Socialist Fight, Britain 12-8-17

Comrades,

The world stands in imminent danger of nuclear holocaust stemming solely from the desperation of US imperialism to preserve its economic and political position as the global hegemonic imperialist power. Trump tells us that U.S. nuclear power is, “now far stronger and more powerful than ever” because he has taken steps to “renovate and modernize” it. “Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!” he asserts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, meets with U.S. Sen. John McCain, left and Lindsey Graham, right. A true trio of reaction.

On August first Sen. Lindsey Graham said that President Trump is willing to go to war with North Korea to stop it from being able to hit the American mainland with a nuclear weapon.

“There is a military option: to destroy North Korea’s nuclear program and North Korea itself. He’s not going to allow — President Trump — the ability of this madman to have a missile that could hit America.

“If there’s going to be a war to stop him, it will be over there,” Graham continued. “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die over here — and he’s told me that to my face.”

Of course, such a war would not cause “thousands” but millions of casualties nor would it be possible to contain it “over there”.  Remember the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 was “over there” but it all too quickly became “over here” for the entire generation of youthful soldiers and civilian who died in the conflagration of WWI, entirely caused by inter-imperialist rivalries.

Graham went on to say that the president “doesn’t want a war” — but would be willing to start one that would kill millions of people in the region if it came down to it.

By 9^th of August Trump was in full war cry: “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

North Korea’s responded by foolishly threatening a missile strike on the US Naval Base in Guam in mid-Pacific, which added fuel to Trump’s warmongering agenda.

“Over there” is the city of Soul and the Japanese con-urbanisations. But China simply cannot allow regime change in Pyongyang or allow South Korean/US troops and missiles on its border. Mao Tse Tung was obliged to go to war in 1950 because he recognised them, as Zi does today, that China is the ultimate target and not just North Korea.

Moreover, war is Trump’s prerogative as Senator Graham asserts against Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who said that a “pre-emptive war” on the Korean peninsula “would require the authorization of Congress.” “There’s nothing in the Constitution limiting the ability to use force to protect America,” Graham told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday.

Trump is “mentally” ready to pre-emptively strike North Korea “if negotiations fail, I think he’s there mentally, he has told me this.”

On 10^th August Trump said that his “fire and fury” warning to North Korea may not have been “tough enough.”

And here lies the source of the current stand-off with Kim Jung UN and North Korea, with Bashar al-Assad in Syria, with Iran, with Putin’s Russia and with Zi in China. This is the reason behind the terrible slaughter inflicted on the population of Mosul, the monstrous assault by US and UK backed and funded forces on Yemen and the whole Middle East crisis now over Qatar, involving Israel (covertly for now), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Bahrein and the Maldives on the one side and Iran, Turkey, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia on the other signifies the real target here is Iran. But can Turkey and Russia remain aloof whilst the US asserts it total power in the region?

And the Senate and House of Representatives has forced Trump to initiate new sanctions on Russia which have upset the EU greatly and Germany and France in particular. These sanctions will wreak havoc on European energy companies and so they are obviously not just aimed at Russia but at the EU as well. It is aimed at the huge natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany across the Baltic called Nord Stream 2. It is owned by Russia’s Gazprom but also has European investors

And the EU is bound to respond. EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker warned in late July that: “If our concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days. ‘America First’ cannot mean that Europe’s interests come last,”.

Trump has already imposed tariffs on EU imports to protect the American steel industry so trade tit-for-tat retaliations are now sure to follow. And on Congress’s insistence Russia’s so-called annexation of Crimea and funding of the so-called “terrorist separatists” in the Donbass is another military flashpoint. NATO has been conducting provocative war exercises in all countries bordering Russia and beefing up deployments of US and UK troop and armaments there. Russia has been obliged to respond in kind.

Apart from Brazil Latin America escaped WWII directly and Brazil was only tangentially involved. It looks far different this time around. As we have analysed the US is seeking to reverse the losses suffered after fightback of the late 1990 and the first decade of this century and the economic collapse after the 2008 debacle. Venezuela is in Trump’s crosshairs also; he told reporters on Friday 11^th that he would not “rule out a military option” for Venezuela.

All the elements for WWII are now in place in these four flashpoints.

How stands the global working class in the face of these developments?

Britain has seen enormous political changes over the past two years. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in September 2015 and again in 2016 showed a leftist surge in the vanguard of the British working class. The membership of the party went from under 200,000 to over 600,000 and rising in that time, making it the biggest social democratic party in the world in proportion to population.

The shedding of the ‘unelectable’ tag in the voting surge in the June general election was entirely down to the two opposing manifestos, the Tory one so arrogant at its 25% lead at the beginning that its class hatred was naked and the Labour one, soft left reformist as its programme of nationalisations and ending public sector pay restraints and abolishing student tuition fees was nevertheless it was a change of political direction against neoliberal policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

However, we must be clear that although Jeremy Cornyn is the most leftist and pacifist Labour leader ever he is nonetheless a defender of the capitalist state and ultimately an imperialist politician. Although he has the overwhelming support of the youth there is as yet no major industrial strike struggle to back his political advance, nor is he calling for one.

But inevitable it will come as the crisis deepens. Then we could get a situation like the 1936 Popular Front government in France. All our efforts must be to provide the revolutionary leadership for that struggle when it comes. A unique combination of national circumstances has created the Corbyn phenomenon. No other social democratic party leader in Europe of globally is in his position now. But it is surely an integral part of the world crisis. We glimpsed the possibility in the Bernie Sanders surge, even though this was in an outright Democratic capitalist party nonetheless the possibility of a USA Labor party emerged again for the first time since the 1930s; ‘socialism’ is no longer a dirty word in the USA.

All these developments oblige serious revolutionaries to redouble their efforts to re-forge the scattered remnants of Trotsky’s Fourth International as the world party of socialist revolution.

So, the warmest solidarity greetings to our comrades in their conference and we look forward to continued collaboration and ever closer comradely relations in the months and years ahead. ▲