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Book Review – Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security that Haunts US Energy Policy (Robert Vitalis)

What is at stake when it comes to oil? A new book investigates


26/03/2022

The premise of Vitalis’ book is that oil cannot be the basis of the US economy, least of all, of US national security. There are several minerals (over seventy) which the industrial world needs a constant and secured supply of, and which civilization simply cannot do without. But they are not treated as being as important as oil. This makes us question apparent self-evident truths in news cartels! The average observer has never heard of countries waging war to ensure reliable shipments of aluminum or copper. What is it so special, then, with oil? What is at stake with oil?

According to Vitalis, the story of oil is not the crude matter, but more about suspicous data and poor evidence. Powerful interest groups and lobbies in US corridors of power steer this data toward selling a myth. The fear of failing to ensure a constant supply of oil from the Persian Gulf is supposed to spell a trauma. The myth sits on others. Both science and reason tell us that there has never been a dwindling supply of oil, nor of any other natural resources. As technology advances, new reserves of all types of minerals are constantly discovered. The only way of freeing the US democracy, nay, the very political system and ensuring a solid role-model for the rest of the word is to shed these myths. They cripple US policy planners and ruin the US reputation in the world.

Chapter One ‘Opening’

This sets the stage for revisiting President Bush’s conquest of Iraq in 2003 and check the argument that the US acted on behalf of large oil conglomerates. If so, Vitalis rebuts, the easiest way for the US to access Iraqi oil was to simply lift its own 1990s sanctions on Iraqi exports. So oil companies would have entered the market and the problem resolved. Moreover Vitalis argues, as prices rose in the early 2000s, an abundant hydraulically-fractioned oil made the US a major producer of oil itself.

Now, the US import of oil from the Middle East is around 18 percent. Nevertheless, “Junk social science” (p. 5) keeps a scary narrative aflame. When luminaries and public intellectuals are fixated on their myth of ‘oil-as-power’, the term ‘oilcraft’ recalls witchcraft more than statecraft. Vitalis’ analogy call’s for dispelling confusion and talismanic obsession by promoting a rational understanding of decisions on energy policy. If the only evidence ‘junk’ social scientists provide is price rises, it brings us face to face  ‘oil-scarcity ideology’ (p. 6). Vitalis stresses that every statement we encounter in the archive should be taken with a grain of salt.

He proposes we consider three facts: (1) the world is rich of minerals; literally anyone has access to raw materials. Viewing oil-as-weapon is at best incorrect and at worst a ‘chimera’ (p. 14). Instead of embracing a confirmation bias, the abundance should make us question what lies beyond the ‘phenomenal’; (2) the imagined threats to oil supply—even when real—cannot be addressed militarily; (3) oil prices are dependent on other raw materials. A simple comparison of oil prices against other minerals in the long durée—as Roger Stern does—will lead to the conclusion that oil cannot be the lifeblood of the American way of life.

Raw Materialism

Chapter Two posits the idea of a single source as critically important for a national economy is reductionist at best and misleading at worst. Vitalis cites  the early twentieth century Columbia School (scholars like Edward Mead Earle and William S. Culbertson). These noted that US policy since 1918 was rooted in “bogeys”, from rapid depletion of natural resources to British monopoly of these resources (pp. 26-7). Back then, like now, there was an industry behind studies, infuriating the public and policy makers alike about such imagined threats.

Vitalis finds the idea of “‘control’ of foreign oil fields” (p. 29) became a priority for the US economy  in Americans’ unconscious during the 1990s. Culbertson argued that wars do not emerge from the need to control or ensure extensive supplies of raw materials, but from the need for markets to commercialize industrialized commodities. (p. 32) Embracing mid-nineteen century protectionism triggered bouts of scarcity syndrome.

But a generation or two later these findings from the 1920s were forgotten. The Cold War context made it more likely that the Soviets were ‘threatening’ US access to Middle East oil. Vitalis adds that even Noam Chomsky falls into confirmation bias wherein “the progressives of the 1970s were a pale imitation of their 1920s ancestors.” (p. 55). Progressives kept parroting criticism of American foreign policy without considering where that criticism might be heading.

1973: A Time to Confuse

Chapter Three rereads October 17, 1973 and the alleged OPEC oil embargo, as only a spectacle. For Vitalis under no stretch of imagination did it approximate to a threat of cutting supplies, let alone, an embargo. For in 1973 “only 7 percent of U.S. oil imports originated from the Middle East” (p. 57). Besides, Arab nationalists only expressed a half-hearted and face-saving gestures in the wake of their humiliating defeat against Isarel in June 1967— gestures meant for popular consumption at home only.

Nevertheless, the scarcity-thesis driven by media and ‘experts and intellectuals’, to gain monopoly – made it look as if scarcity is imminent and can usher in the end of the world. Vitalis discusses the five hundred page report (David S. Freeman’s ‘A Time to Choose’)  released when Americans were experiencing long lines in gas stations. The report made it super easy to conclude that the long queues resulted from the much-publicized shock spelling serious disruptions of supply, presumably orchestrated by the Arab Embargo.

In reality, OPEC “sought a fairer share of the windfall.” (p. 64) To protect local crude producers from  the unstable market, the US government had used a preferential tariff with local crude producers. The Nixon Administration, however, decided in 1971 to reverse the preferential tariff policy and open the US market to non-American producers. This new policy, not OPEC’s action, explains the interruption in supply and long queues. Far from disrupting supply, Arabs were terrified of losing their market shares.

No Deal

Chapter Four  elaborates on the motivating principle behind the myth that stipulates the invisibility of oil for the American policy maker. It is definitely the key chapter as it uncovers the motive behind portraying oil as the bloodline of the American economy. Vitalis notes that this myth could not become as intense as it is now without the ‘fantasy-embraced-as-history’. Given their nefarious stature after 9/11, the Saudis, or Al Saud, more exactly: the ruling oligarchs of Saudi Arabia – invested heavily in  painting themselves as peace-loving and reliable suppliers of oil for US economy. They went as far as inventing a presumed memorandum of understanding (a deal) between King Ibn Saud and President Franklin Roosevelt on board the destroyer U.S.S. Qunicy near the end of the World War II. The author finds no trace of this presumed deal in the archives. But it supposedly stated that the Saudis would ensure reliable shipments of crude and the US, would guarantee the protection of the king and his dynasty.

Vitalis adds: “The only problem is that no account of U.S.-Saudi relation for the next fifty years said any such thing.” (p. 87).  But “The Saudis, the PR firms, and their many friends in Washington would milk the meeting with FDR for all it was worth after 2001.” (p. 91). Vitalis counts this Saudi fabrication among the latest in the arsenal of forgeries specifying the centrality of oil.

Interest groups profit from recycling oil dollars in the US economy through purchases of US treasury bonds, consumer goods and, of course, armament bills with astronomical price tags. That is how, it is for the long-term interest of the US to distance itself from a retrogressive and degenerate monarchy. That proximity does a considerable damage to the status of the US as a superpower. The crumbling of the Saudis’ rule will be an event that will boost, not hinder, the US supremacy or at least its leadership credentials.

Breaking the Spell

Chapter Five concludes Oilcraft. Vialis starts by underlining that “popular and scholarly beliefs about oil-as-power have no basis in fact” (p. 122). But the irony of the myth is that policy makers who sincerely want to break this fixation can do little to break the immanent structure whereby oil is received as invisible. The assumptions are so powerful that any attempt to go against them end in discrediting, or ridiculing, the credible policy maker. The first step is getting the scholarship correct, never allowing unchecked opinions to pass for knowledge. Knowledge starts by first, making sure that crude producers have no choice but to sell their outputs. Before harming the US economy, cutting supplies will strangle their own economies and destabilize their hold on power.

Second, one needs to be certain that besides the fact that deploying an army to protect crude supplies cannot be tenable and efficient, the deployment itself raises tensions and causes supply interruptions. Third, the Middle East is a volatile space, and it does not behoove a superpower to be constantly dragged into the mess out there. Fourth, by the same depleted logic of scarcity, why does the US not go and chase bauxite, tungsten, tin, rubber lest they are all appropriated by other powers? Fifth, there is a fallacy by which the degenerate Left sells its credentials: which is as soon as soon as the US steps out of the Middle East, “the fossil-capital-led order” will fall all on its own; allowing an era of plenitude to automatically emerge.

Finally Vitalis notes that “Oilcraft today [has] hijack[ed] the mind of the scientifically literate” (p.128),  the average person believes oil passes as an explanation for almost all wrongs with the world. He believes that Saudi money should not be allowed to finance studies. Vitalis rightly says “the paid-to-think-tanks” (p. 131) will only bring pseudo-science, more confusion and befogged policies. Moreover the propaganda which the funding generates covers for the asphyxiation of liberties in the Middle East and the world at large. In the end, Vitalis rightly addresses the US policy maker: “why fear an Arabia without Sultans?” (p. 133)

Conclusion

Vitalis finds that well-intentioned and respectful policy makers and advisers are crippled by enduring myths. These myths have taken a dimension that is larger than life. He is certainly correct that the journey for undoing their effect start with unbiased research. But there are instances where Vitalis’ suspicion of the ideology that “oil-is-anything-but-powerful”, recalls the theory that colonies cost metropolitan centers more than the latter could squeeze value out of them.

Perhaps missing in Vitalis’ discussion is how during the time where capital expansion needed nationalism, oil was treated (and for good reasons) as the lifeblood. Vitalis indirectly calls for updating sedimented thinking, since capitalistic growth since the 1920s (exactly after WWI) is not conditioned on the old mystique view of oil-as-bloodline, given the abundance of supply. Producers simply cannot afford to withdraw crude from buyers lest they risk losing their share in a highly competitive market. Similarly, no major power can hinder access to oil because oil remains evenly available everywhere.

There have been two temporalities of capital accumulation, not one: formal and real dominations. This explains why after WWI, occupying a colony becomes financially inhibitive. At an advanced stage of primitive accumulation, anonymous capital becomes self-regulating. During the era of real domination (post 1918) there cannot be a need for a class of bourgeois pioneers to intervene. That explains why the bourgeois class has since disappeared. In its place, there emerged a capitalistic class who give the illusion that they are in charge but are in charge of absolutely nothing. They are simply managers/administrators (CEOs) appointed by shareholders to speak on behalf of the latter interest.  Hence – “raw materials are color-blind.” (p. 36) and that colonies are a burden to maintain.

Vitalis’ analysis in Chapter Four dwells on the corruption of the Saudis and their dizzying pace of change ‘from camels to Cadilliacs’ (p. 95) paid for by oil rent, may sound racist and inconsequential in the overreaching impact of oil wealth. Oil wealth decides less their conservative outlook but more significantly intensifies their adamant predisposition against an egalitarian polity all over the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. The counter revolutions that quelled the uprisings of the Arab Spring both in 2011 and 2019 were engineered and financed principally by their medieval outlook. Vitalis notes that with recycled petrodollars the Saudi acquired F-15 jets which since March 2015 bombed civilians in Yemen. But he could have also noted that worse than F-15s is the regressive and ultra-conservative brand of the faith, whose sole agenda is the crashing all social movements which moved towards a lifestyle free from the dictatorship of oil.

Overall, there are instances where Vitalis’ debunking of myths such ‘oil-as-power’ falls into the right; and others where which falls more into the left. At times he can even be counted as a devout communist. But this is the quality of great scholarship, where he passionately elucidates his points regardless of class or ideology. Indeed, Vitalis embraces his mission to eradicate facile portrayals. Masquerading beneath so-called ‘self-evident conclusions’ lies not only tperpetuating mistaken decisions but squandering of the US taxpayers’ savings as well as the subaltern of the MENA chances for a future in dignity.

Vitalis, Robert. 2020. Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security that Haunts US Energy Policy. Stanford University Press; pp. ‎ 240 pages; Paperback: $22.00; Hardcover: $22.47; ISBN-10 :1503632598; ISBN-13: 978-1503632592

Film Review – Start Wearing Purple

A film about the fight against gentrification in Berlin gives a sense of how we can win. A sequel about the messy aftermath would be just as informative


24/03/2022

2021, The City of Berlin.

A pair of people wearing purple vests are going through an apartment block door-to-door collecting signatures. Volkan explains that he is paying €500 for a room in a shared house, and has had to move flat several times. It’s making him sick.

Chris is collecting signatures on the banks of the Spree, the river which cuts through Berlin. His previous political experience includes organising health workers’ strikes. When he moved into a flat owned by Deutsche Wohnen – one of the largest and most exploitative landlords in Berlin – he joined this campaign.

Welcome to two of the many activists for Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen (DWE), a Citizen’s Initiative, which organised a referendum to expropriate apartments owned by profit-extracting large real estate companies. Companies like Deutsche Wohnen.

For the campaign to force a referendum it needed to collect 175,000 signatures for expropriation. Historian Ralf Hofrogge explains how in Berlin if enough people propose a law, this must be put to a vote and a majority decision in favour will put it into the constitution.

The campaign is also addressing other social problems. Volkan talks of the difficulty that people with Turkish names have in finding accommodation. Landlords suddenly say that flats are unavailable. If a friend with a German name asks, it suddenly comes back onto the market.

Berta and Adelaide are both active in the DWE working group Right2TheCity, which organises non-Germans. Adelaide from Brazil explains how DWE largely consists of people who look like the city she lives in. It is more open to the participation of younger non-white women than other campaigns that she’s been involved in. Berta was active in the Italian student movement in 2008-2012, but never joined a German movement before this.

The campaign started through a loose movement of a few people who’d been involved in earlier tenants’ campaigns. They first met in a room full of sewing machines. Once they went public, they formed so called Kiezteams, which mobilise people in each local neighbourhood. The aim is to be completely non-hierarchical, but as Assal explains, there are always some people who take on more responsibility than others and some whose voices are louder.

If At First You Don’t Succeed

Katalin Gennburg is a councillor for die LINKE (the Left Party) in the Berlin parliament. She explains how the SPD-Green-LINKE government was elected on the promise that they would regulate rents and to solve Berlin’s housing problem. They passed a local law enforcing a rent cap. Unfortunately, the national court ruled that the rent cap was unconstitutional. Landlords used the ruling to start evicting tenants who could not immediately pay the arrears generated.

CDU politician Thorsten Frei argues that the Mietendeckel fiasco is the result of “socialist approaches”. He argues for building more houses, saying that in Hamburg many more apartments are built than in Berlin. His words are supported by Olaf Scholz (who has since been elected German Chancellor) who calls for a speed up in building more apartment.

Katalin Gennburg is not so sure. She says that “building, building, building as an answer to the housing market is really out of time”. The amount of available social housing is actually shrinking. The Hamburger “Alliance for Housing” is in effect an alliance for building luxury flats and assets for hedge funds.

Many people agree with Gennburg. When the rent cap was rejected by the courts, people were more determined to support the DWE referendum. In the week after the ruling, 15,000 signatures were collected – much more than usual. There was a feeling of determination that élite judges should not be allowed to control how much rent working class people have to pay.

Diego Cárdendas is a veteran of a previous referendum campaign, 100% Tempelhofer Feld. The old airport is currently a major park between the districts of Neukölln and Tempelhof-Schöneberg. In 2008, 100% Tempelfhofer Feld organised a successful referendum to prevent the park being privatised, thus stopping luxury flats being built in one of the free spaces that every Berliner can visit. Nonetheless, Diego explains, Tempelhofer Feld is still under threat every day.

The Battle But Not The War

In the final month of the DWE campaign, some collectors started to get demoralised. Some are filmed in May 2021. They have only collected two thirds of the necessary signatures and three-quarters of the time is over. Collecting signatures is not as easy as it used to be, and collectors are meeting an increasingly hostile reaction.

I’m sure that the reports are honest but this experience does not remotely correspond to my own efforts collecting signatures in the working class district of Berlin-Wedding. We collected hundreds of signatures every week right up to the end. We also knew that many people had full petitions at home, so we were sure of meeting our target.

In the end, even our expectations were exceeded. DWE & Co Enteignen was the most successful referendum ever, collecting 350,000 signatures. At the referendum which followed, nearly 60% of people voting supported Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen’s demands. However, winning the referendum did not automatically lead to expropriation.

On the same day as the referendum, there were local elections in Berlin. The main winner was SPD’s upwardly failing former minister Franziska Giffey, who had already made clear that she had no intention of implementing the referendum results. Any decisions were kicked into the long grass and an Experts’ Commission was set up in an attempt to demobilize the movement (for more information about what happened and why, there are plenty of reports here).

This is why viewing Start Wearing Purple should not be a passive act… How do we harness the massive energy and desire for change that electrified Berlin in 2021

Start Wearing Purple was made at a certain point in time, just before the referendum and the elections on 26th September. This means that the film contains the anticipation of victory, and its conclusion is slightly more optimistic than the current feeling in Berlin.

Time For A Sequel?

I would love the film’s directors to make a sequel about what happened next. In a sense, the content of that sequel is still being written. As I was writing this review, the composition of the Experts’ commission has been announced. Over half the members will belong to the SPD and Greens who have, to different extents, opposed expropriation. The suggestion of DWE that they should receive 59.1% commissioners, to reflect the number of people voting for the referendum, has been rejected.

Whatever happens, we will probably wait at least a year until the Commission publishes any conclusions. If things stay as they are, it is unlikely that anything significant will happen before the next elections in four years’ time. But if Start Wearing Purple shows anything, it is that things do not have to stay as they are. It was the active engagement of a determined movement which disrupted the permanent rule of the big real estate companies and the politicians who receive substantial donations from the Property Development Lobby.

Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen was, and is, a popular movement that was suspicious of politics and just went off and tried to change the world. This was both a blessing and a curse. At the moment, the movement is disorientated and trying to develop a strategy of responding to politicians who have no respect for democracy.

This is why viewing Start Wearing Purple should not be a passive act. We should watch the film together and then discuss what it means. What did we do wrong? What went right? How do we harness the massive energy and desire for change that electrified Berlin in 2021.

The implications of Start Wearing Purple are important not just for Berlin, but for everywhere where rapacious landlords try to exploit poor tenants (i.e. everywhere). Deutsche Wohnen & Co was a start, which will hopefully inspire similar movements elsewhere. The campaign was not perfect, but there is plenty to learn from both its successes and its failures.

On Friday, 25th March, the Deutsche Wohnen & Co Kiezteam Mitte will be showing Start Wearing Purple at the Volksbühne as part of Housing Action Day. The film will be followed by a Q&A with the film makers. This is an ideal opportunity to take stock of the campaign, look at what we have won so far, and discuss what is necessary to take the campaign forwards.

What the Querdenkers are getting right

Chats on Telegram about Covid-19 are everywhere, and I couldn’t help myself but to join a few. After a few months, it seems we might be able to learn something from the Querdenkers.


23/03/2022

For all its problems and controversies, I am an avid Telegram user. I love the fun stickers, and the interface, but most of all the group chats I’m a part of. I get news from Moria, the Polish border, and #LeaveNoOneBehind. I share food with my neighbors and pick up free furniture and oddities from around Berlin. Before I was employed, it helped me ride the Ubahn for free (I stopped, I swear!). I can ask what’s wrong with my plants, and also easily coordinate plenums and activities for the organizations I’m involved in. And since I use it like social media, I tootle around here and there to look for new groups.

Then it happened — I stumbled upon an anti-vax, covid-denying Telegram group run out of the US. Here they were! I was overcome by curiosity, and joined. As a disclaimer, I believe covid is real and that vaccines work, but do have a lot of problems with governmental policy on this virus, in Germany, the US, and around the world — a topic for another article.

So now you may be thinking what the fuck, and that’s fine. Some of my friends for sure think I’m nuts. But I am firmly of the opinion that closing off discussion with people is the absolute wrong way to go. I was really curious as to what people were saying in the group, and how they were viewing the pandemic. There is a tendency for people to lump those who disagree with them into categories of ‘stupid’, ‘uneducated’, and ‘don’t know how the world actually works’, but this is dangerous territory – pushing people to the margins has consequences.

As someone with connection to many places in the United States, I saw Trump happening years before a lot of the people I was around had any idea. That first election, when the New York Times put out a poll that Hilary had an 87% chance of winning, I knew they were dead wrong. Just driving through the rural south, or through Texas, is a shock to many who grow up in big cities elsewhere in the country. Massive inequality abounds, and is held in place by state and local governments who have systematically eliminated peoples’ right to vote. Is everyone in those areas stupid, backward, and ultra-conservative? Of course not. But from the dominant media and pop cultures narratives, you would think so. Taylor Swift’s video for You Need to Calm Down is a great example.

What does this have to do with those Telegram chats? When a society completely ostracizes groups on the margins, the people in those groups grow more radical, and with every disparaging comment saying how backwards, stupid and dangerous they are, the more radical they get. Isolating and refusing to communicate with groups can have its time and place, I agree, but I very strongly believe there is already a ton of that going on. What there is way less of is open discussion.

And this is what the Querdenkers and covid-deniers are getting right. Everyone is welcome in these groups, and to engage in discussion about the topics. Yes, everyone does mean Nazis, I’m aware of that, and I’m not saying that this is a great model we should all follow. But many people in Germany, the US, around the world, including those who are involved in Leftist politics and movements, are wondering how these ideologies spread so quickly. Looking through the members of these groups, or seeing who is marching in these protests, it is astounding how many different groups of people are represented. We like to think that we hold truly open forums for debate, but if someone who was against the vaccine came to sit at the table, how many people would actually speak to them?

Of course I realize this is not the only aspect at play here. There is enough racism, sexism and all the other -isms and -phobias that exist in the world in these groups. It is abundantly clear they are bringing together a lot of people who hold a lot of different biases, for sure. Just to reiterate, I do not find that comforting or good. What’s confusing to me is why so many people who would otherwise consider themselves Left-leaning are finding themselves pulled in by these movements. Is there open-mindedness to be found there that people are not finding on the Left? Perhaps.

A maybe-obvious caveat to this: I’m white, financially stable, able-bodied, and educated. I’m a walking ball of privilege, and I also grew up constantly defending my ideals against an onslaught of right-wing commentary from my family. It’s possible for me to engage with a lot of people, from my conservative, religious cousins to straight up Nazis. Clearly, that’s not possible, nor is it safe, for everyone. Also clearly, groups and discussions that Leftists engage in will inherently be more diverse than those that covid-deniers are attending. I don’t think we should start inviting absolutely everyone in to have tea with us, as that could endanger people who need a safe space.

There are no concrete recommendations coming out of this article on how the Left movement should change, nor do I even think I have a fully-formulated stance on this. The only thing I was thinking from my few months of reading these channels is that our spaces and our discussions need to be flexible, wherever possible. Don’t ostracize someone from a group because they have an opinion that you don’t like. Don’t assume people are stupid because their views and experiences have led them to a different view of how the world works than the one you have. If your covid-denying uncle starts saying that the world is controlled by the World Economic Forum, don’t call him an idiot and leave. Stay and talk, if you can.

Ukraine Invasion – The view from Eastern Europe

Most coverage of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been dominated by views from the West. Here is how the Eastern European Left has reacted


22/03/2022

There has been much discussion about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and many Western leftists have focused on an attack on NATO. This is only in part correct. Those originating from Leftists in Eastern Europe have tended to focus on calling Russian imperialist what it is – imperialism.  The danger of making the Left response only a Western narrative is to ignore the voices of those who are directly affected by the war. For this reason, theleftberlin is publishing here links to a number of articles which have been written by journalists and activists in Eastern Europe.

Our website does not have a single editorial line — on Ukraine or anywhere else. Our aim is to provide a breadth of articles representing the views of the international Left. Our editors and journalists have different opinions. Just like the international left as a whole, we are trying to understand a difficult and dangerous situation. For this reason we do not necessarily endorse all the opinions in the following articles, but believe that they deserve to be read and discussed.

Publishing these articles is intended to open debate, so we are very interested in hearing your reaction. If you would like to respond to any of the articles, please contact us at team@theleftberlin.com. Please let us know if you would like us to publish your response in article format.

theleftberlin Editorial Board

A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv by Taras Bilous

I am writing these lines in Kyiv while it is under artillery attack. Until the last minute, I had hoped that Russian troops wouldn’t launch a full-scale invasion. Now, I can only thank those who leaked the information to the US intelligence services. Yesterday, I spent half the day considering whether I ought to join a territorial defence unit. During the night that followed, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyi signed a full mobilisation order and Russian troops moved in and prepared to encircle Kyiv, which made the decision for me. But before taking up my post, I would like to communicate to the Western Left what I think about its reaction to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

US-plaining is not enough. To the Western left, on your and our mistakes by Volodymyr Artiukh

Do not let half-baked political positions substitute an analysis of the situation. The injunction that the main enemy is in your country should not translate into a flawed analysis of the inter-imperialist struggle. At this stage appeals to dismantle NATO or, conversely, accepting anyone there, will not help those who suffer under the bombs in Ukraine, in jails in Russia or Belarus. Sloganeering is harmful as ever. Branding Ukrainians or Russian fascists only makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution. A new autonomous reality emerges around Russia, a reality of destruction and harsh repressions, a reality where a nuclear conflict is not unthinkable anymore. Many of us have missed the tendencies leading to this reality. In the fog of war, we do not see clearly the contours of the new. Neither do, as it seems, the American or European governments. 

We present this article composed by anarchists in Ukraine to give context for how some participants in social movements there see the difficult events that have played out there over the past nine years. We believe that it is important for people everywhere to grapple with the events they describe below and the questions that those developments pose. This text should be read in the context of the other perspectives we have published from Ukraine and Russia.

‘We need a peoples’ solidarity with Ukraine and against war, not the fake solidarity of governments’

Shaun Matsheza and Nick Buxton of TNI spoke to two activists on the editorial board of the left Commons journal that explores and analyses Ukraine’s economy, politics, history and culture. Denys Gorbach is a social researcher currently doing his PhD in France on the politics of Ukrainian working class and Denis Pilash is a political scientist and activist involved in a social movement, Sotsialnyi Rukh.

Appeal by the independent labor unions of Ukraine

To the workers of the world: we need your help! The Independent Trade Union of Ukraine “Zakhist Pratsi” is directly involved in the resistance to the invasion by Russian imperialism. We are fighting along side the working class and the Ukrainian people on various fronts of resistance. Some organizations of our union, such as the “Zakhista Pratsi” miners’ union at the “Selidov-ugol” firm, are protecting us and our future with weapons in their hands and in the most difficult conditions of the hostilities. Many activists of our union are now resisting the rocket and bomb attacks of the Russian troops, supporting the difficult conditions of the bomb shelters, saving their children and their families from certain death.

The war in Ukraine: no choice but to resist by Oksana Dutchak

The situation is very complicated. During the first days it seemed that Russian military forces were trying not to target civilians. They were trying to destroy the military infrastructure of the country supposing that the government and society would just give up. But this didn’t work. I’m wondering how stupid the intelligence was: their calculation was a total mistake. It didn’t work because the Ukrainian army and people on the ground started to act. It gives some hope, but it definitely changed the Russian army’s tactics dramatically.

“Putin’s Russia is increasingly becoming a totalitarian state” by Greg Yudin

The war in Ukraine is not a local conflict, it is a fight about the future of democracy on a global scale. A conversation on Putin’s imperialism, the anti-war movement in Russia and defiance in the face of state repression.

Enough with the struggle of superpowers. Voices from Central and Eastern Europe

In a recent article in Berliner Zeitung, Michael von der Schulenburg argues that Russia’s deployment of more than 100,000 troops to its border with Ukraine was a direct response to NATO’s announcement that Ukraine could one day become its member. This opinion reflects numerous voices on the Western left – some of them also from German government circles. Russia’s fear for its security is used as the main argument to justify Russian military action. A critical gaze shifts from Putin to NATO,  accused of disturbing the balance of power in Europe with its „expansion” or even „aggression” and of interfering in Russia’s „sphere of influence”

Bulgaria: Between Pro-War Consensus and the Need for an Anti-War Movement by Stanislav Dodov

As the reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have shown, Bulgaria is not ready for a new anti-war movement, despite the urgency of the task. The majority of people with some access to the public space act as if the year were not 2022, but the Soviet Union had just collapsed yesterday, as if we hadn’t lived through a single crisis, hadn’t learned a single bitter lesson, and the Cold War rhetoric couldn’t be shaken. 

The Anti-Capitalist Basis and Potential of the Slogan: “We Want Social Housing, Not Militarization” by Enikő Vincze

Perhaps some will say, today it is not the right moment to talk about such small things as “social housing” while thousands of people are dying and millions are being displaced, or while capitalism and imperialism continue their disaster politics. We are talking about the wider context of how people are sacrificed by imperialist wars everywhere, we are talking about all the political and economic and military actors who are responsible for the current bloodshed, we are trying to understand why this war became possible right now and here.

RUSSIA: Manifesto of the Coalition “Socialists Against War” 

This power was based on the promises of peace and stability, and eventually led the country to war and economic catastrophe. Like any other war in history, the current one divides everyone into two parties: pros and cons. Kremlin propaganda is trying to convince us that the whole nation has rallied around power. And miserable ancestors, pro-Western liberals and mercenaries of the external enemy are fighting for peace. It’s a completely untenable lie. This time the Kremlin elders were in the minority. Most Russians do not want fratricidal war, even among those who still trust the Russian authorities.

Interview with a Russian comrade participant in anti-war actions

We must remember that the main enemy is always at home and strive to ensure that there is no “no war other than class.” Thanks to this, the working people of Ukraine would no longer allow either liberal compradors or Putin’s invaders to power.

Alain Krivine: The May 68 Activist And Lifelong Anti-capitalist Remembered

Obituary of the French socialist Alain Krivine, who died last week


21/03/2022

Alain Krivine (1941-2022), whose activity as a revolutionary socialist spanned 65 years, has died, aged 80.

His paternal grandfather, a Ukrainian Jew, had fled the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian empire. At the age of six months his family was visited by agents of the Gestapo, who are said to have declared of Alain and his twin, Hubert, that they were “beautiful boys”. They were subsequently removed by his parents, who both survived, to a ‘safe’ home in the north of France. His four brothers, who were all politically active, pursued distinguished careers in medicine, science and business; the conductor Emmanuel and the mathematician Jean-Louis are cousins.

Alain joined the youth wing of the Communist Party (PCF) – then an organisation with more than a quarter of a million members – in 1956, when he was only fifteen. It was the year of the Russian invasion of Hungary, Khruschev’s ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing the crimes of Stalin, the Suez Crisis and the hijacking by the French army of the plane carrying the leaders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). The following year he was in Moscow to attend a Communist youth conference where he came into contact with emissaries of the FLN who were critical of the Communist party’s refusal to give outright support to the national liberation movement. He was to return to the country several times in later years, helping to set up a Russian section of the Trotskyist Fourth International.

On his return to France, Alain soon clashed with the leadership of the PCF and of the party’s student organisation, of which he was a member. After joining the Trotskyist movement (two of his brothers had preceded him) he continued his activity in the Union of Communist Students until his expulsion in 1966. In the years before Algerian independence in 1962 he was active in Jeune Résistance, an underground network of supporters of the FLN, one of whose tasks was to delay trains taking conscripts to the war, earning the displeasure of the PCF leadership.

Krivine is best known as one of the leaders of the Jeunesses Communistes Révolutionnaires, the organisation he helped create in 1966, during the epic May-June events in 1968. There is a right-wing myth that the movement was essentially a revolt of middle-class youth, conveniently forgetting the general strike by ten million workers. Alain, who was active on the barricades and the march to the Renault factory in Billancourt (where the union and Communist Party cadres ensured there would be no fraternising with rank-and-file workers), knew that the key to overthrowing the régime lay with the working-class. But, as he repeated on many occasions right up to the speaking tour he undertook in 2018 for the movement’s fiftieth anniversary, he also knew that the Communist Party and the CGT union federation, which it controlled, were determined to hold back the struggle, and that they had the ability to do so. The revolutionaries had no ‘plan’ to make a revolution. He recalled a demonstration passing in front the parliament building, which was protected by three policemen: “the idea of taking over the parliament never even occurred to us”.

Amongst the many tributes paid to him were those from Chilean leftists for his support after the military coup of 1973, and from Algerian revolutionaries for his political advice and support

In June 1968, as the revolt subsided, the JCR were banned. Krivine was briefly imprisoned in the ancient Santé prison in Paris. In 1973, the successor organisation, the Ligue Communiste, was again banned after a demonstration against the fascist group, Ordre Nouveau, turned violent. The Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) was founded a few months later.

While remaining faithful to the aim of building a party rooted in the working class, his organisation, unlike some rival groups who considered them “petty bourgeois”, was open to the new social movements of young people, women’s rights and environmentalist activists, anti-militarist struggles among others. Alain had cut his teeth on antifascism, his parents’ home had been bombed by far-right terrorists in 1962, and he was generous in his support of undocumented immigrants. However, the majority of the Ligue, like most of the French left, were less well equipped to deal with the emergence of Islamophobia, which became a serious issue in France. Krivine was no exception.

The essence of Alain’s politics was anti-imperialism, as well as anti-Stalinism. In 1967, he helped print and distribute a French translation of the Open Letter to the Polish communist party, written by two dissident Marxists, Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelwski. In February 1968, he was in Berlin to demonstrate against the Vietnam War alongside the students of the SDS and their leader Rudi Dutschke (Krivine would help organise the demonstrations against the Springer press following the assassination attempt against Dutschke in April of that year). He participated as an observer in the Nicaraguan elections of 1984 and 1990. In the 1980s he spared no effort to defend the anti-colonialist movement in the French territory of New Caledonia (Kanaky). In the 2000s he visited Palestine as part of a delegation as well as Venezuela, where he met the Bolivian Evo Morales. He also took part in events organised by the global justice movement in Brazil. Amongst the many tributes paid to him were those from Chilean leftists for his support after the military coup of 1973, and from Algerian revolutionaries for his political advice and support.

Although considering themselves to be a “party of the struggles”, the Ligue did not ignore elections. In the aftermath of the May events, Krivine stood in the presidential election of 1969 while doing his military service, obtaining just over 1% of the vote (by comparison, the PCF, which he considered to be primarily responsible for the defeat of June 1968, obtained 21 per cent). Five years later he obtained even less, while a young bankworker, Arlette Laguiller, obtained 2% for the rival Trotskyist party, Lutte Ouvrière. In 1999, standing on a joint LCR-LO platform with Arlette, they were both elected to the European parliament. In 2004, he was back in his favourite role as full-time organiser and agitator at the Ligue’s headquarters in Montreuil.

There were many setbacks, and a succession of splits but the contribution of the ‘Ligue’ to creating a dynamic, innovative, democratic political culture of the revolutionary left was ongoing. Krivine knew how to encourage younger militants, and he quickly spotted the talent of a young postman, Olivier Besancenot, who obtained over 4% of the vote in the presidential elections of 2002 and 2007. This was to be a highwater mark in terms of electoral politics.

Responding to the rise of opposition to neoliberalism and the strikes and mass demonstrations in 2006 in which school and university students joined forces with unions to force the government to withdraw a law creating a new, precarious contract for young workers, Krivine and the majority of the Ligue took the risky step of disbanding into a new formation, the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA). The party claimed 9 000 members, making it probably the largest organisation of the far left in the developed world. It was an ambitious plan which assumed that Besancenot’s popularity could be translated into a new type of party and that waves of struggle would attract a new generation of activists.

The potential undoubtedly existed. The French working-class and young people had demonstrated remarkable combativity since the great public sector strikes of 1995, and many more struggles were to come (despite declining union membership), but this did not lead to a growth in revolutionary organisation. The NPA, while continuing to recruit a layer of young people, saw its membership decline rapidly, and those who stayed were divided between a number of factions, something which had long plagued the LCR.

The NPA was also upstaged by the formation of Le France Insoumise, the party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who obtained 19.5% in the 2017 presidential election, compared to just over 1% for the NPA’s candidate, car worker Philippe Poutou. Undoubtedly the success of Besancenot in 2002 and 2007 and the continued decline of the Communist and Socialist parties encouraged the NPA’s members to believe, in their words, that they had a “boulevard” before them. This turned out to be an illusion, resulting in part from underestimating the attraction of left reformist, as opposed to revolutionary politics. A decade after the foundation of the NPA, Krivine could characteristically admit that “we messed it up”, but, as always, “the fight must go on”.

He would be the first to volunteer to carry out the humblest organisational tasks… Alain was a very human revolutionary

Despite mistakes, the LCR/NPA has made a significant contribution to keeping the revolutionary, internationalist tradition alive – and not just as a club for “survivors”. Krivine’s party will be present once more in this year’s presidential election, though it is to be feared that its candidate will fail to attract more than a tiny proportion of voters. In this period, without exception, Alain Krivine was present, leading, encouraging and sometimes reprimanding comrades, in the spirit of “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. Even as illness overtook him, he was still an inspiration.

A committed Marxist, Krivine is not known as a theoretician, and the list of his publications is short (this role was played by his close friend, Daniel Bensaïd, and others). He was above all an activist, a charismatic speaker, a formidable debater, and no task was too small if it helped build the organisation. In later years, when I knew him, he was a stalwart of the LCR (and later the NPA) in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis – then a stronghold of the PCF – where he asked for and received no special treatment, despite his aura of ‘grand old man’ of the far left. He could be found in the town centre every Sunday morning, selling the party’s paper, Rouge (later L’Anticapitaliste), and amiably greeting local residents. When debating tactics and strategy he was less accommodating, as I once found to my cost – though I was unimpressed by his arguments.

However, he was never a ‘star’. It is indeed extraordinary how often two adjectives come up in tributes from comrades who knew him well – ‘modest’ and ‘kind’. He would be the first to volunteer to carry out the humblest organisational tasks, and his first thought was often to put at ease the newest or youngest recruit or offer to help a comrade in difficulty. Alain was a very human revolutionary. He also had a nice line in anecdotes and jokes: on one occasion, just after the death of Bensaïd, I asked him about the number of Jews in the organisation when it was founded. He replied by saying that the joke at the time was that there were two factions on the central committee – the Ashkenazi Jews and the Sephardic Jews.

There is a saying that it is normal to be a revolutionary when you are young and a conservative when you are middle-aged. It is true that many, but far from all, of Krivine’s best-known contemporaries and comrades on the radical left would leave revolutionary politics to become successful academics, politicians, media personalities or even neo-conservative ‘intellectuals’. Alain himself would never abandon his belief that “Another world is possible”. When he published an autobiography in 2006 it was called “Ca te passera avec l’âge”, which could be translated as “You’ll get over it, son” or “You’ll grow up one day”. It was another example of his humour and playfulness. He never did “get over it”, of course. Nor, contrary to the myth, did the majority of those who took to the streets in 1968 – though few had the willpower to dedicate themselves so single-mindedly to the cause.

Alain Krivine is survived by his wife Michèle, his daughters and grandchildren. A final march of friends, family and comrades accompanied him today to the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where he is in good company.

Respect, comrade : « Ce n’est qu’un début, continuons le combat ! »

Colin Falconer was a member of the same local committee of the LCR/NPA as Alain Krivine. He is currently a member of Ensemble!