North Korea under siege

Peter Symonds

The unstable, crisis-ridden North Korean regime is increasingly under siege on all sides, as the Trump administration ramps up its threats of war on the Korean Peninsula and pressures Beijing to compel Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile programs. While formally an ally of North Korea, China has already voted for a series of UN resolutions imposing harsh sanctions and is currently discussing further UN penalties with the US.

A commentary published this week by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) lashed out at Beijing, accusing it of “insincerity and betrayal” and warning of “grave consequences entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK [North Korea]-China relations.” The KCNA reiterated that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons, setting it on a collision course not only with the US and Washington’s allies, but also China.

The Pyongyang regime, which depends heavily on China economically, is reacting to growing pressure from Beijing to bow to US demands. In February, China announced the suspension of coal imports from North Korea for the remainder of the year, and last month reportedly turned away a fleet of North Korean cargo ships laden with coal. Beijing is deeply concerned that Pyongyang’s weapon programs have created the pretext for a US military build up in North East Asia aimed against China.

The US threat of war on the Korean Peninsula has deepened the debate within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatus over North Korea, including suggestions that Beijing should pre-empt Washington with its own regime-change operation in Pyongyang or support its integration with South Korea. Such is the gulf between the two allies, once described as being as close as “lips and teeth,” that since taking office in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has not met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The US has maintained sanctions against North Korea since the 1950–53 Korean War, in which millions of civilians and troops from the two Koreas, China, the US and its allies died. While an armistice halted the fighting in 1953, no peace treaty was ever reached. North Korea is still effectively at war with South Korea and the US.

North Korea’s isolation worsened following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which had provided economic and military aid and accounted for around 60 percent of the country’s international trade. Pyongyang was compelled to turn to Beijing for assistance and trade. It relies on China for oil and food, as well as industrial and consumer goods.

The Pyongyang regime’s own shift to capitalist restoration and pro-market relations has been significantly hampered by the US-led blockade, which has only intensified in the past 25 years. Free trade zones were established with South Korea at Kaesong—currently closed—and with China. North Korea has also engaged in the export of cheap labour, with an estimated 20,000 workers in China, Russia and the Middle East.

As the US has heightened its confrontation with North Korea, several articles in the American and international press have noted the widespread market economy that has greatly exacerbated the social divide between a wealthy elite, along with private traders, smugglers and “red capitalists,” and the majority of impoverished workers and farmers.

A lengthy article in the New York Times on April 30 noted an estimate by the South Korean intelligence agency that at least 40 percent of the population in North Korea was now engaged in some form of private enterprise. While his father reportedly attempted to crack down on marketplaces, they have flourished under Kim Jong-un, doubling to 440 and, based on satellite imagery, expanding in size.

Wealthy donju or money owners “invest in construction projects, establish partnerships with resource-strapped state factories and bankroll imports from China to supply retailers in the marketplaces,” the article explained. “They operate with ‘covers’, or party officials, who protect their businesses. Some are relatives of party officials. Others are ethnic Chinese citizens, who are allowed regular visits to China and can facilitate cross-border financial transactions, and people with relatives who have fled to South Korea and send them cash remittances.”

These political and economic elites, concentrated in Pyongyang, have access to luxury goods, including at ski and beach resorts, while most of the population eke out an impoverished existence under police-state conditions.

The New York Times article was headlined, “As the economy grows, North Korea’s grip on society is tested.” It undoubtedly reflects efforts in Washington to identify discontented social layers that could provide the basis for “regime-change” in Pyongyang—either through a “colour revolution” or the elimination of the top leadership by other means.

Yesterday the North Korean ministry of state security issued details of what it claimed to be a CIA plot to kill Kim Jong-un and other leaders. While it is impossible to corroborate such accusations, a number of American political figures and analysts have advocated assassination and regime-change in Pyongyang to achieve US ends.

Washington’s broken promises

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, successive US administrations have pursued the barely-disguised aim of bringing about the collapse of the North Korean government—and thus undermining China, which has maintained the country as a buffer to South Korea and Japan.

In 1994, the Clinton administration was on the brink of launching a military attack on North Korea, on the pretext of the threat posed by its nuclear program, but pulled back at the last minute in the face of potentially huge casualties, including among US troops in South Korea. Instead, Washington struck a deal with Pyongyang—the Agreed Framework—under which North Korea shut down its nuclear facilities and allowed UN inspection in return for supplies of bunker oil, the construction of two light water nuclear power plants and promises of diplomatic normalisation.

The agreement was the basis for the so-called Sunshine Policy in South Korea that envisaged the transformation of North Korea into a cheap labour platform for South Korean conglomerates. European powers offered their support, viewing North Korea not only as an investment opportunity but the means for establishing transport links across Eurasia to South Korea and Japan.

The US, however, failed to keep its side of the deal—construction of the nuclear reactors never began and it was only in the dying days of the Clinton administration that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a highly-publicised visit to Pyongyang. The incoming Bush administration rapidly overturned the Agreed Framework and in 2002 declared that North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran, formed an “axis of evil.”

Any rapprochement with North Korea that led to an end to the US economic, diplomatic and military blockade of the country would undermine Washington’s pretext for maintaining military forces in North East Asia and its ability to use Pyongyang as a means of putting pressure on Beijing.

North Korea resumed its nuclear and missile program and exploded its first crude atomic bomb in 2006. Bogged down in its military occupation in Iraq, the Bush administration turned to China to put pressure on North Korea and reached a deal in 2007 to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear facilities and allow UN inspections in return for vague US promises to normalise relations.

The US political and media establishment constantly accuses North Korea of bad faith, but the Bush administration reneged on the bargain and eventually sabotaged the agreement. Pyongyang shut its nuclear reactor, and even began the process of dismantlement, and allowed UN inspectors into the country. Washington took just one step—the removal of North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, before insisting on far more intrusive inspections than were specified in the agreement, which quickly broke down in 2008.

In contrast to its steps to reach a deal with Iran, the Obama administration made no moves to restart talks with North Korea and ramped up sanctions in response to further North Korean nuclear and missile tests. In the final days of his administration, Obama reportedly advised Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing foreign policy issue confronting the US.

The North Korean regime, which rests heavily on the military and its police-state apparatus, has responded to its growing isolation and US threats with its own bellicose warnings and an acceleration of its nuclear and missile programs. Having few other bargaining chips, it has attempted to use its nuclear arsenal to reach a deal with the US that would end the blockade and allow the regime to attract foreign investment by transforming the country into an ultra-cheap labour platform.

Despite the bluster of North Korean leaders, their limited stockpile of nuclear weapons, far from defending the North Korean people, is transforming the country into a target for US imperialism. Its nationalist demagogy only sows divisions between workers in North Korea and in South Korea, Japan and the United States and undermines the unity of the international working class—the only social force capable of halting the drive to war.

The regime in Pyongyang is facing an economic and political crisis, as low levels of economic growth, compounded by aged and outmoded technology, equipment and industrial plant, and growing social inequality fuel divisions within the ruling elites. To consolidate his grip on power, Kim Jong-un has reportedly carried out a series of purges, including of top officials such as his uncle Jang Song-thaek, killed in 2013, who had close ties with Beijing.

The Trump administration has greatly heightened the crisis in Pyongyang and the danger of war. Besieged on all sides, it is unclear how the North Korean regime would respond to a provocation or military attack by US imperialism or South Korea.

The American and international press has not only demonised Pyongyang but greatly inflated the threat posed by the North Korean military. While on paper, North Korea’s army (KPA) is the world’s fourth largest with more than one million troops, and another seven million in reserves, much of its equipment is badly outdated and, in the event of war, would quickly be hit by fuel and other shortages.

A 2015 US Defence Department report stated: “The KPA has not acquired new fighter aircraft in decades, relies on older air defence systems, lacks ballistic missile defence, its Navy does not train for blue-water operations, and recently unveiled artillery systems that include tractor-towed rocket launchers.”

A former US military officer told the Financial Times: “Once the Korean People’s Army starts or stumbles into a decisive conventional war, they will run out of something critical like fuel or bullets or parts in 30 days tops. Based on numbers from a corps-sized unit I saw, it may even be as early as two weeks.” North Korea’s lack of a credible conventional military response heightens the danger that it could try to use nuclear weapons—with catastrophic results.

The Trump administration’s reckless brinkmanship has created a tinderbox on the Korean Peninsula, where a miscalculation or provocation could quickly escalate into a conflict that could draw in nuclear-armed powers such as Russia and China.

Greece’s Syriza government agrees to further savage austerity measures

John Vassilopoulos

An agreement to impose an additional €3.6 billion in austerity cuts has been reached between Greece’s Syriza-led government and European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials.

Tuesday’s agreement is the latest brutal component of the €86 billion austerity for loans package signed by the Greek government in August 2015. Its commitment to further austerity was conditional on the EU releasing a tranche of €7.5 billion, needed to pay off debt due to mature in July.

The talks were drawn out over a period of six months, which increased speculation that an agreement would not be reached in time for Greece to meet its obligations on its overall debt burden that remains around €300 billion—179 percent of GDP. This would lead to a crisis similar to the one in the summer of 2015 when the country verged on default and banks were forced to close.

The financial markets reacted positively to the new agreement, with Greek equities jumping 3.1 percent.

Announcing the deal, Syriza Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos declared, “The negotiation is finished with agreement on all the issues,” adding, “We now have a decision that the Greek government will be called to enforce with laws and decisions.”

What Syriza will now “enforce” is further devastating attacks on pensions, wages and workers’ rights.

Pensions are set to be reduced by up to 18 percent from 2019, affecting some 1.1 million pensioners receiving more than €700 ($767) a month. The pension cuts are worth around €1.8 billion—around 1 per cent of GDP. For low-income pensioners these are the highest cuts since the first austerity package was signed in 2010.

There have been a staggering 23 reductions in pensioners’ incomes since 2010, which have cut pensions by an average of 40 percent. According to the United Pensioners’ Network, these amount to a total of €50 billion.

Speaking about the cuts, Network president, Nikos Chatzopoulos said, “It’s not only the cuts to our pensions, but also the hikes in social security contributions and taxation, which have reduced pensioners’ incomes by more than 50 percent…There are people who can’t afford to pay for their medicines. We no longer have money to pay for electricity and phone bills.”

The tax-free threshold will be reduced from €8,636 to €5,681, which will take many low-income workers and pensioners out of the tax-free band. The measure is also set to hit low-income pensioners earning as little as €500 a month. For those who are just covered by the current threshold, this will amount to a cut of about €650 to their income.

The reduction to the tax-free threshold also equates to fully 1 percent of GDP and is set to come into force in 2020, provided current budget surplus levels remain on target. If not, then they will be brought forward to 2019.

Additional austerity measures worth €450 million are set to come into force next year, including 50 percent cuts in the heating allowance, unemployment benefit and a cut in tax relief on medical costs. There are also plans to sell off coalmines and coal power stations owned by the Public Power Corporation (PPC), amounting to approximately 40 percent of its capacity.

At the centre of the agreement was an acceptance of a large part of the IMF’s demands for further attacks on workers’ rights. While the IMF’s demand for allowing lockouts of workers by employers was kept off the table for now, the agreement took one-step closer towards repealing legislation against arbitrary mass sackings. Although these are still limited to 5 percent of a company’s workforce—up to a maximum of 30 workers a month—they no longer have to be pre-approved by the Finance Minister and the Supreme Labour Council (ASE). Under the new process, the ASE will only be able to audit whether all legislative requirements are being followed.

The agreement also includes a commitment to introduce anti-strike legislation including a fast-tracked judicial process to rule on the legality of industrial action.

The government has until May 18 to get the agreement passed in parliament in time for the meeting of the Euro group council of EU finance ministers on May 22.

The impact of the new measures, disproportionately hitting some of the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the population, will be catastrophic. Since 2010, Greece’s economy has shrunk by about 27 percent under the weight of the successive austerity measures imposed by the EU and the IMF in agreement with PASOK, New Democracy and Syriza-led governments.

Unemployment in Greece stands at 23.5 percent and is at nearly 50 percent among youth.

According to a recent study by the non-profit research organisation, Dianeosis, nearly 1.5 million Greeks—13.6 percent of the population—currently live in “extreme poverty.” This compares to 2.2 per cent in 2009. According to the study, “a family of four just at the cusp of the extreme poverty limit can spend only €7 a month for their children’s school expenses, €12 for shoes for the entire family and just €24 for hygiene products. Those that fall within the zone of extreme poverty can’t even afford the above.”

The disastrous economic situation in Greece, without precedent in peacetime, is a devastating indictment of the pseudo-left Syriza, which came to power in January 2015 on an anti-austerity ticket. Just months later this pro-capitalist party ditched its previous rhetoric and signed Greece’s third bailout package, betraying the overwhelming rejection of austerity in the July 2015 referendum.

An EU/IMF statement praised the Greek government stating, “This preliminary agreement will now be complemented by further discussions in the coming weeks on a credible strategy for ensuring Greece’s debt is sustainable.”

The IMF has insisted that Greece’s debt is not sustainable unless some debt relief is implemented. This has been a sticking point for the IMF, which is not participating financially in the austerity programme agreed with Syriza in 2015. The German government has been central in resisting calls for implementing any form of debt “haircut” since it would bear the brunt. This accounts for the reticent response to the latest agreement from Berlin. A German Finance Ministry spokesperson described it as an important “intermediate step,” but added that work is still needed. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble warned that “The [Greek] government has not yet fulfilled all the agreements.”

There remains scepticism as to whether agreement on any debt relief is possible. Stephen Brown, an economist at Capital Economics, said, “As such, worries about default and the potential for ‘Grexit’ seem set to fade for a while, but not disappear.”

In response to the measures, Greece’s private and public sector trade union federations have called for a 24-hour general strike on May 17 to coincide with the date that the austerity bill will be passed through parliament. There have been countless such actions in the last seven years, all designed to allow workers to let off steam while the measures are passed.

There is, however, a sense that this well-worn path has run its course and that the bureaucracy will be unable to contain the social anger that the new measures will impose. The head of the Adedy public sector union, Odysseas Trivalas, told the Guardian, “It will be a very hot spring. We have yet to see the details of this agreement, but what we know is that it will mean further cuts. There will be a lot of strikes and a general 24-hour lockdown when the measures are brought to parliament for vote.”

Trivalas’ posturing is designed to conceal his and the unions’ complicity in the implementation of austerity. His is a typical journey of union bureaucrats who were originally aligned with the social democratic PASOK party—architects of the first raft of austerity, which saw them wiped out in successive elections—and who have moved into Syriza’s orbit in recent years.

How the German Army covers up for neo-Nazi terrorist networks

Christoph Vandreier

One week after the arrest of the right-wing First Lieutenant Franco A., evidence is mounting that the terror suspect was part of a substantial neo-Nazi network whose existence had been covered up by German authorities.

The 28-year-old was arrested last week after being caught by the Austrian police in February when he sought to pick up a gun from Vienna Airport, which he had previously hidden there. It was then established that he had registered as a Syrian refugee in Bavaria and had apparently planned terrorist attacks against politicians and left-wing activists using a false identity.

In the last few days, new details have come to light that leave no doubt as to his racist and fascist attitudes, and terrorist intentions. His right-wing extremist opinions had long been known to his superiors and were at least covered up, if not encouraged.

Franco A. had been transferred to the German staff group in Fontainebleau in France in September 2009, where he began studying social and political sciences at the Saint-Cyr French military academy. In December 2013, he delivered a master’s thesis entitled “Political Change and Subversion Strategy.” The work was so openly nationalist and right-wing that the French school commander, Antoine Windeck, marked it as “not successful” and told his German colleagues, “If he were a French participant in the course we would replace him.”

Franco A.’s superiors then commissioned an independent historian to examine the work. This evaluation fell into the hands of the daily Die Welt, which cited the following overall assessment, “The text, in its method and content is demonstrably not an academic qualification work, but a radical nationalist, racist appeal, which the author seeks, with some effort, to underpin in a pseudo-scientific manner.”

“In some parts, the text reads like an instruction manual for racist propaganda,” it says. Franco A. utilizes “the well-known racist interpretation of genes” and “crude environmental determinism.” In some places in his master’s thesis, Franco A. also warned against an “intermixing of the races” or “intermarriage.” The majority of society cannot have any interest in the spread of human rights, he says, describing their “infectious character.” Only minorities, he said, were interested in human rights.

In the emancipation of women, Franco A. sees “a threat to the family and thus also a deliberate weakening of the people (Volk),” the expert records. In conclusion, the historian notes that the work is a call “to bring about a political change that adapts the given situation to the supposed natural law of racial purity.”

This unambiguous opinion was completely rejected by the responsible military disciplinary attorney, a sort of army prosecutor, following a conversation with Franco A. “Because of the personality profile acquired, doubts about the necessary attitude towards the set of [social] values are not only not verifiable but can be excluded,” wrote the attorney, and enthused about the “intellectual ability” of the student. For this reason, the preliminary disciplinary proceedings were “discontinued.” Neither the military disciplinary attorney nor Franco A.’s superior reported the incident to the Military Intelligence Service (MAD). Franco A. was able to prepare a new master’s thesis, passed the examination and continued his officer’s career.

In view of the openly fascist content of the master’s thesis, the behaviour of his superiors can only be understood as providing support and encouragement to radical right-wing positions. This is also underlined by the fact that Franco A. wrote to the same disciplinary attorney when he was arrested by the Austrian police in February.

“First Lieutenant A. wrote me an email in which he recalled our meeting at that time, in which I insisted that he should write to me if he was in trouble,” the attorney said in a letter sent Friday to his superior, Lieutenant-General Martin Schelleis. In it, he summarizes email exchanges between himself and Franco A. and declares that the emails have been irretrievably deleted.

The fact that Franco A.’s superiors knew about his right-wing views is also evident from the Wehrmacht (Nazi-era German army) memorabilia and Nazi symbols that were found in his possession. In an open area of the barracks where Franco A. last served, the so-called bunker, there were large murals glorifying Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Clearly, Franco A. did not have to hide his radical right-wing attitudes on the base.

On the contrary, it seems that he was regularly recruiting for his far-right terrorist group in his infantry battalion, which was stationed at Illkirch. According to media reports, the investigating public prosecutor’s office now assumes Franco A. had a number of accomplices. Die Zeit reports another first lieutenant, Maximilian T., from the battalion, who had drawn up a list of possible targets for terrorist attacks found in Franco A.’s possession.

The list includes high-ranking politicians, such as former German President Joachim Gauck, Justice Minister Heiko Maas, and Thuringia state Premier Bodo Ramelow, left-wing activists such as Philipp Ruch from the Centre for Political Beauty, but also institutions such as the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

According to Die Welt, a notebook found in Franco A.’s apartment revealed key points regarding concrete actions. Amongst others, there is a proposal to commit an attack in the guise of a refugee: “Group Antifa: asylum seeker throwing grenade, film it.” The officer also mentions the 88-year-old Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck. “If Mrs. Haverbeck goes to prison, then liberation action,” the notes read.

On Thursday, the Defence Ministry informed the Bundestag (federal parliament) that about 1,000 rounds of ammunition, including for pistols and rifles, had been found in the possession of a presumed accomplice of Franco A. This followed earlier reports of irregularities in the documentation of the dispensing of ammunition at the barracks. The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, and broadcasters WDR and NDR also reported the statement of a soldier who knew of a group of soldiers who had stashed weapons and ammunition to fight on the “right” side in a civil war.

It is not the first time that fascist terrorist groups have emerged within the Bundeswehr (German army) and have been covered up by their superiors. Uwe Mundlos, who, together with other right-wing extremists, later formed the National Socialist Underground (NSU) and killed at least 10 people, had come to notice as a radical right-winger during his military service in the Bundeswehr.

During Mundlos’ military service between 1994 and 1995, he was arrested by the police for possessing a Hitler portrait and illegal right-wing propaganda material, and was later sentenced by a civil court. However, a decision by his captain to order seven days’ disciplinary detention was quashed by the South District Military Court of Appeals. Mundlos, in spite of his obviously right-wing views, was even promoted to corporal. Like Mundlos, it now appears that Franco A also enjoyed official protection.

It was not until later that it was revealed that attempts had been made during this time to recruit Mundlos as an operative for Military Intelligence. The recruitment attempt was followed by a long series of initiatives by various police authorities and secret service agencies to protect Mundlos and the NSU from prosecution, thus enabling their terrorism. According to different estimates, there were up to 150 members or sympathizers of the NSU. The fascist network which has now appeared at Franco A.’s barracks in Illkirch could be similar or even larger.

Amazon CEO makes $3.3 billion in a few hours

Evan Blake & Eric London

Last Thursday evening, Amazon’s billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos made $3.3 billion when the tech giant reported its eighth consecutive profitable quarter, adding $50 a share to the value of its stock in after-hours trading.

To acquire $3.3 billion, a US Amazon worker making the average $12.41/hour would have to work 133,064 years—roughly the length of time modern humans have lived on earth. It would take Amazon workers in China, Brazil, India, and Mexico who are paid even lower wages much longer than that.

If the entire 200,000 person Amazon workforce in the US began working on January 1 at this wage, they would make a collective $3.3 billion in wages only at the end of August. A US warehouse worker would have to work almost two weeks just to make enough to buy a single share of Amazon stock (worth about $940)—and that’s before tax!

Bezos’s evening bonanza brings his net worth to $80.6 billion, making him the third wealthiest person on earth. Bezos is poised to become the world's richest person by year's end.

Among the world's billionaires, Bezos has experienced the largest growth in his personal wealth so far this year, adding $15.3 billion since January 1, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Over the past year, Bezos has earned $22.4 billion, and in the last five years he has earned an astounding $62.5 billion.

To put this in perspective, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that it would cost roughly $51 billion—$11.5 billion less than Bezos has earned in five years—to provide access to water and sanitation for the entire global population, which would save millions of lives annually.

The average Amazon warehouse worker in the US makes roughly $25,792 each year before tax. Thus, in the past year, Bezos earned 868,486 times the average Amazon worker, and over the past five years he has earned nearly this same amount, $23,782, per minute .

Amazon and Bezos exercise an inordinate amount of control on the political system. In 2016, Amazon’s Political Action Committee gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to 129 congressmen—29.6 percent of the total—and 35 senators, both split almost evenly between both Democratic and Republican representatives. Bezos also owns one of the country’s most influential newspapers, the Washington Post .

Bezos’s billions and his influence come through the exploitation of the hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers worldwide, who go to work each day and produce far more value for the company than they receive in wages. This is where the company’s profit comes from.

In all the countries in which it operates, Amazon is engaged in efforts to suck its workers dry of every penny of profit. In Germany, Amazon recently implemented a new policy of collective punishment for its workforce aimed at dissuading workers from taking sick days that they have the right to under German law.

The policy stipulates that workers are eligible for a group bonus of 6-10 percent only if the entire group has used a minimum amount of sick days. This pits workers against one another and places immense pressure on individuals not to take time off to recover from illness for fear of being blamed for taking away their coworkers’ bonuses.

Over the last five years, Amazon’s revenue has increased more than the cost of revenue (which includes labor costs). That means that each year, the level of exploitation at Amazon increases while workers receive a smaller proportion of Amazon’s gross profit. From 2012 to 2016, the difference between the company’s total revenue and the cost of revenue, including labor costs, increased from $15.12 billion in 2012 to $47.72 billion in 2016. That’s tens of billions of dollars of wealth that workers produce but will never see.

Behind the billions of dollars on the company’s balance sheets are the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers whose daily economic struggles are funding Bezos’s lavish lifestyle.

Last October, he bought Washington DC’s largest house—a 27,000 square foot former textile museum—for $23 million in cash. To purchase just a single square foot of Bezos’ mansion, an Amazon worker making $12.40 would have to work 68.7 hours.

The house has 14 bathrooms, 10 bedrooms, and 11 fireplaces. Bezos’s nearby neighbors include Barack Obama, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Bezos’ wealth is not a product of individual “greed,” it is a product of the capitalist system, which is based on the private ownership of the means of production by a tiny sliver of the world’s population which increases its wealth through the exploitation of the working class of the world.

It is the working class, at Amazon and in all industries and workplaces, which produces society’s wealth. The Socialist Equality Party calls for the nationalization of Amazon and all major corporations, the seizure of the wealth of the rich, and its redistribution to meet the needs of the human race.

This requires a political struggle for the unity of the working class of all nationalities against the corporations and the political parties and governments they control, as well as against their wars for corporate plunder. The World Socialist Web Site encourages all Amazon workers to share this article as widely as possible on social media and to contact us to learn more about the fight for socialism.

New report documents pervasive hunger in America

Shelley Connor 

A report released by Feeding America on May 4 reveals that one out of every eight people, and one out of every six children, did not consistently have access to food in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available. While there has been an overall decline over the past several years in food insecurity rates, hunger and poverty levels have not declined to pre-recession levels, the report states.

Moreover, the gap between income and the money needed to buy adequate food for the millions of people classified as food insecure is growing. And the existing government food programs, increasingly starved of funding, are scandalously inadequate to meet the immense social need.

The report is a further exposure of the government/media narrative that the US has recovered from the Great Recession and, as former President Barack Obama said at the end of 2015, “things are pretty great in America.” Obama, of course, was speaking for his real constituency—Wall Street and the wealthy, who monopolized an even greater share of the national wealth thanks to his right-wing policies.

Donald Trump is taking off where Obama left off, plundering the economy and enriching the financial aristocracy even more shamelessly. With profits, stock prices and the personal fortunes of the rich at record levels, the ongoing hunger crisis stands as an unanswerable indictment of the capitalist system.

Using United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, Feeding America, a nonprofit that operates food banks, mapped food insecurity throughout each county and congressional district in the United States. The compiled statistics offer a sobering insight into the living standards of large sections of working class and lower-middle class Americans:

* In 2009, the year after the Wall Street crash, some 50 million US residents were food insecure. While that number fell to 42 million in 2015, the budget shortfall for food insecure individuals averaged $527 a year. This represents an increase of 13 percent, adjusted for inflation, since 2008.

* Children are more vulnerable to hunger than the general population. On average, 21 percent of children across all US counties are food insecure, compared to 14 percent of the general population. Some 41 percent of the children in Issaquena County, Mississippi are food insecure, and in 14 counties, over 100,000 children cannot expect consistent meals.

* Twenty six percent of food insecure individuals nationwide are unlikely to qualify for government nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, better known as food stamps), Women Infants and Children (WIC) and free or reduced-price school meals. In 76 US counties, the majority of food insecure individuals are likely to be ineligible for government assistance. In Douglas County, Colorado, near Denver, about two-thirds of the county’s 28,280 food insecure individuals are unlikely to qualify for government nutrition aid.

One in four food insecure individuals report that they applied for government assistance and were denied.

This is no mystery given that in many states a family of four has to earn less than $31,980 a year to qualify for food stamps. In other words, the family has to be living in the most dire poverty.

* Millions of people with jobs are living in hunger. Some 57 percent of food insecure people earn more than the (absurdly low) federal poverty level.

* Eighty-nine percent of the counties with the highest rates of food insecurity are located in the South.

* Rural counties make up 63 percent of all US counties, but account for 76 percent of the counties facing the highest rates of food insecurity.

However, while urban counties have lower rates of food insecurity, many have huge numbers of people living with hunger. Los Angeles County has a relatively “low” rate of food insecurity at 12 percent, but it is home to 1.2 million food insecure individuals, including 480,000 children. The counties with the highest number of food insecure people are New York, Los Angeles, Harris (Houston), Cook (Chicago), Maricopa (Phoenix), Dallas, San Diego, Wayne (Detroit), Tarrant (Fort Worth) and Philadelphia.

Diana Aviv, CEO of Feeding America, characterized the report as “grim news.” She continued: “It is disheartening to realize that millions of hardworking, low-income Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to feed themselves and their families at a time that our economy is showing many signs of improvement…”

Widespread and entrenched hunger in the richest country in the world is not the result of cosmic forces or an act of God. It is the product of deliberate policies carried out by both parties, acting in the interests of the ruling corporate-financial elite. The SNAP program was cut repeatedly under the Obama administration, including the $8.7 billion reduction Obama signed into law in February of 2104, stripping more than 500,000 people of food stamp benefits.

One day after Feeding America issued its report, Trump signed into law a bipartisan budget measure extending funding of the federal government through the end of the 2017 fiscal year, September 30, which includes a further $2.4 billion cut in food stamps. The same measure allocates an additional $15 billion for the military over the next five months plus $1.5 billion more to further militarize the United States’ southern border. The Democrats hailed the measure as a victory for the people and defeat for Trump.

The $16.5 billion combined allocation for war abroad and the war on immigrants at home would go a long way in covering what Feeding America calls the annual “food budget shortfall” for America’s food insecure population—estimated at $22.3 billion.

If that full amount were deducted from the net worth ($81 billion) of America’s richest billionaire, Bill Gates, the computer mogul would still be left with nearly $60 billion. Speculator George Soros, the 19th richest American, could cover the hunger deficit and still have a cool $3 billion to spare.

A social system that condemns millions to hunger in order to sustain the meaningless and corrupt lifestyles of a new aristocracy is doomed. It deserves to perish.

On the eve of the French presidential election

Alex Lantier

Tomorrow, tens of millions of people across France will vote in the presidential runoff election in the midst of an unprecedented political crisis and under a state of emergency that suspends democratic rights. The candidates of France’s two discredited traditional parties of government, the Socialist Party (PS) and The Republicans (LR), have been eliminated. However, the choice voters face constitutes an unanswerable indictment of France’s ruling elite.

On the one side there is Marine Le Pen of the neo-fascist National Front (FN), the descendant of France’s Nazi-collaborationist regime in World War II. She has hailed Donald Trump’s election on a nationalist “America First” program of war and protectionism, and called for France to abandon the European Union and the euro currency so as to do maximum economic damage to Germany, France’s main trading partner. At home, she would use the Socialist Party’s state of emergency and the mass electronic spying apparatus to set up a fascistic police dictatorship, ban immigration, carry out mass raids and end free schooling for non-French children.

Le Pen’s opponent, the PS-backed banker and current favorite Emmanuel Macron, is not an alternative to the FN. An ally of Berlin and the Democratic Party in Washington, Macron supports NATO’s war drive against Syria, North Korea and Russia, which threatens to provoke war between nuclear-armed powers, and is calling for a return of the military draft. At home, he intends to maintain the state of emergency and use it, together with the PS’s hated labor law, to tear up contracts and social rights, including public health care and pensions, won by European workers over generations of struggle in the 20th century.

Whichever candidate wins, France will be ruled by a government that represents the interests of finance capital and is dedicated to a program of class war within the country and imperialist war beyond its borders. With seven in ten voters angry at the choice of candidates, class conflict of revolutionary dimensions is being prepared in France and across Europe.

After a quarter-century of war and EU austerity following the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, two-thirds of the French people say the class struggle is a daily reality of life. Among young people, who have known nothing but the social and economic collapse that has unfolded since the 2008 Wall Street crash, an unmistakably revolutionary mood is building.

In the EU’s recent “Generation What” survey of hundreds of thousands of European youth, 61 percent of Frenchmen under 34 said they would be willing to participate in a “large-scale uprising” against the political system. Over 60 percent of youth gave the same answer in Britain, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

The Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES), the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), is calling for an active boycott of Sunday’s second-round ballot. This position is very different from a call for individual abstention.

The PES call for opposition among workers and youth to both candidates is grounded in fundamental political principles. The entire experience of the international class struggle, extending over more than a century, has demonstrated the politically fatal consequences of entering into electoral alliances with a bourgeois party. Time and again, the subordination of the working class to one reactionary party of finance capital in order to prevent the victory of a supposedly more reactionary bourgeois party has led to political disaster. It will be no different this time. There is a political logic to such politics. If Macron wins the election, the workers will be told that they must not fight for the defeat and overthrow of his government, lest the FN come to power.

There is no clever electoral maneuver that can solve the political crisis that confronts the working class. The call for a boycott is correct because it raises the political consciousness of the working class and prepares it for the struggles that lie ahead.

The key issue is to provide a Marxist and internationalist perspective and build the revolutionary leadership in the working class required for these struggles.

Many workers in France have drawn conclusions from the last time virtually the entire political establishment, including the so-called “far left” parties aligned with the PS, united behind a right-wing politician supposedly to block the FN—the 2002 runoff between Jean-Marie Le Pen and Jacques Chirac. The result has been an intensification of attacks on the working class, a further lurch to the right by the traditional ruling parties and a steady growth in the influence of the neo-fascists.

It is necessary to reject the entire reactionary framework of this election and the political system that produced it. The working class must advance its own independent political alternative, beginning with an active boycott of Sunday’s runoff.

The PES warns that to the extent that forces like Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France (UF) movement and the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) adapt themselves to the “lesser evil” argument and succeed in blocking revolutionary opposition to Macron from the left, they only strengthen the FN. The position of these pseudo-left forces in the election will only bolster the neo-fascists’ efforts to present themselves as the sole antiestablishment party, increasing their authority in the event that Macron is elected and provokes mass social opposition as a result of his anti-working class policies.

Mélenchon’s position is a cowardly abdication of political responsibility. He received 20 percent of the vote. Yet while he declines to explicitly support Macron, fearing that this would discredit him with his voters, he is doing everything he can to prevent a mobilization of the working class against Macron and Le Pen. After calling for UF to run in the June legislative elections, Mélenchon announced that he is willing to become Macron’s prime minister.

Such a statement, making clear that Mélenchon is willing to oversee domestic policy amid a mass military buildup and an aggressive foreign policy led by Macron, shows that UF and its allies are a dead end for voters seeking peace and social equality.

As the old political setup around the PS and LR collapses, the only way forward for workers is a conscious political break with the PS and its periphery and a return to the revolutionary road. The complete dead end of the French political establishment is rooted in a mortal crisis of the world capitalist system, which is plunging into the abyss of war and dictatorship.

To mount a revolutionary counteroffensive in opposition to the PS, Macron and the FN, the working class needs its own party and political leadership. On this centenary of the October Revolution, the PES advances itself as the representative of the irreconcilable socialist and internationalist program of the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 and the heritage of Trotskyism defended by the ICFI. It appeals to workers and youth who agree with its analysis of the elections to support the PES, study its program and join the struggle to build it as the political vanguard of the working class in France.

Turkish government launches crackdown on Internet, opposition parties

Halil Celik

In the aftermath of its extremely narrow victory in the April 16 constitutional referendum and amid widespread allegations of voting fraud, the Turkish government is escalating its crackdown on political opposition and the Internet as part of the country’s ongoing state of emergency.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s constitutional amendment aims to give the president dictatorial powers over other branches of government. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is now moving ahead with attempts to intimidate and crush any organization that could potentially pose an obstacle to its rule.

With a new statutory decree issued on April 29, the government dismissed 3,974 people from state institutions, including 484 academics, on allegations of being connected with “terrorist groups.” This came two days after the suspension of some 9,000 police officers and arrest of about 1,000 others for alleged links to US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was declared by the Turkish government to be the main suspect in last year’s failed July 15 coup attempt.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP), the leading force of the bourgeois “No” campaign, has itself become a target in the crackdown. According to the daily Cumhuriyet, the AKP has drawn up a motion to lift the parliamentary immunity of the CHP’s chairperson and six other deputies and sent it to parliament.

The same CHP voted for a bill to amend the constitution to strip MPs of immunity from prosecution on May 20, 2016. The amendment was proposed by the AKP after Erdogan accused the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of being a legal extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy. Since then, 14 deputies, including two chairpersons, of the HDP have been arrested.

On April 29, in another move to suppress dissent, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, Turkey’s telecommunications watchdog, blocked online encyclopedia Wikipedia “for the protection of public order, national security or the well-being of the public.” The state-run Anadolu News Agency cited the statement as declaring that Wikipedia “has become part of an information source which is running a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena.”

Under the eight months of state of emergency, Turkish government has repeatedly blocked access to Twitter or Facebook and banned hundreds of web sites, and closed down hundreds of media outlets, jailing some 230 journalists.

The escalating crackdown is a clear sign of growing crisis in the Turkish ruling class. Being well aware of mounting unrest and anger within the working masses, Erdogan plans to more strictly hold the reins of his own party. On May 2, he rejoined the AKP and became the first Turkish president with party membership since 1961, when a constitution banning presidential party membership came into force after a military coup in 1960 overthrew the Democrat Party government of then-President Celal Bayar.

It is expected that Erdogan will be elected as chairperson of the AKP and launch extensive changes, including a possible purge within his party, at the extraordinary congress scheduled for May 21.

The CHP former chairperson and long-time leading member Deniz Baykal has also called for a party congress. In a televised interview on Tuesday evening, Baykal said that he told Kilicdaroglu that the CHP congress should elect a chairperson who would also be the party’s candidate in the 2019 presidential elections.

Baykal’s proposal points to the CHP leadership’s readiness to accept Erdogan’s anti-democratic amendment leading Turkey into a presidential dictatorship. The CHP has already made clear that it has no intention of opposing the drive to dictatorship. Immediately after the referendum, it declared the “necessity of a social consensus on the constitution,” while cynically calling the legitimacy of the referendum into question. As thousands of people went into the streets to protest the fraudulent referendum results, the CHP moved to end the protests.

Meanwhile, the Turkish army is also escalating cross-border operations against both the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, the main US proxy fighting the Islamic State (IS), further worsening Ankara’s relations with its NATO partners. Turkish air and artillery strikes have also provoked sharp criticism from Moscow, which said that they violated fundamental principles of international relations.

At a meeting with Turkey’s Chief of General Staff on April 28, U.S. European Command General Curtis Scaparrotti explained growing concerns over Turkish artillery attacks on Kurdish forces working with US troops in Syria. After Turkish strikes in the last week of April, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said they “were not approved by the coalition and had led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces” in the fight against IS.

Following the Turkish attacks and cross-border fire between the Turkish military and YPG, US forces have begun monitoring the Syria-Turkey border along with Syrian Kurdish forces. Meanwhile, Moscow has reinforced its troops in Afrin, another PYD/YPG-controlled region at the western end of the Turkish-Syrian border, further away from the main Syrian Kurdish area.

Erdogan’s dictatorial and militarist agenda has further undermined Turkish–European Union (EU) relations, which have fallen to an unprecedented low point since the July 15 coup attempt. The EU denounced Erdogan’s mass crackdown and “human right violations,” refusing to hand over dozens of Turkish officers and officials who fled to Europe after the failed coup. Ankara responded by slamming the EU for harboring “terrorists.”

After weeks of political conflict, escalated by reactionary bans by the Austrian, German and Dutch governments on Turkish government officials’ campaigning for a “Yes” vote in the referendum, EU lawmakers called last week for a formal halt to talks over Turkey’s EU membership. They cited Erdogan’s dictatorial policies and large-scale electoral fraud in the referendum.

On May 2, European Commissioner Johannes Hahn told reporters, “The focus of our [Turkish-EU] relationship has to be something else,” while cynically stating that Turkey was “moving away from a European perspective.”

Only days before, however, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel sounded a different note on the issue. At a meeting of European foreign ministers on 28-29 April in Malta, he told reporters he was “strictly against” nullifying Ankara’s bid for EU membership: “It does not improve things by cancelling something before we have something new to offer.”

These words, signaling the willingness of the EU to focus on working with Erdogan to block immigration to Europe and prosecute the Syrian war, were followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s remarks that Europe “should not push Turkey away.” Speaking to the Berliner Zeitung, she stated that as a NATO member, Turkey is “an important partner in the fight against Islamist terror. … You should not just push away such a partner, even in view of negative developments that we must address.”

The EU is Turkey’s biggest foreign investor and trading partner, and has reached a reactionary agreement with Ankara to keep Syrian refugees out of the EU.

Turkish President Erdogan continues his cynical thundering against the EU. On May 2, he insisted that Turkey was not the EU’s “door keeper.” He added: “There is no option other than opening chapters that you have not opened until now. If you open them, that’s great. If you don’t, then goodbye.” Pointing to the hypocrisy of European governments’ criticisms of his ongoing crackdown and state of emergency, Erdogan called on Brussels to “lift the state of emergency in France, first.”

Woman jailed in Britain for six months for begging for 50 pence

Paul Armstrong

Worcester County Court recently sentenced a vulnerable woman to six months in prison for the “crime” of asking two people in the street for 50 pence.

The judgment, delivered in February of this year by District Judge Mackenzie, justified the custodial sentence on the grounds that that the conduct of the woman—identified in the court documents as Marie Baker—constituted a repeated breach of a civil injunction against her.

The power to issue a civil injunction of the kind, which prevented Baker from begging from anybody in the City of Worcester, is enshrined in the Anti-social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014.

Baker was jailed for what were fourth and fifth breaches of the anti-social behaviour injunction. She had already been jailed for one day, 28 days and three months respectively for previous breaches.

The fact that publicly asking for the sum of 50 pence can result in six months imprisonment means, literally, the criminalisation of poverty.

This is made all the more overt by the Court’s recognition that the request was neither aggressive nor persistent. “She has been told ‘no’ and she has not persisted,” the judge in the case said.

District Judge Mackenzie described Baker as “a fragile individual,” who “has difficulty reading and writing,” and “difficulty in understanding.” Yet the Court ruled that there was no indication that “she lacks capacity to deal with matters.”

Baker was refused any legal representation on the basis that she failed to obtain legal aid—a legal protection which has been devastated by a ruthless bipartisan attack culminating in the recent Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Too poor to fund a solicitor herself, Ms Baker was denied legal representation.

District Judge Mackenzie justified the sentence by saying that to “simply give repeat injunctions and allow people to go continuing begging, continuing to persist in a nuisance to the population,” would leave the injunction “without some real teeth.” The Court needed to “mark the blatant repeat breaches of this injunction with something meaningful.”

While the Court expressed regret in its judgment, its actions suggest the opposite: Baker had already been jailed three times, with each sentence substantially longer than the previous.

The denial to Baker of any legal representation is the direct consequence of the brutal assault against legal rights and the criminalisation of the working class through increasingly punitive sanctions. The anti-social behaviour legislation—which is now extending the sentencing power of courts—has historically been an area of law enabling civil rather than criminal redress.

The District Judge admitted that Baker’s appearance as a litigant in person “came close” to breaching her right to a fair trial under the Human Rights Act 1998. One has to wonder, what would be considered an actual breach of her human rights, taking into account her illiteracy and financial hardship!

Without legal representation, Baker was heavily disadvantaged in her trial. It is no surprise that she was unable to procure the prerequisite evidence for her principal defence arguments—that of mistaken identity; calling upon CCTV evidence for corroboration; that she had an alibi; and that a police officer had fabricated the prosecution’s evidence.

According to the Independent, “Ms Baker claimed she had an alibi and believed CCTV images would prove her account, but she struggled to provide the evidence. She also claimed mistaken identity and said police ‘had got it in for her’ but both were dismissed by the judge.”

Without doubt, legal representation, as admitted by the District Judge in this case, would have resulted in a more favourable outcome for Baker, and she would have been better equipped to put forward an effective defence.

The reality is that, without a legal representative, Baker was given an unfair trial. She was unable to challenge her remand, and unable to ensure that correct procedural regulations (enshrined in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and its Codes of Practice) were followed in relation to her remand and the investigation against her.

She also could not understand the implications of the minutiae of such investigation for her trial, the weight of evidence against her and the legal and evidentiary burdens required for the trial. Neither did she know how to conduct a plea in mitigation based on knowledge of the Court’s sentencing powers.

Baker’s inability to get legal representation was described by the District Judge as being a typical, rather than a unique, problem experienced by those facing the offence of contempt of court for breach of a civil injunction.

Had the test for legal aid been one of means (as it generally is in criminal cases), Baker would have likely received legal aid. However, for those accused of contempt of court for breaching an injunction, criminal legal aid is required in such cases even when the trial is in a civil court, and criminal legal aid for contempt of court is not means tested.

Recent annual cuts to legal aid equating to a figure of £220 million will continue year on until 2018 under the Conservative government. A study from Amnesty International concluded that the year before the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 entered into force, legal aid was granted in 925,000 cases, whereas in the year after it entered into force, legal aid was granted in only 497,000 cases (a 46 percent decline).

Baker is ultimately a victim of years of relentless austerity, which has plunged millions of people into poverty and destroyed essential social services.

The result of this savagery is that a new era has been ushered in which there is a growing prevalence of media headlines, such as the case of Baker, which were commonplace during the Dickensian period.

Alitalia bankruptcy exacerbates social tensions in Italy

Marianne Arens

The Italian airline Alitalia filed for bankruptcy on April 25. One day earlier a workforce referendum on a restructuring plan was voted down. Two-thirds of Alitalia pilots, flight attendants and ground crew rejected the planned job cuts and pay cuts.

All of the trade unions represented at Alitalia had previously agreed to the restructuring plan, which amounted to little more than extortion. In addition to the major trade unions Cgil, Cisl Uil and UGL, the professional unions Trasporto Aereo, Anpac and Anpav also participated in the vote.

The company’s shareholders refused to invest a single cent in the airline until the workforce agreed to cuts. The main shareholder with 49 percent of shares is Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi); the remainder are held by the Italian consortium CAI, headed by Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo.

Alitalia CEO Luca Cordero di Montezemolo announced his resignation from the company board a few weeks ago. The multimillionaire, who had previously led Fiat, Ferrari and Maserati, had negotiated a rescue plan with the Ministry of the Economy and trade unions. The plan envisaged pay reductions of eight percent and the slashing of nearly one thousand jobs. Other reports referred to 1,700 job cuts, especially among ground crew. Indirectly, the measures impact over 20,000 employees at subsidiaries, suppliers and third-party companies, for example Alitalia Cargo, CityLiner, Carpatair etc.

The unions sought to portray the cuts plan as the best possible option following negotiations. Then to the surprise and consternation of the management, trade unions and government, 67 percent of the 12,500-strong Alitalia workforce rejected the restructuring plan.

It now appears that the government of Paolo Gentiloni is ready to accept Alitalia’s bankruptcy. It has deliberately broken with the practice of past governments. So far, every Italian government, from Prodi to Berlusconi to Monti, had ensured that the state took responsibility for Alitalia liabilities. This policy is evidently at an end.

“The conditions necessary for nationalization are not at hand,” declared Premier Paolo Gentiloni (Democratic Party) on television. His economics minister Pier Carlo Padoan said: “The government is not ready to participate in a possible capital increase for the company, either directly or indirectly.”

The company now has a lifespan of just six months. During this period, Alitalia is to be put under the control of a bankruptcy administrator and financed with a bridging loan of four hundred million euros. This loan must also be approved by the EU Commission.

Major airlines are already circling Alitalia like vultures anticipating that the company will probably be broken up and sold off. Transport Minister Graziano told the press that they would sell the company “to the best bidders,” although any final decision resides with the largest shareholder, i.e., Etihad.

Lufthansa recently emerged as a prospective buyer: The German airline, which took over the bankrupt Swiss Air a few years ago, could wait for insolvency and then take over parts of Alitalia at a bargain price.

Malaysia Airlines has expressed interest in the acquisition of six to eight Alitalia jets. British aviation groups could also try to buy an Italian location on favourable terms in order to have a leg within the EU following Brexit.

Fierce competition on the part of low-cost airlines is already taking place for coveted slots, such as the start and landing rights in Rome-Fiumicino or Milan-Linate.

Some representatives of Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement (M5S), which in 2008 had supported Alitalia going bankrupt, are now calling for the nationalization of Alitalia. Their role models are group holdings such as ENI, Leonardo SpA or Trenitalia, whose main shareholder is the state.

There is nothing progressive, however, in this proposal. Under conditions of capitalist crisis it recalls the nationalization measures of the fascist dictator Mussolini. Under his direction, the state holding IRI was established in 1933. Without abolishing capitalism, much of Italian industry was placed under the direct control of the fascist state. For workers, this process was accompanied by brutal dictatorship and war.

The Alitalia Group emerged from the IRI trust after the Second World War. Up until the 1990s it was a state-owned corporation, and was then gradually privatized by 1996. Since then it has faced bankruptcy a number of times.

Following the stock market crash of 2008, a consortium of Italian companies and banks took over the airline. Five thousand jobs were slashed from the workforce of 20,000. Six years later, Etihad Airways posed as rescuer in need to avert another bankruptcy. The takeover of 49 percent of shares by Etihad in 2014 was accompanied by the radical restructuring of the airline, the destruction of even more jobs and a further worsening of wages and working conditions.

This is the reason why the pilots, flight attendants and soil workers rejected the latest plan. “There is real anger among the workers,” said Riccardo Canestrari, coordinator of the Anpaz pilots union, after the rejection vote. “People are fed up with promises, and the level of trust is now under zero.”

The move to plunge Alitalia into bankruptcy and endanger more than 12,000 jobs is criminal. It reveals the conditions which underlie the continual attacks on jobs, wages and working conditions taking place in every country.

The global competition for profit threatens both the functioning of modern transport systems and the living conditions of the working class. The government openly takes sides with the banks and investors. Having sought to persuade workers to swallow the bitter pill of yet another poisonous restructuring plan, the trade unions are now conspiring to assist management in breaking up the company and tossing what’s left to the vultures.

The fact that the Alitalia workforce withstood pressure from all sides and rejected the restructuring plan, demonstrates its militancy. What is necessary, however, is an international and socialist program that unites workers across borders.

The Alitalia employees have repeatedly resorted to strikes and protests to oppose the attacks on their jobs. Strikes took place in February 2017 and the last one was on April 5. Almost at the same time there were strikes by ground staff in Berlin and at airports in France and Great Britain. These struggles must be united and guided under a socialist perspective with the aim of abolishing the bankrupt capitalist profit system.