Virginia Bach. May 30/2020

With outrage, we are witnessing once again the brutality and violence exemplified by the US police who murdered George Floyd in broad daylight and on camera.

There have been centuries of oppression, discrimination and violence directed at various sectors of the working masses, particularly Afro-descendants, and not only in this imperialist country, but throughout the entire world.

However, this atrocious act is different as we are also immersed in one of the deepest crises (economic and social) in history – the Covid-19 Pandemic. At this juncture the true essence of the world capitalist system has been revealed, the same system that unleashes all misery, disease and death on the masses (including black, Latino and immigrant communities), all at the cost of maintaining privileges for a minority of magnates (the bourgeoisie).

It was against this backdrop that George Floyd was assassinated. The 46 year old former security guard and truck driver swelled the ranks of more than 40 million unemployed in the United States in the midst of the pandemic. He belonged to the African-American community which, along with immigrants and Latinos, are suffering the most from the coronavirus crisis in that country. The social inequality that is plunging these sectors even further into misery makes them especially vulnerable to the mortality of the virus. The death toll from the U.S. pandemic is devastating, amounting to 100,000 – the highest balance recorded so far (higher than the deaths in Vietnam, Korea, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina). Even so, Trump and his advisers insist on the need to open the economy to recover their profits. We see then that what intensifies is not only the level of exploitation by the capitalists but also the most criminal and racist features of the Trump government and the institutions of its regime.

The just fights of the outraged masses

The expression «I can’t breathe,» George Floyd’s dying words, were picked up by hundreds of people who, in an explosion of outrage, took to the streets of Minneapolis and other American cities. We are also seeing it in other countries around the world.

For many days, they have demonstrated their anger fuelled by so many abuses, throwing stones, burning police stations, looting supermarkets, together with screams for justice and the demand to be heard.

Given this, Trump’s response has been to call them criminals and threaten to send in the National Guard, and even the army to respond with live rounds if necessary. His first hypocritical statement, calling the death «very sad and tragic,» only hid the real opinions of the greatest exponent of racism in this country; one who has openly supported white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Clan.

The real violence has been expressed by this representative of world imperialism who not only approves of over excessive police tactics, but also calls for bringing the masses to order through the heavy hand of the rifles of the National Guard.

The signs of rebellion and protest are more than justified and we support them with all their manifestations and expressions. The fires and looting only show the urgency of the masses to satisfy their basic needs, which means that they not only reject the police brutality, but also the misery to which they are being subjected every day.

It is evident that in the midst of the pandemic, expressions of struggle of this type can further risk contagion to the hundreds of protesters. While warning of this danger and making the call to use adequate protective equipment, we express our total solidarity and support in their display of repudiation and protest against so many centuries of oppression.

Before the pandemic, the history of abuse in the United States is properly documented. We saw this with the murder of more African Americans like Eric Garner in New York six years ago, the same modus operandi as used against Floyd; or the shooting of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor on March 13, when police raided her home in search of drugs that were never found; or the case of the 5 youths (4 blacks and 1 Latino) from Central Park who were falsely accused and imprisoned for rape of a white woman, paying for this with sentences of almost 13 years for a crime they never committed. And so, the list of attacks by this institution of the regime goes on. In fact, reports have been presented by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) in which they report persistent «excesses and police violence» in the United States. «According to public information, the USA constantly records high levels of police violence: reports indicate that the police kill approximately 1,000 people and injure more than 50,000 each year on average. In 2017, at least 987 people were shot dead by police officers, including more than 300 who were fleeing from officers when they were shot”[1], the report says.

The country that boasts of being the largest capitalist «democracy» in the world reveals itself as an imperialist democracy at the service of the oppressors, using guns, tear gas, beatings and other forms of inhuman treatment on the working masses and people of the world, only to defend their own interests.

In these troubled times, the decline of this imperialist regime is more clearly evident. The same regime that does not hesitate to invade, bomb indiscriminately, and devastate entire peoples in the name of «freedom, democracy and the defense of human rights», as were the cases of Vietnam, Panama, Haiti or campaigns against «terrorism» in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. But this world imperialist regime and its institutions are the true terrorists and violators of freedom and human rights. Today, they threaten to continue attacking our sister country, Venezuela, using the cynical argument of fighting “drug trafficking» and a «dictatorial government” in complicity with the submissive Duque government that has just allowed the entry into Colombia of 800 US soldiers, in open violation of the national sovereignty. Their double standards and hypocrisy are demonstrated, on the one hand, by maintaining the drug business as the most lucrative for these two countries; the U.S. being the biggest consumer and Colombia its great supplier. On the other hand, the reality is that Trump’s government, and internal regime, has employed dictatorial measures, especially against oppressed communities, including calls to shoot on the mobilized masses. This shows the true objective of the continuous aggression against Venezuela, which is not only to appropriate its oil resources, but to control and dominate a politically independent country that has not been its faithful lackey. This is the regime that wants to impose its world domination on the semi-colonial nations, which demonstrates another of the real expressions of the barbarism of imperialist capitalism.

Racism and capitalism

The deep inequalities to which we are subjected within the framework of capitalist society make expressions of oppression of all kinds become even more acute. Racism, discrimination against women, LGBTQ communities, immigrants, aggression against oppressed nationalities such as the Palestinian people, etc. are part of the oppression in this class-divided society.

But it is precisely the difference between oppression and exploitation that can clarify what needs to be done to overcome both.

“Exploitation is the maximum inequality in society. It is the appropriation of the product of the majority, by a minority … Throughout history, exploiters have taken advantage of inequalities to manipulate the working classes while increasing their profits and privileges. For this reason, they pay less to minority groups which in turn creates divisions between such groups, as is happening to Latinos in the U.S.A. These same exploiters take advantage of the oppression of women to profit from them at work.” ^[2]

The bourgeoisie uses this tactic of dividing the workers in order to better exploit them, and thus has managed to sell racist ideologies to certain sectors of the masses. The cry today, born out of the struggles in the United States, expresses precisely the need for unity of the working classes regardless of their color, sex, creed or nationality, against the true enemies, the exploiters, those who force them to «sell themselves piece-meal» converting them into “a commodity like every other article of commerce.» ^[3]

The exploitation described above becomes more evident today in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, when capitalism in crisis shows no mercy and, in its insatiable thirst for profit, will continue to impoverish the working masses more and more and deepen the oppression of different social sectors. Paradoxically, however, it will sow the seeds of revolution by feeding the unity and struggle of workers of all ethnicities and cultures that, as is demonstrated by the brave protests in the United States, will eventually dig the grave of this voracious system.

This has to be our alternative: to destroy the current class division in society, because once we succeed, we will be able to see overcome all other contradictions like oppression, racism and discrimination, otherwise, we will see a dark future for humanity under capitalism. An example of this was what we saw during the Second World War: «Hitler, at the time, marked the route of capitalism: a minority bourgeois race exploiting a massive, oppressed, malnourished, marginalized, brutalized and enslaved working sub-race.» ^[4]

To combat this in the future, we are convinced that the democratic, national and international fight against racism must be closely fused with the revolutionary socialist fight against the bourgeoisie and the imperialist monopolies. Hence, there exists the need to prepare, organize and widely unite all those who claim to be democratic and anti-imperialist forces (from all ethnicities and cultures) with workers against the main enemy, the imperialist capitalist bourgeoisie… this is our challenge.

[1] Recovered from https://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/eeuu-y-canada/casos-de-racismo-en-estados-unidos-contra-poblacion-afrodescendiente-500538) 

^[2] Notebooks of Political Formation. (1997) ABC of Marxist Theory. The woman. Colombia.

^[3] Quotes from the Manifesto of the Communist Party. chap. I. Bourgeois and Proletarians. K. Marx & F. Engels.

^[4] Correo Internacional #20. (1985). South Africa the black volcano.