Despite sophisticated means to hide the rise in unemployment, bad news on this front is arriving suddenly everywhere, even if paradoxically, as in France and the UK, there are reports of a decline in job seekers. But it is becoming more and more difficult to make people believe that all this is not so serious. As every year, the summer period was once again used by the ruling class in all countries to make serious attacks on the conditions of exploitation and living conditions of employees. But this time it’s worse. Whether behind closed doors or out in the open, with or without sedative propaganda, there are countless measures and reforms that have been planned or implemented everywhere by the bourgeoisie to deal with the accelerating economic crisis.[1]

Increase in brutal attacks

In “emerging” countries the situation of the proletarians is deteriorating very sharply. In Argentina, the peso crisis and galloping inflation are plunging the country into a very dramatic scenario that reminds us of the dizzying fall of 2001, with the increased poverty it caused for the workers.[2] In Brazil, the effects of labour reform with wage reductions are weighing heavily on the working class. And in addition, the pension system is under attack. In Turkey, an austerity plan was launched and in April there was a 32% increase in food prices. In Europe, at the heart of capitalism, the economic crisis is beginning to hit hard. In Germany redundancy plans are multiplying. Deutsche Bank announced the loss of 18,000 jobs in July, the largest “restructuring plan” in its history (20% of the workforce). Another worrying sign for employment is that “orders for machine tools, the spearhead of the economy, fell by 22% per annum between April and June”.[3] But job losses are already spreading to almost all sectors: supermarkets (for example, the merger of Karstadt and Kaufhof will lead to the loss of 2,600 full time equivalent jobs, but in reality it will affect between 4,000 and 5,000 people because many workers are part-time), 5,600 at T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s IT subsidiary, insurance (700 fewer jobs at Allianz), in industrial conglomerates: Thyssenkrupp (6,000 worldwide including 4,000 in Germany), Siemens (2,700 worldwide, 1,400 in Germany), Bayer (12,000 by 2121), etc...

Short-time work which had disappeared from the automobile sector five years ago is now returning in force, affecting 150,000 people.[4] In the United Kingdom, in the chaotic context of Brexit, the situation is also worsening. For example, the British banking giant HSBC is planning a restructuration with 4,000 job losses, following the 30,000 redundancies announced in 2011. The British car industry also faces around 10,000 redundancies as Ford, Honda, Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover have all made major cuts in their global workforce. In the United States the trade war and the rise in customs duties are already having an impact on manufacturing companies: “What interests us today are the reasons given by employers to justify job losses. In the last report in July, tariffs were one of the main reasons. Indeed, 1,053 reductions due to tariffs were announced in one month, from a total of 1,430 this year and against 798 in 2018.”[5]

In India an industry source told Reuters that early estimates suggest that the car industry, including manufacturers, parts and dealers, have laid off about 350,000 workers since April. We could give many more examples. And yet despite all the job losses announced, unemployment figures remain strangely stable across the board. The explanation is simple. Everything is based on sophisticated statistics and new evaluation methods. In addition to the growing number of unemployed who are no longer included, the phenomenon has been totally disguised in recent years by an explosion in precarity and the deterioration in the quality of jobs. In all countries unemployment benefits are being reduced at the same time as low paid, short time jobs have increased the amount of casual work. It is these “active policies” that artificially “increase the employment rate” at the expense of the proletarians and their families.

In the United Kingdom the flexibility of the labour market and “uberisation” have boosted “zero hours” contracts, which offer no guarantee of working hours. Employers are free to draw on these workers as they see fit, depending on the needs of their deteriorating business and declining order books. In Germany the Harz reforms of 2003-2005 allowed the development of casual work at 450 euros per month, and these jobs are now increasing. In many other countries, such as Sweden, part-time, low-paid fixed-term contracts have grown strongly. In the Netherlands, “zero hours” contracts and German-style “casual work” are also on the rise. In Portugal, the “recibos verde”[6] and in France so-called “self-employed” status go in the same direction, that of increasing precariousness. Everywhere, for those who still have a permanent contract, layoffs are facilitated. Today these measures, which were taken in the 1990s and especially after the 2008 crisis, are bearing fruit and are progressing at an ever faster pace as a result of the crisis. To limit the decline in profit, capital is constantly increasing the exploitation of labour power which leads to a sharp deterioration in the living conditions of the working class: so inequality and poverty are constantly increasing.[7]

This increased greatly during the summer. This is partly visible through strikes, which affected some sectors such as Amazon in Europe and the United States in July, or in different airlines in Spain or Italy for example. The strikes were provoked by a deterioration in contracts and pay levels.

Working conditions are therefore becoming less and less tolerable: “We have so many people out of work that we accept harmful working conditions, like a kind of sacrificial act”.[8] The fear of losing one’s job generates various pathologies and the terror at work causes suicides or irreparable damage: “We have ‘top’ managers whose brains are permanently damaged and who will never be able to work again. It is a premature wear and tear of the body due to mad levels of over-use”[9]  Of course, while more and more workers are damaging their health at work it is also increasingly difficult to get treatment, when it is still possible to do so. The attacks on the hospital sector will not reverse this trend. Such attacks on health services have been seen over many years in Britain and France is seeing a new measure attacking its hospitals called “Ma santé 2022”.[10]

Unlike the years following the Second World War when the anaemic labour force had to be rebuilt for reconstruction by developing the “welfare state”, today’s overabundant workforce whose costs have to be lowered to maintain “competitiveness” no longer requires the “luxury” of adequate social and health coverage.

On the other hand, the duration of exploitation of the labour force is constantly being extended. Pensions are being violently attacked everywhere. The retirement age is rising everywhere and pensions are steadily being eroded. In Germany the retirement age is being increased from 65.5 to 69 by 2027, in Denmark from 65.5 to 67 this year and to 68 in 2030. In the Nordic countries, such as Sweden or Norway, a so-called “flexible” system will encourage later departures and this is also the case in France. In the United Kingdom, the law even encourages people to work until they reach the age of 70. In practice, low pensions are increasingly pushing older people to work. In the United States people over 80 years of age are still in work. In the face of the new open crisis that is looming one thing is certain: proletarians all over the world will see their situation deteriorate sharply and the future will therefore only get darker.

Entry into recession

All this has become all the more pronounced as the global situation of the world economy has further deteriorated: “On the economic level, since the beginning of 2018, the situation of capitalism has been marked by a sharp slowdown in world growth (from 4% in 2017 to 3.3% in 2019), which the bourgeoisie predicts will be worsening in 2019-20. This slowdown proved to be greater than expected in 2018, as the IMF had to reduce its forecasts for the next two years, and it is affecting virtually all parts of capitalism simultaneously: China, the United States and the Euro Zone. In 2019, 70% of the world economy has been slowing down, particularly in the ‘advanced’ countries (Germany, United Kingdom). Some of the emerging countries are already in recession (Brazil, Argentina, Turkey) while China, which has been slowing down since 2017 and is expected to grow by 6.2% in 2019, is experiencing its lowest growth figures in 30 years.”[11]

The summer period clearly confirms and highlights this tendency to sink into crisis. On the one hand, trade tensions between China and the United States increased sharply this summer and on the other hand the main economic indicators remain in the red. In the heart of Europe, Germany is already being hit hard by the effects of the onset of a recession, which confirms that it has thus become Europe’s new sick man. Many specialists point more generally to the possibility of a major financial crisis in the future, probably even more serious than in 2008 due to the record level of debt accumulated since then and the weakened position of the state in this regard. As we also point out in the resolution from our recent international congress: “Concerning the proletariat, these new convulsions can only result in even more serious attacks against its living and working conditions at all levels and in the whole world”.[12] Even if not all states carry out attacks at the same intensity and pace, all must adapt in the same way to the conditions of competition and the reality of increasingly glutted markets. States must also make drastic cuts in their budgets in order to make savings at all costs.[13] And in the end, the ruling class is making the proletariat take the load of its desperate efforts to curb the effects of the historical decline in its mode of production. As always it’s the working class that must pay the price!

What perspectives for the working class?

The proletariat is exposed to the blows of attacks which are already planned and those to come in the future. Sooner or later, it will have no choice but to react with a massive and determined struggle. But for this to happen it will need, on the one hand, to develop the conditions for in-depth reflection in order to better understand how the bourgeoisie is preparing to face the class struggle, and on the other hand, to try to define how to effectively conduct the class struggle inside and outside the workplace. This means going back to the lessons of the proletarian movements that have taken place in the past, in history, and particularly during the period between 1968 and 1989. This means taking into account the traps and mystifications orchestrated by the class enemy in order to better identify them in the future and not to be caught out by them again. The working class needs to become aware of its strength, to break out of isolation of struggles by countering the state’s democratic propaganda and the manoeuvres of trade unions, especially in their most radical and pernicious forms. In addition the proletariat must always remain vigilant against the dangers that threaten the autonomy of its struggle. In particular, it will have to fight against the influence of alien class ideologies belonging to the intermediate layers, in particular the petty bourgeoisie, which are a way of diluting the class, which risks being drowned in the undifferentiated mass of “the people”, an abstract notion. The interclassist movement of the Yellow Vests in France, mixing isolated proletarians with the petty bourgeois layers, is in this respect one of the most significant examples of the growing dangers facing the proletariat. Far from being a model of struggle, this movement has been its antithesis because it has been locked into the democratic values of capital and in its nationalist or even xenophobic prejudices.[14] On the contrary, only proletarian methods of struggle, from strikes to mass assemblies, provide the conditions for a truly autonomous and conscious movement that can raise the perspective of revolution and an end to class exploitation. 

WH 17.8.19

From all sides of the political spectrum, we are being called upon to defend democracy.

The “rebel alliance” of politicians opposed to a no-deal Brexit denounce Boris Johnson’s “coup” against parliament, organising marches and rallies against the 5-week suspension of parliament in the period leading up to 31 October, and uniting their forces to compel Boris to respect the hallowed parliamentary customs and procedures.

The hard Brexiteers from Farage to Spiked magazine reply that it is the “Remoaners” who are insulting democracy because they refuse to respect the “will of the people” embodied in the June 2016 referendum. They also claim to be the defenders of British democracy against the interfering bureaucracy of the EU.   

But we live in a society which makes the very terms “democracy” and the “people” empty of meaning. We live in a capitalist society based on the exploitation of one class by another. The exploiting class holds the vast bulk of wealth in its hands, and the state, political power, is there to guarantee its privileges, as are the means of ideological domination such as the press, the TV, and the mainstream social media. In such a society, the “people” is a term used to hide these class divisions and “democracy” serves to mask the monopoly of power held by the ruling class.

The exploited class, on the other hand, even though it generally comprises the majority of the population, is not permitted to express its own real needs. Its efforts to organise against exploitation are either suppressed by force or tamed and incorporated into the state: that’s the history of the trade unions and “workers” parties (such as the Labour party) over the last 100 years or more.

Of course, in contrast to the early days of capitalism, workers are not only allowed but positively exhorted to vote in local and national elections and referendums. But they can only do so as atomised “citizens”, as a mass of isolated individuals; and the very act of voting in bourgeois elections has become an expression of powerlessness, of the absence of the working class as a class.

What’s more, the themes around which elections, referendums, and parliamentary debates are organised provide clear evidence that we live under an ideological monopoly. For or against Brexit? To enter into this debate you have to assume that the interests of the nation, of “Britain”, are our interests. But the workers have no fatherland, and the nation, like the people, is a false community which obscures irreconcilable class divisions. And more: neither of the options in the Brexit conflict will protect workers from the mounting attacks on their living standards demanded by the world economic crisis. If Brexit goes ahead, there will no doubt be savage attacks on immigrant workers, whether illegal or legal, like the recent rules insisting that EU residents sort out their “settled status” prior to October 31st: almost a guarantee of future “Windrush” scandals.  But the EU, which supposedly stands up for workers’ rights, has already shown its willingness to impose draconian austerity on different parts of the working class: the case of Greece is the most eloquent here (and it was the “left wing” Syriza government which applied the belt-tightening demanded by the EU).  

The religion of democracy

Democracy and the nation have become today what religion was in the days when Karl Marx first coined the term “opium of the masses”. Democracy and the national interest are the “spiritual aroma” of bourgeois society, “its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification”[1]. In other words, you cannot argue outside the assumptions of democracy and the nation, which are the ultimate truths of this society, the justification for all the sacrifices demanded in work and at war.

But this “aroma” has now become a very bad stench because parliament, like capitalist society itself, is a profoundly decadent institution. In the days of Marx and Engels, when capitalism was still an ascendant system, it made sense for workers’ parties to have a presence in bourgeois parliaments because they were the theatre for real conflicts between progressive and reactionary sectors of the ruling class, and there was still the space to fight for durable reforms on behalf of the workers. But such activities always contained the risk of the corruption of workers’ delegates, who became the main vehicles for “parliamentary cretinism”, the belief that capitalism could be overcome simply by amassing votes for workers’ parties in bourgeois elections.

In decadent capitalism, all factions of the ruling class are equally reactionary, and there is no scope for any lasting improvement in living standards. And the profound impotence of parliamentary procedures faced with the growth of the totalitarian state as a whole has become increasingly obvious – not least in the current Brexit pantomime.

The dead-end of parliament and the rise of populism, with its fake criticism of the “elite”, has led many to conclude that it would be better to have an “illiberal democracy”, the rule of “strong men” who can get things done. But this is yet another false choice for the working class.

The proletarian alternative

The historical movement of the working class has shown another way. The Paris Commune of 1871 already went beyond the limits of parliamentarism, so that “instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament”[2], the working population began to organise itself in neighbourhood assemblies whose delegates were not only elected and mandated but could be recalled at any moment. The soviets or workers’ councils that arose in Russia in 1905 and 1917 took these principles a step further, since they were based on assemblies of workers in the factories and other workplaces, making the contours of proletarian power even clearer than in 1871.

During the world-wide wave of revolutionary movements in 1917-21, the workers’ councils arose in direct opposition to parliamentary (and trade union) institutions; and the bourgeoisie understood this very well, because  - above all in Germany, where the fate of the world revolution was to be decided – it did everything it could first to annex the councils, to turn them into a powerless appendage of parliament and the local state, and then to violently crush any attempt to restore their real power, as in Berlin in 1919.

Capitalist democracy has shown itself to be the deadly enemy of the proletarian revolution, of the emancipation of the exploited. And the goal of this revolution is to create a society where there will be no classes. Then for the first time, it would make sense to talk about the “the people”, or rather, a unified humanity. And a true human community will have no need for what the Greeks called “kratos”, for any kind of state or political power.  Amos 7.9.19

We are publishing a contribution[1] from one of our sympathisers, Mark Hayes, which criticises a number of formulations contained in the resolutions from our recent 23rd international congress, together with an initial reply to the comrade’s critcisms. As we say at the end of the reply, “it is the duty of any revolutionary organisation worth its salt to shine the starkest possible light on the reality of the challenge facing the proletariat. We are convinced that the analysis we are developing is best equipped to do this, but this discussion will certainly continue. We are still at the beginnings of fully understanding all the implications of the unfolding period, and criticism and debate is the only way to develop the clearest way forward for our analyses of the world situation”

 

On the resolutions of the 23rd Congress of the ICC

 “Marxism is a revolutionary world outlook which must always strive for new discoveries, which completely despises rigidity in once-valid theses…” (Rosa Luxemburg)

“Self-criticism, remorseless, cruel, and going to the core of things is the life’s breath and light of the proletarian movement.” (Rosa Luxemburg)

Introduction

It is over three years since the publication of texts from the ICC’s 21st Congress marking 40 years of its existence. Now we have the publication online of the first texts from the 23rd Congress, on the class struggle, the international situation and the balance of class forces. What do these tell us about the current state of the ICC? And to what extent has it been able to fulfil its self-proclaimed task at the 21st Congress “to develop a critical spirit in lucidly identifying its mistakes and theoretical shortcomings”? (IR 156).

An overall assessment of the congress is not yet possible so here we will limit our critical comments to the resolutions on the international situation (RIntSit) and the balance of class forces.

The historic ‘stalemate’: a product of the balance of class forces?

The framework for both texts is the position of the ICC that in the 1990s the capitalist system entered the final phase of its period of decadence, that of decomposition. The balance of class forces in the current period is characterised by a historic ‘stalemate’ between the classes:

"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 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 historic perspective, can only lead to a situation of generalised decomposition. Capitalism is rotting on its feet." (Decomposition, the final phase of the decadence of capitalism, Point 4, IR 62, quoted in the 23rd Congress RIntSit).

Capitalism thus enters a new and final phase of its history in which all the destructive tendencies of its decadent epoch are both broadened and deepened to the extent that “decomposition becomes a decisive, if not the decisive factor in social evolution." (Ibid, Point 2, quoted in the Resolution)

So what conclusions does the ICC now draw from this?

The concept of the historic course is no longer valid

The ICC has concluded that in the phase of decomposition the concept of a ‘historic course’ is no longer valid. In other words, it no longer defends the position that there is a ‘course towards class confrontations’.

Why? Because it has now concluded that in the phase of decomposition the balance of class forces is no longer the determining factor in “the general dynamics of capitalist society”.

And why is this? Because today, “Whatever the balance of forces, world war is no longer on the agenda, but capitalism will continue to sink into decay”.

We will come back to the idea that world war is no longer on the agenda, but first we must note that it has taken the ICC almost thirty years to decide that in the current historical conditions the ‘course of history’ is no longer towards class confrontations. In other words, for the last three decades it has defended what it now admits was an erroneous view of “the line of march” of the proletarian movement.

While such a position is anticipated in the ‘Theses on Decomposition’, as quoted above where they say: “decomposition becomes a decisive, if not the decisive factor in social evolution", the idea that the balance of class forces is no longer the determining factor in the ‘general dynamics of capitalist society’ is a new departure.

In fact it is so new that it appears to be directly contradicted by other congress resolutions, for example, the one directly dealing with the balance of class forces, which simply repeats the words of the 1990 ‘Theses on Decomposition’: “Despite the deleterious effects of decomposition and the dangers facing the proletariat, "Today, the historical perspective remains completely open … the class has not suffered any major defeats on the terrain of its struggle.”” (Point 13, my emphasis)

So still a course towards class confrontations then? The accompanying report on the class struggle defends a similar perspective:

“The balance of class forces exists historically and we can say that, even if time is not on its side, even though decomposition is becoming a growing threat and the working class is experiencing considerable differences in emerging from its current retreat, globally the class has not been crushed since 1968 and thus remains an obstacle to the full descent into barbarism; it thus retains the potential for overcoming the whole system.”

Did no one point out these apparent contradictions when the resolutions were being adopted? As a result of these inconsistencies we are left unclear exactly what the ICC’s position is. But let’s come back to the ICC’s basic arguments in the RIntSit:

1. The balance of class forces is no longer the determining factor in the general dynamics of capitalist society

Firstly, what exactly is meant by ‘the general dynamics of capitalist society’ is never spelled out.

“Since the First World War, capitalism has been a decadent social system … In the 1980s, it entered into the final phase of this decadence, the phase of decomposition. There is only one alternative offered by this irreversible historical decline: socialism or barbarism, world communist revolution or the destruction of humanity.” (ICC Basic Positions)

Surely this is overall framework for understanding ‘the general dynamics of capitalist society’?

Secondly, the ICC’s position on decomposition is precisely that it is the product of a specific balance of class forces, which since the 1990s has been characterised by a historic ‘stalemate’ in which neither class has been able to impose its own response to capital’s historic crisis. But this situation is not static; it cannot be a permanent state and the Theses on Decomposition explicitly refer to its temporary nature (Point 6); the dynamic of capitalism itself must drive society inexorably towards full-blown barbarism unless the proletariat is finally able to emerge from its current retreat.

The balance of class forces thus remains the determining factor in the ‘general dynamics of capitalist society’, up until the point where we must conclude that the proletariat has been definitively defeated; surely only at that point does it cease to the the determining factor?

The main argument of the resolution that “Whatever the balance of forces… capitalism will continue to sink into decay” is an almost meaningless statement. Of course capitalism will continue to decay, because the dynamics of this decay are rooted in the objective laws of the system, but the speed and extent of decomposition remain at least in part determined by the balance of class forces; by the presence of the proletariat in capitalist society, even in its current state of retreat.

2. The proletariat can suffer a deep defeat without this being decisive for capitalist society

“In the paradigm that defines the current situation (until two new imperialist blocs are reconstituted, which may never happen), it is quite possible that the proletariat will suffer a defeat so deep that it will definitively prevent it from recovering, but it is also possible that it will suffer a deep defeat without this having a decisive consequence for the general evolution of society.” (RIntSit)

Again, we are forced to ask: what is this “general evolution of society” that could “possibly” not be affected by a deep defeat of the proletariat? How could a deep defeat of the proletariat not have a decisive consequence for balance of class forces and therefore for the determination of the historic outcome: socialism or barbarism? How could such a defeat not constitute a qualitative step towards full-blown barbarism and a further erosion of the material conditions for a communist society? As the resolution on the balance of class forces itself states: the proletariat “remains an obstacle to the full descent into barbarism” – but if it suffers a deep defeat, even if it is not definitive, surely this can only weaken the proletariat as an 'obstacle' and accelerate the descent into barbarism?

Of course we are in a historically unprecedented situation today. But we are entitled to ask what evidence the ICC has for itsassertion?

“In a way”, we are told, “, the current historical situation is similar to that of the 19th century” (apart, presumably, from the fact that capitalism is now in terminal decay rather than progressively expanding). Why? Because in the 19th century:

“…an increase in workers' struggles did not mean the prospect of a revolutionary period since proletarian revolution was not yet on the agenda, nor could it prevent a major war from breaking out (for example, the war between France and Prussia in 1870 when the power of the proletariat was rising with the development of the International Workingmen’s Association) … a major defeat of the proletariat (such as the crushing of the Paris Commune) did not result in a new war.”

There are so many non sequiturs in the above it’s hard to know where to begin. Since proletarian revolution was not yet on the agenda how can examples of workers’ struggles be directly relevant to today’s situation? Since wars in the 19th century still had an economic rationality for the expanding capitalist system and, perhaps more importantly, did not necessarily require the full mobilisation of the proletariat to fight them, how exactly is the Franco-Prussian War relevant to capitalist decomposition?

And that’s it in the way of supporting evidence.

3. World war is no longer a threat

This brings us to the ICC’s view that world war is no longer a threat, or at the very least is unlikely, which is surely the most dangerously naïve aspect of the position defended by its latest congress resolutions, and the most glaring example of schematic thinking, of attachment to “once-valid theses”.

The 1990 Theses on Decomposition explicitly refer to the sharpening of inter-state imperialist rivalries due to the aggravation of the economic crisis (Point 10) and the growing dynamic of “every man for himself” unleashed by the breakup of the blocs.

The Theses conclude that “by preventing the formation of a new system of blocs, it may well not only reduce the likelihood of world war, but eliminate this perspective altogether” (Point 10). But significantly they still leave open the possibility that the destruction of humanity could come about as a result of generalised war: “In the end, it is all the same whether we are wiped out in a rain of thermo-nuclear bombs, or by pollution, radioactivity from nuclear power stations, famine, epidemics, and the massacres of innumerable small wars (where nuclear weapons might also be used).” (Point 11)

The Resolution of the 23rd Congress turns its back on these insights in order to cling on to the rigid schema that unless two imperialist blocs are formed (two blocs, note; not even three of four), there can be no world war. It fails to even consider the possibility that, in the unprecedented conditions in which we find ourselves today, with the increasing tendency for the bourgeoisie to lose control over its political apparatus, the growth of populism and proliferation of terrorism, etc., this assumption may no longer be valid.

The ICC’s fixation on the question of whether it is possible or not to form military blocs ends up seriously underestimating the strong and increasingly uncontrollable tendencies towards generalised war in decomposing capitalism. It betrays an attachment to rigid, schematic thinking rather than an analysis of specific historical conditions which is the basis of the Marxist method.

In conclusion

As they stand, the texts published so far from the ICC’s 23rd Congress reveal definite weaknesses. We can point to:

· a lack of rigour and consistency, with apparent contradictions between the resolutions for example on the question of the historic course and the balance of class forces;

· weak or absent supporting evidence for new positions, eg. on the possibility of the proletariat suffering a deep defeat without this having decisive consequences for the balance of class forces.

Perhaps most seriously, in the context of the tasks the organisation set itself at its 21st Congress, we find an attachment to rigid and schematic thinking, an inability or unwillingness to really question previous positions or perspectives in the light of changed conditions; in Luxemburg’s phrase, to get to “the core of things”. This genuinely critical spirit is absolutely vital if the ICC is to live up to its role as a ‘fraction of a certain type’ in the coming period. The signs so far from the ICC's latest congress are not encouraging. In fact they are grounds for concern.

Mark Hayes

July 2019

 

ICC reply

We welcome the comrade’s concern that the ICC is taking a wrong turning through the change of our position on the historic course as elucidated in the Resolution on the International Situation adopted by the 23rd Congress of the ICC[2].  Similar concerns have been expressed by others on our forum[3]. Such concern express the taking up of a real militant responsibility to struggle against what one considers to be expressions of a revolutionary organisation taking a wrong turn.

Comrade MH places his pre-occupation within the orientations of the 21st Congress of the ICC: “to what extent has it been able to fulfil its self-proclaimed task at the 21st Congress ‘to develop a critical spirit in lucidly identifying its mistakes and theoretical shortcomings’? (IR 156)”. The 21st Congress underlined that this radical critique was a manifestation of a central responsibility of revolutionary organisation:

“This critical balance sheet was fully in continuity with the approach that has always been adopted by marxism throughout the history of the workers’ movement. Thus Marx and Engels, loyal to a method that is both historical and self-critical, were able to recognise that certain parts of the Communist Manifesto had been proved wrong or overtaken by historical experience. It is this ability to criticise their mistakes that has enabled marxists to make theoretical advances and continue to make their contribution to the revolutionary perspective of the proletariat.”

We share the comrade’s concern for the implementation of this radical critique. We are convinced that the resolution along with the other resolutions and reports discussed and adopted by the 23rd ICC congress are a concrete manifestation of the results of this critique. They represent an important strengthening of our ability to analysis the international situation, particularly the impact of decomposition and the balance of class forces.

 "Without ostracism of any kind" (Bilan)

Faced with the vital necessity to draw the lessons of the defeat of the revolutionary wave, the Italian Left emphasised that this meant examining reality without blinkers, and de­veloping our thought "without ostracism of any kind" (Bilan). This point was underlined by the ICC when faced with the challenge of understanding the full implications of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. “it is important that revolutionaries should be capable of distinguishing between those analyses which have been overtaken by events and those which still remain valid, in order to avoid a double trap: either succumbing to sclerosis, or ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’. More precisely, it is necessary to highlight what in our analyses is essential and fundamental, and remains entirely valid in different historical circumstances, and what is secondary and cir­cumstantial - in short, to know how to make the difference between the essence of a reality and its various specific manifestations”(“Orientation Text on Militarism and Decomposition”, International Review 64, 1991[4]).

It is this method that led the ICC to try to draw out the full consequences of the demise of the old bloc system and the unleashing of ‘every man for himself’ on the imperialist level at the beginning of the 90s. This new situation took world war off the agenda for the foreseeable future, not so much because it would be blocked by the class struggle as in the previous phase, but as a result of capitalism’s own inability to impose the necessary discipline to cohere two blocs capable of waging a world war. These events opened up decadent capitalism’s final period: decomposition. Comrade MH rightly asks why has it taken the ICC 30 years to come to the conclusion that the term “historic course” no longer applied in this new period. An important part of this delay was due to not wanting to throw the baby out with the bath water. We wanted to follow Bilan’s example of fully understanding the new period before changing analysis. However, there was also a weight of an attachment to the safety blanket of the certainties of old analysis. At the 23rd congress the ICC was able to make a decisive theoretical step forward, and draw all the conclusions of the analysis we had put forward three decades before. Better late than never, and much better with theoretical conviction!

The three main elements of comrade MH’s criticisms are:

- Has the ICC abandoned its previous clarity on imperialist war?

­- Has the ICC abandoned its analysis of the balance of class forces?

- What is the validity of the ICC’s conclusion about the notion of the historic course in the phase of decomposition?

We are preparing further contributions on the question of the historic course. On the other two issues the  response will commence with the question of imperialism because our understanding of this fundamental aspect of the international situation is vital to a more profound grasp of the reasons why we have refined our position on the historic course

Has the ICC abandoned the idea that decadent capitalism is spiralling into imperialist barbarism?

The ICC made a critical re-examination of its theory of the historic course because the historical conditions have changed. In a situation where world war is not on the agenda (possibly permanently) the determining factor in this period is no longer the ability or inability of the proletariat to block decadent capitalism’s dynamic towards world war. Comrade MH argues that “...the ICC’s view that world war is no longer a threat, or at the very least is unlikely, which is surely the most dangerously naïve aspect of the position defended by its latest congress resolutions, and the most glaring example of schematic thinking, of attachment to ‘once-valid theses’”.

The comrade believes the ICC has turned its back on the “Theses on Decomposition”[5] concerning the imperialist perspective following the collapse of the imperialist blocs.  The Theses argue that while the new situation  was preventing the formation of new blocs and reducing, if not eliminating, the possibility of world war, humanity was still faced with the threat of destruction: “In the end, it is all the same whether we are wiped out in a rain of thermo-nuclear bombs, or by pollution, radioactivity from nuclear power stations, famine, epidemics, and the massacres of innumerable small wars (where nuclear weapons might also be used).” (Point 11). Comrade MH describes this latter scenario as generalised war. However,  he feels that the ICC’s new analysis calls this into question by clinging “on to the rigid schema that unless two imperialist blocs are formed (two blocs, note; not even three of four), there can be no world war. It fails to even consider the possibility that, in the unprecedented conditions in which we find ourselves today, with the increasing tendency for the bourgeoisie to lose control over its political apparatus, the growth of populism and proliferation of terrorism, etc., this assumption may no longer be valid”.

The ICC’s fixation on the question of whether it is possible or not to form military blocs ends up seriously underestimating the strong and increasingly uncontrollable tendencies towards generalised war in decomposing capitalism” (our emphasis).

The comrade’s criticisms are thus:

- the ICC’s analysis that the dynamic towards the formation of blocs and world war is undermined by decomposition and the collapse of the blocs is a rigid schema

- the ICC is seriously underestimating the tendencies towards generalised war.

In order to answer these criticisms it is necessary to restate some fundamental points about our analysis of world war, militarism, state capitalism and blocs. The domination of society by militarism and imperialist war is one of the main manifestations of capitalism’s entry into decadence, as graphically demonstrated by World War One. The omnipresence of war in decadence has given rise to two central characteristics of this period: state capitalism and imperialist blocs. State capitalism “corresponds to the need for each country to ensure the maximum discipline from the different sectors of society and to re­duce as far as possible the confrontations both between classes and between fractions of the ruling class, in order to mobilise and control its entire economic potential with a view to con­frontation with other nations” (“Militarism and Decomposition”). Imperialist blocs correspond to the necessity to impose a similar discipline over the antagonism between the different states within it in order to confront the enemy bloc. These two characteristics have taken on increasing importance within the history of decadent capitalism. Thus over the course of the last century we have seen two world wars fought out between two blocs, and the period following World War II dominated by the division of the world into two blocs.

Within this dynamic it is essential to understand that the formation of imperialist blocs is not at the root of militarism and imperialism. On the contrary, their formation is only the extreme consequence of the plunge into militarism and war in decadent capitalism.

The disappearance of the old bloc system due to the collapse of the Eastern bloc was the most dramatic manifestation of decomposition and fragmentation becoming the decisive dynamic in the capitalist system. The tensions between the states within the bloc,  internal tensions, centrifugal forces, the underming of any cohesion of the Stalinist bourgeoisie due to the irresponsibility and self-seeking of its vast bureaucratic machinery,  were not confined to the Eastern bloc, even if they took on aberrant forms there. They were manifestations of the rotting of capitalist society which were also visible in the Western bloc, even if better contained by a more sophisticated bourgeoisie and its state. The collapse of the other bloc  unleashed all the mutual antagonisms between states that had been held in check by the discipline of the Western bloc.  The last 30 years has seen no lessening of this centrifugal tendency of every man for himself as testified by the  1991 Gulf War, Balkans wars, Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, Syria, etc etc

This process underlines the relationship between imperialist blocs and imperialism in the same way as the relationship between Stalinism and state capitalism. Stalinism’s collapse did not call into question the tendency towards state capitalism; and neither does the collapse of the old bloc system cast into doubt imperialism’s vice like grip over society. There is however a difference between the collapse of Stalinism and that of the blocs: the downfall of Stalinism expressed the crumbling of an aberrant form of state, whereas “ the end of the blocs only opens the door to a still more barbaric, aberrant, and chaotic form of imperialism” (Ibid)

It is difficult to understand MH’s assertion that manifesatations of the continuing rotting of capitalist society as the bourgeoisie’s growing loss of control of its political apparatus, populism, and the proliferation of terrorism should make us reconsider our argument that decomposition has undermined the dynamic towards blocs and world war. These manifestations are expressions of the same dynamics.The comrade offers no argumentation as to why they are infact leading to the levels of cohesion needed for blocs.

The fundamental characteristics of decadent capitalism - militarism, imperialist war, state capitalism -  have in no way been undermined by decomposition or the collapse of the blocs. Instead a whole Pandora’s box of imperialist chaos and barbarism has been opened. The perspective is towards local and regional wars, their spread towards the very centres of capitalism through the proliferation of terrorism, along with growing ecological disaster,  and the general putrefaction of capitalist society.

It is equally hard to fathom from the comrade’s arguments why he thinks the ICC’s new analysis dangerously underestimates the dynamic toward generalised war. In the International Situation Resolution adopted by the 23rd ICC congress, which contains this dangerous analysis, the very next point underlines the growing imperialist threat to humanity:

“...the global situation has only confirmed this trend towards worsening chaos, as we observed a year ago:

 ‘… The development of decomposition has led to a bloody and chaotic unchaining of imperialism and militarism;

 - the explosion of the tendency of each for himself has led to the rise of the imperialist ambitions of second and third level powers, as well as to the growing weakening of the USA’s dominant position in the world;

 - The current situation is characterised by imperialist tensions all over the place and by a chaos that is less and less controllable; but above all, by its highly irrational and unpredictable character, linked to the impact of populist pressures, in particular to the fact that the world’s strongest power is led today by a populist president with temperamental reactions.” (International Review 161, "Analysis of Recent Developments in Imperialist Tensions, June 2018").

The dynamic towards increasing imperialist chaos demands a clear understanding of the balance of class forces

In a world situation where world war is not on the agenda, the notion of the historic course is no longer valid. This concept was based on the fact that decadent society between 1914 and 1989 was dominated by the question of world war. The contradictions of decadent capitalism drove society towards world war. However the ability of the ruling class to unleash such a global conflagration depended upon the ability to mobilise the proletariat on the fronts and in the workplace in order to defend to the death the national interest. Betwen 1968-1989, the proletariat engaged in three waves of international struggles against the impact of the economic crisis. In this situation it was impossible for the ruling class to get the proletariat to sacrifice its own defense for that of the nation state in a new world war. The waves went through advances and retreats but the historic dynamic towards world war was held in check. This struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie in the context of possible world war was what we called the Historic Course. Within this overall dynamic we said that the dynamic of the proletarian struggle was  towards decisive class confrontations, opening up the prospect of a revolutionary challenge to capitalism. With the collapse of the blocs, the historic framework was no longer one of two blocs preparing for war but one of imperialist indiscipline and mounting chaos. In this situation the historic course no longer had theoretical validity.

Comrade MH is convinced that by developing its analysis to assimilate the full consequences of the period opened up by 1989 the ICC has changed its position on the class struggle:

“The ICC has concluded that in the phase of decomposition the concept of a ‘historic course’ is no longer valid. In other words, it no longer defends the position that there is a ‘course towards class confrontations’.

Why? Because it has now concluded that in the phase of decomposition the balance of class forces is no longer the determining factor in “the general dynamics of capitalist society”.

And why is this? Because today, “Whatever the balance of forces, world war is no longer on the agenda, but capitalism will continue to sink into decay”

The above explanation of the reasons for the evolution of our analysis does not call into question the vital importance of the balance of class forces for the future of humanity. The inner laws of decomposing capitalism are driving capitalist society ever deeper into worsening economic crisis, imperialist wars, social decay. The only force in society capable of stopping this insanity is the proletariat and its revolutionary struggle. This point is emphasised in all the reports and resolutions adopted by the 23rd Congress.

The question of the ability of the proletariat to develop its struggle still clearly contains the perspective of the potential for the proletariat to eventually develop its struggle towards decisive confrontations with the ruling class. Decisive because they will involve massive struggles by the proletariat marked by tendencies towards self-organisation, a developing class consciouss focused on a growing understanding that it is the proletariat that holds the future of humanity in its hands. If these struggles are organised by workers’ assemblies which regroup the class across all boundries and which look towards spreading them to other countries, then the possiblity of the proletariat engaging in revolutionary struggles will be a reality.

By saying that the historic course is no longer applicable to this period does not mean saying that the ability of the proletariat to advance its struggle towards once again posing the possibility of decisive class confrontations no longer exists. It means that this perspective will have to develop in the context of increasingly difficult circumstances for the proletariat. Unlike world war, the proletariat cannot hold back decomposition. 

Maintaining the analysis of the historic course would mean denying the profound change of the historical context of the class struggle. A denial that would disarm the organisation in front of the complex and extremely dangerous challenges facing the development of the class struggle. This is because unlike world war, decomposition, and the spiral into chaos, does not depend upon the ability of the ruling class to mobilise the proletariat. Decomposition, the rotting of capitalism, will continue until humanity is destroyed. The only things that can stop the completion of this process is the proletariat’s destruction of capitalism. Until then capitalist society will continue to be sink into decay and barbarism. The impact of this decay on the proletariat is above all to eat away at its principal strengths: class consciousness, its capacity to organise, its solidarity.

The reports and resolutions adopted by the  23rd congress seek to elucidate these challenges and their implications.  It would be tempting to play down the challenge facing the proletariat, but the revolutionary organisation’s role is not to console itself or the proletariat but to state as clearly as possible the stakes of the situation facing the proletariat and humanity.

The resolution on the balance of class forces[6] lays out the way in which decomposition, the collapse of the blocs and the subsequent profound reflux of consciousness and combativity have had a profound impact on the proletariat, resulting in a situation where the proletariat has lost confidence in its ability to defend itself, let alone being a social force with a decisive role to play. The depth of this retreat and consequent disorientation within the proletariat has to be clearly understood. The dangers of this situation are made clear, notably the danger of the class being drowned in a sea of inter-classist struggles against the unfolding ecological disaster or mobilized behind populist or anti-populist movements.

Examined in their totality the recent reports and resolutions on the international situation and its different compoments make is cystal clear that the ICC still defends the centrality of the proletarian struggle in this new period.

The meaning of defeats of the proletariat in decomposition

Comrade MH is also concerned by the following:

“In the paradigm that defines the current situation (until two new imperialist blocs are reconstituted, which may never happen), it is quite possible that the proletariat will suffer a defeat so deep that it will definitively prevent it from recovering, but it is also possible that it will suffer a deep defeat without this having a decisive consequence for the general evolution of society.” (RintSit)

The comrade poses the following questions:

“we are forced to ask: what is this ‘general evolution of society’ that could “possibly ‘not be affected by a deep defeat of the proletariat’?  How could a deep defeat of the proletariat not have a decisive consequence for balance of class forces and therefore for the determination of the historic outcome: socialism or barbarism? How could such a defeat not constitute a qualitative step towards full-blown barbarism and a further erosion of the material conditions for a communist society? As the resolution on the balance of class forces itself states: the proletariat ‘remains an obstacle to the full descent into barbarism’ – but if it suffers a deep defeat, even if it is not definitive, surely this can only weaken the proletariat as an 'obstacle' and accelerate the descent into barbarism?

Of course we are in a historically unprecedented situation today. But we are entitled to ask what evidence the ICC has for its assertion?”

The comrade appears to forget that we are talking about a decisive defeat in a situation where such a defeat would not necessarily open the door to world war. We say clearly in this situation that the proletariat could suffer such a devastating defeat that it would not recover, thus leaving no potential alternative for humanity. But we also underline that it could suffer a deep defeat but without it having a decisive impact because it could have time to recover due to world war not being the outcome of such a defeat.

This does not mean that such a defeat would not have implications:

• A weakened proletariat would make the fight its to impose its alternative more problematic
• The ability of the proletariat to hold back the imperialist ambitions of the bourgeoisie would be weakened and thus the decent into imperialist barbarism would be accelerated.
• It would allow the bourgeoisie to have a freer hand in its struggle against the proletariat.

Nevertheless such a defeat would not necessarily open the door to a global conflagration.

The implications of such a defeat would also depend upon which parts of the proletariat were most directly effected. The defeat of the proletariat in Western Europe, due to its historical experience would pose a greater danger to the class than that of a fraction of the proletariat in say Latin America.

It is always essential to bear in mind that, in the absence of a proletarian revolution, decomposition will eventually undermine the very conditions for communism through the destruction of the proletariat’s ability to develop its consciousness.

In this situation understanding the balance of class forces between the proletariat and bourgeoisie takes on even greater importance.

In the present situation of the continued retreat of the proletariat, it is a crucial responsibility of revolutionary organisations to be able to shine the starkest possible light on the difficulties of the proletariat and the way forward out of this retreat. This can only be done based on the clearest possible understanding of the international situation.

If the proletariat cannot push back decomposition it can certainly determine its ability to develop its struggles towards the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. The conditions for this struggle are today much more difficult than in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The proletariat and its political minorities cannot become caught up in a nostalgic longing for a return to those times. It is vital that we develop the deepest possible understanding of the challenges of this period, above all the enormous dangers facing it.

Conclusion

We want to salute once again the comrade’s serious concerns about the implications of our recent congress resolutions. The need to reply to the comrade means that we have had to test our analysis against serious criticism. We could well have made a mistake. In such a situation the comrade’s sense of proletarian responsibility could have convinced of our error. We do not think we have made a mistake. In fact we are convinced that the resolutions of the 23rd Congress are in full continuity with our previous analysis, as we hope to have proved in this reply.

The concern that the ICC has abandon its previous clarity on imperialist wars has been shown to be incorrect. The ICC, far from underestimating the imperialist dynamics at play, has developed a framework for understanding their accentuation in this period. The collapse of the bloc system has opened up period of accelerated imperialist tensions which have already costs countless lives in major wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, and wars that have received less attention, such as the endemic wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Militarism and imperialist wars are still fundamental characteristics of this final phase of decadence, even if the imperialist blocs have disappeared and are probably not going to form again.

The ICC has not abandoned the perspective of possible future class confrontations. The future of humanity is still dependent upon the ability of the proletariat to break free from its retreat and to once again raise the possibility of decisive class confrontations. However, this potential faces an enormous challenge because the development of the struggles will not hold back decomposition’s tearing apart of society, unlike its previous ability to hold back war. In this new period there is much less to be certain about than in the period between 1968 and 1989. This can be disconcerting and lead to a search for the comfort of old ‘certainties’.

Revolutionaries however, have no interest in reassuring themselves or the class that all will be well. This was not the case during the period where the concept of a historic course still applied. The class struggle involved two classes and the bourgeoisie could have defeated the proletariat in that period; it was certainly able to stop it developing its revolutionary alternative. And the implication of decomposition is that we are also faced with the prospect of the putrefaction of capitalism destroying humanity even without a frontal defeat of the working class. The proletariat and its revolutionary minorities are not children to be reassured. To free itself and the rest of society from this growing nightmare, it has to be fully conscious of the extremely grave threats undermining its ability to carry out its historic role. It is the duty of any revolutionary organisation worth its salt to shine the starkest possible light on the reality of the challenge facing the proletariat. We are convinced that the analysis we are developing is best equipped to do this, but this discussion will certainly continue. We are still at the beginnings of fully understanding all the implications of the unfolding period, and criticism and debate is the only way to develop the clearest way forward for our analyses of the world situation.   

Phil, September 2019

 

Over a hundred years ago Frederick Engels stated that, if left to its own devices, capitalism would lead society into barbarism and ruin. Today, we can say that this is already happening and that if unchecked it will continue to do so and drag us down with it. 

While the likes of President Trump and his placemen play the pantomime villains regarding the damage being done to the world and its future by capitalism, all of capitalism’s national states, its "international organisations", its bosses, political parties, trade unions and environmental groups recognise the deadly future that awaits humanity and are, more or less, actively vocal about it. But none of these capitalist states, nor their institutions, can halt this descent into oblivion because there's not a snowball's chance in hell that these same states can cooperate given the rivalry that is intrinsic to capitalism. In fact, the competitive and cut-throat dynamic of the economic system that directs these states and institutions not only renders its organisations all fundamentally impotent in the face of such an impending disaster, however conscious they are of the growing dangers to humanity; they also, whatever the colour of their governments, become an active factor behind this completely irrational drive towards the cliff edge.

There have been two recent important examples of the above that are completely related and come from the same capitalist source: 1. Militarism/imperialism and 2. Environmental destruction.

The Arctic region opens up: imperialist benefits of global warming

Trump's attempt to buy Greenland, not a bad suggestion for the interests of US imperialism from the deal-maker-in-chief, raised the more serious question of the opening up of accessible navigational sea and land routes in and around the Arctic as the region warms more than twice the global average and the ice rapidly melts. While the Polar Cap warms so do imperialist actions and tensions around the region where Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the US have interests and with more countries flocking in. The region is said to contain 13% of the world's oil, rare-earth minerals, natural gas, zinc, iron, etc., and these are all factors in this new "scramble" for the Arctic, just as there were economic factors in the fundamentally similar scramble and carve-up of Africa in the nineteenth century.  The coming imperialist drive in the Arctic has the same dynamic as that in nineteenth-century Africa but takes place in conditions where the world is already carved-up between the major powers but where, as Rosa Luxemburg said a hundred years ago, they still have to confront their rivals and invade every possible area of the planet.

In a sort of irony, past imperialist conflict over the Arctic (USA, Canada, Russia, in the main) have been "frozen conflicts"[1] but they are warming up now in a situation where the basic rules of the game no longer apply and more and more international treaties are breaking down. The yearly Arctic Council meeting a few months ago, involving some of the interests of the indigenous people,"...was highjacked by Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, ignoring the meeting's aim of balancing all the climate challenges and development, Pompeo attacked Russia and China, for ‘aggressive behaviour’, said collaboration would not work and vetoed a communiqué because it mentioned climate change" (Simon Tisdall, see footnote 1). The US has also recently refused to ratify the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea, which up to now has been generally adhered to by all countries.

With its general weakening over the last couple of decades, US imperialism is late in the game here and Russian and Chinese cooperation is being established in the region, a cooperation which carries a direct strategic threat to the American state. The Pentagon has already stated that Russia regarded itself as "a Polar great power" and was building "new military bases along its coastline and (making) a concerted effort to establish air-defence and a coastal missile systems" (Ibid). Russia also plans for new Arctic ports and infrastructure while other smaller nations outside of the US, Canada, Denmark, are examining their interests here and China has recently declared itself a "near Arctic state" as it increases direct cooperation with Russia. There is an economic focus of despoliation, at least at the beginning of this free-for-all, but the military-strategic dynamic of imperialism - "The historical method for prolonging the life of capitalism" and the source of its "period of catastrophes"[2]  - is the motor force here.

In the military manoeuvres about to take place in the Arctic, like the various ongoing military "exercises" all over the world, let alone their actual wars, the military machines burn up staggering amounts of fossil fuel and leave the polluting scars of their weapons; and, in the case of the Arctic, they will be covering the ice with a layer of filth that will further reduce its reflective quality.

Capitalism has always polluted its own nest but what's different today is that it's becoming clear that it is an increasing threat to the continued existence of humanity and possibly all life on Earth. It's not just the wipe-out threat of nuclear weapons[3], now back with a vengeance, but a whole range of actions and consequences: destruction of the soil, the animal world, the environment, nature in general. Capitalism and its ruling class have always fought wars. Up until the 20th century, some of them served a progressive function in clearing away obsolete systems of exploitation like feudalism and slavery. But the imperialist wars of capitalism today have become totally irrational even from the point of view of capitalist economics. This is a great contradiction within the system but its ruling class simply adapts, sometimes with some difficulties, to its own decomposition because there is no other future for it. War now brings little or no reconstruction. In the Middle East whole cities have been turned to toxic rubble by all the major - and local - powers for nearly three decades now. And what's the result of all this death, destruction, pollution and disease, what is its return? Nothing in economic terms; trillions of dollars have literally gone up in smoke. And much less than nothing in social terms: these wars, like other wars in Africa, Asia and the general breakdown of Latin America, offer only more chaos, instability and unpredictability that will guarantee their perpetuation as long as this system lasts. This element of the disintegration and decomposition of the social order has, for the last couple of decades, also resulted in generating the fear and flight of tens of millions of refugees as well as the major development of terrorism, itself an element of capitalist decomposition that will not go away – as evidenced by Isis making a comeback in Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen.

The imperialist space opera

It's not just the whole regions of the planet that have been carved up, trashed and turned into war-zones by imperialism: outer space itself has, for some time now, been declared a battleground. A few decades ago, there were dreams, awe-inspired hopes and mysteries to space-exploration that seemed to offer a future to humanity. It was an illusion that's been turned to dust by capitalism.

Recently, the United States "Space-Com" commander, General John Raymond has declared space "a vital (US) national interest" and outer space "a war-fighting domain" (The Observer, 1.9.2019). Britain has shown it is ready to follow this bizarre free-for-all by joining the Pentagon-led "space-defence programme", Operation Olympic Defence. China, India and the US have already tested their missiles systems in space, leaving their debris orbiting the Earth.

The military and repressive component of capitalism grows ever stronger and deeper; science and production is ever-more devoted to producing the means of destruction and this on the back of the increased exploitation of the working class.

Amazon forest fires: the tip of the iceberg (so to speak)

It's not just people like Trump who deny the fundamental responsibility of capitalism in the destruction of the planet. From the liberals and the left comes the idea that capitalism can still be positive, that it can continue to create, build and produce. And there's an element of truth in this. But behind and underneath every capitalist advance, such as they are nowadays compared to its past, behind every major sporting or entertainment extravaganza for example or every shiny new building erected in its financial and wealthier districts, lies the innate drive of capitalism to destruction. These gleaming, seductive and illusory trinkets of capital are similar to the radioactive blueberries from Chernobyl packaged in fancy boxes and wrapped up with ribbons and bows. They should fool nobody.

Record fires in the Amazon rainforest have increased since the takeover of the new, right-wing president, Bolsonaro, but things wouldn't have been much different with a left-wing leader. Bolivia (where the left-wing, self-styled "Defender of Mother Earth", Evo Morales has introduced the same policies as Bolsonaro), Paraguay and Colombia have suffered from record fires which both increase global warming and decrease the ability of the planet to cope with it: i.e., its "lungs" are weakened. Fires increase in Central Africa and while these can be recovered from the cycle of fire and re-growth, they are becoming more closely linked to wars and decomposition in the region (the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example). The countries of Europe and Asia have seen their forests more than decimated in the drive for profits while not forgetting the massive blazes in the Arctic region of Russia.

The despoliation of the planet is not just a feature of capitalist society but, as Marx and Engels made clear[4], belongs to a long line of destruction of the environment by the ruling classes and their oppressive regimes that have existed since the beginning of Civilisation. But capitalism has accelerated this process many-fold with its global state-controlled drives and the artifice of debt-financed production, "planned obsolescence", production of junk producing more waste and the mountains of unsold commodities that pile up while large sections of the working class continue to live in misery, hunger and want.

A while ago the British bourgeoisie was trumpeting the cleaning up of the environment, its rivers and beaches notably. This was largely due to a period of de-industrialisation, and while "showcase" stretches of the Thames have been kept relatively clean, things are generally getting back to "normal" now with rivers and seas used as sewers for industrial and human waste[5]. And, like all states, while they are responsible, they turn the culpability for this back on us saying that it is "everyone's responsibility to save the planet" as if a collection of any number of helpless individuals can do anything about it[6] with a spot of litter-picking while the carbon emissions and the destruction of the biosphere by the state and vast capitalist monopolies reaches new levels.

Despite its new "shiny" productions, its continuing expansion into every last corner of the world, capitalism cannot even keep up with the maintenance of its existing decaying structures and infrastructures: transportation, bridges, dams, living accommodation, sanitation, health, etc., and all these elements are made more problematic by the effects of climate change. In the quest for the maximisation of profits China is no different from anywhere else here; rather it's an example of the future. Instead of building up a sound infrastructure from its massive production, it has, in its drive for the maximisation of profits through particularly ruthless and policed exploitation, “built up” the destruction of the environment and spread the resulting pollution well beyond its borders.

There are others who say what we need are state-organised, common-sense, liberal policies to mitigate the effects of production for profit but this is a utopian vision that is asking for capitalism to stop being capitalism. Good-thinking, liberal forces within the state are impotent in the face of a system without a future. Marx said that the existence of the bourgeoisie was "no longer compatible with society". With the development of its final stage, that of its decomposition, capitalism, its states and its representative elements (from the right or left) can only be subject to the still-more prevailing force of "everyman for himself", wall-building and dog eat dog. Because both on the imperialist level, as on the ecological level, capitalism is not only unable to cooperate internationally, but has rather to increase its rivalries and the pace of competition as its economic crisis deepens. In the face of the most important and pressing need of the mass of humanity - a healthy life and planet for future generations - capitalism can only offer more militarism and more ecological destruction, containing the possibility of wide-scale, irreversible ruin.

There is one force capable of arresting and overturning this descent

And that is the working class. In times of crisis, and this is definitely a time of crisis, it is necessary to go back to the fundamentals of the workers' movement. Essential to these fundamentals is the concept that class struggle is the motor force of society. It's not a pre-determined, linear process but advances, innovates, invents, regresses, gets caught in dead-ends. Throughout class-divided society, from about five thousand years ago, different forms of society have risen and fallen: despotism, slavery, feudalism. And here we stand at the denouement of this process: bourgeoisie and proletariat. It is certainly still around but we haven't seen much of the working class lately, especially with the news being dominated by the contortions and hysterics of the bourgeoisie - which is also an attack on the working class. While the working class daily runs the machinery of the massive service sector, transportation, provides power and the essentials of life, produces almost everything, at the present moment is has lost confidence in itself and the links with its historic struggle have been weakened. But this is a class with a history, a revolutionary history which makes it a revolutionary class with a future. It's not just the pinnacles that it reached: 1871, 1905, 1917-26, 1968 and the late 70's, but the whole of its struggles where there are endless examples of their self-organisation, their political strength and depth with the moral underpinning of a class with a future. 

This perspective of a class with a future is underlined by the fact that: "Capitalist society, as well as sacrificing everything to the pursuit of profit and competition has also, inadvertently, produced the elements for its destruction as a mode of exploitation. It has created the potential technological and cultural means for a unified and planned world system of production attuned to the needs of human beings and nature. It has produced a class, the proletariat, which has no need for national or competitive prejudices, and every interest in developing international solidarity. The working class has no interest in the rapacious desire for profit. In other words capitalism has laid the basis for a higher order of society, for its supersession by socialism. Capitalism has developed the means to destroy human society, but it has also created its own gravedigger, the working class, that can preserve human society and take it to a higher level"[7].

The present state of its weakness, if persisting, raises the possibility that the working class could simply be side-stepped by a decomposing capitalism resulting in what Marx and Engels called "the common ruin of contending classes"[8]. To consider the real and dreadful possibility of the destruction of the planet by the dynamics and forces of capitalism is not to fatally accept it. On the contrary, nothing is written in advance and this increases the responsibility and necessity for the proletariat's revolutionary minority to put forward analyses that clearly lay out the stakes in the class struggle. Rather than a fatalist acceptance along the lines of panic and the idea that "we are all doomed", the present descent of capitalism into the abyss can be a spur, an element in the development of class consciousness in the sense that it is becoming apparent that, as Marx and Engels indicated in The Communist Manifesto, the present state of things has rendered the present society and its perspectives untenable. Thus the only possible result that can avoid the future destruction that capitalism holds for us, the only possible result for the defence of the whole of humanity, is the active emergence of the proletariat: a class with a future.

Baboon, 4.9.2019

We publishing these extracts from a recent exchange of correspondence with a young reader in Arizona, focussing on the question of elections. In the original message sent by this comrade, he said he was in general agreement with our platform, which he considered to be “thorough and detailed”. However, he expressed one major disagreement: against our “rigid anti-parliamentarianism” he argued that communists can use elections “strictly as a platform to gain public attention”. In order to take the discussion forward, we asked him whether he had read some of the works of Bordiga, Gorter and Pannekoek, and some articles published by the ICC on the question, outlining the marxist basis for opposing the use the elections and parliament in the epoch of proletarian revolution. We received the following response, and our own reply follows. Since then we have received a second letter defending the tactical use of elections. We also agreed with the comrade that it would be useful to publish this correspondence. We aim to publish this second reply, and our response to that, in the near future.

 

1 June
My position regarding parliamentarianism, is for me, a strictly situational stance. I am quite familiar with many, not all of the works you listed, and those which I am not familiar I will make sure to look into quite soon. Just as in comrade Gorter's letter to Lenin, all tactics are relative to the material situations of the time and the place. I think that now, and in America, as that is the only place I can speak for, the American Proletariat at least, or maybe the western proletariat needs to be shown the faults in the system and they need to be shown that the bourgeois state is for the bourgeoisie and not for them. As of this very moment the mass of the Proletariat sides with the bourgeois class and with that the bourgeois state over the Communistic parties, and that's when they acknowledge the Communistic parties as legitimate forces.

I think now more than ever we need to take a strong and serious public platform, against the right populism and social democracy which is in such a great rise in the western countries. I don't see enough success coming from newspapers, which no one reads these days, or from the internet even. I think it would be risky, risking the corruption of the bourgeois state, but the legitimacy of the bourgeois state held in the public opinion these days should not be overlooked as a ripe opportunity. We as communists need to have the mass Proletariat on our sides, or when the next crisis comes they may side with the popular reactionary forces. I don't think participation in the bourgeois state is a sustainable tactic, nor do I see holding political office as a means toward progressing through the revolution. However, I do see it as a possibly vital method toward building the Communistic movement needed to sustain the revolution. If we were to send people to run in elections, just to use as much screen time as possible, not even for trying to get into office, but just using the platform, we may have a great way to spread our message to an audience that would have never otherwise gone out to read Marx themselves, or to open or read the articles on your website, or to go out and picket. 

We can see now the mass distrust in the system that already exists, sadly, most of this distrust has been taken out in the past by voting for far right reactionaries. We need to seize what may be the only opportunity we have, to take control and shape the realm of thinking for the mass proletariat. If on the debate stage you see one conservative party leader, a 'progressive' liberal party leader, and then a third, Communist party leader, who unlike the corrupted communist parties tells you, 'you don't have to vote, it's a sham any ways' and who tells you that there is a reasonable answer to your hard comings, and that if only you could take control of your workplace, and if you could be empowered to enact change, yourself as a worker'. Then, we may have a properly inspired, and a properly revolutionary proletariat waiting to take advantage of the Bourgeoisie's mismanagement of society trigger a mass strike and usher in the revolution. Upon the birth of the Left Communist movement was talk of proper communistic propaganda, to radicalize the masses, today in order to prove ourselves to the masses through propaganda, I believe we ought to legitimize ourselves by undermining the bourgeois mass media, and initiating almost a two front war through the internet and through the television to win over the hearts of disaffected workers. I seem to be repeating myself an awful lot, but I think every word is important. I must make clear, I do not advocate for a communist party to wait around for a ballot every couple years, I advocate for a communist party which may use the Bourgeoisie's own mechanisms against it, not through reform, but strictly for communication, and should a comrade of this party be elected, the must stand so a strict and unrelenting total abstention, as to not legitimize bourgeois policies. I think that if one were to set up just a couple of campaign posters in some place where the working class is at a terrible low, like in Oakland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit or wherever, that says vote for ___ to fuck that system 2020 people would celebrate the rebellious attitude, not to mention the media attention such a thing would gain, I think even one or two of such candidates would gain enough attention to bring the Communistic forces back to the forefront of the political movement. 

Other than the question of the elections, I see no divergence from myself and the left communist program. Like I said I am familiar with the struggles of our previous comrades who had been at odds with Stalinism, and with bourgeois elements and had been witch-hunted, and who struggled to create an international front. I think they built a foundation that was meant to adapt through the generations, and was able to change to better compliment contradictory situations that have come or may come in the near or far future, and I only hope for the best possible development for our revolutionary struggle to come and to do so in a great dignified fashion.


Dear comrade

Thank you for your rapid reply.  In this letter we want to concentrate more on your arguments in favour of defending the use of revolutionary parliamentarianism.

The first point we would like to make is that participation in parliamentary elections always implies that we look at what the “representatives” say in their “fine” speeches, i.e. workers are encouraged to be passive and listen to what the “representatives” say. But we think, on the contrary, that the working class cannot remain passive, but must take the initiative itself. Instead of encouraging people to “watch the others speak”, we say: take the initiative yourselves, come together and discuss, clarify, discuss proposals for action, examine the roots of our problems and how we can push back the capitalist class… Such an orientation – calls for self-organisation instead of “watching the shows in parliament”, calls for coming together instead of being “atomised” through the ballot boxes, calls to take your destiny into your own hands, to reflect on how to establish contact with combative workers elsewhere, to discuss about the root causes of the crisis, war, ecological destruction – is the only one that will allow the class to develop confidence in itself, to see it does exist as a class and that it is a counter-pole to the capitalist class.

In other words, the role of communists is not to trust in the parliamentary representatives, but to encourage the class to struggle, to develop its own force. Thus with the appeal for participation in election with the hope of denouncing the system from the parliamentary tribune – you only prevent the class from taking action itself.

Liebknecht, who was a famous representative of Social-Democracy in parliament in Germany could not contribute to the mobilisation of the working class against war from the parliamentary tribune, but he had to speak in public, in the street, on a square in front of thousands of protesters, who in turn felt their own strength there. Hearing speeches in parliament does not allow you to develop any sense of strength, it only contributes to a feeling of helplessness.

What distinguishes communists is their capacity to encourage the class to organise itself, to take its destiny in its hands and not increase its passivity.

This leads us to the second response we want to make. Your arguments for your radically critical support for revolutionary parliamentarianism appears to be based on a vision of the proletariat as a passive mass awaiting the Communist Party to bring it enlightenment:  “We need to seize what may be the only opportunity we have, to take control and shape the realm of thinking for the mass proletariat”

Thus, for you the Communist Party’s role is to control and shape the thinking of the proletariat. As we say above for us the role of communists is to encourage the self-activity of the proletariat. We take this position because we do not see communist consciousness as something that is brought to the proletariat, as your argument would imply, but as a product of the class. Revolutionary organisation is the highest expression of the proletariat’s class consciousness. Thus the relationship of communist organisations to the class is to be an active factor in the development of its class consciousness. Communist organisations do not stand outside the class and bring consciousness from on high but are the clearest manifestation of this consciousness.

For more detailed analysis of our analysis of class consciousness and communist organisation we recommend the following:

- Our pamphlet Communist Organisations and class consciousness[1]

- On the Party and its relationship to the class,[2]

- Reply to the CWO: On the subterranean maturation of consciousness[3]

The relationship between the party or communist organisation to the rest of the proletariat is not a matter of will, which appears to be another part of your argument: if only we can get enough publicity we can win workers to communism. We think this is an erroneous idea. As you say in your letter the proletariat is in a very difficult situation. This is very true, but it cannot not be understood in an empirical manner, or like a photograph. It is in this present situation because of a whole historical process. We will not go into detail but with the end of the counter-revolution with the events of 68 and the waves of struggles that followed in the 60s,70s and 80s the proletariat took centre stage of the social situation. In response to the events of that period the international ruling class carried out a systematic offensive against the proletariat with the specific aim of preventing its politicisation. The whole apparatus of the bourgeoisie state - democracy, parliament, the Left, the unions - were thrown at the proletariat, which made the development of the struggles, above all their politicisation, extremely difficult. Then in 1989 the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the apparent triumph of capitalism and democracy along with the ‘death of communism’ threw the proletariat into a profound retreat, from which it has still not emerged. Thus today’s very real difficulties for the proletariat to even see itself as a class let alone understand the need for revolution has deep roots. The idea that a small minority of communists can simply overcome this by making mass propaganda through the use of elections, no matter how well intentioned, can only contribute to these difficulties by giving a radical gloss to the whole democratic process and reinforcing the atomised isolation of workers in their homes. As we say class consciousness can only develop through the active struggle of the proletariat ie through its economic, political and theoretical struggles. Communist organisations are an essential part of this struggle. The influence of this activity however depends upon the level of mobilisation of the proletariat in its struggle.

The influence of revolutionary organisations within the class at present is extremely limited. Even in the period between 1968 and 1989 their influence was very restricted, but in the context of the development of the open struggles it was possible to intervene in the most important struggles. This restricted influence was not due to lack of trying but because the counter-revolution had left a heavy weight of the proletariat: a strong distrust of political organisations claiming to defend communism. And the ruling class did all they could to reinforce this distrust. This situation was made qualitatively more difficult by the collapse of the old bloc system.

In this situation, it makes no sense to talk about the existence of a communist party, which implies an organisation that has a real influence within the class and which can thus only be formed in periods of heightened class struggle. One of the principal tasks of revolutionary organisations today is not to puff themselves up like a bullfrog and proclaim themselves as the party but to seriously prepare for its formation in the future, on the most solid basis possible.

The idea that the difficulties of the proletariat can be overcome by winning over as many workers as possible through the use of revolutionary parliamentarian has a tragic history. The opportunist fractions within the 3rd International believed that they could overcome the growing problems of the revolutionary wave by “going to the masses” (slogan of the 3rd Congress, 1921) and the “United Front” (4th Congress, 1922). Behind this idea was the vision of class consciousness as something brought to the class from the outside. Thus all the party had to do was gain wide enough influence and it would be able to win ever greater numbers to communism. This desperation meant abandoning ever more of the gains made in the initial period of the Communist International: a serious questioning of the use of parliament and the trade unions and an intransigent denunciation of the role of Social Democracy.

We look forward to your reply with great anticipation

Phil, for the ICC

Today, if you walk the streets of the towns and cities of Britain it seems that a permanent feature of city centres are desperate people, young and old, squatting in shop doorways begging for change.  A common assumption is that homeless people, many of them young, little more than kids, are begging in order to fuel a drug or alcohol habit. People pass them by, indifferent, never looking at them, not making eye contact, ignoring them.  But they are homeless, they are destitute. Just look at what they are lying on: cardboard boxes, which serve as mattresses, covered up and protected from the cold night by layers of duvets and blankets. They are the victims of capitalism, even if they are on drugs or plonked up on cheap alcohol, they are among the most vulnerable in capitalist society. The homeless are prone to mental instability, fundamental illnesses caused by sleeping rough, drug and alcohol addiction. Again and again they are kicked in the teeth, by local authorities denying them accommodation, by being kicked out of the family home, by landlords who want ‘reliable’ tenants.  The homeless include people who have been in a variety of institutions, from the armed forces, those who have lost their jobs, or have been refused asylum. Anyone with a precarious existence can become homeless.

The latest figures from homeless charity Shelter number 320,000 homeless in the UK. While only a few thousand are rough sleepers, many are in temporary accommodation, in shelters, hostels, B&Bs, refuges or other social housing. Recorded deaths among rough sleepers and those in temporary accommodation have more than doubled in the five years to 2018. Homeless people die much younger than the general population. Homeless men die on average aged 44, while homeless women die on average aged 42. The charity Crisis attributes rising homelessness to a shortage of social housing, housing benefits not covering private rents, and there not being homeless prevention schemes for people leaving care. There can be no doubt that this explosion in homelessness can only be attributed to the austerity drives which have led to cuts in social services. From 2010 to 2018 there was a relentless drive to cut benefits including housing allowances and this was particularly marked with young people, in the under 23s who were denied housing allowances and access to social housing.

In 2018, the government introduced the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) which was supposed to reduce homelessness. Although 52% of homeless young people who received no help last year should now receive support under the HRA, the homeless charity, Centrepoint, said councils were not properly funded to meet their new responsibilities. Just 13% of young people who presented to councils as homeless were deemed eligible to be housed, while 35% received alternative support, ranging from mediation aimed at moving them back into the family home, to help with a rent deposit etc. Being thrown out of the family home after a row was the biggest cause of youth homelessness (37%), followed by being forced to move out of shared accommodation or a friend’s home (15%), and the ending of a tenancy by a private landlord (12%).

Sajid Javid (the new Chancellor of The Exchequer) introduced a one-year Spending Review which would supposedly alleviate the crisis of social deprivation by providing extra funding to Local Authorities. Besides being widely denounced as a cynical electoral ploy, the Institute for Fiscal Studies decried the levels of funding necessary to ‘reverse’ the massive loss in funding for the local councils. “Day-to-day public service spending was cut by around 9% between 2010−11 and 2018−19, equivalent to roughly £30 billion in today’s prices. An increase in spending in 2019−20, along with today’s announcements, means that in 2020−21 day-to-day spending will be just 3% below its level a decade earlier. Around two-thirds of the real cuts since 2010 will have been reversed, and around one third of the cuts to per-person spending. Much of this increase is driven by additional funding for the NHS, however. Once we strip out the Department of Health and Social Care, spending next year is set to be around 16% below its 2010−11 level. Only around a quarter of the cuts to non-Health areas of spending will have been reversed, and only around 15% of the per capita cuts to those areas.”  (IFS August 2019)

This means that the situation of homelessness and rough sleeping will persist, it will not go away, it is a condition of a rotten system. Javid’s Spending Review is part of the preparation for a possible election. There will be no alleviation from the attacks that cause social deprivation. It is the crisis of capitalism that lies at the root of poverty, of squalor, of despair, and the loss of hope. In Engels’ The Housing Question from 1872 he goes to the root of the question “As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution of the housing question or of any other social question affecting the fate of the workers. The solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation of all the means of life and labour by the working class itself.”

Melmoth 7/9/19

Situated and divided between India, Pakistan and China, all three of them nuclear powers, and claimed by both India and Pakistan, Kashmir has been a region of instability since the British left in 1947. It has been fought over in two wars between the states of the Subcontinent, and a war between India and China, which have cost an estimated 45,000 lives. The conflict has been continued with the Pakistan-backed Muslim separatists, costing tens of thousands more lives since 1989. The working class can expect nothing from these conflicts but to see workers and peasants, civilian or in uniform, being used as hostages and cannon fodder. Whether Kashmir is ruled by India or Pakistan, or divided between them, or independent, there is nothing to be gained by the working class, or the peasantry.

Six months after the confrontations at the Line of Control between Pakistan and Indian administered regions of Kashmir last February, Modi’s BJP government has revoked the territory’s status as an autonomous state, dividing it into two union territories ruled from Delhi. India began by turning away the 20,000 tourists and pilgrims that visit Kashmir in the summer months, on the grounds of possible terrorism from separatists. Then it prepared for the constitutional change by sending tens of thousands of troops ready to put the territory in ‘lockdown’, cutting communications and using pellet guns against the protests which arose. On the Pakistani side villagers have fled the line of control, fearing further fighting along it.

Economic crisis

The Modi government has claimed that it has acted to allow Kashmir to benefit from India’s economic growth, just when the Indian economy is heading into crisis. Moody’s has downgraded its forecast for Indian growth for 2019 from 7.5% to 6.2%, and it looks as if it will fall below 6%. Private sector investment is at a 15 year low. Car sales in July were 30% down, with an expected loss of around a million jobs, including those in the supply chain. Imports from China have doubled since 2014, while exports remain at 2011 levels. “Rajiv Kumar, the head of the government’s think tank Niti Aayog, recently claimed that the current slowdown was unprecedented in 70 years of independent India”[1]

Of course, the problems with the Indian economy are not specific to one country, but an aspect of the difficulties of the world economy. Pakistan has called on the IMF for help with its economic crisis.

Of course the action in Kashmir, fuelling Hindu nationalism, along with a campaign against corruption, particularly when carried out by the government’s foes, are distracting attention from these economic woes. The Economist has even suggested this is the purpose of the anti-corruption campaign. However, there are deeper underlying problems behind the move in Kashmir.

Feeding communal conflict

The removal of Kashmir’s special status was no whim, but part of the BJP programme at the last election. Nor did it just annul its autonomous status; it also rescinded the constitutional ban on outsiders buying land, which has been relied on by Kashmiri nationalists (and Pakistan) to prevent its Muslim majority population from being diluted by an influx from the rest of India. The BJP in fact propagates and benefits from a very divisive Hindu nationalism that has gained great popularity in India and even among the minority high caste Hindu population in Kashmir. A similarly divisive policy has been carried out in Assam where 1.9 million residents have been robbed of citizenship because they were unable to prove they had not moved from Bangladesh since 1971.

Unlike the nationalism of the 19th Century, which saw the unification of Germany and Italy, today’s nationalism tends to feed centrifugal tendencies. The Hindu nationalism of the BJP undermines the secular nationalism that has been necessary to the unity of India as a country with numerous religions and languages.[2] This is not a specifically Indian problem: we see parallels across the world. If Modi’s Kashmir policy has increased divisions in the Indian state, in the UK Brexit is fuelling Scottish nationalism and putting in question the conditions of the Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to the sectarian ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Neither nation faces an imminent break-up, but in both there are increased centrifugal tendencies. The measures against residents of Assam echo the Windrush scandal in Britain, in which thousands of people who had lived in the country since early childhood lost jobs and access to healthcare, and were even deported if they could not prove they had lived in the UK all their lives. It’s a similar story with the deportations of undocumented migrants in the USA. There have been increased murders of people accused of killing cows in India, murders of those accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, just as there were increased xenophobic attacks in Britain after the Brexit vote.

These are all examples of the rotting of a society that can give no perspective to humanity, not even the completely insane perspective of mutually assured destruction in war, while at the same time the working class is not able to show society its own revolutionary perspective[3].

Shifting alliances exacerbate instability in Kashmir

Despite Indian government protests, its action in Kashmir is anything but an internal matter, with repercussions felt far away. Pakistan’s PM, Imran Khan, has protested loudly, calling for it to be discussed in the UN Security Council, (a call supported by China), and threatening to take it to the International Court of Justice, as well as accusing India of acting like Nazis. Pakistan, with its porous Afghan border and tacit support for the Taliban, has threatened to move troops from the Afghan border to Kashmir, just when the US wants it to control that border because it is in talks with the Taliban with a view to withdrawing its troops. “Pakistan’s ambassador, Asad Majeed Khan, emphasised … that the Kashmir and Afghanistan issues were separate and that he was not attempting to link them. On the contrary, he said, Pakistan hoped the US-Taliban talks would succeed and that his country was actively supporting them. … India’s moves in Kashmir ‘could not have come at a worse time for us’, because Islamabad has sought to strengthen the military control along the western border with Afghanistan, an area long infiltrated by Taliban militants”[4]. Meanwhile, the Taliban has just invaded Kunduz in the North of Afghanistan.

In fact the conflict in Kashmir cannot be divorced from the overall shifting imperialist situation in Asia, with the growth of China as a rising power aiming to challenge the USA for control of the region. The Chinese expansion in the Indian Ocean compels all bordering states to position themselves. On the one hand China must push its Maritime Silk Road along the coasts of the Indian Ocean up to the Iranian coast. This creates additional tensions between Pakistan and India. In Pakistan, the port of Gwadar, not far from the Iranian border, will be connected to the extreme west of China after the construction of a 500 km road connection. The port should give Chinese trade easier access to the Middle East than by sea through the Strait of Malacca (between Malaysia and Indonesia). India is protesting against this road project that crosses part of Kashmir claimed by New Delhi. A new international airport is to be built in Gwadar.

And the Maritime Silk Project also pushes India to take counter-measures. On the one hand Iran does not want to be too dependent on China: this is why it seeks to strengthen its ties with India. India contributed to the construction of the new Iranian port of Chabahar, allowing India to avoid passing through Pakistan to reach Afghanistan. At the same time, India itself, which has had special links with Russia for decades, has intensified these, despite the fact that on a military level India has also tried to diversify its arms purchases at the expense of Russia, and that India is seen by the US as an important counter-weight against Chinese expansion. It has received American backing for its stronger militarisation, in particular increasing its nuclear capabilities. And together with Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan, India has been attempting for some time to establish an International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) which is to connect Mumbai to St Petersburg via Tehran and Baku/Azerbaijan.

In any conflict or tensions over Kashmir, India has to take account of Pakistan’s “all weather” alliance with China. In a past war, though it was not a military alliance, the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, which India had signed with the erstwhile Soviet Union before the 1971 war, ensured that China refrained from aiding Pakistan militarily during the war. The Indo-US strategic partnership has been described as India’s ‘principal’ strategic partnership. Its defence cooperation element does not offer such protection as its previous alliance with Russia in 1971.

The situation in India, Pakistan and Kashmir today show us what capitalism has to offer humanity: unstable imperialist tensions, communal conflicts, in a word a growing barbarism.  

Alex 5.9.19

This article, and the Update, were written by a close sympathizer of the ICC

 

Update: As this article was being finalised, the US experienced two more mass shootings on the weekend of August 3rd. In El Paso, TX a gunman opened fire at a Wal-Mart store killing over 20 people, many of them Hispanic. Later that same day, another assailant shot up Dayton Ohio’s cultural district killing 9, including his own sister.

The EL Paso shooter, like the attacker in Christchurch, New Zealand some months before, appears to have been inspired by conspiracy theories that suggest the “liberal elite” in the West is intentionally pursuing the “demographic replacement” of the white Christian population with foreign immigrants. If the attacker in New Zealand targeted Muslims, the El Paso shooter murdered Hispanics, who it is suggested are the greatest threat to the United States’ cultural and social integrity. The revelation of the shooters’ intentions immediately drove political and media denunciation of President Trump’s own rhetoric about immigration, as he has repeatedly referred to immigration as an “invasion.” Democrats running for President were swift to blame Trump for the shooting, pointing to his past incendiary rhetoric, including his recent comments about “the Squad”— the subject of this article—which they say demonstrate his commitment to racism and “white supremacy.”

While it’s true that Trump’s  harsh denunciations of immigration set a definite tone, it should be noted that concerns about the weight of Hispanic immigration on the US predate his entry into politics and have not been limited to hardened right-wing demagogues. The esteemed Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington’s 2004 book, “Who Are We?” was an early expression of an emerging national identity crisis, in which he expressly worried about the unique challenges posed by mass Hispanic immigration. Whereas others saw continued immigration as an integral and important part of the American story—its supposed history of openness, inclusiveness and diversity—Huntington worried about a loss of national identity, cultural Balkanization and the corrosion of civic life. Today, these debates around the meaning of “Americanness” have only accelerated and deepened in an increasingly hostile tone, with Trump taking the rhetoric on one side to levels of aggression that many in the media deem beyond the norms of bourgeois politics.  

But, it is important to note that Trump’s critics’ own response to his rhetoric is not free of similar illusions in national identity and the meaning of so-called American values. Even as their own rhetoric grows more and more radical in the face of Trump’s provocations, they nevertheless fail to transcend the terms of the debate framed by Trump about the meaning of national identity, citizenship, etc., often falling into a pointless back and forth about who are the “true Americans,” or who best upholds “American values.” The entire exercise remains trapped on the level of the national state, of who belongs and who doesn’t. This is true even when Trump’s opponents emote sympathy for so-called “open-borders.”  While they may express sympathy for the migrants coming to the border in search of a better life, they condemn those already here who want to limit immigration out of concern, real or imagined, for their own material conditions, often accusing them of racism, bigotry, intolerance, etc. While there can be no doubt that these elements exist, some of whom may have felt empowered by Trump’s victory, it’s not the case that the now longstanding political-electoral imbroglio over immigration can be written off solely to the moral failures of Trump voters. Doing so only furthers the ‘culture wars’ and reintroduces the very divisions in society Trump’s critics claims they oppose. It seems though that this may be the point. In a social environment dominated by increasingly hostile identities, fomenting division can be powerful political currency for all sides.

As for the mass shootings, while it may be true the El Paso shooter was motivated by rhetoric of the kind Trump himself is prone to employ, it’s not so easy to write the entire social phenomenon off to the fault of irresponsible politicians. While the El Paso shooters’ political motivations seem more or less clear, the Dayton assailant’s politics appear to have been all over the map, and the authorities have not yet been able to establish a clear link between any political sentiments and the shooting.

What can be said is that the social decomposition of bourgeois society is producing more and more angry, lonely and depressed people, some of whom will find the means and opportunity to express these emotions in violent ways as a last, failed attempt to exert some power denied them by their increasingly debased and detached social lives under a capitalism that offers them little meaningful perspective. This is the case whatever the particular content of the political delusions that are said to drive these killers, be they “Islamic” (the Tsarnayev brothers, San Bernadino, etc.), “white nationalist” (the El Paso shooter, Dylan Roof, Pittsburgh Synagogue, etc.), or are undetermined or even absent (Dayton, various school shootings, etc.).

All of this only underscores the deepening crisis of bourgeois social life and demonstrates that the bourgeoisie is itself experiencing an increasing loss of control over society, more and more unable to construct a shared civic narrative that binds the population together in a common identity, however mythical. More and more today, the logic of ‘everyman for himself’ prevails, fueling a quest for many to reestablish some grounding, even when all that is on offer are the false solidarities of imagined communities loosely bonded together in online spaces by perceived threats and conspiracies. These shootings are just more evidence of the worsening bankruptcy of bourgeois society.

Trump Lashes Out

In mid-July, President Trump ignited a media firestorm with a series of tweets blasting four freshmen Democratic Congresswoman, all “women of color,” for their supposedly anti-American politics. By telling the four members of the so-called “Squad” to: “go back and fix the totally broken places they came from” Trump was universally denounced in all mainstream and legacy media outlets for his vicious racism.

If all this story was about were Trump’s tweets it would be easy to dismiss them as another example of his self-defeating, narcissistic tendency to spout whatever transient thoughts and impulses come into his head in a given moment regardless of the political consequences for him. However, there is much more to this episode, reflecting a multi-dimensional crisis that has been festering within the US bourgeoisie’s political apparatus for some time and which shows few signs of mitigating. While one can never be sure with Trump, it’s likely this outburst was a calculated moment in a broader political campaign to paint the Democratic Party as an increasingly radical and anti-American institution, descending ever deeper into a supposedly “socialist” abyss under the unofficial, but no less real, leadership of the increasingly insurgent “Squad.”

Turmoil in the Democratic Party

Trump’s tweets against the Squad were remarkable in light of events of only a week prior. Amidst growing strategic divisions with the Democratic Party over whether to impeach Trump, how far to go in moving to the left on economic issues such as Medicare for All, free college, student debt forgiveness and a festering divide on immigration policy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let loose on her own media campaign to delegitimize the “Squad.” Mocking them as “like only five votes” and for having little support within the Democratic Congressional caucus despite their social media followings. It looked like the Democratic establishment was about to finally drop the hammer on the Squad, who had been upping their own rhetoric against the leadership of the party in prior weeks.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the ostensible leader of the group, had just made a thinly veiled accusation of racism against Pelosi herself, claiming she was singling the Squad out for maltreatment because they were “women of color.” Ayana Pressley, until then one of the quieter members of the group, even went so far as to pick a fight with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), claiming that the time for “black faces who didn’t want to also be black voices” was coming to an end. These remarks were the latest in a long series of increasingly bitter sniping with racialized overtones between the Squad and more centrist Democrats, with AOC’s Chief of Staff (himself a Silicon Valley entrepreneur) implying that Democrats who voted for increased funding for border security were just like the segregationist Democrats of the 1960s. All of this was on top of repeated instances of questionable comments that bordered in many people’s eyes on anti-Semitism from Squad members Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. [1]

In addition to the appearance of deep divisions within their House majority, with groups like the so-called “Justice Democrats” threatening primaries against vulnerable centrists, Democratic leaders were also growing increasingly concerned about their party’s Presidential candidates, who many believed were being pushed further and further left by a restive anti-Trump base egged on by the Squad.

Amazingly, asked by the press about his thoughts on AOC’s implications of racism against Pelosi, Trump appeared to take the high road. Although Pelosi never wastes an opportunity to denounce Trump as a racist, given the chance to exact some revenge, Trump instead defended her, stating, “Nancy Pelosi may be a lot of things, but believe me, she is no racist.” Stunningly, as the Democratic Party appeared to descend into the disunity of a three-way catfight, pitting the establishment Congressional leadership against the Squad with the party’s Presidential candidates caught in the middle, Trump had actually succeeded in taking the high ground on race! The Squad’s deployment of identity politics against their own party leadership looked nakedly cynical and disingenuous, while Pelosi just looked pathetic—having enabled the Squad for months to deploy their identity cards against Trump, the chicken certainly came home to roost.

Over the course of the next few days, things were not looking particularly good for the Squad. From marketable identities (strong women of color) to deploy in the ongoing campaign to delegitimize Trump to increasingly irresponsible radicals, weaponizing their identities and hurling accusations of racism against anyone who dare criticize them, the Democratic establishment was concerned that the entire party was becoming identified with the Squad’s conduct in advance of 2020. Much of the mainstream media appeared to turn against the Squad, worrying that the leading Democratic Presidential candidates were caught in a downward spiral of radicalization driven by this group and that a rebuke from senior party leaders might offer the opportunity for a reset.

It was in this context that Trump quickly abandoned the high ground of a week prior and tweeted out his divisive, confrontational and controversial sentiments, directly attacking the Squad, telling them to fix the places they came from before telling America how to conduct business. When asked to clarify his remarks a day later and being informed that three out of the four Squad members were natural born American citizens, Trump simply implied that if they don’t like it here and hate America so much they should “just leave.” Whatever high ground Trump held after defending Pelosi from AOC’s accusations of racism, he immediately surrendered it with his abrasive tweets.

Within minutes of the tweets, the entire landscape of the previous week was reversed. From a descent into increasingly public division, the Democratic Party, together with its allies in the media, were united in defense of the Squad’s “Americanness” and in denunciation of the racism represented by Trump’s vicious tweets. Why on Earth would Trump go there? Is he really just the mindless, racist bully his opponents’ claim who was accidentally elected President with Vladimir Putin’s help? Or was there some element of calculation to it all?

If the goal were to actually defeat the programmatic vision of the Squad and the insurgent “social democrats” within the Democratic Party, then Trump would have been wise to shut his mouth and let the Democratic establishment deliver the blow that was already being wound up the week before. It appears that, on the contrary, Trump and his advisors wanted precisely the opposite result. Concerned that the Democratic Party would distance itself from “socialism” in advance of 2020, Trump did what he does best: change the conversation with one tweet.

Faced with Trump’s gratuitous attacks against four women of color, the Democratic Party and the media would have no choice but to rally around them and denounce his racism. The Squad would again be front and center, the faces of the Democratic Party, elevated to victim status once again by the media. Faced with the choice of a Democratic Party newly returned to electability by having spanked its radicals or a Democratic Party united in defense of “socialists” whose Twitter accounts are a daily affront to “Middle America,” Trump would clearly rather have the latter. And that is precisely what happened in the days and weeks since his tweets.

If Trump appears to not know what he is talking about half the time, it’s not clear that members of the Squad are much more coherent. On the contrary, like Trump, they appear to mobilize and deploy the concepts of American citizenship and American identity inconsistently depending on the particular context and audience and in order to achieve the political goals of the moment. One minute they are the real Americans upholding true American values against Trump’s debasement and their possession of US citizenship is a weapon with which to poke Trump in the eye, but the next they are denouncing American citizenship itself as just a tool of white supremacy or whatever claim about the country’s misdeeds is being made at the moment, stripping it of any positive meaning for those who might feel like their citizenship in a national community is one of the last forms of “social protection” they have in a world they see as rapidly changing for the worse.

In any event, in this confrontation between what appear to be polar political opposites, it may not be obvious which side is doing more to value or debase citizenship. This was demonstrated earlier in the heat of the debate over the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants at the US-Mexico border, when AOC claimed that asylum seekers attempting to enter the United States were “more American” than those Americans trying to keep them out. Whatever her righteous outrage at the Trump administration’s policies, she is still fully within the logic of American national identity here, even to the point, in Trump like fashion, of denying her political opponents’ “Americanness.”

Still, if there is prior material to muster in making a case for Trump’s racist motivations against the Squad, one must then wonder about the real nature of Nancy Pelosi’s confrontation with them. Is resisting women of color in their political ambitions itself racist? This of course didn’t stop the Democratic leaning media from pouring cold water on AOC’s insinuations, while immediately, repeatedly and strenuously assigning a racist meaning to Trump’s tweets. If Pelosi’s actions were unlikely to have a racial motivation, there could be no debate for the media that Trump’s tweets did.

In the contrast between the media’s rather differing reaction to his tweets and the previous week’s Pelosi-AOC dust up, Trump is banking on planting the seed of a double standard in the minds of not only his avowed supporters, but also the few remaining fence sitters. Trump is stoking a sector of the population’s feelings of alienation from a dominant culture they see as increasingly condescending, judgmental and hostile to them.

Where the media sees in Trump’s tweet an unmitigated, self-inflicted disaster, Trump likely sees a potentially winning strategy, polarizing the demographic groups most likely to vote for him against the media and the Democratic Party.

Populism vs. “Identity Politics”: The Impoverishment of the Bourgeoisie’s Political Life

If this is the essence of populism Trump offers us, the logic of the kind of identity politics the Democratic Party has put front and center is to degenerate into ever more frequent, but never anything less than absurd metaphysical debates about an individual figures’ potentially racist motivations. If this week Trump is clearly a racist, next week it might be Obama’s Vice President Joe Biden and the month after that maybe it will be Pelosi’s turn again when the next confrontation with the Squad flares up.

Bernie Sanders knows all about the Jacobin logic of it all; no matter how hard this often described old-school social democrat attempts to placate the forces of identity politics in the Democratic Party, it still gets implied that he is something other than pure on issues of race, immigration, gender, etc. One pundit recently said on MSNBC (a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party’s establishment) that Bernie Sanders “made her skin crawl,” and that she viewed him as “something other than a pro-woman candidate,” and was unsure how young women could vote for him.

If, as revolutionaries, we can easily denounce Trump’s bitter divisiveness, we must also recognize that he is not the only sinner in the mess that is bourgeois politics today. The supposedly liberal left has developed its own racialized politics that it will cynically deploy at any opportunity. This is no less true when the purveyors are self-described “socialists,” as several in the Squad describe themselves, or when they are neo-liberal centrists. The logic of this kind of identity politics is that nobody is ultimately above moral suspicion, everyone’s motives are always suspect. Power in this Jacobin political moment, flows to whoever is the first to denounce the other for failure to live up to a new, often impossible, moral standard.

If there are still forces resisting this logic within the ostensibly left formations of the bourgeois political apparatus today, it is also the case that they have often been all too willing to use it to their advantage when the situation presents itself. If the women of color in the Squad are useful tools for the Democratic establishment against Trump, they are also thorns in its sides. If Trump presents a common enemy for the moment, it is also clear that these divisions will not just simply go away in a return to normalcy in a post-Trump America. Whether it is populism or identitarianism today that irks you the most, the cats are out of the bag and it’s not clear how the bourgeoisie could put them back in.

If Trump knows that his ‘everyman’ sentiments are likely shared by more than are willing to admit it to pollsters, his increasingly belligerent tone only riles those forces that want to see him removed from office by legal, electoral or other means. We can’t say which one of these political forces will prevail at the ballot box in 2020, but what we can say is that there will be more and perhaps deeper convulsions ahead.

It may be possible that deep revulsion for Trump will allow the Democrats to pass off a feckless Biden as a national-unity candidate in 2020, or that a Kamala Harris will reassemble parts of the Obama coalition committing only to a milquetoast liberalism while riding her identity contrast with Trump to the White House. But it seems likely that such outcomes would be little more than a momentary pause in the deepening tendency towards ever more uncivil conflict, aggressive (negative) partisanship, juvenile name-calling and tribalism in politics.

The way out of this morass is to fight for the unity of the working-class across all of our seeming divisions. It is clear that neither side of the bourgeois political apparatus does anything other than seek to aggravate those divisions for their own increasingly narrow and short-term political aims. We must resist them all.

Henk 07/28/2019