Letters

Red-flag Zionism

In his article, ‘Trump greenlights ethnic cleansing’ (March 13), Jack Conrad argues against the Socialist Workers Party’s position for a one-state solution, aiming for a secular, democratic state. He argues, that the SWP holds this position to posture itself as the most radical to the Muslim contingents of the Palestine movement (a pleasantry they don’t need to expect from Conrad himself). I don’t know what Conrad is trying to infer here, but he argues that its political conclusion is “tailing Hamas”, whatever that is supposed to mean.

The core argument of the article is that a one-state solution is (1) impossible and (2) oppressive to the oppressor. Jack argues, that a one-state solution could only be achieved by a military victory by the Axis of Resistance, built from regional powers like Hezbollah, Iran, Ansar Allah, Hamas and possibly other Islamic forces. Conrad compares this possible victory to the victory of Saladin against the crusaders. They would build an Islamic state in Palestine and the Israeli population would turn to resistance, which would lead to a denial of political rights to the ‘Hebrew population’ and harsh measures to oppress this group. Because of the fear of oppression against the colonisers, the only hope for liberation is not through indigenous struggle and regional allies, but through the Israeli working class. This fear is based on the speculation that the Palestinians are not aiming for self-determination and expropriation of what has been stolen, but for total domination over the Israelis.

Jack Conrad acknowledges that the Israeli working class has no sympathy for Palestinians and doesn’t see any positivity in ending the oppression of the Palestinians. They are not willing to give up the privileges they received for aiding colonial domination and they are cheering on genocide. He is right about that. He argues that the “Hebrew nation” - a euphemism he’s coined for Israel - is legitimate because they have a common language and a large part of the Israelis are born in Israel. He argues further that, even though this was achieved by terrible oppression and theft, this is no reason to call for a return of the land, since this also has not happened in the USA, Canada and Australia. They have been living on the land for a while and thus it became theirs.

In European society, this logic isn’t followed, as the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany seized expropriated homes that were stolen during the Nazi rule of Germany as recently as this year. As there are no living heirs identified, the property goes to the foundation itself. I don’t want to deny that there is a debate to be had about how long you can expropriate and return stolen land, homes and other resources, but the dismissal of any restoration on the part of Conrad is telling.

Conrad’s demands would be the abolition of Zionist Israel, legal equality for all, secularism, halting expansionism and withdrawal from the occupied territories. This leaves a lot open for interpretation, but that could come in handy for the solution that Conrad sees for the conflict.

His solution is one of a mutual recognition of the colonised and the coloniser of each other’s national rights. Conrad argues that this reconciliation can be made possible through a communist pan-Arab movement, a Communist Party of Arabia. Once they establish working class rule in a socialist republic of Arabia, they could entice the Israeli working class to join them with federal status. Then, the colonisers would be willing to give up their ethnostate and would make socialist revolution in Israel. What happens to the Palestinians in this scenario is not mentioned. Conrad deems their struggle and resistance hopeless. The demands stated in the previous paragraph does not mention any atonement whatsoever. Israel is to remain as a red colony.

There is a lot left unsaid in this article by Conrad. There are a lot of questions left. Would a communist movement be able to develop and win without Zionist interference? Nasser was defeated by the Zionists when he tried, and the Israeli working class didn’t seem to be bothered at all. Is Arabist unity possible when Israel is wedged in between the Arab states? Do the Arab communists even want to ally themselves with the Israeli working class, which has done nothing to gain the grace of the Arab working class?

The obvious answer is no. The Israeli working class will not heed the call to end their ethnostate. They won’t consent to giving it up. In the hypothetical scenario of a Communist Party of Arabia, the Israelis would use the struggle to further the destabilisation and weakening of the regional powers, just as they are doing in Syria as we speak. This would obviously have the support of the Zionist working class.

The solution does not lie in seeking out alliances with ‘red Zionists’, but in struggling against Zionism altogether. Conrad paints a picture of an undefeatable Israel, but this is not the truth. Israel might have military prowess at this moment, but it is dependent on diplomatic, economic and military support from the western world. It is dependent on the public assuming that defeat is impossible and support is endless. Conrad assesses correctly that Israel is highly militarised. He frames it as a sign of strength, but in reality it is a sign of vulnerability.

Communists should seek to exploit these weaknesses. They should seek to disrupt the western support for the colony. They should seek to build political support for the Palestinians, as well as other forms of support. They should put the injustices and illegitimacy of the Zionist entity at the forefront.

The only way for an end to the oppression of the Palestinians is to weaken Israel. Once the Israelis realise their ethnostate won’t last forever, that their future is dependent on the good graces of the peoples surrounding them (even the Muslims), then a solution becomes a real possibility. No solution is possible if the Zionist state is in a position of strength.

Conrad seeks to legitimise the occupation, to ignore the crimes and theft against the Palestinians. He wants a Communist Party of Arabia that wants to normalise relations with Israel - Zionism with a red flag.

Jonathan Scheerder
email

Fascism undefined

Your article, ‘Notes on America’, makes a lot of fascism and neo-fascism and gives some definitions (March 20). But why do you think it is so important to define whether or not something is fascism anyway?

In working class history, communist parties have called regimes fascist and then gone on to have a popular front with capitalist parties. This is a cross-class alliance, which is against the interests of the working class - it holds back revolution and undermines the fight for communism. Communism is the only answer for the working class and the world.

Jack Conrad did not give any reasons for harping on about whether fascism existed in a country or not. Surely communists have to fight against capitalism, whatever kind of regime it is. So how come it is important what the label of a nasty capitalist system is?

I suppose I’m asking what is different about how communist parties fight when it’s not fascism, but workers are viciously attacked and civil liberties are non-existent - and fascism? You have to fight against the boss class and its regime to the best of your ability, whatever label you give it, don’t you? Calling it fascism or not makes no difference, so why go on arguing about it? We have to fight whatever.

Rod Smith
London

Fascism looming

A wealth tax is a transitional demand. Together with windfall taxes on the superprofits of transnational corporations, increasing corporation taxes and seriously targeting moving vast sums abroad to tax havens to avoid tax at home, this implies the beginnings of a rejection of the neoliberal agenda of Regan and Thatcher, begun at the ‘other’ 9/11 - the Chile coup of September 11 1973.

Back in 2016 John McDonnell said that the City of London is seen as a “tax haven” at the centre of a worldwide system designed to help the super-rich avoid paying tax, as he called for an independent inquiry into the Panama Papers. But, when he was the shadow chancellor following the big success of Labour in the 2017 election, he became very anxious to placate the City of London, and he stopped all that foolish leftism - he also apologised for the sympathetic remarks he made about the IRA.

After all, this was what the 1945 Labour government did, despite its appalling record of class collaboration with Winston Churchill in alliance with the CPGB Stalinists (then in a full popular-front alliance with capitalism, as spelled out in the Yalta conference - guaranteeing capitalism’s survival in Europe by crushing revolutionary upsurges in France and in seven other countries and accepting dominance for Stalin where the so-called Red Army was in control). This meant that revolutionary uprisings in Warsaw, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Vietnam and most shamefully northern Italy were betrayed. Tito attempted to support the Greek working class, much to Stalin’s displeasure, but in northern Italy the working class, led by communists, liberated many cities, only to be bombed by the Allies.

Stalin’s hack in Italy, Palmiro Togliatti, even entered a government led by the fascist, Pietro Badoglio. He was deputy prime minister from April to December 1944. To enforce the alliance of the Communist Party, socialists, liberals and Christian Democrats he then proceeded to expel and assassinate the naive communists in the communist movement of Italy, who were under the impression that Stalin was still a revolutionary socialist like the 1917 Bolsheviks, because, under illegality, they had not experienced the popular front degeneration turn of 1934-35 and thought they could repeat the Russian Revolution.

Of course, as in Greece, they were falsely accused of ‘Trotskyism’ and allying with the fascists. In the Morning Star letters page Trotskyist renegade Ollie Coxhead has defended these appalling acts of class treachery. The Trotskyists were the leading forces seeking revolution and the Stalinists even collaborated with the Nazis to murder them. David Broder, in his excellent 2021 book, The rebirth of Italian communism 1943-44: dissidents in German-occupied Rome, tells this story in great detail.

We now arrive at the CPGB’s reluctance to advocate a wealth tax, which would unleash the downtrodden working class, who would then be open to the demand for the expropriation of the capitalists and a workers’ government. A workers’ uprising in the US, UK and EU is inevitable, despite the attempts of the Democrats, the Labour Party, social democrats and trade union bureaucracy to stop it, just as they betrayed the 2023 strike wave.

In Trump’s US what we are seeing is the construction of a fascist state with the strong possibility of a civil war and the abolition of the constitution. In 1991, George Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, now the most senior Supreme Court judge and a believer in the original purpose of all Supreme Courts judgements and constitutional amendments. One recent commentator cited him as the central character who would defend that constitution. But black man Thomas cited the shocking Dred Scott 1857 judgement - black people were not citizens and could never escape slavery, which sparked the Civil War - in justification of the 2022 abolition of the right to abortion contained in the Roe vs Wade 1973 judgement.

We are seeing the construction of a fascist state in the US, to be followed by Germany and elsewhere if it is not defeated. And, contrary to Jack, we do have substantial blackshirts and brownshirts in the US now - the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, etc - particularly after Trump’s pardoning those who attempted the coup of January 6 2021, which did have the support of key parts of the National Guard and US Army and came close to success. His replacement of leading army, CIA/FBI figures and judges with his own supporters shows he has advanced plans to abolish elections in the US.

Neither Mussolini nor Hitler came to power solely with the support of these street thugs. After the October 1922 March on Rome, Mussolini was allowed to abolish the constitution by the king. Similarly, Hitler came to power constitutionally and on June 30 1934 completed the construction of the fascist state by executing the leaders of the Strasserite movement (which sought a second, socialist, revolution after getting rid of the Jews, who allegedly represented finance capital). Ernst Röhm, leader of the brownshirts, was executed despite Hitler’s opposition, because the state-terrorist Gestapo now replaced them.

Gerry Downing
Socialist Fight

Die Linke votes

I was amazed to read a short and enraged article by Yanis Varoufakis, in which he laments that “Die Linke has joined the warmongering radical centrists in their rearmament folly.” The former finance minister of Greece thinks it’s “goodbye” and “goodnight for Die Linke”, because apparently the party “could have blocked” the constitutional amendment that now allows for unlimited military spending. Elsewhere, I’ve read that Die Linke refused to stop the vote going through because it would have meant they had to vote with the rightwing Alternative für Deutschland.

Did they do so? Well no, is the short answer. It’s a bit complicated - but not so complicated that somebody who used to help run a European country, went to Cambridge University and now works as an academic should get it quite so wrong. Most interesting in any case is what Varoufakis leaves out.

Here is the slightly longer answer: Die Linke does demand, quite rightly, a radical reform of the so‑called debt brake (Schuldenbremse), which was inserted into the German constitution in 2009 after the global financial crash and prohibited the German government from increasing its annual debts by more than 0.35% of gross domestic product. The 16 federal states were not allowed to increase their new debts at all.

Previous chancellor Angela Merkel wanted to appear ‘super sensible’, but created in reality a broken country, which has become particularly apparent after billions were spent on Covid and the Ukraine war: there is no money to repair bridges and roads, hospitals and schools. Things in Germany are falling apart - and very visibly so.

Die Linke argued and campaigned strongly against this particular reform of the debt brake pushed through by the mainstream pro-war parties, which will allow the government of the day to borrow and spend an unlimited amount of money on anything to do with ‘defence’ (ie, war).

Die Linke, just like the rightwing AfD and the BSW (the new party of ex-Die Linke MP Sahra Wagenknecht), even tried various legal appeals to the German federal court to try and stop the vote. They argued - rather pointlessly - that the old Bundestag should be considered dissolved. Why? Because of the success of the AfD (20.8%) and Die Linke (8.8%) at the February 23 elections, the mainstream pro-war parties in the new Bundestag will no longer have the two-thirds majority required to change the constitution (and thereby the debt brake). This legal manoeuvring was never going to work - mainly because it was absolute nonsense: a new parliament has to be formed “within 30 days” of the last election and March 25 was long scheduled as the change-over date.

The AfD (and the MPs who defected from Die Linke to the BSW) also tried to convince MPs to force a parliamentary vote on declaring the new Bundestag in session. Die Linke is now being heavily criticised for refusing to join in this attempt. If they had refused only because it would have meant voting together with the AfD, then the critics would have been correct. The attitude of ‘do not touch the AfD’ has only helped this outfit to grow.

But the potential outcome was always clear - it obviously would have been voted down, though it might have caused some friction along the way. I think Die Linke was therefore correct to refuse to get involved in this rather pointless charade - though admittedly, as has now become apparent, critics ranging from the AfD via the BSW, the Stalinists in the German Communist Party and various anarchist outfits are using it as a nice stick to beat Die Linke with - rather unfairly, in my view.

Die Linke is currently a minority coalition partner in two federal states: the west German city-state of Bremen and the east German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In both, Die Linke members of the government did, however, not insist on an abstention, but allowed the representatives in the Bundesrat to vote in favour of the reform. That is indeed outrageous and the reasons by they did so are as obvious as they are wrong.

Contrary to what Varoufakis writes, the reform of the debt brake also included the setting up of a Sondervermögen (special budget) of €500 billion, €100 billion of which is reserved for (unnamed) climate measures, while €400 billion is to be spent on ‘modernising infrastructure’ (roads, bridges, etc), but also run-down schools and hospitals - and €100 billion of those are to be divided up and spent by the 16 federal states. That was clearly designed to get most of the Länder on board as well as the Greens (not that it was needed - they are the most gung-ho when it comes to the war on Ukraine anyway).

Die Linke ministers in Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern therefore argued (not wrongly) that the money does not just go on defence - ie, they stepped right into the ‘government responsibility trap’. But, even if they had insisted on an abstention, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome and there still would have been a two-thirds majority in favour of the reform - again, contrary to what Varoufakis writes. From our perspective, that makes it even worse, of course, because these ministers were simply signalling to their SPD coalition partners that they too can manage capitalism.

The decision has been strongly criticised both by Die Linke members, including those in those two states, and the national leadership, which is apparently fuming (though there is no official statement - yet). But clearly the party as a whole fought hard against the reform. Those who allowed a ‘yes’ vote should be expelled from the party - they acted clearly against the position agreed by the party as a whole (and also featured in the election manifesto).

I don’t expect that the Linke leadership will do this - or indeed accept that this behaviour really is the logical outcome of taking government responsibility in a non-revolutionary situation and as a clear minority. One of the reasons the party did well in the national February 23 elections was the fact that it stood on a clear platform of opposition (‘Everybody wants to govern. We want to change things’). But that has not translated into an understanding that participation in regional governments should obviously be opposed too. Perhaps this mini-scandal will push the party - thanks to its many new leftwing members - in that direction. Fingers crossed.

Not that Varoufakis goes there - taking over ‘government responsibility’ is, after all, exactly what he and the rest of Syriza did in Greece - with the inevitable outcome that these socialists ended up attacking the working class, all in the name of responsibly ‘balancing the books’. In fact, Varoufakis seems to imply that the debt brake is very good indeed and should not be reformed at all: “The German parliament amended the constitutional debt brake so as to enable unlimited military spending, irrespectively of how deeply into the red it will push the federal government’s budget.” He still preaches fiscal ‘responsibility’ and adhering to the dictate of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc.

His explanation as to why the vote went through is no better: “The underlying reason for introducing this stunning change to Germany’s constitution is simple: German automakers are now too uncompetitive. They can’t profitably sell their cars to civilians in Germany or abroad. So they demand that the German state buys tanks that Rheinmetall will be making on Volkswagen’s disused production lines. To get the state to pay for this, the constitutional brake of government deficits had to be bypassed.”

Simple. It’s all about the economy and has nothing to do with the massive German political and financial support for the Ukraine war, the changing geopolitical situation after Trump’s victory or the efforts to remake Europe into a serious player.

The man has learned absolutely nothing from the fiasco of the Syriza government and clearly does not seem to understand global politics either. It is amazing how some still celebrate him as some kind of socialist hero.

Tina Becker
email

Who killed JFK?

George Joannides was a CIA officer who in 1963 was the chief of the agency’s ‘psychological warfare’ branch in Miami. He directed and financed the Student Revolutionary Directorate - a group of Cuban exiles whose officers had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assassination of President John F Kennedy on November 22 1963.

In 1978 Joannides was the agency’s liaison to the United States ‘House Select Committee on Assassinations’. He was said to be the author of the CIA concept of “plausible deniability”. Given his role as head of PsyOps, it is not beyond the realm of reason that Joannides authored at least some of the disinformation conspiracy theories that have plagued the JFK assassination case ever since.

Alleged suspects in the assassination have included George HW Bush, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, the Watergate burglars, Mafia hitmen, deep-state hypnotists, Cuban emigres ... Joannides must have been quietly amused by just how readily the kook and screwball community took the bait. Not only did they gulp down the little titbits initially fed to them, but they converted them into a thousand and one conspiracy theories, and thereby manufactured a vast industry of disinformation - all helping to detract from who and what may have been responsible.

Of course, if the assassination of JFK was ‘officially’ sanctioned in some deniable way, agencies or services given the ‘job’ would frequently ‘contract it out’ to other agencies, organisations and networks, who themselves might sub-contract out a number of times, to remove all traces of direct responsibility. One would hardly expect that any of this, or any economic transactions to support it, would have been documented in any way - and, if there had been any documentation, it would surely have been destroyed decades ago.

Given the massive interpenetration and intermeshing of official US state and intelligence agencies with the likes of the Mafia and the Cuban émigré terrorist networks (to both counter each other’s activities and to use them to their own ends), it is hardly surprising the picture of actual involvements becomes very complex and hard to disentangle, making it difficult to assess who was really using who.

Some years ago now, respected BBC journalist and investigative reporter Gavin Esler effectively demolished two key planks of the ‘multiple shooters’ conspiracy theories that have surrounded the JFK case. First, Esler confirmed from primary records and interviews that Oswald was in fact a crack marksman and was perfectly capable of accurately firing the three shots from the 6.5 mm Carcano rifle found at the scene, loading and reloading each time.

Second, the ‘multiple shooters’ theories came from the notion that the two bullets which were fired by Oswald (or at least from that direction) and hit the occupants of the presidential car could not have caused all the entry and exit wounds to Kennedy and governor John Connally, who was sitting in front of him. There must therefore have been, according to the conspiracy theorists, more shots and more shooters: ie, a conspiracy.

It still, however, remains unclear whether Oswald was acting off his own volition or on behalf of others. Lyndon B Johnson, Kennedy’s vice-president who succeeded him to the presidency, was strongly convinced that either the Soviets or the Cubans were implicated in the assassination, and was fearful if that came out in the open, the public clamour for retaliation against either could lead to nuclear war, with 40 million Americans killed in the first hour.

Oswald had previously defected and then returned from the USSR in the late 1950s. His public activism in favour of Cuba in New Orleans, his alleged contacts with the Soviet and Cuban embassies in July 1963 (the CIA suspected he was looking for an escape route after the assassination), his earlier defection to the USSR and living there for a period - all indicated communist affiliations.

To avoid any misinterpretation of my words, I personally do not believe either the Soviets or Cuban government had any direct involvement in the Kennedy assassination. It was just a year after the Cuban missile crisis and two years after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion ordered by Kennedy. Cuban intelligence has estimated there were 42 distinct assassination attempts on Castro during JFK’s presidency. There had also been numerous dreadful terrorist attacks against Cuban infrastructure and Cuban civilians, carried out from America’s southern shore.

Kennedy’s erratic and reckless behaviour leading up to and during the Cuban missile crisis (we know he was constantly wracked with pain and frequently addled with a cocktail of painkiller and other drugs), nearly led to nuclear world war.

Khrushchev was deeply concerned by the immaturity of JFK, his apparent instability and mood swings (he didn’t know of his addiction to drugs, although may have suspected it), and had to act with the most flexibility and responsiveness during the Cuban missile crisis, making significant concessions to avoid immediate and then total war - concessions and retreats which may have contributed to his ouster in 1964.

It is intriguing that the most recent files released first under Biden and then Trump appear to relate to Oswald’s time spent in Mexico and his contacts with the CIA there. The extent and degree of Joannides’ involvement and therefore of his bosses remains to be seen.

Andrew Northall
Kettering