All three main political parties propose cuts in government spending. But even though the war in Afghanistan is increasingly costly in lives and money, there's no way public sector services will be maintained by cutting the military budget or withdrawing the troops.

Of course, even defence spending isn't immune from cuts. Gordon Brown has announced that Britain could cut down on nuclear submarines, from four to three. This is only an economy measure and nothing to do with disarmament as they have the idea that with improved technology three new subs will provide the same cover as four Tridents - and there are no plans for any reductions in warheads. The Tories and LibDems have also been talking about defence cuts, but, like Labour, will not do anything to jeopardise the military needs of British imperialism.

When it comes to the war in Afghanistan, there is a call for more troops, not less. US military commander Gen Stanley McChrystal has asked for up to 40,000 more, in addition to the 21,000 that Obama sent earlier this year. This is on top of the 100,000 foreign troops already there. And not forgetting that the conflict has spread to Pakistan. Meanwhile the deaths of Afghans and soldiers from the occupying forces mount up every day, and those who genuinely want an end to the brutality of imperialist conflict get more frustrated as their protests fall on deaf ears.

The ruling class cannot do without its military ...

Although the promises to cut defence spending are probably empty, and definitely hypocritical, it is being talked about. So when people look at the resources devoted to warmongering there's bound to be a contrast with the huge unmet needs of the population: schools, social care for the elderly, health, housing etc.... Stop the War links to a US website (costofwar.com) that will calculate how much of what we need could be provided with the resources spent on military hardware and imperialist campaigns. This gives a good idea of our rulers' priorities, but can it really do any more than this? The experience of the last century shows that military spending eats up whatever proportion of the state's resources it needs in the advancement of British imperialism's interests. There were cuts in the numbers of the armed forces in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Russian bloc and the end of the Cold War, but there was no ‘peace dividend'. There was recession, unemployment in Britain rising to a peak of three million in 1992, and the first Gulf War, which was followed by the war in ex-Yugoslavia ...

But whatever the state of its finances, and despite being forced to retreat over the decades, British imperialism still tries to maintain what it can of its global influence. Even if it was already in decline a century ago Britain did once ‘rule the waves' and developed interests all over the world through trade, and through its enormous financial centre in the City of London. And Britain has always tried to defend these interests with military force. To this day, in the words of the CIA Factbook, it "pursues a global approach to foreign policy" . For this it maintains the 4th largest defence budget in the world, and has technically advanced armed forces, even if they are overstretched and under resourced for all its tasks. Arms industries are also important for the British economy, the world's second biggest arms exporter, with a turnover of £35 billion and making up 10% of industrial jobs. The state cannot stop underwriting this industry.

The UK finds itself caught between its economic decline, particularly in relation to its competitors, and its need to maintain its status: "If politicians wish to avoid the dwindling international influence that a diminished military presence means, they must make deeper cuts in other budgets" (Economist 26/9/9). Demonstrations, public opinion and elections, let alone workers' needs for health, housing and education, will not change British imperialism's priorities.

... nor give up its imperialist wars

Britain's close following and support for the US in Afghanistan, and two Gulf wars have been a constant target on ‘Stop the War' demonstrations.

The reason Britain so often follows the USA is that it cannot defend its widespread interests on its own. It is too weak economically and militarily, and has to rely on America's greater strength. Those powers that opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, France, Germany and Russia, did so because that war was against their interests and could only weaken them in relation to their more powerful competitor. Britain had different interests.

Afghanistan has been ravaged by war for nearly three decades. In Afghanistan in the early 1980s the US and Britain supported the Mujahadin against the Russian occupiers. When the Russians left, the various Mujahadin were left to fight it out between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. And what if the current NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan? This would certainly pave the way for other imperialist powers to pursue their interests through warring client groups - just like the Mujahadin were used against the Russians - and for the small groups to carry on their conflicts among themselves with the aid of weapons supplied by their backers.

Different countries have different interests, but none of them can stand aloof from imperialist war.

Workers have no nation to defend

According to many polls public opinion is against sending more troops to Afghanistan. How is ‘public opinion' to achieve this? In 2003 millions of people marching on the streets of Britain, the US, and elsewhere, did not prevent the invasion of Iraq. Subsequent massive demonstrations brought no change to imperialist policies. It is only the militant struggle of the working class that can hold back the ruling class - in both its attacks on living standards and its foreign imperialist adventures. The fact that there has been no world war for decades is partly because the ruling class is not confident that it can mobilise the working class to fight for capitalist interests. The working class has not, however, been able to prevent local wars which continue to proliferate and spread destruction.

The left in Britain, as elsewhere, from Respect MP George Galloway to the Stop The War Coalition and the various leftist groups, all claim to be opponents of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But at the same time they tell us to support the supposedly ‘anti-imperialist' struggle of the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas and other nationalist gangs.

Capitalism will not stop its warmongering. All nation states are imperialist, and nationalists who aspire to set up their own nation states are only imperialist powers in waiting. Workers' only response, whether to cuts or to imperialist war, is to struggle together, to try to overcome the divisions imposed on us, to spread our resistance across all war fronts and national frontiers. 

WR 3/10/9

Britain's public sector debt crisis has been a serious concern for the ruling class for a long time.

As elsewhere in the world, the British state has spent billions on bailing out the banking sector and trying to stabilise the financial markets, making desperate efforts to contain the fallout from the worst recession since the end of World War II. The time is now coming to pay the bill and the bourgeoisie has no choice but to turn to the class that, in fact, produces all social wealth: the working class.

The British situation in a global context

This problem is not unique to Britain. Although the crisis has hit every country with different degrees of severity, nearly every government has experienced an alarming expansion of their public debt. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, global public debt now stands at $35 trillion, compared to $31 trillion last year (a rise of nearly 13%).

On the face of things, Britain isn't in a unique position. According to the same source, the British state owes 64.2% of GDP compared to 74.8% for France and 75% for Germany. Italy, one of the worst offenders in Europe, tops 112%! However, what does set the UK apart is the rate this debt is growing, currently expanding at over 23% per year. This rate of expansion is more than double that of France (9.8%) and Germany (6.9%). Even the profligate Italians are managing to contain their debt growth to 3% per year. By 2011, the UK's debt is projected to have overtaken Germany's and be only just behind that of France, at a staggering 93.5% of GDP.

One of the main problems for the British ruling class is that the growth of public debt is not simply the result of the credit crunch. In fact, UK debt was growing as a proportion of the economy well before the credit crunch hit. Back in 2006, the ICC pointed out that "Britain has relied on state spending and debt to sustain the economy ... engineering a soft landing rather than a sharp drop that would have had a serious impact on rates of growth. It has also created a significant number of jobs. The government claims to have kept to its ‘golden rules' but has done so by manipulating the figures. Its plans assume a decrease in the government deficit to balance it out over the cycle, but in the last 20 years there have only been four years of surplus (during the first years of the Labour government). This suggests that it will become harder for the government to continue to manage the economy as it has in recent years" (WR 301 [5]).

Political repercussions

The bourgeoisie is quite aware that it cannot carry on like this forever. It's no longer a secret that, after the next election, no matter who wins, there will be major reductions in public sector spending. During the party political conference season there has been uninhibited relish at the prospect of massive cuts.

At the Liberal Democrat conference Vince Cable put together a provisional plan calling for £14 billion worth of cuts. Despite some high-profile ‘tax the rich' headline grabbers it is clear that the axe is going to fall heavily on public sector workers, with a freeze on pay and cuts in pensions high on the list. Moreover, it is clear that the LibDems are ready to stare down the Labour Party over the seriousness of the borrowing problem. "Cable estimates that a contraction of about 8% of GDP may be required over the next five years - higher than the government's estimate of a cut of 6.5% over eight years" (Guardian 16/9/9).

The Liberals have little chance of being in a position to implement such a programme and the other two main parties are, at the time of writing, being much less specific about exactly what they would cut. However, the aim of the current ideological offensive is not primarily for the parties to set out their election positions. Rather, it is to create the perception in the public mind (and especially the working class) that cuts are both necessary and inevitable - the only question is where the axe will fall.

This offensive also aims to conceal the fact that a massive programme of cuts has already begun. A cut to the schools budget of £2 billion has been announced and in higher education the squeeze has already begun with Universities asked to find ‘savings' of £180 million by 2012. Some institutions are reported anticipating cuts of up to 20%. The NHS, which both Labour and Conservatives have pledged to protect, has already had £500 million promised for building refurbishment withdrawn. Question marks are now hanging over the future of flagship projects like ID Cards or the replacement for Trident.

The political parties are responsible for finding the best way to present the coming austerity to the working class. This role prohibits them from being ‘honest with the electorate', but there are others who are less restrained. The accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, has warned that public spending may have to drop by up to 20%. The Centre for Economics and Business Research warns that many firms that supply the state will suffer as spending cuts bite, particularly in the pharmaceuticals, medical and defence equipment sectors. Other consultants have wheeled out long lists of businesses that will be hit by cuts in the state budget.

One of the genuine aspects of this capitalist debate is about when to cut. While some factions watching the growing deficit are haunted by fears of a ‘gilt strike' (that is, Britain reaches a point where it can no longer sell its debt), others are terrified of the impact of an early retrenchment on a fragile ‘recovery'. Many column inches have been dedicated to reminding us of the folly of the US Government in the mid-30s that pulled back public spending and tipped the economy back into Depression. The ruling class is walking a dangerous tightrope where the slightest error could send the economy plunging into the abyss.

Turning points

The British bourgeoisie is faced with a decisive moment. The blows of the economic crisis have brought it face-to-face with the prospect of having to make a serious retreat on the world stage. Under Labour, the UK has been at the forefront of many of the destabilising military adventures that have punctuated the last decade. But, recently, the cracks in the façade have begun to show. The government now openly admits that the state simply cannot equip its troops to do the job - and yet, military spending is under threat of being cut even further. This will have serious implications for Britain's capacity to influence world events, which can only further reinforce the country's economic decline. As The Economist (24/7/9) points out: "Forty years ago Britain had to slash its global military presence to match its diminished economic status. Since then the defence budget has shrunk in importance while spending on domestic public services has become more prominent. A similar reckoning looms now, but in the firing line today are elements of the welfare state that have defined post-war Britain, not least the National Health Service, still loved at home if less admired elsewhere".

The working class in Britain is faced with the prospect of an avalanche of attacks. As the profits-system continues its remorseless decline, it will more and more reduce economic resources going to the exploited class. Concretely, this means the bourgeoisie has to raise the level of exploitation - this process has already begun in the so-called ‘private sector' with redundancies, wage cuts and the rest. The majority of the working class also relies upon the state for many of its other elementary needs of health and education. A significant proportion also receives income (through benefits, tax credits, etc) and/or housing from the state as well. All these elements are now under serious threat: benefits, health and education are the three largest areas of state expenditure.

Not only that, but the state is also the largest employer of workers. Like its private counterparts, the state will be compelled to raise the level of exploitation for these workers where it doesn't eliminate them from its payroll altogether. They will suffer the most direct and immediate consequences from the coming austerity but the whole class will pay the price as the ‘social wage' is slashed. But, just as we are attacked together, so too can we learn to fight back together - we must transform our unity in suffering into unity in struggle. Only then will we be able to fight back against our exploiters and destroy capitalism and end this suffering for good.  

Ishamael 29/9/9

In Pittsburgh, on 24/25 September, the third summit of the G20 took place, a new ‘international forum' specially created to hold back the crisis which has been hitting the world economy with full force since the summer of 2007. If we were to believe the final communiqué, this mission has already been accomplished. Drawing up a balance sheet of the measures adopted in April at the previous summit, in London, the G20's members were very content with themselves: "It worked. Our forceful response helped stop the dangerous, sharp decline in global activity and stabilise financial markets"(point 5 of the communiqué).Now it's a question of boosting ‘the recovery'. UK prime minister Gordon Brown thus welcomed the fact that "here at Pittsburgh, the leaders representing two thirds of the world population have adopted an international plan for employment, growth, and a lasting economic recovery". How are they going to do this? The answer is in the text:

"We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to meet the needs of the 21st century global economy.

Today we agreed

- To make sure our regulatory system for banks and other financial firms reins in the excesses that led to the crisis. Where reckless behaviour and a lack of responsibility led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual
- We committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking, to improve the over-the-counter derivatives market and to create more powerful tools to hold large global firms to account for the risks they take."
Following these decisions, President Sarkozy didn't hesitate to talk about a "historic" change in financial regulation: "For the first time, the central banks will have the power to limit the general rise in bonuses". And "banking secrets and fiscal paradises are all over."

Let's summarise: "the deepest economic crisis in human memory" (as the OECD has put it), millions of lay-offs, the spectacular rise in unemployment and the worsening of poverty all over the planet...all this was simply caused by the folly of the financiers and a lack of scruples on the stock market. And the great and the good logically declare: if we regulate the banking and stock market sectors, if we put the lid on bonuses, then tomorrow everything will start to get better in the best of all possible worlds. The media have already been talking about the ‘economic recovery' and the analysts have announced ‘the end of the tunnel', while the stock exchanges are shooting upwards

When the twenty greatest liars on the planet join in a chorus saying ‘trust us and things will get better', it would be wise to be suspicious and to look at all this again. What is this ‘durable growth' we can look forward to?

Capitalism has been a decadent system for over a hundred years

The bourgeoisie tirelessly repeats that we have been facing the worst crisis since 1929. Which is true. But the way they put it, they would like us to think that in between these two ‘great depressions', capitalism has been doing rather well. These are basically two ‘accidents'. In 2008 we went off the road a bit but the vehicle of the world economy is now ready to get back on course.

Reality is obviously elsewhere. For more than a century, capitalism has been a decadent system - sick, dying, regularly going through violent and devastating crises:

- In 1914, with the First World War, capitalism loudly entered its period of decline. Twenty million dead. Through this atrocious butchery, this system of exploitation proved that it has nothing more to offer humanity;

- In 1929, an unprecedented crash plunged the main world economies into a profound economic swamp. For over a decade millions of unemployed and homeless workers survived thanks to the soup kitchens[1];

- In 1939, a new horror follows the one before: the Second World War ravages the planet. 60 million dead.

- In 1950, a sort of calm descends. While dragging humanity through the terror of the Cold War with its permanent fear of a nuclear conflict, on the economic level there was a period of growth for nearly 20 years. Naturally this ‘prosperity' was achieved on the backs of the working class through constant increases in productivity. The appearance of the ‘welfare state', social security, and paid holidays had the aim of producing a workforce in good health, capable of intensifying its efforts and producing more and faster;

- In 1967, this interlude closed. The crisis reappeared through the brutal devaluation of the pound sterling. Unemployment, a scourge which had almost disappeared, once again began to haunt the working class and since then it has not ceased growing. The different strike movements which broke out all over the world - including the movement of May 68 in France - were the response of the working class to the return of the crisis;

- The 1970s and 80s were marked by a series of economic convulsions. In 1971 the dollar plunged. In 1973 we had the first ‘oil crisis', followed by two years of recession. Then inflation started galloping in the USA and Europe (prices shot up but wages didn't follow them). In 1982, the ‘debt crisis' broke out. In 1986, Wall Street crashed. The 1980s ended with another recession;

- In 1992-3, a new recession, even more brutal. Explosion of unemployment;

- In 1997, the crisis of the ‘Tigers and Dragons' in Asia shook the world bourgeoisie: the ruling class was afraid that it would contaminate every region of the world - a justified fear because Russia and Argentina also subsequently went bust. The growth in all these countries had been artificially stimulated by the creation of a mountain of debts which could not be repaid. Bankruptcy was waiting at the end of it all. The bourgeoisie nevertheless managed to avoid the worst - a world depression - by massively injecting money into the economy through its international agencies (in other words, by contracting new debts!) and by having us believe that a new era of prosperity was opening up thanks to the ‘New Economy' and the ‘wonders' of the Internet;

- In 2000-2001, surprise surprise, the promises of a New Economy evaporated and the speculative bubble around the ‘Start Up' companies on the net burst. But once again the world economy managed to get going again. How? Through a new injection of debt. This time it was above all US households (but also those in Spain, Britain, Finland, etc) who piled up the debts in order to support economic growth. Loans were made easy, there was no more control, no conditions or limits. And now we know where all this led;

- In brief, for over a century, capitalism has been dragging humanity down with it. In particular, for over 40 years and the end of the ‘Thirty Glorious Years'[2] of the post-war boom, the economy has been in a total mess. One recession after another and recoveries based on an accumulation of new debts. And logically, each time it's time to pay the piper, we have the crash.

After the crisis? The crisis!

This short historical reminder, which presents the current recession as the last link in an uninterrupted chain of economic convulsions, is enough to show that all the hopes about ‘coming out of the crisis' sold to us over the last few weeks are just a huge tissue of lies. For the working class, as for the whole of humanity, the future is one of growing poverty.

In its last issue, the Global Europe Anticipation Bulletin, a group of economic experts, uses a very appropriate image to describe this monumental ‘rebound':

"Here is a very illustrative analogy of the crisis today that imposed itself on our researchers: a rubber ball on a staircase. It seems to rebound on every step (then giving the impression that the fall has stopped) but it falls even lower on the next step, ‘resuming' its collapse". GEAB no 37, 15 September 2009)

For 40 years this rubber ball has been going downstairs, but in doing so it has gathered speed and now it is going down four steps at a time!

Obviously, nobody knows exactly what form and what breadth this new fall will assume. In a few weeks, will the annual balance sheet of the banks reveal dizzying deficits, throwing numerous international firms into bankruptcy? Or, in a few months, will the dollar totter, resulting in global currency deregulation? Or will it be inflation that will ravage the economy in the next few years? One thing is certain: the bourgeoisie is incapable of halting this infernal spiral and of achieving any durable growth. If they have managed to avoid the worst for the moment by injecting billions of dollars via its central banks (to date around $1600 billion), it has basically just created new deficits and prepared the ground for even more devastating cataclysms. Concretely, for the working class, this means that it has nothing to gain from this moribund system except more unemployment and poverty. Only the world proletarian revolution can put an end to all this suffering!  

Pawel 25/9/9

---

[1] This dark period, especially for the American population, was immortalised in Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and in Pollack's film They Shoot Horses Don't They?

[2]  A falsehood in itself since even in France this ‘boom' really only lasted about 17 years.

We are faced with the most serious crisis in the history of capitalism - why isn't the working class responding in a massive way?

The outbreak and deepening of this present crisis has had a significant effect on the class struggle. Faced with the threat of unemployment and all the consequences that could entail, along with the knowledge that work is now desperately hard to find, workers often feel that resistance is hopeless or even dangerous. In many industries, thousands have been laid off with barely a murmur.

This doesn't mean there haven't been any struggles. In the last 18 months we have seen the occupations at the car parts manufacturer Visteon and the wind turbine factory Vestas, two waves of illegal wildcat strikes throughout the oil refinery industry and beyond with construction workers in many sectors, continuing local strikes in the Royal Mail and the threat of a national strike, and a four week strike at Tower Hamlets College against proposed compulsory redundancies of teachers working in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages). All of these struggles have shown a desire on the part of the workers involved not to passively accept job or pension losses. All of them demonstrated a real combativity on the part of the workers with genuine efforts towards self-organisation and solidarity from other sectors. However, what also marks these struggles is the tight grip that the respective unions have had on each of them. It is a hallmark of this period that the unions have managed to set the framework within which struggle takes place, and this framework has proved itself once again to be a fundamental obstacle to the development of working class resistance.

We have already written about the occupations at Visteon and Vestas, and the strikes in and beyond the oil refineries[1]. In this article we are going to look at the Tower Hamlets strike and the dispute at Royal Mail.

Tower Hamlets strike

The strike at Tower Hamlets College was remarkable in a number of respects. The very fact that a large proportion of the teaching staff, in all areas of the college, came out on indefinite strike against the threat to their colleagues' jobs was in itself a sign of determination and militancy when so many strikes have been reduced to symbolic one or two day affairs. Perhaps more important were the very clear expressions of class solidarity that accompanied this strike. This applies both to the strikers themselves and to significant numbers of other workers. The striking college teachers were members of the University and College Union, but from the beginning of the strike they kept their meetings open to all employees of the college; and when, during the strike, it became difficult for non-teaching staff who had not joined the strike to attend strike meetings during the working day, the striking teachers initiated lunchtime meetings where these members of staff could come and discuss with the strikers. There was a strong feeling on the part of the non-teaching staff, the majority of them members of Unison, that they should join the strike, although, as we shall see, this was thwarted by union legalism. The strikers also made a considerable effort to send delegations to other local colleges and workplaces and explain their situation to the workers there. This was reciprocated by the participation of a number of other workers on their picket lines - not only teachers from other colleges but firemen and others - and at the rallies called in support of the strike. It was evident from the start that the struggle at THC was not simply a reaction against a particularly hard-hearted principal and his personal plan to make THC more cost-efficient, but that the staffing cuts proposed at THC were an attempt to test the waters in preparation for much wider attacks in the education sector. It was this understanding above all that generated the widespread sympathy for the THC strike.

The willingness of the THC workers to stand up for their colleagues' jobs (which also have an important function in a local community where gaining an ESOL qualification is an essential component of finding employment) was a further sign that workers are not just lying down in the face of the attacks, and it may make other education bosses hesitate before resorting to overt job-cuts. This certainly explains the fact that the THC senior management were forced to make some concessions after four weeks of the strike, in particular withdrawing the initial insistence on compulsory redundancies.

However, although the UCU declared itself to be delighted with the results of the strike, and leftists like the SWP crowed about ‘victory', the real balance sheet is rather more mitigated, as we can see from these reflections by a THC striker who had been posting regularly on the libcom internet discussion forum. While acknowledging important concessions were won, including the saving of 7 posts and improved redundancy deals, she has important criticisms of the way the ending of the dispute was handled by the union:

"The so-called victory is that there are no compulsory redundancies. Instead the 13 at risk were re-deployed or won appeals or have accepted so-called voluntary redundancy.

There was no withdrawal of the threat of compulsory redundancy.

There has been no agreement that there will be no further compulsory redundancies, or any other agreement about honouring our existing terms and conditions.

Through threats and bribes some of the compulsory redundancies have been re-named as voluntary. The pressure came both from management and from the union. Both national and local officials phoned up people at risk and told them they should take so-called voluntary redundancy. Two days before the Acas ‘breakthrough' our mass meeting had affirmed that, it was clear that though most people wanted the strike to be over soon, we were prepared to see it through in order to protect these people, and these people were not under pressure to accept a deal.

The agreement states that compulsory redundancies have been avoided and this is the "victory" that the UCU, the SWP etc are crowing about. In fact there have been compulsory "voluntary" redundancies - people have been bullied into accepting "voluntary" redundancy.

This deal was sold through with the most outrageous manipulation of the mass meeting where discussion was suppressed before and during the meeting as far as possible, with members being shouted down by union officials.

In the short time there was for debate, many people spoke against accepting the deal but in the end there were 24 votes against, many abstentions and the clear majority voting to accept and go back to work. (though the meeting was of course smaller than our usual weekly meetings).

We returned to work Friday morning. Where I work there is relief to not have to stay on strike longer but also a lot of unease about how it ended and what we are now facing".

It was clear from discussions with the strikers that most if not all of them believed that the strengthening of their struggle was identical with the strengthening and growth of the UCU. And yet these remarks about the way the strike ended demonstrate the opposite: that the UCU was working with a very different agenda from that of the striking workers.

A crucial moment in the development of the strike, and one which allowed for this ambiguous settlement to be pushed through, was the ballot of the Unison workers about joining the strike. According to a number of the striking teachers, both before and after the ballot, the Unison workers had shown a clear majoirty in the course of large meetings in favour of joining the strike - a step which would have forced the management to close the collage rather than keeping it open with a skeleton crew. And yet the ballot, which had been delayed almost till the end of the strike, resulted in a very narrow defeat of the proposal to come out on strike. As one member of the libcom collective put it on hearing this news: "That's a good illustrator of the anti-working class nature of individualised, private ballots (the only ones which are legal). It's easy to feel demoralised and isolated voting at home in private - as opposed to a mass meeting where you can gain collective confidence and a sense of power".

The problem here was that although the UCU workers were very keen to keep their meetings open to the Unison workers, and the latter were equally keen to show their solidarity, there was not yet sufficient understanding of the need to put control of the struggle into the hands of the meetings, to insist that the decision to strike should have been made not in separate (and atomising) union ballots, but in the mass meetings themselves. That would have meant an open rejection of ballots and challenging the legalism of the trade unions. This proved a step too far on this occasion, but the lessons are there to be learned for future struggles.

The dispute at Royal Mail

As postal workers wait for the result of their recent national strike ballot (held off for three weeks by the Communication Workers Union) their situation looks increasingly bleak. Since the end of the 2007 national strike, and particularly over the past eighteen months, postal workers across the country have faced a massive onslaught by a Royal Mail management desperate to impose swingeing cuts in staff numbers, attacks on working conditions and cuts in wages. Over the past few years Royal Mail have cut 40,000 jobs from its system and are actively looking for 30,000 more. Postal workers have also seen the disappearance of their pension fund and the imposition by management decree of a rise in the retirement age from 60 to 65.

Royal Mail management has resorted to the most savage tactics of bullying and harassment to impose its ‘modernisation' plan. This of course, has nothing to do with modernisation and everything to do with the cutting down of the work force and increasing the workload of postal workers. Across the country RM have brought in managers from other areas to impose new working conditions on local offices that have not been agreed to nationally:

"‘I used to love this job but now the bullying and harassment is out of control' says Pete who has worked in the post for more than 30 years and was among the 12 strong picket at the East London Distribution centre in Thurrock Essex". (Socialist Worker online 29/8/9)

"There's always a manager monitoring you. Frankly, I find it embarrassing that I have to put my hand up to ask someone half my age if I can go to the toilet" (ibid).

Delivery workers are now expected to work to their time and told that they have to take extra work from another round. Refusal means disciplinary action but this was one of the ‘modernisation' agreements' struck between RM and the CWU as part of the deal at the end of the 2007 strike.

The CWU are in complete agreement with the push to modernise but of course only with their participation. The CWU says that Royal Mail bosses are forcing through a modernisation of the service, inclusive of cutting pay and jobs, without proper consultation. "CWU deputy general Secretary Dave Ward says that there could be no successful change to the Royal Mail without union agreement.... ‘Modernisation is crucial to the future success of Royal Mail, but the implementation of change must be agreed and it must bring with it modern pay and conditions. We want to see a new job security agreement which will help people through this time of change for the company'" (BBC News 16/9/9). Ward is showing the same touching concern for the company that he and Billy Hayes did in the 2007 strike when they brokered the rotten deal that gave posties 6.9% and a £400 bonus contingent on "productivity and flexibility to be completed in phase 2 of the modernisation process".

Local, rolling union strikes: recipe for exhaustion

In 2007 the strike was defeated by the use of the union tactic of the ‘rolling strike' which saw the wearing down of the movement through partial action limited in time and geographical extension. And yet during the course of the dispute there were important expressions of class solidarity, with refusals to cross picket lines and widespread wildcat action against victimisations. These developments were significant not only for workers in Britain but internationally since they were a challenge to the ability of the CWU to control the strike at a national level.

Today, the CWU has attempted to make use of very similar tactics. Well in advance of the ballot for a national strike (results to be announced 8 October) the CWU has been trying to localise the movement by staging local one- and two-day strikes to be held in specific areas, mainly centred in London, the Midlands, Bristol and Yorkshire. Once again, the anger and frustration of postal workers have spilt out into wildcats in much of the West of Scotland in September, when posties walked out on unofficial strike in protest against drivers being suspended after refusing to cross picket lines. Likewise, the Liscard sorting office in Wallasey, Merseyside, saw workers out on a five day unofficial action protesting against an arbitrary slashing of delivery rounds and terms of working. Other offices have also participated in unofficial actions but there seems to be a blackout of news when this happens. However, in contrast to the 2007 strike, these unofficial actions remain the work of a small minority of the strike movement. The danger facing the postal workers now is that they may well come out on a national strike having been already worn out by the series of local stoppages which have spread tremendous confusion regarding who's out and when, and which have had very little visibility except through reports of the mounting backlog of undelivered mail. On the other hand, if the ballot goes against strike action it will also be used to further demoralise workers and tell them that there is no will to fight the attacks.

Another aspect of union sabotage is the attempt by the CWU to portray this strike as a struggle for the union to be able to negotiate with management. We can see this in the condemnation of Peter Mandelson by Dave Ward who accused government ministers of "encouraging Royal Mail to destroy the union" (BBC News 19/9/9).

Royal Mail, with the full backing of the government, are attempting to cut jobs and create worse working conditions for postal workers. The defence against these attacks is a fight for genuine class demands. The defence of the ability of the union to negotiate rotten deals is on the contrary a defence of the bosses' ability to defeat the strike.

Overcoming the union obstacle

The attacks currently raining down on the working class are only a foretaste of a much bigger storm to come. Although it can have the immediate effect of cowing workers into submission, the generalisation of the bosses' offensive also creates the conditions for a generalised proletarian response. The two examples we have looked at here show that one of the first barriers the working class will have to overcome is the one represented by the trade union apparatus. Again, since the unions claim to offer the only viable framework for fighting the bosses, workers almost invariably feel a considerable hesitation about taking things into their own hands, above all in Britain where the ideology of trade unionism has such deep historical roots. But the basis for taking such a bold step is already there in the push towards holding mass meetings open to all irrespective of union membership, in the obvious necessity to invest these meetings rather than union ballots with decision-making power, and in the search for solidarity which naturally tends to overflow the corporate divisions institutionalised by the union structure.  

SM&G 3/10/9

 

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[1] See for example: ‘Visteon occupations: Workers search for the extension of the struggle' [9], WR 323; ‘Lindsey: Workers demonstrate the power of solidarity' [10], WR 326; ‘Vestas: Workers' militancy isolated by trade union and green circus' [11], WR 327.

We are publishing an article from Revolution Internationale, the ICC's paper in France, about a strike against threatened redundancies that took place earlier this year. Even though it was only a strike in one local factory in Toulouse it has a wider significance, particularly because it shows how workers' efforts to organise themselves come up against the union obstacle in a very concrete and daily manner.

On 22 April the management of Freescale (ex-Motorola) in Toulouse announced the end of production at Toulouse, which meant more than 800 redundancies, to which can be added 250 from the telephone department and many sub-contractors in the region. In all, it involves more than 2000 jobs going. This occurs at the same time as the closure of the factory at Crolles close to Grenoble, at East Kilbride in Scotland as well as at Sendai in Japan. This ‘restructuring' must be finished by 2011.

This is one of the numerous attacks on the conditions of the working class that bankrupt capitalism has in store for us. For the families hit by the job cuts, here as everywhere else, there's the anguish of a perspective of poverty because everyone knows that if they do find a job the odds are that it will be underpaid and a question of simple survival. It's not surprising that the workers saw this as a great blow. Launching an appeal for solidarity with other workers of the region wasn't even raised by the unions, which is not surprising but necessary to underline. The workers themselves, pushed forward by a militant minority, went on to develop efforts to organise their struggle.

Their first reaction was not to have any illusions in the speeches of the management. At the beginning of May, the director met the night shift (the factory has six shifts) for him to introduce them to the team which was going to implement the running down of the factory. He was taken aside by the workers who asked him if he was taking the piss and branded him as a liar. Almost all the 120 workers present got up and walked out of the room. Faced with growing anger, the management and the unions encouraged the holding of separate assemblies for each shift. The most combative among the workers proposed a common General Assembly (GA) so that decisions were taken collectively. This proposition received a welcome from the workers and the unions were obliged to follow it. Faced with the well-known union divisions, the workers asked the unions to put aside the quarrels and unite in an ‘inter-syndical' (an inter-union organisation) thinking that this way they would be better protected. The unions, FO, UNSA, CFE-CGC, CGT, CFDT and CFTC then announced, as a great success, that they had agreed to create an inter-syndical. This inter-syndical proposed that each shift elect 4 delegates so as to help, as observers, in the negotiations with the management. It became clear to many workers that this was a ruse by the unions with the aim of making it look like the workers were participating, while actually transforming them into simple observers. That allowed the unions to keep total control over events. Faced with this trick, a minority of workers intervened in the GA to defend its sovereignty, to say that the assembly must decide and not the inter-syndical, and this received the approval of the workers.

The management then proposed a series of negotiations to take place each Tuesday. Evidently, the negotiations made no progress. Management and unions dragged them out in order to demoralise the workers. Arguments between the unions were opportunistically revived in order to begin to divide the workers up. The majority of the workers became exasperated. In mid-May, the GA of the night shift decided not to let the unions carry on the discussions and decided that it was up to the workers themselves to put their claims to the management. This was discussed at the common GA which followed on the Monday. Then the unions decided that they would no longer recognise the sovereignty of the GA and called its members to a parallel GA with the aim of making "constructive propositions for the management", which in effect allowed the management to find the propositions of the FO union (Force Ouvriere) very constructive! As for the CGT and the CFDT, they declared that they would continue to recognise the sovereignty of the GA (but, as we saw, they did this to get things back into their grip). Now at last, at this GA, it was the workers delegated by each of the shifts who undertook the discussion. They talked here of challenging the management over the length of the negotiations and threatened to organise a meeting in front of the factory in order to spread the word.

At the next common General Assembly, a communiqué-leaflet was discussed by the workers to be distributed locally as well as on the 13 June demonstration, an opportunity to try to reach other workers. The idea of a leaflet was accepted but in fact the unions tried not to bring it to the attention of the media in order to substitute their own communiqué. Under pressure from the workers they changed their minds.

Faced with the impasse of the negotiations that were dragging out, the anger of the workers pushed them into unofficial walk-outs, during which they gave out their leaflet to motorists passing in front of the factory. Numerous workers showed their solidarity with this action. But the consciousness of the necessity to actively look for solidarity with other workers was only embryonic and the unions rapidly smothered it. In fact, for the 13 June demonstration, the unions had prepared their tactics and put them to work. They distributed whistles to the workers who, instead of going to talk with the workers of Molex for example, were drowned out by the noise, making any discussion impossible. The workers did not succeed in overcoming the union barriers.

On 18 June, anger still dominated. A strike broke out and lasted for 72 hours. Once finished, the unions tried to start it up again with the evident aim of exhausting the most combative workers, when it was the eve of the holidays. A minority recalled that the last GA had said that the eve of the holidays wasn't the time to strike in total isolation. Some trade unionists then accused them of being against the struggle, one of the workers even being physically attacked. But faced with the vote of the GA which had pronounced itself against the strike at this time, the unions were obliged to apologise. A declaration was made by the GA, saying that between workers you can try to convince others but things can't be settled by fists.

What will happen after the holidays? The CGT and CFDT have taken a grip of the situation. There isn't yet a sufficiently clear consciousness of what the unions represent and the fact that they are cogs of the state within the working class. But a process of reflection has begun.

During the 3-day strike an old worker from this factory came to offer his solidarity and recalled the strike of 1973 by saying: "we had no confidence in the unions and we organised among ourselves". And that struck a chord among the workers.

Yes, it is necessary to keep control of the General Assembly and realise what constitutes our strength: workers' solidarity. The distribution of the leaflet to drivers and the warm welcome received shows the potential of this solidarity and that it is necessary to develop it[1]. It's not just a struggle of Freescale, of Molex or of Conti, but a struggle of the working class. And that alone makes the bosses and the state fearful, and the unions along with them.  

G 5/7/9

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[1] Not as the unions proposed, showing up at the Tour de France!

The struggles in Greece in December 2008 after the shooting dead of a 15-year-old showed the capacity of proletarianised students and some workers to organise their struggles. Hundreds of schools and a number of universities were occupied. Protesters took over part of one of the state-owned TV stations. There was an occupation of the building of the main trade union federation (as well as some Athenian university buildings) where there was an attempt to use the buildings for general assemblies for wage earners, students and the unemployed.

Ta Paida Tis Galarias (TPTG, The Children of the Gallery) is a Greek group that's been around since the early 1990s. It has had contacts with groups and publications in a number of other countries, but despite the relative longevity of the group it is not easy to sum it up in a simple phrase. They participated in last December's struggles and published a provisional balance sheet of events in February this year. A further analysis entitled "The rebellious passage of a proletarian minority through a brief period of time [16]" (dated 30/6/9) appeared on libcom.org in early September. While its language can be occasionally obscure it brings out some important points about last year's movement.

A proletarian movement

The first thing to establish is that "The rebellion was a clear expression of proletarian anger against a life that is getting more and more devaluated, surveilled and alienated." While Marxists are not sociologists "As far as the class composition of the rebellion is concerned, it ranged from high school students and university students to young, mostly precarious, workers from various sectors like education, construction, tourist and entertainment services, transportation, even media." As for the participation of workers in less ‘precarious' situations "From our empirical knowledge, those workers who can be described either as ‘workers with a stable job' or non-precarious had a very limited participation in the rebellion, if any. For those of them who actually took part in the rebellion, to try to extend it to their workplaces would mean to engage in wildcat strikes outside and against trade unions, since most strikes are called and controlled by them."

This is an important acknowledgement of the role that the unions have in holding back workers' struggles. Although there have been struggles in Greece over the past 20 years, particularly in the public sector, these "past struggles have revealed that the workers were not able to create autonomous forms of organization and let new contents emerge beyond the trade unionist demands."

TPTG see that those in more ‘stable' employment had more limited participation in the struggles, and there have not been struggles beyond the limitations of trade union demands, they do claim that the "proletarian communities of struggle" were characterised "by a complete negation of politics and trade unionism". They go as far as to say that "it was impossible to be represented, co-opted or manipulated by political mechanism that would make bargains with the state". Although there is an admission that this was only temporary, this is quite a claim. Yes, the organisation of the struggle was not in the hands of the unions or leftists, but of the participants. And certainly the desire to call general assemblies to discuss, control and spread the struggle showed an absolutely healthy impulse. But while it was a fundamental step in the right direction it was hardly "a complete negation of politics and trade unionism."

There will indeed come a time when we see "a violent eruption of delegitimization of capitalist institutions of control" but as TPTG recognise  "this was just the rebellious passage of a proletarian minority through a brief period of time and not a revolution." TPTG say "the feeling that there lay ‘something deeper' in all that, the idea that the issues raised by the rebels concerned everybody, was so dominant that it alone explains the helplessness of the parties of the opposition, leftist organizations, even some anarchists as mentioned before." If there was any ‘helplessness' from any of these forces it was very short-lived. The ideologies of unionism and leftism are very resilient, and in Greece there are also illusions in the military actions of the ‘armed vanguard'

Against terrorist militarism

For thirty years the terrorist attacks of November 17 and the ELA were a feature of life in Greece. And while a number of trials and convictions seem to have curtailed their activities, other groups continue in this tradition. In the run-up to the latest Greek general election, for example, you can read "Counterterrorism officers are investigating evidence gathered from suspected members of Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire for possible links with the more brutal urban guerrilla group Sect of Revolutionaries" (Kathimerini 28/9/9). One of the strengths of TPTG is their rejection of the ‘armed vanguard.'

Writing about armed attacks in December 2008 and January 2009 "From a proletarian point of view, even if these attacks were not organized by the state itself, the fact that after a month all of us became spectators of those ‘exemplary acts', that had not at all been part of our collective practice, was a defeat in itself." They are direct in their critique: "It's not important for us now to doubt about the real identity of these hitmen with the ridiculous but revealing name ‘Revolutionary Sect'; what causes us some concern is the political tolerance of some quarters towards them, given the fact that it's the first time that in a Greek ‘armed vanguard's' text there's not one grain of even the good old leninist ‘for the people' ideology but instead an antisocial, nihilistic bloodthirst."

Union and reformist ideas did not disappear

The occupation of the union headquarters was one of the high points of the movement, TPTG saw two tendencies there. "During the occupation it became obvious that even the rank'n'file version of unionism could not relate to the rebellion. There were two, although not clear-cut, tendencies even at the preparation assembly: a unionist-workerist one and a proletarian one. For those in the first one the occupation should have had a distinct ‘worker' character as opposed to the so-called youth or ‘metropolitan' character of the rebellion while those in the second one saw it as only one moment of the rebellion, as an opportunity to attack one more institution of capitalist control and as a meeting point of high-school students, university students, unemployed, waged workers and immigrants, that is as one more community of struggle in the context of the general unrest. In fact, the unionist-workerist tendency tried to use the occupation rather as an instrument in the service of the above mentioned union and the idea of an independent of political influences base unionism in general." The ‘unionist tendency' might have failed to use the occupation in this particular instance, but the ideas of rank and file unionism remain among the most pernicious that workers face, not only now, but in the struggles to come.

Similarly, TPTG saw other ideas that are dangerous for workers to have illusions in. "By equating subcontracting or precariousness in general with ‘slavery', the majority of this solidarity movement, mainly comprised of leftist union activists, is trying to equate certain struggles against precariousness - one of the main forms of the capitalist restructuring in this historical moment - with general political demands of a social-democratic content regarding the state as a ‘reliable' and preferable employer to private subcontractors and thus putting the question of the abolition of wage labour per se aside."

Elsewhere there is a certain triumphalism in some of what TPTG say. But when the text finishes in talking about "the fears of the planetary bosses about the December rebellion as a prelude to a generalized proletarian explosion in the course of the global crisis of reproduction" it poses what's at stake in the current situation. The struggles of today are not in themselves a threat to capitalist rule, but any movement that points to solidarity and self-organisation in the extension of the movement, to a generalised struggle, shows what potential there is for future struggles.  

Car 28/9/9

From 15 to 19 June in Germany there was a strike in the education sector. It was an attempt to use a strike to block high schools and universities in protest against the growing misery of capitalist education.

As far as its aims were concerned, this movement only obtained a very limited success. It remained the work of a minority. It didn't manage to mobilise large numbers of students in the most central universities. Even in the educational establishments in the big cities, there was little advance information about the mobilisations that were taking place. Even so, at the height of the week of action, the movement succeeded in attracting 250,000 demonstrators in over 40 cities. But the importance of this movement resides first and foremost in the fact that part of the new generation has made its entrance to the political scene and has been through its first experiences of struggle.

The week of the ‘education strike'

The week of action began on Monday 15 June with the holding of general assemblies, mainly in the universities. As in the preparatory stage, it was largely in the smaller higher education establishments, such as Potsdam, that the mobilisation was strongest and got the most attention. Elsewhere, general assemblies were being held while lessons continued. It was only rarely that the blocking of the institutes of higher education, the original aim, actually took place. On the other hand, the work done in the general assemblies was politically significant. A collective debate was able to take place around the formulation of demands and these in part went beyond purely student interests to express those of all workers. Such as the call for taking on thousands more teachers in the schools and higher education institutions, the immediate transformation of all short-term contracts into unlimited contracts, or the call for guaranteed placement for all apprentices. In addition, in many places there were declarations of solidarity with workers on strike or facing massive redundancies.

But even the central demands of the movement, like the refusal to pay for the right to enter university, the rejection of the increasing grip of the criteria of profitability and of the tendency towards a more elitist education system, summed up in the demand for ‘courses for everyone' and deliberately interpreted in a reformist manner by the ruling class, as the expression of a desire to improve the existing system, were also undeniably proletarian demands. The fact that capitalism wants to have stupid and uncultured wage slaves, and only provides them with the minimum of education absolutely necessary for the functioning of the system, has for a long time been recognised by the socialist workers' movement. Against Pink Floyd's slogan ‘We don't need no education', the working class from the beginning fought for education. This tradition is being revived today in the general assemblies where everyone can participate actively and equally in the formulation and adoption of the demands and objectives of the movement.

The question of making links with the workers

In France, in 2006, the movement in the high schools and universities managed to impose its key demands on the government because it very quickly took up proletarian demands expressing the interests of the working population as a whole, in particular the rejection of the CPE, the law aimed at making all jobs for young people even more precarious than they are at present.

Now although in Germany there is a growing conviction among young people of the need to solidarise with all wage earners, up till now the movement has remained focused on education. This means that it does not yet see itself as part of a much wider movement of the class as a whole. However, we saw the first indications of a potential for the movement to go beyond the framework of schools and education. The momentary immaturity of the movement, but also the potential for maturation, were shown on the first day of the week of action. One of the points around which this contradictory situation crystallised was the national demonstration of kindergarten workers in the centre of Cologne on 15 June. The big general assembly of the students of Wuppertal University decided to send a delegation to Cologne in order to solidarise with the kindergarten workers. However, this action failed to materialise because of lack of time. In Cologne on the other hand the student general assembly was less aware that a few kilometres from them 30,000 strikers were together on the streets. When this fact came to light, the general assembly, on the point of dispersing, decided to send a delegation which was mandated to address the strikers and call for a common struggle.

Here we can see that the idea of a common struggle is certainly widespread, but it isn't often seen as central. In Wuppertal, for example, the university is relatively small. The proportion of proletarians among the students, on the other hand, is particularly large. There, the movement was very much organised on the students' own initiative. Thus, Wuppertal was one of the few places where there was, at least in the beginning, a big strike movement which blocked the university. The University of Cologne, on the other hand, is one of the most important in Germany. A deeper and wider discontent will be necessary there to provoke a general ferment. Furthermore, the big towns are the citadels of the reformists of the left, who are a barrier to the self-initiative of the students with their attempts to create artificial movements. This makes students distrustful of mobilisations that do take place. The strike in the education sector was very much a minority affair. The struggle to get itself noticed thus served to limit the field of vision to the immediate situation in the universities.

The street demonstrations and the lack of mobilisation in the high schools

The second important day of action was Wednesday 17 June, where demonstrations of students, high school pupils and apprentices took place throughout Germany. The most important mobilisations took place in Hamburg, Cologne and above all Berlin with 27,000 participants. The numbers taking part could have been much higher if they had managed to draw in the high school students on a bigger scale. Last November, there had already been a day of action carried forward mainly by high school pupils, often actively supported by teachers and parents. It was noticeable at that time that the high school students were often more militant than the university students. Now it seems that the high school students were far less involved in organising activities during the week. This is connected to the fact that during this week those who were most active were making use of a framework put forward in advance by a multicoloured action collective. If the action had come from those directly involved, it is hard to believe that they would have chosen to act in the period of the exams at the end of the academic year! But we should not forget that these demonstrations - sometimes decided by general assemblies, sometimes spontaneous - have been occasionally used to visit high schools and even enterprises threatened with lay-offs or closure, to call for a common struggle.

The end of the movement

The week of action finished with a demonstration in the provincial Westphalian capital, Dusseldorf, with several thousand people from nearby towns joining in. This demonstration was marked by two things:

- On the one hand by the rather militaristic and provocative attitude of the police. We should add that the bourgeois media had been stirring up the theme of violence throughout the week of action, with the aim of discrediting the movement. The media attempt to falsify the movement went so far that certain general assemblies decided that they would only give interviews if they could approve the content of the broadcast before it was sent out. A demand which was systematically evaded by the media;

- On the other hand the demonstration was much less in the hands of the general assemblies than the one on the previous Wednesday. It was run by a collective composed of different forces acting without any control from below, and representing a kind of compromise between different ways of thinking - but this was not the result of any prior discussion, If we mention these facts it's not to argue that things should only be organised on a local level. Rather we want to stress that the extension and geographical regroupment of a movement corresponds to the maturation of its mode of organisation, and goes hand in hand with self-organisation through general assemblies. When that is not the case, a number of dangers arise.

In any case, when the procession arrived at Königsallee, the most luxurious boulevard in Germany, the action got dispersed. Part of the demo stayed at the crossroads and wanted to block traffic for as long as possible. Among this section were representatives of the Black Bloc, elements who have the conception, mistaken in our view, that violence is revolutionary in itself. There were also many frustrated young people who didn't want to demonstrate in the city without being noticed. In other words they were disappointed with the weak echo of the week of strikes in education on the immediate level. What's more, they felt provoked by the attitude of the police forces. The other part of the demo, who had the merit of not being dragged into a game of violent confrontation with the forces of order, called on those occupying the crossroads to go with them, but ended up on their own at the rallying place on the Schlossplatz, in the middle of the tourist area. Thus the demonstration was split in two. When the news came that the police were going to intervene against the blockading of Königsallee, the rally dispersed, with some people going to help those being attacked.

A process of collective decision taking is indispensible

This incident reveals - in a negative manner - how important general assemblies are. Yet we cannot make a fetish out of them. The question is not the form of general assemblies as such. If they remain passive they can easily turn into an empty shell. The issue is the development of a whole culture of debate and of autonomous and collective decision-making. The quarrel at the Königsallee for example would probably only have been solved in a positive manner if there had been a debate on the spot on what to do. In such situations there is a wisdom of the collectively fighting mass which would probably have succeeded in finding a way for staying together without exposing themselves to the danger of repression.

The general context of the strikes in the education sector

There is still a long way to go - and the week of protests in the education sector was one of the small steps moving in this direction. Most participants are aware how limited and small this step was. However, we on our part are convinced that this step, no matter how small it was, was not insignificant. Because this step means that the proletarian youth in Germany has started to give an answer to the clarion calls from France and Greece. In comparison to the scope of the movement in these countries the present actions in Germany are still very modest. But this has to be seen in the context of the need for the proletariat in Germany to catch up - in the 20th century Germany was a stronghold of bourgeois counter-revolution and this fact still has an impact today. But this is also linked to the fact that the class struggle in Germany comes up against a particularly powerful and cunning class enemy. In France 2006 the government, against its will, gave a boost to the generalisation of resistance by adopting a law (CPE), which meant nothing else but a general attack against the entire proletarian youth. The Merkel government in Germany, which had similar plans as the French government, immediately dropped its plans when it saw the movement in France take on such proportions. The bourgeoisie in Greece employed the weapon of repression excessively, so that instead of being a weapon of intimidation it became a spark for the struggle. The police murder of one young protester in Athens led the movement to take on mass proportions, and it gave a boost to the wave of solidarity in the working class.

The first struggles of the new generation in Germany are more modest in scope and often appear less radical than in other countries. But it is significant that wherever they take on a proletarian character they embark upon the same trajectory as elsewhere. The expressions of self-initiative, culture of debate, capacity of organisation, creativity and imagination which we saw during the past days were also surprising for us.

The struggle for the future

Finally it is important for the working class as a whole that the youth has taken the road of struggle. The traditional core sectors of the working class are being hit by a wave of bankruptcies of companies and mass lay-offs not seen since 1929. This wave terrifies and momentarily paralyses these parts of the working class. The formerly proudly combative workers of Opel, who in the past reacted with wildcat strikes and factory occupations against threats of lay-offs, are now being pushed into the role of begging for money from the bourgeois state. The employees at the department store chain Karstadt, which is under threat of bankruptcy, are being pushed to support company bosses who at protest meetings speak and agitate with a megaphone, but who only want to mobilise their employees for a campaign asking for money from the state. In the midst of this painful situation, where the workers concerned cannot find an immediate answer, it is important that those parts of the class who are less directly threatened by the bankruptcy of their employer take up the struggle. Today this is the student youth, but also the employees of the kindergartens (child nurses) who not only defend themselves but who have started an offensive and demand the employment of tens of thousands of additional staff. They do this not only to resist increasingly unbearable working and learning conditions but also as an expression of a slowly maturing insight that what is at stake today is not only the immediate future but the future of society as a whole. At the demos last week the university students shouted: "We make a lot of noise because you rob us of our education". But the school kids shouted: "Because you rob us of our future"

Weltrevolution 21/6/9

Today, the crisis-ridden capitalist system is revealing the barbaric impasse which confronts humanity, and the proletariat is gradually returning to the road of struggle. In this historic situation, a new process of decantation is taking place within the milieu coming from anarchism.

Decantation in the anarchist milieu

The importance of this process is illustrated by the fact that it is often focused on the question of the attitude to adopt faced with imperialist war. Internationalism is a fundamental principle of the proletariat, one which determines whether or not an organisation belongs to the proletarian camp.

Let's examine the positions that express this in the anarchist milieu through two examples:

We have the position of the KRAS (Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists, Russia), which takes an authentic internationalist stand, for example on the war in Georgia in 2008:

"The main enemy of ordinary people is not the brother or sister of the other side of the frontier or another nationality. The enemy is the leaders, all types of bosses, presidents and ministers, businessmen and the generals, all those who provoke wars to safeguard their power and riches. We appeal to the workers in Russia, Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia to reject the yoke of patriotism and turn their anger against the leaders and the rich, whatever side of the frontier they are found."[1]

On the other hand, we find the French Libertarian Communist Organisation (OCL) on Iraq, with its appeals for: "material and financial support (for) the progressive forces opposed to the occupation" of which the "limited military means allows them all the same to organise some ‘liberated zones' in the popular quarters where the American army doesn't venture" while "in the countries which maintain troops in Iraq, outside of the United States, notably including several countries of the European Union (...) the principal task is to confront the government in order to obtain a withdrawal, to block troop transports and military material."[2]

This is not a simple tactical divergence about how achieve the same aim, as some libertarians like to tell us.

The position of the KRAS expresses the interests of the proletariat to fight as a universal class beyond divisions of colour, nationalities, culture or religion, imposed on it by capitalism. The other position gives its support to the ‘resistance' of peoples, Iraqi, Lebanese, etc., that's to say some sectors of the bourgeoisie. This position constitutes a betrayal of internationalism from a double point of view: not only towards the proletariat of the big powers, since it masks the real antagonisms between the larger imperialist sharks and the real stakes involved in these antagonisms; but also in regard to the proletarians in the weaker countries, who are called upon to submit to imperialist war and kill each other for the defence of the imperialist interests of their bourgeoisie. The disappearance of the blocs in 1989 has not meant the disappearance either of imperialism or the war-mongering of the ‘official' anarchism of the OCL!

These two positions have nothing in common: they express diametrically opposed and completely antagonistic class positions. They are separated by a class frontier.

It can be seen here that anarchism constitutes a place where overtly bourgeois and nationalist positions and internationalist proletarian positions come up against each other. In this process of differentiation between the two opposed tendencies, the question of war in the Middle East occupies an important place. After decades in which the unconditional defence of the Palestinian cause reigned in the libertarian milieu, this idea no longer stands alone. Some of those coming from anarchism are beginning to call into question the classical positions adopted up until now and distance themselves from them. Thus, in an article confronting the question of "why we will never support Hamas, Hezbollah or any armed group of the so-called ‘anti-imperialist resistance'", Non Fides affirms: "How can the majority of the extreme left and a part of the libertarian movement show solidarity with these totalitarian and ultra-religious parties? This solidarity is the anti-imperialism of imbeciles (...) The deplorable policies of the Israeli Command pushes them to support any form of contestation against these bellicose policies and this frees them to operate alliances with political Islam, the ultra-religious, nationalists and the extreme-right, sometimes including neo-Nazis."[3] Others clearly affirm the internationalist position of the proletariat towards the Middle East. Thus one can read an anarchist poster campaign in Belgium affirming that "From Gaza in Palestine to Nasiriya in Iraq, from Kivu in Congo to Grozny in Chechnya, the massacre of thousands of human beings is happening daily. Under the different forms that it takes in the four corners of the world, this capitalist and authoritarian system is devastating entire zones of the planet by famine, privation, pollution, war (...) To oppose the logic of a war of the ‘people' against the terror of the Israeli state only serves to make the rejected of Gaza, like the exploited of Tel Aviv, forget that there remains only one way out: to fight against all authority, whether in the uniform of the Israeli soldier or the Palestinian police, the religious robes (...)or the suits of the democratic and usurious capitalists (...) Against the war between states, between religions, between ethnicities ,we urgently need to affirm the social war against all exploitation and all domination."[4]

When conceptions as alien to each other as internationalism and concessions to nationalism find themselves face to face within the same current or even organisation, their completely irreconcilable character forbids any cohabitation and makes any unity impossible. That is why we unreservedly support the KRAS-AIT of Moscow in the combat undertaken to reject "cultural and ethno-identity" conceptions, which are nothing other than an expression of nationalism and incompatible with the objectives of the social revolution.

The defence of the "third front", a formula of confusion

We sometimes find that, within the anarchist milieu, the same vocabulary can hide diametrically opposed positions. This is the case concerning the appeal for the defence of a "third front" or of a "third camp" in imperialist conflicts. When this position is formulated by KRAS, for example, it undoubtedly corresponds to the internationalist position, extolling the necessity to develop the common struggle of the proletariat beyond all national divisions and against all the bourgeois camps involved.

On the other hand, for the organisations of ‘official anarchism', the ‘defence of a third camp' is nothing other than a formula destined to derail the exploited classes towards one of the protagonists, towards choosing one imperialist camp against another. Such an example is shown by the position on the Israeli intervention in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. When the French Fédération Anarchiste affirms that "in this bloody military escalation, between on one side the imperialist forces of the United States and Israel and the other the reactionary militias of political Islam, the men and women workers, and more broadly the peoples of the region, have nothing to gain but everything to lose (...) (and that) as internationalist men and women workers, one of (its) urgent tasks is to support the development of a third camp, the camp of the workers in the Middle East both against imperialist domination and Islamic oppression"[5], what is happening here in reality? Has the FA become internationalist? Absolutely not! It's only continuing the drive to make the choice for Arab resistance against Israel, but under another form than that taken by the direct protagonists! As in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite "Hamas and Islamic Jihad coming to power through elections, profiting from the corruption and the discredit of the Fatah of Yasser Arafat and the delinquency of the PLO, drawing profit from the anger and frustration of the Palestinian majority by transforming the anti-Zionist combat into a religious combat", the pseudo-internationalism with which they dress themselves up in only serves to give publicity to a hypothetical secular political leadership of the ‘resistance'. Anti-Zionist combat, yes, but not with the Islamists of Hezbollah or Hamas! For the FA, ‘the third camp' is that of the parties of the left, of the secular and democratic bourgeoisie into which it tries to drive the workers.

In the same vein, Alternative Libertaire (AL) directly affirms that "the Lebanese people will find a way to resist Israeli imperialism, while disengaging from the interference of the Syrian state and from the religious reaction incarnated in part through Hezbollah. It is dramatic that this retrograde organisation has been hegemonic in the Lebanese resistance faced with Israeli aggression." [6] Thus the sister group of AL in Lebanon finds itself standing alongside "'traditional' and denominational political parties" of the "14 March current", qualified as "a relatively innovating movement" that could "open up perspectives for another future for Lebanon", opposed to the "corrupt purveyors of Syrian tutelage and nostalgia for the grim past of Lebanon."[7] Anarcho-chauvinism really has nothing to learn from the patriotism of its bourgeois friends and serves them as a supplier of cannon fodder in the battles which fragment the dominant class!

In the fourth and last part of this series, we will look at the idea of ‘a-nationalism' defended by several anarchist elements, who often oppose it to ‘internationalism'.   

Scott 1/10/9

see also

Anarchism and imperialist war (part 1): Anarchists faced with the First World War [20]

Anarchism and imperialist war (part 2): Anarchist participation in the Second World War [21]

Anarchism and imperialist war (part 3): From the end of the Second World War to the end of the counter-revolution [22]

---

[1] Federation of Education, Science and Technical workers, KRAS-AIT.

[2] Courant alternatif, no.154.

[3] Non Fides, no.2, September 2008.

[4] Poster "In Gaza as elsewhere..." signed "Some anarchists" distributed at the beginning of 2009 in Belgium.

[5] Union Locale CNT of Besancon, Syndicat CNT interco 39, FAU-IAA Boers (Germany), Fédération Anarchiste francophone, 28 July 2006.

[6] Alternative Libertaire, 18 August 2006

[7] Alternative Libertaire no.154.

A "bold" decision?

The decision by the US to reverse part of its missile shield deployment has been hailed as a "welcome U-turn" (The Guardian 18/9/9), a "bold" move, evidence of a ‘listening Obama' compared with the intransigence of President Bush, even as a move towards peace. It is none of these things.

The reversal of the nearly decade-old proposal of the Bush administration, to site a sophisticated radar station in the Czech Republic and 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland, wasn't taken by a ‘peace-seeking' Obama, but by the US Chiefs of Staff in order to defend the interests of US imperialism in its problematic role as the sole, increasingly stretched, world cop.

There is no denying tensions between the Pentagon and the White House over the problems that US imperialism is facing in Afghanistan, for example, and no denying the anger of the Republicans at Obama ‘the appeaser of Russia', but this decision was taken by the military in the interests not of peace but how better to wage war, how better to reinforce and rationalise the role of US imperialism as world cop. All of the main elements of the US bourgeoisie, including present Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who was Bush's Defence Secretary, seem to agree with the comments of ex-administration right-winger Zbigniew Brzezinski, that the Bush proposal was for a missile "... system that did not work, for a threat that did not exist, to defend countries that had not asked for it".

Not only was the system inefficient - studies by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show the Pentagon estimates of the radar's ability to detect incoming missiles from Iran were out by a factor of 100 - and largely untried, but its implementation would have required thousands more US ‘boots on the ground' in Eastern Europe. This is something that the US can ill-afford at the moment in more ways than one. Although the increase in US troops in this area was largely what the Bush administration was looking for as part of its assertive ‘we do what we like whatever the cost' policy, the present US administration, under the guise of Obama's "change for the better", is forced to try a slightly different military strategy in the light of the problems it is facing and will face. As President Obama says of this instance, the US is pursuing "a proven cost-effective system".

It's not like there will be no missile shield; a battery of US Patriot missiles will still be deployed in Poland and the Pentagon has said that parts will be "relocatable" and deployed in both northern and southern Europe (The Guardian 18/9/9). In order to counter the nuclear threat from Iran, sea-borne missiles are planned to be operational close to Iran by 2011. Whatever the exact reality of Iran's nuclear capability, it is clear that the US will use the threat as a justification for maintaining a nuclear presence in this strategically important region, with any country in the Middle East a potential target.

Upgraded SM3 interceptors are still to be deployed in Mediterranean Europe and the US is co-operating with Israel on an anti-ballistic missile system called "David's Sling". And as well as the Aegis anti-missile system already deployed in the Sea of Japan, the US still has five nuclear-armed bases across Europe from Belgium to Incirlik in Turkey in which to deploy some of its nine-and-a-half thousand nuclear warheads. There is also a ‘Star Wars' ground-based spin off, a multi-billion dollar nuclear facility that today exists in Alaska and California targeting North Korea.

No more than a move towards ‘peace', this decision is no more a move towards the dismantling of ‘Star Wars', i.e. the militarisation of space. In fact NASA recently launched a Black Brant XII rocket into space designed to create artificial clouds - obviously an experiment with military consequences. The decision to ‘scrap' this particular element of missile technology in Poland and the Czech Republic, which were not due to be installed until 2018 at the earliest, will also have value for the US in the coming nuclear non-proliferation treaty talks for next year, while the defence department is committed to "extended deterrence" and the building of a new generation of US nuclear warheads.

The real framework

The US is having immense difficulties maintaining its global position. "In reality, the new orientation of American diplomacy [of which this Eastern European decision is a part] is still the re-conquest of US global leadership through its military superiority. Thus Obama's overtures towards increased diplomacy are to a significant degree designed to buy time and thereby space out the need for inevitable future military interventions by its military which is currently spread too thinly and is too exhausted to sustain yet another theatre of war simultaneously with Iraq and Afghanistan"(International Review 138 [25]).

If the policies of President Bush were unable to reverse the weakening of US leadership then the diplomatic turn of Obama, partly involving an ‘overture' to Russian and other imperialisms, will fare no better. As the ‘Afpak' adventure sinks into the mire, as Iraq is by no means settled, as tensions in the Balkans and the Caucasus rack up and as Somalia and Yemen turn into unstable warlord fiefdoms, this change to the co-operation policy of the Democrats can only give the USA's rivals of Germany, Russia and France more leeway to pursue their own imperialist interests in return for their own double-dealing ‘co-operation'. Even Britain, along with Germany, is currently pushing the US within the United Nations to gain for themselves a better defined sphere of influence in Afghanistan and around the region. On the ground, the lesser powers will use this ‘co-operative' turn of the administration to try to reinforce their own imperialist influences in Africa, Iran, Iraq and west Asia, and the rivalries with China and Russia also extend well above the stratosphere. "Thus the perspective facing the planet after the election of Obama is not fundamentally different to the situation which has prevailed up to now: continuing confrontation between powers of the first and second order, continuation of barbaric wars with ever more tragic consequences for the populations living in the disputed areas (...) Faced with this situation, Obama and his administration will not be able to avoid continuing the war-like policy of their predecessors, as we can see in Afghanistan for example..." (IR 138 [25]).

There will be no disarmament

During September Obama became the first US President to chair the UN Security Council as he steered through unanimous agreement with, in his own words, a "historic resolution [that] enshrines our shared commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons."

Obama made it clear that "nations with nuclear weapons have a responsibility to move toward disarmament; and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them". He thought it important to recognise that "No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed."

As we have shown, this is the grossest of hypocrisy. US imperialism is determined to maintain its position, and is well aware of the arsenal of weapons that it requires to do it. The language, the image, the conciliatory approach of Obama are just further means used to defend the ‘military-industrial complex' of US state capitalism.

As for the disarmament resolution it is very reminiscent of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 in which 63 countries signed up for "uniting the civilised nations of the world in a common renunciation of war as an instrument of their national policy." It is still, apparently, a binding treaty under international law, but, quite clearly hasn't prevented every capitalist state from resorting to war as a means of advancing their interests.

In the case of the resolution vowing to rid the world of nuclear weapons, far from being a step towards peace and co-operation, it is just another moment in the development of growing military barbarism throughout the world with US imperialism at its head.  

B&C 24/9/9