The ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution either refuses or at least is reluctant to accept that the governance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is communist and or socialist, usually referring to China as being Stalinist and or capitalist. This ICFI/SEP categorisation of China is not in keeping with how the vast majority of Chinese people and the world in general identify and name the governance of the PRC.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) clearly identifies itself as being a communist party. More importantly, the people of China not only accept their ruling party as being communist, they evidently have a relatively high level of trust and confidence in their rulership. During recent years a reputable international barometer has ranked China among the top two or three populations in the world when measured for levels of trust and confidence in their respective governments. In 2020, around 604,000 people were disciplined by China’s top anti-graft body, the resolute fight against corruption has resulted in surging public support. According to a survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, 97.3 percent of the respondents expressed satisfaction with the improvement of Party conduct, the working practices of government officials, and social morality.
This relatively high level of trust and confidence among the general population of China for the CPC is consistent with a country that for the past 7 decades has enjoyed an average annual growth of disposable income of 6%>. Besides income increases, during the last three decades Chinese people have also enjoyed other benefits, such as access to better education, medical care, improved living conditions and a safer environment. China now has the largest social security system globally, with basic medical insurance covering over 1.3 billion people and basic old-age insurance covering about 1 billion. The average life expectancy of the Chinese has risen to 77.3 years. As of 25/08/2021 China has all but defeated an outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID-19, that began one month earlier. China’s relatively proficient management of the pandemic from its earliest months in 2020 is not only providing better protection for its people, it will also increase an already high level of trust and confidence among them for their government.
As China embarks on the next stage of its journey toward a 2049 centennial celebration of what the CPC refers to as becoming a – ‘moderately prosperous socialist state’,
their leader Xi Jinping will be sharing his thoughts on how China intends to get there through what he calls ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’, this by way of having Xi’s thoughts included in China’s formal educational curriculum. Given the success of China’s program of ‘national rejuvenation’ over the past seven decades and providing it can continue making similar progress over the next three decades using Xi’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics, there is little or no reason to doubt that the concept and use of the word ‘socialism’ will be just as readily accepted and related to by the people of China as is the concept and use of the word ‘communism’.
In addition to the 1.4 billion Chinese population, most of the world population recognise the PRC as being governed by a communist party – the CPC, this for better or for worse depending on one’s political perspective and preference. When informing and preparing the international working class for world socialist revolution, there is little or no merit in the ICFI/SEP reporting via the pages of WSWS – a daily online source of political information that is second to none, that the CPC is not communist or socialist and worse still by referring to China as ‘Stalinist’ and or essentially ‘capitalist’. Trotskyists should keep in mind that the PRC includes about 20% of the total international working class, for those Chinese working class who do get around to reading ICFI/SEP/WSWS reports on China, they are more than likely to be offended by such unnecessary political spin.
Deliberately denigrating the one and only nation state that publicly claims to be influenced by a Marxist inspired communism, that also happens to now be the largest and most successful communist party throughout modern history, could well be a counter-revolutionary act.
Most of the other than Chinese international working class – about 80%, are constantly being fed anti communist, anti socialist, propaganda by their respective capitalist cum imperialist governments. For decades the real crisis in revolutionary political leadership has been the struggle against such propaganda in an effort to win over the international working class.
Trotskyists know better than most why a world perspective is superior to a nationalist perspective and why Trotsky’s theory of permenant revolution should have prevailed over Stalin’s socialism in one country. The fact that it didn’t is a historical no brainer, more appropriately described as a ‘crisis of revolutionary political leadership’. The cost of such weak political decision making and leadership over the past century in terms of lives lost, property destroyed, human expertise, skills and money wasted on wars defending antagonistic nation states and failed revolutions, is almost unfathomable. These two critical political concepts while coming from very different perspectives and being so politically opposed to each other, nevertheless had at least one thing in common – ‘Socialism’.
For the international working class to achieve world socialism, the revolutionary political leadership of the ICFI/SEP will need to gain the approval of and thereby be able to prepare the international working class for world socialist revolution. As things stand in 2021 the size and political influence of the ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution is minuscule when compared with the size and political influence of the CPC. The program and party of world socialist revolution cannot afford to alienate 20%> of the international working class because it is being unnecessarily cynical toward a political party that has clearly already gained the trust of its working class.
The ICFI/SEP cannot afford to depend on responding to catastrophic events to pave the way for establishing rank and file committees within China and internationally. Maybe us Trotskyists can start healing our crisis of revolutionary political leadership by learning from a country and people that has enjoyed many an epoch as the world’s most advanced culture, without needing to be an imperialist coloniser. In terms of world status the past two centuries has been an aberration for China, a nation state that has literally ‘been there, done that, got the teeshirt’ several times over. The ICFI/SEP should seriously consider taking some Chinese medicine, even if it is a bitter pill to swallow.
Life is beautiful, may future generations cleans it of all evil, oppression and violence and enjoy it to the full.
Leon Trotsky– Mexico 1940.
Since his brutal murder at the hands of a Stalinist thug in 1940, Trotsky’s future generations have yet to cleans our planet of the evil, oppression and violence he understood and wrote about all too well. More than eight decades later, human life is now confronted with the possibility of its own self inflicted premature extinction. Be it the death and destruction caused by the pandemic COVID-19, or the death and destruction caused by more frequent and intense floods, droughts and wildfires, or the death and destruction caused by increasing poverty and wars, however we look at it, as a species we are in trouble and the time left for doing something about it is rapidly running out.
The level of political, social and spiritual consciousness required for a critical mass of us humans to take the necessary action to avert these threats to our very existence, must be increased sooner rather than later because later will probably be too late. The amount of information available to us for our survival is to say the least, limited. On the other hand, the amount of information available to us that threatens our survival is readily available and abundant. There are literally thousands of mind numbing advertisements that appear daily via main stream and social media, some of which are specifically designed to entice intelligent yet gullible young men and women into the defence forces. Hopefully an increasing number of the more intelligent and less gullible young men and women are able to see for themselves what is happening, who and what the problem really is and thereby avoid being seduced by the mega commercial and war machines. Be this as it may, the youth of today need all the help they can get to raise their political, social and spiritual consciousness in preparation for making revolutionary change at both the personal and planetary levels.
The underlying problem is contemporary global capitalism and those who have now become its profit crazed elite ruling class owners – a relatively small minority group who in recent decades have morphed into being the strongest ruling class in history. Nation state defence forces throughout the entire planet including and especially those with nuclear weapons, exist for the sole purpose of defending the privately owned wealth of their respective ruling class owners. Just a casual examination of how and why the first and second world wars started will confirm the role of the respective antagonistic nation state ruling classes, none of whom were remotely capable of resolving their profit crazed geopolitical conflicts without resorting to war. The same can be said about the threats of catastrophic climate change and rampant death dealing pandemics such as COVID-19, it is capitalism and the extent to which its ruling class owners prioritise the accumulation of their privately owned wealth over and above meeting the most basic social, cultural and ecological needs of human society and planet Earth’s ecosystems.
What can and should we do about this? To whom and or what do we turn for information that will enable us to cultivate the level of political, social and spiritual consciousness necessary to take the action that might avert or at least alleviate these threats and prolong our survival? Capitalism has long since become a globalised social dynamic, hence the problem it poses is a global problem, hence the solution to solving this problem must logically be global. Global capitalism must be replaced with a global socialism, socialism confined to a single nation state can exist in name only and by definition has never become well enough developed to compete with or replace global capitalism. The only political program and party that places its emphasis on being able to meet the basic social and cultural needs of human society and the ecological needs of planet Earth is the party of world socialism, an international revolutionary Trotskyist party.
We are not a party like other parties. … Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.
Leon Trotsky– launching the ICFI, 1938.
There is only one political program and party advocating and preparing for the overthrow and replacement of global capitalism, that is the party of ‘world socialist revolution’ known as the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) – launched by Leon Trotsky in 1938, and its associated international branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP). The main task of the ICFI/SEP is to raise the political and social consciousness of the only political and productive force capable of uniting to overthrow and replace capitalism and its ruling class owners, namely the ‘international working class’.
The Trotskyist ICFI/SEP political program and party of world socialist revolution and its day to day source of revolutionary information the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), is the only international socialist party with the necessary political integrity, discipline, courage and rigour essential for preparing the international working class for the overthrow and replacement of capitalism and its ruling class owners with a more sophisticated, scientific and sustainable form of global governance and productivity that is more compatible with our beautiful life supporting planet Earth.
It is fitting that our revolutionary leader and mentor should have the last say on this story.
“Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..”
Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932.
For better and for worse, todays information sharing technology makes it so much more evident that the human race is primarily a story telling species, everything we do and say, all our thinking and behaviour is almost entirely influenced by the stories going on between our ears, be they fact or fiction, be they well intended or otherwise, stories are our primary and most influential source of information. So, it is with this grand philosophical premise in mind that I offer you My Uluru story – Ngayuku puli-pulka tjukurpa, this by way of celebrating NAIDOC 2021, here on the traditional land of the Wakka Wakka people (S.E. Queensland Australia).
This is a story of how I was literally re-minded by such a remarkable place – Uluru, and its indigenous custodians – the Anangu, about the importance of our relationship to place and family – walytja or kin. Thanks to its indigenous Anangu custodians, over millennia the landscape and rock formations of Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park has invoked stories cum lessons that I believe are of potential value for the whole human race, especially now that our relatively advanced information sharing technology is being deliberately used in so many subtle and not so subtle ways to divide and separated us from our sense of place, from each other and all too often, from reality.
‘Uluru-Kata Tjua National Park, an isolated tiny patch in Australia’s vast arid zone at the very centre of the continent, is the symbol for a special, almost intangible quality of the continent’s interior but also for the co-operative human spirit. It is one of the most remarkable places on earth. From the start I was determined to find out as much as I could about it’.
Uluru Looking After Uluru Kata-Tjuta ~ The Anangu Way
Stanley Breeden 1994.
Life among the Anangu.
From 1990 until 1995, it was my privilege to have lived and worked with the indigenous Anangu of Central Australia (Northern Territory) at Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park and then from 1995 until 1998 on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands (South Australia). Uluru Kata-Tjuta is a World Heritage Area National Park, listed for both its natural and cultural values. During my time there I had the rare opportunity of being able to work closely with its Anangu custodians while re-nominating the park for World Heritage Area listing based on its cultural values, it was already WHA listed based on its natural values. During the same 1990-95 period, Anangu and Piranpa park staff along with various professional consultants and builders worked on the design and construction of the Uluru Cultural Centre. The early 1990s was when the award winning author of natural history Stanley Breeden was given permission from Anangu to produce a book about the park, particularly about the nature of the park, its flora and fauna, but also about the Anangu and Piranpa – whitefellas, who were working together to manage Uluru ‘the Anangu way’. This too was a most valuable opportunity for Stanley and us Piranpa park staff to learn more about the depth of knowing about and relatedness to their place that Anangu possessed.
‘We commend this book to you, and affirm its accuracy and value. We Anangu are strongly committed to our culture, and we believe this book shares in our commitment’
Tony Tjamiwa – Traditional Owner in forward to the book –
Uluru Looking After Uluru Kata-Tjuta ~ The Anangu Way
(Stanley Breeden 1994).
I believe I can safely say that for most if not all park staff the period 1990-95 was a particularly valuable period to have been living and working at Uluru, it was a time when the Anangu traditional owners were settling into the management of their sacred land which had been formally and conditionally returned to them by the Australian Commonwealth Government in 1985. The condition of return being that the park would immediately be leased back to the Commonwealth for 99 years. Nevertheless, the following decade was a particularly productive period during which the leadership of tjilpi – senior Anangu man, Tony Tjamiwa and his Piranpa liaison officer Jon Willis enabled Anangu to become more confident, assertive, capable and generous in expressing the more public and appropriate for sharing components of their Tjukur(pa) – their Lore. This was also a significant period when a new emphasis on sharing Anangu Tjukur(pa) and culture was in effect a maturing of the relatively early days of ‘joint management’, that is the management of the park by both the Australian Nature Conservation Agency and the parks Anangu traditional owners.
In addition to the above mentioned more prominent projects, several less publicised park management initiatives took place during this period, including placing a new emphasis on Pitjantjara language classes for us Piranpa staff. These classes were conducted by Anangu rangers and the few Piranpa staff such as Julian Barry and Jon Willis who were fluent speakers of the Pitjantjatjara language. As a result of these Anangu led language classes a healthy number of Piranpa rangers – mostly female I might add, became fluent Pitjantjara speakers, this too contributed significantly to the maturing of joint management. Another similar initiative was that of an Anangu led basic cultural training course cum certificate designed to enable visiting and local tour operators – particularly bus drivers most of whom until then were making up their own stories about the park and Anangu, to gain a more appropriate and approved understanding of the park and how it was now being managed, ‘the Anangu way’. While some bus drivers initially balked at the idea, at the end of such training sessions most of them had enjoyed their face to face interaction with Anangu and their better understanding of Anangu culture.
Back in 1994 I was highly motivated by Stanley Breeden’s chapter thirteen entitled ‘To climb or not to climb’ in which he writes –
‘Anangu find the compulsion to climb, to conquer, Uluru incomprehensible and also think that it shows disrespect by strangers for another people’s land.. They want people to understand Anangu and Uluru Kata-Tjuta. Understanding is everything. Once people understand, Anangu are convinced mutual respect will follow.
Tjamiwa expresses it.. We want tourists to learn about our place, to listen to us Anangu, not just look at the sunset and climb the rock..’
Nganana tatinja wia – we never climb, the Anangu traditional owners of Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park reluctantly tolerated people being allowed to climb Uluru. Unfortunately, even though Anangu had made it very clear how they felt about the climb, the pressure from the tourist industry and to a lesser extent the Piranpa agency involved in joint management of the park continued to resist its closure for too long a period. For some years in my role as the senior Piranpa staff member, I advocated for the closure of the climb having made various unsuccessful submissions to my supervisors in Darwin and Canberra. On reflection, my persistence over this issue cost me too much lost sleep and a few casual friendships. However, about 25 years later on Sunday 26th Oct 2019 Anangu and probably millions of us Piranpa celebrated the closure of the climb at Uluru.
From my relatively well informed perspective – albeit decades later and from afar, the closure of the climb at Uluru in 2019 was a well overdue move in the context of managing the park ‘the Anangu way’. Uluru is now being respected and protected in a way that better reflects its universal significance as a sacred site.
‘It is directly and tangibly associated with events, living traditions, ideas and beliefs of outstanding universal significance, and it is a potent example of imbuing the landscape with the values and creative powers of cultural history through the phenomenon of sacred sites.’
Renomination of Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park
Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories 1994
On reflection I often think about the eight years I spent in Central Australia with my then partner Marian Hill as a kind of pilgrimage. Our original intention was to experience what we thought might be ‘the real Australia’ rather than the sanitised version were were both immersed in an urbanised Victoria. Nowadays I do reflect on my time with Anangu in Central Australia as a pilgrimage into a time and place that gradually changed my mind, for the better and for ever.
Finding my own story stone.
My partner and I lived along with other Piranpa and the more permanent Anangu residents at a place called Mutitjulu, a small community within the park and just a few kilometres from the base of Uluru. Much of my recreation time was spent roaming and exploring the surrounding landscape and rock formations of Uluru and Kata-Tjuta. On one such occasion I stumbled upon what would eventually become my most influential symbolic story stone. Only after many visits and spending much contemplative time at its resting place did I eventually become sensitive enough to receive and relate to this stone as ‘ngayuku puli tjukurpa’ – my story stone. It is rectangular in shape with proportion similar to that of a standard matchbox and I estimated its weight to be close to a metric ton, far too heavy to have been moved by human hands. Therefor, I imagined it to have been shaken from its place of origin at a time when our Earth Mother – Gaia, was rumbling deep within her great Southern belly, probably in response to some powerful tectonic force. Since then and probably for millennia, it has rested on just two of its diagonally opposite edges, exposing itself to be observed, felt and related to through each of its six rustic faces. Almost three decades later my story stone continues to inspire me to imagine, study and write about the significance of relating to place at both the personal and cosmic levels. During such periods of contemplation I can imagine how the first Anangu hunters and gatherers, who having evidently produced some nearby cave art, received this impressive looking stone in their own unique indigenous way.
Once I felt comfortable about relating to my story stone in this way, it marked the beginning of the most creative personal journey of my adult life, a journey that released me from decades of entrapment in relatively ordinary, dominant states of consciousness, a journey that eventually reminded me of a time and place – Penarth, Wales 1944-50 the first five years of my life, when like many a young Anangu, I too was being nurtured by my mother to enjoy and cultivate our relationship with place, Self, other and all-that-is. The storying and importance of relatedness in general and relationship with family or kin in particular was literally brought home to me when a group of mapla tjilpi – friendly senior Anangu men, realised I had not been home to visit my kin for about 26 years – since leaving Wales in 1967, they thought I must be a bit sick in the head. Not long after this friendly shame job cum wake up call I returned home to Wales where I enjoyed relating to my family members – including young ones whom I had never met, in what for me was a new and healthier way. At the time I was in effect being reminded about and grown up by Anangu to the importance of my own Welsh place, heritage and kin.
‘Bob’s admiration for Anangu takes a somewhat different direction from that of the other Piranpa I spoke to.. He continues: “..I’m pretty sure that my upbringing had something to do with it. My mother was a very nice and gentle person who was close to nature, and she influenced me..”
Uluru – Looking after Uluru-Kata Tjuta~The Anangu Way (1994: p183)
Life back in mainstream Australia.
My story stone, and I are now physically separated by about 3,000 kilometres of mostly Australian desert landscape, to and from a place where it rests safely inside a small cave at the base of the northern face of Uluru in Central Australia. Nevertheless, since the year 2000 my story stone continues to inspire me to embark on exciting, new spiritual and political journeys.
One particularly influential story that came to me while living and working among the Anangu of Central Australia is about how and why it was not likely or even possible for Anangu men or women to form a centralised group within their tribe or community for the purpose of having power and control over the rest of the community. Prior to being colonised by European invaders who had already perfected such a practice, Ananguku tjukurpa – lore, their way of being and relatedness to place and other – including the other than human beings within their place, was such that there were no words in their Pitjantjatjara language that could so much as give rise to thoughts of power and control over each other, let alone the more extreme thoughts of forming a centralised group for such a purpose. Moreover, the initiation of young adolescent Anangu boys and girls into adulthood was particularly important for maintaining the level of maturity and cooperation that was essential for such indigenous hunter gatherer communities to thrive.
Such an extreme contrast between the forms of community, economy and productivity being practiced by the Anangu of Central Australia – prior to being invaded and divided, with that being practiced by their European invaders is a most pertinent and valuable story, not just for contemporary Australians but for the whole human race. Traditional Anangu society was a relatively free, cooperative and egalitarian society, when compared to their European invaders who were of a society that was deliberatively divided, unequal and mostly imprisoned. The indigenous Anangu of Central Australia had no need for standing armies, gunships or police forces, their relatedness to place and each other was demonstrably more mature, sophisticated and peaceful than that of their invaders. Unfortunately and maybe inevitably, in more recent times some Anangu leaders – usually men, have adopted their European coloniser’s practice of centralised power and control with a bit too much relish.
Not long after returning to live in main stream Australia, my Uluru experience aroused in me a new curiosity that soon had me doing some relevant academic study. In an effort to try and make some sense of what for me was an obvious and annoying lack of understanding and empathy toward the socio-economic circumstances of indigenous Australians among Australians in general, I enrolled to do a Social Ecology Masters degree at the University of Western Sydney (UWS). During my time at UWS I met another like minded story teller, Glenys Livingstone with her own emerging story, ‘PaGaian Cosmology – A Re-inventing of Earth based Goddess religion’. Glenys and I both graduated on the same day in 2003, Glenys gaining her Doctoral degree and me my Masters degree with a distinction. Several decades later we are still just as passionate about our storytelling together as we were on the day we met.
Since the year 2000, Glenys and I have been much inspired by the teachings of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme both of whom authored ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ 1990 and ‘The Universe Story’ 1994. Both of these works together with our ongoing practice of seasonal celebrations that are mostly informed and inspired by ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ 2005, – (the book form of Glenys’ doctoral thesis), have enabled us to deepen our appreciation of planet Earth’s biosphere as being an awesome creative event. ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ is based on Thomas Berry’s twelve principles of a ‘functional cosmology’, principle number twelve convinced me that if we are to develop our full personal and human potential, we will need the emergence of something close to what Thomas describes as –
an‘Ecozoic era of Earth development’, an era during which we ‘activate the inter communion of all the living and non living components of the Earth community..’
Such was my new found appreciation and experience of creativity and beauty throughout an otherwise increasingly troubled world, that it soon prompted me to search for a compatible political story. I had almost given up on my search and politics in general when I came across these two particular passages –
“In this world, at this point, no political revolution is sustainable if it is not also a spiritual revolution – a complete ontological birth of new beings out of old. Equally, no spiritual activity deserves respect if it is not at the same time a politically responsible, i.e; responsive, activity… The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realize itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.”
Barbara Mor – ‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ 1987.
“Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..”
Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932.
The above quotes inspired me to revive and pursue the development of my political consciousness, hence I am now convinced that providing we can survive global capitalism and replace it with a global socialism, we could enable the emergence of Thomas Berry’s ‘Ecozoic era’, and maybe eventually aglobal communion with the wisdom of Ngapartji-Ngapartji, yet another inspiring indigenous Australian story. Like an onion, as you peal away the layers of this particular Ananguku story it reveals deeper meanings. For example, the outer layers of this story reveal a relatively simple ethic of reciprocity or fair exchange, then maybe that of the ‘golden rule’- doing unto others as they would do unto you. Closer to the core of this Ananguku story reveals a more empathetic relationship whereby we do unto others what they would have us do unto them, a more organic understanding that does not distinguish between receiving and giving, an understanding whereby giving and receiving are one and the same.
Until this day, learning from the place and people of Uluru enables me to continue cultivating a more balanced sense of place and relatedness, it is also enabling in me a deeper spiritual and even political consciousness than I otherwise might have.
All thanks to having found Ngayuku puli tjukurpa – My story stone.
While our collective consciousness of it varies mostly according to the prevailing social dynamics, the development of our human race has been and continues to be severely hindered by class antagonism and struggle.
Increasing exploitation of the international working class by a capitalist ruling class and its subsequent social inequality is now being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of which has intensified class antagonism to the point where our collective human consciousness of it is now rapidly spreading throughout the entire planet.
The contemporary social dynamic of increasing exploitation and social inequality must be resisted by the international working class if our race is going to survive and be able to continue developing our full human potential. Capitalism and its ruling class owners has long since morphed into a profit crazed and increasingly fascistic forms of governance and productivity.
Democratic forms of governance and productivity are finding it increasingly difficult to contain the present level of social inequality and class antagonism, hence the re-emergence and spread of more authoritarian and fascistic forms of state power and governance. This level of class antagonism and struggle has now reached a global social dynamic that is ripe for revolution, hence the recent launch of the International Workers Alliance of Rank and File Committees (IWA-RFC) an international strategy for World Socialist Revolution.
The IWA-RFC is an important new component cum strategy of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), a program and party of World Socialist Revolution. The ICFI/SEP is the only political program and party preparing the international working class for the eventual overthrow of a capitalist ruling class and the replacement of their forms of state power and governance with Federations of United Socialist States throughout the entire planet.
The IWA-RFC will form and develop rank and file committees in work places, on campus and within local communities where and when desired by a growing number of working class people seriously wanting such revolutionary change. The eventual replacement of a profit crazed and increasingly dangerous capitalism with Federations of United Socialist States will enable more sophisticated and sustainable science based forms of governance and productivity to meet the basic social and cultural needs of all societies, thereby materially and spiritually liberating the international working class and greatly reducing the negative impact that a rapacious capitalism is having on our planet’s ecosystems.
Thanks to deferring to the scientific and revolutionary political nous of Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky, the ICFI/SEP program and party of World Socialist Revolution has developed the necessary qualification for revolutionary leadership, that is the necessary political integrity, courage, discipline and rigour.
The international spread and development of the IWA-RFC strategy will be a key indicator of how well prepared the international working class is for delivering a World Socialist Revolution. Such Rank and file Committees will need to spread and develop beyond the factory workplaces and student campus into the barracks, and ranks of the universal soldier and police forces before it can be said with any confidence that such revolutionary preparedness is now well advanced and victory is in sight.
As our political leader and mentor said –
We are not a party like other parties. … Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.
Leon Trotsky– launching the ICFI, 1938.
“Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..”
Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932.
For the last decade of my career in conservation and resource management 1990-2000, I lived and worked among the Anangu traditional owners of Central Australia. For me this was a time and place where and when I was literally re-minded about the importance of my relationship to Self, other and all-that-is. On returning to live within non aboriginal society my Anangu inspired curiosity took me to a week-end retreat where I was introduced by Miriam McGilles to the ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ 1990 and ‘The Universe Story’ 1994, works authored by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry. These works further inspired me to undertake a Masters degree in Social Ecology, majoring in Environmental Education at the University of Western Sydney. My partner Glenys Livingstone and I graduated at the same time and place in 2003, me with a Distinction and Glenys with a Ph.D., we were both passionate about journeying together.
My earlier life changing experience in Central Australia followed by my academic study and ongoing practice of seasonal celebrations that are informed by ‘PaGaian Cosmology’ 2005, authored by my partner Glenys Livingstone, has enabled me to experience and deepen my appreciation of cosmic creativity in general and planet Earth’s Biosphere in particular as an awesome physical event that is a beauty to behold. ‘Canticles to the Cosmos’ is based on Thomas Berry’s ‘twelve principles of a functional cosmology’, principle number twelve convinced me that if we are to develop our full personal and human potential, we will need the emergence of what Thomas describes as an ‘Ecozoic era of Earth development’, an era during which we ‘activate the inter communion of all the living and non living components of the Earth community..’
Such was my new found experience of creativity and beauty throughout an otherwise increasingly troubled world, that it prompted me to search for a compatible political story. I had almost given up on my search and politics in general when I came across these two particular passages –
“In this world, at this point, no political revolution is sustainable if it is not also a spiritual revolution – a complete ontological birth of new beings out of old. Equally, no spiritual activity deserves respect if it is not at the same time a politically responsible, i.e; responsive, activity… The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realize itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.”
Barbara Mor – ‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ 1987.
And
“Once he has done with the anarchic forces of his own society, man will set to work on himself, in the pestle and the retort of the chemist. For the first time man will regard itself as raw material, or at best as a physical and psychic semi-finished product. Socialism will mean a leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom in this sense also, that the man of today, with all his contradictions and lack of harmony, will open the road for a new and happier race..”
Leon Trotsky – ‘In Defence of the October Revolution’ 1932.
The above quotes – among others, inspired me to revive and pursue the development of my political consciousness, eventually referring to myself as a born again Trotskyist who now firmly believes that the only way we can manifest such ‘a new and happier race’ is via the ICFI/SEP program and party of World Socialist Revolution. I am now convinced that providing we survive global capitalism, a global socialism could enable the emergence of Thomas Berry’s ‘Ecozoic era’, and eventually a global communion.
Never before has the time and circumstance been so ripe for revolution. A profit crazed capitalism owned by an insane ruling class with an insatiable appetite for material wealth and power, has finally brought our human race to the brink of extinction. Whatever threat one considers, be it the increasing exploitation and impoverishment of the working class, be it the increasing level of geopolitical tension between nuclear armed state powers, be it the destructive impact of climate change, be it the disruption of artificial intelligence or the increasing threat of pandemics such as Covid19, the social circumstances of the vast majority of the human race is now rotten to the core and ripe for world socialist revolution.
Anticipation of and preparation for this period of world socialist revolution has been in the making for many decades, with the likes of Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky laying the foundations of scientific analysis and political leadership for such a revolution. Leon Trotsky in particular is nowadays again being valued by a growing number of the international working class as a revolutionary mentor and leader, his comparison cum political lesson of the 1871 Paris Commune with the October 1917 Russian revolution indicate why this is so.
Quote.
‘It is only with the aid of the party, which rests upon the whole history of its past, which foresees theoretically the paths of development, all its stages, and which extracts from it the necessary formula of action, that the proletariat frees itself from the need of always recommencing its history: its hesitations, its lack of decision, its mistakes.. In the midst of great events, moreover, such decisions can be adopted only by a revolutionary party which looks forward to a revolution, prepares for it, does not lose its head, by a party which is accustomed to having a rounded view and is not afraid to act.. The entire working class, while preserving its cultural originality and its political nuances, can act methodically and firmly, without remaining in the tow of events, and directing each time its mortal blows against the weak sectors of its enemies, on the condition that at its head, above the wards, the districts, the groups, there is an apparatus which is centralized and bound together by an iron discipline.’
End of quote.
In 1938 Leon Trotsky launched the International Committee of the Fourth International the IFCI, a revolutionary program and party ‘bound together by an iron discipline’, with these words –
Quote.
‘We are not a party like other parties.. Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.’
End of quote.
‘The socialist revolution’ Trotsky refers to is about a working class overthrow of the ruling class and the replacement of capitalism with socialism, this via the formation of federations of united socialist states throughout the entire planet. From an international socialist perspective, one of ‘the weak sectors of its enemies’ that Trotsky refers to is the insatiable appetite of an international ruling class for material wealth and power. It is this weakness that will be key to enabling the working class to overthrow the ruling class.
The international working class produces, operates, maintains and defends everything, including and especially the privately owned wealth and infrastructure of the ruling class. Without the working class, the ruling class has nothing. Without the ruling class, the working class and for that matter the whole human race will be a lot safer and a lot better off, possibly avoiding premature extinction and moving on to fulfil our human potential, at both the species and personal level. The withdrawal of its productive force, laying down the tools and weapons used to produce and defend the privately owned wealth of the ruling class, this is how the working class will overthrow the ruling class. Again we are guided by the words of Leon Trotsky
Quote.
‘In the midst of great events, moreover, such decisions can be adopted only by a revolutionary party which looks forward to a revolution, prepares for it.. Those fighters of 1871 were not lacking in heroism. What they lacked was clarity in method and a centralized leading organization..’
End of quote.
Such preparation is now well and truly advancing under the guidance of the ICFI program and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party the SEP, with affiliated democratic rank and file committees of workers, students and others forming and preparing for revolution. Such rank and file committees independent of a mostly corrupted union movement, will continue to spread throughout the entire planet until such time as a critical mass of the international working class is ready to down tools and weapons, leaving all but the most essential of services on hold pending the essential change of power.
For those of us who are serious about joining and preparing for the only political program and party of World Socialist Revolution the ICFI/SEP, all the necessary information is made available on a daily basis via the pages of the World Socialist Web Site – WSWS.org
“This used to be an area of old ice,” says Polarstern captain Thomas Wunderlich. Now, however, in just a few days the Polarstern was able to advance practically unhindered to the North Pole. Since the 1980s, Arctic ice coverage has decreased by roughly half. The remaining ice is thin and thawing. The expedition has documented a collapsing world’ –WSWS.org 19/10/2020.
What a mess we have made of our life giving Biosphere in general and our human social circumstances in particular. Just imagine how much better off we might be if and when we replace what have now become mostly dysfunctional, profit driven, capitalist socio-economic forms of governance and productivity with a more sophisticated science based international socialism. International socialism in the form of democratic Federations of United Socialist States throughout the entire planet would necessarily replace capitalism’s emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned property and material wealth, with an emphasis on meeting the ecological, social and cultural needs of the Biosphere in general and human society in particular.
For human development to proceed, it must be sufficiently compatible with the natural evolution of our Biosphere’s life supporting ecosystems. Thanks to scientific understanding it is now well argued that the less compatible human development becomes with natural evolution, the sooner we are going to become an extinct species.
The science of physics also informs us that every single atom throughout space time is and always has been moving in the direction of maximising manifestation cum complexity (Vladimir Vernadsky – ‘The Biosphere’ 1927). So too human imagination and development, including the development of our socio-economic forms of governance and political consciousness. Hence for human development to proceed, it can and should be argued that – among other things, our political consciousness must also be compatible with the natural evolution of the Biosphere in general.
In these days of relatively quick and user friendly search engines, I for one have only been able to find one political program and party that I can regard as being compatible with the evolution of the Biosphere and the continuation of human development, namely the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its international branches of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), a self proclaimed program and party of world socialist revolution. The ICFI/SEP demonstrates a very disciplined, long term commitment to the replacement of international capitalism with international socialism. The ICFI/SEP program and party of world socialist revolution now enables us humans to not only rescue our ‘collapsing world’, but to take our next evolutionary step by preparing to manifest it through a world socialist revolution.
Capitalism, our present socio-economic form of governance and productivity has long since become global, imperialist and dangerous, it now places too much emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned wealth, with far too little emphasis on meeting the social and cultural needs of humanity.
In our preparation for world socialist revolution and thereby the replacement of capitalism with socialism, the international working class will need to carefully consider some of the counter revolutionary forces working against us. For example, the World Economic Forum (WEF) should be seen as a very formidable counter revolutionary force that will need to be reckoned with. The WEF has a great deal of money, power and influence available for achieving its capitalist objectives. Take for example part of an introduction to a recent (2020) WEF project named ‘The Great Reset’ –
‘To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism..’ (weforum.org)
It can and probably should be assumed that in order ‘To achieve a better outcome’ within a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism, the working class would inevitably continue to be exploited. Given the extent to which capitalism depends on the exploitation of the working class to generate profit and thereby the privately owned wealth that underpins the WEF and its members, we can safely assume that any proposed ‘revamp’ of ‘societies and economies’ would not be done on behalf of the international working class.
While capitalism in its current form – from an international socialist perspective, might well be regarded as being in an advanced state of decay, it is clear from the above WEF statement that the ruling class is determined to keep capitalism alive and well in one form or another. It now appears most likely that capitalism is to be either ‘reset’ from the top down with more or worse of the same damage it now inflicts on our planetary Biosphere in general and the international working class in particular, or it is to be replaced with an international socialism via a political program and party of world socialist revolution, from the bottom up. The WEF is clearly a counter revolutionary capitalist forum that has little or nothing in common with the ICFI/SEP/IYSSE program and party of world socialist revolution. In promoting their ‘Great Reset of capitalism’ project the WEF goes on to say –
‘Clearly, the will to build a better society does exist. We must use it to secure the Great Reset that we so badly need. That will require stronger and more effective governments, though this does not imply an ideological push for bigger ones. And it will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way..’ (weforum.org)
Knowing in advance that the ‘Great Reset.. will demand private-sector engagement every step of the way’, should be more than enough to alert the international working class that this WEF project cannot be trusted to bring about any meaningful improvement to their working conditions and livelihood. On the contrary, it would appear that the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ project is designed to ensure that smaller ‘stronger and more effective governments’ will be subordinate to the ‘private sector’.
Be this as it may, from an international socialist perspective the WEF is indeed a capitalist force to be reckoned with and strongly opposed. The only force capable of doing so is the same productive force that produces the profit and thereby the privately owned wealth of the capitalist members of the WEF, namely the international working class. To overcome such a formidable opponent and thereby replace international capitalism with international socialism will require a critical mass of the international working class to join the ICFI/SEP/IYSSE program and party of world socialist revolution. Only then can one prepare for and participate in the program of world socialist revolution.
A Great Replacement of capitalism from the bottom up.
From the perspective of the international working class, capitalism is a powerful global force that must be reckoned with and replaced by an even stronger global force. Replacing international capitalism with international socialism can only happen from the bottom up via the productive force of the international working class. Capitalism depends entirely on the productive force of the international working class to design, produce, operate, maintain and defend all of its territory, property, goods and services. By virtue of its productive role, it is the much exploited human productive force that can and must unite to overthrow its capitalist owners and state power.
The capitalist ruling class has no respect for planet Earth other than it being a so called ‘god given’ resource for theaccumulation of their privately owned material wealth. Capitalist ruling classes have long since colonised planet Earth into seperate, competitive, antagonistic nation states, the most powerful of which now jealously threaten each other with more than enough nuclear weapons to transform planet Earth into a lifeless desert. Climate change, wars, poverty, pandemics and tens of millions of displaced refugees having to flee from all of the above negative impacts are a direct result of a fundamentally flawed and mostly corrupt capitalism.
The replacement of capitalist socio-economic forms of governance and productivity that place so much emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned wealth with socialist socio-economic forms that place an emphasis on meeting the social and cultural needs of society, is long overdue. The political program and party of world socialist revolution namely the ICFI/SEP/IYSSE is well advanced and prepared to provide the international working class with the necessary revolutionary political leadership. Rank and file committees of workers, students and others are being well informed and encouraged to develop throughout the entire planet on a daily basis via the pages of WSWS.org .
Meeting the social and cultural needs of society first and foremost would be a great step in the right direction for the human race in particular and our Biosphere in general. The establishment and development of federations of united socialist states throughout the entire planet would enable far more of our natural resources – including and especially that of human labour, to be put to better use. It would do away with the need for nation states to aggressively compete with each other, material wealth could be far more equitably distributed throughout the entire planet, wars, poverty, refugees and environmental degradation could become things of the past.
From a working class perspective, international socialism must be our next logical socio-economic form of governance and productivity, it would be one great step for humankind – from the bottom up.
“In this world, at this point, no political revolution is sustainable if it is not also a spiritual revolution – a complete ontological birth of new beings out of old. Equally, no spiritual activity deserves respect if it is not at the same time a politically responsible, i.e; responsive, activity… The only meaningful political direction left now is synonymous with the only meaningful spiritual direction left now: towards the conscious re-fusion of the spirit and the flesh… This time it will be a global consciousness of our global oneness, and it will realize itself on a very sophisticated technological stage; with perhaps a total merger of psychic and electronic activity.”
(‘The Great Cosmic Mother’ – Barbara Mor 1987 p:418)
When considering the ramifications of the AI enabled mass surveillance of world populations – similar to the app now being developed on behalf of the Australian government to track cases of the COVID-19 pandemic, we should keep in mind the fact that such technology is for the most part designed, built, operated and maintained by waged and salaried workers, better thought of in the context of international socialism as a working class IT productive force. With this in mind and in the context of what might be in the best interest of the international working class as a whole, it is reasonable to assume that such surveillance technology – in theory at least, could work equally well on behalf of populations being enabled to survey future socialist governments as it now does for capitalist governments surveying their populations for purposes of control and exploitation. The said same surveillance technology used to monitor populations and vice versa governments, could enable more sophisticated socio-economic forms of governance and productivity based on better informed and less policed populations throughout the entire planet. Just imagine having a socialist government provided app that enables the general public to participate in more frequent feedback and referendums for the purpose of ensuring that their government remains focused on meeting all of the population’s social and cultural needs etc:
We are not a party like other parties. … Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.
Now that political leaders have decided to put most of the world population under house arrest supposedly for our own good to protect us from the coronavirus COVID-19, they have in effect achieved a new and unprecedented level of power and control over the rest of us. Politicians tell us that their new measures of control and surveillance are only temporary and that they will be lifted or at least appropriately regulated as soon as the virus is defeated. Be this as it may, the precedent has been set and it is probably enough to make some of our more dictatorial politicians wet themselves with excitement.
The story of international rulership has changed significantly and we -the world population, must change with it, otherwise the new (post COVID-19) normal could be significantly worse that the old (pre COVID-19) normal – with a capitalist form of socio-economic governance and productivity that is clearly not good enough to protect us from the emergence of such pandemics in the first place.
Closing state and regional borders, restricting our movement and interaction with each other, bringing non essential industry and commerce to a standstill, compensating financial institutions to a great extent and individuals to a lesser extent, our politicians will claim to be putting our safety and well being first and foremost and that we should therefor trust them. The thing is, if we couldn’t trust them before COVID-19 why should we trust them now and into the future when they will have experienced having more authoritarian control over us than at any previous time in modern history.
Now that we are well into a coronavirus – COVID-19, pandemic and judging by the ad hoc panic like responses of most governments, surely it has never been more obvious why and how capitalist forms of governance and productivity inevitably fail to provide the most basic ecological, social and cultural needs of the vast majority of life on planet Earth. In short, it is because capitalism now places far too much emphasis on profit and the accumulation of privately owned wealth, it is a social dynamic that is clearly out of control.
Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic the international ruling class and their political servants are already revealing their profit driven priorities – ‘The choice, according to the Economist, is clear. The consequences of a prolonged regime of factory shutdowns and social distancing are, from a sober-minded business point of view, too terrible to contemplate: “Markets would tumble and investments be delayed. The capacity of the economy would wither as innovation stalled and skills decayed. Eventually, even if many people are dying, the cost of distancing could outweigh the benefits.” [Emphasis added]WSWS.org 6th April 2020. Because capitalism places so much emphasis on the accumulation of privately owned wealth, it has inevitably morphed into being a totally dysfunctional social dynamic that must be replaced with a more sophisticated, scientific and sustainable socio-economic form of governance and productivity. So, how do we – the vast >99% majority of the world population, now change our story so that a post COVID-19 world is an improvement on where we are now? With this question in mind I wasrecently inspired by a discussion between Yuval Noah Harari and Amanpour & Co’ on CNN, it was based on the theme – ‘life after COVID-19’, here is a pertinent quote from it –
‘When people are told the scientific facts, and when people trust public authorities to tell them these facts, citizens can do the right thing even without a Big Brother watching over their shoulders. A self-motivated and well-informed population is usually far more powerful and effective than a policed, ignorant population.’
So, what will it take for the human population to do away with ‘Big Brother’ like regimes and be able to trust our political leaders to give the ecological needs of our planet and the social and cultural needs of us humans a higher priority than that of private property and the accumulation of privately owned wealth? My short answer is – nothing less than a world socialist revolution. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only exposed the inability of capitalism to provide our basic social and cultural needs, it also reveals to the human productive force – better thought of as the waged and salaried working class, what potential power and influence it can have on our future well being. The so called ruling class is best thought of as those who own and pay the wages and salaries of the productive force. To all intents and purposes, in the context of world socialist revolution, unless one owns the means of production and enough privately owned wealth to be listed among the wealthiest <1% of the world population, one might as well regard oneself as being one of the >99% working class.
For reasons that should by now be obvious, the working class can rest assured that the ruling class will not transform let alone replace capitalism, nor will they reduce let alone stop their exploitation of natural resources – including that of human labour, without a fight. The ruling class and their capitalist systems of governance and productivity will have to be overthrown. The only force capable of this is the international working class, the force that does all the work. The waged and salaried working class designs, builds, operates, maintains, protects and defends everything. Moreover, nowadays working class taxes are being used to bail out and rescue failed international corporations and banks, this is a warped kind of socialism. Hence the ruling class cannot survive without the working class, whereas the working class can not only survive without the ruling class, it has the potential to actually realise it’s full potential and thrive without them.
A political program and party of world socialist revolution not only exists but is also well prepared to lead the working class in the fight to rid our world of the ruling class and capitalism. Thanks to this program rank and file committees of workers and students are organising themselves from the ground up, independent of main stream politics and unions that are subservient to the corporations. To join this preparation for world socialist revolution and a better post COVID-19 normal, contact the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its Socialist Equality Party (SEP) or the International Youth and Students for Socialist Equality (IYSSE) via the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS.org)
NB: better still if you are eligible to vote in the 2020 US Presidential elections, you could support and vote for theSEP candidates – Joseph Kishore for President and Norissa Santa Cruz for Vice President and thereby help get the revolution underway.
another malpataffy.com story 