14-02-2021: Russian Roulette. The deadly game where participants place a gun to their head and hope that when they pull the trigger the revolver chamber will be empty is in many respects a close analogy for those who, reluctantly or otherwise, will line up for a vaccine which supposedly will alleviate some symptoms of the alleged illness labelled Covid-19.[1] This is hardly an exaggeration. In the US, the Centres for Disease Control (CDC)’s own Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reported 653 deaths amongst 12 697 adverse reactions following Covid-19 vaccinations – and this is just between December 14 2020 and February 4, 2021.[2] Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a Beijing based immunologist called for the halting of Covid vaccinations for the elderly, given that people over 80 have weaker immune systems. This followed a Norwegian government investigation into the deaths of 23 elderly nursing home residents who died after taking the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which found that in 13 cases the Covid vax was the direct cause.[3]
Covid vax is political, not scientific, not medical
The sheer absurdity of attempting to vaccinate the entire world’s population of 7.8 billion people for a claimed disease which, if it exists, has an infection fatality rate of between 0.1 and 0.2%,[4] should be obvious. The global death rate over the past 20 years has remained stable, or has even declined, even during 2020.[5] One does not need ANY scientific or medical qualifications to conclude that there is no pandemic, there was no pandemic, and what has taken place is a malicious fraud. What has and is taking place is the largest assault in history on the working class by the top echelons of finance capital. Primarily this is led by US/EU imperialism, with the treacherous backing of the governments of the non-imperialist powers and nations targeted by the West – the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Russian Federation, Iran and so on. The sacking of millions of workers, the driving of millions into poverty and desperation, the closure of national and state borders, the shutting down of whole sectors of economies – none of this is carried out in the name of “health”. To claim so invites ridicule.
The attempted administration of any Covid vaccine is entirely political; it is an abomination of both science and medicine. It is yet another fascistic measure introduced to track and trace whole populations, not only abolishing the most elementary civil rights, but singling out those who refuse the vax as dissenters, “anti-vaxxers”, “conspiracy theorists” and other labels. Independent thought is an impediment to an uncontrolled totalitarianism, so those thinking in a way that does not conform must be shunned, ostracised and even taken away to quarantine camps. The labels do not really matter – it is just an “other” which is supposedly harmful to the rest of society, so no questions will be asked when they are removed by people in white coats, or perhaps even the military. The world has been here before, and many can see us heading down the same path today. The difference today is the switching of the roles of “left” and “right”. In the 20th Century, fascist movements arose and were sustained by the forces of the political right, e.g. Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain and Hitler’s Germany.
Liberalism serves reaction
2020 saw what appeared to be the reversing of the historical roles of left and right politics. Instead of the right-wing leading a movement of reaction, it is the so-called left which is driving the ultra-conservative repression we see today. Far from being enlightened and pluralist “live and let live” reformers, today’s liberals have been animated by billionaire capitalists as the henchmen of a dark fascism which brooks no opposition. Witness “cancel culture” right up to and including verbal and physical attacks on those not wearing facemasks, or those who simply point out logical inconsistencies with the acts and statements of politicians and health bureaucrats. We stress that these political forces are liberal, they are not “left-wing” in the slightest. Liberals can serve global capitalism more loyally than conservatives, and this is precisely what is now occurring. This confuses many, on both sides of the anti-lockdown and pro-lockdown divide. However, genuine Marxism provides illumination.
During the 20th Century, the capitalist ruling classes handed power to right-wing fascist movements where they arose, and where they feared the alternative would be a left-wing or socialist seizure of power. In Italy, Spain and Germany during the 20s and 30s, the ruling classes utilised fascist forces which were not previously established in the bourgeois parliamentary system. Yet the bourgeoisie is not by any means obligated to use conservative forces to impose fascism. They can use liberal political forces to do so because both liberalism and fascism has the same class basis. That is to say, both liberalism and fascism are political forms of capitalism – the rule of unelected super-wealthy financiers and industrialists based on the exploitation and suppression of working people. The ruling classes may in fact use existing parliamentary parties to introduce and enforce fascist dictates – it does not necessarily need to create new far-right parties. This phenomenon, while novel in history, only increases the need for organised working-class resistance to “woke” capitalism.
All forms of fascism – including the Covidian – issues the working class with an ultimatum; yield or stand and deliver. The proletariat has no choice but to fight for its freedom, and the anti-lockdown movement is already taking the lead around the globe. It has every reason to be optimistic in this struggle, as the overwhelming majority of workers detest lockdowns, forced facemasks and forced vaccines. But many are dismayed, given the base treachery of the lockdown left – fake “socialist” parties, Union officials and social-democrats who have merged with the imperialist state as it imposes the Covid fraud. Whatever their rhetoric, the lockdown left are but the hangmen of Jeff Bezos.
The building of the anti-lockdown movement and resistance to forced vaccines, tracking and tracing, testing, quarantine camps, isolation and facemasks is the first step towards liberation. The permanent elimination of lockdowns will require the formation of workers’ councils as the incipient organs of a new state which can begin to dismantle the old world and lay the basis for the end of the profit system. Public ownership of the means of production and a planned economy will forever end the horror and abuse of Covidian terror, and generations to come will revere those who stood fast.
07-02-2021: When is a military coup progressive? When it stymies and rolls back the designs of US imperialism, that’s when. On February 1 the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) detained leader Aung Sung Suu Kyi and took control for 12 months, citing a clause in the country’s 2008 constitution. The clause states that in case of a national emergency, the president and the National Defence and Security Council can issue a decree to hand the government’s executive, legislative and judicial powers to the Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief.[1] The Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services is Min Aung Hlaing, who is now in power of the state for the coming year. Suu Kyi along with President U Win Myint and other National League for Democracy (NLD) officials were detained, with the Tatmadaw announcing a new round of elections will be held due to voter irregularities and suspected fraud during the November 8 election last year.[2] The NLD “won” an absolute parliamentary majority, and has been running the government in Myanmar since 2016.[3]
Coup installed President denounces…coup
Scaling the heights of hypocrisy, US President Joe Biden – weeks after being installed in a deep state coup where blatant and overt electoral fraud was documented[4] – condemned the Tatmadaw’s takeover in Myanmar. His statement threatened to reimpose sanctions which were lifted following the 2016 election which propelled Suu Kyi into the leadership. Laughably, Biden’s statement also averred that “The United States will stand up for democracy whenever it is under attack” ![5] This is from the very same government which has directly funded “civil society” Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in Myanmar for decades – almost all of which have the aim of subverting if not overthrowing the state.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the public relations arms of the CIA, even lists on its own website around 80 phony “human rights” and “investigative journalism” organisations it funds and sustains. Using the British colonial based former name of Myanmar (Burma),the names of just some of these organisations are a dead giveaway: Assistance for Political Prisoners and Human Rights Advocacy, Burmese Language Satellite Television Broadcasts, Civil Society Development in Burma, Empowering Burmese Democracy Activists and so on.[6] Obviously, this is not benevolent funding so much as a direct and orchestrated attempt at regime change, which blatantly violates any semblance of Myanmar’s national sovereignty. It is the internal political version of landing US troops on the beaches and marching to the capital. Yet it has been going on for decades – and was the prime reason why Aung Sung Suu Kyi became leader (or State Counsellor) in the first place.
British imperialism is also in on the act. It is no exaggeration to say that almost the entirety of the “pro-democracy” movement – including the NLD – is a not indigenous to Myanmar at all. It is a product of the political and financial backing of two of the most powerful capitalist powers on earth – the US and the United Kingdom (UK).[7] This faux “democracy” movement is so powerful that it is virtually impossible to run in the elections against the NLD and make any substantial electoral gains. The US and UK funded fronts operating in Myanmar operate as para-state organisations, and working people in Myanmar simply do not have the political or financial resources to compete with them. The Tatmadaw’s claim that the November 8, 2020 election in Myanmar contained fraud is indeed feasible.
Targeting Red China
The goal of this extensive political interference in Myanmar by Washington and London, and backed by Canberra[8], is not only to procure a more pro-Western government in Naypyidaw. It is also aimed at Myanmar’s giant neighbour, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The economy of the PRC, a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state, is in the process of outstripping the capitalist economies of the US and Europe because it does not primarily run on the basis of production for private profit. Huge state-owned industries in the PRC provide the stimulus for economic growth rates which are simply not possible in the West – or at least not over a period of decades. Myanmar, a direct neighbour of the PRC and a developing country, has no option but to join with the PRC in its offers of mutually beneficial trade, investment and infrastructure building opportunities. Neither the US nor Europe nor Australia nor Japan can even offer the economic partnerships the PRC can. Aung Sung Suu Kyi, despite being installed with the backing of Washington and London, understood this. She did not break Myanmar’s ties with the PRC, as it would be economic suicide. This enraged Washington, which cannot abide by sovereign decisions to do business with Beijing.
This was the real basis for the Western campaign against Suu Kyi over the manufactured Rohingya “crisis” of 2017. Washington was scarcely concerned about the human rights of the Rohingya in the Rakhine state – they were far more concerned about the PRC assisting Myanmar in building the deep-water port of Kyaukpyu, which lies at the conclusion of the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline. This pipeline went into use in 2013, and stretches from Kyaukpyu in the Bay of Bengal through to Kunming in South Western China, dissecting Myanmar. The PRC is building the Kyaukpyu port as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and delivering oil and gas to Kyaukpyu via the pipeline for export bypasses the Malacca Strait.[9] This means that the oil and gas shipments do not have to negotiate the South China Sea, which remains patrolled by US warships with the assistance of the Australian Navy.
The crocodile tears and handwringing by Western governments over the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh in 2017 was pure hypocrisy. The Rohingya were fleeing violence from two sources. Firstly, they had been subjected to racist physical attacks from Buddhist “monks” who wanted to drive them out of Myanmar, and who were also a part of the political base of the “Saffron Revolution” which assisted Aung Sung Suu Kyi into power. Secondly, they were fleeing from the violence instigated by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) – who do not at ally deny their links to Al Qaeda. Despite their name the ARSA do not only attack the Myanmar government, they attack other Rohingyas who do not support their violent separatism.[10]
It was sheer folly to suggest the Tatmadaw engaged in a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya. In reality, the Tatmadaw were responding to an armed pre-dawn attack on 30 policeposts across the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, as well as an army post at Tuang Bazaar. The ARSA assault took the lives of at least 10 police, 80 ARSA militia and 6 civilians.[11] The Rohingya who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh were thus fleeing the conflict between the ARSA terrorists[12] and the Tatmadaw, with the clear danger of being caught in the crossfire. Can anyone imagine what the government response would be in Australia, the US or the UK if a militant group had launched an ambush on police stations and slaughtered 10 police officers? To ask this question is to answer it.
Armed separatists bordering the PRC
Suu Kyi – and most in Myanmar – could see the manipulation of the Rohingya “cause”. Therefore she (correctly in this case) refused to acknowledge alleged “human rights” crimes in the Rakhine state. This – along with her rational position of refusing to break lucrative and necessary trade and investment ties with Beijing – was the reason Suu Kyi was subject to a backlash from Western liberals who had previously upheld her as a democracy icon. There were calls for the Nobel laureate to be stripped of her Nobel peace prize, and Amnesty International stripped her of its highest award, an “Ambassador of Conscience”.[13] In practice, this was also an expression of US imperialism giving Suu Kyi a public slap on the wrist for not being pliable enough in their barely concealed anti-China drive.
At the same time, Western backing of armed separatist groups along the norther border with the PRC continues. Armed groups from the Kachin state are engaged in a running battle with the Tatmadaw, ostensibly for “independence”, but in reality serving to destabilise co-operation between Myanmar and the PRC. Kachin fighters in fact formed part of the UK’s Burmese colonial army stemming out of World War II. It was stacked with Kachin alongside Gurkha from Nepal and Punjabis from India, while there were barely any from the Burman majority.[14] A classic divide and rule colonial tactic, but one which serves to disrupt key Myanmar-PRC building projects today.
For example, the Kachin Development Network Group (KDNG) – another US government funded NGO in Myanmar – publicly campaigns against the Myitsone Dam project in the Kachin state. Wikileaks revealed some of its activities some five years ago.[15] Ostensibly they campaign against the dam on environmental grounds, claiming that people will be displaced and environmental damage will be caused. Yet this is a transparent ruse to oppose a major project that will provide electricity to areas of northern Myanmar that have never previously seen it – in order to disrupt economic activity which is spurred through dealings with China.
US funded fronts, not “NGOs”
It is oxymoronic to describe US funded NGOs as “NGOs”, as their entire agenda matches that of one of the most powerful foreign governments in the world. Even the Australian state media admits US funding of the “civil society” groups in Myanmar would not be affected by any sanctions that were applied. This amounts to a sum – or that which they admit to – of $US 108 million per year.[16] This money does not go to the people of Myanmar – it pours into a spectrum of organisations which undermine and subvert the government towards US interests. They include fake human rights fronts, quasi legal organisations, media organisations and supposedly environment focused campaign groups. In reality, they politically bolster the NLD, and undermine, attack and reverse cooperation between Myanmar and the PRC.[17] For unknown reasons, the Tatmadaw has allowed these US funded political mining operations to operate unhindered in Myanmar for decades.[18]
However, the Tatmadaw’s recent takeover is the first indicator that perhaps it needs to take steps to ensure US/UK influence does not prevail entirely. Ultimately, the US would prefer to have US troops in Myanmar on the border with Red China, as a continuation of imperialism’s struggle to contain and encircle the PRC – in the manner of Russia and Iran. The US almost gained complete control of Myanmar via Aung Sung Suu Kyi and its fabricated NLD. However, the Tatmadaw has stepped in to prevent this from occurring. To this extent only, Marxists offer critical support to the actions of the Tatmadaw insofar as it acts to defend Myanmar and its people from US control. In a similar way in which Marxists offered critical support to the actions of the Russian government in using its superior air power to strike down ISIS mercenaries in Syria, the actions the Tatmadaw takes to defend Myanmar from Western or Al Qaeda backed terrorists can be similarly defended.
For a socialist Asia
Needless to say, military moves in Myanmar alone are not enough to curtail the intrigues of the US Empire, especially when it tactically plays the game of political subversion so well. Already, a “civil disobedience” campaign to the Tatmadaw coup among health workers and teachers has begun,[19] no doubt linked to the very US backed NGOs well versed in disguising political motives. The Tatmadaw would do well to begin to uproot and remove these subversive groups entirely. Or at the very least, put in place laws such as those of the Russian Federation. In Russia, US funded fronts are required by law to publicly disclose their funding[20], so that Russians know exactly who is behind the groups being vocal for “democracy” and “human rights”. It is one reason why the pro-US “democracy” groups in Russia have such little backing, which is confined to a relative handful of malcontents.
Amongst other things, given that both the government and the Tatmadaw were in the process of implementing the Covid “pandemic” nonsense, neither offer political direction to the workers of Myanmar. Only a genuine socialist movement can provide a path forward for Myanmar and all of South Asia. While economic cooperation with the PRC will be vital, politically South Asia needs proletarian revolutions in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia to be combined with proletarian political revolutions in China, Vietnam, and Laos. The forging of internationally linked Leninist vanguard parties is a prerequisite, to light the path towards regionally integrated planned economies.
24-12-2020: Chan Han Choi is undoubtedly a pro-socialist class war political prisoner. The Australian government imprisoned Choi under high security for almost three years in 2017 without charge. Choi is the first person ever to be charged in Australia under the Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act.[1] After nearly three years behind bars and being subjected to cruel restrictions – such as having to speak to his wife in English only and having his conversations with his lawyers listened to by authorities – Choi has been released from prison only to now be engaged in a form of house arrest until his trial takes place. Chan Han Choi originates from South Korea, (Republic of Korea – ROK) but has lived in Sydney and worked as a cleaner for over 30 years. He views the political system in North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – DPRK) as one which protects and acts in the interests of working people – which indeed it largely does.
Unjustifiable sanctions
His only “crime” was to allegedly organise some trade deals which – if they had actually occurred – would have enabled a small measure of relief from the crippling sanctions imposed on the DPRK effectively by US imperialism. During his period of detention, Choi stated his belief that the sanctions administered by the United Nations (UN) on the DPRK are fundamentally unjust and unfair.[2] Workers of the world can only reaffirm this basic truth. The UN, acting as a cat’s paw of the US Empire, imposes sanctions which themselves could be a form of genocide against the people of the DPRK. The sanctions forbid any sailing vessel or aircraft from transferring goods directly or indirectly from another country to the DPRK. An exhaustive list of materials, goods, equipment and technology are simply prohibited from reaching the DPRK. Many basic necessities are listed under “luxury items” or are listed as “dual use” – meaning they COULD be used for the DPRK’s nuclear or ballistic missile weapons programs.[3]
In reality, any electrical goods and equipment could be used for military purposes. Obviously though, they could also be used for straightforward domestic industrial and commercial purposes, and for the basic functioning of the economy. The DPRK – a heavily deformed workers’ state – has the express right to defend itself from invasion from US imperialism. This is a daily and ongoing reality for all Koreans, as a result of the repelling of the US led war on Korea in the early 1950s. The DPRK has seen what has happened to Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya if a state does not possess nuclear weapons and other ballistic missiles: it will be invaded and destroyed by Washington. The DPRK would much prefer not to have to build ANY weapons of mass destruction. Alas, it has no choice but to do so.
All lockdowns must be opposed
Without question, the campaign of solidarity to free Chan Han Choi has been organised and led by the left party Trotskyist Platform (TP)[4]. From the outset, TP have been the drivers behind the important demonstrations which help to break down the fierce anti-socialist hysteria directed against the DPRK, which in turn is a sub-set of the irrational antagonism against China (People’s Republic of China – PRC). At the same time, TP’s campaign in 2020 has a fatal flaw. TP is a card-carrying member of the lockdown left – ostensibly revolutionary left parties which allied with the very imperialist powers they claim to oppose on the fake coronavirus “pandemic”. As we wrote in August, so fervently does TP agree with the Australian government and all bourgeois politicians that the world is beset by a deadly plague of biblical proportions, TP actually make public calls for mandatory temperature testing in workplaces of more than two people, and for public housing residents to be locked down by health workers rather than police![5] Yet Chan Han Choi is himself subjected to a lockdown: prison and now house arrest. Does TP call for the release of Choi from lockdowns, but for all other workers to be locked down – due to Covid?
The lockdown left tries in vain to separate the lockdowns from all other political activity. They would have us believe that the response of the capitalist governments to a virus which is most likely one of the many coronaviruses which circulate every winter[6] is simply a “health” issue. With TP at the forefront, the lockdown left mumble about the job losses, poverty, depression, domestic violence and economic destruction – but echo government lies that this is all caused by a virus. TP would have us believe that the removal of free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of movement and the most elementary civil and democratic rights are necessary to “save lives”. They rally workers against the same politicians who are inflicting cruel punishment on Chan Han Choi – but also want us to strongly back these politicians when they prevent children from going to school or playing with their friends! The lockdowns themselves take lives[7], as that is a part of the civil war that finance capital is waging against the working class. For TP though, lockdowns enforced by cops and/or the military is actually the state trying to save your life![8] Years of TP’s warnings about the dangers the capitalist state pose to workers have vanished into thin air.
The ideological and political Covid prostration of TP before the very bourgeois forces which not only are detaining Choi but are threatening the DPRK and the world with nuclear war, is illuminating. Workers need a consistent message. They cannot be told, on the one hand, that capitalism is their enemy, but on the other hand, be asked to fully comply with the same capitalist system when it locks them down under house arrest – with the threadbare Covid excuse. If the Prime Ministers and Presidents of the West are allies on Covid – why would they not be allies on other issues? Why be a socialist? Why join a Union or any left party at all – if, on Covid, all we should do is obey “our own” corporate politicians and the mainstream media?
Workers should strive to support the campaign to free Chan Han Choi. But it is crucial to oppose all lockdowns and ALL aspects of lockdown terror. Chan Han Choi and the working class can only be fully emancipated once EVERY part of bourgeois ideology is defeated – not just fragments of it. Therefore we urge workers to build the anti-lockdown movement as part of an initial struggle for the reclaiming of free speech, freedom of assembly and every other right that workers need in their battles against the rule of the private banks and the stock exchange. The most class aware workers amongst those resisting the draconian dictates of the Covidian state need to be welded into internationally linked Marxist vanguard parties, to help lead the struggle for liberation from lockdowns and other relics of class society.
16-12-2020: Out of the carnage wrought by “Covid” lockdowns comes the next step in the offensive of finance capital against working people and the oppressed – the “Great Reset”. The Reset can be interpreted in different ways, but the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and “Transhumanism”, universal surveillance and constant tracking and tracing, which began under Corona lockdowns, are key components. Arguably, one of the key architects is Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) a talk shop and front of world capitalism. Schwab’s 2016 book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), and his 2020 work, co-authored with Thierry Malleret, Covid-19: The Great Reset are manuals which do not hide the particular form of fascism which lockdown mania has engendered.[1]
Transhumanism ?
The Covid-19 pandemic of lies has given Western ruling classes a convenient excuse to implement measures that would otherwise have provoked an uproar. Ever-changing rules and restrictions, lockdowns, house arrest, the forbidding of human contact with family and friends – these and other forms of scientifically groundless[2] repression were enforced by the police and armed forces of capitalist states the world over. Unfortunately, they were also mimicked by the authorities in the bureaucratically deformed workers’ states – e.g., the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Yet to be implemented as part of the fake pandemic is the spectre of transhumanism, for which Klaus Schwab is the pre-eminent enthusiast.
Transhumanism is the implanting of the human body with various forms of technology, such as microchips, or perhaps even vaccines which can be read with scanners through human skin. In November, Schwab told the Chicago Council of Global Affairs that the 4IR would lead to a “fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity”.[3] This could result in scenarios out of the Minority Report sci-fi film, where law enforcement is used to arrest and detain people before they supposedly commit a crime. It could lead to a situation where people are prevented from crossing national borders following a brain scan that identifies their thought patterns as a security risk. Sounds beyond the realms of reality, but many things previously unimaginable became reality when the imperialist powers used a slightly different strain of a flu as a flimsy excuse for authoritarian terrorism during “Corona”.
Socialists are the last ones to oppose the use of technology to advance society, and in fact are its foremost advocates. However, as long as the working class does not have its hands on the reigns of state power, the capitalist ruling classes will use advances in technology for their advantage, and no one else’s. If technological advances allow capitalist state authorities to track and trace workers, to determine their ideological and political identities in an instant, to block “undesirables” (such as those who refuse what is most likely an extremely dangerous and experimental Covid vaccine) from accessing public transport or travelling overseas, then they will do it. The further the system of production for private profit drags society down, the greater the degree of political repression is required by the ruling elite. While technological improvements can make some aspects of workers’ lives easier, the agents of big capital can also use them for merciless tyranny.
Liberal capital leads the offensive
“Covid-19”, “The New Normal” and now “The Great Reset” are key elements of entirely bourgeois propaganda which shrouds the sustained and vicious assault by the stock markets and the banks on working and oppressed people. The driving of workers into poverty either through direct job cuts or driving down the remaining working conditions where jobs still exist, combined with political and psychological terror, are supposed to be accepted and even embraced as the way things are now. Under the guise of a virus so deadly 99.98% of people survive it, working people endure suppression and humiliation that would make even the Nazis blush. Yet the ruling class cannot rule without hoodwinking the masses into believing that their suffering is good for society. So it is with the Reset.
Thankfully, not all workers are fooled. Many of them are aware that the billionaires have vastly increased their wealth during Corona, exposing the pandemic as fraudulent once again. Billionaire wealth in fact reached a record 10.2 trillion dollars[4] during the 2020 lockdowns, while millions lost their jobs in the first world, and many more lost their livelihoods altogether in the third world. This staggering inequality will continue under the Great Reset, an extension of the nightmare of lockdowns. The Reset must be resolutely opposed by workers internationally, along with the lunacy of Covid restrictions.
The fact that the Covid lockdowns and now the Reset is being championed by woke or liberal capital, such as billionaire Amazon Fuhrer Jeff Bezos, does not at all indicate any trace of a socialist agenda – as some in the anti-lockdown movement mistakenly believe. While it is true that top Union officials, the Democrats/Joe Biden, liberal mainstream parties, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and the so-called left spearheaded the anti-working class Covid lockdowns, this is NOT politically progressive in the slightest. By a quirk of history, the forces of liberalism are now more reactionary than the forces of conservatism. In fact, one could argue that fascism today has abandoned conservatism and has employed liberalism as its vessel of choice.[5]
In addition, workers must not be drawn into the illusion that the Great Reset is “socialist” because it is being led by “globalists”, such as the United Nations. It only appears“globalist” because the capitalist ruling classes work together internationally with their class (such as coordinating lockdown terror) as a matter of course. Alas, it also appears “globalist” due to the betrayal of the governments of the deformed workers’ states (principally the People’s Republic of China) along with the governments of the non-imperialist powers (principally Russia) and the non-imperialist states (principally Iran). These governments (not their workers) have played up to the fear pandemic narrative, in a vain attempt to ingratiate themselves with imperialism itself. The Great Reset, however, is the continuation of the Covid-19 capitalist assault, and can only be countered through international resistance, including the forging of Marxist vanguard parties which fight against lockdowns and for workers’ power.
22-11-2020: Governments the world over are bending over backwards to either produce or obtain an alleged vaccine which will supposedly inoculate the entire world’s population against Covid-19. After around 8 months of brutal and inhumane lockdowns, mandatory facemask orders and absurd social-distancing edicts, we are being offered the chimera of the end of this madness IF you subject yourself to a vaccine which has been produced at warp speed. Usually, at least 15 years of design, testing and assessment is necessary before a vaccine is ready for human usage, but the Covid vaccine will putatively be ready to roll in six months. Skeptical? You should be.
Has the virus been isolated?
We were already aware that the Covid “pandemic” is a nothing burger,[1] and the use of the term in relation to it a linguistic travesty. Yet now there is some evidence emerging that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may not have been isolated and purified.[2] If this is true, then not only does SARS-CoV-2 not exist as such, it also means there may be no Covid-19 respiratory illness which is allegedly one result of coming into contact with SARS-CoV-2. A stunning report from Spanish medical researchers reiterated that there cannot be a test for a virus without knowing the components of the virus trying to be found. The components for the virus are not known UNLESS it has been isolated and purified. There is no hard evidence that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been isolated and purified – therefore there is no test which can detect it.[3] The RT-PCR “test” which has been used to “detect” SARS-CoV-2 is likely to pick up fragments of numerous microbes. Under some circumstances, anyone can test positive!
This raises enormous issues for the design and production of a vaccine for Covid. If the virus has not been isolated, how exactly will a vaccine work at all? Moreover, is SARS-CoV-2 still circulating? As far back as May this year, the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute was concerned that there was a 50% chance of no Covid vaccine being developed at all. Why? Because even back in May, the virus was already disappearing![4] This follows the trend of virtually all flu viruses – it spreads by “infecting” many people for 5 to 6 weeks, it reaches a peak, and then falls away rapidly as natural or community immunity is obtained. It is becoming more and more apparent that SARS-CoV-2 may well be simply a part of the combination of cold and flu coronaviruses that come around each winter.
The difficulty with producing a vaccine for Covid also stems from the fact that influenza viruses shift and drift their genomes each year, so immunity from last year’s batch may not confer immunity from this year’s. Like the general flu vaccine which does not give you any guarantee that it will stop you from getting the flu, this means that a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is difficult to develop and probably ineffective in the best case – or completely worthless.[5] This has not stopped Big Pharma from trying – seeing billions of dollar signs. Big Pharma mega firm Johnson & Johnson, however, had to pause its Covid-19 vaccine trials due to an “unexplained” illness in one of the trial participants. Johnson & Johnson of course refused to reveal the details, claiming the need to protect privacy.[6] In the case of the Oxford-AstraZeneca trial, though, they could not hide the fact that one of the Brazilian volunteer trial subjects died during testing. Despite this, without breaking step, Oxford-AstraZeneca continued the trial.[7] Needless to say, rushing the development of vaccines, which necessitates cutting corners by Big Pharma corporations with a track record of deception and outright criminal conduct, is literally playing Russian Roulette with human health.[8]
For democratic rights
The Covid vaccine nightmare may become a reality – and it may be mandatory. The sheer absurdity of forcing people to be injected with a vaccine that is probably useless at its claimed intention should be obvious. Add to this the possibility of injury and death that may result, and the legal indemnity of the Big Pharma producers under any circumstance – and the farce becomes diabolical. Basic democratic rights state that all people should consent to any medical treatment at any time. Unfortunately, basic democratic rights have been the first casualty of the coronavirus fear pandemic, and working people are going to have to fight to win them all over again.
“Covid-19” is in practice a civil war launched by the billionaire class against working and oppressed people. In this sense, a Covid-19 vaccine is neither scientific nor medical, but ideological and political. A Covid vaccine may well be used for surveillance, and evidence of vaccination may be required to travel, to use public transport, or even to gain employment. The ruling class is deliberately fostering and fomenting conflict between the Covid believers and Covid skeptics, between lockdown fanatics and lockdown resisters. The class lines are now crystal clear – for Covid and with imperialism, or against Covid and with the resistance.
Imperialism has employed rabid and willing assistants – some paid, some unpaid. Big Tech, Big Pharma, Union officials, liberals, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Hollywood, Extinction Rebellion, and left parties who unironically claim to be “socialist” – all now stand on the wrong side of history. Unfortunately, they are joined by the governments of the non-imperialist bloc (Russia, China, Iran, DPRK, Vietnam, Cuba etc.), who have likewise betrayed their own working class by entertaining Covid and even enforcing their own lockdowns. The Covid resistance, on the other hand, stands on the side of hope, progress, and the survival of human civilisation. Forced vaccines, lockdowns, facemasks, social-distancing – to say nothing of the millions of job cuts and the virtual abolition of democratic and civil rights – will not end until this particular form of fascism is overthrown. Real socialists must be a part of the Covid resistance, despite the heterogeneity of political forces involved. The stakes are too high to be concerned about unlikely alliances. NO FORCED VACCINE! FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS!
15-11-2020: On October 20, reports emerged of the alleged killing of 12 protestors at two locations in Lagos[1], (Lekki and Alausa) Nigeria’s most populous city. The protestors were claimed to be part of the #EndSARS movement. “SARS” refers to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a police unit set up in 1992. Ostensibly, this is a movement of Nigerian youth against police brutality. In reality, it is yet another covert attempt at regime change in Africa, which serves the ends of Washington in a struggle for relevance in their period of economic and political decline. Whenever a protest movement rapidly moves from the stated reason for protests (in this case police brutality) to calls for the leader (in this case President Muhammadu Buhari) to step down, you can smell the interference of the US state department from miles away. Even as the Nigerian government responded to the #EndSARS movement by renaming the SARS unit the SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) unit, the protests moved seamlessly into calls for Buhari to step down. #EndSARS became #Buharimustgo[2], and the fig leaf covering the movement was blown away.
What really happened?
The #EndSARS movement claims that the military opened fire on peaceful protestors at Lekki, but this appears fallacious. Both the Nigerian military and the police emphatically deny shooting at protestors. Nigeria’s army said the shootings were “fake news”, while the Police Minister Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi told the BBC that troops were NOT ordered to open fire on protestors, and that soldiers are denying their involvement.[3] Major Osoba Olaniyi, a spokesperson for the 81st division of the Nigerian Army, insisted that soldiers did NOT shoot at #EndSARS protestors. What occurred was that there was an outbreak of violence amongst #EndSARS protestors, or some elements intent on hijacking the movement. Several police stations were attacked and burnt, some police officers were killed, some suspects in police custody were released and weapons were carried away. In response to the violence and anarchy, the Lagos state government decided to call in the military to restore order after a 24 hour curfew was imposed.[4] Far from the fanciful narrative of the #EndSARS movement, the Lagos state government responded in the same manner as many governments around the world would, if it experienced terroristic violence being waged against it.
We have seen such tactics many times before, in US orchestrated attempts to paint a government targeted for removal as “brutal” or “authoritarian”. Create, fund and even arm an opposition within the country, provoke a reaction from the security forces, claim “oppression” from a “dictator”, garner political backing from liberal establishments the world over, and ramp up the political pressure internationally. It has been attempted, with varying degrees of “success” in Serbia, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and the list goes on. In Africa, similar attempts have recently been made in Algeria[5] and Sudan[6]. Now it is the turn of Nigeria, but this time, claimed political legitimacy is dispensed by Black Lives Matter (BLM), foot soldiers of big capital who ransacked parts of the US itself in order to dethrone US President Donald Trump, and install Democratic candidate Joe Biden. This appears to have “succeeded” in the US, but the stakes are just as high on the African continent.
BLM imperialist foreign policy
Over and over again, L Trotsky, co-leader of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, stressed that the politics of a party, organisation or individual cannot ultimately be assessed on the basis of their positions “at home”. To grasp a real sense of their politics, their international positions must be identified and examined. One can shout to the heavens about how strongly one backs social justice at home, but this unravels the moment an organisation sides with “its own” ruling class against its real or imagined international enemies. The fact that BLM has never uttered even one word against any US imperialist war over the last 7 years of its existence speaks volumes. As Tony Cartalucci correctly notes, black lives cannot just matter at home, they must matter everywhere.[7] In fact, Black, Brown and Asian lives must matter everywhere, and US imperialism must be opposed whenever and wherever it imposes its will politically, economically and militarily.
BLM arose around 2013, but they maintained radio silence on the US/NATO war on Libya, which destroyed the entire state and resulted in fratricidal war ever since. What is more, in its place stepped the reappearance of black slavery[8], where the slave trade under Green Libya had been punishable by death. BLM matter remained unmoved and maintained its silence over the entirety of the US/NATO war of regime change against Syria, and blatant US regime change efforts in Venezuela, amongst others. Yet BLM wasted no time whatsoever in issuing a statement in support of the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria, claiming “pan-Africanist solidarity is central to the global Black Lives Matter movement”.[9] For class aware workers, such opportunism should ring alarm bells.
Almost to a rule, Hollywood and other celebrities also chime in with US imperialist escapades. In this case, rapper Kanye West, footballer Rio Ferdinand, singer Trey Songz, Star Wars actor John Boyega all put their names to the anti-SARS campaign.[10] Beyonce and Rihanna also threw their hats into the ring, alongside – wait for it – Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey[11] !! Fresh from blocking and banning Twitter uses who post about Joe Biden’s corruption[12], we are expected to believe that Twitter now stands against alleged police violence in Nigeria? Socialists can – perhaps – excuse actors and celebrities who are not particularly politically aware, but not Big Tech which is a key arm of global capitalist censorship of the internet. When BLM and Twitter align as if one, the fix is on – and not just that of the US presidential elections. We are dealing squarely with liberal imperialism.
East versus West in Africa
To entertain the notion that #EndSARS is an innocent movement for the rights of Nigerians is a fantasy. In reality, #EndSARS is part of a hybrid proxy war for Africa waged by Washington against Moscow and Beijing. As the US economy staggers and US “leadership” of the world becomes ever more redundant, more and more African countries are, not without reason, turning to the Russian Federation for security assurances, and to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for economic assistance. Ditto for many other countries in Central and South East Asia, and Latin America. Russia, with its superior military technology, is uniquely placed to offer a deterrent against US imperialist destablisation. The PRC, with its gargantuan and still expanding socialist economy, is uniquely placed to offer economic and developmental aid, especially with regard to the building of much needed roads, railways, ports, and key infrastructure. As both Russia and the PRC are emphatically non-imperialist powers, such aid is proffered with “no strings attached”. For African countries, co-operation with Russia and the PRC is therefore a no-brainer.
In fact, Russia and Nigeria had been co-operating for at least several years, both in an economic and security sense. In 2017, Russia and Nigeria agreed to step up co-operation with developing a nuclear industry, infrastructure projects, and the export of Russian industrial products to Nigeria. They also cemented ties in the struggle against the terrorism of various groups such as Boko Haram, wreaking havoc in the Sahel-Sahara region of Africa.[13] In August 2013, Russia, Nigeria and Niger signed an explicit security pact, with the emphasis on countering the terrorism of Boko Haram. The agreement even goes so far as to enable the training of Nigerian servicemen and women in Russian military establishments.[14] Such agreements are a vital necessity for Nigeria, regardless of what the Pentagon – and Black Lives Matter – may think about them.
PRC investment in Nigeria is no small beer, either. In 2017, PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Nigerian President Buhari to confirm an additional $40 billion investment in Nigeria by PRC firms. In coming years, this figure could reach between $60 and $80 billion.[15] In 2019, Ye Shuijin, the Managing Director of the China Geo-Engineering Company, stated that his company has offices in 30 Nigerian states, and had a workforce which is 95% Nigerian – comprising over 200 000 staff.[16] What is more, in 2018, Nigeria joined the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or New Silk Road), alongside scores of other countries. Yet projects not specifically linked to the BRI already built and completed by PRC firms in Nigeria include: the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge railway line, a rail mass transit system in Abuja, a new terminal at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge railway line, the Port Harcourt International Airport, the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, and the Lekki deep sea port project, amongst others.[17] An impartial observer could not but agree that all of this investment and infrastructure will greatly assist Nigeria’s overall economic development.
NATO powers intervene “against” Boko Haram
The response of the NATO powers is not at all to co-operate alongside other countries assisting Africa, but to use any and all means to disrupt Africa-Russia-PRC ties, up to and including regime change via covert backing of armed mercenaries, a la “the Syrian option”. BLM backed protest movements against spurious claims of police brutality and “bad governance” then provides civilian liberal political cover for the violent terrorism of Boko Haram and others. Like ISIS in Syria, it is completely implausible that a mob of rag-tag terrorists could be waging war across multiple countries in Africa without serious state support. In fact, Boko Haram, Ansar Al-Sharia and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) all operate in the Sahara-Sahel region. AQIM obtained serious weaponry from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which in turn was armed through NATO, in its war against Green Libya. Some sources trace Boko Haram funding to the United Kingdom and the Saudi Arabian monarchy, as their violence stretches across Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Mali, and Chad.[18]
This is on top of actual US troops crawling across the African countries, while pointing the finger at Russia and the PRC when questions are raised. US Special Ops commandos currently operate in 22 African countries, a much greater presence than even the Middle East.[19] Libya was the first US/NATO war which was overseen by AFRICOM (US Africa Command)[20], and its role has only grown since then. In 2014, African Renaissance News compiled a report which wondered aloud whether Boko Haram was a covert CIA operation to take control of Nigeria.[21] The previous year, US Major General Carter F. Ham told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that AFRICOM is “concerned” about AQIM in Mali, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al Shabaab in Somalia.[22] The pattern is clear – the US/NATO powers covertly aid and assist Takfiri-Salafist[23] terrorist groups across Africa who create chaos, then US/NATO sends in their troops to shadow box with them. The conflict, war, death, and destruction that results then makes it more difficult for Russian and Chinese investment in infrastructure and the hydrocarbons industry to be in any way functional. African countries remain poor and war-ridden, with US imperialism still posing as a saviour.
Anti-racist movements must be anti-imperialist
Even if we ignore the funding for BLM from billionaire financier and colour revolution creator George Soros[24], BLM can be condemned simply on its pro-imperialist politics. We are speaking here of BLM the organisation, rather than BLM the movement. There may well be many who attend BLM actions who sincerely believe they are struggling for racial justice – but this is an illusion. As long as those who attend BLM actions leave the politics and tactics to the BLM organisation, they are being used for ends the very opposite of what they imagine they are fighting for. BLM’s rioting, looting, and burning across the US this year is merely the small-scale version of the violent terrorism which US imperialism enables and feigns to fight “against” in Africa. The two are inextricably linked in more ways than one. For example, BLM was not only rolled out to politically bolster the coming imperialist wars of Joe Biden and the Democrats abroad. BLM was used to enforce the fraudulent “pandemic” which is being wielded domestically by Western imperialist governments against “their own” working class at home. No group was a stronger believer in the Covid-19 lies than BLM, who were given extraordinary permission to demonstrate despite the savage lockdown orders on everyone else.
A campaign against racism, under any description, must first strongly oppose US/EU/NATO imperialism and its political, economic, and military war on working people across the globe. If it does not reach this first bar, workers are correct to suspect that something is fishy. The liberal bourgeoisie waxes lyrical about how “anti-racist” it is – while underpinning the very capitalist system which causes racism in the first place. BLM is the first among equals in this opportunistic and faux “anti-racism”. Imperialism also knows how to manipulate an anti-police brutality movement for its own ends also, but workers should smell a rat when one is transferred wholesale to an underdeveloped African nation.
Marxists are the last ones to oppose investment, trade and security ties between African nations and the Russian Federation and the PRC. Indeed, such agreements should be defended from disruption from overt interference, e.g. war and US troops on the ground, and also covert interference, e.g. proxy terrorist wars and fake “good governance” campaigns waged internally and externally with the help of the likes of BLM and other Western backed fronts. At the same time, revolutionaries recognise that both Russia and the PRC will only offer development assistance which aids the stabilisation and growth of capitalism in Africa – which will ultimately not solve underlying political problems.
Russia obviously has no drive towards socialism, but neither does the PRC, even though it operates a socialist economy and maintains a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state at home. The Communist Party of China (CPC) rigidly adheres to the anti-Marxist theory of “socialism in one country”, which today means that it seeks to fortify capitalism in all countries outside its borders. While any economic assistance to poverty-stricken countries in Africa is welcome, genuine Leninists would at the same time be, where possible, propagandising for socialism amongst the workers of all countries. That is, while it is the right and the duty of a workers’ state to seek out and secure investment and trade opportunities for its domestic industries, the duty of the political leadership of that state is to reach out politically to the workers of the capitalist state it is seeking to invest in, to gather forces internationally for the victory of world socialism. As can be seen, the CPC is not up to this task. The mission for African and international workers remains the forging of vanguard parties which uphold Permanent Revolution, to finally break the chains of imperialist subjugation through an international struggle for liberation.
The Qazihan Mosque in Turpan, Xinjiang. It was built in 1747. The Islamic religion is freely practiced in the far West of China.
18-10-2020: As if the anti-China Cold War hysteria was not already enough, a pair of reactionary Australian MPs are now calling for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Independent Senators Rex Patrick and Jacquie Lambie will move a motion in the Australian parliament next month which calls on the Australian Government – via the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) – to ensure Australia boycotts the Beijing 2022 Winter games.[1] Long time AOC head John Coates, who is also a senior member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reacted angrily to the possibility that Australian athletes would be offered financial incentives to boycott the games, as it occurred the last time an Australian Olympic boycott was attempted.This was in 1980, when the Olympic Games in Moscow were boycotted by the USA over the “invasion” of Afghanistan.
What actually occurred at that time was that a pro-socialist movement came to power in Afghanistan in 1978, and proceeded to modernise the country, legalising Trade Unions for the first time in history, and opening up education for women, where only 12% of adults were literate. Horrified, extreme Islamic fundamentalists armed by the CIA began a counter-insurgency which aimed to overthrow the secular government. This lead to 30 years of war and the near total destruction of the country.[2] The boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 by the US government, and partially echoed by the Australian government, was key to whitewashing the anti-Soviet and anti-socialist Cold War I drive of imperialism with rivers of lies, deception and false narratives.
False accusations against China
Now, as Cold War II dramatically ramps up, another imperialist sponsored mountain of lies appears. Cold War II is not only directed against the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but also Russia, Iran, Syria and any other country which does not bow far enough to the will of Washington. Yet the PRC’s stunning economic, scientific and technological advances have driven Western capitalists into a frenzy, as they rightly fear being overtaken while their own for-profit economies flounder in a never-ending recession. Hence the desperate attempts to whip up political subversion using any means necessary – beginning with blatant falsehoods about what is happening inside the PRC. Senator Patrick makes wild and unsubstantiated claims that one million Uyghurs have been forced into internment camps, and are being pressured to “relinquish their language, culture and religion”. He name drops UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and US Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden as warning against “human rights abuses” and “genocide” against Uyghurs. He also makes the grandiose claim that the National Security Law in Hong Kong will “crush democratic freedoms”.[3]
Senator Patrick is simply retailing Western corporate propaganda, and is perhaps unaware of the role of the US deep state in funding and in many cases organising the political unrest in both the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the PRC, as well as in Hong Kong. At the moment, he has not yet roped in the Australian government to this latest anti-China crusade. The Australian Sports Minister Richard Colbeck, when questioned in parliament, stated that he thought it best to keep sport and politics separate. However, the Minister then went on to publicly agree with the main reason for the proposed boycott! Colbeck stated that “Australia” remains deeply concerned “by reports of enforced disappearance, mass detention, forced labour and pervasive surveillance of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.”[4] These nonsensical claims are risible, but the bigger the lie, and the more times it is repeated by those in “authority”, the greater likelihood that many will believe it.
Lurid claims of forced labour and mass detention of Uyghurs in the XUAR are little more than false slander. What is actually occurring is a tiny minority of Uyghur jihadists are being funded by the US state, via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)[5], to wage a separatist war using any means up to and including violent terrorism against entirely innocent people. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and is more focused on fanatical anti-socialism than the rights of Uyghurs. Its founder, Isa Yusuf Aleptikin, directly appealed to then US President Richard Nixon for backing “East Turkestan” (their name for Xinjiang) against “Soviet and Chinese communism”, which they claimed was the greatest threat to Islamic peoples.[6] The former Soviet Union, like today’s PRC, does not suppress Muslims and in fact allows them to freely practice their religion. However, they do seek to prevent a tiny minority using Islam to wage separatist and/or terrorist insurgencies.
Even the Western media itself admits that Uyghur terrorism is a serious problem in the XUAR. There have been semi-regular attacks by Uyghur terrorists on innocent civilians in the XUAR over the last eight years, a bombing in Bangkok after the Thai government sent Uyghur militants back to the PRC rather than allow them passage to Turkey, and thousands went on to join ISIS and Al Qaeda in the West’s proxy war against Syria.[7] Obviously, the PRC government has to take precautions when these barbaric mercenaries return home. Any measures it takes to prevent Al Qaeda trained fighters from wreaking havoc inside the PRC can then easily be portrayed by the Western media as “repression”.
In fact, the PRC government has set up vocational training centres to give unemployed Uyghurs language and work skills so they can find work either in Xinjiang or other regions of the mainland. The PRC government has also built high-speed rail links and highways through the Taklamakan desert connecting Xinjiang to other regions, and has expanded big data internet services, which foster economic development.[8] Xinjiang is also a major hub of the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or New Silk Road), which in this section connects China to Europe through Eurasia. The New Silk Road is arguably the primary reason why the US human rights industrial complex has targeted Xinjiang with fabricated tales about Uyghur “forced labour” and “mass detention”. The New Silk Road in all its dimensions, highlights the growing economic and political power of the PRC, and at the same time reveals the further economic and political decline of US and European imperialism. This is the real reason why US/EU imperialism and its “human rights” industry drums up fantastic lies[9] about “internment camps” in Xinjiang. The lies simultaneously obscure the role of the US/EU governments in funding Uyghur separatist terrorism as part of its regime change war efforts against both Syria and the PRC.
More US backed separatism in Hong Kong
Senator Patrick’s claims that “democratic freedoms” in Hong Kong will be crushed by the National Security Law likewise turn reality on its head. What occurred in Hong Kong during 2019 was not a “democracy” movement, but a US/UK government backed campaign of anti-socialist violence aimed at separating Hong Kong from mainland China. While the initial rally may have drawn in some Hong Kongers who had concerns about inequality, the actions quickly deteriorated into a dangerous Blackshirt minority who waved US[10] and British[11] flags while physically attacking Hong Kongers who did not agree with their violent actions[12], and wanted no part of it. In arguably the worst incident, one Blackshirt literally set fire[13] to a man who implored them to stop destroying the city. Such egregious violence repelled the majority of Hong Kongers and ensured the “democracy” movement would dwindle away into a tiny minority which could be easily dealt with.
In British colonial Hong Kong, which was ruled by the UK for 155 years, there were no elections, no minimum wage, no trade unions, no freedom of speech or basic democratic rights whatsoever. It is more than ironic that the Blackshirts and their backers now claim they stand for “democracy” against integration into the PRC. While Britain handed over Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997, both the UK and the US governments built and maintained a network of contacts, rather than genuinely vacate Hong Kong. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the public relations arm of the CIA, has two active branches in Hong Kong, and directly funds groups such as the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor.[14] The Blackshirts in Hong Kong would not have been able to sustain months of violent anti-government anarchy unless they knew they had the backing of a major imperialist power.
The Blackshirt mobs have no chance of separating Hong Kong from mainland China. The PRC’s massive socialist state backed development has meant a vast expansion of high-speed rail, with one line now linking Hong Kong with Shenzhen and Guangzhou.[15] The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is also now open[16], linking the Hong Kong island with mainland China via the world’s longest (55 klm) sea crossing road connection. With a constant interaction between Hong Kong and mainland China via streams of people through travel and commerce, in integration of Hong Kong into the PRC is permanent. The US Empire cannot reverse this by open warfare, and hence resorts to internal political subversion. For now though, Blackshirt street violence has been worn down and subdued.
PRC government reinforces Covid-19 lies
While workers internationally have a vital interest in countering the anti-socialist Cold War drive against the PRC, its government cannot be a political ally. Hidebound into the non-Marxist theory of “socialism in one country”, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has betrayed workers by lending legitimacy to the torrents of lies which buttress the Covid-19 deception. The CPC attempts to mirror the actions of the governments of the capitalist West in a vain attempt to ensure “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism. In the case of the fake pandemic, the CPC carried out their own lockdowns[17], and uttered not a word of protest when the Western governments did the same – but with the intention of inflicting political repression of working people never previously attempted. While the CPC did not use lockdowns to attack the economic position of Chinese workers necessarily, it did everything it could to augment and assist the imperialist governments assault their own working class. It played up to and fuelled the lies used to shutdown Western economies under the guise of “healthcare”. Despite the entirely dubious role of the WHO, President Xi Jinping called on it to lead the response[18] to the discovery of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The WHO did just that, which encouraged capitalist governments to shutdown economies, throw millions of workers out of a job, suspend parliaments, virtually eliminate freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the most elementary of basic democratic rights.
Here lies the sheer duplicity of the CPC as far as working people are concerned. In order to secure mutual co-operation with the capitalist governments of the West, the CPC is more than prepared to stand by and allow – and even assist – the ruling classes of the West install a form of domestic fascism. Lockdown fascism reached extremes in the US and Europe, but was arguably surpassed by the intolerable repression still being meted out in Melbourne, Australia.[19] It should be noted that the governments of other deformed workers’ states – in Vietnam, the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Cuba – likewise acquiesced with the very imperialist governments bent on their overthrow. They also locked their borders and took other measures which appeared to validate the open mendacity of the “Covid-19 as a biblical plague” narrative.
Despite the political perfidy of the leadership of the PRC, the working class has a vital interest in defending the PRC against imperialist efforts to undermine and eventually overthrow the state which emerged out of its 1949 socialist revolution. This means opposing the call for an Olympic boycott of Beijing 2020, and countering the lie factory which retails endless fabrications about “repression” in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and even in mainland China. The imperialist West is trying in vain to counter the incredible economic growth of the PRC, which is ultimately guaranteed by its gigantic state-owned industries, which are in turn guarded by the gains of 1949. Some of the state-owned and state subsidised firms on the US Fortune 500 list include large-scale oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering and construction companies, banks and automotive companies.[20] These firms in fact form the core of the Chinese workers’ state, which is nonetheless impaired by the essentially nationalist politics of the CPC. The forging of vanguard parties based on genuine Leninism remains the key task for workers internationally, part of a fightback against both lockdown terror and anti-socialist hysteria.
Australian soldiers enforce Melbourne’s “Ring of Steel”, alongside the police force. Image from http://www.portnews.com.au
No More “Emergency Measures”! Civil Rights Must be Restored
26-09-2020: Just when you thought that government repression under the guise of “healthcare” could not get any worse, Dictator Dan Andrews in Victoria ramps it up to mind-boggling levels. The Labor Party Premier is attempting to pass through the Victorian parliament the Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Bill which among other things could result in detention without trial.[1] If enacted, it could mean that basic civil and democratic rights have become meaningless. Even the Victorian Bar Association has written to the Victorian government asking that they reconsider the bill which would allow Health Department appointed “authorised officers” to detain anyone they “reasonably believe” would negligently spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Sections of the establishment itself are opposed, as a group of retired judges and current QCs (Queens Counsels) have separately written to the government warning that the “emergency measures” could result in “unprecedented, excessive powers”.[2]
Raising a civilian paramilitary army
Barrister Stuart Wood AM QC, in an interview on the “Emergency Measures” bill, was aghast at the prospect that, if passed by the Victorian parliament, the legislation could empower untrained and unqualified individuals to detain their fellow citizens.[3] Union officials, so-called “Protective Service Officers”, public servants or members of the public appointed by them could be “authorised” to detain neighbours and members of the public who are suspected of not complying with self-isolation orders, protesting against lockdowns or even if they have a mental health issue.[4] It is suspected that these “authorised” persons would also have the powers to enter premises without a warrant if they “reasonably believe” a breach of public health orders is occurring. This is because police in some states are already able to do this – a grievous abolition of perhaps the most important right of all.
Currently, the Bill is being opposed by the Liberal Party opposition but may get across the line if some independents in the Upper House tip their hand in favour of the Labor Party. Whether this Bill comes into being or not, it is yet another grave warning of what is to come unless the working class resists and is able to assemble the organisation needed to strike blows against the inhuman lockdowns, mandatory facemask orders, social-distancing and all associated Corona ideology. It should be clear – if it wasn’t already – that “Covid-19” is being used as a Trojan Horse to inflict political repression greater than that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Lockdown fascism may be a greater threat, because the proposed Omnibus Bill in Victoria appears to be aimed at raising a civilian paramilitary army.
Even in Nazi Germany, one would imagine you had to actually be a member of the Nazis or one of their organisations to enact fascism against innocent workers and their families. Now, potentially under mainstream politicians in Australia, one can be appointed with a “monopoly on the means of violence”, and the authorisation to use force against blameless civilians without being a member of any political organisation whatsoever. In practice, however, such people will be the political shock troops of lockdown fascism. That is, they will be partisans of the capitalist assault on the working class which is falsely premised on the abjectly inverted reality of “saving lives” due to a “pandemic”. One could plausibly argue it is an intentional measure to create conflict in society, to tear it asunder.
Politics in 2020 is the reverse of the 20th Century
During the 20th Century, the danger of fascism always came from the right. For a whole range of reason, in the 21st Century, the danger of fascism is now coming from the left – or the so-called left. Union officials and the lockdown left comprise the spine of lockdown fascism – even if they themselves believe they have liberal and humanitarian values. It is this so-called left – the Labor Party, the Greens, Union officials and left parties which make now bizarre claims to be “revolutionaries” – which today is the strongest pillar of political support for a capitalism dangerously careening out of control. In addition to the police force itself, it is also the lockdown left which currently has the greatest propensity for verbal and/or physical violence against anyone they suspect of being skeptical about lockdowns, i.e. those who have a different opinion. This is why we can categorise lockdown mania as a form of fascism irrespective of its political leadership.
It is also why Dictator Dan Andrews is seeking to enlist the lockdown left as shock troops authorised with state violence. The lockdown left is already ideologically committed to the government and its capitalist state, as demonstrated by its deafening silence on the horror of the Melbourne “Ring of Steel”. By unleashing lockdown fanatics against other civilians, Dictator Dan can deflect blame away from his authoritarian rule and onto its only ideological foe – the anti-lockdown movement. In the same way that the pro-lockdown juggernaut can be designated as fascist regardless of its political form, the anti-lockdown movement can be designated as anti-fascist regardless of its political form. It follows that the pressing task for workers in 2020 is to politically and materially aid the anti-lockdown movement.
Under these conditions, the space for socialists within the anti-lockdown movement potentially becomes a minefield. Yet it must be navigated, even if it means employing a number of political and tactical concessions. Much of the anti-lockdown movement is anti-socialist, or at least according to the notion that socialism means political repression. What they reject – correctly – is a “socialism” without political rights for workers, e.g. the Soviet Union under Stalinism, China under Maoism, and so on. Yet lockdowns are currently eliminating political and civil rights, and they are wholly dispensed by capitalism, not “socialism”. As difficult as the venture may be, Marxists should attempt to imbue the anti-lockdown movement with the perspective that capitalism means political repression, and a collectively owned and democratically planned economy – socialism – means the opposite.
Anti-lockdown protestors march past Parliament House in Brisbane on September 5. Image from Tott News.
Socialist Strategy to Lift the Lockdowns
13-09-2020: In the face of a virtual corporate media blackout, thousands across Australia took part in the September 5 Freedom Day demonstrations.[1] Protesting “Covid-19” lockdowns, social-distancing, mandatory masking and other forms of political repression, the rallies were a success given the circumstances. The bravest faced off against police in Melbourne[2], the centre of perhaps the most extreme lockdown regime on the face of the planet. Solidarity with the people of Victoria was a feature of the actions in the other states. The fact that the mainstream media almost ignored the actions is a tell-tale sign that this movement runs as a direct counter to the rule of big capital. More than this, the anti-lockdown movement is a necessary groundswell against a particular form of fascism – the “New Normal”. Thus, it is vital that workers help build resistance to corona tyranny.
The main paradox with politics in 2020 is that the anti-lockdown movement confronts political forces which have betrayed them to form an arm of the capitalist state – Union officials and the lockdown left.[3] Needless to say, merging with the state when it is in the middle of imposing a form of fascism exposes these elements as little more than the bourgeois politicians they claim to oppose. As a result, leadership of the anti-lockdown movement has fallen into the hands of those who have historically not been a part of what previously passed for the left. However, this does not mean that far right-wing forces dominate – far from it. If anything, while nationalism plays a significant role, ultra-nationalist and Nazi type elements are totally absent. The leading political forces of the anti-lockdown movement appear to include those who correctly oppose lockdowns from several different angles.
Some oppose lockdowns from a civil liberties angle, some are supporters of President Trump and the QAnon group, some reject what they see as a “New World Order”, and some are against forced vaccinations. There are peace and anti-war activists and those who support incarcerated whistleblower Julian Assange. Some laughingly embrace the label of “conspiracy theorists” – a term which has come to mean anyone who simply questions the official line of elite politicians and the corporate media. There are some who favour a strategy of lobbying politicians, and others who favour a strategy of mass action. Whatever their motivation, these people do not wish to see a world of totalitarian terror and are doing what they can to prevent a world of darkness for current and future generations.
At the same time, there are some trends within the anti-lockdown movement which constitute a barrier which Marxists need to skillfully navigate to assist the movement in achieving its goals. For while a mass anti-lockdown movement may succeed in eventually rolling back lockdowns and some logic-defying restrictions, the “New Normal” fascism and the enforced economic depression can only ultimately be defeated by the overthrow of the governments enforcing it. That is, it will require a series of workers’ revolutions in the capitalist West, combined with proletarian political revolutions against the conservative bureaucracies in the heavily distorted workers states of the East, particularly Red China. Nevertheless, to build a bridge between the anti-lockdown movement and the forging of democratic workers’ councils which can propel forward the struggle for proletarian power, socialists first have to address and contend with a series of views which nobble the anti-lockdown movement.
Anti-socialism
The first misunderstanding is the widely held – though not universal – view of anti-socialism amongst those prepared to mobilise against lockdowns. This partly reflects the general anti-socialism of many workers, yet it contains both progressive and reactionary content. It is reactionary in that it reflects the hostility of both small and large capital to public ownership of the means of production, administered by workers’ rule. However the progressive side is the rejection of the lack of political rights for workers as it existed in degenerated form in the former Soviet bloc, and as it now exists in the deformed workers’ states of China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba. The problem is that in correctly rejecting the lack of workers’ democracy in the five current deformed workers’ states, they then make the error of conflating this with socialism itself. To some extent, this mistake is entirely understandable. Unconsciously, they are rejecting the Stalinist or Maoist perversions of “Marxism” – which is necessary – but misidentifying this with the fast disappearing political rights and overt intrusion of the state into workers’ most personal needs under capitalist imposed “Covid-19” lockdowns.
Workers in power does not necessarily mean no or limited democratic or political rights. The fact that this occurs in China and the other deformed workers’ states in no way means that the first step towards socialism – a workers’ government based on a collectivised and planned economy – will result in deterioration of political rights. On the contrary, for the working class it should mean a vast expansion of democratic rights for working people – as did occur in the early years of the Soviet Union before Stalinist degeneration set in after 1924. Just as the expropriation of political power by Stalin, Bukharin, Rykov and others in the years after 1924 represented the revolt of the petty-bourgeoisie against the successful proletarian revolution of 1917, the limitation of political rights for working people in China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba reflects the petty-bourgeois rather than proletarian character of their respective political leaderships. To correct this, working people need to aim for proletarian political revolutions to oust the conservative and nationalist leaderships of these states, while retaining the working-class forms of economic and state power. This needs to be combined with genuine socialist revolutions in the West, uniting workers internationally.
To fully grasp this perspective necessarily requires the study of genuine Leninism. Perhaps understandably, many workers are put off the investigation of Marxism by the actions of the governments of the workers’ states such as China (People’s Republic of China – PRC). Due to the primarily nationalist character of the Communist Party of China (CPC), workers in the West never hear of any appeals made to it – because there are none. A genuine Marxist party would be consistently trying to reach out to workers internationally with appeals to help it build socialism internationally. The CPC leadership never does, and never will, due to its locked in position of nationalism socialism, or “socialism in one country”. This flies in the face of actual socialism, where the world’s resources will be used for the well-being of the world’s people, with workers’ rule being the initial guarantor. With the CPC leadership acting as mirrors of the governments of the West – even to the point of playing up to the coronavirus plot and imposing their own lockdowns – many in the anti-lockdown movement are not entirely incorrect to view “China” as being in on the act.
Sections of the anti-lockdown movement also entertain wild misunderstandings of socialism, even to the point of seeing Labor Party Premiers Dictator Dan Andrews and Anastacia Palaszczuk as being “socialists” or heading a “socialist government”. According to this mistaken view, the Greens are also “socialist”. And in fact, one Greens member of parliament did vote with the Labor Party in Victoria to extend the lockdowns by six months.[4] Even though the Liberal Party voted against this, workers need to understand that all of the parliamentary parties – Labor, Liberal, National, Greens etc. – are all parties of the capitalist class, and are thus galaxies away from any kind of “socialism”. There may be some very minor disagreements between them over the imposition of lockdowns and when to roll them back, but their fundamental class interest is that of either small or big capital. And the whole capitalist class is united in imposing the political repression of lockdowns – so as to enable immense downward pressure on working people’s wages and conditions. This has been done by mass sackings, the forced closure of many small and large businesses – meaning staff “stand-downs” or furloughs, and so on. The unprecedented attack on the working class is the principle aim of lockdown terror, and the predominant goal of the fake “pandemic”. Working people are thus facing an assault[5] of capitalism, not “socialism”.
The role of the police
An unfortunate lack of class consciousness amongst the anti-lockdown movement is apparent with the view of police “doing their job” by sometimes allowing protests or not arresting demonstrators. This view is not universal, but where it appears it even extends to some leading anti-lockdown speakers calling on police to join the movement (!!). This is more than the “good cop, bad cop” routine, which alibies the entire police force. The police will not, and cannot, be allies of working people in any political movement whatsoever. The police cannot be won (!) to a political cause because they are paid to be the key apparatus of capitalist state repression of working people. The attempt by some in the anti-lockdown movement to appeal to police to stand with the “people” or to think of their “families” is a reflection of the distinct lack of pro-working class politicisation. This major error is unfortunately fueled by the treasonous behaviour of the Union bureaucracy and the lockdown left, whose abject genuflection before Corona madness identifies them as police deputies. In swallowing Coronavirus hysteria wholesale, the lockdown left cannot then go on to oppose the vicious police repression (witness Melbourne) which their class collaboration has brought into being.
The view of police as “workers” or as part of the “working-class” needs to be sternly disabused by socialists within the anti-lockdown movement. The fact that police are employed does not therefore mean that police are “workers”. In Marxian terms, the police are the hired security forces of the capitalist state, whose essential function is to ensure that workers do not touch the levers of state power. The police will carry out whatever level of political repression against workers that is politically required by the ruling class at a particular juncture. Pre Covid-19, the “normal” amount of political repression was sufficient. The implementation of lockdown fascism obviously requires an enormous escalation of political repression, and the police are the first ones to enforce it. A graphic demonstration of this lawless outrage was the arrest of a pregnant mother in Victoria for posting a notice about a peaceful anti-lockdown protest on social-media.[6] At the slightest sign of working people resisting the barely disguised chains of capitalist enslavement, the police are unleashed to do their worst. The only true allies are workers yet to be won to the fight against the “New Normal”.
Nationalism
Theories and variations of the “New World Order” have been around for a very long time, and now the Covid-19 deception has given this slogan a new lease of life. Those who use this to describe what is apparently happening also have various interpretations. However, common notions are that the New World Order is a one world government of “globalists”. These “globalists” control the United Nations, the international banking system, and are using organisations such as the World Economic Forum to reduce world population via the World Health Organisation….and so on. There is little doubt that Bill Gates is up to his neck in the fake “pandemic”, and that he funds large parts of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the “fact-checking” industry and large sections of the corporate media.[7] Many within the anti-lockdown movement are well read on this and related material. But if it was not Bill Gates, it would be some other corporate billionaire – or billionaires.
Substitute “New World Order” for capitalism, and “globalists” for imperialists, and socialists can sign up as subscribers to this view. Yet that reveals one of the primary barriers to the political progress of the anti-lockdown movement. Currently, if it did identify capitalism as the major source of global problems, it could invite socialism in as the next logical step. Due to many misunderstandings of socialism – some of them very understandable – adherents of the New World Order/globalist mindset prefer to remain on the ground of simply exposing the undoubted crimes of the obscenely wealthy. Yet as the situation of Julian Assange readily attests to, exposure of the crimes of capitalism alone are not enough. The bravery, heroism and self-sacrifice of Julian Assange and Wikileaks cannot be questioned. Yet without the building of vanguard parties which can lead workers towards the expropriation of big capital and the collectivisation of the economy, the establishment will remain in control regardless of how many times its crimes are revealed.
Nor can nationalism be used as a counter to the “globalist” agenda. The global capitalists use nationalism to deceive “their own” workers at home, while they practice the opposite. Big capital can flick its investments around the world at the click of a button, even at the same time as demanding and receiving protection by their “home” state. Even though the United Nations and the WHO appear on the surface to be controlled by a global agenda, this is just the reflection of the confluence of interests of the major imperialist states. In short, the capitalist classes of the imperialist states are very class conscious, and they collaborate internationally with their class without batting an eyelid. Needless to say, the only effective counter working people have in response is international collaboration with their class across the borders of the 193 UN member states. The nationalism of the bourgeoisie is a false front, and so working people shoot themselves in the foot if they try to restore “national sovereignty” in opposition to “globalism”.
Socialists within the anti-lockdown movement need to be tactical about how to take up these three issues, and many others. Where possible, discussion and debate with all those opposed to lockdowns is vital. However, during rallies and other protests physical defence or evacuation obviously takes priority, if the police are moving in. While unity of the anti-lockdown movement is important for its collective strength, civil discussion of differing political views must also be accommodated.
Defiant anti-lockdown “protests” in Melbourne. Image from the Daily Mail
Refuse and Resist Lockdown Terror!
05-09-2020: It needs to be repeated – this was never about a virus.[1] If anyone has lingering doubts as to what the Covid-19 “pandemic” is really about, one need only view the desperate resistance of the brave young men in Melbourne who are risking arrest, prosecution by the state and their potential futures to defy the inhuman lockdowns which have virtually abolished civil rights won over centuries of struggle. In one instance, the group of mainly young men wore Guy Fawkes masks – creatively observing scientifically unjustifiable mandatory facemask orders while protesting against them. In unimaginable scenes, police chased down some of the men, detaining and arresting them – even as they formally abide by the absurd one hour of exercise per day rule, by walking around their neighbourhoods in spaced groups.[2] These heroic young men are going to great risk to provide a lead to the anti-lockdown movement, and helping to liberate society from a totalitarianism that many never expected to see in their lifetimes.
Covid-19 is a class attack
Now that the full horror of the extreme lockdowns in Melbourne is known, there is barely anyone who will raise their head to defend them – even amongst the most craven pro-government lackeys. The liberal left still adheres to the fantasy of a supposed universal danger, yet even they mumble about the heightened danger of lockdown-induced domestic violence and suicides. Sycophantic Union officials fully back the government even as it inflicts pain and suffering on their own members and the working class generally. The abandonment of working people by Union officials and the so-called “left” has resulted in the lead being taken by the young men defying lockdowns in daily walks in Melbourne. This courageous and instinctive resistance to lockdown terror is certainly needed and will play a significant role in future struggles. Yet due to the fact that Covid-19 is being used as a cover for an assault on the working-class[3], what the anti-lockdown movement requires is political leadership.
It can scarcely be denied that lockdown terror is a form of fascism – albeit one that differs in significant ways from 20th century fascism. In the US, UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the “New Normal” fascism is politically led by the mainstream capitalist parties and is strongly backed by ostensible “left” parties. It can thus appear that New Normal fascism is an example of the “left” in power. On this (mistaken) basis, some in the anti-lockdown movement view the extreme repression of the lockdowns as a form of “socialism” or “communism” – and even claim that Dictator Dan Andrews, other state Labor premiers, NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and even Australian PM Scott Morrison are therefore “socialists” or “communists”. This is a striking misconception, but it is one that is unfortunately fueled by the fact that the nationalist caste leading the People’s Republic of China (PRC) imposed their own lockdowns, and played up to the fake “pandemic” narrative.[4]
“New Normal” is capitalism in decline
New Normal or lockdown fascism is delivered by capitalist imperialism, NOT by any form of socialism or “communism”. Capitalist ruling classes resort to fascism when the existing forms of supposed liberalism become barriers to the amount and extent of repression “needed” to annihilate working-class political opposition to their rule. While millions of workers lose their jobs, or have their wages and conditions frozen under lockdowns, finance capital expands the wealth of the billionaires.[5] Under “normal” conditions, there would be some fightback against millions of job losses, and the immense downward pressure on the price of labour-power, i.e., wages. Hence the lockdowns, mandatory facemask orders, social-distancing and New Normal fascism. Ditto for the concomitant and invasive surveillance of contact tracing, proposed mandatory vaccinations and border shutdowns.
In the same way in which 20th Century fascism could not be effectively combatted without wholesale political opposition to the capitalism from which it spawned, New Normal or lockdown fascism in the 21st Century cannot be seriously countered without working-class political opposition to the declining capitalism of the Anglo/US/EU Empire. Regardless of the current political make-up of the anti-lockdown movement, it represents foremost opposition to the nightmarish future of capitalist rule. Therefore, despite the political or non-political viewpoints of its component parts, the anti-lockdown movement is intrinsically anti-fascist and anti-capitalist. It is a contradiction born of the times, but this remains the case even if some of its leading elements consider themselves to be in a battle against “socialism”.
The anti-lockdown movement is gathering steam internationally, and Australia needs to emulate the hundreds of thousands who have mobilised recently in Germany, the UK, Ireland and New Zealand. It is possible that with an amalgamated movement which is prepared to mobilise again and again, government lockdowns could be rolled back. For this to come to pass, however, all wings of the anti-lockdown movement need to form a united front for common action. Currently the anti-lockdown movement is comprised of several detachments. Without pigeon-holing any individual, there is a moderate wing which favours lobbying parliamentarians, a President Trump supporting wing which includes QAnon followers, a wing concerned about forced vaccinations and the potential effects of 5G telecommunications infrastructure, and a wing rightly concerned about civil liberties and privacy.
Revolutionaries are faced with the dual task of uniting all wings of the anti-lockdown movement, while simultaneously seeking to win the most pro-working class elements over to the side of socialism – despite prevalent suspicion as to its historical and current forms. Marxists must also be alert to the possibility of exploiting the differences amongst the ruling class, with some parts pushing for a one or two year lockdown, and others pushing to re-open the economy. While lockdowns may be partially lifted without systemic change, the “Great Reset” with its attendant political repression will not be defeated without the building of a workers’ party which fights for a workers’ government.
