China records 18 percent quarterly economic growth

Nick Beams

China’s economy expanded by 18.3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the first three months of 2020. It was the largest increase in gross domestic product (GDP) since quarterly data began to be collected in the early 1990s, outstripping the previous record rise of 15.3 percent in the first quarter of 1993.

Bank of China [Source: boc.cn]

A large increase was expected—a Wall Street Journal poll of economists had predicted a rise of 19.2 percent—because of the contraction of 6.8 percent in the first quarter of last year as a result of the lockdowns imposed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But statistical questions aside, the increase did reflect the effectiveness of the measures introduced in China to counter the pandemic and the continued expansion of the world’s second largest economy.

Speaking to the Financial Times (FT) , China economy expert Eswar Prasad of Cornell University said that even after taking into account what he called the “phantom effect” of the low growth figure of a year ago, the first quarter result was “clear confirmation of the resilience and momentum of the Chinese economy.”

The move of the Chinese economy towards pre-pandemic growth will likely be largely welcomed as providing a stimulus to the world economy. But it will not be viewed so favourably in the US, where the continued economic expansion of China and the possibility that it could become the world’s largest economy is regarded as a threat to American global economic supremacy.

There have been two responses to the latest data. One reaction has been to focus on the headline figure, while others have pointed to signs of slowing growth contained within the figures.

The Financial Times took the first approach. It noted that the latest data “underscored the rapid pace of recovery in China” and that the increase was the result of a “frenzy of industrial activity and low COVID-19 infection rates,” which combined to give a result “far beyond the performance of other big economies.”

The result will no doubt be utilised by the Xi Jinping regime to tout the success of China’s measures as compared to other major economies, including the US.

Announcing the data, Liu Aihua, spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said: “We are confident that the current recovery trend will continue throughout the year.”

But at the same time there are concerns that, notwithstanding the record headline growth figure, Chinese economic recovery may be slowing.

“The domestic recovery is not yet solid,” Liu said. She pointed to uncertainties in the manufacturing sector, impacting on investment, and rising jobless levels for migrant workers and young graduates.

The number of migrant workers coming to the cities in search of work was 2.5 million less for the quarter than before the pandemic, reflecting the problems of smaller enterprises and the services sector.

The jobless rate for workers aged between 16 and 24 at the end of March was 13.6 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier and much higher than the overall urban unemployment rate of 5.3 percent.

When compared with the last quarter of 2020, the growth rate increased by only 0.6 percentage points in the first quarter of this year, indicating that the recovery could be slowing.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), economists at HSBC in Hong Kong had calculated that when the statistical effect of the first quarter of 2020 was stripped out, the “underlying year-over-year growth for the first three months of this year was about 5.4 percent, lower than the pre-coronavirus trend of roughly 6 percent growth.”

The bank said it expected that the economy would continue “running below full speed” in the coming months.

Industrial output in March was up 14.1 percent compared to a year earlier, but this was down from the 35.1 percent increase in January and February and lower than forecasts.

In a note to clients yesterday, Hao Zhou, senior economist for Commerzbank, said: “The underlying growth trend is likely to continue to slow.”

The NBS also warned that global developments could impact on the Chinese economy. “We must be aware that the COVID-19 epidemic is still spreading globally and the international landscape is complicated with high uncertainties and instabilities,” it said.

This was a veiled reference to the ongoing economic warfare by the Biden administration against China, which, far from lessening the measures taken by Trump, is intensifying them, above all in the area of technology.

Chinese economic authorities will no doubt also have in mind the speculative mania on Wall Street resulting from the massive interventions by the Fed and other central banks, amounting to trillions of dollars. The flood of ultra-cheap money was in response to a freeze in financial markets last March, impacting most heavily on the $21 trillion US Treasury market, the basis of the global financial system.

Financial officials in Beijing have warned about rising asset prices over recent months. According to an FT report, last month China’s top banking regulator, Guo Shuqing, said the country “was exposed to ‘bubbles’ in international markets and its own real estate sector.”

In response to the development of cryptocurrencies, China announced earlier this month that it was moving to establish an official digital currency controlled by the central bank.

Mu Changhchun, who is in charge of the project at the People’s Bank of China, said: “In order to protect our currency sovereignty and legal currency status, we have to plan ahead.”

Those plans include eventually establishing international use of a digitalized yuan that could provide at least a partial mechanism around the way in which the US uses dollar supremacy to impose international sanctions.

The Chinese move instantly produced a hostile reaction in the US. John Lipsky, who served as first deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund from 2006 to 2011 and is now at the Atlantic Council think tank, told the WSJ: “Anything that threats the dollar is a national-security issue. This threatens the dollar over the longer term.”

Notwithstanding the indications that problems in its economy are far from being resolved, the fact that China is continuing to lead the world in economic growth will be similarly regarded as a US “national security” issue.

UK further and higher education staff suffer attacks on pay and conditions

Ioan Petrescu

Educators throughout the further education sector who have been returning to schools since the beginning of March are facing pay cuts, job losses and increased workloads as employers attempt to place the economic burden of the pandemic on the working class.

University staff and students on strike in defence of their pay, conditions and pensions at University College London in 2019 (credit: WSWS media)

Several strikes have erupted or are breaking out, indicating the determination of workers to defend their conditions. However, they are opposed in this by the unions, chief among them the University and College Union (UCU), which is isolating and shutting down every trace of opposition by staff. The unions are continuing the role they have played since the start of the pandemic—suppressing industrial action in the name of “national unity” and allowing big business and the Conservative government to intensify attacks on jobs, wages, and conditions.

The Open University (OU) announced that it is reneging on a contract agreed with the UCU at the end of 2018, which was meant to come into force in October 2021. The deal was negotiated after five years of negotiation.

The contract affecting over 4,000 staff established that the jobs of associate lecturers would not depend on student numbers enrolled for their module. Associate lecturers, who comprise most OU lecturers, are essentially casual workers, on zero-hours contracts. The new arrangement provided some stability to workers, making their income slightly steadier. However, the university is now claiming that because of the pandemic it no longer has “sufficient systems and capacity in place” to implement the contract starting in October. The UCU has threatened industrial action but has organised no strike ballot.

In Northern Ireland, a one-day strike took place on March 24 across all six further education colleges in the region. The strike was in response to a breakdown of negotiations between the union and the employers. The latest proposal from the employers offered a below-inflation pay increase over 4 years. This after further education pay has increased just a measly 3.8 percent since 2013/2014.

Workers have overwhelmingly rejected the contract, with 567 out 641 (88 percent) voting no. The main complaint made by the UCU is that during the same period, teacher pay increased by 11.25 percent and that FE lecturers’ pay should rise by the same amount—even though that would still be real wage cut. Underscoring its corporatist agenda, the union declared a dispute not against the employer, but against the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy (DfE), since “the employers say they cannot pay staff more unless Stormont increases college funding”. The UCU is appealing to DfE Minister Diane Dodds, of the Democratic Unionist Party, to negotiate.

The DfE predictably dismissed the union’s appeals, with a spokesperson saying, “Further education colleges are employers in their own right and only if an agreement is reached between both parties through these negotiations, will the Department become involved in appraising any resulting business case.”

The Warwickshire College Group (WCG) has announced its Malvern Hills campus will be closed in August forcing staff and students to travel to a new campus over 20 miles away. WCG said it conducted an 18-month review of its provision and found it was no longer viable to run due to “reduced adult education funding and a diminishing customer base”.

The college currently has around 900 adult learners on part-time arts and craft commercial courses but also offers government-funded vocational programmes including hair and barbering via the adult education budget. Under WCG’s plans, government-funded provision offered at Malvern Hill will be permanently moved to Evesham College, which is 40 minutes away by car and over an hour away by public transport.

WCG was formed through the merger of Warwickshire College Group and South Worcestershire College in 2016. The group now has seven campuses. According to WCG’s latest accounts, for 2018/19, the group generated a deficit before other gains and losses of £2.9 million and net debt of £7.3 million. The accounts show that, as of the end of July 2019, the group was in its fifth year of a “debt reduction strategy linked to a series of property transactions and an attendant debt amortisation schedule”.

WCG is one of several colleges that have announced plans to close campuses and been met with opposition from employees in recent years. Other include the RNN Group, Cornwall College Group, BMet, Warrington & Vale Royal College and Askham Bryan College. The formation of these college groups is a direct result of the marketisation of higher education, started by the Labour Party in the late 1990s They operate as holding companies, acquiring various educational institutions through mergers and acquisitions, only to shut down the least profitable ones, with no regards to the impact on the communities they supposedly serve. In the case of the Malvern Hills campus, closing it will severely limit the options of 16-19 years in the area as well as cut choices for adults wishing to re-skill following the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A strike ballot against the London based-United Colleges Group was supported almost unanimously by UCU members, who voted by 99 percent to strike and by 100 percent in favour of action short of a strike. The ballot was called in response to management unilaterally changing employees’ contracts last autumn, adding extra hours of work per week and increasing their workload.

The fact that the ballot only concluded April 9, a full six months after the dispute began, is a testament to the union’s expertise in delaying and suppressing struggles. The UCU has been engaged in backroom talks with the college group, attempting to obtain some concessions that would help the union force the attacks on their members. However, this strategy came up against management’s intransigency, forcing the union’s hand.

Announcing the ballot result, the UCU stated that further weeks will pass before any action is taken, during which time negotiations will be aimed at getting the struggle off the agenda. “Negotiations with UCG Group management to explore a resolution to the dispute are expected to resume after the Easter holidays,” the union said. UCU regional official Adam Lincoln said, “Our members have voted to strike over detrimental changes to contracts by United Colleges Group and we urge management to use planned negotiations to resolve this dispute and avoid industrial action.”

Staff at the University of Leicester have also voted to strike. A ballot result announced Wednesday showed almost 70 percent in favour of industrial action on a turnout of 56.3 percent. Workers are opposing management’s threat to make 145 staff redundant. The university announced the job cuts in January but the response of the union was a convoluted process of failed negotiations and a consultative ballot before finally calling a strike ballot earlier this month. This has allowed the employer to achieve its aim at least partly, with the union admitting on March 31 that some threatened staff had already taken “voluntary” redundancy or accepted inferior contracts.

In response to the mandate of its members, the local UCU bureaucracy in Leicester said it would offer only “further guidance to members about strike activities and timings during the next few days”, while reiterating, “We are also willing to avoid strike action if the University withdraws the threat of compulsory redundancies.”

Staff at the University of Liverpool voted overwhelmingly to strike in a ballot announced this week. The UCU members voted 84 percent in favour of action to oppose management’s plans to axe 47 teaching and research jobs in the faculty of health and life sciences. Yet again, no industrial action was called by the UCU in response. UCU General Secretary Jo Grady, even while referring to “an overwhelming mandate” to call industrial action, declared, “It’s not too late for the university to reverse these plans for compulsory redundancies, avoiding strike action and further damage to its reputation. We urge it to change course.” This is yet another statement that “voluntary” redundancies will be accepted by the UCU, an agreement they have reached with management on countless occasions over the last decade, with thousands of their members losing their jobs.

Julian Assange mural unveiled in Berlin

Paul Bond

Muralists have unveiled a 20-metre-high mural in defence of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange opposite Willy Brandt House, the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in Berlin.

The mural, bearing the hashtag #freeassangeyesterday, was praised by WikiLeaks for drawing attention to the journalist’s continued detention. It marked the anniversary of WikiLeaks’s publication of the Collateral Murder video, and also of Assange’s arrest by British police after his expulsion from asylum in Ecuador’s London embassy.

Julian Assange opposite Willy Brandt House in Berlin (credit: WSWS media)

The mural, “Collateral Crucifixion,” is a defence of press freedom. Assange, wearing a press body armour vest and draped with cameras, is shown crucified on a prison surveillance tower, topped by a combined British and US flag. At his feet are massed groups of soldiers, while military planes and helicopters fly above. In the background are oil wells and the landscape of the British government.

The mural was produced by Captain Borderline, the collective moniker since 1999 for artists Shanti, Signl, and Dabtar. The Assange mural is the work of Shanti and Signl. According to their website, Captain Borderline’s “main activity is painting socially critical and political murals worldwide, but also streetart campaigns, screenprints, animations, films and installations are among their artistic tools.”

The mural was unveiled shortly before the 11th anniversary of WikiLeaks’s publication of the Collateral Murder video on April 5, 2010. The footage, filmed by the US military on July 12, 2007, exposed bloody war crimes of the illegal, neo-colonial US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It showed US soldiers in an Apache helicopter firing on unarmed civilians and journalists in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The crew ask repeatedly whether they have been given permission to open fire on a group going about their business who pose no conceivable threat. When the authorisation is given, the soldiers unleash a massacre that killed up to 18, including two Reuters journalists. The horror is compounded by the celebration and blood lust of the killers.

Captain Borderline have also produced a 34-second animation of the mural. Oil wells pump and military aircraft jet back and forth as we hear the crew raining down death on the civilians.

The footage has had an indelible impact on millions of people around the world. Yet, a decade on, none of those responsible for the 2007 massacre, or for the illegal invasion which resulted in the deaths of over a million people, has been brought to justice.

The only people to have suffered repercussions from the Collateral Murder footage are those who brought it to the world’s attention—Chelsea Manning, the US army private who leaked the video, and Assange, who published it.

Manning served seven years—including a year in solitary confinement—for leaking documents exposing US war crimes. Her sentence was commuted without presidential pardon at the end of the Obama presidency in 2017, but Manning was subsequently harassed and imprisoned in a failed attempt to pressure her into providing material that could be used against Assange. She was again subject to psychological trauma and denied access to adequate medical attention and crippled with punitive financial measures.

The attack on Assange has been even more frenzied and hostile. A manufactured sexual assault investigation was launched by Swedish authorities shortly after the video was published. Its intention was to smear Assange, gaining the backing of liberal and pseudo-left forces internationally, and to enable his extradition to the US.

In 2010, then US Democratic Party Vice President Joe Biden called Assange a “high-tech terrorist.” There were repeated calls for his assassination, in line with the extra-judicial policies increasingly undertaken by the US ruling class.

When the bogus campaign was running out of steam, the British Crown Prosecution Service—then headed by Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, later knighted for his work there—wrote to Swedish investigators, “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”

In the face of such efforts, Assange was forced to seek political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he spent seven years under arbitrary detention. In the US there were bipartisan calls for his arrest, with 10 Democratic Party senators writing to Vice President Mike Pence in 2018 demanding the Trump administration pressure Ecuador for Assange’s eviction.

Throughout his years in the embassy Assange was spied on by US agencies. Privileged communications with lawyers and doctors were monitored and his personal documents were stolen. The CIA continued to discuss plans for his kidnap or assassination.

In 2019—the year the trumped-up Swedish investigation finally collapsed—Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno agreed to turn Assange over the British police. His political asylum was unilaterally and illegally terminated, and on April 11, 2019, British police and security officers dragged a clearly unwell Assange out of the embassy.

Since then, Assange has been subject to a Kafkaesque pseudo-legal persecution culminating in a show trial. Sentenced to a near-maximum sentence for bail violation he was sent to Belmarsh maximum security prison, where he continued to be held after that sentence was served. He was detained on remand and convicted of no crime and while medically vulnerable, even as coronavirus swept through the prison. He was repeatedly denied proper legal access and materials necessary for his defence. At his hearing he was initially held in a glass box, preventing communication with his lawyers.

These ongoing obstructions were designed to allow the US government time to escalate its campaign and pile on charges. The initial indictment, unsealed on his arrest, charged him only with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, carrying a maximum sentence of five years. Six weeks later, 17 charges under the 1918 Espionage Act had been added, with a combined potential sentence of 170 years. A further superseding indictment, presented after the first phase of the hearing was already completed, expanded the framework of charges, revealing further that the prosecution was directed at any journalistic activity that might expose imperialism.

Captain Borderline are correct that the attack on Assange is directed at all freedom of the press, criminalising basic journalistic practices and equating them with treason or espionage.

It was surprising, therefore, when District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled against extradition on January 4 this year. However, her politically calculated ruling blocked extradition solely on the grounds that Assange’s imprisonment in the US would compromise his mental health. She accepted every other element of the prosecution’s case, including the denial of free speech and freedom of the press and its justification of the abuse of democratic rights.

This was intended to facilitate a US appeal, which the Department of Justice acknowledged gratefully. In the meantime, Baraitser denied Assange bail again, now leaving him in a high security prison without even legal charges against him. He remains there, while the incoming Biden administration is renewing the campaign against him.

The prominent mural is a timely and welcome protest. Hopes that the SPD will intervene, however, are misplaced. Last year party chairman Sigmar Gabriel was among several former federal ministers to sign an appeal for Assange’s freedom. When he was foreign minister (January 2017-March 2018) and vice-chancellor (December 2013-March 2018) he had plenty of opportunity to aid Assange and offer asylum. He did not and told a press conference that, even in retrospect, he would not have done otherwise.

He said, “I understand every member of the federal government who does not deal with cases like this one in public. That is the difference between my present situation and my past one.” In other words, he is only in favour of Assange as long as this has no practical consequences.

Gabriel went on to talk of “dealing with people with whom we cannot agree, who are strangers to us and sometimes seem odd to us, or who have committed serious crimes.” He did not specify what crimes Assange has supposedly committed.

The Captain Borderline mural is a powerful reminder of the real issues involved in the persecution of Assange, and of the real forces being deployed against him. Assange is imprisoned because he exposed the crimes of imperialism. The assault on his democratic rights is a political onslaught. His fate and freedom are inseparable from the fight of the international working class to put the real criminals in the dock.

US announces deal with Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to use military against migrants

Andrea Lobo

The Biden administration announced agreements this week with the governments of Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to deploy thousands of troops and police against refugees escaping a growing humanitarian crisis in the region.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki reported that Mexico agreed to keep 10,000 troops deployed across its southern border, Guatemala will deploy 1,500 soldiers and police to block migration routes, and Honduras will field 7,000 military and police personnel to stop migrants from leaving the country.

Security forces block the way to Honduran migrants in Poptun, Guatemala. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

“The objective is to make it more difficult to make the journey and make crossing the borders more, more difficult,” explained Psaki.

Currently, there are 3,600 US active-duty soldiers deployed on the US southern border in support of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which requested in February that this continue for “the next three to five years, possibly more.”

The Mexican foreign ministry confirmed the deal shortly after the US announcement in a statement that pledged: “Mexico will maintain its existing deployment of federal forces along its border region…” Fearful of a domestic backlash, the Honduran and Guatemalan governments denied any official agreements.

Vice President Kamala Harris announced Wednesday that she is planning a trip to Mexico and Guatemala to discuss addressing the “root causes” of migration, including investments promised by Biden.

While the militarized crackdown is already taking place, including against two caravans this year, promises to alleviate social ills ring hollow. Economic desperation is a core component not only for maintaining Mexico and Central America as platforms for cheap labor but for coercing workers into going into infected workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling elites have already demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice countless lives for profits.

While Psaki and other US officials cite concerns over human smuggling by cartels and over the safety of migrants, the White House is demanding and sponsoring a buildup of security forces known for their death squad activity against workers, peasants and youth and for being largely merged with organized crime.

Even as the militarization agreement was being announced, 30 Mexican Marines were detained for participating in the disappearance of dozens of people ostensibly as part of the “war on drugs” that has left over 250,000 people dead and 85,000 missing since 2006. So far this year, Mexican security forces are known to have murdered two migrants.

In Honduras, a trial began last week against Roberto David Castillo, a businessman and US West Point military intelligence graduate, as the alleged intellectual author of the killing of environmental activist Berta Cáceres in 2016. Two other US-trained military officials and a Honduran special forces sergeant were already found guilty for participating in the murder plot.

Beyond this notorious case, the Honduran regime has regularly massacred protesters and striking workers since being installed in a 2009 military coup backed by the Obama administration. Current President Juan Orlando Hernández has been named by US prosecutors as a major partner of Mexican and Honduran drug cartels.

More than 172,000 migrants were arrested by the US Border Patrol in March, up 71 percent from February. More than 20,000 unaccompanied minors remain under US custody in overcrowded and jail-like detention centers, where they are forced to remain far beyond the legal limit of 72 hours.

Over 60 percent of the migrants detained last month were immediately returned to Mexico under Title 42, the same law employed by the Trump administration, using the pandemic as a pretext to abrogate the right to apply for asylum enshrined in US and international law.

Those returned to Mexico are subject to widespread extortion, kidnappings and killings by Mexican security forces and cartels, often working together.

Regarding Guatemala, the State Department’s own 2020 human rights report cites “unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings arranged by government officials; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention” among other abuses. Just in June and August of last year, there was a wave of eight murders of indigenous rights activists.

The same venal oligarchies in Central America that ruled through brutal dictatorships sponsored by US imperialism during much of the 20th century are being encouraged to again escalate military and police repression to deal with growing social contradictions.

By preventing hundreds of thousands of impoverished workers and peasants from escaping the region and eventually sending money back, social tensions are being placed in a pressure cooker.

The UN World Food Program estimates that the number of people going hungry in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua has increased from 2.2 million to 8 million since 2018.

Honduras, where the crisis is particularly sharp, lost about 1.1 million jobs since the beginning of 2020. Hundreds of plantations as well as textile and electric equipment sweatshops have closed down this year, as 60 percent of corporations report issues of staying in operation.

Along with most of Latin America and the world, Honduras is entering another wave of the pandemic driven by more infectious variants and the refusal of the ruling classes to implement lockdowns and further economic assistance. Cases increased nearly 50 percent in one week, already filling hospital COVID wards. Vaccines ran out after the first lots of about 55,000 doses.

In Mexico, there has been absolutely no aid for sheltering at home, which has contributed to one of the highest COVID-19 death tolls in the world. The government has reported at least 325,000 deaths “associated to coronavirus.” Another 9.8 million people have fallen below the official poverty line, bringing the total to 56.7 percent of the population. This has triggered a massive increase in migration out of Mexico. US Border agents detained 147,000 Mexican migrants in the first three months of 2020, the largest number since 2008.

As poverty and death surge for the working class, America’s billionaires have seen their collective wealth increase almost 45 percent during the pandemic, while Forbes Mexico reports that the country’s 36 oligarchs, each with more than $500 million in net worth, have seen their assets increase 20 percent.

During this period, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador—celebrated as “left” and “progressive” by the pseudo-left—has repeatedly highlighted his good relationship with and the “solidarity” of Mexico’s two richest oligarchs, Carlos Slim ($55.9 billion; 7.4 percent increase) and German Larrea ($27.1 billion; 146 percent increase).

The militarization of the region is part of a growing shift toward dictatorship by US imperialism and the ruling elites everywhere to defend the staggering levels of social and economic inequality while the working class is forced to bear the full cost of the crisis triggered by the pandemic.

WHO reports 1 million coronavirus deaths in Europe as cases surge

Will Morrow

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday that the official number of coronavirus deaths in Europe surpassed 1 million last week. Even as the appalling death toll was announced, the virus continues to surge rapidly across the continent, fueled by the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant, and threatening to overwhelm already strained hospital systems.

WHO European regional director Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge announced the 1 million total in a press conference yesterday. “The situation in our region is serious,” he stated. “1.6 million new cases are reported every week. That’s 9,500 every hour, 160 people every minute.” The official toll is, itself, a significant underestimation of the actual number of people who have died from the virus.

In this March 23, 2020 file photo, a victim of the COVID-19 virus is evacuated from the Mulhouse civil hospital, eastern France. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)

“It is only among the oldest, that we are seeing declining incidence,” said Kluge. “Over the past two months, the trend among people more than 80 years of age, has diverged from the trend seen in every other age group, possibly thanks to high vaccination uptake in this high-risk group. Since February, the proportion of COVID-19 deaths in Europe, among those older than 80, has gradually fallen to close to 30 percent, the lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic. Hospitalization, nonetheless, remains at high levels, with continued reports of intensive care capacity having been exceeded.”

In a number of Eastern European countries, deaths are accelerating rapidly. In Poland, more than 90 percent of all new cases are now the B.1.1.7 variant, commonly referred to as the UK variant, which is more contagious and more deadly than the original strain. It has fueled a surge in cases that has pushed the hospital system to the brink. On April 1 infections reached their highest level since the beginning of the pandemic.

More than 803 people were reported dead in Poland yesterday. The day before, another 645 people died. The seven-day daily average of deaths is now over 600, equivalent to approximately 5,300 daily deaths in a country with the population of the United States.

The hospital system is already overwhelmed. Michal Drozdz, a Warsaw paramedic, told the Financial Times that he is routinely forced to spend hours queuing up outside hospitals, because there is no more available place to take patients. “This has been happening all the time for three weeks. Every shift there’s a real threat you’ll have to spend it waiting in front of a hospital,” he said. “Sometimes it’s two hours, sometimes six. … During that time you can’t help anyone, which is what this job should be about.”

In November last year, 5,000 people had died from the coronavirus in Poland. This has since risen more than 12-fold to almost 60,000. In February, even as the more contagious variant was circulating, the right-wing government of Mateusz Morawiecki announced a further relaxation of lockdown measures, including the reopening of schools for younger primary-aged students, along with museums, cinemas and swimming pools.

The second-highest death rate on the continent is in Italy. The seven-day daily average of deaths is now 455, according to Worldometer. The country’s vaccination campaign has been a failure. With the health care system undermined by decades of savage austerity cuts, the organization of vaccine distribution was left to regional governments. By February 20, according to the Financial Times, just 20 percent of the vaccines distributed thus far had been given to people over the age of 70. Only 6 percent of people aged over 80 had received a single dose, compared to more than 20 percent in Germany and France, where the vaccine campaign has been disorganized and slow from the beginning.

More broadly across the continent, even as cases are surging rapidly and the death toll is rising, governments are pushing ahead with their plans to reopen economies for the summer. With hundreds dying every day, Italy has announced it intends to vaccinate residents on its holiday islands to boost the tourism industry. The corporate media are already using the upcoming holiday period to condition popular consciousness for a further loosening of restrictions that must produce a further rapid rise in the death rate.

In Germany, the Grand Coalition government is refusing to take any measures to address the surge in cases. Yesterday there were more than 32,000 cases reported across the country. Yet schools remain open nationally, and the government is not only rejecting demands from students and teachers for school closures, but actually increasing the incidence rate of cases per 100,000 inhabitants required for schools to be closed, from 100 to 200.

In France, the official death toll will pass 100,000 today, as counted by Worldometer. The number of daily cases surpassed 42,000 yesterday, and almost 40,000 the day before. The total number of intensive care patients is over 5,900, the highest level since the peak of the first wave last year.

At the end of March, President Macron announced minor social-distancing measures, including the closure of primary schools for a single week before the two-week school holidays, and the closure of high schools for an additional week after the holiday break. He rejected a protracted school closure and restrictions on non-essential production because of the effect such a lockdown would have on “the economy.” Primary schools are due to reopen in ten days, while tens of thousands of cases are being reported each day.

In every country in Europe, the ruling class is pursuing essentially the same policy. One year ago, with wildcat strikes taking place in Italy demanding the idling of nonessential production to allow workers to shelter at home, and hospitals on the verge of collapse, governments imposed strict lockdowns, including closing schools and nonessential workplaces. They used this as a means to push through corporate bailouts totaling trillions of euros to support the stock markets, which have underwritten an enormous rise in the wealth of Europe’s billionaires over the past year.

They have since rejected lockdown measures, pursuing a policy of keeping schools and workplaces open, so that corporate profit making may continue, regardless of the cost to human life.

There was nothing inevitable about the death of 1 million people in Europe, and millions more around the world. It is the outcome of a deliberately policy of placing profits before lives that has been implemented by the European Union and its governments and supported by the trade unions.

In the face of a new upsurge of the virus, it is critical that the working class draws the political lessons. The implementation of a scientific policy to counter the spread of the virus is only possible through the independent mobilization of the working class for political power. Massive resources must be invested to fund a real lockdown, including the closure of nonessential workplaces, with full compensation provided to workers and small businesses. Schools must be closed, with the resources provided for all students to have high quality online learning.

German billionaires enrich themselves in the pandemic

Joshua Seubert

In the last week, the World Socialist Web Site has already published two articles on this year’s global list of billionaires, published by the business magazine Forbes, documenting the appropriation of enormous wealth in the 2020 pandemic year.

Overall, the total wealth of all billionaires worldwide increased by more than 60 percent last year—from $8 trillion to $13.1 trillion. The number of billionaires worldwide rose by 660 to a current total of 2,775. Both figures represent the largest annual increase in history. Almost two new billionaires were added every day.

Susanne Klatten at the BMW stand at the IAA 2017 trade fair in Frankfurt (Olaf Kosinsky, CC BA-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons)

At the peak of the billionaire elite are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with $177 billion and $151 billion respectively. The richest man in Europe, in third place with a fortune of $150 billion, Bernard Arnault, is the owner of the French luxury goods group LVMH Louis Vuitton. In total, there are 628 billionaires in Europe with a combined wealth of more than €3 trillion—about 50 percent more than a year ago. The number of dollar billionaires has increased by about 20 percent in the same period.

The accumulation of outrageous wealth at the top of society is particularly evident in Germany. The number of billionaires rose by 29 last year, from 107 to 136, putting Germany in the lead in Europe—ahead of Russia with 18 new billionaires, Italy (up 15) and Spain (up six). Together, German billionaires alone recorded a rise in assets of over US$178 billion last year. Together, they control more than $625 billion.

The richest of these are:

• Beate Heister & Karl Albrecht Jr., owners of the Aldi discount chain: US$39.2 billion
  
  
• Dieter Schwarz, owner of the Schwarz Group (Lidl and Kaufland): $36.9 billion
  
  
• Susanne Klatten, co-owner of BMW: $27.7 billion
  
  
• Stefan Quandt, co-owner of BMW: $21.6 billion
  
  
• Theo Albrecht Jr, owner of Aldi Nord: $18.8 billion
  
  
• Reinhold Würth, owner of the hardware importer Würth Group: $16.8 billion
  
  
• Georg Schaeffler, co-owner of the engineering supplier Schaeffler AG: $14.9 billion
  
  
• Alexander Otto, member of the Supervisory Board of the Otto Group: $11.8 billion

The French writer Honoré de Balzac recognized as early as the 18th century that “behind every great fortune there is a crime.” This is especially true for German billionaires, whose fortunes often still trace back to the crimes of the Nazis and terrible exploitation in the Third Reich.

The current increases in wealth are also based on crime. The pandemic again made clear that the lives of workers are worth nothing to the ruling class. Although hundreds of thousands are infected with COVID-19 every day and thousands of people die from the virus, demands based on science to close all nonessential factories and schools are ignored.

The record profits are a direct result of the “profits before lives” policy that governments around the world have pursued since the pandemic broke out. Last spring, when brave workers in the US, Canada, France and Italy organized spontaneous strikes and enforced a lockdown and the closure of many factories and schools, stock markets around the world collapsed. The bourgeoisie’s counteroffensive was brutal. Under so-called coronavirus emergency packages, it transferred trillions to the accounts of banks, large corporations and the super-rich within a few weeks and began an aggressive campaign for a return to schools and workplaces.

With the ongoing and murderous policy of reopening, the ruling class is pursuing a clear goal: to squeeze the gigantic sums of money that have been thrown to the financial aristocracy back out of the working class. In order to intensify exploitation, enormous attacks on wages and jobs are being carried out. At the same time, the pandemic serves as a pretext to carry out long-planned restructuring. The unions play the decisive role in pushing through reopening policies and attacks on workers’ jobs and wages, despite the opposition of workers.

Although the third and even fourth waves are currently sweeping across the globe and the pandemic is once again spreading exponentially, the ruling class is enacting the reopening policy ever more ruthlessly. Currently, the German federal government is preparing a new version of the Infection Protection Act, which is primarily aimed at keeping schools open even when infection rates are very high. According to the draft, schools should not close until an incidence of 200 cases per 100,000 occurs on three consecutive days—and even then not without qualifications. Graduating classes may be exempt from closures and there would be comprehensive “emergency day care.”

The justification for keeping schools open is an alleged concern for the welfare of children and the maintenance of education. These are brazen lies! The policy of keeping schools open is being pushed by the same parties and politicians who have been cutting education for years. In truth, these policies solely serve the interests of the ruling class: keep children in schools so that parents at work can generate the profits of the super-rich.

This development underlines once again that the ruling class is not afraid to sacrifice lives for the maintenance and increase of its profits. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, more than 77,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Germany alone. On the other hand, the fortunes of the rich are piling up. With a rise in wealth of more than $178 billion among the richest individuals in Germany, this comes to about $2.3 million profit per coronavirus victim. The DAX reaches new record highs almost weekly and currently stands at over 15,200 points.

Resistance is forming worldwide against this murderous enrichment policy. Workers and students are protesting against unsafe working conditions in factories and for the closure of schools. The pandemic has made it clear that capitalism is bankrupt and unable to meet the most basic needs of the population. Under capitalism, a very few can enrich themselves from the suffering and death of millions.

At the same time, the pandemic makes clear that workers cannot rely on any of the established parties and unions. From the Left Party to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), all the parties in the Bundestag (German parliament) approved the billion-dollar giveaways to the banks last March, leaving workers and small business owners virtually empty-handed.

The fight against the pandemic and social inequality requires the independent intervention of the working class and a socialist program that expropriates the immense fortunes at the top of society. In our Perspective on the growth of wealth in the pandemic year, we emphasize:

“Stopping this deadly accumulation of wealth in the hands of the oligarchy is critical to preserving the safety and well-being of the world’s population. Just as the spread of the pandemic is inseparable from the enrichment of the financial oligarchy, the ending of the pandemic is inseparable from the expropriation of the oligarchs. The vast wealth piled up by the financial elite must be used to finance emergency measures to stop the spread of the virus and save millions of lives.”

Documents expose Brazilian dictatorship’s plot to overthrow Allende in Chile

Tomas Castanheira

This past March 31 marked the 57th anniversary of the US-backed military coup in Brazil that overthrew elected President João Goulart and inaugurated 21 years of brutal police-state rule against the Brazilian working class.

The date was marked by Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro with an unprecedented dismissal of his defense minister and the entire command of the armed forces, with the stated goal of fully subordinating the military apparatus to his government’s reactionary political agenda. The first act of newly sworn-in Defense Minister General Walter Braga Netto was to issue an order of the day, read aloud on the morning of March 31 in barracks all over Brazil, that for the first time openly called for the “celebration” of the 1964 coup.

Apropos of the occasion, the US National Security Archive (NSA) has published a series of 12 declassified documents from the US, Brazilian and Chilean governments “on Brazilian Regime’s Effort to Subvert Democracy and Support Dictatorship in Chile.” The documents were used and in part referred to by Brazilian journalist Roberto Simon in his book Brazil Against Democracy, published in February by Companhia das Letras in Brazil.

The material is extremely revealing in relation to the international character of the crimes of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Besides serving as a model, it was, alongside US imperialism, an active agent in promoting coups and sustaining dictatorial regimes that unleashed an unprecedented wave of terror throughout the South American continent.

Long before the coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet against the Popular Unity President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973 in Chile, the Brazilian military government was already systematically planning the violent overthrow of the country’s elected president.

Prisoners held at Chile’s National Stadium after the 1973 coup

The first document in the series published by the NSA, dated September 22, 1970, is a detailed report from the Brazilian foreign ministry to then-President Gen. Emílio Médici about a discussion between the Brazilian ambassador, Câmara Canto, and his American counterpart, Edward Korry, in the Chilean capital, Santiago, soon after Allende’s election.

According to the document, the Brazilians interpreted the request for the meeting by the American ambassador as part of an “indirect pressure to prevent the inauguration of Allende,” under conditions in which efforts by President Richard Nixon and the CIA “to prevent the Marxist victory from being consummated” were being hindered by other factions of the state stuck to “the ‘liberal’ position of recognizing the electoral result.” Korry informed the Brazilians “that his country does not intend to encourage any military uprising but would support it on condition that ‘soon after’ new elections are held.”

The Brazilian document then refers to difficulties in convincing the top commanders of the Chilean military that it was immediately necessary to abandon “their legalistic conceptions” and carry out a coup. “Unfortunately the mere enunciation of the harm that will come from Allende’s inauguration does not have sufficient force to provoke this reaction. The hopes are therefore summed up in the occurrence of a new fact.”

The “new fact” animating hopes of the Brazilian military was a “rally of the anti-communist movement ‘Patria y Libertad’ scheduled for September 24” that could trigger “street clashes with the left and thus force the military leaderships to act.”

The Brazilian dictators’ support for a strategy of a coup in Chile driven by small fascist groups capable of unleashing a civil war did not end with this episode.

In Brazil against Democracy, Simon refers to an interview he recently conducted with Roberto Thieme, one of the main leaders of Patria y Libertad, who reported the existence of close links between his fascist group and Brazilian intelligence. “In the final phase of the Popular Unity government, part of the leadership of the group was allegedly sheltered in Brazil, where it maintained contact with the SNI [Brazilian National Intelligence Service], and some of its leaders allegedly returned to Chile with the help of Brazilian agents,” the book states.

Describing the plans nurtured during those years, Thieme declared: “We and the Brazilians imagined it would be something like the Spanish Civil War, with nationalism coming from the south and Marxism from the north. That was the scenario the Brazilians saw, and they were willing to support the rebel army going against Santiago.”

This sordid international policy of the Brazilian military regime is also revealed in a document—the third in the NSA’s series—originally issued in March of 1971 by the Chilean embassy in Brazil. In it, Chilean diplomats reported to the Allende government that different sources had informed them of the existence of advanced preparations among the Brazilian military for a fascist coup in Chile.

One of the informants, a Chilean armed forces officer, reported to the embassy that he had been contacted by a Brazilian general offering help “to organize in Chile a movement of armed resistance against our government, which, structured in the form of guerrillas, will seek to combat what he called the ‘red danger’.”

Brazilian troops in 1964 coup (Arquivo Nacional/Wikimedia Commons)

A second source, with access to the Brazilian military, described the existence at the headquarters of the Army Ministry in Rio de Janeiro of “scale models” of the Andes Mountains, around which “numerous Army officers gathered, who dedicated themselves to a detailed study of this geographic region, trying to determine which zones would be suitable to develop a guerrilla struggle.” These plans were aimed at “the use of civilian elements, expressly excluding the participation of military elements.”

Although such plans were not carried out, the Chilean fascist elements cultivated by the Brazilian dictatorship would dissolve their group with the ascension of Pinochet to power and join his murderous repressive apparatus, which tortured and “disappeared” tens of thousands of Chilean workers and youth.

The fourth document published by the NSA, dating from even before Pinochet’s seizure of power, exposes the scope of the Brazilian military government’s criminal activities throughout the continent and its alignment with the objectives of US imperialism. The December 9, 1971 memorandum of the American government—declassified and made public for the first time in 2008—recounts a closed-door discussion between Nixon and Médici during a state visit by the Brazilian dictator to the United States.

During the meeting held in the White House’s Oval Office, Médici described his efforts to finance the dictatorial regime of Gen. Hugo Banzer in Bolivia and to convince the Paraguayan dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner to also cooperate with the Bolivians, preventing the country from being taken by “far left extremists.”

The Brazilian dictator raised concerns about Argentina, saying that in his next meeting with its President Alejandro Lanusse, he would talk to him “not as President to President, but General to General.” His concerns were explicitly matched by the American president. It would take the Argentine military another five years to stage a coup and begin its “Process of National Reorganization” along the lines of the Brazilian coup, raising state violence against the working class to the murderous levels demanded by Médici and Nixon.

However, the main subject of the discussion at the Oval Office was Chile. Asked by Nixon about his opinion on the political situation in the country, Médici replied: “Allende would be overthrown for very much the same reasons that Goulart had been overthrown in Brazil.” Nixon then questioned if he “thought that the Chilean Armed forces were capable of overthrowing Allende. President Médici replied that he felt that they were, adding that Brazil was exchanging many officers with the Chileans, and made clear that Brazil was working towards this end. The [US] President said that it was very important that Brazil and the United States work closely in this field.”

In order to establish this cooperation, Nixon proposed the creation of an extraofficial communications channel with the Brazilian government, offered money or “any kind of help” to Brazil, and concluded the meeting by telling Médici that “there were many things that Brazil as a South American country could do that the US could not.”

By 1973, when the systematic betrayals of the Chilean working class by the Stalinist Communist Party and the popular front government of Salvador Allende had sufficiently opened the path to power for the military, the generals were completely prepared to launch a coup.

The sixth document published by the NSA demonstrates that the Chilean military carefully studied the lessons of the 1964 coup in Brazil right before they took power. According to a Brazilian intelligence report, senior Chilean military officials met at an air base in Santiago in August 1973, a month before the overthrow of Allende and examined the measures taken by their Brazilian counterparts in 1964 “in order to determine what in that experience could be useful in Chile.”

The degree of Brazilian collaboration in consolidating the military regime in Chile is exposed by the account of a poorly informed Brazilian diplomat who reported, with surprise, about the presence of “approximately five policemen” walking around the National Stadium in Santiago, where thousands of people were detained right after Pinochet’s coup. The Brazilian dictatorship immediately provided support to the Chilean security forces in conducting interrogations and torturing political prisoners.

This partnership continued over the following years, as other documents published by the NSA make clear. Besides supplying weapons and promoting Chile’s diplomatic relations with neighboring countries, Brasilia provided intelligence training to the Chilean military, which later organized terrorist acts such as the bombing assassinations of the dissident General Carlos Prats in Argentina and Allende’s former defense minister Orlando Letelier in Washington.

The Brazilian dictatorship’s services to the continental counterrevolution would culminate in its adhesion to Operation Condor, conceived by Pinochet for the integration of the repressive forces of the South American dictatorships. The last document in the series published by NSA, a June 1976 “Weekly Situation Report on International Terrorism” by the US government, reports Brazil’s entry as a full member in the Operation and its commitment to supply it with an encrypted communication system, baptized Condortel.

The coverup of these heinous crimes against the working class—historically promoted by the Stalinist, Pabloite and Morenoite leaderships—has allowed the reemergence of the same mortal dangers 57 years after the cycle of military dictatorships in Latin America was inaugurated with the 1964 coup in Brazil.

The popularization of these historical documents, that resonate immensely with the political situation confronting the working masses in Brazil and throughout the world, is therefore of extreme importance. The working class in every country must arm itself against the extreme ruthlessness with which the ruling class is prepared to respond to a danger from below, which is unequivocally exposed by these documents. For this very reason, their publication has faced a near total blackout by the Brazilian, US and international media.

Workforce at MAN Truck & Bus in Austria votes against plans to sell the factory

Gustav Kemper

Almost two-thirds of the workforce at the MAN Truck & Bus company in Steyr, Upper Austria, voted on April 7 to oppose the sale of the plant to Austrian investor Siegfried Wolf. MAN Truck & Bus is a subsidiary of Volkswagen Autos, and its management confronted the workforce with the alternative of either agreeing to the sale or accepting the closure of the plant in 2023.

Ninety-four percent of the factory’s 2,356 workers took part in the vote, with 1,415 (64 percent) voting against the sale. Twenty-seven votes were invalid, and 773 workers voted in favour because this minority—irritated by the investor’s promises and fears that all jobs would be lost—hoped to continue working in a new company. In fact, there is no guarantee they will retain their jobs in the case that the company is sold.

MAN Truck & Bus headquarters in Germany (Wikipedia)

The investor, Wolf, had presented his concept to a works meeting held on March 26. The new product range is to consist of small-scale vans with diesel engines and electric drive, platform trucks, trucks between six and 12 tonnes, as well as city buses with electric drive and buses for regional transport. The existing capacity of a paint shop for truck bodies built just a few years ago is to be used for deliveries to the Russian truck manufacturer GAZ. Wolf owns 10 percent of the shares in GAZ.

The plan, however, involves massive job cuts and wage reductions. Only 1,250 of the existing 1,900 full-time employees will be retained, though not a single temporary or contract worker. The previous piece-rate payment is to be completely abolished, which would have meant an average wage reduction of between 15 and 30 percent. Moreover, the whole concept is risky because the US has leveled sanctions against GAZ’s owner, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Closing the plant would not only affect its workforce. It would lead to the loss of a total of 8,400 jobs—a disaster for thousands of families. This is the conclusion of a study undertaken by Professor Friedrich Schneider of the Institute of Economics at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) in Linz. Austria’s gross domestic product would decline by almost €1 billion as a result of the closure, and the regions of Upper and Lower Austria would also be affected by higher unemployment costs and falling tax revenues, according to the study.

The supervisory board of MAN Truck & Bus had already decided at the end of March to close the site by 2023 if the sale fails to go through. Production would then be relocated to Poland, where wage levels are an average 65 percent lower than in Austria. Like many Western European car manufacturers, MAN had taken the opportunity, after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe, to slash production costs by taking over or setting up new production plants in these low-wage countries.

The company’s executive tried to persuade the workforce to agree to the sale with a bonus payment of €10,000 per person. The PRO-GE trade union did not recommend a vote. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the workforce saw through this attempt at bribery and rejected it. Their vote is clearly a vote in favour of a fight to retain the factory.

The workforce confronts not only the company but also the PRO-GE trade union, which is not prepared to defend all jobs. Even prior to the ballot, works council members and the union leadership had signaled their willingness to cut jobs.

In a number of interviews, Erich Schwarz, chairman of the works council, and Rainer Wimmer, head of PRO-GE, stressed that staff cuts were inevitable anyway, due to the conversion to electric motors and EU directives to limit carbon dioxide and nitrogen emissions.

After the results of the vote were published, Helmut Emler, deputy chair of the works council, told the press that the goal was now to find a solution similar to the one arrived at in Germany. He said that talks with management would start the next day. The closure of the plant was not planned until 2023, while the paint shop with its 400 workers would close in 2027. This declaration must be regarded as a warning for all workers in Steyr.

In Germany, the trade union IG Metall agreed to the destruction of 3,500 jobs and celebrated this as a great victory, declaring that the original number of jobs to be cut had been reduced. As an alternative to the company’s sales plan, PRO-GE has raised the possibility of other investors so far not considered by the MAN executive. There is, for example, a draft for a “Green Mobility Centre” proposed by the Linz industrialist Karl Egger (KeKelit) and a vague concept by the Austrian Minister for Economic Affairs Margarete Schramböck for an “Austria Consortium.”

The PRO-GE union strictly rejects any principled defence of all jobs. MAN has canceled a job security agreement agreed to by the company just last year. The union has declared it does not plan to take action against this breach of contract either. It is “not the issue” for the time being, according to works council member Emler. The union and the works councils will most likely soon begin negotiations behind closed doors with the MAN executive to present the workforce a fait accompli.

The example of MAN-Steyr underlines that workers can only defend themselves if they take the initiative, free themselves from the straitjacket of the unions, organise themselves independently in action committees and network with colleagues in other factories and internationally. This requires a socialist perspective that places the needs of workers before the profit interests of the corporations.