WHY WE FIGHT

POURQUOI LE PCN
COMBAT AUJOURD'HUI !
WHY PCN-NCP FIGHT TODAY !

Why we fight today (Part II)
PRIDNESTROVIE, ABKHAZIA AND SOUTH-OSSETIA :
ON THE FRONT OF THE "CIS-2" REPUBLICS

One of the hot points of the NATO-Russia confrontation, are the self-proclaimed Republics of Pridnestrovie, Abbkhazia and South-Ossetia, which one calls also the “CIS-2”. It is there that confrontation between NATO and Russia is expressed directly, at the Caucasian borders and the European steps of Russia.

Abkhazia (capital Sukhumi) ex-autonomous republic of Soviet Georgia since 1931, fought the Georgian forces from 1992 to 1994, shortly after the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. Sukhumi does not recognize the sovereignty of Tbilissi on its territory and applies a policy aiming at reaching an independence recognized by the international community.

Ex-autonomous region of Georgia according to the administrative division of the USSR, South-Ossetia (capital Tskhinvali) proclaimed its independence on September 20, 1990. Tbilissi then counteracted and the military operations made thousands of deaths on both sides from 1990 to 1992. At the time of the first referendum of January 1992, shortly after the disappearance of the USSR, South-Ossetia massively expressed in favour of its independence towards Georgia. The South-Ossetians put the course on the bringing together with North-Ossetia, republic of the North Russian Caucasus, noting that Ossetians, whether North or South, voluntarily integrated Russia in 1774, about thirty years before Georgia. Nearly 99% of the South-Ossetians said “yes” to the referendum organized this 12 November 2006 by the separatist authorities and proposing to make of the region an independent State. Tskhinvali does not hide its strategic objective of reunification with North-Ossetia, a Russian republic of the North Caucasus, and categorically refuses to recognize the Georgian sovereignty on its territory.

Pridnestrovie (the PMR, capital Tiraspol) the most industrialized zone of the former Soviet Republic of Moldavia and populated to two thirds with Slavs, proclaimed its independence towards Kichinev in 1992, after the dislocation of the USSR and at the end of several months of combat against the pro-Rumanian Moldavian forces. Since, Tiraspol refuses to recognize the Moldavian sovereignty on its territory and applies an independent policy, reinforced after the referendum on the independence of September 2006, very largely gained by the supporters of the unification with Russia. Last 17 September, a referendum took place indeed in the Moldavian Republic of Pridnestrovie (PMR), and, within the framework of this national consultation, the overwhelming majority of the population of this selfproclaimed republic decided for the continuation of the policy of independence of Pridnestrovie and its union with Russia.

Finally Nagorny-Karabakh (capital Stepanakert), which wants to be “the second Armenian State”, enclave with Armenian majority in Azerbaïdjan, made secession from Baku at the end of a war which made, between 1988 and 1994, thousands of deaths. Upper-Karabakh had the benefit, within the Soviet Republic of Azerbaïdjan, of the statute of autonomous region. In 1988, with the favour of Gorbachev’s perestroïka, the local population required the reunification of the enclave to the Soviet Republic of Armenia. In spite of multiple attempts of Moscow to restore calm in the country, a true war burst between the area and Azerbaïdjan after the fall of the USSR in 1991. September 2, 1991, the separatist authorities proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Upper-Karabakh including the autonomous region of Upper-Karabakh and the district of Chaoumian. A cease-fire intervened in 1994 but the situation remains tense, in spite of efforts of mediation of the SOEC group of Minsk. Since, negotiations are in progress at various levels between Baku and Erevan.

Four “frozen conflicts” last around these four republics, that, with the support of NATO and of Washington, one tries to destroy by force. In Abkhazia and South-Ossetia attacked by Georgia, combat ceased only after the intervention of an international force of maintenance of peace. The situation remains tense in Upper-Karabakh, in spite of the cease-fire and the efforts of mediation of the SOEC. Pridnestrovie has claimed for 16 years its independence from Moldavia, through several referenda, and houses a Russian contingent of peace in spite of the Moldavian opposition.

It should be noted that on September 30 2006, presidents of the Parliaments of three of these not recognized republics – but nevertheless in International law recognized like “subjects of international law” as parts to conflicts – (Abkhazia, South-Ossetia, Pridnestrovie) signed an agreement instituting the parliamentary Assembly of the Community “For the democracy and the rights of the people”.

This Community, qualified since “CIS-2” was established in June 2006 by the leaders of the three republics and the Treaty of friendship envisages a mutual assistance at the political and economic level, but also, in the event of aggression, a military aid.

THE FIGHT OF LIBERATION OF THE GREATER-EUROPE
PASSES BY TIRASPOL, SUKHUMI AND TSKHINVALI

We chose to commit ourselves at the sides of these young Republics and their courageous leaders. Not only because the fight of liberation of Greater-Europe passes by Tiraspol, Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, but also because we are ideologically close to them (1) (as we are to Belarus of president Lukashenko, with his “post-Soviet socialism”) and singularly to the Direct democracy in action in Tiraspol (2).

But our solidarity with our brothers of Pridnestrovie, Abkhazi and South-Ossetia does not imply any hostility of our part towards the people of Moldavia and Georgia, led to the war and chaos by their bad pro-American leaders. For 40 years we have affirmed that NATO is the war and militarism. And the conflicts of the “CIS-2” show it again.

It is NATO which pushes to the perenisation of these conflicts, to the hostility between the neighbouring people. Because NATO may find it beneficial to create focal points for grievances, to maintain the logic of war for which it was created. Because NATO directly supports the extremists with the fascist-like theses of Kichinev and Tbilissi (as it also does in the Baltic States by narrowly supporting the Baltic extremists in their heinous anti-Russian xenophobia), against the supporters of peace.

Moscow proposed various peace plans, on the basis of federalisation of the concerned States, all torpedoed by the extremists supported by NATO.

NATO, Washington and the division of Europe which they have maintained for 60 years are responsible for all these civil wars between Europeans. Tomorrow, in Greater-Europe, united, large and free, from Vladivostok to Reykjavik, there will be no more place for civil wars of division maintained by the foreigner for non-European imperialist interests.

Our brothers of Pridnestrovie and Moldavia, Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia, will have on a legalpoint of view, like all other Europeans, all their place in the New free Europe Let us add an equal place in rights and duties, around the same citizenship and not reduced and variable rights according to the origin as in the very unequal and undemocratic European Union (where live together the “people of the lords” of the core founder provided with all the rights, “people of second zone” as the new members whose citizens have reduced rights and facing “people ilotes” which are promised one remote day the entry in the UE).

Europeans of the East and the West, without any reference to national, ethnic, linguistic or national origin: All united citizens of our Great eurasian Fatherland !

(Article published initially in the Frenchspeaking review LA CAUSE DES PEUPLES – THE PEOPLES’ CAUSE, Brussels-Paris, n° 31, December 2006 / Copyright Luc MICHEL, all rights reserved of reproduction and translation – Free reproduction with mention of the author: info@pcn-ncp.com)

(1) The serious politologists classify the PCN-NCP doctrines – which we call the “European Communitarianism” – “National –Communist” (When PCN-NCP was represented in the Nineties in Belgium at the Walloon Parliament, the quaestorship had given us this label). A reducing term but which has the merit to be explicit by illustrating the ideological step: fusion of the fights of national and social liberation. Among the modern forms of “national-Communism” one places in company of the PCN-NCP in Europe Zuganov’s KPRF in Russia, the SPS of Milosevic, the ex-JUL (Yugoslav United Left) “néo-Bolshevik” of Mira Markovic or the Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus. The Vietnamese FLN or North Korea belongs to the same ideological universe. If it were born in Western Europe with the theorists from the “European Communautarisme”, it is obviously in Eastern Europe, fertile ground, that it developed and goes up in power. “The spectrum of National-Communism haunts Eastern Europe” wrote the weekly magazine “L’EUROPE COMMUNAUTAIRE” in October 1999: “a National-Communist coalition is at power in Belgrade. In Bielorussia, president Lukashenko embodies the same unitary synthesis. In Ukraine, the national-Communist leader Simonenko, in spite of the silence of the media, represents the second force of the country in the presidential election. And the Communist Party of the Federation of Russia, first force of opposition of the country, leads a patriotic Block in the line line of National-Bolshevic “Third Rome”. Without speaking about the National-Leninists of “Russia of the Work” of Viktor Ampilov, even more radical (...) In Russia, in Bielorussia, in Serbia, indeed, the evolution of the Communists is less made in direction of compradore social democracy and liberalism than in direction of popular and revolutionary nationalism. Hence importance in these countries of the “National-Communists” footbridges.

The origin of this current, which marked of its powerful print the twentieth century, is the left wing of the Bolshevik Party before 1917, as specified it the study of professor Agursky on “Third Rome, National-Bolchevism in Russia”. After the victory of Stalin, this ideology was to continue like the directing current in the USSR (as still has just shown it professor Brandenberger in his “National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity”. As analyses pertinently Philippe BUTON in “Communisme: une Utopie en sursis ?”, the ideological step is characteristic: “Stalin has the intelligence not to separate nor to juxtapose, but to amalgamate these two elements, at the origin antithetic, which are Communism and patriotism”. Through all the history of the 20th Century, National-Communism proved to be the best rampart against the imperialism and colonialism. From the Victory of Stalingrad to the fight of liberation of Vietnam while passing by that of Mao in China or Castro and the Che in Cuba, this liberating ideology, which combines the requirements of the national question and the social question, is the only true rampart against Imperialism. And it is not a chance if during the 15 last years only national-Communist regimes stood up to the American superpower after the implosion of the USSR. Yugoslavia of Milosevic, Belarus of Lukashenko, North Korea are good examples.

Within these circles, the PCN played an initiating role from the very start of the Eighties providing the ideological foundations of modern national-Communism and operating within the party the first political convergences which will characterize this current. Whereas the press campaign on the “return of the national-Bolchevism” did FrontPage of the French media of the Summer 1992, Belgian popular weekly magazine “TELE MOUSTIQUE” (Brussels, September 2, 1993) underlined the primacy of the PCN and titrated “the national-Bolsheviks from Charleroi, they plan an Empire of Europe Asia” (it is in Charleroi, old mine field – the “black Country” – that was located the buildings of the first secretariat-General of the PCN, before its installation in Brussels). The Brussels weekly specified there what follows: “the “ national-Bolshevik” phenomenon was born and was structured, more than ten years ago, in the heart of our black country (...) From its creation, the party claimed the Belgian ideologist Jean THIRIART (1902-1992) (...) This cat-like of subversion (...) became with Luc MICHEL, the theorist of PCN. THIRIART was considered by his followers the “Lenin of the European revolution”. As for him, he liked to be defined as a “national-Bolshevik European” who asserted an alliance with the late USSR for the creation of the “EURO-ASIE” Empire. THIRIART, before his death in November 1992, had established close links with the Russian national-revolutionary neo-Bolsheviks. The PCN wants to be a European party. It dreams to see emerging, on the rout of the Western regimes, a “socialist national European” Empire. In this purpose, it developed a pretence of cobweb on the Old Continent...”

(2) How to define the “Direct democracy” at the dawn of the 21st century ? The Symposium on “DIRECT DEMOCRACY : The ALTERNATIVE OF THE 21e CENTURY” organized by the MEDD, under the direction of Luc MICHEL, July 31 2006 (La Roche - Wallonia), with participants from 18 European, African and Arab countries, intended to answer this question and to expose the “theories and praxis of the Direct Democracy vis-a-vis the crisis of Western parliamentarism”. To know:

- European sources of Direct Democracy (Switzerland – Robespierre/1793 – the commune of Paris/1870 – Soviets – the Referendum - the “European Communautarisme” and Jean Thiriart) ;

- the Libyan pilot experience (the Green Book of Moammar Kadhafi - the Jamahiriyan system) ;

- experiences of Popular Justice in the USSR, socialist Albania and Libya (“Justice, social Order and Direct Democracy”) ;

- experiences of municipal autonomy (Libya, socialist Albania, Cuba, ba' athist Iraq).

For the first time in the history of the studies on the subject, this Symposium approached – all the theories and praxis of Direct Democracy in Europe and their contributions or relationship with the pilot experiences of Africa and Latin America.

The participants in particular lengthily approached the related topics with the Direct Democracy like:

- the armament of the people (“the fundamental alternative is between armed citizens and disarmed voters” said Jean THIRIART, the theorist of the European popular power),

- trade-union self-management and the central place of the trade unions in the Direct Democracy,

As Luc MICHEL underlined it in his communication of introduction, “Direct Democracy is the true and original popular power form of the people of Europe”, direct democracy is the natural form of government of the European people.

Direct democracy rests on a basic concept, it is the mode of the responsible and committed nation which is ready to risk its life for the community. The sovereign people are people in arms. For the theorists of the direct democracy the armament of the people is a basic concept.

In the antiquity and until the beginning of the European Middle-Age, direct democracy is the natural mode of government of the European populations, whether in Greece, in Rome, in the Celtic tribes, in the Germanic tribes. It is the assembly of the armed men which decides and which chooses the head. This form of government will exist in Europe until the time of Charlemagne i.e. until the VIIIth century.

A constant phenomenon of direct democracy it is that it finishes by being confiscated. At a given time, an oligarchy monopolizes the power and generally direct democracy is transformed into a monarchical or feudal system. In Europe for example starting from the VIIIth century, feudality is the degeneration of direct democracy. Why ? Because they are always the men-at-arms who decide government, for example the king of France or the Germanic emperor is the first of the nobles of the Kingdom, but the problem is that the function of defense of the fatherland is monopolized by professional soldiers. What is the Nobility in Europe ? Those who have the monopoly of defense. All the other categories of the population, those who do not fight any more, those who are not armed any more, that becomes subjected citizens, exploited, who do not have any more political rights. It is the phenomenon of oligarchies and it is already one can say an early Bonapartism since it is the monopolization of the government by the military.

Direct democracy will survive in only one state, after year 1000 it is precisely Switzerland. Switzerland escapes feudality, it is a whole of Cantons one could say now a whole of the municipalities (obviously the women are excluded from it, but in the majority of the societies of antiquity the woman is regarded neither as a full citizen nor even like an active member of the community, the woman is often regarded as an object, goods or a minor). In Switzerland, to have the right to vote, make decisions, one returns to the concept of armed people, it is necessary to submit to the assembly of citizens with a weapon, it should be proven that one is ready to defend the fatherland. It should not be believed that the Swiss system will last until the current time. It is a degeneration and it will be transformed into a semi-feudal system quickly. But the Swiss, at the end of an evolution, quickly as soon as feudality will be cut down in 1789, will remember their experiences and will go back to a partial system of direct democracy which is a model in Europe.

For certain European theorists of the modern direct democracy like Jean Thiriart, Switzerland is in Europe the only state which can say that it has a democratic legitimacy, Switzerland is the only country in Europe – with in modern age Yugoslavia of Tito and socialist Albania – where the people is armed it is the only state in the world, because even Libya did not adopt this system, where the citizens have their armament of war on their premises including the heavy armament, the Swiss have at home their rifles of attack, the ammunition and for some heavy machine guns.

One will re-examine the idea of direct democracy to re-appear with the destruction of feudality. In 1793, the French revolution arrives at its paroxysm. A fraction which is at the time the most progressist, the Jacobins, arrive at power with Robespierre. Robespierre, in particular in the first Commune of Paris in 1792-1793, founds and speaks about direct democracy. Robespierre contrary with all the remainder of the process of the French revolution in 1789 refuses the principle of the parliamentary delegation. The experience is very quickly fallen through since Robespierre underwent a coup d'etat and was executed.

At the time, there is a fraction even more radical: the babouvists. They are the followers of Grachus Babeuf, whom Marx or Lenin regarded as the first Communists. They want the integral direct democracy according to a mode which reminds enough that of the Libyan Jamahirya. It is known that for Moammar Kadhafi, 1793 is the great reference. When French president Jacques Chirac went to Libya the previous year, Tripoli was covered with posters doing the parallel between the French revolution and the Libyan revolution and Kadhafi said “our revolution is the following stage, the result of yours”.

The idea of direct democracy will precisely survive thanks to the teaching of the babouvists. In 1870, it is the war between Prussia and France, and the bourgeois regime which is that of Napoleon III, breaks down. One sees in Paris a popular insurrection which creates a self government, the Commune of Paris (the second), which will last a little more than one year before being crushed by the armies of the bourgeoisie and this government is controlled by a mode of people's democracy; it is significant because it is the first time in modern age that the direct democracy will be actually applied.

The experience of the Commune of Paris is very significant because one is unaware of it too often that it is from it that will be conceived the concept of “Soviet” in Russia, you know that for the Russian revolutionaries, who called themselves Marxists, the true reference is the Jacobinism and the French revolution. And the form of direct democracy which is practised in the commune of Paris will be applied to the Soviets. When do the Soviets appear? During the first Russian revolution of 1905. The people rises up against tsarism and set up a system of direct democracy which is defended by workers militia. The problem it is that the revolutionaries are divided and that the army contrary with what to occur in 1917 does not topple over on their side. The tsarist power thus will crush the Soviets. Comes 1917. And in 1917 when the tsarist power breaks down it is a liberal and bourgeois republic which founds a system of multipartism: the duma ; but parallel to this bourgeois revolution there is a self-organization of the people, and one sees the Soviets reappearing. A party, which is the Bolshevik Party, decides to lean on the Soviets in order to pass to a revolution which is not bourgeois any more but popular, it is this party which carries it but which carries it under the conditions of a civil war and a foreign intervention. At the time there are French, American, Japanese, British armies which are present on the Russian ground to crush the revolution, there are armies against the revolutionaries ; at a time given for example the Bolshevik power controls only Petrograd and a small zone of approximately a thousand of kilometers around Moscow.

When the Soviet experience is studied, we have in the West a distorted vision. Why ? Criticism, the historical study that one makes in the bourgeois world of the Bolshevik revolution it is based in fact on an analysis, that of Leon Trotski. In the years the 1922-1928 conflict exists between Trotski and Stalin. Trotski loses, he is exiled and to explain his defeat produces a book of propaganda against the Soviet regime which is entitled “the confiscated revolution”. The great idea that one finds in the bourgeois media is to say after 1922, that one “liquidates the Soviet regime”. It is not exact. What Stalinism liquidates is multipartism. But in the remainder of the organization, i.e. the government of the municipalities, the application of justice, remains the forms of direct democracy, that of the Soviets. It is for example under Stalin that will be set up the Soviet system of justice which will be used as model to the Libyan one, the Soviet system of justice is a system of direct democracy, it does not have (or little) professional magistrates for example, they are magistrates elected in the people.

The years pass and in modern age, it is necessary to wait the Sixties to see re-appearing the idea of direct democracy. Between 1960 and 1966, Jean Thiriart the founder and the first theorist of European Communautarisme thinks on a criticism of the parliamentary democracy and the solutions, with the alternatives to be applied to it.

In 1969, it is the Libyan revolution and between 1969 and 1976 is set up Jamahiriya in modern age, the only experience of direct democracy which is complete and which survived.

At the same time there are two experiences of partial direct democracy. The first is that of ba'athist Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The Ba'ath it is an Arab revolutionary nationalist party, it is the great rival of Nasser, and it will be at a time given one of the rivals of Moammar Kadhafi for the pan-Arab leadership. At the beginning Ba'ath intends to replace multipartism by a political system of national front, it is a political system which copies the system which is founded in the German Democratic Republic, in East Germany, since 1948. What is this system ? One accepts the existence of a series of parties said progressist around a leading party in Germany, it is the SED, the Communist Party, in Iraq it is Ba'ath of course. And these parties gather on a list known as national front to form the government. It is the system which will function in East Germany, Hungary or Bulgaria, until the fall of the Soviet block. It is still today the system which controls another ba’athist system, which is the Syrian Ba' ath. In Iraq the things well will not go off all right and since 1972, the regime will look at how to replace the progressist parties directly by the people in this national Front. And will set up itself in Iraq, it is the same name as in Libya, the people’s congresses, which for example manage the municipalities.

There is another experience at the same time, that of socialist Albania of Enver Hoxha. A symposium called “the power of the people” lengthily approached in March 1981 in Paris the comparisons between Albania and Libya. In Albania there is a leading Communist Party, that’s the difference with Libya, but for the remainder, the system functions according to what they call worker’s control which is a form of direct democracy, i.e. that all the country is organized with committees which are called the revolutionary committees with elected workmen, who direct the factories, who direct the municipalities and who have a right of criticisms on the party. A concept that the Albanians introduce, which is interesting, is the rotation of the leaders. Periodically, nobody in Albania remains more than 5 years at a post. When somebody had got a post as important leader, plant manager, ambassador, minister, after 5 years he must obligatorily go to work again at the base.

The radical followers of Direct Democracy are gathered in the MEDD – the Movement for a European Direct Democracy – which particularly intends “to militate for the Direct democracy as an alternative to the bankruptcy and the corruption of the pseudo parliamentary democracy. To join again with the European roots of direct democracy (Swiss experience, theory of incorruptible Robespierre in 1793, etc.)” and “to ensure their synergy with the modern pilot experience of direct democracy developed by the Libyan Revolution”.