How ever you look at it, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the present system of social economic organisation - capitalism - is breaking down all over the planet.
It can no longer feed its wage slaves, let alone the millions who aren't even given the chance of being wage slaves. Because of the sudden rise in food prices that is hitting those who are already living in dire poverty, "at this very moment, 100,000 people are dying of hunger every day across the world; a child under 10 is dying every five seconds; 842 million people are suffering from chronic malnutrition and are being reduced to the status of invalids. And right now, two out of the six billion human beings of the planet (i.e. one third of humanity) are in a daily fight for survival because of the rise in the cost of basic foodstuffs" (International Review 133).
It can no longer maintain the illusion of economic prosperity. The ‘credit crunch' is exposing all the slurry about economic growth fed to us by politicians and media for the past decade and more. Alongside the spiralling price of oil and fuel, we are seeing the world's major economies, drawn by the former world ‘locomotive', the USA, plunging into recession. The ‘economic miracles' of India and China are also beginning to lose their sheen. In recent months, the Chinese central bank has been intervening on the foreign exchanges to the tune of nearly $50 billion in an attempt to push down the value of the Yuan. Over 67,000 companies have gone bust in China in the first half of 2008, laying off 20 million people and there now seems to be an outright contraction in manufacturing. As for Britain, with its allegedly stable economic base, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has himself warned that we are approaching the worst economic crisis for 60 years (see the article on p2).
It can less and less hide its nature as a system of military rivalry and warfare. The war between Russia and Georgia is being presented in the media as a revival of the Cold War between Russia and NATO. So how come the ‘end of communism' in Russia at the end of the ‘80s was supposed to bring us a world of peace and harmony? Could it be that the struggle between Russia and America was not a struggle between different societies or ideologies, but between different imperialist states struggling for spheres of influence - just as it is today? What's more, the hypocrisy of countries like Britain and the US condemning Russian atrocities in Georgia is pretty clear when you look at what the ‘democratic' powers have been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last seven years. All the world's states, from the biggest to the smallest, are warmongers, and the conflicts between them are becoming more and more chaotic and dangerous.
It can no longer conceal the threat its very continuation poses to the planetary environment. The ‘debate' about global warming - in the sense of whether it's real and whether it's a result of ‘human activity' - is effectively over. All the world's governments and big corporations are falling over themselves to show us their green credentials - while at the same time every pompous international conference on climate change and pollution only confirms how little each government is prepared to do about the problem the minute the interests of its ‘national security' and its ‘national economy' are put into question (see the article starting on page 3).
The capitalist system is openly condemning itself as a system capable of satisfying the basic needs of humanity. The longer it goes on the more it poses the real danger of engulfing society in an apocalypse of starvation, war and ecological catastrophe.
But those who run this system will never admit this ‘inconvenient truth'. They cannot hide the scale of the problems facing humanity but they can certainly do all they can to obscure their real causes and above all to divert us with all sorts of illusory hopes and false prospects for change.
Hope and change are the ‘keynotes' of the election campaign in the world's leading military power, the USA. Barack Obama is being presented across the world in almost messianic terms as a man who offers hope to the world: hope for a different US foreign policy which "leads by the power of our example rather than the example of our power", to use Obama's stirring phrase. Hope that America's internal divisions between racial groups, the poison of slavery's legacy, can be healed by a man who is black, but also a little bit white. Hope that the shocking gap between rich and poor in the US can be drastically reduced through a bold redistribution of wealth.
Many a critic of the farce of American ‘democracy', where elections are contested by two parties who are not only indistinguishable but equally tied to big business, organised crime, the CIA and the military colossus, is leaping onto the Obama bandwagon, urging in particular the younger generation and the poor and dispossessed, those most disillusioned by the democratic game, to embrace this new illusion and thrown themselves into the pro-Obama camp.
But Obama is no ‘anti-war' option. He has made it perfectly clear that his opposition to the Iraq war did not mean any let-up on the ‘war on terror' which is the USA's pretext for military action to maintain its global domination. He criticised the Iraq adventure because he saw it as a diversion from the war in Afghanistan, which he supported from the outset, and to which he wants to commit even more military resources - including the extension of bombing raids deep into Pakistan.
Yes, the US has lost a great deal of credibility thanks to the blunderbuss foreign policies of the Bush clique. That's why it needs to change its image on the world stage and Obama is the man for the make-over. But the imperialist drives that lead to its military adventures here there and everywhere will not go away with a change of personnel in the Whitehouse and a new lick of PR paint.
The same applies to the problems of impoverishment, economic crisis and environmental destruction, whether in the US or world wide. They are inseparable from the way that capitalism works. It is a system which must crush all the needs of humanity and nature under the merciless wheel of accumulation, and every company, country, government and politician has to obey this logic if they are to survive.
To stop the juggernaut of capital, a fundamental revolution is required, a profound uprising of the exploited and the oppressed against the very logic of production for profit. But this requires not only an economic change, but a shattering of the political apparatus which maintains the present social/economic relations. It means the destruction of the capitalist state and the creation of new organs of political power. The noisy show of ‘democracy' is there to prevent us, the proletariat, from seeing the real nature of the capitalist state. Participating in the show only delays the dawn of consciousness about the need to take the power into our own hands and rebuild society from top to bottom.
Amos 06/09/08
This article has already appeared online. A link will appear here shortly.
The international response to the military action of Russian and Georgian imperialism in and around South Ossetia was mixed. While only a small minority of ruling classes attacked Georgia (Cuba and Kazakhstan among them), the condemnations of Russian imperialism took many forms.
In Europe, countries like Germany, France and Italy were more restrained in their criticisms, partly out of pragmatism - they are very aware of their dependency on energy supplies from Russia. More importantly, perhaps is the fact that Germany and France in particular have for a long time been pursuing a particular, more conciliatory approach towards Russia. By contrast, the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Britain were prepared to make the strongest denunciations of Russian aggression, quickly resorting to images of the Cold War. In the words of Foreign Secretary David Miliband, this was a "chilling" reminder of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
What do these criticisms really amount to? If you look at the US, the only military superpower in the world, you can see how little the condemnations mean. Dick Cheney, the US Vice President, visited Georgia and could say little more threatening than "Russia's actions have cast grave doubt on Russia's intentions and on its reliability as an international partner". Miliband and Tory leader David Cameron also went to Georgia. The latter said that the West should be doing more, without actually spelling out what that might be, other than increasing ‘diplomatic pressure'. Miliband just went through the usual routine on the violation of Georgia's territorial integrity.
That's all that Britain can do. Financially constrained by a deepening economic crisis, bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, its armed forces already overstretched, it can only afford empty rhetoric. It's true that some of the British have been more forceful in their language, but that will be like water off a duck's back to the likes of Putin and Medvedev. Gordon Brown, for example, in an article entitled ‘This is how we will stand up to Russia's naked aggression' (Observer 31/8/8), said it was necessary to demonstrate "to Russia that its actions have real consequences". Apart from Britain wanting to reduce its energy dependence on Russia, there's no way of knowing what these "consequences" could possibly be.
Brown said there was a need to re-evaluate NATO's "relationship with Russia, and intensify our support to Georgia". What support? At least the US could announce a $1bn aid package to Georgia, and the IMF a loan of $750m. Britain is giving £2m to the Red Cross.
Both Labour and Tory figures have talked of the need to ‘fast-track' Georgian and Ukrainian membership of NATO. What would that accomplish? Poland and the Czech Republic have joined NATO, but US plans to incorporate them in its missile defence system have only lead to threats from Russia. The US has armed and trained Georgian forces for years, but always warned Saakashvili not to be so provocative. He thought he would still get military support during a conflict with Russia. How wrong he was. Neither the US, nor Britain (nor Poland etc) was going to war with Russia over South Ossetia.
If British ‘support' for Georgia is flimsy, its criticisms of Russia also look pretty thin in the light of its own actions. It recognised a breakaway Kosovo despite Serbian protests, yet denounced Russian recognition of breakaway South Ossetia. It took part in the bombings of Serbia and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but condemned the Russian presence in Georgia. British imperialism has little to offer except hypocrisy.
Car 05/09/08
It is rather ironic that staff at ACAS, the conciliation service that is supposed to resolve disputes, have voted for strike action. They've been treated like many other workers, with a 10-month hold-up on their 2007 pay deal, and no sign yet of any action on this year's pay which was due on August 1.
However, if their experience is like other sectors of workers this summer, any union strike that's called is as likely to be called off or be limited to a token gesture.
After a one day strike at Argos distribution centres in July the Unite union proposed a series of strikes against a below inflation wage deal that was proposed, despite the union having agreed to all sorts of ‘flexible working' during the last year. These were called off at the last minute, despite no obvious gains for workers and further concessions being made by the unions.
At Manchester, Gatwick and Stansted airports baggage handlers and check-in staff were due to strike over the Bank Holiday until the union called it off because of a revised pay offer.
On the London Underground a proposed three day strike by 1000 maintenance staff over pay and conditions was abandoned by the RMT because of an ‘improved' offer. Workers were reported to be ‘angry' and ‘disappointed' at the union's action.
The most serious examples of workers' discontent being dispersed by the unions have been in the public sector. There have been a number of strikes and actions among workers employed by local and national government. The biggest was the two-day strike by up to 300,000 local government workers in England in mid-July, mainly under the auspices of UNISON. And yet despite the huge numbers of workers on strike in London, for example, there was only a small demonstration in the centre of the city as the union called for a series of local events.
Other actions, though involving workers with very similar grievances and often belonging to the same unions, took place completely separately: thus, in the Passport Office in July there was a 3-day strike by 3000 staff against possible job losses. At the DVLA there have been 4 one day strikes this year, with other forms of action short of striking by the 4500 workers. On 20 August there was a strike by 150,000 council workers across Scotland: obviously, in the unions' eyes, English and Scottish council workers can't have the same problems. There has also been a strike by Rescue Coordinators working for the coastguard service, which went ahead despite propaganda about ‘putting lives at risk'. In the face of these separate actions by public sector unions the government's policy of pay ‘restraint' (that is, keeping wage deals below the rate of inflation) has remained undisturbed.
It's not surprising that many workers are pissed off with the unions. A union member was reported in Socialist Worker (26/8/8): "Some are collecting signatures to recall the union reps and elect new ones. Many people left Unite in frustration at what was happening. Some have joined the RMT union and some have just left."
The basic problem for workers is not one of electing new union reps, or joining a different union, or trying to make a union responsive to workers' needs. What's needed is for workers to take struggles into their own hands. For example, in August, at a new nuclear power station in Plymouth, 350 workers came out on strike without any union sanction because 16 workers were going to be laid off before the end of a 6-month contract. The union were successful in persuading them to accept a one-off payment, but they were still going to be laid off when the company said so. In July there was an unofficial strike by Peterborough refuse collectors; in August a wildcat by workers at a coach-builders in Falkirk. Some workers are solving the problem of the unions by not waiting to get their seal of approval.
Trotskyist groups, aware of militant workers' growing suspicion of the unions, try a number of ways to get them back in the fold. The Socialist Party of England and Wales, for example, makes a distinction between unions which it says have a pro-Labour leadership (Unison, GMB, CWU) and unions with a ‘left leadership' (RMT, PCS) that can be trusted. This flies in the face of workers' actual experience of these unions, where, public or private sector, they play the same role, the only difference being at the level of rhetoric.
The Socialist Workers Party doesn't make the distinction between different unions. It points out that (Socialist Worker 30/8/8) "in a number of wage disputes the union leaderships have been keen to settle at the first new offer from management, regardless of whether it meant decent pay or not for their members. The union leaders are always keen on settling disputes as quickly as possible unless there is pressure on them from below." So instead of workers taking independent action, the SWP proposes that workers put pressure on the union leaders, even through they admit that "there is an added political pressure - heightened in the public sector. This is the union leaders' support for the Labour government."
But why try and force the unions to do something they can't do when workers are already beginning to show the capacity to organise their own struggles?
The SWP is also putting its weight behind the ‘People Before Profit Charter': "The charter's ten points put forward proposals on a number of issues that would improve the lives of millions of people. These include decent pay rises, taxing corporations, improving workers' rights, opposing privatisation, building council homes, opposing racism and war, improving pensions and abolishing tuition fees."
At a time when governments across the world are trying to pass the effects of the economic crisis on to the working class, the idea that capitalism be persuaded to put ‘people before profit' is absurd. Food riots in the poorer countries, growing inflation and unemployment everywhere, and war as the basic knee-jerk response of every state or proto-state on the planet - every prospect offered by our exploiters involves a worsening of the situation. The struggle of the working class is the only force that offers a perspective that would ‘improve the lives of millions.'
Car 01/09/08
The article in question offers a strong analysis of the way the large-scale public sector strikes of 2007 were dispersed by the trade unions, leaving the workers with little to show after returning to work. Although sometimes focusing on the problem of ‘union leaders' and their ties to the Labour party and the government, the bulletin rejects any idea of democratising the unions, which is the stock in trade of the leftist groups like the SWP. In a separate box, the bulletin places more emphasis on the need for the struggle to be controlled by mass meetings open to all workers regardless of union membership:
"What you can do...
• Vote for industrial action where possible and encourage others to do the same.
• Visit other workers' picket lines and discuss how you can help each other.
• Make links between workers. Invite all staff at your workplace to your pay dispute meetings whether temps, permanent, members of your union or not.
• Do not cross the picket lines of any group of workers.
• If you absolutely have to work, do not cover the work of any strikers and take on-the-job action like go-slows and work-to-rules. Don't forget to take regular breaks!
• Take control of the strike. Make decisions in open workplace meetings with as many people involved as possible rather than leaving it to union full-timers"
This is a promising initiative which should be repeated in future outbreaks of the class struggle. We think however that the initiative should move towards acting as a ‘physical' collective rather than a purely online one, which tends to reinforce the impression that the group is a rather ‘confidential' effort by people already involved in running the libcom forum. A group that advocates workers coming together in open-ended meetings to decide on the orientation of the struggle cannot shy away from functioning on the same basis.
Gordon Brown preaching pay restraint, union leaders talking about ‘co-ordinated strike action', sound familiar? It should, because exactly the same things were being said last year. Despite brave attempts in 2007, workers suffered another defeat, unable to assert our own interests against both our bosses and unions who did deals behind closed doors, ignored strike votes, witch-hunted their members, and dragged on consultations for months.
Just like this year, 2007 started with a 2% cap on public sector pay rises. This led to a wave of strikes which, while impressive, were stopped before many even got started. To reverse this trend, we need to learn from previous mistakes in order not to repeat them again.
Postal staff started well, with rolling strikes and a work to rule followed by wildcat strikes across the country. With the second wave of official strikes due, the CWU leadership called them off, entering ‘meaningful negotiations'. These lasted weeks and came to no firm conclusion apart from leaving strikers in Liverpool who had continued with unofficial action unpaid and out on a limb, as the CWU refused to release details of deals for fear of a massive negative reaction from its members.
There were also strikes by 200,000 civil servants, significant strikes by health and local government workers in Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham, and in the private sector by thousands of workers at Grampian Foods, Coca Cola and Heinz. So with hundreds of thousands out on strike, how did we not get the victory we needed?
First we need to look at what was promised: ‘prolonged and sustained strike action' and coordination between unions. And what we got: strikes cancelled at the slightest hint of a deal, majority votes rejected as not enough of a mandate, local union members witch-hunted by the national executive after refusing to remain neutral over the dispute.
So how do we respond to this? Certainly not by appealing to the union leadership! While the right wing press complains of Labour's close ties to the unions, they fail to mention the unions' close ties to Labour: it's a short jump from trade union leader to cushy ministerial position or fat pay check sitting in a think tank, and that's where their interests lie (since their wages go up regardless of whether ours do). Trying to replace leaders or ‘democratise' the unions is another old game that was bankrupt even when union membership was higher and more militant, it just catapults militants into the same positions and compromises they attacked moments before.
What's needed is independent activity outside these structures and that us at the bottom of the union ladder look after our interests regardless of what's said by those at the top. This means cooperation of workers across boundaries of union, sector and the public/private divide. Even small numbers of workers can have a big effect if they break out of these restrictions. By taking our breaks, leaving on time, organising go-slows, walking out in defence of victimised colleagues, in fact, taking action without waiting for people who've got no interest in our situation, except in us continuing to give them permission to take control of our struggles, we can make this year's strikes more successful than the last.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent[1]
Economic conditions today are "arguably the worst they've been in 60 years" according to Chancellor Alistair Darling (Guardian 30/8/8). No, that's not just for Britain, but for the whole world economy
For the Sunday Times the next day this was a "gaffe", contradicting both his deputy's memo to spin doctors and Brown's ‘relaunch'; for the Times his job is at risk. Before we jump to any conclusions about what Darling was doing we should first of all examine the real state of the economy.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer's remarks have given government and media the chance to rubbish Darling's idea: we don't have rationing as we did 60 years ago, we don't have double figure inflation as in the 1970s, we don't have unemployment of 3 million as in the 80s (officially we don't), and the crisis won't be as deep as in the 1990s (oh really?). This sort of argument asks us to look at each new crisis as if it had nothing to do with the previous one. It would be a bit like arguing against global warming because Gustav was less powerful than Katrina or because we had a cool wet August in Britain. We have to look at the long term trends, at the state the economy was in when the credit crunch hit, at the margin of manoeuvre for governments to respond, and not explain everything away by comparing facts or statistics without any context. Even the Economist (6-12 September) had to concede "Mr Darling had a point... It is rare to be hit by so many problems in such a short space of time", going on to list rises in oil and food prices, reduced consumer spending, the banking crisis and the collapse in the housing market.
Sixty years ago the world had just been through the most disastrous half century: the Great War 1914-18, flu pandemic, crash of 1929, followed by the great depression and then World War II. For revolutionaries this was clear evidence that capitalism is decadent, that it has no perspective for humanity but more and more disasters, that it needs to be overthrown. But in 1948 things seemed to be improving, at least for developed countries in the west and others benefiting from loans from the USA (particularly the Marshall Plan) and from massive state intervention. In Britain nationalisation of coal, steel, railways and health provided important support for economic development. Whatever the hardships, the economy was apparently recovering. 20 years later Sterling had been devalued, announcing the start of the crisis we are still living through today.
Unemployment: In Britain a generation that had grown up after the 2nd World War was shocked by the threat of the 1960s Labour government that we had to accept unemployment of 1-2%,. But in fact it is low unemployment that was the aberration in the 20th Century. Even before the crash of 1929 or the hunger marches in the 30s, Britain had endemic unemployment of a million men throughout the 20s (see ‘Evolution of British imperialism' in WR 312 and 313). Unemployment grew during the 70s and then exploded to more than 3 million in the 80s, when government policy reduced the numbers by forcing millions to claim incapacity benefit instead.
Much has been made of falling unemployment over recent years, but what is the reality? The credit crunch has not hit an economy with full employment, as the 1960s crisis did, but one with over a million unemployed. Officially unemployment is now 5.4% or 1.67 million, up 60,000 over the last 3 months, but the Labour Force Survey noted that in the 3 months to June there were 3.06 million households where no-one works, including 4.29 million working age people and 1.8 million children.
Remember this when you read about how the credit crunch is not as bad as the 70s or 80s. Remember that unemployment is one of the main ways the working class suffers in a crisis. And remember that the recovery in the 1990s was so ‘successful' that in the US it was dubbed the ‘jobless recovery'. It is not a question of whether the credit crunch is going to create more or less job losses than previous crises in the last 60 years, but how many more unemployed it will add to the millions already out of work.
Growth has clearly been hit by the credit crunch. Negative growth in the euro zone in the last 3 months, the OECD forecasting a ‘technical recession' for Britain at the end of the year. But the American economy is growing again - thanks to a $180 billion fiscal handout - so perhaps we should look forward to the light at the end of the tunnel? After all, have we not seen stupendous growth during the years the ICC has been claiming that we are living through an economic crisis? The reality of growth is often revealed in the crash that follows. The Asian ‘tigers' helped stimulate growth in the 1990s, but the role of debt in sustaining this was revealed in the crash of 97/98. The reality of the dot.com ‘recovery' was revealed in the crash that followed - when much of the ‘growth' was in fact the growth of companies valued at far more than either the capital invested or the profits they had made. It was nothing more than a bubble. And the ‘growth' that resulted in the credit crunch was based on the growth in the price of houses and a stupendous increase in personal debt so that by summer 07 personal debt in Britain exceeded GDP.
Stagflation is a term from the 1970s that has reared its head again since the credit crunch. With inflation well over the 2% target the Bank of England is charged with maintaining, the government has much less margin for manoeuvre for injecting more money to kickstart the economy. Interest rates are no longer being cut, as they were in 1998 or 2001. Clearly they have learned the lessons of the 1970s when money pumped into the economy fuelled damaging levels of inflation. Some money is being pumped in of necessity: the budget deficit has widened to £35 billion, and may double. Money will be pumped in as loans to potential homebuyers, and when councils and housing associations buy out those liable to lose their homes, but the £1.6 billion this will cost won't restart the economy.
Media attention on Alistair Darling's remarks has often focused on whether they were a gaffe or part of a power struggle within the cabinet. Nevertheless, we can see that Darling has achieved three important results for British capitalism. In the first place he has given the media plenty of opportunity to tell us that things are not nearly as bad and that they will get better if we put up with a year or so of austerity. If they were not rubbishing the chancellor's ‘gaffe' would anyone have believed a word of this? Secondly, he has fuelled the media smokescreen about divisions and power struggles within the cabinet that diverts attention from the real economic problems and the attacks being made on the working class.
Thirdly, the pound fell to a record low shortly after he made his remarks. Overall it has lost 15% of its trade weighted index in the last year and 5% in the last week. "Still there are signs that sterling's slump is lifting the domestic economy" (The Economist 6.9.08). This devaluation may temporarily improve Britain's competitiveness, but we should have no illusions as its economy is particularly vulnerable due to the high household debt to income ratio (the basis of the last 10 years' growth) and the weight of the finance sector in the economy, as well as the stagnation of the euro area which takes more than half of its exports.
Politicians of left and right, media, business, all are agreed that wage claims must remain below inflation. Workers are already paying for the credit crunch through higher food and fuel prices, job losses and the fear of job losses; and this comes on top of 40 years of attacks. The economic crisis shows what capitalism has to offer: declining pay, more unemployment, lost pensions at home while the state engages in continued military adventures overseas. This crisis has put down a challenge to the working class every bit as serious and every bit as dangerous as that of 1914, for we face the same historic choice: socialism or barbarism.
Alex 06/09/08
[1] ‘Auguries of innocence' William Blake.
We have received an interesting letter from a comrade in Spain who asks about the reality of the ecological crisis: "what truth is there in all this world-wide theatre about climate change? Are there not particular interests hidden behind this?...The analysis could be: given the real situation of the destruction of the world (what is this? Do we know precisely?) can we continue with the level of consumption reached by the masses? Can the system change its model of production and consumption? Which class, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie, is hit hardest by the approaching climatic catastrophes? Are they imminent?".
The comrade asks whether we are facing a grave ecological crisis, or whether, on the contrary, it might be a media show to make us accept austerity measures and poverty under the pretext of ‘saving the planet'.
It is quite right to say that capitalism doesn't have the slightest scruple about the pretexts it uses to gain advantage for itself, and it will not hesitate to dress up in green if this will gain benefits for it.
It's also particularly repulsive to see the attempts of all governments, but especially those of the left, to make us feel guilty about the deterioration of the environment. We are led to believe that bad habits like going to work by car, showering regularly or putting out the rubbish are the cause of all the ills facing the planet.
But underneath this pile of shameless propaganda, a very real and serious problem remains: capitalism is indeed in the process of destroying the conditions for life on this planet. In the article in ‘Only the proletarian revolution can save the human species' in International Review 104 we said that:
"Throughout the 90s, the plundering of the planet has continued at a frenzied rhythm: deforestation, soil erosion, toxic pollution of the air, water tables and oceans, pillage of natural fossil resources, dissemination of chemical or nuclear substances, destruction of animal or plant species, explosion of infectious diseases, and finally the steady increase in average temperatures over the surface of the planet (seven of the hottest years for millennia were in the 90s). Ecological disasters are becoming more combined, more global, often taking on an irreversible character, with long term consequences that are hard to predict".
In the same article we cited the report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change: "Average surface temperature has increased by 0.6% since 1860...New analyses indicate that the 20th century has probably seen the most significant warming in all the centuries for the last thousand years in the northern hemisphere...The area of snow cover has diminished by about 10% since the end of the 1960s and the period in which lakes and rivers are under ice in the northern hemisphere has diminished by about two weeks in the 20th century.....the thickness of the Arctic ice has diminished by 40%....Average sea levels have risen by between 10 and 20 cm during the 20th century...the rhythm of these rising sea levels during the 20th century has been about 10 times higher than in the previous three thousand years".
Our article also cited the journal Maniere de Voir, no 50:
"...the reproductive and infectious capacities of insects and rodents, the vectors of parasites or viruses, is connected to the temperature and humidity of their surroundings. In other words, a rise in temperature, even a modest one, gives the green light to the expansion of numerous agents which are pathogenic to man and animals. This is why parasitic diseases - such as malaria, schistosomiasis and sleeping sickness, or viral infections like dengue fever, certain forms of encephalitis or haemorrhaging fevers - have gained ground in recent years...In the same way, the number of diseases transmitted by water is also spiralling. The warming of fresh waters facilitates the proliferation of bacteria. The warming of salt waters - particularly when they are enriched by human effluent - allows phytoplanctons, which are the real breeding grounds for the cholera bacillus, to reproduce at an accelerating rate. After virtually disappearing from Latin America around 1960, cholera claimed 1,368,053 victims between 1991 and 1996". We think that we have to reply in the affirmative to the questions the comrade asks about the dangers of climate change. We can also say that the workers and the oppressed masses will be the most affected, but the question is more global and more profound: it's a question of the destruction of the very milieu in which humanity lives, the destruction of "man's inorganic body", as Marx described the natural environment in which we live.
We have to pose an elementary question here: what is the relationship between man and nature? This question has already been posed by the marxist movement. Let's quote The Dialectics of Nature by Engels, who writes that "the animal merely uses its environment, and brings about changes in it simply by its presence; man by his changes makes it serve his ends, masters it. This is the final, essential distinction between man and other animals..." (‘The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man')[1]
Human societies have sought to adapt the natural milieu to the necessity to survive, and to exploit to the maximum the riches supplied by nature. The development of the productive forces of humanity can be measured by the degree to which they have been able to transform the natural milieu and more effectively extract the riches it contains. A dual relationship has thus been established between man and nature throughout history: transformation but also depredation.
Under the modes of production which preceded capitalism (primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, etc), nature exerted a crushing domination over man, and the latter's capacity to modify it was very limited. This relationship was radically transformed by capitalism. In the first place, the productive forces (machines, means of transport, industrial and agricultural techniques) have reached an unprecedented level. In the second place, capitalism has spread across the entire world, subjecting every country to the power of its mode of production. Finally, the exploitation of natural resources (agriculture, fish, minerals, cattle...) became systematic and extensive, profoundly altering natural cycles and processes (climate, regeneration of cultivated land, forests, watercourses...). For the first time, man had developed the productive forces which could not only transform but totally exhaust the existing natural resources.
The capacity of human society to transform its natural milieu, and consequently to transform itself constituted a very important historical progress. But capitalism has made it so that that this progress expresses itself fundamentally in a negative and destructive way, while its positive, transformative and revolutionary side remains hidden.
The transformations and changes brought about by capitalism in the evolution of the natural milieu take place in a chaotic and anarchic manner, working in the short term, without taking into account the more long term consequences, acting on the surface of things without concern about the underlying laws of nature. This immediate and empirical way of acting has caused all kinds of damage to the global ecology. We are now seeing the catastrophic results of this and they announce even more dramatic and sinister prospects for the future. The human and natural productive forces are developing in the prison of antagonistic relations - relations based on class divisions and ferocious competition between nations and enterprises.
The body and mind of the workers suffer even worse ravages than the natural milieu: physical and psychological destruction, moral and material poverty, frenzied competition, atomisation, the extreme compartmentalisation of human capacities, monstrously developed to the point of hypertrophy in certain cases and castrated no less monstrously in others. We arrive at a terrible paradox: "At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force" (Marx, speech on the anniversary of The People's Paper, 1856)
The comrade asks himself about capitalism's ability to prevent the catastrophe it has set in motion. We think that the laws and internal contradictions of the system will not only prevent it from doing so but can only push it further towards the disaster. The need to produce in order to produce, to accumulate for the sake of accumulation, pushes capitalism to become locked in insurmountable contradictions: "Goaded by competition, by the anarchic rivalry of capitalist units struggling for control of the market, it obeys an inner compulsion to expand to the furthest limits permitted to it, and in this merciless drive towards its own self-expansion, it cannot pause to consider either the health and welfare of the producers, or the future ecological consequences of how and what it produces" (IR 63, ‘It's capitalism that's poisoning the Earth').
All these phenomena have their roots in capitalism since its birth, but they have reached a paroxysm in the period of the decadence of the system. When the greater part of the planet was incorporated into the world market, at the beginning of the 20th century, the period of capitalism's decline began and from then "capital's ruthless destruction of the environment takes on a different scale and quality, while at the same time losing any historical justification. This is the epoch in which all the capitalist nations are forced to compete with each other over a saturated world market; an epoch therefore, of a permanent war economy, with a disproportionate growth of heavy industry; an epoch characterised by the irrational, wasteful duplication of industrial complexes in each national unit, by the desperate pillaging of natural resources by each nation". (ibid)
Already in the ascendant period of capitalism, in the 19th century, Marx and Engels drew attention to the danger of the gigantic industrial cities developing at the time: "Marx and Engels had many occasions to denounce the way that capitalism's thirst for profit poisoned the living and working conditions of the working class. They even considered that the big industrial cities had already become too large to provide the basis for viable human communities, and considered that the ‘abolition of the separation between town and countryside' was an integral part of the communist programme"(ibid) This problem has been massively aggravated in the period of decadence, a period in which we have seen the proliferation of mega-cities of 10 or 20 million human beings, bringing with it huge problems of pollution, water supply, waste disposal, etc, giving rise to new sources of illness and deformities and further destroying the ecological balance.
But decadence also adds a qualitatively new phenomenon. For centuries, humanity has suffered the scourge of war, but the wars of the past can in no way be compared to the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries, for which marxists coined a term that reflected their historical novelty: imperialist war. We can't here go any deeper into this question. We will limit ourselves to pointing out that the effects of imperialist war on the environment are devastating: nuclear destruction, the development of pathogenic agents through the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons; the brutal alteration of the ecological balance through the massive use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy, etc. The effects of more than a century of imperialist wars on the environment remain to be evaluated, since for the moment they are denied or severely underestimated by the bourgeoisie.
Global ecological problems require a global solution. But despite all the international conferences, despite all the pious talk about international cooperation, capitalism is irreducibly based on competition between national economies. We cannot hope for anything from capitalism. It's significant that the book/film written by Al Gore, former vice president of the USA, the country which contributes the most to global pollution, uses a ‘daring' title (An Inconvenient Truth) but actually proposes paltry measures like eating less meat, doing the washing up by hand, using washing lines or working at home!
Faced with a problem of planetary dimensions and which has its origins in the relationship between the whole organisation of society and its relationship with nature, this gentleman merely reveals the impotence of the representatives of capital, who can propose nothing more than a list of good citizen's habits as ridiculous as they are useless. Al Gore tells us to "behave in an irreproachably green way", and lays responsibility for the ecological disaster on the ‘citizen' in order to make us feel guilty for the disasters that threaten us and to let the social system off the hook.
We on the other hand have to put forward this ‘inconvenient truth' for capitalism in response to Al Gore and other ‘Green' ideologues: "In its present phase of advancing decomposition, the ruling class is increasingly losing control of its social system. Humanity can no longer afford to leave the planet in its hands. The ‘ecological crisis' is further proof that capitalism has to be destroyed before it drags the whole world into the abyss" (ibid)
The proletarian revolution, in eliminating states and national frontiers, in eliminating commodity production and the exploitation of man by man, will destroy the system which is leading towards the annihilation of the human race and the ruin of the natural environment. The society the proletariat aspires to will be founded on the world human community, which will consciously plan social production and establish a harmonious and organic relationship with the natural environment. The relations of fraternity and solidarity, the collective consciousness which will mark the world human community will naturally extend to man's relationship with nature.
ICC (24/2/08)
[1] Engels also makes it clear in this article that man is an integral part of the natural milieu and is in no sense an outside element: "At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature - but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly".
This is how we concluded our previous article on May 68:
"Thus, the fundamental historical significance of May 1968 is neither found in ‘French specificities', nor in the student revolt, nor in a ‘moral revolution' that we are told about today. It is in the emergence of the world proletariat from the counter-revolution and its entry into a new historic period of confrontations against capitalist order. In this period, proletarian political currents, that previously had been eliminated or reduced to silence by the counter-revolution, began to develop - including the ICC" (‘May 1968, part 4: The international significance of the general strike in France', WR 316).
That is what we will look at in the article below.
At the beginning of the 20th century, during and after the First World War, the proletariat engaged in titanic battles. In 1917, it overthrew bourgeois power in Russia. Between 1918 and 1923, in the principal European country, Germany, it undertook numerous struggles in order to achieve the same aim. This revolutionary wave reverberated throughout the world wherever a developed working class existed, from Italy to Canada, from Hungary to China.
But the world bourgeoisie succeeded in containing this gigantic movement of the working class and it didn't stop there. It unleashed the most terrible counter-revolution in the whole history of the workers' movement. This counter-revolution took the form of an unimaginable barbarity, of which Stalinism and Nazism were the two most significant representatives, precisely in the countries where the revolution went furthest, Russia and Germany.
In this context, the Communist Parties that had been at the vanguard of the revolutionary wave were converted into parties of the counter-revolution.
When the socialist parties, faced with imperialist war in 1914, betrayed the working class, this gave rise to currents within these parties that were determined to pursue the defence of proletarian principles: these currents had been instrumental in the foundation of the communist parties. In turn, when the latter also betrayed, we saw the appearance of left fractions committed to the defence of real, communist positions. However, while those who had struggled within the socialist parties against their opportunist slide and betrayal had gained strength and a growing influence in the working class, to the point where they were able to found a new International after the Russian revolution, it was nothing like this for the left currents that came out of the communist parties, because of the growing weight of the counter-revolution. Thus, although at the beginning they regrouped a majority of the militants in the German and Italian parties, these currents progressively lost their influence in the class and the greater part of their militant forces, or were scattered into multiple small groups, as was the case in Germany even before the Hitler regime had exterminated them or sent the last militants into exile.
In fact, during the 1930s, aside from the current animated by Trotsky more and more eaten up by opportunism, the groups who continued to defend revolutionary positions, such as the Groep van Internationale Communisten(GIC) in Holland (that advocated ‘Council Communism' and rejected the necessity for a proletarian party) and the Left Fraction of the Italian Communist Party (which published the review Bilan) only counted some dozens of militants and no longer had any influence over the course of the workers' struggle.
Contrary to the first, the Second World War didn't result in an overthrow of the balance of forces between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. Quite the contrary. Learning from the historic experience and with the precious support of the Stalinist parties, the bourgeoisie was careful to kill at birth any new uprising of the proletariat. In the democratic euphoria of the ‘Liberation', the groups of the communist left were still more isolated than they were in the 1930s. In Holland, the Communistenbond Spartacus picked up from the GIC in the defence of councilist positions, positions that were equally defended from 1965 by Daad en Gedachte, a split from the Bond. These two groups did much publishing work although they were handicapped by the councilist position that rejected the role of an organisation of the avant-garde of the proletariat. However, the greatest handicap was from the ideological weight of the counter-revolution. This was also the case in Italy where the constitution in 1945, around Damen and Bordiga (two old militants of the Italian Left in the 1920s) of the Partito Comunista Internazionalista (which published Battaglia Comunista and Prometeo), didn't fulfil the promise its militants expected. Although this organisation had 3000 militants when it was founded, it progressively weakened, a victim of demoralisation and splits, notably the one in 1952 which led to the formation of the Parti Communiste International (which published Programma Comunista). The causes of these splits also lay in the confusion that reigned over the regroupment of 1945, which was made on the basis of the abandonment of a whole series of acquisitions elaborated by Bilan in the 1930s.
In France, the Gauche Communiste de France (GCF), which had been formed in 1945 in continuity with the positions of Bilan (but also integrating a certain number of programmatic positions from the German and Dutch Left) and which published 42 numbers of the review Internationalisme, disappeared in 1952. In the same country, outside of some elements attached to the Parti Communiste International, who published le Proletaire, another group defended class positions up until the 1960s with the review Socialisme ou Barbarie (SouB). But this group, coming out of a split from Trotskyism after the Second World War, progressively and explicitly abandoned marxism, which led to its disappearance in 1966.
We can also cite the existence of other groups in other countries. But what marked the situation of currents that continued to defend communist positions during the course of the 1950s and beginning of the 60s, was their extreme numerical weakness, the confidential character of their publications, their international isolation, as well as various political regressions. These led either to their disappearance pure and simple or into a sectarian withdrawal, as was notably the case with the Parti Communiste International that considered itself to be the only communist organisation in the world.
The renewal of revolutionary positions
The general strike of 1968 in France, then the different massive movements of the working class, which we've mentioned previously, put the idea of communist revolution, back on the agenda in numerous countries. The lie of Stalinism, which presented itself as ‘communist' and ‘revolutionary', had begun to fall apart. This evidently profited the currents who denounced the USSR as deviating from the ideals of the ‘Socialist Fatherland', such as the Maoists and Trotskyists. The Trotskyist movement, particularly because of its history of struggle against Stalinism, went through a second youth from 1968 and came out of the shadows cast up to then by the Stalinist parties. Its ranks were swollen in a spectacular fashion, notably in countries like France, Belgium and Britain. But since the Second World War this current had ceased to be part of the proletarian camp, above all because of its position on the defence of the alleged ‘workers' gains' in the USSR, i.e. the defence of the imperialist camp dominated by this country. In fact, the workers' strikes that developed from the end of the 60s showed the anti-working class role of the Stalinist parties and the unions. They also showed the electoral and democratic farce as instruments of bourgeois domination and this led to numerous elements around the world turning towards political currents which, in the past, had most clearly denounced the role of the unions and parliamentarism and which had better incarnated the struggle against Stalinism - the currents of the communist left.
Following May 68, the writings of Trotsky were distributed massively. Also those of Pannekoek, Gorter[[1]] and Rosa Luxemburg who, shortly before her assassination in January 1919, was one of the first to warn her Bolshevik comrades of certain dangers that menaced the revolution in Russia.
New groups appeared that drew on the experience of the communist left. In fact, the elements who understood that Trotskyism had become a sort of left wing of Stalinism turned much more towards councilism than towards the Italian Left. There were several reasons for this. On one hand, the rejection of the Stalinist parties often accompanied the rejection of any idea of the communist party; and the fact that the Bordigist current (the sole descendent of the Italian Left that had any real international extension) defended the idea of the taking of power by the communist party and defended the idea of ‘monolithism' in its own ranks, strengthening mistrust towards the historic current of the Italian Left. At the same time, the Bordigists completely overlooked the historic significance of May 68, seeing only the student dimension.
While new groups inspired by councilism began to appear, those who had existed beforehand experienced an unprecedented success, seeing their ranks strengthen in a spectacular fashion at the same time as being capable as acting as a pole of reference. This was particularly the case for the group Informations et Correspondances Ourvieres (ICO) coming out of a split from SouB in 1958. In 1969, this group organised an international meeting in Brussels attended by Cohn-Bendit, Mattick (an old militant of the German Left who had emigrated to the United States where he published diverse councilist reviews) and Carlo Brendel, animator of Daade en Gedachte. However, the success of ‘organised' councilism didn't last long. Thus, ICO pronounced its self-dissolution in 1974. The Dutch groups ceased to exist as their main animators grew too old or passed away.
In Britain, the group Solidarity, inspired by the positions of Socialisme ou Barbarie, after a success similar to that of the ICO, underwent a split and exploded in 1981 (although the group in London continued to publish a magazine up to 1992). In Scandinavia, the councilist groups which had emerged after 1968 were capable of organising a conference in Oslo in September 1977, but it didn't lead to much.
In the final account, the current which developed the most during the course of the 1970s was the one which attached itself to the positions of Bordiga (who died in July 1970). It benefited largely through an influx of elements coming out of the crises that had hit certain leftist groups (notably the Maoists) in this period. In 1980, the International Communist Party, was the most important and influential group of the communist left at the international level. But this opening out of the Bordigist current to elements strongly marked by leftism led to its explosion in 1982, reducing it to a myriad of small sects.
In fact, the most significant long term expression of this renewal of positions of the communist left has been our own organisation.[[2]] It was first constituted 40 years ago, in July 1968 in Toulouse, with the adoption of a first declaration of our principles by a small group of elements who had formed a discussion circle the year beforehand with a comrade, RV, who had entered political life in the group Internacionalismo in Venezuela. This group had been founded in 1964 by Marc Chirik who had been the main animator of the Gauche Communiste de France (1945-52), after having been a member of the Italian Fraction of the Communist Left from 1938 and having entered into militant life from 1919 (at the age of 12), first of all in the Palestinian Communist Party and then the French Communist Party.
During the general strike of May 1968, elements of the discussion circle published several leaflets signed Movement for the Founding of Workers Councils (MICO) and undertook discussions with other elements which then finally formed the group that published Revolution Internationale from the end of September 1968. This group made contact and discussed with two other groups belonging to the councilist movement. One was l'Organisation conseilliste de Clermont-Ferrand and the other published Cahiers du communism de conseils and was based in Marseilles.
Finally, in 1972, the three joined together in order to constitute what was going to become the section in France of the ICC and which began the publication of Revolution Internationale (new series).
This group, in continuity with the policy undertaken by Internacionalismo and Bilan, engaged in discussions with different groups who had appeared after 1968, notably in the United States (Internationalism). In 1972, Internationalism sent a letter to about twenty groups claiming links with the communist left, calling for the constitution of a network of correspondence and international debate. Revolution Internationale responded warmly to this initiative while proposing that the perspective should be of holding an international conference. Other groups belonging to the councilist movement also gave a positive response. For their part, groups claiming the heritage of the Italian Left were either deaf, or judged this initiative premature.
On the basis of this initiative several meetings took place between 1973 and 1974 in England and France, involving World Revolution, Revolutionary Perspectives and Workers' Voice, the first two coming out breaks with Solidarity and the last coming out of a break with Trotskyism.
Finally, this cycle of meetings ended in January 1975 with the holding of a conference where the groups sharing the same political orientation - Internacionalismo, Internationalism, Revolution Internationale, World Revolution, Rivoluzione Internazionale (Italy) and Accion Proletaria (Spain) - decided to unify within the International Communist Current.
The Current decided to pursue this policy of contacts and discussions with other groups of the communist left. This led it to participate in the 1977 Oslo conference (as well as Revolutionary Perspectives) and to respond favourably to the initiative launched in 1976 by Battaglia Comunista with a view to holding an international conference of groups of the communist left.
The three conferences that took place in 1977 (Milan), 1978 (Paris) and 1980 (Paris) aroused a growing interest among elements claiming links with the communist left but the decision by Battaglia Comunista and the Communist Workers' Organisation (coming out of a regroupment of Revolutionary Perspectives and Workers' Voice in Britain) to henceforth exclude the ICC sounded the death knell for this effort.[[3]] In a certain way, the sectarian closing up of BC and the CWO (who regrouped into the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party in 1984), at least towards the ICC, was an indication of the exhaustion of the initial impulsion given to the communist left by the historical resurgence of the world proletariat after May 1968.
However, despite the difficulties that the working class has met these last decades, notably the ideological campaigns on the ‘death of communism' after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes, the world bourgeoisie has not succeeded in inflicting a decisive defeat on it. That is shown by the fact that the current of the communist left (represented principally by the IBRP[[4]] and above all by the ICC) has maintained its positions and is now experiencing a growing interest in them from elements who, with the slow reappearance of class combats since 2003, are turning towards a revolutionary perspective.
Fabienne (6 July 2008)
[1] The two principal theoreticians of the Dutch Left.
[2] For a more complete history of the ICC, read our articles "Construction of the revolutionary organisation: 20 years of the International Communist Current" (International Review n° 80) and "30 years of the ICC: learning from the past to build the future" (International Review n° 123).
[3] Regarding these conferences see our article "The international conferences of the Communist Left (1976 - 1980) - Lessons of an experience for the proletarian milieu" in International Review n° 122
[4] The fact that the IBRP has grown less compared to that of the ICC is principally down to its sectarianism as well as its political opportunism towards regroupment (which has led it to build on sand). On this subject see our article "An opportunist policy of regroupment that will only lead to ‘abortions'' (International Review n° 121)
Today the leaders of ‘western democracy' put the blame for the current chaos and misery in Zimbabwe squarely on the corruption and vicious repression of Robert Mugabe and his dictatorial regime. Mugabe on the other hand blames all the woes of his country on the conspiratorial attempts of the former colonial powers led by Britain to overthrow him.
Meanwhile, many of today's leftists hide the fact that they once supported the ‘national liberation' struggle in Zimbabwe and the coming to power of Mugabe as in some way expressing the interests of the working class.
In fact, as this article by a close sympathiser of the ICC shows, the coming to power of a black nationalist regime in Zimbabwe was the result of a deliberate policy of the US imperialist bloc in order to protect its own strategic interests in Southern Africa. Against the hypocrisy of the democratic states today in denouncing the terror and corruption of Mugabe's regime, revolutionaries need to demonstrate that the USA, Britain and their allies were instrumental in creating the current chaos and misery in Zimbabwe.
The deepening of the global capitalist crisis in the 1970s intensified the struggle between the two rival imperialist blocs that dominated the Cold War period before the collapse of the Russian bloc. By the mid-1970s there was a significant tendency for localised inter-imperialist confrontations to move from the peripheries of the capitalist world towards its vital centres: the Middle East, the Mediterranean basin and the regions of Africa astride the major trade routes linking Europe with Asia and the Americas.
Africa became a particularly important focus for inter-imperialist conflicts, as the economically superior bloc suddenly found itself facing a threat to its strategic interests from its economically weaker Russian rival. This led to a dramatic shift in US policy, demonstrated by the intervention of French and Belgian troops in Zaire in 1978 to prevent this mineral-rich region from being overrun by Russian-armed and Cuban-trained guerrilla forces. There were also bloody inter-imperialist confrontations in the western Sahara, the Horn of Africa, and in Southern Africa - which due to all its raw materials and control over the Cape trade routes was of vital strategic importance to both blocs.
For more than two decades, faced with the overwhelming economic resources of the US, the strategy of Russian imperialism had been to attempt to weaken and destabilise its rival through the arming and training of ‘national liberation' fronts to overthrow fragile pro-American regimes or to smash the remnants of the colonial empires of the US's allies. Following the collapse of Portuguese control over Mozambique and Angola in the mid-1970s, Russian imperialism raised the stakes by directly using Cuban and East German ‘volunteers' and ‘advisers' in a formidable military build up to try to wrest these countries from the American bloc.
Faced with these attempts by its rival to destabilise Southern Africa, the US was forced to reorient its strategy with the aim of neutralising the Russian threat and ensure economic stability in the region, and in particular to safeguard South Africa itself, the capitalist jewel at the tip of the sub-continent. This meant preventing the spread of chaos in the other so-called front-line states - Mozambique, Botswana, Angola, Zambia and Zaire. The state then known as Rhodesia to the north was a weak link in this strategy - less strategically important but a dangerous source of instability, where the white minority regime of Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front had been fighting a long-running struggle against black nationalist guerrilla forces based largely in Mozambique and backed increasingly by Russian provided arms and ‘military experts'. From 1975, following the failure of talks on a transition to black majority rule, the black nationalist struggle intensified, at a time when the Russian presence in Angola was growing.
Alongside its increased willingness to participate in direct military interventions, the US committed itself to regime change in Southern Africa, reversing its previous support for Smith's racist regime. With the continued guerrilla war bleeding the country dry, and its Mozambique border closed, the land-locked Rhodesian economy was on the verge of collapse, so using its diplomatic and economic muscle the US persuaded Smith's regime to reluctantly agree to black majority rule. It was supported in this by the white South African bourgeoisie, who had also been persuaded to accept black majority rule by hard economic inducements plus assurances that their own political domination would not be fundamentally threatened. The US ‘godfather' had made the white regimes of Southern Africa an ‘offer they couldn't refuse'.
The only question was, which particular faction of the emerging black nationalist bourgeoisie would take over the Rhodesian state?
In the frenzied jockeying for position with the prospect of power in Rhodesia, the main contenders at the time were Bishop Muzorewa and Joshua Nkomo, who claimed to lead rival wings of the United African National Council (in reality a defunct political shell). The US's favoured contender was Nkomo's ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People's Union), which showed itself both moderate and willing to compromise, but lacked military support within Rhodesia.
The other force in the black nationalist struggle was the Zimbabwe African Nationalist Union (ZANU), in which Robert Mugabe had gained ascendancy, and with a military wing based in Mozambique. It was Mugabe who, while lacking US backing, ultimately had the ‘guns and muscle' to make sure the Smith regime finally conceded, and it was his ZANU which used the most radical and militant ‘national liberation' language.
The leaders of the US imperialist bloc came to realise that a Rhodesian settlement without the two wings of the Patriotic Front - Nkomo and Mugabe - would risk allowing the Russians to increase their intervention in the guerrilla war, and they therefore decided to integrate the Front into a political settlement before Russia could use its military support as a tool in its strategy of destabilisation.
In 1978 there was a last ditch attempt by the doomed Smith regime to reach an internal settlement with the moderate black nationalist factions. The US, together with its loyal British lieutenant led by the Labour Party, refused to support the resulting elections in which Muzorewa's supporters won a majority. The settlement was opposed by the Patriotic Front, which refused to lay down its arms and was thus able to present itself as the only genuine opponent of the regime, honing its radical credentials with the black working class.
The International Herald Tribune, clearly spelled out the American strategy: "This agreement endangers the most important American interests in Africa. These interests demand that there will be a peaceful transition to black majority rule in all of southern Africa, and that any conflict which risks provoking the intervention of foreign powers is avoided. The surest means of promoting a peaceful transition is to insist that any agreement includes the Patriotic Front."
The leaders of the Patriotic Front were subsequently invited by the British bourgeoisie to participate in a ‘negotiated peace', leading to new elections under British supervision. The Lancaster House agreement in December 1979 finally ended the seven years of guerrilla war, and the US imperialist bloc finally achieved its desired carve up - this time assisted by the Conservative government, which despite its bluster about not supporting terrorists quickly fell into line with US policy. The front-line states, desperate for western loans and economic aid, were also instrumental in exerting pressure on the Front to sign an agreement, in order to prevent further disruption to their own economies caused by the war, and to avert the threat of spreading social unrest.
After seven years of open fighting, the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean economy was officially bankrupt, and the black masses, having experienced the massacres and murder of the civil war, now faced more misery and chaos, this time under the cover of socialist rhetoric about reconstructing ‘their' country. But for the US bourgeoisie, as the ICC put it, Robert Mugabe was "capitalism's latest superstar" (WR 29, April 1980).
In the elections held as part of the Lancaster House agreement in early 1980, Mugabe's ZANU won a landslide victory, which was initially viewed as a problem for the US bloc. However, Mugabe, the former ‘marxist' guerrilla and ‘scientific socialist', and the most reluctant to accept agreement during the ‘peace talks', rapidly reassured western leaders by confirming that the new government would, in its leader's own words, "retain the economic structure of the country within the existing capitalist framework." It would also adhere to the letter and spirit of the constitution and uphold "fundamental rights and freedoms." He even re-employed the old white military leadership to integrate the former guerrilla forces with the Rhodesian security forces. The reaction of the Tory government in Britain on hearing the election results was to rush to dispel the impression that Mugabe was a puppet of the Soviet Union.
All in all, the outcome of the Zimbabwe elections was a cause for congratulations in the ranks of the democratic bourgeoisie, and was rightly seen as a victory for US imperialism which, through the peace deal in Zimbabwe and the support of the other front-line states, regained the initiative from its Russian rival. In Angola the MPLA could not afford to finance the continuation of a war outside of its borders when it faced American-backed guerrilla forces operating in its own territory, while ‘red' Mozambique played a crucial role in aiding America's cease fire plan by threatening an end to its support for Mugabe's forces operating within its borders.
The Russian bloc, unable to compete with the superior economic strength of its US rival, lacking its political and diplomatic muscle, lost out all along the line in Southern Africa and other strategic regions like the Middle East, as its former satellites desperately sought the economic aid and stability the US could offer; it also began the 1980s increasingly bogged down in the war in Afghanistan.
As the ICC warned at the time, the coming to power of a black nationalist regime in Zimbabwe could not be seen in any way as a victory for the working class, and the success of the US bloc's strategy to stabilise the region only made it possible for the new black bourgeoisie to do what all bourgeoisies in decadent capitalism do - attempt to reconstruct the national capital from the blood and sweat of the proletariat: the only difference from before would be the rhetoric used by the government.
MH 29/08/08
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/george-bush
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/barack-obama
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/economic-crisis
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/us-elections-2008
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/17/465/us-presidential-elections-2008
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/food-crisis
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/georgia
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/saakashvili
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/war-georgia
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/186/imperialism
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/libcom
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[15] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/alastair-darling
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/readers-letters
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/262/environment
[18] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/revolutionary-syndicalism
[19] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/may-68
[20] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/france
[21] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/zimbabwe-1980
[22] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/zimbabwe
[23] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/robert-mugabe