Bridgestone, Total shut plants as COVID-19 layoffs sweep Europe

Anthony Torres

After receiving trillions of euros of public money from the European Union (EU) supposedly to alleviate the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, French and European employers are restructuring the economy with mass layoffs and austerity plans.

Last week, the Total oil group announced the conversion of its Grandpuits refinery near Paris into a “zero oil platform.” That involves 150 job losses at Total itself, and the firing of 50 temp workers and 500 employees of Total subcontractors.

In mid September, the Bridgestone tire company said closing its factory in Béthune was the only option to “safeguard the competitiveness of its operations in Europe.” After having received millions of euros from the French state, supposedly to improve the Béthune factory’s competitiveness, Bridgestone declared that the plant could not face competition from Chinese tires. The corporation refused any further investment that would allow the factory to make more high-quality tires.

According to well-known Paris labour lawyer Fiodor Rilov, “there is simply a determination on the company’s part to boost profitability. Bridgestone Group’s operating profits were €4 billion in 2018 and €3 billion in 2019, more than Michelin and Goodyear. … Politicians’ last-minute intervention is hypocritical and cynical. Most of the laws that ordinarily would have avoided the dismantling of a factory like Bridgestone have been dismantled. This is the product of reforms introduced by Emmanuel Macron when he was the Economics minister.”

After announcing the destruction of 15,000 jobs worldwide, global giant Airbus unveiled an “adaptation plan” for COVID-19 last week to the European works committee at Blagnac, near Toulouse. Airbus France presented a collective performance plan involving wage freezes and the destruction of fringe benefits (bonuses and accumulated time for holiday periods).

Using European bailout funds, the French state is leading a restructuring of the economy to massively destroy jobs and companies deemed uncompetitive. It pursues a violent class policy. Bailed out with trillions taken from the public purse, the financial aristocracy and top corporate executives aim to reduce millions of workers and small businesses to poverty.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire virtually boasted that companies “will be obliged to reduce their staff. Consequently, we expect in the coming weeks and months a high number of layoffs and bankruptcies.”

“When you anticipate a 50 percent drop in your turnover, your options are limited,” one economist told Europe1 radio. A government inter-ministerial delegation on industrial restructuring has recently received a large increase in its budget.

The offensive against social and democratic rights of workers launched in Europe after the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 is accelerating and deepening. Ten years after governments intervened to bail out the banks following the 2008 crash, mass layoffs and austerity are boosting profits by intensifying the exploitation of the working class.

After having virtually been halted by COVID-19, the world economy is undergoing a drastic restructuring process that had begun before the pandemic. Hunting for profits, companies respond to the shrinking of the world markets by working to destroy jobs. The worst-hit sectors are those connected to mobility (transport, especially airlines or maritime, and hotel businesses) and underlying sectors (heavy manufacturing and catering).

Already a few days after the end of lock-down, major European companies had announced tens of thousands of layoffs. Now, governments across Europe are preparing a wave of layoffs at the end of the year and beginning of 2021.

On September 11, Volkswagen’s truck construction subsidiary announced its intention to cut 9,500 jobs, a quarter of its global workforce, to save €1.8 billion. A decision is pending on the future of the factories at Steyr in Austria, at Plauen and Wittlich in Germany.

In Germany, plans to cut jobs in automobile construction are already launched. On September 9 the parts supplier Schaeffer announced the destruction of 4,400 jobs, while Continental is considering cutting 30,000 jobs worldwide, half of which are in Germany.

In Spain, hotel owners demonstrated in Madrid on September 9 calling for government aid. It is reported that 400,000 jobs have been sacrificed in this sector.

In France, many layoffs are planned, but the biggest have yet to be announced. According to a lawyer for the firm De Gaulle-Florence, Déborah David, “Many companies are contacting us to know the procedures and what they could do to absorb the effects of the crisis. But mainly they seek information for later use.”

The policy of mass layoffs and EU bank bailouts is the economic component of the criminal herd immunity policy of reopening of schools and return to work in non-essential industries employed by the European and international bourgeoisie amid the pandemic. These policies, which place millions of workers’ lives at risk, are supported by the trade unions.

The fight to defend jobs and social rights must have as its watchword the expropriation of the European bourgeoisie, made possible by the creation of action committees in the working class independent of the trade union bureaucracies, for the taking of power by workers and for building the United Socialist States of Europe.

French Medical Association denounces official inaction on pandemic

Alex Lantier

In an interview Sunday with the Journal du dimanche (JDD), Patrick Brouet, the president of the Ordre des Médecins (Medical Association) attacked official inaction on the resurgence of COVID-19 in France. This politically criminal inaction, decided by President Macron, is preparing a new spike in deaths, worse than in spring, that would overflow the health care system.

According to Brouet, “if nothing changes, in three to four months, France will have to confront several long autumn and winter months of a generalised epidemic over the whole country, without rear bases of support capable of providing human reinforcements, leaving only a health system incapable of responding to pressing demands.”

Over the past week, admissions to intensive care have risen by 40 percent, hospital admissions by 34 percent and deaths by 25 percent, with a total of 332 hospital and care home deaths. The JDD quotes the calculations of seven scientists, all of which coincide: “Without strong measures to fight the pandemic, the number of patients going into intensive care each day in a month’s time will be about 650, equivalent to what we experienced at the height of the first wave, and will go over 1,200 in mid-November.”

These calculations reinforce those announced by sources in London, indicating an alarming acceleration of the pandemic. According to the UK Office of National Statistics, the number of cases is doubling every week, which will mean 50,000 cases per day by mid-October and therefore hundreds of deaths each day two weeks later. At the time of the spike in cases during the spring, it only took a week for the number of daily deaths in Britain to go from 200 to 1,000.

The resurgence in France would be harder to handle than the first, which was concentrated in the Grand-Est, Île-de-France and Hauts de France regions, because the virus is now evenly spread across France. Moreover, Brouet explained, in the autumn “it will be necessary to confront Covid while looking after all the elderly sick suffering from flu, and children affected by gastroenteritis.”

Only a policy of allowing the entire population to shelter at home except for essential workers can prevent a devastating generalised resurgence of COVID-19. To prevent an economic collapse and mass impoverishment, such a policy would necessarily include financial support for workers and small businesses during the lock-down.

According to an Ifop poll this weekend, 61 percent of French people would support a generalised policy of everyone working from home except for essential workers. Also, 72 percent support a 15-day lockdown, and 83 percent accept curtailing their movements. In fact it is not opposition by French people, as is so often claimed by the press and TV media, which prevents the adoption of a scientific strategy to fight the virus.

It is the demands of the financial markets and the capitalist aristocracy that workers must at all costs return to work, and therefore children to school, in order to generate the necessary profits for the banks. This policy is defended by the state apparatus in the person of the banker-president, Emmanuel Macron.

“Everything must be done to avoid total lockdown,” Macron reportedly declared during the defence council meeting last Wednesday, according to JDD. He demanded details on “the hospitals’ capacity to absorb the coming wave,” according to one participant at the meeting.

Scientific models show the return to work and reopening of schools is leading to a spike in deaths worse than that in April. In the spring, an official German report dated March 18 warned of the danger that “more than a million people would die in 2020, just in Germany.” According to JDD, at the defence council meeting of March 12, “a forecast of hundreds of thousands of deaths was raised.” A lockdown was then imposed. “However, a big difference is now evident: this scenario today has been completely ruled out,” writes the JDD .

In short, hundreds of thousands of French people could die along with millions of Europeans as a result of Macron’s determination to maintain the irrational, anti-scientific and unpopular policy dictated by the banks in defence of the privileges of the financial aristocracy.

The political parties and trade unions which negotiate the implementation of the European relaunch plan with Macron are accomplices to this murderous policy. It demonstrates their contempt for human lives, especially those of more impoverished layers of the working class that have been the most affected by the virus, and of the medical staff.

Brouet criticized the illusions promoted by Macron, such as the health system being able to withstand any new rise in COVID-19 cases: “health professionals, who accomplished a miracle last spring, will not be able once again to compensate for structural deficiencies. Many are exhausted, traumatized. No one confronted with death on a daily basis emerges unscathed. Like myself, many regret that an accounting of the first period has not been undertaken…”

Brouet demanded that the state give more control to doctors and ensure the coordination between general practitioners, hospitals and regional health authorities: “The hospital is in the front line, but the majority of people sick from Covid will not go to hospital! It is not the hospital that needs protection but the patients!” He warned that without this reorganization, there will be “the same bottleneck as in the spring for calls to 15 [emergency telephone line], an unequal distribution of the pressure on doctors’ waiting rooms, and doctors being deprived of access to their patients in certain care homes.”

Brouet stressed that Macron’s policy will cut off a large majority of patients from access to treatment. “We sense an adoption in the population and among certain intellectuals of the idea that the lives of the majority of society do not merit being wasted in order to protect the elderly and the more vulnerable. … I wish to solemnly warn against an unacceptable philosophical breakdown.”

He continued, “If nothing is done to control the epidemic, intensive care units will be saturated and it will be necessary to pick and choose patients arriving at their doors. Emergency doctors will have the task of choosing who gets access to treatment. However, a doctor must never accept an injunction from society that forces a doctor to refuse treating a patient.”

This comment exposes the essential fascistic character of the policy pursued by Macron in France and by the international financial aristocracy. In order to preserve their profits, they attempt to again impose the barbaric situation where emergency doctors are called upon to decide whether patients live or die, and where elderly patients suffering from COVID-19 would be automatically denied life-saving treatment. To prevent such a situation, it is urgent to remove the control of the economy from the reactionary capitalist elites.

This underscores the significance of the call by the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (Socialist Equality Party) addressed to workers to organize independently of the trade unions and prepare a general strike movement against the return to work in France and internationally, with the aim of bringing down the capitalist governments and transferring political power to the working class.

JPMorgan pays $920 million settlement over illegal trades

Nick Beams

Following hard on the heels of revelations that major global banks have been involved in a network of criminal money laundering, JPMorgan Chase has been fined $920 million for manipulating markets on two of its trading desks.

The charges involved the practice of spoofing—quickly placing and then withdrawing buy and sell orders to give other traders and their algorithms the false impression that there is a surge of activity.

The spoofing activity covered trades in gold, silver and other metals futures markets as well as markets for Treasury bonds and cash. It covered thousands of trades and involved numerous traders and staff at JPMorgan in New York, London and Singapore.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which conducted the investigation, said traders knowingly placed orders on trading platforms they did not intend to fulfil in the hope this would trick others and enable the JPMorgan traders to obtain a better price.

According to the prosecutors, the traders openly bragged about their successes. One trader wrote in 2012: “A little razzle-dazzle to juke the algos.”

Announcing the decision in a statement, Heath Tarbert, chairman of the CFTC, said: “Attempts to manipulate our markets won’t be tolerated. Spoofing is illegal—pure and simple. This record-setting enforcement action demonstrates the CTFC’s commitment to being tough on those who intentionally break our rules, no matter who they are.”

But who they are clearly matters and the strong words are not matched by the action that has been taken. While $920 million penalty was the largest so far imposed, it was, as in so many other cases, a settlement that suspends prosecution of the bank and its executives.

As part of the deal, JPMorgan will avoid a criminal indictment by entering into a three-year deferred prosecution agreement. A statement from the bank said it did not expect any disruption of service to its clients as a result of the settlement payout. In other words, despite having engaged in criminal conduct, it’s business as usual.

It is not the first time JPMorgan has been charged with market manipulation. In 2015, the bank pleaded guilty to charges that, together with several other global banks, it conspired to rig the price of US dollars and the euro, and agreed to pay a $550 million fine. But this was obviously considered simply a cost of doing business. No doubt the latest larger fine will be similarly regarded.

The agreement not to proceed with a prosecution came despite the fact that JPMorgan attempted to impede the investigation. The Justice Department said the bank had failed to “fully and voluntarily” disclose its conducts and noted its previous guilty plea to currency manipulation.

The CTFC said JPMorgan co-operation in the early stages of the investigation was “not satisfactory” and the agency had been misled. Such non-cooperation could only have been the result of decisions taken at the highest levels of the bank, indicating the spoofing was not the action of so-called rogue traders, and nor was it some kind of aberration.

A statement by William Sweeney, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York field office indicated this to be the case.

“For nearly a decade, a significant number of JPMorgan traders and sales personnel openly disregarded US laws that serve to protect against illegal activity in the marketplace,” he said.

But no one in the upper echelons of the bank is being prosecuted and the penalty will be paid out of the bank’s revenue.

Instead, a deal has been reached where those involved are made scapegoats for a practice that was clearly known about and which the bank sought to cover up when an investigation was launched.

The chief executive of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, Daniel Pinto, said: “The conduct of the individuals referenced in today’s resolution is unacceptable and they are no longer with the firm.”

Pinto then pointed to the nature of the deal reached with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“We appreciate that the considerable resources we’ve dedicated to internal controls was recognized by the DOJ, including enhancement to compliance policies, surveillance systems and training programs.”

In other words, in return for a pro forma commitment to do better in the future, the DOJ was prepared to accept the fiction that JP Morgan’s illegal activities, extending for more than a decade, had somehow escaped the attention of the highest levels of the bank and were unknown to those in charge of its operations and dropped the prosecution.

The fact that the practice of spoofing was sanctioned from above emerged in the case brought against former JPMorgan trader Christian Trunz in August.

Trunz, who worked at the bank’s London, Singapore and New York offices, pleaded guilty to charges of placing orders for gold and other metals futures that he did not intend to execute.

The Justice Department said: “Trunz learned to spoof from more senior traders, and spoofed with the knowledge and consent of his superiors.”

In the final analysis, the criminal activity in this and other cases—two former Deutsche Bank traders were recently convicted of multiple counts of spoofing gold and silver markets between 2008 and 2013—flows from the nature of the financial system itself in which vast profits are to be made from speculation and manipulation. There is a seamless passage from so-called “legitimate” trading to criminal activity.

In 2019 during an investigation into another spoofing case, the then Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski was reported by the Financial Times as saying his department would “follow the facts wherever they lead. …Whether it’s across desks or upwards into the financial system.”

But as the JPMorgan settlement once again reveals that is clearly not the case because penetration into the financial system would reveal the rot and criminality that lies at its heart.

Bailed-out US airlines escalate attack on jobs

Jacob Crosse

After receiving billions in government aid through the bipartisan $2.2 trillion CARES Act, major US airlines and defense contractor Boeing are moving forward with mass layoffs, adding tens of thousands to the unemployment rolls as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread unchecked throughout the country.

Leading the charge in excising workers from their payrolls are American and Delta, which are set to eliminate upwards of 40,000 jobs beginning today, after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin failed once again to reach an agreement on a fifth coronavirus stimulus bill, which would include more government grants to the airlines.

A man wearing a mask walks by a New York department store, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020. The discount department store chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is closing its 13 stores. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

In addition to the airlines, Boeing, the world’s second largest defense contractor, which received $17 billion through the CARES Act, is also expected to announce more layoffs. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the company plans to move all 787 Dreamliner production from its Everett, Washington factory to its North Charleston facility in South Carolina.

This past April, Boeing announced it would be cutting 10 percent of its 160,000 employee workforce, of which 6,800 have already been laid off, while roughly 5,500 accepted early buyout packages.

Just two weeks ago, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released the results of its 18-month investigation into the two crashes of Boeing 737 Max airplanes that killed a combined total of 346 passengers and crew. The report laid out damning evidence that Boeing knowingly risked the lives of countless thousands of people by rushing into service an aircraft it knew to have potentially fatal design flaws. It systematically concealed the dangers from government regulators, airline customers, pilots and the general public.

Yet this criminal corporation and the commercial airlines, which received billions in taxpayer money, justified by Congress as an effort to “save jobs,” have been allowed to use the handouts to slash payrolls, restructure operations at the expense of workers’ wages and working conditions and boost their stock prices and executive bonuses. Meanwhile, the Democrats and Republicans allowed the $600-per-week federal unemployment supplement to expire two months ago, workers are facing the expiration of state jobless benefits and nothing is done to prevent millions from being evicted, going hungry and falling into destitution.

Neither of the big business parties, which pull out all stops to rescue Wall Street, are in any hurry to provide aid to workers. Democrats and Republicans are united in the drive to force workers back on the job in the midst of the pandemic, using unemployment and the specter of poverty as a club, in order to fully resume the extraction of profit from the workers’ labor. In this, they demonstrate their total subservience to the corporate-financial aristocracy that runs the country.

The Washington Post published an article Wednesday based on Labor Department data showing that since mid-March, the lowest 25 percent of income earners have seen their wages decrease by as much as 30 percent, while the top 25 percent have seen their earnings remain the same or slightly increase. Meanwhile, ultra-wealthy “pandemic profiteers” such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have seen their wealth increase by 65 and 50 percent respectively.

The CARES Act, passed at the end of March by a near-unanimous vote of both parties, singled out American, Delta, United and Southwest airlines for multi-billion-dollar bailouts. Smaller regional carriers such as Alaska Air Group and Hawaiian Holdings received multi-million-dollar bailouts.

Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines, was joined by Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday morning. Both pleaded with Congress for a six-month extension of the so-called “Payroll Support Program,” the official name of the airline bailout scheme.

“Absent action, sometime today, we unfortunately are choosing to have a hundred thousand or more not employed,” Parker warned, essentially threatening the livelihood of every single American Airlines worker. Parker took in $12 million in compensation in 2018.

American Airlines, which has already detailed its plans to lay off upwards of 20,000 workers, received $5.81 billion through the CARES Act. As of January 2020, American employed over 140,000 workers. However, after months of buyout packages and early retirements, fewer than 100,000 workers are currently employed by the company.

Delta, which started the year with over 90,000 workers, now employs less than 75,000, roughly 15,000 having taken buyouts and early retirement. Despite Delta receiving $5.4 billion in grants and low-interest loans earlier this year, and more than 40,000 workers opting for temporary leaves of absence or reduced schedules since the pandemic began, the airline plans to furlough roughly 1,900 pilots starting today.

Delta has utilized the tax code to claim huge paper losses and receive large refunds from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In 2018, the carrier paid nothing in federal income taxes on over $5 billion in income, while claiming a $187 million refund. That same year, Delta CEO Ed Bastian received a total compensation package of nearly $15 million.

While no layoffs have been announced yet by Southwest Airlines, which received $3.2 billion in CARES Act money, this is only because large numbers of workers have volunteered to accept early retirement and buyouts. United Airlines, which received $2.75 billion, is planning to cut upwards of 13,000 workers, mostly flight attendants and maintenance crew, after negotiating separately with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) to avoid furloughing some 2,850 pilots.

Alaska Air Group, which received nearly $1 billion in CARES Act grants, plans to go forward with the firing of 331 workers, today. However, the airline has warned that as many as 4,200 workers could be furloughed in the next month. Like Delta, Alaska paid nothing in federal income taxes in 2018 and received a $5 million refund from the IRS, despite a reported income of over $576 million.

Finally, Hawaiian Holdings, which received $664 million through the CARES Act, indicated in August that about 2,000 workers, including 600 flight attendants, will be laid off beginning today. The airline, which employed 7,447 workers at the beginning of the year, plans to have reduced the workforce to 4,946. Of the layoffs, 1,850 are supposedly “voluntary cuts,” while 466 are “involuntary.”

The WSWS spoke with an airline mechanic at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas, who

commented on the pending layoffs. “I have been in aviation for nearly 10 years,” he said. “I’m not a political person, nor do I get into the hype of it. But I gotta say, this is one time that the government has let us down.”

He continued: “I have family that worked for a major airline and gave all they had to them for over 20 years, but they got booted on the first round. But people who have been there less are still there.

“We have been still working every day and have been fortunate to be able to do so. We are on the front lines, putting ourselves as well as our families at risk. The one thing that has been asked is for someone to stand up for us and allow us to continue what we do so people can still feel safe in the air.”

Russia, France denounce Turkey as Armenian-Azeri war escalates

Alex Lantier

Four days after fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, tensions between the major powers are escalating. Amid reports that Turkey and Syrian Islamist militias are sending mercenaries to Azerbaijan to fight a war on Russia’s borders, the risk is growing of a clash between Russia and Turkey, launching a regional or global war.

While Azeri forces do not appear to have advanced far into Nagorno-Karabakh, casualties are mounting as precision weapons rain down on towns across the region. Armenian officials said yesterday they had lost 104 troops and that at least seven civilians had been killed since the fighting began. Azeri officials gave no statistics on military losses but confirmed that 15 Azeri civilians were killed.

An Armenian soldier fires an artillery piece during fighting with Azerbaijan’s forces in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh

Online videos show air and drone strikes inflicting substantial losses to military units and equipment. Armenian officials claim to have destroyed 83 drones, seven helicopters, 166 armored vehicles, one warplane and one missile battery, and to have caused 920 casualties. Azerbaijan claims to have destroyed 130 armored vehicles, 200 artillery and missile launch systems, 25 air defense missile batteries and one S-300 air defense system, while inflicting 2,300 casualties.

Arayik Harutyunyan, the president of the unofficial Armenian authority in Nagorno-Karabakh, warned: “We must be prepared for a long war. … The war will end with the defeat of Azerbaijan, or at least not with a victory.”

Significantly, Harutyunyan added that Iran is one of the main targets of Turkish-backed Azeri operations. He said, “I want to say that one of the targets of this war (fighting on the contact line) is Iran because this war is directed, among other things, against Iran. We are aware of regional problems related, in particular, to the north of Iran,” where there is a substantial Azeri population. Iranian officials fear separatist sentiment could emerge among Iranian Azeris in favor of possibly seceding from Iran and joining Azerbaijan.

This is the bloodiest Armenian-Azeri fighting since the 1988–1994 war between the two ex-Soviet republics, which erupted shortly before the Stalinist regime dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991. It is now however deeply enmeshed in the innumerable geopolitical rivalries, imperialist wars and local ethnic conflicts that have spread across the Middle East and Central Asia in the three decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In particular, the war is unfolding amid a growing campaign by US imperialism to isolate and threaten both Iran and Russia.

Turkish officials are aggressively supporting the ethnically-Turkic Azeris against Armenia. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on Azeris to expel Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh and pledged that the “Turkish people stand with their Azeri brothers with all our means.” This intensifies tensions with Armenia’s main regional backer, Russia, under conditions where Russia and Turkey are already waging bloody proxy wars against each other in the civil wars triggered by NATO regime-change operations in Libya and Syria over the last decade.

Armenian officials said that they are discussing military aid with Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes the post-Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the war. On Russia’s Rossiya1 channel, he called the war “a threat to the Armenian people’s very existence.”

Last week, Russian-Turkish talks over Syria’s northwestern Idlib province broke down. There are expectations of a Russian-backed offensive by Syrian government troops against Islamist rebels supported by Turkey and the NATO powers. Turkish drone and air defense systems have, however, proven an obstacle to deploying Russian and Syrian aircraft and heavy artillery to support Syrian and Iranian infantry against the Al Qaeda-linked, CIA-backed Islamist militias.

There had already been reports that Islamist militias and Turkish private security firms are hiring fighters to deploy to Azerbaijan. On Tuesday, the Guardian interviewed Syrians from Idlib hired by Islamist militias for 7,000–10,000 Turkish liras (US$900–1,300) monthly, for “security” work in Azerbaijan. “There are no jobs available. I used to work as a tailor in Aleppo but since we were displaced to Azaz [after Aleppo fell to Assad in 2016], I’ve tried many times to practice my craft but my family and I can’t earn enough,” one explained to the Guardian.

The Center for Global Policy think-tank in Washington D.C. cold-bloodedly confirmed the story to the Guardian: “The international community regards the lives of Syrians as expendable, with Syria serving as an arena to settle geo-strategic scores and advance the interests of countries intervening in the country at Syrians’ expense. … [T]he economic ruin stemming from the war and the recent depreciation of the Syrian currency mean that most Syrians are now struggling to feed themselves. Faced with few choices, many are now willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder.”

The Turkish government responded with an ambiguous statement that “The Turkish ministry of defense does not deal with recruiting or transferring militiamen anywhere in the world,” without addressing the role of private firms or militias.

These reports drastically increase diplomatic and military tensions between the major powers. In the 1990s, as ethnic tensions mounted in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, civil wars broke out in nearby, Muslim-majority areas of Russia, like Chechnya and Daghestan. Moscow no doubt views the arrival of Syrian Islamist militias on its doorstep in Azerbaijan with alarm.

The Russian Foreign Ministry published yesterday a statement declaring: “Militants of illegal armed groups, in particular from Syria and Libya [have traveled to Azerbaijan] to directly participate in the hostilities.” It stressed that it was “deeply concerned” about deployments of Islamist militias, which create “long-term threats to the security of all countries in the region.” Without naming Turkey or Azerbaijan, it demanded the “leaderships of the states concerned” stop such transfers and “immediately” withdraw Islamist troops from Azerbaijan.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, which backs opposing sides to Turkey in the Libyan civil war and supports Greek maritime claims against Turkey in the Mediterranean, also attacked Turkish policy in the Caucasus yesterday. “France is very worried about Turkey’s warlike statements in recent hours, that basically give a green light to Azerbaijan to reconquer Nagorno-Karabakh. That we do not accept,” Macron said at a press conference in Riga, Latvia, where he was traveling to discuss the election crisis in Belarus.

A striking aspect of this Armenian-Azeri war has been the silence of Washington, which together with Moscow and Paris nominally chairs the Minsk Group tasked since 1992 with overseeing talks to manage the Armenian-Azeri conflict. However, Washington made no significant call for restraint. US President Donald Trump made only a brief statement, saying, “We’ll see if we can stop it.”

Thomas de Waal of the Carnegie Foundation-Europe called Washington “unusually disengaged,” and “the risk of further escalation and mass destruction alarmingly high.” He added, “Washington was the last major international actor to issue a statement, indicating a retreat from interest in this region. It is arguably also a sign that President Donald Trump—sponsor of the never-completed Trump Tower in Baku—views Armenia and Azerbaijan solely through a business perspective.”

In fact, Washington has for decades sought to dominate the Middle East and Central Asia as the key to its geopolitical strategy towards Europe, Russia and East Asia. As US forces threaten Russia with military exercises in neighboring Ukraine and bomb Iranian-aligned militias in Iraq, it appears that Washington is content to let this conflict escalate while it focuses on threatening Moscow and Tehran.

The war in the Caucasus is a stark warning of the bankruptcy of the nation-state system and the rising danger of large-scale war posed by national and ethnic conflicts across Eurasia. It is urgent to mobilize and unify the working class in an international movement against imperialism, nationalism and war.

Trump’s Operation Dictatorship: What the debate exposed

Joseph Kishore & David North

The degenerate spectacle of Tuesday night’s debate between Donald Trump and Joseph Biden will be remembered in history as the United States’ moment of truth. The myth of an invulnerable and eternal American democracy has been shattered. Political reality has burst through the countless layers of deceitful propaganda of the corporate-financial oligarchy and exposed the undeniable fact that the White House is the political nerve center of a far-advanced conspiracy to establish a presidential dictatorship and suppress constitutionally guaranteed democratic rights.

The grunts and barks emitted by Trump on Tuesday night leave no doubt about his intentions. Trump is as serious about the threats he made during the debate as Hitler was about those he wrote down in Mein Kampf. Trump views the November election as a continuation of the political coup d’état that began last June in Washington, D.C, when he unleashed military and police forces against peaceful protesters.

Trump’s political strategy is fairly obvious and can be summed up with the infamous phrase: “Cry ‘havoc’ and unleash the dogs of war.” The conspiracy will unfold as follows:

First, during the remaining month of the election campaign, Trump will do everything he can to discredit the voting process with the intention of delegitimizing the counting of the ballots, which, as he fully expects, will show that he lost the election by millions of votes. He will use fabricated allegations of ballot fraud to incite fascist thugs, assisted by police and unidentified federal agents, to intimidate voters and carry out violent acts at polling stations.

Second, on election night Trump will declare that he is the winner, claiming that all ballots cast through the mail are illegitimate. He repeated during the debate his claim that the only way that he can lose is if the election is “rigged,” through the destruction of ballots and other forms of fraud. Even though he trails heavily in the polls, Trump is counting on a delay in the tally of mail-in ballots to give him the opportunity to declare victory in key battleground states.

Third, Trump will use the 10 weeks between Election Day on November 3 and the Inauguration on January 20 to mobilize his followers in the streets, while turning to a stacked Supreme Court to decide the election in his favor. On Tuesday he again said that he was “counting” on the court to “look at the ballots.” He has the full support of the Republican Party, which is pressing forward with the rapid confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, so that she will be in a position to cast a deciding vote in any court decision on the election.

Trump is also counting on support within the police and sections of the military, as well as his control over the Department of Homeland Security. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that DHS acting Secretary Chad Wolf, a Trump crony, is preparing immigration raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in “sanctuary cities,” such as Denver and Philadelphia, this month. Federal paramilitary forces will be mobilized in many major metropolises in advance of the election.

Finally, and most critical of all for the success of his conspiracy, Trump has factored in the spinelessness of the Democratic Party. He fully expects that the Democrats, apart from mouthing a few empty threats, will do nothing to stop him.

The abject bankruptcy of the Democratic Party was on display on Tuesday night. While Trump personified the viciousness of a ruling class moving toward fascism, Biden—frail and frightened—epitomized bourgeois democracy on its death bed. Though endlessly intoning, “This is the deal,” Biden spent the 90 minutes of the debate evading the fact that his opponent is preparing for civil war and dictatorship. He mindlessly declared that once the votes are counted, the political crisis will be over, and everything will return to normal.

The role of the Democratic Party is to do everything it can to downplay and cover up reality, in order to prevent any popular mobilization against Trump. Biden went out of his way to declare that he is not opposed to Supreme Court nominee Amy Barrett. He complimented her as “a very fine person,” even though Barrett, once on the Court, will be one of those who will drive a nail into Biden’s political coffin.

When Trump goaded Biden by declaring that the Democratic Party candidate supports the “far left manifesto” of Sanders, Biden responded by repudiating any association with left-wing politics: “I beat Bernie Sanders … by a whole hell of a lot.”

Biden did not even respond to Trump’s verbal salute to the fascist Proud Boys. He pledged to demand that his own supporters “stay calm” as the election is contested, while Trump urged that they mobilize and challenge the results.

To believe that dictatorship can be averted by supporting the Democratic Party is to close one’s eyes to reality. The Democrats’ actions are determined not by an abstract devotion to democracy but by the interests of the class that they represent.

Any strategy to counter the threat of dictatorship must base itself on a correct understanding of the underlying causes of the political crisis. Trump is the expression of a far deeper disease, whose origins and character must be properly understood.

There are several interrelated factors at work.

First is the far-reaching decay of American capitalism. In little more than a decade, the United States has been devastated by two major crises, first in 2008 and now in 2020. In both cases, the ruling class resorted to a massive and unsustainable inflow of funds—essentially, the printing of money—to keep the financial markets afloat. The historically unprecedented transfer of wealth to the rich must be paid for through an intensification of the assault on the working class.

Second, arising from the economic weakening of the United States, is the precipitous decline in the global position American imperialism. Despite 30 years of unending war, the American ruling class has been unable to maintain its position as the global hegemon. Now, it sees in the rise of China an existential threat. All the resources must be diverted to prepare for global warfare with China, of which the conflict with Russia is one element. The American working class must be put on rations.

Third is the staggering concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny layer of society. The 400 richest individuals in the United States now control $3.2 trillion, and the richest one percent have more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. A recent RAND Corporation study calculated that the stagnation of income over the past four decades for the bottom 90 percent of the population created an aggregate net loss of income of $47 trillion. Democracy cannot survive under conditions of such enormous levels of inequality.

All of these underlying conditions have been intensified by the pandemic, which has revealed in the starkest way the dysfunctionality of American society. Trump speaks and acts on behalf of a criminal financial oligarchy that will stop at nothing to protect its wealth. Its response to the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated its contempt for the lives and welfare of the population. Its demand for the reopening of schools is an essential component of its program of “herd immunity,” which has already led to the deaths of more than 210,000 people in the United States. While the federal bailout has sent share values on Wall Street soaring, tens of millions are unemployed, and the major corporations are planning mass layoffs.

The ruling class knows that it confronts mass social anger that will take an explosive and potentially revolutionary form. This is what imparts to Trump’s actions their frenzied and reckless character. Terrified of the development of social opposition, he sees in every protest and manifestation of opposition the danger of the “radical left” and “socialism.” The growth of working class militancy, already apparent in the wave of strikes, has convinced a substantial section of the ruling class that they have no way out except through violence.

The lessons of the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s are of burning contemporary relevance. The examples of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain demonstrate that the turn to fascism and dictatorship comes when the ruling class is no longer able, for reasons embedded in the character of capitalist society, to resolve its crisis through democratic means.

In the aftermath of Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Leon Trotsky warned that the Nazi regime was not a uniquely German phenomenon:

In all countries the same historic laws operate, the laws of capitalist decline. If the means of production remain in the hands of a small number of capitalists, there is no way out for society. It is condemned to go from crisis to crisis, from need to misery, from bad to worse. In the various countries the decrepitude and disintegration of capitalism are expressed in diverse forms and at unequal rhythms. But the basic features of the process are the same everywhere. The bourgeoisie is leading its society to complete bankruptcy. It is capable of assuring the people neither bread nor peace. This is precisely why it cannot any longer tolerate the democratic order. It is forced to smash the workers by the use of physical violence. [Whither France, November 9, 1934]

The working class must resist Trump’s coup plotting with its own program and its own methods.

First, this requires an absolute break with the Democratic Party and all political forces that work to subordinate the struggles of the working class to the capitalist system.

Second, workers must reject every form of politics that seeks to divide the working class along national, racial or gender lines. The fight is not between “white America” and “black America,” but between the working class and the corporate-financial oligarchy.

Third, the class struggle must be expanded and unified. The logic of the crisis raises the necessity for workers to prepare a political general strike through the formation of popular organizations and committees, controlled by workers, and independent of the pro-capitalist unions and the political parties of the ruling class.

Fourth, the fight for democratic rights is inseparable from the fight against the capitalist system. The many forms of social protest throughout the country—especially the multiracial demonstrations against police brutality and the growing rank-and-file movement against the life-threatening demands for a return to work—must be unified as a class-conscious movement against capitalism.

Fifth, and most critical of all, American workers must recognize that their struggle within the United States is part of a global movement of the working class against the international capitalist system. The workers of every country, including those of China and Russia, are their class brothers and sisters. They, too, are engaged in struggle against their capitalist rulers.

The weeks to come will be used by the Socialist Equality Party’s presidential campaign to mobilize the working class and youth against the threat of dictatorship.

The Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site makes an appeal to all those opposed to Trump’s coup to draw upon the lessons of history, recognize the very real political dangers, and make the decision to fight back.

Support and utilize the Socialist Equality Party’s presidential campaign to develop an understanding of the present crisis and the necessity of revolutionary socialist policies. Circulate this statement as widely as possible in order to build up opposition to Trump’s Operation Dictatorship.

The American working class has the power to scuttle Trump’s conspiracy. But it requires a socialist program and genuinely revolutionary leadership.

The Resurrection of Xi ‘Zedong’

Vijay Shankar

In 1981, five years after Mao Zedong’s death, China adopted an official verdict on his life. It called Mao a great revolutionary whose contributions outweighed the cost of his mistakes (Zhisui Li). Literature and history of later years have, however, suggested otherwise. Mao, through his purges, social upheavals, and programmes—during the “Great Leap Forward” and  the “Cultural Revolution”—has been said to be directly responsible for the death of 45 million people. The Cultural Revolution accounted for up to 20 million deaths by some estimates.

The consequences of the two ill-advised policies was a total collapse of the economy that threw China back to primal conditions, socio-political anarchy, massacres, and famines. These tragic episodes hardly qualify as light blunders. By the same logic that puts in balance contributions against mistakes, mankind could possibly take an alternate view of the Hitlers of this world! If at all there is a truism revealed, it is how excessive power drives its wielder into an illusory world where grand visions lead to grander outrages.

Nearly forty years later, another event of great geopolitical significance passed into Chinese history, endorsed by China’s rubber stamp lawmakers. The constitutional provision that limited the president’s tenure to two five-year terms was abolished to paved the way for Xi Jinping to be anointed president for life. He also became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) for life.  

The tenure system was created by Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, to prevent an encore of the excesses of Mao’s rule. The aim was to promote institutionalised collective leadership and peaceful transitions of power. Both of Deng’s successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, were leaders who stayed the course of collective leadership. They further propagated Deng’s dictum: “hide your strength and bide your time.” The tenure arrangement paid off, at least until 2012, when Xi assumed office.

The international community has noted how China’s posture has been turned on its head since the Deng days. Gone is the maxim, ‘hide strength, bide time, maintain a low profile, and abjure leadership’. Xi, in his own words, has sought to strengthen the party’s control over a modernising society, restore China to what he considers its rightful place as a global power, and, indeed, rejuvenate the nation. Further, “Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” was, in imperial fashion, added to the preamble of the Constitution.

Xi’s message resonates with many urban entrepreneurs in China. The central theme is the promise of national glory; bound to the nation upholding his absolute leadership even while promising that people will run the country. It is never clear whether his constituency is the worker and the peasant (which it certainly appears not to be), or the urban Chinese.

How has Xi’s doctrine played out? He has initiated military measures to persist with claims within the ‘nine-dash line’ in the South China Sea (SCS), precipitate a territorial embroilment with India, begun a global infrastructure plan called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), drastically reorganised and modernised the military, increased domestic security, and enforced ideological purity in schools and the media. These are all part of his vision of a rejuvenated China on the world stage that stays faithful to its Communist and Confucian root.

Xi’s hold on power is now implicit. Even the big question of how he chooses to wield it is becoming apparent. In the SCS, claims defined by the ‘nine-dash line’ were judicially de-bunked by an international tribunal at The Hague in 2016. Historically, the claim’s ancestry has been discredited by the fact that Zheng He’s seventh and final voyage ended in 1433. Significant as they must have been, all Chinese maritime activity in the region was thereafter banned by royal edict. Yet, Xi has ordained ownership of 3.6 million sq km of the SCS, and has shown no qualms of using military power to make fast his hold.

In Ladakh, ever since the Doklam crisis of 2017, three factors would appear to have played on Beijing planners. First, the growing pugnacity of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and its coalescing of SCS littorals. The hindrance that the Quad’s intrusive presence poses to BRI’s maritime segment must cause some misgivings.

Second, the rapid pace of long-neglected infrastructure development and Indian military build-up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh is an augury of response to any military misadventure.

Third, the BRI is critical to the generation of a Sino-centric global order. India’s steadfast rejection of the continental segment on grounds of sovereignty infractions undermines the very idea. The three seen together have no doubt driven Beijing to use their military to test India’s resolve.

Can a favourable presumption be made with regard to Xi’s motives? That, in fact, total power in his hands may be for China’s good? The turbulence in the SCS, brinkmanship in Taiwan and Ladakh, strife in Hong Kong and Tibet, intentions to revise global governance, Uighur atrocities, illicit trade practices, a cavalier approach to international conventions, and an illusory security architecture predicated on a “community with a shared future” are all disconcerting. They suggest anything but favourable assumptions about intent.

Xi may well be mulling over his next power play: whether to falsify geography, misrepresent history, devise another debt-to-lease mercantile trap, trample over one more international convention, or even initiate a hot engagement. To paraphrase Orwell as advice: states, like human minds, cannot so easily be torn to pieces and put back together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

Explainer: Washington’s Move to Trigger UN Sanctions Against Iran

Sanaa Alvira

On 20 August, the US officially submitted a notification to the UN Security Council (UNSC) that triggered a 30-day countdown to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran. It cited significant violations of the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which it had withdrawn in May 2018. UNSC Resolution (UNSCR) 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal, had lifted all UN sanctions against Iran. On 19 September, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the return of all UN sanctions on Iran.

13 of the 15 UN Security Council (UNSC) members, including long-time US allies, wrote letters expressing their opposition. They claimed the US could not invoke the snapback provision as it had quit the deal two years earlier.

What is the snapback provision? Did the US have any basis for invoking it?

Background

The US proposal to extend a global arms embargo on Iran was rejected in the 14 August UNSC vote. The Dominican Republic voted for, and 11 members abstained. China and Russia voted against.

Calling the UNSC’s “failure” to act “inexcusable,” Washington followed through with an attempt to invoke the snapback provision in UNSCR 2231, which permits a re-imposition of UN sanctions on Iran. But what exactly is this provision?

The term ‘snapback’ is used to describe a process by which all UN sanctions and restrictions against Iran would be re-imposed. Resolution 2231 cannot be blocked by a veto. Ordinarily, once sanctions against a country are terminated, re-imposition would require the passing of a new UNSC resolution, which could then be vetoed.

The snapback provision was incorporated as a fall-back in anticipation of future hypotheticals, such as a breakdown in Iranian compliance with the deal, and a lack of consensus in the UNSC on re-imposition of sanctions. The snapback provision thus allows any JCPOA participant state to unilaterally compel the UNSC to take action. 

The Legal Debate

The debate on whether the US has a right to invoke the snapback provision stems from its decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal. The text of UNSCR 2231 states that any “JCPOA participant state” must make a “notification” to the UNSC regarding Iran’s “significant non-performance of commitments under the JCPOA.” The dominant opinion is that given US withdrawal, it is no longer a participant to the JCPOA. The question of its ability to invoke snapback therefore does not arise.

The US, on the other hand, highlighted the language used in 2231: the participants of the deal are mentioned by name, which of course includes the US, followed by the parenthetical phrase “(the JCPOA participants).” The argument then is that the US is defined as a “JCPOA participant state” in a binding UNSC resolution, and hence retains the permanent right to trigger the snapback process. It does not matter if a country has withdrawn from the deal—there is no specific instruction regarding this in 2231.

The US’ arguments appear to be legally tenuous because that the term “participants” is not just an honorary term—it implies certain commitments for participating states. According to the US’ own official statement from 8 May 2018, “The United States would cease participation in the agreement.” The dissonance between not being a participant—by its own admission—but still claiming a right that belongs (only) to participants resulted in the US being isolated in its bid to reimpose UN sanctions against Iran. 

Who Decides?

The conundrum is in determining who gets to decide which country is a participant state, and more importantly, its implications for the deal as a whole. It is logical for JCPOA participants themselves to take a call on this.

According to the UN spokesperson, “Security Council members will need to interpret their own resolution,” and not the secretary general. The UN lacks a neutral, designated person or institution to adjudicate whether the US is still a participant. Theoretically, the UNSC could formally request an opinion of the secretary general or the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but the US could block such attempts.

Conclusion

The US announcement of the return of sanctions has now raised several political and legal questions about how the US is planning to enforce multilateral sanctions unilaterally. As long as other countries continue as party to the JCPOA, the US stand will have little effect. It remains to be seen how each country carves out its stance to these ongoing developments.