ICC introduction
This article written by Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960), published in 1909[1], is a resounding refutation of the allegations – inspired by the lies of Stalinism, which has been fraudulently defined as communism – that marxism has no concern for nature and the ecological question; that – like the capitalist system it claims to be fighting – it is marked by the same “productivism” which is so destructive of nature. The exact opposite is true!
In this article Pannekoek develops, in a condensed and very accessible way, the same approach that Marx has already put forward in Capital. He reaffirms that only the advent of communism offers a realistic alternative to the destruction of nature.
Today, the ideological campaigns of the ruling class quite consciously place the responsibility for the ecological disaster on “Man” in general, the better to hide the fact that, as an integral part of nature, the human species inter-acts with nature through the intermediary of the different forms of social organisation which have succeeded each other in history. All of them, since the end of primitive communist society in prehistory, have been systems of exploitation based on the division of society into social classes. It’s not “Man”, but the capitalist system, which is solely animated by the maximum extraction of profit, which is vampirising the whole of nature, and subjecting it, just like the labour power of the proletariat (these being the two sources of its wealth) to a ferocious exploitation, resulting in exhaustion and annihilation. This is why capitalism has no solution to the ecological question, and why really solving it goes hand in hand with solving the social question.
In 1909 Pannekoek was already underlining that the ravages of deforestation posed a vital question for humanity. After more than a century of the decadence of capitalism, where the devastation of nature during this period has reached such proportions that its effects (heating of the climate, collapse of overexploited eco-systems, deforestation resulting in zoonotic diseases…), combined with the effects of the economic crisis and imperialist wars, are making the threat of the destruction of humanity more tangible than ever. This dramatic situation demands that the proletariat raises itself to the level of its historic responsibility as the gravedigger of capitalism, because only the society which it carries within itself, based on the abolition of the law of the commodity and of social relations of exploitation, the creation of a society without classes geared towards the satisfaction of human need, will make it possible to achieve a real balance between nature and the human species.
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There are numerous complaints in the scientific literature about the increasing destruction of forests. But it is not only the joy that every nature-lover feels for forests that should be taken into account. There are also important material interests, indeed the vital interests of humanity. With the disappearance of abundant forests, countries known in Antiquity for their fertility, which were densely populated and famous as granaries for the great cities, have become stony deserts. Rain seldom falls there except as devastating diluvian downpours that carry away the layers of humus which the rain should fertilise. Where the mountain forests have been destroyed, torrents fed by summer rains cause enormous masses of stones and sand to roll down, which clog up Alpine valleys, clearing away forests and devastating villages whose inhabitants are innocent, "due to the fact that personal interest and ignorance have destroyed the forest and headwaters in the high valley".
The authors strongly insist on personal interest and ignorance in their eloquent description of this miserable situation but they do not look into its causes. They probably think that emphasising the consequences is enough to replace ignorance by a better understanding and to undo the effects. They do not see that this is only a part of the phenomenon, one of numerous similar effects that capitalism, this mode of production which is the highest stage of profit-hunting, has on nature.
Why is France a country poor in forests which has to import every year hundreds of millions of francs worth of wood from abroad and spend much more to repair through reforestation the disastrous consequences of the deforestation of the Alps? Under the Ancien Regime there were many state forests. But the bourgeoisie, who took the helm of the French Revolution, saw in these only an instrument for private enrichment. Speculators cleared 3 million hectares to change wood into gold. They did not think of the future, only of the immediate profit.
For capitalism all natural resources are nothing but gold. The more quickly it exploits them, the more the flow of gold accelerates. The private economy results in each individual trying to make the most profit possible without even thinking for a single moment of the general interest, that of humanity. As a result, every wild animal having a monetary value and every wild plant giving rise to profit is immediately the object of a race to extermination. The elephants of Africa have almost disappeared, victims of systematic hunting for their ivory. It is similar for rubber trees, which are the victim of a predatory economy in which everyone only destroys them without planting new ones. In Siberia, it has been noted that furred animals are becoming rarer due to intensive hunting and that the most valuable species could soon disappear. In Canada, vast virgin forests have been reduced to cinders, not only by settlers who want to cultivate the soil, but also by "prospectors" looking for mineral deposits who transform mountain slopes into bare rock so as to have a better overview of the ground. In New Guinea, a massacre of birds of paradise was organised to satisfy the expensive whim of an American woman billionaire. Fashion craziness, typical of a capitalism wasting surplus value, has already led to the extermination of rare species; sea birds on the east coast of America only owe their survival to the strict intervention of the state. Such examples could be multiplied at will.
But are not plants and animals there to be used by humans for their own purposes? Here, we completely leave aside the question of the preservation of nature as it would be without human intervention. We know that humans are the masters of the Earth and that they completely transform nature to meet their needs. To live, we are completely dependent on the forces of nature and on natural resources; we have to use and consume them. That is not the question here, only the way capitalism makes use of them.
A rational social order will have to use the available natural resources in such a way that what is consumed is replaced at the same time, so that society does not impoverish itself and can become wealthier. A closed economy which consumes part of its seed corn impoverishes itself more and more and must inevitably fail. But that is the way capitalism acts. This is an economy which does not think of the future but lives only in the immediate present. In today's economic order, nature does not serve humanity, but capital. It is not the clothing, food or cultural needs of humanity that govern production, but capital's appetite for profit, for gold.
Natural resources are exploited as if reserves were infinite and inexhaustible. The harmful consequences of deforestation for agriculture and the destruction of useful animals and plants expose the finite character of available reserves and the failure of this type of economy. Roosevelt recognises this failure when he wants to call an international conference to review the state of still available natural resources and to take measures to stop them being wasted.
Of course, the plan itself is humbug. The state could do much to stop the pitiless extermination of rare species. But the capitalist state is in the end a poor representative of the good of humanity. It must halt in face of the essential interests of capital.
Capitalism is a headless economy which cannot regulate its acts by an understanding of their consequences. But its devastating character does not derive from this fact alone. Over the centuries humans have also exploited nature in a foolish way, without thinking of the future of humanity as a whole. But their power was limited. Nature was so vast and so powerful that with their feeble technical means humans could only exceptionally damage it. Capitalism, by contrast, has replaced local needs with world needs, and created modern techniques for exploiting nature. So it is now a question of enormous masses of matter being subjected to colossal means of destruction and removed by powerful means of transportation. Society under capitalism can be compared to a gigantic unintelligent body; while capitalism develops its power without limit, it is at the same time senselessly devastating more and more the environment from which it lives. Only socialism, which can give this body consciousness and reasoned action, will at the same time replace the devastation of nature by a rational economy.
[1] Published: Zeitungskorrespondenz, no. 75. July 1909. An English translation first appeared in Socialist Standard no. 1380 [2], August 2019.
Since 27 September, the workers of the oil companies TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil have joined the struggle in ever-increasing numbers. At the time of writing, seven refineries out of eight are shut down. The workers’ main demand is clear; to deal with the surge in prices, they demand a 10% wage increase.
All wage earners, retired and unemployed, precarious students, are facing this dizzying rise in the price of food and energy. They are all up against the same problem: wages, pensions and benefits which no longer allow them to live decently.
The determination of the oil strikers, their anger and militancy, embody what the whole working class is feeling, in all sectors, public or private. The media can spread images of endless queues at the petrol stations, file more and more reports about the suffering of motorists trying to get to work, but all this proves nothing: at the moment, this struggle is not only seen in a sympathetic light among other parts of the proletariat, it is also stimulating the feeling that workers in all sectors are in the same boat!
The established media might moan about “these privileged types who earn over 5,000 euros a month”, but frankly, who can believe such lies? All the more so because they take the same line with strikes by railway workers or airline workers: 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 – what am I bid? In reality, these wages only start at 2,000 euros, reaching 3,000 for some at the end of their career, just as it is with teachers, nurses, skilled workers of various kinds…But this propaganda is listened to less and less, because within the working class the idea is growing that we are all being hit by the same deterioration of wages and by increasingly unbearable attacks.
The palpable rise in anger and combativity in numerous sectors in France in recent weeks is no surprise. It is part of a wider dynamic, an international dynamic whose most significant expression has been the struggle of the workers in Britain this summer, which is still going on. In our leaflet of 27 August we wrote that this was “the biggest working class action in Britain for decades; only the huge strikes of 1979 produced a bigger and more widespread movement. Action on this scale in a country as large as Britain is not only significant locally, it is an event of international significance, a message to the exploited of every country”. Since then, the strikes in Germany or those announced in Belgium have confirmed this tendency.
Nonetheless, the working class is confronted with a real weakness: the carving up of the struggles. In recent months, there have been strikes in transport (Metz on 7 October, at Dijon on the 8th, Saint Nazaire on the 11th, nationally from the 17th to the 23rd of October), in the kindergarten sector and civil service (6 October), a day of demonstrations on 29 September essentially in the public sector, etc.
Why this division? Because today the trade unions have their hands on the organisation of these movements, which they separate into any number of sectors and specific demands. Because they share the work of controlling the workers among different union organisations, playing on the division between the “radical” ones and the more “moderate” ones, in repeated manoeuvres which sow doubt and distrust in the workers’ ranks.
Faced with Macron and his government, the unions present themselves as radical champions of the struggle – the better to control us and separate us from each other. By giving credit to the idea of “taxing super-profits” and carrying out a “fairer distribution of wealth”, by denouncing arrests of strikers as being “French citizens taken hostage”, as well as by vaunting the virtue of “real negotiations”, these “social partners” with their oppositional games lend a hand to the state which wants precisely to appear as the guarantor of benevolent arbitration. And the media bang in the final nail by presenting the CGT and FO unions as irresponsible extremists, all of which confers an aura of credibility to organs which are really part of the state, completely institutionalised.
Today we learn that the workers in the nuclear power station at Gravelines, the most powerful in western Europe, are also going on strike. Like the workers of the SNCF (rail), RATP (transport) or in distribution. They are also demanding wage rises! In a few days, on 18 October, an “interprofessional" day of strikes and demonstrations is planned for teachers, workers in clinics and private care homes. In other words, everyone in their own corner, one separated from the other.
Let’s remember the weakness of the movement against the pension reforms in 2018: there was a lot of sympathy for the striking railway workers, but this remained a platonic solidarity, limited to giving money to the “solidarity” buckets waved around by the CGT at demonstrations.
But the strength of our class is not in division, nor is it in encouragements from a distance or in juxtaposing separate strikes. No! Our strength is in solidarity, solidarity in the struggle! It’s not a question of “converging”, of putting one sector alongside another. The workers’ struggle is one and the same movement: to go on strike, to go in massive delegations to meet workers who are geographically the closest (factories, hospitals, schools, administration), to meet up and discuss how to take the struggle forward; to organise general assemblies where we can debate; to put forward common demands. Throughout history, when workers take the struggle into their own hands, when there is a real push towards solidarity, extension and unity, it has always made the ruling class tremble. This is exactly the opposite to what the trade unions do.
Today, it is still difficult for the workers to take charge of their own struggles. It may even seem impossible. But the history of the working class proves the contrary! If we are to build a balance of forces in our favour, to develop unity and solidarity in the struggle, we have to gather together to discuss and take our own decisions!
Révolution Internationale, 13.10.22
ICC Introduction
We publish here an article by the Internationalist Voice group, which argues forcefully against the attempts of the international bourgeoisie to steer the mounting anger of the population in Iran towards the illusion of an “emancipation of women” inside the confines of capitalist society. The article was written before the end of Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership, but the point still stands: the oppression of women will not end with a change of government or political regime, or by placing female politicians in positions of power, but only through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
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With the beginning of the street protests against the criminal Islamic bourgeoisie, accompanied by a movement against their ideological superstructure, the right and left bourgeois tendencies are struggling to reduce the demonstrations to the level of those concerning the mandatory hijab and civil liberties, from the White Wednesdays campaign to the women’s revolution[1] The removal of the headscarf is considered a symbol of women’s liberation, as if women in Turkey, Bangladesh, the Philippines, America, etc., are not bound by the shackles of capitalism and are “free”. Bangladeshi workers don’t have to wear headscarves, but they must work 10 to 14 hours a day in the 21st century.
The new British prime minister, Mrs Liz Truss, wants to follow in the footsteps of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, and has drawn her sword to destroy the working class through anti-labour policies. This is especially important because the British working class has begun to fight. The neo-fascist Mrs Giorgia Meloni will be the first female prime minister in the history of Italy. Mrs Meloni has said that she will stand up to African refugees and close Italian ports to refugee boats. This civilized lady never hides her opposition to abortion and homosexuality and will implement anti-labour policies to the same extent as Mrs Truss. These civilized women have never had to wear a headscarf and have been “free” all their lives, to stand in front of the working class with complete freedom and present the dictatorship of capitalism to the working class and other people under the name of democracy and civility.
Contrary to the demagogues of the right and left tendencies of capitalism, the world of the working woman is alien to that of the bourgeois one. The life of the working woman involves double exploitation and oppression, as well as humiliation, inferiority, suppressed anger and stifled tears – essentially, the terrestrial and real hell that upside-down capitalism provides for humanity.
The root of the oppression of women is the class system and capitalist production relations. It is only with the disappearance of its material bases, i.e., capitalist production relations and wage slavery, that the foundations of the economic domination of this kind of oppression will also disappear. The oppression of women cannot be eliminated only by changing bourgeois governments. For the real liberation of women, the brutal capitalist system must be overthrown. Only the joint struggle of working women together with working men as a single body, as one class, and with the involvement of class battles can create a decent human life, not only for the women of the working class, but for humanity. The sole future horizon for the real liberation of women from sexual oppression is the struggle of the working class, and the true emancipation of women is only possible in a classless communist society.
Firoz Akbary, 1 October 2012
E-mail: [email protected] [3]
Homepage: www.internationalistvoice.or [4]
[1] After immigrating to America, a journalist who used to be a supporter of former president Khatami launched the White Wednesdays campaign with the support of western bourgeois institutions. In this campaign, women and girls individually removed their headscarves and sent the videos to the journalist to be shown on satellite TV. Some from the left of capital also believe that women are the material force of the future revolution, so they talk about the women’s revolution. The goals of the right and left tendencies of capital are the same, channelling the hidden anger of women in line with anti-regime and pro-democracy protests
The speed with which Sweden and Finland have joined up with NATO is a clear sign of the rapid development of militarisation in northern Europe after the invasion of Ukraine in February. The process, initiated by Finland, led to a historic shift in policy for the Swedish government, abandoning a more than 200 years policy of non-alignment, dating from the end of the Napoleonic wars. This policy, as well as the official Swedish policy of “neutrality”, was in fact never more than a smokescreen to hide a long-lasting affiliation with the western bloc since the end of World War II.
The rapid unfolding of events after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a serious intensification of militarist propaganda in both countries, unprecedented in their modern history. The myth of the “peaceful” Nordic countries is clearly exposed, and NATO will profit from this, through a strengthening of its northern flank, which extends the encirclement of Russia and can only lead to a further aggravation of imperialist conflicts in Europe.
Finland, a forced “neutrality” controlled by Soviet Russia
Finland, with its long border with Russia (approximately the same distance as between Lübeck and Monaco) has quite another history of “neutrality” than Sweden. After Sweden’s loss of Finland to Russia, Finland became a Grand Duchy and a part of Tsarist Russia in 1809, and this lasted until 1917. The revolutionary struggles in Finland in 1917-18, which took the form of a civil war between the Reds and Whites, were crushed with the help of the German army. With the invasion of Russia in 1939 and the “winter war” of 1939-40, as well as the war against Russia on the German side until the defeat in 1944, meant that Finland had to submit to harsh war reparations from 1944 onwards. This meant that Finland was forced, after WWII, into a “special relationship” with Soviet Russia and a policy of forced “neutrality” which lasted for almost fifty years, until after the fall of the former eastern bloc. Finland was a country where the USSR had a strong control without using military power, as was the case in the Baltic countries. The policy of “Finlandisation” meant that the USSR had the last word when governments and presidents were elected, although Finland officially had a western style democracy.
Sweden: Two hundred years of “neutrality” and non-alignment?
The loss of Finland to Russia in 1809 – regarded as “the eastern half of the Kingdom of Sweden” since the early Middle Ages - dealt the final blow to the ambitions of Sweden to maintain its former position as a local great power. During the 18th century, Sweden gradually lost its former possessions around the Baltic Sea, and the newly installed king, the French general Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, declared in 1818 that Sweden, in order to keep the peace with Russia, should be “neutral” and avoid alliances with other European powers.
This policy of “neutrality” was painstakingly maintained during the two world wars, although the majority of the bourgeoisie quite clearly had their sympathies on the German side. It allowed the transport of German troops through the country to the north of Norway and to the north of Finland during the first years of the Second World War. When the war in Finland started it supported its neighbouring country by sending food, ammunition, weapons and medicine. It was not until the midst of the war, after Stalingrad, that the Swedish bourgeoisie made an “opportunistic” turn and began supporting the Allied camp.
Whereas the traditional sectors of the bourgeoisie in Sweden had strong ties to Germany, the progressively influential Social Democrats, with their hegemony in power between 1933 and 1976, developed strong links with the US and UK after WWII. The policy of “neutrality” now meant that Sweden – without acknowledging it officially – helped NATO and the western bloc with intelligence operations against the Soviet Union through the 1950s and 60s. It was not until the beginning of the 2000s that this “official secret” was exposed, well after the fall of the eastern bloc.
The role of Sweden in the 1960s and 70s, during the height of the Cold War, can be illustrated by the role of Olof Palme, and his eloquent critique of US policy in Vietnam. Being a “critical ally” to the US was an important asset for the western bloc, since the allegedly “neutral” Sweden could be used to influence former colonies that risked falling into the orbit of the eastern bloc.
After the fall of the eastern bloc, Sweden restructured its military forces, and abolished military conscription for more than two decades, only to re-establish it in 2017. With the increasing threat from Russia during the last decade, Sweden and Finland developed a military affiliation with NATO countries, labeled the “Partnership for Peace”, and there were discussions about a possible military collaboration between Finland and Sweden, but the question of directly joining NATO was not politically on the agenda in both countries until the invasion of Ukraine.
In less than two months’ time, the Swedish Social Democrats abandoned the policy of “neutrality” and non-alignment despite strong criticisms from inside the party. While the question of alignment to NATO has not been on the political agenda, and was defended openly only by a minority among the parties in parliament, namely the Liberal Party, after the invasion of Ukraine a strong majority in the Swedish parliament declared its support for the “NATO process”. The question of NATO was not even an issue in the Swedish election campaigns of this year. After the elections, the situation has not changed. The Social Democrats have been replaced by a right-wing coalition, in which the far right Sweden Democrats will have a significant role. But although this party has a record of pro-Russian statements and connections, they changed their position on NATO during the spring. The only party openly opposed to joining NATO is the Left Party, the former Communist Party.
Likewise, when the Finnish PM Sanna Marin declared that Finland should join NATO, this was also a total break with the policy of “neutrality” and former submission to its Russian neighbour during the Cold War.
Joining NATO will not mean “peace and protection” but increased military chaos
Today, this strengthening of NATO on its northern flank contains the risk of an escalation of open military conflict in northern Europe. It is another example of the USA’s long-term policy to impose its world order by encircling its main imperialist rivals - a policy that in reality is creating further chaos, as the experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine shows. The main argument for the alignment with NATO has been to “maintain peace and security” and whip up a centuries-long fear of Russia, the historic arch-enemy of the Scandinavian countries. The statement of Swedish Foreign Secretary Ann Linde that joining NATO will be an act of “conflict avoidance” that will bring a more relaxed and peaceful situation in Europe, is obviously false. The strengthening of NATO on its northern flank will primarily mean a strengthening of the US, by building a gigantic shield against Russia in the Nordic and Baltic states. The alignment with NATO, with its obligatory rise in military budgets to 2% of the GNP (which means raised profits for the Swedish military industry, Bofors and SAAB) will mean a more volatile and insecure situation for the working class as well as the whole population. With its hypocritical tactic of appearing as “defender of peace” while at the same time fanning the flames of war and chaos, this strategic turn-around by the Swedish and Finnish ruling classes is a clear sign of the escalation of the situation in just a matter of months.
The increased militarisation of society in Scandinavia– illustrated this spring by the former Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson posing with a helmet in a tank during a joint NATO-led operation in the north – will only lead to further destabilisation and destruction.
Edvin
19th of October, 2022
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/anton-1f.png
[2] https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2019/no-1380-august-2019/the-destruction-of-nature-by-anton-pannekoek/
[3] mailto:[email protected]
[4] http://www.internationalistvoice.or
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/files/en/magdalenaanderssonulf-klar-8330674.jpg