In mid-January, there were violent storms in all the major stock markets of the world, from the USA to Europe and Asia. In the space of a single day, values fell by between 4 and 7%. The press has talked excitedly about the most spectacular losses since September 11 2001; about growing fears of a recession in the US with its grim effects on world trade; about the Federal Reserve's drastic cut in interest rates, the biggest for 25 years.
One after the other, the banks had been publishing poor results for 2007. Losses resulting from the crisis in sub-prime lending have been very widespread, with banks in the US being the hardest hit. For example, shares in Bank of America went down by 29% in 2007, Walchovia by 98% in the fourth quarter! But all continents were affected. After the German banks WestLB and Commerzbank, it was the turn of the second Chinese bank, Bank of China, to announce losses of several billion dollars. And of course the British government has had to intervene on a massive scale to save Northern Rock.
In France, the initial line was that French banks have been more responsible, and haven't been dirtying their hands in wild speculation. And then all of a sudden, AXA, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Richelieu Finance published the most awful results. But the height of ridiculousness was undoubtedly achieved when the Société Generale justified its 7 billion Euro losses by blaming it all on the fraudulent activity of one shares trader, Jerome Kerviel. At a press conference SG boss Daniel Bouton talked about Kerviel's "incredible intelligence", his "extraordinary talent for deception", whose "motives are totally incomprehensible". Creating a "hidden enterprise inside the marketing rooms" of SG, he accounted for 4.9 billion losses against the mere 2 billion directly linked to the sub-prime crisis. The lie was on a huge scale and a number of specialists obviously expressed doubts about the validity of this story. But Bouton, Sarkozy and the government have stuck to their guns. In fact it wasn't long before the scandal hit the world press and Kerviel was being made responsible for the entire global stock market crash! The aim of this propaganda is simple: to deny the reality of the crisis and make us believe that it's just a problem of fraud, nothing to do with the system itself.
However, this crisis is really there. It's not a virtual crisis and the consequences are already beginning to be felt by the working class. One after the other the banks are announcing the ‘necessary restructuring', in other words, a wave of redundancies: 4000 jobs gone at Caisse d'Epargne, 2400 at the US building society Indymac Bancorp, 1000 at Morgan Stanley, between 17000 and 24000 at Citygroup; between 5 and 19% of jobs cut at Merrill Lynch and Moody's. And this is just the beginning of a series of lay-offs that are going to affect the entire banking sector.
"This stock exchange crisis is...actually good news for some. It will make the market healthier" (La Tribune, 22 January). The media have been drumming this line into our ears. It's almost as if the stock exchange convulsions and the problems with the banks have a moral aspect: the speculators who have been going a bit far will now be punished by the market and now things will start to go back to normal. This is all lies. Behind the very high profile financial crisis there is a deep crisis in the real economy.
The speculative frenzy of the last ten years has its roots in the problems that companies have in selling their commodities. Capitalism is suffering from a congenital disease for which it has no cure: overproduction. Capitalism's only response is to artificially create outlets by resorting massively to debt and credit. To cope with the Asian crisis in 1997, then the recession of 2001, the bourgeoisie opened the floodgates to credit. Interest rates had never been so low and the banks didn't even check the solvency of their borrowers. This summer, the income of the poorer American households was 80% based on credit: people buying their TVs, clothes and food by getting into debt. In July 2007 risky loans known as sub-primes accounted for 1500 billion dollars of debt! A real mountain - but a mountain that is eroding and about to crack. All these indebted households are incapable of paying back their debts. The real economy, which for the workers means unemployment and poverty, has reminded the virtual economy of the way things really are. For some time, the banks have been accumulating the losses that they have recently announced. Indeed, taking advantage of extremely low interest rates, the banks, the financial magnates, and all sorts of enterprises have in their turn been getting into debt in order to speculate, selling and re-selling the loans contracted by working class families. Around these risky loans, we're not talking about 1500 billion dollars but tens of thousands of billions which will never be repaid.
It is thus the crisis in the real economy which lies behind the speculative mania and the current financial convulsions. But now the problems facing the banks are going to have a boomerang effect on the whole of economic life: "Historians know this very well: banking crises are the most serious because they affect the nerve centre of the economy, the financing of company activities" (La Tribune, 22 January). The banks are no longer going to be able to hand out loans without first checking the solvency of the borrower. Business and households are going to find it harder to run up debts and this will slow down economic activity. As La Tribune put it, "in the euro zone, where small and medium sized businesses depend 70% on banks to finance their activities, the recessionary impact is unavoidable" (ibid). This is what the specialists call the credit crunch. The impact on the real economy is already being felt. In the last third of 2007, the world economy slowed down markedly, giving us a glimpse of what's in store in 2008 and 2009. A journal like Le Monde (21 January), normally quite cautious, no longer hides the reality of this recessionary tendency: "The Baltic Dry Index (BDI), which measures the price of maritime transportation of raw materials, is a good indicator of the level of commercial activity and of the world economy. In one day it has beaten four records for the lowest levels...if the predictions of the BDI are confirmed, the worldwide slowdown has already begun and it will be painful". The majority of the world's commodities pass through the maritime routes; the slowing down on these routes is thus a very significant indicator of the poor health of the world economy. Once again, the first victims will be the workers. Ford, for example, has already announced the axing of 13000 jobs (coming on top of the 44000 job cuts in 2006).
Faced with this new crisis, the bourgeoisie once again turns to the same fix: more credit, more debt. George Bush has announced an exceptional plan of 140 billion dollars and the Federal Reserve has dropped interest rates by 75 points. The British government is about to pump £25 billion into saving Northern Rock. None of these measures can do much to halt the acceleration of the crisis. In 1997, by injecting 800 billion dollars, the bourgeoisie managed to contain the crisis in Asia. In 2001, the bursting of the internet bubble was dealt with by creating another bubble, the ‘housing boom'. But this is no longer a regional crisis like the Asian one or a problem that could be contained in one sector (the internet). The very heart of capitalism is being affected: America, Europe, and the banks. The crisis is therefore far more serious and the impact on our living conditions will be all the more dramatic.
Luckily, the economists who serve the ruling class reassure us, Asia and its fantastic rates of growth will help keep up world growth rates. But there again, reality is very different. Some experts are already beginning to admit it: "we have to say that yesterday Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan announced a slow-down in exports. The World Bank accepts that there are many channels for passing on the contagion of the crisis to the emerging countries (in particular) the impact of the recession in the US"(La Tribune, 22 January). China's exports will be especially affected by the US recession, a fact reflected in the Asian stock markets which took a tumble in the week after the plunge in Europe and America: "China's benchmark index plummeted 7.2 percent to its lowest point in six months on concerns that a recession in the US would mean less demand for Chinese-made products" (Associated Press, 28.1.08). In short, Asia, like all the continents, is going to be hit by this new acceleration of the world economic crisis. And there too this will be translated into poverty and famine for the mass of the population.
In the months and years to come, all over the planet, the proletariat will be confronted by a sharp decline in its living conditions. The bourgeoisie has not stopped attacking them and it will attack even harder. But for several years now the workers have been showing their ability to fight back. In the face of a new aggravation of the crisis and the degradation of living standards, they have no choice but to widen the struggle and forge class solidarity. Pawel 26/1/8
In the light of the precarious nature of the global economy, and the gloomy prospects facing Britain - despite Labour's claims of years of unprecedented growth - Gordon Brown's decision to impose a 2% public sector pay limit based on the projected inflation rate was only to be expected. We are told that ‘inflation must kept under control', and that the most effective way to ‘maintain stability' and protect Britain from the anticipated worldwide economic downturn is to accept pay restrictions. Essentially public sector workers are required to tighten their belts in order to hold back inflation. Discipline in the public sector is intended to provide a lead for the private sector, all of which will help prevent high prices and increases in mortgage repayments and, eventually, bring the economy back into line. Brown believes that this process will take around three years and is attempting to keep pay levels below inflation until 2012. This is the basis for the threatened pay freezes and the re-emergence of multi-year pay deals.
In reality it is extremely unlikely that raising, or lowering, public sector pay - or any other wages - will have any significant effect; or indeed any effect at all, on inflation. Brown might want to impress eagle-eyed officials at the Bank of England with his approach to inflation, but the Bank itself says that "overall pay rises averaging 4.5% across the economy are consistent with its 2% inflation target if productivity and other factors are included" suggesting that it also doesn't think that public sector pay causes inflation. Even the conservative "sages at the Institute of Fiscal Studies concur" (The Guardian 16.1.08).
If pay demands don't cause inflation what does? As the article in this issue on price rises shows, you have to look to the massive flight into debt and speculation, and a whole range of unproductive expenditure to see how capitalism's economic crisis is now pushing inflation toward centre stage. It is the decaying world economy that is to blame for higher prices not greedy workers.
So why are the wages of public sector workers being attacked in this way? As a recent leader article in The Guardian (9.1.08) put it, "the real - if unspoken - motivation behind all this is less low politics than the government's urgent need to balance the books. The Treasury has long sailed close to the wind and things became choppier during the autumn". So, "if, as expected the economy slows, the underlying state of the government's bank balance will become more transparent. Reining in the payroll could help restore some health to the public accounts". Britain has the largest budget deficit in Europe and the government is basically running out of money. It's a familiar story; the working class is paying for capitalism's crisis.
Although only just announced Brown's proposals have already provoked reaction within the public sector. Teachers' unions have threatened the first national strike for 21 years in response to a 2.45% pay deal beginning in September 2008. And on the 23 January, according to police ‘estimates', 25,000 police officers marched through central London, their first ‘protest' since 1918, against Jacqui Smith's refusal to backdate their 2.5% pay award from 2007-8. As the crisis deepens, Brown will be forced to remain intransigent on the question of pay. There will be attempts to create divisions within the working class with campaigns proclaiming public sector ‘job security' or higher wage levels in the private sector, when in reality no sector has been immune from the crisis of capitalism. The current period is one where, internationally, because of the force of the economic crisis, we are seeing a resurgence in the class struggle and Britain is no exception. This means that as the struggle develops workers will need to become aware of their false friends: the unions and the left.
These loyal allies of the state have already begun to organise ... against public sector workers. Teachers' unions have begun to talk about a one day walk out and Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the NUT, said "he was confident the strike would go ahead. ‘I would be very confident that teachers would be saying yes because of the objective to protect their living standards'" (The Guardian 25.01.08). Dave Prentis of Unison has also commented on the recent pay deals: "this is the most unjust pay policy I've ever seen" (Socialist Worker 19.01.08). But just because the unions declare their sympathies doesn't mean they are on the side of the workers. ‘Days of action' have frequently been used to dissipate and divide the militancy of workers with union rules being used to prevent workers from different sectors (i.e. different unions) struggling together. The unions may sound militant but at the same time they are ‘negotiating' with management. The deal ‘won' by the Communication Workers Union recently should be a lesson to all those who still believe the unions are on our side.
The left, unable to provide an alternative perspective to capital for the working class, are reduced to being cheerleaders for the unions. So, for Socialist Appeal, "the union leaders should all be meeting together and preparing to resist the offer with strike action" (Socialist Appeal No 159). For the Socialist Workers Party "it will take heavy pressure from the rank and file of the unions to make the leaders fight" (Socialist Worker 19.01.08). They talk of the action required from the leaders or the need to put pressure on the unions, in order to obscure the need for workers to take the struggle into their own hands. The truth is that the unions and the left are on the same side, arm in arm with the state, trying to divide the working class and prevent it from developing its own struggle.
With the Police pay deal, it is an interesting reflection of the crisis that even the Police, one of the most privileged sectors in Britain, are unhappy about their pay deal - a sign that things must be bad! Workers should not express solidarity with them as ‘fellow workers', against the arguments of the left when they say that "socialists support police officers' right to a proper trade union and the right to strike. We should work towards bringing the ranks of the police closer to the labour movement" (https://www.socialistparty.org.uk [2]). As Trotsky wrote, "The worker, who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker". When workers meet police officers during future strikes they will be on opposite sides of the class line.
It's only when workers take control of their own struggles, spreading them to other offices and workplaces, organising across different sectors, holding mass meetings open to all workers, outside the control of the unions, that they are able to defend their own interests. Solidarity is the main weapon of the working class in the fight against the state's attacks, and ultimately the capitalist system, but this can't fully develop if workers are trapped in one workplace, on one picket line. The most spectacular example of this kind of workers' self organisation recently was during the fight against the CPE in France in 2006, but examples, big and small, have emerged internationally, all of them expressing the same characteristics: the development of solidarity across the barriers of age, ethnicity and occupation, and with a concern for the future.
At the beginning of January in the London borough of Waltham Forest refuse workers, threatened with wage cuts of up to £8000 to bring them into line with other low paid workers, staged a wildcat strike blocking the Town Hall with their wagons for an hour. The strike may have been short, and appears to have been quickly recuperated by the unions, but it was yet another expression of the turning point in the class struggle that has been developing since 2003 and marks this period as being full of potential for the working class. As one worker told a local paper (Waltham Forest Guardian 10.01.08): "the bills won't go down will they?" Other "employees, who take home as little as £170 per week without overtime" said that "pay for kitchen staff and lollipop ladies should be brought up" to the level of the refuse workers. The limited actions of the Waltham Forest refuse workers express the same dynamic as strikes as far apart as New York and Delhi: the question of a perspective for the future and the extension of workers' solidarity across all barriers. It is these methods, this perspective, that other sectors of workers need to revive if they are to defend their interests.
There are 5.5 million workers on the public payroll who, when faced with inevitable falling living standards, will have no choice but to fight. The government should be nervous; it knows that the working class is undefeated and, more importantly, that the class is slowly beginning to regain its combativity. The future lies in the class struggle. William 30.01.08
In London every day on average five children are shot or knifed. Official figures for overall murder and knife crimes in London are actually down, and 58 homicides involving firearms in the UK last year hardly compares with the 14,000 firearms-related killings in the US in 2005. However, the murders of those under 20 appear as a particularly senseless loss of life. On TV you see the faces of those who've died and think ‘what a waste'. You see a headline like "Girl, 13, knifed to punish drug dealing lover" and see the age of innocence dropping like a stone.
All sorts of explanations and solutions have been offered. Ken Livingstone said that the majority of youth crime was caused by boredom. Others have blamed poverty, drugs, urban decay, racism, an absence of positive role models for young people, gangs, gang-life and gangsta rap. Last year leaked police documents showed how 257 gangs had been mapped across London.
A spokeswoman for the charity Kids Company said that "children are resorting to savage ways of surviving because from their perspective the adult world and civil society cannot protect them. When you are alone and the rule of law does not protect you, you have to adhere to an alternative system of power to ensure your own protection and that is where the weapon, violence and the gang comes in."
Gavin Hales, a criminologist who has worked for the police and the Home Office, thought "the average age of those involved in gun crime was falling and there was significant evidence this was because youths, some in their early to mid-teens, were becoming attracted to the criminal economy, especially the drugs market" (BBC News 14/11/7). Meanwhile, a professor at Strathclyde University believed it was "important to dispel the notion that young people are drawn into gang culture because of low self-esteem and lack of employment opportunities, and recognise instead that gun culture - of whatever ethnic background - brings its own thrills and material rewards" (ibid).
As solutions Livingstone proposed "new opportunities to learn skills through training, sports and cultural activities, with the aim of engaging young people and helping them to live a life away from violence and crime." Others want a police and prison ‘zero tolerance' crackdown. Some Christians just propose forgiveness. Headmasters say ‘don't retaliate'. A visiting New York gang leader said that education and empowering youth communities by "promoting healthy and viable alternatives to gangs and gang life" - as opposed to tougher prison sentences - were the only ways of breaking the ‘cycle of violence'.
How much of this rings true? If there are material and social explanations for ‘crime and the causes of crime' then changes in material and social conditions would improve the situation. But, as it happens, the economic situation in which most of us find ourselves is not only deteriorating, but shows every sign of taking further steps in decline. It's not only the poor that are getting poorer, but the possibilities of getting decent housing are getting scarcer, and health and education facilities are getting worse. There is nothing in the current social situation that could lead you to believe that violence on the streets might diminish.
But what about the thrills and rewards of gun culture and the attraction of the drugs market: have our academics hit on something? In a world in which the education system writes off the futures of so many children, in which the prospects for rewarding employment are minimal, where only the most basic rental accommodation is affordable, where so many estates are literally falling apart, the possibilities of excitement and even material rewards are bound to be appealing. Where there is little sense of community, where people feel isolated or separate from their fellow creatures (except possibly those in your gang) drawing a knife or a gun doesn't necessarily seem of much consequence, killing someone the work of a moment. If you're carrying a weapon you've only got to worry about the police; if you don't you have to worry about everyone who does. If you're not in a gang it seems like you're bound to be a victim.
Although capitalism needs a disciplined work force - both for working and for its armies - increasingly its individualist ethos is turning to ‘each against all'. This is the world that young people are growing up in, with the violence of nation against nation, gang against gang, individuals against each other. Seemingly random pointless violence is a pure product of decomposing capitalism.
The only force that can act against this is the solidarity of the working class in its struggle against capitalism. At the moment this potential is only acknowledged by a tiny minority. The majority live lives with no perspective for the transformation of society, and individual survival as the only prospect. But when the class struggle comes out into the open, new possibilities can be glimpsed very quickly. In the struggles against the CPE in France in 2006, striking students made a conscious effort to draw the most deprived sectors of the working class - the residents of the ‘banlieux' who are so vulnerable to crime and aimless violence - into a common fight against the capitalist state. That was only a beginning, but it indicates the path to follow in future struggles. Car 27/1/8
Everywhere you look, prices are going up! The prices of the energy suppliers have jumped up and so heating bills and travelling to and from work have become more expensive. There are big increases in the prices of essential foods, like bread and milk, and shoppers are getting a lot less for their money in their weekly supermarket shopping. And while prices keep going up.... wages don't.
"The problem is universal. Perhaps it's the first time that whether you live in a rich or a poor country, you are expressing the same type of concerns: Italians worried by the price of pasta, Guatemalans by the price of maize, the French and the Senegalese by the price of bread." (Le Monde, 17/10/07.) The price of pork, the meat the Chinese eat more than any other, has almost doubled in price in one year, while the prices of other farming products like chicken and eggs are also rising fast. Japan imports 60% of its goods and nearly all foods have gone up in price.
The main explanation from the bourgeoisie for this is that the Asiatic economies are ‘too healthy': "The fall in the level of food production (aggravated by drought and the boom in bio-diesel, amongst other things) and the increase in demand (that has come about especially in emerging countries, like India and China, eager to copy the western style of eating) have brought about a rise in prices just as extraordinary as unexpected."(La Republica, in Courrier International no 888) In brief, it's a simple problem of disequilibrium between supply and demand!
That's sheer propaganda! The price rises are a direct product of the economic crisis. They are the first repercussion of the now famous subprimes crisis, which broke out this past summer in the US, on the living standards of the world's working class. All the central banks responded in the same way to the ‘black hole' of debt in the American market, making massive amounts of low cost money available (lending to speculators at very low rates), hoping to limit the contagion and the damage in the short term. But this policy won't work: it is only expanding the escalating debts[1] that, in reality, will only further fuel and aggravate the crisis. By supplying banks that are facing bankruptcy and the stock markets with the vast amounts of money, the hundreds of billions of dollars, they require, the bourgeoisie and the central banks are only unleashing a deep spiral of international inflation.[2]
But why is inflation affecting raw materials and basic foodstuffs indispensable to millions of human beings? The answer is reflected in the inhuman nature of the decaying system itself: "Raw materials attract speculators in search of new markets for their investments following this summer's crisis in the American property market. This pushes prices up."(Liberation, 2/11/07). Hence, the ‘crazy upward spiral' in fuel prices comes from speculative investing "which has retreated from certain markets (shares, bonds, currencies) to invest in ‘commodities', particularly oil". (Le Monde, 20/10/07). It's the same with cereals/grains: following the crash in August, "Goldman Sachs and Mark Faber, in line with all the other speculators, advise investing in the agricultural products markets where you can afford to take more chances."(Nouvelle Solidarité, 3/09/07). All these vultures are quite tight fisted about keeping their capital safe! And one of them openly expressed their limitless cynicism: "If the world is slowing down right now, it won't affect agricultural products because, no matter what happens, people will still have to eat"! (Bloomberg, 19/08/07.)
J.Sheeran, Executive director of the UN World Food Programme says "we are losing ground to hunger" Sweet euphamism! In the 82 poorest countries, where 60 to 90% of the family budget is spent on food, an expected 20% increase in the price of corn means that much of the population will suffer famine, and ultimately death; it's that simple! We have already seen food riots in Mexico, in Yemen, in Brazil, in Burkina Faso, or in Morocco again, since 2006. "The United Nations has warned that global food inflation could spark social unrest and force governments to reintroduce price controls to maintain stability" (Financial Times, 16/1/08). And governments are being forced to act. On 14 January 10,000 people took to the streets of Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, protesting at the doubling of the price of soyabeans, one of the country's staple foods, forcing the government to take action. In the same week, the Egyptian government banned exports of rice to protect local supplies and curb unrest. In Vietnam, protests by the poor and labour unrest faced with foods prices escalating, has forced the ‘communist' authorities to intervene. In China, "constant price rises are counteracting improvements in living standards."(Nanfang Zhoumo, Canton journal). In the West, it is becoming a luxury to eat properly. In France, where consuming around 400 grams of fruit and vegetables per person per day (recommended by the government) is equivalent to between 5 and 12% of the basic minimum wage (SMIC), it is clear that a lot of workers will not be in a position to satisfy these basic requirements.
If you read the papers, it is clear that the spectre of the 1929 Crash and the Depression haunts the whole bourgeoisie. They are asking: ‘Is another 1929 on its way?'
It's true there are similarities: the stock markets wobble and the yo-yo movements of shares can't disguise the fall in values; the mountains of debt appear insolvable, the crisis of confidence between banks deepens as losses multiply; the panic of the small savers forming endless queues outside their banks to withdraw their funds, in the US, in Germany and in England; the perspective facing many US workers of finding themselves without a roof over their head and without work, from one day to the next.
The Crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929, the famous ‘Black Thursday', triggered the first major economic crisis of a capitalism in decline. The Depression revealed the chronic overproduction of goods characteristic of capitalist decadence. The crisis of 1929 took the form of a slump and is remembered because of the fact that the bourgeoisie fell back on the old responses that had worked in past crises... of the 19th century (that is, when capitalism was still in its full bloom, in its ascendancy). But this time, not only did they not work, in the new historical conditions (capitalist decadence), they made things worse. In practical terms, when the Federal Bank of America restricted the quantity of money in circulation, it bankrupted most of the banks, and the loss of credit put an enormous brake on economic activity. The protectionist measures put in place to defend the national economies fragmented the world economy, blocking international commerce and thus lead to production contracting even further.
If the bourgeoisie hasn't found any real solutions to the historical economic crisis of its system since the 1930s (And this is because the destruction of capitalism is the only solution!), it has nonetheless adapted to this state of permanent crisis, being able to phase it in over time. In a real sense, the economy is still sinking, but more slowly. The bourgeoisie has understood how to use state mechanisms to deal with financial crises by playing with interest rates and by injecting liquidity into the banking system. That's why the current economic crisis, since 1968, has not taken the form of the brutal economic collapse like 1929. The decline has been more gradual. The crisis has staggered from recession to recession, each deeper and of a longer duration, while going through one pseudo-recovery after another, each successively shorter and less effective. This smoothing out of the unfolding crisis into a downwards spiral allows the bourgeoisie to deny its very existence, to cover up the bankruptcy of its system, but it does this at the cost of overloading the system with mountains of debt and running into more and more dangerous contradictions. The extremely fragile nature of the world financial system is the proof of the diminishing effect of all the palliatives used by the bourgeoisie.
The current crisis will not therefore produce a brutal breakdown of the economy as in 1929. However, despite this, we can still predict that the crisis will nonetheless become more serious and much deeper. When the New Deal, the programme to boost the economy to deal with the crisis of overproduction, was inaugurated in the 1930s in the US, the financing of all the credit for the government loans was only a tiny part of the annual national earnings (the equivalent of less than 3 months of military expenditures at the time of the Second World War)! Today, the American debt is already 400% of GNP! The certainty of some capitalist circles "that a very deep US depression (...) is going to have widespread consequences, though not to the degree of the crisis of 1929, (...) even if 1929 is still the last available reference point in modern history" (Global Europe Anticipation, Bulletin no. 17) shows the bourgeoisie is very nervous about the future! The crisis of 2007 has a global impact. "With the contagion of the real economy already underway, not just in the US but across the whole planet, the collapse of the property markets in Britain, France and Spain is now the focus at the end of 2007, while in Asia, China and Japan are going to face simultaneously the reduction in their exports to the American market and the rapid fall in the value of all their credit holdings in US dollars (US currency Treasury bonds, shares of the US companies, etc.)" (idem).
The perspective of severe recession accompanied by increasing inflation will give rise to a brutal degradation of living conditions and to the increased exploitation of the working class. Despite the promises mouthed by politicians from all sides, capitalism is incapable of finding a way out and hiding its open bankruptcy today. The only perspective it offers humanity is increasing poverty. The future, the hopes and the salvation of humanity depend on the struggle of the working class! Scott 26.11.07
[1] After the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000-2001 and with the risk of a brutal dive into recession, the US State initially decided to create a new bubble that would bolster consumption. With this property bubble, systematic loans were made available to the least wealthy of American households. It would be enough for a few years till in turn it burst again, with the risks a lot worse still for the world economy (read our article ‘The housing crisis, a symptom of the crisis of capitalism', on our website: internationalism.org).
[2] "The quantity of money in circulation is determined by the sum of the prices of commodities (money value remaining the same), and the latter by the quantity of commodities in circulation" (Engels, On Capital). An increase in the quantity of money in circulation without increase in production of goods amounts to a devaluation; the prices (monetary expression of the value) must therefore increase in the same proportion to express the value of the goods, which, itself, doesn't change.
From the December election victory announcement of President Mwai Kibaki, democratic Kenya has sunk into a nightmare of government paramilitaries shooting to kill, politically organised gang rapes of women and children, hackings to death and the burning of homes with people inside them. Figures for the number of deaths are at 900 and rising and the number of internal refugees at a quarter of a million or more. To date there appears to be no let up in the violence. At the end of January, the Rift Valley area was particularly badly affected, with slums divided into tribal zones in a state of virtual civil war. Widespread attacks on ethnic Kikuyus have been countered by increasing activity of the Mungiki, a sort of criminal sect with links to the state and the governing party. They've been supported by the police in some of their murderous rampages in the west of the country.
Liberals the world over have urged the politicians to get together, to sort out their differences for the sake of the nation or the people, in short to make sure that democracy works. But even if these politicians were not rotten, murderous and corrupt to the core, which they are, they would soon have to be in order to take part in the fraud of democratic elections. Democracy is not a solution but part of the problem. This is as true of Africa as it is of the USA. Their elections are empty charades. What makes the present situation and the empty prospect of future elections particularly horrendous for the population of Kenya is that the ruling class has only brutal solutions; divided it organises on an internecine basis; the working class is numerically weak; and there is the pernicious influence of powers much greater than the brittle Kenyan state.
Much is made of tribal divisions being at the root of the problem but this is at best a half-truth. Tribal differences do exist, but they have been manipulated and inflamed by all the politicians involved in the election. Aljazeera (January 24) carries reports of how Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement organised tribal violence throughout the election campaign through armed vigilantes. On the other hand, incumbent President Kibaki has used his Kikuyu base to stir up divisions and hatreds, rounding this off with the state's notorious General Service's Unit and government paramilitaries. This is the reality of a country that Britain and the USA have been using as an example of ‘tolerance and democracy'.
Kenya was not only vaunted as an example of democracy by Britain and the US; in the 1980s it was hailed as an ‘economic miracle' and more lately, a ‘model economy'. Oxfam recently said that around half of all Kenyans were living on less than $1 a day and gangs of destitute youth are easy meat for the political gangsters on both sides. Unemployment is massive and increasing and there are more than two million suffering from AIDS, untreated and forgotten. The prices of basic commodities for Kenyans have risen by 300% in the last months and the present expression of the global economic crisis can only worsen the immediate problems of the economy.
Kofi Annan, in his recent ‘peace mission', called for Kenya to become once again a ‘haven of African stability'. This is a country that sucks in refugees from war zones all around the region, not least the 15-year war around that other great murderous quagmire, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Imperialism has played its part in dragging Kenya into the maelstrom of crisis and war. Just before Annan's arrival, President Museveni of neighbouring Uganda came to talk ‘peace'. The Nation (Nairobi) reported that Museveni had already sent troops into Kenya just after the election in order to support the Kibaki regime. The USA's ally in the ‘war on terror', President Meles of Ethiopia (himself taking power after a disputed election in 2005) has also intervened, backing the US position of support for Kibaki. Don't forget that it was the US embassy in Kenya that was destroyed by the attack of Al Qaeda in 1998 and Kenya today is one of the termini of US ‘renditions'. Furthermore it is on the southern flank of the whole Horn of Africa region which has been a major focus of imperialist conflict in the last few years (Sudan, Somalia, etc).
The USA, Britain and, latterly France, are all involved in backing factions within the country. France has been making its imperialist presence felt in Africa against the USA and Britain for some years now, particularly infuriating the USA with joint naval manoeuvres with the Kenyan navy eighteen months year ago. Early in January Le Monde Diplomatique authoritatively announced that one million votes had gone missing from the ballot boxes. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, was quick to publicly state that the election was "rigged', thus backing Odinga's ODM (raising the possibility of French imperialism being once again involved in playing the ‘ethnic card' in the region for its own ends).
Britain's role is no less insidious. Having run Kenya as a protectorate from 1895 and then a Crown Colony from 1920 up to ‘independence' in 1963, Britain has resented the intrusion of the US Godfather in Kenya. Her Majesty's Government quietly left it to a Deputy Minister of State to announce recently that, contrary to the US, "Our government does not recognise Kibaki's government". The Times (23/1/8) reported that Adam Wood, the British High Commissioner in Kenya was summoned to explain "why London was refusing to recognise Mr Kibaki as President. It has also tried to accuse the international community [ie, Britain and France in this case] ‘of stirring up violence by questioning the election results". The USA says it wants to prevent Kenya turning into another ‘failed state' in the region, but, as with the other powers, the defence of its imperialist interests can only worsen the situation in which the population finds itself.
The mission of Kofi Annan started with handshakes and smiles between Odinga and Kibaki, but it soon degenerated into scowls, threats and more killings. Kenya is another classic product of the post cold war New World Order of ‘peace' and ‘prosperity', democratic-speak for war, crisis and misery. During the 1990s the USA drew up a list of countries to counter British and French interests in Africa under the heading of ‘preventative diplomacy', ie countries on which to stamp its influence. Having a presence here is vital for US imperialist interests in the Horn of Africa and towards the Middle East. Such concerns, along with the deepening economic crisis, mean that Kenya will never be ‘a haven of peace,' but will become more of a theatre of war, decomposition and misery in which democracy is not just a pointless side-show but part of the imperialist script. Baboon, 27.1.8
The situation for the civilian population in Gaza, and particularly the working class, continues to go from bad to worse. Even before the recent tightening of the blockade three quarters of factories had ceased working, 100,000 had lost their jobs in Israel due to border restrictions, hundreds of thousands remain in 8 refugee camps 60 years after fleeing the 1948 conflict. In 2002 more than half the women of childbearing age were anaemic and17.5% of children suffered from chronic malnutrition. And they are constantly endangered by the tit for tat bombardments across the border by various Palestinian militant groups and Israeli bombardments and incursions. The blockade has deprived them of many necessities, particularly fuel needed for heating, for the power plant, for hospitals, and for running the sewage works.
The appalling misery suffered by the one and a half million people who live behind Gaza's perimeter wall is caused, maintained and worsened by the conflicts that created this economically unviable territory in the first place. Repeated invasions and blockades are part of this, forming part of the play between regional powers and their larger backers. So when Israel bombed roads and bridges and the one power plant in Gaza in summer 2006, much more was at stake than one 19 year old Israeli army corporal captured by militants. At the same time it launched an attack on Lebanon in the forlorn hope of defeating Hezbollah, with the tacit approval of its superpower backer. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are major clients of the USA and Israel's chief rival for dominance in the Middle East, Iran, and so a blow to them would weaken their backer. This, of course, was in line with America and Britain's interests in limiting Iran's power as a dangerous thorn in their side in Iraq, where it acts largely through the Shia militias. It is the competition to be the undisputed regional power that makes sense of Israel's actions over the last few years. The refusal to negotiate or hand over money owed to the Palestine Authority when Hamas won the election in 2006 was based on the calculation not only that Hamas would use its new-found authority to step up attacks on Israel, but that negotiating with it could only raise its profile as Iran's client. The recent complete closure of the border with Gaza, which made the chronic humanitarian crisis acute, is part of the same policy, not just a question of protecting Siderot from the cross border bombardments.
Israel's role in holding the population in Gaza hostage is well known, and has been accurately condemned as collective punishment. But we should not be fooled into thinking we have found the only culprit. On the big scale we should never forget that powers which criticise Israel, or propose a more softly-softly negotiated approach to Iran over the nuclear issue, also have an interest in the weakening of the USA. It is no wonder the UN was deadlocked and unable to come up with a resolution.
Left wing papers like Socialist Worker often portray Hamas as at one with the population of Gaza: "For daring to elect a Hamas government the people of Gaza..." (2.2.08), a sort of brave little David standing up to the Israeli Goliath. After all they have courageously bulldozed a hole in the border with Egypt, allowing hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians into Egypt to buy fuel, food and medicines, so that "US strategy to isolate the Palestinian resistance was smashed into ruins".
Internationalists, by contrast, have the temerity to say that Hamas is also holding the population hostage.
Hamas may have won the Palestinian Authority election in 2006, but in the end they lost the internal struggle with Fatah, ending up with control over nothing but Gaza, 136 square miles of refugee camps with most of the infrastructure (railway, airport, bridges...) destroyed, and not even in control of their own borders. The hole in the wall gave them a very small lever to try and get taken seriously. Egypt has no love for Hamas, with its connections to the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, and has no wish to see the border kept open. But it had neither the troops to seal if off again nor would it have been wise to try. Hamas had bought itself an invitation to the negotiating table with Egypt if no-one else. Meanwhile President Abbas, from Fatah, proposed that the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza's border controls, alongside Egypt. The two warring Palestinian factions are continuing to squabble over who runs the show in their talks about the border controls.
People often talk of Gaza being occupied for 40 years since it was taken over by Israel in the 6 day war. In fact it was occupied two decades earlier, by Egypt, after the 1948 war, who used it for raids on Israel, just as now Hamas uses it for bombardments. Throughout that time Palestinian refugees were left to rot in camps and refused entry into Egypt. Today Egypt cannot wait to get shot of Gaza and has emphasised that it is Israel's responsibility.
The population of Gaza is caught between various bourgeois factions and powers, all of which are responsible for perpetuating its misery for their own advantage.
Those who defend Hamas, those who defend Palestinian nationalism, for all they can point to the appalling conditions faced by the population, are just as responsible as Israel, the USA or Britain. They are keeping them in camps as cannon fodder in the battle with Israel, or with the other Palestinian factions.
Hope does not lie with Hamas, bombardment of Israel or talks in Egypt. There is no hope even in the defeat of the most powerful imperialism. What good does it do the working class, or the civilian population anywhere if Israel suffers a defeat, or the USA a setback, if the winner is Iran or Egypt, Germany or China?
In spite of all this conflict the Middle East has seen some very important working class struggles: in Egypt, Israel (see WR 300, 302, 304,309). As this struggle develops workers need to reject any notion that they have anything in common with their ruling class and see themselves as part of an international class, ready to unite across all national divisions. Alex 2.2.08
In 2007, Germany saw the highest number of strike days since 1993 (just after reunification). 70% of them came in the strike last spring against ‘externalisation', ie the relocation of 50,000 telecom jobs. This in a country which has for so long been presented as a dynamic economy and a model of social harmony.
All that is a thing of the past. The railway workers' strike which ended in January after ten months shows that clearly enough. The number of railway workers has been reduced by half over the last 20 years, and working conditions have deteriorated as never before, wages have been more and more falling behind over the last 15 years, so that working on the railways is now one of the worst paid jobs in the country (around 1500 euros a month on average). During these ten months, the German railway workers were the target of all sorts of manoeuvres, threats and pressures.
- Last August the German courts declared that the railway strike was illegal. In fact the three day strike launched by the train drivers in November and clearly announced as an ‘indefinite' strike, was immediately, and as if by a miracle, legalised by the courts the moment the French railway workers also went on strike.
- The trade unions played a major role in carving up the workers' response, through a division of labour between those unions that advocated legal methods and the more radical ones that were ready to break the law, like the corporatist train drivers' union, the GDL, which was presented as the animating force behind the strike.
- The media launched a whole campaign about the ‘selfish' nature of the strike, although in reality it won a lot of sympathy among the majority of working class passengers, who saw the railway workers as common victims of ‘social injustice.'
- The German state tried to intimidate the train drivers by threatening to make them pay the millions of euros lost through the strike.
Despite all this, the railway workers did not back down and the German bourgeoisie had to make some concessions.
The strike ended with an 11% increase in wages, but not for all categories of Deutsche Bahn employees. This result was far short of the 31% demanded by the workers ten months ago and has already been eaten away by all the wage agreements of the last 19 months, including a reduction in hours from a 41 to a 40 hour week for the 20,000 train drivers, which will begin in ...February 2009. But it is still significant that the state made some concessions to the workers' demands in order to release a certain amount of social steam.
The rising militancy of workers in Germany was illustrated in a more striking manner when the Finnish mobile company Nokia announced for the end of 2008 the closure of its site at Bochum which employs 2300 workers. When you take in the dependent jobs, this would mean a loss of 4000 jobs for the town. On 16 January, the day after the announcement, the workers refused to go to work and the workers of the nearby Opel factory, with others from Mercedes, steelworkers from the Hoechst plant in Dortmund, metal workers from Herne and miners from the region flocked to the gates of the Nokia factory to give their support and solidarity. On 22 January, a 15,000 strong demonstration marched through Bochum to show solidarity with the Nokia workers.
The workers were thus forging links with past struggles. In 2004, the workers of the Daimler-Benz factory in Bremen struck spontaneously, defying the blackmailing attempts of the management which tried to play the card of competition with the Daimler plant in Stuttgart, which was threatened with redundancies. A few months later, other car workers, those from Opel in Bochum, also launched a spontaneous strike against the same kinds of threats. It was precisely to prevent this kind of solidarity towards the Nokia workers that the government, regional and local politicians, the church, the unions and the German bosses' organisations orchestrated a major national campaign, denouncing Nokia's lack of scruples and accusing them of having "scandalously abused" the German state and of having taken advantage of its subsidies. All swore, hand on heart, that they had offered these funds to safeguard jobs and that today they are ready to fight tooth and nail to defend ‘their' workers against disloyal bosses The hypocrisy of this argument is all the greater given that the working class in Germany is being particularly exposed to the attacks of the bourgeoisie (retirement age raised to 67, redundancy plans, cuts in all social benefits in the ‘Agenda 2010' plan ...).
The perspective is for the development of the class struggle. Such a development, in a country as central as Germany, with all the weighty historical experience of its proletariat, can only be a catalyst for workers' struggles across the continent. And it is for this reason that the bourgeoisie is posing in Bochum as the defender and protector of ‘its' workers. Its aim is to smother the real expressions of workers' solidarity we have seen there and to prevent them from spreading. WA (27.1.08)
This is the latest in a series of articles celebrating the anniversary of the Russian revolution of October 1917 and the international revolutionary wave which followed. Although written in response to particular bourgeois campaigns in France, the denigration and distortion of the October revolution is a fundamental plank of bourgeois ideology everywhere, so the article loses none of its validity by being translated into English.
Every ten years, the bourgeoisie commemorates, in its own manner, the anniversary of the worst experience it has ever had: the proletarian revolution in Russia in October 1917. And every ten years, the ideological juggernaut of the bourgeois media is there to demonstrate not only that ‘Red October' was a terrible thing, but that it could only open the door to the worst kind of barbarity.
Thus, the articles from the newspaper Le Monde on 6-8 November, signed Jan Krauze, and the TV programme Arte featuring the pseudo-historian Marc Ferro (who has recently brought out documents from the unpublished archives) are particularly repulsive examples of the systematic falsification of the Russian revolution of 1917. Having carried out their ‘coup d'état', the Bolsheviks "turned with unprecedented savagery" against all the "social categories" which had helped them take power. Lenin was an "infallible demagogue" demanding "rivers of blood", "endlessly stirring up hatred" and "fixing quotas of people to liquidate". He apparently called for the Commissariat of Justice to be renamed "Commissariat of Extermination"! These capitalist scribblers, rifling in the archaeological record, have made their own contribution to the campaign of demonisation of the Bolsheviks and denigration of the Russian revolution. This campaign has featured The Black Book of Communism and recently took the form of the campaign of criminalisation of the movements of students and railway workers in France this winter. This is how the French bourgeoisie has celebrated the anniversary of the proletarian revolution of October 1917.
Who were the Bolsheviks?
The biggest lie, the one on which all the others are based, is that the revolution was nothing but a ‘coup d'état' carried out by a small band of criminals followed by an ignorant popular mass. For its bourgeois detractors, this was certainly not a revolution of the broad exploited masses, whose children were falling like flies at the battlefront, sacrificed on the altar of capitalist war (the existence of the Czarist regime, a vestige of feudalism, didn't mean that Russia in 1917 was not a capitalist state). October 1917 was a ‘plot' by a bloodthirsty minority, the Bolsheviks. Thus, the article in Le Monde tries to show that there was little to choose between the Bolsheviks and any other brand of adventurer ready to do anything to take power. October 1917, according to our great delver into the unpublished archives, Marc Ferro, was no more than a ‘Jacquerie' by backward peasants.
The Bolshevik party has a history which disproves this shameful lie. It came out of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which was affiliated to the Second International. The Bolshevik fraction was on its extreme left wing and was able to wage an intransigent political struggle in defence of proletarian class principles against all the confused and conciliatory tendencies within the RSDLP, including the opportunism of the Mensheviks. In particular, faced with the misery and military barbarism imposed on the exploited masses in Czarist Russia, the Bolsheviks were always the best defenders of all the oppressed, the proletarians or poor peasants. In 1905, when the ‘soviets' (councils) of workers, peasants and soldiers were spontaneously formed, it was Lenin who was among the first to insist that, faced with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (whether ‘Czarist' or ‘democratic'), the soviets were the "finally discovered form of the dictatorship of the proletariat". The Bolshevik fraction inside the RSDLP came out of a whole tradition of struggles against capitalism, carried out in clandestinity by working class militants who had to deal with a constant and very efficient form of repression. The Bolsheviks always firmly defended the political positions of the proletariat: not only did they take part in workers' struggles wherever they could, but also engaged in sharp polemics within the Second International, calling for concrete political policies against the drive towards imperialist war, furiously denouncing the treason of the social democrats who helped to mobilise millions of workers for the first world slaughter. They were the most determined defenders of the old watchword of the Communist manifesto of 1848: "Workers have no country, workers of all countries unite!" In Russia they were practically alone in defending an internationalist position in 1914. This impeccable internationalism put them at the vanguard of the revolutionary masses in 1917. the proletariat of the whole world had its eyes fixed on the October revolution in Russia which, thanks to its extension to Germany and the fraternisation of the soldiers at the front, forced the world bourgeoisie to put an end to the Great War. The Bolshevik party was recognised as a beacon for the working class by the other revolutionaries of the time, including revolutionary syndicalists and anarchists like Alfred Rosmer and Victor Serge. And above all it understood that only the oppressed and exploited masses would be able to bring the war to an end. Lenin's slogan "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" (i.e. a class war against the bourgeoisie) was not the slogan of a small minority of plotters fomenting a ‘coup d'état'. Would Professor Marc Ferro[1] (in the wake of the campaign organised by Monsieur Courtois with his Black Book of Communism) have preferred the world butchery to have continued? His very ‘democratic' literature, with his air of outraged virginity, is really just a shameful insult against all these young people wiped out on the battlefields, all those who came back wounded and mutilated from the front[2].
When he returned to Petrograd (today's St Petersburg) in April 1917, Lenin was aware that the party of the proletariat had to stop supporting the ‘democratic' Provisional Government which had succeeded the Czar, affirming that the "the masses are a hundred times further left than the party". For an opportunist greedy for power, this wasn't a very skilful move! All the more because the Russian democrats were at that point offering him and the Bolshevik party a place in the Provisional Government.
Who made the Russian revolution?
The bourgeoisie is however prepared to admit that this was a rather "strange coup d'état"[3] (Le Monde, 6 November). This is because the Bolsheviks, although obviously very determined, were only a small minority at the beginning of the revolution. Because the objective they put forward in the working class - the overthrow of the ‘democratic' bourgeois government led by Kerensky - was open and public, discussed everywhere to the point where the date of the insurrection was known in advance. A totally contradictory element: how could a ‘coup d'état' by a small group of plotters have succeeded without even the benefit of surprise? The answer is simple: the Kerensky government was incapable of satisfying the demands of the worker and peasant masses who were dying of hunger and cold in the slaughter at the front. The masses demanded ‘bread and peace!' If the Provisional Government was unable to stand up to the revolutionary impetus of the working masses, it was because it had no support from within the social body. The army was falling apart: the workers in uniform were being won to revolutionary ideas, and the peasants hated the political heirs of the great landowners as much as the Provisional Government which was unable either to divide up the estates of the feudal proprietors or put an end to the war. As for the working class, in the rear or at the front, it knew that within its ranks there was a small minority which had "a clear awareness of the means and goals of the proletarian movement as a whole" (Communist Manifesto). This is why the masses were waiting for Lenin's return from exile in Switzerland (since the Bolshevik party, weakened by the exile of so many of its members, needed all its strength[4]). When he got back to Russia in April 1917, he was welcomed with open arms by the workers who had come in force to meet him on the platform of the Finland Station in Petrograd. This warm welcome had nothing to do with the fact that these proletarians were "uncultured" and were being "manipulated" by the great "demagogue" Lenin[5]. It was simply because, to be able to struggle against the imperialist war, the battalions of the Russian proletariat needed a determined and far-seeing political direction to their mass movement: it was thanks to the April Theses, written by Lenin, that the Bolshevik party was able to reinforce itself. The workers demanded no less. For them, as for all the non-exploiting classes and strata, it was a matter of survival. These masses of workers, peasants and soldiers were less stupid than certain highly ‘cultured' scribblers of the decadent bourgeoisie. It was at the demand of wide layers of the proletariat, organised in the soviets, that the ‘Military Revolutionary Committee' (MRC), nominated by the Petrograd Soviet where the Bolsheviks were in the majority, was able to organise and coordinate the overthrow of the Provisional Government. The seizure of power was carried out mainly by the workers' militia, the Red Guard, and by the sailors of the Kronstadt garrison who trained their naval guns on the Winter Palace where Kerensky sat with his ministers. And the latter were isolated by the fact that their telephone lines were cut off by the telecommunication workers. This small cabal of minsters around Kerensky was arrested on the basis of a decree of the MRC, although Kerensky was able to escape in a car provided by the American embassy. If this insurrection, which was anything but a ‘jacquerie by backward peasants' was able to succeed, it was also because the garrisons of the capital, convinced by the arguments of the Bolsheviks and the mass action of the workers, rallied one after another to the camp of the proletarian revolution, to the point where the government fell like a house of cards, practically without a fight.
Glasgow 1917: The above edict, forbidding the holding of a meeting in Glasgow to call for workers’ and soldiers’ councils, was issued on the orders of the War Cabinet. Even before the October insurrection, the bourgeoisie was aware of the danger of the ‘Russian example
It was not surprising that the soviets, which were formed by the centralisation of mass assemblies, went over to those who were providing clear political answers to the questions posed by all the non-exploiting layers of the population. "End the war! Expropriate the bourgeoisie! Overthrow the Provisional Government! Spread the revolution internationally!" The election of Trotsky to the presidency of the Petrograd soviet was not a ‘coup d'état', but a logical consequence of the fact that the working class as a whole was more and more recognising itself in the political leadership provided by the Bolsheviks. The soviets were not a rubber stamp for the decisions of the Bolshevik party. They expressed the living activity of the class itself. The fact that the Bolsheviks, who were the most conscious of the tasks of the hour, were able to win a majority in the soviets through the most animated debates, is no mystery, except for the official historians. This had nothing to do with conspiracies and behind the scenes manoeuvres by the ‘great demagogue' Lenin.
The so-called ‘coup d'état' denounced by the ideologists of the bourgeoisie was not carried out by a small cohort of Machiavellian plotters, but by the proletariat, whose actions were discussed and voted on beforehand in the soviets. The October insurrection was a living testimony to the real power of the soviets, just as the centralisation of the insurrection by the RMC (headed by Trotsky who was a mandated delegate) was an expression of the collective and unitary character of the proletarian mass movement.
The Holy Alliance of the great democracies strangles the Russian revolution
The Russian revolution could not survive by remaining isolated in one country and the Bolsheviks were perfectly well aware of this. They waited impatiently for its extension to all the other industrialised countries, and above all to Germany. Every month, the delay of the revolution in Europe was a tragedy for the Russian revolution, which was subjected to the counter-revolutionary pressure not only of the White Armies, but of all the capitalist powers, who were continuing to savage each other in the Great War, but who were totally united in the need to drown the revolution in blood. How is it that the paid ideologues of capital don't mention in their press the bloody massacre of a quarter of the working class population of Finland by the German army in the spring of 1918? Is it because they haven't discovered the ‘unpublished archives' or because their role is to falsify history? How is it that these ‘brilliant' writers have not written about the fact that it was these same German armies who shortly afterwards were fraternising with the enemy troops? Perhaps these ideologues have not understood that such sudden and unforeseen turnarounds had a simple explanation: the belligerent armies were made up of workers in uniform who had had enough of being massacred by other workers in uniform, who could no longer tolerate this bloody and fratricidal conflict. These workers, and the ‘uncultured' peasants, had become aware that their exploiters had turned them into killing machines, thanks to all the nationalist propaganda and the treason of the social democratic parties who had gone over to the camp of capital after 1914. Evidently, this ‘extermination' of 20 million people during the first of capital's Great Wars does not shock these accusers of the Bolsheviks!
The bourgeoisie was well aware of the global stakes of the October revolution in Russia. This is why the Holy Alliance of all the camps of capital preferred to sign the armistice and unite their forces in order to crush the revolution in Germany, encircle Soviet Russia by establishing a cordon sanitaire around its borders and imposing an economic blockade so that its population starved. The paid hacks of capital don't need the ‘unpublished archives' (now on offer by Putin) to know any of this!
Faced with the offensive launched by well-equipped professional armies, the proletariat in Russia had to defend itself with the means at hand. What's more the revolution paid heavily for some of its errors: thus the Bolsheviks initially released most of the counter-revolutionaries they had captured on a promise that they wouldn't bear arms against the revolution. None of them kept their promise.
If the October revolution degenerated, if the soviets were not able to maintain themselves as organs of workers' power, and if the Bolshevik party ended up identifying itself with the state, it was because of the failure of the revolution in Germany and of its extension to the other industrialised countries. It was the Social Democratic Party which smashed the proletarian revolution in Germany (and we should not forget that the Freikorps it recruited for this job formed the backbone of the future Nazi SA). The barbarism of the capitalist counter-revolution was only able to be unleashed thanks to the propagandists of the bourgeoisie with their cynical anti-Bolshevik campaigns[6].
The aim of the seizure of power in Russia was to ‘hold out' until the proletarian revolution in Western Europe came to the aid of the Russian revolution. And Lenin even wrote that "losing the revolution in Russia will not matter if we win it in Germany". Strange kind of tyrant this, accepting the loss of ‘his' revolution so that another could win!
The ruling class is incapable of understanding October 1917
For the ruling class, it is impossible to understand the action of the working masses can be a conscious action: the bourgeoisie believes, and will always believe, that a revolution can only be the work of a few determined plotters who succeed in manipulating the exploited masses and persuading them to realise their designs. This conspiratorial vision of history, at root wholly irrational, is the proof that the bourgeoisie is a class which no longer has any historic future. It can only maintain itself as a ruling class by wallowing in blood and filth. As for the ‘scoops' by the hired hacks of capital, they more and more take the form of sordid gossip. It's not just a tissue of lies functioning in defence of the dictatorship of capital: the bourgeoisie is quite incapable of understanding that wide layers of the exploited class could develop a clear understanding of the stakes of history and take power, not to set up a new dictatorship based on the exploitation of man by man, a blind anarchy, a bloody chaos, but a new mode of production and a new society: world communist society.
From the standpoint of the capitalist class, the idea that the working class could be the bearer of a higher, clearer form of consciousness, free of the alienation imposed by its position as an exploited class, is inconceivable and intolerable. In his History of the Russian Revolution Trotsky gives us many examples of the insults the bourgeoisie hurled against the workers, who it thought incapable of the least degree of political thought.
The proletariat, weakened by the betrayal of social democracy, was not able to overturn the capitalist order on a world level. But it did prove that it had the strength, when it was united, solid, and collectively organised, to put an end to the barbarism of war, concretely refuting all the lies of the bourgeoisie about the immutable nature of its system, its frontiers, its national states. The proletariat showed in practice that everything that Marx and the communists had said was no hot air: the proletariat is the only revolutionary class in capitalist society. And today, once again, on the occasion of the anniversary of the October revolution, which opened up the first international revolutionary wave, the workers' movement must denounce the reactionary, obscurantist nature of the present anti-communist campaigns.
The working class in France has been celebrating the anniversary of October 1917 in its own way, paying practical homage to the generations of workers who overthrew the bourgeois government of Kerensky and took power. Faced with the intensification of exploitation, and all the lies of the media, the students and railway workers, without yet being aware of it, made their own salute to the Russian revolution by launching a movement which loosened the mask of the trade unions, and above all the Stalinist union, the CGT.
As in 1917-18, it was above all the younger generation of the working class which was at the forefront of the struggle and was able to draw the principal lesson of the Russian revolution: "if we remain on our own, they will eat us for breakfast"[7] . As for the internationalist communists, they must also render homage to Lenin and all his Bolshevik comrades whose contribution to the workers' movement remains inestimable. And just as the Bolsheviks knew by heart the lessons of the Paris Commune, the revolutionaries of tomorrow will remember and make use of the example of the Russian revolution by drawing out its lessons and criticising its errors. BM,January 2008.
[1] Certain fans of ‘black humour' from the former eastern bloc countries, like the ones who have edited a book called Draw me a Bolshevik are participating in this same anti-Bolshevik propaganda but in a more ‘subtle' way. These first big ‘discoveries' of the 21st century were (as if by chance) made public at the same moment as the anniversary of the October revolution. Did our brilliant explorers go on the same organised trip, on the same charter? In any case, they deserve at least a Nobel Prize for Social Peace. As for the honest ‘intellectuals' who don't know much about this historical period, they would do well to be a bit more modest rather than displaying their prejudices in public, unless they want to end up like Marc Ferro: a warterer watered (reference to very early comedy film L'arroseur arrose)
[2] Even humanist scientists and intellectuals of the time (such as Freud, Romain Rolland, Stefan Sweig) had a lot of sympathy for the Bolsheviks. These ‘free thinkers' had at least the merit of not running with the wolves of capital, like Monsieur Marc Ferro.
[3] Lenin was not in Russia at the time and could not have manipulated the masses from afar since there was no television! And if these masses were so uncultivated, they would have been incapable of understanding the Bolshevik press.
[4] See our article in International Review 89: ‘April Theses 1917, signpost to the proletarian revolution', https://en.internationalism.org/ir/089/April-theses [10]
[5] The predecessors of our modern media put out posters showing Bolsheviks with knives between their teeth, with the aim of spreading the message: ‘proletarians of all countries, submit to the capitalist order!' it was precisely this order, this social peace (obtained in particular through Stalin's extermination of the Bolshevik old guard and of the Spartacists in Germany by the ‘Socialists') which opened the way to the second world holocaust of 1939-45..
[6] The intellectuals who still believe in the greatest lie in history - the continuity between the proletarian revolution of October 1917 and Stalinism, which was its gravedigger - would do better to change their reading habits if they want to remain intelligent.
[7] Point made by a student in the struggle against the CPE in 2006. The students didn't need ‘unpublished archives' or ‘Bolsheviks' in their general assemblies to understand the ABC of history
Two weeks after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, President Musharraf said "Pakistan is not on the verge of disintegration" [12] . The man who has ruled Pakistan as military dictator for 8 years, newly turned civilian president, is commenting on the possibility of the country breaking up. Even if he responds in the negative, even if he tells us "Pakistan is not Lebanon" and does not need the UN to investigate the assassination, still the question of the disintegration and Lebanisation of the country has been posed by the President of the country.
Clearly the assassination, whoever carried it out, is just one more example of how the ruling class conducts its politics and settles its differences just like gangsters. But this would only be secondary in the life of the bourgeoisie if it did not take place within a dramatic context which opens the way to growing chaos whose main victims will be the population in general and the working class in particular.
Equally dramatic was the commentary by Michael Portillo, British politician and commentator (and Secretary of State for Defence in the Major government during the 1990s), who wrote of the "assassination" of the West's foreign policy in Pakistan. So who was this great hope for a stable, moderate, democratic Pakistan able to play a full and reliable part in the "war on terror"? The head of the Bhutto feudal dynasty from Sindh, and therefore the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, a former prime minister whose two previous terms in office ended in failure and scandals, who was only allowed back into the country with an amnesty on corruption charges, was an unlikely saviour of democracy. But the PPP looked likely to win the election and the US and Britain had hoped she would provide a democratic face for a pro-western government, able to shore up Musharraf's declining authority. In the aftermath of the assassination PPP supporters went on the rampage burning whatever they could, and from the other side suicide bombings have continued unabated, reaching 20 in the last 3 months. Although the PPP may gain a sympathy vote in the postponed elections this month, the party does not have the solidity to play its promised role without Benazir Bhutto, and has had to resort to making her 19 year old son, Bilawal, its designated figurehead with her widower, Zardari (known as "Mister Ten Percent" since his time as minister for investment in the mid 1990s) as regent. The other high profile opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, has declared he would not work with Musharraf and is currently campaigning against close cooperation with the USA.
Pakistan, created in 1947, is a mosaic of ethnic and tribal rivalries - Punjabis, Sindhis, Pakhtuns, Baloch, Mohajir[1] - united only by Islam. The Pakistani state has been unable to really control this collection at any time. Federally Administered Tribal Areas have been no-go areas since British rule, where each tribe "has its own armory and they don't like intrusions into their privacy at all"[2]. To maintain a minimum of stability Musharraf even had to establish a sort of pact between the different Islamist parties: "support us in Islamabad, and you will be free to run your own areas", before the army dared to enter the Tribal Areas in 2001. It is in fact very difficult to draw a clear distinction between the secret services and the Islamists. Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) trained and equipped the Taliban until they took power in Afghanistan, and there is every reason to suppose that they continue to maintain ties to the Taliban and even Al Qaeda today.[3]
Even before the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the USA armed and manipulated a series of "freedom fighters" to pin the Russians down in a bloody and debilitating war.[4] Pakistan played an important role in the US proxy war since much of the money and weapons sent to the Taliban (in those days the Taliban had US-supplied Stinger missiles on their side as well as Allah!) and other "freedom fighters" was channelled through the Pakistani ISI - much to the latter's own profit.[5] Following the collapse of the USSR the US lost most of its interest in Afghanistan, but the situation changed radically after 9/11 when the US decided to hunt down and destroy its former Taliban and Al Qaeda allies.[6] Pakistan found itself in an impossible situation, forced by its dependence on American goodwill and military aid to turn against its own allies amongst the Islamists, yet at the same time trying to continue using the latter in its endless war with India over Kashmir. Pakistan had good relations with the Taliban, and it needed the Afghan hinterland to strengthen its hand in the conflict with India over Kashmir. Yet Pakistan was strategically vital for the US invasion, and in the end had no choice but to cooperate:[7] the Pakistani army had to enter tribal areas it had not set foot in for 50 years, areas where Al Qaeda operate more or less at will. While the US was riding high following its military victories in Afghanistan and then Iraq this was bad enough, but as it has become bogged down in both countries its enemies and rivals have become bolder. Pakistan and Musharraf have therefore found themselves in the uncomfortable position of being chained to a declining superpower. The tribal areas have become increasingly unsettled, fighting has extended from the North Western Frontier to the tourist region of Swat, on several occasions during 2007 soldiers surrendered to Islamists without firing a shot, humiliating Musharraf. The opposition has also gained ground, forcing Musharraf to step down as army chief and allow opposition leaders back into the country ahead of the elections, in spite of his state of emergency and spat with the Supreme Court.
Since the assassination there has been much suspicion in Pakistan that the murder was ordered by the secret service, or even by Musharraf himself. On the face of it however, it is difficult to see what advantage the latter could gain from Bhutto's death. Indeed Bhutto had returned to Pakistan more as an ally than a rival to Musharraf: both defended the same pro-American foreign policy orientation, and while Musharraf has manipulated Islamist support he is above all a pragmatist who has no desire to see Pakistan go the way of the Taliban. If anything Musharraf needed Bhutto, even as a victorious presidential candidate, in order to maintain some kind of stability internally, and some kind of "democratic" credentials with the US.
It does seem perfectly possible, on the other hand, that the assassination was the work of elements in the ISI close to the Taliban, opposed to Bhutto both for ideological reasons and because they feared a potential threat to their lucrative gun- and drug-running business into Afghanistan.
The only thing we can be certain of is that Bhutto's assassination has deprived the Pakistani ruling class of one of its last hopes of maintaining some kind of stability. The very fact that she is to be succeeded by a 19-year old boy whose sole claim to the position is dynastic - and is moreover hotly disputed by members of his own party, opening up the very real possibility that the PPP will simply disintegrate - is indicative of just how unstable the situation is and how little real solidity there is in the ruling class. As in so many peripheral countries, the only real unifying force in Pakistan is the army and the secret service: if these institutions start to tear each other apart, then the perspective for the country and its population is grim indeed - a downward spiral into increasingly violent inter-ethnic killings, manipulated by different fractions of a disintegrating ruling class.
But this is not all. Pakistan is at the heart of enormous imperialist tensions, between the USA and its rivals in the region such as Iran, between India and China, between the USA and Russia, and its own increasing weakness and instability cannot help but further destabilise the whole region. It has been involved in a 60 year conflict with its larger Indian neighbour over Kashmir which has led to three wars. A feeble Pakistan inevitably strengthens India and may encourage aggression from that quarter. But China cannot stand idly by and see its Indian rival gain at the expense of its Pakistani ally (in the 1990s China helped Pakistan join the nuclear club as a counterweight to India, so that when conflict erupted over Kashmir in 2004 the two countries squaring up to each other were both nuclear powers). The USA gets nothing from this conflict and only wants to limit it, as it did in 2004. As far as South East Asia is concerned its interests coincide with India in wanting to limit China's power, hence the recent US-India agreements on nuclear power. On the other hand the USA needs Pakistan as a staging post and supply line for its adventure in Afghanistan, which has so far led it to try and shore up Musharraf as a force for stability, and much to the disappointment of the Indian bourgeoisie regards him as an ally against terrorism rather than a perpetrator of it. Of course Pakistan, just like the US, Britain and every other imperialism, is both - a perpetrator of terrorism when it advances their interests and an opponent when it does not. Nevertheless, the instability in Pakistan encourages Islamist groups in the Middle East, just as the USA's difficulties have weakened Musharraf and encouraged Al Qaeda and suicide bombings there.
At the present time the USA is concentrating on what it can do to make up for Pakistan's deficiencies as an ally. It has negotiated an agreement to send its forces into Western Pakistan against Al Qaeda, or even to negotiate directly with the tribal leaders. Musharraf may be protesting that there is no need and that the US would regret breaching national sovereignty, but the deal has already been agreed, and on recent evidence it is difficult to see what the Pakistan army could do about it. US presidential hopeful Obama has gone further, proposing the bombing of Al Qaeda strongholds with or without consent.[8] Similarly the US has now imposed conditions on aid to Pakistan - military funding will be conditional on performance in the war on terror.
Another major concern relates to the dangers of nuclear weapons being help in such an unstable state as Pakistan. Of course we cannot regard any bourgeoisie as a safe pair of hands to protect us from imperialist war with any of the weapons at their disposal, as the whole history of the 20th century shows, and "Pakistan has already made it clear that, in the face of a superior enemy, it would be prepared to initiate a nuclear confrontation" (The Guardian 23/5/02). However, there is a more immediate danger pointed our by Muhammad ElBaradei of the IAEA, that nuclear weapons "could fall into the hands of an extremist group in Pakistan or in Afghanistan", and "I fear a system of chaos or extremist regime in this state, which has 30 or 40 nuclear weapons". Hilary Clinton has called for Pakistan to share responsibility for these weapons with the US and perhaps Britain.
Meanwhile misery is heaped on the population. Pakistan is still "home" to over a million Afghan refugees; more than two years after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake 400,000 are facing another winter without proper shelter, 600 schools have still not been rebuilt; the population in ever increasing areas is a victim of the fighting and even in the most ‘stable' of cities the population is subject to the violence of gang warfare and suicide bombings.
Bhutto was supposed to bring hope and democracy to Pakistan - her assassination and the events that have followed are yet another demonstration that even if a democratic and peaceful Pakistan were a possibility, which it is not, this would not put an end to the suffering of the population. Only the communist revolution will be able to do that.
2nd February 2008
[1] The Mohajir are descendants of the Muslim refugees forced to leave India after independence from Britain and the partition of India and Pakistan, leading to the biggest episode of ethnic cleansing in history.
[2] CNN report [13] .
[3] "Musharraf was quick to blame the killing [of Bhutto] on Baitullah Mehsud, a tribal leader from the Afghan border area of southern Waziristan with links to Al Qaeda... Critics pointed out Mehsud had previously been working with the Pakistan military, receiving handreds of thousands of dollars and that if the country's intelligence service could tape his conversations, they should be able to capture him." (Sunday Times, 13/01/2008).
[4] In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would...That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War."
[5] According to a paper published on a French government web site (https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/Gayer.pdf [14]), "Although the regulating authority of central government seems to be contested by its populations' illicit trans-national relations (...) the agents of the Pakistani state also profit from this ‘grey zone' on the border with Afghanistan where they can take a discreet part in all kinds of illegal activity which both serve their own personal interests and finance certain government policies. The involvement of many prominent political and military figures in the trade of ‘white gold' [ie heroin], which every year generates a profit greater than the entire Pakistani budget is doubtless due to strategies of personal enrichment but also to the determination of the leaders of the Pakistani military to acquire a nuclear capacity, their nuclear research programmes being financed in large part by the profit from the drugs trade".
[6] During the Russian occupation Osama Bin Laden worked as intermediary between the CIA and the Saudi secret services, and the Taliban and other Islamist groups.
[7] According to a BBC report [15] , "The US threatened to bomb Pakistan ‘back to the stone age' unless it joined the fight against al-Qaeda, President Pervez Musharraf has said. General Musharraf said the warning was delivered by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Pakistan 's intelligence director. ‘I think it was a very rude remark', Gen Musharraf told CBS television. Pakistan agreed to side with the US , but Gen Musharraf said it did so based on his country's national interest. ‘One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that's what I did', he said".
[8] Reuters, 1st August 2007 [16].
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/economic-crisis
[2] https://www.socialistparty.org.uk
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/youth-murders
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/kenya
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/57/israel
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/germany
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/ir/089/April-theses
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/history-workers-movement/1917-russian-revolution
[12] https://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL11345936
[13] https://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/12/pakistan.us/
[14] https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/pdf/Gayer.pdf
[15] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5369198.stm
[16] https://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0132206420070801
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/144/pakistan
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/benazir-bhutto
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/pervez-musharraf
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/assassination-benazir-bhutto