ISSN 1758-5708 Corre-sponden SSooThcce ialist Summert 2015 · Andy Burnham Jeremy Corbyn “On a clear anti-austerity platform.” nLabour’s election success nUK General Election

Issue Number 23

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ISSN 1758-5708

SocialistTheTheSocialistCorre-CorrespondentIssue Number 23

Summer 2015

£2.00

Summer 2015

LizKendall

YvetteCooper

Andy Burnham

Jeremy Corbyn

“On a clear anti-austerityplatform.”

nUK General Election and aftermath Page 6n Labour’s election success in London - Page 9

nSNP’s fiscal figures do not add up - Page 13

Yanis Varoufakis

n Greek lesson:the EU is badfor the people

Page 4

WolfgangSchauble

AngelaMerkel

Or back to New Labour?

Labour

Leadership

Election

“On a clear anti-austerityplatform.”

Jeremy Corbyn

Islington Tribune

The European

Central Bank Frankfurt,Germany.

nUkraine: escalating intofull-scale war? - Page 16

nYemen: Saudis’ war to regaincontrol - Page 20

nArnold Mesches and his FBI file - Page 31

ContentsISSUE NO. 23 SUMMER 2015

2 The Socialist Correspondent Summer 2015

Ukraine: escalating into full-scale war?SIMON KORNER

Page 16

Yemen: Saudis’ war to regain controlSIMON KORNER

Page 20

Venezuala and Ecuadorunder threatFRIEDA PARK

Page 22

70th anniversary of Dresden InfernoDR. KLAUS SCHWURACK

Page 24

Hardship or hope for Africa?GREG KASER

Page 26

Arnold Mesches and his FBI fileGEORGE HEARTFIELD

Page 31

Discussion, debate and authors’ opinions: To encourage the broadest possible discussion and debate around the aims of exposing capitalism and promoting socialism, we hope our readers appreciate that not all the opinions expressed by individual authors are necessarily those of The Socialist Correspondent.

Greek lesson: the EU is bad for the peopleALEX DAVIDSON

Page 4

UK General Election and the aftermathSCOTT MCDONALD

Page 6

Labour’s election success in LondonBRIAN DURRANS

Page 9

The Socialist CorrespondentConferencePage 12

SNP’s fiscal figures do not add upPAUL SUTTON

Page 13

Pictures: Unless otherwise stated all pictures are courtesy of Commons Wikimedia. Some of these will be attributed to an individualphotographer. This does not mean that these individuals agree with theopinions expressed by individual authors or The Socialist Correspondent. Further information: http://commons.wikimedia.org

Summer 2015 The Socialist Correspondent 3

SocialistCorrespondent

stroying one of the world’s poorestcountries to maintain control over astrategically important region.

As he points out, “Yemen has beencritically important strategically sincethe British Empire developed the portof Aden as a staging post to India…”

It is important now to the Ameri-cans, whose “policy is dictated by itsneed to control both the strategicchokepoint and the oil reserves.”

UK General ElectionAnyone who thought that it didn’tmatter who won the British GeneralElection because the Labour Party wasas bad as the Tory Party should al-ready have changed their view or theysoon will.

The Tory government, now with aslim but workable overall majority, hasstarted its next five-year term of officesetting out a legislative programme,which will extend and deepen austerity.

Proposed legislation includes that ofmaking it even more difficult for tradeunions to take industrial action whenworkers’ rights and conditions are fur-ther attacked; the capping of welfarebenefits; the introduction of the ‘rightto buy’ for housing association tenantsthus taking more homes out of socialhousing for future generations; andmuch more.

Alice In WonderlandThe Queen’s Speech at the opening ofParliament began, “My governmentwill legislate in the interests of everyonein our country. It will adopt a one na-tion approach, helping working peopleget on, supporting aspiration, givingnew opportunities to the most disad-vantaged…” Britain’s monarch, themost privileged person, parrotingwords penned for her by the privilegedand rich people’s Conservative partyabout helping ‘working people’ ... it’sthe language of ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

However, the words will not camou-flage the consequences. This is a pro-gramme of even greater attacks on thetrade unions, the welfare state, the un-employed, the sick, elderly and dis-abled, indeed all working people thanwe have seen hitherto.

The To contact The Socialist Correspondent

email the editor: editor@thesocialistcorrespondent.org.ukwww.thesocialistcorrespondent.org.uk

CommentaryGet Out of the EUIn his article on Greece, Alex David-son, explains that the five-monthnegotiations between the Troika(European Commission, EuropeanCentral Bank and the InternationalMonetary Fund) and Greece’sSYRIZA government were a sham.

The EU diktat hascome to pass andGreece is now in aworse position. Thelessons for Britainand elsewhere areclear: Get Out of theEU.

The EU cannot benegotiated with frominside as the Greekshave learned. Acces-sion to the EU hasbeen disastrous forthe former EasternEuropean socialistcountries as well as

for Portugal, Ireland, Greece andSpain, whose people have paid fortheir banks to be bailed-out.

Although the main parties inBritain, from the Tories to the SNP,will campaign for a YES vote, mil-lions will not be convinced because oftheir experience and the knowledge ofwhat has happened in Greece.

Germany played the leading role indealing with Greece and is extendingits hegemony over the EU and this isexposing inter-imperialist rivalries.

UkraineIn his article on Ukraine, SimonKorner notes that, “Germany hasopted for the EU accession deal,rather than military force as a meansof ruling Ukraine - a model whichhas served it well in dominating othereast European countries.”

On the other hand, there are those,particularly in the US, who would like“to advance NATO’s military pres-ence up to Russia’s border.”

Permanent WarWar is now a constant for millions ofpeople in many parts of the world,not least the devastated Middle East:think of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine.

The situation in Yemen is analysedby Simon Korner in which he arguesthat the US-backed Saudi war is de-

Labour Party leadershipThe Labour Party is now in a leader-ship contest. The Blairites, in paint-ing the General Election defeat asdisastrous for Labour, aim to re-takethe leadership and return to the poli-tics of right-wing New Labour.Miliband had gone some way in tak-ing Labour away from that positionbut the Blairites are determined tostop that continuing.

Scott McDonald argues in his arti-cle, “General Election and the After-math”, that although it was a defeatfor Labour, it was not as disastrous asthe Tories and the Blairites would liketo make out.

As he points out it suits both theTories and the Blairite agendas, “Itsuits the Tories as it suggests invinci-bility and aims to dishearten Labouractivists and supporters. From theBlairite standpoint, it makes sense …blaming Miliband and left policiesand creates the platform for the re-launch of their right-wing NewLabour agenda.”

Brian Durrans in his piece analy-sing the results in London shows thatLabour did very well, in fact betterthan in previous elections when Blairand Brown were the leaders.

In his in-depth analysis of the Lon-don results he shows that Black andEthnic Minority (BME) voters aremore likely to vote in accordancewith their class position and in Lon-don there is a greater proportion ofBME voters.

He draws theconclusion that“if the key lessonis that Labourcan do bestwhen peoplevote according totheir class inter-ests, then the

party will do even better when it de-fends and advances those interests inthe principled and vigorous way itsfounders intended.

And as austerity affects more andmore people, Labour can win overvoters from other parties to the extentthat it inspires existing supporters.”

You won’t hear much from LizKendall, Andy Burnham or YvetteCooper about class interests but youmay well do so from Jeremy Corbyn.

Jeremy Corbyn

The EuropeanCentral Bank in Frankfurt.


Greek lesson: EU is bad for the people

The Greek government has now signedup to a Third Memorandum with theTroika (European Commission, Euro-pean Central Bank and the InternationalMonetary Fund), which puts the coun-try into an even worse situation than italready was.

Days after the Greek people voted‘NO’ in their referendum the Greekgovernment agreed to even greater aus-terity and a further diminution of therights of the Greek people. The newdeal was even more punitive than thatearlier on offer.

The appalling treatment of the Greeksis a big lesson for the people of Britainas we approach an In-Out EU referen-dum. The EU cannot be negotiatedwith from inside as the Greeks havelearned. The EU structures are unde-mocratic and dictatorial and increasinglyGermany dominates this capitalist club.

Accession to the EU has been disas-trous for the former Eastern Europeansocialist countries as well as for thePIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece andSpain), whose people have paid for theirbanks to be bailed-out.

Although the main parties in Britain,from the Tories to the SNP, will cam-paign for a YES vote, millions of peoplewill not be convinced because oftheir experience and the knowledgeof what has happened in Greece.

From the election of the Syrizagovernment through to the Greekreferendum, the Eurogroup neverwavered from its position that theausterity programme agreed toby previous Greek governmentsmust be adhered to. Dr. WolfgangSchauble, Germany’s Finance Min-ister and the architect of the dealsGreece signed in 2010 and 2012,insisted on this throughout.

The Eurozone pre-emptively dis-missed the referendum and in the

The situation now faced by Greece demonstrates withgreat clarity that the European Union (EU) is undemocratic,unreformable and a major enforcer of failed neo-liberalcapitalist policies.

By ALEX DAVIDSON

Greek lesson: EU isbad for the people

meantime the Eurogroup had taken stepsto protect its banks even if the Greekbanks defaulted.

Greece has been given no debt relief,and in borrowing more money andtherefore paying more interest, the debtis destined to increase.

Sham negotiationsThe five months of negotiation were asham. As early as February 2014, GreekFinance Minister, Yanis Varoufakisaccused the ‘creditor’ governments of alack of flexibility in the negotiations.After his resignation on the evening (6July) of the referendum result, he wentfurther and labelled the negotiations ‘aset-up’.

He said “the other side insisted on a‘comprehensive agreement’, whichmeant they wanted to talk about every-thing. My interpretation is that when youwant to talk about everything, you don’twant to talk about anything.”

He suggested that Greece’s creditorshad a strategy to keep his governmentbusy and hopeful of a compromise, butin reality they were slowly suffering andeventually desperate.

Varoufakis added, “They would saywe need all your data on the fiscal path

on which Greece finds itself, all the dataon state-owned enterprises. So we spenta lot of time trying to provide them withit and answering questionnaires and hav-ing countless meetings.”

“So that would be the first phase. Thesecond phase was they’d ask us what weintended to do on VAT. They wouldthen reject our proposal but wouldn’tcome up with a proposal of their own.

“And, then before we would get achance to agree on VAT, they wouldshift to another issue, like privatisation.They would ask what we want to doabout privatisation: we put somethingforward, they would reject it.

“Then they’d move onto anothertopic, like pensions, from there to prod-uct markets, from there to labour rela-tions…it was like a cat chasing its owntail.” (1)

Harsh conditionsWhen five years previously the Greekcrisis began and the EU stepped in, itwas not the kind of help one would havewanted. Joseph Stigletz, formerly seniorVice-President and Chief Economist ofthe World Bank, and Martin Guzmanwrote, “The initial proposals had Ger-many and other ‘rescuers’ actually mak-ing a profit out of Greece’s distress,charging a far higher interest rate thantheir cost of capital. Worse they imposedconditions on Greece - changes in itsmacro- and micro-policies – that wouldhave to be made in return for the (bail-out[Ed]) money. (2)

“Such conditionality was a standardpart of the lending practices of theIMF and World Bank … There wasan element of neo-colonialism: theold White Europeans once againtelling their former colonies what todo. ” (2)

The IMF and World Bank’s‘structural adjustment’ programmesin Zimbabwe and Argentina areworth recalling in this regard, withdisastrous consequences for thepeoples of those countries.

These years of blackmailingGreece and demanding ever moreausterity has led to a catastrophiceconomic depression with aroundYanis VaroufakisWolfgang Schauble


Greek lesson: EU is bad for the people

30% unemployment (more than 50%youth unemployment), slashed salariesand pensions, huge cuts in the publicsector and vast inequality between therich and poor. The economy has beenreduced by 25%.

Those saved by the bail-outs were notthe people of Greece but German andFrench banks.

This latest Memorandum will enlargeGreek debt and make a bad situation forthe Greek people even worse. The pro-visions of the new deal include:

nAn additional increase of the VATrates, transferring packaged food andother items of mass popular consump-tion to the highest rate of 23%, the abo-lition of tax exemptions for farmers, asignificant increase in VAT for the is-lands.

nMaintenance of the anti-social-secu-rity measures in their entirety which re-duce pensions, increase the retirementage, exempt employers from social-secu-rity contributions

nThe introduction of new measuresthat abolish the remaining early retire-ments, establishing a single retirementage of 67, abolition of the benefits forpensioners with very low pensions, in-crease in workers’ social-security contri-butions, merging of the social-securityfunds with a race to the bottom in termsof rights.

nThe freezing of collective agree-ments, the maintenance of reducedwages and also additional new anti-worker measures in the name of adapta-tion to the EU directives for theexpansion of individual contracts be-tween workers and employers, the rein-forcement of part-time and temporarywork, flexible labour relations.

nMaintenance of the privatisationsthat have taken place and the promotionof new ones, in the ports, 14 regional air-ports, the railways, the company thatmanages natural gas.

nThe creation of a mechanism formortgaging and selling public propertyin order to raise 50 billion Euros to repaythe loans. The suggested mechanism forselling off Greek public assets, accordingto Wolfgang Schauble, is that they “shallbe transferred to an existing external orindependent fund like the Institute forGrowth in Luxembourg.” The Institutefor Growth was jointly established in2013 by a previous Greek governmentand KFW, the German DevelopmentBank. Schauble is the Chairman of theBoard of KFW.

nThe creation of primary surpluses of1% for 2015, 2% for 2016, 3% for 2017,3.5% for 2018, and the implementationof a mechanism to automatically cutsalaries, pensions, social spending if

there is divergence from the fiscal goals.

Inter-Imperialist rivalries in EuropeThere have been differences between theorganisations of the Troika and betweenthe positions of the United States andGermany. These reflect the differing ap-proaches to handling the financial crisisand also inter-imperialist rivalries.

There is no disagreement among thecapitalist countries that it is the workingpeople who should pay to save thebanks. The differences are over tactics asto how the situation should be handled.

Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Sec-retary (2009-2013), met with WolfgangSchauble on the German island of Syltin the North Sea in July 2012, and in hisbook ‘Stress Test’ published at the end of2014, revealed that the German FinanceMinister had presented him with a planto kick Greece out of the Eurozone.(3)

This, according to the GermanFinance Minister, would allow Germanyto provide the financial support neces-sary to the Eurozone as the Germanpeople would no longer perceive the as-sistance as a “bailout of the corrupt andprofligate Greeks.”

Furthermore, according to Schauble’slogic, a Greek exit would scare the restof Europe enough for them to committo providing sufficient financial assis-tance in order to prevent the systemfrom collapsing.

Geithner called the idea ‘frightening’,writing that he felt that it would create acrisis of confidence that would be diffi-cult to contain regardless of how muchmoney the Europeans subsequentlypledged to shore up bankrupt states.

He added that he could not see whythe Germans would feel better aboutbailing out Spain or Portugal than theywould Greece.

In the book Geithner also once againhighlights the disagreement between theAmericans and Europeans on how thedebt crisis should have been handled atits outset in 2010.

While European lenders remaineddoggedly committed to austerity Geith-ner writes he felt that imposing aggres-sive austerity too soon in Greece wouldbe counterproductive as it would depressthe economy and tax revenue, ultimatelyincreasing the deficit.

German hegemonyThe United States is wary about Ger-man hegemony over Europe; so besidesthe differences over how to deal withGreece there are other differences in-cluding over Ukraine.

The negotiations between Germany,France and Russia, which led to theMinsk Agreement over Ukraine, ex-cluded Britain and the United States.

The United States and NATO con-tinue to gear up for war while Germanywould prefer to integrate Ukraine intothe EU and control it through thatmechanism.

Membership of the EU has been badfor many countries including Greece andbad for all workers throughout Europe.It has been good for capital but not forlabour.

The referendum debate in Britain willnot be framed in this way by the capital-ist media nor by the main political par-ties but, then, all of them are defendersof capitalism.

It is worth recalling that on a Britishexit from the EU, Wolfgang Schauble ar-gued in 2014 that Britain’s EU member-ship was particularly important toGermany as both countries share a mar-ket-oriented reform approach on manyeconomic and regulatory questions. (4)

What that means is that weaker capi-talist countries would, like Greece, haveto abide by EU diktat, privatisationwould be endemic and workers through-out Europe would have their rights andconditions further reduced whilst capi-talism reigns supreme.

FOOTNOTES1. Yanis Varoufakis interview with NewStatesman, 13 July 2015.2. Stiglitz Joseph E and Guzman, Mar-tin, “Argentina shows Greece theremay be life after default”, The WorldPost, 1 July 2015.3. Geithner, Timothy, “Stress Test”,2014.4. Financial Times, 30 June 2014.

The European Central Bank headquarters, Frankfurt, Germany


UK General Election and the aftermath

But it is not true. The facts do not sup-port their argument.

However, this description of a disas-trous defeat for Labour fits both theBlairite and Tory agendas.

It suits the Tories as it suggests invin-cibility and aims to dishearten Labouractivists and supporters.

From the Blairites’ standpoint, itmakes sense to describe the result as dis-astrous, blaming Miliband and left poli-cies, and creates the platform for there-launch of their right-wing NewLabour agenda.

This description also suits the SNP,which has always had the aim of de-stroying Labour. Of course the electionwas disastrous for Labour in Scotland,but not in England nor Wales. The SNPwould like to convince everyone thatthere is no way back for Labour not justin Scotland but in the rest of the UK.

By making the argument that therewill be a Tory government forever in theUK, the SNP believe this will convincemore people in Scotland that independ-ence is the only answer.

The SNP know that a Tory govern-ment in Whitehall, and creating the im-pression that there is no way back forLabour, will make it easier for them toachieve their aim of independence.

So, it is in all their interests - the To-ries, right-wing Labour and the SNP -to describe the election result as disas-trous for Labour.

But it is not true. The facts do notsupport their argument.

The Tories won 8 seats from Labourbut Labour won 11 seats from theTories. (See Table 1) Labour’s share ofthe vote increased from the 2010 Gen-eral Election, from 29% to 30.4%, evenwith Labour shedding many votes inScotland. Labour’s vote was up by740,000 from the previous election in2010.

The Liberal Democrat collapse, the

fading challenge of UKIP to the Tories,the SNP’s sweeping gains in Scotland,the disenchantment of many working-class voters, the pro-Tory media as wellas the Tories’ strategy and tacticsaccount for Labour’s defeat. But todescribe it as disastrous is to deny thefacts.

Liberal Democrat disasterThe Liberal Democrats collapsed, los-ing a total of 49 seats, 27 to the Tories,12 to Labour and 10 to the SNP. Thisleaves the Liberal Democrats with just 8seats in Parliament. (See Table 1)

Their share of the voteplunged from 23% in the 2010election to 7.9% in 2015.

UKIP, which had been chal-lenging the Tories, particularly inthe south of England, stoppedgetting the same positive mediaattention as the election ap-proached. UKIP did secure aworrying 3.8 million votes, butwon only one seat. Their share ofthe vote increased to 12.4% from3.1% in the 2010 election.

How the Tories won an overallmajorityA meagre 901 voters spread over 7 con-stituencies was what gave the Tories anoverall majority (see table 2).

In the constituencies shown in Table2, you only need half of those people toswitch from Conservative to Labour forthe Tories to lose their majority in gov-ernment. In Gower for instance if 14people who voted for the Tories hadvoted for Labour instead, Gower wouldhave become a Labour seat. Only 14people!

If that had happened in all of theseseven constituencies, the Tories stillwould have won more seats than anyother party but, at 324 seats, theywouldn’t have managed an outright ma-

jority. Tallying up the switched votesneeded for Labour to get these sevenseats, we end up with a total of 901 peo-ple. That’s how few people gave the To-ries an overall majority in the House ofCommons. The Tory strategy and tac-tics worked in the key contests.

Tory StrategyLynton Crosby, the Australian politicalcampaign strategist, guided JohnHoward and the Liberal Party (ie theAustralian Tory Party) to four electionwins in Australia and had run BorisJohnson’s two successful London May-oral campaigns. In January 2012 he wasappointed to head the Tories electionstrategy for the 2015 General Election.

All parties understand that there is anair war (TV, radio, social media) and aground war (knocking on doors, phonecalls, leafletting).

Mark Wallace, writing in the Conser-vative Home website said, “TheConservative air war was visiblefor anyone to follow – the as-sault on Labour’s fiscal credi-bility, the image of a weak EdMiliband being propped up bya strong SNP, the starkly-drawndividing lines on such as wel-fare reform and the deficit.These headline messages cer-tainly played a large part in de-livering the Conservativemajority.” (1)

However, the Tory groundwar was deliberately played under theradar.

Wallace continued,“At the Conserva-tive conference in Birmingham in 2012,Stephen Gilbert, the Prime Minister’sPolitical Secretary, outlined the electionstrategy… “Speaking in a closed sessionto senior activists, Gilbert set out theprogramme for the Tory Stealth Winthat was painstakingly effected beneaththe radar of Labour, the media – and in-deed pollsters.” (1)

It was known as the 40/40 strategy inwhich the campaign would focus on de-fending 40 Conservative-held seats andattacking 40 others held by Labour andthe Liberal Democrats.

Wallace added, “Having picked the

The Blairite wing of the Labour Party and the Tories paintthe picture that the General Election was disastrous forLabour. The media repeat this assertion ad nauseam.

By SCOTT McDONALD

UK General Electionand the aftermath

Lynton Crosby



seats and selected the candidates, thenext step was to understand key votersin each constituency. Part of LyntonCrosby’s role was to lead on the pollingand analysis of voters in each target con-

alised and, in particular, that Lib-eral Democrat supporters weremore amenable to voting Tory thanothers realised.

“This laid the foundations for theground war: without it, the groundcampaigning, phone callsand leaflets to come would havebeen far less effective. If the con-cept of the 40/40 strategy was aprecision strike to win a majority,Crosby’s research (later bolsteredby Jim Messina’s(2) data) was aimedat delivering a precision strike towin a majority of votes in each seat.

“The importance of getting theresearch right cannot be overstated,either in terms of the eventual elec-tion result, or the subsequent mediaconfusion.

“The majority would be won bycampaigns targeted directly at a rel-atively small number of groups,each composed of a relatively smallnumber of people in a relativelysmall number of seats.

“That level of detail was hard forthose working at a national level tosee, and Crosby’s own insistencethat “we don’t talk about process”combined with it to make crucialparts of the campaign almost invis-ible.

“The Conservative approachwas, in effect, a rather secret war,carried out below the radar of thewatching national media, which hadno means of assessing the quality ofthe information gathered in thedatabases, or all the ways in whichit was duly exploited.”(1)

The Tories 40/40 strategy was ex-ecuted using Team 2015, who wereactivists moved around to the targetseats. They were encouraged by as-

sistance with transport, special days andfree curries and enabled with a very clearpicture of voter’s likes/dislikes providedby the database created by Crosby andhis team.

The underground ground war wascomplemented by the very visible airwar, of which the use of nationalism wasparticularly effective in the targeted seats.

The Nationalist cardThe Tories played the “English Votes forEnglish Laws” (EVEL) card from themorning when David Cameron com-mented on the result of the Scottish In-dependence Referendum through to thefinal days of the General Electioncampaign. The Tories used the SNP toportray a situation in which, if Labourwon, Miliband would be in the pocket ofSalmond. It was a very effective tacticdevised by Tory campaign strategist

stituency: how had they voted in thepast, why had they done so, what mightmake them stick with the blues or switch,and so on. He believed there were morepotential swing voters than people re-

TABLE 1 - Tory Gains and Losses

Tory Gains: 35

From Labour: 8

28. Bolton West

29. Derby North

30. Gower (West Glamorgan, Wales)31. Morley & Outwood (W Yorks)32. Plymouth Moor View33. Southampton Itchen34. Telford35. Vale of Clwyd

From Liberal Democrats: 271. Bath2. Berwick3. Brecon & Radnorshire (Powys, Wales)4. Cheadle5. Cheltenham (Gloucester)6. Chippenham7. Colchester (Essex)8. Eastbourne9. Eastleigh (Hampshire)10. Hazel Grove (Greater Manchester)11. Kingston & Surbiton12. Lewes (East Sussex)13. Mid Dorset & North Poole14. North Cornwall15. North Devon16. Portsmouth South17. Solihull18. Somerton & Frome (Somerset)19. St Austell & Newquay (Cornwall)20. St Ives (Devon)21. Sutton & Cheam22. Taunton Dean (Somerset)23. Thornbury & Yate (Avon)24. Torbay (Devon)25. Twickenham26. Wells (Somerset)27. Yeovil (Somerset)

Tory Losses: 12

To Labour: 11

1. Brentford (London)

2. City of Chester

3. Dewsbury (West Yorks)

4. Ealing Central & Acton (London)

5. Enfield North (London)

6. Hornsey & Wood Green (London)

7. Hove (East Sussex)

8. Ilford North

9. Lancaster

10. Wirral West (Merseyside)

11. Wolverhampton South West

To UKIP: 1

12. Clacton (Essex)

TABLE 2 - Seven Most Marginal Tory Seats by MajorityConstituency Majority Gain/Hold

Gower 27 Tory gain from Labour

Derby North 41 Tory gain from Labour

Croydon Central 165 Tory hold

Vale of Clwyd 237 Tory gain from Labour

Bury North 378 Tory hold

Morley & Outwood 422 Tory gain from Labour

Plymouth Sutton & Devonport 523 Tory hold



Lynton Crosby.“With typical shrewdness and ruthless-

ness, Crosby identified the surge of Scot-tish nationalism in recent years as awedge that could be used against Labour,both in Scotland and in England.” (AndyBeckett, Guardian, 8 May 2015)

“The Tory emphasis on the threat of aSNP-Labour coalition helped claw backvoters from the Lib Dems and Ukip –placing the Conservatives on course toclaiming today’s majority” (Corey Charl-ton, Mail online, 8 May 2015)

Labour were squeezed by English andScottish nationalism. When pushed bythe SNP to form an alliance, Milibandhad no choice but to reject their phoneyovertures.

If he had accepted, it would have beenas good as saying “vote SNP not Labourin Scotland” and it would have pushedfrightened voters in the south of Englandeven further into the Tories’ hands.

So, Miliband had no choice but to re-ject any formal or informal alliance withthe SNP. On this point, if there is to beany criticism to be made of Miliband, itis that he should have made the positionclearer earlier.

The SNP argued that a vote for themin Scotland was not a vote againstLabour nor a vote for the Tories. InEngland and Wales they called on peopleto vote Green or Plaid Cymru, making iteven more clear that their “support for aLabour Government” was false.

In Scotland the SNP made huge gains,taking 40 seats from Labour and 10from the Liberal Democrats bringingtheir total to 56 seats, leaving Labour,the Liberal Democrats and the Torieswith one seat apiece.

There are a number of explanationsfor this victory of the SNP in Scotland:

nGrowing disenchantment and disil-lusion with Labour, especially amongworking-class voters, during theBlair/Brown years with the war on Iraqand right-wing domestic policies.

nThe poor performance of Labourand its leadership in Scotland over manyyears.

nLabour continually taking forgranted its support. This complacencyoften turned into arrogance.

nThe SNP, having led a minority gov-ernment for several years, won a major-ity in the last Scottish election and hasnow governed Scotland for seven years.

nAlthough the Referendum was a vic-tory for the NO vote, the YES campaignrefused to accept the result and contin-ued their campaign. The momentumthey had built up during the Referendumcampaign continued in the very shortrun up to the General Election.

nThe SNP used Labour’s member-

ship in the ‘Better Together’ referendumcampaign alongside the Tories to tarthem with the toxic Tory brush. SNPactivists took to name-calling Labour, the“Red Tories”.

nThe SNP used anti-austerity rheto-ric as their main message throughout theelection campaign, positioning them-selves to the left of Labour. This mes-sage was reinforced by pointing toLabour’s partnership with the Tories inthe Better Together campaign.

The SNP has always been clear thatthe main obstacle to Scottish independ-ence is the Labour Party. They targetedtraditional Labour voters and argued thatthey would “lock Cameron out ofDowning St.” if Labour went intoalliance with them.

Their tactics were aimed at disillu-sioned Labour voters who didn’t want aTory government but had to be con-vinced that voting SNP would not putthe Tories back into government.

Many hitherto traditional Labour vot-ers, fed up with Labour, accepted the ar-gument and, in many cases, didn’tnecessarily regard a vote for the SNP asa vote against Labour.

Blairite pre-planned attackThe Blairites, having lost the leadershipof the Labour Party with the defeat ofEd’s brother, David, attempted on sev-eral occasions to get rid of Ed prior tothe election.

They launched a pre-planned attackthe day after the election. It sought toput the blame for Labour’s defeat ontoMiliband and left-wing politics, invokedmemories of Michael Foot and otherLabour defeats and accused Miliband ofthe failure to tap into the hopes of

“aspirational” voters. “Aspirational” isright-wing shorthand for the “middleclass”.

The big losses for Labour since the1997 election have been working classvoters. An estimated 4 million ‘Labouridentifiers’ did not vote at the 2010 elec-tion.This loss of mainly working-classvoters has been growing for more than adecade.

Who caused the 2007-08 crash?Part of the Blairite argument is thatLabour is not trusted on the economy.The Tory narrative is that it was Labourwhich caused the deficit and the crashof 2007-08.

The Tories spent five years hammer-ing away at this message. WhenMiliband did offer a different explana-tion during one of the television debateshe was shouted down. The narrativethat it was Labour to blame and not thebankers had been allowed to become thedominant explanation.

The Blairite strategy is to create theplatform for the return of new NewLabour. Three of the four Labour lead-ership candidates follow this agenda invarying degrees. On a scale of 1-10 with10 being their ideal replacement forTony Blair, then Liz Kendall scores 10.Yvette Cooper and Andy Burnham arenot far behind. Jeremy Corbyn is theonly candidate who doesn’t accept theBlairite arguments.

When a poll showed that Corbyn maybe leading in the leadership race then itwas time for Tony Blair to intervene. Hesaid that people voting in the Labourleadership election who were going tovote with their heart rather than theirhead “needed a transplant”.

This was designed to remind peoplethat, according to the Blairite philoso-phy, you can only win an election inBritain if you appeal to the so-calledmiddle ground or “aspirational people”by essentially adopting right-wingpolicies.

But Labour held on to, indeed slightlyincreased their share of the middle classvote, as pointed out by John TrickettMP. Despite the Blairites, the Toriesand the media, Labour would do betterto look to the disenchanted, austerity-hitmillions of working people who could beinspired to fight for a better life.

2005 2010 2015AB 28 26 27C1 32 28 30C2 40 29 30DE 48 40 37(House of Commons Library figures)

Jon Trickett MP, Labour Party DeputyChair, wrote on the web, 13 May 2015,“If we compare the election results forour last election victory in 2005 withthe result last Thursday and analyse bysocial class, a very interesting patternemerges. Here are the figures.

“It is possible here to see that theproportions of AB and C1 voters whovoted Labour in the last three electionshas held steady. Indeed Ed Miliband’sleadership led to a mild recovery ofthese voters between 2010 and 2015,(as it did among the C2 group.)”

FOOTNOTES1. http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2015/06/the-com-puters-that-crashed-and-the-campaign-that-didnt-the-story-of-the-tory-stealth-operation-that-outwitted-labour.html2. Jim Messina was in Barak Obama’scampaign team.


Labour’s election success in London

handling of the economy? The 2008 crisis (which was and

remains not just a crisis of banks orfinance but of capitalism itself) was con-tained only by state intervention throughGordon Brown’s Labour government.

The idea that ‘Labour can’t be trustedwith the economy’ has twice proved anelection-winner for the Conservatives, in2010 and, as just seen, in 2015.

But that wouldn’t have been possible ifthe slogan hadn’t also been a diversionfrom the fact that saving the banksdemolished the dogma of the ‘free’ mar-ket independent of the (capitalist) state.

Even right-wing Labour figures likeBlunkett and Campbell know this butcan’t admit that the reason why Labourwas unable to defend itself is because itsBlairite copying of Tory austerity poli-cies looked like a confession of guilt.

Only a clear, determined and pro-longed campaign to combat thispromptly-planted caricature of Labourcould have significantly improved theparty’s chances in 2010.

Even if the problem had been clearlyidentified in preparing to fight the 2015election, the original failure to nip it inthe bud would probably have left toomuch ground to make up.

But the very idea of addressing thisissue was ignored in the 2013 FabianSociety document which did much toshape the Labour Party’s 2015 electionstrategy. (2)

Claiming credit for its stabilising in-tervention, however, would have givenLabour the chance to convert it intopopular support for an alternative to theneoliberal mayhem which caused thecrisis in the first place.

Practical lessons for the future willemerge from a balanced assessment ofLabour’s strategy and performance:

nwhat the policies were, how coher-ently they fitted together and how theywere promoted;

nhow the election campaign wasdesigned and handled, including howeffectively vested interests and theirmedia and parties were countered locally,regionally and nationally.

Labour supporters are already askingwhat went wrong in 2015 and how pastmistakes can be avoided in future.

This has to address strategy as well astactics, but if there’s any complacencyabout Labour’s performance the greaterrisk is despair.

Although Labour also did well in someother places, its remarkably good per-formance in London should counter thepessimists.

Labour in LondonLabour’s electoral performance can beusefully compared between national andLondon results over the last threegeneral elections (Table 1).(3)

David Cameron’s victory in the UK’s General Election on7 May 2015 was achieved despite the Conservative/Liberal-Democrat Coalition’s widely unpopular policies of austerityat home and militarism abroad.

By BRIAN DURRANS

Labour’s electionsuccess in London

It was also won against a personableLabour leader whose policies repre-sented the first significant shift from aBlairite agenda in over a decade.

Ever since the first results weredeclared, two stories dominated themedia: that forecasters failed to predictthe outcome even as late as the exit polls,and that it was a disaster for Labour,which Ed Miliband’s prompt resignationdid nothing to refute.

Labour commentators David Blunkettand Alastair Campbell, interviewed onTV as the disappointing results werecoming in, identified in perhaps un-guarded comments that the main prob-lem had been the party’s failure, someseven years before, to nail the lie that,because it was in government at thetime, it was somehow responsible for the2008 ‘banking crisis’. (1)

This echoed the pre-election views ofothers not confined to Labour’s ownranks or the wider left (such as formerBank of England Chairman Sir MervynKing) and is much more credible thanthat Labour lost because of some lurchto the left.

The obvious question is why in thefollowing seven years Labour did so lit-tle to put the record straight on its

TABLE 1 - Labour’s London PerformanceElection 2005 (4) 2010 (5) 2015Labour leader Tony Blair Gordon Brown Ed MilibandScale National London National London National London

Labour votes 9.6m 1.1m 8.6m 1.3m 9.3m 1.5m

Total electorate 44.2m 5.0m 45.6m 5.3m 46.4m 5.4

% voter turnout (6) 61.4 57.8 65.1 64.5 66.1 65.5

Labour’s % of votes cast 35.2 38.9 29.0 36.6 30.4 43.7

Labour’s seats won/fought 355/646 44/74 258/650 38/73 232/650 45/73



Under Ed Miliband, Labour in Lon-don surpassed not just the 2010 electionbut even that of 2005 in its share of thevote and the number of seats gained andretained.

This outcome depended on winningnearly six times as many more votes,compared with 2010, than could be ex-plained by Labour’s expected share ofaround 40% of new votes from thegrowth of the London electorate, andwell over twice as many than even if ithad won the support of all new Londonvoters.

This outcome is all the more remark-able given that, at national level,Labour’s actual (and media-enhanced)shortcomings and disadvantages were atleast as evident in London as elsewhere.

For possible clues to Labour’s goodperformance in London I turn first tothe electoral collapse of the Lib Demsand then to the perhaps more significantethnic composition of the capital’s work-ing class.

Since neither factor was unique to thecapital city, however, Labour’s achieve-ment certainly reflects other issues thatconcern Londoners more than most, ofwhich the most important is probablyhousing and the shortage of affordablerented accommodation.

Lib DemsIs there any evidence that the 2010 Lib-Dem vote was recycled more to Labourthan to the Conservatives in 2015, andespecially in London?

If so, could this have made the differ-ence and, if it did, how might this be ex-plained?

Table 2(7) summarises the shift of votesand seats in London from 2010 to 2015and seems to show the main directionsin which former Lib Dem support wasredistributed:

The impression given in the table’s‘Change’ column is that in London theparties that benefited most from the col-lapse of the Lib Dem vote were, frommost to least, Labour, UKIP, Green andConservative.

This is slightly misleading, however,because it takes no account of how thenet growth of the London electorate, by

nearly 125,000 between 2010 and 2015,nor the slightly higher turnout, playedout between the parties, nor to what ex-tent the two main parties lost or gainedsupport to and from each other.

But if it’s still hard to imagine nearly asmany Lib Dem votes going to UKIP asto Labour and only half as many ofthose Lib Dems who switched to UKIPvoting Green instead, this would be tooverlook the unstable opportunism ofLib Dem politics in (and before andsince) 2010.

Plainly, too, tactical voting will havedistorted the outcome more in marginalthan in safe seats, and more in somemarginals than in others. But overall,and with all these caveats, the main (net)beneficiary of Lib Dem decline was un-doubtedly Labour.

As has mostly happened nationally, soalso in London, electoral politics haspolarised in the way we might expectgiven the onslaught on the social wageas capitalism tries to solve its problems atthe expense of the working class.

For the moment, then, the collapse ofthe Lib Dem vote, even if the party can’tyet be written off, helps clarify the mainoptions.

BME and classThe impact of so-called Black andMinority Ethnic (BME) voting is a morestable and predictable reconfiguring ofclass-based allegiance to Labour and isespecially marked in London.

Two Ipsos Mori pollsters wrote in2005 about class and BME voting in thatyear’s election.

Acknowledging the significance ofclass on voting patterns for the electorateas a whole – in case you wondered, thehigher your class, the more likely you’llvote Tory, and conversely for Labour –the pollsters observe that whilst lowerturnout among 18-34 year old BME vot-ers may reflect greater alienation thanamong the White population, “less inline with expectations from the votingbehaviour of the rest of the population[…] was turnout by social class. WhileABs were, as would be expected, themost likely to vote, turnout among DEswas almost as high. This appears to be a

new departure – when asked not aboutthe 2005 election but about their pastturnout at all the general elections inwhich they have been eligible to vote, thenormal pattern of steadily decliningpropensity to vote by social class re-asserts itself.” (9)

On this evidence, BME voters regard-less of their class vote in a more consis-tently class-conscious way than theelectorate as a whole, or at least did so in2005.

The Ipsos Mori analysis was based ona nationwide sample rather than a Lon-don one, but one of the key findings ofa more recent report, published in Janu-ary 2015 (four months before the elec-tion) by the Migrant Rights Networkand which has been called the first com-prehensive analysis of the migrant vote,(10) is that “the migrant electorate is heav-ily concentrated in London – 19 of the20 seats with the largest migrant votershares are in Greater London”.

Unsurprisingly, it also notes (p. 3) thatacross the UK, “historical voting pat-terns suggest that migrant voters arelikely to prefer parties that they view aspositive about race equality and immi-gration issues and that, “research on ear-lier migrant communities suggest thatperceptions about the parties’ attitudestowards migrants and minorities, and thediscrimination they face in British soci-ety, can have a lasting impact on migrantpolitical loyalties.”

InspirationIf we combine these demographic andvoting-habit findings with what theIpsos-Mori poll suggests about the classallegiance of the BME electorate and itsnumerical strength in London, Labour’sperformance in London is much easierto understand.

If the key lesson is that Labour can dobest when people vote according to theirclass interests, then the party will doeven better when it defends and ad-vances those interests in the principledand vigorous way its founders intended.

And as austerity affects more andmore people, Labour can win over vot-ers from other parties to the extent thatit inspires its existing supporters.

TABLE 2 - Shift of Votes and Seats in LondonParty % Vote 2015 % Vote 2010 Change Seats 2015 Seats 2010 ChangeCon 34.9 34.5 +0.4 27 28 -1Lab 43.8(8) 36.6 +7.2 45 38 +7LD 7.7 22.1 -14.4 1 7 -6UKIP 8.1 1.7 +6.4 0 0 0Green 4.7 1.6 +3.1 0 0 0



FOOTNOTES(all cited web-pages were accessed in mid-July 2015)1. see sociologist Michael Rustin’s guest blog:http://blog.lwbooks.co.uk/?p=254. 2. http://www.fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/LaboursNextMajority_web.pdf. This approach ispsephological, not in the dictionary sense of psephology as the scientificanalysis of elections but in the conventional sense of simply measuring howsamples of people vote or what they say. There’s money in dressing up suchguesswork as politically unbiased, but to give a sense of how political thiskind of ‘non-politics’ really is, the report for example dismisses argumentswithin Labour as giving the party only a negative reputation (p.22) rather thana potential basis for winning elections. The report’s author, then-Fabian Soci-ety deputy director Marcus Roberts, left the organisation shortly before the2015 election; he was field director of Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign butlater resigned and criticised the leader for failing to follow his (Fabian) strat-egy: see http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/without-change-labour-choosing-lose. As of mid-July 2015 Roberts is managing Sadiq Khan’scampaign to be the official Labour candidate for London’s Mayoral election.His apparently reasonable post-general election view, that ‘Labour must seekto persuade, not just mobilise’ - http://www.theguardian.com/poli-tics/2015/may/11/inside-the-campaigns-labour-must-seek-to-persuade-not-just-mobilise - seems at first glance to reverse his own psephological strategywhich helped deprive Labour of the victory it deserved. But in his new verdict,as in his earlier advice, the missing element is any concrete idea of what thepersuading will actually be about, so Roberts is at least consistently vacuous. 3. A few boundary changes between constituencies during this period, as wellas other variables like the identities of other candidates/parties, should ofcourse be factored into a full analysis but are ignored for reasons of spaceand because they don’t much affect Labour’s overall performance. 4. The figures for 2005 are from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_King-dom_general_election,_2005#Polling andhttp://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/167891/UK-Parliament-elections-2005-Electoral-data-Report.pdf;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005_(Lon-don); and http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/our-research/electoral-data.5. The figures for 2010 and 2015 are fromhttp://data.london.gov.uk/blog/the-2015-election-the-numbers-behind-the-re-sult/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_elec-tion,_2010 ;http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/our-research/electoral-data;http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/105896/Plymouth-GE2010-report-web.pdf, http://www.bbc.com/news/elec-tion/2015/results and http://data.london.gov.uk/blog/the-2015-election-the-numbers-behind-the-result/.6.“The basic rule: the more affluent the area and/or the more marginal theseat, the higher the turnout”:http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/167891/UK-Parliament-elections-2005-Electoral-data-Report.pdf.7.https://londonist.com/2015/05/labour-gains-lib-dem-losses-centre-for-lon-don-analyses-our-new-political-landscape. 8. The previous table gives Labour’s percentage of the vote in London in2015 as one decimal point lower at 43.7: perhaps a rounding-down ratherthan –up.9.http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/47260/ECBMEReportFINAL2_18810-13883__E__N__S__W__.pdf [p. 8]. For thisreference I am grateful to one of its authors, Prof Roger Mortimore. 10.http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/files/publications/Migrant_Vot-ers_2015_paper.pdf andhttp://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/29/surge-in-voters-born-over-seas.

Top 40 ofLondon’s Population

2011 UK Census

Country of Birth Pop.

n The 2011 census recordedthat 2,998,264 people - or36.7% of London’s population- were born outside of the UK.

5,175,677262,247158,300129,807114,718112,457109,94887,46784,54266,65465,333 64,212 63,920 62,896 62,050 59,596 57,765 55,476 53,959 44,848 44,199 43,428 41,041 39,817 39,452 37,680 37,339 35,880 32,136 31,357 29,789 28,547 27,207 26,453 23,779 21,516 21,309 27,288 21,209 20,637

1. UK2. India3. Poland4. Ireland5. Nigeria6. Pakistan7. Bangladesh8. Jamaica9. Sri Lanka10. France11. Somalia 12. Kenya 13. United States 14. Ghana 15. Italy 16. Turkey 17. South Africa 18. Germany 19. Australia 20. Romania 21. Philippines 22. Cyprus 23. Portugal 24. Lithuania 25. China 26. Afghanistan 27. Iran 28. Spain 29. Uganda 30. Brazil 31. Iraq 32. New Zealand 33. Canada 34. Bulgaria35. Hong Kong 36. Mauritius 37. Kosovo 38. Zimbabwe 39. Malaysia40. Japan


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SNP’s fiscal figures do not add up

The Commission had been establishedfollowing the independence referendumin September to agree a package of en-hanced powers to be devolved to theScottish Parliament on a strict timetable.

This envisaged the publication ofdraft clauses for a new bill for Scottishdevolution by the end of January 2015,followed by the tabling of such a bill inthe first session of the new UK Parlia-ment following the general election inMay 2015. Members of the Commis-sion were drawn from the five largestpolitical parties in Scotland.

The measures proposed by the SmithCommission covered three areas:

1. a revised constitutional settlement for Scotland;

2. economic and social issues; and,3. an increase in the financial responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament. Collectively the measures were de-

signed to strengthen the Scottish Parlia-ment and to create a powerful devolvedassembly with important powers overtaxation and spending.

In the months since the Commissionreported, these powers, and especiallythose concerned with financing theScottish government, have become acontested issue in Scottishpolitics.

They have set the SNPagainst the Labour Party

and others and have revealed funda-mental weaknesses in the SNP approachto managing the economic and fiscal af-fairs of Scotland.

At its heart has been the question offull fiscal autonomy - the demand by theSNP that the Scottish Parliament (Holy-rood) should be in control all revenuesraised and spent in Scotland, except forreserved areas such as defence, foreignaffairs and some matters of commoneconomic regulation which wouldremain with the Westminster Parliament.

The case for full fiscal autonomy waspresented in the SNP’s submission tothe Smith Commission.

It argued that: “all tax revenuesshould be retained in Scotland. TheScottish Parliament should have policy

On the 27th November 2014 the Smith Commissionpresented its proposals to the Scottish Parliament.

By PAUL SUTTON

SNP’s fiscal figuresdo not add up!

The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, Edinburgh.

Report of the Smith Commission for further devolution of powers

to the Scottish Parliament

27 November 2014



responsibility for all taxes unless there isa specific reason for a continued reser-vation. In particular, the Scottish Par-liament should have full autonomy forincome tax, national insurance, corpo-ration tax, capital gains tax, fuel duty,air passenger duty and inheritance tax.”

It also argued that the Scottish Parlia-ment should be responsible for alldomestic expenditure, including welfare,and that it should have borrowingpowers.

The Conservative, Liberal Democratand Labour parties in Scotland all pro-posed varying degrees of greater fiscalresponsibility and further tax devolutionto the Scottish Parliament, but all wereopposed to full fiscal autonomy.

The Scottish Labour Party in its sub-mission emphasised the benefits of a“sharing union” with the rest of the UK“in which risks and rewards are collec-tively pooled”.

The Scottish Trade Union Congressalso opposed “full fiscal autonomy orDevo Max” arguing that it presented“potential future challenges for themaintenance of current levels of per-capita public spending in Scotland rela-tive to the rest of the United Kingdom”.It was however prepared to see a signif-icant “devolution and assignment of tax-ation amounting to at least two-thirds ofScottish public spending (over 50% ofall spending in Scotland)”.

In the end the Smith Commission de-livered a compromise in which eco-nomic powers were devolved across anumber of areas including taxation, statebenefits in specific areas, borrowing andthe management of the Crown Estate.This gave the Scottish Parliament anextra £15 billion of taxes to cover some60% of the spending over which theynow had control.

Although the SNP signed up to theserecommendations in the Smith Com-mission Report, it also predictably con-demned them on the Report’spublication as failing to deliver the en-hanced powers for the Scottish Parlia-ment promised by the leaders of theConservative, Labour and Liberal De-mocrat parties in the final days of thereferendum campaign if Scotland voted‘No’ to independence.

By this time however significant ques-tions had been raised on the economiccosts and benefits of full fiscal auton-omy. The submission and accompany-ing press release to the SmithCommission by Fiscal Affairs Scotland,an independent think tank, provides auseful summary statement.

According to its analysis falling oilrevenues would impact massively if fullfiscal autonomy were adopted as rev-

enues raised wholly in Scotland came toreplace the Barnett Formula(1) underwhich Scotland receives a block grantfrom the Westminster government tocover a significant proportion of itsspending.

The figures given for 2014-15 were adeficit in Scottish government financesof £12.9 billion under the estimate cal-culated by the Office for Budget Re-sponsibility (assuming all revenuesgenerated within Scotland and fromNorth Sea oil and gas (NSOR) were as-signed to Scotland) and £10.6 billion ifusing the more optimistic estimates ofthe Scottish government which the SNPfavoured. The deficit under the BarnettFormula would be £8 billion.

Fiscal Affairs Scotland stated: “Whatthis analysis illustrates is that a move-ment away from the current Barnettarrangement to one which relies more onthe retention of taxes generated in Scot-land could put the existing level of Scot-land’s public spending at risk. ... Underthe most recent NSOR forecasts full fis-cal autonomy would result in Scotlandcontinuing to have a negative fiscal bal-ance in 2018-19 even though by then theUK is projected to be in a fiscal surplus”(press release, 21 October 2014).

Six months later the situation had be-come worse. New figures from Fiscal Af-fairs Scotland now put the deficit at£14.2 billion for 2015-16 (press release,18 March 2015). Although this was ex-pected to fall to £8.2 billion by 2019-20

the UK deficit as a whole by that timewas forecast to have moved into surplus.

Without the Barnett Formula andunder full fiscal autonomy Scotlandcould only cover this size of deficit byhigher Scottish taxation, or cuts in pub-lic services, or borrowing, or all three.

Comparable figures confirming agrowing deficit were released around thesame time by the separate Institute forFiscal Studies in London. True to formthe SNP sought not to discredit these

figures directly but to discredit its oppo-nents claiming they were “constantlytalking down Scotland’s financial abili-ties” (BBC Scotland, 21 April 2015).

But the weaknesses of the SNP casewere increasingly being revealed. In theScottish Parliament Nicola Sturgeoncame under attack and in April dodgedquestions as to whether the SNP wouldseek to amend the Scotland Bill in theWestminster Parliament to provide forimmediate full fiscal autonomy as shehad stated only one month earlier.

Her assertive Finance Secretary, JohnSwinney, also became more circumspectspeaking of delay and significant periodsof transition in reaching full fiscal au-tonomy.

It was therefore not surprising to seethat in its General Election manifesto theSNP spoke now of a transition to ‘fullfiscal responsibility’ (note the wordchange) that “would take a number ofyears to complete”.

It therefore proposed a dual strategythat would seek to retain the BarnettFormula alongside new devolved powersover and above those proposed in theSmith Commission.

These would include “powers overemployment policy, including the mini-mum wage, welfare, business taxes, na-tional insurance and equality policy”.

They would deliver substantial addi-tional revenue (e.g. national insurance isestimated to raise £8.7 billion in Scot-land and on-shore corporation tax £2.8

billion) and more control over spending.It is a position the SNP has reaffirmed

in the new UK parliament. As agreed inthe Smith Commission, a new ScotlandBill was introduced in the House ofCommons which would give the ScottishParliament powers to raise 40% of taxesand decide 60% of public spending.

As with the Smith Commission, theSNP again complained that it did notmeet what was promised in the referen-dum and by the Smith Commission,

Joel Barnett, Baron Barnett as hebecame, died on November 2014.

As Labour’s Chief Secretary to theTreasury between 1974-79 he

devised the formula by which publicspending is apportioned to England,

Scotland, Wales and NorthernIreland: it became known

as the “Barnett Formula”.(1)

He used to joke about being immortalised for

having “his own formula.”



demanding the new powers it had setforth in its election manifesto beincluded as well.

It therefore proposed a number ofamendments to achieve this, all of whichwere defeated. Among them was one togive the Scottish Parliament the right todetermine when to move toward full fis-cal autonomy. And another sought an‘Economic Agreement’ between theTory government and the SNP to set outa plan for implementation of full fiscalautonomy.

In his response to these amendments,David Mundell, the Tory Scottish Sec-retary, stated that: "An amendment thatkills off the Barnett formula and ends thesharing of resources across the UK isabout as far away from sensible as onecan get. It would be a full fiscal sham-bles that would cost every family in Scot-land around £5,000. ... The Institute forFiscal Studies has estimated that fiscalautonomy would mean Scotland havingalmost £10bn less to spend by the lastyear of this parliament" (BBC Scotland,15 June 2015).

The reference to the Institute for Fis-cal Studies figure takes into account thelatest figures from the Office for Budgetresponsibility which shows the impact ofthe crash in oil prices on Scotland’sNorth Sea Oil Revenues.

It stated: “The effects of accumulatedlosses reducing the effective rate paid bycompanies in the North Sea, plus the re-payments associated with decommis-sioning costs, mean that in our centralprojection just £2 billion of receipts willbe raised in total between 2020-21 and2040-41.” These are down £34.5 billionfrom their estimates last year (BBC Scot-land, 11 June 2015).

Commenting on these figures theScottish Labour MP Ian Murray saidthey "blew a further hole in the SNP'splans. ... The SNP were once all for fullfiscal autonomy, then they weren't sokeen and now they say they want it butjust not for a wee while yet. ... It's anutterly confused position” (BBC Scot-land, 15 June 2015).

It is indeed, but it is all of one piecewith the SNP’s past approach to eco-nomic issues and with its current andmedium term plans for Scottish inde-pendence.

In the independence referendum theSNP produced what can now be seen aswildly over-optimistic forecasts on thefuture of the Scottish economy under in-dependence.

They were challenged at the time andtheir economic policy on issues such asretention of the pound sterling as thecurrency for Scotland after independ-ence were shown to be ill advised and ill

thought out. The same can be said forthe policy of full fiscal autonomy.

It does not make economic sense. Aswith independence the figures do notadd up. It will put public and social serv-ices at risk and expose the Scottish econ-omy to the vagaries of the internationaloil market.

Scotland will be far worse off if itadopts such a policy.

So why do the SNP promote it? Quitesimply, it is seen as a policy to movecloser to independence.

Full fiscal autonomy (or even the slim-mer version of full fiscal responsibility)simultaneously erodes and underminesthe economic and social benefits of theUnion while increasing the autonomy ofthe Scottish Parliament, moving it evercloser to ‘Devo-max’ and so ever closerto independence, which would then bebut a short step away.

It also accords with the dominant SNPapproach pioneered by Alex Salmondand now promoted by Nicola Sturgeonof SNP demand and Westminster con-cession on an ever-escalating basis.There is no way that Westminster con-cessions will ever satisfy nationalist de-mands short of independence andanother referendum.

Indeed, precisely this prospect was

raised by Angus Robertson MP (above),the leader of the SNP at Westminster, inan interview with the Observer (28 June2015).

In it he claimed that some in the UKParliament seemed to be living in thevain hope that the SNP and pressure forindependence were temporary phenom-ena that would just ‘go away’.

But that would not happen. Added towhich the failure of the Tory govern-ment to deliver what in his view waspromised in the Smith Commission wereprospective grounds for proposing a sec-

ond referendum to be held before theend of the current parliament.

The strategy and tactics of the SNPcould not be clearer. A policy of ap-peasement will not work. The SNPneeds to be confronted and its policy of‘independence by increments’ exposed.

To their credit the Scottish LabourParty in Holyrood and the Labour Partyin Westminster have mounted a vigorousopposition to full fiscal autonomy, andin particular to the SNP practice ofignoring the true costs of the policy.

It is therefore disappointing that aLabour amendment to the Scotland Billthat would have seen an independentcommission of experts established to as-sess the impact of full fiscal autonomyon the Scottish economy and public fi-nances and report by the end of March2016 was defeated in the House of Com-mons by 376 to 192, with the SNP andthe Tories joining together to reject theamendment (BBC Scotland, 30 June2015).

Such a ‘marriage of convenience’ is nosurprise. There will no doubt be manymore occasions on which the SNP andthe Tories in Westminster make commoncause while pretending to be implacablefoes.

And it should not be forgotten that inthe final analysis a Tory government inWestminster serves SNP interests muchbetter than a Labour opposition.

It is an indispensable basis for theirclaim that Scotland is different and thusneeds to be independent, when the truthis that Scotland is not that different fromthe rest of the UK and the interests ofthe Scottish people are the same as themajority south of the border.

On this basis full fiscal autonomy is aretrograde step and full fiscal integrationa much better option for most in Scot-land. The figures prove it.

FOOTNOTES1. Tax paid in Scotland goes toward cov-ering expenditure by the Scottish gov-ernment and the UK government. The UK government returns money to

Scotland to pay for devolved services viaa block grant to the Scottish govern-ment. The size of this grant does not depend

on how much revenue is raised in Scot-land but is based on its historic spend-ing in Scotland, adjusted each yearusing the Barnett Formula so thatchanges in spending in Scotland andEngland are broadly in line. Scottish government spending on

average has been 11% higher per per-son than in the rest of the UK (£1600per head more than in England on 2012-13 figures).

Angus Robertson MP,SNP Leader atWestminsterwho said, thefailure of theTory govern-ment to deliverwhat ... waspromised in the Smith Commission were prospec-tive grounds for proposing asecond referendum ... before the end of the currentparliament.

Ukraine: escalating into full-scale war?


of the conflict. Yet despite this, Obama’s Defense

Secretary, Ashton Carter, continues tosuggest supplying lethal weapons, andthere has been open discussion in theUS about deploying anti-missile systemsand the so-called “counterforce” option- using pre-emptive conventionalweapons based in Europe against mili-tary sites in Russia - as well as installingnuclear missiles aimed at Russia.

According to the hacker group Cy-berBerkut, the US billionaire GeorgeSoros is actively organizing the re-arm-ing of Ukraine and calling for trainingin Romania so as to avoid accusationsof breaching the Minsk agreement.

In preparation for war, a new law inUkraine – passed by only a narrow mar-gin in the Ukrainian parliament – allowsnuclear weapons and foreign militaryforces to be placed on its territory.

Already, Kiev is receiving USweapons via the United Arab Emirates,alongside other weapons supplied se-cretly by the US, Poland and Lithuania.

In addition, the US has staged thelargest western military exercise everheld in Ukraine – on a massive trainingrange in Yavoriv, western Ukraine –training Ukraine’s National Guardunder Operation Fearless Guardian.

Some 300 US troops, in co-ordinationwith 75 British and 200 Canadian sol-diers, are the numbers quoted in thepress, which suggests many more areactually there. The US presence is os-tensibly for 6 months – the sametimescale they announced when theyfirst entered Vietnam.

US Rear Admiral Brad Williamsclaimed that these exercises "provide areassurance” to Nato’s allies anddemonstrate the alliance’s resolve – butclearly this is a preparation for actualconflict, with emphasis on sophisticatedanti-missile defence and radar to facedown Russian forces.

Other recent military exercises includenaval manoeuvres in the Black Sea withUS, German, Turkish and Italian ships, asubmarine exercise off Norway, and landexercises to test Nato’s new rapid reactionforce, the Very High Readiness Joint TaskForce (VJTF), in the Baltic states.

being prised away from Russian eco-nomic and political influence.

With the conflict right on its doorstep,and a major refugee crisis of over a mil-lion people displaced from the war-zone, it faces a renewed offensive by thewestern-backed Ukrainian army, per-haps later this year. It cannot afford tolet this succeed.

The preparations for a new Ukrainianarmy attack are well underway, with theMinsk 2 ceasefire - the first ceasefirewas last September - giving Ukrainetime to reinforce its military, withforeign help.

Despite Russian warnings that moremilitary support would be a ‘dangerousescalation’, both vice-president JoeBiden and Secretary of State JohnKerry, along with Susan Rice, Obama’ssecurity adviser, advocated direct USarms supplies prior to the Minsk agree-ment – though this was blocked by

Angela Merkel (pictured) and, to someextent, Obama.

Currently, overt US support extendsto supplying auxiliary systems, commu-nications and logistics, but not strikeweapons such as missiles, ammunition,artillery systems or aircraft, according toRussian security analyst Alexei Arbatovof the Russian Academy of Science’sCenter for International Security.

Any open involvement of the USA insupplying lethal weapons to Ukrainewould amount to a sharp escalation

The current relative lull in fighting inUkraine follows the second Minskceasefire in February this year, brokeredby Russia, France and Germany.

But there has been no lasting settle-ment – fighting continues daily, witharmy artillery fire hitting civilians andindustry, as confirmed by the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

If the US pushes its proxy in Kievinto a military offensive to take Donetsk,Lugansk or Crimea, the conflict willflare up again on a larger scale.

The war – which began with the US-orchestrated coup against elected presi-dent Yanukovych, using the Maidanprotests as ‘democratic’ cover – aims atcompleting what the Orange revolutionof 2004-5 failed to do: to advanceNato’s military presence up to Russia’sborder, and bring the Ukrainian econ-omy under western control.

The bigger strategic aim is to preventthe resurgence of Russia as a rival globalpower by installing a compliant regimein Moscow, giving the US control overRussia’s energy supplies and markets.

For its part, Russia wants to maintaina buffer-zone to protect its borders, andpreserve its market share in Ukraine aswell as access to the agriculturally andindustrially important country.

It was Russia’s unequivocal opposi-tion to the aggression and its support foreastern Ukraine, where local militiasmounted an increasingly effectivedefence, which blocked the westernadvance.

But overall, Russia has lost ground.While it has avoided being drawn into acostly full-scale war, despite US provo-cation, and has maintained its influenceover the Russian-speaking industrialeastern region – providing informal sup-port, including humanitarian aid, andsecuring Crimea in a defensive move toensure continued naval access to theBlack Sea – it has nevertheless been un-able to prevent the majority of Ukraine

Ukraine: escalatinginto full-scale war?With the second Minsk ceasefire shaky, the conflict in easternUkraine could easily escalate into full-scale war.

By SIMON KORNER



In late May, a major air exercise, Arc-tic Challenge, took place in northern Eu-rope in an already tense situation, withScandinavian countries claiming Russianencroachments by plane and submarineand Sweden intercepting Russian planesin international airspace apparentlyheading for Sweden. Near misses, likeone between US and Russian planesover the Baltic in April, underline thedangers of an accident triggering con-flict.

In addition to the exercises, permanentcommand-and-control units are being setup in most of the east European states;and in Riga, north Germany and else-where military equipment is being "pre-positioned for deployment". Lithuania isbringing back conscription, while Polandhas raised its defence budget by 18%, thebiggest increase of any European coun-try.

Altogether, the NATO expansion is“the biggest reinforcement of our collec-tive defense since the end of the ColdWar,” according to Danish GeneralKnud Bartels.

The military exercises, which will ex-pand this autumn, amount to, in effect,the permanent stationing of NATOtroops in eastern Europe, in direct con-

travention of the NATO-Russia Coun-cil’s founding act of 1994. Britain’s re-cently announced delay in withdrawingits last 20,000 troops from Germanyonly confirms this view.

In response, Russia has conducted ex-tensive naval exercises and deployedmissiles and troops in Kaliningrad andbombers in Crimea – within the samegeographical areas as the Nato exercises,prompting protests from Nato. In lateMay, it conducted unannounced air-combat-readiness exercises to coincidewith NATO’s Arctic manoeuvres – thethird major Russian exercise in 3months.

Differences within NATOThe effect of the continued US strategicpush eastwards has been to sharpen dif-ferences with its NATO allies, princi-pally Germany.

Victoria (“Fuck the EU”) Nuland (seepicture), a potential Secretary of Stateunder a future Republican White House,and NATO chief, General Breedlove,deliberately exaggerated the Russian mil-itary threat during crucial talks at theMunich Security Conference on Feb 7.

This prompted the German intelli-gence agency, the BND, to issue its own

far more sober account of the situation,which contradicted Breedlove's view inalmost every respect. Most of the Russ-ian military equipment on the borderwith Ukraine was there already, accord-ing to the BND, and not, as Breedloveclaimed, a sign of an invasion.

Significantly, the US was unable tostampede Germany into arming Ukraine,and Merkel underlined Berlin’s opposi-tion to US hawkish policy when shestated: “I am firmly convinced this con-flict cannot be solved with militarymeans.” The US was left out of theMinsk talks.

Germany’s resistance to stoking theconflict further is based on fears that aUS-instigated war in Europe woulddamage its interests and give its US rivalan advantage.

Germany has opted for the EU acces-sion deal, rather than military force, as ameans of ruling Ukraine – a modelwhich has served it well in dominatingother east European countries – and hasconsequently settled for a federalUkraine with autonomy for the east andleaving Crimea under Russian control.Not as a means of granting the Ukraineindependence, but as a more stable formof rule.

Victoria Nuland at John Kerry’s right hand in Munich, 1 February 2014 as they instruct Ukraine’s right wing coup d’etat leaders - Poroshenko (hidden), Klitschko and Yatsenyuk - on

how best to carry out US imperialist and anti-Russian aims in Ukraine.



However, elements within the Germanruling class – including the president –favour a harder line, and both Social De-mocrat and Green policy is to supportKiev and NATO’s war drive in Europe,along with the CDU defence minister,Ursula von der Leyen, who has wel-comed US troops’ presence and prom-ised Germany support for the Balticstates in any future war with Russia.

France, meanwhile, is against war,with Hollande, Sarkozy and the FrontNational all in basic agreement. Sarkozy,for instance, argues that the Crimeanshad every right to break away fromUkraine, just as the Kosovans broke withSerbia. Sarkozy favours a neutralUkraine, as a bridge between Russia andEurope, and outside the EU.

Though Nato is thus under strain,both France and Germany are joining inthe NATO rapid reaction force, alongwith Britain, Spain and Poland, and haveagreed for it to expand to 40,000 troops.This is the US’s price for the Minskpeace deal, a deal made possible by themajor military defeats suffered by theUkrainian army at Debaltseve and previ-ously at Ilovaisk in late summer 2014.

Ukrainian repressionPoroshenko’s weak position – publiclyhumiliated after insisting his army was incontrol at Debaltseve shortly before itstotal defeat – has forced him to bring inemergency measures that push Ukrainefurther towards a police state.

A police register of everyone in thecountry has been set up, along with evertighter media censorship. With almostevery Russian TV channel banned lastyear, the ban now extends to any infor-mation from Russia which is “unsanc-tioned”. The People’s Republics in theeast have been branded terrorist organi-sations, making expression of support forthem illegal.

Communist leaders are being prose-cuted under the charge of promoting‘separatism’ – most Communist Partysupport comes from the east andCrimea; other parties besides the Com-munists are under fire as well. And thepreviously non-lethal attacks on Com-munist Party leader Pyotr Symonenkoand others have now escalated to severalkillings of political opponents – claimedby the fascist UPA militia, according toDer Spiegel – and public calls for furtherassassinations.

This growing campaign of terror rein-forces the government’s April 9 ban onpublic discussion of communism, out-lawing all communist symbols and any“public denial of the criminal nature” ofcommunism.

Police raids on the offices of the judge

presiding over the main trial against theCommunist Party – a previously signifi-cant political force, having gained 13%of the vote in the last election – provokedhis resignation, along with that of theother judges in the trial.

The Ukrainian press has been another

target. One rightwing pundit argued re-cently that “taking out several dozenjournalists in the conflict zone will re-duce the quality of the picture presentedin the Russian media and, therefore, re-duce the effectiveness of their propa-ganda.”

Meanwhile, wartime fascist organisa-tions – the UPA and the Organisation ofUkrainian Nationalists (OUN), heirs toStephen Bandera, the wartime fascistleader – have been rehabilitated under anew law commemorating the so-calleddefenders of Ukraine’s independenceand rewarding old fascists with govern-ment benefits.

The ban on Nazi parties, brought into try to mask the anti-communist witch-hunt, has not affected any actual fascistgroups, as they are not literally “NationalSocialist” and no longer wear their Naziinsignia.

Though the numerous fascist partiesand groups currently wield little electoralinfluence, their power is continuing togrow as they intertwine with the statemachine.

The National Guard – set up last yearwith US funding – has absorbed fascistbattalions battle-hardened in the east,

and now forms the backbone ofUkraine’s military, following the disinte-gration of the official (conscript) army atDebaltseve.

Moreover, with Right Sector partyleader Dmitri Yarosh promoted to aleading military position and threateningto create a ‘parallel general staff’ based inDnipropetrovsk – home to the oligarchIgor Kolomoisky, who is providing thefunds – the danger of a fascist coup isgrowing.

Yarosh has demanded the removal ofViktor Muzhenko, the official army’scommander-in-chief, and rejected anypeace settlement in the east made by thePoroshenko government, itself the bene-ficiary of a coup and unrepresentative ofmillions in the east who boycotted theelections.

The attack on Kiev’s gay pride marchin June by right-wing thugs is a sign ofthings to come. Fascist demonstrationsin Kiev in early July called for full-scalewar against the People’s Republics.

For their part, the People’s Republicsof Donetsk and Lugansk are unstable en-tities, representing Russian-orientedUkrainian capitalism as opposed toKiev’s pro-western stance.

Last winter in the midst of the fight-ing, they shipped coal to the Kiev gov-ernment, along with corporation taxes –while the people went cold. Clearlythese are not socialist republics, yet theynevertheless represent, along with Putin’sRussia, a significant hindrance to theplans of western imperialism.

EconomyIndustrial production in Ukraine hasnow fallen 21%, in spite of the ‘aid’ fromthe US, the EU and the IMF.

Its currency has fallen 69% against thedollar, and its hryvnia currency is all butworthless. GDP fell by 20% in the yearto the first quarter, according to the Fi-nancial Times (May 18), while inflationis out of control, reaching 61% in April.

Estimates of Ukrainian debt go as highas $40 billion. An economy as large asPoland’s at independence has shrunk toa third of the size.

Foreign creditors have no intention ofundergoing a ‘haircut’ to save the coun-try, so the government is squeezing itsown population to pay back foreigndebts.

To make matters more complicated,Russia owns a $3 billion bond issued in2013 (aid to Yanukovych), a debt whichmatures later this year, but which itcould call in earlier due to a legal clauseallowing faster repayment when debtlevels are high.

One condition of the EU loan toUkraine, as part of the EU Association

Meanwhile, wartime fascist organisations – the UPA andthe Organisation of UkrainianNationalists (OUN), heirs toStephen Bandera, the wartimefascist leader – have been rehabilitated under a new lawcommemorating the so-calleddefenders of Ukraine’s independence and rewardingold fascists with governmentbenefits.

The ban on Nazi parties,brought in to try to mask theanti-communist witch-hunt, hasnot affected any actual fascistgroups, as they are not literally“National Socialist” and nolonger wear their Nazi insignia.



agreement, is that the country’s prof-itable agriculture – it was once the bread-basket of the Soviet Union – is to betaken over by western corporations, fol-lowing the Polish model which provokedmass protests there.

Foreign corporations now own morethan 1.6 million hectares of Ukrainianland. Monsanto and others will thus begiven a free hand in Ukraine. Once itsGM crops have penetrated the Ukraine,Monsanto will eventually use this (po-tentially) new EU member as a lever toforce open the rest of Europe to GM.

IMF and World Bank loans are tied tosimilar deregulation as EU loans. Wagecuts, sackings of government workers,pension theft and freezes, cuts in welfareare the usual conditions. George Sorosis set to invest $1 billion in Ukraine, par-ticularly in the nationalized energy com-pany Naftogaz, once it is broken up andsold off – and pressing for his investmentto be underwritten by the EU’s AAAcredit rating. This is typical Soros shocktherapy, as seen in other ex-Soviet bloccountries.

His International Renaissance Foun-dation (IRF), which funded NGOs inUkraine since 1989, supported the Or-ange revolution and the Maidan protest,is also orchestrating a new Ukrainianbody called the National Reform Coun-cil which will allow Poroshenko to ruleby decree, bypassing parliament so thatNaftogaz can be privatized with little op-position.

Corruption, one of the main bugbearsof the mass of Maidan protestors, is rife,with the oligarchy more firmly in placethan ever. Ukraine is the 142nd mostcorrupt country in the world, accordingto the Transparency International’s Cor-ruption Perceptions Index – the mostwidely used indicator of corruptionworldwide.

According to Rada (Ukrainian parlia-ment) deputy Sergey Kaplin, all min-istries have bribe collectors. The warmakes corruption easier, with army offi-cers and officials stealing huge amountsof weapons originally destined for theUkrainian army – and frequently sellingthem off to the separatists in the east.

While the people suffer from risingtaxes and unaffordable gas prices, as wellas rampant inflation, the military budgetstands at $5.4 billion.

The pressure from the oligarch em-ployers to tear up the old progressivelabour code – which contained manySoviet era worker protections – will driveUkrainian wages down and remove long-held rights: a maximum 40 hour workingweek, continuous leisure time of 42hours a week, protection for pregnantwomen and young mothers from the

sack, as outlined by Vitaly Dudin, writ-ing in openDemocracy.

Public anger is growing, according toleftwing blogger Stephen Lendman. “In-termittent protests have erupted sincelate last year”, calling for the ousting ofprime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk andfinance minister Natalya Yaresko.

If the protests expand, it could lead toanother Maidan, this time suppressed bystate violence.

In the face of the fifth wave of con-scription, 95% of men drafted in Kievhave avoided it, many by leaving thecountry, and 9,500 are reported to haveevaded military service in Lviv.

ConclusionIncorporating Ukraine into the westernbloc is coming at a higher price than theUS anticipated, when it orchestratedsniper fire to spark Yanukovych’s down-fall. First, Russia has shown its abilityto defend its interests boldly – thoughalso willing to compromise, accepting theloss of influence in western Ukraine forthe sake of stability.

Its refusal to bow to US diktat, first

expressed in Georgia in 2008, has beenreaffirmed. As Putin said on Feb 7 thisyear: “There absolutely, definitely is anattempt to deter our development byvarious means … Russia will never besatisfied with this kind of world order.”

Second, Germany, the increasinglydominant power within Europe, hasshifted more clearly towards a foreignpolicy independent from the US, andthis divergence looks set to grow.

Third, as a result of economic sanc-tions, Russia has turned to China, strik-ing major energy deals and important railintegration and joining the new Asian In-frastructure Investment Bank (AIIB),which China has set up to finance itsambitious Silk Road high-speed rail net-work from China to the West. This railnetwork will be integrated with Russia’sEurasian Economic Union.

Not only China, but countries such asVenezuela have also been drawn closerto Russia, with the latest deal seeing theRussian state-owned energy companyRosneft investing $14 Billion in Venezu-lan oil and gas.

Venezuela recognizes that Russia, likeitself, is a victim of “unconventionalwar”, according to foreign minister,Delcy Rodriguez, who described Russiaas challenging “the hegemony and ex-pansionism of imperialism”.

Fourth, Russia’s cancellation of theSouth Stream gas pipeline, constantlyhindered by the Ukraine and EU underUS pressure, has meant a shift towardsGreece, via Turkey, for its gas exports,forcing the EU to finance its own newpipelines if it wants Russian gas.

Altogether, according to energy analystF.W. Engdahl, the Ukraine crisis hasushered in the birth of a “new globalmonetary order and a new Eurasian eco-nomic colossus to rival US sole super-power hegemony”.

While Engdahl’s analysis seems tooverestimate US weakness and underes-timate the dangers of its unleashing waras a reckless means of retaining globaldominance – he doesn’t account for theUS reinvigoration of NATO – it doespoint clearly to the rapidly shifting pat-terns in power relations, with China andRussia growing closer.

If the ceasefire in eastern Ukrainebreaks down, the US, under intensepressure from both Republican and De-mocrat hawks – many of the latter withinthe Obama administration – could opt toarm Ukraine and escalate the conflict,against explicit Russian warnings.

With eastern Europe increasingly on awar footing under the NATO alliance,US warmongers might decide to strikenow, while they believe they have thestrength to win a major war.

MF and World Bank loans aretied to similar deregulation asEU loans. Wage cuts, sackingsof government workers, pen-sion theft and freezes, cuts inwelfare are the usual condi-tions. George Soros is set toinvest $1 billion in Ukraine,particularly in the nationalizedenergy company Naftogaz,once it is broken up and soldoff – and pressing for hisinvestment to be underwrittenby the EU’s AAA credit rating.This is typical Soros shocktherapy, as seen in other ex-Soviet bloc countries.

George Soros at the Munich Security Confrence, 2011.


Yemen: Saudis’ war to regain control

whose fighters are composed largely ofmilitary units loyal to Saleh, whileSaleh’s son is being groomed for thepresidential role.

The Saudis claim the war is beingwaged to protect the Yemeni peoplefrom a group “allied and supported byIran and Hezbollah.” But this protec-tion has caused 3,000 deaths – some es-timates put the figure as high as 8,000 –and left 6 million at risk of starvationand 9 million without reliable water sup-plies.

All the countries comprising the GulfCo-operation Council (GCC) exceptOman are supporting the war, and theUS and Britain are providing intelli-gence and logistics. Other Arab coun-tries, such as Jordan, Morocco, Egyptand Jordan have also offered help.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQAP) is also fighting the Houthis.

AQAP has gained control over in-creasingly large sections of Yemen since2009, particularly in the southernHadramaut province, exploiting the cur-rent war between the Houthis and pro-government forces.

south and west.The former president Saleh remains

in Yemen and is backing the Houthis,even though when in power he con-ducted six brutal campaigns againstthem. Many sources believe Saleh issignificant in maintaining Houthi power,

Despite the official end of OperationDecisive Storm – Saudi Arabia’s bomb-ing campaign in Yemen, which began inMarch – the war is continuing.

The bombardment, including illegalcluster bombs, has given the Saudiscontrol over Yemeni airspace and coasts,allowing them to blockade Yemeni im-ports – not only arms – so that severefuel shortages are afflicting the popula-tion. Disease is widespread as necessaryfuel to power water-pumps is unavail-able.

The Saudi war aims are to reinstateits puppet leader, the unelected presi-dent Hadi, to power. Hadi fled toRiyadh after being toppled by theHouthis (from north western Yemen)last September, and now the Houthishold the capital Sana’a, and havetaken large swathes of territory to the

Yemen: Saudis’ warto regain control The US-backed Saudi war in Yemen is destroying one of the world’s poorest countries to maintain control over astrategically important region

By SIMON KORNER

SaudiArabia

Yemen

Saudi-led air strike on Sana’a -the capital - in June 2015.


Yemen: Saudis’ war to regain control

Though its leader Wuhayshi was re-cently killed by US drone attack in mid-June, objectively AQAP constitutes apro-western force. For example, theSaudis did not bomb AQAP during Op-eration Decisive Storm; Wuhayshi’skilling by drone may have been a warn-ing to AQAP to stay onside. The newAQAP leader used to work for theYemeni intelligence agency under US di-rection.

Other groups opposing the Houthis inthe complex civil war are: the powerfulAhmar clan; the Muslim Brotherhoodparty Islah, which has a fundamentalistwing and is backed by former Saleh gen-eral (and later opponent) Mohsen; andarmy units loyal to Mohsen, who fled toSaudi Arabia after the Houthis tookSaan’a.

Meanwhile, in the oil-rich south,which was formerly a separate socialistpeople’s republic during the Cold War, adivided secessionist movement also op-poses the Houthis, because of the latter’scommitment to Yemeni national unity.

Yemen’s fragmentation fits US policy,which is to break up territories to keepthem as weak and undemocratic as pos-sible – as in Libya and Iraq.

Meanwhile, Iran has sent 5 shipmentsof humanitarian aid to Aden, but hasbeen forced to suspend the aid for fearof the Saudi air force – backed by USships in the Gulf of Aden, including anaircraft carrier – which has threatenedIranian vessels.

BackgroundThe Houthi tribal movement makes up40% of Yemen’s population and has suf-fered discrimination for decades. ItsZaydi branch of Shi’te Islam underwenta revival in the early 1990s and its anti-western position – with links withHezbollah and Iran – set the Houthisagainst the Gulf state leaders and madethem popular; the Houthis took the cap-ital, Sana’a in September 2013, pushingHadi aside with ease. Ideologically, theHouthis are fundamentalist Shi’a, thoughwith few theological differences withSunnis.

Relations between Saudi Arabia andthe Houthis have fluctuated over theyears. The Saudis, like the US, sup-ported the long-time ruler Saleh againstthe Houthi uprising in the early 1990s.

After Saleh was ousted in 2011 duringthe Arab Spring, the Saudis switchedsupport to Saleh’s deputy Hadi. Hadi’sausterity policies and continuing corrup-tion made him unpopular, and to bolsterhis position, he allied himself with theIslah party, aligned with the MuslimBrotherhood.

But that alliance became problematic

for the Saudis - which had previouslybacked Islah - when Saudi rival Qatarincreased its influence over the party;and by the time of Sisi’s coup in Egyptin 2013, the Saudis followed Egypt inbranding the Muslim Brotherhood (andaffiliated groups) terrorists, though thereis contact with Islah again now that theHouthis have become the Saudis’ mainenemy.

Saudi Arabia perceives Iranian influ-ence as a threat to its power in the re-gion, and claims that the Houthis aregetting military and financial help fromthe Iranian Revolutionary Guards. TheSaudi bombing campaign thus has astrategic aim of weakening Iran.

Some sources believe the US was notinformed of the first Saudi bombing at-tacks in March, suggesting that theSaudis are moving out from under UScontrol, critical of Obama’s rapproche-ment with Iran which has gathered paceparticularly since the collapse of Iraqiforces in the face of IS.

The Saudis also fear that the US couldditch their autocratic regime, if it everfaces popular revolt, just as the USditched Mubarak in Egypt.

There is reason for Saudi worries overUS loyalty. Voices in the US are urginga turn towards the Houthis. This articlein Foreign Affairs put the pointclearly:“Those loyal to the Houthi fam-ily have emerged as one of the most ef-fective military forces combating theexpansion of al Qaeda and the IslamicState of Iraq and al-Sham in the ArabianPeninsula. If the West turns its back onHouthi leadership because of slogans,opportunistic aid from Iran, or Hadi’sprotestations, it might end up forsakinga serious partner in the Middle East.”

Meanwhile, the Houthis are attackingSaudi Arabian border regions – with theaim of stirring up Shi’ite Zaydi tribes inSaudi territory.

Between the Gulf states there are divi-sions. The UAE backed ex-presidentSaleh against Islah, due to its fear of po-litical Islam, so that when Saleh turnedtowards the Houthis last year, the UAEfound itself indirectly supporting theHouthis. Meanwhile, Qatar, with itsMuslim Brotherhood connections, is al-lied with Islah, the enemy of the Houthisand Saleh.

For Iran, the war on Yemen is a dan-gerous escalation of Saudi power, whichcould force it into intervention more di-rectly in Iraq and Syria, or in the Shiaareas of Saudi Arabia itself. In a recentspeech Hassan Nasrallah, the leader ofIran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanonwarned that it would be possible to armShi’ite rebels in Bahrain.

At least 700,000 Yemenis are in needof food assistance, according to the UN.Water is in short supply due to the Saudifuel blockade, reinforced by the USnavy. Hospitals are unable to cope with-out supplies.

Underlying the situation in Yemen arestringent spending cuts that have hit thepoor hardest. Since 1990, when Yemen,as a non-permanent UN security coun-cil member, voted against war in Iraq,the US has cut its aid to Yemen mas-sively. At the 2010 London conferenceon Yemen, western powers agreed to in-tensify ‘security’ and increase austerity –targeting the 153rd poorest nation in theworld.

Meanwhile, money is being spent onarms to the Saudis and the GCC states– massively increased since the terroristattack on a US ship in 2000 and the2008 bombing of the US embassy.

Yemen has been critically importantstrategically since the British Empiredeveloped the port of Aden as a stagingpost to India - and it is notable thatBritish Foreign Secretary, Philip Ham-mond, visited Riyadh just before theSaudi bombing campaign, given that theSaudi war planes are built in the UK,with Saudi Arabia a major market forBritish arms under the series of Al-Ya-mamah deals.

Yemen is important to the Americansdue to its position on the vital straits ofBab el-Mandab, linking the Mediter-ranean to the Indian Ocean, giving itcontrol over the passage of oil tankersthrough the Suez Canal.

Moreover, Yemen is a country withpotentially the world’s largest oil re-serves. US policy is dictated by its needto control both the strategic chokepointand the oil reserves.

1954 - Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II- sword in hand - with her

husband, Prince Philip, as she isabout to knight some of her

subjects in Aden in South Yemen,then a British colony.


Venezuala and Ecuador under threat

As they seek to defend themselves fromdestabilisation and attempted coups sothey come under further attack.

This not only takes the form of sup-port to right-wing opposition groups,but attempting to influence world opin-

ion against those governments. In Venezuela the extreme right oppo-

sition showed its anti-democratic cre-dentials by its refusal to accept theelection of Nicolas Maduro as Presidentafter the untimely death of HugoChavez.

It launched a campaign of violenceaimed at forcing him out of office bydestabilising the country. In this it waswholly unsuccessful; however, it did suc-ceed in causing destruction of publicproperty and the deaths of 43 people.

The Venezuelan government and peo-ple met this challenge with considerablerestraint and there was no mass repres-

Venezuela andEcuador under threat

sion. Of around 3000 people arrested,1558 were charged with offences ofwhom 35 remain in prison. Action wastaken against security personnel whohad responded with excessive force.

Among those who remain in prisonare some prominent opposition leaders,including Leopoldo Lopez, who ischarged with various offences relating toorganising and inciting the violence oflast year.

The US and the right are attemptingto make these individuals figureheadsfor the campaign to undermine democ-racy and the rule of law in Venezuela.Support has come from the likes of Fe-lipe Gonzalez, former right-wing Presi-dent of Spain who has offered hisservices to the Lopez defence team.

At the United Nations Human RightsCommission Venezuela robustly de-fended its record under attack fromNGOs, some of which are funded bythe US government via the National En-dowment for Democracy. These in-cluded Prensa y Sociedad, ObservatorioVenezolano de Prisiones and EspacioPublico.

On the left we need to question re-ports of rights violations and not take atface value what is being said becausethey emanate from progressive-sound-ing civil society organisations.

After all Archbishop Desmond Tutuis among those to side with the right inVenezuela and calls for these “politicalprisoners” to be released.

The battle of facts and ideology willget harder as the US and the right pileon the pressure. Organisations claimingto represent workers, indigenous people,LGBT communities, environmentalistsetc are widely quoted attacking the gov-ernments of Venezuela and Ecuador.

Some are real organisations with realconcerns and some are not. We need tobe careful that we are not co-opted intoagendas which ultimately seek to under-

mine social gains rather than take themforward.

Within Venezuela the opposition is stillweak and divided. Lopez has called off a30 day hunger strike claiming that one(though only one) of his demands hadbeen met.

This was that a date be fixed for elec-tions. The announcement by theVenezuelan Electoral Commission thatparliamentary elections will be held on6th December 2015 was in keeping withnormal timetables for arranging electiondates and was not a response to Lopez.

However, this get-out was seized on byLopez, who might have gathered promi-nent supporters abroad, but has lesssupport at home. Opposition demon-strations called by him recently have hadtiny turnouts.

The United Socialist Party ofVenezuela (PSUV) has won 11 of thelast 12 parliamentary elections.

During the time it has been in govern-ment it has significantly extended accessto, and participation in, the electoralprocess. From 1998 to 2012 the electoralroll grew from 11 million to 19 millionpeople.

Venezuela operates a system of pri-maries, where people pick their Partycandidates. These were held recently,with 3.1 million people turning out to se-lect candidates for the PSUV and sawlong queues at polling booths.

By contrast the right-wing oppositionMUD coalition had a turnout of 543,000voters in their primaries. There wereother contrasts too.

Of the PSUV candidates 85% wereunder 50 years old and over half werewomen. Of the MUD candidates over80% were above the age of 50.

Despite the difficulties caused by thefall in the price of oil, and the attempteddestabilisation of the country, supportfor the PSUV and the Bolivarian revolu-tion remains high. In a recent poll 62%backed the government to continue.

EcuadorEcuador has also been a target for desta-bilisation. Plans were recently uncoveredfor another coup attempt against Presi-dent Rafael Correa and his government

The reactionary war against democratically elected, progressive governments in South America remains a seriousthreat.

By FRIEDA PARK

Venezuala’s President, Nicolas Maduro


Venezuala and Ecuador under threat

ahead of the planned visit by PopeFrancis.

The last coup attempt was in 2010and the recent plans included blockad-ing of airports and roads, attacks on thepolice, the occupation of the presidentialpalace and government buildings.

Protests have been happening in thetwo biggest cites, Quito and Guayaquil,since early June when the governmentannounced plans to increase capital gainsand inheritance taxes, which tells us allwe need to know about the class charac-ter of the demonstrators.

Despite temporarily withdrawing thebills in order to have dialogue, the pro-testers demands escalated to include theoverthrow of Correa, despite his demo-cratic mandate - he was re-elected in2013 with 57% of the vote.

The necessary responses of the demo-cratically elected governments ofVenezuela, Ecuador and others to pre-vent coups, violence and instability arepredictably portrayed as repressive by

the media here. The actual context andthe facts are in short supply.

The fact that prominent politicianshave been charged with offences relatingto the attempted overthrow of theVenezuelan Government does not makethem political prisoners.

Prior to the violence of last year theyparticipated freely in the democraticprocess. They have not been jailed, norwill they stand trial for their views, butfor illegal, anti-democratic actions.

Due process will determine their guiltor innocence.

Venezuela’s Health ProgrammeSaving Lives, Helping Millions

After providing more than 705 million free consultations, Venezuela’s widely popular health programme recently

marked its 12th anniversary.

Ecuador’s President, Rafael Correa


70th anniversary of Dresden Inferno

70th anniversary ofDresden Inferno

high as a house. The length of time between the two

attacks – a strategy of double attack wasfollowed – was minutely reckoned. Be-tween the first and second wave onlysome three hours were to pass.

The second wave happened when fireand rescue efforts were in full flow andthe fascists’ night fighters (anti-aircraftdeployment proved to be ineffectual)had not yet been able to take off.

Now it was mainly explosive bombswhich were dropped on the blazing cityand its defenceless inhabitants. Asmany people as possible were to bekilled.

The attack did not contribute in anyway to a quicker military defeat of HitlerGermany nor to the effective support ofthe approaching Red Army. Nor was itin any way discussed with Moscow,contrary to statements by imperialistcircles.

In summer 1944 a memorandum waspresented to the chiefs of general staffof the western allies on the subject of aspecial air attack, far greater in its effectsthan bombardments up to that point, ona large German city. ‘This could resultin enormous destruction if the attackwas concentrated on a single large townapart from Berlin. The effect would beparticularly great if it was a town whichup to then had suffered relatively littledestruction,’ said the document. Theplanned operation was named Thun-derstorm.

On the advice of the united planningcommittee the implementation of theplan was postponed to a time when theunited intelligence committee viewed thecircumstances as favourable for a re-newed test of its capabilities.

This restraint had reasons; since thebeginning of the 1940s the USA hadbeen working feverishly on the develop-ment of an atomic bomb. The leader ofthe project reckoned that the firstweapon of mass destruction would beready for deployment in January 1945.

On the 25th January the united intel-ligence committee recommended to theBritish Prime Minister WinstonChurchill a modified version of actionThunderstorm. As the atomic bomb

President, Harry S. Truman declaredonly a day after the invasion of theUSSR by the fascist armed forces: ‘If wesee that Germany is winning, we shouldhelp Russia, and if Russia is winning weshould help Germany, so that in thisway as many as possible should kill eachother.’

As a chief argument for restraint it issuggested that Dresden was, after all,not an ‘innocent’ city. Even if certainarguments to back this up are accurate,it does not alter the barbaric characterof the attack on a defenceless civilianpopulation.

Did the fact play a role that Dresden,as the single undestroyed German me-tropolis, was already being talked of aspart of the future Soviet occupationzone?

Incidentally, the USSR, which had in-comparably more victims and destruc-tion to complain of, and whose territoryhad been laid waste by the fascist ag-gressors, refused on principle to conductthe carpet bombing of towns.

In February 1945 there was no longerany doubt of the imminent defeat of fas-cist Germany. Dresden was not afortress and therefore did not need to bestormed by allied troops.

There were indeed factories therewhich were important for the war effort,like the Saxon Works, plus military sitesand the aerodrome used by the Germanair force. But these were not the targetswhich would be attacked.

An air photograph taken by theBritish Royal Air Force, on which theintended area to be bombed was pre-cisely marked, made it clear that thebombing attacks of the western alliedsquadrons were limited to the heavilypopulated centre of the city on the Elbe.

In the first wave of attacks the mainweapon was huge quantities of firebombs which set off a devastating firestorm. People trying to escape werehemmed in by a barrier of flames as

This year as usual this is the occasionfor debates over whether and in whatmanner to commemorate this event.

For several years there has been awidely held view that a so-called ‘Dres-den myth’ had to be countered. Evensome on the left take this view.

Those who say Dresden must be ‘de-mythologised’ say – undoubtedly cor-rectly – that fascist Germany unleashedthe Second World War and that Goer-ing’s air force had previously bombedGuernica, Coventry and Rotterdam.

From my point of view this only tellspart of the truth and represents a cer-tain simplification of history.

German fascism did not appear fromnowhere but was bolstered for years byGerman capital itself and by the west-ern powers. With their insidious policyof appeasement, they hoped to divertNazi German aggression from them-selves and direct it towards the SovietUnion alone.

Unscrupulously they therefore toler-ated breaches of the rights of nations,provocations and annexations by theGerman fascist leadership.

That had already begun with the si-lence when the German army marchedinto the demilitarized Rhine zone, andcontinued with the ‘non-intervention’after the attack by Franco, Hitler andMussolini on the Spanish Republic, andthe subsequent annexation of Austriaand the Munich Agreement, which pre-sented Hitler with Czechoslovakia to beswallowed up.

At the same time the west rejectedevery proposal by the USSR for creatinga system of collective security.

The Second World War was at thestart a clash between two imperialistcoalitions; but there were still differ-ences. Some western politicians did nothesitate to express, even in publicspeeches, their hope that Germany andthe Soviet Union would mutually de-stroy each other. US Senator, later

The 13th of February 2015 was the 70th anniversary of thedestruction of Dresden by Anglo-American bomb attacks.

By Dr KLAUS SCHWURACK, Dresden.Traslated from the German journal Rotfuchs by Pat Turnbull.


70th anniversary of Dresden Inferno

was not yet at their disposal, it would becarried out with conventional weapons.

From the 3rd to the 11th February theCrimean Conference of the allies of theanti-Hitler coalition met in Yalta.

For Churchill the intention was toshock the Soviet Union with a demon-stration of western air power in order tobe able to negotiate with Moscow from aposition of strength; the Soviet Union’sconvincing success in their Weichsel-Oder offensive in January had beenextremely unpalatable to the Anglo-American imperialists.

However, unfavourable weather con-ditions forced the operation to be post-poned; it could only take place somewhatlater. At that time the western allies werefirmly of the view that the war in Europewould not be over until the second halfof 1945.

If this had been the case, the USAwould almost certainly have droppedtheir first atomic bomb on Dresden. Theunexpectedly rapid advance of the RedArmy alone is to be thanked for pre-venting this genocidal crime from hap-pening.

It is not a question of creating andmaintaining an alleged myth, not even aquestion of Dresden in itself, but a mat-ter of facts and background informationwhich are no longer to be read in historybooks. The reason is obvious: they con-tradict the anti-communist mood of thetimes and are therefore uncomfortable inNATO circles.

During the Second World War therewere influential groups in leading circlesin Great Britain and the USA whowanted a separate peace with Hitler Ger-many in order to march against the So-viet Union with the German armedforces. Churchill declared quite openlyafter the defeat of the Third Reich: ‘Wehave slaughtered the wrong pig.’

Today’s NATO allies don’t want a bloton the landscape like the destruction ofthe Dresden cultural metropolis to attachitself to them any longer. So the mur-derous carpet bombing on the Elbe hasto be presented as a perfectly normalmilitary operation.

This is clearly the reason for thereduction some time ago of the numberof victims of the air attacks to 18,000 -25,000 by an officially appointed Dres-den Historians’ Commission, as well asthe denial of the deployment of low fly-ing aircraft on 14th February 1945.

Now suddenly we are told that it wasactually a matter of air battles betweenmachines of the US air force and Ger-man fighters. This theory ignores all theaccessible sources: documents and eye-witness accounts of those who experi-enced and survived the inferno. In fact

the pilots had been given express per-mission to bomb even opportunisttargets.

What reason can there be to questionthe figure of 35,000 dead which hadbeen circulated in the German Demo-cratic Republic and was regarded fordecades as the number regarded as ac-curate? In the Dresden Heide cemetery28,746 victims have been buried. It isknown in addition that in the fire stormvery many of the people caught in it lit-erally burned without trace.

The ‘newer information’ was largelydeduced by means of doubtful, invalidmethods. The results rest largely onfalse premises and unproven assertions.Even if it cannot be proved, the suspi-cion that these ‘researches’ were politi-cally motivated projects cannot beregarded as groundless.

Fascism was not the spawn of the in-scrutable German national character. Itsroots lie in imperialism and not in a par-ticular national culture.

The bombings of Guernica, Warsaw,Coventry, Rotterdam, Leningrad andmany other towns by Goering’s air forcewere therefore not principally Germanbut imperialist crimes.

This standard must equally be appliedto the wiping out of Dresden’s inner city.It is valid too for the dropping of USatomic bombs on Hiroshima and Na-gasaki. Genocidal crimes are, independ-ent of whether they are committed byGerman, British, American or other im-perialists, products of the system.

The fact that Hitler had first attackedBritain and France and that the SovietUnion in the context of the anti-Hitlercoalition undertook an alliance with thewestern allies which brought about vic-tory over fascism must not lead to a lackof clarity over the perception of class po-sitions.

The western allies appear from such apoint of view to a certain extent as the‘natural allies’ of the Soviet Union, so

that they, like the USSR, are regarded asvictims in an undifferentiated way. Thatis a simplification.

Between the western powers and NaziGermany existed – despite contradic-tions – a common class interest in thedestruction of the socialist Soviet Unionwhich had become a great power in thecourse of the war.

The inventors of a so-called myth ofDresden completely leave out of the ac-count such facts and connections, andinstead take the line of the ‘anti-Ger-mans’ when they press for ‘understand-ing’ of the bombing of Dresden and inthe course of doing so adopt the theorythat the dead of February 1945 werethemselves the culprits.

Those who attempt to label the popu-lation of a whole city in such a fashionand who call it a ‘myth of victimhood’when it comes to commemorating thosewho died a painful death at that time,distance themselves from humanity.Anyone who carries banners and plac-ards with slogans like ‘Bomber Harris, doit again!’ or ‘No tears for krauts’ is noanti-fascist.

The new Nazis falsify the history ofthe Dresden inferno in particular by mis-appropriating the historical truth. Theyare silent on the fact that the war wasbegun by Hitler fascism and reboundedon Germany. They thereby falsify Hitlerfascism’s main responsibility for the de-struction of Dresden.

But there is a clear difference betweenrecognizing the basic share of responsi-bility of a people in proven crimesagainst humanity and war crimes and la-belling them as culprits without differen-tiation.

People who reject the theory of ‘Itserved them right!’ and who honourablycommemorate their relatives and forefa-thers who were torn apart, killed,crushed, burned to death and suffocatedare unjustly defamed by people whowere only protected from these atrocitiesby being born later.

That is also a form of revision of his-tory which plays into the hands of theproponents of new variants of fascism,which Georgi Dimitrov once charac-terised as the rule of the most reac-tionary, most chauvinist and mostimperialist circles of finance capital.

The reconciliation rituals which havetaken place for years in Dresden, withwhite roses, candles and chains of peo-ple, conceal the fact that those who wereonce responsible for the carpet bombingof the city on the Elbe and the wipingout of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actedand act now in the same imperialistmanner in Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia,Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

Churchill in RAF uniform

For Churchill theintention (bomb-ing Dresden)was to shock theSoviet Unionwith a demon-stration of west-ern air power inorder to negoti-

ate with Moscow from a positionof strength ...

Hardship or hopefor Africa?


Hardship or hope for Africa?

mation, and there are many exampleswhere it has been pivotal to the realizedgrowth, including among others inEthiopia, Uganda, Ghana, and my owncountry, Rwanda.

“However, agriculture must be treatedas a business and not just a subsistenceactivity, in order for it to become atransformation agent. A huge market ex-ists. The potential to increase produc-tivity, create more jobs and raiseincomes is ever present.

“But to turn agriculture into a busi-ness dictates that we modernize it, in-vest in technology and research, makereforms in land tenure, land and watermanagement, and develop transporta-tion infrastructure for greater distribu-tion and trade.”(1)

Others stress “support for ecologicalsmallholder farming in Africa”, asagainst “agribusiness” and a “new waveof colonialism” (open letter to DavidCameron from John Hilary, War onWant, and other British non-govern-mental organizations).(2)

Massive tracts of land are beingbought in Africa by companies for plan-tation or other types of large-scale agri-culture, for either food production orbio-fuels, and driving smallholders offtheir land and into destitution.

Action Aid published research sug-gesting that six million hectares of landin Sub-Saharan Africa are under the

and Europe as well. The other majorcrop cultivated in Africa, cassava, is notgrown in quantity in North America butis found in South Asia. Here againAfrican farmers get only one-third of theoutput achieved in the Indian sub-con-tinent.

Low yields reflect the deficiencies infarming technologies, the unaffordabil-ity of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides,and the lack of access to banking andinsurance, capital for investment, and tomarkets for selling the produce as aresult of poor roads, the absence ofwarehouses and refrigeration, and so on.Co-operatives for processing and mar-keting the produce are also essential iffarmers are to ‘move up the valuechain’.

These problems are well known buthow to address them is controversial.

In a recent speech President PaulKagame of Rwanda suggested that themodernization of African agriculture canonly be achieved if it is economicallyviable. “Agriculture [is] a crucial cor-nerstone to Africa’s economic transfor-

Africa is the continent least able to copewith the impacts of CO2 emissions onthe planet’s climate and oceans. Its pop-ulation is projected to rise from 1 billionto 1.6 billion by 2030 and to 2.4 billionby 2050.

Over past decades, the world’s agri-cultural production grew faster than itstotal population, as a result of the GreenRevolution. Since the 1960s, the GreenRevolution has introduced new crop va-rieties, brought better water manage-ment, improved use of fertilizers andpesticides and know-how to millions ofsmallholder farmers in developing coun-tries. But Africa today grows only thesame amount of food per person as itdid in 1960. Less than 7% of cultivatedland is irrigated compared to 40% inAsia. Fertilizer usage is far smaller andthe number of tractors per hectare isthree times higher in Asia than in Africa.The Green Revolution had some suc-cess in Africa – more food is grown thanever before – but in Asia and LatinAmerica food production exceeded pop-ulation growth; this failed to happen inAfrica.

The continent is in a weak posi-tion should climate change under-mine food production further.Understanding why this is and whatcan be done to avoid a looming ca-tastrophe means taking a close lookat the use of land.

African crop yields are already lowAfrica has plenty of land but cropyields per hectare are much lowerthan in North America or Europe.Table 1 shows the yields for differ-ent African regions as a percentageof those achieved in North America.

Typically, yields in Sub-SaharanAfrica are about 37% of those inNorth America. They are generallylower than yields obtained in Asia

It is not enough to think globally and act locally. We must act locally, nationally and internationally to achieve a decisiveshift towards the collective management of land and waterresources if humanity is to get through the climate crisis.

By GREG KASER

Table 1: Crop Yields as a Percentage of North American YieldsRegion Maize Wheat Rice Potatoes Onions Sorghum

Southern Africa 43 94 31 78 41 41

West Africa 19 59 24 11 35 24

East Africa 13 59 28 21 12 27

East Asia 57 159 86 36 40 103

Southeast Asia 28 54 53 34 15 41

South Asia 37 84 45 46 28 25

Europe 63 136 76 48 40 75

North America 100 100 100 100 100 100

Source: Food & Agricultural Organization, 2008 data.

In the third and final part of his series on howglobal warming could lead to a food catastrophe,

Greg Kaser looks at the situation of Africa.



control of European companies planningto grow bio-fuels. The charity claimsthat there has been a “diversion of landfrom producing food for people to pro-ducing fuel for cars” with “disastrous”consequences for “global hunger” andwith allegedly little benefit in mitigatingclimate change.

Environmentalcampaigner GeorgeMonbiot, writing inThe Guardian,joined in the debatewith criticism ofplans put forwardby the New Al-liance for Food Se-curity and Nutritionahead of the G-8Summit of worldleaders in June2013.

The G-8 and theAlliance, he alleged,aimed “to cajoleAfrican countriesinto a new set ofagreements that allow foreign companiesto grab their land, patent their seeds and… remove any market barriers thatfavour their own farmers”.(3)

Bottoming out this argument requiresus to look at the structural features ofAfrican agriculture and how this could

or might change as global warming pro-ceeds.

Africa is able to feed itselfMany African countries face chronicfood shortages and several millions gohungry every day. There are 265 millionmalnourished people in Sub-Saharan

Africa, nearly one-third of the totalpopulation.

Nearly half ofall pregnantwomen sufferfrom anaemia and14% of babieshave low birth-weight. Half thechildren – 195million – arestunted.

Among thecountries unableto feed their pop-ulations are: Burk-ina Faso, Burundi,Central African

Republic, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia,Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Liberia,Mali, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, andZimbabwe.

Furthermore, hunger is often exacer-bated by water scarcity and poor sanita-tion, with 37% of people in Sub-Saharan

Africa relying upon unimproved drink-ing water sources and 70% lacking im-proved sanitation.

As populations have increased, moreand more land is being used for growingcrops. Worldwide, cultivated areas havebeen expanding by nearly two millionhectares a year, and it is estimated thatthe rate of expansion will treble over thenext two decades.

Two-thirds of this expansion will be inSub-Saharan Africa.(4) Part of this ex-pansion is at the expense of forests, andit also includes the farming of marginalland in hilly or mountainous zones or atthe edge of arid areas.

Even so, huge areas of suitable agri-cultural land remain to be exploited forcrops, and nearly half of it is to be foundin Africa.

This land is non-forested, outside eco-logically protected zones and lightly pop-ulated. It amounts to some 200 millionhectares and much of it is to be found inGhana, Chad, Sudan, Congo, Mozam-bique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Zambiaand Zimbabwe.

Further expansion of arable land,whether this is for food and animal feedor for crops suitable as bio-fuels, can beaccommodated sustainably on the conti-nent.

In fact, since the total area of culti-vated land in Sub-Saharan Africa at the

moment amounts to 221million hectares, the po-tential exists to almostdouble crop production.

So, if African farmerswere to become as effi-cient as, say, Europeanfarmers, then crop pro-duction could double;and if they farmed twicethe land area at this dou-ble productivity, then theagricultural output fromAfrican farmers could befour times what it istoday.

Not only can Africafeed its growing popula-tion, but it could exportcrops to the rest of theworld.

Surviving the impact ofclimate changeAnd there is some moregood news. Rain-fedagriculture could proveto be more resilient to cli-mate change than irri-gated crops, according tothe International FoodPolicy Research Institute.Global warming will in-

Table 2: Average Farm Sizes Worldwide (1994-2011 data)

Region Mean size Percentage of farms Trend since 1970(ha) under 2 ha (%)

Sub-Saharan Africa 2.4 69 Farms getting smaller

Southeast Asia 1.8 57 Farms getting smaller

South Asia 1.4 78 Farms getting smaller

East Asia 1.0 79 Farms getting smaller

West Asia & North Africa 4.9 65 Data not available

Europe 32.3 30 Farms getting bigger

North America 190.1 4 Farms getting bigger

Central America 10.7 63 Data not available

South America 111.7 36 No overall change

Oceania 2.7 18 Data not available

Australia/New Zealand 2239.1 : Farms getting bigger

World 5.5 :

Source: Klaus Deininger and Derek Byerlee, with others, 2011, Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can it yieldsustainable and equitable benefits?, Washington: The World Bank: p. 28, Table 1.3; FAO World Census of Agriculture 2000; Canadian and US farm census data.

Dried cassava in Cameroon



crease water evaporation from theoceans and therefore rainfall should beheavier (but storms more violent).

African farmers tend to rely on rain-fall so more frequent rain might helpthem initially. Rain-fed crops are tougherand better adapted to the intermittencyof rainfall. Irrigated crops depend onthere being a steady water supply andwill perish if this is not available.

Rice is especially vulnerable in this re-spect. But it should be noted that whileirrigated farming takes up only one-fifthof the world’s farmland it grows two-fifths of the world’s food.

Africa’s problems are interconnected:reliance on rainfall results in low yields;but fertilizers are less efficient whererainfall is low and unpredictable; andlack of fertilizers leads to soil depletionand worsens yields.

Turning this situation around will beexpensive: irrigation, drainage, waterharvesting and storage projects are cap-ital intensive, with major environmentalimpact and social repercussions in termsof management and upkeep.

However, if temperatures carry on ris-ing, rainfall patterns could alter drasti-cally and no agricultural zone will thenbe safe.

The increasing frequency of droughtsuggests that global warming is alreadyaltering the climate around the IndianOcean, including that of East Africa.

Variability in weather patterns is theruin of small-scale farmers. African

farmers are mostly smallholders tendingtiny scattered parcels of land. They arein no position to adapt to climate changewithout assistance. That’s the bad news.

A study in 2009 by the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute suggestedthat without an increase in irrigated area,in any case necessary if Africa is to feeditself, Sub-Saharan Africa would see fallsin agricultural output as a result of cli-mate change.

Farmers in East Africa are adapting byintroducing more drought resistant vari-eties, but they are also changing or evenabandoning a sowing season. Instead ofraising cattle they now just tend hardiergoats.(5) Adapting to climate change is al-ready reducing food supplies.

The trouble is that African farms, asin other developing countries in Asia, aretiny and in no position to finance capitalinvestment. Table 2 sets out some recentdata on average farm size.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of farm-ers are smallholders, the majority ofwhom are women.(6) Small farms can bevery efficient but left to their own devicessmallholders cannot invest to expand asbusinesses.

The long-term trend is towards largerfarms, but even in developed countriesthese receive state subsidies, which formany developing countries is unafford-

able. The alternative is to move towardsa socialist solution.

Collectivization revisited Paul Kagame is a forthright proponentof Chinese participation in Africa’s de-velopment. He is not alone and there aresome other, perhaps unlikely, supportersof the Chinese model for agriculture.

A World Bank paper on ‘Learningfrom the Chinese Miracle’ praises thedevelopment lessons for Africa. Dis-cussing the replacement of the communesystem by the household responsibilitysystem, the paper notes: “The reformshad strong ramifications on economicoutput. The fast growth of agriculturaloutput accumulated crucial initial capi-tal for the take-off of rural enterprises,which were concentrated in labour-in-tensive industries. There was a dramaticincrease in household savings … [and],in parallel, a new pricing policy was in-troduced to give stronger incentives toindividual farmers. From 1979 to 1981,reformers [in the Chinese government]cumulatively boosted procurement pricesof crops to close to 40 per cent over1978 levels. Finally, the government pro-vided farmers subsidies to buy seeds andfertilizers needed to grow high-yieldinghybrid rice varieties.”(7)

The World Bank omits to mention thatthe household responsibility system, in-troduced under Deng Xiaoping, is not aform of private ownership but a collec-tive solution, ‘owned’ by families and

Wanawake Kwanza (Women First)growers association in Maza

village, Morogoro, Tanzania. (US Aid)



the community. From 1979 on, the Chinese Commu-

nist Party encouraged communes “to di-vide the land to the households” butretained village and township enterprisesas collectives. In 1983-84, the 50,000communes were replaced by 92,000townships and the six million productionbrigades (each consisting of an averageof 33 families cultivating about 8hectares) were broken up.

Households are responsible for man-aging land under lease and must fulfilgovernment contracts for production.They are free to sell any surplus produceon the market.

Typically a household leases about 0.6hectares for a term of 15 years, thoughterms of 30 years have been possiblesince 1995. China is self-sufficient infood production, has expanded its crop-ping area and raised yields. Since the1990s it has been a net exporter ofgrains.

Deng’s economic reforms are creditedwith bringing prosperity to the country-side. The opportunity to diversify pro-duction into a wider range of crops andactivities (such as sugarcane, fruit, veg-etables and medicinal herbs, orchards,animal husbandry, dairy products andother non-farm small-scale industry),rather than be tied to the ‘top down’state procurement of grains, enabled en-terprising households to raise their in-come.

Even so, it is not an entirely market-driven/private ownership system of pro-duction. The government continues toprovide know-how, seeds, fertilizers andpesticides at affordable prices, whichwere the key elements of the Green Rev-olution.

Investment and maintenance of theirrigation infrastructure, a major effortundertaken by the communes in the1960s and 1970s, remains a collectiveresponsibility. Local governments alsohelp households in marketing their pro-duce. Farm mechanisation and plot con-solidation have suffered as a result,however, and in recognition of this, since2008, larger-scale mechanised farminghas been encouraged.

Nonetheless, it remains difficult forleaseholders to trade their plots, and, asthese may be dispersed – partly toensure that every household has a fairmix of soil types and growing conditions– Chinese agriculture has reached some-thing of a productivity plateau (unlessGM crops are introduced more exten-sively).

Much larger farms in Europe, the for-mer Soviet Union and America havehigher productivity as a result of mech-anisation, which is not practical on small,

scattered parcels. On the other hand, mechanised farms

would require less labour and there isabundant rural labour in China, andAfrica. The situation will change inChina as the push to develop the NewSocialist Countryside becomes a reality.Former prime minister Wen Jiabao an-nounced the programme in 2006, whichaims to narrow the gap in living stan-dards between urban and rural areas.

The Chinese examples suggest thatwith a fair structure of land tenure (withall households gaining a stake in manag-ing the land), appropriate incentives tospur productivity, specialization, innova-tion and marketing, and the provision ofup-to-date knowledge and critical pro-duction inputs (seeds, fertilizers and pes-ticides) can give a massive boost toagriculture and the rural economy.

Moreover, Chinese farms are run asbusinesses, within a national and provin-cial planning framework to ensure every

region can feed itself and rural develop-ment is prioritized.

By contrast, the perspective for agri-cultural modernization in Africa envis-ages little role for the state and would bedriven by Capital. The World Bank’spolicy is to favour the role of privateinvestors in creating consolidated com-mercial agricultural units with familyfarmers under contract to manage theland.

In this way the Bank seeks to recon-cile the interests of smallholders withagribusiness and institutional investorswithout compromising the principle ofprivate ownership.

Such ‘land governance reform’ would,in fact, strengthen private ownership

The Chinese experience in combining household responsi-bility with state-supported development cannot, of course,be transferred to Africa withoutmodification, but the lessonsare clear enough.

Without a major transformationin a socialist direction, Africanfarmers will be at the mercy ofworld commodity markets andclimate change.

Food production, already low byworld standards, will continue tofall short of what people need.

rights through programmes to registercustomary rights to land, forest andwater resources.

A very successful programme of thistype has been undertaken in Rwanda,part-funded by the British government.Rwanda has endured a tragic history ofethnic conflict in which its two maincommunities have seized land from eachother, in repeated rounds of mass killingand expulsion.

Under Kagame’s Rwandan PatrioticFront government, which set out to endthe cycle of conflict, claims to land havebeen arbitrated by local commissions andtitle registered formally. A feature of theprocess was the recognition of widows’rights.

With plots properly delineated bysatellite mapping and on-the-groundboundary markers, property rights areestablished legally and the land’s value isavailable to secure loans for investment.

A similar programme is underway inEthiopia, which also seeks to registerwomen’s title to the land they cultivate.

Security of tenure is a critical factor inensuring that farmers have the confi-dence to invest and innovate. If farmersthink that they may not reap any benefitfrom improving the productivity of theland they are working they will not in-vest, even if they are aware of the ad-vantages.

But this must be accompanied by gov-ernment-funded assistance to smallhold-ers and the modernization of theeconomic infrastructure. Irrigation andwater storage will be necessary if Africais to ride out the early consequences ofclimate change.

It is therefore entirely feasible forAfrican smallholders to grow far morethan they do today and to prosper, asKagame envisages, but they cannot do iton their own. The truth is they have todo it together – on a model that enablesthem to get the best from the land andwater resources collectively.

Community rights to forage or pastureanimals on land have to be addressedand this can only be achieved throughcollective management. The Chinese ex-perience in combining householdresponsibility with state-supporteddevelopment cannot, of course, be trans-ferred to Africa without modification,but the lessons are clear enough.

Without a major transformation in asocialist direction, African farmers willbe at the mercy of world commoditymarkets and climate change. Food pro-duction, already low by world standards,will continue to fall short of what peopleneed.

Greater variability in the weather willmake matters worse. If many parts of



Africa cannot feed themselves now, whathope will there be when harvests fail yearafter year?

Developing countries are, of course,more vulnerable to the famine potentialarising from global warming and oceanacidification. But developed countriesare by no means immune – drought,flood, desertification and weather ex-tremes will affect the great bread basketsof Europe and the Americas. Developedcountry consumers will also feel the ef-fects of food and water shortages else-where in the form of price hikes. Earthwould be a hungry planet.

Past lessonsTo prepare a class response we should,perhaps, recall the days in the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries when20% of the British population went hun-gry even in good times.

Historian E P Thompson chronicledthe direct action taken by the commonfolk of England to protect their access tofood during periods of dearth.

Through the distribution of anony-mous handbills and posters, marches,blockades and ‘riotous assembly’ crowdsintimidated rich farmers, millers andmerchants into bringing grain to marketand lowering prices to affordable levels.

The crowds tried to force the lordslieutenant and magistracy to apply theold laws from Tudor times – knownpopularly as the Book of Orders – thatprohibited speculation and price riggingby engrossers, factors, forestallers, huck-sters, jobbers and laders.

In so doing the poor incurred the crit-icism of moral philosophers – the likes ofAdam Smith, Edmund Burke andThomas Malthus – who advocated lais-sez-faire.

Thompson went on to describe howthese liberal ideas were exported to Indiawith pernicious effect.(8)

There, as Nobel Prize-winning econo-mist Amartya Sen has shown, faminewas exacerbated by British reluctance tointervene in the market to prevent theexport of grain and rice and to controlprices.(9)

We can expect a repeat of the same ar-guments in favour of ‘letting the marketwork’ from today’s neo-liberals, not tomention condemnation of any protestaction by people unable to afford basicsustenance.

It has been the historic task of social-ism to overcome the forces of barbarityand reaction, to free people from op-pression and exploitation, and to con-struct a global society that fully developshuman and natural resources sustainablyand equitably.

In the nineteenth century socialiststackled the threats from predatory capi-talism. With occasional liberal allies, so-cialists built democratic nation states thateventually tamed rapacious imperialism.

By the 1960s, colonial rule and inter-imperialist wars were, hopefully, over, al-though US imperialism still threatensworld peace. For the socialists of thetwentieth century all-round developmentand restoring dignity to working peoplewere the prime challenges.

In the advanced industrial economiesthe welfare state was secured by the1950s. Other countries have followed,with emerging industrial nations likeChina, Brazil and India now puttingcomprehensive social protection meas-ures in place.

But there is still a long way to go inthe less developed countries. The prior-ity for twenty-first century socialism isthat of planetary management, perhaps,even, of ensuring humankind’s survival.

Socialists must not just complete theoutstanding tasks but make commoncause with the environmental movementto establish proper democratic account-ability at the international level to man-age the Earth’s resources, our industriesand our scientific potential to meet peo-ple’s needs for sustenance, security,health and education.

The challenge, then, is to achieve pop-ular sovereignty that exercises power lo-cally, nationally and globally. It is notenough to think globally and act locally.

As this series has shown, action isneeded nationally and internationally ifour planet is to be preserved for humanhabitation.

FOOTNOTES1. Speech to High Level Seminaron Africa’s Structural Transforma-tion organised by the African De-velopment Bank in Marrakech on28 May 2013. 2. The Guardian, 8 June 2013.3. George Monbiot, Africa, let ushelp – just like in 1884, TheGuardian, 10 June 2013. 4. Klaus Deininger and Derek Byer-lee, with others, 2011, RisingGlobal Interest in Farmland: Can ityield sustainable and equitablebenefits?, Washington: The WorldBank: pp. xxvii-xxviii.5. Patti Kristjanson, Introduction toClimate-smart Agriculture, AfricanUnion CAADP Workshop on Climate-smart Agriculture, held on 24-27October 2011 in Nairobi. 6. Montpellier Panel Report, 2012,Growth with Resilience: Opportuni-ties for African Agriculture, London:Imperial College: p. 13.7. Ali Zafar, 2010, Learning fromthe Chinese Miracle: Developmentlessons for sub-Saharan Africa, Pol-icy Research Working Paper 5216,Washington, DC: The World Bank:p. 20. 8. E P Thompson, 1991, Customsin Common, Pontypool: The MerlinPress: chapter 4 and pages 278-287. 9. Amartya Sen, 1981, Poverty andFamines: An essay on entitlementsand deprivation, Oxford: ClarendonPress.

A farmer near the town of Gabiley, Somalia. (K Bohmer)


Arnold Mesches and his FBI file

Arny, as he prefers to be known, haddecided to petition for his FBI file afterseeing those of some friends. “I lovedthe way they looked, those black strokes,like Franz Kline color sketches. I alsothought, ‘This is history, and, hey, this ismy history.’”

The package that eventually arrivedwhen unbound from the armour ofwads of plastic tape, disclosed in its 768pages the comings and goings ofMesches’ past, each page a single report,supplied by FBI agents or, more often,by comrades and bedmates, people at ameeting, in a crowd, studio models, pur-ported friends.

He learned that the Bureau paid in-formants $75 a page for their trouble.“Imagine if you were reporting on tenpeople, that’s $750 a week, $3,000 amonth; people were living on it.”

Half a million people were within thestate’s scope during the years the HouseUn-American Activities Committeefunctioned. “I had only 768 pages. I hada friend who had 4,000. He was a verybusy man.”

Arny poured over those pages, andwhile he was re-living his life throughthe eyes of the FBI he also saw beauty inthe riddle of ink on paper. He began aseries of large paintings, collages.

Mulling over the idea of illuminatedmanuscripts, he worked on a smallerscale, using the pages themselves, mak-ing diptychs, containing the documentswithin borders, adorning them withminiatures, ornamenting them withrough or classical lettering, decoratingthem in gold.

The result was a 2002 exhibition,which has now been refreshed, concen-trated and titled, “Next in Line”, for anew generation under surveillance. Itwas on display earlier this year in NewYork, where Arny now lives.

The painted or lifted images bracket-ing the documents, interrupting them,

Arnold Meschesand his FBI fileArnold Mesches (pictured below) is a 92 year old Americanartist, who has illuminated - in the style of medieval manuscripts - his own FBI file.

By GEORGE HEARTFIELD

obscuring them, emerge from the sameperiod as the files. Their juxtaposition isan aesthetic choice.

There is: n the first cover of Playboy, n a paint-by-number Last Supper, n a soldier in winter in Korea, n snapshots of Coney Island, nArny’s children, n an audience in 3D glasses, nMalcolm X, n the KKK, npieces of toys, n logos for Flair and for Mad, nNixon (see back page), n image transfers from magazine ads for Cutty Sark and Marlboro, n the Kennedy convention with grotesques on lofted banners, nHavana January 1, 1959, n the Hollywood Strike 1946-47 (see back page), nPaul Robeson as Othello, n a bloody handprint, n a lunar module, n a stencil of pickets, n a protest armband, n clowns, n sketched portrait of Arnold Mesches commissioned by the FBI and executed by an informant who

masqueraded as a comrade.Mesches was subject 100-27874. A

“rank and file member” of the Los An-geles Communist Party, the FBI ac-knowledged some years into its watch,“book number 49939” – not much, ornot yet.

His “potential or actual dangerous-ness” seems to have been that he mightbecome something more, might knowsomeone bigger, do something bigger.

He certainly popped up at a lot ofmarches and concerts for “peace.”

Who could know his dark ambitions?He had been a young radical, a “formerAYD member”; that’s American Youthfor Democracy.

While doing set illustrations for aTarzan movie he walked off the job inthe great Hollywood Strike of 1946.

He learned to work in watercolour bygoing out painting with a couple of setpeople every morning after picket duty.He “dressed like a Communist,” accord-ing to the FBI file, always in jeans and aT-shirt.

He did covers and inside drawings forFrontier, “definitely anti-FBI.” “He didsketches on disarmament for a confer-ence in April, 1960, sponsored by theEmma Lazarus Jewish Women’s Club.”

He drove a 1954 Ford station wagon,“an old model Nash, California license2N19005.”

He taught art in Salt Lake City butwas “expelled for Communist Sympa-thies.”

He taught art at USC. He signed abrief in support of John Howard Lawsonand Dalton Trumbo as representative ofthe Arts & Professions Group.

On January 26, 1966, the SpecialAgent in Charge of LA sent J. EdgarHoover an airmail letter “Re: ArtistProtest Committee/Information Con-cerning/(Internal Security)” withMesches’ name and the suggestion of anupcoming demonstration evident butmuch else blacked out.

“I really wanted the images to have afeeling of those days, the external life ofthose days,” Arny says.

The worst that happened to Mescheswas the burglary of his studio in 1956.

Two hundred sketches, 100 prints, all


Arnold Mesches and his FBI file

his paintings, including several of the Rosenbergs, wererobbed, “every piece of work that I could live on.”

His file makes no mention of this event and is silent aboutthe six months leading up to and following it.

He titled his new exhibition “Next in Line” because sur-veillance is the open secret of this era.

Arny worries about the NSA, whose technical ability tosweep up data on billions of people in an instant is differentfrom the old days but with the same aim.

His major addition to the earlier work is a fifty-foot canvasclustered with faces, pen-and-ink drawings affixed to the sur-face, some overlapping, in different tones, different styles. Thework suggests a police bulletin board assembling evidence ofa crime.

Arny has said that he used to use anger, but that didn’t in-volve the audience and it didn’t have the same questioning as-pect so he now uses “absurdity”. In his work he has tried “tore-create the sense of utter instability and sheer insanity thathe feels has so often permeated his years.”

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