ICC Public Forum: Why revolutionaries are against bourgeois elections.

At every big election the media tell us how important it is that everyone exercises their democratic rights and votes. There are supposed to be clear choices between very different parties. And if you don't vote then you can't complain about who gets in!

Revolutionaries start by asking what the needs of the working class are. How can workers advance their collective struggles? What forms of organisation best serve the needs of the class struggle? What factors are important in the development of class consciousness? How do workers begin to recognise the need to express class solidarity and that they are part of an international class? What are the obstacles to the development of the struggle and of consciousness?

With the last question one of the biggest obstacles for the working class is the idea that democracy can be made to serve its interests. Instead of struggling to transform itself into a force that can destroy capitalism and establish a new society it is supposed to troop in single file through the polling stations, as so many detached individuals. Where it is clear that all the parties only offer slightly different varieties of the same militarism and austerity each individual is supposed to choose a ‘lesser evil'. Separated in isolated polling booths, the working class is divided and capitalism rules.

Come to a meeting where there will not only be discussion about the bourgeoisie's circus, but also how revolutionaries relate to the most positive developments within the working class.

2pm, 27 March, Friends of the Earth, 54 Allison St, Digbeth, Birmingham B1

and

2pm, 17 April, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1, nearest tube Holborn