The horror of the kidnapping and slaughter in Beslan has barely passed and already Russia is gearing up for another huge crackdown. This time the Russian bourgeoisie has learnt the lessons of September 11th and is instituting a large number of new repressive laws aimed as much at its own population as 'foreign terrorists'. Meanwhile, in Chechnya, they are waiting for the next attack.
It would seem a prime opportunity for the 'democratic' powers to attack Moscow's handling of this 'internal issue' with hypocritical denunciations of 'human rights violations'. Instead, there is voluble and unconditional support from Blair, Bush, Chirac and Schroeder. Indeed, there is no real difference in the foreign policies of these leaders: all are united in their support for President Putin and his own 'war on terror'.
Why has Russia been left to its own devices on this question? There is the very real fear that the tensions in the Caucasus area might lead Russia to go the way of ex-Yugoslavia: the break-up of the Russian Federation, chaos, civil war, genocide - with the potential use of nuclear weapons looming in the background. None of the major imperialist powers has an interest in such instability which could only increase the perspective of the entire world being riven by chaos and barbarism. As a result, they have averted their eyes from Chechnya and allowed the dirtiest war imaginable to go largely uncriticised and unabated. In the present situation they have no choice in the matter - Putin knows this and has taken full advantage.
But even though they don't want to see the break-up of Russia, the major powers still cannot stop the dynamic of 'each for himself', the tendency for each imperialist power to seek full advantage for itself at the expense of its rivals and without any kind of restraint.
For the British ruling class it is still important to maintain good relations with Russia, despite its weaknesses. After all, they were allies in the both the First and Second World Wars, in which the common enemy was Germany. Despite the rhetoric over Britain's 'special relationship' with the US, the British ruling class also has an interest in restraining the world's only remaining superpower in its quest to gain control over the Middle East oil supplies and its present strategy of encircling Europe.
In the present context, the UK has to compete with Germany and France who have been making a big push towards Russia, especially in the period since Putin came to power and just before the present Gulf war. This was reflected in the Moscow/Paris/Berlin axis against the war.
Of course, Moscow also has an interest in defending its southern flank in the Caucasus region, an area where the US state has made big inroads in setting up military bases in the 'Stans' (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan etc). Russia, for its part, will do everything it can to prevent Chechnya breaking away and initiating a chain reaction within the Federation.
The perspective for the Caucasus, at least in the short and medium term, is one of increasing instability. This reflects the overall perspective of the world situation: economic crisis, famine, wars and barbarism. The continuation of all of the above, and the inability of the most powerful countries and leaders to improve the situation, also shows that the bourgeoisie is no longer a progressive force in society.
Graham, 30/9/04.
The WSF/ESF are the 'official' faces of 'anti-globalisation'. Not everyone is convinced of their claims to be a real focus for 'anti-capitalism'. Many people have reflected on a movement that has been under way since before the 1999 Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organisation and have developed wide-ranging criticisms and alternative forms of organisation.
'Radical' critiques of WSF/ESF were made at the Paris ESF in November 2003 which had its own 'libertarian' fringe; the WSF in Mumbai (Bombay) earlier this year saw a vast array of groups outside of the headline events. The same will be repeated in London, this time under the slogan: "Beyond ESF - Autonomous Spaces". Criticism of the whole WSF/ESF circus from within Britain has come from the Wombles, who describe themselves as an "anti-authoritarian social struggle initiative". On the introductory page to the 'Beyond ESF' section of their website (www.wombles.org.uk [2]), they say that though the ESF "may be seen as a positive step by some of what has been termed by the media as 'the anti-globalisation movement', in reality the ESF functions as a place where political parties and social democrats co-opt and dominate the new movement against capital for their own purposes."
Furthermore, in their text 'A short analysis of the socio-political role of the WSF-ESF' they say that the ESF will "attract towards politics a lot of people who are starting out in their political activity" and that "many of the individuals who are coming for the event, will be interested in a more radical social analysis and direct action". Therefore, they are concerned that the ESF will play a "...potentially dangerous role on the global scene - that of becoming the new 'pool' where people will feel that they are active, political participants, but where their hope, disappointment or anger will be filtrated not to radical, emancipatory demands and visions, but to reformist ones." So what 'radical social analysis' and practical activity do the Wombles themselves offer?
The Wombles criticise the WSF/ESF as operating within the framework of capitalism. "The ESF is the child of the WSF and focuses its criticism on the policies of the European Union they try to control the 'bad' effects of neo-liberalism, as if policies are the problem and not capitalism itself and its institutions as a whole system". Indeed, they go further when they consider that the ESF is one of the "contemporary institutions of domination". The text rails against the growing commodification of every aspect of human existence by the forces of 'globalisation', and there is a basic understanding that the 20th century saw 'civil society' absorbed by the development of state capitalism.
The central weakness of the Wombles' critique is that it is rooted in that age-old enemy of the working class: anarchism and the petty-bourgeois, idealist view of history that goes with it. That those who are critical of the 'marxism' of the leftists - be they 'socialists', 'communists', Trotskyists or even increasingly Maoists - are attracted towards anarchism and 'anti-authoritarianism' comes as no surprise to us. This is often a healthy attribute. However, following the collapse of the Eastern bloc after 1989 the bourgeoisie launched a concerted, international campaign whose central theme was that 'communism is dead': that what died in the east was communism; that Stalin was the heir of Lenin; that the horrors of the gulags and the famines in the '30s were the 'inevitable' consequences of the revolution of October 1917, led as it was by the Bolsheviks. The Wombles seem to revel in this when they say that: "Unfortunately, the 20th century was dominated by marxist politics which placed the control of the state as the basic aim of the anti-capitalist social struggle" (note 4 of their text). They must consequently think it somehow 'fortunate' that marxism no longer 'dominates politics'! The fact that since the collapse of the Eastern bloc the working class has yet to engage in massive struggles as it did in the 1970s and 1980s has lead to large numbers of the younger generations losing confidence in the revolutionary potential of the working class and provoked a search for other 'social actors'. By cutting themselves off from the working class, from marxism and the history of the workers' movement the Wombles are losing the only compass that can give a clear understanding of why the world is in the state it is in and how 'another world' can be brought into being.
Those who are looking for a real alternative to capitalism need to understand precisely what the anarchist critique amounts to. "When the working class reflects on its own past, it does not do it in order to laugh or cry but in order to understand, its errors, and, on the basis of this experience, to draw up a class line, a demarcation from the enemy class. The revolutionary proletariat does not 'laugh' at the 'outmoded Marxism-Leninism of Stalin' in order to glorify the 'new' Marxism-Leninism of Mao Tse-Tung: it denounces both of them as arms of the counter-revolution." (International Review 16, 1979, 'The rise and fall of Autonomia Operaia [3]'). The ICC's Platform [4] is very clear on this point: "All the so-called 'revolutionary' currents - such as Maoism which is simply a variant of parties which had definitively gone over to the bourgeoisie, or Trotskyism which, after constituting a proletarian reaction against the betrayal of the Communist Parties was caught up in a similar process of degeneration, or traditional anarchism, which today places itself in the framework of an identical approach by defending a certain number of positions of the SPs and CPs, such as 'anti-fascist alliances' - belong to the same camp: the camp of capital. Their lesser influence or their more radical language changes nothing as to the bourgeois basis of their programme, but makes them useful touts or supplements of these parties".
What the anarchists fail to see is that there are two camps belonging to the historic classes of the capitalist epoch: that of the bourgeoisie, and that of the proletariat. Furthermore, by understanding that the leftists are really the radical wing of the bourgeoisie it is much easier to see why the leftists are trying to dominate the WSF/ESF: that the bourgeoisie is conscious that they can use the Social Forums and the broader 'anti-globalisation' movement as a weapon in their struggle against the working class, to throw sand in the eyes of those looking for clarity.
It is also obvious that within the Wombles and the 'Autonomous Spaces' fringe of the ESF there is the influence of the Italian autonomous movement from the 1970s via the more recent 'white overalls' method of protesting and the 'occupied social centre' movement. When the ICC addressed the rise and fall of Autonomia Operaia in IR 16 [3] we noted that, "we have seen an incredible development of an 'autonomous movement' which, far from being working class, has one unifying theme: the negation of the working class as the fundamental axis of their concerns. Feminists and homosexuals, students anxious about the disappearing mirage of a little job in local administration or teaching, 'alternative' artists plunged into crisis because no-one will buy their wares, all of them form a united front to defend their 'specificity', their precious autonomy from the stifling working class domination which reigns in the extra-parliamentary groups." There are further similarities between the period when AO were at their height and the current period. Without a marxist framework there is disillusion in the class struggle, but "These years of apparent passivity were actually a period of subterranean maturation, and only those who believed that this reflux was eternal were likely to be disillusioned. It is true that the difficulty of defending their living conditions can disorientate and demoralise workers, but in the long term it can only hurl them back into the struggle, with a hundred times more anger and determination. In the face of the reflux, the 'autonomists' had essentially two kinds of answers: (1) the voluntarist attempt to counterbalance the reflux, through an increasingly frenetic and substitutionist activism; (2) the gradual displacement of the factory struggle towards other, supposedly 'superior' areas of struggle." (ibid.).
We can see history repeating itself, but under much more difficult and potentially dangerous conditions. For the Wombles, the alternative to 'party politics' is the building of a network of 'occupied social centres' - in reality squatted empty buildings - that can be used to bring life back into 'local communities'. There have been a number of such social centres, squats that local authorities have often turned a blind eye to. These centres are often used to show films and to hold discussions, and the ICC has intervened in these discussions on several occasions. However, we have found that there is not much attempt at real clarification, or serious consideration what our militants have put forward. Their activity is strongly inter-classist, and the Wombles belie their anarchist roots when they say that, " every person has the potential for radicalisation, both in thought and action".
But there are no 'autonomous spaces' in capitalism, nor anything positive in the individualism they glorify. For example, they rejoice in the marginalisation of the unemployed, as if being out of work puts you outside capitalism. The working class is revolutionary precisely because it is at the heart of the capitalist mode of production
The Wombles say that, "we want to demonstrate 'another possible world' which is already here today. The world of Self-Organization - Solidarity - Autonomy - Direct Action." So, there's no need for a revolution then! The 'other world' can be created despite the existence of capitalism.
In rejecting the struggle of the working class, the Wombles seek out other 'radical movements'. While Autonomia Operaia became the critical conscience of the Red Brigades, the Wombles have become the less restrained cheerleaders of the Zapatistas [5] who have made a constant ideological attack on Marxism and promoted blind activism.
For those who want to go 'beyond the ESF' they will need to turn to the contributions of marxism and away from the rehashed anarchism of the ESF.
Trevor, 2/10/04.
For years the developed countries have been piling up huge budget deficits; levels of debt have increased at a constant and almost uncontrollable rate. The welfare state is being dismantled in numerous parts of the world, massive lay-offs are on the agenda, and all the promises of an imminent recovery prove to be without substance. And yet in the midst of this bleak situation we are being bombarded with propaganda about the 'Chinese economic miracle': economic growth in China, 'the triumph of Red Capitalism', is being interpreted as a sign of a new phase of development for the world capitalist system.
The growth of GNP in China is certainly beating all the records: 7.8% in 2002, 9.1% in 2003, and two-figure predictions for 2004. Since it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001, when world trade was visibly falling off, trade between China and the rest of Asia was showing a strong increase and in 2003, when world trade was only progressing by 4.5%, trade in Asia was going up by between 10 and 12%; China's levels of trade were explosive, with imports going up by 40% and exports by 35%. Between 1998 and 2003, exports went up by 122%; car production increased by 172% and hi-tech production by 363%. In 2003 China became the leading zone for international investment with levels reaching $53 billion, even by-passing the USA.
In two years, China has acquired the status of the locomotive of the world economy. Certain economists predict that it will have caught up with Japan in 15 years and with the USA in 45 years. Its GNP is already the equivalent of France or Britain.
Japan, the USA, and Europe are grabbing products 'made in China' and new Chinese industrial regions are springing up like mushrooms, attracting vast amounts of investments. The European Union is looking to strengthen its partnership with China and to make it its main trading partner. The American bourgeoisie is pouring investments into the country, with the aim of encouraging the development of the Chinese economy and of avoiding a situation where it loses its competitive edge to the Chinese state. In 2003, as a result of the invasion of the American market by Chinese products, the US budget deficit vis-a-vis Beijing hit the $130 billion mark.
The picture seems idyllic: staggering growth which appears to defy the crises of 1997 in south east Asia and the collapse of the financial bubble of the 'New Economy' in 2001, the date China entered the WTO.
Joining the WTO was not a real rupture for the Chinese economy, but a step in its policy of economic liberalisation which goes back to the 1970s. At the beginning, this policy favoured the export industries and protected others - cars, food industry, industrial capital goods. Over the past 10 years, China has set up a customs regime which gives preference to export industries concentrated on the coastal areas.
However, despite the displays of wealth highlighted in this so-called bastion of 'Communism', the destructive tendencies of capitalism are still at work.
The bourgeois experts themselves are clearly posing the question: how long can this go on? And they have called for a slow-down in investment, noting almost with relief that investments in fixed capital had only grown by 18% at an annual rate last May! Inflation is at the galloping stage, a sure sign of the 'overheating' which all the economists are so worried about. In April, inflation was officially at 3.8%, but in reality it's more like 7%, according to analysts who are familiar with the vagueness of Chinese statistics. In the sphere of food products, it has reached 10%. But it's the market in raw materials, given the rapidity and insatiable hunger of industrial demand, which has seen the most violent price increases for 30 years. Steel, aluminium, zinc, cotton and above all oil are shooting up in price, fuelling a speculative bubble which is already out of control.
The Chinese state itself is trying to limit the rate of growth, imposing credit freezes and blockages on consumer prices, which are currently rising at a rate of more than 1% a month. It has already expressed its satisfaction at limiting growth to 15% in July.
However, all kinds of dangers remain. The housing bubble for example is making the Chinese authorities break out in a cold sweat; the banking sector is in a state of semi-bankruptcy with at least 50% of credits being doubtful. 60% of investment does not feed the cycle of production but is recycled in Hong Kong or in tax havens - in short, it goes into financial speculation or money-laundering.
The astronomical profits being grabbed in China today are actually the result of the frenzied speculation going on all over the world; they don't derive from the real sale of commodities and the valorisation of productive capital. The commodities which are inundating the world market will find it harder and harder to find buyers, despite their low prices. Thus the real perspective is a further deepening of the historic crisis of capitalism. What's happening in China today has nothing in common with the type of development of the productive forces which took place in the 19th century. Whereas in those days phases of growth contained the promise of a more and more impetuous development of the productive forces, today they bring with them the certainty of aggravated contradictions for the system.
What the Chinese population is going through clearly expresses this reality. Despite all the claims about China reducing poverty, the tragedy of the Chinese cockle pickers in Britain, speaks otherwise: if your living standards are improving, you don't flee a country to work in the kind of horrifying conditions that resulted in the mass drowning in Morecambe Bay.
To give an example: in the famous Pearl Delta, in the province of Guangdong between Shenzen and Canton, a rice growing region which in the last ten years has been transformed into the planet's biggest manufacturing region, wages - considered to be among the best in China - are around 100 euros a month, and the workers have only 9 days off a year!
As for unemployment, it has become massive. Officially it stands at 4.7% but in certain regions such as Liaoning it has reached 35%. At the end of 2003, 27 million proletarians had been laid off by bankrupt state enterprises. Millions of jobs have been cut in the countryside where there have been a number of revolts. The balance sheet is that no less than 150 million peasants have migrated to vast slums in the urban centres in eastern China, looking for jobs which the majority of them won't find
The education system has been abandoned and sanitary conditions are terrible. With no sickness insurance, with hospitals having to charge for their services to keep going, a real catastrophe is brewing. Hepatitis B and C affect over 200 million Chinese; between one and two million are HIV positive and within 6 years the figure could have reached 15 million. 550 million people have tuberculosis, with about 200,000 dying each year.
At the level of food supply, the incredible chaos of the Chinese's state's economic policies has resulted in a dangerous fall in cereal reserves and the total disorganisation of agriculture, while the countryside is emptying out. The intensive exploitation of the soil is threatening 80 million hectares (out of 130 million under cultivation) with desertification. All this brings the danger of famine in the future.
The environment is being devastated by the frenetic burning of coal and the construction of huge dams, spurred on by the ever-growing demand for electricity. Thus China is already the world's second biggest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet. Pollution in the cities is reaching crisis point: 16 Chinese towns are among the 20 most polluted on the planet.
A true disaster is looming in China. What's happening in China today is not the harbinger of a new phase in the development of the productive forces, but of a new plunge into economic collapse. Since capitalism entered into open economic crisis in the 1960s, the bourgeoisie has boasted about the Brazilian model, the Argentinean model, then about the Asian tigers. It has also told us about the miracle of the 'New Economy' driven by the internet. It will not be long before the demise of the Chinese dragon shows what lies behind these miracles - the sombre reality of a bankrupt capitalist system.
ES, 2/10/04.
In the last few years, the movement which describes itself variously as the 'anti-globalisation' or 'anti-capitalist' movement, the 'alternative world' or 'global justice movement' has been in the forefront of protest across the world. Through its speeches, writings and demands everything is being done to give the impression that this movement is the bearer of a new analysis of the current social order and that it holds the key to doing away with all its ills. This is summed up in its slogan 'another world is possible'. What does this 'new social critique' really amount to?
According to the theories of anti-globalisation...
Thus the anti-globalisation lobby raises the battle-cry: 'our world is not for sale'. They demand that the law of the market must not guide political policies. Political decision-making must be restored to the citizens, and democracy must be defended and extended against all financial diktats.
In reality, anti-globalisation obscures the experience of marxism and the class struggle
In sum, the anti-globalisers have reinvented the wheel. It's some revelation that capitalist enterprises only exist to make profit! That, under capitalism, all goods are turned into commodities! That the development of capitalism means the globalisation of exchange!
The workers' movement did not have to wait until the 1990s and the new wave of clever academics and radical thinkers to discover all of this. All these ideas can be found in the Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848:
"The bourgeoisie has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single unconscionable freedom - Free Trade� The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers�
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood."
Thus, the anti-globalisers claim to be offering a new analysis and a new alternative while at the same time suppressing all reference to two centuries of struggles and of theoretical endeavours by the working class, aimed precisely at understanding the bases for a truly human future. And little wonder: the better world proposed by the anti-globalisers looks back longingly to the period between the 1930s and the 1970s, which for them represents a lesser evil compared to the liberalisation which got underway in the '80s. After all, that was the period of 'Keynesianism' in which the state was a more obvious actor on the economic stage.
However, before rushing to choose the years 1930-70 over the last two decades, it's worth recalling a few of the characteristics of that period.
Let's not forget that Keynesian policies did not solve the crisis of 1929 and that massive unemployment had returned to most of the western economies by the end of the 30s; let's not forget the second world war; let's not forget the catastrophic situation of the working class during the world war and for some years after it; let's not forget that since 1945 not a single day has passed without war and that this has resulted in the loss of tens of millions of lives. And finally, let's not forget that at the end of the 1960s, capitalism plunged into an economic crisis which led to the inexorable growth of unemployment.
This is the 'better world' the anti-globalisers look back on so fondly, the lost paradise destroyed by the multinationals!
All this is the expression of a classic ideological manipulation by the bourgeoisie: to rehabilitate the state and make people believe that it can be used against the excesses of neo-liberalism, or even serve as an alternative to the law of the market.
This ideology argues that the state has withdrawn from the economy, leaving a free hand to the giant companies which are undermining democracy and the general interest. This is a total fraud. The state has never been more present in the economy than it is today, including in the USA, supposedly the model of neo-liberalism. It's the state which regulates world trade and fixes the interest rates, customs tariffs, etc. The state is still the leading economic actor, with a public expenditure which makes up an increasing portion of GNP and of the ever-swelling budget deficit. This is the so-called 'powerless', 'absent' state. It is virtually impossible to mention any economic, political or social sector in which the state doesn't have an important, if not preponderant role.
Thus, according to the anti-globalisers, the proletarians only have to rally to the defence of the state and of public services. This is the real secret of this 'radically new' theory: state capitalism, whether in its Stalinist or democratic form.
But the state is not the guarantor of a better world, where riches are more equally distributed: it's the state which ruins this world, through war, through attacks on workers' wages, pensions and social benefits. What the anti-globalisers are saying to all those who ask questions about the state of the world is this: the choice is between neo-liberalism and state capitalism, when the real choice is between socialism or barbarism.
The source of wars, of poverty, of unemployment, is not the so-called neo-liberal 'revolution' imposed by super-powerful multinationals, but the mortal crisis of capitalism, which no policy of the bourgeoisie, whether Keynesianism or neo-liberalism, can resolve.
Sowing illusions in reformism in order to hide the necessity for proletarian revolution
The anti-globalisers claim to be anti-capitalist. But all their policies boil down to a criticism of the 'excesses' of this world and to proposals aimed at safeguarding democracy. Behind the whole melange of issues and proposals they put forward the lies of the old left-wing reformism which the revolutionary movement has fought against for over a century. The project of a fairer distribution or management of wealth is just a new version of the old social democratic idea of sharing out the benefits of growth.
Let's look at the idea of a 'solidarity economy', in other words the global extension of all the experiences of cooperatives and self-management which have always meant no more than the self-exploitation of the workers. Linked to this is the notion of the citizen's initiative, according to which each individual can play his part in improving the condition of the world. This approach ignores the division of society into classes and only serves to dissolve the working class into a mass of citizens, to divert their consciousness into the dead-end of participating in democracy. In the end it is aimed at preventing the proletariat from being able to find a real alternative to capitalist barbarism
But the anti-globalisers also claim to be internationalists. It's true that the various organisations who campaign for 'global justice' exist in many countries, are in contact with each other and repeat the same slogans. But this is done with the aim of conserving the existing order, and thus nations. The only possible form of internationalism is that of the working class, the only class which has the same interests in all countries. It is inseparable from the goal of overthrowing capitalism and abolishing frontiers, which is the precondition for any genuine liberation of humanity.
The internationalism of the anti-globalisers is just the respectable shop window behind which is hidden the real goods: the defence of one imperialist interest against another. One of the main unifying themes of the anti-globalisers is opposition not just to the multinationals or the World Trade Organisation, but to the USA. What they denounce above all is US domination of the world market, not the world market as such. And when they call for a stronger democratic state, this is above all a plea for America's imperialist rivals to stand up to the USA's attempts to maintain its global hegemony. Global justice campaigner George Monbiot was quite explicit about this when, in one of his many articles for The Guardian in Britain, he called for European unity and the extension of the Euro as a bulwark against US war-mongering. This is about as far away from internationalism as you can get - calling for resistance to one imperialism by binding yourself hand and foot to another. It is no accident that the anti-globalisation movement now plays a central role in the pacifist deception - and thus in the march towards new imperialist wars.
The strong grip the old socialist and communist parties once held over the working class has been weakened by its experience of left-wing governments and the collapse of Stalinism. Faced with the aggravation of attacks on the working class, the bourgeoisie has a real need for mystifications which can derail the tendency for workers to become conscious of the real situation. 'Alternative worldism' corresponds to this need, posing as a credible alternative to the old left. The demand for a 'real left' makes use of old recipes for a fairer capitalism so that its foundations are not put into question. More specifically, the bourgeoisie cannot afford to ignore the fact that within the proletariat more and more people are posing serious questions about the current state of the planet. This is why the anti-globalisation movement, with its ideology of local self-activity, of libertarianism and syndicalism, its mish-mash of a hundred different mini-causes and sub-movements, is so well placed to lead this embryonic questioning into the dead-end of inter-classism and bourgeois ideology.
By reheating the old mystifications of the left, the bourgeoisie is once again seeking to obscure the simple truth: the only alternative to the destruction of humanity by capitalism in decay is the proletarian revolution and the construction of a communist society. Communism means the end of classes and national frontiers, where decisions are taken on the basis of needs rather than on profits and where each contributes on the basis of their abilities in a society which has solidarity at its core.
The ruling class needs to hide the fact that any serious proletarian movement will inevitably have to confront the very things that the anti-globalisation movement supports: the state, the left and democracy.
The working class must recognise the bourgeois nature of anti-globalisation ideology and see it for what it is: an obstacle to its authentic struggles to defend itself from the growing assaults of capitalism.
International Communist Current, 2/10/04.
At the time of writing, the British hostage Ken Bigley is still in the hands of the Islamist group 'Unity and Holy War' led by Abu Masub al-Zaqarwi. The mass media in the democracies, and Britain in particular, have not found it hard to wage an intensive ideological campaign around this kidnapping. This is after all one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty of all the various armed gangs proliferating in Iraq today. It has already filmed the beheading of a number of its captives and is probably responsible for some of the worst bombing atrocities since the beginning of the US invasion, with the majority of its victims being Iraqi civilians. Ken Bigley is thus being held by the forces of 'evil incarnate'; his desperate video pleas for action to save his life and the dignified appeals of his family cannot fail to elicit strong feelings of sympathy throughout the world.
And yet behind the simple issue of an ordinary working man facing a horrible death, all kinds of sordid intrigues are going on; Ken Bigley is not just a victim of Islamist fanatics, but of all the conflicts and rivalries between different cliques of the ruling class.
The hostage-takers, of course, are playing their own game. They kidnapped Bigley along with two Americans, and the latter were cruelly murdered within days. If they have played cat-and-mouse with Bigley's life, it is for definite political ends. They know that the Blair government's pro-American line on Iraq faces considerable opposition from within the British ruling class, and they are surely calculating on putting further pressure on the Blair clique. In line with the US and its obedient interim regime in Baghdad, the UK government has maintained the line of 'no negotiation with terrorists' and thus appears to be abandoning Bigley to his fate. It has thus come under considerable criticism for its handling of the crisis, most noticeably from Bigley's family at a fringe meeting during the Labour Party conference.
Thus the campaign to free Bigley has been integrated into the schemes of those bourgeois factions who favour a more 'independent' British foreign policy and a more critical stance towards the US. This in turn seems to be causing the government some concern. For example, there has been a raid by British and Dutch intelligence officers on the home of Ken Bigley's brother in Amsterdam. They trawled through his computer, looking for evidence of illicit contacts with Zaqarwi's group.
The Americans meanwhile have stepped up their attacks on the group's alleged hiding places in Fallujah and Samara, making it increasingly unlikely that Zaqarwi will be inclined to cut some kind of deal. This follows shortly after the Berlusconi government apparently paid a hefty ransom for the release of two Italian aid workers; it has also been claimed that American air attacks have blocked the release of the two French journalists currently held in Iraq. There may be more than one motive behind the recent US offensive - for example, it could be seen as an attempt to crush the main centres of Sunni insurgency prior to the Iraqi elections in January. But this massive show of US force could equally be aimed at other powers involved in Iraq. As we argue in another article in this issue, the competition between America and France for influence in the Middle East is more or less out in the open. But Washington must also be increasingly worried that its main coalition partners, Britain and Italy, will start to 'lose their nerve' faced with the widespread domestic unpopularity of their adventures in Iraq.
In all these sordid manoeuvres, the welfare of Ken Bigley, and of countless Iraqi civilians suffering from the renewed bombing of their home towns, are the least of our leaders' concerns.
Amos 2/10/04
Hostage taking has become an almost daily part of warfare today. In Chechnya, in the Middle East, in Africa, wherever imperialist conflicts are out in the open, human beings are abducted, decapitated, massacred and filmed by the media. Capitalism was born in mud and blood, but if the proletariat leaves it with a free hand, it will drown us all in an ocean of suffering and destruction. French imperialism's offensive in the Arab/Muslim world
A month ago, two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were abducted in Iraq. In spite of a strong and active military presence, other journalists were seized in the Ivory Coast, while a journalist from Canal Plus, Jordanov, was held by an Islamic faction in Iraq for several days last year. But never before has the French bourgeoisie waged such a fervent ideological campaign over the hostage issue as it is doing now. The working class should have no illusions: the French state doesn't give a fig about the lives of these two journalists. Capitalism has always had a total contempt for human life and this is hardly likely to change in its period of decomposition. We only have to recall the cynical and barbaric role played by France in the genocide of nearly a million people in Rwanda in 1994 to be convinced of that. All the diplomatic efforts of French imperialism in the Arab and Muslim countries have a single objective: to strengthen the influence of French imperialism as much as possible. An article in the Courrier International of 20 September begins thus: "if the kidnappers of the two French journalists Christian Chenot and Georges Malbrunot had known that their action would have been met with such disapproval in the Islamic world, they probably wouldn't have done it". From the moment the kidnapping was officially announced, we saw a major diplomatic offensive - no doubt with a secret component as well - led by the highest representatives of the French state in all the Arab/Muslim capitals. The result of this political offensive by the French bourgeoisie is that France has never before enjoyed such support and sympathy in this part of the world. Not one state, including those like Egypt which have for years been the USA's most loyal allies, failed to make an appeal on behalf of the hostages. All warmly welcomed the declarations by French imperialisms about how firmly it supports the Arab/Muslim world. In this respect France's position on the war in Iraq is only one aspect of its overall policy in the region. But a more significant sign of the pro-Arab and pro-Muslim orientation of French imperialist policy is the large number of messages of support and sympathy that the French state has received from high ranking religious dignitaries and from a number of armed terrorist groups: Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (a leading Sunni cleric); Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah (one of the leaders of Hizbollah); the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq; Hamas; the Islamic Jihad group in Palestine�. It is impossible to know who is behind the seizure of the French hostages or what the political colouring of the group that kidnapped them might be. There are so many totally uncontrolled gangs in the chaos that is Iraq today. In any case, it seems that for the moment the French bourgeoisie has taken maximum advantage of this kidnapping in order to reactivate its network of political links in this part of the world. It is undeniable that France has used the affair to score real points on the imperialist game board.
It is obvious that the main rivals of French imperialism, in particular the USA, can't be indifferent towards this offensive. It should be noted that the French state, through the intermediary of its chief diplomat Michel Barnier or its interior minister Dominique de Villepin, was initially very optimistic about the chances of getting the two journalists freed. This optimism could only have been based on reliable information on the positive results of the diplomatic offensive about the liberation of the hostages. And yet, a month later, they have yet to be freed. If, as everyone is saying, the hostages are being held in the Fallujah region, it is worth noting that the international campaign for the freeing of the two French journalists has coincided with a major US bombing offensive against Fallujah: "The American army has said in the last few days that its target has been the presumed hiding places of the group led by the Jordanian Islamist Abu Moussad al Zarkawi, linked to al Qaida. This has resulted in numerous civilian deaths" (Courrier International, 20.9.04). There is no doubt that this new armed offensive by the US, centred especially on the region where the French hostages are being held, is only the visible part of America's reaction to France's imperialist offensive. This gives added significance to the statement by the Chirac government that the continuation of the violence in Iraq is the reason for the delay in the liberation of the French journalists and their Syrian driver.
The religious dignitaries seem to have been a particular target for some time: "Two members of the Sunni Ulema Committee were assassinated in the Iraqi capital. Armed men killed Sheikh Mohamed Djadou on Monday when he left a mosque in west Baghdad. A few hours earlier, another leader of the committee, Hazem al Zadi, was killed at the entrance following prayers at a mosque in Sadr City, the Shiite area of the Iraqi capital. The Committee fears an 'organised campaign' of assassinations of its dignitaries" (ibid). These targeted assassinations are in turn a very important factor in the radicalisation of part of the Iraqi population, in particular the more religious elements, and thus help plunge the country even further into chaos. In this context, whatever the real motives of the terrorist group which holds the two French hostages and the level of influence that the religious authorities may have on them, it seems that the kidnappers are in a very dicey situation which seriously complicates the possibility of the freeing of the two French journalists. Both the wide-scale and quite threatening reaction to this kidnapping and the whole game of imperialist tensions, directly implicating France and the USA, have trapped the hostage-takers between the hammer and the anvil. On all sides they face the prospect of being crushed. In this sense, the fatwa issued by the highest religious authorities, permitting the killing of the kidnappers, is a significant expression of the support for French imperialism in the Arab/Muslim world. On 16 September two Americans and a Briton were taken from their residence in a comfortable neighbourhood of Baghdad; this coincided with the abduction of the two young Italian women working for an aid organisation. Here it is noteworthy that none of the states or religious and political institutions which mobilised to support France in its hostage affair moved on behalf of the Americans. In fact there was almost complete silence, implying their effective support for the kidnappers. The barbaric murder of the two Americans, beheaded on the Internet, followed soon after�..
The proletariat can have no illusions. Iraq is heading for a further slide into war and chaos. Behind the civil war in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, the imperialist powers are playing their games. Whatever the outcome of the kidnapping of the two French journalists, this episode has been another moment of inter-imperialist confrontation, notably between France and the USA, with France scoring the points for the moment. The life of the hostages is just a pretext for developing this confrontation.
France has drawn an added advantage from the media barrage around this event. It has made it possible to create a climate of national unity which has linked everyone from the right wing parties to the PCF and the Trotskyists on the left. The working class has nothing to gain and much to lose by being drawn into campaigns which only serve to divert it from its own struggle.
Tino, 25/09/04.
For Haiti, hurricane Jeanne is only the latest in a succession of horrific events. This year alone the population have suffered during the violent conflict in which ex-president Aristide was forced into exile, severe flooding in May which killed more than 3,000, and an earthquake on its border with Dominican Republic.
The hurricane hit the city of Gonvaives particularly hard, bringing severe flooding in its wake. The death toll has been estimated at around 2,000, but with corpses floating in the flood water and rotting in the streets before being buried in mass graves, without identification or ceremony, the true numbers will never be known. The living huddled on roofs without food, water or shelter from the sun, and when aid arrived the food was rapidly exhausted. Many thousands have lost their homes while armed gangs have been battling each other for control of emergency food supplies.
Jeanne is one of a series of hurricanes and tropical storms to hit the Caribbean and America this year, and not the most powerful. It was the fourth to hit Florida this year, after Charley, Frances and Ivan had caused $17 billions of damage. What has made hurricane Jeanne so deadly and so devastating is that it hit Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, characterised by political corruption and disorder, as we showed at the time Aristide was overthrown, "Haiti is ravaged by famine and epidemics: 70% of the population is unemployed, 85% of the population lives on less than 70 pence (1 Euro) a day. The average life expectancy in 2002 was less than 50 years as opposed to about 70 in the other South American and Caribbean countries. 40% of the population have no access to the most basic care and the rates of infection with HIV and TB are the highest in Latin America. Infant mortality is twice as high and half the children under 5 go hungry. The situation is worsened by the western powers who have promised credit and aid which has never been paid... To this sombre picture of crushing pauperisation is added the riots and confrontations between pro- and anti-Aristide forces which have left hundreds of dead. These victims have been added to the long list of extortion and massacres committed by preceding regimes, supported by the western democracies, from the bloodthirsty Duvalier, father and son�" ('US and French intervention in Haiti: more militarism, more chaos [12]').
In particular, every house in the port of Gonaives, a city of a quarter of a million people, "was flooded when heavy rains in nearby mountains, severely eroded by deforestation, created an avalanche of water..." (The Times 22.9.04). As in the Indian Sub-continent, floods are largely the result of deforestation and soil erosion (see 'The responsibility of capitalism for the flood disaster in India and Bangladesh [13]').
Decades of pillage of the natural resources by the great powers, including deforestation, have reduced the majority of the population to hunger and subjected them to terror at the hands of armed gangs. In these circumstances of daily barbarism the natural disaster could only become a social catastrophe.
The aid sent, an absurd pittance in comparison with what is needed, shows that help for the victims is no more important than the prevention of the disaster for capitalism, when its profit or interests are not at stake. The ruling class is capable of deploying huge resources when its military and strategic interests are at stake, but not when it is a question of protecting or aiding vulnerable populations.
Alex, 2/10/04.
In Revolutionary Perspectives no. 32 the Communist Workers' Organisation (CWO) introduce a "contribution to the debate on capitalist decadence", 'For a definition of the concept of decadence' written by one of the comrades of Battaglia Comunista. We welcome this debate first of all because of the importance of subject; as the CWO state in their introduction, "The notion of decadence is a part of Marx's analysis of modes of production." It is not just any part of Marx's analysis, but the basis of scientific socialism, as they showed in RP 21 (original series, November 83): "Marxism, unlike anarchism, has always recognised that before communism can be established capitalism must itself destroy feudal systems of production and create both an international proletariat and advanced means of production. In doing this capitalism is creating both the basis for communism and the class able to bring it into being. We therefore maintain, as did Marx, that capitalism has been a historically progressive mode of production. We regard history as a complex of processes in which opposites are struggling against each other. The dynamic of history is located in these struggles and their progress is the progress of history. The development of the struggles engendered by these contradictions leads to a historical period in which capitalism can be considered to be progressive and on in which its further development turns it into a barrier. We quote again from the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy. 'At a certain stage of their development the material productive forces of society come into contradiction with the existing productive relationships, or, what is but a legal expression for these, with the property relationships within which they have moved before. From being forms of development of the productive forces these relationships are transferred into their fetters. Then an epoch of social revolution opens.' This is a dialectical understanding of the process of development, not a mechanical one. The very idea of decadence, which we describe as a period in which the material pre-requisites for communism exist but the revolution has not been made (since the subjective consciousness is absent), is a notion which would be nonsense to a mechanical materialist since he sees causality as working directly from material conditions".
Furthermore, after quoting the very same passage from Marx's 'Preface to the Critique of Political Economy', the introduction to the latest article points out that "At the time of the formation of the Comintern in 1919, it appeared that the epoch of revolution had been reached and its founding conference declared this". In other words, the recognition that capitalism had reached its decadent phase underpinned the founding of the Third International: "capitalism had fulfilled its mission of developing the productive forces and had reached a stage of irreconcilable contradiction with the requirements not only of modern historical development, but also of the most elementary conditions of human existence. This fundamental contradiction was reflected in the recent imperialist war, and further sharpened by the great damage the war inflicted on the conditions of production and distribution" ('Theses on Comintern tactics' Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third International, Hessel).
Yet the CWO now write that "85 years later this at least appears questionable. Within the 20th century capitalist property relations have, despite the unprecedented destruction and suffering caused by two world wars, enabled the productive forces to develop to levels never previously seen, and have brought hundreds and hundreds of millions of new workers into the ranks of the proletariat". It is certainly true that the theory that capitalism has become a fetter on the productive forces and entered an 'epoch of social revolution' must be tested against reality. Testing theory against reality was the approach of the Communist Left which had to subject all the positions of the Comintern to the most rigorous criticism in opposing its degeneration. In this sense we can take inspiration from Bilan which in 1933 in its first issue wrote that "it calls on all revolutionaries to subject the positions it now defends to the verification of events, as well as the political positions contained in its basic documents" (The Italian Communist Left, ICC pamphlet). However, to successfully re-examine a key position such as the question of whether capitalism has an ascendant and a decadent phase, and whether the latter was reflected in and announced by the First World War, we must be very careful to do so in the historical framework of marxism. It was the theoretical solidity of the framework in which the Italian Left subjected its positions to the verification of events that allowed it to survive and provide the heritage which all the organisations of the proletarian political milieu reclaim today, whatever differences we may have. The importance of this method is perhaps most clearly highlighted by the fact that it was the Italian Left that provides the methodology for our understanding of many questions today, even when the German Left had profound insights into questions such as the trade unions or state capitalism much earlier.
In this sense, the article reproduced in RP 32 does not provide a framework for testing the theoretical framework of decadence against the events of the last century because it does not return to the key programmatic and theoretical texts that have to be re-evaluated. The IBRP's (note 1) Platform recognises the same key change in period as the Comintern and the ICC, although they, like Lenin, talk of imperialism rather than decadence: "The 1st World War, the product of competition between the capitalist states, marked a definitive turning point in capitalism's development. It showed that the process of capital concentration and centralisation had reached such proportions that henceforward the cyclical crises which had always been an intrinsic part of the process of capital accumulation would be global crises, resolvable only by world war. In short, it confirmed that capitalism had entered a new historical era, the era of imperialism. The opening of capitalism's imperialist epoch, with its infernal cycle of global war - reconstruction - crisis, also put the possibility of a higher form of civilisation (communism) on the historical agenda." Yet the new article makes no reference to this. In order for the IBRP debate on this question, one in which other organisations will obviously intervene, to have a positive influence on the development of class consciousness, it will be necessary to base it on the existing theoretical framework. (Note 2)
The introduction to 'For a Definition of the Concept of Decadence' states: "The CWO has previously argued that it was not the absence of growth of the productive forces, but the overheads associated with such growth which needed to be considered when assessing decadence. Such an argument, while recognising massive growth of the productive forces, opens the door to a subjective assessment of the overheads which have allowed such growth to occur." This self-criticism by the CWO seems inappropriate. It is not clear if this introduction is using the term 'overheads' in the same sense as it was used in 1983 in RP 21: "From the First World War the capitalist system, because of the development of its internal contradictions, was unable to develop the productive forces without tremendous overheads; namely, the devaluation of capital by world wars", or in a more economic sense. In any case the introduction to The Economic Foundations of Capitalist Decadence (CWO pamphlet no 1, published in 1985) makes clear that "For revolutionaries a scientific understanding of the dynamic of the capitalist economy is not an academic exercise. It is essential for clarifying our perspectives and organisational tasks." The effort to do this is clear in the pamphlet and it is certainly not merely a 'subjective assessment'. We entirely agree with the CWO of 1983 that it is not necessary to show a complete halt to the development of the productive forces to argue that capitalism is decadent. Was it subjective to point out that "Given the high organic composition of the most advanced states, it is impossible that the so-called Third World countries could compete on the world market independently of the imperialist powers" (CWO pamphlet no 1)? This can be tested against reality, and we find that the IBRP were able to answer the mystifications about the Chinese economy in Internationalist Communist 22 by showing that what passes for miraculous growth is nothing but "An enormous mass of goods with a low technological content which are competitive only and exclusively because of Chinese workers' low wages." Was it a mere 'subjective assessment' that led the CWO to study and describe the growth of state intervention in the economy as a world wide tendency since World War I? It certainly is not subjectivism for the CWO pamphlet to show "Since 1914 imperialist war has stretched in an almost unbroken chain. In three of the least militaristic states, Britain, France and the USSR, arms expenditure rose by 144%, 142% and 103% respectively between 1937 and 1939" (CWO pamphlet no 1). It was perfectly correct to show that this is "waste production", not because we - "subjectively" - don't like getting killed, but because weapons can only destroy and not enter a new cycle of production as capital.
However, we wonder what the CWO mean by a "subjective assessment" that they criticise here. It would be wrong to give the impression that subjectivity is in contradiction to materialism. The subjective conditions are just as essential for the revolution as the objective conditions of decadence.
The analysis in the pamphlet is materialist, and based on the study of the marxist analyses of the development of capitalism through ascendancy and the development of imperialism. The fact that the ICC disagrees with the CWO's explanation of the crisis from the point of view of the analysis of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, which is incomplete without an understanding of the question of the market, does not change that. The relationship between the theoretical understanding of the economic foundations of capitalist decadence and political positions is not a simple one. A coherent understanding of economic foundations will make our understanding of decadence and the political conclusions that derive from it much stronger, but errors at this level do not necessarily lead to general political errors. This is illustrated when the CWO say: "In this ascendant period of capitalism it was possible for new independent capitalist nations to emerge and thus widen the basis for the creation of the working class, the future gravediggers of capitalism. However since the opening of the present imperialist phase of domination of the planet no such independent capitalist formation is possible. It was Luxemburg, not Lenin, who grasped this reality better despite her erroneous analysis of the roots of imperialism" (in their pamphlet Socialism or Barbarism). The ICC support Luxemburg's analysis, the IBRP believe it erroneous, but both agreed that capitalism is no longer ascendant and has entered its imperialist phase where national liberation is impossible.
However, as the IBRP debate the concept of decadence it will be important for them to heed the warning the CWO gave in The Economic Foundations of Capitalist Decadence "we shall see how the tendency towards equalisation of profit rates, along with the tendential fall in the rate of profit, allows us to understand the salient features of capitalist development, both in its period of growth and in its period of decline. But we must always remember that, 'It is the nature of the rate of profit, and of economic laws in general, [that], none of them has any reality except as an approximation, tendency, average, and not as an immediate reality.' (Engels to Schmidt)" To look for 'proof' of decadence in the statistics churned out by the bourgeoisie would be to misinterpret the marxist method; on the contrary, the statistics have to be analysed with our theoretical framework.
Here we want to take issue with the notion put forward in the discussion article that "the concept of decadence solely concerns the progressive difficulties which the valorisation process of capital encounters stemming from the principal contradiction expressed in the relation between capital and labour-power" (our emphasis). This would tend to divorce the economic foundations from all other aspects of society. Decadence has arisen because capitalism has become a fetter on the productive forces, and this necessarily affects not just the economy but every aspect of society including the superstructure. This is why it forms a cornerstone of our political positions.
As we have already seen, the IBRP Platform bases itself on the understanding that "capitalism had entered a new historical era, the era of imperialism" from the First World War and that this "also put the possibility of a higher form of civilisation (communism) on the historical agenda". This understanding informs many important positions for both the ICC and the CWO/IBRP. For instance, having noted that "The most telling reason, however, for the failure of any underdeveloped economy in the twentieth century to establish a firm industrial base is the domination of the world market by capitals of a high organic composition" (pamphlet no 1) they also understand "Establishing local bourgeoisies in new states around the world does not do the things which it did in the 19th Century. It fails to centralise and unify the nation, to capitalise agriculture and put local capital on a firm foundation. The states remain vassals of imperialism just as if their formal independence did not exist, and such development as does occur, occurs as a result of the demands of imperialism" (RP 21, 1983).
The same is true of the understanding of the role of the unions: "The trades unions have never been revolutionary. They began life as workers in specific trades came together to fight for better conditions. Initially banned and attacked by the full force of the capitalist state the unions gradually won legal recognition through the sacrifices and solidarity of the working class. Under imperialism they have tended to become part of the capitalist state's planning apparatus. Those who argue that all we need to do is change the trades union leadership in order to change the unions don't understand that it is the function of the unions today rather than their leadership which determines their reactionary policies" (Socialism or Barbarism). "If, in the period of capitalism's ascendancy there existed objective conditions and leeway to justify the union's specific task of making contractual demands, that leeway has been progressively reduced in the imperialist monopoly epoch - to the point of having been annulled by today's general economic crisis" (Internationalist Communist 16).
The recognition of the general tendency towards state capitalism is also based on the understanding of decadence: "The rise of global capital means the end of laissez-faire or classical capitalism. The accumulation of capital after World War One could only take place on the basis of constant and growing state intervention in each national economy and gradual absorption of civil society by the state - hence the existence of the permanent tendency towards state capitalism throughout the world" (pamphlet no 1).
And after revolutionaries in the Second International worked so hard to get social democratic deputies in parliament, this tactic could no longer play the same role in the new period: "As Lenin made clear, the realisation of the will of workers could only be achieved by revolution, the installation of the dictatorship of the proletariat (meaning nothing more than the working class 'organised as the ruling class' in opposition to the capitalist class) and proletarian democracy. Nothing could be done to realise the historical tasks of the working class by the use of bourgeois democracy as proposed by the official parties of that time. If the working class was to retreat back into the 'pig-sty of bourgeois parliamentarism', then the working class would put itself back into servitude under its class enemy. In short, the new phase of imperialism had demonstrated that capitalism was now in decay. The proletarian revolution was on the agenda" (RP 12, present series, 1998)
In order for the debate on the 'definition' of the 'concept of decadence' to be fruitful it will be necessary for the comrades in the IBRP to discuss the question starting from their basic programmatic texts and the classics of marxism. This will provide the framework to analyse events, and not be blown all over the place by them. This alone will allow this debate to test the concept of decadence, and the political conclusions that flow from it, against the actual evolution of bourgeois society in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Alex, 2/10.04.
Notes
1. International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party, encompassing the Communist Workers' Organisation, publishing Revolutionary Perspectives and the Partito Cominista Internazionalista publishing Battaglia Comunista and Prometeo. The IBRP also publishes Internationalist Communist. See www.ibrp.org [15].
2. See 'The theory of decadence lies at the heart of historical materialism [16]' in International Review 118, in which the ICC examines the way this question has been developed by marxism historically, and our series 'Understanding the decadence of capitalism' in IR 48, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56, 58 and 60.
The Labour Party conference was a demonstration of the unity of the party and its determination to win a third term rather than of its divisions over Iraq and the feud between Blair and Brown. The intervention of the unions to squash the debate on Iraq, the back-peddling of many 'anti-war' activists and the result of the Hartlepool bye-election strongly suggest that Labour is still backed by the British ruling class as the best party to defend its interests. At the same time, the real tensions between Blair and Brown, which don't seem to be based on any significant political differences, give an insight into life within the ruling class today.
Before the start of the conference it was widely predicted that Iraq would dominate the week and that the leadership would be given a hard time by the branch activists. This seemed to be confirmed with the vote at the start of the conference to have an emergency debate on a motion demanding the withdrawal of British troops and with the direct attack on Blair at a fringe meeting by the family of the British hostage Ken Bigley. However, Blair's speech, with its softer, less confrontational tone, together with the semi-apology for not actually finding any weapons of mass destruction, began to neutralise this criticism and divert it onto the horrors of the situation, justifying the removal of Saddam Hussein and a humanitarian occupation of the country. In the end, the great debate was pushed off the front pages by news of Blair's operation and his declaration that he would remain for a full third term.
There are real differences within the Labour party over imperialist policy, in particular on the question of the nature of the relationship with the US. The 'anti-war' faction led by Cook and Short had significant backing within the party and by the wider anti-war movement outside. The concern that Blair was leaning too much towards the US was shared by a significant part of the British ruling class and led to pressure being put on him through the Hutton and Butler investigations, even though the published reports formally exonerated him. This pressure has also been applied through the steady exposure of the excesses, torture and abuse carried out by American forces in Iraq and in Guantanamo Bay and, above all, by the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found.
The defining feature of British imperialist policy is the increasing pressure that has resulted from its efforts to pursue an independent line between America and Europe. By working with the US in Afghanistan and Iraq it has been able to stay in the game but, while this may have reduced the pressure from the US, it has made things more difficult in Europe. In this context, despite Blair's tack towards Washington, Labour remains the better option for defending Britain's overall imperialist interests.
In other areas Labour has been a successful capitalist government. It has managed the economy effectively, using the achievements of the Tories in deregulating the market and increasing the exploitation of the working class to gain a relative advantage over its European rivals in terms of overall economic growth. This has allowed it to boast of having the best economic performance in 200 years! It has managed the class struggle effectively, maintaining a low-key strategy of manoeuvres and containment, despite presiding over an increase in poverty and a polarisation between rich and poor. And it has also reinforced the state effectively, through measures to increase the surveillance and control of the population in the name of 'law and order' . Here it has been adept at using the fear and anger that exists within a population faced with the growing crime and anti-social behaviour that results from the dog-eat-dog environment created by rotting capitalism.
Labour remains the most disciplined and effective political party of the ruling class. Its divisions are not comparable to those in the Tory Party before 1997 or even today, where it remains largely dominated by the remnants of a Thatcher faction still tied to the close alliance with the US. The Liberal Democrats have in turn benefited from the Tories' weaknesses. Their strengthened role may be a response to the relative eclipse of the Tories, ensuring that a 'democratic' alternative exists, and also, through their pro-European stance, helping to balance the tendency to cow-tow to the US. The UK Independence Party, in contrast, may express the tendency that has been seen in many countries - a weakening of control over the political situation by the ruling class: UKIP's central policy of withdrawal from Europe seem irrational both economically and strategically. However, its ability to take votes from the Tories may be integrated into an overall strategy of ensuring that Labour is re-elected.
Gordon Brown's speech to the conference was seen as a coded attack on Blair. He argued that economic stability rather than radical initiatives was the key to election victory and that the commitment of health staff was more important than "contracts, markets and exchange" - that is than the sort of reforms advocated by Blair and his allies.
Throughout the two Labour governments the supposed rivalry between Blair and Brown has been a frequent theme. In the recent cabinet reshuffle allies of Brown, like Douglas Alexander, were replaced by Blair loyalists like Alan Milburn. In his own speech to conference, Tony Blair went out of his way to praise Brown as the best chancellor the country has ever had. Two days later however, on the eve of his operation, when Brown was in Washington at an IMF meeting, he announced that he wanted to serve a full third term, a move which makes it much less likely that Brown will succeed him because by that time many new, younger rivals will have come forward. One of Brown's allies commented "Its like an African coup. They waited until he was out of the country" (The Guardian, 2/10/04).
This rivalry and intrigue seems real and is nothing new in bourgeois politics. What is new is the extent to which it intrudes into the open and the manner in which it is carried out through anonymous press briefings and asides. In this it is part of the general way in which Labour has ruled, developing a style that bypasses some of the traditional aspects of state functioning. Early on there was criticism of the number of 'special advisors', then of Blair's kitchen cabinet and more recently of the informal, unconstitutional way of governing. This last was taken up by the Butler Report: "We do not suggest that there is or should be an ideal or unchangeable system of collective Government, still less that procedures are in aggregate any less effective now than in earlier times. However, we are concerned that the informality and circumscribed character of the Government's procedures which we saw in the context of policy-making towards Iraq risks reducing the scope for informed collective political judgement. Such risks are particularly significant in a field like the subject of our Review, where hard facts are inherently difficult to come by and the quality of judgement is accordingly all the more important". (Paragraph 611, emphasis added). What this seems to express is the pressure under which the bourgeois political class functions today, with the consequent risk of a weakening of control and the prioritisation of personal and factional rivalry over the collective defence of ruling class interests.
North 2/10/04.
The novelist and art critic John Berger wrote an article in the Guardian, 24 August, 'The beginning of history', praising Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in glowing terms. "The film, considered as a political act, may be a historical landmark. Yet to have a sense of this, a certain perspective for the future is required. Living only close up to the latest news, as most opinion-makers do, reduces one's perspective. The film is trying to make a small contribution towards the changing of world history. It is a work inspired by hope". For Berger, this is an attempt by an artist to intervene in world politics and has both an immediate and a deeper and wider aim. The immediate aim "is to stop Bush fixing the next election as he fixed the last. Its focus is on the totally unjustified war in Iraq. Yet its conclusion is larger than either of these issues. It declares that a political economy which creates colossally increasing wealth surrounded by disastrously increasing poverty needs - in order to survive - a continual war with some invented foreign enemy to maintain its own internal order and security. It requires ceaseless war.
"Thus, 15 years after the fall of communism, a decade after the declared end of history, one of the main theses of Marx's interpretation of history again becomes a debating point and a possible explanation of the catastrophes being lived. It is always the poor who make the most sacrifices, Fahrenheit 9/11 announces quietly during its last minutes. For how much longer?
"There is no future anywhere for any civilisation in the world today which ignores this question. And this is why the film was made and became what it became".
These are indeed the vital questions facing this civilisation, and Berger has sensed that these questions are being posed more and more widely today despite all the drivel about the end of history and the death of marxism. We can argue with part of Berger's interpretation of the marxist theory of capitalist war, since capitalist states don't have merely 'invented' enemies but real competitors for the domination of the world. Imperialist war is not (as in Orwell's 1984, for example) a massive fiction whose essential function is to divert the masses from challenging the present system. Capitalism's 'requirement' for ceaseless war derives from real inner contradictions and conflicts; but it remains true that the endlessness and ubiquity of warfare today can only be understood by seeing it as inherent to the present form of political economy; more precisely, to capitalist social relations in an epoch when they have become a barrier to human progress.
Berger sees no conflict between the posing of this fundamental question and the film's immediate aim - "to make it less likely that President Bush will be re-elected next November" by exposing Bush as "a political cretin" and by proposing that "the White House and the Pentagon were taken over in the first year of the millennium by a gang of thugs so that US power should henceforth serve the global interests of the corporations". But as our US comrades argued in their article 'Fahrenheit 9/11 obscures reality of war in Iraq [20]' (Internationalism 131), the essential political function of the film is not to issue a call to class war but to boost the prospects of the anti-Bush camp in the next election. In other words, to serve the illusion that a change of personnel in the White House made a major difference in 2001 and that a further change could make a difference in November 2004. Kerry has already demonstrated the opposite. Bush has maintained the same militarist foreign policy as the Clinton administration, and Kerry would carry the baton round the next lap. This is precisely because global and continuous war is an unavoidable product of capitalism in decay, not of this or that politician or administration. This is why a revolution against the whole capitalist system is needed to stop the headlong flight into war, not further participation in the electoral charade, not the dead-end choice between political mouthpieces of the ruling class.
In this sense Michael Moore's references to class and capitalism are a demonstration not of any commitment to real change, but of the endless capacity of capitalism to take up the real questioning that is going on in the working class and return it in the sterile packaging of bourgeois politics. It is a total irrelevance whether Michael Moore is conscious of this or not. Capitalism needs its left wing mystifications, its false or partial critics, even more than it needs the "political cretinism" of the right; it therefore finds ways of creating them and giving them voice. Revolutionary film-making, the rallying of art to the revolution, will certainly return if the class war engulfs society as it did most powerfully after the First World War, but Fahrenheit 9/11 is not it.
Amos, 2/10/04.
The Argentinean public employees who work for the state at national, provincial or municipal level are divided up by the artificial separation imposed by the constitution of the bourgeois state in 1853 and the various reforms that followed; but they are also divided by the activities of those other agents of the capitalist state, the trade unions. The public employees are affiliated to a myriad of union organisations, and this division has been institutionalised by capitalist legislation itself, such as the law on professional associations.
One capitalist government after another has been able to take measures against these workers through so-called 'state reforms' and policies of privatisation which have led to thousands of workers being laid off either openly or in a more hidden manner through early retirement and the like. At the beginning of these 'state reforms' in 1991 there was a wage freeze affecting all these workers at national, provincial and municipal levels.
We should underline that the effects of inflation have been very severe, including during the period of the convertibility of the Argentine peso vis-�-vis the dollar which lasted up to 2001: the workers had to put up with price increases in basic goods of up to 60% and since the failure of the economic policies brought in by Carlos Menem, the buying power of the workers has fallen by between 30% and 50%, depending on whether you reckon it in peso or dollars.
During this whole period of nearly 14 years, there has been very little protest by the public employees, despite their miserable wages, with the exception of some provinces or municipalities who took action because their wages simply weren't being paid at all; and even this was under the watchful eyes of the trade unions.
But faced with a brutal drop in wages, and finding themselves excluded from the 250 dollar raise in the private sector described as an 'emergency' by the government, and faced also with the silence of the unions, the workers broke from their moorings to trade unionism. In March 2004, with the unions looking on in alarm, they began to meet spontaneously in general assemblies, where workers participated without regard to trade union membership, or to whether they were contractual or casual. Here they began to discuss the question of wages and the need to fight for the extra 250 dollars.
The response of the big public service unions in Buenos Aires was twofold, using two different methods, but with the same aim: to exhaust the workers' energies, divert and destroy the struggle. One of the tactics adopted, in this case by the SUTECBA (United Union of Municipal Workers and Employees in Buenos Aires, affiliated to the CGT), was to try to frighten the workers with the threat of losing their supplementary hours and bonuses or even their jobs. The other union, the ATE (Association of State Workers, affiliated to the CTA) adopted the tactic of proposing various sterile actions: numerous expressions of support for the struggle, strikes of 24, 48 and 72 hours, all aimed at isolating the workers from their comrades in other institutions - an old tactic of the unions. But the development of the workers' struggle led to the ATE abandoning its 'Struggle Plan' without having put it into effect.
It was by becoming aware that the unions are opposed to the working class that the hospital workers began to meet at their workplaces and tried to spread the action to other hospitals, to hold general assemblies in all the hospitals, with demands like "immediate increase in wages" or "Neither ATE nor SUTECBA".
Some hospital workers put forward the demand for a struggle for a wage increase outside the trade unions, rejecting both their threats and their 'fighting directives', going so far as refusing to allow union leaders to speak in the assemblies. They did not remain isolated in their own workplace, but tried to extend the movement to the rest of the public services.
The proof of this was the general assemblies which sprang up like mushrooms all over the place, in all sectors, integrating new workers who came to join in on a daily basis and, starting from the demand for a wage increase, came to reject the entire government plan, concluding that there is no solution in the capitalist system. This is what happened in different hospitals and it was a very important step for the municipal workers, who have historically been detached from other workers' struggle owing to the illusion that they were part of a 'workers' aristocracy'. Today this myth has been smashed forever; something very significant has changed and these struggles are proof of this.
These assemblies mandated delegates to represent them in inter-hospital assemblies, which were not closed, but on the contrary were open to all workers, with all having the chance to speak and take part in decision-making. Faced with the pressure coming from various political and union currents, they decided that no representative or delegate would negotiate in the name of the workers and that any agreement would have to be approved by all the workers.
Seeing the turn-around in the struggle of the capital's health workers, and faced with the risk that this would extend not only to other workers in the city but also to workers at provincial or national level, the unions, especially the ATE, stopped trying to take things over by force; but the SUTECBA used its whole arsenal to intimidate the workers, to deceive them with false wage increases, which would not be applied to 80% of municipalities.
This tactic, together with the threat of disciplinary and economic sanctions, brought the healthworkers' struggle to an end.
Workers must recognise that an important step forward has been made here, concretised in slogans like "Neither ATE nor SUTCBA, the decisions are taken by the assembly", "The trade unions are our enemies", "Workers' unity, without any distinction between permanent and temporary workers".
While it's true that we didn't win a wage increase, we have begun a new practise in the struggle, by insisting on the unity of the class and developing the instrument for this struggle, the assemblies.
We weren't hundreds of thousands of workers, only a few thousand, but what is important is that we have had this experience, we have verified that the working class is one class, that there is no difference between workers who are union members and those who are not - we are all workers, we have the same needs and the same enemy, the bourgeois state and its trade unions.
But the most important thing of all, along with the quest for unity and the creation of organs of struggle, is that the majority of workers didn't allow themselves to be seduced by the siren songs of the leftists with their proposals for new 'class struggle' unions. On the contrary, our practical experience in the heat of the struggle has shown us that whatever form the unions take on, whether bureaucratic or 'rank and file', these organs cannot be won back for the workers' struggle, and that whatever the good intentions of those who get involved with them, they will always be absorbed by the capitalist state and become an apparatus in the service of a decomposing system.
This unprecedented struggle by the hospital workers, whose importance is not seen by many, was a very powerful moment in the class struggle, above all because of the generalisation of the base assemblies and the election of mandated and rotating delegates.
All struggles led by the unions lead to a catastrophic defeat for the workers. For this reason, faced with workers' actions outside the unions, with decisions taken in general assemblies and tending to generalise throughout the working class, the bourgeoisie, the unions, the private or state bosses will use every means at their disposal to undo the movement.
We must organise ourselves outside the unions, create our own tools for the struggle and try to spread it as widely as we can. We have started along this path; we didn't go all the way, but the struggle has been rich with lessons for the future: we can only have confidence in the force of our class and not in our enemies and false friends.
M. NCI
This text was written by the comrades of the Nucleo Comunista Internacional (NCI) in Argentina, which has developed political positions very close to those of the ICC, and is currently engaged in discussions with our organisation and the whole of the communist left in a militant, internationalist perspective.
This text has a dual interest: on the one hand, it is testimony to a very combative struggle by the hospital workers of Buenos Aires, one that is rich in lessons for all workers. At the same time it clearly defends the unity of the working class: "the working class is one class, that there is no difference between workers who are union members and those who are not - we are all workers, we have the same needs and the same enemy, the bourgeois state and its trade unions". It supports the workers' methods of struggle and clearly denounces the trade unions. The end of the text is particularly eloquent: "We must organise ourselves outside the unions, create our own tools for the struggle and try to spread it as widely as we can. We have started along this path; we didn't go all the way, but the struggle has been rich with lessons for the future: we can only have confidence in the force of our class and not in our enemies and false friends".
We have always fought - and the comrades of the NCI have actively participated in this combat - against the error that sees the revolts of December 2001 in Argentina as a working class movement, when what really took place was an inter-class revolt without any perspective (see International Review 109, second quarter of 2002). As a result we have faced many criticisms from other revolutionary groups who have accused us of being 'defeatists' and of having a 'disdain for real workers' struggles'. Our reply was that it is absurd to try to grab hold of a mirage and to see giants where there are only windmills; at the same time, we made it clear that we were confident in the real capacities of the Argentine proletariat (see International Review 117, second quarter of 2004). Today, this small experience of the hospital workers' struggle has confirmed this perspective. Not because it was a spectacular and decisive movement, but because it supplies proof that what's happening in the Argentinean proletariat is part of the same tendencies maturing in a slow and often contradictory manner within the world working class.
In this sense, we want to make a precision about one aspect of the comrades' text. In certain passages, they say that "the workers broke from their moorings to trade unionism", that they were conscious that the unions are enemies of the working class and that "the majority of workers didn't allow themselves to be seduced by the siren songs of the leftists with their proposals for new 'class struggle' unions". There is certainly a tendency within the international working class to distrust the unions and to confront their manoeuvres; however, we don't think this has been generalised to the whole working class or to the majority of workers in Argentina. The proletariat still has to walk a long and difficult road before it can once again have confidence in itself, recover its class identity, and understand that the unions are its enemies and that the numerous varieties of trade unionism are an integral part of the bourgeois state.
We have to try to understand the global and historic balance of forces within which each particular struggle of the proletariat takes place. The fact that a small minority of workers are beginning to grasp the issues mentioned above is one thing; it's a very different thing for this consciousness to generalise irreversibly to wide layers of the class.
For us, it is very important that, on the basis of a dynamic analysis of the present situation of the class struggle, a minority of comrades has drawn the lessons and published them so that they can be part of the effort of the world proletariat to become conscious of itself. This effort faces many difficulties and contradictions and is only consciously carried out by small minorities, but in the end it will serve to change the balance of forces in the proletariat's favour.
ICC. 2/10/04.
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/russia-caucasus-central-asia
[2] http://www.wombles.org.uk
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/specialtexts/IR016_auto_operaia.htm
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/icc/200412/618/13-counter-revolutionary-character-workers-parties
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/internationalismusa/200412/1016/mexico-zapatistas-are-weapon-ruling-class
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/anti-globalisation
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/china
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/social-forums
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/war-iraq
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/terrorism
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/273_haiti.htm
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/277_flood.htm
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/south-and-central-america
[15] http://www.ibrp.org
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/118_decadence_i.html
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/15/decadence-capitalism
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/international-bureau-revolutionary-party
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/inter/130_fahrenheit_911.htm
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/263/culture
[22] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle