New Dutch monarch, price 11 million euro!

The Kingdom of the Netherlands get a new king. After more then 100 years the Dutch get a male monarch. Willem Alexander and his wife Maxima will be the next king and queen. For many Dutch people the monarchy is something good. Few know the reality behind the House of Orange and their elitist way of life. Unlike the British monarchy, the Dutch monarchists are more closer to the people. This is the reason why Queen Beatrix was loved by many. We revolutionary socialists don't hate Beatrix or Willem Alexander. But we oppose the institution that is the monarchy! 

Former Queen Beatrix became the Dutch monarch in 1980. But unlike 2013 there were many who opposed it. The republican left-wing was far more stronger then it is today. There were even huge demonstrations against Beatrix and her husband Claus. But with the collapse of stalinism, the republican left-wing lost its ground. Today the supporters of a republic in the Netherlands are very weak. The Republican Brotherhood has a membership of less then 1500! 

On April 30, the Dutch people put their flag on display. On the flag they put a orange pennon as a sigh of support to the House of Orange. Many Dutch are positive about the ruling monarchists, but there is a dark side few know about. A modern dark story is a fact few Dutch want to hear. The ruling right-wing government led by the liberals and social democrats, want to cut spending. Taxes for workers and rents on houses are raising. Meanwhile the Dutch state is spending 11 million euro on the coronation of Willem Alexander. Workers and poor are getting social benefits cut while the Dutch monarchy is paid five million euro's each year. Former Queen Beatrix got a royal salary of 800.000 euro a year! 

This is something the Dutch people start to oppose, but their love for the House of Orange is still strong. Defenders of the monarchy say that the royal family is neutral and for all Dutch. Another lie because the House of Orange is more then just a ruling house, their are a capitalist house. Indeed, the Dutch monarchists are capitalists. Beatrix worked for the Dutch ruling class and she visited many dictatorships to make business deals. Leader of the Dutch capitalists; Bernhard Wientjes said that he did not needed to teach Beatrix about business, she knew all about it! 

The father of Beatrix was Bernhard zur Lippe-biesterfeld. This Bernhard was a strong anticommunist and a supporter of capitalism, western colonialism and American imperialism. He was born in Germany and even joined the SS, before marring the daughter of Queen Wilhelmina in 1937. Prince Bernhard love the life of a monarchist, but he kept in close contact with his pro-Nazi German family. He fled to Britain after the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet-Union, the prince of orange would rather have seen a union between Nazi Germany and Britain, to fight the Soviets. Bernhard hated communism and the Soviet-Union!

After the war Prince Bernhard became very close to American capitalists. During the 70's the prince paid much money to the military junta of Argentina. Bernhard hoped that the Argentinians would buy Dutch products if he paid the leaders of the junta. Also between 1968 and 1973 he got 780.000 US dollars from Lockheed. The American aircraft manufacturer wanted the Dutch to buy their planes. So they paid the prince a lot of money in the hope he would recommend their planes over others. Ordinary people would face jail time if they were discovered. So when the Dutch government found out that Bernhard was paid money, they wanted to jail him. Yet Queen Juliana supported her husband and threaten to leave the throne. The ruling social democrats feared a crisis and so the Party of Labour saved the Dutch monarchy by keeping Bernhard out of jail. His only punishment was that he was no longer allowed to wear a military uniform!

When Beatrix became queen in 1980, she turned the House of Orange into a vehicle for Dutch capitalism. As queen she used her state visits to other nations for the benefits of Dutch big business. She made business trips to many famous dictatorships, like the Arab Republic of Egypt under Mubarak. The same Mubarak who would use western tanks to kill 800 Egyptians during the uprising in 2011!

New king Willem Alexander is not win-out his own elitism. He once bought a luxurious villa in the nation of Mozambique. This African nation is one of the poorest in the world, yet Willem Alexander bought a nice villa for his rich Dutch family there. While 54% of Mozambique live in absolute poverty, he got himself a villa. Buying luxurious houses is what the new king likes. In 2009 he got himself a nice hotel villa in Argentina for 2,5 million euro's and a Greek mansion for 4,5 million euro's. This while the Dutch working class is under constant attack from capitalists and the Dutch government, who say that all people have to deal with less!

But even with all that elitism the Dutch still love their new king. But we revolutionary socialists oppose the Dutch monarchy. We want a socialist workers republic in The Netherlands. That is why we say:

NO TO THE MONARCHY

For a socialist workers republic

The Dutch flag with an orange pennon 

The workers red flag flies above it, 
defying the Dutch monarchy 

Marxism or Anarchism

REVOLUTION wants to build a movement that can overthrow this system and create a society based on equality and freedom. But we are Marxists not Anarchists. This article explains the difference between Marxism and Anarchism on one crucial question: the state.

An article by Revolution, Socialist Youth Movement  

Anarchists want to abolish the state. To many people, this seems unthinkable. After all, runs the “common sense” argument, without state authority to hold things together, society would just fall apart. Without government, we are told, everything would grind to a halt. Without the courts and the police, everyone would be on the make, ripping each other off, robbing and abusing each other. These are the most usual arguments against the anarchists.

We reject these criticisms completely. Our criticism of the anarchists is entirely different.

We agree with the anarchists that States do not exist to hold things together or to protect ordinary people from crime. They exist to defend the property and privileges of the rich. In a society based on real equality, a genuinely communist society in which scarcity, poverty and class divisions had been overcome, it would be possible to administer the economy, and to plan the production and distribution of goods, without the need for any special state apparatus separated from the population. As for crime, most of it is directly caused by poverty anyway. Any genuinely anti-social crime such as rape or violence could be dealt with much more effectively by the community itself than by any police force.

Our difference with the anarchists is not about what might be possible in a future society. It is about how to get a new society in the first place. That is why we do not believe that the state can simply be abolished. Before we can get rid of the state altogether, it will at first be necessary to create a new type of state.

This sounds like a contradiction. But in reality it is the only revolutionary way forward.

Our starting point is to understand everything in terms of class. Under the present system, society is divided into two main classes. The capitalists are a tiny minority – they own factories, banks and land, all the main blocks of shares… in short they control the overwhelming majority of wealth in society. But the wealth is produced by the other main class – the working class. The workers are the overwhelming majority. They have nothing but a few possessions paid for out of hard earned wages. Unlike the capitalists, all they have to sel1 is the ability to work They produce everything – the capitalists own it.

We view the state from this standpoint. The entire state apparatus – the army, police, judges and faceless civil servants – is nothing more than an instrument for the rule of one class by another. Stripped of all the usual flowery phrases about democracy, patriotism and the rule of law which are used to cover up what the state is really about, we want to see it for what it is. At the end of the day, the state is nothing more nor less than armed force in defence of property.

Before we can abolish classes and plan production for need instead of greed, the private property of the minority must become the public property of the majority.

This means that the capitalist state will have to be smashed and the capitalists’ property will have to be confiscated. The division of society into classes will not disappear immediately – instead the working class will need to use new laws and direct force to stop the capitalists from holding onto their wealth and from trying to get it back

In short, the working class will become the ruling class. We will need our armed force in defence of our property a workers’ state.

At this point anarchists will object. Wouldn’t this just be as bad as the old state? We say it would not – it would be radically different. Unlike the capitalist state, a workers’ state will be an instrument for the rule of the overwhelming majority over a handful of former exploiters. Such a state will need no special apparatus of secret repression, no standing professional army set up against the people, no secret permanent bureaucracy. It will base its power on the armed population and on the broadest democratic control by the working class through democratic workers’ councils, able to directly elect its delegates and recall them as soon as the workers want to.

To anarchists who are serious about wanting to change society, we pose a question. How will you deal with the capitalists once they have been driven from power? Will the people be entitled to organise to stop them raising private armies and resisting the will of the majority? If so, then that organisation – whatever you might prefer to call it – would to all intents and purposes be a state. It would be an apparatus designed to enable one class to rule over another. But this time the tables would be turned. The state would be nothing more than the organised power of working people.

But – runs the last-ditch defence of the anarchists – power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! How could we stop that happening?

The Bolsheviks had to tackle that problem when they established a workers’ state after the Russian Revolution of 1917. They adopted four principles:

• No privileges. No official could receive more in wages than the average skilled worker.
• Rotation of official duties to stop a fixed layer of bureaucrats emerging.
• All working people were to bear arms so that the revolution could be protected from threatens from both the outside and from within.
• All power was to be in the hands of workers’ councils, whose delegates should be elected from the workplaces and working class areas, who would have to report back to mass meetings and who could be replaced by the workers at any time, not just once every five years like in British elections today.

The Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin summed this all up when he said “when everyone is a bureaucrat, no-one is a bureaucrat”. The whole idea was that once all private capitalist property was abolished and once attempts by the capitalists to recapture their property had been defeated, the old capitalist class would gradually die out. Their children and descendants would be forced to work like everyone else The whole need for a special apparatus to rule on behalf of one class over another – even on behalf of the working class – would disappear. The government of persons would become replaced by “the administration of things”. The workers’ state would gradually wither away altogether.

The Russian revolution went wrong. Stalin and his supporters abolished every shred of working class democracy and control – power passed into the hands of a monstrous regiment of bureaucrats. But the reason for this was not that the mass of the workers were corrupted by having too much power. It was that the workers’ councils and mass control were undermined because of Russia having to fight to defend its revolution against the armies of 14 capitalist countries in a devastating war, and because the revolution did not spread. Russia was a backward country and could not build socialism on its own. A whole layer of middlemen and bureaucrats emerged.

The way to avoid this in the future is to build a strong international movement so that the next country in which the workers take power will not be isolated for long, but will soon be joined by other countries. By contrast, the anarchist conclusion is not to build any sort of state in the first place – not even a democratic workers’ state. But that way the capitalists will never be stopped when they try to get their property back – something they will definitely try to do.

By opposing the whole idea of the state in case it goes wrong, the anarchists are rejecting something which is essential if the workers are to have a chance of beating the bosses and building a classless socialist society. This is like a football team refusing to kick the ball. That way you are guaranteed against scoring an own goal – but you stand no chance of winning the match.

This is not just an academic argument. During the Spanish revolution of 1936-39 the influence of anarchists helped to prevent the working class from winning victory. In the Spanish Republic, the working class responded to a fascist rebellion in 1936 by seizing control of the factories and taking arms into their own hands. Meanwhile the peasants took control of the land away from the rich landlords. The opportunity was there for the working class to take power and build socialism.

The anarchist movement was very strong in Spain at the time, in the form of the anarchist trade union the CNT. But the government of the Spanish Republic was made up of parties that wanted to stop the working class taking over political power – including Stalin’s puppets in the Communist Party. By 1937 the government felt strong enough to try to break the control of the workers over the factories and workplaces. In Barcelona – the heart of the revolution – the government sent troops in to drive the workers out of their telephone exchange. But the workers weren’t having it. They responded with a general strike.

This was the time to bring the revolution to a head. The workers’ own democratic organisations needed to launch an uprising and take political power, establishing a workers’ state. That would have been the only way to secure their control of the factories and land and stop them being handed back to the control of the capitalists. But the anarchist leaders (yes, in reality they do have leaders, just like every movement!) rejected this. Because they were anarchists, they were against the whole idea of a workers’ state. But there was no other way forward. So they ordered their supporters to return to work, and some anarchist leaders even joined the capitalist government!

The opportunity was missed to build a democratic workers’ state. Exactly as the Trotskyists (Marxists who were opposed to Stalin) warned at the time, this left the capitalists free to regain control. The workers were defeated and the fascist revolt won out in the end. Spain had to suffer over 30 years off fascism, and it remains a capitalist country today.

The lesson is that there can be no lasting victories for the working class and no chance of socialism without the working class fighting for workers’ power and a workers’ state.

Despite sounding very revolutionary, the problem with anarchism is that it is not revolutionary enough!

Despite our difference 

Anarchists and Marxists should work together! 

The Socialist Left Party, a socialist alternative for Austria

In the Republic of Austria, the Socialist Left Party is standing in the elections for September 2013. The Socialist Left Party is a revolutionary socialist party, founded in 1981 as a Marxist group in the Socialist Party of Austria. The Austrian revolutionary socialists wanted to transform the reformist Socialist Party of Austria, into a revolutionary party for workers and poor people. However they failed and after 1990, the Socialist Party of Austria renamed itself into the Social-democratic Party of Austria, dropping its socialist principals! 

The Forward Group was founded by revolutionary socialists around 1981, after debates with British revolutionary socialists. At that time the Socialist Party of Austria was a classic western social democratic party. It had a working-class membership, yet a pro-capitalist leadership. The Marxists of the Forward Group wanted the party to remain classic socialist, while the leadership wanted more compromises with the ruling class! 

During the 80's, the conservatives came to power in many nations. Classic social democratic ideals were abandon as privatizations started. The social democratic parties went along with the wave of anti-socialism that right-wing liberals and conservatives spread. Leader of this anti-socialist wave was Margaret Thatcher, who claimed that socialism was just the next step to communism. Because of social democratic bureaucratism, the ruling class supported her fully. Leftists were forced in the defensive as pro-capitalist politicians claimed that the state should not control or regulate the market. Social democratic leaders got confronted with inefficient state industries and huge bureaucratic regulations many people hated. The conservatives in Europe were able to turn the social democratic leadership of workers parties to the right-wing! 

In Austria, the right-wing wave was supported by the Freedom Party of Austria. This nationalist party is founded in 1954 and supports German nationalism and conservatism. They are deeply anti-socialist, mainly because many of their early members were former Nazi's. The Freedom Party of Austria is the face of the radical right-wing in Austria. While less nationalist, the Austrian People's Party is also conservative and anti-socialist. Yet the christian conservatives have worked with the social democrats, while the Freedom Party of Austria would never work with anything that claims to be left-wing!

As stalinism collapsed the social democratic leadership of the Socialist Party of Austria, decided to change the nature of the party. The party was no longer a workers party, but a people's party. A party for all classes, both workers and capitalists. In reality the new name and the new program only ended the degeneration that started years before world war 2. As the Social-democratic Party of Austria dropped its socialist principals, the Forward Group saw no reason to remain in the party!

The revolutionary socialists renamed their group into: Forward to Socialist Democracy. In 1996 the name was changed to Socialist Offensive Forward. Finally the group became a political party in 2000 with the name Socialist Left Party. As of today the SLP is the only Austrian party that is fighting for a genuine socialist alternative to the rule of capitalism. Even the Communist Party of Austria is not offering clear socialist alternatives to the crisis of capitalism!  

Yet in a nation were nationalism is very high, it is not easy to gain votes. Many Austrians are nationalist and love their nation. The SLP is anti-nationalist and does not support nationalism. Also the party stands in solidarity with Austrians who are not born in Austria. When it comes to money, the SLP is not rich. They were able to collect less then 10.000 euro in support for the last elections. But while they are not the richest party in Austria, their ideals are the most genuine socialist of them all. This is why the Austrian working class should support the Socialist Left Party for the elections in September 2013! 

We revolutionary socialists know that there is very little change that SLP members will be elected. Revolutionary socialists don't have the media on their side and not the money to spread huge amount of propaganda. That is why Revolutionary Socialist Media is reporting on this party, because Austrian workers must know that there is an alternative to the parties of capitalism. There is a leftist socialist alternative to the right-wing social democrats and conservatives! 

In previous elections the SLP tried to work with other leftist groups. Unfortunate for the 2013 elections there is no alliance of the radical left. That is why the party stands alone. Again there is little change of a seat, but when it comes to a political program the Socialist Left Party is the party that is fighting for socialism in Austria. When elected, the SLP representatives will not earn a luxurious wage, like the other politicians. They will live on a workers wage and use the rest of their money to help workers fighting capitalism!

The Socialist Left Party

The Soviet famine of 1921-1922

The Soviet famine of 1921-1922 is called a Bolshevik crime. Anticommunist forces love to spread the lie that Lenin and his supporters were responsible for the death of five million Russians. The famine started in July 1921 and lasted through 1922. Most western history writes blame war-communism and Lenin's harshness on the rich peasants. During the civil war the Soviet government were opposed by the rich peasants. They refused to feed the workers in the cities. So the Soviet government was forced to use brutal force to get the food, they needed for the soldiers and the workers in the cities. The peasants killed their cows and pigs to make sure that the red soldiers did not get to ''their'' property!

The Soviet revolution began in November 1917. Workers from the Soviet council of Petrograd ( later called Leningrad ) were the first to take political power. The provisional government of capitalist politicians was disposed. A workers government under a Soviet council of people's commissioners was founded. At the head of this new proletarian government, the Soviet of Petrograd elected Vladimir Lenin to be the chairman of the new Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic!

Lenin made an alliance with leftist social revolutionaries and anarchists. But his allies would betray him soon enough. The social revolutionaries hated the peace with Imperial Germany and the anarchists hated the centralized Soviet government. By the winter of 1918, the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic was under attack from all sides. 200.000 foreign soldiers led by 40.000 British troops aided the anticommunist White Armies to destroy the Soviet government! 

The Red Army was founded early 1918, but not ready to fight both 200.000 foreign imperialists and the anticommunist White Armies. Sabotages and assassination of many Soviet leaders forced Lenin to start the Red Terror and War-communism. Under the Red Terror the secret police arrested and killed many supposed enemies of the Soviet revolution. Some people were guilty and others innocent. The capitalist media claims that Lenin was a ''evil dictator'' only because of this Red Terror. Meanwhile the British imperialist forces were supporting the criminal anti-Semitic White Armies, who were killing innocent Jews in Ukraine. At least 150.000 Jews were murdered. Many Ukrainians were told by the Orthodox Church that Jews were behind the Soviet revolution. Almost all peasants were raised to hate Jews and all things that were Jewish. Since Karl Marx was born Jewish like Leon Trotsky, the Church said that the Soviet revolution was a Jewish plot to destroy the Christian world! 

Lenin had showed tolerance for many months. It was not until August and September of 1918 when he gave the secret police the order to arrest and eliminate all enemies of the Soviet revolution. Many innocent Jews and supporters of the Soviet government were by then already murdered by foreign soldiers and anticommunists. Also the peasants refused to sell food to the Soviet government. Many farmers wanted good money for their food. During the war the farmers knew that the government needed the food badly. So the rose their prices, leading to many conflicts with the Soviet councils. All that led to the Red Terror!

In the end Lenin forced the farmers to sell him food at a low price. The capitalist media claims that the Soviet government was unfair to the peasants. That maybe so, but this was a time of civil war. The government could not pay high prices, because the workers did not have the money to buy overpriced food. Some anticommunists say that Lenin lived in luxury during the civil war, just another lie. He lived in the Moscow Kremlin and did not own his own house. It is true that Lenin lived his last year in a state owned villa ( Gorki Leninskiye ), but that was because he was very sick and disabled. Also Felix Dzerzhinsky, leader of the Soviet secret police, refused to eat luxurious food and he slept in his own office. Meanwhile the generals of the White Armies did not do the same thing. They saw themselves as better then Russian workers and peasants. In contrast to the Bolsheviks who lived very moderate, unlike the monarchs and presidents of the capitalist world!

The Whites were in control of 2/3 of the former Russian Empire by 1919, the Soviet government seemed to collapse under the foreign and local anticommunist forces. But then the workers started to rebel in Germany around November 1918. Also in Hungary and Finland did the workers rose up. In Finland, the workers fought a brave struggle against German and Finish anticommunists. Unfortunate Soviet Russia could not help them and the Finish Socialist Workers Republic was defeated by the anticommunist forces. Finland became a dictatorship of conservatives who would ban communism until 1944. But the workers rebellion in Germany and Finland created fear into the minds of the European ruling class. Around 1920 the western armed forces were pulled out of Russia. Only Japan remained until 1922. 

By 1921 the food production in Russia was largely destroyed by the civil war. All sides were guilty, both the Soviets and the White Armies destroyed farms and farm fields. The summer of 1921 caused a heat wave that destroyed the last fields. Now the population of Soviet Russia faced a famine and the government was not able to deal with it alone. Today we are told that the ''good'' capitalist western world aided Soviet Russia out of pity and that the mighty capitalist USA was able to feed the population of a ''communist'' nation!

In reality the capitalist world did not wanted to help at first. It took the western world nine months to decide if they wanted to send food. Some capitalist nations said: ''A Government which repudiates its foreign debts cannot expect to receive credit''. A reaction to the Soviet government repudiation of all foreign debts in 1917. The capitalists had lost a lot of money after the Soviet revolution. Also many western nations had aided the White Armies and hated the Soviet government.

The capitalist world debated almost a year over this. As the famine stroke Soviet Russia they were still debating. At that moment five million people were starving, the Soviet government did its best to help. But they were still fighting a civil war, the White Armies were not defeated. Although the Red Army was turning the tide, the White forces were still fighting. The Russian Communist Party went through a great deal to help the starving population. Nothing of this is reporting in today's media about the famine. No, we only learn of massive solidarity from capitalist nations to the Soviet government. After nine months of debating the capitalist world were ready to help Soviet Russia. But then the American Relief Administration demanded total control over the Russian railroads. Lenin could not accept this at first, because there was still a civil war to fight. But after the start of the famine and the peasant rebellions he allowed American control over the railroads!

Today the capitalist media loves to tell you the story of how good Christian Americans helped  the Russian people. They say that Lenin and  the Soviet government are to blame for the famine and that all those people died because of war-communism. Little do these people know of the true. In fact very little attention is giving to the role of the White Armies and the capitalist invaders. Also they forget that the Soviet government knew about the incoming famine and asked for food aid, but it took the capitalist world nine months to decide.  The first signs of the famine were seen in July 1921 as the heat wave destroyed the farm fields. It was then that Russian writer Maxim Gorky asked for international aid. But many capitalists asked ''who is going to pay for the food'', so real food aid did not came until 1922!

It is true that many good people in the western world aided Soviet Russia. But there is little attention to the help the Soviet government gave to the starving people. Today it seems that only western food was able to stop the famine. Nothing is said about what the Soviet government tried to fight the famine. It was also because of the famine that Lenin started the New Economic Politics, which reintroduced the market economy in Soviet Russia. Blame for the famine lies not only with Lenin. Sure his war-communism was a heavy burden on the peasantry. But the civil war and the counterrevolutionary sabotages of the rich peasants were also the reason why this famine started. The capitalist world could have reacted sooner, but many capitalists did not wanted to help a ''communist'' government! 

The famine of 1921-1922 killed five million people

Many were children!

Nicolas Maduro wins elections in Venezuela, but opposition is still growing

Nicolas Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela has won the elections in Venezuela. Maduro replaced Hugo Chavez, who died in March 2013. This however is not a great victory as some left-wing people would like to see. Maduro won 50,6% of the vote and his opponent Henrique Capriles got 49,4%. The capitalist opposition got 5% more votes compared to the elections in 2012! 

The Bolivian Republic of Venezuela stands divided. Even workers and poor people are switching side to the Democratic Unity Round-table, a coalition of anti-Chavez political parties led by the capitalist opposition. Henrique Capriles has been the face of the opposition, he is a member of Justice First, the main liberal capitalist opposition party. But the Democratic Unity Round-table also united center-leftist parties like A New Era, Democratic Action and Radical Cause. The last party Radical Cause claims to fight for socialism and workers rights. It shows that even leftist party have joined the opposition! 

This is a result of the bureaucratic rule of Hugo Chavez, who ruled Venezuela almost 14 years. Chavez won every election with ease. His main supporters were workers and poor people. The opposition made the error of using old pro-capitalist and anti-socialist rhetoric against him. But today the opposition had changed their rhetoric. Now Henrique Capriles is portraying himself as a leftist social democrat and a supporter of the social programs started by Hugo Chavez. By using left-wing slogans, Henrique Capriles is able to rally many workers who feel a big disillusionment with the supposed ''socialist'' government!

While the opposition may have lost another election to the Chavez camp, it shows that Venezuela is deeply divided. The poor may still support the legacy of Chavez, but the working class are losing faith. They know that the bureaucratic rule of Chavez has not led to socialism or any genuine changes in their lives. Workers also remember the authoritarian use of police forces to crush strikes, all under the government of Hugo Chavez. The nationalized enterprises are run by bureaucratic state-managers who behave just like their old capitalist bosses. There is also the feeling that Henrique Capriles may end corruption and crime. Because corruption and crime remain very high in Venezuela! 

But we revolutionary socialists know better. Henrique Capriles is a supporter of capitalism and the free market economy. He is born to a wealthy family of business people and never lived in poverty. Capriles belongs to the 20%, who enjoyed wealth and luxury in a nation were 80% of all people lived used to live in poverty. It was not until Chavez's reforms that extreme poverty dropped from 24% in 1999 to 4% in 2004. Capriles became a member of the Political Electoral Independent Organization Committee ( christian democratic party ) and was elected in 1998, as a member of Parliament! 

After Hugo Chavez became president it was Capriles who founded the political party: Justice First. Unlike the Political Electoral Independent Organization Committee, Justice First is a social liberal party with a economic liberal agenda. Capriles was elected mayor of the Baruta Municipality between 2000 and 2008. He was able to defeat the pro-Chavez candidate in his city likely do to his popularity with the rich and his good record on fighting crime. In 2008 he became governor of Miranda Province. It was then that he called himself center-leftist. A social liberal by choice and an opponent of state intervention in the economy!

Henrique Capriles and the capitalist opposition soon build the Democratic Unity Round-Table. A lose coalition of anti-Chavez political parties. At the head of this coalition was the Justice First party of Henrique Capriles. He would be the face of the opposition to Hugo Chavez. Capriles would like to see a market friendly government in Venezuela, a clear indication that he wants to return to the day's when capitalism ruled unopposed!

Nicolas Maduro and the Chavez camp offered no socialist alternative. The only reason many people supported him, was because many feared a capitalist victory. Also many poor people are still loyal to the legacy of the late Hugo Chavez. Hope for a socialist future is still dominating many people. But if Maduro does not make some radical changes the next time he stands in elections, it is likely that the opposition can win!

With Chavez now death, he is turning into a semi-god, just like many other  authoritarian leaders. Hugo Chavez is regarded as a great hero and there are dangerous signals, that a cult of personality is evolving. Maduro has even cursed all those who would not vote for him. Fear of losing power has led to many undemocratic quotes by Chavez supporters against the opposition. On the other hand, the opposition is also playing a dirty game. By using leftist slogans they try to brainwash the working class into voting for them! 

Conservatives and right-wing rhetoric would not be able to win any election anymore. This is why the capitalist opposition is now using social liberal or social democratic rhetoric. They knew that classic right-wing propaganda would not work in a nation were socialism is not a ideology for ''dictatorship''. They always used anti-socialist propaganda and that was not supporters by most people. Only the rich loved the lies about socialism spread by capitalist parties! 

But even with the victory of Maduro we revolutionary socialists are not optimistic.  Workers cannot trust the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ( PSUV ). This party has turned itself into a bureaucratic centralist group. For them Hugo Chavez is a god and any criticism of their ''great leader'' is branded ''counterrevolutionary''. There are no free debates, since all political debates are made by the party's leaders. Ordinary party members have very little to say. In a way the PSUV is build up like the Communist Party of Cuba. Build around the charisma of one leader. In Cuba it was build around Fidel Castro. In Venezuela it was build around Hugo Chavez! 

Revolutionary socialists think that socialism cannot be build by voting for the pro-Chavez camp. Workers must do it themselves and not rely on state leaders. The capitalist opposition is growing and the government is losing support. Only the working class is able to change the nation from a state-capitalist state into a socialist workers state. But in order to do that a new workers party must be build. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela does not seem to be a workers party, they are the party of the state bureaucrats and boli-bourgeoisie. Even they will use the state against workers and their families!

Nicolas Maduro stands next to a painting of 

Hugo Chavez who died in March 2013

Peter Taaffe on the funeral of Margaret Thatcher!

Socialist Party general secretary Peter Taaffe spoke on the BBC radio regarding the death of Iron Lady: Thatcher and the state funeral the British government wants to grand her! 

BBC Radio

China's communist party, from revolutionary idealism to greedy capitalism

Very few people genuinely think that the People's Republic of China is still a ''communist'' nation. Yet most still think that the Chinese ''Communist'' Party is still communist. Why? An answer for this question lies in the anticommunist education many western people enjoyed during the cold war. Stalinist people's republics were called ''communist'' dictatorships by schoolteachers, parents and the almighty capitalist media. When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, the anticommunist paranoia began. The Korean War turned many people into hating communists, hating communism for the crimes that Mao and Stalin committed!

What is a ''communist'' country? According to Wikipedia it is this: 

'''Communist state, in popular usage, is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist–Leninist ideology as the guiding principle of the state. Technically, "communist state" is a contradictio in terminis as a communist society as defined by both Marxists and anarcho-communists is in principle stateless. From this perspective, the term Marxist-Leninist state is more appropriate''

Wikipedia portraits the classic western version about what a communist society looks like. For many people communism means:

- A single party dictatorship

- A totalitarian state that forces you to worship Marxism-Leninism 

- A poor economy, because of a failed economic model 

In reality a communist society is anti-state, anti-dictatorship and anti-totalitarianism. Communism is a democratic ideal and unfortunate abused by people who had no desire of building a workers state. In China we see the worse of Stalinist dogmatism and totalitarianism. It is ironic that Mao Zedong rule led to the state-capitalist dictatorship we see today. Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky predicted this in his 1936 book ''The Revolution Betrayed'' 

The Chinese ''Communist'' Party was never a genuine proletarian party. Already by 1949 it was degenerated into the madness that is stalinism. But Mao Zedong made it even worse. His stalinism was based on agrarianism and a farmers revolution. Never did Mao Zedong gave any political power to the workers of China, there were no free soviets like in early Soviet Russia. Mao's revolution never could degenerate because it was deformed since he became party leader! 

Mao was a true dictator and he abused his power many times. Like the hundred flowers campaign in 1957. Mao claimed that workers and farmers should have the freedom to criticize their government. So he gave them that freedom ( briefly ). He also asked loyal communist party members to give him criticism on how he could improve China. Many young idealists gave supportive criticism, but others praised the USA and wanted an end to communist party rule. The ruling Maoists were shocked by the criticism of so many Chinese intellectuals. But it gave Mao Zedong what he wanted. He now knew who were critical of him and who not. So he arrested more then 500.000 people, including loyal communist party members. Mao's henchman made sure that only few survived the concentration camps!

The Great Leap Forwards was one big disaster. 25 million peasants starved to death because of a lack of food. Instead of working in the fields, Mao ordered them to produce useless steel. Huge efforts on the part of peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants' houses. Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the "scrap" for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met. Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools and even hospitals. Although the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth, Mao had a deep distrust of intellectuals and faith in the power of the mass mobilization of the peasants    

All stalinists hate the rule of the people, they live under the wrong conception that the communist party must rule. This we see in today's Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos. In those societies only the members of the ruling communist parties have the right to be elected into offices. The anticommunists claim that this is Lenin's work. But Lenin never spoke of a single party state. Both Marx and Lenin wanted the rule of ordinary workers. The ideal of a vanguard party does not mean that this party has the right to rule supreme. Even the early Soviet constitutions did not spoke of the communist party as supreme ruler. It was the Soviet Constitution of 1936, that gave the Soviet Communist Party absolute constitutional power!

In China the Great Leap Forwards was politically disastrous for Mao Zedong. He lost many supporters and that is why he launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966. This cultural revolution destroyed so much, that it paralyzed China for 12 years. Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country and suffered a wide range of abuses including public humiliation, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, sustained harassment, and seizure of property. A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. Cultural and religious sites were ransacked!

After the death of Mao Zedong the reformist Maoists led by Deng Xiaoping took power. They were victims of the cultural revolution and hated by the dogmatic Maoists who had supported chairman Mao. But Deng was able to defeat them and by 1983 he and his reformists were in complete control of the Chinese ''Communist'' Party. This was welcomed by most party members. Because the CCP was in total chaos. The party was also victimized by the Red Guards, the youth group that Mao Zedong used to destroy his opponents! 

To make China rich and powerful, Deng Xiaoping started to use capitalist methods  The first of Special Economical Zones were opened around 1983. These zones gave foreign capitalists easy and cheap Chinese workers. By 1990 many western companies were very positive about these zones. They loved the discipline of the Chinese worker and his/her inability to strike for better wages. Also the absolute control of the CCP over China made sure that any workers rebellion would be crushed. 

The Chinese workers did not liked the capitalist reforms. Soon they and students rose up to demonstrate in Beijing. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 shocked the CCP and even Deng Xiaoping. Workers and students both wanted an end to CCP rule. Workers wanted an end to the capitalist transformation of their nation and the students wanted free elections. Yet the party was not ready to give up power. The People's Liberation Army did not liberate the people. They crushed the demonstration killing 2.000 workers and students! 

After the crack down the market reforms were halted. Instead of a full capitalist society, the Chinese ''Communist'' Party choose a state-capitalist model. They call it Socialism with Chinese characteristics. In reality socialism never came to China, many party members became business leaders and embraced the new capitalist dream. Deng Xiaoping said that socialism does not mean equality, but fast economic growth. Revolutionary socialists rather call it state-capitalism with Chinese characteristics! 

Jiang Zemin was the Chinese leader who replaced the planned economy with a mixed market one. By 1993 the plans were made and privatizations of state owned sectors began. Soon many business were not able to compete in a market economy. Job losses were huge and in some parts of the country more then 40% of all workers lost their income. Organized crime returned to China after more then 40 years. Criminals were able to use the corruption of party leaders to establish new criminal enterprises. Workers and the poor were the victims again! 

In 2002 a new leader replaced Jiang Zemin. Hu Jintao became the next president of China and the face of the reborn Chinese bourgeoisie!

The ten richest Chinese today ( 2013 ) are:

Rank	Name	Net worth (US)	Sources of wealth
1	Zong Qinghou	$10 billion	Wahaha
2	Chen Shih-yu	$8.1 billion	Kelly Chen Cosmetics
3	Wang Jianlin	$8 billion	Dalian Wanda Group
4	Ma Huateng	$6.4 billion	Tencent
5	Wu Yajun	$6.2 billion	Longfor Properties
6	Liang Wengen	$5.9 billion	Sany
7	Liu Yongxing	$5.8 billion	Hope Group
8	Hui Ka Yan	$4.9 billion	Evergrande Real Estate Group
9	Yang Huiyan	$4.4 billion	Country Garden Holdings
10	Hui Wing Mau	$4 billion	Shimao Property

All these rich billionaires depend on the Chinese ''Communist'' Party. Unlike the western world, these capitalists need the party bureaucrats for support. Because China is a state-capitalist dictatorship and the government is not fully in service of those who are wealthy and rich. The true rulers of China remain the party bureaucrats!

Out of 1,3 billion Chinese only 120 million enjoy a western live style. Those Chinese are the lucky ones, who's salary is high enough to enjoy the fruits of capitalism. But 800 million remain either poor or receive a very low income. Most of them are workers who work in factories who produce anything western business need. From Personal Computers to Toys. Made in China is on almost all products. Yet the capitalist media does not care about them. They only speak about how great China is growing. They don't care about all those workers who work long hours to produce their products!

Chinese workers have no illusions in the CCP. They know that the party is not there for them. The danger is that they can be poisoned like the Soviet workers in 1991. As the Soviet-Union collapsed most workers supported Boris Yeltsin and never understood the danger he posed. Chinese workers knew in 1989 that the party was turning capitalist and their rose up. Today there is huge anger about corruption and income inequality. Most workers know that their nation is not socialist or communist. Yet very few young people understand the historic foundation of the People's Republic of China!

The youth born after 1990 don't understand socialism. For them that is just government propaganda. They want money and are driving by dreams about profits. The capitalist media and the party leaders are encouraging young people to be pro-capitalist. Revolutionary idealism and class solidarity has been lost among many young people. Very few young Chinese feel any loyalty to socialism or communism. Most of them only care about themselves and the good image of China in the world. Even the Chinese ''Communist'' Party is realizing that revolutionary propaganda is not appealing to the youth. A recent movie about a young revolutionary communist who loved the party and chairman Mao, was a complete disaster. The youth no longer likes stories and movies about the idealistic youth who is always a loyal supporter of the communist party!

Today the Chinese ''Communist'' Party needs a new name. Chinese Capitalist Party would be nice or what about Chinese Nationalist Party? Because today's CCP is almost identical to the Kuomintang of right-wing dictator Chiang-Kai-Shek. That is the irony of this story. The once proud revolutionary party of workers and poor people, degenerated into a copy of the Kuomintang. State-capitalism was also the ideology of Chiang-Kai-Shek. He would laugh in his grave when he sees those rich billionaires in the party of his enemy: Mao Zedong!

The ideology of the party is empty and only Chinese nationalism is keeping it together. Revolutionary idealism is gone, we see it in the way the party leaders dress. Western business suites have replaced the Maoist suites worn between 1949 and 1990. For us revolutionary socialists there is nothing more criminal then betraying socialism and communism for capitalism and nationalism. The CCP is guilty of that betrayal and must be dissolved  A new workers party for Chinese workers and young people is needed!

Chinese state-capitalist leaders. 

The most powerful of them stand in the front.

In the center stands Hu Jintao and right next to him Jiang Zemin

Margaret Thatcher died

She was the godmother of neoliberalism. The enemy of trade unions and left-wing people, hero to conservatives and supporter of free market capitalism. She attacked the weak social democratic rulers of the 70's and abused their weakness as supposed proof that socialism does not work. She fought a war with Argentina and supported even a murderous Asian Maoist group. This was the Iron Lady of Great Britain, she died on 8 April 2013!

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, that was her name. She was also known as the Iron Lady of Great Britain. She led her nation into the era of free market liberalism, she destroyed the last remnants of social democracy and privatized many state owned industries. A famous victim of Thatcher was the British Railways. Although privatized after she left office, the plans were made before that. The British Railways were the pride of Great Britain. But under the new rules of neoliberalism this public owned system had to go. Today there are more train companies then meets the eyes. The prices for tickets have not dropped as Thatcher claimed they would. Instead the new owners made sure that they got wealthy and rich, at the expense of workers and ordinary people!

Thatcher became a member of the British house of lords in 1959. Like many conservatives she hated high taxes for the rich and the social market economy that was build in the 50's. During the congress of the Conservative Party in 1966, she said that the Labour Party was turning towards socialism and communism. This was welcomed by the anticommunist conservatives who loved to portray the social democrats as radical leftists!

In the 70's she became the leader of the opposition against social democratic rule in Britain. She attacked the Labour Party on their bureaucratic way of handling the government. According to her the British state should not intervene in the economy. Thatcher opposed the welfare state and the classic social democratic ideals of mix between state rule and market rule. She only wanted market rule and very limited government! 

As a conservative she was very anticommunist. Thatcher attacked the Soviet-Union many times. One of her famous quotes on the USSR were; The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns'' 

As the Labour government was trapped between their working class basis and the international capitalist class, the conservatives saw a window of opportunity. Thatcher claimed that Labour was not working to improve the lives of workers and their families. She got her victory as the Labour Party could not choose between workers and capitalists. This led to a motion of no confidence and the end for the social democratic government of James Callaghan!

With a strong anti-socialist agenda and a weak Labour Party, Thatcher was able to win the 1979 elections. She became the first female prime minister of the British Empire on 4 may 1979. She based her monetary politics on the principals of Milton Friedman, an American economist and supporter of classic capitalism. According to Milton Friedman, the free market economy is the only economy that would grant freedom to people. Just another lie spread by the American imperialist camp. Milton Friedman claimed that collective control over the economy was anti-democratic and that capitalist rule was true freedom ( only for those who owned it in reality )!

It is not strange that Margaret Thatcher was supported by the conservatives of the American Republican Party. In the USA, Ronald Reagan became president and a very good friend of the Iron Lady. Both he and she saw themselves as defenders of ''freedom'' and ''democracy'' against the waves of international communism led by the Soviet-Union. For both Reagan and  Thatcher even social democracy was a dangerous ideology. 

The capitalist class in Great Britain was very happy with Thatcher. She did managed to end the crisis that plagued the island ever since the 70's. But this came at a huge cost, more then 3 million workers lost their jobs. The British trade unions were not happy with her right-wing politics. So they started many strikes to bring down the government!

While some politicians would fear strikes, the Iron Lady was not afraid  She attacked the Trade Unions for ''harming'' democracy and the economy. But because the Labour Party was not offering a genuine socialist alternative, many British workers still choose to vote conservative. Only 39% of all union members voted for the Labour Party during the 1983 general elections. Because of her charisma,  the support from the majority of the media and her little war with Argentine over the Falklands, gave her another four years as prime minister of Great Britain! 

The war with the Republic of Argentine was a reason for Thatchers victory over the social democrats. This war started when Argentinian forces attacked the British owned Falklands Islands. The military junta in Argentina wanted to show how powerful they still were. In reality the junta was losing power and support. The attack on the Falklands was a desperate act. Had Margaret Thatcher waited a few months then the military junta would have collapsed as it did. Not because of its defeat at the Falklands but because it was already collapsing in 1982. The Falklands War costed Great Britain about two billion pounds and the death of 258 soldiers and sailors!

Although Thatcher and Reagan claimed to be fighting for human rights, in reality they supported any enemy of the USSR. Dictatorial anticommunist states like South Korea and Indonesia were supported, but the most brutal dictator Margaret Thatcher supported, was not an anticommunist. During the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, the Red Khmer took power in Cambodia. They created ''Democratic'' Kampuchea. A people's agrarian republic based on Maoism with Khmer nationalism. Leader of ''Democratic'' Kampuchea was Saloth Sar, most people knew him by his revolutionary name: POL POT! 

Pol Pot's brutal dictatorship killed 1,3 million people between 1975 and 1979. By then the Vietnamese had enough of the Cambodians attacking their borders. Pol Pot hated the Vietnamese and wanted to conquer Vietnam to build a great Khmer Empire. His Red Khmer attacked Vietnamese villages and killed thousands. The Stalinist ''Socialist'' Republic of Vietnam choose to eliminate Pol Pot and attacked ''Democratic'' Kampuchea on 20 December 1978!

Soon the capital of Cambodia was liberated by the Vietnamese troops. What they found was a drama. 1,3 million people death, a nation lost 1/3 of its population. Pol Pot forbid the use of western medicine,  so more people died from easy heal-able diseases. The Red Khmer regrouped in the jungle, but they needed money. Mao Zedong died in 1976 and the new Chinese leadership led by Deng Xiaoping were turning China away from Maoism. So he needed new allies. He found them in his anti-Vietnamese attitude. Both the USA and Great Britain hated the North Vietnamese victory over South Vietnam in April 1975! 

Margaret Thatcher's conservative government supported the Red Khmer and did not recognized the People's Republic of Kampuchea, founded by the pro-Vietnamese Cambodians. Instead the British and Americans supported Pol Pot and did not allow the flag of the People's Republic of Kampuchea to fly at the  UN headquarters. The flag of Pol Pot remained at the UN headquarters until 1993, all because Ronald Reagan and the Iron Lady hated the ''Socialist'' Republic of Vietnam!

On European collaboration, Thatcher wanted a centralized European Union. But not a Europe for the people, no she wanted a trade free Europe. A Europe that would serve British capitalism good. She and her free market lovers got what they wanted. The European Union was indeed formed as a single market union and a semi political confederation. She also did not wanted to end trade relations with the racist South African government. The white leader of South Africa was called a friend and the ANC of Nelson Mandela she called a ''bunch of terrorists''. Many conservatives hated the ANC for their revolutionary leftist stand against apartheid and racism! 

Like her friend Ronald Reagan she liked the new reformist Soviet leader; Micheal Gorbachev. A man who could bring change to the USSR, she knew. Also Gorbachev wanted Chinese style capitalism in the Soviet-Union. Since the People's Republic of China did a great job of allowing British capitalists to use cheap Chinese workers, the Iron Lady knew that the Soviet-Union could also be a place for British capitalists to do business. It must have felt ironic for her. Two ''communist'' nations adapting capitalism, she must have loved it! 

Thatcher did not liked a united Germany. She feared a united Germany could choose side with the USSR against the western world. But as soon as her conservative allies in East Germany won the elections, she knew that a united Germany would be a capitalist Germany. Thatcher was praised by many capitalist leaders in Eastern Europe, after the collapse of stalinism. But as the Berlin Wall came down so did her own rule in Great Britain!

By 1989 she was not as popular any-more. The Conservative Party was in need of new leadership. After she lost the support of her last original cabinet minister, it seemed her time was up. Thatcher however did not wanted to surrender and planned to put up a fight. Michael Heseltine was her opponent for the leadership in the Conservative Party. Although she won the first round, Heseltine had enough support for a second round. She wanted to fight him, but her cabinet said that her time was over. The Iron Lady felt betrayed by her conservative friends and left her office in tears!

The Conservative Party won the elections of 1992 and the new conservative government made sure that many of Thatcher's privatizations were put into action. Like the privatization of the British Railways. But even after she left office, the Iron Lady was not gone. In 1998 she wanted Spain to release former dictator Pinochet of Chile. The pro-capitalist dictator of Chile ruled his nation with support from Thatcher. Also she wanted Saddam Hussein gone, the Iraqi dictator who stood against British oil imperialism in the 90's!

When American imperialism attacked Iraq she supported it. Again she claimed that it was all in the name of ''democracy'' and ''human-rights''. But today after 10 years, the Republic of Iraq has become a corrupt and failed state, with no genuine democracy or human-rights. But at least the oil is in the hands of western capitalists. The Iraqi economy has been privatized, just like she wanted it to be!  

Her last years were of poor health. The Iron Lady did not appeared in public in her last years. She died on 8 April 2013 as a result of a heart attack, the enemy of socialism and workers became 87 years old! 

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher

Two conservatives in the service of capitalism and imperialism