3 Jan 2017

Islamic State claims New Year attack on Istanbul nightclub killing 39

Alex Lantier & Halil Celik

Yesterday, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militia claimed responsibility for a bloody terror attack on Istanbul’s Reina nightclub. Around 700 people were celebrating the New Year at the nightclub when, at 1:30 a.m. on January 1, an individual armed with an assault rifle shot unarmed security guards at the nightclub and entered the premises, shooting and killing 39 patrons, including 15 foreigners. Sixty-five others were wounded.
Police operations had been stepped up in Istanbul in the two weeks before the attack, after Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (MİT) received warnings that ISIS was preparing attacks on nightclubs or parties in Istanbul, the capital city of Ankara, or other major Turkish cities. A total of 147 ISIS suspects were detained, including at least 63 ISIS members, according to Interior Ministry sources. Eight ISIS members were detained in Ankara while planning an attack on New Year's Eve.
On New Year’s Eve itself, amid a state of emergency in Turkey, some 25,000 police officers were on duty and patrolling the streets in Istanbul to guard against a possible terror attack. The US embassy warned of terror attacks on New Year’s Eve and recommended that American citizens in Turkey not celebrate the New Year in crowded places.
Astonishingly, a lone gunman nevertheless was able to take a taxi to a location near the upscale nightclub, which is across the street from a police station. He then walked to the club, pulled an assault rifle from his bag, and launched an assault that killed or wounded over 100 people—largely Turks and tourists from other Muslim countries.
ISIS hailed the horrific attack in a statement it released, denouncing Turkey for allying with the United States and the European powers against it in the fighting in Iraq and Syria. It declared, “In continuation of the blessed operations that Islamic State is conducting against the protector of the cross, Turkey, a heroic soldier of the caliphate struck one of the most famous nightclubs where the Christians celebrate their apostate holiday.”
“We let infidel Turkey know that the blood of Muslims that is being shed by its airstrikes and artillery shelling will turn into fire on its territories,” the statement added.
Immediately after the attack, Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) announced a gag order, submitting reporting of the attack to state censorship. A massive man-hunt is still underway across Turkey to locate the shooter and identify potential accomplices.
Anti-terrorism experts who looked at footage of the security cameras at the nightclub said that the shooter seemed well-trained and efficient in the use of his assault rifle and shot wounded victims in the head, execution-style. He cleaned his weapon and changed his clothes, spending 13 minutes in the nightclub’s kitchen, and later escaped the scene by hailing a taxi. Police who examined the videos are working on the hypothesis that he is an ISIS fighter aged roughly 25, from the ex-Soviet republics of Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan, or the Xinjiang region of western China.
The initial account of the attack that is emerging raises serious political issues, however. How was a lone gunman, who was carrying out a mass shooting near a police station amid a high alert and under a state of emergency, allowed to slaughter people undisturbed for over a quarter of an hour, and then to escape?
In the aftermath of the attack, rumors spread that police deployments to secure the area around the nightclub had been deliberately scaled back just before the attack—raising the issue of whether some section of the authorities had foreknowledge of the shooting.
Yesterday, the US Embassy in Ankara felt compelled to react to these rumors by issuing a statement denying any US foreknowledge that an ISIS attack would target the Reina nightclub. “Contrary to rumors circulating in social media, the US government had no information about threats to specific entertainment venues, including the Reina Club, and the US government did not warn Americans to stay away from specific venues or neighborhoods,” it said.
Turkish and international officials simply issued statements condemning the attack, however. Turkeys ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) promised to “end” terror, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that the goal of the attack was to spread chaos. The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) called for intensifying the security crackdown in Turkey and attacked recent Islamist statements by some AKP deputies denouncing New Year’s celebrations.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said that US President Barack Obama “expressed condolences for the innocent lives lost, directed his team to offer appropriate assistance to the Turkish authorities, as necessary, and keep him updated as warranted.”
European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini condemned the attack from her Twitter account, writing: “2017 starts with an attack in Istanbul. Our thoughts are with victims and their loved ones. We continue to work to prevent these tragedies.”
In fact, this horrific shooting flows from the military intervention of the United States and the EU into the Middle East and Turkey and, in particular, the AKP government’s collaboration with the US-led proxy war in Syria. If ISIS has a large network of dozens or even hundreds of operatives inside Turkey, this is because the CIA and its European and Middle East allies used Turkey as a staging ground to arm and support Islamist opposition militias operating across the border in Syria.
The Turkish ruling elite’s decision to turn Turkey into a major staging post to arm opposition militias carrying out raids, terror bombings, and war crimes in Syria has not only had horrific consequences for the population of Syria. The devastation and depopulation of Syria also plunged Turkey into escalating bloodshed.
ISIS has repeatedly carried out terror attacks, and the Turkish army’s crackdown on the Kurdish population—fearing that Washington would strengthen Kurdish nationalists too much by arming Syrian Kurdish militias as proxies in Syria—plunged the country’s Kurdish areas into civil war.
ISIS was responsible for the bloodiest single attack in Turkey’s history, on October 10, 2015, killing at least 109 people and wounding more than 500 in a twin suicide bombings against a peace rally in Ankara. In 2016, the Islamic State carried out six terrorist attacks in Turkey, in which 127 people were killed and some 320 others wounded.
Split-offs from the Kurdish nationalist movement such as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) also carried out several terror attacks, including bombings in December in Istanbul and Kayseri.
In this New Year’s attack, the specific grievance cited by ISIS was the Turkish government’s alliance with Russia and Iran to try to crush Islamist opposition militias like ISIS inside Syria. Last week, Turkey negotiated a ceasefire in Syria with Russian and Iranian officials covering much of Syria, but it has pressed on with bloody attacks on Al Bab aiming to seize ISIS’ capital in Syria, Raqqa. ISIS appears to have retaliated by organizing another terror attack on Turkish soil.

New US Congress to launch assault on social programs

Patrick Martin

The 115th US Congress assembles in Washington today, with the ceremonial swearing in of new senators by outgoing Vice President Joe Biden, and the swearing in of the entire House of Representatives by House Speaker Paul Ryan. For the first time in a decade, the Republican Party will be in control of the House and Senate alongside a Republican president, Donald Trump, set to be inaugurated January 20.
The new government being formed in the US capital is like nothing that has ever been seen in Washington. It carries the reactionary policies of the Obama administration and previous Congresses, whether under Democratic or Republican control, to new political depths.
The incoming Congress, working with the Trump administration, is preparing an assault on whatever remains of social programs implemented under the New Deal and the Great Society. The true content of Trump’s call to “Make America Great Again” is to roll back social conditions for the working class to those that existed at the end of the 19th century--the era of child labor, unlimited working hours and robber barons.
Entire federal departments such as Education, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency have been turned over to right-wing ideologues committed to scrapping all restraints on business operations and ending all protections for workers, consumers and those who need social services.
Trump set the tone for the week at a New Year’s Eve party at his luxury estate at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, where he toasted his well-heeled guests with the promise that the new Trump administration would “lower your taxes, cut regulations and repeal Obamacare,” to thunderous applause.
The taxes to be lowered will be those of the super-rich. The regulations to be abolished are those that restrict in any way the operations of big business and the financial swindling of Wall Street, at the expense of working people.
In calling for a repeal of Obamacare, Trump is demagogically appealing to broadly felt popular opposition to the program, which is seen as a boondoggle for health insurance companies, pharmaceutical conglomerates and giant hospital chains. But the actual content of his proposals will be to slash subsidies included in Obamacare as sweeteners while using revisions of the program to make substantial inroads into Medicare and Medicaid, the health insurance programs for the elderly, disabled and poor.
Despite Trump’s promises during the election campaign to replace Obamacare’s hated “individual mandate” and provisions that limit the choice of doctors and hospitals with “something great,” there is not the slightest effort in that direction. On the contrary, the Republican-controlled Congress will make the repeal of Obamacare the starting point for moves to privatize Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and other federal healthcare programs.
According to press reports Monday, the congressional Republican leadership plans to make repeal of Obamacare the first legislative action of the new session of Congress, although the timing is still uncertain because of the complexities of the law, enacted in 2010.
Obedient to the financial interests involved, the House and Senate Republican leaders aim to repeal Obamacare in a way that does not damage the profits that corporations have begun to reap from the program. This likely means that repeal of the individual mandate, which compels millions to buy private insurance or pay an increasingly stiff tax penalty, will be pushed back, lest it abruptly deprive the insurance companies of paying customers.
The planned repeal of Obamacare will proceed in several stages, beginning with passage of a budget resolution that will include so-called “reconciliation” rules that require only a 51-vote majority in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes required to overcome the expected Democratic filibuster.
Because the reconciliation process is limited to fiscal provisions that impact the budget, the actual dismantling of healthcare.gov and the federal exchange through which more than 10 million people have purchased insurance will require winning the support of at least eight Senate Democrats. The same procedure applies to rolling back the expansion of Medicaid, which extended the federal health insurance program for the poor to an additional 10 million lower-income working class families.
Congressional Republicans have vowed to combine Obamacare repeal with far-reaching attacks on both Medicaid and Medicare. Vice President Mike Pence is a leading advocate of destroying Medicaid as an entitlement program--one for which people are automatically eligible based on their income--and transforming it into a block grant to the states. This would limit the program in each state to the amount of the block grant, regardless of the number of people who apply for aid, forcing states to set up increasingly restrictive systems to ration assistance.
As for Medicare, Obamacare was actually financed in part by cuts in the program’s reimbursements to hospitals and other providers, estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. These funds, if recaptured through Obamacare repeal, will not be returned to Medicare, but will be made available instead for the real priorities of the Trump administration, increased military spending and a huge tax cut for the wealthy.
Trump’s appointment of Representative Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers Medicare and Social Security, was a clear signal that he has discarded his campaign promise that there would be no cuts in either of these critical federal programs, which underwrite health care and retirement income for more than 70 million elderly and retired workers.
Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan have long advocated privatization of Medicare, transforming it into a voucher system modeled on the Medical Savings Accounts used by corporate employers to put a lid on healthcare spending by their employees.
The other major legislative initiative—and the one that has attracted the greatest attention from corporate lobbyists and Wall Street—is the gigantic tax-cutting package, likely to be the largest in history, exceeding even the windfalls for the wealthy enacted under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Trump has promised to slash the corporate tax rate from the present (largely nominal) rate of 25 percent to only 10 percent, as well as cutting higher-end individual tax rates and abolishing the estate tax, paid only by a tiny fraction of extremely wealthy families—those like Trump himself, and his cabinet of billionaires and multimillionaires.
A reactionary provision expected to be incorporated either into the Obamacare repeal or the budget and tax legislation is an outright ban on any federal funds going to Planned Parenthood, which provides health services, including cancer screening, contraception and abortion, to millions of working class women. The organization has been targeted by the Christian fundamentalist right because it is one of the few providers of abortion services in many states, and because it aggressively defends women’s rights to the full range of family planning services.
While the Trump administration and the congressional Republicans prepare an unprecedented onslaught against social programs for working people, the Democratic Party is engaged in cynical posturing to give itself a political cover for its inevitable capitulation to the demands of Wall Street and the financial oligarchy.
The incoming leader of the Senate Democrats, Charles Schumer, declared that the Democrats would fight “tooth and nail” against the overhaul of Medicare, carefully avoiding any such pledge in relation to Medicaid, the more immediate target.
Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 2016 presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to congressional Democrats calling for a “day of action” on January 15 “to vigorously oppose the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it and throw our health care system into chaos.” Again, the Democratic politicians are deliberately downplaying of the attack on Medicaid.
Sanders has played a particularly rotten and demagogic role, issuing a series of appeals to Trump to “keep your promise” made during the campaign not to cut Medicare and Social Security.
Donna Brazile, the interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, made her own appeal to Trump, saying that he had an “enormous” opportunity to obtain Democratic support, and urging him “to show that he’s eager to find common ground, to meet with Democrats.”
None of these Democratic leaders will state the obvious—that Trump cares nothing for his campaign promises and is carrying out the program of the financial aristocracy, which seeks to plunder the resources of the federal Treasury to enrich themselves while building up the police and the military to lay waste to enemies both foreign and domestic. That is because the Democrats serve that same financial aristocracy and in many cases are charter members of it.
Genuine resistance to the program of Trump, the Republicans and Wall Street will come only from the working class, from the great majority of the American people, who were ignored, betrayed or misled in the course of the 2016 election campaign and now face an attack on their jobs, living standards, social benefits and democratic rights on a scale that has no parallel in history.

Socialism and the centenary of the Russian Revolution: 1917-2017

David North & Joseph Kishore

1. A specter is haunting world capitalism: the specter of the Russian Revolution.
This year marks the centenary of the world-historical events of 1917, which began with the February Revolution in Russia and culminated in October with “ten days that shook the world”—the overthrow of the capitalist provisional government and conquest of political power by the Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. The overthrow of capitalism in a country of 150 million people and establishment of the first socialist workers’ state in history was the most consequential event of the twentieth century. It vindicated, in practice, the historical perspective proclaimed just 70 years earlier, in 1847, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto.
In the course of one year, the uprising of the Russian working class, rallying behind it tens of millions of peasants, not only brought to an end centuries of rule by a semi-feudal autocratic dynasty. The extraordinary leap in Russia from “Tsar to Lenin”—the establishment of a government based on workers’ councils (soviets)—marked the beginning of a world socialist revolution that raised the consciousness of the working class and the masses oppressed by capitalism and imperialism in every part of the planet.
The Russian Revolution—which erupted in the midst of the horrifying carnage of World War I—proved the possibility of a world beyond capitalism, without exploitation and war. The events of 1917 and their aftermath penetrated deep into the consciousness of the international working class and provided the essential political inspiration for the revolutionary struggles of the twentieth century that swept across the globe.
2. The Bolshevik Party based its struggle for power in 1917 on an international perspective. It recognized that the objective basis for the socialist revolution in Russia was rooted, in the final analysis, in the international contradictions of the world imperialist system—above all, in the conflict between the archaic national-state system and the highly integrated character of modern world economy. Therefore, the fate of the Russian Revolution depended on the extension of workers’ power beyond the borders of Soviet Russia. As Trotsky explained so clearly:
The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable. One of the basic reasons for the crisis of bourgeois society is the fact that the productive forces created by it can no longer be reconciled with the framework of the national state. From this follow, on the one hand, imperialist wars, on the other, the utopia of a bourgeois United States of Europe. The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus, the socialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense of the word: it attains completion only in the final victory of the new society on our entire planet. [The Permanent Revolution (London: New Park Publications, 1971), p. 155]
3. The fate of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet Union and the socialist revolution in the twentieth century hinged on the outcome of the conflict of two irreconcilable perspectives: the revolutionary internationalism championed by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 and during the first years of the existence of the Soviet Union, and the reactionary nationalist program of the Stalinist bureaucracy that usurped political power from the Soviet working class. Stalin’s anti-Marxist perspective of “socialism in one country” underlay the disastrous economic policies within the Soviet Union and the catastrophic international political defeats of the working class that culminated in 1991, after decades of bureaucratic dictatorship and misrule, in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in Russia.
But the end of the USSR did not invalidate the Russian Revolution or Marxist theory. Indeed, in the course of his struggle against the Stalinist betrayal of the revolution, Leon Trotsky had foreseen the consequences of the national program of “socialism in one country.” The Fourth International, founded under Trotsky’s leadership in 1938, warned that the destruction of the USSR could be prevented only through the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the reestablishment of Soviet democracy, and the renewal of the struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of world capitalism.
4. The imperialist leaders and their ideological accomplices greeted the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 with raptures. The fact that virtually none of them had foreseen this event did not prevent them from proclaiming its “inevitability.” Seeing no further than their own noses, they improvised theories that reinterpreted the twentieth century in a manner that suited their collective class arrogance. All the self-deluding nonsense and stupidity of the ruling elites and their academic hirelings found its quintessential expression in Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis. The October Revolution, he argued, was nothing more than an accidental departure from the normal and, therefore, timeless bourgeois-capitalist course of history. In the form of capitalist economics and bourgeois democracy, humanity had arrived at the highest and final stage of development. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there could be no thought of an alternative to capitalism, let alone one based on workers’ power and the socialist reorganization of world economy.
Endorsing Fukuyama’s revelation, historian Eric Hobsbawm, a lifelong Stalinist, dismissed the October Revolution and, for that matter, the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary upheavals of the twentieth century, as unfortunate accidents. The years between 1914 (which witnessed the outbreak of World War I) and 1991 (the dissolution of the Soviet Union) were a misguided “age of extremes” that comprised the “short twentieth century.” Hobsbawm did not claim to know what the future would bring, or whether the twenty-first century would be short or long. He was certain of only one thing: there would never again be a socialist revolution in any way comparable to the events of 1917.
5. Twenty-five years have passed since Fukuyama proclaimed the “End of History.” Supposedly liberated from the menace of socialist revolution, the ruling class has had an opportunity to demonstrate what capitalism could accomplish if allowed to plunder the world as it pleased. But what is the outcome of its orgies? A short list of achievements would include: the filthy enrichment of an infinitesimal portion of the world’s population, vast social inequality and mass poverty, endless wars of aggression that have cost the lives of millions, the relentless strengthening of the repressive organs of the state and the decay of democratic forms of rule, the institution of murder and torture as basic instruments of imperialist foreign policy, and the general degradation of every aspect of culture.
6. A quarter century after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is impossible to deny that the entire world has entered a period of profound economic, political and social crisis. All the unresolved contradictions of the past century are reemerging with explosive force on the surface of world politics. The events of 1917 are acquiring a new and intense contemporary relevance. In countless publications, bourgeois commentators are calling attention nervously to parallels between the world of 2017 and that of 1917.
“Bolshiness is back,” warns the Economist’s Adrian Wooldridge in the magazine’s preview of the New Year. “The similarities to the world that produced the Russian revolution are too close for comfort.” He writes: “This is a period of miserable centenaries. First, in 2014, came that of the outbreak of the first world war, which destroyed the liberal order. Then, in 2016, that of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest conflicts in military history. In 2017 it will be 100 years since Lenin seized power in Russia.”
None other than Fukuyama now describes the United States, which he once hailed as the apotheosis of bourgeois democracy, as a “failed state.” He writes, “The American political system has become dysfunctional,” and “has undergone decay over recent decades as well-organized elites have made use of vetocracy to protect their interests.” Finally, Fukuyama warns: “[W]e cannot preclude the possibility that we are living through a political disruption that will in time bear comparison with the collapse of Communism a generation ago.”
7. For world capitalism, 2016 was the year from hell. All the structures of world politics established in the closing years of the Second World War and its aftermath are in an advanced state of disintegration. The contradiction between the inexorable processes of economic globalization and the confines of the national state is driving world politics. 2016 was the year of the accelerating breakdown of the European Union, exemplified in the Brexit vote and the growth of extreme right-wing nationalist parties.
The past year also witnessed the relentless intensification of military tensions, to the extent that the possibility—even the likelihood—of a Third World War is openly discussed in countless books, journals and newspapers. The innumerable regional tensions throughout the world are developing into an increasingly direct and open confrontation involving the major, nuclear-armed powers. No one can say for sure who will fight whom. Will the United States move first against China, or must that conflict be delayed until after accounts have been settled with Russia? This question is presently the subject of bitter strategic debate and conflict within the highest echelons of the American state. Even among the closest post-World War II allies, the friction of geopolitical and economic competition is fraying alliances. Germany is seeking to translate its economic strength into military power and discarding the last vestiges of its post-Nazi “pacifism.”
8. The crisis of the global capitalist system finds its most advanced expression within its very center, the United States. More than any other country, the United States imagined that it would be the prime beneficiary of the dissolution of the USSR. The first President Bush immediately proclaimed the birth of a “new world order,” in which the United States would function as the unchallengeable hegemon. Unmatched in its military power, the United States would exploit the “unipolar moment” to restructure the world in its own interests. Its strategists harbored dreams not simply of a new American Century, but of American centuries! In the words of Robert Kaplan, a leading foreign policy strategist:
The more successful our foreign policy, the more leverage America will have in the world. Thus, the more likely that future historians will look back on the twenty-first century United States as an empire as well as a republic, however different from that of Rome and every other empire throughout history. For as the decades and centuries march on, and the United States has had a hundred presidents, or 150 even, instead of forty-three, and they appear in long lists like the rulers of bygone empires—Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman—the comparison with antiquity may grow rather than diminish. Rome, in particular, is a model for hegemonic power, using various means to encourage a modicum of order in a disorderly world… [Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York: Random House, 2002), p. 153.]
9. Kaplan’s ode to empire, written in 2002, testifies to the semi-deranged state of mind that prevailed in the American ruling class as it launched its “war on terror” and prepared for the second invasion of Iraq in 2003. The American ruling class mistook the approaching abyss for a rainbow. The “unipolar moment” proved, indeed, to be little more than the briefest of historical interludes, and the new “American Century” lasted considerably less than a decade.
The euphoric response of the American ruling class to the dissolution of the Soviet Union expressed a disastrous misreading of the historical situation. The ruling elites convinced themselves that they could employ military power—undeterred by the danger of Soviet retaliation—to reverse decades of erosion of the economic supremacy of the United States. This miscalculation formed the basis of a massive escalation of American military operations throughout the world, which has led to one disaster after another. Fifteen years after 9/11, the fraudulent “war on terror” has left the Middle East in chaos, culminating in the debacle of America’s regime-change operation in Syria.
10. The military disasters of the past quarter century have been compounded by the deterioration of the global economic stature of the United States, which has found ever more direct expression in the decline in living standards for broad masses of the population. According to a recent report by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the pretax share of national income received by the bottom half of the population in the United States has fallen from 20 percent in 1980 to 12 percent today, while—in an exact reversal—the share of the top one percent has risen from 12 percent to 20 percent. For four decades, the real incomes of the bottom half have remained flat, while the incomes of the top one percent have risen by 205 percent, and for the top .001 percent by a staggering 636 percent.
The younger generation of Americans is drowning in debt, unable to make enough to start a family or move out of their parents’ homes. While in 1970, 92 percent of 30-year-olds made more than their parents did at a similar age, only 51 percent did so in 2014. Millions of Americans are suffering from inadequate health care. For the first time in more than two decades, overall life expectancy fell in 2015 due to the shocking rise in mortality from suicide, drug abuse and other manifestations of social crisis.
11. As American society has become more unequal, it has become increasingly difficult for its ideologists to maintain the pretense that democracy still prevails. One of the essential functions of identity politics—centered on race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality—has been to shift attention away from the deep class divisions within the United States. The election of Donald Trump has exposed, in all its disgusting nakedness, the reality of oligarchic rule in the United States. It must be stressed, however, that Trump is not some sort of monstrous interloper in what had been, until Election Day 2016, a flawed but essentially decent society. Trump—the product of the criminal and diseased couplings of the real estate, finance, gambling and entertainment industries—is the genuine face of the American ruling class.
12. The incoming Trump administration, in its aims as in its personnel, has the character of an insurrection of the oligarchy. As a doomed social class approaches its end, its effort to withstand the tides of history not infrequently assumes the form of an attempt to reverse what it perceives as the longstanding erosion of its power and privilege. It seeks to return conditions to the way they once were (or as it imagines they were), before the inexorable forces of social and economic change began gnawing away at the foundations of its rule. Charles I blocked the summoning of parliament in England for 11 years prior to the outbreak of revolution in 1640. When the Etats-General assembled in Paris on the eve of revolution in 1789, the French nobility intended to reestablish privileges that had been ebbing away since 1613. The Civil War in the United States was preceded by the effort of the Southern elite to extend slavery throughout the country. The firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861 marked the beginning of what was, in effect, a slave-owners’ insurrection.
Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again” means, in practice, the eradication of whatever remains of the progressive social reforms—achieved through decades of mass struggles—that ameliorated conditions of life for the working class. In Trump’s own mind, “making America great” entails returning the country to the conditions of the 1890s, when the Supreme Court ruled that the income tax was communistic and unconstitutional. The institution of the income tax in 1913 and all the ensuing social legislation and regulation that placed limits on the exploitation of workers, the broader public, and the environment, represented, as far as Trump is concerned, an assault on the right of the rich to make money as they pleased. The funding of public education and the establishment of the minimum wage, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social welfare programs sanctioned the diversion of financial resources away from the rich. Assembling a cabinet comprised of billionaires and multimillionaires, Trump intends to lead a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
Alongside his rich cronies, Trump has brought into his cabinet and selected as his principal advisers a cabal of ex-generals and outright fascists. Their task will be to develop a foreign policy based on the unbridled assertion of the global interests of US imperialism. This is the real significance of the revival of the slogan of “America First.” It is the deterioration of America’s economic dominance that imparts to its imperialist agenda an increasingly savage character. The Democratic Party—that corrupt alliance of Wall Street financiers and state intelligence agencies—has concentrated its criticism of Trump on his alleged “softness” toward Russia. It need not worry. The Trump administration will continue and escalate the conflict with all countries whose interests--geopolitical and/or economic—clash with those of American imperialism.
13. Both in their international and domestic manifestations, the policies of Trump reflect a convulsive movement of the capitalist ruling elites to the right. The rise of Trump is paralleled by the growth in the political influence of the National Front in France, Pegida in Germany, the Five Star Movement in Italy and the UK Independence Party, which led the campaign for Brexit. In Germany, the ruling class is using the Christmas Market attack in Berlin to escalate the anti-refugee campaign led by Alternative for Germany. The political and economic essence of this process is embedded in the nature of imperialism, as explained by Lenin:
The fact that imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism is manifested first of all in the tendency to decay, which is characteristic of every monopoly under the system of private ownership of the means of production. The difference between the democratic-republican and the reactionary-monarchist imperialist bourgeoisie is obliterated because they are both rotting alive… [“Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” in Lenin Collected Works, Volume 23 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 106]
All the major imperialist powers are preparing for war, as states representing gigantic corporations and banks battle for control of resources, trade routes and markets. At the same time, the resort to nationalism is aimed at creating the framework for the violent suppression of class conflicts within each country.
14. The same capitalist crisis that produces imperialist war also produces the political radicalization of the working class and the development of socialist revolution. Trump will preside over a country riven by deep and intractable class conflict. Similar conditions prevail throughout the world. A recent study found that a quarter of all people in Europe, or 118 million, suffer from poverty or social exclusion. The poverty rate in Spain is 28.6 percent, and in Greece it is 35.7 percent. These are countries that have been targeted for brutal austerity measures dictated by the European Union and the banks. The number of unemployed young people worldwide rose to 71 million this year, increasing for the first time since 2013. In Venezuela, mass poverty and hyperinflation have led to food riots. In China, growing working-class militancy is expressed in a sharp increase in strikes and other forms of protest. Within Russia, the shock of capitalist restoration and the ensuing demoralization of the working class are giving way to renewed social militancy. The extreme social inequality and the kleptocratic character of the capitalist regime led by Putin are encountering ever-greater opposition.
15. Up until now, the political right, using the demagogic slogans of chauvinism, has exploited social discontent within the working class and broad sections of the middle class. But the initial successes of the reactionary parties of the chauvinist right have depended upon the political cynicism, deceit and bankruptcy of the organizations of what passes for the “left”—the Social Democrats, the Stalinists, the trade union bureaucrats and the array of petty-bourgeois anti-Marxist parties such as the Greens, the Left Party in Germany, Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. To these one must add the many state-capitalist and Pabloite organizations, such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO) in the United States and the New Anti-capitalist Party in France (NPA). All the political energies of these reactionary organizations of the middle class are expended on falsifying Marxism to disorient the working class and impede the development of its struggle against capitalism.
16. But the pressure of events is driving the working class to the left. Among the billions of workers and young people around the world, there is a growing mood of anger and militancy. There are signs of both a resurgence of class struggle and a renewal of interest in socialism and Marxism. In the United States, 13 million people voted for a supposed socialist, Bernie Sanders, in the Democratic Party primary elections not because of his opportunist politics, but because of his denunciations of the “billionaire class” and his calls for a “political revolution.” This is part of an international process, which is dictated by the very nature of global capitalism. The class struggle, as it gains in strength and political self-awareness, will tend more and more to sweep over the borders of nation states. As the International Committee of the Fourth International noted as far back as 1988, “It has long been an elementary proposition of Marxism that the class struggle is national only as to form, but that it is, in essence, an international struggle. However, given the new features of capitalist development, even the form of the class struggle must assume an international character.”
17. Confidence in the revolutionary potential of the working class, however, is not a justification for political complacency. It would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that there exists a vast disparity between the advanced stage of the international crisis of capitalism and the political consciousness of the working class. It must be acknowledged that herein lies a great danger. Without a socialist revolution, the very survival of human civilization is in question. The fundamental political task of this epoch consists of overcoming the gap between objective socioeconomic reality and subjective political consciousness. Can this be accomplished?
18. This question can be answered only on the basis of historical experience. Amidst all the massive upheavals of the twentieth century, there exists one example of the working class rising to the level of the tasks posed by history: the October Revolution. In confronting the great problems of this epoch, it is necessary to study that historical event and assimilate its lessons.
In this centenary year of the Russian Revolution, there is a profound intersection and interaction between contemporary politics and historical experience. The 1917 Revolution arose out of the imperialist catastrophe of World War I. In the political maelstrom that followed the overthrow of the tsarist regime, the Bolshevik Party emerged as the dominant force within the working class. But the role played by the Bolsheviks in 1917 was the outcome of a long and difficult struggle for the development of socialist consciousness in the working class and the working out of a correct revolutionary perspective.
19. The critical elements of that struggle were: 1) the defense and elaboration of dialectical and historical materialism, in opposition to philosophical idealism and anti-Marxist revisionism, as the theoretical basis of the education and revolutionary practice of the working class; 2) the unrelenting struggle against the many forms of opportunism and centrism that obstructed or undermined the fight to establish the political independence of the working class; and 3) the working out, over many years, of the strategic perspective that oriented the Bolshevik Party toward the struggle for power in 1917. In this latter process, the adoption by Lenin of the Theory of Permanent Revolution, developed by Trotsky during the previous decade, was the critical advance that guided the strategy of the Bolsheviks in the months leading up to the overthrow of the provisional government.
20. The victory of the socialist revolution in October 1917 proved that the conquest of political power by the working class depends, in the final analysis, upon the building of a Marxist party in the working class. No matter how large and powerful the mass movement of the working class, its victory over capitalism requires the conscious political leadership of a Marxist-Trotskyist party. There is no other way the victory of the socialist revolution can be achieved.
The recognition of this political imperative will guide the work of the International Committee in this centenary year. As the development of the international class struggle creates a broader audience for Marxist theory and politics, the International Committee will do all that it can to expand knowledge of the Russian Revolution and educate new layers of the working class and youth, politically awakened and radicalized by the crisis, in the “Lessons of October.”
As 2017 begins, we call on the many thousands of readers of the World Socialist Web Site to become active in the revolutionary struggle and to join and build the Fourth International as the World Party of Socialist Revolution. This is the most appropriate and effective way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and the victory of October 1917.

India, Afghanistan and the Heart of Asia: Reading Between the Lines

Sarral Sharma



On 4 December 2016, the sixth ministerial conference of the Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process (HoA-IP) on Afghanistan concluded in Amritsar, India. The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi voiced their concern over common issues such as terrorism and trade connectivity in the region in a bid to corner Pakistan. In their respective speeches, they made direct and indirect references to Pakistan’s  reluctance to effectively counter terrorism in the region. 

For instance, Modi appealed to the participating countries to take "resolute action" against those "who support, shelter, train and finance" terrorism in Afghanistan. Although, his less aggressive posturing and no direct mention of Pakistan may have signalled a slight shift in India’s offensive policy against its western neighbour. Domestically, it was perceived as a missed opportunity to publicly denounce Pakistan at a multilateral forum.

In comparison, Ghani was far more blunt and sarcastic in denouncing Pakistan. Ghani has seemingly lost faith in Pakistan's efforts to normalise the situation in Afghanistan. The failed peace negotiations with the Taliban, the killing of Mullah Mansour in Balochistan, and regular terror attacks are a constant reminder of Pakistan’s broken promises that have lead to a deterioration of bilateral relations. Mocking Pakistan's financial assistance of $500 million to Afghanistan, Ghani derisively advised Pakistani Prime Minister's Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaz Aziz to spend it on stopping "cross-border terrorism" instead.

In the light of Ghani's failed attempts to normalise ties with Pakistan, Afghanistan has continued to tilt towards India. Modi has also acceded to Kabul's request to provide both financial and military assistance. India recently delivered the fourth Mi-25 helicopter to Afghanistan and further pledged $1 billion aid for future development assistance in September. On the sidelines of the conference, Modi and Ghani agreed to establish a "cargo air corridor", bypassing Pakistan, which could potentially enhance bilateral trade between the two countries. New Delhi is keen to actively pursue the shortest land route access to Afghanistan. However, Pakistan has consistently refused to allow Indian goods to pass through its territory to Afghanistan. Hosting the conference in Amritsar (close to Attari-Wagah crossing) could be a signal to Pakistan regarding the transit of Indian goods to Afghanistan. 

Ghani and Modi's overlapping of objectives were based on Afghanistan and India’s own assessment of their national interests vis-a-vis Pakistan. Hence, the overall objective was not really to 'isolate' Pakistan, as was appropriated by the media. Presumably, it would have been a difficult objective to achieve as both leaders understand Pakistan's potential role in Afghanistan’s future stability. Aziz's presence also indicates Islamabad's willingness to continue engagement on Afghanistan. However, it should not be seen as Pakistan's attempt to genuinely reach a resolution on the issue. Rather, Pakistan's absence from the conference may have contributed to its isolation in the region.

Aziz's attendance at the conference was a reciprocal gesture to Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj's visit to Islamabad in 2015.More importantly, he attended the conference despite significant domestic resistance. In the light of recent developments, he may have sought to convey the foreign office's willingness to defreeze tensions with India at the time of Pakistan’s military transition. Expectedly, there were no developments as far as the bilateral dialogue process was concerned. Contrastingly, Swaraj met Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during her visit to Islamabad, which paved the way for Modi's Lahore visit on Christmas last year. India, at present, may not be willing to resume talks unless Pakistan tightens the noose around the outfits indulging in cross-border terror activities from its soil.

This year, the names of the Pakistan-based India-centric terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad were mentioned in the unanimously adopted HoA 'Declaration'. Pakistan justified the 'unanimous' declaration by citing that it also includes anti-Pakistani outfits such as Tehrik-e-Taliban and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. It is unlikely that this move will stop the terror activities of these groups in the future. Nonetheless, it was a move in the right direction. Also, it brought some respite for India, which could not convince China and Russia to include these outfits in the 'Goa Declaration' at the 2016 BRICS Summit. 

The attempts to corner Pakistan in the region can be seen as a joint tactical move by Afghanistan and India. This move may be workable in the short-term. However, it might, prove insignificant in the long-term given that Pakistan is deepening its ties with other players in the region, such as China and Russia. Ghani and Modi managed to send across a strong message on the issues of terrorism and regional trade connectivity in South Asia. Some positive takeaways for India include the growing understanding between Kabul and New Delhi over Islamabad's role in the region and the inclusion of Pakistan-based terror outfits in the declaration. Still, the overall success of the initiative will primarily depend on how Afghanistan, India and Pakistan engage with each other in the future.

Perils of Nuclear Paranoia

Vijay Shankar



If armed hostilities, for the initiator, has very little to do with military balance both conventional and nuclear; then it raises the prospect that balance may indeed be skewed against gravity.
Nuclear Brinkmanship Plus
The late Thomas Schelling remarking on how skewed a nuclear deterrent relationship could get, famously drew the analogy of “one driver in a game of chicken who tears out and brandishes his steering column.” Conventional wisdom suggests that nuclear brinkmanship is the deliberate creation of a recognisable risk, exposing adversaries to mutual intimidation. If that risk is slanted such as by tearing out the steering column, then the act has a high probability of unleashing a nuclear catastrophe. By tossing the steering wheel out, the reckless motorist assumes the other player will concede the tourney. But this is not necessarily so since removal of the steering wheel to the other may well constitute a breakdown in the deterrent relationship, releasing the latter from nuclear restraint that the relationship may have implied.

The Zhenbao Incident

On 2 March 1969, Chinese troops ambushed and killed a group of Soviet border guards on Zhenbao Island; one of the (then) disputed islands on the Ussuri River. As Sino-Soviet tensions heightened, ownership of these islands designated as a border by the 1860 Treaty of Peking, became a grave issue. To Moscow, the Treaty identified the boundary as running along the Chinese riverbank. China saw, in military action, resolve to deter future provocations partly aggravated by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and further incited by the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’ that gave rights to the Soviets to intervene in the affairs of Communist countries. Mao intended the limited attack to demonstrate that it could not be bullied. Moscow, however, interpreted China’s actions as aggressive and characteristic of a revisionist tendency. By end March, the battle escalated across a wider front.

On the diplomatic front, each armed escalation was paired with threats of  increase in combat operations. So extensive was the intimidation that Mao feared a Soviet invasion preceded by a nuclear ‘first strike’. Behind the frontline, the USSR had requested US neutrality in the matter - the US had other intentions as diplomatic manoeuvres were afoot that sought China as a means of containing the Soviets. By August the USSR threatened to cross the nuclear Rubicon. For Beijing, the knowledge that Moscow had approached other countries to ascertain response to a nuclear strike greatly increased the credibility of the nuclear attack. However, Beijing’s perception of threat-reliability had unintended consequences that stoked the possibility of a nuclear exchange. China believed that negotiations were a  mask for a nuclear “sneak attack.”
By October 1969, alarmed by an imminent Soviet nuclear strike, Chinese leadership evacuated Beijing, and placed its nuclear forces (stockpile of 60 to 80 warheads), on hair trigger alert. Had China wrenched out the steering column? There is much to suggest that it had. Kremlin, as recent reports testify, was stunned at the prospects of a people’s war under the overhang of a steering-less nuclear arsenal. It would appear that the Soviets had swerved out of the path of an uncontrolled Armageddon, and as in Schelling’s game of chicken, conceded the tourney. The two nations, by end October, were at the negotiation table.

Skewing Against Gravity
A central argument in contemporary deterrence literature is that nuclear weapons induce predictability in inter-state relations and prompt mirror imaging in policy-making; this in turn transforms national behaviour and reduces the likelihood of direct conflict between nuclear-armed states. Nuclear weapons, by this thinking, circumscribe the limits of conventional warfare. To the contrary, the Zhenbao war suggests that there can be armed conflicts that, for the initiator, have nothing to do with the military balance both conventional and nuclear. Critically it raises the prospect that balance may indeed be skewed against gravity. The India-Pakistan hostile correlation; China’s activities in the South China Sea, and the North Korea nuclear stand-off are stark reminders of this precept.

Differing Ideas of Deterrence
Strategic culture and the differing idea of deterrence characterise a key role in determining actions taken by international players. China’s traditional word for deterrence, weishe, means “to intimidate militarily” without nuances. While the Oxford English dictionary defines the verb “to deter” as to discourage or prevent, usually by instilling anxiety; from this is derived the accepted idea that essentially upholds the status quo. What Pakistan understands remains blurred: whether it is to discourage all forms of armed conflict against India or to provide an umbrella for non-state actors to bleed India is ambiguous. The introduction of jihadists and non-state actors is unique in that it delivers an asymmetricity that keeps the level of warfare well under the nuclear shadow, is deniable, and yet its impact can be as consequential as any act of war.

Indian strategic planners will do well to appreciate that the international nuclear milieu today is complex and multilateral in nature which increases the chances of strategic misunderstanding. The demand is for explicit credibility if deterrence is to be functional and exertive. In addition, the Zhenbao incident highlights an important dilemma: for deterrence to be effective, an opponent must fear the consequences of actions; however, excessive anxiety is also a potential peril, as it can lead to paranoia that ‘tears out the steering column’.

2 Jan 2017

The Denys Holland Scholarship for Financially-Challenged Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Friday, 7th July, 2017
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: International
To be taken at (country): United Kingdom
Eligible Field of Study: Courses offered at the University
About the Award: The Denys Holland Scholarship aims to support undergraduate students from any country, who without the support of the scholarship would be unable to secure the funding required to study at UCL, and who can demonstrate their intention to make full use of the activities offered by UCL and the Student Union.
Professor Denys Holland, in whose memory the Denys Holland Fund was created via donations from his students, was a sociable, compassionate man. A Professor of Law and Dean of Students, one of his principal concerns was the welfare and fulfilment of students under his care. His admissions policy for the Faculty of Laws was aimed at a broad range of students who would enter fully into college life.
Offered Since: Not known
Type: Undergraduate Taught
Eligibility: Candidates should be:
  • holding an offer of admission to UCL for full-time undergraduate study in any department;
  • in financial hardship, and be able to demonstrate that without the scholarship they would be unable to study at UCL;
  • preferably aged 25 or below at the time of commencing their studies;
  • able to demonstrate that they have broad interests and intend to be actively involved in and contribute to the life of the university.
Selection Criteria: The scholarship is awarded on the basis of financial hardship, subject to applicants demonstrating their intention to play a full part in extracurricular activities of UCL and the Students Union.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Scholarship: The scholarship is worth £9,000 per annum and scholars may choose to use all or part of the scholarship to cover fees. Any remainder is paid to the scholar as a maintenance stipend.
Duration of Scholarship: The scholarship is for one year in the first instance, but will be renewed subject to satisfactory progress, for up to a total of three years.
How to Apply: Interested candidates should visit the scholarship webpage to apply.
Award Provider: The University College, London, Denys Holland Foundation
Important Notes: The scholarship may be held alongside other grants, bursaries, awards or scholarships, provided annual total funding does not exceed the cost of fees plus a reasonable sum for maintenance in any one year (as determined by UCL).

University of Manchester Fully-funded Online Masters Scholarships for African Countries 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 17th March 2017.
Application opens: 13th February 2017.
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.
To be taken at (country): Online
Eligible Field of Study: Public Health
About the Award: Online learning gives you the flexibility to combine study with work, family and other commitments. We encourage women to apply. Check the online Master of Public Health (in link below) course pages to make sure you understand what the course involves and read the course description carefully.
Type: Masters
Eligibility: Manchester master’s scholarships are aimed at talented applicants, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, who would not otherwise have the opportunity to study for a UK qualification. To apply for a scholarship, you must:
  • have at least two years’ relevant post-graduation work experience (this does not include unpaid internships or voluntary work);
  • hold a first or upper second class (or the equivalent) undergraduate degree;
  • be a resident citizen of Rwanda and have not previously studied outside Africa;
  • be committed to returning home and able to demonstrate the potential to make a positive impact on the future of your home country;
  • have a clear idea how studying in Manchester will benefit both your career and the wider community.
Please note that a Certificate of Proficiency from a local university cannot be considered as evidence of your level of English language proficiency.
IELTS and TOEFL test results are only valid for two years. Your English language test report must be valid on the start date of the course.
Also You will require regular access to a modern personal computer (Windows or Mac) with a stable internet connection. You should be confident in using the internet for web browsing and sending emails and also using word processing software, such as Microsoft Word.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Scholarship: Scholarships cover all tuition fees, course materials and examinations.
How to Apply: You don’t need to have an offer of admission to apply for the scholarship. Please do not apply for master’s admission separately; if your scholarship application is successful then an academic offer will be made.
Applications for scholarships for entry in September 2017 will open on 13 February 2017.
Award Provider: University of Manchester

Apply for the Google Online Marketing Challenge for Students 2017

The goal for students is to gain practical knowledge of creating effective online marketing campaign in Google AdWords.
How it works
Google will provide a US$250 budget for participating students to develop an online advertising strategy for a real business or non-profit organization that has not used AdWords in the last six months.
The competition is open to all students, regardless of major, with teams ranging in size from three to six. All students must register under a verified professor/instructor at a higher education institution.
The global winners and their professor receive a trip to the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California to meet with the AdWords team. Regional winners and their professor receive a trip to a regional Google office.
Competition Registration 
Professor Registration
Professors register for the Challenge from October 5, 2016 – March 22, 2017. Once a professor registers, he or she will get a confirmation email. Google will verify their employment at the educational institution. Verification may vary depending on the institution.
After verfying professors, the students can register their team on the Student Dashboard. Professors will then receive a notification email from Google to verify their student teams. Once the professor verifies (by clicking a link) that the team is associated with him/her, the AdWords account information for that team will appear in the student dashboard.
IMPORTANT:
  • Please make sure to check the email ‘spam’ folders, as some email software may flag Online Marketing Challenge emails as spam.
  • Your registration will be complete in 24-48 hours depending on the successful verification of your entry details.
Student Registration
Students can register from October 5, 2016 – April 5, 2017. Professors MUST have registered before students can register their student teams on the dashboard. Students can refer to the registration process below or see the Competition Guidelines for more details:
  • Form a team and nominate a team captain.
  • Select a business or non-profit organization.
  • Access the Student Dashboard and register your team and enter your professor´s email address. Your professor will receive a notification email to verify your team.
  • After your professor has verified your team, you create an AdWords account and enter the 10-digit customer ID into the student dashboard.
  • Meet with your business and write your Pre-Campaign Report. Once you have uploaded this to the student dashboard, you will see a coupon code appear.
  • Follow the instructions below to enter the coupon code and credit your account:
    1. Log into your AdWords account.
    2. Go to the Billing Tab, and click on “Billing Preferences”.
    3. Select the country, then enter your contact details, and press continue.
    4. Select “Manual Payments”, and where it asks for an optional “promo code”, enter the coupon code and press continue.
    5. $250 will immediately be credited to your account and you’re ready to go!

For detailed information on the Challenge, visit registration page