two programs and two strategies in Libya and the entire North of Africa and Middle East

Once again… REFORM OR REVOLUTION

The revolutionary processes in the North of Africa and Middle East and in Libya in particular marked a turning point in the international class struggle and as such have separated waters within the world Marxist movement and the organizations that vindicate to be of the working class. Thus, in Libya a revolution has gone very far: the masses have upraised in a true chains of local insurrections, city by city, that have shaken the army and left the state in a serious crisis, that is, the capitalists’ gang of armed men.

Today the Libyan question goes through the world left. For decades, it will be discussed on the Libyan question as today the discussions on the Spain revolution continues or on the Bolivian revolution in 1952 as well, among others.
Any current that vindicates to be of the worker movement that is not at the level of the socialist revolution in Libya will be able to speak in the name of the world working class in the next years.

 

All along the Libyan revolution the reformism gets divided into either supporting Khadafy or being servant of the NTC

In the middle of the heroic revolutionary process of the untamable insurgent masses in Libya, the currents of the world reformist left have divided themselves: on one side, the lackeys of Kadhafy who are cynic trying the dual power armed organisms of the Libyan masses like NATO and imperialism’s agents; on the other side, the theoreticians of the “democratic revolution” have focused on create illusions in the NTC-with its khadafist generals and politicians- stating that it was an ally of the exploited masses  in the revolution to defeat Khadafy.

Meanwhile, all the leaderships and groups that today are divided as regards the Libyan question ( and even they discuss each other in public) are all unified in Tunisia and Egypt singing praises for democracy, Constituent Assemblies and “Arab Springs”, that is, sustaining all the parliamentary deviations with which the bourgeoisie and imperialism attempt to expropriate the revolutionary processes in the region.

 

But the magnificent revolution in Libya differently to the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt was against the khadafist autocracy friend of Castro, Chavez and other “bolivarians” who have showed –similarly to the Iranian bourgeoisie- to be lackeys of imperialism like the bourgeoisies of Mubarak and Ben Ali. Thus, the Stalinists and a wing of the renegades of Trotskyism have behaved like the club of “the mournful cry- widows”

On their part, the “anticapitalist” pro-socialdemocrats of the “new left” like the NPA and LIT has been also in Libya at the feet of the NTC. That CNT that at each step disorganized the offensive of the  Misarrata’s masses to Tripoli, and was the one who expropriated, at last instance, the taking of power by the working class and exploited masses.

 

Even there were LIT’s sympathizer currents that stated that the only government that should be recognized in Libya was the NTC’s government of Bengasi. And they did it when the masses didn’t even know who that NTC of khadafist generals and politicians who “crossed to the other side” at last moment.
All these currents are the “theoreticians” of the “democratic revolution”, that is, of “Everybody against Khadafy” that posed this when the NTC was the big obstacle and the dead weight masses had to drag to smash and defeat Khadafy, the biggest imperialism´s agent in Libya. 

 

Reformism servant of the pact-agreement sealed among imperialism, Khadafy, and the NTC in Misarrata aiming to prevent the armed masses from reaching Tripoli, smashing Khadafy and imposing their own power 

 

In Libya, and in particular in Misarrata, all the world reformist left broke their teeth despite they get divided and even the make polemics in public among them.

After the chains of insurrections that started all around Libya, the imperialism identified very well that Khadafy was no longer the government, the agent that guaranteed to keep its business in Libya. Thus, after re-arming Khadafy to the teeth to smash the mass insurrection taking place in Tripoli in February, the plan of imperialism was to take out Khadafy from the government in a “ordered way” and as part of “an agreement made from the top” with the NTC that rebuild the officers’ caste under the command of the NTC (the “democratic” agent of NATO and imperialism). This meant that the bourgeois state was re-built, a state dismantled by the revolutionary mass actions.

 

This pact between imperialism, Gaddafi and the NTC was being negotiated in Misarata in July and August 2011. If they had reached an agreement, they would’ve guaranteed the NTC TO BE THE LEADER IN THE DEFEAT OF GFADDAFI AND TO LEGITIME ITS POWER, WITH THE SUPPORT OF NATO. GADDAFI WOULD’VE ENDED UP IN ALGERIA IN EXILE, OR IN A TRIAL, AS IT HAPPENS TO ALL THE AGENTS THAT WERE ALREADY USED BY IMPERIALISM.
This was the bourgeois plan to prevent the victory of the revolution, to closet he gaps in the heights of the army, to re-constitute it, to re-take control of the bourgeois state and disarm the masses.

All the currents of the reformist left of the World Social Forum, whether they are pro-Gaddafi or pro-NTC, were devoted to supporting this treacherous pact between imperialism, Gaddafi and the NTC. The first condition for this pact to be imposed is to prevent the militias of the insurgent workers and the exploited to take over Tripoli. That’s why NATO bombed all the militias that left from Misarrata to the west.
None of Gaddafi’s tanks that placed Brega and Misarrata under siege were even touched by NATO. Meanwhile, Sarkozy, who supported the NTC in Benghazi, sent 200 last-generation tanks to Tripoli to defend Gaddafi before a revolutionary mass eruption or if the militias entered to the capital beforetime.

The club of the “weeping women” of Gaddafi and the servants of Castro brothers accuse the armed masses of being “NATO’s ground troops”, when actually they acted as “ground troops of Gaddafi” that was sent by NATO and CIA (his leadership) from Tripoli to advance and defeat the masses in Misarrata who made justice with the bourgeois pro-Gaddafi politicians.
Gaddafi had to reach there with his counterrevolutionary troops, and nobody prevented it, neither NATO nor CIA nor any imperialist power. That’s because they had to break the chain of insurrected victories, city by city, of the revolutionary masses that threatened to re-take Tripoli.
These currents were servants of the Bolivarian bourgeoisie and Castroism, the “ground troops” of the first body of Gaddafi army in Tripoli; the same army who first marched over killing the masses in Misarrata and was the first in giving the keys of that city to the NTC, with a Gaddafist general in command, so Tripoli is not seized first by the militias of Zentan and Zawiya that smashed Gaddafist troops and marched over Tripoli in August.
And now these leaderships want the masses to relieve that Gaddafi was killed by a missile of NATO, when NATO and CIA where actually their guardians.

Meanwhile, their allies in the Constituent Assemblies in Tunisia and Egypt, that is to say the NAP and LIT, wanted the armed workers of Libya and the world working class to see the “democratic” bourgeoisie, namely the NTC, as an ally in their fight against Gaddafi.
Butt he NTC did nothing to defeat Gaddafi. It was the heaviest weight they masses had in this combat. The only thing done by the NTC was to shoot the militias on the back, to agree with NATO and Gaddafi. And if today the NTC has a provisory “victory” of taking power in Libya is not because of the support they have from the masses but because they lack of a revolutionary party to lead them to victory.
The masses are never prepared to take power, even if they have it at the reach of the hand. The capitalist system does not prepare the masses for it. The masses don’t even dream on the fact that they have the chance of taking over the government and impose their power, even if they have the weapons.
The current consciousness of the exploited comes from their weapons. With the weapons they press on the NTC for it to deliver food. With the armed pressure, they impose their victory. Nevertheless they don’t think about taking power, although the NTC is a weak government, because they don’t have a revolutionary party that fights to centralize the dual power organs in the country (militias, workers committees, etc.) for them to take all power, defeating the imposters Gaddafist politicians and generals now in the NTC.
However, we insist, the masses press the NTC with the weapons. The first military clashes are inevitable. The bourgeoisie abandoned the factories. The NTC concentrates the 100% of its forces in the oil companies that export the 60% of the oild that exported before the fall of Gaddafi, as today the ENI (Italian oil company) does it from Brega.
But there’s no food, and the masses gave their lives for it. They put pressure on the NTC with strikes and pressure armed struggles for it to pay the wages. When so, they destabilize it and turn impossible for the bourgeoisie to control and manage the state. The situation turns unstable. Under these conditions, there is no balance of social peace between the classes. It’s just the opposite. It is the highest tension and civil war between the classes, as it happens in every place the exploited get a dual power.
The paralyzed factories immediate pose the need of placing them under workers control to start them working and recover the job that was lost after the bosses (who were 99% gaddafist) ran away from the cities or were killed by the militias.
The occupation of factories and oil companies by the armed workers to get bread and the fact that the masses are still armed, leads to a sharp tension between the two powers: the exploiters in the NTC and the armed exploited with their militias in the whole Libya.
So many lies, infamy and slanders against the armed masses of Libya, so much subordination to Gaddafi or the “democratic” bourgeoisie of the NTC is for the world working class does not see that by reaching to Tripoli, breaking the pact between Gaddafi, NTC and NATO in Missarrata, and by killing Gaddafi (the imperialist lackey), the masses imposed their dual power organs in the whole Libya.
This situation cannot last for long. If so, is because the masses in Egypt returned to the fight, because in Syria the masses are fighting as in Libya against the murderer al-Assad and because one thousand times the European working class erupts in defensive-offensive struggles against the imperialist governments and regimes which are the true supporters of the NTC of Libya.
An unstable situation is opened in Libya. The masses haven’t taken power yet. They need a revolutionary leadership for it, more than ever. The world working class and the North of Africa give time for it, making imperialism to be unable to shoot and cause a premature massacre of the exploited.
A dual power regime is being established, but there cannot be two powers inside a same state. The pact agreed against the masses in Misarrata, between the NTC, Gaddafi and NATO was precisely to prevent this. But the masses frustrated such a plan and reached Tripoli in late August. The friends of the NTC and the weeping women of Gaddafy still cry… so be it!

To open a new Libya is what the masses feel in Egypt when they took over Tahrir Square again. This is the feeling of the masses in Tunisia, who resist to enter in the fraude of the elections of the UGTT and the bourgeois parties, with the support of the European trade unions.
It’s the feeling of the masses in Nigeria, which today take over the streets shouting “Go Jonathan, or die like Khadafy!”

 

Reformism wants to hide that in Libya there is a dual power regime

Today we see a speed race between the Gaddafist and the pro-NTC for getting that no worker of the world draws the conclusion that in order to get food we have to arm ourselves and defeat the bourgeoisie.
Some of them say that without the “good” bourgeoisie we can’t even dream about fighting and defeating Gaddafi and all who suppress and starve the workers. Others claim that to fight against the so-called “progressive” or “anti-imperialist” bourgeoisies (as Chavez, Morales or Gaddafi) is something we shouldn’t do because we would be “playing for imperialism”.

 “Do as in Libya? Masses in Syria: don’t you ever think about that!” says PTS from a balcony in Argentina, reminding that “The Syrian National Council has already being set up in Istanbul so you would be playing for it; you have to let them kill you in Damascus, Homs and others, otherwise you would become into NATO ground troops”.
Today’s Pabloites of the Fourth International, defenders of the nasty remnants of Stalinism, has proven to be completely senile. Pabloism in the second post-war capitulated to Stalinism and called to dissolve the Fourth International in the Communist Parties, when they manipulated and controlled thousands of millions of workers across the world, who even smashed fascism.
To be placed as left support of the Zionist CP, of the Syrian Stalinism that supported Gaddafi in Libya and al-Assad in Syria today is senile Pabloism; more than just senile, is almost cadaver. It’s the re-edition of the fake Trotskyist experience of dissolving the revolutionary socialism in the remnants of Stalinism and the Bolivarian or Arab bourgeoisie by the World Social Forum internationally.

The revolution in Libya reached too far. The social-imperioalist leaders, friends of Stalinism couldn’t convince the revolutionary Libyan masses to apply the policy of the pact between imperialism, Gaddafi and NTC to advance to an ordered way out of Gaddafi from the government. The exploited didn’t listen to them and marched over Tripoli.
They reached further and caused everyone a nightmare they never wanted to dream. Gaddafi wasn’t killed by a NATO missile or a NTC general. Gaddafi was killed by the militias that after taking him out of his rat nest in Sirte they cut his head off and sent to Misarrata.

Even if reformism doesn’t like it, there are two Powers in Libya. The working class has the seizure of power at the reach of its hands. Reformism and the treacherous leaderships conspire against the revolution. They all work together to impose in Libya parliamentary ways out, diversions, retreats, or the revolution to be expropriated as in Egypt or Tunisia, where it was taken to a dead end of bourgeois parliament. Everyone silences that the NTC, with its Gaddafist generals, under the commands of imperialism, tries to impose a starvation siege on the armed masses. It’s a terror silence. These leaderships are agents and accessories of this blackmail on the revolutionary Libyan masses.
But the exploited once again broke the silence. They fight against the Gaddafist generals in the NTC in shootings in Benghazi, in the streets of Tripoli, in Misarrata reaching to Brega. The militias and the armed masses know who the ones that fought are and who were Gaddafist “old friends”. The masses targeted Gaddafist old friends because that they and imperialism have got the key for food. That’s why the militias of Misarrata start to pain the slogan “Today Libya, tomorrow Wall Street”. In Wall Street there are the allies of the masses of Libya, the young workers “indignados” that fight against those parasites of the oligarchy of the finance capital, not the lackey left of Obama.
The revolutionary Stripes of the workers have started. The teachers and municipal self-organized workers are making schools to work again, are cleaning the cities and re-establishing the public services. To collect their wages, they have to march with their militias and put a gun to the head of the Gaddafist generals and politicians of the NTC.
When they go on a strike for their wages, the armed masses defend their demands. Their strikes are defended with their guns in their hands. Or are they defended by the NTC that “controls the armed militias” as the imperialist lackeys say?

This is what keeps the reformists awake: Armed masses in their workplaces, going on strike with their weapons.
Most of the factories are closed. The bourgeoisie ran away, or suffered Gaddafi’s fate. The NTC warns: “The Koran does not allow to steal”. The workers see that those factories were working because of them. The tend to their occupation and make them work is already unleashed in Libya.
In Tripoli, there are militias from all around Libya. The armed masses see that power is in that city. The task to do is to make a call to set up a congress of all the militias and workers organizations in Libya, to be held in the martyr square or in Gaddafi’s former luxurious enormous palace. That armed workers parliament would be the only structure with authority to define the destinies of Libya, disarming the generals of the NTC and judging and punishing all the murderous politicians, accomplices of Gaddafi, and expropriate all their assets.
ENI and the NTC are already taking away 60% of the oil that Libya exported in times of Gaddafi. That government of the workers and militias committees, expropriating the banks, docks and oil companies without compensation will have enormous incomes enough to get food for all the workers and the people in Libya. These are the immediate tasks in the agenda.

 

The reformist program is: "No more Libyas!"

Against them, we Trotksyist assert that in order to get bread we should follow the path of the Libyan masses and take it to victory by seizing power

The reformist program is “No more Libyas!” All these currents want that Syria, Egypt or Tunisia do not become into Libya, let alone that the masses in Europe decide to really fight as in Libya. That’s the reformist program: that the masses in Europe do not get the weapons and destroy the imperialist counterrevolutionary armies in the metropolis, that the masses do not overthrow the autocracies of the imperialist French Fifth Republic, the Borbons from Spain, the London City and the fascist corporations of Japan who are killers of the subjugated people while they oppress their own working class. What the reformist don’t want to happen at all is the fall of the “Republicrat” regime of the USA, which uses its military commands in the five continents to rule and mark their condition of ruling power in the world economic crisis with their centurions.

They have all learnt that once a revolution in the colonial and semi-colonial world starts, the tendency is to reach to the imperialist heartlands, because of its bondages but especially because imperialism is wounded. This is what happened in Portugal in 1974/75 when its army returned home after being defeated by the masses in Guinea Bissau and Angola. In Lisbon and in the whole Portugal, the workers disarmed the army, got the weapons and built up the workers and soldiers committees in the whole Portugal.

If the Libyan revolution it is expanded to Europe and USA, it has the key to be synced up with the working class of those countries and to open revolutionary processes inside the imperialist workers as those of Libya, Tunisia, Egypt.
                                                                                                              

Ultimately the reformists try to hide that there are two powers established in Libya, just like a magician from a circus. On the one hand, the NTC and their Gaddafist officers and politicians, supported by imperialism, expropriated (for now) the victory of the socialist revolution. On the other hand, an armed power of the working class and the exploited has risen, occupying the whole national territory of Libya, as the take-over of Tripoli and Sirte.
Either the working class imposes itself by taking power, or the bourgeoisie will drown Libya in blood after the deception and conspiracies against the armed masses are settled. The counterrevolution will create the conditions to smash the dual power organs, starting by isolating the masses for starvation, city by city. It will even encourage the starving masses to fight against each other in fratricide wars in the dispute for food, or to swap guns for food.

Weapons are not to be given to NATO or NTC or the Gaddafist! Long live the dual power! Down with the NTC! Expropriation without compensation and place under workers control the oil companies and all the factories of Libya! Victory for the socialist revolution!

But this won’t be solved only in Libya. We are not before “a” revolution but different links of a single chain of revolution that shakes the whole North of Africa and the Middle East, whose biggest ally is the European working class that confronts dictatorship, autocracies and counterrevolutionary regimes, which are even more murderous that those overthrown by the masses in the North of Africa.
The Libyan revolution will be defined in the international combat of the working class in the Mediterranean Sea and Africa, where its combats are already reaching Nigeria with the uprising of the working class and the exploited.

Long live the socialist revolution in Northern Africa! For the socialist united states of Maghreb! For the federation of workers socialist republics in the Middle East!
Yankee out of Iraq and Afghanistan! Destroy the Zionist-fascist state of Israel!
Out with al-Assad! For a provisional revolutionary government of the workers coordinating committees and the armed soldiers in Syria! For those committees to expropriate the “newly rich” of the importer Syrian bourgeoisie, partner of imperialism in the phone companies, computing and communication! To end with this murderous government is a task to be made by the masses, not by the Arab lackey bourgeoisies or the Syrian National Council made of the lackey bourgeoisies in Ankara.
One single classs, one single struggle!
Down with the imperialist Maastricht! Down with Putin and the rest of the murderers and imperialist lackeys in Eastern Europe!
The enemy was targeted by the vanguard of the youth and the US working class: the 1% of a world finance oligarchy, who throws all its crisis on the working class and the oppressed people of the world.
Therefore, as it is said and fights in the streets of Misarrata: Today Libya, Tomorrow Wall Street!

The leadership crisis of the revolutionary proletariat is getting deeper. This means that while conditions are being prepared for new counterrevolutionary blows, the treacherous leaderships of the European working class are preventing that the workers of the old world solve the problem of the Libyan masses of food, bearing in mind that the 350 thousand million US dollars of reserves expropriated from the Libyan masses are in the banks of Europe and USA.
The European working class has to paralyze the docks and re-direct the shipments of food to go to Libya! Surround the banks and place Wall Street under siege in order to give back the Libyan masses all the millions of dollars that were stolen from them!
In that fight, the Libyan masses will see their true allies and only like that they will resist starvation and fight against the agents of imperialism in the region such as the NTC.
The treacherous leaderships of the working class cynically want to hide (so the working class does not find out) that in Libya the masses reached too far, because now they have the guns to get the food and the power. These leaderships do not want for the European masses and from the whole world to see which the road to victory is.

In Nigeria and Syria the masses are already fighting and taking steps forward as in Libya. The European working class is preparing new mass assaults against Maastricht, which is falling apart and burdening its crisis on the exploited. The US working class gets back in the fight. There is time and enough conditions for the masses not to give up in Libya and in the whole North of Africa and the Middle East.
The Chinese masses are making hundreds and hundreds of revolts, as those of the masses in Northern Africa against the exploiters. The crisis of world capitalism has linked all the nations and continents in a decadency and catastrophe, that capitalism is throwing over the backs of the workers. However, following that route of crisis and catastrophe, new offensives and mass responses are starting to take place.
Here and there, the contention of the reformist leaderships, which try to save capitalism from the enraged masses are bursting out, losing coordination; while in their struggle the masses tend to get coordinated internationally.
While reformism isolates the revolutions, the masses tend to break that isolation with their war cry “fight as in Libya!” or “fight like an Egyptian!” which was raised in the streets of New York, Athens or Madrid.

It is thus proved that whoever speaks on behalf of socialism and the working class, and does not take a revolutionary stand on Libya (one of the most advanced revolutionary processes in the planet, a historical revolution) won’t be able to speak on behalf of the working class ever again, let alone to prepare its victory.
The FLTI is a supporting point and a gathering of the world revolutionary vanguard it the fight for re-founding the Fourth International of 1938. We have declared war on all these reformist currents that try to make the enemies of the working class appear as its friends, and its friends as its enemies. Today, more than ever, the masses need the Fourth International without any traitor or those who terminate their program or the lackeys of the bourgeoisie! For the re-foundation of the 1938 Fourth International!

 

International Executive Committee of the FLTI