1000 dead, around 2000 injured, thousands of refugees fleeing towards neighbouring Kyrgystan – that’s the horrible balance sheet of the repression carried out by the Uzbek army against the popular riots [1] [1] which took place on 13 May in several Uzbek towns in the Ferhana valley, notably Andijan, Pakhtabad and Kara Su. The army didn’t hesitate to use armoured cars, helicopters and heavy machinegun fire against demonstrations of tens of thousands. A large number of unarmed civilians including children were killed, with soldiers finishing off the wounded with a bullet in the head, while the police arrested many hundreds more. Faithful to traditional Stalinist methods, the government led by the despot Karimov did all it could to hide the truth, first imposing a media black-out, then presenting the massacre as a legitimate response to an armed Islamic uprising. Initially the American, Russian, Chinese and European governments lent support to this version, only growing more critical when the testimonies of a number of people who had been caught up in this tragedy began to circulate. In order to defend their interests as imperialist bandits, the grand democracies have cynically backed Karimov in his ‘struggle against terrorism’, merely asking him to carry out a few token democratic changes. [2] [2] Now, feigning indignation, as they do after every massacre engendered by the barbarity of capitalism, the international organisations, like the UN, the EU and numerous Non-Government Organisations, have been calling for an inquiry.
Faced with the bourgeois media, who reduce events like this to issues like terrorism or the behaviour of individual tyrants like Karimov, it is necessary to understand the real background to this bloody repression: the heritage of Stalinism, the growing decomposition of capitalist society and the sharpening of imperialist tensions which have made Central Asia in particular a strategic focus for military rivalries.
The republics of Central Asia were created by Stalin in 1924, carving up the region in the same way that the great powers divided up Africa or the Middle East. This patchwork of countries was held together by the Stalinist terror meted out to the population until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, which resulted in the independent status of the Central Asian republics. Then a Pandora’s box opened up. The richest and most populated region, the Ferghana valley, has been at the centre of all kinds of discord: shared between Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikstan, and is cut up into a series of enclaves which can only encourage border conflicts and ethnic and religious tensions. These tensions have exploded into outright violence on several occasions: in 1990, hundreds died in clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the south of Kyrgyztan; up to 50,000 were killed in the civil war in Tajikistan between 1992 and 1997. Behind the ethnic tensions, the three local republics are in dispute over territory, water rights, and the control of the arms and drugs trade from neighbouring Afghanistan. In this chaotic context, the war in Afghanistan between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance has had major repercussions throughout Central Asia, giving birth to a multitude of Islamist groups which have served to accentuate rivalries between the different republics and draw a part of the population into new massacres. The dramatic situation facing the mass of the population has been further aggravated by the authoritarian practices of these states, most of whose leaders are former Stalinist bosses. In Uzbekistan, the family clan around Karimov has appropriated all the main sources of wealth – mainly from raw materials – and corruption is the law. The average earnings are 10 to 20 dollars a month and production per inhabitant has fallen by 40% since 1998. The population is caught in a deadly trap, with the choice between plague and cholera – Stalinist bureaucrats or Islamist fanatics. The pauperisation of the population is helping to make this region a real powder-keg. The US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, under the banner of the war against terrorism, has strongly accelerated the whole process of destabilisation, since Uncle Sam’s concern for the region is not to bring peace but to defend its world leadership.
“For the first time in history, the United States has established itself in Central Asia, and it plans to stay there, not only in Afghanistan but also in the two neighbouring ex-Soviet republics (Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). This is an open threat to China, Russia, India and Iran. However, its scope is far more profound: it is a step towards an authentic encirclement of the European powers - a new edition of the old policy of ‘containment’ that the US used against Russia. From the high mountains of Central Asia it will exercise strategic control over the Middle East and its oil supplies, which are crucial for the European nations’ economies and military action” (International Review 108).
Thus Eurasia has become the axis of conflict between the imperialist powers. The Americans have spent millions on setting up military bases for their intervention towards Afghanistan and for winning control of the region (according to the US press, the CIA even uses Uzbek know-how in the field of torture, using special planes to deliver ‘terrorists’ arrested in Afghanistan or Iraq to interrogation centres in Uzbekistan). Facing this offensive in its own backyard, Russia has strengthened its own bases in the region, notably in Kyrgystan and Tajikistan, while China has also been supplying military equipment to the Kyrgyz army, hoping to get a foothold in this strategic zone. All this military activity only adds to the prevailing instability, as we are seeing in Afghanistan and Iraq, but this in turn will oblige the US to intensify its military presence, while other powers can’t afford not to respond in kind. For the population of this region, the intervention of these powers will bring not a new dawn of democracy but a further slide into repression and violence.
Donald, 4/6/05.
[1] [3] It seems probable that the riots were the product both of a major economic attack by the government (in April new restrictions were imposed on small street traders in a situation where, given the massive unemployment, the black market and the bazaar are the only form of economic activity open to millions of Uzbeks) and of a trial of 23 small entrepreneurs accused of having links with Islamism. The population hit the streets to demand ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’, accompanied by opposition political groups, which include certain Islamist groups.
[2] [4] While the US administration supports Karimov for now, it can’t be ruled out that it may try to extricate itself from this Stalinist embarrassment, especially if it is able to create a viable political opposition. This would be more in conformity with its stated aims of bringing justice and freedom to the region.
In WR 284 we said that the election campaign had been “filled with attacks on Tony Blair for his dishonesty in taking Britain to war in Iraq, for leaning on the Attorney General to give legal advice in favour of launching the invasion. This has undoubtedly been a message to the PM that an election victory should not be seen as a reason to stay in office personally. It has absolutely nothing to do with any real criticisms of Britain’s role as an imperialist power. Michael Howard remains clear that he agreed with the war and the Lib Dems supported ‘our troops’ as soon as hostilities began.
"Imperialist states do not go to war because they have dishonest leaders, neither was the Iraq war the only war based on a lie. On the contrary, all imperialist wars are fought under lying pretexts, including the century’s ‘good war’, World War Two, which Britain did not enter to save democratic freedoms or Hitler’s victims, but to save the Empire….”
Although Blair has undoubtedly been caught telling outright lies to support the decision to go to war in Iraq, the biggest lies have come from the side of his critics. The ‘anti-war’ campaign is responsible for the key ideological attack on the consciousness of the working class. By putting the blame on Blair ‘personally’ it obscures the fact that the attack on Iraq was launched by an imperialist British state. Even Blair’s responsibility is masked by the constant repetition of the ‘poodle’ insult. Blair is to blame, but suffers from ‘diminished responsibility’ because he is just a ‘poodle’ to Bush. The war was often referred to simply as ‘Bush’s war’. You are supposed to believe that the British state did not really make a decision to attack Iraq at all. It just happened that the British state was led by a ‘poodle’ who couldn’t stop himself from following the US.
This all fits in very well with the anti-Americanism that provides the glue for this very thin tissue of lies. America is designated as the only real imperialist power in the war. However, this is just the usual moan from the British bourgeoisie that it no longer has the power it did in the nineteenth century – and anti-Americanism in France and Germany has the same nostalgia for past glories. Even Churchill, who understood the key role that the US had to play in the Second World War, and struggled consistently to get the US to commit to the war, understood very well the ultimate consequence: US intervention would underline the permanent diminution of British power and the ascendancy of the US, something that greatly depressed him.
Because of the decline of Britain’s global position the British bourgeoisie pretends that it no longer has any imperialist interests. The frequently expressed interest in Africa, for instance, is supposed to be seen as concern for the welfare of the inhabitants of that continent, and should not at all be construed as being in any way similar to the rapacious interest they showed in the nineteenth century, when Africa was carved up between it and other European powers. Likewise, the British ruling class tries to give the impression that it would never dream of attacking a country like Iraq simply to bolster its strategic position in the Gulf – an area where it’s maintained a presence for two centuries. Obviously such thoughts would not enter the minds of people running the modern democratic British state!
Towards the end of the Second World War President Roosevelt had a somewhat more penetrating view of the attitude of the British bourgeoisie:
“‘The British would take land anywhere in the world, even if it were a rock or a sandbar’, Roosevelt observed caustically to his secretary of state.” (Max Hastings, Armageddon, the battle for Germany 1944-45)
Because Blair could only come up with paper-thin pretexts to engage in this war, it was the responsibility of the ‘stop the war’ campaign to cover up its imperialist nature. This is so, regardless of the fact that much of the opposition did represent a real tension within the bourgeoisie about moving so close to the US and supporting its determination to go into Iraq despite the violent opposition from France and Germany.
The bourgeoisie never goes to war without an ideological cover. The so-called ‘anti-war’ campaigns are, at the ideological level, the most dangerous expression of capitalism’s dynamic towards war, because they give the impression that each war can somehow be dealt with in its own terms, that it’s the result of a specific policy or a particular government. They obscure the fact that imperialist war is a fundamental part of the fabric of capitalist society in decadence. In fact, the ‘anti-war’ campaigns are themselves a direct and quite fundamental expression of the tendency towards war. They provide a cover for the present war, and prepare for the next.
‘But surely you’re not saying that the millions who demonstrated against the Iraq war are agents of capitalism?’ our critics often cry. Indeed not. On the contrary, it’s precisely because those millions are potentially enemies of capitalism that the ruling class needs to corral them into these pacifist parades, needs to provide false answers to their real questions.
Hardin, 4/6/05.
World Revolution 283 carried an article from WR’s 16th Congress entitled 'Britain can’t escape the world economic crisis [8]'. It explained the reasons for the relative ‘health’ of the British economy compared to its traditional European rivals. The main reason it identified is the increase in the level of exploitation of the working class in Britain over the last 20 to 30 years due to a general increase in the length of the working day (taking place alongside an increase in unemployment and part-time working), which gives British capital an increase in the absolute surplus value extracted from the working class. While this tendency exists in every country, it is in Britain that the bourgeoisie has used it to the utmost in order to drive home a short-term advantage against its economic rivals: refusing to accept any EU limitations on the length of the working day.
The following article, written by a close sympathiser, looks at the question of the extension of the working day, firstly in the context of the development of ascendant capitalism and the struggle to reduce the working day; secondly in the context of the decadence of capitalism and its inability to further reduce the working day, and thirdly in the context of the tendency for the working day to increase in recent decades.
For Marx, the question of the working day lies at the very heart of capitalism: “The prolongation of the working-day beyond the point at which the labourer would have produced just an equivalent for the value of his labour-power, and the appropriation of that surplus-labour by capital, this is production of absolute surplus value. It forms the general groundwork of the capitalist system.” (Capital, Chapter XVI, ‘Absolute and relative surplus-value’).
Getting more out of a working day of fixed hours or extending those hours by any trickery has always been a goal of capitalism. Going back to its roots, capitalism demands an increase in the working day in order to increase exploitation and the extraction of absolute surplus value. Any increase in the working day leaves cost of labour power (i.e. the monetary equivalent necessary for the worker to exist in the general manner to which he has become accustomed) the same, but worsens the condition of the worker by increasing the pressure upon him or her. As Marx noted, not only is the general tendency of capitalism to increase the working day and wear out its wage slaves, but it is also to reduce the cost of labour power (the amount necessary for the maintenance and regeneration of the worker and the workers’ family). In Capital, Marx often refers to capitalism as a “blood-sucking vampire”, a “gnawing worm”, and capitalism’s “blood lust”, (consuming) “the worker as the ferment of their own vital processes”. For Marx it was never, and, contrary to what the leftists claim today, it will never be a question of the nastiness of individual (or state organised) capitalists. The anarchy of capitalism, its devouring and destruction of labour power in its quest for profits doesn’t “depend on the good will or evil will of the individual capitalists … the immanent laws of capitalist production hold sway irresistibly over every individual capitalist” (ibid.).
By lengthening the working day, by increasing the period of production, capitalism ever more deteriorates and shortens the life of workers as a whole. Here, on the basis of Marx’s own analysis, is one of the major contradictions that expose capitalism as an essentially short term and self-destructive system. There is no other conclusion to be drawn.
During capitalism’s ascendancy in the 19th century, as the working class found its feet, the tendency of capitalism to make the working day as long as possible clashed with the tendency of the proletariat to limit the working day to the minimum. “When two rights come into conflict, force decides the issue”, said Marx in Capital. This is the class struggle in its “aggregate”. With enormous sacrifices the class struggle, a “protracted civil war, more or less veiled, between the capitalist class and the working class” (chapter on ‘The working day’), wrested real reforms from the hellish conditions of capitalism in its ascendant phase. Despite enormous resistance from the bosses, the average working day fell, the worst conditions of children’s and women’s labour were attenuated and legislation was enacted and (more or less) enforced in order to improve the general conditions of the working class. But a historical materialist analysis must insist that even these reforms couldn’t have been made unless capitalism was in a position to grant them – otherwise revolution would have immediately been on the agenda. These reforms spurred the most powerful and far-sighted elements of the bourgeoisie to increase the development of machinery and the productivity of labour. Thus a reduction in the working day, amelioration in the condition of the working class, led to a further increase in exploitation and surplus value, leading capitalism to expand afresh.
During the latter part of the 19th century, capitalism more and more filled the limits of the world market. With a lack of solvent outlets available its cyclical crises became increasingly violent. Unable to create sufficient internal markets and having spread to all regions of the planet, capitalism, again demonstrating its essential destructiveness, could only turn in on itself and seize the markets of other nations, whatever the cost. Like slavery and feudalism before it, capitalism could only go into irreversible decline and this event was marked in the bloodiest way possible by the First World War. And, contrary to those who saw this as a one-off (“the war to end all wars”), it was followed by deeper crises and then by a second world war. Wars, crises, famines and disaster have continued ever since. Compared to the tribute in blood and suffering that the working class has paid during this period of decay, the acquisition of a few weeks paid holiday and the temporary decrease in the working day during part of the 20th century count for nothing. On the contrary, the threat to the very existence of the working class, and of all humanity, is far greater today than it ever was in the 19th century.
With the decadence of capitalism came not only the development of permanent, sharpened competition between all nations – imperialism, but also the same permanent sharpening of the class struggle - the revolutionary perspective.
Along with the massacres of millions of the proletariat – mostly its youth – the two world wars saw the militarisation of labour in all the capitalist metropoles, including increases in the working day, the extension of night work and child labour. Outside of periods of open, generalised warfare came increased exploitation, productivity drives and increased overtime enforced by the trade unions, now transformed from workers’ organisations into capitalism’s shop-floor cops promoting the ‘national interest’. The anarchy and irrationality of capitalism means that in its decadent phase, as productivity and the intensity of work increases, it also becomes necessary to increase the length of the working day in order to extract even more profit.
This has particularly been the case during the last two or three decades, which have seen the slow but inexorable deepening of the economic crisis following the end of the post-war reconstruction period. In recent years – which we are ceaselessly told have seen a vast increase in prosperity and even the end of class divisions – the extraction of absolute surplus value at the expense of the working class has in reality reached levels undreamed of by the capitalism of the 19th century. In Britain, a country at the forefront of extending the working day, 1.7 million women (13.7% of women workers) and 2.6 million men (18%) work some sort of shift pattern (Office of National Statistics). If you add up the unpaid time for shift handovers and the general rule that meal breaks are taken within shifts and toilet breaks supervised, the millions of hours daily robbed from workers, over and above the profit already extracted, can be seen. In Australia there are over a million workers on shifts, half on rotating shifts, and this is increasing rapidly. Studies show 50,000 workers with sleep disorders and the appearance and growth of heart disease in young shift workers under 20. The same study shows that the unions have agreed to and implemented 79% of new shift patterns. Between 1985 and 1997 shiftworking rose 30% in the USA to include some 15 to 20 million workers with over 50% suffering sleep disorders (US Department of Labor).(1)
All the injurious and deleterious sicknesses detailed by Marx in Capital from the hellholes and sweat-shops of the mid-19th century are increasing and becoming much more extensive today: heart disease, high blood pressure, back pain, stomach problems, psychological and sleep disorder, stress related illnesses. On current estimates a shift worker has 75% of the life span of an ‘average’ worker.
Britain has led the way in cutting public transport and health care, affecting travelling time and family obligations, thus making the working day even longer. Under the guise of privatisation there have been centralised, state-organised attacks in the gas, electricity and water industries, innovating such measures as the electronic ‘tracking’ of mobile workers (being taken up by local authorities) as well as clocking on and receiving daily work through mini-computers as soon as the worker leaves home. Such shackles, undreamed of by the most caricatured mill-owner of the 19th century, are the real stuff of the ‘technological revolution’.
Again Britain is at the forefront of informal unpaid overtime, formal contractual overtime, annualised hours – where you’re sent home when there’s not enough work and called in by pagers or mobile phone when the work is there. Workers on the end of a electronic rope, yanked back into work at the whim of the boss, take us right back to the attempts to get around the restrictive factory legislation of the 19th century, but with the difference that today such efforts are legal, more efficient and are backed by the unions. Similarly “stand-by” is on the increase. Here, again electronically, and for a pittance of usually a couple of pounds a day, the worker, after a day’s work, is on call for 24 hours for days at a time. Technology is neutral and depends upon the social system. But in capitalism’s hands, what chains are forged – invisible but so much more effective and backed by the trade unions. At the same time traditional overtime payments of time and a half and double time are becoming things of the past throughout industry, being reduced to fractions like time and a sixth (Post Office, retailing) when they are not disappearing altogether in union-imposed ‘flexibility’ and ‘annualised hours’ agreements. All these tendencies are growing, even while they exist alongside unemployment, part-time working and long-term sickness, and they drive on the increases in the working day – a tendency which the British bourgeoisie, whatever the government, has pushed forward over the last decades.
In Capital, Marx showed, amongst other things, the horrors of capitalist production. But whereas in the period of the ascent of the system these horrors could be somewhat attenuated, both under the impetus of the class struggle and the system’s ability to grant reforms, such a situation does not exist today and will never exist in the future under capitalism. We are now in a dramatic, downward decline where, even if it wanted to, capitalism cannot deliver any reforms but, on the contrary, can only attack the working class more and more head on. Marx’s Capital was a call to arms, a critique of the inherent anarchy and contradictions of capitalist production as well as its inherently transient nature. Taking this critique as a whole, it is obvious that any reforms for the working class, any reduction in the working day for example, can only henceforth come about after the seizure of power by the proletariat and as steps towards a fully communist society.
Ed. 23/4/05.
(1) All these figures were collated before the take-off of 24 hour manned call centres in the banking, insurance and other industries. Therefore, millions more can be added.
First in France, and then the Netherlands, the vote against the European constitution was presented as a popular movement against politicians and bureaucrats. A typical left wing claim was that “Above all this is a victory for workers, employees, youth, the unemployed who have rallied to the ballot box to reject this neo-liberal straitjacket”. A leading social democrat insisted that “This is a triumph for a citizens’ Europe”, while another saw “a victory against the politico-media elite”, and one Trotskyist saw a “movement of social revenge”.
The left is at the front line of those presenting the No vote as “a great victory for the working class”. That’s a lie! A pure ideological fraud! The working class has gained nothing. On the contrary, it has been trapped, drawn from its class terrain into an impasse. The bourgeoisie has used its elections to attack workers’ consciousness by fomenting illusions in democracy and the electoral circus.
Workers should remember that their worst defeats are always presented as great victories. For example, in France in 1936 the advent of the Popular Front government was presented as a ‘great victory’ for the working class - which allowed the bourgeoisie to recruit under the flag of anti-fascism and dragoon workers into the horrors and massacres of the Second World War. Or, take the example of the Stalinist counter-revolution which used the lie of ‘socialism in one country’ and the ‘socialist fatherland’ for the sacrifices, exploitation, massacres, deportation and imprisonment of the working class. Or, to take a more banal recent example from Britain, who can forget the lies about the new 1997 Labour government and how things were going to change after eighteen years of the Tories.
In the Netherlands they prided themselves on their ‘intelligent debate’, in France we were supposed to be witnessing the re-awakening of the Gallic ‘spirit of rebellion’. The referendum campaigns had only one goal: to convince the working class that the most effective way to express its discontent and make the ruling class listen, even retreat, is not through the development of the class struggle but by marking your ballot paper.
For months the French bourgeoisie succeeded in turning workers’ attention to the electoral terrain, sowing the most harmful illusions. The referendums were omnipresent in all the media. It wasn’t possible to escape the intensity of the debate, the impassioned arguments on what was supposed to be at stake. This ideological furore tried to persuade every ‘citizen’, above all every worker, that this ‘consultation’ was absolutely crucial and fundamental. Every section of the ruling class played its part in the ‘great democratic debate’, to create the maximum confusion in the minds of the working class. All the media, and many politicians were insistent on the need to ‘vote Yes or vote No – but vote!’
The principal ideological poison in the French campaign was that the rise in the No vote, caused by social discontent towards the government, had forced the bourgeoisie to put social preoccupations at the centre of its campaign. This was partly true, but the only intention of this manoeuvre was to push workers into the democratic trap when previously they’d shown a complete disinterest in the campaign. This turn showed the bourgeoisie’s attempt at channelling social discontent on to the electoral arena.
After the French referendum the bourgeoisie wanted to give the impression that it still had social concerns. This is another lie. More than ever the only future prospect that capitalism offers is the intensification of attacks on the working class. The propaganda of the ruling class tries to convince us that the reaction of ‘citizens’ can change capitalism’s direction, influence the bourgeoisie and bar the way to neo-liberalism and globalisation. In reality, government policy is not going to change by an iota.
The principal objective of the bourgeoisie towards the working class is to convince it to abandon the collective terrain of the class struggle and express itself as so many atomised citizens with no class interests - when in fact the isolation of individuals is absolutely in the interests of the ruling class. For the working class the electoral terrain is an ideological trap that creates the most harmful of illusions and holds back the development of class consciousness.
This wasn’t always the case. In the nineteenth century workers struggled and died for universal suffrage. Today it’s governments who use very means at their disposal to get the maximum number of citizens to vote.
During the ascendant period of capitalism the different factions of the bourgeoisie confronted each other in parliament – or united to defend their shared interests. In a period when the proletarian revolution was not on the agenda workers had an interest in intervening in these confrontations between bourgeois fractions, and even sometimes supporting some fractions against others in so far as it meant improvements in the system. That was how the working class in Britain got the reduction of the working day to 10 hours in 1848, or how union rights were recognised in France in 1884.
But the situation has been totally changed since the early 20th century. Capitalist society entered into its period of permanent crisis and irreversible decline. Capitalism has conquered the planet and the carving up of the world by the big powers has finished. Each imperialist power can only gain new markets at the expense of others. This is a new “epoch of wars and revolutions” as the Communist International declared in 1919, an epoch of economic collapses like the crash of 1929, two world wars and the revolutionary eruption of the proletariat in 1905 in Russia and from 1917-23 in Russia, Germany, Hungary, Italy. To face its growing difficulties capital is constantly forced to strengthen the power of its state. More and more the state tends to take over the whole of social life, above all at the economic level. This evolution of the role of the state is accompanied by a weakening of the legislative in favour of the executive. As the Second Congress of the Communist International put it “The centre of gravity of political life has now completely and definitively left parliament”.
For workers it is no longer a question of fitting in with capitalism but of overturning it, because this system is no longer capable of lasting reforms or improvements.
For the bourgeoisie parliament has become a chamber for ratifying decisions taken elsewhere.
But electoralism retains an important ideological role. The mystificatory function of parliamentary institutions already existed in the 19th century, but that was secondary to their political function. Today mystification is the only function that remains for the bourgeoisie: it wants us to think that democracy is the most precious thing, that it is the expression of the sovereignty of the people. The mystification of democracy is the best means to poison workers’ consciousness and the most dangerous and effective ideological weapon to subjugate the working class.
Attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class didn’t stop during the referendum campaigns. As with the recent general election in Britain the bourgeoisie tried to convince workers that the capitalist system can be reformed. But the attacks on the working class are the products of the permanent economic crisis and a demonstration of the bankruptcy of the capitalist system world-wide. The ruling class wants to hide this from workers. For the working class its response can not be at the level of elections and democracy but only in the development of the class struggle. It’s the only way to respond to the attacks of capitalism.
Adapted from an article in RI 358. In a future article we will look at how the current crisis over the European constitution effects the policies of the bourgeoisie at the level of economics and imperialist rivalries.
In issue 279 of World Revolution we wrote an article [12] (1) criticising the false alternatives to the crisis of capitalism posed by the activists present at the ‘Beyond the ESF’ event, which ran alongside the ‘official’ European Social Forum in October last year. This event, organised by the WOMBLES, attracted a wide range of ‘anti-capitalists’ from around the world with the promise of a “part conference, part direct action [and] part celebration of self-organised cultures of resistance”. Unfortunately, as we wrote at the time, anyone looking for discussion and clarification at this ‘carnival of the oppressed’ would have come away from the meetings disappointed. Behind all the talk about ‘new social movements’, all that was on offer was good old fashioned reformism wrapped up in new packaging.
In preparation for the demonstrations and meetings that will take place in July at the G8 summit in Scotland, we would like to return to one of the questions posed at the ‘Beyond the ESF’ event, the question of “precarity”.
Precarity is just another term for job insecurity or casual labour. Neither are new concepts for the working class, just facts of life within capitalism that generations of workers have been forced to experience. As our Spanish section wrote in response to ‘anti-globalisation’ activists there, “precariousness has always been part of workers’ existence. The existence of an important layer of the population needing work and therefore the means to procure its existence (what Marx & Engel’s called the ‘reserve army of labour’) is not only a consequence but a necessity, a pre-condition, of the capitalist economy itself” (‘Questions & answers about the casualisation of labour’, ICC website). This insecurity invades every area of workers lives making them the “class of precariousness” (ibid)
From the late 1960s onwards, following the end of the period of reconstruction after the Second World War, capitalism has been in deep crisis. Increases in job insecurity, or more accurately mass unemployment, are a product of this crisis. Incapable of masking successive waves of lay-offs or integrating new generations of workers into the productive process, the state is forced to use a variety of measures to keep labour costs to a minimum. Increasing the amount of temporary and part time workers is one way of doing this.
However, for those ‘anti-capitalists’ who were present at the ‘Beyond ESF’ events, and will certainly be present at the forthcoming G8 demonstrations, precarity is a product of something else, something new: neo-liberalism and globalisation. The WOMBLES, for example, state this very clearly: “the new economic experience is one of precarious work and work in the informal economy for large sections of our populations, and can be seen as dynamic occupational practice under neo-liberalism” (from the programme for Beyond ESF). For them, “precarity is fast emerging as the central social issue in heavily flexiblized Europe. Job precariousness and associated social anxiety are spreading all over Europe” (ibid).
This suggests that it is only certain right-wing governments in specific countries that are to blame for the problem of precarity - those nasty neo-liberals who emerged in the early 1980s and are behind ‘globalisation’ and the multinationals. But all governments, including those on the left, in all countries, “have been developing the use of such contracts under preposterous names such as ‘insertion contracts’, ‘replacement contracts’, etc. In Spain, the process of casualisation was begun by the socialist Gonzalez government with the whole series of measures that it began to impose in 1984. The leading proponent of casualisation in Spain is the public sector. ‘Left wing’ regional and town councils have carried this out on a large scale” (‘Questions & answers…’).
The reality is that job insecurity is not a ‘new economic experience’ for workers. The speed of the attacks may have increased but this just a reflection of the speeding up of capitalism’s crisis. The idea of a job for life has disappeared; capitalism is no longer able to offer a perspective for the future. Therefore the real question remains how we, the working class, can respond.
We say the working class deliberately, because it is the only revolutionary class within capitalism, the only social force capable of providing a perspective for the future. Precariousness, as we have shown, has not created a new type of worker, despite the claims that some ‘anti-capitalists’ make about the ‘changing working class’. These ideologists like to stress the difference between older, privileged workers with ‘permanent’ contracts, and those younger workers without any ‘security’ at all – the ‘precariat’. In reality, “The aim of all this ideology about the ‘new composition’ of the proletariat is to sow divisions and conflicts within the proletariat’s ranks, to the great rejoicing of the capitalists” (ibid).
Like any other attack on its living and working conditions, the working class can only struggle against the capitalists’ efforts to impose increasingly insecure job contracts by using the weapons at its disposal – the weapons of unity, self-organisation, and solidarity. In another epoch of capitalism, the trade unions could be instruments in this struggle, but this is no longer the case.
This is not, as the Precarity Network suggests, because they are hierarchical and bureaucratic organisations, still less because they only defend the interests of the ‘secure’ workers. It’s because they don’t represent the interests of the proletariat. Since capitalism became a decadent system, incapable of providing reforms, the unions have become part of the state, co-managing exploitation and sabotaging workers’ struggles from within. This also applies to those ‘rank and file trade unionists’ who argue for casual workers to be integrated into the existing unions. These are the same organisations that helped “underwrite these measures against permanent workers and helped to develop casualisation” (ibid).
But the biggest illusion spread by the ‘anti-capitalists’ around the question of precarity is the idea of setting up a “network of struggle”, which “can begin posing serious alternatives to capitalism [and work towards] creating a new world in the shell of the old” (‘What are social centres?’ available at: www.wombles.org.uk [13]). This network is supposedly being built right now, through the establishment of ‘social centres’ in various towns, usually in squatted buildings.
In our view, this idea of creating the new world in the shell of the old is just an anarchist version of the gradualist, reformist vision that once took hold of the old social democratic parties. It is one thing to find a place where you can hold political meetings, provide literature and other resources to aid the process of discussion and clarification. It is quite another to claim that the very act of squatting, or conducting experiments in communal living, constitutes a challenge to the present system. In fact capitalism is perfectly capable of recuperating such efforts – the 70s were replete with examples of local councils institutionalising similar neighbourhood initiatives. And with illusions like these, it’s not surprising that the political level of much of the discussion that takes place at these centres is extremely low. The dominant mood is usually the kind of activism that is radical in appearance but leftist in content (it’s no accident, for example, that the nationalist Zapatistas are so widely admired and emulated in these circles).
This dead-end activism was very evident on Mayday when the Precarity Network occupied a London branch of Tesco, which it targeted because “it is at the forefront of exploitative work practices on a global scale, paying new supermarket employees below minimum wage (rising to only just above minimum wage after several months), cutting Sunday pay (so Sunday becomes a normal working day), etc.” (euroMAYDAY: London Report! available from: www.wombles.org.uk [13]). We won’t ask the obvious question: why not target Sainsbury or Waitrose as well? But how does giving out ‘London for free vouchers’ to bemused shoppers accompanied by a samba band, then fighting the police, challenge precarity? Workers need to lose much more than their chain stores before exploitation will end. Stunts like this don’t build solidarity as the Precarity Network claims, but reinforce the status quo. Where was the working class in all this? Did the activists involve the low paid Tesco workers?
The working class today is faced with the urgent need to rediscover its class identity. This doesn’t mean denying the real changes that have taken place in the conditions of exploitation over the past 30 years or more; but the chorus of theories that claim to have discovered a ‘new’ subject of social transformation fixate on these changes to undermine the essentials, the things that haven’t changed and are the most important things to reaffirm: that the working class is still the exploited class in this society and still the only subject of revolutionary change.
William, 4/6/05.
(1) All the ICC articles cited in this article are available from our website: www.internationalism.org [14].
We recently learned of the death after a long illness of Mauro Stefanini, one of the oldest and most dedicated militants of Battaglia Comunista, and himself the son of an old militant of the Italian left. We are publishing here extracts from the letter of solidarity which the ICC sent to the militants of the IBRP and from the letter of thanks written in reply by a militant of the IBRP in the name of his organisation.
Comrades,
It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of comrade Mauro…his vivacity and warmth always made a great impression on the militants of our organisation who knew him personally.
But there are two other reasons why his death has had a particular effect on us.
In the first place, we feel the death of Mauro as a loss for the working class. Obviously, his personal qualities, notably his abilities as a writer and speaker, are part of this. But what is more important for us is his militant commitment and dedication, which he kept up even when his illness was getting the better of him.
In the second place, we don’t forget that Mauro was the son of Luciano, a member of the Italian Fraction for whom our comrade MC had considerable regard, for his devotion but also for his political lucidity, since he was one of the first within the Fraction to fully understand the implications of the historic period opened by the First World War for the fundamental question of the nature of the trade unions.
One of the consequences of the terrible counter-revolution which descended on the working class after the failure of the world revolution was the near-disappearance of a once very lively tradition of the workers’ movement of the past: the fact that many children of militants (like Marx’s daughters, the son of Wilhelm Liebknecht and many others) took up the torch from their parents and thus kept up the continuity of proletarian combat between the generations. Mauro was one of the rare ones to carry on this tradition and this is an extra element of our sympathy for him…
This is why, comrades of the IBRP, you can believe in the absolute sincerity of our solidarity and our communist greetings.
The ICC.
Comrades,
In the name of the IBRP, I would like to thank you for the expression of your solidarity following the very major loss of our comrade Mauro. As you say, this death is a very painful one for us. With his gifts of humanity, passion and devotion to the cause of the proletariat, Mauro was a comrade of rare quality. We could even say that his communist being was ‘written’ in his genes: not only because he came from a family which gave so much to the cause of communism, but above all because his spirit instinctively rebelled against the least manifestation of oppression and injustice. It will not be easy to fill the political void that he leaves behind and it will be impossible to fill the human void… In thanking you again, we send you our communist greetings.
The forthcoming British presidency of the G8 - and the accompanying summit in Scotland in July - has been the focus of a campaign to ‘Make Poverty History’: a coalition of ‘the great and the good’. Churches, charities, trade unions, and a galaxy of celebrities are calling for fair trade, debt-relief and improved aid. Huge parades and rock concerts are being planned, their stated aim being ‘to make the politicians care’. And the politicians are already falling over each other to show how caring they really are, with Gordon Brown leading the way by announcing increased aid for the ‘developing’ world.
The first plank of the Make Poverty History campaign is ‘unjust trade’: “the rules are rigged - loaded in favour of the wealthiest countries and their business interests. So no matter how hard people work in the developing world, or how much their countries produce, trade relationships benefit the rich world most.” Yes, trade is unjust, but there can never be ‘fair trade’ under capitalism, a system where a wealthy minority - the ruling class - own and control the means of production used to exploit the working class, who have nothing to sell but their labour power. However hard workers toil, in the ‘rich countries’ as well as the ‘poor’, the relations of wage-labourer to capitalist can only benefit the latter!
Yes, the rules of international trade are rigged in favour of the more developed countries. But why is this? Basically, because the laws of capital dictate that wealth will always concentrate around the most competitive and technically advanced poles of accumulation. And these laws function even more ruthlessly in periods of economic crisis. When the period of reconstruction after World War II closed at the end of the 1960s, capitalism was once again plunged into a deep economic crisis, with rising unemployment, stagnant growth rates and spiralling levels of debt. The largest economic powers have systematically used the international institutions (G8, IMF, World Bank) to deflect the worst effects of the crisis onto the weaker economies on the peripheries of capitalism. To expect these institutions to operate in any other way is like trying to persuade a shark to convert to vegetarianism when it’s about to bite your leg off.
What’s more, the deepening of the economic crisis works to sharpen the economic and imperialist rivalries between all nation states, and any initiative by one capitalist power to ‘re-write’ the rules of international trade is aimed at weakening the position of its rivals. This is precisely the goal of the British bourgeoisie faced with the economic and military might of the US. Finally, just a brief glimpse of the history of Africa shows how the great powers have led the destruction of the continent through endless imperialist conflicts that have done so much to contribute to the suffering of the poor.
However, while the poorest countries have suffered the worst, this does not mean that those who work and live in the ‘rich world’ are having a fine time of things! Throughout the ‘rich countries’ unemployment is rising, pensions and the social wage are under attack and extremes of poverty and wealth continue to increase. No capitalist state can overcome the inherent contradictions in the economy any more than a man can jump over his own shadow. Capitalism - a bankrupt, decadent system - is completely responsible for the levels of poverty throughout the planet and is utterly incapable of reform. Calls to re-write the trade rules do nothing more than foster the illusion that the capitalist system could function without ruthless cutthroat competition.
The second plank of the Make Poverty History campaign is the call to ‘Drop the Debt’. According to the MPH campaign, “The United Kingdom has shown welcome political leadership in unilaterally cancelling 100% of the debt owed directly to it by many of the world’s poorest countries... It must now push other countries to follow its lead, and use its influence to ensure that the debts of the poorest countries are cancelled in full.” This quote expresses very clearly how the question of debt-relief is closely tied up with the ‘use of influence’: flexing imperialist muscles to get rival nations to follow the strategic and economic interests of the power concerned. This is what Britain’s “political leadership” really boils down to – seeking new ways of gaining power and influence. With such ‘generous’ gestures, debts are often just restructured, not cancelled, and many countries have refused to accept the poisoned chalice, having seen the restructuring policies they have to implement.
The situation is even clearer when we consider the third plank of the MPH campaign: the need to “deliver more and better aid”. To begin with, the Asian Tsunami crisis demonstrated that offers of aid are more often than not empty promises – with donors failing to give the full amounts pledged. And when the money is provided, it normally comes with numerous strings attached: demands to ‘reform’ economic and political structures in ways designed to benefit the countries providing the aid. Recognising this reality, the MPH campaign demands that “Aid needs to focus better on poor people’s needs. It should no longer be conditional on recipients promising economic change… Aid should support poor countries’ and communities’ own plans and paths out of poverty.” But once again: why should the capitalist providers of aid be concerned about the needs of the poor? Their motive for providing aid is not the elimination of poverty but the defence of their economic profits and imperialist influence. This whole do-gooding ideology serves to spread the dangerous illusion that this brutal system of exploitation can ever function for different motives.
There is no doubt that many will go to the anti-G8 protests because they are genuinely angry and disillusioned about the state of the planet and the direction in which capitalism is taking it. However, far from being ‘anti-capitalist’, the role of the official campaigns is to divert any questioning away from a radical critique and reflection on the root causes of these ills. The history of the last hundred years has made it perfectly clear that the present social system is dragging mankind towards economic, ecological, and military disaster. Not only can capitalism not exist without poverty, looting the environment and war - these scourges are getting worse and worse. There is no basis whatever for hoping that those who run the system will or can change it for the better.
But this is no reason for despair. Capitalism, for all its horrors, has created the possibility of mankind uniting into a world community, of using the vast technical knowledge developed under this system to eliminate poverty and useless toil all over the planet. But:
International Communist Current, June 2005
Two years after the invasion of Iraq, after the loss of 1,300 US soldiers, there is growing insurgency in Iraq and hardly a day goes by without new reports of killings. The Iraqi dead have not been counted, but is estimated to be in the region of 100,000, mainly civilians. Elections brought no legitimacy to a government that can only survive thanks to military occupation, and have certainly brought no peace or reconstruction.
Iraq remains rich in crude oil, but production of oil shows no sign of reaching the pre-war levels of 2.5m barrels a day, let alone the peak of 3.5m in 1979. Oil production is taking second place to the fighting. Much of the country has an unstable electricity supply and large areas have regular problems with water supply. With the UN estimating $36bn needed for reconstruction by 2007, $32bn has been promised, but only $5.5bn disbursed, and much of that spent on security, not reconstruction.
Meanwhile the violence has escalated through April and May, with both the US operations near the Syrian border and the activity of dozens of ‘insurgent’ groups, sometimes fighting the US coalition, sometimes each other, and sometimes targeting civilians. If the occupation of the country is almost universally unpopular, it has certainly not united the country against it. The ‘Iraqi resistance’ is itself a factor of chaos and division. The ‘Islamic’ Sunni gangs have more and more been attacking Shiite Muslims, raising the spectre of bloody sectarian conflict.
What we see in Iraq is the clearest example of the tendency of states in the region to break up into a civil war between bourgeois factions. “The epicentre is Iraq, whose shock waves are spreading in all directions: constant terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, which are only the tip of the iceberg in a hidden struggle for power; open war between Israel and Palestine; warlordism in Afghanistan; the destabilisation of the Russian Caucasus; terrorist attacks and armed conflict in Pakistan; bomb attacks in Turkey; a critical situation in Iran and Syria” (IR 119). Far from being able to contain this destabilisation, the great powers are only exacerbating it, particularly with the new threats against Syria and Iran.
If each new conflict only causes more instability, why do they do it? Each power has to defend its imperialist interests against its rivals. The USA, the world’s only remaining superpower with massive military dominance, needs to assert itself against all potential rivals. To do so it has employed the strategy of making massive displays of force for the last 15 years, starting with the first Gulf War in 1991. But if these demonstrations of military power may initially make its rivals hesitate, they later return with renewed determination. So the first Gulf war was soon followed by Germany’s encouragement of Croatian secession from Yugoslavia, pushing forward its interest in gaining access to the Mediterranean. This set in motion a whole series of interventions by all the major powers, each defending its interests regardless of the disintegration of the region into war.
In the Middle East the USA wants complete domination of this region for two strategic reasons. Since this is a major oil-producing region, it can use it to control the supply of oil to any potential rivals in Europe or Japan. It is also part of the process of encircling Europe and Russia. These military adventures are the only way the US can defend its interests, regardless of the destabilisation, regardless of the destructive effect on Iraqi oil production, regardless of the fact that in Iraq the US “is confronted with a ‘black hole’ which not only threatens to swallow up a large proportion of its troops, but also threatens its authority and prestige” (IR 119).
Because of their military inferiority to the USA, the other great powers can often only fight a rearguard resistance, using calls for ‘international law’, ‘co-operation’ and the UN. Such was the policy of France and Germany in relation to the Iraq War, since it was not in their interests. Such is the policy of France, Germany and Britain in relation to the new threats against Iran, since they all want to defend their interests there.
For all the claims that this is a war against terror, the military offensive of the world’s greatest power, and the resistance of its rivals, can never contain the spread of chaos. On the contrary, they are the major agents in extending it across the planet. Imperialist war is not a rational choice that governments can be dissuaded from. As Rosa Luxemburg said “Imperialism is not the creation of any one or of any group of states. It is the product of a particular stage of ripeness in the world development of capital, an innately international condition, an indivisible whole, that is recognisable only in all its relations and from which no nation can hold aloof at will” (Junius pamphlet, 1915).
Alex 4/6/05.
The dispute at the BBC that led to a strike on 23 May is an indication of the difficulties facing the working class. Ever since the plans were published in December last year they have been presented as unavoidable; and the whole argument has been presented as being about how best to preserve the supposed excellence of the BBC.
The Director of the BBC, Mark Thompson, expressed his regret for the ‘painful’ plans he had to impose but explained that they were the necessary price for maintaining the BBC’s position as “one of the greatest – perhaps the greatest – force for cultural good on the face of the earth” (quoted in The Guardian 7/12/04). The impetus for the changes comes directly from the government, which has required the BBC to prepare for a future with the greater involvement of ‘independent’ producers and technical services as a condition of the renewal of the licence fee agreement. This has led to the plans for ‘savings’ of £320m and job losses of up to 6,000, totalling 20% of the workforce (Guardian 21/3/05). For the bosses of the BBC, as for the bosses of any organisation subject to the laws of capitalism, the truth is that they have no alternative but to carry out such actions if they are to continue. In the words of Mark Thompson: “We are going through the toughest period any of us can remember. It’s a difficult and painful process but necessary. We need to free up money to start investing in our digital future, to end our current Charter in December 2006 on budget and to show we are serious about providing value for money” (ibid).
In a joint statement by Bectu, Amicus and the NUJ, published after the plans were announced, the unions began by denouncing the plans as showing “high-handed disregard for the future of thousands of staff” and as threatening “the very heart of the BBC”. They went on to promise a campaign of resistance: “The unions will resist all compulsory redundancies. Through the coming months we will stand together in workplaces to oppose the scale and extent of cuts, and work in the public arena with Licence Fee payers, politicians, and opinion formers, to make the case that the BBC offers the best value for money in British broadcasting.” However, for all the fighting talk, the statement accepts the essential need to adapt to the reality of the situation. Thus the unions will resist “all compulsory redundancies” and will oppose “the scale and extent of cuts”. This was repeated as the campaign developed. A letter in January this year appealed to the BBC governors to “allow representatives of the unions’ BBC National Joint Council the opportunity to have a significant input on behalf of staff to inform your decision-making”. A leaflet given out at the same time stated “The joint unions are committed to oppose any compulsory redundancies, we’ll be doing everything possible to persuade the management to tone down their plans” (our emphasis). A leaflet given out during the strike listed what the unions were asking for: “Proper negotiations with our management; no compulsory redundancies; talks about the future shape and scale of the BBC” and “an end to cuts for cuts sake” (our emphasis).
As with the managers of the BBC, the unions have no other options given as they accept the context in which organisations like the BBC exist, and the ideology about the nature and role of the BBC. Their role then becomes to reach some kind of deal – the ‘best’ that they can get – and to ensure the compliance of the workers that they claim to represent.
The consequence of this is that the bosses and the unions work together to manage the workers. The bosses have acted tough. The unions have voiced their opposition but mounted a campaign that has been drawn out and isolated. After the announcement of the plan in December nothing was done until January when the appeal was made to the BBC governors. Then in March a low-level protest was mounted: “As part of a campaign day on March 2 against cuts and privatisations due to be announced this month, staff across the BBC wore union-issued badges in protest at the plans. Outside many BBC buildings groups of staff gathered at lunchtime to show their support for the union campaign, and at a meeting in London senior union figures warned that many of Thompson’s plans could wreck the BBC’s ability to deliver top-quality public service broadcasting (PSB)” (Bectu website 9/3/05). At the end of May came the one-day strike, followed by negotiations at ACAS, the calling off of the next planned strike and the presentation of the management’s proposals. The unions stated that “Management has made significant concessions regarding privatisations, but has failed adequately to address concerns over job losses” (joint union press statement 27/05/05). At the time of writing the new proposals have been rejected and the possibility of further strikes has been raised.
Does this mean that workers are merely passive victims in the manoeuvres of the bosses and unions? No. The working class is always an active factor in the class struggle. It is always a threat to those who would manage capitalism for the ‘best’. The workers at the BBC have been carefully handled by the unions and the bosses who have been mindful to gauge the mood of the workers. The one day strike came well after the original announcement; there were illusions in ACAS; the unions had no recommendations on the BBC’s revised proposals. The truth is that the unions and the bosses know there is anger amongst workers. Around the world the ruling class knows this. So today, it does not risk large scale manoeuvres, as we saw in the 1990s. It is more cautious about imposing cuts, even though the situation requires it to become more bold by making deeper and repeated attacks.
The dilemma that faces the working class is that it is presented with a situation that it seems unable to affect: over the last fifteen or sixteen years cuts and attacks seem to have multiplied and resistance seems to have achieved little. This explains the patchiness of the strike at the BBC. Overall some 40% of workers took part, but this ranged from 85% in some regions and sectors of the BBC to under 10% in others. There is anger and confusion in the working class in equal measure. This will continue while workers remain isolated, while strikes remain trapped at the level of one particular organisation and seek to defend that organisation. In reality, when workers strike at the BBC they are not BBC employees but part of the international working class and they are struggling not to defend the BBC but the interests of the working class.
This is the objective reality of the working class that confronts the objective reality of capitalism and ruling class. This confrontation lies within every strike, but only becomes real when workers begin to break out of the limits imposed on them by bosses and unions alike. When workers begin to act consciously as part of the proletariat they resolve the dilemma they face. They can affect the situation, if not at the level of winning this or that particular struggle, which becomes more and more difficult as the economic crisis bites deeper, then at the more fundamental level of strengthening the proletariat. It is this strengthening, this movement from the everyday experience of the working class to its final goal of a society without exploitation, that is the real fruit of the class’ struggles and the real hope of humanity.
North, 4/6/05
2005 abounds in gruesome anniversaries. The bourgeoisie has just celebrated one of them - the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in January 1945 - with an ostentation that outdid the 50th anniversary of the same event. This comes as no surprise. For the last sixty years, parading the monstrous crimes of the side defeated in World War II has proved the surest means of absolving the Allies from the crimes that they too committed against humanity during and after the war. It has served moreover to present democratic values as the guarantee of civilisation against barbarity.
The Second World War, like the first, was an imperialist war fought by imperialist brigands and the slaughter it generated (60 million dead), was a dramatic confirmation of the bankruptcy of capitalism. For the bourgeoisie it is of the utmost importance that the mystification that made the mobilisation of their elders possible remains in the minds of the new generations; that the illusion remains that to fight in the democratic camp against fascism was to defend human dignity and civilisation against barbarism. That is why it is not enough for the ruling class to have used the American, English, German, Russian or French working class as canon fodder: they are directing their sick propaganda specifically against the present generation of proletarians. Today the working class is not prepared to sacrifice itself for the economic and imperialist interests of the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless it is still vulnerable to the mystification that it is not capitalism that produces the barbarity in the world, but that the latter is the responsibility of certain totalitarian powers that are the sworn enemies of democracy
The experience of two world wars shows us the common characteristics that explain the barbarity which is the responsibility of all the camps involved:
– The most sophisticated technology is reserved for the military, which drains society’s strength and resources, as does any form of war effort.
– An iron corset encircles the whole of society in order to bend it to the extreme demands of militarism and war production.
– The most extreme means are used to impose oneself militarily: mustard gas during the First World War, which, up until its first use, was said to be the ultimate weapon, that would never be used; the atomic bomb, the supreme weapon against Japan in 1945. Less well known but still more murderous, was the bombing of towns and civil populations during the Second World War, in order to terrorise and decimate them. Germany was the first to use this strategy when it bombed London, Coventry and Rotterdam. The technique was perfected and made systematic by Britain, whose bombers unleashed real fire balls at the heart of the towns, raising the temperature to over 1,000°C in what became a gigantic inferno. “The crimes of Germany or Russia should not make us forget that the Allies themselves were possessed of the spirit of evil and outdid Germany in some ways, specifically with terror bombing. When he decided to order the first raids on Berlin on 25th August 1940, in response to an accidental attack on London, Churchill assumed the devastating responsibility for a terrible moral regression. For almost five years, the British Prime Minister, the commanders of Bomber Command, Harris especially, attacked German towns relentlessly (…) This horror reached its zenith on 11th September 1944 at Darmstadt. In the course of a remarkably concerted attack, the entire historic centre disappeared in an ocean of flames. In 51 minutes, the town was hit by a volume of bombs greater than those dropped on London throughout the whole war. 14,000 people died. As for the industrial zone, situated on the outskirts and which represented only 0.5% of the Reich’s economic potential, it was hardly touched.” (Une guerre totale 1939-1945, stratégies, moyens, controverses by Philippe Masson) [1] [23]. The British bombardments of German towns killed nearly 1 million people.
Far from moderating the offensive against the enemy and so reducing the financial cost, the rout of Germany and Japan in 1945 had quite the opposite effect. The intensity and cruelty of the air raids was redoubled. This was because what was really at stake was no longer victory over these countries; this had already been won. The purpose was in fact to prevent parts of the German working class from rising up against capitalism in response to the suffering caused by the war, as had happened at the time of the First World War [2] [24]. So the British and American air raids were intended to annihilate those workers who had not already perished on the military fronts and to throw the proletariat into impotence and disarray.
There was another consideration as well. It had become clear to the Anglo-Americans that the future division of the world would place the main victors of World War II in opposition to one another. On one side there would be the United States (with Britain at its side, a country that had been bled dry by the war). On the other side would be the Soviet Union, which was in a position to strengthen itself considerably through the conquest and military occupation that would follow its victory over Germany. So a concern of the western Allies was to set limits to Stalin’s imperialist appetites in Europe and Asia by means of a dissuasive show of force. This was the other purpose behind the British bombardment of Germany in 1945 and it was the sole reason for using atomic weapons against Japan.
The fact that military and economic establishments were targeted less and less, as these had become secondary, demonstrates the new stakes in the bombings, as in the case of Dresden: “Up to 1943, in spite of the suffering inflicted on the population, the raids still had a military or economic justification, aimed as they were at the large ports in the north of Germany, the Ruhr complex, the main industrial centres or even the capital of the Reich. But from the autumn of 1944, this was no longer the case. With a perfectly practised technique, Bomber Command, which had 1,600 planes at its disposal and which was striking at a German defence that was increasingly weak, undertook the attack and systematic destruction of middle sized towns or even small urban centres that were of no military or economic interest. History has excused the atrocious destruction of Dresden in February 1945 under the strategic pretext that it neutralised an important rail centre, behind the Wehrmacht’s lines as it engaged the Red Army. In fact, the disruption to rail traffic did not last more that 48 hours. However there is no justification for the destruction of Ulm, Bonn, Wurtzburg, Hidelsheim; these medieval cities, these artistic marvels that were part of the patrimony of Europe, disappeared in fire storms, in which the temperature reached 1,000-2,000°C and which cause the death and dreadful suffering of tens of thousands of people” (P. Masson).
There is another characteristic shared by the two world conflicts: just as the bourgeoisie is unable to maintain control of the productive forces under capitalism, so too the destructive forces that it sets in motion during all-out war tend to escape its control. Equally, the worst impulses that have been unchained by the war take on a life and dynamic of their own, giving rise to gratuitous acts of barbarity that no longer even have anything to do with the aims of the war, however despicable the latter may be.
In the course of the war, the Nazi concentration camps became a huge machine for killing all those suspected of resistance within Germany or in the countries it had occupied or that were its vassals. The transfer of detainees to Germany became a way of using terror to impose order in zones occupied by Germany. But the increasingly hurried and radical nature of the means used to get rid of the population in the camps, the Jews in particular, shows that the need to impose terror or for forced labour was less and less a consideration. It was a flight into barbarism in which the only motive was barbarism itself. At the same time as these mass murders were taking place, the Nazi torturers and doctors carried out ‘experiments’ on the prisoners, in which sadism vied with scientific interest. These individuals would later be offered immunity and a new identity in exchange for collaborating with projects in the United States that were classed as ‘military defence secrets’. The march of Russian imperialism across Eastern Europe towards Berlin was accompanied by atrocities that betrayed the same logic:
“Columns of refugees were crushed under tanks or systematically strafed from the air. The entire population of urban centres was massacred with refined cruelty. Naked women were crucified on barn doors. Children were decapitated, had their heads beaten to pulp with sticks, or were thrown alive into pig troughs. All those in the Baltic ports who did not manage to get away or who could not be evacuated by the German navy, were simply exterminated. The number of victims can be estimated at 3 or 3.5 million (…) “This murderous madness was visited unabated on all the German minorities in Southeast Europe, in Yugoslavia, Rumania and Czechoslovakia, and on thousands of Sudeten Germans. The German population in Prague, which had been established in the city since the Middle Ages, was massacred with a degree of sadism rarely witnessed. Women were raped and then their Achilles tendon cut, condemning them to bleed to death on the ground in terrible agony. Children were machine gunned at school entrances, thrown into the road from the top floors of buildings or drowned in basins or fountains. Some were walled up alive in cellars. In all there were more than 30,000 victims… these massacres were the product of a political will, of an intention to eliminate, with the help of a stirring of the most bestial impulses ” (P. Masson).
The ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the German provinces in the East was not the responsibility of Stalin’s army alone but was done with the co-operation of the British and American armed forces. Although, even at his time, the lines for future tension were already drawn between the USSR and the United States, these countries and Britain still co-operated without reservations in the task of removing the proletarian danger, by the mass murder of the population. Moreover, they all had an interest in ensuring that the yoke of the future occupation of Germany could be exercised over a population that had been made passive by all the suffering it had gone through, and that included having to deal with the least number of refugees possible. This aim in itself incarnates barbarism but it was to become the departure point for an uncontrolled escalation of brutality at the service of mass murder.
On the Far Eastern front, American imperialism acted with the same brutality:
“To return to the summer of 1945. Sixty six of the largest towns in Japan had already been destroyed by fire following napalm bombardments. A million civilians in Tokyo were homeless and 100,000 people had died. To repeat the words of Curtis Lemay, the general of the division responsible for the firebombing, they were ‘grilled, boiled and cooked to death’. President Franklin Roosevelt’s son, who was also his confidant, said that the bombings had to continue ‘until we had destroyed about half of the civilian population of Japan’. On 18th July, the Emperor of Japan sent a telegraph to President Harry S. Truman, who had succeeded Roosevelt, asking once more to make peace. His message was ignored. (…) A few days before the bombing of Hiroshima, vice admiral Arthur Radford boasted: ‘Japan will end up as a country without towns - a population of nomads’.” (‘From Hiroshima to the Twin Towers’, Le Monde Diplomatique of September 2002).
There is yet another characteristic of the bourgeoisie’s behaviour which is particularly present in war, and even more so in all-out war. Those of its crimes that it does not decide to erase from history (as the Stalinist historians had already begun to do in the 1930s), are dressed up as their opposite; as courageous, virtuous acts that enabled them to save more human lives than they destroyed.
With the Allied victory, a whole segment of the history of the Second World War has disappeared from the records: “the terror bombings have fallen into almost total oblivion, as have the massacres carried out by the Red Army or the terrible settling of scores in Eastern Europe.” (P.Masson). Of course, these acts are not included in the commemoration ceremonies for these ‘gruesome’ anniversaries. They are banished from them. There remain just a few historical testimonies, too deeply rooted to be openly eradicated, and so are given a ‘media makeover’ in order to render them inoffensive. This is the case with the bombing of Dresden in particular: “…the most beautiful terror raid of the whole war was the work of the victorious allies. An absolute record was made on 13th and 14th February 1945: 253,000 dead, refugees, civilians, prisoners of war, labour deportees. No military objective.” (Jacques de Launay, Introduction to the French 1987 edition of David Irving’s book The Destruction of Dresden.)
Nowadays it is customary for the media, when covering the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, to give the number of victims as 35,000. When the number of 250,000 is mentioned, it is promptly attributed to either Nazi or Stalinist propaganda. The latter ‘interpretation’ is not very consistent with the great concern of the East German authorities, for whom at the time, “there was no question of spreading the correct information that the town had been overrun by hundreds of thousands of refugees, fleeing from the Red Army.” (Jacques de Launay). In fact at the time that the bombardments occurred, Dresden counted about 1 million inhabitants, of which 400,000 were refugees. In view of how the town was devastated, it is hard to imagine that only 3.5% of the population perished!
The bourgeoisie’s campaign to render innocuous the horror of Dresden by minimising the number of victims is complemented by another one, aiming to present legitimate indignation at this barbaric act as an expression of neo-Nazism. All the publicity given to the demonstrations in Germany, mobilising the nostalgic degenerates of the 3rd Reich to commemorate the event, can only serve to discourage any criticism casting doubt upon the Allies, for fear of being taken for a Nazi.
Unlike the British bombardment of Germany, where great pains are taken to hide its enormity, the use of the atomic weapon for the first and only time in history, by the world’s most powerful democracy, has never been hidden or minimised. On the contrary, everything possible has been done to publicise it and to make clear the destructive power of this new weapon. Every provision had been taken to do this even before the bombing of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. “Four cities were marked out [to be bombed]: Hiroshima (major port, industrial city and military base), Kokura (main arsenal), Nigata (port, steelworks and oil refinery) and Kyoto (industries) (…) From that moment on, none of the cities mentioned above were touched by bombs. They had to be damaged as little as possible in order to put the destructive power of the atomic bomb beyond discussion.” (Article ‘The bomb dropped over Hiroshima’ on https://www.momes.net/dictionnaire/h/hiroshima.html [25]). As for the dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki, it expressed the intention of the United States to show that it could use nuclear weapons whenever necessary (which was not true in fact, because the other bombs that they were building were not yet ready.)
According to the ideological justification for this massacre of the Japanese population, it was the only way to ensure the capitulation of Japan and save the life of a million American soldiers. This is a gross lie which is still propagated today: Japan had been bled dry and the United States (having intercepted and decoded the communiqués of the Japanese diplomatic corps and headquarters) knew that they were ready to capitulate.
The most important lesson to draw from the six years of bloodshed of the second world slaughter is that the two camps that fought it out, and the countries that followed them, were all the rightful creation of the vile beast that is decadent capitalism, no matter what ideology they used; Stalinist, democratic or Nazi. The only denunciation of barbarism that can serve the interests of humanity is that which goes to the root of this barbarity and uses it as a lever for the denunciation of capitalism as a whole. And which does so with a view to overthrowing it, before it buries the whole of humanity under a heap of ruins. LC-S (16/4/5)
[1] [26] Philippe Masson is head of the history section of the French marines’ history service and teaches at the naval war senior school.
[2] [27] From the end of 1943 workers’ strikes broke out in Germany and the number of desertions from the German army tended to increase. In Italy, at the end of 1942 and especially in 1943, a large number of strikes broke out in the main industrial centres in the north.
Almost immediately after the general election Gordon Brown spoke at the Amicus union’s annual conference and made it clear that the Labour government would carry on in the way it had already established. He insisted on “wage discipline” and was blunt about the Labour government’s opposition to any attempt to impose limitations on the length of the working week. Don’t expect wages to go up, don’t think you’re going to work fewer hours and, with David Blunkett put in charge of pensions, expect the prospects of retirement to look even worse than they do already.
Although, in the words of the Financial Times (3 May), “All the main parties support the policy framework … of the past decade”, the Labour Party has a proven record of excellent service to the ruling class over the last eight years. It was supported by not only the Daily Mirror and the Guardian, but also the Economist, Financial Times and Sun.
Having imposed a range of attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class, having strengthened many aspects of British state capitalism, having brought in a series of repressive measures in the name of ‘anti-terrorism’, and having defended the interests of British imperialism on the world stage, the Labour government is currently the chosen team of British capitalism.
The measures announced in the Queen’s Speech show that Labour is not going to let up. An Incapacity Benefit Bill will attack 2.7m claimants, there will be reductions in certain other social benefits. Apart from the introduction of ID cards, repressive legislation will include a Counter Terrorism Bill, adding further offences not included in the last Prevention of Terrorism Act. Asylum and immigration will not escape from Labour’s offensive.
During the election it was clear that Labour wasn’t going to save Rover. In the week immediately after the election, as statistics showed a further slump in manufacturing output to levels lower than when Labour came to power in 1997, and that personal debt and bankruptcies are soaring further out of control, it was clear that the working class will continue to pay for the further deterioration in the capitalist economy.
Yet, while British capitalism has its chosen governmental team in place, Tony Blair is now seen as a liability. The Daily Mail said that he’d been given a “bloody nose” and Socialist Worker (21 May) headlined “A bitter blow for Blairism”.
Cast your mind back to the election campaign and you might recall the emphasis on the question of Iraq, the leaking of previously secret information (presumably from the state’s security services), and the revival of issues that Blair thought he had ‘drawn a line under’. Iraq is important to the ruling class because Blair’s past actions over intelligence sources, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, 45 minute warnings etc mean that it will be more difficult when it comes to selling any future military adventures. The bourgeoisie don’t want to get rid of a Labour government that has in most things proved thoroughly reliable, but Blair now has a reputation for being untrustworthy (and a tendency to get too close to the US) which British capitalism doesn’t need.
Gordon Brown would be an ideal replacement for Blair as he represents continuity in economic policy, his ‘Old Labour’ image would help in the imposition of attacks on the working class, and he is not tarnished with the same brush as Blair on imperialist policy.
With so much continuing concern about Iraq and previous military interventions by Labour against Afghanistan and Serbia, the recent elections showed how capitalist democracy is able to absorb hostility to war. A million more voters turned to the Liberal Democrats. George Galloway was elected when he stood against a pro-Blair Labour MP. Democracy means that people can protest without for a moment challenging the capitalist system that gives rise to imperialist war.
Much media discussion after the election focussed on the Labour government getting the support of only just over a fifth of the electorate. Once again voices are heard calling for a ‘fairer’ voting system, some sort of ‘proportional representation’. As the Financial Times and other commentators remarked, there was no basic difference between the main parties, so a re-allocation of parliamentary seats would make no difference in the policies pursued by a more ‘representative’ government. More fundamentally, all the main parties participating in capitalism’s elections only have policies for the capitalist state to adopt, and are an integral part of capitalism’s political apparatus. And those groups that use elections as a means for protest are equally a part of capitalism’s political circus, sowing illusions in the possibilities of democratic change.
The British ruling class is very attached to its current electoral arrangements which it has been able to rely on to produce a stable two-party system. The BNP, UKIP, Respect and other small parties all have their function for capitalism, but their intervention in the electoral arena, especially if enhanced by PR, would tend to undermine the established system. Campaigns for a ‘fairer’ democracy will no doubt continue, but the traditional view of the British bourgeoisie is that a situation with more parties is less easy to control. Workers observing any debate over electoral reform must remember that it is between its class enemies and is solely concerned with how best to use democracy in the service of a capitalist dictatorship.
The ruling class has the team it wants in government. The state of the economy will determine what measures it takes against the working class. Democracy is just one of the weapons that capitalism has at its disposal.
Car, 31/5/05.
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_uzbek.html#_edn1
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_uzbek.html#_edn2
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_uzbek.html#_ednref1
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_uzbek.html#_ednref2
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/russia-caucasus-central-asia
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/war-iraq
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/283_crisis_report.htm
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/economic-crisis
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/50/united-states
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/279_esf_job_insecurity.htm
[13] http://www.wombles.org.uk
[14] http://www.internationalism.org
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/anti-globalisation
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/social-forums
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/correspondance-other-groups
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/international-bureau-revolutionary-party
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/development-proletarian-consciousness-and-organisation/italian-left
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/africa
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[22] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[23] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_ww2.html#_edn1
[24] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_ww2.html#_edn2
[25] https://www.momes.net/dictionnaire/h/hiroshima.html
[26] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_ww2.html#_ednref1
[27] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/285_ww2.html#_ednref2
[28] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/world-war-ii
[29] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/elections