The strike that began on 20th January in Guadeloupe has made its mark in Martinique from the 5th February and threatens to spread to Reunion and Guyana, the other overseas ‘départements' of the old French empire. This is not an exotic conflict: it is truly an authentic expression of the international resurgence of class struggle, a testimony to a general rise in anger and militancy amongst workers faced with high living expenses and worsening conditions and wages.

Average prices in the Antilles are between 35 and 50% higher than in France (carrots 164%, endives 135%, leeks 107%, meat or chicken more than 50% and apples for example are double the price); unemployment is at 24% officially - 56% amongst people under 25. The territory also has more than 52 000 on income support.  Despite the strength of nationalist (autonomist" or "indépendantist") feeling amongst strikers, the 146 demands put forward by the strikers are all linked to the question of attacks on the standard of living: for an immediate reduction in the price and of all the most important products, for lower taxes and impositions, freeze rents, raise wages by 200 euros for all workers and also pensions for the retired and income support, lower the price of water and public transport, bring in formal contracts for insecure private sector workers comparable to those in the public sector. The popularity of these demands and the obstinacy of the struggle testifies also to the level of the mobilisation and fighting spirit of the workers; the same can be said of the demonstrations in France on 29th January, the recent riots of young proletarians in Greece, the demonstrations in Iceland and the recent strikes in Great Britain.

Despite the media propaganda stressing the importance of local identity, a theme put forward in particular by cultural associations (demonstrations and rhythmic chants to the traditional drum), and above all with their hype around demands about being "creoles" confronted by the "békés" and a nationalist or anti-colonial tone, these traditional characteristics of the movement in the Antilles have been constantly relegated to the second level. The LKP (Union against Super-profits) which includes 49 organisations, unions, political groups, cultural associations and clubs, and its charismatic leader Elie Domota has searched to channel a struggle which clearly puts the exploitation of the workers at the forefront.

We must salute the solidarity of this massive and unified strike which shows the way forward for the whole of the working class in the face of a general deterioration of its living conditions.

Since the start of the strike there are no buses running, schools, universities, hypermarkets, administrative offices and most businesses have been shut. The port, the commercial centre and the industrial zone at Pointe-a-Pitre have been deserted. There again, faced with lack of food or petrol, a true class solidarity has been expressed, exercised at all levels between parents, friends or neighbours. The protest movements against the high cost of living started on the 16th and 17th December 2008 with some protests in the streets of Pointe-a-Pitre and of Basse-Terre, when the prefect refused to receive a delegation of strikers which was judged to be too large and their access to the prefecture was stopped by the deployment of numerous police officers.

In Guadaloupe the demonstration of the 30th January at Pointe-a-Pitre started with some thousands and quickly reached 65000 demonstrators in the centre of the town. It was the biggest demonstration ever in the islands (relative to the population of the island). It's equivalent to having 10 million in the streets of Paris.

One thousand school children and college students joined the workers on strike. Le Palais de La Mutualité de Pointe-a-Pitre became a rallying point, a place for expression and debate where numerous workers have spoken up, expressing their anger or disarray about their living conditions. In one of the first negotiation meetings, on the 26th January, some journalists and striking technicians from Radio-France Outre-mer (RFO) had placed cameras in the meeting room and loudspeakers on the outside of the building in order to allow everyone to follow directly all of the negotiations.

Just as in Guadaloupe, on the basis of the same demands and with the same slogans there were 20000 demonstrators in the streets of Fort-de-France on the 9th February.

The arrival of Yves Jégo, the Seretary of State for Overseas on the island has allowed most of 115 fuel stations to be re-opened (the owners were on strike as well) on the promise that the opening of certain new automatic stations by the big petrol companies will be limited. The sub-ministry has made many other promises in order to attempt to defuse the conflict (lower taxes on petrol products, on dairy foods, reduction of tax on dwellings and local taxes) and has even undertaken to help the negotiations with the equivalent of 130 euros of exonerations per worker. However, the negotiations on the 200 euros of monthly wage increase were already underway between the bosses and the unions, under the aegis of the prefect. Jégo was reminded of this by the Prime Minister, Fillon, and was called back to Paris in short order. On his departure he made contradictory declarations (he later maintained that he had never promised anything on the subject of wage rises: "It is for the employers and the unions to negotiate in this field"), his lightening return to the island, this time practically taken off the case, flanked by two "mediators", only stirred greater anger in the population, shocked by such contempt and such lies.

Under the pressure of the anger of the strikers and of the population in general, the unions and the LKP have been forced to take up radical positions. The call has been made for general assemblies in all businesses, the "marching delegations" from one business to another have been increasing, the strengthening of the pickets has been decided upon. The proposition by the regional council (supported by the local Socialist party) to defuse the conflict by offering 100 euros as a monthly bonus for three months has been refused by the strikers.

On the 14th February a demonstration of more than 10, 000 people took place at Moule to commemorate the events of 1952 when, after a strike which had lasted three and a half months, the CRS fired on demonstrators, killing four sugar cane workers and wounding fourteen others. There is still a sugar cane factory at the place, Gardel, close to a power station; it employs more than 9000 people. In May 1967 a bloodier repression of a construction workers' demonstration saw more than one hundred die at Pointe-a-Pitre.
For some weeks, the numerous manoeuvres and trip wires used to ruin and divide the strike and defuse the movement, to move it on to a purely nationalist terrain have not succeeded. On the 16th February even though the LKP was trying to tame the road blocks in order "to denounce the blockage of negotiations", the French Government was raising the pitch, declaring that "the continuing situation is intolerable", and police had started charging demonstrators (though up to that point there had been no injuries), wounding two and proceeding to arrest fifty even if everyone was released three hours later.
In the Antilles, like in mainland France and elsewhere the social tempest has started to blow and this frightens the bourgeoisie. Everywhere, through the hard experience of struggle aggravated by the crisis and the failure of capitalism, and despite all the traps and the obstacles that its implacable enemies place before it, the working class is in the process of rediscovering its class identity and of waking up to the power of unity and of solidarity in its ranks. It is entering a historic period in which nothing will be able any longer to remain as before, "when those above can't go on as before and those below won't go on as before" as Lenin already put it nearly a century ago.

W 17/2/09

The following article about the recent strike at the Giardini del Sole factory in the Philippines is published by the ICC's section Internasyonalismo

---

After two days strike of Giardini[1] workers led by the union last February 3-4, the union and the leftist party[2] that control them agreed with the management and local government of Mandaue City to lift the strike and accept the retrenchment package.

This is another defeat of the workers who are united to fight and defy capitalist laws to defend their jobs in the midst of crisis of over-production. Worst, even the separation pay and back wages that has been promised will depend on the capacity of the company to "recover" from the crisis[3].

Before the strike, the union led them to its first defeat by agreeing on the work rotation. But it was a trap by the capitalist because the real aim of the latter is to kick them out from the company.

The lessons of this defeat:

1. For an effective and powerful resistance against capitalist attacks - redundancies, work rotation, reduction of working days - united workers must DEFY the capitalist laws that prevent them to launch strikes and paralyse the production of the company. For two days strike, Giardini workers defied capitalist laws that make their struggle effective. Militant Filipino workers in the ‘70s and ‘80s had many experience of defying the dictatorial and military rule of the state in launching strikes.

2. Isolated strike, like what the union did to Giardini workers leads to defeat and submission to what the bosses and government want. Giardini workers struggle by defying capitalist laws. But they struggle alone....that's why they were defeated.

The only effective militant struggles today are widespread struggles in as many companies as possible like what happened in Bangladesh textile workers strike last 2006 or Egypt's textile workers mass strike in 2006-2007. Only through the extension of struggle to many factories and companies that the anti-working class laws and the suppressive apparatus of the state could be prevented.

3. The workers themselves must be the one to decide and lead their own struggles through their assemblies and factory strike committees or inter-strike committees at the city level, at the very least. They must struggle outside the control of the union or any electoral party of the Right or Left of the bourgeoisie. Unions and electoral parties in the Philippines are only interested in the projection of their own organization for more union membership or electoral gains. As the economic and political crisis worsens as never before, their competition also worsens. Intense competition within the unions of Right and Left and electoral parties against each other continue to grow deeper. Unions and parties prevent the extension and widespread unity of the workers because it means self-organization of the latter outside the unions and reformist parties. Most of all, unions already become an appendage of the state to protect the interests of national capitalism.

4. They must coordinate their struggle in the international level and learn the experience of their brothers/sisters in other countries, especially in countries where the workers have more experience in struggle - Western Europe. International workers' solidarity is the best weapon to win the struggle against world-wide attacks of the bosses. Filipino proletariat could learn well the experience of the militant workers around the world in launching "illegal" strikes (ie wildcat strikes) which are increasing today and mass meetings or general assemblies which are the main forms of organization in struggle.

The defeat of Giardini workers gave valuable lessons to the militant Filipino proletariat in their future struggles against national capitalism and attacks by their bosses. With this, the struggle of the workers of Giardini has not been in vain. More than ever before, the clarion call, "THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKING CLASS MUST BE THE WORK OF THE WORKERS THEMSELVES" is valid and necessary, especially in the epoch of decadent capitalism where communist revolution is already on the historical agenda.

 

---

 

[1] Giardini del Sole, an Italian-owned furniture export company based in Cebu, Philippines. It has 485 workers. But because of the world crisis, it sacrificed 245 workers by kicking them out of the street and let them die in hunger.

[2] They are led by Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party), a leftist electoral party.

[3] "NCMB 7 Director Edmundo Mirasol Jr. expressed optimism that the labor dispute will be settled soon. Mirasol said that once the company can afford to give the separation pay, payments will be coursed through the Dole 7." (Source URL: www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/jonas-steps-row-strikers-management-come-deal [7])

 

 

During the ICC's last congresses, we pointed out an international trend towards the emergence of new groups and individuals moving towards the positions of the Communist Left, and we highlighted both the importance of this process and the responsibility that this imposes on our organisation:

"The work of the 16th Congress [had as its] main preoccupation (...) to examine the revival of class struggle and the responsibilities this imposes on our organisation, particularly as we are confronted with the development of a new generation of elements looking for a revolutionary political perspective".[1]

"It is the responsibility of revolutionary organisations, and of the ICC in particular, to be an active part in the process of reflection that is already going on within the class, not only by intervening actively in the struggles when they start to develop but also in stimulating the development of the groups and elements who are seeking to join the struggle."[2]

"The congress (...) drew a very positive balance sheet of our policy towards groups and elements working towards the defence of the positions of the communist left (...) the most positive aspect of this policy has without doubt been our capacity to establish or strengthen links with other groups based on revolutionary positions, as illustrated by the participation of four of these groups in our congress".[3]

It was thus that our last international congress, for the first time in a quarter century, was able to welcome the delegations of different groups that stood clearly on internationalist class positions (OPOP from Brazil, the SPA from Korea, EKS from Turkey, and the Internasyonalismo group from the Philippines,[4] although the latter was unable to be present physically). Contacts and discussions have continued since with other groups and elements from other parts of the world, especially in Latin America where we have been able to hold public meetings in Peru, Ecuador, and Santo Domingo.[5] The discussions with the comrades of EKS and Internasyonalismo led them to pose their candidature to join the ICC, given their growing agreement with our positions. For some time, these discussions have been continuing within the framework of an integration process whose general lines are described in the text published on our web site: "How do you join the ICC?".[6]

During this period, the comrades have thus undertaken in-depth discussions on our Platform, and kept us informed with accounts of their discussions. Several delegations from the ICC have visited them on the spot to discuss with them and were able to see for themselves the comrades' profound militant commitment and the clarity of their agreement with our organisational principles. At the conclusion of these discussions, the latest plenary session of the ICC's central organ was therefore able to take the decision to integrate both groups as new sections of our organisation.

Most of the ICC's sections are based in Europe[7] or in the Americas,[8] and until now the only section outside these two continents was the one in India. The integration of these two new sections into our organisation thus considerably broadens the ICC's geographical extension.

The Philippines is a vast country in a region of the world that has recently undergone a rapid industrial growth, and a resulting growth in the number of workers - not to mention the diaspora of 8 million Filipino migrant workers around the world. In recent years, this growth has fed many illusions about capitalism getting its "second wind"; today on the contrary it is clear that the "emerging" countries have no more chance of escaping the ravages of the developing crisis than the "old" capitalist countries. Capitalism's contradictions will thus be violently sharpened in the coming period throughout this region, and this will inevitably provoke social movements, which will not be limited to the hunger riots that we witnessed in the spring of 2007 but will also involve the struggles of the working class.

The formation of a section in Turkey strengthens the ICC's presence on the Asian continent, more especially in a region close to one of the most critical flashpoints in today's imperialist tensions: the Middle East. Indeed, the comrades of EKS were already intervening by leaflet last year to denounce the military manoeuvres of the Turkish bourgeoisie in northern Iraq (see "EKS leaflet: against the Turkish army's latest ‘Operation' [9]" on our web site).

The ICC has been accused on more than one occasion of having a "Euro-centrist" view of the development of workers' struggles and the revolutionary perspective because it has insisted on the decisive role of the proletariat in the countries of Western Europe:

"It's not until the proletarian struggle hits the economic heart of capital,

-- when it's no longer possible to set up an economic cordon sanitaire, since it will be the richest economies that will be effected;

-- when the setting up of a political cor­don sanitaire will have no more effect because it will be the most developed proletariat con­fronting the most powerful bourgeoisie; only then will the struggle give the signal for the world revolutionary conflagration (...)

Only by attacking its heart and head will the proletariat be able to defeat the capitalist beast.

For centuries, history has placed the heart and head of the capitalist world in Western Europe. The world revolution will take its first steps where capitalism took its first steps. It's here that the conditions for the revolut­ion, enumerated above, can be found in the most developed form (...)

It is thus only in Western Europe, where the proletariat has the longest experience of struggle, where it has already been confronted for decades with all the ‘working class' mystifications of the most elaborate kind, that there can be a full development of the political consciousness which is indispensable in its struggle for revolution".[9]

Our organisation has already answered this accusation of "Euro-centrism":

"This is in no way a ‘Euro-centrist' view. It is the bourgeois world itself which began in Europe, which developed the oldest proletariat with the greatest amount of experience." (ibid.).

Above all, we have always considered that revolutionaries have a vital part to play in the countries of capitalism's periphery:

"This does not mean that the class struggle or the activity of revolutionaries has no sense in the other parts of the world. The working class is one class. The class strug­gle exists everywhere that labour and capital face each other. The lessons of the different manifestations of this struggle are valid for the whole class no matter where they are drawn from: in particular, the experience of the struggle in the peripheral countries will influ­ence the struggle in the central ones. The revolution will be worldwide and will involve all countries. The revolutionary currents of the class are precious wherever the proletariat takes on the bourgeoisie, ie, all over the world" (ibid).

This obviously applies for countries like Turkey or the Philippines.

In these countries, the struggle to defend communist ideas is difficult indeed. It has to confront the classic mystifications that the ruling class uses to block the development of the struggle and consciousness of the working class (democratic and electoral illusions, the sabotage of workers' struggles by the union apparatus, and the poison of nationalism). But more than that, the struggle of the working class and of revolutionaries comes up directly and immediately not only against the government's official forces of repression but also against armed forces opposed to the government, such as the PKK in Turkey or the different guerrilla movements in the Philippines, whose brutality and lack of scruples is fully the equal of the government's, for the simple reason that they too defend capitalism, even though under a different guise. This situation makes the activity of the ICC's two new sections more dangerous than it is in the countries of Europe and North America.

Before its integration into the ICC, the section in the Philippines was already publishing its own web site in Tagalog (the country's official language) as well as in English (widely used in the Philippines). Present conditions make it impossible for the comrades to publish a regular printed press (other than occasional leaflets) and our web site will thus become the main means for the spread of our positions in there.

The section in Turkey will continue to publish the review Dunya Devrimi, which now becomes the ICC's publication in that country.

As we wrote in International Review n°122: "We salute these comrades who are moving towards communist positions and towards our organisation. We say to them: "You have made a good choice, the only one possible if you aim to integrate yourselves into the struggle for the proletarian revolution. But this is not the easiest of choices: you will not have a lot of immediate success, you need patience and tenacity and to learn not to be put off when the results you obtain don't quite live up to your hopes. But you will not be alone: the militants of the ICC are at your side and they are conscious of the responsibility that your approach confers on them. Their will, expressed at the 16th Congress, is to live up to these responsibilities"." (ICC 16th Congress, op.cit.). These words were addressed to all the elements and groups who had made the choice to take up the defence of the positions of the Communist Left. They obviously apply first and foremost to the two new sections that have just joined our organisation.

To the two new sections, and to the comrades who have formed them, the whole ICC addresses a heartfelt and fraternal welcome.

 

ICC

 

---

 

[1] International Review n°122 [10]

[2] International Review n°130, "Resolution on the international situation [11]".

[3] International Review n°130, "The proletarian camp reinforced worldwide" [12]

[4] OPOP: Oposição Operária (Workers' Opposition); SPA: Socialist Political Alliance; EKS: Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol (Internationalist Communist Left); Internasyonalismo (Internationalism).

[5] See on our web site "Internationalist debate in the Dominican Republic [13]", "Reunión Pública de la CCI en Perú: Hacia la construcción de un medio de debate y clarificación [14]" and "Reunion pública de la CCI en Ecuador: un momento del debate internacionalista [15]".

[6] "The ICC has always enthusiastically welcomed the new elements who want to join us (...) However, this enthusiasm does not at all imply that we have a policy of recruitment for its own sake, like the Trotskyist organisations (...) Our policy is not one of premature integrations on an unclear, opportunist basis (...)The ICC is not a bed and breakfast stopover and it's not interested in fishing for members.

Neither do we peddle illusions. This is why those readers who pose the question 'how do you go about joining the ICC?' have to understand that becoming part of the ICC takes time. Every comrade who poses his candidature must therefore be prepared to be patient. The process of integration is a means whereby the candidate finds out for himself the depth of his conviction, so that the decision to become a militant is not taken lightly or on the spur of the moment. This is also the best guarantee we can offer that his will towards militant engagement does not end up in failure and demoralisation".

[7] Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Britain, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland.

[8] USA, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela.

[9] International Review n°31, "The proletariat of Western Europe at the centre of the generalization of the class struggle" [16]

This year sees the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth (and the passing of 150 years since the publication of Origin of Species). The marxist wing of the workers' movement has always saluted Darwin's outstanding contributions to humanity's understanding of itself and nature.

In many ways Darwin was typical of his time, interested in observing nature and happy to conduct experiments on animal and plant life. His empirical work with, among other things, bees, beetles, worms, pigeons and barnacles, was scrupulous and detailed. Darwin's dogged attention to the latter was such that his younger children "began to think that all adults must be similarly employed, leading one to ask of a neighbour ‘Where does he do his barnacles?'" (Darwin, Desmond & Moore).

What distinguished Darwin was his ability to go beyond details, to theorise and look for historical processes when others were content just to categorise phenomena or accept existing explanations. A typical example of this was his response to discovering marine fossils thousands of feet up in the Andes. Armed with the experience of an earthquake and Lyell's Principles of Geology he was able to speculate on the scale of earth movements that had caused the contents of the sea bed to end up in the mountains, without having to resort to Biblical accounts of a Great Flood. "I am a firm believer, that without speculation there is no good & original observations" (as he wrote in a letter to AR Wallace, 22/12/1857)

He was also not afraid to take observations from one field and use them in other areas. Although Marx held most of the writings of Thomas Malthus in contempt, Darwin was able to use his ideas on human population growth in developing his theory of evolution. "In October 1838 I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstance favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation on new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work" (Darwin's ‘Recollections of the Development of my mind and character').

It was 20 years before this theory made its public appearance in Origin of Species, but the essentials are already there. In Origin Darwin explains that he uses "the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphorical sense" and "for convenience sake" and that by Natural Selection he means the "preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations." The idea of evolution was not new, but, already, in 1838, Darwin was already developing an explanation of how species evolved. He compared the techniques of greyhound breeders and pigeon fanciers (artificial selection) with natural selection and thought it the most "beautiful part of my theory" (Darwin quoted in Desmond & Moore).

The method of historical materialism

Within three weeks of the publication of Origin of Species Engels wrote to Marx: "Darwin, whom I am just reading, is magnificent. Teleology had not been demolished in one respect, but this has now been done. Furthermore, there has never been until now so splendid an attempt to prove historical development in nature, at least with so much success." The ‘demolition of teleology' refers to the clout that Origin delivered to all religious, idealist or metaphysical ideas that try to ‘explain' phenomena by their purpose rather than their cause. This is fundamental to a materialist view of the world. As Engels wrote in Anti-Dürhing (chapter 1), Darwin "dealt the metaphysical conception of nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals and man himself, are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years,"

In draft materials for Dialectics of Nature Engels set out the significance of Origin of Species. "Darwin, in his epoch-making work, set out from the widest existing basis of chance. Precisely the infinite, accidental differences between individuals within a single species, differences which become accentuated until they break through the character of the species, ... compelled him to question the previous basis of all regularity in biology, viz, the concept of species in its previous metaphysical rigidity and unchangeability."

Marx read Origin a year after it was published, and at once wrote to Engels (19/12/1860) "this is the book that contains the basis in natural history for our ideas". He later wrote that the book served "as a natural-scientific basis for the class struggle in history" (letter to Lasalle, 16/1/1862).

Despite their enthusiasm for Darwin, Marx and Engels were not without their criticisms. They were very aware of the influence of Malthus, and also that the insights of Darwin were used in ‘Social Darwinism' to justify the status quo of Victorian society with great wealth for some and prison, the work-house, disease, starvation or emigration for the poor. In his introduction to Dialectics of Nature Engels draws out some of the implications. "Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind,... when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom." It's only the "conscious organisation of social production" that can take humanity from the struggle for survival to the expansion of the means of production as the basis of life, enjoyment and development; and that ‘conscious organisation' requires a revolution by the producers, the working class.

Engels also saw where the struggles of humanity (and the marxist understanding of them) went beyond Darwin's framework "The conception of history as a series of class struggles is already much richer in content and deeper than merely reducing it to weakly distinguished phases of the struggle for existence"(Dialectics of Nature ‘Notes and Fragments').

However, such criticisms don't undermine Darwin's status in the history of scientific thought. In a speech at Marx's graveside Engels emphasised that "Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history"

Marxism after Darwin

While Darwin has been in and out of fashion in bourgeois thought (but not with serious scientists) the marxist wing of the workers' movement has never deserted him.

Plekhanov, in a footnote to The Development of the Monist View of History (chapter 5) describes the relationship between the thinking of Darwin and Marx: "Darwin succeeded in solving the problem of how there originate vegetable and animal species in the struggle for existence. Marx succeeded in solving the problem of how there arise different types of social organisation in the struggle of men for their existence. Logically, the investigation of Marx begins precisely where the investigation of Darwin ends [...]The spirit of their research is absolutely the same in both thinkers. That is why one can say that Marxism is Darwinism in its application to social science."

An example of the interrelation between marxism and the contributions of Darwin comes in Kautsky's Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History. Although Kautsky overstates the importance of Darwin, he draws on The Descent of Man when trying to outline the importance of altruistic feelings, of social instincts in the development of morality. In Chapter 5 of Descent, Darwin describes how "primeval man" became social and how "they would have warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in attack. All this implies some degree of sympathy, fidelity, and courage". He outlines "When two tribes of primeval man ... came into competition, if one included ... a greater number of courageous, sympathetic, and faithful members, who were always ready to warn each other of danger, to aid and defend each other, this tribe would without doubt succeed best and conquer the other. Let it be borne in mind how all-important, in the never-ceasing wars of savages, fidelity and courage must be. The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows chiefly from the confidence which each man feels in his comrades. ... Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected." Darwin no doubt exaggerates the degree to which primitive societies were engaged in constant warfare against each other, but the necessity for cooperation as a basis for survival was no less important in activities such as the hunt and in the distribution of the social product. This is the other side of the ‘struggle for existence', where we see the triumph of mutual solidarity and confidence over fractiousness and egoism.

From Darwin to a communist future

Anton Pannekoek was not only a great marxist, but also an astronomer of distinction (a crater on the far side of the moon and an asteroid are named after him). No discussion of ‘Marxism and Darwinism' would be complete without some reference to his 1909 text of that name. For a start, Pannekoek refines our understanding of the relationship between Marxism and Darwinism.

The "struggle for existence, formulated by Darwin and emphasized by Spencer, has a different effect on men than on animals. The principle that struggle leads to the perfection of the weapons used in the strife, leads to different results between men and animals. In the animal, it leads to a continuous development of natural organs; that is the foundation of the theory of descent, the essence of Darwinism. In men, it leads to a continuous development of tools, of the means of production. This, however, is the foundation of Marxism. Here we see that Marxism and Darwinism are not two independent theories, each of which applies to its special domain, without having anything in common with the other. In reality, the same principle underlies both theories. They form one unit. The new course taken by men, the substitution of tools for natural organs, causes this fundamental principle to manifest itself differently in the two domains; that of the animal world to develop according to Darwinian principles, while among mankind the Marxian principle applies."

Pannekoek also expanded on the idea of the social instinct on the basis of Kautsky and Darwin's contributions.

"That group in which the social instinct is better developed will be able to hold its ground, while the group in which social instinct is low will either fall an easy prey to its enemies or will not be in a position to find favourable feeding places. These social instincts become therefore the most important and decisive factors that determine who shall survive in the struggle for existence. It is owing to this that the social instincts have been elevated to the position of predominant factors."

"The sociable animals are in a position to beat those that carry on the struggle individually"

The distinction between the sociable animals and homo sapiens lies, among other things, in consciousness.

"Everything that applies to the social animals applies also to man. Our ape-like ancestors and the primitive men developing from them were all defenceless, weak animals who, as almost all apes do, lived in tribes. Here the same social motives and instincts had to arise which later developed to moral feelings. That our customs and morals are nothing other than social feelings, feelings that we find among animals, is known to all; even Darwin spoke about ‘the habits of animals which would be called moral among men.' The difference is only in the measure of consciousness; as soon as these social feelings become clear to men, they assume the character of moral feelings."

‘Social Darwinism' also comes under attack from Pannekoek as he shows how ‘bourgeois Darwinists' came full circle - the world described by Malthus and Hobbes is unsurprisingly like the world described by Hobbes and Malthus! "Under capitalism, the human world resembles mostly the world of rapacious animals and it is for this very reason that the bourgeois Darwinists looked for men's prototype among animals living isolated. To this they were led by their own experience. Their mistake, however, consisted in considering capitalist conditions as everlasting. The relation existing between our capitalist competitive system and animals living isolated, was thus expressed by Engels in his book, Anti-Dühring as follows:

‘Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world market made the struggle universal and at the same time gave it unheard-of virulence. Advantages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide the existence or non-existence of individual capitalists as well as of whole industries and countries. He that falls is remorselessly cast aside. It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence. The conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term of human development.'"

But capitalist conditions are not everlasting, and the working class has the capacity to overthrow them and end the division of society into classes with antagonistic interests.

"With the abolition of classes the entire civilised world will become one great productive community. Within this community mutual struggle among members will cease and will be carried on with the outside world. It will no longer be a struggle against our own kind, but a struggle for subsistence, a struggle against nature. But owing to development of technique and science, this can hardly be called a struggle. Nature is subject to man and with very little exertion from his side she supplies him with abundance. Here a new career opens for man: man's rising from the animal world and carrying on his struggle for existence by the use of tools, ceases, and a new chapter of human history begins."  

Car 28/1/9

David Attenborough's contribution to the BBC's Darwin bi-centenary season (‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life', 1/2/9) was a masterly defence of the theory of evolution, delivered with Attenborough's customary ability to convey complex scientific ideas using straightforward language and copious, beautifully filmed illustrations, and with his usual infectious enthusiasm and respect for the natural world.

Placing Darwin's ideas in their historical context, Attenborough brought out the subversive implications of the theory of evolution by natural selection, given that the scientific establishment that Darwin was forced to confront was still, in the 1840s and 1850s, deeply influenced by a static view of nature in which species were created once and for all by divine decree, and in which the vast expanses of Earth's past history were only beginning to be revealed by developments in the study of geology. Attenborough showed very clearly how the force of this new forward-step in man's awareness of his place in nature carried Darwin along, despite his reluctance to offend his devout wife and to cause a scandal in polite society; the simultaneous formulation of a theory of natural selection by Alfred Wallace was, apart from being a potent personal spur for Darwin to finally publish his findings, testimony to the irresistible power of the evolution of ideas when the conditions underlying them are ripe.

In taking up the contemporary objections to Darwin's theory, Attenborough did not treat them with contempt; he merely located them within their own historical limitations and demonstrated with utter conviction how new finds in palaeontology and zoology demolished their foundations - enjoying with particular relish the opportunity to recount the story of archaeopteryx and the duck-billed platypus, transitional forms between reptile and bird and reptile and mammal which provided a solid answer to the question: ‘if species evolve, where are the missing links?'

Of course Darwin was the product of a bourgeoisie that was still very much in its ascendant phase. A clear sign that this phase is long behind us is the fact that, today, in the 21st century, highly influential factions of this ruling class - whether the Christian Right in the USA or the various Islamic parties around the globe - have regressed into the most literal version of Biblical and Koranic creationism and continue to vilify Darwin despite the mass of evidence in favour of his basic ideas that has accrued in this past century and a half. But, as Pannekoek and others have pointed out, the bourgeoisie's tendency to take refuge in religion and to abandon the bold, iconoclastic views of its revolutionary hey-day was noticeable as soon as the proletariat overtly affirmed itself as a dangerously antagonistic force within capitalist society (above all after the uprisings of 1848). And by the same token, the workers' movement immediately cottoned on to the revolutionary implications of a theory which showed that consciousness can emerge out of the unconscious layers of life in response to material circumstances and not through the mediation of a Director from on high: the obvious implication being that the largely unconscious masses could also come to self-awareness through the struggle to satisfy their own material needs.

Of course it is not true that the whole of the bourgeoisie has sunk back into creationism; there is also a bourgeois consensus which sees science and technology as progressive in themselves and which, by abstracting them from the social relations that allowed them to develop, is incapable of explaining why so much of scientific research and so many technological breakthroughs have been used to make a total mess of society and nature. And it is precisely this reality which has driven large numbers of those who do not profit from the present social system to look for answers in the mythologies of the past. The same phenomenon of repulsion also applies to the vision of man's place in the universe put forward by so many bourgeois ‘defenders' of science, an outlook that is unremittingly bleak because it gives vent to a deeply alienated conception of man's essential separation from a hostile nature. But Attenborough cannot be put in this category. Marvelling at birds in flight or laughing at chimpanzees at play, Attenborough concluded his presentation by reminding us of another implication of Darwin's theory - its challenge to the Biblical view of man as a being who has ‘dominion' over nature, and its confirmation, instead, of our deep relationship with the rest of life and our total inter-dependence with it. At this point, Attenborough sounded not a little like Engels, in that passage from ‘The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man', which contains a warning against hubris but also a perspective for the future:

"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, and making it possible for them to pour still more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus 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 of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly".   

Amos 6/2/9

War or revolution. Barbarism or socialism. In our epoch, these are the only choices facing the international proletarian movement.

Because we choose revolution and socialism, we chose to integrate ourselves into the ICC. To make the world proletarian revolution a reality and to achieve communism, communists must have an organization which is world-wide in scope and level. Most of all, an organization which has a clear and coherent Marxist platform.

We have undergone a long, serious and collective process of theoretical clarification basing itself on the experience of the international workers' movement and on our own experience in the Philippines as militants within the proletarian movement. This is not easy for us considering that there has been no left-communist influence in the Philippines for over 80 years. For almost a century, it is inculcated in our minds and to the entire workers' movement that Stalinism-Maoism is the "theory of communism".

For us, the most important thing is theoretical clarification and discussion for the regroupment of revolutionaries. Numbers in an organization are useless unless it is based on a clear and strong theoretical foundation from more than 200 years experience of the proletariat around the world.

It is a leap for revolutionary minorities on the understanding of the theory of decadent capitalism in order to firmly uphold the living Marxism in the epoch of imperialism. The theory of decadence is the foundation of why we are convinced that the ICC is the most correct and has the most steadfast Marxist platform in line with the actual evolution of capitalism and in summing-up the lessons of the practice of the international proletariat for more than two centuries.

However, the ICC's platform is not a dead platform. It is a living platform tested in the actual and dynamics of class struggle and evolution of capitalism. That is why it is very important the continuing and widespread internal debate not only inside the ICC but also within the proletarian camp in general. We witness how the ICC uphold and practice this.

Our understanding of left-communism might not as deep as in our comrades in Europe where the longest and richest experienced proletarian class resides. But we are confident that our theoretical clarification is enough to integrate in an international communist organization.

As a new section of a unified and centralized international organization - ICC - continuing living discussions and debates among communists to analyze and study the crucial questions for the advancement of the world communist revolution would be more organized, centralized and widespread. Most of all, the interventions of revolutionary minorities would be more effective.

We know that we will confront a high risk in the Philippines because we firmly uphold internationalism and communist revolution. Both the Right and Left of the bourgeoisie in the Philippines, with their own armed organizations, hate the Marxist revolutionaries because we are a barrier to their mystifications to divert the struggles of the Filipino proletariat away from international proletarian revolution. Left-communists are mortal enemy of all the factions of the Filipino bourgeoisie.

This is the challenge for the internationalist-communists in the Philippines: surmount all difficulties and continue the theoretical clarification, interventions in the workers' struggles in the Philippines and relate with all the communist comrades in other countries, especially in Asia.

We want also to convey our whole-hearted greetings to the comrades in Turkey (EKS) in their integration to the ICC as the new section in that country. The formation of the two new sections of ICC in the Philippines and Turkey in times where the system is in its very deep crisis and there are widespread resistance of the working class is the concrete indication that elements and groups around the world searching for revolutionary alternative to the decadent and decomposing capitalism are growing; elements who are conscious of the deceptions and mystifications of nationalism, democracy, parliamentarism and unionism.

INTERNASYONALISMO

Pebrero 13, 2009.