We are publishing here the full translation from German of the document written by our comrades of the Gruppe Internationaler SocialistInnen (GIS) on the ICT’s break with the Greek "Internationalist Comrades" (IC). We put out a very short English version of this in November in order to give as early a warning as possible to internationalists everywhere. That version can be found at leftcom.org.

It is appropriate that our German comrades have made this critique as they have had the closest relations with the Athens group. Indeed the high water mark of that cooperation was the bilingual leaflet that they issued together during the Greek debt crisis urging solidarity between Greek and German workers (published in English in Aurora at leftcom.org ).

The IC never were part of the ICT but related to the communist left in general. There was a mutual recognition that though they liked what they saw of the ICT they would first have to complete their own voyage of discovery in the Communist Left. Issues of their magazine thus contained articles by the International Communist Current, at least two Bordigist groups and the Belgian GCI as well as historic pieces on the German Left. For several years progress seemed to be good and we began to put up their magazine Engymo on our site to encourage further contact with them.

However in the summer of 2015 the IC decided to ignore our advice on boycotting the referendum organised by Syriza (in breach of their own abstentionist principles) and called for support for the NO campaign. We discussed this extensively and they reacted negatively to our own articles (e.g leftcom.org) condemning this bourgeois manoeuvre. During the course of this discussion it became clear that they did not see Syriza as the left wing of capital as we did. From there things deteriorated and their refusal to sign our international statement on the migrant crisis (highlighted in the document that follows) effectively brought an end to our relations in the first couple of months of 2016.

It was only the diligence of our German comrades who then revealed their subsequent evolution and the lengthy critique below is the fruit of that work which we offer as a contribution to the discussion. We have, of course, now deleted all reference to Engymo on our site but it would be dishonest to pretend this experience never happened. It would be equally pointless not to retain the positive part of this experience in internationalist cooperation which lasted several years even though it ultimately ended in failure. However no-one has ever believed that the path towards a new international party of the working class would ever be smooth. The capitalist crisis and the class struggle do not go away (even if our side is currently in retreat). The objective conditions for new comrades to take up the internationalist baton, not only in Greece but across the world, are being formed with every day that passes. However as this episode shows it requires more than mere intellectual adherence to some idealist conception of Marxism, but a real class commitment and understanding, to contribute to the proletarian cause.

"Internationalist Comrades" (Greece), their Liaison with Anti-semitic Conspiracy Loonies and their Nationalist Metamorphosis

Prologue: Crisis and Conspiracy

Times of crisis and upheaval have always provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories and fantasies. In the Middle Ages they believed in the God-given order, but also in the Devil and witchcraft. The Jews were accused of poisoning wells, destroying harvests through magic and bringing the plague. They were suspected of exercising black magic, stealing children and being spies of foreign powers. But, above all, they were accused of being usurers, even of controlling the whole money system.

Even today, the craziest notions and ways of interpreting the world are rampant, which trace the distortions of capitalist society back to the influence of secret powers, perfidious conspiracies and not least, the "dictatorship of finance markets" (Oscar Lafontaine). The crisis brings "the contradictions of bourgeois production to a scandal" (Karl Marx). But, for many, it appears "at first sight to be a credit or money crisis". Right, and supposedly "left" ideologues build on this to divide capitalism into a "money-grubbing", "finance market-driven", "parasitic" sector and a productive "creative" one. This division is not only profoundly wrong, because industry, the service sector and the world of finance mutually condition each other and stand in an indissoluble interrelationship, but is completely absurd. Why should the local factory owner be less "profit-oriented" and "greedy" than the internationally active banker? Nevertheless, this division is of inestimable propagandistic value to the apologists of this system. It prevents one from seeing that the life elixir of the capitalist system is the exploitation of human labour power, the extortion of surplus value. The production of surplus value, the pivot of exploitation and alienation is in this way withdrawn from all critical consideration and appears as a normality prescribed by nature. In contrast, the financial system, betting on tomorrow's surplus value, is declared to be the root of all evil. In this worldview, all adversity is perceived as a problem external to national production and is traced back to the "greed of international banks", "vagrant capital", "usury" and "parasitic speculators". An inexhaustible spring for nationalist resentment and anti-semitic projection opens up here. "The concept of the borrowing rate is the devilish invention of big lending capital, it alone allows the indolent drone-life of a money-powerful minority at the expense of the productive peoples and their labour power, it has led to the deep, unbridgeable contradictions and the class hatred which gave birth to civil war and war between brothers" is what the Nazi ideologue Gottfried Federer wrote in his "Manifest zur Brehung der Zinsknechtschaft und des Geldes" [1] (Manifesto for Breaking Interest-Servitude and Money). The vision of productive peoples living under the "money and interest servitude of all-Jewish high finance" (Adolf Hitler), wasn’t a source of inspiration for fascism by chance. Up until now it is the basis for the attempt to dress up reactionary thinking and nationalist resentment as "revolutionary" and "anti-capitalist".

Internationalism versus Nationalism

In a social climate marked by the mass growth of nationalism, racism and reactionary ideas, communists are faced by the challenge of swimming against the stream and defending internationalist ideas without compromise. In relation to the political development of the group "Internationalist Comrades" (Greece), we can only confirm their total failure in this regard. Their publication and distribution of texts containing the most reactionary conspiracy ideologies is, for us, a clear indication that the so-called "Internationalist Comrades" (from now on, "IC") have instead completely gone over to nationalist positions. We consider it our duty and our political responsibility as an organisation to publicly declare that this group, through its flagrant cooperation with anti-semitic forces, has become a danger to the integrity and security of the revolutionary proletarian milieu. A long process of discussion linked us with the so-called "IC", which, in retrospect, was characterised more by lows than highs. The first serious differences came to light in July 2015 when the so-called "IC" called for "critical" support for the bourgeois SYRIZA/ANEL government in the referendum. This support for the parliamentary spectacle revealed all sorts of confusion with regard to the assessment of bourgeois forces like SYRIZA and a complete lack of understanding of the Communist Left's methodological approach. In the continuing discussions, all kinds of political contradictions on the part of the so-called "IC" revealed themselves, which made their claim to be in broad political agreement with the ICT seem somewhat premature. For us in the ICT, this was not in itself a problem. It is our declared policy to compare politics, to discuss over the long term, and, if necessary, carry out polemics over practical and theoretical questions with all political forces who seriously intervene for the project of proletarian emancipation and internationalism. But, given the so-called "IC's" various U-turns, serious doubts took hold among us about their seriousness and political competency. For a start, it should be mentioned that an individual member of the "IC" produced a written "contribution to discussion” in which homosexuality was described as a "deviation". This caused us to shake our heads, particularly as it was unclear to what extent this homophobia is shared or tolerated by the whole group. The refusal by the so-called "IC" to support an ICT statement on the so-called "refugee crisis" was also alarming, as this expressed an irreconcilable rejection of the racist border regimes.

We wrote: "By contrast it is true that most representatives of the capitalist left appear cosmopolitan and humanitarian, but this is more than dishonest and hypocritical. So, for example, the SYRIZA government in Greece does nothing to help the refugees, but actively supports Frontex policies. Tsipras personally took part in the annual manoeuvres at the Turkish border to loudly proclaim that Europe's borders are secure. At the same time, the anti-racist and refugee support movement has failed many times.[...] If the much-touted slogan "Refugees are welcome" is not intended to become a completely hollow phrase, they should think about what we are actually “welcoming” people to: a society in which wage cuts, welfare cuts and precarious employment dictate everyday life. Some well-trained people might be able to get a job, but most will be cooped up in camps for a long time and end up facing unemployment and misery. In fact, for capital they represent a welcome reservoir of labour, mostly without any rights, who can be played off against other sectors of the class at any time [...] Those who caused the problem through austerity, raising rents and cutting wages are blaming the refugees in order to increase the pressure of exploitation. In fact all factions of the ruling class are doing this. Their debate is only about how best to select the migrants. They also have good reason to highlight the _lack of “the necessaries” they themselves have created. After all those who fight their colleagues cannot struggle alongside them. As long as workers see each other as competitors for jobs, housing, etc., as long as they buy into nationalist and racist ideologies, as long as capitalism is not called into question, then the floodgates are open to more exploitation and impoverishment. But precarious working and living conditions are, just like the plight of the refugees, products of capitalism. We are one world class. An internationalist perspective against racial division and exploitation can only lie in the unconditional political struggle: not just for the complete abolition of all exceptional laws, regulations and bureaucratic practices directed against foreigners such as deportations and expulsions, but in the destruction of the system that produces them._" [2] That was obviously too much internationalism for the so-called "IC", which thenceforth used all sorts of phraseology to reprimand our position as "No-borders" politics and the "neo-liberal" mystification of human rights. For communists' the chief subject of attention is always the starting conditions for the struggle of the international proletariat. For proletarian internationalists, unconditional solidarity with the oppressed parts of the proletariat, and, as is relevant here, this includes migrants, is an essential basic condition for the production of class unity. The ICT's basic programmatic positions leave no room for doubt: "The maintenance of the structure of the capitalist economy demands that workers regard other workers as competitors for employment, accommodation, entry to educational institutions, etc. This is an important trapdoor for nationalist and racist ideas, whose effects Karl Marx was already observing in the 19th century:

“Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland. This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power.”

Racism in this way undermines the only way to successfully resist the daily impositions of the system — class solidarity. In spite of the internationalisation of capitalism, the bourgeoisie exercises its rule in the form of national states. In opposition to this, the proletariat is an international class, a class of migrants. Every split weakens its struggle and tightens the screws of exploitation. For this reason, it is an urgent task for communists to struggle without compromise against racist ideas. Our resistance against racism has nothing to do with the patronising reform projects of the so-called multiculturalist propagandists, who peddle all sorts of culturalist recipes and, in the framework of their own positive racism, only accept those “cultural differences” which they consider that the local public can digest. The division in the working class cannot be overcome by the “foreign” minority conforming to the prevailing “dominant culture”. We reject every positive evaluation of “integration” or “assimilation”. These kind of concepts are always based on the bourgeois prejudice of the higher worth of some sort of “national culture” and language. To overcome racist divisions, a conscious minority politics for the most oppressed sectors of the class is necessary. Action without compromise against all racist shenanigans, discrimination, exceptional laws and administrative practices is an essential basic condition for the production of class unity. The working class has neither countries nor national cultures to defend. The only way out of the treadmill of exploitation consists in the overcoming of the capitalist system, which gives birth to racism and reproduces it on a daily basis." [3]

As Marxists, we know that under the capitalist order every "national culture" is necessarily an expression of the domination of the bourgeoisie. Communists must be clear about this fact and carry out a resolute struggle against the repression of migrants and discrimination against them through the law of bourgeois states. Only in this way will it be possible to build bridges to this part of the proletariat and overcome the division into "home and foreign" workers. It is a consequence of the unconditional rejection of racism and oppression that it is nonsense to talk of the "reformability" of immigration law, or to demand "more human" laws for migrants and foreigners. All laws and administrative decrees aimed at migrants serve discrimination and oppression, and thus the division and exploitation of the proletariat as a whole. For proletarian internationalists there is no choice: either you fight for unconditional equal rights for migrants or you accept discrimination against them and with that nationalism, which is an essential prop of the capitalists' ideological domination of the wage-labouring class. There is only the decision between equal rights or the selection and division of society into people of first and second class, which the global apartheid of the capitalist system reproduces daily.

The balance of a discussion

Given the course of the discussion with the so-called "IC" and their arbitrary publication policy, which saw them throwing together the most diverse positions and theoretical propositions, we were anything but optimistic regarding future developments. In a letter in May 2016 we evaluated our relationship as follows: "Your refusal to sign the Statement (on the so-called 'refugee crisis') was a surprise (and a disappointment). We racked our brains for a long time over this. We ask ourselves if you are simply indifferent to the fate of those parts of the working class who have had to flee the effects of war and imperialism. [...] It is too simple to say that this question will not be solved under capitalism, which boils down to ignoring the human tragedy that is playing out before our eyes. As you correctly say, Greece finds itself here in the middle of the action, and we wonder why you, as an example, have written nothing about the events in Idomeni. In a general sense, you are right when you say that bourgeois human rights are a mystification. But this does not mean that we idly stand by as the ruling class manipulates this issue. In our propaganda, we criticise precisely complete absence of the rights that bourgeois democracy promises. That is a always a component of our denunciation of the whole system’s hypocrisy. It is just the same with the demand for open borders. Our internationalist goal is a society without nations and therefore without borders, and we able to underline once more that something like that is not possible within the framework of the capitalist system. [...] As far as concerns the content of your magazine Engymo, you are, of course, free to publish what you want. Nevertheless, you seem to have forgotten that we also offer you a forum on our website. Whereas you seem to believe that eclecticism is a source of pride and strength, we, on the other hand, are a political tendency whose roots are in the Italian Communist Left[...] This gives us a method, a political compass and a common basis for work. We are very prepared to wait and see wherever your particular Odyssey takes you, but a more intensive critical debate over the basis of our politics could perhaps give you a road map that could help you to clarify where you want to go." We received no answer to this letter. [4] The so-called "IC" preferred to keep quiet, from time to time criticising our positions behind our backs and carrying out intrigues, which once again proves their lack of political seriousness.

The New Friends of the So-called "Internationalist Comrades": Thierry Meyssan and the "Voltaire Network"

In the middle of August we were compelled to notice that strange things were happening on IC's website. One thing that should be mentioned was the publication of odd statements by bourgeois academics against the so-called "gender mainstream", containing tales about a liberal attack on the family and the "natural order of the sexes". Moreover, several articles of questionable content by a certain Thierry Meyssan from the "Voltaire Network" appeared, whose Greek translations were then published on the "Voltaire Network's" website, which, at the least, indicated political cooperation. According to their own account, the "Voltaire Network" considers itself to be a "bloc-free press network", which specialises in the "analysis of international relations". The "Voltaire Network" claims "principles" including "respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations", "the recognition of the equality of all races and all nations, irrespective of their size" as well as "respecting the rights of every nation to defend itself individually or collectively in agreement with the United Nations' Charter" [5]. The point that all these "principles" spring from conceptions which are thoroughly bourgeois probably does not need to be made more precisely. Nevertheless, the style is striking — it is no accident that it is based on the "ethnopluralism" ideology of the so-called "New Right". It is obvious that kowtowing before "national sovereignty", the uncritical adoption of the unscientific and in every respect reactionary concept of "race" and the "right of national defence" is difficult to bring into harmony with internationalist communist positions. Only a fleeting glance over the pages of the "Voltaire Network" is needed to show that the so-called "analysis of international relations" in no way aims at a serious investigation of social relations of power or the effectiveness of ideologies, but, instead, at the spreading of the conspiracy theory way of explaining things. The anti-Semitic delusions propagated by Thierry Meysan of "World domination by the USA and Israel" runs like a red thread through the contributions [6]. A pathological hatred of "the West", deeply rooted in the National Bolshevik tradition results in a clear lining up in the global imperialist confrontation with the side of Russia, Iran and the Assad regime, and the glorification of reactionary movements like Hamas and Hizbollah. In order to give this propaganda the appearance of objectivity and plausibility, Thierry Meyssan and his collaborators in the "Voltaire Network" rely on all sorts of tricks and rhetorical devices to give themselves the image of progressive and "independent" intellectuals. In fact, up until 2000, Meyssan occasionally critically engaged the "Front National" and held positions in the left-liberal "Parti Radical de Gauche", but this didn’t stop him from entering into close contact with certain antisemites. For example, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala [7], who publicly said he wanted the gas chambers back, and then immediately denied having said it, and the aristocratic fascist and misogynist, Alain Soral [8]. Meyssan became famous in his own right in 2002 with his book "L’Effroyable imposture", in which he tried to prove that there had never been an attack by Al Qa'eda on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, but everything had been faked by US services. Thierry Meyssan did not ever go to the USA to support his thesis by a thorough, on-the-spot, investigation. Instead, he claimed to have discovered the intelligence services' plot solely by investigating the pictures published by the US authorities on his home computer, which says a lot about his journalistic seriousness and, not least, the way his character is structured. But there is much left to be desired with the supposedly meticulous research work which allowed Meyssan to see through the almighty secret services. Bernhard Schmid, who knows the right-extremist scene in France inside out, reports on Thierry Meyssan’s methods and connections: "But the most explosive thing are the borrowings that Thierry Meyssan has manifestly made from other authors in the composition of his book. In a book answering Meyssan's, which also appeared in 2002, and was by two French journalists specialising in intelligence services ('L'effroyable mensonge', 'The Horrifying Lie', by Guillaume Dasquié und Jean Guisnel) it was shown that Meyssan, just after 11th September, had taken material from a radical rightist ideologue. It was to do with Emmanuel Ratier, who regularly wrote for the extreme right Front National. Emmanuel Ratier is, in his own eyes, the spiritual heir of Henry Coston, a conspiracy ideolgist who died in 2001, when he was over 90 years of age. Ratier took over Coston's archive. As early as the '30s, Coston was already one of the leading antisemitic ideologues in France, a media correspondant for National Socialist Germany and later led a 'document centre on Freemasonry’s activities' under the Vichy regime. A further informant for Meyssan was Stéphane Jah, a former military man and passionate "expert" on secret services (and secret service conspiracies of every kind), who runs a web site a great deal of information on the activities of the intelligence services. Jah confirmed to Dasquié and Guisnel that he had worked together with Meyssan and Ratier. And, in fact, in Meyssan's second book on the theme, there is a list of thanks to people who provided him with information or interpretation, and these are mostly named only by their initials. Among them, there is someone denoted 'E.R.' This is, according to Dasquié and Guisnel, the neo-fascist conspiracy fanatic Emmanuel Ratier. The former anti-fascist publicist Thierry Meyssan has never denied this." [9]

Crude fantasies and anti-Semitic fiction: the crazy world of Thierry Meyssan

Meyssan’s book found, despite (or maybe, precisely because of) its plagiarism and skewed methods of proof, approval and rapid sales among conspiracy ideologues and fascist circles. No less than the neo-fascist Pierre Krebs took care of its German edition with his "Edito de Facto"[10] publishing house. In Islamic circles too, Meyssan and his theories were well received, which got him several well-paid invitations to the UAE. For Meyssan, this was probably enough incentive. In the following years he displayed a remarkable creativity in knitting together conspiracy theories. The list of his conspiracy-theory explanations of the World is long. But, taken together, there is a system behind them. Here, we’ll give only a few examples. In 2008, he developed the theory that the then French President Sarkosy was, "in reality" a "secret agent of the United States and Israel"[11]. On 11th June 2012, Meyssan advanced a particularly interesting insight: "In a few days, perhaps even as early as Friday 15th June, Syrians who want to watch the national TV channel, will discover a screen replaced by the CIA. The studio-produced film will show massacres attributed to the government, popular demonstrations, ministers and generals announcing their resignation, President Al-Assad taking flight, rebels gathering in the big cities, and a new government installing itself in the Presidential Palace." The conspiracy hatched in Washington and Israel (where else?) would also include "Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Fox, France 24, Future TV and MTV[!]". But how? Quite simple! According to Meyssan, in the previous few weeks in Saudi Arabia secret TV studios had sprung up, "which reconstruct the two Syrian Presidential Palaces and the most important places in Damascus, Aleppo and Homs" [12]. As usual, Meyssan delivers no credible proof for his crude theses. But this doesn’t seem to disturb his fan community, dedicated as it is to the explanations of the World provided by conspiracy theories, any more than did the fact that Mayssan’s invented reality show never went out. The only bitter reality remained and still remains the horrendous spilling of blood in Syria, an imperialist butchery in which the self-declared "independent journalist and intellectual" Thierry Meyssan participates as a propagandist for the Assad regime. But more on that later. That Thiery Meyssan is not simply a fantasist but instead a dangerous fanner of antisemitic flames is emphatically demonstrated by his actions after the attacks on the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo". Thiery Meyssan span security warnings by the French authorities to Jewish communities into the rumour that "The Jewish community was forewarned about the attacks" [13]. Here, Meyssan deliberately made connections with the antisemitic conspiracy theory which was already in circulation after the September 11th attacks. His antisemitic crony Alain Soral [14] went one better and gave the World the thesis that, in reality, Israel's Mossad was behind the attacks. No less crazed and loaded with resentment is Meyssan’s interpretation of the so-called "refugee crisis", in which he sees a wide-ranging Nato manoeuvre, staged by dark forces. American and Israeli "think tanks" figured out a devilish plan. The "refugee crisis" is alleged to be no result of the wars in the Near and Middle East, but a US strategy, planned long ago, to destabilise Europe and to seize power in Eurasia. Migrants are supposed to play an important role in this, as the USA is going to increase its reliance on mercenary armies, and healthy young male refugees will constitute a reservoir for recruitment [15]. The recent construction of a US military hospital in Weilerbach in the Rhineland-Pfalz is meant to be an indication that this ghost army is soon to be set on the march [16]. We will see later that such crazy ideas have also had an impact on the publishing activity of the so-called "IC".

Syrian massacres and fascist networks!

Like most conspiracy theorists, Meyssan is above all convinced of his own importance, and this usually manifests itself psychologically in pathological delusions of persecution. Out of anxiety that his trail-blazing revelations will lead to him being murdered by the American or French secret services, he has shifted his field of activity to Damascus, well-known to be a place with a low density of secret service operatives and the ideal working conditions for free, critical and independent journalism. Here the free spirit Meyssan discovered his great love for the regime of Bashar Al Assad and all its allies. Meyssan's relationship to the Lebanese Hizbollah became especially close, and he praised their "nationalism of liberation" to the skies, and to the joy of French fascists [17] and German National Bolshevists [18]. From the Assad regime’s point of view, Meyssan was someone to rely on. And so Thierry Meyssan can proudly claim to be a leading light of the Assad regime's diplomatic initiatives to erect a common alliance of the USA, Russia and the Syrian army against Islamist terror militia. Obviously, Meyssan was not completely successful in this, but, nevertheless, it got him an invitation to Berlin, and to the "Conference for Sovereignty! Freedom for Germany! For the End of the Occupation!"[19] This meeting was organised by the racist hate sheet "Compact" which operates equally as a mouthpiece and as an ideological unifier of the extreme right and the conspiracy theory scene. At the so-called "Compact Conference", the apostle of peace Thierry Meyssan found himself in illustrious company. For example, Götz Kubitschek, publisher of the Nazi rag "Sezession", a frequent speaker for PEGIDA and well embedded in the international fascist scene. Andreas von Bülow, former diplomat and notorious conspiracy theorist. We can also mention Björn Höcke, leader of Alternativ für Deutschland in Thüringia , organiser and speaker at racist demonstrations and exponent of the right nationalist wing of AfD.The list of invited "experts" could be continued [20]. Moreover, Thierry Meyssan's trips to and from Germany went mostly smoothly, despite him being hunted by the CIA and the French secret services [21]. Alongside such appearances as a speaker, Meyssan is, among other things, also active as a writer for the racist Compact magazine (advertising slgan for the October 2016 edition: "Young, male and horny: 20 million Africans on the way to Europe" [22]).There also appear to be other friendly relations between "Compact" and the „Voltaire Network". This is at least suggested by contributions by "Compact" chief editor Jürgen Elsässer [23] to the pages of the Voltaire Network and, not least, by Silvia Cattori's interview with Compact's publisher [24]. Silvia Cattori is a regular collaborator of the "Voltaire Network". She is a fervent admirer of Islamic Hamas [25] and virtually the Grande Dame of the Holocaust-denying and anti-Semitic scene.[26]

Engymo — a racist enzyme!

These are just a few examples, which nevertheless say enough about Thierry Meyssan and the "Voltaire Network's" connections, effects and the thrust of their politics, in our estimation. It is difficult for us to imagine that a political group could translate and publish several texts from an author without first informing itself about that author's political background. On top of that, the texts translated and published by the so-called "IC" speak for themselves and prove to any halfway clear-headed individual that Thierry Meyssan is a political charlatan. Despite this, we didn’t want to make any premature judgment, and so, on 11 August 2016 we invited the so-called "IC" to tell us, without delay, why they were offering Thierry Meyssan a forum on their website. Today we still have received no reply. But our question got a sort of answer when the so-called "IC" published their magazine "Engymo", which contained two articles by Thierry Meyssan, among others. In our opinion, this left only one possible conclusion — Meyssan's dubious connections and the conspiracy theory direction of his texts were appreciated by the so-called "IC" and their content was shared. That they were being dragged along by reactionary currents was further demonstrated by the publication of "anti-Zionist" tracts and not least by extracts from the book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy, by the bourgeois political scientist Kelly M Greenhill. Greenhill's concoction is a best-seller on the racist scene and is frenetically celebrated on their publications and internet forums. This is not just down to the martial title, which spins refugees into "weapons" against the receiving countries and is therefore ideal for stirring up racial resentment. Greenhill's thesis of a "constructed migration", through which certain states are deliberately blackmailed or undermined through migration policies, offers racist discourse a point of attack to spin the capitalist reasons for people fleeing or being driven out as a conspiracy. For example, "In reality, the wave of migration into Germany and Europe is probably no accident, but a deliberate attack. The targets are Europe's old cultures", as an enthusiastic reviewer summed up Kelly Greenhill's theses on the web site of the right-wing and esoteric Kopp publisher, which is also responsible for the German publication and marketing of Greenhill's book. By garnishing this reactionary mixture with a GIS text on the genocide against the Armenians, the Engymo magazine carried out a deliberate work of amalgamation, an extremely transparent attempt to give the entire project at least a progressive veneer and to make a pretence at a capacity for political discourse. We can't stop our texts from being published without our knowledge or agreement elsewhere and with distorted aims. What we can (and must) do is draw a clear line of division. There is no place in the internationalist milieu of the Communist Left for homophobia, nationalism and racism, and especially not for people who cooperate with anti-semitic forces and further spread their reactionary world views! By their political actions, the so-called "IC" has not just crossed class lines, but, finally, also the Rubicon of intellectual competency. That the grandiloquent name "Internationalist Comrades" is not just a masquerade, but contains a double lie should have become sufficiently clear.

Postscript: when the masks all fall!

The text above originally set itself the task of pointing out the so-called "IC's" reactionary entanglements and why we see ourselves forced to end all connection with this group. However, just before publication, we received a letter from Athens which left no doubt about their reactionary world-view. What sprang out in this greeting sent just before Halloween was the nationalist grimace of a clown from a horror film. It simply bristled with the distortion of the simplest facts, stupid arrogance and, most of all, sheer nationalism! The central point of the communication is that they, on "ideological grounds", can no longer work with the ICT and have to break all connection with us. In this point alone, we can, with some relief, agree. As justification, the "IC" cite, amongst other things, the ICT's "Cominternism", by which they obviously mean our continual demands for a minimum of political coherence. As an "ideological difference", the ICT's position on migration and the vindication of "universal human rights" was named. In addition, the ICT has the devilish aim of doing away with the nation. But let’s keep things in their proper order. The so-called "IC" date the origins of the "ideological differences" to the discussion of the Statement on the "refugee crisis" which "the countries of Europe, but, above all, Greece, would experience", and to our letter of May 2016 in which we weighed up this debate. In the words of the so-called "your statement on the refugee crisis corresponds to the open borders policy which the SYRIZA government in Greece is implementing, as a reaction to Merkel's 'humanitarian appeal', which, on the proposal of German industrialists, allows a million cheap units of labour-power into the country" [27]. This is a bizarre way of reading it. We wouldn’t know how to find a demand we have made for deportation camps or a brutal state process like in Idomeni, or for an "orderly" — that is, according to capitalist standards — immigration. Once again, as a reminder, in our Statement we wrote: "By contrast it is true that most representatives of the capitalist left appear cosmopolitan and humanitarian, but this is more than dishonest and hypocritical. So, for example, the SYRIZA government in Greece does nothing to help the refugees, but actively supports Frontex policies. Tsipras personally took part in the annual manoeuvres at the Turkish border to loudly proclaim that Europe's borders are secure"[28] But what do the so-called "IG" have to say about the misery and the SYRIZA government's brutal actions against the refugees at Idomeni? Nothing! Their silence over the repression against the migrants and the miserable situation of the "million units of cheap labour power" was in our eyes a repulsive betrayal of the principles of internationalism. But the suspicion that the "IG's" problem with this "million units of cheap labour power" was just that they were let into the country increasingly impressed itself on us. In addition, those who interpret Merkel's refugee policy as "humanitarian" or trace it back to the proposal of a "few German industrialists", have understood nothing except racist conspiracy theories. This is exactly the viewpoint of PEGIDA and all those "conformist rebels" for whom racism and oppression of the migrant part of the proletariat can never be hard enough.

Social chauvinism...

"The post-modern liberal and multicultural system", "liberal mass democratism", "dogmatic concepts of human rights", "the totalitarianism of individual rights" and "the destruction of collective social identities through individualism" read the slogans with which the so-called "IC" stutteringly support their reactionary worldview. Greece, which the home-loving "Internationalists" continually describe as "our country", is first in line for all this, of course. It is supposedly threatened by "international credit sharks", "open borders" and the "millions of cheap labour power units" that will be let into the country. This method of approach carries the classical marks of social chauvinism, which Lenin characterised in his polemic against Kautsky: "If a German under Wilhelm or a Frenchman under Clemenceau says, “It is my right and duty as a socialist to defend my country if it is invaded by an enemy”, he argues not like a socialist, not like an internationalist, not like a revolutionary proletarian, but like a petty-bourgeois nationalist. Because this argument ignores the revolutionary class struggle of the workers against capital, it ignores the appraisal of the war as a whole from the point of view of the world bourgeoisie and the world proletariat, that is, it ignores internationalism, and all that remains is miserable and narrow-minded nationalism. My country is being wronged, that is all I care about—that is what this argument amounts to, and that is where its petty-bourgeois, nationalist narrow-mindedness lies. [...].The Frenchman, German or Italian who says: “Socialism is opposed to violence against nations, therefore I defend myself when my country is invaded”, betrays socialism and internationalism, because such a man sees only his own “country”, he puts “his own” bourgeoisie above everything else and does not give a thought to the international connections which make the war an imperialist war and his bourgeoisie a link in the chain of imperialist plunder. [29]

A Nationalist Delusion

Kautsky was undoubtedly a renegade, swimming against the tide but unlike the so-called IC still a somewhat satisfying opponent. In order to reach our goal of “abolishing the nation state” we should take Toni Negri’s demand for universal citizenship on board to show us the way. After all, the latter was also a “left-wing, fervent supporter of global nomadism”. Our politics is allegedly only a copy of that of "the humanist and friend of immigrants George Soros", which is sprinkled with "revolutionary phraseology". Whom, as a Jew of course, must be profoundly hated by the so-called “IC”. The Speculator and Philantrophist (Thierry Meyssan [30]) George Soros, is known to be, by those who indulge in conspiracy theories, an especially dangerous exponent of, in their eyes, parasitic and nomadic capital and is condemned as the head of a worldwide conspiracy responsible for every misfortune, as well as the refugee crisis. But now we feel really cornered. The "fact" that communists have been involved in the “Jewish world conspiracy”, "camouflaging it with revolutionary phraseology", has been known since the publication of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" by every semi-educated anti-Semite from Aalborg to Athens. For this reason, the so-called "IC" obviously also feel obliged to inform us unequivocally that they "do not intend to allow" that "Greece becomes a transit centre, a warehouse of souls, a sorting camp of cheap labour ... for the slave markets of Europe." That the fate of these slaves passed the so-called "IC" completely by has already been established. On the basis of the findings of a certain Kelly M. Greenhill published by them, these slaves are primarily perceived as a threat or a "mass immigration weapon" against "their people". This contempt for human beings borders on the fascist, when they go on to explain. "... we do not want our people to suffer the same fate as the Palestinians, and like foreigners, be enslaved in their own country". One's own "people" is a central point of reference in the world view of the IC: "If the stupid, mass-democratic, individualistic and pleasure-seeking masses of "civilized" Europe want the abolition of their nations in the name of postmodern multiculturalism, we cannot do anything about it." It must really be the worst thing in the life of a nationalist when the "stupid masses" run the risk of "pleasure seeking" because they are so little attracted to the patriarchal charm of the small family, the sadness of the autochthon, the traditionally grown "social identities", as they are to ethnic separation along folk dance groups! But there is still one's own fatherland and people. The concern is as great as the hatred of communists and international powers: "If you want the dissolution of your people, you can start with your own and we are sure that you will find good allies in the leading circles of the ruling class." What kind of ruling circles can they be? Thierry Meyssan will surely have the right anti-semitic explanatory model in stock. As far as the abolition of nations is concerned, we can assure the IC: We will do our best! Our “Cominternism” obliges us to pursue organised treason and revolutionary defeatism! On the other hand, the so-called "IC" once again emphasise their willingness to defend their fatherland: “Because we are not SYRIZA, we will resist the total destruction of our country, the dissolution of our people and the abolition of our culture. We will not be the Palestinians of Europe.” [31] Oh, always SYRIZA! Sometimes for it, sometimes against it, sometimes bourgeois sometimes not. In this case, against it, because they imagine themselves to be more patriotic and ready for anything in the struggle for "people and country". The diction of the so-called "IC" is not reminiscent of speeches which were held in the Reichsportpalast in Berlin in 1943 by accident. Nothing frightens nationalists more than being on the road to lose their hallucinatory “national collective", which for them is both the meaning and purpose of life. They explain the possible failure of their nation by the intervention of dark powers. The analysis of complex relationships is not their thing. Standing up for the oppressed does not come into their mind, for they can only perceive themselves as being oppressed. They fear being dominated just as they ask and long for it as a natural given order, as a "collective social identity". The anti-Semitic compulsive character suffers from many fears and neuroses. Above all, they do not want to become "Palestinians".

Revolution Without Destroying the Nation State is Counter-revolution

The essential feature of the fascist programme was to grasp the concepts of the left, to distort them, to reverse them, and to make them useful as phrases for their own purposes. "How can you be a socialist and not an anti-Semite?" asked Adolf Hitler [32], and the so-called "IC" are also dab hands at this demagogy. "How can there be an inter-nationalism without nations? Nowhere in the revolutionary tradition is there anything like that" they bark falsely at us. Completely wrong! The working class has no fatherland! This was always the guideline of internationalist forces in their struggle against every nationalist movement and every form of the defence of the Nation state. For socialism, “there is no obligation to make an organic link with the carcass of the bourgeois world and its historical future," said Left Communist Arthur Goldstein [33] to the nationalist activists around Wolfheim and Laufenberg in the KAPD, who, just like the activities of the so-called "IC" aimed to create maximum confusion. "Socialism," continues Goldstein, "is not only the antithesis to the bourgeois world of ideas, but can only be realised over the grave of the bourgeois world. Socialism is the construction of an absolutely new world. Therefore, the bourgeois concept of the nation loses all meaning and content […] After all, socialism only begins where the nation ends. […] When has the Marxist conception of history, whose theoretical point of departure is anything but the ‘basic concept of the nation’, ever proclaimed the federation of nations to be the final goal of socialism? Nationalism is an affair of the bourgeois world[…] Socialism will have other things to do than patch up an organism which, ideologically, only vegetates as an historical atavism and, by its apparent existence, damages the world of proletarian thought in a socially dangerous fashion.“ [34] The Greek revolutionist Agis Stinas [35], who under most difficult conditions, defended internationalist positions against the delusions of the defence of the Fatherland, expressed this idea as follows: "The nation, like the tribe, the family, the city, is a product of history. It fulfils a historical necessity and must disappear as soon as it becomes outmoded. The class which produces the social organisation of the nation is the bourgeoisie. The nation state coincides with the state of the bourgeoisie; Historically speaking, the progressive task of the nation is combined with that of capitalism in order to create the material conditions for socialism through the development of the productive forces. This historically progressive work of capitalism comes to an end with the epoch of imperialism, with the great imperialist powers and their antagonisms and wars. The nation had fulfilled its historic mission. From now on, national liberation wars and bourgeois-democratic revolutions made no sense. The proletarian revolution is on the agenda. This does not create or protect nations and borders, but destroys them and unites all the people of the world in a worldwide community. The defence of the nation and of the fatherland in our era is nothing other than the defence of imperialism, the social system that provokes wars, which cannot live without wars, and which leads mankind into chaos and barbarism. This applies both to the great imperialist powers and to the smaller nations, whose ruling classes can appear as accomplices and allies of the great powers."[36] This fundamental idea of Marxism is, of course, distasteful to the so-called "IC". "We cannot say that we are internationalists and at the same time for the abolition of nations" they wail again. We can only answer that: Do not even try it! We know your demagogic game and your reactionary entanglements. We will continue to fight your nationalism to the very end. For the internationalist perspective is diametrically opposed to yours. The ICT has never made a secret of this.

"While previous revolutions replaced only one form of exploitation by another, the communist revolution will be the first to abolish any exploitation and oppression. As the only creator of social wealth, the class of workers can only free itself by abolishing all classes. Communism will destroy the capitalist state and put an end to all national borders. It will overcome money, job work and product production. Communism means the abolition of the power of authority over the means of production by a special class. Therefore, communism is equal with the liberation of the working class from all forms of exploitation. This liberation can only be the work of the working class itself." [37]

GIS

November 2016

Footnotes

[1] Cit. after: Albrecht Tyrell: Gottfried Federer – Der gescheiterte Programmatiker (Gottfried Federer — The Failed Manifesto-writer). In: Ronald Smelser and. Rainer Zitelmann (editors): Die braune Elite. 22 biographische Skizzen (The Brown Elite. 22 Biographic Sketches), Darmstadt 1989, p.30.

[2] Crisis, War and Migration: Capitalism’s Real “Hunger Games” leftcom.org

[3] For Communism, leftcom.org

[4] IB of the ICT: To the Internationalist Comrades (Greece), 2.5.2016

[5] About the Network: voltairenet.org

[6] Nur ein Beispiel dafür: voltairenet.org

[7] Particularly known for the song "Shoananas" which mocked the victims of the Shoa. Thierry Meyssan and the "Voltaire Network", who work with Dieudonné (see voltairenet.org), defended him emphatically against the "dark powers" of the Jewish World Congress amongst other things

[8] Alain Soral was originally in the Communist Party, and then made his mark with the anti-femistisch essay "Vers la féminisation" while on the periphery of the "Front National". In 2007 he founded the fascist group "Egalité et Réconcilation". It has close connections to the "Voltaire Network"

[9] Trip to Beirut: hagalil.com

[10] Pierre Krebs began his career in the Rassemblement Européen de la Liberté(REL). Later he was active in the "Mouvement Nationaliste du Progrès". In 1980 he founded the _“Thule Seminar“_ as a fascist cadre training unit. The name harks back to the "Thule-Gesellschaft", the germ cell of the NSDAP. He is also the leading member of the Nazi sect "Artgemeinschaft – Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft wesensgemäßer Lebensgestaltung" ["Community of our kind – the Germanic faith community for a way of life suited to our essence"]

[11] Operation Sarkozy: voltairenet.org

[12] See voltairenet.org

[13] For background, see "Giftige Gerüchte" ["Poisonous Rumours"] at juedische-allgemeine.de

[14] His hate-speeches can be examined here, for example: egaliteetreconciliation.fr

[15] Thierry Meyssan, "Die Blindheit der Europäischen Union gegenüber der Militärstrategie der USA" ["The EU's blindness with regard to the USA’s military strategy"] on voltairenet.org

[16] Peacetime Policy Report from the US Military Region Kaiserslautern/Ramstein LP 004/16 – 08.01.16; mda.mil

[17] egaliteetreconciliation.fr

[18] linkezeitung.de

[19] compact-shop.de

[20] In the run-up to the event, "Compact’s" Chief Editor Jürgen Elsässer explained to the nationalist journal "Novorussia Today": "There are very interesting people on the guest list and this shows the willingness of the organisers to achieve global dissemination and build a World network: Ron Paul (USA, Republican), Professor Dr. Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, Rolf Hochhuth, Philip Kiril Prinz von Preußen, Götz Kubitschek (Sezession), Annie Machon (ex-MI5 Agent), Wolfgang Effenberger, Andreas von Bülow (SPD), Natalia Narotchnitskaya and John Laughland are coming to Berlin. We also plan to bring Björn Höcke and Thierry Meyssan. The Conferences for Sovereignty are an event on the political landscape. Politicians from France, Russia and the people are coming to these meetings. There, a new face of Germany and Europe will be shown. Simply a place of resistance!" See: novorossia.today

[21] A report on the Conference can be found here: confusionnisme.info

[22] juergenelsaesser.wordpress.com

[23] Jürgen Elässer was originally in the Maoist Kommunistischen Bund and then became the long-term leading windbag of the so-called "Antideutschen" ["Anti-Germans"]. Via an abstruse critique of "international finance capital", he came to increasingly National-Bolshevik and openly reactionary positions

[24] See the interview with Jürgen Elsässer by Silvia Cattori: voltairenet.org

[25] This can be seen here, voltairenet.org, for example

[26] Her website silviacattori.net contains a collection of the most repulsive texts. Her "Antizionismus", for example, can be viewed here: muslim-markt.de

[27] IC: To the IB of the ICT, Athens, 16th. October 2016

[28] Crisis, War and Migration: Capitalism’s Real “Hunger Games” leftcom.org

[29] V.I. Lenin, Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

[30] Meyssan expressed himself in this way here: voltairenet.org, for example

[31] All quotes from the letter: To the IB of the ICT, Athens 2016

[32] Hitler made this response in 1920 when his keynote speech on anti-Semitism, in which he described Jews as "nomads" amongst other things, was interrupter by a heckler who asked "How can you, as a socialist, be anti-Semitic? Aren't you ashamed?" This speech is documented by the "Institut für Zeitgeschichte München": ifz-muenchen.de

[33] Arthur Goldstein was born in 1887 in Lipny (Lipine) in Silesia. He joined the SPD (German Social Democrats) in 1914, then the USPD (Independent SPD, a split to the left) and finally the Spartacus League (the major component group of the German Communist Party, KPD) and/or the KPD. Together with Herman Gorter he composed the draft programme of the KAPD (Kommunistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands — Communist Workers' Party of Germany) and was part of its leadership. Later, he was active in the council-communist group "Rote Kämpfer" (Red Fighters), which was brought into being in 1931/32 by former members of the so-called "Essen Direction" of the KAPD. After the Nazis' seizure of power, he organised the overseas leadership of the "Roten Kämpfer" from his Paris exile. He was arrested by the SS during the German occupation, and deported to Auschwitz in 1943, where he was murdered.

[34] Arthur Goldstein: Nation und Internationale: left-dis.nl

[35] Agis Stinas belonge to that generation of internationalist activists who were politicised by the October Revolution and the worldwide revolutionary wave. He was an early member of the Communist Party and fought as a left oppositionist against the Party’s Stalinisation. After his expulsion from the Party in 1931, he participated in the formation of KDEE (International Communist Union), one of the few revolutionary groups which, in the midst of the Second World War’s Imperialist massacre, defended internationalist positions without compromise. It took a lot of luck, but Stinas succeeded in surviving fascist repression and Stalinist persecution. Even if he withdrew from organised political activity towards the end of his life, he remained an irreconcilable opponent of capitalism. When the Social Democrat Papandreou offered him the prospect of a victims‘ pension because of the many years spent in prisons, camps, illegality and exile, he rejected it with the words: " Revolt is a duty, not a job"

[36] Agis Stinas: Marxism and the Nation: de.internationalism.org

[37] For Communism, leftcom.org