Talk:Worker-communist Party of Iraq

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With the expansion of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq’s activity in the center and south of Iraq, the emergence of the Party as an influential and radical Marxist force in Iraqi political life, and our ability to attract the attention of wide sections of the Iraqi masses and other Arab countries and Arab media to our policies and views, a question stands out: What are the differences between the Worker Communist Party of Iraq and the Iraqi Communist Party? Here, I will focus on the more essential differences. To answer this question, I must say in advance that these two parties are different in everything. However, in this article, I will only mention the main aspects of differences, some political, historical, and practical examples on the role and the activities of the two parties. Nevertheless, the differences are much more extensive and cannot all be mentioned in this article.

Two different movements

The most substantial difference between these two parties is that they belong to two different movements. The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) is the party of the reformist-nationalist movement (nationalism here is used as a broad term or in the way nationalism is used in English and not in the way it is used in the Arab political literature). The ICP, like any other nationalist party, as its main motto (Free Nation and Happy People) focuses on liberating the nation. The Iraqi Communist Party, in its program and literature, clarifies that by “people’s happiness,” it means developing the national industry and economy and prescribing state capitalism as an economic alternative. According to the ICP’s point of view, the people consisting of the oppressing capitalist class and the oppressed working class and deprived people will live happily in a liberated nation with a developed capitalist economy. The ICP was established in the early 30s of the last century to achieve this objective following the bourgeois model, which prevailed in the Soviet Union after the failure of the October Revolution in the late 20s of the last century. In other words, the Iraqi Communist Party is one of the parties of the bourgeois Communist currents, and it was established to achieve a bourgeois objective in a certain period of time, using the prestige of Marxism.

On the other hand, the Worker Communist Party of Iraq is part of the working class’s socialist movement against the capitalist system. This movement struggles for a world free of oppression, class division, deprivation and hardships, which accompany the capitalist system. This objective is one of the principles of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq. This party was established on July 21, 1993, based on Marx’s teachings. It is a Marxist current whose theoretical and political principles were outlined by Mansoor Hekmat. It is the continuation of the traditions of the Paris Commune and the October Revolution. Before the establishment of the WCPI, the Worker Communist movement appeared for the first time as a socially distinctive movement in Iraqi Kurdistan in the context of the councils’ movement of March 1991. From then until the establishment of the party, Worker Communism was represented by a few political organisations and groups, which led the struggle of the workers and other deprived people in the society. Mansoor Hekmat, the leader of the Worker Communist movement, who analyzed today’s world from Marxism’s point of view and wrote the program for workers’ revolution and organizing a socialist society, emphasized that he uses Worker Communism, in the same way Marx used the word Communism, to differentiate this movement from the prevalent bourgeois Communisms.

The objective that the WCPI struggles for will only come true through a socialist revolution by the working class, overthrowing the capitalist system, abolishing private property and waged-labour and building a society based on the basis of common ownership. It will come true through building a society where there will be no classes and where people will work not to for making a living, but rather for society’s prosperity as all the needs of the people will be secured by society.

Two different accounts for freedom and socialism

The Iraqi Communist party, like any other nationalist party, believes that freedom means liberating the nation from the forces that (according to ICP) occupy it and that people’s happiness will be achieved by achieving this goal. We believe that this view is very naïve, as many nations have gotten rid of all kinds of foreign occupation and still the vast majority of their citizens are deprived of freedom and happiness and suffer from many forms of oppression, and exploitation. The Worker Communist Party of Iraq’s view of freedom is quit different from this one. According to WCPI, freedom means emancipation from the reign of capital and waged labour relations in our society, from suppression, and from all forms of discrimination including religious, ethnic and sexual discrimination. This freedom cannot be achieved without abolishing private ownership and waged labour.

For the Iraqi Communist Party, like other bourgeois parties, socialism, regardless of what it means to them, is utopian or it is something which will happen spontaneously with time in the process of society’s development. They use socialism only to spread illusion among the oppressed classes. The real goal of the Iraqi Communist Party or more precisely, its socialism, in the model mentioned in its program and media, is in reality an advanced capitalist society, where a patriotic bourgeois democratic state is the superstructure.

However, socialism in WCPI’s view point is a real and crucial objective and thus can be and must be achieved today in current society, as all the objective requirements for building such a society are available. Achieving this objective relies on the current will and practice of human beings. If the working class and the deprived and equality seeking masses are able to organize themselves around their vanguard party, and come to the fore today, they will be able to achieve this historical task and thus will be able to achieve happiness and prosperity for all members of society.

The advance in industry and productive capacities, which is the result of human beings’ efforts, has reached a level that achieving socialism, i.e. a society free of exploitation, class division, and waged labour, is possible in the most backward countries in the world. It is possible to build a society based on the principle that, “from everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their needs.” The political power of this system is a workers’ government i.e. a socialist republic. In other wards, it is a state based on councils or Soviets.

Two different views of reform

The reforms that the Iraqi Communist Party asks for are very limited and trivial. It seeks to make some inadequate improvements in the living standards of the masses. On the other hand, the Worker Communist Party of Iraq struggles to organize a socialist revolution and in the meantime, it struggles for the most profound and far-reaching economic, political, social and cultural reforms in the lives of all citizens. The WCPI believes that as long as capitalism prevails, achieving these reforms will help the workers to organize their revolution and build a socialist society.

The reforms that the Iraqi Communist Party has asked for have always been groundless; therefore it has not been able to realize them practically during its entire life and thus has failed to make the slightest improvement in the society. We say groundless, because in a country like Iraq, as one of the so-called Third World countries, there is no ground for achieving such bourgeois reforms. The reason is simple; in these countries, the bourgeois rule, in accordance with the capitalist economy, has to be dictatorial and oppressive, and this contradicts bourgeois reformism. This makes the possibility of finding grounds to implement bourgeois reforms, similar to those in Europe, very unlikely. The only reforms that have real grounds are those which are imposed on the bourgeoisie by the society’s left and by the workers’ movement.

Therefore, we say that the struggle of Worker Communism for reform and improving living conditions has a real basis, because the Worker Communist Party of Iraq strives to impose them on the bourgeoisie by intensifying the political and social pressure of the working class, the deprived masses and the left in general.

Different Political and Practical Traditions and Norms

The Iraqi Communist Party strives to achieve its bourgeois goals by formation of various coalitions and alliances. For this purpose, the ICP does not refrain from making alliances with all the most reactionary bourgeois forces and enemies of freedom. After the collapse of the Monarchy, when the working class in Iraq was well organized and had huge potentials, and while the ICP enjoyed a huge influence and was able to seize power, it simply rallied behind the bourgeois rule of Abdul Karim Qasim and thus prevented the workers from seizing power.

After the Baath’s coup in 1963, the bloody regime launched a fierce attack on the workers and the left movement; killing hundreds of them, including members of the ICP itself. Instead of standing by the workers and the left against these attacks, the ICP struggled to justify them with various excuses. Later on, the ICP joined in a long-term alliance with the Baathists and portrayed their bloody regime as a fighting force for socialism and in so doing, contributed to stabilizing their regime.

When the Baath regime started cracking down on the ICP and tightened its grip around their neck, the ICP escaped to Kurdistan and started making alliances with the Kurdish ethnocentric parties against which it had fought while in alliance with Baath regime. During the last 12 years, all the bourgeois forces tried to get power by aligning themselves with the USA and supporting its inhumane policies. The Iraqi Communist Party worked with all these forces, including the ethnocentric parties and Islamic gangs. It joined in alliances with them and attended congresses and meetings organized by the US state department and its espionage agencies.

In Kurdistan, the ICP participated in the authority of the armed militia of the Kurdish ethnocentric-tribal parties in order to gain some privileges. It continues to support their rule, which lacks any legitimacy. In the course of its blind support for the reactionary policies of these parties, the ICP has turned its back to the wishes, demands and protests of the various social movements, which have emerged against these parties and their inhuman and oppressive practices. In this way, the ICP has participated in the hardships, destruction and calamities brought about by these parties against the people in Kurdistan. Moreover, it joined in alliance with the reactionary and terrorist Islamic forces. In order to prepare the grounds for such alliances, ICP not only did not expose the policies and behavior of the reactionary bourgeois forces, but also was ready to cover the reactionary political and class essence of their crimes.

However, the WCPI has always insisted on independence of the ranks of workers and toilers and struggled to separate their ranks on political and organizational fronts from the bourgeois forces and to organize them around communist politics and independent class goals. It has always criticized the policies and practices of all bourgeois forces and exposed their reactionary and inhumane essence by raising the awareness among workers and toilers. It has struggled to prevent these forces from implementing their policies. Moreover, the WCPI has been in continuous confrontation with these forces on the rights and demands of the workers and the deprived people, and it has sacrificed and faced many hardships on this path.

The Iraqi Communist party is an opportunistic party. It is secular when with seculars, democratic when with democrats, nationalist when with nationalists and even Islamic when with Islamists. According to its program, the ICP is secular, however on a political and practical level, it does not represent secular forces in any way. It conceals information from the masses. It observes the reactionary religious traditions and norms and defends them.

In sharp contrast with Marx who said religion was the peoples’ opium, the ICP declares that Islam is a revolutionary and liberation religion, and it portrays the oppressive leaders of the Islamic movements as egalitarian freedom –lovers. It uses silly excuses like respecting “people’s taboos” to justify its enthusiastic participation in religious ceremonies.

In sharp contrast to Marx who said workers have no nation, the Iraqi Communist Party calls on workers to sacrifice for the sake of the nation’s soil. It glorifies the false national entity, and thus it turns workers and toilers into a reserve army for the nationalist movement. It supports the concept of class forgiveness between workers and the bourgeoisie, and therefore it asks workers to compromise and give up their interests for the sake of their fellow citizens, the bourgeoisie, and to fight against the workers from other nationalities and forget the common class interests of the workers of all nationalities.

On the other hand, based on Marx’s teachings, WCPI is the party of the extreme left {maximalist) and extremely radical. It criticizes religion and stands strongly against racism, and patriarchy. It is an extremist party in its humanism and egalitarianism. It confronts bravely all kinds of reactions, and inequality. It reveals all information to the masses and frankly announces the position of Communism on religion.  It exposes religious superstition as a tool for deception, dividing people and imposing deprivation and inequality on the society. It opposes dividing human beings on the basis of nationality, religion, sex, and race. All these characteristics are not only political stands for the WCPI but also organizing principles around which they struggle on a daily basis.

Two different social trends “the Right and the Left”

The Iraqi Communist Party, which once claimed to be a left force and had associated itself in a way with Communism, now stands unequivocally on the right of the society and has given up these former claims. It changed its entire political program in the late 80s and early 90s when huge international events took place. As mentioned before, this party was a reformist-nationalist party belonging to one of the blocs of the bi-polar world. When state-capitalism reached a deadlock and with the collapse of the Soviet camp, the ICP, as with all other similar parties in Eastern Europe and third world counties, reached a deadlock. Many of these parties have either dissolved themselves or changed their names and followed the wave of “democracy”. The ICP had to follow the same path and it did so, but in a different way. In 1991 the ICP attached itself to the US policies and its plans in Iraq. The ICP was given an abject position in the periphery of the US plans for Iraq and in its conflict with then the ruling Baath regime. Therefore, the ICP no longer has the slightest relation with the workers, the left or Communism even if it raises thousands of banners decorated with hammer and sickle. The ICP lacks the basic leftist characteristics and is entrenched in the Right’s front.

In reality, the patriotism of the ICP party is totally groundless and poor and therefore its nationalist and patriotic policies are contradictory and dominated by hypocrisy and evasiveness. On the one hand, it shares a position with Arab-nationalism and had for a while joined in coalitions with the most extremely chauvinist Arab nationalist parties. On the other hand, it shares positions with the Kurdish nationalist movement and joins coalitions with its tribal parties. This happens while these two movements (the Arab and the Kurdish nationalist movements) have been in continuous fight against each other in last several decades. Therefore, the ICP has failed to secure a unique foothold for itself even in these equations, and it has lost even the weak influence it once had.

In contrast, the Worker Communist Party of Iraq represents the left trend in the society in all fronts. It holds the banner of the Left, workers and Communism and it created a brave and ambitious radical Marxist pole (Maximalist) in the society. It leads the left on theoretical, political, and practical domains. Vis-à-Vis the Right pole, the WCPI defends the Left and its demands.

Some Examples of the Two Parties’ Political and Practical Positions.

The above mentioned are the main social and political differentiating characteristics of the two parties. On the basis of these fundamental differences, each of the two parties took different stands on different issues and events. I will mention some of them here.

·      The ICP, as with other bourgeois parties, supported the second Gulf War (the first US war on Iraq) by the US, in order to impose its hegemony on the world under the excuse of bringing back the Kuwaiti sheiks to power. It supported the war, which resulted in a massacre against the people of Iraq and asserting the US arrogance on the world. On the other hand the Worker Communist movement stood with all its force against this war. While the Worker Communism was struggling to overthrow the Baath regime, it emphasized that the liberation of the Iraqi society cannot be an outcome of the US bloody war.

·      The ICP openly and from the beginning, supported the inhumane policy of the economic embargo against the Iraqi masses, once again under the excuse that this policy, which resulted in genocide and starvation for the masses of Iraqis, would weaken the regime. However with the increasing pressure of public opinion against the consequences of the economic sanctions, the ICP made a limited retreat and took an opportunistic central position by demanding a conditional lift of the economic sanctions. It demanded, “lifting the sanctions on the Iraqi people and increasing the pressure on the dictatorship.” On the one hand this demand reflected a hope that the US would weaken the regime and it would eventually establish a democratic regime and on the other hand in practical terms, this demand did not mean anything.

·        In a third step, when the deadly consequences of the economic sanctions became clear and after the US and its western allies come under the huge pressure of the international public opinion, the ICP made a another opportunistic change in its position and demanded unconditional lifting of the economic sanctions on the “ Iraqi people”. The right-wing opposition including the ICP claimed that the resolution 986 lifted the sanctions on the “Iraqi people” and kept it on the regime. The ICP claimed that its stand was in support of the masses, but in reality it was an evasive and deceitful stand, which avoided taking a clear stand toward a specific issue, the economic sanction, imposed on Iraq.

·        On the other hand, {the Worker Communism and} the Worker Communist party of Iraq condemned that policy from the very first day as an inhumane policy and firmly stood against it. Over 12 years the Worker Communist Party of Iraq struggled on different domains world-wide to mobilize the international public opinion to lift the sanctions.

·      While the US was preparing to launch the third Gulf War on Iraq, the Iraqi Communist Party, again took an opportunistic stand. It stood beside the other bourgeois parties, which supported the US policy and prepared very well to reap the fruits of this war. At the same time, the ICP announced for the Iraqi public opinion that it was against the war. Abroad, it tried to pretend that it was with the anti-war movement and stood against the war, but practically it had done nothing against it. At the same time, the Kurdistan branch of the ICP participated through its leadership, including its secretary, in the London congress of the so-called Iraqi opposition forces. In this congress, ethnocentric groups, Islamic forces, and the mercenaries of the CIA joined together with the US defense and state departments and UK government. The ICP signed the concluding statement of this congress. This extremely reactionary (religious, nationalist, tribal and patriarchal) statement is a document of the support of these nationalist and Islamic forces for the US war.

On the other hand, the WCPI strongly condemned the USA warmongering policies and its war and stood against it. The Worker Communist party of Iraq was the only Iraqi force, which stood against the war and was active among the masses inside Iraq. It was also an effective force in the Anti-War Movement abroad.

·      After the collapse of the Baath regime and the start of the US and UK occupation of Iraq, the Iraqi Communist party, like other bourgeois parties, supported the US occupation of the “nation” under the pretext of overthrowing the Baath regime. Now, it supports the idea that the US forces remain in Iraq. In regard to the nature of the political regime in Iraq, it seeks to secure a post in the US “democratic” administration. The ICP has joined other reactionary Islamic, ethnocentric, and tribal parties, and supports their plan to establish an ethnic federation and introduce a constitution based on religion, ethnicity and tribalism.

The WCPI on the other hand struggles for the immediate withdrawal of the US and UK forces and establishing a direct regime of the masses. It struggles for establishing a non-religious, non- nationalist but rather a civil and civilized authority, which treats all citizens equally regardless of their nationality, religion, sex or race and is able to provide food, security and freedom for all. The best government, which can secure all these demands, is the socialist republic, which also can end all the obstacles, which face humanity and end all kinds of oppression and exploitation.

It is clear from the above-mentioned differences and the political stands taken by the two parties, that there is no similarity or any relation between them. Moreover, there is a large similarity politically and practical between the ICP and other bourgeois parties.

Therefore instead of asking us; what are your differences with the ICP? The question should be directed to the ICP; what are your differences with the other bourgeois parties, which support the US and UK troops in Iraq, the federal provisional government and integration of religion with the state and education?

Conclusions:

Finally, I would like to say to the Left in the society that Iraq has entered a new stage and that the Iraqi political arena is open before all social movements including of course, the Communist, worker and Left movement. In this new stage, the ICP has taken its clear and overt position alongside the Right forces in the society, beside the US and the Islamic and ethnocentric forces. It has no leftist or communist features.

The Worker Communist Party of Iraq currently holds the banner of the Left and Communism. This party leads the struggle for workers’ revolution, freedom, equality and realistic reformism.

Ten years ago this party shaped its political and social principles and formulated all the objectives and aspirations of the left in its written program and policies. With an organised rank, WCPI stands firmly committed to its program vis-à-vis the right-wing forces. Therefore, it is necessary for all those who regard themselves as part of the Left, who share the objectives of the working class and their hope to see a better world, to rethink about the current situation of the ICP. They need to reexamine its social and political position, regardless of their historic relationships with this party, and to leave its ranks and join the WCPI as many communist and leftist activists have done during last 10 years.

During this period many of those who regard themselves as part of the society’s Left came to us driven by humanist and egalitarian objectives and joined the WCPI and thus started a new history for themselves. Comrade Hekmat Kotani, the well-known figure of the Iraqi worker and Communist movement was an example of this trend, and very quickly he took a leading position in our party.

In current atmosphere in Iraq, the position that one takes is obvious for all. The ICP is part of the Right and the front for the USA and other reactionary forces, even though it was able to pose as a left force or relate itself to the Left and Communism up until 1991. The ICP is not the continuation of its past history because it has lost all leftist characteristics and has become part of the Right. It is now revolving within the USA orbit and has assumed right-wing policies in all fields. The leftists and communists have their own leadership now, and therefore they no longer need to resort to the ICP. The special importance of the WCPI is that it has differentiated and separated the ranks of the left from the right-wing forces. This party is part of the egalitarian and workers’ front; it is leading the struggle for a better world and a socialist society.

I call on all communist and leftists to join this party and use it as a tool to struggle and to strengthen the movement toward victory. The victory of workers, left communism and human aspirations, rely on the victory of this party.