As they compete, the capitalists eliminate each other through war or by creating huge international trusts. Although Germany, Britain and the US have major consortiums in common, they still confront each other because competition persists between the capitalist countries.

There is no doubt that for capitalism, arms production and war preparations are vital necessities. Capitalism uses them both to compete against each other and put down the masses as well. In the war of 1870 between France and Germany, the French bourgeoisie let the Prussians troops enter France to help liquidate the Paris Commune.

War is not down to ill-will or bad people. This exists, but it does not decide. What determines war is the logic of production in the private property regime. Capitalism never stops making war. War is its life. This explains why war is never really an accident, or due to crises getting out of hands. War is the simple logic of the capitalist system. This is also why, of course, it is preparing for war once again.

Besides the big wars, there have always been ‘small’ big wars. In the name of world capitalism, US imperialism intervened in Indonesia1 to stop the Social-Democratic government of Sukarno taking progressive measures. First the US helped Dutch imperialism get rid of Sukarno, and then it got rid of Dutch imperialism. With that one war, the US stopped both Sukarno and its main competitor in the area; a small participation was granted to the Dutch afterwards, in case of uprisings. Here you have one example of capitalist war.

Another example is the war of Yankee imperialism against Cuba. Cuba was under Spanish domination until 1898, the year when Spain had to concede independence. The Yankees moved in, and replaced Spain. The Cuban masses went on struggling against Yankee imperialism which appropriated half of the island.

This is how the province of Guantanamo is still under US imperialist domination today. Here you have a sample of the most brutal, assassin and criminal means that capitalism uses to stop the world masses making objective progress.

It is for general war that the Yankee imperialists keep a military presence in Guantanamo. The base itself is of no economic value to them, and its military importance is limited. One atomic bomb and out with the Yankees in Guantanamo. They know this of course, but they don’t go away. Leaving would be too much of an admission of weakness; it would stimulate revolution in all the Latin American countries. The role of the US in Guantanamo is to keep an eye on the Latin American countries; the military strategic advantage is small, but it is useful to exert pressure against Cuba and ship arms around. Militarily, Guantanamo is of little historic value to the US: when the atomic confrontation starts, one atomic bomb will suffice to wipe it out.

Strategic places like Guantanamo used to be important, but this is no longer so. Broadly speaking, this applies to the all the navies as well, their remaining role being for general transport and the ferrying of atomic weapons. Although aviation retains an importance, it has also declined in importance. For most important today, and indeed determinant, is the relationship between the populations on a one hand, and the armies that enter their countries on the other. This relationship has become more decisive than all the warships and the warplanes. The Soviets know that they can count on the welcome of the populations. In war, the Soviets will receive bread and water; the Yankees will receive bullets and buckets of shit.

The capitalists make war when inter-capitalist competition fails to resolve their rivalries. Now that they face Workers States, they dare not throw themselves at each other as in the past. This leads them to impose on each other the most devastating levels of economic and commercial dismemberment, without using weapons. They prepare for war on the Workers States meanwhile, hoping that this will stop the progress of history.

War is inherent to capitalism, not to the Workers State

Whilst war is integrally part of capitalism, this is not true of the Workers States. The invasion of Vietnam2 by China does not amount to a Workers State making war on another.

The invasion of Vietnam is orchestrated by a counter- revolutionary camarilla3 in China. This is why the latter was not able to send many soldiers, its invasion was half-hearted and its retreat was made in haste4.

The Workers State has no need of war. When it develops a leadership with counter-revolutionary and bellicose traits – as in China – its aggression does not come from the Workers State but from its counter-revolutionary leadership. This happened under Stalin when he assassinated the entire Bolshevik leadership. That action was not needed by the structure of the Workers State but by its assassin leadership that had usurped the power of the working class.

To live and make progress, the Workers State needs the reverse of war. Indeed it cannot develop without logical relations prevailing in the population. Capitalism needs war because its system is based on profit-making, but the Workers State has no base in profit-making. To exist at all, the Workers State must not only develop production5, but science and culture as well. This is what the USSR instituted. This is why its progress in the scientific and cultural fields has been immense from the start, as well as in the economy.

Production for need creates superior social structures

Inversely to what happens in capitalism, the Workers States do not develop through the war of each against everyone. The Workers States do not need competition. The ultimate and logical necessity that unifies them is their comparable economies and social relations, their scientific discoveries and their cultural attainments. This is hindered by the limitations of leadership, but the progress of the Workers States has been immense since 1945. It ended unemployment and hunger.

The Workers State can only continue on the foundations left by the capitalist regime. The Workers State is on the way to create its own foundations, but this needs time. As it embarks upon the socialist road, it must start from where capitalism left off, in the economy, technology and social structures.

The Workers State makes improvements in social matters because these depend on political leadership, but its material base is pre-determined by inherited capitalist technologies. The Workers State is perfectly capable to surpassing those technologies, but it can only do it by creating more elevated social relations.

It is the working class of the Soviet Union that defeated Hitler. In this, it was supported by the masses of the world that made a strong defence of the USSR against Nazism6. In the USSR, Stalin was subsequently shown the door, and history went on progressing.

Production for need is required – not ‘democratic liberties’

The Soviet Union became what it is today (1981) in spite of having started from nothing. This could only happen because it was creating a superior society: State ownership, planned production, the development of science and culture, and a powerful rise in the political level of society.

The USSR is not contradictory. It is a society that learns to lead itself. Since its inception, it made uninterrupted progress. You cannot say the same of Germany where two and a half million workers still have no political rights, on top of all the unemployment, housing shortage and rise in living costs. You cannot have democratic rights in that situation. So much for capitalist Germany’s constant bragging about ‘liberty’.

‘Democratic liberty’ is not a cornerstone in the USSR. Its cornerstone is State-owned property, economic planning and support for all the anti-capitalist struggles in the world. Soviet society rests upon these principles, and for these principles to shine as brightly as they should, Soviet democracy is also necessary. This is the role of Soviet democracy.

After the Second World War, capitalist Germany did not develop through a capacity of its own. World imperialism poured millions upon millions of dollars into it, to make it a showroom against the Workers States. This is the main reason why Germany developed as it did. It did not have the force to do it by itself. The Marshall Plan financed its transformation into a bastion to block the advance of the Workers States.

Today, Germany is an occupied country. The British, the French and the US are occupying it. Germany depends on French and British imperialism, and US imperialism above all. It has no democratic rights or military capabilities of its own.

The capitalists cannot live
outside accumulation and profit-making

Capitalist society has concentrated the means of production. This has brought about big industrial development, high technology and high productivity. Capitalism knows how to produce more, in less time and at the same costs. If this talent were applied to a collective society, production would triple at once. It is only that, in capitalism, property is concentrated through competition and through the capitalists’ implacable need to profit and accumulate. No capitalist can change this without going bankrupt. Any attempt at changing this breaks the M-C-M cycle (money-commodity-money). It is to keep this cycle going that the capitalists must preserve the existing social and economic order.

Capital has reached the point where it can no longer boost its own capacity to expand. It reacts by turning in upon itself, increasing it financial centralisation. This lessens the number of capitalists because competition liquidates them. Meanwhile, the Workers States continue to advance. They are plagued by a lack of means, of traditions and of preparation, but they can still resolve in 20 years what capitalism never did in 200. The proletariat takes stock. It will start from that level of attainment when it finally breaks the bureaucratic yoke.

The proletariat is confident and secure in the notion that anything and everything can be rebuilt. Where the proletariat stands, society stands too, for society depends upon it. The proletariat occupies a place at the heart of production where there are no sentiments of egoism, appropriation, competition, vanity or selfishness. These sentiments are those of private property. When private property has gone, those sentiments will go too. The proletariat enters the war with these characteristics.

The proletariat has the historic and actual experience of 14 Workers States and 16 Revolutionary States. The Revolutionary States are influenced by the proletariat through the concept of the Workers State – i.e. State-owned property and the collectivised economy. That is to say, the world at large views the proletariat in light of the Workers States. The irrepressible confidence of the proletariat stems from its feeling socially irreplaceable. The proletariat is unafraid; it has nothing to lose “but its chains”, as Marx says.

Through its function as a class, the proletariat already feels itself to be organising history. It has no world Party, but it knows itself to be the decisive factor of social organisation. You get a measure of this when you look at its behaviour. Its conduct in the Workers States is of a very fine order when you consider how it resists bureaucracy and takes great care not to harm the Workers State. This has been the conduct of the proletariat at every turn: in Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1958 and in Stettin & Dantzig (Poland) this year9.

The proletariat enters the war with this ability and knowledge. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain. From where it has stood in history and in the economy, it has grown the sort of confidence, resilience and determination that makes the rest of the population wish to follow it.

The atomic war is going to produce disarray, horror and shock. There will be a loss of reasoning in many people, but the proletariat will be the least affected. Those most affected will be the bourgeois whom you already see futureless and perspective-less, seeing nothing but death ahead. The bourgeois hope to secure their future by burying themselves 100 meters below the ground – where they will stay.

A preview of how the proletariat is going to enter the nuclear war shows already in the conduct of the masses of Vietnam, of the Middle East, and of anywhere indeed. The proletariat gives constant demonstrations that it does not let itself be bullied, wiped out or debilitated. It is going to enter the atomic war with the all vigour it displays in the class struggle. The Yankees have threatened to use atomic weapons against Vietnam, but the proletariat did not quake. It went on supporting Vietnam and encouraged it to fight on.

The mayhem and monstrous capitalist crimes that will mark the start of the nuclear war will be immediately followed by the proletariat moving into action. The proletariat will embark upon social reorganisation. It will draw together what is left of the world populations and make a ruling class with it. In that process, its intervention will focus on the liquidation of every remnant, if any, of capitalism and bureaucracy.

* * * *

The First World War produced the Soviet Workers State. In spite of Stalin’s best efforts to stop the extension of the Russian Revolution, the Second World War brought 8 more Workers States. There are now 14 Workers States and 16 Revolutionary States. The Third World War is the end of the capitalist system.

Mind that we do not seek the nuclear war. We do not reckon that such a war was the right way to get rid of the capitalist system, but this is how history has panned out. We just speak as we find. As far as we are concerned, we prepare to face this situation by treasuring every useful means that history creates along the way, determined to do everything and draw all the conclusions necessary for the construction of Socialism.

It is not that we are without feelings! From the most profound of our Communist emotions, we lament the tragedy which is coming to millions and millions of human beings. We are not those who are guilty or responsible for it. Capitalism is! Feeling this too, the proletariat is all the more determined not to feel intimidated.

The notion that the atomic war is going to crush so many millions of people fills us with appalling distress, but we do not feel responsible or guilty. Where we feel we have a responsibility, yes, is in proposing ways and means to help overcome the atomic ‘charco’ as fast as possible, and get Socialism under way.

CRIMEA, NOW RUSSIAN, REVIVES OLD WORKERS-STATE FORCES

Posadiststoday, 20 April 2014

The Posadists in Britain salute the decision of the masses of Crimea to re-enter Russia, and Russia’s acceptance. With their new firmness, Russia and China have already allowed Syria to break the world chain of imperialist counter-revolutionary bombings marching towards Iran and Russia. Syria ushers in the stage when the US, NATO and the EU can no longer proceed Eastwards with impunity.

The new firmness of Russia and China has given to the masses of Crimea – as well as those in Donetsk, Jarkov, Lugansk, Sloviank, Mariupol and other parts of Eastern and Southern Ukraine – the force to mobilise against the neo-liberal, pro- imperialist and fascist coup in Kiev (21-22 Feb 2014). The masses of Crimea denied to the US, NATO and the EU the right to confiscate the Russian arsenal and bases in Crimea. By ensuring Russia kept hold of those assets, the masses of Crimea have acted with the consciousness of the coming war, and by taking the side of Russia in preparation for it. This conduct is a sign of what the world masses are going to do when imperialism launches the next world war.

The new firmness of Russia and China creates forces that dissuade those who seek ‘regime change’ elsewhere in the world, as in Venezuela. It encourages the tendency to defend and improve the ‘Bolivarian’ Revolution and the unification of Latin America. This gives hope to Maduro11 as he reiterates his proletarian determination to be based on the working class of his country “so that the bourgeoisie can never come back”.

What greatly defeats the US-backed coup in Venezuela is the support that the CELAC, ALBA UNASUR and MERCOSUR governments give to Venezuela (Brazil and Argentina included). Though dominated by imperialism, the recent OAS13 meeting rejected by 29 votes to 3 the US resolution to slap sanctions on the Maduro government – Peru and Chile joining in the majority.

In declaring People Republics in Donetsk and Lugansk, and in meeting around Lenin’s statues, in those places and beyond, the workers of the East and South of Ukraine (and of other parts in Ukraine as well) indicate their continued adherence to aspects of the Soviet Union. They also act in objective united front with the masses that fight world imperialism elsewhere, as in Palestine, Venezuela and Syria for instance.

The working class and masses of Ukraine, and those of Crimea in particular, reject vehemently the pro-fascist coup and government of Yatsenyuk and Turchynov in Kiev. The working class was never involved in the Maidan alongside its pro-European (EU-NATO) class enemies, and it is a denigration of the working class to say so. Even before the start of the Maidan demonstrations, the workers of the East were already getting ready to set up militias and Soviet forms, against fascist and imperialist encirclement and war.

The workers of Crimea re-entered Russia to give themselves the strength – which they cannot have alone – to defeat the ‘neo-liberal’ encirclement of Russia and Ukraine. They see that their foe is not just a coup in Kiev, but the atomic war preparations of world capitalism.

Down with the neo-fascist
and neo-liberal government in Kiev

Imperialism reacts to the workers’ resistance in Ukraine by sending more ‘special units’ and ‘trained advisers’ to the region. NATO wants “no Russian interference” but it reinforces its Eastern European and Baltic bases “over the seas, on the ground and up in the air”, as Kerry says. The fascist government in Kiev sends handpicked soldiers to the East of Ukraine with a savage determination to liquidate what it calls ‘terrorists’. Its fury to eliminate the Communists, the working class and Left organisations is exacerbated by the realisation that even its own (Ukrainian) soldiers repudiate it. World capitalism – that manipulates Kiev – is equally keen to crush the Ukrainian ‘rebels’ before their rebellion starts spreading in ex-Workers States, like Poland.

Today’s globalised world leaves no space for the development of an ‘independent Socialist Ukraine’, as some comrades pose. The struggle for Socialism anywhere forms part of the confrontation between capitalism and the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist forces gathering strength all over the world. This global necessity pushes Russia and the Putin leadership to base themselves on the support of populations that fight imperialism, like Crimea. No ‘Socialism’ in Ukraine can be expected outside the defeat of world imperialism.

Posadiststoday.com, 10 and 26 April 2014

The workers of Ukraine rejected without hesitation the pro- fascist and rightist coup in Kiev. They opposed indignantly the torching of the Trade Union Centres, the Western lies, the killings, the provocateurs and snipers, the pogroms against Communists, Russians and Jews, etc. They did not accept the repression of minorities and of the Russian language.

In the mines and the steelworks of the East and South of Ukraine, as well as in Crimea, in the ports and military bases like Sebastopol, the workers, the Communists and their families voted massively to separate their areas from fascism and Western neo-liberal asset stripping. In Crimea, they voted unanimously19 for their reintegration into Russia – and Russia accepted them. It was not Putin who organised the vote, and no Russian soldier imposed it. The Crimean masses are convinced and act under the command of their own consciousness. It is a denigration of the working class and masses to say that they must be led, that they cannot lead themselves or act unanimously in defence of their own interest, which is the common good.

It was as part of the USSR that the people of Crimea, of Ukraine and of Russia crushed the German and local Nazis at Stalingrad (1943). This victory allowed the continuation of the Soviet Workers State and the creation of 8 more Workers States. There is a knowledge of all this in the way the masses of Crimea stopped the Russian military bases falling to the Kiev fascists, and therefore to NATO and US imperialism. In the face of the war of capitalism, this was a revolutionary action.

In the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, People’s Republics have been set up, with the leading role of many sectors of the working class. Their behaviour shows they want to choose their governors, throw out the Nazi-fascists Kiev’s appointed ones, and encourage the Russian leaders to count upon them.

EUROPEAN UNITY AGAINST NATO, THE TROIKA AND THE DEBT!

Posadiststoday.com, May 2014

The results of the European parliamentary elections show massive opposition to the European model presently in construction. Those building it are the main financial centres of the world, in common accord with the most powerful European bourgeoisies (like Germany, Britain, France); but the representatives of that project in the big coalition – S&D and EPP – lost millions of votes and many EMPs.

In these elections, the opposition was expressed in huge abstentions of more than 50%, particularly in Eastern Europe, or in the ‘euro-sceptic’ votes that did not fit any block. The increased votes for the radical left (GUE-NGL) indicate rising doubts as to the possibility to reform the model.

Results on the Left reflect the ascending curve of the struggle of the masses. Best results were in Greece, Spain and Portugal, in tune with the dogged fight of the populations there, against sackings, privatisations and the destruction of the productive forces – bitter fruits of the Pacts and Treaties between the big European powers.

In the last few years, the policies imposed by the financial centres have led to massive unemployment and growing misery. Misery in the conditions of life, and misery in the social relations, with sequels like the rise in violent criminality, large-scale drug and alcohol misuse, small employers’ suicides, etc., particularly in the most affected peripheral countries like Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain.

Ukraine and the permanent revolution in Europe

The world witnesses the clear incapacity of the European bourgeoisies to unify around any common policy and strategy.

World imperialism and NATO wrote the Ukrainian agenda and passed it on to Germany, France and the others; but these are not keen to open new conflicts beyond all those they already have on the continent, with their own masses.

As they fight the Nazi-fascist government in Kiev, the masses of Crimea, Odessa and Eastern Ukraine bring to this situation the best of their forces and the best of their ideas. They put Lenin – thought long dead and gone – back where they need him, like a banner to show the way to the peoples of Europe and those of the world. The masses of those areas may be predominantly of Russian origins, but this action proves that they do not defend Russian local or national interests.

As these fighters hold back the advance of the Kiev’s fascist army, they use barricades, Militias and the peoples in the streets. They stand as representatives of the best ever achieved by the masses of the European continent, namely: the First Socialist Revolution and the Rout and defeat of Nazism. This is going to influence immensely the masses of all countries, those of Greece, Italy and Spain in particular. The Trade Unions and the Communist parties are going to feel the need to move further leftwards.

The unfolding events in Ukraine concentrate decisive elements for the future of Europe. The capitalist crisis and its explosive internal contradictions figure amongst those elements, but so does the indelible mark that the October Revolution has etched upon the world: from the creation of the USSR and the other European Workers States, from the First Seven Years of the USSR and its most complete form of democracy, to the USSR’s crushing of Nazism and the extraordinary pull of the world revolution.

(This document ends here, but the rest is available on demand: mlsculturaleditions@yahoo.com)