Supplemental Resolution on Libya
Adopted by HWRS January 15, 2012
[Editor's Note: For our earlier statement on the Libyan revolution, click here.]
1. The civil war in Libya that culminated in the overthrow of Gaddafi started as a popular uprising – a straightforward revolution against a brutal dictatorship – with only two sides to the conflict. But once the imperialists (in the form of NATO) intervened on behalf on the TNC, the nature of the civil war became much more complicated. In order to develop the correct tactics, revolutionaries need to understand that once the NATO bombing started, there were actually two wars going on in Libya simultaneously.
The first was the original popular uprising. The consciousness that drove the revolt was not socialist working class consciousness, and despite incipient neighborhood committees and the emergence of hundreds of small local fighting units, the uprising was predominantly tribal, local, and cross-class, rather than being the mobilization of a self-conscious independent working class. Nonetheless, the uprising remained totally supportable, even after the NATO bombing began, since it was part of the Arab democratic revolution. Indeed, the courage of the masses and their acquisition and use of arms was an example and an inspiration for the masses in countries like Yemen and Egypt to follow. The uprising in Syria was greatly encouraged by the example in Libya.
The nature of the second war was profoundly different. It was, in essence, a dispute between imperialist rivals over oil. Libyan oil is of extremely high quality, so it is highly desired. This is one of the reasons that France, for example, was so eager to get a lot of it that it led the assault on Gaddafi. A competing imperialist faction, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), consisting of Russia and China sought to preserve their own access to Libyan oil (possibly with the tacit support of Germany) by siding with and arming Gaddafi behind the West’s back, counting on Gaddafi’s victory – a move that proved to be a miscalculation.
When Western imperialism turned against Gaddafi, he realigned himself with this Chinese and Russian bloc in a desperate attempt to survive. At the same time, the TNC and the militia leaders aligned themselves with Western imperialism, acting as its proxy army and coordinating all their assaults on Gaddafi’s forces with NATO’s air attacks. Thus, in this inter-imperialist conflict, the TNC and the militia officers become a proxy army for Western imperialism, whereas the forces loyal to Gaddafi became a proxy army for its Chinese and Russian rivals.
In a dispute between imperialist blocs, communists do not take sides. Nor do we believe that a victory by one is preferable to a victory by the other. Instead, if the popular insurrection had been better and more generally prepared, under the leadership of a revolutionary party, we would have called upon the Libyan people to reject and rebuff the imperialists’ “assistance” (in the form of NATO airstrikes), as many in Benghazi and elsewhere tried to insist.
2. During the early stages of the inter-imperialist phase of the war, when NATO had just started to bomb Libya, it would have been suicide for the forces of the popular uprising to fight against both Gaddafi’s army and Western imperialism simultaneously. So during that period, while communists would have continued to put forward our anti-imperialist and transitional demands, on a military level we would have supported the militias in putting their emphasis on defeating Gaddafi and his loyalists.
At the same time, it was our revolutionary duty to tell the militias’ rank-and-file that as soon as the militias finished with Gaddafi, it would be necessary to turn their guns on the TNC, because of its alliance with imperialism. It was necessary to make clear to the masses that unless the TNC’s Western imperialist backers were defeated, the victory of the popular uprising against Gaddafi would come to naught, because Western imperialism would take over all the oil fields and re-enslave the masses to imperialism. In other words, every bit of the “assistance” the uprising received from NATO was delivered for the purpose of heading off and interdicting the people’s democratic aspirations. Never was it truer than in Libya’s recent history to say that the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend. This was confirmed at the end of the civil war. While the guns were still warm from fighting Gaddafi, the TNC gave many oil companies access to Libya, and oil production started to roll again, mostly for the benefit of American and European companies.
3. At some point toward the end of the war, after Gaddafi’s army had largely been routed and was confined to Gaddafi’s “home town” (the city of Sirte and its immediate environs), the military situation no longer required the popular forces to hold back from an active military struggle against Western imperialism (as represented by NATO) and its TNC allies. By then, victory against Gaddafi had essentially been secured. In addition, by then the militias of the popular uprising had at their disposal a wide range of arms and munitions seized from the retreating Gaddafi loyalists. This situation gave rise to an opportunity – and a pressing necessity – to stop the TNC and its imperialist allies from taking control of Libya’s oil resources in order to put them at the disposal of Western imperialism.
At that juncture, the exact timing of which is a matter of military tactics that cannot be determined with precision from a distance, the duty of revolutionaries was to agitate for transforming the civil war against Gaddafi (which had practically already been won) into a civil war against the TNC and its pro-imperialist supporters. Revolutionaries should have urged the fighters allied with the masses and the working class to recognize the still-present menace to the revolution posed by the TNC, poised to become imperialism’s new broker of the poverty and exploitation of the Libyan masses. Thus, as soon as it was militarily feasible, the militias should have begun to employ their arms and armaments in an all-out effort to deny power to the stooges of all imperialisms, Western and Eastern alike.
4. A military struggle by the masses against the TNC at this latter stage was not an impossible task. To begin with, the TNC had support only in the eastern part of Libya, around Benghazi. It was (and is) hated in the rest of Libya. If the militias that were politically independent from the TNC had seized the oil fields as soon as they were militarily able to do so, after Gaddafi’s forces were largely routed, they could have been in a position to rally the workers, form additional workers’ militias, and wage a struggle to prevent the TNC from taking power.
Even now, the militias remain well-equipped with munitions captured from Gaddafi’s forces. Meanwhile, NATO air strikes have ceased, and the TNC has not been able to put together a “national” army capable of disarming the regional and tribal militias. The present “national” army of Libya consists of soldiers from the Benghazi region, who are currently engaged in frequent skirmishes against militias from the mountain regions in the western part of Libya. In fact, the “national” army has proven to be a joke. For example, the western mountain militia that controls Tripoli and its airport captured the national army chief as he was trying to speed past their checkpoint. They let him go on the condition that he promise to be a “good boy” and not interfere with their control of the airport.
Because the militias are still armed and active, the historic opportunity for the Libyan masses is not over even now. But time is running out. NATO was supposed to have cleared out militarily by now, but late in 2011 the U.N. extended its “mission mandate” (giving legal and propagandistic cover to imperialist intervention) for another 3 months! Thus, it is imperative for the independent forces of workers and their allies to act as soon as possible to organize supra-tribal militia forces; revive the neighborhood councils and establish them as the sole local authorities; and link those councils and militias, together with other independent organs of workers’ power, to fight nationwide against the TNC and seize state power. Intertribal bloodshed over crumbs from the imperialists’ table is no way to develop Libya’s economy, safeguard its workers from oppression, or honor those who died fighting the more obvious of the two equal enemies of the Libyan masses!
5. The problem in Libya is that because there is no revolutionary party to unite the masses against the TNC and imperialism, what is happening instead is fighting among the militias based on tribal loyalties. A revolutionary party would agitate against inter-tribal conflict, and instead fight for unity based on a class line under the leadership of the diverse proletariat in the oil industry. The party would also fight to integrate all workers, including foreign workers imported to serve in the oilfields, into a unified network of militant unions that is committed to supporting the unified mass workers’ movement.
Unfortunately, there is no such party in Libya. Nor does it appear that there is even any Bolshevik-type nucleus of internationalist communists among the Libyan exile community, even in Europe, where militant struggle was not unknown during the 40-odd years of the Gaddafi dictatorship. This is chiefly because of the muddleheaded petty-bougeois leaderships of the main left-wing tendencies in Europe. They fostered nothing like an adequate revolutionary leadership, and indeed did not want one, preferring to believe that the “Arab Nationalism” of Ghaddafi, whom they saw as a second edition of Gamal Nasser, was objectively an advance toward socialism and even in some way a form of workers’ state.
As revolutionary socialists, our slogans should be:
Down with the TNC, the unelected puppet regime that serves the interests of imperialism and facilitates its plunder of Libyan oil!
For the revolution to advance, the TNC and its power must be quickly and forcibly suppressed!
Expel all imperialist oil companies from Libya!
Unite the militias and the oppressed, under the leadership of the oil workers and the urban proletariat, against imperialism and its puppet capitalist regime!
Expropriate the oil industries under workers’ control without compensation!
For workers’ and soldiers’ councils, with representatives from every militia, workplace and neighborhood, to stop inter-tribal fighting and direct the masses’ united fire against the enemies of all: the TNC and imperialism!
Libyans, take charge of your future and fashion the first workers’ republic in the region!
Let every conscious worker and champion of social justice everywhere join in solidarity with the Libyan revolution!
Victory to the Libyan proletariat, its youth and its oppressed allies!
Let the Libyan example inspire all the anti-imperialist fighters of the Middle East and North Africa, and all fighters for the survival of the planet and the human race!
For a world party of socialist revolution! For world socialism! For humanity to survive, imperialism must die!