohort of translators-in-training, most of whom come from the colonial world. “Babel” is well paced, and through the use of metaphor and real-world events and texts, provides a sharp critique of colonialism and “free trade.”
Photo: The Watts Uprising of 1965. (Bettman / Corbis / AP)
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India: All out support for the doctors’ protests
By MAZDOOR INQUILAB
It was in 2012, close on the heels of the anti-corruption agitation, that we saw such a massive outpouring of anger on the streets against sexual violence. In West Bengal, it was earlier this year that the villagers of Sandeshkhali were on the march against the tyranny and sexual violence inflicted by a leader of the TMC (Trinamool Congress).
Today, it is Calcutta that has awakened and is out agitating on the streets. The doctors’ protests have awakened solidarity across the nation, and across West Bengal. This incident exposes the nexus between the institutionalized corruption of the TMC’s rule in West Bengal, the sorry state of healthcare in capitalist India, and the endemic sexism that Indian women face across all sectors.
The question being asked is: if a female doctor is not safe to work, then where is a woman safe to work?
After thousands of resident doctors came out in protest, they were joined by youth from universities, medical staff, and members of the general public. Once more, the streets of Calcutta have woken up to the sight of protests rekindling scenes of struggle in a city known as the hotbed of revolutionary thought and a bastion of progressive struggles.
The timeline of the incident
On Aug. 9, a junior trainee doctor at Calcutta’s R.G Kar hospital was raped and murdered. Initially, the police told the family that it was a case of suicide. This was an effort at cover-up by the Calcutta police on the instructions of the political leadership of the TMC. The family was informed belatedly about their daughter’s death. After which, the body was cremated in a rush, reminiscent of the Hathras rape incident, where the victim’s body was cremated in a rushed manner to hide the evidence.
This situation unfolded for many reasons; the trainee doctor was working a 36-hour shift! The hospital had no proper rest rooms or resting places. Late into the night, she found respite only in the seminar room. Security was minimal, and the road was open for any crime to be committed.
As more details emerge, it becomes clear that a massive corruption racket was taking place within the hospital, with the Principal Sandip Ghosh as the mastermind. The junior doctor had come to know of this racket and threatened to expose him. The rape was accompanied by a brutal murder, the action designed to send a message to anyone who would dare cross the principal.
The crime was then allegedly committed by a civil volunteer, who was given access into the seminar room. There is suspicion of a whole gang involved behind this, who are politically connected and part of a wider racket within the hospital. It is worth noting here that the authorities dragged their feet before filing the First Information Report before the nearest police station. They were in a haste to dispose the body of the victim, and it was only the protesting students and junior doctors under the DYFI who prevented this from happening. The cover-up being done by the hospital authorities was to show the rape and murder as a suicide. It was only after the autopsy that the crime was revealed.
Soon after this incident, protests broke out among doctors on the issue of safety in the workplace. The Federation of Resident Doctors Associations announced a nationwide strike, calling for safer work environments for resident doctors. The principal of RG Kar Sandip Ghosh, the alleged mastermind behind a massive corruption racket in the hospital, was forced to step down.
The police investigation was going nowhere, under political pressure the police were dragging their feet and were not cooperating with the parents of the deceased. They appealed to the High Court, and the Court decided to give the investigation over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
This did nothing to quiet the protests, which only intensified. Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee then made callous remarks about the victim’s suffering, and even went on to allege that the protests were a conspiracy by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) to unseat her. Meanwhile, she was conspiring with her own ministers to remove the evidence.
On Aug. 15, the peaceful protests were broken up by an armed mob of 300 TMC goons, which was orchestrated by the TMC. The police were apparently helpless to stop them, but this became an excuse to clamp down on protests around the hospital. The principal of R.G Kar was given an “extended leave” by the High Court, he resigned from his post, but then the government reassigned him to an even more prestigious college and hospital the Calcutta National Medical College. Immediate protests broke out there, which forced him to step down.
On Aug. 17, the government authorities began renovations of the site where the rape and murder happened, without any announcement and any reason. This was done to tamper with evidence. There were nationwide protests, which continue to expand.
Midnight protests were first initiated on Aug. 14 by women and doctors who were joined by all sectors of society. These protests started out as doctors’ protests, but have expanded to include wide sections of society. On the 16th of August the famous Calcutta derby was cancelled. Football fans from three rival teams known for their involvement in struggle united against the government to express solidarity with the protesters. While a core demand of the doctors does not include Mamata Bannerji’s resignation, it is felt everywhere; there is massive anger on the streets against Mamata Bannerji. She is panicking, and her police have imposed a section 167 (formerly section 144 of IPC) order against “unlawful assembly.”
The efforts of the police and state governments have been unable to stop the protests from growing; on the contrary, they have only garnered more support and sympathy across the nation. Anganwadi workers have also joined in with their parallel protests.
The role of the police has been suspicious as well, with delays in filing the FIR, and the police dragging their feet in investigations. A scapegoat has been found to bury the deep-rooted corruption in the hospital to which many practicing doctors have testified and is connected with the rape and murder of the trainee doctor. Over the course of the protests, the police acted harshly, conducting lathi [baton] charges and arrests of peaceful protesters. Excesses such as arrests of individuals posting on social media against the Chief Minister have also been seen.
The Calcutta High Court intervened in the matter and transferred the investigation to the CBI, taking it away from the hands of the Calcutta police, which has irked Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee. She has since responded with comically fake protests calling for justice for the murdered doctor, and dramatically announcing a deadline for the CBI investigations.
While the protests have expanded, and united all sections of society, cutting across religious lines and fandoms, even bringing the fans of three fierce rival football teams (Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, and Mohammedan club), the Chief Minister and her ministers continue theatrical protests in the hopes of putting an illusion before the people that she stands by their struggle. No one is buying into her lies any more!
The character of the TMC and nexus of corruption
The rape and murder of the doctor has brought attention to the conditions of the R.G Kar hospital, which remains as one of the most important public hospitals of the city and the state. Questions are now being raised on the systematic undermining of the healthcare institution under his watch. The biggest allegation so far has been that the deceased doctor threatened to expose the corruption racket of the accused principal, Sandip Ghosh.
The principal had a massive sex and drugs racket [i] in the hospital. It has been alleged that rackets have been conducted for years, that Dr. Sandip Ghosh had been taking bribes to pass certain students, extort money from students, and sell dead bodies for money. It has been alleged that he has also been involved in selling medicinal waste illegally. Efforts to expose these scams had been scuttled or failed with help from the state investigating offices.[ii]
The government machinery in the hands of the TMC has been used time and again to save Dr. Sandip Ghosh. This was yet another source of income for the TMC party, which profits massively through such corruption. Over their 13-year rule over the state of West Bengal, they have transformed every public institution and governmental department into avenues to channel in money. The party functions as a large gang for the purpose of looting the state and its people.
To enforce this rule, they liberally use gangsters and lumpen goons, who are let loose on the people during every election cycle to ensure the party wins through coercion. Rape becomes a common tool of oppression to target outspoken women opponents. We saw this in Sandeshkhali and we are seeing it now in R.G Kar hospital.
Coercion alone cannot sustain the TMC in power in this state; to ensure some degree of support it has to keep the working class, peasantry, and the lower sections of the petty bourgeois placated. For this, the TMC rolls out welfare measures such as direct cash transfers and free facilities such as bicycles for female students. The state still suffers from the effects of prolonged deindustrialization after partition and the disasters of the Second World War and the Bangladesh liberation war.
The TMC came to power by hijacking the peasant protests in Singur and Nandigram against forcible acquisition of land for industry under the CPIM rule. It has not taken any serious effort to revive failing state-owned industries or expand it to generate employment. The TMC’s primary economic focus remained real estate development, which most benefits the criminalized party and its backers among the land-owning bourgeoisie invested in real estate.
The COVID pandemic had a devastating effect on the state’s fragile economy, especially because of the impact of cyclone Amphan, which hit the state just as the pandemic’s worst impact hit. The state was also made to suffer worse as lockdowns were removed to assist political campaigning during the 2021 state elections. The TMC won that largely on the grounds of fears of the BJP winning and because of its aggressive opposition to the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, and the welfare measures such as the “kanyashri” scheme.
This victory was achieved despite increasing discontent against the TMC’s rule. Throughout the election, many TMC leaders switched parties to the BJP, who eventually switched back to the TMC once the BJP lost, showing the loose character of the party, and the weakening hold of the party supremo, Mamata Bannerji. These contradictions would continue and still continue. Despite having won most seats from the state of West Bengal for the Lok Sabha elections in May, the TMC’s ground remained shaky, and discontent against their misrule remained intact.
Today, much of the urban discontent against their corrupt and oppressive rule has erupted in Calcutta and spread throughout the state. The attempts at coercion by the police and the TMC’s lumpen goons have only added fuel to the fire. Much like how mass protests in Singur and Nandigram had brought down the CPIM rule, it is quite plausible that protests could bring down the TMC as well.
Nationwide protests
The protests against the brutal rape and murder of the doctor at R.G Kar had an immediate impact across the country, with doctors and healthcare workers rising up in solidarity protests across most major cities in India. The common issue that unites all healthcare professionals in India is the sorry state of healthcare itself and the lack of any security measures. This is especially so for overworked and underpaid junior resident doctors, who form the backbone of healthcare services in India.
The protests in Calcutta expanded beyond its initial core of junior doctors, encompassing many sectors of society. People from every class joined in the protests; many celebrities joined in lending their voice to amplify the protests. This dynamic was mimicked in different cities across the country. Independence Day coincided with days of protests, with calls to “reclaim the night” harking back to feminist protests in the ’70s. The safety of women workers and women in the workplace was the central attention of the protests.
The character of the protests outside of West Bengal are not the same. While in West Bengal, the issue combines the rape and murder of the doctor with the nexus of corruption, the issue of the nexus of corruption is absent, as this is chiefly an issue relevant to the state of West Bengal. The central demands raised by the Federation of Resident Doctors Association deals with safety in the workplace, but institutional changes must go beyond this.
It must be remembered that the doctor who was raped and murdered was not only a victim of deep-rooted sexism, but also a victim of a collapsing healthcare institution in India and of a deep-rooted nexus of corruption. Government spending on healthcare forms only 2.1% of the GDP, and this covers the needs of vast majority of India’s 1.4 billion people.[iii]
India has one of the world’s most privatized healthcare systems, with few regulations and almost non-existent patient’s rights. The system privileges for profit healthcare, which can charge abnormally high rates for treatment, with barely any accountability while overburdened and underfunded public hospitals and institutions, which form the backbone of healthcare services in urban India have to make do with less.
Much of the burden comes on junior resident doctors, who have to work longer hours with less pay and barely any security. The condition of nurses and support staff is even worse. Worse still are the conditions of frontline healthcare workers like ASHA workers, who have repeatedly protested against their exploitation.[iv] The Anganwadi workers of Delhi who had struck in February of 2022 on an indefinite strike, are once more on the streets against the rape and murder of the doctor at R.G Kar.
The scale and intensity of the protests are such that it has reverberated across the seas to the Indian diaspora in various countries. Solidarity protests have been seen in the UK and the USA as well.
The Supreme Court intervened in the matter as well, and passed an order directing the setting up of a national task force for the safety of doctors and healthcare workers. The security responsibility of R.G Kar hospital itself was handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force, a major paramilitary force of the Indian armed forces. While this has satisfied some quarters of the striking doctors, with a few hospitals seeing doctors ending their strike, this is by no means a permanent solution.
The victim of this gruesome rape and murder was as much a victim of a failing healthcare system in India as she was of sexism. Now is the perfect opportunity to force systematic change throughout the country. The Supreme Court and various governments are attempting to douse the fire with temporary measures.
The need for solidarity
The agitations of healthcare workers in the past have met with state oppression. We saw this before in the strike by Calcutta medical college junior doctors, in the agitations of the Aganwadi workers in Delhi and elsewhere and we are seeing it happen again. The police were helpless to stop the mob of thugs sent by the TMC to break up peaceful protesters at R.G Kar hospital, but used that as pretext to attack doctors and protesters. Efforts to prevent peaceful protests from taking place again have been challenged in the court.
The highly criminalized TMC government always resorts to such crude coercive tactics to attack its opponents, but the masses of youth have been stirred into action and the same tactics won’t work again. The people of West Bengal have seen and learnt from their kin in Bangladesh that oppressive governments can be brought down with determined mass actions. Unlike Bangladesh, the Indian ruling class is much more savvy in how it handles protesters. Tactics to distract, diffuse, and demobilize will always be used. The Indian state has more options to achieve this.
It is important in this context that the striking doctors in West Bengal have as wide a solidarity as possible to keep up the fight. The government will attempt to make a scapegoat out of the culprit, or attempt to concede to one or two demands of the doctors before returning things to the way they were. The flow of money would continue, the corruption festering in the hospitals would continue, and in time another will fall victim. The first thing solidarity actions across the nation and the world achieve is to tie the hands of the state from attempting brazen coercion.
With the eyes of the world and the nation on West Bengal doctors, Chief Minister Mamata Bannerji will have to think twice before attempting to use force, either by her goons or by the forces of the police. Solidarity protests also work to highlight the problems facing junior doctors and the condition of healthcare in West Bengal and India, which is utterly broken. The doctors’ morale would be boosted to continue the fight to the point of effecting systematic change.
FULL SUPPORT TO THE DOCTORS’ STRIKE !
JUSTICE FOR R.G KAR !
DOWN WITH TMC !
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pktA2wadLi0
[iv] https://litci.org/en/full-support-to-the-anganwadi-workers-of-delhi/
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Muhammad Yunus: Leader of the caretaker government of Bangladesh
By MAZDOOR INQUILAB
Muhammad Yunus was recently elected to head the caretaker government of Bangladesh amid an ongoing popular revolt in the country that ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled by helicopter to India. The trigger for the clashes was a quota policy in government jobs: one-third of vacancies were to be reserved for relatives of veterans of the country’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. This was considered a privilege for the country’s military within a government already reputed for corruption. The protagonists of these struggles are mainly students, demanding radical changes in the government. In this article, we will introduce you to Muhammad Yunus, the banker who was appointed to take power to quell the heroic revolution in Bangladesh, and explain how the absence of a Marxist party led him to receive the support of the fighters.
This enthusiasm is related to Yunus’ own trajectory. While he is recognized worldwide for his role in the fight against poverty in the 1970s, his current role in maintaining the exploitation of the working class is often obscured, as is how his efforts have been instrumental in enriching the imperialist multinationals operating in the country. Born on June 28, 1940, in the port city of Chittagong, Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus graduated with a degree in economics from Dhaka University and pursued graduate studies in the United States. He returned to Bangladesh in 1972 to head the Department of Economics at the University of Chittagong, shortly after the country’s independence in 1971.
Political and economic background
Bangladesh suffered from the legacy of British colonization: a heavily populated, primarily agrarian country with a proletariat formed without adequate job creation. This resulted in immense poverty, hunger, and other indicators of social ills, such as illiteracy and infant mortality. Additionally, the military staged a coup d’état in 1975, establishing a dictatorial regime that lasted until 1990.
This internal context unfolded during the Cold War. Imperialist countries, especially the United States, were exporting capital and supporting coups and dictatorships worldwide. In Bangladesh, this was the ideal scenario for the establishment of the textile industry, as it found a population skilled in this task (given the cultural tradition of garment and textile production) and living in misery, willing to accept even higher levels of exploitation than American workers.
The Grameen Bank’s microcredit experience
In this context, the Grameen Bank (Village Bank) began its experience with small loans in the late 1970s and was officially incorporated in 1983. It is considered the first financial institution to offer microcredit to low-income people, especially women, without requiring collateral, something unheard of at the time. Until then, the main form of microcredit was consumer credit, particularly credit cards, which started to become popular at that time, especially in rich countries.
The Grameen Bank offered loans at 8% annual interest for the construction of houses, which was especially important in a country where floods destroy homes almost every year. In addition to housing, these new homes also had space for workshops, turning each home into an extension of the factories. To make work viable, such as purchasing machinery and inputs, loans were also offered at 20% annual interest.
Loans were made primarily to women, who to this day represent more than 90% of the bank’s “clients,” prioritizing sewing workshops. On average, the bank had a profit rate of 15% per annum, within the average profitability of the country’s capital. Despite this, the bank was known for offering cheap loans, as other banks charged workers exorbitant amounts, pushing them into default. Additionally, the bank had two other peculiarities: it granted loans to groups of five women, so they could work together as a productive unit, and it implemented weekly collections, where the bank maintained permanent face-to-face contact with these women.
An economic empire
Over time, 22 other Grameen group companies were created, both for-profit and not-for-profit. In addition to the financial companies that indebt Bangladeshi families, they are also involved in education and private communications and energy infrastructures, taking on roles that could belong to the state. They also have partnerships with branches of imperialist multinationals, such as food processing with Danone and agribusiness. They also offer other forms of outsourced and precarious employment, such as software development and telemarketing. This does not mean that Grameen Bank has lost its relevance. Today, it serves more than 9.3 million “clients,” 97% of whom are women, and has already disbursed nearly $39 billion in loans.
In general, Grameen Industries seeks to offer products and services for resale so that the Bangladeshi population can “generate their own jobs.” Through these initiatives, Yunus advocates two central pillars: eradicating poverty through zero unemployment and combating climate change through private investment in new sources of green energy. It is worth mentioning that this is especially impactful in Bangladesh, which already has millions of climate refugees and is considered by experts to be the country with the greatest potential for displacement in human history due to climate change.
The policy of self-employment has been effective. Millions of families have been lifted out of poverty in the country. Social impact indices showed a disparity between Grameen’s “client” families and the general population: improvements in food, education, health, housing, infant mortality, etc. However, an improvement does not necessarily mean that they are well off today. The biggest example of this is the discontent generated by the revolutionary process of 2024, which we will discuss later.
From a general perspective, the country also seems to have improved. The families of the seamstresses fueled local trade with their purchasing power, generating a domestic market and increasing imports. GDP began to grow at a “Chinese rate” of 5.6% per year on average between 1990 and 2022. The textile industry became the country’s leading industry, responsible for three-quarters of domestic exports in 2005 and ranking Bangladesh as the world’s second-largest exporter in 2014. The country has become an exporter of primary products (including food, which the population still lacks) and low value-added products and has failed to develop its own domestic industry.
Yunus and the Nobel Peace Prize
The crumbs that fall from the table of imperialism for the poor and working people of Bangladesh were enough for Yunus to obtain worldwide recognition from the main international institutions. As the creator of the productive microcredit banking service and the public face of the Grameen Bank, Yunus is recognized internally and externally as the main person responsible for all these results. This earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
This experience inspired a whole new policy agenda for the creation of “social enterprises,” “sector 2.5,” and entrepreneurship in general. These policies have been implemented worldwide by capitalist states, whether by right-wing or left-wing governments, in both rich and poor countries. The discourse that it is possible for workers to generate their own employment has been used to shift the blame for unemployment onto the workers themselves, who are accused of not undertaking enough. It also helps to demobilize struggles demanding public policies from the state, as any social problem could potentially be solved by entrepreneurship.
What explains this popularity?
At the time, microcredit for production sounded unprecedented, as banks only offered microcredit for consumption through credit cards. However, microcredit for production was already common in credit unions since the 19th century, and the only innovation was the fact that this service was offered by a bank. So, what actually happened was a good personal marketing move for a new banking service that allowed the entry of foreign capital.
This situation is similar to that experienced in several other poor countries during the second half of the 20th century. Dozens of dictators are considered populist, popular, or even communist because of their similar rhetoric. They forge a reputation of being “good for the poor” or “nationalist” or even “developmentalist” because they act in partnership with foreign capital. The difference is that this reputation usually goes to dictators, and in the case of Bangladesh, it went to a businessman who did not directly hold political office.
This is not an entirely unprecedented phenomenon, but why is it happening? Money is perceived as the great engine of human productive activity under capitalism. Without advanced capital, no enterprise is born, and no new jobs are created. Capital in its Money form is always the first perception we have of this appreciating Value process. No matter how many hundreds or thousands of cycles pass, and even if all the invested Capital has already been returned to the first investor, he is still seen as the first agent, the owner, and the one responsible.
The inflow of foreign capital is essentially the beginning of capitalist cycles in these countries. But the politicians manage to convince the population that it is thanks to them that this Capital was able to enter the country, which is corroborated by the fact that the State is the holder of the national monetary standard. Moreover, Yunus continues to present himself as the one responsible for microcredits, which in practice seem to be “micro-capitals” that enter people’s homes and allow them to work.
An old economic theory
Yunus’ theory is that offering microcredits makes work possible because it allows the purchase of machinery and raw materials. From this work, goods are generated, which are sold and generate more money. This income makes it possible to replenish the raw materials for a new cycle of work, pay the interest on the loans, and, what little is left over, use it as income for the personal consumption of these families. This income would circulate in the domestic consumer goods market, stimulating the country’s market. On the other hand, the money that is transferred to suppliers and banks is used in part to expand production and invest in new branches.
In practice, this process generates a very low income for these families, among the lowest in the world. So, even if it worked, it would be quite insufficient to sustain the thesis of a humanitarian cause. Hence, hunger in Bangladesh remains immense. But there is another flaw in this theory: there is no guarantee that it will work forever. Infrastructure problems, such as weather catastrophes, can disrupt the production process. Moreover, imperialist companies can move their purchasing centers to other countries, leaving the population with unsold goods that cannot reach the domestic market.
This economic theory, which presupposes the functioning of the market in order to conclude that the market works, is not new. It is the old law of market equilibrium, defended since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it was espoused by liberal economists such as Jean-Baptiste Say, James Mill, and Adam Smith. It is a dogma of the liberal economic currents that justify the market as perfect and rational, adapted to the situation of a country in a state of hardship, exploited by international capital in partnership with local entrepreneurs.
Yunus, junior partner of imperialist capital
If we include international capital in the equation, we see that it is the main agent that sets in motion the millions of women workers in the textile industry. Of all the work they do, most of the value goes to these companies and only a fraction to the workers. These companies have no humanitarian interests, only economic interests in exploiting these millions of families.
The Grameen Bank, therefore, is not the initiator of the production process, but a necessary intermediary. If the multinationals take the lion’s share of the workers’ unpaid labor, the bank takes a smaller share. In other words, the “humanitarian cause” is nothing more than marketing rhetoric. All the more so when it is recognized that these are not even subsidized loans, which are below average market profitability. The financial interests of the multinationals are decisive at the beginning of the process, and the bank is only a minor partner.
But this begs the question: why does the international textile industry buy these products? The aim is to reduce labor costs. The economic struggle of workers in the core countries has provided them with a much higher average wage. The migration of these jobs to Southeast Asia was a way to reduce production costs drastically by lowering wages. There is no humanitarian interest on the part of these companies, only the ruthless exploitation of Bengali women workers.
Overexploitation of women workers
The dispute for the leading role in the productive process between foreign and national investment is part of the logic of the emergence of Money-Capital as the engine of Capital. But the maintenance of the cycles is only possible thanks to the hard work of the workers, who are truly responsible for the economic prosperity of Bangladesh, and who cannot enjoy even the smallest share of the wealth produced, let alone influence decisions on how the surplus value they produce will be reinvested. This leads us to investigate the conditions under which this work takes place.
The working and living conditions of these workers, their children, and their entire families are best observed by studying the fast fashion industry, not by Yunus’ populist speeches. Sweatshops are places where the sweatshop system is developed, an exploitative model where employees work under extreme pressure, and workplaces are mistaken for homes and lack health and safety conditions. The homes become an extension of the factory, without the control and protection afforded by industrial plants.
Also called “atelier de misère” in French, they are workplaces in very precarious and socially unacceptable conditions for workers in imperialist countries. The work can be difficult, dangerous, climatically unsuitable, or poorly paid. Sweatshop workers may have to work long hours for low pay, regardless of laws requiring overtime pay or a minimum wage; laws against child labor may also be violated. Products typically produced in these factories include shoes, clothing, toys, chocolate, and coffee.
Multinationals that have been accused of using this form of labor include Levi’s, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Zara, Armani, Gucci, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, among others.
In partnership with these companies, Grameen Bank extracts even more income from these families, charging 20% annual interest to make the work viable and 8% annual interest when they find themselves homeless due to the destruction of their homes. Additionally, the Grameen group as a whole allows new forms of exploitation in other branches of production.
Capitalism brought misery to Bangladesh, first with colonization, and second, with super-exploitation through sweatshops. It is true that this form of labor appears in the statistics as better than starving, but it is not true that this comes close to freedom or any level of emancipation. It just goes to show that capitalism is the system that traps the majority of the population in a trap: the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited. It is a prison disguised as freedom.
Is there exploitation in entrepreneurship?
At first glance, it all looks as if workers produce goods and sell them. So how can this be exploitation? Some might even think that the profit of multinationals lies in the cunning of the entrepreneur who decided to take advantage of the price difference between countries to become a simple wholesaler, and no longer a producer. But this is not the case, and we will explain why.
The first clue that this is another form of contracting, and not a business activity, is that this same activity coexists in a monthly wage contracting mode. In such a way that the salary received by these workers is per piece produced, and not per time. The market chooses one modality or the other according to which is more favorable for capitalist development.
But the difference in value of the goods sold between countries is not due to simple inflationary indices in each place. In the countries where they are to be consumed, they respect the law of the value of these commodities, in which their price is defined according to the labor time socially necessary for their production. On the other hand, the price paid to the workers for each piece reflects the cost of living and reproduction of these commodities, the same calculation that is made to determine the price of labor power.
So yes, there is exploitation in entrepreneurship. Not because entrepreneurs are exploited, but because this legal (and ideological) form has been re-signified to express piece-rate contracting. In other words, the time wage is fractioned to be expressed in each piece produced, given the average productivity of that society. To better understand the piecework wage, we recommend reading chapter 19 of the first book of Capital. The debate on the law of market equilibrium is present throughout the second book.
Placing Yunus in the class struggle
With a discourse strongly focused on the social, it is common to identify Yunus as a leftist figure. However, being left-wing does not necessarily mean being on the side of the workers in all their struggles. On the contrary, several of these struggles were against him and the Grameen group.
In 2006, tens of thousands of workers mobilized in one of the largest strike movements in the country, affecting almost all 4,000 factories. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) used police forces to suppress it, resulting in three workers being killed and hundreds more being shot or arrested. In 2010, following a new strike movement, almost a thousand workers were injured due to the repression.
His role in production, on the other hand, consisted of idealizing, implementing, and justifying a system of exploitation of the Bengali population by the imperialist multinationals. In doing so, he built a real national empire as a junior partner of this foreign capital. Moreover, he presented it to the world as a humanitarian action and took credit for the labor of the millions of workers who build the Bangladeshi economy.
The perception of Yunus’ role in the class struggle is exactly the perception of the appearances of Capital described by Marx in Capital. This is why it is necessary to build a Marxist party in the country, to construct a socialist program to break with this system of super-exploitation, and to arm the revolutionary vanguard of the country with the understanding of who their enemies are in their struggle for liberation. It is also important to understand that having a banker at the head of the government of Bangladesh will mean one more frustration for the aspirations of the workers and youth of the country.
Photo: World Economic Forum. (swiss-image.ch / Remy Steinegger / CC)
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Kamala Harris is no friend of Palestine
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By N. IRAZU
First day of DNC: Banner reading “Stop Arming Israel” is covered up by people with “We love Joe” signs. (Joe Lamberti / Washington Post) A month ago, a shakeup took place in the Democratic Party, which has resulted in the current president, Joe Biden, stepping away from the presidential race. At the Democratic National Convention (DNC) this week, Kamala Harris will be crowned as the new Democratic Party nominee. This new situation opens up important questions for the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States: Is Harris an ally of the Palestinian struggle?
The short answer is, no—not by a long shot. Harris is already the vice president, part of the administration that has been funding and arming the Israeli army as it carries out its genocide in Gaza. This in of itself should be enough to dispel any illusions about her position on the matter. As her campaign has taken off, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are dead, millions displaced, and the people of Gaza are ravaged by hunger and disease—all at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force, with full support of the Biden-Harris administration.
Not once has Kamala Harris come out with a forthright statement opposing the genocide; she is complicit with it. She is as loyal a servant to the U.S. ruling capitalist class as Joe Biden. But if that is the case, why are there still illusions?
Why did Biden step down?
There are those in the Palestine solidarity movement who view Biden’s stepping down as a victory for the “uncommitted campaign,” which began as an effort to get registered Democrats to vote “uncommitted” during the state primaries as a protest against Biden’s support of Israel’s genocide. More than 650,000 people cast this vote.[1] The “uncommitted” movement has gone on to help organize “Not Another Bomb” rallies around the country during the week of the Democratic Party National Convention, and to agitate for a voice on the convention floor.
But there are two problems with seeing the Democrats’ substitution of Harris for Biden as a victory on the issue of Palestine. The first and obvious one is that the pressure to get Biden to step down from the race really came out into the open after his tragicomic performance in the debate with Trump on June 27, which put into question his ability to govern at all. Secondly, the pressure to step down came from the Democratic establishment—not its left flank, which supported him to the end, with few exceptions.[2] Evidence indicates that the pressure to have Biden withdraw from the race was a maneuver from the Democratic Party establishment in order to increase their chances of winning the elections. His low-approval ratings came primarily from concerns with Biden’s age and cognitive abilities, with Palestine only being a secondary matter.
Of even greater importance is the political understanding that the alternative to Biden is a candidate who has shown just as much support for Israel as he has. As president, we cannot expect that Harris would be any different toward U.S. policy in the Middle East as when she was vice president.
Democratic Party cooptation game
Even before the pressure to get Biden to step down came out into the open, Harris was often presented as being more amicable to the Palestinian cause. Back in March, she was chosen by the administration to publicly call for a ceasefire.[3]
The Not Another Bomb campaign claims that over 86% of registered Democrats support a ceasefire in Gaza; polls from earlier in the year said 70%.[4] Biden as well as Harris have given lip-service to a ceasefire, but at least until now, have not actually tried to push it through. Every day that the genocide continues, more and more people become disgusted with the current administration over the issue.
Of course, the ceasefire that the administration says it supports leaves the Palestinians at a terrible disadvantage. Moreover, Harris placed the responsibility of achieving a ceasefire on Hamas—not on Israel, which is the entity currently carrying out the genocide.
In June, much pomp was raised over the fact that Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress—even though she met with him personally the following day. Soon afterward, she again gave assurances of seeking some sort of peace deal in Gaza: “So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home. And let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.”
And yet, while affirming that she would “not be silent” in the face of the suffering, Harris also repeated the tired old line that “Israel has a right to defend itself.”
What is this? Is the Democratic Party candidate battling internal demons, trying to do the right thing in a difficult situation? Or is she simply speaking out from both sides of her mouth, trying to demobilize the Palestine solidarity movement while maintaining unwavering support for Israel?
Harris is not a neutral player; she is not just a person chosen at random from the mass of the population of the U.S., and “courageous” enough to face off against Trump. She is a calculating representative of the U.S. capitalist class, the most powerful imperialist class in the world. This capitalist-imperialist class has objective, concrete interests in maintaining Israel as a beachhead in the Arab World. Israel defends U.S. economic and geopolitical interests; it is a constant threat to the Arab masses in the region, and acts to prevent their unification, which itself would be a threat to U.S. influence in the region.
Harris is trying to assuage Israel, letting it know that the U.S. will have its back and that a ceasefire will be on their terms; Israeli interests in ethnic cleansing, genocide, and land grabs will not be interfered with. But at the same time, she is trying to pacify the antiwar movement at home. We must dig deeper into this second aspect, because it is at the core of the matter.
The pro-Palestine movement poses a problem for the Democratic Party since it is occurring under its administration. It is difficult for the Democrats to pretend they would have a more humane policy, as happens under Republican administrations. Nevertheless, at the DNC, even Biden felt compelled to say that his current administration would work “to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people.” He continued, “Those demonstrators out in street—they have a point. A lot of people are dying—on both sides.” But despite such displays of “concern”—and despite toothless warnings to Israel about the dangers of crossing a “red line”—the Biden-Harris administration continues to support the genocidal policy of Israel to the hilt.
Now that Harris is officially in the running, she is forced more than ever to show who truly has her support: Palestine or Israel. Her support, unsurprisingly, falls squarely on the latter. At a recent campaign rally, when pro-Palestine protesters interrupted her speech, she lectured them, “If you want Donald Trump to win then say that; otherwise, I am speaking!”[5]
The continous assault on Gaza, the invasion of Rafah, the repeated bombings of schools—all demonstrate that there is no real “red line” for the Biden-Harris administration. None of it has made the administration change its course in regard to U.S.-Israel relations; it continues to offer staunch support to Israel regardless of its latest bloody acts in Gaza and the West Bank.
Recently, Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security adviser, asserted that the vice president does not support an arms embargo on Israel.[6] Obviously, an arms embargo—which is a key demand put forward by the Not Another Bomb movement—would not truly sever the U.S. lifeline to Israel; a clearer demand is “End U.S. Aid to Israel.” Nevertheless, Gordon’s admission, more than 11 months into the current genocide, makes it crystal clear that a Harris administration would not take any meaningful steps against Israel and would continue Biden’s current course of giving indefinite impunity to the Zionist state. Harris’s expressed sympathies for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza thus remain empty.
Walz as VP
Some have expressed the opinion that the selection of Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, is likewise a victory for the movement, ousting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a candidate for the vice-presidential ticket. But where is the victory? Walz has also come out as a staunch ally of Israel and an enemy of social movements for liberation. As governor, he was responsible for deploying the National Guard against the George Floyd movement, tear gassing and brutalizing people coming out against police brutality.
Gov. Walz has also been dismissive of Palestinian rights. In an interview with Mondoweiss after Walz had canceled a meeting with Palestinian families, Sana Wazwaz of American Muslims for Palestine said:
“He has never, not once, decided to sit down to meet with a Gazan family. He’s refused all attempts to sit down and talk to any of us, and he has refused to meet with a single mosque here in Minnesota about what’s happening in Gaza. But on the flip side, he rushed immediately after October 7 to go to the synagogues, to go to a stand with Israel rally, to order flags be flown at half-staff in honor of the Israeli victims.”[7]
Walz is clearly no friend of the Palestine movement either, and framing him as such is a maneuver to steer those that have becoming horrified with the Democrats support for genocide back into the Democratic Party fold. No trust should be put on either Harris or Walz.
The movement must be independent
The only way forward for us in the Palestine solidarity movement is to maintain a strict independence from the capitalist parties, both Republican and Democrat, no matter what sweet little lies they spew.
Harris’s policy on Palestine will not differ from Biden’s. She is using the rhetoric of solidarity in order to demobilize a movement that threatens U.S. capitalist interests abroad, due to its mass appeal. If we allow ourselves to be brought into the fold of the Democratic Party, we will end up falling into a trap that has already been played, by Obama in the Iraq War and by several presidents, both Democratic and Republican, during the Vietnam War.
The movement is a thorn in the side of the ruling class. As masses of working-class people see their government spending billions upon billions of dollars to fund a daily televised genocide, as they mobilize in the streets against it, they are going through a process of radicalization. To mobilize for Palestine ends up being a mobilization against the U.S. state as a whole, putting into question who rules this country and why.
Many might ask themselves: why not just stop? Why not invest the money here, where it is needed, to better the lives of millions, instead of raining destruction on another people? The ruling class and its political parties are unable to give a satisfactory answer to the question.
In reality, Palestine is revealing to millions of people the bloody depths to which the ruling class is willing to go in order to maintain its interests—and also the little heed they pay to the demands of the people. There is no reason to think that a Harris administration would be any type of ally to the movement; we must continue building a mass movement that is independent of the parties of the ruling class.
Citations:
[1]https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/biden-uncommitted-primary-vote-00161700
[2]https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-did-progressive-democrats-support-joe-biden
[4]https://www.commondreams.org/news/poll-permanent-ceasefire
[5]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgvKaMQOUPI
[6]https://x.com/PhilGordon46/status/1821539980017070229
[7]https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/minnesota-activists-criticize-tim-walz-for-refusing-to-meet-with-palestinians/
Photo: Protesters hold a Kamala Harris puppet at the DNC in Chicago on Aug. 19. (Eduardo Muñoz/ Reuters)
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Debates over Venezuela
By ALEJANDRO ITURBE
After the presidential elections of last July 28, the Venezuelan situation has been in the spotlight of the world press. Nicolás Maduro declared himself the winner against Edmundo González, candidate of the right-wing bourgeois opposition, after evident fraud in which the regime could not even make public the minutes of the polling stations.
From the following day: “The youth and the population of the popular Venezuelan neighborhoods took to the streets of Caracas and several cities of the country, to show their indignation for the fraud in the presidential elections that keeps the dictator Nicolás Maduro in government. The response of the dictatorship was a brutal repression against the unarmed youth: so far 11 dead, dozens wounded, several disappeared and a hundred imprisoned”[1].
Nicolás Maduro Faced with this situation, workers all over the world have been bombarded by different analyses and positions in the media. Two of these positions appear clearly at odds and have polarized the debate. One is presented by various Latin American bourgeois governments (especially those of the right and far right, such as that of Javier Milei in Argentina) and various governments of imperialist powers.
According to this position, what is happening today in Venezuela (both the electoral fraud and the absence of democratic freedoms as well as the deterioration of the economic-social situation of the masses that has led millions of Venezuelans to emigrate to other countries) is the result of the existence in the country of a “socialist dictatorship” since Hugo Chávez took power at the end of the 20th century. In other words, “socialism” would be the source of all of Venezuela’s ills.
On the other pole, there are those who affirm that, in Venezuela, the process headed by Hugo Chávez and continued by Nicolás Maduro is revolutionary and of socialist content. So, what we see today in Venezuela is the defense of the “Bolivarian revolution” against those who want to liquidate it. This is the position put forward by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, one of the most solid international backers of Nicolás Maduro[2].
Although it may seem contradictory, both positions have a common basis: Venezuela is “socialist”. For the bourgeois right wing, this is the source of all evils. For Díaz-Canel’s position, it is what must be defended at any cost.
Chavez’s Venezuela
Let us begin with this debate. From the very beginning of the Chavez regime, the IWL maintained that the process headed by Hugo Chavez had nothing socialist in it, nor even the pretensions of advancing in that direction. We did so even in the period of greatest prestige of Chavism and when a great part of the world left adhered to his proposal of Socialism of for the 21st Century. On the contrary, we maintained that it was a question of who had access to power within a sector of the leadership of the bourgeois Armed Forces that aspired to retain a greater portion of the country’s oil income (the main source of resources) but without changing anything in the structure of the country as a capitalist dependent on U.S. imperialism[3].
For several years, Venezuela received billions of dollars from oil exports. Thanks to that money, the Chavista cadres (especially the high military commanders) accumulated great fortunes and became the so-called “Bolibourgeoisie”. Its best known exponent is Diosdao Cabello, owner of the second largest business group in the country, with banks, industry and service companies in Venezuela and also with numerous properties abroad.
Chavismo did not seriously fight the old Venezuelan bourgeoisie either. After the latter tried to overthrow him with the coup of 2002 and the bosses’ lockout of 2003 (defeated by the action of the workers and the masses) he made a big agreement with the Polar-Mendoza business group (the biggest in the country).
Finally, his proclaimed anti-imperialism was more in words than in deeds. He punctiliously paid the country’s foreign debt (sometimes in advance) and handed over large areas of oil exploitation to multinationals, such as the U.S. Exxon. Finally, already in 2016, with Maduro, the government announced the Orinoco Mining Arc plan, which gives to multinationals 12% of the country’s territory, rich in gold, diamonds, iron and other minerals, in addition to oil (in this case, in addition to U.S. and Canadian companies, Chinese companies also entered the business).
In the case of the Orinoco Oil Belt (FPO), the entry of Chinese capital took place through joint ventures between Chinese companies and PDVSA, which began to carry out hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation activities. The Chinese company National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), for example, has exploited Block Junín 4 and Block Junín 10 through the joint venture Petrourica. Additionally, in 2008, CNPC, together with PDVSA, established the company Petrosinovensa, to carry out exploration and production activities in the Carabobo area. In 2013 SINOPEC agreed with PDVSA investments for the exploitation of the Junín 1 oil field for US$ 14 billion. Another company with investments in this region is China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
The few nationalizations that took place, such as that of the telephone company CANTV, in 2008, were carried out with a normal capitalist method: buying its shares at stock market value.
The oil bonanza allowed Chávez to allocate part of the income remaining in the country to give some concessions to the masses, especially through the so called “missions” with medical services, education and food aid. They meant a benefit for the masses but have nothing to do with “socialism”. They are “compensatory policies” applied in many capitalist countries, such as in Brazil with the Bolsa Familia. But it was these policies that gave Chavismo a mass social base and, for several years, a broad electoral majority.
At the same time, the wage situation and working conditions of the workers remained the same as before Chavismo. The regime built and integrated within itself a bureaucratic union structure of iron control of the masses. When there were important workers’ struggles, it repressed them harshly, as happened with the workers of Sanitarios Maracay in 2007.
Maduro’s bonanza is over
In 2013, when Nicolás Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez, the “oil bonanza” was over and the income of dollars into the country was decreasing. In this context, Chavism acted like all bourgeois regimes: with increasingly harsh attacks on the living standards of the masses. The missions were weakened to the extreme or disappeared, the wages of Venezuelan workers became the lowest in the world, and poverty, indigence and hunger grew permanently.
The most acute expression of this terrible situation of the masses was that more than 7,000,000 Venezuelans had to emigrate (especially to work in other Latin American countries) in order to survive and/or help their families who remained in the country[4] (a number that in other countries has only occurred in situations of war or terrible natural catastrophes).
For their part, the Bolivarian bourgeoisie and the top Chavista cadres obscenely exhibited their wealth with imported cars, luxurious residences, pleasure trips abroad and properties in other countries, as we have seen with Diosdado Cabello.
At the same time, the surrender of the country to capitalism deepened. On the one hand, with the Arco del Orinoco and the FPO, which we have already referred to. On the other hand, he began to privatize the few foreign companies he had nationalized[5].
Chavism had lost any progressive trait it might have had in its heyday, the workers and the masses broke massively with it, began to hate it and to fight against Maduro, with all of their righteousness. His base of popular support was reduced to the extreme.
Then, he had to use very harsh repression against the masses (on the part of the Armed Forces or armed groups) and to electoral fraud that became more and more evident in order to stay in power. That is why, as expressed in the statement of the UST (Venezuelan section of the IWL): “We are categorical in affirming that the government of Nicolás Maduro is a capitalist, corrupt, starvation and repressive dictatorship.” For those of us who defend the interests of the working class, there is no other way to characterize the Chavista regime today.
A political crime
This harsh reality is what explains why the old Venezuelan bourgeoisie and its political expressions, which in 2002-2003 were totally defeated and hated by the masses, have been able to recover their popular influence and, unfortunately, today appear as the only possible alternative to get rid of the Chavist regime. Chavism itself is mainly responsible for this.
Here it is necessary to add another factor: in the best years of Chavism, the vast majority of the Venezuelan left organizations “bought” the false story of the Socialism for the 21st Century, integrated into the political apparatus of the PSUV or supported it uncritically. An important part of the international left also aligned itself in favor of Chavism. In this way, they prevented the construction in Venezuela of a truly revolutionary and socialist political organization that could present itself as an alternative for the workers and the masses that were beginning to break with Chavism.
If in the epochs of the rise of Chavismo this policy was wrong, to continue defending it now with Nicolás Maduro, and identifying it as “socialist”, is a serious political crime. Because any worker who looks at the Venezuelan reality says: “if this is socialism, it is not what I want. I prefer capitalism which also starves you but at least gives some democracy”.
It is a political crime that dirties the true socialist and revolutionary proposal in the eyes of the workers and the masses, and pushes them into the arms of imperialism, the bourgeois right and even the far right, like Bolsonaro or Milei, who, together with their discourse against “socialism” and “communism” have the luxury of hypocritically presenting themselves as “democratic” in the face of the Chavista dictatorship.
Some final considerations
The Venezuelan reality with Maduro is so unpleasant that some very influential figures in Latin American politics, such as Brazil’s Lula or Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, who used to defend Chavism and Nicolás Maduro, have now distanced themselves and are calling for “electoral transparency”[6]. At the same time, this distancing brings the position of these leaders closer to those of U.S. and European imperialism.
The IWL also states that in Venezuela it is necessary to fight for truly democratic elections. But, at the same time, we affirm that to achieve them, “it is necessary to unify, deepen and strengthen independently the mobilizations until the dictatorship is defeated” and that, therefore, “it is pertinent to discuss democratically, in the popular sectors and in the workplaces the actions to be taken to give continuity to the process of confronting the dictatorship, to maintain the street mobilizations and build a general strike to overthrow the dictatorship”.
Precisely that is what the Venezuelan bourgeois opposition, U.S. and European imperialism, the Pope and figures like Lula or Cristina Kirchner most want to avoid. That is to say, they want to avoid at all costs that the departure of Maduro and the end of the Chavist dictatorship are the result of the revolutionary action of the masses.
They believe that any transition that takes place should occur through a negotiated exit with the regime or, in any case, through a fracture of the FFFA and a coup. Nicolás Maduro has already denied any possibility of negotiation and, at the same time, the leadership of the FFAA firmly maintains itself as a central part of the regime, in defense of its business and its enrichment.
Revolutionary action by the workers and the masses is the only possible way to get rid of the Chavista dictatorship. We do not believe that this can be achieved through an “electoral path”. Nor through negotiations with the Chavista dictatorship or U.S. imperialism. We propose the independent mobilization of the masses, outside the frameworks of the right-wing bourgeois opposition. The IWL and its Venezuelan section promote the broadest unity of action with all those who share this proposal of struggle against the dictatorship. At the same time, in the framework of this common struggle, we find it necessary to make an overall assessment of the whole Chávez process and how its bourgeois character led from its beginning to this present capitalist dictatorship. The struggle against dictatorship must be part of the road in the strategy of a true socialist revolution. That is why, on that road, it is necessary to advance in the construction of a revolutionary organization of the workers ready to take it to the end.
Sources:
[1] https://litci.org/es/no-al-fraude-electoral-abajo-la-dictadura-de-maduro-todo-el-apoyo-a-las-movilizaciones/
[2] Díaz-Canel gives his “unwavering support” to the revolution in Venezuela (efe.com)
[3] See for example, the selection of materials from the book “Venezuela despúes de Chávez: un balance necesario” published by Editorial Sundermann (Brazil, 2015) and the magazine Correo Internacional Nro. 18 (2017) at https://litci.org/es/correo-internacional-18-maduro/
[4] https://www.acnur.org/emergencias/situacion-de-venezuela#:~:text=M%C3%A1s%20de%207%2C7%20millones,Am%C3%A9rica%20Latina%20y%20el%20Caribe.
[5] Maduro’s government advances in the process of reprivatization and surrender of the country’s resources – International Workers League (litci.org).
[6] The division of the Latin American left after the Venezuelan elections: who recognizes Maduro as the winner and who does not (cnn.com).
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‘Cobalt Red’ exposes horrors of corporate mining in the Congo
By ERWIN FREED
“There is a frenzy taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a manic race to extract as much cobalt as quickly as possible. This rare, silvery metal is an essential component to almost every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today. It is also used in a wide array of emerging low-carbon innovations that are critical to the achievement of climate sustainability goals. The Katanga region in the southeastern corner of the Congo holds more reserves of cobalt than the rest of the planet combined…
“The deposits were always there, resting dormant for eons before foreign economies made the dirt valuable. Industrial innovations sparked demand for one metal after another, and somehow they all happened to be in Katanga. The remainder of the Congo is similarly bursting with natural resources. Foreign powers have penetrated every inch of this nation to extract its rich supplies of ivory, palm oil, diamonds, timber, rubber … and to make slaves of its people. Few nations are blessed with a more diverse abundance of resource riches than the Congo. No country in the world has been more severely exploited.”
Siddharth Kara’s 2023 book “Cobalt Red” is an urgent exposé on the horrors of imperialism in the Congo today. Kara, an investment banker turned investigative reporter, first went to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to begin researching for the book in 2018. The book provides an eyewitness account of the sheer brutality that is fundamental to mining cobalt in the Katanga region, where the mineral is very abundant, alongside historical and political-economic tangents that help to contextualize the role of past colonization and ongoing super-exploitation by major corporations. “Cobalt Red” traces the labor and financial processes involved with the extraction, refinement, and end-use of the mineral.
The book begins with a mine collapse at the mining area at Kamilombe. Kara is drawn to a commotion and realizes that a crowd has formed around the corpse of a dead child who was pulled out of the rubble. Soldiers, who guard the mines and are ever-present throughout Kara’s time in DRC, yell at the gathered onlookers and point a gun at the author. He counterposes this stark reality to the assurances of “ethical mining” given by some of the world’s largest companies, pointing out, “The harsh realities of cobalt mining in the Congo are an inconvenience to every stakeholder in the chain. … In public disclosures and press releases, the corporations perched atop the cobalt chain typically cite their commitments to international human rights norms, zero-tolerance policies on child labor, and adherence to the highest standards of supply chain due diligence.”
As “Cobalt Red” makes very clear, none of these conditions are upheld, and all the statements are examples of the cynicism and hypocrisy of capital.
Why cobalt? Why DRC? What are the conditions?
One of the big strengths of “Cobalt Red” is the necessary historical and economic contexts in which Kara situates his investigations. He explains how cobalt is a necessary component in all lithium-ion batteries (and even gives some details on the science involved) as well as the development and upswings of those technologies.
There are two main general areas where cobalt is used. First, the lithium-ion battery is what is used in virtually all rechargeable consumer electronics. Between smartphones, laptops, e-bikes, and a myriad of other products, “the aggregate amount of cobalt needed from all devices, save those with four or more tires, adds up to tens of thousands of tons each year.”
Second, an even larger end-product for cobalt is the electric vehicle (EV) market. This is particularly important because of the relatively large amount of cobalt necessary and the basic fact that EVs are the main climate “solution” on offer from capitalists. Ultimately, to meet the projections for EV production made in the Paris Accords and EV30@30 would mean that “millions of tons of cobalt will be needed, which will continue to push hundreds of thousands of Congolese women, men, and children into hazardous pits and tunnels to help meet demand.”
The DRC, specifically the southwest Katanga Province, is estimated to be home to around half of the world’s cobalt deposits, about 3.5 million tons. It is very prevalent and “found in massive, shallow, high-grade deposits.” Kara quotes a geologist, Murray Hitzman, as stating, “The cobalt-hydroxide ore bodies in Katanga are unique. They form blocks that can be tens of meters to several kilometers in length floating like raisins in a cake.”
Instead of investing in modern mining equipment and basic safety standards, cobalt is mined largely by individuals in families, with rudimentary tools like hand shovels and rebar. Large open pits see tens of thousands of people working from before dawn until after dusk in back breaking labor.
Where cobalt deposits exist further below the surface, narrow mine shafts are dug. These shafts can go many feet into the ground with dozens of people working in them. They are virtually all unreinforced, meaning that they are prone to collapse. Basic safety procedures are impossible to follow due to a lack of resources. This “cost-saving” appears on the one hand in big profits for major corporations and banks and on the other in the spilt blood and broken bones of Congolese workers.
A normal day in the mines consists of filling sacks with as much mineral as possible, washing the rocks by hand in the streams, and bringing them to middlemen to be sold to other middlemen. Virtually all of the profits of these workers’ labor is captured by “stronger” economies like China and the United States. In as much as any of this value is redistributed through state programs—or even “philanthropy”—it is done far away from the DRC.
Kara writes: “Despite being home to trillions of dollars in untapped mineral deposits, the DRC’s entire national budget in 2021 was a scant $7.2 billion, similar to the state of Idaho, which has one-fiftieth the population. The DRC ranks 175 out of 189 on the United Nations Human Development Index. More than three-fourths of the population live below the poverty line, one-third suffer from food insecurity, life expectancy is only 60.7 years, child mortality ranks eleventh worst in the world, access to clean drinking water is only 26 percent, and electrification is only 9 percent.
“Education is supposed to be funded by the state until eighteen years of age, but schools and teachers are under-supported and forced to charge fees of five or six dollars per month to cover expenses, a sum that millions of people in the DRC cannot afford. Consequently, countless children are compelled to work to support their families, especially in the mining provinces.”
Due to underdevelopment and complete disregard for human and natural life in the mining regions, the health of workers and environments are sacrificed for cobalt profits. A researcher at the University of Lumumbashi named Germain wrote a paper quoted by Kara which reads in part: “In the studies we conducted, the artisanal miners have more than forty times the amount of cobalt in their urine as the control groups. They also have five times the level of lead and four times the level of uranium. Even the inhabitants living close to the mining areas who do not work as artisanal miners have very high concentrations of trace metals in their systems, including cobalt, copper, zinc, lead, cadmium, germanium, nickel, vanadium, chromium, and uranium.…
“The mining companies do not control the runoff of effluents from their processing operations. They do not clean up when they have chemical spills. Toxic dust and gases from mining plants and diesel equipment spreads for many kilometers and are inhaled by the local population. The mining companies have polluted the entire region. All the crops, animals, and fish stocks are contaminated.”
Labor in the cobalt economy
Congolese workers are forced into perhaps the most deplorable conditions on the planet. As Kara details, the incredible natural wealth of the Congo has been a “jewel” passed around by colonizers and imperialists for over 150 years. That jewel is paid for in the blood and lives of the area’s peoples. Common touch points include the reign of King Leopold II, who is thought to have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and brutalized many more, and the CIA backed assassination of democratically elected pan-Africanist Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961.
One of the big corporate lies that Kara exposes is the porousness between “formal” and “informal” cobalt mines. Workers in the “informal” sector “are assigned the quaint term artisanal miners, and they toil in a shadowy substrate of the global mining industry called artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM).”
Kara warns: “Do not be fooled by the word artisanal into thinking that ASM involves pleasant mining activities conducted by skilled artisans. Artisanal miners use rudimentary tools and work in hazardous conditions to extract dozens of minerals and precious stones in more than eighty countries across the global south. Because ASM is almost entirely informal, artisanal miners rarely have formal agreements for wages and working conditions. There are usually no avenues to seek assistance for injuries or redress for abuse. Artisanal miners are almost always paid paltry wages on a piece-rate basis and must assume all risks of injury, illness, or death.
“Although ASM is fraught with hazardous conditions, the sector has been growing rapidly. There are roughly forty-five million people around the world directly involved in ASM, which represents an astonishing 90 percent of the world’s total mining workforce. Despite the many advancements in machinery and techniques, the formal mining industry relies heavily on the hard labor of artisanal miners to boost production at minimal expense. The contributions from ASM are substantial, including 26 percent of the global supply of tantalum, 25 percent of tin and gold, 20 percent of diamonds, 80 percent of sapphires, and up to 30 percent of cobalt [which Kara later believes is an undercount].”
Only 2.5 percent of Congolese workers are in the “formal” economy, according to Joséphine Shimbi Umba, the vice president of gender, the informal economy, and finance at the Trade Union Confederation of Congo.
There is virtually no regulation of mining by the DRC, and Kara exposes again and again how the “responsible sourcing” labels that big companies use are blatant lies. Even the “model mines” are places where, in the words of miner Josué, “we work in our graves.”
Where there are “regulations,” these are used to further dispossess the workers. For example, miners (also known as creuseurs) are forced to hand the products of their labor to négociants, who then bring the sacks of cobalt for sale to comptoirs. Licensing for both transport and sale of cobalt is prohibitively expensive so workers are unable to sell directly to comptoirs, and Congolese nationals have difficulty raising the funds to become comptoirs. Kara found that most comptoirs, who are the final stop before larger amounts of cobalt collected from all sources are trucked to shipping points and the international market, are largely Chinese immigrants.
In the final chapter of “Cobalt Red,” Kara visits the Kamilombe cobalt mine, run by Coopérative Minière pour le Développement Social, which partners with the “Fair Cobalt Alliance”—an international NGO that gives its stamp of approval for buyers in the global supply chain. On arriving at Kamilombe, Kara immediately hears cries of “Éboulement. Collapse!” He explains, “Sixty-three men and boys were buried alive in a tunnel collapse at Kamilombe on September 21, 2019. Only four of the sixty-three bodies were recovered. The others would remain forever interred in their final poses of horror. No one has ever accepted responsibility for these deaths. The accident has never even been acknowledged.”
Prevalence of China; dangers of inter-imperialist fights
U.S. companies virtually pulled out of Katanga and DRC cobalt mining in 2016 when Phoenix-based Freeport sold its stake in Tenke Fungurum, the largest mining concession in Congo, to China Molybdenum (CMOC) for $2.65 billion. While U.S. companies are not directly involved in mining cobalt, they still continue to reap the super-profits of hyper-exploited semi-slave labor in the Congo. Massive corporations like Apple, GE, and General Motors are all drenched in Congolese blood. Chinese companies are dominant in the global cobalt supply chain. Beyond pure ownership, the picture that Kara paints of Chinese middlemen, business owners, and bureaucrats in the DRC is reminiscent of other and earlier forms of colonial domination.
Employment with the large mining firms or setting up shop as négociants appears to be effectively creating a community of Chinese settlers with a specific interest in maintaining the dominance of their mother country and continued subordination of native communities. One example of the colonizing mindset developing among Chinese immigrants in the DCR is given during an interview with a mid-level manager of Congo DongFang Mining (CDM), referred to as Hu. Hu goes on a tirade about “lazy Africans” that sounds like it could have come out of the letters or diaries of any European settler in “the colonies.”
In addition, there is effective segregation between Chinese and Congolese, with the former refusing to even eat food cooked by the latter. Kara notes on the location in which the above interview took place, “Congolese people were not allowed inside the club, except when the strippers arrived around 9:00 p.m.”
The current dominance of China in Katanga and the cobalt supply chain generally is not only solidifying China’s role as an imperialist power, it is also likely to become a center of conflict between China and the United States. Kara points to internal political disputes within the Congolese ruling elite concerning which imperialist they should align with. Kara explains this rift at the level of DRC presidents, saying that “a power struggle has since ensued between [current President Félix] Tshisekedi and [predecessor Joseph] Kabila. Tshisekedi is perceived as trying to align the country closer to the U.S., whereas Kabila is fighting to maintain links to China.”
Since becoming president, Tshisekedi has begun new investigations into mining contracts signed with Chinese companies during Kabila’s term. However, the game being played is dangerous in two major ways. The most obvious way is that the United States has a long history of parasitic, violent relationships with the Congo—from helping to murder Patrice Lumumba to backing to the hilt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. There is absolutely no reason to think, as does former U.S. ambassador to the DRC Mike Hammer, that “American investment … brings better jobs, delivers for local communities, and respects the environment.” Second, Chinese corporations and their state are not going to simply give up what could end up being some of their most profitable and fast growing growth sectors. The imperialists will go to war before they allow the riches of the DRC to change hands. This is something that Kara could be more explicit about in his book.
Africa key to world revolution
“Cobalt Red” is an essential text for exposing the hypocrisy and violence underpinning the capitalist system. Congolese cobalt workers sit at the intersection of one of the most brutal labor regimes in the world and one of the most essential industries for global production.
Author Siddharth Kara gives a useful general historic overview of colonial and imperialist domination in the DRC from the 19th century to today. Beyond this basic information and between the lines, however, there is a takeaway that Kara ultimately does not provide. That is the central role that Africa as a whole plays in the world revolution and struggle for socialism.
Kara shows a long history of inter-imperial, regional, and Cold War Great Power conflicts developing within the DRC that can be extended in important ways to the continent as a whole. However, the book provides no discussion of the working-class and anti-imperialist struggles in the region, which won formal independence, democratic revolutions, and smashed apartheid. These histories and ongoing struggles are necessary to see beyond the so-called “international community” represented by the UN, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and similar tools of maintaining the domination of “weak” countries by the “strong.”
“Cobalt Red” exposes the hypocrisy of giant capitalist corporations and their regulators, but it does not go all the way. In the end, the book does not present a solution to Congolese workers other than through those same imperialist institutions that are raking in profits through forcing them to “work in their graves.” Instead, what is necessary is looking at the lessons of struggles against imperialism and for miners’ rights and the development of fighting organizations on a continental scale and international scale.
Photo: Children working at a mine in the Congo. (Siddartha Kara/ CNN)
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U.S. workers need to break with the two-party system
By COOPER BARD
The first 2024 presidential debate showed an incompetent current leader and a charlatan, both delivering exaggerations and lies. The one could only speak nonsense about immigration and other issues, and the other could barely speak at all.
Now that Harris and Walz have been selected as replacement candidates on the Democratic ticket, to face off against Trump and Vance, our options hardly appear more inspiring.
The Democratic and Republican parties claim that the 2024 presidential election is the most important election of all time—as they say about every election. The two parties have a vested interest in preserving the illusion that they represent strongly opposed forms of political rule, rather than two varieties of the rule of the capitalist class, which differ merely in degrees.
The capitalists, for their part, weigh the pros and cons of either potential administration from the perspective of their own class interests, with the understanding that neither administration would have the intention of attacking capitalism. The media’s focus on the personality (or lack thereof) of the given candidates distracts from the essentially similar pro-capitalist policies that they represent. This system also sustains and in turn is sustained by a “culture war” rhetoric that distracts working people from their real exploiters and enemies, the millionaires and billionaires.
This political duopoly has the goal of drawing in first one section, then another section, of the working masses into an electoral battle, thus causing them to withdraw from the mass struggles that could bring real change.
Workers’ Voice proposes action to bring about a system that would be genuinely different, based on the rule of the working class. This requires political groups representing workers and their allies to function independently of big money politics and xenophobic narrowness, and to rely on the strength of international workers’ solidarity.
And it requires breaking with the two capitalist parties of war and exploitation. There is good reason to think that if an uncompromising and class-independent party—based in the unions and the struggle in the streets—were to emerge to contest the two-party system, then millions of workers who are currently apathetic to politics would flock to its banners.
Election apathy and barriers to democracy
One aspect that speaks to the need for a class-independent alternative is the pronounced apathy for elections in the United States. For example, while the 2020 presidential elections had the highest turnout since 1900, still only 66% of eligible voters cast votes. Millions of people who could legally vote either were not registered or chose not to politically support the duopoly. No doubt many thought it would make no real difference. Additionally, midterm elections haven’t gained more than half of the total eligible vote since the beginning of the last century.
This lack of participation, however, is not a threat to the capitalist system. If the working class largely does not participate in elections, it will in no way affect the political outcome—one of two capitalist alternatives.
In fact, there are millions of workers who for numerous reasons are barred from voting. Contrary to Trump’s incoherent ramblings, the Democrats do not, and cannot, “import immigrants” to win elections. The vast majority of migrants who arrive in the U.S., despite finding employment, have no right to vote. The Democrats, and the industries that exploit immigrant labor, have absolutely no intention of giving them that right.
Additionally, there is the massive prison population, mostly working class, Black, and Latino, the majority of whom have been incarcerated for extremely minor crimes and politically targeted for their skin tone. In fact, the mere fact of having been in prison is enough in most states to bar one from voting, effectively blocking ex-prisoners from the chance to participate in “democracy.”
Then there are the numerous ways in which the U.S. political system is structurally anti-democratic, even for the “eligible” voter. Gerrymandering allows politicians to draw up favorable voting constituencies where our choices, as workers, are further limited to those that the duopoly itself consents to—which also has racist effects. The Electoral College was established and continues to exist as a mechanism preventing popular control of the government. At the same time, the nature of the Senate allows tiny minorities to decide on issues for the whole nation. Why is it that a comparatively unpopulated state such as Wyoming gets as many Senate seats as New York, Florida, or California? Also, tightening voter ID restrictions are a fact of life everywhere, a byproduct of the paranoia about who is a “citizen” with rights and duties and who is a “non-citizen” with duties but no rights.
On top of all of this, the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United allows capitalists to practice “speech” through secretive big money contributions, including dark money and the super-PACs. Money becomes speech when we consider the influence of capitalist media during the election cycle. Of course, the fact that the Supreme Court judges are themselves undemocratically appointed for life makes their influence on virtually every aspect of life particularly sour. The Supreme Court has been responsible for wholly anti-democratic restrictions of the rights of workers, women, and oppressed minorities, and it has an ugly track record of siding with the corporations.
The above facts make it pretty clear that the U.S. political system has nothing to do with the “will of the people” and that it actually acts to regulate the population in the interests of the super-rich and already privileged, entrenching and protecting the rights of privileged minorities while suppressing the rights of the majority.
It may be objected that the House of Representatives has seats apportioned by a state’s population, and thus the House and Senate act to promote the supposed “balance” of powers integral to liberal “democracy.” However, House members are generally, like Senators, members of the wealthy class; in 2020 over half of the people in Congress were millionaires. Moreover, they are elected via big-money campaigns and subject to extensive corporate lobbying. And finally, most real economic activity is outside their immediate purview.
What’s never voted on
The worker does not get to vote on who runs their factory, what products are made at the factory, or the methods by which they are produced. The worker does not vote on who owns X, Meta, Google, and by extension, how and why information of any kind arrives on our phone or computer screens. Nor do we vote on whether the Waltons or the Bezoses of the world should really be making thousands of dollars a minute while children still starve on planet Earth.
Regarding Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, voters can certainly vote for a more or less jingoistic expression of capitalism, but they cannot vote to have their boss provide fewer hours at the same rate of pay, thus allowing both immigrant and domestic workers jobs and sustenance. Trump screams against immigrants taking jobs but cannot explain to workers why the capitalist is offering only so many jobs and at such and such pay.
This is an example of how the basic flaws of the economy, which act as a source of extreme anxiety during election time, are themselves not subject to the democratic will of the masses. Without a union, workers can only obey the edicts and norms that the capitalist dictator sets down at work, and both the Republicans and the Democrats, despite their rhetoric, show contempt for the unions through their policies.
The minority of billionaires and millionaires who own property in land, and as capital, have inordinate dictatorial powers to make economic decisions that affect millions of working-class people and impact the environment—dictatorial powers protected by our capitalist government. This includes all of the choices related to the running of businesses, such as what jobs to provide, who to do business with, and what investments to make. We don’t get to vote on their rule, nor on the rich’s influence in drafting legislation with the cooperation of the duopoly.
Speaking of which, workers cannot decide on the details of government spending on the military, R&D, or public works—which determine much of economic activity as well as the availability of jobs. We can register dissatisfaction at the next election, but on a fundamental level, our choices as workers are severely limited under capitalism.
When it comes to U.S. foreign policy—imperialism—the choices might touch on some strategic issues but never on its substance, namely, the economic and/or military domination of much of the world by the U.S. and by extension, the billionaires. We didn’t vote to enter Vietnam in the 1960s; nor were we allowed the right to vote ourselves out of it. No “eligible voter” consented to the CIA’s sabotaging pro-democracy struggles in Latin America and Africa. We did not vote on the terms of the shameful invasions and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the case of Vietnam, it took a decade of sustained struggle in the streets and in the ranks of the U.S. Army—to say nothing of the heroic self-defense of the Vietnamese people—to stop the war. Similar mass action promoted and organized by the workers’ own organizations is what we propose in order to rid ourselves of the unelected capitalists and their farcical duopoly, as well as to stop U.S. support for genocidal wars.
Unions, break with the Democrats!
The unions have the organizational capacity, the power, and popularity to move forward on a class-independent course immediately, if they so chose to. This is true in matters of money, personnel, organization, and political clout.
In terms of money, both private and public-sector unions have spent, through Political Action Committees (PACs), hundreds of millions of dollars towards political contributions to both sides of the duopoly, although the vast majority of contributions have gone to Democrats. The UAW alone has since 2023 sent over $1.5 million to liberal political campaigns. Thus, in pure money terms, the unions could easily fund the political campaigns of actual working-class people on the ballot, running on the ticket of their own working-class party, rather than throw it to the already obscenely wealthy.
Unions have the personnel to make real political change. Many Democratic politicians owe their midterm successes to union-organized door-knocking campaigns. Just as the bosses on the shop floor need us more than we need them, so to do Democratic politicians need the unions more than the unions need them. Working-class people deserve far more than what the Democrats can give, and the unions could easily deliver it.
There are currently over 33 million unionized workers in the U.S. With this mass of organized workers, the unions can be more than separate bargaining groups against separate bosses but also serve as a great force in this country for the political interests of the working class as a whole. The elements of a strong and organized working-class party already exist in these unions.
They could bring behind their class-independent, unified banner millions of dissatisfied workers. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 71% of the country supports unions (even though only 10% are currently unionized!). This number is much larger among the youth. Thus, there is every good reason to believe that a class-independent workers’ or labor party, starting with the unions, could achieve immediate successes.
Organizing for union power
Considering the latest campaign by the UAW to unionize Southern autoworkers, why not use some of the money it donates to the Democrats to pay the salaries for more full-time union organizers? Right-wing governors in the U.S. South have already declared war on the UAW, as they desire to protect the exploitation of the Southern worker (immigrant or domestic) on the behalf of capital. The sum of $1.5 million dollars would go a long way to organizing Southern labor against the exploitation of the bosses, and every advance of our class in organizing in the workplace is an advance of our political power.
Beyond the question of the ballot box is the most important thing of all, the ability of the worker to withhold their labor power. Whereas the Democratic Party has proven that it will attempt to stop the economic action of the working class (as when they betrayed the rail workers in 2022), a working-class party would support all such strikes, acting as the political expression of our class.
We cannot leave political leadership in the hands of capitalists. Their system is from top-to-bottom aligned against the interests of working people and for our continued exploitation, and they intend to keep it that way.
A resolute and open political campaign by the working class to take political power away from the capitalists is necessary to show that a better world is possible. A labor party would be one means by which the working class can politically express itself and must be considered as part of a strategy of mass mobilization and strikes.
Photos: AP, Getty Images
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Knockout at the Olympics stirs up storm about gender rights
By RUSS O’SHEA
A first-round knockout at the Olympics has catalyzed a firestorm of misogyny, transphobia, and racism the world over. On Aug. 1, Italian boxer Angela Carini gave up within a minute of facing off against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, shouting to her corner, “Non è giusto! Non è giusto!”, “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” This exclamation, which implied that Khelif was male, was the dog whistle for the right to attack—and the uproar began. Carini, a police officer, began to sob and refused to shake her opponent’s hand, saying that she had “never felt a punch” like the one Khelif had delivered and needed to leave the match to “preserve [her] life.”
The media was quick to point out that Imane Khelif, who was born a woman and has lived and competed as a woman all her life, was previously disqualified from an event unrelated to the Olympics by the International Boxing Association (IBA). The IBA has no authority over the Olympics—in fact, due to years-long corruption, it is the first body to have been banned from the Olympics by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in its 130 years in 2023. One of the reasons for this removal was the IBA’s sudden shift on gender policy in the middle of that year’s World Championships, which were also boycotted by 17 countries over controversy around the Association’s policies in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The IOC, meanwhile, approved Khelif’s participation in the games and reiterated support for her participation following the match with Carini. Khelif is from Algeria, where it is illegal to be trans and there are no legal systems in place for updated documentation that would be necessary to clear a trans athlete for participation in the Olympic games.
Why had Imane Khelif been disqualified in the first place?
Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan were barred from competing part way into the Women’s Boxing World Championships in India last year when they “failed to meet eligibility rules following a test conducted by an independent laboratory,” according to IBA Board of Director minutes. This chain of events came as a shock to the boxers who had already progressed through the competition. Had she been allowed to continue, Imane Khelif, for example, would have been in the running for gold.
These minutes also requested the establishment of a set procedure for gender testing, which did not exist at that time. Khelif and Yu-Ting were the only two boxers in the championships that were made to undergo gender testing. No explanation was given as to why the women were singled out, aside from vague references to complaints from opposing countries, and they were not given due process.
Umar Kremlev, head of the IBA, who is famous for his prominent role in the Russian far-right Night Wolves biker gang, asserted that gender testing “proved [Khelif and Yu-Ting] had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded.” The implication was that a presence of XY chromosomes was in some way related to increased athletic performance, which must give the boxers an unfair advantage over their competitors.
Besides vague (and often contradictory) statements from the IBA and Kremlev, there is no evidence that the testing took place, and there have even been claims that there were no tests at all but rather that the ban originated from a telegram message sent by Kremlev, which was picked up by Russian news agency TASS. The bans only came after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva, raising additional questions about their efficacy.
Fanning the flames of paranoia around athletes that push the boundaries of gender “norms,” especially ones perceived to have taken medals from Russians, would not be out of place in a country that has criminalized the LGBT rights movement as a “terrorist organization”—nor would it be out of place coming from Kremlev, who has ties to Vladimir Putin. Putin in 2021 called transgender athletes “the end of female sports,” which is the message Kremlev is also trying to push (whether those targeted by his rhetoric are actually trans or not is of no concern).
On Aug. 6, the IBA held a chaotic mess of a press conference in response to mounting pressure to provide evidence for the testing. None was given, and the press conference was really a pathetic showing that saw Kremlev and others repeatedly skirt the question with rants about drag queens desecrating the games, the assertion that it was all to protect women’s sports (another dog whistle), and a promise to prosecute the head of the IOC. Reporters were enraged that their time was wasted, and the conference at times devolved into shouting matches between them and IBA officials. It ended after a teammate of Khelif entered the room, leading chants in support of Khelif and the Algerian team.
The same day, the revelation was made that Carini had been messaged by the IBA prior to the match, as revealed by the president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, Giovanni Malagò. Combined with the $50,000 payout that Carini is set to receive from the IBA, and the IBA’s long history of scandals, match fixing in this case seems to be all but a foregone conclusion.
Regardless of whether the gender verification testing happened or not, or what it actually entailed, the bottom line is that it is problematic that women are being held to an arbitrary standard where their validity as a woman is dictated to them and their ability to compete is infringed upon because of factors out of their control. Hard and fast definitions of what is or isn’t acceptable biology to have as one gender or another only serves to reinforce the special oppression confronting women.
This fact has already been made clear as Khelif and Yu-Ting both face an overwhelming amount of vitriol and transphobic accusations of their “true identities.” Cis or trans, all athletes should be allowed to participate in their sport of choice and have the opportunity to compete at the highest level.
The response
Following the match, figures across politics and the media were quick to jump on Carini’s cries of “It’s not fair!” It brought a response from one of the most powerful capitalists on the planet, Elon Musk, who has a long track record of anti-trans sentiment. including publicly attacking his own trans daughter and rolling back trans protections immediately after purchasing X, formerly known as Twitter.
JK Rowling also was quick to seize on the opportunity to push her transphobic views into the mainstream, with a vile tweet that cynically misgendered Khelif as an agent of the “new men’s rights movement,” a misleading nickname that TERFs have given to the fight for trans rights. Like Kremlev, JK Rowling claims that she is on the frontline of defending women, but her supposed “feminism” is limited to attacking a subset of women.
Other responses came from politicians such as former U.S. President Donald Trump and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. Trump, who has been campaigning on an anti-trans platform, took advantage of the uproar surrounding the match to reiterate his promise that “there will be no men playing in women’s sports when [he’s] elected.” Meloni went a step further, personally meeting with Angela Carini and echoing the sentiment that the match “was not on equal footing,” saying, “Athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to female competitions.”
An underlying theme of much of the speech directed towards the boxers is the racist undertones. Khelif, for example, was subject both to anti-Arab attacks and attacks that tried to drive an Islamophobic wedge between her and her supposed “transness.” The talents, passions, and achievements of women of color and (as well as trans women) are almost always cast aside or scrutinized as supposedly illegitimate. Female athletes of color especially are targets of some of the most vile rhetoric, which more often than not goes hand in hand with “theories” about their “actual” gender or sex.
On the one hand, the femininity of women of color is often disparaged, as it doesn’t hold up to eurocentric/white beauty standards. On the other hand, there is a pervasive disbelief that a woman who isn’t white could achieve anything, let alone on a global scale. Instead, these athletes are portrayed as merely stealing opportunities or spotlight from their white counterparts, as was the case when Khelif defeated Amineva. This fact, far more than any “physical advantages,” is why the victories of athletes of color and gender non-conforming athletes over their cis white counterparts are painted as “unfair.” “That Black girl stole my track and field scholarship!” is just a repackaged form of “that immigrant took my job!” and similar tropes.
The moral panic around the games has been pushed beyond just questioning Khelif and Yu-Ting; a witch hunt has begun for other athletes who are supposedly lying about their sex (from which not even Angela Carini herself was spared). Photos have been circulating online pointing to supposed “giveaways” of transness in a paranoid practice dubbed “transvestigating.”
Who benefits from this? Only those who are trying to police women’s and gender nonconforming bodies. Speculation about gender and transness has dangerous implications, especially as harassment of and violence against trans people ramps up. An increasing number of cis people, particularly women, are being targeted in anti-trans motivated violence.
Where does athletic gender verification come from?
Gender verification testing in sports was introduced in 1966 by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) when fears grew of “men masquerading as women” to gain advantage in athletics (there have been no recorded cases of such a phenomenon). A number of athletes were repulsed by this new barrier to entry and opted to drop out rather than be subjected to invasive and traumatizing procedures.
This testing is a vestige of an era when it was illegal for men to dress as women and vice versa—when Queer and trans people were being arrested left and right and their gathering spaces raided by police (and right-wing mobs). Now, as the worst attacks on LGBTQ communities in years unfold on a global scale, Khelif and Yu-Ting find themselves in the crosshairs of misogynist, racist, and transphobic claims that they too are “masquerading as women.”
Amidst moral panics like these we are seeing genital inspection bills for athletes (including for minors) proliferate in the U.S. and other places. This begs the question, do these tests really protect women, as proponents claim? A greenlight to police bodies on the basis of biological diversity certainly does not protect women. It is part and parcel of a false feminism, an exclusionary feminism.
Notes on biology
First it must be said that sexual biology, like gender identity, is a spectrum. The biodiversity that gives species, including humans, an evolutionary advantage and is a sign of a healthy population includes sexual diversity, which is not limited to endosexual (i.e., not intersex) “male” and “female” bodies but includes bodies that possess intersex traits. Such traits include combinations of genitalia, hormones, or chromosomes. These traits are more common than people think (1-2% of people are born intersex), but this is often swept under the rug, particularly by surgical interventions at birth performed without the knowledge or consent of parents. This is the result of a medical framework that has counterintuitively distanced itself from biology, which is pushed in the interest of maintaining the illusion that the socially imposed gender binary is in any way natural, that gender essentialism holds any basis in reality. As an aside, one example of why gender identity is said to be related to but not tied to biological factors is that not all intersex people identify as trans or nonbinary, and not all endosex people identify as cisgender.
The labeling of traits like testosterone and XY chromosomes as necessarily “male” and the positioning of them as off-limits to women begs the question: why are biological factors out of anyone’s control only being disallowed for athletes identifying as women? The arguments against trans male participation in sports are nowhere to be found. What about athletes like Michael Phelps, who has genetic mutations proven to give him an advantage such as longer arms and a significantly reduced lactic acid production? Is it all just the result of misogyny? Is there any merit to the claims that biological traits in women such as increased testosterone levels or presence of XY chromosomes provide an athletic advantage?
With regard to testosterone, in general, there is quite a lot of data. A 2014 study of elite athletes’ physiological and endocrinological profiles found that the difference in men’s and women’s performance at the Olympic level was almost entirely reducible to differences in lean body mass and the body mass index, and that “there is no clear separation between the testosterone levels of male and female elite athletes. The whole issue of gender within sport is complex, but excluding female athletes on the basis of a serum testosterone level is considered to be unethical.”
Testosterone and estrogen levels are just one factor among many, both “purely” biological as well as socio-behavioral, that affect lean body mass/muscle density, the “true” fundamental reasons for differences in performance between elite men and women athletes, at least as far as bodies are concerned. Interestingly, another study found that male weightlifters had especially low testosterone levels, with some matching high but still relatively normal levels for cis women. Women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome have high-levels of circulating testosterone in their blood, but, as the name suggests, are insensitive to it. While they are over-represented in sports, this is due not to testosterone levels, but to bodily composition, e.g., height and lean body mass.
Fairness in sports?
The notion of “fairness in sports” is given as a basis to keep things like gender verification processes in place. But what does it mean for sports to be fair? Putting aside the observation that if sports were fair, everything would end in a tie and no one would enjoy sports, under capitalism sports are necessarily unfair. Those who have the means can gain a leg up with the best equipment, coaches, diet, etc., to say nothing of actually having time freed up from other labor to commit to developing certain skills and techniques.
The construction of gender and race
What is “male?” What is “female?” These questions have historical and political, not simply biological answers. The concepts of gender and race as we know them are incredibly new in the grand scheme of things. The gender binary and the concept of “whiteness,” and therefore “non-whiteness,” came with the colonization of the Americas and the genocide of millions of Indigenous people, with the enslavement of Africans, with the whistle of the factory clock, an with the fury of two world wars. The subordination of women to men is one way that the working class is divided to keep wages down and to cheapen “feminine labor,” including unpaid labor such as child and elder care. Women are also expected to perform the reproductive labor necessary for the upkeep of this “masculine” productive labor, to cook and clean and free up men to go to work to produce commodities.
Racialized and colonized bodies, especially women’s bodies, are especially exploited and controlled. Historically, racialized women have performed both productive and reproductive labor, both producing commodities and infrastructure and producing more workers to be exploited under capitalism. Racialized and colonized women are especially targets of attacks on bodily autonomy, such as reproductive rights, including attacks on the ability to raise healthy children.
As movements for women’s, Queer, and Black liberation began to advance, the ruling class felt a sense of urgency to reverse the trend. Steady attacks on trans and reproductive rights that picked up with Trump, coupled with the herding of the women’s rights movement into NGOs and the Democratic Party, paved a way for Roe v. Wade to be overturned with little resistance in the streets. Since then, attacks on trans and reproductive rights have been ramped up dramatically, and women around the globe are being reminded of their “duty” as childbearers. It is no surprise that birth rates and trans people were two of the most frequent topics of discussion at the recent Republican National Convention. The fight for trans rights is necessarily a fight for women’s rights, and vice versa.
Which way forward in the fight for gender rights?
At the same time that gender rights are being rolled back, we have seen gains by mass movements for bodily autonomy in some countries. In Argentina, for example, a number of massive demonstrations—most notably, the International Women’s Strike in 2017—brought millions in the streets to win major victories, such as marriage equality in 2010 and legal abortion in 2020. Movements like these will be necessary to achieve women’s and trans liberation, and must be replicated everywhere.
When trans people are attacked, the damage reaches far beyond the trans community and affects cis people as well. Athletics are one way that the trans community is being used to attack women and gender non-conforming people. As anti-trans rhetoric ramps up, we are seeing attacks on gender rights and bodily autonomy globally. Attacks on gender rights are attacks on all working people.
The right of athletes like Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting to compete must be defended. Gender restrictions and testing creates an environment in which witch hunts among competitors and the general population are encouraged. Those in support of women’s and trans rights should be opposing this at every opportunity; the only way to achieve gender liberation and liberation of all forms is via the construction of a mass movement in the streets.
Photo: Imane Khelif aims knockout blow at Angela Carini. (John Pelham / Getty Images / CNN Newsource)
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Long live the victorious students of Bangladesh! Onward to the Bengali revolution!
By INTERNATIONAL WORKERS LEAGUE
The autocratic Bonapartist regime of Sheik Hasina has fallen! This is without a doubt a victory for the students’ movement. The victory has been achieved with the martyrdom of over 300 [perhaps 500, according to some accounts] students and workers, who became victims of police and paramilitary aggression.
The regime of Sheik Hasina came in power in 2008 following elections that year, gaining a second term at the end of the caretaker government’s mandate. She and her party, the Awami League, had been progressively entrenching their position in power since then.
By the time the Awami League had won a record fourth term, in an election that was heavily rigged and boycotted by major opposition parties, its power had become almost absolute. On paper, Bangladesh was a regular bourgeois parliamentary democracy; in practice it had become an autocracy of one party, centered around one leader, Sheik Hasina.
In many ways, the regime we saw toppled today was a resurrection of the BAKSAL regime crafted by Sheik Hasina’s father, and the first prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheik Mujibar Rahman. The new nation had seen its fledgling democratic structure eroded and transformed into a one-party state ruled through the party apparatus commanding a paramilitary and army. The BAKSAL regime imploded under pressure from the military, following a disastrous famine that killed hundreds of thousands. Sheik Hasina’s 21st century autocracy collapsed in the face of mass mobilization of youth and workers.
A timeline of events
The protests by the students started first in 2018 when the new quota system for education and government jobs was first proposed. The quota system offers 30% of seats in college and an even greater portion of government jobs to those who are descendants of freedom fighters, who had fought in the liberation war of Bangladesh. In other words, the system privileged the sons and grandsons of approximately 300,000 soldiers, and party activists who had fought actively in the liberation war of 1971.
With the Awami League in power, this translates to an indirect way of securing hegemony over jobs and education, as the Awami League largely led the independence war and the independence movement. One must see this in the context of institutionalized corruption in Bangladesh; it becomes an easy tool to use for the Awami League to ensure the greatest privileges for it’s members.
After the first protests, the government withdrew the quota, but the quotas were reinstated after the government approached the Dhaka High Court. The decision was passed on June 5, 2024, and sparked off the student protests.
The latest round of student protests happened in the context of a severe economic decline in Bangladesh, owing first to the pandemic, which affected the country’s textile industry, and then Russia’s war on Ukraine, which affected Bangladesh’s oil and food imports. Job losses from the effect of the pandemic, coupled with rising inflation as a result of disruptions to oil and food imports, created a double pressure on the youth and working population of the country.
The situation came to a point in which a large section of garment workers remained unemployed and paid starvation wages, while up to 40% of the youth had neither education opportunities nor jobs. In such a situation, the Awami League decided to impose a measure that would ensure that the most secure and paying jobs, which exist in the public sector, went to its own cadres, who would also get the best educational opportunities.
The students’ protests were large and impassioned, but would not have exploded had it not been for the callous statement of Sheik Hasina herself, who called the students “razakars,” likening them to the reactionary collaborators of the Pakistan army during the liberation war. The students, (many of whom were from the minority Hindu community) were rightfully insulted by this, and fought with even greater passion.
In response, the government decided to deploy its hated paramilitaries and its heavily militarized police; what followed was a bloodbath. Bangladesh has a paramilitary infamous for its brutal tactics and high level of militarization, the Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB. The cruelty of the Bangladeshi law enforcement forces were shown in earlier protests, when protesters were treated with violence sometimes leading to death.
The repression faced by garment workers is a clear example of this repressive machinery of the Bangladeshi state. The worst of the policing came upon the student and youth protesters, with the government responding to peaceful protests with violence. The police violence, and defensive violence by protesters, characterized much of the protests up to Monday. As repression grew, so did the protests. Over the course of July, the protests kept growing, with the government’s response growing ever more repressive.
At its peak, Bangladesh was subjected to nationwide curfews, internet blackouts, and rampant police firings. Videos have since surfaced of police snipers indiscriminately opening fire on innocent civilians, not sparing little children either.
The decision of the High Court on the quota system was challenged before the Supreme Court, which reserved its judgment until July 21, when the Court struck down the proposed quota, and shrank it down from considerably [higher]. Despite this, the protesters did not calm down. By the time of the judgement, up to 139 people had been killed, as reported by mainstream news sources. The real number could be higher.
By this time, the protests had ceased to be about quotas alone, and targeted the Awami League regime itself. Monday, Aug. 5, was to be the day of the long march of the students to demand accountability for repression, and justice for those slain by the police and paramilitaries. This was the peak of the protests, and it would likely have succeeded in storming the centers of power, had Sheik Hasina not chosen to resign and flee.
This brought a final end to the 15-year rule of the Awami league and Sheik Hasina, a period marked by Bangladesh’s transformation into the sweatshop of the world, ruled through an autocratic boss in the form of Sheik Hasina. The “growth story” made her own cronies exceptionally rich and powerful, while leaving most people of Bangladesh in poverty.
Sheik Hasina’s departure and the international response
Bangladesh had been a valuable asset of many of the world’s powers, who sought to exploit its abundance of cheap labour, agricultural resources, and natural resources. For all those invested in the exploitation of Bangladesh, the shocking downfall of its self-styled wannabe Lee Kwan Yeu came as nothing short of a shock.
The one country that is most affected by this has been India, which is heavily invested in trade with Bangladesh. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in Bangladesh’s energy and infrastructure by Indian corporations, while Bangladesh is one of the key export targets for Indian goods. India surrounds Bangladesh on three sides, with the exception of the border with Myanmar, and virtually controls the Bay of Bengal with its enormous navy. It is an uneven relationship that successive governments in Bangladesh have attempted to ameliorate, by using China or Pakistan as counter-weights to India.
The Hasina government, however, entrenched Indian influence and essentially pegged Bangladesh economically and politically to India. The reality of her deep connection to India became crystal clear when she chose India as the preferred destination to flee to. Here she was given shelter by Prime Minister Modi. As of writing this article, the USA has revoked her passport, and the UK (where her son lives) has denied her asylum.
Al Jazeera, the mouthpiece of the Qatari government, typically tends to lean in favor of Islamist governments, has welcomed the ouster of Sheik Hasina, and is largely focusing on the celebrations which followed her ouster, ignoring the descent into violence targeting Hindu minorities. This is a stark contrast with Indian media channels, which singularly focus on the violence against Hindus, while largely ignoring or downplaying the victory of the students’ agitation and the government’s own repression against the masses.
The sequence of events suggests that Indian agencies had been working behind the scenes, or in coordination with the Bangladesh army, to secure Sheik Hasina’s life. She and her son could then become a future asset with which India would reassert its influence, disregarding the hatred of the Bangladeshi people towards her. A recent revelation has shown that India was prepared and willing to intervene militarily against Bangladesh during the 2009 Bangladesh Rifle’s mutiny, which ultimately secured Sheik Hasina’s rule, and gave her the confidence to entrench herself and build a dictatorial government over Bangladesh.
Such a maneuver cannot be ruled out this time around as well. However, the defense of capital is of supreme interest, and with Hasina gone, the next best alternatives to ensure that Bangladesh remains a sweatshop of the world, making fast fashion for the world’s largest brands, would be any of the bourgeois leaders—whether it be Khaleda Zia of the BNP or Mohammad Yunus.
The maneuvers of the army
The Bangladesh army intervened at the decisive stage of the protests and reportedly gave Sheik Hasina a 45-hour ultimatum in which to resign. The decision was borne of desperation and fear as the protests were spreading and growing in intensity. Even before the long march had begun, Sheik Hasina could be seen fleeing the prime minister’s residence in a military helicopter. Air clearance was given from the Indian government, after which she landed in India’s capital, marking the end of her reign, and the beginning of another military rule.
The chief of army Waker Uz Zaman announced the resignation of the prime minister, and the army’s takeover of the government. As of today, Aug. 6, the president has dissolved parliament. The army maneuvered to take advantage of the anger of the masses, and called for talks with all political parties and students’ bodies, as was reported in the mainstream press. An interim government is now formed, with Mohammad Yunus, of Grameen bank fame, as its chief advisor.
With the resignation of Sheik Hasina and the dissolution of the parliament, the police and paramilitaries have apparently melted from the scene. Among the first acts of the new military government was to free political prisoners, including the BNL leader Khaleda Zia, and the Jamat I Islami.
These right-wing parties emerge from a pro-Pakistan background, with the Jamaat being drawn from ranks of Pakistani collaborators. They are a reactionary Islamist party, which was infamous for its lumpen ways and resorting to violence. Soon after, prisons had been attacked, and a general situation of lawlessness appears to prevail in the country. Reports have emerged of Awami League cadres and the Chattra League (the students’ union wing of the Awami League) conducting attacks on Hindu minorities and their places of worship, as a means to stoke communal hatred and discredit the movement. In opposition to this, students‘ unions and civic volunteers have gathered to protect minorities and places of worship.
It becomes clear from the emerging picture that a concerted strategy is in place to play a game of divide and rule. Restoring bourgeois right-wing parties and their reactionary allies, and inviting a discredited banker and champion of neo-liberalism to lead the government, is part of the army’s strategy. The objective is to sow enough chaos and disorder to finally justify maintaining military control, ensuring that the capitalist status quo remains unchanged after Sheik Hasina is gone.
In the long run, there may even be an effort led by India to rehabilitate the Awami League and bring back things to the way they have been, undoing the hard work and sacrifice of the students and youth.
The current situation and the way forward
Calm is slowly returning to the capital, Dhaka, but scenes of violence and lawlessness in other parts of Bangladesh are still common. Attacks on minorities by right-wing lumpens and those linked with pro-Jamaat groups are surfacing. Students and civil society members have formed defense committees for temples and Hindu homes to foil the attacks against minorities. Indian media is focusing chiefly on this issue, while the right-wing BJP and its paid trolls on the internet are spreading false news to influence Indian public opinion against Bangladesh. Conditions are being created in India to justify intervention, or to use this issue and spread hate against Indian Muslims.
The lawless situation in the country is a direct result of the tactic of the army and the Awami League, along with its international backers. However, it is unlikely that this will last very long. The army is helping restore some semblance of order for its own interests, while the student protesters have taken the mantle to maintain order in the streets, and protect against vandalism. The effort to keep communal unity is one of the greatest strengths of the current protests; had it not been for the unity of Hindu and Muslims in Bangladesh, the protests would not have succeeded in overthrowing the Awami League regime. The students have shown a degree of political acumen in intervening this way, and foiling the strategy of divide and rule. Even the Jamaat I Islami, known for its hatred for non-Muslim minorities and violence, has come out calling for calm and to defend Hindu temples. This does not show any change in its basic character, but [demonstrates] the influence of the student protesters and the pressure to keep inter-communal unity.
The people of Bangladesh showed that they would not settle for the state of affairs that existed in the early 1990s or 2001, when the BNP ruled the country. Neither would they accept continued military rule; the army knows this, which is why they have conceded to the students, and avoided any crackdowns.
As things stand now, the situation is still acutely pre-revolutionary. The power of the masses prevail over the state, but there is no visible organ of dual power on the streets. The protest emerged as a student protest, with support from the working class, and barreled into a popular mass movement against an autocratic regime, but it was not led by organizations of the working class. The students provided political direction, but lacking a revolutionary perspective, or organized leadership, it has not been able to prevent the lawlessness that emerged from the freeing of prisoners and right wing political leaders.
At the core of the protests in Bangladesh is the need for unity between the working class, youth and peasantry, under a revolutionary program. In the context of Bangladesh, that means first and foremost controlling the commanding heights of the economy, the full nationalization of the textile sector, repudiating foreign debt, comprehensive land reforms, and the building of a secular state that can guarantee safety of life and limb to all.
An important democratic victory has been won in Bangladesh with a victory against the autocratic Sheik Hasina government and the forces of Indian capital. The next victory must be won against the army, and Islamist reactionaries, to secure this revolution. The people of Bangladesh must learn from the revolutionary process in Sri Lanka—which failed. It failed because they were not bold enough to seize power, and lacked any agenda beyond the immediate political goals. The same must not be repeated in Bangladesh !
Reference:
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People mobilize in Britain to counter fascist attacks
By JIM STEAD
International Socialist League – Britain
Counter-protests against the far right have mushroomed in size in Britain—taking back the streets from the racist hooligans who had terrorized the country for the past week. On Aug. 7, many thousands of anti-racist protesters gathered in cities and towns throughout Britain, chanting slogans such as “Refugees are welcome here!” and “Fascist scum—off our streets!” In virtually every case, the counter-protesters vastly outnumbered the reactionary and racist elements who turned out; some planned far-right rallies failed to materialize at all. An updated report by the ISL appears below, followed by their earlier report.
By ISL (Update)
A long list was produced on the Telegram messaging app and then circulated widely on social media by the far right, of asylum advice and support centres and immigration lawyers’ offices, in towns and cities across the UK targeted for attack and arson. The date time specified was Wednesday, 7 August, 8 p.m. Fearing a repeat of the racist violence and rioting that the country experienced in the past week, offices and shops were boarded up and closed, and theatre performances were cancelled in fear of being caught in the mayhem.
Despite calls from the government and police to stay away, many thousands of anti-fascists and anti-racists mobilised from across different sections of their local communities, including trade unions, to stand together and defend the people and the buildings targeted. In a powerful show of unity against racism and Islamophobia, thousands mobilised in Liverpool, London, Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, the fascists were defeated and if any did turn up, they were an insignificant presence.
On Saturday, August 3, across the country the police failed to defend anti-fascists and the towns and cities being rampaged by the far right and fascists, who looted, burnt destroyed everything in their path, attacked Black and Brown people and terrorised communities. It was this failure that forced community members, anti-fascists, and trade unionists to begin to organise their own self defence. Thousands of people gathered in force: Bristol 7000, Walthamstow, London 7000, Finchley, London 3000, Liverpool 1500, Sheffield 1500, Brighton 2000, Manchester 500—carrying home-made reading, ‘No to racism,’ ‘Refugees welcome,’ ’Nans against nazis,’ and many more asserting community solidarity and hatred against racism and support for immigrants, alongside trade unionists who brought banners from RMT, FBU, Unite, PCS, Unison and UCU. Inside the mass defence were many 100s of trade unionist across the country.
Labour’s role
The racist riots of the past week have provided the Labour government with a green light to ‘legitimately’ impose greater surveillance policies, upholding previous Tory plans. Starmer’s proposal for an expansion in the use of live facial recognition technology has been criticised as essentially being the introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces. And furthermore, facial recognition does not make people safer, it shows bias for people of colour and will entrench discrimination further.
Starmer also announced the introduction of a Violent Disorder Unit which will have the potential to prevent protest, including anti-racist protests, Palestinian protests, environmental protests, strikes and pickets. We are facing rising discontent and anger over further cuts to services, increasing child poverty, increasing inequality and people struggling to cope. Denying the right to protest will be essential for the bourgeoisie to control working class anger and allow capitalism to flourish!
Calls to define the rioting as ‘terrorism’ to be prosecuted under counter terrorism laws should be resisted and opposed, along with measures proposed above by Starmer. These measures will result in even greater surveillance and the further removal of basic rights, once in place the extent of application will go far beyond policing far-right rioting.
Far right
Nigel Farage and his party, Reform UK, gain attention and votes by spreading hate and fear around asylum seekers and immigrants, but they alone are not to blame for fomenting racism. Their incendiary language has been in general use by the Tory party throughout 14 years of government. The scapegoating, demonising and criminalisation of immigrants has been incessant by all parties and supported and amplified by the media. Even now, Labour fails to tell the truth about immigration, as they maintain tough talk about forcefully deporting people.
Small groups of fascists are able to connect the anger many young people who are socially and economically deprived, they are angry because they feel they have no future, and angry against their living conditions. They tap into this discontent and feed their anger towards racist lies and racist misinformation about what is being taken from them by asylum seekers and immigrants which is further validated by government rhetoric and policy, the mainstream and social media, portraying asylum seekers as the source of all social and economic problems.
After the violence, Farage raised the ridiculous idea that two-tier policing, previously unheard of, is widespread – coming down hard on the right and being soft on Black Lives Matter and Palestinian demonstrations (all of which are peaceful). As ridiculous as this is, unsurprisingly the media began to pick up on this and run with it, despite acknowledging that this was not right wing ‘protest’ but racist and Islamophobic violent rioting and do not equate!
Unions and youth take the lead build the fight including self-defence committees
Workers and youth can advance in defeating fascist as they did on August 7, and as they have in the struggle for Palestine. Workers must demand the trade unions lead the fight against the acute problem of unemployment, poverty, low pay, precarious work, poor housing, welfare and health service cuts—which affect a multicultural working class.
Workers must demand the trade unions build their fight against fascists by organising with our youth and forming anti-fascist committees and establishing a firm worker and youth alliance. The union leaderships must organise the anti-fascist committees for self-defence and take these demands to the rank and file and mobilise. The union and youth-led anti-fascist committees must seek training for the masses and among the vanguard in boxing and jujitsu academies and seek equipment for basic defence such as shields, at the same time finding specialists to train a front line.
We need trade unions, organising from the base, to build and lead demonstrations and movements, in the regions and nationally, to invite all who are fighting racism and fascism, for Palestine, for real action on the climate, for socialist feminism, for LGBTQ+ rights and demand an end to austerity and restoration of all cuts.
Build union and youth anti-fascist committees!
Mobilise union rank and file!
An earlier report and analysis by Jim Stead of the ISL follows below:
On 3rd August, cities across the UK were confronted by street-fighting forces on the rampage—attacking mosques, city centres, a library, asylum accommodation hotels, and our streets. Swathed in union jacks and England flags, they shouted that they were ‘protecting Britain’s sovereignty,’ ‘protecting our children,’ demanding to ‘stop the ‘boats,’ and immigration.’ It was the same message that has been coming from the Tories and the Reform Party, which won 13% of the vote and now has five MPs in parliament. However, as Liz Fekete of the Institute of Race Relations says, correctly, ‘The problem we face today is a fascism with its seed bed in racism and Islamophobia, societal fragmentation and breakdown, divisive policies and the mainstreaming of hate.’
The far-right and fascist groups and the Reform Party leader Nigel Farage sickeningly exploit the horrifically tragic killing of Bebe King aged 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe aged 7, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, aged 9, at a Taylor Swift- themed holiday club for primary school children in Southport, Merseyside, which also left eight more children and two adults seriously injured.
They spread disinformation and lies, which led to a violent attack on a Southport mosque, resulting in 50 police injured just 36 hours following the tragedy, and forcing the mother of Elsie Dot Stancombe to issue an appeal to “stop the violence.”
Widespread violence
Subsequently, throughout the recent week, towns and cities have witnessed widespread violent racist and Islamophobic riots. The anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate tracked plans for 35 protests, including in London, Hartlepool, Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Aldershot, and Sunderland.
People of colour are being attacked viciously as they walk the streets. In Hull rioters stopped a car and dragged two people out with shouts of ‘kill them,’ as captured on video. Fascists gathered to inflict mayhem but were outnumbered by people gathering to defend their communities.
In Liverpool, 700 anti-fascists gathered in support of the people of the bereaved people of Southport. Hundreds then marched in defence of immigrant, Muslim, and Black communities. However, with no scouts to advise what lay ahead, they marched into a cul-de-sac, where 750 fascists gathered at one end. Then the fascists sent their thugs to the rear, as fast moving hit squads (about five dressed in all black) ran into the anti-fascist crowd. It is clear that the ‘hit squads’ had undertaken training before the event; they attacked people from behind—kicking people’s knees and collapsing them to the ground. They also targeted the police. The fascists had a long pole to ram the anti-fascists or police; a similar tactic was used in Sunderland.
Two or three smarter-dressed males were witnessed in Liverpool using mobiles and directing the younger people on where to go. It was not simply a spontaneous riot.
There has been a resurgence of the fascist movement following the vote for Farage’s Reform Party. But we have to also look at some context, such as the Tory government’s normalisation of Islamophobia and anti-immigration, an inability to defeat strike waves by workers, and the continuing movement in support of Palestine, with successful actions stopping arms production and the continuing BDS campaign.
On Saturday [Aug. 3], the racist riots across the country by the far right and fascists involved trained and organised street-fighting forces, who took control of Liverpool city centre, sending people running and attacking shops, overturning a stall where free Korans were being handed out, and moving into the night, when they set fire to a local library in the Walton area. Other cities, including Sunderland, were faced with the same racist violence.
The last week has shown how far Britain has decayed, with hordes of rioters setting cities alight, violently targeting people of colour, immigrants, mosques, and our public services all at the same time. This fascist force will not stop and will attack the organised working class, whilst at the moment concentrating on Muslims, immigrants, and asylum seekers.
Very rich capitalists, like Elon Musk, encourage the likes of Tommy Robinson to use the social media platform X, providing a greater ability to instantly and extensively spread lies and disinformation and incite rioting.
Self-defence
In the aftermath, we saw communities come out after the disorder to defend mosques and asylum seekers, and to clear up after the far-right mayhem—displaying anti-racist/anti-fascist traditions that are rooted in community defence, solidarity, and care.
Police officers were not authorised to use pepper spray or tasers (only as a last resort), and in many places they were outnumbered by the rioters. This means we have to organise and build our own self-defence.
We need to raise everywhere the need for self-defence of our communities, which must also be organised inside the trade-union movement. Stand Up To Racism (led by the Socialist Workers Party), led the anti-racist rally and led the march straight into the path of the fascists, without a plan to protect those on the march. This shows we need to develop our strategy and tactics to defend and unite the class, in our communities, with our unions, and with all oppressed groups, to defeat the fascists.
Initially, the police reported that ‘both sides’ were rampaging in city centres, but widespread images of racist and Islamophobic rioting forced them to withdraw that statement. However, the police cannot be trusted and may use situations to undermine our strength on the streets, as for too long there has been an equivalence made of anti-racist and anti-fascist protest with fascists.
The struggles for Palestine and to defend immigrants and asylum seekers, and the anti-racist and anti-fascist marches need to be able to defend themselves from attack. The fascists will use their fast moving hit squads to attack individuals or try to break up the activists so they become separated into smaller groups.
Where and when we demonstrate needs thoughtful preparation. What kind of space do we want? We should never let the fascists decide where a confrontation takes place. We need a wide discussion on how defeat the fascists. A key part of that is training in self-defence.
We need the fullest alliance of community groups and the unions, and that needs to happen as soon as possible. There were trade-union speakers and representatives, including from the RMT (transport), FBU (fire fighters), PCS (civil servants), UCU (universities), Liverpool TUC, and Students of Alareer Square. But there needs to be greater numbers; the rank and file have to mobilise.
We must discuss how to protect marches, using scouts, and how to proceed. When the ‘black shirts’ were attacking the demo in Liverpool, it took people by surprise and there was no defence. These people are committed to violence and terror, with escalating levels of violence—so we need to discuss carefully. Yesterday, they threw bottles and bricks, set things alight, violently attacked people. Thus, we cannot stop our marches but must discuss how to build our defences and ensure the security of our communities.
Protection is also a political question. These people are not just thugs and purveyors of terror, their central characterisation is not that they are nasty and vicious people, but they are a class force doing a job for capitalism as it decays. The fascists want to build a force by attacking Muslims and immigrants now, to be able to face the working class and its organisations in the future, just as they do in France and Germany.
Labour will not defeat the fascists
At a Downing Street press conference on 1 August, Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged that the far right was the issue, but he quickly changed the subject to the threat of ‘criminality’ and ‘thuggery’. Starmer wants to create a new national ‘capability’ across police forces to combat violent disorder across the “ideological spectrum”. [i]
Labour is using fascist violence in an attempt to legitimise the present anti-protest repressive powers. Starmer said it was “a response both to the immediate challenge, which is clearly driven by far-right hatred. But also all violent disorder that flares up.”[ii] These powers will not only be used against some racists and fascists. But against those who defend their communities.
On 2nd August, David Hanson, Home Office minister, said, “Some individuals will have far-right opinions, in my view, some might be caught up in the summer madness. Some might be people who’ve got genuine concerns. Whatever those concerns are, there are mechanisms where they can raise them with their member of parliament; they can peacefully protest and they can take those issues forward.”[iii]
So, as the far right and fascists terrorise the ordinary people on the streets, a Labour minister says the racists and fascists have legitimate concerns!
Crucial to understanding the attacks against Muslims and immigrants are decades of Tory and Labour removing the rights for asylum seekers, with the new Labour government starting by promising to begin mass deportations—with the same anti-immigration rhetoric and policies of the Conservative government.
Alongside this are 14 years of austerity, with cuts continuing and services being privatised. Child poverty has accelerated drastically; most children living in poverty live in a household with adults working. This affects a diverse working class who are facing the cost-of-living crisis.
There is no lack of wealth in Britain. During the Tories’ time in office, the wealth of the country’s 10 richest people alone grew from £47 billion to £182 billion, an increase of 281%. Removing the two-child cap would cost £1.7 billion, but Labour is keeping the Tory two-child benefit cap.
Rachel Reeves Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the top of her reasons for considering any pay rises was “the cost of industrial action”. That phrase shows the threat of industrial action as in the 2022-23 strike wave remains a powerful weapon. It shows that the working class has the power to defeat the big companies, governments, far-right, and fascist forces. The Labour government must repeal all anti-trade union laws.
Labour has to be replaced with a workers’ party that is deeply linked with the working class, all oppressed people, and the youth. Such a party must aim for the nationalisation of services and for big companies coming under the direct control of the working class. The fight to build a workers’ alternative is imperative, and the building of a revolutionary alternative must continue.
- All immigrants are welcome here!
- Build our self-defence!
- Build a future for our youth—end precarious work
- Nationalise big companies under workers’ control
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/aug/02/riots-southport-attack-far-right-keir-starmer-uk-politics-live
[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/01/far-right-riots-keir-starmer-announce-new-violent-disorder-unit
[iii] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/aug/02/riots-southport-attack-far-right-keir-starmer-uk-politics-live
Photo: A counter-protest against racism and the far right in the city of Lancaster, Britain. (Manon Cruz / Reuters)