Five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the ceremonies to remember the dead from September 11th have been overshadowed by furious arguments about the effects of the ‘war on terror’.

The events of 9/11 were truly horrific: 3000 killed in two hours in New York with another 189 in Washington and 44 in Pennsylvania. 70% of the 40,000 people in the vicinity of Ground Zero have been left with World Trade Center cough. Those affected include not just the survivors of the event, but those working in the clean up afterwards who breathed toxic dust particles. They are slowly dying from the effects, but without any public funding for treatment of the condition. Since then there have been further terrorist outrages in Madrid, London and Mumbai, to name but three. Everywhere the chief victims of the attacks are workers who are left to pay the high price of the violent conflicts between bourgeois cliques.

This has not only been the subject of hypocritical sympathy from George W and other world leaders, it has also been the pretext for the ‘war on terror’. Despite the fact that the US and Britain had been discussing the invasion of Afghanistan the previous summer, the attacks of 9/11 were given as the ‘cause’ of the war; and despite its real, geo-strategic motives, it was portrayed as a crusade to destroy the terrorists of al Qaida and the Taliban. The apparently endless ‘war on terror’ has now become the excuse for every war and act of aggression since. It’s not just the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have been justified with this ideology, and it’s not only the USA which has used it. Israel in attacking Lebanon, Russia in Georgia and Chechnya, or India in Kashmir have all repeated the same mantra.

Iraq shows the reality of the ‘war on terror’

The ‘war on terror’ appears to be put in question by the initial leaks of a US secret services document, National Intelligence Estimate on Trends in Global Terrorism. It is, of course, an open secret that “The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement” as the report says. It was clearly a major motivation for the Madrid and London terror attacks, despite Tony Blair’s initial efforts to pretend otherwise. However, the selected extracts published by the Bush government show that the USA not only recognises the difficulties of its policy in Iraq, but also claims it has damaged the leadership of al Qaida and aims to make further gains from maintaining the struggle against it: “Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.” No wonder they wanted to publish these extracts as well!

The intelligence report also repeats the usual lies about bringing stability and democracy to Middle Eastern nations: “Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit… If democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations progress over the next five years…”. The reality of this “progress” is that the country has been brought to the brink of civil war at the cost of between 43,000 and 48,000 civilian casualties (iraqbodycount.net). The civilian death rate has risen from 20 a day in the first year after the war to 36 a day in the third, with the death toll in the last 2 months at 100 a day according to the UN. Attacks on the coalition forces have increased, as have sectarian killings. Torture is worse than under Saddam, carried out by all sides from the sectarian gangs to the British soldiers who ‘think it’s Christmas’ and the inquisitors at Abu Graib.

And the death toll is certainly not limited to the body count of those who have died violent deaths. The disruption of the infrastructure also has its casualties, which no-one has tried to estimate since the Lancet article estimated an overall total of 100,000 deaths as a result of the war two years ago.

Afghanistan, another new ‘Muslim democracy’, is similarly afflicted. The ‘defeat of the Taliban’ announced in 2001 now sounds rather hollow as more and more British and US soldiers are killed by suicide bombings in Kabul or Taliban fighters in regions in which the central government has lost all authority.

Capitalism breeds state terror and terrorism

The ‘war on terror’ was never going to put a stop to terrorism, and has even stimulated more suicide bombers. But putting a stop to terrorism was never the aim of the war in the first place. To defend its interests as the world’s only remaining superpower, the USA has resorted to a series of wars which allow it to constantly remind its rivals of its overwhelming military superiority. The global strategy of the USA has been “to achieve total domination of the Middle East and Central Asia, and thus to militarily encircle all its major rivals (Europe and Russia), depriving them of naval outlets and making it possible to shut off their energy supplies” (‘Resolution on the international situation’ IR 122). It has also developed a policy of explicitly preventing any regional power from getting strong enough to mount a challenge to it. So, as Iran has become relatively stronger due to the smashing of its neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been assigned to the axis of those ‘evil’ countries aspiring to nuclear weapons. India, on the other hand, nuclear weapons or no, is a ‘good’ country since it may be used as a counter-weight to China.

Alongside the USA’s grand design to maintain its position “sometimes subordinated to it, sometimes obstructing it - the post-1989 world has also seen an explosion of local and regional conflicts which have spread death and destruction across whole continents. These conflicts have left millions dead, crippled and homeless in a whole series of African countries like the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, or Sierra Leone; and they now threaten to plunge a number of countries in the Middle East and Central Asia into a kind of permanent civil war. Within this process, the growing phenomenon of terrorism, often expressing the intrigues of bourgeois factions no longer controlled by any particular state regime, adds a further element of instability and has already brought these murderous conflicts back to the heartlands of capitalism (September 11, Madrid bombings…)” (ibid).

Every country is fighting to maintain its interests on the imperialist chess-board, just as much as the USA. Britain has joined in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq because it has interests in keeping a foothold in these countries. The difference between the USA and the smallest Iraqi faction is not one of good or bad, terrorist or anti-terrorist, imperialist or resistance, but of size and firepower. Generally speaking, the weaker imperialist states, proto-states (like Hizbollah or Hamas) or jihadist gangs use the methods of the suicide bomber, the assassination or the ambush because they lack the means to carry out the ‘shock and awe’ tactics favoured by countries with massive armies and aerial and naval power. But the biggest countries also use clandestine terrorist gangs as tools when it suits them – such as the manipulation of Loyalist paramilitaries by the British in Ulster, or the USA’s use of the Contras in Nicaragua or….bin Laden in Afghanistan in the war against the Russians.

Like the war against the Prussian or Russian knout in 1914-18, like the wars for ‘democracy’ against fascist or ‘communist’ totalitarianism between 1939 and 1989, the so-called war against terrorism is an ideological cover for a social system that has long outlived its usefulness to humanity and which, in its death throes, threatens to engulf the entire planet in war and destruction. To end war, to end terror, we must put an end to the capitalist society which secretes them from every pore.  WR 30/9/6

The region around Israel, Palestine and Lebanon has long been a focus of rivalries between great Empires: Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome; in the epochs of the ancient world; the Caliphate and the Crusades in the mediaeval period. At the beginning of the era of capitalism’s decline, marked beyond any shadow of a doubt by the outbreak of the First World War, the geopolitical importance of the region was magnified by the new importance of oil, above all for the maintenance of a functioning war machine. At this point, British and French imperialism led the unseemly charge to displace the crumbling Ottoman Empire, which had been supported by the Kaiser’s Germany. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Iraq was created by joint agreement between Britain and France, their diplomats and generals cynically drawing lines on a map. Not long after that came the first Iraqi insurgence, during which Winston Churchill was the first Statesman to order the use of gas against a rebellious Kurdish population.

The same Winston Churchill had been the keenest representative of his class when he led the campaign of the ‘democratic’ powers to crush what they called the ‘Bolshevik’ revolution, by dispatching troops to Russia and supporting the ‘White’ insurgency. He understood that the Bolshevik revolution was also the Spartacist revolution, was also the world revolution and the end of his civilization.

The defeat of the revolution, however, removed the chains that had, for a while, held the wolves of imperialist war in check. One of these wolves was Hitler and Nazism, a hideous new face of German imperialism and another definitive sign that the bourgeoisie’s historical redundancy was leading it to lose its reason. Stirring the darkest passions in its drive towards war, it revived the mediaeval witch-tales of Jewish cabbalism and conspiracy. The European Jews became the sacrificial scapegoat of a vast pogrom, organised with the efficiency of a Fordist factory.  The Jews were sacrificed not only by the blackhearted blackshirted SS, but also by the democratic powers who abandoned them to their fate.  At Bermuda in April 1943, the month that the Warsaw ghetto rose, America and Britain formally closed the doors on any mass escape.

In 1917 Britain, in line with its ambitions in the Middle East, issued the Balfour Declaration, establishing the principle of Palestine as a Jewish Homeland. This was also in line with the basic aims of the Zionist movement. “A little loyal Ulster in the Middle East” was the British motto. But the march towards war in Europe destroyed any hopes for an interlude of stable British rule. The Zionist movement began to grow as the persecution of the Jews in Germany became more brazen. Increased Jewish immigration into Palestine, the buying of tracts of land for Jewish-only labour, created fear and discontent among the Arab Palestinians, and this in turn was injected with a pogrom spirit by the first Palestinian nationalists, such as the Mufti of Jerusalem and his Nazi backers.

The British, as ever, played a double game, promising the impossible both to Arabs and Zionists, using both against the Italians and the Germans, and both against each other. After the Second World War, the conflict took a new twist: the British closed the gates once again, to the Jewish refugees fleeing the wreck of Europe, and became the target of terrorist attacks by the Zionists’ military wing. But America and Russia came forth as the saviours of the Jews; by supporting Israel in its war of independence in 1948, they drove the British out of their Palestinian ‘Protectorate’.

With the old colonial powers pushed into second rank (a process completed through the Suez fiasco of 1956), the USA and the USSR became the new dominant Empires. Russia stood behind the ‘Arab national liberation movement’ in its various forms: Nasserism, Baathism, the PLO. America had Israel, the Shah of Iran, and the oil kingdoms of Arabia.  The military and strategic superiority of the western bloc and its Israeli gendarme were demonstrated again and again: in the Six Day War of ‘67, the Yom Kippur War of ‘73, and the Lebanon carnage of the early ‘80s. Russia progressively lost all its footholds in the region, from Ethiopia and Egypt to Northern Yemen. The collapse of the Shah’s regime in Iran was a blow to the US and a sign of things to come, but the most spectacular defeat was of the USSR’s last attempt to break through its growing encirclement: the invasion of Afghanistan.

The writing was on the wall for the Russian empire. In Poland 1980, it became plain that the proletariat of Eastern Europe would not fight its wars. Its economy staggering under the weight of state bureaucracy and military expenditure, the Russian empire imploded. But the triumph of the American superpower was short-lived. No sooner had the Russian threat been deflated than America’s former allies and vassals, from the biggest to the least significant, began to assert their own interests more than ever before. The war of each against all took hold; and each attempt by the US power to stem the tide through massive displays of military might – as in the Gulf war of ‘91 or the bombing of Serbia in 99 – only succeeded, more or less rapidly, in stoking the flames still further. The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are definitive proof of this: the USA’s very attempt to impose its military and political authority in this region has resulted in a bloody descent into chaos, a nightmare without end for the populations of those benighted countries. And today the arena of conflict is threatening to spread still further – to merge together with the intractable Israel/Palestine conflict, to widen into an open clash with the emerging imperialist ambitions of Iran, to shake the fragile oil kingdoms to their foundations.

The ‘Holy Land’ of three world religions still lives under the shadow of the Empires. But whereas in the ancient past the downfall of one Empire was always succeeded by the rise of another, the empire of capital will not give birth to a new civilization unless the international working class overthrows it. If that does not happen, the old nightmares of Armageddon and the Apocalypse, myths whose kernel of truth lay in the clash and collapse of mighty empires, will be realized, and, as in the myth, the focal point could well be Jerusalem, Israel and the Middle East.  WR, 11/9/6.

 

 

 

At the end of the summer, after Prime Minister Blair had returned from his holiday, an attempt was made to force him from office. A chorus of criticism built up, with calls for him to give an exact date for his departure or even to leave immediately. This was followed by letters from various groups of MPs and came to a crescendo with the orchestrated resignations from the government of several junior figures. Blair refused to go and his allies effectively exposed Brown as being behind the coup attempt. However, he was forced to say he would be gone before the next party conference. Blair has certainly been damaged by this and has little political authority left, despite the hype around his farewell conference speech. But Brown has also been damaged and in recent weeks the Tory leader Cameron has been talked up. The Tories now lead by several points in the polls and Cameron is seen as the more trustworthy politician.

The campaigns against Blair

Corruption, party funding, personal rivalry, hostility over his closeness to the US and the race for the leadership have been the subject of reports in the press and the TV that are presented as the causes of Blair’s difficulties. To varying degrees they are all part of the situation but none of them fully explain what is going on. There are, in fact, two intertwined aspects to the campaigns.

The first of these concerns the direction of foreign policy and dates back to the bombing of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001 when Britain shifted towards the US with the unleashing of the ‘war on terror’. This made sense at the time because it kept Britain in the game, but as the US campaign became mired in Iraq and Afghanistan parts of the British ruling class saw that they were suffering the consequences without any gains: a point brutally rammed home by the bombings in London last year. The conflict in the Lebanon brought this to a head and resulted in the concerted attacks on Blair, including calls for his immediate resignation that we reported in the last issue of World Revolution.

The second concerns the way the ruling class conducts itself. The list of Labour’s misdemeanours, from affairs and sexual indiscretions to questionable financial deals and dodgy ways of funding the party are nothing new. For example, the sale of honours goes back beyond the administration of Lloyd George and in one case the income to be derived from the practice was included in the party’s budget. For the bourgeoisie such affairs are an accepted part of life, although corruption in public affairs has certainly escalated with capitalism’s growing decomposition. If today Labour is being tarred with sleaze, especially if it can be linked in some way to Blair, it is because it suits the needs of parts of the ruling class, not because their consciences have stirred in any way. The morality of the ruling class rises no higher than the preservation of their own interests and, at most, the stability of the society on which their position depends.

Weakening the stability of the ruling class

Of more significance is the change in the way the Labour government works. This is marked by a tendency to replace the established mechanisms through which the civil service maintains the stability of the state with informal processes based on factions within the ruling class. Some early signs of this could be seen during the Thatcher years with the growth in the number of political advisors and appointees. It has accelerated under the Blair government. On arrival in government both Blair and Brown surrounded themselves with their own people: “There is no parallel in the modern era in Britain for the rival gangs of supporters who follow Blair and Brown…Each depends on a group of close supporters, connected to a wider army, and they have survived as distinct armies in government” (The Rivals, James Naughtie, p.233-4). Cabinet meetings were marginalised, rarely lasting more than an hour: “The real deals are done elsewhere, usually in the Prime Minister’s study with only three or four people sitting around: and, as often as not, with only two” (ibid, p.104). Blair and Brown frequently met in private which “broke a cardinal rule. Except in exceptional circumstances…Prime Ministers and their senior ministers don’t usually meet alone. Notes are always taken…office phone calls are monitored by a private secretary listening on a line next door and notes are kept…” (ibid, p.96).

This disturbs the conscience of parts of the ruling class because they can see in it a threat to the stability of their dictatorship. The Butler report that was produced in the wake of the invasion of Iraq strongly criticised the informal style of the Blair government. It described a number of organisational changes in the way security information was handled and commented: “We believe that the effect of the changes has been to weight their responsibility to the Prime Minister more heavily than their responsibility through the Cabinet Secretary to the Cabinet as a whole”. Overall it concluded: “One inescapable consequence of this was to limit wider collective discussion and consideration by the Cabinet to the frequent but unscripted occasions when the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary briefed the Cabinet orally. Excellent quality papers were written by officials, but these were not discussed in Cabinet or in Cabinet Committee… The absence of papers on the Cabinet agenda so that Ministers could obtain briefings in advance from the Cabinet Office, their own departments or from the intelligence agencies plainly reduced their ability to prepare properly for such discussions, while the changes to key posts at the head of the Cabinet Secretariat lessened the support of the machinery of government for the collective responsibility of the Cabinet in the vital matter of war and peace.” (ibid p.147-8).

Behind the diplomatic language this is a protest that the place of the permanent and most stable parts of the ruling class were being usurped by politicians and their cronies; that the central apparatus of the state is being replaced by the factions.

However the way these concerns have been handled and the way Blair has been pressed to change foreign policy has itself reflected the difficulties facing the bourgeoisie. During the Butler inquiry the civil service broke its own rules by releasing hundreds of documents that were published on the internet. The loans for peerages scandal has seen one of Blair’s closet allies arrested while the attempt to force Blair from office a few weeks ago saw the animosity lurking beneath the façade threatening to break out in an uncontrolled way.

In contrast, when Thatcher was removed it was done with steely efficiency and her attempt to hang on was fairly brief and ended quite ruthlessly by senior figures. That said, the Thatcher era again paved the way for today, given that Thatcher had links with the Eurosceptics and was a factor in the turmoil in the Tory party during John Major’s time as Prime Minister. This was a bitter dispute and was marked by quite public manoeuvring and attempts to exert pressure through whispering campaigns and the media. The long running dispute between Blair and Brown, while often treated by the media as a soap opera, has been a symptom of the difficulties the bourgeoisie faces in maintaining its cohesion in the present situation.

The balance of class forces

What this reveals is a loss of control within the British bourgeoisie. The coup attempt against Blair following his holiday seems to have been launched on the back of the attacks on him over Lebanon before he went. It is possible that one was linked to the other since both aimed to get rid of Blair. The second may have been a way of completing the first or just have taken its cue from it. However, the partial loss of control that resulted clearly worried parts of the ruling class which moved to close things down. Blair and Brown have made up with public shows of support while Brown has worked to present a more human face with comments that being a father has changed him more than being chancellor and televised tears when speaking of the loss of his daughter. It may be significant that Cameron has been given more prominence at this time and that he has recently spoken of the need to adopt a foreign policy that is less subservient to the US.

These events are not comparable with those seen in other countries, such as Russia or Italy or even France. Nonetheless it is significant. It is not just this or that part of the ruling class but the ruling class as a whole that is affected by the ideology of ‘look after number one’. This is consistent with what we wrote in the Theses on Decomposition in 1990: “Amongst the major characteristics of capitalist society’s decomposition, we should emphasise the bourgeoisie’s growing difficulty in controlling the evolution of the political situation. Obviously, this is a result of the ruling class’ increasing loss of control over its economic apparatus, the infrastructure of society. The historic dead-end in which the capitalist mode of production finds itself trapped, the successive failures of the bourgeoisie’s different policies, the permanent flight into debt as a condition for the survival of the world economy, cannot but affect the political apparatus which is itself incapable of imposing on society and especially on the working class, the ‘discipline’ and acquiescence necessary to mobilise all its historic strength for a new world war, which is the only historic ‘response’ that the bourgeoisie has to give. The absence of any perspective (other than day-to-day stop-gap measures to prop up the economy) around which it could mobilise as a class, and at the same time the fact that the proletariat does not yet threaten its own survival, creates within the ruling class, and especially within the political apparatus, a growing tendency towards indiscipline and an attitude of ‘every man for himself’” (IR 62).

The British bourgeoisie is the oldest in the world and is noted for its experience, its mastery of the political game, its capacity to maintain order and its discipline. That this has now received such a public blow is an indication of the extent and the depth of the impact of decomposition on the ruling class internationally. However, the situation should not be exaggerated. The British ruling class remains strong and, in particular, is absolutely united against the working class not only in its aim of maintaining its domination but also in the methods it uses to achieve this. In fact even these recent difficulties have been used to reinforce the democratic game through the manufactured campaigns for honesty and decency amongst politicians.

It is not through the weakness of the ruling class that the proletariat will win any victories but only through its own strength. Signs of this already exist. The success of the movement in France this spring was due to the unity and consciousness it achieved. The gradual revival of the class struggle in recent years has shifted the balance of class forces after the years that followed 1989 when the bourgeoisie was able to successfully mount large scale manoeuvres to limit the class struggle. Throughout its history the working class could only ever rely on itself. This remains the case today.

North, 22/9/6.

Wage negotiations within Royal Mail have been dragged out now for over five months. Postal workers have been treated to a management imposed deal and union delays and prevarication over a strike ballot. Against a background of management attacks and bullying at all levels, the militancy of the postal workers has already exploded in a number of local, unofficial walk-outs, like the ones in Plymouth and Belfast in March, Wolverhampton in May, and Exeter in July (see article in this issue). In fact, the delaying and derailing tactics of the Communications Workers’ Union can only be understood as a means of making sure that this growing class anger does not escape its control.

In May, Royal Mail imposed its own wage increase of 2.6% on basic pay and paid this plus the back-dated pay into workers’ bank accounts. This was an attempt by Royal Mail to impose its will on the workforce, a ‘softening-up’ for even bigger and more stringent cutbacks, both in the workforce and in working practises. Royal Mail has made no secret that it is looking for 40,000 job-cuts as part of its ‘business-plan’.

This imposition of a management pay deal threw down the gauntlet to the CWU as it cut them out of the negotiation loop. The CWU was determined to enter into the game and in July conducted a ‘poll’ of its members asking if they were willing to take strike action. The result was overwhelmingly for a strike. This allowed the CWU to go to management and negotiate a ‘new’ deal. From this point on the CWU showed its true role as a force of law and order in the workplace, working overtime to quell a groundswell of militancy at both the national and the local level. We had a clear sign of this growing will to struggle at Exeter sorting office in July, where an unofficial 7 day strike forced management to drop disciplinary proceedings against a CWU rep who was threatened with disciplinary action because of his ‘sickness record’. The issue here was not, as the CWU and its leftist supporters claimed, one of ‘defending the unions’ (especially as the rep was obliged to disavow the unofficial action). It was a basic display of working class solidarity around the old workers’ maxim - ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’.

Angered by management’s highhandedness and increasing use of bullying tactics, postal workers had been expecting a strike ballot to be prepared more or less immediately. This was not to be. The CWU’s tactic was, first, to confuse the whole conflict by making it one of union rights. In mass meetings across the country workers were given the line: “This action by Royal Mail is a direct attack on union recognition; what it means is not only a lousy pay deal but management are attempting to make the union redundant”. Second, terrified by the militancy of postal workers on a short leash due to management intimidation, the CWU created a fire-guard against strike action with a poll, which it said would force Royal Mail management back to the negotiating table without the necessity for a strike. At a meeting in Liverpool in June, a CWU official put forward the CWU position in a reply to a postal worker who advocated a mass unofficial walkout: “our membership poll is enough to frighten management back to the negotiating table, under no circumstance are CWU members to take local unofficial action, this will just play into the hands of Royal Mail.”. But the CWU has been in the hands of Royal Mail and the capitalist state since the day it was born.

SM, 30.9.06.

These reflections on the postal workers’ wildcat in Exeter were sent to us by a close sympathiser. They provide a very good framework for understanding how, whether they do it consciously or not, even the most “rank and file” representatives of the trade unions are forced to act against the interests of the working class.

In late August-early September, postal workers at the Sowton sorting office went on strike. The apparent cause for this was a provocative attack on a well-known union militant, FC[1]. This attack took the form of both attempting to prevent FC from taking part in union activity (which is illegal) and then attempting to dock sick pay despite knowing of his serious health problems and being given a doctor’s note to cover his absence. The response was immediate. Nearly all the workers in the sorting office immediately came out on unofficial strike, demanding that the worker be paid his sick pay and the withdrawal of disciplinary proceedings. The dispute went on for nearly a week, with management attempting to enforce new working conditions. The strike did not spread beyond the sorting office, leaving the workers there isolated.

Incredibly, when the strike was finally over, the worker at the centre of the dispute, FC, actually appeared to condemn the strike action in the local paper saying: “I would never condone unofficial action but I can understand the reasons for it. I did all that was required of me. When people originally staged a sit down I advised them to return to work. I did all I could to advise them not to take this action”[2].

The ICC had already begun a thread on the libcom discussion forums[3]. The main points of discussion were the role that shop stewards play in union structures. In particular, the ICC’s position on the role of the unions was criticised for its ambiguity. At times the ICC and its sympathisers seemed to present the unions as consciously engineering a defeat for the class. At other times, it was acknowledged that shop stewards (e.g. FC) actually don’t understand the full significance of the role they play. There was general agreement that the union structure plays a negative role – the disagreements revolve about the role of militant individuals in the union and the mechanics through which this role is played out.

The bourgeoisie is a Machiavellian class

All ruling classes, to a greater or lesser extent, have a Machiavellian component to their class consciousness. Their position as exploiting classes forces them to contain the revolts of other social strata in order to preserve their power. In the ideological sphere a ruling class attempts to convince these strata that their own rule is in the interests of the whole of society.

For the bourgeoisie, this reaches entirely new heights as its consciousness expresses the dynamic of capitalist society, “a mode of production based on competition, [meaning] its whole vision can only be a competitive one, a vision of perpetual rivalry amongst all individuals, including within the bourgeoisie itself”[4]. The bourgeoisie is forced not only to confront other classes within society but also experiences frenzied competition between its various fractions. A quick look at bourgeois history is enough to show that it is capable of the most remarkable manoeuvres when it indulges in its internecine squabbles. To think that such a class then approaches its confrontations with other strata in society (and most especially the working class) in a naïve or bumbling fashion is simply stretching the boundaries of credulity. Obviously the bourgeoisie goes to great lengths to disguise this aspect of its nature. This takes on a variety of forms, the most pernicious of which is ‘democracy’, where the bourgeoisie attempts to convince us that capitalism is the only system that ‘works’ and speaks of equality, democracy, freedom, human rights, etc.

Despite these fine words, the practice of the bourgeoisie in actually defending its system forces the bourgeoisie to act in a manner that is contradictory to its public statements. Their position in society demands a certain degree of cynicism and deception. This is the inevitable product of the alienated consciousness characteristic of all ruling classes. This consciousness is pushed forward whenever the system is under threat – at no time is the bourgeoisie more daring and inventive when its rule is challenged. It will use any instruments at its disposal in order to preserve its rule.

Unions: state police in the factory

Today, the unions are among the most powerful instruments the bourgeoisie uses to maintain its social order. Whilst some participants on libcom are able to see that the overall role of the unions is negative, they question how conscious and directed this activity is.

Two things must be remembered when dealing with this question. Firstly, once it recognised that unions were capable of being used for their own purposes[5], they were henceforth doomed to be under the watchful eyes of the state. In essence, the state began to integrate them into to the various official and unofficial tools at its disposal. Only the most breathtaking naivety can allow one to think they would be left to their own devices.

Secondly, like all arms of the state, the unions have a hierarchical structure. Your average policeman is not aware of the machinations of the secret services in manipulating their agents in the various terrorist organisations (e.g. the role of Stakeknife in the IRA). In the same way, your average union functionary does not know what happens in meetings in the TUC and the Government.

We must also acknowledge that many union officials at the lower levels want to help their comrades. But straightaway they are absorbed into a structure that exists to contain workers in a certain framework. When class struggle erupts, these reps are suddenly confronted with a contradiction between the needs of the struggle and their function within the union. And because Union ideology conflates the working class with the union completely, defending the union becomes an end in itself. It is thus possible for union officials to subjectively believe in the struggle of the working class while objectively acting more and more against it.

This process of indoctrination is similar in any bourgeois institution. For example, many join the police with the idealistic aim of “helping society” – but very quickly, elements are drawn into an institutional culture that slowly inculcates contempt for the vast majority of people “outside” the police. In a similar way, union reps (and the same is true of leftism generally) develop a contradictory view of the working class: on the one hand, impatience and contempt for workers when the latter are passive; and, on the other hand, terror of “things getting out of hand” when workers are on the move. As union officials move up the hierarchy, they are more and more removed from workers and become submerged in the internecine conflicts within the union hierarchy. The top level union leaders have been thoroughly disciplined by a bruising “political” life as any leader of a bourgeois political party. They approach control of their union with the same ruthlessness as a bourgeois politician controls his party.

It is an elementary truth that union leaders “sell out”. Recognising this reality and the reality of their integration into bourgeois politics immediately opens up the question of their involvement in the Machiavellian schemes of the ruling class. While rank and file union reps are not privy to these schemes they are nonetheless unwitting tools in their operation. Whatever their personal understanding may be, all representatives of the union are the face of the ruling class and its state in the capitalist workplace.

AKG, 30/9/06.

 

As we wrote in the last issue of WR, Africa “shows in frightening detail the real future that the capitalist mode of production has for humanity”. Few, if any, regions have escaped the never ending cycle of wars, disease, famine and ‘natural’ disasters that have ravaged the continent for the last century, as the imperialist powers have fought over the right to exploit its rich resources. During the Cold War African nations were at the centre of tensions between the two major blocs led by the USA and the USSR. The effect of this conflict on the region was devastating. We need only look at Somalia, which was just one of the many countries that was exhausted by these inter-imperialist rivalries, and it has suffered even more since the collapse of the blocs and the changing attitudes of its former ‘sponsors’ (see: WR 297, ‘Somalia: social collapse and imperialist war’).

When able, the bourgeoisie, here and abroad, is careful to ensure that the reality of Africa’s crisis rarely hits the headlines. But this is not always possible when, as with the Middle East recently, the level of violence or human suffering makes a news blackout impossible. Fortunately for the bourgeoisie there is a get-out clause: when things get too bad, they play the ‘humanitarian’ card. Although not unique to Africa - who can forget recent British and US ‘humanitarian interventions’ in Bosnia and Afghanistan - this term has a particular historic resonance when used in reference to the continent, which for decades has suffered at the hands of the ‘humanitarians’ of the main imperialist powers.

The latest region to feel the glare of the gaze of the ‘international community’ is Darfur, the semi-arid western province of Sudan, Africa’s largest country, where in 2003 ethnic violence over water shortages and grazing rights exploded between indigenous black Africans who make up the majority of the population within the region, and the state and their pro-government Arab militia, the Janjaweed, who have been armed and supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum. The latter is understandably keen to play down any suggestion of genocide, but no-one seems to know how many have been killed or displaced during the last three years in what the United Nations (UN) has called a “man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale” (The Economist 09/09/6). Estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 dead with as many as 2 million displaced, many of whom have fled to neighbouring Chad. Seven thousand ill equipped African Union (AU) troops sent to the region as ‘peacekeepers’ have failed to stop the killing and were scheduled to leave the area in September. Darfur has become a “byword for appalling bloodshed” (The Economist 09/09/6).

A descent into chaos

The conflict in Darfur is often presented as being one between good (the victims of the Janjaweed) and evil (the ‘hard-line’ Islamist regime which has set the Arab death squads on tens of thousands of civilians). But this is only one aspect of the conflict, which is becoming increasingly chaotic over recent months. There are divisions between different Islamic factions in the capital, and the African rebel forces have themselves fragmented along tribal lines:

“The dynamic of the fighting has shifted since the peace agreement from a more-or-less two-way conflict between central government and rebels to a more complex war also involving heavy fighting between various rebel factions.

In a further sign of increasing divisions, a new faction - the National Redemption Front (NRF) - emerged in July 2006. It is a coalition including JEM and ex-SLA commanders who deserted both Minnawi and Nur.

The NRF soon held sway in much of north Darfur, where there were reports of a build-up of government troops in August.

The SLA initially united supporters from Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit tribes, but split after May along increasingly tribal lines. Minnawi is a Zaghawa, like about 8 percent of Darfur’s population. Nur is a Fur, who at 30 percent of the region’s population are the largest ethnic group in Darfur. JEM is mostly Zaghawa.

The Sudanese military appeared to support Minnawi’s side, and his faction was accused of using Janjaweed-like tactics, including a government attack helicopter disguised as a relief flight, and of raping and killing women from the Fur tribe. Meanwhile, Nur’s supporters were also accused of gang-raping women for having Zaghawa husbands” (Reuters AlertNet).

 Local imperialist tensions involving Sudan and its neighbours have also sharpened:

 “The conflict in Darfur has soured relations with Chad. Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, is a member of the Zaghawa tribe whose members live on both sides of the border and are among rebels fighting against Khartoum.

There is some evidence that Chad may have helped channel arms to Darfur. Despite this, Chad’s government has also backed Khartoum. For its part, Chad has accused Sudan of supporting some 3,000 Chadian rebels on its territory” (ibid).

The conflict also has implications for the rivalry between Eritrea and Ethiopia: “Eritrea - which itself has tense relations with a U.N. peacekeeping force monitoring its border with Ethiopia - has weighed in to support Sudan’s objections, in a sign of improved relations between Khartoum and Asmara.

The two countries previously had no diplomatic relations as Khartoum accused Eritrea of supporting an array of Sudanese opposition and rebel groups, and Asmara accused Sudan of training an insurgent group operating on their shared border” (ibid).

And, as we showed in our last issue, Ethiopia is in turn involved in the ‘civil war’ in Somalia, which means that the threat of more widespread imperialist wars now hangs over the whole of Eastern Africa. .

In the midst of all these war-like tensions, it may seem bizarre that “with low inflation, GDP growth of 8% in 2005 and 13% projected by the IMF this year, Sudan is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa” (The Economist 05/08/6). All of this in a country which has been subject to American sanctions since 1986. The reason for this is fairly simple: Sudan started exporting crude oil in 1999 and is taking full advantage of current high prices on the world market. The benefits of this ‘boom’ are likely to be short-lived and in any case they only being felt in the capital; furthermore, since oil was discovered in Darfur itself, there have been accusations that the government has unleashed the Janjaweed with the precise aim of ensuring control over the new drilling operations there. A further ‘blessing’ of Sudan’s oil is that it gives the bigger imperialist powers an added incentive for getting a foothold in the area. China, which is increasingly becoming a serious imperialist player in Africa, buys most of its oil from Sudan.

If you add to its oil reserves Sudan’s geo-strategic relationship to the Middle East and its connections with the ‘war on terror’ (it’s one of Bin Laden’s former haunts), it would seem to be an obvious target for imperialist intervention. But despite the increasing level of verbiage about the country’s humanitarian crisis, there are also a number of obstacles to the verbiage being transformed into an actual armed intervention. The US would like to develop its presence in Africa but given that it is currently stretched militarily by the ongoing chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was humiliated by its last adventure in Africa (trying to keep the ‘peace’ in Somalia), it is unlikely that it will intervene militarily with its own forces. Britain is in the same position. An article in The Economist (23/09/6) makes it clear, “no more missions please”. British forces are already struggling to fulfil their current ‘responsibilities’ and, given the growing numbers of deaths amongst British troops in Afghanistan, another ‘peace mission’ would certainly prove unpopular at home.

So we are being treated to the familiar sight of the major imperialist powers slugging it out through the UN, itself a den of thieves, using the smokescreen of ‘humanitarian intervention’ to hide their real intentions. During the last two weeks this charade has seen both Blair and Brown speaking out about the situation in Darfur with Brown using his speech at the Labour Party Conference to call for the world to “act urgently” through the UN in Darfur. A recent article in The Economist (23/09/6) states how, “on the eve of the 61st United Nations General Assembly, 32 countries held events aimed at persuading their governments to recognise a responsibility to protect the civilians of Darfur” while “a rally in New York City’s Central Park attracted upwards of 30,000 people who called for the speedy deployment of UN peacekeepers”. Even China now seems unlikely to vote against a resolution to send peace keeping troops to the area. It seems the only leader who doesn’t want a UN peace keeping force is the Sudanese president Oman Hassan al-Bashir who believes that peacekeepers will threaten the current fragile stability of the country.

Whatever happens in the forthcoming weeks and months the dispossessed of Darfur will not be ‘rescued’. There is no national solution to the problems in Sudan. What we are more likely to see is a long drawn out intervention by peacekeepers which will enable the imperialist powers involved to gain a foothold in the region whilst maintaining their commitment to the ‘international community’. This kind of ‘humanitarian aid’ is a direct expression of the imperialist free-for-all that is causing so much disaster and devastation all around the planet. It has nothing to do with real solidarity for the stricken populations of Africa. The best solidarity we can offer is to develop the class struggle in the central capitalist countries and to expose ‘humanitarian intervention’ as the vile hypocrisy that it is.

Will, 29/9/6.

When privately-made comments from Hungary’s Prime Minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, were leaked it led to demonstrations, attacks on the state broadcasting headquarters, burnt-out cars and a couple of nights of people fighting with the riot police. Yet it has been suggested that there was no mistake in the remarks being released. On the BBC News website (18/9/6), for example, you can read that “Some analysts suggest the leak may be with the prime minister’s permission as he posted a full transcript on his own web blog. Mr Gyurcsany may be trying to emphasise the need for tough reforms”. Surely no government would be so cynical as to risk provoking violence, protests on the street and a resurgence in neo-fascist parties? After all, the recent experience of eastern Europe has shown that a number of governments have been changed in velvet, orange, rose ‘revolutions’. Was the Hungarian government threatened by a ‘white revolution’?

The need for austerity

At a meeting of the MSZP (the Hungarian ‘Socialist’ Party) held after they’d won the election in April, Gyurcsany, a millionaire who’d chaired the stalinist youth organisation and then made a fortune in the wave of post-stalinist privatisations, made some basic observations. “We screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have. Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true. You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of… Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?” To make sure there was no ambiguity: “We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening.”

Yet, from a superficial look at the state of the Hungarian economy, you would have expected the government to have been boasting. Inflation had been brought down, figures for economic growth were strong, the minimum wage was doubled, pensions were increased, public sector wages were increased and “pushed up nominal incomes by almost 30% in two years” (Economist 23/9/6). Of course none of this was possible without massive borrowing. Before the election they said that the level of deficit was tolerable. This was probably the biggest of the MSZP’s lies. In The Economist’s words “The current-account deficit has now hit 9% of GDP and the budget deficit 10% - levels usually associated with countries in complete meltdown” (ibid).

This is the truth of the situation facing the Hungarian ruling class and the basis for their strict austerity plans. There will be spending cuts, tax increases, widespread cuts of staff in the public sector, the end of free health care, increased tuition fees, a property tax and cuts in pensions. That is the reality which the bourgeoisie is imposing on the population, in particular the working class. The need for the government to sell “tough reforms” is clear, and the idea that they used Gyurcsany’s words in the campaign is not far-fetched.

Clash of nationalisms

But what happened on the streets of Budapest and a number of provincial towns? Socialist Worker (30/9/6) gives us the view of “political philosopher G M Tamás”. Although right-wing groups had mobilised and there had been lots of fascist regalia on show, including Hungarian Nazi flags and insignia, he thought “it was mostly an instinctive, quite apolitical explosion of popular anger. The mainstream press speaks of ‘fascist rabble’, exhibiting the usual kind of sovereign contempt for the masses. The riots were far from pleasant and occasionally rather mindless. Nevertheless, the protesters had a point. They had been cruelly deceived, and the proposed government policies are monstrously unfair.” So although he heard “the xenophobic and slightly paranoid rhetoric of the European extreme right” he viewed the protests as “the expression of working class despair and a general, vague sense of the rottenness of the system.”

A more sober assessment can be found on Reuters AlertNet (28/9/6) which reported how the opposition “declared themselves the White Revolution and promised ‘people power’ to sweep away the government; but Hungary’s protest movement has ended up as little more than a nationalist picnic party.”

The Budapest-based group, the Barricades Collective, that defends internationalist positions, has written a text on the events which has been published on libcom.org (under current affairs). They examine the games of the bourgeoisie in a conflict that “only focuses on the clash between the government and the opposition”, and while they note “that there are no social demands” look forward to the resurgence of the working class in response to the intensification of its exploitation. Although their text is confused in parts (and quite difficult to follow in the present translation) they are clear that they have not been witnessing a struggle between classes but between factions of the ruling class.

That is the right way to approach the situation. The article from The Economist quoted above is full of praise for Gyurcsany as he has now adopted the policies that its commentator thinks are appropriate for Hungarian national capital. The oppositionists might have tapped into some understandable discontent, but only to drown it in nationalism. The main difference between the aborted ‘White Revolution’ and the changes of regime in other eastern European countries is that while oppositions in other countries promised greater democracy, in Hungary, Fidesz, the main opposition party, has increasingly adopted positions previously only adopted by the fascists. Government and opposition are both purveyors of nationalism, but the former is selling the more modern variety.

The opposition has many archaic qualities. For example, on the demonstrations one of the most popular slogans was “Down with the Treaty of Trianon!” This is a reference to the conditions imposed on Hungary at Versailles in 1920 after its defeat in the First World War. Apart from the payment of reparations etc, Hungary lost 66% of its population and 72% of its territory, with parts going to Romania, Czechoslovakia, Austria and what became Yugoslavia. During the protests there was much singing of the Székely anthem, the song of the Hungarians who live in Transylvania, up to 300 miles away from the current Hungarian border. One of the policies of Fidesz is the return of the strategically invaluable Transylvanian region from Romania. It might not be a very realistic project, but it is a reminder that every capitalist state has imperialist ambitions.

Clearly the working class has nothing to gain from supporting either the government or opposition faction of the ruling class.

Car, 30/9/6.

We’ve seen in the two preceding articles on this subject (WR 290 and 295) that the fuss over outsourcing essentially serves as a means to blackmail the working class into accepting lower wages and deteriorating conditions of work.

The irreversible crisis suffered by capitalism is invariably shown in the massive numbers out of work. Labour power, whose exploitation constitutes the source of capitalist profits, sees its price fall along with other superabundant commodities on a saturated market; but above all it is reduced by the need to drastically reduce the costs of production, in particular the wage bill. This is the sole means at the disposal of the bourgeoisie to maintain competition on a shrinking market. Over nearly a hundred years of historic decline, the capitalist system has shown that it can only offer a future of growing insecurity to those that it exploits: a future of mass unemployment and of absolute pauperisation, which can also include those that have a job.

In its struggle, the working class of the whole world has the same task. It can no longer remain at the level of trying to limit the effects of exploitation. The only realistic perspective, the only one which will allow it to put an end to all the torments of the capitalist system, it to attack the causes of its exploitation. The only way out of the economic crisis of capitalism, the only way the proletariat can make a better life, involves the abolition of the commodity character of labour power, the destruction of capitalist social relations and thus of wage labour at the world level.

A campaign against the proletariat

Outsourcing is also directly used to attach the proletariat to the ideology of competition, to imprison it in defending national capital and thus submitting to its imperatives. This is what the bourgeoisie aims for by selling the idea that the capitalist state could be a protective wall against the damage done by globalisation. An example of this is the spiel coming from the United States about “forbidding companies who outsource to participate in calls for public tenders”. Apparently it was a great victory for democracy that it has now been made “compulsory for a consultation of personnel and the region’s elected before any transfer of production abroad” (1). The empty chatter of the government, and of the opposition, about how “it’s necessary to act in this country, to guarantee the employment of nationals” (G. Bush) tries to reinforce the mystification of a state ‘above classes’ and ‘at the service of all its citizens’ and to maintain the illusion of a possible conciliation of interests between the dominant class and the working class. Quite the contrary, in no case can the state constitute an ally for the workers. The state is both a guarantee of the dominant class’ interest in maintaining its system of exploitation and a tool for orchestrating attacks against the proletariat. As is shown both by the merciless economic war between all states of the world, and by the outbreak of open military conflicts, the national state is the instrument par excellence for competition among capitalists. It is not a lifebuoy for the working class but its most redoubtable enemy. In its struggle, it is the state that the proletariat must confront first and foremost.

On the other hand, bourgeois propaganda, by putting the responsibility for the decline in living conditions for the western proletariat onto the Polish, Chinese or Asian workers, serves as a means of dividing up the different parts of the world proletariat. For example, from 2004 and during 2005, the bourgeoisie made the ‘conflict’ at the Vaxholm shipyard in Sweden, the model of an ‘anti-liberal’ struggle. The employment of less well paid Latvian workers was used by the unions to orchestrate a gigantic campaign, which was taken up by the bourgeoisie even outside of this country. In the name of “solidarity” and the “refusal to discriminate between workers”, the blockade of the shipyards by several union federations, under the slogan “Go Home!” ended by depriving the Latvian workers of their livelihoods and forcing them to leave. This turned into a vast, national mobilisation in order to steer the workers behind the authorities, the Social-Democratic government and the unions in order to “protect the Swedish social model” and defend “the code of work, guarantee of our security”. This experience only shows one thing: directing the proletariat to fight for ‘legal codes’, encloses the proletariat, fraction by fraction, in the defence of ‘its’ conditions of exploitation within each capitalist nation, chopping it up into opposing and competitive entities. By trying to entrap the working class in this defence of the national capital, the bourgeoisie sows divisions among the workers and blocks off any possibility of workers’ unity and solidarity beyond frontiers.

One class, one struggle

This question of solidarity is always posed when the bosses put the workers from different geographical sites or even the same firm against each other through outsourcing. Workers’ solidarity is going to be a fundamental element in the future of class struggle. Both in the countries from which the outsourcing takes place, and in those which become the destination of relocations, no fraction of the proletariat can remain aloof from the present resurgence of struggles, which has been provoked by the economic crisis in the four corners of the world. Our press has already reported on workers’ struggles in India (WR 292), in Dubai and Bangladesh (WRs 294 and 296). In China as well a growing number of workers’ struggles are developing, which today “have hit the private sector and factories of the Chinese coast and their exports. Some factories who subcontract for foreign companies, thanks to a plentiful and docile supply of labour [are hit] because the workers, above all the new generations, are more and more conscious of their rights. They have also reached a point where the situation is no longer acceptable” (2). In Vietnam at the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006, the country was hit for several months by a wave of spontaneous strikes unleashed outside any control of the unions and involving more than 40,000 workers in the zones around Saigon and the interior regions. “The conflict bearing on wages and the conditions of work began in December in Vietnam (…) where dozens of foreign companies had set up factories in order to profit from the enormous mass of low paid workers (…). This wave of spontaneous strikes, considered the worst since the end of the Vietnam War (…) began nearly 3 months ago, mainly in the foreign owned factories situated in the southern area of Saigon” (3). We find here the same tendencies that characterise the present workers’ struggles elsewhere: workers’ solidarity is at their heart and they simultaneously involve tens of thousands of workers from all sectors. From the end of December “walk-outs followed one another for more than a month and hardened after a stoppage of 18,000 wage earners at Freestand, a Taiwanese firm whose factories make shoes for brand names such as Nike and Adidas” (4). January 3, “in the region of Linh Xuat, in the province of Thuc Duc, eleven thousand employees of six factories struck for an increase in wages. From the following day, strikes hit factories of Hai Vinh and Chutex. The same day, five thousand workers of the Kollan & Hugo Company rejoined the strike to demand an increase in minimum wages. (…) At the Latex Company, all the 2340 workers went on strike in solidarity with those of Kollan, asking for an increase of 30% for the lowest wage earners. These workers went to the Danu Vina Company, leading the personnel to join up with their strike. January 4, the Vietnamese workers of the plantation Grawn Timbers Ltd., in the province of Binh Duong, close to Saigon, demonstrated against a sudden reduction in wages with no warning and no explanation. The same day thousands of workers at the firm of Hai, Vinh, Chutex, situated in the same industrial region as the plantation of Grawn Timbers Ltd., went on strike over wages. January 9 and strikes in these regions continued. In the suburbs of Saigon four new strikes broke out involving thousands of workers” (5). In the capitalist world, competition constitutes the root of social relations and the bourgeoisie use it in order to divide and weaken those they exploit. The working class can only develop its own strength by opposing the principle of competition with its own principle of class solidarity. Only this solidarity can allow the development of the workers’ struggle as a basis for confronting the state and realising the project of a society that has gone beyond this world of every man for himself - a society without classes, communism.

In present-day society, the working class is the sole class able to develop solidarity at the world level. From the start, the workers’ movement has always affirmed its international character. Thus, at the time of Marx, one of the immediate reasons which led to the foundation of the International was the necessity for the English workers to co-ordinate their struggle with those of France, from where the bosses were trying to bring in strikebreakers. “The economic crisis accentuates social antagonisms, and strikes follow one another in all the countries of western Europe. (…) In many cases, [the International] succeeded in preventing the introduction of foreign strikebreakers, and where foreign workers who in their ignorance of local conditions became strikebreakers, often led them to practice solidarity. In other cases, it organised subscriptions to support the strikers. Not only did that give the strikers a moral support, but provoked among the employers a real panic: they no longer had to deal with ‘their’ workers, but a new, powerful and sinister force, having an international organisation” (6). The proletariat is never as strong as when it affirms itself, faced with the bourgeoisie, as a united and international force.

Scott, From Revolution Internationale 371, July 2006.

Notes

(1) L’Expansion, 13 February 2004

(2) Le Monde, 14 October 2005

(3) Depeche AFP, 15 March 2006

(4) Courrier International no. 796

(5)‘Massive strikes in Vietnam for decent wages’ on Viettan.org.

www.viettan.org/article.php3?id_article=2101 [8]

“Caught short, the government has brought social peace by imposing on foreign firms, over represented in Vietnam, an increase of 40% of the workers’ wages. But 40% of almost nothing doesn’t come to much: about 870,000 dongs, or 45 euros monthly for the workers of foreign firms and less than half that for those who work in local industry. Not such a great catching up considering the rates of growth: the minimum wage hasn’t moved for… seven years” (Marianne no. 470, 22 April 2006).

(6) Marx, Man and Fighter, B. Nicolaievski.

Dear Comrades

The recent article ‘Anti-terrorism: pretext for state terror’ in WR 296 was useful in that it brought together some thoughts I have had regarding the centrality of the revolutionary party in the struggle for a communist world. For me it is important to stress how the decomposition of bourgeoisie society combined with each national capitalism’s drive to increase its share of surplus value, not only in the UK but across the world, leads to measures which strengthen the repressive functions of the capitalist state.

So I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis when you argue: “In reality terrorism and anti-terrorism are a product of the development of capitalism, springing from the ever-increasing imperialist tensions that drive every state and would-be state into a war of each against all”.

This materialist explanation of the rise of terrorism is something that many leftists cannot understand. For many on the left terrorism is either an irrational response to intolerable living conditions, or it’s the work of a group of socially sick individuals who are being manipulated by ruthless gangsters. In fact as the ICC argues terrorism is one of many tools each of the national bourgeoisies uses in an attempt to maintain their supremacy or to challenge their rivals.

While it is reasonable to argue why the bourgeoisie uses the threat of terrorism to strengthen their hegemony over the subordinate classes, i.e. the working and middle classes, what it does not address is why is it at this present time that this ideology is so successful with so many members of the working class. I think that the reason lies in how capitalism is decomposing and the drawn-out nature of the decomposition. It seems to me that any idea that there is going to be a catastrophic collapse of capitalism similar to the 1930s is misleading. The bourgeoisie has learnt a lot of lessons since this event; also there is much more of a growth in the use of credit which can offset the decline in the rate of profit.

So while a catastrophic economic collapse may not occur what seems to me to be happening is that the inherent contradictions in capitalist society combined with a growing saturation in world markets leads to a gradual slowdown in economic growth in all countries leading to stagnation. Engels in an introduction to Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy argued “At least this was the case until recently. Since England’s monopoly of the world market is being more and more shattered by the participation of France, Germany and above all of America in world trade, a new form of equalization appears to be operating. The period of general prosperity preceding the crisis still fails to appear. If it should fail altogether then chronic stagnation would necessarily become the normal condition of modern industry, with only insignificant fluctuations”. It is this tendency towards stagnation of the forces of production that forces the bourgeoisie to make cut backs to the social wage i.e. cuts in welfare provision, health and education combined with raising the levels of exploitation.

While there have been struggles against this tendency namely the struggle against the CPE in France, many workers in Britain experience this erosion in a wholly negative way. Gone is the sense that no matter how inadequate the welfare state was it still gave a sense of security, that some provision would be provided to workers which would give support through hard times. That is until another job could be found. With the dismantling and erosion of bourgeoisie state support now what workers experience is increasing alienation which is leading to bouts of cynicism with bourgeoisie politics and frustration with working class reformism.

This is why many younger workers are currently turning away from voting. However the alienation that is being produced by decomposing capitalism does not mean that they are automatically turning to revolutionary politics. Rather the opposite is the case as the bourgeoisie scapegoats asylum seekers and immigrants. Not surprisingly reformist trade unions also contributes to this atmosphere when they launch nationalistic campaigns in an attempt to save workers’ jobs. This scapegoat is an old ploy of the bourgeoisie: in the early twentieth century it was Jews, in the 1960s it was black immigrants, now in the early twenty first century it is asylum seekers. This highlights that when workers feel weak then attempts to scapegoat are generally successful.

This brings me to my last point: that I believe that while this disillusion with parliamentary politics is to be welcomed it also emphasises the importance of being consistent in arguing for building an independent revolutionary party rooted in workers’ struggles and consistently arguing for workers’ councils and working class solidarity. The recent articles by the ICC regarding the CPE in France has been welcome alongside the recent pieces on how the reformist trade unions are now unable to deliver any meaningful reforms for workers.

DT

Our Reply

Dear comrade,

We would like thank you for your very interesting letter. With the mounting campaign around the question of terrorism, especially the home grown variety, it is vital to be able to put forward a marxist analysis of this question. Your “wholehearted welcome” for the analysis unfolded in the article on anti-terrorism is thus most welcome. Not only do you agree, but you also seek to apply and critically assess the analysis.

We fully endorse this approach. As a communist organisation it is not a question of expecting those seeking to understand your positions to fall down on their knees and proclaim their full agreement. The central question for us is that our positions are understood. Thus, it is important that our contacts feel able to question, criticise and disagree with our positions. It is only through a process of clarification that a full understanding can be gained.

You say of the article that “What it does not address is why it is at the present time that this ideology is so successful with so many members of the working class. I think that the reason lies in how capitalism is decomposing and the drawn out nature of the decomposition”. The analysis of decomposition is essential to understanding not only this question but the general situation facing capitalism and humanity. It is certainly crucial for understanding the growth of the influence of the nihilistic ideology of terrorism, in all its forms. We would question the extent of the influence of this ideology within the working class, but not the importance of understanding the pernicious influence of this ideology. Nor would we disagree with your obvious concern about the wider impact of decomposition on the working class. The putrefaction of capitalism is exuding a noxious cloud of ideological poison.

Given this terrible danger for a proletariat faced with the rotting of capitalism on its feet, we think that it is necessary to be as clear as possible about the causes of the process of the decomposition of capitalism. In the letter you emphasis the role of the stagnation of the economy in the development of decomposition. This is certainly an important aspect. However, we think that there is an vital aspect that is not developed in your letter: the role of the class struggle.

The dragging out of the economic crisis is an essential aspect of decomposition. As you rightly show the prolonged nature of the crisis is tearing away at the very social fabric of capitalist society. The welfare state is being dismantled across Western Europe, mass unemployment is growing and the levels of exploitation suffered by workers are becoming ever more murderous. As you demonstrate this is leading to growing sense of insecurity in the working class and the ruling class is seeking to exploit this to stir up nationalist campaigns etc.

The development of the crisis is, however, not the cause of decomposition. The foundation of decomposition is the impasse between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is important to fully understand this because otherwise one can blur and confuse the different phases in the development and decadence of capitalism, and give the impression that decomposition could be seen as something that has been an aspect of capitalism for some time. The very interesting quote from Engels could imply that decomposition was a phenomenon that began to arise at the end of the 19th century. Thus, we think it would help our discussions if we laid out our historical framework for the understanding of decomposition.

To this end, we hope that you will not mind if we use some extensive quotes from our Theses on the decomposition of capitalism [10].

Capitalism has been decadent since 1914, when the First World War brutally demonstrated that the capitalist system was no longer a progressive force for the development of humanity, but a social system that could only offer humanity a future of barbarity. From a system spreading capitalist relations across the globe, thus laying the basis for communism, it became a system whose very survival means destruction, chaos and even the obliteration of all civilisation. Since 1914 we have seen two world wars, and two economic crises; however, it is only since the 1980’s that we see the phase of decomposition developing. This is because it is only since the 1980’s that we have witnessed a period of impasse between the ruling class and proletariat.

The Theses underline that all class societies have gone through a dynamic of growth and decay and that this understanding of the phases of capitalism is vital to understanding decomposition:

“capitalism itself traverses different historic periods - birth, ascendancy, decadence - so each of these periods itself consists of several distinct phases. For example, capitalism’s ascendant period can be divided into the successive phases of the free market, shareholding, monopoly, financial capital, colonial conquest, and the establishment of the world market. In the same way, the decadent period also has its history: imperialism, world wars, state capitalism, permanent crisis, and today, decomposition. These are different and successive aspects of the life of capitalism, each one characteristic of a specific phase, although they may have pre-dated it, and/or continued to exist after it. For example, although wage labour existed already under feudalism, or even Asiatic despotism (just as slavery and serfdom survived under capitalism), it is only under capitalism that wage labour has reached a dominant position within society. Similarly, while imperialism existed during capitalism’s ascendant period, it is only in the decadent period that it became predominant within society and in international relations, to the point where revolutionaries of the period identified it with the decadence of capitalism itself.

The phase of capitalist society’s decomposition is thus not simply the chronological continuation of those characterised by state capitalism and the permanent crisis. To the extent that contradictions and expressions of decadent capitalism that mark its successive phases do not disappear with time, but continue and deepen, the phase of decomposition appears as the result of an accumulation of all the characteristics of a moribund system, completing the 75-year death agony of a historically condemned mode of production. Concretely, not only do the imperialist nature of all states, the threat of world war, the absorption of civil society by the state Moloch, and the permanent crisis of the capitalist economy all continue during the phase of decomposition, they reach a synthesis and an ultimate conclusion within it”. (Point 3 of the Theses).

The Theses then go on to describe the “...unprecedented element which in the last instance has determined decadent capitalism’s entry into a new phase of its own history: decomposition. The open crisis which developed at the end of the l960s, as a result of the end of the post-World War II reconstruction period, opened the way once again to the historic alternative: world war or generalised class confrontations leading to the proletarian revolution. Unlike the open crisis of the 1930’s, the present crisis has developed at a time when the working class is no longer weighed down by the counter-revolution. With its historic resurgence from 1968 onwards, the class has proven that the bourgeoisie did not have its hands free to unleash a Third World War. At the same time, although the proletariat has been strong enough to prevent this from happening, it is still unable to overthrow capitalism, since:

- the crisis is developing at a much slower rhythm than in the past;

- the development of its consciousness and of its political organisations has been set back by the break in organic continuity with the organisations of the past, itself a result of the depth and duration of the counter-revolution.

In this situation, where society’s two decisive - and antagonistic - classes confront each other without either being able to impose its own definitive response, history nonetheless does not just come to a stop. Still less for capitalism than for preceding social forms, is a ‘freeze’ or a ‘stagnation’ of social life possible. As a crisis-ridden capitalism’s contradictions can only get deeper, the bourgeoisie’s inability to offer the slightest perspective for society as a whole, and the proletariat’s inability, for the moment, openly to set forward its own can only lead to a situation of generalised decomposition. Capitalism is rotting on its feet.” (point 4).

This does not mean that the proletariat is ‘doomed’ but that it is faced with having to develop its struggles in unprecedentedly difficult circumstances. It’s a situation in which rotting capitalism could destroy the proletariat’s ability to put forward its own revolutionary perspective. Nevertheless, the proletariat has not been crushed and still holds the potential to develop its struggles. A potential clearly seen in the movement around the CPE in France, or the metal workers’ struggles in Vigo, Spain. A potential that we put forward in the Theses, when they were written in the early 1990’s:

“Understanding the serious threat that the historical phenomenon of decomposition poses for the working class and for the whole of humanity should not lead the class, and especially its revolutionary minorities, to adopt a fatalist attitude. Today, the historical perspective remains completely open. Despite the blow that the Eastern bloc’s collapse has dealt to proletarian consciousness, the class has not suffered any major defeats on the terrain of its struggle. In this sense, its combativity remains virtually intact. Moreover, and this is the element which in the final analysis will determine the outcome of the world situation, the inexorable aggravation of the capitalist crisis constitutes the essential stimulant for the class’ struggle and development of consciousness, the precondition for its ability to resist the poison distilled by the social rot. For while there is no basis for the unification of the class in the partial struggles against the effects of decomposition, nonetheless its struggle against the direct effects of the crisis constitutes the basis for the development of its class strength and unity. This is the case because:

- while the effects of decomposition (eg pollution, drugs, insecurity) hit the different strata of society in much the same way and form a fertile ground for aclassist campaigns and mystifications (ecology, anti-nuclear movements, anti-racist mobilisations, etc), the economic attacks (falling real wages, layoffs, increasing productivity, etc) resulting directly from the crisis hit the proletariat (ie the class that produces surplus value and confronts capitalism on this terrain) directly and specifically;

- unlike social decomposition which essentially effects the superstructure, the economic crisis directly attacks the foundations on which this superstructure rests; in this sense, it lays bare all the barbarity that is battening on society, thus allowing the proletariat to become aware of the need to change the system radically, rather than trying to improve certain aspects of it.

However, the economic crisis cannot by itself resolve all the problems that the proletariat must confront now and still more in the future. The working class will only be able to answer capital’s attacks blow for blow, and finally go onto the offensive and overthrow this barbaric system thanks to:

- an awareness of what is at stake in the present historical situation, and in particular of the mortal danger that social decomposition holds over humanity;

- its determination to continue, develop and unite its class combat;

- its ability to spring the many traps that the bourgeoisie, however decomposed itself, will not fail to set in its path.

Revolutionaries have the responsibility to take an active part in the development of this combat of the proletariat.” (Point 17)

Comrade, we hope that you do not feel that we have been trying to batter you with quotes; our aim has been to show that the fullest comprehension of the foundations of decomposition is essential for the development of our discussion of this vital question.

As part of this process we look forward to your reflections on this reply.

Communist Greetings

WR.

With the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution on the horizon, the ruling class will certainly not miss the opportunity to repeat its lies and myths about the events that culminated in the seizure of power by the working class in October 1917: that is was a ‘coup’ orchestrated by the Bolsheviks; that the roots of Stalinism – and all of its horrors - go back to Lenin and his ‘clique of bourgeois conspirators’.

With the great democracies bogged down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the world economy lurching from one crisis to another, the working class is once again looking for alternatives to the tired and tattered lies offered by the ruling class. But what is there to learn from the Russian Revolution? For some it belongs to a by-gone age with no relevance to the modern world of call centres and the Internet. For others the dictatorship of the proletariat conjures up nightmares befitting of The Exorcist or Halloween. But what 1917 really showed is that, faced with the need to challenge and overthrow the bankrupt rule of capitalism, the working class has shown itself capable of creating its own forms of mass organisation, its own organs of ’self-government’ - the soviets or workers’ councils. This was confirmed in other major expressions of the class struggle in the 20th century, from the German revolution in 1918 to the Hungarian uprising of 1956. 

1917: Russia

The first anniversary we are dealing with here is of 1917. The month of October is now firmly associated in the memory of revolutionaries with the soviets, even if the memory of the true soviets has been buried deep amongst the wider layers of the class. 

It is associated with the October insurrection of 1917 in Russia, in spite of the fact that we are told by all the history books and documentaries - echoed at every step by the ideologies of “Marxist Leninism” and anarchism - that this event was only a new leadership seizing power, either on behalf of the masses, or for its own sinister ends.

Trotsky, in his History of the Russian Revolution, responds to number of critics who argue, in one way or another, that the insurrection was the work of the Bolshevik party substituting itself for the class:

 “Professor Pokrovsky denies the very importance of the alternative: Soviet or party. Soldiers are no formalists, he laughs: they did not need a Congress of Soviets in order to overthrow Kerensky. With all its wit such a formulation leaves unexplained the problem: why create soviets at all if the party is enough? ‘It is interesting’, continues the professor, ‘that nothing at all came of this aspiration to do everything almost legally, with soviet legality, and the power at the last moment was taken not by the Soviet, but by an obviously ‘illegal’ organisation created ad hoc’. Pokrovsky here cites the fact that Trotsky was compelled ‘in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee’ and not the Soviet, to declare the government of Kerensky non-existent. A most unexpected conclusion! The Military Revolutionary Committee was an elected organ of the Soviet. The leading role of the Committee in the overturn did not in any sense violate that soviet legality which the professor makes fun of, but of which the masses were extremely jealous”.

This was an insurrection carried out by an elected committee of an organ created by the working class through massive struggles against the old state regime: the soviets, councils of delegates elected by assemblies of workers, and also of soldiers, sailors and peasants as the revolutionary movement spread throughout the Tsarist Empire.

It was therefore the seizure of power by the working class - for the first time in history at the level of an entire country. It announced itself unambiguously as the first victory of the world-wide proletarian revolution against the capitalist system – a system which, by plunging the world into a barbaric imperialist war, had given clear proof that it had become a barrier to the needs of humanity.

The proletarian revolution was not a conspiracy by all-powerful secret societies. The revolution was not directed by the Freemasons or the Jews; nor was it a plot hatched by a power-hungry Lenin. A proletarian revolution can’t be reduced or even compared to uncoordinated riots, nor is it the arbitrary rule of terror. The revolutionary masses are jealous of “soviet legality” because they understand the necessity for responsibility, for commonly agreed norms of behaviour and action, for accountability. They are jealous of their assemblies and the decisions that they take in them, and they demand that their delegates carry out those decisions. They demand a consistency between means and ends, and the October revolution, the first massively conscious revolution in history, was consistent with its ultimate goal – a society in which self-aware human beings have become masters of their own social forces.  

1956: Hungary

The second anniversary is one of exactly 50 years: the Hungarian uprising of October/November 1956, which witnessed the last true soviets of the 20th century.

“The most powerful expression of the prole­tarian character of the revolt was the appearance of genuine workers’ councils all over the country. Elected at factory level, these councils linked whole industrial areas and cities, and were without doubt the organizational focus of the entire insurrec­tion. They took charge of organizing the distribution of arms and food, ran the general strike, directed the armed struggle. In some towns they were in total and undis­puted command. The appearance of these soviets struck terror into the hearts of the ‘Soviet’ capitalists and no doubt tinged the ‘sympathy’ of the Western democracies with unease about the excessively ‘violent’ character of the revolt.”('Fifty years since the Hungarian workers’ uprising [13]').

Soviets against the Soviet Union: because for four decades the soviets no longer ruled in the ‘Soviet Union’. The revolution succumbed to economic blockade and military invasion, directed above all by the democratic powers; it succumbed to fatal isolation, in particular because of the bloody defeat of the proletarian uprisings in Germany – prepared by the thoroughly democratic Weimar Republic; it succumbed to the haemorrhaging of human and economic resources caused by three years of savage civil war. The ‘Soviet’ regime that arose on the ashes of the first October was a pure incarnation of the counter-revolution, of a bourgeois regime that now bitterly opposed world revolution in the interests of its own imperialist grandeur. Founded on a centralised state-capitalist war economy falsely declared as ‘socialism’, founded on the ruthless exploitation of the Russian proletariat, the USSR also drew its strength from the blood it sucked from the countries of Eastern Europe, which it had claimed as booty for its participation in the imperialist re-division of 1945.  

The 1956 soviets in Hungary arose as part of a wave of workers’ revolts against the insatiable demands of accumulation under the Stalinist model of capitalism. In response to open and brutal attack on workers’ living standards, the workers of East Germany in 1953 and Poland in 1956 took up the weapon of the mass strike. In Hungary the movement reached the stage of an armed uprising. The councils it generated were not merely central strike committees, but veritable councils of war of the working class. But these heroic movements were cordoned off behind the Iron Curtain, and, living under the oppressive weight of Stalinism and Russian imperialism, the workers of Eastern Europe were also weighed down by illusions in nationalism and in western-style ‘democracy’. As for the western democrats, they had already agreed at Yalta to make Stalinism the gendarme of Eastern Europe and were not prepared to risk much in defence of the victims of ‘Communist Totalitarianism’. On the contrary, while they condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the ruthless suppression of the uprising, the dust and smoke they kicked up in the Suez war of 1956 provided the Russian tanks with a very effective screen to cover their dirty work. 

The soviets of 1956 pointed in two directions: backwards, to the extent that they were a distant echo of the Russian soviets of 1917 and indeed of the fleeting Hungarian council republic of 1919. But they also pointed forward, to the end of the counter-revolution and the dawn of a new era of workers’ struggles. In the second half of the 1950s in western Europe, the first stirrings of rebellion against the established order were taking a mainly cultural form that was easy enough to manage and recuperate (beatniks, angry young men, rock and roll…), but like the student revolts of the mid-60s, these were straws in the wind announcing the proletarian storms which were to sweep the globe between 1968 and 1974, storms  whose epicentre was in the developed capitalist countries of western Europe.

Since 1956 there have not been any more soviets, but the embryos of future soviets have appeared in many struggles: in the ‘MKS’ (strike committees) which centralised the mass strike in Poland in 1980; in the mass assemblies of Vigo and Vittoria in Spain in the ‘70s, and again in Vigo this year; in the base committees in Italy in the early 70s and again in the 80s; and in the general assemblies of the students in France last spring. These are the forms of organisation, which, in a context of spreading class war, will serve as the basic units of the workers’ councils in the next revolutionary attempt of the working class.    

In the Hungary of today, the blatant lies of the government about the real state of the economy has produced a massive outburst of anger, with crowds on the street chanting “56, 56” as they lay siege to parliament and TV stations. In reality, unlike 1956, the working class does not seem to be present as a class in these demonstrations. As the internationalist anarchists around the Barrikad collective in Hungary put it, “The real class discontent is toeing the line of nationalism.”  (libcom.org/news - see also the article in this issue). This is testimony to the difficulties facing the working class in the present period, where both material and ideological dispersal has undermined a sense of class identity. But the working class is also in the process of redefining and re-appropriating this identity, and as it does so, it will surely rediscover the organisational weapons which it has itself invented in its struggle for a different world.

Amos, 30/9/6.