BEIRUT, LEBANON, February 15 — Most of the bourgeois parties representing various religious sects and nationalities here now agree to establishing a Hezbollah-led government that would cause a substantial change in the inter-imperialist relations and balance of power in the region. The pro-U.S. factions in the Lebanese ruling class are weakening, partially because of Hezbollah’s armed guerilla defeat of Israel in the 2006 war.

Hezbollah’s reconstruction project in Lebanon after that war made it popular among wide sections of the working class, mostly Shiites. The workers view this project as a “pro-people” initiative, contrary to the previous government’s policy of cuts, privatizations and rising prices for basic goods.

After the 2006 war, Hezbollah staged mass street demonstrations but refrained from taking power because it was not organized well enough to do so. Playing the “Hard-Line Opposition” role served it better politically. It’s likely that Hezbollah’s leaders were influenced by their bosses in Iran and Syria, and their rising imperialist masters in Beijing and Moscow, not to upset the inter-imperialist balance of power in the region, but rather to preserve the geo-political status quo.

The Iranian and Syrian regimes would like stable trade relations with the U.S.  Hezbollah’s “anti-imperialist” politics maintain a “peaceful co-existence” policy towards U.S. bosses while leaning on the rising imperialist powers.

The victory of the pro-U.S. camp in the Lebanese ruling class in the recent elections was largely due to U.S. intervention in the elections, as well as the presence of European military forces (especially Italian and French) in Lebanon after the cease-fire at the end of the 2006 war.

Western imperialists in general, and particularly the U.S., have less resources to support their servants in the local ruling class, allowing rival imperialists to increase their influence in the region through the Iranian and Syrian regimes. Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, to a lesser degree, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, represent Chinese and Russian imperialism. Similarly, the Israeli Zionist capitalists, engaged in colonial robbery in the region, serve U.S. imperialism which funds and arms them. All these bosses are united in their oppression of Middle Eastern workers.

Lebanon is entering a crisis similar to that which preceded the civil war of the late 1970s as its ruling class seems more divided than ever. The U.S. and the other Western powers are finding it difficult to stabilize Lebanon’s bourgeois regime and capitalist economy due to the weak U.S. economy, as well as to the failure in 2006 by Israel to land a “finishing blow” on Hezbollah. This has further weakened the U.S. bosses’ grip on the region.

There is now more freedom of action for political forces that lean on the parts of the national bourgeoisie connected to the Iran-Syria bloc, and, by proxy, to the Chinese and Russian bosses. Hezbollah’s military might serves this imperialist bloc as a whip to discipline the Lebanese bourgeoisie.

This is why the capitalist Najib Mikati has been nominated to become Lebanon’s prime minister. Mekati has huge investments in regions under the influence of China and Russia (including several African countries, notably South Africa), but also owns stock in western multi-national corporations in such countries as France. His role is to mediate between the imperialist interests, suppress and weaken the active resistance by Lebanon’s working class, trying to block any potential revolutionary situation.

Without communist leadership, Lebanon’s working class often is split along religious and ethnic lines, serving various bourgeois camps. The workers, already active on the streets, must expand their struggle and transcend the national and sectarian divisions while building a conscious communist leadership to lead their class to take the future into its own hands. 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, February 26 — Five student militants from GREPS (Group for Reflection on Social Problems) went on a hunger strike for ten days after administrators at the Faculty of Ethnology of the State University of Haiti continued to ignore their demands for a functioning campus with a full program of courses, a library, and a cafeteria. The administration still made no response to these basic demands.  The hunger strikers were hospitalized for observation, and two are still there. “I have to tell you that so far nothing has been done. For more than a year there have effectively been no courses...It seems there is no future for Haitian youth any more,” wrote a GREPS leader.

But the students, who are also demanding the return of expelled  militant comrades, are holding firm.  They are organizing a general popular assembly of students, teachers, and workers on March 10, and marches and other protests after that date. They drew this lesson from the non-response to their hunger strike: “It has clearly shown how these vampires care not a whit for human life but rather only for capital and power.”

That comment was from a fierce message of international solidarity which the students in Haiti  wrote to the university Teaching Assistants and other workers occupying the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, linking the two struggles. (See Box, page 4) 

U.S supporters, including PLP’ers organized a support campaign.  They were able to send fifty-three online signatures and twenty-five individual letters to the university Rectorate before the hunger strike ended. Readers should collect more signatures on the petition at www.ipetitions.com/petition/haiti-university-student-hunger-strike/.  It is still being circulated at several schools and campuses and on many lists.

Sometimes the effect of international solidarity is cumulative, rather than immediate. A petition like this, brought to campuses and schools like Bronx Community College, where 100 students attended a forum called “Youth Movement Rising,” shows that students in Haiti are not the passive victims the media portrays but are an integral part of that rising movement, which has much to contribute to a workers’ revolution. 

In an address to members of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) on October 17th, 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that the German “experiment” in multiculturalism had “utterly failed.” She went on to state that non-Germans, particularly Arabs and Muslims, were incapable of “living side by side” with the German people.¹ This came only two months after the release of German central banker Thilo Sarrazin’s racist book Germany Abolishes Itself, in which Sarrazin argues that immigrants are lowering German IQs.²

That Merkel and Sarrazin would so openly parrot the views of the Nazi regime is indicative of a growing trend in Germany. A study released days before Merkel’s speech showed that 13% of Germans would welcome a “fuehrer” to run the country with a “firm hand.” Over a third felt the country is “overrun by foreigners”; 60% would “restrict the practice of Islam”; and 17% think Jews have too much influence.³ This anti-Semitism was repeated by Sarrazin who stated that all Jews share a unique genetic heritage and therefore represent a single “race” separate from European whites.⁴

The popular pseudo-leftist hipster philosopher Slavoj Zizek chalked up this open fascism in Germany to an “excess of anti-capitalism” in Europe, but his primitive analysis could not be further from the truth.⁵

When Germany was divided after the Second World War, the Nazi regime, at the will of the U.S. and Britain, retained firm control of West Germany (FDR) while a Soviet-style socialist bulwark against fascism was built in East Germany. The first West German President, Konrad Adenauer, had close associations with and was funded by Nazi war criminal Friedrich Flick. Shortly after being elected he granted amnesty to 792,176 Nazi war criminals.

Adenauer’s chief of staff was Hans Globke a top official in the Nazi Party who played a direct role in the Holocaust. The first chief of the FDR Foreign Office was Herbert Blankenhorn a former Nazi propagandist and member of the SS. Adolf Heusinger was chief of the Operations Division of the Nazi army and oversaw war planning for Hitler. Naturally he was made the top commander of the illegally-formed West German military in 1957.⁶

While prominent Nazis filled top positions the lower ranks were replete with Nazis who made up two thirds of the foreign services and military as well as much of the West German police infrastructure.

By contrast the East German government was made up of anti-fascist fighters and an entire state culture was built around the idea of anti-fascism. It should come as no surprise then that at the time of the FDR annexation of East Germany (1989-91) West Germans were four times as likely as East Germans to describe themselves as openly anti-Semitic.⁷

Since the annexation of East Germany that part of the country has been inundated with fascist literature while schools have adopted the pro-fascist revisionist history taught by such neo-Nazi West German intellectuals as Ernst Nolte. Earlier this year 6,400 neo-Nazis, primarily from West Germany, flooded the East German city of Dresden in an attempt to hold a pro-Nazi rally. Then 5,700 German police were brought in to assist the Nazis assault on the city. After a heroic effort by the 15,000 anti-racists, who formed a human barricade to block their entry, both the racist police and the Nazis they protected were forced to turn back.⁸ 

Fascism is an aspect of capitalism, whether in the form of jack-booted Nazi thugs or smiling politicians who sign the orders to militarize borders, indefinitely imprison Muslim and Arab men or slaughter innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. Racism, sexism, patriotism and nationalism are absolutely required by a system that is always looking to squeeze more and more profit from workers’ labor. Just as true is that communists have always and will always fight fascism in all of its forms. In short then, the problem is not an “excess of anti-capitalism” in Germany, but a severe shortage of communism.J

1. The Guardian, “Angela Merkel: German Multiculturalism has ‘Utterly Failed,’” 10/17/10.

2.Christian Science Monitor, “Why 13 percent of Germans Would Welcome a ‘Fuhrer,’” 10/15/10.

3. Ibid.

4. Washington Post, “German Politician Stirs Controversy with His Inflammatory Views on Muslims and Jews,” 8/30/10.

5. Democracy Now, “Slavoj Zizek: Far Right and Anti-Immigrant Politicians on the Rise in Europe,” 10/18/10.

6. See Norbert Frei, “Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Amnesia,” The New Republic, 3/10/03; Ronald Smelser and Edward Davies, The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture; Glen Yeadon and John Hawkins, The Nazi Hydra in America;

7. Patty Lee Parmalee, “Learning to Live with Capitalism in East Berlin,” Z Magazine, Vol. 5 No. 7-8, July/August 1992.

8. Victor Grossman, ZNet, “Neo Nazis in Germany, or Deja Vu?” 9/4/07; Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, “Thousands Prevent Neo-Nazi Rally in Dresden,” 2/14/10.



What the rulers portrayed as a non-violent “revolution” in Egypt was far from the truth.

“It’s happening people….It’s happening….The working class has entered the arena with full force today.”

That’s how one blogger described the strike of Cairo’s transit workers as they shut six garages: Nasr Station, Fateh Station, Ter’a Station, Amiriya Station, Mezzalat Station, Sawwah Station, just days before Mubarak’s fall. That was the end of public bus service in Cairo under the hated torturer’s regime.

The strike-wave that eventually sent Mubarak packing did not fall from the sky. Since 2004, more than 2,000,000 Egyptian workers have gone on strike and protested for higher pay, especially to fight privatization.

In Mubarak’s final days, tens of thousands of workers from Cairo to Alexandria to the Suez Canal were on strike. More than 6,000 workers for the Suez Canal Authority staged a sit-down strike at the international waterway. Al Jazeera reported more than 20,000 factory workers on strike.

In Mahallah, 24,000 textile workers walked out demanding raises and in solidarity with the protesters in Tahrir Square. Striking telecommunication workers attended mass protests in Cairo’s Ramses Square. Workers struck some military equipment factories, owned by the army. Subway, postal and Egypt Airline workers walked out. Laid-off workers at the Alexandria Library demanded their jobs back. Hospital workers at the Al Azhar University hospitals walked out. Temporary and contract workers demanded permanent jobs.

These were all wildcat, “illegal” strikes, as much against the leaders of the official government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation as against the bosses and Mubarak himself.

The NY Times (2/9) reported, “In Helwan, 6,000 workers at the Misr Helwan Spinning and Weaving Company went on strike….More than 2,000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in Quesna began a strike while about 5,000 unemployed youths stormed a government building in Aswan, demanding the dismissal of the governor. Postal workers protested in shifts. In Cairo, sanitation workers demonstrated outside their headquarters.”

Riot police killed five people and wounded more than 100 during protests in El Kharga, 375 miles south of Cairo. Protesters responded by burning police stations and other government buildings. In Asyut, protesters blocked a railway line. Protesters in Port Said, a city of 600,000 at the mouth of the Suez Canal, set fire to a government building when local officials ignored demands for better housing.

There are many lessons to be learned from the fall of Mubarak. One is the power of the workers to cast the deciding vote as to the direction and success or failure of any uprising or rebellion. We work among many of these same groups of workers. We are building a mass base for communist revolution.

Egypt shows that things can change very fast. It should encourage us to work harder in these very difficult times so when our opportunity comes, we will be able to fight for the leadership of the movement and lead the working class to power with communist revolution. That will not happen this time around in Egypt as Mubarak is replaced by the same butchers and torturers who have surrounded him for 30 years.JWhat the rulers portrayed as a non-violent “revolution” in Egypt was far from the truth.

“It’s happening people….It’s happening….The working class has entered the arena with full force today.”

That’s how one blogger described the strike of Cairo’s transit workers as they shut six garages: Nasr Station, Fateh Station, Ter’a Station, Amiriya Station, Mezzalat Station, Sawwah Station, just days before Mubarak’s fall. That was the end of public bus service in Cairo under the hated torturer’s regime.

The strike-wave that eventually sent Mubarak packing did not fall from the sky. Since 2004, more than 2,000,000 Egyptian workers have gone on strike and protested for higher pay, especially to fight privatization.

In Mubarak’s final days, tens of thousands of workers from Cairo to Alexandria to the Suez Canal were on strike. More than 6,000 workers for the Suez Canal Authority staged a sit-down strike at the international waterway. Al Jazeera reported more than 20,000 factory workers on strike.

In Mahallah, 24,000 textile workers walked out demanding raises and in solidarity with the protesters in Tahrir Square. Striking telecommunication workers attended mass protests in Cairo’s Ramses Square. Workers struck some military equipment factories, owned by the army. Subway, postal and Egypt Airline workers walked out. Laid-off workers at the Alexandria Library demanded their jobs back. Hospital workers at the Al Azhar University hospitals walked out. Temporary and contract workers demanded permanent jobs.

These were all wildcat, “illegal” strikes, as much against the leaders of the official government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation as against the bosses and Mubarak himself.

The NY Times (2/9) reported, “In Helwan, 6,000 workers at the Misr Helwan Spinning and Weaving Company went on strike….More than 2,000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in Quesna began a strike while about 5,000 unemployed youths stormed a government building in Aswan, demanding the dismissal of the governor. Postal workers protested in shifts. In Cairo, sanitation workers demonstrated outside their headquarters.”

Riot police killed five people and wounded more than 100 during protests in El Kharga, 375 miles south of Cairo. Protesters responded by burning police stations and other government buildings. In Asyut, protesters blocked a railway line. Protesters in Port Said, a city of 600,000 at the mouth of the Suez Canal, set fire to a government building when local officials ignored demands for better housing.

There are many lessons to be learned from the fall of Mubarak. One is the power of the workers to cast the deciding vote as to the direction and success or failure of any uprising or rebellion. We work among many of these same groups of workers. We are building a mass base for communist revolution.

Egypt shows that things can change very fast. It should encourage us to work harder in these very difficult times so when our opportunity comes, we will be able to fight for the leadership of the movement and lead the working class to power with communist revolution. That will not happen this time around in Egypt as Mubarak is replaced by the same butchers and torturers who have surrounded him for 30 years.