Peace and Socialism

From a lecture to the Eurica Institute, Tehran, December 31, 2017.

To better understand the threat that Zionism poses to the world, and especially Iran, allow me to turn to a historical analogy. The scenario is eerily reminiscent of the late-1930s, as the earlier aggressive, racist state, Nazi Germany, was allowed to pursue its selfish, warlike agenda against its peaceful neighbors, despite its agenda of world war. The actors in that drama were Nazi Germany versus the Soviet Union, the latter being the only credible peaceful resistance to fascism. Britain, France, and the US refused to stand up to the threat to peace, mistaking the Soviet Union for the enemy, despite it being the only credible resistance to the Nazis.

In today’s drama, the bad guys are US-Israel-Saudi against the only credible peaceful actor: Iran. In the 1930s the perceived threat was the “specter of communism” haunting Europe. Today the perceived threat is the “specter of Islam,” now reduced to Iran, as the only anti-imperialist Muslim state. Terrorism then was seen to be communism, though the Soviet Union was peaceful.



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Very simply, the demonstrations erupted after price increases. It is hard to live with unremitting foreign hostility, as the socialist bloc learned, with only tiny Cuba surviving the Cold War. Venezuela dared to buck the neoliberal order and has suffered terribly. The current unrest can be laid at imperialism’s feet.


An outbreak of bird flu in Iran was a kind of finishing touch, as egg prices jumped 30%. Turkey rushed truckloads of eggs to the rescue, but Nature had done its work. Another spark was an increase in the price of gas. Since the demos began, parliament has addressed the problems and adjusted prices, though clearly the issue will not go away.

I was the guest of Tehran-based  New Horizon, holding book launches of The Canada Israel Nexus in the Persian translation in Tehran, Qom and Esfahan, as rumours from BBC et al filtered through. My hosts Reza Montazami and Hamed Ghashghavi were furious at the distortion of actual events. “They used old stock footage of past demos not even from the same town,” Hamed fumed.

Imagine waking up to the shock, the excitement of the new Germany in 1933, when Hitler became chancellor. An earthshaking moment, promising a new Germany, for Germans. Overnight, the new flag is raised everywhere, children don uniforms, fascist supporters face off against the communists and social democrats.

When Trump sailed to victory in November 2017, there was a similar sense of a new US, now led by a populist man-of-the-people, the little guy’s hero, fighting the good fight. American for Americans. A paradigm shift.

In both cases, the left was split and unable to fight the right wing but supposedly populist agenda of the two outsiders. In Germany, the powerful communist party, the KPD, was pushed by Moscow to break with the social democrats, in 1928 considered more dangerous than the fascists. So communist workers were supposed to abandon their unions and form new ones with the correct line. The sensible communists formed a new party. The rest is history.

Interview on TRT Turkish TV news program Strait Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOIiAX5AhpA

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Canadian Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and Cambridge in economics, he has been writing on East-West relations since the 1980s.

He has lived in both the Soviet Union and Russia, and then Uzbekistan, as a UN adviser, writer, translator and lecturer. Presently a writer for the foremost Cairo newspaper, Al Ahram, he is also a regular contributor to Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Al-Jazeerah and Turkish Weekly, and is a commentator on Voice of the Cape radio.

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Eric's latest book The Canada Israel Nexus is available here http://www.claritypress.com/WalbergIV.html