.
The recent struggles of the Tekel workers in Turkey (Turkey: Solidarity with Tekel workers' resistance against government and unions! [1]) has shown that workers are not willing to lie down and accept the worsening conditions imposed upon them by the economic crisis. We have recently published a statement of solidarity from the Nucleo Proletario in Peru (Solidarity from Peru for the Tekel workers [2]) . Below we publish two more statements of solidarity which show that the struggles of the workers in Turkey are not just a local affair but are the concern and inspiration for workers of all countries. The first is a joint statement from two groups in Peru the Grupo de Lucha Proletaria and the Organización Anarco Punk, the second from the Internationalist Discussion Circle of Ecuador-South America. As with the statement by the NPP, the one by the GLP and Organización Anarco Punk contains a certain overestimation of the degree to which the Tekel workers succeeded in creating their own independent organs of struggle, but this does not diminish the importance of these documents as expressions of a growing awareness that the class struggle has the same fundamental needs all over the planet.
The Tekel workers have given to the workers of the world an example of unequalled struggle, at a time when the crisis of capitalism is worsening the living and working conditions of millions of workers throughout the world. At a time when the decomposition of decadent capitalism is making the development of workers' consciousness difficult, we have seen that against all predictions the proletariat of Turkey has developed its consciousness and strength, showing that they have the weapons with which to struggle against the state, its parties, the unions and capitalism. They have made their solidarity, their confidence, their lessons and reflections constant tools in their struggles.
This letter is a salute to the titanic effort that the proletariat of Tekel/Turkey has shown in its present struggles. What we have to highlight here is the workers' capacity to self-organise their struggle with full class autonomy and showing an unrivalled development of consciousness. This is an example that the workers of the world have to take up. The Tekel workers' have shown:
The struggle of the Tekel workers is an example of the struggle for life, for dignity.
From our Turkish brothers we can take the example of their forms of self-organisation of the struggle, of class autonomy. Capitalism trembles when it sees its proletarian enemy awaken and fiercely shake itself in order to break its chains of servitude and exploitation. The working conditions (reduction of wages, precarious work, increase in working hours, massive unemployment) that face the workers in Turkey are the same as those throughout the planet and are without a doubt brought about by the prevailing mode of production: the capitalist system of exploitation. This living experience of struggle continues.
Solidarity with the struggle of the proletariat of Turkey; proletarians of the rest of the world, follow their example! Workers of the world unite!
Grupo de Lucha Proletaria / Organización Anarco Punk, Peru 23/02/2010
Dear comrades:
Please accept the fraternal greetings of the Internationalist Discussion Circle of Ecuador-South America.
Through unofficial means of communication, in this part of the world, on the other side of the Atlantic, we have learnt about the struggle that you have been waging for more than a month. As proletarians from this part of the planet we recognise in your struggle against the capitalists of the TEKEL factory, demands that are absolutely just, honest and necessary.
The working class is the same in all countries and the bourgeois exploiters are the same in Ecuador as they are in Turkey; with our hands the workers create the wealth on every continent and unfortunately for us have to exist miserably on slave wages which we do not allow us to live with dignity as human beings. The bourgeoisie is not content with exploiting us; they also want us to believe that workers are different by race, religion and nationality. But unlike the bourgeoisie we are not Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Germans, Turks, Kurds, Chinese, French, we are workers. The earth is worked by labour, therefore proletarians have no homeland because our destiny is the same: to struggle everywhere for a better future for humanity, of which our and your children are part.
We know that the bourgeoisie will use and is using every means at its disposal: repression, the unions, parliamentary negotiations, etc in order to demoralize you with the clear intention of weakening your struggles and your fighting spirit. However, the fact you have resisted for more than a month is the clear proof that your unity is not only worthy of applause but will serve as an example to other proletarian comrades in Turkey and in other countries such as this one.
Dear comrades, the capitalist mode of production which organises the world in all our countries, and whose disastrous effects are not different in the Americas, whose mechanisms of exploitation we already cannot bear, will in the not too distant future probably lead to the most spectacular proletarian uprisings that modern humanity has seen. Capitalist decay permeates every country, and its effects are impossible to hide through deception and intimidation. That is why your struggle is evidence of what is awaiting the world bourgeoisie
It is time to take back from the bourgeoisie what they have robbed from us: our freedom as human beings.
The proletariat of Turkey is not alone. There are thousands of workers who identify with your situation and who salute your actions as living proof that the working class is still standing and will not stop until it gets what by right belongs to it.
Long live the workers of TEKEL
Long live the unity of the workers of the world
Down with the bourgeoisie and its nations
Discussion Circle of Ecuador-South America 2/10.
[1] "Solidarity is a practical activity of mutual support between human beings in the struggle for existence. It is a concrete expression of the social nature of humanity. As opposed to impulses such as charity or self-sacrifice, which presuppose the existence of a conflict of interests, the material basis of solidarity is a community of interests. This is why solidarity is not a utopian ideal, but a material force, as old as humanity itself." (International Review No 111 Orientation text 2001: Confidence and Solidarity in the proletarian struggle, part one [3].)
We are publishing here two short reports on recent meetings in London and Manchester which showed some small steps forward in developing collective discussion and activity among genuinely internationalist groups and tendencies.
WR's last two London forums have focussed on the question of revolutionaries and war. Why? Why not the crisis, surely that is currently the focus of workers' thoughts, especially with the threat of unemployment hanging over so many. Perhaps true, but despite the attempts of the bourgeoisie to anaesthetise the working class to the barbarism of war through the use of professional armies and their claims of ‘defending democracy' from fundamentalism or totalitarianism, war remains a constant presence in decadent capitalism. In Britain the ruling class may be able to use the patriotism displayed at Wooton Bassett to ideologically bolster their claims that the conflict in Afghanistan is ‘humanitarian' and ‘against terror', but they can't hide the fact that scores of young people, who more often than not are effectively economic conscripts, are returning home in body bags while chaos continues to reign throughout the region.
There is another factor: the undefeated nature of the working class. Since the end of the period of counter-revolution in the late 1960s the working class internationally has continued, through many ups and downs to develop its combativity. We only have to look at the recent strikes in Turkey, Greece and Britain to see evidence for this. The bourgeoisie is only too aware of this, and it is these struggles, or the threat of what they may lead to, that are important factors in holding back a slide towards more generalised war. The failure of the bourgeoisie to fully dominate the social scene, prevents it, however sophisticated its ideology, from marching us to world war as it did in 1914 and 1945.
By its very nature the working class is an international class, it has no country to defend, no side to support in wars between capitalist states. Workers in all countries must, as Lenin wrote in 1914, turn imperialist wars into civil wars, and fight the only war that can end all wars: the class war. The ideological fog of patriotism that descended in 1914 and 1939, which obscured this necessity, has to some extent been blown away by the class struggle but revolutionaries must work for its complete dispersal in order for the working class to see the capitalist state for what it really is: a militaristic monster drunk on blood.
It was these ideas that dominated the discussion at both of our meetings. At the first meeting in November, on internationalism and WWII (presentation available online), the focus was on the how the bourgeoisie uses ideology to defend imperialist war and what the proletarian alternative to war is. But it was the discussion at the second meeting in February, on how internationalists respond to war, that was the most interesting. Over the last few years the ICC has seen the world-wide development of a new internationalist milieu. Some of these new groups identify with the communist left tradition while others identify with anarchism and syndicalism. But whatever their origins they have internationalism at the heart of their politics. These developments have forced us to rethink our attitude towards anarchism. It is a broad movement with a range of positions and left communists, rather than relying on old schemas, must find a way of working alongside the internationalist elements in this milieu whenever possible. With this in mind WR explicitly invited comrades of the Anarchist Federation, Solidarity Federation and the Communist Workers Organisation to the meeting with the idea of clarifying where we agree and where we disagree and how internationalists can intervene together in the future.
What was made clear in the meeting was that all present (comrades from the CWO and AF along with some unaligned anarchists) agreed on the centrality of internationalism in response to imperialist war. The presence of a member of the Trotskyist International Bolshevik Tendency made this explicit when all present denounced their version of anti-imperialism, essentially a crude anti-Americanism, based on calling on the exploited and dispossessed to support their own bourgeoisie, the ‘lesser evil' against the bigger imperialism. There was also some agreement, based on the shared experience of the No War But the Class War groups in London and Sheffield, on how left communists and other internationalists can discuss and work together. The stunts and frenetic activism of the past were rejected in favour of further discussion and principled united interventions at any forthcoming war campaigns and pacifist demonstrations.
This meeting represents a small step forward in relations between internationalists in Britain and as such must be welcomed but there is much more work to be done. This preliminary discussion needs to be developed and we call on all internationalists, whatever current they identify with, to contact us, organise joint meetings and take the discussion forward.
Kino 8/3/10
At a time when Britain is facing a general election that has become all the more newsworthy because of the general concern for a ‘cleaner' politics following the MPs' expenses scandal, it is important that a forum has been created in Manchester where individuals can participate in discussion that attempts to articulate a proletarian perspective. And the Manchester Class Struggle Forum which is organised by the Manchester branch of the Anarchist Federation and supported by The Commune, took up the question of elections in its first meeting.
Most of the people in the meeting shared the view that voting has no value for the working class today and that despite many workers still having illusions in the Labour Party here (someone in the meeting referred to it as the ‘lesser evil'), the LP has, almost since its formation in the early 1900s, demonstrated its complete loyalty to the ruling class rather than the working class. And it's not just in Britain: left-wing governments everywhere have a record of imposing austerity (another person mentioned PASOK in the current situation in Greece as an example) and supporting war (the trade unions and the Labour Party have a strong pedigree here both last century and this and the recently deceased left firebrand, Michael Foot, was referred to as an enthusiast for the Falklands war).
Although the reading list circulated before the meeting (Gorter's Open Letter to Lenin and Lenin's Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder) and the presentation directed attention to the debates in the Third International in which anti-parliamentarism became a key position of the Left Communists, there wasn't scope in the time allowed to develop a real discussion of this, but different views of Lenin and the Bolshevik's intentions/concerns at this stage (1920) of the Russian Revolution were aired.
The other political groups present were the ICC and Solidarity Federation and there were a number of people who were not in any groups. The meeting was conducted in a fraternal atmosphere and the forum will meet again on Thursday, April 1st.
Duffy 8/3/10
During the last few days, our readers will have noticed that our web site has been subject to unavailability and unexpected extended down time. This is due to an increase of traffic over the last few months, which ended up by exceeding the capacity of out server.
We are in the process of migrating all our sites over to a new, more powerful server. The work of rebuilding our sites is still ongoing and will oblige us from time to time to shut down for maintenance. We apologise in advance, and thank comrades for their patience!
These last few months, the French media have reported copiously on the suicides of France Telecom employees (33 in 18 months, almost two per month). It's not the first time that the news has headlined cases of suicide at work or because of work. The same thing happened two years ago at Peugeot and Renault.
It is also important for revolutionaries to examine the question of suffering and suicide at work. In the first place, this is because everything concerning the conditions of life of the exploited class is one of their permanent preoccupations. But also, and above all, because the emergence and development of this phenomenon is a very expressive symptom of the state in which the capitalist system finds itself today - a state which with unprecedented urgency underlines the necessity to overthrow this system and replace it with a society capable of satisfying human needs.
Suicide at work is not an entirely new phenomenon because it's been known for a long time among farmers. A fundamental cause exists for that: in this profession the space between private and professional life is generally mixed up. The house of the farmer and the farm which is being worked on, are, the majority of the time, in the same immediate area.
What is new since the beginning of the 1990s is the appearance and increase of suicides at work in other sectors, in industry and above all the service sector. When someone kills themselves at home or outside of their work, it's not easy to prove that the principal cause of this gesture lies in suffering linked to work. This is what the bosses play on in order to avoid responsibility when the family of the victim tries to get their gesture recognised as work-related. On the other hand, when the suicide takes place at the place of work itself, avoidance of the issue by the bosses is more difficult. We should thus interpret suicide at work as the expression of a very clear message: "It's not because of sentimental break-up, a divorce or my ‘depressive nature' that I die, it's the bosses or the system that they represent which is responsible for my death".
The increase in the number of suicides at work or because of work thus shows the development of a much more massive phenomenon of which we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg: the increase of suffering at work.
Suffering at work is evidently not new: work-related sicknesses have existed for a long time, in fact since the industrial revolution which transformed human labour into a real hell for the majority of wage earners. From the beginning of the 19th century, socialist writers have denounced the conditions of work to which capital submits the human beings it exploits. That said, since this time and up to the end of the 20th century, suicide wasn't part of the response made by the exploited to suffering at work.
In fact, suicide is much more the result of mental, rather than physical suffering. But mental suffering isn't new either: bullying and humiliations on the part of all levels of bosses have also existed for a long time. But in the past, this suffering of the exploited wouldn't end up in suicide except in exceptional circumstances.
Suicide has been studied for a long time, notably by the sociologist Durkheim at the end of the 19th century. Already, Durkheim had identified the social and not simply the individual roots of suicide: "If the individual gives in to the least shock of circumstances, it's because the state society finds itself in makes a victim quite ready for suicide."
Similarly, the studies of suffering at work, including its mental aspects, go back as far. That said, studies of suicides as a consequence of suffering at work are much more recent given the more recent development of this phenomenon. Several hypotheses have been advanced, and a certain number of facts have been established in order to explain the emergence of this phenomenon. We can particularly look at the reflections of Christophe Dejours, who is a psychiatrist, an ex-work doctor, lecturer and author of several celebrated books on the question (such as Souffrance en France: la banalisation de injustice sociale or Travail, usure mentale - Work, mental attrition).
1) The "centrality of work": work (understood not only as a means to earn a living but as a productive and creative activity beneficial to others) plays a central role in the mental health of each individual. From this, suffering in this sphere of life has consequences that are ultimately more dramatic than suffering coming out of the private or family sphere. Concretely, if someone is suffering in their family life then that has fewer repercussions in their life at work than the contrary.
2) The recognition of work and its quality from others: in a hierarchical society such as ours, this recognition evidently manifests itself in the consideration that one gets from the bosses and in the wages that one receives for the job (this can be called "vertical recognition"). But there exists another form of recognition that is ultimately more important for the workers in their daily lives: it's the recognition of their work by colleagues (called "horizontal recognition"). It is the sign that the worker is integrated into the community of "people at work" with whom one shares experiences and know-how, as well as the taste for "doing a job well-done". Even if workers are not liked by superiors or the boss because they won't conform to their demands, they can nevertheless maintain their equilibrium as long as comrades at work don't play the bosses' games and keep their confidence in others. On the other hand, everything is overturned if the confidence of other workers is lost.
1) The growth of extra work: it's something which seems paradoxical because, with the development of new technologies allowing the automation of many tasks, some have announced "the end of work" or at least the possibility of significantly reducing the workload. For the last two decades, the contrary has been the case. The workload hasn't stopped increasing to such a point that, in a country like Japan, they've invented a new word for it, Karoshi, which specifies a sudden death (by cardiac crisis or cerebral vascular accidents) of subjects having no particular pathology but who are "killed at work" in the proper sense. It's a phenomenon that not only affects Japan even if it is more pronounced there. It has equally been observed in the United States and Western Europe.
The other manifestation of this weight of work which has necessitated the creation of a new word is "burn-out", which is a particular form of depression linked to exhaustion. It's an expressive term: the worker is reduced to a pile of cinders having had their energy burnt up.
2) The development of pathologies resulting from bullying and harassment. These pathologies have been well studied today: depressive syndromes, memory trouble, spatial and temporal disorientation, sleep loss, persecution feelings, psychosomatic troubles (notably affecting the womb, glands, etc.).
Christophe Dejours analyses this phenomenon thus:
"Harassment at work is not new. It's as old as work itself. What is new are the pathologies. It's new because there is so much many more of them now and there were much fewer beforehand. Between harassment on one side, and the pathologies on the other, we must see how people at work have been made fragile by these manoeuvres of intimidation. This process of becoming more fragile can be analysed and the results are quite precise. It is linked to the destructuring of what are called the defensive resources, in particular collective defence and solidarity. It is the determinant element in the increase of pathologies. In other words, pathologies from harassment are, above all, pathologies of solitude." (Christophe Dejours, ‘Alienation et clinque du travail', Actuel Marx, no. 39).
"Twenty or thirty years ago, harassment and injustices existed, but there weren't suicides at work. Their appearance is linked to the destruction of solidarity between wage earners." (Interview with Christophe Dejours published in Le Monde, 14.08.09)
Here he touches on a very important element of mental suffering linked to work and which in great part explains the increase of suicides: the isolation of the worker.
How do the specialists understand this phenomenon of the isolation of workers?
To explain it Dejours accords a particular importance to the establishment these last two decades of individual performance-related evaluations.
"Individualised appraisals, when they are linked to contracts of objectives or a management of objectives, when centred on results or on profits, lead to the setting up of generalised competition between workers, even between services in the same firm, between sub-companies, branches, workshops, etc.
This competition, when it's associated with the threat of redundancy, leads to a profound transformation of relations at work. Relations at work are already degraded when they are more or less associated with bonuses. But when the appraisal is not coupled with benefits but with sanctions or threats of redundancy, its noxious effects become patent. Individualisation pushes towards everyman for himself, competition leading to disloyalty between colleagues; distrust is insinuated between the workers.
"The final result of the appraisal is the profound destruction of confidence, collectivity and solidarity. And, added to that, it wears down defensive resources against the pathological effects of suffering and of the constraints of work" (‘Alienation et clinique du travail').
He also underlines that one of the successes of these new measures of subordination lies in their passive acceptance by the majority of workers, notably in a growing climate of fear of losing one's job faced with increasing unemployment.
He considers that the establishment of these new methods corresponds to the triumph of liberal ideology during the last 20 years.
Dejours is also concerned with what he calls "ethical suffering": the fact that the workers, gripped in the vice of increasingly insupportable workloads and the necessity to show the realisation of untenable objectives fixed in advance for them, are led to do a bad job, and very often disapprove of the work they do, telemarketing for example. This is an ethical suffering which equally affects the teams who have to set up these new methods and who are being asked to turn themselves into torturers.
Finally, he notes that the question of the increase of suffering at work has been ignored in the claims put forward by the trade unions.
What link can there be between these analyses of specialists (in this case, Christophe Dejours) and the vision of our organisation?
In fact the ICC can instantly recognise itself in these analyses even if, evidently, the point of departure is not identical. Christophe Dejours is first of all a doctor whose vocation is to care for sick people, in this case people who are sick through their work. But his intellectual rigour obliges him to go to the root of the pathologies he proposes to treat. For its part, the ICC is a revolutionary organisation which fights capitalism with the perspective of its overthrow by the class of wage workers.
But if one takes up each of the points he presents, one can see that they can be very well integrated into our own vision.
It is one of the bases of the marxist analysis of society:
- the role of labour, that's to say the transformation of nature in the rise of the human species has been advanced by Engels, notably in his work ‘The role of labour in the transition of ape to man';
- relations of production, that's to say all of the links between human beings in the social production of their existence, constitute for marxism, the infrastructure of society; other spheres of the latter, juridical relations, modes of thought, etc., depend, in the last instance, of these relations of production;
- Marx considered that in communist society, when labour is emancipated from the constraints of capitalist society which very often transforms it into a real calamity, it will become the primary need of humanity.
It is one the essential bases of solidarity and associated labour.
Solidarity is one of the fundamentals of human society, a characteristic which with the struggle of the proletariat assumes its most complete form, internationalism: solidarity is no longer manifested towards the family, members of the tribe or the nation, but towards the whole human species.
Associated labour supposes that one can count on one and all in the productive process, that one is mutually recognised. This has existed since the beginning of humanity, but in capitalism it takes on its greatest extension. It is really this socialisation of labour which makes communism necessary and possible.
The ICC, with the whole of the marxist vision, has always considered that the progress of technology in no way allows, by itself, a reduction of the workload in the capitalist system. The "natural" tendency of this system is to take still more surplus value from wage labour. And even when there is a reduction in the working week (as was the case in France with the 35-hour's) there was an intensification of rotas, shifts and cuts in breaks, etc. It's a reality which is taking on even more violent forms with the aggravation of the crisis of capitalism which exacerbates the competition between capitalist enterprises and between states.
This is a phenomenon that the ICC has analysed during the last two decades under two angles:
- the retreat in consciousness and combativity within the working class resulting from the collapse of the so-called "socialist" regimes in 1989 and the campaigns around the alleged "definitive victory of liberal capitalism" and the "end of the class struggle";
- the deleterious effects of the decomposition that capitalism engenders, notably "everyman for himself", "atomisation", the "destruction of relations on which all life in society is based" (‘Decomposition, final phase of the decadence of capitalism', International Review no. 62, 2nd quarter 1990).
These two factors greatly explain the fact that in the past twenty years capitalism has been able to introduce new methods of servitude without provoking a response from the working class.
Those who kill themselves because of their work are, in general, those who try to resist this growth of barbarity at the workplace. Contrary to many of their colleagues, they are not resigned to submitting to this increase in the workload, the bullying and contempt which is applied to their efforts to "do a good job". But as there is not yet any collective resistance, or sufficient solidarity between the workers, the resistance and revolt against injustice remains individual and isolated. The one and the other are both condemned to failure. And the ultimate consequence of this failure is suicide which is not only an act of despair but also a last cry of revolt against a system that has wiped the individual out. The fact that this revolt takes the form of self-destruction is, in the final count, only another expression of the nihilism invading the whole of capitalist society, itself on the road to self-destruction.
When the proletariat once again takes up its road of massive struggles, when solidarity returns to the proletariat's ranks, there will no longer be suicides at work.
Fabienne and Mg 1/3/10
Our comrade Jerry Grevin, a long-time militant of the ICC's US section, died suddenly of a heart attack on 11th February 2010. His early death is a tragic loss to our organization and to all those who knew him: his family has lost a loving and affectionate husband, father, and grandfather; his colleagues at the college where he taught have lost an esteemed co-worker; his fellow ICC militants, in his section and all over the world, have lost a much-liked and dedicated comrade.
Jerry Grevin was born in 1946, in Brooklyn, into a working-class family of second-generation Jewish immigrants. His parents were imbued with a critical spirit which led them first into, then out of the CPUSA. Jerry's father was deeply shocked by the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he witnessed as a member of the US occupying forces at the end of World War II; although he never spoke of this experience, and his son only learnt of it much later, Jerry was convinced that this had deepened the anti-patriotic, anti-war spirit he inherited from his parents.
One of Jerry's finest qualities, which never left him, was his burning, unwavering indignation at all forms of injustice, oppression, and exploitation. From his earliest adulthood he took an energetic part in the great social causes of his time. He joined in organizing the mass demonstrations against segregation and racial inequality by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the American South. This demanded no small measure of courage, since activists and demonstrators were routinely subjected to abuse, beatings, and even murder, and Jerry, as a Jew, was not only a fighter against racial prejudice but also an object of racial prejudice himself.1
For his generation, especially in the United States, the other vital issue of the day was opposition to the Vietnam War. Exiled to Montreal in Canada, Jerry was a moving spirit in one of the various committees set up as part of the "Second Underground Railroad"2 created to help deserters from the US Army escape from America and build new lives abroad. He undertook this activity, not as a pacifist, but with the conviction that resistance to the military order could and should be part of a wider class struggle against capitalism, taking part in a short-lived militant publication Worker and Soldier. Many years later, Jerry was able to gain access to a heavily censored copy of his FBI file: its thickness and detail - the file was regularly updated while he was a militant in the ICC - gave him no small satisfaction, and led to some caustic comments at the expense of those who think that police and intelligence services "don't bother" with today's small and "insignificant" groups of militants.
On his return to the United States in the 1970s, Jerry found work as a telephone engineer with one of the major phone companies. It was a turbulent time of class struggle, as the economic crisis began to bite, and Jerry was involved in workplace struggles both large and small, at the same time as he participated in a publication called Wildcat, urging direct action and put out by a small group of the same name. Although he was to become disenchanted with Wildcat's immediatism and lack of any broader, long-term political perspective - it was the search for just such a perspective that led him to join the ICC - his direct, shop-floor experience, coupled with his lively powers of observation and a comprehensive attitude towards the foibles and prejudices of his fellow workers, gave him a profound insight into the way that consciousness develops concretely within the working class. As a militant of ICC, his political arguments would often be illustrated by vivid images, drawn from his own experience.
One such described an incident in the American South, where his gang of New York telephone workers had been sent on a job. A black worker in the group was victimized by management for some alleged misdemeanor; the New Yorkers sprang to his defense, to the surprise of their Southern co-workers: "Why bother?" they asked, "he's only a nigger". To which one of the New Yorkers vigorously replied that color didn't matter, that workers were all workers together, and that they had to defend each other against the bosses. "Now the remarkable thing", Jerry would conclude, "is that this guy who was strongest in defense of the black worker, was known in the group as a racist who himself had moved to Long Island to avoid living in a black neighborhood. And that shows how class struggle and solidarity is the only real antidote to racism".
Another story he liked to tell concerned his first encounter with the ICC. To quote the words of one comrade's personal tribute "As I heard him say a million times, it was when he first met a militant of the ICC when he was, as he described himself, 'an immediatist and individualist youth' writing articles solo and distributing them, that it dawned on him that revolutionary passion without organization can be only a youthful, passing flame. That was when the ICC militant put the question to him, 'OK, you write and you are a marxist. but what do you do for the revolution?'. Jerry told this story often and said that the following night he could not sleep. But it was a sleepless night that brought tremendous fruit". Many would have been put off by the blunt comment he got from the ICC, but not Jerry. On the contrary, this story (which he told with amusement at his own state of mind at the time) reveals another facet of Jerry's character: his ability to accept the force of argument and to change his mind when he was convinced by different ideas - an invaluable quality in the political debate which is the lifeblood of a true proletarian political organization.
Jerry's contribution to the ICC has been inestimable. His knowledge of the workers' movement in America was encyclopedic; his ready pen and his lively vernacular brought this history alive for our readers in his many articles written for our press in the United States (Internationalism) and for the International Review. He also had a remarkable grasp of political life and the class struggle in the USA today, and his articles on current affairs, both for our press and in our internal bulletins have provided a much valued input to our understanding of the politics of the world's greatest imperialist power.
His contribution to the ICC's internal life and organizational integrity was equally important. For many years, he has been a pillar of our American section, a comrade who could always be relied upon to step into the breech when things got difficult. During the discouraging years of the 1990s when the whole world - but perhaps especially the United States - was awash in propaganda over the "victory of capitalism", Jerry never lost his conviction in the necessity and possibility of a communist revolution, he never stopped reaching out to those around him, to the section's rare new contacts. His loyalty to the organization and to his comrades was unshakable, all the more so because, as he put it himself, it was his participation in the ICC's international life that gave him courage and allowed him to "recharge his batteries".
On a more intimate note, Jerry was also an extraordinarily funny man, and a gifted storyteller. He could - he often did - keep an audience of friends or comrades laughing for hours at a time at tales most often drawn from his own observation of life. While his stories sometimes deployed a barbed wit at the expense of the bosses or the ruling class, it was striking that they were never cruel or unkind. On the contrary, they revealed his affection and sympathy for his fellow man, as well as an all too rare ability to laugh at his own weaknesses. This openness to others was doubtless one of the qualities that made Jerry such an effective (and appreciated) teacher - a profession that he came to late in life while already in his forties.
Our tribute to Jerry would be incomplete if we left unmentioned his passion for Zydeco music (a musical form that originated and is still played among the Louisiana creoles). The demon dancer from Brooklyn was known in Zydeco festivals all across the Louisiana back country, and Jerry took pride in the help he was able to offer some young and unknown bands to find venues and an audience in New York. That was Jerry through and through: enthusiastic and energetic in all he undertook, open and warmhearted towards others.
We feel Jerry's loss all the more keenly in that his last years were among his happiest. He was delighted to become the grandfather of an adored grandson. Politically, he saw the development of a new generation of contacts around the ICC's US section and threw himself into the work of correspondence and discussion with all his customary energy. His dedication bore fruit in the Days of Discussion held in New York only a few weeks before his death, which brought together young comrades from all across the USA, many of them meeting each other for the first time. Jerry was delighted at the outcome, and considered this meeting, with all the hopes for the future that it embodied, to be one of the crowning achievements of his militant activity. It is fitting then that we leave the final word to two young comrades, both of whom took part in the Days of Discussion: for JK "Jerry was a trusted comrade, and a warm friend... Jerry's knowledge of the history of the workers' movement in the US; the depth of his personal experience in the struggles of the 70s and 80s and his commitment to keeping the flame of left communism alive in the U.S. through the difficult time following the so-called 'death of communism' were unmatched". For J, "Jerry was something of a political mentor to me over the last year and a half. He was also a very dear friend. (...) He was always willing to talk and help younger comrades learn how to intervene and understand the historical lessons of the workers' movement. His memory will live on in all of us, in the ICC, and throughout the rest of the class struggle".
ICC
1In an infamous case in 1964, three young civil rights activists (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner) were murdered by police officers and Ku Klux Klan members. Two of the activists were New York Jews.
2The name "Underground Railroad" was a reference to the 19th century network of safe houses and anti-slavery activists set up prior to the American Civil War to help run-away slaves escape to the American North and Canada.
We have recently, despite the cordon sanitaire imposed by the bourgeoisie and its supposed "means of information", learnt about your struggle to improve working conditions and wages, a struggle in which the crisis of capitalism can clearly be seen. The bourgeoisie throws us into poverty while they live off the blood and sweat we leave on their machines (which we also build, from raw materials which is also extracted at the cost of our lives). The bourgeoisie and its media have done all they can to stop us finding out about the struggle of our class at the international level. Here in Peru there has not even been the smallest report of the struggle you have been waging for a month; faced with this the class has to keep its eyes open, doing all we can to spread information about all our struggles, all our victories and also denouncing the opportunist union organisations and their bureaucratic bosses who play with our lives. We have to support each other across the world, since as the old saying goes "the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". We value and welcome your struggle, because it has animated you through your assemblies and the autonomous organisation that you have used in your struggle.
Here in Peru we are also part of the immense world-wide class and are suffering as you suffer in Turkey. Maybe we are exploited more or less than you, more openly or in a more hidden way, from one region to the other, but we can be sure we are all equally exploited, that we live in poverty at the cost of our labour. We are an international class, the class that creates the world's wealth. We therefore have no nationality but are united by our class interests. At the moment we do not have an international class party to represent us, therefore we in Peru can only send you, with these words couched in proletarian emotion, our solidarity, our sense of being united with you from here.
We want to reinforce our links: against the increased repression of the bourgeoisie we oppose our solidarity and self-confidence, and now more than ever this strike in Turkey has made us aware of our responsibility to group together on a class basis. We are not looking for alliances with the bourgeoisie. We are not going to fall for the lies that the unions in Turkey and throughout the world try to sell us, because they are enemies of the working class, an arm of the capitalist system to keep us from entering into direct struggles, to abort strikes and sit down at the bosses' table asking for charity, for the crumbs that belongs us, for bread that the proletariat made in the first place. We are not taken in by our supposed leaders and callers of strikes, stoppages and struggles. Despite our youth we can see that they are nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing who don't represent the working class but the ruling class. Therefore we trust in you, we trust in the struggle that you are carrying out against exploitation, for a better future, showing what we can achieve when united, stopping production and causing the representatives of the bourgeois state to tremble in their shoes.
Today we all have to be aware that it is not important whether firms are in the hands of private or state ownership; they represent the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Despite the fact that Tekel is in the hands of the state the Tekel workers have always been exploited. We know and re-affirm that the bourgeois state will never solve the problems of capitalism. The bourgeoisie is always telling us that the state is neutral, impartial; that it defends us; they say it is independent of social class, when it is nothing else than a bourgeois tool for ensuring the continuation of capitalist exploitation. The bourgeoisie talks through the mouth of the state. Therefore we salute you and are very enthusiastic to see that your struggle has destroyed this bourgeois illusion; your autonomous struggle shows what we must do at a world-wide level, to regain confidence in our own struggle as the working class and to win society's riches for ourselves. We know about shortages, the fight against the cold, tear gas, police repression, lack of job security and the other expressions of this bourgeois system. Your struggle is a burning light of hope for us, and we fully identify with you. So don't give up comrades! Your struggle has to overcome bourgeois confines, the road will be difficult, but our aims are justified: the state has to be pushed back by the strength that you have demonstrated. Your struggle is an example for the international proletariat.
These bourgeois parasites: how much do they think they will be able to exploit us? How much more of our blood do they think they can drain? How much longer do they think they can live off of us? Our struggle is historical, the class has thousands of experiences. Proletarian brothers: we must not miss this opportunity to draw lessons and apply them to our struggles. We must learn from history and understand that the world is made by us, and therefore belongs to us. The bourgeoisie want to repress you, to stop your struggle, and divide us through fear. They do the same here. How many are they? We are millions, our strength is the confidence that we have in each other. Our united fists raised against one point will make the earth shake and transform it.
We are happy to know that internationally our class has taken up again method of struggle inherent in it. We know comrades that you have joined together in assemblies where you debate and take decisions (there is no better way of discussing the action to take). We also know that our best friend "the strike" is present in your struggle. This is the historical weapon of the class and we have to try to spread it, calling on other sections of the exploited, as we know is happening on the railways and public sector. We are millions, the bourgeois are few. Nobody can stop us!
Your demands are completely just, we hope that they are won, that the struggle goes further, we insist that our class is the only one that can free humanity from the capitalist yoke and get rid of the burden of class society.
This first step is not only yours but part of an immense human tide with the same interests. Your struggle is our struggle; its victory, which we are confident in, will also be our triumph. The international proletariat (of which we are an expression) has its eyes on you, the unfolding of your struggles provides us with lessons, thus we hope that the proletariat's solidarity, organisation and autonomous struggle will take root.
Comrades we are all one, we all have to push forwards the struggle against capitalism. Our lives have already been turned in to commodities. What more can we lose? Only our chains! On the other hand we have everything to win. We are condemned to victory.
Down with the unions that negotiate away workers lives!
Long live the struggle of the international proletariat!
Forward with the struggle comrades!
Nucleo Proletario in Peru, 15/2/10
[email protected] [19]
Thanks to a contribution by a comrade on the 3rd Febrary on the comments section of our Spanish language site, we have learnt about the joint struggle of unemployed and shipyard workers in Vigo in Spain.
We want to thank the comrade for his contribution and to express our agreement with the conclusion that he draws "Only the united struggle of all the unemployed and workers, through joint assembles and demonstrations can we win victory. Greetings to the workers and unemployed of the navel dockyards in Vigo. And workers and unemployed of the world, take up the example of the Vigo shipyards: unity, solidarity, all together we can overcome the capitalist world". In the same way, another contribution to our comments section underlined that "the article on the struggle of the unemployed and workers of the Vigo naval shipyards are lessons we have to take up...workers and unemployed have united together in demonstrations that have stopped the whole shipyard. Take 5 minutes to read it and learn a lot more, greetings".
We have consulted the Europa Press news agency, El Faro de Vigo and La Voz de Galicia to find out more[1], and despite the limitations due to the lack of information about the workers' actions, we can conclude that our contributors are correct to call our attention to the struggles that are taking place in Vigo.
In Vigo there are 60,000 unemployed and in 2009 8000 jobs were lost in the engineering sector alone. Workers' indignation and concern faced with an increasingly difficult future is widespread. In the naval dockyards there have been lay-offs resulting from an agreement between the unions and bosses at Bolsa, which talks about the possibility of some posts in the future.
Those laid off at la Bolsa - some 700- have reacted angrily to the fact that they are to be replaced by foreign workers on temporary contacts with lower pay and terrible conditions. Thus, for example, according to a spokesman for the unemployed "there are workers sleeping in car parks in cars and they can only eat one sandwich a day".
This was the spark that lit the fuse of the struggle. The comrades have made it clear that these struggles are not against the contracted foreign workers. Thus, a spokesman insisted that "we don't have any problems with foreign workers being contracted as long as the Pontevedra agreement is kept to".
Despite this, the media immediately played the card that the workers are xenophobic. For example, El Faro de Vigo titled the article dealing with the struggle "Unemployed metal workers oppose the employment of foreigners" which is a scandalous lie since it is the same unemployed workers who have denounced the bosses' manoeuvre that "took on cheap labour in working conditions close to slavery".
The bourgeoisie is a Machiavellian and cynical class. It employs foreign workers at worse conditions than those born in the country. If the latter struggle against this practice, they are immediately accused of racism, xenophobia, "supporting the extreme right", nationalism etc. When in reality, the response of the workers is not against their class brothers but against them being shipped in under inferior working conditions which drive down everyone's working conditions. This was what we saw in Great Britain in the struggles of the construction workers on the oil refineries and power centres; the struggle concerned all workers, and the movement in the refineries and power stations began to confront nationalism. Likewise the struggle of the workers of the Sestao naval shipyards.
On the 3rd February, the unemployed went to the gate of the Barreras shipyard - the most important in the sector- with the intention of holding an assembly with the workers there. However, the gates were closed so they had to shout slogans, having brought a megaphone in order to explain their demands. In the end a majority of the workers left the yard and joined with the unemployed. According to the Europa Press "Five riot vans were deployed, armed with plastic bullets and riot shields; however eventually they had to retire to the Beiramar roundabout". The Europa Press piece continued "Finally the group formed by the unemployed and workers went off towards Bouza;, along the way they were joined by workers from others shipyards in the area -such as Cardama, Armon or Feire-As; work was stopped throughout the naval dockyards".
In this experience we have seen the expression of solidarity and unity between unemployed and employed comrades; common assemblies, street demonstrations used to make the struggle known to other workers; direct communication and contact with workers from other firms in order to win them over to the common struggle. As in Vigo in 2006, the workers took up the proletarian methods of struggle that have nothing to do with the corporatism and passivity of the unions.
On the 4th the struggle continued. At 10 in the morning, the unemployed assembled again outside the gate of Barreras. Again they united with their comrades inside the gates. Despite the presence of the riot police, they set off again in a demonstration. According to El Faro de Vigo, "yesterday's protest was watched by a strong police presence and there were tense moments, although finally there were no confrontations. The unemployed demonstrated in the area of the ship yards of Beiramar and Bouzas of Vigo, accompanied by workers from this sector, and promised to continue their mobilisation as long as the bosses do not join with them in solving the problems around the hiring of personnel".
We do not have any more news. However, we believe that these facts are significant of the militancy and consciousness of the workers, of the search for unity and solidarity faced with the blows dished out by Capital.
We want to draw the lessons from this movement and to express our active solidarity with those involved. The motivation for launching further struggles are not lacking: we have crossed the 4 million unemployed barrier; the government has announced the extension of the retirement age to 67, an increase in the time of paying contributions etc.
ICC 5/2/2010
[1] (see https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/vigo/2010/02/02/0003_8267541.htm# [21] y https://www.europapress.es/galicia/noticia-parados-naval-manifiestan-vigo-continuaran-movilizandose-arregle-problema-contratacion-20100203140943.html [22])
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2010/01/tekel-turkey
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2010/3/peru-turkey
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/111_OT_ConfSol_pt1
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/turkey
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/peru
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/ecuador
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/tekel
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/international-solidarity
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/public-meetings
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/internationalism
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/france
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/suicide
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/condition-working-class
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/vietnam-war
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/core
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/life-icc
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/jerry-grevin
[19] mailto:[email protected]
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/nucleo-proletario
[21] https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/vigo/2010/02/02/0003_8267541.htm#
[22] https://www.europapress.es/galicia/noticia-parados-naval-manifiestan-vigo-continuaran-movilizandose-arregle-problema-contratacion-20100203140943.html
[23] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/spain
[24] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/unemployment-and-class-struggle
[25] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/vigo