Originally published at Liberation School on January 26, 2011
For 500 years, Portuguese colonialism was built upon the slave trade and the systematic pillaging of its African colonies: Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome e Principe, Angola and Cape Verde.
Marxist historian Walter Rodney summarized Portuguese’s colonial rule in Africa: “The Portuguese stand out because they boasted the most and did the least. After close to half a thousand years not a single medical doctor had been trained in Portuguese Mozambique. As for Guinea Bissau, Portugal confessed open neglect of this territory.”
Amilcar Cabral was born in Bafatá, Guinea Bissau, to Cape Verdean parents in 1924. He was the son of Juvenal Lopez Cabral, a schoolteacher and anti-colonial activist, and Iva Pinhel Evora, a seamstress and laborer in a fish supplying factory. At the age of eight, his family moved back to the Cape Verdean Islands, where he excelled as a student and poet.
There were several droughts in Cape Verde in the 1940s leading to the deaths of over 50,000 people from starvation. The impact of the drought was felt even more sharply because of Portugal’s indifference to the suffering and starvation. The contradictions of colonial rule across Africa inspired the 20-year-old Cabral to vow to wage a life and death struggle to free his people from the yoke of foreign domination.
The Portuguese empire offered a few scholarships to students from the colonies in hopes of co-opting and training them to be future functionaries of the Portuguese colonial government. Because of his exemplary intelligence, in 1945, Cabral received a scholarship to study in the colonial center of Lisbon, where he came into contact with other African students from the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Sao Tome e Principe, and Mozambique.
His arrival in Europe at the close of World War II coincided with a new stage of struggle throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In country after country, colonized populations began to demand independence. Even the intellectuals who had been trained in Europe and traditionally argued that colonialism brought “progress” began to assert otherwise.
Interacting with his counterparts from British and French colonies in Africa, Cabral formed the African Studies Center in 1948 in Lisbon. He worked closely with Augustinho Neto, the future leader of Angola’s liberation struggle, and Eduardo Mondlane, first president of FRELIMO (the Liberation Front of Mozambique) in an underground study group to discuss political theory, including Marxism, and solutions to the African colonial question.
Trained as an agronomist, Cabral returned to Guinea. He traveled the countryside to study his country’s soil topography and crop production, generating the first and best scholarly study on the topic.
His travels throughout Bissau and Angola familiarized him even more with the psychological and economic features of colonialism and the cultural life of his people. For instance, he realized that some of the conventional demands of the left towards the peasantry—such as land reform—were not the most pressing; in the Guinean countryside, small private landholdings were already common.
Instead, peasants experienced the burdens of colonialism most heavily through their interactions with Portuguese merchants: their exploitative trade rates, insistence on single-crop production and daily personal humiliations. These experiences would have a profound influence in his writings and outlook on how to defeat Portuguese rule in Africa.
Though Cape Verde is a series of islands 500 miles off the coast of Africa, the nations of Cape Verde and Guinea share a similar history. The Portuguese rulers sought to divide the two nations by favoring the Cape Verdeans, who were thought to be lighter-skinned than the Guineans. Cabral saw the destiny of the two nations as inseparable and in 1956 formed the African Party for Independence (PAI), which would later become the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), declaring open armed struggle as the way forward.
National liberation and the ‘road of socialism’
Cabral was part of a trend in the worldwide anti-colonial movement that, drawing inspiration from the Chinese and Vietnamese examples, argued for the supremacy of the urban and rural masses in national liberation struggles. Cabral believed revolutionary socialism was the only genuine solution for colonized peoples: “In our present historical condition, there are only two possible paths for an independent nation, to return to imperialist domination (neo-colonialism, capitalism, state capitalism), or to take the road of socialism.”
Cabral divided history into three epochs related directly to the development of the means of production: society before classes (of which he called for more study), class society, and a future communist society in which private property and class divisions would be eliminated. Guinean pre-class society had already given way to class divisions prior to Portuguese colonialism, but the latter had stunted the colonies’ economic and cultural development.
The objective for Cabral was to seize the national productive forces, further develop them and utilize them for the common good. He argued that only mass, popular resistance—not just negotiation conducted by a small stratum of intellectuals—could ever be successful in truly completing these tasks.
Guinea, as a super-exploited colony, had a small urban working class and Cabral looked to the peasantry as the social force capable of defeating the Portuguese. He emphasized the unreliable nature of the native bourgeoisie, which developed as a service class for colonialism. He warned that they would seek to inherit the state apparatus and continue to siphon off the wealth of the nation to imperialism as long as they received their share. “If we accept the principle that the liberation struggle is a revolution and that it does not finish at the moment when the national flag is raised and the national anthem played.”
Instead, “we are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the color of men’s skins; we do not want any exploitation in our countries, not even by black people.”
Cabral directly addressed intellectuals and called on them to abandon their loyalty to other class interests and the agents of imperialism. Instead, the role of the revolutionary intellectual was to march shoulder-to-shoulder with the most oppressed sectors of society. The latter were the only social force truly capable of carrying out a social revolution. (“Return to the Source,” 1974)
In the process of struggle, guerrilla leaders would undergo “a reafricanization of the spirit.” In short, this meant that picking up arms against the colonial rulers would puncture the mythology of the latter’s “greatness and invincibility” and restore African people’s identity, dignity and self-determination.
In his famous “The Weapon of Theory” address at the 1966 Tricontinental Congress in Havana, Cabral expressed the desire and determination to emulate the Cuban people’s example of overthrowing all forms of exploitation through armed struggle. Like Che Guevara, Cabral emphasized the human dimension of the liberation struggle, hoping that out of the struggle for a new society, a new man and new woman would develop elevated beyond egotism and self-interest.
Maria da Luz “Lilica” Boal, an original combatant with Cabral who oversaw the school for children in the liberated territories in the late 1960s and early 1970s, described to Liberation the character of his leadership. She recalled how Cabral checked in at the school every morning gently adjusting the children’s school uniforms and having a laugh with them before he left to oversee the ideological and political training of the PAIGC cadre.
Cabral’s internationalism
Undoubtedly familiar with Lenin and the general line of the Communist International in the wake of World War I, Cabral also viewed national liberation as part of a worldwide struggle against capitalism in its imperialist stage. In 1970, Cabral visited Alma Ata, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan, for a conference on oppressed nation’s self-determination. Cabral called Lenin “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.”
In fascist Portugal, all references to Marxism and class struggle were punishable by imprisonment, torture and even execution. It was in Africa that many conscripted Portuguese soldiers, of rural and working-class backgrounds, first came into contact with ideas about democracy and socialism. The steadfast resistance and determination of the peoples of Cape Verde and Bissau wore down the conscripted Portuguese army and emboldened them to rebel against their commanding officers in 1974.
Thirteen years of war against the African liberation movements had moreover over-extended the Portuguese military and become a burden on the economy. In an interview with Portuguese poet and politician Manuel Alegre, Cabral spoke directly to the 20,000 Portuguese conscripts urging them to consider their class interests above and beyond the national chauvinism their ruling class fed them.
Portuguese officers began to refuse orders on African battlefields, and formed an Armed Forces Movement (MFA) that supported the demand for independence. In today’s terms, this would be equivalent to the rank-and-file of the U.S. military declaring their solidarity with the Iraqi resistance—imagine the impact!
The MFA led a rebellion against fascism at home, which ended more than 40 years of rule under António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano. It opened the door to a popular upsurge that nearly claimed power for the Portuguese workers. These social convulsions in the imperial center in turn facilitated the independence of Portugal’s African colonies.
Each wave of revolution builds on and draws from the victories of the past. Just as the Cuban revolution received invaluable support from the Soviet Union, the national liberation struggles in Guinea and other colonies likewise received invaluable assistance from the Cubans, who sent an international mission under the leadership of Victor Drake to train PAIGC cadre.
You can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution
The PIDE—the Portuguese secret police—functioned both at home and in the colonies to harass, jail and squelch all resistance against the ruling junta. They had Cabral killed on Jan. 20, 1973. It was only a few months before the victory of his people over Portuguese colonialism and the declaration of the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
Cabral is only one in a long list of African revolutionaries and visionary leaders assassinated by the colonialists and their elite allies. That list includes Eduardo Mondlane of Mozambique, killed by a PIDE letter bomb in 1969. It includes Félix-Roland Moumié, a Marxist Cameroonian leader murdered by French intelligence in 1960. It includes Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, and Chris Hani of South Africa.
These figures, and the movements they led, contrast sharply with all of the racist, bourgeois clichés about corrupt, inefficient, vainglorious, tribal African leadership and failed states. Instead of inter-ethnic conflict and the enrichment of a tiny elite, they projected broad African unity premised on the public ownership of the continent’s vast resources. This vision—which cut to the very heart of imperialist control—remains potent, ready to be picked up and expanded by the next generation of African revolutionaries. From Tunisia to South Africa, and everywhere in between, the stage is set for a new era of class and anti-imperialist struggles. Amilcar Cabral’s legacy and thought remains valuable today.
Originally published at Liberation School on April 10, 2013
While the ruling class mourns the death of one of their most loyal politicians and mouthpieces, the British and Irish working classes and oppressed peoples the world over are certainly not mourning Margaret Thatcher’s passing. From the streets of Belfast to the streets of Brixton, we are seeing a different response from working-class communities who remember all too well the “festival of reaction” that Thatcher reigned over.
Thatcher’s term as prime minister and Ronald Reagan’s as president symbolized U.S. and British imperialism’s brutal offensive against the working classes of their two countries and increased military aggression abroad. “Thatcherism” and “Reaganism” represented union-busting, greater poverty and an enriched elite.
Thatcher’s track record included the intense suppression of the Irish liberation movement, military invasion in Latin America and a war against the interests of British workers.
Ireland—the oldest colony in the world
Nowhere was Thatcher more hated than in Ireland, meaning that she believed the six northern counties of Ireland were part of the United Kingdom. Ireland was in fact divided by British imperial dictate in 1921, leaving the six northern counties under the jurisdiction of the British crown.
When Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, “the Troubles” had already raged for over 10 years. She continued the repression against the Irish Republican forces. Republicans in Ireland are those who advocate an Irish Republic free from British control.
The “Troubles” refers to the two decades of intense violence that began in 1968 when the oppressed Catholic population in northern Ireland—who began massive civil rights marches to demand the end of systematic repression and discrimination—were brutally attacked by the fascist Royal Ulster Constabulary. Armed resistance arose by the republican forces against the pro-British terrorist paramilitaries.
Thatcher refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Irish resistance, the fighters having been stripped of their political-prisoner status in 1976. She infamously stated: “Crime is crime is crime. It is not political.”
In 1981, the Republican prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest being treated as criminals and not prisoners of war. Thatcher stood by callously as one by one, the beloved Irish revolutionaries died in a series of 10 continuous hunger strikes that popularized Ireland’s struggle across the world.
In retaliation, the Irish Republican Army narrowly missed killing her in 1984, exploding bombs at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton, killing four other Conservative Party delegates and seriously wounding members of Thatcher’s delegation.
In 1988, she introduced a broadcasting ban in the six counties making it illegal to broadcast the views of the political party Sinn Fein “to deny terrorists the oxygen of publicity on which they thrive.”
Despite her best attempts to break the back of Irish resistance, that freedom struggle pushed on with hundreds of thousands of people coming into the streets in support of the hunger strikers. Before his death, Bobby Sands said: “They won’t break me, because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.”
An imperialist abroad, a racist at home
Thatcher oversaw Britain’s role in its war with Argentina over the Malvinas islands, which are situated 8,000 miles away from London in the south Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Argentina. Britain first claimed the islands in 1833 as part of its global empire.
In April 1982, the Argentinian ruling junta under fascist general Jorge Rafael Videla ordered the military to retake the Malvinas in an attempt to distract workers from the dictatorship’s repression and tap into long-standing Argentinian anger at Britain’s claim on the islands. Despite having helped the Argentinian dictatorship come to power, U.S. imperialism sided with its British imperialist ally by providing intelligence and transport help.
Thatcher gave direct orders for the British nuclear-powered submarine called “The Conqueror” to attack an Argentinian naval vessel even though it was outside the area of conflict. In that attack, 323 Argentinian sailors were killed. Britain continues to claim the Malvinas because of their interest in plundering the oil in the region.
The 1980s represented a sharpening of global class war from Nicaragua to Mozambique to Moscow. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan worked hand in hand to carry out a neoliberal agenda and quell liberation movements worldwide. Thatcher was a close ally of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile and other infamous fascist dictators. She allowed the U.S. Air Force to bomb Libya from airbases in England. She supported Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, who would oversee the restoration of capitalism in Russia. She supported apartheid in South Africa even as governments around the world began to impose sanctions on the apartheid regime. She labeled the freedom-fighting African National Congress “terrorists.”
Within Britain, Thatcher’s role was to carry out a vicious ruling-class agenda to dismantle the social safety net and crush the voices of oppressed sectors of British society.
In 1981, a social rebellion swept across Britain sparked by high unemployment and unequal social conditions. The racist police brutality against the Black Caribbean population of Brixton in South London was the spark that led to months of insurrection. When confronted with this pressure from below to address segregation and provide opportunities to youth, Thatcher rejected the idea that social conditions had anything to do with the unrest. In her typical inhumane, cold-blooded fashion she stated: “What absolute nonsense. … No one should condone violence. No one should condone the events. … They were criminal, criminal.”
Thatcher sought to break the power of labor unions—attacking nationalized industry, upholding the “free market” and waging a war against the “welfare state.”
Thatcher presided over the 1984 privatization of the coal mining industry in Great Britain. The denationalization meant that 20 coal pits were shut down resulting in the loss of 20,000 jobs. Many families in the north of England, Scotland and Wales lost their primary source of work
On June 18, 1984, near Rothertham, thousands of police brutally attacked striking miners in what was dubbed “The Battle of Orgreave.” Seven miners were killed in the conflict by the police who functioned as the shock troops for capitalist interests.
While Thatcher herself has died, Thatcherism, the legacy of unfettered attacks on workers and their right to live in peace continues. There is still saber rattling against Argentina over the Malvinas. Irish Republicans continue to be targeted for harassment and violence by the British state. Oppressed communities continue to be scapegoated and ruined.
We should not be misled by the Obama White House’s statement: “The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend.” The truth is that the pillagers and looters of the world lost one of theirs. We have no reason to mourn the loss of this loyal servant of our exploiters.
Originally published at Counter Punch on April 1, 2020
In this trying time, have you heard some of your friends say that the U.S. government created this pandemic or that the pandemic is not real at all?
It is worth responding to these outlandish claims because in times of social tumult, there are no lack of conspiracy theorists irresponsibly tossing these ideas around. It is right to distrust the people in power and “it is right to rebel.” Poor and oppressed people instinctively know this system does not work for them but it is important that we critically read the mainstream news and back up our counter arguments with history and science.
The Battle of Ideas
Overwhelmed by the spread of the virus, and the plague of poverty and injustice, our people are searching for answers. Deprived of history and a critical education, some of our friends come up with all types of ideas. Religious zealots say that the coronavirus is the work of god on high intervening in earthly affairs to “clean things up.”
The liberatory perspective sees things differently than conspiracy theorists or bible thumpers. An organization that defends human life and the environment puts forth a worldview and program to challenge the social class that today seeks to dominate us whereas reactionary worldviews, consciously or not, buttress the power of the dominant social class because they offer justifications of the status quo. It is important to be able to understand all strands of thought and their social origins, such as religious ideology, liberalism, fascism, conspiracy theory and of course Marxism. History will judge our line of thinking and program for action, especially whether we have done all that is feasible, used democratic procedures, and acted to defend all human life by transforming the prevailing capitalist system.
Where does conspiracy “theory” lead us?
We should all be reading far and wide to understand this virus and historical moment. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense encouraged their cadre to read the news for two hours every morning. Today this remains relevant. Wake up and read TheNew York Times, CNN, Foxnews, BBC and then read what the Chinese, Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan leadership is saying. With a dictionary by your side, (or nowadays with dictionary.com saved as one of your favorite websites) read what CounterPunch, The Gray Zone, Liberation News and other critical media sites are saying.
Yes political education is hard work and takes years of training. How much easier to just throw your hands up and say: “it’s the government!” or “its the hand of god!” Don’t waste your valuable time on conspiracy theorists because they only entertain ideas which confirm their own narrow view. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
To ignore the dangers of the virus is to also ignore the resistance of working people.
Detroit bus drivers went on strike and won greater protection from the virus. Amazon workers are on the frontlines of struggle right now. Peasants in Haiti are forming networks through WhatsApp and organizing teams on pickup trucks with bullhorns to raise awareness about the virus. The people and leadership of Wuhan, China coordinated an entire campaign to overcome the coronavirus. In another example of medical internationalism, China and Cuba are now sending doctors to dozens of countries to assist in the global fight against corona. In the column marked new deaths, which skyrockets every day in the West, the Chinese column has read zero for three consecutive days. We also cannot ignore the enormous hardships imposed upon the Iranian people who have a duel battle — one against the coronavirus and the other against an airtight U.S.-led military and economic blockade.
This unforeseen historical moment is pregnant with conversations and possibilities for building a new world in the aftermath of this pandemic that we could not have imagined last month.
Understanding the State
When we are walking down Utica, 149th or 125th St. we see the conspiracy documentaries. They are readily available. These conspiracy documentaries do more to retard and isolate than advance the struggle. They shroud the class enemy in mystery instead of exposing it. Why can’t you find any revolutionary documentaries or books in our communities? Because they are a threat to the powers that be.
How do the rich maintain their stranglehold over society? Through the state, universal surveillance, and the armed repression of one social class by another.
There is now extensive documentation exposing the government’s role in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the need to neutralize any other “Black Messiah,” as the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover put it. Just in 1969, the FBI and local police departments tracked hundreds of Black leaders and assassinated 28 of them. This was not merely the doing of a handful of specific individuals who were pulling some invisible strings. This was an entire system that is antagonistic to true empowerment of the Black community and all oppressed communities. The state is presently a tool of class oppression because corporate power is entrenched in the three branches of government; the elites created the police, courts, prisons and military to protect their monopoly over the wealth of society.
Know your Enemy
Conspiracy “theorists” are not theorists in the critical sense at all but charlatans who make it seem like the enemy aka the ruling power structure is a mysterious, shady worldwide network that is unable to be pinned down. As 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment last week and millions of other families anxiously await a meager check of $1,200; the billionaires are right before us in plain view, with their companies, property, mansions, yachts and stunning accumulation of wealth. As our families have to decide between intensified poverty because of layoffs or continuing to work and putting our loved ones at further risk, the bosses hide behind their laptops, cutting millions of jobs and moving billions of dollars.
The same individuals who run General Electric or Disney also own and run NBC, Telemundo and CBS. The social class that owns the means of production also controls the images, information and ideas that circulate through society. It’s up to us to challenge them, using every means of communication at our disposal. Conspiracy theories do not encourage us to fight back; they distract our attention when what we really need to do is organize around real-life issues.
Most of the big endorsers of conspiracy theorists are privileged dilatants who are just interested in promoting themselves and their “theory.” As we saw with the “9/11 truthers,” the “Zeitgeist” people and those obsessed with the “Illuminati,” their style leads to a cultish gathering around one “enlightened” thinker but organizes very little, if anything, for our communities. Show me a conspiracy theorist who does anything besides talk! It is a dead-end.
Which Way Forward? Fight to Learn, Learn to Fight
Cowering before such mesmerizing challenges, many good people fall into the conspiracy theory trap. But we propose another way forward. Join a union, student or tenant organization or study group.
We believe in the formation and training of multinational leadership and we believe in a broad struggle organized around every issue that affects our class i.e. access to healthcare, a people’s bailout, budget cuts, sexism, police brutality, wars of recolonization and military recruiting in our neighborhoods.
What will ever free us from the dictatorship of the rich and spare the planet more abuse by the corporations? Unity and struggle behind a program that seeks to overcome the multiple hierarchies of domination and create a democratic socialist economy aimed at meeting people’s needs rather than private accumulation.
Originally published at Counter Punch on June 26, 2020
The human rights group Indepaz reports that 800 activists have been killed in the past three and a half years in Colombia, since November 24, 2016, the date the government signed “the Peace Accord” with the FARC.[1] Taking advantage of society’s fear and distraction, and the demobilization caused by the novel coronavirus, state and paramilitary actors have intensified their violence against organizers and their communities. Human rights activists refer to themselves as “sitting ducks,” explaining that they are pinned down by the pandemic and cannot as easily flee and hide from the forces of repression.[2]
While state and non-state military actors are notorious for violence in Colombia, the police are also guilty of human rights crimes. On May 19, Anderson Arboleda, a 21-year-old Afro-Colombian was beaten to death by the police for supposedly “violating the quarantine” in the Pacific department of Cauca.[3] The police killing of Arboleda — which many compare to the Minneapolis Police Department murder of George Floyd — was not an isolated act. Journalists have found that black and indigenous Colombians have suffered the highest rates of institutional discrimination and police violence.[4]
Human Rights Watch conducted an investigation into Colombian police violations of the rights of peaceful protesters the past year as hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets against budget cuts and political assassinations. They found 72 cases of extreme police brutality. No officer was ever held responsible.[5] One of these cases was that of 17-year old Dilan Cruz. On November 23, Cruz was at a protest when he was killed by the Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (the ESMAD or Mobile Riot Squad) which fired live ammunition at him from a close distance.
COVID-19: double down crisis on poor Colombians
Colombia now has more than 71,000 cases of COVID-19 and has experienced 2,300 deaths.[6] In Latin America, Colombia trails only Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico in terms of the total number of cases and deaths from COVID-19.[7] At El Cumbe Internacional Antiimperialista, Afrodescendiente y Africano (The International Gathering Ground of Antiimperialists, Afro-descendents and Africans) on June 14th, former Colombian senator and lawyer Piedad Córdoba stated: “COVID-19 lays bare the moral, medical and political infrastructure of our country, especially in the poorer Afro-Colombian regions of the Pacific and the Caribbean. Our people have been the most beaten down by the pandemic.”[8] Senator Córdoba went on to speak about the “hurtful image of a young Black man from Quibdó in the Pacific department of Choco who died on a stretcher in front of a hospital without receiving care for the coronavirus.”[9]
Despite this unprecedented public health crisis, president Iván Duque and his government seem to be more concerned with suppressing the freedom of speech of activists, criminalizing resistance and encircling its neighbor Venezuela than seriously confronting the pandemic.
War as state strategy
The negotiations in Havana, Cuba from 2012 to 2016 resulted in a historic peace deal meant to end a 50-year war that cost over 220,000 lives and left 7 million displaced.[10] The centrist presidency of Juan Manuel Santos received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his role in the negotiations, though none of the peasant organizations on the other side of the war who endured decades of displacement, torture and death were ever mentioned as a candidate for the prize or in the ceremony. The government promised a Truth and Reconciliation Committee, land reform, reintegration of former guerrilla fighters, demilitarization of the conflict zones and political openings for the left. The June 2018 electoral victory of Iván Duque, a protégé of far right wing Alvaro Uribe, spelt immediate doom for the Havana peace accords. The government reneged on all of its promises and the areas where the FARC once commanded saw the highest rise in politically-motivated assassinations.[11] According to the United Nations, more than 170 former fighters have been murdered since the peace deal was signed.[12]
In response to these charges, Duque and the Colombian media dismissed the FARC dissidents as “narco terrorists,” despite their legitimate status as demobilized non-belligerents.[13]
Analyst, surgeon and the founder of Pueblos en Camino (The People in Motion), Manuel Rozental explains that the rich in Colombia do not want the military conflict to end because war has always been their cover for appropriating land and resources.[14] Colombian elites and transnationals, such as British Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Exxon Mobil, Coca Cola, Drummond and hundreds of others, use the war as a pretext to clamp down on social movements across Colombia.[15] War is their strategy to displace and dispossess. Any peasant or social organizations who stand in their way can easily be dismissed as coercive or criminal elements. Joel Villamizar is one example. Villamizar was a leader of La Asociación de Autoridades Tradicionales y Cabildos U’wa – ASOU’WA. When he was ambushed and murdered earlier this year the media and authorities simply dismissed him as a guerilla terrorist.[16]
“A War on Drugs?” or a “War on Sovereignty”?
According to all reputable data, Colombia is the main supplier of cocaine in the world and the U.S. is the main consumer.[17] The U.S. allegations that Nicolás Maduro oversees a narco government are politically motivated and not backed up by facts on the ground. Approximately 70 percent of cocaine that arrives in the U.S. comes from Colombia via different supply routes, many through the Pacific ocean.[18] The U.S. Navy is surrounding and blockading Venezuela, not to stop the flow of cocaine into the streets of the U.S., but rather to stop the progress of the Bolivarian process.
It is also worth pointing out that the drug epidemic in the U.S. is not caused principally by cocaine but rather by opioids, many of which are legally prescribed by doctors. According to the Center for Disease Control, over 70 percent of the 67,000 overdoses in 2018 were from opioids.[19]
On March 26th, Attorney General William Barr formerly accused the Venezuelan government of “narco terrorism” without even clarifying which drugs are killing Americans and where they come from.[20] This spoke to the political motivations behind the claims which were really trumped up charges designed to provide the legalese to ratchet up the war on Venezuela. Meanwhile, Washington takes no action against the government of Honduras, accused by even U.S. courts of being involved in drug related crimes, including Juan Orlando Hernández’s family and the president himself.[21]
The US Navy sent ships to further blockade Venezuela’s Caribbean coast on April 1[22] and the Southern Command deployed 800 more special force soldiers to Colombia on June 1.[23] This ignited a national debate in Colombia about the question of sovereignty. The Colombian Congress never agreed to allow foreign soldiers into their homeland.[24] Aida Avella, senator of the Patriotic Union party, stated: “The U.S. military cannot enter Colombian territory above Congress to advise the fight against drug trafficking. We reject the use of the country for wars and invasions of other countries.”[25] Lenín Moreno ceded “a new airstrip” in the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador for use by the U.S. military.[26] The U.S. military currently has nine bases in Colombia, twelve in Panama and 76 total in Latin America.[27] The US has deployed between 500 and 1,500 troops to Soto Cano air base in Honduras under the guise of humanitarian and drug-fighting operations.[28]There is also some evidence that the Colombian military may have supported the mercenaries who trained in Colombia before launching incursions into Venezuela in early May in a botched attempt to capture the Venezuelan president.[29]
Resistance is everywhere
Distrustful of the government’s commitments, thousands of government opponents have returned to the mountains or sprawling slums of Colombia’s cities.[30] Calling for a second Marquetalia Republic, in reference to the autonomous zones armed peasants held after La Violencia in 1948, rebel commanders like Iván Marquez and Jesús Santrech and their soldiers have taken back to the mountains.
Not all social actors embrace this strategy however. Warning that war is a trap, social movements drafted a letter to the FARC discouraging them from playing into the hands of the state. Around 70 percent of all casualties in the 50-year and running civil war have been civilians.[31]
In an interview on June 16 with Colombia’s Caracol Radio, representative of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) [32] and the head of the Dialogue Delegation of the guerilla army, Pablo Beltrán, explained their perspective. Beltrán said the ELN desires a cease fire but not as long as Duque brings in more U.S. soldiers, making a clash with those troops inevitable in Norte de Santander and Arauca on the border with Venezuela. The ELN has expressed that the priority should be alleviating poverty and keeping people safe from the coronavirus.
As the coronavirus impacts the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of Colombian society, there is little trust that Trump’s faithful partner, the notorious anti-Bolivarian Iván Duque, will respond in a comprehensive way to the health and economic needs of the population. Three national strikes convulsed Colombia between November and December last year because of the neoliberal cuts implemented by Duque. Unable to resolve the needs of their own population, the Colombian elites participate in the destabilization of one of its neighbors. The external and internal contradictions of Colombian society continue to sharpen, promising the playing out of a 50-year national liberation struggle Washington has always feared and sought to contain.
End notes.
[1] “Colombia: How armed gangs are using lockdown to target activists,”
Originally published at Counter Punch on May 17, 2021
All of Haitian society is in revolt.
A mambo and hougan—the traditional voudou priestess and priest—lead ancestral ceremonies before rallies take the streets and block the central arteries of Port-au-Prince, Cap Haïtien, and other Haitian cities and towns. After one of their members was kidnapped, leaders of the Protestant Church directed its congregation to halt all activities at noon on Wednesday and bat tenèb. Bat tenèb, literally “beat the darkness,” is a call for all sectors of Haitian society to beat pots, pans, street lights and anything else as a general alert of an emergency. A Catholic church in Petionville held a mass with political undertones against the dictatorship. When marchers from outside took refuge from the police inside the church, the Haitian National Police tear gassed the entire congregation.
Ti Germain, a well-known Lavalas activist, was hauled away by President Jovenel Moïse’s henchmen for protesting in the downtown Chanmas Plaza last week and has not been seen since. Peasants come together to form self-defense units against land grabs by the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK, or Haitian Bald Headed Party) and their foreign backers before mobilizing in the streets themselves. With the spiritual hymn of resistance blaring from a sound truck, “A fight remains a fight. My sword is in my hand, I’m moving forward,” tens of thousands of protesters move toward police lines guarding the Delmas 96 entrance, which seals off the Haiti of the 0.01 percent from that of the 99.99 percent.
Showdown: the police, the ruling class & imperialism vs the Masses of People 🇭🇹 Which side are you on? #Haiti 🇭🇹 pic.twitter.com/sxRhwaDN90
Chanting “The People Poetry Revolution!”, young writers and poets took to the streets on May 3 calling for a Haiti where youth have a future. A cultural worker, Jan Wonal, asserts, “They [the imperialists] fashion themselves the messengers of art, literature, history of art. So, for us, cultural revolution against cultural imperialism is an imperative.”
All of Haitian society is in revolt.
Who Cares About Haiti?
CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and the full gamut of mainstream media outlets have paid scant attention to this social insurrection. The headlines—if they mention Haiti at all—have focused on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Biden regime’s deportation of Haitians to the “civil unrest” of Haiti. The anti-neoliberal rebellion goes unmentioned.
According to one protestor at a mass demonstration, “If we were Hong Kong, Taiwan or in any country the U.S. lists as an enemy, there would be everyday coverage of our movement.”
The corporate press only mentions Haiti in the context of a natural disaster, a deadly disease or chaos. Millions of people in motion in a U.S. neocolony like Colombia, Chile or Haiti are not deemed newsworthy. The dominant narrative is people in the streets protesting is not a revolt, but a “political crisis.” It is not convenient for a neocolony to make noise and rise up against the empire’s handpicked lackeys and puppets.
In response to the media whiteout, Haitian intellectual Patrick Mettelus emphasized, “Our national liberation struggle is first and foremost a battle of ideas; it is an informational war. How can we counter the dominant narrative and show what is good, beautiful, encouraging and hopeful from our homeland?”
Showdown: Haiti vs. Imperialism
Ignoring months and years of widespread anger, Moïse continues to say resigning is not an option. The United Nations and Organization of American States (OAS) agree the U.S.-backed despot has another year remaining in his presidency, even though the 1987 Constitution stipulates his term ended on February 7. Former president Jean Bertrand Aristide called the UN, OAS and United States “the troika of evil” for the heavy-handed role they have played in Haiti’s historic destiny. This alone explains why Aristide was twice the victim of coup d’etats orchestrated by these neocolonial forces.
Moïse went before the United Nations General Assembly on February 24. In a 28-minute display of arrogance, the tone-deaf puppet patted himself on the back for supposedly carrying out ongoing socio-economic reforms. Adding insult to injury, Moïse now intends to brazenly overturn the 1987 constitution. This constitution was the result of consultations among hundreds of local committees representing all sectors of society一women, peasants, poor neighborhoods, etc.一coming together on the heels of the 1986 dechoukaj (uprooting) that overthrew dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Enshrined in the constitution is protection of Haitian cultural and economic sovereignty, and women’s empowerment, among other democratic rights. Today, these same sectors, representing the vast majority of Haitian society, are taking to the streets against Moïse and his dictatorial scheme to overturn the people’s constitution.
The reformist wing of the opposition has propped up a transition president, Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis, who has been in hiding since February 7, in fear of persecution of Jovenel’s National Intelligence Agency (ANI). Ruling class families such as the Vorbe/Boulos faction, which supported Jovenel (and Michel Martelly before) have now turned on Moïse and want to replace him without systemic change.
Kidnappings have reached epic proportions. The djaspora (Haitians in the diaspora) are afraid to travel back home. The Center for Human Rights Research and Analysis reported 157 kidnappings in the first three months of 2021. This lawlessness is representative of a society that has lost all confidence in Moïse. The most oppressed layers of society have been overwhelmed by the weak gourde (1 U.S. dollar equals 87 Haitian gourdes), widespread joblessness and no hopes for a dignified future. According to the UN’s World Food Program, half of Haiti’s 10.7 million people are undernourished. This bleek social reality has pushed the most castaway to resort to armed violence and taking hostages.
The fundamental demand of the popular sectors is a “sali piblik,” or a united transition away from dictatorship and neocolonialism that involves and empowers the masses of Haitian people.
While the corporate media silences Haitian voices, the Committee for Mobilization Against Dictatorship in Haiti (KOMOKODA), Leve Kanpe, the U.S./UN Out of Haiti Coalition, and other diaspora and anti-imperialist organizations across the United States and the world are standing with the historic Haitian rebellion.
“The ‘Core Group’ is a cabal of predatory countries and institutions created by the United States of America after the overthrow and kidnapping of President Aristide in 2004 to give a veneer of international legitimacy to their domination over Haiti,” KOMOKODA stated as the group protested May 3 in front of the French embassy in Port-au-Prince, “Join us as we stand in solidarity with the Haitian people, who are in the streets fighting for their liberation and their emancipation.”
Originally published at Counter Punch on September 21, 2023
Last week, headlines across the Dominican Republic accused Haiti of “illegally building a canal” that will divert waters from The Massacre River.[1] Dominican president Luis Abinader and his administration took swift actions, supposedly in retaliation for the ongoing construction, closing the border and denying all visas to Haitians. On Friday, the largest transportation union in Santo Domingo announced no Haitian is allowed to travel on buses, taxis or any public transportation. The statement, translated in its entirety below, reads like something straight out of the Bull Connor playbook, warning that “Haitians are a security risk…and in most cases carry knives & work tools.” Due to concerns about international pushback, the Dominican government was forced to walk back their position and a separate employee on each bus is now checking every Haitians’, or anyone perceived as Haitian, legal documents.
This is the first time the Dominican government closed the border since November 2021 when Port-au-Prince was engulfed in gang warfare and paramilitary gang violence against civilian communities. There are three border crossings, all of which are multiple hours away from the violent hellscape that is Port-au-Prince. The proxy gang war has intensified, and 2.5 million Haitians are trapped in the capital city as warring, marauding paramilitary factions burn down stable, working-class communities, raping, pillaging and massacring neighborhoods with rich traditions of resistance. The images are too ghastly to show, but a generation comes of age seeing horrific violence to a point where they have been desensitized and demoralizing. The revolutionary movement MOLEGHAF teaches its young militants: “Comrades you will not share Black Death Pornography on WhatsApp. We build our people’s self-esteem, not destroy it.”[2]
This manufactured “canal crisis” has nothing to do with a river and everything to do with opportunistic politicians, nationalism and the pending U.S.-sponsored foreign invasion and occupation of Haiti. Luis Abinader has traveled to the United Nations this week to further advocate for a Core Group invasion of Haiti. Closing the border and deporting thousands of Haitians adds more gasoline to the already existing conflagration and takes away an important economic escape valve and source of remittances. With the effective indoctrination campaign emanating from the mainstream Dominican and U.S. media, it is important to provide a counter-hegemonic narrative that contextualizes this fabricated showdown that pits two oppressed people against one another.
A Battle over Narratives
The dominant narrative the Dominican media is spinning is that the Haitian government and rich Haitian businessmen are diverting the water of El Rio Masacre to develop their own agricultural project. On the Haitian side of the border, masses of dispossessed farmers and everyday people have mobilized in hopes of distributing the water through a tributary that will irrigate their farms. From the Haitian popular perspective, this is a kombit, or collective work, to build something beneficial for the most marginalized.[3] Masses of people have come from around the northeast of Haiti to support the engineers and technological experts who are finishing the construction. For a nation bracing to endure the fourth U.S.-led, foreign invasion and occupation, the tributary has emerged as something to believe in.
Who owns the central arteries of the Dominican media? Like any loyal neocolony, an elite group of families own and manage the media apparatus. Bonetti, Marranzini, Corripio and Vicini are some of the biggest, billionaire (or almost billionaire) last names in DR who have inordinate influence over the manufacturing of consent. Given that “the ruling ideas of a given epoch are those of the ruling class,” it is clear why the Dominican masses see Haiti, Haitians and the Haitian revolution through the eyes of their oppressors. For example, it is widely accepted across the country of over 11 million people that the Haitian slave general and liberator, Jean Jacques Dessalines, was nothing more than “a wild, vengeful Black man who sought to kill all whites.” This is the symbolism and imagery that constitute for several generations, the manufactured “Dominican pesadilla (nightmare).”
Haiti’s politicians have been both incapable and uninterested in responding to the paramilitary gang’s destruction of neighborhoods and displacement and slaughter of tens of thousands of families. Opposed to the puppet Core Group lackey Ariel Henry, some of the politicians who were part of the former parliament are joining the patriotic parade to the border as it has become a populist cause. Grassroots activists have decried the motives of opportunistic politicians on both sides of the border which at times appears to enter into the theater of the absurd. It is even rumored that some of the most ruthless warlords like Kempes in Belè and Ti Lapli in Gran Ravin have pledged to stop raping, burning, plundering and murdering in Port-au-Prince to support the construction of the canal.
The Centrality of History
History is contested ground. The class forces in power use their own version of history and manipulate it in order to promote myths that advance their interests. The ruling class’ “take” then becomes the accepted version of events.
The Dominican nationalist version of history paints the western 1/3rd of the island, Haiti, as a dark specter that seeks to “re-invade the peaceful, democratic” Dominican nation, which must protect itself at all costs. The reality is the opposite; Haitians have been the victims of Dominican state-sponsored racism, forced displacement, and massacres. In October 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo oversaw a week-long extermination campaign along the border. More than an estimated 20,000 Haitians were murdered in the “Parsley massacre,” and thousands more were displaced. Anyone who could not pronounce the word parsley in Spanish, “perejil,” with its rolling r, was hacked to death. Rayanos, or mixed people who were bilingual in Spanish and Kreyòl and grew up around the border, at the intersection of both cultures, were also murdered.
The Dominican Republic is the only oppressed nation that celebrates its “independence” from another oppressed nation. The DR has two days to celebrate their independence, February 27th, when they separated from Haiti in 1844 and August 16th, when General Gregorio Luperón led the defeat of the Spanish empire in 1865 in what is known as the War of Restoration. The Dominican mis-educational system has lied about this history. For example, in 1822 Haitians sought to unite the island against French, Spanish and English colonialism and reenslavement. The ancestors of the Haitians freed the slaves on the Spanish Empire’s side of the island and broke up the Catholic church’s monopoly on land. Emerging Dominican oligarchs resented the Haitian unification of the island against white supremacy and created myths that are widely believed in DR today and even taught in the schools. For example, there are cliches repeated everyday about Haitian soldiers from 1822-1844 tossing Dominican babies in the air and chopping them up with machetes. There are individual Dominicans and a movement in solidarity with Haiti but it is relatively fractionalized and weak these days versus two decades ago because of ideological and state repression. Dominican scholar Professor Silvio Torres-Saillant emphasizes that “many of his descendents, specifically the darker-skinned ones lived much better with the arrival of the Haitians than before.”
Dr. Lorjia García-Peña’s The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction is a deep dive into this history of anti-Haitianismo and anti-Blackness. Dominican oligarchs, who are mostly Spanish-descended elites have successfully flipped history on its head. They have cast themselves as the victim and conveniently glossed over the true culprits of a blood-curdling history. Today, extreme Dominican nationalists invoke Trujillo’s memory and remember the massacre with nostalgia. The battle over history continues to be a vital part of the class struggle and the anti-imperialist struggle.
Beyond a Canal
On Feb. 20, 1929 representatives of the Haitian and Dominican government signed “The Treaty of Peace, Perpetual Friendship and Arbitration.” This treaty “established the right of the two nations to use the waters of the rivers that are in the border area in a fair and equitable manner” and “that the work being carried out on the Massacre or Dajabón River for water capture does not consist of a diversion of the watercourse.” Context is important here. In 1929, Haiti was still occupied by thousands of U.S. marines and these same marines had only recently left DR in 1924 after establishing a pliant National Guard with the infamous Rafael Leonidas Trujillo at its head. Jovenel Moise and Luis Abinader recognized the language of this treaty in a meeting in 2021. It was only the U.S.-backed assassination of Moise that stopped this infrastructure project.
Suddenly, last week, president Abinadar decided to take such drastic measures over a tributary? As Port-au-Prince experiences its worst violence, since arguably 1803 when General Leclerk and Napoleon applied a scorched earth strategy to Haiti in hopes of renslaving its population, the Dominican government expresses rage over a canal? What is the real reason this disagreement over the use of the 55 kilometer river has exploded into a crisis of diplomatic proportions?
Nationalism. Votes. Social control. Scapegoating.
The Dominican state has mobilized for a war. But a war against who? A corrupt non-existent neocolonial Haitian state? Against hundreds of thousands of internal refugees? Against farmers who finally have an infrastructural project that could bring them some relief? Against murderous gangs that have received some half a million high-grade weapons trafficked illegally from the United States?
3,000,000 Dominicans still live under the poverty line (measured as a family of 3 surviving on less than $370 dollars per month). 2.5 million Dominicans have already fled their homeland as economic refugees, roughly half to New York City. With municipal and presidential elections slated for next May, Abinader and his ruling Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) are posing as “the defenders of the nation.”
Dominican opinion-molders do more to obfuscate the situation than provide any clarity. They take video clips, like this one of the Haitian masses cheering on police headed to protect the building of the canal, as incontrovertible proof that the “savage” Haitians seek to invade their homeland. This manufactured uproar over local farmers in the northeast of Haiti accessing water is a straw man argument, a fallacy and distraction to again paint Haiti as the aggressor nation. Politicians with reelection aspirations and talk show hosts searching for sensationalism and click bait are cashing in on this moment to be “patriotic.” Blaming and attacking Haitians in DR is as common as Trumpian scapegoating tactics here in the U.S. El Anti-Haitianismo, an anti-Haitian ideology of sensationalism and violence, is the unofficial religion of the Dominican ruling class. Many true Dominican patriots and anti-imperialists have asked why doesn’t our state mobilize to protect and nationalize the U.S. and Canadian exploited gold in Cotuí, the nickel in Bonao, the tobacco of El Cibao, the U.S.-run sweatshops and tourist industry and all of the natural resources plundered by foreign powers?
The Dominican Republic is not a monolith
While nationalist tempers have flared, the ruling political cliques are divided on the question of closing the border.
Former president Leonel Fernandez, his political party Fuerza del Pueblo and an array of unions and civil society organizations have critiqued the border closure from day one and the impact it will have on the Dominican economy. According to Ariel Fornari, a retired military intelligence officer and political analyst in Santiago, “barely hours after Abinader’s intemperate and precipitous border closure decision, many Dominican patana drivers (18-wheeler flatbed semis), complained to the press about the border closure holding up their long lines of trucks with tons of cement sacks bound for Haiti.” Fornari went on to report: “There are entire sectors of the Dominican econòmy, agricultural and construction sector, which are almost exclusively dependent on Haitian labor. Some Dominican economists estimate that the Haitian diaspora’s contribution to D.R.’s tax base via the ITBIS (VAT) is in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”
Haiti is the Dominican Republic’s third biggest trading partner. Small merchants and vendors are the most impacted by the border closure. Per year there is over $1 billion in exports to Haiti and $11 million in imports. This does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars in informal trade at the border. Chino Villalona, longtime community leader in Dajabón told the author this morning: “The Haitians and their canal are not the threat. We don’t believe in extreme decisions. The threat are U.S. and Canadian companies who steal our natural resources and are building a mine now to further exploit us.”
Haitian and Dominican Solidarity
It is important to highlight the often unknown and downplayed instances of solidarity between the two nations.
As a blockaded, maroon state that defeated the French empire in 1804, Haiti supported liberation movements throughout the hemisphere. Simón Bolívar and the anti-colonial movement in El Gran Colombia looked to Haiti for arms and support. Venezuelan freedom fighters sewed and flew their first flag in Jacmel, Haiti in 1803 as Francisco de Miranda prepared his anti-colonial expedition to confront Spain. They supported their one-time adversary, the Dominican mulatto general, Francisco del Rosario Sanchez, against Spain’s next round of encroachments. The great Cuban revolutionary José Marti set sail from Haiti when he set out to fight for Cuban independence from Spain.
A century before Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born, the Haitians were the original internationalists. A century before the blockade against Cuba, Haiti was already sanctioned.
The influence of the Haitian revolution was also felt throughout the United States. The southern slavocracy trembled before the idea that slaves could fight back and win. Denmark Vessey ─ a slave born in the West Indies and forced to travel to the South as the assistant of a slave trader ─ led a historic revolt of slaves in Charlestown, North Carolina. He wrote to Haitian President Boyer in hopes of expanding the insurrection across the southern states. During periodic, xenophobic round-ups throughout Dominican history, many Dominican families ─ risking their own lives ─ have hidden Haitians who were escaping the machete and gun-wielding military. The 23-year-old poet Jacques Viaux and other Haitians fought and died alongside Dominican revolutionaries in the “constitutional war” of April 1965, resisting the invasion of 42,000 U.S. Marines sent to squash a movement for popular democracy. When Haitians were forced to flee U.S.-backed coups against the democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and 2004, the Dominican solidarity movement received them. The Dominican Republic was the first country to respond to the 2010 earthquake that rocked Port-au-Prince. When the prior government of Danilo Medina passed the law 168-13 in 2013, denying more than 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent citizenship, a multinational movement led by both the Dominican and Haitian communities, in the D.R. and the U.S., organized to overturn the law. Today there are many left-minded organizations in Haiti who support the Dominican, South American and global resistance movements.
Trapped
Officially there are 579,933 Haitians in DR which constitutes 5.6 percent of the total Dominican population. The nationalist discourse inflates this number by 10 to exaggerate “the fifth column” claims. What does all of this political grandstanding mean for them?
There is a history of harassment, bullying, extortion and violence against Haitians in DR by the police, the military and civilians. If an individual Haitian is accused of being a thief, the punishment is often collective against all Haitians. If an individual Dominican robs or attacks a Haitian, that is considered by most business as usual. The General Direction of Migration (DGM) reports deporting roughly 60,000 “illegal Haitians” every 6 month period. The police trample on families’ dignity and rights, even separating children from their parents. While many on the Dominican side will claim they are victims of Haitian crimes, the truth is always concrete. El anti-Haitianismo is a one way street of violence against the most vulnerable and downtrodden. Understanding the violence meted out by white supremacists, both covert and overt, in the U.S. against Black America is an oversimplified but fair enough historical analogy.
The biggest public transportation union in Santo Domingo(FENATRANSC) has announced that no Haitian is allowed to get on a bus, public motorcycle or taxi. Any Dominican driver who picks up a Haitian will be punished. Union president Mario Díaz said: “We have prohibited the transportation of people of Haitian nationality in our vehicles, whether undocumented or not, both in Greater Santo Domingo and in the other provinces of the country, as of next Monday, for security reasons and because Haitians have become a very risky problem for us and the passengers…It would be prudent for all transport unions in our country to take the same measure as us, since the safety of our inhabitants is at risk & those Haitians who travel daily in any vehicle unit, in most cases carry knives & work tools.” Though the union had to partially walk back their apartheid policy, the racist language speaks for itself.
There are thousands of Dominican families and Rayano families (mixed descendancy) who can testify to the culture of anti-Haitian fear, extortion and violence on the Dominican side of the border. Since 1998, the author has crossed that border dozens of times and sought to document the humiliating stop and frisks, robberies and human rights violations of Haitians. There was never any disrespect or disorder on the Haitian side of the border. Crossing was always calm. These are the Dominican Republic’s dirty little secrets which the oligarchs and politicians want to cover up but the Dominican people have been participants in and witnesses to the abuses of Haitian immigrants for decades. This is the ultimate fear. The usual demagogues are riling up nationalist feelings which will lead to more state and individual hate crimes against Haitians.
On Wednesday, President Abinader will travel to the United Nations and on the sidelines meet with Kenyan President William Ruto who has pledged to spearhead the next invasion of Haiti. The Core Group countries, led by the U.S., Canada and France, have sought to use first the Bahamas, then Jamaica or another Caricom nation, and now Kenya to lead what will be the fourth foreign occupation of Haiti in 100 years. The imperialist invasion, in blackface, is not the solution for Haiti. Only a solution where Haiti’s diverse social actors are empowered to choose their own non-aligned, international partners could be a step in the right direction of Haitians exercising their own self-determination. As long as Haiti is under the boot of U.S. domination, paramilitary gangs will continue to dominate life in Port-au-Prince and Haiti will hemorrhage its children to lands far from home where they face a precarious, apartheid-like existence. Malgre tout defi lakay se lakay.[4]
Notes.
1. The river is called the Dajabón River by many in the Dominican Republic. It earned the name Massacre river because of a battle between competing colonial powers in 1728. The 1937 massacre of over 20,000 Haitians in the area by the Trujillo dictatorship is covered later in the article. ↑
2. Partial List of Leftist, Anti-Imperialist Organizations in Haiti
MOLEGHAF: Mouvman pou Libète Egalite sou Chimen Fratènize Tout Ayisyen
OTR: Òganizasyon Travayè Revolisyonè
SOFA: Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen
Rasin Kanpèp
Konbit Òganizasyon Politik ak Sendikal yo
Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan
KOMOKODA: Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti (based in Brooklyn)
Sèk Gramsci
JCH Jeunesse communiste haïtien
Sèk Jean Annil Louis-Juste
Jounal revolisyonè: La Voix des Travailleus Revolutionaire
Haiti Action Committee (based in San Francisco)
Batay Ouvriye
Platfòm Ayisyen Pledwaye pou yon Devlopman Altènatif
SROD’H: Syndicat pour la Rénovation des Ouvriers d’Haïti
Originally published at Counter Punch on January 9, 2024
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What 14 capitalist countries waged the “Iran-Iraq war,” selling weapons to both sides and bleeding both countries of hundreds of thousands of lives? Who feigns concern for Tibet, the Uighers, Hong Kong and Taiwan so they can Iraqize, Libyize and Syriaize the mighty Asian colossus? Who is in bed with 20,000 perverse princes of Wahhabism and medieval darkness in Saudi Arabia? Whose military blockades one-third of the world’s people, relegating them to hunger and dependency? Whose liberals care more about policing language than indigenous life? Who never read WEB Du Bois nor Claudia Jones? Who are the punks who prey upon children? Who brought those white people to the Middle East? Who are citizens “of the most powerful country in the world, a country which stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth?” Who has dumped upwards of 1,000,000 guns in Haiti and smuggled half a million to Mexico? Who has no anti-colonial training? Who treats their Doberman pinschers better than their neighbors? Who raises nickels for immigrants as they create entire nations of refugees? Whose economy ticks to the pulverization of native bones? Who is a historical model of apartheid? Who burns books, libraries and the elderly?
Who coups wherever they want? Who attacks college students, college professors and college presidents? Whose favorite bleeding hearts cry over the threat of fascism every day, as they perfect the craft? Which empire has been more global and wicked in history? Whose entire ethos is based on greed? Who treads on our fake 1st Amendment Rights? Why does a Rabbi own pornhub? Whose Secretary of State engages in Shuttle Genocide Diplomacy? Whose politicians promise to eradicate indigenous people and receive more U.S. weaponry? Whose hearts are full of hatred and Orientalism? What was Revolutionary Yiddishland and what was the human material made out of who transcended pogroms and resisted barbarism? Who is the biggest terrorist since Hitler? How stupid do they think we are? Who will stop this gen*c^cal madness? Who has half a billion Arabs, 2 billion Muslims and 8 billion human beings trembling in sync with the children of Gaza? Who are you? What role do you play?
Students, friends and comrades have asked me which books were the most influential in my coming of age. These are the most brazen anti-imperialist testimonies I had the honor to read beginning when I was 11 or 12. My mother deserves the credit for showing me that books and self-knowledge would help me survive in enemy terrain.
Malcolm X’s autobiography: Malcolm was extremely disciplined and unrelenting in his spiritual and intellectual journey through the minefields of white supremacy. As a community, national and emerging international leader he was among the most well-organized and eloquent. This book shaped me as I battled an alienating junior HS, High School and teenage experience. Few books have the capacity to inspire young people to be self-taught and to fight back as this one.
The Uses of Haiti: Dr. Paul Farmer very succinctly shows the cause behind so much hunger and misery in Ayiti; US imperialism. The book presents a great case for why reparations are due, even if the good doctor does not explicitly state this. Prisoners of Colonialism by Ronald Fernandez played the same role in elucidating the inspiring chapters of the Puerto Rican liberation struggle. Eva Alvarado’s Don’t Be Afraid Gringo and Domitila Chungara de Barrios’ Dejame Hablar are also great testimonies of anti-imperialist struggle in Honduras and Bolivia, respectively. Catherine Sunshine’s The Caribbean: Survival, Struggle and Sovereignty reads smoothly, offering insights into different liberation struggles, and could even function as a textbook. Early on in my ideological and intellectual development, these books helped me step outside of the parameters set by white supremacy and U.S. social patriotism to see the world from the view of the most damned.
Bandit Country: This is my favorite book on the Irish liberation struggle. Toby Harnden shows how ordinary, everyday people will fight against all odds and summon the greatest creativity and fearlessness to rid themselves of their swashbuckling occupiers. The book focuses on South Armagh, the Southernmost part of the occupied 6 counties of Ireland. South Armagh was the most dangerous place in the world for British soldiers on patrol. Street signs read: “Snipers at work” giving fair warning to any occupying Brit.
Assata: I read this book very young. Assata Shakur’s words and life experiences leave no doubt about the criminal, racist nature of this system and country. All the books by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, David Hilliard, Angela Davis, Elaine Brown, George Jackson, and Eldridge Cleaver drew me closer to the Black Liberation struggle and defined my unrelenting hatred for the white supremacist ruling class in this country.
Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. A true internationalist and anti-colonialist. A Martinican who gave everything for the definitive liberation of Algeria from the grip of French colonialism. His chapter “Concerning Violence” cuts at the power relations that pit ghetto-dweller against ghetto-dweller in an endless orgy of violence. He leaves no doubt that only the colonized’s violent overturning of colonial society and property relations can bring true liberation.
Jude the Obscure This Thomas Hardy’s novel holds a special place in my heart because my mother and I read it together during difficult moments. Jude’s character is all too human. I related to his inner-struggles. Other classics by Chalres Dickens, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and so many others. The Hunchback of Notre Dame also excellent. East of Eden also captured my imagination.
Isaac Deutscher’s Trilogy on the life of Leon Trotsky, The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Outcast and his Political Biography of Joseph Stalin: This is some of the most important and objective history writing. Deutscher’s writing offers the political context in which to understand the decisions these leaders made. It shows the class forces at work and takes us beyond the bourgeois history-writing of heroes and villains.
The Russian Revolution. Leon Trotsky. A brilliant, super-entertaining blow by blow, first-hand account of how it all went down in Petrograd. A book and writer like no other.
What is to Be Done?, The State and Revolution and The Communist Manifesto. How can I not include them? They more than any other documents or books lay out strategies for working and oppressed people to seize power.
Dr. Anne and David Jubb’s Life Foods Cook Book. The guiding science behind Life Foods, the fountain of youth that Juan Ponce de Cabron could never discover. There is no dis-ease we cannot heal. There are only people we cannot heal because they are closed to the power of Life Foods.
Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and Eduardo Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America. Both authors employ dialectical materialism to understand the connection between the West’s accumulation of wealth and the third world or exploited world’s descent into poverty. Some of the most crisp writing you will find. Essential for anyone trying to understand the underlying structures responsible for hunger, AIDS, migration, genocide and all of the social problems that affect the oppressed nations today.
El Gigante Dormido. The Life of Amin Abel by Fidel Santana, my mentor in El MPD in the Dominican Republic. It marked my entrance into reading seriously in another language and trying to emulate the larger than life figures that led the resistance to the 1965 US invasion of the Dominican Republic and then continued the struggle for a free, socialist D.R. Amin, Maximilian Gomez, Amaury etc… were the mentors of my mentors.
The Big Book: Alcoholics Anonymous. Sharp wisdom on being a less selfish, self-seeking human being. A classic for anyone exploring spiritual growth, regardless of what addictions they may struggle with.
I have to also add Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P. Newton. David Hilliard’s This Side of Glory should also be read after reading the other Panther bios.
Originally published at Toward Freedom on November 19, 2021
Is Russia Fascist?: Unraveling Propaganda East and West by Marlene Laruelle (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2021)
Mainstream liberal U.S. media such as MSNBC and the New York Times have dedicated countless hours and pages to presenting Russian President Vladimir Putin as the devil incarnate. In 2014, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went as far as to compare his actions in Ukraine to those of Hitler in Europe (p. 3). Then U.S. President Joe Biden called Putin a “killer” on March 17 in what appeared to be his way of proving how “presidential” he is compared to Donald Trump. When RT journalists were introduced on a 2019 panel at the Assembly of Journalists and Social Communicators in Caracas, the crowd of Venezuelans burst into applause chanting, “Putin, Putin, Putin!”
Vilified by certain global class forces and loved by others, what is the true ideological character of Putin and the Russian political leadership? Moving beyond certain propaganda, while remaining bogged down in a clear anti-Soviet evangelism, French historian Marlene Laruelle makes a convincing academic argument that Russian state ideology is not fascist.
The George Washington University professor and U.S. State Department researcher has dedicated her professional life to becoming an expert on Russian history and what she terms the dominant ideology of the Russian state today, “illiberalism.” Her book, Is Russia Fascist?: Unraveling Propaganda East and West, accomplishes two tasks: One that is intellectually honest and another that further contributes to the Memory Wars and Battle of Ideas by perpetuating biased Western views of key issues that have arisen in Soviet history and in contemporary Russia. An example of Memory Wars is when right-wing states raise questions about who actually collaborated with the Nazis in an attempt to create an alternative memory of events.
Dismantling the Claim That Russia Is Fascist
The greatest strength and central thread of the book is Laruelle’s consistency in proving the Russian state is not fascist.
Chapter 6 analyzes the country’s “vivid far-right landscape.” The author looks at skinheads, militia subculture, combat sports, extreme expressions of the Russian Orthodox Church, conspiracy theories, the Night Wolves motorcycle club, among other examples of this landscape. She concludes these ideological trends—similar to what is found in the West—are marginally present in Russia, but have little to no influence on Russian leadership and receive no institutional support from the state. This milieu, or ecosystem, as she calls it, is in fact “largely repressed by Russian state organs” (157).
Laruelle dedicates sections of chapters 6 and 7 to evaluating the reach of political analyst Alexander Dugin—known as “Putin’s brain”—and his international far-right contacts. She concludes the West exaggerates Dugin’s influence and his “networks and international visibility should not be the tree obscuring the forest” (126). Despite Western rumors, Laruelle writes, “Putin has never mentioned him [Dugin]” nor met him and she adds, “Dugin has little direct access to the highest echelons of the Presidential Administration” (118).
Laruelle explains slapping the fascist label on Putin and Russia is not scholarly, but is an attempt by certain forces to discredit Russia to prevent the country of 144 million from being taken seriously in the international arena. Her scholarship finds the Russian state draws from myriad ideological sources, such as social conservatism, Soviet nostalgia, illiberalism, Russian orthodoxy and Russian nationalism. The professor concludes: “If there is an overarching ideological trend to identify, it is illiberalism… a denunciation that holds that liberalism is now ‘obsolete’ and has ‘outlived its purpose,’ as Putin declared in 2019, and a return to an ideology of sovereignty—national, economic and cultural-moral sovereignty” (158). The way Laruelle uses “liberalism” sounds innocent enough, but it’s a euphemism for capitalism, imperialism and Western hegemony, words the author never uses in her book.
‘Unraveling Propaganda’ with More Disinformation?
While Laruelle may be on the liberal left of the internal landscape of the State Department, her overall work is far from left or anti-imperialist. As the director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University, she pulls no punches on the Soviet Union. Is Russia Fascist? ignores the Soviet Union’s legacy as a besieged workers’ state the U.S. ruling class and its junior imperialist partners sought to, and ultimately played a key role in, destabilizing and overthrowing.
Anti-socialism and anti-communism, the unofficial religion of the United States and Western Europe, dot the 166-page text.
Is Russia Fascist? is a most provocative title for a book. The subtitle however Unraveling Propaganda East and West is misleading and inaccurate on some levels. Here are a few suggestions if Professor Laruelle wants to more honestly entice the reader: Is Russia Fascist? Heaping more Western Propaganda onto the Dominant Historical Narrative or Is Russia Fascist? Is the U.S. more Fascist than Russia? IsU.S. Foreign Policy Fascist?
Laruelle reduces complex, life-and-death military decisions to anti-Soviet soundbites. For Laruelle, it is senso comune (common sense), in the Gramsci sense of the word, that the Soviet Union was bad. Casting off critical reflection, she presents highly-debated topics as already existing, self-evident truths. Here are some examples: “The annexation of Crimea” (19), “the massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn forest” (33), the “widespread anti-Semitism of the late Stalin era” (40), “the great patriotic war as the principle myth capable of uniting Russian society” (45).
What part is myth? That 27 million Soviets gave their lives? That 20 million more were injured? (2). These are the statistics the author herself offers. “The Ukrainian crisis” (47), “the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (50) and “the democratic regimes” (159) she mentions refer to the “west Soviet occupation of the Baltic states” (165).
These historical events and terms need clarification the author does not provide. The reality is no shortcuts exist in the field of dialectical materialism.
A book review is not the place to clarify the historical record on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the Katyn forest massacre. But in terms of World War II, or “The Great Patriotic War,” as it is known in Russia, the cold, hard, tragic facts speak for themselves. The Soviet Union lost 27 million of its sons and daughters to ward off the hoards of Nazi invaders. For comparison, the United States lost 200,000 troops in WWII, the British lost 400,000 and the Nazis themselves lost 800,000. All of humanity owes a great debt to the Red Army, the Partisans (Soviet resistance groups) and the Soviet peoples.
In conclusion, while Laruelle makes a valuable contribution to providing a nuanced, sociological portrait of Russia today, she fails to disentangle certain Western propaganda. It quickly becomes clear it is the reader’s responsibility to disentangle her propaganda.
Behind a veneer of so-called academic objectivity, she directly and indirectly propagandizes on behalf of U.S. imperialist interests, which seek to encroach upon and control Ukraine, Crimea and the entire landmass that was the Soviet Union.
Originally published at Covert Action Magazine on November 26, 2021
Putin is considered a threat because he restored Russian sovereignty, erased the humiliation of the Boris Yeltsin era, and championed Russia’s national interests. But that is just what the U.S. elite could not tolerate.
The U.S. military-industrial complex needs enemies like human lungs need oxygen. When there are no enemies, they must be invented.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pentagon spin doctors had to search for a new bogeyman to justify their immense $778 billion budget, and its crippling effect on the U.S. economy. If that meant creating a propaganda campaign to paint Panama President Manuel Noriega—a longtime CIA asset—as a mad-dog “threat to American democracy” in order to justify the 1989 invasion of Panama (whose dead have yet to all be counted 32 yearslater)—well, so be it.
Or if it meant that other CIA assets, like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, also had to be painted as dangerous threats to American democracy to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, at the cost of countless Iraqi and Afghan lives, not to mention the lives of the thousands of gullible U.S. soldiers who served as cannon fodder—well, so be that, too.
But once those enemies were gone, a new one was needed. And almost as if on cue, the re-emergence of a strong, sovereign Russia in 1999 provided the ideal candidate. It also provided a perfect excuse to initiate a new Cold War, which would justify the ever-increasing expenditures for exotic weaponry that the military-industrial complex kept demanding from its bought-and-paid-for politicians in the White House and Congress.
Russia’s Rebirth from Failed State to Sovereign Nation—and latest “Enemy of U.S. Democracy”
The 1990s had been a decade of humiliation for Russia. Under the compliant, corrupt and alcoholic presidency of Boris Yeltsin, the country became a virtual neo-colony of Western imperialist powers. But the resignation of Boris Yeltsin in 1999, and his replacement by Vice President Vladimir Putin (who was then elected president on his own in 2000), signaled the dawn of a new era—and a new relationship between Russia and its Western tormentors.
Although constant headlines and soundbites have painted Russia (and China, Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and every other country that dares to exist outside the hegemonic control of U.S. imperialism) as existential threats to “our” national security, what do Americans really know about Russian society and foreign policy?
What is the correct class characterization of the Russian Federation? Why is the Biden government continually slapping new sanctions on Russia and expelling its diplomats? What is behind the new and recycled national religion of Russophobia? This article will begin to address these questions.
Restoring a Strong and Proud Russia
Russia is a medium-sized capitalist power — having the 11th largest GDP in the world, after 10th place South Korea and before 12th place Brazil. For comparison, the U.S. has a productive capacity 20 times that of Russia. This is the reality for a country trying to assert its interests, after a quarter century of ignominy, in a world order that has been thoroughly dominated by the United States and Western European powers.
Oligarchs and the capitalist Russian state are the central players in the $1.46 trillion Russian economy today. The socialist basis that underscored Russia’s relations with its smaller neighbor republics has been replaced by capitalist interests, and Russian national chauvinism is now widespread.
Vladimir Putin represents the nationalist section of the Russian bourgeoisie. In stark comparison to Boris Yeltsin and his cronies, Putin’s main objective is the return of a strong, proud Russia on the international stage. An ex-KGB agent who has been accused of assassinating his enemies and adopting strong-armed methods reminiscent of the Soviet era, Putin is immensely popular nevertheless in his homeland, especially when compared to the man who preceded him.
For two decades, the Putin administration has had as its chief foreign policy objective the creation of geopolitical breathing space to allow the country to restore its former power, restore itself as a major player in global politics and begin to catch up with the West.
Putin with Boris Yeltsin at his inauguration in 2000. [Source: theconversation.com]
Marlene Laruelle, Director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at The George Washington University, explains that slapping the fascist and totalitarian labels on Putin and Russia are not scholarly but are rather politicized attempts to discredit Russia in order to prevent the country of 144 million from being taken seriously in the international arena.
Professor Nicolai N. Petro, who holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island, makes a similar argument, and points to many positive innovations under his leadership, including vital reforms in the Russian criminal justice system.
According to these authors, Putin is popular because he guarantees a certain stability for the elites, oligarchs, civil servants and other powerful sectors of Russian society. Many ordinary Russians furthermore recall the economic devastation of the Yeltsin era, and connect Putin with the economic improvements that have taken place since that time—even if certain hardships remain.
Laruelle’s scholarship concludes that the Russian state draws from myriad ideological sources, such as social conservatism, Soviet nostalgia, illiberalism, Russian orthodoxy and Russian nationalism. In her book, Is Russia Fascist?Unraveling Propaganda East and West, she explains: “If there is an overarching ideological trend to identify, it is illiberalism…:a denunciation that holds that liberalism [capitalism, imperialism, Western hegemony, words the author never uses in her book] is now ‘obsolete’ and has ‘outlived its purpose,’ as Putin declared in 2019, and a return to an ideology of sovereignty—national, economic, and cultural-moral sovereignty.”[1]
The Backdrop of Putin’s Victory
For a people long accustomed to the egalitarianism and socio-economic rights of the Soviet Union and being equal operators on the world stage diametrically opposed to the most powerful empire in history, the 1990s return to being a vassal state of the West was a shock.
French economist Thomas Piketty charts the rise of income inequality and Russia’s descent into “a society of oligarchs engaged in grand larceny of public assets.”[2] The voucher system (1991-1995) concentrated wealth in the hands of billionaires as state assets were sold off to the highest bidder. Western advisers from the IMF and World Bank oversaw a monetary system that completely rejected the idea of inheritance and progressive taxes.
The post-communist system taxed everyone the same, regardless of whether they made a living as a fruit vendor or were a gas magnate, at 13%. Tax havens that deprived society of much needed social capital were the norm. Piketty’s Capital and Ideology concludes that Russia’s economic paradigm was to the right of Reagan and Thatcher and became the West’s freakish experiment in hyper-capitalism.
This explains why Yeltsin became a darling of the West and was described on covers of Time magazine at different moments as a maverick, a revolutionary and Bill Clinton’s “comrade.”
Russia expert Jeremy Kuzmarov explains the stark contrast between Yeltsin’s and Putin’s leadership:
“Putin’s vilification stems largely from the fact that he has promoted more nationalistic policies compared to his predecessor Boris Yeltsin who opened up the country to shock therapy specialists (Harvard University advisers) who advanced ill-conceived privatization schemes that led to record poverty and corruption levels in Russia during the 1990s. Over $150 billion left the country in just six years, much of it to be stored in Western or off-shore banks. Desperate Russians sold off privatization vouchers to avert starvation. Millions lost their life savings after Russia defaulted on its debt and devalued its currency, and life expectancy plummeted by over seven years for men.”[3]
Privatization voucher [Source: thetchblog.com]A woman walks past a petrol station displaying a sign that says “no petrol” on one of the pumps. Such shortages were common in the 1990s. [Source: theguardian.com]
Why Is Putin Popular?
According to a German polling agency, Putin’s approval rating has consistently been above 75%. The reason for this figure, as noted, is that Russia’s economy has improved dramatically under his rule from the 1990s, and Russia has reasserted itself on the world stage.
To understand the ire that Putin inspires from ruling circles in the West, we must return to Russia’s recent history. In an extensive interview with “The Empire Files,” entitled “Post-Soviet Russia: America’s ‘Colony’ to #1 Enemy,” journalist Mark Ames lays out a basis for why Putin’s leadership is so unforgivable to the would-be conquerors of one of the most strategic and rich regions of the world.
Ames lived in Russia under both Yeltsin and then Putin. He speaks on the trauma that Russian society felt when it went from the most equal to the most plutocratic society on earth, almost overnight. Some of the world’s largest gas reserves and one-third of the world’s nickel were auctioned off.
In 1998 the Russian stock market fell 95%, the ruble lost its value, there were food shortages, the state collapsed, teachers were not paid and one-third of the country returned to subsistence farming. At the end of the 1990s, as Western media heaped praises on their new neo-colony, Russians were sick of being experimented on. Ames sees the U.S.’s unilateral bombing of Kosovo in 1999 targeting Yugoslav/Serb forces allied with Russia as the final straw that angered the Russians, leading to a national sentiment of “the communists were right. We are next [on the chopping block].”
Kuzmarov’s “‘A New Battlefield for the United States’: Russia Sanctions and the New Cold War” offers a portrait of what Putin’s leadership has meant for everyday Russians:
“Famed Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn stated that ‘Putin inherited a ransacked and bewildered country. And he started to do with it what was possible—a slow and gradual restoration.’
This was in part achieved by ordering oligarchs to pay taxes, by regaining national control over oil and gas deposits sold off to Exxon and other Western oil companies under Yeltsin, and implementing policies that improved infrastructure, living standards, and led to a decrease in corruption and crime. Inflation, joblessness, and poverty rates subsequently declined while wages improved and the economy grew tenfold. Putin cut Russia’s national debt, stymied the exodus of Russian wealth abroad and put in place a successful pension system.”[4]
Solzhenitsyn shakes hands with Putin in 2007. [Source: archive.boston.com]
Like the Bolsheviks a century before, the underdog was standing up to the global Goliath.
A devastated people were searching for another way. This was the power vacuum that gave rise to Putin. Putin did not drink. He was serious. He was a former intelligence officer in the KGB.
Jack Lew, Obama’s Treasury Secretary, said that economic sanctions are “a new battlefield for the United States, one that enables us to go after those who wish us harm without putting our troops in harm’s way.”
President Obama nominating Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary. [Source: ft.com]
In Russia’s Response to Sanctions: How Western Economic Statecraft is Reshaping Political Economy in Russia, Professor Richard Connolly from the University of Birmingham assesses how the government is building a multipolar world by increasing trade with Washington’s other targets, such as China, Iran, and Venezuela.
On October 15th, Russia and Venezuelan representatives wrapped up the Intergovernmental Commission XV and Business Forum II where they agreed to continue cooperation in strategic sectors like agriculture, industry, fishing and cultural affairs. The U.S.’s hybrid war on Iran has pushed the country toward the Russian and Chinese anchored Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to the alarm of think tanks in Washington, Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.
These new alliances have led the global dictator to lash out in insane ways, imprisoning diplomats and trade ambassadors, most famously Alex Saab, who shun and bypass their dictates. Washington’s own overstepping and sanctioning of one-fourth of humanity has organically led the blockaded countries to increase trade with one another.
Critiques from the Russian Left
Putin to be sure has black spots on his record and has faced legitimate criticism from his domestic political opponents.
Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Russian Communist Party (RCP), criticizes the repression of the opposition by forces under Putin, hostile takeovers of state-owned enterprises, and “cannibalistic pension reform.” The RCP has denounced the banning of Alexei Navalny’s website and restrictions of any protest. This view sees the other four major parties in the Duma as a controlled opposition all loyal to United Russia, proving there is little more than a semblance of a democratic structure.
“Staying the Course” is a YouTube channel run by Russian communist Vasily Eremeyev. Еremeyev contrasts Soviet parliamentary democracy and right to recall politicians versus the buying of congressional and duma seats under capitalism. The channel has also been vocal about the privatization of health care and education and the lack of taxes on the oligarchy. Inequality in Russia today is worse than in the U.S.
Russia Today (RT)
RT, formerly Russia Today, is the Russian state and private media behemoth with subsidiaries and projects such as Sputnik radio stations, RT news in different languages and Redfish documentaries. The producers, who hire the anchors, edit the story lines and invite the guests, project a hodgepodge of ideological lines that can cause great confusion if not unpacked.
Young revolutionaries in Russia have pointed out how RT (Russia Today) and their affiliates sometimes invite anti-imperialist guests and project left-leaning critiques of imperialism to provide a cover for Moscow’s true ideology. Russian state and private media use such guests in the same way that they use their right-wing guests, to deepen fissures in Western society. By giving voice to both ideologies that are shut out of liberal, mainstream discourse, their intention is to heighten the social contradictions in the West. They imagined a so-called “Red-Brown alliance,” where the Left and Right would unite in an anti-globalization movement.
RT has had frequent pieces against migration and voiced support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the French right wing. Putin prides himself on being anti-progressive and anti-woke. His recent speech in Sochi showed a callous misunderstanding of the history of white supremacy, misogyny and homophobia in the U.S. Again, we see the similarities to Trump’s rhetoric.
RT plays a counterbalancing, counter-hegemonic function. Time magazine’s exposé of RT, “Inside Putin’s On-Air Media Machine,” presents charts of how many millions of people the record-breaking RT is reaching worldwide versus BBC, VICE, ABC and other mouthpieces of the global power structure. Presenting itself and Western media as objective, Time presents RT as a mouthpiece of the Kremlin.
This is part of the backdrop that gave rise to the fanatical, wildly exaggerated claims by CNN and The New York Times that Russia intervened in the 2016 elections and put Trump into power. These critics see RT as providing a leftist façade for foreign consumption as an illiberal system targets and destroys the real Left at home in Russia. This is similar to the Iranian state that is not fundamentally socialist but echoes talking points of global anti-imperialist forces.
At the same time, Russian state actors are reviving “white ideology,” the pro-tzar and pro-monarchy resistance to the Bolsheviks and Red Army. Laruelle documents Putin’s paying honor to former white generals and exiles while spending resources on the rehabilitation of collaborationists through cinema and monuments. The mausoleum that holds Lenin’s body has been “under construction” since 2005.
At the May 9th WWII Victory Day parade, the Russian flag has replaced the Soviet flag. Vague references to “our ancestors” have replaced any mention of the Red Army’s and Soviet people’s heroic role in defeating the Nazis. In the informational war with the right-wing coup-mongers in Kyiv, Russian leadership often pointed at their fascist character. Eyewitnesses were alarmed at the anti-Ukrainian sentiments that were shoulder to shoulder with internationalist motivations in the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.
There is a definite split in the U.S. ruling class toward Russia. Since Putin is a conservative nationalist but not a leftist, Fox, Breitbart and Newsmax tend to portray Putin more favorably.
The alternative media are all over the place, with outlets like Democracy Now echoing the mainstream media and bringing on guests like Masha Gessen who are anti-Putin. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters are a few examples of “progressive Democrats” who have helped advance Russophobia. Trump, initially promoted more engagement with Russia but ultimately continued a confrontational approach and expanded sanctions and tore up arms control agreements like the Intermediate Nuclear-Range Force Treaty (INF). Trump’s initial policy was unacceptable to the true ruling class which had long ago decided that Trump was not “presidential.”
Masha Gessen, an anti-Putin Russian who attacked Oliver Stone’s documentary Putin Diaries in neo-McCarthyite terms, on Democracy Now. [Source: democracynow.org]
This honest overview of RT begs an important question: Should an anti-imperialist engage and offer analysis for RT or PressTV and HispanTV (the Iranian equivalents)? Should a committed anti-imperialist use these platforms to expose U.S. crimes from Honduras to Ukraine to Haiti? This is a most intriguing question for each radical organization and Marxist-Leninist party in the center of world imperialism to determine for itself. Organizing does not take place in the realm of purity but advances with setbacks and contradictions. Can Russia, with all of its social and economic contradictions, still be an ally for the forces of liberation fighting capitalism and white supremacy?
Is Russia Imperialist?
Russia may have committed many condemnable acts, but it is surely overblown and unscientific to call it “imperialist.”
In fact, for the last 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has done little to stop the U.S. war drive in country after country. Under Yeltsin, the Russian government was essentially subordinate to Washington. Until the 2013 neoliberal Maiden Coup, the Russian government hoped that if it did not challenge Washington in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, and on its own borders, in exchange it would be allowed to grow again as a strong country. The absence of Russia as a strategic counterpoint has in fact been a dominant pillar of the U.S. unipolar world order, which has caused so much death and destruction.
If anything, Russia should be criticized for its passivity in the NATO/U.S. war on Libya in 2011 and allowing Western imperialist power to bomb a country with which it maintained strong relations. Russia abstained from the sham UN resolution that empowered the Western coalition to effect regime change but did not use its veto. At a crucial moment, Russia abided by another resolution to stop all arms sales to the Libyan government.
In 2015, for the first time, Russia drew the line to support its one remaining military ally in the Middle East: Syria. Russia’s intervention was not a sign of some grand design to take over the Middle East; Russia has nowhere near the military or economic capacity to even consider this task. It intervened directly, four years into the war, because it saw in the internal contradictions of the Obama administration an opportunity to step in and prevent a repeat of Libya. Unlike every U.S. coup, the Syrian government openly invited and welcomed Russian support against ISIS and its international backers.
From the perspective of the Syrian people and anti-imperialists the world over, Moscow provided critical military support to the Syrian government, as well as anti-aircraft weaponry that undoubtedly staved off direct U.S. bombing of Damascus.
Russian and Syrian soldiers during a rehearsal for a military parade at Hmeimim Air Base, Latakia, Syria, May 2016. [Source: arab-reform.net]
The two Russian actions that most angered the West were really quite reasonable, and taken to protect its only warm water ports—the Crimean port of Sevastopol and the Syrian port of Tartus. Both were very important to Russia because its seven home ports—at Novorossiysk, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and other locations—froze over and severely crippled its capacity to trade in the winter months.
On account of this changed relationship of forces, Syria miraculously held on, and Russia issued the U.S. a challenge like no other in the era of unipolar U.S. domination.
Warding off U.S. imperialism in Syria and Eastern Ukraine was therefore a sensible action in light of national interests. Russia was not the aggressor.
U.S. military spending dwarfs that of Russia, $778 billion annually to $61.7 billion. U.S. military capacity exceeds that of the next eleven strongest militaries combined. With such glaring social needs, how does the Pentagon justify its 778 billion dollar budget? This is more than double what the Build Back Better legislation proposes: $350 billion a year on social investment.
As if David were not sufficiently intimidated and overpowered by Goliath, the U.S. military machine also has its NATO allies operating on Russia’s doorstep. If Russia objects and dares to defend its borders, any NATO member has recourse to Article 5 of its charter, which lays out that “An attack on one member is an attack on all.”
In June of this year, NATO, the U.S. Sixth Fleet and Black Sea nations carried out Sea Breeze 21 “to enhance interoperability among the participating nations” on Russia’s borders. Some 32 countries participated, including most NATO members and the U.S. client-regimes such as Egypt, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Sea Breeze military exercise in Black Sea. [Source: navytimes.com]
Of course, any sort of multi-polar imperialist system, should one take shape in the future, must be strenuously fought as well; the needs of poor and working people cannot be met with capitalism or imperialism in any form. But to condemn Russia as co-equal to the United States has no basis in history and mischaracterizes Russian foreign policy.
This wrong analysis misinterprets the relationship of forces in global politics and the meaning of the Syria and Crimea intervention, and it preached neutrality at the very moment that a sovereign country of the formerly colonized world, Syria, is—for the first time since Vietnam—on the verge of withstanding the U.S. Empire.
Russia’s Geopolitical Interests
It is important to clarify Russia’s motives and the role it has played in Syria.
Russia’s support of the Assad government was not ideological; it was practical. For one, the overthrow of the Assad government by proxies of Western power and Gulf monarchies would have transformed Syria into a client-state that would likely have shut out Russia’s access to its warm water port at Tartus. It would also have blocked an important part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, for which Syria’s access to the Mediterranean was to function as an alternative to the U.S.-controlled Suez Canal.
Regime change in Syria would also have freed the Pentagon to pursue its next target in the region—perhaps Iran—and allow the U.S. to further tighten the screws on and encircle Russia itself. Much of Russia’s foreign policy is driven by the real fear that the United States has so little respect for national sovereignty that it will inevitably turn its attention to regime change in Russia itself. In some ways this campaign has already begun, as the West has thrown all of its ideological machinery behind neoliberal opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
On October 20th, the EU granted Navalny the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, its top Human Rights award—reserved every year for a dissident of a government that Western imperialist nations are actively seeking to overthrow.
In this case, Russia’s pursuit of its own national interests overlapped with the interests of preserving Syria’s national independence from imperialist regime change and the social and cultural counter-revolution offered by the Saudi and U.S.-supported Salafists.
Russia to be sure has secured access to the Syrian warm water port at Tartus—a leased military installation of the Russian navy—though it stands to gain little economically from its intervention in Syria.
Russia’s re-entry onto the world stage has caused alarm for the unipolar hegemon. Turkey and the U.S. are warning that the Russian paramilitary outfit, the Wagner Group, under Russian government control, is involved in conflicts from Libya to Syria to the Central African Republic to Eastern Ukraine.
Russian mercenaries with the Wagner Group in Syria. [Source: newlinesmag.com]
U.S. think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies see “Russia’s Blackwater” as potentially tilting the balance in these regional conflicts in favor of social forces hostile to imperialism. While the CIA wields its budget of billions to destabilize countries which refuse to stay in their neocolonial place, the U.S. brass is not accustomed to dealing with other international actors who seek to subvert its order. Jeremy Kuzmarov’s book The Russians are Coming, Again is an important review of this New Cold War propaganda.[5]
The reality however is that Russia’s single existing military base outside of the territory of the former Soviet Union is in northern Syria, near the city of Latakia (approximately 500 miles from Russia’s southern border.) Compare this to the 800 known U.S. military bases and installations and hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops occupying 140 different “sovereign” countries in the world.
Russia: Bullied, Sanctioned, Blockaded and Surrounded
In 2013, the European Union and the U.S. government helped orchestrate the Maiden counter-revolution, a right-wing coup in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine. NATO powers regularly carry out war drills meant to intimidate Russia. For example, Britain sent 800 troops to the Russian border in Estonia. NATO is not just serving as the most strategic imperialist vehicle but effectively as an anti-Russian alliance.
The U.S. refused to invite Russia, for instance, to join NATO even in the Yeltsin years when U.S.-Russia cooperation was at its highest. U.S. strategists believed that, as Russia regained its strength, it could potentially form a partnership with France and Germany and eliminate U.S. control of NATO. Instead, it promised it would not bring NATO any further east, into the former Soviet Union, but it has repeatedly broken this promise.
Imagine if the relationship were reversed and Russia was deploying its armies and prosecuting wars on America’s doorstep. If Russia were funding a proxy war in Mexico (Syria), engineered a coup in Canada (Ukraine) and were mobilizing troops in Puerto Rico (Estonia), would anyone expect the U.S. to capitulate?
This interactive map shows how the U.S. and NATO have Russia surrounded.
There was speculation that the Trump administration could have offered Russia a sort of deal: a warming of relations between the two countries in exchange for Russia agreeing to the partition of Syria and the isolation of Iran. There was considerable speculation in the corporate media about Trump’s goal to work with Russia at the expense of China as well.
A correct position on the U.S. proxy war against Syria derives from a defense of oppressed countries’ right to self-defense and complete opposition to imperialist regime-change efforts. The Salafists’ overthrow of the Syrian bourgeois-nationalist and secular state, despite its many problems and contradictions, would constitute a huge step backward for the people and for the region—a counter-revolution in social terms that would likewise destroy Syria as a nation-state.
This should not be misunderstood as an embrace or endorsement of the political system of Syria, of Assad as an individual leader or of Baathism. Rather it is a recognition of the stakes of the current war, and that no socialist left-wing transformation of Syria has been on the table in the ongoing ten-year, life-and-death struggle.
Dialectics
This level of analysis raises critical questions that the U.S. military-industrial complex and the foreign policy establishment do not want the public to focus on. Instead, the corporate media, as the mouthpieces of the U.S. establishment, have a vested interest in making Russia the bad guy and the U.S.’s “democracy” the victim. Consequently, a U.S. state ideology of Russophobia permeates every sentence of The New York Times and Rachel Maddow’s teleprompters shaping millions of Americans’ myopic views of this massive, complex country.
Predictably, only 22% of Americans now view Russia favorably. The constant accusations of Russia’s meddling in U.S. elections and hacking are highly inflated and politicized to serve as the rationale for the ongoing anti-Russian offensive. The never-verified charges are especially hypocritical when one considers how much electoral interference—and how many post-WWII military coups—the U.S. intelligence agencies have orchestrated from Southeast Asia to the Middle East to South America and in Russia itself.
A revolutionary in the belly of the beast should have no illusions about the Russian state being a return of a Soviet Workers’ State that often stood in solidarity with national liberation movements across the world in the Global Class War, known by its Western euphemism, The Cold War.
At the same time, a genuine progressive can appreciate why blockaded and besieged Venezuelans, Syrians, Zimbabweans, Cubans, and Iranians, and oppressed people the world over, see Putin as a fearless badass and Russia as an ally who has stood up to the U.S. empire in defense of the sovereignty of oppressed nations.
Though not a leftist, “Badass” Putin has stood up to the U.S. [Source: businessinsider.com]
Marlene Laruelle, Is Russia Fascist? Unraveling Propaganda East and West (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2021). ↑
Thomas Piketty, Capital and Ideology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 2020). ↑
Jeremy Kuzmarov, “A New Battlefield for the United States: Russia Sanctions and the New Cold War,” Socialism and Democracy, August, 2020. ↑
Kuzmarov, “A New Battlefield for the United States.” ↑
Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano, The Russians are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy, the Second as Farce (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018). ↑
