About the anti-communist statements of the call of the so-called "antifascist action Berlin"

Internet Statement 2003-03

There’s a limit to everything!

About the anti-communist statements of the call of the so-called "antifascist action Berlin"

1-11-2003

There are many calls in such a broad alliance as in the case of the memorial manifestation for Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. One cannot inconsiderately criticize everything or weigh every word. But there are things which go so far that one can say they twist the intentions of such a manifestation to mean just the opposite. If the interests of the imperialistic aggression get a mouthpiece and anti-communism appears as a line, then in fact a word must be said about this.

What the so-called Antifa represents becomes clear most of all by its call with the heading "Resist everyday life of capitalism…”"

What hides behind this strange heading remains mysterious. But if we go into the text more nearly, perhaps one gets it.

Near to the beginning it is said: "Even if the ritual for the founders of the KPD seems so old-fashioned to some people, antimilitarism and anticapitalism, for which the two stood as examples, haven't lost their relevance.”

Both stand exemplarily for antimilitarism and anticapitalism? Haven't you got that Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht have always laid claim to appear as clear-cut representatives of the proletariat and that they intended to transform the soviet revolution into a socialist one and understood their own role as being at the top of the uprising!
Most of all, the two are standing for the communist program they have drawn up, and not at all merely for a general "anticapitalism", which also can mean a completely reactionary nonsense. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht dissociated themselves from petty-bourgeois reactionary representatives of anticapitalism.

There is a lot of legitimate criticism of their way of action in the party question, of the relationship to the democratic revolution and of the treatment of the national question, of an abstract antimilitarism which also Karl Liebknecht advocated at times and which at the end of his life he had to break through by supporting the proletarian rebellion which inevitably arose.
But what appears as a theoretical fault here, the call of the so-called Antifa cannot be compared with. The remarks of the "Antifa" show what the Antifa really wants.

Under the watchword "The Main Enemy Stands in Our Own Country", the US' politics is then described almost uncritically. And even more. One makes himself the guardian, the prosecutor against Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction which it is said to have purchased in joint action with other capitalist states, particularly Germany.
They speak of Iraq as if it were all about fighting the threat of the world by Iraq!
The threat of the US or the world by Iraq is nothing but an invention of the U.S. propaganda like also of the propaganda of other capitalist and imperialistic states.
Little Iraq can, if at all, threaten neighboring states, on the whole, however, it has been threatened itself already for a long time.

To start out from a threat of the US or the world by Iraq is nothing but propaganda phrases of Mr Bush which are taken by the AAB heels. In the AAB call it actually reads:

"It primarily is all about chemical and biological weapons, the whereabouts of which had remained unsolved after breaking off of the inspections of 1998, and about 'dual-use -products which can be used for both civilian and military purposes. But these uncoverings couldn't get unpleasant only for Iraq. The Iraqi report contains long listings of technical cooperations with foreign countries which prove which firms and states have provided support for the development of weapons of mass destruction."

Which uncoverings then?
Lets assume it would be found out that Iraq - probably this is not the case - had in fact purchased any "weapons of mass destruction ". How many weapons of mass destruction does Iraq in fact have in comparison with the USA? One per cent, a half per cent, a thousandth part perhaps ??
The language spoken here is from the view of the massive nuclear extortion by the US, and this is incompatible with any left or revolutionary claim.

There are still very different uncoverings to be made.
How can it be that the world is led with the tip of its nose to the alleged danger of Iraq while, at the same time, the US are actually blackmailing the whole world with its nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction?
This is the case not only since the talk of Bush of the fall 2002 in which he quite openly formulated this.

This is the matter of prime importance which has to be revealed here: how strongly actually the international public, also that one of the larger other states, feels forced to the genuflection. Even Russia and China go along with that largely.

But the so-called AAB doesn't aim at this distortion but surrenders on the side of the ones which do the extortion, it is in actuality a mouthpiece of US imperialism, more than some bourgeois politicians, for whom a maneuvering position is typical in their majority.

In the next para the fairytale is served up again that the Iranian revolution of 1979, that is to say the so-called revolution of the Islamists, has been a factor of challenge of the US. The US is said to have counted on Saddam Hussein to fight this so-called revolution.
The Islamist "revolution" of 1979 suppressed the beginnings of a revolution which existed against the shah in Iran. This is the truth. Its oppression was and still is more brutal and more immediate than that of the shah ever was.

The mullah dictatorship was brought into the arena as the shah's rule came to an end and the shah was no longer opportune for his overlords. Also with the help of US imperialism. And there has never been a grave opposition on the part of the mullahs against US imperialism. Khomeini used mock battles against the US in order to exert in fact the most brutal domestic suppression. This is no wonder because a theocracy can be only even more reactionary than a monarchy.

The so-called Iranian revolution of 1979 has at all events nothing progressive, nothing one could use in an argument that Saddam Hussein had been a particularly reactionary supporting post which was built up against the Iranian "revolution".

Rather it is true that the so-called Iranian revolution was used to maintain all the more the conditions of permanent tension in this region, to break up the agreement with the shah for which Iraq had striven in order to reduce the tension potential. The USA like other powers supported both sides during the eight-years war to keep this war of annihilation against these two nations aflame.

The theocratic dictatorship is the most total oppression from the part of the imperialists and in the alliance with them. Islamic fundamentalism has always acted in alliance with the utmost reactionary intentions of imperialism. Only the blackest dogs of the capital present it as opposition. Recently, though, the US sees the power of the theocracy disintegrating and now it is looking for new opportunities of keeping its influence in the country. However, this doesn't by far justify to palliate the theocracy.

But one shouldn't think now that the AAB does not criticize the policy of the US at all.

For certain reasons the US in 1991 wasn't interested in completely splitting up Iraq, because it needed it in some way for its own power structure, although there had always been schemes to liquidate or lebanonize Iraq, that is to transform it into several small split states in conflict with each other so that the imperialists would get the saying in this region in a particularly cunning way.

It is said in the call of the AAB: "Bush senior, for whom the Iraqi dictator was 'worse than Hitler', had left the arch rogue in power in 1991 because of a strategic calculation: Saddam's fall would have given impetus to the separatism of the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north of Iraq, weakening Iraq, however, would have strenghtened Iran and thus violated vital interests of the USA."

Shall we in fact advocate that the Shiites, that is to say Islamist fundamentalism, split Iraq from the south, or the Kurds who have since long had connections with the imperialists and promote their separatism on this basis, from the north of Iraq ?

And indeed: the breaking up of Iraq was already demanded in handbills of the "independents (Autonome)" on the occasion of the first Iraq war! There where the US still must hold back due to own interests, these people don't mince their words. One must see that the most radical and blackest excesses of imperialism are at home with the "independents", concealed under the mask of radical action.

It is further said concerning the prospects after a US-British invasion:

"Thus, even if the Hussein regime would fall victim to a US war, this would not a tiny bit improve the conditions for a social emancipation in Iraq after a militarily forced exchange of the elite, let alone help the few Iraqi leftists to get more weight."

Here one has to say that, whichever be the intentions and machinations of the US imperialists in their aggression, fortunately they themselves don't know either what will be the results of their actions.
A war of aggression against Iraq will become an adventure, and nobody knows which development will follow from this. Therefore one cannot say from the start either that there won't be any social emancipation. One only can hope that the whole plan slips from the hands of the initiators of the aggression in the case that the aggression actually takes place and the way thus also becomes free for the forces which attempt from a new base to create a revolutionary democratic and social organization in Iraq.
The prerequisite for it, though, is that they disassociate themselves from the US completely.

Finally the policy of the EU is criticized:

"Since the EU militarily won't be able in foreseeable future to catch up with the US, the EU must back politics and economic relations in order to keep the door open for it in this region. This had already been of use for Germany in the second gulf war in 1991 for the strengthening of its great power ambitions. German combines had best commercial relations to Iraq and there was no interest in ruining the flourishing business by a war."

Well, concerning the German business, German capital had also good relations to the Iranian mullahs and even better ones to the Kuwaiti capital which is and was merged partly directly with the German bank capital.Therefore they also were interested to cast Iraq out from Kuweit again. In reality their attitude was ambivalent.

As to today's situation, we certainly are not against it that the EU in some way or another opposes the US, even if it manoeuvres and hesitates as it cannot be expected otherwise from this bourgeoisie. Its not because of this that we will attack them, dear sirs of the AAB, as it is indirectly expressed here. Are we to attack the EU just there where it now in any case sometimes still sets obstacles at some points against this massive imperialistic war-mongering politics of the US which wants to start the war by all means?

And it also must be seen that the US' attacks against Iraq are not at all predominantly directed only against Iraq.
These are indirect threats against the European states, against Russia and sometimes also against China. Something which falls off the heads in the considerations of these people are the struggles under the surface within imperialism itself, which in a certain sense undergo a particular aggravation by the way the US proceeds. One must take a stand against the own imperialism but one cannot forget in this instance that Germany like numerous other European countries itself is the object of imperialistic efforts and since 1945 never got out of the dependence. The situation isn't identical with the one of 1914.

"The criticism of the US' politics ands its personification in George Bush must not be confused with a criticism of the capitalist society ." Indeed not, but there isn't a reason either to run down the criticism of the US' politics as does the so-called Antifa. This is a side cut against the peace movement, as its politics is characterized thus: "It rather is a hatred of America, which sets the 'cultural inheritance of Europe' against 'the Anglo-American business idea' and which puts the 'just' great power ambitions of 'German Europe' against the 'deceitful' ones of the US."

There absolutely is such an element with the bourgeois criticism. But in no way every criticism of the policy of the US can be equated with that. This, however, does the Antifa. The more this is valid if they compare this movement with Nazism.

We have to criticize the reactionary German imperialism indeed, in particular where it appears with its backward-looking fascist ideas but also with his ecological ideas, with which it goes to peddle in the whole world. Against the latter, though, no opposition is to be felt with the Antifa. They go with it, on the contrary.

The resuscitation of bureaucratic forms of capitalism, characteristic for European capitalism, must indeed be fought. In this sense, antiamericanism is quite a reactionary thing, without doubt. But if here the massive war-mongering politics of the US which in principle threatens all other states of the world is being attacked, then we won't put a spoke into the wheel of just the politicians in question, as they are doing something, as an exception, which conforms with the necessary general direction.

We criticize Fischer (the German foreign secretary) and the Greens deeply because of their cunning reactionary policy, quite differently than Antifa people have ever done it. But we won't attack Fischer just there where he goes into some weakening action against this US policy against Iraq which obviously in actuality comes down to massive aggression against the complete rest of the world . On the contrary, we must fear that this action can fall down or is weakened tomorrow or after-tomorrow.

So the whole call of the so-called Antifa is a document for the apologetic parrot-fashion repeat of the US' imperialistic politics.

Now one must ask oneself what is the meaning of the headline where it reads " Resist everyday life of capitalism – One Solution: Revolution”
Who is against the capitalist everyday life is actually for the not-everyday capitalist life. The not-everyday capitalist liefe is what Bush and his gang are up for, who intend to heat and mix up the whole thing in an extreme manner because US imperialism fears for his dominance. Perhaps this heading isn't an accident anyway.

If the so-called Antifa writes "One solution - revolution" then in any instance the question remains what this revolution shall look like. We learn nothing at all about it with the "independents" (Autonome) and the so-called Antifa.
In reality nothing else but the prolonged arm of the old anti-communist scene of the former West Berlin, playing radicalism, hides behind the so-called Antifa Action Berlin.
And thus it is also fitting that in the end of the explanations of the AAB an attack on Lenin still must be carried out. "Lenin was just wrong when at the beginning of the last century he thought that the territorial division of the world was completed, the now ' dying capitalism was the evening before the social revolution'. Never mind."

Just this is slander. First of all Lenin hasn't said that the territorial division of the world is finalized, meaning that nothing can be changed any more, but on the contrary he has said that the territorial division has stretched over the whole world in the essence, and that consequently it goes on with the redistribution, that in the imperialist epoch it is particularly about the redistribution of spheres of influence between the various imperialistic groupings. That this is the age of the evening before the social revolution is already proved by the fact that during the first phase of the conflict the socialist October revolution was achieved with victories and successes of its own which lasted for 30-40 years, that the Chinese revolution developed on this base and many, many other revolutions in the whole world. The 20th century was in three quarters a century of class struggle, of socialist construction, of revolt of the peoples of all countries and of forced concessions which were gained in favor of the working classes virtually in all countries.

It is the task of the drivels of the so-called AAB to deny this. It is exactly their role to practically completely negate the construction of socialism which after all has already taken place for decades, by their assertion that it has been wrong that the dying capitalism is the evening before the social revolution.

We do live amidst the age of struggle between revolution and capitalism, in case the AAB shouldn't have noticed this yet. The subversion, too, the revisionism, too, the infiltration of socialist states and their overturn, too, their faults and weaknesses, too, belong also in this age.
We therefore stay with it: the manifestation for the memory of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht must in the first place be the memory of the first attempt of the socialist revolution in Germany which, even if it started under difficult conditions and carried big imperfections, nevertheless in its historical scope undoubtedly led to practical immediate consequences, too. Among other things these lie in the overcoming of the feudal remains in Germany, in its alliance with the Soviet revolution, in its support of the later Chinese revolution and in the putting through of innumerable demands of the workers.

Therefore this piece of our history, just on the day at which we commemorate the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, must not be withheld.

Editorial staff of New Unity
-ks-

So one may read the call of the AAB once again: German original English short version

Important editor’s remark for the English reader:

Our quotations are from the AAB’s German call for the Jan. 12 manifestation. The translation is ours. The English version which is to be found at their hp is not only much shorter – 1 page as compared with 4 pages of the original - , but moreover, there is no one sentence in it which is identical with the German call. In fact, this is a different text which leaves out almost all of the statements of the original which we think should be criticized, as we attempted to do here. Not even the headline’s sense is unchanged in their English translation: in German, it reads: “Gegen den kapitalistischen Alltagsbetrieb” which would be more properly translated into: “Against the capitalist everyday business”.