The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
Ed. Georg Adler, Peter Hudis & Annelies Laschitza
translated by George Shriver
Pubs. Verso
Hdbck
£25
This volume of 230 of her letters was published to commerorate the 40th anniversary of her birth in March 1871, based largely on the German selection, Herzlichst, Ihre Rosa, and published by Dietz Verlag in the GDR in 1989. This is the first volume in English of what is hoped will eventually be her complete works in 14 volumes.
Verso is once again to be congratulated for publishing this collection for the first time in English, in an excellent translation by George Shriver. What is also invaluable is a glossary of personalities mentioned in the letters and very informative footnotes.
Luxemburg has always been a controversial figure on the Left, but was revered in her day and was undoubtedly one of the alltime leading thinkers of the socialist and communist movements.
She famously clashed with Lenin on the tactics adopted by the Bolsheviks and was always clear that socialism at the expense of democracy was not a road she was willing to take.
Like all collections of letters not originally intended for a wider readerhsip or publication, much here is concerned with the daily trials and tribulations of friends, comrades and lovers and observations of a purely personal nature. They do, though, give a unique insight into her character, her deep humanity as well as her passionate commitment to the struggle for socialism. Her unsuccessful attempts to reconcile her need for personal love, stability and homely pleasures with the enormous demands of the struggle would be ideal material for a dramatist.
She was often imprisoned by the German authorities who feared her fiery rhetoric and popularity, and included here are some of her prison letters. Despite the harsh conditions and frustration at her incarceration, she always dismisses her own deprivations to enquire about the health and well-being of friends outside and always attempts to cheer them up and reignite their commitment to the cause. She can be severely critical, uncompromisingly militant but also warm and compassionate. Her resilience in the face of great odds, her thirst for knowledge and breadth of interests, as well as her self-sacrifice and sense of humour are still inspirations for us today.
The odd quirky Americanisms grate a little but are minor: ‘Kuchen’ is hardly ‘Cookie’ and ‘Titmice’ will sound archaic to an English readership.
END
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Interview with Gesine Lötzsch – Co-Chair of Die Linke Germany
Gesine Lötzsch, the first woman leader of Die Linke, the Left Party in Germany, is widely seen as representative of the ‘pragmatic wing’ of the party and, when Oskar Lafontaine resigned the leadership (for health reasons) she called on party members to maintain unity, as only this could ensure a continuation of the party’s successful struggle for social justice.
She is comfortable with her leading position and can count on a strong local party organisation. She is recognised and respected as an excellent trouble-shooter, helping to heal arguments and reach consensus.
In the difficult period between 2002 and 2005, when the PDS failed to jump the 5% hurdle for automatic party representation, she was one of only two PDS representatives in the Bundestag. There Lötzsch has the reputation of being a very competent commentator on economic affairs and someone who can articulate clear positions.
The left in post-war Germany has never had a female leader. I remind her that here we had Margaret Thatcher and Germany has Angela Merkel, also a politician who grew up in the GDR. Neither, I suggest, is an ideal of political progress. Will she be different?
‘I certainly hope I can be’, she says emphatically, ‘they were probably role models for the political right, but I hope I can be a role model for a more progressive political agenda.’
I wonder whether growing up in the GDR provided a useful background and if it had been in any way a positive experience. ‘Yes it was,’ she says, ‘it gave me a sense of collective responsibility and heightened awareness of what building a more just and socialist society is all about – both in a positive and a negative sense.’
In the GDR Ms. Lötzsch became a qualified teacher of German and English and later obtained a doctorate in philology. She became a member of the Socialist Unity Party and, after the demise of the GDR, remained a member of its successor party, PDS and then Die Linke. She was elected to the German parliament (Bundestag) for the PDS in 2002 and has been re-elected ever since. In the last national elections she won 47.5% of the vote in her Berlin constituency.
She remarks with a smile that she remembers reading the Morning Star as a student, when it was used to help improve students’ English. It was the only British newspaper available in the GDR and she imagined it to have a mass circulation.
Recently, she came under concerted attack in Germany for comments she made about communism in an interview for the paper 'Junge Welt’ in the context of a commemorative conference on Rosa Luxemburg.
In her contribution she said: ‘We can only find a path to communism if we actually choose a path and try it out, whether in opposition or in government’. This created a furore in the mainstream media and among right-wing politicians, with hysterical and McCarthyite demands for her party, Die Linke, to be investigated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country's internal security agency, and accusations that she wants to ‘re-introduce Stalinist terror’. The general secretary of the right-wing CDU actually suggested her remarks constituted ‘a danger to democracy’, but she hasn’t let all this worry her unduly or divert her from pressing political tasks.
She says, ‘Everyone in Die Linke has signed up to a programme of democratic socialism; without social justice there is no freedom. My political goal is democratic socialism, as I described it in the article: a peaceful and democratic society for all people, free from exploitation.’
I wonder if the virulence and hysterical tone of these attacks was because the German ruling elite still fears communism as a ‘spectre haunting the continent’. She responds by saying that, ‘any party demanding social justice and calling for the redistribution of wealth, together with a change in property ownership is bound to be attacked by the upholders of the present system. Communism is a utopian idea,’ she says, ‘which people have thought about and discussed for centuries. The writer Thomas Mann said that “anti-communism was the idiocy of the epoch”. My aim is to help create a community living in freedom and equality, characterised by dignity and solidarity.’
‘The snarling fury unleashed by my comments illustrate how insecure the establishment is when alternatives to the capitalist system are raised. In the face of the dire financial crisis they have been rattled and are no longer certain of their ideology and that’s why they’ve reacted so hysterically to a debate about how to create a more just society.’
‘I took up the challenge of the subject,’ she says proudly, ‘and argued for left reforms and for a democratic socialism based on the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg. I called for us to leave the old cul-de-sacs and not view them as courageous paths to communism. The road to communism is a long and stony one.’
Lötzsch also makes clear that she was not in any way suggesting a return to Soviet-style communism as her detractors have impugned, but has always distanced herself and the party from the crimes of Stalinism, committed in the name of communism.
‘I also made it absolutely clear that for me politics, and specifically the politics of Die Linke stand firmly in the challenging tradition of social change and realistic radical politics,’ she says. ‘We have put forward our concept for dealing with the economic crisis and for surmounting the ecological challenges. Present problems, as in the Middle East or Afghanistan can’t be solved by military means.’
‘We are calling for a democratisation of the German economy. I quote Luxemburg in her differences with both Lenin and Trotsky, when she says, “you can make decrees from on high in terms of deconstruction and implementing something negative, but you can’t decree the implementation of positive action and construction” - that has to come from the bottom up.’
No doubt the viciousness and hatred of these attacks also reflect the fact that Gesine Lötzsch is extremely popular. She has an easy charm, a finely-tuned sense of humour and doesn’t fit the cliché caricature of a Molotov-cocktail wielding urban guerrilla.
She forcefully rebuts the right-wing’s attempts to stigmatise her as “a closet agitator for the violent overthrow of the democratic order”. She is quietly spoken, unpretentious, calm but with a determined conviction.
‘I believe all problems in society can be solved in a peaceful manner, ‘she says, ‘and in my contribution I referred to Rosa Luxemburg’s understanding of freedom. Individual freedom and social freedom don’t have to be seen as contradictory, and we must always take the freedom of the individual as our starting point. Rosa Luxemburg memorably said that, ‘freedom is always freedom for the dissenter’ in her 1918 essay, The Russian Revolution, penned as part of a critical debate with the Bolsheviks. And that is still a vital principle for us.’
‘Die Linke,’ she emphasises, ‘is fighting on a platform demanding a change in property relationships. We want a radical renewal of democracy that also includes decision-making at the economic level and for all property relationships to be subjected to emancipatory and ecological standards.
‘We are fighting for a broad transformatory process of social change, for a democratic socialism of the 21st century. This process will involve many small and some large steps of reform, of ruptures and revolutionary changes.
We want to see large undertakings taken out of the hands of the capitalists and transformed into social property, in the form of state or local ownership, co-operatives or employee-run enterprises, but this can only be decided in democratic process.’
I ask her what chances Die Linke has in forthcoming elections. She is mildly optimistic but won’t be drawn into detailed prophecies. ‘When the SPD was part of a government coalition they introduced Agenda 2010 which incorporated a general attack on the welfare state and involved cuts in pensions and unemployment benefits. This led to a haemorrhaging of their support and, as Die Linke was the de facto left opposition, it brought us significant electoral gains and a foothold in the western parts of Germany where our party had previously been weak or electorally non-existent.’ Since returning to the opposition,’ she says, ‘the SPD has ‘rediscovered’ its radical roots. This will undoubtedly have a negative effect on the electoral chances for Die Linke.’
I wonder how close relations are between Die Linke and the trade unions. She says the German trade union movement has traditionally been close to the SPD, but ‘relations between Die Linke and the unions are steadily improving and at grass roots level a number of officials are members of or close to the party.’
Berlin offers a good example of what can be achieved if Die Linke has a say in power. There it has been in coalition with the SPD since 2001. It’s been able to make a decisive impact on the capital city’s politics. It helped create 120,000 new jobs and prevented the introduction of student fees. It also substantially increased the number of nursery places in the city as well as more free places for the less well off; it has introduced an ongoing educational reform programme and implemented new forms of direct citizen participation in many areas, making them very much the norm.
Germany has not been so badly hit as other countries by the world economic crisis, so what are the campaigning priorities for the party?
She agrees the country is, at the moment, in better health than some other countries, but the establishment is nevertheless trying to roll back the welfare state. ‘Although unemployment is not high, many are working in part-time jobs or for low wages. Young people, particularly, face a bleak future.’ Die Linke hopes its comprehensive programme for a social alternative will, in the end, convince enough people to give it a mandate to implement measures which will help it turn vision into reality.
information box:
Die Linke is the fourth largest party in Germany. It has over 77,000 registered members. It is represented at all levels of government. It has 76 members of parliament, 193 seats in regional parliaments and 8 seats in the European parliament.
Gesine Lötzsch was elected chair of Die Linke, in 2010 together with co-chair Klaus Ernst, a former trade union official. Die Linke came into being after a merger between the PDS – a party based in eastern Germany - which emerged out of the former GDR Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the WASG, a West German grouping of leftists, comprising disillusioned ex-members of the SPD and others close to the trade union movement. The joint Chair-persons were elected to ensure a leadership representative of the areas of the two former Germanies with their different political and cultural backgrounds.
The emergence of a national German party of the left was no easy birth. The experience of those who grew up under GDR state socialism was very different from that under capitalism in the FRG, and creating a consensus out of such different experiences and perceptions was no cake-walk. It was facilitated by the fact that two former leaders, Gregor Gysi from the east and Oskar Lafontaine from the west, both charismatic and experienced political figures, took up the reins and were determined to make the new party work.
Gesine Lötzsch, the first woman leader of Die Linke, the Left Party in Germany, is widely seen as representative of the ‘pragmatic wing’ of the party and, when Oskar Lafontaine resigned the leadership (for health reasons) she called on party members to maintain unity, as only this could ensure a continuation of the party’s successful struggle for social justice.
She is comfortable with her leading position and can count on a strong local party organisation. She is recognised and respected as an excellent trouble-shooter, helping to heal arguments and reach consensus.
In the difficult period between 2002 and 2005, when the PDS failed to jump the 5% hurdle for automatic party representation, she was one of only two PDS representatives in the Bundestag. There Lötzsch has the reputation of being a very competent commentator on economic affairs and someone who can articulate clear positions.
The left in post-war Germany has never had a female leader. I remind her that here we had Margaret Thatcher and Germany has Angela Merkel, also a politician who grew up in the GDR. Neither, I suggest, is an ideal of political progress. Will she be different?
‘I certainly hope I can be’, she says emphatically, ‘they were probably role models for the political right, but I hope I can be a role model for a more progressive political agenda.’
I wonder whether growing up in the GDR provided a useful background and if it had been in any way a positive experience. ‘Yes it was,’ she says, ‘it gave me a sense of collective responsibility and heightened awareness of what building a more just and socialist society is all about – both in a positive and a negative sense.’
In the GDR Ms. Lötzsch became a qualified teacher of German and English and later obtained a doctorate in philology. She became a member of the Socialist Unity Party and, after the demise of the GDR, remained a member of its successor party, PDS and then Die Linke. She was elected to the German parliament (Bundestag) for the PDS in 2002 and has been re-elected ever since. In the last national elections she won 47.5% of the vote in her Berlin constituency.
She remarks with a smile that she remembers reading the Morning Star as a student, when it was used to help improve students’ English. It was the only British newspaper available in the GDR and she imagined it to have a mass circulation.
Recently, she came under concerted attack in Germany for comments she made about communism in an interview for the paper 'Junge Welt’ in the context of a commemorative conference on Rosa Luxemburg.
In her contribution she said: ‘We can only find a path to communism if we actually choose a path and try it out, whether in opposition or in government’. This created a furore in the mainstream media and among right-wing politicians, with hysterical and McCarthyite demands for her party, Die Linke, to be investigated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country's internal security agency, and accusations that she wants to ‘re-introduce Stalinist terror’. The general secretary of the right-wing CDU actually suggested her remarks constituted ‘a danger to democracy’, but she hasn’t let all this worry her unduly or divert her from pressing political tasks.
She says, ‘Everyone in Die Linke has signed up to a programme of democratic socialism; without social justice there is no freedom. My political goal is democratic socialism, as I described it in the article: a peaceful and democratic society for all people, free from exploitation.’
I wonder if the virulence and hysterical tone of these attacks was because the German ruling elite still fears communism as a ‘spectre haunting the continent’. She responds by saying that, ‘any party demanding social justice and calling for the redistribution of wealth, together with a change in property ownership is bound to be attacked by the upholders of the present system. Communism is a utopian idea,’ she says, ‘which people have thought about and discussed for centuries. The writer Thomas Mann said that “anti-communism was the idiocy of the epoch”. My aim is to help create a community living in freedom and equality, characterised by dignity and solidarity.’
‘The snarling fury unleashed by my comments illustrate how insecure the establishment is when alternatives to the capitalist system are raised. In the face of the dire financial crisis they have been rattled and are no longer certain of their ideology and that’s why they’ve reacted so hysterically to a debate about how to create a more just society.’
‘I took up the challenge of the subject,’ she says proudly, ‘and argued for left reforms and for a democratic socialism based on the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg. I called for us to leave the old cul-de-sacs and not view them as courageous paths to communism. The road to communism is a long and stony one.’
Lötzsch also makes clear that she was not in any way suggesting a return to Soviet-style communism as her detractors have impugned, but has always distanced herself and the party from the crimes of Stalinism, committed in the name of communism.
‘I also made it absolutely clear that for me politics, and specifically the politics of Die Linke stand firmly in the challenging tradition of social change and realistic radical politics,’ she says. ‘We have put forward our concept for dealing with the economic crisis and for surmounting the ecological challenges. Present problems, as in the Middle East or Afghanistan can’t be solved by military means.’
‘We are calling for a democratisation of the German economy. I quote Luxemburg in her differences with both Lenin and Trotsky, when she says, “you can make decrees from on high in terms of deconstruction and implementing something negative, but you can’t decree the implementation of positive action and construction” - that has to come from the bottom up.’
No doubt the viciousness and hatred of these attacks also reflect the fact that Gesine Lötzsch is extremely popular. She has an easy charm, a finely-tuned sense of humour and doesn’t fit the cliché caricature of a Molotov-cocktail wielding urban guerrilla.
She forcefully rebuts the right-wing’s attempts to stigmatise her as “a closet agitator for the violent overthrow of the democratic order”. She is quietly spoken, unpretentious, calm but with a determined conviction.
‘I believe all problems in society can be solved in a peaceful manner, ‘she says, ‘and in my contribution I referred to Rosa Luxemburg’s understanding of freedom. Individual freedom and social freedom don’t have to be seen as contradictory, and we must always take the freedom of the individual as our starting point. Rosa Luxemburg memorably said that, ‘freedom is always freedom for the dissenter’ in her 1918 essay, The Russian Revolution, penned as part of a critical debate with the Bolsheviks. And that is still a vital principle for us.’
‘Die Linke,’ she emphasises, ‘is fighting on a platform demanding a change in property relationships. We want a radical renewal of democracy that also includes decision-making at the economic level and for all property relationships to be subjected to emancipatory and ecological standards.
‘We are fighting for a broad transformatory process of social change, for a democratic socialism of the 21st century. This process will involve many small and some large steps of reform, of ruptures and revolutionary changes.
We want to see large undertakings taken out of the hands of the capitalists and transformed into social property, in the form of state or local ownership, co-operatives or employee-run enterprises, but this can only be decided in democratic process.’
I ask her what chances Die Linke has in forthcoming elections. She is mildly optimistic but won’t be drawn into detailed prophecies. ‘When the SPD was part of a government coalition they introduced Agenda 2010 which incorporated a general attack on the welfare state and involved cuts in pensions and unemployment benefits. This led to a haemorrhaging of their support and, as Die Linke was the de facto left opposition, it brought us significant electoral gains and a foothold in the western parts of Germany where our party had previously been weak or electorally non-existent.’ Since returning to the opposition,’ she says, ‘the SPD has ‘rediscovered’ its radical roots. This will undoubtedly have a negative effect on the electoral chances for Die Linke.’
I wonder how close relations are between Die Linke and the trade unions. She says the German trade union movement has traditionally been close to the SPD, but ‘relations between Die Linke and the unions are steadily improving and at grass roots level a number of officials are members of or close to the party.’
Berlin offers a good example of what can be achieved if Die Linke has a say in power. There it has been in coalition with the SPD since 2001. It’s been able to make a decisive impact on the capital city’s politics. It helped create 120,000 new jobs and prevented the introduction of student fees. It also substantially increased the number of nursery places in the city as well as more free places for the less well off; it has introduced an ongoing educational reform programme and implemented new forms of direct citizen participation in many areas, making them very much the norm.
Germany has not been so badly hit as other countries by the world economic crisis, so what are the campaigning priorities for the party?
She agrees the country is, at the moment, in better health than some other countries, but the establishment is nevertheless trying to roll back the welfare state. ‘Although unemployment is not high, many are working in part-time jobs or for low wages. Young people, particularly, face a bleak future.’ Die Linke hopes its comprehensive programme for a social alternative will, in the end, convince enough people to give it a mandate to implement measures which will help it turn vision into reality.
information box:
Die Linke is the fourth largest party in Germany. It has over 77,000 registered members. It is represented at all levels of government. It has 76 members of parliament, 193 seats in regional parliaments and 8 seats in the European parliament.
Gesine Lötzsch was elected chair of Die Linke, in 2010 together with co-chair Klaus Ernst, a former trade union official. Die Linke came into being after a merger between the PDS – a party based in eastern Germany - which emerged out of the former GDR Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the WASG, a West German grouping of leftists, comprising disillusioned ex-members of the SPD and others close to the trade union movement. The joint Chair-persons were elected to ensure a leadership representative of the areas of the two former Germanies with their different political and cultural backgrounds.
The emergence of a national German party of the left was no easy birth. The experience of those who grew up under GDR state socialism was very different from that under capitalism in the FRG, and creating a consensus out of such different experiences and perceptions was no cake-walk. It was facilitated by the fact that two former leaders, Gregor Gysi from the east and Oskar Lafontaine from the west, both charismatic and experienced political figures, took up the reins and were determined to make the new party work.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Letter to Guardian
26 January 2011
Dear Sir,
Ian McEwan is either being extremely naïve or disingenuous in his justification for accepting the Jerusalem prize (letters 26 January). To compare his action with that of Daniel Barenboim completely misses the point. Barenboim is actively bringing together Palestinians and Israelis to work for a common purpose and to begin a dialogue with each other through music. He has been vilified for his efforts by the Israelis. If McEwan thinks the Israelis will see his visit as a gesture of opposition to their policies he is living in cloud cuckoo land. They will rightly see it as an endorsement of the legitimacy of their policies. Like McEwan, many used similar arguments in relation to apartheid South Africa, but such so-called ‘dialogue’ didn’t work, but the boycott did. He thinks ‘literature can reach across the political divide’ - not by collaborating with oppression it can’t. The names of other writers who accepted the Jerusalem Prize he lists to justify his decision did so at a time before Israeli politics took on its present extreme belligerence, inhumanity and arrogant rejection of international law and opinion.
Please think again Ian.
26 January 2011
Dear Sir,
Ian McEwan is either being extremely naïve or disingenuous in his justification for accepting the Jerusalem prize (letters 26 January). To compare his action with that of Daniel Barenboim completely misses the point. Barenboim is actively bringing together Palestinians and Israelis to work for a common purpose and to begin a dialogue with each other through music. He has been vilified for his efforts by the Israelis. If McEwan thinks the Israelis will see his visit as a gesture of opposition to their policies he is living in cloud cuckoo land. They will rightly see it as an endorsement of the legitimacy of their policies. Like McEwan, many used similar arguments in relation to apartheid South Africa, but such so-called ‘dialogue’ didn’t work, but the boycott did. He thinks ‘literature can reach across the political divide’ - not by collaborating with oppression it can’t. The names of other writers who accepted the Jerusalem Prize he lists to justify his decision did so at a time before Israeli politics took on its present extreme belligerence, inhumanity and arrogant rejection of international law and opinion.
Please think again Ian.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Full letter to Guardian (pblished in a truncated version)
Yet again a case of the police spying on environmental activists (Guardian 10 Jan - Undercover officer who spied on Green activists quits Met). With the ongoing terrorist threat and government cut-backs in police funding, serious questions need to be asked about why the police are squandering valuable resources on keeping legitimate democratic organisations under surveillance. As far as I am aware, no environmentalist organisation has ever been accused of countering or undertaking action that endangers life or threatens the democratic state. At the most extreme, such organisations may have trespassed and perhaps, at times, caused minimal damage to property – actions that can be pursued through the normal legal process. These organisations are not clandestine and make no attempt to hide their views. Of course, when undertaking actions for maximum publicity they will sometimes have to keep exact plans secret. This is no reason to treat them as the ‘enemy within’ or like terrorists.
More sinisterly, it reveals a mind-set at the top of our police forces belonging to the bad old days when the duty of the security services was seen to be serving a governing elite that was intent on maintaining its own class privilege and conservative concept of government. In such a context it is little wonder that many ordinary policeman see brutality against student, environmental and political demonstrators as legitimate because they are ‘the enemy’.
Yet again a case of the police spying on environmental activists (Guardian 10 Jan - Undercover officer who spied on Green activists quits Met). With the ongoing terrorist threat and government cut-backs in police funding, serious questions need to be asked about why the police are squandering valuable resources on keeping legitimate democratic organisations under surveillance. As far as I am aware, no environmentalist organisation has ever been accused of countering or undertaking action that endangers life or threatens the democratic state. At the most extreme, such organisations may have trespassed and perhaps, at times, caused minimal damage to property – actions that can be pursued through the normal legal process. These organisations are not clandestine and make no attempt to hide their views. Of course, when undertaking actions for maximum publicity they will sometimes have to keep exact plans secret. This is no reason to treat them as the ‘enemy within’ or like terrorists.
More sinisterly, it reveals a mind-set at the top of our police forces belonging to the bad old days when the duty of the security services was seen to be serving a governing elite that was intent on maintaining its own class privilege and conservative concept of government. In such a context it is little wonder that many ordinary policeman see brutality against student, environmental and political demonstrators as legitimate because they are ‘the enemy’.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
The war crime that they want to hide
Only a few years ago the media were full of discussion about ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ – the mysterious illness affecting British and US troops who had taken part in the Iraq invasion. Then the media went suddenly quiet and nothing more was heard. The concern related only to allied troops, but in Iraq among the civilian population an even more alarming incidence of unexplained illnesses came to light. The renowned German film maker Frieder Wagner was the first to investigate this phenomenon, but his findings and his films about them have run up against a wall of silence. He agreed to tell me about his experiences in an exclusive interview.
‘Prof. Horst-Siegwart Günther, a German tropical medicine specialist and epidemiologist, working in the university hospital in Baghdad was the first to notice, in 1991, an increasing number of patients with, up till then, unseen symptoms such as serious dysfunction of kidney and liver function. He also saw increasing numbers of horrendously deformed babies and children coming to his clinic. He had the awful suspicion that these symptoms could be connected with exposure to radioactivity, perhaps as a result of the increased use of depleted uranium by allied forces. At this time the allies had denied using depleted uranium munitions. To check his theory, he took a small fragment of one of the depleted uranium shells back to Berlin to find out from experts if it was in fact radioactive.’
‘The conclusion came back: yes it was radioactive. It became clear to him that exposure to such radioactive and chemically toxic munitions could lead to a collapse of the body’s immune system and the breakdown of kidney, liver and lung functions. In addition aggressive tumours could develop and genetic damage caused. These symptoms were also seen among soldiers of the invading forces as well as in Iraqi soldiers, but particularly among the civil population.’
Once it had been established that depleted uranium was being used, allied forces then maintained that the level of radioactivity was minimal and innocuous. What they didn’t explain was what happened when the uranium was vapourised in the explosion and distributed over wide areas.
Mr. Wagner says: ‘The fine and deadly dust released by these munitions after use is then blown by winds all over the place and when inhaled, the residual radioactivity is more deadly than ever. The western allies used around 320 tons of depleted uranium alone in the 1991 Gulf War. Despite Prof. Günther’s findings, his worries were simply ignored.’
When Frieder Wagner, heard about Prof Günther’s findings, he felt it was so important that he decided to make a television documentary film, based on them. He already had a good track record in the field and had made a number of well-received and prize-winning investigative television documentaries.
Depleted uranium is a radioactive substance that is difficult to dispose of and is been used to make military shells heavier in order to increase their ability to penetrate. It was used by US and British forces first in Yugoslavia in 1992 and then in the first Gulf War in 1990-91 and again in 2003. Israel has also been accused of using depleted uranium munitions in Gaza.
Frieder Wagner was the first to document the horrendous consequences of using this type of munition by the US during the Gulf War. That was in 2007. But there has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding this pioneering discovery. Powerful forces appear to be at work to prevent the information receiving the coverage it deserves.
I imagined that Mr. Wagner’s film would have had a sensational impact.
‘No,’ he says, ‘my film didn’t have a sensational impact because the subject of uranium munitions, since the spring of 2001, has been made a taboo subject – and that’s Europe-wide. My film, ‘The Doctor and the Radioactive Children from Basra’, was shown on German television (WDR) in 2004 but that was more of an accident and it was not given a repeat showing and ‘disappeared’ into the archives. Before January 2001, western media took an intensive interest in the so-called “Gulf War Syndrome” and later (after the war in Yugoslavia) what was called “Balkan Syndrome”, particularly as the Portuguese KFOR troops stationed in Kosovo were already experiencing deaths from aggressive cancers and leukaemia just like veterans from the first Gulf War. Then the Pentagon and NATO General Secretary George Robertson declared the subject taboo. It had to be taken out of the media spotlight because the use of uranium munitions and their horrendous effects was too uncomfortable a truth.’
‘To begin with neither the military nor the government reacted to my film. But in November 2008 and again in June 2010 I and some German-based scientists were invited by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the consequences of using uranium munitions, together with other scientists who had contrary views to ours. After about two hours of, at times heated argument, the chair from the Foreign Ministry summarised our discussion as follows: “Both parties presented good arguments and these were impressive but they are in the first instance humanitarian arguments and it is impossible to convince the Americans with humanitarian arguments! (Herr Wagner’s emphasis) It was unbelievable,’ he says.
I asked him if he’d been able to find a distributor for his film.
‘No, since that first showing, I’ve not been able to find a distributor. That could be because every distributor thinks the subject matter is not an interesting subject because the big media are not talking about it. It could also be because if these people check the internet they could become worried about possible negative repercussions if they included such a film in their catalogues. The film says very clearly that the use of such weapons by the USA is an undoubted war crime. And, since that film was shown in April 2004 I’ve not had a single commission from publicly-funded channels in Germany, although that film won a European television award and for previous films I won the Adolf Grimme Prize in silver and gold (Germany’s most prestigious TV award). If you ask me whether I can prove that there is a connection between the subject matter of my film and this ‘blacklisting’, I have to say no, but I am convinced there is. When one realises that the political powers, with the help of the big media concerns, are staying mute about the effects of these weapons then it’s not particularly surprising. A colleague from the German magazine Der Spiegel, who had reported on this subject long before me, took early retirement some time ago because the top editors there censored such articles, time and time again. So you can see there is a logic there.’
I wondered if his films were available in English language versions.
‘I’ve had an English version of the film Deadly Dust available since 2007, but the film’s Munich distributor has only been able to sell it to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. That’s unfortunate because I wanted this suppressed truth to reach a wider public as soon as possible. Now there is the danger that it will only come into the public domain once the wives of the soldiers who were stationed in Afghanistan, Kosovo und Iraq start having deformed babies and begin pushing them around in their prams. I wanted to spare these women such a fate.’
But Mr. Wagner is not taking this lying down. ‘I was determined not to let them silence, and that’s why I and my wife raised private finance to make it into a cinema film. I’ve been showing it in independent cinemas and I discuss the issues raised in the film with the audiences afterwards. Up to now we’ve managed 226 showings to around 18,000 people who will then go away and raise the issue with others. In June 2010 I also wrote a book: Uranium Bombs and the Secret Weapon of Mass-destruction, and in this way the subject is slowly being aired. A truth like this can’t be suppressed for ever.’
I asked him if he agreed with John Pilger (in his recent film The War on Truth) that the media have been compliant over the ages as far as war and its consequences are concerned.
‘I agree completely with John Pilger. All wars in recent times began with lies. In the Kosovo war, the Iraq war and in Afghanistan we were led into these wars by lies. And it is a complete mystery to me why we elect these same politicians and representatives who are responsible for these lies, time and time again. Bush and Blair, who took us into these wars of aggression and gave the green light for the use of such weapons, should be hauled before an international war crimes tribunal. After 1945 top Nazis were justifiably convicted in Nuremberg, so why not these modern war criminals?’
I wondered if Mr. Wagner had considered using the internet to publicise his findings. ‘All my films on the subject of uranium weaponry can now be accessed via the internet and I’m pleased that this opportunity exists to publicise such hot topics. In this way we can by-pass the imposed silence by the establishment media. In the meantime many thousands of people have seen these films and that’s wonderful. In this way the many lies and subterfuge by politicians and big business are exposed to the light of day.’
‘The main message of my film is that the deployment of uranium munitions and uranium bombs constitutes a war crime. Their use leaves behind toxically devastated areas. This depleted uranium is dispersed once it becomes vapourised during detonation and this is what makes it so toxic.
These weapons continue to be toxic for years afterwards, affecting the environment and the civilian populations. Such use clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war’.
Prof. Günther, who is the central protagonist of Mr. Wagner’s film, Deadly Dust, was even imprisoned in Germany, not because he demanded the outlawing of these weapons, but because he imported a 300gm fragment of such a shell into Germany in order to test its toxicity. He asked researchers at three Berlin universities to investigate its toxicity. A Berlin court subsequently fined him 3,000 Euros for the crime of ‘releasing ionising radiation’. Because the western allies in Iraq had released several hundred tons of this material and went unpunished, he refused to pay. As a result he spent five weeks in prison.
‘Isn’t that absurd? Mr. Wagner asks rhetorically, ‘a doctor and scientist who is so concerned about children in Iraq dying unnecessarily of leukaemia after playing with pieces of shrapnel from such munitions, that he brings a small piece to Germany to have it tested, and ends up as the criminal. Even three years after this, the allies were still denying that these munitions even contained uranium.’
‘I’ve been lucky; I haven’t been put in prison, but since making that film, which won a European Television Award in 2004, I’ve received no more commissions from the publicly-supported broadcasting channels. I asked a former colleague, an editor at one of the national TV channels about this and, after a long silence, he replied: ‘In the meantime you’ve acquired a reputation at the company as a difficult guy to deal with; your subjects are considered difficult too.’
‘Many areas of Iraq today are de facto uninhabitable. On one battlefield at Abu Kassib near Basra we measured levels of radioactivity in the shell holes of the Iraqi tanks that had been destroyed in the war. These were 30,000 times higher than expected normal background levels. That’s why it is to be feared that renowned scientists like Rosalie Bertell, Asaf Durakovic, Lennard Dietz und Siegwart-Horst Günther are correct when they say that during the next 15-20 years, in Iraq alone between 5 and 7 million people will die from aggressive cancers and leukaemia. That would be a new holocaust.’
‘I’m ashamed for our allied friends. Since George Bush announced victory over Iraq in 2003 and where freedom and democracy were supposed to blossom over 1 million innocent civilians have been killed, particularly women and children, most killed by US soldiers. 1.2 million Iraqis have been maimed and 5 million are refugees. Is that what democracy and freedom looks like? In the last 200 years no Muslim country has attacked a western one. The terror of war will always lead to a war of terror. You can’t build a democracy with oppression, war and bombs, maimed and deformed and dead children. Particularly in a period of weapons of mass destruction, of atomic weapons and against the background of international terrorism and the continuously provoked crises, John F Kennedy’s words of warning now take on a prophetic significance. He said: “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” In the Declaration from the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in 1945 it states: “To initiate a war of aggression ..... is the supreme international crime, only different from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of all the others. To initiate a war of aggression is a crime that no political or economic situation can justify”. The war of aggression against Iraq was such a war crime.’
A study published early in January by a team of international researchers confirms what Prof. Günther and Frieder Wagner have been saying for years. The results have been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It sheds new light on the massive surge in post-war birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, and argues ‘that an epidemic of reproductive abnormalities is likely to have been caused by residues of munitions used by American armed forces on the city in 2004’.
A total of 547 births in Fallujah General Hospital showed that 15% of babies born in May had massive birth defects, compared to the world average of 2-3%, according to the study, and the rates rose sharply in the first half of 2010.
The study, which surveyed a total of 55 families with seriously deformed newborn babies in May through August shows that metals are potential sources of contamination causing the defects, especially in pregnant mothers within the city, and concludes that they "could be due to environmental contaminants which are known components of modern weaponry." Predictably, Washington has officially denied the claims of the study and there has been little coverage in the world’s media.
END
Only a few years ago the media were full of discussion about ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ – the mysterious illness affecting British and US troops who had taken part in the Iraq invasion. Then the media went suddenly quiet and nothing more was heard. The concern related only to allied troops, but in Iraq among the civilian population an even more alarming incidence of unexplained illnesses came to light. The renowned German film maker Frieder Wagner was the first to investigate this phenomenon, but his findings and his films about them have run up against a wall of silence. He agreed to tell me about his experiences in an exclusive interview.
‘Prof. Horst-Siegwart Günther, a German tropical medicine specialist and epidemiologist, working in the university hospital in Baghdad was the first to notice, in 1991, an increasing number of patients with, up till then, unseen symptoms such as serious dysfunction of kidney and liver function. He also saw increasing numbers of horrendously deformed babies and children coming to his clinic. He had the awful suspicion that these symptoms could be connected with exposure to radioactivity, perhaps as a result of the increased use of depleted uranium by allied forces. At this time the allies had denied using depleted uranium munitions. To check his theory, he took a small fragment of one of the depleted uranium shells back to Berlin to find out from experts if it was in fact radioactive.’
‘The conclusion came back: yes it was radioactive. It became clear to him that exposure to such radioactive and chemically toxic munitions could lead to a collapse of the body’s immune system and the breakdown of kidney, liver and lung functions. In addition aggressive tumours could develop and genetic damage caused. These symptoms were also seen among soldiers of the invading forces as well as in Iraqi soldiers, but particularly among the civil population.’
Once it had been established that depleted uranium was being used, allied forces then maintained that the level of radioactivity was minimal and innocuous. What they didn’t explain was what happened when the uranium was vapourised in the explosion and distributed over wide areas.
Mr. Wagner says: ‘The fine and deadly dust released by these munitions after use is then blown by winds all over the place and when inhaled, the residual radioactivity is more deadly than ever. The western allies used around 320 tons of depleted uranium alone in the 1991 Gulf War. Despite Prof. Günther’s findings, his worries were simply ignored.’
When Frieder Wagner, heard about Prof Günther’s findings, he felt it was so important that he decided to make a television documentary film, based on them. He already had a good track record in the field and had made a number of well-received and prize-winning investigative television documentaries.
Depleted uranium is a radioactive substance that is difficult to dispose of and is been used to make military shells heavier in order to increase their ability to penetrate. It was used by US and British forces first in Yugoslavia in 1992 and then in the first Gulf War in 1990-91 and again in 2003. Israel has also been accused of using depleted uranium munitions in Gaza.
Frieder Wagner was the first to document the horrendous consequences of using this type of munition by the US during the Gulf War. That was in 2007. But there has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding this pioneering discovery. Powerful forces appear to be at work to prevent the information receiving the coverage it deserves.
I imagined that Mr. Wagner’s film would have had a sensational impact.
‘No,’ he says, ‘my film didn’t have a sensational impact because the subject of uranium munitions, since the spring of 2001, has been made a taboo subject – and that’s Europe-wide. My film, ‘The Doctor and the Radioactive Children from Basra’, was shown on German television (WDR) in 2004 but that was more of an accident and it was not given a repeat showing and ‘disappeared’ into the archives. Before January 2001, western media took an intensive interest in the so-called “Gulf War Syndrome” and later (after the war in Yugoslavia) what was called “Balkan Syndrome”, particularly as the Portuguese KFOR troops stationed in Kosovo were already experiencing deaths from aggressive cancers and leukaemia just like veterans from the first Gulf War. Then the Pentagon and NATO General Secretary George Robertson declared the subject taboo. It had to be taken out of the media spotlight because the use of uranium munitions and their horrendous effects was too uncomfortable a truth.’
‘To begin with neither the military nor the government reacted to my film. But in November 2008 and again in June 2010 I and some German-based scientists were invited by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the consequences of using uranium munitions, together with other scientists who had contrary views to ours. After about two hours of, at times heated argument, the chair from the Foreign Ministry summarised our discussion as follows: “Both parties presented good arguments and these were impressive but they are in the first instance humanitarian arguments and it is impossible to convince the Americans with humanitarian arguments! (Herr Wagner’s emphasis) It was unbelievable,’ he says.
I asked him if he’d been able to find a distributor for his film.
‘No, since that first showing, I’ve not been able to find a distributor. That could be because every distributor thinks the subject matter is not an interesting subject because the big media are not talking about it. It could also be because if these people check the internet they could become worried about possible negative repercussions if they included such a film in their catalogues. The film says very clearly that the use of such weapons by the USA is an undoubted war crime. And, since that film was shown in April 2004 I’ve not had a single commission from publicly-funded channels in Germany, although that film won a European television award and for previous films I won the Adolf Grimme Prize in silver and gold (Germany’s most prestigious TV award). If you ask me whether I can prove that there is a connection between the subject matter of my film and this ‘blacklisting’, I have to say no, but I am convinced there is. When one realises that the political powers, with the help of the big media concerns, are staying mute about the effects of these weapons then it’s not particularly surprising. A colleague from the German magazine Der Spiegel, who had reported on this subject long before me, took early retirement some time ago because the top editors there censored such articles, time and time again. So you can see there is a logic there.’
I wondered if his films were available in English language versions.
‘I’ve had an English version of the film Deadly Dust available since 2007, but the film’s Munich distributor has only been able to sell it to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. That’s unfortunate because I wanted this suppressed truth to reach a wider public as soon as possible. Now there is the danger that it will only come into the public domain once the wives of the soldiers who were stationed in Afghanistan, Kosovo und Iraq start having deformed babies and begin pushing them around in their prams. I wanted to spare these women such a fate.’
But Mr. Wagner is not taking this lying down. ‘I was determined not to let them silence, and that’s why I and my wife raised private finance to make it into a cinema film. I’ve been showing it in independent cinemas and I discuss the issues raised in the film with the audiences afterwards. Up to now we’ve managed 226 showings to around 18,000 people who will then go away and raise the issue with others. In June 2010 I also wrote a book: Uranium Bombs and the Secret Weapon of Mass-destruction, and in this way the subject is slowly being aired. A truth like this can’t be suppressed for ever.’
I asked him if he agreed with John Pilger (in his recent film The War on Truth) that the media have been compliant over the ages as far as war and its consequences are concerned.
‘I agree completely with John Pilger. All wars in recent times began with lies. In the Kosovo war, the Iraq war and in Afghanistan we were led into these wars by lies. And it is a complete mystery to me why we elect these same politicians and representatives who are responsible for these lies, time and time again. Bush and Blair, who took us into these wars of aggression and gave the green light for the use of such weapons, should be hauled before an international war crimes tribunal. After 1945 top Nazis were justifiably convicted in Nuremberg, so why not these modern war criminals?’
I wondered if Mr. Wagner had considered using the internet to publicise his findings. ‘All my films on the subject of uranium weaponry can now be accessed via the internet and I’m pleased that this opportunity exists to publicise such hot topics. In this way we can by-pass the imposed silence by the establishment media. In the meantime many thousands of people have seen these films and that’s wonderful. In this way the many lies and subterfuge by politicians and big business are exposed to the light of day.’
‘The main message of my film is that the deployment of uranium munitions and uranium bombs constitutes a war crime. Their use leaves behind toxically devastated areas. This depleted uranium is dispersed once it becomes vapourised during detonation and this is what makes it so toxic.
These weapons continue to be toxic for years afterwards, affecting the environment and the civilian populations. Such use clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war’.
Prof. Günther, who is the central protagonist of Mr. Wagner’s film, Deadly Dust, was even imprisoned in Germany, not because he demanded the outlawing of these weapons, but because he imported a 300gm fragment of such a shell into Germany in order to test its toxicity. He asked researchers at three Berlin universities to investigate its toxicity. A Berlin court subsequently fined him 3,000 Euros for the crime of ‘releasing ionising radiation’. Because the western allies in Iraq had released several hundred tons of this material and went unpunished, he refused to pay. As a result he spent five weeks in prison.
‘Isn’t that absurd? Mr. Wagner asks rhetorically, ‘a doctor and scientist who is so concerned about children in Iraq dying unnecessarily of leukaemia after playing with pieces of shrapnel from such munitions, that he brings a small piece to Germany to have it tested, and ends up as the criminal. Even three years after this, the allies were still denying that these munitions even contained uranium.’
‘I’ve been lucky; I haven’t been put in prison, but since making that film, which won a European Television Award in 2004, I’ve received no more commissions from the publicly-supported broadcasting channels. I asked a former colleague, an editor at one of the national TV channels about this and, after a long silence, he replied: ‘In the meantime you’ve acquired a reputation at the company as a difficult guy to deal with; your subjects are considered difficult too.’
‘Many areas of Iraq today are de facto uninhabitable. On one battlefield at Abu Kassib near Basra we measured levels of radioactivity in the shell holes of the Iraqi tanks that had been destroyed in the war. These were 30,000 times higher than expected normal background levels. That’s why it is to be feared that renowned scientists like Rosalie Bertell, Asaf Durakovic, Lennard Dietz und Siegwart-Horst Günther are correct when they say that during the next 15-20 years, in Iraq alone between 5 and 7 million people will die from aggressive cancers and leukaemia. That would be a new holocaust.’
‘I’m ashamed for our allied friends. Since George Bush announced victory over Iraq in 2003 and where freedom and democracy were supposed to blossom over 1 million innocent civilians have been killed, particularly women and children, most killed by US soldiers. 1.2 million Iraqis have been maimed and 5 million are refugees. Is that what democracy and freedom looks like? In the last 200 years no Muslim country has attacked a western one. The terror of war will always lead to a war of terror. You can’t build a democracy with oppression, war and bombs, maimed and deformed and dead children. Particularly in a period of weapons of mass destruction, of atomic weapons and against the background of international terrorism and the continuously provoked crises, John F Kennedy’s words of warning now take on a prophetic significance. He said: “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” In the Declaration from the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in 1945 it states: “To initiate a war of aggression ..... is the supreme international crime, only different from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of all the others. To initiate a war of aggression is a crime that no political or economic situation can justify”. The war of aggression against Iraq was such a war crime.’
A study published early in January by a team of international researchers confirms what Prof. Günther and Frieder Wagner have been saying for years. The results have been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It sheds new light on the massive surge in post-war birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq, and argues ‘that an epidemic of reproductive abnormalities is likely to have been caused by residues of munitions used by American armed forces on the city in 2004’.
A total of 547 births in Fallujah General Hospital showed that 15% of babies born in May had massive birth defects, compared to the world average of 2-3%, according to the study, and the rates rose sharply in the first half of 2010.
The study, which surveyed a total of 55 families with seriously deformed newborn babies in May through August shows that metals are potential sources of contamination causing the defects, especially in pregnant mothers within the city, and concludes that they "could be due to environmental contaminants which are known components of modern weaponry." Predictably, Washington has officially denied the claims of the study and there has been little coverage in the world’s media.
END
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
New hope for socialist advance in 2011
While 2010 was a horrendous year in so many ways, 2011 presents the Left with new hopes and opportunities. We can draw succour from the fact that the time has never been better for a revival of socialist ideas and renewing our vision of a socialist society. This new opportunity is also being noted and commented on by a number of leading thinkers.
Capitalism is going through the sort of fundamental crisis that Marx and Engels predicted and which they were deeply convinced would usher in socialism. Only through a massive and unprecedented rescue of the world’s banking system could the ruling class temporarily prevent global capitalism from tipping over the brink. With outrageous impertinence they are now attempting to make working people pay for rescuing them from a catastrophe instigated by the bankers and their political helots.
2011 will undoubtedly be another difficult year, but it is also pregnant with opportunity for meaningful struggle and holds the promise of real revolutionary change. The anti-austerity demonstrations in many countries and now students taking action are merely precursors of intensified mass action in the coming year.
If the Left is to have any real input and provide leadership in this coming struggle. It should also use this time for reflection and reassessment of deeply held shibboleths in order to avoid missing opportunities, drawing false historical parallels or misinterpreting and miscalculating the forces for change.
With the virtual implosion of the financial system, here in Britain we are facing the dismantling of the welfare state, and could be forgiven for thinking we are threatened with a return to 19th century values. For the first time in the post-war period, as a population, we face a real reduction in living standards, the returning fear of job insecurity, homelessness and poverty. Globally, we face an apocalyptical environmental catastrophe with global warming, large geographical shifts of people, population growth and diminishing raw materials. As individuals we face increasing alienation in our jobs and in society, where communities have been destroyed and continuous labour mobility is demanded. On top of that, we are witnessing a tectonic shift in global economic power towards countries like China, India and Brazil which will have an even more serious impact on jobs and living standards, with unforeseeable consequences. In Britain we have enjoyed privileges based on our colonial and imperialist past. With the export of manufacturing and jobs elsewhere, those days are over, and working people now face draconian attacks that have already been flagged up by the present government..
The need for a rethink
It is perhaps, on reflection, no surprise that socialism in the Soviet Union collapsed. Marx and Engels themselves, towards the end of the 19th century, were very reluctant to recognise a revolutionary potential there and even when Engels was persuaded that there was (Marx was already dead), he was sceptical of the outcome because he knew that a highly developed capitalist system was essential before socialism could be successfully constructed.
Many of us who lived through the colonial liberation movement of the sixties onwards and witnessed the liberation of one country after another by nationalist and socialist leaders were convinced that these countries would go on to build successful socialist societies. (The consensus of the world’s communist parties then was that national liberation struggles would lead almost automatically to socialist transformation). That vision and those hopes have been thrown back in our faces. Today, particularly in Africa, we see only internecine wars, ingrained corruption on an unimaginable scale and an almost total destruction of social infrastructures.
Although Marx, and later Lenin, recognised clearly that finance capital would eventually become predominant in any capitalist system, they couldn’t have foreseen how the enormous expansion of speculative activities, at the expense of productive activities, have diminished the relative weight of real economy and seriously eroded national sovereignty. This in itself makes nation-based protest and struggle more difficult than ever.
The changing face of the proletariat
Conditions in Britain today are, of course, very different from those when Marx and Engels developed their theories. The proletariat they described as the revolutionary force that would usher in socialism exists no longer – it has shifted to China, India and other industrially previously under-developed countries. We no longer have a large and recognisable middle class either. Apart from the few very wealthy, 90% of us earn a wage, experience job insecurity and a degree of workplace alienation. Of course some earn very good wages and some are poorly paid, but all of us in this group are subject to the same mechanisms of the system. We won’t all think of ourselves as ‘workers’ but that’s what we are. That is why even traditional ‘white collar’ sections and higher status professionals in society find themselves taking strike action, picketing and fighting to protect their working conditions and jobs. This has led to a gradual ‘quasi-proletarianisation’ of increasing numbers of wage- and salary-earners. As a consequence of these changes, the 19th century concepts of working class and middle class, in a British context, are no longer particularly useful as differentiating factors, or in helping us understand how society works. Even the strong cultural differences that separated and identified these classes in the past have now largely disappeared. Across the class divides people watch X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing; young people go to the same discos and clubs, listen to the same popular music and buy clothing from the same chains; social differences are now mainly ones relating to income differentials.
In the absence of real industrial communities, very often, today, ‘working class’ is used to refer to those marginalised by the system, the neglected and forgotten in the old industrial centres and those ghettoised on council estates. While it is important to include such people in our struggle for justice, we must realise that they are not the mainstream and are hardly potential revolutionary forces. We have to stop identifying overwhelmingly with the dispossessed, the marginalised and extremely poor. It is essential that we focus on, and try and win over, those in the mainstream, often in well-paid jobs, who are becoming aware of the increasing threats to their own lives and welfare and will be looking for trade union support and allies.
These changes need to be reflected in our thinking, our analysis of society and our proposals for progressive change. We can no longer seek ideological refuge in repeating the mantra of the revolutionary potential of the ‘working class’, without better defining what it is and what we mean by it. By continuing to over-emphasise the role of the industrial working class (now hardly existent in the UK) in this way, potential allies and supporters who don’t see themselves as proletarian become alienated and feel excluded from the struggle; and many of these people may be very progressive, active trade unionists and even socialists.
New world forces
We are also seeing the seemingly impossible and contradictory situation of China, led by a communist party, overseeing a capitalist expansion on an unprecedented scale. Something no one would have thought possible on either side of the ideological divide in the past. How do we explain that? How can we interpret it? There is nothing that I know of in mainstream Marxist theory to begin to explain such a development.
Then, in Latin America we have progressive and socialist governments attempting to build socialist societies, but on a base that was scarcely developed in terms of industrialisation or civil democracy (hopefully we won’t see a reprise there of what has already happened in Africa).
In addition to the economic challenges, we are also facing a world increasingly divided more by religion than class. The rise of fundamentalist Islam in the East and Middle-East has filled the vacuum left by the communist parties and secular national liberation movements and is seen by the masses in those impoverished and war-ravaged areas as the revolutionary force to combat western domination and the imposition of capitalist values.
The severe impoverishment of many countries as a direct result of imperialist rapacity has also led to an increase in mass migration which is destabilising many countries and seen as a potential threat to the social stability of many western capitalist nations, which are now erecting walls to keep out those seeking an escape from poverty and injustice. All this has intensified the contradictions and conflicts, with the dominant capitalist forces prepared to resort to violence and localised wars to contain the problems and suppress any forces opposed to them.
In this context, we also have to recognise that, despite all the positive potential, on the level of consciousness and ideology, this crisis also provides a fertile ground for the revival of extremism (racism, chauvinism and religious fundamentalism). There is a big potential for developing protest movements that take on anti-capitalist content, but there are also ideological and political challenges that face every effort to achieve the necessary alliances and unite the diverse strands in a coherent current that will become effective in opposing the retrogressive demands made by imperialism and take society forward to socialism.
It is the job of the Left to ensure that the right wing is prevented from capitalising on the increased fears, alienation and wider social breakdown. It can be done, but only if we are able to build and maintain a unity on the Left and develop clear and attainable goals, jettison the anachronistic ideological baggage of the past, hold on to that which is still useful and prepare to adapt our thinking and tactics to the new realities, rather than refight old battles. Let’s make 2011 the year of socialist renewal.
END
While 2010 was a horrendous year in so many ways, 2011 presents the Left with new hopes and opportunities. We can draw succour from the fact that the time has never been better for a revival of socialist ideas and renewing our vision of a socialist society. This new opportunity is also being noted and commented on by a number of leading thinkers.
Capitalism is going through the sort of fundamental crisis that Marx and Engels predicted and which they were deeply convinced would usher in socialism. Only through a massive and unprecedented rescue of the world’s banking system could the ruling class temporarily prevent global capitalism from tipping over the brink. With outrageous impertinence they are now attempting to make working people pay for rescuing them from a catastrophe instigated by the bankers and their political helots.
2011 will undoubtedly be another difficult year, but it is also pregnant with opportunity for meaningful struggle and holds the promise of real revolutionary change. The anti-austerity demonstrations in many countries and now students taking action are merely precursors of intensified mass action in the coming year.
If the Left is to have any real input and provide leadership in this coming struggle. It should also use this time for reflection and reassessment of deeply held shibboleths in order to avoid missing opportunities, drawing false historical parallels or misinterpreting and miscalculating the forces for change.
With the virtual implosion of the financial system, here in Britain we are facing the dismantling of the welfare state, and could be forgiven for thinking we are threatened with a return to 19th century values. For the first time in the post-war period, as a population, we face a real reduction in living standards, the returning fear of job insecurity, homelessness and poverty. Globally, we face an apocalyptical environmental catastrophe with global warming, large geographical shifts of people, population growth and diminishing raw materials. As individuals we face increasing alienation in our jobs and in society, where communities have been destroyed and continuous labour mobility is demanded. On top of that, we are witnessing a tectonic shift in global economic power towards countries like China, India and Brazil which will have an even more serious impact on jobs and living standards, with unforeseeable consequences. In Britain we have enjoyed privileges based on our colonial and imperialist past. With the export of manufacturing and jobs elsewhere, those days are over, and working people now face draconian attacks that have already been flagged up by the present government..
The need for a rethink
It is perhaps, on reflection, no surprise that socialism in the Soviet Union collapsed. Marx and Engels themselves, towards the end of the 19th century, were very reluctant to recognise a revolutionary potential there and even when Engels was persuaded that there was (Marx was already dead), he was sceptical of the outcome because he knew that a highly developed capitalist system was essential before socialism could be successfully constructed.
Many of us who lived through the colonial liberation movement of the sixties onwards and witnessed the liberation of one country after another by nationalist and socialist leaders were convinced that these countries would go on to build successful socialist societies. (The consensus of the world’s communist parties then was that national liberation struggles would lead almost automatically to socialist transformation). That vision and those hopes have been thrown back in our faces. Today, particularly in Africa, we see only internecine wars, ingrained corruption on an unimaginable scale and an almost total destruction of social infrastructures.
Although Marx, and later Lenin, recognised clearly that finance capital would eventually become predominant in any capitalist system, they couldn’t have foreseen how the enormous expansion of speculative activities, at the expense of productive activities, have diminished the relative weight of real economy and seriously eroded national sovereignty. This in itself makes nation-based protest and struggle more difficult than ever.
The changing face of the proletariat
Conditions in Britain today are, of course, very different from those when Marx and Engels developed their theories. The proletariat they described as the revolutionary force that would usher in socialism exists no longer – it has shifted to China, India and other industrially previously under-developed countries. We no longer have a large and recognisable middle class either. Apart from the few very wealthy, 90% of us earn a wage, experience job insecurity and a degree of workplace alienation. Of course some earn very good wages and some are poorly paid, but all of us in this group are subject to the same mechanisms of the system. We won’t all think of ourselves as ‘workers’ but that’s what we are. That is why even traditional ‘white collar’ sections and higher status professionals in society find themselves taking strike action, picketing and fighting to protect their working conditions and jobs. This has led to a gradual ‘quasi-proletarianisation’ of increasing numbers of wage- and salary-earners. As a consequence of these changes, the 19th century concepts of working class and middle class, in a British context, are no longer particularly useful as differentiating factors, or in helping us understand how society works. Even the strong cultural differences that separated and identified these classes in the past have now largely disappeared. Across the class divides people watch X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing; young people go to the same discos and clubs, listen to the same popular music and buy clothing from the same chains; social differences are now mainly ones relating to income differentials.
In the absence of real industrial communities, very often, today, ‘working class’ is used to refer to those marginalised by the system, the neglected and forgotten in the old industrial centres and those ghettoised on council estates. While it is important to include such people in our struggle for justice, we must realise that they are not the mainstream and are hardly potential revolutionary forces. We have to stop identifying overwhelmingly with the dispossessed, the marginalised and extremely poor. It is essential that we focus on, and try and win over, those in the mainstream, often in well-paid jobs, who are becoming aware of the increasing threats to their own lives and welfare and will be looking for trade union support and allies.
These changes need to be reflected in our thinking, our analysis of society and our proposals for progressive change. We can no longer seek ideological refuge in repeating the mantra of the revolutionary potential of the ‘working class’, without better defining what it is and what we mean by it. By continuing to over-emphasise the role of the industrial working class (now hardly existent in the UK) in this way, potential allies and supporters who don’t see themselves as proletarian become alienated and feel excluded from the struggle; and many of these people may be very progressive, active trade unionists and even socialists.
New world forces
We are also seeing the seemingly impossible and contradictory situation of China, led by a communist party, overseeing a capitalist expansion on an unprecedented scale. Something no one would have thought possible on either side of the ideological divide in the past. How do we explain that? How can we interpret it? There is nothing that I know of in mainstream Marxist theory to begin to explain such a development.
Then, in Latin America we have progressive and socialist governments attempting to build socialist societies, but on a base that was scarcely developed in terms of industrialisation or civil democracy (hopefully we won’t see a reprise there of what has already happened in Africa).
In addition to the economic challenges, we are also facing a world increasingly divided more by religion than class. The rise of fundamentalist Islam in the East and Middle-East has filled the vacuum left by the communist parties and secular national liberation movements and is seen by the masses in those impoverished and war-ravaged areas as the revolutionary force to combat western domination and the imposition of capitalist values.
The severe impoverishment of many countries as a direct result of imperialist rapacity has also led to an increase in mass migration which is destabilising many countries and seen as a potential threat to the social stability of many western capitalist nations, which are now erecting walls to keep out those seeking an escape from poverty and injustice. All this has intensified the contradictions and conflicts, with the dominant capitalist forces prepared to resort to violence and localised wars to contain the problems and suppress any forces opposed to them.
In this context, we also have to recognise that, despite all the positive potential, on the level of consciousness and ideology, this crisis also provides a fertile ground for the revival of extremism (racism, chauvinism and religious fundamentalism). There is a big potential for developing protest movements that take on anti-capitalist content, but there are also ideological and political challenges that face every effort to achieve the necessary alliances and unite the diverse strands in a coherent current that will become effective in opposing the retrogressive demands made by imperialism and take society forward to socialism.
It is the job of the Left to ensure that the right wing is prevented from capitalising on the increased fears, alienation and wider social breakdown. It can be done, but only if we are able to build and maintain a unity on the Left and develop clear and attainable goals, jettison the anachronistic ideological baggage of the past, hold on to that which is still useful and prepare to adapt our thinking and tactics to the new realities, rather than refight old battles. Let’s make 2011 the year of socialist renewal.
END
If He Hollers Let Him Go
By Chester Himes
Pubs. Serpent Tail Books
Pbck £7.99
Pps 259
Himes was one of the leading black writers of his generation and this, his first novel, was first published in 1945. He is, though, most famous for his series of Harlem-based detective stories. Growing up during the first half of the twentieth century he experienced the unremitting hatred and discrimination of blacks in his native country. This novel takes place over several days in the life of a young, black shipyard worker in California whose anger, outrage and a determination to take revenge on those oppressing him bursts onto the page like molten lava. Bob Jones, the hero, is a skilled ‘leaderman’ on the docks, but is slowly destroyed by the daily humiliations, degradation and even violence meted out by the whites he encounters. The claustrophobic situation makes him respond with violence too, an expression of the hatred that eats away inside him. Today the book won’t have the same shock value that it no doubt had then, but Himes’ direct and vivid, everyday language lends it a raw validity, turning it onto a compulsive read. It has the quality of a Greek tragedy in which the terrible fate of the hero is a foregone conclusion. For a black man in 40s USA there were two choices: submit to slavery or fight it head on.
As a black male, Himes would never find true recognition for his writing in the USA, In the 1950s, he emigrated and settled in France permanently, a country he liked in part due to his popularity in literary circles. There, Himes' fitted easily into the expat community that included fellow black artists like the communist political cartoonist Ollie Harrington and writer Richard Wright, as well as James Baldwin. An interesting essay is appended in which Himes calls for a Communist world revolution.
END
By Chester Himes
Pubs. Serpent Tail Books
Pbck £7.99
Pps 259
Himes was one of the leading black writers of his generation and this, his first novel, was first published in 1945. He is, though, most famous for his series of Harlem-based detective stories. Growing up during the first half of the twentieth century he experienced the unremitting hatred and discrimination of blacks in his native country. This novel takes place over several days in the life of a young, black shipyard worker in California whose anger, outrage and a determination to take revenge on those oppressing him bursts onto the page like molten lava. Bob Jones, the hero, is a skilled ‘leaderman’ on the docks, but is slowly destroyed by the daily humiliations, degradation and even violence meted out by the whites he encounters. The claustrophobic situation makes him respond with violence too, an expression of the hatred that eats away inside him. Today the book won’t have the same shock value that it no doubt had then, but Himes’ direct and vivid, everyday language lends it a raw validity, turning it onto a compulsive read. It has the quality of a Greek tragedy in which the terrible fate of the hero is a foregone conclusion. For a black man in 40s USA there were two choices: submit to slavery or fight it head on.
As a black male, Himes would never find true recognition for his writing in the USA, In the 1950s, he emigrated and settled in France permanently, a country he liked in part due to his popularity in literary circles. There, Himes' fitted easily into the expat community that included fellow black artists like the communist political cartoonist Ollie Harrington and writer Richard Wright, as well as James Baldwin. An interesting essay is appended in which Himes calls for a Communist world revolution.
END
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