High energy bills are weighing on everyone's mind. How could it be otherwise when almost a quarter of your income has to be spent on energy? This is one of the major components of the “cost of living” crisis which has provoked a wave of strikes in the UK, and which is echoing in other European countries. But there are other forms of protest taking place, directly targeting energy bills but based on the idea of “popular protest”. This article looks at some of the dangers contained in these kinds of campaigns, focusing on “Don’t Pay UK”. 

Energy price rises: manifestation of capitalist crisis

At this moment “over 14.5 million people are living in poverty in the UK, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation UK Poverty Profile 2022. That’s more than one in every five people. Of these, 8.1 million are working-age adults, 4.3 million are children and 2.1 million are pensioners. Analysis by the Resolution Foundation predicts that more people will be plunged into absolute poverty by 2023”[1]. At the same time what is expected to be the longest recession since the 1930s is already casting its shadow, with an estimated potential 500,000 increase in unemployment.

In October 2022, inflation in the UK rose to its highest level in 41 years. Life was 11.1 per cent more expensive in October 2022 than in October 2021. The main part of this inflation is due to rising energy prices. Since last winter energy prices have risen extortionately: the price of gas has increased by 141% and electricity by 65%. Since the price cap was introduced in the UK, on 1 October 2021, a typical customer’s energy bill has risen by 221%.

This is a brutal attack on incomes in Britain. Despite the government’s financial support, a typical household (with official average monthly income at £1,990.72[2]) would already pay more than £200 a month for gas and electricity, a payment that will rise to £250 by April 2023. But in reality many households pay much more because of poorly insulated houses, so that a proportionately high amount of energy is needed for heating. More than 5 million households are already in fuel poverty, which means that they spend more than 10% of their income on gas and electricity, struggling to afford to keep their homes warm. Large families could even be spending a quarter of their disposable income on energy.

Nearly 80% of people in Britain use gas central heating. But with such a huge price increase many households are obliged to permanently forego heating their homes. Recent figures show that gas and electricity use has already been cut by more than 10% since October. It is clear that many families have been forced to turn down the thermostat or to put the heating on for shorter periods. Such a situation has a major impact on health and quality of life, and many people will die unnecessarily.

The refusal to pay energy bills.

Several campaigns have been organised in Britain against inflation, against high energy costs, against the absolute impoverishment of a large part of the population. One of these campaigns is Don't Pay UK, which calls on all supporters to stop paying their energy bills and which, to date, has got a quarter of a million pledges not to pay.
At first glance, such a campaign looks quite understandable: won’t it help the poorest people avoid total impoverishment and maintain, even minimally, a dignified existence? But it is not what it seems. The Don’t Pay UK campaign raises some important concerns for those who advocate the struggle against the economic crisis from a working class perspective.

• The organisers are calling on everyone, regardless of their position in society, to participate. So the protest is gaining support from people from all professions, all political colours, and all classes. What happens to the workers who participate in it? They are bound to be diluted into an amorphous mass of “citizens”, which will include parts of the population that are not part of the working class.
• The organisers are, in reality, handing the million people who they are trying to win for this action to the coercive measures of the state; measures that can range from a fine, a writ to seize personal belongings, seizure of wages, to eviction from their home, against which individual refusers are ultimately powerless.
• 4.3 million workers’ households are not in a position to refuse payment of their energy bill because they have pre-payment meters. They have already been separated from those who can stop their payments. This sows division within the working class, which the bourgeoisie will not hesitate to use for its own benefit.

Don’t Pay UK is taking place against the background of a working class struggle on a scale that we have not seen in the UK in decades. It is a movement that has been going on since the summer and is hitting all parts of the country and all sectors of the economy. In these struggles the working class is slowly beginning to regain confidence in its own ability and to realise that if all workers are under attack, they must also respond as a class. And in all the struggles of the last few months, resistance to spiralling inflation and high energy bills was one of the central themes. The only way forward for the working class is to take the next step by uniting the struggle of the different sectors and, if possible, organise them through their own elected, autonomous organs.

By calling on workers to fight as individuals, as citizens, Don’t Pay UK deflects them away from their class terrain. By approaching the workers in these protests as individuals it isolates them in the same way as electoral campaigns isolate workers in the polling booths. Don’t Pay UK runs counter to the needs of workers as a part of a class with its own natural dynamic towards unity.

In the promotion of this protest, and to convince people that non-payment can be a successful strategy, Don't Pay UK refers to the movement against the poll tax in 1989-90, which allegedly succeeded in forcing Thatcher to resign and the new government to repeal the law. But this is a distortion of the truth. Contrary to the legend of the left, Thatcher was not brought down by the anti-poll-tax protests, but by political divisions within the Tory Party, notably over policy towards the EU after the reunification of Germany. In the second place, while protests against the poll tax were widespread and enjoyed support across all social classes, Thatcher decided to go ahead with the “community charge” anyway. But the introduction of this highly unpopular tax was definitely a mistake by the British bourgeoisie, and an early sign that it was not perfectly in control of its own policy. That was the main reason why the tax was repealed in March 1991 by John Major as the new prime minister.

Anarchists support Don’t Pay UK

The anarcho-syndicalists of the Solidarity Federation opened the doors for Don't Pay UK at the Anarchist Bookfair of 17 September in London. Both the Anarchist Federation (AF) and the long-standing Freedom published an article supporting the campaign: “The idea of Don’t Pay strikes directly at the heart of their ideology, that the owners are the only qualified, and indeed morally correct, people to set prices, even when this power hurts millions. Don’t Pay has a strategy, they have background information on how best to go about it. This is an opportunity to stand up and give the money grubbers a bloody nose” [3].

In their support for Don’t Pay UK the anarchists start from the premise that the main contradictions in capitalist society is between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the advantaged and the disadvantaged, etc. For them the protests against high energy bills are therefore aimed at the rich, the shareholders, the owners and the right wing. According to Freedom and the AF “the rich know they’re on a precipice”, “the rich are jittery” and Don’t Pay UK is able “to seriously challenge not just the consequences of their corruption but its legitimacy”[4].

The Don’t Pay campaign may question the legitimacy of the rich, but it does not touch the foundations of capitalism and is not a threat to the rule of the bourgeoisie. But the AF and Freedom have no intention whatsoever of undermining the system. They only pay lip service to the struggle of the working class and do not defend a revolutionary position. Their actions do not have the perspective of transcending the boundaries of capitalism. They mainly propagate individual protest, being the height point of personal freedom, with no concern for the fundamental contradictions between wage labour and capital. The fact that they support this campaign shows that they have no interest in the overthrow of the capitalist system.

Things are different with the Anarchist Communist Group (ACG). This group, which also calls on people to join the protest of Don't Pay UK in its leaflet “Cost of Living Crisis”, stands, though with much confusion, on a class position defending the idea that that “The abolition of wage labour is central to anarchist communism”[5] But with its call to join the protest and not to pay the energy bill, a protest that does not start from a working class perspective, and does not aim to contribute to the abolition of wage labour, this group is in a contradictory position. But more importantly, it puts itself on the side of those who are offering a false alternative to the current revival of class struggle in the UK.

Why is the ACG supporting a campaign like Don't Pay UK, which advocates individual protests rather than class struggle? As has been clear from the beginning of summer 2022, almost all working class struggles in Britain have been against the effects of the cost-of-living crisis. Why should there be still another action, which intends to mobilise not only the workers, but all people, regardless of their place in society, and thus can only divert working class struggle? Is the ACG in favour of uniting workers and petty bourgeoisie in one and the same struggle, in a united front?

Can’t Pay UK is a consumer boycott that turns the working class, rather than a powerful force for a fundamental change, into a sum of atomised individuals. It ultimately helps the bourgeoisie to derail growing class combativity and to lead it into the dead-end of a harmless popular protest. Any communist organisation must understand that the working class cannot give up the autonomy it first clearly displayed in 1848 and which is essential to the defence of its class interests, and to the pursuit of its revolutionary perspective.

Dennis, 2/1/23

Introduction

For once, we thank the “International Group of the Communist Left” (IGCL) for giving us the opportunity to remind ourselves of what it really is.

To this end, we reproduce below (in full, including footnotes) their little article that is supposed to point out our impasse and contradictions on the issue of parasitism, if the title is to be believed.

And for the benefit of our readers, we respond to it right after.

The IGCL text

Impasse and contradictions of the ICC in the face of "parasitism", the ICC and the IGCL

The politically responsible and fraternal attitude of the ICC delegation at the meeting of the "No to war except class war" committee in Paris - which we welcome - may have been surprising. Wasn't the meeting organised on the initiative of the IGCL, which it denounces as a "parasitic group" and "an agency of the bourgeois state" (Révolution internationale 446), and of the Internationalist Communist Tendency, which it criticises for its opportunistic concessions to parasitism? Didn't the presidium of this meeting, composed of three comrades, include two former ICC members, Olivier and Juan, who were expelled and publicly denounced in its international press and called "Nazis, Stalinists, thieves, blackmailers, thugs, lumpen, slanderers, provocateurs, cops" in 2002? Yet at the public meeting, no denunciation of the supposed parasites and cops. No warning to the other participants that they were going to attend a meeting held by an "agency of the police". [1] No ultimatum demanding the exclusion of the meeting... of its own organisers.

Either the active members and sympathizers comprising the ICC delegation do not believe a word of the resolutions and other public articles denouncing the IGCL and its members - otherwise banned from attending ICC public meetings; or it has demonstrated a particularly serious opportunistic concession to not only so-called parasitism, but even to so-called "agents provocateurs of the state."

We leave the ICC to face its ever more gaping and glaring contradictions.

The IGCL, December 2022

The ICC to its readers

The IGCL is right, the ICC intervened at the first meeting of the No War But The Class War committee with a "politically responsible attitude". And indeed, we did not denounce the two individuals who were in the presidium, Olivier and Juan, even though they are snitches.

Why not?

The IGCL is gloating, believing that this is proof either of our alleged doubts or of our alleged opportunism.

The cause of our "politically responsible attitude" can only escape the IGCL completely: our raison d'être is not the IGCL but the working class.

This meeting was officially convened by a "committee" and not by political groups. So we were speaking at a meeting of a committee called No War But The Class War, a committee that has announced its formation in response to an imperialist war, a committee whose appeal is based on genuinely internationalist positions, a committee that should represent the rare, difficult and valuable efforts of our class to organise itself to debate, and to stand up against the barbarism of this decadent system.

Today, the workers in search of class positions are few, even fewer are those who make the effort to get together. This is what, for us, a committee should be, a precious place of clarification of our class, to be defended and kept alive. In this sense, we had encouraged all our contacts to come and participate in the meeting.

Our fear was that this committee would lead its participants into a dead end. Because today the struggles of the working class are not against the war but against the economic crisis; therefore this committee risked being an empty shell, void of the real life of the class, an artificial formation pushing its few participants to carry out actions that do not correspond to the reality of the dynamics of our class, a committee, finally, that weakens the defence of internationalism, sows confusion and ends up wasting the meagre forces that emerge. [2]

This is why the ICC consciously chose to intervene in a determined way to defend internationalism, the cardinal position of the Communist Left, and to warn the participants about what for us constitutes from the start the fragility of the NWBCW committees, the artificial dimension of these "struggle" committees. This was the position we defended in two interventions, which is indeed a "politically responsible attitude".

Instead of "struggle committees", discussion and reflection circles of politicised minorities could be envisaged today on the subject of the war. As for the formation of struggle committees, it could indeed play a role if motivated by the need for clarification and intervention in the class struggle against economic attacks.

This is what seemed to us to be the priority, the central issue of this meeting and of our intervention.

To intervene on the fact that two individuals present in the room are indeed ready to do anything to destroy the ICC, that this is basically their raison d'être, that they have already committed an incredible list of misdeeds, even to the point of snitching (!) all this would have focused the debate on this question and thus diverted the discussion.

But since the IGCL is asking for it, we wouldn't want to disappoint them. Here is a small reminder of the pedigree of these two gentlemen.

These two individuals come from the so-called "Internal Faction of the ICC" (IFICC) which was a mini-grouping of former members of the ICC expelled for snitching, in 2003 at our 15th International Congress. This was not the only infamy for which these elements were responsible since, denying the fundamental principles of communist behaviour, they also distinguished themselves by typical thuggish attitudes, such as slander, blackmail and theft. For these other behaviours, although they were very serious, the ICC had not pronounced an exclusion against them, but a simple suspension. That is to say, it was still possible for these elements to return to the organisation one day, provided of course that they returned the material and money they had stolen from it and that they undertook to renounce behaviour that had no place in a communist organisation. The reason why the ICC finally decided to exclude them was that they had published on their website (i.e. in full view of all the police forces in the world) internal information that facilitated the work of the police: [3]

• the date of our section's conference in Mexico, which was to be attended by militants from other countries. This disgusting act of the IFICC in facilitating the repressive work of the bourgeois state is all the more despicable as its members knew full well that some of our comrades in Mexico had already been victims of repression in the past and that some had been forced to flee their home countries;
• the real initials of one of our comrades was also published and presented by them as "the head of the ICC", with the precision that he was the author of such and such a text given his "style" (which is an interesting indication for the police services).
• the regular reporting in their bulletin of the results of spying on our organisation, including information that is directly related to the work of a police informer.

It should be noted that before proceeding with their expulsion, the ICC had sent an individual letter to each of the IFICC members asking them if they were in solidarity with these snitches. IFICC finally responded to this letter by collectively claiming responsibility for this infamous behaviour. It should also be noted that each of these elements was given the opportunity to present their defence before the ICC Congress or before a commission of 5 members of our organisation, 3 of whom could be designated by the IFICC members themselves. These courageous individuals, aware that their behaviour was indefensible, had rejected these final proposals of the ICC.

Instead, this "IFICC" then sent a "Communist Bulletin" to the subscribers of our publication in France (whose address file had been stolen by the IFICC members long before they left our organisation) to tell them over and over again that the ICC was in the grip of an opportunist and Stalinist degeneration.

And that’s not all!

In 2005, before one of our public meetings, one of the IFICC members threatened to kill one of our militants. Carrying a knife on his belt, he obnoxiously whispered in his ear that he would slit his throat.

In fact, we could go on and on with this list, as each "Communist Bulletin" contained its share of slander.

In 2013, the IFICC took on the new name "International Group of the Communist Left" (IGCL). More precisely, this new group is the result of the merger between part of the Montreal Klasbatalo group and the IFICC.

But it was the thuggish ways and hatred of  IFICC members for the ICC that immediately coloured the politics and activity of this group.

Thus, as soon as it was born, this IGCL began to sound the alarm and shout at the top of its voice that it was in possession of the ICC's internal bulletins. By displaying their war trophy and making such a fuss, the message that these patent snitches were trying to get across was very clear: there is a "mole" in the ICC working hand in hand with the ex-IFICC! This was clearly a police-type work with no other objective than to sow widespread suspicion, unrest and discord within our organisation. These are the same methods used by Stalin's political police, the GPU, to destroy the Trotskyist movement from within in the 1930s. These are the same methods used by members of the ex-IFICC when they made "special" trips to several sections of the ICC in 2001 to organise secret meetings and spread rumours that one of our comrades (the "wife of the head of the ICC", as they put it) was a "cop". The same process to try to spread panic and destroy the ICC from the inside in 2013 was even more despicable: under the hypocritical pretext of wanting to "reach out" to ICC militants and save them from "demoralisation", these professional informers were actually sending the following message to all ICC militants: "There is a traitor (or several) among you who is giving us your internal Bulletins, but we won't give you their name because it's up to you to look for them yourselves!" This is the real and ongoing objective of this "International Group": to try to introduce the poison of suspicion and distrust into the ICC in order to seek to destroy it from within. It is a real enterprise of destruction whose degree of perversion has nothing to envy in the methods of the political police of Stalin or the Stasi.

On several occasions, we have already publicly questioned the IGCL about the way in which our internal newsletters got into their hands. Was there an accomplice inside our organisation? Did the police themselves obtain them by hacking into our computers and then passing them on to the IGCL by some means? If the IGCL had been a responsible organisation instead of a rogue gang, it would have been keen to solve this mystery and inform the political milieu of the results of its investigations. Instead, it has consistently avoided this question, which we will continue to ask publicly.

Their latest article, which we have reproduced in full above, is no exception to these nauseating methods. What we can give the IGCL credit for, at least, is its consistency.

Only, through this article, it is not within the ICC that the IGCL is trying to sow division, suspicion and mistrust, but within the whole of the Communist Left. By writing "Wasn't the meeting organised on the initiative of the IGCL, which it [the ICC] denounces as a ‘parasitic group’ and ‘agency of the bourgeois state" (Révolution internationale 446 ), and of the Internationaist Communist Tendency, which it criticises for its opportunist concessions to parasitism?", the IGCL deliberately lumps together our denunciation of the thuggish morals of this parasitic group and our struggle against the opportunism of the ICT.

The IGCL, worthy heir of the IFICC, has the function of destroying the principles of the Communist Left, of spreading mistrust and division. The hatred of the members of the ex-IFICC towards the ICC prevails and colours all the politics of this group, whatever the level of consciousness of its various members integrated afterwards. It is therefore a fight against a group which, under the guise of defending the positions of the Communist Left, objectively defends the interests of the bourgeois camp [4] by taking on board its worst morals and attitudes.

The struggle against opportunism takes place within the proletarian camp itself. The whole history of the workers' movement shows that this is a constant weakness that gangrenes the proletarian camp. It is therefore a question of combating opportunism by the firmest and most fraternal polemic possible, within the proletarian political milieu. This struggle is waged not only between revolutionary organisations but also within them. The history of the ICC shows that it has been fighting against such drifts for 50 years.

These methods of assimilation, of deliberate confusion by the IGCL in order to sow confusion and mistrust, are abject.

To paraphrase Rosa Luxemburg: lying, snitching, wading in slander, covered in filth: this is what parasitism looks like, this is what it is. It is not when its protagonists give themselves the appearance of respectability and philosophy, morality and openness, debate and fraternity on the presidium of a committee, it is when parasitism resembles a wild beast, when it dances in the sabbath of thuggery, when it pours suspicion on the Communist Left and its principles, that it shows itself for what it really is.

ICC, 15 January 2023

[1] Doctor Bourrinet, fraud and self-proclaimed historian [5]

[2] We cannot develop our position here; we refer our readers to our article “A committee that leads its participants into a dead end”  [6]

[3] The IGCL openly parades its police-like approach. Since 2005, documents relating to internal discussions within the ICC can be found on its website www.igcl.org [7]

[4] This defence does not operate through the advocacy of a bourgeois programme. Indeed, as our Theses on parasitism [8] highlight: "Marx and Engels [...]already characterised the parasites as politicised elements who, while claiming to adhere to the programme and organisations of the proletariat, concentrated their efforts on the combat not against the ruling class but against the organisations of the revolutionary class".

The strikes that started in Britain last year have continued through into 2023 and show every sign of continuing. Strikes on the railways, with postal workers, in the civil service, nurses and ambulance workers in the NHS, teachers, bus drivers, they have all been part of the movement.  An estimated million working days were lost to strike action in the month of December alone, the highest figure since 1989.  Hundreds of thousands of workers in the public and private sector have continued their struggles into the new year.

In France strikes in protest at plans to raise the French retirement age have involved more than a million people in demonstrations across the country. In response to strikes in Italy the government banned strikes on public holidays. Strikes in Germany, Portugal, the United States and elsewhere show that workers in Britain are not alone. However, what is most obvious is that the strikes are divided, different workers striking on different days, different locations at different times. These divisions come from the trade union organisation of the strikes. What’s needed is for workers to take the struggle into their own hands.

Workers need to extend their struggles, to seek out support and solidarity away from the workplace, away from isolated sectors. Workers need to organise their own struggles, which means general assemblies, not controlled by the unions, but controlled by workers. Above all there needs to be the widest discussion on the needs of the struggle, on the lessons to be learnt from past struggles, both victories and defeats. While there will be future defeats, the entry into struggle is the first victory for the working class.

Come to a public meeting to discuss the international significance of the struggles in Britain and the issues that are raised in our latest international leaflet [9]

Saturday 11 February at 2pm at Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Rd, London WC1X 8QY

Introduction

Alongside the article on the history of the “Bérard tendency” in International Review 169, we are republishing a developed response by the organisation, first published in Révolution Internationale no 9 (first series), May-June 1974. Its principal arguments against the embryonic “communisation” tendency – their rejection of the economic struggles of the working class, and of the political dimension of the proletarian revolution, etc – remain entirely valid today.

Incomprehensions on the question

"The working class is the revolutionary class of our time." A century and a half after Marx made this statement, the idea continues to provoke reactions just like those of Copernicus’ contemporaries in the 15th century when the Polish scientist discovered that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.

According to the bourgeois vision of the world, the working class is no more than an economic category, made up of ignorant individuals, totally devoid of any general ambition, concerned above all to ensure their mediocre well-being as individuals (or as a family) and for that reason competition divides them up into a vast mass of scattered atoms. The "modernist" and totalitarian version of this view may go so far as to recognise that the proletariat is able to unify, at least partially, to demand that its masters grant some improvement to its enslaved condition.

However, that this mass of ignoramuses is capable of challenging the very existence of such slavery, that it is a class with an historic mission, and not a modest one at that: to rid humanity once and for all of its total dependence on economy, now that is an idea that is beyond the bourgeois ideologue and is also one that he finds very irritating.

For him, proletarian revolutionary ideas can only be the utopian dreams of intellectuals, of defectors from the ruling class who are unable for various reasons to integrate themselves into society in the normal way like everyone else. As for the revolutionary uprisings of the class, phenomena whose existence, although rare, is undeniable, for the bourgeoisie and its "thinkers" these are only ever produced by the nefarious influence of agitators who come from outside of the "work situation", are more or less fanatics and are often "paid by foreign powers".

"Reality is opaque", especially for those classes which, feeling obliged to justify privileges that are unjustifiable, cannot analyse it objectively without denouncing themselves. Moreover, in class society "the dominant ideology is that of the dominant class" and the blindness of the bourgeoisie cannot fail to affect, in one way or another, the whole of society.

Even the revolutionary movement, whose thinking is in opposition to the ideology of the ruling class, cannot always escape this permanent and all-embracing pressure. The revolutionary project is based on the idea that those exploited by capital are the only ones able to undertake this project and carry it through to its conclusion. But the dramatic proof of this assumption; the revolutionary uprisings of the proletariat, are rare, although they have had a profound impact on the history of capitalism. The few incidents of openly revolutionary struggle on the part of the proletariat are submerged in decades of apathy and relative social calm. In periods of social peace, the revolutionary nature of the proletariat seems as imperceptible and as difficult to prove as theory of Copernicus.

This is why even revolutionaries themselves have experienced, and do experience, varying degrees of difficulty in grasping this basic postulate of revolutionary thought in all its complexity. Very often a lack of understanding of the revolutionary nature of the working class and the process by which this nature finds expression has rendered the principles of the workers’ movement inadequate and has led to the development of most of the divergences.

The early socialists from Babeuf to Fourier, via St Simon and Owen, failed to identify the revolutionary force capable of actualising the communist projects that they were the first to formulate. In the view of the "pre-Marxist" socialists, the advent of the new society would come out of the evolution of the idea of justice or equality. They still saw the movement of history as the product of the victories and defeats of ideas. For the realisation of their revolutionary projects, they appealed either to the whole of society without the distinction of class, or else to the dominant class because it alone seemed to possess the material means necessary, or else to all of the downtrodden within society regardless of their specific position within the social relations of production.

It was not until Marx and the movements of 1848 (the first uprisings of the proletariat as an autonomous class on the historic scene) that it became clear that the only revolutionary force capable of undertaking the socialist project had to be a class, that is, a part of society defined by its specific position within the relations of production; and that this class was none other than the working class.

Marx rejects the vision of humanity moved to action under the influence of ideas that are eternal and inexplicable and puts in its place that of societies divided into economic classes that evolve under the pressure of the economic struggles between them:

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. (…) Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.” (Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto [10])

The proletariat is an exploited class, but not all exploited classes are the proletariat, nor are they revolutionary classes. But how can this class, divided into competing individuals, submissive and powerless before capital, become a unified class, organised, conscious and armed with the will to shatter the old society? Marx answers:

"The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie." (Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto [10])

“Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance – combination. (…) If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more necessary to them than that of wages. (…) Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests.

 (…) The antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is a struggle of class against class, a struggle which carried to its highest expression is a total revolution.” (Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy [11])

Several points can be drawn out of this understanding:

1) Contrary to the "innovative" flights of fancy of all sorts of philosophers and other historical commentators, "total revolution" is not the result of "new" historical conflicts ("conflicts between the generations", "conflicts between different civilisations", etc.), the socialist revolution is simply the highest expression of the old antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which has divided capitalist society from its birth.

2) Contrary to what some modern "Marxists" have claimed, there is not, on the one hand, an exploited, wage-earning class, divided and submissive to capital; the working class, and on the other hand, a class that is revolutionary, conscious, unified, etc.; the proletariat. Proletariat and working class are synonymous terms which designate the same class, the same social being

3) The process by which the working class rises to the level of its historical task is not a separate process that is external to its daily economic struggle against capital. On the contrary, it is within and by means of this conflict that the working class forges the weapons of its revolutionary struggle.

Marx's famous phrase "the proletariat is revolutionary or it is nothing" is often interpreted as meaning that as long as the proletariat does not struggle in a revolutionary way, it is nothing. The Marxist conception is in fact the opposite; when speaking of the “feudal socialists" in the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote: "what they reproach the bourgeois with is not so much the simple fact of having created a proletariat, but of having created it revolutionary".

The proletariat is revolutionary from its inception. It is impossible to understand what it is without understanding that it is revolutionary. Any approach that talks about the working class without understanding its revolutionary essence, any vision that stops short at the impression of a divided, submissive class, integrated into capital without detecting the revolutionary element that is a part of it at every moment of its existence, is an approach that has nothing to say.

The opposite view that envisages a revolutionary proletariat that is, however, distinct from the exploited class, an entity apart from the economic class that is permanently opposed to capital, is equally hollow.

The difficulty lies in understanding correctly this dual aspect of the proletariat: the historic specificity of the proletariat is that it is the first class in history to be both a revolutionary class and an exploited class. It is sometimes one aspect of the class that prevails in its struggles and sometimes the other but neither of these aspects ever totally disappears in the face of the other.

The failure to understand this permanent duality in working class struggles is the source of two symmetrical errors, both of which are equally in contrast to revolutionary thinking.

The first of these divergences is to understand proletarian struggles as merely "economic", as just wage struggles. By denying that they are also struggles against the system, this viewpoint sees them as no more than a fight to carve out a place within the system. This divergence gives rise to currents like workerism, certain kinds of anarchism, and above all to reformism. The formula of Bernstein, the great theorist of reformism, sums up the essence of this divergence very well: "The movement is everything, the goal is nothing”.

Marx denounced such distortions. Concerning the trade unions as they were in his day, he wrote: “Trades Unions work well as centers of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organized forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system.” (Karl Marx, Value, Price and Profit [12])

The second kind of divergence is based on the same misunderstanding and is the mirror image of the former one. It too fails to recognize the revolutionary aspect of the immediate struggles of the working class in defense of its living conditions and sees them as being totally integrated into the system, just a part of its bargaining structure and therefore, unable to generate (much less to carry within them) the seeds of revolutionary struggle against the system.

The crudest version of this way of thinking is expressed by Proudhon. He thinks that any strike is harmful to workers because it traps them within their condition as wage earners, as slaves of capital. In their place he advocates the formation of cooperatives in which workers should fight from the very outset on a different basis - a revolutionary one - by focusing on the creation of new relations of production. In "Misery of Philosophy", Marx shows the utterly reactionary nature of this vision, which just ends up putting forward the same old stuff as the most scurrilous of the capitalist economists.

"The economists want the workers to remain in the society as it is formed and as they have recorded and sealed it in their manuals. The socialists (à la Proudhon) want them to leave the old society there, so that they can better enter the new society which they have prepared for them with such foresight.”

Marx denounces in the same pages the “transcendental disdain” displayed by these same “socialists”, “when it comes to giving an accurate account of the strikes, coalitions and other forms in which the proletarians carry out before our eyes their organisation as a class.”

This divergence, which could be summed up by inverting the formula which summarises the first one: "The goal is everything, the movement is nothing", has experienced a sort of come-back - albeit in a less crude form than that of Proudhon - in the student movement, in particular that of May '68. The general strike of May '68, in which 10 million workers remained imprisoned in their factories, without managing to break the trade union straitjacket and in which the unions successfully managed to dispel any idea that the struggles could develop an explicitly revolutionary content, produced within the student milieu in revolt the "transcendental disdain" that Marx spoke of. The protesters, “disappointed in the proletariat” were drawn towards two different kinds of counter-revolutionary aberration. One of these was the idea of building communities in which new kinds of human and material relationships could gradually be created.

The pre-Marxist utopians were brought back into fashion by those who decided to immerse themselves in the childhood theories of the proletariat, convinced that they were going beyond all that old fashioned Marxist stuff. The other branch of the disillusioned dipped into the worst bits of Lenin's What is to be done [13] and concluded that the only reason that the whole movement had been such a let-down was that there had been no solid Leninist party "able to lead the masses". They therefore threw themselves into "revolutionary party-building", prepared to do anything; trade unionism, parliamentarianism, frontism, nationalism, etc., in order to win the confidence of the masses of "trade-unionist" sheep who, left to their own devices, would just meekly follow the Stalinist and reformist bureaucracies.

Therefore, after 50 years of triumphant counter-revolution, the working class re-enters the scene of history to herald a new world revolutionary wave, but the idea of its revolutionary nature and the process by which its revolutionary will is forged has difficulty freeing itself from the image of a proletariat which had been apathetic for five decades, to the point that some, like Marcuse, had come to doubt whether it still existed.

To criticise reformist visions without falling into utopian aberrations; to criticise contestationist utopias without falling into neo-syndicalism; to advocate the need for immediate class struggle and its development without falling for the social-democratic vision; to defend the idea that the proletariat's struggles for immediate demands can no longer lead to real gains in the present epoch without rejecting them or underestimating their primordial importance, in short, to show that, for the proletariat, the goal and the movement are indissolubly linked in every moment of its historic struggle, this is the task facing revolutionaries today.

 

o-o-o-o-o-o

 

These points were taken up in the last part of the article "Leçons de la lutte des ouvriers anglais [14]", which appeared in Révolution Internationale no. 8. Unfortunately, it did not achieve the aim it set itself: the problem is badly posed to start with, which means that the answers given are bound to lead to distortions or, at best, to tautologies.

This is how it approaches the question of the revolutionary process: how does the class go from struggles for immediate demands to revolutionary struggles, and it makes the assumption that the former must be negated in order for the latter to develop. "There are no "revolutionary gains" within capitalist society. There are no small embryos of revolution within each struggle, which can grow and coalesce until the class is powerful enough to make the revolution. Just as the revolutionary class is the negation in movement of the class-for-capital, so the revolutionary struggle is the negation of the struggle for demands. Struggles for immediate demands do not become revolutionary; it is the class which, by overcoming and negating its immediate struggle, becomes revolutionary". (Leçons de la lutte des ouvriers anglais [14]; Révolution International n°8, page 8, underlined by us)

Given that there has never been a revolutionary struggle of the proletariat which was not at the same time a struggle for demands, the author of the article is obliged to abandon any reference to the historical experience of the proletariat: "There are no revolutionary gains in capitalist society". Assumptions such as these make any reference to the actual practice of the class impossible. So let's see how the revolutionary process is explained.

"Workers try to struggle as a class-for-capital (by categories, factories, branches, in a competitive way as capitalism is competitive, in order to negotiate the price of labour power). But their relation to capital (their divisions, their submissiveness, their acceptance that they are only wage-labourers) is in contradiction with their own movement and becomes untenable. Therefore, the class must begin to present itself as the negation of its relation to capital, so no longer as an economic category, but as a class-for-itself. It then breaks the divisions that belonged to its previous state and presents itself no longer as a sum of wage-labourers but as a movement that affirms itself autonomously, i.e. it negates what it was before. It is not wage-labour that confronts capital, but wage-labour in the process of becoming something else, of dissolving. The proletariat affirming itself is simply this movement of negation!” (Leçons de la lutte des ouvriers anglais [14]; Révolution International n° 8, page 7).

The reader is plunged into a philosophical jumble, all the more abstract and confused in that it avoids any concrete reference to practice. "Negation in movement", "movement of negation", "realise itself as negation", "movement of autonomous affirmation", "class-for-capital", "class-for-itself", "wage labour in the process of becoming something else", these are the terms used to describe the revolutionary process! In the face of all this obscure and pretentious language, how can we fail to recall the words of Rosa Luxemburg:

“Someone who expresses himself in obscure and high-flown terms, if he is not a pure philosophical idea-constructor or a fantasist of religious mysticism, only shows that he is himself unclear about the matter, or has reason to avoid clarity.” (Rosa Luxemburg, Introduction to Political Economy [15])

But since it is this language that is offered to us, we will try patiently to unravel its content.  Let's start, then, with the point that is the most important and is expressed in the clearest terms; struggles for immediate demands and revolutionary struggles.

Struggles for immediate demands and revolutionary struggles

To demand is to ask for that which is due to you. A struggle is for demands insofar as its aim is to ask for something from someone. It therefore involves the recognition of the power of he who is in a position to grant the demand. A revolutionary struggle, on the other hand, aims to overturn a given situation, to destroy that power. Far from recognising anyone’s power, that power itself is challenged.

There is, therefore, something profoundly different between these two types of struggle, there is a qualitative change in the content of a struggle which ceases to be a demand struggle and becomes a revolutionary one. So, it may seem natural to apply a simplistic syllogistic logic and say: therefore revolutionary struggles are a negation of struggles for demands. It is not possible to challenge someone’s power and at the same time demand something from them because the attitude contained in the latter implies, by definition, that you recognise this power.

The only problem is that the history of the workers' movement stubbornly refuses to bend to such simplistic logic. The history of the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat is the history of its struggles for demands. Many demand struggles have only been potentially revolutionary, but there is no revolutionary struggle that was not simultaneously a demand struggle.

Struggles for demands are always potentially revolutionary struggles.

As we have shown, for Marxism, there is no proletarian struggle which is purely economic, purely demand-oriented. Even in the smallest proletarian strike, there is potentially a political, revolutionary struggle.

If a strike meets too much resistance from the local bosses, if it has to confront the repressive apparatus of the state, in one form or another, it becomes a power struggle. It takes on the character of a revolutionary struggle. If the revolutionary outbursts of the proletariat have so often surprised the whole of society, including revolutionaries, it is precisely because on the whole they arise out of strikes, out of economic struggles which seemed to be completely encompassed within the legal framework.

This revolutionary potential in the class's struggle for demands was already present in capitalism’s ascendent period. When capital was still experiencing its great period of wealth and expansion and could afford to grant the working class real reforms and improvements without its economy being compromised, the revolutionary "over-spill" from demand struggles frequently stained the streets of industrial cities with the blood of workers and of capitalism’s soldiers.

When capitalism entered its decadent phase, the end of reformism was marked by inflation and infernal work rates, which were bound to reinforce this potential. (Hence the creation by capital of a permanent apparatus at the service of the state to supervise the working class: the unions; from whence the multiplication of a new form of revolutionary outburst: wildcat strikes). As capitalism sinks deeper into its decadent phase, Lenin’s comment becomes ever more appropriate: “The socialist revolution looms behind every strike.” (Lenin, Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), [16] March 6-8, 1918)

Revolutionary struggles are demand struggles

Most of the struggles of the proletariat have not gone beyond the framework of immediate demands, they have only been potentially revolutionary. However, in the history of the workers’ movement there is not a single proletarian revolutionary struggle which was not a struggle for demands at the same time. And how could it be otherwise, since it is the revolutionary struggle of a class, of a group of men who are characterized by their economic position and united by their common material situation?

We only have to note that the principle proletarian revolutionary movements were a reaction against the misery and despair engendered by military defeats to see to what extent revolutionary struggles, far from arising out of the negation of demand struggles, are on the contrary the most acute form, the “highest expression” of struggles for demands.

A comparison between the revolutionary movement of 1917 in Russia with that of the German proletariat in 1918-19 speaks volumes on this point. In both cases, the proletariat was driven by the economic and social misery caused by military defeats to embark on revolutionary struggles. In both cases, the movement united and strengthened itself by means of the struggle for one demand: peace. It is true that, owing to its general character, this is a demand that is able to immediately carry the struggle onto a revolutionary terrain. But in itself it is just as much a demand struggle as is a struggle for wage increases. Just like any struggle for demands, it recognizes implicitly the power of he who is being asked to satisfy the demand.

The Russian bourgeoisie did not satisfy it and in order to obtain it the Russian proletariat was obliged to advance its struggle to the point of destroying the state. But in Germany the capitalists signed the peace accord because threatened by the revolutionary turbulence unfurling in every country and the revolutionary movement immediately suffered from this.

By depriving the movement of its main demand, the bourgeoisie also deprived it of its greatest unifying factor. Two months later, it was able quite coldly to provoke a mortal combat, sure that it would win: hence the massacre of the Berlin Commune in January 1919. The class was no longer able to unify. A large part of the proletariat returned from the front just wanting to enjoy peace. Noske's volunteer units were able to massacre the combative workers, in one town after another, without coming up against any real united resistance.

Those who speak pompously about the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat, without understanding what is fundamentally and inevitably demand-oriented in them, do not know what they are talking about.

Let's take another concrete example: the struggles of the Polish workers in December 1970 in the Baltic shipyards. The struggle was triggered by the price increases imposed by the Gomulka government. It therefore started out from the sense that “we can’t take anymore” and raised demands that concerned the working class as wage labourers: it was a reaction against a fall in the value of the wages paid by Polish capital for the workers' labour power. In the course of the struggle, the workers were forced to confront the government militia directly in a bloody battle, they set fire to the headquarters of the governing party, they formed factory councils and did all they could to generalise the movement. At the same time, negotiations with the insurgents were set in motion, which Gierek would attend to personally. Is this a revolutionary struggle (confronting the state by trying to generalise the movement) or a demand struggle (negotiating with capital over the price of commodities, labour power)? Did the Polish workers "negate" their demand struggle in order to attack the state, or did they attack the state because their demand struggle led them naturally to do so?

The answer is the same for all revolutionary struggles of the proletariat: the struggle is simultaneously for immediate demands and it is revolutionary. Making demands, resisting capitalist exploitation, is the basis and the engine of the revolutionary action undertaken by the class. What distinguishes Gdansk from a local strike that does not confront the state violently, is not that it ceased to put forward demands, or that it was not the product of capitalist wage workers, nor did it begin to actually transform capitalist relations of production into new ones. Wage labour was not "in the process of dissolving" during the negotiations with Gierek. What makes the Gdansk struggle special is that it had to resort to much more important forms of political struggle than would an isolated strike which confronts the state only in the guise of one or two cops preventing pickets from being formed or of a union boycotting the struggle.

The more a demand-oriented struggle is forced to use political means of struggle, the more it takes on the character of a revolutionary struggle. But it does not lose its character as a demand struggle. We can also ask the following question: in the aftermath of the seizure of power by the proletariat, when the political power of capital has been destroyed, can we still speak of struggles for demands? Aren't the struggles that the proletariat must wage during the period of its dictatorship purely revolutionary struggles?

The history of the Russian revolution (the only example of the seizure of power by the proletariat that we have) shows that after October 1917, there were still workers' strikes, even during the year 1917. It also shows that after the seizure of power the revolutionary action of the Russian proletariat by no means ceased to be motivated by the need to make economic demands.

We will show in the section on the 'dissolution of wage labour' that Russia is by no means an exception in this, that it cannot be considered an untypical historical example. As long as the proletariat exists as a class, its revolutionary struggle inevitably retains the character of an economic struggle for demands.

We can have a discussion around the speed and the mechanisms by which this aspect will disappear as the dictatorship of the proletariat spreads across the planet. But to ignore or deny the importance and the permanent nature of demands in the proletarian revolutionary struggles which lead to the seizure of power, as Hembé does in his article, is to make it impossible from the outset to understand the revolutionary process.

The class-in-itself, the class-for-itself  

The corollary of the idea stating that the development of revolutionary struggles presupposes the negation of struggles for immediate demands is that, in order to rise to its historic task, the working class must "begin to present itself as the negation of its relation to capital, so no longer as an economic category, but as a class-for-itself".

The idea that the working class must "present itself as the negation of its relation to capital” if it is to undertake the revolutionary struggle, can be understood in two ways depending on the reasoning behind it. One way leads to a tautology, the other to a contradiction.

If we reason in terms of will, of the conscious desire of the workers in struggle, we end up with the following truism: for the workers to think like revolutionaries, i.e. for them to consciously desire the destruction of the power of capital and therefore of the relation of exploitation which binds them to capital, they must consciously desire the negation of their relation with capital.

This is obviously not wrong, but it does not shed much light on the actual process by which this revolutionary will and consciousness is forged.

If we reason in terms of the concrete reality of workers' struggles, we end up with the following contradiction: for the working class to be able to fight against capital, it must first negate itself as the working class; in other words, for the class to confront capital and fight it in a revolutionary way, it must first disappear.

This interpretation of the text may seem ‘forced’ and somewhat ‘far-fetched’, but it is nevertheless what emerges. It is clearly explained that when the class confronts capital, it no longer presents itself “as an economic category", as a "sum of wage-earners". Now, what is a class, if not a particular "economic category"; and what is the working class if not "a sum of wage-earners"? Does not the act of consciously desiring the end of wage-labour make the working class immediately seem to be a sum of wage-labourers? Wouldn’t that make the abolition of wage-labour look like a question of the "auto-suggestion" of the workers?

If the working class does not present itself as a sum of wage-earners, exploited by capital, in its struggle against the capitalist state, how can it "present itself"? Hembé answers: "it presents itself as a class-for-itself", "it presents itself as a movement of autonomous affirmation, that is to say, the negation of what it was before". What then is this "movement of autonomous affirmation", autonomous in relation to what? In relation to capital? But can capital exist outside of and independently of wage labour, of exploitation? If capital exists, wage-labour remains, and the exploited class is a wage-earning class. Just as capital as a social relation cannot exist without the working class, so the working class can only affirm itself in opposition to, in its struggle against capital. To talk of the "autonomous affirmation of the class" is a contradiction in terms. A class is a part of society. It can therefore only affirm itself in relation to another part of society and, as we shall see, even in the best case scenario, this other part does not disappear, it rather merges with the rest of society.

Perhaps we can uncover something more serious and real in the other assertion put forward: the working class "behaves as a class-for-itself"?

But this too is playing with words because, contrary to what is claimed in the article, for Marxists the concept of "class-for-itself" is by no means a "negation" of the "class-in-itself", of the class as an "economic category", of the "class vis-à-vis capital".

Let us first recall the meaning Marx gives to the terms "class vis-à-vis capital" and "class-for-itself". As he defines it, the working class is initially "a crowd of people unknown to each other", a mass of people "divided in interests by competition". The only thing that this mass of reciprocally indifferent workers have in common is the fact that they are all under the direct domination of capital through wage labour. The individuals who constitute this class are not yet conscious of belonging to the same class, of having common interests: the class does not yet exist for itself, but it does exist in itself, vis-à-vis capital. The fact that capital creates workers' districts, social services for workers or "ad hoc" apparatuses of repression shows that for them this class already exists.

“The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself.” (Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy [11])

The class which begins to exist "for itself" is no other than this same class as it becomes conscious of its existence, of the common interests which characterise it in relation to the rest of society and above all in relation to capital. This consciousness is not the fruit of divine inspiration, nor of the omnipotence of an enlightened political party, but of the struggles that it is forced to wage against capital for its material conditions of existence:

"In the struggle, (...) “this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests.” (Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy [11])

The class which exists "for itself" is by no means a class which "negates itself" as a class existing 'vis-à-vis capital' or as an "economic category", on the contrary it is an economic class which is becoming conscious of its existence as such. It does not deny its nature as an economic class vis-à-vis capital, it takes it upon itself.

The fact that the revolutionary struggle of this class, which has become conscious of its historical interests against capital, inevitably leads to the destruction of capital itself, to the dissolution of all classes, and thus to its own dissolution, in no way implies that it must negate itself in order to confront capital, on the contrary. Its dissolution as a class is not the starting point of its struggle, but its outcome, the final result.

As we will see later, in practical terms, if the proletariat is bound to disappear as a class, it is not because it "negates itself" before other classes, but on the contrary because it asserts itself in such a way that it is forced to generalise its economic condition to the whole of society.

 

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

 

Do not tell us that our reference to Marx’s definition of the "class-for-itself" is inappropriate for the problems of the workers' movement in this period (because of the impossibility of reformism, the impossibility for the proletariat to create permanent organisations of economic struggle).

It is true that the workers' movement which Marx analysed in his day could still carry out reformist struggles, create permanent economic organisations within capitalist society.

It is true that in that historic period, the working class could exist for itself through its unions and its political parties, without being forced to immediately engage the capitalist state in revolutionary struggle: capital was rich enough and had sufficient markets for expansion for the system to be able to make some concessions to the living conditions of the working class.

It is also true that these conditions disappear in the period of capitalist decline. The workers can only become conscious of their existence as a class in the course of the struggles themselves (the emergence of the class for itself).

 The proletariat can no longer create economic organisations or political parties on a permanent basis within society: any unitary workers' organisation which tries to do so is forced either to transform itself into a revolutionary soviet - which is only possible in a revolutionary period - or to allow itself to be taken over by the capitalist state and to be integrated into it.

In the period of capitalist decadence, the unions have become organs of the state within the working class. Their task is not - as all governments in the world claim - to organise the class as an economic category, but to prevent such organisations from arising. The idea that unions organise the working class in our time only makes sense from the point of view of capital. They organise the workers just as the kapos organised the prisoners in the German concentration camps. From the point of view of the individual worker, they can, at best, be an intermediary in the service of the boss, just like the "psychologist" or the social worker in the factory. From the point of view of the workers as a class, they are just the first detachment of the army of capital which they have to confront every time they struggle. That's why for more than half a century, the class has tended, in every struggle, however "economic and demand oriented" it may seem, to create a sporadic, momentary form of organisation, viable only while the struggle lasts: the strike committees outside the unions.

These changes do not invalidate Marx's definition of what the "class-for-itself" is and how it is forged, nor do they mean that "economic struggles are impossible". What has changed is that the working class can no longer exist permanently as a class-for-itself within capitalism: it can only assert itself as a class in an ad hoc way, in the course of its open struggles. The path that the class must take to reach self-consciousness remains, however, the same as in the 19th century, that of its struggles.

The fact that the changed situation of capital forces these struggles to transform themselves much more quickly into revolutionary struggles, because capital can no longer grant real economic reforms, does not take away from them their basis as economic struggles. As long as working class and capital exist, the economic struggles of the proletariat will also exist. What has changed is that these economic struggles are even less purely economic struggles, their revolutionary nature is forced to emerge more quickly than in the 19th century, consequently they have become much more difficult. This explains both their tendency to take on increasingly the form of violent and sudden explosions, and also the long periods of apathy and hesitation which follow and prepare them.

Today, as in Marx's day, the revolutionary class, the class that exists for itself, is not a class distinct from the class-in-itself, the economic class. Today, as in the past, the historically revolutionary class is none other than the class of wage-labour which suffers and confronts capital before our eyes every day.

The dissolution of wage labour.

Continuing in his attempt to explain how the working class will come to confront capital, comrade Hembé writes: "It is not wage labour which confronts capital, but wage labour in the process of becoming something else, of dissolving. The proletariat affirming itself is simply this movement of negation."

How can wage labour “dissolve” before capital has been destroyed? How can capital be destroyed before the proletariat has taken political power and has control of the whole economic apparatus on a world scale, or at least in a number of developed countries? By putting the cart before the horse in this way, we end up either with the idea of the possibility of socialism in one country (or at least the beginning of socialism), or with the idea that there can be effective communist economic transformation within capitalist society, even before the bourgeois state has been destroyed. That is, two reactionary divergences.

Bourgeois revolutions (Cromwell in England, 1789 in France) were essentially political upheavals. The economic infrastructure of the new society pre-existed the seizure of political power by the bourgeoisie. The process of the proletarian revolution, because it is the work of an exploited class, is the opposite. The revolutionary class takes political power, not to consecrate the already existing economic situation, but on the contrary to destroy it. The new economic and social infrastructure can only begin to be built after the political power of the bourgeoisie has been destroyed, once the proletariat has acquired political power. This is a specificity of the proletariat as a revolutionary class.

To abolish wage-labour is to abolish the sale and purchase of labour power. For this to be possible, all buying and selling in society must cease all at once because abolishing wage-labour means eliminating commodities in general. In practical terms, this means that the production of the whole of society must be pooled and that everyone must be able to access it according to his needs.

The abolition of wage-labour, communism, has become possible and necessary because of the extraordinary development of the productive forces under capitalism. But given that capitalist production takes place on a world scale and that today every commodity is composed of goods from the four corners of the globe, the abolition of wage-labour can only come to pass when market exchange has been eliminated all over the entire planet. As long  as there are parts of the world where the labour product must be bought and sold, the abolition of wage-labour cannot be fully achieved anywhere.

This means that in those countries where first the proletariat manages to destroy the capitalist state apparatus and establish its dictatorship by seizing control of the whole industrial apparatus of production, the first aim will be to create as large a collectivised sector as possible. Logically this sector must initially include all the industrial centres of production, the domain of the revolutionary proletariat. Within this sector, collectivisation will lead to the generalisation of free goods. To the objective collectivisation of material production which capitalism will already have achieved in practice, there will be added the collectivisation of distribution - free of charge.

The proletariat will do all in its power to enlarge its sector as widely and as quickly as possible at the expense of the sector which remains uncollectivised: some peasants, and the countries which are still under the total domination of capital. The success or failure of its revolutionary activity depends on its ability to carry out this task and once the process has begun, the briefest hiatus will mean a return to capitalist exploitation via a counter-revolutionary massacre. Therefore, an essential aspect of making wage labour disappear is the expansion of this sector and the integration of the whole population into collectivised production.

The beginning of the process of the "dissolution of wage labour " will therefore be marked by the creation of this first collectivised sector. As long as this sector does not exist, to speak of the dissolution of wage-labour is just empty talk! As long as it has not been created, capital and wage labour dominate society in all their hatefulness.

However, even with the best case scenario (the revolution starting in the USA, for example) the nucleus of this sector can only be created through the seizure of political power by the proletariat in at least one large industrial country, if not several. Otherwise, it will have no material reality. A collectivised sector forced to buy and sell most of what it consumes and produces has no chance of collectivising anything. The black market and similar phenomena would immediately reduce collectivization to a meaningless word written in fiery declarations of early soviets. And as for wage-labour, it would no more dissolve than would the law of exchange.

When we try to understand, at least in broad outline, what the process of "the dissolution of wage-labour" means practically, we can see that ideas such as, “before taking on the capitalist state, the working class must begin to “dissolve as wage labour””, is just playing with words!

The dictatorship of the proletariat.

On the whole the tendency to identify two distinct classes within the revolutionary process, one that lives under capitalism ("the class-in-itself", the "economic category", "the class for capital" or simply "the working class") and another that is the "negation" of the first, with the responsibility of making the revolution ("the class-for-itself", "the universal class", the "revolutionary class" or "the proletariat"), start from the same theoretical incomprehension.

We have to understand that the main task of the proletariat in the course of its revolutionary dictatorship is to abolish wage-labour and that practical measures to abolish it can and must be taken from the very beginning of the dictatorship of the proletariat (an idea which contradicts the one prevailing within the social-democratic labour movement at the beginning of the 20th century, according to which there should be a long period of transition characterised by wage equality)

We are therefore confronted with the following problem: if the elimination of exploitation begins from the start of the revolutionary dictatorship, what happens to the working class? What distinguishes it from the rest of society now that it is losing its most important specificity: the fact that as a class it is exploited through wage labour, since it will tend to dissolve into a mass of producers who are all equal? The basic motive force behind the proletariat’s action within capitalist society is its struggle against exploitation; but what is left of this motive force when the exploitation of the proletariat begins to come to an end? To what extent is the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" still applicable?

There is a big temptation to solve the problem by saying either that there are two distinct classes, one that is exploited while the other is revolutionary; that there is one class within capitalism and, through the revolutionary process, a “universal class”, that is, no class at all really; or else that there is in fact only one class but that it is so different in the two different situations that it is no longer the same.

This temptation is so great that one can even manage to convince oneself that this is a decisive "innovation" on the "old workers' movement" and that anyone who does not reason in this way is inevitably doomed to evolve towards social-democratic ideas. By centering the analysis of the revolutionary process on the "negation of the class-for-capital by the class-for-itself", the article is caught up in this same kind of view. But how does saying that the class which acts in a revolutionary way is very different from that which lives under the domination of capital help us to solve the problems occasioned by the revolutionary process after the seizure of power?

There is no doubt that, from the point of view of its conscious will as well as of its organic composition, the proletariat undergoes an important transformation in the course of its revolutionary struggle. It is obvious that the proletariat which is doing its utmost to extend its dictatorship over the rest of society, which is trying to expand the collectivised sector which it has created, is possessed of a conscious will which is not the same as that of the proletariat when it was engaged in partial struggles during the period of capitalism’s expansion. It is also true that a proletariat which is managing to expand the sector it has collectivised every day, is a proletariat which is converting new workers into "proletarians" and so grows steadily. It is no less true that the proletariat that works in a collectivised sector behaves differently from the proletariat within capitalist society.

All this is quite correct and can be summarised by noting that the life of the proletariat while it passively submits to the dictatorship of capital is not the same as when it exercises its dictatorship to free itself definitively.

We might have suspected this ....

But having noted this, the problem remains: the question that is pending is: what motivates the proletariat to continue its revolutionary struggle in this period and why does the proletariat continue to be the only revolutionary class?

If we really want to tackle these problems, we have to start by answering two other questions:

1) Why is the working class the only revolutionary class that confronts capital?

2) How does the working class continue to be exploited after it has seized power?

Why is the proletariat revolutionary?

The characteristics that make the proletariat revolutionary are present from the moment it is born:

1. the material relations that tie it to the means of production; the elements and means by which it labours;
2. the social relations that tie it to capital, viewed not in terms of the material means of production, but as a social relation.

We must therefore distinguish, on the one hand, the capitalist system of production as a material way of producing, of associating living and dead labour; and, on the other hand, the capitalist system as a set of social relations linking the different economic classes of society.

Let us consider the working class within capitalism from the point of view of the material means of production. Its specificity in relation to the other classes in society lies in the fact that it constitutes the living force of associated labour. Unlike the small farmer, the craftsman, the small shopkeeper, the members of the liberal professions, etc., the industrial worker works and produces collectively. He produces only an increasingly small part of the overall product within an ever-increasing division of labour. His relationship with the means of production is a relationship with means that become increasingly enormous. It is a relationship that is objectively collective.

It is when faced with the economic crises of society that classes reveal their true historic nature. As it is a collective producer, the proletariat cannot envisage an individual solution to an economic crisis based on private property. “Independent” workers, such as peasants or craftsmen, whether or not they are the owners of their means of production, are bound to be extremely suspicious of any kind of collectivisation of the means of production in the face of a crisis. It is inevitable that they tend to react by advocating the re-division of the land or the protection of private property.

On the contrary, for the industrial worker, even an illiterate one, the division of the factory into individual plots would seem completely nonsensical.

As it is situated at the very heart of the production of social wealth that is so vital, as it works in an associated way, as its relation to the means of production is exclusively COLLECTIVE, the industrial proletariat is the only social class able to understand, desire, and achieve the actual worldwide collectivisation of production. This is the first basic fact that makes it the only revolutionary class of our time.

Now to consider the position of the proletariat within capitalism in terms of a set of social relations; it constitutes the only class really antagonistic to capital and the bourgeoisie. Surplus-value, the sole source of the accumulation of capital, labour stolen from the working class by the capitalist, is at the very heart of the relations which bind the two fundamental classes of society. Marx said that his only two original discoveries were the theory of surplus value and the fact that the proletariat is the revolutionary class of capitalist society. These notions are in fact the two keystones to an understanding of social life under capitalism: the essence of capitalist social life is summed up in the struggle for surplus value between those who create it and those who consume and use it. The engine of the proletariat’s action is this struggle against the extraction of surplus-value, against wage-labour. As long as capital dominates society, there is wage labour. As long as capital exists, the action of the proletariat is entirely determined by the fundamental antagonism which links it to capital.

As the direct antagonist of capital, permanently forced to react against capitalist exploitation, the social position of the proletariat constitutes the other basic element that determines its revolutionary nature.

Every exploited class in history has fought against its exploitation. Within capitalism itself, there are other exploited classes which, at one time or another, in one way or another, have come into conflict with capital. But because the capitalist system can only be overthrown by a system based on a higher collectivisation of the productive process, the working class, whose labour is collective, is the only one that is historically revolutionary.

Exploited class and living force of collective labour, these two aspects exist permanently within the proletariat. From its birth to the final disappearance of the class, these two elements explain the revolutionary content of proletarian struggles. The struggle against exploitation is the engine of all its actions; the fact that it works collectively determines the form these take. Any attempt to understand proletarian struggle without referring to these two aspects is bound to end up inventing forces that have no form or forms that are without force.

Therefore, just as the simplest type of struggle against exploitation, the strike, cannot be understood without reference to the collective class nature of labour, so neither is it possible to understand how the proletariat strives to collectivise the production of the whole planet without understanding that it is a struggle against exploitation. For as long as the proletariat exists, for as long as classes exist, the proletariat will be an exploited class.

In what way is the working class an exploited class during its revolutionary dictatorship?

It is surprising to learn that there were workers’ strikes in early Soviet Russia (from 1917). This was a period of revolutionary euphoria, a period in which the workers' soviets were still full of revolutionary life, the workers were collectivising everything they could, workers’ power was rising on the still smouldering ruins of the old society (...)

Some say that these strikes were due to the opposition between the revolutionary movement of the workers and the "anti-worker" nature of the Bolshevik party. Others talk instead of the harmful influence of bourgeois parties like the Mensheviks who encouraged the workers to go on strike in order to weaken the situation of the proletarian Bolshevik party. The real point is that the seizure of power by the Russian proletariat in October 1917 was not enough to put an end to its exploitation by world capital.

The proletariat can seize power in a country, it can collectivise the whole productive apparatus and eliminate all exchange within the collectivised sector by making all goods and services free, but its economic survival will still depend on other countries, as well as on the non-collectivised sectors in its own country (see the peasants in Russia and their opposition to the proletariat). Within the country, the proletariat can create better working conditions for itself (reduction of working hours, improvement in factory conditions, etc.), but it can only do so within the limits imposed by the need to trade with the rest of the world. If the capitalist countries decide to block all exports to the country in which the insurrection is taking place, or simply to increase their selling price, although those workers have a monopoly of armaments within their territory and are in full control of their revolutionary dictatorship, they will be forced to implement the most stringent rationing or to increase working hours in order to survive. Only the geographical extension of the revolution can mitigate this dependence.

Capitalist exploitation is international and as long as capital has not been destroyed on a global scale, as long as commodity exchange continues to exist somewhere in the world, no part of the proletariat can cease to be an exploited class. The end of capitalist exploitation will only come about when all the workers of the world have been integrated into the revolutionary proletariat, that is, when the proletariat has been dissolved into humanity. The force that leads the proletariat to continue its revolutionary struggle after the seizure of power is therefore no different from the one that brought it to power: the struggle against its exploitation.

 

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

 

Instead of wading pretentiously into the simplistic world of abstractions, the philosophers of "negation" would do well to raise their level to the reality of the actual process. They would quickly see the emptiness of their reasoning.

The intervention of revolutionaries

If someone thinks that "revolutionary struggles" are the "negation" of struggles for immediate demands, if he can only conceive of the "revolutionary class" as a "negation" of the "wage-earning class", what can he say to workers who are currently engaged in wage struggles? Hembé answers:

"Communists are present in the struggles as much as possible, however small these struggles may be, and they are as energetic and imaginative as any combative worker, if for no other reason than that they suffer the same exploitation and share the same feeling of revolt against their present existence. But what distinguishes them is that they say openly and against the general opinion of other proletarians who refuse to recognize the fact, that the deepening of the crisis and the present attacks are the condition for the revolution in that they provide practical proof of the impossibility in this period for the proletariat to defend itself simply as wage-labour within capitalist society". (Leçons de la lutte des ouvriers anglais [14]; Révolution Internationale n°8, page 9)

In the Manifesto, when speaking of the intervention of communists in the struggles, Marx writes: the communists “have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement”. (Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto [10])

As he is convinced that the problem of the direction of the workers' movement boils down to an understanding of the necessity to "negate" the struggle for immediate demands, Hembé understands nothing about what can be done within these struggles. Thus, he proposes that we participate in them, that we deploy "as much" energy and imagination as the most combative workers, while declaring: "It's all useless!" or, at most: "I hope that this will serve as a lesson and that you will understand at last that, as simple wage-labour, you cannot defend yourselves!”. "There is no way out within the system!".

It is true that demand struggles cannot lead to real material gains within decadent capitalism. It is also true that this is one of the main ideas that revolutionaries must defend within the struggles. But if one participates with all one's "energy" in a struggle in order to constantly repeat (with "imagination" one supposes) that it will not do any good, for no other reason than to convince us of its futility, one will be treated as an fool, and rightly so! If we have nothing else to say, we might as well stay at home!

Hembé’s intention is to criticise the attitude of the Trotskyists and their tactic of the "transitional programme" – they raise demands within the struggles, these are unobtainable within capitalism and revolutionaries know it but the workers are supposed to be totally unaware of the fact; they are sure that, once the class has taken them up, there will be a revolutionary confrontation because most of them can only be obtained after the workers have seized power; it's the simple mechanism of the carrot dangled in front of the donkey to make it move forward. But the criticism as he makes it leads to a position as absurd as that of the Trotskyists.

Hembé repeats several times in the article that "immediate struggles are necessary". Why? Because the class must "repeat again and again the practical experience of the impossibility of reformism”, and he reminds us, in his own words, of Marx's famous phrase: "Men do not overturn their social relations until they have exhausted all possibility of patching them up". (Leçons de la lutte des ouvriers anglais [14]; Révolution Internationale No. 8, page 3)

If this were all that immediate struggles were good for, revolutionaries would no more participate in them than in imperialist wars. But these partial struggles have another function for the proletariat. It is through them that the workers become conscious of belonging to a class, it is through them that the unity of the class is forged. A class which does not resist exploitation on a permanent basis will never be able to launch a revolutionary struggle.

Conscious desire develops only when there is a possibility of it being realised. Just as humanity only tackles problems that it can solve, so too workers only begin to tackle the problem of the revolutionary project as and when the forces necessary for its realisation begin to appear clearly before their eyes. The working class has only two weapons for its revolutionary task: its consciousness and its unity. Two weapons that it discovers only in the course of its struggles.

Revolutionary ideas reverberate very differently according to whether they are voiced in an electoral booth or whether they are discussed by a group of strikers. Between these two situations, there is the gulf which separates the individual worker, isolated and powerless, from the worker who discovers in a strike the strength that stirs in the loins of his class.

Communists who try earnestly to understand the conditions, the direction and what has come out of the workers' movement generally, know that these struggles can at any moment be transformed into real revolutionary combats.

They don't say ‘abandon your struggles because they are useless’. Instead they urge: strengthen your struggles, extend them, use the most radical and political means you can, because there, where only economic struggles can be seen, you are really forging the weapons for the only material victory still possible for you: the socialist revolution.

 

R. Victor, May-June 1974

 

 

Leaflet given out by the ICC at the recent massive demonstrations in France

**************************************

On January 19th and 31st, more than a million of us took to the streets to mobilise against the new pension reform. The government claims that this anger is due to a "lack of explanation", to a "lack of education". But we all understand very well! With this umpteenth reform, the goal is clear: to exploit us more and more and to cut the pensions of all those who, because of redundancy or illness, will not be able to complete their years of service. Working until exhaustion for a miserable pension, that's what awaits us

But "at some point, enough is enough! ". This expression came up so often in the processions that it was picked up by the front pages of the press. This is almost word for word the phrase that strikers have been putting forward for months in the UK: "Enough is enough". This is not a coincidence. The link that unites us is obvious: the same degradation of living and working conditions, the same attacks, the same inflation, and the same growing combativity. Because, yes, "enough is enough". The pension reform, the soaring prices, the infernal pace of work, the understaffing, the miserable wages... and what about the new reform of the unemployment insurance, a revolting measure that reduces the duration of compensation by 25% and will allow the beneficiaries to be deregistered in no time! And this for the sake of statistics and lies about "reducing unemployment".

Massive struggles show our solidarity

By being more than a million in the streets on January 19, more on January 31, the working class demonstrates once again what makes its strength: its capacity to enter massively into struggle. Unemployed, retired, future workers, employees, of all professions, of all sectors, public or private, the exploited form one and the same class animated by one and the same feeling of solidarity: One for all, all for one!

For months, there have been small strikes everywhere in France, in factories or in offices. Their multitude reflects the level of anger in the ranks of the working class. But because they are isolated from each other, these strikes are powerless; they exhaust the most combative sectors in hopeless struggles. Corporatist and sectorial strikes only lead to the defeat of all: each one loses in their corner, each one in turn, one after the other. The organisation of corporatist and sectoral struggles is only the modern incarnation of the old adage of the ruling classes: "Divide and rule".

Faced with this dispersal, under the impact of constant attacks on our living and working conditions, we feel more and more that we must break this isolation, that we are all in the same boat, that we must fight all together. On January 19 and 31, with more than a million people in the streets, sticking together, there was not only joy but also a certain pride in experiencing working class solidarity.

To be truly united, we must regroup, debate and decide together

With more than a million people in the street, the atmosphere takes on a new mood. There is the hope of being able to win, of being able to make the government back down, to make it bend under the weight of numbers. It is true, only the fight can stop the attacks. But is being numerous enough?

In 2019, we were also massively mobilised and the pension reform passed. In 2010, against what was supposed to be the last pension reform, we swore and swore, we held fourteen days of action! Nine months of struggle! These processions gathered millions of demonstrators several times in a row. For what result? The pension reform has been passed. However, in 2006, after only a few weeks of mobilisation, the government withdrew its "Contrat Première Embauche" (CPE). Why? What is the difference between these movements? What frightened the bourgeoisie in 2006, to the point of making it retreat so quickly?

In 2010 and 2019, we were many, we were determined, but we were not united. There may have been millions of us, but we marched separately, one behind the other. The demonstrations consisted of coming with your colleagues, walking with your colleagues under the deafening noise of the sound systems, and leaving with your colleagues. No assembly, no debate, no real meeting. These demonstrations were reduced to the expression of a simple parade.

In 2006, the precarious students organised massive general assemblies in the universities, open to workers, the unemployed and the retired, they put forward a unifying slogan: the fight against casualisation and unemployment. These assemblies were the lungs of the movement, where debates were held, where decisions were made.

Result: Each weekend, the demonstrations gathered more and more sectors. Waged and retired workers joined the students, under the slogan: ‘Young lardons, old croutons, all the same salad’. The French bourgeoisie and the government, faced with this tendency to unify the movement, had no choice but to withdraw its CPE.

The big difference between these movements is therefore the question of the workers themselves taking charge of the struggles!

In the processions today, the reference to May 68 is regularly recurring: "You talk about 64, we reply with -May 68," could be read on many posters. This movement has left an extraordinary trace in the workers' memories. And in 1968, the proletariat in France was united in taking its struggles into its own hands. Following the huge demonstrations of May 13 to protest against the police repression suffered by the students, the walkouts and general assemblies spread like wildfire in the factories and all the workplaces, leading to the largest strike in the history of the international workers' movement, with nine million strikers. Very often, this dynamic of extension and unity had developed outside the authority of the unions, and many workers tore up their union cards after the Grenelle agreements of May 27 between the unions and the employers, agreements that had buried the movement.

Today, whether we are talking about waged workers, unemployed, retired, precarious students, we still lack confidence in ourselves, in our collective strength, to dare to take our struggles in hand. But there is no other way. All the "actions" proposed by the unions lead to defeat. Only coming together in open, massive, autonomous general assemblies, really deciding on the conduct of the movement, provides the basis of a united struggle, carried by the solidarity between all sectors, all generations. It’s in these general assemblies that we feel united and confident in our collective strength.

There is no room for illusions, as history has shown a thousand times: today the unions display their "unity" and call for a general mobilisation, tomorrow they will oppose each other to better divide us and better demobilise us. In fact, this work of division has already started:

- On the one hand, the unions classified as "radical" focus on the need to block the country's economy. In concrete terms, this means that the workers in the most combative sectors at present, such as the oil refiners or the railway workers, will find themselves locked in their workplaces, isolated from their class brothers and sisters in the other sectors, who will be reduced to striking by proxy. Just like in 2019!

- On the other side, the so-called "reformist" unions are already preparing for disunity by repeating "We are not against pension reform. We are not unaware. It is well known that we must maintain a system of financial equilibrium in this pay-as-you-go pension plan. [...] However, we do not want a reform that is unfair.”  (Geoffrey Caillon, CFDT TotalEnergies coordinator). And so they call on the government to "hear" the discontent and negotiate. In other words, the government and the unions have long been planning adjustments to the reform to make it work. Just like in 2019!

The future belongs to the class struggle!

Pension reform is done in the name of budget balance, justice and the future. On January 20, Macron announced with great fanfare a record military budget of 400 billion euros! This is the reality of the future promised by the bourgeoisie: more war and more misery. Capitalism is an exploitative, global and decadent system. It is leading humanity towards barbarism and destruction. Economic crisis, war, global warming, pandemic are not separate phenomena; all of them are scourges of the same moribund system.

Thus, our current struggles are not only a reaction to the pension reform, nor even to the degradation of our living conditions.

Basically, they are a reaction to the general dynamics of capitalism. Our solidarity in struggle is the antithesis of the competition to the death which marks a system divided into competing companies and nations. Our intergenerational solidarity is the antithesis of the no future and the destructive spiral of this system. Our struggle symbolises the refusal to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of the war economy. This is why every strike carries the seeds of revolution. The struggle of the working class is immediately a questioning of the very foundations of capitalism and exploitation.

Our current struggle prepares the way for the struggles to come. There will be no respite. As the world economic crisis deepens, in its mad race for profit, each national bourgeoisie will continue to attack the living and working conditions of the proletariat.

The most combative and determined workers must regroup, discuss, and reappropriate the lessons of the past, in order to prepare the autonomous struggle of the whole working class. It is a necessity. This is the only way.

International Communist Current (February 2, 2023)

Gather and debate

Marching one behind the other, then everyone leaving separately  in their corner is sterile. To be truly united in the fight, you have to meet, debate, learn from the present struggle and past struggles. We must take charge of our struggles.

Wherever possible, in workplaces or here, on the sidewalks, now or at the end of the event, we have to regroup and discuss.

If by reading this leaflet, you share this desire to reflect together, to organise, to take control of the struggles then do not hesitate to come to our meeting at the end of the demonstration to continue the debate.

The emancipation of workers will be the work of the workers themselves.

We were a bit surprised to see our organisation mentioned briefly in an article by Gavin Mortimer, published in the British magazine The Spectator on 22 January. A few years ago the Daily Mail, a sensationalist tabloid, not known for its honesty and high-mindedness, believed that it had unmasked the ICC as the brains behind a student plot to trash the Conservative Party HQ in Britain. You will be shocked to know that this was a gross lie which we denounced in our press in 2010[1]:

This time, nothing of the sort. It was just a brief mention, vaguely mocking, in a very serious conservative magazine. It was not seeking to make a scandal. But since Gavin Mortimer has inadvertently passed the baton to us, we will take the opportunity to make a few points clear.

In his account, Gavin Mortimer presents the recent demonstrations against the pension reforms as the expression of the French way of life, a sort of national curiosity illustrated by our leaflet, alongside the Yellow Vests and a merguez vendor.

At the risk of disappointing our dear Gavin, our leaflet wasn’t a bit of local colour provided for tourists looking for something a bit spicy. The ICC distributes leaflets in all countries where its militants are present: in French, Filipino, Spanish, Hindi, Italian, Germany and even…in English!

We advise him to read our leaflet on the strikes in the UK[2] published in August 2022, which received a favourable response from some of the strike pickets in the “mother country”. Nine months of struggle on both sides of the Channel have largely confirmed what we put forward in the leaflet: “It is not possible to predict where and when the workers' combativity will re-emerge on a massive scale in the near future, but one thing is certain: the scale of the current workers' mobilisation in Britain is a significant historical event. The days of passivity and submission are past. The new generations of workers are raising their heads”.

Everywhere in the world, and not only in France, the exploited are returning to the path of struggle faced with the inexorable degradation of their living and working conditions, with poverty, precariousness, the rising cost of living.

As Gavin Mortimer, in his own way and with his particular prejudices puts it, “They are working class and middle class, young and old, and their anger has been building for years. Raising the age of retirement to 64 is a cause around which they can all rally but their ras-le­-bol (despair) is far more profound”. Indeed, the demonstrations in France express more than just a rejection of the pension reform. Even if the proletarians are not yet conscious of it, the struggles in France and Britain are a reaction to the spiral of chaos and poverty which capitalism is inflicting on humanity.

We find nothing to despise in seeing the “young” mixed together with “greying boomers”. Because these struggles also express the beginning of solidarity between the different sectors of our class, between “white collars” and “blue collars” as well as between generations. Its because industrial workers and white collar workers, young and old, in all sectors and in all countries, share the same conditions of exploitation that the class struggle is fundamentally international.

This is why revolutionaries aim to show that each struggle must encourage the next across all frontiers, despite the silence of the bourgeois press and the systematic deformation of what’s going on. To fight against its lies, our leaflets, like our press, has never stopped showing the link between the “enough is enough” of the strikers in Britain with the “ça suffit” of the demonstrators in France. We have thus welcomed the mobilisation of the workers in Britain because, dear Gavin, these massive strikes are an appeal to struggle, addressed to workers in all countries.

EG 2.2.23

Small children freezing to death in cold damp houses, schoolkids pretending to eat from empty lunch boxes – these are among the most graphic illustrations of the “cost of living crisis” which, since it took off in 2021, has been hitting the working class. Food price inflation, the spiralling rise in gas and electricity costs, are all a concrete reality for millions of workers.

The intolerable impact on the working class

According to official statistics, a quarter of the population, 14.5 million people, live in food poverty. This includes 4.3 million children, 2.1 million pensioners and 8.1 million of working age. The number of food banks in Britain has been increasing; there are now more than 2500, which are feeding new categories of “poor” people, including employed workers. And they have recently been running out of supplies, partly because of the demands made on them, and partly because of difficulties in making donations. Families are having to limit what they eat – forced to choose between eating or heating. Unheated homes are bad for your health. At the same time, “More than 5 million households are in fuel poverty, which means that they spend more than 10% of their income on gas and electricity, struggling to afford to keep their homes warm. Large families could even be spending a quarter of their disposable income on energy”. [1] The Resolution Foundation has forecast that absolute poverty (when household income is below the level to meet basic needs) will rise from 17% in 2021-2022 to 22% in 2022-2023. This means an increase in absolute poverty of over 3 million working class households. It is suggested that 3.2 million of adults in Britain are in hygiene poverty, that is not being able to afford hygiene and grooming products.

Over the last decade the working class in Britain had seen a relentless deterioration of its living standards, through cuts in the social wage - health and social services, housing, pensions, reduction in claimant payments - and a slow deterioration of the purchasing power for those still in employment. Median wage growth between 2007 and 2021 was 20.1% in the US, 11.7% in France, 15.7% in Germany, but only 4.8% in the UK. In the last few years, the effective wage cuts have become simply unbearable. Wages are not predicted to return to their 2008 level until 2027. This sounds very optimistic when wage increases are currently at 6.4% (and only 3.3% in the public sector) while inflation is in double figures. On top of all this, there could also be an increase in unemployment of more than half a million, with major implications for the incomes of laid-off workers.

Inflation: the figures speak for themselves

Inflation has risen to double-digit levels for the first time in 40 years: from around 5.4 % in December 2021 to 10.1% in July 2022 (11.1% in October). It’s only the fourth time in 70 years that inflation has gone beyond 10% (the other periods being 1951-52, 1973-77 and 1979-82.) Some economists forecast that inflation will continue to rise during 2023. The latest official statistics (The inflation rate for the Retail Price Index in December 2022) show inflation at 13.4%, with food inflation rising to 16.8%.

Gas and electricity costs have risen to unprecedented levels. According to the IMF, UK households have been hit harder by the energy crisis than most European countries. But this brutal development of the crisis in Britain is not just because of the coronavirus pandemic, or the war in Ukraine, which has affected all countries in Europe.

Many products that have been going up at a faster rate: in July 22 petrol was running at over 45%, low fat milk is currently up by 46%, many other foods up by figures of 20 to 40%. Food inflation directly attributable to Brexit was already at 6%. Last August, the Bank of England predicted a period of recession lasting for a period of two years. More recently they have said the recession will just be for a little more than a year, and that maybe the worst of inflation is behind us. Whatever explanations they have, and whatever predictions they might make, inflation took off rapidly in a short time and, with the unpredictability of energy prices, supply chains, and developments in the war in Ukraine, there is no stable basis for government or businesses to make policy.

The historic weakness of the British economy

There’s a focus in the British media on how the situation in the UK is worse than anywhere else. So, for example, when the IMF found that households in the UK were being the worst hit in Western Europe by the energy crisis, it received appropriate publicity. But Britain, compared to other European countries, has been lagging behind for decades, because of long-standing weaknesses.  From being the strongest economy in the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, exporting manufacturing goods all over the world, the British economy has since deteriorated and diminished.

Back in 1934 the comrades of the communist left who published Bilan analysed the “Evolution of British Imperialism”. “The sectors which supplied the essential of British exports were coal, iron and steel, textiles, precisely the ones which were to be the most affected (…) by the decomposition of the British economy, as well as by the chronic depression which (…) gnawed at the productive apparatus like a cancer.”[2] The trade deficit increased considerably in those years. Between 1924 and 1931: “The volume of imports grew by 17%, whereas the volume of exports plummeted by 35% in the same period. But here we can also see the insouciance of a rentier bourgeoisie, (…)  which in 1931, in the midst of the crisis, consumed 60% more foreign goods than in 1913, while three million workers had been ejected from the sphere of labour. A violent contrast typical of decaying capitalism.”[3]

This was the context in which the British bourgeoisie increasingly favoured the financial sector over the needs of the relatively uncompetitive manufacturing sector, a decision that did not solve the worsening of its economy, but only meant a further plunge into the abyss of credit and fictitious capital, intensifying the contradictions of its economy.

After World War 2, despite the post-war boom, marked by an increase in public spending in the health sector, infrastructure and education, the British economy continued to recede. British exports as a percentage of world trade fell from almost 12% in 1948 to around 4% in 1974. Britain’s trade deficit was £200 million in 1948, but reached £4.1 billion by 1974.

With the return of the open economic crisis the continuous low productivity and the lack of competitiveness compelled the British bourgeoisie close many sectors of industry and to the biggest de-industrialisation of any major nation. At the same time, it took another step in boosting the British finance sector by loosening the most stringent rules.  This deregulation helped London consolidate its position as a major international financial centre.

The deregulation of the financial sector, which gave banks full scope to play with all the fundamental rules of financial management, was a ticking time bomb, which exploded in 2008 and helped to bring the British economy to the brink of collapse. The British economy has never really recovered from the “finance crisis” of 2008. In the following ten years the size of the UK economy fell by 2 % while countries like France and Germany grew by 34 and 27 percent. Britain is the only G7 economy that had failed to reach its pre-pandemic GDP levels by 2022.

As we said in 2008 “London is a major financial centre, and finance is a major part of the service industries that employ 80% of the workforce producing 75% of GDP. Of the 23% of GDP from industrial production, 10% is from primary energy production (gas, oil and the run down coal industry), which is unusually high for a developed country. A lot of industry was lost in the 1970s and 1980s particularly coal, steel and shipbuilding. The development from industry towards services and particularly banking has only increased since the last official recession in the early 1990s. After 10 years of industrial stagnation and recession, services are even more predominant. Between 2000 and 2005 banking assets increased by 75% largely based on housing. Assets of British banks are greater than GDP and their foreign liabilities a significant part of UK foreign liabilities.” [4]

The effect of Brexit

While the government mainly points to international factors (Covid, Ukraine war) to explain the present catastrophic economic situation, the Office for Budget Responsibility is clear that Britain leaving the EU has worsened the reduction of the country’s productivity, as well as its imports and exports. All told, the OBR estimates that productivity will in the long run fall by around 4 percent and imports and exports “will be around 15 percent lower in the long run than if the U.K. had remained in the EU.” And the full effect of Brexit is yet to be felt. The Economist of 19 October 2022 described the current situation as “Britaly – a country of political instability, low growth and subordination to the bond markets", lacking the resilience to recover from economic jolts. “The UK economy as a whole has been permanently damaged by Brexit,” former Bank of England official Michael Saunders told Bloomberg (Nov 14, 2022) - “If we hadn’t had Brexit, we probably wouldn’t be talking about an austerity budget this week. The need for tax rises, spending cuts wouldn’t be there.”  

The ruling class has no alternatives

“Policy changes cannot rescue the world economy from oscillating between the twin dangers of inflation and deflation, new credit crunches and currency crises, all leading to brutal recessions.”[5] The actual lurches in the British economy have shown that there are no benign policy changes that can be adopted by the bourgeoisie. Growing inflation means that government borrowing will go way beyond forecasts. Last summer, in the battle between Sunak and Truss to become Prime Minister, all their economic policies tended to lead toward further debt. Whether for the financing of tax cuts by Truss or tackling the effects of inflation by Sunak, the public deficit was bound to continue to increase.

The press of the bourgeoisie is full of dire predictions about the future of the economy (along with their favoured ‘solutions’) but it is the task of revolutionaries to show that while the crisis of the economy is serious (and has been long-lasting), it is one aspect of the crisis of a mode of production in which imperialist war has become a basic part of its functioning and environmental degradation a natural consequence of what and how it produces. The British economy is faring the worst of the G7, which is one of the reasons the attacks on living standards are more brutal. The weaknesses in the British economy lie in the historic decline of British capitalism that was under way long ago and identified by Bilan in the 30s, and in the workers’ movement before that. Lenin, for example, in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917) observes that “On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (Britain).” The crisis in Britain today is still following the overall downward trend of world capitalism, and this trend has only been accelerated by Britain’s historic weaknesses, as well as the impact of Brexit, of the coronavirus pandemic, the war in the Ukraine, and the international energy crisis.

Edvin, 1 February 2023

We publish here a statement by some comrades in Turkey on the earthquake which has hit Turkey and Syria. We salute the comrades’ rapid response to these awful events, in which the official death toll has already passed 21,000 and is likely to climb much higher, including those who survived the initial quake but now face hunger, cold and disease. As the statement shows, this “natural” disaster has been made far more deadly by the callous demands of capitalist profit and competition, which has obliged people to live in totally inadequate, flimsy housing.  The particularly catastrophic effects of the recent earthquake illustrates the accentuation of the bourgeoise’s contempt for the lives and suffering of the working class and the oppressed today in the period where the capitalist mode of production is decomposing in every respect. In particular, the fact that this disaster is taking place in the middle of a theatre of imperialist war is considerably worsening its impact. The epicentre of the quake was in Maraş, in the mainly Kurdish region long subject to the conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish nationalists. In northern Syria, a large number of the victims are refugees who have tried to take shelter from the murderous war in Syria, and who were already living in hellish conditions, exacerbated by the Assad regime’s deliberate bombing of hospitals in cities like Aleppo. The ongoing confrontation between warring capitalist factions in the region will also act as a political and material barrier to the already meagre rescue efforts.

However we want to point out two problems in the text, which the comrades have acknowledged. The first is the title, which should rather have been something like: “Turkey: The name of the disaster is capitalism – only its overthrow can spare humanity from such suffering”. And the following phrase is also not correct: “Already, around the world, workers and search and rescue teams are showing solidarity to help the survivors. This solidarity, as one of the greatest weapons of the proletariat, is a vital necessity”. In fact, with the exception of the first few days, the emergency services dispatched to the spot have been professional bodies.

******************************************************************************************************

 

It is not yet possible to know exactly to what extent the destructive effects of the earthquake that took place in Maraş (February 6, 2023), which also struck neighboring provinces and Syria. Already, the media states that more than ten thousand buildings have been destroyed, thousands of people have died under the rubble, and tens of thousands of people have been injured. Communication with some cities has been cut off since the last two days. Roads, bridges, airports were destroyed. It is reported that a fire broke out in the Iskenderun port. Electricity, water and natural gas connections are cut off in many areas. Those who survived the earthquake are now struggling with hunger and cold under harsh winter conditions. There is also very grave news from the earthquake zones in Syria, which has been under the military occupation of Turkey.

Two major earthquakes in a row are certainly unusual. However, contrary to the claims of the ruling class and its parties, this does not mean that the destruction caused by earthquakes is normal. The sickening calls for "national unity" by both the opposition and the ruling capitalist parties cannot hide the fact that everyone knows: capitalism and the state are the main culprits of this destruction.

1- We know that the proletariat, as a class, will show all kinds of solidarity in action with those who became homeless, injured and lost their relatives in the earthquake areas. Hundreds of mine workers have already volunteered to participate in search and rescue efforts in the earthquake zone. Already, around the world, workers and search and rescue teams are showing solidarity to help the survivors. This solidarity, as one of the greatest weapons of the proletariat, is a vital necessity. The proletarians have no one to trust but each other. We can only expect emancipation through our own class, through unity, not from the ruling class and its state.

2- The past earthquake experiences in Turkey are proof of the destructive and deadly effects of urbanisation that has developed with the aim of the social reproduction of capital. The only reason for quake-incompatible construction, people being squeezed into multi-storey buildings and densely populated cities in earthquake zones, is to meet the abundant and cheap labor needs of the capital. After the Gölcük and Düzce earthquakes that took place 20 years ago (in the Marmara region), this earthquake once again demonstrates the shallowness of all the "measures" taken by the state and the crocodile tears shed by the ruling class. This earthquake and its effects are already painfully proving that the main reason for the existence of the state is not to protect the poor and proletarian population, but to protect the interests of the national capital.

3- So why doesn't capitalism build a permanent and solid infrastructure, even though disasters regularly and systematically destroy its own production infrastructure? Because under capitalism, buildings, roads, dams, ports, in short, infrastructure investment in general, is not built with permanence or human needs in mind. In capitalism, all infrastructure investments, whether made by the state or private companies, are built with the aim of profitability and the continuation of the wage labour system. Dense populations are squeezed into uninhabitable cities. Even if there is no earthquake, unhealthy concrete buildings that can last for 100 years at the most fill cities and rural areas. The terrible capitalist urbanisation of the last 40 years has turned cities and even villages across Turkey into such concrete tombs. The capitalist system based on the production of surplus value can only be sustained by employing as much living labor as possible, i.e. proletarians, and keeping fixed capital investments, i.e. infrastructure, to a minimum. In capitalism, construction is a continuous activity, the permanence of the building, its harmony with the environment, and its response to human needs, are wholly ignored. This is the rule in advanced western capitalism as well as in the weaker capitalisms of Africa and Asia. The sole social goal of capital and its states is to perpetuate the exploitation of an ever-increasing number of proletarians.

4- The capitalist order is not in a position to even come up with solutions that can reproduce its own order of exploitation. In the face of “natural” disasters, capital is not only reckless but also helpless. We see this helplessness even in the lack of coordination of aid organizations under the control of nation states and the incapacity of the state in emergency aid distribution. We see this not only in countries like Turkey, where decaying capitalism has been more deeply affected, but also in countries at the heart of capitalism, such as Germany, which was helpless in the face of floods two years ago, or the USA, whose roads and bridges collapsed in floods due to neglect of infrastructure investments.

5- The fact that some sections of the bourgeois opposition find the state "inadequate" to "help" earthquake victims presents a deceptive perspective on the nature of the state. The state is not an aid agency. The state is the collective apparatus of violence of a minority exploiting class. The state protects the interests of capital. Certainly, since the reign of chaos in a disaster area will both show the weakness of the ruling class and hinder the reproduction of capital itself, the state will be forced to organise a minimum level of "aid". But it seems that the state is incapable of even providing this minimum aid. Whatever the state's intervention in the disaster, its main function is to rein in the proletariat and compete with other capitalist countries in the interests of its own national capital. The state is the ideological and physical machinery aiding capital accumulation, the guardian of conditions that push workers into deadly concrete coffin houses and leave them defenseless in the face of disasters.

6- There is nothing “natural” about the epidemics, famines and wars that we have experienced in recent years and whose effects are felt worldwide. Although the moment of an earthquake cannot be predicted before they happen, earthquake fault lines and possible magnitudes can be predicted with certainty. The main agent responsible for all these disasters is capitalism and nation states, the entire existing ruling class, which organises society around the extraction of surplus value and wage labour, which deepens militarist-nationalist competition, and threatens the existence and future of humanity. As capitalism continues to dominate, as humanity continues to remain divided into nation-states and classes, these catastrophes will continue to happen, getting deadlier, more destructive and more frequent. This is the clearest indication of the exhaustion of capitalism. All over the world, ruling classes are pushing humanity into wars, terrible and uninhabitable cities, hunger and famine, a gigantic global climate crisis.

The earthquake that took place in and around Maraş is the last concrete and painful proof that the ruling class has no positive future to offer humanity. But this should not lead us to pessimism. The solidarity that our class showed and will show in this earthquake should give us hope. Disasters are devastating not because they have no solution, but because our class, the proletariat, does not yet have the self-confidence to change the world and save humanity from the scourge of capital. The resources of humanity and the earth are sufficient to build permanent, secure dwellings and settlements that will protect us from disasters. The path towards this will open once the proletariat, the only force that can mobilise the world’s resources for liberation, develops its confidence in itself and engages in a worldwide struggle to seize power from the corrupt capitalist class.

 

A group of internationalist communists from Turkey

On February 1st around half a million workers from different sectors in Britain were on strike – rail and some bus networks, civil servants, and in particular workers in education, both schools and universities. This was the biggest number of workers out on one day since the strike wave in Britain began last summer.

Responding to a growing feeling in the working class that “we are all in the same boat” and that we need to struggle together, the more militant union leaders, like Mick Lynch, echoed by their supporters in the extreme left (SWP etc), have for some time been using a more radical language, talking about the need for working class unity and solidarity and even coordinated strike action[1]. And although up till now the unions have been careful to avoid large demonstrations composed of all the different sectors involved in the current movement, on February 1st, in Bristol, a “joint rally” between the education, civil servants and rail workers attracted around 3,000 workers; in London, a much bigger demonstration, probably tens of thousands, gathered at Portland Place and marched to Westminster. Dominated by the banners of the National Education Union and the Universities and Colleges Union, there were also small contingents from the RMT and the health unions and a larger number of civil servants. And there were smaller demonstrations in a number of other cities, such as Leeds and Liverpool.

These demonstrations were very lively, with a strong presence of young workers, many of whom arrived with their homemade placards and who cheered especially loudly when new contingents of workers, from whatever sector, arrived on the scene. Such events are an occasion for workers to gain confidence from being part of a wider movement.

But as the title of the leaflet issued by our section in France put it, “It’s not enough to come out in large numbers, we have to take control of our struggles!”. In France, while the number of strikes is far lower than in Britain, the unions have been calling big demonstrations to protest against the increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64. On the most recent “day of action” perhaps 2 million were on the streets. But our comrades pointed out that in previous struggles against pension reforms, in 2010 and 2019, big demonstrations alone had not forced the government to withdraw its attacks; and the demonstrations themselves became a kind of ritual event, consisting of “coming with your colleagues, walking with your colleagues under the deafening noise of the sound systems, and leaving with your colleagues. No assembly, no debate, no real meeting. These demonstrations were reduced to the expression of a simple parade”.

Exactly the same could be said about the demonstrations in Britain on February 1st. Much of the enthusiasm was generated at the beginning of the marches, as workers gather together and recognise that they are taking part in something bigger than their own workplace or their particular sector, but once the march comes to its pre-organised conclusion, after listening passively to a few speeches by union officials, the vast majority of participants look for the nearest underground station and go home. Once again: no assembly, no debate, no real meeting.

The uses and abuses of pickets

The same process of “disempowerment” can be seen with another characteristic element of the current strike wave: the picket line. The organising of pickets at the entrance to workplaces on strike days is an elementary expression of solidarity, and it’s evident that one of the tasks of these pickets is to persuade as many colleagues as possible to join the strike. And the engagement of workers in the struggle has been shown on many occasions in recent months when scores and even hundreds of workers have turned up on the picket line, routinely ignoring the laws which formally restrict picket lines to 6 strikers.

But, like the rallies and marches organised by the unions, where workers are largely separated in their separate contingents waving their particular union flags, “official” picket lines end up accepting the most important limits to the struggles imposed by so-called “anti-union” laws, which are actually designed to prevent workers’ actions from escaping union control and which are therefore rigorously enforced by the union apparatus. Thus, calling on colleagues at your workplace who belong to a different union or no union at all not to cross the picket line, and in particular sending pickets to other workplaces and sectors and asking them to join the struggle - all this is illegal “secondary picketing” which contains the danger of a real unification of workers’ struggles. The result is that pickets under union control end up acting as boundaries separating workers from one another.

The necessity for workers to organise the struggle themselves

The leaflet from our French section also points out that, whereas the struggles against pension “reforms” in 2010 and 2019 ended in defeat, it was a different story in 2006 in the struggle against the CPE, proposed government legislation that would institutionalise job insecurity for those starting employment: “In 2006, the precarious students organised massive general assemblies in the universities, open to workers, the unemployed and the retired, they put forward a unifying slogan: the fight against casualisation and unemployment. These assemblies were the lungs of the movement, where debates were held, where decisions were made.

Result: Each weekend, the demonstrations gathered more and more sectors. Waged and retired workers joined the students, under the slogan: ‘Young lardons, old croutons, all the same salad’. The French bourgeoisie and the government, faced with this tendency to unify the movement, had no choice but to withdraw its CPE”.

What forces the ruling class to back down - even if it can no longer grant any lasting improvements to the living conditions of the working class – is the sight of a working class that is threatening to break through all the divisions between union and profession and to organise this unity through its general assemblies and elected strike committees, embryos of the future workers’ councils. And the present struggles of the working class in Britain and in other countries – even though still weighed down by corporatist ideology which sees each sector having its own disputes with employers, its own particular demands – contain the potential for this re-emergence of the working class as a real power in society, as a force for radically changing society.

This is why even the smallest gathering of workers, whether on the picket lines or at rallies and marches, who begin to question why the struggles are still so divided, who are not satisfied with the empty rhetoric of the trade unions, who pose the problem of what is the most effective way to struggle – represents an important step in the struggle, and one that revolutionaries should encourage at every opportunity.

Amos 4.2.23

 

 

 

We publish below a position paper by one of our sympathisers on the No War But The Class War committee meeting in Paris on 2 December[1]. We welcome this contribution and generally support the political content of this text. In our view, it highlights two essential aspects that we would like to emphasise:

- the first, the totally artificial character of the NWBTCW committee, with no relation to the reality of a supposed reaction to the war within the working class: "Unless you consider that the struggles of last year in England, the one which is currently taking place in France, etc. are struggles which are frontally and above all consciously opposed to the war, the formation of such committees does not emanate from a movement of the class."
- the second, the fact that such an opportunist initiative only accentuates the confusion with regard to leftism and anarchism: "The ex-nihilo creation of heterogeneous structures called afterwards ‘struggle committees’, by calling on all leftists and anarchists of good will, seems to be an unsuitable framework for proletarian politics".

As the comrade rightly points out, this NWBTCW committee is ultimately nothing less than a "sham based on tacit compromises".
ICC
*****************************************************

I am not going to give a point-by-point summary of the meeting here, but I will only focus on what I thought was the most important.
I am not going to get into the controversy about the historical significance of the war in Ukraine, which was supposed to be the first part of the discussion at the meeting, with the ICT on the one hand seeing this war as a step towards the generalisation of global inter-imperialist war and the ICC saying that this is not yet on the agenda and that the conditions have not yet been met.
I will focus on what the NWBTCW is and the politics of creating such a committee in the face of war.
After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine last year, two organisations of the communist left proposed two different initiatives. On the one hand, the ICC, together with the Istituto Onorato Damen and Internationalist Voice, initiated a joint statement by the groups of the communist left, while on the other hand the Internationalist Communist Tendency called for the creation of NWBTCW committees.
I come back to this divergence because it underlies the second part of the discussion that took place at the committee meeting, namely what is this committee, what is its purpose, etc.
The presidium then drew an opposition between an abstract internationalism (that of the ICC) on the one hand, and a concrete initiative on the other.
So the presidium laid claim to being concrete: "you see comrades, the problem with this joint declaration of the groups of the communist left is that it is valid at all times and in all places". In contrast to this,  the NWBTCW struggle committees are initiatives which will allow the minorities who participate in them to adapt, to bend to the different situations, to the different contexts in order to better respond to the current situation.
To deal with this point, we need to see what a struggle committee is: it emanates either from a massive class struggle or from a struggle in one of its parts, bringing together particularly combative elements who feel the need to unite in order to act and reflect and pursue the struggle. Forming first (most often) on the basis of the enterprise or the sector, they can expand as the struggle goes on. The appearance of struggle committees is never to be neglected and corresponds to a step forward in the maturation of class consciousness. Proletarians meeting together can talk about past failures and the reasons for them, and ask themselves the question of how to organise themselves and in what framework. It is therefore essential for organised revolutionaries to support the creation of such committees and to intervene in them.
By its nature, the conditions of its formation, a committee is politically heterogeneous and sensitive to the manoeuvres and sabotage of leftists or trade unionists. The task of the revolutionaries of the communist left is to give the proletarians in these committees the tools to oppose their political enemies, the leftists.

So what about here? Unless you consider this past year's struggles in England, the current one in France, etc. to be struggles that oppose the war head-on and above all consciously, the formation of such committees does not emanate from a class movement.

Artificial seems to be the right word to describe this type of initiative
In this artificial committee, the groups will struggle side by side with clearly leftist elements (thus political enemies). Here we see a manoeuvre that wants to make the ICC look sectarian, picking and choosing what is a real struggle and what isn’t. However, if in a struggle it happens that committees are created, in these committees the revolutionaries of the communist left intervene not to march with the leftists but to fight them. How can they fight them when they are going to form a committee along with them which, moreover, is not based on any clear anti-war movement of the class. This is a mistake: here the revolutionaries disarm themselves from the start and will not be able to guide the participants against the various leftists and anarchists.
For example, what came out of this meeting was a clear immediatism and activism, which was to be expected, but it will be impossible for the ICT to oppose it when it is bathed in it, maintaining and sustaining the illusion that there could be anti-war class actions to popularise and generalise in the short term.
There is also the danger of making participants believe in minority initiatives that will not actually advance class consciousness one inch while exposing them to bourgeois state repression.
This activism also block the development of consciousness  among young and inexperienced elements who are looking for class positions; it prevents them from being drawn towards the communist left (unless they consider the communist left to be "a handful of nobodies" as a member of the presidium put it). This type of committee is a de facto decoy, since it maintains for obviously opportunistic reasons the vagueness on essential questions and positions and is not without conveying the old trap of substitutionism, privileging spectacular actions right now.

The artificial creation of a "committee" which puts on the same level the left communist organisations and various anarchist, leftist, Trotskyist and trade unionist elements, while laying down conditions of membership that are too broad and too vague, and trying to ensure the survival of the committee to act against the war, means that none of the tricky questions will be clarified for fear of putting this or that participating group in an awkward position. This is what an Italian from the last century called an "alliance without principles".
I can give some quick examples: at no time did the presidium feel the need to clarify for the good understanding of the inexperienced participants, the political definition of leftism, the class boundary that separates them from the communist left; the presidium did not reply to the illusions of the participants about the situation in Iran that some saw as the beginning of a revolution while it is not even a class movement; when the fact of organising in the trade unions was evoked, the presidium did not recall the position of the communist left on the trade unions and their role, which would have been, in the light of struggles past and in preparation, much more instructive for everyone.

How can we believe afterwards that it will be possible to lead a fight against these same leftists within the committee? You might as well ask a puma to cut its claws and remove its fangs before sinking them into the back of the grizzly's neck. You don't have to be a soothsayer, prophet or Levite to say this, but simply be a marxist and avoid giving the critical assessment of two decades of NWBTCW policy as "sometimes it works, sometimes not".
These two proposals - the joint declaration and the formation of committees - correspond to two ways of doing politics and they are not equal.

Revolutionaries are guided by their duty towards the class, that of giving it the means to go towards political clarity, which translates for example into preventing the most conscious or most combative proletarians (those for example who respond to the calls of the left communist organisations) from wandering into dead-ends, calls for action that have no relation to the slow but real movement of consciousness in the class. The activism, the immediatism and the various errors from which this committee suffers are not due to chance but to the poison of opportunism. The creation ex-nihilo of heterogeneous structures called afterwards "struggle committee", calling on all leftists and anarchists of good will, seems to be an unsuitable framework for proletarian politics.
The moral here could be summarised as follows: "the class hesitates, let's push it... nowhere".
Which is what this committee really is, a sham based on tacit compromises and fuzzy principles, which exists simply to intervene and above all to show that you are intervening.
Fraternally,
An active sympathiser of the ICC and the communist left

The protests that began on 7 December, after the departure of Pedro Castillo's government, have continued; and as a result of the violence unleashed, the Peruvian Public Prosecutor's Office indicated that, as of 20 January, 55 people had died and more than 1,200 had been injured. Similarly, there are still 78 road blockades and protest actions in 28 provinces, especially in the south of the country. On 15 January, the regions of Puno, Cusco, Lima and Callao were declared to be in a state of emergency for a period of 30 calendar days. The current government of Dina Boluarte remains firm in its decision to take an "iron fist" to the protests and to initiate judicial investigations with the support of the police intelligence apparatus, in an attempt to avoid a scenario similar to that experienced in recent years in countries such as Chile and Colombia. On the other hand, the demonstrators are demanding the release of former president Pedro Castillo (whom they see as the victim of a coup d'état), the resignation of Dina Boluarte, early elections and the holding of a referendum to approve the start of a constitutional process.

In December last year, we published an article online in which we stated the following: "The popular revolts that are rising up as organised actions of the opposing factions of the bourgeois right and left are an expression of the desperation of these same factions to maintain or regain control of the state [giving rise to a polarisation that] has permeated society, with all its burden of confusion and ideological poisoning. An example of this are the demands for the ‘closure of the congress’, ‘they must all go’, ‘new elections’, ‘new constitution’, which are nothing more than democratic demands, which only seek to maintain the status quo of the bourgeois state. These demands have nothing to do with the interests of the working class and its historical project. On the contrary, they can only confine it within this society of exploitation and social classes. They serve to divert workers from their immediate demands based on the defence of their living conditions, which also provide a necessary experience of struggle for the political maturation of their forces. [...] Although we do not doubt that there are elements of the working class involved in these popular revolts who try to express their indignation at the decadence of the political class, they do so on a terrain that is not their own, where the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie impose their democratic banners, in order to keep intact the society of exploitation and the defence of their own interests of profit and gain thanks to the ferocious exploitation of the workers' labour power. These elements of the working class and other non-exploiting strata are being swept along by the irrational and putrefying violence produced by a system that no longer has anything more to offer humanity." [1]

Methods alien to the proletariat

It is necessary to insist that these protests have led in some regions of the country to revolts and bloody confrontations on a bourgeois terrain, where the workers are led to carry the banners of the petty bourgeoisie, becoming atomised and involved in a confrontation that is outside their class terrain. Moreover, in these revolts we have seen attitudes more akin to those of the lumpenproletariat, like the burning of buildings, companies, mines, attacks on buses, ambulances, the charging of tolls (extortion on the occupied roads) and what is worse, the attack on many workers like health workers, mine workers and agro-industrial workers, who had their belongings stolen or their physical integrity attacked because they did not want to join the revolt.

Beyond the indignation and social resentment that has historically existed in Peru's southern provinces, such as Huancavelica, considered by the Chamber of Commerce to be the second poorest (41. 2%), followed by regions like Puno and Ayacucho [2], and the fact that leftist ideology has cultivated the narrative of the right of the poorest to rebel, of the rights of the native peoples, or of the peasants to land, what seems to be at the heart of this whole situation are the aspirations, so far frustrated, that sectors of the petty bourgeoisie, urban and rural, thought possible to fulfil once Pedro Castillo came to power.

The Peruvian big bourgeoisie which controls economic activities such as food, banking, construction, mining, tourism, materials, fuel, education, among others, with annual revenues in the billions of dollars and investments in a large part of South America, Europe and the USA [3], also maintains political control, with strong party representation in Congress, as well as having deep roots in the state apparatus.

That is why, at some points in this confrontation, it has been presented as a struggle of the "resource-rich but poor South" against the "corrupt, exclusionary and centralist" bourgeoisie of Lima. The appropriation of the great natural and material resources by the Lima bourgeoisie is another of the issues that have long underpinned the discourse of the protagonists of these mobilisations.

The sectors of the petty bourgeoisie that are driving these actions of road blockades, mobilisations and marches in the provinces and from some of these areas towards Lima, have been supported by associations of small traders, peasant federations, trade unions, regional governors, university authorities, provincial bar associations, ronderos (remnants of the so-called autonomous peasant patrols active in the 1980s) and student unions, largely permeated by leftist ideology, combined with nationalist and regionalist ideas which reflect the particular interests of these groups: at the end of the day, all these ideologies work in defence of national capital.

According to estimates by the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI), in the year 2021, 25.9% of the Peruvian population was living in poverty (8.5 million people), and 4.1% in extreme poverty (1. 3 million people). In these figures, the poor are considered to be that part of the population that has a monthly capacity to acquire a basket of goods and services of less than 378 soles (US$97), while extreme poverty refers to those whose capacity is less than 201 soles (US$52). [4] To this must be added the economic impact of the years of the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently of the war in Ukraine. It is clear that the world economic crisis is hitting the national bourgeoisie as a whole, but most severely the most vulnerable sectors of the productive apparatus, not to mention the informal sector.

These mobilisations are a desperate action by those sectors who have been driven to their knees by the progressive deterioration of the economy, and who have aspired to a greater political participation in the state apparatus, in order to safeguard the particular interests of this or that social category or region. They have taken advantage of the general impoverishment to whip up the scarecrow of “social exclusion” for reasons of race or region of origin, while denouncing "democracy only for the few". The National Intelligence Directorate (DINI) and the Ministry of the Interior have stated that these mobilisations "are financed by illegal mining, drug trafficking and other agents seeking to sow fear". It also denounces political and trade union organisations, such as Movadef, Fenate and factions of Sendero Luminoso, Central Única de Rondas Campesinas, SUTEP, as well as the Federación Regional de Productores Agrarios y Medio Ambiente (Regional Federation of Agrarian Producers and the Environment). [5]

For their part, the sectors of the traditional bourgeoisie and their parties have also taken advantage of the situation, waving the banner of the anti-communist struggle, so that "terrorism will not be repeated in the country", which has given them the perfect excuse to unleash repression and state terror, killing two birds with one stone, by also criminalising protest and presenting any social demand as vandalism. Dina Boluarte's government deployed 11,000 police officers to control the demonstrations in this city, and on 21 January, it intervened in the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, the main public university in the country, using a large police contingent, knocking down the main gate with a tank, also using drones and helicopters, arresting approximately 200 people, many of them demonstrators who had come from other regions and were staying overnight in that institution, sending a clear message to the student sector, which it accused of preparing terrorist actions. But as far as the working class is involved, it makes little difference whether the protests are being organised by the leftists and the petty bourgeois organisations, or whether they are being financed by illegal bourgeois gangs: the working class needs to defend its independent interests in the face of decomposing capitalism in all its forms.

Strengthening nationalism

Another way in which the various factions of the bourgeoisie attack the proletariat ideologically is through a campaign in which nationalism, the defence of democracy and the nation are exalted. This reflects another dimension of the political crisis, such as the actions in which geopolitical competition in the region is evident. On 23 January, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry issued a communiqué rejecting statements by Bolivian President Luis Arce, in which he expressed his “support for the Peruvian people's struggle to recover their democracy and to elect a government that represents them”. [6] It should be remembered that the president of Peru's Council of Ministers accused Evo Morales of “encouraging insurrection [...] and of bringing projectiles into Peru from Bolivia”. Pedro Castillo's intention to favour Evo Morales on the issue of access to the sea were rejected by the Peruvian right and supported by other left-wing governments in the region. This situation led the Peruvian government to prevent Evo Morales and eight Bolivian officials from entering the country.

Similarly, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry rejected the statements made by the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro [7], regarding the events that took place on the campus of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. One of the issues that most concerned the factions of the Peruvian right wing was the relationship with other left-wing governments in the region, although Castillo apparently did not have time to concretise strategies or concrete actions with them, which could have affected the interests historically shared by the American and Peruvian bourgeoisie. This interest was ratified by the US ambassador, Lisa Kenna, who reiterated "her country's full support for Peru's democratic institutions and the actions of the constitutional government to stabilise the social situation". In the Peruvian case, it should not be forgotten that both the Pacific War with Chile (1879-1884), in which it lost the coastal province of Tarapacá, as well as the Cenepa War (1995), over border delimitation (Cenepa river basin), continue to be milestones or references of a historical narrative aimed at strengthening nationalism.

In short, the current reality shows that the Peruvian bourgeoisie, like others on the right and left in the region, has not been afraid to order repression and maintain its interests in any way it can, sending a clear message to stimulate fear in the ranks of the proletariat. It is difficult to know if these demonstrations and road blockades will last longer, but what is clear is that the Peruvian bourgeoisie seems to have convinced itself that the only way to achieve a certain political stability and control of the situation will be through the application of "legitimate violence" by the state against the population and the purging of its political apparatus of government.

This is typical of the behaviour of the entire world bourgeoisie applied during the decadence of capitalism, and it is being maintained and deepened in the present phase of decomposition. As we stated in our December 2022 article: “What is happening in Peru at the moment is not an expression or reaction of the workers, it is not the class struggle. What is happening in Peru is a struggle for purely bourgeois interests, where one of the two opposing factions of the bourgeoisie will finally take control of the state in order to continue the exploitation of the workers. The terrorism exercised by the bourgeoisies on both sides continues to cost human lives. The methods used – arson and indiscriminate violence - are opposed to those through which the working class will overthrow capitalism, based on the ability to build an organisation that can incorporate the rest of the non-exploiting layers into its programme of political and social transformation. The terror of the actions of both sides of the bourgeoisie in this revolt constitutes an attack on the consciousness of the working class.” [8]

Internacialismo, Section in Peru of the International Communist Current
February 2023

NOTES:

[1] “Peru: the working class finds itself in the crossfire of warring bourgeois factions”. [26] December 2022.

[2] Los departamentos más pobres a nivel multidimensional y su avance en la ejecución de inversión pública [27]

[3] Durand, F. (2017). Los doce apóstoles de la democracia peruana. Fondo Editorial Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

[4] INEI (2022). Poverty affected 25.9% of the country's population in 2021 [28].

[5] “Who are the alleged inciters identified by DINI in the protests in Peru to create chaos and violence?” [29]

[6] Chancellery delivered a note of protest to the Bolivian ambassador for statements made by President Luis Arce [30]

[7] Government expresses "energetic protest" at "interference" by President Gustavo Petro (El Comercio headline).

[8] Ibidem: See footnote 1.

A series of articles explaining that the campaign to defend the NHS is a campaign to defend the capitalist state, not the working class

On March 11 there is an ‘SOS NHS demonstration’ which claims to both “defend the NHS” and “support the strikes”. But is it possible to do both at the same time? We say “no”, firstly because of the nature of the workers’ struggles going on in Britain today, which are continuing the ‘summer of discontent’ that started 9 months ago, but also the struggles going on in France, with large demonstrations against pension reform, and more widely in Europe and the Americas. Secondly, because the National Health Service was never a reform won by the working class, but on the contrary part of the wave of nationalisations in the 1940s and 1950s that grew out of the state control of the economy for World War 2, as we show in the articles we are highlighting in this dossier.

All workers are facing the same price rises, particularly for food and fuel, often with the need to use food banks or choose between heating and eating, because they are seeing their real wages fall. This is what lies behind the strikes going on in Britain since last summer. Yet everywhere we see the struggles divided up, between different industries, between different occupations in the same industry, and between members of different unions in the same workforce, as with ambulance workers divided between Unison, Unite and GMB unions striking at different times. The idea that “This is now a fight to save the NHS itself” as Sharon Graham, Unite General Secretary said last November, or that it is “a fight not only for pay and working conditions, but also for the very survival of the NHS” (Counterfire), is another way of cutting health workers off from other workers struggling for the same things. It is not a separate fight from that of teachers, transport workers, civil servants, university workers, it is the same fight. Nurses, physiotherapists, ambulance workers, junior doctors need to fight for their pay and working conditions regardless of whether or not the state will fund the NHS sufficiently to cut waiting times for treatment or ambulances. And for that expressions of support must go beyond “plenty of honks and cheers of support could be heard from the public” (Counterfire) and become part of “a dynamic of extension of the struggle” together with all workers in struggle, as we say in our latest international leaflet [31].

Not everyone repeats the same false memories of “We remember when our NHS was the best healthcare system in the world” (keep our NHS public [32]). Remember the long history of waiting lists, the dilapidated  surgeries! As the articles we are highlighting here show, the NHS was not any kind of ‘socialist’ reform won through the election of the Labour Party in 1945, but a plan arising from the WW2 coalition government with the idea of keeping workers “fit for service”, particularly military service. So it is no surprise that cost cutting and “productivity” measures have been applied to health services by Labour as well as Tory governments. So when Socialist Worker tell us “Big strikes in the NHS will get the Tories on the back foot” they play the same game of dividing up the struggle, separating out the healthworkers as a special case, and spreading the same old story that Tories attack the NHS more than Labour.

Nor is the NHS simply its employees, as pickets shouting “we are the NHS” think. Certainly, the NHS could not exist without its workers, any more than any other capitalist concern could. They are exploited by the NHS. It is true that the NHS has no shareholders, but it is part of the state that keeps workers healthy enough to be exploited by the British capitalist class as a whole, and therefore the workers in it contribute to the production of capitalist profit. We are NOT the NHS, our interests are opposed to the interests of the capitalist class and its state, of which the NHS is a part.

The NHS is not a reform for workers to defend [33] World Revolution no.303, April 2007 [34]

 Debate on Libcom on the NHS: How do we defend the social wage? [35] World Revolution no.304, May 2007 [36]

70 years of the NHS: Beware the capitalist state bearing gifts [37] World Revolution no. 381, Autumn 2018 [38]

Solidarity with health workers – against their employer, the capitalist NHS [39] World Revolution 386 - Summer 2020 [40]

The ICC’s section in France has published this leaflet in response to the latest developments in the fight against the government’s pension “reforms”

"It’ll take more than 49.3[1] to make us bend!

Faced with the announcement of the immediate adoption of the pension reform, the reaction was lightning fast. Everywhere in France, anger exploded. In the city centres, workers, pensioners, unemployed people, young future employees, we gathered by the thousands to shout our refusal to be exploited until the age of 64, in unbearable working conditions, and to end up with a miserable pension. "Eruption", "rage", "conflagration" were the words of the foreign press. The images of the crowd growing hour after hour on the Place de la Concorde in Paris went around the world.

The message is clear:
- We will not accept any more sacrifices!
- We will no longer bend our backs under the orders of the bourgeoisie!
- We are finding our way back to the struggle!
- We are the working class!

The development of our struggles worries the bourgeoisie

Since the beginning, some political figures, from Hollande to Bayrou, have warned Macron about the "timing" of the reform: "it's not the right time", "there are risks of social fracture". And they were right!

This attack has provoked a social movement of a magnitude not seen for decades. Strikes are multiplying and, above all, demonstrations are bringing millions of us together in the streets. Thanks to this struggle, we are beginning to understand who this "We" is! A social, international force that produces everything and must fight in unity and solidarity: the working class! "Either we fight together, or we will end up sleeping in the street!" This is what was clearly expressed last Thursday in the demonstration in support of the Ivry garbage collectors that the police came to dislodge: together we are stronger!

And these solidarity reflexes do not only arise in France. In many countries, strikes and social movements are on the increase. In the United Kingdom in the face of inflation, in Spain in the face of the collapse of the health system, in South Korea in the face of longer working hours ... everywhere, the working class is fighting back.

In Greece, a train accident took place three weeks ago: 57 dead. The bourgeoisie obviously wanted to blame a worker. The signalman on duty was thrown in jail. But the working class immediately understood the scam. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to denounce the real cause of this deadly accident: the lack of staff and the dilapidation of the infrastructure. Since then, the anger has not subsided. On the contrary, the struggle is growing and broadening: with cries of "no more low wages", "we’re fed up". Or again: "we can't work like decent people since the crisis, but at least don't kill us!”

Our movement against the pension reform is participating in this development of the combativity and the reflection of our class at the world level. Our movement shows that we are capable of fighting massively and of making the bourgeoisie tremble. Already, all the political specialists are announcing that it will be very complicated for Macron to push through new reforms and major attacks by the end of his five-year term.

The bourgeoisie is aware of this problem. It is therefore setting traps for us, diverting us from the methods of struggle that cement us and make us strong, trying to send us into dead ends.

More democracy?

Since the announcement of 49.3, the left-wing parties and the unions have been pushing us to defend "parliamentary life" in the face of Macron's manoeuvres and "denial of democracy".

But decades of "representative democracy" have definitively proven one thing: from the right to the left, from the most moderate to the most radical, once in power, they all carry out the same attacks and renege on their promises. Worse, calls for new elections are the most devious of traps. It has no other function than to cut the proletariat off from its collective strength. The elections reduce us to the state of atomised "citizens" facing the steamroller of bourgeois propaganda. The polling booth is aptly named! "Defending parliament", "hoping for elections" ... they try to make us believe that another capitalism is possible, a more human, a fairer and even, why not, a more ecological capitalism. All that is needed is for it to be well governed. This is a lie! Capitalism is a system of exploitation that is now decadent and is gradually dragging all of humanity towards ever greater misery and war, destruction and chaos. The only programme of the bourgeoisie, whatever its political colour, whatever mask it wears, is always: more exploitation!

Bourgeois democracy is the hypocritical mask of capitalist dictatorship!

Blocking the economy?

Faced with the "deafness" of the government, the idea is growing that the only way to "make ourselves heard" is to block the economy. It is based on the growing understanding of the central role of the working class in society: through our combined labour, we produce all the wealth. The Paris dustmen's strike demonstrates this vividly: without their activity, the city becomes unliveable in a few days.

But the left and the unions are turning this idea into a dead end. They are pushing for blockade actions, each in your own corporation, each in your own workplace. This leaves strikers isolated in their corners, separated from other workers, deprived of our main strength: unity and solidarity in struggle.

In the UK, strikers have been reduced to impotence for almost ten months despite their anger and determination, because they are divided into "pickets", each one blocking in his or her workplace. The historic defeat of the English miners during the 1984-85 struggle against Thatcher was already the result of this same trap: pushed by the unions, they had wanted to block the economy by provoking a coal shortage. They had held out for more than a year and had emerged exhausted, crushed and demoralised. Their defeat was a defeat for the whole working class in Britain!

Smash everything?

Some of the demonstrators are even starting to say that they need to move on to harder modes of action: "I'm not violent at all, but here we feel that we need to do something to make the government react". The example of the Yellow Vests is increasingly put forward. A certain sympathy for the ransacking actions of the black blocs is spreading.

To think that the bourgeois state and its immense repressive apparatus (police, army, secret services, etc.) could be frightened in the slightest by burning rubbish bins and broken windows is illusory. These are just mosquito bites on an elephant's skin. On the other hand, all these actions of "hyper-radical" appearance are perfectly exploited by the bourgeoisie to break ... the collective strength of the movement:

- By highlighting the slightest broken window, the media scare a whole part of the workers who would like to join the demonstrations.
- By systematically provoking incidents, the forces of order gas, disperse and thus prevent any possibility of gathering and discussion at the end of the demonstration.
The minority violent action of the “casseurs” is, in fact, exactly the opposite of what really makes the strength of our class.

Our strength is solidarity, massive struggle and reflection on its lessons!

In the last few days, the newspapers have indicated the possibility of a "CPE scenario". In 2006, the government was forced to withdraw its Contrat Première Embauche (First Job Contract), which was going to plunge young people into even greater insecurity. At the time, the bourgeoisie was frightened by the growing scale of the protest, which was beginning to go beyond the youth movement, the precarious students and young workers, to extend to other sectors, with unitary and united slogans: " old cucumbers, young tomatoes, it’s the same salad!”

This capacity to extend the movement was the result of debates in real sovereign general assemblies open to all. These assemblies were the lungs of the movement and constantly sought, not to lock themselves up in the universities or in the workplaces in the spirit of a besieged citadel, to block them at all costs, but to extend the struggle, with massive delegations to neighbouring companies. This is what made the bourgeoisie back down! This is what made our movement strong! These are the lessons that we must reappropriate today!

The strength of our class lies in our unity, our class consciousness, our capacity to develop our solidarity and thus to extend the movement to all sectors. This is the spur that must guide our struggles.

In the struggle, we can only rely on ourselves! Not on the politicians, not on the unions! It is the working class and its struggle that carries an alternative: the overthrow of capitalism by proletarian revolution!

Today, it is still difficult to gather in general assemblies, to organise ourselves. Yet this is the only way. These assemblies must be places where we really decide on the direction of the movement, where we feel united and confident in our collective strength, where we can adopt together more and more unifying demands and go out in massive delegations to meet our class brothers and sisters in the nearest factories, hospitals, schools, shops, administrations.

Today or tomorrow, the struggles will continue, because capitalism is sinking into crisis and because the proletariat has no other choice. That's why, all over the world, the workers are entering into struggle.

The bourgeoisie will continue its attacks: inflation, lay-offs, precariousness, shortages ... Faced with this deterioration in living and working conditions, the international working class will take up the road of struggle in ever greater numbers.

So, wherever we can, in the streets, after and before the demonstrations, on the picket lines, in the cafés and in the workplaces, we must meet, debate, learn the lessons of past struggles, in order to develop our current struggles and prepare for future ones.

The future belongs to the class struggle!

International Communist Current, 20 March 2023

War, pandemic, ecological disaster, economic chaos, famine: in the opening years of the 2020s, all these products of a decaying system have been intensifying and acting on each other, leaving little doubt that capitalism is spiralling towards destruction. But in opposition to the sense of doom and hopelessness pervading society, in June 2022, the world’s oldest proletariat ignited the fire of international class struggle. Instead of cowering before this growing chaos, the proletariat began to shake itself free of decades of disorientation. A common slogan has been heard in Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany; “enough is enough. We can’t take anymore”. The proletarian giant has bestirred itself. Its collective struggle and solidarity, its determination not to sacrifice itself, are the antithesis of the increasing turmoil of capitalism. They have opened up a new period of the class struggle.

In order to explain these historical events, we held three public meetings in English at the beginning of the year.

The meetings were attended by comrades from around the globe. The discussion addressed the historical meaning of the acceleration of barbarism and the proletariat’s rupture with the deep retreat that, with some exceptional moments, lasted from 1989 to 2022.

In this article we will concentrate on the meaning of this rupture.

There was broad agreement with the ICC’s analysis of the depth and impact of the multiple crises. The discussion of the struggles raised important questions. How will the struggle break out of their isolation from each other? How will the struggles transform themselves from the defensive to the offensive? Is the ICC saying the way is now open to revolution? In this article we will take up these questions.

The upsurge of struggles since last June has largely consisted of isolated struggles. Britain is a good example. Despite the number of different sectors involved there has not been a real coming together of the struggles. The dividing up of the struggles is not just between sectors but also within them. There are three rail unions, each holding their own strike days. In the health sector, the Royal Collage of Nurses has even split up its own strikes; only about one third of its members have been out at one time. The majority of health workers are not involved. We also see this strategy in other countries.

Faced with these divisions, a concern was raised; “I think that the struggle of the working class are rising all over the world. That’s a positive sign but there is isolation between the struggles. Struggles are spreading but there is an opposing picture. Struggles close together but they are isolated and this is significant.” (M)

The dispersal of the struggles is indeed a serious weakness. The marxist method means looking beyond each of these particular weaknesses, placing them in their historical context. It is only in this framework that the true historical depth of the struggles can be revealed. 

Advances and retreats in the class struggle

This explosion of struggles has a similar historical significance to the events of 1968. May 68, and the huge upsurge in struggles that followed in many countries, erupted after 50 years of counter-revolution that prevailed after the defeat of the revolutionary wave of 1917-27. This period was marked by the physical and ideological crushing of the proletariat: its deepest point was World War Two. Today’s struggles come after 30 years of a deep historical retreat by the international proletariat, precipitated by the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the onset of a new and final phase in capitalism’s decline – the phase of decomposition. In these years the proletariat has suffered massive ideological attacks. Initially around the “defeat of communism” and all the lies that went with it: the end of the class struggle, the victory of capitalism, the triumph of democracy. Then aggravated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of terrorism, the growing refugee crisis. The nurturing of scapegoating and hatred by the main capitalist states that accompanied these military adventures fed the emergence of a torrent of populism and its by-product, anti-populism. Both these ideologies seek to divide the working class and undermine its awareness of itself as a class through the politics of competing identities: national, racial, sexual etc. In recent years there have been the ecological campaigns, the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine. These ideological offensives have had a profound impact on the proletariat.

The international bourgeoisie was initially surprised by the depth and extent of the struggles from 1968. However, it soon developed strategies against the struggles, culminating in the crushing of the British miners in 1985. This year-long grinding down of one of the most militant fractions of the world’s oldest proletariat was an attack on the whole working class: if the miners could not win, how can we? In the period after this defeat, there was an ebbing of struggles, despite important movements between 1986 and 1988. The working class was already on the back foot and in a situation of a growing loss of confidence in its ability to struggle when it was hit by the historical earthquake of 1989.

The ability of the proletariat to defend its class interests through the upsurge of struggles last year clearly marks a profound victory for the proletariat. It is shaking itself free of the heavy chains of the retreat and disorientation of the past decades. This has happened at a moment in which capitalism’s headlong rush towards catastrophe is becoming more and more evident, demonstrating that the proletariat bears a potential revolutionary alternative. This is why we call this moment a rupture: the social terrain has been changed.

The proletariat has not suddenly decided it has to struggle. There has been a whole process of experience and reflection over the past decades of the reflux. The class may have lost confidence in itself but it is still the revolutionary class. It may have been forced into a retreat but it had not been physically and ideological crushed in mass confrontations with the state. It has experienced the ideological campaigns, suffered endless attacks on wages, working and living conditions. It has also tried to struggle: the movement against the CPE in France 2006, the Vigo metal workers and the Indignados in Spain in 2011 are the main examples. But these struggles were unable to lessen the impact of the ideological campaigns on its self-confidence, its awareness of itself as a distinct social force. In the 2010s the struggles reached historical lows, under the increasing weight of populism and anti-populism. The proletariat, however, has experienced the reality of the lies of the populists and the ‘established elites’, particularly faced with the pandemic. All of this has led to a widespread reflection which exploded into struggle faced with the brutal attacks caused by the impact of the pandemic and war. The international slogan “enough is enough” is the manifestation of this process.

What is the meaning and potential of the new period in the class struggle?

A comrade asked about the implications of this analysis: “You seem to be saying that this is a crucial moment of the class struggle, in the light of the descent into barbarism. In the light of the current struggles, you seem to be saying that this has a particular significance, are you actually saying that these struggles can develop into a new wave of struggles (the third, with the first coming after the first world war and the second in the 1960s, defeated by the end of the 1980s)? Are you saying that if the present struggles can’t develop into a third and final wave, into a revolutionary wave, then capitalism will triumph? This is not clear not to me” (MH)

We are convinced that the rupture has opened up a new period in the struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. The ruling class is no longer confronted with a disorientated and passive proletariat. It is now having to grapple with an international proletariat that is refusing to sacrifice itself in the interests of capital. Will this take form of a “third wave”? We do not know.

We are not in the same situation as1968-89; the world is not divided into blocs, capitalism is 30 years into its final phase, the proletariat is confronted with the possibility that the ecological crisis could irreversibly destroy the natural environment; there is the acceleration of militarism and the danger of wars that resort to nuclear weapons. Before 1989 the proletariat’s struggle could hold back the threat of a Third World War; today no matter how much the proletariat develops its struggle the capitalist system will continue its decent into barbarism. Even if the proletariat manages to overthrow capitalism internationally, it could be faced with irreparable damage to the environment and a vast pile of ruins created by capitalist wars. But we do know that the proletariat has opened up the potential to develop its struggle towards creating the conditions for the overthrow of capitalism.

The proletariat’s ability to cast off the weight of decades of deep retreat demonstrates that it has not suffered a historical defeat comparable to what it went through in the 1920s and 1930s. Far from being the submissive victims of bourgeois ideology and agreeing to sacrifice itself on the altar of war and the “national interest”, the proletariat is defending its own interests. It is doing this in the unprecedented conditions of the acceleration of capitalism’s barbarism. This shows that it is still a potent social force. It it is not cowed or broken and it is still able to draw on its experience and reflection over the past 30 years.

How will the class go from the economic to the political struggle?

Another comrade asked:

“Qualitative escalation - how does the working class go from defence of immediate economic interests to politicisation - is it size, response of ruling class, role of revolutionaries? Just want to pose the question of the potential change to active resistance to war and to capitalism itself, only possible response to the war itself” (Intervention of Albert)

We think it is an error to oppose the economic to the political struggle. They are two dimensions of the same struggle, not stages the class has to progress through in a linear, mechanical way.

The present struggles illustrate this. By defending its working and living conditions the proletariat is rejecting the bourgeoisie’s ideological campaigns. It is posing its collective struggle against the atomisation, nihilism, scapegoating and hatred that typify decomposing capitalism. At present the vast majority of workers are not conscious that this is what they are doing, but objectively they are. This is laying the basis for the future more conscious recognition of the revolutionary content of the class struggle.

In order to defend its economic interests, the proletariat has to confront the last bulwark of the capitalist state, the trade unions. This is one of the great political challenges facing the class. To break with the unions means breaking with a powerful capitalist ideology: with the idea that “the unions are the working class”. This will not happen overnight but through learning the lessons of repeated defeats imposed by the capitalist state and its unions.

The comrade’s concern is: when will the proletariat become conscious of this political and economic nature of its struggle? The present struggles are a manifestation of this process. We are seeing new generations of workers, with no experience of strikes, joyously entering into the struggle, along with the older generations of workers who experienced the retreat and the struggles of 1968-89. We have already seen the unions in the UK having to try to present themselves as organising the coming together of the struggles, in response to the class’s growing anger about the uselessness of isolated struggles. On the picket lines and demonstrations in the UK there is no polarisation around race, sex, nationality or how you voted, rather there is a common struggle. If they are to push back the attacks, workers will have to confront and overcome the obstacles in the way of the extension and unification of the movement. In the coming period there will be many defeats but these will be rich in lessons invaluable to the future development of the struggle.

The role of the revolutionary organisation

There is also the important role of revolutionaries which the comrade asked about. This is a fundamental question. As we say in our Platform: As an emanation of the class, a manifestation of the process by which it becomes conscious, revolutionaries can only exist as such by becoming an active factor in this process. To accomplish this task in an indissoluble way, the revolutionary organisation:

• participates in all the struggles of the class in which its members distinguish themselves by being the most determined and combative fighters;
• intervenes in these struggles always stressing the general interests of the class and the final goals of the movement; and the final goals of the movement;
• as an integral part of this intervention, constantly dedicates itself to the work of theoretical clarification and reflection which alone will allow its general activity to be based on the whole past experience of the class and on the future perspectives crystallised through such theoretical work.”

In order to carry out this role, in response to the rupture in the class struggle, the ICC has issued and distributed four international leaflets since June 2003, held numerous public meetings in various countries, devoted the pages of its press and website to the theoretical work of understanding the full historical meaning of the period opened up by this rupture.

As an internationally centralised organisation, the ICC has carried out this intervention in as many countries as possible. Our forces are limited, but we are determined to carry out our role, with every ounce of our ability.

To this end we will continue to hold regular public meetings where the questions facing the proletariat and its organisations can be discussed.

We may have only been able to take up two of the questions raised at the public meeting, but they are vital questions. Unless we understand the profound historical meaning of the proletariat’s ability to break free from the heavy chains of the last three decades, we cannot fully understand the potential of the period opening up. We cannot predict whether the proletariat will be able to develop sufficient class consciousness to pose the overthrow of this rotting system. Nevertheless, we are convinced that it has taken the first steps towards such an outcome. As a communist organisation we are committed to do all we can to fulfil our historical responsibilities to the proletariat in its struggle.

We call on readers to attend our public meetings, write to us, help distribute our press and leaflets, to take an active part in the proletariat’s struggle for self-emancipation.

Phil

General strikes and giant demonstrations on 7 March in France, 8 March in Italy, 11 March in the UK. Everywhere, the anger is growing and spreading.

In the UK, a historic strike wave has been going on for nine months. After having suffered decades of austerity without flinching, the proletariat in Britain no longer accepts the sacrifices. "Enough is enough". In France, it's the increase in the retirement age that has lit the powder keg. Demonstrations brought millions of people to the streets. "Not one year more, not one euro less". In Spain, huge rallies were held against the collapse of the health care system, and strikes broke out in many sectors (cleaning, transport, IT, etc.). "La indignación llega de lejos / Indignation comes from afar," the newspapers said. In Germany, strangled by inflation, public sector workers and their postal colleagues went on strike for pay rises, something "never before seen in Germany". In Denmark, strikes and demonstrations broke out against the abolition of a public holiday in order to finance the increase in the military budget. In Portugal, teachers, railway workers and health care workers are also protesting against low wages and the cost of living. The Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, Canada, Mexico, China... the same strikes against the same unbearable and undignified living conditions: "The real hardship: not being able to heat, eat, look after yourself, drive!

 

The return of the working class

This simultaneity of struggles across all these countries is no accident. It confirms a real change of spirit within our class. After thirty years of resignation and despondency, through our struggles we are saying: "We are not going to take this anymore. We can and we must fight".

This return of working class combativity allows us to stand together, to show solidarity in the struggle, to feel proud, dignified and united in our fight. A very simple but extremely valuable idea is germinating in our heads: we are all in the same boat!

Employees in white coats, blue coats or ties, the unemployed, precarious students, pensioners, from all sectors, public and private, we are all beginning to recognise ourselves as a social force united by the same conditions of exploitation. We suffer the same exploitation, the same crisis of capitalism, the same attacks on our living and working conditions. We are involved in the same struggle. We are the working class.

"Workers stand together", shout the strikers in the UK. "Either we fight together, or we'll end up sleeping in the street", confirmed the demonstrators in France.

 

Can we win?

Some past struggles show that it is possible to make a government back down, to slow down its attacks.

In 1968, the proletariat in France united by taking control of its struggles. Following the huge demonstrations of 13 May to protest against the police repression suffered by the students, the walkouts and general assemblies spread like wildfire in the factories and all the workplaces to end up, with its 9 million strikers, in the biggest strike in the history of the international workers' movement. Faced with this dynamic of extension and unity of the workers' struggle, the government and the unions rushed to sign an agreement on a general wage increase in order to stop the movement.

In 1980, in Poland, faced with the increase in food prices, the strikers took the struggle even further by gathering in huge general assemblies, by deciding themselves on the demands and actions, and above all by having the constant concern to extend the struggle. Faced with this show of strength, it was not just the Polish bourgeoisie that trembled, but the bourgeoisie of all countries.

In 2006, in France, after only a few weeks of mobilisation, the government withdrew its "Contrat Première Embauche". Why was this? What frightened the bourgeoisie so much that it backed down so quickly? The precarious students organised massive general assemblies in the universities, open to workers, the unemployed and pensioners, and put forward a unifying slogan: the fight against casualisation and unemployment. These assemblies were the lungs of the movement, where debates were held and decisions were taken. The result: every weekend, the demonstrations brought together more and more sectors. Waged and retired workers joined the students under the slogan: "Young lardons, old croutons, all in the same salad". The French bourgeoisie and the government, faced with this tendency to unify the movement, had no choice but to withdraw the CPE.

All these movements have in common a dynamic of extension of the struggle thanks to the workers themselves taking control of it!

Today, whether we are waged workers, the unemployed, pensioners, precarious students, we still lack confidence in ourselves, in our collective strength, to dare to take direct control of our struggles. But there is no other way. All the "actions" proposed by the unions lead to defeat. Pickets, strikes, demonstrations, blocking the economy... it doesn't matter as long as these actions remain under their control. If the unions change the form of their actions according to the circumstances, it's always to better maintain the same substance: to divide and isolate the sectors from each other so that we don't debate and decide for ourselves how to conduct the struggle.

For nine months in the UK, what have the unions been doing? They have been scattering the workers' response: every day, a different sector on strike. Each one in its corner, each one on its separate picket line. No mass meetings, no collective debate, no real unity in the struggle. This is not an error of strategy but a deliberate division.

How in 1984-85 did the Thatcher government manage to break the back of the working class in the UK? Through the dirty work of the unions who isolated the miners from their class brothers and sisters in other sectors. They locked them into a long and sterile strike. For more than a year, the miners shut down the pits under the banner of "blocking the economy". Alone and powerless, the strikers went to the end of their strength and courage. And their defeat was the defeat of the whole working class! The workers of the UK are only now, thirty years later, raising their heads. This defeat is therefore a costly lesson that the world proletariat must not forget.

Only by gathering in open, massive and autonomous general assemblies, really deciding on the conduct of the movement, can we wage a united and spreading struggle, carried forward by solidarity between all sectors, all generations. Assemblies in which we feel united and confident in our collective strength, in which we can adopt increasingly unifying demands. General assemblies which can form massive delegations to meet our class brothers and sisters, the workers in the nearest factory, hospital, school, administration.

 

The real victory is the struggle itself

"Can we win?” The answer is yes, sometimes if, and only if, we take our struggles into our own hands. We can stop the attacks momentarily, make a government back down.

But the truth is that the global economic crisis will push whole sections of the proletariat into poverty. To get by in the international arena of the market and competition, every bourgeoisie in every country, whether its government is left, right or centre, traditional or populist, is going to impose increasingly intolerable living and working conditions.

The truth is that with the development of the war economy in the four corners of the planet, the "sacrifices" demanded by the bourgeoisie will be more and more unbearable.

The truth is that the imperialist confrontation between nations, all nations, is a spiral of destruction and bloody chaos that can lead all humanity to its destruction. Every day in Ukraine a torrent of human beings, sometimes 16 or 18 year olds, are being mowed down by abominable instruments of death, whether Russian or western.

The truth is that simple epidemics of flu or bronchiolitis are now bringing exhausted health systems to their knees.

The truth is that capitalism will continue to ravage the planet and wreak havoc with the climate, causing devastating floods, droughts and fires.

The truth is that millions of people will continue to flee war, famine, climate catastrophe, or all three, only to run into the barbed wire walls of other countries, or drown into the sea.

So the question arises: what is the point of fighting against low wages, against the lack of personnel, against this or that “reform”? Because our struggles carry the hope of another world, without class or exploitation, without war or borders.

The real victory is the struggle itself. The simple fact of entering the struggle, of developing our solidarity, is already a victory. By fighting together, by refusing resignation, we prepare the struggles of tomorrow and we create little by little, despite the inevitable defeats, the conditions for a new world.

Our solidarity in struggle is the antithesis of the deadly competition of this system, divided into rival companies and nations.

Our solidarity between generations is the antithesis of the no-future and the destructive spiral of this system.

Our struggle symbolises the refusal to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of militarism and war.

The struggle of the working class is immediately a challenge to the very foundations of capitalism and exploitation.

Every strike carries within it the seeds of revolution.

The future belongs to the class struggle!

International Communist Current (25 February 2023)

 

For current and future struggles, we must regroup, debate, learn lessons

Wherever possible, we must gather together, discuss, and reappropriate the lessons of the past, in order to prepare the autonomous struggle of the whole working class. At work, in the demonstrations, on the blockades, on the pickets, we need to debate and reflect on how the working class can take its struggles into its own hands, how it can organise itself in autonomous general assemblies, how it can extend a movement.

Public meetings

It is also in this spirit that we are organising public meetings in a number of countries. The next one in the UK is on the 1st April at 3pm, at The Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Rd, London WC1X 8QY. It will also be possible to participate in this meeting online - to do so write to uk@internationalism.org [43] from the UK. Elsewhere, write to international@internationalism.org [44] and we will send the link. The dates and places of our meetings are available on our website: en.internationalism.org.

Come and discuss!

These days there are very few active discussions in the “Recent Discussions” section of  libcom.org [45] But one that has provoked a lot of controversy is an article called “British anarchism succumbs to war fever”[1] by Albatross, which opens up with a salvo against the anarchists who are calling for participation on the Ukrainian side in the imperialist conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Albatross poses the question: “how is it that today the anarchist movement in Britain (and elsewhere) is supporting one nation's military against another, ideologically justifying and materially provisioning the Ukrainian war effort? Are we seeing something altogether new that would lead us to question and revise our principles? No. We are seeing the same tragedy brought upon the people of the region as we have seen time after time. Our anti-militarist, internationalist, and revolutionary perspective is as vital as ever. At this present stage, the struggle for liberation is caught in the no-man's-land between imperialist invasion on the one side, and national defence (backed by an opposing imperialism) on the other. To seek purpose in either trench would be just more fuel in the furnace of capitalist warfare; it would mean allegiance to the state against anarchy”.

Albatross cites a number of examples of this anarchist war fever, for example: “From Ukraine to Scotland to Western Sahara to Palestine to Tatarstan, we stand with the people resisting imperialism,” proclaims Darya Rustamova in the pages of Freedom, an article reprinted by the Anarchist Federation. He also quotes the editorial of the AF’s magazine Organise, no 96, which proclaims that “Anarchists have taken to defence of their homeland”. Against both statements, Albatross rightly poses the question “Who are ‘the people’? By what means are they resisting? To what end?”, and to the second quote asks “What homeland do anarchists have? The ‘homeland’ is a sentimental notion of the nation-state in which a person is born” and which is used to justify the policy of “national defence”. He also contrasts this with an article published in 2009 by the AF which was much clearer in rejecting support for any nationalism, “including that of ‘oppressed nations’”[2]

Albatross goes on to demonstrate that the idea that in Ukraine there is some kind of autonomous popular resistance to the invader is delusional: all the so-called independent anarchist fighting units have been completely incorporated into the official state army, in some cases operating alongside the openly fascist units led by the Azov Brigade. And by extension, support for the Ukrainian state also involves support for the imperialist alliance which backs it with arms and propaganda – for NATO: “In our own context, the war fever that has overcome British anarchism will likely lead to support for British military intervention (through military aid and technical support, if not actual combat involvement) and, by extension, NATO imperialism. It is through such means that Ukraine will be able to defeat Russia. Given that NATO members are currently hesitant to escalate into direct conflict between nuclear powers, some anarchists find themselves in the absurd position of being more eager for the generalisation of imperialist war than their own ruling classes”.

As in our initial article about the anarchist response to the war, Albatross makes it clear that some parts of the anarchist movement have taken a clearly internationalist position against both camps in the war,  citing various groups of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers’ Aassociation in Russia (the KRAS) , Poland, Serbia and Slovakia, as well as the Assembly group in Ukraine itself, and adding that “Some anarchists in Britain have taken this course of working class internationalism – such as the Anarchist Communist Group [46], Liverpool Solidarity Federation, and AnarCom Network [47] – but they are a minority”.

Finally, Albatross points out that the Freedom group has also given a platform in its press to one of the elements involved in the doxing of the comrades of the KRAS (whose statement about this police-like behaviour we also published on our website[3]). Names and addresses of KRAS comrades were published online by some pro-Ukraine anarchists, effectively opening these comrades up to state repression.

Furore on libcom

“The war between nations, then, must be transformed into open class struggle. This begins when workers reject the social truce within their ‘own’ nation, and organise on a class basis against the people who oppress and exploit them every day”.

This basic internationalist position put forward in the text by Albatross got the following response from a poster called Machnette:

“Sounds a lot like genocide appeasement to me. Perfect example of somebody who would allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I'm glad that the aid (ie from the western powers – WR) is shooting down the bombs, clearing the mines and ending the crimes of the occupation ASAP. Is this some great victory for the class struggle? Who says it is? It's about saving lives!
When there's lives on the line, ideological purity is a luxury that is paid for with the blood of the innocent … We don't have the right to dictate dogma to our comrades when they ask for a lifeline under the threat of literal genocide!”

In another post Machnette writes

We can talk shit all we like about the IRA, or the Taliban not meeting our ideological standards, but what we cannot deny is that they had a right to oppose their respective occupations.

And in order to back the anarchist groups that are supporting Ukraine, Machnette announces that “I started funding Organise! magazine yesterday. If this has upset you guys that badly, it must be doing something really right”.

The majority of posts on the thread (by Battlescarred of the ACG, Lone Drone, Sherbu-kteer, Djybas of the Internationalist Communist Tendency and others) reject all of Machnette’s arguments in support of Ukraine and its NATO allies, not to mention the implied support for the “anti-imperialist” IRA and the Taliban[4]. Battlescarred also provides further information about the doxing of KRAS, following attempts on the Russian anarchist Avtonom website to exonerate the anarcho-snitches[5].

Concessions to the war fever

Having given credit where it is due, we think it’s necessary to remark that there are some rather dangerous chinks in the internationalist armour worn by Albatross. This became clear following a post by Steven, a long-standing member of the libcom collective, who says that while “this article makes a lot of good and important points, and is coming from a good place … I think there is a major problem with it”. And this problem is the idea that revolutionaries in Ukraine should focus on anti-militarism, in other words, opposing the Ukrainian war machine. Steven goes on: “Ukraine is a corrupt social democracy. But anarchists and revolutionaries are pretty free to agitate as they see fit (given the current exception of pro-Russian left parties at the moment). In Russia of course the situation is very different. Anarchists, anti-fascists and revolutionaries are frequently arrested, tortured by security forces, murdered by fascists and other right-wing extremists, jailed for long periods etc. Given that, I don't really feel I can criticise Ukrainian anarchists who choose to join the armed fight against the Russian invasion. Because this isn't just a matter of the nationality of your ruler, it's about whether you can live free, or be tortured, thrown in jail or killed”.

This is a clear concession to those who openly advocate joining the armed “resistance”. Lurking behind it is the classic leftist rejoinder in defence of anti-fascist fronts: “what do you do when the fascists are marching down your street and trashing your house?”. It’s never posed in political, class terms, just in terms of individual survival. Of course, as individuals faced with an immediate threat, you may be forced into all kinds of actions: running away, picking up a gun to defend yourself and your family, or being conscripted into a bourgeois army. But it’s not the same for a proletarian political organisation, a collective body whose reason for existence is to provide a clear "line of march" to the working class as a whole. And on that basis we must firmly denounce the arguments of those Ukrainian anarchists who make a deliberate political choice to join the armed fight against the Russian invasion, and openly call on others to opt for this choice as an example of anarchism in action.

The reply to this by Albatross seems completely contradictory:

“Going back to the original point, while I agree with the gist of what you're saying, I don't think anti-militarism in the specific sense is irrelevant to Ukrainians just because their nation is the invaded side. While Ukrainians are suffering from bombings and in some areas brutal occupation, many are also suffering from conscription, martial law, closed borders, etc. There is the propaganda image of the Ukrainian nation totally united in a war until victory or death, and then there is the reality that there are many people who have no desire to kill and die for their country, but who are forced to do so, being stopped at the border, subpoenaed on the street, punished for desertion, etc ... I don't judge the choices of individuals in such a situation, but I do think it is legitimate to criticise the political project of anarchist movements as expressed by, for example, The Resistance Committee and the Solidarity Collectives. I am more or less in agreement with the rest of your comment”.

Albatross seems to be unaware that there really is a fundamental disagreement with Steven here, because the whole thrust of the latter’s post is that it undermines criticism of the Ukrainian anarcho-patriots, and by implication all those outside Ukraine who support and advocate their position.

Steven defends himself by saying that he is in favour of class actions like the wildcat strikes by Ukrainian miners and health workers which have taken place during the war. At the same time, he comes back with a question for Albatross: “A clarification question for you then, appreciate that you bring up the example of anti-war sabotage in Russia which has been beautiful to see. But would you advocate that kind of sabotage against the Ukrainian military as well? Because I would not, because that would essentially just assist the Russian invasion”

To this Djybas rightly replies: “The question needs turning on its head. When talking about class struggle, we're talking about elemental social forces not calculated individual acts. If workers in any of the warring states took up the class struggle, and by doing so began to undermine the war effort in any way, would Steven and others, in their political capacity, be telling them to ‘go back to work because you're assisting the enemy’? And do remember - in times of crisis and war, opposition to any attacks on working class conditions is seen by the ruling class as a threat to national unity (so even civilian protests or opposition to restrictions on the right to strike, which you provide as positive examples, very quickly becomes ‘undermining the war effort’ according to war propaganda)”

We can add: despite Steven’s illusions in freedom to agitate in Ukraine, are we really to believe that political groups openly defending internationalist positions in Ukraine won’t also be accused of “undermining the war effort” and subjected to state repression?

A major problem…with anarchism

One of the most interesting remarks in this thread comes from Sherbu-kteer:

 “I can understand now why left-communists place so much emphasis on internationalism during WWII as an essential part of communist politics. It revealed the same thing that is being revealed now: that the perspective of most of the left has not gone beyond searching for the lesser-evil capitalists and supporting them once they think they've found them. Once again,”.

This reminds us that anarchist participation in imperialist war did not begin with the Ukraine war. There is of course the example of Kropotkin in 1914, whose followers earned the title of “anarcho-trenchists” by advocating support for French democracy against German autocracy with arguments that are very close to those of today’s pro-war apologists. Most of today’s anarchists would probably argue that they reject Kropotkin’s stance. Very few of them would admit that the majority of anarchists failed the next two major tests by imperialist war: the war in Spain 1936-9 and the Second World War. Again, most anarchists today would condemn the CNT representatives who joined regional and central government in Spain to help direct the war effort. But the idea that there was a proletarian revolution taking place “alongside” the inter-capitalist conflict in Spain led even the best anarchist groups, like the Friends of Durruti, to compromise on the question of supporting the war effort. It’s not insignificant that in his article in reply to Albatross, Wayne Price[6] also uses a quote from the Friends’ pamphlet “Towards a Fresh Revolution”:
“There must be no collaboration with capitalism….Class struggle is no obstacle to workers continuing at present to fight on in the battlefields and working in the war industries….Revolutionary workers must not shoulder official posts, nor establish themselves in the ministries. For as long as the war lasts, collaboration is permissible—on the battlefield, in the trenches, on the parapets, and in productive labour in the rearguard.”

Against this centrist position, the Italian Communist Left insisted that the smallest strike in the “rearguard” would be a step forward for the Spanish workers and a blow against the imperialist war – a position vindicated by the Barcelona uprising of May 1937 (in which, it should be said, the Friends of Durruti took part on the workers’ side of the barricades, against the Republican government and its Stalinist and CNT agents).

And in the Second World War, the groups of the communist left were again totally opposed to those anarchists who advocated participation in the anti-fascist Resistance and even flew the black and red flag in the armoured cars that led the “Liberation” of Paris. By this time the number of anarchists who took a more or less clear internationalist position against the war had been reduced to a small handful (such as the group around Voline in France and the War Commentary group around Marie-Louise Berneri in Britain).

At the beginning of his article, Albatross says that, in opposition to the phony declarations by parts of the ruling class, lamenting that war is a terrible thing, “Anarchism cuts right through such mystification. We say it as we see it: the workers of different nations are sent to slaughter each other in the interests of their rulers. Anti-militarism is a core principle of anarchism”.

But where can we find this creature called anarchism? Where are the principles of anarchism encoded as clear programmatic positions? The truth is that anarchism has always been an extremely heterogenous political phenomenon, encompassing communists and individualists, those in favour of national liberation struggles and those opposed to them – and those who have opposed imperialist wars and those who have supported them. The same problem exists today, as we can see by comparing the AF with the ACG, for example. Or by looking at the Anarkismo website which contains an international statement against the war, signed by the ACG, with the pro-war article by Wayne Price. Battlescarred also points out that the AF is part of the International of Anarchist Federations which has issued statements denouncing the war on both sides. Contrary to the idea of a general family of anarchism which shares universal principles, anarchism “in general” can only be a kind of swamp containing bourgeois, petty bourgeois and proletarian elements.

But can’t the same thing be said about marxism? Doesn’t it also include Stalinists and Trotskyist cheerleaders in every imperialist war and left communists opposed to all such wars? The difference is that the communist left has always based its definition of the marxist “camp” on historical experience and adherence or not to clearly formulated programmes. We don’t define Stalinists and Trotskyists as marxists just because they use this label for themselves, but on their real practice, most importantly when faced with key questions like war and revolution, which has shown them to be part of the capitalist political apparatus.

The key problem with the anarchist world view is that it did not originate from such a rigorous class analysis and did not base itself on the materialist view of history, which means that from the start its “principles” were based on abstractions like opposition to all authority. If we take the anarchist “principle” regarding national liberation, for example, we can see where this lack of method can lead us. Thus, in his defence of the fight for “national freedom” in Ukraine, Wayne Price is happy to quote this from Bakunin: “Nationality…denotes the inalienable right of individuals, groups, associations and regions to their own way of life. And this way of life is the product of a long historical development. That is why I will always champion the cause of oppressed nationalities struggling to liberate themselves from the oppression of the state.” (Bakunin On Anarchism, S. Dolgoff, Ed. 1980; Black Rose).

For Bakunin, the principles of anarchism are thus founded on the “inalienable rights” of individuals, regions, or nationalities. In contrast to this approach, Marx and Engels always used the criteria of class interests: they had no doubt that struggles for national liberation were bourgeois struggles, but some of them could be supported by the working class if they served the development of a still progressive capitalist system. But these conditions radically changed with the onset of capitalism’s decadence and in this epoch all national struggles have become reactionary, fundamentally anti-working class.  

It's true that other anarchist currents, such as the anarcho-syndicalists, have tended to be more consistent in basing their positions on the interests of the working class. But this only emphasises that there are no “universal principles” of a “true anarchism”.

The idea of the inalienable rights of the individual goes back to the very origins of anarchism in the most radical wing of the petty bourgeoisie. This is one of the reasons why even those currents who see themselves as communists and part of the workers’ movement generally have a great difficulty in distinguishing collective class movements such as strikes from individual acts of despair. Thus, Steven finds “acts of anti-war sabotage” in Russia (though not Ukraine) beautiful to see, and libcom publishes numerous accounts of actions like the firebombing of recruitment centres in Russia by this or that individual (a lot of these accounts were originally put out by the Assembly group, which, while it seems to have opposed the enlistment of other Ukrainian anarchists into the war effort, does not seem very clear about what would constitute a class resistance to the war).

We can understand the anger and frustration which leads individuals to take such actions, but they do not provide any perspective for the working class, any more the “exemplary deeds” of certain anarchists in the late 19th century served to spark off a wider class movement.

As Sherbu-kteer put it above, “the consistent internationalists are in the minority, and they have to fight harder than ever to have their voices heard by demoralised working-classes that are dominated by nationalism and war fever”. The fact that there is little or no direct class resistance to this war, either in Russia, or even more clearly in Ukraine where the workers are indeed dominated by nationalism and war fever, does not mean that internationalists have nothing to say. We do whatever we can to spread the internationalist message, not only to make our voices heard today, but to lay down markers for the future when the international working class will pose the question of war much more openly and decisively.

Amos

 

From Britain to France, Spain, Portugal and Holland and many other countries, workers’ struggles are multiplying, responding to the effects of inflation, the intensification of the war economy and frontal attacks by the bourgeoisie on living and working conditions.

What is the significance of these struggles? What is their potential? How is the ruling class dealing with them? How can the working class take the struggle forward?

Come and discuss all these questions at a public meeting organised by the ICC:

Saturday 1 April, 3-6pm

The Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Rd, London WC1X 8QY.

It will also be possible to participate in this meeting online - to do so write to uk@internationalism.org [43] from the UK. Elsewhere, write to international@internationalism.org [44] and we will send the link.

 

On March 14, 1883, 140 years ago, Karl Marx, a leading revolutionary militant and fighter, died. Often presented by the bourgeoisie as a "philosopher" or an "economist", he was throughout his life hounded and slandered by his detractors and the police, portrayed as the devil incarnate. Despite being transformed either into an icon or an "outdated" thinker, despite all the deformations of his thought by the Stalinists and the leftists, his contribution, and above all the method he developed, that of historical materialism, remains fundamental to arming the proletariat in its struggle to comprehend the capitalist system and prepare its overthrow. His often-unrecognised abilities as a talented organiser, his polemics, the sharpness of his pen, make him one of the greatest revolutionaries of his time. We publish below a series of articles dedicated to him.

A hundred years after the death of Marx, the belongs to marxism [57]

Marx_proved_right [58]

How the proletariat won Marx to communism [59]

What is Marxism? [60]

Karl Marx: A revolutionary militant [61]

"On the film ‘The Young Karl Marx’ [62]".

Enough is enough!" - Britain. "Not a year more, not a euro less" - France. "Indignation runs deep" - Spain. "For all of us" - Germany. All these slogans, chanted during the strikes around the world in recent months, show how much the current workers' struggle expresses the rejection of the general deterioration of our living and working conditions. In France, workers also raised the slogan “You give us 64, we give you May 68” – faced with the increase in years of wage labour from 62 to 64, we are returning to the massive struggles of May 1968.

But we must also go further. The wave of international struggle that began in May 1968 was a reaction to the first signs of the world economic crisis. Today, the situation is much more serious. The disastrous state of capitalism puts the survival of humanity at stake.

The momentum of May '68 was broken by a double lie of the bourgeoisie. When the USSR collapsed in 1990, it claimed that the collapse of Stalinism meant the death of communism and that a new era of peace and prosperity was dawning. Three decades later, we know from experience that instead of peace and prosperity, we got war and misery. We have yet to understand that Stalinism was the antithesis of communism, that it was a barbaric capitalist regime that emerged from the counter-revolution of the 1920s. By falsifying history, by presenting Stalinism as communism, the bourgeoisie succeeded in making the working class believe that its project of revolutionary emancipation could only end in disaster.

But in the struggle, we will gradually develop our collective strength, unity and self-organisation. In the struggle, we will gradually realise that we, the working class, are capable of offering a perspective other than the nightmare promised by a decaying capitalist system.

Come and discuss the lessons of May 68 for the struggles of today!

If you want to take part, write to us at uk@internationalism.org [43], and we will send you the details.

This article was first published in April 2023, following a series a massive demonstrations against the proposals of the Netanyahu government to “reform” the Supreme Court, which it sees as an obstacle to its policies, in particular the open annexation of the occupied territories, ditching any form of “two-state” solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Since then, we have seen an escalation of military raids and settler pogroms in the West Bank, and a series of responses by Palestinian terrorist groups or sympathisers inside Israel. In July, in the Israeli parliament, the government coalition pushed through its law on the Supreme Court, and the street demonstrations against the government have resumed with full force. In sum, the Israeli bourgeoisie is facing a full-blown political crisis, confirming the article’s general analysis. And in our view, the main political stance adopted by the article – the rejection both of the Netanyahu regime and the “democratic” nationalist opposition mobilised in the demonstrations – remains valid.

30.7.23

In the terminal phase of its long decline, the ruling class is becoming increasingly mired in corruption and irrationality, less and less able to control its own political machinery, more and more torn apart by factional rivalries.

Political life in the state of Israel expresses all these tendencies in a concentrated form.

The present government is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long been overshadowed by charges of bribery and corruption. One of the motivations for his government’s attempt to reduce the authority of the Supreme Court is to ensure that he is spared from criminal charges against him. Like Trump in the USA, he is more than willing to use his office for blatant personal gain.

In addition, the government led by Netanyahu’s Likud party can only survive because it is supported by ultra-religious groups and the neo-fascist Jewish Power party, who are united behind a drive to openly annex the territories occupied in 1967, justified by appeals to the Torah. The attitudes of these organisations towards the position of women, gays, and the Palestinian Arabs express – very much like their hated Islamist enemies – an accelerating descent into irrationality and obscurantism.

The plan of the Netanyahu government to muzzle the Supreme Court is thus also driven by an explicit abandonment of any “two state” solution for the Israel-Palestine problem and the creation of a purely Jewish state from the Jordan to the Sea – necessarily involving the subjugation and perhaps the massive deportation of the Palestinian population.

However, these proposals have provoked weeks of massive and sustained demonstrations which have obliged Netanyahu to pause the plan, compromising with his even more right-wing supporters in the government by granting Jewish Power a number of positions in the future government. Most controversially this has included the formation of a kind of private militia under the direct control of the Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir. It would be responsible for policing the West Bank - in practice, acting as a cover for the accomplished facts established by armed settlers (a role already being played by the established military and police forces, but no doubt provoking all kinds of dissensions between the different arms of the state in the implementation of this policy).

A conflict within the bourgeoisie

The protest movement has recently included strikes by airport, hospital, municipal and other workers. But this is not a movement of the working class against capitalist exploitation. In most cases the strikes were more like lock-outs, supported by the employers. High-ups in the political, military and intelligence apparatus have strongly supported the demonstrations, which is always festooned with Israeli flags and denounces the government’s assault on the Supreme Court as an attack on democracy, even as “anti-Zionist”. Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, who already have first-hand knowledge of the delights of the existing Israeli democracy, have largely stayed away from the demonstrations. No doubt many of the protestors are giving vent to real fears about their future under the new political regime, but this is a movement entirely dominated by the clash between rival bourgeois forces.

The fact that this is a conflict inside the bourgeoisie is further emphasised by the criticism of the government’s plans by US President Biden and other western leaders. The provocative policies of the Netanyahu government towards the occupied territories do not accord with current US foreign policy, which aims to present itself as a force for peace and reconciliation in the region, and still adheres, verbally at any rate, to the two-state solution. Netanyahu has replied by insisting that the friendship between the US and Israel is unbreakable, but that no foreign power can tell Israel what to do. In sum, he is expressing the general tendency towards every man for himself in international politics. Already the government’s overt support for de facto expansion via the settlers has provoked a fresh round of armed confrontations on the West Bank and fears of a new “intifada”

Illusions in the forces of Israel’s democracy

The left and liberal forces of the ruling class who are backing the demonstrations and demanding a return to Israel’s true democracy have never shied from working hand in hand with the forces of the right when it came to defending the interests of the Zionist state. A well-known example: in the 1948 war, it was the right- wing Irgun commanded by Begin, and the Lehi group or Stern gang, that were most directly involved in the atrocious massacre of Palestinian Arabs at Deir Yassin in April 1948, when scores, even hundreds, of civilians were killed in cold blood. The armed force controlled by “Labour Zionism”, the Haganah, and the newly independent state it established by force of arms, officially condemned the massacre, but this had not prevented cooperation with the Haganah’s elite forces at Deir Yassin. More important, not only were the official forces involved in the destruction of other villages, they did not hesitate to reap advantages from the terror used against the Palestinian Arabs, which drove them to quit Palestine in their hundreds of thousands, thus solving the problem of establishing a “democratic” Jewish majority. These refugees were left to languish in camps for decades and were never allowed back – no less oppressed by the Arab states which used them as a permanent casus bello against Israel. And as for the more radical Zionist left organised in Hashomair Hatzair and the kibbutz movement, far from establishing a socialist enclave in Israel, their collective farms operated as the most efficient military bases in the formation of the new state.

Since the 1970s, if the Zionist right (Begin, Sharon, Netanyahu) etc have increasingly dominated Israeli politics, it’s because they tend to represent the most brutally “honest” solution to the problem of Israel’s relationship to Palestine as a whole: naked force, a permanent military camp, apartheid laws. But this was always the inner logic of Zionism, with its original false promise of “a land without people for a people without land”.

The hypocrisy of the “anti-Zionist” left

 It’s therefore not hard for “anti-Zionist” bourgeois factions, such as the Trotskyists and supporters of the “Palestinian national struggle”, to prove that the Zionist project could only succeed as a form of colonialism -  backed, moreover, by one or other of the great imperialist powers – initially the British with their duplicitous divide and rule policies in Palestine[1], then the USA with its efforts to dislodge the British from the region, and even the Stalinist USSR at the time of the 1948 war.

But the leftists who supported first the Palestinian liberation groups (PLO, PFLP, PDFLP, etc) then the Islamists of Hamas and Hezbollah don’t tell us the other side of the story: that like all nationalisms in the epoch of capitalist decadence, Palestinian nationalism too was always dependent on imperialism, from the links established by the Mufti of Jerusalem with German and Italian imperialism in the 30s to the backing of the PLO by the regional Arab regimes as well as Russia and China,  and the support for the Islamist gangs by Iran, Qatar and others. And with their support for the “oppressed nations”, they act as apologists for the fact that nationalist opposition to Zionism has always taken the form of anti-Jewish pogroms and terrorist outrages, from the first reactions to the Balfour Declaration in the early 20s and the 1936 “general strike” against Jewish immigration into Palestine, to the violent assaults against Jewish civilians (whether by knife, gun, or missile) still being perpetrated by agents or supporters of Hamas and other Islamist groups.

Mouthpieces of the ruling class who spread illusions in peace in the Middle East often denounce the “spiral of violence” which endlessly pits Jew against Arab in the region. But this spiral of hatred and revenge is an integral part of all national conflicts, when the “enemy” is defined as an entire population. There is only one path leading out of this deadly trap: the path pointed out by the Italian communist left in the 1930s: “For real revolutionaries, naturally, there is no ‘Palestinian’ question, but solely the struggle of all the exploited of the Near-East, Arabs and Jews included, which is part of a more general struggle of all the exploited of the entire world for the communist revolution”.

But nearly a century later, the never-ending wars and massacres in the region have shown the immense obstacles in the way of developing a class unity between Jewish and Arab proletarians, fighting in defence of their living conditions, and opening the perspective of struggling for a new society where exploitation and the state no longer exist. More than ever, such a perspective can only be developed in the central countries of capitalism, where the working class has a far greater potential for overcoming the divisions imposed on it by capital, and thus for raising the banner of revolution for the workers of the entire world.

Amos, April 22, 2023

 

A new series which develops our critique of the so-called “communisation” tendency and its claims to have gone beyond marxism and the communist left.

Part One: Introduction to the series on “Communisers” [64]

Part Two: From leftism to modernism: the misadventures of the ‘Bérard tendency’ [65]

Annex to part 2: Why the proletariat is the revolutionary class: Critical notes on the article 'Leçons de la lutte des ouvriers anglais' in Révolution Internationale no 9 [66]

Part 3.1: Jacques Camatte - from Bordigism to the negation of the proletariat [67]

Part 3.2: Jacques Camatte - from Bordigism to the negation of the proletariat  [68]

At the beginning of the war in Ukraine the International Communist Current proposed a joint internationalist statement [69] on the conflict to the other groups of the Communist Left. Of these groups three affirmed their willingness to participate and a statement was discussed, agreed, and published by these different groups. The principle behind the joint statement was that on the fundamental question of imperialist war and the internationalist perspective against it, the different Communist Left groups were agreed and could unite on this question to provide, with greater force, a clear political alternative to capitalist barbarism for the working class in different countries.

The other side of the joint statement was that on other questions, particularly on the analysis of the present imperialist war, its origins and prospects, there were differences among the constituent groups which should be discussed and clarified. Consequently the groups have decided to produce brief statements on these questions and publish them in a bulletin

The first English edition of this bulletin can now be accessed here [70] in PDF form by double-clicking on the illustration. Other editions will follow in Farsi, Italian, Korean and further languages.

After a media spike early last autumn, the theme of "super-profits taxation" has crept into the speeches of many politicians, in the press and even in the mouths of media economists.
The indecent rise in profits is a reality. The dividends of CAC-40 shareholders in France, the profits of TotalEnergies, LVMH, Engie, Arcelor Mittal, those of the major energy distributors in Germany, Italy or Great Britain, such as Shell, BP, British Gas... all are setting records. For example, TotalEnergie doubled its net profit in the second quarter of 2022. In the United Kingdom, the Shell Group has made a profit of 40 billion dollars. Germany's top 100 companies are reporting record revenues of 1,800 billion euros compared to the same period last year. The global freight giant CMA CGM has increased its revenue for the first quarter of 2022 by $7.2 billion, an increase of almost 243%!
This situation, which accentuates social gaps and inequalities, is accompanied by a disgusting exhibition of certain incomes while workers' salaries stagnate, if not regress. Precariousness has become the norm and inflation is plunging a growing mass of workers into poverty[1].

The bourgeoisie verbally condemns super-profits the better to defend capitalism
In the face of this constantly deteriorating situation, the "taxation of super-profits" is presented as a possible solution or as one of the means to respond to the crisis. The Bundestag and other parliamentary chambers in Europe have been led to plan such a tax, mainly on profits related to the energy sector. In his speeches, President Macron, preferring to banish any reference to the lexicon of leftism, mentioned for example the possibility of taxing the "undue profits" of the large energy companies. The aim was probably to make the forced use of their cars less unbearable for workers, especially the most precarious, and to respond ideologically to what is experienced as a real injustice: "the rich are gorging themselves while we are struggling more and more to fill our petrol tanks". Such propaganda, in the mouths of other European leaders of the same ilk, in the midst of an economic crisis and in a context of strong inflationary pressures, is a sign of the bourgeoisie's concern about an increasingly tense social situation.

Faced with increasing misery, proletarians began to raise their voices in the struggles in Britain, France and many countries of the world: "enough is enough" or « maintenant, ça suffit!».Because of the upsurge of struggles around the world, the bourgeoisie is forced to hand out a few crumbs. But what it lets go with one hand, it will immediately and inevitably take back with the other.

Beyond these concerns, the danger for the working class lies in an apparently more radical mystification put forward by the left, the unions and above all by the leftists, as is the case particularly in France with the Trotskyists.

At the end of August, LFI-NUPES[2] was already organising a petition entitled: "Let's tax super-profits"! In many of their speeches, LFI MPs, from Manuel Bompart to François Ruffin, stressed the need for taxation as a response to the social crisis. But this same idea was the almost exclusive ideological niche of leftists, just a few years ago. Like those of LO (Lutte Ouvrière), whose demagogic slogan often boiled down to "make the rich pay", a sort of variant of the Stalinist speeches of the past, which presented themselves as the "enemies of the trusts", exploiting in passing the old myth of the "200 families".[3] This old idea of "taking from the rich" was also conveyed by other propagandists, such as those of Attac, who still advocate the application of the Tobin Tax[4]. (3)

In reality, the slogan "let's tax profits" has always expressed the will to whitewash capitalism, to hide from the exploited the historical bankruptcy of the system and the causes of its crisis. What the leftists' idea of "expropriation" hides, by polarising attention on the "profiteers" who thus play the role of lightning rod (as during the 2008 crisis attributed to the bankers), is to make us believe that the roots of the world crisis come from the "excesses" of the big firms, from the egoistic behaviour of the "greedy" managers and shareholders or of this or that boss. In short, despite the contradictions of capitalism, it would be possible to "relieve the workers’ lot" through a "fair redistribution of wealth".

But today, these old discourses of the extreme left, recycled in response to the reflection going on among more conscious and combative working-class minorities, are no longer sufficient. While the classical left perpetuates its ideology of "redistribution" and "regulation" by the state, the leftists now force themselves to talk about the "need to overturn the system". For LO, this taxation now becomes a "deception". [5](4) A group like Révolution Permanente (RP), a split from the NPA, also criticises this slogan which "does not allow us to attack capitalist private property".[6] Without abandoning the old "reformist" platitudes such as "indexing wages to inflation [...] to unite our class" – proof that this new leftist boutique does not aim to question wage exploitation in any way.

Behind the apparent radicalism of its speeches lies the staunch defence of state capitalism under the guise of "expropriations" which would make it possible to build a so-called "workers' state". The leftist organisations do not at all distance themselves from the conceptions conveyed by the classical left, consisting in maintaining the illusion of the possibility of constituting a state "above classes", capable of "regulating the economy in the service of the workers". Consequently, far from being at the service of workers' emancipation, the left and the far left will always remain in the bourgeois camp at the service of the conservation of capitalism.

Is there any money in the pockets of the bosses?

The capitalist world is inexorably sinking into an acute economic war, against a background of massive indebtedness. All companies and all nations are fighting each other to maintain their competitiveness in the face of fierce rivalry. To survive in this jungle, there are no easy ways: you have to accumulate as much capital as possible by squeezing workers to lower production costs. Contrary to persistent myths, such as that of the "thirty glorious years", capitalism has never and will never be able to "redistribute wealth fairly", as this would mean dooming itself to ruin. With the generalised crisis of the system, it is not even conceivable to grant the slightest reform in favour of the workers. The only perspective that capitalism can propose to the proletariat is a permanent degradation of its living and working conditions.

This is what the propaganda about the "taxation of profits" seeks to conceal! As sophisticated as it may be in the mouths of "left" economists, this lie has for the sole function of filling the skulls of the workers with illusions about a way out of the crisis. Capitalism has no philanthropic vocation; it can only act in conformity with its nature: to accumulate capital and make profit through the sweat of the workers.

Can the state share the wealth better?
The idea hammered out in the past by leftists, especially Trotskyites, of "taxing the rich" to invest "sleeping money" and pretend to invest in schools, health care, etc. for a better world under the leadership of a state democratically controlled by the workers, is a pure lie. Contrary to what they want us to believe, capitalism can in no way overcome its insoluble contradictions which generate a permanent crisis of overproduction and an abysmal debt. The fantasy model of "redistribution", or of state control fraudulently assimilated to "communism", remains in reality that of Stalinist state capitalism! A "model" of capitalist management that all far-left politicians are still nostalgic for.

Contrary to the belief in the possibility of creating a more "social" state, the reality is that the state represents the spearhead of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie likes to portray states as subservient to the big transnational corporations. But the balance of power between the "private" bourgeoisie and the state is strictly the opposite: without the tight state control of production and trade at all levels, without the sophisticated regulatory apparatus (favouring tax breaks), without the army of civil servants to train or care for the workers, without the imperialist influence of the states, the companies, small ones or run by billionaires, would be nothing. To be convinced of this, you only have to look at how a megalomaniac like Elon Musk is entirely dependent on the orders and goodwill of the US state.
The bourgeois state is not a neutral place of power to be conquered, it is the main instrument of exploitation and domination by the bourgeoisie over society. As such, it is the main enemy that the working class has to defeat. The myth of the "protective" state has a long life. As the spearhead of all the attacks, it is in its name that the "reforms" that degrade our living conditions are carried out. In reality, the state's only function is to guarantee the order that allows the best exploitation of labour power: any idea of "regulation", "redistribution" or "workers' control" under capitalism is a delusion.
Proletarians have no choice: they must wage the most united and broadest possible struggle. To do this, they must start by remaining deaf to the media noise, but also and above all to those of false friends such as the leftists and the unions who claim that it is possible to reform or control the state in favour of the workers. The most dangerous enemies are those who, behind the mask of justice, or even revolution, remain the last bastions of the bourgeois state.

WH, 17 March 2023

 

 

“Enough is enough!” - Britain. “Not a year more, not a euro less” - France. “Indignation runs deep” - Spain. “For all of us” - Germany. All these slogans, chanted round the world during strikes in recent months, show how much the current workers' struggles express the rejection of the general deterioration of our living and working conditions. In Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Mexico, China... the same strikes against the same increasingly unbearable exploitation. “The real hardship: not being able to heat, eat, look after yourself, drive!”

But our struggles are also much more than that. In demonstrations, we began to see on some placards the rejection of the war in Ukraine, the refusal to produce more and more weapons and bombs, to have to tighten our belts in the name of the development of the war economy: "No money for the war, no money for weapons, money for wages, money for pensions" we could hear during demonstrations in France. They also express the refusal to see the planet destroyed in the name of profit.

Our struggles are the only thing standing against this self-destructive dynamic, the only thing standing against the death that capitalism promises all humanity. Because, left to its own logic, this decadent system will drag ever greater parts of humanity into war and misery, it will destroy the planet with greenhouse gases, devastated forests, and bombs.

Capitalism is leading humanity to disaster!

The class that rules world society, the bourgeoisie, is partly aware of this reality, of the barbaric future that its dying system promises us. You only have to read the studies and predictions of its own experts to see this.

According to the "Global Risks Report" presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2023: “The first years of this decade have heralded a particularly disruptive period in human history. The return to a ‘new normal’ following the COVID-19 pandemic was quickly disrupted by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, ushering in a fresh series of crises in food and energy [...]. As 2023, begins the world faces a series of risks [...]: inflation, cost-of-living crises, trade wars [...], geopolitical confrontation and the spectre of nuclear warfare [...], unsustainable levels of debt [...], a decline in human development [...], the growing pressure of climate change impacts and ambitions [...]. Together, these are converging to shape a unique, uncertain and turbulent decade to come.”

In reality, the coming decade is not so "uncertain" as the same Report says: “The next decade will be characterised by environmental and societal crises [...], the 'cost of living crisis' [...], biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse [...], geo-economic confrontation [...], large-scale involuntary migration [...], global economic fragmentation, geopolitical tensions [...]. Economic warfare is becoming the norm, with increasing confrontation between world powers [...]. The recent uptick in military expenditure [...] could lead to a global arms race [...], with the targeted deployment of new-tech weaponry on a potentially more destructive scale than seen in recent decades.”

Faced with this overwhelming prospect, the bourgeoisie is powerless. It and its system are not the solution, they are the cause of the problem. If, in the mainstream media, it tries to make us believe that it is doing everything possible to fight global warming, that a “green” and “sustainable” capitalism is possible, it knows the extent of its lies. For, as the 'Global Risks Report' points out: “Today, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have all reached record highs. Emission trajectories make it very unlikely that global ambitions to limit warming to 1.5°C will be achieved. Recent events have exposed a divergence between what is scientifically necessary and what is politically expedient.”

In reality, this “divergence” is not limited to the climate issue. It expresses the fundamental contradiction of an economic system based not on the satisfaction of human needs but on profit and competition, on the predation of natural resources and the ferocious exploitation of the class that produces most of the social wealth: the proletariat, the wage workers of all countries.

Is another future possible?

Capitalism and the bourgeoisie are one of the two poles of society, one that leads humanity towards poverty and war, towards barbarism and destruction. The other pole is the proletariat and its struggle. For a year now, in the social movements that have been developing in France, Britain, and Spain, workers, pensioners, the unemployed and students have been sticking together. This active solidarity, this collective combativity, are witnesses to the profound nature of the workers' struggle: a struggle for a radically different world, a world without exploitation or social classes, without competition, without borders or nations. “Workers stick together”, shout strikers in the UK. “Either we fight together or we'll end up sleeping in the street”, confirmed the demonstrators in France. The banner “For all of us” under which the strike against attacks on living standards took place in Germany on 27 March shows clearly the general feeling that is growing in the working class: we are all in the same boat and we are all fighting for each other. The strikes in Germany, the UK and France are inspired by each other. In France, workers explicitly went on strike in solidarity with their class brothers and sisters fighting in Britain: “We are in solidarity with the British workers, who have been on strike for weeks for higher wages”. This reflex of international solidarity is the exact opposite of the capitalist world divided into competing nations, up to and including war. It recalls the rallying cry of our class since 1848: “The proletariat has no country! Workers of the world, unite!”

1968

All over the world, the mood in society is changing. After decades of passivity and holding back, the working class is beginning to find its way back to struggle and self-respect. This was shown by the ‘Summer of Anger’ and the return of strikes in the UK, almost forty years after the miners' defeat by Thatcher in 1985.

But we all feel the difficulties and the current limits of our struggles. Faced with the steamroller of the economic crisis, inflation, and the government attacks that they call “reforms”, we are not yet able to establish a balance of forces in our favour. Often isolated in separate strikes, or frustrated by demonstrations reduced to mere processions, without meetings or discussion, without general assemblies or collective organisations, we all aspire to a wider, stronger, united movement. In demonstrations in France, the call for a new May 68 is constantly being heard. Faced with the "reform" that delays retirement age to 64, the most popular slogan on the placards was: “You give us 64, we give you May 68”.

In 1968, the proletariat in France united by taking the struggle into its own hands. Following the huge demonstrations of 13 May protesting against police repression handed out to students, the walkouts and general assemblies spread like wildfire in the factories and all the workplaces to end up, with 9 million strikers, in the biggest strike in the history of the international workers' movement. Faced with this dynamic of extension and unity of the workers' struggle, the government and the unions rushed to sign an agreement for a general wage increase in order to stop the movement. At the same time as this reawakening of the workers' struggle was taking place, there was a strong return to the idea of revolution, which was discussed by many workers in struggle.

An event on this scale was evidence of a fundamental change in the life of society: it was the end of the terrible counter-revolution which had engulfed the working class since the end of the 1920s with the failure of the world revolution following its first victory in October 1917 in Russia. A counter-revolution that had taken on the hideous face of Stalinism and Fascism, that had opened the door to the Second World War with its 60 million dead and then continued for two decades more. But the resurgence of struggle that began in France in 1968 was rapidly confirmed in all parts of the world by a series of struggles on a scale unknown for decades:

- The Italian hot autumn of 1969, also known as 'rampant May', which saw massive struggles in the main industrial centres and an explicit challenge to the trade union leadership.

- The workers’ uprising in Córdoba, Argentina, in the same year.

- The massive strikes of workers on the Baltic in Poland in the winter of 1970-71.

- Numerous other struggles in the following years in virtually all European countries, particularly the UK.

- In 1980, in Poland, faced with rising food prices, the strikers carried this international wave even further by taking their struggles into their own hands, gathering in huge general assemblies, deciding for themselves what demands to make and what actions to take, and, above all, constantly striving to extend the struggle. Faced with this display of strength by the workers, it was not just the Polish bourgeoisie that trembled, but the ruling class in all countries.

In two decades, from 1968 to 1989, a whole generation of workers acquired experience in the struggle. Its many defeats, and sometimes victories, allowed this generation to confront the many traps set by the bourgeoisie to sabotage, divide and demoralise. Its struggles must allow us to draw vital lessons for our current and future struggles: only gathering in open and massive general assemblies, autonomously, really deciding on the direction of the movement, outside and even against union control, can we lay the basis for a united and growing struggle, undertaken with solidarity between all sectors, all generations. Mass meetings in which we feel united and confident in our collective strength. Mass meetings in which we can adopt increasingly unifying demands together. Mass meetings in which we gather and from which we can go in massive delegations to meet our class brothers and sisters, workers in factories, hospitals, schools, shopping centres, offices... those that are closest to us.

The new generation of workers, who are now taking up the torch, must get together, debate, in order to reacquire the great lessons of past struggles. The older generation must tell the younger generation about their struggles, so that the accumulated experience is passed on and can become a weapon in the struggles to come.

What about tomorrow?

But we must also go further. The wave of international struggle that began in May 1968 was a reaction to the slowdown in growth and the reappearance of mass unemployment. Today, the situation is much more serious. The catastrophic state of capitalism puts the very survival of humanity at stake. If we do not succeed in overturning it, barbarism will gradually take over.

The momentum of May '68 was shattered by a double lie from the bourgeoisie: when the Stalinist regimes collapsed in 1989-91, they claimed that the collapse of Stalinism meant the death of communism and that a new era of peace and prosperity was opening up. Three decades later, we know from experience that instead of peace and prosperity, we got war and misery. We still have to understand that Stalinism is the antithesis of communism, that it is a particularly brutal form of state capitalism that emerged from the counter-revolution of the 1920s. By falsifying history, by passing off Stalinism as communism (like yesterday's USSR and today’s China, Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea!), the bourgeoisie managed to make the working class believe that its revolutionary project of liberation could only lead to disaster. Until suspicion and distrust fell on the very word “revolution”.

But in the struggle, we will gradually develop our collective strength, our self-confidence, our solidarity, our unity, our self-organisation. In the struggle, we will gradually realise that we, the working class, are capable of offering another perspective than the nightmare promised by a decaying capitalist system: the communist revolution.

The perspective of the proletarian revolution is growing, in our minds and in our struggles.

The future belongs to the class struggle!

International Communist Current, 22 April 2023

Since the beginning of the movement against pension reform in France, the attitude of the trade unions has been described as exemplary by large parts of the political apparatus, by numerous commentators and journalists. The oldest deputy in the National Assembly, Charles de Courson, has even paid homage to the unions for being able to “hold on to the movement”. So why all these big eulogies from the exploiting class?

By showing themselves to be united in the “Intersyndicale”, inflexible about retirement at 64, the unions are presenting themselves, in the eyes of the majority of workers, as their real representatives and as an indispensable force for making the government take a step back. Of course, given the level of anger, the massive scale of the movement, and its fighting spirit, they can’t go on occupying the terrain by calling for days of action every week.

But at the same time, they have not ceased deploring the ignorance the government has shown towards them, the “social partners” of the state who remain guarantors of “social cohesion” (and thus of capitalist order), a point stressed by the Secretary of the UNSA union on TV recently. For weeks, the unions have not stopped offering Macron and his government a helping hand by trying to calm the situation and find a way out of this “democratic crisis” (Laurent Berger, Secretary of the CFDT union federation).

What’s more, as they say, things wouldn’t have got to this point if there had been a “real dialogue” and “real negotiations” in order to find a “real compromise”. Now, everything seems to depend on the decision of the Constitutional Council, predicted for 14 April, which will give its advice about the pension reform. This body doesn’t have much chance of offering the government a way out by censuring the law. But in any case, if the only “positive outcome” is going to come from the official institutions, the bourgeoisie and its media can sleep more easily after singing the praises of democracy for guaranteeing the will of the “people”.

At the same time, the unions and left parties have another mystification up their sleeve: the “Referendum d’Initiative Partagée”. This new fraud of “direct democracy”, aimed at making it appear that you can win through an alliance of “people’s representatives” and “citizen electors”, is aimed at nothing less than derailing the workers from the terrain of struggle and driving them into the hands of the Republican Institutions and the myth of “government of the people, by the people and for the people”.

It’s the unions’ skill in “holding on to the movement”, in avoiding it escaping their control, in trying to imprison it in the trap of democracy, which the parties of the bourgeoisie are saluting so openly, moved by the concern to put an end to this movement as soon as possible.

If the unions are not able to undermine the movement with their classic tactics (such as exhausting the most militant sectors or dividing the movement through breaks in the union front) they can always turn to other means to play their role of sabotaging struggles and defending bourgeois democracy.

Vincent, 10.4.23.

2023 introduction

Fifty years since the article below first appeared, half a century of butchery and growing barbarism, and capitalism today is being wracked before our eyes by a hitherto unseen convergence of destructive tendencies, each inter-acting with and deepening the other: ecological crisis, the mad march to wider and wider warfare and the open sores of economic convulsions.

Concerning the ‘economy’ its woes are illustrated at the time of writing by

• Growing signs of financial instability in 2023 including bank and ‘digital currency’ collapses and ‘rescues’, pouring ‘good money after bad’ (China, the US, Switzerland even!); trade wars (US boycotts of Russia and China; Brexit fall-out, ‘de-globalisation’); business failures; neglect of infrastructure and social provision (collapse of road networks, failing health systems, etc);
• the accumulation of unprecedented global, national, governmental and private debt “Global debt has hit a record $300 trillion [a trillion defined as a million millions – silly numbers!], or 349% leverage on gross domestic product. This translates to $37,500 of average debt for each person in the world.” (S&P Global [73]) Or, according to the International Monetary Fund [74] (IMF), debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose from approx. 120% in 1970 to 220% in 2020. A gross under-estimate. Printing money, ‘quantitative easing’, devaluations of currencies, ‘fictitious capital’ ‘kicking the can down the road’ … these are mechanisms and euphemisms for the accumulation of debt, of existing on the ‘never never’ (except never is becoming now!) of attempts to compensate for chronic, ‘institutionalised’ over-production and lack of solvent demand;
• and in particular, hitting ‘the weakest’ (ie the working class) hardest, inflation, the remorseless rise in prices of life’s necessities – energy, food (1), shelter, transport – as opposed to the actual purchasing power of wages, pensions or ‘welfare benefits’.

Inflation is the signifier, the unmistakable sign, that the destructive tendencies inherent in capitalist social relations are being directly and openly offloaded onto society in general and the working class in particular. 5%, 10% 200%, depending on where you live (and to what class you belong). Inexorably the ‘cost of living’ spirals. Their ‘order’- in reality bourgeois anarchy and cut-throat competition - has summoned up this wraith which they seek to tame by stepping up trade wars and lowering the costs of production (increasing automation, use of artificial intelligence, and in particular holding down wages once more, claiming that wage rises to compensate for inflation are … the cause of inflation!) In the face of both ‘rampant’ and ‘sticky’ inflation (2), and after decades of ‘cheap loans’ (ie the accumulation of debt in order to keep the system afloat) the ruling class has been raising rates of interest, making debt repayments even more burdensome, summoning up the spectre of local and global recession – a slump which in reality has beset world production and trade since the last ‘Great Financial Crisis’ of 2007-2008. (3)

The article which follows correctly seeks to source the roots of inflation in the very entrails of capital accumulation itself:

• over-production – the tendency to produce commodities as if there’s no barrier to consumption, whereas the restricted purchasing power of the masses can never ‘buy back’ what they themselves have collectively crafted;
• a tendency which is multiplied, quantitively and qualitatively heightened, in the period of capitalism’s decline, towards permanent warfare or preparations for war between states, which entails a growing production which is actually unproductive: waste production, production destined for destruction, particularly armaments - the destruction of capital including human capital, culture and life.

As the article says: “In other words, inflation expressed the immense waste of productive forces which the system in decadence is obliged to resort to in order to keep itself alive. And since we are living in a society based on exploitation, inflation appears as the means by which the system puts the burden of its insoluble contradictions on the shoulders of the workers, by a continual attack on their standard of living.”

It's no accident that inflation has ‘taken off’ in today’s period when the resort to printing money and the consequent levels of unsupportable debt has collided with the costly eruption of the ecological crisis (fires, droughts, storms and, above all, the global Covid Pandemic) into the economic life of capital at the same moment that war involving the two largest states of Europe (Russia and Ukraine) breaks out, signaling a crazy rush to rearmament by major states across the world (including those defeated in World War II, Japan and Germany).

But while the working class can’t hold back the crisis of the environment, nor immediately halt the war in Eastern Europe, it can and has reacted to the renewed austerity and in particular to pauperising inflation with strikes and protests across the world after decades of relative quiescence. It is this collective struggle of the modern proletariat which permits and promotes a development of consciousness of what’s at stake in today’s situation in order to change it. (4) It’s as a contribution to this developing class consciousness of reality that we reprint the article from 50 years ago.

April 2023

Footnotes

1. In support of their current wage claim, striking junior doctors in GB have illustrated their plight thus: in 2008 a junior doctor could be paid £9.60 an hour, which would be enough to buy 24 tins of Heinz baked beans which cost at that time 40p a tin. Today junior doctors can start on £14.09 an hour but this translates to just 10 tins of beans which now cost £1.40 per tin.
2. “In releasing its World Economic Outlook [75] earlier this week, the IMF warned that slowing global growth, sticky inflation, the risk of financial instability coupled with structural factors like climate change and global fragmentation all contributed to the global economy entering a 'perilous phase'. Notably global growth was going to be led lower by declines in the Advanced Economies as recent tightening cycles hit home.” (ING Newsletter [76] April 2023) ‘Sticky inflation’ is what remains when ‘one-off’ price hikes like energy bills are absorbed one year later. It’s an admission that inflation is ‘baked in’ to the capitalist system and, in any case, while ‘headline’ inflation may fall, prices don’t return to their former levels.
3. The article below was written after the UK Sterling Crisis of 1967 and the abandonment in the early 1970s of the international currency system, part of the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944, and at the time of oil price rises instituted by the producers’ cartel OPEC. Since then, there hasn’t been a period in which economic crises and austerity haven’t been the order of the day, including but by no means exhaustively: a global recession in the early 1980s coupled with a decade-long ‘debt crisis’ in Latin America; the US stock market crash of 1987; a recession in the West in the early 1990s, ‘Black Wednesday’ in the UK in 1992 and further crises in Argentina, plus the collapse of the ‘Asian Tigers’ in 1997. The bursting of the ‘dot-com bubble’ in early 2000 was followed, of course, by the Great Financial Crash of 2007-2008 whose reverberations are still evident today.
4. Capitalism is not a machine but a series of social relations. ‘Another World’ is indeed possible but it will be made by the exploited, producer class, the proletariat, which will have to be widely armed with the theoretical understanding of what capitalism is and how to go beyond it once political power has been conquered.

The analysis which follows  first appeared in Révolution Internationale no. 6, new series (November-December, 1973), and in World Revolution no. 2, November 1974.

This article cannot attempt to analyse the underlying causes of the crisis which today affects the whole capitalist economy. (1) It will simply try to clarify some of the manifestations of that crisis from a revolutionary standpoint. In particular, it will look at one phenomenon which today most directly affects the working class: inflation.

Does the crisis exist?

Today this seems like a crazy question. Inflation, the crisis in the International Monetary System, plans for economic stabilisation, austerity measures, and international conferences of the bourgeoisie, have become daily preoccupations. Along with the repercussions of the Middle East war on the oil situation, which can only aggravate the problem, they are continually being discussed throughout the media. In the ranks of the bourgeoisie the 'pessimist' bloc is growing in number, and certain of their 'experts' do not shrink from writing, "Today, the worst is yet to come. We are heading for a collective suicide through excess of every kind, as in the film, Blow Out. It needs courage to say this because everyone would prefer to ignore it." (2)

If we still ask the question 'does the crisis exist?', it is because the evolution of the capitalist economy between 1972 and 1973 seemed to invalidate not only the fears of the scribblers of the bourgeoisie during the recession of 1971, but also the perspectives which we drew up in our article 'The Crisis' (R.I. 6 and 7 old series):

• Massive fall-off of international trade;
• Trade wars between different countries;
• Adoption of protectionist measures and collapse of customs unions;
• Return to autarky;
• Decline of production;
• Massive growth in unemployment;
• Drop in real wages of the workers.

Of these predictions, 1972 and 1973 have confirmed only the intensification of trade wars (through the expedient of monetary fluctuations) and the dislocation of customs unions (the problems faced by the Common Market). By contrast, wages for the moment have succeeded in following inflation (especially in France), unemployment has fallen since the beginning of 1972 and international trade has never done so well (annual growth of 10-20%). 1972 marks a clear recovery for world capitalism in relation to previous years, in particular for the US, which has achieved its greatest rates of growth since World War II.

 

Rates of Growth of Industrial Production

                                      1963/70               1970/71               1971/72

France                                5.95%                   5.67%                   7.21%

G. Britain                            3.25                      1.04                      2.06

Italy                                     5.85                      -1.76                     2.39

W. Germany                        6.28                      1.76                      2.12

USA                                     4.82                      -0.18                     6.09

 

These factors have led certain people to conclude that the world economy has overcome its worst difficulties and is heading for a new boom (it is worth pointing out that these voices of ‘optimism’ have found more recruits among certain leftists (3) than among the ‘official’ specialists who do not have so many illusions. Even before the Middle East war the latter foresaw a recession in 1974 - e.g., OECD and Giscard). In particular there was speculation around the possibility that inflation, such as developed in 1972-73, could ensure continued growth.

We shall attempt to explain why this inflation and this ‘mini-recovery’ can actually only presage a new round of difficulties for the capitalist economy.

Another phenomenon has led some to say that the present difficulties have nothing to do with a crisis of overproduction such as that of 1929. In 1929 the crisis broke out abruptly in the middle of a period of euphoria and expressed itself in terms of a collapse in the stock exchange. Today we have not seen such a collapse, neither in the stock exchange (4) nor in production, but essentially difficulties in the monetary system. It is thus a question of seeing what distinguishes the two periods and what they have in common, and of explaining how the monetary crisis is only a reflection of a markets crisis. This is what we shall do first.

Overproduction and monetary crisis

For several years the ‘International Monetary Crisis’ has been in the headlines of the newspapers. Devaluations of the dollar coming after re-evaluations of the mark, floating of the pound and speculations on gold, international conferences of governors of central banks and meetings of three, five or of forty-seven finance ministers. At the monetary level, everyone is in agreement in saying, “Yes, the crisis exists”. And for four or five years, it has been agreed that the ‘International Monetary System’ which came out of the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement is no longer suited to the contemporary needs of the world economy and that, consequently, it must be reorganised as quickly as possible. But in spite of these proclamations, the bourgeoisie has still not succeeded in resolving this crisis which far from diminishing has been continuously growing. In 1973 there was a devaluation of the dollar even more serious than the previous one (8.57% in December 71 and 10% in March 73), followed by another brutal fall in July as well as a sharp rise in the price of gold, the official price of which was trebled.

Changes in the gold price

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dollar exchange rates

	31.03.1970	24.07.1973
German Mark	3.7	2.3
Swiss Franc	4.4	2.9
Pound	0.42	0.39
Yen	360	265

 

These fluctuations only reflect the general instability of currencies since 1967 (see chart below). It was only at the recent Nairobi conference that a small step was made towards beginning preparations for the reform of the International Monetary System. But in spite of the declarations and the rapprochement between extreme positions (actually between those aligned to the French and those aligned to the Americans) commentators agreed that nothing was settled and that the future was far from rosy.

Changes in the Price of Main Currencies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why then this inability of the bourgeoisie to resolve their monetary problems and to come to an agreement about a new International Monetary system?

Is it because they are incompetent and do not know how to go about carrying out this task? The bourgeoisie certainly does not lack competent servants: for a number of years at the economic summit meetings, all the Nobel Prize winning academics have been at the bedside of the ailing International Monetary System concocting all kinds of magic potions for it. Their failure does not mean that they are imbeciles but simply that they are faced with an insoluble problem: to put the International Monetary System on its feet when it is the whole world economy which is sick, sick with an illness whose fatal solution can only be war or revolution.

In reality, currency has no independent existence in relation to the economy as a whole. There is money because there is exchange and it is because there is a need for a specific commodity to become autonomous in relation to others that money appears to take on a certain aspect of independence. And it is because the commodity lies at the heart of the capitalist mode of production that monetary problems are so important today.

The behaviour of currency at international level, its stability as well as its fluctuations, is a reflection of the conditions in which the essential mechanism of the capitalist mode of production operates: the valorisation of capital. This is all the more true today when the only basis of the value of a country’s currency is its ability to produce in a profitable way and face up to international competition.

In the past, paper money issued by the central banks had a systematic counterpart in gold or silver. Paper money was thus convertible into precious metals, whose social utility and embodied labour conferred a real exchange value on to bank notes which had then the former’s same value.

With the massive reduction in the rate of conversion of issued notes (5), that is to say the theoretical impossibility of converting a large part of the money in circulation into gold, the facts of the problem changed: henceforward, what guarantees the value of a currency is the possibility of buying commodities of the country in which it is produced. As long as that country is able to produce commodities which can be viably exchanged on the world market (viable in quantity and price) the world has confidence in its currency. On the other hand, if the commodities produced by that country (country A) can no longer be sold because they are more expensive than those of other countries, the stockholders of country A rid themselves of its currency in favour of the currency of a country which is selling its commodities. The currency of country A, having no counter-part in any real value, thus loses the confidence of its stockholders and begins to flounder (6). This has been a common misfortune of the currencies of underdeveloped countries for some years: their almost incessant decline expresses the chronic economic difficulties of these countries.

But the phenomenon which we are dealing with has a different significance from the fall of the Argentinian peso, the Guatemalan quetzal or the kwacha of Malawi. The currency floundering today, which in three years lost 37% of its value in relation to the mark, 34% in relation to the Swiss franc, 26% in relation to the yen and even in relation to the pound sterling – this currency is none other than the dollar; the currency of the nation which produced 40% of the world’s wealth and which engages in 20% of international trade, the currency which for this reason has become the universal money of the world.

The recent slump of the dollar has expressed the loss of competitiveness of American commodities in the world market as well as in its internal market, against those of Europe and Japan. And this is illustrated by the fact that it was enough at the end of July that the American trade balance was declared to be on an upswing for the dollar to enjoy a spectacular revival.

 

         US Trade Balance                           

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Changes in Dollar Prices                                   

 

 

    

 

But this phenomenon goes far beyond the confines of the American economy, having serious repercussions on the world market: to the extent that the dollar remains the universal money, its crisis is the crisis of the International Monetary System. To the extent that the US is still the greatest commercial power in the world, its own difficulties in finding outlets for its commodities is a sign of a world saturation of markets, both phenomena being clearly interrelated in a very close way.

As we explained in our previous article (7), the underlying causes of the present crisis reside in the historical impasse in which the capitalist mode of production has found itself since the first world war: the great capitalist powers have completely divided up the world and there are no longer enough markets to allow the expansion of capital; henceforth, in the absence of a victorious proletarian revolution, the system has only been able to survive thanks to the mechanism of crisis, war, reconstruction, new crisis, etc. Having now (from the middle of the 60s) reached the end of the period of reconstruction, capitalism is once again haunted by the spectre of generalized overproduction.

The battle to which the big countries are now devoting themselves, through devaluations, floating the currency etc., and which has dislocated the old monetary system, is only an expression of the attempts of each country, especially the most advanced, to push the difficulties of the world economy onto others. In this little war, one country is still better armed than its rivals: the United States. The US derives its strength from its productive and commercial power, as well as from its political and military influence (in order to get the European countries to tow the line, the US regularly threatens them with withdrawing its troops and atomic umbrella). But, more paradoxically, the US derives its strength from its weakness, that is from its debts: the hundreds of billions of dollars at present circulating in the world are in fact debts contracted by the American economy and the holders of this currency have every interest in seeing their debtors spared from any catastrophe that might prevent them from honouring those debts. That is why other countries are forced to accept American dictates, whether they like it or not (8):

• re-evaluation of their currency (yen, mark, florin, Belgian franc, etc)
• brutal and repeated devaluations of the dollar, followed by the floating of the currency at the lowest possible rate, particularly encouraged by the American government (cf its attitude in July 73) …

measures which have the twofold advantage

• of cutting the value of American debts
• of lowering the price of American products on the world market, thus making them more competitive (Belgium’s recent buying of American airplanes instead of French Mercuries is one of the most spectacular illustrations of this, because it shows the futility of the EEC in the face of the crisis…).

For the reasons which we saw in our previous article, the crisis of overproduction hits the most powerful capitalist country first of all, but because it is the most powerful, this country is able to shift the burden of its difficulties onto the shoulders of others.

This is what is happening today: the massive devaluation of the dollar has allowed American commodities to regain competitiveness vis-à-vis those of Europe and Japan, and the American trade balance to regain its equilibrium. But this can only be a brief respite for the US: the invasion of other countries by US commodities will lead those countries to cut down production, as well as their labour force, which will diminish demand for American goods and thus have repercussions on the American economy. In sum, the monetary crisis expresses the fact that the world market is today too narrow for capitalist production, and even the bourgeois economists have understood this, even though for them, empiricism remains the rule, and ‘will’ is held to be an economic factor:

        “The basic cause of the monetary crisis can be summed up in one phrase: every capitalist country, in order to maintain full employment, wants to reduce its trade deficit (the difference between imports and exports), or to keep it from growing excessively. These different national ‘projects’ are incompatible with each other, to the extent that the global surplus which results from the totality of these projects cannot be reabsorbed by the rest of the non-capitalist word.” (9)

Marx said somewhere that it was only in moments of crisis that the bourgeoisie became intelligent., that it began to understand the reality of its present system and its contradictions. The present crisis must be well advanced for the bourgeoisie to begin to do what most ‘Marxists’ of this century have refused to do: to recognize the validity of Rosa Luxemburg’s thesis on the necessity for the existence of non-capitalist markets for the development of capital (10)

What are the differences between today’s crisis and 1929?

Since World War I capitalism has been in its epoch of decadence. The crises of this period are different from those of the last century because they can only be resolved by imperialist wars. In this sense they can no longer be considered as cyclical crises of growth but as the system’s death-rattles. The present crisis obviously falls into this category but it is different from the greatest crisis of the past – that of 1929 – by virtue of the fact that it has begun as a monetary crisis and not as a catastrophe on the stock exchange like that of ‘Black Thursday’.

How are these differences to be explained?

The reconstruction period which followed World War I had the following characteristics:

• armaments production was considerably reduced;
• reconstruction was applauded by the economists of the time who saw in it the remedy, discovered at long last, of all capitalism’s ills: credit, and particularly private banking credits which developed at a dizzying rate;
• after the omnipresent intervention of the state in the economy during the war period, there was a certain return to ‘laissez-faire’.

But the reconstruction following Word War II was distinguished by:

• the maintenance of an arms economy (the Cold War);
• the systematic presence of the state in the economy (arms purchases, nationalisations, budgetary policies) which was reflected on the ideological level by the success of neo-Keynesian conceptions;
• a progressive weakening of the role of the stock exchange: important transactions of capital now took place directly between the big enterprises and often under government control.

It is because the state now controls the whole of economic life and because governments have learned the lessons of the past that the present crisis does not appear in this abrupt way, that its effects are cumulative and that it begins to manifest itself on the terrain par excellence of governmental manipulation: the monetary system.

Today’s endless international conferences where governments constantly try to form a common front without being able to stop dumping the crisis on each others’ shoulders are to the present crisis what ‘Black Thursday’ was to the crisis of 1929.

The difference between the two periods of reconstruction also explains the existence of a relatively new phenomenon which today is breaking out violently all over the world: inflation.

The interpretations of inflation

Inflation is a phenomenon which has been with us since the beginning of the century but which has had its golden age since World War II. But even the post-war rates of inflation, considered for a long time to be disturbing, have in recent years been completely left behind.

What is striking is that the most important rise in prices corresponds exactly to the ‘mini-recovery’ of 1972. This is not a fortuitous phenomenon but on the contrary is proof of the interpenetration of the different aspects of the present crisis. In order to understand today’s galloping inflation, we will first have to explain the general phenomenon of inflation as it has appeared since World War II, particularly in its ‘rampant’ form.

There are as many interpretations of inflation as there are schools of economic thought. For some it is the excess of demand over supply which leads to a constant rise in prices (demand inflation): such people fail to see that world capitalism has for a number of years been unable to adjust supply to this excessive demand, since for a long time it has been clear that the limits to economic growth are not technical problems of expanding production but a problem of expanding markets (the existence of unemployment and under-utilised capital). They also fail to understand that the greatest burst of inflation of the post-war period corresponded to its most serious recession: that of 1971. Faced with a situation which they can’t explain, the only thing the economists have managed to do is to invent a new word to describe it, ‘stagflation’.

 

Annual Increase in Consumer Prices (in Percentages)

                                                                                                                                   1st ¼                      2nd ¼

                                             1952/62               1962/71               1972                     1973                     1973

 

Belgium                             1.1                        3.6                        5.5                        6.9                        7.3

France                                3.7                        4.2                       5.9                         6.4                        7.1

W. Germany                       1.3                        3.0                        5.7                        7.7                        6.7

Italy                                     2.3                        4.1                        5.7                         8.8                       11.1

Netherlands                        2.5                       5.2                        7.8                          7.6                        8.1

USA                                      1.3                       3.3                        3.3                         3.3                        4.5

Japan                                   3.3                       5.7                        4.5                         7.1                       10.5

UK                                        3.0                       4.7                        7.1                        7.9                        9.4

Switzerland                         1.4                       3.8                        6.7                        7.7                         8.2

Canada                                1.1                       3.1                        4.8                        5.9                        7.3

 

Under-utilisation of capital and labour power in the USA

	1951	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61	62	63
A	3	1	2	13	8	11	15	24	15	15	20	17	17
B	3	2.7	2.5	5	4.3	3.8	4.3	6.8	5.5	5.6	6.7	5.6	5.7

A= % of unused productive capacity
B= % of unemployed labour power

 

For other ideologues, there is inflation because there is a rise in production costs (cost inflation) and as these are in turn determined by certain price levels (of raw materials, services, machines, consumer goods involved in variable capital…) this is as good as saying that prices rise because there is … a rise in prices. (11)

According to the first interpretation the current brutal rise in prices is explained by an exceptional demand for all goods above all for raw materials and agricultural products which have undergone unprecedent price rises (in six months the price of certain raw materials and of grain doubled, the price of meat went up 20-30%, and so on). These rises then have repercussions on all the commodities which use these basic goods (the second interpretation) and, among others, on food products, which further increases the price of labour power, the main consumer of these products.

Every confusion, if it is to be at all credible, must contain a degree of truth: in this sense, this interpretation of today’s runaway inflation is partially correct. In fact it is the case that there have recently been bad harvests in basic products like grain, and consequently such a massive demand (including considerable purchases by the USSR) that the prices of these and of all agricultural products have shot up (12). And the record prices of oil obviously have a lot to do with contemporary perturbations in prices generally.

By the same token, the pressure of demand from buyers who want to buy in advance of price rises has contribute to these perturbations, and this is all the more true now since the practice of anticipating tariffs, currently in vogue amongst suppliers, became generalized with the first waves of galloping inflation.

Thus we have a series of phenomena: inflation by demand, by costs, by speculation, and rises in tariffs, which have all been described and analysed at length in recent times and which undoubtedly do contribute in part to the contemporary panic. But all these interpretations postulate:

• that demand has exceeded supply since the last war, and especially in recent years;
• that inflation exists because there is inflation already.

We have already dealt with the drawbacks of the first hypothesis; as for the second, it is enough to say that it is a plain tautology.

What we have to determine is why, for several decades, costs of production as a whole have continued to rise when in the same period the productivity of labour has reached unprecedented levels of growth.

Some of the most reactionary factions of the bourgeoisie, as well as certain ‘marxists’, have a ready answer to this, though they may formulate it differently:

• for the first, it is the growth of ‘wage costs’ imposed by the action of the unions which is responsible for the rise in production costs and thus of prices. To overcome inflation, it is therefore necessary to smash the power of the unions.
• For the second, the class struggle, the motor of the whole of social life, is at the origin of the rise in production costs, to the extent that it forces the bourgeoisie to grant wage rises to the workers.

Even if one concedes that the intensification of workers’ struggles is one of the contributing elements to the evolution of rampant inflation (1945-1967) into galloping inflation (after 1969) (13) this hypothesis is still unable to answer the following questions:

• why did inflation continue even during those years when the class struggle was particularly weak (the 50’s and early 60’s), when in the last century [the 19th] the most powerful struggles did not set back the tendency for prices as a whole to fall?
• for what mysterious reason did the class struggle intensify towards the end of the 60’s?

The inability of the ‘wage costs’ hypothesis to account for these phenomena thus shows that, in the last resort, it is not prices which run after wages but wages after prices.

Another explanation, in which the Communist Party has become a specialist, consists in saying that it is the super-profits of the monopolies which are responsible for rising production costs. Therefore all that is needed is for the left to come to power to deal with these monopolies (eventually to nationalize them) and thus overcome inflation. Just like that!

We won’t waste much time addressing ourselves to this demagogic explanation (what are the monopolies but expressions of the general tendency of capitalism towards the concentration of capital?)We will simply examine the content of this notion of the monopolies’ super-profits.

Firstly, let us suppose that a given enterprise had a total ‘monopoly’ of the market for a product. In such a hypothetical case, it is obvious that this enterprise would no longer be obliged to fix the price of its products in relation to their real value. The law of supply and demand would not apply, since customers would be unable to go to any other supplier; this enterprise would, theoretically, be able to raise its prices as high as it wanted to. Such a situation could not exist in reality since one would then see the appearance of other enterprises which, even with a lower productivity, would be able to offer their goods at lower prices and thus corner the first one’s markets.

And in reality, there is no such thing as a true monopoly. No market in the world (except perhaps for very specialized products and in insignificant numbers) is the exclusive property of one enterprise. What on the other hand do exist are cartels, ie more or less temporary ententes between big companies, which try to restrict their competition and divide up the market.

These ententes are still always at the mercy of the fluctuations of the world market and are in fact only minor truces in the perpetual war between different factions of world capital (14). For this reason even the monopolies which so many decry are not in a position to freely dictate their prices and provoke inflation, even if they are able, via the cartel mechanism, to oppose, within certain limits, tendencies which lower prices and therefore become instrumental in the international transmission of this inflation.

In fact, these ‘monopolies’ and ‘cartels’ have been in existence for a long time and were already a major preoccupation of economists at a time when inflation was unknown. They therefore cannot be used to furnish an explanation for a phenomenon which appeared well after they did. This argument is equally valid for the thesis according to which it is the falling rate of profit which is responsible for inflation: in order to struggle against this fall, it is argued, the monopolies tend towards fixing their profits above the rate allowed by the organic composition of capital, thus provoking a general imbalance towards rising prices. In fact, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall has operated throughout capitalism’s existence and did not prevent prices from falling throughout a whole epoch. If one admits that it is partly through the fall in the rate of profit that the ‘monopolies’ feel the contradictions of the system and are obliged to increase their prices, this explanation still doesn’t enable us to understand the existence of inflation. Once again, one could say that monopolies and cartels are instruments of inflation, not its cause.

The real causes of inflation

The fundamental causes of inflation are to be found in the specific conditions of the capitalist mode of production in its decadent phase. Empirical observation allows us to see that inflation is fundamentally a phenomenon of this epoch of capitalism and that it manifests itself most sharply in periods of war (1914-1918, 1939-45, Korean War, 1957-8 in France during the Algerian war…) i.e. at times when unproductive expenditure is at its highest. It is thus logical to consider that it is by beginning with this specific characteristic of decadence, the immense role of armaments production and unproductive expenditure in general in the economy (15) that we can attempt to explain the phenomenon of inflation.

As we saw above, the decadence of capitalism is caused by the growing and increasingly insurmountable difficulties which the system encounters in finding outlets for its commodities. At the level of each state, these difficulties provoke a constant increase in unproductive expenditure dedicated to the maintenance of a system which is historically condemned to death:

• expenditure on armaments which allow each state to defend tooth and nail the position of its national capital against rival capitals
• expenditure on the state apparatus which, faced with a society in decomposition, is forced to exert a Moloch-like domination over the whole of social life (police, administration, judiciary);
• expenditure on marketing, advertising, on research dedicated to making products more and more ephemeral, costs which are all consecrated in the marketing of commodities and not their production.

The existence of unproductive expenditure in capitalist society is not in itself a novelty. It is a fact of all societies and especially those based on exploitation. It is a rule under feudalism, for example, where the nobility consumed the greater part of the social surplus product in the form of luxury goods. It manifests itself under capitalism from the beginning in the form of the state, of the army, the church and in the consumption of the capitalist class. But what is fundamentally new in the period of the decline of capitalism as with the decline of other systems, is the magnitude of these expenditures in relation to productive activity as a whole: at this level quantity becomes quality.

Today, in the price of each commodity, alongside profits and the costs of labour power and of constant capital used in production, there is a greater and greater involvement of expenses which are indispensable to its being sold on a more and more saturated market (from the salaries of those engaged in marketing to the amount set aside to pay the police, the functionaries and soldiers of the producer country). In the value of each object, the part which embodies labour time necessary for its production becomes smaller and smaller in relation to the part embodying human labour imposed by the necessities of the system’s survival. The tendency for the weight of these unproductive expenses to annihilate the gains of labour productivity manifests itself in the constant rise in commodity prices.

In other words, inflation expressed the immense waste of productive forces which the system in decadence is obliged to resort to in order to keep itself alive. And since we are living in a society based on exploitation, inflation appears as the means by which the system puts the burden of its insoluble contradictions on the shoulders of the workers, by a continual attack on their standard of living.

Whether one considers the history of the twentieth century over short or long periods of time, one can assert that the growth of military expenditure (and unproductive expenditure in general) is always an inflationary factor. Over short periods, we have already said that wars lead to record rates of inflation. Over long periods, it appears that the uninterrupted rampant inflation since World War II is the corollary of the massive armaments production from the Cold War to today, since the inter-war period of disarmament was marked by a slowing down or disappearance of inflation.

Galloping Inflation

As regards the contemporary upswing in prices on the international scale, all the elements mentioned above have played their part.

For example, the rise in agricultural prices is linked to a real scarcity, but it seems absurd that in 1973 humanity should still be subjected to the whims of nature as it was in the Middle Ages or in antiquity. In fact, the real cause of this sudden scarcity is the whole policy of restricting agricultural production (subsidies for pulling up crops, for leaving land fallow, destroying stock, etc) caried out by the great powers since World War II. Anxious to obtain outlets for agricultural products on a saturated world market, capitalism, in limiting production to the lowest its needs require, has put itself at the mercy of the first bad harvest to come along. Paradoxically, it is therefore overproduction which is still at the origin of today’s scarcity of agricultural products and thus of the price rises this leads to.

One could equally say that the world upsurge in class struggle since 1968 is not absolutely outside the process of runaway inflation, but there again it must be made clear that this upsurge is in itself a consequence of the worsening living standards of the workers, manifested, among other things, through price rises, a deterioration which results from the exacerbation of the contradictions of the capitalist system. Even if it may partially increase it, the class struggle is not the cause of inflation but its consequence.

In the same way, we have seen that the bourgeois explanations about the role of speculating (buying, and then raising prices) on the curve of prices are not entirely without foundation.

Thus we have a series of factors which enable us to partially explain the change from rampant inflation to galloping inflation. It is necessary to add another factor which will allow us to understand how the recession of 1971 contributed to strengthening the inflationary spiral of 1972-73. For a number of years, the capitalist system has been characterized, apart from the century-old existence of an ‘industrial reserve army’, by a chronic under-utilisation of capital. This phenomenon means that, apart from the unproductive expenditures already referred to, the system must support the liquidation of a proportion of constant capital which, once created, is no longer engaged in production and must therefore appear as unproductive expenditure. In other words, the cost of production of a commodity created under these conditions will incorporate, alongside the fixed capital actually consumed in it, the unemployed part of this fixed capital (which nevertheless is paid for).

When one observes that the rates of utilization of the productive capacities are respectively according to the INSEE)…

 

USA                      88% in 1969        71% end of 1971

UK                        96% in May 69     86% in Feb 72

Belgium               88% in Oct 69      82% in Jan 72

Italy                      84% in May 69     74% in Feb 73

W Germany          92% early ’70       85%   July 72

 

…one can see how the recession in 1971 has affected the upswing in prices in 1972-73.

To the effects of the under-utilisation of constant capital must be added, during the same period, those of the growth of unemployment. In fact, even if the assistance doled out to the unemployed is often derisory, it nevertheless represents an unproductive expenditure which the whole society must bear and which thus has repercussions on the cost of producing commodities.

Unemployment and under-utilisation of productive capacities are therefore to elements of the recession of 1971 which help to accentuate still further the inflationary explosion of 1972-73.

Faced with a situation of galloping inflation, what measures can the bourgeoisie take?

The failure of the struggle against inflation

As we have seen, the fundamental causes of inflation reside in the contemporary mode of existence of the capitalist system which is manifested by an inordinate development of unproductive expenditure. In this sense, there could not be an effective struggle against inflation without a massive reduction in this expenditure. But, as we have also seen, this expenditure is absolutely indispensable to the system’s survival, which means that the problem of the struggle against inflation is as insoluble as that of squaring the circle.

Being unable to attack the fundamental causes of the ailment, the bourgeoisie is forced to attack its consequences. It is in this way it has attempted to carry out a series of measures:

               Budgetary economies;

               Putting the brakes on demand by limiting credit;

               Price restrictions;

               Wage restrictions.

Budgetary economies are attempts to deal with the fundamental causes of inflation. In fact, to the extent that this is impossible without touching the foundations of the system, policies of ‘budgetary rigour’ can signify nothing but policies of austerity and restrictions on ‘social spending’.

Thus we have seen Nixon liquidating the politics of the ‘Great Society’ started up by Johnson. But in any case this measure has not been enough to prevent the existence of deficits of dozens of billions of dollars in the last two American budgets, deficits which, to the extent that they are covered by the issue of bank notes, i.e. the injections into the economy of a mass of currency which does not correspond to the creation of real value, are manifested in a fall in the value of money and a corresponding rise in inflation.

In general, to the extent that purchases by the state constituted one of the markets for capitalist production during the period of reconstruction, these restrictions have had the effect of accentuating today’s recession. Governments are thus faced with a dilemma: inflation or recession, without really being able to prevent one by resorting to the other.

Policies of limiting credit, in so far as they propose to cut demand and thus to reduce markets, are also faced with the same dilemma: inflation or recession. Moreover, these policies of ‘dear credit’ have the result of increasing costs of paying off invested capital, costs which have repercussions on the prices of commodities and lead to more inflation.

As for price restrictions, these have now become the background for a well-worn scenario: prices do not move as long as they are subject to government regulation, but as soon as this stops, the opportunity arises to use speculative bonds, bonds which are simplified by the fact that many suppliers, having awaited the end of restrictions in order to carry out their deliveries, have created an imbalance between supply and demand beneficial to the latter. Far from holding down inflation, price restrictions substitute an inflation by stops and starts producing a continuous inflation. Thus these restrictions do not have the desired effect but, to the extent that the system is unable to fiddle with its own laws and that those laws impose upon it a continual rise in prices, there follows a major disequilibrium which of necessity expresses itself in recessions: here again the bourgeoisie is confronted with the same dilemma.

Wage restriction is the only measure which involves not only economic criteria but also the balance of forces between the classes. In this sense the failure or (temporary) success of such policies is conditioned by the level of combativity among the workers. In the current period, when the working class is waking up after 50 years of defeat, every major attack on its living standards is met with violent reactions (May ’68; Gdansk 1970, the 1971 British miners’ strike which obtained 30% increases in a period of wage restrictions, the recent strikes of German metal workers). Consequently, the bourgeoisie, in spite of several attempts, continues to hesitate to impose the draconian austerity measures on the working class which the situation increasingly demands: the reaction to such measures frightens the bourgeoisie so much that they dare not resort to them.

If attacking the workers’ living standards is the only policy remaining to the bourgeoisie in its fight against inflation it is as yet a policy which it can only implement with the greatest circumspection.

 

********

For a number of years world capitalism has been walking on a tightrope: on the one side, the descent into galloping inflation, on the other, the descent into recession. The recession of 1971 and the inflationary spiral of 1972-73 are a flagrant illustration of this situation. What the mini-recovery of 1972-73 really hid was a failure by governments in the face of inflation which allowed the latter to reach spectacular levels. The temporary liberation of credit, speculation by buyers on price rises as well as the ‘adjustment’ in relation to 1971 (the recovery was all the more spectacular in that it followed a year of stagnation) having been at the root of this recovery in 1972, some people have tried to see inflation as a remedy for the problem of overproduction: from the moment that inflation remained more or less uniform in each country (it being enough to do no worse than your neighbour), galloping inflation would be the ‘medicine’ which today’s economies lack. After all, what would it matter if prices rose by 10 or 20% if at the same time international trade could carry on?

Such a possibility, quite apart from all the reasons which have allowed us to explain the phenomenon of inflation, is itself quite absurd. In reality, one of the basic functions of money is to be a measure of value, a function which facilitates all its other uses (as a means of circulating commodities, of saving, of payment, etc.) Once it reaches a certain rate of depreciation, a currency can no longer fulfill this function: you cannot operate on the market with a currency whose value changes from one day to another; in this sense, the continuation of the inflationary spiral can have no other outcome than the paralysis of the world market.

In general, to the extent that it is speculation which is in large part responsible for the 1972-73 recovery, we are now back in a situation where:

• the purchases which enterprises should now be making have already been made;
• and where these purchases are manifested in a strengthening of productive capacity.

This means that the inflationary spiral and mini-recovery of 1972-73 can only lead to a new recession in comparison to which that of 1971 will seem like a picnic.

More than ever, then, the perspective is one which we drew up in our previous article:

• a massive slowdown in international trade;
• trade wars between different countries;
• imposition of protectionist measures;
• the collapse of customs unions;
• return to autarky;
• fall in production
• massive growth in unemployment;
• decline in real wages of workers.

The crisis and the tasks of the proletariat

This study of the current economic situation has not been embarked on for any academic reasons but solely as a basis for militant revolutionary activity. Such arguments as ‘it is useless to be concerned with the economic situation since in any case we can’t do anything about it’, or ‘what is important is the action of revolutionaries’, are totally irresponsible.

The economy is the skeleton of society, the basis of all social relations. In this sense, for revolutionaries, to know the society they are fighting against and how it is to be overthrown, means in the first place to know its economy. It is because of its specific place in the economy that the proletariat is the revolutionary class and it is from the precise economic conditions of crisis that the proletariat is to accomplish its historic task. It is always by beginning from an understanding of the economic conditions from which the struggle of their class derives that revolutionaries have attempted to clarify their objectives and perspectives.

In this sense, the two subjects dealt with in this article – inflation and the crisis of overproduction – enable us to situate the contemporary tasks of the proletariat.

Inflation is the expression of the historic crisis of the capitalist mode of production, a crisis which threatens the basic functioning of the system and the whole of society. Consequently, its very existence as a chronic illness of our epoch means that what is historically on the agenda today for the proletariat is no longer the amelioration of its condition within the system but the overthrow of the system.

As for the recession which is emerging today, to the extent that it plunges the system into growing contradictions and therefore into a position of weakness, it indicates that this overthrow is possible within the present period.

In the years ahead, the economic crisis will force the workers to engage in harder and harder struggles. Faced with this, capital will bring out the whole panoply of its mystifications and, in particular, will try to explain that ‘the former leaders are responsible for the crisis’ or that ‘with better management the situation could improve…’ Already forces whose aim is to reorganise capital are preparing for battle: in France the left throws itself into a mighty campaigns ‘against the high cost of living’, supported by other leftists who have no qualms in shrieking, “government and bosses are organizing ‘la vie chere’” (16)

Against these kind of demagogic phrases revolutionaries must affirm that, on the contrary, the bourgeoisie is hardly in control of anything at all, that it is faced with a situation about which it can do less and less – except to try to mystify the workers the better to massacre them afterwards.

If revolutionaries have one fundamental task today, it is to explain that the present crisis has no solution, that it cannot be overcome by any reform of capital, and that, consequently, there is only one way out: that of the communist revolution – of the destruction of capital, of wage labour and the commodity economy.

CG

Footnotes:

 

1. For a deeper study, see ‘The Crisis’, R.I. no. 6 and 7, old series.
2. Christian Goux’s article in Les Informations, a bosses’ journal.
3. Such as those who consider that “revolutionaries who have only too often founded their hopes on the perspective – presented as the foundation stone of Marxism – of an inevitable catastrophe of the capitalist economy, seem today to be chimerical spirits locked up in anachronistic dreams” (Organise the revolutionary Marxist tendency, a pamphlet edited by the predecessors of today’s Gauche Marxiste, now defunct).
4. The dramatic falls in Wall Street in August ’71, July ’73 and November ’73 cannot be compared to the catastrophic ‘Black Thursday’ of 1929.
5. Today, the dollars circulating the world are hardly covered even for a few percent by gold or foreign currencies.
6. This is not necessarily true if the parity of currency A is fixed in relation to the others (as was the case up to the last few years with the major currencies) but, otherwise, to maintain a currency at an over-valued level leads to unbridled speculation against it. This means that a central bank of country A gets rid of all the paper money which it has itself made, which can buy very little and which no one wants. Such a situation could only be bought to an end by a draconian control of exchange which would be virtually impossible to implement, or by a devaluation having a double function: that of lowering the price of that country’s commodities on the world market, and of discouraging speculators who henceforth would sell their currency A at a lower price.
7. ‘La Crise’, R.I. nos 6 and 7, old series.
8. The lining up of Giscard with the Americans at the Tokyo conference which opened the Nixon Round at the International Monetary Fund meeting in Nairobi, after he’d been screaming at the top of his voice that there could be no question of submitting to these conditions, is particularly significant in this respect.
9. Philippe Simonot, Le Monde, 13th Feb, 1973, p.2.
10. The bourgeoisie is certainly more lucid than certain contemporary ‘Marxists’, great critics of the ‘wretched readers of Marx’, who claim that, “the source of the difficulties of capitalism’s functioning resides at the level of production and not of the market” (Lutte de Classe, organ of Groupe de Liaison Pour L’Action des Travailleurs (GLAT), Sept/Oct. 1973). As if one could separate the two and as if capitalist production was not the production of commodities! Marx was certainly one of the ‘wretched readers of Marx’ when he wrote: ”All the contradictions of bourgeois production break out together in the generalized crises of the world market … Overproduction is a particular consequence of the general law of capitalist production: to produce in proportion to the productive forces … without taking account of the limits of the market nor of effective demand…” (Marx, La Pleiade T.2. p.496).
11. It should be noted that these two interpretations are not contradictory and that most economists use them simultaneously: their only fault is that they don’t explain anything.
12. We shall see elsewhere that this scarcity itself can only be understood within the context of today’s overproduction.
13. It is obvious that the increase of 10% given to the French workers in May ’68 is in part responsible for the price rises which followed.
14. One recalls the merciless war which the airline companies are waging over transatlantic air fares, a war which followed a period of peace and which led to a new status quo, when these companies found themselves back at the edge of bankruptcy.
15. See the articles on ‘The Decadence of Capitalism’ in R.I. no. 2,4 and 5 (new series, shortly to be a W.R./Internationalism pamphlet.
16. Lutte Ouvrière, no. 272.

The horror show of imperialist war unfolding in Sudan is a continuation and extension of the decomposition of capitalism, which has been visibly accelerating since the beginning of the 2020s[1] [77]. It expresses the profound centrifugal tendency towards irrational and militaristic chaos that will affect more and more regions of the planet. Whatever the specifics of the two military gangs fighting in Sudan – and we look at these a bit closer below – the major culprit in this latest outbreak of war is the capitalist system and its representatives in the major powers: USA, China, Russia, Britain, followed by all the secondary powers active in Sudan: the UAE, Saudi, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Libya, etc.  Towards the end of last year, December 5, the British Foreign Office released a statement on the democratic future of Sudan which began thus: “Members of the Quad and Troika (Norway, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States) welcome the agreement of an initial political framework. This is an essential first step toward establishing a civilian-led government and defining constitutional arrangements to guide Sudan through a transitional period culminating in elections. We commend the parties’ efforts to garner support for this framework agreement from a broad range of Sudanese actors and their call for continued, inclusive dialogue on all issues of concern and cooperation to build the future of Sudan.”[2] [78] Just weeks before heavy fighting broke out on April 8, the above “international partners” of Sudan were still talking about an “imminent return” to civilian rule and a democratic government involving the two main components of the Sudanese government: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fatah al-Burham and the Rapid Strike Force (RSF)[3] [79] led by General Hamdam Dagalo aka “Hemediti”. It was abundantly clear just days after the fighting between these two Sudanese military factions began, that this “democracy” – just as anywhere else – is an illusion and all of the immediate options and longer-term perspectives for the population of Sudan and the surrounding region are going to go from bad to much worse This is exemplified in Sudan with its capital, the relatively peaceful and bustling Khartoum, previously spared the horrors around it and filled with refugees from the 2003 “Darfur conflict” (i.e., ethnic genocide[4] [80]) onwards, is now being reduced to ruins in a matter of days. Lack of water, electricity, health services is accompanied by slaughter and rape from both sides of the ex-government forces.

The “inner disintegration” of capitalism

In 1919, the Communist International laid out its future perspectives for capitalism: "A new epoch is born! The epoch of the dissolution of capitalism, of its inner disintegration. The epoch of the communist revolution of the proletariat”[5] [81]. The reality of this epoch of capitalism has been confirmed by over a century of ever-growing imperialist war, its only answer to its permanent economic crisis. We have now been through over 30 years in the final phase of this process of capitalist decadence, the phase of decomposition. And since the Covid pandemic and even more with the war in Ukraine we are seeing a tragic acceleration. The profound putrefaction of this mode of production can be today measured by a veritable spiral of destruction on a global scale, and in particular through the multiplication of wars and massacres (Ukraine, Myanmar, Yemen, Tigray...). In Sudan today we can see the breakdown of the “international community’s peace process”; of the Sudanese state and the military government of Sudan, immediately demonstrating a wider tendency for these agents of the major powers to function as unreliable, irrational elements that are first of all motivated by “look after number one”: this is demonstrated by the Russian Wagner Group[6] [82] (active in Sudan, Chad and Libya under General Khalifa Haftar) which seems to be increasingly falling out with Moscow and taking on a dynamic of its own. And this tendency of each for themselves is further underlined by the fact that any one of the countries mentioned in the first paragraph is quite capable of taking their own unilateral actions that will further exacerbate the tendencies to further chaos in Sudan and the surrounding region.

“Save our nationals”... and the devil take the hindmost

Sudan was a British Crown Colony until 1956 when the US undermined the role of British imperialism in the wake of the Suez crisis As in many of its colonies the British had introduced the practice of divide and rule, using ethnic and geographic divisions in order to facilitate control. The long-term consequences of this policy could be seen in 2011 when the country was cut in half between an Arab-dominated North and an African South. Sudan, full of natural resources, is adjacent to the Red Sea, borders Egypt and Libya in north Africa; Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Horn; the east African state of South Sudan and the Central African states of Chad and the Central African Republic. It is thus a focus for all the regional and global imperialist rivalries which are being played out across Africa and the Middle East.

With the outbreak of the present conflict, the main concern of the hypocritical “partners” of Sudan was first to get their diplomats and then their nationals out of the country, burning and shredding evidence of their murderous culpability as they did so. Echoing capitalism’s “war of the vaccines” during the Covid-19 pandemic, we witnessed the scrabble of “each for themselves” as competitive “national interests” overrode any sort of co-operation; flights left half-empty because the necessary papers weren’t shown or they weren’t on the list of nationals of those controlling the flights. When other nationals were given places on evacuation procedures it was done as a cynical PR exercise or to gain some sordid diplomatic advantage. And what those fleeing powers left behind was a complete mess of their own making and a grim future for the region.

It’s pointless quoting numbers of casualties or the destruction caused because the “official” figures are increasing exponentially every few days: tens of thousands killed and seriously injured and millions of refugees and displaced, with around 15 million already living on the scraps of the aid agencies (themselves an integral part of imperialism and warfare) and acute malnourishment among pregnant women and children, according to a UN statement on April 11. Those nationals lucky enough to get back to were met with flags and jingoistic press headlines while the vast majority in Sudan have no way out of war and famine and are condemned to their misery by the same flag-waving national interests of the capitalist states that came to bring “democracy” to the country.

To add to the whole mess of Khartoum and beyond, around 20,000 prisoners have escaped or been let out of jail with some of these being convicted ex-government mass murderers and war criminals who, in their respective sides, will be welcomed back into the free-for-all at even more cost to the population and its forlorn hopes for any sort of “peace”. As well as staggering inflation, the organised looting of supplies, assaults and robberies by armed militias, the population has to deal with the ubiquitous and dangerous checkpoints that have sprung up on many streets. And to add to their emotional turmoil, cease-fires and truces are called one after the other making no difference whatsoever to the ongoing warfare[7] [83].

The decomposition of capitalism guarantees the military free-for-all

The two major warlords, Generals Dagalo and Hemediti, the west’s “democratic partners” and Moscow’s “friends and allies”, are locked into a ferocious battle between each other with the SAF having the advantage of air power. It’s not a great advantage in this sort of war but if the battle is to continue both sides will need re-supplying with weaponry soon: will the Russians supply the RSF with anti-aircraft missiles or more through Wagner? Will Russian-backed Haftar of Libya step up the supplies and support he is and has been providing for the RSF? Will Saudi and Egypt get more involved in stepping up the ante with weaponry to the SAF, and are Abu Dhabi and Riyadh at loggerheads over the issue? And will the backers of the RSF in the UAE – who see the former as part of their wider plan for control over the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa – consolidate and strengthen their support? Could Britain and America get further involved through some of these vectors? Given the deep instability of the situation and all the players involved, there are too many uncertainties to make any sort of predictions - except that the war will continue and the overall framework of decomposing capitalism will ensure that it will become more extensive.

China is well involved in Sudan and in machinations with both factions of the army in order to maintain its “Belt and Road” thrust which has come to grief in neighbouring Ethiopia. The US is playing catch-up with China but President Biden has recently stepped up US military activity here with extra military resources deployed in order to “fight terrorism”. But there’s no doubt it has been flatfooted in its response and embarrassed with its and the UK’s assertion that we were days away from “civilian rule” in Sudan. Russia has also dealt with both factions of the army and both have talked favourably about a possible Russian port on the Red Sea. Both factions are open to a deal with Russia but the whole region now resembles a highly volatile can of worms.

The Sudanese evacuations are largely over to date and true to form the war is cynically relegated away from the headlines as the country sinks back into an even greater misery. Sudan is one example of capitalism’s dynamic and there are many others: dangerous imperialist fault-lines are opening up with military tensions rising in the Middle East, around ex-Yugoslavia and the Caucasus and generally over the globe as militarism is the main outlet left to the capitalist state. The war in Ukraine with its local and global effects rages on. In early April this year, Finland became the 31st country to join NATO and its 1300km border has doubled the front line with Russia. As it has done in other front-line states with Russia, NATO will be cautious at first and then build up its forces and weaponry along the border, forcing Russia to militarise its side.

The longer-term perspective for imperialism is the growing confrontation with China being prepared by the United States, but there are uncertainties and variables here also. In the meantime capitalism sinks into irrational war and barbarity and Sudan is one more example of its “inner disintegration”.

Baboon, 3.5.2023

 

Faced with the constant attacks on their living conditions, the Argentinean working class is responding with a growing fighting spirit. The bourgeoisie in Argentina is preparing for the possibility of a wave of strikes in different sectors. That is why the government with the support of the unions is taking immediate measures to contain the anger in response to the deteriorating conditions – to the precariousness and the effects of globally rising inflation. Though offering wage increases by instalments has become very fashionable right now, this will not compensate for the loss of purchasing power due to inflation in all the countries of the world, including Argentina.

Argentina is currently the country with the second highest inflation in the region after Venezuela. By the end of 2022 the rate of inflation had reached 94%, the highest since 1991. The economic consequences of the war in Ukraine1 following the covid pandemic have been severe. Inflation has caused a deterioration in the material conditions of the population but this deterioration has become much worse for the working class in all countries. Inflation is eroding the purchasing power of workers while wages remain static. It is not by chance that on 26 August last year, the Argentine government has announced a 21% increase in the minimum wage in three stages, rising from 47,850 pesos per month (around 200 euros) to 57,900 pesos (243 euros) in November this year2.

Faced with the capitalist crisis that has hit Argentina, there have been many struggles in recent months, such as that of the workers of the Bridgestone, Fate and Pirelli tyre companies, which paralysed the Argentine car industry for several months, affecting the production of these factories. After lengthy negotiations between the Sutna (United Tyre Workers) union, the companies and the government, an agreement was reached to increase the wages of Sutna-affiliated workers[1]. The wage increase will be in instalments, with the additional promise from the companies to also give each worker a one-off bonus to of 100,000 pesos (about 421 euros).

The parties, unions, the Piqueteros and the government are all against the working class
Like the struggles of the workers in the tyre industry, there are other struggles that have been taking place since before the pandemic that have been stifled and controlled by the parties, unions, Piqueteros and the government, illustrating how they all act in a coordinated way against the workers.

At the beginning of 2022, the German press agency DW (Deutsche Welle) said: "The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, announced this Friday (28.01.2022) that an ‘agreement’ was reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to refinance the loan of more than 44 million that the IMF gave the country in 2018 when the liberal Mauricio Macri was head of government"[2].

Anticipating and pre-empting this announcement at the beginning of January 2022, Eduardo Belliboni, leader of Polo Obrero and head of the Unidad Piquetera, already announced that 2022 will be much more eventful than 2021. And so it happened. "The greatest mobilisation of demands against the government of Alberto Fernández", called the "Federal March", was prepared by organisations and social movements (Coordinadora por el Cambio Social, Polo Obrero (PO), Movimiento Barrios de Pie (MBP), etc., those grouped together in the Unidad Piquetera. The mobilisation, which emerged in different states, began on 10 May 2022 in the cities of La Quiaca and Ushuaia and ended on 12 May in the capital Buenos Aires.

The marchers voiced slogans such as: "For work and for wages; against hunger and poverty". Eduardo Belliboni, said "The Federal March of the Piqueteros is becoming a march of the working people against the falling wages and for their own demands. It is uniting unemployed, employed and retired workers behind the leadership of the main trade unions. A prospect of unity and struggle is opening up for the popular movement, in support of the basic demands of the working class suffering from the government's agreement with the IMF...We are demanding real jobs and a wage that will be enough to feed a family and allow us to live. We are marching against hunger and poverty that has reached scandalous levels in Argentina".
 

The demonstration arose in response to the government's decision not to extend further the "Promote Access to Employment" programme to those people in desperate need. Currently there are around 1,200,000 people receiving 19,470 pesos per month (equivalent to around 85 euros).
These protests are taking place at a time when we are seeing a new development unfolding in Argentina, with the various bourgeois factions clashing more and more openly with each other in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in November. The bourgeois factions that defend Peronism within the “Casa Rosada” are divided into those who continue to support “Kirshnerism” and others around Fernández, a struggle that has been going on for years. The presidential couple have not spoken to each other for two months and openly insult each other. The spokespersons of the former president call Fernández a usurper of the throne and remind her that she is in this position on a temporary basis. "The government is ours" warned Andrés Larroque, minister in the province of Buenos Aires and strongman of La Cámpora, the group led by Máximo Kirchner, Cristina's son. Fernández replied herself saying that "Nobody owns the government, the government belongs to the people".

On the eve of these November elections the struggle for power is increasing between the different bourgeois factions, the Peronists, the centre moderates, the right-wing around Macri alongside the emergence of a “psychedelic” nationalist populist and self-styled "libertarian", like Javier Milei, who presents himself as anti-socialist, anti-communist, anti-Peronist, anti-traditional political parties, and openly claims to be a staunch admirer of Trump and Bolsonaro.
 

We have been reporting on the Piquetero movement: for some time:“Between June and August (2005) we have seen the biggest wave of strikes for 15 years”. We have reported that the Argentine proletariat was showing itself to be combative, fighting on its class terrain and showing a capacity to recognise itself as a class with its own class identity. In the same article we analysed and outlined how these workers' struggles, on a difficult road to recovery, were still very weak and were overshadowed by "...a noisy and hyper-exposed media confrontation between the Piquetero organisations and the government”[3].

The Piqueteros, a movement mainly comprised of the unemployed, arose within the interclass struggles of late 2001, and acquired great notoriety due to the mass media which propelled them into the political limelight as the true standard-bearers of the "legitimate struggles" of the people seeking improvements in their living conditions.   All the leftist groups, Stalinists, Trotskyists, Maoists, etc, collaborators in the mystification of the workers' struggles, allied themselves with the bourgeois state to give the piqueteros a pseudo-revolutionary support, which deceived and confused the unemployed workers and those impoverished sectors of society even more, diverting them into the dead end of democracy and parliamentary elections, support for one or other messiah of the bourgeoisie, like the way Mr. Kirshner was presented at that time[4].

Since the end of 2001, year after year, the Piqueteros have continuously led demonstrations demanding an increase in economic resources for the social welfare programmes that benefit the weak and the unemployed, or for improving social programmes and policies to make precarious jobs more bearable, without having been able to change anything substantial in the living conditions of the workers. So absolutely nothing has been gained. Argentina is one of the worst countries in the region in terms of living conditions and wages. It is often compared to Venezuela. The workers are suffering the onslaught of inflation and job insecurity. The Argentinean bourgeoisie, using everything at its disposal, including the "popular organisations", is inflicting greater sacrifices on society as a whole and the working class in particular. The trade union organisations, the political parties of the so-called left and all that motley assortment of popular organisations that promote false ideological and political concepts and ideas, contribute to this work by gently leading the workers into the bourgeois trap: from all angles they assail the IMF, attack the government of the day, defending democracy and nation at the same time. The populace will be led to the polls, gambling their future on whoever claims to be the current Messiah.

The IMF is clearly an instrument of capitalism, specifically serving the strongest countries of the world against the weakest. However, all the capitalists of the world exploit the workers of the world. In other words, not only the IMF, American capitalism etc., but Argentinean capital and the Argentinean state are also fully engaged in this exploitation.

It is a cheap trick to make a show of "anti-imperialist" opposition to the IMF to link the working class with the nation, with Argentinean capital and in defence of class exploitation behind the white-blue colour of the Argentinean flag. The mobilisations of the Piqueteros, Polo Obrero, the Peronists, the trade unions, present the population with a choice on offer between capitalists: siding either with the IMF executioner or with the so-called "independent" executioner, Argentinean capital.
The IMF is an instrument of capitalism, which does its work, just like the governments of Kirshner, Fernandez, Macri, and all the previous governments. All the political parties are its partners, from the right to the left, including all those who support the populist and psychedelic current of Milei, alongside the unions and the piqueteros. Their sole purpose: to prevent the proletariat from developing its struggle on its own class terrain.
Therefore, it is very clear that this movement orchestrated by "La Unidad Piquetera", is a movement that acts against the class interests of the Argentinean proletariat. Its activity only sows further confusion. Its methods of struggle are not the methods of proletarian struggle. They lead to the dilution of the proletariat within the broader population, support the defence of the Argentine nation and the use of parliamentary elections as a mechanism to legitimise power, a policy that coincides with the whole bourgeois programme of the leftist organisations, which support the bourgeois state par excellence.
 

Finally, the bourgeoisie has already used the failed attack against Cristina Kirchner in an attempt to mobilise the population in the defence of democracy and national unity, uniting itself with its executioners. The bourgeoisie can use this ideological weaponry against the workers. This enables the bourgeoisie to create confusion in the minds of the workers, pushing them to take sides in the conflicts between the competing bourgeois factions.

Like the working class in Britain that is fighting back against the economic crisis, inflation, precariousness and exploitation, exacerbated by capitalist decomposition, the Argentinean working class must fight with all its might against all the ideological traps that are ultimately defended and used by these organisations that defend the bourgeois state and the capitalist order. 8.
Dédalus.
 

All over the world we see workers taking up the struggle... and again today references to May '68 are appearing in the demonstrations.

But this time it will be necessary to GO FURTHER THAN IN 1968!

In another article, we will write about the discussions that took place at these meetings.

1) International struggles: a break with the previous period

All the comrades have certainly seen in the demonstrations this slogan which appeared in several cities: " You give us 64, we'll give you May 68 again!” This reference to May 68 is a sign that there is an underground reflection in the class on the lessons of past struggles, which will sooner or later result in new advances for the movement.

We want to contribute to this reflection and it's good timing because today is an anniversary. Indeed, today is 13 May 2023 and just 55 years ago, on 13 May 1968, demonstrations on an unprecedented scale took place throughout France on the call of the major trade union centres. They followed the spontaneous demonstrations which, on Saturday 11 May, had protested energetically against the extremely violent repression suffered by the students the day before[1]. This mobilisation forced the bourgeoisie to back down. Pompidou announced that the forces of order would be withdrawn from the Latin Quarter, that the Sorbonne would be reopened and that the imprisoned students would be released. Discussions multiplied everywhere, not only on the repression but also on the working conditions of the workers, exploitation, and the future of society. These demonstrations on 13 May in solidarity with the students were called by unions which had initially been overwhelmed and which sought to regain control of the movement.

These demonstrations represented a turning point, not only because of their scale but above all because they announced the entry of the working class onto the scene. The next day, the workers of Sud-Aviation in Nantes launched a spontaneous strike. They were followed by a mass movement which reached 9 million strikers on 27 May. It was the biggest strike in the history of the international workers' movement. Everywhere people were raising demands, expressing their indignation, becoming politicised, discussing, in demonstrations, general assemblies and action committees that sprang up like mushrooms.

Even if the movement in France went furthest, it was part of a series of international struggles that affected many countries in the world. These international struggles were the sign of a fundamental change in the life of society: they marked a break with the previous period - it was the end of the terrible counter-revolution which had descended on the working class following the failure of the world revolutionary wave initiated by the success of the 1917 revolution in Russia.

Even if not to the same extent, such a break with the previous period is happening again today. All over the world, workers are struggling against unbearable living and working conditions, especially against inflation which is significantly reducing wages. The placards and banners read: "Enough is enough" in the UK; "Not one year more, not one euro less" in France; "Indignation runs deep" in Spain; "For all of us" in Germany.

In Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Mexico, China and at the moment in Sweden, where a wildcat strike is taking place among commuter train drivers in Stockholm; in many countries, it is the same strikes against the same exploitation, as the British workers summarise it very well: "The real hardship: not being able to heat, eat, look after yourself, get around!” The break that we are witnessing today is the resumption of a dynamic of international struggles after decades of decline in combativity and consciousness in the working class. Indeed, the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 was the occasion for vast ideological campaigns on the impossibility of an alternative to capitalism, on the eternity of bourgeois democracy as the only viable political regime. These campaigns had a very strong impact on a working class which had not managed to push the politicisation of its struggles any further.

2) Communist revolution or destruction of humanity

In the demonstrations in France, we started to read on some placards the refusal of the war in Ukraine, the refusal to tighten our belts in the name of this war economy: "No money for the war, no money for weapons, money for wages, money for pensions"[2].

Even if it's not always clear in the heads of the demonstrators, only the struggle of the proletariat on its class terrain can be a bulwark against war, against this self-destructive dynamic, a bulwark in the face of the death that capitalism promises to all humanity. For, left to its own logic, this decadent system will drag larger and larger parts of humanity into war and misery, it will destroy the planet with greenhouse gases, razed forests and bombs.

As the first part of the title of our 3rd Manifesto says: "Capitalism leads to the destruction of humanity..." The class that rules world society, the bourgeoisie, is partly aware of this reality, of the barbaric future that their dying system promises us. It is enough to read the studies and works of its own experts to see this. In particular the "Global Risks Report" presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2023, which we quoted extensively in our last leaflet[3].

Faced with this overwhelming prospect, the bourgeoisie is powerless. It and its system are not the solution, they are the cause of the problem. Even if, in the mainstream media, the bourgeoisie tries to make us believe that it is doing everything possible to fight against global warming, that a "green" and "sustainable" capitalism is possible, it knows very well that these are lies.

In reality, the problem is not limited to the climate issue. It is one expression of the fundamental contradictions of an economic system based NOT on the satisfaction of human needs but on profit and competition, on the predation of natural resources and the ferocious exploitation of the class that produces the essential part of social wealth: the proletariat, the wage workers of all countries. Thus, capitalism and the bourgeoisie constitute one of the two poles of society, the one that leads humanity towards misery and war, towards barbarity and destruction. The other pole is the proletariat and its struggle to resist capitalism and overthrow it.

These reflexes of active solidarity, this collective combativeness that we see today, are witness to the deep nature of the workers' struggle, which is destined to assume a struggle for a radically different world, a world without exploitation or social classes, without competition, without borders or nations. "Either we fight together, or we'll end up sleeping in the street", confirmed the demonstrators in France. The banner "For all of us" under which the strike against pauperisation took place in Germany on 27 March is particularly significant of this general feeling that is growing in the working class: "we are all in the same boat" and we are all fighting for each other. Strikes in Germany, the UK and France were inspired by each other. For example, in France, the workers of the Mobilier National, before the cancellation of the visit of Charles III, explicitly went on strike in solidarity with their class brothers in Britain: "We are in solidarity with the British workers, who have been on strike for weeks for higher wages". This reflex of international solidarity, even if it is still embryonic, is the exact opposite of the capitalist world divided into competing nations, the final expression of which is war. It recalls the rallying cry of our class since 1848: "Proletarians have no homeland! Proletarians of all countries, unite!”

3) Why do we need to go further than in May 68?

But we all feel the difficulties and the current limits of these struggles. Faced with the steamroller of the economic crisis, inflation and the governmental attacks that they call "reforms", the workers have not yet managed to establish a balance of forces in their favour. Often isolated by the unions in separate strikes, they are frustrated by reducing the demonstrations to processions, without meetings or discussions or collective organisation. Often they aspire to a wider, stronger movement, more united in solidarity. In the processions in France, the call for a new May 68 is regularly heard.

And indeed, we need to take up the methods of struggle that we saw being asserted in the whole period that began in 1968. One of the best examples is Poland in 1980. Faced with the increase in food prices, the strikers took this international wave even further by taking control of their struggles, by gathering in huge general assemblies, by centralising the different strike committees thanks to the MKS, the inter-enterprise committee[4]. In all these assemblies, the workers themselves decided on the demands and the actions to be taken and, above all, were constantly concerned to extend the struggle. Faced with this strength, we know that it was not just the Polish bourgeoisie that trembled, but the bourgeoisie of all countries.

In two decades, from 1968 to 1989, a whole generation of workers acquired experience in the struggle. Its many defeats, and sometimes victories, allowed this generation to confront the many traps set by the bourgeoisie to sabotage the struggle, to divide and demoralise. Its struggles must allow us to draw vital lessons for our present and future struggles: only meeting in open and massive general assemblies, autonomous, really deciding on the conduct of the movement, contesting and neutralising union control as soon as possible, can constitute the basis of a united and spreading struggle, sustained by solidarity between all sectors.

When the last leaflet was distributed, one demonstrator agreed with us on the methods of struggle that needed to be taken up, but was sceptical about the title. "Going further than in '68? If we did what we did in '68, it wouldn't be bad," he said.  But we have to go further than in '68 because the stakes are no longer the same. The wave of international struggle that began in May '68 was a reaction to the first signs of the crisis and the reappearance of mass unemployment. The catastrophic state of capitalism now clearly puts the very survival of humanity at stake. If the working class does not succeed in overthrowing it, barbarism will gradually become more widespread.

The momentum of May '68 and the ensuing years was broken by a double lie of the bourgeoisie: when the Stalinist regimes collapsed in 1989-91, they claimed that the collapse of Stalinism meant the death of communism and that a new era of peace and prosperity was opening. Three decades later, we know from experience that instead of peace and prosperity, we have had war and misery, that Stalinism is the antithesis of communism (like yesterday's USSR and today's China, Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea!) By falsifying history, the bourgeoisie managed to make the working class believe that its revolutionary project of emancipation could only lead to ruin. But in the struggle, the workers can gradually develop their own collective strength, self-confidence, solidarity, unity, self-organisation. The struggle gradually makes the working class realise that it is capable of offering another perspective than the death promised by a decaying capitalist system: the communist revolution. The perspective of the proletarian revolution will make its return in the battles to come. This time the idea of revolution which re-appeared in May 68 is being transformed into a vital necessity for humanity. Faced with the spectacle of capitalism in decomposition where "no future" reigns, we proclaim: "The future belongs to the class struggle!”

Finally, it seems to us that the present situation raises a certain number of questions that we have tried to illustrate in this presentation:

Do the current workers' struggles on an international scale represent a break with the previous period, a resumption of the class struggle that will now develop?

Is today's capitalist world marked by phenomena of social decomposition that can lead to the destruction of humanity?

What are the main weaknesses of the current movement?

Why is it necessary to go further than in May 68?

ICC

 This is a contribution by a close sympathiser from Turkey, taking position on the forthcoming elections in that country.  We fully agree with the comrade’s denunciation of the election circus in Turkey (and everywhere else), in particular the pernicious role of the extreme left, which justifies participation in the bourgeois political arena in the name of “anti-fascism” or the “defence of democracy”.

ICC

Politicians, academics, NGO representatives, singers, TV stars, all the institutions that sustain the capitalist state and the mouthpieces of their ideological apparatus, both left and right, say the same things in every medium like parrots: "this election is the most important election of our lives", "the future of our children depends on the outcome of this election", etc.

In a society where capital and its arms monopoly, its mass media and means of communication are in the hands of the ruling class and its state, "democracy" is a complete sham. In a society where people have lost their organic ties, where they do not talk to each other, do not discuss, do not listen to each other, where they are hypnotized by the mass media, "free elections" are a complete deception. No previous exploiting class had such propaganda tools to present its rule as the natural outcome of the masses' own choice. This shows how sophisticated and dangerous a form of class dictatorship bourgeois democracy is. In such a system, where the real decisions are taken in secret meetings, in parliament’s backstage, parliament itself can only be a circus of debates. The true face of bourgeois democracy can be seen not in the superficial debates in parliament, but in the police raids on those who think of questioning the capitalist system.

All parties that call on workers to vote in parliamentary elections stand on the same basis: the defense of the national economy, the perpetuation of nationalist sentiments, the demand for sacrifices from the working class, and above all the maintenance of capitalism. We can understand this most clearly by looking at the "differences" between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu[1] [98]. Both Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan are united in defending the interests of Turkish national capital. The most recent example of this can be seen in the recent vote on Finland's accession to NATO, where all opposition parties, especially the CHP, either supported the government or refrained from voting no. Similarly, the two leaders share the same intrigue when it comes to increasing military expenditures and making refugees a target of their nauseating policies (Kılıçdaroğlu's election pledge to repatriate Syrian refugees).

 

The real distinction between bourgeois factions is formal, not programmatic

On the other hand, the discourse of these two politicians seems to diverge somewhat on issues that concern society, or humanity as a whole, such as the rights of women, sexual oppression, solutions to the Kurdish problem, the position of minorities, the integration of youth and the elderly into social life, the climate crisis. However, these are all issues that the capitalist ruling class is actually incapable of solving without undermining and destroying its own sovereignty: women cannot be liberated and heteronormative relations cannot be broken without the dissolution of the family institution and patriarchy; the Kurdish problem cannot be solved without the destruction of the nation state; the climate crisis cannot be stopped without the destruction of capitalism. Therefore, these issues are cynically used by the parties of capital to draw more people into the electoral charade.

The fact that it is the capitalist class, its state and its political representatives who make the laws, abolish them, enforce them or do not enforce them, are expected to step back or are expected to help, shows the instantaneous and symbolic nature of the regulations expected under capitalism. To give more concrete examples, let us take the Istanbul Convention that criminalizes various forms of violence against women. In Turkey, where this convention was opened for signature, it was the same Erdoğan government that first ratified the convention and then withdrew it. Similarly, it should be remembered that it was the same Erdoğan government that initiated the so-called Resolution Process, in which great hopes were nurtured on the Kurdish question, and then cut it off like a knife. These and countless similar cases are clear examples of how the ruling class uses social issues for its own political maneuvers. It is a historical reality, repeated over and over again, that the so-called regulations expected from a future Kılıçdaroğlu government, which are similar to those expected from the Erdoğan government yesterday, will tomorrow be taken back by the same government or another government in accordance with its own current capitalist policies or will not be implemented in practice at all, or cannot reach the broad proletarian masses within the cumbersome legal mechanisms of the state.

Therefore, there are no serious programmatic differences between the parties competing in the elections today. They are all formally different representatives of the same capitalist class. Moreover, in these conditions, these formalist distinctions are increasingly being determined on the basis of cultural and identity differences such as male-female, religious-secular, Kurdish-Turkish, Alevi-Sunni. The parties of capital are caught in an increasingly meaningless culture war, in a no-exit zone where individual and formal preferences are politicized. In the midst of such formalistic and cynical distinctions, the aforementioned social issues lose their sensitivity and are reshaped in the hands of capital as apolitical conflicts.  The bankruptcy of bourgeois politics can be seen most tragicomically in the way the two leaders identity themselves and blame each other. While Kılıçdaroğlu emphasizes his Alevi identity and calls Erdoğan reactionary, Erdoğan clings to his religious identity more than ever and accuses Kılıçdaroğlu of being a spokesman for gay marriage. In such pathetic squabbles, the country is being dragged helplessly towards both social degeneration and deepening economic disaster.

 

Leftists as falsifiers of marxism

The parties of capital do not only consist of those who openly defend the capitalist order. Today we see that organizations and parties on the extreme left of capital (from Stalinists and Trotskyists to official anarchism) are also involved in this electoral process with all their might. These groups are lining up behind the parties of capital in the name of solving the social issues mentioned above, in the name of protecting fundamental rights and freedoms, in the name of defending and regaining democracy against "fascism" and "dictatorship". These groups, who are falsifiers of marxism, are in a race to show the righteousness and revolutionism of their political stance by sharing quotes from Lenin and Marx.

The left and the extreme left of capital defend positions that, even if previously true, have been invalidated or rendered meaningless by historical development. For example, they quote Marx and Engels' support for the unions at the time and conclude that the unions have always been organs of the proletariat.  By using an abstract and timeless, and therefore non-marxist, method, they conceal the fact that as capitalism entered its decadent phase, the unions became organs of the bourgeois state against the proletariat.

Hegel showed that a phenomenon can retain its form while its content is completely transformed. This is precisely the way the left and extreme left of capital falsify Marxism:

"Falling into the trap of the leftist heritage which they cannot shake off, they replace the historical and dialectical method with the scholastic method, failing to grasp one of the principles of dialectics, the principle of the transformation of opposites, that something that exists can be transformed to act as its opposite. The proletarian parties, too, because of the degeneration caused by the weight of bourgeois ideology and the petty bourgeoisie, can be transformed into things diametrically opposed to themselves and become the unconditional servants of capitalism. "[2] [99]

This is how the leftist method, which rejects the historical dimension of class positions and the historical process in which they were formulated, seeks to prove today that participating in the electoral circus is a revolutionary attitude.

 

But when and how did revolutionaries get involved in parliamentary elections?

While the bourgeoisie rapidly established its economic hegemony in Europe, it did not immediately gain the power to wrest political power from the aristocracy. With the beginning of the 19th century, however, the bourgeoisie had to engage in a political struggle against both the aristocracy and its own reactionary factions in order to meet the demands of its rapidly developing economy, to abolish serfdom completely and to generalise wage labour. This century was the period of the rise of capitalism, when the bourgeoisie launched the struggle for universal suffrage and parliamentary action. During this period, parliament became the field of power of the bourgeoisie against the aristocratic and monarchical feudal classes, which were usually clustered in the executive branch of government. The relationship of balance between the legislature and the executive is a legacy of this period for the bourgeois political order. While the feudal elements, whose economic power weakened in the face of developing capitalism, retained the executive, they left the parliamentary sphere as a concession to the bourgeoisie, whose economic power increased. Even though bourgeois parliaments represented a very narrow circle of voters, and universal suffrage was almost non-existent throughout the 19th century, the bourgeoisie adopted parliamentary democracy as a universal means of representation as a dominant element of its ideology.

On the other hand, since capitalism was still a strongly expanding system at this time, its revolutionary overthrow was not yet on the historical agenda. Workers had neither freedom of expression nor the right to organize. At a time when the bourgeoisie was still struggling with feudalism for power and capitalism was expanding both economically and politically, conditions made it possible for workers to win real reforms within the system. On the one hand, they could fight for their economic demands through their trade unions, and on the other, they could wage their political struggle in parliament with their own mass parties. This was the reason Marx and Engels called for the proletariat to engage in parliamentary activity and election campaigns (with all the attendant dangers) during the period of the rise of capitalism[3] [100].

However, as capitalism became a true world economy and definitively established its political domination, feudalism was consigned to the darkness of history and parliament ceased to be not only a progressive arena in which the bourgeoisie fought vigorously, but also lost its role as a platform for the working class to fight for reforms.

This was predicted by Rosa Luxemburg in her 1904 article "Social Democracy and Parliamentarism" in the following words: "Parliamentarism is far from being an absolute product of democratic development, of the progress of the human species and other such good things. Rather, it is the historically determined form of the class domination of the bourgeoisie and its struggle against feudalism, which is only the opposite of this domination. Bourgeois parliamentarism will remain alive only as long as the conflict between the bourgeoisie and feudalism continues."[4] [101]

At the beginning of the 20th century, capitalism could no longer resolve its internal contradictions without war. With the outbreak of World War 1, a new historical epoch was entered, the epoch of the decadence of capitalism, of "Wars and Revolutions" as Lenin called it. The victorious October revolution in Russia and the November revolution in Germany, which ended World War 1, were the further proof of a new historical epoch in which the proletariat directly tried to destroy capital.

In the age of wars and revolutions, the center of gravity of political life had now moved completely beyond the confines of parliament. As the theses prepared by Amadeo Bordiga and presented for discussion at the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920 put it, "the abolition of parliamentarism had become a historical task of the communist movement."[5] [102] The same theses continued as follows: "Unless the Communist Parties base their work directly on the dictatorship of the proletariat and workers' councils and break off all contact with bourgeois democracy, they will never achieve any great success in spreading the revolutionary marxist method."

From the Second Congress of the Communist International to the present day, historical events have amply demonstrated the correctness of these theses. The participation of the Communist parties in the electoral charade and on the parliamentary rostrums has led to dangerous confusion in the ranks of the working class. Today, all sorts of groups claiming to be "revolutionary" are participating in the upcoming elections and claiming to continue the tradition of "revolutionary parliamentarism". What these so-called revolutionaries are actually doing is trying to legitimize their own bourgeois policies by using the mistakes of past workers' movements or methods that have lost their historical reality.

When representative democracy is precisely the first form of bourgeois society that must be overthrown, the participation of these so-called "socialists" in parliamentary institutions and elections is nothing more than proposing "radical" and "sustainable" alternatives for the management of capitalism.

 

Still, can't "democracy" be defended against Erdoğan's "fascism"?

One of the main arguments used by many capitalist parties, from marxism-falsifying leftists to liberals, in this election is the defense of "democracy" against Erdoğan's "fascism". In this article, we do not want to discuss in detail what fascism is, since in our opinion the Erdoğan regime is a form of populism, but the main problem with this illusion is that fascism is seen as the coming to power of "reactionary" forces outside the normal "civilized" functioning of capitalism.

This is precisely the "apparent" explanation for the emergence of fascist governments in Europe in the 1920s and 30s. According to this story, fascism came to power against the wishes of the bourgeoisie. Not only does this story enable the ruling class to deny any connection with the darkest events in history, but it also conceals the real historical circumstances in which fascism emerged.

What really happened is that capitalism, faced with the strain of economic crises, created fascist regimes in line with its own needs. After the First World War, in the defeated or impoverished countries, the only alternative for the ruling class was to try to get a bigger piece of the imperialist pie and mobilize for a new world war. To do this, it was necessary to concentrate all political power in the state, accelerate the war economy and the militarization of labor, and put an end to the conflicts within the bourgeoisie. Far from being an expression of the dispossessed petty bourgeoisie, fascism was the policy of choice of the big industrial bourgeoisie itself, in Germany as in Italy. Fascist regimes were therefore established as a direct response to the demands of national capital.

However, the economic crisis and the necessity of state capitalism are the main, but not the most important precondition for fascism. The most fundamental precondition for fascism is the defeat of the working class. It was only after the defeat of the world revolutionary wave of 1917-23 that fascism emerged in Germany and Italy, the largest defeated countries of the First World War. In these countries, fascism emerged immediately after the forces of the left, which appeared to be the friends of the workers, physically and politically crushed the revolutionary wave. It is important to underline here that in Germany it was the Social Democrats, not the Nazis, who murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht by bloodily suppressing the revolutionary mobilization of the working class, using the Freikorps, the embryo of the future Nazi militia. Similarly in Italy, Mussolini's movement could only develop after the defeat of the working class, with the help of the bosses who financed it and the state which encouraged it. It was the defeat of the international revolutionary wave that ultimately allowed fascism to seize power.

Bourgeois ideology makes the struggle between "democracy" and "fascism" or between "freedom" and "totalitarianism" the keystone of 20th century history. This is a complete deception, because it is the same bourgeoisie, the same capitalist state, which favors one or the other of these banners according to its needs and historical possibilities.

Humanity paid the price of this deception with the Second World War. This war was presented as a "just" war between "good" democrats and "bad" fascists, and the working class was mobilized in anti-fascist alliances to defend democracy[6] [103]. The reality, however, was quite the opposite: it was militarism and the drive to war, the real mode of existence of decadent capitalism, that created fascism. It was emphasized that fascism, the "absolute evil", together with Stalinism, was solely responsible for all the horrors of the last century all over the planet, while the disasters caused by the "democratic" side in Dresden and Hiroshima, and later on in the wars in Vietnam, the Gulf and Afghanistan, were ignored.

Today the fallacies of "peace" and economic prosperity are long gone, so the ruling class is trying to rally the workers with illusions that democracy is the last bastion against dictatorship. For the working class, the democratic bourgeoisie is not a "lesser evil". The future of humanity is in the hands of the working class and one of the biggest obstacles it faces is the ideological campaigns of the ruling class to defend the democratic state with anti-fascist, anti-totalitarian mobilizations. The greatest danger facing the working class and its capacity to destroy capitalism today is not the "fascism" of Erdoğan or anyone else, real or imagined, but the democratic traps of the ruling class.

 

Epilogue

The communist understanding of capitalist democracy, its elections and parliaments is based on the historical experience of the working class. As Lenin clearly summarized in his theses on "Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" to be presented to the First Congress of the Communist International in March 1919, "The renegades of socialism, in their old bourgeois nonsense about ‘democracy in general’, forget the experience of the Paris Commune and its concrete lessons. The Commune was never a parliamentary institution."[7] [104]

Capitalist democracy is a deception. The real power of the exploiting ruling class is not in the parliaments it gets the exploited majority to elect, but in its boardrooms and corridors, in its armed forces, in the economic stranglehold it maintains under its technocratic and democratic mask. In the face of capitalist crises, all capitalist governments have to increase the attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class. Whoever wins in the May elections, the basic orientation of the bourgeois state will be the same. Militarism and attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class will continue.

It is absurd to mobilize the working class to participate in deciding which capitalist politician will head the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The working class, atomized and isolated in the polling booths and drowning in a classless, formless sea of "citizens", cannot express itself in capitalist elections. It can only defend its interests in the class struggle, by uncompromisingly developing its class consciousness and identity, and by building networks of class solidarity. This struggle, which inevitably pits the working class against the state, is the only force that can destroy the capitalist state and its terrible economic system. Otherwise, the barbarism of capitalism will know no limits.

K

 

The ICC is holding an open meeting, without a specific theme, where participants can propose discussions about any aspect of revolutionary politics.

Time: 2pm-5pm Saturday 17 June

Place: The Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Road,London WC1X 8QY

 

A collection of reports to and resolutions from the 25th ICC Congress held in Spring 2023, providing assesments of past analyses and activities and orientations for the coming period.

 

Update of the Theses on decomposition (2023) [118]

International revolution or the destruction of humanity: the crucial responsibility of revolutionary organisations [119]

Report on imperialist tensions [120]

Resolution on the international situation, 25th ICC Congress [121]

Report on the economic crisis for the 25th ICC Congress [122]

Report on class struggle for the 25th ICC congress [123]

 

The horrific train accident in Balasore in eastern India shook the entire country. On 2 June 2023, three trains collided near the city of Balasore, in the state of Odisha. Two passenger trains, the Coromandel Express and the Bengaluru–Howrah super-fast Express, collided after an initial collision involving a goods train near the Bahanaga Bazar railway station. A statement from the Indian Government said that at least 288 people had been killed and over 1000 were injured in this three-train collision. Everyone knows that there is a lie in these statistics. The deaths of many people will be kept secret. The Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express was carrying around 2,500 passengers. There was a huge death toll in the unreserved compartment which was behind the engine. It was packed with passengers, mostly workers returning to their places of work in states in the South. This was the worst rail accident in India in nearly three decades.

The root causes behind the accident

According to the initial analysis of the Indian railway authority, the accident occurred because of a fault in the point-signalling system. All the blame is now being put on the employees. But are workers really responsible for this accident or not? We should note the general tendency of the bourgeoisie to blame individuals and give false solutions to problems. But no disaster occurred due to the fault of a few individuals: it is capitalism, with its logic of maximising profits, which is responsible. The global strategy of the bourgeois state is the same. At the end of February, there was a headlong collision between two trains in Greece. The government and railway companies of Greece tried to put the blame on an inexperienced station master who made a fatal error. The bourgeoisie always tries to hide the reality of the failures of the capitalist system. "Indescribable disasters and suffering are already mounting up under the pressure of capitalist decomposition, which has been visibly accelerating since the beginning of the 2020s[1]..

The deception of ‘digital India’

The accident occurred at a time when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expected to inaugurate a new high-speed train, the Vande Bharat Express, as part of his government’s massive investment in modernising the country’s sprawling railway network and other infrastructure. Through this incident the balloon of digital India was popped. The Indian Railways itself glorified the 'Automatic Signalling' system and 'Electrical Panel' system a few years back. Now what happened to that method? Last year, the Railway Ministry launched the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system or 'KAVACH' system in a grand ceremony. They also claimed that it was almost 'perfect' for avoiding accidents. This latest disaster tore away the veil of bourgeois falsehood. After the accident, the spokesperson of the Railway Ministry, Amitabh Sharma, admitted that the 'KAVACH' system was not activated in the trains involved in the accident or in any train on that route.. Why is the state failing to implement the benefits of modern technology? The answer is cost. The state does not want to spend money on safety measures. We know that modern capitalist technology is not synonymous with safety, and how the development of the sciences and of scientific research is not motivated by the satisfaction of human need but is subordinated to the capitalist imperative of realising the maximum profit.

The bourgeois experts classify the causes of rail accidents as: driver and signalman error; mechanical failure, vandalism, sabotage and terrorism; level crossing misuse and trespassing etc. For the latest accident, the Railway Board had recommended an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The stated aim of this inquiry is  to find, and to establish whether the malfunction in the electronic locking system behind the crash was technical or the result of human interference, implying a possible terrorist connection. . . The sabotage theory and CBI investigation will thus serve to take the spotlight away from the Ministry of Railways in an election year. One of the key components of the government's communication strategy for the 2024 elections is the shining fleet of the Vande Bharat Express, conveying a wider promise of fast development under the Modi government.

The miserable condition of Indian rail

At present, India is an exemplary model for the whole world in terms of economic development.

Let's look at the statistics, what measures has the development 'model' taken to protect Indian Railways passengers? According to the data of the National Crime Records Bureau, nearly 260,00 people have died in railway accidents in India in the last ten years! It must be remembered that Indian Railways is the lifeline of the country. The railway acts as one of the catalysts for improving the infrastructure and transportation system of India's economy. Why is the passenger safety so poor in a railway network that is so crucial to the national economy? In fact, economic earnings from railways depend on milking its passengers. Day by day the price of railway tickets has increased, while the quality of service has decreased. Ticket cancellation money is rarely refunded.  Not a single train will be available where passengers do not complain about the state of the toilets. Very little money is spent on upgrading tracks, reducing congestion, or adding new trains. The same train changes its name on multiple routes. The railway department has tried to continue working with casual untrained workers at a lower cost.  Inadequate numbers of workers have too big a workload. They don't get enough rest.  The railways, which once had 22.5 lakh employees, has now been reduced to 12 lakh[2]. Many schools, hospitals, printing presses and offices, and factories linked to the railways have been completely closed or 'outsourced'; recruitment to  its administration has almost stopped.  The general stores depots in each of the 17 zones of the railways, which employed 3,000 to 4,000 employees, have been closed. No one thought how to work with such a small staff. Inhuman pressure has increased for the fewer workers employed.

Leftists appeal to the capitalist state

Most leftists are involved in providing humanitarian logistic support for injured people. The Stalinist Communist Party of India (“Marxist”) called upon all the relevant authorities to prevent the rise of the death toll by ensuring speedy and urgent medical attention to the injured. Leftists generally see particular governments or political factions as the real cause of the problem,- because the leftists are themselves an integral part of the capitalist state.

Workers realise from their daily experience that the bourgeois state does not value workers’ lives. That is why the leftists and unions try everything to divert the consciousness of workers into the parliamentary electoral process. The majority of the victims in the triple-train accident were migrant workers. Their identities were not known after their deaths, because they were passengers in the unreserved compartment.  Today, when the entirety of civil society is in turmoil, the responsibility for changing the system falls on the shoulders of the workers.  The naked cynicism of the capitalist state, the real architect of the accident, must be exposed to all.

The Indian working class is part of an international class 

The proletarian class is bearing the full impact of the attacks on its working and living conditions as a direct result of the pressure of the economic crisis, accentuated by all the manifestations of decomposition. The disaster has shown that there are no solutions within capitalism. There is a long history of struggle by railway workers in India. Other parts of the working class can learn from their experiences. They can also learn from the experiences of the working class elsewhere in the world.  In Greece there were demonstrations on the streets, in Athens, in Thessalonica, held by tens of thousands of people, accompanied by spontaneous strikes by railway workers and call-outs to other sectors from health to education to join the struggle, something that has not been seen for over ten years. The response of workers was seen in some of the slogans heard in protests: “This was not human error, it was not an accident, it was a crime!” “Down with this government of murderers!” “Mitsotakis, minister of crime!”. The struggles of workers in India are part of an international struggle, seen not just in Greece, but in the continuing struggles in Britain, France and beyond – with the same enemies, the same system to confront and overthrow.

 

CI 14/6/23

The latest post on Mr JLR's blog Le Prolétariat universel is entitled "Game over".

At the top is a photomontage on which is written "Le palmarès des menteurs" ("The liars' prize list"). Around it are photos of the heads of Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon, Martinez... and a militant of the ICC! To make sure that the target is clear, the acronym "ICC" is written across the whole picture in capital letters. The image introduces a long text in which JLR spends his time calling the ICC liars. Liars worse than Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon, Martinez... if the photomontage is to be believed.

 

When unbridled irresponsibility leads to slander...

"Slander boldly, something always sticks" (Francis Bacon, after Plutarch).

JLR disagrees with the ICC's analysis of the social movement against pension reform. For the ICC, this movement is part of the international dynamic that began in Britain in June 2022, with a series of strikes and the "summer of anger": faced with the worsening of the global economic crisis, the working class in the central countries is beginning to raise its head and take up the struggle once again. In JLR's view, the series of demonstrations in France was nothing more than a trade union charade that led lifeless workers to yet another defeat. So be it. The ICC has never had any problem with this type of disagreement, and it could even be an opportunity for debate and the confrontation of positions. With arguments to back it up...

But no, JLR is not interested in debate and clarification; he prefers to make false accusations. In support of his argument, JLR issued what is supposed to be proof of the lies of the ICC: "In order to lie to itself about the so-called 'international awakening of the proletariat', it can even use a little lie, so ridiculous is it: 'It's no coincidence that the most popular slogan on placards was: “You give us 64, we'll give you May 68”'. Absolutely not, they'd copied a photo I'd taken of three young schoolgirls with their little placard, sitting on a pavement, to whom nobody was paying any attention".

Is that all?... Yes, that's all. To judge the ICC’s "little lie", all you have to do is type into any Internet search engine "Tu nous mets 64, on te re-Mai 68": hundreds of photos of demonstrators with this slogan on their placards will appear.

There is nothing "ridiculous" about JLR's unfounded accusations. With his photomontage, JLR associates an ICC militant with the crooks of the bourgeoisie. He equates communist militants with bourgeois leaders. Such comments, which are tantamount to slander, can only tend to put off those who are beginning to take an interest in revolutionary positions, communist organisations, and their debates.

Today, revolutionary forces are still limited. The few minorities looking for class positions are precious. They represent the future. Winning them over to the revolutionary camp, enabling them to organise themselves, to appropriate the principles and experience of the Communist Left is vital for the future of revolutionary organisations, for the future of the struggles of the proletariat, for the possibility of revolution. Nothing less.

And here we have JLR smearing the ICC without restraint, and, through it, the tradition of the whole Communist Left. In the end, there is no other concern here than his own little self, his own pleasure, within the political imagination he has created for himself.

It has to be said that JLR's hostility towards the ICC fluctuates widely. Sometimes he even writes words of praise for our organisation. Then, on another day, he covers it with muck and insults. An article on his blog about one of our public meetings in which he took part reads: "The best tribute to this meeting came from people I had invited directly: 'a meeting where we could express ourselves freely, unlike other political groups, and discuss issues that are excluded from the media'. There was also a touching comment from an old ICC supporter: ‘a place where you could escape the feeling of loneliness’". A few days later, he described the ICC as a "neo-Stalinist sect" or "a delusional sect alien to the proletariat".

There is absolutely no problem with JLR welcoming the positions and approaches of the ICC that he considers to be correct, while criticising those with which he disagrees. Quite the contrary! But that's not what this is about. Clearly, JLR's overall judgement of our organisation depends very much on his mood at the time. This is totally irresponsible behaviour.[1]

 

... and snitching

But irresponsibility can lead to the worst. JLR's blog is full of information about militants, some of whom he describes as "narcissistic perverts" or "crazy"... Everything from descriptions of couples and their relationships to details of their children... the lives of militants are laid bare without restraint.

And yet, on this same blog, you can read these comments: "Are the RG really going to take an interest in the maximalist movement again? [2] Not just through their masked incursions on the web?” But, as with everything else, this kind of thinking passes before it resumes again, and JLR is ranting the next day about the lives of others.

His irresponsibility and inconsistency led him to publish a photo of an ICC militant. Much to the delight of the RG and their "masked incursions into the web". By displaying the face of an ICC militant in this way, JLR is playing into the hands of the ICC's declared enemies and the bourgeoisie.

In fact, this kind of denunciation has even been permitted and encouraged by all those who use snitching as a weapon against the ICC in order to destroy it, in particular the ‘Internal Fraction of the ICC’ (now called the International Group of the Communist Left), for which it is even their speciality, their trademark[3]

The history of the workers’ movement shows that this type of snitching has always prepared and accompanied the repression of revolutionary organisations and their militants. The disclosure of sensitive information about them was a direct part of the repression aimed at destroying them, and formed the first stage. In January 1919, it was social democracy itself that took responsibility for the lies, slander and hate speech that led to the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

Today, to carry out this work of undermining, to maintain suspicion of revolutionary organisations and even to breathe out the foul smell of pogroms, the bourgeoisie does not need to get involved directly, it can count on this parasitic mire, ready for anything, and free of charge. Without sharing this detestable goal, JLR finds himself on his blog, feeding this swamp by dint of irresponsibility and not thinking further than his navel.

 

The responsibility of the entire Communist Left to combat shameful behaviour

The question now facing revolutionary organisations and all those who share their positions and their struggle is: how can we fight against this disgraceful and destructive behaviour?

JLR's unfettered irresponsibility is encouraged by the entire parasitic milieu that wallows in slander and snitching. This parasitic environment can spread all the more easily because it encounters no obstacles, no barriers.

In the image of this rotting world, individuals and groups are proliferating who are ready for anything, including the lowest and most sordid attacks. The use of slander and, for some, the practice of snitching, are the disgusting embodiment of the hatred for the political organisation of the proletariat and the desire to destroy it, typical of parasitism. But the laissez-faire attitude of a large part of the groups of the Communist Left, the absence of any reaction year after year, slander after slander, snitch after snitch, facilitates this dirty work. By remaining silent, a large part of the revolutionary organisations is in reality offering a blank cheque, almost an encouragement to all this destructive behaviour.

To say nothing is not only to fail in the most elementary solidarity which should prevail between the historic groups of the Communist Left, it is also to allow our tradition and our principles to be dragged through the mud, it is to mortgage the future. Without a firm reaction in the face of calumny and snitching, without a visible and uncompromising defence of the principles of the Communist Left, without solidarity in action between revolutionary organisations[4], the whole putrid swamp of parasitism can only continue to develop, to disgust searching minorities and to destroy.

We also call on all our readers to respond, to take a stand and to fight against these actions, to work for proletarian solidarity and the defence of the principles of the revolutionary camp and of what constitutes its most precious weapon: the political organisation of the proletariat.

ICC, 19 June 2023

 

On Friday 5 May, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that "Covid-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern" and pronounced "the return to normality".

With "at least 20 million deaths" according to the Director General of the WHO[1], the Covid-19 pandemic starkly revealed the decrepitude of global capitalism, as well as the carelessness and cynicism with which states and governments "managed" the situation. Faced with the dilapidation of healthcare systems around the world, the result of decades of economic crisis and massive attacks, the ruling class in every country had only lies, theft and the arbitrary imposition of "protective measures" such as drastic confinements straight out of the Middle Ages. And while the major powers were boasting in the Spring of 2021 that they had produced vaccines in record time, it remains true that no coherent, widespread vaccination policy has been put in place on a global scale.

"What's the point?" will be the response from government officials and international organisations. Because Covid-19 can now be considered "in the same way as we consider seasonal flu: a threat to health, a virus that will continue to kill, but one that does not disrupt our society or our hospital systems", as Michael Ryan, the WHO's head of emergency programmes, said several weeks ago. This statement alone illustrates the state of mind of the global bourgeoisie when faced with the macabre effects of capitalism. “Seasonal" Covid may well cause hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world every year, but as long as it "does not disrupt" the functioning of capitalist society, let's live with it! This is what all states and governments are now openly advocating: total indifference to the health of human populations, prioritising only the sole interests of the bourgeoisie. This class can only use the most perfidious and underhand methods to try to hide from the world that its own system is constantly plunging humanity into the abyss.

Quite different was the method employed by the soviets during the Russian Revolution, when the working class was forced to face the ravages of Spanish flu, typhus and cholera. We began to address this question in the International Review when we published an article on the evolution of the health situation in Soviet Russia in July 1919, a year after the creation of the Commissariat of Public Hygiene[2].

We extend our discussion here with a review of the book Health and Revolution written by a group of authors. While, as we shall see, the authors cannot help but end their studies with a thinly veiled plea for state capitalism, this little book has the merit of highlighting the central role played by the organised working class in facing up to the health challenges in the midst of the revolutionary process and in the face of the counter-revolutionary assaults led by the White armies and the great European capitalist powers, "And yet, in some of the most difficult material conditions imaginable, the method then used by the proletariat, our method, in every way opposed to that of the bourgeoisie today faced with the coronavirus pandemic, achieved results which, at the time, constituted a considerable step forward"[3].

So what was this method? In what way was it a considerable step forward and an invaluable experience for the future?

Faced with health emergencies and epidemics, the reaction of the working class organised in soviets

The day after the seizure of power, Russia found itself in a disastrous situation. Three years of war had wreaked havoc on society and exacerbated the scourges that were already well known: poverty, famine, shortages and the deterioration of health and transport infrastructures. But there were also numerous epidemics such as typhus, cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, and tuberculosis.

The revolution in Russia was already facing enormous challenges, especially as its rapid isolation had prevented it from gaining the support of the world proletariat. But as the book makes clear, the working class in Russia drew its strength from its collective and centralised organisation, since the soviets were at the heart of the takeover of health policy. As soon as the Winter Palace was taken, the revolutionary committee set up medical detachments in Petrograd and Moscow to help the wounded. These "first aiders of the insurrection" were initially made up of ambulance drivers, nurses and military nurses who had rallied to the Bolsheviks, as well as women workers who supported the doctors. The soviets then extended the detachments' prerogatives to cover all civilian health care. A major step forward was taken when the Soviet government set up a People's Commissariat for Health. From then on, the policy for dealing with both the victims of the war still in progress and epidemics was the task of the workers themselves.

Already we see that this universalised policy is already in stark contrast to the one implemented by the various states during the Covid-19 pandemic, which consisted of imposing on the population measures aimed above all at penalising capitalist production as little as possible. As the authors of the book point out, "there was never any question of taking measures that were nevertheless common sense, such as the massive production of medical equipment by governments or the lifting of patents on vaccines so that everyone could have access to them. Not only would this have cut into their profits, it would also have undermined the sacrosanct right of the bourgeoisie to use its capital as it pleases. This is yet another demonstration of the fact that the private property of capitalists always takes precedence over the interests of the community, and in this case, of humanity as a whole".

To combat epidemics, mobilisation and awareness-raising for all

While governments have not hesitated to make abundant use of lies "to conceal the shortages of masks, care workers, resuscitation beds and vaccines, and their responsibility in this situation", at no time has there been any question of mobilising the population in the fight against the pandemic, with governments preferring to impose health measures (confinement, wearing masks, etc.) by coercion.

The policy pursued by the "Soviet Republic" on the other hand was driven by an entirely different approach. In all the health battles it had to wage, the first step was to tell the population the truth: to explain as clearly as possible the state of the situation, the protective measures to be adopted, and the recommended organisational methods for dealing with the situation. But it was also a matter of calling for the mobilisation of the working masses. This was the case during the cholera epidemic that struck southern Russia, Moscow and Petrograd in the summer of 1918, the smallpox epidemic in 1919 and the Spanish flu that killed nearly three million people in Russia. This method, which relied on the support and participation of large sections of the population and the centralisation of policy by the Soviet government (through the Health Commissariat), was fully implemented during the typhoid epidemic between 1918 and 1919. As the authors point out, the experience of fighting the epidemic provided "the basis for a new health system based on action by the workers themselves, centralisation, free use and prevention".

After that, with the end of the civil war, significant progress was made in training medical staff, combating tuberculosis, treating addictions, combating prostitution, and improving maternity care. In short, the working class took charge of society, lifting it out of the "backward" conditions in which it had been vegetating.

Faced with the scourge of pandemics, there's nothing to expect from the state!

In the last part of this book, the authors show the extent to which health policy suffered a real regression under Stalinism. The degeneration of the revolution in Russia, expressed above all by the fusion of the party with the state and the total devitalisation of the soviets, gave rise to a new ruling class exploiting the working class under the form of a veritable state capitalism. As a result, the aim of health policy was no longer to contribute to the improvement and emancipation of the human condition, but to enable the state to exploit the workforce more and more. The introduction of "occupational medicine" to study the causes of certain illnesses and workers' ill-health, or to compile a list of pathologies, had no other objective than to enable greater productivity, and therefore greater exploitation of the working class. Similarly, the creation of crèches and childcare facilities for older children in the factories only served to further enchain the workers to their workplace and to the capitalist state.

However, infatuated with leftist catechisms, our group of authors cannot help but find in Stalinist barbarism residues of the revolutionary period: "The Soviet health system, which would last for several decades, was the envy of many [...]. In countries such as the People's Democracies in Eastern Europe and Cuba, which had not experienced a workers' revolution but were trying to overcome their backwardness in the medical and social fields, the Soviet health system was taken as a model. With its advantages, as we have seen, as well as its shortcomings: those of a society dominated and crushed by bureaucracy. But in spite of everything, and even if it never became a socialist health system, this health system long retained some of its popular, innovative and progressive features of a victorious workers' revolution".

The alleged medical prowess of the "Soviet economies" is more of a farce than a historical reality. In the USSR, as in all the satellite countries, people lacked everything. Both food and medicine. The authors here take up an old lie propagated by the scoundrels of the left and extreme left of capital, which consists of presenting a state such as Cuba as the pinnacle of good practice in medicine. The pandemic was a reminder of the real state of health in this other remnant of Stalinism. Even there, health workers had to cope with an influx of patients without sufficient medicine, oxygen, antigens, sanitary gel or syringes, etc.

Behind this nostalgic nod to the supposed survival of the advances of the October Revolution, via Stalinism, lies the credo of considering the USSR as a "degenerate workers' state", perverted by the Stalinist bureaucracy. Today, this error of Trotsky’s, taken up by organisations on the extreme left of capital such as Lutte Ouvrière in France, is used to maintain the illusion that a "well-managed" state could be a tool in the service of the general interest. But while the state may appear to be above social classes, it is always the expression of the domination of a given class in society. In capitalism, the state exists to facilitate the domination of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, since capitalism entered its period of decadence, the general trend towards state capitalism has been one of the dominant features of society. The pandemic has fully confirmed that state capitalism, defended tooth and nail by all the parties of the left and extreme left, is in no way a solution to the contradictions of capitalism. On the contrary, it is a clear expression of them, even if it can delay their effects at the cost of amplifying them in the long term! [4]

If it ever succeeds in overthrowing capitalism, the proletariat will have to lay the foundations of a communist society in a world ravaged by wars, climate and environmental disruption, and huge health problems. This gigantic task will not be carried out with the help of the state, but against it, with a view to its demise and disappearance.

Above all, this task will be the work of the working class itself, organised and aware of its goals. To achieve this, building on the experiences of the past, such as the October 1917 revolution, and knowing how to draw the main lessons from them remains an essential task if we are to build the society of the future!

 

Vincent, 7 May 2023

 

[1]At present the official death toll is 7 million

[2] Health Conservation in Soviet Russia [127], International Review 166

 

On 23 March, after nine days of protests against pension reform in France, when the “black bloc” protesters reached Place de l'Opéra, in the heart of a wealthy district of the capital, clashes broke out between them and the police. Throughout the evening, the 24-hour television channels continually relayed scenes of smashed windows, vandalised shops and burning rubbish bins.

The next day, the same media broadcast the comments and pictures of frightened local residents and shopkeepers: "Everything was set on fire, my goods are destroyed... It's the first time I've experienced anything like this. Demonstrations don't usually happen here, so we didn't expect it", said the frightened manager of a newsagent’s shop. By deciding to end the demonstration in such a confined space in the heart of Paris, in the midst of building work, the Prefecture de Police and the government were setting the stage for violence to erupt. And they did so with the total approval of the unions, who at no point opposed this arrangement!

Macron and his clique revive the "party of fear" image

A week earlier, on March 16, the pension reform had been forcefully adopted using a constitutional device, Article 49.3. In the words of the opposition parties and the unions this was an "abuse of power" and "denial of democracy" and it did nothing to dampen anger and protest. On the contrary, demonstrations were taking place just about everywhere that evening. Orders were issued in Paris to brutally disperse the 5,000 people gathered on the Place de la Concorde who had posed no possible threat to "public order".

Every evening during the days that followed, demonstrations broke out in many towns, especially in the streets of Paris, without the endorsement of the unions. The gatherings had been calm until the situation degenerated into clashes between some of the demonstrators and the police. Videos and photos of burnt-out rubbish bins and public buildings were broadcast around the world, portraying the struggle being waged by the working class in France as nothing more than riots giving rise to chaos and anarchy. For his part, Macron and his ministers, far from wanting to calm things down, constantly added fuel to the fire by condemning demonstrators as "illegitimate mobs, spreading chaos and divisiveness”.

In spite of the risk of things getting out of control, this situation was broadly encouraged and exploited by the government and the forces of law and order so as to legitimise State terror, in the image of the famous Brigades de répression de l'action violente motorisée (BRAV-M), assaulting anyone who got in their way, even riding motorbikes over demonstrators who had been pushed to the ground. As usual, all the guardians of capitalist order (the media, commentators and intellectuals) tried to make people believe that it was a few bad cops out of control and that there were some "cock-ups". But the simultaneous repression throughout France was no accident. It was a totally deliberate policy on the part of the government and all the flag-bearers of the police state. The aim was simple and even classic:

 - to draw the angriest young people into a sterile confrontation with the police;
- to frighten the majority of demonstrators and discourage them from taking to the streets;
- to prevent any possibility for discussion, by systematically disrupting the end of demonstrations, a time that is usually conducive to gatherings and debate;
- to make the movement unpopular by making people believe that any social struggle will automatically degenerate into blind violence and chaos, whereas the authorities would be the guarantors of order and peace.

So the state and its government played the "escalation of violence" card to the hilt. Confirmation of this strategy came straight from the mouth of a former grand servant of the bourgeois order, Jean-Louis Debré: "Why, for example, did they agree to let a demonstration end at Opéra, very close to the ministries and the Élysée Palace, knowing that the district is full of small streets? Why didn't they clean up and take away all the rubbish that day? It was as if they wanted things to get a bit out of hand. [...] To what extent is this government trying to have a repeat 1968, to make itself the embodiment public order in the face of disorder?”

These falsely naïve questions from someone who was Minister of the Interior at the time of the strike movement against pension reform in 1995 lift the rather thin veil covering the provocation fomented by the authorities. By organising disorder, Macron and his henchmen were banking on a shift in public opinion towards supporting social order and control.

The parallel drawn by Jean-Louis Debré with the May 68 movement also shows that this government has invented nothing new. Police provocations are normal and the "party of order" has a long history! During the May 68 movement, Gaullist militias or plainclothes police deliberately infiltrated demonstrations to "fan the flames" and scare the population. Agents provocateurs incited students to commit violent acts. The shocking images of cars set on fire, shop windows smashed and paving stones thrown at the CRS helped to stir up fear among the population and turn the tide of public opinion. The barricades and the violence were to become one of the elements in the recovery of the situation by the various forces of the bourgeoisie, the government and the unions, undermining the great sympathy that the students had initially won from the population as a whole and from the working class in particular.

In 2006, during the movement against the CPE, the French bourgeoisie used the same perfidious methods to sabotage the struggle. On several occasions, the state deliberately allowed gangs of "thugs" from the suburbs to come and "attack cops and smash windows". During the demonstration on 23 March 2006, it was even with the blessing of the police that the "thugs" attacked the demonstrators themselves, robbing and beating them senseless. But the students did manage to counter this trap by appointing delegations in several places to go and talk to young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, in particular to explain to them that the students' struggle was also on behalf of these young people plunged into the despair of widespread unemployment and exclusion.[1]

Already, throughout the nineteenth century, the working class had experienced these vile and underhand methods of torpedoing and subduing the struggles. As Marx demonstrated in The 18 Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the terrible repression of the Parisian proletariat by Cavaignac's troops during the days of June 1848 had also contributed to frightening the bourgeois, the priest and the grocer, all of whom were ardently hoping for a return to order by any means necessary!

In the industrial areas of the United States at the end of the 19th century, employers set up private companies specialising in supplying strikebreakers, spies, provocateurs and even killers. The massacres that the latter perpetrated against the working class also made it possible to turn "opinion" in favour of a return to order. All this with the backing of the federal state.[2]

The spectre of the "ultra-left" prepares the repression of revolutionaries

The environmentalist protest against the mega-basin (giant reservoirs) project in Sainte-Soline on Saturday 25 March was another opportunity to use the strategy of escalating violence. On that day, several thousand people gathered in the open countryside, in the middle of large open fields, to protest against the installation of mega-basins intended to serve as water reserves for intensive agriculture. The situation quickly degenerated into a pitched battle between cops and demonstrators, with daylong filming by the 24-hour news channels. Two people were badly injured. But things could have turned out quite differently. What was the point of the gendarmes and police coming to confront thousands of people gathered in a field strewn with large swimming pools? No point at all! Except to light a new fuse so that the flame of violence could spread. Once again, the bourgeois grandee, Jean-Louis Debré, thought differently: "Why weren't the people searched beforehand? Was there a desire to allow a certain amount of disorder to take place, so as to better maintain order afterwards?”

That same evening, Darmanin was able to denounce the "extreme violence" and "terrorism" of the "ultra-left" for "attacking the cops". Just as he had done a few days earlier on the evening of the 23 March demonstration. Once again, there's nothing accidental about this campaign. The “ultra-left” is a concept foreign to the proletarian and revolutionary camp.[3] On the contrary, it's a catch-all term, coined by the bourgeoisie, allowing it to lump together the genuine revolutionary organisations of the Communist Left with modernist intellectuals, radical anarchists and, above all, "anti-State" groupings who advocate indiscriminate violence. The latter are infiltrated and manipulated by the cops. As a result, the “black blocs” and "zadistes”[4] are the useful idiots of the police state, enabling it to justify the strengthening of its legal and repressive armoury. This has happened quite recently with the approval of a decree authorising the use of camera-equipped drones during demonstrations.

But beyond that, the waving of the ultra-left rag serves above all to prepare the ground for the criminalisation of revolutionary organisations in the future. The bourgeoisie is more or less using the same methods used in the 1970s in the gigantic anti-terrorist campaigns following the Schleyer affair in Germany and the Aldo Moro affair in Italy, which served as a pretext for the state to strengthen its apparatus of control and repression against the working class. It was subsequently shown that the Baader gang and the Red Brigades had been infiltrated by the East German secret service, the Stasi, and the Italian state secret service respectively. In reality, these terrorist groups were nothing more than instruments of rivalry between bourgeois cliques.

Back in the 19th century, the bourgeoisie used the terrorist actions of the anarchists to reinforce its state terror against the working class. Take, for example, the "Lois Scélérate " passed by the French bourgeoisie following the terrorist attack by the anarchist Auguste Vaillant, who threw a bomb into the Chamber of Deputies on 9 December 1893, injuring around forty people. This attack had been manipulated by the state itself. Vaillant had been contacted by an agent of the Ministry of the Interior who, posing as an anarchist, had lent him money and explained how to make a home-made bomb (with a pot and nails) that would be both loud and not too deadly.[5] It was also by the same means that the Prussian government succeeded in passing the anti-socialist laws in 1878, that drove Social Democracy in Germany underground.

In 1925, Victor Serge published What Every Revolutionary Should Know About Repression. This booklet, based on the archives of the Tsarist police (the Okhrana) which had fallen into the hands of the working class in the aftermath of the October Revolution, made it possible to inform the entire working class of the police methods and procedures that were used against revolutionaries for years. Serge also highlighted the close cooperation of all the police forces in Europe in spying on, provoking, slandering and repressing the revolutionary movement of the time. A century on, it would be naïve to think that these methods have been tucked away somewhere and forgotten about. On the contrary, the terror of the bourgeois state is going to be reproduced and perfected unceasingly and extended to all existing relationships within society.

The proletariat must learn from all its experiences of repression. It will have to remember that behind the democratic mask that the bourgeois state assumes on a daily basis hides the true face of a bloodthirsty executioner that is rudely awakened every time its order is threatened by all those exploited by it.

Vincent, 16 June 202

 

Once again, there was a shipwreck in the Mediterranean off the Italian island of Lampedusa on 22 June, with hundreds of people missing. This tragedy occurred just eight days after a boat sank off the coast of Greece. But what is presented as a simple news item is in reality an expression of the chaos caused by crisis-ridden capitalism.

The death of dozens of people in shipwrecks is becoming a recurring event. Most of these makeshift journeys start in North Africa, but many migrants today come from sub-Saharan Africa. The main countries of origin of the victims of this shipwreck were the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Cameroon. The main reason for their departure is the worsening living conditions in their region of origin and the hope of a better future. Indeed, the bloody conflicts that are causing chaos in these countries are making the simple fact of living in these regions an ordeal. The same situation exists as a result of the civil wars in Sudan, Libya and Mali.

The multitude of armed conflicts that have been going on for decades, the instability of many states and governments, the growing influence of terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State, of various warlords, all have dramatic consequences for the population, forcing them to flee. And with climate change causing widespread environmental damage, there are even more factors that will push the inhabitants of these countries to flee this chaos, in particular the lack of water and the impact of droughts on agriculture.

The conflicts that have taken place in these countries are largely the result of the imperialist ambitions of the major powers, each seeking to defend its own sordid interests, while fueling widespread chaos and an increasingly uncontrollable situation on the continent.

The unbridled exploitation of natural resources by European, American, Russian and Chinese companies, the commercial and strategic ambitions of these same powers ready to do anything to maintain their influence and lay their hands on ports, construction sites and markets... all this is having disastrous consequences for the population. Consequences that the local bourgeoisie, corrupt to the core, couldn't care less about as long as they can continue to gorge themselves by staying in power at any cost.

The great powers are therefore experiencing, through uncontrollable waves of migration, the backlash of their own policies and interventions. As capitalism's room for manoeuvre in its quest for profit becomes ever smaller, the bourgeoisies of every country cannot be encumbered by "good feelings" and so have no choice but to get rid of what they perceive as a "problem" in an inhumane manner. The central countries have thus transformed themselves into veritable administrative and military fortresses: walls, barbed wire, concentration camps, police violence... This is illustrated by the recent operation in Mayotte in France, where for years the local authorities have encouraged hatred against Comorian migrants. But the main central countries cannot do all the dirty work themselves, so they also subcontract the task to other countries, such as Turkey.

Libya has become a tragic illustration of this reality. Following the intervention of the coalition of France, Great Britain and the United States against Gaddafi's regime, Libya has become a lawless zone, where the underworld, petty warlords and unspeakable barbarity reign. As a result, the country has become a gateway for many would-be immigrants to Europe. It is an exemplary and unscrupulous border guard for the European Union. The current recent civil wars in Libya have demonstrated the brutality of its rulers, which includes the widespread use of human trafficking. The testimony of one of the members of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Libya, despite the fact that this initiative emanates from a den of thieves, is edifying in this respect: "The support provided by the EU to the Libyan coastguard in terms of push-backs and interceptions leads to violations of certain human rights. We cannot push people back to areas that are not safe, and clearly Libyan waters are not safe for migrants to embark"[1]. This situation has been going on for several years and shows the emptiness of the EU’s so-called progressive and humanist rhetoric.

Europe is far from being the only continent to show hypocrisy about its supposed humanism. The United States, defender of "democracy" and "civil liberties", is another striking example. Despite the hypocritical media campaign surrounding Donald Trump's "wall", there was in fact already a fence in certain parts of the Mexican border built by George Bush and Bill Clinton to regulate the number of illegal migrants. Before 2019, this barrier covered a large part of California and Arizona.

But we shouldn't fall into the trap of defending migrants' "rights". Refugee aid associations and the left wing of capital are perpetuating the illusion that the state can be reformed to take better account of their situation. It is for this reason that the media sometimes highlight organisations such as Amnesty International: these political groups exploit the legitimate indignation of a section of the population to draw them into sterile, piecemeal struggles. The five-year term of the "socialist" François Hollande demonstrated the real face of the “solidarity” that the state shows towards Roma or Africans.

Contrary to what these so-called humanists claim, it is futile to demand that the bourgeois state respect refugees. This is a mystification for the proletariat. For all states, the labour power of the working class is nothing but a commodity. And the well-being of the world's population is, in their minds, nothing but a lie, a mere veneer to ensure exploitation. The refugees are victims of the final phase of capitalism and the only way to stop this disaster is for proletarians to fight alongside their class brothers and sisters, whatever their origins.

Edgar, 2 July 2023

In July of this year, we discovered that the Internationalist Perspectives group and the Forum for the Communist Left, “Controverses”[1] had instigated a "Conference" that had taken place at the end of May, bringing together some twenty participants, both individuals and representatives of political groups who, according to the organisers, belong to the "Internationalist Left" or to "Left Communism". The meeting was held almost secretly, on the basis of exclusive invitations with the participants selected by the organisers, bizarrely, for "strictly financial reasons". Here is what looks like a meeting of conspirators, but a conspiracy against whom and to what end?

Since its foundation and in line with the policy of the Communist Left, the ICC has always been a staunch advocate of discussion between revolutionary groups with a view to confronting and clarifying positions or adopting common positions faced with the development of the class struggle: “With its still modest means, the International Communist Current has committed itself to the long and difficult task of regrouping revolutionaries internationally around a clear and coherent programme. Turning its back on the monolithism of the sects, it calls upon the communists of all countries to become aware of the immense responsibilities which they have, to abandon the false quarrels which separate them, to surmount the deceptive divisions which the old world has imposed on them. (…)  The most conscious fraction of the class, must show it the way forward by taking as their slogan: ‘Revolutionaries of all countries, unite!’[2]”.

Particularly following a proposal by the Internationalism group (in the United States) in 1972 to set up an international correspondence, the very constitution of the ICC was the product of a long process of open political confrontation between various groups on questions central to the development of proletarian struggle. Subsequently, the leading role played by the ICC in the organisation and holding of conferences of groups of the Communist Left convened by the Battaglia Comunista group in the years 1978-1980, and more recently in the publication of a "Joint Declaration by Groups of the International Communist Left on the War in Ukraine" in 2022, bear witness to the importance the ICC attaches to discussion between revolutionaries.

However, for the ICC, it has always been fundamental that these discussions are held in public, on a clear political basis of class positions shared between the invited organisations, and with well-established stated objectives that will help to contribute to the development of class consciousness: "The life of revolutionary groups, their discussions and disagreements are part of the process whereby consciousness develops in the working class; this is why we are radically opposed to any policy of ‘hidden discussions’ or ‘secret agreements’." [3]

Not only was this Brussels meeting organised "in secret", it also lacked any militant ambition whatsoever. If there was a "convergence of objectives" (as the organisers put it) between the participants, it was certainly not that of taking a stand as revolutionary militants on the crucial challenges now facing the working class: there was no joint declaration by these so-called "internationalists" taking a stand on a major historical event such as the war in Ukraine, the destruction and crisis of the climate or growing economic destabilisation. The bourgeoisie was clearer and more explicit at the Davos summit in early 2023 than these people! Nor is any position taken on the recent wave of struggles and its perspectives. How can elements who proclaim themselves to be "communists" remain silent on the issues of the day? For the ICC, militant concerns are an inescapable component for a conference of communists, insofar as it always aims to achieve a greater understanding of the world situation, of the crisis into which world capitalism has sunk, and the working class political perspective, as well as the tasks that this entails for revolutionary groups.

And what about the dynamics of the discussions? We are told that the participants met "to talk and listen to each other" and that they "were exposed to different ideas". However, no joint text was published before the conference to announce and prepare its objectives, or afterwards to present the fruits of its labours. Yet, for revolutionaries, the deepening of positions is a living process which implies a frank discussion of positions and the political confrontation of disagreements, insofar as this dynamic is part of the process of pushing forward the consciousness developing within the working class. The mere juxtaposition of showy analyses at the Brussels meeting, as well as the conscious avoidance of any confrontation of positions, reveal that it was no more than a trading of positions, a talking shop, each with their own hobby horse, one of those academic symposia of learned boffins, waxing in "theory". In short, it was the opposite of the tradition of political confrontation advocated by the Communist Left with the aim of clarifying political positions and the questions at stake in the class struggle.

In reality, a fruitful political confrontation is only possible if the political bases of the meeting are coherent and clear. For the ICC, while there is indeed "the fundamental necessity of working towards regroupment, it also warns against rushing into anything. We must resist any regroupment on the basis of sentiment and insist on the need to base regroupment on the indispensable coherence of programmatic positions as a first condition for regroupment"[4]. That "Resistance, a constant critical questioning of the Capitalist Mode of Production" was the basic theme of the meeting could only give rise to considerable confusion and disagreement over the framework for understanding the current situation of capitalism (whether it is in decline and, if so, since when?) This is a key to defending the orientations for the class struggle, as well as for understanding the general situation and the capabilities of the working class, including its means of organisation. With regard to this last question - dealing with the importance of revolutionaries, their role and their organisation - this meeting ignored it completely.

Moreover, on closer examination, there is clear common ground between most of the participants, which no doubt they would prefer to keep under wraps: it is the conviction that marxism and the acquisitions of the Communist Left over the last hundred years are obsolete and must be "supplemented" or even "surpassed" by recourse to various anarcho-councilist, modernist or radical ecologist theories. That's why they call themselves "pro-revolutionaries", seeing themselves as a kind of "a friendly association for the spreading the idea of revolution" and no longer as militants and organisations produced by the historic struggle of the working class. As a result, their unstated but real aim is to throw away the lessons of the last 55 years of workers' struggles and the results of a hundred years of fighting by the internationalist Communist Left, and to call into question its organisational achievements: the militant conception of the communist political organisation as the product of the historical struggle of the proletariat and as the political vanguard in the struggle, in favour of a vision of a circle of intellectuals reflecting on the future of humanity and dreaming of having a revolutionary impact on it.

In short, this meeting was indeed a "conspiracy" aimed at discrediting and devaluing the positions and struggles of the internationalist Communist Left, by replacing its "obsolete" political and organisational acquisitions with theoretical smoke and mirrors and organisational self-interest of a so-called "pro-revolutionary" pole. In the perspective of such destructive "revisionism", it was by no means an oversight or a "lack of space" or "funding", as they suggest, that the promoters chose not to invite the ICC to this conference. On the contrary, they did so deliberately and consciously: the aim being to avoid the political confrontation that the ICC would inevitably have sought with the denunciation of this clear deception, since the main objective of this "Potemkin" conference, the one on which most of the participants will fully agree, is not to clarify and deepen the positions, but rather to put forward a phoney left communism, to deploy an enticing decoy serving above all to mislead those seeking a revolutionary perspective. In this way, the conference has helped to build a "cordon sanitaire" to prevent them from engaging with the positions of the Communist Left and the ICC in particular. This deception is the opposite of an instrument for the class struggle; it is a barrier aimed at obstructing the development and the strengthening of the revolutionary vanguard.

 

The ICC, 15 September 2023

The 2nd Bulletin of discussion between groups of the communist left in response to the war in Ukraine.

At the end of July, refugees looking like skeletons, men, women and children dying of thirst, were picked up at the Libyan border by coastguards. A little further on, in the Saharan desert, several corpses were found, including a mother and her little girl. Unbearable images! The father, who was already waiting for them on the spot, devastated by the news of their deaths, expressed his sorrow that he wanted "a future for his daughter". A terrible event among thousands of others, in a capitalist world with no prospects.

Accelerating decomposition leads to an explosion in the number of migrants

A few weeks earlier, on 14 July, the nth makeshift boat from Libya with 750 people on board sank after a failed pushback by the Greek coastguard [1]. In the face of these horrors, the media coverage was scant. In contrast, just eight days later, the disappearance of 5 VIP tourists on a trip to visit the wreck of the Titanic attracted intense media coverage. This contrast says a lot about the policies of governments, which take advantage of a dramatic news item to make people forget the corpses of drowned migrants in the Mediterranean.

The worsening global situation is leading to increasingly long, complex and dangerous migrations. Today, there are a record 110 million refugees in the world, as well as an increasing number of victims, particularly in the Mediterranean, where the situation is one of the worst in the world, with more than 2,000 victims since the beginning of 2023. And the more migrants there are, the less access they have to Western countries. This is an inhuman policy that is getting much tougher, effectively banning any right to exile.

In the face of increasing barbarity, instability and chaos around the world, governments are no longer content simply to present themselves as impregnable fortresses, surrounded by miles of barbed wire and high walls. They have equipped themselves with surveillance technologies and spying tools designed to block access to borders. The worst victims are probably migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa. Already victims of capitalist logic with its wars, armed criminal gangs, insecurity, climate change producing drought and famine, these populations are forced to flee as a last resort.  

The criminal policies of the great democratic powers

While bankrupt capitalism tends to drag humanity down into rubble and absolute poverty, the destructive effects of the crisis, which have had a greater impact on peripheral countries for decades, are now having a greater impact on Western countries, which are drastically refusing the slightest "useless mouth". Only refugees from the Ukraine, for the purposes of war propaganda, or the richest and most highly educated, who are likely to bolster a few sectors "under pressure", working under arduous conditions and for pitiful wages, can hope, after ubiquitous administrative hassles, for a hypothetical asylum in exchange for relentless exploitation. But for the majority of the "starving", the EU has become an inaccessible and even deadly destination.

At the same time, the democratic countries have stepped up their legal arsenal, with unprecedented brutality, to act as a deterrent [2], further criminalising migrants and the NGOs that come to the aid of the shipwrecked. [3]

And to delegate the dirty work and avoid getting their hands too dirty, the EU member states have, above all, added to their arsenal by extending their own borders, giving ‘third party’ countries on the shores of the Mediterranean a mandate to detain migrants, delegating the maintenance of law and order to remote camps outside European territory and away from the cameras. In return for a fee, the camps are managed "offshore", where abuse, human trafficking and torture are legion, and where living conditions are often akin to the most squalid prison environment. This is a policy that has been fully endorsed by the EU, in particular through the funding of the Frontex Agency, enabling the coastguards of these third party countries to carry out "pushbacks", even though these practices are "illegal" under Western law.

True to the EU's unacknowledged instructions, the Tunisian authorities, for example, as the tragedies in the Sahara have shown, have not hesitated to deliberately abandon refugees in the desert without food or water so that they can die. A monstrous policy which, in addition to the blackmail practised by third party countries for the occasion, uses migrants as a mere bargaining chip. The EU's de facto complicity with these states and their heavy-handed methods is aimed at preventing asylum applications: either by keeping would-be exiles out of the loop by blocking the borders or condemning them to death in the Mediterranean (or the desert) if they resign themselves to leaving in the end. And that's exactly what's happening!

The bourgeois states, under their democratic cloak, are veritable murderers! Even the most basic right to asylum is flouted, even for children who have been persecuted or are in distress, even for people who have been mistreated or mutilated. It's enough to make you sick. Especially when, following EU orders, migrants are parked in camps against their will by guards from the Turkish, Libyan or Egyptian states, and so on.

The roundabout, cynical way in which the shipwrecked are left to die, and the increasing number of shipwrecks and corpses, testify not only to the hypocrisy and cynicism of the EU, but also and above all to its criminal practices and its desire to liquidate "undesirables" in cold blood.

Xenophobia and division: two weapons of the bourgeoisie

The bourgeoisie's despicable, horrific and repulsive practices are not confined to driving away or eliminating those it does not accept on its soil. It cultivates fears, exploiting the worst xenophobic reflexes within the population, pitting workers against each other, pitting local populations against migrants, presented as dangerous competitors who have come to "take their place" and "worsen their living conditions". This is already beginning in the countries used as outsourcing resources: "By designating sub-Saharan migration as ‘a criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape in Tunisia’, the Tunisian Head of State has made every sub-Saharan migrant a presumed accomplice in this alleged plot" [4]. Such policies encourage aggression, persecution and other forms of violence against migrants, as has happened on numerous occasions in the Tunisian port city of Sfax, which has rapidly become a veritable Calvary for exiles.

And for those migrants who miraculously arrive in Western countries, the suffering continues in the form of exclusion, racist prejudice conveyed by extreme right-wing theories, exploited by the state in a despicable manner on the one hand, but also and above all by leftist "anti-racist" propaganda of the "defence of rights", slyly opposing workers and immigrants, seeking to rot people's consciences to the detriment of a genuine common workers' struggle. The working class must absolutely reject all democratic prejudices, just as it must firmly reject "the traps set by the bourgeoisie around single-issue struggles (to save the environment, against racial oppression, feminism, etc) which divert it from its own class terrain" [5].

The only real support that workers can give to persecuted migrants is to fight against the degradation of their living conditions and the growing barbarity of this system, in the longer term affirming the only viable historical project: overthrowing and destroying capitalism to replace it with a society without exploitation.

WH (1 September, 2023)

[1] See the article : Shipwreck of migrants in the Mediterranean: capitalism kills to defend its borders [137] ICConline 27 July, 2023.

[2] In the UK, for example, which is no longer a member of Frontex, the Illegal Immigration Bill prohibits illegal immigrants from applying for asylum or any other protection under their fundamental rights, regardless of the seriousness of the situation in which they find themselves. In addition, this law provides for their deportation to another country (such as Rwanda), with no guarantee that they will be able to obtain the protection they need (UNHCR sources).

[3] Italy, Greece and Malta have launched administrative and criminal investigations against NGOs that save lives. Italy has already detained and imposed financial penalties

[4]  See the article on the website “le Monde.fr” of 29 June : ‘Tunisie : dans la ville portuaire de Sfax, l’espoir blessé des migrants subsahariens’

[5] Resolution on the International Situation, 25th ICC Congress [138], International Review 170.

With the new outbreak of barbarism in Israel/Palestine, we are obliged to change the focus of this public meeting, which had intended to concentrate on the ecological crisis. Coming in the wake of the war in Ukraine, this new conflict confirms once again that war plays a central role in what we have called the “whirlwind effect” – the accelerating interaction of all the different expressions of capitalist decomposition, posing a growing threat to the very survival of humanity. It is vital for revolutionaries to put forward a clear internationalist position against all the imperialist confrontations spreading across the globe. 

This does not imply any underestimation of the fact that the capitalist destruction of nature is an integral part of this threat. Indeed, the intensification of war and militarism can only worsen the ecological crisis, just as the deepening of the latter can only fuel the increasingly chaotic military rivalries.

Neither does it mean that all hope for the future is lost. The return of the class struggle that began in Britain over a year ago, and which is now making its mark in the USA, shows that the working class is not defeated and that its resistance against exploitation contains the seeds of the revolutionary overthrow of the present world order.

All these questions are up for discussion at the forthcoming meeting.

DATE: Saturday 21st October, 2pm to 5pm UK time

VENUE: The Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Rd, London WC1X 8JR

It will also be possible to participate in this meeting online. Please write to UK@internationalism.org [139] for details.

China is experiencing the biggest economic crisis in 50 years, against a backdrop of intense economic and military pressure from the United States: "China is caught up in the global dynamic of the crisis, with its financial system threatened by the bursting of the property bubble. The decline of its Russian partner and the disruption of the “Silk Roads” towards Europe by armed conflict or the prevailing chaos are causing considerable damage. The powerful pressure of the US further increases its economic difficulties. And faced with its economic, health, ecological and social problems, the congenital weakness of its Stalinist state structure is a major handicap" [1].

In such a context, the plunge into the red of the country's main economic indicators can only be of the utmost concern to the Stalinist state party-state. Economic growth is at its lowest for 45 years (less than 5%), exports are falling (-8.3% year-on-year) and domestic consumption is anaemic. While domestic demand is in a deflationary spiral, government debt - particularly that of the regional authorities - and corporate debt are colossal. China's public and private debt, which exceeded 250% of GDP in 2021, will reach 300% of GDP by mid-2023 (according to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland). The catastrophic scale of the problems is particularly evident in the property sector, which accounts for almost 30% of China's national GDP: after the bankruptcy of Evergrande and the default announced for Country Garden, which has 4 times as many projects as Evergrande, there were 648 million unsold housing units at the end of August.[2]. As a result, the banking and credit system is under pressure in the face of a crisis of consumer confidence and a wait-and-see attitude on the part of the business community, which is holding back from investing while it waits to see what happens next.

Even more worrying for the Chinese bourgeoisie is the flight of capital, the fall in foreign investment to its lowest level for 25 years, which Beijing is trying to stem with massive campaigns aimed at investors. However, Xi Jinping's re-election and his treatment of "private Chinese entrepreneurs" such as Jack Ma (Grupo Ant and Alibabá), many of whom have had to flee to Japan, do not inspire confidence. The flight of capital to other countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Mexico is not just an expression of the lack of "guarantees" in China; transport costs and wages there have soared, so that today India and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam and other Indo-Pacific countries are competing with China: "Everyone either wants to sell their operations in China or, if they produce in China, they are looking for alternative places to do it. [This situation] is dramatically different compared to just five years ago"[3].

In short, far from being the engine that revived the global economy in 2008, China is experiencing a deep economic crisis that threatens to drag the rest of the world into further economic turmoil, and whose social impact is increasingly being felt within the country itself. The collapse of the property market is leading to demonstrations by small savers, who are seeing their life savings go up in smoke. The employment situation for young people is just as worrying: 21.3% of young Chinese are unemployed, according to the latest official figures (17 July 2023). In fact, according to local economists, the unemployment rate among 16-24 year-olds is twice as high (46.5% instead of 19.7% in March!), given that almost 20% of young urban dwellers are "tangping" (literally. "lying around"). The Chinese government is manipulating the publication of figures for fear of panicking investors, which would further exacerbate the current crisis and even threaten social and political stability. Social discontent is in fact growing after years of inhuman confinement linked to the "zero Covid" policy and the new healthcare regulation measures. Economic and social destabilisation is also exacerbating workers' struggles against wage arrears and factory closures or relocations, which often lead to violent confrontations with company security services. These strikes and protests increased sharply in 2023, doubling the number recorded in 2022 [4].

This deterioration in the economic and social situation is also causing political upheavals that are increasingly visible right up to the very top of the State, such as Xi's conspicuous absences from international forums (the BRICS economic forum in South Africa, the G20 meeting in India) and the "disappearance" of foreign affairs minister Qin Gang and defence minister Li Shangfu, as well as several generals heading up the "Missile Force" and the Chinese army's equipment development department. The ousting of leaders close to Xi and appointed by him after the last CCP Congress for reasons of "personal conduct" or "corruption" underlines the fact that Xi Jinping is increasingly being held personally responsible, particularly since his catastrophic "zero Covid" policy, which has caused considerable economic and social damage. In August, he reportedly came in for sharp criticism at the traditional summer meeting of the regime's top brass in the seaside resort of Beidaihe, where an assessment of the state of China is drawn up. Retired former leaders are said to have reproached him with a virulence never seen before, which seems to indicate that confrontations between "economists" and "nationalists" are once again intensifying in the face of the danger of economic and social destabilisation that frightens this Stalinist regime. A poisonous atmosphere and extreme tensions have developed within the CCP. In such a climate of factional fighting within the party-state, the future is uncertain and Xi could use the lever of a headlong rush into exacerbated nationalism to impose himself, as has often been the case in China when domestic problems accumulate.

XI Jinping's "Greater China" project, which he hoped to consolidate by 2050, now appears to be under serious threat: current trends indicate that the country will not become the world's leading economic power in the foreseeable future. Faced with an economic and financial crisis that threatens to plunge the country into widespread social chaos, increasingly crushing pressure from the United States and growing opposition within the party, Xi's policies will be marked more than ever by unpredictability, but also by the risk of irrational decisions that threaten to drag the world into a whirlwind of chaos, barbarism and unprecedented military confrontation.

Fo & RH, 9.10.2023 

 

[1] Resolution on the International Situation, 25th ICC Congress [121], International Review no. 170, 2023.

[2] See : P.-A. Donnet, Chine : comment la folie des grandeurs mène l'économie à la ruine [140], Asiayst, 01.10.23

[3] A British portfolio management specialist, quoted in P. Donnet, Chine : la crise économique, prélude d'un hiver politique et social ? [141] Asialyst, 07.09.23)

[4] See : China Labour Bulletin

 

The earthquake that struck Morocco on September 8, and the spectacular floods that followed the bursting of two dams in Libya shortly afterwards, once again confront us with the daily horror and murderous madness of capitalism.

The responsibility of capitalism

After Turkey, where the earth shook this winter, claiming 46,000 victims and displacing two million people in makeshift tents, it's Libya and Morocco's turn to plunge into mourning. The very violent earthquake in Morocco, measuring 7 on the Richter scale, can be explained by the fact that the region is criss-crossed by fault lines, where large tremors can occur, causing widespread damage and casualties. In the 1960s, the city of Agadir in Morocco was already more than 70% destroyed, and more than 12,000 people perished in this major earthquake. In 2004, more than 600 people died in Al Hoceïma. Like the torrential rains in Libya, these phenomena are always presented by the bourgeoisie as mere consequences of the whims of nature. Humanity thus seems powerless in the face of what looks like fate, exposed to the implacable laws of nature.

But while all these phenomena are indeed natural, the catastrophes they engender are anything but! Not only are they multiplying and accumulating as a result of global warming and decaying infrastructures, but they are also transforming these situations into veritable social catastrophes. In Libya, for example, the flood figures are staggering: in the northeastern city of Derna, the World Health Organisation has put the death toll at close to 4,000, a figure which it believes to be far below reality. A veritable hecatomb! And the bourgeoisie's responsibility for the disaster is far more visible than in Morocco. It's clearly obvious! The terrible destruction of Derna was not only due to storm Daniel, but essentially to the fact that the two dams that collapsed had not been maintained, despite desperate warnings of their dilapidated state. The collapse of the Libyan state and the total absence of any form of operational infrastructure or coordinated response greatly exacerbated the impact of the disaster.

These events are yet another indictment of capitalism. It is the poorest populations who are exposed and sacrificed on the altar of profit, of laws that are not "natural", but linked to the commercial logic inherent in capitalism and its deadly dynamic. In the province of Al Haouz, south-west of Marrakech, the victims and destruction were most numerous in working-class neighbourhoods or in poor, outlying, neglected rural areas. The cheaper, flexible multi-storey buildings systematically collapsed. Not only are cheaply constructed buildings legion, but anti-seismic standards dating back to 2002 remain ineffective in these areas of dilapidated buildings. And yet, this is where the vast majority of the proletariat and working classes live, in stark contrast to the much less-affected, or even spared, upmarket districts. The same applies to the flooded areas of Libya, where the poorest were the most exposed. The monstrosity of an obsolete and chaotic mode of production is causing endless suffering and massive destruction.

The cynicism of the bourgeoisie

Thanks to the corruption and negligence of the ruling class, and the lack of prevention and anticipation, the population is now forced to put up with cynicism and abandonment and rely on individual resourcefulness. Even children are being called upon to help clear the rubble! While during wars, such as in Ukraine, the means of destruction deployed with impressive logistics and meticulous organisation are beyond compare, the relief offered to the victims of disasters appears to be pitiful. The chaos and cacophony at disaster sites (when help is available!) reveals time and again the true face of capitalism and the ruling class.

The trap would be to see a genuine surge of "solidarity" in the proposals for aid from the various States and international humanitarian structures. On the contrary, they are barely disguised "interference", a cover enabling the countries involved in the relief efforts to extend their influence and strengthen their positions in defence of their sordid interests: what is modestly called "soft power". During the period 1990-2000, it should be remembered that it was in the name of "humanitarian" interventions, under the cover of the UN and complicit NGOs, that the major imperialist powers advanced their pawns in geostrategic zones, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. All to the great benefit of the "hard power" of arms! The fight for reconstruction contracts is, in the final analysis, secondary. The lies and hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie on humanitarian issues know no bounds!

On the other hand, there is a repugnant chauvinist and nationalist rhetoric that refuses "foreign aid" on the grounds that "Morocco can look after itself". The refusal of French aid in favour of other countries such as Qatar was very explicitly an expression of imperialist rivalry. And so much the worse for the good people of His Majesty who will die in silence for the "greatness" of the Moroccan Kingdom!

As the decomposition of the capitalist system accelerates, all these destructive phenomena will become increasingly frequent and amplified by the context of growing chaos, acute economic crisis and military conflicts, such as the one raging in Ukraine.

A, 29 September 2023

 

In its article “Reactions to the riots: Between brutal condemnations and hypocritical ‘understanding’”[1], Le Prolétaire, the paper of the International Communist Party (ICP-Le Prolétaire) believes it detects in the positions of the ICC towards the riots in France worse than "hypocrisy": the ICC is said to completely trail behind the bourgeois organisation Lutte Ouvrière and the trade union guard dogs. As an opponent of class violence, "the ICC thus sides with a well-ordered, peaceful movement controlled by union collaborationism".

What blunder could the ICC have committed to deserve such a sentence? It dared to express what Le Prolétaire described as "condemnation of the riots", this "revolt of young proletarians" driven by "the hatred of the established order necessary for revolutionary struggle".

The smoke and mirrors of "Le Prolétaire"

But Le Prolétaire has its arguments, and not the least of them! It thinks it can shut us up with a learned excerpt from Marx and Engels’ “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League”: "Far from opposing the so-called excesses – instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated – the workers’ party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction".

We would undoubtedly have been stunned by shame if Le Prolétaire had not pitifully stepped in it. In this text, Marx and Engels speak, in fact, of the attitude of the proletariat towards... the bourgeois revolutions of the nineteenth century against feudalism! The "popular vengeance against hated individuals or public buildings" that had to be "tolerated" consisted, in this case, in " carry[ing] out their terroristic phrases" of the democratic petty-bourgeoisie in the context of the struggle of the German bourgeoisie against the monarchy and its palaces! At the time of capitalism's ascendancy, when the historical conditions were not at all ripe for the development of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle, this text never ceased to insist on the need for the proletariat to "organise" itself and to "centralise" its struggle as much as possible. Quite the opposite of Le Prolétaire's passion for riots!

It's not just a rather ridiculous blunder, but further proof (if proof were needed) that the ICP doesn't understand what class struggle is and that it's incapable of placing it in a historical framework: it picks from the old texts of the workers' movement what seems to apply more or less to the present situation without asking itself the slightest question. The ICP's relationship to the Marxist method is not the historical approach of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Luxemburg, nor that of the Italian Communist Left, it is the clumsy exegesis of a text which seems, from a distance, to confirm empirical impressions! So, all the ICP has to do is to assess the riots with a wet finger, to note that proletarians are taking part in them, to fall in love with an outbreak of urban violence which is not at all on the terrain of the class struggle, and to see in it a link with the struggles of the proletariat at the time of the bourgeois revolutions.

"Le Prolétaire", a compass pointing south

With an ersatz Marxist approach slung over its shoulder, Le Prolétaire analyses the riots on the basis of a series of criteria abstractly determined by the self-proclaimed "Party" and applicable to every struggle whatever the situation: the sociological composition of a movement, the perception of a "hatred of the established order", the level of sufficient confrontation with the "trade union bureaucracies", the workers' clarity, judged to be more or less satisfactory, with regard to "the revolution and the paths leading to it"... By way of method, the ICP serves us a clever recipe made up of ingredients of its own choosing, in which each struggle or expression of anger is analysed for its own sake, without any relation to the historical situation, the general dynamic of the workers' struggle and the balance of forces between the classes.

This approach ultimately has led Le Prolétaire to adopt clearly opportunist positions. For example, it states with a straight face that "the violence of the rioters was anything but indiscriminate; [...] their targets were primarily police stations and police posts, prisons and state institutions, town halls, etc., even before the looting of supermarkets and other shops". Is this really the beginning of a confrontation with the bourgeois state, comrades? Does Le Prolétaire have exactly the same vision of class struggle as the worst of the black blocs? It's all the more distressing because the riots are not even comparable to the ideology of the black blocs, who imagine they are really attacking the symbols of capitalism by smashing the windows of banks. During the riots, young people threw fireworks at police stations just as they looted supermarkets, they burned town halls just as they burned their neighbour's car, with no other reason than their rage and their powerlessness.

“Le Prolétaire”, lost in the fog of history

It's our turn, then, to present to the ICP a "wise precept", but this time from Lenin: "’Our doctrine is not a dogma, but a guide for action’, Marx and Engels always said, rightly mocking the method which consists of learning by heart and repeating as they stand ‘formulas’ capable at most of indicating general objectives, necessarily modified by the concrete economic and political situation at each particular phase of history". Contrary to the frivolous empirical approach of Le Prolétaire, the workers' movement has always insisted on the importance of a precise and methodical analysis of the context in which a struggle takes place in order to grasp its real meaning and perspectives. The international dynamic of the class struggle, whatever the apparent radicalism or massiveness of this or that expression of anger, is obviously an essential point of reference. Without a rigorous framework of analysis, the ICP is condemned to grope its way through the fog of history.

Thus Trotsky, incapable, like the ICP, of grasping the importance of the historical context, thought that "the French revolution [had] begun" with the huge strikes of 1936 in France. Contrary to the great clarity of the Italian Left, he thereby contributed to the disorientation of many militants who had remained faithful to the cause of the proletariat.

In reality, after the defeat of the revolutionary wave of 1917-1923 and the triumph of the Stalinist counter-revolution, the proletariat underwent a profound retreat in consciousness which was to lead it to the World War behind the bourgeois ideology of anti-fascism. This example alone should suffice to demonstrate that combativity and massivity are not in themselves sufficient criteria.

Conversely, when the May 68 movement broke out, historical conditions had changed radically compared to 1936. The movement was marked by the return of the crisis, after the period of reconstruction, and the emergence of a generation of young workers who had not suffered the full force of the worst atrocities of the counter-revolution. What was then the biggest strike in history, and the starting point for several waves of struggles around the world over two decades, had been preceded by many small strikes, seemingly insignificant and largely supervised by the unions, but which were in reality of historic importance.

A "wise precept" from the ICC to “Le Prolétaire”

The conditions for the class struggle are not always exactly the same at each stage of historical evolution. Let's look briefly at how the ICC analyses the current situation and what implications it draws for understanding the class struggle and the urban violence we have just witnessed.

In the wake of May 68, the balance of forces in favour of the proletariat opened the way to decisive confrontations with the bourgeoisie. But in the 1980s, although the fighting spirit of the working class prevented the bourgeoisie from putting forward its only "response" to the historic crisis of capitalism (world war), the inability of the proletariat to break out of the straitjacket of the unions and the mystifications of democracy prevented it from pushing forward the revolutionary perspective. This led to an impasse marked by the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the whole campaign about the "death of communism" and the "triumph of democracy". This is what the ICC has identified as the ultimate phase in the decadence of capitalism, its decomposition, which has constantly fuelled phenomena characteristic of the rotting of society: an increase in disasters of all kinds, chaos and every man for himself on the imperialist scene, on the social and political level, a rise in the influence of the most irrational and deadly ideologies, despair, "no future", etc.

This new situation has meant that working class struggles have suffered a major setback for over thirty years, despite sporadic expressions of fighting spirit (CPE, Indignados, Occupy, etc.). The British proletariat, despite being one of the most experienced and combative in history, represented the quintessence of this retreat, since until 2022 it remained largely passive and resigned in the face of the extremely brutal attacks by the bourgeoisie.

The recent acceleration of decomposition, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and, even more so, by the war in Ukraine, has only served to amplify the deep crisis into which capitalism is sinking. All the deleterious effects of decomposition have deepened still further, feeding on each other in a kind of uncontrollable 'whirlwind'.

However, as the crisis became more and more unbearable, the proletariat began to react: first in Britain where, for the first time in more than thirty years (!), the proletariat showed its discontent, month after month, through countless strikes, then, almost simultaneously, in many countries, notably in France, Germany, Spain, Holland... but also in Canada, Korea and, today, in the United States.

Millions of workers took to the streets against the pension reforms in France, affirming at every demonstration the need to fight together, beginning, in embryonic form, to make the links with struggles in other countries, to look back on their past experiences (particularly the CPE and May 68) and to consider the means of struggle. Despite the weight of corporatism and the immense difficulties in confronting the unions and all the social and ideological shock absorbers that the bourgeoisie creates, the proletariat is beginning to recognise itself as a class, to fight massively on an international scale, and to express reflexes of solidarity and combativity that we have seen only very marginally for decades. We are witnessing a real break with the previous situation of passivity! But the lack of an analytical framework has led Le Prolétaire to see in this break only the "defeat" of vulgar "sheep-like mobilisations".

The present period therefore sees both the brutal acceleration of decomposition, with all that it brings with it in despair and the absence of perspective, and the return of working class combativity. This means that the development of the working class struggle will necessarily come up against expressions of despair and impotence within it, which will remain burdens for the proletariat and which the bourgeoisie will not cease to promote. The riots and inter-class movements like the "yellow vests" are caricatural illustrations of this!

The riots did nothing more than expose the total impotence of desperate youth: it didn't take the state a week to restore order and ferociously repress the rioters. Above all, the urban violence was a real brake on the development of the class struggle. In dividing the workers for nothing, they have given the bourgeoisie an opportunity to try to undermine the combativity and unity that are beginning to emerge, through a campaign whose latest echoes are the government's despicable racist propaganda around "banning the abaya in schools".

A large section of the left of capital has also taken advantage of the situation to undermine the proletariat's ongoing reflection on the means of struggle: "you wanted more radicalism during the struggle against pension reform: here's an example that makes the bourgeoisie tremble!", "you wanted greater unity among workers: long live the convergence of the yellow vests and the youth of the suburbs!"...

The irresponsibility of “Le Prolétaire”

And the ICP, a victim of its own confusion, of its inability to understand the class struggle, has finally placed itself in the slipstream of the leftists.

At a time when the working class so badly needs to develop its unity, Le Prolétaire sings the praises of urban violence which has been a tremendous opportunity for the bourgeoisie to divide the working class, not only in France, but also on an international level where the press has made much of the riots in order to better discredit class violence and mass demonstrations! At a time when the working class so desperately needs to develop its consciousness, its organisation and its methods of struggle, Le Prolétaire presents indiscriminate violence, involving the destruction of municipal buildings and the looting of supermarkets, as the pinnacle of the class struggle! At a time when the working class so desperately needs to regain its self-confidence, Le Prolétaire disgustedly throws a handkerchief over its "sheepish" struggles and presents its steps forward as "defeats"!

The frivolity with which Le Prolétaire examines the riots is not only inconsistent, it is above all irresponsible. For the ICP, unlike the Trotskyist parties and the entire capitalist extreme left, is an organisation of the Communist Left. Despite all our disagreements, the ICP belongs to the camp of the proletariat and therefore has a responsibility towards the workers' movement and the working class. Instead of seriously confronting its positions with the other organisations of the proletarian political milieu, instead of showing the minimum of solidarity and fraternity which should animate it towards this same milieu, it puts on an equal footing a bourgeois organisation such as Lutte Ouvrière and the ICC, in the middle of an indigestible article, without the slightest concern for the political responsibilities incumbent upon it.

This irresponsibility is also expressed by the ICP towards workers who are closer to the positions of the working class, whose confusion it helps to maintain by dint of opportunist contortions and its renunciation of the precious legacy of the workers' movement: the Marxist method.

EG, 20 September 2023

Since the summer of 2022 the intervention of revolutionaries in the struggle of the working class has become a more concrete prospect because, after three to four decades of a deep retreat of the combativity and the consciousness in the class, the proletariat has finally raised its head again. This resurgence of the struggles, which started with the “Summer of Discontent” in the UK, was followed by strikes, demonstrations and workers’ protests in various other countries, including the USA[1].

The International Communist Party, which publishes Il Partito Comunista, one of the organisations of the Communist Left, has written about its intervention in some of the workers’ struggles in the past year in the US, among which was a strike of 600 municipal workers at the water treatment plant in Portland Oregon that started on Friday 3 February 2023. This strike was greeted with expressions of solidarity from other municipal workers, some of whom also joined the picket lines. During this strike Il Partito published one article and distributed three leaflets in which it denounced capitalism as a dictatorial system of exploitation and drew the lesson that: “It is only through the uniting of arms above sectors and borders that the working class can truly struggle to end its exploitative condition under capitalism”[2].

In the present conditions of an international and historically significant resurgence of the struggles after decades of disorientation and fragmentation, to engage in the struggle is in itself already a victory.  That’s why it is certainly important to signal that, as Il Partito did, in response to intimidation, criminalisation and threats by the bourgeoisie, the municipal workers in Portland were able to develop their unity and solidarity[3].

But revolutionaries cannot stop there. In the intervention with the press, leaflets or otherwise they have to put forward concrete perspectives such as calling for workers to extend the struggle beyond their own sector, by sending delegations to other workplaces and offices. As one of our recent articles underlines, already today workers should “fight together, acting in a unified way and avoiding getting bogged down in local struggles, within one's own company or sector”[4].

But to do so, to strengthen the struggle, the main question revolutionaries must state clearly to the workers is who is on the side of the workers and who is against them. And on this question, the IPC diffuses a mystifying fog.

 

Opportunism on the trade union question …

For the Communist Left, trade unionism as such, and thus not only the union leadership but also the rank and file structures of the unions, have become a weapon of the bourgeoisie against the working class. Trade unionism, which is by definition an ideology that keeps the struggle within the confines of the economic laws of capitalism, has become anachronistic in the century of wars and revolutions, as the revolutionaries of the First World War and the revolutionary wave that began in 1917 clearly demonstrated. The new conditions of the present era require that the struggles go beyond the particularity of the workplace, the region and the nation and take on a massive and political character. While unions are no longer of any use for workers’ struggles, they have been taken over by the bourgeoisie and used to counter the tendency towards the extension and self-organisation of struggles. In such a period, defending the trade unionist method of struggle as an authentic means of promoting the combativity of the working class is nothing less than a concession to bourgeois ideology, a form of opportunism.

Faced with the problem of the forms of organisation needed for the defence of the living conditions of the working class, whether it calls them class unions, networks or coordinations, Il Partito defends an opportunist position that it justifies as follows: it acknowledges that, “since the end of the nineteenth century, the progressive submission of the trade unions to bourgeois ideology, to the nation and to the capitalist states”[5] has been a real tendency. But it does not explain how it is possible that all trade unions were integrated in the bourgeois state in the first decades of the 20th century. For Il Partito this seems to be pure coincidence, since it does not argue that the objective conditions have fundamentally changed since then. In contrast, it claims that the economic attacks on the workers “will lead to the rebirth of new trade unions freed from bourgeois conditioning” and “directed by the communist party”. These unions will even be “a powerful and indispensable instrument for the revolutionary overthrow of bourgeois power”[6].

In other words: after the betrayal of the old unions, new working class unions will emerge and, in good Bordigist tradition, it is assumed that, directed by a proper revolutionary party, they will fulfil a revolutionary role. But here it is necessary to wake Il Partito out of its dream, for the conditions of the working class struggle have completely changed since the beginning of the 20th century. This means that the struggle can no longer “be prepared in advance on the organisational level [for] the proletarian struggle tends to go beyond the strictly economic category and becomes a so­cial struggle, directly confronting the state, politicising itself and demanding the mass par­ticipation of the class. (…) The success of a strike no longer depends on financial funds collected by the workers, but fundamentally on their abi­lity to extend the struggle”[7].

And because of this new content, trade unions no longer meet the needs of the proletarian struggle, and even being directed by a revolutionary party would not change this fact. The attempt of Il Partito to defend the existence of permanent organs of struggle, during open expressions of struggle as well as in periods of absence of any struggle, will inevitably lead to failure. A rebirth of unions as real working class organisations is only possible in the imagination of Il Partito, for whom the role of the party in the struggle is not only decisive, but even seems able to summon the supernatural power to adapt the unions to the real needs of the workers’ struggle.

 

… leads workers onto the wrong track

The first leaflet that was distributed at a demonstration on Saturday 28 January was called “Portland municipal workers: Fighting for freedom to strike”, a “freedom” attacked by the proclamation of the state of emergency by the municipality.

With the demand for the “freedom to strike” this leaflet immediately put the workers on the wrong track. In the 19th century, when the unions were still unitary organisations of the working class whose role was to improve working and living conditions inside capitalism, such a demand was undoubtedly valid. But today, when the unions have become part of the capitalist state, workers have nothing to gain from supporting a campaign to defend the right to strike. For such a struggle is in reality a fight for the rights of the union to control the workers’ struggles. The working class doesn’t need to fight for the legalisation of its own strikes, because in the conditions of totalitarian state capitalism any strike likely to create a real balance of power against the bourgeoisie is by definition illegal. The purpose of this campaign for the freedom to strike is mainly to guarantee that the struggles remain confined within the narrow legal limits of bourgeois politics and trade union control. When the bourgeoisie grants the right to strike its purpose is only to reduce the workers’ struggle to ineffectual protest in order to put pressure on one of the “negotiating partners".

After the strike of the municipal workers in Portland the comrades of Il Partito, in the spring of this year, “promoted, together with other trade union militants, a coordination they have called the Class Struggle Action Network (CSAN), aimed at uniting workers’ struggles”[8]. This CSAN intervened for instance in the nurses’ strike in late June. But what is actually the nature of the CSAN? What might be the perspective of such a Network, “aimed at uniting workers’ struggles”? 

This CSAN has not emerged in reaction to a particular need of the workers to take the struggle into their own hands, to send massive delegations to other workers, to organise general assemblies open to all workers or to draw lessons in order to prepare new struggles. No, nothing of that kind; the Network has been created completely outside the concrete dynamic of the struggle by the comrades of Il Partito “inspired by the same principles and methods on which the Coordinamento Lavoratorie Lavoratrici Autoconvocati was formed in Italy” [9] in the mid-1980s. And on the website of this Network[10] one can read, not by accident, an article by Il Partito, which makes clear that the aim is to work “Towards the Rebirth of the Working Class Trade Union [143]”.

As we argued above, trade unions are today instruments of the bourgeois state and any rebirth as working class organisations is impossible. Thus, Il Partito’s policy can only lock combative workers into a totally vain and discouraging struggle.   In this context CSAN will suffer the same fate as any artificially created organ: either to remain an appendix of Il Partito[11] or to become a radical expression of bourgeois trade unionism. But most likely it will disappear after Il Partito has tried to keep it artificially alive. Then it can bury this stillborn child in silence, without the need to draw further lessons from this experience.

In the strike of the municipal workers “comrades participated in the picket lines, helping the workers to strengthen them”[12]. The report of the intervention in the nurses’ strike only speaks of the intervention of the CSAN organising “participants for picket-line solidarity”. This gives the impression that there was no intervention of Il Partito, distinct and separate from the Network. Thus the comrades of Il Partito participated on an individual basis in the picket lines in February as well as in June. But why? Because workers cannot take on this task? Or were the comrades participating as delegates from other workplaces? The answer to these questions is not present in the articles of Il Partito. Fundamentally, behind Il Partito’s intervention, we must point out a great ambiguity about the role of the revolutionary vanguard of the class.

 

The responsibility of revolutionaries

In the first place, the task of the political organisation of the class is not to help the class to strengthen the picket line, to collect money in order to financially support a strike, or to fulfil other practical tasks for the striking workers. The workers are quite capable of doing these things on their own, without anyone taking their place. A communist organisation has another task, which is not technical, or material, but essentially political. The working class struggle needs to be strengthened by the organised political intervention of the revolutionary organisation.

In line with this orientation, that of being an active political factor in the development of the consciousness and autonomous action of the working class, communist organisations must put forward an analysis of the conditions of the class struggle, lucidly and with a clear method, while being able to denounce and fight against these enemies of the working class – the trade unions. Il Partito, which irresponsibly justifies the possibility of rehabilitating trade unionism or fighting through the unions, despite decades of the limitation and sabotage of struggles by these organs, can in this way only weaken the workers’ class combat. Not only does this kind of opportunism sow confusion, it can only lead workers into a dead-end.

 

Dennis, 2023-11-15

 

 

 

 

Our comrade Miguel has died. He was born in 1944 and from a very young age he rebelled against capitalism, this society of barbarism and exploitation. He understood the need to fight for a new society, but at the same time he had many doubts about what was happening in the USSR, presented as the "Socialist Fatherland", and its supposed "communism". At that time other "alternatives" were also fashionable. One of them was Tito's Yugoslavia, a "non-aligned" country[1] that presented itself as "self-managed socialism". He emigrated there, studied and worked there, and soon realised that there was nothing socialist about it, that it was just another of the many variants of state capitalism. From this disappointing experience was born his conviction that none of the "Meccas of socialism" (Russia, Yugoslavia, Albania, China, Cuba etc.) were communism nor were they "in transition towards it", they were all capitalist states where exploitation reigned with the same force as in the officially capitalist countries.

Back in Spain he worked in a very important company, Standard Eléctrica. He was a conscious and combative worker, who actively participated in the many strikes that shook Spain at that time, as part of the historical revival of the proletariat whose most advanced expression was the great strike of May 68 in France. This was the period (1972-76) when the Franco dictatorship was unable to cope with the huge wave of struggles and the bourgeoisie was considering the famous "transition", moving from Franco's dictatorship to the democratic dictatorship. The capitalist state discarded Francoism and its national Catholicism as useless junk and surrounded itself with democratic weaponry to better confront the working class: "workers" unions, elections, "liberties" ...

Soon the comrade came to a second conviction: the unions, both the old vertical union of Francoism and the "workers unions" (CCOO, UGT et al) were organs of the bourgeois state, unconditional servants of capital, ready to sabotage strikes, divide workers, divert them into dead ends. A member of the UGT, he finally tore up his membership card after intervening in an assembly.

That period also provided him with another conclusive experience: as a member of one of the numerous Trotskyist groups (the Communist League) he suffered leftism first hand, the sort that was responsible, with its radical workerist language, for recuperating militants who have broken with the CP or with the trade unions and are looking for an authentic proletarian internationalist alternative. They criticised the USSR, only to defend it as a "degenerated workers state"; they claimed to be "against imperialist war", but supported the war in Vietnam and other imperialist wars in the name of "national liberation"; they criticised the unions, but demanded participation in them to "win them for the class"; they criticised elections, but called for a vote to "get a PC-PSOE workers government"; they spoke of "democracy in the organisation", but this was a nest of vipers where the different gangs fought to the death for its control, resorting to manoeuvres, slander and all imaginable nastiness.

Neither the nightmare of Yugoslavian "self-managing socialism", nor trade union sabotage, nor the trap of leftism, kept the comrade from the search for truly communist positions. In this search he contacted the ICC and undertook a series of very exhaustive discussions, drawing lessons from all the experiences he had been through, finally deciding to join in 1980.

Since then he has been a militant faithful to the cause of the proletariat, who always reflected and intervened in meetings trying to contribute to the collective clarification of our positions. He always made himself available for the activities of the organisation. Forced for work reasons to move to new cities, his first concern was to maintain his militant activity at all levels, both discussion and analysis, as well as intervention in struggles, the distribution of the press etc.

He was above all very active in the struggles of the class, participating as a worker in numerous struggles (Telefonica, Standard), also in struggles such as Delphi, SEAT, in meetings of the unemployed etc. He did not hesitate to intervene in workers assemblies, confronting union manoeuvres, proposing measures to strengthen the assembly and to seek the extension of the struggle to break its isolation. In the same way, he went to meetings where there might be discussions of interest for revolutionary clarification where he did not hesitate to intervene in a clear and courageous way defending the positions of the ICC.

He also made a great contribution to the distribution of the press. He regularly put our publications in bookstores, libraries, tirelessly looking for new outlets. At demonstrations, assemblies, rallies, etc., he was the first to sell the ICC press with enthusiasm and an exemplary persistence.

He was always available for the activities of the organisation and enthusiastically collected revolutionary books and other publications, and on all subjects of interest in the revolutionary struggle of the working class. The archive that he built up is a treasury for the transmission of the traditions and positions of communist organisations.

He remained a militant until the end. Suffering from a painful illness, he asked all the comrades who visited him what the discussions had been, he asked us to read him the international texts of the organisation, he listened avidly to everything we read to him. He was, quite simply, A COMMUNIST MILITANT OF THE PROLETARIAT. We write these lines with much sadness, but we do it determined and encouraged by his militancy, ready to continue fighting and to win young people who, nowadays, will be confronted with the traps he had to overcome and will be looking for the answers he found and that motivated his whole life.

ICC 27-9-23

"Horror", "massacres", "terrorism", "terror", "war crimes", "humanitarian catastrophe", "genocide"... the words splashed across the front pages of the international press speak volumes about the scale of the barbarity in Gaza.

On 7 October, Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis, hunting down old men, women and children in their homes. Since then, the State of Israel has been taking revenge and killing en masse. The deluge of bombs raining down day and night on Gaza has already caused the death of more than 10,000 Palestinians, including 4,800 children. In the midst of ruined buildings, the survivors are deprived of everything: water, electricity, food and medicines. At this very moment, two and a half million Gazans are threatened with starvation and epidemics, 400,000 of them are prisoners in Gaza City, and every day hundreds fall, torn apart by missiles, crushed by tanks, executed by bullets.

Death is everywhere in Gaza, just as it is in Ukraine. Let's not forget the destruction of Marioupol by the Russian army, the exodus of people, the trench warfare that buries people alive. To date, almost 500,000 people are thought to have died. Half on each side. A whole generation of Russians and Ukrainians is now being sacrificed on the altar of the national interest, in the name of defending the homeland. And there's more to come: at the end of September, in Nagorno-Karabakh, 100,000 people were forced to flee in the face of the Azerbaijani army and the threat of genocide. In Yemen, the conflict that nobody talks about has claimed more than 200,000 victims and reduced 2.3 million children to malnutrition. The same horror of war is being waged in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Haiti, Syria, Afghanistan, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Congo, Mozambique... And the confrontation is brewing between Serbia and Kosovo.

Who is responsible for all this barbarity? How far can war spread? And, above all, what force can oppose it?

All states are war criminals

At the time of writing, all nations are calling on Israel to "moderate" or "suspend" its offensive. Russia is demanding a ceasefire, having attacked Ukraine with the same ferocity a year and a half ago, and having massacred 300,000 civilians in Chechnya in 1999 in the name of the same "fight against terrorism". China says it wants peace, but it is exterminating the Uighur population and threatening the inhabitants of Taiwan with an even greater deluge of fire. Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies want an end to the Israeli offensive while they decimate the population of Yemen. Turkey opposes the attack on Gaza while dreaming of exterminating the Kurds. As for the major democracies, after supporting "Israel's right to defend itself", they are now calling for "a humanitarian truce" and "respect for international law", having demonstrated their expertise in mass slaughter with remarkable regularity since 1914.

This is the primary argument of the State of Israel: "the annihilation of Gaza is legitimate": the same was said about the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the carpet-bombing of Dresden and Hamburg. The United States waged the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with the same arguments and the same methods as Israel today! All states are war criminals! Big or small, dominated or powerful, apparently warmongering or moderate, all of them are in reality taking part in imperialist war in the world arena, and all of them regard the working class as cannon fodder.

It is these hypocritical and deceitful voices that would now have us believe in their drive for peace and their solution: the recognition of Israel and Palestine as two independent and autonomous states. The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah are foreshadowing what this state would be like: like all the others, it would exploit the workers; like all the others, it would repress the masses; like all the others, it would go to war. There are already 195 "independent and autonomous" states on the planet: together, they spend over 2,000 billion dollars a year on "defence"! And by 2024, these budgets are set to explode.

Current wars: a scorched earth policy

So why has the UN just declared: "We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It's been thirty days. Enough is enough. It has to stop now"? Obviously, Palestine's allies want an end to the Israeli offensive. As for Israel's allies, those "great democracies" that claim to respect "international law", they cannot let the Israeli army do what it wants without saying anything. The IDF’s massacres are all too visible. Especially since the “democracies” are providing military support to Ukraine against "Russian aggression" and its "war crimes". The barbarity of the two "aggressions" must not be allowed to appear too similar.

But there is an even deeper reason: everyone is trying to limit the spread of chaos, because everyone can be affected, everyone has something to lose if this conflict spreads too far. The Hamas attack and Israel's response have one thing in common: the scorched earth policy. Yesterday's terrorist massacre and today's carpet bombing can lead to no real and lasting victory. This war is plunging the Middle East into an era of destabilisation and confrontation.

If Israel continues to raze Gaza to the ground and bury its inhabitants under the rubble, there is a risk that the West Bank will also catch fire, that Hezbollah will drag Lebanon into the war, and that Iran will end up getting too involved. The spread of chaos throughout the region would not only be a blow to American influence, but also to the global ambitions of China, whose precious Silk Road passes through the region.

The threat of a third world war is on everyone's lips. Journalists are openly debating it on television. In reality, the current situation is far more pernicious. There are no two blocs, neatly arranged and disciplined, confronting each other, as there were in 1914-18 and 1939-45, or throughout the Cold War. While the economic and warlike competition between China and the United States is increasingly brutal and oppressive, the other nations are not bowing to the orders of one or other of these two behemoths; they are playing their own game, in disorder, unpredictability and cacophony. Russia attacked Ukraine against Chinese advice. Israel is crushing Gaza against American advice. These two conflicts epitomise the danger that threatens all humanity with death: the multiplication of wars whose sole aim is to destabilise or destroy the adversary; an endless chain of irrational and nihilistic exactions; every man for himself, synonymous with uncontrollable chaos.

For a third world war, the proletarians of Western Europe, North America and East Asia would have to be prepared to sacrifice their lives in the name of the Fatherland, to take up arms and kill each other for the flag and national interests, which is absolutely not the case today. But what is in the process of developing does not need this support, this enlistment of the masses. Since the early 2000s, ever wider swathes of the planet have been plunged into violence and chaos: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine... This gangrene is spreading little by little, country by country, region by region. This is the only possible future for capitalism, this decadent and rotting system of exploitation.

To put an end to war, capitalism must be overthrown

So what can we do? The workers of every country must have no illusions about a supposedly possible peace, about any solution from the "international community", the UN, or any other den of thieves. Capitalism is war. Since 1914, it has practically never stopped, affecting one part of the world and then another. The historical period before us will see this deadly dynamic spread and amplify, with increasingly unfathomable barbarity.

The workers of every country must therefore refuse to be carried away, they must refuse to take sides with one bourgeois camp or another, in the East, in the Middle East, and everywhere else. They must refuse to be fooled by the rhetoric that asks them to show "solidarity" with "the Ukrainian people under attack", with "Russia under threat", with "the martyred Palestinian masses", with "the terrorised Israelis"... In all wars, on both sides of the borders, the state always leads people into believing that there is a struggle between good and evil, between barbarism and civilisation. In reality, all these wars are always a confrontation between competing nations, between rival bourgeoisies. They are always conflicts in which the exploited die for the benefit of their exploiters.

The solidarity of the workers therefore does not go to the "Palestinians" as it does not go to the "Israelis", the "Ukrainians", or the "Russians", because among all these nationalities there are exploiters and exploited. It goes to the workers and unemployed of Israel and Palestine, of Russia and Ukraine, just as it goes to the workers of every other country in the world. It is not by demonstrating "for peace", it is not by choosing to support one side against the other that we can show real solidarity with the victims of war, the civilian populations and the soldiers of both sides, proletarians in uniform transformed into cannon fodder, into indoctrinated and fanaticized child-soldiers. The only solidarity consists in denouncing ALL the capitalist states; ALL the parties that call on us to rally behind this or that national flag, this or that war cause; ALL those who delude us with the illusion of peace and "good relations" between peoples.

This solidarity means above all developing our fight against the capitalist system that is responsible for all wars, a fight against the national bourgeoisies and their state.

History has shown that the only force that can put an end to capitalist war is the exploited class, the proletariat, the direct enemy of the bourgeois class. This was the case when the workers of Russia overthrew the bourgeois state in October 1917 and the workers and soldiers of Germany revolted in November 1918: these great movements of struggle by the proletariat forced the governments to sign the armistice. This is what put an end to the First World War: the strength of the revolutionary proletariat! The working class will have to win real and definitive peace everywhere by overthrowing capitalism on a world scale.

This long road lies ahead of us. Today, it means developing struggles on a class terrain, against the increasingly harsh economic attacks levelled at us by a system plunged into an insurmountable crisis. Because by refusing the deterioration in our living and working conditions, by refusing the perpetual sacrifices made in the name of balancing the budget, the competitiveness of the national economy or the war effort, we are beginning to stand up against the heart of capitalism: the exploitation of man by man.

In these struggles, we stand together, we develop our solidarity, we debate and become aware of our strength when we are united and organised. In its class struggles, the proletariat carries within it a world which is the exact opposite of capitalism: on the one hand, the division into nations engaged in economic and warlike competition to the point of mutual destruction; on the other, a potential unity of all the exploited of the world. The proletariat has begun to walk this long road, to take a few steps: during the "summer of discontent" in the United Kingdom in 2022, during the social movement against pension reform in France in early 2023, during the historic strikes in the health and automobile sectors in the United States in recent weeks. This international dynamic marks the historic return of workers' combativeness, the growing refusal to accept the permanent deterioration in living and working conditions, and the tendency to show solidarity between sectors and between generations as workers in struggle. In the future, movements will have to make the link between the economic crisis and war, between the sacrifices demanded and the development of arms budgets and policies, between all the scourges that obsolete global capitalism carries with it, between the economic, war and climate crises that feed on each other.

Against nationalism, against the wars our exploiters want to drag us into, the old watchwords of the workers' movement that appeared in the Communist Manifesto of 1848 are more relevant today than ever:

“The workers have no homeland!

Workers of all countries, unite!”

For the development of the class struggle of the international proletariat!

International Communist Current, 7 November 2023

On 22 and 29 September, the Internationalist Communist Tendency held two public meetings, in Paris and Saint-Nazaire respectively. The ICC has always considered that discussion, debate and confrontation of positions is a fundamental task and responsibility of the groups of the Communist Left. That's why we took part in these two meetings, mobilising a large number of supporters to help ensure that the debate was as rich as possible.

But if the reports on these meetings published on the ICT website are to be believed[1], our attitude may have been motivated by a completely different intention.
In the Paris public meeting, "the meeting, which could have delved much further into all the aspects of the current situation and its practical consequences, was derailed somewhat by the comrades of the ICC". The Saint-Nazaire meeting was even worse: “the ICC’s intervention was coordinated in its aim of distorting the discussion, which was derailed in favour of their outright and delusional accusations against our positions. Despite our refusal to follow them down this path, the militants spoiled the debate by brandishing all sorts of unverifiable details completely devoid of any context, which were a thousand miles from the concerns of other attendees. "

In other words, the ICC is alleged to have hatched a deliberate plan to sabotage the proceedings of public meetings of an organisation of the Communist Left. These accusations, thrown around publicly and without the slightest argument, are fraught with consequences. So let's be a little more consistent and honest than the ICT and start by rectifying the many lies in these two reports.

I - Hijacking the discussion or fighting for a confrontation of positions?
At the Paris meeting, after listening for nearly an hour to the presidium's presentation (supplemented by two interventions from Battaglia Comunista and the Internationalist Workers' Group, two groups affiliated to the ICT), the ICC took part in the discussion. Our first intervention attempted to demonstrate that:

 - Contrary to the analysis developed in the presentation, imperialist war in the period of capitalist decadence is absolutely not a solution to the economic crisis. On the contrary, it only aggravates it and plunges humanity into a spiral of destruction and chaos. It is becoming increasingly irrational from the point of view of capitalism.

- Contrary also to the idea also developed in the presentation, we do not subscribe to the analysis of a tendency towards the formation of blocs prefiguring the course towards a third world war. Rather, we believe that the tendency for imperialist states to play each other off against each other can only lead to a proliferation of warlike conflicts, generating ever more chaos and destruction and potentially bringing about the end of humanity even in the absence of a world war.

This is why, as we pointed out both in Paris and in Saint Nazaire, the ICT’s abstract and erroneous analysis of imperialist war leads it to profoundly underestimate the seriousness of the situation!
But the ICC's alleged sabotage did not stop there, since we subsequently drew attention "to fairly secondary points" and tried to "divert the discussion onto the trade union question". If, in fact, at the Paris meeting, the ICC  intervened to assert that the unions and trade unionism belonged to the bourgeois state, it was precisely in the face of the ambiguity contained in the remarks of the Battaglia Comunista representative deploring the fact that the unions were not combative enough and did not do what was necessary to develop struggles. It was therefore not surprising, as the report on the Paris meeting indicated, that the member of the CNT/AIT (a libertarian organisation which sees itself precisely as a federation of trade unions) was 100% in "political agreement" with the ICT's position.

Moreover, we saw the same complacency towards the unions a week later at the Saint-Nazaire meeting, since the ICT did not really distance itself from the position defended by the representative of the leftist group Lutte Ouvrière, calling precisely for work in the unions! One of the CWO's speakers even went so far as to say that "it makes sense to join the union if all your colleagues are in it", suggesting that it would sometimes be necessary to be present in these state bodies.

Faced with such concessions on a position that is so important for the working class, it was essential to recall and reaffirm loud and clear what constitutes one of the programmatic gains of the Communist Left, which the ICT is supposed to share but which it is incapable of defending!

In any case, this "parenthesis" on the unions did not prevent us from intervening on the more central questions raised in the discussion. That's why, in both meetings, we also took a stand on the role of the organisations of the Communist Left in the face of the imperialist war.

In these interventions we defended

1 - The validity of the Joint Declaration of the groups of the Communist Left against the imperialist war. This approach, in continuity with the struggle of the Bolsheviks at Zimmerwald, is a concrete policy aimed at forming part of a process towards the regroupment of revolutionary forces through the defence of the principles and methods of the revolutionary movement[2] .

2 - The artificial and above all dangerous character of the policy of a "united front" with anarchist and leftist (so-called internationalist) groups, defended by the ICT through the promotion of the No War But the Class War committees[3] .

3 - That by referring to "The call for a united proletarian front" launched by the Internationalist Communist Party (ICP) in 1944, the ICT is following the opportunist approach contained in this call, which was implicitly addressed to the bases of the old workers' parties (Socialist Party and Communist Party)[4] .

It is unfortunate that the ICT did not take all this seriously and was content to label us, without the slightest argument, as "idealists" just good at making "platonic declarations".

II - "Sectarian frenzy" or clear demarcation from leftism?
In the end, all the shameless accusations made in the balance sheets: the " delusional accusations" of its positions, the "distortion of the discussion", the “grotesque attitude of provocation and accusation", the "parasiting of the discussion", etc. above all demonstrate a real aversion to those who have been able to defend clearly and with determination the principles and tradition of the Communist Left.

Driven by the desire to gain ever more influence and the spirit of rivalry, the ICT is prepared, on the contrary, to flatter anyone and compromise itself for anything! This suicidal approach even leads it to blur the class boundary with leftist organisations such as LO, whose member present in Saint Nazaire was addressed as a "comrade". We are even accused of having attacked him personally, when all we did was denounce Lutte Ouvrière as a leftist group whose function is to hijack internationalism.

In reality, maximum openness to everything to the right and a categorical refusal to discuss with the left is a typical opportunist approach. The same hostility was shown by the Left Opposition and Trotsky in the 1930s towards the left wing of the Communist Party of Italy, which embodied the clearest position against the opportunist degeneration of the Communist International.

III - The defence of proletarian principles and behaviour

Finally, we are reproached for "bringing up old issues from more than twenty years ago". The ICT is certainly referring here to the statement we read 30 minutes before the end of the Paris meeting in which we denounced the presence of two individuals expelled from the ICC in the early 2000s for having published information that exposed our comrades to state repression, an activity we have denounced as snitching[5].

The latter have never denied their behaviour. One has even been a member of the ICT for several years and was part of the presidium. In fact, it is above all this questioning that infuriates the ICT and that it is trying, very hard to hide by reducing it to simple "old stories with little political content" and by accusing us of having used this to "parasite the discussion".

Until there is proof to the contrary, snitches have never had a place in the revolutionary camp. That's why we feel it was our responsibility to challenge the ICT on this issue, defending, once again, the highly political principles of the proletariat. Instead, all the ICT militants present at the meeting preferred to cover their ears and defend these individuals. At least we have confirmation that this organisation, which claims to be involved in the formation of the future party of revolutionaries, is prepared to accept anyone into its ranks, including people who behave like cops and thugs!

This is not the first time the ICT has made pacts with dubious elements. In 2004, the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (the forerunner of the ICT) published on its website the slanderous remarks made about the ICC by the notorious Citizen B and the "Circulo de Comunistas Internacionalistas", before quietly withdrawing them after realising that the statements were false[6]. However, the ICT never criticised this totally irresponsible move on its part and has therefore learned nothing from it.

IV - The ICT is unable to criticise past mistakes

Rather than face all these questions seriously, the ICT prefers to dodge them. Worse still, it urges us to put our disagreements aside and calls for a broad gathering and unity of all those who claim to be internationalists, whether near or far, without the slightest clarification of principles. This is an approach with which the workers' movement is familiar and which Bordiga denounced in 1926 to the Executive of the Communist International: “Experience has shown that opportunism always infiltrates our ranks under the guise of unity. It is in its interest to influence the largest possible mass, and it is therefore behind the screen of unity that it puts forward its most deceitful proposals."

It was with the same opportunist approach that the most distant ancestor of the ICT was founded in 1943, the Internationalist Communist Party (PCint), admitted into ranks, without a hint of criticism:
1- Elements of the minority of the Italian Fraction that had gone to fight alongside the Republicans during the Spanish War.

2- Vercesi and all those who, during the Second World War, had taken part in the Brussels Anti-Fascist Coalition Committee[7].

It is this very old political flaw that is the source of the ICT's opportunism today. As a result, its refusal to confront it head-on and its inability to criticise its own past condemns it to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

In the reports of the two meetings, the ICT calls on the ICC to pull itself together, and even urges us to apologise for any negative attitude we may have adopted during the discussions. Come on comrades, don't be ridiculous.

We think that during these two meetings we have demonstrated our responsibility to work towards the confrontation of political positions and to defend the positions and principles of the Communist Left. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for the ICT, whose evasion and refusal to debate, its compromise with leftist elements and its acceptance of the behaviour of cops and thugs are all symptoms of the disease that is eating away at this organisation and leading it inexorably towards oblivion! As Lenin said, "A defender of internationalism who is not at the same time a very consistent and determined opponent of opportunism is a phantom, nothing more."

ICC, 31 October 2023

 

"We knew that the world would never be the same again. Some people laughed, others cried, but most remained silent. I was reminded of the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu tries to persuade the Prince to do his duty and, in order to impress him, assumes his many-armed form and says: 'Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds'. I suppose we've all thought that, in one way or another".

These were the words of Robert Oppenheimer in 1965 as he recounted his feelings when he witnessed the first nuclear test in the New Mexico desert in July 1945.

Christopher Nolan's film explores the conscience of this scientist, known as "the father of the atomic bomb".

It is true that Robert Oppenheimer was overwhelmed by the monstrosity of what he had greatly contributed to, namely the development of a killing machine that far surpassed anything that had existed before. This new atomic weapon killed 210,000 people on 6 and 9 August 1945 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the incalculable number of deaths that followed as a result of the serious effects of the radiation, which lasted for many years afterwards.

So yes, in the midst of the war, there was ideological justification for the American government. Nazi Germany was conducting research into a powerful and destructive weapon and the defence of the "free world", of democracy, justified doing everything possible to fight Nazism, to develop weapons powerful enough to destroy this enemy of civilisation that was engaged in exterminating the Jews. Oppenheimer was Jewish and was susceptible to this propaganda.

Given the go-ahead to manufacture the bomb, Oppenheimer and his team of scientists completed their work. Then, on the eve of the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, conclusive tests were carried out in the middle of the desert in the southern United States. But at that time, in 1945, why, with Germany now defeated, proceed with this military programme? The pretext of defending civilisation against Nazi barbarism no longer existed.

Oppenheimer was a highly contradictory character and was convinced that he was working for world peace by having built a death machine that surpassed anything that had been built up to that point, so that future wars could be avoided through the power of deterrence.
The aim of Truman, the American president who ordered the nuclear holocaust, and his accomplice Winston Churchill, was quite different.

In stark contrast to all the lies that have been spread since 1945 about the supposed victory of democracy as a synonym for peace [1], and with the butchery of the Second World War barely ended, the new course of imperialist confrontation engulfing the planet in blood was already underway. Yalta [2] was an attempt to manage the major imperialist divide between the great victor of 1945, the United States, and its Russian challenger. From being a minor economic power, Russia was able, thanks to the Second World War, to acquire a global  imperialist status, which would clearly present a threat to the American superpower. From the spring of 1945, the USSR used its military might to establish a bloc in Eastern Europe. Yalta merely sanctioned the balance of power between the main imperialist sharks who had emerged victorious from the greatest carnage in history. What was created by one set of balance of forces could be undone by another. Thus, in the summer of 1945, the real issue facing the American state was not to make Japan capitulate as quickly as possible, as we are taught in school textbooks, but to oppose and contain the imperialist offensive of the "great Russian ally"!

Christopher Nolan's film shows how a brilliant researcher, passionate about culture and humanism, finds himself at the centre of historical events that are beyond his control,  in which he is both an actor and a victim. But the film also makes much of the context of the early years of the Cold War, the era of McCarthy-ism, the hunting down of 'subversive' elements, those 'communists' with ties to Stalin's USSR. Oppenheimer himself became a victim of this [3] though he was subsequently rehabilitated by J.F. Kennedy in 1962.

In the current context of war in Ukraine and the manoeuvring of American imperialism against Russia, this film seems to be prescient. Given the current barbarism inflicted by Russia in Ukraine, is it the case that the American and British policy at the end of the Second World War was justified?

The film industry has long been widely used for state propaganda purposes. Even before the Second World War, the US government asked Walt Disney to take his cartoon mouse to South America to counter the rise of Nazi propaganda.

One of the conditions of the Marshall Plan in 1947 was that those European countries involved should distribute American films widely to the cinemas. Once again, the aim was to counter the growing influence of the USSR in the aftermath of the war by projecting a freedom-loving democratic image for the United States.

The ideological battle between the two blocs was equated to the struggle between "democracy" and "communist" dictatorship. Each time, the Western democracies claimed to be fighting against a system fundamentally different from their own, fighting against "dictatorships" [4]. This is not at all the case; the politics of the two sides are rooted in the same capitalist system!

The idyllic and naive vision of "democracy" is a myth. "Democracy" is the ideological screen used to mask the dictatorship of capital in its developed central heartlands. There is no fundamental difference in nature between the various models that capitalist propaganda opposes one against the other for the purposes of its ideological campaigns of mystification. All the supposedly different systems which have served as a foil for democratic propaganda since the beginning of the century are expressions of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism.

As Oppenheimer said in 1945, the world will never be the same again. Capitalism is war. Since the end of the Second World War, while there was no Third World War, the competition between the American and Russian blocs continued as a "Cold War", in the sense that it never took the form of open conflict. Instead, it was waged through a series of proxy wars between local states and various "national liberation movements" doing their dirty work, and with the two superpowers providing the weapons, intelligence, strategic support and ideological justification.

Since the collapse of the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s, despite the rhetoric at the time, no so-called "new world order" came about. On the contrary, the world is facing an acceleration of barbarism and chaos. The war in Ukraine and now the conflict in the Middle East are the latest manifestations of war, with all that this means in terms of massive destruction and massacres of entire defenceless populations.

Capitalism is dragging human society into an endless abyss of chaos and barbarism. More than ever before, the only alternative is communism or the destruction of humanity!

CT

 

________________________________________

 

[1] See our article Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Lies of the Bourgeoisie [158], International Review 83

 [2] The Yalta Conference was a meeting of the main leaders of the Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin), the United Kingdom (Winston Churchill) and the United States (Franklin D. Roosevelt). The aims of the Yalta conference were:

- to adopt a common strategy to hasten the end of the Second World War;

- to settle the fate of Europe after the defeat of the Third Reich; and

- to guarantee the stability of the new world order after victory.

[3] He was accused of having had links in his youth with the American "Communist" Party (he was more of a Democrat, supporting Roosevelt). The real reason for accusing him of being a Soviet agent was his refusal to use his great scientific skills to build the H-bomb.

[4] Bourgeois Organization: The Lie of the 'Democratic' State [159], International Review 76

 

On 7 October, with a hail of rockets, a horde of Islamists unleashed terror on Israeli towns neighbouring the Gaza Strip. In the name of "just revenge" against "the crimes of the occupation", in the name of "Muslims the world over" against the "Zionist regime", Hamas and its allies sent thousands of fanatical "fighters" to commit the worst atrocities against defenceless civilians, women, the elderly and even children. Hamas' savagery knew no bounds: murder, rape, torture, kidnappings, targeted schools, innocent people chased from their homes, thousands hurt...

No sooner had the vile atrocities of Hamas been repelled than the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) unleashed its full murderous might on the Gaza Strip in the name of the fight for "light" against "darkness". At the time of writing, the Israeli air force is relentlessly bombing the overcrowded enclave over which Hamas reigns, indiscriminately wiping out civilians and terrorists alike, while the IDF has just cut the Gaza Strip in two and encircled its capital. By "raining hellfire on Hamas", Netanyahu's government is indiscriminately razing homes to the ground and taking thousands of innocent victims to their graves, including thousands of children.

A totally irrational conflict

The attack of Hamas stunned the whole world. Israel, a State whose bourgeoisie cultivates in its population day after day, year after year, a fortress mentality, a state with intelligence services, Mossad and Shin Bet, among the most renowned in the world, a state that has long been an ally of the United States and its arsenal of surveillance... Israel apparently saw nothing coming: neither suspicious Hamas exercises, nor the concentration of thousands of rockets and men. Nor did the Israeli State heed the many warnings, particularly those from neighbouring Egypt.

There are several possible explanations for this surprise:

- Netanyahu and his clique are so divided and stupid, marked by the weight of populism and the worst religious delusions, focused on defending their small immediate interests and obsessed by control of the West Bank and the "reconquest of the promised land", that they may have underestimated the imminence of the attack by concentrating IDF forces in this region.

- Opposed by parts of the Israeli bourgeoisie, the army and the secret services, it is also possible that Netanyahu deliberately ignored the warnings in an attempt to regain control of the political situation in Israel by attempting "national unity". Just as it is entirely possible that part of the state apparatus failed to inform the government of the imminent attack in order to weaken it further.

What is certain, in any case, is that before 7 October, Netanyahu did everything he could to strengthen the power and resources of Hamas insofar as this organisation was, like him and the whole of the Israeli right, totally opposed to the 1993 Oslo Accords[1] which envisaged Palestinian autonomy. It was "Bibi" himself who claimed responsibility for this policy: “Anyone who wants to combat the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support the strengthening of Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy". These words were spoken by Netanyahu on 11 March 2019 to Likud MPs (reported by the major Israeli daily Haaretz on 9 October).

For the moment, it is difficult to determine the causes of this fiasco on the part of the Israeli security forces. But each of the two hypotheses, like the dynamic into which the Middle East is sinking, reveals the growing chaos that reigns in the political apparatus of the Israeli bourgeoisie: the instability of government coalitions, massive corruption, trials for fraud, legislative wheeling and dealing, controversial judicial reform that poorly conceals the settling of scores within the state apparatus, the supremacist ravings of the ultra-orthodox... All this against a backdrop of rising inflation and a real explosion in poverty.

As for the so-called Hamas "resistance", the very presence of this organisation, which competes with a PLO rotten to the core, at the head of the Gaza Strip is a caricature of the chaos and irrationality into which the Palestinian bourgeoisie has plunged. When Hamas is not bloodily suppressing demonstrations against the soaring cost of living, as it did in March 2019 (which gives a good indication of the fate of the "Palestinian people" once they are "liberated" from "Zionist colonialism"...), when its mafia-like leaders are not gorging themselves on international aid (Hamas is one of the richest terrorist organisations on the planet), when it is not fomenting terrorist attacks, this bloodthirsty group is preaching a most obscurantist, racist and delusional ideology.

The state of Israel and Hamas, at different times and with different means, have followed the lowest of policies that have led to today's massacres. In the end, this will not benefit either of the two belligerents, but will spread destruction and barbarism even further.

Accelerating global chaos

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is clearly not a strictly local one. Less than two years after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, at a time when a whole series of conflicts are being rekindled in the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Sahel, this bloody conflagration is not just another episode in a conflict that has been going on for decades. On the contrary, it represents a significant new stage in the acceleration of global chaos.

In the near future, the possibility that Israel will be forced to wage a war on three fronts against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran cannot be ruled out. An extension of the conflict would have major global repercussions, starting with a huge influx of refugees from Gaza and the West Bank and destabilising the countries neighbouring Israel. It would also have particularly devastating immediate consequences for the global economy as a whole, given the importance of the Middle East in oil production.

The spread of the conflict to Europe, with a series of deadly attacks, should also not be underestimated. An attack claimed by Islamic State has already been carried out in Belgium. A teacher was also brutally murdered in France on 13 October by a young Islamist, less than a week after the Hamas offensive.

But it is not enough to wait for the conflict to spread to gauge its immediate international dimension.[2] The scale of the Hamas attack and the level of preparation it required leave little doubt about the involvement of Iran, which is clearly ready to set the whole region ablaze in defence of its immediate strategic interests and in an attempt to break out of its isolation. The Islamic Republic has set a real trap for Netanyahu. It is also the reason why Teheran and its allies have stepped up their provocations, with Hezbollah and the Houthis (Yemen) firing missiles at Israeli positions. Russia has also undoubtedly played a role in the Hamas offensive, which it hopes will weaken US and European support for Ukraine.

Even if the violence does not spread to the whole of the Middle East in the immediate future, the dynamic of destabilisation is inescapable. In this respect, the situation can only worry China: not only would it weaken its oil supplies, but it would also represent a considerable obstacle to the construction of its "Silk Roads" with their gigantic port, rail and oil infrastructures. However, China, which finds itself in an ambivalent position here, could also contribute to the chaos by ending up openly supporting Iran, in the hope of easing American pressure in the Pacific.

This conflict shows the extent to which each state is increasingly applying a "scorched earth" policy to defend its interests, seeking not to gain influence or conquer interests, but to sow chaos and destruction among its rivals.

This tendency towards strategic irrationality, short-sightedness, unstable alliances, and each against all is not an arbitrary policy of this or that state, nor the product of the sheer stupidity of this or that bourgeois faction in power. It is the consequence of the historical conditions, those of the decomposition of capitalism, in which all states confront each other.[3] With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, this historical tendency and the weight of militarism on society have profoundly worsened. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict confirms the extent to which imperialist war is now the main destabilising factor in capitalist society. The product of the contradictions of capitalism, the winds of war in turn feed the fire of these same contradictions, increasing, through the weight of militarism, the economic crisis, the environmental catastrophe, the dismemberment of society... This dynamic tends to rot all parts of society, to weaken all nations, starting with the first among them: the United States.

The irreversible weakening of American leadership

Western heads of state rushed to Israel's bedside, initially with some trepidation and doubts about how best to handle the situation. The French President, for once, made a fool of himself in a diplomatic stand-off, calling for the coalition created in 2014 against the Islamic State to be mobilised against Hamas, before pathetically backtracking in the evening.

By rushing to Tel Aviv and Israel's neighbours, the European powers are seeking to take advantage of the situation to regain a foothold in the region. But it was still Biden who set the tone by trying to put pressure on Israel to avoid too much bloodshed in Gaza. He also sent two aircraft carriers to the area to send a message of resolve to Hezbollah and Iran.

When the United States made its "strategic pivot" towards Asia under Obama (a policy pursued by Trump and Biden), it did not abandon its influence in the Middle East. Washington worked, notably through the Abraham Accords, to establish a system of alliances between Israel and several Arab countries, in particular Saudi Arabia, to contain Iran's imperialist aspirations, delegating responsibility for maintaining order to the Israeli state.

But this was without taking into account the growing instability of alliances and the deep-seated tendency to go it alone. The Israeli bourgeoisie has never ceased to put its own imperialist interests ahead of those of the United States. While Washington favours a two-state "solution", Netanyahu has increased the number of annexations in the West Bank, risking setting the region on fire, while counting on American military and diplomatic support if the conflict escalates. The United States now finds itself backed into a corner by Israel, forced to support Netanyahu's irresponsible policy.

Biden's reaction, shows how little confidence the US administration has in Netanyahu's clique and how worried it is about the prospect of a catastrophic conflagration in the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict puts further pressure on US imperialist policy, which could prove calamitous if expanded. Washington would then have to assume a considerable military presence and support for Israel, which could only weigh heavily, not only on the US economy, but also on its support for Ukraine and, even more so, on its strategy to contain China's expansion.

The pro-Palestinian rhetoric of Turkey, an "incurable" member of NATO, will also contribute to weakening the United States in the region, just as the tensions between Israel and several Latin American countries will no doubt accentuate tensions with its North American sponsor. Washington is therefore trying to prevent the situation from getting out of hand... a perfectly illusory ambition in the long term, given the disastrous dynamic into which the Middle East is sinking.

The impact of the war on the working class

The images of the atrocities committed by Hamas and the IDF have travelled around the world and, everywhere, the bourgeoisie has called on us to choose sides. On all the television channels and in all the newspapers, on the left and on the right, foul war propaganda, often crude, sometimes more subtle, is unleashed, telling everyone to choose between "Palestinian resistance" and "Israeli democracy", as if there was no other choice but to support one or the other of these bloodthirsty bourgeois cliques.

Parts of the bourgeoisie, particularly in Europe and North America, are unleashing a ferocious campaign to legitimise the war and the atrocities of the Israeli army: “We defend the right of Israel to exist, to defend itself, and guarantee security for its people. And we perfectly understand that terrorism has to be fought" (Italian Prime Minister Meloni). Of course, the bourgeoisie will cover itself in humanitarian virtues as they hypocritically deplore the civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip. But rest assured, German Chancellor Scholz is certain: “Israel is a democratic state with very humanitarian principles that guide it and we can therefore be sure that the Israeli army will respect the rules of international law in what it does ".

The bourgeoisie can also rely on its left-wing parties to feed its dirty nationalist propaganda. Almost all of them advocate the defence of Palestine. Their rhetoric ranges from the supposed defence of the Palestinian people who have been bombed to shameless support for the barbarians of Hamas. Gigantic pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been organised in London and Berlin, exploiting the legitimate disgust aroused by the bombing of Gaza.

It is true that the working class is not today in a position to directly oppose the war and its horrors. But choosing one imperialist camp against another is a fatal trap. Because it means accepting the logic of war, which is "hatred, fractures and divisions between human beings, death for death's sake, the institutionalisation of torture, submission, power struggles, as the only logic of social evolution".[4] Because it means taking at face value the shameless lies that the bourgeoisie repeats at every conflict: "After this war, peace will return". Because, above all, it means siding with the interests of the bourgeoisie (defending national capital at all costs, even if it means driving humanity into the grave) and abandoning the fight for the only perspective really capable of putting an end to the murderous dynamic of capitalism: the fight to defend the historic interests of the proletariat, the fight for communism.

The vast majority of workers in Israel and Palestine have let themselves be drawn onto the terrain of nationalism and war. However, through the unprecedented series of struggles in many countries, in Britain, France and the United States in particular, the working class has shown that it is capable of fighting, if not against war and militarism themselves, then against the economic consequences of war, against the sacrifices demanded by the bourgeoisie to fuel its war economy. This is a fundamental stage in the development of combativeness and, ultimately, of class consciousness.[5] The war in the Middle East, with the deepening of the crisis and the additional armament requirements it will generate in the four corners of the planet, will only increase the objective conditions for this break.

But this war carries with it as yet unforeseeable dangers for the working class. If the massacres continue to worsen or spread, the feeling of powerlessness and the divisions within the working class are likely to constitute a significant obstacle to the development efforts towards combativity and reflection. As shown by the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the conflict in the Middle East is likely to have a very negative impact on the working class, particularly in France, the United Kingdom and Germany, where the presence of large numbers of Jews and Muslims, combined with the inflammatory rhetoric of governments, makes the situation more than explosive.

The Israeli-Palestinian war is undoubtedly causing a feeling of powerlessness and serious divisions within the working class. But the immensity of the dangers and the task ahead must not lead us to fatalism. If today the ruling class is filling workers’ heads with nationalist and war propaganda, the crisis into which capitalism is sinking is also creating the conditions for massive struggles to erupt and for a process of reflection to emerge, first among revolutionary minorities and then within the working class as a whole.

EG, 6 November 2023

Britain has long typified the different periods of the evolution of the world capitalist system. No more so than today where, among the major industrial powers, it illustrates the long-drawn out deterioration of the system in its final phase of decomposition, and reveals the acceleration of this decline over the last few years.

At the level of economic decline, of imperialist convulsions, political chaos, the disinvestment in infrastructure, Britain has been in the forefront of the downward slide and in 2022 it was strongly engaged in arming and financing the war in Ukraine. And when war broke out in Israel/Gaza in October 2023, Britain wasted no time in sending military forces to the Eastern Mediterranean.

But in 2022, the British working class, the oldest section of the global working class, reminded the world that within the mounting ruins of capitalist society there remains an alternative perspective: the destruction of capitalism and the construction of a communist society. The class struggle, which had been in retreat for three decades, still has the potential to disrupt capitalism’s message of ‘no future’.

It is vitally important to understand the significance of the struggles of the working class in Britain which broke out last year, affecting many sectors (post, rail, health, education….), and playing an important part in struggles across the globe, including Europe, particularly the movement against pension reform in France, in the USA which has its own summer of anger in 2023, a year after the summer of discontent in the UK, and Asia (South Korea, China, Japan). Struggles taking place on the proletarian terrain of defence of living standards and working conditions which have been under attack for decades and now are coming up against the high inflation rates and the ‘cost of living crisis’; taking place in spite of the propaganda around the need for sacrifice for the Ukraine war, or divisions for instance created around Brexit between Leavers and Remainers. These struggles show the emergence of a new generation of workers able to break with three decades of passivity and so point towards the proletarian perspective of putting an end to decomposing capitalism. Consequently, while on the one hand the situation in Britain can only worsen in all aspects of the vicious circle of decomposition, on the other hand the slow development of workers’ struggles on the proletarian terrain of defence of its living standards show that the class is not ready to sacrifice itself on the altar of imperialist adventures.

1. The ‘whirlwind’ effect

The international situation is characterised by imperialist war in Ukraine and the Middle East with its aggravation of the economic crisis, the prospect of hunger across large parts of Africa, and of the ecological crisis. This is only one aspect of the whirlwind effect, in which all the different expressions of capitalist crisis and decomposition no longer merely run in parallel lines, but directly exacerbate each other. Faced with which the bourgeoisie has increasing difficulty controlling its political game, with the growth of populism and of deep divisions in its ranks. Britain is implicated in every aspect of these disasters and threats:

• The UK is defending its interests by supplying Ukraine with lethal and non-lethal aid as well as sending its military to the Mediterranean
• Britain was particularly hard hit by the Covid pandemic because of the dilapidation of its health services and the callousness of the bourgeoisie, and not simply because an incompetent Prime Minister was happy to allow the elderly to die of the disease, as news from the current enquiry would imply
• In this year of record high temperatures, Britain has suffered a series of storms leading to floods, but has escaped the more deadly wildfires, droughts and heatwaves that have hit much of the world, including developed countries in Europe and North America
• The British bourgeoisie suffers particularly from the political crisis linked to populism, particularly around the issue of Brexit, with deep divisions in both the Tory and Labour parties.
• All these aspects have contributed to the worsening of the economy

 2. The weakness of British imperialism

The economic failure of Brexit and “global Britain” is mirrored at the imperialist level. British imperialism in fact benefitted momentarily from its exit from the EU by being able to act as the greatest friend and supplier of Ukraine, and most raucous enemy of the Russian invasion, amongst the European powers. But the economic consequences of this support and posturing are not viable long term. Britain can’t afford it and the USA’s objective over Ukraine, as elsewhere, is not only to weaken its enemies but also its “allies”, including Britain.

After nearly two years there is no sign of any resolution to the war in Ukraine on the battlefield or through negotiation. This ongoing death and destruction may help the US to weaken its allies, including Britain, as well as Russia, but it hinders America in concentrating its efforts on China.

The rush to send a Royal Navy task force and surveillance aircraft to the Eastern Mediterranean in response to the war of Israel-Gaza, a mere footnote compared to the two US aircraft carriers sent, and equally unsustainable in the long term, also shows the decline of British imperialism.

This predicament for British imperialism is a continuation of the problem it has faced since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989, which opened up a period of every man for himself at the global imperialist level. British imperialism no longer benefitted from its attempts to continue its role as special ally of the US as it did during the Cold War. Its participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended up in military humiliations. At the same time the attempts by Britain to play an independent imperialist role, as in the war in ex-Yugoslavia, brought counter attacks from US imperialism, as in the latter’s support for Irish Republicanism in the mid-1990s.

Not only is Britain facing reverses and humiliations on the world arena, its attempt to assert its power against its rivals has brought problems for the integrity of the United Kingdom itself. Brexit has increased the calls for Scottish Independence, while both the US and European powers supported the rights of the Irish Republic against the attempt of Westminster to ignore the Northern Ireland Protocol, one of the articles of the Brexit agreement with the EU. Coupled with the growing power of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, this means that Britain is going to have to fight strenuously in the coming period merely to prevent the fragmentation of the kingdom. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation shortly before a financial scandal hit her party illustrates this fight.

3. The economy

The decline of the British economy has to be understood in the international framework.

“The main zones of the world economy are already in recession or about to sink into it. … The historical gravity of the present crisis marks an advanced point in the process of the “internal disintegration” of world capitalism, announced by the Communist International in 1919, and which flows from the general context of the terminal phase of decadence, whose main tendencies are:

• The acceleration of decomposition and the multiple impact of its effects on a capitalist economy which had already been deteriorating;
• The acceleration of militarism on a world scale
• The acute development of every man for himself between nations against a background of increasingly sharp competition between China and the US for world supremacy
• The abandonment of the rules of cooperation between nations to face up to the contradictions and convulsions of the system
• The lack of a locomotive able to relaunch the capitalist economy
• The perspective of absolute impoverishment of the proletariat in the central countries, which is already underway

We are witnessing the coincidence of different expressions of the economic crisis, and above all their interaction in the dynamics of its development: thus, high inflation requires the raising of interest rates; this, in turn provokes recession, itself a source of the financial crisis, leading to new injections of liquidity, thus even more debt, which is already astronomical, and is a further factor of inflation.... All this demonstrates the bankruptcy of this system and its inability to offer a perspective to humanity.”  International situation resolution (International Review 170) [163]

The British economy is being particularly badly hit today, reaching new historic lows. British capitalism already presaged the end of the post-war reconstruction period in 1967 with the devaluation of the pound sterling. It suffered badly from the 2008 financial crash and recession, then reeled again when Britain departed from the European Union. The economy was further battered when the Covid pandemic plunged world capitalism into the worst recession since the Second World War. The phenomenal costs of imperialist war in Europe with the support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion have accentuated the crisis, especially in Britain.

The historically uncompetitive British economy has been further hit by the political dislocation of a bourgeoisie divided over Europe and infected with populism. This saw three short-lived prime ministers after Cameron resigned following the 2016 Brexit referendum, before settling on the present one, Rishi Sunak, in an effort to stabilise the political situation. Nevertheless, populism and its attendant divisions still weigh heavily on the economy.

Brexit was a self-inflicted economic wound of historic proportions, limiting Britain’s access to the large single market. The pound sterling lost 10% of its value as a result. The decision was an expression of the growth of a populist trend in the political apparatus. This reached its nadir with the Liz Truss government, an extension of the Brexit disaster, with its radical free market policies and the fantasy of “global Britain” causing havoc in the global markets.

The economy is still suffering the effects of these populist measures, and others such as Sunak’s retreat on phasing out petrol cars, creating uncertainty for business, or anti-immigration policies that keep out much-needed labour. The government has run out of money for HS2, schools are collapsing due to ageing concrete, a rundown water system discharges raw sewage into rivers, and a local authority the size of Birmingham has gone bankrupt. These are the effects of decomposition on the infrastructure and the economy.

4. The attacks

The bourgeoisie has no option but to continue draconian attacks on the working class. The British working class over the last decade had already seen a relentless deterioration of its living standards, through cuts in the social wage - health and social services, housing, pensions, reduction in claimant payments - and a slow deterioration of the purchasing power of wages for those still in employment. But in the last few years, with the sharp rise in inflation, the effective wage cuts have been much sharper. Fuel prices rose sharply last year, food price inflation fell to 13.6% in August from a peak of 19.2% in March, the highest for 45 years, with overall inflation (CPIH) down to 6.3% from over 10% at its peak.

As increasing numbers of workers cannot afford housing, heating and food and more and more rely on food banks. The bourgeoisie talks of “fuel poverty” and “food poverty” and “housing poverty”, as if the inability to afford adequate heating, housing or food were not simply poverty. Such terms won’t hide the tendency for capitalism to pauperise the proletariat.

5. The rupture

As we say in the Theses on decomposition, "the inexorable aggravation of the crisis of capitalism constitutes the essential stimulus of the struggle and of the awareness of the class, the very condition of its capacity to resist the ideological poison of the rotting of society. Indeed, as much as the proletariat cannot find a ground for class unity in partial struggles against the effects of decomposition, its struggle against the direct effects of the crisis itself constitutes the basis for the development of its strength and its class unity."

The present upsurge in struggle fully confirms this perspective. They are a direct response to the deepening economic crisis and not an explicit reaction against the war in Ukraine by the majority of workers, even if a minority is already posing the question of the link between economic crisis and war. And yet the refusal of the working class to accept economic sacrifices despite all the war propaganda is profoundly significant and contains the seeds of a future conscious struggle against war and all the effects of capitalist decomposition. In the same way, the mass strikes of the Polish workers in August 1980 constituted the response of the working class to the intensification of imperialist antagonisms inaugurated by the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. 

The British working class was a major force in the worldwide resurgence of class struggle after 1968 and the following two decades. It played, as it still does, a bridge from the European to the American working class. But it suffered a major reversal in the defeat of the miners’ strike and then the printers’ strike in 1984-86. With the defeat of the militant coal miners in 1985, a major sector of the working class was effectively wiped out: its numbers were reduced from 190,000 to 5,000, and so this sector could no longer play, as it had previously, the role of reference point for the whole British working class.

With the additional blow that came with the huge ideological campaigns at the time of the collapse of the Eastern bloc, plus the divisive, terrifying and disorienting effects of the general decomposition of the system, the retreat of the working class in Britain over the past 30 years has exemplified the difficulties of the world proletariat in this period.

Particularly in the period leading up to and following the Brexit referendum, the bourgeoisie was able to use its divisions over Europe to divide the population, including the working class.

So the revival of class struggle is no automatic response to a particular level of attacks. Attacks have been going on for decades and we need to understand what made the present fall in living standards insupportable, what made workers raise the slogan “Enough is enough!” after decades of passivity? Similarly, what made it clear that with these price rises, with this fall in real wages, “we are all in the same boat” – in other words, what has facilitated the real recovery of class identity that we are now witnessing? Here we need to understand that entering into this struggle, breaking with decades of passivity, was also the result of the subterranean maturation of consciousness: “in the broadest layers of the class, it takes the form of a growing contradiction between the historic being, the real needs of the class, and the workers' superficial adherence to bourgeois ideas. This clash may for a long time remain largely unadmitted, buried or repressed, or it may begin to surface in the negative form of disillusionment with, and disengagement from, the principal themes of bourgeois ideology;” (International Review 43, quoted in Report on the class struggle, IR 170 [164]). The experience of the attacks over many years, the emergence of a new generation of workers less resigned to putting up with them, has given rise to a growing feeling of discontent, and to a process of reflection in those “broad layers” of the class, culminating in the open outbreak of the struggle in the summer of 2022.

Since summer 2022 many sectors of workers have been struggling – postal workers, BT, rail, bus, school teachers, university teachers, workers at Amazon, healthworkers…. This situation where workers in Britain all face falling real wages with high inflation, and where there is a broad strike movement by workers in response, cries out for the unification of the struggle. Yet the strikes have been divided from each other by many means. Sometimes by using devolution, as when the Royal College of Nursing settled the nurses pay claim for a different offer in Scotland. More often the divisions are initiated and imposed by the trade unions: the Communication Workers Union kept their members working for BT and those working for the Royal Mail completely separate despite their struggles going on at the same time; ambulance workers were divided up between three unions, Unite, Unison and GMB, striking on different days or different times on the same day. In this way the unions robbed pickets of their role of calling on workers to join the strike since this was not allowed for those not in the same union. Some large RCN pickets looked very impressive, but they were kept under tight control and not allowed to call on other workers to join the strike.

Despite this tight control and the divisions imposed, there was no denying that different sectors of workers were fighting the same battles, that it made no sense to keep them divided. Also, there were questions raised about how to struggle effectively, how to make the government or bosses withdraw attacks without being worn down by on-off one or two day strikes. These questions were posed, but could not be answered yet, and in particular there was a real hesitation about going against the union framework by breaking the law on secondary picketing, i.e. going to other workers and calling on them to join the fight.

In order to successfully advance the strikes the working class will have to spread them outside of corporatist union control, and take them into its own hands through assemblies and strike committees, and confront at least in practice the prison of electoral, legal and national interests. This poses the necessity for further reflection in the working class. 

It is also essential to place the struggle in Britain in its international context as part of a development of struggles, including Europe, USA and Asia. Struggles that started in Britain a year ago have been a beacon for workers in the English-speaking world, including the USA, as well as having an impact on the movement in Europe, notably the struggle against pension reform in France.

Right now there are fewer strikes going on in Britain, as there are fewer struggles in France, while the centre of the resistance of the working class has moved to the USA. With strikes continuing in a number of sectors in Britain, there is no sign of a defeat. But nor have workers found the way to force the ruling class to restore living standards eroded by inflation. The greatest gain of the struggles is the struggle itself, the experience of fighting together as workers, as part of the working class, and of the way the unions undermine that struggle. It is vital that workers continue reflecting on their own experience of struggle and workers’ experiences in other parts of the international class, which constitutes another vital aspect of the subterranean maturation of consciousness: “in a more restricted sector of the class, among workers who fundamentally remain on a proletarian terrain, it takes the form of a reflection on past struggles, more or less formal discussions on the struggles to come, the emergence of combative nuclei in the factories and among the unemployed. In recent times, the most dramatic demonstration of this aspect of the phenomenon of subterranean maturation was provided by the mass strikes in Poland 1980, in which the methods of struggle used by the workers showed that there had been a real assimilation of many of the lessons of the struggles of 1956, 1970 and 1976” (International Review 43, quoted in Report on the class struggle, IR 170 [164]).

6. The radicalisation of the unions in preparation for the class struggle and the role of the leftists

The tight union control of the struggles in Britain should not lead us to underestimate their significance in the break from three decades of passivity. Whether the unions control the struggles or whether the working class is able to take its struggle into its own hands is the result of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The wave of struggles that started in 1968, marking the end of the counter-revolution, caught the bourgeoisie by surprise, allowing a large number of wildcat strikes to take place. Today, by contrast, the bourgeoisie is much better prepared. The unions have been watching the development of anger in the working class over the years and adopting a more radical language. Mick Lynch, who has been putting forward a very left face, announcing that “the working class is back”, was put in place as general secretary of the RMT union in 2021. In the same year Sharon Graham became general secretary of Unite, which has now become much more critical of the Labour Party, while still backing it financially.

This radicalisation of the trade unions in preparation for the present strike wave was in fact the main obstacle to the development of the latter. It has allowed the unions to go to the head of the movement and keep the different sectors isolated from each other, with the ultimate aim of wearing out the movement and preventing the development of a class front. The express aim of the trade unions is the election of a Labour Government as the solution to the strikers’ grievances, not the widening of the struggle. The cause of the upsurge in workers’ struggles would be, according to the unions, the failure of Tory government policies and the failure of the bosses of each industry to negotiate fairly with the unions and redistribute their enormous profits to the workers.

The leftists (Trotskyists, Labour left etc) have focused mainly on the base of the unions, where they have the most influence. Their propaganda calls for the linking up of the struggles but without breaking their corporatist framework, and criticise even the radical union leaders, who they nevertheless support, for respecting the legal framework for strike action. Their objective is also to bring down “Tory rule” and, contrary to the laws of capitalism, reduce profits in favour of wages. They also want a Labour government, but “pledged to socialist policies”.

A constant refrain from the unions and the left is the question of “anti-union laws”, last year around legislation changing the conditions of strike ballots, and more recently insisting on the preservation of “minimum levels of service” during public sector strikes. Far from being “anti-union” such legislation helps the unions to keep workers from escaping the corporatist prison of their struggles, as we can see with older legislation against secondary picketing. This sort of legislation provides the bourgeoisie with a constant campaign around ‘the democratic right to strike’, and with the Labour Party promising to repeal the “minimum levels of service” legislation it is also an ideal ruse to try to turn strikers into participants in next year’s electoral campaign.

While the traditional union methods of strike-breaking have retained all their strength, those obstacles associated with the decomposition of capitalism, refracted through bourgeois and interclass movements against the ecological crisis, against racism and sexism, campaigns for or against “woke” in the “culture wars”, have also been pushed forward, containing the danger of submerging the class struggle and class identity into a morass of popular protest..The mobilisations in support of “Free Palestine” are a further obstacle to the re-emerging sense of class identity; more generally, the war in the Middle East is a potent source of division and hatred within the population.

7. The political line-up of the bourgeoisie

The convulsions at the level of the political apparatus of the state are also a factor of derailing and obscuring the underlying class antagonisms that define the situation. Unlike the radicalisation of the unions and the efforts of the left, these convulsions and divisions do not derive from the Machiavellianism of the bourgeoisie but from its loss of control of its political game in the context of decomposition. However, as the Brexit campaign showed in 2016, this in no way limits its capacity to confuse and derail the working class.

Britain was famous for the longevity and stability of its state institutions, the experience of its politicians, diplomats and administrators. Now the disruption within these institutions - the monarchy, the ministries, the cabinet, parliament and its parties, the judiciary - have become a striking example of the decomposition of the bourgeoisies’ political apparatus worldwide.

As indicated earlier, populism has caused ongoing damage to the economy, through Brexit and through increasing instability (see section 3).

Brexit was accompanied by the transformation of the centuries old Tory Party into a populist shambles that relegated experienced politicians to the sidelines and brought ambitious, doctrinaire mediocrities into governmental positions, who then proceeded to disrupt the competence of the ministries that they headed. The rapid succession of Tory prime ministers since 2016 testifies to the uncertainty at the political helm.

However, the need of the state to preserve some of its democratic credibility, and the reality of the re-emergence of the class struggle, obliges an important part of the political apparatus to defend “traditional dignity and values of governmental office” against this trend, and pull back if possible from the most reckless decisions. The Sunak government, despite the influence of populism, has modified aspects of the Northern Ireland Protocol in order to get round some of the contradictions of Brexit, and rejoined the European Horizon project, without being able to overcome the drain on the economy. King Charles has been dispatched to France and Germany as an ambassador to show Britain’s remnants of dignity. Finally, the sacking of Suella Braverman and the appointment of Lord Cameron as Foreign Secretary is a further expression of this attempt to limit the growing populist virus in the party, but its future direction and stability remains profoundly uncertain, not least because the same virus is an international reality, most obviously in the American ruling class. 

The division in the state between the populists and the more classical liberals expresses the deterioration of the political game of bourgeoisie that is increasingly losing its margin of manoeuvre. However, faced with the working class the whole bourgeoisie is very much aware that it has to use these divisions to divide its class enemy. The conflict between the madness of populism and the return to democratic sanity is the great false alternative that will continue to be played out daily in front of the population in order to hide the real problem of the inevitable collapse of capitalism as a whole, and to present it as a national problem.

At present the opposition Labour Party, under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer, is adopting the role of responsible and honourable centrist and electable alternative to the right-wing extremism of the Tory Government. A first step has been to eject the “hard left” from the party. Starmer models himself on Tony Blair as he waves the Union Jack and sings the national anthem. Like Blair he has announced that if elected next year he has ruled out tax increases or unfunded spending. He has also announced he intends to renegotiate with the EU in order to improve trade and relations while not openly reversing any Brexit decisions.

Starmer intends to turn Labour from a “party of protest into a party of government” and is currently ahead in the polls, although the recent by-election successes which made this prospect more plausible have been tarnished somewhat by the impact of the war in the Middle East, where Starmer’s tail-ending of the UK government and the US has provoked deep divisions within a party that had been touting its new unity in contrast to the factionalism dominating the Tories. .

However, the Labour Party retains the means to head dramatically leftward as the trade unions and their leftist camp followers can wield significant power in the party when the sabotage of the class struggle requires it. The British bourgeoisie has made very good use of a hard right in power and a radical left in opposition to face up to a resurgent working class, as it did with great success in the Thatcher years, and the bourgeoisie may still opt to continue this line-up. However, if necessary the trade unions and their leftist camp followers can play a left wing oppositional role towards a Labour government if the bourgeoisie needs this to face a resurgence of class struggle with Labour in office.

8. Our responsibility

The responsibilities of revolutionary organisations depend on the historic situation, today characterised by decomposition and by a working class that has not suffered a historical defeat, the former threatening the destruction of humanity, and the latter holding open the perspective of the communist revolution. This demands that our analysis follow the both these poles of the situation today, and in particular remains awake to the development of the class struggle. Our intervention, particularly our press, must draw the lessons of the class struggle as well as denouncing the bourgeoisie’s manoeuvres against it, particularly through the unions and the left. And it must highlight the worsening of decomposition, pointing to the necessity for the communist revolution to avoid the destruction of humanity. None of this can be done without a revolutionary organisation able to defend proletarian principles of functioning.

 

December 2023

 

 

Cities completely devastated, hospitals in total collapse, crowds of civilians wandering the streets under the bombs, without water, food or electricity, families everywhere crying for their dead, children haggardly searching for their mothers under the ruins, others mercilessly torn apart... This terrifying apocalyptic landscape is not that of Warsaw or Hiroshima after six years of world war, nor that of Sarajevo after four years of siege. This is the landscape of "21st century capitalism", the streets of Gaza, Rafah and Khan Yunis after just two months of conflict.

Two months! It took just two short months to raze Gaza to the ground, take tens of thousands of lives and throw millions more onto roads that lead nowhere! And not just by anyone! By "the only democracy in the Near and Middle East", by the State of Israel, an ally of the great Western "democracies", which claims to be the sole repository of the memory of the Holocaust.

For decades, revolutionaries have been crying out: “Capitalism is gradually plunging humanity into barbarism and chaos!”  Here we are... Down with the masks! Capitalism is showing its true face and the future it has in store for all humanity!

Neither Israel nor Palestine!

Faced with such an outburst of barbarity, both sides and their supporters around the world are blaming each other for the crimes.

For some, Israel is waging a "dirty war" (as if there were such a thing as a clean one...) that even the UN and its very cautious Secretary General have had to denounce, going so far as to speak of "a serious risk of genocide". Some on the left of capital do not even hesitate to support the despicable atrocities of Hamas, painted as an "act of resistance" against "Israeli colonialism", which is claimed to be solely responsible for the conflict.

For its part, the Israeli government justifies the carnage by claiming to be avenging the victims of 7 October and preventing Hamas terrorists from again attacking the "security of the Jewish state". So much for the thousands of innocent victims! Never mind the "human shields" of 6 years! Never mind the ruined hospitals, schools and homes! Israel's security is worth a massacre!

Everywhere, we hear the sirens of nationalism defending a state that is supposedly the victim of the other. But what kind of deluded mind imagines that the Gazan bourgeoisie, thirsting for money and blood, is better than Netanyahu's clique of the corrupt and the fanatical?

"We're not defending Hamas, we're defending the right of the ‘Palestinian people’ to self-determination", all the leftist coterie at the head of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations sing, no doubt hoping, with this kind of ideological pirouette, to make us forget that "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination" is only a formula designed to conceal the defence of what must be called the State of Gaza! The interests of proletarians in Palestine, Israel or any other country in the world should in no way be confused with those of their bourgeoisie and their state. To be convinced of this, we need only recall how Hamas bloodily repressed the 2019 demonstrations against poverty. The Palestinian homeland will never be anything but a bourgeois state at the service of the exploiting class! A "liberated" Gaza Strip would mean nothing more than consolidating the odious regime of Hamas or any other faction of the Gazan bourgeoisie.

"But the struggle of a colonised country for its liberation undermines the imperialism of the colonising states", counter-attacked some Trotskyists and what remained of the Stalinists, without laughing. What a crude lie! Hamas's attack is part of an imperialist logic that goes far beyond its own interests. Iran helped to ignite the fuse by arming Hamas. It is trying to spread chaos among its rivals, especially Israel, by multiplying provocations and incidents in the region: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Shia militias in Syria and Iraq... "all the parties in the region have their hands on the trigger", as the Iranian Foreign Minister said at the end of October. However weak it may be in the face of the power of the Israeli military, Hamas, like every national bourgeoisie since capitalism entered its period of decadence, can in no way magically escape the imperialist ties which govern all international relations. Supporting the Palestinian state means siding with the imperialist interests of Khamenei, Nasrallah and even Putin, who is rubbing his hands over the conflict.

But then the inimitable pacifists appear on the scene to complete the nationalist straitjacket in which the bourgeoisie is trying to trap the working class: "We don't support either side! We demand an immediate ceasefire!” The most naïve no doubt imagine that the accelerated plunge of capitalism into barbarism is due to the lack of "good will" on the part of the murderers at the head of the states, or even to a "failure of democracy". The clever ones know perfectly well what sordid interests they are defending. This is the case, for example, with President Biden, supplier of cluster munitions to Ukraine, horrified by the "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza. It has to be said that Israel took Uncle Sam by surprise, opening up a new and potentially explosive front that the United States could have done without. If Biden has raised his voice to Netanyahu, it is not to "preserve world peace", but to better focus his efforts and military forces on his rival China in the Pacific, and on the latter’s burdensome Russian ally in Ukraine.

There is therefore nothing to hope for from "peace" under the rule of capitalism, any more than after the victory of one side or another. The bourgeoisie has no solution to war!

A giant step into barbarism

What is happening today in the Middle East is not just another episode in the long series of outbreaks of violence that have tragically punctuated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. The current conflict has nothing to do with the old "logic" of confrontation between the USSR and the United States. On the contrary, it represents a further step in the drive of global capitalism towards chaos, the proliferation of uncontrollable convulsions and the spread of ever more conflicts.

The level of barbarity on the scale of Gaza is perhaps even worse than the extraordinary violence of the Ukrainian conflict. All the wars of decadence have resulted in mass slaughter and gigantic destruction. But even the greatest murderers of the twentieth century, the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Churchills and the Eisenhowers, only engaged in the worst horrors after several years of war, multiplying the "justifications" for turning entire cities into heaps of ashes. Yet it is striking to note the extent to which the streets of Gaza already bear a striking resemblance to the ruined landscapes at the end of the Second World War. This whole clique of barbarians has been swept along by the scorched earth logic that now dominates imperialist conflicts.

What strategic advantage could Hamas possibly have gained by sending a thousand assassins to massacre civilians, if not to ignite the fuse and expose itself to its own destruction? What are Iran or Israel hoping to achieve, then, if not to sow chaos among their rivals, chaos that will inevitably come back to hit them like a boomerang? Neither state has anything to gain from this hopeless conflict. Israeli society could be profoundly destabilised by the war, threatened for decades to come by a generation of Palestinians bent on revenge. As for Iran, while it stands to gain the most from the situation, this can only be a Pyrrhic victory! Because if the United States fails to curb the indiscriminate unleashing of military barbarity, Iran is exposed to harsh reprisals against its positions in Lebanon and Syria, and even to destructive attacks on its own territory. And all this at the risk of destabilising ever larger regions of the planet, with shortages, famines, millions of displaced people, increased risks of attacks, confrontations between communities...

Even if the United States is trying to prevent the situation from getting out of hand, the risk of a generalised conflagration in the Middle East is not negligible. Because, far from obeying the "bloc discipline" that prevailed until the collapse of the USSR, all the local players are ready to pull the trigger. The first thing that stands out is that Israel has acted alone, arousing the anger and open criticism of the Biden administration. Netanyahu has taken advantage of the weakening of American leadership to try to crush the Palestinian bourgeoisie and destroy Iran's allies, thereby opposing the "two-state solution" promoted by the United States. The indiscipline of Israel, which is more concerned with its own immediate interests, is a huge blow to Washington's efforts to prevent the destabilisation of the region, particularly through the rapprochement between Israel, Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries. Above all, the conflict risks opening up a new front, with Iran and its allies waiting in ambush, likely to further weaken American leadership.

Who can end war?

The proletariat in Gaza has been crushed. The proletariat in Israel, stunned by the Hamas attack, has allowed itself to be taken in by nationalist and war propaganda. In the main bastions of the proletariat, particularly in Europe, if the working class is not ready to sacrifice itself directly in the trenches, it is still incapable of rising up directly against the imperialist war, on the terrain of proletarian internationalism.

So is all lost?... No! The bourgeoisie has demanded enormous sacrifices to fuel the war machine in Ukraine. In the face of the crisis and despite the propaganda, the proletariat rose up against the economic consequences of this conflict, against inflation and austerity. Admittedly, the working class still finds it difficult to make the link between militarism and the economic crisis, but it has indeed refused to make sacrifices: in the United Kingdom with a year of mobilisations, in France against pension reform, in the United States against inflation...

While the Ukrainian conflict drags on, the Israeli-Palestinian war rages on, and the bourgeoisie redoubles its efforts to fill the heads of the exploited with its despicable nationalist propaganda, the working class is still fighting! Recently, Canada has seen a historic movement of struggle. Unprecedented struggles, with expressions of solidarity, are taking place in the Scandinavian countries.

The working class is not dead! Through its struggles, the proletariat is also finding out what true class solidarity is. In the face of war, workers' solidarity is not with the “Palestinians” or the “Israelis”. It is with the workers of Palestine and Israel, as it is with the workers of the whole world. Solidarity with the victims of the massacres certainly does not mean maintaining the nationalist mystifications which have led workers to place themselves behind a gun and a bourgeois clique. Workers' solidarity means above all developing the fight against the capitalist system responsible for all wars.

Revolutionary struggle cannot come about with a snap of the fingers. Today, it can only come about through the development of workers' struggles against the increasingly harsh economic attacks by the bourgeoisie. Today's struggles pave the way for tomorrow's revolution!

EG, 16 December 2023

Born in Bavaria in 1923, of Jewish origin, the young Heinz Alfred Kissinger was forced to migrate with his family to the United States to escape Nazism. Becoming "Henry", he was granted American nationality in 1943, enlisted as a soldier in the ranks of military intelligence and joined counter-espionage services. Returning to America at the end of the war, he pursued brilliant studies at Harvard University, teaching political science and specialising in international relations. His career as a diplomat took on a truly global dimension during the Nixon era. Throughout the Cold War, he became a key figure at the head of the Western bloc against the USSR.

Behind his "dark side", the face of imperialism

In keeping with his rank and services to the American nation, a shower of tributes came from major governments to honour the departed diplomat. Biden praised his "fierce intellect”, Xi Jinping the "legendary diplomat", Scholz a "great diplomat", Macron a "giant of history", and so on.

In supposed opposition to this consensus, the controversial figure was the subject of "criticism" by left-wing parties, leftists and several media, condemning the "dark side" of his character. Undoubtedly, from the moment he entered the White House as National Security Adviser in 1969, and then as Secretary of State in 1973, Kissinger inspired little sympathy, to the point where Nixon, highly suspicious, decided to bug his phone. A common practice that would cause scandal later and cost him his job in the Watergate affair.[1]. Kissinger himself used the same methods against his own staff, who also disliked this tireless manipulator, known for his authoritarianism, coldness, lies, and total lack of scruples. In short, a profile typical of all the great representatives of the bourgeoisie and other defenders of capitalism. But by focusing almost exclusively on Kissinger's personality, this propaganda masked the fact that the decisions he had taken, which were indeed criminal, were above all part of the brutal logic of imperialism and therefore of the capitalist system.

None of this detracts from the responsibility of Kissinger and Nixon for their abuses, but it does point to the inevitably barbaric policies of a decadent system that led to two world wars and antagonistic imperialist blocs that even threatened to engulf humanity in a nuclear apocalypse. It is only in this context that we can understand the major crimes that were actually committed during the Cold War as a result of decisions taken at the very top of the American State.

And this was indeed the case with the massive terror bombings of Cambodia, which began in the greatest secrecy in 1969 in the face of threats from North Vietnamese troops. The United States dropped 540,000 tonnes of bombs, causing a deluge of fire that killed between 50,000 and 150,000 civilians. Declassified transcripts prove that Kissinger did indeed pass on the bombing orders to General Alexander Haig: "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia [...] It's an order, it has to be done. Anything that flies, on anything that moves. You got that?" Cambodia, which had become the most heavily bombed country in history, sank into a barbarity that helped bring the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot's bloody regime to power.

These crimes were not just the product of a decision by an unscrupulous individual. It was a planned policy, based on the strategy of terror, designed to counter the enemy bloc: the USSR. Such an approach in no way contradicts the policy of "détente", which is itself based on the principle of a "balance of terror". The doctrine of "nuclear deterrence", defended by the entire Western camp, was therefore not limited to the scheming Kissinger[2].

Taking advantage of the growing split between the USSR and China at the end of the 1960s to promote "détente" and also distancing himself from the Ostpolitik of German Chancellor Willy Brandt[3], Kissinger firmly defended the continuity of the same "containment" strategy initiated by President Truman after the Second World War. Here too, the policy of "détente" was discreetly exerting pressure designed to further isolate the USSR. A meticulous and systematic secret policy, in which Kissinger had been the main player and a fine negotiator, was successful for the Western camp. At the same time, thanks to numerous discreet contacts with Chinese minister Zhou Enlai, his policy made Nixon's trip to Beijing possible in 1972. It was a policy that was to bear fruit when China officially joined the Western camp.

Following the Treaty of Paris, the next year, which led to talks in the Middle East and the end of the Vietnam War, Kissinger was to receive ... the Nobel Peace Prize! Naturally, this caused an outcry which even led to the resignation of two members of the Nobel Prize[4].

To loosen the stranglehold of this very skilful American offensive, the Soviet bloc retaliated with attempts to destabilise it by trying to counter the increased pressure from the Western bloc. In this context, the election of the "socialist" Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973 was perceived as a real threat to Washington. Allende's assassination and the putsch that brought General Pinochet to power were, to say the least, greatly facilitated (if not executed) by the CIA and US policy. The American counter-offensive did indeed use terror. The proof is that it turned a blind eye to the torture and summary executions of the new Chilean regime and many others. Kissinger's role and authority over the CIA, and their support for numerous dictatorships, made the 1970s and 1980s "dark years" in this respect.

The Machiavellianism of the bourgeoisie

Kissinger's "realpolitik" was in fact that of the entire Western bloc. Using cunning and seduction, lies, concealment, manipulation and violence, it has helped to orchestrate numerous coups d'état and organise massive bombings of civilians, thereby fostering the breeding ground for ethnic cleansing and massacres. All in the name of "democracy".

What is most despicable is the bourgeoisie's ability today to use its own past crimes to feed democratic propaganda in order to mystify the working class by trying to cover up its own system of exploitation, of mass destruction, and massacres. “In order to perpetuate its rule over the working class, it's vital for the bourgeoisie to maintain the democratic mystification, and it has used the definitive bankruptcy of Stalinism to reinforce this fiction. Against the lie of a so-called difference between 'democracy' and 'totalitarianism', the whole history of decadent capitalism shows us that democracy is just as stained with blood as totalitarianism, and that its victims can be counted in millions.

The proletariat must remember that when it comes to defending class interests or sordid imperialist appetites, the 'democratic' bourgeoisie has never hesitated to support the most ferocious dictators. Let's not forget that Blum, Churchill and company called Stalin 'Mister' and feted him as the 'man of Liberation'! More recently, let's recall the support given to Saddam Hussein and Ceausescu by the likes of De Gaulle and Giscard. The working class must take on board the fact that, whether yesterday, today or tomorrow, democracy has never been anything but the hypocritical mask behind which the bourgeoisie hides the hideous face of its class dictatorship, the better to enslave the working class and bring it to its knees."[5]

Henry Kissinger was a typical representative of the bourgeois class, radically separating morality from politics - as he put it: "a country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security". Until the end of his official career in 1977 and well beyond, Kissinger would continue to influence American political life, as demonstrated by his open support for Reagan and his advice to Bush Jr. and many others. Last July, at the age of 100, he was still influential and even able to travel. He was received by Xi Jinping in person in Beijing, just a few months before his death.

WH, 10 December 2023

From 23 October to 15 November, over more than three weeks, garment workers in Bangladesh were struggling for an increase of the minimum pay rate. The last time such a demand was raised was five years ago. In the meantime, conditions have become dire for many of the sector’s 4.4 million workers, who have been hard hit by soaring prices of food, house rents, and costs of education and healthcare. Many of the garment workers were finding it difficult to make ends meet, forced to figure out merely how to survive. The strike was the most important workers’ struggle in Bangladesh in more than a decade.

Working conditions in the garment sector

Workers in the garment industry have an important place in the Bangladesh economy. The garment industry accounts for 80 per cent of Bangladesh's total export earnings. They are an important reference point for the working class in that country. But nonetheless both their working and living conditions are downright miserable.

• Lack of safety measures leads to many accidents at work.

In 2012, fires at the Tazreen textile factory led to 110 deaths. Then in 2013, in one of the worst industrial disasters ever, 1,135 people were killed the infamous collapse of Rana Plaza, shining a spotlight on the extremely abusive conditions in the garment industry. Furthermore, from November 2012 to March 2018, there were still 5000 incidents with 3,875 injuries and 1,303 deaths. Thereafter the number of accidents has diminished, but even in 2023 safety standards are still disregarded, as was demonstrated on 1 May when 16 workers were hospitalised with severe burns following an explosion.

• Long working days and excessive pressure and stress.

The workers often work long hours and have little time between shifts. Sometimes they work for up to 18 hours per day, arriving early in the morning and leaving past midnight. Workers have very little workspace, sitting in small chairs that stress their backs and necks, and they have to work in cramped and unsafe areas. They face an elevated risk of illness because of completely inadequate sanitary conditions, poor hygiene practices and congested conditions. Moreover, workers can be physically assaulted for failing to meet output volumes targets. Women, 58 percent of the workforce, are often subjected to sexual harassment.

• Ultra-low wages, affecting workers’ physical health.

A new report of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), published in May 2023, has shown that garment workers in Bangladesh are experiencing alarming nutritional deficiency rates which is clearly connected to the low minimum wage. According to a survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), 43% of textile workers suffer from malnutrition; 78% are forced to buy food on credit; 82% of the workers are unable to pay for healthcare; 85% live in shanty towns and 87% cannot send their children to school. These workers need at least 23,000 taka ($209) per month to stay above the poverty line [1].

In response to these gruesome working conditions workers have demonstrated their combativity on a number of occasions in the past decade:

• In 2013 more than 200,000 textile workers across Bangladesh protested for higher wages, which led to hundreds of factories being closed.
• In November 2014 a strike of garment workers at 140 Bangladeshi garment factories compelled the bosses to grant a 77% rise in the minimum wage,
• In December 2016, a strike in Ashulia, an industrial suburb of Dhaka, quickly snowballed into widespread unrest. Garment workers abandoned their factories to call for a living wage in response to ever-rising costs.
• In December 2018 when workers saw that the wage offer was much too low, tens of thousands of them took to the streets. In January 2019 52 factories shut down operations as a result of more than a week of protests.
• In April 2020, in defiance of the nationwide lockdown, 20,000 workers organised massive protests to demand their wages after clothes factories had stopped paying their staff due to a lack of orders.

The strike of 2023

In the previous decade Bangladesh had relatively high economic growth, low inflation, and good foreign exchange reserves. Exports jumped from $14.66 billion in 2011 to $33.1 billion in 2019. But economic pressure has come from new high global commodity prices, high imported inflation, and supply chain disruptions. Inflation in Bangladesh reached nearly 10 percent this year and the taka has depreciated by around 30 per cent against the US dollar since the beginning of 2022. Foreign reserves have fallen about 20 per cent this year, which forced the government to take the multibillion-dollar IMF loan.

In the face of these conditions, on October 23, Bangladeshi workers from hundreds of plants in Mirpur, Narayanganj, Ashulia, Savar and Gazipur came out on strike demanding a living wage higher than the offered 10.000 taka ($90) per month. The proposed increased wage offer of 25 per cent was seen as an outrage and protests spread to the capital Dhaka, sparking mass demonstrations with tens of thousands on the streets, leading to the suspension of production in hundreds of the 3500 factories.

There are almost no reports about the first week of the strike, from 23 to 29 October, but there are signs that workers tried to extend the struggle to more garment factories. But these attempts were obstructed by the employers and the forces of repression. Factory owners prevented the trade unions from speaking to the workers by intimidating and threatening its officials and members. At one point groups of workers went to a factory where the workers were not allowed to leave. They called on them to join the demonstrations. At another moment thousands of workers attempted to block strike breakers entering a factory. In both cases they were met with violent assaults by the industrial police.

After two weeks of strike action, massive demonstrations and the inevitable clashes with the police, the tri-partite Minimum Wage Board (MWB), a government-appointed panel, promised to improve the original wage offer. Under the instructions of the trade unions, the workers agreed to go back to work on Wednesday 6 November. But when they heard about an improved monthly minimum wage of only 12,500 taka (£90) to start from 1 December, the struggle resumed and the protests escalated. The proposal was far below the 23,000 taka a month workers needed to keep their families from starvation.

But in the following week the workers were not able to develop enough pressure to force the government and the employers to meet their demands. The only clear response of the ruling class came from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, threatening the workers that they should “work with the pay rise they already received or return to their village”. So on 15 November the strike ended more or less in a defeat for the workers who did not get everything they had demanded: ie a pay rise of 300 per cent. Instead they got a pay raise of only 56.25 per cent, which is far too low to meet their daily nutritional needs.

In order to sabotage the struggle and to beat the workers the ruling class used different instruments

• In the first place approximately 20 unions, sabotaging each autonomous action of the workers, such as the attempt to extend the struggle to as many plants as possible. When a new wage offer was announced on 7 November the unions were the first to call the workers to return to work, even if they were aware that the new pay offer was far from sufficient.
• In the second place the massive campaign of the political opposition, which presented the workers’ struggle as the spearhead of a popular movement, demanding the resignation of Sheikh Hasina’s government. Her government is obviously hated by the majority of the workers, but their demands were not focussed on the fall of the government [2].
• In the third place, repression by the state. Striking workers or even union officials were massively arrested, beaten, harassed, and thrown in jail. During this strike five workers were killed, dozens injured and hospitalised, and as many as 11,000 workers face criminal charges. Sometimes goons armed with rods entered the workplace to assault a sit-down protest of the workers.

Weakness of the struggle

As revolutionaries we should not shy away from exposing the weaknesses of the strike. And then we are faced with the massive destruction that took place during the strike, where about 70 factories suffered damage, two were burned down and many were ransacked. But it is not clear what was done by the working class and what was done by lumpenproletarian elements or even criminal gangs. But it is undeniable and cannot be excluded that, as an expression of impatience or even desperation groups of workers have been tempted to destructive actions such as attacking buildings or buses, looting factories, etc [3]. And this tendency comes to the fore especially when the extension of the struggle clashes with its limits and remains isolated from the class as a whole. In such circumstances minorities of workers often think that they can make a breakthrough with destructive actions of blind violence. And this tendency becomes stronger as daily living conditions are more appalling and workers receive neither a wage nor strike pay during the strike.

But destruction, as a form of blind violence, is in contrast to class violence, because the raison d’etre of the working class struggle is to do away with all random violence. In working class violence the defence of the strike and its perspective, end and means, are intrinsically connected. To achieve a given end, the only means that are appropriate are those that serve and reinforce the road to that end.

Lessons of the struggles

Leftist organisations and trade union organisations internationally[4] have organised ‘solidarity’ with the workers struggle in Bangladesh. Through these actions they try to confuse the workers by advocating international ‘solidarity’ between unions rather than between workers; by presenting campaigns to put pressure on the brands to pay more for the clothes produced as the way to express solidarity with the garment workers. Against this, the working class must bring forward its own lessons, which can enrich the struggles of the world working class. In particular it must emphasise that strike of the garment workers in Bangladesh:

• was not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a worldwide struggle and a response to the struggle of the workers that took place in the UK, France, the US and some other countries in the world since the summer of 2022;
• has taught us that the involvement of 20 trade unions is not a guarantee for a victory. On the contrary, a large number of unions is better able to divide the workers involved and to obstruct further unification of the struggle;
• has demonstrated that clashes with the police or other violent actions by minorities of workers, decided outside the organised workers’ assemblies, do not strengthen the strike, but acts against the unity of the workers as a class.

Dn and Rr 11/12/23

 

Below we are publishing a letter from a reader who calls himself Tibor, and our reply. We cannot deal with all the points raised by this very detailed text here, as we do not consider our reply brings an end to the debate. Quite the opposite, we encourage all our readers, and Tibor himself, to use this initial response to continue the discussion, either with more letters or in our public meetings and open meetings.

 

Dear comrades,

This is how Friedrich Engels described the beer riots in Bavaria in early May 1844: “The working men assembled in large masses, paraded through the streets, assailed the public houses, smashing the windows, breaking the furniture, and destroying everything in their reach, in order to take revenge for the enhanced price of their favourite drink […] If the people once know they can frighten the government out of their taxing system, they will soon learn that it will be as easy to frighten them as far as regards more serious matters.” (My emphasis, Tibor). It could thus appear, a priori, that an acquisition of this revolutionary heritage is the authentic marxist stance on riots. In reality, this is not the case. Thus, in the event of the June 2023 riots in France following the murder of young Nahel by the police, the organisations of the communist left defended positions that were at times radically opposed. Some organisations have welcomed the movement, while stating more or less strongly its obvious limits, other groups, such as the ICC to which this letter is addressed, have not hesitated in denouncing the dead end of "mindless violence". These major differences show that, far from being self-evident, the question of riots needs to be the subject of clarification and confrontation. This is the aim of my letter.

Are the riots in the suburbs on the terrain of the working class?

Contrary to the claims of the extreme left of capital, it's wrong to see "anything that happens" as automatically "red", or, expressed less caricaturally, not every social movement is automatically an expression of the working class struggle. To decide whether or not a movement is located on the terrain of the working class, it's important to proceed methodically and to address a number of questions. Broadly speaking, marxists have several ways of identifying the class nature of a movement: the social composition of the participants; the methods and means employed in the struggle; the class nature of the demands. Once these points have been considered, as I shall do in the remainder of this letter, it is still important to place this analysis in a dynamic and historical perspective, which I will do next.

Causes and social composition of the riots

Let's start with the social composition of the rioters. A priori, nobody denies that the majority of the rioters belong to the working class. Indeed, it would be a clear misunderstanding of the situation in the French suburbs to deny that the majority of their inhabitants belong to the working class. When they are not facing unemployment and poverty, these proletarians work for large logistics platforms (like Amazon) or in fictitious self-entrepreneurships designed to conceal the wage form of exploitation (Uber, Deliveroo, etc.). For any materialist concerned with identifying the economic and social causes that ultimately produce these riots, it is obvious that these reactions can be explained on the one hand by the fact that this fraction of the working class is subjected to constant exploitation, characterised in particular by greater poverty, higher unemployment or the absence of the usual provisions (i.e., public services). On the other hand, they are also the product of unrestrained state repression, with humiliation, racial profiling, murder and state-sponsored racism promoted by the police and the judiciary. These riots are therefore a direct reaction to class exploitation and repression, which every revolutionary should welcome as a break with the status quo and a refusal by a fraction of the working class to continue accepting unbearable living and working conditions. As for arguments that see the young rioters as the embodiment of the underclass with its hoodlums and other miscreants, these don't stand up to analysis insofar as it's precisely in the neighbourhoods controlled by drug dealers where nothing has happened, since these criminal groups don't want their "business" disturbed with the threat posed by these riots. Furthermore, the dealers themselves have occasionally acted to stop the riots. While the ICC seems well aware of the working class social composition of the rioters and the social and economic causes of their struggle, it doesn't see what's positive in refusing to put up with the continued class violence (even when it is hailing, correctly, the many slogans like "enough is enough" and "too much is too much" associated with other social movements across the world).

The methods and the means of struggle

It is clear, however, that the causes and social composition of a movement are not sufficient to confirm its class nature. This brings us to the question of the methods of struggle. And this is clearly the crux of my disagreement with the ICC's analysis. The ICC's thesis is expressed as follows: riots are a danger to the working class. We've already mentioned that Engels supported the riot as a form of struggle in 1844. Many proletarian groups have defended similar positions. One example among many is the Third Camp group OCR during the Second World War, which lists anti-police struggles and riots as proletarian political struggles. In contrast to these traditional and historical positions, the ICC article states: "The working class has its own methods of struggle, which are radically opposed to riots and basic urban revolts. Class struggle has absolutely nothing to do with indiscriminate destruction and violence, arson, feelings of revenge and looting that offer no perspective." As a counterpoint, let's quote Friedrich Engels' article again: The working men assembled in large masses, paraded through the streets, assailed the public houses, smashing the windows, breaking the furniture, and destroying everything in their reach, in order to take revenge for the enhanced price of their favourite drink [...]The police, being, as everywhere, obnoxious to the people, were severely beaten and ill-treated by the rioters." This alone proves that on this issue, the ICC is revising the marxist acceptance of violence, rejecting spontaneous, uncontrolled violence on principle. It's the opposite, marxists, far from denouncing violence like any vulgar bourgeois or like the leftist group Lutte Ouvrière (NB: the ICC likes to reject any criticism of its positions on riots as being in every respect similar to that of leftist groups, Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists, etc. Then how does it explain that its denunciation of the indiscriminate, hopeless violence of the riots is the same, word for word, as the leftist group Lutte Ouvrière?), marxists are defending the same perspective as Marx when he wrote in the 1850 Address to the Communist League: “Far from opposing the so-called excesses – instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated – the workers’ party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction” (my emphasis, Tibor). Note that in the ICC sentence, the notion of "revenge" is opposed to class struggle, whereas in Marx, it is not only tolerated but must also be organised by communist revolutionaries. What these examples show is that the ICC breaks with the marxist analysis of class violence, refusing, for idealistic and metaphysical reasons, to support violence when it is spontaneous or a minority action, and even if it is a part of the class that resorts to it. At a more fundamental level, the ICC revises marxism in the relationship between violence and consciousness. It believes that a conscious struggle will be the least violent possible. Conversely, a violent struggle will testify to the weakness of the working class. This is in total opposition to the support for class terror of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Miasnikov or indeed Bordiga. Class struggle is, as Marx put it, borrowing a phrase from Georges Sand, "Combat or Death: Bloody struggle or extinction. It is thus that the question is always posed."

Therefore, spontaneous, minority forms of violence, far from being dead-ends, bear witness to an awareness, however embryonic, of this reality. It is a source of support for the future struggle of the working class. The ICC's main criticism of this argument is that violence contributes to the division of the proletariat, when the aim of class struggle is to seek ever greater unity. Clearly, this is a new dogmatic and metaphysical position of the ICC. Unity is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end, which is to contribute to the working class awareness that it has interests of its own, which radically oppose those of the bourgeoisie, thus necessitating a final offensive against the bourgeoisie and for the establishment of communism. Defending unity as a dogma at every moment of the struggle is a dangerous mistake. During a revolutionary episode, unity is not an initial given, but only a medium to long-term perspective. This is due to the heterogeneity of class consciousness within the proletariat. An example will suffice to illustrate this point: in the autumn of 1918, during the German revolution, Karl Liebknecht's strategic and tactical positions were bound to divide the proletariat into a conscious vanguard and a rear-guard that remained on bourgeois terrain. It was precisely the Social Democrats who denounced Liebknecht as a divider and championed unity. With its metaphysical calls for unity, the ICC would therefore have been on the SPD's side. Fortunately, it is too revolutionary to allow itself to be mystified by its own theoretical errors. What this example illustrates, then, is that it is a mistake to expect every struggle to contribute to unity. If unity remains a perspective, it cannot be achieved at the start of a movement, and revolutionaries have absolutely nothing to fear from breaking unity if it benefits the class struggle, as it does with the use of violence.

The class nature of demands

Finally, the last dimension to study is that of the demands, and whether or not they are class-based. This is where the weakness of the riots lies. The clarity of the demands and perspectives expressed by a movement is the product of the consciousness manifested by that movement. In this case, it is undeniable that this class consciousness was only embryonic, and that the participants were not aware of belonging to a social class with common interests, namely the proletariat. This was made abundantly clear by the fact that, in addition to class violence (against the police, town halls, prefectures, shopping malls, prisons and other embodiments of capitalism and the repressive bourgeois state), the rioters also attacked their own class, whether physically, by attacking prostitutes (no doubt for reasons of puritanism completely alien to the working class), or materially, by attacking cars (belonging to proletarians! ), schools and hospitals - public services which, though merely palliative, are nonetheless useful for the daily lives of the vast majority of the proletariat. The ICC is therefore right to assert that these struggles do not contribute to the unification of the proletariat. But two points need to be made immediately. Contrary to its claim that the riots are condemned by a majority of the proletariat in the suburbs, the evidence tends to show that the older generation supports the youths in revolt. Nevertheless, these are only some of the testimonies, and it is absolutely impossible for revolutionaries to scientifically assess the degree of support for or rejection of the riots among the proletariat in the suburbs. The second point to make is that, even if it's obvious that the bourgeoisie is doing and will do everything in its power to divide the proletariat by highlighting the violence to limit these struggles and provoke the indignation of the rest of the working class, the task of revolutionaries, rather than crying with the wolves and mingling their cries with those of the bourgeoisie and some workers, is rather to refuse this division and to use their propaganda to show that all these proletarians, whether they take part in the riots or condemn them, contaminated by the false propaganda of the bourgeois media, belong to one and the same class and have common interests. It's this task that the ICC abandons when it merely denounces the riots.

An analysis comparing the struggle against pension reform and the riots in terms of consciousness

Ultimately, what is the level of consciousness of these struggles? First of all, it's important to place these struggles in their historical dynamic. They are emerging in the wake of decades of declining class consciousness on a global scale (since at least the 1980s and the many defeats suffered by the proletariat). It would be absurd (and the ICC agrees) to criticise current struggles for not being on a par with the consciousness of the 1970s, let alone the 1920s. Yet, while the ICC agrees with this for the economic struggles, it rejects this argument for the riots and simply denounces the lack of consciousness. On the contrary, a comparative analysis of the struggles against pension reform and the riots paints an altogether different picture, far more dialectical and anti-schematic, than that of the ICC. This is what I propose to do in concluding this letter.

Being conscious of being a proletarian implies three things: 1) consciousness of belonging to one and the same exploited class with common interests; 2) consciousness of having interests that are antagonistic and radically opposed to those of the bourgeoisie; 3) consciousness of the need to self-organise outside any bourgeois framework. However, in terms of these three criteria, each of these two movements is the mirror image of the other. Thus, the struggle against pension reform is to be welcomed for its massiveness and its tendency to unify the proletariat as a whole, irrespective of occupation, age, gender, etc. (even if localist and corporatist dead ends have been encouraged by the unions, and the proletariat has not yet been able to oppose them). This is a salutary starting point for future struggles. On the other hand, the other two dimensions have been sorely lacking. Union leadership, which was maintained from the beginning to the end of the movement, led to the organisation of light-hearted, legalistic marches and demonstrations in which hatred of the bourgeoisie and understanding the need for a radical, violent struggle against the class enemy were completely lacking. Similarly, there were never any expressions of self-organisation, which was one of the main reasons for the movement's defeat. Once more these limitations were unavoidable in the current historical phase but they should be criticised if the proletariat is to learn the lessons of defeat and move forward.

If we now look at the riots in terms of these same three criteria, we see that self-organisation is also absent, not in that this movement is organised by the bourgeoisie (unions, leftists) but insofar as it is not organised at all. But where unity was the strength of the movement against pension reform, the weakness of the riots is in its absence. As a result of the actions of the bourgeoisie and the weakness of consciousness within the class, the rioters were pitted against the rest of the proletariat, and this division between proletarians was never called into question (including by the ICC). Finally, whereas the dimension of understanding the need to struggle against the bourgeoisie, the hatred of the enemy, was very much present in the riots, it was absent in the struggle against pension reform.

To conclude, then, it's not a question (as it was with another reader's letter, whose concerns were quite similar to the current ones) of asking which of these two movements is the more radical, nor is it a question of taking one of these two movements as a model and the other as the embodiment of all the dead-ends and pitfalls of the bourgeoisie. Rather, within the framework of a dialectical analysis, attentive to the necessarily contradictory nature of social phenomena, it is a matter of identifying both the signs of an awakening of consciousness within the working class and the expressions of the class's still extremely significant weaknesses in its struggle against the bourgeoisie. This revolutionary task is clearly lacking in the ICC's analysis.

Tibor

ICC reply

First of all, we would like to welcome this letter for several reasons:

- With this text, Tibor is participating in the debate revolutionaries need to have, confronting different arguments, in order to arrive at the most clear and correct positions possible.

- The comrade has made a real theoretical effort to set out the different positions at stake and to base his critique on the history of the workers' movement.

- Understanding the real nature of the riots and their impact on the working class is definitely a very important question for the future.

Tibor's charge against the ICC's position on the suburban riots in France is serious: "the ICC is revising the marxist acceptance of violence"; "like any vulgar bourgeois or like the leftist group Lutte ouvrière"; "for idealistic and metaphysical reasons"; "this is a new dogmatic and metaphysical position of the ICC"; "the ICC would therefore have been on the side of the SPD"...

We will respond to these criticisms later. But the most important thing here is to underline the context in which Tibor makes these criticisms: “Some organisations have welcomed the movement, while stating more or less strongly its obvious limits, other groups, such as the ICC to which this letter is addressed, have not hesitated in denouncing the dead end of ‘mindless’ violence". These major differences show that, far from being self-evident, the question of riots needs to be the subject of clarification and confrontation. This is the aim of my letter.” "Fortunately, [the ICC] is too revolutionary to allow itself to be mystified by its own theoretical errors". In other words, Comrade Tibor sees this debate as taking place within the proletarian political milieu, within the revolutionary camp. And it's in this context that we'll also respond, in a way that's both fraternal and uncompromising.

How should we read the classic texts of Marxism?

Let's start directly with what may appear to be the most solid foundation of our comrade's proofs: his historical quotations.

By quoting Engels and then Marx, Tibor claims to prove that "the ICC is revising the Marxist acceptance of violence". But the historical approach requires an understanding of the writings in their context, their combats, and their evolution.

When Engels describes the Munich beer riots, it was 1844, Germany was still Prussia, King Ludwig I was ruling, and feudalism was clinging to power against the onslaught of the emerging bourgeoisie. The proletarian movement was still immature, and its struggles mostly consisted of pushing as far as possible the advances of the revolutionary bourgeoisie against reactionary feudalism. The June 1848 insurrection in France had not yet taken place. However, it was this movement that brought into sharp focus for the first time the class divisions and the autonomous force of the proletariat capable of standing up directly to the bourgeois republic: "the first great battle was fought between the two classes that divide modern society"[1]. Four years earlier, in 1844, over and above the immaturity and limitations of the movement at the time, Engels hailed the revolt of two thousand workers and the realisation of their collective strength as a small step forward.

As for Marx's quote from 1850, Engels almost makes a misreading. The "popular vengeance against hated individuals or public buildings" that had to be "tolerated" consisted, in this case, of the democratic petty-bourgeoisie "carrying out [the] present terroristic phrases" in the context of the German bourgeoisie's struggle against the monarchy and its palaces. The text also repeatedly stresses the need for the proletariat to "organise" itself, and to "centralise" its struggle as much as possible: “the workers must be armed and organised. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organise themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.”

This is the reality of the movement at the time, its context and its aims. What does this have to do with today's riots? Does the comrade really believe that this summer's riots made the working class aware that it could "frighten the government" and teach it "that it's just as easy to frighten it for more serious matters"?

Does the comrade now see the gulf between the recent riots crushed in less than a week by police repression and the class struggles of the mid-nineteenth century, years that allowed Marx and Engels to set the goal of "proceeding immediately to the workers' own organisation and arming"?

Let's continue. Because in reality, Marx and Engels' revolutionary action is the exact opposite of what Tibor thinks he finds in a few misunderstood sentences. In The Conditions of the Working Class in England, published in German in 1845, Engels outlines the development of the working class revolt: “The earliest, crudest, and least fruitful form of this rebellion was that of crime. The working-man lived in poverty and want, and saw that others were better off than he. It was not clear to his mind why he, who did more for society than the rich idler, should be the one to suffer under these conditions. Want conquered his inherited respect for the sacredness of property, and he stole. (…) The workers soon realised that crime did not help matters. The criminal could protest against the existing order of society only singly, as one individual; the whole might of society was brought to bear upon each criminal, and crushed him with its immense superiority.”

Neither Marx nor Engels saw violence and law-breaking as revolutionary in themselves, and were prepared to criticise actions that went against the development of working class struggle, even when they appeared spectacular and provocative. Thus, in 1886, Engels sharply attacked the activity of the Social Democratic Federation and its organisation of a demonstration by the unemployed which, while passing through Pall Mall and other wealthy parts of London on its way to Hyde Park, attacked stores and looted wine stores. Engels argued that few workers had taken part, that most of those involved were "looking for a lark, some of them already merry” and that the unemployed who participated “mostly the types who do not want to work anyhow, hawkers, loafers, police spies, thugs”. The absence of the police was “so conspicuous that it was not only us who believed it to have been intentional”. Whatever one might think of some of Engels’ language his essential criticism that “These socialist gentleman [i.e. the leaders of the SDF] are determined to conjure up overnight a movement which, here as elsewhere, necessarily calls for years of work” is valid, revolution is not the product of spectacle, manipulation, or looting.

Isn't approaching history ex nihilo, by fixing a few sentences, taking them from out of context, and making them say what you want them to say, as religious people do with their verses, rather a "dogmatic", "idealistic" and "metaphysical" approach?[2]

Today's suburban riots are a danger for the class struggle to come

On these shaky historical foundations, comrade Tibor erects the load-bearing walls of his argument. In his view, given the current weakness of the proletariat's struggle, its illusions about the state, democracy and so on, the rioters' "hatred" of cops and law enforcement is a step in the right direction:

- "It is rather a question, within the framework of a dialectical analysis, attentive to apprehending the necessarily contradictory nature of social phenomena, of identifying both the signs of an awakening of consciousness within the working class and the manifestations of the still extremely important weaknesses of the class in its struggle against the bourgeoisie".

- “... the dimension of understanding the necessary struggle against the bourgeoisie, the hatred of the enemy, was very much present in the riots, whereas it was absent from the struggle against pension reform".

To verify this "dialectical" and indeed "contradictory" analysis, let's start with the comrade's own description of these famous riots: "the last dimension to study is that of the demands, and whether or not they are class-based. This is where the weakness of the riots lies. [...] This was made abundantly clear by the fact that, in addition to class violence (against the police, town halls, prefectures, shopping malls, prisons and other embodiments of capitalism and the repressive bourgeois state), the rioters also attacked their own class, whether physically, by attacking prostitutes (no doubt for reasons of puritanism completely alien to the working class), or materially, by attacking cars (belonging to proletarians!), schools and hospitals - public services which, though merely palliative, are nonetheless useful for the daily lives of the vast majority of the proletariat.”

We agree with the comrade: being able to get around, even if only to go to work, to take care of oneself, to learn to read and write, is still “useful for the daily life of the vast majority of the proletariat". But can the comrade seriously assert that attacking prostitutes, burning down neighbours' cars, buses, schools, hospitals ... how is this comparable to the violent actions of the proletariat in the 1850s?

The comrade is right about one thing: the majority of rioters are working class children. In fact, he quite rightly describes the reality of the suburbs: “it would be a clear misunderstanding of the situation in the French suburbs to deny that the majority of their inhabitants belong to the working class. When they are not facing unemployment and poverty, these proletarians work for large logistics platforms (like Amazon) or in fictitious self-entrepreneurships designed to conceal the wage form of exploitation (Uber, Deliveroo, etc.)” And the rioters are the most crushed, rejected, and excluded part of this precarious working class. The comrade sees this as proof of the working class nature of their violent outbursts. In reality, precisely because of the absence even today of a workers' movement powerful enough to draw into its wake the weakest parts of the class and all strata of society, marginalised working class youth can only sink into nihilism, blind violence, hatred and destruction. This is the reality highlighted by burnt-out cars, buses and schools. An explosion of anger turned against the working class itself.

Yes, but they also burned "shopping malls", "the embodiment of capitalism", as Comrade Tibor protests. There's a misunderstanding here between the romanticism of the comrade who sees these riots from afar and the rioters themselves. Indeed, stores have been looted and shopping malls set on fire. But for the rioters, it wasn't about attacking capitalism and its symbols. Quite the contrary! These attacks reflect the domination of commodity culture rather than a challenge to it. The notion of "proletarian shopping", developed by some, may seem opposed to bourgeois laws and morality, but it is alien to the proletarian framework of collective action to defend common interests. The individual acquisition of commodities never really escapes the most basic premises of capitalist property. At best, such individual appropriation may enable the individual and his relatives to survive a little better than before. That's understandable, but it's by no means a threat to bourgeois domination, or even a hint of a threat.

There's still what the comrade calls "class violence": "against the police, town halls, prefectures, prisons and other embodiments of capitalism and the repressive bourgeois state". This is no longer a simple misunderstanding; it is pure blindness. These riots can't even be compared with the ideology of the black blocs, who really do believe they are attacking capitalism by attacking its symbols. During the riots, young people threw fireworks at police stations and rocks at cops, with no other stimulus than their rage at incessant checks, daily harassment, humiliating violence, habitual racism and sometimes murder, ignominiously called "bravado". It's an explosion of impotent anger. The comrade knows this argument, and he thinks he answers it by saying: “…what is the level of consciousness of these struggles? First of all, it's important to place these struggles in their historical dynamic. They are emerging in the wake of decades of declining class consciousness on a global scale (since at least the 1980s and the many defeats suffered by the proletariat). It would be absurd (and the ICC agrees) to criticise current struggles for not being on a par with the consciousness of the 1970s, let alone the 1920s. Yet, while the ICC agrees with this for the economic struggles, it rejects this argument for the riots and simply denounces the lack of consciousness. On the contrary, a comparative analysis of the struggles against pension reform and the riots paints an altogether different picture, far more dialectical and anti-schematic, than that of the ICC.” Guy Debord often asserted that dialectics could break bricks, but we still doubt Comrade Tibor's use of them in the riot context.

In these few lines, there's a misunderstanding, that of the radical difference in nature between the social movement against pensions and riots. By demonstrating, by gathering in the streets in their hundreds of thousands, by beginning to recognise themselves as workers, by perceiving the strength of being united, the workers are fighting on their class terrain. Whatever their level of consciousness, their struggle provides food for thought and organisation. This dynamic approach is essential. Dialectics is movement. Where does the riot lead? Where do these nights of 14-17 year-olds going out to loot stores and confront highly-armed police lead? To a development of working class consciousness? To a strengthening of its ability to organise? Absolutely not. Riots lead to destruction and chaos. They are the opposite of the perspective offered by the proletariat's struggle.

Moreover, we can already see how these riots evolve decade after decade. 2005 in France, 2011 in England, 2023 again in France... the trend is towards more and more violence and looting. They are affecting ever wider swathes of young people, no longer confined simply to the suburbs, but also touching small provincial towns faced with exploding unemployment and no future. And on the other side, the police are increasingly armed and deadly.

To convince himself of the difference in nature between these two types of movement, the comrade should look at what the bourgeoisie says about them. What the "class enemy" says and does is always instructive. On an international scale, riots are always hyper-publicised. Newspapers are full of shocking images, and it's up to the journalist to show the highest flame. In 2005, the headline in the United States was "Paris is burning". Has the bourgeoisie become suicidal by displaying such fine proof of "hatred of the class enemy"? Or is it foolish to publicise struggles that represent an advance for the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat? Another hypothesis is perhaps more credible: the bourgeoisie publicises riots because the destruction they cause supports its propaganda, spreading the idea that all revolt is destruction: that all violence leads to chaos. By accentuating fear, the bourgeoisie takes advantage of riots to encourage people to retreat, to be atomised, to reinforce the feeling of powerlessness and, ultimately, to present the state as the guarantor of order and protection.

On the other hand, when a social movement develops, a blackout is the rule. Information is released in dribs and drabs. What do we know about the current strikes in the United States? Nothing, apart from the fact that Biden and Trump went to visit the strikers. What images were broadcast during the social movement in France? Burning garbage cans! Black blocs clashing with rows of riot police! When millions of demonstrators gather, the media turn their spotlight on ten burning garbage cans and fifty black-clad youths hurling cobblestones! In 2006, during the movement against the CPE in France, when thousands of insecure students gathered in general assemblies and drew more and more workers, the unemployed and pensioners onto the streets, the internationally renowned Times newspaper ran the headline: "Riots"! Shouldn't this also give the comrade pause for thought?

For Tibor, confronting the police directly, attacking police stations and other public buildings, is a step towards recognising the "class enemy". But isn't this precisely the trap the bourgeoisie set for the working class during the last movement in France? By ordering its cops to provoke and incite, what was it looking for if not for the demonstrations to degenerate into fruitless violence? To frighten people, to discourage them from gathering in the streets, to prevent any discussion or development of consciousness.

It's a classic trap. Already, in May 1968, the first to throw paving stones to draw the most combative behind them into a hopeless fight with the CRS were the infiltrators, the traitors, the informers. Because this type of confrontation with the cops doesn't serve the working class, it serves the ruling class! The history of the workers' movement teaches us that the best reaction to this trap is the exact opposite of futile confrontation, the exact opposite of the lure of the riot. By not giving in to provocation during the movement against pension reform in France, workers have followed in a long proletarian tradition.

As we wrote back in 2006: "Students and young people in struggle have no illusions about the role of the so-called 'forces of order'. They are the ‘militias of capital’ (as the students chanted), defending the privileges of the bourgeois class rather than the interests of the ‘population’. [...] However, some of those who had come to lend a hand to their comrades locked inside the Sorbonne did try to argue with the riot police [...]. Those who tried to talk to the riot police were not naive. On the contrary, they showed maturity and consciousness. They know that behind their shields and truncheons, these men armed to the teeth are also human beings, fathers whose children are also going to be hit by the CPE. And that's what the students said to the riot police, some of whom replied that they had no choice but to obey.”[3]

This is what Trotsky wrote about confronting the Cossacks, "those age-old subduers and punishers" [4], in 1917: “But the Cossacks constantly, though without ferocity, kept charging the crowd. (…) The mass of demonstrators would part to let them through and close up again. There was no fear in the crowd. ‘The Cossacks promise not to shoot,’ passed from mouth to mouth. Apparently some of the workers had talks with individual Cossacks. (…) Individual Cossacks began to reply to the workers’ questions and even to enter into momentary conversations with them. (…) A worker-Bolshevik, Kayurov, one of the authentic leaders in those days, relates how at one place, within sight of a detachment of Cossacks, the demonstrators scattered under the whips of the mounted police, and how he, Kayurov, and several workers with him, instead of following the fugitives, took off their caps and approached the Cossacks with the words: ‘Brothers-Cossacks, help the workers in a struggle for their peaceable demands; you see how the Pharaohs treat us, hungry workers. Help us!’ This consciously humble manner, those caps in their hands - what an accurate psychological calculation! Inimitable gesture! The whole history of street fights and revolutionary victories swarms with such improvisations.”

In reality, behind this disagreement over the nature of the riots lies a deeper one: what class violence is. We can't develop this point here. We encourage our readers to dig deeper into the question and come and debate it with us, in writing or at our public meetings.

Our position is summarised in our article Terror, Terrorism and Class Violence [168][5], available on our website. We'll confine ourselves here to a single quotation: "To go on repeating the tautology that ‘violence equals violence’; to go on demonstrating that all classes use violence; to go on showing that this violence is essentially the same, is as intelligent as seeing an identity between the act of a surgeon performing a caesarean section to bring new life into the world and the act of a murderer killing his victim by plunging a knife into his stomach, simply because both use similar instruments – knives - on the same object - the stomach - and because both use an apparently similar technique in opening up the stomach. The most important thing is not to go on shouting, ‘Violence, violence’, but to underline the differences. To show as clearly as possible why and how the violence of the proletariat is different from the terror and terrorism of other classes."

To overthrow capitalism and build a truly global human community, the working class will be obliged, in the future, to defend itself also by violence against the terror of the capitalist state and all the auxiliary forces of its repressive apparatus, but the class violence of the proletariat has absolutely nothing to do with the methods of the riots in the suburbs.

In the years to come, capitalism will continue to plunge into economic crisis, war, ecological devastation and barbarism. Two types of movement will develop: on the one hand, reactions of despair and outbursts of nihilistic violence; on the other, social movements on the terrain of the working class, with all its weaknesses, but carrying solidarity, discussion and hope.

If, for revolutionaries, all the reactions of the oppressed, all the cries of pain and revolt, attract sympathy, true solidarity is that which points out the pitfalls and dead-ends, that which participates in the development of working class consciousness, its organisation and its revolutionary perspective.

The collective effort to clarify the situation must continue, because in the long term, this is a vital question for the struggle of the working class, and therefore for all humanity.

 

Pawel, 3 October 2023