Lebanon - December 18th, 2021

Under the direct command of the IMF, the new government launches a…

Brutal attack of devaluation and increase
in the cost of living

A new government took office in Lebanon a few months ago. At the head of it, as Prime Minister, there’s Najib Mikati, a communication mogul multimillionaire of the Sunnite bourgeoisie. Together with him, there’s a cabinet in which the ministries are shared among the different bourgeois factions of Lebanon. That is to say, it is a national unity government, as established by the constitution, which even establishes that the Prime Minister must be Sunnite, the president must be Christian and the speaker of the parliament must be Shiite.

This government could be appointed after two years of political crisis caused by the revolutionary uprising of 2019 and the slogan “everyone means everyone”, holding accountable all the bourgeois fractions and their politicians for the economic crisis that was and still is underway in Lebanon.
This new government, as it was expected, started to launch attacks and adjustment plans on the masses. In late November, it removed the subsidies to fuel, which immediately led to an increase in the prices of basic food and medications.

This is not the first prices increase this year. Since 2019 prices don’t cease to increase due to a high devaluation and dollarized prices. In October that year, the dollar was pegged to 1500 Lebanese pounds and in one year and a half, when the aforementioned government took office, dollar was at 15,000 pounds. This was not all. Today, dollar reached 29,000 pounds. The only ones paying the devalution are the masses, which collect pounds to face the prices adjusted to the value of dollar. Inflation this year only was 173%. That’s why in Lebanon there is a third of the population that can only eat once a day and 80% has wages below the povertydatum line.

The new government brought adjustment, devaluation and increase in the cost of living with it, which put the Lebanese masses in an unbearable situation.These are the plans of attack and adjustment of the IMF. Lebanon is the third most indebted country in the planet, with a 170% debt over GDP, according to this year’s estimates. The IMF gave the order to cut subsidies, increase the fees, increase taxes, devaluate and make the masses bear with the crisis. Not only that, but also imposed as a condition for the negotiation of the debt to cut the state expenditure and budget, thus cutting incomes and business deals of the Shiite bourgeoisie and Hezbollah, which control the social plans, public works, infrastructure management and business alike, linked with the state.

The new government of Lebanon, a direct agent of the IMF

The Sunnite and Christian bourgeoisies took the lead in this new government as direct agents of imperialism and are decided to save the regime that was seriously wounded after the events of 2019. They want to rebuild the “Switzerland of Middle East” as they did at the end of the civil war in 1989-1991. But for this to happen, someone has to pay the crisis, not only the masses, but also a sector of the national Lebanese bourgeoisie, that is to say the Shiite sector, which will remain as a minority sector in businesses. The government of national unity of the bourgeoisies Sunnite, Christian and Shiite is still there, but with the Shiites subordinated to the other two. If this dark fate is what imperialism set for Hezbollah, a thousand times darker and more catastrophic is what it prepared for the workers and the people.
This is what imperialism with its agents want to impose in Lebanon. They have only started to take the first steps, but it’s not yet written that they will be able to do it. There are still battles ahead.

The last word has not been said

The Lebanese working class waged battle. The 2019 revolutionary uprising was huge. It even overthrew governments and caused a political crisis in Lebanon that only a few months ago was closed, as the struggle retreated. However, as power was not seized, it didn’t achieve victory. The regime of the banks, the transnational companies, the Shiite, Sunnite and Christian bourgeoisies regime endured. The defeat of Syria influenced and the leaderships acted in the Lebanese revolutionary uprising to leave the revolutionary energies of the masses in peaceful demonstrations that resulted impotent as they didn’t topple the regime and didn’t defeat the army that was in the streets. They, and the leaderships of the world working class that besieged and betrayed the revolutions in Maghreb and Middle East, are responsible for today we reach to this desperate situation in Lebanon, where imperialism and the bourgeoisie were reinforced and today they return with a double attack on the masses to leave them in barbarism.
The bourgeoisie wants the masses to pay the crisis when it led Lebanon to the catastrophe. Its model generated a huge debt, and to pay it, they took away the reserves and dollars. The Lebanese pound was left without backup and it devaluated to the high levels we mentioned before. In 2019, the government tried to get funds with taxes on the people and the revolutionary uprising was unleashed, which imposed the government a limit.

But today, in the face of the measures taken by the current government, the mass response still hasn’t arrived. Return to the 2019 path, this time to achieve victory!

To prevent the catastrophe, the Lebanese working class needs to stand up once again and fight with their brothers of the Palestinian resistance, the Syrian resistance against al-Assad, the Iranian workers that confront the Ayatollah, and the Sudanese masses that confront the coup.
Let the Lebanese government and the regime fall! Disarm Hezbollah and the officers caste, puppet of the imperialist powers!
Expropriate the Banks of Lebanon without compensation and place them under workers control to return the funds of the workers and the people and establish a single state bank!Expropriate the assets of the millionaire bourgeois politicians! Nationalize the foreign trade!
Sourcing committees to control the entire food and commodity marketing chain!
For workers and popular committees to vote with direct democracy and take the resolution of the crisis in their hands! Self-defense committees!
Only a workers and peasants government based on these structures can guarantee these measures to be implemented.