“Omicron”: A Pretext for Exacerbated Attacks of the COVID Counterrevolution
Down with chauvinist travel bans against Southern African countries! No to Lockdowns and compulsory vaccination!
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT)
1. For a few days, bourgeois governments and their media are full of reports about a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus called “Omicron”. Without any scientific evidence, media all over the world have quickly started to spread panic. Stock markets fell sharply. Since the South African government was the first to report about the new variant, the media claim that this country is the originator of Omicron. As a result, imperialist governments have imposed travel bans and closed the borders for people from Southern Africa.
2. It is important to point out that such bans are not justified by scientific research as the South African Medical Association reports that the new virus variant, from what we know yet, results in mild disease without prominent syndromes.
3. Furthermore, there are strong indications that the ruling class are determined to exploit the emergence of Omicron as a pretext for accelerating the authoritarian capitalist pandemic policy which Marxists call the COVID Counterrevolution. The Austrian government announced in late November that it imposes a Lockdown for unvaccinated people and that it will introduce compulsory vaccination for the whole population. The Greek government decided to force unvaccinated people to pay a penalty of 100 Euro a month (with an average net wage of 1,100€)! Many other imperialist governments have already announced to follow this course. Today, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, announced that she wants to impose compulsory vaccination for the whole population in the European Union! In addition, governments are starting, once more, to impose general Lockdowns for the whole population.
4. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) warns that the ruling class all over the world is likely to exploit the emergence of Omicron as a pretext to open a new and more severe counterrevolutionary offensive. While they started this shift towards permanent Lockdowns for unvaccinated people (i.e. a kind of semi-house arrest) and compulsory vaccination already before anyone had heard about Omicron, there is no doubt that they will exploit the new virus variant as an excuse.
5. The RCIT has explained since the very beginning of the pandemic in February 2020 that the monopoly bourgeoisie is massively exaggerating the danger of the virus for the whole population despite the well-known fact that most victims are either above the age of 65 year or have pre-existing diseases. Contrary to the hypocritical phrases of bourgeois media, the historic attack on social and democratic rights, taking place since one and a half years, are not driven by health concerns but rather by political and economic interests of the ruling class. This is why the governments do not expand the public health sector but rather focus on expanding the police and surveillance state and increasing the profits of Big Pharma, Big Finance, Big Tech and Big Data.
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6. We strongly refute the lies of capitalist media that the unvaccinated are responsible for the continuing existence of the pandemic. It is scientifically proven that vaccinated people also spread the virus. Likewise, it is an established fact that vaccinated people constitute a significant part of those in hospitals as well as among the COVID death. It is telling that Europe is the continent with the highest share of vaccinated people (except Australia) … as well as the continent with the highest share of infected people! Even countries were nearly the whole adult population has been vaccinated (like Israel or Singapore) have seen a massive rise of infections in the recent past.
7. The RCIT warns that the capitalist governments seem to be determined to open a new phase of the COVID Counterrevolution. We see strong indications that they plan to radically accelerate their reactionary policy by creating an Apartheid system against unvaccinated people and by forcing millions of people to get vaccinated against their will. Statements like those of the German health minister Jens Spahn that all unvaccinated people will be dead by the end of winter reflect the lunatic bourgeois policy of scaremongering. The ruling class feels obliged to do so because it is quite aware of the fact that their policy faces widespread mistrust among the popular masses. Prof. Morten Sodemann, an adviser to the Danish government, admits that “many unvaccinated people do not mistrust the vaccination but our society.”
8. Let’s be clear: these anti-democratic attacks can only be implemented by a dramatic militarization of the COVID policy. It is symbolic that the head of the COVID crisis management team of the new German government (a coalition of the social democratic, green and liberal parties) is a major general of the army. We repeat: the ruling class can enforce its policy – getting large parts of the popular masses vaccinated against their will every few months (with vaccines resp. boosters which are obviously not very effective and long-lasting), controlling permanently the freedom of movement and the health status of the whole population, etc. – only via the vast expansion of the state repression apparatus. These developments confirm, once again, the analysis of the RCIT that the policy of the COVID Counterrevolution is characterized by chauvinist state bonapartism.
9. It is no accident that this turn towards intensification of the chauvinist state bonapartist policy take place at this moment. In the past few months, the capitalist world economy has headed towards a second slump. In addition, it is visible to everyone that the official narrative of the bourgeois COVID policy – people should get vaccinated and then the pandemic will be over – is collapsing like a house of cards. (It is the same with the lies about the utility of the Lockdowns.) Furthermore, we have seen another upswing of popular mass struggles and uprisings in the recent past. The whole situation bears strong similarities to spring 2020 when the ruling class was also faced with the Great Depression and a global wave of popular uprisings beginning in autumn 2019.
10. The RCIT strongly denounces the chauvinist travel ban against Southern African countries. We unconditionally oppose general Lockdowns, Lockdown for unvaccinated people as well as compulsory vaccination and support mass protests against these attacks. We strongly oppose the division of the workers and oppressed in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. We welcome the great popular uprisings of the masses in Martinique and Guadeloupe against compulsory vaccination and other attacks which forced the French government to make some concessions. We denounce the social-bonapartist left which acts as servants of the ruling class in supporting – directly or indirectly – the policy of Lockdowns and compulsory vaccination. We call all workers and popular organizations to join the mass protests and to fight for a socialist perspective. Such an intervention will also allow driving out any reactionary forces within such movements. Socialists call for the expropriation of the pharma corporations under workers control. Likewise, we demand the massive expansion of the public health sector under workers and popular control. Join the RCIT in fighting for such a perspective!