A flood of repugnant propaganda pours forth from the high seats of power: war on “terrorism,” on “weapons of mass destruction,” on those who threaten Western peace; war for freedom, democracy, and so on—a rhetorical arsenal designed to keep the proletariat subjugated to the interests of the bourgeois economy. It is necessary for the bourgeoisie to disguise the motives behind its wars: to confess that they are driven by economic plunder would be to admit that, from 1914 to the present, its historical trajectory as a class has produced nothing but war, famine, destruction, and exploitation; it would lead the proletariat to recognize just how destructive and parasitic the bourgeois class has become.

Just as they “brainwashed” the proletariat during the Second World Slaughter, passing it off as liberation from the absolute evil of Hitlers and Mussolinis (with whose misdeeds the “liberators” had collaborated well before and during the war), today such mantras are repeated with regard to Bin Ladens or Saddam Husseins—the latter being a tyrant solely because of Western support!

With regard to Arab societies, the media hypocritically conceal the reality of distinct and opposing classes, ignoring that proletariat which imperialist diplomacy has ensured is subjected, on the one hand, to the permanent repression of police states, and on the other, to the opium and corruption of “Islamic” movements well-funded from abroad. A “post-colonial” technique for controlling territories rich not only in oil but also in proletarians, in strategic areas of vital importance to the wolves of the West.

Arab proletarians and their unions face not only brutal repression in Palestine and Iraq, but also in those states we tend to hear less about: Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.

The needs and protests of the proletariat—and the constant repression to which it is subjected—are concealed, while the typical attitudes of a powerless and cowardly intellectual class and a corrupt petty bourgeoisie are flaunted; these groups are perpetually torn between the mirage of “prosperity” and the modern “values” of the West and the xenophobic reaction—whether “cultural” or religious in basis—to the blows and slams in the face it inevitably receives from the West.

Instead, the choice for the proletariat—including in Arab countries—does not lie between democracy and tyranny, between North and South, between modernity and tradition, or between a secular and a theocratic state. And, in the world of capital, not even between peace and war. The choice for the proletariat of the entire world lies between open class struggle against the bourgeoisie, its states, and its preparations for war, or submission to capitalist plans of death.

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The Arab proletariat of the Gulf is far from lacking in class traditions and is not, as some would have us believe, irreversibly trapped between the fundamentalism of the clergy and the fanatical nationalism of Saddam Husseins. Indeed, some demonstrations by this Arab proletariat in recent decades can serve as an example to the Western proletariat, which is struggling to rediscover its tradition of courageous class struggle.

Due to the bourgeois barrage of lies, no one today remembers that the Gulf proletariat posed a threat to the bourgeois order between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s.

In 1979, we witnessed the revolution in Iran. Islamic clerics prevailed, but for years the proletariat had fought strenuously there: proletarians throughout the country remained armed and mobilized for a long time, formed local councils—which in our jargon we would call soviets—and raised social and political issues. Although there was no party, they drew on some twenty organizations and parties that defined themselves as “Marxist.” The clerics of the executioner Khomeini won because the Western proletariat did not support the Iranian proletariat, and because the World Communist Party—with a strong and seasoned section in Iran—did not exist.

Iraq, too, at that time, was threatened by the unrest of a young and numerous proletariat. That is when the Holy Alliance of the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Germany intervened. Maneuvering behind the scenes, they armed Iraq and Iran with every kind of “weapon of mass destruction” and made them fight a despicable and utterly “pointless” war of attrition for a full eight years, from 1980 to 1988, with the specific aim of bleeding the proletariat of both countries dry and diverting their class instincts toward patriotism and reaction. While there was indeed an imperialist need to keep the bourgeoisies of both countries in check and prevent any claims to hegemony in the region, the primary purpose of the war was to resolve the demographic problem of these two large, populous, and fertile countries: the war resulted in the deaths of one and a half million young people, forcibly driven into minefields.

There were also countless cases on both sides of desertion and refusal to fire on “enemy” class brothers. Throughout the war, thousands of proletarians were shot as deserters—and perhaps as revolutionaries—on one side by Khomeini’s hooded thugs, and on the other gassed, with the full support of Americans and Europeans, by Saddam Hussein.

Even in the more famous 1991 War between the U.S. (then with a large band of European allies—remember “our” heroic Cocciolone?) and Iraq, the proletariat once again took center stage. At the start of the conflict, the U.S. had claimed it was seriously intent on taking the war “all the way,” occupying Iraqi territory through a ground invasion; however, during the advance on Basra and Baghdad, they deliberately halted their advance: Iraqi cities were once again in full revolt.

In Basra in particular, the proletariat (and not just the proletariat) had risen up, as had the Kurds in the north. For the U.S., entering Iraq would have meant having to “get their hands dirty” in the repression; moreover, they were not certain that their own army would be able to control the explosive situation. Saddam was far more experienced when it came to repressing his own proletariat and sub-proletariat!

They claim (now!) that in just over a month, 50,000 people were killed in Saddam Hussein’s crackdown. The same scenario as the 1944 Warsaw Uprising had repeated itself: Stalin’s Russian army had postponed the occupation of the city to leave the repression of those proletarians to the German army.

As for massacres, however, the U.S. and its European allies were no better during that brief war of 1991: it is estimated that vast quantities of radioactive material rained down on Iraq during that conflict… equivalent to six times Hiroshima! Tens of thousands of fleeing Iraqi soldiers were systematically exterminated by the Allied air force with the sole aim of protecting Saddam from the threatening return to Baghdad of demobilized masses of young veterans—potential rebels who would certainly have harshly demanded an explanation for the pointless adventure in Kuwait.

Such, then, are the methods of the “Liberators” and of democratic civilization: massacres targeting all kinds of objectives, from those that are genuinely military (as if there weren’t proletarians forced to serve in them!) to those that ensure the proletariat’s survival, such as aqueducts, power plants, cultivated fields, homes, and so on. Everything was systematically destroyed. Except for Saddam’s palaces!

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Democratic and free Western civilization starves and destroys three-quarters of the planet, yet it does not spare the remaining “rich” quarter from its “beneficial” effects. It merely tries desperately to ensure that the glass bell jar in which the Western proletariat is, for now, kept suffocating holds out as long as possible. The crisis of Capital—inevitable according to Marxism—is already revealing its destructive power even in the opulent West. It demands ever more war, but it will also open the doors, once again after decades, to the prospect of Revolution.

The bourgeoisie can resolve its crisis only through war. The proletariat of both the North and the South will have no choice but to decide whether to let Capital have its way—and thus submit to its destructive and murderous aims—or to pursue the only non-utopian alternative: TO CONTRAST WAR BETWEEN STATES WITH WAR BETWEEN CLASSES.

Let there be no doubt about a struggle for peace under capitalism: peace within it is illusory, and when it exists, it is often not much better than war, as can be clearly seen in most countries of the world. Fighting against war must mean strengthening the proletariat in preparation for the class war against the bourgeoisie.

Let the world proletariat rediscover its true slogan: THE ENEMY IS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

(Distributed at the October 18 strike)