More Analysis On Colombia

The bourgeois media present an absolutely false and biased view of the armed conflict that has bled dry the Colombian people. In this version the violence is provoked by the guerrillas who are presented time and again as assassins dripping with blood, criminals, terrorists, etc. The reality, is that the armed conflict has its roots in the extremely backward and unjust character of Colombian capitalism and no one else is responsible other than the cruel violent and parasitic oligarchy that has dominated the country with an iron fist for centuries.

The Colombian bourgeois and imperialism have for many years used the fight against the peasant guerrillas to criminalise and exterminate left militants, and to slow down and distort the class struggle. Particularly in recent years, the prolongation of the war (together with the supposed struggle against drug trafficking) has served to justify the strengthening of the US military presence in the country and to arm to the teeth the Colombian army. Imperialism wants to convert Colombia into a military base from which they can attack every revolution on the continent, and in particular the Venezuelan revolution, that threatens the interests of the capitalists and imperialism. As the Marxists explained in advance, despite all of the promised commitments, apologies, smiles and hugs that Uribe is prepared to offer at summit meetings, acts of aggression and provocations on behalf of the Colombian oligarchy and imperialism have increased over the last few months and will continue to do so in the future.

THE ORIGINS OF THE ARMED CONFLICT

The primary cause of the war in Colombia is the economic and social make up of the country, which is profoundly unjust. Of the 10 million hectares of Colombian territory considered adequate for agriculture, only 4 million are cultivated; the rest are left unproductive in the hands of the large landowners and ranchers. In the whole of the country there are 30 million hectares dedicated to extensive ranching or to the so-called "narcolatifundios". 1.5% of the landowners and large drug traffickers possess 80% of the land while 85% of the rural population live in poverty. If we include the urban population as well, the poor count for more than 50% of the population.

The parasitism and extreme cruelty of the Colombian oligarchy is reflected in the resistance of the so-called national establishment, formed by the fusion of the interests between the great agricultural landowners and ranchers in the countryside and the financial and industrial bourgeoisie of the cities, to give up even a small part of their privileges and power. This is still going on today and is the key factor that explains the armed conflict and makes peace impossible. Every political, peasant or trade union movement with a potential to question the right of this oligarchy to continue to rule over Colombia as its private estate has been brutally repressed.

The Fight For Power

If the leaders of the FARC and the M-19 (at the time the two most active and powerful guerrilla groups) had based themselves on the struggle of the masses and first and foremost the organisation and mobilisation of the working class, putting forward a socialist programme beginning with the struggle to resolve the most immediate problems (land reform, poverty, unemployment, etc.) linking these to the struggle for peace and explaining that this could only be achieved by expropriating the the oligarchy and substituting its state with a workers' state, they could have organised the vast majority of society and taken power.

For the revolutionary movement in Colombia and throughout the world, this is a lesson written in blood. But it is also a reply to the cynical bourgeoisie, and those unprincipled renegades who, while declaring themselves to be left-wing, depict the Colombian guerrillas as being "simply assassins" or "criminals". If the guerrillas lacked a social base, they would not have been able to resist for such a long time against the attacks of the mercenary bands funded by the landowners and the bourgeois army with the support of US imperialism. Thousands of youth, workers and peasants, faced with the crisis of capitalism and the repression of the oligarchy, have swelled the ranks of the guerrillas. This demonstrates the fighting spirit and the heroism of the masses, but it also confirms the fact that unless these qualities find a programme and methods that are capable of linking the advanced layers with the working class and the exploited and win their support, then the outcome will be anything but what they want.

THE INTERVENTION OF IMPERIALISM

The most immediate objective of Plan Colombia was to weaken and corner the FARC and the ELN. From a more general point of view, this plan and its successors under different names (Patriot, etc.) flowed from the needs of US imperialism to intensify its military presence in its own back yard (and its economic presence) and to intervene against every threat to its interests. The result has been the increasing militarisation of Colombia and the strengthening of the Colombian army with the direct military presence of the USA.

In the context of a severe economic crisis, social inequalities, popular discontent in all of Latin America (and in the USA) and with the Venezuelan revolution upsetting the plans of imperialism and presenting itself more and more powerfully as a point of reference on an international scale, US imperialism decided it would base itself on the Colombian oligarchy with the aim of turning Colombia into the Israel of Latin America, a base from which they could crush every revolutionary movement on the continent, and primarily the Bolivarian revolution. US imperialism uses the Colombian oligarchy in an attempt to stifle the recent growth of the revolutionary struggle of the South American masses and, first and foremost (obviously) to threaten, harass, and if it deems it necessary, attack the neighbouring Venezuelan revolution.

For the moment, with imperialism bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and facing a developing revolution in Latin America, its fundamental strategy is to try and sabotage and destroy the Venezuelan revolution from within, using economic sabotage to lower the morale of the masses while resting on the "fifth column" of the bureaucracy and reformism to erode social support for the revolution. Nonetheless, they combine all forms of struggle and, they are reinforcing also the military front with the tacit support of the Colombian bourgeoisie. For the moment, this is used basically to threaten, intimidate and discredit. But if tomorrow the situation changes and permits and pushes them, it is possible they will try to intervene against the revolution supported by the Colombian oligarchy.

News-Colombia, FARC, Uribe.

Colombia has become a bulwark of US imperialism in South America. At the head of the country is a reactionary psychopath named Alvaro Uribe, fully supported by the landowning and industrial oligarchy and has close connections with paramilitary groups which in the last 15 years have massacred more than 4000 trade unionists and leaders.

It may come as a surprise that a reactionary rabble-rouser like Uribe could win two consecutive presidential elections. However, on the last occasion in 2006, 60% abstained. Colombia has a semi dictatorial regime and functions as a military camp for the USA with the excuse of the "war against drug traffic". Hence electoral fraud is present in many areas. What was really striking was the great performance of the left coalition, the Democratic Pole (based on the old Communist Party), that came second with 22% of the votes and that has held the Mayor's office in Bogotá since 2003.

Faced with a workers' movement on the rise and the emergence of a political alternative on the left, the Colombian bourgeois has an interest in keeping alive "the guerrilla problem" to justify before the population the restriction of their democratic rights, indiscriminate detentions and the assassination of popular leaders.

What's more, the maintenance of an internal "war front" has permitted Colombia and the USA to justify the increasing militarization of Colombia with the perspective of launching a war against Venezuela as the last card, with the intent of defeating the government of Chavez, destroying the Venezuelan revolution and stopping it from spreading to the rest of Latin America.

The limits of the guerrilla struggle are clear in Colombia. Over 40 years the battlefront has remained relatively stable and another 40 years could pass without any fundamental change. Even in a country with a numerous peasantry like Colombia, the vital hubs of society are not anchored in the countryside, but in the cities. It's here that the economic and political centres and the principle transport hubs of the country can be found.

No regime would be able to stay on its feet in the face of a revolutionary general strike which would paralyse the country, starting in the cities, not for a month, but even just for a single week and where the masses of workers occupied the countryside and the factories, the offices and the official centres and organised their own organs of power. It is towards this perspective that the main energies of the revolutionary cadres should be orientated.

Should they then dissolve the FARC? Not at all! The FARC can and must play a very useful role, but acting to complement the struggle in the cities, making itself available to workers and peasant communities, to help train and arm the committees of workers and peasants who have the task of confronting the hired assassins of the employers and the paramilitaries.

The Colombian revolution must combine the armed struggle in the countryside with an insurrectionary movement of the masses in the cities, lead by the working class and by a revolutionary party rooted in the masses. Remember, no movement "leads" the workers, but the workers must conduct the revolution themselves.

The adjustment policies of Uribe and the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the US that further weaken the Colombian economy, as the general crisis of capitalism develops, will result in a stormy awakening of the class struggle in Colombia, which cannot be stopped by the actions of the paramilitaries or the army.

On the basis of the experience and the effects of the revolutionary movements just across the border in Venezuela and Ecuador, the working class and the poor peasants will rise to their historic tasks in the struggle for socialism.

Economics: A little bit of Marxist Political Economy.

The "main task" of Marx's Capital was in Marx's terms “lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society.” This economic law of motion is comparable to that of Earth's motion. People used to assume that our planet didn't move, so now people are accustomed to assuming that our modern social organization that we live in is eternal and unchangeable. But Capital has taught us that things which present themselves as motionless are in fact in motion and capable of movement. Capital is a book that awakens the oppressed and destroys their illusions, lets us know of our troubles, reveals a path to sweep those troubles aside and give us liberating hope of a better world.

Capital is a crucial piece in the puzzle on how to analyse capitalism. For political economy to be a science, it must be capable of establishing principles for the masses of people, who are submerged in troubles, into the opposite-intelligent and happy people. Capital indeed contains such a value.

Marx wants to reveal the historical laws of bourgeois society. Regarding this, we can find the following passage in the postface to the second edition of that work:

"It will be said...that the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. But this is exactly what Marx denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist...On the contrary, in his opinion, every historical period possesses its own laws...As soon as life has passed through a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws...The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when the likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of the phenomena shows that social organism differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals"

Each historical period has distinct laws and Capital elucidates the specific laws of capitalist society.

Every effort is being made, from all directions, to prevent those submerged in troubles from locating their source. This source can be traced back to organization of society and if we wish to eliminate these troubles, we must revolutionise this organization. But first its important to analyse reality, to know the world we are living in so that we can change it. If we are to thourghly comprehend reality and this world, our method of cognition must be correct. This correct method is called the materialist dialectic. I would like to expand more on this materialist perspective, and then elucidate on the nature of dialectical understanding.

What economic mechanism is prevalent in present society? If we were to take an idealist perspective, we would most likely cover our ears and cross our arms. However, we are dialectical materialists and believe that our materialist method is the correct standpoint, an objective, scientific understanding, so we begin to use our ears and observe everything going on around us. We must see what the average person see's, so they can agree with what we see, the clear and indisputable facts that will satisfy everyone. Because we begin with what the people think, our studies and thoughts are reliable and truthful.

So we begin with clear facts. In the postface to the second edition of Capital, there is the following passage regarding this:

"Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence.... If in the history of civilization the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilization, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point."

Our life of economics is revealed in the people's eyes as a fact-In order to survive, we know that labour must be taken from the natural world in order to create basic necessities {food, clothing, shelter}. In a letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, Marx writes:

"Every child knows that any nation that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labor. It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution of social labor in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only change its form of manifestation. Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves."

This means that people, in order to survive, must have the compulsion to create things through labour. If labour ceases, so does humanity. Also, humanity has needs, the labour produced in societies must be distributed to different sectors of production at a given quantity to meet these needs. This is a natural law that exists in any form of social organization as long as humanity exists. The difference that occurs between different social organizations is the type of phenomenal form that this natural law is manifested in. All of this, in the words of Marx, is "self-evident" even to a child. Likewise, in today's social organization, it evident that labour must repetitvely produce things to meet needs and maintain our lives. Moreover, all the products produced are commodities, this means that social production is carried out through the method of commodity production. This means that the natural law mentioned above is manifested as commodity production.

To be continued...

General Politics: My Theses On Zionism

The working-class today must regard Zionism as utopian and reactionary.

1.Zionism has and will rely on Imperialism to give it its goals, which in reality, wants to utilise the Zionist movement as a pawn in their game to have greater domination in that part of the world.

2. Zionism believes it can eliminate anti-Semitism just by creating an all powerful Jewish State. The fact is that anti-Semitism has deep social, historical and ideological rootes which will be harder to "weed out" while Capitalism is decaying.

3.Zionism serves as support for imperialist domination and gives imperialism the role of arbiter between Jews and Muslims.

4.It produces a nationalist reaction on the part of the Muslim masses, it causes a racial division within the working-class which allow imperialism to use the method of "divide and conquer".

5. Zionism separates the Jews from the international class struggle, separates them from the international working-class, gives them autonomous goals to strive for, and gives the Jewish masses false hope of a better society within the framework of Capitalism.

Only Socialism can offer the Jewish people emacipation. Only by joining the world movement of solidarity with the working class can the revolutionary movement offer a realistic solution to the problems of the Jews and not the Zionist "solution". We must make 2 prepatory processes- being opposed to all Zionism and then offering a solution. When the Jewish masses have gone through their disillusioning experience with Zionism and have learned the futility of their efforts and sacrifices, they will turn toward us – provided we understand how to move toward them today with our solutions as well as with an intransigent criticism of Zionism. We must make propaganda and eventually agitation, so that the Jewish working-class make a break with Zionism. Only then can we speed the development of the consciousness of the Jewish working-class vanguard beyond the stage of Zionism.

Philosophy: Teleology: An Absurd Philosophy

If closely examine the general principle of Teleology, the philosophy which asserts that all things have a 'purpose', its not hard to conclude that this philosophy is shrouded in 'dreams of perfection' and absurdity.

I think we must first ask ourselves: What is a goal? The idea of a goal presupposes that someone has set this goal thus someone is fully aware of this goal, someone has set it consciously. It is impossible for something to be a purpose if someone hasn't made it a purpose. Lets take an example: A rock on a beach. Now, does this rock set itself goals? Obviously not. Only a madman may ask the purpose pursued by a rock lying on a beach. Now this may start to sound rather funny and amusing to the reader, but amazed as you may be, there are people who still believe in this outlandish and extinct philosophy which really contributes nothing to the help of mankind and our understanding of things.

The idea of a purpose can only exist in a conscious, living being full of wishes and desires. Living beings in turn set goals for themselves and aspire to achieve them and begin by approaching these goals. Referring back to the rock example, the madman give nature a soul and in turn give the rock a soul. This means that Teleology is dominating his mind, and the stone begins to take on the manner of a human being. What i'm really trying to point out is that the madman is your everyday Teleologist, the advocates of Teleology are in the same mindset of that of the madman because they believe that all things in the world have a purpose, the purpose being created by some divine creature or some unknown being.

All we need to do now is take the "purpose" of things and bring God into the equation with his "plan". I think we should take time to delve into religious explanations. Lets assume that I have came up with a theory that will explain the universe. I say the universe is made up of a infinite number of angry green goblins. Their motion and anger create all phenomena in nature. Furthermore, I mention that these angry green goblins are invisible and inaudible, they cannot be detected by smell and can't be caught by their tails. I challenge anyone to refute this "theory". You see, it is actually impossible to refute this theory for I have surrounded it by assuming the invisibility and intangibility of these angry green goblins, yet, everyone will know that this "theory" is absurd and wrong for the very simple fact that it cannot be proven correct.

This is the basic nature of all pseudo-religious explanations. They are built upon the intangibility of unknown powers, or the fact that we can't comprehend because our "reasoning" is not yet as powerful as that of the explanation.

But that can be dealt with later when we are considering religious explanations.

Teleology tries to act superior to religion, the "perfecting" Teleologists had to come up with a way to more "perfect" their philosophy. They knew that they would have to add an element of science to make their absurd philosophy sound much more 'smarterer'. And so they preach "No! We reject any ideas of mysterious powers! Goals are inherent in the process of EVOLUTION!"
Let me elaborate on some examples. Certain animals in the course of time due to a number of causes, alter and adapt themselves to nature. Its organs are being perfected (progressing). Or let us take human society. Regardless of where we think human society is going to go (socialism or any other form of society), is man becoming more 'cultivated' or 'perfected' and that we masters of all that is created in the world are entrenching on a journey down the road of progress? Just like the animal is adapting to nature, so also is society becoming more perfected in its structure. Here, perfection is advancing through an evolutionary process. Its not designed by an unknown/divine power, but advancing through a certain number of causes.

Is this theory a correct one? NO! IT IS MERELY A DISGUISED AND ATTENUATED FORM OF TELEOLOGICAL FALLACY!

We must oppose the idea of goals being set by nothing or no one. This practically amounts to another example of, for instance, thoughts without a thinking means, or speaking of wind when there is no air, or feeling dampness when there is no fluid. Again, similar with the pseudo-religious explanations, the teleological 'purposes' are 'inherent' in something, the teleologists are using the strategic tactic of the purpose being a delicate and inscrutable force. Isn't this the same concept as God? God is represented as grey-haired old man with a beard, but here on Earth, he is invisible and "inside" everything.

In conclusion, i am going to end all the pseudo-scientific add ons in Teleology with a little scientific word equation: Teleology (the doctrine of purpose) leads straight into Theology (the doctrine of God).

News: Egypt update – more violent clashes follow after Sunday’s clampdown

from marxist.com.

On Sunday, as we reported yesterday, the planned general strike called by the Mahalla textile workers was blocked by a heavy police and military intervention. Although the strike was scuppered, there were huge protests on the streets and violent clashes with the police. Instead of intimidating the workers the heavy-handed intervention has increased their determination to struggle.
Now the protests in Egypt are continuing. The latest news is that textile workers involved in leading the protests are still being held by the police. They were interrogated at the Tanta Prosecutor's Office and according to some unconfirmed reports they were subject to severe beatings. It has also been confirmed that four demonstrators were killed by the police. Mahalla was under police occupation yesterday. The workers at the Mahalla textile mill have been forced by a heavy police intervention to turn up for work, but that does not mean everything is back to normal. The scenes in the surrounding neighbourhoods remind one of the Palestinian Territories, with a heavy presence of military vehicles. While this is going on the families of the arrested workers have been gathering outside the local police stations demanding to know what has happened to their family members and bringing them food and so on.
According to the Egyptian Workers and Trade Unions Watch "42,000 workers took part in either strikes, sit-ins or demonstrations during the past month, while 54,000 workers threatened to do the same... The month also witnessed 22 sit-ins, 13 demonstrations and 10 strikes." This shows that Malhalla is not an isolated case, but merely the tip of an iceberg. There is seething discontent across the whole country. The deep-felt hatred of the regime was graphically shown when people vented their anger against by stamping on big pictures of Mubarak. In this little detail we see the future of this regime, which cannot be a very long one.
On the 3arabawy website a socialist activist in Mahalla was quoted reporting about what was happening on April 7 (yesterday). He said that,
"around 4pm a 2000-strong demonstration started in El-Bahr Street in Mahalla. The protesters were chanting against the government, price increases, police brutality... The troops cracked down on the demonstration, but that hardly made the demonstrators disperse. Instead, over the course of an hour, the protest [outside the Mahalla police station] grew to something between 40,000 to 50,000... It's passed 7pm now in Mahalla. There is not one demonstration, but several. Most of the demonstrators' chants are against the government and calling for the release of those detained yesterday [Sunday]... The police renewed its crackdown, and arrests are being conducted now."
The mood of the workers is clearly evident in the video available here below where in the face of armed police they show no fear whatsoever. The Egyptian workers are on the move and whatever measures the government takes they cannot be stopped. It is the objective situation that is pushing the workers forward. Their life has become unbearable. Bread has not only become very expensive, it is also in short supply. The government has ordered the army bakeries to supply bread to the commercial outlets in a desperate attempt to alleviate the problem.
Marxists have always explained that when a socio-economic system is no longer able to develop the productive forces then its days are numbered. The system in Egypt cannot even provide bread!

General Politics: The Importance Of A Vanguard Party.

Indeed, this issue is one debated by many supporters of the Left. I am often asked why we need a revolutionary vanguard party by many people who consider themsleves as "true leftists" or "democratic leftists". I myself adhere to Marxist-Leninist ideology and to ignore the question of the vanguard party would be careless of me. We Marxist-Leninists acknowledge that change and Revolution must be carried out by the workers themselves-to disagree with this would be drifting away from Marxist ideas and into the dogmas of Stalinism.

I support the use of a vanguard party because the working-class do not automatically become great intellectual Marxists. They also do not automatically turn into great heroic workers ready to fight the capitalist state and after the Revolution, fight off external enemies. If workers were to keep up their militancy and consciousness at all times, then the idea of a vanguard party would be absurd for the very simple reason that they wouldn't need it. However, this is not the case in today's society.
"How do we overcome this difficulty then?" the reader will ask.

We need a permanent set of individuals who are active at all times in the fight for Socialism and Communism, who have a high level class consciousness and militancy at all times. In no way are these people "god-like" figures who stand as arbiters above the working-class. Quite the contrary. They have devoted their lives to the workers cause, they have studied Marxism constantly to share Marxist-Leninist ideas with the workers and to help them liberate themselves from the yoke of capital. Its these people who have been criticised for being "elitist" and "selfish" acting "above the working class". These criticisms have arised mainly from pro-capitalist ideologues from the West but believe it or not, these criticisms have also came from our supposed comrades in the Anarchist and Ultra Left "councilist" positions. I find it quite extraordinary that such "comrades" count themselves as being associated with workers power and liberation. Its just shows that these people show their true colours when it comes to the burning questions of the revolutionary movement. We must not believe their mere words.

The Anarchists and Ultra-Left's make the arbitary supposition that workers will "spontaneously" fight against the capitalist regime and the workers will know everything that is needed to progress to Communism. This assumption is utterly utopian and has no use for the modern international working-class.

All the problems the working-class is faced with during the Revolution; running the economy, reducing social inequality, defending their country from external threat; the expansion of the socialist revolution across the world; fighting reactionary ideas within the working-class etc, these problems cannot be "spontaneously" dealt with like the Anarchists and Ultra Left's wishful thinking. These problems can only be solved by principled intervention of the revolutionary vanguard party armed with a revolutionary Marxist programme.

The Anarchists and Ultra Left's look back in their history books and spell out to us how the vanguard party became bureaucratised in Russia and that the Leninist vanguardism lead to the Stalinist "vanguardism". The Bolsheviks were a vanguard party and were always enemies of bureaucracy. Now, do the Anarchists and Ultra Left's take into account the fact that Stalin had to physically destroy and dismantle the Bolshevik party in order usurp power away from the working-class? I am guessing that some of them choose to ignore this fact. A peculiar mixture of subjective and objective factors contributed to this degeneration, to spell them out to you would lead us too far away from our subject.

The Anarchists and Ultra Left's make another presumption of how vanguard revolutionaries are always going to be isolated from the working-class. Well Lenin and the Bolsheviks were vanguard-were they isolated from the working-class? I think not! Vanguard revolutionaries can particpate in working-class activity. If you are a vanguard revolutionary and have a high level of class consciousness and militancy, one could only say that this could only benefit working class activity and be more constructive in building working-class organizations. Again, the vanguard revolutionaries claim no "elitist" positions and don't consider themselves more "special" than the rest of the workers, they are there because of their ouright devotion to the workers cause.

And here, i come to the end of this article hoping that my invisible audience have been convinced not by me, but by Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory. A child could take a glance at this article and know the fundemental importance of a vanguard party. It is the duty of every Marxist-Leninist to fight wrong ideas that arise from the Anarchist and Ultra Left positions.

Start Building the Vanguard Party!
Push the Revolution forward!
Long Live Marxism-Leninism!