After Iraq's General Election: Anti-occupation Struggle and Production Movement
The "parliamentary elections" in Iraq were held on June 30, 2005. Similar to the Provisional Governing Council and the Transitional Government, the new "state authority" is destined to make a living under the barrel of the US military, and its authority and life span are extremely pessimistic. The sweeping of occupation forces, the bright and dark collision of big countries' strategies in the Middle East, and the struggle among the upper classes of various sects around political and economic interests, poverty and non-industrialization are turning oil-rich countries into an endless slaughterhouse.
Today, the intention of the U.S. imperialists to invade Iraq has gradually become clear-long-term occupation, step by step to establish an "American protectorate of Iraq" [1], thus completely controlling the Middle East. It must be pointed out that this strategy is closely related to the background of the times-after the restoration of the Soviet Union and China, major powers no longer tolerate the self-help efforts of backward countries and began to rebuild their colonial systems; Correspondingly, capitalist patriotic self-help movements of different colors in Asia, Africa and Latin America died at the end of last century.
The coming 20th century has left us a global duel history of production rule and workers' revolution, and at the same time, it has written a sad song about the struggle for survival of backward capital groups in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The victory of the workers' revolution in October opened another sky for the national capital of colonial and semi-colonial countries (that is, the region and population were the majority at that time)-using the deadlock between the two camps to advocate cross-class patriotism and seek survival and development by two-sided methods. After the 1920s, Soviet and Russian bureaucrats stifled domestic workers' democracy, making them full of fear of the international workers' revolution, and willing to play the tactic of "pulling one faction to fight another" and reach various deals with various bourgeois factions. Later, China, Viet Nam and Cuba followed suit and fostered a large number of "progressive anti-imperialist governments in the Third World". In the fields of economic self-reliance and social progress, most similar regimes have performed well.
Within the anti-* * camp, western capital either actively or forcibly gave blood transfusion to the diehard younger brother, gave economic assistance, and opened up the monopoly market, so that the latter could be industrialized to varying degrees. In the past decades, from Egypt to Iraq, from the Peron Movement to the Burmese military group, from the Arab Baath Socialist Party to the Indian National Congress Party, the edge of the international division of labor system has carved out a road of self-improvement. The rise of backward capital groups has profoundly changed the balance of power in the world-taking Asia at the end of the twentieth century as an example, the "independence of Japan" a hundred years ago has evolved into a situation in which countries compete for hegemony.
Like Chiang Kai-shek's Nanjing regime, the Iraqi Baath Party first relied on Soviet Russia to gain a foothold, and then consolidated its rule with American bayonets, which was beyond its means. 1972 in April, Moscow and Baghdad signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation; With the support of Soviet aid and procurement commitments, Baath Party members decisively took over all foreign-controlled oil fields and obtained a stable source of industrial funds. In the early 1980s, the relationship between the United States and Iran warmed up. By the end of 1990, the United States had provided Iraq with a lot of military assistance (including chemical and biological weapons) and financial support [2]. In short, American aid to Iraq can guarantee its own energy security; Generally speaking, fighting for Saddam Hussein is part of the global war against deficit.
After 1992, the "anti-holy alliance" has been unable to unite the capital groups with deep contradictions. Bandits, large and small, have been asking for it, and it is inevitable that they will be devastated if they turn the rudder slowly-Yugoslavia will be devastated after moving towards parliamentary democracy and market economy; Indonesia left East Timor with resentment under the joint action of the soft and hard capital of the United States and Australia. South Korea's carefully cultivated large-scale industries have made the American chaebol play a wedge [3]; Libya hid under the wings of western Europe to delay the White House attack; The Vietnamese government, which has long been based on anti-American diplomacy, began to consider providing air and sea bases for the former; The worst fate is Iraq.
The dark days of colonial rule
Twenty months have passed since American soldiers set foot in Baghdad. The White House boasted that "the thoroughly remoulded (Iraq) economy is growing day by day and the security situation is gradually improving" [4], while admitting that the local unemployment rate and semi-unemployment rate are close to 50% [5]. According to the statistics of the United Nations, as of September 2004, 25% (6.5 million people) of Iraqis lived entirely on food relief, and another 3.6 million people needed partial relief, while the unemployment rate fluctuated between 30% and 70% [6]. Infrastructure is still in ruins, which seriously affects industrial recovery and makes it difficult for nearly two million unemployed workers to return to their jobs.
After 20 months of occupation, the profit-seeking instinct of capital is displayed in front of the world-the White House is on its high horse, arranging business for relatives and friends, and making no secret of it [7]; The vital oil reconstruction project is in the hands of the US military engineering department; Nominally, Allawi's "transitional government" has the right to manage the Iraq Development Fund. In fact, Washington "has always controlled this fund (US$ 65.438+084 billion) and will continue to do so" [8] (Bathsheba Crocker, a researcher of the post-conflict reconstruction project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States). Seeing all this, some "transitional government" officials also lamented that "the intentions and interests of Americans are often different from Iraq's national interests" (Mohammad Abbosh, senior director of Iraq's Ministry of Petroleum) [9].
As far as the overall planning is concerned, Bremer, the outgoing American ambassador to Iraq and "governor", canceled most of the restrictions imposed by the former regime on imports, capital flows and foreign investment, and promulgated a low tax rate system in favor of big businessmen; The Bush administration is determined to "strengthen the private sector of the national economy, reorganize and privatize state-owned assets, reform trade policies, join вто and develop the capital market" [10]. North American tycoons have prepared a major socio-economic action for Iraq. The lessons of neo-liberal reforms in Chile and Argentina tell us that any highly open and backward economy will become the best prey for international monopoly capital (first of all, American capital).
The success or failure of Wall Street's cannibalism plan depends on several factors. The first is the degree of resistance of the proletariat to "defending the country and defending the country". Although contemporary Iraqi workers have suffered many setbacks, they have not lost the courage to unite and struggle, as evidenced by the 199 1 North Factory Committee Movement.
199 1 north factory Committee movement: set up the sunshine flag
199 1 The Gulf War ended in spring, and the newly defeated Iraqi army was in chaos. Northern Kurdish national capital colluded with local Baath Party cadres, hoarding and profiteering. Growing social contradictions and political vacuum gave birth to a great drama of the workers and peasants movement. At the end of February of the same year, workers in Suremania, a northern city, took to the streets to protest against the price increase of daily necessities, and quickly organized a broadly representative "Shula" [11] (that is, the Committee or Council-district note); "Shula" arrested big speculators, confiscated the latter's residential property and grain warehouse, counted the inventory, and distributed daily necessities to the masses in an orderly manner. Soon, all major communities, factories and industrial departments set up committees (***42), which evolved from a pure self-service consumption-oriented daily necessities distribution network to an authoritative organization.
On March 5 of the same year, about 30,000 workers and citizens in Sulaymaniyah armed uprising triggered a chain reaction in neighboring areas such as Rania and Erbil. On March 20th, a workers' uprising broke out in Kirkuk, the center of petroleum industry, and took control of the urban area in response to the defenders. Within a few weeks, workers and soldiers from all over the country established the "Northern Workers' Central Shula", which formed a dual regime with the political representatives of the Kurdish national capital-the Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union. From the standpoint of proletarian revolution, Shula's representatives of tobacco, cement and textile workers put forward two major programs: institutionalizing Shula (establishing a government of workers' committees) and confiscating private industries. However, most of the representatives of mass movements are workers who rush to the front out of class instinct, without a mature program and a keen political sense. The boss's suppression of coolies' tank columns will not make them grow up slowly. With the acquiescence of the west, Baath Party began to gradually clean up the North-South riots. Faced with many excellent regular troops, the "Shula" mainstream faction decided to form a military United front with the Kurdish upper class and accept the command of the latter in wartime; Because the left-wing workers are only a minority in the Committee and they are not unified internally, their ideas (distrust the bourgeoisie, arm workers of all ethnic groups and their families to the maximum extent, establish workers' political power immediately, and prepare for guerrilla warfare) have not been adopted.
Because of their clear understanding of their own interests, because their political experience is far richer than that of the rebels, and because of their firm will and the active cooperation of the repression machines belonging to different groups, the property owners defeated the uprising of hiring slaves again. First of all, the Kurdish bourgeoisie colluded with the captured senior Iraqi officers and police, and through the latter colluded with the counter-insurgency headquarters in Baghdad; Then, they began to slaughter Arab workers and uprising soldiers, provoking workers of all ethnic groups to kill each other; The Turkish army, which was highly alert to the uprising of workers and peasants in its neighboring areas, also crossed the border to remove the remnants of the guerrilla "Shula" volunteers. The property owners of the three parties "joined forces to suppress * * * and make amends for Shula", and finally put out the fire of the revolution in northern Iraq. Some members of the movement escaped; 1In July 1993, these cadres participated in the establishment of the Iraqi Workers' Party.
After Saddam Hussein's downfall, the Labor Party took advantage of the limited political freedom to organize workers' movements and other mass movements in central and southern Iraq in a legal capacity. Its (realistic and potential) role in the anti-occupation movement has aroused widespread concern of the international left.
* * * Production Workers' Party: The principle is correct and the route is muddy.
Speaking of the relationship between the left wing and the anti-occupation struggle, we should first briefly introduce the relevant position of the Iraqi Production Party (ICP). The long-term cross-class cooperation route, the death of the Soviet backer and the corruption of the upper class in the party [12] finally turned Iraq into a "Marxist-Leninist puppet" of the American imperialists. In June 2002, People's Road, the organ of the International Peace Research Institute, revealed that American diplomats in Syria held talks with Iraq. Later, the Iraqi Central Committee held a special plenary meeting to discuss how to participate in post-war political life, at which the progress of negotiations with the United States was reported. According to party documents, the United States put forward four conditions for allowing ICP to enter the post-war authority:
1. Members (sent by ICP to the organs of power) do not represent the * * * production party, but only a certain sect or nationality (such as Shiites or Kurds);
2. The party program must be revised to remove the words colonialism and imperialism;
3. Collect information about the resistance movement for the occupying forces;
4. It is forbidden to carry weapons without approval, and at the same time, it is obliged to participate in public security operations (under the command of the US military) [13].
For the above conditions, ICP accepted them completely after some pleasant bargaining. Before the war, Iraq signed a declaration calling on the US military to "liberate Iraq as soon as possible" [14]; After the fall of Baghdad, he joined the "Provisional Management Committee" (represented by General Secretary Hamid) and the "Transitional Government" (with Moufid, the Central Committee member, as the Minister of Culture) and faithfully performed the role of "saving the country by curve" [15].
As for the * * * production workers' party, it does have clear social revolutionary goals and firm class principles, but there are many ambiguities and deviations in the specific line. * * * The Labour Party claims to be part of the socialist workers' movement and is engaged in the anti-capitalist struggle. Strive for peace and get rid of the oppression, class division and extreme poverty inherent in capitalism ","the above goals can only be achieved through social revolution (overthrowing the capitalist system, depriving private property rights and canceling wage labor) "[16]; After the social revolution, "the nature of the state machine is the workers' regime, that is, socialism and the state. "In other words, this is a Soviet country" [17]; As far as the task of struggle at this stage is concerned, it stipulates that "(occupiers) should retreat immediately; Realize the direct democracy of the masses "[18].
However, for proletarian pioneers, it is not enough to have correct abstract principles. Any workers' vanguard party must have at least the following ideological conditions if it wants to master the political leadership of the mass movement (giving the latter a proletarian revolutionary program): political consciousness from the perspective of the historical interests of the proletariat; Be good at linking the struggle to safeguard the daily interests of the masses with the promotion of workers and peasants' organizations and class awakening; Never forget to reveal to the masses the fundamental reason behind all kinds of oppression-the opposition between labor and capital, and put forward solutions based on this.
Frankly speaking, the * * * Labour Party has been mediocre for more than a year and tends to be petty-bourgeois liberal. In April 2004, a large-scale armed uprising broke out in Iraq. On April 8th, * * * Labor Party issued a "Declaration on the Current Situation" signed by Lwal (the leader of the main political party), saying that both the US military and the anti-American Muslim fighting team are "terrorist gangs" [19], and they represent "the third choice to fight for building a secular society and ensuring security, freedom, prosperity and universal human rights" [20]; It insists on the withdrawal of the occupying forces, but calls for the introduction of "multinational peacekeeping forces without the participation of the United States" to help the "new interim government" maintain order and security and "ensure the realization of a better life for (Iraqi) citizens, equality between men and women, equality of all ethnic groups, Kurdish self-determination and separation, freedom of conscience and other political freedoms" [21]; Finally, the declaration "calls on all civilized, humane, freedom-loving and progressive people, socialist forces and working people to support the above requirements" [22]. These wishful thinking and demands full of "mainstream style" have no taste of class analysis.
The United States and other powers (such as France, Germany and Russia) have the same goal and similar means in the struggle for colonies. The quarrel, war and peace between big countries depend on the distribution of primary and secondary interests and the strategic deployment at a specific moment-the United States, France and Germany joined forces to send troops to Afghanistan, because all three parties want to infiltrate Central Asia more actively; France and Germany boycotted the White House's Iraq strategy to defend their existing political and economic influence in Iraq. After the American invasion of Iraq became a reality, the western European powers temporarily avoided the sharp edge and admitted in the form of a United Nations resolution that "foreign troops can remain in Iraq after the establishment of the interim Iraqi government until the political process in Iraq is completed" [23], but in other hot spots (such as C? te d 'Ivoire), the biting and kicking of the United States and France did not stop [24].
The fundamental mistake of the slogan "a new interim government in power for the people" lies in that it sets a wrong premise for workers and peasants to resist the practice (safeguarding freedom rights and people's daily interests)-the bottom is in a state of disorder, confusion and lack of initiative, and any "interim government" is bound to be the result of conspiracy negotiations and intervention by the powers at the top. Under the situation that multiple oppression such as class, nationality and sect is getting worse and worse, it is the basic position of the Workers' Pioneer Party to grasp the basic contradiction between labor and capital, do everything possible to remind, encourage and help workers and peasants (first of all, young workers, students and the poor) to organize at the grassroots level, and guide advanced proletarians to struggle for their economic and political future by relying on their own organizations (rather than abstract "universal values").
When it comes to the historical future of the proletariat, whether it is the process of seizing political power or the worker country itself, it is inseparable from organized violence, especially the class struggle under military occupation.
* * * Labour Party, Armed Struggle and Islamic Fundamentalism
As an important tool to protect themselves and expand their strength, various Iraqi sects and political parties in the war have set up combat teams [25]. * * * The Labour Party also stated that "we are an armed (revolutionary) political party" and agreed with the principle that "the proletariat must fight militarily in order to establish the workers' regime, or even just for the sake of safety" (Hasslo, head of the overseas organization of the Labour Party) [26]; At the same time, Kazakh comrades repeated bouvard's liberal cliche that "(anti-American sectarian armed forces) are all terrorist organizations and threaten civil society".
On the issue of Muslim anti-American guerrillas, the international left has different opinions. As an insider, the * * * Labour Party has been subjected to questions such as "Why are you cold and attacking the resistance?" Faced with criticism at home and abroad, Lwal refuted the necessity of combating religious prejudice. When comparing the political differences between Iraq and our party, Comrade Lie pointed out that "they (that is, Iraq * *-Fang Fang's note) participated in religious ceremonies with trepidation, while we openly held atheistic positions, trying to make the masses see how religion alienated workers and peasants from each other" [27]; Some leftists in Europe and America also accuse anti-American forces, such as the Mahdi Army and its leader Muqatar Sadr [28], of being "fanatical theocracies and sexists [29]. At the same time, some people in the left-wing camp at home and abroad advocate forming an "anti-imperialist national United front" with Muslim armed forces.
For many centuries, the strong color of equality [30] has given Islam a powerful function of reconciling class contradictions. The decay of capitalism in the later period, the contrast between social productive capacity and the deterioration of people's living environment, the decline of the revolutionary workers' movement, the religious cohesion and high mobilization of Muslims, the rise of the Arab bourgeoisie and many other factors gradually made the Islamic political movement occupy a prominent position on the world stage. Muslim political parties (mainstream or radical) often used the banner of "rich and poor are brothers" and once fell in love with the early Soviet Union [365,438+0], but they have not completely abandoned the signboard of "controlling capital" [32]. On the other hand, Islamic religious groups with many small business owners and followers of small farmers combine with big capital and serve the latter faithfully. In Pakistan and Egypt, the Muslim ultra-right underground army has long acted as a management mob and actively persecuted left-wing and labor activists; In Indonesia and Bangladesh, religious-military organizations maintained by major mosques participated extensively in the massacre of the workers and peasants movement [33]; In Afghanistan and Kosovo, fundamentalist factions sent a lot of cannon fodder to the military operations of western capital.
In today's Iraq, all sects pretend to be mediators of class contradictions who "make decisions for the people". Their full-time cadres and combatants maintain traffic and public order on a voluntary basis, organize food distribution, and help poor people repair houses, see doctors and supply water and electricity; The upper clergy cooperated with the American imperialists to varying degrees, and at the same time acquiesced in the grass-roots missionaries to preach the justice of the anti-American "jihad". There is only one goal-to publicize national and religious consciousness and control the masses, including the working class, with the help of small favors. The double oppression of class and nationality (the torture of poverty and unemployment, the killing, destruction and humiliation of the occupying forces, and the untold horror caused by frequent mopping-ups) makes more workers devote themselves to the anti-occupation struggle every day (from strike to mine laying) until they join the Muslim armed forces. During the battle of Najaf in August 2004, Nasiriyah oil transporters went on strike many times to protest against the atrocities of the US military [34], and the main force of the April uprising, the Mahdi Army, was mainly composed of young workers and unemployed workers. What about the Labour Party? Although he admits that "the Islamic regime is gaining weight by taking advantage of the people's reasonable desire to resist occupation" [35], he still talks endlessly that "the particularity of Islam makes it impossible to improve and secularize, and its own moral innovation cannot happen" [36], so the Muslim anti-American fighting team is full of "terrorists". * * * The Labour Party ignores a basic reality: the emergence of modern theocracy is only a reflection of capitalist decay; Antitheocracy cannot but oppose capital. In today's Iraq, the struggle against occupation (including military activities) constitutes an extremely important part of the struggle between workers and peasants. The responsibility of proletarian revolutionaries is to fight with workers and peasants (first of all, advanced elements who dare to resist), help them see who their enemies are and who their friends are, warn them of new difficulties in their future struggle, put forward specific solutions, and put these in the overall framework of improving the consciousness and organization of the working class.
Once upon a time, many powerful left-wing mass movements were led by cross-class cooperation lines, and they did all the stupid things while the state-owned assets were on fire; After the 1990s, the "multi-leftist" stance, which is becoming more and more obvious, is still the rotten tune of labor-capital cooperation. If the Universiade loses its broad foundation, there will be no painful failure; Mass resistance is mostly controlled by class alien forces, not to mention highly developed self-organization, but it also lacks the decline of the revolutionary labor movement after being betrayed by the wrong line for decades (which has happened countless times in the past). When 2005 came, workers in Baghdad, Basra and Kirkuk were still looking for ways to save themselves. All kinds of leftists are grinding old donkeys-small steps and circles; Sporadic gunfire and explosions are far away and near, and the fog remains on the stage of class struggle in Iraq.