The Communist Party Marxist–Kenya (CPM-K) has issued a filthy diatribe in response to a series of polemics published by the World Socialist Web Site, culminating in an exposure of their groveling endorsement of their “comrade” Delcy Rodriquez’s alliance with the Trump administration in Venezuela.
In “Trotsky’s Stock-in-trade: A Counter-Revolutionary Export Unfit for the Kenyan Market!!!”, National
Chairperson Mwaivu Kaluka writes that the WSWS “have called us
‘STALINISTS’ and ‘MAOISTS’ in bold letters as if these are things to be
ashamed of. We embrace these labels with pride,” adding that “Stalinism
is nothing but the defense of Leninism against Trotskyism.”
With these words, Kaluka proudly proclaims his unrestrained backing
for the monstrous crimes of Stalinism that destroyed the Bolshevik
Party, annihilated workers’ democracy, liquidated revolutionary Marxism
through terror, and subordinated the international working class to the
interests of a privileged bureaucratic caste.
Stalinism emerged out of the isolation of the October Revolution,
the devastation of the civil war, and the material exhaustion of the
working class. On this basis, a conservative bureaucracy consolidated
power within the Soviet state and party in the 1920s,—reinforced and
maintained due to the disastrous policies pursued by the Comintern under
Stalin’s leadership internationally that led to historic and, in China,
bloody defeats of the working class. The maintenance of bureaucratic
privilege over the needs of the international revolution was codified in
the adoption of the program of “Socialism in one country” and the
political war waged against the Trotskyist Left Opposition for its defense of the struggle for world socialist revolution. Stalin’s policy culminated in Hitler’s coming to power in Germany in 1933 and the final transformation of the Communist International into a consciously counter-revolutionary force.
The
defense of bureaucratic privilege required above all the physical
destruction of the living continuity of Bolshevism. This
counter-revolutionary task was carried out through the Great Purges of the 1930s,
in which the entire leadership of the October Revolution, including
Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, and Christian
Rakovsky—following show trials in which the defendants, subjected to
torture and psychological coercion—were compelled to deliver false
confessions.
A campaign of mass murder, directed above all at the
Trotskyists, saw nearly one million people killed in a wave of
counter-revolutionary violence including the finest representatives of
several generations of Marxist workers and intellectuals. It was the
Trotskyist movement which took up the defence of these revolutionaries
and the exposure of the lies used against them, most famously in The Red Book: On the Moscow Trials,
published by Trotsky’s son Leon Sedov—murdered by Stalin’s agents in
1938—and in the staging of the Dewey Commission. The Stalinist purges
culminated in the assassination of Trotsky, while in exile in Mexico on August 21, 1940.
This slaughter sought to consciously inflict a catastrophic blow to the
political consciousness of the Soviet and international working class in
order to eliminate a revolutionary threat to the bureaucracy as it
pursued a policy of political accommodation with imperialism.
Across the Communist International, countless militants who had
fought for the October Revolution and who were pioneers in the founding
of Communist Parties in their respective countries were eliminated.
In Germany, leaders forged in the revolutionary struggles of 1918–23
were destroyed; in Poland, Hungary, and the Balkans, Marxists were
purged; in China, cadres who resisted subordination to bourgeois
nationalism were crushed. Albert Nzula, the Communist Party of South
Africa’s first Black secretary general, was killed in Moscow after
showing sympathy for Trotsky and voicing criticisms of Stalin.
Through
the Communist International, Stalinism functioned as the principal
instrument for the political disarming of the proletariat, subordinating
mass revolutionary movements throughout the 1930s to the defense of
bourgeois rule in the name of “anti-fascism” and “democracy” through
popular frontism.
During the Spanish Civil War, the Communist Party became the chief pillar of the bourgeois Republican state, bloodily suppressing
every initiative by workers and peasants and hunting down Trotskyists,
anarchist militants, and members of the POUM [Workers’ Party of Marxist
Unification] who were then imprisoned, tortured, and murdered.
The
throttling of the Spanish working class was carried out to reassure the
imperialist powers that a proletarian revolution would not threaten
their interests. The sheer cynicism of this policy was exposed shortly
thereafter in the Stalin-Hitler Pact. Having justified its crimes in
Spain as a defense of “democracy” against fascism, the Stalinist
bureaucracy openly allied itself with fascism.
The Stalin-Hitler
Pact, which CPM-K today hails as a nationalist masterstroke that
supposedly defended the Soviet Union, disoriented workers in the Soviet
Union and internationally at the very moment when Hitlerite military
aggression was erupting across Europe. It was concluded in the immediate
aftermath of the systematic decapitation of the Red Army. Its founder,
Leon Trotsky, who led it to victory against the wars of intervention
launched against the fledgling workers’ state, was in exile; three of
the five Soviet marshals, 90 percent of all Red Army generals, 80
percent of Red Army colonels, and 30,000 officers had been purged.
The
Soviet Union was left gravely weakened and unprepared when Hitler
launched his invasion in June 1941. The Soviet Union ultimately emerged
victorious not because of Stalinism, but in spite of it, and at the cost
of a staggering 27 million Soviet lives.
Leon Trotsky
Summing up the impact of Stalinism, Trotsky wrote:
No
one, not excluding Hitler, has dealt socialism such deadly blows as
Stalin. This is hardly astonishing, since Hitler has attacked the
working class organizations from without, while Stalin does it from
within. Hitler assaults Marxism. Stalin not only assaults it but
prostitutes it. Not a single principle has remained unpolluted, not a
single idea unsullied. The very names of socialism and communism have
been cruelly compromised, from the day when uncontrolled policemen,
making their livelihood with a “communist” passport, gave the name
socialism to their police regime. Revolting profanation! The barracks of
the GPU are not the ideal for which the working class is struggling.
Socialism
signifies a pure and clear social system which is accommodated to the
self-government of the toilers. Stalin’s regime is based on a conspiracy
of the rulers against the ruled. Socialism implies an uninterrupted
growth of universal equality. Stalin has erected a system of revolting
privileges.
Socialism has as its goal the all-sided flowering of
the individual personality. When and where has man’s personality been so
degraded as in the USSR?
Socialism would have no value apart from
the unselfish, honest, and humane relations between human beings. The
Stalin regime has permeated social and personal relationships with lies,
careerism and treachery. It is not Stalin, of course, who determines
the road taken by history. We possess the knowledge of the objective
causes which prepared the path for reaction in the USSR. But it is no
accident that Stalin rode on the crest of the Thermidorian wave. He was
able to invest the greedy appetites of the new caste with their most
vicious expression. Stalin does not bear any responsibility for history.
But he does bear responsibility for himself and for his role in
history. It is a criminal role. It is so criminal that revulsion is
multiplied by horror.
Trotsky concluded:
Moral
sensibility finds its highest satisfaction in the immutable conviction
that historical retribution will correspond to the scope of the crime.
Revolution will unlock all the secret compartments, review all the
trials, rehabilitate the slandered, raise memorials to the victims of
wantonness, and cover with eternal infamy the names of the executioners.
Stalin will depart from the scene laden with all the crimes which he
has committed – not only as the gravedigger of the revolution but as the
most sinister figure in the history of mankind.
(Leon Trotsky, “The Beginning of the End,” June 12, 1937, in Writings of Leon Trotsky [1936–37] (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1978), pp. 378, 382.)
More than eight decades later, long after Stalinism has completed its
counter-revolutionary mission, the CPM-K’s only reference to the
restoration of capitalism is its claim that Trotskyists “celebrated the
fall of the Soviet Union.”
This grotesque lie is meant to conceal
the fact that Trotsky and the Trotskyist movement warned consistently
that the bureaucracy would seek to liquidate the gains of the October
Revolution. Capitalist restoration was not imposed by Trotskyists, who
had been hunted down, exiled, imprisoned, and physically annihilated by
the Stalinist bureaucracy. It was carried out by the Stalinist
apparatus, which dismantled state property, destroyed what remained of
the planned economy, and integrated themselves directly into the
structures of world capitalism. The oligarchs who emerged from the ruins
of the USSR emerged from the bowels of the Stalinist state and party
apparatus.
Significantly, the CPM-K refuses to acknowledge the
restoration of capitalism in China—where the Communist Party of China
rules on behalf of a billionaire oligarchy intimately fused with global
finance capital—because this cuts across its efforts to cultivate
lucrative relations with China on behalf of its own leading members and
in the interests of the Kenyan bourgeoisie.
History has delivered its verdict. Stalinism did not defend socialism;
it destroyed it. Trotskyism alone fought to prevent that outcome and
continues to provide the only revolutionary perspective capable of
guiding the working class in the struggle for world socialist
revolution.
It is in the political context of the CPM-K’s open hailing of the crimes
of Stalinism and its own political alignment with bourgeois nationalist
regimes that collaborate with the murderous CIA that its fixation on
this author’s use of a pseudonym is politically sinister. Coupled with
the vile slander that the Trotskyist movement is funded by the CIA, it
is a demand to mark out individuals for political targeting, repression,
and even murder. It comes from an organisation whose top leadership,
including National Chairperson Mwandawiro Mghanga and General Secretary
Benedict Wachira, openly joined the Ruto regime, a government
responsible for mass killings, enforced disappearances, and thousands of
arrests.
The CPM-K’s efforts to rehabilitate Stalin and Stalinism is an agenda
shared by a host of similar tendencies internationally. This includes
Neo-Stalinist parties that emerged from the former affiliates of the
Third International such as the Communist Parties of Greece, Turkey,
Brazil and the Russian Federation, who now ally themselves with Maoist
groups such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Vietnamese
Communist Party in denouncing as “revisionism” the efforts of the
Kremlin to repudiate Stalin’s crimes.
They are joined by layers of
the petty-bourgeois, pseudo-left milieu, whose hatred of the Trotskyist
movement and wish to re-enact the purges and assassinations of the
1930s is rooted in their hostility to socialist revolution. This is
reinforced by their embrace of “multipolar alliances” with the Russian
and Chinese bourgeoisie as a means of containing US imperialism while
defending the interests of their own bourgeoisie.
The WSWS will
continue to wage a merciless political struggle against all such
tendencies. And by clarifying the essential historical lessons of the
Twentieth Century against all those who seek to silence it through lies
and threats of repression, create the basis for winning the young
vanguard of the working class to the ranks of the International
Committee of the Fourth International.
Five days before the strike began, Kaiser Permanente sued the
Alliance of Health Care Unions, alleging violations of the Labor
Management Partnership (LMP). The 10-union alliance includes the United
Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals
(UNAC/UHCP), United Food and Commercial Workers, Teamsters, UNITE HERE
and other striking unions.
The purpose of the lawsuit is to
fragment negotiations, get unions to sign separate agreements and shut
down the strike piecemeal. It is also a shot across the bow to the labor
bureaucracy with an implicit threat that the stream of money the union
apparatus receives through the Labor Management Partnership may be
turned off if it cannot get its membership back in line.
Kaiser’s
primary demand is to be released from any obligation to negotiate a
national agreement. Instead, it is seeking to end the strike on a
workplace-by-workplace basis.
*****
Most significantly, the lawsuit suggests that the strike itself is a
violation of the unions’ partnership with Kaiser. “The Defendants’
conduct deprived Plaintiffs of the benefit of labor stability,
operational continuity, and business reputation the LMP agreement was
intended to protect.”
In other words, the unions’ participation in
the LMP, and the raison d’etre of the LMP itself are expressly to
suppress strikes (“labor stability” and “operational continuity”) and
defend the reputation of Kaiser Permanente. One must ask: what kind of
organization claiming to represent workers would agree to such terms?
Furthermore, can workers have confidence in such an organization to lead
a struggle for workers’ interests?
As the World Socialist Web Site explained in a 2021 article, titled, “What is the Kaiser Permanente Labor Management Partnership,”
the LMP, established in 1997, was modeled on the corporatist schemes
established by the United Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers and
other industrial unions in the early 1980s. Corporatism “preached
unrestrained class collaboration and promoted the lie that workers have
no interests that are separate from, let alone hostile to, those of the
corporate bosses.”
In exchange for collaborating in the
destruction of millions of industrial jobs and the gutting of workers’
wages, pensions and working conditions, the UAW, USW and other union
bureaucracies were handed positions on company boards and a portion of
the hundreds of billions stolen from workers’ income in the form of
corporate stocks and other bribes. Over the last four decades, the
artificial suppression of the class struggle by the labor bureaucracy
resulted in an even further transfer of wealth to the top. At the same
time, workers’ share of the national GDP fell to the lowest level since
the Labor Department began collecting statistics in 1947.
As reported earlier, Kaiser reported $115.8 billion in operating
revenue, $12.9 billion in “net income,” and nearly $67.4 billion in
financial reserves in 2024. Executive compensation was approximately $93
million. These massive sums of money were made possible by the “labor
stability” protected and ensured by the LMP.
Kaiser is invoking the LMP as the basis for its lawsuit, exposing any
claims that the LMP works for the “mutual” benefit of healthcare workers
as a complete fraud. The LMP, and the unions in particular, bear
responsibility for the deterioration of the working conditions of nurses
and healthcare workers, having sanctioned the inflation of
patient-staff ratios and suppressed struggles for improvements to
working conditions.
*****
Rank-and-file workers have no interest in defending the Labor
Management Partnership, which was created in response to recurring
strikes. It imposed the burden of the financial pressures affecting
Kaiser onto the employees. Framed as “employee involvement,” it was
designed to transform the union leadership into an arm of management,
and secure deep concessions from the workers rather than empower
workers.
Left in the hands of the labor bureaucracy, the current
struggle will be betrayed like countless battles before. That is why it
is necessary for Kaiser nurses and other healthcare workers to
immediately form rank-and file committees to transfer power and
decision-making from the union apparatus to the workers on the hospital
and clinic floors. Strikers must be on guard against every effort to
divide them with separate deals and instead fight for the expansion of
the struggle. This includes uniting with New York nurses and other
sections of workers entering into struggle, including San Francisco
teachers, oil refinery workers and others.
As enumerated,
hundreds of thousands of workers across the country are voting to
strike or face contract expirations in the coming weeks and months,
opening up the prospect for sustained, coordinated strike action, as a
part of a broader working class upsurge against the attack on social and
democratic rights by the Trump administration and the corporate
oligarchy that both parties defend. Central to such a struggle will be
securing the right to free, high quality healthcare for all by ending
the subordination of medical care to corporate profit.
The World Socialist Web Site
(WSWS) will host an online meeting on the way forward for the 15,000
striking New York nurses and the 31,000 striking healthcare workers in
California and Hawaii at 7:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday, February 10.
On February 5, workers at BYD’s high-voltage electrical equipment
factory in the Jixian Industrial Park of Xi’an’s High-tech Zone walked
off the job in a collective strike against savage cuts to their
piece-rate bonuses. Under BYD’s ongoing cost-reduction drive, the
maximum monthly piece-rate bonus—a critical component of workers’ meagre
incomes—was slashed from 2,400 yuan to as little as 300-600 yuan.
After
mandatory deductions for social insurance and housing fund
contributions, many workers reported that their monthly take-home pay
had fallen below 2,000 yuan (approximately $US290). To put this figure
in perspective: 2,000 yuan per month amounts to roughly $3,480 per
year.
Meanwhile, BYD founder, chairman and CEO Wang Chuanfu commands an estimated personal fortune of $28.5 billion, according to Forbes
last year. A single BYD factory worker earning 2,000 yuan per month
would have to work for more than 8.2 million years to accumulate the
wealth that Wang possesses today.
This huge disparity is not an
aberration but the very foundation of BYD’s business model, in which
base wages are deliberately set barely above—and sometimes scarcely
at—local minimum wage levels, forcing workers to depend on overtime,
bonuses, and performance supplements that can be withdrawn at
management’s discretion.
The Xi’an strike is
far from an isolated
event. It is the latest eruption in a pattern of escalating labor unrest
across BYD’s vast manufacturing empire that stretches back years
and spans multiple countries and Chinese provinces.
*****
The pattern of exploitation extends beyond China’s borders. In
December 2024, Brazilian authorities rescued at least 163 Chinese
workers from what prosecutors described as “conditions analogous to
slavery” at a construction site for a new BYD plant in Camaçari, Bahia.
The site was shut down, delaying the opening of the facility—the
company’s first passenger car plant outside Asia—last year.
According
to HK Labour Rights Monitor website, “The investigation revealed
shocking abuses: some workers slept on bare beds, with 31 people sharing
a single toilet. Food and personal items were stored in unsanitary
conditions. Workers were reportedly forced to wake as early as 4 am,
endured excessive work hours without rest days, and in some cases worked
for 25 days straight.”
Workers had their passports confiscated,
up to 60 percent of wages withheld and were forced to work shifts of up
to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for as many as 25 consecutive
days. Federal prosecutors subsequently filed a lawsuit seeking 257
million reais (approximately $US45 million) in damages, which has since
been settled for just 40 million reais.
For 17 years, from 2008 to
2025, BYD’s labor regime has been tacitly backed by multi-billionaire
speculator, Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world.
Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s investment vehicle, held a major stake in
BYD, originally acquired for $230 million in 2008 at the urging of his
late partner Charlie Munger, who described Wang Chuanfu as “a
combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch.”
At its peak, Berkshire’s BYD stake was worth over $9 billion—a roughly
40-fold return. The investment generated an estimated $7 billion in
profit. Throughout this period, as BYD workers endured poverty wages,
police crackdowns on strikes, passport confiscations abroad, and
systematically broken promises, Berkshire Hathaway remained a prominent
shareholder, lending its prestige and that of Buffett personally to the
company.
Berkshire began selling in August
2022 and completed its full exit by
early 2025. Buffett offered no criticism of BYD’s highly exploitative
labor practices. His only public comment in 2023 was that BYD was “an
extraordinary company” run by an “extraordinary person,” but that he
would “find things to do with the money that I’ll feel better about.”
The recurring strikes at BYD expose the character of capitalist
exploitation in China and BYD’s rise as the world’s dominant electric
vehicle manufacturer. BYD reported revenue of 777.1 billion yuan in 2024
and net profit of over 40 billion yuan. Wang Chuanfu’s personal fortune
places him among the wealthiest individuals on the planet—he was listed
by Forbes last year as the 9th wealthiest of China’s billionaires.
Yet
the workers who produce this wealth—now numbering over 900,000, making
BYD the largest publicly traded employer in China—are paid wages that,
in many factories, leave them unable to meet basic living costs without grueling overtime.
The
All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the
only legally permitted union body, functions not as a representative of
workers but an arm of management and the state, suppressing independent
organization and channeling discontent into harmless outlets. Workers
who attempt to organize or protest rapidly face police repression,
dismissal, and detention.
The Xi’an strike,
like those before it
in Wuxi, Chengdu, and Changsha, demonstrates that the Chinese working
class is not prepared to accept these conditions. While the Chinese
state media and bureaucracy provide no statistics publicly on industrial
action, wildcat strikes and protests have markedly increased since
2023, particularly over unpaid wages and wage cuts, according to
organizations that attempt to monitor strike activity from outside
China.
This is a frightening and tragic situation for the Guthrie family, no
doubt affecting dozens of people at this point and perhaps for the rest
of their lives. One can only hope that it ends with Nancy Guthrie’s
safe return to her family.
The response in the American media to
this event, however, is vastly disproportionate to the significance of
the event itself. The media has gone into full saturation mode on the
Guthrie kidnapping. The evening and morning news television programs
have been dominated by the latest developments, which sometimes occupy
nearly half of the total coverage. The print media has responded
likewise, insisting furthermore that their obsession is shared by
everyone else.
*****
The American media is undoubtedly mesmerized by the episode. First of all, this has happened to one of them
or to one of their family members. The media personalities assume the
general public is as fascinated by them and their lives as they
themselves are.
USA Today claims “we know that it is an
incident that is deeply, horrifically sad and frightening. And we can’t
stop watching and waiting for news. … When tragedy hits the lives of the
rich and famous, the American public can’t help but tune in.” Such a
comment removes events from their social and cultural context.
“Celebrities” are endlessly marketed to the American public as the
people that count, the only people that count, and the
relentless bombardment, under conditions in which so many millions lead
bleak and uninviting lives, has its impact.
But this should not be
overstated. A mass movement of opposition to the establishment and the
status quo generally is developing. The president, many of his
officials, law enforcement and the rest are increasingly held in
contempt by large numbers of people, who are openly standing up to and
resisting their dictates. A considerable number of “celebrities,”
individuals who have actually earned popular respect for their genuine
talents in many cases, are loudly denouncing the actions of their own
government and its agencies. A healthy disrespect for the rich, for
authority and for the official political system and culture is emerging.
In other words, the stagnant, suffocating “celebrity culture” is
beginning to fall apart.
In the overwhelming media response to the Guthrie case, there is also
the inevitable element of deliberate social distraction. The various
bourgeois news organizations welcome an incident like this, with its
socially “neutral” character, a story that holds “human interest” for
“everyone,” as a means of removing the focus from the Trump
administration’s drive to war and dictatorship, the Democratic Party’s
complicity, ICE’s crimes and killings, as well as the desperately
painful economic conditions facing tens of millions. The American media
always has the need to “change the subject,” because the “subject” is always threatening and ominous.
Moreover,
we need to point out the vast difference in the depth of the coverage
of the Guthrie kidnapping and that devoted to the thousands of
abductions (and often deportations) of ordinary people by ICE and the
rest of the fascist paramilitary apparatus set in motion by the Trump
administration. These go largely unreported or vastly under-reported by the official outlets.
*****
In addition to the thousands of immigrants who have been assaulted,
ProPublica found that 170 US “Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration
Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.”
Among
the detentions in which [ICE] allegations have not stuck, masked
agents pointed a gun at, pepper sprayed and punched a young man who had
filmed them searching for his relative. In another, agents knocked over
and then tackled a 79-year-old car wash owner, pressing their knees into
his neck and back. His lawyer said he was held for 12 hours and wasn’t
given medical attention despite having broken ribs in the incident and
having recently had heart surgery. In a third case, agents grabbed and
handcuffed a woman on her way to work who was caught up in a chaotic
raid on street vendors. In a complaint filed against the government, she
described being held for more than two days, without being allowed to
contact the outside world for much of that time.
These
events are “sickening and deeply uncomfortable.” The society is indeed
“supposed to protect the young and the old,” but it has ruthlessly and
cruelly declared war on many of them. “How safe is anyone” under those
conditions?
The cases noted here are only a few of the countless
horror stories. Under which conditions will the US media become
“captivated” by these frightening and tragic situations?
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured victory in
Sunday’s general election, winning more than two-thirds of the seats in
the lower house of parliament and ensuring that far-right Prime Minister
Sanae Takaichi stays in power. The election results are part of a major
shift even further to the right for the Japanese establishment, which
is planning for war abroad and the suppression of opposition at home.
*****
The LDP’s victory comes after two disastrous elections in which the
party lost its lower house majority in October 2024 and then its upper
house majority in July of last year. It has now rebounded, with Takaichi
using the election results to claim a mandate for constitutional
revision in order to wage war overseas and to strengthen the military,
formally known as the Self-Defense Forces (SDF).
Constitutional
change requires approval by two-thirds of both houses of parliament and
acceptance by a simple majority in a national referendum and has never
succeeded in the post-World War 2 period.
Takaichi stated Sunday
night, “We (the LDP) have advocated policies facing significant
opposition, including a major shift in economic and fiscal policy,
strengthening our security policy, and enhancing intelligence
capabilities. If we receive the people’s trust, we must work diligently
on these matters.”
Yet voter turnout is estimated to have reached only 55.68 percent,
making it the fourth lowest rate in the post-war period. Since 2012,
when Shinzo Abe became prime minister, voter turnout has been at
historic lows in each general election, reflecting widespread
disillusionment with the political establishment, rather than “mandates”
from the public.
*****
Takaichi’s agenda follows that of her predecessors, in particular her
political mentor Shinzo Abe, who carried out significant attacks on the
working class while pursuing remilitarization as prime minister from
2012 to 2020. Quite telling about her agenda, Takaichi also received the
endorsement of fascistic US President Trump last Thursday.
The
so-called opposition Democrats have consistently bowed before the
far-right in Japan. Ahead of this election, they accepted many of the
LDP’s policies so as to form its alliance with Komeito, including openly
backing military legislation rammed through parliament in 2015 that
allows Tokyo to wage war overseas alongside an ally.
The CRA did
not put forward any serious measures to address the economic crisis that
the working people face. Nor did it pledge to oppose remilitarization,
but instead declared that it will hold “responsible” discussions on
issues like constitutional revision to make it easier for Japan to wage
war.
Faced with the crisis of capitalism at home and internationally,
Japanese imperialism is seeking to independently reassert its interests
through all means. This includes removing any remaining post-war
constraints on Japanese militarism, most notably Article 9 of the
constitution which formally bans Tokyo from maintaining a military or
waging war overseas. In practice, Article 9 has been effectively ignored
by successive governments through the establishment of a Japanese
military cloaked as Self-Defense Forces and maintaining huge US military
bases within Japan.
*****
At the same time, the ruling class seeks the passage of
anti-democratic and pro-military measures because they foresee working
class opposition. This includes passing new legislation such as an
anti-espionage law.
The purpose of such a law would be to clamp
down on information spreading to the public by expanding what would
constitute a “national secret.” Such a law could easily be used to
target whistleblowers, journalists, or anyone seeking to expose the
ruling class’s attack on workers or plans for war.
*****
Takaichi’s cabinet also plans to revise Japan’s National Security
Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Buildup Program
by the end of this year. These three documents were last revised in
2022 and were intended to cover a 10-year period. A key component of the
documents was the raising of military spending to 2 percent of GDP by
2027.
The government reached this 2 percent level early through a
supplementary budget at the end of last year. The revision of the three
military documents will almost certainly include an even higher
spending threshold, the cost of which will have to be extracted from the
working class.
[Jeremy Corbyn] and his faction, “The Many”, have... set about waging a right-wing
assault on any program for Your Party which makes even a verbal
declaration of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism.
*****
From the beginning of his time as Labour leader in 2015, the
Socialist Equality Party identified Corbyn as the chief political
obstacle to the development of a socialist movement in the UK, in
opposition to every other left tendency that presented his time as
leader as an opportunity for the socialist transformation of the Labour
Party.
As leader, Corbyn betrayed the mass support he had won and
capitulated on every political issue to the Blairite right, including
accepting NATO membership and the Trident nuclear weapons system. He
turned a blind eye while Labour’s Blairite apparatus purged left-wing
members, then colluded in the expulsion of many of his leading
supporters on lying charges equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
This
was met with one apologia after another insisting that Corbyn was a
well-intentioned victim of the Blairite right-wing—which he had, in
fact, protected from all efforts to expel them from the party. When he
was finally driven out and replaced by Starmer, tendencies such as the
SWP, SP and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) still upheld him as
the natural leader of a left breakaway party—a course of action he
opposed for years.
Under the pressure of mass hostility to the
Labour Party and the government of Keir Starmer, Corbyn finally accepted
his coronation as leader of what became Your Party in July last year.
He did so only to mount a vicious campaign against his nominal co-leader
Sultana and her backers, employing the full playbook of the Blairites
to ensure that Your Party would function as a tame electoral vehicle
whose sole purpose is the election of a handful of MPs to act as
Labour’s “conscience”.
*****
That Corbyn now leads Your Party—supposedly offering a “left”
alternative to Labour—has not made a jot of difference to his political
loyalties or his bankrupt politics.
Corbyn’s latest performance
continues his historic role of refusing to wage any struggle against the
Blairites and the Labour Party apparatus, confirming him as a loyal
defender of British imperialism.
Italy’s fascist prime minister, Georgia Meloni, welcomed U.S. Vice
President JD Vance to Milan and placed the city on lockdown. Nearly
6,000 heavily-armed Italian police and military officers are patrolling
the streets. Snipers are deployed on the rooftops, no-fly zones have
been established across the city and a special decree allows police to
jail people in Milan for 12 hours on the flimsy grounds that police
suspect they might engage in violent protest.
Nonetheless, what
has attracted world attention to the Games, beyond the athletic feats
performed by the Olympians, is not the machinery of police-state rule
but expressions of the growing political opposition to fascist policies
on both sides of the Atlantic. Protests have shaken Milan, expressions
of anti-war sentiment marked the Games’ opening ceremony and US
Olympians publicly criticized the Trump administration.
Illegal
ICE occupations of US cities, deportations of immigrants and the
executions of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis are
shocking and radicalizing masses of people across Europe and beyond. It
is becoming evident to working people around the world that they
confront, in the Trump administration, a US government unlike any they
have ever seen: an utterly lawless regime that brazenly announces and
enacts fascist policies.
*****
Anti-war or veiled statements of opposition to Trump made their way
even into the scripted proceedings of the opening ceremony. Milanese
rapper Ghali performed Gianni Rodari’s famous 1948 anti-war children’s
poem Promemoria, while US/South African actress Charlize Theron
read a quote from former South African President Nelson Mandela
opposing racial prejudice.
The 60,000-strong crowd at the opening
ceremony booed US Vice President Vance when, during the applause for the
US Olympic delegation, footage of Vance and his wife Usha arriving at
the stadium was broadcast on the stadium screens. The crowd ignored
appeals from Olympic organizers not to boo while US athletes were
marching.
Finally, the Trump and Meloni governments have been
deeply shaken by statements made by Olympic athletes themselves. These
are in many cases individuals of extraordinary athletic talent, who have
devoted years of their lives to rigorous training. Many live in the
Olympic Village during the competition and meet athletes from around the
world, fostering international camaraderie and respect. Their
statements make clear that the nationalism and flag-waving that saturate
the media coverage of the Olympics is not something they embrace
voluntarily but something that is imposed upon them.
Asked whether he felt comfortable representing his country during ICE
operations, US freestyle skier Hunter Hess replied: “Just because I’m
wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in
the US.”
His fellow US freestyle skier Chris Lillis said he was
“heartbroken” about ICE actions and broader events in the United States:
“I think that, as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody’s
rights and making sure that we’re treating our citizens, as well as
anybody, with love and respect. I hope that when people look at athletes
competing in the Olympics, they realize that that’s the America that
we’re trying to represent.”
*****
Statements like those of Hunt and Lillis reflect a growing hostility
among broad layers of the world’s population to what governments like
those of Trump and Meloni represent. A deep-rooted social and political
radicalization has begun against reactionary governments that are
isolated and despised. Despite censorship and police-state repression,
this mass sentiment has begun to force its way to the surface of events.
Unsurprisingly, Trump and Meloni have responded with degraded
denunciations of athletes and protesters opposing them during the Games.
While Trump attacked Hunter Hess on Truth Social as “a real Loser, says
he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,”
Meloni attacked those protesting during the Olympics as “enemies of
Italy and of Italians.”
But it is not hard to see who the “enemies
of the people” are. It is the fascist representatives of the ruling
capitalist oligarchy who resort to war, genocide, stoking anti-immigrant
racism, austerity and police-state repression—not workers and youth
protesting against them.
Moods of opposition are growing
internationally in line with a resurgence of class struggle and an
activation of the social force that can take economic and political
power out of the hands of the capitalist oligarchy: the working class.
The mass protests in Minneapolis in January against the police murders
of Good and Pretti are expressions of a developing social upheaval in
the United States and internationally.
Indeed,
the day of the Olympic opening ceremony—amidst ongoing strikes by
46,000 nurses in the US—port workers in Italy and across the
Mediterranean launched a one-day “Dockworkers do not work for war”
strike. Their strike delayed the arrival of arms headed for the Middle
East and the genocide in Gaza, blocking ships bearing weapons in ports
where union officials kept dockworkers on the job.
These events
point to the possibility and necessity of the international unification
of the struggles of the working class. The conscious goal of such a
movement must be the mobilization of workers’ social and industrial
power to bring down capitalist governments pursuing policies of
austerity, imperialist war and dictatorship and to transfer power to the
working people—building a socialist society in which social and
economic resources are used to meet social need, not private profit.
Last week, 77 of the 110 people detained in police operations
targeting members of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) across
Türkiye were arrested and sent to prison. This was the most
comprehensive attack to date on the party, which was legally founded in
2010 and has frequently been subjected to political repression by
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. In a separate wave of state
crackdown, six members of the Left (SOL) Party were sentenced to house
arrest.
The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi – Dördüncü Enternasyonal,
the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, has condemned state repression in its statements and
demanded the release of those arrested. In its first statement about the
ESP, it said, “Democratic rights cannot be defended without principally
opposing increasing state repression against freedom of expression and
the right to protest, as well as political detentions and arrests.”
The Chavista government headed by “interim president” Delcy
Rodríguez, far from being the main target of US imperialism, is closely
collaborating with Trump and his fascist cabinet in the plundering of
Venezuela.
Instead of the promised “Latin American liberation from the Monroe Doctrine,” history has proven Chavismo to be a midwife for a neocolonial order proclaimed by US imperialism as it confronts its deepest historical crisis.
These
events are having a deep impact on the consciousness of masses of
people in Latin America and internationally and adding to an ongoing
process of radicalization and political reorientation.
The
organizations of the pseudo-left, directly responsible for the
catastrophe in Venezuela, are now working desperately to prevent the
working class from breaking from the demoralized nationalist bureaucracy
and its apparatus.
With this reactionary purpose, the different
Pabloite and Morenoite tendencies, the Stalinist Communist Party of
Venezuela (PCV) and other dissident currents of Chavismo have launched a rotten political bloc to confront the “grave situation” in Venezuela.
These
organizations – either affiliated to or supporting the “National
Meeting in Defense of the People’s Rights” led by the Stalinists –
issued a joint statement calling for opposition to “the military
aggression and imperialist offensive” and to “the neocolonial
collaboration of the national government with the Trump administration,”
and demanding “democratic liberties.”
Covered under radical
phraseology, this reactionary pseudo-left coalition is aimed at carving
out space for these organizations in the new bourgeois setup being
established under imperialist siege. Vindicating their position as the
official “left opposition,” their central task is to prevent the working
class from drawing the historical lessons from the crisis of Chavismo and developing its independent political movement.
*****
The manifesto’s signatories, while proclaiming themselves to be above
any “factor of oppressive power,” don’t bother to discuss their own
political origins and records. In fact, no political event dating from
before January 3, 2026, is mentioned in the document’s five pages of
conjunctural analysis and action demands.
Any historical balance
sheet would expose the direct complicity of these pseudo-left
organizations in the massive betrayal against the Venezuelan population.
*****
Intentionally blurring the conflicting class interests within
Venezuela, the statement’s calls for the “rescue of national
sovereignty” and to “overcome the imperialist domination” is aimed at
deceiving the working class and ensuring its subordination to the
national bourgeoisie.
None of the demands raised by the
Morenoite-Stalinist bloc are oriented to the working class and for the
development of its political consciousness and independent organization.
They direct all their appeals to the bourgeois state itself,
illegitimately presenting themselves as spokesmen for the Venezuelan
workers.
*****
The central lesson of the catastrophic experience with Chavismo
and other forms of petty-bourgeois nationalism in Latin America is
precisely the need to forge revolutionary leadership on the basis of an
intransigent struggle for the political independence of the working
class.
The historical role fulfilled by Stalinism, aided Pabloite
revisionism and its variants, such as Morenoism was precisely to derail
the working class’s struggle for political independence. These
revisionist tendencies represented an attempt to liquidate Trotskyism
into the nationalist perspectives of Stalinism, while promoting
bourgeois nationalism and petty-bourgeois guerrillaism as substitutes
for the conscious and independent mobilization of the working class in
the struggle for socialism.
As Trotsky wrote in 1937: “The modern
history of bourgeois society is filled with all sorts of Popular
Fronts, i.e. the most diverse political combinations for the deception
of the toilers.” This tradition was tragically continued throughout the
course of the 20th century.
In Latin America, it led to the US-backed 1973 coup in Chile, which was prepared by the betrayals of the Unidad Popular
government joined by the Stalinists and backed by the Pabloites. In
1976, an equally brutal military regime took power in Argentina
facilitated by the subordination of workers to Peronism promoted by
Nahuel Moreno.
The 21st century “Pink Tide” was the most recent
and decrepit manifestation of the promotion of bourgeois nationalism and
“popular frontism” by the pseudo-left enemies of the working class.
The
violent eruption of US imperialism is not a symptom of its strength,
but of its historical demise. While the preservation of global
capitalism doesn’t allow for a peaceful reconfiguration of the
international order, the conditions for overthrowing the imperialist
system as a whole are objectively posed.
The working class is
being called upon the historical arena to resolve the crisis of humanity
and to establish an international socialist society that corresponds to
the objective character of globalized economy and the potential of
technology.
The historic task confronting workers and youth in Venezuela and
throughout Latin America is the construction of revolutionary parties
based on the strategic lessons of these experiences. This means building
sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International,
grounded in the intransigent defense of the political independence of
the working class, the theory of permanent revolution, and the program
of international socialist revolution.
The
“March of Sacrifice” was organized by the relatives of those murdered
in 2023, when newly installed President Dina Boluarte gave shoot-to-kill
orders to suppress nationwide protests.
*****
According to government figures, there were more than 56 murders of
drivers and fare collectors in 2025; the unions put the figure at 180.
The union leaders, drawn largely from small transport company operators,
have collaborated with police in quelling previous protests. Their
demands center on strengthening the repressive apparatus with more
militarized policing and more prisons.
Clashes broke out when the
police banned the march from advancing along Abancay Avenue. This time
the police backed down and the march continued along that avenue until
it reached Congress.
In three of the last four presidential
changes, the police opened fire with intent to kill. The latest killing
was of youth protester and rapper Eduardo Ruiz Sanz (aka Trvko) at the
hands of an undercover police officer during a demonstration on October
15, 2025. That day Gen-Z took to the streets to protest the rise of José
Jerí to the presidency.
Jerí was a corrupt congressman and has
taken all his tricks with him to the Government Palace. Every day the
newspapers publish more filth associated with Jerí. He staged a
clandestine meeting with two Chinese businessmen in a Chinese
restaurant, where the president tried to conceal his presence by wearing
a hood. The meetings were not on his official schedule. The scandal is
known as “Chifagate.” In Peru, Chinese restaurants are known as chifas.
More information has been coming out that Jerí awarded plum government
jobs to young women after they made late night visits to his residence.
*****
Jerí is Peru’s eighth president in less than a decade, with four of his predecessors currently in jail.
Clara, who was among the people waiting for the marchers to reach Plaza San Martín, told the World Socialist Web Site:
“I have come to the march to accompany the comrades who have been
demanding justice for more than three years. [Former president] Dina
Boluarte is a psychopath. She attacked more than 80 Peruvians among
those killed, wounded and disappeared. Many [of those who took part in
the protests from January to March 2023] are in prison without lawyers
to defend them.”
“Jerí is just another servant of the
dictatorship. It is more of the same. They simply got rid of Boluarte
because her government could not go on any longer.”
*****
There is a growing radicalization of workers and youth in Peru amid the
abject subordination of the unions and so-called “left” to the bourgeois
state. The burning necessity is that of a new revolutionary leadership
in the working class dedicated to uniting its struggles with those of
workers throughout the Americas and around the world. This means
building a Peruvian section of the International Committee of the Fourth
International.
The case of an 18-month-old girl identified as Amalia exemplifies the
true character of the US immigration detention system. Her near-fatal
illness and the subsequent lawsuit filed by her parents expose a system
in which children are treated as criminals, disease is allowed to spread
unchecked, and even the most basic obligations of care are abandoned.
What happened to Amalia was not an accident or an unforeseeable medical
emergency. It was the predictable outcome of confining families in
squalid, carceral conditions where human life is treated as disposable.
Yesterday, Reuters reported that the parents of Amalia, who have been
detained at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas
since December 11, 2025, filed a federal lawsuit last Friday against
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and federal officials
under the Department of Homeland Security responsible for her detention
and medical care.
While in custody, Amalia became critically ill
and went into life-threatening respiratory failure. On January 18, she
was rushed to Methodist Children’s Hospital in San Antonio, where she
was admitted to the intensive care unit and remained hospitalized for 10
days.
According to her parents, Amalia developed a high fever in
early January that would not subside. She began vomiting and
experiencing severe diarrhea, leaving her dangerously dehydrated and
struggling to breathe. Despite repeated pleas by her parents for medical
attention, detention staff reportedly turned them away, instructing
them only to administer basic fever medication.
By mid-January,
Amalia’s condition had deteriorated rapidly. She became lethargic and
listless as her respiratory failure worsened. On January 18, her blood
oxygen saturation levels plunged into the 50s—critically low levels
that, without immediate medical intervention, would have resulted in her
death within a short time. She was transported to the hospital with her
mother, where she was finally given supplemental oxygen and nebulized
breathing treatments, hydrated with intravenous fluids, and placed under
intensive care. Throughout her hospitalization, ICE officers maintained
constant supervision over both mother and child.
During her
medical evaluation, Amalia was diagnosed with COVID-19, respiratory
syncytial virus (RSV), viral bronchitis, and pneumonia. She required
nutritional supplements after losing approximately 10 percent of her
body weight. For a child of her age, the combination of multiple viral
respiratory infections with pneumonia represents a severe illness with a
prolonged and fragile recovery. Such conditions require close medical
follow-up and uninterrupted access to prescribed medications and
equipment, including breathing treatments to reduce airway inflammation
and prevent relapse. Children recovering from this level of illness
remain at high risk of rapid deterioration if care is interrupted.
According to reports, Amalia’s mother remained at her daughter’s bedside
throughout the hospitalization, fearing she would not survive.
Despite
this, upon Amalia’s discharge on January 28, the family was informed
they would be returned to the Dilley detention center. Once back in
custody, Amalia’s prescribed nebulizer, medications, and nutritional
drinks were confiscated by detention staff. Her parents were forced to
wait with her each day in long outdoor lines outside the facility’s
medical unit—known as the “pill line”—during a period of frigid winter
weather that had swept across the region. On each occasion, Amalia was
given a nutritional supplement but denied access to the breathing
medications ordered by her physicians.
*****
A recent STAT News report on the measles outbreak at Dilley
by infectious disease physician Dr. Krutika Kuppalli explained that
people held in immigration detention centers face a heightened risk of
contracting vaccine-preventable diseases. Due to poor baseline health,
malnutrition, and chronic stress, they are also more likely to suffer
severe complications once infected.
These dangers are well documented. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association
in October 2025 found that between 2019 and 2023, ICE facilities
reported 2,035 influenza cases, 252 mumps cases and 486 hepatitis A
cases across just 20 detention centers.
Another investigation by
researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, examining
the period from January 1, 2017, through March 22, 2020, identified
1,280 influenza cases, 1,052 chickenpox cases and 301 mumps cases,
including dozens of documented outbreaks. Dr. Nathan Lo, the study’s
lead author, observed: “These numbers are pretty shocking, and very
concerning. They suggest this vulnerable population is being placed at
very high risk for these infections while being detained. Crowding
people together and giving them poor access to health care or vaccines
makes these detention centers ripe for facilitating infectious
outbreaks.”
*****
Amalia was released only because her case briefly broke through the
legal system. That outcome should not be mistaken for justice. Courts
intervene late and selectively, after serious harm has already occurred,
and only for those who are able to secure lawyers and public attention.
Countless others remain imprisoned under the same conditions, with no
recourse at all.
What happened at Dilley cannot be solved through
lawsuits or administrative fixes. These detention centers are not
malfunctioning; they are working as designed. They exist to criminalize
immigrants, to confine families in degrading conditions, and to treat
human suffering as acceptable collateral damage.
Defending immigrant children and families therefore cannot be separated
from the broader struggle of the working class. The same political
system that cages migrants, dismantles public health protections, and
allows preventable disease to spread is one that exploits workers
everywhere. The answer is not appeals to the courts, but collective
political action. A revolutionary, internationalist perspective is
required, one that defends the rights of all people, regardless of
nationality or legal status, and unites workers across borders in
opposition to a system that profits from repression, disease, and
inequality.
On February 7, a combined force of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office
and Minnesota State Patrol troopers carried out mass arrests of
protesters outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. The
building serves as the nerve center for Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations
that have terrorized immigrants and protesters in Minneapolis and
throughout Minnesota.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) dispatched
snowplows to block entry points to the Whipple building. Ranks of
helmeted, baton-wielding state troopers and sheriff’s deputies moved in
on protesters who have held daily vigils to oppose ICE operations. Using
a bullhorn, a Hennepin County sheriff announced, “Due to the unlawful
conduct and threat to public safety, I hereby declare this to be an
unlawful assembly.”
Police forces advanced shouting, “Move back!
Move back!” Protesters responded that the real criminals were the ICE
agents inside the Whipple building, and that it was ICE that was
“violating a federal judge’s orders” and “violating our Fourth Amendment
rights.” State troopers and deputies then charged, wrestling protesters
to the ground and hauling them away.
One witness wrote on social media:
“Hennepin
County sheriffs declared an unlawful assembly at the Whipple Building,
despite protesters staying behind the fences, out of the road, and well
off federal property. They backed protesters into the South Fort
Snelling parking lot and then began arrests, kneeling on people and even
shooting out a car window with rubber rounds. HCSO may not literally be
ICE, but they are bosom buddies and should be treated with equal levels
of disdain.”
Local media reported that 54 people were arrested on Saturday. The
Minnesota State Patrol confirmed that 25 of those detained by state
troopers were arrested for allegedly failing to disperse.
Prior to police declaring an unlawful assembly, fascist Jake Lang
menaced the hundreds peacefully protesting from the back of a rented
U-Haul truck. Video of the incident shows Lang in the back of the truck
with a speakerphone. The fascist proclaimed “Jesus is king” in between
slurs against Somali people and praise for the immigration police.
Joining Lang in the back of the truck was a man with a paintball gun and
another man with large wooden cross.
*****
These events underscore the real meaning of the January 26 phone call
between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and President Trump concerning
Homeland Security’s violent “Operation Metro Surge.”
*****
The use of state troopers and the mobilization of MnDOT to kettle
protesters at the Whipple Federal Building has stripped away the mask
from Walz’s posturing against Trump. Both the Minnesota State Patrol and
MnDOT operate under Walz’s authority. Responsibility for this police
operation cannot be shifted away from the governor or the Democratic
Party.
*****
Phrases such as “general strike,” along with the accurate
characterization of Trump’s actions as “fascist” and aimed at
establishing a “dictatorship,” are increasingly entering the vocabulary
of broad layers of workers.
Protests continue across Minnesota.
Thousands of people are volunteering as constitutional observers,
documenting ICE and CBP violence, escorting schoolchildren, and
supplying immigrant families with food and protection as federal agents
seek to hunt them down.
At the same time, the national media is
carrying out its own drawdown of coverage. Reporting on events in
Minnesota is being quietly dropped. The goal, shared with the Democratic
Party and the trade union bureaucracy, is to bring the protests to an
end and wear down the movement. Walz’s policy of deploying police
against demonstrators while urging residents to place their faith in the
courts and the November elections is aimed at demobilizing the growing
opposition to fascism and dictatorship.
Waitangi Day on February 6, New Zealand’s national day, commemorates
the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 by representatives of the
British Empire and several Māori tribal leaders.
The document
facilitated British colonization and the entrenchment of capitalist
property relations. It falsely promised that Māori rights to land and
resources would be protected, in exchange for the indigenous people
accepting a colonial government. The treaty
served to buy time for the British to amass sufficient military forces
to conquer Māori land in a series of brutal wars, which killed thousands
of people.
Speaking at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds each year, political leaders
invariably gloss over these facts. Instead, they present a nationalist
mythology, according to which the treaty was a national founding
document that paved the way for democracy and an end to racism and
discrimination.
In a speech on February 5, Prime Minister
Christopher Luxon claimed that in contrast with the rest of the world,
“where difference so often leads to violence and fracture, New
Zealanders have decades of experience working through our differences
with words, ideas and debate… and I think we have the treaty to thank
for that.”
While decrying violence, however, Luxon hailed “the
sacrifice of Māori in service of the Crown” during the First and Second
World Wars. He repeated the phrase of Āpirana Ngata—a Māori politician
who played a major role in the recruitment of young Māori for both
wars—that fighting was “the price of citizenship.”
The National Party-led government, with Labour’s support, intends to
vastly expand the size of the military, as it integrates the country
into US-led plans for war against China. Thousands of young people will
be expected to again sacrifice their lives as New Zealand imperialism
joins in the violent redivision of the world.
*****
The day before Luxon’s speech, Statistics NZ reported that
unemployment reached 5.4 percent in the December quarter, the highest
rate in 10 years. A total of 165,000 people are officially unemployed,
43,000 more than in December 2023.
Annual wage growth is just 2
percent, well below the inflation rate of 3.1 percent, meaning most
workers, employed or not, are getting poorer.
The vast majority of
Māori, who make up about 15 percent of the population, are among the
most exploited workers: Māori unemployment is 11.2 percent, more than
twice the national rate, while for Pacific Islanders it is 12.3 percent.
Māori
and Pacific Islanders face worse health outcomes, lower life expectancy
and higher levels of child poverty. Luxon trumpeted improved literacy
scores for Māori school students, claiming that thousands more were
“getting the start in life to create the future they dream of and
ultimately deserve.” He did not mention that about 1 in 4.5 Māori
children and 1 in 3.5 Pacific children are in “material hardship,”
according to figures from 2023.
Both groups are also more likely
to be homeless. According to the 2023 Census, 3.94 percent of Māori and
6.6 percent of Pacific peoples are “severely housing deprived,” i.e.
homeless or in unsafe, overcrowded or makeshift accommodation, compared
with 2.3 percent of the overall population.
In a pitch to the
tribal elite, Luxon said he was “deeply, deeply committed” to ongoing
Treaty of Waitangi settlements. These are multi-million dollar payouts
given to tribes, ostensibly as reparations for land confiscation and
other crimes of British imperialism.
*****
While Luxon used his Waitangi speech to denounce socialism and
equality, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, from the far-right ACT
Party, provocatively stated that poor and homeless people are actually
well-off.
He told a media conference that thanks to British
colonisation enabled by the treaty, New Zealand became “one of the most
successful societies that has ever existed.” Channelling the
contemptuous comments of Marie Antoinette, Seymour declared: “Even the
poorest people in New Zealand today are living like kings and queens
compared with most places and most times in history.”
In two world wars, the German bourgeoisie expanded brutally to the
East, leaving behind scorched earth and committing the most monstrous
crimes. Today, the German imperialists are openly linking back to this
tradition: driving forward the transformation of Germany into Europe’s
leading military power to expand their military and political weight,
especially in Northern and Eastern Europe.
To this end, the
Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) wants to transform the civilian Rostock-Laage
airport, located about 30 kilometers from the center of the East German
port city of Rostock and directly bordering the military “Laage Air
Base,” into a military fortress.
Officially, since mid-December,
the Bundeswehr has been examining the takeover of the airport area,
which has operated under civilian control since the 1990s. This is
necessary due to the “changed security situation,” which necessitates a
“significant growth of the armed forces,” including “infrastructural
needs,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense stated in mid-January
2026. Numerous properties nationwide are also being examined.
Laage
Air Base is one of the four central Eurofighter locations in Germany,
with approximately 920 military personnel and 35 Eurofighter combat
jets, forming the backbone of the German combat aircraft fleet, with a
total arsenal of some 138 Eurofighters.
With its geographical
location on Germany’s northern coast, only around 700 kilometers as the
crow flies from Kaliningrad, it is at the same time one of the most
geo-strategically favorable German air bases for rapid access to the
Baltic. Under good conditions, and at combat speed (approx. 1,900 km/h),
a Eurofighter could reach the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad (formerly
Königsberg) in about 20 minutes.
*****
In June 2025, broadcaster NDR reported that the Bundeswehr had
earmarked investments amounting to around €1 billion [!] in the coming
10 to 15 years for the further expansion of the location.
The
planned investments are intended to “modernize” the runway, energy
supply, ammunition depots, squadron and command posts as well as
protective structures (against shelling and fire) for the Eurofighter
fleet and ammunition such as guided missiles. In truth, the military
striking power and protective capability against counter-attack are
being increased considerably.
The conversion and expansion plans
for Laage Air Base are not an isolated case. They fit into the
Bundeswehr’s operational capability and digital networking “Target
Image,” in which the future Rostock-Laage air base, together with the
maritime tactical NATO headquarters “CTF Baltic” in Rostock, is to play a central role in a digital and fully networked “air defense infrastructure” on NATO’s eastern flank.
*****
With “Operation Plan Germany”
(OPLAN DEU), the Merz government is ensuring that all civilian
capacities and infrastructure are subordinated to the needs of the
military. Responsibilities for a military emergency were already settled
in Berlin at the end of last month—with the explicit goal of making
Germany a host nation and logistical hub for allied troops. The
integration of airports, railways, municipal utilities, hospitals and
rescue forces into such scenarios means the de facto militarization of
entire branches of civil administration and supply.
For some time
now, the Luftwaffe has been practicing landing its Eurofighters at
civilian airports, which “in an emergency” would become transshipment
points for troops, materiel and fuel—and thus a regular target for the
opposing side.
*****
The conversion of the Rostock-Laage air base into a pure NATO base
with increased security status—like the CTF Baltic—is equally
threatening and de facto illegal.
With the stationing not only of
German but also of NATO pilots—as well as their training and
deployment—Berlin would again break the Two Plus Four Treaty, with which
the reintroduction of capitalism on the territory of the former East
Germany was sealed. It stipulates that no foreign armed forces and
nuclear weapons or their carriers may be stationed in or transferred to
East Germany. Russia already reacted to the inauguration of the CTF
Baltic in 2024 by summoning the German ambassador Alexander Graf
Lambsdorff and threatening a “corresponding response from the Russian
side.”
That Berlin is systematically undermining the foundation of
the Two Plus Four Treaty shows the ruthlessness of the German and
European ruling class, and once again reveals their goal of provoking a
war with the nuclear power Russia, and accepting the annihilation of all
life in Europe.
Refinery workers across the United States are speaking out to the World Socialist Web Site
against the tentative national pattern agreement announced by the
United Steelworkers (USW) covering 30,000 oil refinery workers.
The
tentative agreement provides wage increases totaling approximately 15
percent over four years, along with a one-time $2,500 signing bonus. At
the same time it leaves intact forced overtime regimes, limited sick
leave and longstanding staffing and safety issues. The USW bureaucracy
has moved quickly to present the deal as the best that can be achieved,
while signaling that individual locals—most notably at BP Whiting in
Indiana—may be left to fight alone if they reject it.
To defeat
this sellout, refinery workers need to take the struggle into their own
hands by forming rank-and-file committees at every refinery and
petrochemical plant. These committees should be elected by workers on
the shop floor, not appointed by the union, and used to communicate
across refineries, share information the USW is withholding and
coordinate a common response to the tentative agreement.
In
particular, refinery workers should mobilize to prevent the USW from
isolating a strike at BP Whiting, where workers have authorized a strike
and management is demanding even deeper concessions.
One Whiting
worker told the WSWS, “We’re getting 15 percent over 4 years and a
middle finger, and maybe just the middle finger at BP Whiting. How does
this make sense?
“And to top it all off, I’m sure if we, at the BP Whiting Refinery, go
out on strike, we’ll be on our own. The USW’s stance should be every
refinery signs or we go out … plain and simple.”
*****
At Chevron’s Richmond, California refinery, a worker pointed to the
contrast between workers’ sacrifices and what the company and union are
offering in return. “A fire took place here early last year February of
2025,” he said. “Operators and fire fighters working along side each
other kept this event from going catastrophic.
“Meanwhile we have
forced overtime hours of 12- to 13-hour shifts, 6 to 14 days straight,
with 1 or 2 days off in between for over an entire year. We work to keep
this company going and forced overtime and yet sick time stays the
same, and vacation hours stay the same, and we get a slap in the face
with wages. The $2,500 signing bonus is a joke too.”
Workers in Northern California emphasized the crushing impact of cost-of-living increases and the erosion of time off.
“A
slap in the face. We deserve better. We sacrifice our lives, our time,
and our health, for these companies. We work long hours, away from
family. We miss birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. We have to be forced
to work because we don’t have enough time to be able to take days off
liberally. We risk a write-up for a day off because we only get a total
of eight sick days for the year.”
*****
Another Northern California worker underscored regional disparities
ignored by the national agreement: “Living in California, the cost of
living is so much higher than the Midwest and the gulf states. We’ve
been behind the inflation curve for years and this settlement keeps us
behind the curve.”
At least 227 Congolese workers were killed last week when landslides
collapsed several coltan mines in eastern Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC). Heavy rains triggered cave‑ins at the artisanal Rubaya site
in North Kivu province.
This follows a similar collapse last June, when at least 12 miners died at another artisanal coltan site near Rubaya. Global Witness has documented at least four deadly landslides in the area over the last 18 months.
The Rubaya mines are in territory seized in 2024 by the M23 rebels, a
Rwanda‑and Uganda‑backed militia. They produce around 15 percent of the
world’s coltan. Coltan is processed into tantalum, a heat‑resistant
metal essential for capacitors used in mobile phones, computers,
advanced medical equipment, aerospace components and gas turbines.
Global demand for rechargeable batteries is expected to triple between
2024 and 2030, driven by electric vehicles and grid‑scale energy
storage.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame claims his intervention in
the DRC is aimed at protecting Congolese Tutsis from the Democratic
Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), formed from remnants of the
forces responsible for the 1994 genocide. This is a thinly veiled
justification for a land grab in one of the most resource‑rich regions
of the country, where Rwandan‑backed forces now dominate and displace
local authorities.
*****
Artisanal mining—sites without recognised corporate operators—employs
hundreds of thousands across eastern Congo. These workers produce a
significant share of the region’s mineral output under the most
hazardous conditions for minimal pay. They typically work with basic
hand tools, digging deep, unstable tunnels without proper structural
reinforcement. Underground water can rapidly flood shafts or slowly
erode their integrity. Most sites lack pumps, drainage systems, personal
protective equipment, ventilation, early‑warning systems or emergency
plans.
M23’s control of the region includes a 15 percent tax on
coltan production and strict control over access to mining sites. This
creates a regulatory vacuum in which safety is non-existent. Pay is tied
to output, pushing miners to work faster and take greater risks. The
extraction process also releases toxic chemicals, harming wildlife,
polluting waterways, contaminating crops and damaging workers’ health.
The conditions highlight the extreme dangers faced by artisanal miners
amid the rapacious exploitation of conflict‑zone resources. While
industrial mines typically record fewer than one fatality per million
hours worked, artisanal operations suffer casualty rates 30–40 times
higher, according to UN Environment Programme research.
*****
Desperate conditions force families to send children as young as 10
into mining‑related work, especially sorting and processing.
While
miners earn a pittance—capturing just 1–3 percent of the final value of
the minerals they extract—the rest of the supply chain reaps enormous
profits.
*****
The supply chain for coltan and other strategic minerals is long,
opaque and deliberately fragmented. Each layer adds distance between the
ultimate beneficiaries—giant tech corporations such as Apple, Tesla,
Samsung, Intel, Nokia, Motorola, Google, Microsoft, Dell, Sony and
BMW—and the armed violence that secures their raw materials.
Minerals
first pass through a network of intermediaries: local pit bosses,
traders, armed groups operating roadblocks, and regional smugglers.
These actors collectively capture 5–10 percent of the final value before
the minerals reach Rwandan exporters. From there, they are shipped to
capital‑intensive refineries in China and Malaysia. With only a handful
of companies globally capable of processing tantalum, these refiners set
prices and capture 20–40 percent of the final value — giving Beijing a
chokehold over global supply.
The processed minerals are then sold to specialised manufacturers that
produce capacitors and other electronic components under long‑term
contracts with major tech firms. These manufacturers capture 15–25
percent of the value. The tech giants—which largely design and market
the final products rather than manufacture them—take the lion’s share:
40–60 percent of total value. To cite but one example, a smartphone
retailing for $800 contains only a few dollars’ worth of tantalum. Apple
alone reported $112 billion in net profits last year.
Numerous reports by UN agencies, the US government, the European
Union and NGOs have exposed the dependence of these multinationals on
conflict minerals. In December 2024, the DRC filed an unprecedented case
against Apple, accusing its subsidiaries in Belgium and France of using
conflict minerals and fueling violence.
Robert Amsterdam, the
lawyer representing the Congolese government, stated that Western
governments and corporations bear ultimate responsibility: “The tech
industry has funded Rwanda’s war crimes.” Apple denied the allegations,
claiming it instructs suppliers not to source minerals from the DRC or
Rwanda.
*****
In January last year, during a lightning offensive, heavily armed
militias—backed by the DRC’s eastern neighbours, nominally fighting to
overthrow President Félix Tshisekedi and defend the Congolese Tutsi
minority—seized more mineral‑rich territory. This advance marked the
collapse of previous peace negotiations and triggered the most serious
political crisis in decades. M23 and allied forces now control North and
South Kivu, bordering Rwanda and Burundi, and much of Ituri, with its
lucrative gold mines, bordering Uganda.
The conflict, reignited when M23 resurfaced in 2021, has displaced
millions, killed tens of thousands, and severely strained relations
between the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. UN investigators have documented
widespread atrocities—executions, sexual violence and other
abuses—committed by militias on all sides.
After three decades of
war, the DRC faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More
than 6.9 million people are internally displaced, including over 5
million in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. Nearly one million
Congolese refugees and asylum‑seekers are scattered across Africa. The
DRC also hosts more than 517,000 refugees fleeing violence in neighboring states, most living outside formal camps.
Despite its
immense natural wealth, the DRC suffers some of the world’s highest
levels of poverty and vulnerability. Epidemics of cholera, measles and
Mpox pose constant threats. Climate‑related disasters—floods, landslides
and extreme weather—repeatedly devastate communities, especially in the
east.
Food insecurity has reached catastrophic levels. Around 15
million people are projected to need assistance in 2026—down from 25
million in 2025, but only due to changes in methodology, not
improvements on the ground. The worst‑affected areas remain the war‑torn
eastern provinces.
M23 and roughly 10,000 Rwandan troops control
the fraudulent extraction, trade and smuggling of minerals from Rubaya,
generating an estimated $800,000 per month to finance the insurgency. UN
experts report that more than 120 tonnes of coltan are transported
monthly from the DRC into Rwanda, where it is laundered and exported as
Rwandan product to China, Europe and the United States.
*****
The vast reserves of cobalt, coltan, cassiterite (tin ore), gold and
wolframite in the eastern DRC have placed the region at the center of
the escalating US‑China struggle for strategic minerals and influence in
Africa. Washington has grown increasingly alarmed at China’s dominant
economic position on the continent: Beijing is now Africa’s largest
investor, trader and infrastructure financier, and a central partner of
the minerals‑rich DRC.
The Trump administration’s new US National Security Strategy, published
last November, openly asserts its predatory aims: “The purpose of
foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the
sole focus of this strategy,” ensuring that the US remains “the world’s
strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for
decades to come.”
Its section on Africa—just three paragraphs—could have been lifted
from the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 that formalised the Scramble for
Africa. Gone are the familiar platitudes about “development assistance,”
“aid” and “capacity building.” In their place is a blunt shift toward
trade, investment and resource extraction.
Washington will now
seek “partnerships with capable, reliable states committed to opening
their markets to US goods and services.” The strategy identifies
immediate opportunities for US investment in Africa’s energy sector and
critical minerals. It explicitly links US‑backed nuclear energy, LPG and
LNG technologies to securing access to these minerals and outcompeting
rivals.
In practice, this means deploying America’s vast economic
and financial power to exploit weak African states that hold more than
30 percent of the world’s critical minerals, while AFRICOM—the US
military command for Africa—focuses on securing access and protecting
mineral routes.
*****
To this end, the Trump administration has intervened directly in the war
in eastern DRC under the banner of “restoring peace.” Washington
brought the Rwandan and Congolese governments together to initial an
accord in June, explicitly tied to securing cobalt supplies for US
corporations. A 24‑page agreement—the Washington Accords for Peace and
Prosperity—was signed at a presidential summit in December, witnessed by
the leaders of Angola, Kenya and Burundi. Parallel talks between
Kinshasa and M23, mediated by Qatar, produced a framework deal in
November.
More
significant than the nominal “peace agreement” were two accompanying
economic and strategic deals. The first is the Regional Economic
Integration Framework (REIF), a bilateral framework between the DRC and
Rwanda. The second is the US–DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement,
granting US corporations priority access to the DRC’s critical minerals
and constraining China—which currently controls around 80 percent of the
country’s cobalt production—from expanding further. In return,
Washington promises investment in rare minerals, electricity,
infrastructure and cooperation against arms and mineral traffickers.
Trump
hailed the package as a “great miracle” that “paves the way for mineral
investment via the Lobito Corridor.” This refers to the $10 billion
pledged to revitalize the 2,000‑km Lobito Corridor, enabling minerals to
be transported to the Angolan port of Lobito for export to the US and
Europe. Backed by the EU and the US, the corridor is designed to counter
China’s dominance in the sector.
Under the Strategic Partnership
Agreement, Kinshasa will be required to use the Lobito Corridor for
exporting “qualifying projects,” even when alternative routes—such as
the Tazara railway linking Zambia and Tanzania, soon to be refurbished
by China—may be cheaper or more efficient. This binds the DRC firmly
into Washington’s geostrategic orbit in exchange for political and
diplomatic (but not military) support against its eastern neighbors.
It
is a replica of Trump’s transactional approach to “peace‑making” seen
in Gaza: the DRC is to become a mining zone for the benefit of US
imperialism and its corporations.
Despite the fanfare, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s
Paul Kagame refused to shake hands, and fighting has continued. M23 and
Rwandan forces have seized more territory, displacing another 100,000
people.
*****
On Wednesday, Washington hosted the first Critical Minerals Ministerial,
attended by representatives from more than 50 countries, including
President Tshisekedi and ministers from Angola, Guinea, Kenya, Morocco,
Sierra Leone and Zambia. South Africa—which holds globally significant
reserves of platinum, manganese, chrome and vanadium and has deepened
ties with China—was pointedly excluded.
US Vice President JD Vance proposed creating a US‑led FORGE alliance,
a trading bloc designed to counter China’s dominance in critical
mineral supply chains and coordinate pricing floors to attract private
investment into mining and processing. “We want members to form a
trading bloc among allies and partners,” he said, one that guarantees
American access to industrial inputs while expanding production across
the bloc.
This follows the launch of Project Vault, a $12 billion
fund to acquire equity stakes in mining and processing companies and
build production facilities in the US. Trump declared the initiative
essential to ensuring that “American businesses and workers are never
harmed by any shortage.”
The
fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an
essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide,
dictatorship and fascism.
