Why Have Opec Leaders Spurred on Capitalist Crisis?

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Police in action in Leicester on April 21 .

Last week some of the world's most reactionary leaders got together in two summit meetings.

One was the Geneva meeting of ministers from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), where feudal sheikhs and military dictators agreed an average price increase of 15% on crude oil.

And the other was the Tokyo summit of the seven leading imperialist heads of state, where ludicrous and un convincing ettorts were made to create the impression that capitalism could plan an answer to the oil crisis through common consent.

The imperialists' common determination to foist the effects of the oil crisis onto the working class and the workers and peasants of the colonial and semi-colonial countries is of course no surprise.

But what is less obvious is why the reactionary oil statesmany of which, especially Saudi Arabia, are dependent upon imperialist military and political support-should have embarked nn a new round of brice increases that can only hasten the coming world slump and further weaken imperialism.

The fact is that their domestic strategy for countering the growing anti imperialist movements in their own countries depends upon a shrewd use of oil revenue both for the bolstering of state repression and for cosmetic schemes designed to provide marginal economic reforms and employment for increasingly restive workers and peasants at home.

Iranian oil worker The acute problems of such a strategy under conditions of runaway inflation in the capitalist world economy were high. lighted by the mounting crisis of the Shah's regime in Iran.

Spending oil revenues like water. the Shah attempted a simultaneous strategy of fostering domestic technology and industry and the construction of a massive and lethal military and police machine capable he hoped, of repressing revolutionary movements not only in Iran but throughout the Gulf.

Instability

The huge strains this created within the economy of even the world's second largest oil exporting country were fundamental root causes of the growing mass movement that led to his violent overthrow earlier this year.

And the new instability of the area, the economic political and military blows the Iranian revolutión struck against imperialism, have forced the other Middle East oil states to look to their own domestic problems Even Western estimates show that, in the years 1974-78, the price of oil rose by only 16%, while the price of goods imported to the oil states from Western manufacturers-and essential both for "defence" and for modernisation projectsrose by 50%. OPEC economists claim that the real increase was tar more than this.

Thus the real value of oil revenues fell dramatically in those four years-while Western With the jailing of a second anti-racist by Leicester magistrates in cases arising from the demonstration against the National the labour movement Saudi Prince Fahd capitalist oil monopolies cashed in profitably on an abundant oil supply, which kept crude oil prices depressed.

The upheavals in Iran underlined the impossibility of the regimes in the oil states continuing effectively to subsidise Western capitalism at the expense of their own political stability. At the same time the three month stoppage in ship ments from Iran dramatically reversed the world supply situa tion from surplus to shortage, creating conditions for price increases.

And the emergence of the fiercely nationalist slamic regime in Iran, dedicated both to conserving oil supplies and driving up its price, and spouting anti-imperialist rhetoric that found a ready response among the masses of the Middle East, has created. new conditions within OPEC.

Indeed the Arab regimes have been under intensified pressure to show an anti-imperialist face in the wake of the reactionary US-financed "peace" deal between Egypt and the Zionist state which confirms the dispossession of the Palestinian masses and further strengthens the Zionist aggressors.

World crisis

Under these political conditions even the Saudi Arabian feudal regime, one of the closest to US imperialism, and itself holding a quarter of the world's proven reserves of oil. has been forced to go along with the latest round of price increases.

The Saudis feel unable either to 'go it alone' and massively increase supplies to the Western countries, or unilateraily to hold down their own prices.

The actions of these oil producers are therefore both a part of and a response to the growing world crisis of imperial. ism.

The OPEC price rises and the resulting inflation and plunging living standards will now spur on the headlong rush towards world recession: such a recession will of course itself cut back demand for oil.

But the political and economic pressures within the oil states will also intensify-and are unlikely to allow even the most craven reactionary regimes leeway to make concessions.

Within the capitalist coun tries themselves, of course, workers face not simply the effects of the OPEC increases but the speculation, manipulation and profiteering of the oil monopolies that have compoun. ded the crisis and created selective "shortages" as a pretext for maximising prices.

This, on top of the Tories' taxation policies has effectively doubled petrol prices in Britain in the last few months-while OPEC prices have risen only by 50%.

But it is wrong to dismiss the whole oil crisis as simply a "plot" by the oil monopolies or a fabrication by the capitalist press.

Capitalist leaders Schmidt None of this was apparently considered threatening behaviour even after the clubbing to death of Blair Peach by this same armed mob in Southall.

And lest there were any lingering doubt that this attack was directed specifically against the working class, both the chief victims of this vicious law of the Torv iunale Hemminne and Hughes, were young workers: whilst throughout the trials there has been a steady stream of acquittals involving students, drawn from the middle class.

This is no reflection on the determination of students to fight racism and the Tories, but rather a reflection of. the real hatred felt by the ruling class for working class militants, particularly the youth.

In this situation with the police and. SPG increasingly taking on the role of paraThe iranian events have simply brought rroward the oil shortage that was in any event expected to occur in the mid 1980s.

As such they have highlighted the anarchic and destructive nature of the capitalist system.

Planned economy

The capitalists now prattle about "going nuclear and crash research into solar energy.

But it is clear that the only way in which the world's working class can avoid a savage recession--throwing further millions into unemployment and poverty and posing the threat of imperialist war-is through the struggle in every country for the building of a revolutionary leadership that will fight for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a workers' government.

Only such a government, based on the development of a socialist planned economy can take the necessary steps to conserve and plan the use of energy, assist revolutionary movements in the Middle East and else• where and seek out trading relations on equal terms with ex-colonial countries that can provide the basis for defending and improving the living standards of the world's working class. d Ohira, forced to pay more military strike breakers and goon squads it is vital that the question of labour movement defence against these attacks is openly debated The Leicester April 21 Defence Committee is absolutely correct to see the central fight now as not just a financial one, but as a political one, to win labour movement support.

Their decision to call for a demonstration on July 21 around the slogans "Drop the Charges-Disband the SPG" must be supported by all trade unionists and Labour Party members who wish to defend the independence of the labour movement.

But for such a campaign to succeed, it needs to draw in not just individual militants, but must also be directed towards settling accounts with the right wing labour leadership who played nursemaid to the infant SPG and towards compelling the trade union leadership and the recently vocal lefts' around Benn, to make a stand.

For this reason, the call from the Defence Committee for Arthur Scargill to align himself with the demonstration and speak from the platform in solidarity with his jailed fellow Yorks miner Martin Hughes must be echoed throughout the labour movement and particularly in the coalfields.

Scargill, who overruled even NUM legal assistance to Hughes must be pressed to actually mobilise the strength of the miners' union around the defence of the Leicester 87.

This was the lesson of the Pentonville 5 and Scargill, Benn and all the other 'lefts' know it only too well.

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