All over the planet, the living standards of the working class are under attack. Whether it’s through redundancies, speed-ups and flexibility at work, the imposition of precarious job contracts, attempts to reduce pensions or put off the retirement age, cuts in funding for health and education, there is no let up. No sector of the working class is spared: young or old, public or private employee, in work or out of work, full time or casual, native or immigrant. And it makes no difference whether the country you live in openly admits some of its economic difficulties (as in much of western Europe), claims that its economy is in good health (as in Britain) or is ‘booming’ (as in China). Whatever the media and politicians tell us, these attacks are the inevitable response of the ruling class to the crisis of its system. They are proof of the bankruptcy of the capitalist social order, its growing inability to provide its slaves with the necessities of life.

The dead-end reached by the present form of economy is also the root cause of all the other ills raining on humanity: the drive to compete over a glutted world market forces the bourgeoisie to cut safety standards, resulting in a mounting list of disasters at sea, in the air, on the railways. It accelerates the destruction of the natural environment in the interests of profit. And it increasingly turns the whole globe into a series of armed camps: militarism and war have become capitalism’s ‘answer’ to its economic contradictions.

But the increasingly severe economic attacks can also have another effect: they can serve to unmask all the lies we are sold about the bright future capitalism can bring us, as long as it made more efficient, more democratic, more environmentally conscious, more global or else more local. And they can push the working class to fight back as a class, to respond to the massive attacks with no less massive struggles. Indeed, after years of being told that the class struggle was over, that the working class no longer existed, the last few months have seen growing signs that the class struggle is once again on the rise. In the summer we saw the solidarity actions at Heathrow and a huge wave of strikes in Argentina. At Christmas we saw the strike in the New York transit system and a spontaneous strike by the SEAT car workers in Spain (see articles in this issue). In the last week we saw unofficial strikes by postal workers in Belfast. These are only a few of many other examples going back to the strike movements in France and Germany in 2003 and 2004. And although the majority of these movements have been short-lived and far from massive, they are nonetheless significant. In all the ones mentioned here, the theme of solidarity has been very strong: solidarity with sacked comrades at Heathrow and SEAT; solidarity with colleagues on strike in Belfast; even solidarity with future generations of workers in the New York strike where pensions was a key issue. This rediscovery of class solidarity is absolutely vital if the working class is to widen and unify its struggles and impose itself as a real social force opposed to capital.

Of no less significance is the number of struggles in which workers have acted spontaneously, outside of the directives of the trade unions and their numbing official procedures. Again, in nearly all cases the unions have regained control of the situation, often by talking tough and posing as the true friends of the workers. But these skirmishes between workers and unions contain the seeds of the future autonomous self-organisation of the working class.

Above all, the reappearance of the class struggle in numerous countries serves as a reminder that the working class is an international class, which everywhere faces the same problems and everywhere has the same interests against the demands of the exploiting minority. Faced with a world of sharpening imperialist conflict, of increasingly bloody national, racial and religious divisions, the development of the class struggle offers an alternative: the unification of the exploited across all divisions, and the perspective of a world human community.
WR, 4.2.06

Whose side should we take?

The western newspapers who have published crass cartoons of Mohammed, the sole aim of which was to provoke and insult a minority group under the pretext of ‘free speech’?

Or the Islamic demonstrators who parade the streets calling for a repeat of the 9/11 and 7/7 massacres against ‘Britain’ or ‘Europe’?

Which set of values and traditions should we identify with? Modern western democracy, or Islam? Which ‘civilisation’ has the better morals, the better answer to humanity’s problems?

For us – communists, internationalists, partisans of the class struggle – the answer is neither. The ‘clash of civilisations’ is a clash inside one single civilisation: capitalism. And this civilisation is everywhere in its decadent stage.

The ‘defenders of free speech’ pose as the standard bearers of progress and enlightenment against mediaeval superstition and religious censorship. But capitalism, including in its democratic form, has long ceased to represent progress for humanity. The current sermonising of the bourgeoisie in favour of secularism and freedom has nothing in common with its former heroics, with its revolutionary struggles against feudal obscurantism. It has become no more than a pretext for sordid racist campaigns against ethnic minorities or for imperialist adventures abroad.

On the other hand, there is no worldwide ‘Muslim community’ which offers an alternative to the ‘decadent West’. The ‘East’ too is decadent. The domination of religion in so many ‘underdeveloped’ countries is the ideological expression of a system which has subjected the whole world to its laws but can never truly unite it and develop it. If millions are turning so desperately to religion today, it’s because the present world order offers them no future beyond poverty and war.

The ‘Muslim lands’ are capitalist nations too, even if they are mostly weak and uncompetitive ones. This wouldn’t change even if the present Muslim regimes were transformed into one fundamentalist Caliphate.  Far from transcending class divisions, Islam, like all religions, is used throughout the world as a way of yoking the exploited to the ambitions of their exploiters. 

The working class has the historic mission of freeing humanity from all illusions and mystifications. Islam and Christianity are still powerful mythologies used to perpetuate the existing system. But democracy is perhaps the most powerful mythology of all, precisely because it pretends not to be one. To choose one against the other can only serve the interests of our rulers and prevent us from developing our own world outlook, which is the real standpoint of humanity: communism.
Amos, 4.2.06   

After the election of New Labour in 1997, the first major act of the British state, via the Labour Government and specifically through Gordon Brown’s Treasury, was to ‘lift’ five billion pounds from workers’ pension funds. Not just for one year, but year on year ever since. Given the rate of inflation, this amounts to a substantial part of the current pension fund deficit, estimated to be between sixty-five and over one hundred billion pounds.

That capitalism robs the workers, that capital cheats labour, is of course no great surprise. The very system of capitalism is based on the theft, robbery and exploitation of the working class. Capitalism can never give back to the producing class the value of its labour power and is driven to constantly attack and reduce its wages and conditions, particularly now as the economic crisis becomes more acute. The attack on pensions and retirement ages also robs us of our dignity, inasmuch as the small hope of workers retiring with a modicum of comfort and self-respect is being dashed. To add insult to injury, the state tells us that we are ‘living too long’, its whole campaign piling on more grief, pressure and worry about the future for the whole of the working class. The Government talks the language of  ‘brutal honesty’ while lying to us through its back teeth. With cuts in the health service and care, with wage cuts and freezes and ‘flexibility’, with rising unemployment, the attack over pensions is part of a death by a thousand cuts.

But it isn’t just the Government that is carrying out this attack on pensions; the trade unions, as institutions of the British state, are facilitating the attack by fragmenting responses to it from angry workers, by dividing up different sectors and by directly proposing, agreeing to and implementing cuts in pensions and increases in the retirement age. They have done nothing to stop the gradual but real decline in state pensions over decades; and they’ve also done nothing to stop the increase in the retirement age of women by five years to sixty-five: ‘equal rights’ = equal pauperisation. What a victory that was for the feminists and their leftist supporters; what a victory for the trade union’s equal pay campaign: equal suffering.

Many companies have moved from defined benefit final salary schemes (already paid for out of workers’ wages) to inferior defined contribution schemes [1] [3], many of these with union agreement and passed by union officials on pension boards. This has resulted in workers doing identical jobs, side by side, on different wages and conditions. At the end of last year Rentokil announced the end of its final salary scheme for all workers, and other companies will follow. Arcadia, the Co-op and BA, amongst others, have announced massive changes in their workers’ pension arrangements, involving working more years, higher worker contributions and lower benefits – in many cases, all three. The state is orchestrating this attack with its various reports (Turner for example, calling for the retirement age to be raised to 68) and the appointment of a Pension Regulator in overall control of the direction of the attack.

Unions play their role for capitalism

As the crisis of capitalism is world-wide, so workers’ pensions and conditions everywhere are under attack: France has seen massive demonstrations against pension ‘reform’ (carved up by the French unions); Canada, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Germany all have pension funds with massive deficits that will require extra years work, extra contributions and pension cuts from the workers. Japan’s pension funds have less than half the funds they need [2] [4]. In the USA recently, Verizon, Lockheed-Martin and Motorola have all ended their final salary schemes. Most significantly, at the beginning of January, IBM, the model ‘good employer’ of US capital, ended its final salary scheme, prompting a respected New York Times journalist to call it “the end of the American Dream” (New York Times, 6.1.6 – see also the article in this issue on the NY transit strike).

In Britain, as everywhere, the unions never talk about the working class. It’s this sector, or that sector, or sectors within sectors, everything to reinforce divisions within the working class as a whole. Some present the state sector as better, as ‘protectors’ of the workers. As if the state hadn’t been making massive redundancies and cuts in wages. And it is the state itself that is leading the attack on the retirement age and pensions of all workers, private or public, whatever branch of industry or service.

Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, said on 5.1.6, “Unions have a proud record defending and extending pension rights” when the opposite is clearly the case (Barber went on to say that this applied to “those (companies) that can afford to fund deficits”). In order to make out that they are fighting pension cuts, the unions talk about ‘going to court’, about wanting ‘consultation’ and threatening to ballot for pointless, isolated one day strikes. This is their idea of the ‘defence of pensions’. In the Co-op, the GMB and T&G unions carve the workers up with their individual, pointless threats, while Amicus accepts the new, inferior pension scheme. Their leader, Simpson, says, “We’re disappointed… in lesser pensions… Nevertheless, the Company are at least retaining a pension scheme”, so this union is “recommending” it.

With friends like these…

In the public sector, the Unison website boasts about how, in relation to pensions, it is “saving taxpayer’s money” with its low pensions payments to local government workers. These average £3,800 per annum and given higher grade pensions at the top end of the scale, means that many workers are getting a lot less than thirty-eight hundred a year. Again the website boasts about how “manual workers die before the actuaries expect them to” again “saving the taxpayer money”  [3] [5].  The Health, Civil Service and Education agreement between Government and unions over pensions last year, to be implemented this June, was called “a major breakthrough” by Barber. It is. A major breakthrough in the attack on the working class with a two-tier wage structure, different benefits for the same workers, increased contributions “encouraged” and increased “flexibility”.  The PCS union says that there are some details “to be hammered out”. The only hammering being done is by the unions on the heads of workers.

This is what the unions do – they fulfil a vital role for the capitalist state in not only facilitating and implementing attacks, but, despite all their talk about unity and solidarity, divide up any possible response to them.

The working class will have no choice but to fight. The future of capitalism is looking bleaker and bleaker for the working class as the state no longer attempts to offer us ‘a better tomorrow’. Indeed, for the working class, ‘tomorrow’ itself is increasingly called into question by the crisis and decay of the system. The threat is increasing there for all workers to see. It is the job of the unions and their leftist supporters to blind and divert us away from the necessity of collective action.
Ed 16/1/06.

The crisis in the NHS is getting worse. It’s forecast to be in deficit by between £600 million and over a billion. A survey of NHS acute Trust chief executives by the Health Service Journal found that; 75% had frozen recruitment, 25% had made staff redundant, 63% had closed wards and 37% were in deficit. The survey also showed that Trusts were using very dubious methods to protect their finances: 26% were withholding National Insurance payments, 21% were deliberately slow in paying suppliers. The crisis affecting the NHS has reached such a point that the East Suffolk Primary Care Trust, for example, does not have the money to pay March 2006 wages.

The impact of crisis on health workers is very hard. The freezing of jobs is the same as cutting jobs, because effectively that post is no longer there. The impact of such a freeze can be clearly seen in the 50,000 nurses that left the NHS in 2004 a number that certainly did not decrease in 2005. This leaves the remaining health workers to try and maintain some form of service with thousands fewer workers and increasing demands. It is no surprise that 78% of the members of the Royal College of Nurses surveyed in 2005 (Nursing Times 11.10.2005) felt they were working under too much pressure and 49% of those who had left nursing in the previous year had done so because of the workload.

These attacks follow the complete restructuring of pay for health workers. Jobs have been ‘restructured and assessed’ which means that for thousands of workers their jobs are no longer consider to be worth as much as they were, and, once a period of pay protection ends, wage levels go down. To this needs to be added the ‘restructuring’ of pay for unsocial hours worked from April 2006. Instead of being paid by the hour, there will be a complex scaled set of payments based on the proportion of unsocial hours worked over 13 weeks: in other words, a substantial reduction in pay, given the number of such hours worked by health workers.

Also, as with many workers in both the public and private sector, health workers are faced with the loss of the final salary pension scheme.

According to the government the cause of the crisis is bad financial management by the NHS Trusts. For the Tories it is the government’s fault for not being rigorous enough in its ‘reforms’. For the leftists, it is Blair and New Labour’s love affair with private capital that is to blame. What none of them say is that the cause of this crisis is the crisis of capitalism. These attacks are part of a long-term strategy to reduce the burden of the NHS on British state capital that has been underway since the 1980s.

The Labour government has continued the policies set in motion under the Tories…

The constant stream of NHS ‘reforms’, which have increased the use of private capital to fund hospital building, the implementation of strict and draconian targets for health services, the meeting of which determine funding, the introduction of set payments for different operations or other medical procedures, and the most recent proposals to transfer many services now in hospitals into ‘the community’ - a community where private capital, charities and others will be able to bid to run services - are not the aberration of Blair and New Labour. They are the more systematic and brutal continuation of a process of NHS restructuring that started under the Tories in the 80s. It is a strategy based on the state introducing ever greater competition and financial rigor into the NHS. It aims to increase rates of exploitation for health workers and hold down costs.

Health workers do not produce surplus value, through the production of commodities, but they do treat workers whose labour power is the basis for all value creation in capitalist society. Health workers cannot produce more commodities in less time and for less money, but they can be forced to work harder, longer and for less pay, as the NHS tries to save money and increase output.

To this end we have seen a careful acceleration of attacks on health workers and services.

In the 1980s health workers faced a two pronged attack. On the one hand, ancillary services, cleaning etc, were put out to tender which meant tens of thousands of workers saw their wages and conditions reduced. On the other hand, the introduction of local NHS trusts allowed the introduction of new and constantly altered terms and conditions for workers.

In the 1990s this process accelerated with the introduction of different pay scales within trusts. Efforts were made to pitch worker against worker with the introduction of competition between Trusts for the gaining of contracts from the NHS. The tendency for ‘private’ capital to be introduced into the funding of the building of hospitals began under the Tories and was continued and strengthened by Labour. The Private Finance Initiative means that companies pay for building hospitals and directly employ all but clinical workers. This means that clinical and ancillary staff are on different contracts with different employers. It also means that the costs for the state can be spread over 30 to 50 years, which is the usual period of debt repayment to companies involved.

Under Labour this process has been accelerated. Labour has extolled the virtues of ‘local autonomy’ and ‘community’ control of health services, while introducing the most brutal financial and clinical controls. Every level of the health service has been placed under the most harsh regime of payment by results. There are 700 targets an acute hospital has to meet in order to get its full funding. Labour has introduced the direct financial incentives for senior managers to attack workers’ working conditions and pay, because chief executives’ pay is dependent upon the meeting of targets. This means that at every level of management there is the utmost pressure to meet targets, that is, to make workers work even harder.

…Along with its own innovations

The recent proposal to put all community health services out to tender so that businesses, charities etc can run these services, means that tens of thousands of nurses and other health workers are faced with a whole new series of attacks on their pay and conditions if they want to keep their jobs - either with the present employer or a new one.

The proposal to put more funds into community care, and to force many services out of general hospitals, is going to mean even greater attacks as acute Trusts will lose funding at the same time as they have to maintain services for the very ill patients that cost the most to care for. In the case of new hospitals, they will have to service the debt to the companies that built the hospital in the first place, but with less patients and therefore less money. This can only mean more job losses, recruitment freezes, ward closures and calls for workers to accept worse conditions and to work harder in order to attract work to the hospitals.

This strategy has not been confined to British state capitalism: all the major capitalist countries have been carrying out similar ‘reforms’ since the 1980s, as a report by the International Labour Organisation in the late 1990s made clear: “The need to contain expenditure has dominated health policy debate in European countries, despite the very different patterns of expenditure between countries. This has led to major restructuring and privatization initiatives which, as health services are highly labour intensive, impact directly on workers within the health sector. Reforms to the structure and financing of health services, frequently with a competitive element, have placed new pressures on workers”.

The growing attacks expose the reality that hospitals and other health services are basically factories where as many patients are ‘processed’ as quickly and cheaply as possible. The patient is nothing but a sum of money, an illness is a set price and an operation another. If there is not the money to meet the price then the ‘job’ is not done. This logic has always underpinned the NHS but now it is becoming increasingly obvious.

The attacks on NHS workers are going to worsen substantially as the weight of health spending becomes increasingly intolerable with the deepening of the economic crisis. Faced with this, health workers cannot fall for the lies of the unions and the Left that these attacks are the fault of Blair and privatisation. These attacks are the result of the crisis of the whole capitalist system. British capitalism cannot do anything else but seek to reduce spending on health and attack health workers’ working conditions and pay.
Phil 4/2/6

The following article was written by a sympathiser of the ICC who has been actively contributing to the discussions on the libcom discussion forum to defend the positions of the communist left.

Many anarchists were genuine militants of the working class fighting alongside and with the proletariat in its many struggles over the last centuries. Today there are elements amongst anarchism seeking clarification and a move towards a clearer working class perspective. However, there are numerous disparate elements that call themselves anarchists who, from their very incoherence, have a role in tail ending and supporting the campaigns of the ruling class. Two particular threads on the libcom.org discussion forums entitled “1939 and all that” [1] [11] and “How do you explain the Nazi obsession with the Jews?” demonstrate how, mainly through the ideological mystification of anti-fascism, these anarchist elements are led to defend democracy, Stalinism and imperialism and thus take up a position against the working class. When the ICC, in the tradition of the communist left, denounces both sides in the second imperialist world war, there are many accusations about the ICC “passing judgement from on high”, being “abstract”, “looking back with hindsight”, as if it was forbidden for revolutionaries to take a clear, intransigent position, to look at the global analysis and to look and learn from the history of the class struggle. And this from incoherent individuals with their anti-fascist fantasies about supporting the “lesser evil”, living in the present with no continuity. As if it wasn’t the task of revolutionaries to look back, not to judge from on high, but to look at what revolutionaries said at the time, revolutionaries with whom the ICC claims heritage and continuity  [2] [12].

There is a minority of attempts from individuals on these threads to analyse what Nazism meant. But they are generally divorced from the class struggle and in some cases blame the workers in Germany – the first victims of the Nazis who were subsequently regimented by its terror and massacred by the million – for the rise of the Third Reich. What does unite the majority – while they can each ignore the excesses and absurdities of their fellow anarchist individuals - is the implicit and, in some cases, explicit support given to democracy and Stalinism, usually by way of anti-fascist ideology.

Nazi Germany – not an aberration from, but a full expression of, the decadence of capitalism

The anti-fascist campaign of the bourgeoisie has run for two generations now. Massive resources are given over to its dissemination every day of the week, year in year out: books, newspapers, cinema, theatre, television and schools. Nazism is put forward as an ‘aberration’ from capitalism, as an expression of pure evil alien to capitalism, and the Jewish genocide is put forward as a unique expression of this evil. This lie is taken up by many individuals on these threads: it was a choice between “capitalism and fascism”, “a war against fascism” rather than “for capitalism”, “glad capitalism won the day”, “not a fight for [capitalism] but against fascism”, “don’t give a fuck if it means siding with imperialism” (to fight the Nazis), “anti-fascism [can be] against fascism and capitalism”, “Nazism not capitalism because it was irrational”, “Hitler needed removing [that’s not] endorsing capitalism”, “Fight a real anti-fascist war”, and so it goes on. According to the majority of the posts Nazism was an aberration and the democratic capitalist state and its anti-fascist front is our only line of defence.  The support for democracy and Stalinism in fighting what they see as something much worse – Nazism –  couldn’t be clearer.

Nazi Germany and the totality of WWII was a full expression of capitalism’s decadence and the position of the communist left was to maintain its cornerstone internationalist position and the refusal to support either of the two imperialist camps even, or especially, in this period of counter-revolution. This is the position the ICC defends today. But the posts from the anarchists on these threads, far from seeing the Second World War as the culmination of an ideological and then physical crushing of the working class, instead see it as a ‘progressive’ episode where one side, one imperialist bloc had to be supported against the ‘evil’ Nazis, ie. the Stalinists and the democracies through anti-fascism.

The major democracies, especially Britain, were involved in the build up of the Nazis and Hitler in the early 1930s through diplomacy, the direct provision of arms, trade, credit and political support. Britain and America wanted Germany, weakened by the defeat of WWI and struggling to survive in the face of deepening economic crisis, built up to act as their policeman in Europe. Nazism was fully expressive of capitalism’s tendency to greater state control and the Nazi regime was backed by the major capitalist concerns in Germany such as, Krupp, Heinkel, Messerschmidt, IG Farben, as well as the major German banks. Despite its specificities, the roots of the Third Reich are firmly implanted in the soil of state capitalism and are in no way ‘unique’ or expressive of an aberration, arising only on the back of the defeat of the working class and the machinations of the major imperialist countries.

It is very useful for all capitalist states to maintain the myth of the “evil” of Hitler and the Nazis, particularly as this covers up and deflects their own role in fomenting wars and the war crimes they have perpetrated over the 20th century. No revolutionary denies the genocide of the Jews; but this cannot allow us to make out there is a common interest with our democratic and Stalinist exploiters and oppressors, which is precisely the role of the anti-fascist mystification peddled on these two threads. And the Allies, certainly by 1942 and probably earlier, knew very well about the unfolding Jewish genocide and didn’t lift a finger to prevent it. As for genocide and massacres, the Nazis could never match the crimes of Stalinism and democracy. Stalin’s regime was responsible for at least 20 million deaths of its own people and racial minorities prior to WWII. Britain invented concentration camps and the gas bombardment of civilians. Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, to name just three, by constant aerial bombardment by chemical and explosive weapons. Not forgetting the atomic bombs dropped on a defeated Japan and aimed at civilians. Then came the deaths of Germans through starvation and disease between 1945-49, estimated from 9 to 13 million (while Nazi torturers, ‘experimenters’ and rocket scientists were given a comfortable welcome in the countries of the Allies). The crimes of democracy and Stalinism, the number of innocents killed, up to, during and since World War II in various inter-imperialist conflicts, would take too long to detail.

Nazism was no ‘aberration’ from all this, only inasmuch as capitalism itself has become an aberration for the whole of humanity. The destructive dynamic of capitalism expressed by all sides in and since WWII takes on a more irrational force which even acts contrary to its profit motive – a sure sign of a system in decadence. That imperialist war no longer makes any economic sense is shown by the war in Iraq, where US oil requirements could have been secured for a small fraction of the cost of the war so far [3] [13]. It is the decadence of the capitalist system that drives imperialism, from WWII to the current war in Iraq. It is absolutely essential to strip these wars of their phoney humanitarianism, and the ‘progressive nature’ which is their ideological justification, and see them for what they are: not progressive or fighting a greater evil as our anarchist anti-fascists would have us think, but wars between gangsters to carve up a place in an increasingly aberrant system.

Anti-fascist and empty anarchist moralism supports imperialism

It was the disappearance of the working class as a fighting force, as a threat to the bourgeoisie, that led to the major democracies building up German militarism under Hitler. Fascism’s victory in Germany and Italy was the end product, not the cause of the proletariat’s defeat. Anti-fascism equals national unity and was an ideology particularly used by Russian Stalinism and its vassals abroad; it’s an ideology in which the working class must identify with its exploiters and butchers. The fascist bogeyman was thus used by the French CP (with the anarchists playing the pacifist card). In imperialism’s run up to WWII the CP in Spain broke strikes and shot down workers with the anarchist CNT mobilising the workers for defeat by participating in the Spanish state before Franco finished off their dirty work. The British CP, strong in the trade unions, participated fully in mobilising the workers for war and identified the German workers as enemies. Though it’s been well used by both, the ideology of the British and American bourgeoisies was not so much anti-fascism as the defence of “freedom and democracy” (much the same as in Iraq today); as such, it was the other arm of the anti-fascist front. WWII was not a war against ‘evil’ – a number of alliances were possible between France, Britain, the USA and Germany from the mid 1930s to the early 40s, but a war of competing imperialist interests. These same ideologies have been used by states and their leftist and anarchist apologists for campaigns ‘at home’ and wars abroad ever since.

One of the recurring themes from the anarchists on these two threads is that at least anti-fascism – often in the form of the Resistance – “did something” to save lives during WWII (unlike the ICC, they add). Support for the Resistance is useful for the anarchists because it gives them the illusion that they are not supporting the major imperialisms. Their view that the Resistance “did something to save lives” is nothing but a phoney moralism – the moralism of the bourgeoisie. They go further and say that the Resistance movements were somehow an expression of the working class. Nothing could be further from reality. The very weak Resistance movement early on in the war was mainly supported by the Free French exiles in Britain and the Stalinists in France for the “Liberation”, ie, the coming capitalist carve up. But workers were later sucked into it by the Stalinists, left and leftists on the basis of the “Victory of Stalingrad”. The Resistance [4] [14] was just another pawn on the imperialist chessboard aimed at either supporting the war effort of this or that faction or demobilising any real resistance of the working class to the coming capitalist ‘peace’. Prior to the Stalingrad “turning point” the workers had remained hostile to the terrorism – and the Nazi terror it provoked – of the largely petty-bourgeois Resistance movement. This sentimental moralism of the anarchist posts about “saving lives” has nothing to with the solidarity, struggle and sacrifice on a wider and deeper scale that belongs to a revolutionary class. In fact the actions of the Resistance probably cost more lives than it saved and if it saved any, they would count for nothing in the face of the dozens of millions slaughtered by the Nazis, and by the anti-fascist democrats and Stalinists alike.

A keynote of the majority of the anarchist posts on these threads is that anything is better than Nazism, “we are better off here in Britain”, “we have free speech and a certain amount of freedom”. This is thinly veiled (and sometimes not so thinly veiled) nationalism and patriotism. The refusal to confront the crimes of Stalinism – and particularly democracy – and instead denounce the ICC when the latter points these out, can only result in support for the bourgeoisie and its rotting system.
Baboon, December 2005.

The surprise success of Hamas in the Palestinian elections – getting 76 out of 132 seats and putting Fatah in the shade – is another demonstration that the great imperialist powers are having more and more difficulty in controlling the growing chaos in the international situation. Despite having to stand as the Change and Reform movement, having been banned as a terrorist organisation, denounced for its killing of more than 400 Israelis in some 60 suicide bombings, and threatened by the US and the EU, as well as Israel, Hamas is now the dominant force in the Palestine Authority (PA) with the prospects of its armed wing being integrated into the Palestinian forces.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Israel’s foreign minister said that “The elections were meant to give power and strength to dismantle the terrorist organisations and not create a situation where these organisations sit in the parliament and then become part of the executive authority” (Guardian 26/2/6). Yet now the talk is of how Hamas can be transformed into a respectable political party, like other Israeli and Palestinian parties that had their roots in terrorist groups.

Although the victory of Hamas was a shock, political commentators soon acquired the wisdom of hindsight to explain what had happened. Opinion polls showed that there was an overwhelming concern about corruption in Fatah, the PLO and the PA. Fatah was divided and discredited, seen as responsible for years of economic disaster, particularly with widespread unemployment and the PLO was known for the reality of its repression. In contrast, Hamas had always focussed on Fatah corruption, had sustained a year-long cease-fire, put forward policies of reform in health and education, and could point to their already existing councils where they had a reputation for improving roads and similar municipal reforms. They even employed a conventional spin doctor at great expense to advise on the best public image to present.

No liberation, no independence, no gains at all

Hamas didn’t only succeed at the ballot box. They had enthusiastic leftist and nationalist cheerleaders throughout the world. In Britain for example the Socialist Workers Party declared that “the Palestinian people gave Bush and Rice a sharp slap in the face last week when they voted for Hamas” (Socialist Worker 4/2/6). They reported that “Hamas militants are seen as immune to corruption” and that the movement, after success in local elections, “gained a reputation for its work in health education and welfare. Hamas controlled municipalities were held up as models of efficiency.” As for suicide bombings, they are just details in a “fierce resistance”.

It’s true that US imperialism is taking time to work out the best response to the success of Hamas, but that’s not a slap in the face. But, for the population of Gaza and the West Bank to have exchanged its illusions in the corrupt old guard of Fatah, for the principled, efficient forces of Hamas, still labouring under the spell of nationalism, is no gain for the exploited and oppressed. The SWP point out that the US “was pumping money into the Palestinian Authority in a desperate and doomed effort to save Fatah”. Yet with the defeat of Fatah the US started “urging Arab states to continue funding a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, even though Washington is threatening to cut its own aid…The US plea to the Arab world is because it does not want the West Bank and Gaza to descend into chaos as a result of choking off aid” (Guardian 31/1/6). So, for all the condemnation of Hamas, the US actually sees a vital role for the terrorists, as a force that can impose capitalist order in the areas where it has influence.

This also puts into focus any claims by Hamas to be a force for liberation. On the same day that the US was reported as urging Arab states to fund the PA, the head of the political bureau of Hamas wrote a “message to the Muslim and Arab nations … We expect you to step in and compensate the Palestinian people for any loss of aid” (Guardian 31/1/6). No difference of opinion here between a very big power and one that’s only just emerging. Of course Hamas make the same claims as any other bourgeois forces, that they are “immune to bribery, intimidation and blackmail” and that their activity is just the same as other capitalist projects that have employed the lies of national liberation. “We have seen how other nations, including the peoples of Vietnam and South Africa, persisted in their struggle until their quest for freedom and justice was accomplished. We are no different.”

The examples are instructive. In Vietnam the North was backed by Russian imperialism, the South by the US. More than two million people died. The North won because the US withdrew its support from the South, as China’s move from Russian to American bloc was a far bigger prize than anything Vietnam had to offer. Gains for the people of Vietnam? None. And things got even worse after the collapse of the Russian bloc. As for South Africa, the archaic faction of the ruling class that was still attached to apartheid was removed from its dominant position and the South African capitalist state started operating with some changes of personnel in its political apparatus . This has brought no benefits for he poor and exploited. So Hamas replaces Fatah. There’ll be no improvements in the lives of those who voted for a change of faces in the Palestinian parliament.

Growing chaos

The SWP say that “what will happen as a result of Hamas’s victory is anybody’s guess”. They think it’s a positive step, but have no idea where it’s leading. Other voices suggest other scenarios.

For example, a letter written to the Guardian (30/1/6) asks “Do you think Israeli leaders are regretting helping out Hamas in its early days? This initial Israeli support for Hamas in the 1980s was to weaken the PLO and Fatah. It may have taken 20 years but it certainly has worked now.” This is because “With a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, an Israeli government is relieved of all pressures and will continue to act as it pleases”. The letter’s author is from the Council for Arab-British Understanding, but that doesn’t entirely invalidate his point. It’s useful to remind people of Israel’s role in the formation of Hamas, and right to emphasise the way it undermined the PLO. However, while the Israeli government will insist it can’t talk to terrorists or those who don’t recognise Israel’s right to exist, the Palestinian Authority will still have a role to play. Without it there would be direct conflict between the Israeli state and the Palestinian population.

Pressures in the Middle East will not be ‘relieved.’ They are actually intensifying. The war in Iraq shows every sign of continuing for years. The threats to Iran from the US are growing. The succession to Sharon is unclear. Syria retains its interests in everything that happens in Israel/Palestine. The one thing that is clear about Hamas’s advance is that it will further add to the instability in the area. Whether it becomes a more conventional party or uses its new position as a springboard for further military confrontation, it can only exacerbate the underlying conflicts in the area. These should not be attributed to the inability of Israeli and Palestinian, Jew and Arab to get on together, but to the persistent intervention of all the great powers in the area. The names might change but capitalism’s drive to imperialist conflict only worsens.
Car, 4.2.06

The first few weeks of the new year have seen renewed tensions over Iran, leading to a decision to send the issue to the UN security council.

On 5th January Tehran announced plans to resume research into nuclear fuel after a freeze of 30 months. It broke off further talks with the European powers that had been negotiating with it and refused to meet the International Atomic Energy Authority. When the threat of a referral to the UN was first made, Iran countered by threatening to block IAEA inspections of its facilities. It also raised the prospect of restricting its oil production, taunting its critics that “You need us more than we need you” (Iranian president Ahmadinejad quoted in The Observer 17/1/06), leading to speculation of oil prices of $100 a barrel. At the same time an intelligence briefing, drawing on the agencies of several European countries, was published as evidence of plans to develop nuclear weapons. During the same period the Iranian president also made a number of provocative statements denouncing the holocaust as a myth and suggesting that Israel be re-established in Europe or Canada.

This prompted a chorus of disapproval from around the world, including from China and Russia, who have traditionally been supportive of the country, and resulted in the unanimous decision to report Iran to the UN security council. However, this apparent unity of the great powers is no more real today than at any time over recent years.

Behind the false unity

The response of the major powers to the events in Iran is a consequence of the global situation of increasing tensions rather than a consequence of any moral outrage. In this, it is similar to the attitude towards Iraq before the start of the war there. In the run up to that war the situation was dominated by the offensive of US imperialism. Today it is dominated by America’s difficulties, and above all by the quagmire in Iraq where the losses continue to mount, the attempts to stage manage the return of democracy unravel as quickly as they are put together and daily life remains harsh. The unilateral assertion of US power that followed 9/11 and led into Iraq stands in contrast to its current efforts to construct a multilateral approach to Iran.

All of this presents the US’s rivals, great and small, with an opportunity. For its major rivals there is little need to do anything much beyond watch the US suffer. Indeed it is even possible to indulge in mild, hypocritical support for the US.

This does not mean there is any real unity among the various powers involved. On the contrary each is fighting for its own advantage against all the rest. At one end stands Britain, apparently the most supportive of Washington’s allies but actually, as we showed in the last article on this question in WR 289, resolutely pursuing its own interests. While Britain has been at the forefront of attacks on Iran’s nuclear aspirations and led the way in calling for a referral to the UN, it has openly opposed the possible use of force and has repeatedly stressed that UN action does not have to take the form of sanctions.

At the other end, China and Russia have been the most open supporters of Iran; until the last week they opposed involving the UN and called for more negotiations. China’s position has been ascribed to its need for Iranian oil, which is true in part, but it also has its own imperialist ambitions and has developed relations with countries such as Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Sudan, as well as Iran, all of which are seen as anti-US. Russia for its part continues to propose a solution whereby it would process uranium for Iran on its territory. Russia and China met Iran on February 2nd to continue their efforts to find a compromise. The price of the unanimous decision to report Iran to the UN was the agreement that this would be delayed for a month and that Iran would only be ‘reported’ to the UN rather than ‘referred’, since the latter implies that the UN actually has to do something.

In between stand Germany and France, the former with very significant trade with Iran. Both have condemned Iran’s actions and worked with Britain at talks in London on 18th January to draft the resolution to put before the International Atomic Energy Authority’s meeting on 1st February, calling for it to refer Iran to the UN. While this has given a platform for plenty of rhetoric – the French Foreign Minister stated recently that “Iran has challenged the entire international community. The international community has to respond to that challenge with firmness and efficiency” (Guardian 31/1/06) - practically it means the issue has been put into the labyrinth of international diplomacy.

None of this means that the US is going to just stand by. All that has happened since the end of the cold war, and after the attack on the Twin Towers especially, shows that the US remains determined and capable of responding to a changing situation, indifferent to the slaughter and suffering caused along the way. Thus the threat of military action against Iran, although confined to the occasional isolated senator, is a real one. The fact that Washington has seemed to wait for the EU Three to call for a referral should not be taken at face value. It called for such a referral earlier and has gone further in outlining the possible consequences. On January 7th, two days after Iran’s declaration that it would resume nuclear fuel research, Condoleeza Rice, US Secretary of State, declared “When it’s clear that negotiations are exhausted, we have the votes…There is a resolution sitting here for referral. We’ll vote it. That’s not sabre rattling, that’s diplomacy…and diplomacy includes what you do in the Security Council” (Guardian 8/1/06) Two weeks later president Bush reaffirmed America’s commitment to defend Israel, while Israel in turn has raised the prospect of attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities without any reprimand from the US. In the recent State of the Union address Bush declared that “the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons”.

Iran’s ambitions

In the previous article we noted that “this chaos [of the situation in Iraq]…is not merely encouraging Iran to be more bold; it is actually requiring it to be so if it is actually to have any chance of advancing its interests…The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is fundamentally a symptom of the situation in the region rather than a cause”. This strategy has been continued and, with the recent threats to world oil prices, has become more daring. There is a logic to all of its actions: the attacks against Israel and the Jews, the declarations about the Holocaust, allow it to position itself at the radical edge of Islam and to present itself as the champion of the dispossessed Shia in Iraq and the oppressed Shia minorities in other parts of the Middle East. Thus, even while the tendency towards irrationality that emerged with the revolution of 1979 in Iran continues, expressing the weight of social decomposition, Iran’s strategy is also wholly within the imperialist logic of decadent capitalism. The radical language it addresses to the masses under the sway of Islam is fuelled by the same spread of chaos that pushes Iran towards greater defiance and greater radicalism in its strategy and tactics. The return to the language of the 1979 ‘revolution’ in Iran reflects this as does the recent election victory of Hamas in the Palestinian statelet. There is in all of this a coming together of factors that have a common root in the generalised chaos within capitalism as a whole and in the Middle East specifically.

However, the fact that Iran’s actions are not a simple outpouring of irrational rage can be seen in the control exercised over the radicalism, in the proposals for new talks that follow the denunciation of the West as being still in the dark ages, and in the claim that a compromise can still be reached after the threats of destruction against its enemies. It is evident too in the maintenance of diplomatic relations with neighbouring Arab countries, as well as with supposedly Communist China and corrupt, gangster-ridden Russia. It can be seen in the level of unity shown by the Iranian ruling class over the nuclear issue, with even moderates such as the former president giving support to the government’s strategy.

Of course, it goes without saying that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, that it has bought plans and materials on the black market and is using nuclear power as a cover for its real aim. This is the goal of every aspiring international player.

Britain’s position

In the last article we reiterated the position that Britain has pursued its own imperialist strategy so that while “at times this has seen it going in the same direction as the US...its destination was never the same”. This remains the case. It has been at the forefront of condemning Iran, and when Blair supported a referral to the UN Security Council he raised the prospect of unspecified action: “Obviously we don’t rule out any measures at all. It’s important Iran recognises how seriously the international community treats it.” (Guardian Unlimited, 13/1/06). A day later, however, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw was more circumspect: “There are many issues which go on the agenda of the Security Council and which are actively discussed and where you then get action without sanctions. Everybody knows the range of measures available to the Security Council. The first decision for us to make is whether it goes on the agenda” (Guardian Unlimited, 14/01/06). A few days later, as we have seen, Britain joined France and Germany in drafting a resolution for the IAEA and was subsequently reported to be engaged alongside them in “an intensive round of worldwide lobbying…to try to maximise a vote on Iran” (Guardian 20/1/06). More recently, in response to the US’ position that keeping the military option open gave them ‘leverage’, Straw declared bluntly “I understand that’s the American position. Our position is different…There isn’t a military option and no one is talking about it” (Observer, 29/01/06).

Towards more death and destruction

The drawn-out crisis over Iran stands in continuity with US strategy since 9/11, but also shows the extent to which that offensive has slowed under the weight of events and has been unbalanced, delayed and diverted by the opposition of its rivals.

Are we then witnessing an unravelling of US strategy? The answer seems to be no; both because the US has vast untapped resources at its disposal and also because it has no real alternative. However, this does not mean that there might not be changes in tactics or tensions within the American ruling class as a consequence. Nor are we seeing the rise of any direct challenge to the US. All of its rivals have to speak the language of the ‘war on terror’, despite the fact that they frequently try to use the US’s words against it. All know that they lack the power to directly challenge the US, despite all the talk about the rise of China and the predictions that its military spending will outstrip that of the US over the next decades. However, the rational balancing of interests and resources exists alongside the more irrational pressures coming from the decomposition of capitalism and the drive to look after number one at all costs.

Will there be military action against Iran? At this point that cannot be answered. It fits into the logic of recent developments but it would also be a major escalation with profound and very widespread consequences. Iran is not Iraq. Its army is larger and better armed and it has stronger regional ties. This is one of the factors that allows it to act so defiantly.

What we can say is that whether there is war this time or not, the dynamic of violence, destruction and disorder throughout the region and beyond remains dominant.
North, 4/2/06

The ICC organises meetings, wherever it can, open to all those who sincerely want to change the world. Our public meetings and open meetings aim to be the place for fraternal debate where participants can pose questions and put arguments and analyses to the test.

So, during October and November the ICC section in France held meetings on the theme ‘Proletarian revolution is the sole perspective for the future of humanity’ in Tours, Marseille, Nantes, Toulouse, Paris and Lyons. Inevitably the burning question of the riots was the central preoccupation: how should we view the desperate violence of the young in the suburbs?

The discussion in Toulouse was particularly significant in showing the questioning going on in the working class on the riots. There was both a feeling of solidarity for the distress of its own children, as well as anger at seeing aggression among neighbours; at cars and neighbourhood schools being destroyed.

At the public meeting in Toulouse we opened the debate, as usual, with a short presentation. This showed how the working class is the only force in society that can change the world by overthrowing capitalism internationally. We integrated the question of the riots into the presentation, strongly underlining the despair expressed in these explosions of violence.

Burning cars, schools, buses, gyms… all this is completely self-destructive. No perspective, no hope, can come from these actions. Not knowing how to struggle, these young people attacked their parents and neighbours… The children of workers, unintentionally, took their anger out on their own class.

The rioters are the children of workers

There was immediately an animated discussion. Several participants criticised our position on the internet [1] [26] which inspired the presentation.

In the first intervention a comrade expressed his profound disagreement: “The ICC leaflet [2] [27] poses me a problem. The riots are shown as a revolt in itself. The leaflet struggles to put forward the stake of the class struggle. The ICC position is not sufficiently militant. There is also something lacking, solidarity for the living conditions of these young people. It is necessary to show the absurdity of capitalism and not to talk of youth in deprived areas. They are part of the working class … The leaflet has left out the question of class identity. As the PCI/Le Proletaire [3] [28] says in its leaflet, conscious or not, these young people belong to the working class. Similarly, in relation to the revolt of youth, where is the proletariat at this time? Faced with the social curfew, it is necessary to link the struggle of these young people to the proletariat.” A young contact, a member of the discussion circle in the town, followed up this intervention in these terms: “… I lived in a suburb and for me the young in the suburb certainly have no class consciousness nor even a notion of class, but these violent actions are against capitalism. It’s a revolt against the system …”. Lastly, a third participant concluded the first round of discussion in the same spirit: “in Mirail nearly 50% of proletarians are unemployed. The young can’t find work or only very little short term … It is necessary to put forward, not the weaknesses, but the proletarian perspective ….”

This reaction was not at all surprising. Quite the contrary. The suffering experienced by the children of our class, and the cynical use the bourgeoisie makes of it, explains in part this strong tendency in the meeting express feelings of solidarity towards society’s ‘rejects’. The spectacular explosion of urban violence brought to light the totally unbearable living conditions of a large part of working class youth. Besides, contrary to the criticism of our position, according to which it lacks “solidarity for the living conditions of these young people”, we affirmed unambiguously that: “If the young in the suburbs are rebelling today … it’s because they are sunk in a profound despair … It’s this feeling of ‘No Future’ which hundreds of thousands of young people are feeling today in France, as in many other countries. They feel it in their guts, every day, because of unemployment, because of the discrimination and disdain with which they are treated.”

These riots are foreign to the working class struggle

For all that, can we go so far as to say, as these comrades did, that “these violent actions are against capitalism” and that “it’s a revolt against the system”? What would that say to workers? Should we remain silent on the total absurdity of destruction for the sake of destruction? Ignore who are the main victims of these actions?

Evidently not. Workers also feel the effects of the riots in their guts. As one of the participants put it very clearly: “… As for the destruction of cars, some comrades have downplayed this in their interventions. Well, I tell them clearly that I hope that my car will not be burned, for, like other workers, I need it to travel.” The support for the rioters, or at least the underestimation of the nihilist aspect of the events, produced a reaction. Comrades present replied in a dynamic debate. “I disagree with what comrades said on the riots. It’s certainly a revolt against the bourgeois state, but it has no future. We cannot solidarise with those who destroy their neighbours’ cars, workers’ cars. We can understand it, since they are society’s rejects; capitalist society has nothing to offer them. There is anger. But we cannot agree with this violence. They have been going through unemployment and poverty for a number of years. It is a part of the class which is heavily attacked. That’s true. But these actions do not make us feel close to them. This has nothing to do with the class struggle.”

This sort of explosion of violence is, in fact, against the interests of the working class. It distils fear, withdrawal and division within its ranks. The bourgeoisie understands all this very well. It has orchestrated its propaganda of fear in order to justify the strengthening of its repressive arsenal. The riots have not increased proletarian consciousness. On the contrary, they are a favourable terrain for bourgeois ideology. The ruling class has used the desperate marginalised young to justify emergency security measures and so increase the policing of workers’ areas. Above all, it has momentarily been able to mask the bankruptcy of its system, calling the rioters “scum” and accusing immigrants of being the cause of all evil.

Consequently, we completely support the first comrade to intervene when he said “conscious or not, these young people belong to the working class”, but we can no longer follow him when he says: “it is necessary to link the struggle of these young people to the proletariat.” In reality the section of youth involved in the riots tends to be distanced from the proletarian struggle. And it is precisely because they are the children of workers that their destructive behaviour weighs so heavily against the working class. Here is a part of our class that has mistaken the road and the struggle. In this sense, if the proletariat has solidarity with victims of capitalism, and so with these desperate young, at the same time that does not mean to say that we must welcome this sort of revolt, because it is opposed to the proletariat’s needs. These riots do not belong to the struggle of the working class in any way.

Only the working class can offer a perspective for the future of humanity

We do not want to encourage such acts of violence, as the PCI/Le Proletaire have done in an ambiguous and erroneous way! In fact, their leaflet has the inflammatory title: ‘The suburban revolts indicate the resurgence in revolutionary proletarian struggle’. And the support for such revolts is clearer still at the end of the text: “long live the revolt against poverty, racism and oppression, of the young proletarians in the suburbs”!!!

How can we believe that these acts of violence directed against workers “indicate the resurgence of the revolutionary proletarian struggle”? The group has quite simply allowed itself to be deceived by the spectacular nature of the revolts and lost sight of what the class struggle is, in both its form and content. The proletariat tends towards unity in its struggle and so develops solidarity. These riots, on the contrary, are the product of individual resentment and have no perspective but destruction and self-destruction.

The PCI/Le Proletaire have turned everything upside down. They claim that the young rioters are injecting a dynamic into the whole working class, which is at present listless. This is the exact opposite of the truth. The proletariat has already started to take up the path of struggle again. Since the strikes in spring 2003 in France, the working class is reaffirming itself everywhere, in an embryonic way certainly, but with both its militancy and natural tendency to solidarity developing. The riots are not an accelerator but on the contrary a brake on this development of class struggle.

Of course the young rioters are victims of the capitalist system. Of course they are a part of the working class that is suffering particularly badly. But how do we express our solidarity with these workers’ children? Certainly not by spreading illusions or following them in their cry of distress. The working class must not follow the young towards self-destruction; on the contrary, it must draw them in behind it. It has the capacity and the responsibility to show the perspective for the future. As we say in our position on the internet: “It’s because, up till now, the working class has not had the strength to affirm this perspective through the development and extension of its struggles, that so many of its children are plunging into despair, expressing their revolt in absurd ways or taking refuge in the mirages of religion, which promises them a paradise after they are dead. The only real solution to the ‘crisis of the disinherited neighbourhoods’ is the development of the proletarian struggle towards the revolution. It is this struggle alone which can give a meaning and a perspective to the whole revolt of the younger generation”!!!

A fraternal debate

Traditionally we end our meetings by allowing everyone who wishes to give their impressions on the conduct and quality of the meeting, to reaffirm agreement or state any remaining disagreement or pose any questions which have not been taken up but need to be debated.

Generally the participants felt a certain satisfaction and showed real interest in this public meeting.

The comrades who had raised their disagreements also welcomed the debate. However, two comrades regretted that the ICC had not intervened in these neighbourhoods, and in the rest of the working class, with a leaflet. This showed that the differences, although limited, still remained at the end of the meeting.

In any case, ICC meetings are not intended to give an exhaustive explanation closing all debate. On the contrary, the richness and the dynamic of the discussion raised many more questions than answers. For example, we only touched on the fundamental difference between the destructive violence of these riots and the creative violence used by the working class, violence necessarily used in its overthrow of capitalist order. The subject is far from exhausted.

We conclude with an extract from a letter from a young contact, who had come to an ICC public meeting for the first time, showing the fraternal spirit which animated the debate:

“What I particularly appreciated in the conduct of the debate (and which I have rarely experienced in any other situation whether personal or professional), was the fact that it was possible to really listen to what everyone was saying, to follow closely and respond to the preoccupations raised by those present, without losing sight of the question posed and the necessity to contribute and respond … These events (the urban violence) seem absurd, because of their lack of objective and the means they use, which do not seem to be part of the logic of the class struggle, but they raised lots of questions for those in the meeting and it seems necessary to give them a lot of attention, and the ICC has done this. These events are not part of a revolutionary logic (and even in terms of revolt they are hard to understand, taking account of the targets of the violence). But it seemed necessary to analyse them in order to define and characterise the events and the rioters, in order to be able to look at the growing signs of proletarian activity, and to examine the question of proletarian organisation in a perspective of revolution…”.
Pawel  15.12.05

On 23 December, in the SEAT car factory in Barcelona, the workers on the morning and afternoon shifts spontaneously went on strike, in solidarity with 660 comrades who the day before had received dismissal letters from management.

It was the beginning of a response to a criminal attack on their living conditions. An attack planned well in advance and treacherously carried out by the infernal triangle of bosses, the ‘Generalidad’ (Catalan regional government), and the unions. An attack which went well beyond the 660 lay-offs, since there was also the disciplinary sacking of workers who had taken part in actions at the beginning of December, 296 ‘voluntary’ redundancies, and plans for the intensification of exploitation without any increase in wages…This was a brutal attack which will open the door to further attacks. It was no accident that the company’s president provocatively announced that “the measures contained in the accord will not reabsorb the entirety of the excess in the workforce”.

Like the comrades at SEAT and like all workers, we have to fight back. But to fight back with strength, we have to quickly draw the lessons from the strategy of manipulation and demobilisation pursued by bosses, government and unions.

A strategy calculated to demobilise the workers

From the moment in mid-August that the company announced the “necessity” for a reduction in personnel, as well as a 10% cut in wages, the representatives of the company, as well as those who are supposed to represent the workers, i.e. the unions and the ‘left wing’ regional government, have shared out the roles to prevent a real workers’ struggle from blocking their plans.

For more than two months, from August to the beginning of December, the union representatives devoted themselves to anaesthetising the workers’ anxiety about the question of redundancies, saying that they weren’t justified because the company was making a profit: the crisis at SEAT was only temporary or was simply the result of poor trade policies. With such lies – which we attacked in our leaflet ‘SEAT, Saving the company means lay-offs and dead-end contracts. The only response is the workers’ struggle’ – they got the workers to lower their guard, making them believe that all this was just bravado by the greedy bosses, which would soon be put in its place by the economic studies carried out by the unions or by pressure from the ‘progressive’ regional government. The bosses also played their part in this mystification, playing hide and seek for weeks until on 7 November they announced the ERE (Procedure for the Regulation of Employment) for 1346 workers.  

The unions had proposed a partial strike for that day, but the workers’ demonstrations went beyond this; in two industrial zones in the Barcelona suburbs, they mounted road blocks. Faced with this situation, the United Platform (in which the main union organisations, UGT, CCOO and CGT, participate [1] [34]) called for a one day strike on 10 November, and a demonstration to ‘demand’ that the regional government “gets involved in the conflict on the side of the workers”(!). With this action the three unions intended, as we put it, “to entrust our fate to our executioners, to the masters of fine words and the knife in the back. The state is not the representative of the people but the unconditional defender of the interests of the national capital. All the authorities – from the president of the government to the least local mayor – are there to guard those interests”.

After this masquerade, the three unions washed their hand of the problem and no longer called for the slightest action until 1 December! That’s three weeks during which the workers were kept passively waiting around, while the unions engaged in interminable ‘negotiations’ followed by the ‘mediation’ of the regional labour relations chief, Senior Rane. As we said in the leaflet, “this tactic of ‘pressure’ and ‘petitions’ dupes the workers and makes them passive”.

The United Platform attempted to get back in the saddle after the holiday week of 5-10 December. But this was just another lie! Using as a pretext the legal limits imposed by the ERE, and the pressure from the regional government which was wielding the threat of ‘arbitration’, they ‘forgot’ the mobilisation and, on 15 December, the CCOO and UGT (the CGT having withdrawn on the 13th) signed the agreement for the 660 redundancies.

But the worst was yet to come: they stayed quiet for a whole week about who the victims were to be. It wasn’t until the last day before the holidays that the disclosed the main part of the dismissal notices; and they scaled the heights of cynicism and humiliation by treating the workers concerned like criminals. This vile manoeuvre unmasked them (hadn’t they said that they had signed the “best deal possible”?) and showed that they are afraid of the workers, because if they had felt sure of themselves, they would have announced the redundancies right away, and wouldn’t have employed extra security agents to guard the offices of the UGT and the CCOO.

The struggle must be run by workers’ assemblies

The CGT played the role of the ‘good trade union’, which stays with the workers. It’s true that 145 of its members were among those laid off. But the sufferings of those comrades and the need for solidarity with them can’t hide the fact that the CGT is no alternative to the UGT-CCOO and that it is every bit their equal. Why did it participate in the farce of negotiations and the ‘struggle’ of the United Platform, which it only left very late, on 13 December? Why, when the UGT and the CCOO signed the deal, was the only ‘mobilisation’ it called a rally outside the factory, with very few workers being told about it, and which only drew in 200 workers? Why on the morning of the 23rd, before the spontaneous strike, did “The CGT decide to limit the protest to a few hours only” (cf the internet site Kaosenlared, 24.12.05), at the very time when there was a real push from the workers, as shown by the fact that afternoon shift held an assembly and decided to stay out for the whole day? Why did any alternative suggested by the CGT reduce itself to “reviewing each lay-off on a case by case basis and if necessary taking the matter to the courts”?

Up until the 23rd, the workers were the victims of a demobilisation, of a strategy to prevent any response. The unions aren’t just playing with us when they sign redundancy deals; they also play with us when they organise their ‘Struggle Plans’. Their action against the workers has three interlinked aspects:

-            their pacts and agreements with the bosses and the government,

-            their plans for ‘struggle’ which are in fact strategies against the struggle,

-            their unconditional defence of the interests of the company and the national economy, which they claim coincide with the interests of the workers, when in fact they are diametrically opposed.

This is why the main lesson of the struggle at SEAT, which the workers themselves are beginning to draw in practice through the spontaneous strikes and assemblies of the 23rd, is that we cannot entrust the struggle to the unions.

On the 23rd, the laid-off workers, instead of going home and sitting alone anguishing about the prospect of unemployment, turned towards their comrades; and the latter, instead of consoling themselves with the thought that “it’s not happening to me”, or behind the individualist response of “every one should do what they can”, demonstrated their solidarity in the struggle. This kind of solidarity, this common response by those who are being made redundant with those who still have their jobs, between employed and unemployed, between those with ‘precarious’ contracts and those with long term contracts, is the basis for an effective reply to the inhuman plans of the capitalists.

The year 2006 has begun with the drama of the 660 lay-offs at SEAT, but who can believe that these will be the last? We know that they won’t be. We know that the blows of redundancies, the crime of industrial accidents, the anguish caused by a lack of affordable housing, the threats to pensions, the endless ‘reforms’ being concocted by the infernal trio of government, bosses and unions, will be the source of new suffering. That in the automobile sector, as in all other sectors, as in all countries, the attacks on the living conditions of the workers will continue; that the horrors of war, poverty and hunger, which go with capitalism like vultures go with death, will continue.

This is why we have to struggle. But for the struggle to be effective and powerful, the development of class solidarity is vital, and it must be organised and controlled by the workers themselves.  

The need for class solidarity

The problem at SEAT can’t be reduced to the 660 redundancies; the problem involves the whole workforce. It’s not just the problem of the SEAT workers but of all workers, both state employees who have a ‘guaranteed job’ (until when?) and workers in private enterprises, workers with or without legal status in the country. We are all in the same situation as the SEAT workers!

Our strength is class solidarity, unity in the struggle. A struggle limited to SEAT and closed in at SEAT will be a defeated struggle.

But what do we mean by solidarity? Does it mean boycotting this or that brand? Does it mean declarations of ‘support’ from the ‘critical wing’ of the CCOO or the EUA? [2] [35] Does it mean ‘citizens’ actions’ in the neighbourhoods?

This kind of solidarity is just as false as the ‘Struggle Plans’ of the United Platform. The only real solidarity is to unite in the struggle. It means workers from different sectors, different areas joining in the same struggle, breaking through the barriers which weaken us: company, sector, nationality, race, coming together in assemblies, delegations and demonstrations.

The necessity for sovereign workers’ assemblies

The experience at SEAT is clear: we already know what happens when we leave our fate in the hands of the unions.

The direction of the struggle has to be in the hands of the workers from start to finish. It’s the workers who have to evaluate the forces they can count on, the demands to put forward, the possibilities of extending the struggle. Their response can’t be influenced by the provocations of the bosses, or the ‘Struggle Plans’ of their accomplices the unions, but by the collective decision of the workers organised in assemblies and in elected and revocable committees. Negotiations with bosses or the government must be carried out in full view of everyone, as was the case at Vitoria in 1976 or in Poland in 1980. It was the assemblies themselves who took charge of looking for solidarity by organising delegations and demonstrations.

The time for resignation, passivity and disorientation must come to an end. The margin of manoeuvre that this situation has offered capital for years is getting slimmer. It’s time to fight back. The voice of the working class must be heard with increasing volume.

Leaflet distributed by Accion Proletaria, ICC section in Spain, December 2005

Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq the country is in chaos. Following the destruction of the mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia shrines, there was a whole series of reprisals, an increasing cycle of violence in which hundreds died. Media speculations on the ‘possibility’ of civil war are already behind the situation. The civil war has already begun and the dismemberment of Iraq looks increasingly likely. With the country falling apart, one way or another, no one is betting on the establishment of a stable government in Baghdad. The example of Afghanistan is there for all to see. The government’s authority doesn’t extend much outside Kabul and NATO troops aren’t going to be leaving for years.

US imperialism: the military response to chaos creates more chaos

The American government blames foreign terrorists for the deterioration of the situation in Iraq. Every suicide bombing is denounced as another blow against an emerging democracy. But the US is faced with more than a handful of terrorists. It’s faced with a world-wide slide towards military chaos opened up by the disintegration of the old bloc system at the end of the 80s. In this new world disorder, there is little reason for other powers, big or small, to put themselves under US discipline, and every reason for each country to fight for its own particular interests in the dog-eat-dog world of decomposing capitalism.

The spectacular interventions of US imperialism since the first Gulf war in 1991 have all been aimed at re-imposing America’s global authority. Control of Middle East oil supplies is one aspect of this strategy. But a more fundamental aim is to prevent the rise of any new powers capable of standing up to the USA. This aim was restated by the Pentagon in the recently published four-yearly strategy review. It contained nothing surprising but was a reminder of what the US has in store. For a start, the phrase ‘war on terror’ is replaced by ‘The Long War’. This is how US imperialism sees the future situation panning out. The war strategy of the US, post 9/11 “may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come.” They see an emphasis going from large-scale conventional military operations to highly mobile, rapid reaction forces.

But while the report talks of the need for “the US military to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches”, the overall goals remain familiar. They want to prevent the emergence of any serious rival on the imperialist stage. “It will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive capabilities that could enable regional hegemony against the US and friendly countries…to ensure that no foreign power can dictate the terms of regional or global security”. This means the US wants to call the shots at every level.

The current situation in Iraq shows how distant that aspiration is. Every time the USA uses its vast military power to try to impose its ‘order’, it stirs up violence, contention and hatred on a mounting scale. And not just from the terrorist followers of radical Islam, but from a growing list of imperialist powers from China and Russia to the very heart of old Europe.

This situation is historic and it makes no difference whether the US state is managed by Bush and his Neo-Conservative cronies or a ‘progressive’ Democrat like Clinton or Kerry. Neither is imperialism a sin of the US alone. We are living in an era in which all states are imperialist, not least those like France or Germany who opposed the US invasion of Iraq. Then they posed as peace-makers because it suited their own sordid national interests. Today they are rattling swords at Iran in pursuit of the same interests.  

A wide range of false alternatives

It’s not surprising that in a Ministry of Defence poll less than 1% of Iraqis thought that allied military intervention was helping their situation and 82% were strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops. With the drift into civil war, the whole Bush/Blair promise that the invasion would turn Iraq into a stable and prosperous democracy looks more and more like a fairytale. And as the death-toll rises among the Coalition troops, it’s equally no surprise that the popularity of the war ‘at home’ is also nose-diving. It is now routinely accepted that the war was launched on the basis of a huge lie (Saddam’s ever-elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction); and an increasing number of soldiers’ families have protested angrily that their sons have been sacrificed for nothing.

On March 18 there is a ‘global day of protest’ that’s “against the occupation of Iraq and new wars”. In Britain typical slogans are “Troops home from Iraq”, “Don’t attack Iran” and “No to Islamophobia”. Those who will be marching will have a number of motivations.

For a start, there will be those who are genuinely horrified at what’s been going on in the Middle East and at the idea of further conflicts to come. But the question is whether these demonstrations really challenge the capitalist war machine. The evidence of the series of protests that have taken place since the invasion of Afghanistan, and then Iraq, shows that pacifist parades are a perfectly acceptable part of capitalist society. Tony Blair says that peaceful and legal protest is one of the democratic rights most anticipated in Iraq. At any rate, even with a million and half people on the streets prior to the 2003 invasion, our ‘democratic leaders’ calmly went ahead with their military plans.

The slogan ‘troops out of Iraq’ also fails to pose the real questions. If the troops are not in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran, then they’re going to be in the US, Britain or Ireland, or, in the case of the US, in massive numbers inside the borders of their economic rivals, Germany and Japan. And when the US moves its troops it does so in pursuit of its imperialist interests. Recently, for example, US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit, while admitting that the presence of 300,000 foreign troops in the Middle East, most of them American, was a “contributory factor” to instability in the region, insisted that the US “would not maintain any long-term bases in Iraq”. He also said that the US would have “sufficient forces to deter, and to protect partners and its key national interests”. So the US would retain “sufficient military capability” to attack Iran, for example. The USA’s network of bases is designed to enable action to be taken in any potential trouble spot. Likewise France is upgrading its nuclear arsenal, Britain will also be adding to both its nuclear and its conventional forces, and are we seriously to believe that the Iranian mullahs only want to develop nuclear energy for peaceful ends?

In sum, every capitalist state is arming itself to the teeth. The idea that the imperialist policies of capitalist states can be refashioned in a manner that is somehow less ‘military’ is entirely illusory. Whether great or small, states will use any means at their disposal to advance their interests. In the war of each against all, the bourgeoisie can only resort to force and terror.

Not every placard that will be seen on March 18 will be relying on the benevolence of the capitalist state. There will be others praising the virtues of the Iraqi ‘Resistance’ and telling us that it is ‘objectively anti-imperialist’. But the methods of the Resistance - suicide bombs in crowded markets, provocative attacks on religious sites, sectarian murders and reprisals - are in no way a challenge to the logic of imperialism. On the contrary, these are the typical methods of imperialist war in which the principal victims are always the exploited and the oppressed. And the methods are consistent with the goals: the establishment of an ‘independent Iraq’, able to pursue its own hegemonic ambitions in the region, just like the regime of Saddam Hussein or the ‘Islamic state’ in Iran. It makes no difference whether they want a ‘socialist’ Iraq or a Caliphate: all the disparate bourgeois forces that have set themselves against the US coalition want a state that will serve Iraq’s national, capitalist, and therefore imperialist interests.

Neither spreading pacifist illusions, nor openly siding with one imperialist camp against another, will halt new invasions and new wars. The barbarism in Iraq announces the future that capitalism has in store for all of us because, on a world scale, this is a social system in utter decay; a system which for the last hundred years has been dragging mankind through an absurd spiral of war and destruction. Even if ‘peace’ could somehow be imposed in Iraq, the virus of imperialist war would only break out somewhere else as long as its underlying causes have not been eradicated.

There is a real alternative: the international class struggle

But this harsh truth is not a message of despair. There is a social force that, when it makes its appearance, shows that it is the true negation of imperialist war. This force is the working class, which has no national interests to defend and nothing to gain from sacrificing itself in imperialist wars. It demonstrated this once and for all through the fraternisations, strikes and mutinies which put an end to the First World War. Likewise, it was the defeat of the proletarian revolutions of 1917-19 which allowed the bourgeoisie to dragoon the working class into the second world war. Today, the same basic reality is demonstrated by the war in Iraq. The great imperialist powers are unable to confront each other openly in a world war because the working class today is not defeated like it was in the 1930s. Despite the growing tensions between America and its principal imperialist rivals, the workers of Europe and America to not going to start slaughtering each other for their masters’ interests. So the antagonisms between the great capitalist powers are ‘deflected’ towards the weaker countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, where the working class is also weaker and less able to sabotage the war-plans of the bourgeoisie.

This places an enormous responsibility on the shoulders of the working class in the most powerful countries. It is their struggle in defence of their living standards which has the potential to paralyse the war-machine at its very heart – in New York, London, Paris or Berlin. This struggle, after a long period of reflux, is again raising its head in a series of strikes in which workers are rediscovering the basics of class solidarity. Today these movements (such as the wildcats of the Heathrow workers or the Belfast postal workers, or the New York transit strike) are small-scale, unspectacular, focused on immediate, defensive demands; but tomorrow they will be compelled to become more massive, more political and more offensive. This is the movement that will counter capitalism’s lurch towards barbarism with the proletarian perspective of communism.
WR 4/3/6

The bubble of the British economy is about to burst. It appeared to be in reasonable health from the mid-1990s. However, we have shown that this has been achieved by cutting labour costs and increasing working hours, and by the increase in private consumption based on a massive extension of individual debt, primarily through mortgage equity withdrawal and credit card debt. Britain’s total debt including mortgages is estimated at £1 trillion and worsening (see WR 283 and 284, ‘Britain can’t escape the world economic crisis’). However, as we showed in these articles, this can’t last and Britain can’t continue to ‘magic’ away the effects of the global economic crisis of capitalism. There is every sign that the downturn is now upon us and the perspective of increased attacks on workers’ living standards is coming more out into the open.

Britain’s trade deficit last year was £47.6 billion, 4% of GDP, making it “the highest ever in absolute terms”. This was compounded by the first annual deficit in oil of £670 million in 2005 (compared with a surplus of £1.7 billion in 2004) since the early days of North Sea Oil in 1979 and the trade deficit “will tend to get worse due to our increasing dependency on imported fuel” (Independent, 15.2.06).

Economic growth slowed during 2005 to between 1.6 and 1.7% which is the lowest since early 1993 and this is explained in part by the zero growth in hourly productivity per worker in the year to the third quarter of 2005 and output per worker increasing by only 0.4% over the same period, the slowest rate for 15 years. Business investment has been weak in the last 5 years compared with previously.

 The overall state of the British economy can only mean one thing for the working class, a massive attack on its living standards with more redundancies, cuts in pay and conditions including pensions, as well as bigger bills for gas, electricity, council tax, etc. One example of the job cuts was the announcement at the end of February by the telecoms company, Cable and Wireless, of 1,000 job cuts in the next three years.

Increasing unemployment

According to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) the rate of unemployment increased to 5.1% in the final quarter of 2005. The 108,000 people added to the list bring the official total of unemployed to 1.54 million. The real total is much larger. Since the early 1980s the unemployment statistics have been subject to serious ‘massaging’ with a lot of the long-term unemployed not registered as such but classified as unavailable for work and living on incapacity /disability benefit (there are 2.7 million people on incapacity benefit today compared with one million in the 1980s). As for the host of young people trying to enter the jobs market for the first time (who have to be 18 years to claim unemployment benefit anyway) as well as many long-term unemployed, they are not considered to be available for work as a consequence of being placed on various short-term training courses that offer little chance of employment.

Pensions

In recent issues of WR we have shown how the ruling class is attacking pensions under the rhetoric of ‘we can’t go on living beyond our means’, ending final salary schemes and proposing extending retirement age to 70 years (‘Pensions crisis shows capitalism has no future’ in WR 290, ‘Attacks on pensions: unions are part of the problem’ in WR 291). And the government is increasing the fear for public sector workers that they can’t expect their full pension entitlements: “The black hole in public sector pensions is almost four times larger than originally estimated, Whitehall accounts show. This follows a change in the way the Government works out the cost of its retirement schemes. Government documents show that since last year the amount of provision needed for public sector pensions has risen from £24.2 billion to £81 billion. Experts said that the increase showed that the public sector pensions bill is growing at an alarming rate.” (Daily Telegraph, 27.2.06)

Increased bills

As regards the energy bills workers are facing, five out of the six major energy suppliers have already increased their domestic prices in 2006. By the middle of February annual gas bills had increased by 13.55% according to uSwitch, the organisation that monitors energy prices, equivalent to £61.70 on an average bill. And this could get worse if the other companies follow British gas which has made the highest ever increase of 22%. This is said to be connected with the increased cost of oil and when the G8 ministers met recently they warned of “the threat to global economic growth posed by energy prices.” (Observer, 26.2.06). Alongside this, the new Council Tax bills (i.e. bills for services provided by the local state) are predicted to increase by double the rate of inflation this year.

Cuts in health

In the last issue of WR we also showed that despite the acclaimed government investment in the NHS, the Hospital Trusts were at breaking point as regards their finances. A recent Royal College of Nursing report further confirms this referring to Trusts having had to close wards and delay patient treatments to save money. 64 trusts are predicting deficits totalling £548 million at the half year stage. “To eliminate the overspending and pay back this debt, they would need to cut double that amount from next year’s budget.” (Guardian, 27.2.06). This can only mean dire consequences for staff and patients. Meanwhile in both hospitals and schools, the mechanisms of introducing ‘value for money’ (which means introducing the business ethic of ‘profitability’ and ‘competition’ and so worsening working conditions) are going ahead under the banner of Health and Education reforms.

Incapacity benefit

Another recent announcement concerned the fact that the government can’t anymore afford the large numbers of people collecting invalidity and disability benefits. It is going to re-brand incapacity benefit as ‘employment and support allowance’ with the intention of conducting rigorous medical assessments on claimants. “The government has unveiled its plans to reform incapacity benefit, which include the creation of a new unit to check on claimants to ensure they are still ill. Under the proposals, those who refuse to participate in back-to-work schemes would have their benefits cut. Incapacity benefit claimant Alan Dick, 49, from Cardonald in Glasgow, told the BBC Scotland news website of his concerns about some of the proposals.” (BBC website). These concerns relate to the fact that means-testing is now applied to claimants and the fact that there is a 12 weeks holding period during which adjustments to benefits are decided leaving claimants with problems in paying their bills while they await a decision. A recent government Green paper called the current system “an inhumane and outdated approach” for the brutal way benefits are withdrawn without a waiting period when someone fails an assessment. A Citizen’s Advice Bureau report was scathing about this too, and the fact that claimants were subject to the intimidation of having to go to appeal against assessment decisions when ultimately over 80% of these appeals were won.

The economic crisis is not a localised affair of British capitalism. It is global and all indications tell us that these convulsions will get much worse in the near future. Through tough measures put in place in the 1980s and 1990s, and continued till now, the British economy has given the appearance of being able to ride out the crisis. But this was only an illusion. British capitalism has to compete in the world market and the only way it can hope to defend its position is by brutally attacking workers’ living standards once again. This leaves the working class with no choice. It has to develop its combativity against the attacks and deepen its consciousness of the real nature of the capitalism. Only in this way will it be ultimately capable of developing and uniting its forces against a capitalist system that has for too long hindered humanity’s development.
Duffy 3.3.06

Belfast postal workers

Any news report from Northern Ireland automatically assumes that society there is rigidly divided a©long sectarian lines. In February a two-and-a-half-week-long unofficial strike by postal workers gave the lie to this as 800 Protestant and Catholic workers spontaneously came out against management bullying and harassment.

It started with a walk-out to prevent disciplinary action being taken against fellow workers – first at a mainly Protestant sorting office, then a mainly Catholic one.

The Communication Workers Union showed their true colours and opposed the strike. In Belfast a spokesman said “we repudiated the action and asked them to go back to work, pointing out that the action was illegal”. In Derry a local CWU official said that “under no circumstances” would there be a strike there so long as the strike was unofficial.

The workers showed that they didn’t need union permission to organise their struggle. A week into the strike they held a march that went up the Protestant Shankill Road and down the Catholic Falls Road. In many cases workers were going down streets that they’d never been down before. This was a real expression of workers’ unity, against the ruling class’s constant attempt to divide and rule.

However, the unions were not inactive. After two weeks there was a march from one of the picket lines to a rally at Belfast City Hall, where leftists provided placards, union and leftist speakers queued up to take their places on the platform, and a range of republican, leftist and loyalist groups honoured workers with their presence.

There have been other expressions of united struggle in Northern Ireland in recent years. But these have largely been limited to areas such as the health service, and did not spill out onto the streets. The open unity of Protestant and Catholic workers on the Belfast streets in this strike revived memories of the great unemployed demonstrations of 1932, where proletarians from both sides of the divide came together to fight cuts in the dole. But that was in a period of working class defeat, and today there is a much deeper potential for finally throwing aside the divisions that have for so long brought comfort to the capitalist order.

Socialist Worker proclaimed Royal Mail’s agreement to “an independent review of employee relations and industrial relations in Belfast” as a great victory for workers. If workers have any illusions in such a review it will hamper any future return to struggle. The great gain from the recent strike has been the experience of a united struggle undertaken outside the control of the unions. This gain is not just for the postal workers involved but for every worker inspired by this expression of class unity. 4/3/06

Cottam power workers

Unofficial action at Cottam power station, near Lincoln, has shown workers striking in protest at the wage levels imposed on Hungarian migrant workers.

Although the Hungarian workers were told not to discuss their wages and conditions with their fellow workers, they did, and discovered they had significantly worse wages; some paid half the rates of the British workers. They were also liable to be transferred anywhere in Europe at a moment’s notice.

One Hungarian worker actually paid for his own flight back to Britain to explain the situation to the British workers.

Initially 19 construction workers walked out. They have been joined by scaffolders, laggers, engineers, electricians and welders, making more than fifty now on strike. Some of the workers have been sacked.

Because no ballot was held the strike was illegal, and the GMB and Amicus unions are against the action. A regional organiser for the GMB said “he understood workers’ concerns” (Nottingham Evening Post 23/2/6) but “said the action needed to end”.

This local paper was not slow to contrast the behaviour of British and Hungarian workers. They dug up an academic to say that the UK workers had a “certain amount of honour” (ibid 25/2/6) in striking in solidarity with their fellow workers. In contrast, however, “the foreigners themselves have stayed at their posts throughout” (a scholarly claim somewhat undermined by pictures of Hungarian and British workers standing together on the picket lines).

 For the working class, recognising the shared interests of all workers, regardless of nationality or specific details of wages and conditions, is an important step if workers are going to struggle as a united class. Workers’ solidarity will never be understood by the capitalist ruling class.   4/3/06

So we have been saying, at the top of our voices, what a good number of SEAT workers of whatever sector and whatever country think but don’t dare express openly. And we will continue to do so because these are the bases of real workers’ struggle - on 23 December at SEAT, in the car industry in Germany in 2004, in Argentina a year earlier… It’s the only way for the exploited class to gain in solidarity, in strength, in self-confidence.

Here is what we put forward from the start of our intervention as expressed in our first communiqué, written in the beginning of January and from which we are taking certain extracts:

The intervention of the ICC in solidarity with the workers of SEAT

With our limited forces we mobilised to support the workers at SEAT. On Monday 2nd January, at 5:30 in the morning, the first day after the holiday, we went to the gates of SEAT to distribute our leaflet “To struggle we need to confront union sabotage”.[1] [40]

This was in continuity with our active presence in the struggle at SEAT: at the factory gates above all since October, in demonstrations afterwards (see our leaflet: ‘SEAT: To save the enterprise means redundancies and binning the contract. The response is workers’ struggle!’[2] [41]) and on 23 December when the spontaneous struggle broke out.

At the factory gates we found a group of workers sacked from SEAT. This showed a very positive initiative to avoid staying at home, to go to their class brothers who could, sooner or later, also become victims of redundancy. They chanted: “No to redundancy”, “Today it’s us, tomorrow it could be you”, they denounced the unions for signing the agreement for 660 redundancies. Unity is necessary, and this action went towards defending it. Workers made redundant must not remain isolated, they must firmly reject all measures to isolate and divide them, such as going to the tribunal to examine redundancies individually, case by case.

We supported the comrades’ slogans: REINTEGRATION OF REDUNDANT WORKERS! NO REDUNDANCIES! One idea that could be useful is to organise delegations to other factories, neighbourhoods, other workplaces, to raise the problem of redundancies at SEAT, demanding real solidarity: today for me, tomorrow for you. To struggle against redundancies at SEAT today is to develop the strength to struggle against future redundancies in other enterprises, other sectors. Many workers followed what their class brothers did at SEAT closely and felt inspired by their struggle.

Others join our intervention

We have received letters of support from comrades who wished to help us in our intervention of solidarity. Some comrades collaborated with us in distributing leaflets at factories and neighbourhoods. One comrade sent us the following position:

“Dear comrades, I have just received, today, 28 [December] your letter and leaflet on SEAT and want to respond, briefly, straight away:

The leaflet summarises, in my opinion, in depth, the events at SEAT. The analysis is perfectly correct, above all concerning the qualitative importance of the workers’ attempt to struggle autonomously by breaking the chains of the unions, and the rest of the state apparatus and employers who stand behind the unions. So I welcome your intervention, solidarise with its content and with the workers who, despite the union police, have gone on strike spontaneously, and that is truly significant. I think that the CGT[3] [42] has drawn on this balance of forces, strengthened by certain claims, given that illusions not only in the unions but also in trade unionism are collapsing among workers. To belong to a union does not even guarantee being included in the latest ‘social plan’. Workers will reflect on this aspect. It is necessary to denounce radical unionism most particularly, even proposing to workers that delegates should leave the enterprise committee and negotiation table etc. Signed, German.”

This mobilisation by our comrades is a source of great satisfaction and reinforces our determination to continue the struggle.

We took position on the ‘Letter’ that those made redundant from SEAT sent to the managing director:

Comrades,

First of all we want to express our unfailing solidarity and add our voice to your call for the “reintegration of redundant workers, no more redundancies” so it can be heard as loudly as possible.

Secondly, we propose: why not write a letter addressed to all workers? This was done by workers made redundant in the 1970s, a good tradition that we must take up again. A letter showing that the redundancies at SEAT are the latest of many others which happened previously: for example at Gearbox, or at Unidad Hermetica or in Papelera etc, and the announcement of many others at many other enterprises, SEAT included, as the managing director announced himself, with such hypocritical arrogance, once the shameful agreement of 15 December was signed. A letter to say that today it is you, but tomorrow it could perhaps be the turn of many others. A letter demanding solidarity, real solidarity: today for you, tomorrow for me, today for the comrades at SEAT in order that tomorrow they have the strength to face up to new redundancies. This solidarity could be shown in the calling of a demonstration in the centre of Barcelona where workers from all enterprises, no matter what sector, sex or nationality, could participate. A unitary demonstration to say clearly, to the bosses, the government and the two majority unions, that the workers have had enough, that they will not let themselves be attacked any more, a demonstration to feel in practice the power of the workers.

In your letter we find the idea “…leave SEAT [addressed to the MD] to continue to be what it always has been, a Spanish enterprise, truly competitive, with problems but without redundancies.” We live in a society where competition is the law. Nations are in competition to the death for their share of the world market. Hitler’s slogan “export or die” could be theirs. In the same way, enterprises are in ferocious competition in their branch of industry. In this competition there are states that gain and those that lose, enterprises which impose themselves at the expense of others. However, among those that win as much as those that lose, there are those who always lose: the workers and the majority of human beings. This applies to workers at the ‘winning’ firms - because to be competitive there must be lay offs, more short-term and precarious work, lower pay, working hours from hell, with things like ‘annualised hours’. And it applies to workers at the ‘losing’ firms - because when factories are closed, they lay off to keep their heads a little above water. Competition is at the basis of lay-offs, of casualisation, of the attack on our living conditions. We, the workers, like other human beings, need to eat, to have clothes, a roof over our heads, a worthwhile future for our children, necessities which we cannot make depend on the fact that Spain, or the enterprise, is competitive. Capitalism is a system where life is sacrificed to production, when the society to which workers aspire is a society where production is at the service of life. We must oppose their competition with our solidarity.

Greetings, comrades. Solidarity and struggle!”

In another article, “Lessons of the struggle at SEAT…”[4] [43], we argued that the unions have done all they can to slow down and avoid the real struggle since September, counting on the demobilisation of the Christmas holiday for the indignation and militancy of 23 December to be diluted. The CGT, which played ‘godfather’ to those who’d been laid off, arranged that only one meeting of SEAT workers should take place in the 10 days following 23 December. And yet it was a meeting a long way from the factory where only those laid off could participate. We went anyway; we distributed our leaflets, we discussed with those present, and we then wrote a second communiqué on our intervention which we summarise below.

The assembly on 3 January

This short text does not pretend to make an analysis but simply to provide information on how we continued our intervention in the situation that started with the redundancies at SEAT.

An assembly of those laid off from SEAT was called for 3 January. It was organised by the CGT and was seen in the following way: “The CGT has informed us yesterday that it will be those laid off who will attend the assembly and that they will decide what sort of action to take. Other comrades of the CGT or other unions and anti-capitalist organisations understand that we must be present outside the meeting, to show our support to these comrades and to show that, while it is they who must make this struggle, they are not alone… The majority of the comrades consulted thought that once the assembly had decided on the actions to be taken, we could show our solidarity” (Kaosenlared 2.1.06[5] [44]). On the Alasbarricadas one person signing “Cegetero” (CGT-ist) pointed out: “Warning: the SEAT assembly is not clear. On the poster in the heading and round the picture is written: against the lay offs at SEAT, come! But on the head of the new Rojo y negro[6] [45] it says : Assembly for those redundant from SEAT. In other words, those working at SEAT have not been called, but only those laid off. Further down it says that CGT members not belonging to SEAT will not be allowed in.”

It is necessary for workers to decide for themselves. That does not mean that they should not count on the participation, the help and support of other sectors. They should also recognise what organised militants can bring. The presence of other sectors of the working class is encouraging, it enables us to dare to undertake actions that we would not be capable of if we were isolated. Furthermore, the business of one sector of the working class is the business of the whole working class, because these are problems affecting the whole world: redundancy, casualisation, low wages, etc.

And here even SEAT workers who haven’t been laid off are not allowed in! What unity can develop in such conditions? And besides, even those union members from other branches and other enterprises are not authorised to enter.

The argument may appear very ‘democratic’: only those directly affected must decide. But can’t the workers judge which proposals are the best? Why must they be ‘protected from outside influence’?

This whole process can only lead to the isolation of those who have been made redundant, their separation from the rest of the working class, starting with their comrades at SEAT. This must lead them to a feeling of impotence, abandonment, and towards the idea so widespread in this individualistic and competitive society, according to which each must ‘do what he can’, to distrust the ‘rest of the world’ which ‘shouldn’t interfere’.

Our militants distributed our leaflet outside the hall, and in the various places where workers were meeting, to explain that the only possibility for developing the struggle was for all those laid off to go, together as a body, to the factory gates and explain to other workers (who may also suffer from unemployment tomorrow) that necessity for a common struggle with the objective of “Reintegration of those made redundant. No redundancies.” This was the point of departure for the 23 December strike and it’s the only way possible to continue the struggle.

How were the issues posed in the assembly? “In the second part there was a legal presentation of the situation and how, from a legal point of view, it was necessary to struggle to defend jobs” (post relating to the assembly on Kaosenlared 3.1.06). What does this mean? The best response was given by a comrade who signed himself “SEAT worker” in responding to this post: “And now the CGT holds an assembly and brings a lawyer (who must be paid, like everyone else, which is correct since lawyers also have to eat), accepts the conditions signed up to by the UGT and the CO[7] [46](even if they are bad), and advises us to put our names down for re-employment which, according to the CGT, isn’t possible. In this incoherence they want to make us swallow the poison. The only alternative is permanent mobilisation” (Kaosenlared 3.1.06).

What was proposed to the assembly was not to struggle together at all, but to save what you can! This was expressed very clearly, in capital letters, on an internet forum post: “FOR SHAME!!! THIS IS NOTHING BUT A MANIPULATION. MARRIED TO A REDUNDANT WORKER, I HAVE ONLY ONE THING TO SAY: SHAME ON ALL THE UNIONS, UGT, CCOO AND CGT. MY HUSBAND IS A MEMBER OF THE LATTER AND NOW HE IS IN THE STREET BECAUSE HE IS IN THE CGT. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE ACTIONS FROM THE UNION, BECAUSE YESTERDAY’S MEETING SEEMED LIKE ONE MORE LIE. THE TRUTH IS THAT THERE ARE 660 PEOPLE IN THE STREET AND THE OTHERS ON THE INSIDE AND IT IS VERY EASY TO TALK FROM THE INSIDE, AND IT IS VERY SAD WHEN ONE THROWS SOMEONE OUT FOR SO-CALLED LACK OF ‘MULTISKILLING’ - LIES!!! AND NOW SEAT IS CALLING FOR JOB INTERVIEWS. IF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND THAT CAN YOU EXPLAIN IT TO ME? STOP PROFITING FROM LAY OFFS, STOP YOUR PUBLICITY AND REALLY STRUGGLE FOR THOSE IN THE STREET” (Kaosenlared 3.1.06).

This comrade is completely right when she says things loud and clear. Because, apart from the legal demands, what sort of mobilisation was proposed? The post quoted before says that “The third part was devoted to preparing the mobilisation; the discussion was profound and it was decided to continue on the 12 January, in the same place. The proposals were very varied, very stimulating and determined. They will be made public at the appropriate time” (Kaosenlared 3.1.06). In other words, nothing. Come back on 12 January. And if by chance you still want to do something “we decided to participate in the demonstration and day of action for European workers in the car industry to be held in Saragossa on 20 January”.

They tell us about pushing forward an alternative to the treacherous unionism of the CO and UGT. But is this really an “alternative”? Isn’t it just the same?

Workers must draw a clear lesson from this experience: no union is going to defend us, neither the yellow CO-UGT type nor the more or less pink CGT, nor any other. The only alternative is to organise the struggle ourselves with assemblies, committees and revocable delegates. If we leave our affairs in the hands of these ‘specialists’ we will be demobilised and defeated.

Our intervention, which made concrete proposals for the struggle, seems to have disturbed a small circle of unionists who advanced on one of our comrades, took our leaflets and threw them away saying that he had “sold out to the bosses”. Faced with the comrade’s calm, failing to fall for their provocation, they turned on another comrade. She didn’t fall for their little game and demanded their reasons for the disturbance and an explanation of how our leaflets, our propositions, showed that we have sold out to the bosses. In the end they preferred to slip away.

We are in total solidarity with out comrades and denounce this gross provocation. We are not going to back off, we are not scared. We are open to discussion with comrades who do not agree with out positions, but we respond firmly to all attempt at insult, slander, or those who want to shut us up[8] [47].

The January 3 ‘assembly’ was a mortal blow to the struggle. Those made redundant had been robbed of their real strength, that is to say the united mobilisation of workers against the redundancies. Instead they were dragged onto a merry-go-round of ‘actions’, more showy than effective, which would allow the CGT and its accomplices to present themselves as the champions of the struggle, when, in fact, they have devoted their time to sabotaging it. For that reason, our organisation decided not to intervene in the assembly called for the 12 January, really the definitive ‘liquidation’ of the struggle. The reasons are explained in a third communiqué:

Why we didn’t intervene in the “Assembly of the redundant” on 12 January?

We were at the demonstrations in November, we were with you on the 23 December when you were told of the 660 redundancies and you walked out spontaneously (no-one summoned you, no-one ‘organised’ you) in solidarity with those laid off and in revolt against the agreement signed by the UGT, the CO and the boss. *** We were present on 2 January to see if it was possible to continue the same dynamic of struggle. We also went to the 3 January assembly in a Hostafranchs[9] [48] local. The same week we went to the gates of the Zona Franca of Barcelona and Martorell[10] [49] to show our solidarity with you faced with the attack on your living conditions which affects us all, and to explain what, in our opinion, has made this hatchet job on the workers possible. We were present at all the concentrations and meetings where there could be any dynamic of collective workers’ struggle, with the aim of encouraging it as can be seen from our earlier communiqués. On the other hand, we do not want to become accomplices in a meeting whose aim is to reinforce the defeat and burial of the struggle imposed on 3 January.

Trade unionism acts in such a way that, when the workers’ militant strength is present, every excuse is made to delay the struggle, to dilute the militancy, to weaken it in the final analysis. When the struggle has ended, when the workers are defeated and feel the reality of their defeat, then the unions become ‘radical’, put forward ultra-combative proposals with the sole purpose, in reality, of increasing the workers’ demoralisation and humiliation.

On 23 December, there was an explosion of solidarity and militancy among workers against the 660 redundancies. What did the unions do? Don’t look to the UGT and CO, who had disappeared. But the CGT itself, which pretends to be ‘committed’ to the struggle against redundancies, could see nothing but the difficulties: stopping work is illegal, we can’t do anything till 3 January, and so on and so forth…

On 2 January there was still a mood of not knowing whether workers would take up what they left off on 23rd, or if, on the contrary, they would be weighed down by the Christmas demobilisation organised with the complicity of the unions which, evidently, were careful to call the very minimum of action during those days. And what did the workers at SEAT find? The CGT called a meeting, not at the factory gates, but in a neighbourhood of Barcelona. The unions affirmed that they are necessary for our struggle since they can ‘issue a call’, they have a local building, and organisational means for workers. At the time of the struggle at SEAT we saw, one more time, that the union apparatus is not at the disposal of the workers, but is there, above all, to impede the real struggle.

The 3 January assembly was a brutal blow. Those who’d been made laid off had to go to the offices of the enterprise to sign to acknowledge receipt of their redundancy notices. Meanwhile, the new call to unity would be… ten days later! On 12 January… And in that time? Nothing, not a thing, but the CGT presents all this with great cynicism, as “a strong mood in favour of struggle”.

From 3 to 12 January we went down the dead-end road to misery. On 12 January, one month after the agreement to throw 660 class brothers on the scarp heap was signed by the boss, the unions (CO and UGT) and the tripartite Catalan government[11] [50], with the support of the leftist organisations, they made a huge show of solidarity with those made redundant. They set up a Solidarity Committee for SEAT lay-offs: “united, open to networks, platforms, organisations, movements and social, union or citizen groups, with the aim of organising solidarity for the redundant SEAT workers, to mobilise for them to be re-employed and to oppose the bosses offensive which aims to make employment even more precarious and redundancies easier (posted on Kaosenlared). To this were added proposals for action that were as ridiculous as they were sterile, such as ‘actions’ against SEAT showrooms…

In short, to extinguish with all the means at their disposal all that might remain from the real, massive and united workers’ response, and to try and bury the real lessons of the struggle at SEAT. Workers can see from the 660 redundancy notices on 23 December that the ‘mobilisations’ (the demonstrations in November) to win public opinion did absolutely nothing. Well, now they propose a little more of the same. On 23 December or 2 January, workers were answerable to themselves, they could only count on themselves, on their struggle, on their class solidarity first of all. And now they want to sell them the same junk, adulterated with the mediation of citizens, political organisations and unions, to get them re-employed. And they have the nerve to pretend that they have been at the heart of the struggle of the workers at SEAT against the redundancies.

The difference between the workers’ struggle of the 23rd and the posturing of the Solidarity Committee is like the difference between night and day. The first is the authentic solidarity of workers towards their redundant class brothers, the second is a cynical joke against class solidarity.

For this reason we did not want to participate in this sham solidarity. Because we insist that real solidarity with those made redundant at SEAT consists of showing that workers can draw the real lessons of this defeat. These lessons will prepare us for new struggles, because we must have no illusions: redundancies will rain down in the textile industry, in the auto industry and, among others, in SEAT again; job insecurity is increased in the new ‘reform’ of work. We will have to struggle forcefully and above all against union sabotage.   ICC, 14.1.06

This year the Irish Republic is celebrating 90 years since the 1916 Easter Rising. With the passage of time, the way this event is marked has changed. Nowadays it is presented as the indispensable precondition for the pride and joy of today’s Irish bourgeoisie: the so-called Celtic Tiger. The ‘blood sacrifice’ of long dead Irish patriots, and not the merciless exploitation of the living labour of proletarians from all over the world, is being put forward as the secret of the high growth rates of the modern Irish economy.

But while the themes of this ritual commemoration change with the years, the basic idea propagated by the ruling class in Ireland remains the same. This idea is that national independence was the result of the unanimity of all classes, all the courageous and ‘rebel’ forces of Irish society. Above all, the bourgeois mythology of the Easter Rising sees it as a product of the unity between the nationalist and the workers’ movements, represented by the two leaders of the insurrection against British rule: Patrick Pearse at the head of the Irish Volunteers, and the radical socialist James Connolly who commanded the militia called the Irish Citizens Army.

In order to maintain this myth, it is regularly forgotten that there was one labour leader of the time who bitterly opposed the 1916 rising. This forgetfulness of the Irish bourgeoisie (including its radical Sinn Fein and ‘Marxist’ wings) is all the more striking, since that leader, Sean O’Casey, went on to become one of the most important dramatists of the 20th century. His most famous play, The Plough and the Stars, which today is generally accepted as being one of the great works of modern world literature, is a blistering denunciation of the Easter Rising. This play is a thorn in the flesh of the Irish bourgeoisie, because it recalls the historic truth that not only O’Casey, but the working class in Ireland refused to participate in or support the rising.

The Plough and the Stars

The Irish Citizens Army was a militia set up during the six month 1913 Dublin lockout to protect workers from the savagery of state repression against transport workers’ militancy. The ‘Plough and the Stars’ was the banner of the ICA. It was one of the workers’ movement’s most poetic flags. The plough represents the turning over of the soil of capitalist society by the class struggle, the patient work of planting the seeds of the future, but also the imperious need to harvest their fruits when they are ripe. As for the stars, they stand for the beauty and the loftiness of the goals and ideals of the workers’ movement.

O’Casey’s play of the same name is a furious indictment of the betrayal of these ideals through the participation of the ICA in the 1916 nationalist insurrection. While the fighting is going on in the city centre, the slum dwellers of Dublin are dying of poverty and consumption. O’Casey shows that there was nothing in the alleged high ideals of the nationalists which could morally uplift the workers and the poor. He shows how, on the other side of the street from the buildings occupied by the insurrectionists, the starving tenement dwellers appear, not in order to support them, but to plunder the shops.

To express his indignation, O’Casey employs a series of powerful images. The second act is set in a pub. Outside, the meeting is taking place, where, on October 25th 1915, the ICA allied itself with the Irish Volunteers. It is the moment of the betrayal of the Plough and the Stars. But this scene takes place out of sight of the workers in the pub. All we see and hear is the shadowy outline of the ‘voice in the window’ looming up as in a nightmare, like a ghost from the dead, imposing itself on the living. It is the voice of the nationalist leader Pearse, extolling the virtues of sacrificing blood for the cause of the nation. ‘Inside’ on stage, the workers are inflamed by this speech. The pub scene shows how the ruling class pulls the workers off their class terrain by obscuring their material reality and deadening their consciousness. While Pearse praises the heroism of patriotic blood spilling, the intoxication this causes among those in the pub leads to a series of brawls, a parody of capitalist competition. Far from opposing the barbarism of the First World War, during which it took place, O’Casey shows how the Easter Rising gave this barbarism another form. It became the first link in a chain of war and terror leading, in the early 1920s, from the Irish War of Independence against Britain, to the Civil War within the bourgeoisie of the new Irish Free State. These events, introducing new levels of savagery, announced much of what was to come during the 20th century, especially in the course of ‘national liberation struggles.’

Centre stage in this scene is the prostitute Rosie Redmond. The symbolism of this is unmistakable, since the Anglo-Irish literary revival of the time loved to depict Ireland or Gaelic nationalism as a woman (for instance in W.B.Yeats’ play Cathleen Ni Houlihan).

In Act Four, the men playing cards on the lid of the coffin of one of the slum dwellers are a metaphor for how the working people, by failing to fight for their own interests, become helpless pawns in the power struggles of alien forces. O’Casey’s characters are the victims, not the protagonists of history.

In February 1926 at the fourth performance of this play at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre there was a riot. The freshly installed ruling class immediately understood that the very foundations of the new state were being threatened by this demolition of the 1916 myth, the ‘crucifixion and resurrection’ of the Irish nation. In the fourth book of his autobiography, Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well, O’Casey was later to recall how he was abused by the widows of the 1916 rebels that night when leaving the theatre. One of them shouted: “I’d like you to know that there isn’t a prostitute in Ireland from one end of it to th’ other”.

The author emigrated to London a month after the riot. (Had he remained, he could have witnessed the public burning of Alfred Hitchcock’s film version of his play Juno and the Paycock in Limerick in 1930, three years before Nazi book burning began in Germany).

Long before, he had become a persona non grata in Dublin because of his position on the Easter Rising. Within the play itself, O’Casey ironically deals with his own public image. The character who puts forward the opinion of the author is a cowardly, dogmatic armchair tenement revolutionist called the Covey (a Dublin word for a smart alec, a know all). It‘s him who declares that the ICA has disgraced the Plough and the Stars by taking part in a middle class nationalist revolution, who terms the speech of Pearse “dope” and who criticises the British socialist soldier Stoddard for having abandoned internationalism in the face of the world war.

O’Casey and the workers’ movement

The play The Plough and the Stars is the crowning point of a remarkable transformation in the artistic development and in the world views of Sean O’Casey. At the beginning, he was the author of propaganda plays full of complex argumentation (in the style of his celebrated Dublin contemporary George Bernard Shaw), but generally considered to be of little artistic value. In the first half of the 1920s he produced, almost overnight, three great dramas, the so-called Dublin trilogy. These were historical plays of a contemporary nature, each dealing scathingly with a major event: The Shadow of a Gunman (the IRA war against British rule), Juno and the Paycock (the Irish Civil War), and The Plough and the Stars. Thereafter, his plays rarely attained the same artistic quality again. This puzzling development has led people to speak of ‘The O’Casey enigma’. Irish nationalists have tried to explain the relative decline of his creativity from the 1930s on through his emigration, as if he could not produce great art without having his ‘native soil’ under his feet. But soon after moving to London, O’Casey did write another powerful historical play, The Silver Tassie. It is based on his experience as a patient in a Dublin hospital (being treated for ailments which directly resulted from his poverty), where he shared rooms with many of the maimed victims of First World War then raging. It is a furious condemnation of imperialist war (which the state-subsidised Abbey Theatre refused to perform).

In reality, O’Casey’s flowering was possible because of the ideas which inspired him at the time – those brought forward by the upsurge of workers’ struggles on the eve of the First World War, and their confirmation through the proletarian revolt against the war, above all the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. He was one of the first to put the lives of working class people at the centre of world literature, showing the wealth and diversity of their personalities. He was perhaps the first to put the language of the tenements on the stage. He delighted in the magical fantasy, the irresistible rhythm and the baroque exaggerations of the Dublin slum dwellers, recognising how they used rhetoric in order to enrich their bleak lives and gain a sense of self dignity.

In this sense, his artistic development is inseparable from the changes in his general world view. At the onset, O’Casey was a fanatical Irish republican nationalist. Born into an educated, but poverty-stricken family, he had only three years of school education, and became an undernourished unskilled labourer. At the time, the infant mortality rate in Dublin was higher than in Moscow or Calcutta. Despite a serious eye ailment, he educated himself, becoming an avid reader of literature. At an early age, he became an activist in the Gaelic League, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other nationalist groupings. But because of his situation as a worker, it was almost inevitable that his artistic development would largely depend on the evolution of the socialist movement. It was the development of the proletarian struggle which brought his creative sensitivity to the surface, just as his later artistic decline was linked to the perversion of its principles with the defeat of the world revolution in the 1920s (O’Casey became an unapologetic Stalinist).

1913: Dress rehearsal for revolution

When O’Casey himself was eighteen, he was sacked for refusing to take off his cap while being paid his wages. In 1911, he was inspired by the great railway strike of the British proletariat. But what won him over to the workers’ movement was the great labour conflict in Dublin in 1913. For one thing, it coincided with the arrival (from Liverpool) of Jim Larkin, the leader of the 1913 movement. Larkin revealed to O’Casey that revolutionary socialism was something very different from a trade union mentality. In Larkin’s vision, the proletariat was fighting, not only for food and drink and shelter, but for true humanity, for access to music and nature, education and science, as indispensable moments towards a new world. As O’Casey would later write, Larkin “brought poetry into the workers’ fight for a better life”.

For O’Casey, this was a revelation. In Ireland at the time, to be Catholic was considered synonymous with being poor and Irish, Protestant with being rich and English. But O’Casey came from a Protestant background. The intensity of his original nationalism, the changing of his name (he was born John Casey) were probably motivated by feelings of guilt or inferiority. That all of this was of no importance, was an insight which he experienced as a liberation.

But of course it was also the bitterness of the 1913 conflict itself which transformed the outlook of Sean O’Casey. This was the nearest Irish society to date has come to an open class war between labour and capital. For the first time ever, there was an open split between the proletariat and Irish nationalism. In book 3 of his autobiography Drums under the Windows, O’Casey reminds us that the Irish Volunteers were “streaked with employers who had openly tried to starve the women and children of the workers, followed meekly by scabs and blacklegs from the lower elements among the workers themselves, and many of them saw in this agitation a plumrose path to good jobs, now held in Ireland by the younger sons of the English well-to-do.” As for that other major nationalist force in Ireland, the Catholic Church, its priests staged pitched battles to prevent children of locked out families being sent to England to be fed and taken care of by “pagan” i.e. socialist families. Drums under the Windows narrates how a married couple from a militant Catholic lay organisation came to the strike headquarters in Liberty Hall to appeal to the ‘religious faith’ of the workers. “Asked by Connolly if the Knight and his Dame would take five children into their home suite home, the pair were silent; asked if they would take two, they were still silent; and turning away to go out, before they could be asked if they would take one”.

It became clear that the only supporter of the Irish wage labourers was the international proletariat, in particular the English workers. Living reality had thus demonstrated that the old marxist formula no longer applied, according to which the English and the Irish workers could only act together in the perspective of national separation.

In a sense, Ireland, like the Russian Empire, had experienced in 1913 a kind of ‘1905’ of its own: a dress rehearsal for the proletarian revolution. Such pre-revolutionary battles are an essential part of the preparation for the struggle for power. This was well understood by the marxist Left in the period after the mass strikes and soviets in Russia in 1905. This is why Rosa Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek denounced the prevention of such ‘dress rehearsals’ by the Socialist Party in Germany at that time not only as cowardice, but as the beginning of betrayal.

But in Ireland, 1913 was not the prelude to socialist revolution. In this sense, its evolution resembled not that of the Russian Empire, but a specific part of it: Poland. The Polish proletariat had participated magnificently in the mass strikes of 1905. But in Poland, as in Ireland, when the moment was ripe for the world revolution, the workers were derailed by the establishment of a nation state.

O’Casey and Connolly on insurrection

As secretary of the Strikers Relief Committee in 1913, O’Casey had been in charge of the fund raising for the families of the workers locked out. After the defeat of the strike in January 1914, he was one of the first to propose a re-organisation of the workers’ self-defence militia, the ICA, on a permanent basis – and was elected honorary secretary of the new Army Council. Since open class conflicts were over for the moment, this policy only made sense in the perspective of the preparation for armed insurrection. The outbreak of imperialist world war the same year only confirmed this perspective.

But what was to be the nature of this insurrection: socialist or nationalist? The ICA was a proletarian militia. But its very name - Irish Citizens Army - reflected the dead weight of Irish nationalism, which the struggle of 1913 had only partly overcome. With the outbreak of the ‘Great War’, within the workers’s organisations there was a revival in the influence of radical nationalism.

The First World War, which ushered in the epoch of decadent capitalism, was a historical frontier at almost every level, including the psychological one. We can take the example of Patrick Pearse, the ‘commander in chief’ of the 1916 rising. Although an extreme patriot, he was known for the nobility of his character, and his progressive ideas about education. But after the world war broke out, he gave a series of public speeches which can only be described as insane. He became a nationalist in the fullest sense of the word, rejoicing in the sacrifice of the young lives of all the warring nations, claiming that this blood being spilt was like wine cleansing the soil of Europe.

It is significant that James Connolly was soon to fall for the spell of this atavistic vision of blood sacrifice. Connolly had always belonged to the left wing of the Socialist International. Born in Edinburgh into horrific poverty, with hardly any schooling, like O’Casey a self educated worker of considerable learning, he was a man of deep convictions and great personal courage. Nevertheless, the collapse of the International and the madness of the world war profoundly destabilised him. From 1915 on, he began to publicly announce a coming insurrection in the workers’ press, bringing the ICA militants out for military exercises such as the storming of public buildings under the eyes of the British authorities. In the end, it was Connolly who was urging the Irish Volunteers to no longer postpone the rising, saying that otherwise he would go ahead on his own with his 200 ICA ‘soldiers’.

Contemporary Irish historians, such as his latest biographer Donal Nevan, have gone to some pains to show that Connolly did not share the vision of Pearse of a blood sacrifice. They cite the series of articles on “Insurrection and Warfare” which Connolly wrote in 1915, as proof that he believed that the 1916 rising had a real chance of success. And indeed, this series represents an important contribution to the marxist study of military strategy. For instance, in his article on the Moscow insurrection of 1905, one of the points highlighted is that it was not militarily defeated, but “melted away as suddenly as it had taken form” as soon as it became clear that neither the workers in St. Petersburg nor the peasantry were following its lead. They melted into the protecting proletarian masses around them.

But in one of the controversies within the ICA between O’Casey and Connolly before 1916, the latter defended the opposite viewpoint. This concerned whether or not to purchase uniforms. Clearly, it was O’Casey who defended the proletarian standpoint of the Moscow insurrectionists, according to which the combatants avoid a lost cause battle in order to preserve their forces. “If we flaunt signs of what we are, and what we do, we’ll get it on the head and round the neck. As for a uniform – that would be the worst of all…Caught in a dangerous corner, there would be a chance in your workaday clothes. You could slip among the throng, carelessly, with few the wiser.” (Quoted in Drums under the Windows). Indeed, O’Casey challenged Connolly to a public debate, and submitted an article on the issue – which was never published.

The blood sacrifice of 1916

O’Casey resigned from the Irish Citizens Army after his motion was defeated forbidding double membership in the ICA and the Irish Volunteers. Soon after, Larkin left for the United States (where he participated in the founding of the Communist Party of America in 1919). From then on, O’Casey and Delia Larkin became increasingly isolated in their opposition to the course taken by Connolly. As O’Casey put it in his History of the Irish Citizens Army (1919) “Liberty Hall was no longer the Headquarters of the Irish Labour movement, but the centre of Irish national disaffection.”

The road to the 1916 Rising was now open. But this road was not followed by the Irish proletariat, which had launched itself into the defence of its class interests in face of the war. Some of the last articles Connolly wrote before his tragic death were devoted to this question. He refers to the strikes of the Dublin dockers, construction and gas workers, and to labour conflicts in Cork, Tralee, Sligo, Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) and other centres. He also writes about the great strike of the munitions workers in the Glasgow area. But Connolly never once appealed to the Irish workers to join the Easter Rising, or even to go on strike in sympathy. And when he led the occupation of the General Post Office on Easter Monday, the first thing he did was to turn out the employees there at gunpoint. He knew perfectly well that proletariat of Dublin, still furious about the 1913 events, would have nothing to do with a nationalist upheaval. And it was this attitude of the workers which was to give O’Casey the strength to write his great dramatic trilogy.

In the end, it was the symbolism of the blood sacrifice of 1916 which overpowered the autonomous workers movement in Ireland for years to come. For blood sacrifice it was. The previous day, the official leadership of the Irish Volunteers had publicly cancelled the rising, after the attempt to land German arms had failed (a detail which shows to what extent it was part of the international imperialist rivalries). The insurrection was carried through by a small minority against all the odds, in order to oblige the British authorities to execute its leaders. It was a modern version of the myth of crucifixion and resurrection, which is why it had to take place at Easter. It overpowered Connolly himself. We know from his private correspondence that Connolly was an atheist, although towards the outside he would sometimes denied this in order not to alienate the more religious layers of workers. But all the evidence indicates that he died as a devout Catholic.

It was through creating feelings of guilt towards the heroes allegedly left in the lurch that the class consciousness of the proletariat was deadened. As O’Casey put it: “They had helped God to rouse up Ireland: let the whole people answer for them now, for evermore.”

Why was O’Casey able to resist this? He was less of a theoretician than Connolly. Even on the national question, he was not necessarily clearer than those around him. But he felt profoundly attached to what he understood as the human dimension of the workers’ struggle, to the forces celebrating the dignity of mankind and the importance of life even in the face of death.

1916 announced much of what decadent capitalism had in store for society. Because it has led mankind into a dead end, capitalism has enforced the burden of the past weighing like a nightmare on the brains of the living. Because it alone holds the perspective of a future society, the revolutionary proletariat has no use for the glorification of guilt, sacrifice or death.

Dombrovski 1/3/6

The cartoons of Mohammed originally published in a Danish newspaper have not only provoked violent protests around the world. They have also been a dramatic illustration of the growing tensions between imperialist states.

A story of imperialist gangsters

On 30 September, the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published two cartoons showing the prophet Mohammed as a terrorist bomber. In the weeks that followed the cartoons were published by numerous newspapers, including France-Soir. We know the result. Demonstrations, some of them very violent, broke out in numerous ‘Muslim’ countries. In Afghanistan, there were confrontations leading to serious injuries and deaths. In Nigeria, there were pogroms between the Muslim and Christian sectors of the population. How did a few cartoons give rise to such an outburst of hatred? How did a few drawings in a Danish paper stir up such an international storm?

At the beginning of October, this affair was limited to Denmark. Ambassadors from Muslim countries asked for an interview with the Danish prime Minister Fagh Rasmussen, who is close to the Jyllands-Posten. The PM refused to meet them and a delegation from the Muslim associations of Denmark made a tour of a number of capitals in the Muslim world, officially to draw the matter to public attention. It was this that led to demonstrations in Pakistan. In January, the demonstrations began throughout the ‘Muslim world’, especially in the Middle East. The protests very quickly took on a violent, anti-western character which cannot be explained simply by the offence caused by the cartoons. To understand the situation, we have to remember that since the Second World War this region of the world has been a continuous theatre of war and barbarism. Since the end of the 1980s, the tensions have become more and more explosive and uncontrollable. The irreversible destabilisation of the Muslim world, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, generally under the impact of military adventures by the great imperialist powers, above all the USA, is what today lies behind the rise of the most archaic religious radicalism among the population of these regions. The total impasse these countries have reached has strengthened the hand of the most retrograde factions of the bourgeoisie. This is the significance, for example, of the accession to power in Palestine of the Hamas movement. The same goes for the ascendancy of the ultra-conservative party led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. Tensions between the powers of this region, and between these powers and the USA, have grown sharper and sharper. In this situation of chaotic confrontations and ideological regression, the various bourgeois cliques in this part of the world have leapt onto the cartoons bandwagon in order to advance their interests within this general imperialist free for all. Behind the apparently spontaneous demonstrations lies the organised presence of the various bourgeois factions, generally operating from inside the state machine. After the attacks on Danish embassies, Libya decided to close its embassy in Copenhagen. The Danish ambassador in Kuwait was summoned. The Syrian and Iraqi governments publicly announced that they were shocked. This goes well beyond the publication of a few cartoons in the western or Jordanian press. The cartoons have in fact become a weapon of war in the hands of the bourgeoisies of the Muslim world, responding to the increasingly aggressive imperialist policies pursued by the US, France, Germany and Britain. How can we fail to notice the connection between the use of these cartoons and the threats which the USA and France have made to Iran over its nuclear programme? The desperate populations of the Muslim countries are being cynically manipulated, and there is nothing spontaneous about the demonstrations that have taken place. They are the product of the policy of war, of hatred, of nationalist mobilisation being followed by all the bourgeoisies of the globe.

Since the September 11 attacks, the USA has posed as the champion of western values and the main enemy of Islamic terrorism. And yet we have seen the Bush administration being extremely ‘understanding’ over the reactions to the cartoons in Iran and elsewhere. Why? This has nothing to do with the defence of people’s rights to have their religious beliefs treated with respect, which is what we are told. The reality is much more cynical. The USA is very pleased to see rivals like France being dragged into a confrontation with a whole number of Arab and Muslim states. In a world of permanent warfare, of every man for himself, each capitalist state can only rejoice to see its rivals falling into a trap.

The position taken up by Hamas provides further illustration of this cynicism. Hamas, a party of religious radicalism and suicide bombing, has put itself forward as an honest broker in this affair! The head of its political bureau, Khaled Mechaal said that “the movement is ready to play a role in calming the situation between the Islamic world and the western countries as long as the latter agree to cease causing offence to the feelings of the Muslims” (Le Monde, 9.2.06). In order to gain official recognition on the international level, Hamas is ready to draw in its claws.

In the context of this free for all, where every bourgeois clique is stirring up hatred, all the propaganda about the freedom of the press or respect for religion can be seen for what it is: a vast fraud.

Freedom of the press and respect for religion: two poisons administered by the bourgeoisie

The Independent summed up the bourgeois ideological campaign very well when it wrote: “there is no doubt that the papers must have the right to publish drawings which some people find offensive”. This is the sacrosanct right to free expression which a whole part of the bourgeoisie is going on about today. The same paper goes on to say “in such a complex situation, it’s easy to take refuge in banal declarations about the rights of a free press. The most difficult thing is not settling what’s true and what’s false, but taking a decision which takes account of the rights of both sides. There is a right to free expression without any censorship. But there is also the right for Muslims to live in a pluralistic and secular society without feeling oppressed, threatened and insulted. Raised to a right above all others, this can become a mask for fanaticism”. The ideological trap which bourgeois democracy uses against the working class is clearly illustrated here. It has to choose between what is a right, freedom of expression, and a moral duty, the respect for other people’s beliefs. In any case, the proletariat is called to show moderation and understanding in this matter, to the benefit of its bourgeois masters. This is what Lenin wrote in the Theses on bourgeois democracy at the First Congress of the Communist International in 1919: “’Freedom of the press’ is another of the principal slogans of ‘pure democracy’. And here, too, the workers know — and Socialists everywhere have explained millions of times —that this freedom is a deception because the best printing presses and the biggest stocks of paper are appropriated by the capitalists, and while capitalist rule over the press remains—a rule that is manifested throughout the whole world all the more strikingly, sharply and cynically—the more democracy and the republican system are developed, as in America for example”. And at that time Lenin and the communists were not yet acquainted with the vast ideological power of the radio and TV.

As for the other choice, respecting the beliefs of everyone, we only have to cite a phrase from Marx to know what communists think: “religion is the opium of the people”. All religions are an ideological poison, one of the numerous means used by the ruling class to block the development of class consciousness.

Freedom of the press is just the freedom of the bourgeoisie to cram its ideology into the heads of the workers! And respect for religion is the respect of the ruling class for everything that mystifies the proletariat!

It’s obvious that the spread of violent protests about the cartoons is not a matter of indifference for the proletariat. It is vital that the working class does not get drawn into the anti-western agitation sweeping the Muslim world. This is just an expression of the acceleration of chaos and makes the development of the class struggle more vital than ever. At the same time, the proletariat cannot fall for the false alternative offered in the west – the defence of the free press and secular democracy.

Faced with the irrationality of the whole of capitalist society, the proletariat must stand for the rationality of the class struggle, for the development of its consciousness and for the perspective of communism.   Tino 20.2.06

The ICC recently held a number of public interventions in Brazil, which we describe in this article. It was in fact three successive public meetings in three different towns (Salvador da Bahia, Vitoria da Conquista and Sao Paulo) and a presentation followed by a debate at the University of Vitoria da Conquista, on the occasion of the “2nd meeting of history students of the state of Bahia” (the theme of this meeting was: ‘Social struggles and their expressions in history’).

The theme of the public meetings was: ‘Faced with the mortal crisis of capitalism, the future belongs to the working class’, and the presentation at the University was on ‘The origins and essential characteristics of the international communist left‘.

Such an intervention in Brazil constitutes a first for the ICC; it was only possible thanks to the sterling initiatives of sympathisers there and to the collaboration with the Brazilian proletarian group by the name of “Workers Opposition” [1] [64] who were the organisers of the public meetings. For this first intervention in Brazil, the ICC chose the themes that allowed it, as much as possible, to express its historic vision of the necessity and possibility of the proletarian revolution. Thus, the common presentation to the three public meetings, which can be consulted on our website in Portuguese, developed the three following aspects in particular:

• like all systems of exploitation which preceded it, capitalism is not an eternal system;
• the hour of its overthrow by the proletariat, the only revolutionary class in society, struck a long time ago and if the latter is not up to its historic task, the situation will lead to the end of humanity;
• the perspective contained in the present situation is the development of the class struggle.

In one of the public meetings, in Salvador, following a presentation by the ICC, Workers’ Opposition made a presentation putting forward the fundamental need for organisation of the working class into workers’ councils for the overthrow of capitalism.

The presentation at the University was based essentially on the article on our website: ‘Left communism and the marxist tradition’ and was articulated around the following axes:

• what distinguishes the left fractions from other organisations claiming the name of marxism;
• the communist left has never been a unique current but was always constituted by different political expressions, corresponding to a whole historical effort of the working class with an aim of theoretical/political clarification;
• the contribution of the communist left to the development of the theoretical/political heritage of the proletariat is irreplaceable.

In order to give an account of these four events, we think it preferable not to treat them separately but rather report the main questions and preoccupations which were expressed and gave rise to some debates. Nevertheless, before that, we think it essential to bring out the importance of these meetings, both because of the numbers who took part in them and because of the animated and lively character of the debates, which each time continued beyond the allocated time.

A huge participation and a promising dynamism

Revolutionaries are sometimes surprised by the scale of the interest aroused by their positions, even though they have the highest confidence in the revolutionary capacities of their class. We must say that the breadth of participation in these meetings very pleasantly surprised us, as some of them outstripped the ordinary attendance at public meetings in towns where the ICC usually intervenes. In fact, close to a hundred people participated in the three public meetings. As to the meeting on the communist left at the University, it drew around 260 people in a large room for the whole of the first part of the debate. The meeting was extended by almost two hours with about 80 remaining when we had to close, before we were able to reply to all the interventions that had been made.

There were a number of circumstances that favoured such a big attendance. The first public appearance of an international revolutionary organisation that does not exist in Brazil is naturally likely to arouse a particular local interest. Further, the public meetings benefited from an effective publicity, taken in charge by Workers’ Opposition, on its own or else with the help of sympathisers, according to the venue. We can also point to a certain academic and not exclusively political interest that motivated some students and teachers from the University to participate in the debate on the history of the communist left: for reasons linked to the Universities’ rules, that this was announced as a presentation by a historian [2] [65]. It nevertheless more and more openly took the form of a political meeting presided over by the organisers of the debate, the Workers’ Opposition and the ICC, with a table presenting the press of the ICC at the entry to the room.

But more importantly, the success of our meetings can be put down to the existence in Brazil of a favourable hearing to a radical critique of society and of its democratic institutions. Particularly because the country is currently being run by the government of Lula, the ‘great workers’ leader’ of the left, whose name is indissolubly linked to the PT (Party of the Workers, founded in 1980) and the CUT (United Workers’ Centre, the main ‘independent’ union since the end of the dictatorship, founded in 1983). Today, the governmental alliance of Lula, the PT and the CUT must openly assume the role of spearheading the attacks against the working class. These attacks are required for the defence of Brazilian national capital on the international arena. A government or party of the right would have to implement the same measures, and they expose the real nature of these leaders as the enemies of the working class that they have always been. In Brazil, as in any other country, the response of the working class is still far from corresponding to the scale of the capitalist attacks. Nevertheless (and it’s here that the interest in the public meetings essentially resides), there also exists in this country a growing preoccupation about the future, and this is being shown in a revival of interest in an alternative to the present society.

Far from being received as dogmas, the analyses of the history of our class, the idea of a political struggle with a perspective of a future communist society, which we put forward in our presentations and interventions, aroused a lot of enthusiasm, a great deal of questioning, and sometimes also scepticism, but there were also clear expressions of sympathy that moved some to come up to us and explicitly say so at the end of meetings. Also to further pose questions that they hadn’t time to put during the meeting itself.

If the large audience at these meetings took us a little by surprise, it nevertheless confirmed the growing tendency of young people to ask questions about the future. This was underlined in one of the meetings, at Vitoria da Conquista, where more than half the participants were made up of the young or the very young.

The main discussions

We report below on the main questions posed to us and which allowed the whole richness of the debates. We can’t give the responses we made due to lack of space. However, we invite our readers who have access to the internet to log onto our site to find the essential elements of our replies ( www.internationalism.org [66] – at present this extended version is available in French, Spanish and Portuguese: offers to help with the English translation would be very welcome). We want to specify here however that certain of these responses were not undertaken by ourselves but by Workers’ Opposition. Nevertheless, as they corresponded to what we would have said, we fully endorse them. In other respects, this doesn’t mean that all the responses provided by the ICC or by the Workers’ Opposition were totally shared by both. The main discussions thus related to:

• the nature and role of the unions - on the organisation of the working class into workers’ councils and the role of revolutionaries;
• the Russian revolution, its degeneration and the weight of the counter-revolution;
• the role of the party and the international communist left;
• the class nature of Social Democratic parties, the ‘Communist’ parties and of the Trotskyist currents;
• the notion of decadence, and the phase of the decomposition of capitalism;
• the struggles of the oppressed and non-exploiting layers;
• the bourgeois nature of ‘Chavism’ and of ‘alternative worldism’;
• the revolutionary perspective.

The main questions raised on these themes were:

“How can we see a revolutionary perspective within a consumer society?”

“Doesn’t the anti-democratic nature of the revolution risk repelling the working class?”

“How can we make the world revolution while the proletariat in the United States supports its own bourgeoisie?”

“How can the unemployed be mobilised?”

“Isn’t the working class of today different from that which made the revolution in 1917?”

“Isn’t revolution an idea that has now been transcended?”

An experience to be followed up

 The ICC draws a very positive balance sheet of these four public interventions. As well as being a first for the ICC, simply by the fact that they took place in Brazil, this whole experience was one of the rare occasions where the ICC made a common intervention with another proletarian organisation [3] [67]. This in itself was a very positive feature of these interventions, both because of the quality of the collaboration with Workers’ Opposition and the because of the impact such a unified intervention had on the meetings. In effect, the fact that two distinct organisations, with differences and divergences existing between them, jointly addressed themselves to their class prefigured the capacity of different elements of the revolutionary avant-garde to work together for the defence of their common cause, the victory of the revolution. To this end, it was understood by both organisations that, in the interventions at public meetings, the priority would be given to question of the proletariat’s organisations of revolutionary struggle, the workers’ councils, and to the denunciation of the democratic and parliamentary mystifications and of the counter-revolutionary role of the unions. But it was equally understood between us that we wouldn’t try to hide different approaches concerning the explanation of such and such a situation; these differences were effectively expressed in the discussions. It was also agreed that these differences would be the object of a deepened debate between us, aimed at drawing out their implications.

For our part, we are eager to renew this experience. Once again, we thank our sympathisers for the quality of the support they gave us, and we salute Workers’ Opposition for its attitude of proletarian solidarity and openness.   ICC (2nd December 2005).

This article has already been published on this site here:

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Baggage handlers at Heathrow walk out in support of sacked catering workers.

New York transit workers and a million and a half UK local government workers strike for pension benefits for present and future generations. Belfast postal workers on wildcat strike march through Catholic and Protestant areas in an open rejection of sectarian divisions. German car workers reject attempts by the government to set one plant against another and come out in a common struggle against redundancies.

Working class solidarity can no longer be dismissed as a quaint, old fashioned idea. It is a central theme in a growing worldwide revival of workers’ struggles, new evidence for which appears almost every day: the struggle of 40,000 textile workers in Vietnam, the wave of strikes that swept through Argentina last summer, the violent revolt by workers in the vast construction sites of Dubai.  

The movement of the students in France against the CPE is fully part of this worldwide class upsurge. It has nothing in common with most of the previous cross-class movements of student youth. In the face of a despicable attack on the young generations of workers, an attack which institutionalises job insecurity in the name of fighting against it, the students understood right away that theirs was a class struggle. And here again, the issue of solidarity has been at the very heart of the movement.

The solidarity of the student movement

While some people wanted to throw in specifically student demands into the central demand for the withdrawal of the CPE, the student assemblies decide to stick to demands which concern the whole working class.  

The strength of the movement has been precisely the fact that it has placed itself resolutely on the terrain of the struggle of the exploited against the exploiters. And it has done this by adopting the methods and principles of struggle which belong to the working class. The first of these principles is solidarity. Breaking with the idea of ‘every man for himself’, the idea that ‘if I am a good little student and keep my head down for three years, I’ll get through unscathed’, the students adopted the only attitude possible for the working class against the attacks of capital: united struggle. And this solidarity was not only expressed among students. Right from the start they addressed the wage workers, not only to win their support, but also because they had understood very well that the whole working class was under attack. Through their dynamism, their militancy and their appeals for solidarity, they managed in many faculties to win over the staff – teachers and administrative workers – in particular by proposing the holding of joint general assemblies.

Another clearly proletarian feature of the movement was the will to develop the consciousness of those taking part in it. The university strike began with ‘blocages’ – massive pickets. But the pickets were not seen as a means whereby a minority imposed their will on the majority, as claimed by the media and the small groups of ‘anti-bloqueurs’. The pickets were a means for the more conscious and militant students to show their determination and above all to draw a maximum of their comrades towards the general assemblies, where a considerable proportion of those who had not understand the significance of the government’s attacks or the necessity to fight them were convinced by the debate. 

And these general assemblies, which organised themselves on a growing scale, which formed strike committees and other commissions that were responsible to them, which constituted the real lungs of the movement – these are the classic weapons of the workers’ struggle. In particular, the assemblies were open to the outside, and not closed in on themselves like most union meetings where only ‘people from the workplace’ or at most ‘trade unionists’ and officials from elsewhere are allowed entry. Very quickly we saw delegations of students from other universities taking part in the assemblies, which strengthened the feelings of solidarity between the different general assemblies and allowed those which were lagging behind to draw inspiration from those at the forefront. This is also an important characteristic of the dynamic of workers’ assemblies when they have reached a certain level of consciousness and organisation. And the opening up of the assemblies was not just limited to students from other universities but was also extended to people who aren’t students. In particular, workers and pensioners, parents or grandparents of students and high school pupils usually received a very warm and attentive welcome by the assemblies as long as they intervened in favour of the strengthening and extension of the movement, especially towards the wage workers.

Faced with this exemplary mobilisation of the students on a class basis, we saw the formation of a holy alliance between the various pillars of capitalist order: the government, the forces of repression, the media and the trade unions. 

The strategy of undermining the movement through violence

The government first tried various tactics for getting its brutal new law passed. In particular, it used ‘colossal finesse’ by trying to get it adopted by parliament during the university holidays. The trick failed: instead of demoralising and demobilising the student youth, it succeeded in provoking its anger and getting it to mobilise even more. Next, it tried to use its forces of repression to prevent the Sorbonne from serving as a focus for the gathering and the regroupment and of the students in struggle, as other universities had. Its aim was to polarise the fighting spirit of the Paris region around this symbol. At the beginning, a certain number of students fell into this trap. But very quickly the majority of the students showed their maturity and the movement refused to fall for the daily provocation represented by the presence of heavily armed CRS in the streets of the Latin Quarter. After this, the government, with the complicity of the trade unions, with whom it negotiated the routes of the demonstrations, set a real trap for the demonstrators in Paris on 16 March, who found themselves hemmed in by the police at the end of the march. The students didn’t fall for this new provocation, but it did permit the youths from the suburbs to launch the violent actions which were so widely filmed by the TV networks. The violence mainly took place close to the Sorbonne and it was obvious that the decision to end the march here was not the product of chance. The aim was to instil fear in those who had decided to go to the big demo due to be held two days later. Once again the manoeuvre failed: the participation on the 18th March was quite exceptional. Finally, on 23rd March, with police blessing, the ‘casseurs’ (literally ‘wreckers)  from the suburbs attacked the demonstrators themselves, to rob them or to beat them up for no reason. Many students were demoralised by these violent assaults: “When it’s the CRS coshing us, that just makes us more determined, but when its kids from the suburbs, for whom we’re also fighting, that undermines our morale”. However, the anger was mainly directed against the authorities as soon as it became clear that the police had been complicit in these assaults. This is why Sarkozy promised that from now on the police would not allow such aggression against the demonstrators to take place. In reality, it is clear that the government was trying to play the card of ‘rotting away’ the movement by relying on the despair and blind violence of some of the young people from the suburbs, who are fundamentally victims of a system which treats them with extreme violence. Here again the response of many of the students was very dignified and responsible: rather than trying to organise violent actions against the young ‘wreckers’, they decided, for example at the Censier faculty, to form a ‘suburbs commission’ which had the job of going to discuss with the youths of the poorest neighbourhoods, to explain to them that the struggle of the students and high school pupils was also for these young people who are sunk in the despair of mass unemployment and social exclusion.

The media serve Sarkozy

The various attempts by the government to demoralise the fighting students and to drag them into endless confrontations with the forces of repression was met by the students with a good deal of wisdom and dignity. This is something we don’t see on the part of the media, who have been surpassing themselves in their role as prostitutes of capitalist propaganda. On the TV, the violent scenes at the end of certain demonstrations were given star billing, while there was nothing at all about the general assemblies, about the remarkable organisation and maturity of the movement. But since the attempt to make an amalgam between the students in struggle and the ‘wreckers’ didn’t work, even Sarkozy began to declare repeatedly that he made a difference between the nice students and the ‘thugs’. This didn’t stop the media from splashing the images of violence on the TV screens and the papers, and from mixing them up with other scenes of violence, such as the Israeli army’s attack on the prison in Jericho or a bloody suicide bombing in Iraq. After the failure of the more blatant ideological tricks, it was the turn of the more subtle specialists of psychological manipulation. The aim is to spread fear, disgust, an unconscious assimilation of the message that demonstrations equal violence, even when the official message states the opposite.

The role of the trade unions

The students and workers saw through the majority of these manipulations. This is why it was necessary for the fifth column of the bourgeois state, the unions, to take charge. By underestimating the reserves of consciousness and militancy in these young battalions of the working class, the government had driven itself into a dead-end. It is clear that it cannot give in. Raffarin already made the point in 2003: “the street doesn’t govern”. A government that goes onto the back foot loses its authority and opens the door to even more dangerous movements, especially in the present situation where there is a huge build-up of discontent within the working class as a result of the rise in unemployment, of job insecurity and of the succession of attacks on its living standards. Since the end of January, the unions have been organising ‘days of action’ against the CPE. And since the students have come into the struggle, calling on the wage workers to join the movement, the unions have presented themselves, with a unanimity we haven’t seen for a long time, as the best allies of the movement. But let’s not be fooled: behind their apparent intransigence towards the government, they have done nothing to really mobilise the whole of the working class.

On French TV everyday you hear warlike declarations from union leaders like Thibault and Mailly. In the workplaces, there’s silence. Very often, the union leaflets calling for strikes or demonstrations, when there are any, arrive on the very day the action is supposed to take place. A few rare general assemblies have been organised by the unions in workplaces like the EDF and GDF (electricity and gas), but these are places where they are particularly strong and have no fear of losing control. And these assemblies are nothing like the ones we have seen in the faculties in recent months: the workers are invited to listen quietly to the soporific speeches of the union officials who spend most of their time preaching about coming elections to the enterprise commissions. When Bernard Thibault, invited to a big TV ‘Jury’ on 26 March insisted that the wage workers have their own methods of struggle different from those of the students, and that he didn’t want either group giving lessons to the other, he wasn’t talking off the top of his head: it is indeed out of the question that the methods of the students be taken up by the wage workers because that would mean that the unions wouldn’t control the situation and would no longer be able to fulfil their role as social firemen! Because that is their main function in capitalist society. Even when they are speaking radically like they are today, the aim is to win the confidence of the workers and thus be in a position to sabotage their struggles when the government and the bosses are in trouble.

This is a lesson which not only the students, but all workers must keep in mind for future struggles.

At the time of writing, it is not possible to see exactly how the situation will pan out. However, even if the holy alliance between all the defenders of capitalist order gets the better of the exemplary struggle of the students, the latter, like other sectors of the working class, must not get demoralised. They have already won two very important victories. On the one hand, the bourgeoisie will for a while be forced to limit its attacks or risk being once again plunged into the kind of problems its facing today. On the other hand, and above all, this struggle represents an invaluable experience for a whole new generation of working class fighters.

As the Communist Manifesto said over 150 years ago, “sometimes the workers are victorious, but the victory is short-lived. The real result of their struggles is less the immediate success than the growing unity of the workers”. The solidarity and dynamism of the struggle, its collective organisation through general assemblies, these are the gains of the current struggle of the students who are showing the way forward for the future battles of the entire working class.   ICC 28.3.06  

The strike by council workers against attacks on pensions is taking place on the same day as the general strike in France against an attack on the job security of young workers. Thus, two of the oldest and most experienced parts of the international working class are making it clear to the ruling class that they are not willing to accept their attacks. They reject the logic of the capitalists who say that workers have to sacrifice their working and living conditions for the good of the capitalist system; that retired, employed or unemployed workers have to work harder and longer in order to shore up this decrepit system.

The council workers’ strike is probably one of the biggest struggles in Britain in many years. The determination of the workers; be they young, old or retired, full time or part time is an expression of one of the most powerful weapons of the working class: its solidarity.

Rather than allow themselves to be divided against each other, they have joined together in a common struggle.

Such solidarity is the only answer to the attacks of the ruling class. Council workers, like all workers, are being told that they have to accept the loss of pension benefits, that they can retire only after 40  years of exploitation! Why? Supposedly, because too many workers are living too long, and have become a burden on the younger generation! The council workers have rejected this logic. Old and young are uniting together in the struggle, because they understand that it is the responsibility of the present generation to defend the interests of the coming generations.

In doing this they are placing themselves within an international movement which has seen workers in France, Austria and the US refusing to accept attacks on their pensions and those of their children. In 2003 public sector workers in France held massive demonstrations against attacks on their pensions, as did workers in Austria, where we saw the biggest demonstrations since World War Two. This Xmas in New York, the transit workers struck in order to defend pensions and they made it clear they were doing this for the future generations to come too.

It’s not only pensions that workers have been struggling for. In 2005 car workers and other workers in Germany joined demonstrations against lay-offs at Daimler-Chrysler, whilst in Spain SEAT workers in Barcelona staged wildcat strikes against the laying off of 600 comrades. And since March students in France have been struggling against the imposition of the ‘CPE’, a law which means that those under 26 can be sacked at anytime during the first two years on the job. The students have gone to factories asking workers to support them, whilst hundreds of thousands of workers have joined demonstrations.

The media have only talked about 'riots' in relation to France, and some elements - encouraged by the state - have been drawn into dead-end acts of violence, but the majority have held general assemblies (AGs) where they have discussed what to do in a conscious and unified way. The most advanced AGs have invited workers to join their discussions and have gone to discuss with employed and unemployed workers.

In Britain the media and politicians have presented the council workers as being 'privileged' and 'cushioned', compared to those in the private sector. This is a disgusting lie aimed at dividing up the working class. The reality is that all workers are seeing their pensions attacked. In the private sector workers, such as those at Rentokil have had their final salary pensions stopped, whilst 80,000 have lost their pensions totally through the collapse of firms. The same is happening in the public sector. If the bosses can impose the present attacks, they will be back for more: removing final pensions completely, reducing pensions, raising the retirement age. The Turner Report recommends that we should go on till we’re 68, and that’s just a start!

Workers in the private sector have also fought against these attacks. Last autumn British Gas fitters struck to maintain final salary pensions for all new workers. The attempts to divide up the working class have to be rejected.

Trade unions divide us

This division is not only carried out by the media and politicians, but also by the unions. This time last year there was talk of a public sector strike against the attacks on pensions. What happened? Nothing. Well actually, the unions did a lot. The civil service union agreed to help impose an attack on pensions that will deny all new workers final salary pensions. In the NHS Unison and others carefully buried the whole question through the device of holding further discussions with management over pensions. In the councils the unions held out the prospect of future struggles amid dark talk about other public sector workers receiving better deals. Thus, from a situation where there was great discontent through the public sector, the unions have now carved up the workforce into three groups: civil servants, health workers and council workers and are now trying to pit the council workers against the others.

The present one-day strike is part of this strategy. The unions know that council workers are furious about the attack and that they have to make a display of defending their 'members' interests. However, whilst the one day strike certainly shows that the council workers are willing to struggle, it also allows the unions to contain the workers’ anger. They are also using it to divide up the council workers themselves. Not all the unions are involved in the strike; those not in the striking unions will be faced with either joining the strike illegally and facing disciplinary action, or crossing picket lines. There are many council workers who are not in a union and are thus faced with a similar choice.

This deliberate dispersal of the workers highlights the need to get together in mass meetings across union divisions, to go directly to other workplaces and sectors to discuss how to fight the attacks together. No-one will do this for us; the future is in our hands!

Loans for peerages is the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Blair government. Having focused on particular ministers such as Blunkett and Jowell (the Berlusconi Connection), or on Blair’s wife Cherie and her speaking tours, it has finally settled on the issue of loans for peerages. This is an issue of Labour government hypocrisy, certainly, since it had changed the rules to make political parties announce all large donations, but left itself a loophole for loans. The Labour government is described as having the same stench of sleaze as the Major government shortly before it was ousted by a landslide.

But there is something very odd about this campaign about Labour sleaze. Peerages have been for sale to the great, the good and the extremely rich for at least 150 years. Former PM Lloyd George was particularly famous for it, and the bourgeoisie think none the worse of him for that. The campaign has not hit the Labour government specifically. The media has allowed much of the Labour Party, including the treasurer, Jack Dromey, to maintain some sort of plausible deniability. And in addition the Tories are also well known to receive large loans, and their peers are equally likely to have put in large sums of money prior to being elevated.

The main point of this whole sorry saga is resolved into one key question – is it time for Blair to go? The media have been full of it. Even the Australian media took it up in an interview with the PM when he was over there. And it is followed up by discussion of what sort of prime minister Gordon Brown will make, and whether David Cameron would do any better. The issue of the reform of the House of Lords only comes up as an afterthought.

The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie

The British bourgeoisie is unusual among the great powers in having an unelected and largely appointed second chamber that provides the opportunity for politicians to sell honours that include a seat in parliament. But neither the corruption of politicians, nor the role of sections of the bourgeoisie in formulating policy, are in any way unusual. On the contrary, they are both a natural part of bourgeois democracy.

From top to bottom politicians use their ‘public service’ to enrich themselves. Senior ministers take seats on boards of directors, local councillors are hand in glove with local businesses for the purposes of getting planning permission and offering contracts. In Italy twenty years ago there was the huge scandal around the P2 Masonic lodge. This should not surprise us in any way as it expresses normal capitalist behaviour – the search to make as much profit as possible.

The fact that elections are held every 4 or 5 years or so does not call in question the nature of the state, and certainly doesn’t make the Commons less capitalist than the Lords: “even the most democratic bourgeois republic is nothing by the instrument by which the bourgeoisie oppress the working class, by which a handful of capitalists keeps the working masses under” (‘Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and Proletarian Dictatorship’, First Congress of the Communist International, 1919).

From time to time and for various reasons corruption becomes a media campaign because it suits the ruling class. In the 1990s the British bourgeoisie knowingly used a campaign about sleaze to signal the need for a change of governing team. A change in the governing team, but not in the basic policy direction of the state. Fundamentally New Labour was elected to impose austerity measures on the working class, in continuity with the previous government, which in turn only continued the attacks begun by the Callaghan government of the late 1970s. As we said in 1997 “The difference between New Labour and Old Labour is that the former is telling us in advance that it is going to ruthlessly attack our living standards. On virtually every aspect of the economy, Blair’s policies are identical to those of the Tories” (WR 204). A new government was needed because after 18 years of the Tories in power people were beginning to get disillusioned with democracy; and so it would be easier for New Labour to impose attacks on the working class. These attacks are now being called Blair’s “reform agenda”. In addition the Labour government was better able to defend Britain’s imperialist interests at a time when the Tory divisions on Europe masked a fundamental difficulty in adjusting to the new situation after the collapse of the USSR, in particular to the need to take a more independent line in relation to the USA.

The nine years of New Labour government have certainly not disappointed the capitalist class. Right from the off benefits were attacked: job seekers allowance no longer payable to those under 18, single parents having to attend interviews and look for jobs or lose benefit. And this is continuing with attacks on pensions, with the announcement of 2,000 jobs in the NHS in the week before the budget, and attacks on incapacity benefit claimants. Repression has been increased with Terrorism legislation – before as well as after 7/7 – for instance increasing the time suspects can be held without trial first to 14 days and then to 28 days. Immigrants and refugees have been treated to both more repressive legislation and campaigns of vilification about “bogus” asylum seekers. And British imperialist interests have been defended, militarily, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. No wonder the Labour government was the chosen team for British capitalism at last year’s election.

Blair or Brown, the attacks will continue

In this sleaze campaign the bourgeoisie’s main concern is the ‘reform agenda’ of attacks against the working class. Tony Blair has of course been totally identified with this agenda, to the point where it is seen as his personal contribution to history. Unfortunately Blair’s other historic contributions, in particular his growing loss of credibility resulting from the failure of the Iraq adventure, are now getting in the way: “It seems to me that Tony Blair has lost the capacity to carry out the reforms to which he is committed. There clearly need to be significant reforms in education, health and pensions… He now has far less authority than he had [in 1997] and faces far more opposition to reform. There is therefore nothing effective that he can do… He should go now” (William Rees-Mogg in The Times 25.3.06); “he is no longer the best vehicle for his own project” (David Aaronovitch).

 Whatever the bourgeoisie decide about the occupant of no. 10, the policy of attacks on the working class, and the underlying strategy for the defence of British imperialist interests, will continue. “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,” (WR 285). He has also been kept very carefully out of the scandals. Every budget since 1997 has been an occasion to introduce more attacks on benefits behind rhetoric such as ‘a hand up, not a hand out’ or a ‘new deal’ for the unemployed. The latest was a chance for Brown to set out his stall as a future PM. While he made vague ‘Old Labour’ noises about raising spending on state school pupils, the reality is there will be no change, just more attacks.  Alex 1.4.06

This article, written by a close sympathiser, examines the origins of the political current represented by the ‘Worker-Communist Party of Iran’ (WCPI) and its sister party in Iraq, and looks more closely at the political positions it defends, in order to determine its class nature.

This question is important to understand because this grouping is widely advertised as somehow representing a proletarian alternative in Iraq and Iran. For example, Trotskyists like the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL) support the WCPI as representing a so-called ‘third camp’ position: that is, opposed to the US-UK occupation but also to the Baathists, Sunni-sectarians and jihadis who make up the so-called ‘resistance’ in Iraq; and supporting independent working-class politics and struggle, for example by putting forward demands for ‘free trade unions’, the right to assembly, freedom of the press, etc. (see, for example, www.workersliberty.org/node/view/902 [77] 5 May 2003).

For the Trotskyists, this is part of their support for the state capitalist programme of bourgeois democracy and pro-western factions of the bourgeoisie in Iraq. But it is not only reactionary Trotskyists and leftists like the Alliance for Workers Liberty or Workers Weekly who spread illusions in this current. Many libertarians also are tempted to see something progressive in the WCPI (see, for example, the discussion in the Libcom discussion forum about the Iraqi resistance, articles in the Anarchist Federation’s Organise, and links to the WCPI from other sites which are clearly looking for communist positions, e.g. Riffraff in Sweden).

It is understandable that those genuinely interested in communist politics should search for some sign of real proletarian resistance in the midst of the hellish inter-imperialist conflict in Iraq today, and if the WCPI really is a proletarian organisation it clearly needs to be supported; but if it’s a group of the left of capital, it needs to be exposed as an obstacle to the development of proletarian positions in the Middle East. To understand this question more deeply we need to go back to the WCPI’s origins.

The origins of the WCPI – the unholy alliance of Iranian Stalinism and Kurdish nationalism

The origins of the WCPI lie in a group called the Unity of Communist Militants (UCM), which was formed in Iran in 1979 at a time when a huge proletarian movement was shaking the country. As a reminder to today’s readers, this ferment included massive strikes and demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of workers in key sectors of the economy against austerity, the war economy and state repression. Workers in the in oil refineries, for example, formed their own independent committees, inspiring class solidarity and attempts to fraternise with soldiers sent in to crush the movement (see WR 23 for an analysis of Iran at this time). The subsequent ‘Islamic revolution’ and the regime of Khomeini which replaced the Shah were in no way an expression of this movement; on the contrary, this was capital’s principle means for overcoming it.

Some of the elements who helped form the UCM may have been an expression of this movement. But whether or not some proletarian elements were involved at the beginning, the programme defended by the group and its actual practice were entirely reactionary even at this time.

Due to its radical-sounding denunciations of the Islamic state, and its agitation among militant workers with ‘democratic’ demands, e.g. for the freedom to organise and the separation of religion and state, the UCM won some support within the working class. Essentially, faced with a militant proletariat, the radical Stalinist language of the UCM, under its founder Mansoor Hekmat, was an adjunct to the efforts of part of the Iranian bourgeoisie to deflect the class struggle into demands for democracy. But in the face of the ensuing repression by the Islamic state in the cities, the group lost its potential political base, and in the context of a deepening reflux in the class struggle the group sought influence with the left-wing of the Kurdish nationalist movement, entering into an alliance with Komala (the ‘Toilers Revolutionary Organisation of Iranian Kurdistan’) in 1981.

Komala was actively engaged in mobilising workers and peasants for a local imperialist war. Its goal was to carve out a slice of the existing state in return for policing their own workers and peasants. In other words it wanted a bourgeois proto-state similar to the Palestinian nationalist factions. It was also, to this end, involved in a front with the Stalinist Kurdish Democratic Party – a party even the UCM admitted was bourgeois (see WR 57). The alliance with Komala in the ‘liberated’ areas of Kurdistan offered a political base for the growth of the UCM after the massive repression launched in June 1981.

Significantly, it was precisely in this period of defeat for the Iranian proletariat, with part of the population in Kurdistan fleeing the cities for the mountains, that in 1983 the UCM / Komala absurdly pronounced the formation of a party – the ‘Communist Party of Iran’. Under Hekmat’s leadership, the new CPI oriented itself towards organising the nationalist forces (‘peshmergas’ or fighters) as part of the inter-imperialist struggle in Kurdistan. Essentially the working class and any continuing struggles in the cities were used as an adjunct to the nationalist struggle of Komala, and the peshmerga force was seen by the CPI as ‘the military wing of the working class movement in Kurdistan’.

The unholy alliance between the Kurdish nationalist tendency and more ‘workerist’ faction proved an uneasy one, and flared into an open faction fight within the CPI, which ended in 1989 with the departure of the workerists around Hekmat to form the Worker-Communist Party of Iran in 1991. This in no way represented a break with the reactionary political positions previously defended by the UCM and CPI, but essentially a change of political strategy and tactics. The counterpart of the WCPI in Iraq was formed two years later.

The confusions of the proletarian milieu

There is a precedent for the present confusion about the bourgeois nature of the WCPI; in the 80s, there were real confusions in the proletarian camp about the UCM/Communist Party of Iran.

The fact that the UCM defended some positive-sounding positions such as attacking the myth of the so-called progressive national bourgeoisie, insisting that the working class was the only revolutionary class and calling for workers’ councils, led WR to cautiously greet the appearance of ‘communists in Iran’ and to publish its manifesto, but it later recognised that this was premature and, based on discussions with the UCM’s supporters and a reading of the group’s texts, the ICC drew the clear conclusion that the UCM was a radical bourgeois group. We were able to show that this current had not broken with leftism, essentially on the grounds of its links to Kurdish nationalism and its advocacy of a popular front policy disguised as the demand for a ‘democratic revolution’ in Iran.

Unfortunately other groups of the revolutionary milieu failed to see the dangers of this radical bourgeois group. In Britain the CWO engaged with the ‘Student Supporters of the UCM’ (SUCM) in a fraternal debate about the ‘democratic revolution’, which managed to avoid any mention of the UCM/Komala’s direct involvement in the military struggle in Kurdistan. The CWO invited the SUCM (with the ICC) to attend its congress, where it shouted down ICC comrades who attempted to raise the issue of the presence of Iranian Stalinists at a proletarian congress (see WR 60).

The groups that went on to form the IBRP even held a fourth conference of groups of the communist left with the SUCM. At this conference, the interventions of the SUCM repeated the bluff that the formation of the CPI was a “determining factor” in the situation in Iran: in the historic conditions of 1982, a political current with such an influence could only be bourgeois, despite its declarations in favour of the communist left. But the CWO and its sister organization in Italy, Battaglia Comunista, did not want to take heed of our warnings…

In fact the bourgeois nature of this political current is amply clear from its position at the conference on the question of the “democratic revolution”, which is presented as a ‘necessary stage’ “to remove the obstacles to the free development of the class struggle of the proletariat for socialism.” In reality this is a justification for supporting factions of the bourgeoisie and calling on the proletariat to divert its own class struggle into support for state capitalism under a ‘democratic’ cover (see the article on the farce of the 4 [78]th [78] Conference in International Review 124 [78]).

The bourgeois politics and practice of the WCPI today

The radical appearance of the WCPI of today is undoubtedly enhanced by the alleged reason for the 1989 split - the predominance of Kurdish nationalism - and its ability to appeal to any elements critical of nationalism and of the Islamic Republic, and to the working class. Hekmat also evolved a ‘theory’ of ‘worker communism’, which even made reference to revolutionary figures like Rosa Luxemburg and proclaimed a more ‘humanist’ and ‘libertarian’ vision of Marxism. The term ‘worker communism’ is also confusingly reminiscent of left communism, as in the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany, the KAPD (but significantly the WCPI has explicitly rejected left communism, using rambling pseudo-philosophical language for squaring the circle between its “principled rejection” of bourgeois nationalism and its support for the so-called “right to self-determination”).

If the WCP in Iraq today appears radical it is because it presents itself as a ‘third front’ against the ‘terrorists of both sides’, denouncing both the US/UK occupation forces and the Islamic militias. In fact it criticises the US-led occupation for not being hard enough against ‘political Islam’:

“From the very beginning, after the US forces entered Iraq, we stressed the importance of freedom, human rights, and secularism for Iraqi society and the importance of restraining political Islam’s movements and prevent them from setting up reactionary emirates where they implement their reactionary policies and rule. However, the occupation forces appeased religious reaction, hoping that they can be subdued…” (WCPI statement on the current crisis in Iraq, 3 April, 2004)

In other words, for the WCPI in Iraq the problem is that the US is not interested in establishing a ‘genuinely secular’ bourgeois regime. Using the same justification, the WCPI has also hailed the French bourgeoisie for banning the hijab in schools, in the name of defending secularism and pushing back ‘political Islam’, even criticizing the legislation for not going far enough. The WCPIraq is more bourgeois than the bourgeoisie…

For its own part, the WCPI calls for the immediate withdrawal of the US-led troops in Iraq, the disarming of the militia forces and the establishment of “an alternative government which stems from an inclusive conference for the representatives of all political organizations and mass organizations” (Workers’ Liberty, 12.9.04). Given the state of disintegration in Iraq this is likely to remain a political fantasy, but even if it came true, such a regime would be nothing but a bourgeois popular front. It is a replay of the CPI’s bluff in the 1980s that it was a ‘determining factor’ in the situation in Iran: the only ‘mass organizations’ in existence in the historic conditions of Iraq today are bourgeois, including the western-backed trade unions and the Iraqi Stalinist party – the left of capital’s political apparatus. Meanwhile, the WCPI’s proposed alternative to US troops - a multinational UN force to provide ‘security and stability’ - would simply replace US-British imperialism with no less predatory French, German or Russian imperialist powers, who would not hesitate to crush genuine proletarian struggles.

Recognising that its immediate seizure of political power is a fantasy, the WCPIraq is attempting to build up a power base by creating front organizations of unemployed workers and unions to agitate for ‘democratic’ demands. Far from representing something progressive in the situation, the WCPI’s activities act as a potential block on the development of any genuine proletarian struggle by channelling it into support for a popular front government. Given the support of the official Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and its backer the Iraqi Communist Party, for the occupation regime, and the outbreak of strikes and protests by workers in Iraq against repression and appalling conditions (e.g. in the electricity, textile and oil sectors in Nassiriya, Basra, Kerkuk, Baghdad and Kut in 2004), it is understandable if these activities have some echo.

If there have been further splits in the WCPI, far from representing the emergence in any way of proletarian expressions, these have essentially been about strategy and tactics towards the existing regimes in Iran and Iraq, usually with a ‘right wing’ more openly advocating frontist work with the ‘bourgeois’ parties, and a ‘left’ more directly offering itself as a ‘revolutionary’ organ capable of taking charge of society. In Iran, with the Islamic regime showing signs of weakening, the various factions of the bourgeois opposition there are certainly jockeying for position. After the 2004 split, the minority tendency, which left the WCPI and took the name ‘WCPI – Hekmatist’, rejected any participation in a provisional government and called for the creation of a workers’ state founded on the power of the workers’ councils, criticising the majority as ‘right-wing’ and talking about leading the socialist revolution in Iran.

But neither of these factions have ever challenged the bourgeois – and essentially Stalinist - origins of the UCM/CPI current: the obsession with Iran and Iraq, the absurd personality cult around Hekmat, the open support for bourgeois positions such as national self-determination, trade unionism (spiced up with a pretence of setting up workers’ councils), and the setting up of all kinds of fronts that appeal to human rights and democratic values. Basically, the WCPI sees itself as an organ that can set up a new secular state when the present regimes in Iran and Iraq collapse – as a state in waiting.

It is a dangerous illusion to think that this current can directly give rise to proletarian organisations, or to support it with the claim that ‘there’s nothing better’, as some of the anarchists seem to do. Proletarian currents in Iran and Iraq can only emerge by breaking with this nationalist tradition and linking up with the international traditions of the revolutionary movement.   MH 1/4/6

Not everyone has accepted the mainstream media coverage of recent events in France. Many people have found that there’s a lot more going on than attacks by riot police and violence at the end of demonstrations. Those who’ve looked further, on the internet, at meetings held by groups like the ICC, or on our website, have been inspired by the students’ level of organisation, by the efforts to extend the struggle to the waged workers and the unemployed, by the discussions in general assemblies, by the will to create an effective movement against attacks on the working class.

Predictably the right-wing press see just another example of Gallic excitedness. Meanwhile leftists reduce the struggle to just another part of the “wider movement against neo-liberalism” (a member of the French Trotskyist group, the LCR, in Socialist Worker, 18/3/6).

SWP, LCR: the diversion of the struggle

A different member of the LCR wrote that “The self-organisation of the struggle in the universities is impressive” (ibid). This enthusiasm is contradicted by the leftists’ constant promotion of unions and left parties, institutions which stand against the whole process of self-organisation.

For example, despite the evidence of self-organisation, Socialist Worker (25/3/6) says that “Now it’s up to the students and rank and file workers, and their ability to draw in wider forces to push the union leaderships to call on the action needed to win”. In this convoluted sentence, those who have shown their capacity to fight are asked to put pressure on the unions that have proved themselves a fundamental obstacle to the struggles currently underway.

Leftists affirm that “This movement is now in direct confrontation with the state” (ibid), yet the movement in which they want to submerge workers and student is based on appealing to the state, trying to change governments’ policies and participating in state institutions. According to the LCR/SWP this ‘movement’ includes the campaign for a ‘no’ vote in the referendum on the EU constitution. So, students and workers struggle against the state’s attacks on their futures, but the left wants them diverted into electoral circuses and Europolitics.

Similarly, there should be no confusion about what the leftists mean when they say that “Driving the protests is a desire to stand firm against market values in both education and in the workplace” (SW 18/3). The whole neo-liberal/market value spiel is a very thin cover for a left versus right world view. The SWP says that past protests have got rid of the governments of Balladur and Raffarin, and that Villepin is the next potential victim. They even throw in May 1968 as “causing the crisis that paved the way for the demise of president Charles de Gaulle”. In each case the working class has been dragged into disputes between factions of the ruling class, and away from the defence of its own interests. De Gaulle was followed by Pompidou, Balladur by Juppé, Raffarin by Villepin, and who knows who’s going to replace Villepin? The capitalist state is kept intact while the procession of bourgeois governments continues. Daniel Bensaïd of the LCR (SW 25/3) criticises the Socialist Party for hoping that a change of government will be seen as a “lesser evil”, while at the same time saying it’s “crucial” to identify with the “themes of the campaign for a left ‘no’” in the EU referendum. Isn’t that the classic electoral ‘lesser evil’?

WSWS: just a touch more critical

The World Socialist Web Site has a Trotskyist content that’s a shade more sophisticated than its rivals. For example, they say that “The Socialist Party and the Communist Party are participating in the movement against the CPE in order to conceal their record of defending the interests of French capitalism” (WSWS statement of 6/2/6). They criticise those who participated in the EU ‘no’ campaign who had “said they were fighting ‘neo-liberalism’ or ‘the Anglo-Saxon model’ - a cut-throat confrontational import. They claimed that it is possible to have another kind of capitalism, the French or European model based on social partnership and class collaboration”

Yet, while they say that capitalist governments can’t be “pressured into defending workers’ rights, living standards and social services” (ibid), and criticise the whole left for not boycotting the last presidential election and supporting Chirac against Le Pen, they still see the possibility for reforms within capitalism with “the placing of the major financial, industrial and commercial enterprises under democratic and public ownership” (WSWS statement of 18/3). They live in a world where unions are criticised for their shortcomings and their role “in containing and eventually dissipating the mass opposition”, but not as organisations that can now only ever serve the ruling class. They criticise the existing Socialist Party but insist that “Youth and workers must build their own socialist party” to struggle for reforms within capitalism.

The struggles in France have been an inspiration to everyone who’s found out what’s been happening. The leftists, whatever the details of their positions, have shown how, whenever they see creativity, they want to crush it in electoralism, unionism, reformism and the divisions between the left and right wings of the bourgeoisie.   Car 29/3/6

In March the ICC held a public meeting in London to discuss the recent student revolts in France. We started with a translation of a text entitled “Greetings to the new generation of workers!” This is now available on our website in English with other texts on the French events which we haven’t got the space to put in the pages of WR.

The initial part of the discussion revolved around why the ICC think this movement is of significance, what are its defining characteristics. One young participant asked about the relationship between France and South America, where there have also been struggles recently. The present movement in France is indeed part of a wider resurgence of struggle internationally. One central theme in the struggles has been the search for solidarity within the working class as a whole. There has been a development of political questioning, shown in the appearance of new groups, circles and individuals asking questions about capitalism and the future.

Sharp contrasts were made with the position which sees the building of barricades and violent confrontations with the police as positive in themselves – the position held by some anarchists – and our position, which sees these ritual confrontations as a trap. The real needs of the struggle at this time revolve around the holding of open and fraternal discussion and its extension by the sending of delegates to workers in their workplaces and elsewhere. Those glorifying the burning of cars etc, have generally (so far) made little or no reference to the development of the assemblies. For example on the Spanish language web discussion forum https://www.alasbarricadas.org/ [80] the ICC were the first to post about what was really happening in France. In Britain the ICC intervenes in the web forum libcom.org [81] where we have tried to move the focus away from running battles with the police etc, something which has little perspective, to try and draw out the political lessons.

We drew some contrasts between May ’68 and today. In ’68 the French bourgeoisie was taken by surprise at the explosion. There were divisions within the ruling class, with some leading figures wanting to send in the tanks against the striking workers. At the time students and workers had illusions in capitalism as it was only at the beginning of the period of open crisis. There was also a youthful hostility and lack of trust in older workers. Finally, political organisations such as the ICC were only just beginning emerge.

Today, in contrast, while the bourgeoisie is prepared for some explosions of unrest, the open economic crisis has been going on for nearly 40 years unabated and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the bourgeoisie to peddle illusions in a peaceful and prosperous future. Today the ICC has been able to intervene effectively within the assemblies, to use its collective experience and theoretical understanding to see the wider political significance of these events. Finally, the students are actively searching out workers to fraternise and discuss with.

This last point can’t be stressed enough. The importance of fraternisation and discussion to the process of passing on the lessons of struggle – for instance, that the unions sabotage the movement – shouldn’t be underestimated.

The discussion then moved on to the forthcoming local government strike and the role of the unions today. One participant, who works for a union as a shop steward, defended the role of the unions as organs for workers struggle and raised the question ‘yes, I agree the unions don’t always defend the workers, but what alternative is there?’

First, it must be reiterated that the unions were first created by the working class in the nineteenth century as defensive organs. This has a particular resonance and depth in Britain as they developed first here alongside the development of capitalism. Today they are no longer working class organs, but are the first line of defence for the state, derailing workers’ struggle. They have played this role for capital ever since unions recruited workers for the imperialist slaughter of the First World War

The unions are part of the state, helping to implement new work regimes, new attacks, redundancies etc but still present themselves as the sole protection for workers, .

It’s not a matter of distinguishing between unions that ‘fight against’ austerity and those that don’t, but of understanding the period we’re living in, the decadence of capitalism, a period in which any lasting gains or reforms are impossible. From the slogans which they have put forward, the students in France have understood this at some level.

A final point to note was that one participant said she was an anarchist, along with several of her friends. Anarchism has many different strands, some of which are outright leftist currents indistinguishable from Trotskyism. However, there are other anarchist currents which, despite rejecting aspects of marxism, defend internationalist positions. She said that most of her friends thought the ICC was a ‘sect’ and told her not to bother with our meeting. However, she thought, having sat through a 3 hour meeting, that we were open to fraternal discussion.   Graham 31/03/06

 We are publishing here an exchange of letters from a developing correspondence with a comrade from the north of England.

…. Before I respond to a few of your points I would like to say how much I enjoy reading World Revolution and International Review... I am certain that I will continue reading your publications and arguing with work colleagues for some of the ICC positions especially when it comes to the war in Iraq.

Firstly I would like to take issue with you around the position you take on the role of left wing groups that defend national liberation movements. You say in relation to these groups “Trotskyist, Maoist and ‘official’ anarchist groups that defend national liberation movements are in fact the left wing of the bourgeoisie. They do not sow ‘petit bourgeois illusions’ but defend bourgeois positions”. While I agree with your summary of the counter revolutionary consequences to workers of successful ‘national liberation’ movements, it also seems to me that the ideology and aspirations of national liberation are essentially petty bourgeois in the sense that these movements profess to offer a solution to the poverty and inequalities of capitalist societies. These solutions are always based on the premise that there is either a peaceful road to socialism in which the majority of the bourgeoisie can be won over, or alternatively the poverty and inequalities of capitalist societies can either be minimised or even abolished. While these are essentially bourgeois arguments they are the class viewpoint of the petty bourgeoisie who are continually caught between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

It also seems to me that in your reply you do not recognise the divisions that exist within the bourgeoisie between the militant elements who readily use fascist terror on the working class and the more liberal elements who are willing to use persuasion backed up where necessary by the power of the capitalist state. As Marx once said that the only thing which unites the warring band of brothers who are the bourgeoisie is their hate and fear of the working class.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the ICC position on the decadence of capitalism and that without a proletarian revolution then there is no hope of the further development of the mode of production. In many ways the present situation is akin to the position that the aristocracy found itself in during the eighteenth century. A decadent and obsolete class which was holding back the further development of humanity. This decadence is not a moral issue, it is a scientific issue based on the contradiction between the social conditions of production and the private means of appropriating surplus value. I agree that the beginning of the end for the bourgeoisie was the first world war and continues to this day with all of the suffering that this entails. I would agree 100% on point three of your platform and say that without a successful global proletarian revolution then the future for humanity is bleak. Not only wars but an increasing splintering of society with all of the suffering this entails.

Yours comradely...

Our reply

Dear Comrade,

… With regards to the main point of your letter regarding the class nature of ‘leftists’ you say that, “... it also seems to me that the ideology and aspirations of national liberation are essentially petty bourgeois in the sense that these movements profess to offer a solution to the poverty and inequalities of capitalist societies. … While these are essentially bourgeois arguments, they are the class viewpoint of the petty bourgeoisie who are continually caught between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat”. To take up your first point, if we look at the history of the period of the bourgeois revolutions from the 16th to the 19th century, of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, it was precisely the bourgeoisie who led the struggles for national liberation - for unification of the national capital and freedom from domination by feudal regimes, either local or foreign. In this epoch of capitalism’s ascendancy, marxists have recognised that these struggles were historically progressive, in that they broke the chains of feudal social relations, leading to the development of the productive forces and the appearance of the proletariat. Thus, in this sense the development of capitalism was historically an advance for humanity.

What was the class viewpoint of the petty bourgeoisie at this time? First, you are correct to point out that this class is caught between the two ‘historic’ classes, and is therefore unstable. The petty bourgeoisie can’t have a stable class viewpoint because it’s a conglomeration of strata caught between the two main classes in society, and as such is constantly threatened with extinction ... It thus tends to oppose big capital with an impossible ‘ideal’ capitalism where everything is fair, or a return to a golden age that never existed. Elements from this strata were the shock troops of the bourgeois national revolutions: the yeomanry (small farmers) in the English Revolution; the sans culottes (artisans) in the French Revolution. However, they afterwards found themselves excluded from real economic and political power, or were ruined altogether by big capital. The petty bourgeoisie thus tends to oppose an ideal national liberation to the sordid reality of capitalist development. In decadence this tendency is completely integrated into the various needs of imperialist war.

Anarchism is only one political expression of petty bourgeois ideology, of radicalised elements who are about to be thrown into the working class. The early anarchists in the 1800s, such as Proudhon and his followers, who while making a positive contribution to the early stages of the workers’ movement, were against the development of industrial capitalism. For the artisans the development of mass industry was a complete disaster, and Proudhon was also hostile to the later development of the workers’ movement towards the class struggle and marxism.

In the current epoch, that of the decadence of capitalism, the defence of national liberation has become a reactionary position, because the great powers have carved up the planet amongst themselves – at the level of the economy, where any ‘new’ nations can’t compete, and at the level of imperialism, where ‘new’ nations had to fall under the tutelage of one of the major imperialist blocs. This was the case with the struggles for national liberation after WWII, which were essentially struggles between rival fractions of the bourgeoisie over which imperialist bloc to align to. While most of the membership of the leftist organisations is supplied by such petty bourgeois elements and their illusions (e.g. students), leftism itself as a political force is integrated into imperialism as a result of the adhering to the mistakes, degeneration and betrayal of the CPs, and of the capitulation of the Trotskyist opposition to the latter and to Social Democracy.

This takes us on to the second point you raised, which is interesting. You said that, “It also seems to me that in your reply you do not recognise the divisions that exist within the bourgeoisie between the militant elements who readily use fascist terror on the working class and the more liberal elements who are willing to use persuasion backed up where necessary by the power of the capitalist state.” We would like to correct any confusion you may have about this. It is clear that the bourgeoisie is not a homogenous class: it is the class of competition par excellence! But far from not recognising the different faces of the bourgeoisie we constantly point out that the most dangerous face of the bourgeoisie to the proletariat is not the ‘militant, fascist’ one, but the ‘friendly, liberal, democratic’ face.

We think you don’t yet fully appreciate that the leftists are an important part of the political apparatus of the bourgeoisie. The Social Democratic parties have tended to replace the role of the Liberal parties in the line-up of the central countries of capitalism since the First World War. This was obviously the case in the German Revolution where the SDP played the pivotal counter-revolutionary role, not the Liberals. In the UK, the Labour Party began to replace the Liberal Party after 1918. It is necessary to see that the different factions of the bourgeoisie (far-left, left, centre, right, far-right) all have a division of labour against the working class, and which one is in the frontline against the working class depends on the direction to which the­ historic course is pointing. The far-left is the most dangerous in a period of rising class confrontations. If we look at the history of the defeat of the German Revolution 1918-21, it was precisely the ‘democrats’ who saw to it that the soviets didn’t take power, thus halting the spread of the Russian revolution into Europe. And as you quite rightly say, it was the ‘liberals’ in the SPD who made use of the power of the capitalist state to assassinate Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, crushing the workers’ resistance and paving the way for the rise of fascism.

To sum up, the defence of national liberation is still a reactionary slogan, irrespective of whether or not it mobilises sections of the petty bourgeoisie. And in general, we think that while you say you agree with our position on the decadence of capitalism, you have not fully made the connection between decadence and the central class positions that we defend. You mentioned at the start of your letter that you only argue, “... for some of the ICC positions especially when it comes to the war in Iraq” [our emphasis]. We see the aim of this correspondence is to clarify where we stand on a whole range of questions, and we think it’s just as important to say where you don’t agree with us, and not just on the question of national liberation. It’s through this process of confrontation and clarification that we can move forward. So, what do you think of our positions on the unions, the role of the revolutionary organisation, anti-fascism, state capitalism? …

The daily reality of life in Iraq gives the lie to all the claims by the US and British governments that Iraq is not in a state of civil war and that the situation there is gradually getting better. Since the attack on the Shia mosque in Samarra, there has been an acceleration of suicide bombings and mass ‘executions’, aimed less at the occupying forces or the Iraqi police and army than at civilians, slaughtered simply because of their religious affiliation. On Tuesday 28 February, over 30 were killed by a suicide bomber while queuing for domestic fuel. On 14 March the newspaper Courrier International reported that “the bodies of 15 young Iraqis, their hands tied and showing signs of having been hung up, were discovered in the west of Baghdad. 29 other bodies, their hands tied, were discovered in the east of the city. These bodies were buried recently and a military spokesman said there could be others”. 45 brick workers were shot dead at their factory on 25 February. Since the mosque was blown up on 22 February, at least 400 such ‘revenge’ killings have taken place. The simple act of going to the shops means dicing with death. In addition to those bombed at markets and fuel queues, 8 people were lined up against a wall and shot at a shopping mall during this period. Fear and insecurity are getting worse, not better, for the majority of the Iraqi population. 

The country is becoming ungovernable. Officially the leaders of the parliamentary parties are negotiating the formation of a new government, and president Talibani has announced a parliamentary commission to manage this process. In reality the different factions come to the negotiating tables with guns at the ready and are unable to reach any real agreement. Thus the Kurdish and Sunni groups have rejected a call to re-elect the outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaa Fari, who is supported by conservative Shia groups. On other issues, the Kurds line up with the Shiites against the Sunnis. This is a free-for-all in which each gang struggles to obtain the maximum of military and economic benefits for its constituencies.

America throws oil on the flames

Three years after the invasion and after Bush’s brag of ‘Mission Accomplished’, the US is still required to resort to massive military force to try to halt the erosion of its authority as the world’s leading power. This is all the more true as the militarist policies of the Bush administration become increasingly unpopular at home. Officially there have been 2291 deaths among the US troops and open opposition to the war is spreading among war veterans and soldiers’ families. According to the Democratic politician John Murtha, US officers have told him that the army in Iraq is itself at breaking point. Recruitment figures are plummeting. Today the American army is obliged to look for recruits among 17 year olds while at the same time raising the signing on age from 35 to 42 and making the physical selection criteria less rigorous. The administration is talking about bringing 38,000 troops home by the end of the year, but this does not signify a less aggressive military policy on the ground. On the contrary the US has been escalating military action in Iraq, launching the biggest air raids against Sunni ‘terrorist bases’ since the invasion began. This increasingly aggressive stance has also resulted in violent clashes between US and Iraqi troops and the Shia militias controlled by Moqtada al Sadr.

At the same time the US is continuing its belligerent approach towards Iran. Bush announced on 17 March that “Iran is perhaps the biggest challenge that any country offers to us”. On the face of it this “challenge” is posed by Iran’s nuclear programme, but it is also connected to the USA’s loss of control in Iraq and Iran’s growing involvement via the Shiite movement in the south of the country. But the US/Iran conflict also stretches to Lebanon, where Iran backs the Hezbollah, which is also pro-Syrian and committed to out and out war with Israel. Once again, the wider the challenge to US power, the greater the need for a display of force; but as in Iraq, the brutal assertion of US military might in turn stirs up an even wider challenge…

Iraq conflict threatens to spread across Middle East

During a recent visit to France, the Jordanian king Abdullah II expressed his concern about the danger of an extension of the Shia/Sunni conflict in Iraq to the whole of the Middle East: “In speaking of the Shiite crescent, I expressed the fear of seeing the political game, under the cover of religion, spilling over into a conflict between Sunnis and Shiite, the premises of which we are seeing in Iraq. There is the risk of an inter-religious conflict. That would be disastrous for all of us”, (Le Monde Diplomatique, March 2006). The massive presence of Shiites in Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia and above all in Iran makes this danger all the more real.

Meanwhile there is every sign that the other major conflict in the region – in Israel/ Palestine – is becoming more and more intractable. The recent elections for the Israeli parliament and for the Palestine Authority have left Israel with a government committed to unilateral action that will draw up an Israeli border around the ‘Security Wall’, and a Palestinian territory carved up into a series of politically and economically unviable cantons; and they have left ‘Palestine’ with an authority controlled by Hamas, which declares that its minimum demand is for the return of Israel to its 1967 borders and the right of return of all Palestinian refugees. The ‘peace programmes’ of the two sides are totally irreconcilable and they are at present unwilling to begin talks of any kind. Meanwhile, suicide bombings have resumed in Israel, although at present Hamas says that it is not directly perpetrating them. For its part, the US has lost all credence as an honest broker between the two sides: it refuses to recognise Hamas while inviting the newly elected Israeli PM Olmert to Washington.

Class struggle is the only answer to capitalist barbarism

The barbarity of capitalism is accelerating and the Middle East is one of its main breeding grounds. The spectre of ‘civil war’ between Sunni and Shiite, of endless conflict between Arab and Jew, hangs over the region, bringing with it a spiral of hatred and violence which can only obstruct the efforts of the exploited and oppressed to defend their real, material interests. Faced with the threat of generalised ethnic or religious massacres, the great ‘civilised’ powers are not the solution; they are part of the problem, because their imperialist interests oblige them to stir up the conflicts even more and use them as pawns in the game against their rivals.

But there is one source of hope that is real: the revival of the class struggle in the USA, France, Britain, Germany and elsewhere. The rediscovery of class solidarity in these struggles is a beacon for humanity against the darkness of fratricide and self-destruction. The new generations of the working class, fighting to defend their living standards against the attacks launched by the capitalist state, can and must bring back to life the traditions of 1917-18, when the proletarian revolution in Russia and Germany brought four years of imperialist butchery to an end and opened the gates to a worldwide human community. This is the perspective they must offer to their class brothers and sisters in the Middle East: against all national and religious divisions; for a common struggle of the exploited against their exploiters, and against exploitation itself.  AT 1/4/6

In France, the massive struggles of young students and workers – of the new generation of the working class – forced the government to withdraw its new ‘employment’ law, the CPE. The organisation of the struggle through general assemblies, the capacity of the students to discuss collectively and avoid many of the traps laid by the ruling class, their understanding of the necessity for the movement to spread to the wage earners, all these are signs that we are entering a new period of confrontation between the classes.

General assembly in France: an example for the working class 

This is shown not only by the movement in France, but also by the fact that this was only one of a whole series of movements by the working class against capitalism’s growing assault on its living standards. In Britain, the strike called by local government unions on 28 March was taken up by 1.5 million workers, concerned to resist new inroads into their pensions. In Germany, tens of thousands of state employees and engineering workers have been involved in strikes against wage cuts and increases in the working week. In Spain the SEAT workers came out spontaneously against sackings agreed between bosses and unions. In the USA, workers in the New York transport system and Boeing workers also struck in defence of their pension benefits. In the summer of 2005 Argentina was hit by its biggest wave of strikes for 15 years. In India, Mexico, South Africa, Dubai, China and Vietnam, the working class has been showing in its actions that, contrary to all the propaganda of our exploiters, it has not disappeared from the social scene. On the contrary, it remains the class which keeps the wheels of capitalist production turning and which creates the vast bulk of social wealth. These movements are becoming more widespread, more simultaneous, and more determined.

A central theme in nearly all these movements has been that old proletarian principle of solidarity. We saw it in France not only in the exemplary way students from different universities supported each other, but also in the active mobilisation of a growing number of wage earners in the movement, and in the unity between different generations. We saw it in Spain when workers came out in defence of sacked comrades. We saw it in Belfast when postal workers, on strike against the advice of their union, openly crossed the sectarian divide by marching together through Catholic and Protestant areas of the city. We saw it in New York where the transit workers explained that they were fighting not just for themselves but for the next generation of workers. In India, striking Honda workers in Delhi were joined by masses of workers from other factories, especially after clashes with the forces of repression.

The principle of solidarity – and workers’ increasing willingness to defend it in action – is central to the very nature of the working class. This is a class which can only defend its interests in a collective manner, by spreading its struggles as widely as possible, by overcoming all the divisions imposed by capitalist society: divisions into nations, races, religions, professions or trade unions. The search for solidarity thus contains the seeds of massive social movements which have the capacity to paralyse the workings of the capitalist system. We had a definite glimpse of this in France this spring. We are still only at the beginning, but the present resurgence of workers’ struggles is paving the way to the mass strikes of the future.

And beyond the mass strike lies the perspective not only of bringing capital to a halt, but of reorganising the very basis of production, of creating a society where social solidarity is the norm, not a principle of opposition to the existing order, which is founded on ruthless competition between human beings.

This perspective is contained in the present struggles of the working class. It is not merely a hope for a better future, but a necessity imposed by the bankruptcy of the capitalist social system. The recent class movements have been provoked by continuing and growing attacks on workers’ living standards – on wages, hours, pensions, job security. But these attacks are not something the rulers and their state could dispense with in favour of some other policy. They are obliged to reduce workers’ living standards because they have no choice, because they cannot escape from the pressure of the capitalist economic crisis and the deadly war for survival on the world market. This is true whatever political party is in power, whatever group of bureaucrats manage the state.

Neither does the bourgeoisie have any choice when the breakdown of the economy pushes it towards militarism and war. The generalisation of war across the planet – currently manifesting itself most strongly in the ‘war against terrorism’ and the threat to launch a new military front against Iran - expresses capitalism’s inexorable drive towards self-destruction.

The exploiting class and the class of wage workers have nothing in common. They have no choice but to try to drive us into the ground. We have no choice but to resist. And it is in resisting that we will discover the confidence and strength to raise the prospect of abolishing exploitation once and for all.

WR, 6.5.06

For the last 2 months health service trusts have been announcing job cuts, 750 at North Staffs, 400 at NHS Direct…totalling at least 6,000 so far, with estimates that the final number could reach 15,000-20,000 as the NHS battles to deal with overspending of around £700 million. Thousands of student nurses will not find jobs after they qualify this year, having paid through the nose for their training. After government spending on health has increased by 4.5% a year under Gordon Brown’s various budgets, everyone tells us that this overspending, and therefore the cuts, must be due to mismanagement, or privatisation, or both. Patricia Hewitt defends the cuts, telling us that it is simply a question of some health authorities that need to be taught best practice by those who are better at managing their resources for patient care. The Tories blame Labour for not managing its ‘reforms’ properly. Those crying out against the cuts also blame poor management: “staff and patients are paying the price for poor management … Ian Ducat, the regional secretary for Unison South West … said ‘I shall expect the resignations of NHS Trust chairs and chief executives and dismissal of finance directors…’.” (article from Freedom on libcom.org/news/article). NHS chief executive, Sir Nigel Crisp, seems to agree, and resigned. But everyone is wrong. Things are far, far worse than that.

Let us assume that we were talking about some other kind of business, a bank for instance. A huge investment is made in upgrading and centralising computers, new managers are hired with a tough new attitude to financial and workplace discipline, a call centre is opened, wholesale re-grading of jobs, and finally large scale redundancies are announced and many workers have to reapply for their jobs. Do we cry ‘poor management’? Do the shareholders demand the heads of chief executives and finance directors? No, we recognise the normal working of the capitalist system as the conditions of the crisis force each capitalist to increase exploitation. All these things are happening in the NHS, and we are asked to blame the managers – for doing what managers do in the capitalist system, for doing what they were hired to do.

The policy of cuts is not new for the NHS. It is a continuation of the ‘reforms’ started in the 1980s, with one reorganisation and initiative following another. First of all ancillary services were put out to tender in the 1980s, jobs were cut, rates of work increased, cleanliness put at risk. In the 1990s private finance was introduced for hospital building, always with fewer beds. The first attempt to bring in competition between hospitals was made with the division between ‘purchasers’ and ‘providers’, with the money following the patient. Throughout, beds have been cut, services moved into the ‘community’ where they can be done more cheaply if they are done at all.

“Under Labour this process has been accelerated. Labour has extolled the virtues of ‘local autonomy’ and ‘community’ control of health services, while introducing the most brutal financial and clinical controls. Every level of the health service has been placed under the most harsh regime of payment by results. There are 700 targets an acute hospital has to meet in order to get its full funding. Labour has introduced the direct financial incentives for senior managers to attack workers’ working conditions and pay, because chief executives’ pay is dependent upon the meeting of targets. This means that at every level of management there is the utmost pressure to meet targets, that is, to make workers work even harder” (WR 291).

Investment

Let us look at a few recent examples of investment in the NHS. A couple of years ago £6 billion was put into computers. Lab test results now come electronically and there is – usually – less delay in receiving them. There is a plan to put basic health information on a central electronic health record for each patient. Above all there will be more choice through ‘choose and book’, so appointments can be made in the GP surgery, cutting delays and increasing choice. What could possibly be wrong with that? The reality is that choice has decreased markedly, with commissioning authorities saying where patients may or may not be seen, with departments being organised to review and reject ‘inappropriate’ referrals, which is the only way they can possibly reach their targets on waiting lists. More and more minor treatments are being ruled out for the NHS. Nevertheless, ‘choose and book’ has a huge amount of government money invested in it. The investment in IT and ‘choose and book’ is not for patient choice or safety, but for cost-cutting in the long term. What is the long term plan for hospital central appointment departments when appointments are all made electronically from outside?

A part of the NHS overspend in 2005-6 is accounted for by the new GP contract, costing £300 million over the intended cost. The whole basis of this contract is the introduction of targets as the basis of payment. Obviously the targets have not yet been set high enough, but each year will see new targets, just as in hospitals. In particular, it marks a trend to move more and more work, particularly minor surgery and chronic disease management, out of the more expensive hospital environment.

One other aspect of the recent government investment is the army of those needed to check up on the achievement of targets whether in hospital or ‘community’. These people save the NHS money in the long run; they will be needed to balance the books.

The attacks on the health service are not a question of this or that government policy. They have been brought in by Tory and Labour administrations with equal vigour. They are not a question of mismanagement, but of deliberate policy. Patricia Hewitt has been quite clear that, redundancies and all, this is very good year for the NHS, and she is one of the very few ministers to keep her job in the reshuffle after the government’s local election losses. And there is far more of the same to come: “a report by the Reform think-tank said government changes to the National Health Service could lead to a 10 percent cut in staff — or 100,000 job losses — but that that would result in a more efficient system” (uk.news.yahoo.com/12042006).

It raises the question of why a government that is investing so heavily to prepare the cuts in the NHS should send a minister to the RCN to tell them what a good thing it is that lots of nurses are being made redundant. This was no gaff, but a necessary piece of theatre, an opportunity for the RCN to act like any other union, to shout, to make a lot of noise. The unions are an essential part of bringing in the attacks, with responsibility for giving a false framework for workers to express their anger. With attacks on the level we see in the NHS today, the RCN will need to be fully involved, and this altercation with the minister allows it to drop its ‘professional’ image a little to do so.

The idea that investment alongside cuts means mismanagement only arises because the NHS is portrayed as something different from an ordinary capitalist concern. In one sense it is, since it does not sell a product on the open market, but is financed by the state. But health workers do treat workers whose labour power is the basis for the creation of all value. The NHS has therefore been very useful to the state since its formation after World War 2. It has helped keep the working population healthy and prevented too many potential workers being occupied with the care of their sick and ageing relatives at a time of full employment. It has also had an important ideological function in giving workers the impression that they have a stake in the capitalist state, that its nationalised industries are a gain for the working class. Just like the universal subsistence level state pension introduced at the same time, the NHS made it appear that workers could have a future within capitalism, that they could be provided for in illness and old age. Like the attack on pensions, the attack on the health services shows that the only perspective capitalism has for the working class is more misery.

Alex 6.5.06

This account of a workplace intervention by an ICC militant in Britain was originally posted on the libcom internet discussion forum (libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9413).

The question of how revolutionaries relate to the trade unions at work has come up on a number of threads recently. The left communist position of ‘outside and against’ the unions is often criticised as being divorced from the real world. It is often argued that unless you are working inside the unions, you have no way of reaching the rest of the workforce. I don’t agree, obviously. It is perfectly possible to discuss with fellow workers in all sorts of informal situations outside the context of union meetings. It is also possible to put out agitation and propaganda which reaches everyone. It is more effective if this is part of a collective effort – through a ‘struggle group’ or ‘workplace resistance group’ or whatever you want to call it, but it is also possible to act as an individual worker.

I work as a teacher in a sixth form college. In the week leading up to the UNISON strike on 28 March I distributed the following leaflet to teaching and non-teaching staff.

Solidarity with Tuesday’s strikers

Some of our colleagues will be on strike next Tuesday. They will be part of one and a half million members of UNISON who are coming out in protest throughout the country against a government attack on their pension rights. They have already seen - with union approval – their basic retirement age raised from 60 to 65. Now the government wants to get rid of the ’85 year’ rule which would mean that long-serving employees would lose the opportunity to retire at 60.

At the moment this is aimed at local government employees but it is part of a wider attack on all pensions. In the private sector final salary employers schemes are fast disappearing; the Turner report wants the state pension to be raised from 65 to 68. Teachers are being balloted over government schemes to raise their retiring age to 65 as well.

In sum, there is every reason for all of us to express our solidarity with the strikers on Tuesday. There is every reason for the UNISON workers to ask us to join their action. It’s in all our interests for us to be fighting together, not separately.

In practice, however, we are stumbling towards a situation where most of us will be faced individually with the choice of whether or not to cross the UNISON picket line. There has been no discussion of the issue by the other unions, and the official UNISON line is that the picket line won’t be there to persuade other employees to join them.

Exactly the same thing happened three years ago when UNISON members came out against low pay. The NUT and other unions instructed its members to cross their picket lines, even though most people felt deeply uneasy about it.

This situation highlights the necessity for a forum where every employee – of any union or none – can come together, discuss what’s happening, and take their own decisions as a united workforce. In the revolt among the younger generation now going on in France, the heart of the movement has not been in the trade unions but the general assemblies where all can speak and participate in decisions.

The first step towards this kind of organisation may be just a handful of people getting together to talk about the situation we all face, and what to do about it.

The leaflet produced quite a lot of discussion. Most people I spoke to agreed that it was ridiculous that different sectors were acting separately when pensions is an issue that affects everyone. They also saw the logic of holding a general meeting open to all workers. Partly in response to these discussions, the college NUT rather shamefacedly called a meeting where the members were told that the official line (not just from the national leadership but also the ‘militant’ local branch) was that they should cross the UNISON picket line and work normally. The union rep said that it would have to be up to members individually to follow their conscience on this, but they would get no backing from the union. Some members said they wouldn’t cross, but others were rather intimidated by a stern letter put out by the principal reminding employees that they would not be protected legally if they took unofficial action.

On the day of the strike, the dozen or so UNISON members (learning support assistants, admin, library, caretakers, etc) held quite a lively picket line. They expressed no ill will to employees who went in to work, understanding that many – especially probationers and part-time workers – would be especially vulnerable to disciplinary action. In any case, the official UNISON line was not to ask other workers to join the strike. Despite this about ten teachers decided to join the picket line and not go in to work – a few came out after having initially gone in. It was a small but encouraging expression of basic solidarity. The widespread feeling of support for the strikers from all the employees seems also to have persuaded the principal to adopt a more conciliatory stance, and she made it pretty clear that no disciplinary action would be taken. Those of us who had decided to stay out received a letter telling us that we would be docked a day’s pay, but that was it.

I am not claiming that my intervention ‘produced’ this solidarity action. A few years ago, when I was working at a secondary school during the UNISON low pay strike, I put out a similar statement and although some people were sympathetic, there was no solidarity action. I ended up being hauled into the head-teacher’s study and given an informal warning. The action of this small group of teachers was part of a much wider change of mood within the working class, in which solidarity is once again a central element of the struggle. However, what I did was certainly an active element in the movement. It is also not accidental that the unions are now talking about holding a “joint union meeting” to discuss the pensions issue next term. Naturally I will argue that this meeting should be open to all employees.

In a recent post, Peter said that the ICC position on belonging to trade unions was a bit more purist than his. He says that the ICC forbids its members from being union members unless there’s a closed shop. Actually the phrase we use is “professional constraints” – in many workplaces, you are more under pressure to join a trade union from the bosses than from the unions themselves. We don’t think that comrades should martyr themselves over this. Neither do we campaign for workers to leave the unions on an individual basis. However, we do think it’s much clearer for revolutionaries not to be in the union.

In the 80s and early 90s, I was a member of the NUT, feeling “professionally constrained” by all the scare-stories about what would happen to you if you don’t have union protection. I would go along to union meetings and consistently argue for the need to break out of the union framework. When members asked me “why are you in the union then?” I would respond, rather sheepishly, that, well it’s like using a lawyer, OK for individual cases but useless for any collective defence. However, I was later on convinced that I should resign from the union by two things:

- discussions in the ICC about these problems, which aimed at having a more consistent practice throughout the organisation

- the fact that, after spending all this time as an NUT member arguing against the union way of doing things, I was asked by several members if I would stand for school union rep when the job fell vacant!

It then became obvious to me that if I was going to carry on arguing against the unions, it would be clearer all round if I did so as someone who was completely and explicitly independent from them. I resigned from the NUT and put out a written statement explaining why I had done so.

The recent experience I have described here offers evidence against two of the main arguments used to support the “inside the unions” position:

- That you will be completely unprotected if you’re not in a union, especially if you take strike action. I took part in an illegal, unofficial strike, and I had no more or no less protection than the union members who had done so. The only protection is the solidarity of your fellow workers.

- That you can’t have any influence on your fellow workers if you’re not in a union. In practice, in this case, this meant that I was ‘restricted’ to standing outside the NUT meeting giving out my leaflet, but in any case it was only a very small meeting. I reached more NUT members in the staffroom or in the corridors. And being in the NUT wouldn’t have enabled me to go to meetings of the UNISON workers.

When I look at some of the recent posts on these boards (in particular the ones in the thread about the WSM’s union policy), it seems to me that these ‘pragmatic’ arguments for revolutionaries working inside the unions are not the real issue. In fact, the problem is the basic methodology of leftism. The Trotskyists are always telling us that of course the Labour party, and even the trade unions, will have to be cast aside, even destroyed during the revolution, but meanwhile, they’re all we have. So in fact, the Trotskyist become the principal canvassers for the Labour party at election time, the pillars of the union structure, recruiting union members, trying to make the union more democratic, etc. They actually help to preserve the unions’ hold over the workers and thus are acting directly against the possibility of any massive action outside and against them in the future. Those anarchists (like the WSM) who are helping to strengthen the unions today are doing this just as much as the SWP or other Trotskyists.

Alf, 15/4/05

For a more developed argument about the role of the trade unions, the original text of our pamphlet Unions against the working class is online: pamphlets/unions.htm

The movement of the students in France against the CPE has succeeded in pushing back the bourgeoisie, which withdrew the CPE (First Employment Contract) on 10 April. But if the government was obliged to retreat, it was also and above all because the workers mobilised in solidarity with the children of the working class, as we saw at the demonstrations of 18 March, 28 March and 4 April.

Despite the strategy of trying to undermine the movement by degrees, the students were not intimidated by capital, with its cops, agents and informers.

Through their exemplary courage and determination, their deep sense of solidarity, their confidence in the working class, the students in struggle (and the most mature and conscious high school pupils) managed to convince the workers and bring them out onto the street with them. Numerous wage earners from all sectors, public and private, were present at the demonstrations.

This movement of solidarity within the working class as a whole was a real worry for the world bourgeoisie. This is why the media systematically deformed reality and why the German bourgeoisie was forced to hold back the application of the CPE’s twin law in Germany. In this sense, the international impact of the struggle of the students in France was one of the great victories of the movement.

The most mediocre scribblers of capital (like those who work for Liberation, which announced that the movement was a new dawn for the children of the ‘middle class’) can always chant a mass or sing the Marseillaise, but the combat against the CPE was not a rerun of the French revolution led by later-day Jacobins, nor was it some kind of  ‘Orange Revolution’.

Even if, owing to their lack of experience, their naivety and their limited knowledge of the history of the workers’ movement, the great majority of the students in struggle didn’t yet have a clear understanding of the historic significance of their struggle, they have opened the gates to the future. They have taken up the torch from their forebears: those who put an end to the war of 1914-18 by standing up for the international solidarity of the working class across the battlefield; those who continued to defend, in clandestinity, the principles of proletarian internationalism during the second world holocaust; those who from May 68 on, put an end to the long period of the Stalinist counter-revolution and prevented the outbreak of a third world war.

The trade unions come to the government’s aid – and vice versa

If the bourgeoisie retreated, it was also to save its trade unions a lot of problems. The ruling class (which benefited from the solidarity of the capitalist class in all the major countries of Europe and in the US) understood in the end that it was better for it to ‘lose face’ temporarily than to expose its trade union apparatus. This is why the leader of the bosses, Laurence Parisot, who performed brilliantly in his role of mediator and partner in social peace, went to ‘negotiate’ with the joint union committee, the Intersyndicale.

The government gave in to pressure from the streets because in many workplaces questions were beginning to be asked about the attitude of the unions. The latter did nothing to help express the workers’ solidarity with the students, far from it. In the great majority of companies, public and private, there were no union leaflets calling for the demonstration of 18 March. The announcement of a strike – “a day of action and mobilisation” – on 28 March and 4 April was made by the union leadership at the last minute in a situation of utter confusion. And the unions did all they could to prevent the holding of sovereign general assemblies, using the argument that the wage workers “don’t have the same methods of struggle as the students”(as Bernard Thibault put it on Le Grand Jury on TV on 26 March)! As for their threat of calling a ‘rolling general strike’ at the end of the movement, numerous workers saw this for what it was - a complete bluff.

The only sector where the unions put a real effort into calling the workers out on strike during the days of action on 28 March and 4 April was in transport. But these strike calls had the precise goal of sabotaging the solidarity of the whole working class with the struggle against the CPE. The total blockage of transports is a classic manoeuvre of the unions, especially the CGT, aimed at making strikes unpopular and setting workers against each other. The fact that the union calls for a shut-down of transport were not widely followed made it possible for a maximum number of workers to get to the demonstrations. Another thing that showed the unions’ loss of credibility in the workplaces was the fact that at the demos a large number of wage workers gathered together on the pavement as far away as possible from the union banners.

And it was because the workers of the private sector, like those of SNECMA and Citroen in the Paris region, began to mobilise in solidarity with the students, with the unions being forced to ‘follow’ the movement in order not to lose control of it, that the bosses put pressure on the government to draw back before spontaneous strikes began breaking out in key enterprises in the private sector.

To prevent the unions being completely by-passed and discredited by an uncontrolled movement of wage earners, the French bourgeoisie had no alternative but to rush to the assistance of the unions, withdrawing the CPE as soon as possible after the demonstration of 4 April.

The most intelligent journalists had already foreseen this – for example Nicolas Domenach who said on TV on 7 March that the country was full of inflammable material.

In this sense Monsieur Villepin was not lying when he told the clowns at the National Assembly after one of the ‘days of action’ that his main concern was not the defence of his personal pride, but ‘the general interest’ (ie the interest of the national capital).

Faced with this situation, the less stupid sectors of the ruling class sounded the alarm by announcing the decision to find a quick exit to the crisis after the day of action on 4 April, when several million demonstrators came out onto the streets, including many workers from the private sector

Despite this wonderful demonstration of solidarity by the capitalist state towards its trade unions, the latter had lost too many feathers to be able to mystify the working class with a load of ‘radical’ speeches. It was precisely in order to be able to occupy the whole social terrain that the traditional card of ‘trade union divisions’ was brought out at the end the movement, pitting the bigger union federations (CGT, CFDT, FO, CGC, UNEF) against the ‘radical’ ones (SUD, CNT).

As for the ‘national coordination’, by the time the movement ended it could be seen very clearly that its main aim was to exhaust the students, to demoralise them and make them look ridiculous in front of the TV cameras (as happened in Lyon on the weekend of 8 and 9 April when delegates from all over France spent two days voting on….whether they should be voting).

The contribution of the leftists and the ‘strategy of undermining’

Faced with the diminishing credibility of the unions, we saw the leftists coming to centre stage in this Comedie Francaise (whereas at the demo of 18 March the militants of  Lutte Ouvriere - LO- seemed content to blow up balloons and put LO stickers on anyone that would wear them).

While the government and its ‘social partners’ had decided to open negotiations to find an ‘honourable’ way out of the crisis, leading to the withdrawal of the CPE on 10 April, we saw LO making all kinds of radical gestures at the 11 April march in Paris, which had the job of burying the movement. A maximum of ‘jusqu’au-boutiste’ (‘fighters to the bitter end’) students and high school pupils were called out to ‘radicalise’ the movement behind the red flags of LO (alongside the blue and white scarves of SUD or the red and black of the CNT).

All the leftist or anarchoid cliques were there in a touching display of unity behind the slogan “withdraw the CPE, the CNE and the equal opportunity law” or “Villepin resign!”

The most experienced workers know very well what the purpose of this kind of exhibition is. It’s to deceive the students looking for a political perspective, offering them a superficial radicalism which hides a fundamentally capitalist policy. The card of ‘rank and file unionism’ is also being played by these phoney revolutionaries in order to complete the strategy of undermining the movement. The leftists and the most excitable anarchists tried at Rennes, Nantes, Aix or Toulouse to push the ‘jusqu’au-boutiste’ students into a series of physical confrontations with their own comrades, who had begun to vote for an end to the strike in the universities.

The resort to this radical form of trade unionism is a manoeuvre manipulated by certain branches of the state. It is aimed at dragging the most militant workers and students into the ideology of reformism.

Today most of the discussion and reflection about these events is being controlled by the professional saboteurs of LO, of SUD (born out of a split in the CFDT in the transport sector in 1988) and above all of the Trotskyists of LCR (which has always seen the universities as its private hunting ground and which again called on the students to ‘put pressure’ on the union leadership so that they would call the other workers into the struggle). All these ‘radical’ factions of the apparatus for controlling the working class have tried to run with the student movement in order to deform it and pull it back onto the terrain of elections (all these people present candidates to the elections), into the defence of legality and democracy.

It’s because the CPE was a symbol of the historic bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production that the whole ‘radical’ left – red, pink and green – is now hiding behind the chameleons of the anti-globalisation front ATTAC, with the idea of convincing us that we can build an ‘alternative world’ inside a system where exploitation and the search for profit still exist.

As soon as the workers began to express their solidarity with the students, we saw the unions, the left parties and the leftists of all stripes trying to occupy the entire field, trying to herd the students into the trap of inter-classism and petty bourgeois thinking. The grand supermarket of reformism was opened wide, selling us the tasty recipes of Jose Bove, of Chavez (the president of Venezuela much touted by the LCR), of Bernard Kouchner or other NGO figures who regularly try to make the workers feel guilty and think that their charitable donations can end the famines or epidemics in Africa…

As for the wage workers who mobilised against the CPE, they were now called upon to have confidence in the unions, which allegedly have the monopoly on strike action (and above all on secret negotiations with the government and the bosses).

After the withdrawal of the CPE, what is the perspective?

In the general assemblies held after the holidays, the students showed considerable maturity by voting to end the strike and resume their courses, while at the same time affirming their determination to continue reflecting on the formidable movement of solidarity they had just experienced. It is true that many of them who wanted to maintain the strike felt frustrated because the government had really only made a small step backwards by reformulating an article from the law on ‘equal opportunity’. But the main gain of the struggle is located at the political level because the students succeeded in drawing the workers into a vast movement of solidarity involving all generations.

Many of the students who wanted to carry on the struggle felt nostalgic about the mobilisation, “when we were all together, united in action”.

But unity and solidarity can also be developed through collective reflection, because in all the universities and enterprises links have been made between students and between workers. The most conscious students and workers know that tomorrow “if we fight alone, we will be eaten alive”, whatever the colour of the future government. (the Socialist minister Allegre talked about the need to “slim down the mammoth” of National Education?).

This is why the students, and the whole working class, must understand the need to draw a clear balance sheet of the struggle against the CPE around the following questions: what was the strength of the movement? What traps do we need to avoid? Why did the unions drag their feet so much and how did they regain control of the movement? What was the role played by the ‘coordination’?

In order to carry forward this process of reflection and prepare for future battles, students and workers need to form discussion groups and reject the advances of those who want to use their movement for electoral purposes. They must not forget that those who now present themselves as their best defenders worked to sabotage the movement by negotiating behind its back, or by leading it into dead-end confrontations (didn’t the Intersyndicale on more than one occasion march the students towards the trap of the Sorbonne and allow the ‘wreckers’ to attack the students?).

The movement against the CPE showed the need for the politicisation of the new generation of the working class in the face of the cynicism of the bourgeoisie and its ‘equal opportunities’ law. You don’t need to study Karl Marx’s Capital to understand that ‘equality’ under capitalism is just a mirage. You would have to be a complete idiot to believe that the children of unemployed workers who live in the ghettoes can have a smooth path to their university studies. As for ‘equal opportunity’, the whole working class knows that it exists only in the lottery. This is why the government’s proposed law was such a provocation for the student youth.

The dynamic towards the politicisation of the new proletarian generation can only really move forward by developing a more global, historical, and international vision of the attacks of the bourgeoisie. And in order to be able to get rid of capitalism and construct another kind of society, the new generations of the working class will have to face up to all of the traps laid by the guard-dogs of the ruling class, whether in the universities or business or the state.

The time has come to close the ‘box of dead-end actions’ offered by the unions, leftists and anarchists and to once again open the ‘box of ideas’, so that the whole working class can reflect upon and discuss the future that capitalism has in store for us. Only this process of collective action and debate can enable the new generation to return tomorrow, stronger and more united, to the struggle against the incessant attacks of the bourgeoisie. 

ICC 23/4/6

The general strike in Britain took place 80 years ago. The following article first appeared in the sixth issue of World Revolution, in 1976. It clearly sets out the lessons of this famous struggle, placing it firmly in the historical context of the defeat of the revolutionary wave of 1917-1921.

However, thirty years on, we also have to note that it displays certain weaknesses. Most seriously there is a tendency to write off the Communist Parties too early, shown in the comment that, in calling on the workers to follow the TUC, the CP in Britain was already “confirming its Stalinist role”. The CP’s official line in the strike clearly showed that the leadership acted as the left-wing of the bourgeoisie, but the process of ‘Stalinisation’ in the British party was not yet complete, as shown by very weak expressions of proletarian resistance right up until the early 1930s (albeit undermined by defence of Trotsky’s opportunist positions).

The reference in the article to attempts to organise workers’ militias also hints at the fact that, even with the odds stacked against it, there were efforts in the working class to go beyond the confines of the struggle set by the trade unions and the CP leadership.

Less seriously, the article is spare in its description of the political minorities of the class and in particular of the history of left communism in Britain, being written in a period when newly re-emerged revolutionary movement was still re-appropriating the buried history of the communist left fractions. For more information on this subject we can now refer readers to the ICC book on the history of The British Communist Left.

Fifty years ago, the proletariat and bour­geoisie in Britain confronted each other on a scale not seen in this country before, or to this day. After less than two weeks of strike action, the proletariat began drifting back to work confused, demoralised and defeated. This confrontation between the classes was one of the last thrusts of that global revolutionary wave which reached its peak between 1917 and 1923.

Today, this episode - the General Strike of 1926 - is being ‘celebrated’ by the very organisations which helped to smash it. Today the trade unions, the Labour Party, the Communist Party, together with their bastardised offspring, the Trotskyists (who largely postdate those events of fifty years ago), are dancing on the corpses of millions of workers who have been butchered by capitalism throughout the last fifty years of counter-revolution; with slight variations they sing the same disgusting song: ‘Three cheers for the plucky British workers of 1926 who, unfortunately, were sold down the river by a small group of traitorous union leaders ... but three cheers for the trade unions anyway.’

Fifty years ago, the proletariat in Britain was defeated - not by brute force, but by lies, mystifications, and confusions. The events of 1926 showed, irrevocably and totally, the reactionary nature of the trade union apparatus, and the integration of all union organisations into the bourgeoisie.

Reformist organisations and decadent capitalism

The General Strike can only be understood in terms of the epoch in which it occurred. It certainly was not merely a sectional struggle between the miners and the mine-owners; the entire proletariat in Britain was defeated. The first inter-imperialist war of 1914-18 had marked the end of the period of capitalism’s ascendancy. With the saturation of world markets in the decade preceding World War I, capitalism entered its decadent phase and could from then on only follow one path - that of crisis, war, recon­struction, and so on. With the onset of decadence, capitalism was no longer able to grant lasting, general reforms to the working class; thus working class reformism was no longer possible. The end of reformism, with the onset of decadence, had been perceived in the workers’ movement as early as 1898:

“Trade Union action is reduced of nece­ssity to the simple defence of already realised gains and even that is becoming more and more difficult. Such is the general trend of things in our society. The counterpart of this tendency should be the development of the political side of the class struggle.”(1)

The working class had built up massive, reformist institutions in the period of capitalism’s ascendancy. In decadence, however, a completely new question was posed: ‘What becomes of such reformist organisations, what role do they fill in the development of the class struggle?’

The outbreak of war essentially answered that question. The Social Democratic and trade union organisations throughout the world capitulated to the needs of their various national capitals; the class struggle was officially ‘suspended’ for the duration of the war, as the proletariat was led off to the slaughter. But lessons as historically new and fundamental as this, the lesson that the organisational forms created by the proletariat could go over to the bourgeoisie, are not learned that easily. The support given by the reformist organisations to the inter-imperialist carn­age, threw the class into disarray and temporarily diverted into nationalistic sentiment the rising wave of class struggle which had been mounting since the beginning of the century. But very quickly, the struggle began again.

In Russia, the revolutionary demands of the new epoch were most quickly assimilated. The Bolsheviks consistently opposed the war, insisting that the imperialist war had to be turned into a civil war, and calling for ‘enemy’ troops to fraternise. The Russian proletariat quickly began to under­stand the nature of the trade unions in the context of the new period. The slogan “All Power to the Soviets” not only cast aside old, reformist organisational conceptions, it also emphasised and affirmed the necessity for the working class to overthrow the bourgeois state; that capitalism could only be overthrown by the conscious, political, activity of the proletariat. This revolu­tionary interpretation of the onset of capitalist decadence enabled the proletariat to seize power in Russia in 1917.

Elsewhere, the questions brought to the fore by the onset of decadence were not posed, nor answered, in such a clear manner as in Russia. In Germany, the proletariat was faced with the huge reformist political apparatus, Social Democracy, which the proletariat had created in the period of capitalist ascendancy to fight for reforms. Although the capitulation of Social Democracy to the bourgeoisie in World War I was recognised with horror by revolutionaries, they found it difficult to abandon this mass political machine. During and after World War I they still hoped that somehow, perhaps, it could be ‘saved’ from within. In Germany this error was. learned in the most brutal way possible, with the Social Democracy actively helping to put down the German Revolution between 1918 and 1923.

In Britain, it was that other arm of reformism, trade unionism, which the bourgeoisie throughout the world had used to its own ends, was used to finally smash the proletariat in 1926. The events of the General Strike were proof enough against any lingering doubt of the bourgeois class nature of unions in deca­dent capitalism.

The struggle in Britain: 1914-1921

The revolutionary wave which raged over the world did not leave Britain untouched. From 1910 onwards strikes increased; between the January and the June of 1914 over nine million working days were lost. There was a brief lull at the outbreak of the War, in Britain as elsewhere, but very quickly the class struggle recovered. The ending of the war did not lessen these struggles for long: in 1919 the Clyde workers were in revolt and by 1921, the miners were again fighting to preserve their living standards.

However, throughout the worldwide period of heightening class struggle, the fight in Britain never really crystallised into a clear political awareness that the period of reformism was over, and with it the rule of the bourgeoisie. The strikes, while implying it, never openly challenged the political supremacy of the bourgeoisie, incarnated in the state. The revolutionary minority within the class in Britain was small, fragmented, and itself unclear about the necessity to confront the state. The lessons which had been clearly grasped much earlier by revolutionaries in Germany, for example, were still not understood in Britain:

“It is contrary to history to represent work for reforms as a long drawn-out revolution and revolution as a condensed series of reforms. A social transfor­mation and a legislative reform do not differ according to their duration but according to their content. The secret of historic change through ‘the utilisation of political power resides precisely in the transformation of simple quanti­tative modification into a new quality, or to speak more concretely, in the passage of a historic period from one given form of society into another.”(2)

In 1914, the strongest anti-war voices could be heard on the Clyde (3). But these tended to be negative - against conscription and against the war effort in the munitions factories - but not calling the class to organise itself in opposition to the state. The left communists around Sylvia Pankhurst and the Workers’ Dreadnought, who did up­hold a revolutionary defeatist position on the question of the war, and who saw the need to smash the bourgeois state, did not emerge until 1917, developing very largely in response to the events in Russia. Nonetheless Pankhurst’s group, anti-parliament and aware of the importance of the workers’ councils, was unable to prevent the Communist Party, formed in late 1920, from pledging to work within the existing trade union structure. There were many features peculiar to the British situation which help to explain the confused way in which questions were posed by the British proletariat during the revolutionary wave of the early l920s. First, the British bourgeoisie had emerged ‘victor­ious’ at the close of the war, and the imme­diate share-out of the raw materials and markets of the defeated countries created a seeming post-war boom. This apparent ‘recov­ery’ gave support to the view that reform was still possible and thus bolstered the long, deeply entrenched acceptance of trade unionism within the working class. But the period of post-war reconstruction was short-lived. By 1921, the full pressures of savage international competition were felt again and the bourgeoisie had the urgent task of reducing the living standards of the class. But how were they to do this, faced with increasingly combative workers?

Ironically, the very confusions which were rife within the proletariat concerning the class nature of the trade unions also abounded within the ranks of the bourgeoisie in 1921. In spite of the absolute co-operation capitalism had received from the unions during the war, when hard-fought gains won by the proletariat in the previous epoch were totally lost, including the ‘right’ to strike - the bourgeoisie was unsure of the trade unions. The groundswell of proletarian combativity since the war pushed the trade unions willy-nilly into taking a stand on issues they would sooner have ignored; the backing given by the Labour Party and the TUC to the ‘Hands off Russia’ movement was inevitable given the mass popular following this campaign had. The Clyde dockers, for example, were refusing to load the ships taking supplies to the White Armies fighting the proletarian bastion in Russia. But such a stance by the trade unions - in reality a necessity if they were to appear to represent the working class - was not fully understood as such by the bourgeoisie. So, in 1921, given the exigencies of the crisis, the bourgeoisie had to reduce the wages of the miners and other workers, but they were unclear as to what role the unions and TUC would play.

The declaration of a reduction in miners’ wages brought an immediate response from the whole working class, and once again the unions were swept along by the groundswell. The long since defunct ‘Triple Alliance’ of mines, railway, and transport unions was resuscitated as workers in these vital and massive industrial sectors demanded united action. A mass strike, at least, seemed inevitable. The bourgeoisie reacted in a nervous, panicky fashion; troops were sent into the coalfields, and machine guns were mounted at pit-heads. But the confrontation never occurred. At the last minute the transport and railway unions withdrew their support from the Triple Alliance and strike notices were withdrawn. Once again, in 1921 as at the onset of the war, the proletariat was effectively confused and in disarray, still unclear about the reactionary nature of the union apparatus. The miners struck on their own and, three months later, when driven back to work out of hunger, faced wage cuts of between 10% and 40%. Wage cuts for other workers followed as the earlier strike impetus waned in the confusion and demoralisation of the ensuing events. Shipyard, engineering and textile workers had wage cuts forced upon them, and living standards dwindled to levels comparable to those suffered by the class at the turn of the century.

The bourgeoisie prepares: 1921-1926

The bourgeoisie, for its part, was quick on the uptake following 1921 - it recognised clearly which side of the class line the trade unions, as organisations, now stood. It was not that some ‘sectors’ or ‘leaders’ had betrayed their class, but that the trade union structure as a whole had capitulated to the bourgeoisie and the interests of capital. And the trade unions were seen to be indispensable to the state from the bourgeoisie’s point of view in that the working class retained a belief that these organisations were still its own and fought for them as they had in the past. So, when the miners’ union in 1921 talked in the name of the miners, and didn’t visibly betray the class as the other two-thirds of the ‘Triple Alliance’ had done, the bourgeoisie could reap the benefits of not only a demoralised, sectionalised working class, but a working class which retained mystifications about what and who had been responsible for its defeat.

The coming to power of a Labour Government in 1924 proved to be largely irrelevant: the mystification of parliamentarism had little impact upon the proletariat. The Labour Government was largely seen for what it was -a bourgeois government acting in the interests of the national capital. Indeed, within a few days of MacDonald’s government coming to office, a strike of 110,000 dock workers took place. The strike was settled after three days, but not before the Government had made arrangements to use troops for the movement of essential supplies. However, this reaffirmation that parliament was to be rejected as a means for furthering working class struggle was still identified by the proletariat with a rejection of all political action. There was still a strong belief within the class that despite the savage blow dealt it by the events of 1921, industrial action alone could herald the onset of socialism.

Towards the end of 1924, when the world-wide revolutionary wave was on the wane, the combativity of the British proletariat swelled up again, in the face of further onslaughts upon its standard of life. The bourgeoisie prepared itself once more for a confrontation. As in 1921, the miners were the focus of the struggle. This time, the bourgeoisie did not panic; there was no frenzied movement of troops to the mines. This time they carefully delayed the struggle. A threatened reduction in miners’ wages of 25%, and a lengthening of the working day was postponed by the government; instead a subsidy was given to the industry, to last the nine months until 1 May 1926. This time, the bourgeoisie and its state, knew full well which side the trade unions were on. Indeed, the unions reacted to the announcement of the subsidy in an appropriate manner; 31 July 1925 was declared ‘Red Friday’ and hailed as a great victory for the miners. But there are no partial ‘victories’ for the proletariat within decadent capitalism. All that was gained by the granting of the subsidy was the postponement of inevitable conflict. Years later Baldwin, the then Prime Minister, was asked why the government had ‘given way’ on Red Friday. He replied, quite simply, “We were not ready”. The postponement of the confrontation enabled the bourgeoisie to prepare for its attack on the class.

During the subsequent nine months while the subsidy was in effect, the state prepared for battle. Assured by the unions of their ‘great victory’ on Red Friday, the miners went on busily digging coal while the bourgeoisie, just as busily, went on stockpiling it in order to soften the blow on the economy when industrial action ultimately came. By late November 1925, a scheme was outlined for the control of transport, food and fuel, for the maintenance of law and order, for the encouragement of the recruitment into the army, and for the taking over of the nation’s haulage companies. In September there was a ‘private’ call for volunteers to join an Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS) which, on the eve of the General Strike, was handed over by its ‘private’ organisers to the state.

During these months the unions continued to play their part by bombastically talking of working class interests and thereby providing the smokescreen behind which the bourgeoisie could quietly mobilise its resources. The Trade Union Congress at Scarborough in September 1925 was an enthusiastic riot of rhetoric and left-wing demagogy. The leftist verbiage managed to further confuse the proletariat into thinking that, perhaps, at long last, the trade unions were going to show some muscle, and maybe even become transformed into revolutionary organisations. Not content with one smokescreen, the bourgeoisie invented others. The Samuel Commission was set up during this period to examine ‘impartially’ the structure of the coal industry. After lengthy deliberations it finally announced the necessity for long-term “radical re-organisation”. Hence the lie was propagated that the problems of the industry were due to mismanagement, not that, capitalism itself was suffering the ill-effects of increasingly cut-throat competition on the world market. (As it happened, this ‘radical re-organisation’ had to wait until the fifties, when the unions so effectively reduced manning levels, closed pits, and generally acted in the best interests of British capital.) While the Samuel Commi­ssion was prepared to blame management for not managing well, it also could not help insisting that wages be cut and hours increased. Nothing had changed. A general strike was on the cards: even the TUC General Council realised it had no other option.

The class militancy which had resurged throughout 1925, finally burst forth and millions of workers responded to the strike call. The TUC, with Pandora’s box open before it, exclaimed in horror that the response “surpassed all expectations”.

Given the immense, but directionless, mass movement, where was the revolutionary communist minority to point the way forward? By 1926, the communist groupings which had existed previously, were practically nonexistent. The Communist Party, though genuinely revolutionary in its early days if confused about trade unionism, was with the reflux of the world revolution, by 1926 acting as the tool of Russian state capitalism. The isolated proletarian bastion in Russia had, by then, passed into the counter-revolution. What revolutionary elements which remained were fragmented and scattered in the wake of the growing counter-revolution. Even the Pankhurst group of left communists had more or less disappeared from the scene in 1924, and did not re-emerge in l926. It was in this context then that the British proletariat went on strike in 1926; ready to fight but totally uncertain as to what it was fighting for, and with little or no hope that its brave efforts would find any reverberations in other sections of the world class.

The TUC did its best to sabotage any spontaneous class activity. The first issue of the TUC paper, The British Worker, counselled the class to have a good time:

“The General Council suggests that in all districts where large numbers of workers are idle, sports should be organised and entertainments arranged.”

Some of the ‘entertainments’ even included football matches between the striking miners and the local police forces. But the Cardiff, union-dominated, strike committee went one better:

“Keep smiling. Refuse to be provoked. Get into your garden. Look after your wife and kiddies. If you have not got a garden, get into the country, the parks and playgrounds.”

To re-inforce its vital role at local level, the trade unions set up local councils of action, largely based upon existing local trades councils. Spontaneous class activity was thereby channelled into these trade unionist organisations which concentrated their efforts on distributing food and fuel. In many areas where attempts were made to organise workers’ militias, these attempts were immediately condemned by the union apparatus.

The Communist Party, active in many of the local councils of action, was confirming its Stalinist role by urging the workers to “follow the TUC and insist on the formation of the Workers’ Alliance under the supreme authority of the General Council”. Its long-term goal was to assist in the formation of another Labour government pledged to a policy of nationalisations.

What was being played out in the General Strike was the charade of ‘Who Rules Britain?’ - the government or the trade unions? Meanwhile, the proletariat was being indiscriminately trampled underfoot by both. The Home Secretary, Joyson-Hicks, (the Ted Heath of his day) set this up:

“Is England to be governed by parliament and the cabinet or by a handful of trade union leaders?”(4)

The more backward elements of the bourgeoisie were wheeled out to help perpetuate the myth that the unions were against the government. Winston Churchill called the strike “a deliberate, concerted, organised menace” and warned of a “Soviet of Trade Unions” (sic). He was put in charge of the government newspaper, The British Gazette, and pumped out hysterical, anti-union tirades throughout the course of the strike. This extreme anti-union posturing served two functions. Not only did it get the proletariat to identify with the unions, but it also helped to mobilise the petty-bourgeoisie behind capital under the rallying cry: ‘Come help us preserve democracy and the constitution’. Thousands of petty-bourgeois people, including large numbers of university students, answered the call in a well-orchestrated attack on the working class.

After nine days, and after secret negotia­tions between Samuel, acting in an ‘unofficial’ capacity, and the TUC General Council, the latter called off the strike. No assurances had been given by the government, no concessions had been made. Circulars were sent to union headquarters throughout the country telling them to call off the strike.

This time the disarray of the proletariat was complete. There was some attempt to continue the struggle unofficially and indeed on the days immediately following the ‘official’ stoppage, the number of strikers rose. But the process by which the spontaneous action of the class had been funnelled into the councils of action and the local trades councils had been extremely effective. Slowly, defeated and demoralised, the workers returned to work.

The mystifications, however, had yet to run their full course - the workers had to be provided with a good safe explanation of their defeat. And there was one quick in coming. The General Council had ‘betrayed’ the class, and individuals - especially the TUC General Secretary, J.H. Thomas, were singled out as class traitors and much vilified. But, after all, the bourgeoisie could afford a few martyrs in such a cause as the destruction of the proletariat.

Fifty years on

The real defeat of the proletariat occurred, not with the General Strike, but earlier with the failure of the revolutionary wave of 1917 to spread throughout the world class. The trade union mystifications could have been overcome within the context of a deepening world-wide struggle. For its part, the bourgeoisie in Britain successfully managed to put off its final confrontation with the proletariat until a time when the wider struggle was on the wane. But also, its delayed confrontation enabled it to learn the lessons which the decadent era of capitalism had thrust to the fore, and particularly it grasped the changed nature of the trade unions more clearly than did the working class.

Fifty years ago, it was difficult for the class to discard those organisational forms it had created in the ascendant epoch of capitalism - organisations which had, over and over again in the nineteenth century, delivered the goods in terms of realising material reforms. Today, after fifty years of counter-revolution, the evidence of the bankruptcy of unions and other reformist organisations is plain to be seen. Fifty years ago it was at least plausible to think that a ‘few evil men’ might be responsible for the attacks on the class by the trade union apparatus - today, the integration of the trade unions into the state is unmistakeable.

The very same mystifications that the left face of capitalism was forced to adopt in the l920s are being reused today; but, like old clothes, are a bit thin and moth-eaten. Organisations, like the trade unions, the Communist Party, the Labour Party, and the ragbag of leftists who give ‘critical’ support to all the rest, continue to be presented as ‘workers’ organisations’. But that sham is wearing out, and such organisations increasingly expose themselves as none other than capitalism dressed in another guise.

Fifty years ago, the balance of class forces had moved in favour of the bourgeoisie. It could use these mystifications against a proletariat which was already sinking into defeat. Today, it trots out the same, old devices, but in totally altered circumstances. For today the working class is confident, undefeated - and a class with over fifty years experience of decadent capitalism can recognise that history only poses two alternatives: socialism or barbarism. Fifty years of barbarism has taught us that.

Ruth Peterson

Notes

1. Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution.

2. Ibid.

3. In particular, John Maclean and others in the Clyde Workers’ Committee took a strong anti-war line initially, but were quickly pulled into the confusions of the Shop Stewards’ Movement. See ‘The First Shop Stewards’ Movement’ by Frank Smith in World Revolution, no.4.

4. Chris Farman, The General Strike: Britain’s Aborted Revolution?, (Panther).

Our comrade Clara died at Tenon hospital in Paris on Saturday 15 April, at the age of 88.

Clara was born on 8 October 1917 in Paris. Her mother, Rebecca, was of Russian origin. She came to France because, as a Jew in her birthplace of Simferopol in the Crimea, she was not allowed to study medicine. In Paris, she became a nurse. Before coming to France, she was already a militant of the workers’ movement since she had participated in the foundation of the section of the social democratic party in Simferopol. Clara’s father, Paul Geoffroy was a skilled worker in the jewellery trade. Before the First World War, he was a member of the anarcho-syndicalist CGT, then moved towards the Communist Party after the Russian revolution of 1917.

Thus, since her earliest years, Clara had been educated in the tradition of the workers’ movement. At the age of 15 she joined the Jeunesse Communiste (Communist youth movement). In 1934, she went with her father to Moscow to visit the sister of her mother, who had died when Clara was only 12. What she saw in Russia, among other things the fact that new homes were reserved for a minority of privileged elements and not for workers, led her to pose questions about the ‘socialist fatherland’, and on her return she broke with the JC. At that time she had already had a lot of discussions with our comrade Marc Chirik (whom she had met when she was nine since Clara’s mother was a friend of the sister of Marc’s first wife), despite opposition from her father who, having stayed loyal to the CP, didn’t want her hanging around with ‘Trotskyists’.

In 1938 Clara, now 21, no longer needed her father’s consent and she and Marc got married.

At this point, Marc was a member of the Italian Fraction, and although Clara was not a member, she was a sympathiser of the group. During the war, Marc was mobilised into the French army (although he wasn’t French and for many years his only identity paper was an expulsion order whose deadline was prolonged every two weeks). He was based in Angouleme at the time the French army collapsed. With a comrade of the Italian Fraction in Belgium (who had fled the advance of the German troops because he was Jewish), Clara left Paris by bike to join up with Marc in Angouleme. When she arrived, Marc, along with other soldiers, had been imprisoned by the German army who, fortunately, had not yet found out that he was a Jew. By bringing him civilian clothes, Clara helped Marc, and another Jewish comrade, escape from the barracks where he was a prisoner. Marc and Clara reached the ‘free’ zone and got to Marseille by bike in September 1940. It was in Marseille that Marc played a leading role in reorganising the Italian Fraction, which had been dislocated at the beginning of the war.

Without formally being a member, Clara participated in the work and discussions which made it possible to reconstitute the Italian Fraction. Despite the dangers posed by the German occupation, she succeeded in transporting from one town to another political documents addressed to other comrades of the Italian Fraction.

During this period, Clara also participated in the activities of the Organisation de Secours des Enfants, which looked after and hid Jewish children in order to protect them from the Gestapo.

But it was at the moment of the ‘Liberation’ that Marc and Clara had their closest encounter with death. The Stalinist ‘Resistors’ of the Parti Communiste Francais arrested them in Marseille. They were accused of being traitors and of collaborating with the ‘Boches’, since when they raided their home the Stalinists found notebooks written in German. In fact these notebooks were inscribed during the German lessons that Marc and Clara had been receiving from Voline (a Russian anarchist who had participated in the 1917 revolution). Voline, despite the terrible poverty in which he lived, did not want to receive any material help. So Marc and Clara asked him to give them German lessons, after which he would agree to share a meal with them.

During this raid, the Stalinists also found internationalist leaflets written in French and German and addressed to the soldiers of both camps.

It was thanks to a Gaullist officer who was in charge of the prison (and whose wife knew Clara, having worked with her in the OSE), that Marc and Clara were able to escape the justice of the PCF killers. This officer had initially prevented the Stalinists from shooting Marc and Clara (they had said to Marc, “Stalin hasn’t got you but we will have your skin”). Surprised that Jews were accused of being ‘collaborators’, he wanted to ‘understand’ the political standpoint which had led Marc and Clara to put out propaganda in favour of fraternisation between French and German troops. The officer recognised that their attitude had nothing to do with some kind of ‘treason’ in favour of the Nazi regime. He thus helped them to escape from prison in his own car, advising them to leave Marseille as quickly as possible before the Stalinists could find them.

Marc and Clara went to Paris where they joined up with other comrades and sympathisers of the Italian Fraction and the French Fraction of the Communist Left. Up until 1952, Clara continued to support the work of the Communist Left of France (GCF – the new name taken by the French Fraction).

In 1952, the GCF, faced with the danger of a new world war, took the decision that some of its militants should leave Europe in order to preserve the organisation in case the continent was once again plunged into war. Marc left for Venezuela in June 1952. Clara joined up with him in January 1953 when he finally succeeded in finding a stable job.

In Venezuela, Clara returned to her profession as a primary school teacher. In 1955, with a colleague, she founded a French school in Caracas, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau College which at the beginning only had 12 pupils, mainly girls who were unable to go to the only other French school in town, which was run by monks. The College, with Clara as principal and Marc as caretaker, gardener and driver of the school bus, eventually had over a hundred pupils. Some of them, upon whom Clara’s qualities as a teacher and a human being had made a considerable impact, stayed in contact with her until her death. One of her former pupils, now living in the USA, visited her in 2004.

After the departure of Marc and other comrades, the GCF broke up. It was only in 1964 that Marc was able to form a small nucleus of very young elements, who began to publish the review Internacialismo in Venezuela.

During this period, Clara was not directly involved in the political activities of Internacialismo but her school provided materials and was the meeting place for the group’s activities.

In May 1968, Marc went to France to participate in the social movement and re-establish contact with his former comrades of the communist left. It was during his stay in France that the Venezuelan police raided Jean-Jacques Rousseau College and found political material there. The College was closed and indeed demolished. Clara was forced to leave Venezuela in a hurry to join up with Marc. It was during this period that Marc and Clara again settled in Paris.

From 1968 onwards, Marc participated in the work of the group Revolution Internationale, which was formed in Toulouse. From 1971, Clara was fully integrated into the activities of RI, which was to become the ICC’s section in France.

Since that time she was a faithful militant of our organisation, playing her part in all the activities of the ICC. After the death of Marc in December 1990, she continued her militant activity within the organisation, to which she was always very attached. Even if she was personally very affected by the departure of certain old comrades who were involved in the foundation of the ICC, these desertions never put her commitment to the ICC into question.

Up to the last moment, despite her age and her health problems, she always wanted to be actively involved in the life of the ICC. In particular, she was very assiduous about paying her monthly dues and in trying to keep up with the discussions, even when she could no longer take part in the meetings. Even though she had very serious eyesight problems, Clara continued reading the press and internal documents of the ICC as much as possible (the organisation provided them in large letter format for her). Similarly, every time a comrade paid her a visit, she always asked to be brought up to date with the discussions and activities of the organisation.

Clara was a comrade whose sense of fraternity and solidarity had a big effect on all the militants of the ICC, to whom she always extended a very warm welcome. She also maintained fraternal contacts with older members of the communist left, showing them solidarity when they faced the test of illness (as in the case of Serge Bricanier, a former member of the GCF, or Jean Malaquais, a sympathiser of the GCF whom she visited in Geneva shortly before his death in 1998). After Marc’s death, she carried on transmitting this tradition of fraternity and solidarity which was a characteristic of the past workers’ movement to the new generations of militants. It was with great joy that she saw this solidarity, the hallmark of the class that is the bearer of communism, reappear in a magnificent way in the movement of the students in France. A movement which Clara greeted with enthusiasm before leaving us.

Clara faced her physical weakness and her very taxing health difficulties with remarkable courage. She left us at a moment when a new generation is opening the doors to the future.

Clara gives us the example of a woman who, throughout her life, fought alongside the working class and showed more than ordinary courage in doing so, notably by risking her life during the years of the counter-revolution. A woman who remained loyal to her revolutionary commitment and ideas to the end.

When the ICC as a whole learned of her death, the sections, and individual comrades sent a large number of testimonies to the ICC’s central organ, saluting her human warmth, her devotion to the cause of the proletariat and the great courage she showed all her life.

Clara was buried on Saturday 22 April at the Paris cemetery of Ivry (the same place where the husband of Clara Zetkin, Ossip, was buried on 31 January 1889). After the funeral, the ICC organised a meeting to pay homage to her memory, attended by several international delegations of the ICC, a number of sympathisers who had known Clara personally as well as members of her family.

To her son Marc and her grandchildren Miriam and Jan-Daniel, we send our greatest solidarity and sympathy.

We are publishing below extracts from the letter that the ICC sent to her son and his family.

ICC 25.4.06

The ICC,

To comrade Marc

Dear comrade Marc

With these few words, we want first of all to express our solidarity and sympathy following the death of Clara, your mother and our comrade. We also want to try to convey to you the emotions felt by all the comrades of our organisation.

Most of us knew Clara first as the wife of Marc, your father, who played such an important role in the combat of the working class, especially in some its worst moments, and also as the principal architect of the ICC. In itself, that is a reason for our respect and affection towards Clara: “Marc’s wife could only be a good person”. The courage and dignity she showed when your father died, despite the immense love she had for him, confirmed to us her great strength of character, a quality we already knew and which she continued to display until the day she died. But Clara was very far from just being Marc’s partner. She was a comrade who remained loyal to her convictions to the end, who continued to share all our struggles, and who, despite the difficulties of age and sickness, continued to play her part in the life of our organisation. All the comrades were impressed by her will to live and the total lucidity she maintained to the very last moments. This is why the affection and respect we had for her from the beginning have only been reinforced over the years.

Shortly before his death, your father told us of the immense satisfaction he felt over the disappearance of Stalinism, this gravedigger of the revolution and the working class. At the same time, he didn’t hide the disquiet he felt given the negative consequences that this event was going to have for the struggles and consciousness of the working class. Clara, because she kept her revolutionary convictions intact, saw her last days lit up by the resurgence of the struggles of a new generation. This is, despite our sadness, a reason for consolation for us all.

Clara was one of the last of that generation of revolutionaries who had to survive as a tiny minority defending the internationalist principles of the proletariat in the terrible years of the counter-revolution. This was a struggle led in particular by the militants of the Italian left, the Dutch left and the communist left of France, without which the ICC would not exist today. Clara sometimes spoke to us of these comrades and we could feel though her words all the esteem and affection she held for them. In this sense, after the death of your father, Clara continued to be for us a living link with that generation of communists whose heritage we claim so proudly. It is this link, as well as Clara our comrade, that we have lost today….Once again, dear Marc, we want to express our solidarity and we ask you to transmit this to solidarity to your children and other members of your family.

The ICC, 17.4.06

The triple bombings on April 24 in Dahab, a major tourist centre in Egypt, which left 30 dead and 150 wounded, is another reminder that no one in the world is safe from the fury of terrorism and war. And this will not be changed by all the ‘unanimous condemnations’ of hypocritical statesmen who tell us that they reject these acts of violence with ‘horror and outrage’.

On the contrary, this attack aimed at innocent civilians who had come to spend a few days on holiday enabled the politicians to once again reaffirm their commitment to the ‘war against terrorism’, in other words, to the continuation of massacres on an even grander scale.

Today we can measure the effectiveness of this ‘intransigent struggle’ against the ‘scourge of terrorism’ and for ‘peace and freedom’ waged by the great powers, with the US to the fore. Never has there been such an explosion of warlike tensions, of military conflicts, of blind terrorist attacks, in short of barbarism, from Africa to Asia via the Middle East.

The failure of the US military and political offensive

The war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq have ended in disaster, creating a huge zone of irredeemable chaos and instability.

We have already dealt at length with the daily horrors of the situation in Iraq (see WR 293). In Afghanistan, the invasion by the troops of the US coalition was ‘legitimised’ by the struggle against terrorism in the shape of Bin Laden in the wake of the attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001. Today the country is in a total mess. The Kabul government is under constant attack and the capital is regularly bombarded by missiles launched by the various Pathan and Afghani cliques vying for power. In the south and east of the country, the Taliban have gained ground through a series of commando raids and terrorist outrages. This has obliged the US to mount a new military operation, codenamed Mountain Lion, mobilising 2500 men with impressive air cover. It was clearly stated that the aim of this operation was to carry out massive destructions on a scale equal to that of 2001 and 2002. However, the media have played down the significance of this offensive by referring to the US State Department’s description, which underlines its mainly ‘psychological’ character, the primary goal being “to make an impression on the neo-Taliban and to reduce their impact on the local population and on international public opinion”. This is what you might call massive psychological dissuasion.  

In the Middle East, we are also seeing a plunge into barbarism. Not only has the US been unable to impose a consensus between Israel and the Palestinian Authority; its incapacity to rein in the aggressive and provocative policies of Sharon led to a political crisis both in the occupied territories and Israel itself. The various Israeli political factions are at loggerheads about what to do next. But the failure is even more striking on the Palestinian side, with the arrival in power of Hamas, a particularly retrograde and extremely anti-Israeli Palestinian faction, which is also in opposition to Fatah. We are already seeing the different Palestinian factions settling scores with each other at gunpoint in Gaza. The latter region of 1.6.million people, 60% of whom are refugees, is now being reduced to even greater misery, not only by the Israeli checkpoints which made it increasingly difficult for people to go to work in Israel, but also by the ending of international aid following the Hamas election victory.

The Israeli state’s building of the ‘apartheid wall’ on the West Bank of the Jordan can only sharpen tensions further and push more and more young, desperate Palestinians into the arms of the Islamic terrorists. When the wall is finished, 38 villages housing 49,400 Palestinians will be turned into enclaves and 230,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem will be on the Israeli side of the separating line. The wall will create a series of ‘Bantustans’, all of them cut off from each other.

The Iranian offensive, a thorn in America’s foot

The face-off between Iran and the great powers on the question of Tehran’s nuclear energy programme has got even more tense this year. With the ultimatum set by the UN Security Council, demanding that Iran end any enrichment of uranium by 28 April, and Iran’s refusal to comply, diplomatic relations have sharply deteriorated. In a world-wide context where the insanity of war is spreading all the time, this confrontation between Iran and the UN is full of dangers. It contains the risk of a new extension and aggravation of barbarism.

It is obvious that Iran is doing all it can to equip itself with nuclear weapons – this has been the case since 2000. The speeches by Iran’s leaders about the purely civilian and peaceful use of nuclear energy are just lies. Formerly a key bridgehead of the American bloc in the region, then relegated to maverick status when the Khomeini regime came to power and bled dry by the war against Iraq in the mid-80s, this country has gradually built up its strength since the 90s. Benefiting from Russian military aid and by the weakening of Iraq, its historic rival for the control of the Persian Gulf, from the first Gulf war to the 2003 invasion, Iran today is aiming to affirm itself as the new rising power of the region. It has quite a few assets at its disposal. This explains the increasingly provocative declarations by the Iranian government, aimed at the UN and above all at the US.

The Iranian state, which has seen the return to power of the most reactionary Islamist faction, presents itself as a strong and stable state, when all around it, in Iraq and Afghanistan, all is chaos and confusion. This situation allows it to carry out a pro-Arab ideological offensive and to put itself forward as the spearhead of an independent pan-Islamic identity, in contrast to Saudi Arabia which is portrayed as being a tool of the US.

Washington’s inability to impose a Pax Americana in Iraq and Afghanistan is grist to the mill of this anti-American propaganda and lends support to Iran’s insinuations that the threats from the White House are empty of substance.

The situation in Iraq itself can only strengthen Iran’s military ambitions. Apart from the obvious failure of the US occupation, the predominant influence of Shiites in the Iraqi government has further whetted Iran’s quest for imperialist influence, not only in Iraq but throughout the Persian Gulf.

At the same time, the patent disagreements between the countries participating in the Security Council have also emboldened the Iranians. While all these countries state that they are opposed to Iran developing nuclear weapons, the open divisions between them make it all the easier for Iran to harden its tone in the face of the world’s leading power. The US – and to a lesser extent the UK – have reacted by brandishing the threat of military intervention; but we have seen France take a position against any military intervention in Iran. China and Russia, as well as Germany (which is currently trying to move closer to Russia) are completely opposed to any forceful measures, above all military ones. We should remember that Russia and China have both provided Iran with material for its nuclear programme.

This has created a difficult situation for the Bush administration. Iran’s provocative attitude is forcing it to respond. However, whatever military options the US is considering – most likely air strikes, even though these would have to be against vaguely identified targets in areas of urban density – there are big risks at the domestic level. The new phase of the war in the Middle East is likely to further exacerbate the anti-war sentiments that are growing in the US population over the war in Iraq. At the same time any intervention would result in a radicalisation of the Arab countries and of all the Islamist groups, not to mention the wave of terrorist attacks in the west and rocket attacks on Israel that the Iranian state itself has promised in retaliation to any military strikes. 

Whatever the outcome of the Iran crisis, there is no doubt that it will lead to an aggravation of warlike tensions, not only between the US and the countries of the Middle East, but also between the US and its main imperialist rivals, who are just waiting for the world’s gendarme to make its next bad move so that they can reap the benefits and present it as the only real warmonger. As for the populations who will be decimated by war, this is the last concern for any of these imperialist gangsters.   Mulan 25.4.06

Blair or Brown? Brown or Cameron? Or should we look to more ‘radical alternatives’, like Respect or the BNP, who claim to be different from the usual gang of politicians?

All the politicians, from far right to far left, want to manage the existing state, the existing economy. They want to make the existing state machine and the existing economic system more efficient, more profitable, or more ’democratic’. But the existing economic system is based on the exploitation of our labour power. It can only prosper at our expense. And in any case, today it is not prospering: it is sunk in a profound crisis. And the only response to the crisis by the politicians and other managers of the system is to try to cut costs by further reducing our living standards and by further ransacking the environment. It is to make the national economy compete better against other national economies, which not only means intensifying our exploitation, but also serves to drag the whole planet into a spiral of imperialist conflicts and wars.  

All the alternatives offered by the official political parties are false alternatives. The real alternative is offered by the struggles of our class brothers and sisters, in Britain, France, Spain, America, Argentina, India or China, against the attacks on living standards and the effects of the economic crisis. It is through these struggles that we will discover our own interests, our own ability to organise, our own power to paralyse the existing system and replace it with a society based on the needs of humanity.

A month ago all talk was of how soon Blair should step down as prime minister. Today the focus is on John Prescott, and how soon he should go now he no longer has a cabinet department to run. He has described himself as a ‘shield’, being attacked as a proxy for Tony Blair. In other words this is all part of the campaign to put pressure on the PM and the Labour government. This is the only way to make sense of the campaign: the use of subordinate staff, such as Prescott’s diary secretary, for sexual favours may be scandalous but it is hardly unusual for powerful politicians; the use of lavish grace and favour properties such as Dorneywood is also normal for our political rulers.

The focus on the Deputy Prime Minister follows a whole series of scandals about the government, and an increasing number of articles looking at the advantages of replacing Blair with either Gordon Brown or David Cameron, and more recently of replacing Prescott, or even Blair, with Alan Johnson. And as we write this, more cabinet ministers are vying for the deputy PM job.

This doesn’t mean that the government is not doing a good job for the ruling class. Far from it. The bourgeoisie needs a governing team that can manage the economy in open crisis, and that means being able to deliver constant attacks on the working class. Right from the start, in 1997, the Blair government made it clear that it had no intention of changing the policies of its predecessor, whose spending plans would not be exceeded. Attacks on the unemployed and others relying on benefit were a feature of every budget, with each ‘new deal’ or ‘hand up, not hand out’ representing a new way of forcing them off benefits. When Rover went bust at the time of the last general election, there was hardly a pretence of a government rescue. And now that the crisis is getting worse, with the so-called ‘Brownian miracle’ at an end, the attacks are accelerating. Cost limits imposed by the government are leading to thousands of redundancies in the health service. The pension age is to set to go on rising and pensions are more precarious. Competition and payment by results are being brought in for education.

The Blair government has served the ruling class well in other ways. Repression has increased: more jails for children, tougher sentences, 28 days detention without due process for suspected terrorists, shoot to kill for suspected terrorists in the streets and on the underground. And in the last few days we have seen a terrorist suspect shot in his own home in East London, but so far no weapons have been found. Since this government came in it has competed with the opposition to hurl the most insults at ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, to introduce the most repressive measures of deportation, and to use immigrants as a scapegoat for all the problems faced by workers today.

Nor has the government disappointed the ruling class in defending its imperialist interests abroad. So far as possible it has stayed close enough to the USA, in order to keep in the game in Iraq and Afghanistan, while trying to maintain its independence (see page 8). All in all a very good job for the ruling class.

A change of face in no. 10, when it comes, will not mean a change in policy. Neither would a change in governing party. It is not just that Blair is in so many ways the continuator of Thatcherism, but Thatcher herself was only continuing attacks begun under the previous Labour government. If we remember the 1980s for the phenomenal rise in unemployment, we should also remember that the 1979 Tory election slogan, ‘Labour isn’t working’, referred to the rise in unemployment under the Callaghan government. When the Tories introduced cuts, such as those in shipbuilding and steel, they were “merely putting into practice policies drawn up by the previous Labour administration” (WR 25, August 1979).

Today, David Cameron has made it clear that a new Tory government would largely continue the policies of the present administration. The Conservatives have even supported the government on the Education Bill.

So why change the government? When Thatcher came in it was after the ‘winter of discontent’, a wave of strikes led by council workers against the policy of holding wages down in the face of inflation – wage cuts in real terms. The Callaghan government had failed to keep control of the working class. A period of very important class struggle was opening up – the steel strike and later the miners’ strike in Britain in the 1980s were only part of a wave of class struggle around the world. In these conditions, having the left party in opposition was vital to help the government bring in its attacks because it provided a safe, i.e. useless, channel for workers’ protest against the attacks on their jobs and living conditions.

When the Labour government was elected in 1997, we were in a period of retreat in the class struggle. After 18 years of Tory governments there was a need for a change. However well they were doing, if they went on for much longer as a much hated party, continually being re-elected, democracy was going to look pretty threadbare.

Today we have a government that has won three general elections and has brought in many attacks on the working class. This has led to a build-up of discontent in the working class, and we are now entering a new period of class struggles internationally. The student struggles against the CPE in France were the most advanced in the search for solidarity from workers already in employment, in the choice of demands relevant to the whole class, and in the organisation of the struggle through general assemblies and revocable delegates. While that struggle was still going on there were large scale movements in Germany and Britain – tens of thousands of state employees striking against wage cuts and increases in the working week in Germany, a million council workers in Britain striking against attacks on pensions. These struggles were not so advanced as the struggles in France, but important for the international simultaneity of the movement, for the fact that workers are ready to struggle not just in one country, but across the most important countries in Europe and the world.

Nor is this just a flash in the pan. In Spain the metalworkers of Vigo organised massive general assemblies on the streets (see page 3). In Britain, we have seen the issue of solidarity posed very clearly in the Heathrow strike last year, as well as by postal workers in Belfast and power workers at Cottam more recently; workers at Ellesmere Port responded to the announcement of redundancies by walking out on the spot (see page 2).

This does not mean that we are facing a situation identical to 1979, when the bourgeoisie had to change the governing team very rapidly in order to control the working class. Nor are we in a situation like 1997, when democracy would lose credibility if they kept bringing back the same unpopular government election after election. But the ruling class is preparing its options because it knows it will need to change its governing team sooner or later in order to be able to continue its policy of attacks on pensions, jobs, health and education, as well as the defence of its imperialist interest in Iraq and Afghanistan.   WR, 4.6.6

On Saturday 8 July the ICC will be holding a public meeting in London (2pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1). The meeting will be on the war in Spain, which began 70 years ago, with Franco’s attempted coup on July 19 1936.

We have advertised the meeting in our paper World Revolution as ‘Spain 1936-37: the Italian communist left and the Friends of Durruti’.

We will start by presenting the analysis made by the Italian communist left of the events of July 1936, which can be summarised as follows: the Francoist putsch was countered by the working class, fighting with its own methods: mass strike, fraternisation with the troops, self-arming of the workers. But this initial proletarian response was very quickly diverted from its logical goal of insurrection against the bourgeois state towards a struggle in defence of the Popular Front; and, in a global context of growing military conflicts, the ‘civil’ war in Spain was rapidly transformed into an inter-imperialist war, a dress rehearsal for the second world massacre.

Against the mobilisation of the working class on this terrain, the Italian left refused to support the Republic and called for class struggle against both camps. In this they were extremely (though not totally) isolated, because the majority of those who called themselves revolutionaries came out in one way or another with the position of ‘fight fascism first, then deal with the Republic’ – in short, with a more or less open support for the Republic. This famously included the CNT in Spain, which sent ministers into the Republican state.

We will then focus on the events of May 1937 and the Friends of Durruti group. For the Italian left, the strikes and barricades ‘behind the lines’ in Barcelona in May 37 were a striking confirmation of its analysis: the working class had returned to its own methods of struggle against the whole of the Popular Front regime. The Friends of Durruti group, which had emerged from within the CNT as a working class reaction to the official betrayals, attempted to live up to the responsibilities of a revolutionary organisation during these events. The Friends of Durruti was a genuine expression of the wider revolutionary aspirations which had come to the surface in July 1936 and which made their last stand in May 1937. At the same time it was unable to make a complete break from the CNT and anarchist ideology, which prevented it from drawing all the necessary conclusions from this experience.

We think that this meeting provides an opportunity to hold a constructive debate about the lessons of these historic events. We naturally encourage all our contacts and sympathisers to attend, and at the same time invite those less familiar with, or even highly critical of, left communist positions to come along and put forward their views. We will ensure maximum time for discussion and for the presentation of alternative interpretations of the war and the role of the Friends of Durruti group.

Contacts and readers of our press who are unable to attend the meeting are invited to send e-mails or letters dealing with the subject of the forum. These will be read out and discussed at the meeting.

We particularly encourage participants on the libcom.org [81] forums to respond to this invitation, both by making responses on this thread and by coming to the meeting. Again, we will read out and discuss contributions to the meeting posted on this thread by those who are unable to come to the meeting to put forward their views in person.

For those that are interested in preparing for this discussion we have a number of articles on Spain 36-37 and the Friends of Durruti collected here [88].

The following articles have been put online especially to encourage reflection and discussion on these questions:

Bilan 36: The events of 19 July (1936)
ir/006_bilan36_july19.html [89]
Spain 1936: The Myth of the Anarchist Collectives
ir/015_myth_collectives.html [90]
 

The article below was written and published on our website a few days before General Motors confirmed that 900 jobs were to go at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant. The government sent Gordon Brown and the Trade Minister Alistair Darling to reassure the workers that “We will do what we can for each and every one of the workforce who may lose their jobs” but the workers know how tough it is going to be to find similar work, which partially explains why the wildcat strike was supported so solidly. As Roger Maddison of the Amicus union said: “If the experience of workers from Rover at Longbridge is anything to go by, it is going to be very difficult… Everybody is reducing staff - even the companies with increased productivity.”

Despite how difficult it is to actually reverse factory closures, there is a determination amongst the workers to stand up to these attacks, not only within the car industry (such as at Peugeot’s factory at Ryton in Coventry), but in other sectors as well, for example among the workers at the HP sauce factory in Birmingham which is also faced with closure. However, it is becoming clear to many workers that the first obstacle in their way is the unions, and there is growing criticism of them.

“‘Woodley (TGWU boss-ed) is ‘awkward’ only when it suits him,’ said John. ‘He used to work here, but he was a lot keener on meeting Brown and the managers than us. We should just say, ‘Sod you, we’re out.’ We’re angry and disgusted because we’ve worked really hard to improve quality and production – and this is what we get.’ Dave, a Peugeot Ryton worker, says, ‘Most of the time the trade unions are just nodding their heads. You feel like it’s our own shooting us in the back. They say the shop floor isn’t strong enough. But we need leadership. The union just keeps letting them get away with it. I think the buck stops with the government.’ Simon, another Ryton worker, said, ‘They say it’s the economy and at least there’s no compulsory redundancies. Lots of us have heard that before. Some of us want to make a stand and walk out. But certain people in the union keep calming things down. I wish they wouldn’t – the bastards need to know how people feel.’”

These comments were published in the Trotskyist paper Socialist Worker, 27/5/06. They won’t prevent the SWP from calling for workers to strengthen the trade unions and make them more ‘democratic’. On the contrary, ‘saving’ the trade unions from proletarian anger is one of the most valuable services the SWP renders to the present system. But the workers’ growing suspicion of the unions, and their increasing willingness to take action outside their numbing grip, is a phenomenon that is becoming more evident on a world-wide scale.

The walkout by up to 3,000 Vauxhall car workers at the Ellesmere plant on the 11th May only lasted a day, but it expressed something very important: the refusal to passively accept being thrown onto the unemployment scrap-heap. Upon hearing that 1,000 jobs may go, the morning shift walked out. They were joined by the afternoon shift. “Strike action spread through the plant after workers took the comments to mean that GM had already decided to cut the posts” (Guardian 12/5/06). By the end of the day all three thousand workers had joined in this struggle. The management and the unions rapidly make it clear that there had been no decision on the numbers to be thrown on the street. The unions got the workers to go back with the promise that they would negotiate with the management.

This spontaneous rejection of the threat of lay-offs has to be seen in a wider context. It came within days of the announcement of up to 2,000 lay offs at Orange mobile phones, another 500 health workers being laid off - this time by Gloucestershire’s three Primary Care Trusts with the closure of community hospitals - and the dismissal of 6,000 telecommunications workers at NTL. It also came after the decision of the French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen to close its central England plant next year, eliminating 2,300 jobs, and the closing of Rover last year. Thus, the evident determination of the Vauxhall workers not to passively accept unemployment was an example to the rest of the working class.

The Vauxhall workers’ action also needs to be seen against the background of a resurgence of struggles. The strike of over a million council workers on the 28th March in defence of pensions, the postal workers’ unofficial strike in Belfast, the massive student movement in France this spring, the strike by council workers in Germany at the same time, the transport workers’ strike in New York in December – all these movements provide proof that there is a new mood developing in the international working class, a growing determination to defend its interests against attacks, especially on the issue of jobs and pensions.

The struggle at Vauxhall was right from the beginning a response to international conditions. The ignition-key for the struggle were comments by GM Europe’s chief executive, Carl-Peter Forster “We know, thank God, that the English labour market is more capable of absorption than, let’s say, the German or the Belgian markets”. (BBC News on-line 12/5/06). Whether this was a provocation or simply an unguarded comment is hard to tell, but one thing is for certain: the unions and bosses used them as an excuse for playing the nationalist card.  It is not only in Britain that Vauxhall workers are under threat but throughout Europe and world wide, as are other car workers at Ford, GM and elsewhere. In order to try and stop any international solidarity against these attacks,  the unions used Forster’s comments to try and set up a barrier between the Ellesmere workers and their comrades in the rest of Europe. Both the TGWU and Amicus played the nationalist card: “British car workers are among the best in Europe, but they’re the easiest to sack”, said TGWU General Secretary Tony Woodley  (BBC on-line 12/5/06). Whilst according to the BBC, “Amicus said it wanted cuts to be spread throughout Europe’s Astra plants in Belgium and Germany.” (www.bbc.co.uk/news [91] 12/5/06).

The unions may have played the nationalist card to divert the workers’ discontent, but they have shown real international solidarity with Vauxhall’s bosses: for weeks before and during the struggle they had both been planning “ways of spreading any job losses across Europe, and talks between the two sides will continue today” (The Guardian 12/5/06).

Forster’s comments also contained the very poisonous idea that even if workers are laid-off, there are jobs in Britain to go around. This is the lie pushed by the government as well. The economy is working well over here, so if you are unemployed it is your own fault. This idea seeks to reduce the unemployed to isolated individuals. The fact that there are officially over one and half million unemployed is simply brushed aside. However workers are increasingly not willing to accept the capitalist logic of accepting one’s fate. The fact that this struggle was reported on the main BBC evening news, albeit with the unions pushing the nationalist message of the defence of British jobs, showed that discontent is growing in the class.

This increasing militancy is in its initial stages but there is a growing determination within the working class to defend jobs. As with Ellesmere, workers have gone through years of accepting attacks on working conditions, on wages and job security in order to at least maintain some level of employment where they work. Today however increasing numbers of workers are no longer willing to make these endless sacrifices. There is a growing realisation that all workers are under attack, as night after night there are reports of lay-offs in plants, in hospitals, or in offices.

Fighting unemployment is not easy: often bosses will try to use strikes as a pretext for pushing through the plant-closures they want anyway. But it is far easier to do this when the workers’ resistance remains isolated to one factory or company. On the other hand, the threat or reality of struggles extending across union, sectional and other divisions – in short, the threat of the mass strike – can oblige the ruling class to back down, as it did over the CPE in France.

Such retreats by the bourgeoisie can only be temporary. The remorseless deepening of the economic crisis will force it to return to the offensive and make even more desperate attacks on living and working conditions. In the final analysis, massive unemployment is a sure sign of the bankruptcy of capitalist society. For the working class, they must become a stimulus for struggling not only against the effects of exploitation, but against exploitation itself.   ICC 16.5.06.

The last few months have seen no let up in the violence and chaos ravaging many parts of the world. In Iraq the civil war kills and maims hundreds every week. In Afghanistan the worst fighting since the war has shown that large parts of the country remain beyond the control of the central state. In the midst of this stand the world’s greatest powers, with the US, as the greatest of them all, at the very centre. Bush junior’s ‘war on terror’ is now mired in blood and destruction, just as Bush senior’s ‘new world order’ before it resulted in bloody disorder and helped to spread terror around the world. “Today we can measure the effectiveness of this ‘intransigent struggle’ against the ‘scourge of terrorism’ and for ‘peace and freedom’ waged by the great powers with the US to the fore. Never has there been such an explosion of warlike tensions, of military conflicts, of blind terrorist attacks, in short of barbarism from Africa to Asia via the Middle East” (WR 294, ‘Capitalism plunges into barbarity’).

British imperialism tries to take the initiative

This situation does not diminish imperialist rivalry in any way; rather it stimulates it as each power tries to seize any opportunity to advance its interests at the expense of its rivals. One power’s difficulty is always another’s opportunity. While the US seeks once again to reassert itself, the second and third-rate powers try to exploit every opportunity the situation offers them.

This is the case with Britain today. The current difficulties of the US have allowed Britain to consolidate its strategy and to gain some breathing space. This follows the intense pressure it has been subjected to in recent years as it sought to chart an independent course between the US and Europe. In Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq it has recently been able to assert its interests to a limited extent after a long period in which it has had to run before the storm stirred up by Washington’s offensive.

A significant feature of Britain’s strategy is its pretence that it is based on the defence of human rights, democracy and international order. The ‘ethical foreign policy’ announced when New Labour came to power was subsequently obscured by the reality of military intervention in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, but it was never abandoned. For example, before the second Gulf war Britain pushed for a second resolution at the UN prior to the start of fighting, but at that time the US was forging ahead with its ‘war on terror’ and was dismissive of the UN. Of course it is true that all countries claim the moral high ground: the dominant power to mask the reality that its domination is based on violence, and the lesser powers to try and compensate for their lack of such dominance. The current difficulties of the US have required it to make more supportive noises about the UN and international co-operation. Washington’s ambassador to the UN, who once said that its headquarters in New York would benefit from having a few storeys removed, has adopted a more conciliatory tone despite the fact that the USA’s reform proposals have been defeated. This has made it easier for Britain to resume its ‘multilateral’ theme, most recently with Blair using a speech during a trip to the US to call for changes in various international bodies to “fashion an international community that both embodies and acts in pursuit of global values – liberty, democracy, tolerance, justice”. He called specifically for the expansion of the UN Security Council to 25 members, including countries such as India, Japan, and Germany as well as representatives from Latin America and Africa. Such a step would favour the secondary powers by diluting the influence of the US. It would also allow Britain to play its favoured role as loyal ally of the US and honest broker, safe in the knowledge that other powers more openly opposed to the US will be at work. In short, it is trying once again to forge its independent path, in particular by playing one power off against another. British initiatives in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq clearly show this.

Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq

Throughout the developing crisis over Iranian nuclear ambitions Britain has played a double game. On the one hand it has condemned Iran’s nuclear programme and played an active part in taking it to the UN, and has expressed support for a resolution to the UN that could open the door to the use of force. On the other it has remained part of the EU negotiating team that recently revived its offer to provide Iran with a nuclear power plant, and the materials to run it, in exchange for the cessation of its uranium enrichment programme.

In fact, Britain currently has to do very little to benefit from the situation, since it can be confident that China and Russia will continue to frustrate US efforts. This tends to support the suggestion that Jack Straw was dismissed as Foreign Secretary in the reshuffle in May because he opposed the idea of military action too vocally, labelling the idea “unthinkable”, even “nuts”. Certainly his successor, Margaret Beckett, has been cautious about making similar statements. As we have argued before, Britain wants to see Iran reigned in and to end the offensive Tehran has been able to mount in the face of the situation in Iraq where, on the one hand, its old rival no longer poses a threat and, on the other, the US is struggling to maintain any kind of order. Britain has no interest in seeing a disproportionately powerful Iran in the Middle East; but equally it does not wish to see it removed from the equation by US action.

The deployment of 3,300 British troops to Afghanistan is taking place under the banner of NATO and is part of the wider plan for the ‘international community’ to replace the ‘coalition’. This is a strategically important deployment for Britain given the position of Afghanistan between the Indian sub-continent, Asia and the Middle East. While this can be seen as the US getting others to do its work now that its focus has moved on (as was certainly the case in the immediate aftermath of the war when the US still firmly held the initiative), in the present context it tends to work the other way by emphasising the necessity for the US to take note of the ‘international community’, in other words of the necessity to reign in its ambitions.

In Iraq Britain has recently announced that it will hand over one of the areas it controls to the Iraqis in July and a second shortly afterwards, allowing it to reduce the number of troops from 8,000 to 5,000 by the end of the year. This has helped to maintain the fiction that its military forces are uniquely skilled at building peace.

One consequence of these developments has been to reduce the immediate pressure on Blair, since he is clearly defending the position of the dominant part of ruling class. The replacement of Straw by Beckett has not been widely criticised and the reports on the July 7th bombings exonerated the security forces of any serious errors, and, by implication, the government too. While some on the left of the ruling class have suggested that this means Blair is kow-towing to the US again, it really shows that he has the confidence of the British ruling class. However, there is still pressure for an orderly transition to Brown, in part because Blair is so entangled in the lies surrounding the war in Iraq. Blair has been forced to concede that he will leave in time for Brown to prepare for the next election.

Towards new difficulties

The easing of the pressures on British imperialism is fundamentally a consequence of developments outside Britain’s control – its skill lies in being able to exploit these opportunities when they arise. The fundamental contradiction of British imperialism remains and the overall development of the international situation suggests that the sharpening of that contradiction will continue.

The areas where Britain can be said to have had some success are all very fragile. In Iraq, despite the planned departure of some troops, the prospect is that a force of some kind will stay for another five or even ten years. The recent violence in Basra, where the local Iraqi authority declared a state of emergency on 31st May, gives the lie to claims of British superiority at ‘peacemaking’. In fact British losses are proportionate to American ones given the difference in numbers and the evidence suggests that hostility in the British-controlled areas continues to grow. There are also reports of an increase in desertion and of mental health problems in British troops who have served in Iraq. The denunciation of Iranian involvement in the insurgency in Basra shows the bourgeoisie’s awareness of the volatility of the situation.

The province of Helmand in Afghanistan, where the British forces are going, is one of the most violent in the country. Recent months have seen the worst violence since the war and in Helmand the very announcement of the arrival of British troops seems to have stimulated resistance. While there are grand plans to restore the infrastructure of the area no action is intended against the opium trade and the warlords who dominate it. Here too Britain seems to be facing the opposition of a regional power in the shape of Pakistan, whose alleged backing of the resurgent Taliban has been denounced by British military personnel.

A decision by the US to attack Iran, either itself or, as has been suggested, by allowing Israel to do the job, would cut the ground from underneath Britain since it would be forced again to take sides. While it is not possible to predict with certainty that Iran will be attacked – although a recent US government report branded Iran the most active sponsor of state terror in the world – the tendency that has been seen several times in recent years is for the US, when under pressure, to try and regain the initiative and to do this through the use of military force, where it still retains the advantage globally. Each time this has happened the impact on British imperialist policy has been greater and greater as the contradiction of its position has become sharper. After 9/11 the tensions that exist within the British ruling class over imperialist strategy emerged a little. The worsening of its position may push this further. Thus despite its best efforts, British imperialist policy cannot escape the crisis it finds itself in: any easing of its situation, let alone any advances it makes, can only be short-lived, and may well be counter-productive since they will certainly provoke responses from its rivals. In this, Britain is but a specific example of the general tendency for imperialist tensions to worsen, giving rise to ever-greater instability and violence.  North 1/6/06

We want to welcome and express our solidarity with the struggle that the metal workers of Vigo in NW Spain have been waging since 3 May. The official media, union websites and those of so-called ‘radical’ groups maintain almost total silence about this strike. It is important that we discuss this experience, draw its lessons with a critical spirit, and put them into practice, since all workers are affected by the same problems: precarious working, increasingly unbearable working conditions, sky high prices, lay-offs, the announcement of yet more cuts in pensions…

One struggle against ‘Labour Reform’

At the same time as the infernal trio of the government, bosses and unions were signing a new ‘Labour Reform’ with the excuse of the ‘struggle against precarious working’ – a ‘reform’ which makes it even cheaper to lay people off and proposes fixing the period of temporary contracts to two years - a massive struggle has broken out in Vigo. Its central concern is precisely the struggle against precarious working conditions, in a sector where up to 70% of workers suffer from them.

The real struggle against the new Labour Reform cannot be waged through the numerous mobilisations or protest actions by the ‘radical’ unions. The only effective way of struggling against precariousness is the workers’ direct struggle: strikes that come from collective decisions, strikes that spread from one enterprise to another, and can thus unite the forces necessary for standing up to the constant attacks of capital

The strength of the assemblies

The metal workers’ strike in Vigo has been massive and has adopted the street public assembly as its form of organisation. An assembly that the workers decided should be open to those who wanted to express their opinion, to express their support or to pose their problems or complaints. More than 10,000 workers took part in its meeting each day in order to organise the struggle, to decide on what actions to take, to see which enterprises to go to in order to ask for solidarity from the workers, to listen to what was said about the strike on the radio, to the comments of people and so on. It is significant that the workers in Vigo have developed the same methods as the recent movement of the students in France. There the assemblies were also open to workers, the retired, and the parents of students. There the assemblies were also the lungs of the movement. It is significant that now in 2006 the workers of Vigo have recuperated the practice of the great strike in 1972 when general assemblies of the city were held daily. The working class is an international and historic class and that is its strength.  

The strength of solidarity

From the beginning the workers posed the necessity to gain the solidarity of other workers, principally those in the large engineering factories that have a special contract, and who, therefore ‘are not affected’. They have sent massive delegations to the shipyards, to Citroen and other large enterprises. In the shipyards the workers have unanimously been on strike since 4 May. To the cold and egotistical calculation inculcated by bourgeois ideology, according to which everyone must look after his own interests, this action is ‘mad’. But from the point of view of the working class it is the best response to the present attacks and those being prepared for the future. Faced with the present situation, each sector of workers will only be strong if it can count on the common struggle of the whole of the class.

On the 5th, some 15,000 metal workers surrounded the Citroen factory in order to try and call on their comrades to join the strike. However, there were divisions amongst them: some wanted to unite with the strike, whilst others wanted to work. In the end, they decided to go into work united. However, it appears that the seeds sown by the massive delegation on the 5th have begun to germinate: on Tuesday the 9th, there were stoppages at Citroen and other large enterprises.Solidarity and the spreading of the struggle were also powerful aspects of the students’ movement in France. In fact, at the beginning of April, when spontaneous strikes took place in large enterprises such as Snecma and Citroen in solidarity with the students, the French government withdrew the CPE. Moreover, solidarity and the extension of the struggle dominated the general strike of the whole of Vigo in 1971, and they made it possible to hold back the murderous hand of the Franco dictatorship. Here again we see the international and historical strength of the working class.

Armed repression: a policy of the bourgeoisie

On 8 May, following the street assembly, some 10,000 workers made their way to the railway station with the aim of discussing with travellers. The police attacked them from all sides with outrageous violence. The police charges were brutal; the workers were dispersed into small groups which were surrounded by the police and attacked without pity. There were many injured and 13 arrests.

This repression says a lot about so-called ‘democracy’ and the beautiful words about ‘negotiation’, ‘freedom to demonstrate’, ‘representation for all’. When workers struggle on their own terrain, capital does not hesitate for one moment to unleash repression. Here we see the true colours of the cynical champion of ‘dialogue’, Mr Zapatero, Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister. And he certainly had some teachers! His Socialist predecessor, Mr González, Prime Minister in the 1980s and 90s, was responsible for the death of a worker during the struggle at the navel dockyards in Gijón (1984) and that of a worker during the struggle in Reinosa in 1987. Another illustration is the republican Azaña (president of the 2nd Spanish Republic in the early 1930s), quoted a lot by Aznar: he gave direct instructions “to shoot in the guts” the day labourers during the massacre at Casas Viejas in 1933.The brutal repression at the railway station was a foretaste of the policy to come, which was to trap the workers into an exhausting confrontation with the forces of repression, pushing them to replace massive actions (demonstrations, general assemblies) with dispersal through confrontations with the forces of the state. They want to trap them in pointless battles which will have the effect of making them lose the sympathy of other workers.This is the same policy that the French government used against the students’ movement: “The depth of the students’ movement is also expressed by its ability to avoid falling into the trap of violence which the bourgeoisie set for it on several occasions, including the use and manipulation of the ‘wreckers’: at the occupation of the Sorbonne, at the end of the 16th March demo, the police charge at the end of the 18th March demo, the violence by the ‘wreckers’ against the demonstrators on 23rd March. Even if a small minority of students, especially those influenced by anarchistic ideologies, allowed themselves to be pulled into the confrontations with the police, the great majority of them were well aware of the need not to allow the movement to get dragged into repetitive confrontations with the forces of repression” (‘Theses on the students movement in France’, point 14, International Review 125).The workers have massively mobilised to free those who have been arrested. More than 10,000 demonstrated on the 9th for their release, which was finally granted.It is very telling that until now the national means of ‘communication’ (El Pais, El Mondo, TVE etc) have maintained a deadly silence about this struggle, and that, above all, they have said absolutely nothing about the assemblies, the massive demonstrations and solidarity. Now however they are making a song and dance about the violent clashes of the 8th. The message that they want to give us is very clear: ‘if you want to get noticed and to do something, mount violent clashes.’ It is of the utmost importance to capital that workers become caught up in and exhausted in a series of sterile confrontations.

Union delays and manoeuvres

It is a long time since the unions stopped being a weapon of the proletariat and became a shield protecting capital, as we can see from their participation in the ‘labour reforms’ of 1988, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2006. The three unions (CCOO, UGT and CIG) have gone along with the Vigo strike in order not to lose control and in order to be able to undermine it from within. Thus, they have opposed the sending of mass delegations to other enterprises. Instead they called for a general strike of metal workers on 11 May. However, the workers have not waited and, above all, they have not accepted the union methods of a one-day strike. They have developed genuine workers’ methods: the sending of mass delegations, making direct contact with other workers, collective and mass action.

However, on 10 May, after 20 hours of negotiations, the unions reached an agreement which, though it is not clear, represents an underhand blow against the workers, making some of their main demands disappear. A large section of the workers showed their indignation and the vote was postponed until the morning of 11 May.Workers must draw clear lessons from this manoeuvre: We cannot leave negotiations in the hands of the unions. Negotiations must be totally controlled by the assembly. The assembly must nominate the negotiating commission and every day this has to give an account of its actions to the assembly. This is what happened in the struggles in the 1970s and we must re-appropriate this practice to prevent the unions from blindfolding us.

Perspectives

We do not know what is going to happen with the struggle. Nevertheless, it has provided us with a vital experience. Capital in crisis will give no quarter. For more than 20 years every country has seen terrible falls in workers’ living conditions and ever worsening attacks. Therefore, we have to struggle, we have to affirm the strength of the working class, and in the struggles such as Vigo we are given a fundamental lesson: the union methods of struggle gain us nothing and they will grind us down through demoralisation and impotence. The proletarian methods of struggle that we have seen in Vigo and which we saw before on a bigger and more profound scale in the student movement in France give us the strength and unity that we need. We have to stop being numbers in the hands of the union leaders and turn ourselves into a force that thinks, decides and struggles on the foundations of unity and solidarity.

International Communist Current 10.5.06

We are publishing below the statement of basic principles by a new proletarian group in Turkey, Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol, Internationalist Communist Left. In the last issue of WR we published their leaflet on Mayday, which we helped to distribute. In a forthcoming issue, we will publish our comments on the statement. To contact the EKS, write to [email protected] [94] .

Introduction by the EKS 

The positions of the EKS are basic points of adherence. They were written very quickly with a view of moving from being a group who came together to make, and distribute, leaflets for specific demonstrations to moving towards being a political group, and as such they are open to change in the future. They take a stand on what we see as the four basic positions that revolutionaries hold today:

1) The rejection of parliamentarianism, and social democracy.

2) The rejection of Trade Unionism.

3) The rejection of all forms of nationalism, and the defence of internationalism.

4) Communist struggle, and the nature of communism.

They do not define us as either a ‘Marxist’, or an ‘anarchist’ group. While most of our members consider themselves to be communists, we do not discount common work in the same political organisation as anarchists who adhere to the basic working class positions. We feel that in the present situation in Turkey, where virtually nobody holds revolutionary positions, it would be a huge mistake to exclude people, who basically hold the same positions as us today, on the basis of historical arguments about things that happened in the earlier part of the last century. That does not mean, however, that these are issues that we do not discuss, and that we are not trying to develop greater clarity on them. Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol

Basic Principles of the Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol

1) The rejection of parliamentarianism, and social democracy.

The idea that the existing order can be changed through parliamentary or democratic means is the main obstacle that the workers’ movement is confronted with at every step. While this illusion is consciously created by the dominant class, it is also defended and proposed as a solution by the leftist groups, who are unable to grasp the class nature of parliament, which is based on the idea that the working class have a stake in the nation, but in reality, it is no more than a circus that tries to impose the idea that a class based movement is both meaningless, and useless, in order to mobilize the proletariat behind the interests of the bourgeoisie. Social democracy also doesn’t refrain from taking part in that circus itself. Social democracy, which defends the ideology of democratic rights and liberties, and the change of the existing equilibrium in favour of the working class by means of reforms, which are no longer possible under capitalism, is because of its position a tool to create a middle point between the dominant class, and the working class, which defends the interests of the bourgeoisie. While social democracy does not constitute an obstacle to the dominant class, it is anti-working class, and takes a counter revolutionary position in times that proletarian movements arise, and constitutes a collaborative ideology of the class enemy on behalf of the bourgeoisie.

2) The rejection of trade unionism

Just like parliament, unions also organise the workers as a part of capital. Moreover because of their position in the heart of the working class, they constitute the first obstacle to the proletariat’s struggle. When the working class seems to be passive, and its struggle in the face of capital is not clear, radicalised or generalised, the unions organise the working class as variable capital, and as wage slaves, as well as generalise the illusion that there are both honourable and just ways to live in this way. Not only are the unions incapable of undertaking revolutionary action but also they are incapable of defending worker’s basic living conditions in the here and now. This is the main reason that the unions use bourgeois, pacifist, chauvinist, and statist tactics. When the working class movement radicalises, and develops, the unions put democratic, and revolutionary slogans forward, and in this way try to manipulate the movement, as if the interests of the working class is not emancipation from wage labour itself, but in continuing it in different forms. The methods of base unionism and self-management are used in different places and situations, resulting in no more than the workers’ own voluntary acceptance of the domination of capital. In reality the only thing that the unions do is to divide workers into different sectional groups, and pull their class interests as a whole behind social democratic slogans.

3) The rejection of all forms of nationalism, and the defence of internationalism

Nationalism is a basic slogan used by the bourgeoisie to organise the working class in capitalist interests. The claim that, independent from their class position, every member of a nation is on the same boat, only serves to destroy the revolutionary potential of the working class by joining two antagonistic classes on an ideological level. Starting form this premise, it comes to say that every person has to work for ‘his or her’ own nation, own capitalist class, and the struggle for their own class interests would result in the sinking of the boat. Unlike the whole left’s claims in the case of both Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, they have no different characteristics.

The basic reality denied by people who talk about national liberation struggles against imperialism is that the characteristic of the struggle of the working class for liberation is above nations. The liberation of the working class can only be achieved by raising the flag of class struggle against every kind of national liberation struggle, demagogy, and imperialist war. Today people who talk about a ‘national front’ against imperialists, and national independence, are in a race with liberals, whom they think that they oppose, to deny class contradictions. Kurdish nationalism, the so-called opponent of Turkish nationalism, which it also feeds upon, realises the complete separation of the working class by performing the same role as Turkish nationalism for the workers in its own region.

4) Communist struggle, and the nature of communism

Communism is not a beautiful utopia that someday can be reached, nor a theory that’s necessity is scientifically proven, but it is the struggle of workers for their own interests as a movement. In that sense, communism has no relation to the leftist’s definition of it. It is rather born out of the workers’ struggle for their daily interests, and an expression of their need for emancipation from wage labour, capital, and the state. Due to that, it is denial of all the separations between intellectuals and workers, absolute goals, and daily interests, ‘trade union’ consciousness and ‘socialist consciousness’, and aims and means. Whenever workers start to struggle for their own interests autonomously from the unions and self-proclaimed workers’ parties, then communism flowers inside the struggle. In the same way the communist organisation is formed organically inside this struggle, and is born from the international union of the most radical, and determined minorities’ interventions in the class struggle, which express the antagonism between workers and capital.

(June 2006) 

In recent editions of WR we have reported the revival of class struggle taking place in India today, with examples such as the strikes by Honda and airport workers as clear expressions of the international resurgence of the working class since 2003. In April the ICC held a public meeting in New Delhi in order to take up the lessons of the student movement in France.

‘Offensive’ or ‘defensive’ struggles?

After a presentation from the ICC, the discussion developed on the character of struggles today. One participant correctly remarked that the bourgeoisie still has the upper hand, even after the recent struggles. He had the impression that the working class was still not showing signs of initiative and that, for example, “in India, if the bourgeoisie decides to go to war against Pakistan, the working class would follow it without significant resistance”. His main question: Are today’s struggles ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’?

It is true that because capitalism must be overthrown by the world working class, to prevent the destruction of the planet and to offer a perspective for the humanity, the outcome of the struggles in France is not enough. What is necessary is a revolution, there’s no doubt about that! It is also true that even after weeks of struggle in France the ruling class still holds power - capitalism survived these events. What happened in France was at first a defence of the working class against a concrete attack on their living conditions. But does it mean that the struggle only had a defensive character? Does it devalue recent events in France to say that they were not directly an attempt at a revolutionary upheaval?

It is absolutely normal for the working class to defend itself. The history of the workers’ movement shows us that it is not an abstract idealism for revolution and a better world that pushes the working class forward. Concretely, the worsening of living conditions, brought about by the capitalist crisis and war, brings the proletariat into struggle. This was also the initial driving force for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the worldwide revolutionary wave that followed it. In this sense each struggle, however ‘defensive’ it might look on first superficial view, is an essential school of experience for the working class, for its self-confidence, and can serve as a point of departure for a revolutionary dynamic.

The ICC thinks that the healthy defensive reaction inside the working class today must be saluted! History has shown us periods when the working class had lost even this important and fundamental defensive capacity. It happened in the 1930s and 1940s when the proletariat was beaten politically. Because of this capitalism was able to unleash the Second World War.

We think it is important to have different criteria than ‘defensive’ or ‘offensive’ when looking at workers’ struggles. This method of differentiation does not really help in analysing the real dynamic of class struggle. In the texts we have recently published on the struggles of the students in France, we have raised the following points:

- Is this struggle taking place on a class terrain? Our answer was ‘yes’, because the demands of this movement were not limited to questions facing students, but took up a question concerning the whole working class.

- Did this struggle give itself a structure of organisation that belongs to the heritage of workers movement? Our answer was again ‘yes’, because the general assemblies were open to all, and made it possible to strengthen the struggle with intensive debates and allowed the participation of other parts of the working class.

- Is this struggle a conscious trap of the ruling class to recuperate the discontent of the working class? No, it surprised the French bourgeoisie and was evidence of its weakness.

- Has this mobilisation been a planned and controlled manoeuvre by the trade unions? No, the unions found it quite hard to take control of this struggle in the service of capitalism.

It is more appropriate to judge the dynamic of a workers’ struggle by looking at the terrain it’s fought on, the capacity for self-organisation and self-initiative and the ability to resist the efforts of the unions to gain control. We are convinced that this is the best way to understand the importance of a struggle rather than trying to classify it as ‘offensive’ or ‘defensive’.

In the discussion the ICC emphasised that the struggles in France had a historical significance because they were a concrete expression of the revival of international class struggle since 2003. There’s a new generation participating in the class struggle after years of disorientation in the ranks of the working class since 1989.

When assessing a struggle its international and historical context should never be forgotten. The following example shows the necessity for a wider view than just looking at events in isolation. Shortly before World War II, the working class in France and Spain engaged in militant strikes and other mobilisations. You can identify some ‘offensive spirit’ in this period. But despite all its militancy, it was more like the last gasp of a working class that had already been beaten in the 1930s. The recent events in France are exactly the opposite: an announcement of a new generation within a working class that is not beaten and that is now overcoming the worst effects of the campaign over the ‘death of communism’.

The demands of workers’ struggles

The discussion turned to the question of the demands that the working class puts forward in its struggles. A doubt was put forward by a participant in the discussion: if you fight against a law like the CPE you’re still accepting exploitation. Simply put, it’s like saying: ‘Do not exploit us with the CPE, but continue to exploit us with all the other means available to capitalism’.

The discussion tried to show that this is not really a fruitful method to look at the class struggle. As we say in the ‘Theses on the students movement in France’ (IR 125) “Now that the government has retreated on the CPE, which was the movement’s leading demand, the latter has lost its dynamic. Does this mean that things will ‘return to normal’ as all the fractions of the bourgeoisie obviously hope? Certainly not.“ As the Theses say, “[the bourgeoisie] cannot suppress all the experience accumulated through weeks of struggle by tens of thousands of future workers, their awakening to politics and their developing consciousness. This will be a real treasure-trove for the future struggles of the proletariat, a vital element in their ability to continue down the path towards the communist revolution”. In the works of Engels, Marx and Lenin there is a similar view of strikes as ‘schools for socialism’ in which the ultimate threat of revolution is present.

The idea that the struggle against the CPE implied a tacit acceptance of all other forms of exploitation is linked to a very dubious method. As with the view of certain anarchist currents we can see an attempt to separate ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ struggles, leaving the working class with ‘all or nothing’, ‘revolution or nothing’.

We think, on the contrary, the concrete demand posed by struggling students was correct as it focused on an attack not specifically on students but on the whole working class. It was this demand that gave the whole movement in March and April in France the possibility for solidarity from other parts of the working class. Even if today we do not find the same spectacular ‘cry for revolution’ as in 1968, we have to be clear that the revolutionary demands of 1968 were often marked by Maoist, antifascist and other dodgy currents that were not such paragons as nostalgia might portray them.

The discussion argued that it is not sufficient to look on the demands of a struggle in an isolated manner. We need to look at the whole dynamic. There are well known examples that show that at the beginning of some revolutionary movements there were often demands that, in themselves, may have appeared crude or limited or ‘defensive’.

In Russia in January 1905 workers in St. Petersburg marched to the Tsar’s Palace with a petition in which they described their pathetic living conditions and asked the open minded father Tsar to take care of the situation! The opening words of the petition to the Tsar read: “Sire! We workers, our children and wives, the helpless old people who are our parents, we have come to you, Sire, to seek justice and protection”. But the class movement of 1905 developed a great revolutionary dynamic and give birth to the first workers’ councils in history. Similarly, toward the end of World War I the revolutionary movement in Germany started with female workers in arms factories protesting about their working conditions. That’s only an innocent looking demand if you ignore the context of global slaughter and the growing dynamic of the class struggle.

The same applies to Russia in 1917. The working class related to the slogan of ‘Bread and Peace’, which looks more pacifist than revolutionary. But we know that it was a whole dynamic process that allowed the working class to become convinced of the necessity for revolution and to go forward to clearer and more political demands, like the ones formulated in Lenin’s April Theses.

The discussion concluded that these examples from the past show us that it is not the task of revolutionaries to lose courage or to complain if demands do not contain the call for revolution. On the contrary it is our task to be present in such mobilisations with a view of the general and international dynamic and to put forward a clear political intervention in relation to the consciousness maturing within our class. This is exactly what the ICC was committed to doing in the recent struggles in France.   Matthias, 8/5/6

We are publishing here part of our intervention on Alasbarricadas, a Spanish language anarchist internet forum (www.alasbarricadas.org [95]).The thread, entitled “Anarchism, anti-imperialism, Cuba and Venezuela [96]”, raised the question of what position to take faced with Chávez and his ‘Bolivarian revolution’ in Venezuela.

Chávez has been turned into a new myth which tries to make us believe that within capitalism, within the oppressive state, within the defence of the nation, it is possible to make some ‘advances’ towards the ‘liberation of the people’.

In order to keep us tied hand and foot to the logic of capital, the bourgeois Left is dedicated to selling us false models of ‘social liberation’. In the 1930s it was the myth of the ‘socialist fatherland’ in Russia – based on the ashes of the proletarian revolution which had been defeated from the inside through the degeneration of the Bolshevik party. Faced with the exhaustion of that myth, in the 1960s and 70s the extreme left of capital (‘critical’ Stalinists, Trotskyists, Maoists, official anarchists) set up new idols with Che Guevara, the Cuban ‘revolution’, Vietnam, the China of Mao... These frauds had a short life, so they have tried to mould new idols with feet … of capitalist clay. New hopes have emerged: the Sandinistas, Zapatistas, the Brazilian PT ... all of which have the same capitalist plumage!

We want to say that we share and support the arguments of the anarchist and non-anarchist comrades who have rebutted those anarchist arguments which ask for ‘critical’ support (as would any Trotskyist) for Colonel Chávez. Is it not paradoxical that elements who claim to be anarchists propose to ‘critically’ support what is happening in Venezuela even though it is based on the strengthening of the absolutist state, on the domination of the army and the most brutal militarism, a fierce state capitalism and the cult of the personality of the ‘great Bolivarian leader’ Chávez? We are going to take up three arguments from the forum to expose the Chávez swindle:

1. His supposed anti-imperialism

2. The so-called socialist conquests of the people

3. The ‘organisation of the people’.

The disguised imperialism of ‘anti-imperialism’

Rosa Luxemburg denounced the slaughter of the First World War showing that “Imperialist policy is not the creation of one country or a group of countries. It is the product of a particular stage of ripeness in the world development of capitalism. Above all it is not possible to understand it except in its reciprocal relations and from which no state can escape”.

All nations are necessarily imperialist. Capitalism is a world system and all national capitals are integrated into it. Each nation state carries out an imperialist policy appropriate to its economic position, its strategic role, its military capacities etc. The US aspires to be world policeman. On the other hand, the ambitions of Venezuela are more limited - the Caribbean and Latin America - but they are not any the less voracious. The Venezuelan bourgeoisie is divided over what option to follow: the traditional alliance with the great neighbour to the North defended by the classic parties, the Christian Democrats and the ‘Socialists’ of Mr Pérez? Or the ‘Bolivarian defiance’ that Colonel Chávez proposes? Every thing indicates that the latter option is supported by an important sector of Venezuelan capital that sees the necessity to expand into and conquer areas of influence. For example, there’s the advantage of an alliance with the Castroist regime given a breath of oxygen by replacing Russian oil with that of Maracaibo.

P. Moras, one of the participants on the Forum who defends anarchism, says that “it is indispensable that the anarchist movement participates in the anti-imperialist struggles”. ‘Anti-imperialist ideology’ is based on the reduction of imperialism to a small group of states and with the rest of the world as ‘victims’. This can only lead to the logical conclusion that the United States is the only imperialism or ‘imperialism number 1’. Using this ‘dialectical’ trick you support states that oppose Uncle Sam whilst hiding the fact that they are part of the same system as the United States and that their hands are equally stained with blood. In addition, this rattling on about the United States as ‘imperialism number 1’ throws a dense smokescreen over the cynical ambitions of its France and German rivals (or their followers, such as the Zapatero government in Spain).

The ‘anti-imperialist’ ideology of Chávez is as imperialist as Mr Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’. Both of them carry out the same function: to act as recruiting sergeant for the workers and exploited to give their lives to the capitalist cause. Faced with this we insist that the struggle against all of the capitalist gangs should be seen as preparing the conditions for the world social revolution which will put an end to them all.

Poverty dressed up as the ‘people’s social conquests’

The bourgeoisie is the most hypocritical class that has ever existed. It always puts forward ‘arguments’ to justify its exploitation, its wars and barbarity. In Venezuela, Chávez justifies the worsening of poverty and hunger in the name of helping the most impoverished through the ‘Missions’, through which “working conditions are made more ‘informal’ and ‘flexible’ (that is, even more precarious) of the work force via the cooperatives, where workers receive starvation wages, lower than the minimum wage and without any kind of social cover; at the same time, each area of production or services that has been effected by the missions has seen a worsening of the working and living condition of the workers in these areas, since their collective contracts have been broken and they are being blackmailed with unemployment” (Internacionalismo, publication in Venezuela of the ICC)

In relation to the so-called ‘social conquests’ that have been carried out by Chávez, the post by El Libertario, a Venezuelan anarchist group that has clear positions on Chávez, denounces the myth about health and education which is the same fairy tale that is used to call for support for the Cuban regime. The ‘progress’ in education and health is used to hide the dizzying increase in poverty and exploitation over the last 8 years. The comrades of the Argentinian group Nuevo Proyecto Histórico in its interesting text ‘Social war by all means’ give very clear figures “according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas (INE), the Venezuelan INDEC, in 1999 extreme poverty reached 19.9 per 100 and has now got even worse, since it effects 28.1% of the population. In 1999 poverty was of the order of 43% and in 2005 it had increased to reach 54%. 22 in every 100 Venezuelans are undernourished and 47% live on only $2 a day.”

The lie of ‘democratic participation’

The poor neighbourhoods of the cities, the most remote peasant settlements, all have ‘Bolivarian circles’, ‘militias’, ‘joint-management bodies’ etc. This labyrinth of ‘participatory organs’, the majority led by members of the army, is presented as ‘participatory democracy’, as opposed to the old liberal ‘representative democracy’.

Some interventions on the Forum get emotional about the ‘experiences of self-management’ that are underway in Venezuela. We are not going to go into the question of self-management here, we simply want to give our support to the forceful reply by El Libertario to these speculations: “for example, they talk about workers and farmers in struggle, apparently alluding to the imaginative stories that Chavist propaganda spreads abroad about the taking over of factories and housing, something that has happened in a very limited way under the control of the governmental apparatus, that has brought bankrupt agricultural and industrial companies or those with serious judicial problems under state control, operating them under the regime of state capitalism and without any intention to leave them in the hands of its workers”.

The Venezuelan state has given the ‘participatory’ instruments the mission to control the workers and the population, to subject them to an iron vigilance, to blackmail them (‘if you do not participate in the revolution you have no right to social support’), to repress workers’ strikes and demonstrations. What is the real difference between these organisms of state imprisonment and the ‘popular militias’ of the Stalinist regimes or the Nazi SA? The only difference is the ideological justification.

Chávez’s ‘anti-imperialism’, his ‘representative democracy’, his ‘social conquests’, are some of the things that are supposed to make us see him – even if ‘critically’- as the new ‘Liberator’. And if we reject these fairy tales we are told that all those who take a principled position of class independence don’t want “to get their hands dirty”. However, as P Mattick, another participant on the Forum who defends councilist positions, rightly said: “What are you saying? That it is correct ‘to dirty one’s hands’ or ‘to muddy our feet?’”

To these blackmailers there is a very simple answer. The practice of the bourgeoisie is not that of the proletariat. For the bourgeoisie there is a very practical result when the workers choose between the camps of different gangsters: that we accept exploitation, war and poverty in the name of the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’.

This is not the practice of the working class or the immense majority of humanity! The practice for the proletariat is the defence of its class autonomy, maintaining its independence in its demands, organisation and method of struggle. The most pernicious weapon of the bourgeoisie is its attempt to make us choose a dish from the putrid menu of capitalism: between Chávez and Bush, between Zapatero and Aznar, between anti-globalists and globalisers, between democrats and fascists, between the military and civilians... The proletariat must recognise that these are unconditional servants of the capitalist state and struggle to build autonomy from them. We recall the words of the ‘Internationale’: “No saviour from on high delivers/ No faith have we in prince or peer/ Our own right hand the chains must shiver/ Chains of hatred, greed and fear.” 

Accion Proletaria, Section of the ICC in Spain, May 2006.

We are publishing here the second part of the article on outsourcing which appeared in WR 290. In the first part, against the lies of the leftist and alternative worldists, we dealt with the fact that outsourcing is not a recent or new phenomenon. It was born with capitalism as a consequence of the unbridled competition between capitalists, something inherent to this system. It is a means of increasing the exploitation of the whole working class. In this second part, we will see that outsourcing is a means of putting the workers of the world into competition with each other, and look at how the left wing of capitalism presents it as something ‘avoidable’ and thus less ‘acceptable’ than other attacks. This is just a way of masking the mortal crisis of the capitalist system.

Outsourcing has caused the destruction of thousands of jobs in the western countries. In a few decades entire industrial branches have been almost entirely transferred to countries with much lower manpower costs: “The French textile industry now only employs 150,000 people, the same as Tunisia, against a million twenty years ago”(L’Expansion, 27.10.04). In other sectors they explain the continued loss of jobs. “Wage earners in the French automobile industry went from 220,000 to 180,000 since 1990 despite the arrival of foreign firms such as Toyota, without whom the figures would have been still lower” (ibid). Outsourcing is one of the most brutal attacks by the ruling class. First of all, because of the scale that it can reach at times. In Belgium, for example, between 1990 and 1995, more than 17,000 workers were affected by outsourcing, which represents 19% of collective redundancies. Then, from the fact that the workers concerned have every chance of not finding another job and of joining the ranks of the long term unemployed. Finally, outsourcing is spreading to new categories of workers, white collar and skilled labour. In France “200,000 jobs in the service industry (including 90,000 coming from services to business, 20,000 from research and development) are threatened with being transferred to eastern Europe or Asia between now and 2010”(L’Expansion, 19.4.05).

However, the effects of outsourcing don’t only hit those who lose their jobs in the western countries. It is the whole of the world proletariat which is subjected to the pressure of the insane, competitive race between capitalist nations and to the blackmail of outsourcing, both in the country of departure and in the relocated industry. There is, in India, the fear of competition from Russia, Pakistan and China. The working class in eastern Europe in certain sectors (food, textiles, petro-chemicals and communication equipment) is also confronted with contracting out to the countries of Asia. The pursuit of production at the cheapest cost has made relocation inside China, towards the poor regions of the centre and the east, a dominant tendency in the textile sector. For capital the Bolkestein directive (which claims to establish a legal framework to facilitate the free movement of services between EU states) is ignored in order to use ‘inverse’ relocations, bringing in workers from countries with an ‘economic differential’ to replace existing manpower. The recourse to the employment of illegal immigrants has undergone a considerable increase since the 1990s; it has reached 62% in agriculture in Italy!

What illustrates the reality of outsourcing is the ruthless competition that is forced on different parts of the working class at the international level.

The strengthening of capitalist exploitation for the whole working class

In contracting out to eastern Europe and China, the big businesses of the western states aim to profit from the terrible conditions of exploitation that capital imposes in these regions. Thus in China, “millions of people work between 60 and 70 hours a week and earn less than the minimum wage in their country. They live in dormitories into which up to twenty people are crammed. The unemployed who have recently lost their jobs are as numerous as everyone else” (CISL on line, 9.12.05). “The unemployment payments and benefits promised to the workers are never paid (…) the workers can be refused the right of marriage, they are often forbidden to go outside of the factories (where they lodge) or of leaving outside of working hours (…). In the factories of the special zone of Shenzhen, in the south of China, there are on average 13 workers who lose a finger or an arm every day and a worker is killed in an accident every 4.5 days” (Amnesty International, China, 30.4.02).

What pushes capital to relocate to eastern Europe is the same aim of exploiting “a well trained and cheap population (…) All these countries have longer working hours than the west, 43.8 and 43.4 hours in Latvia and Poland respectively. There is often little or no overtime payment. We also see a strong move to part-time working. This latter is often the prerogative of older people, handicapped and youth coming onto the labour market. In Poland, 40% of part-time workers are either retired or the infirm (…) Often it is foreign businesses “which have the most ‘unsocial’ hours of work; it is standard to find the big stores open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day” (Le Monde, 18.10.05).

In the western countries, outsourcing means the casting aside of workers whose exploitation is insufficiently profitable for capital. However, relocations are one of a number of other attacks. They are not the unique source of unemployment and worsening living conditions; and the aim of the bourgeoisie is not to massively impose the transfer of all production towards countries with lower wages. Thus, “their impact on jobs is not negligible, but remains limited. (…) Relocations only explain 7% of restructurings and 5% of jobs lost in Europe. (…) Between 1990 and 2001, the relocation of German businesses towards the countries of central and eastern Europe led to the destruction of 90,000 jobs in Germany or 0.7% of the manpower of the companies concerned and 0.3% of total German employment” (Le Monde, 26.5.05).

In France, “95,000 industrial jobs have been suppressed and relocated abroad between 1995 and 2001; on average 13,500 per year. By way of comparison, the annual loss of jobs in industry is of the order of 500,000. (…). The contribution of relocations comes to a total of 2.4% of industries’ manpower outside of energy (…). Only a little less than half are destined for countries with ‘lower wages’. These latter welcome about 6,400 jobs relocated per year, or 0.17% of industrial jobs outside of energy. In other words, relocations towards emerging nations explain only less than 2% of industrial jobs lost. About one factory closure per 280 corresponds to a relocation to a country with lower wages” (Dossiers et documents du Monde, Nov. 05). The statements of the bourgeoisie give the lie to the idea that outsourcing is the main explanation for deindustrialisation and mass unemployment.

On the contrary, the systematic recourse to the blackmail of outsourcing as a means of making the proletariat accept still greater sacrifices show where the real stakes lie for the ruling class, which has to impose still harder conditions of exploitation and reduce the cost of the labour force (lowering wages). This in areas where production cannot be relocated and must not be, where the stakes for economic power are most important for capital and where competition between the capitalist sharks is most severe.

The example of Germany is particularly illustrative. It’s in the name of the competitiveness of “the German enterprise” and thanks to the blackmail of relocations and loss of jobs that flexibility of working hours has been imposed, either reduction of hours with loss of wages, or longer hours on the same pay. Thus Siemens, after having transferred its services and development activities to the Czech Republic, India and China, in 2004, increased the working week to 40 hours without wage compensation to a majority of its 167,000 German wage earners under the threat of the relocation of less than 5,000 employees. In 2005, after having announced the loss of 2,500 jobs in its information service branch Com, it reduced the working week from 35.8 hours to 30 with a reduction in wages! At the same time, it was the public sector that made itself the champion of “work longer”. The railway company DB raised the working week to 40 hours and numerous regional states increased working hours from 40 to 42. In all, it is in Germany where the bourgeoisie has in its line of sight the highest cost of labour in the OECD: “wages have fallen 0.9% in real value between 1995 and 2004”. As elsewhere, the blackmail of relocations cannot be separated from other attacks and goes in tandem with the ‘reform’ of the labour market as well as calling into question pensions and health services.

A massive ideological campaign against the consciousness of the working class

If the campaigns of the bourgeoisie put so much emphasis on relocations alone, it is because the dominant class is drawing benefit from this. When unions, parties of the left, leftists and alternative worldists blame outsourcing and complain of a return to 19th century conditions, it’s to better obscure from the proletariat the real significance of its situation in society.

Marxism has never argued that the tendencies towards the lengthening of the working day and the lowering of wages to their minimum of vital subsistence is the product of the carnivorous character of this or that capitalist in particular. They result from the contradictions implied in the very nature of capitalism. By its nature capital is a vampire on the labour force, from which it draws profit and feeds itself. “In its blind and living passion, in its gluttony for extra work, capital not only goes beyond moral limits but also the extreme physiological limits of the working day (…). Capital is thus not concerned how long the labour force lives. Its only interest is the maximum that can be spent on it in a day. And it reaches its aim in shortening the life of the worker (…). Capitalist production, which is essentially production of surplus value, the absorption of extra work, doesn’t just produce the deterioration of the workforce by the working day that it imposes, by depriving it of its normal conditions of functioning and development, physical or moral – it produces the exhaustion and early death of this force” (Marx, Capital, Book I, chapter 10. For ideas on the labour force, surplus value and extra work, see the first part of this article in WR 290.).

The enormous difference with today is that in the 19th century, the proletariat could hope for an attenuation of its situation within the capitalist system. “The first decades of large scale industry had such devastating effects on the health and conditions of life of the workers, provoked an alarming morbidity, such physical, deformations, such a moral abandonment, epidemics, inaptitude for military service, that the very existence of society appeared profoundly threatened (…). It was thus necessary, in its own interests and in order to permit future exploitation, that capital imposed limits to exploitation. It was necessary to go from a non-profitable economy of pillage to a rational exploitation. From this were born the first laws on the length of the working day” (Rosa Luxemburg, Introduction to political economy, chapter on ‘Wage labour’).

This result was only imposed against the ferocious resistance of the capitalists and after decades of an implacable struggle of the classes. It could only be obtained because the capitalist system then found itself in a phase of ascendancy, in full expansion.

Today the relentless competition between capitalist nations, struggling for still more restricted markets, can only provoke a general, unremitting attack on the living standards established in the western countries. All these facts confirm the expectations of marxism: the collapse of capitalism into social catastrophe.

It is up to the workers of the whole world to understand themselves as comrades in struggle and hold out their hands across the limits of sectors and frontiers. They need to make their disparate movements into a single struggle against capitalism and develop the consciousness that this struggle can come to fruition through the destruction of the capitalist system. This means the abolition of wage labour and of labour power as a commodity, which is the root of the proletariat’s slavery.   Scott

Iraq

The credibility of the US forces as protectors of the Iraqi population took another hammer blow with the allegations of an ‘Iraqi My Lai’, in which US marines are accused of running amok after a roadside bomb attack in Haditha last November, slaughtering 24 defenceless Iraqi men, women and children. On top of which there appears to have been a cover-up of the whole incident involving (at least) senior marine officers. The Haditha affair is already being described as “more damaging than Abu Ghraib”. The ‘humanitarian’ pretexts for the US invasion are being exposed as worthless lies.

The claims of Bush, Blair and Co. that the invasion would install a prosperous and stable democracy in Iraq have also been shot to pieces. The country is already in a state of low level civil war. The massacre of Haditha was shocking, but it is only one incident in a daily litany of murder. A day in the life of present-day Iraq:

“At least 40 corpses, shot in the head and showing signs of torture, have been found in different locations around Iraq, an interior ministry official said.

The largest cache of 16 bodies turned up in Baladiyat in the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, while five were found in Husseiniya, northeast of the capital where a car bomb killed 22 people on Tuesday.

Another four were found in Baghdad’s impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City, three decapitated bodies were discovered in Muqdadiya, northeast of the capital and another 12 around Baghdad.

All bodies had their hands tied and showed signs of torture, the official said.

The sudden flood of corpses comes after a comparative hiatus in night-time killings believed to be carried out by armed gangs on sectarian grounds following the destruction of a Shiite shrine in February.

Monday and Tuesday saw an explosion of violence and bombings around the country, mostly focused on Baghdad, that claimed the lives of over 100 people.

In other violence Wednesday, a bomb went off against a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, wounding five policemen and 12 civilians.

Clashes also erupted in Baghdad when insurgents assaulted a police station in the predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiyah with explosions audible across the city, but no reports of casualties.

A joint Japanese-Australian patrol was attacked by a roadside bomb in Samawa, south of Baghdad. and a civilian was injured.

The former governor of the southern province of Qaddisiyah was shot dead in Diwaniyah, also south of Baghdad, on Tuesday.” (AFP, 31 May)

An interview with a Sunni fighter, published in the Guardian on 20 May, gives us an insight into the increasingly irrational and chaotic nature of the conflict taking place there, and completely exposes the so-called ‘Resistance’ as an instrument of imperialist war:

“‘Look, a full-scale civil war will break out in the next few months. The Kurds only care about their independence. We the Sunnis will be crushed - the Shia have more fighters and they are better organised, and have more than one leadership. They are supported by the Iranians. We are lost. We don’t have leadership and no one is more responsible for our disarray than [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi, may God curse him,’ he said.

The logic of Adel The Patriot’s new sectarian struggle against the Shia is driving him and his fellow Sunnis into radical new directions. Asked what will save the Sunnis, he replies almost instinctively.

‘Our only hope is if the Americans hit the Iranians, and by God’s will this day will come very soon, then the Americans will give a medal to anyone who kills a Shia militiaman. When we feel that an American attack on Iran is imminent, I myself will shoot anyone who attacks the Americans and all the mujahideen will join the US army against the Iranians.

Most of my fellow mujahideen are not fighting the Americans at the moment, they are too busy killing the Shia, and this is only going to create hatred. If someone kills one of my family I will do nothing else but kill to avenge their deaths.’”

Such is the insane logic of imperialist war in a society in full decomposition. 

Palestine

With the suspension of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority by the US, Israel and the EU following the electoral victory of Hamas, the ‘humanitarian’ situation in the Gaza strip is going from bad to worse. At the same time, there has been an explosion of tensions between different armed factions inside this vast open-air concentration camp. The prisoners number a million and a half people, half of them under 15 years old, and they have little hope of finding a way out. “Imagine a slum 30 kilometres by 10 with one of the highest population densities on the planet” (Le Courrier, Switzerland, 23 May). There are incessant missile and shell attacks from the Israeli side, sometimes with an explosion every five minutes. The economic blockade imposed by Israel as a political measure against the Hamas authority is making the population pay a very heavy price. Karni, the only outlet for goods between Gaza and Israel, has been closed for 60 days out of the last three months. As a result not only are basic provisions in short supply, but the prices of things like milk, bread and fish are skyrocketing.

Thus, the ‘Road Map’ which Bush tried to impose in 2004 is not only a dead letter but has actually resulted in an aggravation in the situation in the occupied territories, with sharpening tensions between Palestinians and Israelis but also between different Palestinian factions. After months of settling scores in a more covert manner, Fatah and Hamas are now in a situation of open armed confrontation. The ‘national dialogue’ which was supposed to take place between the two factions has given way to shooting on the street. The perspective of a stable Palestinian government is just a vague memory. The Palestinian population is offered the choice of tamely submitting to the exactions of both factions, or siding with one against the other.

Meanwhile the Israeli state is conducting an increasingly aggressive policy towards the Palestinians, stepping up the number of rocket attacks and making bellicose statements towards the Arab countries and towards Iran. And this in turn exacerbates anti-Jewish feelings which are fuelling an increase in suicide bombing inside Israel.

As for America, the utter failure of its adventure in Iraq, and the growing threat posed by Iran, give it little choice but to give unconditional support to Israel’s imperialist policies.

Afghanistan

The situation in Afghanistan has also continued to deteriorate since the US invasion of 2001 and the fall of the Taliban regime. The post-Taliban regime, a mish-mash of extremely backward factions who live mainly off the proceeds of the drug trade, has created all the conditions for a resurgence of the Taliban, despite the US occupation.

The USA has now launched a massive military offensive in response to a growing number of Taliban attacks on foreigners, aid workers, or schools which dare to teach girls, but also on government and occupation troops. This operation, begun on 17 May, has been one of the most murderous since the invasion in 2001. As in the latter, the civilian population has suffered the consequences. Thus, in the village of Azizi in the south of the country, American bombardments of the Taliban resulted in 30 to 60 Taliban deaths but also wiped out scores of civilians. Tom Collins, the spokesman for the US command, justified this massacre by saying that “the real reason why civilians have been wounded or killed is that the Taliban quite deliberately decided to occupy the houses of the victims; it is they who have no consideration of civilians”. Collins added that his air forces were “using precision weapons” against houses “without knowing whether there are civilians inside” (AFP news service). These cynical declarations were echoed by the governor of Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, who said that “this kind of accident does happen in combat, especially when the Taliban hide in peoples’ houses. I really call on people not to shelter them”. In sum, the massive slaughter of the civilian population is just an ‘accident’, and in any case it’s their own fault for ‘volunteering’ to shelter fighters.

Little wonder that feelings against the Americans are running high. At the end of May, massive riots broke out in Kabul itself:

“An early morning traffic accident in Kabul involving a US military vehicle rapidly degenerated yesterday into the worst upheaval in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban, as angry protesters burned vehicles and buildings, ransacked shops and aid agencies and hurled rocks and invective at American soldiers.

By the time the authorities imposed a rare night-time curfew in the normally peaceable capital, eight people had been killed and more than 100 injured. The upheaval was a shock to a city long considered an oasis of security, and a serious blow to the authority of the president, Hamid Karzai, who is struggling to contain an escalating insurgency in the south”. (Guardian, 30 May)

From the very beginning revolutionaries have insisted that the US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq would only succeed in bringing further chaos and destruction to an already war-ravaged region. And the massacres in the Middle East are also being played out in Sudan, Chad, Niger, Chechnya, Sri Lanka or Indonesia, just as they were in Europe’s south eastern flank during the 1990s. War and chaos may currently be restricted mainly to the most impoverished regions of the planet, but they indicate the future capitalism has in store for all of us if we don’t destroy this rotting system first.   Amos/Mulan 1/6/6

The central reality of the society we live in – a society that, with various secondary differences, dominates every country on the planet today – is the conflict between the small minority which controls and profits from the creation of wealth, and the actual creators of that wealth. The conflict between the capitalist class and the working class, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Everyday we are told the opposite of this simple truth. We are brought up to believe that what really defines us is something else: nationality for example. We are told that we belong to this or that ‘nation’ and that our interests, hopes and fears lie with the achievements of that nation, whether on the football pitch, the marketplace, or the battlefield. Or we are taught to accept that what really unites us with some, and divides us from others, is our religion, our adherence to a particular set of beliefs about God or the afterlife.

We are certainly not told that we live in a society based on the exploitation of one class by another; that while the exploiters may engage in perpetual competition with each other to establish who is the biggest boss of all, the exploited have no interest whatever in competing with each other, and every interest in uniting their forces across all national or religious divisions. Instead, our ears are battered with the argument that this whole idea of class is out of date, something from the 19th century, irrelevant for today. Especially since the collapse of the so-called ‘Communist’ regimes in 1989: that supposedly proved that class conflict was a thing of the past. Most outdated of all was the quaint notion that class struggle could lead to the replacement of capitalist society by a new and higher form of social life.

We can’t be surprised if the ruling class likes to argue that there’s no such thing as class conflict, that the British, or the French, the Chinese, Muslims, Jews or Christians form a true community regardless of wealth or class. Because as long as the exploited are fooled by this lie, they will not be able to stand up for their own interests, and will more willingly sacrifice themselves for the economic profit or military glory of their masters. Indeed, in the period that followed the collapse of the eastern bloc (which wasn’t communist at all, but a particularly fragile part of the world capitalist system), this lie was proclaimed so loudly that it had a visible effect on the ability of the workers to struggle for their most basic economic demands.

A new period of class confrontations

Today, however, that situation is coming to an end. The explosion of struggles in France in the spring showed that a new generation of the working class is waking up to the reality of capitalist society. Although it was centred round the students, it was without doubt a working class movement.

This was true both of its demands and its forms of organisation. The movement arose as a response to an attack on the whole working class - a new law (the CPE) officially abolishing job security for all workers under 26. The students raised the demand for the repeal of this law as a means of uniting all workers in a common struggle. They therefore appealed to the waged workers and the unemployed to join the movement by participating in their general assemblies and demonstrations. The growing threat that the movement would spread throughout the French working class was the major reason why the government decided to back down and scrap the law. Behind the demand for the abolition of the CPE lay the fundamental principle of working class solidarity.

But the proletarian nature of this movement was also clearly expressed through its forms of organisation, in particular the general assemblies held in the university faculties. Not only did these assemblies use the classic methods of working class self-organisation – elected and revocable delegates, commissions responsible to assemblies – they also opened themselves out to the working class as a whole, inviting university employees, parents, pensioners and others to take part in the mass meetings and contribute to their discussions. The assemblies not only became the organisational lungs of the movement, they also became a living focus for the development of class consciousness, of a deeper understanding of the goals and perspectives of the movement. 

The events in France were not an isolated phenomenon. They were preceded by a whole series of struggles which, in different countries and in different ways, showed the same capacity of workers to recapture the methods of struggle that really belong to them:

- solidarity across the generations, as in the New York transit strike last December, where workers argued that their struggle against attacks on pensions was also a struggle for future workers;

- solidarity across divisions of sect or sector, as in the Belfast postal strike where workers openly defied the taboo on unity between Catholic and Protestant workers, or the Heathrow strike last summer where baggage handlers and others walked out in support of sacked catering workers;

- spontaneous strikes which don’t get bogged down in the union rigmarole of ballots and cooling-off periods, as in the Belfast post, Heathrow, and recent movements by car workers against redundancies at SEAT in Spain and Vauxhall in Merseyside;

- massive and simultaneous movements in which workers from different sectors begin to forge links of mutual solidarity, as in the strike wave in Argentina last year.

These trends have also continued after the movement in France:

- in Vigo, Spain, where thousands of metal workers from different factories held common general assemblies in the streets and invited workers from other sectors to take part in them;

- in Bangladesh, where tens of thousands of textile workers took part in a vast and militant response to bloody repression by the state. Massive demonstrations toured the factory districts calling on more and more workers to join the movement.

These are only the most significant of many other examples. And there is every likelihood that there will be many more in the period ahead.

Towards the mass strike

In May 1968 the strike of ten million workers in France launched a wave of class struggles which rapidly spread across the globe. It marked the emergence of a new generation of proletarians that had not been cowed by the dark period of counter-revolution and world war which followed the defeat of the great revolutionary movements of 1917-23. It was the response of this new generation to the first effects of the capitalist economic crisis, which had been hidden by the reconstruction period after the Second World War.

In the years that followed, there were further international waves of class conflict, which saw workers making important strides towards the unification and self-organisation of their struggles, especially during the mass strikes in Poland in 1980.    

This whole period of rising class struggle posed many fundamental questions about the means and methods of the class struggle, but the movement did not reach the stage where it could offer a political, revolutionary, alternative to the growing barbarism of capitalist society. The collapse of the eastern bloc in 1989 was followed by a period of retreat and disarray in the working class.

The struggles in France this year, and all the other important movements which preceded and followed it, show that once again a new generation of the working class is beating on the doors of history. This generation has not been brought up in the demoralising atmosphere of the ‘death of communism’, and at the same time it is increasingly aware of the grim future capitalist society has in store for it: job insecurity, dwindling health, pension and unemployment benefits, mounting state repression, the decomposition of social ties, endless war, and the threat of ecological breakdown.

The gradual collapse of the entire capitalist system is 40 years more advanced than it was at the end of the 1960s. As the deepening crisis intersects with the rise of a new, combative generation of proletarians, all the conditions are coming together for the outbreak of enormous class confrontations at the very heart of the capitalist world order - for the development of the mass strike, and, beyond that, of the struggle for the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system.  WR 1.7.06

On June 2nd 250 police, some armed and wearing chemical protection suits, smashed their way into a house in Forest Gate in London, shot one man, beat him and his brother up and arrested them under the Terrorism Act 2000. A week later both were released without charge. The family returned to a home emptied and ripped apart. On the day of the raid the police claimed they were acting “in response to specific intelligence”. The media echoed this with talk of various chemical and biological weapons and spread the lie that one brother had shot the other. The Assistant Police Commissioner for London apologised “for the hurt we have caused in tackling the terrorist threat in the UK” but justified their actions on the grounds that “The police now have to take appropriate precautions to protect themselves, the public, and those inside the premises…during anti-terror operations”.

This was not the only ‘anti-terrorist’ operation during June. On the 6th a man was arrested at Manchester Airport. On the 7th a 16 year old was arrested in Yorkshire. On the 19th and 20th the police and MI6 arrested another 4 in London. On the 26th 250 police staged raids across Bolton and arrested two more. Of these eight only two have so far been charged with terrorist offences. Nothing has been heard of the others. Home Office figures show that of the 895 people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 before 30 September 2005, just 23 were subsequently convicted of terrorism offences.

For the ruling class such things are the price paid for our ‘freedom’. In the wake of the Forest Gate shooting an un-named ‘counter-terrorism official’ asserted “There are dozens of mass casualty attacks being planned against…the UK and when we have what we believe is genuine intelligence that life is at risk, we have to act” (Observer, 11/6/06). Home Secretary John Reid claimed that “The police are acting in the best interests of the whole community in order to protect the whole community and they therefore deserve the support of the whole community in doing what is often a very hazardous and dangerous job…” Tony Blair echoed this: “I retain complete confidence in our police and our security services in tackling the terrorist threat we face. I don’t want them to be under any inhibition at all in going after those people who are engaged in terrorism. We have to, as a country, stand behind them and give them understanding in the very difficult work they do”.

The strengthening of the state

The bombings in London last July show that terrorism poses a real threat to people in this country. They also showed that, as ever, it is the working class that pays the price.

According to the ruling class such attacks are something alien to society and the anti-terrorism measures and the strengthening of the state’s repressive powers are a reluctant but necessary response to this unprovoked evil. In reality terrorism and anti-terrorism are a product of the development of capitalism, springing from the ever-increasing imperialist tensions that drive every state and would-be state into a war of each against all. It is well known that many of today’s terrorist groups were nurtured by the very states now reinforcing their repressive forces in the name of the ‘war on terror’. Britain was so involved in this that its rivals sardonically renamed London ‘Londonistan’.

In fact the measures taken in the name of anti-terrorism are merely a particular expression of the general tendency towards the strengthening of the state and its repressive apparatus that has been a feature of the last century. All of these measures are intended to enhance the ability of the ruling class to wage war: whether that be imperialist war against other powers or the class war against the proletariat.

The First World War was a decisive stage in the strengthening of the state. In the name of the war to defend ‘our’ way of life and our ‘freedoms’ the state took unprecedented powers to itself to control the economy and industry and, in particular, the working class. For example, legislation was passed in 1915 that allowed workers to leave their job only if their employer gave permission.

The Russian Revolution led to repressive measures aimed directly against the revolutionary working class, such as the Emergency Powers Act of 1920, which allowed a state of emergency to be declared should there be attempts to interfere with the supply of food, water and fuel etc (see ‘The state arms itself against future class battles’ in WR 284).

From the 1970s on Northern Ireland became a testing ground for new measures of repression, such as internment without trial: “Between 1971 and ’75 more than 2000 people were interned without trial by the state in Northern Ireland. Picked up without having any charges laid, or knowing when they were going to be released, detainees were subject to all sorts of treatments…Apart from prolonged sessions of oppressive questioning, serious threats, wrist bending, chokings and beatings, there were instances of internees being forced to run naked over broken glass and being thrown, tied and hooded, out of helicopters a few feet above the ground” (‘A short history of British torture’, WR 290). In recent years the extent of the state’s active involvement in terrorism, with agents in both republican and loyalist groups, has become clearer.

New Labour reinforces the state

The Labour Party has always been fully behind these developments, despite the posture of opposition it sometimes adopts. New Labour has been no exception, perhaps other than in the level of its hypocrisy. Its 1997 election manifesto made a song and dance about ‘human rights’, promising to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. This was followed by an ever-growing range of anti-terrorism measures. After the bombings in London last July Blair declared, “Let no one be in any doubt. The rules of the game are changing”. A recent report by Amnesty International shows just how much the state has been strengthened.

-               The Terrorism Act 2000 made a vague definition of terrorism as being “the use or threat of action where the action is designed to influence the government or advance a political, religious or ideological cause” (United Kingdom. Human rights: a broken promise, p.9-10).

-               The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act of 2001 “considerably extended the powers of the state. It provided for the forfeiture of terrorist property and freezing orders for terrorist assets and funds. It gave police greater powers to identify terrorist suspects in areas such as fingerprinting and photographing. It also introduced vague offences, such as having ‘links’ with a member of an ‘international terrorist group’” (ibid, p.14). This legislation also allowed suspects to be detained indefinitely without trial and on the basis of secret evidence.

-               The same legislation also allowed evidence obtained by torture to be used in trials. The then Foreign Secretary defended this on the grounds that “…you never get intelligence which says, ‘here is intelligence and by the way we conducted this under torture’…It does not follow that if it is extracted under torture, it is automatically untrue” (ibid, p.18).

-               The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 introduced Control Orders in place of unlimited detention without trial, which had been ruled illegal. These orders may restrict suspects to their own homes, limit their means of communication, control the people they have contact with, and permit searches at any time. “Thus under the PTA 2005, the UK authorities have, in effect, retained the power to order indefinite deprivation of liberty without charge or trial on the basis of secret intelligence” with the added advantage that “only now this power applies to UK and foreign nationals alike” (ibid, p.24).

Against terrorism and anti-terrorism

While Amnesty International is concerned that these measures undermine the rule of law, for us this is not the question. The law is merely a smokescreen to hide the fact that the bourgeoisie’s rule is always based on its position as the exploiting class; a position ultimately based on violence. Anti-terrorism is merely the latest trick to justify and defend the dictatorship of the ruling class. The measures taken today serve to cow and manipulate the fear that has been instilled into people. They are used to draw people behind the state against the ‘enemy’. The truth is that terror springs from the very heart of rotting capitalism. The war on terror has merely spread terror. Terrorism and anti-terrorism are two sides of the same coin. The bourgeoisie has no interest in protecting the working class as it has shown in war after war. And when the working class dares to raise its hand against capitalism, when it tries to defend itself, the mask soon slips. During the miners’ strike in Britain in the 1980s workers were prevented from moving about the country, their homes were raided, their families harassed while hundreds were beaten up and imprisoned. To Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, they were the “enemy within”. The working class is always the enemy within because they are the only force that can really threaten the position of the ruling class. So, in the end, all of the repressive forces of the state are aimed against it. Already the current anti-terrorism laws have been used against protestors. We can be in no doubt that when the working class struggles the full range of powers will be turned against it. However, the only real defence against the rise of terrorism and the repressive response of the state is the class struggle. This is the only real ‘war on terror’ because this is the only way that the terror of capitalism can be ended.  1/7/06 North

In an article in the last issue of WR on the recent struggle at Vauxhall, we pointed out the escalation in redundancies in Britain both in the private and public sector:

“This spontaneous rejection of the threat of lay-offs has to be seen in a wider context. It came within days of the announcement of up to 2,000 lay-offs at Orange mobile phones, another 500 health workers being laid off – this time by Gloucestershire’s three Primary Care Trusts with the closure of community hospitals – and the dismissal of 6,000 telecommunications workers at NTL.”

The Evening Standard (1/6/06) shed some interesting light on the question of the redundancies in the health service:

“A flagship London hospital is making up to 150 staff redundant.

Thousands of posts have been cut nationally as the financial crisis deepens but today’s announcement is understood to be the first time a trust has said current staff will lose their jobs.

As more than 13,000 posts have been axed across the NHS, government officials and ministers have consistently argued these figures mean reductions in agency staff, not real job losses.

Now that the first trust has announced actual redundancies after making all other possible cutbacks, it is feared others will follow.”

The extension of precarious contract working is one the great achievements of the ‘Brownian miracle’ that has given Britain an apparently better economic performance over the last few years than many of its European competitors – something much trumpeted by the British bourgeoisie, while things were going well. It is ironic that once things begin to unwind the same British bourgeoisie can discover that these contract jobs are not ‘real’ jobs after all, and use that as an excuse for saying nothing serious is happening. Effectively, in this argument, the 13,000 workers who have lost what to them, at least, must have seemed like real employment, are not even real people. They are consigned to social non-existence just like millions of unemployed people who are not counted as unemployed. This is how the bourgeoisie have maintained the illusion that the economy is working at full stretch even though vast numbers are consigned permanently to the social scrap heap.

Despite the dismissive public attitude of the bourgeoisie they are aware that they are in a very difficult situation and that with the deepening of the crisis they are faced with hard choices. Brown has already announced what is in effect an incomes policy for the public sector, putting a ceiling on pay increases. Even spending on defence is coming under review. Of course this is not a moral issue. The problem for the British bourgeoisie is that if they continue to spend so much on defence projects (new aircraft, new aircraft carriers, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on) then they run the risk of doing serious damage to the economy.

This is all very reminiscent of the 1960s. Then, as now, the Labour party had to manage a fundamental downward shift in the economy, due to the inescapable contradictions of the crisis. The key difference is that the crisis has developed for forty years and the contradictions are much more acute.  Hardin 1/7/06

As ASDA and the GMB union squared up for a five-day strike affecting 24 distribution depots you could have believed that they were sworn enemies. ASDA threatened an injunction against a strike called after a ballot with “irregularities”. Meanwhile the GMB and its leftist supporters were drawing attention to the habits of Wal-Mart, ASDA’s US parent company, denouncing the attacks of the multinational, insisting that it was a fundamental “battle for union rights” and that, in the words of GMB leader Paul Kenny, workers “have been subjected to unprecedented interference and propaganda”.

It’s true about the propaganda. The GMB and ASDA set up a phoney fight when all along they’d agreed an outcome. Workers were angry at unpaid bonus payments and changed work practices that increased workloads all round. For the GMB the central issue was establishing national union bargaining against the imposition of local deals by ASDA. Back in April, in Kenney’s words, at “one of the most constructive meetings that I have had in two decades” ASDA and the GMB “agreed an action plan to work together to form a National Joint Council for distribution”.

So, when, after a meeting run by the TUC, the strike was called off on 29 June, the day before it was supposed to start, it was hardly a surprise. Kenney hailed an agreement that “heralds a new fresh approach to representation and bargaining” because “issues beneficial to the growth of the company and the economic benefit of its employees will be dealt with through the new National Joint Council”.

The union is happy that it now formally has access to all depots, the facilities it wants and permission to recruit. ASDA said all along that it wasn’t anti-union and was clearly happy with the final agreement. There is no gain for workers. The ‘growth of the company’ and the ‘benefit of its employees’ are not compatible. Companies get rich by exploiting their workers and ripping off their customers. It’s not because Wal-Mart is based in the US or because workers are not in unions. The working class is exploited by the capitalist class and their different interests bring them into conflict. Unions pose as workers’ friends while doing everything to divert, undermine or recuperate workers’ will to struggle. It need hardly be added that the agreement between the GMB and ASDA “based on mutual trust and understanding” does not tackle questions of pay and conditions.

The Communication Workers Union is playing similar games in the Post Office. The employer has imposed a pay deal and banned a workplace ballot. The union has denounced attempts at creeping privatisation. New working practices have been introduced by the Post Office with the help of the CWU. There are threats of a strike, but only to ensure a continuing prominent role for the union.

The leftists have not been slow to criticise the union. CWU General Secretary Billy Hayes once had a ‘militant’ reputation, but now goes on, like the employer, about ‘unfair’ competition because “Latvia Post can deliver in Lewisham but Royal Mail cannot set up in Latvia.” The CWU ‘bureaucracy’ is accused of ‘selling out’ every struggle and trying to strangle every unofficial action. The implication is that there can be a proper ‘fighting’ unionism that would somehow be different. It can be different in rhetoric, but not in its function. Unions are part of capitalism’s line of defence. For the working class to defend its interests it needs to struggle outside of the control of the unions. Don’t be taken in by union propaganda, it can only lead to defeat. 

30/6/6Car

Revolutionary organisations of the proletariat have the responsibility to make a clear and determined intervention in the struggles of the working class. They are also responsible for giving an account in their press of the intervention they have made. Because the ICC was able to identify the proletarian nature of the movement of students against the CPE rapidly, it was able to take part in this first struggle led by the new generation of the working class.

We were present in the demonstrations called and organised by the unions from the 7th February, despite the students’ holidays, in Paris and in the provinces. When we were selling our press many university and school students who were looking for a perspective, came to discuss with our militants and showed a real interest and a real sympathy for our publications.

But we were able to take part in the movement against the CPE above all from the beginning of March. On Saturday 4 March our militants were present at the meeting of the national coordination. The following week we intervened in the massive general assemblies (GA) which were held in all the universities and we were able to see that the question of the search for solidarity was at the heart of the discussions.

Starting from this question of solidarity (which the ICC has identified as one of the principal characteristics of the present dynamic of the class struggle in all countries), we intervened in the movement, producing two leaflets and a supplement to our monthly paper (‘Salute to the new generation of the working class’). All our press was widely distributed in the universities, in workplaces and at demonstrations. In addition, as in the majority of the countries where the ICC has a political presence, our organisation held two public meetings: the first, given the nature of the media black-out, on the nature and content of the debates unfolding in the general assemblies; the second, held at the end of the movement, had the aim of drawing the main lessons of this formidable experience of the young generation in order to draw the perspectives for the struggles of the working class.

The ICC’s struggle against the media black-out

Faced with the black-out and vile ideological manipulation by the ruling class and its media, it is our first responsibility to fight the reign of silence and lies. We immediately published our leaflets and articles on our website in three languages in order to re-establish the TRUTH in the face of the false information relayed by the bourgeoisie internationally. The press and TV, in every country, has shown an unending profusion of images of confrontation between ‘wreckers’ and the CRS. Nowhere has any of the media mentioned the massive general assemblies, the richness of their debates, their permanent attitude of solidarity. The ‘blockers’ were presented as hostage takers or ‘wreckers’ most of the time.

The international propaganda of the democratic bourgeoisie wallows in lies, falsification, disinformation, poisoning efforts to understand what is going on. At the time of the Russian revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks were universally depicted as fiends with a knife between their teeth.

It is in large part thanks to the press of real revolutionary organisations, and especially the ICC, that proletarians looking for real answers in numerous countries were able to discover the truth about the movement in France.

Our intervention in the universities…

Thanks to the students’ spirit of openness, and to their ingenious initiative in putting out a “suggestion box” where all workers could put their proposals, ICC militants were able to intervene directly in the GA, first in Paris (especially in the faculties of Censier, Jussieu and Tolbiac), then in the other provincial universities. As soon as we went to the doors of the lecture theatres, as workers (paid or retired) and parents of students in struggle, to give our solidarity to the movement, we were welcomed with open arms. It was the students themselves who suggested that we speak in the GA, to give them our experience as workers and contribute our ‘ideas’. In all the universities where we were able to speak in front of assemblies of several hundred students, the concrete proposals we made were listened to with great interest and put to a vote and adopted. So, for example, on the 15 March at Censier, we proposed a motion that was welcomed and adopted by the majority. This motion called on the students in the GA to take charge of the direct and immediate extension of the struggle to the paid workers. It proposed that a leaflet to this effect be widely distributed, especially in the stations of the Paris suburbs. In the provincial universities (especially in Toulouse and Tours) our comrades intervened in the same way, proposing that demonstrations be organised to go to the enterprises, offices and hospitals, and that leaflets should be distributed in these demonstrations calling on workers to join the students’ struggle.

Our interventions in general assemblies have not had such an echo since May 68. The concrete proposals we made in all the GA where we intervened, with the aim of extending the movement to workers, were taken up by students and applied (even if saboteurs from the unions and leftists developed all sorts of manoeuvres to recuperate our motions in order to keep control of the movement, for example by making them disappear ‘discretely’ after the GA by drowning them in a multitude of proposals for superficial ‘actions’).

However, the students succeeded in partially thwarting these manoeuvres. The ‘ideas’ that the ICC has always put forward in workers’ struggles, for more than a quarter of a century, were put into practice by the students: they went to look for the active solidarity of workers by distributing leaflets appealing for solidarity and by sending massive delegations to the nearest workplaces (especially in the stations at Rennes, Aix or Paris). Above all the students understood very quickly that “if we remain isolated we will be eaten alive” (as one student at Paris-Censier put it). The movement was able to push back the bourgeoisie thanks to this dynamic to extend the movement to the whole working class, born from the openness of the general assemblies.

One of the proposals that we made, that of organising GA between students and striking university personnel, was also taken up (especially at Paris-Censier). However, the weak mobilisation of workers in the national education sector (which has not yet recovered from the defeat suffered in 2003) did not allow them to overcome their hesitations. The workers in this sector have not been in a position to join the students massively and put themselves at the head of the movement. Only a very small minority of lecturers has spoken in the GA to support the students in struggle. And it is necessary to recognise that where we have been able to intervene, according to our limited strength, the most courageous lecturers, the most solid with the students, those most convinced of the need to widen the movement to the workers in all enterprises immediately (without waiting for union directives) were essentially the militants of the ICC. [1] [101]

Evidently, as soon as our proposals started to win a majority, and our comrades were identified as ICC militants, the unions and leftists started to spread all sorts of rumours in order to cause distrust, to retake control of the situation in the universities, and above all prevent those looking for a clear revolutionary perspective from coming towards the positions of the communist left. [2] [102]

In the universities where our militants were presented as members of the ICC straight away we saw a classic manoeuvre to sabotage the openness of the GA to ‘outside elements’. So, at the Toulouse-Rangueil faculty (where the ‘national coordination’ was situated), our comrades who presented themselves at the door of the GA as ICC militants were forbidden from speaking by the praesidium controlled by the Trotskyists of the Jeunesse Communiste Revolutionnaire (youth organisation of the LCR of Krivine and Besancenot).

On the other hand, at the Mirail faculty, the interventions of one of our comrades who teaches in the university were welcomed enthusiastically. At the request of the students he made a presentation on the movement of May 68, explaining our analysis of the historic significance of the movement.

… and in the ‘coordination’ meetings

We also intervened in the meetings of the ‘national coordination’ on several occasions. On 4th March the ICC went to the entrance to the ‘coordination’ meeting which was held in Paris to distribute our press (which was welcomed by a large number of students) and attempted to intervene within the assembly. After two hours of debate the GA voted on the principle of allowing ‘outside observers’ into the hall, but without speaking rights.

However, faced with these politicians’ manoeuvres to close the GA and prevent us from speaking, numerous discussions took place among the students. It was essentially the non-union students, who did not belong to any political organisation, who were most determined to unmask the sabotaging manoeuvres of the UNEF and the leftists. At Paris-Censier the students decided to allow ‘outside elements’ to speak and to open the GA to workers who came to solidarise with their movement.

So our comrades, parents of students in struggle, were able to intervene in the 8 March meeting of the ‘Francilienne coordination’ to defend the necessity to widen the struggle by going to look for the solidarity of workers (especially in the public sector such as the SNCF, hospitals and post).

At the end of the movement we saw the manoeuvres of the politicos in the ‘coordination’ (infiltrated by the whole ‘broad church’ of the left, from the Socialist Party to the Trotskyists, who viewed the students as fair game and the universities as a hunting ground) to sabotage the dynamic of openness at the meeting of the ‘national coordination’ held a Lyon, just before the official withdrawal of the CPE, on 8 and 9 April. Not being able to keep ICC militants out of the meeting completely, without discrediting themselves in the eyes of the students, the ‘leaders’ of the ‘coordination’ succeeded in voting through the denial of speaking rights to … ‘outside observers’! This assembly of delegates (who, for the most part, had come without any clear mandate from their universities) was a real fiasco: for 2 days the specialists in sabotage made the delegations of students vote on what they must put to the vote! Many students left sickened by this ‘national coordination’ meeting and turned again to the orientations we had put before the GA. They showed great maturity, courage and remarkable intelligence in voting for the lifting of the blockade of the universities after the withdrawal of the CPE, in order to avoid falling into the trap of ‘commando actions’ and the rotting away of the movement through dead-end acts of violence.

The impact of our press in the demonstrations

As we have always said, our press is our main means of intervention in the working class. We were able to distribute our press massively in the demonstrations (several thousand copies).

The ICC was present at all the demonstrations from 7 February in Paris, Toulouse, Tours, Lyon, Marseille, Lille and Grenoble. Our leaflets, like our paper and supplement, were warmly welcomed by many students, school students, workers and pensioners.

At the demonstration on 18 March many groups of students came to our stall to show us their sympathy. Some of them asked if they could stick our leaflets up at the bus stops. Others took our leaflets away to distribute around them. Others took photos or filmed our publications. A small group of students even said: “it’s fantastic to see your publications in all these languages: evidently you are the only real internationalists”. Others came several times to thank us for the ICC’s support for the students “in making our movement and our GA known about in other countries” in the face of the lies hawked by they media. It is precisely because of this evident sympathy that the Stalinist bigwigs and the union stewards didn’t dare attack us as they had at the 7 March demonstration.

In the whole history of the ICC, our intervention in a class movement has never had such an impact. We have never had so many discussions with so many demonstrators of all generations, and especially among the young looking for a historic perspective.

It is obvious that the ICC press was a real reference point in the demonstrations, among a stream of leaflets by tiny groups (leftist and anarchistic), each one more ‘radical’ than the next, and which grew like mushrooms on the streets of the capital as in most of the large provincial cities.

The sympathy shown to us by a large number of students and workers who were mobilised in the demonstrations encourages us to continue our activities with great determination. If today we can draw a very positive balance sheet of the echo of our intervention in the movement against the CPE, it’s not to congratulate ourselves. It is because the opening of the new generation to revolutionary ideas is a sign of the maturation of consciousness within the working class.

Just as our intervention contributed to developing the confidence of the young generation in their own strength, the enthusiasm it aroused cannot fail to strengthen our own confidence in the historic potential of the working class.

In spite of the democratic, unionist and reformist illusions that still weigh very heavily on the consciousness of the young generations, their spirit of openness to revolutionary ideas, their will to reflect and debate, show the great maturity and depth of this movement, its enormous promise for the future.

Sofiane, June ‘06.

At the end of June the misery of life for people living in the Gaza Strip got worse than ever as Israeli armed forces struck again. Already suffering from shortages, and no strangers to sieges, bombings, blockades and incursions, they were invaded by Israel, supposedly in an attempt to rescue 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by the armed wing of Hamas.

In a major escalation of the situation, Israel’s offensive involved the bombing of major roads, bridges, and the area’s only power plant. The attack on the latter not only brought power cuts but severely affected water supplies and sewerage that are dependent on electricity. Repairs will take six months. Gaza was sealed off: no food, bottled water or fuel allowed in. The navy has been patrolling the coast and preventing fishing boats from going out.

Israeli planes jetting across the territory create sonic booms that sound like explosions. 180 miles away they buzzed one of Syrian President Assad’s palaces. Meanwhile they’ve arrested 8 Hamas cabinet ministers, 64 MPs and dozens of officials while bombing other targets such as the Palestinian interior ministry, training camps, arms storage facilities and sites used to fire rockets at Israel.

Internationally Israel has been condemned for its ‘excessive’ response. In Britain an initial official statement condemned the attacks as examples of collective punishment, that is to say, in terms of the Geneva Convention, as war crimes. Even US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice went as far as calling for “restraint”. Some think it’s understandable that Israel would want to ‘stand up to terrorism’, while others caution Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, that he doesn’t have to prove that he can be as brutal as his predecessor Ariel Sharon.

The UN warn about the dangers of a humanitarian crisis, but it is just another of the bodies that has been an accomplice in the permanent crisis that has convulsed the Middle East throughout the last 90 years.

With the exception of the Hamas figures that have been detained, the victims of Israel’s attacks are the 1.4 million people (800,000 living in eight refugee camps) in the Gaza Strip. They are people that have been driven from their homes in a series of wars that go as far back as the mass expulsions that accompanied the establishment of Israel in 1948. After Cpl Gilad’s kidnap the Rafah crossing with Egypt, in southern Gaza was closed. A hole was blown in the border wall, but Palestinian forces prevented people from escaping. Gaza is one big prison camp, its warders the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the rest of the nationalists mobilised for imperialist war and social peace.

The way out of this hell-hole

Many people will be suspicious of the sympathy from leading figures in the US state, as American imperialism’s support for Israel is well known. Major European powers such as Britain, France and Germany are quicker to condemn Israel, but this is rather transparently in defence of their own imperialist strategies in the Middle East. But, even if it’s possible to see the corruption of Fatah and the terrorism of Hamas, some people still reason that it’s necessary to ‘support the oppressed’ against Israel, the US or whatever imperialist power stands in the way of Palestinian ‘national liberation’. It’s like the situation in Iraq. Sure, it’s reasoned, suicide bombing and random attacks on civilians are out of the question (except for the more bloodthirsty leftists who say that suicide bombings are the only weapons the dispossessed have), but isn’t there something positive in supporting the Iraqi ‘resistance’?

The only way to get an answer to such questions is to understand the forces at play. Why, to start with, does Israel respond in such a brutal way on the flimsy pretext of caring for a young soldier? The recently-revealed possibility that Hamas might be prepared to ‘recognise’ Israel at some future time is not what Israel wanted to hear. They are agreed to a ‘two state’ solution in the area, but only if the other state is subordinate to them and in no way a potential threat. Hamas, at present, only sees ‘two states’ as a step to one unified Palestinian state. There is no way that Israel could accept any steps down that road. The invasion of Gaza is partly to intimidate and partly to debilitate Hamas. It’s also a severe attack on the Palestinian population, demonstrating what will happen if there is continuing support for Hamas.

But why the intensity of antagonism between the Israeli state and the Palestinian proto state? That can only be understood in the framework of nation states worldwide. Every capitalist state is not just in economic competition with every other but needs to ensure that it has the military means to defend its interests. Every state is imperialist because no country can act outside of the context of a constricted world market. In that international context it comes up against other powers big and small. In the Middle East in particular there are not just rival neighbours and the various guerrilla forces that they sponsor, but also the highly interested intervention of the major powers. No state can feel comfortable in the face of its neighbours’ and others’ ambitions.

It might be a cliché to see Israel as a small (if well-armed) country surrounded by deadly rivals, but that’s basically the situation for every national capital. In the case of the various Palestinian factions their ambition is to establish their own capitalist state, and that too would be imperialist. This has nothing to do with the struggle of the oppressed. No national struggle can escape capitalism’s global framework. Nationalism is the terrain of the oppressor, not the oppressed. The struggles for Palestinian ‘liberation’ or the Iraqi ‘resistance’ are as imperialist as the foreign policies of the US, Germany, France or Britain.

At present, for all its economic and military strength, the position of US imperialism is weakening. Where once it could impose the order of a Pax Americana, it is now faced with growing military chaos. It’s clear, for example, that it wants to confront Iran, but given the mess in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is currently unable to open up yet another theatre of war. Those who argue in favour of supporting the ‘resistance’ groups in Palestine and Iraq say that this proves that their activities are weakening imperialism. But if US domination is growing weaker, its imperialist rivals can only benefit. Furthermore, the very demise of US power will oblige it to strike back even more savagely in future.

It is impossible to oppose imperialism without confronting its roots in the global capitalist system. And capitalism can only be uprooted by the struggle of the working class in all countries.  Car 30/6/6

The recent struggles in France against the attacks of the state are of profound significance for the working class. Not only do such struggles demonstrate positive lessons for workers, they also expose those that pretend to defend workers’ interests. Such pretenders include the Groupe Communiste Internationaliste (GCI - Internationalist Communist Group in English) who produced a leaflet that directly attacks the autonomous struggle of the working class and, backhandedly, defends the attempted union sabotage of it. A comprehensive response to the GCI’s leaflet can be found on the ICC’s website here [105].

The GCI was a split from the ICC in 1979 on the basis of personal resentments and half-formed divergences. These individuals rapidly headed towards full-blown parasitism [1] [106] and even leftism. The GCI says that it condemns parliament, the bourgeois left, etc., but under the pretext of its ‘radical’ positions it is ready to support openly nationalist groups; and, though it denounces the trade unions with one breath, with the other the GCI supports trade unionist methods against the real methods of working class struggle. Thus, the GCI has seen models for proletarian struggle in the Shining Path Maoists in Peru and the nationalist guerrillas of El Salvador. Today it has gone even further, proclaiming that there is a hidden proletarian core to the terrorist actions of the ‘resistance’ in Iraq [2] [107].

The ICC text on the website points out the very positive nature of the struggle initiated by proletarian youth in France against the attacks of the state: “But what is fundamental, what has taken on a historic profundity, what comes out of these combats, are the lessons: how to struggle, how to organise general assemblies and demonstrations, how to discuss, why and how we must look for solidarity…”.

In the face of the self-organisation of the general assemblies shown in France, their elected and revocable delegates, the organised search for solidarity and the active solidarity of layers of the working class (including revolutionaries), the avoidance of the traps of the unions and police, the GCI say: “Break with the democretinism of the general assemblies, spit on the elected and revocable delegates”. Contempt for the workers’ struggles could hardly be more open.

The struggles in France carried many of the characteristics and perspectives of the mass strike, as the website of the ICC notes: “The mass strike, with general assemblies and their elected and revocable delegates, is the form that workers’ struggle take in the period of the decadence of capitalism. It is the form that guarantees the direct, massive and unified participation of the working class in its struggles. This is what we have to put forward”. What does the GCI put forward in its leaflet?

- “Fight the dictatorship of the economy” - using examples of inter-classist or frankly bourgeois movements in Argentina, Bolivia and Iraq.

- “General strike… against the unions” - when the general strike slogan is used by unions against the extension of workers’ struggles and the development of the mass strike.

- “Block traffic…” - something halfa- dozen self-employed, English hauliers could do, taking their cue from divisive trade union “actions”.

A world away, a class away from the “sterile confrontations” that the parasitic GCI sees in events in France, lies the dramatic reaffirmation of a working class perspective.

Ed 26/6/06  

The years 1930 to 1939 saw the bourgeoisie preparing for war on the ashes of the 1917-23 revolutionary wave. All over the world, the working class had been beaten, defeated, caught up in the cogs of capitalism, which had dragged it from defending its own class interests by means of the false choice between fascism and democracy, subjecting it to the nationalist hysteria which led inexorably towards war.

At the same time, following the death of the Communist International, sanctioned by its proclamation of ‘Socialism in One Country’, the majority of working class organisations had degenerated, gone over to the bourgeois camp or fallen apart. The ‘Communist Parties’ had become transmission belts for the ‘defence of the Socialist fatherland’ and the Stalinist counter-revolution. The only voices raised against this tide and holding firmly to class positions (such as Bilan, the review of the Italian Communist Left in exile between 1933 and 1938) came from a tiny minority of revolutionaries.

The left subordinates the proletariat to the bourgeois state

In Spain there was still a fraction of the world proletariat which had not yet been crushed, because the country had stayed out of the First World War and avoided revolutionary confrontations in the post-war period. Spain was now to be at the heart of a vast manoeuvre by the bourgeoisie, which had a common interest in diverting the working class from its own terrain and pulling it into a purely military and imperialist conflict.

Because of its geopolitical situation at the gates of Europe, facing the Mediterranean and Africa on one side and the Atlantic on the other, Spain was an ideal focus for the imperialist tensions which had been sharpened by the economic crisis. This was especially true for German and Italian imperialism, which were seeking to gain a stronger presence in the Mediterranean and accelerate the drive towards war.

Furthermore, the archaic structures of the country, which had been profoundly shaken by the world economic crisis, offered a favourable soil for derailing the working class. The myth of a ‘bourgeois democratic revolution’, to be carried out by the workers, had been used for some time to range them behind the alternative of ‘Republic vs Monarchy’, which in turn gave rise to the choice between anti-fascism and fascism.

After the military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, which had been set up in 1923 and which benefited from the active collaboration of the Socialist trade union, the UGT, the Spanish bourgeoisie arrived at the ‘Pact of San Sebastian’ in 1930, supported by the two main unions, the UGT and the CNT – the latter being dominated by the anarchists.  This Pact laid down the bases for a ‘Republican alternative’ to the monarchy. Then, on 14 April 1931, King Alphonso XIII was forced to abdicate by the threat of a railway strike, and the Republic was proclaimed. At the elections a Socialist-Republican coalition was swept to power. The new government soon revealed its anti-working class nature. Violent repression was meted out to the strike movements provoked by the rapid rise in unemployment and in prices. Hundreds of workers were killed or wounded, notably in January 1933 at Casas Viejas in Andalucia. The ‘Socialist’ Azana had issued the order; “no wounded, no prisoners, shoot them in the guts!”.

This bloody repression against workers’ struggles in the name of democracy, and which was to go on for several years, enabled the forces of the right to organise themselves and led to the exhaustion of the government coalition. In 1933, elections gave a majority to the right. A section of the Socialist party, which had been largely discredited through its involvement in the repression, used the opportunity to shift to the left.

The preparation of an imperialist war front necessitated the muzzling of a working class which was still fighting for its interests. This was the real meaning of the activity of the left wing political organisations. In April-May 1934 the strike movement took on a new breadth. The metal workers of Barcelona, the railway workers and above all the building workers of Madrid launched very hard struggles. In the face of these struggles, all the propaganda of the left and the extreme left was axed around anti-fascism, with the aim of drawing the workers into a ‘united front of all the democrats’.

In 1934-35, the workers were subjected to a huge ideological barrage around the new elections, with the goal of setting up a Popular Front to face up to the ‘fascist danger’.

In October 1934, pushed by the forces of the left, the workers of the Asturias fell into the trap of a suicidal confrontation with the bourgeois state. Their uprising, and their heroic resistance in the mining zones and the industrial belt of Oviedo and Gijon, was completely isolated by the Socialist party and the UGT, which made sure that the struggle did not spread to the rest of Spain, in particular to Madrid. The government deployed 30,000 troops with tanks and planes to crush the Asturias workers, and unleashed a wave of repression across the country.

The Popular Front leads the workers into a massacre

On 15 January 1935, the electoral alliance of the Popular Front was signed by all the organisations of the left, including the semi-Trotskyists of the POUM. The anarcho-syndicalist leaders of the CNT/FAI suspended their ‘anti-electoral principles’ with a complicit silence, which amounted to support for this enterprise. In February 1936 the first Popular Front government was elected. As a new strike wave developed, the government issued appeals for calm, demanding that the workers cease their strikes, saying that they were playing the game of fascism. The Spanish Communist Party went so far as to say that “the bosses are provoking and encouraging strikes for political reasons of sabotage”. In Madrid, where a general strike broke out on 1 June, the CNT prevented any direct confrontation with the state by launching its famous slogan of self-management. This self-management was to shut the workers up inside ‘their’ factories or villages, notably in Catalonia and Aragon.

Now feeling the moment had come, the military forces led by Franco from Morocco issued their ‘Pronuncimento’. Franco had cut his teeth as a general serving the Socialist-dominated Republic.

The workers’ response was immediate: on 19 July 1936, the workers of Barcelona came out on strike against Franco’s uprising, going en masse to the barracks to disarm this attempt, without worrying about orders to the contrary from the Popular Front government. Uniting the struggle for economic demands with the political struggle, the workers held back Franco’s murderous hand. It was at this point that the Popular Front appealed for calm: “the government gives orders, the Popular Front obeys”. These slogans were followed elsewhere. In Seville for example, where the workers followed the government’s orders to wait, they were slaughtered by the army.

The forces of the left of capital then threw all their energies into dragooning the workers behind the Popular Front1.

In 24 hours, the government which had been negotiating with the Francoist troops and cooperating in the massacre of the workers gave way to the Giral government, which was more ‘left wing’, more ‘antifascist’, and which put itself at the head of the workers’ uprising in order to orient it solely towards a confrontation with Franco on the military terrain. The workers were only given arms to be sent to the fronts against Franco’s troops, away from their class home ground. Even more deviously, the bourgeoisie set the trap of the so-called ‘disappearance of the Republican capitalist state’, when in fact the latter was hiding behind a pseudo-workers’ government which served to drag workers into the Sacred Union against Franco through organs like the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias and the Central Council of the Economy. This illusion of a kind of ‘dual power’ placed the workers in the hands of their butchers. The bloody massacres which then took place in Aragon, Oviedo and Madrid were the result of the criminal manoeuvres of the left and Republican wing of the bourgeoisie, which succeeded in stifling the workers’ reaction of 19 July. From then on, hundreds of thousands of workers were enrolled in the antifascist militias of the anarchists and poumists and sent off to be cut to pieces on the imperialist front.

Having abandoned its class terrain, the proletariat was subjected to the horrors of war and to a savage of superexploitation in the name of the anti-fascist war economy: wage cuts, inflation, rationing, militarisation of labour, lengthening of the working day.

In May 1937 the proletariat of Barcelona rose up again, but this time in desperation, and was crushed by the Popular Front government led by the Spanish Communist Party and its Catalan wing the PSUC; the Francoist troops deliberately halted their advance to allow the Stalinists to deal with the workers.

“On 19 July 1936, the workers of Barcelona, BAREHANDED, smashed the attack by Franco’s battalions which were ARMED TO THE TEETH. On 4 May 1937, the same workers, NOW EQUIPPED WITH WEAPONS, suffered many more dead than in July when they had to block Franco; and it was the anti-fascist government – now including the anarchists and indirectly supported by the POUM – which unleashed the scum of the forces of repression against the workers” (Bilan 1938, in the manifesto ‘Bullets, machine guns, prison: this is the response of the Popular Front to the workers of Barcelona’).

In this terrible tragedy all the so-called working class organisations not only showed that they had been integrated into the bourgeois state, but actively participated in crushing the proletariat: some, like the PCE and PSUC, the PSOE and the UGT directly took on the role of parties of bourgeois order by assassinating the workers; others, like the CNT, the FAI and the POUM, by persuading the workers to leave their class terrain in the name of the anti-fascist front, threw them into the arms of their assassins and into the imperialist carnage. The presence of anarchist ministers in the Catalan government, then in Caballero’s central government was a powerful factor in the Popular Front’s ability to mystify the workers. The anarchists played a key role in deceiving the workers about the class nature of the Popular Front: “Both on the level of principles and by conviction, the CNT has always been anti-state and the enemy of any form of government. But circumstances have changed the nature of the Spanish government and of the state. Today the government, as an instrument of controlling the state organs, has ceased to be a force of oppression against the working class, just as the state has ceased to be an organ that divides society into classes. Both oppress the people less now that the members of the CNT are intervening within them” (CNT minister Federica Montseny, 4.11.1936).

All the leading organs of the CNT declared a ferocious war against those rare currents, such as the Friends of Durruti group, which, even in a deeply confused way, were struggling to defend revolutionary positions. Elements from such currents were sent to the most exposed parts of the front or delivered over to the prisons of the Republican police.

The events in Spain made it clear who was really on the side of the workers and who was not. Democrats, ‘Socialists’, ‘Communists’ and even ‘anarchists’ ranged themselves alongside the bourgeois state and the national capital.  

The war in Spain continued until 1939, resulting in the victory of Franco; it was at the same moment that the other fractions of the world proletariat, vanquished by the counter-revolution, began in turn to serve as cannon-fodder in a new world imperialist massacre. CB    

Originally published in Revolution Internationale 258, July-August 1996  

1 The capacity of the Spanish bourgeoisie to adapt in the face of the workers’ struggle can be illustrated by the political trajectory of Largo Caballero: president of the UGT union since 1914, Socialist member of parliament, he became a state adviser to the dictator Primo de Rivera then labour minister in the first Republican coalition between 1931 and 1933. He then became one of the main architects of the Popular Front before arriving at the ‘leftist’ positions which allowed him to become the head of government between September 36 and May 37. 

 The following is an extract from a much longer article on the events of July 19, 1936 written by Bilan, which can be found here: ir/006_bilan36_july19.html [89]

When the capitalist attack came in the form of Franco’s uprising, neither the POUM nor the CNT even dreamed of calling the workers to go out into the streets. They organized delegations to go to Companys for arms. On 19 July the workers came out spontaneously – by calling for a general strike the CUT and UGT were simply acknowledging a de facto state of affairs.

Since Companys, Giral, and their ilk were immediately regarded as allies of the proletariat, as the people who could supply the keys to the arms depot, it was quite natural that when the workers crushed the army and took up arms no one would think for a moment of posing the problem of the destruction of the state which, with Com­panys at its head, remained intact. From then on an attempt was made to spread the utopian idea that it is possible to make the revolution by expropriating factories and taking over land without touching the capitalist state, not even its banking ‘system.

The constitution of the Central Committee of the militias gave the impression that a period of proletarian power had begun; while the setting up of the Central Council of the Economy gave rise to the illusion that the proletariat was now managing its own econ­omy.

However, far from being organs of dual power, these organs had a capitalist nature and function. Instead of constituting a base for the unification of the proletarian struggle – for posing the question of power – they were from the beginning organs of col­laboration with the capitalist state.

In Barcelona the Central Committee of the militias was a conglomeration of workers’ and bourgeois parties and trade unions; not an organ of the soviet type arising spontan­eously on a class basis and capable of pro­viding a focus for the development of prole­tarian consciousness. The Central Committee was connected to the Generalidad and disap­peared with the passing of a simple decree when the new government of Catalonia was formed in October.

The Central Committee of the militias repre­sented a superb weapon of capitalism for leading the workers out of their towns and localities to fight on the territorial fronts where they are being ruthlessly mas­sacred.

The deployment of 3300 British troops, mainly from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, in the southern Helmand province of Afghanistan has been given the usual government and media spin. They will supposedly bring the resurgent Taliban under control, enforce law and order, and reduce opium production. We are reassuringly told by the BBC that the Taliban “operate in small groups of 10 to 20 although they can collect up to 70 fighters for bigger attacks”. Thus, ‘our boys’ should be able to bring the ‘benefits’ of democracy to the poorest province of Afghanistan. This is the same government that told us everything was going to be fine in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.

Bordering Pakistan the area is a focal point for the machinations of the sub-continent’s two main imperialist powers: India and Pakistan. “Afghanistan has become the new battleground for the 59-year proxy war between India and Pakistan; Afghan anger at the Pakistanis is returned in kind, as Islamabad accuses Kabul of allowing Indian spies access to Pakistan’s western border, while Indian consulates in Kandahar and Jalalabad are accused of funding an insurgency in Baluchistan province. In turning a blind eye to the Taliban, Pakistan is pressuring Karzai, America and Nato to accede to its demands” (Ahmed Rashid, an expert on Afghanistan, Daily Telegraph 30/5/06). The destabilisation of the province accentuates the instability of the whole country.

A country whose US puppet government has only tentative control of the capital and few other cities is coming under increasing pressure from a multitude of opposing forces. Such fragility is another demonstration that the US might be the only super power but it cannot even impose its order on a land of war-ravaged rubble. The US’s only answer to growing chaos is naked military barbarity.

This spring the US launched its largest military offensive in the country since the invasion of 2001. This military onslaught saw thousands of US troops sweeping through the region carrying out search and destroy missions against the Taliban, backed by the B-52s and other jets that fly permanently over Afghanistan so they can be called in for air strikes at any time. This military sledgehammer has brought levels of destruction not known since the height of the civil war in the early 1990s. “Over 500 Afghans have been killed in the past six weeks in the south where some 6,000 US, Canadian and British troops under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are battling the Taliban. Afghans remember that a similar death rate in 1992-93, amidst civil war, heralded the arrival of the Taliban who promised peace and security” (‘Afghanistan and its Future’, Ahmed Rashid. 26/6/06. www.eurasianet.org [111])

The outcome of this orgy of destruction? “’Our research shows that the local perception is that the only ones showing any real understanding for the people of Helmand and responding to their needs are the insurgent groups, notably the Taliban,’ said Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of The Senlis Council. ‘The Coalition troops are increasingly perceived as the invader and less and less as people who are there to help.’”(Report by the Security and Development Policy group).

The offensive was intended to show Pakistan and the other countries in the area that are questioning its domination what the US is prepared to do to maintain its hold over any area it deems important. It knows dropping laser guided weaponry on mud huts is ‘overkill’, but brutal destruction of parts of the Taliban sends a message to those who are backing them or thinking of going the same way.

This is a warning that goes beyond India and Pakistan, to Russia and China. As the US has looked weaker and weaker in Iraq the central Asian republics have begun to move towards Russia and China and they have taken full advantage; “Russia and China are working on making sure that America and Nato surrender all their remaining toeholds in Central” (Rashid, Daily Telegraph 30/5/06)

It was also a warning to Iran not to retaliate against any US attack. “Iran is spending large sums out of its windfall oil income in buying support among disaffected and disillusioned Afghan warlords. The day America or Israel attacks Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, these Afghans will be unleashed on American and Nato forces in Afghanistan, opening a new front quite separate from the Taliban insurgency” (ibid)

British imperialism understands this objective and that its role is to continue trying to impose order in the area. They are not happy that they have to take over a region that is so hostile to the US and its allies, and where the strength of the Taliban is growing. The BBC talks about small bands of unpopular Taliban, but, according to Paul Roger, (Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University) “In early 2005, these units were regularly composed of groups of up to a hundred. That alone suggested a much greater degree of organisation and logistic support than would be expected from a sporadic insurgency; but, in 2006, the Taliban are fighting in groups of around 400 “ (‘Afghanistan’s new war season’, 22/6/06, www.opendemocracy.org [112].). This has led to the Taliban now controlling many parts of the region with ‘popular support’.

The British forces have shown that their much-publicised ‘hearts and minds’ method of occupation is a front for the same sort of overwhelming force as the US uses. On the 27th June, two members of the Special Boat Services were killed in an ambush when then tried to capture two leaders of the local Taliban. “105mm light artillery and air support from British Harrier jets, Apache attack helicopters and American A-10 “warthog” low-flying jets” (The Guardian 28/6/06) were deployed. This turned into a day-long battle, as have other conflicts in the area. These battles have taken place in villages where civilians must have been killed in the cross fire or by the destructive fire power of the air cover, but as in Iraq, the British and the US don’t report civilian deaths, even under pressure.

The politicians may not call it a war, but that is what it is, and it looks like it could become another quagmire like Iraq. The Taliban have already been sending personnel to Iraq in order to learn the techniques of the insurgents. This is an interesting reversal of roles, as, in the 1980s and 90s it was Afghanistan that was the source of radicalised and war-hardened fundamentalists, now Iraq is the supplier. There are plenty of regional powers who are willing to back the Taliban, just as the US and UK did in the 1990s. This can only pour more fuel on the fire

Growing imperialist conflict in the area could see British imperialism bogged down for years. “The British realise they are in for a long fight ... They realise that the timetable of three years, laid down by Tony Blair, to turn things round in Helmand and the south is way too optimistic. A plan for commitment for 10 or even 15 years would be more realistic, some suggest” (The Guardian 30/6/06). The US will be quite happy about this because it will curb perfidious Albion’s ability to get up to mischief. The British bourgeoisie understands this but also know they have no option, unless they want to make an open break with the US. This would undermine its ability to play a role, based on its good relations with the US, where it plays the US off against Europe. No one knows how many economically conscripted workers or the poor and dispossessed of Afghanistan will be killed or wounded in this operation, but suffer they will, in order to keep the British ruling class’s bloody snout in the imperialist trough. The call from leading generals for the government to provide more planes and helicopters for the mission is just the latest evidence of this.   Phil 1/7/6

The strategically vital Middle East has long been a focus of rivalries between the great imperialist powers. In the First World War Britain and France led the charge to displace the crumbling Ottoman empire, which had been supported by Germany. In the Second World War Germany and its local agents once again confronted the British and theirs. After the war, Britain and France were progressively pushed aside by America, which was soon facing up to its Russian rival, each side using the ‘Arab-Israeli’ conflict to further its own ends. The collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 didn’t bring peace to the region. On the contrary, the efforts of the USA to reinforce its control over the Middle East and the Persian Gulf has provoked the growing chaos sweeping through Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Lebanon. The Middle East has become the principal theatre of the ‘war of each against all’ which now predominates in international affairs. What this means for the populations of the region is becoming plainer every day:  wholesale massacre of civilians, devastation of the infrastructure, disintegration of entire countries into bloody sectarian and nationalist conflict. The agony of the Middle East is the reflection of the agony of world capitalism in the absence of the proletarian revolution.      

Yet another barbaric checklist in the Middle East: 700 airstrikes on Lebanese territory; over 1200 dead in Lebanon and Israel, over 300 of which were children under 12; more than 5000 injured; a million civilians forced to flee their homes in the combat zones, while many others were too poor or weak to flee and had to endure the daily terror of the bombardments. Whole neighbourhoods and villages reduced to rubble; hospitals full to bursting. Without including the military cost of the war, the economic damage is estimated at 6 billion euro.

For the main protagonists, the balance sheet is calculated on a different basis. For Israel it’s been a major set-back, puncturing the myth of the invincibility of the Israeli army. As a result it has also been a further step in the weakening of America’s global leadership. On the other hand Hizbollah has been strengthened by the conflict and has acquired a new legitimacy throughout the region.

But whoever benefits in the short-term, this war has marked a new surge in the tide of chaos and bloodshed in the Middle East, and in that all the imperialist powers, from the biggest to the smallest, have played their criminal part.

They are all warmongers!

The impasse in the Middle East situation was already illustrated by the coming to power of the ‘terrorists’ of Hamas in the Palestinian territories, itself a response to the intransigence of the Israeli government which has ‘radicalised’ a large part of the Palestinian population. It was further confirmed by the outbreak of open hostilities between Hamas and Fatah. Israel’s retreat from Gaza was not a move towards peace but a means of enforcing its control over the more vital West Bank area.

Israel’s ‘solution’ to reaching this dead-end was to act against the growing influence in southern Lebanon of Hizbollah, which is financed and armed by Iran. The pretext for unleashing the war was to obtain the release of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbolla. More than two months later, they are still being held, and the UN (now aided by Jesse Jackson’s ‘independent’ mission) has only just opened negotiations for their release. The other stated motive for the offensive was to neutralise and disarm Hizbollah, whose incursions into Israel were a growing threat to its security.

 Either way, this was using a bazooka to kill a mosquito and neither objective has been achieved. But the Israeli state has certainly visited its fury upon the population of Lebanon. The people of the southern cities and villages have seen their houses destroyed and been forced to survive for weeks with almost no food and water. 90 bridges were smashed, as well as innumerable roads and three electricity generating plants. The Israeli government and army told us over and over again that they were trying to “spare civilian lives” and that massacres like the one in Qana were “regrettable accidents”, like the famous “collateral damage” in the wars in the Gulf and the Balkans.  In fact 90% of those killed were civilians. 

This war could not have been launched without the USA giving it the green light. Up to its neck in the quicksand in Iraq and Afghanistan, its ‘Road Map’ to peace between Israel and Palestine in tatters, the US is suffering blow after blow to its strategic plan of encircling Europe, the key to which is control over the Middle East. In Iraq in particular, after three years of military occupation, the US is powerless to prevent the country sliding into a terrible ‘civil war’. The daily conflict between rival factions is costing the population 80 to 100 deaths a day. All this expresses the historic weakening of the USA’s grip over the region, and is part of a growing challenge to its domination of the entire globe. This in turn is providing the opportunity for other powers to step up their imperialist ambitions, with Iran leading the charge. The Israeli action thus served as a warning to states like Iran and Syria and shows the perfect convergence on this occasion between the White House and the Israeli bourgeoisie. Within the UN, the Americans spent several weeks sabotaging any prospect of a cease-fire in order to allow the Israeli army to ‘finish the job’ against Hizbollah.

Although there was never any question of Israel installing itself for a long period in Lebanon, there is a real symmetry in the methods used by Israel and the US, and in the problems that result. Both are forced to throw themselves into military adventures, and both have found themselves trapped in a total mess. In Israel, as in the US, politicians and generals are blaming the government for launching a war without adequate preparation. And Israel, like the US, is finding that you can’t fight a guerrilla group which is dispersed within the population in the same way that you would fight a ‘normal’ state army. Like Hamas, Hizbollah in the beginning was just another Islamic militia. It arose during the Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon in 1982. Because of its Shiite affiliations, it benefited from the generous support of the Iranian mullahs. Syria also supported it and used it as an important internal ally, especially after Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in 2005. Hizbollah also recruited heavily through its policy of providing medical, social and educational benefits to the population, again made possible by Iranian funding. Today it continues to win support through its policy of paying compensation to people whose houses have been destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombs. It is worth noting that many of its recruits are street kids aged between 10 and 15.

For the moment, Syria and Iran form a homogeneous bloc behind Hamas and Hizbollah. Iran in particular is staking its claim to becoming the main imperialist power in the region. Obtaining nuclear weapons would certainly give it that status. These ambitions explain its increasingly belligerent and arrogant declarations, including its intention to “wipe Israel off the map”.   

The cynicism of all the great powers

The height of cynicism and hypocrisy was reached by the UN, which throughout the month the war lasted proclaimed its “desire for peace” but also its “powerlessness”.  This is a disgusting lie. The “peace loving UN” is a crocodile-infested swamp. The five member states on the Security Council are the biggest predators on the planet. The USA’s world leadership is based on its huge military armada and since Bush Senior announced a new era of peace and prosperity in 1990, on a succession of wars (Gulf war of 91, the Balkans war, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq…). Britain has in most cases acted as the USA’s accomplice, but for its own imperialist reasons (see article in this issue). It is trying to regain the influence it had in this region up until just after the Second World War.

Russia, which is responsible for the most terrible atrocities in its two wars in Chechnya, is trying to get its revenge for what it lost in the implosion of the USSR. The weakening of the USA is stirring old imperialist appetites. This is why it is playing the card of support for Iran and, more discretely, for Hizbollah.

China, profiting from its growing economic influence, is dreaming of gaining new zones of influence outside South East Asia, and is currently making eyes at Iran. Along with Russia, China has been sabotaging a series of UN resolutions tabled by their rivals.   

As for France, it has just as much blood on its hands. It took a full part in the 1991 Gulf war; it supported the Serbian side during the Balkans war and, through its role in the UN, had a major responsibility for the Srebenica massacre in 1993; it has also been involved in hunting down the Taliban in Afghanistan (the death of two French ‘special forces’ soldiers has shed light on an activity that has been kept very discreet up till now[1] [115]).

But it’s above all in Africa that French imperialism has shown its real face. It was France which provoked the genocide in Rwanda by encouraging the liquidation of the Tutsis by the Hutu militias which it had trained and supplied.

The French bourgeoisie has never stopped dreaming of the days when it shared spheres of influence in the Middle East with Britain. After its alliance with Saddam Hussein was undermined by the first Gulf war, and then the assassination of its protégé Massoud in Afghanistan, France’s hopes were then focused on Lebanon. It had been brutally ejected from this area during the 1982-3 war, first by Syria’s offensive against the Lebanese-Christian government and then by the Israeli intervention, commanded by the “butcher” Sharon and manipulated from afar by Uncle Sam. It was this offensive by the western bloc which forced Syria to quit the Russian bloc. France has not forgiven Syria for assassinating the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005: Hariri had been a good friend of Chirac and France. This is why, despite its desire to get a foothold in Iran by adopting a conciliatory stance towards it, France decided to rally to the US plan for Lebanon, based on UN resolution 1201, and helped to concoct plans for the redeployment of the FINUL UN force. Despite the reticence of French military HQ which is protesting that France’s overseas forces are “overstretched” (nearly 15000 troops involved in numerous fronts: Ivory Coast, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Darfur, Kosovo, Macedonia, Afghanistan), the French government has taken the plunge. It agreed to increase its contribution to FINUL from 400 to 2000 soldiers, getting certain advantages in exchange, notably a mandate to command the 15000 man force until February 2007; and the right to use force if attacked. The French ruling class still has hesitations about passing from the diplomatic to the military terrain in the Middle East. It still has bitter memories of the attack by Shiite terrorists on the Drakkar building that housed the French contingent in Beirut in October 1983. This resulted in the death of 58 parachutists and led to France’s departure from Lebanon. And today it faces a very tricky task. FINUL’s mission is to give support to a very weak Lebanese army (it only has 15000 troops and has hardly been reconstituted) in its efforts to disarm Hizbollah. The job is all the more difficult given that Hizbollah has two members in the Lebanese government, has gained enormous prestige from standing up to the Israeli army and retaining the ability to launch rockets into Northern Israel throughout the conflict, and in any case has widely infiltrated the Lebanese army.

Other powers are also lining up to get what they can out of the situation. Italy, in exchange for giving the biggest contingent to the UN force, will take command over FINUL after February 2007. Just a few months after withdrawing Italian troops from Iraq, Prodi is dispatching a new force to the Lebanon, showing that Italy still has ambitions to be at the imperialist top table.   

The patent failure of Israel and the US in this war represents an important new step in the weakening of US hegemony. But this will in no sense attenuate military tensions. On the contrary, it can only whet the appetites of the other powers. The only perspective it announces is growing chaos and instability.

The Middle East is a concentrated expression of the irrationality of war in this period, in which each imperialism is dragged from one increasingly destructive conflict to the next. Syria and Iran are now on a war footing, and the situation is pushing the US and Israel towards even an even more terrible response. The Israeli defence minister has made it clear that the ceasefire is just a pause to prepare for a second assault, aimed at the definitive liquidation of Hizbollah.

The extension of combat zones across the planet shows that capitalism is ineluctably sliding towards barbarism. War and militarism have become capitalism’s way of life.

How can we oppose the slide towards military barbarism?

The class struggle in this region has not disappeared. Last year, there were large demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Haifa against the rising cost of living and the government’s policy of increasing military spending at the expense of social welfare budgets. The failure of the war is likely to provoke further expressions of social discontent.

In the Palestinian territories, “Palestinian civil servants are demanding the payment of overdue wages from the Hamas government. Around 3,000 marched yesterday in Ramallah, while in Gaza City over 300 unemployed workers demanding jobs and unpaid welfare fought riot police and attempted to storm the parliamentary building, breaching the gates before police fired live warning shots… Hamas have condemned the strike as an attempt to destabilise the government and called for teachers to scab, saying anger should instead be directed against Israel ‘which imposes the siege on our people’. Hamas claim the strike has ‘no relation to national interests’ and is being co-ordinated by the Fatah party ‘that has no ties with employees’  many union leaders are Fatah members. However, despite these party-political manoeuvres the grievances are very real; with unemployment running at around 30% and around 25% of the workforce affected by the current withholding of wages, over half of the workforce is surviving on very little income. The UN estimates 80% of the population lives in ‘poverty’”. (www.libcom.org/news [116], 31.8.06).

Even if Fatah politicians are trying to exploit this discontent, this is an important development because it is a small breach in the national unity which serves to stifle class struggle on both sides of the conflict.

In response to this war, all sorts of fraudsters, many claiming to be ‘socialists’, have been running around telling us that ‘we are all Hizbollah’, that workers should support the legitimate ‘national resistance’ of the Lebanese people, or else arguing that Israel has the ‘right to defend itself against terrorism’.

These are just pretexts for mobilising us behind one side or another in an imperialist war. Against these lies, revolutionaries can only declare that the working class has no country, that its struggle has indeed “no relation to national interests”, that in the epoch of imperialism all wars are imperialist, and that we have nothing to gain from supporting any side in any imperialist massacre.

“The only opposition to imperialism is the resistance of the working class against exploitation, because this alone can grow into an open struggle against the capitalist system, a struggle to replace this dying system of profit and war with a society geared towards human need. Because the exploited everywhere have the same interests, the class struggle is international and has no interest in allying with one state against another.  Its methods are directly opposed to the aggravation of hatred between ethnic or national groups, because it needs to rally together the proletarians of all nations in a common fight against capital and the state. 

 In the Middle East the spiral of nationalist conflicts has made class struggle very difficult, but it still exists – in demonstrations of unemployed Palestinian workers against the Palestinian authorities, in strikes by Israeli public sector workers against the government’s austerity budgets. But the most likely source of a breach in the wall of war and hatred in the Middle East lies outside the region – in the growing struggle of the workers in the central capitalist countries. The best example of class solidarity we can give to the populations suffering the direct horrors of imperialist war in the Middle East is to develop the struggle that has already been launched by the workers-to-be in the French schools and universities , by the metal workers of Vigo in Spain, the postal workers of Belfast or the airport workers of London” (ICC statement ‘Middle East: Against the slide into war, the international class struggle is the only answer’, 17 July, 2006).

These movements may make less noise than the rockets and bombs that have been raining down in the Middle East, but they announce the one and only alternative to the descent into barbarism: a future of growing solidarity among workers in struggle, paving the way for a society founded on solidarity among all human beings. 

WR, 2/9/06. 

Tony Blair seems to be increasingly isolated in his position over the conflict in the Lebanon. In the G8, the EU and the UN, Britain opposed calls for an immediate ceasefire. The Foreign Office, the Cabinet, the Labour Party, and the media all seem ranged against him. A former ambassador openly called for him to go. For some this is just another expression of Blair’s subservience to Bush, summed up in the “Yo Blair!” exchange overheard at the G8. In fact, what the conflict in the Lebanon has done is to put the strategy of the British ruling class under intense pressure and expose more sharply than before the enormous difficulties it faces.

The impasse of the American superpower

The difficulties go right back to the collapse of the eastern bloc in 1989. The collapse meant that the western bloc, led by the US, lost its reason to exist, and its constituent parts increasingly went their own way and began to challenge their former leader. This could be seen throughout the conflicts of the 1990s when countries pursued their own interests, and alliances tended to be short-lived and unstable. For the US, as the only remaining superpower, this confronted it with a situation where, despite its military and economic power, things seemed to slip away from it. In the former Yugoslavia for example, it faced Germany, France and Britain all struggling for their own advantage and initially having some success in frustrating the US. The US responded by asserting itself through force, by giving exemplary displays of its might to any who would dare to challenge it. The first Gulf war seemed to restore some order but was immediately followed by renewed challenges around the world. The Dayton Accord imposed a momentary order in the carnage of the former Yugoslavia, only to be followed by renewed fighting culminating in the bombing of Kosovo. While no country can openly challenge the US for global dominance the chaotic nature of the international situation presents opportunities to disrupt US plans and frustrate its ambitions. The bombing of the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 allowed the US to launch a new offensive, dressed up as the ‘war on terror’. This was aimed at countering its most powerful rivals in Europe and led to the invasion first of Afghanistan and then Iraq. Today this strategy has run into the ground with the US mired in increasingly bloody wars that are sapping its military resources. This is one of the reasons it has held back from taking action against Iran.

It is not yet clear whether Israel launched its offensive against Lebanon with American blessing or not. Tel Aviv has shown in the past that it is prepared to take action to defend its interests in defiance of Washington. Although still heavily dependent on US support, especially military, the present situation has given it the initiative and, predictably, the offensive itself was presented as part of the war on terror. The attacks on Hizbollah, in that they also had the potential for striking a blow against Iranian and Syrian influence in the region, fitted in with American strategy. Israel was given the time and weapons to complete the job, but Hizbollah emerged with enhanced prestige in the region – further evidence of America’s increasing lack of control.

The dilemma of British imperialism

Following 1989, the main part of the British ruling class defended the need for an independent strategy, which essentially meant manoeuvring between America and Europe and playing one off against the other. Another part, which had a particular strength in the Tory party, defended the need to remain much closer to the US and was one of the reasons for replacing the Tories with Labour in 1997. The Blair government defended the independent strategy through its so-called ‘ethical foreign policy’. However, with the American offensive after 9/11, it was forced to reconsider how it positioned itself between the US and Europe and this seems to have opened up a debate within the dominant circles of the ruling class. The faction around Blair sought to position Britain closer to the US, not in order to be subservient, but as the best position from which to continue the previous independent strategy. In the wake of the second Gulf war, unease about this strategy changed into criticism and pressure to distance London further from Washington. The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly saw the civil service break its own rules to release incriminating documents while Blair was called before the inquiry and humiliated. As we said at the time, this marked the British bourgeoisie’s biggest crisis over imperialist orientation since the late 1930s and the change from the policy of appeasement.

The London bombings last year led to a revival of criticism, with a group of former high ranking officials publishing a report asserting that the foreign policy of Blair was responsible for making Britain a target, and that keeping so close to the US was a dangerous strategy. The fact that the US offensive of the last five years has seriously faltered - that the US itself is beginning to seem like a declining power - can only intensify imperialist rivalries by emboldening their rivals and goading America to lash out. This deepens the existing dilemma of British policy and is beginning to move the discussion from one of tactics to one of fundamental strategic orientation. The question is being posed of whether Britain should decisively distance itself from the US. Fifty years ago the Suez crisis forced the British ruling class to concede that it was no longer a first rank power and that America was the dominant world force. For the next thirty-odd years it became one of the more stable parts of the western alliance. It did not give up the defence of its own interests but recognised that this could best be done from within the heart of the alliance. Today, a question of equal weight is being posed and the conflict in the Lebanon is bringing it to the fore.

Re-opening the divisions of the ruling class

Over the last few months Blair has defended his policy and tried to show that it is effective. In the June ’06 issue of WR we noted that Britain had been able to take advantage of the US’s difficulties to advance its own interests: in Iran where to some extent it succeeded in playing Europe, China and Russia against the US; in Afghanistan where it has sought to take a more prominent role through the deployment of additional troops; and in Iraq where it was able to hand over one area to the Iraqi government and reduce the number of troops. However, we warned then that all of these initiatives were fraught with dangers and noted especially that new military action by the US, which we suggested could be against Iran, “would cut the ground from underneath Britain since it would be forced again to take sides” (WR295, ‘British imperialism: the difficulties of maintaining an independent role [118]’). The Israeli offensive against Lebanon has accomplished this, while in Afghanistan and Iraq the military seem to be more and more bogged down.

The confrontation within the ruling class

From the first bombing of Beirut the British media gave extensive coverage of the destruction, listing the dead, interviewing the survivors and showing the agony of the injured. We have been given a glimpse of the reality of war in advanced capitalism. But this coverage, which runs from the main television channels, through liberal papers like The Guardian and The Independent to tabloids of the left and the right like The Mirror and The Mail, is not an exposé of a humanitarian nightmare as they would like us to think. Rather it is a weapon in the struggle that has broken out within the British ruling class. One only has to compare it with the coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the daily atrocities, which are every bit as bad, and often worse, are briefly reported. A UK general in Afghanistan has recently admitted that British troops haven’t faced such ‘persistent, low-level fighting’ since the Korean or Second World Wars. Or even more clearly in the coverage of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where some four million have been slaughtered in recent years with only a flicker of interest.

As the weeks of the Israeli offensive went by more and more voices were raised against Blair:

-          officials of the Foreign Office were reported to consider the bombing disproportionate and counter-productive;

-          Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, was attacked within the Foreign Office and by MPs and former ministers for her poor understanding of the situation;

-          a former senior Foreign Office official openly called on Blair to “use his credit in Washington and Israel to persuade President Bush and prime minister Olmert that their strategy has failed, and must be abandoned” (Guardian Unlimited, 1/8/06);

-          Kim Howells, a Foreign Office Minister, denounced the Israeli campaign in a visit to Beirut: “The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people: these have not been surgical strikes. If they are chasing Hizbollah, then go for Hizbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation” (Observer, 23/07/06);

-          reports emerged of splits in the cabinet, one minister saying of Blair “we could do with sounding a little more like Kim [Howells] and a little less like Condi [Rice]” (Guardian 29/7/06);

-          a Commons committee revealed that arms sales to Israel have doubled in the last two years;

-          Jack Straw, the previous foreign secretary, denounced the attacks in words similar to Howells: “There are not surgical strikes but have instead caused death and misery amongst innocent civilians” (Observer, 30/07/06). It was also revealed that Kofi Annan, the head of the UN, had phoned Straw to express his concern;

-          a senior UN official called for Britain to keep out of negotiations and follow the lead of powers like France;

-          two former ambassadors attacked Blair, one Sir Rodric Braitewaite asserted “Mr Blair has done more damage to British interests in the Middle East than Anthony Eden, who led the UK to disaster in Suez 50 years ago…Mr Blair’s total identification with the White House has destroyed his influence in Washington, Europe and the Middle East itself; who bothers with the monkey if he can go straight to the organ grinder?” (Guardian Unlimited 3/8/06). He accused Blair of making Britain vulnerable to terrorist attacks and called on him to resign immediately;

-          a memo from Britain’s retiring ambassador to Iraq was leaked to the press. This foresaw a future of war and chaos: “The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de-facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy” (Guardian, 4/8/06).

Despite this onslaught Blair did not bow down and defended his policy. While in America in early August he described an “arc of extremism stretching across the Middle East” and called for an “alliance of moderation” to confront it. He defended the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a global confrontation between values: “We are fighting a war – but not just against terrorism, but about how the world should govern itself in the early 21st century, about global values” (Guardian 2/8/06). This was the third in a series of speeches begun earlier in the year and echoed what he said in the first: “The different aspects of this terrorism are linked. The struggle against terrorism in Madrid or London or Paris is the same as the struggle against the terrorist acts of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the PIJ in Palestine or rejectionist groups in Iraq” (Guardian Unlimited, 21/3/06). Blair has also consolidated his position by replacing Straw, who had firmly rejected the idea of military action against Iran, with Beckett, who has limited experience of foreign affairs but is loyal to Blair.

On his return from the US Blair made a slightly stronger criticism of Israeli attacks, but rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire: “I have got to try and get a solution to this, and the solution will not come by condemning one side, it will not come simply by statements that we make, it will only come by a plan that allows a ceasefire on both sides and then a plan to deal with the underlying cause, which is the inability of the government of Lebanon to take control of the whole of Lebanon” (Guardian 4/8/06). Shortly after this America and France began to draft a resolution to go to the UN and froze Britain out. According to a report on Channel 4 news this was at the insistence of the French who expressed irritation about the way Britain is pro-Europe when in Europe and pro-America when there; in short, that it is two-faced. Initially Blair announced that he was delaying his holiday to stay in London to deal with the crisis but after a couple of days he gave up the pretence and left to join his family.

Towards a new crisis for British imperialism

The options facing the ruling class are all very risky: the way Britain was pushed out of the negotiations between France and America over the war in Lebanon gives an indication of what the future may be like. The essential point is that while Britain may still have options at the imperialist level, the one that it doesn’t have is to be able to resolve the fundamental contradiction of its position. Playing America off against Europe was the way Britain sought to ‘punch above its weight’, to quote the former Tory Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd. With reduced opportunities for playing this card British imperialism faces the prospect of a further decline in its standing. In this sense it is confronted with an unpalatable reality just as it was fifty years ago.

With the struggle within the ruling class, Blair will face yet more pressure. The demands for a recall of parliament, the resignation of a junior member of the government, Labour MPs calling Bush’s policy ‘crap’, and the continuing media chatter in what should be the holiday ‘silly season’ all confirm that. What is clear is that this is a deeper crisis than at any time since 1989, and possibly since the Suez crisis of 1956, and that the difficulties facing the ruling class and the divisions within it can only intensify.
North, 19/8/06.

Apologists for the brutal assault of the Israeli armed forces on first Gaza and then Lebanon have scraped the bottom of the barrel for dubious ‘justifications’. In the face of attacks using indiscriminate air strikes, cluster bombs, phosphorous incendiary bombs, vacuum bombs, chemical weapons and all the rest of the devices available to a country that has nuclear weapons and warheads armed with depleted uranium, we are told that at least Israel issues warning leaflets before its bombardments. When the range of targets has included airports, roads, bridges, ambulances, UN personnel, civilians, factories, ports, farms and a whole range of other essential infrastructure (including an attack on a power plant that has resulted in tons of oil pouring into the sea), the propagandists for the Israeli offensive blame the hundreds of dead victims because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the military talk of “cleaning out” southern Lebanon, the apologists insist that Israel is defending itself, as any nation has the right to do. Nationalism is used to justify everything.

In Lebanon the main force set against Israel has been Hizbollah, as it has been since the early 1980s. It claimed to have 13,000 artillery rockets at the start of the latest conflict. It has generously deployed these against towns and cities across northern Israel. With a limited accuracy they have been launched against places including densely-populated Haifa and mainly Arab Nazareth.  Hizbollah claim to attack military targets, but the majority of its victims have been civilians, just like the Israeli state’s. The fact that it has so far killed dozens where Israel has killed hundreds only reflects the latter’s superior resources.

There should be no doubt as to Hizbollah’s intentions. Human Rights Watch criticised attacks on civilian areas in Israel on 18 July in part because “the warheads used suggest a desire to maximize harm to civilians. Some of the rockets launched against Haifa over the past two days contained hundreds of metal ball bearings that are of limited use against military targets but cause great harm to civilians and civilian property.” This is to be expected because Hizbollah’s ideology is identical to Israel’s – it is defending the state in which it plays a role in parliament and government, and over more than twenty years has proved itself as an effective military force. Nationalism is used to justify whatever it does.

Hizbollah’s role as part of the Lebanese state is not limited to the political and military sphere. It already fulfils basic state functions, alongside the ‘official’ state, with a basic welfare network of schools, hospitals, clinics and various development projects. The Lebanese ruling class is dependent on its contribution which, in turn, is supported by Iran and Syria.

Demonstrations for imperialist war

Many on the left are loud in their support for Hizbollah. George Galloway is blatant when he says “I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement” and recent demonstrations have been solidly pro-war in their backing for the Lebanese/Hizbollah military effort and against Israel.

Sponsored by the Stop The War Coalition, Muslim groups and CND the 5th August demo in London was a typical endorsement of the war. During the rally held at the end of the march we heard the insistence that Israel should be forced to pay reparations, sounding just like the French and British imperialists making demands on Germany after the First World War.

One speaker demanded “Yellow bellied Arab leaders get off your knees!” – a clear demand for the escalation of the war to draw in other countries and engulf the region.

Members of the Respect party claimed to be the only “anti-war” party as they dished out pro-war leaflets focussing exclusively on the damage inflicted on Lebanon. The main slogan of the march was “Unconditional ceasefire now”, but the qualification – “Stop Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Gaza” - confirmed that there was a condition to the  ceasefire: it does not apply to Hizbollah, Syria or Iran, whose war-drive the march and rally saluted.

Telling lies about the ‘resistance’

There are other ways of selling what Wilfred Owen called “the old Lie” of how sweet it is to die for a patriotic cause.

The Socialist Workers Party has called for “solidarity with the resistance” because “the resistance Israel is meeting in Lebanon is a barrier to further wars and further destruction”. This is the opposite of the truth. The current conflicts involving Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon did not start a few weeks ago. To understand the roots of the conflicts, just like those in Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Egypt, you have to go back to the First World War and the break up of the Ottoman Empire. The biggest imperialist powers then grabbed different parts of the strategically important Middle East and have been manoeuvring in the region ever since. Smaller powers, groups and factions have either been used by bigger powers or tried to satisfy their own individual appetites. The 1948 formation of Israel, the 1967 Six Day War, the 1978 invasion of Lebanon, the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq – these are all moments in imperialist war from which no power, big or small, can stand aside. Today every faction says it agrees with a ‘two states’ solution – but Israel wants it to mean a Greater Israel and its opponents a unified Palestine. Far from being a ‘barrier’ to further wars the current conflict between Israel and Hizbollah shows every sign of having the capacity to escalate and involve other forces, thereby letting loose much greater destruction.

The SWP says that Hizbollah “is being supported by a growing wave of solidarity across the Arab world”. This is a weakness in the struggle of the exploited and oppressed because it shows that there are widespread illusions in the nationalist forces that are thrown up by imperialist conflicts and can only play a part in their exacerbation. The various ‘resistance’ forces, whether in Palestine/Lebanon or Iraq or Afghanistan, are presented as the only possible responses to Israeli offensives or US/British repression.

For example, the SWP quotes an activist in Beirut as saying that “Hizbollah, and Hamas in Palestine, are the only models of resistance we still have, the only ones that work.” Yet both of these organisations owed their origins to factions engaged in imperialist conflict. Israel had a hand in the setting up of Hamas as a counter to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Hizbollah was in many ways the brain-child of Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Iranian ambassador to Syria in the early 1980s, and has had the support of Iran and Syria in the years since then. They are not ‘models of resistance’ but models of auxiliary forces to the main capitalist battalions.

You will not find any ‘barriers’ to future wars and destruction in the ranks of those who are engaged in the current conflicts. The only force that has the capacity to strike at the heart of the capitalist system that engenders imperialist war is the international working class.

Demonstrators internationally are not only being asked to support the current conflict; they are also told to ‘put pressure on western governments’. In this they are being asked to believe that big powers like the US, Britain, France, or Germany could behave in any other way than as imperialist predators. As for the ‘national resistance movements’, they are either already integral to capitalism’s forces of repression and war or have that as an ambition. Capitalist society puts the international working class in conflict with the capitalist state world-wide, but where imperialist war can only lead to increasingly massive destruction, the class war of the working class can lead to a society without national divisions, to the liberation of humanity. 

6 August 2006

Although the political horizon seems to be darkened by war and barbarism, the proletarian perspective is still alive and growing. This is demonstrated not only by the development of workers’ struggles in numerous countries, but also by the appearance around the world of new groups and politicised elements trying to defend the internationalist positions which are the distinguishing mark of proletarian politics. The article on the congress of our French section in this issue refers to the OPOP in Brazil, and our current International Review contains correspondence with elements in Russia and Ukraine.

The Enternasyonalist Komunist Sol (International Communist Left) group in Turkey is another expression of this trend. Below is a leaflet produced by the group in response to the war in Lebanon. The emergence of this internationalist voice in Turkey is particularly significant, given the strength of nationalism in that country (peddled in particular by the so-called ‘left’), and the fact that Turkey is deeply implicated in the inter-imperialist rivalries which are creating such havoc in the region. The Turkish state is about to launch a new offensive against the Kurdish nationalist PKK – a military campaign which will certainly be justified ideologically by the recent wave of terrorist attacks in a number of Turkish cities, which have been attributed to Kurdish nationalist factions. The Kurdish question is directly related to the situation in Iraq, Iran and Syria, and Turkey is one of the few states in the region to have close ties with Israel. The war in Lebanon is thus very ‘close’ to the working class in Turkey; and at the same time, the Turkish working class, which has a long tradition of militant struggle, could play a major role in the development, throughout that region, of a proletarian alternative to imperialist war.

On the Situation in Lebanon and Palestine

On July 12, right after the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by the Hizbollah, Israeli president Ehud Olmert promised Lebanon a “very painful and far-reaching response”. During the early hours of July 13, the State of Israel started an invasion and pushed its working class into another nationalist and imperialist war. The Israeli state started this invasion for its own interests and without caring about the blood that would be shed. In fifteen days, about four hundred Lebanese civilians lost their lives. Not even the current ceasefire guarantees that the massacres won’t start again as the Israeli state showed that it would destroy anything threatening its own interests, not only with the last conflict but with the ongoing torture of the Palestinians.

Yet, it should not be forgotten that Israel is not the only side responsible for this conflict. Neither Hizbollah, which is attracting the attention of the world nowadays with the fight they gave to the Israelis with a violence that could match their own, nor the PLO and Hamas who have been carrying out a nationalist war in Palestine for years, can be considered ‘clean’. Hizbollah, which was the excuse Israel showed the world before the beginning of the conflict, killed Israeli civilians with rockets provided by Syria and Iran throughout the war. Hizbollah is an anti-Semitic and religious fundamentalist organisation. Most importantly, contrary to what some think, Hizbollah did not fight to protect the Lebanese; instead Hizbollah forced the Lebanese working class to join a nationalist front for its own interests, and it struggled only for the territories they controlled and the authority they had. The PLO which pushed the Palestinian workers from class struggle into the claws of their national bourgeoisie, and Hamas which is an organisation that is as reactionary, violent, anti-Semitic and religiously fundamentalist as Hizbollah, also act only for their own interests.

At this point, it is necessary to briefly describe imperialism. Contrary to what most people think, imperialism is not a policy strong nation states practice in order to take over weak nation states’ resources. Instead it is the policy of a nation state, or an organisation that functions as a nation state, that controls a certain territory, resources on that territory and authority over the population in that territory. To phrase it simply, imperialism is the natural policy any nation state, or organisation that functions as a nation state, practices. As we have seen in the last conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, in some situations nation states or organisations functioning as nation states have clashing interests, and this clash finally reaches the point of an inter-imperialist war.

As the situation is like this, what leftists in Turkey and the world are saying becomes even more ridiculous and inconsistent. Both in Turkey and the world, a great majority of leftists have given full support to the PLO and Hamas. In the latest conflict they become one voice and said “We are all Hizbollah”. By following the logic of saying ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, they fully embraced this violent organisation which pushed its working class into a disastrous nationalist war. The support leftists gave to nationalism shows us why leftists don’t have much to say that is different from what parties like MHP (Nationalist Movement Party – the fascist Grey Wolves) not only on Hizbollah, PLO and Hamas, but on many other subjects. Especially in Turkey, leftists don’t have any idea what they are talking about.

Both the war between Hizbollah and Israel and the war in Palestine are inter-imperialist wars and all sides use nationalism to draw workers in their territories onto their sides. The more workers get sucked up into nationalism, the more they will lose the ability to act as a class. This is why neither Israel, nor Hizbollah, nor PLO nor Hamas should be supported under any circumstances. What should be supported during this conflict is the workers’ struggle to survive, not nationalist organisations or states that are getting them killed. Yet more importantly, what should be done in Turkey is to work for class consciousness and class struggle that will develop here. Imperialism and capitalism bind all countries together; this is why national independence is impossible. Only workers’ struggle for their own needs can provide an answer.

For Internationalism and Workers Struggle!

Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol, 1/9/06.

The following article was sent to us by members of the Midlands Discussion Forum. As well as putting forward a very clear general perspective on the recent council workers’ strike, it contains some very interesting information about a small but significant expression of class solidarity in the wake of the strike.

28 March 2006 saw the biggest strike in Britain since 1926. More than 1 million workers in local government – in housing departments, refuse collection, street cleaning, libraries, school meals and cleaning, and other departments – were called out by eight unions including Unison, Amicus, T&G and GMB. This was a union ‘day of action’ against proposed reforms to the pension system, which would mean local government workers accepting the same pension deal as most private sector workers and continuing to work to 65 at least, instead of the current rules that allow many state workers to retire at 60.

The proposed reform to pensions matches similar reforms in other European countries, such as France and Austria in 2003, and in the USA. The proposal is part of a wider attack by the British state on ‘the social wage’, including an extension of the working age to 68 for those currently under 30, and is a sign of capitalism’s historic bankruptcy. No longer able to provide anything for the working class other than long-term unemployment or overwork until an early death, workers are told we cannot expect the state to support us in our old age, after a lifetime of toil, or a lifetime wasted on the dole.

As in France and Austria, as in the New York transport workers’ strike at the end of 2005, there has been massive anger from workers over these reforms, which call into question the very idea of the future capitalism has to offer. This anger has led to the unions putting themselves at the head of the protests against them. The issue of pensions is an issue that affects the whole of the working class; it is an attack on whole class; it is an issue that unites all workers, whatever sector they work in, whatever their age, whether they are employed or unemployed. The massive mobilisations in France showed the extent of workers’ anger there; the massive strike in Britain showed the workers’ anger here; this isn’t just an issue for British workers or British capitalism, but a worldwide sign of capitalism’s historic failure.

From the beginning, the unions tried to divide workers into categories to fragment any sense of solidarity. There was no call to extend the strike to other categories of state workers who can also retire at 60, but whose pensions were not under threat – civil servants, teachers, or health workers for example – or those in the private sector who generally must work to 65. Even within council departments, there were divisions – some areas and departments would work normally, others would be closed or partially closed as workers went on strike.

 The press also attacked the most basic principles of working class solidarity: the council workers were presented as ‘privileged’ (because their working conditions had not been attacked quite as savagely as other workers in the 1980s) and out of touch with economic reality, a throwback to the ‘bad old days’ of the 1970s and ‘80s (in other words, to the last time large numbers of workers in Britain were expressing their combativity).

In one town in the Midlands, several council departments were on strike, including the street cleaning department – this department is made up of both permanent-contract workers, mostly GMB members, and temporary-contract workers, mostly young workers who have come to Britain from Poland after the eastward expansion of the EU, and are employed by job agencies. These workers are not unionised; in general, very few workers employed by job agencies are members of unions.

As a result of the strike, those strikers who were on permanent contracts but not union members were disciplined, for instance by having the option to do overtime withdrawn – in a job as badly paid as street cleaning, overtime is for some workers absolutely vital to make ends meet. The young Polish agency workers, however, who struck in solidarity with their union colleagues, were sacked.

The reaction of the permanent staff at the street cleaning department was anger at this blatant provocation. An impromptu meeting of around 35 workers – about half of those on shift the next morning – was held in the works canteen to decide how to get these young workers re-instated. Representations were made to the GMB shop steward in the department, who informed the workers that as the agency workers were not union members, the union would do nothing to help. Three workers’ delegates demanded from management that the agency workers be re-instated. The management’s reply was that the agency workers had not actually been sacked by the department; because their contract of employment was with the agency, it was the agency, not the council, that had declined to re-employ them as the contract had been breached.

This hypocritical response provoked the workers at the department even further. A further meeting with management followed, at which the workers demanded re-instatement of their sacked colleagues. Management agreed to write a letter to the agency informing them that the Polish workers were not to be blamed for not coming to work; that in the ‘confusion’ of the strike it was difficult to know who had or had not turned up. This letter was then delivered by two of the workers to the employment agency – in order to ensure that they arrived, as the workers did not trust management to see that this was done. As a result, all of the sacked workers were re-instated.

United, the working class is an irresistible force; when workers show solidarity with each other, striking in sympathy and solidarity, demanding from management the re-instating of sacked colleagues, transcending the barriers that capitalism tries to erect between us – union/non-union, permanent/temporary, contract/agency, native/migrant – each action, though in itself tiny, is a part of the process by which the working class as a whole begins to re-discover its own identity as a world class, and as an historic class too; the class that holds the future of the humanity within itself, the bearers of communism.

1/9/06.
 

At the time of writing a number of workers’ struggles were developing up and down the country:

-               on the railways, 900 South West Trains workers staged a 24-hour strike in protest against management strike-breaking tactics in a previous dispute, and further strikes could take place in September. Workers on the Heathrow Express were also on strike in a  separate dispute;

-               in the health sector, there has been a series of strikes by domestics, porters and catering workers employed by Rentokil Initial at Whipps Cross hospital in Leytonstone, London. They are demanding the same pay and conditions as NHS-employed workers. The strikes have been escalating from one to two to three days and the next one could be five days and/or indefinite. Striking workers have gathered in large numbers at the entrance to the hospital, providing the opportunity for other hospital employees, hospital users, and workers from other sectors to discuss with them and express their support.

-               in the fire service, Merseyside fire fighters began a strike at the end of August that could last 8 days or more. The workers are angry about massive cuts that will lead to job losses and shift changes that will increase working hours. Anger has been further fuelled by management attempts to operate a scab service

-               in the post office, workers have been going though a  long drawn-out rigmarole of balloting for official action over job losses and other issues, but the discontent of the workers has exploded into spontaneous action in a number of centres in the last few months: Plymouth and Belfast in March, Wolverhampton in May, Oxford in July.

The most recent of these outbreaks in the postal service was at Exeter mail centre, where 300 workers walked out quite spontaneously after a local union representative was accused of taking fake sick days and was docked pay as a result. Postal workers employed at Exeter airport came out as well.

The fact that workers have walked out in defence of a union rep has been used by leftists like the SWP to present this as a strike for ‘trade union rights’. No doubt many of the workers see it that way, but at the same time they are fighting against the victimisation of a fellow worker and against management bullying in general. 

These strikes are still very dispersed and fairly well-controlled by the trade unions. But  there is an overall change of climate in the class struggle, not only in Britain but internationally, as illustrated in particular by the massive movement of young ‘workers to be’ in the French schools and universities in the spring, by the mass assemblies organised by the metal workers of Vigo in Spain, by the current struggles of miners in Chile, car workers in Brazil, education workers in Mexico, and many others. A key element in many of these movements has been a growing recognition of the need for class solidarity, and we have seen this again in some of the current strikes in Britain. It is this recognition that will lead workers to try to widen their struggles beyond the immediate limitations of workplace or union membership.  Amos, 2.9.06

The depredations of imperialism in the Middle East and Asia have been so violent in recent years that the bourgeois media has been unable to black them out. Yet there has been less focus on the continuing confrontations taking place in Africa. Whole swathes of this continent have plunged into war and ruin, and yet the bourgeoisie is very careful to keep this away from the headlines. This is because Africa shows in frightening detail the real future that the capitalist mode of production has for humanity. Particularly instructive is the case of Somalia, as analysed in this article written by a close sympathiser.

Somalia in the Cold War

Throughout the Cold War, Somalia played a key role in the antagonism between the US and Russian-led blocs, whilst also attempting to pursue its own imperialist interests. First serving as a Russian client state, it rapidly switched sides in order to secure the Ogaden region from a weakened Ethiopia in the late 70s. This particularly bloody and senseless war nonetheless cemented its position in the US bloc, which made use of its strategically important naval bases to dominate the Red Sea and Arabian Sea.

Collapse and Decomposition

In the late 80s and early 90s, the Russian bloc completely collapsed, exhausted by the strain of competing with the superior US. The US bloc was not immune to this economic pressure, however, and Somalia had been pushed to the brink of social collapse by the protracted struggles of the Cold War. In 1991, the US-backed regime there crumbled and the state began to fragment. The US attempted to retrieve the situation by sending a “peace keeping” force under the banner of the UN. This effort was shipwrecked by the now infamous Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, which led to a swift and humiliating withdrawal by Uncle Sam.

Following the US withdrawal, Somalia effectively disintegrated as a nation-state, with regions claiming independence.  Today, there is still no central authority; power is exercised by regional militias. To a certain extent Somalia has stepped back to a debased version of pre-capitalist social organisation – based on clan and tribal forms. Somalia today thus expresses, in an advanced form, the same tendencies of decomposition that have also been noted in Russia and elsewhere: collapse of the state, complete gangsterisation of the economy, etc. Nonetheless, this has not prevented larger capitalists from exploiting the working class. Coca-cola opened a bottling plant in Mogadishu in 2004!

In May 2006, the capital Mogadishu was rent by a battle for control between two main factions: the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and the Islamic Court Union (ICU). The former is a coalition of warlords connected to the Somali Transtional Government (STG) that rules central Somalia. At present, the ICU has the advantage, having routed the secular warlords and seized control of the capital.

The threat of wider war

The situation in Somalia is not simply the product of internal difficulties. Regional and global interests are driving various powers to intervene, stoking up wider tension in the region. The forces of the STG are strongly backed by Ethiopia. The STG is even said to have requested up to 20,000 Ethiopian troops to come to their aid[1] [121] and rumours persist of Ethiopian forces operating on Somalian soil. Although the Ethiopian government has denied this, they have vowed to “crush” any ICU advance on Baidoa, seat of the STG[2] [122]. Not to be outdone by Ethiopia, other regional powers are trying to get in on the game. Eritrea is providing arms and materiel to the ICU, undoubtedly as a way of containing any advance by its Ethiopian rival. Eritrea also has interests in Sudan, which is itself currently at war with Chad. Yemen, meanwhile, is rumoured to be supplying the STG, probably in pursuit of its own rivalry with Eritrea.

The US is also funneling support to the anti-Islamic coalitions[3] [123], while US officials have accused the ICU of harbouring al-Qaeda. Under the pretext of the “War on Terror” it is attempting to reassert its military interests in the area – Somalian naval bases occupy an important strategic position, allowing the US to assert naval power across Eastern Africa, into the Middle East and into the Indian Ocean. This is part of an ongoing effort by the US. In 2003, Bush used a tour of Africa as a cover for building up US military power on the continent. Djibouti, which borders Somalia to the North, serves as a base for “more than 1,800 members of the US military [that] have been placed in Djibouti for counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa”[4] [124].

The loss of Mogadishu will only make the US even more determined to assert itself in the region. Earlier this year, the Pentagon indicated that “the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, north Africa, central and south-east Asia and the northern Caucasus”[5] [125] would all be areas of operation for US forces. With its never-ending spiral of wars, social collapse, grinding poverty and repugnant barbarism Africa represents the future that capitalism has for the whole of humanity. The working class has nothing to gain from any accommodation with any faction of the bourgeoisie. Whether degenerated “radical” Islam or the moribund “great powers”, none have the capacity to take humanity beyond the catastrophic impasse it now faces. Only the working class and its communist revolution can offer anyway out.  DG, 1/9/06.

The British policeman who announced the arrest of a number of suspects in the latest bomb plot said that the group had been planning “mass murder on an unimaginable, unprecedented scale”.

If they were indeed planning to destroy planeloads of passengers above US cities, this was certainly a plan for mass murder. The methods of Bin Laden and the ‘jihadists’ who admire him are the methods of barbarism. The victims of their attacks are first and foremost the exploited and the oppressed, the workers, the poor. In New York, Madrid, London, Mumbai, Beslan, in Iraq every day, the “Islamic resistance” massacres those going to work, those trying to survive day by day in a hostile society. In fact the methods of the ‘jihadists’ are the same as those of the ‘infidel’ powers they claim to oppose – the US, Britain, Israel, Russia and the rest.

And just as the governments of the ‘west’ try to stir up Islamophobia and racism against those identified as Muslims, the jihadis’ response is to preach racism against the ‘kafirs’, and in particular against the Jews, reviving the worst lies of Hitlerism. These ideologies are used to justify the mass slaughter of non-Muslims (in which Muslims also die by the thousands, as in Iraq today). The jihadis are the true mirror image of Bush and Blair and their ‘war on terror’.    

But that is our point. Terrorist atrocities against the innocent are neither “unimaginable” nor “unprecedented”. Those in power who condemn this most recent intended atrocity carry out far greater ones, because they have the superior firepower. These are the ‘democratic’ jihadis in charge of the world’s major states, those responsible for slaughtering civilians on a far higher scale – in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Lebanon, in Chechnya… The wars unleashed by the ‘democratic’ powers are the supreme model of terror: what else can you call the use of massive military force to intimidate entire populations? What else is Israel’s devastation of Lebanon, what else was the USA’s “shock and awe” campaign in 2003, or for that matter Churchill’s “area bombing” of Germany at the end of the Second World War?   

The ‘democratic’ state manipulates terrorists

Imperialist war is terror against humanity. And the states that wage it are equally adept in the shadowy methods of the ‘terrorists’ as they are in the open, massive terror of aerial bombardments. Who else trained Bin Laden to fight the Russians but ‘democratic’ America? Who used the Protestant gangs to carry out assassinations and bombings in Ulster? ‘Democratic’ Britain. Whose ‘founding fathers’ were also terrorists like Menachim Begin? ‘Anti-terrorist’ Israel. And through its spies and informers, the ‘democratic’ state can also make subtle use of the terrorist gangs even when they are on the ‘other side’. Despite the official polemics against ‘conspiracy theories’, there is mounting evidence to suggest that the US state allowed al Qaida to proceed with its attacks in September 2001; the aim – which had already been openly considered by the ‘Neo-Con’ theorists – was to create a new Pearl Harbour to justify a huge imperialist offensive in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it is equally capable of manufacturing terrorist plots when nothing really exists: Jean Charles de Menezes gave his life to one of these set-ups in Stockwell, and the massive raid in Forest Gate last June nearly resulted in another ‘accidental’ death. Because whether the threat is real or invented, the state will always use the activities of the terrorists to strengthen their arsenal of repressive laws, their vast apparatus of informing and surveillance.

After September 11 Bush offered us a false choice: with us, or with the terrorists. Today millions have seen what Bush stands for, but they haven’t escaped the false choice. Many young people who see that the world we live in is heading for disaster are being misled towards the terrorists as the only ‘alternative’. But it is a false alternative, an equally disastrous dead-end, turning them into recruiting agents in a suicide-march towards imperialist war. This is evident in the warfare spreading throughout the Middle East, warfare that is also rebounding to the USA and Europe

The class struggle is our only future

But faced with the inexorable decay of present day society, which is sliding into war and chaos, there is another side: the side of the exploited class, the proletariat, the vast majority of us, who have no interest in being dragged into fratricidal conflicts and inter-imperialist massacres.

Faced with the accelerating collapse of capitalism, which, in every part of the globe, has proved that it is endangering the very survival of humanity, there is one war still worth fighting: the class war, uniting the workers of all countries and colours against the gangsters who rule the planet but are now increasingly losing control of it.  

The battle between the classes, which many claimed to be buried, is once again breaking out. It can be seen in a number of recent movements:

• In the assemblies and demonstrations of the French students, massively on strike in the schools and universities, all colours and creeds combined; a movement which, like 1968, shook the powers that be, above all when growing numbers of waged workers began to join the students,
• In the wildcat strike by the postal workers of Belfast: officially ‘Loyalist’ and ‘Catholic’, they unofficially marched together down ‘enemy’ streets in defiance of the national schism and the paramilitary gangs of both camps,
• In the strike at Heathrow last year, where the baggage handlers walked out in solidarity with the Gate Gourmet workers, united across racial and sexual divisions by their common indignation against the grossly tyrannical methods of management, and in doing so, once again defied all trade union legislation. 

These expression of working class solidarity are the outlines of the true community of mankind, a community made by human action for human beings, and thus no longer in thrall to religion or the state.

World Revolution, 14/8/06.

The 17th Congress of the section of the ICC in France took place at the same moment as the movement of the young generation of workers in response to growing uncertainty in employment. The movement of the students against the CPE expressed the highest point reached up to now by the international resurgence of workers’ struggles, which has also just been reconfirmed in Vigo, Spain (see WR no. 295). The class struggle is now entering a new period. Faced with this situation, our organisation, as a matter of priority, had to focus the work of this Congress on the demands posed by such an important situation.

The work of the Congress was thus clearly oriented towards understanding all the implications that this struggle could have on our activity, particularly our intervention. In this situation, conscious of its responsibilities, the Congress succeeded in fulfilling its responsibilities and its tasks. The presence at this Congress of a revolutionary organisation from Brazil thus took on a particular significance. It is undeniable that the proletarian political milieu is about to enter a new phase of development after the one that we saw at the end of the 1960s and the beginnings of the 70s. This is an essential given of the new historic period. And it was in order to be up to the necessities of the new situation that our organisation invited the Brazilian group Workers’ Opposition (OPOP)[1] [139] to take part in the work of the Congress.

The 17th Congress of RI draws the lessons of the struggle of the younger generation

Since 2003 we have highlighted the turning point taking place in the international class struggle. As we wrote at the time, “the large scale mobilisations, from spring 2003 in France and Austria represent a turning point  in the class struggle since 1989. They are the first significant steps in the revival of workers’ combativity after the longest period of reflux since 1968” (International Review no. 119). This resurgence of class struggle certainly turned out to be difficult but, with the movement of the students in France, it underwent a very important political advance. At the close of long and rich discussions, the Congress underlined the importance of this first combat of the younger generation of the working class in a text bringing together all the characteristics and the lessons of this movement. The ‘Theses on the students’ movement of spring 2006 in France’ were thus adopted by the 17th Congress of RI. It says that “no matter how the bourgeoisie manoeuvres, it cannot suppress all the experience accumulated through weeks of struggle by tens of thousands of future workers, their awakening to politics and their developing consciousness. This will be a real treasure-trove for the future struggles of the proletariat, a vital element in their ability to continue down the path towards the communist revolution.” (‘Theses’, International Review no. 125). The international dimension of this movement was clearly developed in the debates of the Congress, as well as the importance of drawing out the lessons and experience from it. The OPOP, during the Congress, situated itself entirely within this framework: “ …(the) preoccupation (of) proletarian internationalism (…) was explicit in the majority of discussions, (we’ve) seen that the class struggle has been examined, in the majority of interventions, through an internationalist prism, even when it was a question of the situation in France” (position of the OPOP on the work of the RI Congress).

Solidarity and culture of debate: the ICC develops on the experience of the Communist Left

This capacity to understand the historic and international significance of the struggle of the young generation in France was also concretised in the strengthening of the internal cohesion of the ICC. This Congress showed a very strong desire for political clarification on the part of all the delegations of the ICC and of all the militants. But this clarification isn’t possible without a solid proletarian internal life. At the Congress this was manifested in the profound spirit of camaraderie in the debates.

Solidarity, the confidence of comrades among themselves and towards the organisation is indispensable for a real proletarian culture of debate. This culture of debate, the will to confront arguments was saluted by the delegation of the OPOP which, thanks to the fraternal climate of the discussions,  was able to join in the debates quite naturally: “We think that, following the debates which have already taken place between our two organisation both  in Brazil as in France, we have  the  elements for  a common activity, or at least common work where possible. This will play a part in the development of our two organisations, with the wider aim of  developing the consciousness and organisation of  the  workers of the whole world”.

The OPOP’s capacity to clearly join in the activity of the proletarian political milieu, such as we saw at the Congress, has been welcomed with enthusiasm by our organisation. Despite the disagreements that may persist between organisations, any group of the proletarian political milieu needs to actively participate in the theoretical elaboration of the central problems posed to the proletariat. It is vital to develop a common intervention in response to crucial situations for the proletariat. Against all sectarianism, immobilisation, and opportunism, OPOP manifested an understanding which is rich in promise for the future: “Despite some differences that we’ve noted, treated and deepened in the discussions and meetings, we want to put forward the points we have in common. We are two organisations which belong to the camp of the proletariat, who are not looking to dispute the political space of the bourgeoisie, who have no illusions in union organisations that are chained to the capitalist state.” The political approach shown by the OPOP in this passage on the work of the Congress is unequivocal. It is the same approach that we have put forward since the foundation of the ICC. It is this approach which will help to fertilise the new proletarian groups, against all the erroneous conceptions which have helped to weaken the left communist milieu that came out of the historic resurgence of the class struggle at the end of the 1960s.

The Congress faces up to the responsibilities of revolutionaries

On the basis of these debates our organisation, while continuing to be an active part of the youth movement  against the CPE, also managed to trace perspectives for its future activity. The Congress clearly affirmed that it is intervention that must orient the activity of the ICC in the period of the re-emergence of the class struggle at the international level. But in this domain particularly, the present is not opposed to the future. The intensive mobilisation of the organisation for intervention in the general assemblies of the students and the demonstrations has also helped us to situate our perspectives for activity in the context of the historical movement of the proletariat. As the struggle in the universities and schools has concretely demonstrated, the young generations, while struggling against the degradation of the living conditions of the whole working class, have immediately and simultaneously posed much greater political questions: what perspectives does capitalism offer to humanity? Why is the world sinking into misery and war? Responding to these questions posed by the new generation must be one of the priorities of revolutionaries. The Congress was firmly involved in the orientation of activities along these lines. It was these orientations, drawn from the discussions on the international struggle of the proletariat and its demands, which were particularly underlined by the OPOP: “…we recognise that it has permitted us to participate in a meeting where the preoccupations and the discussions have been determined by the class struggle at the international level. In these discussions it has been verified that for some time now we have been  engaged in a historic period of  resurgence in  the consciousness of the working class at the world level. The debates have also confirmed  the importance of the role of new generations unaffected by the weaknesses and political conditioning of their predecessors, in the future struggles of the entire world. The OPOP shares the vision that there exists a dynamic of the resurgence of consciousness, the result of  the aggravation of the crisis of capitalism and the necessity to react faced with the uncertainty engendered by the system.

Beware however of having  too optimistic a vision in the short term, which could have existed in the Congress and which expressed itself in the heat of the students’ and workers’ struggles in France.”

It is perfectly clear that the OPOP shares with the ICC the understanding of the international resurgence of class struggle initiated in 2003, and of the growing importance within this of the young generations. On the other hand, we want to note here that our organisation doesn’t share the idea that the ICC, at the time of the Congress, was being too “optimistic”. We cannot, in the framework of this article, develop a real response to the remarks of the OPOP. We invite comrades to read attentively our theses, which argue for the historic and international importance of this movement in the long term. However, we would like to draw attention here to the political significance of the fear felt by the bourgeoisie about the possibility of the extension of the movement to the whole of the working class around April. It was faced with this danger and with the example that it could represent for the whole of the proletariat in other countries that the bourgeoisie developed its political counter-offensive. In France, it was obliged to withdraw the CPE after the big demonstration of April 4th. In other countries of Europe such as Germany, the dominant class had to put to one side, at least for the time being, the plans for laws similar to the CPE. This reality demonstrates the highly proletarian content of this movement, its importance in the immediate but still more for future struggles.

The working class must appropriate proletarian morality

In this Congress there was a particular discussion on the evolution of an internal debate begun at the international level in June 2004 on the questions of proletarian ethics and morality. This discussion is crucial for the combat of the whole of the working class, but equally for strengthening the life of revolutionary minorities. Our organisation, from its foundation, has been preoccupied with these questions. But this preoccupation has been shown in an intuitive manner rather than being consciously assumed. It was necessary for us to be confronted with behaviour worthy of thugs and informers by the self-proclaimed “Internal Fraction of the ICC” to understand the necessity to theoretically confront the question of ethics and its link to the political behaviour of revolutionaries.

The degeneration of morals in capitalist society, the growth of every man for himself and the decomposition of social ties has provoked an undeniable development of pessimism about human qualities, a rejection, denial even, of the importance of the moral values which distinguish the human species from the animal world. According to the celebrated formula of Hobbes, man will always be a wolf to man. To the bourgeoisie’s nihilist vision of “human nature”, revolutionaries must oppose the vision of the proletariat. To the negation of all morals in decadent capitalism, revolutionaries must defend a proletarian morality. It’s for this reason that, for two years now, our organisation has developed in depth a reflection and theoretical debate on this subject. For marxism, the origin of morality resides in the entirely social and collective nature of humanity. Understanding the origins of morality and its evolution throughout history is indispensable for the capacity of the proletariat to develop its own morality. It is equally necessary to reappropriate the struggle of marxism against bourgeois “morality”. The discussions at the Congress took off from a theoretical debate that is already well underway. It decided to pursue this debate so that the fruit of this collective elaboration can be taken up in our press and transmitted to the whole of the working class.

The importance of the question of proletarian morality and ethics for the combat of the working class has not escaped the OPOP. During the Congress, this organisation showed, through its delegation, the desire to concretely participate in this discussion. We welcomed this initiative from the OPOP with the greatest interest: “Another aspect to underline has been the discussion on ethics. It is salutary that an organisation of the proletariat should preoccupy and involve itself in the formation of its militants, general political formation, but also concerning militant behaviour. Although we’ve only been involved in some relative discussions and some partial conclusions of a discussion which (as was said) has already developed over two years, we have been able to see an attempt to deepen the subject, although there also seems to be the risk of a certain fragmentation (that said, we haven’t the knowledge of all the discussions taking place).” OPOP expresses here in its position a profound understanding of the political importance of this question. It correctly underlines the existence of a certain dispersion in the debate on ethics during the Congress. But what could appear to be a fragmentation in this discussion is in fact the reflection of the immensity of the theoretical task to be undertaken. The questions of ethics and proletarian morality, of “human nature” necessitate investigating the field of sciences so as draw out everything that can enrich the marxist vision. It has always been a preoccupation of marxism to be well informed and assimilate the scientific advances and techniques of human civilisation. The work of Engels in The Dialectics of Nature is, amongst others, a clear illustration. It is this same type of theoretical work that our organisation is engaged in today through the debate on proletarian morality[2] [140].

The appearance of new proletarian groups in this period of the re-emergence of workers’ struggles demands that the ICC lives up to its responsibilities as an organisation of the communist left. The Workers’ Opposition (OPOP), which arose in the 1980s, in its openness towards serious and fraternal debate, in its desire for the common intervention of revolutionaries, has shown that it is a true expression of this new proletarian milieu. Faced with the emergence of this new proletarian milieu, the ICC will continue to assume its responsibilities, in the same spirit that it did in this Congress, which the OPOP saluted: “We have had the very great honour of participating, in spring this year, in the Congress of the ICC section in France. We took part, as an invited group, in the unfolding of the work of the Congress, which we attentively followed, intervening each time we judged it necessary”.

The ICC must be a motor element in the clarification and regroupment of the revolutionary forces of the future. The experience accumulated by the ICC on the conception of organisation and functioning is an indispensable element for new proletarian organisations. A congress is an essential moment in the life of a revolutionary organisation, a means to demonstrate concretely its conception of organisation. “The agenda of the Congress included a balance sheet of the activity of the organisation, a discussion which helped us to discover a great deal about  the functioning of this organisation, with the possibility of drawing from it lessons for our own political life. We also learned a lot about how we treat the revolutionary press and the importance of using the internet as a supplementary instrument in the service of a really proletarian intervention” (OPOP). It is this experience of our internal life that the Congress strove to transmit to the OPOP.

After more than ten years dominated by the tendency towards the mutual isolation of groups coming out of the communist left current, the present development of the international wave of workers’ struggles opens the perspective of a new pole of regroupment at the international level. The presence of the OPOP at the 17th Congress of RI, its fraternal participation in the debates, its will to pursue discussion with the ICC, constitutes a clear illustration of the dynamic of the resurgence of struggle and consciousness of the working class at the international level.

ICC, 1/9/06.

Marking anniversaries is a favourite way for the ruling class to make nationalist or militarist propaganda. However, the capitalist class in Britain is probably grateful that in October and November this year there will be a flurry of publicity for the fiftieth anniversary of the USSR’s crushing of the Nagy regime and the workers’ councils in Hungary: it probably hopes recalling the horrors of ‘Communism’ will distract a little from having to retell the embarrassing story of the Suez crisis of 1956.

There’s really only one way of presenting the events and the inevitable outcome. There’s no way of hiding British and French humiliation and the confirmation of America’s dominant position. As a recent article on the subject in The Economist (27/7/6) acknowledged: Suez “marked the humiliating end of imperial influence for two European countries, Britain and France” and “made unambiguous, even to the most nostalgic blimps, America’s supremacy over its Western allies”.

End of illusions

In the post-war world, while allowing for economic difficulties, both Britain and France continued to deploy military force in defence of their imperialist interests. British intervention in Malaysia and Kenya, French action in Indochina and Algeria are just the most obvious examples of force being used by these two old imperial powers before Suez.

However, the Second World War had severely undermined Britain’s ability to function as a major power. As we explained in a text on the ‘Evolution of the British situation since the Second World War’ in International Review 17: “Britain’s capacity to remain a global imperialist power was broken by the systematic efforts of the US during the Second World War and its aftermath… By the end of the war the US was well on its way to achieving its wartime goals regarding Britain and the Empire … while the US demobilised at speed, Britain had to support substantial forces in Europe … Several other measures were taken to keep up the economic pressure on British capital…” The article demonstrated that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US meant the dominance of the US.

However, Britain had not abandoned the possibility of an independent imperialist policy. This led to its downfall with Suez.

The US had withdrawn aid to Egypt for the construction of the Aswan Dam following Egypt’s purchase of weapons from countries in the Russian bloc. This was among the factors that led to Egypt’s perfectly legal nationalisation of the Suez Canal, which was jointly owned by Britain and France.

These two countries – although lyingly denying it at the time – made an agreement with Israel that it would attack Egypt, and then Britain and French forces would pose as peacekeepers trying to keep Israel and Egypt apart. In reality, after the initial Israeli offensive, the two powers attacked Egypt, which retaliated by sinking all the ships in the canal.

In response to this the US dusted off its anti-imperialist rhetoric to denounce Britain and France. President Eisenhower showed sympathy toward the Arab nations and their “continuing anger toward their former colonial rulers, notably France and Great Britain”. The leader of the only country to use atomic weapons in war said in a broadcast “we do not accept the use of force as a wise and proper instrument for the settlement of international disputes”. Eisenhower asserted that the US “had laboured tirelessly to bring peace and stability” to the Middle East, and, accordingly, used the United Nations, in conjunction with Russia, to impose a cease-fire on Britain and France.

The US also put economic pressure on Britain, standing in the way of IMF loans that it was desperate for, and threatening the value of the pound through the sale of US reserves.

Britain and France had to accept the cease-fire. The US had posed as the friend of nations emerging from colonial rule, while at the same time confirming its position as the dominant power in the western bloc. The shock for France and Britain lay in losing their illusions and facing up to their real status on the world stage, both now transparently second rate imperialisms.

This realisation led to furious rows in the ranks of the British ruling class. Tory government and Labour opposition agreed that Nasser’s behaviour was like that of Hitler or Mussolini. But where Prime Minister Eden insisted on the military option (which Labour didn’t rule out), Gaitskell, Bevan and co asserted the role of the UN with the slogan ‘Law not War’. There were cries of ‘treachery’, ‘appeasement’ and ‘Nasser’s lackeys’. The fierceness of the disagreements stemmed from the weakness of British imperialism’s position. Neither law nor war would serve British interests.

At the same time that the main factions of the bourgeoisie were painfully acknowledging their real position, leftist groups sowed illusions in anti-colonial national liberation struggles. Tony Cliff, leading figure in the SWP, for example, wrote at the time in Socialist Review (August 1958) that “the Suez adventure - which ended in a fiasco, weakened the Western Imperialist foothold in the Middle East” and that whatever the US and Britain did “imperialism is doomed to defeat”. In reality, while the British and French position was weakened, that of the US was not, nor was that of the USSR. In the Middle East “The 1948 war served to dislodge British imperialism from the region. That of 1956 marked the reinforcement of American control. While those of 1967, 1973 and 1982 represented American imperialism’s counter-offensive against the growing penetration of Russian imperialism which had made more or less stable alliances with Syria, Egypt and Iraq” (International Review 68). In these imperialist conflicts Cliff’s group, like other Trotskyists, while saying that imperialism was ‘doomed’, demanded support for its Russian variety. “Nasser represents national independence and progress. As such his fight against imperialism should be supported by every socialist.”

After Suez

The impact of Suez echoes down the years. Among the paratroopers in the Israeli action was Ariel Sharon. On the other side Anwar Sadat edited Al Gumhuriya, a voice of the government. He accurately described the situation at the time: “There are only two Great Powers in the world today, the United States and the Soviet Union . . . The ultimatum put Britain and France in their right place, as Powers neither big nor strong.” Decades later, following the break-up of the USSR, the US is the only remaining super-power, but how do the lesser powers stand?

The Economist article mentioned above quotes remarks of German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, to French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, as the Suez invasion was being aborted. “France and England will never be powers comparable to the United States...Not Germany either. There remains to them only one way of playing a decisive role in the world: that is to unite Europe...We have no time to waste; Europe will be your revenge.” 1957 saw the signing of the Treaty of Rome which turned the Iron and Steel Community into the Common Market, an important step on the way to today’s EU.

But the EU is not ‘revenge’ for Suez. It remains fundamentally an economic organisation. European unity exists only in name and each national capital is still determined to defend its own interests, using its own military resources. There are occasional temporary alliances, but only insofar as they correspond to each national capital’s perceived interests.

The Economist article reminds us that De Gaulle’s suspicion of Britain was due to its appearance as America’s Trojan Horse. The publication suggests that the ‘special relationship’ has continued without interruption. “The major lesson of Suez for the British was that the country would never be able to act independently of America again. Unlike the French, who have sought to lead Europe, most British politicians have been content to play second fiddle to America.”

This hints at the basic dilemma facing the British bourgeoisie. The interests of British imperialism are obviously only sometimes going to coincide with those of the US or the major European powers. But while British capitalism wants to pursue its interests independently from the other major powers, realistically, to achieve anything significant, it needs to enter into various alliances, however temporary.

Recently Tony Blair has been severely criticised for following the US line on the Israeli offensive on Lebanon. This points to the very real difficulties facing the British ruling class. Although the independent strategy corresponds to its needs, every practical alternative only serves to emphasise the further loss of position experienced by British imperialism. The example of France and its pursuit of a more independent line shows the reality of the alternative. France’s status was briefly raised during its negotiations with the US, but, when asked to commit troops to southern Lebanon, it became very shy of making a serious contribution.

Fifty years on from the Suez crisis, the relative impotence of the second-rate powers is clear to see. Britain and France are still significant imperialist powers but, ‘independent’ or not in their overall policy, their capacity to impose themselves on situations is increasingly limited.   Car 18/8/6

Five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the ceremonies to remember the dead from September 11th have been overshadowed by furious arguments about the effects of the ‘war on terror’.

The events of 9/11 were truly horrific: 3000 killed in two hours in New York with another 189 in Washington and 44 in Pennsylvania. 70% of the 40,000 people in the vicinity of Ground Zero have been left with World Trade Center cough. Those affected include not just the survivors of the event, but those working in the clean up afterwards who breathed toxic dust particles. They are slowly dying from the effects, but without any public funding for treatment of the condition. Since then there have been further terrorist outrages in Madrid, London and Mumbai, to name but three. Everywhere the chief victims of the attacks are workers who are left to pay the high price of the violent conflicts between bourgeois cliques.

This has not only been the subject of hypocritical sympathy from George W and other world leaders, it has also been the pretext for the ‘war on terror’. Despite the fact that the US and Britain had been discussing the invasion of Afghanistan the previous summer, the attacks of 9/11 were given as the ‘cause’ of the war; and despite its real, geo-strategic motives, it was portrayed as a crusade to destroy the terrorists of al Qaida and the Taliban. The apparently endless ‘war on terror’ has now become the excuse for every war and act of aggression since. It’s not just the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have been justified with this ideology, and it’s not only the USA which has used it. Israel in attacking Lebanon, Russia in Georgia and Chechnya, or India in Kashmir have all repeated the same mantra.

Iraq shows the reality of the ‘war on terror’

The ‘war on terror’ appears to be put in question by the initial leaks of a US secret services document, National Intelligence Estimate on Trends in Global Terrorism. It is, of course, an open secret that “The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement” as the report says. It was clearly a major motivation for the Madrid and London terror attacks, despite Tony Blair’s initial efforts to pretend otherwise. However, the selected extracts published by the Bush government show that the USA not only recognises the difficulties of its policy in Iraq, but also claims it has damaged the leadership of al Qaida and aims to make further gains from maintaining the struggle against it: “Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.” No wonder they wanted to publish these extracts as well!

The intelligence report also repeats the usual lies about bringing stability and democracy to Middle Eastern nations: “Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit… If democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations progress over the next five years…”. The reality of this “progress” is that the country has been brought to the brink of civil war at the cost of between 43,000 and 48,000 civilian casualties (iraqbodycount.net). The civilian death rate has risen from 20 a day in the first year after the war to 36 a day in the third, with the death toll in the last 2 months at 100 a day according to the UN. Attacks on the coalition forces have increased, as have sectarian killings. Torture is worse than under Saddam, carried out by all sides from the sectarian gangs to the British soldiers who ‘think it’s Christmas’ and the inquisitors at Abu Graib.

And the death toll is certainly not limited to the body count of those who have died violent deaths. The disruption of the infrastructure also has its casualties, which no-one has tried to estimate since the Lancet article estimated an overall total of 100,000 deaths as a result of the war two years ago.

Afghanistan, another new ‘Muslim democracy’, is similarly afflicted. The ‘defeat of the Taliban’ announced in 2001 now sounds rather hollow as more and more British and US soldiers are killed by suicide bombings in Kabul or Taliban fighters in regions in which the central government has lost all authority.

Capitalism breeds state terror and terrorism

The ‘war on terror’ was never going to put a stop to terrorism, and has even stimulated more suicide bombers. But putting a stop to terrorism was never the aim of the war in the first place. To defend its interests as the world’s only remaining superpower, the USA has resorted to a series of wars which allow it to constantly remind its rivals of its overwhelming military superiority. The global strategy of the USA has been “to achieve total domination of the Middle East and Central Asia, and thus to militarily encircle all its major rivals (Europe and Russia), depriving them of naval outlets and making it possible to shut off their energy supplies” (‘Resolution on the international situation’ IR 122). It has also developed a policy of explicitly preventing any regional power from getting strong enough to mount a challenge to it. So, as Iran has become relatively stronger due to the smashing of its neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been assigned to the axis of those ‘evil’ countries aspiring to nuclear weapons. India, on the other hand, nuclear weapons or no, is a ‘good’ country since it may be used as a counter-weight to China.

Alongside the USA’s grand design to maintain its position “sometimes subordinated to it, sometimes obstructing it - the post-1989 world has also seen an explosion of local and regional conflicts which have spread death and destruction across whole continents. These conflicts have left millions dead, crippled and homeless in a whole series of African countries like the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, or Sierra Leone; and they now threaten to plunge a number of countries in the Middle East and Central Asia into a kind of permanent civil war. Within this process, the growing phenomenon of terrorism, often expressing the intrigues of bourgeois factions no longer controlled by any particular state regime, adds a further element of instability and has already brought these murderous conflicts back to the heartlands of capitalism (September 11, Madrid bombings…)” (ibid).

Every country is fighting to maintain its interests on the imperialist chess-board, just as much as the USA. Britain has joined in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because it has interests in keeping a foothold in these countries. The difference between the USA and the smallest Iraqi faction is not one of good or bad, terrorist or anti-terrorist, imperialist or resistance, but of size and firepower. Generally speaking, the weaker imperialist states, proto-states (like Hizbollah or Hamas) or jihadist gangs use the methods of the suicide bomber, the assassination or the ambush because they lack the means to carry out the ‘shock and awe’ tactics favoured by countries with massive armies and aerial and naval power. But the biggest countries also use clandestine terrorist gangs as tools when it suits them – such as the manipulation of Loyalist paramilitaries by the British in Ulster, or the USA’s use of the Contras in Nicaragua or….bin Laden in Afghanistan in the war against the Russians.

Like the war against the Prussian or Russian knout in 1914-18, like the wars for ‘democracy’ against fascist or ‘communist’ totalitarianism between 1939 and 1989, the so-called war against terrorism is an ideological cover for a social system that has long outlived its usefulness to humanity and which, in its death throes, threatens to engulf the entire planet in war and destruction. To end war, to end terror, we must put an end to the capitalist society which secretes them from every pore.  WR 30/9/6

The region around Israel, Palestine and Lebanon has long been a focus of rivalries between great Empires: Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome; in the epochs of the ancient world; the Caliphate and the Crusades in the mediaeval period. At the beginning of the era of capitalism’s decline, marked beyond any shadow of a doubt by the outbreak of the First World War, the geopolitical importance of the region was magnified by the new importance of oil, above all for the maintenance of a functioning war machine. At this point, British and French imperialism led the unseemly charge to displace the crumbling Ottoman Empire, which had been supported by the Kaiser’s Germany. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Iraq was created by joint agreement between Britain and France, their diplomats and generals cynically drawing lines on a map. Not long after that came the first Iraqi insurgence, during which Winston Churchill was the first Statesman to order the use of gas against a rebellious Kurdish population.

The same Winston Churchill had been the keenest representative of his class when he led the campaign of the ‘democratic’ powers to crush what they called the ‘Bolshevik’ revolution, by dispatching troops to Russia and supporting the ‘White’ insurgency. He understood that the Bolshevik revolution was also the Spartacist revolution, was also the world revolution and the end of his civilization.

The defeat of the revolution, however, removed the chains that had, for a while, held the wolves of imperialist war in check. One of these wolves was Hitler and Nazism, a hideous new face of German imperialism and another definitive sign that the bourgeoisie’s historical redundancy was leading it to lose its reason. Stirring the darkest passions in its drive towards war, it revived the mediaeval witch-tales of Jewish cabbalism and conspiracy. The European Jews became the sacrificial scapegoat of a vast pogrom, organised with the efficiency of a Fordist factory.  The Jews were sacrificed not only by the blackhearted blackshirted SS, but also by the democratic powers who abandoned them to their fate.  At Bermuda in April 1943, the month that the Warsaw ghetto rose, America and Britain formally closed the doors on any mass escape.

In 1917 Britain, in line with its ambitions in the Middle East, issued the Balfour Declaration, establishing the principle of Palestine as a Jewish Homeland. This was also in line with the basic aims of the Zionist movement. “A little loyal Ulster in the Middle East” was the British motto. But the march towards war in Europe destroyed any hopes for an interlude of stable British rule. The Zionist movement began to grow as the persecution of the Jews in Germany became more brazen. Increased Jewish immigration into Palestine, the buying of tracts of land for Jewish-only labour, created fear and discontent among the Arab Palestinians, and this in turn was injected with a pogrom spirit by the first Palestinian nationalists, such as the Mufti of Jerusalem and his Nazi backers.

The British, as ever, played a double game, promising the impossible both to Arabs and Zionists, using both against the Italians and the Germans, and both against each other. After the Second World War, the conflict took a new twist: the British closed the gates once again, to the Jewish refugees fleeing the wreck of Europe, and became the target of terrorist attacks by the Zionists’ military wing. But America and Russia came forth as the saviours of the Jews; by supporting Israel in its war of independence in 1948, they drove the British out of their Palestinian ‘Protectorate’.

With the old colonial powers pushed into second rank (a process completed through the Suez fiasco of 1956), the USA and the USSR became the new dominant Empires. Russia stood behind the ‘Arab national liberation movement’ in its various forms: Nasserism, Baathism, the PLO. America had Israel, the Shah of Iran, and the oil kingdoms of Arabia.  The military and strategic superiority of the western bloc and its Israeli gendarme were demonstrated again and again: in the Six Day War of ‘67, the Yom Kippur War of ‘73, and the Lebanon carnage of the early ‘80s. Russia progressively lost all its footholds in the region, from Ethiopia and Egypt to Northern Yemen. The collapse of the Shah’s regime in Iran was a blow to the US and a sign of things to come, but the most spectacular defeat was of the USSR’s last attempt to break through its growing encirclement: the invasion of Afghanistan.

The writing was on the wall for the Russian empire. In Poland 1980, it became plain that the proletariat of Eastern Europe would not fight its wars. Its economy staggering under the weight of state bureaucracy and military expenditure, the Russian empire imploded. But the triumph of the American superpower was short-lived. No sooner had the Russian threat been deflated than America’s former allies and vassals, from the biggest to the least significant, began to assert their own interests more than ever before. The war of each against all took hold; and each attempt by the US power to stem the tide through massive displays of military might – as in the Gulf war of ‘91 or the bombing of Serbia in 99 – only succeeded, more or less rapidly, in stoking the flames still further. The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are definitive proof of this: the USA’s very attempt to impose its military and political authority in this region has resulted in a bloody descent into chaos, a nightmare without end for the populations of those benighted countries. And today the arena of conflict is threatening to spread still further – to merge together with the intractable Israel/Palestine conflict, to widen into an open clash with the emerging imperialist ambitions of Iran, to shake the fragile oil kingdoms to their foundations.

The ‘Holy Land’ of three world religions still lives under the shadow of the Empires. But whereas in the ancient past the downfall of one Empire was always succeeded by the rise of another, the empire of capital will not give birth to a new civilization unless the international working class overthrows it. If that does not happen, the old nightmares of Armageddon and the Apocalypse, myths whose kernel of truth lay in the clash and collapse of mighty empires, will be realized, and, as in the myth, the focal point could well be Jerusalem, Israel and the Middle East.  WR, 11/9/6.

At the end of the summer, after Prime Minister Blair had returned from his holiday, an attempt was made to force him from office. A chorus of criticism built up, with calls for him to give an exact date for his departure or even to leave immediately. This was followed by letters from various groups of MPs and came to a crescendo with the orchestrated resignations from the government of several junior figures. Blair refused to go and his allies effectively exposed Brown as being behind the coup attempt. However, he was forced to say he would be gone before the next party conference. Blair has certainly been damaged by this and has little political authority left, despite the hype around his farewell conference speech. But Brown has also been damaged and in recent weeks the Tory leader Cameron has been talked up. The Tories now lead by several points in the polls and Cameron is seen as the more trustworthy politician.

The campaigns against Blair

Corruption, party funding, personal rivalry, hostility over his closeness to the US and the race for the leadership have been the subject of reports in the press and the TV that are presented as the causes of Blair’s difficulties. To varying degrees they are all part of the situation but none of them fully explain what is going on. There are, in fact, two intertwined aspects to the campaigns.

The first of these concerns the direction of foreign policy and dates back to the bombing of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001 when Britain shifted towards the US with the unleashing of the ‘war on terror’. This made sense at the time because it kept Britain in the game, but as the US campaign became mired in Iraq and Afghanistan parts of the British ruling class saw that they were suffering the consequences without any gains: a point brutally rammed home by the bombings in London last year. The conflict in the Lebanon brought this to a head and resulted in the concerted attacks on Blair, including calls for his immediate resignation that we reported in the last issue of World Revolution.

The second concerns the way the ruling class conducts itself. The list of Labour’s misdemeanours, from affairs and sexual indiscretions to questionable financial deals and dodgy ways of funding the party are nothing new. For example, the sale of honours goes back beyond the administration of Lloyd George and in one case the income to be derived from the practice was included in the party’s budget. For the bourgeoisie such affairs are an accepted part of life, although corruption in public affairs has certainly escalated with capitalism’s growing decomposition. If today Labour is being tarred with sleaze, especially if it can be linked in some way to Blair, it is because it suits the needs of parts of the ruling class, not because their consciences have stirred in any way. The morality of the ruling class rises no higher than the preservation of their own interests and, at most, the stability of the society on which their position depends.

Weakening the stability of the ruling class

Of more significance is the change in the way the Labour government works. This is marked by a tendency to replace the established mechanisms through which the civil service maintains the stability of the state with informal processes based on factions within the ruling class. Some early signs of this could be seen during the Thatcher years with the growth in the number of political advisors and appointees. It has accelerated under the Blair government. On arrival in government both Blair and Brown surrounded themselves with their own people: “There is no parallel in the modern era in Britain for the rival gangs of supporters who follow Blair and Brown…Each depends on a group of close supporters, connected to a wider army, and they have survived as distinct armies in government” (The Rivals, James Naughtie, p.233-4). Cabinet meetings were marginalised, rarely lasting more than an hour: “The real deals are done elsewhere, usually in the Prime Minister’s study with only three or four people sitting around: and, as often as not, with only two” (ibid, p.104). Blair and Brown frequently met in private which “broke a cardinal rule. Except in exceptional circumstances…Prime Ministers and their senior ministers don’t usually meet alone. Notes are always taken…office phone calls are monitored by a private secretary listening on a line next door and notes are kept…” (ibid, p.96).

This disturbs the conscience of parts of the ruling class because they can see in it a threat to the stability of their dictatorship. The Butler report that was produced in the wake of the invasion of Iraq strongly criticised the informal style of the Blair government. It described a number of organisational changes in the way security information was handled and commented: “We believe that the effect of the changes has been to weight their responsibility to the Prime Minister more heavily than their responsibility through the Cabinet Secretary to the Cabinet as a whole”. Overall it concluded: “One inescapable consequence of this was to limit wider collective discussion and consideration by the Cabinet to the frequent but unscripted occasions when the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary briefed the Cabinet orally. Excellent quality papers were written by officials, but these were not discussed in Cabinet or in Cabinet Committee… The absence of papers on the Cabinet agenda so that Ministers could obtain briefings in advance from the Cabinet Office, their own departments or from the intelligence agencies plainly reduced their ability to prepare properly for such discussions, while the changes to key posts at the head of the Cabinet Secretariat lessened the support of the machinery of government for the collective responsibility of the Cabinet in the vital matter of war and peace.” (ibid p.147-8).

Behind the diplomatic language this is a protest that the place of the permanent and most stable parts of the ruling class were being usurped by politicians and their cronies; that the central apparatus of the state is being replaced by the factions.

However the way these concerns have been handled and the way Blair has been pressed to change foreign policy has itself reflected the difficulties facing the bourgeoisie. During the Butler inquiry the civil service broke its own rules by releasing hundreds of documents that were published on the internet. The loans for peerages scandal has seen one of Blair’s closet allies arrested while the attempt to force Blair from office a few weeks ago saw the animosity lurking beneath the façade threatening to break out in an uncontrolled way.

In contrast, when Thatcher was removed it was done with steely efficiency and her attempt to hang on was fairly brief and ended quite ruthlessly by senior figures. That said, the Thatcher era again paved the way for today, given that Thatcher had links with the Eurosceptics and was a factor in the turmoil in the Tory party during John Major’s time as Prime Minister. This was a bitter dispute and was marked by quite public manoeuvring and attempts to exert pressure through whispering campaigns and the media. The long running dispute between Blair and Brown, while often treated by the media as a soap opera, has been a symptom of the difficulties the bourgeoisie faces in maintaining its cohesion in the present situation.

The balance of class forces

What this reveals is a loss of control within the British bourgeoisie. The coup attempt against Blair following his holiday seems to have been launched on the back of the attacks on him over Lebanon before he went. It is possible that one was linked to the other since both aimed to get rid of Blair. The second may have been a way of completing the first or just have taken its cue from it. However, the partial loss of control that resulted clearly worried parts of the ruling class which moved to close things down. Blair and Brown have made up with public shows of support while Brown has worked to present a more human face with comments that being a father has changed him more than being chancellor and televised tears when speaking of the loss of his daughter. It may be significant that Cameron has been given more prominence at this time and that he has recently spoken of the need to adopt a foreign policy that is less subservient to the US.

These events are not comparable with those seen in other countries, such as Russia or Italy or even France. Nonetheless it is significant. It is not just this or that part of the ruling class but the ruling class as a whole that is affected by the ideology of ‘look after number one’. This is consistent with what we wrote in the Theses on Decomposition in 1990: “Amongst the major characteristics of capitalist society’s decomposition, we should emphasise the bourgeoisie’s growing difficulty in controlling the evolution of the political situation. Obviously, this is a result of the ruling class’ increasing loss of control over its economic apparatus, the infrastructure of society. The historic dead-end in which the capitalist mode of production finds itself trapped, the successive failures of the bourgeoisie’s different policies, the permanent flight into debt as a condition for the survival of the world economy, cannot but affect the political apparatus which is itself incapable of imposing on society and especially on the working class, the ‘discipline’ and acquiescence necessary to mobilise all its historic strength for a new world war, which is the only historic ‘response’ that the bourgeoisie has to give. The absence of any perspective (other than day-to-day stop-gap measures to prop up the economy) around which it could mobilise as a class, and at the same time the fact that the proletariat does not yet threaten its own survival, creates within the ruling class, and especially within the political apparatus, a growing tendency towards indiscipline and an attitude of ‘every man for himself’” (IR 62).

The British bourgeoisie is the oldest in the world and is noted for its experience, its mastery of the political game, its capacity to maintain order and its discipline. That this has now received such a public blow is an indication of the extent and the depth of the impact of decomposition on the ruling class internationally. However, the situation should not be exaggerated. The British ruling class remains strong and, in particular, is absolutely united against the working class not only in its aim of maintaining its domination but also in the methods it uses to achieve this. In fact even these recent difficulties have been used to reinforce the democratic game through the manufactured campaigns for honesty and decency amongst politicians.

It is not through the weakness of the ruling class that the proletariat will win any victories but only through its own strength. Signs of this already exist. The success of the movement in France this spring was due to the unity and consciousness it achieved. The gradual revival of the class struggle in recent years has shifted the balance of class forces after the years that followed 1989 when the bourgeoisie was able to successfully mount large scale manoeuvres to limit the class struggle. Throughout its history the working class could only ever rely on itself. This remains the case today.

North, 22/9/6.

Wage negotiations within Royal Mail have been dragged out now for over five months. Postal workers have been treated to a management imposed deal and union delays and prevarication over a strike ballot. Against a background of management attacks and bullying at all levels, the militancy of the postal workers has already exploded in a number of local, unofficial walk-outs, like the ones in Plymouth and Belfast in March, Wolverhampton in May, and Exeter in July (see article in this issue). In fact, the delaying and derailing tactics of the Communications Workers’ Union can only be understood as a means of making sure that this growing class anger does not escape its control.

In May, Royal Mail imposed its own wage increase of 2.6% on basic pay and paid this plus the back-dated pay into workers’ bank accounts. This was an attempt by Royal Mail to impose its will on the workforce, a ‘softening-up’ for even bigger and more stringent cutbacks, both in the workforce and in working practises. Royal Mail has made no secret that it is looking for 40,000 job-cuts as part of its ‘business-plan’.

This imposition of a management pay deal threw down the gauntlet to the CWU as it cut them out of the negotiation loop. The CWU was determined to enter into the game and in July conducted a ‘poll’ of its members asking if they were willing to take strike action. The result was overwhelmingly for a strike. This allowed the CWU to go to management and negotiate a ‘new’ deal. From this point on the CWU showed its true role as a force of law and order in the workplace, working overtime to quell a groundswell of militancy at both the national and the local level. We had a clear sign of this growing will to struggle at Exeter sorting office in July, where an unofficial 7 day strike forced management to drop disciplinary proceedings against a CWU rep who was threatened with disciplinary action because of his ‘sickness record’. The issue here was not, as the CWU and its leftist supporters claimed, one of ‘defending the unions’ (especially as the rep was obliged to disavow the unofficial action). It was a basic display of working class solidarity around the old workers’ maxim - ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’.

Angered by management’s highhandedness and increasing use of bullying tactics, postal workers had been expecting a strike ballot to be prepared more or less immediately. This was not to be. The CWU’s tactic was, first, to confuse the whole conflict by making it one of union rights. In mass meetings across the country workers were given the line: “This action by Royal Mail is a direct attack on union recognition; what it means is not only a lousy pay deal but management are attempting to make the union redundant”. Second, terrified by the militancy of postal workers on a short leash due to management intimidation, the CWU created a fire-guard against strike action with a poll, which it said would force Royal Mail management back to the negotiating table without the necessity for a strike. At a meeting in Liverpool in June, a CWU official put forward the CWU position in a reply to a postal worker who advocated a mass unofficial walkout: “our membership poll is enough to frighten management back to the negotiating table, under no circumstance are CWU members to take local unofficial action, this will just play into the hands of Royal Mail.”. But the CWU has been in the hands of Royal Mail and the capitalist state since the day it was born.

SM, 30.9.06.

These reflections on the postal workers’ wildcat in Exeter were sent to us by a close sympathiser. They provide a very good framework for understanding how, whether they do it consciously or not, even the most “rank and file” representatives of the trade unions are forced to act against the interests of the working class.

In late August-early September, postal workers at the Sowton sorting office went on strike. The apparent cause for this was a provocative attack on a well-known union militant, FC[1]. This attack took the form of both attempting to prevent FC from taking part in union activity (which is illegal) and then attempting to dock sick pay despite knowing of his serious health problems and being given a doctor’s note to cover his absence. The response was immediate. Nearly all the workers in the sorting office immediately came out on unofficial strike, demanding that the worker be paid his sick pay and the withdrawal of disciplinary proceedings. The dispute went on for nearly a week, with management attempting to enforce new working conditions. The strike did not spread beyond the sorting office, leaving the workers there isolated.

Incredibly, when the strike was finally over, the worker at the centre of the dispute, FC, actually appeared to condemn the strike action in the local paper saying: “I would never condone unofficial action but I can understand the reasons for it. I did all that was required of me. When people originally staged a sit down I advised them to return to work. I did all I could to advise them not to take this action”[2].

The ICC had already begun a thread on the libcom discussion forums[3]. The main points of discussion were the role that shop stewards play in union structures. In particular, the ICC’s position on the role of the unions was criticised for its ambiguity. At times the ICC and its sympathisers seemed to present the unions as consciously engineering a defeat for the class. At other times, it was acknowledged that shop stewards (e.g. FC) actually don’t understand the full significance of the role they play. There was general agreement that the union structure plays a negative role – the disagreements revolve about the role of militant individuals in the union and the mechanics through which this role is played out.

The bourgeoisie is a Machiavellian class

All ruling classes, to a greater or lesser extent, have a Machiavellian component to their class consciousness. Their position as exploiting classes forces them to contain the revolts of other social strata in order to preserve their power. In the ideological sphere a ruling class attempts to convince these strata that their own rule is in the interests of the whole of society.

For the bourgeoisie, this reaches entirely new heights as its consciousness expresses the dynamic of capitalist society, “a mode of production based on competition, [meaning] its whole vision can only be a competitive one, a vision of perpetual rivalry amongst all individuals, including within the bourgeoisie itself”[4]. The bourgeoisie is forced not only to confront other classes within society but also experiences frenzied competition between its various fractions. A quick look at bourgeois history is enough to show that it is capable of the most remarkable manoeuvres when it indulges in its internecine squabbles. To think that such a class then approaches its confrontations with other strata in society (and most especially the working class) in a naïve or bumbling fashion is simply stretching the boundaries of credulity. Obviously the bourgeoisie goes to great lengths to disguise this aspect of its nature. This takes on a variety of forms, the most pernicious of which is ‘democracy’, where the bourgeoisie attempts to convince us that capitalism is the only system that ‘works’ and speaks of equality, democracy, freedom, human rights, etc.

Despite these fine words, the practice of the bourgeoisie in actually defending its system forces the bourgeoisie to act in a manner that is contradictory to its public statements. Their position in society demands a certain degree of cynicism and deception. This is the inevitable product of the alienated consciousness characteristic of all ruling classes. This consciousness is pushed forward whenever the system is under threat – at no time is the bourgeoisie more daring and inventive when its rule is challenged. It will use any instruments at its disposal in order to preserve its rule.

Unions: state police in the factory

Today, the unions are among the most powerful instruments the bourgeoisie uses to maintain its social order. Whilst some participants on libcom are able to see that the overall role of the unions is negative, they question how conscious and directed this activity is.

Two things must be remembered when dealing with this question. Firstly, once it recognised that unions were capable of being used for their own purposes[5], they were henceforth doomed to be under the watchful eyes of the state. In essence, the state began to integrate them into to the various official and unofficial tools at its disposal. Only the most breathtaking naivety can allow one to think they would be left to their own devices.

Secondly, like all arms of the state, the unions have a hierarchical structure. Your average policeman is not aware of the machinations of the secret services in manipulating their agents in the various terrorist organisations (e.g. the role of Stakeknife in the IRA). In the same way, your average union functionary does not know what happens in meetings in the TUC and the Government.

We must also acknowledge that many union officials at the lower levels want to help their comrades. But straightaway they are absorbed into a structure that exists to contain workers in a certain framework. When class struggle erupts, these reps are suddenly confronted with a contradiction between the needs of the struggle and their function within the union. And because Union ideology conflates the working class with the union completely, defending the union becomes an end in itself. It is thus possible for union officials to subjectively believe in the struggle of the working class while objectively acting more and more against it.

This process of indoctrination is similar in any bourgeois institution. For example, many join the police with the idealistic aim of “helping society” – but very quickly, elements are drawn into an institutional culture that slowly inculcates contempt for the vast majority of people “outside” the police. In a similar way, union reps (and the same is true of leftism generally) develop a contradictory view of the working class: on the one hand, impatience and contempt for workers when the latter are passive; and, on the other hand, terror of “things getting out of hand” when workers are on the move. As union officials move up the hierarchy, they are more and more removed from workers and become submerged in the internecine conflicts within the union hierarchy. The top level union leaders have been thoroughly disciplined by a bruising “political” life as any leader of a bourgeois political party. They approach control of their union with the same ruthlessness as a bourgeois politician controls his party.

It is an elementary truth that union leaders “sell out”. Recognising this reality and the reality of their integration into bourgeois politics immediately opens up the question of their involvement in the Machiavellian schemes of the ruling class. While rank and file union reps are not privy to these schemes they are nonetheless unwitting tools in their operation. Whatever their personal understanding may be, all representatives of the union are the face of the ruling class and its state in the capitalist workplace.

AKG, 30/9/06.

As we wrote in the last issue of WR, Africa “shows in frightening detail the real future that the capitalist mode of production has for humanity”. Few, if any, regions have escaped the never ending cycle of wars, disease, famine and ‘natural’ disasters that have ravaged the continent for the last century, as the imperialist powers have fought over the right to exploit its rich resources. During the Cold War African nations were at the centre of tensions between the two major blocs led by the USA and the USSR. The effect of this conflict on the region was devastating. We need only look at Somalia, which was just one of the many countries that was exhausted by these inter-imperialist rivalries, and it has suffered even more since the collapse of the blocs and the changing attitudes of its former ‘sponsors’ (see: WR 297, ‘Somalia: social collapse and imperialist war’).

When able, the bourgeoisie, here and abroad, is careful to ensure that the reality of Africa’s crisis rarely hits the headlines. But this is not always possible when, as with the Middle East recently, the level of violence or human suffering makes a news blackout impossible. Fortunately for the bourgeoisie there is a get-out clause: when things get too bad, they play the ‘humanitarian’ card. Although not unique to Africa - who can forget recent British and US ‘humanitarian interventions’ in Bosnia and Afghanistan - this term has a particular historic resonance when used in reference to the continent, which for decades has suffered at the hands of the ‘humanitarians’ of the main imperialist powers.

The latest region to feel the glare of the gaze of the ‘international community’ is Darfur, the semi-arid western province of Sudan, Africa’s largest country, where in 2003 ethnic violence over water shortages and grazing rights exploded between indigenous black Africans who make up the majority of the population within the region, and the state and their pro-government Arab militia, the Janjaweed, who have been armed and supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum. The latter is understandably keen to play down any suggestion of genocide, but no-one seems to know how many have been killed or displaced during the last three years in what the United Nations (UN) has called a “man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale” (The Economist 09/09/6). Estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 dead with as many as 2 million displaced, many of whom have fled to neighbouring Chad. Seven thousand ill equipped African Union (AU) troops sent to the region as ‘peacekeepers’ have failed to stop the killing and were scheduled to leave the area in September. Darfur has become a “byword for appalling bloodshed” (The Economist 09/09/6).

A descent into chaos

The conflict in Darfur is often presented as being one between good (the victims of the Janjaweed) and evil (the ‘hard-line’ Islamist regime which has set the Arab death squads on tens of thousands of civilians). But this is only one aspect of the conflict, which is becoming increasingly chaotic over recent months. There are divisions between different Islamic factions in the capital, and the African rebel forces have themselves fragmented along tribal lines:

“The dynamic of the fighting has shifted since the peace agreement from a more-or-less two-way conflict between central government and rebels to a more complex war also involving heavy fighting between various rebel factions.

In a further sign of increasing divisions, a new faction - the National Redemption Front (NRF) - emerged in July 2006. It is a coalition including JEM and ex-SLA commanders who deserted both Minnawi and Nur.

The NRF soon held sway in much of north Darfur, where there were reports of a build-up of government troops in August.

The SLA initially united supporters from Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit tribes, but split after May along increasingly tribal lines. Minnawi is a Zaghawa, like about 8 percent of Darfur’s population. Nur is a Fur, who at 30 percent of the region’s population are the largest ethnic group in Darfur. JEM is mostly Zaghawa.

The Sudanese military appeared to support Minnawi’s side, and his faction was accused of using Janjaweed-like tactics, including a government attack helicopter disguised as a relief flight, and of raping and killing women from the Fur tribe. Meanwhile, Nur’s supporters were also accused of gang-raping women for having Zaghawa husbands” (Reuters AlertNet).

 Local imperialist tensions involving Sudan and its neighbours have also sharpened:

 “The conflict in Darfur has soured relations with Chad. Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, is a member of the Zaghawa tribe whose members live on both sides of the border and are among rebels fighting against Khartoum.

There is some evidence that Chad may have helped channel arms to Darfur. Despite this, Chad’s government has also backed Khartoum. For its part, Chad has accused Sudan of supporting some 3,000 Chadian rebels on its territory” (ibid).

The conflict also has implications for the rivalry between Eritrea and Ethiopia: “Eritrea - which itself has tense relations with a U.N. peacekeeping force monitoring its border with Ethiopia - has weighed in to support Sudan’s objections, in a sign of improved relations between Khartoum and Asmara.

The two countries previously had no diplomatic relations as Khartoum accused Eritrea of supporting an array of Sudanese opposition and rebel groups, and Asmara accused Sudan of training an insurgent group operating on their shared border” (ibid).

And, as we showed in our last issue, Ethiopia is in turn involved in the ‘civil war’ in Somalia, which means that the threat of more widespread imperialist wars now hangs over the whole of Eastern Africa. .

In the midst of all these war-like tensions, it may seem bizarre that “with low inflation, GDP growth of 8% in 2005 and 13% projected by the IMF this year, Sudan is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa” (The Economist 05/08/6). All of this in a country which has been subject to American sanctions since 1986. The reason for this is fairly simple: Sudan started exporting crude oil in 1999 and is taking full advantage of current high prices on the world market. The benefits of this ‘boom’ are likely to be short-lived and in any case they only being felt in the capital; furthermore, since oil was discovered in Darfur itself, there have been accusations that the government has unleashed the Janjaweed with the precise aim of ensuring control over the new drilling operations there. A further ‘blessing’ of Sudan’s oil is that it gives the bigger imperialist powers an added incentive for getting a foothold in the area. China, which is increasingly becoming a serious imperialist player in Africa, buys most of its oil from Sudan.

If you add to its oil reserves Sudan’s geo-strategic relationship to the Middle East and its connections with the ‘war on terror’ (it’s one of Bin Laden’s former haunts), it would seem to be an obvious target for imperialist intervention. But despite the increasing level of verbiage about the country’s humanitarian crisis, there are also a number of obstacles to the verbiage being transformed into an actual armed intervention. The US would like to develop its presence in Africa but given that it is currently stretched militarily by the ongoing chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was humiliated by its last adventure in Africa (trying to keep the ‘peace’ in Somalia), it is unlikely that it will intervene militarily with its own forces. Britain is in the same position. An article in The Economist (23/09/6) makes it clear, “no more missions please”. British forces are already struggling to fulfil their current ‘responsibilities’ and, given the growing numbers of deaths amongst British troops in Afghanistan, another ‘peace mission’ would certainly prove unpopular at home.

So we are being treated to the familiar sight of the major imperialist powers slugging it out through the UN, itself a den of thieves, using the smokescreen of ‘humanitarian intervention’ to hide their real intentions. During the last two weeks this charade has seen both Blair and Brown speaking out about the situation in Darfur with Brown using his speech at the Labour Party Conference to call for the world to “act urgently” through the UN in Darfur. A recent article in The Economist (23/09/6) states how, “on the eve of the 61st United Nations General Assembly, 32 countries held events aimed at persuading their governments to recognise a responsibility to protect the civilians of Darfur” while “a rally in New York City’s Central Park attracted upwards of 30,000 people who called for the speedy deployment of UN peacekeepers”. Even China now seems unlikely to vote against a resolution to send peace keeping troops to the area. It seems the only leader who doesn’t want a UN peace keeping force is the Sudanese president Oman Hassan al-Bashir who believes that peacekeepers will threaten the current fragile stability of the country.

Whatever happens in the forthcoming weeks and months the dispossessed of Darfur will not be ‘rescued’. There is no national solution to the problems in Sudan. What we are more likely to see is a long drawn out intervention by peacekeepers which will enable the imperialist powers involved to gain a foothold in the region whilst maintaining their commitment to the ‘international community’. This kind of ‘humanitarian aid’ is a direct expression of the imperialist free-for-all that is causing so much disaster and devastation all around the planet. It has nothing to do with real solidarity for the stricken populations of Africa. The best solidarity we can offer is to develop the class struggle in the central capitalist countries and to expose ‘humanitarian intervention’ as the vile hypocrisy that it is.

Will, 29/9/6.

When privately-made comments from Hungary’s Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, were leaked it led to demonstrations, attacks on the state broadcasting headquarters, burnt-out cars and a couple of nights of people fighting with the riot police. Yet it has been suggested that there was no mistake in the remarks being released. On the BBC News website (18/9/6), for example, you can read that “Some analysts suggest the leak may be with the prime minister’s permission as he posted a full transcript on his own web blog. Mr Gyurcsany may be trying to emphasise the need for tough reforms”. Surely no government would be so cynical as to risk provoking violence, protests on the street and a resurgence in neo-fascist parties? After all, the recent experience of eastern Europe has shown that a number of governments have been changed in velvet, orange, rose ‘revolutions’. Was the Hungarian government threatened by a ‘white revolution’?

The need for austerity

At a meeting of the MSZP (the Hungarian ‘Socialist’ Party) held after they’d won the election in April, Gyurcsany, a millionaire who’d chaired the stalinist youth organisation and then made a fortune in the wave of post-stalinist privatisations, made some basic observations. “We screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have. Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true. You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of… Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?” To make sure there was no ambiguity: “We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening.”

Yet, from a superficial look at the state of the Hungarian economy, you would have expected the government to have been boasting. Inflation had been brought down, figures for economic growth were strong, the minimum wage was doubled, pensions were increased, public sector wages were increased and “pushed up nominal incomes by almost 30% in two years” (Economist 23/9/6). Of course none of this was possible without massive borrowing. Before the election they said that the level of deficit was tolerable. This was probably the biggest of the MSZP’s lies. In The Economist’s words “The current-account deficit has now hit 9% of GDP and the budget deficit 10% - levels usually associated with countries in complete meltdown” (ibid).

This is the truth of the situation facing the Hungarian ruling class and the basis for their strict austerity plans. There will be spending cuts, tax increases, widespread cuts of staff in the public sector, the end of free health care, increased tuition fees, a property tax and cuts in pensions. That is the reality which the bourgeoisie is imposing on the population, in particular the working class. The need for the government to sell “tough reforms” is clear, and the idea that they used Gyurcsany’s words in the campaign is not far-fetched.

Clash of nationalisms

But what happened on the streets of Budapest and a number of provincial towns? Socialist Worker (30/9/6) gives us the view of “political philosopher G M Tamás”. Although right-wing groups had mobilised and there had been lots of fascist regalia on show, including Hungarian Nazi flags and insignia, he thought “it was mostly an instinctive, quite apolitical explosion of popular anger. The mainstream press speaks of ‘fascist rabble’, exhibiting the usual kind of sovereign contempt for the masses. The riots were far from pleasant and occasionally rather mindless. Nevertheless, the protesters had a point. They had been cruelly deceived, and the proposed government policies are monstrously unfair.” So although he heard “the xenophobic and slightly paranoid rhetoric of the European extreme right” he viewed the protests as “the expression of working class despair and a general, vague sense of the rottenness of the system.”

A more sober assessment can be found on Reuters AlertNet (28/9/6) which reported how the opposition “declared themselves the White Revolution and promised ‘people power’ to sweep away the government; but Hungary’s protest movement has ended up as little more than a nationalist picnic party.”

The Budapest-based group, the Barricades Collective, that defends internationalist positions, has written a text on the events which has been published on libcom.org (under current affairs). They examine the games of the bourgeoisie in a conflict that “only focuses on the clash between the government and the opposition”, and while they note “that there are no social demands” look forward to the resurgence of the working class in response to the intensification of its exploitation. Although their text is confused in parts (and quite difficult to follow in the present translation) they are clear that they have not been witnessing a struggle between classes but between factions of the ruling class.

That is the right way to approach the situation. The article from The Economist quoted above is full of praise for Gyurcsany as he has now adopted the policies that its commentator thinks are appropriate for Hungarian national capital. The oppositionists might have tapped into some understandable discontent, but only to drown it in nationalism. The main difference between the aborted ‘White Revolution’ and the changes of regime in other eastern European countries is that while oppositions in other countries promised greater democracy, in Hungary, Fidesz, the main opposition party, has increasingly adopted positions previously only adopted by the fascists. Government and opposition are both purveyors of nationalism, but the former is selling the more modern variety.

The opposition has many archaic qualities. For example, on the demonstrations one of the most popular slogans was “Down with the Treaty of Trianon!” This is a reference to the conditions imposed on Hungary at Versailles in 1920 after its defeat in the First World War. Apart from the payment of reparations etc, Hungary lost 66% of its population and 72% of its territory, with parts going to Romania, Czechoslovakia, Austria and what became Yugoslavia. During the protests there was much singing of the Székely anthem, the song of the Hungarians who live in Transylvania, up to 300 miles away from the current Hungarian border. One of the policies of Fidesz is the return of the strategically invaluable Transylvanian region from Romania. It might not be a very realistic project, but it is a reminder that every capitalist state has imperialist ambitions.

Clearly the working class has nothing to gain from supporting either the government or opposition faction of the ruling class.

Car, 30/9/6.

We’ve seen in the two preceding articles on this subject (WR 290 and 295) that the fuss over outsourcing essentially serves as a means to blackmail the working class into accepting lower wages and deteriorating conditions of work.

The irreversible crisis suffered by capitalism is invariably shown in the massive numbers out of work. Labour power, whose exploitation constitutes the source of capitalist profits, sees its price fall along with other superabundant commodities on a saturated market; but above all it is reduced by the need to drastically reduce the costs of production, in particular the wage bill. This is the sole means at the disposal of the bourgeoisie to maintain competition on a shrinking market. Over nearly a hundred years of historic decline, the capitalist system has shown that it can only offer a future of growing insecurity to those that it exploits: a future of mass unemployment and of absolute pauperisation, which can also include those that have a job.

In its struggle, the working class of the whole world has the same task. It can no longer remain at the level of trying to limit the effects of exploitation. The only realistic perspective, the only one which will allow it to put an end to all the torments of the capitalist system, it to attack the causes of its exploitation. The only way out of the economic crisis of capitalism, the only way the proletariat can make a better life, involves the abolition of the commodity character of labour power, the destruction of capitalist social relations and thus of wage labour at the world level.

A campaign against the proletariat

Outsourcing is also directly used to attach the proletariat to the ideology of competition, to imprison it in defending national capital and thus submitting to its imperatives. This is what the bourgeoisie aims for by selling the idea that the capitalist state could be a protective wall against the damage done by globalisation. An example of this is the spiel coming from the United States about “forbidding companies who outsource to participate in calls for public tenders”. Apparently it was a great victory for democracy that it has now been made “compulsory for a consultation of personnel and the region’s elected before any transfer of production abroad” (1). The empty chatter of the government, and of the opposition, about how “it’s necessary to act in this country, to guarantee the employment of nationals” (G. Bush) tries to reinforce the mystification of a state ‘above classes’ and ‘at the service of all its citizens’ and to maintain the illusion of a possible conciliation of interests between the dominant class and the working class. Quite the contrary, in no case can the state constitute an ally for the workers. The state is both a guarantee of the dominant class’ interest in maintaining its system of exploitation and a tool for orchestrating attacks against the proletariat. As is shown both by the merciless economic war between all states of the world, and by the outbreak of open military conflicts, the national state is the instrument par excellence for competition among capitalists. It is not a lifebuoy for the working class but its most redoubtable enemy. In its struggle, it is the state that the proletariat must confront first and foremost.

On the other hand, bourgeois propaganda, by putting the responsibility for the decline in living conditions for the western proletariat onto the Polish, Chinese or Asian workers, serves as a means of dividing up the different parts of the world proletariat. For example, from 2004 and during 2005, the bourgeoisie made the ‘conflict’ at the Vaxholm shipyard in Sweden, the model of an ‘anti-liberal’ struggle. The employment of less well paid Latvian workers was used by the unions to orchestrate a gigantic campaign, which was taken up by the bourgeoisie even outside of this country. In the name of “solidarity” and the “refusal to discriminate between workers”, the blockade of the shipyards by several union federations, under the slogan “Go Home!” ended by depriving the Latvian workers of their livelihoods and forcing them to leave. This turned into a vast, national mobilisation in order to steer the workers behind the authorities, the Social-Democratic government and the unions in order to “protect the Swedish social model” and defend “the code of work, guarantee of our security”. This experience only shows one thing: directing the proletariat to fight for ‘legal codes’, encloses the proletariat, fraction by fraction, in the defence of ‘its’ conditions of exploitation within each capitalist nation, chopping it up into opposing and competitive entities. By trying to entrap the working class in this defence of the national capital, the bourgeoisie sows divisions among the workers and blocks off any possibility of workers’ unity and solidarity beyond frontiers.

One class, one struggle

This question of solidarity is always posed when the bosses put the workers from different geographical sites or even the same firm against each other through outsourcing. Workers’ solidarity is going to be a fundamental element in the future of class struggle. Both in the countries from which the outsourcing takes place, and in those which become the destination of relocations, no fraction of the proletariat can remain aloof from the present resurgence of struggles, which has been provoked by the economic crisis in the four corners of the world. Our press has already reported on workers’ struggles in India (WR 292), in Dubai and Bangladesh (WRs 294 and 296). In China as well a growing number of workers’ struggles are developing, which today “have hit the private sector and factories of the Chinese coast and their exports. Some factories who subcontract for foreign companies, thanks to a plentiful and docile supply of labour [are hit] because the workers, above all the new generations, are more and more conscious of their rights. They have also reached a point where the situation is no longer acceptable” (2). In Vietnam at the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006, the country was hit for several months by a wave of spontaneous strikes unleashed outside any control of the unions and involving more than 40,000 workers in the zones around Saigon and the interior regions. “The conflict bearing on wages and the conditions of work began in December in Vietnam (…) where dozens of foreign companies had set up factories in order to profit from the enormous mass of low paid workers (…). This wave of spontaneous strikes, considered the worst since the end of the Vietnam War (…) began nearly 3 months ago, mainly in the foreign owned factories situated in the southern area of Saigon” (3). We find here the same tendencies that characterise the present workers’ struggles elsewhere: workers’ solidarity is at their heart and they simultaneously involve tens of thousands of workers from all sectors. From the end of December “walk-outs followed one another for more than a month and hardened after a stoppage of 18,000 wage earners at Freestand, a Taiwanese firm whose factories make shoes for brand names such as Nike and Adidas” (4). January 3, “in the region of Linh Xuat, in the province of Thuc Duc, eleven thousand employees of six factories struck for an increase in wages. From the following day, strikes hit factories of Hai Vinh and Chutex. The same day, five thousand workers of the Kollan & Hugo Company rejoined the strike to demand an increase in minimum wages. (…) At the Latex Company, all the 2340 workers went on strike in solidarity with those of Kollan, asking for an increase of 30% for the lowest wage earners. These workers went to the Danu Vina Company, leading the personnel to join up with their strike. January 4, the Vietnamese workers of the plantation Grawn Timbers Ltd., in the province of Binh Duong, close to Saigon, demonstrated against a sudden reduction in wages with no warning and no explanation. The same day thousands of workers at the firm of Hai, Vinh, Chutex, situated in the same industrial region as the plantation of Grawn Timbers Ltd., went on strike over wages. January 9 and strikes in these regions continued. In the suburbs of Saigon four new strikes broke out involving thousands of workers” (5). In the capitalist world, competition constitutes the root of social relations and the bourgeoisie use it in order to divide and weaken those they exploit. The working class can only develop its own strength by opposing the principle of competition with its own principle of class solidarity. Only this solidarity can allow the development of the workers’ struggle as a basis for confronting the state and realising the project of a society that has gone beyond this world of every man for himself - a society without classes, communism.

In present-day society, the working class is the sole class able to develop solidarity at the world level. From the start, the workers’ movement has always affirmed its international character. Thus, at the time of Marx, one of the immediate reasons which led to the foundation of the International was the necessity for the English workers to co-ordinate their struggle with those of France, from where the bosses were trying to bring in strikebreakers. “The economic crisis accentuates social antagonisms, and strikes follow one another in all the countries of western Europe. (…) In many cases, [the International] succeeded in preventing the introduction of foreign strikebreakers, and where foreign workers who in their ignorance of local conditions became strikebreakers, often led them to practice solidarity. In other cases, it organised subscriptions to support the strikers. Not only did that give the strikers a moral support, but provoked among the employers a real panic: they no longer had to deal with ‘their’ workers, but a new, powerful and sinister force, having an international organisation” (6). The proletariat is never as strong as when it affirms itself, faced with the bourgeoisie, as a united and international force.

Scott, From Revolution Internationale 371, July 2006.

Notes

(1) L’Expansion, 13 February 2004

(2) Le Monde, 14 October 2005

(3) Depeche AFP, 15 March 2006

(4) Courrier International no. 796

(5)‘Massive strikes in Vietnam for decent wages’ on Viettan.org.

www.viettan.org/article.php3?id_article=2101 [147]

“Caught short, the government has brought social peace by imposing on foreign firms, over represented in Vietnam, an increase of 40% of the workers’ wages. But 40% of almost nothing doesn’t come to much: about 870,000 dongs, or 45 euros monthly for the workers of foreign firms and less than half that for those who work in local industry. Not such a great catching up considering the rates of growth: the minimum wage hasn’t moved for… seven years” (Marianne no. 470, 22 April 2006).

(6) Marx, Man and Fighter, B. Nicolaievski.

Dear Comrades

The recent article ‘Anti-terrorism: pretext for state terror’ in WR 296 was useful in that it brought together some thoughts I have had regarding the centrality of the revolutionary party in the struggle for a communist world. For me it is important to stress how the decomposition of bourgeoisie society combined with each national capitalism’s drive to increase its share of surplus value, not only in the UK but across the world, leads to measures which strengthen the repressive functions of the capitalist state.

So I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis when you argue: “In reality terrorism and anti-terrorism are a product of the development of capitalism, springing from the ever-increasing imperialist tensions that drive every state and would-be state into a war of each against all”.

This materialist explanation of the rise of terrorism is something that many leftists cannot understand. For many on the left terrorism is either an irrational response to intolerable living conditions, or it’s the work of a group of socially sick individuals who are being manipulated by ruthless gangsters. In fact as the ICC argues terrorism is one of many tools each of the national bourgeoisies uses in an attempt to maintain their supremacy or to challenge their rivals.

While it is reasonable to argue why the bourgeoisie uses the threat of terrorism to strengthen their hegemony over the subordinate classes, i.e. the working and middle classes, what it does not address is why is it at this present time that this ideology is so successful with so many members of the working class. I think that the reason lies in how capitalism is decomposing and the drawn-out nature of the decomposition. It seems to me that any idea that there is going to be a catastrophic collapse of capitalism similar to the 1930s is misleading. The bourgeoisie has learnt a lot of lessons since this event; also there is much more of a growth in the use of credit which can offset the decline in the rate of profit.

So while a catastrophic economic collapse may not occur what seems to me to be happening is that the inherent contradictions in capitalist society combined with a growing saturation in world markets leads to a gradual slowdown in economic growth in all countries leading to stagnation. Engels in an introduction to Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy argued “At least this was the case until recently. Since England’s monopoly of the world market is being more and more shattered by the participation of France, Germany and above all of America in world trade, a new form of equalization appears to be operating. The period of general prosperity preceding the crisis still fails to appear. If it should fail altogether then chronic stagnation would necessarily become the normal condition of modern industry, with only insignificant fluctuations”. It is this tendency towards stagnation of the forces of production that forces the bourgeoisie to make cut backs to the social wage i.e. cuts in welfare provision, health and education combined with raising the levels of exploitation.

While there have been struggles against this tendency namely the struggle against the CPE in France, many workers in Britain experience this erosion in a wholly negative way. Gone is the sense that no matter how inadequate the welfare state was it still gave a sense of security, that some provision would be provided to workers which would give support through hard times. That is until another job could be found. With the dismantling and erosion of bourgeoisie state support now what workers experience is increasing alienation which is leading to bouts of cynicism with bourgeoisie politics and frustration with working class reformism.

This is why many younger workers are currently turning away from voting. However the alienation that is being produced by decomposing capitalism does not mean that they are automatically turning to revolutionary politics. Rather the opposite is the case as the bourgeoisie scapegoats asylum seekers and immigrants. Not surprisingly reformist trade unions also contributes to this atmosphere when they launch nationalistic campaigns in an attempt to save workers’ jobs. This scapegoat is an old ploy of the bourgeoisie: in the early twentieth century it was Jews, in the 1960s it was black immigrants, now in the early twenty first century it is asylum seekers. This highlights that when workers feel weak then attempts to scapegoat are generally successful.

This brings me to my last point: that I believe that while this disillusion with parliamentary politics is to be welcomed it also emphasises the importance of being consistent in arguing for building an independent revolutionary party rooted in workers’ struggles and consistently arguing for workers’ councils and working class solidarity. The recent articles by the ICC regarding the CPE in France has been welcome alongside the recent pieces on how the reformist trade unions are now unable to deliver any meaningful reforms for workers.

DT

Our Reply

Dear comrade,

We would like thank you for your very interesting letter. With the mounting campaign around the question of terrorism, especially the home grown variety, it is vital to be able to put forward a marxist analysis of this question. Your “wholehearted welcome” for the analysis unfolded in the article on anti-terrorism is thus most welcome. Not only do you agree, but you also seek to apply and critically assess the analysis.

We fully endorse this approach. As a communist organisation it is not a question of expecting those seeking to understand your positions to fall down on their knees and proclaim their full agreement. The central question for us is that our positions are understood. Thus, it is important that our contacts feel able to question, criticise and disagree with our positions. It is only through a process of clarification that a full understanding can be gained.

You say of the article that “What it does not address is why it is at the present time that this ideology is so successful with so many members of the working class. I think that the reason lies in how capitalism is decomposing and the drawn out nature of the decomposition”. The analysis of decomposition is essential to understanding not only this question but the general situation facing capitalism and humanity. It is certainly crucial for understanding the growth of the influence of the nihilistic ideology of terrorism, in all its forms. We would question the extent of the influence of this ideology within the working class, but not the importance of understanding the pernicious influence of this ideology. Nor would we disagree with your obvious concern about the wider impact of decomposition on the working class. The putrefaction of capitalism is exuding a noxious cloud of ideological poison.

Given this terrible danger for a proletariat faced with the rotting of capitalism on its feet, we think that it is necessary to be as clear as possible about the causes of the process of the decomposition of capitalism. In the letter you emphasis the role of the stagnation of the economy in the development of decomposition. This is certainly an important aspect. However, we think that there is an vital aspect that is not developed in your letter: the role of the class struggle.

The dragging out of the economic crisis is an essential aspect of decomposition. As you rightly show the prolonged nature of the crisis is tearing away at the very social fabric of capitalist society. The welfare state is being dismantled across Western Europe, mass unemployment is growing and the levels of exploitation suffered by workers are becoming ever more murderous. As you demonstrate this is leading to growing sense of insecurity in the working class and the ruling class is seeking to exploit this to stir up nationalist campaigns etc.

The development of the crisis is, however, not the cause of decomposition. The foundation of decomposition is the impasse between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is important to fully understand this because otherwise one can blur and confuse the different phases in the development and decadence of capitalism, and give the impression that decomposition could be seen as something that has been an aspect of capitalism for some time. The very interesting quote from Engels could imply that decomposition was a phenomenon that began to arise at the end of the 19th century. Thus, we think it would help our discussions if we laid out our historical framework for the understanding of decomposition.

To this end, we hope that you will not mind if we use some extensive quotes from our Theses on the decomposition of capitalism [149].

Capitalism has been decadent since 1914, when the First World War brutally demonstrated that the capitalist system was no longer a progressive force for the development of humanity, but a social system that could only offer humanity a future of barbarity. From a system spreading capitalist relations across the globe, thus laying the basis for communism, it became a system whose very survival means destruction, chaos and even the obliteration of all civilisation. Since 1914 we have seen two world wars, and two economic crises; however, it is only since the 1980’s that we see the phase of decomposition developing. This is because it is only since the 1980’s that we have witnessed a period of impasse between the ruling class and proletariat.

The Theses underline that all class societies have gone through a dynamic of growth and decay and that this understanding of the phases of capitalism is vital to understanding decomposition:

“capitalism itself traverses different historic periods - birth, ascendancy, decadence - so each of these periods itself consists of several distinct phases. For example, capitalism’s ascendant period can be divided into the successive phases of the free market, shareholding, monopoly, financial capital, colonial conquest, and the establishment of the world market. In the same way, the decadent period also has its history: imperialism, world wars, state capitalism, permanent crisis, and today, decomposition. These are different and successive aspects of the life of capitalism, each one characteristic of a specific phase, although they may have pre-dated it, and/or continued to exist after it. For example, although wage labour existed already under feudalism, or even Asiatic despotism (just as slavery and serfdom survived under capitalism), it is only under capitalism that wage labour has reached a dominant position within society. Similarly, while imperialism existed during capitalism’s ascendant period, it is only in the decadent period that it became predominant within society and in international relations, to the point where revolutionaries of the period identified it with the decadence of capitalism itself.

The phase of capitalist society’s decomposition is thus not simply the chronological continuation of those characterised by state capitalism and the permanent crisis. To the extent that contradictions and expressions of decadent capitalism that mark its successive phases do not disappear with time, but continue and deepen, the phase of decomposition appears as the result of an accumulation of all the characteristics of a moribund system, completing the 75-year death agony of a historically condemned mode of production. Concretely, not only do the imperialist nature of all states, the threat of world war, the absorption of civil society by the state Moloch, and the permanent crisis of the capitalist economy all continue during the phase of decomposition, they reach a synthesis and an ultimate conclusion within it”. (Point 3 of the Theses).

The Theses then go on to describe the “...unprecedented element which in the last instance has determined decadent capitalism’s entry into a new phase of its own history: decomposition. The open crisis which developed at the end of the l960s, as a result of the end of the post-World War II reconstruction period, opened the way once again to the historic alternative: world war or generalised class confrontations leading to the proletarian revolution. Unlike the open crisis of the 1930’s, the present crisis has developed at a time when the working class is no longer weighed down by the counter-revolution. With its historic resurgence from 1968 onwards, the class has proven that the bourgeoisie did not have its hands free to unleash a Third World War. At the same time, although the proletariat has been strong enough to prevent this from happening, it is still unable to overthrow capitalism, since:

- the crisis is developing at a much slower rhythm than in the past;

- the development of its consciousness and of its political organisations has been set back by the break in organic continuity with the organisations of the past, itself a result of the depth and duration of the counter-revolution.

In this situation, where society’s two decisive - and antagonistic - classes confront each other without either being able to impose its own definitive response, history nonetheless does not just come to a stop. Still less for capitalism than for preceding social forms, is a ‘freeze’ or a ‘stagnation’ of social life possible. As a crisis-ridden capitalism’s contradictions can only get deeper, the bourgeoisie’s inability to offer the slightest perspective for society as a whole, and the proletariat’s inability, for the moment, openly to set forward its own can only lead to a situation of generalised decomposition. Capitalism is rotting on its feet.” (point 4).

This does not mean that the proletariat is ‘doomed’ but that it is faced with having to develop its struggles in unprecedentedly difficult circumstances. It’s a situation in which rotting capitalism could destroy the proletariat’s ability to put forward its own revolutionary perspective. Nevertheless, the proletariat has not been crushed and still holds the potential to develop its struggles. A potential clearly seen in the movement around the CPE in France, or the metal workers’ struggles in Vigo, Spain. A potential that we put forward in the Theses, when they were written in the early 1990’s:

“Understanding the serious threat that the historical phenomenon of decomposition poses for the working class and for the whole of humanity should not lead the class, and especially its revolutionary minorities, to adopt a fatalist attitude. Today, the historical perspective remains completely open. Despite the blow that the Eastern bloc’s collapse has dealt to proletarian consciousness, the class has not suffered any major defeats on the terrain of its struggle. In this sense, its combativity remains virtually intact. Moreover, and this is the element which in the final analysis will determine the outcome of the world situation, the inexorable aggravation of the capitalist crisis constitutes the essential stimulant for the class’ struggle and development of consciousness, the precondition for its ability to resist the poison distilled by the social rot. For while there is no basis for the unification of the class in the partial struggles against the effects of decomposition, nonetheless its struggle against the direct effects of the crisis constitutes the basis for the development of its class strength and unity. This is the case because:

- while the effects of decomposition (eg pollution, drugs, insecurity) hit the different strata of society in much the same way and form a fertile ground for aclassist campaigns and mystifications (ecology, anti-nuclear movements, anti-racist mobilisations, etc), the economic attacks (falling real wages, layoffs, increasing productivity, etc) resulting directly from the crisis hit the proletariat (ie the class that produces surplus value and confronts capitalism on this terrain) directly and specifically;

- unlike social decomposition which essentially effects the superstructure, the economic crisis directly attacks the foundations on which this superstructure rests; in this sense, it lays bare all the barbarity that is battening on society, thus allowing the proletariat to become aware of the need to change the system radically, rather than trying to improve certain aspects of it.

However, the economic crisis cannot by itself resolve all the problems that the proletariat must confront now and still more in the future. The working class will only be able to answer capital’s attacks blow for blow, and finally go onto the offensive and overthrow this barbaric system thanks to:

- an awareness of what is at stake in the present historical situation, and in particular of the mortal danger that social decomposition holds over humanity;

- its determination to continue, develop and unite its class combat;

- its ability to spring the many traps that the bourgeoisie, however decomposed itself, will not fail to set in its path.

Revolutionaries have the responsibility to take an active part in the development of this combat of the proletariat.” (Point 17)

Comrade, we hope that you do not feel that we have been trying to batter you with quotes; our aim has been to show that the fullest comprehension of the foundations of decomposition is essential for the development of our discussion of this vital question.

As part of this process we look forward to your reflections on this reply.

Communist Greetings

WR.

With the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution on the horizon, the ruling class will certainly not miss the opportunity to repeat its lies and myths about the events that culminated in the seizure of power by the working class in October 1917: that is was a ‘coup’ orchestrated by the Bolsheviks; that the roots of Stalinism – and all of its horrors - go back to Lenin and his ‘clique of bourgeois conspirators’.

With the great democracies bogged down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the world economy lurching from one crisis to another, the working class is once again looking for alternatives to the tired and tattered lies offered by the ruling class. But what is there to learn from the Russian Revolution? For some it belongs to a by-gone age with no relevance to the modern world of call centres and the Internet. For others the dictatorship of the proletariat conjures up nightmares befitting of The Exorcist or Halloween. But what 1917 really showed is that, faced with the need to challenge and overthrow the bankrupt rule of capitalism, the working class has shown itself capable of creating its own forms of mass organisation, its own organs of ’self-government’ - the soviets or workers’ councils. This was confirmed in other major expressions of the class struggle in the 20th century, from the German revolution in 1918 to the Hungarian uprising of 1956. 

1917: Russia

The first anniversary we are dealing with here is of 1917. The month of October is now firmly associated in the memory of revolutionaries with the soviets, even if the memory of the true soviets has been buried deep amongst the wider layers of the class. 

It is associated with the October insurrection of 1917 in Russia, in spite of the fact that we are told by all the history books and documentaries - echoed at every step by the ideologies of “Marxist Leninism” and anarchism - that this event was only a new leadership seizing power, either on behalf of the masses, or for its own sinister ends.

Trotsky, in his History of the Russian Revolution, responds to number of critics who argue, in one way or another, that the insurrection was the work of the Bolshevik party substituting itself for the class:

 “Professor Pokrovsky denies the very importance of the alternative: Soviet or party. Soldiers are no formalists, he laughs: they did not need a Congress of Soviets in order to overthrow Kerensky. With all its wit such a formulation leaves unexplained the problem: why create soviets at all if the party is enough? ‘It is interesting’, continues the professor, ‘that nothing at all came of this aspiration to do everything almost legally, with soviet legality, and the power at the last moment was taken not by the Soviet, but by an obviously ‘illegal’ organisation created ad hoc’. Pokrovsky here cites the fact that Trotsky was compelled ‘in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee’ and not the Soviet, to declare the government of Kerensky non-existent. A most unexpected conclusion! The Military Revolutionary Committee was an elected organ of the Soviet. The leading role of the Committee in the overturn did not in any sense violate that soviet legality which the professor makes fun of, but of which the masses were extremely jealous”.

This was an insurrection carried out by an elected committee of an organ created by the working class through massive struggles against the old state regime: the soviets, councils of delegates elected by assemblies of workers, and also of soldiers, sailors and peasants as the revolutionary movement spread throughout the Tsarist Empire.

It was therefore the seizure of power by the working class - for the first time in history at the level of an entire country. It announced itself unambiguously as the first victory of the world-wide proletarian revolution against the capitalist system – a system which, by plunging the world into a barbaric imperialist war, had given clear proof that it had become a barrier to the needs of humanity.

The proletarian revolution was not a conspiracy by all-powerful secret societies. The revolution was not directed by the Freemasons or the Jews; nor was it a plot hatched by a power-hungry Lenin. A proletarian revolution can’t be reduced or even compared to uncoordinated riots, nor is it the arbitrary rule of terror. The revolutionary masses are jealous of “soviet legality” because they understand the necessity for responsibility, for commonly agreed norms of behaviour and action, for accountability. They are jealous of their assemblies and the decisions that they take in them, and they demand that their delegates carry out those decisions. They demand a consistency between means and ends, and the October revolution, the first massively conscious revolution in history, was consistent with its ultimate goal – a society in which self-aware human beings have become masters of their own social forces.  

1956: Hungary

The second anniversary is one of exactly 50 years: the Hungarian uprising of October/November 1956, which witnessed the last true soviets of the 20th century.

“The most powerful expression of the prole­tarian character of the revolt was the appearance of genuine workers’ councils all over the country. Elected at factory level, these councils linked whole industrial areas and cities, and were without doubt the organizational focus of the entire insurrec­tion. They took charge of organizing the distribution of arms and food, ran the general strike, directed the armed struggle. In some towns they were in total and undis­puted command. The appearance of these soviets struck terror into the hearts of the ‘Soviet’ capitalists and no doubt tinged the ‘sympathy’ of the Western democracies with unease about the excessively ‘violent’ character of the revolt.”('Fifty years since the Hungarian workers’ uprising [151]').

Soviets against the Soviet Union: because for four decades the soviets no longer ruled in the ‘Soviet Union’. The revolution succumbed to economic blockade and military invasion, directed above all by the democratic powers; it succumbed to fatal isolation, in particular because of the bloody defeat of the proletarian uprisings in Germany – prepared by the thoroughly democratic Weimar Republic; it succumbed to the haemorrhaging of human and economic resources caused by three years of savage civil war. The ‘Soviet’ regime that arose on the ashes of the first October was a pure incarnation of the counter-revolution, of a bourgeois regime that now bitterly opposed world revolution in the interests of its own imperialist grandeur. Founded on a centralised state-capitalist war economy falsely declared as ‘socialism’, founded on the ruthless exploitation of the Russian proletariat, the USSR also drew its strength from the blood it sucked from the countries of Eastern Europe, which it had claimed as booty for its participation in the imperialist re-division of 1945.  

The 1956 soviets in Hungary arose as part of a wave of workers’ revolts against the insatiable demands of accumulation under the Stalinist model of capitalism. In response to open and brutal attack on workers’ living standards, the workers of East Germany in 1953 and Poland in 1956 took up the weapon of the mass strike. In Hungary the movement reached the stage of an armed uprising. The councils it generated were not merely central strike committees, but veritable councils of war of the working class. But these heroic movements were cordoned off behind the Iron Curtain, and, living under the oppressive weight of Stalinism and Russian imperialism, the workers of Eastern Europe were also weighed down by illusions in nationalism and in western-style ‘democracy’. As for the western democrats, they had already agreed at Yalta to make Stalinism the gendarme of Eastern Europe and were not prepared to risk much in defence of the victims of ‘Communist Totalitarianism’. On the contrary, while they condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the ruthless suppression of the uprising, the dust and smoke they kicked up in the Suez war of 1956 provided the Russian tanks with a very effective screen to cover their dirty work. 

The soviets of 1956 pointed in two directions: backwards, to the extent that they were a distant echo of the Russian soviets of 1917 and indeed of the fleeting Hungarian council republic of 1919. But they also pointed forward, to the end of the counter-revolution and the dawn of a new era of workers’ struggles. In the second half of the 1950s in western Europe, the first stirrings of rebellion against the established order were taking a mainly cultural form that was easy enough to manage and recuperate (beatniks, angry young men, rock and roll…), but like the student revolts of the mid-60s, these were straws in the wind announcing the proletarian storms which were to sweep the globe between 1968 and 1974, storms  whose epicentre was in the developed capitalist countries of western Europe.

Since 1956 there have not been any more soviets, but the embryos of future soviets have appeared in many struggles: in the ‘MKS’ (strike committees) which centralised the mass strike in Poland in 1980; in the mass assemblies of Vigo and Vittoria in Spain in the ‘70s, and again in Vigo this year; in the base committees in Italy in the early 70s and again in the 80s; and in the general assemblies of the students in France last spring. These are the forms of organisation, which, in a context of spreading class war, will serve as the basic units of the workers’ councils in the next revolutionary attempt of the working class.    

In the Hungary of today, the blatant lies of the government about the real state of the economy has produced a massive outburst of anger, with crowds on the street chanting “56, 56” as they lay siege to parliament and TV stations. In reality, unlike 1956, the working class does not seem to be present as a class in these demonstrations. As the internationalist anarchists around the Barrikad collective in Hungary put it, “The real class discontent is toeing the line of nationalism.”  (libcom.org/news - see also the article in this issue). This is testimony to the difficulties facing the working class in the present period, where both material and ideological dispersal has undermined a sense of class identity. But the working class is also in the process of redefining and re-appropriating this identity, and as it does so, it will surely rediscover the organisational weapons which it has itself invented in its struggle for a different world.

Amos, 30/9/6.

For more than 30 years scientists have warned of the dangers of global warming from the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The recent Stern report on the impact of climate change shows an economist, supported by the British government, putting a price on it. Tony Blair, convinced by the overwhelming evidence, thought that the consequences of ‘business as usual’ would be literally “disastrous”.

We are already living with the consequences of global warming and are now officially being told of the prospects of more floods (with the displacement of up to 100 million people), more droughts, more famines, more extreme weather conditions, in particular with more devastating storms, rising sea levels (with hundreds of millions of people displaced), changes in food production conditions, declining crop yields, more heat waves (with their impact on the vulnerable and on agricultural production) and, among many other things, the loss of up to 40% of species in the ecosystem.

Stern warns that doing nothing “could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th Century”. He therefore proposes that for carbon emissions to be stabilised in the next 20 years, and then drop between 1% and 3% after that, which would be a ‘manageable’ level. It would cost 1% of world GDP, but would avoid the cost of 20% GDP that would be needed if action was postponed. (A leaked United Nations report suggests that 5% would be more realistic than 1%).

The usual solutions

The measures proposed by Stern and the government are familiar. There should be a campaign against further deforestation. Industry has to widen the search for more efficient low carbon technologies, cleaner energy sources, non-fossil fuels. Carbon trading can be developed to ration emissions, or at least make them more costly. There’s the prospect of taxes on air and car transport. There’s a need to reduce consumer demand for heavily polluting goods and services. Gordon Brown has taken on Al Gore as an adviser. And, er, that’s about it.

It’s obvious that the propaganda which makes us all individually responsible will also be cranked up a notch. We are constantly being told that we have to change our behaviour. We’re supposed to turn down the thermostat, turn off the lights, not leave the TV on standby, recycle everything, plant a tree, buy local, leave the car at home and ride a bike.

There are many criticisms of the measures that are proposed. Leftists blame the US for not taking global warming seriously, and for holding out for the prospect of a miraculous new technology. They criticise countries like Australia or the US for not even signing up to Kyoto. George Monbiot thinks that governments will take action if they’re lobbied forcefully enough. The SWP blames neo-liberalism and wants the re-nationalisation of the transport industries and state reorganisation of the energy industries. Many critics say that no plan can work because countries like China and India won’t sacrifice economic growth for the sake of the environment.

This last point has the beginning of an insight. But it doesn’t involve just those two economies but every national economy in the world.

Capitalism means competition

CBI head Richard Lambert had the cheek to say “Provided we act with sufficient speed, we will not have to make a choice between averting climate change and promoting growth and investment.” Gordon Brown said his priorities are “growth, full employment and environmental care.” Yet these gentlemen would be the first to admit that competition is at the very heart of the drive to growth in capitalism.

Capitalism’s functioning, the way it survives and its central goal lie in accumulation. “Accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake: by this formula classical economy expressed the historical mission of the bourgeoisie…” as Marx put it in Capital (vol. 1, chap. XXIV). And the drive for profits, the drive of each national capital to defend its interests, does not mean that each country patiently awaits the verdict of the market but uses every means, including the military option of war, to push itself forward in the capitalist world. It’s competition, not co-operation, that marks out the capitalist mode of production.

Charlie Kronick of Greenpeace pointed out that 1% of GDP is “the same amount of money we spend on global advertising” as if there was some easy substitution to be made. He admits that emissions have actually gone up under Labour, but then suggests, “there are so many things the government could do”. Where everything that an individual capitalist enterprise does is determined by the need to keep costs down and get revenues up, the actions of the capitalist state are determined by the needs of the capitalist ruling class. And, for all its talk about the disasters that loom from the worsening environmental system, no government is going to put serious restraints on the process of accumulating capital. Yes, expense on advertising is wasteful, and so are the even greater resources devoted to military production, but they have both become fundamental to the world of capitalist competition.

You don’t need a science degree to see that capitalism, throughout its history, has been polluting the natural environment without any concern for the consequences. Stern mentions world wars and economic slump in the same breath as the ecological catastrophe that faces us all. The cause is the same: a bankrupt capitalist system that, having fulfilled its historic mission of creating a world economy, now threatens the very continuation of life on earth. Different computer projections have predicted average global temperatures to rise by anything from 1.4 °C to 5.8 °C by 2100. What they’ve not taken into account is the question of society, the relations between social classes.

The continuation of capitalist rule holds out only the prospect of profound cataclysm, through war, through environmental degradation, or a deadly combination of both. Against this only the struggle of the working class holds out any hope, as it’s the only force in society that can overthrow capitalism and has the potential for establishing a society based on human needs, with solidarity rather than ruthless rivalry at its heart. 3/11/6

Jack Straw knew he was being provocative when he revealed that he asked Muslim women to remove their veil when visiting his surgeries. He said that wearing a veil was “a visible statement of separation and difference” and that many Muslim scholars didn’t think it was obligatory. Writing in his weekly column for the Lancashire Telegraph he said he was concerned “that wearing the full veil was bound to make better, positive relations between the two communities more difficult”. Although his comments only concerned a small number of Muslim women, they were immediately seized upon and turned into the next episode of the ‘clash of civilisations’. His remarks come in the wake of comments from the Pope that were taken as denigrating Muslims, the high profile police operation in Forest Gate, and the terror alerts during the summer over suicide bombers on planes.

The debate that has been generated has included scholarly verdicts on how the Qur’an should be interpreted, but has mostly been an exchange of accusations and insults. Straw has been denounced for pandering to racism, stirring up prejudice and for trying to further his political career with a hardline image. He’s been supported by Blair, Brown, Salman Rushdie and the BNP, and denounced by Ken Livingstone (“utterly wrong and insensitive”) George Galloway (“It is a male politician telling women to wear less”) and the SWP.

Deepening divisions

In the campaign round the ‘war on terror’, there has been a barrage of bourgeois propaganda aimed primarily against Muslims. The references to a ‘clash of civilisations’ are supposed to conjure up visions of a conflict between the liberal, secular, democratic traditions of the West with the despotic, fundamentalist and undemocratic traditions of the East, exemplified by the Islamic states in the Middle East. Indeed, for Bush and Blair, one of the reasons given for the war in Iraq, and the broader offensive in the region, was a fight for ‘freedom’ and the rights of women.

In Britain there have been arguments for a greater tolerance of differences, of giving women the ‘right to choose’ whether they wear a veil, of upholding ‘multiculturalism’, while the Straw line says that Muslims should make greater efforts to ‘integrate’ into British culture and society, accepting the ‘British values’ of tolerance, freedom of speech and democracy. The arguments for ‘assimilation’ have been backed up by falsified provocative stories in the papers and numerous well-documented physical attacks against Muslims, both male and female.

In the whole false ‘debate’ everyone is allowed to give their opinion on what direction British society should go. Blair sees the veil as a “mark of separation”, another Labour MP sees it as “frightening and intimidating”, against these there are the accusations of ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘bigotry’. The ‘debate’ presents a view of society not divided into conflicting social classes, but along religious, ethnic or gender lines. Straw’s comments also give a false view of the word ‘community’ with its implicit unity of purpose and action. There is no ‘Muslim community’ or wider ‘British community’, there is only capitalist society which is divided into classes, irrespective of racial or religious background. The hysteria of the debate does provide further evidence for Islamic ‘fundamentalists’ to prove that the west is ‘decadent’ and ‘corrupt’, and that the only answer is a holy war for an Islamic caliphate.

The net result of the ‘debate’ has been to heighten tensions and to deepen existing divisions within society. Muslims are portrayed as a ‘fifth column’ within Britain, not wanting to integrate, and more and more concentrated in ghettos, where some schools have more than 90% Asian i.e. Muslim, intakes. The only element of truth in this is that there is a greater fragmentation and atomisation within society, and one tendency of the ruling class is to cause further divisions, for example with Blair’s encouragement of faith schools. But, at the same time that society is becoming more fragmented, there is the campaign for ‘integration’ and ‘embracing Britishness’, behind which is the defence of the British state as an entity which supposedly sits ‘above’ society and acts to balance out the different interests which exist and to which we should all defer. In reality the state wants us to unite behind the ‘war on terrorism’. The ‘fight against fundamentalism’ is just another justification for strengthening of the state’s repressive apparatus.

The ‘debate’ over the veil is also another way of hiding the present and forthcoming attacks against the wages and living standards of the working class that the state is about to undertake. These attacks will fall hard on the backs of the working class and the only response to these is to strengthen the class struggle. Instead of being divided by race or religion the working class has to respond as a class with common interests. The search for solidarity in workers’ struggles is the basis for building a real unity. The struggles of today are laying the basis for a truly human community of the future.   Graham 25/10/06

Since becoming Conservative Party leader last December, David Cameron has changed the party’s logo, launched a new mission statement, rejected immediate tax cuts and pledged to defend the NHS. Comparisons have been made with Blair’s ‘re-branding’ of New Labour in the 1990s. With a rise in support for them and Labour in increasing difficulties the Conservatives are beginning to look electable again. However, these developments are no more the fruit of Cameron’s leadership than they were of Blair’s in the mid 1990s: they reflect the needs of British capitalism.

Managing democracy

The management of the democratic process has been a central concern of the ruling class since the 19th century when the vote began to be extended to the working class. In Britain, the First World War saw the growth of state control and the consequent concentration of power in the hands of the executive. While the legislature continued to have an important role to play it did not exercise the same power as it had in the past and ceased to offer any scope for the working class to advance its interests. The betrayal by the unions and Labour with their support for the war and their integration into the state helped to consolidate this change. The British ruling class became adept at managing the process to defend its interests. In particular, it used the parties of the left and the right, with their alternation in power, to get the best result for British capitalism at elections. The left, with its origins in the working class movement, had a particularly important role to play in containing the class struggle.

At the end of the Second World War Labour’s landslide victory and the creation of the welfare state helped to fuel illusions in the working class that the war had not been in vain and so ensure there weren’t widespread struggles as there had been after the First World War. By the late 1970s the Labour government elected in 1974 was facing a rising tide of class struggle while British capitalism was mired in economic difficulties. The election of the Tory party under Thatcher in 1979 meant that Labour did not have to make the attacks deemed necessary to defend British capitalism and could pose as the worker’s champion in order to contain their anger and stifle any real challenge, thus allowing the Tories to get on with the work in hand. Throughout the 1980s Labour played its role well. It opposed all of the Thatcher cuts and privatisations as well as legislation against the so-called excesses of the unions. In foreign policy its support for unilateral nuclear disarmament gave it a radical edge while even its internal difficulties, with the battles between left and right, gave the impression that its members could make a real difference.

The replacement of the Tories by New Labour in 1997 was not linked to the class struggle but to difficulties within the Tory party. After the collapse of the eastern bloc in 1989 the waves of class struggle that had continued during the 1980s came to an end and it was no longer so important for Labour to be in opposition to contain it. At the same time the Tories showed themselves unable to defend the more independent imperialist strategy required by the ruling class. This is what lay behind the removal of Thatcher and the subsequent problems with the ‘Euro-sceptics’. Labour’s return to electability, begun under Kinnock, notably with the battles against the Militant Tendency, was continued by John Smith and completed by Blair through set piece battles with the left and the occupation of ground previously held by the Tories, in particular on the management of the economy. The party became famed for its discipline and ability to control the news agenda.

Today much has changed, as we showed in WR 298 (“Labour Disarray: A capitalist party arranges its succession”). Blair is under pressure to go, in particular because the imperialist strategy he has followed since the bombing of the twin towers in 2001 is no longer supported by the dominant part of the ruling class. The slow development of the class struggle that has been taking place over the last couple of years also poses the longer-term possibility that Labour may need to return to opposition once again. This may also be affected by the increasing necessity to impose more direct cuts as it becomes harder to continue the management of the crisis in the way that Gordon Brown has done up to now. Whatever happens the ruling class needs to get its options ready.

Renewing the Conservative Party

Throughout the last decade and more the Tory party has looked completely unelectable. It has even seemed unable to fulfil much of its responsibility as an opposition, with the Liberal Democrats being called on to make good the shortfall. Under William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith the party remained largely consumed by in-fighting and nostalgia for the past while its policies seemed to drift to the right, to xenophobia and little-Englandism. Its vote slumped and in parts of the country it was wiped off the map. In many ways this was not important as Labour was secure in power and was very effectively defending the bourgeoisie’s interests with both the economy, where it increased the exploitation of the working class and in imperialist strategy, where it adequately maintained the independent line.

The election of Michael Howard to the Tory leadership following the general election defeat of 2001, meant that a more serious and experienced politician was in charge. However, his very experience proved to be a weakness since he was linked to the past, with Thatcher’s attacks on the working class and the period of in-fighting in the party.

Since his election Cameron has made a virtue of being fresh on the scene. While paying lip service to Thatcher’s achievements he has deliberately distanced himself from several traditional policies, bluntly telling the party conference that the old policies were not coming back. He has laid claim to several Labour policies, even repeating their phrase about being “tough on the causes of crime” and echoing one of Blair’s best known slogans: “Tony Blair once explained his priority in three words: education, education, education. I can do it in three letters. N.H.S.” The party’s website is currently running a campaign against Brown’s NHS cuts under a picture of Brown wielding an enormous pair of scissors. Cameron has sought to claim the green agenda, from putting a small wind-turbine on top of his house to proposing that the state takes the lead, including imposing taxes on polluters.

Significantly, Cameron has also sought to address some of the issues that concern the ruling class. First and foremost he has argued that he will take a more independent line from America, arguing in a speech given in the US on the anniversary of 9/11 “We should be solid but not slavish in our friendship with America”. He called for “a policy that moves beyond neo-conservatism” and declared “we will serve neither our own, nor America’s, nor the world’s interests if we are seen as America’s unconditional associate in every endeavour”. Secondly, he supported the criticism that has been made of Blair’s style of government: “For too long, the big political decisions in this country have been made in the wrong place. Not round the cabinet table, where they should be. But on the sofa in Tony Blair’s office. No notes are taken. No one knows who’s accountable. No one takes the blame when things go wrong. That arrogant style of government must come to an end. I will restore the proper processes of government. That means building a strong team, and leading them. I want to be prime minister of this country. Not a president.”

Cameron has taken on much of Blair’s mantle in order to move into the centre. But today Blair is widely mistrusted, being seen not just as ‘all spin and no substance’ but also, and more seriously, as a liar, and if Cameron mirrors Blair too closely he risks being touched by this mistrust too. His media background can be seen in the polish of his performances and the concern for image. The risk is that he will be seen as little more than image. Furthermore the Tory party still contains some of the divisions that have convulsed it for many years. Since the most recent party conference Cameron’s rating has gone down, but still compares well to Gordon Brown. The next general election can be as late as 2010. Much can happen between now and then and the bourgeoisie is taking steps to make sure its political apparatus is prepared for every contingency.   North 26/10/06

Throughout the world, the living conditions of the working class are under attack, whether by private bosses or the state, whether in the developed countries or the poorest. Attacks on wages, the aggravation of unemployment, lowering of benefits, growing constraints on conditions of work, deepening poverty - such is the price the proletariat pays for the crisis of capitalism. But these attacks are not raining down on a beaten proletariat, ready to passively accept all the sacrifices that are demanded of it.

On the contrary, we are seeing stronger and stronger reactions from the workers to counter these attacks. Despite the enormous black-out operated by the media in the developed countries, this is particularly the case in Latin America at the moment.

Against the violence of the attacks, workers’ militancy is developing

In Honduras in September, major strikes broke out in the transport sector of the capital of the country, Tegucigalpa, which was completely stopped for two days after taxi and bus drivers went on strike to protest against the imposition by the government of an increase in the price of fuel by 19.7%. In Nicaragua, after the violent protests that took place at the beginning of the year in Managua, following an increase in transport prices, we saw the massive strikes of health workers in April, and strikers in the transport sector blocked the capital.

In Chile, in the context of police raids, arrests and brutal repression led by the social democratic government of Michelle Bachelet, a strike broke out at the end of September in the education sector. This was a strike against lamentable teaching conditions and it united teachers, students and school children, the latter having been involved in a very radical struggle since August. One of the themes of the movement was to refuse partial strikes and to engage in the widest possible struggles. This summer, the workers of the copper mine of Escondida went on strike for the first time since the mine opened in 1991, for three weeks in order to claim a 13% wage increase and a bonus. They only obtained a wage increase of 5% and a bonus of less than half their demand. Further, their contracts would last for 40 months instead of 2 years, which is a setback because wages would not be renegotiable for 40 months.

In Bolivia, workers at the tin mines who struggled for several weeks for wage claims and against the prospect of rising job losses, were subjected to ferocious repression by the left government of Evo Morales, the great friend of Fidel Castro.

In Brazil, after the strikes in May in the Volkswagen factory against 5000 job losses, bank workers went on strike in September over wages (see separate article).

In Mexico, several thousand steelworkers stopped work for 5 months between spring and summer in the factories of Sicartsa and Atenco on the Pacific coast. The strikes were repressed by violent police action. And there were also strikes by teachers in the town of Oaxaca, in one of the three poorest states in Mexico, strikes which gave birth to a movement of solidarity among the whole population of the town, from mid-June to today.

Electoral and populist attacks: the case of Mexico

However, numerous traps developed by the bourgeoisie at the ideological level have impeded these movements of the working class of Latin America. These struggles have unfolded in a general atmosphere of electoral and populist propaganda by the left, whose media-friendly champions are Lula and above all Chavez. The recent election of Morales in Bolivia, of Bachelet in Chile, have been saluted by all the press, and by the left and leftists in particular, as a great advance for democracy. In reality this propaganda is designed to pervert and derail the struggle of the working class. It’s the same with the holding of presidential elections in Brazil and the barrage around the re-election of Lula as president.

In Mexico, the massive strike of 70,000 teachers, that began in mid-June in Oaxaca, was diverted into an essentially populist and democratic campaign, despite the militant will of the workers, and despite the fact that the whole population supported and joined this strike. The SNTE (national union of teachers) and the parties of the left managed to displace the focus of the initial strike movement for wages and the conditions of the teachers and children onto support for an individual: the central demand of the forces occupying the town centre since August is the resignation of the State Governor Ulises Ruiz, who had diverted money for the schools (particularly to pay for the children’s food) into his electoral campaign. At the same time the occupation was taken in hand by a Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), which Trotskyists and other leftists have been presenting as a kind of workers’ Commune or Soviet, a fraudulent claim answered by our comrades in Mexico: “ For another Trotskyist group - Germinal (in Spain) - the APPO is ‘possibly the embryo of a workers’ state, the most developed organism of a soviet nature seen for many decades on the whole planet’ (document of the 13-09-06). This affirmation is not only exaggerated but false. It is not an error made ‘in ignorance’, but a bad-intentioned deformation so that the workers think they are seeing a soviet where there is really an inter-classist front. A soviet or a workers’ council is an organisation that develops in a pre-revolutionary or directly revolutionary period. All workers participate in them. Its assemblies are the life and soul of the insurrection. Their delegates are elected and revocable. In the APPO the well-known ‘leaders’ are close to the existing structures of power, such as Rogelio Pensamiento, known for his relations with the PRI; the ex-deputy of PRD, Flavio Sosa; or the SNTE unionist, Wheel Pacheco, who himself received ‘economic support’ for a long time from the same government of Ulises Ruiz. But in addition, if we look at the composition of the ‘soviet’ we can see that, as the first act of the APPO stated, it is made up of 79 social organisations, 5 unions and 10 representatives of schools and parents. Such an amalgam allows the expression of everything except the independence and autonomy of the proletariat” (‘Is there a revolutionary situation in Mexico? [155]’, ICC Online).

At the end of October, the central state’s repressive forces began a massive offensive aimed at bringing the occupation to an end, no doubt provoking furious anger among the local population. At the time of writing, violent clashes are still taking place, particularly around the occupied university. But the movement had already lost its class dynamic before that happened, and has essentially become part of a more general campaign by the left, the Zapatistas, and other bourgeois forces against the ruling party. Following the most recent presidential elections, there have also been massive demonstrations in the centre of Mexico, demanding a recount after the candidate of ‘the poor’, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was defeated.

The class struggle has the same enemies in all countries

Violence and repression take on their most spectacular form in the countries of the periphery, notably in Latin America. But it is equally present in the most developed countries, where if it’s not in the shape of truncheons and tear gas, then it’s the blackmail of unemployment and job losses.

As for the mystifications aimed at sabotaging the struggles, at destroying the solidarity and consciousness of the class, they know no frontiers. Everywhere, the unions, the parties of the left and leftist organisations are the principal purveyors. And the ideological themes come together as brothers: they can be summed up as the defence of bourgeois democracy and the defence of the national capital. Everywhere, the electoral mystification is used in massive doses: it is necessary to ‘vote well’, and if you can’t elect ‘the best for the workers’, then it’s necessary to prevent the victory of the ‘worst’ (the parties of the traditional right) by voting for the ‘least bad’ (the established parties of the left).

Similarly, all these bourgeois organisations argue that the workers should mobilise not against capitalism as a whole, whatever its forms, but against ‘neo-liberalism’ and ‘globalisation’. In this sense, the lies used against the workers’ struggle in Latin America are not so different from those used against workers in the central countries. You only have to add some local ingredients, such as ‘indigenism’ (the defence of the rights of Indians) or the populism of Chavez and Morales. The radical ‘anti-imperialist’ discourse of these people, who are the new heroes of a good part of the extreme left in the developed countries, has one basic function: to obscure the fact that exploitation remains the same, whether organised by ‘foreigners’ or ‘compatriots’, or by the national state itself. The chauvinism that these people try to inject into the consciousness of the workers has always been the worst enemy of the proletariat.  

Mulan 4/11/6 (adapted from Revolution Internationale)

In Brazil, “after the massive job losses (75% of personnel) at the Varig aeronautical company last spring, it’s the turn of the employees of the Volkswagen factories in the industrial belt of Sao Paulo (ABC). (…) It’s the ABC metalworkers’ union that, in collaboration with the bosses of Volkswagen, fixed the quota of 3600 job cuts staged up to 2008. In the assemblies, the atmosphere was extremely intimidating, with the unions using blackmail about more job cuts if the workers didn’t accept the proposals for voluntary redundancies. In the assembly where the agreement was concluded, the unions were booed, labelled as ‘sell-outs’ and accused of having swindled the workers. (…) But that’s not all: the workers who are going to keep their jobs are going to see their wages cut from 1-2% due to increased social security costs, that too with the assent of the unions”. (Extract from a joint declaration by the Brazilian group Workers’ Opposition - OPOP – and the ICC).

In Brazil again, bank employees, whose numbers have dropped in twenty years from one million to 400,000, went on strike for a week for wage demands, despite the union exhorting them not to strike because of the electoral campaign.

Every September in Brazil the campaign for wage claims for bank employees takes place. Regularly, this campaign involves strikes that have only resulted in a very modest slowdown of the attacks on wages. In less than 5 years wages in the state banks have lost a considerable amount of buying power. This year, due to the elections, the unions decided to postpone the campaign for wage claims so as to not coincide with the electoral campaign. But the bank employees decided otherwise. They stopped the manoeuvre of the cartel of unions including the CUT. The general assemblies, though called and held by the unions, decided to strike against the advice of the same unions and their national representation, in the towns or states of: Bahia, Porto Alegre, Florianoplis and Pernambuco. Some general assemblies elected delegates in order to set up a national co-ordination. The great majority of elected delegates did not represent any union and many didn’t belong to the union at all. In Salvador, the delegation elected was made up of our comrades from OPOP. Faced with the extension of the struggle at the national level and the danger of being openly repudiated by the workers, the unions declared a strike while manoeuvring to keep the workers of the banks of Sao Paulo from entering the struggle. When they finally convoked a general assembly to decree the strike in this town, the workers concerned weren’t content to passively accept the union’s orders. On Wednesday October 4 they insisted on having their say and violently confronted the union goons that surrounded and protected the praesidium, composed of the unions’ mafia bosses who had tried to preserve a monopoly on speaking.

Finally the unions succeeded in bringing the movement to an end by means of a gross manoeuvre. They made Sao Paulo and Brasilia go back to work – which demoralised the others towns in the struggle – by convoking general assemblies in which they ensured a massive participation by non-strikers. At the same time the striking workers were more or less kept in the dark about what was going on elsewhere.  

(Translated from Revolution Internationale)

Following the recent conflict between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon we have heard many voices raised against American imperialism as the main cause of war and destabilisation. The leftists are often the first to argue this. The Trotskyists in particular never miss an opportunity to stigmatise American imperialism and its Israeli ally.

But the world’s biggest power doesn’t have the monopoly of imperialism. Quite the contrary, imperialism is the condition sine qua non for the survival of each nation. The period of the decadence of capitalism, which began almost a century ago, marked the entry of the system into the era of generalised imperialism which no nation could avoid. This permanent confrontation contains war as a perspective and militarism as a mode of life for all states, whether large, small, strong, weak, aggressor or victim.

To give a very general definition of it, imperialism is the policy of a country that tries to conserve or to spread its political, economic and military domination over other countries and territories. As such it refers to numerous moments in human history (from the old Assyrian, Roman, Ottoman empires or the conquests of Alexander the Great up to today). Only in capitalism does the term take on a very particular sense. As Rosa Luxemburg wrote, “…the urge of capitalism to expand suddenly forms a vital element, the most outstanding feature of modern development; indeed expansion has accompanied the entire history of capitalism and in its present, final, imperialist phase, it has adopted such an unbridled character that it puts the whole civilisation of mankind in question” (Anti-Critique). It is thus vital to understand what imperialism is in a capitalist system which has become decadent, which today engenders conflict everywhere, subjecting the planet to blood and fire, which in the “present, final, imperialist phase… puts the whole civilisation of mankind in question”.

Since the world market was constituted at the beginning of the 20th century and has been shared out into commercial zones and areas of influence between the advanced capitalist states, the intensification of competition between these nations has led to the aggravation of military tensions. It has also led to the unprecedented development of armaments and the growing submission of all economic and social life to military imperatives and the permanent preparation for war.

Rosa Luxemburg shattered the basis of the mystification which made a state, or a particular group of states, those with a certain military power, as solely responsible for warlike barbarity. If all states don’t have the same means, all have the same policy. If effectively the ambitions for world domination could only be realised by the most powerful states, the smallest powers still shared the same imperialist appetites. As in the Mafia, only the Godfather can dominate the entire town, while the neighbourhood pimps can dominate only a single street, but nothing distinguishes them at the level of the aspirations and methods of gangsters. Thus the smallest states devote as much energy as the others to becoming a greater nation at the expense of their neighbours.

That’s why it is impossible to make a distinction between oppressor and oppressed states. In fact, in the relations of force imposed between imperialist sharks, all are equally in competition in the world arena. The bourgeois myth of the aggressor state or bloc serves to justify the ‘defensive’ war. The identification of the most aggressive imperialism is used as propaganda to dragoon populations into war.

Militarism and imperialism are the most open manifestations of the entry of capitalism into its decadence. This whole issue provoked a debate among revolutionaries at the beginning of the 20th century.

The materialist explanation of imperialism

Faced with the phenomenon of imperialism, different theories were developed in the workers’ movement to explain it, notable by Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. Their analyses were forged on the eve of and during the First World War against the vision of Kautsky who made imperialism one option among other policies possible for capitalist states and asked “... Cannot the present imperialist policy be supplanted by a new, ultra-imperialist policy, which will introduce the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital in place of the mutual rivalries of national finance capitals?” (cited by Lenin in his Imperialism, Highest Stage of Capitalism) .

In contrast, the marxist approaches shared the view that imperialism was not only a product of the laws of capitalism but an inherent necessity of its period of decline. The theory of Lenin revealed a particular importance because it allowed him, during WWI, to defend a strictly internationalist position which then became the official position of the Communist International. However, Lenin first of all confronted the question of imperialism in a descriptive fashion without elaborating a clear explanation of the origins of imperialist expansion. For him it was essentially a movement of the developed countries whose main characteristic was the exploitation in the colonies by the “superabundant” capital of the metropoles, with the aim of achieving “superprofits” by exploiting cheap labour and abundant raw materials. In this view, the most advanced capitalist countries became parasites on the colonies: the hunt to obtain “superprofits”, indispensable to their survival, explained the worldwide conflict aimed at conserving or conquering colonies. This view had the consequence of dividing the world into oppressor countries on one hand and oppressed countries in the colonies on the other. “… Lenin’s emphasis on colonial possessions as a distinguishing and even indispensable feature of imperialism has not stood the test of time. Despite his expectation that the loss of the colonies, precipitated by national revolts in these regions, would shake the imperialist system to its foundations, imperialism has adapted quite easily to ‘decolonisation’. Decolonisation [after 1945] simply expressed the decline of the older imperialist powers, and the triumph of imperialist giants who were not burdened with many colonies in the period around World War I. Thus the USA and Russia were able to develop a cynical ‘anti-colonial’ line to further their own imperialist ends, to batten onto national movements in the colonies and transform them immediately into inter-imperialist proxy wars” (International Review 19).

Starting from the analysis of the whole of the historic period and of the evolution of capitalism as a global system, Rosa Luxemburg achieved a more complete and more profound understanding of the phenomenon of imperialism. She showed the historic basis of imperialism in the very contradictions of the capitalist system. Whereas Lenin limited himself to establishing the phenomenon of the exploitation of the colonies, Rosa Luxemburg analysed the colonial conquests as a phenomenon that constantly accompanied capitalist development, feeding the insatiable necessity of capitalist expansion through the penetration of new markets, the introduction of capitalist relations in the geographic zones where capitalism didn’t yet exist: “Accumulation is impossible in an exclusively capitalist environment. Therefore, we find that capital has been driven since its very inception to expand into non-capitalist strata and nations, the ruin of artisans and peasantry, the proletarianisation of the intermediate strata, colonial policy (the policy of ‘opening up’  markets) and the export of capital. The existence and the development of capitalism since its beginning has only been possible through a constant expansion of production into new countries.” (Anti-Critique)[1] [158]

Thus imperialism is considerably accentuated in the last quarter of the 19th century: “Capitalism in its avid, feverish hunt for raw materials and buyers who are neither capitalists nor wage labourers, robbed, decimated and murdered the colonial populations. This was the epoch of the penetration and extension of Britain into Egypt and South Africa, France into Morocco, Tunis and Tonkin, Italy into East Africa and the frontiers of Abyssinia, Tsarist Russia into central Asia and Manchuria, Germany into Africa and Asia, the USA into the Philippines and Cuba, and Japan into the Asian continent”(‘The problem of war’ by Jehan, 1935, quoted in International Review19)

But this evolution also comes up against capitalism’s fundamental contradictions: the more capitalist production spreads its grip over the globe, the narrower the limits of the market created by the frenetic search for profits becomes, in relation to the need for capitalist expansion. Beyond the competition for the colonies, Rosa Luxemburg identified in the saturation of the world market and the depletion of non-capitalist outlets a turning point in the life of capitalism: the historic weakness and impasse of this system which “can no longer fulfil its function as a historic vehicle for the development of the productive forces” (Anti-Critique). In the final analysis, this is also the cause of wars that would henceforth characterise the mode of life of decadent capitalism.

Imperialism, the mode of life of decadent capitalism

Once the capitalist market had reached the limits of the globe, the scarcity of solvent outlets and of the new markets opened up the permanent crisis of the capitalist system, whereas the necessity for expansion remained a vital question for each state. Henceforth, the expansion of one state could only take place to the detriment of other states in a struggle for carving up the world market through armed conflict.

 “In the epoch of ascendant capitalism wars (national, colonial, imperialist conquest) expressed the upward march, flourishing, enlargement and expansion of the capitalist economic system. Capitalist production resorted to war as a continuation of its economic policies by other means. Each war paid its way by opening the way for further expansion, ensuring the development of an expanded capitalist production…war was the indispensable means for capitalism to open up the potential for its future development, at a time when this potential still existed and could only be opened up through violence” (Report to the 1945 Conference of the Gauche Communiste de France).

In the decadent period, however, “war became the only means, not for the solution of the international crisis, but through which each national imperialism sought to escape from its difficulties at the expense of rival imperialist states” (ibid).

This new historic situation compelled every country in the world to develop forms of state capitalism. Each national capital is condemned to imperialist competition and finds in the state the single structure sufficiently strong enough to mobilise the whole of society with the aim of confronting its economic rivals on the military level. “The permanent crisis makes it inevitable that the various imperialisms will settle scores through armed struggle. War and the threat of war are the latent or open expressions of a situation of permanent war in society. Modern war is a war of materiel. It demands a monstrous mobilisation of all the technical and economic resources of a country. Production for war becomes the axis of industrial production and the main economic activity of society” (ibid). That’s why technical progress is entirely conditioned by the military: aviation was first developed militarily during the First World War, the atom utilised as a bomb in 1945, information technology and the internet conceived as military tools by NATO. The weight of the military sector in all countries absorbs all the living forces of the national economy with a view to developing armaments to be used against other nations. At the dawn of decadence, war was conceived as a means of sharing out markets.

But with time, imperialist war more and more loses its economic rationality. From the beginning of decadence, the strategic dimension takes precedence over strictly economic questions. It is a question of conquering geostrategic positions against all other imperialisms in the fight for hegemony and the defence of military rank and status. In this period of the decline of capitalism, war more and more represents an economic and social disaster. This absence of economic rationality of war doesn’t mean that each national capital abstains from plundering the productive forces of the adversary or the vanquished. But this ‘plunder’, contrary to what Lenin thought, no longer constitutes the principal aim of war. Whereas some still think, officially trying to be faithful to Lenin, that war could be motivated by economic appetites (oil being the most popular prize on this question), reality answers that. The economic balance sheet of the war in Iraq led by the USA since 2003 doesn’t at all come down on the side of ‘profitability’. The revenues from Iraqi oil, even those hoped for in the next hundred years, count for little faced with the vast sums expended by the United States in order to undertake this war. And at the moment they do not even look like slowing down.

Capitalism’s entry into its phase of decomposition intensifies the heat of the contradictions contained in its period of decadence. For every country, each particular conflict carries costs which greatly outstrip the benefits that they could draw from them. Wars result only in massive destruction, leaving the countries in which they take place anaemic and in complete ruin, never to be reconstructed. But none of these calculations of profit and loss can put aside the necessity for states, all states, to defend their imperialist presence in the world, to sabotage the ambitions of their rivals, or to increase their military budgets. On the contrary, they are all caught in an irrational grip from the point of view of economics and capitalist profitability. To fail to recognise the irrationality of the bourgeoisie reveals an underestimation of the threat of the destruction, pure and simple, that weighs on the future of humanity.

(From Revolution Internationale no. 335, May 2003)

In France recently, there has been a huge amount of media publicity about the ‘anniversary’ of last year’s riots in the banlieues(1) There’s been a lot of speculation about whether it’s all going to kick off again, and TV coverage of tough police raids in various tower blocks – often showing that the police have come to the wrong door and ended up terrorising innocent mums and kids.

Why so much noise about the ‘banlieues’ when there has been virtual radio silence about the struggle of the young generation against the CPE last spring? Where is the real danger for the bourgeoisie?

The riots are an alibi for strengthening the police apparatus…

All the politicians have been promising all sorts of solutions to the problem of the ‘difficult neighbourhoods’. A year after the riots, you don’t need to be a genius to work out what’s been done to ‘get to the roots’ of the violence: nothing. Poverty and unemployment still reign in the suburbs. The new teachers they were going to get? Funds have if anything dropped and young people are more than ever left to their own devises. 8500 teaching jobs are to be cut in the 2007 budget. On the other hand, the bourgeoisie has made an effort where it really counts. In Clichy-sous-Bois, the starting point of last year’s riots, a whole new police commissariat has been set up!

It’s not hard to see that thousands of young people, whether at work, unemployed, or at school are ready to hit the streets again, to give vent to their rage, even if burning buses or your neighbour’s car can only really express impotence and despair. At the same time, this kind of violence provides the state with a pretext to strengthen its own repressive arsenal in order to protect the ‘decent people’ who it is quite happy to leave to rot for the rest of the time. The government, with Sarkozy to the fore, has put repression at the heart of its policies, reinforcing the BAC intervention brigades and the battalions of the CRS in reserve. In the 2007 budget, all expenditure is being cut, except for funds for the police and the courts which will go up by 5%! The blind rioting of last year tends to create an atmosphere of fear and distrust in the working class. This gives the bourgeoisie the perfect alibi to strengthen a repressive apparatus whose main role is not to protect anyone but to keep control over the entire working class. Let’s remember that during the fight against the CPE it was the CRS which was used to terrorise the students who had barricaded themselves in the Sorbonne.

…and an opportunity to pull young people into the trap of elections

 The Minister of the Interior Sarkozy has become the bete noire of the suburbs. The top graffiti on the walls is T.S.S: Toit sauf Sarkozy – anyone but Sarkozy. It’s a whole election programme! We have to use the ballot box to get rid of Sarkozy – that’s the clamour from the entire left. And any number of ‘cultural’ figures, preferably ones more credible to immigrant youth, people like Joe Starr or Djamel Debouzze, are being used to get the message across: “Vote and get rid of Sarkozy, make your voice heard through the ballot box!”. “Eight out of ten rappers call on young people to register and vote” says J Claude Tchikaya, a member of the Devoirs de Memoire group. One of the more political rappers, Axiom First, even tells us that “the vote is a weapon!”. And it has to be said that this kind of thing is having an impact: there has been an increase in people registering on the electoral lists: “The rise in registrations on the electoral lists has gone up by between 7 and 32% in comparison to 2004. In two thirds of cases, this involves people between 18 and 35” (the Banlieues Respect collective). The most striking increases have been in the banlieues: 25% in Nanterre, 26% in Bobigny.

Anyone but Sarkozy? But who are the other choices for transforming the suburbs and changing life? The parties of the left, the Socialists and Communists in particular, are the first to criticise Sarkozy’s security policy and the government’s inertia about the problems of the banlieues. Did they do any better when they were in power? Did they find work for young people and the not-so young, invest in social benefits, housing and education in order to ‘get to the roots’ of urban violence? Like hell they did!

Segolene Royal, the Socialists’ ‘good’ counter-part to the evil Sarkozy, has been trying to show that her party is different. “The failure of the current security policy is flagrant…we need a much firmer policy” (Bondy June 2006). Concretely, “we must find a massive response to a massive problem of delinquency”. That means “obligatory courses in parenthood…paid for by family allocations in an educational logic….systems of military training for the over 16s instead of prison”. In Sarkozy’s dreams! Segolene and the left will give us even more police and policing!

In the suburbs, and among all young people and not-so young people, everyone who is asking questions about the future this society has in store for us, it has to be clear that we can expect nothing either from the right or the left. When it comes to managing the crisis or administering repression, the left has nothing to learn from the right. From the creation of the CRS by Jules Moch, a Socialist minister after the war, to colonial massacres in Madagascar or Algeria, to the repression of workers’ struggles, as in 1984 when the ‘Communist’ transport minister Fiterman sent the police to beat up striking railway workers at Saint-Lazare station, the examples are legion.

The left has always defended the interests of the state, of capitalist exploitation, against the workers, whether young or old, immigrant or ‘native’. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The struggle is our only weapon

The new generations who live in the deprived suburbs are caught in a vice between poverty and police repression. It is intolerable and unacceptable. But to face up to this situation, it is essential to avoid the traps laid by the bourgeoisie, the false choice between desperate violence and electoral illusions.

The only way forward is to struggle on the terrain of the working class. The way shown by the students in the anti-CPE movement in the spring. Taking charge of the struggle through general assemblies, unifying demands, solidarity between the workers. The students called for an amnesty for the rioters and many ‘banlieusards’ rallied to their struggle, which offered a real alternative, a real perspective. The more the bourgeoisie highlights the ‘horrors’ of the banlieues, the more we must call to mind the lessons of the struggle against the CPE, of the class struggle – the true oxygen against doubt and despair.   Ross 22.10.06 (From Revolution Internationale publication of the ICC in France)

(1) Literally ‘suburbs’, but with very different connotations to the English word.

During the night of 25/26 October in Nanterre, Montreuil and Grigny on the outskirts of Paris, as well as in Venssieux in the Lyon suburbs, several buses were attacked and burned, causing panic among passengers and drivers.

What is striking about these violent actions is their highly organised character. They make you think of real commando operations, more or less simultaneous and very well orchestrated. In Montreuil, the attackers were hooded and half of them armed; they coldly forced the occupants to get off the bus and blew it up a few metres away from them. These methods look much more like gangsters robbing a bank than a cry of despair from the young urban dispossessed.

There’s nothing surprising about such events. For weeks now, the bourgeoisie has been fanning the fires. Not a day has gone by without newspapers, radio or TV going on and on about the events of October 2005. The message was loud and clear: the anniversary of last year’s riots could once again plunge the suburbs into violence. If the bourgeoisie didn’t organise these criminal operations itself, it has certainly done everything possible to provoke them. Why? Quite simply, to sow fear in the workers’ ranks and prevent them from thinking. Keeping quiet about the exemplary and victorious struggle of the students against the CPE is not enough to block the process of profound reflection going on in the working class today. To prevent the lessons of this struggle being drawn, to stop the development of solidarity, the ruling class is trying to create a permanent atmosphere of insecurity and suspicion. To persuade every worker that they should look to the state for protection. What’s more, when these attacks took place, the police immediately stepped up its presence in the transport system.

The working class should be in no doubt: it is the target of these repressive measures. The patrolling of working class neighbourhoods, buses and metros is a preparation for the strikes and demonstrations of tomorrow. Workers should not be taken in by these intrigues.   TR 27/10/6   (From RI)

On the weekend of 3-5 November Beijing hosted a China-Africa forum that top-level delegations from 48 (out of 53) African countries planned to attend. The way that the Chinese media sold the jamboree, along with loyal African cheerleaders, gave the impression that China is a great force for progress in Africa - such a contrast to the colonialists and imperialists of the US, Europe and Japan.

The Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister said (Xinhuanet 12/1/6) that his government wanted “to conduct mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation with African countries” and “will vigorously encourage Chinese enterprises to participate in improving infrastructure in African countries”, but insisted that “China’s economic aid for African countries is free of political conditions and is based on African countries’ priorities”.

Zambia’s founding president Kenneth Kaunda (Peoples Daily 27/10/6) declared “African leaders and their people will not be cheated by lies that China’s presence in Africa is neo-colonialism”.

When African trade union leaders visited China in October they said “China’s assistance to Africa is ‘sincere’ and ‘selfless’” and “has brought ‘concrete benefits’ to African countries and people” (People’s Daily Online 14/10/6.)

Chinese imperialism defends its interests

China is sensitive over accusations of ‘neo-colonialism’, especially if they’re made by imperialist rivals, because its attitude towards Africa is supposed to be different from theirs.

China, for example, boasts of the extent of its trade with and investment in Africa. “The two-way trade volume has rocketed from 4 billion dollars in 1995 to some 40 billion dollars in 2005. Chinese direct investment in Africa has amounted to 1.18 billion dollars, with more than 800 Chinese enterprises on the continent.” (Xinhua 9/9/6). So, what is this investment, and can it really be described in any way as ‘selfless’?

The official Chinese view is that “the rich deposit of resources in Africa matches China’s need for raw materials for sustained economic growth” (ibid 12/1/6). That is to say, it’s the demands of the Chinese economy that feed its ‘investment’ in Africa. Chinese industry needs a lot of raw materials such as copper, iron ore, cobalt, and platinum. It is the biggest user of copper in the world and has invested over $150 million in mining in Zambia, as well getting copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Oil is essential to all aspects of modern industry and China’s energy needs compel it to search everywhere. “Africa is home to 8% of the world’s oil reserves, which has prompted Beijing to spend billions of dollars to secure drilling rights in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola and to negotiate exploration contracts with Chad, Gabon, Mauritania, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia and the Republic of the Congo. The continent now accounts for 25% of China’s oil imports” (Asia Times Online 6/10/6).

China’s oil operations in Sudan are so extensive it takes 70% of the country’s oil exports. One of the reasons for the more than $10 billion dollars worth of investment in Sudan is the defence of Chinese oil interests. It has a military force in place in Sudan to guard 1506 kilometres of pipeline, a refinery and a port all built by Chinese labour. 10,000 Chinese workers were brought in to work on the project, it was widely rumoured that prisoners were used, many of whom “may have perished from disease in the inhospitable swamps and baked savannahs” (Human Rights Watch November 2003).

China also has an enormous need for timber and is taking great amounts of wood from forests in Mozambique, Liberia, Gabon, Cameroon, DRCongo and Equatorial Guinea – many of these being countries where the environmental impact of often illegal logging is ignored.

One interesting example of the Chinese approach is that it is not only attracted to Zimbabwe for supplies of gold, silver, and platinum, but has been “farming about 1,000 square kilometres of the land that has been seized from white farmers since 2000” (Asia Times Online 6/10/6.)

The claims about the benefits of trade are particularly dubious. Every national capital has to find a market for the products it manufactures; that’s ABC in commodity production. Europe and the US will only accept limited quantities of Chinese exports, so Africa is one of the few remaining markets for China to try and exploit. Chinese textiles, for example, undercut the African competition. It should go without saying that the $40 billion trade figure for 2005 (maybe $50bn in 2006) is heavily weighted toward Chinese sales.

Fuelling Africa’s wars

One trade that has been thriving for a long time is the arms trade. China is the most significant supplier of arms to Sudan, having delivered tanks, ammunition, fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, howitzers, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-aircraft guns, and anti-tank and antipersonnel landmines. And the Sudanese government arms the Janjaweed militia in Darfur (see ‘Imperialist intervention is never humanitarian’ in WR 298). For decades China has been a major arms supplier throughout Africa, including to both sides in the Eritrea/Ethiopia border conflict of 1998-2000.

Human Rights Watch (November 2003) “concluded that while China’s motivation for this arms trade appeared to be primarily economic, China made available easy financing for some of these arms purchases”. The economic aspect of the arms trade is misunderstood here. National capitals defend their interests in many ways and the military aspects of imperialism are fundamental. Arms sales are often subsidised by a power if it corresponds to its imperialist interests. Not only that: China “will continue to help train African military personnel and support defence and army building of African countries” (‘China’s African Policy’ at www.chinaview.cn [161] 12/1/6). In a continent of multiple conflicts China helps to fan the flames. It has several thousand troops in Liberia and DRCongo (among nearly 10,000 throughout the continent) and, apart from Sudan and Zimbabwe, has significant military links with Nigeria and Ethiopia. This helps explain why Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was reported by Xinhua (16/10/6) as saying “China is not looting Africa” and that “the influence of China is not a source of concern or danger”, despite arming Eritrea against his own country.

One commentator has pointed to different appreciations of Chinese activity in Africa. “Although China’s Africa policy has won the hearts and minds of the continent’s rulers, the people themselves appear to lag behind. They are waiting to see whether the Chinese model of engagement with the continent is going to be any different than those of the exploitative colonial powers of the past.
So far - with China using the continent as a source of raw materials and a dumping ground for its own manufactured goods - the formula seems much the same.” (Asia Times Online 6/10/6)

Other commentators have shown how economic necessity has driven Chinese policy in the continent, as well as being able to take advantage of the lack of US influence in some parts, as in Sudan where US companies are banned from investment. A Deutsche Bank expert suggests “It’s a vacuum. Why not fill that with loans and development help in exchange for getting put higher on the pole when it comes to consuming African oil” (BusinessWeek 14/9/6). This makes Chinese intervention in Africa look like a particular policy, one from a number that could be chosen. In reality, as the article on imperialism in this issue clearly shows, imperialism is not a policy of this or that country but the situation that pushes every national capital to fight ruthlessly in defence of its interests.

Car 3/11/6

Bogged down by the war in Iraq, the manifest failure of the war on international terrorism with the growth in deadly attacks, not only in the Middle East but throughout the world: this is not just a setback but a truly stinging reverse for the USA.

The American bourgeoisie is in an impasse

How is it possible that the world’s greatest army, equipped with the most modern technological means, the most effective electronic systems, the most sophisticated armaments capable of locating and reaching their targets at distances of thousands of kilometres, should find itself trapped in such a mire? For the ruling class the answer is evident, it can only be the manifest incompetence of Bush junior, “the worst President in America’s history. He’s ignorant, he’s arrogant, he’s stupid” (in the words of American writer, Norman Mailer). This explanation is easy and works all the better since George Bush doesn’t have to work very hard to make it credible. However, this explanation is miles away from the real problem (which is its chief merit for the bourgeoisie). It is not this or that individual at the summit of the state who makes capitalism go in this or that direction, but, on the contrary, the state of the system which determines the political orientations. The greatest world power must, is compelled, to hold on to its position. The United States could not have any policy other than that put forward by Paul Wolfowitz (now a leading member of the Republican administration) at the beginning of the 1990s: “America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union”. This ‘doctrine’ was made public in March 1992 when the American bourgeoisie still had illusions in the success of its strategy, in the wake of the collapse of the USSR and the reunification of Germany. With this aim, several years ago, they declared that to mobilise the nation and impose America’s democratic values on the entire world and prevent imperialist rivalry “we need a new Pearl Harbour”. Remember the Japanese attack on the American naval base in 1941, which resulted in 4,500 American dead and wounded, and allowed the United States to enter the war on the Allied side by tipping public opinion which until then had been reticent about this war. The highest American political authorities were aware the attack was being planned and did nothing about it. Since then they have simply applied their policy: the attacks on 11 September were their “new Pearl Harbour” and in the name of a new crusade against terrorism they have been able to justify the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq.

The result of this policy, the only one that the world’s greatest imperialist power can carry out, is damning: 3,000 soldiers killed since the beginning of the war in Iraq three years ago (of whom more than 2,800 are American), 655,000 Iraqis perished between March 2003 and July 2006, since when the deadly terrorist attacks and confrontations between Shiites and Sunnis have started to intensify. There are 160,000 soldiers of occupation on Iraqi soil under the supreme command of the United States, who are incapable of ‘carrying out their mission of maintaining order’ in a country on the edge of civil war. Not only are the Shiite and Sunni militia violently confronting one another, as they have since a few months ago, but also the local rival Shiite gangs are tearing each other apart and spreading terror, particularly in the conflict between Moqtada al-Sadr’s gang (the self-styled Mehdi army) and the Al-Badr brigades (linked to the dominant faction in government) mainly responsible for the slaughter at Amara, Nasiriya, Basra where they tried to impose their rule. In the South of the country the Sunni activists who proudly proclaim their links to the Taliban and Al-Qaida have self-proclaimed an ‘Islamic republic’ while, in the Baghdad region, the population is exposed to car, bus and even bicycle bombs, as well as gangs of looters. The shortest sortie by isolated American troops sees them exposed  to ambushes.

Iraq has fallen into an inextricable bloody chaos

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also swallow up colossal sums that dig ever deeper into the budget deficit, precipitating the United States into astronomical debt. The situation in Afghanistan is no less catastrophic. The interminable hunt for Al Qaida and the presence of an army of occupation gives credit to the Taliban (toppled from power in 2002 but rearmed by Iran and more discretely by China) whose ambushes and terrorist attacks are multiplying. The ‘evil terrorists’, Bin Laden or the Taliban regime, were both alike creatures of the US to counter the USSR, at the time of the imperialist blocs, after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The first was a former spy recruited by the CIA in 1979 who, after having served as a financial intermediary in the arms trade from Saudi Arabia and the USA to the Afghan guerrillas, ‘naturally’ became the intermediary for the Americans to finance the Afghan resistance from the beginning of the Russian invasion. As for the Taliban, they were armed and financed by the USA and their accession to power was accomplished with Uncle Sam’s full blessing.

It is obvious that this great crusade against terrorism, far from eradicating it, has only opened the way for more and more terrorist actions and suicide bombings whose only purpose is to affect as many victims as possible. Today the White House is powerless in the face of the Iranian state cocking a snook at it in the most humiliating way. Besides, this gives space to fourth or fifth rank powers, like North Korea which undertook a nuclear test on 8 October, making it potentially the eighth country with atomic weapons. This huge challenge imperils the equilibrium of South East Asia and encourages others with aspirations to possess nuclear weapons[1] [163]. Japan’s rapid militarisation and rearmament and its orientation towards the production of nuclear weapons will find a pretext in the need to face up to its immediate neighbours.

We must also consider the terrible conflict raging in the Middle East and particularly in the Gaza Strip. Following the Hamas electoral victory in January, direct international aid has been suspended and the Israeli government has blocked the transfer of funds from tax and customs duties to the Palestinian Authority. 165,000 of its employees have not been paid for 7 months but their anger, as well as that of the whole population, with 70% living on the threshold of poverty, with 44% unemployment, has easily been recuperated into the confrontations in the streets between the Hamas and Fatah militias, which have occurred with renewed regularity since 1 October. The attempts at a government of national unity have all been aborted. At the same time, after its retreat from South Lebanon, Tsahal (the Israeli armed forces) has gone back into the frontier with Egypt as far as the Gaza Strip and restarted its missile bombardment of Rafah under the pretext of hunting for Hamas activists.

The population lives in a climate of permanent terror and insecurity. Since 25 June 300 deaths have been recorded in the territory.

So the American policy fiasco is obvious. This is why the Bush administration is being so widely called into question, even by Republicans. 60% of the American population think that the war in Iraq was a ‘bad choice’, a large part of them no longer believe that Saddam held nuclear potential nor had links to Al Qaida, and think this was a pretext to justify an intervention in Iraq. Half a dozen recent books (among them one by Bob Woodward, the prominent journalist who uncovered the Watergate scandal under Nixon) implacably denounce this state “lie” and call for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. This does not mean that the militarist US policy can be abandoned but the government is constrained to take account of and display its own contradictions in order to adapt it.

Bush’s latest supposed ‘gaffe’, admitting the parallel with the Vietnam war goes with these ‘flights’… orchestrated by the James Baker interviews. This former Chief of staff from the Reagan era, then Secretary of State for Bush senior, advocates opening a dialogue with Syria and Iran and above all a partial withdrawal from Iraq. This attempt at a limited response underlines the extent of the American bourgeoisie’s weakening, since the pure and simple retreat from Iraq would be the most stinging in its history, and one it could not permit. The parallel with Vietnam is a really deceptive underestimation, for at the time the retreat from Vietnam allowed the United States a beneficial strategic reorientation of alliances and to draw China into its own camp against the USSR, when today the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would be a pure capitulation without any compensation and entail the complete discredit of American power. These glaring contradictions are the manifestation of the weakening of American leadership and the advance of ‘every man for himself’. A change in the majority in the next Congress will not provide any other ‘choice’ but a headlong flight into the more and more murderous military adventures that express capitalism’s impasse.

In the United States, the weight of the chauvinism displayed in the wake of 11 September has largely disappeared with the experience of the double fiasco of the war on terrorism and the mire of the Iraq war. The army recruitment campaigns can hardly find fodder ready to risk their skins in Iraq and the soldiers are demoralised. In spite of the risks, there are thousands of desertions on the ground. We note that over a thousand deserters have sought refuge in Canada.

This situation gives us a glimpse of a whole other perspective. The more and more intolerable weight of war and barbarity in society is an indispensable dimension for proletarians to develop their consciousness of the irremediable bankruptcy of the capitalist system. The only response the working class can make against imperialist war, the only solidarity that it can give to its class brothers exposed to the worst massacres, is to mobilise on its own class terrain to bring an end to this system.  W, 21/10/06 (Translated from Revolution Internationale, publication of the ICC in France)

We are republishing this article from 2006 which shows not only that campaigns against immigrants have been building up over a long period; and above all it underlines the historic nature of the working class as a class of immigrants which can never have a "fatherland"

ICC, August 2024

The attacks on Muslims don’t let up. Politicians say that the veil is threatening. Islam is evil, say the BNP, and the pope possibly agrees. Muslim ‘communities’ are supposed to be hot beds of terrorism, ready to inflict further atrocities such as 9/11 and 7/7. Muslims are accused of not integrating into or embracing British culture. Ministers say they should expect to be stopped and searched more than other people.

Muslims aren’t the only minority that are being attacked as an ‘alien presence’. More than half a million immigrants from eastern Europe have come to Britain since 2004. The press accuses them of taking jobs and benefits and undermining wages. The government is already preparing to crack down on future immigration from Romania and Bulgaria. There are scare stories about the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country. The press wails that not enough asylum seekers are being sent back. Where once it was only right-wing politicians like Thatcher who would talk about Britain being “swamped by an alien culture”, and then Blunkett who said that the children of asylum seekers were “swamping” schools and should be taught separately, it is now OK to say things that were once seen as unacceptable or even racist.

This is not something that’s limited to Britain. In France the government is expelling more and more immigrants every year, and continually pushing for Muslims to integrate into French society. In the Netherlands the recent general election continued the focus on immigration that had dominated the elections of 2002 and 2003, and the Burka is to be made illegal! In the US, although the legislative proposals that would have expelled 12 million people did not go through, there are still plans to extend the barrier on the Mexican frontier for up to 2000 miles, which will involve an army of 18,000 border guards.

Everywhere you can hear the chatter about the ‘clash of civilisations’ as nations close down their frontiers and demonise minorities, whether Muslims, asylum seekers, or immigrants.

Capitalism ‘frees’ workers to sell their labour power

Current estimates suggest that there are as many as 200 million people living outside the country they were born in. With more than 4.5 million British passport holders officially living abroad, to take one example, the world figure is probably much too low. People move for many reasons: because of famine and draught, war, disease, poverty and persecution. But wherever you go you can’t escape capitalist barbarism.

The movement of population has a particular significance within capitalism. “Capitalism necessarily creates mobility of the population, something not required by previous systems of social economy and impossible under them on anything like a large scale” (Lenin The Development of Capitalism in Russia “The ‘Mission’ of Capitalism”). In the early history of capitalism, its period of ‘primitive accumulation’, the first wage labourers had their ties with feudal masters severed and “great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled onto the labour-market as free, unprotected and rightless proletarians. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil is the basis of the whole process” (Marx, Capital volume 1, Chapter 26). Marx gives the example of the great English landowners dismissing their retainers and these “tenants chased off the smaller cottagers etc, then, firstly a mass of living labour powers were thereby thrown onto the labour market, a mass which was free in a double sense, free from the old relations of clientship, bondage and servitude, and secondly free of all belongings and possessions, and of every objective, material form of being, free of all property: dependent on the sale of its labour capacity or on begging, vagabondage and robbery as its only source of income” (Grundrisse Pelican 1977 p507).

In this process we see the migration of workers from agricultural areas to the towns. Although essential to the process of capitalist development, this massive rural exodus that ripped the peasant from the land brought people into towns and cities where life expectancy was lower, disease more widespread, exploitation more intensive and living conditions worse.

For capitalism in the 19th century migration was an essential factor in its development. Between 1848 and 1914 some 50 million workers left Europe, 20 million between 1900 and 1914, mostly for America. Initially, until the 1890s, emigration was heaviest from the more industrially developed countries, such as Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. Later there was greater emigration from the less industrialised countries of southern and eastern Europe which had suffered agricultural crises: less skilled workers that took whatever jobs were available at lower wages.

But while for most of the 19th century this population movement contributed to the development of capitalism, subsequent emigration has been essentially driven by negative factors, by persecution, by the need to escape conflict, by the flight from famine and poverty.

It is true that in the period after the Second World War countries of western Europe needed labour from the ex-colonies to use in the process of reconstruction, but by the end of the 1960s governments had started introducing a whole range of restrictive measures.

Many bourgeois spokesmen still say that another wave of migration to western Europe is needed to fill the gaps left by  a declining and aging population. But at the moment the dominant campaign involves the demonisation of immigrants. In the context of wars, economic crisis and social problems, it is not the capitalist system that is being blamed but the immigrants who are ‘flooding’ the country, as well as those who are here who won’t integrate.

False alternatives from the left

On the left of the Labour Party and in the various leftist groups there is a perpetual outrage against bigotry and the scapegoating of minorities by the government and media. Yet they have nothing to offer except further diversions.

For example, the fraud of multiculturalism is every bit as divisive as the right wing campaigns on alien invasions that it echoes. The basic idea of multiculturalism is that every one has a basic identity, whether religious or ethnic, that comes before all other considerations. You might be a worker or a boss of a multinational, but the multicultural ideology insists that you are a Muslim, Hindu or Christian first, or Irish, Somalian or Pakistani before anything else.

This idea is not limited to liberal anti-racism, but is found in Trotskyist groups like the SWP. They ridicule the idea that the veil, for example, is in any way oppressive, arguing that it’s a statement of identity against rising Islamophobia. Fundamentally the identity politics of the left agree with the racist ideas of the right in their intention to divide up the working class into a set of religious and ethnic ghettos. Yes, it’s true that there are many cultural differences within the population of most countries. In London for example more than 300 languages are spoken. But the workers’ movement at its healthiest has always been able to incorporate workers from all backgrounds, regardless of language or national background.

Another aspect of the response to the current campaigns is anti-racism, in particular focussed on groups like the BNP. The story is told that these people are fascists with a particularly extreme ideology, and that all decent people should unite against them to ensure they’re kept from power. This rather ignores the reality of all the capitalist governments that have been quite capable of imposing repressive legislation, restricting immigration and whipping up racist intolerance, all within the framework of democracy.

There’s also a quaint variety of anti-racism that sees it as unbritish. Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, said, after a recent case involving the BNP leader, that “Nick Griffin’s remarks were lawful, but not respectful. He is British, yes, but his behaviour is alien.” This apostle of moderation sees the problems facing society as coming from the ‘alien’ extremists, the fascists and Islamic fundamentalists. If only everyone could just fall in with the example of the Labour government, talking of ‘empowerment’ while reinforcing repression.

But the most harmful idea from the left is that the verbal and physical attacks on minorities can be dealt with through changes in the law. After the Morecambe Bay deaths of Chinese cocklers, for example, the SWP thought it outrageous that there were no controls on gang-masters. It didn’t actually take long for the Labour government to introduce regulations, nor to see how little conditions have changed for those living on the margins. Or, as another example, there is the idea that immigration laws can be repealed. You can be sure that if the laws are changed it’s because it’s in interests of the capitalist ruling class. In the 1950s workers were recruited from abroad for the NHS and transport industries without any legal obstacles. Subsequently there was a Labour-Tory consensus on introducing restrictive laws.

In France there have also been suggestions as to how the state could change things and reduce the potential for rioting in the Paris banlieus. It’s been suggested that the police should be better trained, in particular in dealing with racism in its ranks. A change in the way that public sector housing is allocated has also been proposed.

Everywhere that frontiers are closing down and bigotry is becoming more and more respectable there is a left wing alternative. But the left’s idea that the state is somehow neutral, goes against the experience of the working class. In capitalist society the state defends the interests of the ruling capitalist class.

The working class has been a class of migrants since the first serfs and villains were torn from the land. It is a class marked by a solidarity that has nothing to do with sentimentalism but stems from the shared experience of exploitation by a capitalist system that now covers the world. Against capitalist attempts to divide us into religious and ethnic segments, it is necessary to struggle as a class, to forge a consciousness of our class interests, of our class identity, of the perspective for the development of the struggle. Against the racists of the right and the reformism and identity politics of the left we insist that the working class has no country and that the workers of all countries need to unite in defence of their interests.   WR. 2/12/06

During the Israeli offensive against Lebanon during the summer Tony Blair tried to present Britain as a key player in the search for a solution. In the end what passed for a solution was concocted by France and America. Blair was deliberately excluded. After announcing that he was delaying his holiday to deal with the crisis and waiting for several days for a phone call, he had to accept reality and accordingly left for his holiday. The episode not only revealed that Blair’s shift towards America after 9/11 had backfired, but also that the whole attempt to construct an independent policy between the US and Europe, which the British bourgeoisie has followed since the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989, is failing. Far from Britain increasing its position and influence in the world it has declined. Blair himself was faced with a fierce campaign from within the ruling class that culminated in September with the attempt to remove him. This failed, but he was forced to curtail his stated plan to serve a third full term and to confirm that he would be gone within the year.

The struggle over imperialist strategy continues

In the immediate aftermath of the conflict in the Lebanon there has been a continuation of the struggle within the ruling class that we pointed to in the article on the Lebanon in WR 297 but there has also been the first signs of changes in approach.

In his speech to the Labour Party conference shortly after the conflict in the Lebanon ended, Tony Blair maintained his defence of the current policy, using the same, almost messianic, language as in previous speeches. He renewed his claim to a central role in resolving the world’s conflicts, declaring: “I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland, to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism”.

However, the pressure on Blair from the ruling class has been unrelenting. In particular, the military has become openly critical. Just a day or two after his conference speech an internal Ministry of Defence paper was leaked that directly contradicted Blair’s rejection of any link between Iraq and the growth of terrorism: “The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act.” (Guardian, 28/09/06). It also stated that Britain had sent troops into Afghanistan “with its eyes closed” (ibid). A second leaked document asserted that: “British armed forces are effectively held hostage in Iraq - following the failure of the deal being attempted by COS [chief of staff] to extricate UK armed forces from Iraq on the basis of ‘doing Afghanistan’ - and we are now fighting (and arguably losing or potentially losing) on two fronts.” (ibid). This was followed by leaks that senior military figures wanted a change in policy and in mid October the head of the army publicly criticised the government’s policy, arguing that “[we] should get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence only exacerbates the problems” (Guardian 13/10/06). Such open criticism by a serving senior officer flouts the conventions of the British ruling class but the general was not dismissed or punished in any way. On the contrary, he remained in place, winning widespread praise while Tony Blair actually said that he agreed with the comments! This attack, far from being the words of a humble soldier concerned for his men, was a calculated blow that exposed Blair’s weakness and humiliated him in public.

Signs of change

Over the last two months there have been hints of a change in approach as the emphasis has shifted to a timescale for the troops to withdraw and the Iraqi government to take over responsibility. In late October Blair reportedly discussed this with the Iraqi Prime Minister while a junior minister said publicly that Iraqi forces would be able to take over in 12 months. It was also reported that British military forces would soon be withdrawn from Bosnia. A month later the Foreign Secretary declared that control in the south of Iraq could be handed over in the Spring. Perhaps significantly the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, entered the discussion when he suggested during his first visit to the country that troop numbers could drop in a few months time.

During his annual speech on foreign policy in mid-November Blair defended his policy, saying that giving up either the relationship with the US or with Europe was “insane” since “in today’s world a foreign policy based on strong alliances, is the only ‘British’ policy which works”.  He went on to call for a “whole Middle East” strategy, beginning with Israel/Palestine and moving on to the Lebanon. Despite subsequent media reports about offering an opening to Syria and Iran, he referred only in passing to the former and was strongly critical of the latter, accusing it of following a strategy of “using the pressure points in the region to thwart us” and called for a counter strategy to defeat it. In fact Britain’s aim seems to be to separate the two. Thus in early November a senior envoy was sent to Syria for talks while Britain’s military participated in exercises off the Iranian coast to practice blocking its oil exports. The overriding aim seems to be to regain some influence in the Middle East. This was dealt a direct blow in the middle of November when Spain, France and Italy launched a peace initiative for the region from which Britain was completely excluded.

The dilemma of British imperialism

None of these steps amount to an alternative policy. In fact British imperialism now lacks a coherent strategy. At the immediate level this is a result of the struggle that continues to be fought out within the ruling class. Blair has repeatedly defended his policy and while he has had to give ground the attempt to get rid of him failed. This suggests that while the pressure being put on him comes from the core of the British ruling class, the faction around Blair remains quite powerful. Moreover, as we showed in the article on the disarray in the Labour Party in WR 298, there are signs that this struggle is leading to a loss of discipline and stability within the ruling class.

More fundamentally the difficulty of developing a coherent strategy that unites the ruling class reflects the reality that Britain’s situation, like that of all lesser powers, is essentially determined by factors outside its control.

In the first place any strategy will be defined by the historical reality of Britain’s position between the US and Europe. This became apparent in the 1920s and 30s when the British ruling class was first confronted with the fact that it was no longer the dominant world power. Despite the humiliation of Suez in 1956 the Cold War made this less acute because the confrontation between the two blocs was the dominant issue. After the collapse of the blocs Britain’s whole claim to be a significant power was based on the fact that it was not subservient to one or the other and that by playing one against the other it could wield influence above its actual means.

Secondly, as a consequence of this, British imperialism’s actions tend to be defined by the actions of others, which above all means those of the only world superpower. Blair’s error was that in moving too close to the American flame British interests got burnt. As a result the impasse of America’s imperialist strategy has resulted in Britain being trapped in Iraq and Afghanistan. And on top of this Britain has not gained any influence within the leading circles of American imperialism. As a State Department analyst disclosed: Britain’s relationship with the US has been “totally one-sided” and “we typically ignore them and take no notice”.

Although we should never forget the historic strengths of the British ruling class - their pragmatism and intelligence in times of crisis - their continuing disputes in developing a coherent strategy cannot be ignored. In the period to come the difficulties facing British imperialism can only grow.   North, 2/12/06

Daily life in Iraq has become unbearable. Every day there are new outrages, bombings and deaths. The thirst for destruction seems to have no limit. On Thursday 23 November, Baghdad saw its most murderous bomb attack since 2003 and the outbreak of war. The main target was Sadr City, the huge Shia district in the Iraqi capital. The whole district was devastated by at least four car bombs, leaving 152 dead and 236 wounded. At the same moment, a hundred armed men attacked the health ministry, which is controlled by Ali al Chemari, a follower of radical Shia imam Moqtadr al Sadr. Iraq is in chaos. War between Shias and Sunnis is already raging. The government controls nothing. As for the US army, it is largely barricaded in its own camps, coming out only to carry out lightening raids which leave more deaths both among civilians and the army itself. For the US, this war has been an utter failure.

The US has no alternative imperialist policy

The elections which have just taken place in the US have for the first time in 12 years given the Democrats control of the two Houses of Congress. You’d have to go back to 1974 to see the Democrats winning so many seats in an election. President Bush himself talked about his party getting a ‘thrashing’. And the whole American bourgeois press is unanimous: this rejection of Bush and the Republicans is above all a reaction to the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, is about to become an even greater burden than the Vietnam war. Since 2001, the ‘war on terror’ has eaten up $502 billion. Day after day the US population hears about another young soldier being killed. And for what? Everyone now knows that peace and stability in Iraq are a mirage, and that the war has made the terrorist danger worse. The war has made the weakening of the world’s only superpower increasingly obvious. The majority of the US bourgeoisie, including a large part of the Republican party, is looking for a way out of this mess. To this end, the ruling class has set up a commission made up of Republican and Democratic personalities, known as the Iraq Study Group. This group, under the presidency of an old campaigner of US foreign policy, James Baker, has been reflecting on the means to end the Iraq crisis. Baker’s words now carry more weight with Bush than his former advisors; and in addition, Baker’s friend and a member of the same Study Group, Robert Gates, has now been appointed in place of Donald Rumsfeld. Baker has already made public a number of different options which are now under discussion in the Study Group and inside the Bush administration. One idea, favoured in particular by the Democrat Joe Biden but also by some Neo-Cons, is to cut Iraq into three autonomous regions. Such a solution would almost certainly result in a permanent state of civil war that would serve to destabilise the entire region even more than today. The second option, proposed by Lawrence Korb at the Centre for American Progress, would mean placing US troops in the neighbouring countries, from which they would only enter Iraq for rapid deployment actions. But again this option risks further discrediting the authority of the US in the region. The impasse facing the US is such that the Baker commission has affirmed its agreement with that part of the American political class which intends to open up a dialogue with Iran and Syria and even to use them in the policing of Iraq. At a time when the two countries are already banging their own imperialist drums in the region and openly defying the US, this new diplomatic orientation is a real confession of impotence.

Republican or Democrat, US imperialist policy is still in a quagmire

The results of the elections n the USA have been welcomed enthusiastically by virtually the whole US political class, Republican and Democrat alike. Throughout the election campaign, the Democrats did not cease criticising the Bush administration’s foreign policy, repeating over and over again that a new policy on Iraq was needed, without ever making it clear what this new orientation would be. In reality, the US can’t leave Iraq without massive loss of international credibility. The American bourgeoisie has no illusions about this. “It’s not that the US and Britain don’t have any more options on the ground. The problem is that none of them are any cause for celebration” (The Observer, cited in Courier International, 16.11.06). Whatever policy is followed in the coming months, the weakening of US leadership will become increasingly obvious, whetting the imperialist appetites of all its rivals.   Rossi 26.11.06

Israeli troops have quit Lebanon but the country is once again on the verge of chaos. The assassination of the Christian minister for industry, Pierre Gemayel (the sixth political leader to be assassinated in a year) has exposed the deep divisions in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people used his funeral to express their opposition to Syrian interference in Lebanon. At the time of writing, there are hundreds of thousands on the streets of Beirut in a Hezbollah counter-demonstration which the government has already denounced as a threat to democracy and a Syrian/Iranian plot. Directly egged on by various imperialist powers, the gulf between the different ethnic groups is widening. There is a momentary alliance between Sunnis and some Christian factions against the Shiites, while others, closer to France, are on the anti-government demonstration. Since the failure of the Israeli invasion, the political weight of Hezbollah, which is supported by both Syria and Iran, has grown considerably. This small Middle Eastern country seems to crystallise all the imperialist tensions in the region as a whole. The Lebanese drama is being directly affected by the weakening of the world’s leading power, the US, which has also exposed the weaknesses of Uncle Sam’s main ally in the region, Israel. On the other hand, Iran is affirming itself as a regional imperialist power with the most ferocious appetites. Its influence in Iraq and in Lebanon can’t be ignored by the US and Israel, especially because the other big imperialisms, notably France and Italy, have established a foothold in the region under the pretext of acting as peacekeepers in Lebanon. The growing tensions between France and Israel came to the surface recently when Israeli combat planes flew over southern Lebanon. The French armed forces reacted immediately and prepared their anti-aircraft batteries for action.

In Gaza, a further slide into barbarism

Over the past month, the Gaza Strip has again been in the headlines. Every day has seen violence and killing there. A population already living in the most abject poverty (over 70% of the population are unemployed) lives in a state of permanent fear and its overriding concern is to survive from day to day.

At the beginning of November, rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel, hitting the town of Siderot in particular. In response to this attack, the Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz gave the order for the Israeli army to carry out a major air and land offensive. There has been a succession of air raids. On the night of 15-16 November, five air raids were carried out on houses supposedly harbouring Hamas fighters, in the refugee camps of Jabalia and Chatti and in Rafah. The Israeli bourgeoisie claims that these are precisely targeted attacks, but they are aimed at heavily populated areas. In Beit Hanoun, in one bombardment, 19 Palestinian civilians, most of them women and children, were killed.

The bourgeoisie, whatever its nationality, cares nothing of the suffering caused by the pursuit of its sordid imperialist interests. What difference is there between the blind terrorist attacks carried out by Palestinian suicide bombers manipulated by the armed wing of Hamas, and the murderous Israeli air raids? Each bourgeoisie uses the means at its disposal, with total disdain for human life. Thus the Israeli-Palestine conflict becomes a spiral of barbarism. The retreat of the Israeli army from Gaza in September 2005, after 38 years of military occupation, did not in any way signify a return to calm and still less a step towards peace. Violence has continued over the past year and last month accelerated even more brutally. The Labour politician Binyamin Ben Eliezer spoke plainly: “we have to hunt them down night and day. We will make them see what dissuasion means. If the rockets don’t stop, there will be no respite for Hamas, from prime minister Ismail Haniyeh to the last of his followers”. A ceasefire, agreed for 26 November, and immediately breached by both sides, can only be a moment in preparation of new conflicts as an Israeli source made clear: “We can’t afford to send our paratroops to chase Palestinian kids… They should train day and night for a real battle” (Sunday Times 26.11.06).

All the bourgeoisies are responsible for the chaos

The State of Israel, after its failure in the Lebanon is, like the US, becoming irreversibly weaker. The decline of US leadership and of Israeli dominance in the region can only encourage all the other imperialist powers, from the largest to the smallest, to get involved in the conflicts. The increasing number of divergences within the UN are testimony to this. Thus, the US used their veto on a resolution proposed by Qatar and supported by the Security Council, condemning Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip. Similarly, the ‘Peace Initiative’ for the Middle East put forward by France and Spain was immediately rejected by Israel and coldly received in Washington.

Lebanon, Gaza and the Middle East as a whole are being used by all the ‘defenders of peace’ to advance their own imperialist interests and block those of their rivals. All of them are equally responsible for the spread of violence and chaos.

Tino, 2.12.06  (Adapted from Revolution Internationale)

The class struggle is gradually developing. In some struggles there have been encouraging expressions of solidarity. In other struggles explicitly political questions have been raised around issues such as pensions. This has been taking place internationally, since a turning point in the class struggle in 2003. This came after a decade and a half of relative quiet in the working class, marked by disorientation and the campaign over the ‘end of communism’ after the collapse of the eastern bloc.

But some critics think we’re fooling ourselves, that we’re clutching at straws in a period in which the working class, at least in Britain and the industrialised countries of Europe and North America, is simply not responding to the attacks on it. After all, in the last few years statistics have shown very few strikes in Britain, and in 2005 we saw the fewest ‘working days lost’ since records began.

The scale of strikes is certainly important, and the working class will have to develop massive struggles, but it is not the only aspect we have to analyse. At the present time we are not at that level, and there are vital qualitative developments we need to understand and respond to.

The international context

The class struggle can only to be understood internationally. For instance, the UNISON strike at the end of March took place at the same time as the student struggle against the CPE in France and important strikes in the public and engineering sectors in Germany. This already makes it part of a more significant international expression of the working class than a similar UNISON strike four years ago.

We first became aware of a change in the mood within the working class through a greater interest in the positions of the communist left among a tiny minority of young people. This was confirmed in 2003 when there were large strikes over the issue of pensions in both France and Austria. This is an issue that poses the question of what future capitalism has in store for us, and one faced by workers in many countries and has continued to be an important concern in many struggles since then, including the UNISON strike last March.

The development of solidarity

The question of solidarity is central to the development of the class struggle today, and some strikes have arisen specifically as acts of solidarity. The most famous was the Heathrow strike in August last year when baggage handlers struck in solidarity with Gate Gourmet catering workers who were all sacked. Several features make this strike stand out. First of all, it took place only a few weeks after the London bombings, in the face of a huge campaign against terrorism. Secondly, it cut across the ‘ethnicity’ division that the ruling class are so keen on pushing, with mainly white male baggage handlers expressing solidarity with mainly Asian women workers. And it was an illegal solidarity strike taking place in the face of opposition from government, media and unions.

These aspects have been seen in other strikes since. For instance in February 50 power workers in Cottam went on strike in support of Hungarian workers paid only half as much for the same work. During the UNISON strike in March there were also important expressions of solidarity: in the Midlands where Polish agency workers in the street cleaning department struck in solidarity with their permanent colleagues. When they were sacked, the permanent workers struck to win their jobs back. There was also a solidarity strike by teachers in a London college in solidarity with their colleagues during the UNISON strike.

Postal workers in Belfast also expressed their solidarity as workers across the sectarian divide. 800 workers struck against fines, and increased workloads before mobilising against the victimisation of two workers, one from a ‘Catholic’, the other from a ‘Protestant’ office. They marched together up the Shankill Road and down the Falls Road, across the sectarian divide and against the opposition of the CWU.

The central question of solidarity that we have seen in struggles here is an expression of something we are seeing around the world today: the New York transit strike at the end of 2005 was defending the rights of new workers who would be hired in the future. In the struggles in France against the CPE not only did the students go to the young unemployed in the suburbs but also there was a real possibility that employed workers would come out in solidarity, which is why the government caved in with important concessions to their demands.

The role of the unions

In May 3,000 car workers walked out at Ellesmere Port against the threat of redundancy, a few days before 900 job losses were announced. This, along with the other examples of class struggle, shows an increased militancy in the working class, particularly when we remember just how difficult it is to struggle against lay offs. Like several of the struggles we have seen in the last year or so, at Heathrow, Belfast, and Cottam, it was a wildcat. Workers were not prepared to wait for union instructions and approval. In fact unions tried to calm things down, as well as directly opposing strikes. However, that is not the whole story. The unions in Britain are very experienced, very good at playing their role for the ruling class, they know just how to limit and contain the class struggle, while making all the right noises. After the Ellesmere Port walk out, Roger Maddison of Amicus spoke of how difficult it is to struggle against redundancies. After opposing the solidarity strike at Heathrow Tony Woodley of the TGWU called for legalisation of solidarity strikes – subject to all the union ballots and delaying tactics to limit its effectiveness – in other words for it to be brought under control.

The fact that struggles are developing outside the unions, even in the face of union criticism, does not mean that they are finished. They will have an important role to play in the coming period, sometimes openly opposing struggles, but more often to lead them into a dead end.

The working class is facing attacks that are harder to hide: growing unemployment; massive redundancies in the NHS; further erosion of pensions; many young workers starting out with huge debts from student loans. At the same time there is greater willingness to struggle, to express class solidarity, and there is a new generation of young workers coming into struggle, questioning the future that capitalism has to offer. This can only lead to a greater sense of identity within the working class, a sense of belonging to a class with its own interests. The perspective that’s opening up is toward a greater involvement of workers, towards more massive struggles increasingly unified against the capitalist class.   Alex, 28.11.06

The discussion at our November public forum in London, ‘What is communism and how do we get there?’ focused on mostly the second part of the question. Communism depends on the organisation and activity of the working class, so what are the signs that this is developing? Two comrades at the meeting didn’t share our perspective. One, an ex-militant of the ICC, thought that there really isn’t anything to get excited about in the class struggle today, even less than in the 1960s and 1970s. Another, from the Communist Workers Organisation (CWO), saw the perspective coming from two things: the worsening of the economic crisis to the point that it gives the proletariat a massive shake up; and the developments in countries such as India and China where we see millions of peasants becoming industrial workers. He also didn’t see the development of the class struggle in the capitalist heartlands. Both thought it significant that revolutionaries remain a minuscule minority

Waiting for the crisis?

No-one denied that there is an economic crisis, but the CWO comrade felt that workers are, or perceive themselves to be, at least as well off as their parents, certainly not ready to risk all for revolutionary change. In response to our points about the attacks on pensions, the greater insecurity of work and rise in unemployment, etc, he noted that all these attacks had been brought in very gradually, and had failed to provide soil for a development in consciousness. For the ICC, this is a very important point – if the bourgeoisie takes care to bring in its attacks gradually it is precisely because it fears developments in the working class. The issues taken up in the class struggle, such as pensions and unemployment, indicate that the class is faced with the question of the perspective offered by capitalism. In addition, workers are also reflecting on the questions of war and the pollution of the environment. The complete failure of the USA to respond to Hurricane Katrina last year showed that the ruling class is no longer fit to govern. For the comrade from the CWO the fact that many are led into anti-Americanism or pacifism or to various bourgeois campaigns on ecology, shows that we must stick to the immediate economic situation of the working class in looking at the development of its consciousness. In reality, the fact that the bourgeoisie takes so much trouble to develop these campaigns, and especially those on anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism and the various Social Forums, shows that it fears the working class even when it is not struggling.

The economic crisis is the ally of the class struggle, it cannot develop without it. But we cannot base ourselves on the crisis alone, without analysing the development in class consciousness. The CWO could not account for the fact that there was more class struggle in the 1970s than today, when the crisis has got so much worse. Worse still, the CWO way of looking at things cannot escape the councilist approach of just waiting for an economic catastrophe to dynamise the class struggle. The CWO like to emphasise the importance of the Party, but talking about it is useless without the ability to analyse what is going on in the working class today, without being able to understand what questions workers are thinking about and responding to them. The idea of waiting for the crisis to give us a jolt undermines this effort, reduces the question of the slow development of consciousness going on right now to insignificance. We have already pointed to the examples of the development of solidarity in struggles, of the assemblies in the French student struggles and in Vigo, which show the vital development in consciousness today.

What does China mean for decadence?

If the CWO comrade could see no hope in the class struggle in Europe and the USA, should we, as he suggested, look to the millions of new proletarians in China and India instead? Although affirming that he agreed that capitalism has been decadent since the First World War, he also stated that present day capitalist developments are improving the conditions for socialism by turning millions of peasants into proletarians. For us this is a contradiction – capitalism became decadent when it had created the conditions for the communist revolution, and this means it can make no further progressive development. The ex-ICC militant pointed out that this is not the first time we have seen peasants pushed off the land and into wage slavery within capitalist decadence: in Russia after WW1, in Europe after WW2. And even in China, hundreds of millions of landless peasants are totally unable to find work, hence they turn up as illegal immigrants, working in the most appalling conditions, as with the cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay.

According to the CWO comrade, the ICC is putting forward an ‘apocalyptic’ vision. He accused us of saying that the working class is decomposing, alleging that we say this in the ‘Resolution on the international situation’ in IR 122. The resolution does not say the working class is decomposing, but that, if the working class does not develop its struggles, it risks being swamped by the effects of capitalist decomposition: a proliferation of local wars, the gangsterisation of society, or ecological disaster. This is the perspective of socialism or barbarism that revolutionaries have talked about for over 100 years, with the various aspects of capitalist barbarism spelled out. This is the choice facing humanity. Socialism is not inevitable, and the effects of capitalist decadence can’t simply go on and on without there being increasingly brutal implications for the planet and all life on it. But if capitalism was not decadent there would be no possibility of communism.   Alex 1.12.06

A recent discussion on the Libcom website has raised the question of the role of the Bolshevik party in the Russian Revolution. All the fractions of the Communist Left that broke with the Communist International examined the experience of the revolution from a marxist perspective to see what lessons could be learnt for the future struggles of the working class, and for the revolutionary party. The ICC has tried to draw on the clearest contributions from the Italian, Dutch and German Left (see for example, our pamphlet on The Period of Transition from Capitalism to Socialism.) The article that we are publishing here comes from a close sympathiser of the ICC.

A common criticism made by anarchists – of both the leftist and internationalist varieties – is that the Bolsheviks began dismantling organs of workers’ control immediately following the Russian Revolution. The most common expression of these critiques presents a naive opposition between a utopian picture of an economy self-managed by workers and the grotesque domination of the state by wicked Bolsheviks who usurped the self-activity of the working class.

Many of these criticisms appear superficially true – the Bolsheviks did begin to dismantle workers’ organs and subordinate them to an increasingly powerful central apparatus. The question for communists is what were the material pressures that drove this process – and were these tendencies entirely negative.

The economy and the political structures were pulled between the twin poles of localism and centralism. For example, in Moscow in 1918 a Moscow Oblast Council of People’s Commissars appeared. This locally formed council duplicated the functions of both the city Soviet and the national Soviet and its Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars). The Moscow Oblast even had its own Foreign Affairs Secretariat! Councils like this reflected a strong tendency towards localism – effectively trying to establish Moscow as a city-state – as opposed to the unifying tendencies of the Soviets. The organisation of Soviet society in this early phase, while certainly embodying the revolutionary energy of the proletariat, also created many conflicting organs with no clear idea how they were all supposed to interact.

The Factory Committees meanwhile, were caught between the rock of managing essentially capitalist enterprises in the midst of profound crisis and the hard place of angry workers. The Russian economy, already in serious distress, effectively collapsed in the six months following the Revolution. The Committees themselves had appeared on the initiative of the workers in an effort to manage the economic crisis as the economy collapsed from February 1917. Although extremely powerful and influential[1] [165], and definite expressions of working class self-activity, they were never anything other than immediate ad hoc arrangements to combat the economic crisis. Their very foundation, based on the immediate running of the factories that produced them, opened them up to the influences of localism and illusions of self-management.

As the crisis developed, even the most minimal demands of the working class were unable to be met. Many factors, not least of which was the decision by the new proletarian power to abandon all military production, conspired to cause many factories to shut down. In Petrograd, where industry was dominated by arms production, unemployment rocketed to 60%! Factories began to establish armed guards to keep the unemployed out as working class solidarity began to disintegrate in the face of extreme social pressures. Factories sent out procurement teams to gain supplies and these teams – often armed – would sometimes come into conflict with similar teams from other factories.

Political power during economic crisis

During this period there were five centres of power that impinged on economic management at this time: the factory committees, the capitalist owners, the economic departments of the soviets, the trade unions and the state! As the economic crisis advanced, all these organs began to suffer from extreme stress. Angry workers elected factory committees one week, only to dissolve them the next, making accusations of abusing their powers and failing to solve the crisis. In some factories, committees changed almost daily, forming an extremely destructive cycle.

Both the Soviets and the Factory Committees were demanding centralised state intervention in order to co-ordinate the economy and sort out the growing chaos. But, in reality, the response of the Bolshevik-controlled state was confused. In fact, it was the first Bolshevik decrees from the national Soviet Sovarknom that had given economic power directly to the Factory Committees, admittedly legalising an already existing state of affairs.

Against this backdrop of chaos, where no-one was in control of the wider processes taking place in the economy - not the capitalists, certainly not the working class, not even the Bolsheviks! - there was the growing problem of famine. Agricultural production had been taken over by the small peasants, who had no desire to feed the working class for free even if workers were unable to afford food because of the virtual collapse of the manufacturing economy. The central government was also faced with the continuing war with Germany (which did not end until March 1918, with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk), numerous assassination attempts, marauding bands of Cossacks and widespread banditry.

By mid-1918, Lenin had become completely disillusioned with the capacity of the working class (at least in Russia) to run the economy. The Party, always perceived as a vanguard of the working class, was now being perceived in radical Social Democratic terms i.e. being able to run the state and the economy on behalf of the working class - until such time as the Revolution spread across Europe and the more experienced workers in the West came to the aid of the Russian proletariat. The Party’s organisational structures - which had been practically dissolved during the post-October period - were reorganised and a new discipline in force. From now on, Party directives were to take priority for militants regardless of their posts in the Soviet state. The Party was thus re-organised for the means of wielding administrative power, rather than the role it had played in the pre-revolutionary movement i.e. providing a political orientation to the workers’ struggles.

As the most class-conscious workers departed for the various fronts or to participate in the burgeoning Soviet state, the Factory Committees and Soviets began to take on a far more Menshevik colouring. Factory committees began to call for the re-establishment of the old municipal authorities i.e. the return of the state apparatus of the bourgeois and Tsarist state! Other resolutions were passed in favour of an end to the Civil War, i.e. accommodation with the same Whites that were (literally) crucifying communist workers wherever they found them. In this period, the Bolsheviks feared the collapse of the revolution above all else and they began to reinforce the state to protect the fundamental gains of the revolution. They were also prepared to do this in the face of opposition from the mass of the working class, believing (with some justification in this period) that the fiercest opposition was coming from the most backward and degenerated parts of the proletariat.

What anarchists said at the time

Anarchism today cites these practices as proof of Bolshevism’s bourgeois nature. But in practice, anarchists at the time vacillated between three main positions:

• Open support for the Provisional Government under Kerensky – they saw the February revolution with its petit-bourgeois democratism as the true goal of the Russian Revolution. As an example, Kropotkin served as an adviser for the Kerensky Government, even though he refused any posts within it. These anarchists were essentially Mensheviks;
• Support for the Bolshevik Revolution – the best elements of anarchism lined up with the Bolsheviks, at least initially. Many, like Victor Serge, remained loyal to the Revolution and to the original content of Bolshevism for the rest of their lives and joined the best elements of Left Communism in their critique of the Revolution’s degeneration;
• Opposition to Bolshevism on the basis of a false radicalism that challenged any form of ‘authority’. These anarchists shared the error of the contemporary Left Communists in rejecting the Brest-Litovsk peace. But unlike the Communist Left, which submitted to the democratic will of the Soviet, the anarchist and Left-SRs attempted to re-ignite the conflict through a programme of agitation on the front and assassination of prominent German figures. This was the trigger for an attempted ‘Third’ Russian Revolution to unseat the ‘Bolshevik Dictatorship’. The leader of the main force of this uprising, however, was actually a Left-SR called Popov who – far from decrying the use of state power – was actually a leading member of the CHEKA!

This vacillation on the part of the anarchist milieu is also present in their theoretical approach to Red October. Their fetish for the Factory Committees betrays their vision of ‘communist’ society: a loose federation of commune factories, trading with each other. This arrangement does not fundamentally challenge what Marx called the “cell-form” of capitalism – the production of commodities. Whatever pretensions about ‘workers control’ it may have, the real rulers of such a system are the market, anarchy of production and the law of value. This is not the communist vision of the proletariat, but that of the peasantry, artisan-class and petit-bourgeoisie. While modern anarchism’s critique of the Revolution’s degeneration does contain a genuine proletarian opposition to Stalinism there is a strong element of the peasant or petit-bourgeois’s resentment of centralisation, the subordination of parts to the whole and their overall reactionary egotism.

Lessons for the future

Communism proper can overcome the law of value, not by creating a network of free trading communes, but by rigorously subordinating production to an internationally co-ordinated plan. This does not mean the domination of the state but the mobilisation of the global working class on the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. This true proletarian vision has no need of trade, only distribution, nor of any rivalry between this or that factory commune but harmony and unity between all with each worker, factory and geographical sector of the ‘commune state’ subordinating its own needs before the whole because this is the only way that the needs of all can be satisfied.

Nonetheless, this understanding and a natural desire to defend Bolshevism from its detractors cannot blind us to its very real failings. The proletariat has nothing to fear from confronting its past failings. The Bolsheviks made many grievous errors as they attempted to centralise the economy and defend the revolution against the bourgeoisie. In particular, they were unable to see that their increasing reliance on state repression was creating the very menace they thought they were fighting against. In addition, the centralisation of society’s economic organs does not of itself produce socialism. What made the Russian Revolution a real revolution was not the fact that workers formed committees in an effort to defend themselves in the face of the advancing capitalist crisis[2] [166]. While an expression of the class struggle, these organs cannot be considered the final form of the proletariat’s control of society, simply because while they are essential to run the local aspects of economic activity their nature precludes them being able to manage the economy for the collective benefit of society as whole. The true revolutionary content of Red October was the fact that, through the Soviets, the working class was able to perceive itself not simply as a class capable of controlling factories for the purposes of its own immediate survival but one that could destroy the political power of the bourgeoisie as embodied in the capitalist state and then begin to manage the whole of society. The Bolsheviks began the revolution as an expression of that process but when the consciousness of the class began to retreat they made the mistake of believing they could substitute themselves for the working class.

How then can the proletariat and its revolutionary minorities respond to such pressures in the future? The first point of principle – learned from the experience of the Russian Revolution – is that the revolution cannot be saved by the actions of a vanguard substituting itself for the working class with or without the power of the state. Such actions can only serve to demoralise the class, separate it from its most conscious minorities, and destroy the essential content of a revolution – the actions of the workers themselves. Communists must accept that the class will make mistakes and that often their views will be in a minority within the class. At times, the working class will hesitate and appear to want to hand power back to the bourgeoisie from whom it has just been seized! Communists can only respond to this hesitancy in the way the Bolsheviks did when faced with Soviets dominated by Mensheviks in the first stages of the Revolution – with patient but energetic agitation. When confronted with the inevitable confusions concerning localism, communists must follow the method of Marx and propagandise for the interests of the proletariat as a whole.   DG, 16/11/06

According to the bourgeoisie, the working class should be happy. Not a day goes past without its newspapers, journals, TV and radio telling us about the current health of the economy. To do this it gives us figures for growth. At the level of the world economy these increased by 3.2% in 2005, after having registered 4% in 2004 and less than 2.6% in 2003. It calmly forecasts a growth above 3.3% for the year 2006. This class of exploiters hides reality from itself. But above all, it brazenly lies to the working class.

Faced with the aggravation of its economic crisis, the lies of the bourgeoisie

It tries at all costs to hide the gravity of the situation. To do this, anything goes. In the UK, which elements of the ruling class hold up as a solid and stable economy, official unemployment figures are the highest for 7 years. While nobody believes these ridiculously low figures, underestimating real unemployment by millions, they nevertheless point to the underlying tendency and the real results of massive job cuts in every industry and sector. In the face of the ‘vibrant UK economy‘, workers who have to keep 2 or even 3 precarious jobs going, or work all hours to make ends meet, know very well about the lies of the bourgeoisie. But this is nothing in comparison with what’s to come. World capitalism is in economic turmoil and for the predators of the ruling class, the sharpening economic war leaves it no choice but to step up its attacks against the living conditions of the working class. Behind all the lies, the economic crisis is re-entering a new phase that will have much more devastating effects than anything since the return of the open crisis in the 1960s.

The proletariat pays for the bankruptcy of the capitalist economy

The working class is living daily through this violent degradation of the economy. Plans for massive redundancies follow each other without respite. Supposedly efficient companies such as Alcatel and Intel announce job cuts one after the other. In the automobile industry, the bourgeoisie envisages the loss of 70,000 jobs between now and the end of the year at General Motors, Ford and Delphi. This figure gives the measure of the difficulties of this sector in the United States. The situation is no better in the rest of the world, leading the motor industry everywhere to announce massive job cuts. In France, it’s the turn of Renault and Peugeot-Citroen to announce thousands of new redundancies. All the leading sectors of capitalism are in a mess. After the U.S. plane-maker Boeing, the European plane construction firms announced thousands of job cuts. In Seoul, South Korea, one of the biggest naval dockyards in the world belonging to the Halla Group has announced the loss of 3000 jobs, or half of its workers. Such massive job cuts were unknown in this country up to now. But the working class isn’t just subjected to a frontal attack in the area of job cuts. All its conditions of life are under attack. In Germany, the bourgeoisie has just declared that it will push back the retirement age to 67. In Britain, legislation is currently being enacted to make it 68. The same offensive is underway in every country. The bankrupt bourgeoisie can no longer pay for pensions. After sucking the life-blood from the workers, it throws them into the gutter. The Welfare State, already largely dismantled, cannot resist this new economic deterioration. The bourgeoisie wants to definitively bury social security. In all sectors, public or private, the ability of workers and their families to take care of themselves is being savagely attacked. With wages kept down the working class must battle every day to house, clothe and feed itself. It’s exactly the same policies that are rampant under the government of Angela Merkel in Germany or in Italy under Romano Prodi. There is no exception to this policy of a frontal anti-working class attack, no matter what the country or the political colour of the government.

The capitalist economy on the edge of ruin

An organism as representative of the bourgeoisie as the UN, through the intermediary of its Economic and Social Business Department, says that world growth can only slow down in 2006. “In the near future, the eventuality of new rises in oil prices, the possibility of crisis caused by an avian flu pandemic, or a house price collapse in the richest countries, increases the risk of a gradual slowdown of world growth” (Courrier International, 10/06). Millions of deaths from a possible avian flu pandemic do not pose any human problem for the bourgeoisie. On the contrary it is happy to make ideological capital out of it, in order to spread the lie that a sharp acceleration of the crisis would be due to a catastrophe independent of its system. But to the displeasure of the bourgeoisie, facts are more stubborn than its lies. The bursting of the housing bubble has already begun in the United States (and in the UK the FSA has warned banks to prepare for a possible 40% reduction in house prices). From this millions of Americans will find themselves incapable of repaying their debts. The bursting of the housing bubble will have grave repercussions for the world financial system as on the whole of the economy. This bubble has been financed by ‘cheap’ money, that is, very low interest rates. During the course of the last few years the US administration has stepped up the printing of money, thus inundating the world and the USA itself with dollar bills. An article in Courrier International (27/7/06) clearly showed the policy followed by the central US bank, the whole flight into debt: “In June, the consumer price index shows, if there was still need for it, what an immense error the US central bank has committed in monetary policy between the end of 2003 and 2005”. This “error” is much more serious since, contrary to the speeches of the bourgeoisie, it is the United States which continues to pull world demand. A major crisis of the American economy would inevitably plunge the world into a violent recession. The record rates of growth undergone by China depend on the American economy. This year, China will overtake Mexico to become the second commercial partner of the US, just behind Canada. China, like India and all the south east Asian states, could not stand a significant slowdown in US external demand without suffering a violent brake on their growth. And this is the road that the world economy has already begun to take. The USA is in debt beyond imagination. The US deficit has reached 800 billion dollars. It is quite evident that of all the symptoms of a collapsing financial structure, the level of debt causes most concern to the ruling class. In 2002, following a stock market collapse, due in part to the bursting of the ‘new economy’ bubble, the bourgeoisie feared the arrival of deflation. It was able to stave this off. But in the opinion of a number of bourgeois specialists, this spectre is again possible in the present situation. The incredible mass of dollars in circulation today around the world can be dragged into an abyss, with repercussions on the whole world economy. The suppression of the M3 index by the central American bank, an index which allows the measurement of the mass of dollars in circulation, demonstrates the growing impotence of the bourgeoisie in mastering its problems. It is reduced to the politics of the ostrich, hiding the danger because it can’t do anything about it. Meanwhile, this policy of cheap money in the USA, as in all the developed countries, is threatening a new surge of inflation. For twelve months prices have increased in the United States at an annual rhythm of 4.3%, and for three months at 5.1%. As a result, the central US bank, like the central banks of Europe or Asia, can only continue to increase its interest rates. Or else the banks will decide to accelerate their flight into debt by letting the value of the dollar fall, thus financing their debts with devalued money. In both cases the result for the world economy will be the same: recession. The present rise in stock market prices doesn’t correspond to an improvement in the capitalist economy but to its exact opposite. It is a precursory sign of the storm to come. A widespread stock market crisis lies in wait for the capitalist economy and this will be more profound than those we have known up to now.

The capitalist economy faces chaos

In order to face its open crisis at the end of the 1960s, capitalism resorted to massive debt while bringing on its first frontal attacks against the working class. The central countries then began pushing the effects of the crisis onto the poorer countries, which sunk into a misery and chaos that has deepened ever since. Meanwhile, at the heart of capitalism, the traditional sectors of capitalist industry began to be dismantled: mines, steelworks, textiles, etc. The bourgeoisie, for the first time since the post-war boom, had to resort to the printing of money and to a level of debt unknown until then in order to artificially create an effective demand. This debt, though well below what exists today, produced a level of inflation that rapidly became intolerable. The bourgeoisie had to re-orient its economy without pushing it into too violent a recession. This is what was done at the beginning of the 1990s and, despite the suffering inflicted on the proletariat for ten years, it gave some respite to capitalism. Private debt, to some extent, took over from public debt. The banks, pension funds, insurance, financial institutions, businesses and the ‘middle class‘, notably in the USA, played the role of supporting growth. This policy, required by all states throughout these years, allowed economic activity to continue while choking back inflation, all the more because the bourgeoisie did all it could to reduce the cost of labour. The bursting of the ‘new economy’ bubble rang the bell on this period. Since the 80s and 90s, an unimaginable public debt has to be added to an incalculable private debt. The bursting of the housing bubble in the United States signifies the end of this economic madness. Financial and industrial instability is reaching insupportable levels, notably in America, pushing the capitalist economy into a new phase, a phase where financial and industrial bankruptcies will shake the entire world economy.

The bourgeoisie has no choice. This new aggravation of the economic crisis will oblige it to develop its attacks on the working class to a higher level than we have seen since the return of the open crisis at the end of the 1960s. There will be no respite for the proletariat. However, these attacks will not rain down on an amorphous and beaten working class. Since around 2003, everywhere in the world, the working class has returned to the path of struggle. At a time when the working class of the central countries is beginning to draw the first lessons of this resurgence of struggles, the accelerating economic crisis and the generalisation of attacks on living standards can play a major role in the development of consciousness and militancy in the working class.

Tino 23/10/06 (From Revolution Internationale 373)

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s many publications appeared which claimed to be revolutionary, communist or to defend the interests of the working class. Even at the time it was clear that most of them would not survive for long. World Revolution was first produced in May 1974 and has been published continuously ever since, for the last 25 years as a monthly newspaper.

There is no mystery behind WR’s success in reaching its 300th issue where others have long vanished. Right from the start we tried to put the publication on a historical basis, drawing on the contributions of the Italian, German and Dutch Left. We were also part of an international tendency that formed the ICC in 1975. We warned of the danger of expecting immediate results from intervention and falling into activism. The disappearance internationally of so many papers and journals shows how far our warnings were ignored.

Spreading ideas

Early on we established what the function of the regular revolutionary press was. As the backbone of the organisation it tries to answer the questions being posed in the working class and by those who want to take part in the struggle against capitalism. As we said in a 3-part series on ‘The Present Tasks of Revolutionaries’ that appeared in 1978 (WR 17-19): “Intervention is first and foremost a question of elaborating and disseminating ideas”. In practice this means, “the stimulation of reflection in the class, especially amongst those elements who are moving towards communist ideas, is the central aim of the organisation’s publications. These publications must be composed both of basic programmatic texts and of analyses which apply these basic class positions to the various issues which arise out of the general situation, so that the organisation can assist these elements to understand what’s happening on the world. As an instrument for understanding social reality, the publications must bring theoretical clarification to the general problems confronting the class; as an instrument of combat, they must also contain polemical texts directed against confused or counter-revolutionary positions and the groups which defend them”.

Changing times

In different periods WR has had different emphases, although always within the same overall framework. In the 1970s, for example, it was necessary to explain many basic positions, and show how the historic workers’ movement had confronted questions in the past. We also drew on this heritage when dealing with the various groups and publications that flourished briefly, as well as the influential leftist groups that were very radical in their language at the time.

During the 1980s, when there were extensive struggles across the world, we had to show what workers were doing, what lessons they had already drawn and also how much further the class struggle had to be taken. In many struggles there were signs of the working class beginning to take charge of its fight. However, there was little awareness of the political implications of the struggle, of the perspective it opened up. We showed the massive extent of the struggles in Poland in 1980-81, but also pointed to its limitations, how it was defeated by democratic, trade unionist and religious ideology before the imposition of martial rule in December 1981. With the struggle in Britain, WR showed how the miners’ strike of 1984-85 had the capacity to extend with the struggles of dockworkers and car workers, but also how this was undermined by the unions and, as with the News International print workers at Wapping, this was turned into a long drawn out action that was ultimately discouraging rather than inspiring workers.

Following the break up of the Russian and US blocs, in the 1990s all the publications of the ICC had a responsibility to explain what had happened, particularly with the subsequent proliferation of military conflicts and against the whole myth of the ‘end of the communism’. While traditional Trotskyist and Stalinist leftism was weakened by the collapse of the USSR, new currents emerged that claimed a different approach to ‘what is society and how it can be changed’. Whether they used familiar labels, such as ‘anarchist’ or ‘anti-capitalist’, or saw themselves as part of the movement ‘against globalisation’, the ICC’s publications tried to identify what these tendencies represented and how they related to the struggle of the working class. We have also had to put forward our understanding of the whole period of decomposition, and show how it impacts on every aspect of social reality.

ICC as a reference point

The current period is marked by a revival in workers’ struggles internationally. This revival has been accompanied by the emergence of groups and individuals who are discussing the questions facing the working class and the struggle for communism. Our remarks in 1978 about bringing “theoretical clarification to the general problems facing class” remain entirely valid. When new groups appear we try to relate to them, not through producing a static balance sheet but by identifying their basic dynamic. When individuals write to us we try to see what precisely is being said so that we can reply in a way that is productive. If we have public meetings that discuss things which are of general interest we publish reports in our press. From our intervention on internet discussion forums we get an idea of what concerns there are in different parts of cyberspace.

In all this we want to show the debates taking place in the internationalist milieu. We want to make a contribution as a living organisation to a process of clarification that is already underway. Sometimes this will mean producing articles on general questions such as the perspective of communism, the nature of the working class, what imperialism is or how to understand the decadence and decomposition of capitalism. We want to show how capitalism’s economic crisis is unfolding, what’s going on in imperialist conflicts, how the bourgeoisie arranges its forces, and how the class struggle is developing. Where there are illusions in the anti-globalisation movement, anarchist or Trotskyist groups, we will subject them to a marxist critique. We are also committed to defending the basic principles of behaviour within the working class movement against all their detractors. Fundamentally we want WR, as one of the publications of the ICC, to act as a reference point for all those who are challenging the ideas of the ruling class, or want to participate in the struggle of the working class, or see communism as a necessity for humanity, or are searching for a coherent understanding of what’s going on in the world.

One significant difference from the period when the first WR was published has been the development of the internet. Our website, www.internationalism.org [66], and our printed press are complementary parts of our intervention. So, if you’re reading this article in the pages of WR, we hope you will be encouraged to go to our website and see the growing number of articles from past issues of our territorial and international press, texts that have only appeared online, texts that are on line before they’re printed, or articles that have appeared in languages other than English. Or, if you’re reading this online, have a look at where future ICC public meetings or street sales are being held, and come and discuss with our militants. Wherever you’re reading this, consider taking extra copies of the paper to sell, making financial donations to support our press, and writing to us on any of the questions raised in our publications. These are among the ways to contribute to the development of WR as part of the whole process of clarification within the working class.   Car 30/12/6

Militants of the ICC were at a number of meetings during October’s Anarchist Bookfair in London, among them one on the students’ struggles in France during spring 2006.

The French state had attempted to introduce the CPE, a law that would enable employers to dismiss people 26 years-old and younger, without having to give a reason, within the first 2 years of the job. There was widespread resistance throughout the universities and amongst young workers-to-be. They forced the French state to back down and withdrawn the CPE, through the organisation of their struggle and by reaching out to the working class in general.

Some people who been involved in the struggles in France had come to the Bookfair to relate their experience and give a perspective on the events. They saw a development from the struggles in France in 2003, because in 2006 there was a more violent response from the French state. They saluted the assemblies that had been created because they had ‘overwhelmed’ the unions’ initial control and because the government was eventually forced into an embarrassing climb-down. However, the fact that the unions had been able to take all the credit for this seemed to show that the movement hadn’t seriously challenged the unions’ ultimate control.

In response to this we tried to make a clear distinction between the union form of struggle and that of the student assemblies. The proletarian nature of the movement was shown in its ability to turn its combativity into the deployment of proletarian methods of organisation. The students wanted to generate a broader solidarity within the working class as a whole. In contrast the unions stood in the way of the extension of the struggle and workers’ taking it into their own hands. The speakers from France didn’t understand the difference. Instead they were euphoric about violent confrontations (like that at the Sorbonne) and applauded the rioting in Paris during Autumn 2005 (See WR 290 ‘Riots in the French suburbs: in face of despair, only the class struggle offers a future [172]’).

In discussion before the meeting started properly, we’d already indicated how the broadest media coverage was given to events that linked the working class with mindless acts of violence, but deliberately made little reference to the student assemblies and the expressions of solidarity, both by students towards the working class and by workers across the generations towards the students.

The ‘facilitator’ of the meeting didn’t feel comfortable with discussion focusing on the student assemblies and wanted to move the discussion on. The meeting rejected this approach. People wanted to look more into the significance of the French anti-CPE struggle. There was a genuine curiosity in the methods adopted by the French students.

In particular there was a need to contrast, on the one hand, the movement for the greatest participation of workers and students in struggles and its use of necessary force with, on the other, the individual and conspiratorial violence characteristic of other social strata. As we said in WR 293 (April 2006 ‘Notes from the students struggles [173]’):

“Not only does violence tend to discredit the movement within the rest of the class, but it also puts into question the sovereignty of the general assemblies since it takes place completely outside the latter’s control. In fact this last question - the question of control - is one of the most critical ones; the violence of the working class has nothing to do with the blind violence of the young hotheads at the Sorbonne or - it must be said - of many anarchist groups, above all because it is exercised and controlled collectively, by the class as a group. The student movement has used physical force (for example to barricade the university buildings and block entry to them): the difference between this and the confrontations at the Sorbonne is that the former actions are decided collectively and voted by the general assemblies while the ‘blockers’ have a mandate for their actions from their own comrades. The latter, precisely because they are uncontrolled by the movement, are of course the perfect terrain for the action of the lumpen and the agent provocateur, and given the way in which this violence has been used by the media, there is every reason to suppose that the provocateur has been present and stirring it up”.  

Duffy 2/12/6

Despite the spiral of nationalist hatred which often paralyses the class struggle in Israel and Palestine, the severe economic privations resulting from a state of permanent war have pushed workers on both sides of the divide to fight for their most basic material interests. In September, tens of thousands of civil servants in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip staged strikes and demonstrations to demand that the Hamas government cough up several months of unpaid wages. Ironically, on November 29, libcom.org news reported that “A general strike has broken out in the Israeli public sector with airports, ports, government offices, and post offices all being shut down. Histadrut (General Federation of Labour) has called a strike in response to violations in agreements between the union and local and religious authorities. Histadrut is claiming these authorities are in arrears over salaries and employers money due to be paid into pensions funds has disappeared”

Imperialist war means economic ruin. In this case, the bourgeoisie on both sides is increasingly unable even to pay its wage slaves.

Both these struggles were subject to all kinds of political manipulations. In the West Bank and Gaza, the opposition nationalist faction, Fatah, aimed to use the strikes as a means of putting pressure on its Hamas rivals. In Israel, the Histadrut has a long tradition of calling tightly controlled ‘general strikes’ to back particular bourgeois policies and parties. But it is significant that in Israel the Histadrut’s general strike (which was called off almost as soon as it had begun) was preceded by a wave of less well-marshalled strikes among baggage handlers, teachers, lecturers, bank workers and civil servants. Disillusionment with Israel’s military fiasco in the Lebanon has no doubt fuelled this growing discontent.

During the September strike in the Palestinian territories, the Hamas government denounced the civil servants’ action as being against the national interest. And despite all the manoeuvres of the bourgeoisie, the class struggle does fundamentally remain opposed to the national interest and thus opposed to the march towards imperialist war.  Amos  2.12.06

The repression that the state has unleashed against the population of Oaxaca has shown the real bloody and furious face of democracy. The city of Oaxaca has been a powder keg for the last five months where the presence of the police and paramilitary forces has been the main means for spreading state terror. Invasion of homes, kidnappings and torture are the means that the state has used in Oaxaca in order to establish ‘peace and order’. The result of the police incursion has been dozens of ‘disappearances’, the imprisoning of many and at least 3 deaths (not counting the nearly 20 persons run over by the white guards between May and October of this year).

Six years ago the ruling class said that the coming to power of Fox meant that it had entered a ‘period of change’, but reality has made clear that capitalism, no matter what changes are made to its personal or government parties, can offer nothing other than more exploitation, poverty and repression.

Faced with the events in Oaxaca, the whole of the working class has to carry out a profound reflection, recognising that the brutal and repressive actions carried out, are not due to this or that government or its representative, but are expressions of the nature of the capitalism.

In order that the coming struggles are better prepared, it is necessary to draw the lessons of the meaning of these struggles.

The bourgeoisie has contained the discontent and uses it for its own ends

The present mobilisations in Oaxaca are without doubt the expression of the workers’ discontent about the exploitation and the ignominy of capitalism. The mobilisations in this region express the existing discontent due to the continuing degradation of their living conditions. This is the fruit of a profound development that is revealing itself in real courage and willingness to struggle. Nevertheless, the manoeuvres of the bourgeoisie have resulted in the workers losing control of the aims, methods and running of their struggle.

Faced with these mobilisations the system has openly demonstrated its bloody nature. However this use of terror by the state goes beyond the repression of the demonstrators in Oaxaca. The incursion by military and police forces in Oaxaca have not had as their main aim the extermination of the Asemblea Popular de Peublo de Oaxaca (APPO), rather it has fundamentally been aimed at spreading terror as a means for warning and threatening the whole of the working class. This state terror has been let loose by the combination of government, federal and state repressive forces, showing clearly that even when there are struggles between different bourgeois gangs, they will always agree to carry out their repressive tasks together. Therefore to think that it is possible to have a ‘dialogue’ with a part of the government, is to stimulate the false hope that ‘progressive’ or ‘open’ sections of the bourgeoisie exist. By aiming to get rid of Ulises Ruiz[1], the APPO has spread the illusion that the capitalist system can be changed by making it more democratic or by changing the people in power.

The APPO’s aim of uniting against Ulises Ruiz, does nothing to reinforce collective reflection or the development of consciousness, but rather spreads confusion and the submission of the working class to the interests of one bourgeois fraction against another.

The clearest demonstration of just how disoriented this movement has become is the pushing into the background of its original aim to increase wages. This allowed the unions and federal government to present the problem of wage increases as a technical aspect, a question of the simple supply of adequate resources to the region through the planning of the public finances. At the same time they were able to isolate the problem, by presenting the question of falling wages as a ‘local’ problem, without importance for the rest of the working class.

The methods of struggle they sanctioned: pickets, exhausting marches and desperate confrontations, have done nothing to develop solidarity, on the contrary, they have isolated the struggle and made it an easy target for repression.

APPO: a body alien to the proletariat

The social composition of the APPO (formed by ‘social’ organisations and unions) reveals that this organisation, and therefore the decisions it takes, is not in the workers’ hands. The fact that this structure leaves reflection and discussion in the hands of the unions demonstrates that it does not have a proletarian nature. This means that the potential strength of the participating workers is diluted. This force cannot express itself in a structure which, despite presenting itself as an organisation that was directed by so-called open assembles, shows in its practice its true nature an inter-classist front driven by the confusion and despair of the middle layers. This was clearly demonstrated by the appeal of  9 November for the APPO to be turned into a permanent structure (State Assembly of the People of Oaxaca). This was made even clearer by its definition of the Constitution created by the Mexican bourgeoisie in 1917 as a “historical document that endorses the emancipatory tradition of our people” and that therefore calling for its defence, also means defending “...the territory and its natural resources...”. Thus its radicalism is reduced to the defence of nationalist ideology, which is a real poison to the workers. Moreover the Appeal contains a false proletarian internationalism, when it insists on the necessity of “Establishing co-operative, solidarity and fraternal links with all the peoples of the world in order to construct a just, free and democratic society; a truly human society...” as the basis of the struggle for “the democratisation of the UN...”!

The constitution of the APPO was not an advance for the workers’ movement, on the contrary, its creation is linked to the subjugation of workers’ genuine discontent. The APPO emerged as a straight jacket for confining proletarian militancy. The Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyist and union groupings that formed this body know full well how to undermine the working class’s courage and expressions of solidarity, through imposing a leadership and activity alien to workers and the rest of the interests of the exploited. Therefore the comparisons between the APPO and the structure of the Soviets or “embryonic workers’ power”, is nothing but a devious attack against the real traditions of the workers’ movement.

An authentic proletarian organisation is distinguished by the fact that its aims are directly linked to the interests of the class, that is to the defence of its living conditions. This has nothing to do with the defence of the ‘national economy’, state enterprises, let alone the democratisation of the system that exploits it. Above all else it seeks to defend its political independence from the ruling class, an independence that allows it to carry out its struggle against capitalism.

The daily struggles of the workers are the preparation of the radical critique of exploitation: they express the resistance to the laws of capitalist economics, and it is their radicalisation that will open the way towards the revolution. These are moments in the preparation of the revolutionary struggles that the proletariat has to carry out, they are the seeds of the revolutionary struggle.

Consciousness and organisation: the workers’ weapons for confronting capitalism

As an international and internationalist class the proletariat, in every country, must assimilate and make their own, the experience of their past struggles. It is indispensable in the development of consciousness. It is thus vital to remember the lessons of the mobilisations of the students and workers in France against the Contrat Premiere Embauche (CPE) in the spring of 2006. The essential lesson of this movement was its capacity to organise, which allowed it to maintain a control of the struggle which stopped the unions and leftists efforts to divert their central aim: the struggle against insecurity of employment. The movement by the workers in Vigo in Spain, at the same time, confronted the union sabotage, by defending the demand for increased wages, and through maintaining the workers control of the assemblies and the extension of the struggle.

The defence of living conditions, organisational autonomy and the massive reflection that these movements gave rise to, are lessons that belong to the whole of the proletariat and which need to be assimilated into its future struggles.

Workers of the world unite!

18/11/06 (adapted from ICC online in Spanish)