Terrorist bombs exploded again on 7th March 2006 in the temple city of Varanasi. Two bombs exploded almost simultaneously in a crowded temple in the evening prayer time and in the cantonment railway station, which also remains very much crowded in this period of the day. These sudden explosions left at least 20 persons dead on the spot and 50 persons injured some of them very seriously.

No safety of life for the common masses of working class and exploited people in decadent capitalism

About two months after the serial blasts in the evening peak hour trains in Mumbai [5] terrorists have struck again in Malegaon, a textile town about 250 Km away from Mumbai on 8th September. Again the sole target of the terrorist bombs has been the working class people. Bombs exploded twice in places of gathering of large masses of people on a religious occasion. People were in a festive mood of celebration and lots of children were absorbed in merry making. But the terrorist bombs, no matter whether state sponsored or non state sponsored, cared a straw for all that and all on a sudden threw more than forty of this mass of people involved in worshipping, paying tributes to the dead and celebrating into the dreadful jaws of death and left more than hundred injured most very seriously. Most of the dead were children. There can be no limit to the indignation provoked by such acts of extreme barbarism in any sensible person.

Killers pretending to be sympathizers

Some sort of a cynical competition is now going on among the political leaders of the left and right of the political apparatus of the Indian bourgeoisie. Each one of them is  denouncing terrorism in words and trying to win the race of show of sympathy and concern for the dead and the injured of the ‘minority community’. All of them are trying to score a point over the other in the electoral political game and singing the hymns of ‘communal harmony’. The left is trying to overtake the right. But all of them can not but be totally silent about the root cause of ceaselessly increasing terrorist attacks on the masses of working class and exploited people. They are all trying to whip up the sentiment of nationalism and national unity and thus blocking the process of coming to working class consciousness. They are all bent on keeping the working class confined to the bourgeois terrain of communal harmony or hatred and derailing them from the class terrain of class consciousness and unity. Leaders of the ‘international community’ are also very lavish in their show of sympathy and condemnation of terrorism. These leaders also can not but be silent about the root cause of increasing recurrence of terrorism against the common masses of innocent people. They are just seeking new excuses for carrying on their imperialist war on terror.

A set framework and formula 

Lying is the inseparable part of the character of the bourgeoisie. Resorting to lies and falsehood has increased manifold in this historical phase of the life of the world capitalist system. All capitalist states and political parties are engaged in lying competition to make the lies and falsehood acceptable to the working class people as truth. The Indian government has rushed to the conclusion about the involvement of ISI (inter services intelligence) and Pakistan-supported and manipulated terrorist outfits in spite of the investigation being at the very preliminary stage. In the same way the Pakistani government has blamed the Indian government and it’s RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) for the flare up of the armed struggle and terrorist activities in various parts of Pakistan. Thus it is very difficult to precisely ascertain who the perpetrators are. But in reality both are very likely to be involved in the terrorist activities in each other’s territory. All the capitalist states and leaders try their best to focus our attention on WHO to rally us behind their imperialist interest. We should be aware of this ulterior motive and focus our attention not on WHO but on WHY.

Why both the increase in terrorism and the war on terrorism

All social, political conflicts have not only intensified but are being further intensified  each passing day in this historical phase. The world capitalist system has long outlived its phase of unhampered expansion which helped to keep the inherent conflicts of the system within certain limits. But now in the condition of decadence and the relative saturation of the world market the inevitable conflict between the capitalist states has become very acute. This is being manifested both through terrorism and war on terror. This has already been manifested most barbarously in the unprecedented death and devastation of the two world wars. Every capitalist state today can not but try every means to ensure its own survival as a fraction of capital at the cost of that of its rival. Thus every state big or small, weak or strong, developed or developing is bound to be imperialist in the present international situation. The ‘international community’ is becoming more and more unable and can not but be so in maintaining the laws of international relations. There is no collective or single international authority in the international arena that can keep the inevitable conflicts under some control and discipline. The process of weakening of the only remaining US superpower is adding to the chaotic situation in the sphere of international relation. Thus the tendency of everyone for himself is becoming more and more predominant and assertive not only in words but also in deeds.  Every capitalist state is trying all possible means to disturb, harass, embarrass and weaken every other state. They are all resorting to secret war through acts of terrorism in each other’s territory. This can not but increase more in the coming period. Both the Indian and the Pakistani states are and can be no exception. The present international situation has added to the zeal of each for further intensifying the secret war against each other through acts of terrorism.

Moreover unemployment, poverty and misery is bound to increase more and more in the coming period. More and more people are being compelled to live in the most inhuman conditions. This can not but be more worsened in the days ahead. The conflict between the various factions of the national bourgeoisie is also intensifying and it will inevitably be more intensified in the coming days. The conflict of the peasantry and petit bourgeois masses of the population with the capitalist state is increasing and is bound to increase more in future.  Obscurantist and fundamentalist ideology is getting more echo among these sectors and various factions of the bourgeoisie are provoking this and actively aiding the fundamentalist forces. Religious and racial fundamentalists are spreading all over the world and trying to instigate religious, communal or racial conflicts. All these provide the very fertile ground for the breeding and development of terrorism and terrorist groups. These terrorist groups are most likely to be aided, supported and manipulated by rival imperialist states and powers in the neighborhood or elsewhere. So there is every possibility of increase in both state and non state terrorism. Thus there can be no respite from the scourge of terrorism so long as the present decadent capitalist system is allowed to further continue its historically needless and most harmful existence. So putting an end to the rotting system is indispensable for getting rid of any sort of terrorism.

Only the working class can put an end to capitalism and to terrorism  

The position of the working class in the capitalist productive process, its collective nature, ability to come to consciousness boundlessly and thus get organized in the best possible way, enables the working class to put an end to the capitalist system. So it will have to disdainfully reject the ideology of nationalism, democracy, communal harmony and the calls for national unity. It will have to find out its own class terrain, international class unity and firmly stick to it. State and non state terrorists are both capitalist and thus the biggest enemy of the working class. Working class can not take any side in their struggle for political supremacy. They will have to intensify their own class struggle against the increasing attacks of capital on living and working conditions in every part of the world. The intensification, generalization, international unity of these struggles and their politicization will serve as important steps forward in the way of putting an end to terrorism and the capitalist system.

Every new day brings with it another expression of capitalism's barbarity. Its principal victims are always and everywhere the working and exploited population. The attack on the World Trade Center, the London bombings, bombings in a packed commuter train in Madrid, the bombings in Beslan, Bali, Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, Delhi, Benares, Bangladesh etc. are all among the most appalling and heart rending crimes against humanity. The latest bombings in the overcrowded trains of Mumbai in the peak hours of the return of the working class people from the work places are nothing but new additions to this series of the horrific acts. People were returning home after hard day’s toil. But the terrorist bombs stood in the way and suddenly and mercilessly threw many of  them into the jaws of death. Words are quite insufficient to fully express the intensity of indignation these totally irrational, insane murders are bound to arouse in any sensible person.

Blasts numbering seven occurred one after another on 11th July 2006 between 6 pm and 6-30 pm in the suburban trains. According to a report in The Statesman of 13th July, at least 190 persons have been killed and 625 persons have been injured, a lot of them very seriously. The death figure in some other widely circulated dailies is about 200. General public thinks the death figure may exceed four hundred.

This city, the financial capital of the Indian bourgeoisie, had already been the target of terrorist attack on March 12th 1993 leading to the death and serious injuries of hundreds of innocent working class people. Then also there were series of powerful explosions, 13 in number, in the most crowded parts of the city. 

Another terrorist attack took place in the morning hours of the same day in the city of Sreenagar, the capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir which is called the heaven on earth for its exquisite scenic beauty of natural surroundings. Terrorists are said to have lobbed a powerful grenade in a bus carrying tourists from various parts of India. This grenade attack led to the death of eight tourists and serious injury to many others. This was followed by another terrorist attack again on tourist vehicles the following day  leading also to a few deaths and serious injuries to many. This particular place of natural attraction has been the scene of innumerable state and non state terrorist activities for quite a long time in the past. General masses of the working class and exploited people have been sandwiched between these two terrorists fighting against each other for political supremacy. The killing and wounding of innocent people have become almost a daily affair here.

Response of the Indian bourgeoisie and its political leadership

The Indian bourgeoisie and its political leadership and parties of the left and right seems to be more concerned about scoring a point over its immediate imperialist rival i.e. the Pakistani bourgeoisie and its state and humiliating it in the “international community.” It seems to be much less concerned about the dead, the wounded and their families. This is quite befitting the capitalist character particularly in this phase of decomposition of the decadent capitalist system. It seems as if the height of cruelty, the enormous number of the dead and the wounded has become an important piece of political capital with which to batter and corner the Pakistani bourgeoisie. They have a predetermined set formula and use it whenever such heinous terrorist crime is committed. The most important elements of this simple formula is Laskar-e-Taiba, Jais-e-Mahammad and the mentor, trainer, supplier and abettor of all them, the state of Pakistan, its ISI (Inter Services Intelligence). Now the formula is being enriched with new elements such as the local links of Al Qaeda. Thus in spite of the investigation still remaining incomplete and inconclusive, so far as the latest revelations are concerned the Indian prime minister and other political leaders of the left and right of capital are pointing the accusing finger at those most important elements of that framework. But all of those organizations have condemned the bombings in the most unambiguous terms.

The Indian prime minister and the government have reacted in a very precipitous manner. They have cancelled the foreign secretary level talk which was to be held in this very month. They have also cancelled the trip of a parliamentary delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference to be held in Pakistan very soon. They are openly and aggressively accusing the Pakistani state and government. The “war on terror”, particularly on cross border terrorism, has for some time been the predominant means of the Indian bourgeoisie in putting pressure on its Pakistani imperialist rival.

Response of the Pakistani bourgeoisie

The President, Prime Minister, Home Minister and other political leaders of the Pakistani bourgeoisie have condemned the bombings in the most unambiguous terms. According to the Daily Times of 15th July,06 Khurshid Mehamood Kasuri, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan has “unequivocally condemned” the recent Mumbai blasts and he added that Pakistan was destined to play a critical role for world peace and security due to its geo-strategic location. According to the same Mr. Kasuri, ‘Those who are against the peace process and do not wish it well are behind these bombings’. In a report in The Frontier Post of 15th July,06 Pakistan has spurned the unsubstantiated Indian allegations and has called for the peace process to continue. The Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam has asserted that “Terrorism is a phenomenon which affects almost every country of the world. Surely this affects every country of south Asia”. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary, Riaz Mahammad Khan has said that “Pakistan does not allow its territory to be used against any country. This is our firm policy and commitment.” According to General Musharraf “any stalling of the peace process (…) because of terrorist attacks would be tantamount to playing in the hands of the terrorists”. These protestations of good faith on the part of the Pakistani ruling class are cynical, self-serving, and manifestly untrue. Nonetheless, the political leaders of the ruling combine in Pakistan seem to be laying more stress on the continuation of the peace process. This emphasis on peace and continuation of the peace process is now most likely  one of the principal political diplomatic means of the Pakistani bourgeoisie in pursuing its imperialist conflict with the Indian bourgeoisie.

Who then are the perpetrators?

Every capitalist state and government excels in lying and tries their best to hide the truth. Every capitalist government, be it Indian, Pakistani or any other else makes a show of being an ardent proponent of the war against terrorism but each of them resorts to terrorism to advance the cause of their conflicting imperialist interests. Each blames the other of assisting and abetting terrorism. The Indian government likes to find out the hand of ISI in every terrorist activities in its territory but is completely silent about the subversive activities committed by its RAW (Research and Analysis Wing which may be called the Indian counter part of the ISI) in the enemy territory one of whose most important parts is Pakistan. In fact RAW has been created for countering the activities of the foreign intelligence agencies in India and for carrying out subversive i.e. terrorist activities in the enemy land. Similarly the Pakistani government sees the hand of RAW in the terrorist activities taking place in various parts of Pakistan but is silent about the terrorist activities of its ISI. So from the statements and assertions of the government leaders of both Pakistan and India it is difficult to assert correctly who the perpetrators in reality are.

So we have to focus on the assessment of which of the contending parties derives the maximum political and diplomatic gain from this ghastly act of barbarism. The G-8 conference was to take place on 16th July, 06 in St. Petersburg and the Indian prime minister was invited to that conference. The bombings took place on 11th July. This has provided the Indian bourgeoisie with a very powerful political weapon to batter, corner and humiliate the Pakistani bourgeoisie, its immediate neighbor and imperialist rival in the ‘international community’ by fully utilizing the opportunity of addressing that conference of the most powerful imperialist states of the world. Moreover the US government has recently announced that it will provide the Pakistani state with 36 F-16 fighter aircraft of the most advanced variety and the Indian government has expressed its disapproval of and dissatisfaction with this decision of the US bourgeoisie. This latest terrorist activity is sure to be fully utilized by the Indian bourgeoisie to put pressure on the US government.

For sometime before the bombings conflicts among the political parties of the ruling UPA clique were being more openly and challengingly expressed on various important political economic issues like privatisation, price hike, a more pronounced tilt towards the US bourgeoisie in international imperialist relations etc. There was every possibility of the recent humiliating failure of the Agni (the latest version of the intermediate range missile) and Insat (Indian communication satellites) launches adding to the internal conflict and opposition. The political parties of the left of capital had also planned some political mass actions against the government. All these have been significantly subdued after the Mumbai blasts. Moreover some political leaders and top police officers have asserted that some other political leaders have various connections with the underworld and terrorists. Thus we can quite confidently assert that the Indian state has derived the maximum political diplomatic gain from this barbarous mass murder of innocent persons. So there is every possibility that even if it had no direct hand in this barbarous act it has allowed it to take place in the same way as the US imperialists used the 11th September attack on the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pearl Harbor in the Second World War to advance its predetermined imperialist strategy and interest.

Focus should be not on who but on why

The bourgeoisie all over the world try their best to focus our attention on who the terrorists are or wherefrom they come and function. With this logic they carry on their imperialist war against each other which is represented as war against terrorism whose principal inventor, strongest and most vocal proponent is the US imperialist bourgeoisie. It is carrying out this war against terrorism since the 11th September attack. But terrorism has not lessened to any extent. On the contrary it has increased and become more widespread and extremely barbarous with the passage of time.

Terrorism is the inevitable product of the material conditions of capitalism and class struggle in this phase of decomposition of the decadent world capitalist system. In this condition of the decadence of the system every capitalist state, big or small, strong or weak, developed or developing is bound to be imperialist for its survival as a national fraction of capital. The world market is inadequate for the full fledged development of all fractions of capital. So every country is bound to make all efforts to ensure its own survival at the cost of that of others. This cannot but exacerbate the imperialist conflict of  each and every nation state against all others.

In such an international situation terrorism has become a very important means of secret war of each capitalist state against other.

The phase of decomposition which was definitively asserted  by the collapse of the Soviet imperialist bloc in 1989 has given a further qualitative push to the tendency of every man for himself and each against all and has thus led to chaotic situation in international relations. This led to the collapse of the western block also and the absence of any bloc discipline which the bloc leaders could impose. The former allies of the US imperialist began to be its powerful imperialist competitors and have been trying every possible means to weaken the global authority and hegemony of the US bourgeoisie. Thus the sole goal of the global strategy of the US bourgeoisie today is to preserve this hegemony and that of other big powers is to further weaken this. In this imperialist tug of war the authority of the US has been weakened in the past few years. Consequently the tendency of every man for himself has got a further push and impetus leading to further worsening of the chaotic situation in the international relations. Thus there is every possibility that terrorism will be given a further boost everywhere in the world and particularly in the sub continent. The forces of terrorism are thus most likely to be further unleashed by the capitalist states of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India against each other.

This particular situation of decomposition of the decadent world capitalist system has also led to the intensification of all social conflicts and those  among the various factions of the national capital. These intensifying internal conflicts are being more and more expressed through armed struggles and terrorist activities against the state. There are lots of Maoist and other terrorist organizations carrying out dreadful terrorist activities leading in many cases to mass murder of innocent persons. Such home grown terrorist groups and organizations are increasing in number and being strengthened politically, militarily and numerically. The prevailing situation of capitalism and class struggle is bound to add to their strength and capacity for murderous, barbarous activities. There is every possibility that these home grown terrorist organizations will be linked with, supported and utilized by other rival imperialist powers to advance their own imperialist cause. So there will be no respite from the scourge of terrorism so long as the decadent capitalist system is allowed to survive.

State terrorism 

State is the most organized, most powerful and legalized terrorist. It possesses all the means of terror. In the phase of decomposition of the decadent capitalist system every state will be compelled to resort more and more to terrorist methods in order to preserve the capitalist order. Every state is bound to bog down more and more into the ‘bureaucratic military morass’ and expose more and more the reality of the dictatorship of capital tearing asunder the democratic mask. Working class and toiling masses of people will be more and more sandwiched between the state and non state terrorists. The state terrorists are terrorizing the working class in order to be successful in increasing the attacks on the living and working conditions. The working class movements are being brutally repressed by the armed forces of the state in all parts of the world. These are also being suppressed by various economic and judicial measures. The strikes of the Hero Honda workers were mercilessly repressed by the police. The recent movement of the new generation of workers in France had also to confront the repressive machinery of the State terrorist. The New York transport workers had to face the economic and judicial repression of the state terrorist. The capitalist state everywhere will be compelled more and more to use its repressive and terrorist teeth against the working class.

War of one terror against another terror

The state and non state terrorists are fighting against each other for capturing or preserving the capitalist state power. Both are trying to present themselves as the best friends of the working class  and exploited masses of people and asking the working class to rally behind them in their war for either keeping intact the right and power of increasing exploitation and repression of the working class and toiling masses of people or for achieving that right and power. The so called war on terror is nothing but  another name for imperialist conflict and the war of one terror against another terror. Both aim to make the working class meekly submit to increasing exploitation and attacks on the living and working conditions. Both are equally imperialist, barbarous, killer, reactionary and repressive. The working class can and should never take any side in this permanent imperialist war and war between two terrorists.

Working class and exploited masses are the principal victims

In any terrorist attack or war on terror the  working class and the toiling masses of people are the principal victims. They are killed and injured in their hundreds and thousands in all these forms of decadent capitalism's permanent imperialist war. This was the case in the World Trade Center, the London tube, the Madrid trains. This has been the case in the terrorist bombings in Delhi, Benares and Bangladesh. This is the case in the terrorist bombings in various parts of Pakistan and India and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Mumbai bombings present the same barbarous reality of decadence. Same is the case in the imperialist war in Iraq, Afganistan, Sudan, Israel, Lebanon etc.

Class struggle is the only way out

Further continuance of the existence of the decadent capitalist system in its phase of decomposition means more uncertainty of life and livelihood, more attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class, more unemployment, imperialist war and terrorism. This means also more barbarity, poverty, misery, pollution and destruction of nature. So the overthrow of the capitalist system is the only solution. No other class but only the working class is capable of carrying out this great historic task. This can only be done by starting class struggles against the increasing attacks of capital, extension and unification of these struggles in all sectors regionally and internationally and ceaseless politicization of these struggles. So the working class has to disdainfully reject the call for national unity against the war on terror and start and intensify its class struggle. Herein lies the only way out.

In the last few years, various social forums are being held in various parts of the world. This new culture of social forums is a new addition to various other attractive means of mystification of the working class and toiling masses of people all over the world. World capitalism is discovering and utilising ever newer means of mystification to contain the working class in the capitalist terrain. AISF is nothing but an important weapon of the ideological arsenal for bourgeois mystification. It is in perfect continuity with the ESF( European Social Forum) and the WSF( the World Social Forum). The AISF following in the footsteps of the other forums leaves no stone unturned to create the illusion of the possibility of another better world free from the intensifying problems of life and livelihood without destroying the decadent world capitalist system, the root cause of all problems endangering human existence today. It has made lofty promises and assertions. Let us try to find out the real essence of these and the real goal to which they aim to lead us to.

Their theories of Anti-Globalisation

Basis of anti-globalisation ideology is the denunciation of 'neo-liberal' policies adopted by the major powers since the 1980s, that have allegedly placed the entire world in the hands of great multinational companies, subordinating all human activities - agriculture, natural resources, education, culture, etc - to the pursuit of profit. The world is run by the dictatorship of the market. This dictatorship has at the same time stolen political power from democratically controlled states, and thus from the citizens of the world.

Thus the anti-globalisation lobby raises the battle-cry: 'our world is not for sale'. They demand that the law of the market must not guide political policies. Political decision-making must be restored to the citizens, and democracy must be defended and extended against all financial diktats.

Anti-Globalisation Obscures Experience of Marxism and Class Struggle…

In sum, the anti-globalisers have reinvented the wheel. It's ‘new’ revelations are: capitalist enterprises only exist to make profit! under capitalism, all goods are turned into commodities! The development of capitalism means the globalisation of exchange!

The workers' movement did not wait until the 1990s and the new wave of clever academics and radical thinkers who have come up with all this. All these ideas can be found in the Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848:

"The bourgeoisie has resolved personal worth into exchange value,(i.e. commodity) … It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourer( i.e. a commodity owner whose only commodity is labour power)…

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe … To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood."

Thus, the anti-globalisers’ claim to be offering a new analysis and a new alternative deliberately suppresses all reference to two centuries of struggles and of theoretical endeavours by the working class, aimed precisely at understanding the bases and tasks for a truly human future. And little wonder: the better world proposed by the anti-globalisers looks back longingly to the period between the 1930s and the 1970s, which for them represents a lesser evil compared to the liberalisation i.e. privatization/ denationalization/ less-state which got underway in the '80s. After all, that was the period of 'Keynesianism' in which the state was a more obvious actor on the economic stage.

…falsifies history….

However, before rushing to choose the years 1930-70 over the last two decades, it's worth recalling a few of the characteristics of that period.

Let's not forget that Keynesian policies the product of the unprecedented crisis of 1929 could only prove to be a temporally palliative but could never put an end to the inherent crisis of over production of capitalism. Let’s not forget the predominance of state control of the national economy in every developed country before during and after the second world war; let's not forget the catastrophic situation of the working class during the world war and for some years after it; let's not forget that since 1945 not a single day has passed without war and that this has resulted in the loss of tens of millions of lives. And finally, let's not forget that at the end of the 1960s, capitalism plunged into an economic crisis that led to the inexorable growth of unemployment. Nothing but state capitalism, the inevitable product of decadence , is responsible for all this.

This is the 'better world' the anti-globalisers look back on so fondly, the lost paradise destroyed by the multinationals!

…. and hides bourgeois nature of the state and the bankruptcy of capitalism

All this is the expression of a classic ideological manipulation by the bourgeoisie: to rehabilitate the state and make people believe that it can be used against the excesses of liberalism, or even serve as an alternative to the law of the market.

According to the anti-globalisers liberalization is the root cause of all problems afflicting humanity today. Thus in their view the proletarians only have to rally to the defence of the state and of public services: this is the real secret of this ‘radically new’ theory: state capitalism, whether in its Stalinist or democratic form.

But the state is not the guarantor of a better world, where riches are more equally distributed: it's the state which ruins this world, through war, through attacks on workers' wages, pensions and social benefits. What the anti-globalisers are saying to all those who ask questions about the socio economic malaise is this: the choice is between liberalism and state capitalism, when the real choice is between socialism or barbarism, destruction of capitalism with all its states, democratic or otherwise and multinationals or increasing imperialist war and terrorism.

The source of wars, of poverty, of unemployment, is not the so-called liberal revolution imposed by super-powerful multinationals, but the mortal crisis of decadent capitalism, which no policy of the bourgeoisie, whether Keynesianism--more state or liberalism—less state can resolve.

Sowing Illusions in Reformism in order to hide Necessity for Proletarian Revolution

Anti-globalisers claim to be anti-capitalist. But their anti capitalism is confined to reforming the ‘excesses’ of the present decadent system which are materially inevitable and they never call for the destruction of this decadent world system. Their prescription of self management is nothing but self exploitation of the working class in essence in today’s economic conditions. They hide shrewdly the hard reality of the wage labour relationship, production for market, profit , the root cause of all discrimination and socio economic and political problems and thus block the process of development of consciousness and urge for overthrowing the capitalist system through internationally centralised , united collective struggle of the international working class.

Internationalism in words that hides nationalism in reality

But the adherents of all sorts of social forums and anti-globalisers also claim to be internationalists. but the defence of the national interest of capital is an essence the basis of their internationalism and anti imperialism The only possible form of real internationalism is that of the working class, the only class which has the same interests in all countries. It is inseparable from the goal of overthrowing capitalism and abolishing frontiers, which is the precondition for any genuine liberation of humanity.

The internationalism of the anti-globalisers is just the respectable shop window behind which is hidden the real goods: the defence of one imperialist interest against another. One of the main unifying themes of the anti-globalisers is opposition not just to the multinationals or the World Trade Organisation, but to the USA. In reality they are all the product of the same decadent capitalist system. Anti-globalisers’ sole target is to denounce the US imperialism and domination of the world market, not imperialism and the world market as such. But in today’s society every country can not but be imperialist for survival. Their high sounding call for democracy hides the reality that it is the best form of capitalist dictatorship. This is also the powerful weapon of the imperialist rivals of the US bourgeoisie. Global justice campaigner George Monbiot was quite explicit about this when, in one of his many articles for The Guardian in Britain, he called for European unity and the extension of the Euro as a bulwark against US war-mongering. This is about as far away from internationalism as you can get - calling for resistance to one imperialism by binding yourself hand and foot to another. Anti globisers are also part and parcel of the pacifist deception to the march towards new imperialist wars.

Why has bourgeoisie invested so heavily in publicising anti-globalisation movement?

The strong grip the old socialist and communist parties once held over the working class has been weakened by its experience of left-wing governments and the collapse of Stalinism. Faced with the aggravation of attacks on the working class, the bourgeoisie has a real need for mystifications that can derail the tendency for workers to become conscious of the real situation. ‘Alternative worldism’ corresponds to this need, posing as a credible alternative to the old left. The demand for a ‘real left’ makes use of old recipes for a fairer capitalism so that its foundations are not put into question. More specifically, the bourgeoisie cannot afford to ignore the fact that within the proletariat more and more people are posing serious questions about the current state of the planet. This is why the anti-globalisation movement, with its ideology of local self-activity, of libertarianism and syndicalism, its mish-mash of a hundred different mini-causes and sub-movements, is so well placed to lead this embryonic questioning into the dead-end of inter-classism and bourgeois ideology.

By reheating the old mystifications of the left, the bourgeoisie is once again seeking to obscure the simple truth: the only alternative to the destruction of humanity by capitalism in decay is the proletarian revolution and the construction of a communist society. In particular, it needs to hide the fact that any serious proletarian movement will inevitably have to confront the very things that the anti-globalisation movement supports: the state, the left , the trade unions and democracy.

The working class must recognise the bourgeois nature of all social forums including the AISF and anti-globalisation ideology and see it for what it is: an obstacle to its authentic struggles to defend itself from the growing assaults of capitalism.

International Communist Current

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93RD Amendment of Indian constitution and the policy of hike in reservation by the ‘United Progressive Alliance’-Government.

Again after a decade and more Indian government has added new fuel to the fire of discontent of the youth and students by modifying the existing policy of reservation and has decided to implement a hike in reservation from 22.5% to 50% at one blow especially in higher studies and professional courses like medical, engineering and management courses in April06 in accordance with the 93rd amendment of he Indian constitution, adopted in last December 2005;

Obviously this has inflamed the anger of the would be workers (Students and youth who quite  rightly consider themselves to be the immediate victims  of this policy) and this wrath and anger against the system led them to streets against the new policy of reservation. On the other hand, the ‘Other Backward Castes (OBC)’ –category of students for whom the recent hike in reservation is applicable, have also mobilized themselves in favour of the decision of the government, though the anti-reservation movement has been very widespread in almost all parts of India. The movement has been started by the  medicos in Delhi. Mainly the medical students, junior doctors and also senior doctors have been engaged in 20 day’s continuous demonstration, fasting, stop-work etc. Their goal seems to be to pressurize the government to rethink the policy and to set up a commission with completely apolitical persons having expertise on the matter to investigate the social consequence, progress and uplift of the sectors of society for which the already existing reservations in education and jobs have been implemented for quite a long time. They have asked the government for the clarification of the ‘parameter’ used to define ‘OBC’, wanted to know  other ‘affirmative actions’ of the government for  the real development of the social strata for which the government seems to be very much eager(!). The engineering faculty students have also joined them. The manifestation of the piled up anger against the system can be realized  from the daring utterances of some struggling students questioning and  challenging even the authority and directives of the supreme judicial authority of the country. However, finally the Supreme Court has intervened, directed the government to submit to it the rationality of the recent hike in reservation for the other backward castes and the definition of the other backward castes and compelled the struggling medical students and doctors to resume without any delay normal service to the patients to put an end to the chaotic situation in the government administered hospitals. The largest association of doctors called off the strike in the face of this warning. But in spite of this the students are continuing milder forms of protest. Root causes of the movement are still there with the same form and content and any day there may be a more forceful burst out with more anger in a more consolidated way!

Clash between two sectors of the would-be working class for the same goal of better, secured future

Both the sectors for and against reservation are fighting for the same cause: sufficient opportunity for desired education and employment; they are actually eager to protect their future in the face of the increasing lack of any positive perspective in the system. But their respective demands for and against reservation divide themselves into two hostile camps. This is dividing not only the students but also dividing the workers, each camp asking for their solidarity on the basis of age old casteist divisions. Thus they are pushing back the working class in the feudalistic counterrevolutionary terrain and helping the decadent capitalist system, root cause of increasing unemployment and attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class everywhere in the world, to continue its precarious existence still further.

We welcome particularly the combativity of the youths, their hatred against the electoral politics which they have diagnosed to be one of the important causes of such policies of ‘divide and rule’ of the decadent capitalist state, its political parties and governments. The students have given birth to a new organisation,  the ‘Youth for Equality’ which has actually played the leading role in the movement. But it should be noted that this ‘ Youth for Equality’ is firmly situated in the capitalist terrain. simultaneously we see that both the camps fail to address the central question of ‘scarcity of employment’ which actually determine the scarcity of necessary number of seats and infra structure in educational institutions for higher and professional studies. They seem to be groping in the dark in the jungle of apparent or surface manifestations of the root causes of the problems. Thus they remain imprisoned in the apparent-rationality of their arguments which finally make the defenders of anti reservation the victim of the same casteism which they claim to be vehemently against. Thus both the movement against reservation and that for reservation have been profoundly absorbed in the capitalist ideology and confined to the capitalist terrain.

Both the struggles for and against reservation are two false alternatives put forward and provoked by the state and the political parties of the elaborate political apparatus of capital extending from the left extremes on the one hand to the right extremes on the other. They are all hiding behind apparent rationality the root causes of increasing unemployment and the consequent dearth of adequate number of seats in institutes of advanced and professional studies. 

Two false alternatives: two movements: single result: no guarantee of desired education and employment for all

Transformation from the policy of ‘more inclusion’ to that of ‘more exclusion’

The bourgeoisie and its political parties of the left and right want to entrap us into these false alternatives as if our interest would be fulfilled by reservation or by no reservation. But if for example,  there is 100% reservation for the ‘backward’ part of the society, will it be possible to ensure the education and job for all belonging to that section of society? The answer is emphatically the negative. And on the contrary if there is no reservation, and competition is open to all, is it hard to perceive that in that case also it would be impossible to guarantee education and job for all. Thirdly, if we want to take the economic standard as the sole criterion then also the problem of increasing unemployment will not only continue to exist but will intensify each passing day. Today Germany, one of the most  developed countries has more than 4.5 million unemployed people and there is no reservation there . Such is the case in many other developed countries such as the USA, Japan, Britain, France, Italy etc. In a society based on exploitation and production for market, profit and accumulation of capital and not for satisfying the needs of the population, it is inevitable in this historical phase that more and more people will be thrown into the jaws of increasing poverty and misery with the passage of time in all parts of the world irrespective of their level of capitalist development.  

Scarcity of employment:   the inevitable product of today’s capitalism

In history, we see that in the early phase of expansion of capitalist system, the revolutionary bourgeoisie  has wiped out all the vestiges of feudalism in a revolutionary way especially in Europe where we see that there has been no necessity of dividing the society on the basis of rigid social division of labor and caste like guilds. It was that ascendant phase of capitalism when the bourgeoisie was striving for increasing supply of ‘free–labourer’ freeing them from the guild (caste like) and feudal bondage. It was the phase of ‘more inclusion’ of increasing number of new workers coming out of the decadent feudal system; and thus it was not the scarcity of employment but the scarcity of workers which the ascending capitalist system had to grapple with. So it searched for the necessary number of workers from wherever it could. This accounted for the evolving ideology of secularism. Nobody could ever imagine the necessity of any reservation. 

But since the beginning of the twentieth century and particularly since the breaking out  of the 1st World War it has been clear that the world capitalist system has been emptied of its youthful vigor and vitality. The world has been re-divided twice through two World Wars but still like blood-sucking Dracula (who used to have new young ones to suck blood to regain vitality!) the decadent capitalist system can’t get newer and newer indispensable  market to solve its problem of over-production within a single world! This compels capitalism throughout the world to resort to the policy of ‘more exclusion’ of increasing number of workers from the process of production, to move  away from the phase of labour intensive production to capital, machine and automation intensive production to counter the reality of the increasing inadequacy of the available market and the falling rate of profit with increasing rate of exploitation. Thus today’s capitalist system can not but exclude more and more people from the production process adding to the increasing army of the unemployed everywhere in the world including even the developed countries and intensify attacks on the workers, pensioners and even the new generation of the would-be workers(students and youth). Thus the root cause of the increasing uncertainty of suitable employment and better living for all is not reservation or anti reservation but the decadent capitalist system

If we want to find out the real alternative we have to focus our attention on this.  In the countries where there are no problems of reservation on the basis of caste, creed, community or religion, the exploited people are also victim of the same increasing uncertainty of life and livelihood, the same brutal competition and scarcity of jobs. In recent times, the French government launched a deliberate attack on the young generation of would be workers by deciding to implement the new policy of the first job contract i.e. the CPE passed in parliament. This CPE would enable the employer to throw out any worker below 26 years of age at any time within first two years of employment without any previous notice or showing any reason. The struggling French students  achieving the active solidarity of workers of all sectors and not only boycotting but going against  all varieties of the TRADE UNION organizations and leftist parties, compelled the government to withdraw the contemptible CPE through a continuously strengthened and extended,  rigorously organized, united  and centralized movement under the leadership of their own OPEN GENERAL ASSEMBLIES  in which the  workers were invited to actively participate in the debates and discussions and speak about their experiences of struggle against the capitalist system. These general assemblies were  constituted during the movement. The very nature of their demand and their method of struggle  united all sectors of students and workers. Instead of putting a specific student like or sectarian demand they put forward the demand “NO to CPE’ which instead of dividing  united the whole student and youth community .  This and many other examples show very clearly that the  attacks of decadent capitalism on all of us are increasing everywhere in the world in the same way and so the working class response to the attacks also has taken an international character. And the material force of this response depends significantly on the ability  to identify the increasing incapability of the rotting capitalist system to offer us an assured  and better future. These struggles against the increasing attacks needs to be further extended, united overcoming all artificial barriers like caste, community, race, color, creed, religion, national boundary etc. , more developed so far as the level of the indispensable consciousness is concerned, more organized, centralized and directed towards the goal of ousting the decadent capitalist system, the root cause of all the intensifying problems of life and livelihood, cut throat competition, stresses, strains and conflicts of social life.

Why the Indian bourgeoisie resorts to casteism even in the twenty first century?

History shows us that   Indian capitalism as an independent competitor in the world market has come into being in the phase of decadence of capitalism out of the womb of the new world imperialist situation and conflict after the second world war. Global capitalism already had  sunk deeply into the phase of  decadence, a phase of permanent crises due to the increasing dearth of the indispensable  and adequate market imposing the necessity of ‘more exclusion’ on each capitalist state . India, as a nation state did not emerge through a victorious bourgeois revolution in the ascendant phase of capitalism; thus instead of being capable to oust the feudal remains, it has compromised with and utilized those.   This shows how incapable the system is to create the necessary conducive socio-economic and political environment for the real uplift of those people who are still victims of ‘untouchability’, caste prejudices, backwardness and used as pawns of different bourgeois political clicks in their ‘holy’ democratic chess competition. History is not determined by the lofty, noble aims of some well meaning persons but it is determined rigorously by the available material conditions in the socio-economic and political domain. So there is little hope that the prevailing backwardness, the curse of the caste prejudices and conflicts can be put an end to within the decadent world capitalist system in which the Indian capitalist state is inseparably integrated. The decadent capitalist state has been compelled not only to preserve but also to strengthen the age old social divisions on the basis of caste or tribes and utilize these to strengthen its social control. This is being achieved through picking up some able and efficient persons from each sections of society by offering them some employment or legislative opportunities through the policy of reservation. These beneficiaries return the favor by acting as social roots or political ideological props of the state and the system in every part of society. They stand also in the way of the indispensable unity and solidarity of the exploited and working class people and instigates one part against the other in the name of caste, community, region or religion. Thus the political aim of reservation is never the uplift of backward sectors of society but it is the political strengthening of the centralized authority of state totalitarianism in the phase of decadence.  Another aim is the defense of the hegemony of capital through the obnoxious means of division, conflicts and clashes among the various parts and sectors of the working class and exploited masses of people.

The demand for an ‘independent’ commission

The students and youth fighting against reservation have raised the demand for constituting an ‘independent’ commission with eminent apolitical personalities to look thoroughly and seriously into the important and relevant aspects of reservation to ascertain impartially whether the declared aims of reservation have been achieved in reality or not. They also expect the commission to be able to define precisely the criteria of belonging to the other backward castes and invent some more rational and socially justified criteria  for reservation instead of the age old feudal caste basis. But they should ponder over it seriously and without preconceived notions and prejudices if there be any, to find out precisely what favorable change in the overall situation will this lead to if this demand is fully accepted and implemented by the authority. This may either lead to the scrapping of the recent hike in reservation or some modification of the recent policy of hike or invention of some more rational, justified and humane criteria for reservation. But the pathetic and embarrassing reality is that there is bound to be reservation in one form or other as there is scarcity of employment like the reservation of seats in trains or buses. The pundits of the capitalist system are inventing various ideological means of justification of reservation. These learned scholars may not apparently be partisan in outlook. But can they be free from the grip of the essence of the capitalist ideology. Can they remain neutral and independent in the struggle of the working class to oust the capitalist system, lock, stock and barrel? The answer is emphatically negative. A little reflection will make it clear that in whatever round about way they may present their views they cannot but belong to one capitalist camp or the other no matter what their apparent political identity is. These apolitical personalities will not be able to expose the inner reality and the increasing inability of the decadent capitalist system to provide every able and willing person with a suitable employment and better living conditions.  Thus they will never be able to boldly assert the only possible solution which is nothing but the overthrow of the decadent capitalist system  and ushering in of the world communist society on the grave of  capitalism. 

No to reservation, no to anti-reservation, yes to sufficient opportunity for all in all spheres of education and employment on the basis of ability, interest and social necessity.

The counter reservation movement has exposed to some extent at least the real but ugly inner essence of the decadent state. It has exposed the reality that no capitalist government has either the political will nor the capability in this phase of decadence of capitalism to ensure the security and social uplift of the backward sections of the exploited masses. Had it been so we could have seen the establishment of the best quality educational institutes in all the backward and remote areas. Best quality living conditions for all students coming from all sections of the population should have been ensured by the state by this time. There should have been conducive environment and necessary amenities for pursuing education in the best possible way in all the remotest corners. Had all these necessary material conditions been adequately fulfilled this question of reservation would have never arisen in this particular India specific way. But it is bound to arise in one way or other as there is the increasing scarcity of employment necessitating proportional decrease in the rate of growth in the capacity of the educational centers of higher and professional studies. Here everything is determined not by the needs of the population but by the needs of market, profit and the financial compulsions of the state which can not but spend a disproportionate amount of social resources for destructive purposes i.e. for further modernizing the military machinery. Thus we see many posts of doctors lying vacant for years on the one hand and the workload of the doctors working in the government run hospitals increasing on the other. This is very often leading to clashes between the doctors and the relatives of patients and manhandling of the doctors by the agitated population. Similar is the case in the teaching and all other sectors also. But there are lots of qualified unemployed persons who can be employed as teachers and thus can render necessary social service of spreading quality education in all backward parts and earn a livelihood. Here also is manifested the stark reality of the sheer inability of the socio economic system and the government that be, to employ the socially necessary number of persons in the sectors of public health and education. Similar is the agonizing reality in all other social and economic sectors. Thus reigns supreme the condition of increasing scarcity of employment and education everywhere in this phase of decomposition of the decadent capitalist system. This is sought to be both managed and masked through the devices of reservation by the capitalist states everywhere knowing it fully well that it will lead to division and conflict among the various  parts of both the generations of would be and present working class people. Recently there has been a demand for the exclusion of the immigrant doctors from the medical posts in the public health department of Britain. Thus reservation is likely to be introduced there also through the backdoor. We can get a glimpse of the emerging social reality even in the developed capitalist countries. This can not be otherwise in any part of the world today. No capitalist state can keep itself away from the compulsions of the material conditions of the decadence of the system.

Should the students and youth, the new generation of would be working class people remain entrapped in the age-old ruling class maneuver of divide and rule, conflict and clashes among themselves? Should they remain confined to the capitalist framework and terrain?They are inquisitive and enlightened enough to go the roots of the social economic and political evils they are victims of. The conflicting factions of the ruling class are shamelessly using them as cannon fodder in settling their own scores. These enemies of the working class and the exploited masses of people have been playing with their blood for quite a long time in the past. Thus they should disdainfully expose and reject their maneuvers and seriously discover the ways of unity and solidarity not only among themselves but also with all the sectors of the working class. The fully justified demand for quality living, learning conditions and educational facilities for all irrespective of caste, creed, community, religion and economic conditions, has to be raised and fought for. Students and youth should also struggle for suitable employment ensuring better living conditions for all after the completion of education. They should rally with the working class people in their struggle against the increasing attacks of capital on living and working conditions and the struggle to oust the capitalist system. This is the most befitting answer to the divide and rule policy of the capitalist rulers and their leftist and rightist political apparatus constituted by all leftists, extreme leftists, rightists and extreme rightists. This is also the only way that leads ultimately towards the goal of the overthrow of the decadent capitalist system, the root cause of the increasing socio economic problems and conflicts, war, terrorism, uncertainty of life and livelihood, unemployment, retrenchment, workload, curtailment or freeze of real wages, other benefits and  social security in all parts of the world today.

From 20 May to 6 June 2006, nearly 1.8 million garment workers of Bangladesh concentrated in industrial areas in and around the capital Dhaka engaged in a series of simultaneous massive wildcat strikes that took on the proportions of a mass proletarian revolt. During this period, especially from May 20 to May 24 when garment workers’ revolt was at its peak, workers of nearly 4000 factories struck work. These workers, and other workers from the industrial suburbs, continuously demonstrated and blocked highways connecting industrial suburbs to the capital Dhaka and Dhaka to other cities – Mymensingh, Ashulia, and Chitgong etc. In the face of this mass revolt, the bourgeoisie resorted to massive repression. In the first one week, as per official figures, at least 3 workers were shot dead, 3000 injured and several thousands were put into prisons. Striking workers continuously confronted and chased away paramilitary and police forces deployed to crush their movement. "The capital city appeared in the middle of a siege, as garment workers took to streets at about 8:30AM",  reported New Age,  the Dhaka English daily on 24th May 2006. This line was repeated on several days by bourgeois press in Bangladesh as workers persisted with their struggles. Although by May 25-26, bourgeoisie succeeded in blunting the edge of workers revolt by massive deployment of paramilitary forces and with the help of unions, the revolt continued till 6-7 June 2006. Workers in different Export Processing Zones (EPZ) and industrial areas continued to engage in wild cat strikes and demonstrations – most garment factories remained closed. The state proclaimed that factories will open only from 8th June 2006 once order is fully restored.

Barbaric exploitation of workers in Bangladesh – the real face of 'outsourcing and boom'

Amid the whole stagnant economy of Bangladesh, readymade garments sector is the only one the bourgeoisie boasts of. This sector is entirely export oriented and is composed of above 4400 units – most of them working for international buyers. Some are owned by international companies. Most of the garment units are clustered in industrial areas and Export Processing Zones in and around Dhaka – Ghazipor, Savar, Ashulia, Mirpur, Tejgaon, Mohakhali, Uttara, Wari and Tongi etc. The textile and garments export constitute 70% of total $ 9.3 billion export from Bangladesh.

This sector employs 1.8 million workers, 90% of them are women and therefore particularly vulnerable to intimidation and repression. Garment workers constitute 40% of the total industrial workforce of Bangladesh. Brutality of exploitation of garment workers in Bangladesh is typical of the conditions of workers in many sectors 'outsourced' by center of capitalism to third world countries. Minimum wages are 900 Takka (14$) per month. Even this is not paid in half of the garment as well as other factories. These minimum wages were fixed in 1994 and have remained unchanged despite consumer prices having grown three fold in the last 12 years. After the recent workers’ revolt, it is now being said that the garments sector, which has thrived due to cheap, slave labor, had consistently opposed efforts to revise the minimum wage.  "Powerful lobbies of garment owners have been able to keep the government convinced that if wages in garment sector increase, it will increase production costs and discourage local and foreign investors from investing in the burgeoning sector", said Mr. Jafrul Hasan a representative of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (New Age, 29th May 2006). Even boss’s top body, BGMEA (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association) is now saying "Owners of the sweater manufacturing factories, who cheat their workers by paying abysmally low ‘piece rates’ (…) are to be blamed for igniting the workers’ unrest that focused national and even international interest on the gross underpayment of the garment workers and inhuman violation of their rights" (New Age, 29th May 2006).

But starvation wages are not the only expression of brutal exploitation. A few years ago the legal work week was extended to 72 Hours; actual working day is often up to or above 16 Hours. There is no weekly time off in the garment sector – mandatory weekly time off was one of the demands of the revolt. There are no public holidays, no annual leave. Also bosses "show a reckless disregard for safety at workplace as deaths of 4000 workers in industrial accidents such as fire and building collapse point to", (New Age, 24th May 2006). Not only this, there have been cases of beatings and killing of workers. "Intelligence sources said some senior staffers of the factory killed two female workers at Dhaka Export Processing Zone (…) about one and a half years ago but workers could not protest at the time for fear", Daily Independent, 2nd June 2006, Dhaka.

Apparently in these conditions of barbaric exploitation the bourgeoisie dispensed with even a myth of representation - no unions, even linked to ruling gangs, were allowed in any of the garment factories. As per an academic in Labor Studies,  "only 100 out of 5000-plus garment factories have participation committees’", New Age, 3rd June 2006. This absence of bourgeois tools to control workers became an element in the strength and violence of the workers revolt.  

Small beginnings of a mass revolt

As per reports there have been cases of workers struggles in garment factories in last few months. But these were mostly in individual factories with demands addressed to individual bosses. FS Sweater factory, whose events became detonator for the recent revolt, has been in turmoil since last some months with workers repeatedly agitating for their demands.

On Saturday, 20 May 2006, as morning shift started at 8.00 AM nearly 1000 workers of FS Sweater factory at Sripur, in the suburbs of Dhaka, started a sit-in demanding increase in their wages and release of their arrested colleagues – who were arrested on 18 May for participating in an agitation for their demands. The bosses of the company, not willing to tolerate collective resistance from the workers, locked them in. Amid sweltering heat they cut off drinking water and power supply to the areas where workers were gathered and called the police. The police entered the factory at around 11.00AM and along with private security of the factory started beating the workers.  Police also opened fire on workers inside the factory. Many workers were injured, at least 12 workers sustained bullet injuries inside the factory. Six of these wounded workers were arrested and taken by the police. Attacked by the police and the private security of the bosses, workers jumped above the walls to come out of the factory.

Enraged workers started gathering on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway outside the factory. Workers of FS Sweater factory were joined by thousands of other workers and their families from neighboring slums where most of the workers live. By noon the workers blocked the traffic on the highway and took out a procession for their demands and against police repression. This procession of workers was attacked by bigger, reinforced contingents of police force that once again resorted to beating the workers and opened fire on demonstrators. Police also went inside the slums and beat up workers and their families. Workers and their families in turn chased the police. The traffic on the highway remained blocked till evening.

By the end of the day, one worker was shot dead by the police in front of FS Sweater Factory. As per official accounts eighty workers sustained bullet injuries. While the wounded and angry workers went back to the slums, the news of repression and of death of a worker spread throughout the industrial suburbs of Dhaka. Next day, 21st May, was Sunday. Although no major incident happened that day, the news of police atrocity continued to spread. At this moment the bourgeoisie did not expect any major trouble on Monday and did not take any preventive action by way of union, political or police mobilization. Different leftist factions contented themselves with issuing some statements 'condemning' the police attack.

A mass explosion of accumulated anger

It is not clear what type of self-organization and co-ordination developed among the workers that propelled this revolt. But it seems to be very elemental and rudimentary, essentially informal and among the workers in the same areas. What united the workers across many towns around Dhaka and in Dhaka itself was their burning hatred against brutal exploitation, daily repression and the latest police atrocities. The depth of this anger expressed itself in generalized confrontation between workers and repressive forces of the state everywhere in coming few days. It also expressed itself in burning down of several hundred factories during this revolt.

On Monday, 22 May 2006 movement erupted at fully fortified Savar EPZ, another suburb of Dhaka. In the morning, workers of Universal Garments Limited gathered in front of the factory to demand payment of their back wages and were attacked by private guards of the factory. Instead of dispersing, the attacked workers of Universal Garments went to neighboring factories and called other workers for support. Together with other workers, they went from factory to factory calling other workers to join them – at one point more than 20,000 workers are reported to have joined this militant procession. Hundreds of factories of Savar EPZ and New EPZ had joined the strikes by the afternoon. The highways going out of Dhaka were blocked. Striking workers fought back against police and paramilitary forces sent to attack them. Repressive forces of the state opened fire on workers in different parts of industrial suburbs and in Dhaka. Several hundred workers were injured by bullets; more workers were killed in firing by the forces of the state. Enraged by news of death of workers, by evening workers in other industrial suburbs were coming out of their factories.
On 23 May all industrial suburbs of Dhaka were paralyzed by a generalized revolt – most workers stopped work and took to the streets demanding end to repression, release of arrested workers, higher minimum wages, weekly time off, overtime pay for extra work, public holidays etc. Most highways out of Dhaka were blocked. Thousands of agitating workers from suburbs and from within Dhaka paralyzed the capital. There were clashes between the forces of the state and workers everywhere with paramilitary forces opening fire. 
By this time the bourgeoisie had become aware of the gravity of the situation and set out to mobilize all its political and oppressive forces. There were calls from bosses to hand over the city to the Army. By evening of 23 May, Bangladesh Rifles (Border Security Force) was deployed in huge numbers throughout the industrial suburbs. The 'central unions' belonging to different bourgeois political gangs (BNP, AL, Leftists), none of whom has any presence among garment workers, were brought together and they cobbled together a list of demands. On the evening of 23rd May this 'union co-ordination' issued a list of demands. A bourgeois commentator observed, possibly with some exaggeration regarding the insurrection part, "While an insurrection was already in process, the unions put forward a list of demands 'threatening' to go on strike from 12 June (20 days later) if these demands are not met" (pinr.com).

Despite deployment of the Bangladesh Rifles, factories remained closed, the city and suburbs remained paralyzed by workers’ revolt on 24th May. But government now compelled the bosses' body, BGMEA and the newly cobbled together 'union coordination' to sit in a meeting. By evening the Minister for Labor, with BGMEA and Unions Reps on both sides, declared that bosses have agreed to all demands of the workers on revolt – increase of minimum pay to 3000 Taka, mandatory weekly time off and other holidays, 8 hours working day and overtime pay for extra work etc. "It is now time to go back to work”, the union co-ordination proclaimed. It is another matter that a few days later once workers revolt ebbed, the BGMEA representatives proclaimed that they will not honor agreements of 24th May 2006. 

While the edge of the workers revolt was blunted from 25th May 2006 their anger and revolt continued to simmer and explode. There was fresh round of large scale rioting and clashes between workers and forces of the state from 29th May – 4th June. This renewed wave of strikes erupted to protest non-implementation of proclamations of 24th May 2006. Between these days one more worker was killed, hundreds more were injured by bullets.  Savar and other EPZ were once again shut down by striking workers. These businesses were finally opened from 8 June 2006 with deployment of much bigger paramilitary forces.

The role of the unions

One of the major political weaknesses of the bourgeoisie in Bangladesh is the fragility of its democratic apparatus and as a result of democratic mystifications. The current Prime Minister, Mrs. Khalida Zia, is the wife of assassinated military dictator Zia Ur Rahman. There have been other military dictators in the short history of Bangladesh so far. The political process is characterized by gang wars, killings, and large scale bombings between main bourgeois factions – Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Khalida Zia and Awami League (AL) of Hasina Sheikh. The reason of this fragility is perpetual bloody battle between China and India to control Bangladesh – BNP aligned with China and AL with India.

Due to this weakness of its state structures, bourgeoisie has not been able to set up a trade union apparatus, especially in the garment factories. This weakness of the bourgeoisie allowed workers to develop their revolt and give it such a sharp edge for several days. But once the bourgeoisie saw the danger of the situation they quickly set out to redress it. Union coordinations were quickly set up – mostly at formal level, with no presence in the factories.  Agreement between them and bosses was widely propagated on radio, TV and newspapers. They were presented as standing up for workers. A demand for 'union rights' was pushed forward. Although workers have not been sucked in by these lies – as shown by persistence of workers revolt till 6th June and unions’ inability to control it – in the absence of major development of workers self-organization, union lies have not been without influence.

The bourgeoisie itself has seen the danger of its present ways – especially of absence of unions. This has been expressed in numerous proclamations by bourgeoisie that if unions have been there, if 'democratic rights' of workers have been respected, the workers movement would not have exploded the way it did. "Trade union leader Mishu said 'if there had been trade unions in factories… the situation would not have turned violent'" (New Age 3rd June 2006). Another trade union boss declared, "The absence of trade unions is very much more dangerous than the presence of active unions" (Letter from International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation to Prime Minister Khalida Zia). There has even been talk to take help of International Labor Organization in setting up the unions. 

Lessons of the garment workers revolt

There is no doubt that garment workers’ revolt has been the biggest and the most militant struggle so far of the working class in the history of Bangladesh. Despite all odds workers were able to rise up in revolt against brutal exploitation. They were able to develop their struggles in a courageous way in the face of violent repression. The explosion of this revolt and its persistence for nearly 20 days, despite all the repression, expresses great determination and will to fight of the working class. It is an important advance in the development of proletarian challenge to capitalist exploitation. This is the reason the bourgeoisie everywhere blacked out all news of this movement.

Experience of Bangladesh shows that physical absence of unions is not enough. Important thing is the ability of the working class to consciously reject the unions. Even more important is its ability to develop its own self-organization. Development at this level has been very rudimentary, if at all. Although this movement would not have developed if workers have not stood up to the repressive forces, in the absence of self-organization the revolt sometime took the character of rioting. While some of the weaknesses are expression of the lack of experience of the working class in Bangladesh, they also point toward the need for appropriating all the experience of the workers’ movement world wide. It is the responsibility of the revolutionary organizations of the communist left to contribute to the development of the workers’ consciousness of their class identity and of their historic goal: the communist revolution which alone can put an end to the brutal exploitation of the working class not just in Bangladesh but throughout the world.

Communist Internationalist, 13th June 2006

On 1st Feb 2006, 23000 Airport workers of 123 large and small airports spread all over India struck work to resist attacks on their jobs. For next four days work at most airports of the country including main airports at Delhi and Mumbai remained paralyzed. At Calcutta, the flights were stopped. Elsewhere, to keep the flights going, airports were taken over by the Police and Paramilitary forces. The strike was declared ‘illegal’ by the Courts. Government threatened to invoke the repressive law of ‘Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation’ and to deploy the Air Force if the struggle were to escalate. The Police resorted to repression and ‘cane charge’ against the striking workers of the Mumbai airports injuring several workers. The workers anger was expressed in other cities as well.

Workers of Airport Authority of India, that runs country’s airports, have been worried and angry for several months as their jobs have been under constant threat. In the name of ‘modernization’ and privatization government has been pushing forward a process that, even by government claims, is going to eliminate at least 40% of the jobs. This means 9200 workers out of the 23000 will loose there jobs. Workers have been particularly upset, as many of them are old and will find it difficult to get a new job. This fear was expressed by many workers during the strike.  

The militancy of Airport workers has expressed itself in the context of rising militancy and greater willingness of workers everywhere to go on strike. No doubt, the strike by Honda Workers in Gurgaon in August 2005 was one of the most striking recent expression of this willingness to fight back – one which stirred panic among the bourgeoisie and certain enthusiasm among the working class. It gave rise to a widespread spirit of class solidarity for the workers in struggle. But it has not been the only expression of increased willingness to fight back and to express solidarity.

Since August 2005 many workers from different sectors have gone on struggle. Some of the struggles that have expressed both militancy and development of a spirit of solidarity have been strike by Toyota Car Workers near Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, and struggle by workers of Hindustan Lever in Mumbai. 

The strike at Toyota car plant near Bangalore started on 4 Jan 2006 and lasted 15 days. The workers went on strike against punishing work loads and repression by the bosses. They expressed anger against increased speed of car assembly lines and against punishment and fines imposed on not being able to work at new conveyor speeds. Workers protested that increased speed has led to increased spinal cord injuries among the workers. The strike was met by repression – 1500 out of 2300 workers were arrested for disturbing ‘peace’. Although the strike was sabotaged by the leftists, it has not been able to break workers resistance – workers of Toyota has engaged in protest actions since the end of their strike. This struggle and repression of the bosses and government have stirred deep and active class solidarity among workers of other industries in Bangalore. Other workers came out in support of Toyota workers. To contain this class solidarity, unions in Bangalore have been compelled to set up a sham city-wide ‘Coordination Committee’ in support of Toyota workers. 

Similarly, in the middle of Feb 2006, workers of many Mumbai industries came out in support of fight-back by 910 Hindusthan Lever workers in Mumbai against job losses.

Although many of the expressions of solidarity have not succeeded in going beyond unions so far, this tendency is unlike the spirit of resignation and hopelessness witnessed in last few years. In a rudimentary way, it harks back to the traditions of active working class solidarity witnessed during major struggles of the 1970’s.

The bourgeoisie is aware of this tendency toward resurgence of workers struggle and the danger it poses for Indian bourgeoisie and its great economic and imperialist dreams. The state therefore made particular efforts to ‘deal’ with the airport workers whose anger and militancy has been visible on many occasions during last some months. The state did this in cahoots with unions and the leftists who are partners in the coalition government at New Delhi.

While the decision to ‘modernize’ the airports leading to 9200 job losses was known for months, unions and the leftist held the workers back. The decision was ‘declared’ by cabinet on 31 Jan 2006 and unions, fully aware of the anger of workers, called a strike from 1st Feb 2006, possibly with an explicit understanding with the Prime Minister and cabinet. There is no doubt that for the leftists the whole thing was a well planned political charade. But workers anger and determination was genuine and was visible both in workers demos at Delhi airport and at Mumbai and in the fact that all ground activities were halted. But before workers could sense leftists maneuvers, leftist bosses requested a meeting with the Prime Minister on 3rd Feb afternoon to discuss airport workers situation. After meeting the PM, they brought the union bosses to meet the PM who promised to set up a committee to study the issues. Using what even the newspapers called ‘a face saver’, next morning the unions took back the strike. The frustration of workers against this was quite clear – most workers wanted to continue the fight. They had gained nothing and did not want to go back to work. Even some of the union bosses, no doubt as a part of division of labour, termed it surrender.  

There is no doubt that airport workers struggle has to some extent been a limited experience for the workers. Strike was tightly controlled by the leftists and unions, unions succeeded in keeping it isolated from other workers and in maneuvering airport workers into a frustrating retreat. But it can’t but be a minor set back. Also, the struggle unmasked the cynical maneuvers of the leftists and showed the traps the workers should avoid. Some of the lessons of the recent struggles are:

• Workers must beware of unions maneuvers. Workers struggles becomes stronger as much as they escape unions and leftists controls.
• Isolation is the death of workers struggle. Workers must spread their struggle and link up with other workers.
• The tendency for the development of class solidarity must be taken forward and transformed into active, militant solidarity leading to joint struggles by workers across sectors and factories.
• Also, increased willingness of workers to fight and the development of class solidarity open up opportunities for greater revolutionary intervention and put great responsibilities on revolutionaries.

New Delhi 18 Feb 2006

This article is also available in the original Bengali translation [12] .

The leftist controlled capitalist government machinery has pounced upon the unarmed exploited masses of people and agricultural workers in Singur and Nandigram in the rural areas of West Bengal. The holy alliance of state armed forces and the cadres of the CPI(M), the predominant leftist political party of India have attacked the masses of exploited people rising against the government policy and practice of snatching agricultural land for setting up new industrial units and special economic zones giving special privilege and right to the capitalists to exploit the working class people as much as they please. This totally unprovoked attack on the masses of exploited people in the most barbaric way on 14th March, 2007 has led to killing and wounding of hundreds of those involved in the movement against land grabbing. The masses including women, children and even aged people have been most mercilessly, barbarously and indiscriminately beaten, tortured and shot by the police cadre combine. This height of barbarism and terrorism against the innocent exploited masses of people can not but arouse strong indignation in any sensitive and sane person. Words are insufficient to reflect properly the depth of this indignation.

These struggling people might have had the illusion that the leftist government dominated by the CPI(M), the biggest Stalinist party of India who never tires of taking credit for ensuring the democratic rights, dignity and well being of the downtrodden rural masses, will listen to their grievances and fulfill their demand. The political parties of the right and left of capital also have added to their democratic illusions only to use them as pawns in the struggle for increasing their parliamentary strength and political clout. But the task of the proletarian revolutionary is not to cash in on the sentiment and emotion and instigate it further. It is only to expose the root causes of the increasing problems of life and livelihood, reality of the world capitalism, class struggle and the struggle of other exploited masses of people such as the peasantry in the present historic situation.

The contemptible reality of Stalinist barbarism fully exposed

The CPI(M) has been ceaselessly and vociferously asserting that they have done enough for the rural poor, given them their ‘rights' and has been a pioneer in land reforms for the interest of the poor and landless peasants. This claim is not utterly unfounded but they have done this only to strengthen their rural base by implementing the program of land reform of the central capitalist state and government more thoroughly in West Bengal and then have politically utilized it to the fullest possible extent. They have utilized the plight of the peasantry to accumulate the necessary political capital to capture governmental power. This is one of the reasons for their being in governmental power continuously for such a long period of time through the ‘democratic' exercise. This has made them excessively arrogant also. They have now discovered that ‘their' West Bengal is far behind other provinces in ‘industrialization' and lost its past glory. So they have redoubled their efforts to go ahead and attract both ‘indigenous' and ‘foreign' capital as rapidly as possible. No industrialization or urbanization or setting up of SEZ s can take place without land. So they have been bent on land grabbing by any means including brutal terrorizing activities by state armed forces on the one hand and their political mafia gangs on the other. Thus they have let loose a reign of terror on the very peasants they claim to represent and defend, in the same way as the RSS in Gujrat in massacring the Muslims or the Congress goons in massacring the radical leftists, their family members and supporters in 1971 and the Sikhs in 1984 in Delhi and other places or the Siv Sainiks of Mumbai. In this they have taken the cue from their Chinese comrades who also captured political power long ago utilizing the misery of the peasantry and then after entrenching themselves in state power resorted to the steamroller of repression of the same peasantry for the sake of industrialization. According to some reports, the Chinese police barbarously attacked thousands of peasants, demonstrating against the state policy and practice of rapid industrialization reducing the peasantry into a pauperized mass, in the recent past. There have been 90,000 protest movements of the peasant masses in China in the last few years. This shows clearly that the whole left including the most radical and extreme variety in the same way as the right can go to any extreme to serve and save capital and use the grievances and problems of the people only to earn credibility. Both defend none but capital.

Many people think that the CPI (M) has been degenerated and corrupted due to its prolonged privileged existence in the governmental power. But this is based only on the immediate experience. The CPI(ML), the CPI(M), the CPI and all other Stalinist, Maoist and Trotskyists Parties have their historical line of predecessors in the social democratic parties of the second international which rejected the proletarian internationalist, revolutionary line in the time of the first world war and thus went over to the camp of capital, actively crushed the international revolutionary wave in Germany in 1919, assassinated Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebnecht and Leo Jogishes, the leading proletarian revolutionaries. Those very predecessors played the leading role under the leadership of Stalin in transforming the Communist international which was created as the vanguard of the world proletarian revolution into the vanguard of counterrevolution. The Stalinist counterrevolutionary vanguards propagated the biggest historical lie that there was socialism in Russia, which was nothing but a particular most repressive and exploitative variety of state capitalism. The Stalinists, Maoists and the Trotskyists called on the international working class to join the imperialist war with the slogan of anti fascism and joined the democratic imperialist camp against the fascist imperialist camp. Thus, these parties rejected in deed the internationalist line of asking the working class not to take sides in the imperialist war and intensify class struggle against the attacks of capital in each part of the world. In the same way as the fascists, all of them were responsible in alliance with the democratic imperialist powers for the massacre of millions of working class and toiling masses of people. Almost from the very beginning the CPI, the immediate predecessor of the CPI (M) was situated in the capitalist counterrevolutionary terrain led by Stalin, Mao and company. So, the history of their betrayal of the cause of the working class and the exploited has started from the 1930s. But the essence of their state capitalist, counterrevolutionary, repressive and exploitative character was not exposed for quite a long time in the conditions of the deepest counterrevolution and its profound political ideological impact on the working class and exploited masses of people. The present historic course of class confrontation, rising combativeness and coming to class consciousness in the situation of permanently intensifying crisis of decadent capitalism has been an important factor in compelling them to unmask themselves and show their ugly, stinking inner essence.

Are the other political parties and groups real friends of the peasantry?

The CPI (M) repression and barbarism has provided immense political opportunity to the oppositional political parties and groups, including all the right wing and extreme left wing groups. Even the left wing groups of the ruling left front has got an opportunity to batter the CPI(M) big brother and assert themselves more confidently. There seems to be a cutthroat competition among them to prove who the best friend and defender of the peasants are.

All of them are doing their best to establish the CPI (M) as the only villain and culprit. They are shouting at the top of voice against the ‘fascist repression of the CPI(M)' on the peasant masses. They are thus asserting their democratic credentials and trying to set up a united democratic front against the ‘fascist' CPI(M). They are very much eager to rally the working class and the exploited peasantry behind their democratic movement and thus strengthen their political position in the next round of the electoral circus. Thus, their sole aim is the accumulation of sufficient political capital pretending to be the best friend and savior of the peasantry and utilizing their genuine grievances and the repression of the present leftist government on them.

All of them are trying their best to hide the fact that while in governmental power they will also be compelled to resort to the same or more barbaric repression against movements of the working class and exploited masses of people resisting the attacks of the capitalist system on their living and working conditions. This does not depend on the goodwill of this or that party but it is the compulsion of the material conditions of capitalism in this historical phase. Capital can live today only by increasing the exploitation of the working class and exploited masses of people.

These oppositional political parties are also generating false hopes in a populist way in the exploited and struggling masses of people. According to them the strong arm, extremely barbaric method of the CPI (M) is at the root of all evils and the problems will be solved if that party is compelled to go out of governmental power. Thus, they are focusing the attention of the people only on the persons killed or injured by the police cadre combine. This is of course extremely tragic. But we must never be blind to the fact that in the last two or three years 20 to 30 thousand peasants owning agricultural lands of various sizes have committed suicides in various parts of India and particularly in those parts where agriculture is most developed and thus most integrated into the global market. But those pretending-to-be-friends of the peasantry are focusing the attention only on the political will of this or that government and deliberately hiding the determining material conditions of world capitalism in this phase.

Aggression of the capitalist system

We should take into account the history of the coming into being of the capitalist system from the womb of the pre capitalist mode of commodity production and exchange.

We should remember also that in the course of the development of the capitalist mode of production millions of small producers of commodities and peasants have been dispossessed of their land or means of production. In fact the capitalist mode of production can exist and develop only by constantly devouring the pre capitalist producers of commodities and small owners of means of production. These people could not maintain their old mode of production and existence in the face of the cheap capitalist commodities, which served as the economic bullets that could destroy all Chinese walls of resistance of the pre capitalist states and producers. However, in the vigorously rising and expanding phase of world capitalism in the nineteenth century those persons evicted from their livelihood could easily be integrated into the capitalist system of production.

On the contrary, this is not the situation today in this historical phase of permanently intensifying crisis of capitalism, which is being forced by the material conditions to exclude more and more people from its system and throw them out into the horrible hell of unemployment, misery, pauperization and precarious living and working conditions.

Increasing the rate of profit is the only mantra and concern of the capitalist system and the political parties of the left and right of capital. This is being more and more difficult with the passage of time. So the capitalist factions are engaged in cutthroat competition in the sectors in which there is possibility of maximum and very quick profit. This is why the process of relocation of industrial production and outsourcing is gaining momentum. The European and American capitalist factions are shifting part or whole of their production process, outsourcing many of their activities in those areas of the world where there is enough skilled and very cheap labour power. This is at the root of the ‘shining' of India and the dazzling growth of China in these days. This ‘industrialization' in the phase of senile global capitalism cannot but increase enormously the capitalist demand for land. Thus, the development of the real estate has become a very profitable sector now around urbanized concentrations almost everywhere in the world particularly in the rapidly growing economy of China, India etc. Thus, in the same way as the gold rush of the past, there is now a land-rush all over India, leading to increase of land prices rapidly and speculation on land is being resorted to for making a quick buck. It is impossible for the peasantry to resist this apparently invisible capitalist aggression on their means of livelihood. Thus millions of peasants are losing their land in this ‘normal' economic process of the dying capitalist system bent on continuing its historically needless and destructive existence by hook or by crook.

Moreover, the rural economy has been thoroughly integrated in the global capitalist economy. The tentacles of the market octopus have brought all sectors of the economy under its suffocating grip. Thousands of small peasants find themselves in a very helpless, precarious and perplexed situation confronting the impersonal, essentially uncontrolled forces of the global capitalist market including those of the nation state. This pushes them towards the road either to suicide or to sell their ‘good earth'. Thus, the destruction of the peasantry is unstoppable so long as the senile capitalist system exists. This is impossible for any capitalist state, government or political party whatever good dreams it may like to dream or sell to the distressed peasantry on the verge of destruction.

False Alternatives

Both the government and the oppositional parties are offering false alternatives to the exploited masses of the hapless peasantry. The leftist government is trying to sell the idea that their beloved ‘industrialization' will generate enough jobs for those who are losing their means of livelihood. This is nothing but an outright bluff. The ruling CPI (M) asserted not very long ago that the recent spurt of economic growth in various parts of India is a jobless growth, which is of course a fact. But how in case of West Bengal this generalized fact of growth all over the world today can be totally reversed and can become by some leftist miracle a jobful growth.

The oppositional parties are asserting that if the peasants are not forcibly dispossessed of their land their problems of living will be solved. On the basis of the above analysis of the dynamics of the capitalist production and market in this historic period it is clear that this is not only false, regressive but also pushing the peasantry to a blind alley to remain sucked up in the precarious pre capitalist state of existence to be used as political cannon fodder whenever necessary.

Hence, there is no solution worth the name within the present capitalist system.

The only way towards solution

In fact, there is no question of choosing the solution by any of the abovementioned false alternatives. There is also no question of choosing between this leftist government or any other more radical leftist or supposedly more democratic government. Most radical land reforms advocated by the most radical leftists and Maoists providing land to all tillers and thus creating innumerable small owner peasants is also no solution . As the global capitalist system is the real culprit and the root cause of the intensifying problems of life and livelihood of the working class and exploited people all over the world, the only task is the ousting of this barbarous monster lock, stock and barrel everywhere in the world. If this task is not fulfilled the very existence of humanity as a whole will be more and more at stake with each passing day. So the political milieu outside the grip of the leftist and rightist political apparatus of capital and the new generation questioning the existing capitalist system who have been deeply moved by the extremely barbarous attacks on the exploited peasantry and spontaneously come forward in their support and risen against the repression should think about the real alterative i.e. the ousting the world capitalist system. Only the international working class is capable of carrying out this historic task victoriously. Herein only lies the real possibility of liberation of all other exploited masses of the toiling people. Therefore, they have no other way but to rally behind the revolutionary working class, which will be their only real friend.

Terrorists attacked the sleeping passengers in the Smajhauta express or the ‘peace express' in the late night hours of 18th February07. Several coaches of the express train were set on fire 100 kilometers away from the Indian capital by the incendiary devices planted by terrorists. 67 persons including many children were killed on the spot. 15 persons were injured, 12 of them very seriously. Most of the killed are reported to be Pakistani nationals.

Every sane person can not but condemn this abominable, barbarous act.

Crocodile tears of bourgeois leaders

Bourgeois leaders all over the world including the prime ministers and presidents of both India and Pakistan are displaying their indignation against this ‘horrendous tragedy', ‘act of heinous crime', ‘dastardly and cynical terrorist attack'. Both these capitalist states have killed thousands of exploited people and workers in uniforms in all the imperialist wars they have fought against each other since their very birth as imperialist twins in 1947 and these two fractions of the bourgeoisie caused the death of masses of innocent people in the riots they provoked for creating the conditions for their birth as separate states in 1946. USA, Japan and other fractions of the western bourgeoisie, the loudest protagonists of humanitarian values and human rights today have killed millions of innocent people in the two imperialist wars solely for advancing their imperialist interests and are still continuing their mission of mass murder and destruction. All of them always try to focus our attention on who the perpetrators are and wherefrom they have come and are getting material support. Simultaneously they are trying to derail us in the process of coming to consciousness about why these barbaric acts of terrorism and war against terror are proliferating in these days. Their sole concern is to accumulate as much political ideological capital as possible from such barbarous acts with the only aim of strengthening political ideological offensives against imperialist rivals. The behavior of the highest political leadership of both India and Pakistan has shown clearly how brittle is the ‘sanjhauta' or peace between the two bourgeois fractions and how much suspicious they are about each other. The Indian government has rejected the proposal of the Pakistani government for joint investigation of the crime. In the first meeting of India Pakistan joint anti terror mechanism in Islamabad the Indian government is reported to have given the Pakistani government the lists of its nationals involved in various terrorist attacks in India including the attack on the Samjhauta Express. On the other hand Pakistan claimed that the nationalist rebels of Balochistan and Sindh are being helped from across the border. In spite of the possibilities of exaggeration by both sides these accusations against each other can not but have profound material basis in this historical phase of world capitalism. The Pakistani authorities have airlifted all its citizens seriously injured in the blasts and undergoing treatment in a renowned Delhi hospital only a few days after the blasts saying ‘ the victims can not be further traumatized' and ‘why should anyone interrogate victims?' Thus the Pakistani government has ensured that no witness is left in the Indian hands and the question of their immediate medical treatment relief and nursing has been pushed to the background. According to senior Indian government officials ‘India has been put in the predicament of now having to explain to Pakistan how its citizens lost their lives in India'. According to a text in the OUTLOOK, a sophisticated weekly of the Indian bourgeoisie, of 5th March07 this blast will allow ‘Pakistan to exploit a huge window of unexpected opportunity'. The former foreign minister of fundamentalist party led government has asserted that India has lost the ‘strategic initiatives'. Thus the calculation of sordid imperialist interest is predominant in both sides, the apparent concern for the dead or injured is nothing but a means for that. This is and can not but be the hard reality everywhere in the world whether in world trade center, London, Madrid, Beslan, Bali, Mumbai, Malegaon, Karachi, Baluchistan or Bagdad.

Why further intensification of barbarism

As days are passing by barbarism is manifesting its hellish essence in more and more horrifying and atrocious forms. In this advanced phase of decadence of world capitalism the tendency of everybody for himself and each against all has become predominant leading to increasing lawlessness, chaos and disorder in international relations. The imperialist conflict among all the states has intensified and is bound to intensify more and more each passing day. The conflict among the factions of capital within every state is also bound to intensify further. All the social conflicts also can not but be more and more aggravated in every country. This provides the fertile breeding ground of terrorists and terrorism. These terrorist groups are then utilized by capitalism in its national factional fights or international imperialist conflicts. These terrorist attacks against each other have the possibility of culminating in the war on terror or threat of the same of the more powerful against the less powerful. This again gives a new thrust to the terrorist attacks. There can be no end to this vicious circle in this historical phase.

Historically and generally secret terrorist attacks have been the means of warfare of weaker opponent bourgeois or petit bourgeois forces against the stronger enemy. It does not of course mean that the stronger forces do not resort to this. On several occasions the Pakistani bourgeoisie has been defeated in open frontal war against its principal imperialist rival, the Indian bourgeoisie. It has suffered the most humiliating defeat in the 1971 war which led to the cessation of Bangladesh. Since then secret low intensity war of attrition through terrorist methods have occupied a very important place in the overall imperialist strategy of the Pak bourgeoisie. The frequency, intensity and the barbarity of these terrorist deeds depends of course on the evolution of the world imperialist situation.

The Pakistani bourgeoisie was forced to be a part of the US led alliance for war against terror in the wake of the attack on the world trade center in 2001. But since then the evolution of the international imperialist situation particularly after the 2003 Iraq war, has led to the gradual weakening of the US imperialism. This has made the international imperialist situation more uncontrollable giving a further boost to the tendency of everybody for himself and each against all. According to the Statesman of 3rd March07 ‘ in getting tough guy Dick Cheney to ....threaten to slash development aid to Pakistan, the Bush (mal)administration has finally woken up to....Musharraf's duplicity on terrorism.' In this context it is worth taking into account Musharraf's remarks, ‘we are not so vulnerable that anybody can exert pressure on us'. This reflects on the one hand the evolving situation of the US being more and more bogged down in Afganistan and Iraq and consequently further weakened and on the other of the growing tendency of lesser imperialist powers to act on its own caring less for what the US reaction will be. This particular international imperialist situation may have given a new boost to the cross border terrorist activities supported, aided or abetted both by the Pakistani and Indian bourgeoisie. This latest heinous terrorist crime has given the Pakistani bourgeoisie highly valuable and powerful political ideological weapon for launching a vigorous political diplomatic offensive against the Indian bourgeoisie and corner it in the ‘international community'. It can prove that it and its citizens are victims of terrorist attacks taking place in the Indian soil and the Indian authorities have failed miserably to prevent the attacks. It may also help it to some extent to brighten its own tarnished image as a haven for various sorts of terrorist groups. Thus it is quite likely that the Pakistani state might have allowed this attack to take place if not directly provoked it, in the same way as the US bourgeoisie behaved in the attack on the world trade center. According to the Pakistani foreign office spokesperson no Pakistani national can be involved in this attack as the attack is against the Pakistani citizens. The implication of this is very significant. Thus it is quite clear that the capitalist states be it USA, Pakistan, India or any other, care a straw for the life of their own citizens when they act for safeguarding their respective imperialist interest. The evolution of the international situation is most likely to give a further boost both to terrorist attacks on masses of working class and toiling people and the above tendency of aiding, abetting or allowing terrorist attacks. So our existence will be more and more at stake with the passage of time if the capitalist system continues still further in the phase of decadence.

Loud shouting about peace

This time the dominant factions of both the Pakistani and Indian bourgeoisie is shouting loudly about peace. According to The Statesman of 22.02.07 the Indian president said , ‘we should not allow this tragic event to affect our common quest for normalization of relations between India and Pakistan.' This sentiment has been reciprocated by the top political leadership of Pakistan also. But the history of these two imperialist twins conveys the totally opposite message since their very birth. They have come into being out of the womb of imperialist conflict and fought several imperialist wars against each other since their birth. There can not be any real peace and ‘normalization of relations' between any two capitalist countries and factions particularly in this historical phase. Today war has become permanent and the condition of existence of capitalism. The peace process can only be the particular phase of the permanent imperialist conflict when it is not manifested through open frontal war but limited to political, ideological and diplomatic offensive against each other, low intensity war of attrition through terrorist acts and all out preparation for the next bigger confrontation. For sometime the Pakistani bourgeoisie has been compelled to pursue the strategy of avoiding open frontal confrontation and establishing its peace loving credentials. The Indian bourgeoisie has also been forced in present situation to mask its aggressive postures with gestures of peace. So this peace process and any peace , if there be any at all in this historical phase, is bound to be very superficial, partial, contingent, conditional, temporary and unstable. Both the Indian and Pakistani ruling factions are pretending that their beloved peace process is being thwarted by the terrorists and using the opportunity for putting the blame on each other's shoulders. Thus this show of concern for peace and loud shouts about it , are meant only for derailing the proletariat in the process of coming to consciousness.

Working class is the principal victim

In all the terrorist attacks and war against terror working class people have been the overwhelmingly principal victims. They have been killed in hundreds and thousands in the WTC, London tubes, Madrid trains, Mumbai, Malegaon trains, ‘peace express', Kashmere, Iraq, Afganistan, Serbia, Bosnia, Israel, Palestine etc. Simultaneously with these fatal attacks on the lives of the working class people, attacks on the living and working conditions are being and will be more and more intensified.

Mystifications - the most dangerous enemy

Bourgeoisie is never tired of hiding the reality and mystifying the working class as it knows very well that a conscious, organized and globally united working class only can successfully execute the death sentence of the decadent capitalist system. So they are trying their best to rally the working class behind their program of terrorism, war against terror and ‘peace initiatives'. Working class will have to disdainfully reject all these bourgeois maneuvers, struggle to clarify its class positions and class terrain and firmly stick to that.

Working class struggle is the only way out

Working class is the only class capable of putting an end to the capitalist system and thus save humanity from total extinction. Working class will have to intensify class struggle against the intensifying attacks of capital on the living and working conditions wherever they are. These struggles will have to be self controlled, extended across sectors, unified not only in the territorial level but also in the global level, politicized more and more and directed towards decisive confrontation with the capitalist states and their total destruction.

The Indian part of the world capitalist economy is growing in a dazzling manner, the world and Indian bourgeoisie and its scholars tell us. There is of course some reality behind this dazzling glow. It is growing at a very impressive rate of 9.6% according to 2006/2007 estimates in the CIA World Fact Book. This is almost equal to the rate of growth of the Chinese economy. According to a report in Indiabooming.com "main booming areas for India are IT, ITES, BPOs, pharmaceuticals, technology, real estate, retail industry and even chemical and food sector. Mall culture, multiplexes, hypermarkets, and retail sector are growing in India and retail brands from all over the world are showing their keen interest to even set up their manufacturing plants in India". According to a report in Business World, a widely circulated, popular, authentic journal of the Indian bourgeoisie,   (12.03.07): "growth of manufacturing and services was above 11% in 2006\2007. Agriculture grew at just 2-3 per cent". The most important role in this growth has been played by the services sector which accounted for more than half of India's GDP. It is also the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy. Business services (IT, ITES - Information Technology Enabled Service -  and BPO - Business Processing Outsourcing) are among the fastest growing, contributing to 1/3 of the total output of services. The IT  industry accounts for 1% of GDP or 1/50th of the services.  According to the CIA World Fact Book, the services sector had largest share in GDP (55% ) in 2007 up from 15% in 1950. This sector employs 23% of the total workforce. According to the same source agriculture and allied sectors like fishing, forestry, logging etc. accounted for 16.6% per cent of the GDP in 2007 and employed 60% of the total workforce. This report states that factory output constituted 27.6% of the GDP in the same year and employed 17% of the total workforce.

If the growth of world GDP is compared with this growth of the Indian GDP, the latter of course presents a very dazzling sight compared to the fading average world growth, which is estimated to be around 3.7/ 3.8 per cent in 2008/2009. A report in Business World of 5th May, 2008 states that "the latest estimates of 3.7 or 3.8 per cent projected world growth for 2008\2009 are lower by a full percentage point since January this year (2008)". Thus in this quite pessimistic global backdrop the Indian growth in recent times cannot but seem to be very dazzling to everyone.

There has been very rapid growth in the automobiles and two wheeler sectors also. India has also achieved growth in areas such as auto components, chemicals, clothes, pharmaceuticals and jewellery. Remarkable development has also taken place in the construction, real estate and housing sector. There has been considerable infrastructure development and railway network expansion. Lots of modern highways and expressways have been constructed in recent times.

Causes of growth

1. Influx of foreign capital

According to the chief economist of Kotak Mahindra Bank as reported in Business World on 12.02.07, "A large part of India's recent growth has been driven by liquidity provided by FII (foreign institutional investors) inflows".  This viewpoint is strengthened by the assertion of a top boss of Morgan Stanley's Indian operations, according to which a key factor in this accelerating growth has been the sharp rise in capital flows in response to global risk appetite. He asserts: "Over the past 5 years households and government have lapped up this liquidity, increasing India's debt to GDP ratio by 20 percentage points which has supported the acceleration in GDP growth". FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) inflows in India have reached a record 19.5 billion US dollar in fiscal 2006/2007. This was more than double than in the last fiscal. The FDI inflow in 2007/2008 has been reported to be 25 billion US dollars.  

Industrial policy reforms in the nineties have substantially reduced industrial licensing requirements, removed restrictions on expansion and facilitated easy access to foreign technology and FDI. The upward moving growth curve of the real estate sector owes much to a booming economy and liberalised FDI regime. In March, 2005 government has allowed 100% FDI in the construction business.  The liberalised FDI policy has allowed 100% FDI stake in various other ventures as well.

2. Service sector growth

The exceptional growth in the services sector led by very striking development in the IT, ITES and BPO sector has been fuelled by increased demand from foreign consumers interested in India's service exports and those looking to outsource their operations. "India has emerged as an important ‘back office' destination for global outsourcing of customer services and technical support" (BW 12.02.07). According to a study published in The Statesman of 06.10.08, India is the top outsourcing destination in the world:  "India, home to six of the world's top eight outsourcing hubs, continues to be a major global IT and BPO outsourcing destination amid a determined bid by China to give it a tough competition in the field". As the services sector accounts for more than half of the total GDP(53 to 55%) and the IT, ITES and BPO play the most important role in the growth in the services sector, the recent Indian boom owes a significant amount to the phenomenal growth of the global ‘information technology revolution' This has made the former CEO of Procter and Gamble India assert that "the Indian growth path is unique. That is really scary because we are not following a proven model.' (BW, 12.02.07). According to the director of global markets research, Deutsche Bank, "India's growth trajectory has been unique. The traditional Asian path has been to start with low technology products like toys and readymade garments and then work up the value chain to products like automobiles and electronics. India's trajectory has used the skills of the educated middle class to boost services-software, airlines, banking, hotels, telecommunications and so on". (BW 12.02.07) Various explanations are being put forward by well-established and well-placed economists. A chief economist at Crisil has pointed out that when East Asia started developing there was no significant outlet for the export of services, and so the countries of that part of the world had to put more emphasis on manufacturing. According to this economist India missed that bus and opened up its economy when the demand for services was growing. "The emphasis on services was the result of serendipity and there was no planned growth strategy to increase the share of services", he says. (ibid). This is very significant in understanding the quite sudden explosion of growth in the services sector which may be said to have played the role of the locomotive of Indian growth.  The economic advisory council to the prime minister of India has contrasted the Indian and Chinese growth  by asserting that "China's growth was driven by an expansion of manufactures which were largely exported and a large part of the incremental income was saved and invested in infrastructure. India's growth on the other hand was fuelled by services  while also benefiting from buoyant external demand" (BW 20.02.07).

The economist in the field of global markets at Standard Chartered Bank has pointed out that the lack of infrastructure has been a factor which has induced entrepreneurs to prefer services to manufacture. According to her "the private sector discovered  they could do better in services". This is also very important for understanding the actual inner reality of the Indian economy and its dazzling boom.

This may lead some people to think that these striking developments and the higher share of services in the GDP heralds the advent of a developed economy; and some sectors of the Indian bourgeoisie and political apparatus also subscribe to this complacent attitude and consequent self-confidence and arrogance. But the economic advisor of the Tata Group trashes such ideas. According to him "the expansion of the share of services sector does not indicate that the economy is an evolved one. The share of services in Bangladesh is 52% and for Senegal, 66%." (BW 12.02.07)

Skilled, efficient but cheap labor power is at the root of this boom in the sphere of export of services and outsourcing. Otherwise there would have been no need for the outsourcing of business operations by various companies in the developed countries. This is also at the root of the growing demand for software, IT, ITES services from various foreign countries; and India now has a competitive advantage in this sphere.

In the sphere of manufacturing also the "ability to produce small cars at prices far lower than in Korea helped Hyundai Motor India's Chennai plant become Hyundai Motor's global hub for its Santro.  Maruti Suzuki has established itself as a cost effective car producer and is exporting products like Alto and Swift to Europe and other world markets" (BW 20.08.07). This clearly indicates the availability of a reservoir of skilled, efficient and cheap labor in India; this is luring foreign capital to come and exploit this source of extraction of so much surplus value as it will make them competitive and highly profitable. According to the managing director and CEO of ICICI bank "a parallel trend is the growing number of international companies choosing India as a global manufacturing and sourcing hub. They have clearly seen India's advantage as a manufacturing base. While these growth engines are still at a nascent stage, these are not the only sectors that will provide the growth momentum going forward" (BW 20.08.07). He assets further that  "the important feature of our economic development is the emergence of knowledge capital as the key growth driver.......this is a key economic reality and has resulted in rising household incomes and has stimulated growth in consumer demand which in turn has provided the impetus to industrial production". This strengthens further the above formulation of the availability of a vast pool of skilled and cheap labor which is at the root of this dazzling growth and boom in this part of the world.  A similar viewpoint is expressed in the CIA World Fact Book which asserts that the size of the middle class population at 300 million represents a powerful consumer market. It adds that India has a large pool of skilled managerial and technical expertise. This has been an important factor in the very impressive high growth curve and boom in the housing sector.  

3. Use of debt

Lowering of interest rates by the Reserve Bank (the central bank of the Indian government) from 12/12.5 in 2001 to 8.5 in 2004/2005 accelerated the demand for house-building and house-purchasing loans, and also loans for the purchase of consumer durables like refrigerators, motor cars, motor bikes, and many other kinds of automobile two wheelers.  It is a well known fact that when there is lack of sufficient demand for capitalist products, indicating an impending crisis, the capitalist state intervenes in the economy  with various measures like making loans cheaper or dearer, bailing out important financial corporations from collapsing through the provision of a huge amount of cheap loans from the central banks, changing the exchange rates of currencies, the implementation of various Keynesian prescriptions etc.  Artificial creation of demand through cheap debts is a means which is very widely used in these days of the decadence of the system. The growth of the US economy in the last few years has been predominantly propped up by debts both of private households and the government. The Indian government has also followed in the footsteps of the US bourgeoisie and other developed bourgeoisies in the heartland of capital.  This resort to cheap loans has played an important role in the growth of demand and consequently the growth of the economy. Enhancement of state expenditure both in the developmental and non developmental spheres contributes to the further enlargement of the consumer base. In the last few years the Indian government has spent huge amounts of money in the infrastructure development sector. According to some reports non-development expenditure has increased ten fold since 1985/1986 and military expenditure has increased fourfold in the same period. In the current financial year the Indian government has announced a debt relief of about 700, 000 million rupees or about 15.6 billion US dollars for the peasants for political/economic considerations. All  this has of course added to the size of the market but has also added to the size of the budget deficit year after year. This has resulted in the increase of India's public debt which "today is 31,070,510 million rupees (or 690.5 billion US dollars). That is about 83% of the GDP- a figure that's uncomfortably high for a developing nation...It could balloon into a debt crisis sometime in the foreseeable future" (BW 20.08.07). According to a professor of economics in the most prestigious and elite university of India "the country finds itself today in a debt trap (where most of its borrowing is towards payment of interest and not the principal)"(BW 04.06.07). Thus however dazzling and impressive this growth of the Indian economy is, it is very different from the nature of the growth of the capitalist economy in all countries in the nineteenth century.

 Aggressive marketing policies by the companies producing consumer durables, and allowing purchase through affordable installments, have also been a factor in the boosting of demand which in turn led to the further acceleration of growth. All the above constitutes quite a massive market and all national and international fractions of capital are involved in cut-throat competition to exploit this market.

The size of the Indian retail market is 10,120,000 million rupees which is equivalent to 230 billion US dollars (BW 09.04.07). In the current year this figure is 13,300,000 million rupees or 295.6 billion dollars. According to a report in The Statesman of 29.09.08, "the country's retail sector is projected to grow to 700 billion dollar by 2010, while organized business is expected to be 20 per cent of the total market by 2010". Big corporations, national as well as multinational, are leaving no stone unturned to make their presence felt and dominate this market. Confrontations between the retailers and the big corporations are increasing. The overwhelming majority of people engaged in this retail trade all over India are small petty bourgeois owners of shops and stores, and they constitute a sizable market for capitalist products.

4. Expansion into rural markets

Moreover rural India has a population of 700 million. According to a report in the BW of 20.08.07 "the ability to do business in rural India is improving dramatically. Villages are getting connected through shifts in technology of agricultural and related production". There has been almost wholesale integration of and interdependence between industry, financial service and agriculture. Agricultural production has now become predominantly pre-capitalist commodity production. Rural infrastructure development and integration with urban commercial centers is increasing. The Indian government has put special emphasis on the construction of metal roads in the rural areas. The government has directed banks to provide very cheap agricultural loans and has been implementing employment guarantee schemes for people in the rural areas.  The director of global market research at Deutsche Bank has advised businesses  "to think rural beauty parlor and public transport project rather than cutting edge animation software" (BW 12.02.07). The importance of the rural market which is predominantly pre-capitalist has been grasped by the  capitalist scholars and elite.

Moreover there is a growing number of agents of big capitalist corporations in the insurance, banking, pharmaceutical and other sectors. According to some estimates there are about 1.1 million agents in the Life Insurance Corporation of India alone. There are lots of medical and sales representatives. Lots of people earn their livelihood from the transport service as pre-capitalist producers and sellers of services. There are huge numbers of lawyers who have a petty bourgeois mode of existence. There are lots of brokers both in the stock market and in other markets  such as real estate, finding and getting rented house in the urban centers etc. All these together constitute quite a considerable market for the capitalist sector. The total available market inside Indian national borders as enumerated above has played a very important role  in the actual reality of the Indian boom.

Some economists and economic researchers have asserted that much of the demand in east  Asian countries comes from exports to the developed world, while in India most demand is based on  domestic consumption growth. According to the World Bank report on world development indicators, India's export of goods and services  constituted only 19% of the GDP while that for China was 34% and for Korea was 44%.

Capitalism's inbuilt limits    

The world capitalist system can increase production as much as it likes but it can not increase the indispensable market in the same way and at the same rate. Marx has asserted that production increases in geometric progression but the market expands in arithmetic progression. So there is always  a gap between the volume of capitalist production and the volume of the available capitalist market.  Capitalism is unable intrinsically to fill this gap itself. The surrounding pre-capitalist environment provides capitalism the indispensable succor. But as capitalism advances it gobbles up the pre-capitalist sectors in one domain after another, and thus like the old fable cuts the very branch on which it sits. In the course of this forward march of world capitalism the whole world market becomes divided among the major developed capitalist powers, provoking imperialist war for re- alignment of the international imperialist configuration and re-division of the world market. This has been the motive force behind the two world wars. Vigorous efforts for the further exploitation of the remaining pre-capitalist markets are also made but in the course of time the market becomes relatively saturated, which has been the case since the late sixties when the permanent crisis of the world capitalist system in its inevitable phase of decadence raised its head again after remaining suppressed for about quarter of a century after the 2nd world war.

Capitalist production is directed solely for market, profit and accumulation. But the indispensable market becomes more and more unable to absorb the total global capitalist production. This leads inevitably to further intensification of competition and conflicts among all the national fractions of global capital. Every capitalist country without any exception becomes compelled to be imperialist for its survival as a fraction of capital. Every country resorts to various state capitalist measures to stay afloat: public and private debts, cheating the law of value, controlling market forces, manipulating the money supply, the lending rates of banks, the exchange rates, etc. More recently, the major capitalist powers clamoured for and imposed globalisation on the developing world to open their markets for their products, technology and capital. The creation of the WTO and its activities show clearly the intensity of the crisis, the consequent conflict and scramble for the available markets. On the other hand the developed countries, the major capitalist powers, using one pretext or another, imposed various restrictions on the export of commodities from the developing world to the developed world. Every capitalist country is being compelled according to its strength and capacity to resort to all possible political, military, diplomatic and economic measures to ensure for itself the indispensable market for its products and thus its own survival as a capitalist fraction at the cost of others. Every country, every capitalist corporation is making the utmost efforts to be more competitive than others. Cost-effective production has become the watchword of present day capitalism and this helps us see clearly the real inner essence of world capitalism in this advanced phase of decadence.

The very nature of capital is to fly to that sector and that part of the world where there is the possibility of maximum profit. So in these days of ‘political globalisation'(in contrast to the ‘normal' globalization of the late 19th century) various fractions of world capital are taking frequent flights to those sectors and places which assures the maximum and quickest profit. Thus frequent forays are being made to the stock markets and foreign exchange  markets  all over the world. Capitalism is more and more becoming a casino economy. The amount of such ‘flying capital' moving rapidly from one country to another wherever there is the possibility of quickest and maximum profit is increasing more and more,  and is becoming predominant over the capital employed in the production of industrial, agricultural commodities and other socially necessary services.  It is trying to be more involved in the insurance and banking service sectors in various parts of the world. There is also a clear preference for the information technology related service sector. In this sphere the developed fractions of global capital have found India as a very profitable destination. Various factions of Indian capital as well, like Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance etc, are trying to reap maximum profit from this. On account of the particular elitist educational policy pursued by the Indian capitalist state, putting more emphasis on tertiary education than on primary and secondary education, India possesses a large, well-educated, skilled workforce quite fluent in English speaking. This labour power is also rather cheap in comparison to the developed world. So the factions of international and national capital became bent on exploiting this cheap source of skilled, efficient youthful  labour when the global  demand for IT, ITES and BPO services became very high for the maximization of profit. This gave rise to a quick boom in the information technology related service sector.

We have already seen that the global manufacturing giants and the big Indian corporations are also trying their best to exploit this large pool of technologically equipped, youthful, cheap manpower, raw materials and components and  make India a manufacturing hub for being competitive in the world market and reaping maximum possible profit. A world giant in mobile phone handset manufacturing,  Nokia, has already set up a large production base near Chennai airport and a large number of its global suppliers have also opened their production facilities in the privately owned large SEZ of Nokia. Nokia products are meant for both Indian and foreign consumers. Hyundai Motors, Maruti Suzuki etc. are also doing the same thing. All these have given a big boost to the relocation of industrial activities and outsourcing of services and technical support. Industrial establishments and service centers are being closed in the heartlands and being re-established in countries like India and China. This is leading inevitably to de-industrialization in the heartlands of capital. This is the peculiarity of the growth pattern of world capital in this historical phase of decadence and is fundamentally different from that in the ascendant phase.

28% of the Indian population is engaged in the services sector (CIA Fact Book)  and the contribution of the services sector to the Indian GDP was 53.6% in 2005, according to the Asian Development Bank report. From this we can easily have an idea of the relatively higher income of a considerable number of those employed in the services sector. This is true for the manufacturing sector also which contributes 27.4% of the GDP (ADB report) and employs 12% of the population (CIA Fact Book). Thus both these sectors have constituted a market of about 300 million within India. In addition to this there is still now a quite large extra-capitalist market  as asserted above. This overall demand cannot but attract both indigenous and foreign capital to enlarge their productive activities and establishments here.  

But this is the creation of a particular historical phase in the life of world capitalism. In this phase demand and growth in certain parts take place at the cost of the same in other parts, more particularly in the heartlands of capital. We have already seen that whereas the growth in India have neared a two digit figure in the last few years and that in China has recorded a two digit growth for a considerable period, growth in the heartlands of capital cuts a very sorry figure, as a result of which the growth in world GDP is estimated to be 3.7 to 3.8% in 2008/2009. This great difference in the rate of growth between the developed heartlands and the developing periphery speaks volumes for the health of global capital in this historical phase of the decadence of capital. This anomalous, abnormal growth in certain peripheral parts at the cost of similar growth in the central parts of the system must be recognised as a cancerous growth, signifying the diseased, senile state of the system.  

People are very often inclined to be taken in by the howling of the world bourgeoisie about the dazzling growth and boom of the Indian economy. The bourgeoisie is bent on mystifying and convincing the working class all over the world, particularly the working class in the heartlands of capital, by singing hymns of praise for the growth of India and China. They have the strategic aim to convince the working class that everything is fine with the capitalist system, that it possesses remarkable powers of resilience  and can get back to normal whatever the crisis and financial explosions at times. But we must assert forcefully that in spite of all the drumbeats about Indian growth and boom, India's participation in world trade is still now a meager 1.2% according to a report of the WTO on world trade in 2006 (CIA Fact Book). Thus it makes little dent in the decreasing and much lower rate of growth in the heartlands of capital and the average very low GDP growth rate in the world as a whole.

On the one hand there is all this growth, a growing market of more than 300 million consumers. On the other hand there is unlimited poverty and misery.  A 2007 report by the National Commission For Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS) found that 65% of Indians, or 750 million people, lived on less than 20 rupees or a little less than ½ a US dollar per day with most acting in the "informal labour sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty" (CIA Fact Book) We have also seen that 60% of the total workforce is employed in agriculture and allied sectors, contributing only 16.6% of the GDP. It can easily be understood that the level of income of the general masses of the agricultural workforce can only be very low. In the last few years about 25,000 small and medium peasants committed suicide as they did not get remunerative prices for their commodities. The rate of suicide among the peasantry is increasing. Many bourgeois economists and scholars have also admitted that there is serious underemployment and disguised unemployment in the agricultural sector. This growth and boom has failed to reduce drastically the percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture. Thus the Indian economy is thousands of miles away from having evolved into a developed economy, having the same level of development as that of the heartlands of capital. The World Bank has classified India as a low income country.

Of course a large number of educated and skilled youth has been employed in the IT, ITES and BPO sector and has constituted quite a large and effective consumer base for capital, but there has been no lessening of the problem of unemployment, which stood at 7.6% in 2006 according to the CIA Fact Book. On the contrary the percentage of unemployed people is increasing with each passing day. As in the developed world, here also the general capitalist practice is to curtail the number of the employed workforce and freeze new employment. Even the vacant places due to retirement are not being filled by new recruits and the workload of the remaining workforce is being constantly increased.  It is a generally agreed fact in the camp of bourgeois economists, scholars and politicians that this is a jobless growth. As such it is totally different from growth in the ascendant phase of the system when the system integrated more and more people into productive activity as it grew more and more. But today, however dazzling the growth is, it is excluding people in increasing numbers. The recent Indian growth is no exception to this general rule of this phase of capital.

The imperialist context

We have already mentioned that according to the chief economist of Crisil, the emphasis on services was the result of serendipity. This implies that coincidence and chance factors have played a very important role in this growth of the Indian bourgeoisie. India started opening up its economy around 1991/1992. Economic reform policies began to be  implemented at that point. This historical juncture is of crucial importance. International relations among the capitalist states all over the world were going through a phase of violent disruption. The  prolonged world imperialist order dominated by the two imperialist blocs, led by the US and the erstwhile USSR, came to pieces after the collapse of the eastern bloc and the USSR. This engendered a new world disorder, a situation of instability and indiscipline. The remaining one superpower, the US, found it more and more difficult to preserve its unquestioned hegemony. This led to the process of its weakening. In such an international imperialist situation, the tendency of everybody for himself and each against all began to be more and more predominant. This heralded the advent of the advanced phase of the decadence or decomposition of the system. The weaker bourgeoisies of the developing world also began to disregard the dictates of the militarily most powerful US bourgeoisie. This is the international backdrop of the recent Indian growth and boom.

The political and strategic aspect of economic development has assumed new proportions in the context of this advanced phase of decadence. Economic rationality and the prospect of enormous profits played a predominant role in the wars of the ascendant phase of capitalism. But the concern for political and strategic gain plays a predominant role in the wars breaking out in the phase of decadence.  Similarly the drive for super profits in itself is not the determining factor in the movement and investment of capital, technology, relocation of industry  etc. We know of the Marshall Plan after the unprecedented devastation of the 2nd world war and its important contribution to the remarkable economic development of Germany, France and other European countries in the post-war period. US participation in the development of Japan and Korea was also very significant. But the motive force behind this active US participation was the imperialist, political strategic interest of the US in the new imperialist world order that emerged out of the war.

In the new imperialist world order arising out of the collapse of the imperialist blocs, new political, military and strategic alliances have formed. In such a historical phase the political and strategic importance of the Indian bourgeoisie was grasped by the bourgeoisies of the USA and western Europe. The Indian bourgeoisie also became aware of its weight, strength and confidence. It began to get away from the long cherished Stalinist model of state capitalist development and began to embark on a policy of economic reforms and opening of the economy. It began to move more towards the democratic  form of state capitalism.  

On the other hand the necessity to contain the rising political, military and economic power of China made the US and other western powers realise the need to use and develop India as a counterweight. This obliged the bourgeoisies of those countries to resort to all possible steps to push  forward the economic development of India. Its legal, political and judicial set-up might also have been thought favourable by them. The economic causes mentioned above are of course  important but in today's world political and strategic factors play a very important role. Capital from any part of the world is not as free as it was in the phase of ascendance to move to any other part. It depends also on the nation state of that part of the world to which it wants to move. The latter is also guided not only by economic calculations but above all by political and strategic calculations. This is necessarily the case in these days of intensifying imperialist conflict between each and every country without any exception. Any capitalist corporation engaged in the production of sensitive military equipment cannot go and set up its production unit without the permission of its state of origin. According to reports in some bourgeois journals, some American companies were not allowed by the US government to sell supercomputers to China. In such cases the political, strategic relations and perspectives play not only a very important but determining role. So the geo-strategic position, the political and military weight of the Indian bourgeoisie in the ‘international community' in the nineties and afterwards has been very important factor in its evolution as a favorable destination for foreign investment.

India's growth and the working class

According to a long time member of the Indian parliament and leftist trade union leader, "attacks on the Indian working masses have dangerously and diabolically intensified in the recent period. Economic reform is not only intended to advance industrialisation, it also encourages use of rigorous methods to squeeze the working class  and deny its basic entitlements... about 97% of the workforce is in the unorganized sector. Lamentably most of them are outside the pale of any social security scheme and are left to the mercy of ruthless exploiters.  Contractualisation and outsourcing of work have grossly affected working conditions.  While working hours have been increased to more than 10 hours a day in small and medium industries, particular in the ‘new wave' factories... the wage is generally below the minimum without any statutory benefits... All this to substantially cut labour costs and maximise corporate profits... Downsizing is the order of the day... productivity  has improved but the labor force has been significantly reduced... On the one hand there is a striking increase in profit for selected units... on the other hand... the average real wage has declined" (The Statesman of 5th September, 2008) It may be mentioned here that the "small and medium industries account for 40% of India's industrial output and 45% of its exports" (BW 20.08.07). "Small and Medium Enterprises that had been growing at 35% in the last two years would register a 40% growth rate... and would contribute to manufacturing output to an extent of 46%... India's small and medium enterprises' contribution to the GDP is likely to touch 22% by 2012, a study by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry has said" (The Statesman 29.09.08) This sector is growing very fast and becoming more and more important to the big corporations, which are outsourcing their various productive activities to these SMEs. These SMEs don't care a straw for the labour laws of the state: these are the real sweat shops based on maximum possible exploitation and repression against which working class explosions have already broken out in several places.

Inflation has been inseparably linked with India's growth and has reached a 16 year high level.  The ‘Black' economy, government policy on money supply and lending rates, the creation of artificial demand through cheap debts, increasing government deficit, enormous military expenditure, the arms race, the political necessity of subsidies and other state capitalist measures aimed at cheating the law of value - all these serve as important factors behind the recent growth and are pushing the inflation further forward. It is now more than 12%. It is making the living condition of the working class much more precarious. It is indirectly adding to the already intensified exploitation of the working class. Government measures have failed so far to result in any significant decrease in the rate of inflation. The government is afraid to take very stringent measures lest these should violently shake and slacken the rate of growth.

This Indian growth, which is based to a significant extent on the relocation and outsourcing, leading to de-industrialisation, factory closures  and increasing attacks on the working class in the heartlands of capital, is giving rise to conflict and disunity among different sectors of the international working class; and the political apparatus and trade unions of the left and right of capital are doing their best to provoke this still further as was seen in the Seattle movement led by US trade unions to keep the class confined to the capitalist terrain. The effect of the decadence and decomposition of the system is thus being utilised against the working class.

The Indian and the Chinese growth has now been a very powerful weapon of mystification of the world bourgeoisie. It is sending a false message to the global working class - that in spite of the repeated crises and financial collapses the system is in good health and there is light at the end of the tunnel. They did the same with the Asian tigers before their bubble burst. They are doing the same thing with the new Asian growth. A global and historical outlook is essential to understand the actual reality of this abnormal growth. This growth in the phase of capitalist decomposition is in essence laying and developing a serious trap for the global working class, politically, ideologically and economically.               

Conclusion

The capitalist system is a system full of contradictions. The apparent external glory and glow hides the ugly inner inhuman reality. This is not and cannot be otherwise with the Indian or Chinese growth and boom.  This is very clear from the assertions of a former governor of the most politically and militarily disturbed province of India, in an article entitled ‘New tryst with destiny', published in The Statesman of 15th August 2008.  In his opinion "we continue to nurse illusions and derive satisfaction from short term gains and outward glitter. These days one often hears about India's impressive foreign exchange reserves, her outstanding  performance in the area of information technology.....  But comparatively little is said or done about her ever widening income gap between the rich and the poor, worsening problems of unemployment and underemployment, continuance of acute poverty and malnutrition, rapid increase in the number of squatters and slum dwellers in cities and sharp deterioration in both rural and urban environment. .....India today has the largest number of poor, the largest number of illiterate and the largest number of malnourished people in the world. On account of low purchasing power over 250 million men, women, and children go to bed hungry everyday. One out of three Indian women is underweight.  About 40% of the total low birth weight babies, under the age of 5 years, in the world are Indian. Fifty seven million children of this age group are undernourished; its percentage (48%) in this regard is even worse than that of Ethiopia(47%). Six out of seven Indian women are illiterate. In the cities the slums and squatters' settlements have been proliferating, growing 250% faster than the overall population.  Mumbai with about 12 million living in such settlements has become the global capital of slum dwellings. India is still reckoned as one of the most corrupt nations in the world".

This ugly reality behind the outward glow of impressive growth and boom is further darkened by the fact that "the ‘black' economy is about half the size of the official economy ...and the loads of cash it generates play a huge role in fuelling inflation. ...Much of the money coming to India as foreign investment is also nothing but rerouted ‘black' money"(BW editorial 04.06.07). According to a professor of economics at JNU, India's most elitist university in New Delhi, India's black economy is worth an astonishing 500 billion US dollars.

However bright the glow of recent economic growth in India and elsewhere, it is based on the further intensification of exploitation and worsening of living and working conditions in the working class, not only in India but in all other parts of the world.

Communist Internationalist

On the evening of Sunday, 18th October 2009 workers of RICO Auto, Gurgaon who were on strike since 3rd October 2009, tried to stop strike breakers. Company security guards and strike breakers, mostly criminal elements brought to intimidate workers, responded by violently attacking striking workers. The police, that had been deployed at the factory gates since the beginning of October 2009 to control the strike opened fire on workers. One worker was killed in the firing and 40 other injured. 

This violent repression created a wave of anger among workers in Gurgaon-Manesar Industrial belt, nearly 30000 of whom have been engaged in struggles against their bosses in several factories since some months. It also angered workers elsewhere.

This anger was expressed in shutdown of twin cities of Gurgaon and Manesar on 20th October 2009 that was first regular working day after killing of a worker at RICCO Auto. Although unions had called the strike, masses of workers from the companies where workers have been fighting against the management went around calling on other workers to stop work. From early Tuesday morning, workers of RICO Auto and Sunbeam Casting have started their protests and have blocked the National Highway 8. They were joined by waves of workers from other companies like Sona Koyo Steering Systems, TI Metals, Lumax Industries, Bajaj and Hero Honda Motors Ltd. As per official declarations by the local administration, nearly 100000 workers of 70 auto parts making companies in Gurgaon-Manesar joined the one day strike.

Although workers of most companies went back to work on 21st October 2009 and the struggle did not spread, these events are a significant advance in workers struggle in India. This is the result of spread of class struggle in different parts of India including in Gurgaon-Manesar that had seen workers confront the state in July 2005 during strike by workers of Honda Motorcycles. Since then through numerous struggles workers have strengthened their resolve to fight the bosses and do so more and more simultaneously.

Bitter Fruits of the Economic Boom

During all the ‘boom years' leading to  2007 when Indian economy saw significant expansion, conditions of the working class only worsened. Most important expression of this worsening had been the loss of job security. Despite expansion of the economy during ‘boom years', the bosses carried out massive destruction of permanent jobs and their replacement by contract labour that came with much lower wages and no social wage. Companies like Hero Honda, Maruti and Hyundai, whose production zoomed manifold during these years (in case of Hero Honda the production zoomed from 2 Lakhs to above 36 Lakhs), has seen permanent jobs shrink and disappear. Their place has been taken by temporary workers. This has been the story of every company in India. Automobile and auto parts companies in India, given the cut throat nature of the competition in this industry, have been at the fore front of these attacks on workers. Despite these attacks, during much of this period, especially till first couple of years of this century, workers found it difficult to develop their struggle. Relentless attacks by the bosses and inability to fight back, during this period this has been the bitter reality for the working class through out the world.

With the coming of economic collapse in 2007, the situation has only worsened. All sectors saw massive jobs cuts and cuts in wages and benefits. In addition there has been massive growth in prices of all necessities of life. Prices of essential goods like vegetables, pulses and other groceries have more than doubled. This trend has not been a seasonal spike but has persisted over more than two years now. With prices rising and wages frozen, living conditions of workers have only become more precarious and desperate.

Today, while the bosses talk of end of recession and fast growth of Indian economy, situation for the workers is not changing. Casualisation of jobs and wage freezes has continued.

Development of Class Struggle

What has changed over the years is the determination of workers to fight back. More and more, the working class has come to realize that unless it unite and fight, the bosses will continue to tighten the noose. This realization has got translated into a will to fight that has now been visible since some years and has only grown stronger. As a result we have seen development of class struggle all over the world. There have been countless examples of this over the last couple of years in every country. Some major recent struggles of the international working class have been occupation of Ssangyong car plant, the fifth largest car maker in Korea, in July 2009 for more than two months; occupation of Visteon  car plant in April 2009 and of Vestas Windsystems in July 2009 by workers in Britain, strike of the postal workers in Britain in October 2009. Similar struggles have taken place in Germany, Turkey, Egypt, China and Bangladesh.

Working Class in India Develops its struggle

In the face of crises and attacks of the bosses, working class has been trying to fight back. There have been important strikes in public sector - Bank workers strike, all India strike by oil workers in Jan 2009, Air India pilots strike, strike by 2.5 Lakhs state workers in Best Bengal, strike by Government employees in Jan 2009 in Bihar. Some of these have been bitter conflicts where the state tried to hit hard at workers and crush them. This was the case with oil workers strike in Jan 2009 when state used ESMA and other laws to crush the employees and took repressive actions. This was also the case with strike of Government employees in Bihar where government wanted to teach a lesson to employees. In oil workers case, the government backed off from further repression as there was a threat of the strike spreading to other public sector undertakings.

Like their comrades in Public sectors, workers of many other sectors have fought back. One of the massive and radical struggles was that of diamond workers in Gujarat in 2008. Majority of the several lakh diamond workers are employed in small companies where unions have no controls. The strike there started and spread as a mass revolt that engulfed several cities - Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Amerli etc. The state resorted to police repression in all these cities.  

In addition all the major automobile hubs in India - Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, and Gurgaon-Manesar have witnessed repeated and tenacious efforts by the workers to fight for their jobs and living conditions.

Workers at the second largest car maker in India, Hyundai Motor at Chennai have gone on strike repeatedly in April, May and July 2009 for better wages. For long bosses have tried to suppress the struggles of workers and have often threatened to close their factories in India. In nearby Coimbatore, workers of auto part maker Pricol India have been fighting the bosses since more than two years against planed and repeated sackings of permanent workers and their replacement by contract or temporary workers. Workers struggle recently took violent turn when management sacked 52 more permanent workers and decided to replace them by casual labour in September 2009. In ensuring violent confrontation, a senior manager of Pricol was killed on 22 September 2009. Workers of MRF Tyres and Nokia factories in Tamilnadu have also engaged in struggles against their bosses around the same time.

In Maharashtra, workers of Mahindra and Mahindra at Nasik went on strike for better wages in May 2009.  Workers of Cummins India's plant at Pune and auto part maker Bosch's plant at Pune were on strike from 15th and 25th September 2009 for better wages and against casualisation.

Simultaneity of Struggles and Development of Class Solidarity

What we see today is that more and more workers are willing to take up the struggle against the attacks of the bosses. While the struggles are more numerous in many parts of the country, there is a tendency toward simultaneity of struggle in the same geographic areas as well. This opens the possibility of linking up and extension of struggles. It can be seen in the mass strike of diamond workers in Gujarat who went on wildcat strikes simultaneously in several cities. This can be seen in strikes of auto workers in Tamilnadu and Pune and Nasik where several strikes in the same geographic area are happening at the same time. In other instances bourgeoisie could sense this threat and scale back its repression. This simultaneity is result of identical attacks that all sectors of workers are facing today.

Prior to the latest events, workers of a number of factories in Gurgaon-Manesar have been waging struggle against their bosses. In Honda Motorcycles, workers have been agitating since several months for better wages and against contract labour. As per management, this agitation brought the production down by 50% and blocked the starting of a new line. To intimidate the workers, on 10th October 2009 management of Honda Motorcycles issued threats to shutdown its plants in India or to shift them to other parts of India. 2500 Workers of RICO Auto have been fighting against sacking of 16 workers and for better wages since end of September 2009. They went on strike from 3rd October 2009. 1000 Workers of Sunbeam Casting have also been on strike for better wages from 3rd October 2009.  Although not on strike, above 25000 workers of TI Metals, Microtech, FCC Rico, Satyam Auto and several other companies have been agitating since September 2009 for better wages.

As per a Business Line report dated 2nd October 2009 "With a total of 25,000-30,000 workers of auto ancillary units in Gurgaon-Manesar belt agitating for around six days now, major auto companies depending on these units for component supply are in for tough times."  Voicing the concern of the bosses, Economics Times reported on its website on 11th October 2009: "The recurring labour issues in the Gurgaon and Manesar belt is indeed a concern for all industry. The ongoing workers' problems at some of ... the suppliers ..... had affected supplies to auto majors like Hero Honda and Maruti Suzuki."  

The fact that workers of several factories were on strike and several thousands others workers of other factories were actively agitating, this opened the possibility of extension and unification of the struggles, the only way in which workers can fight and push back the attacks of the bosses. This is the possibility that the bourgeoisie fear and that the unions want to avert. In the struggles at Gurgaon, in the face of working class outrage at killing of a worker at RICO, the role of the unions has been to preempt and block this tendency toward extension and unification. By calling one day action, unions tried to sterilize workers urge to come together and for class solidarity. Despite this, the strike on 20th October was a demonstration of class solidarity by nearly 100000 workers. It also expressed their enthusiasm and will to fight and confront the bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, in the present struggles in Gurgaon, during struggles at Hyundai, Pricol, M & M and other struggle for better wages and against job losses, unions clearly tried to derail them and convert them into struggles for the defence of union rights.

No doubt there is strong dynamic for the development of class struggle, its extension and for development of class solidarity. But for the realization of this dynamic, it is important for the workers to understand machinations of the unions and to take the struggles in their own hands. Situation is developing in a direction in which it is crucial for revolutionaries to intervene in this dynamic so that they can help the struggling workers see both the potential and strengths of the struggles and the union traps.

AM, 27 October 2009

ICC held a public meeting at the Industrial city of Kanpur in UP on 21st Dec 2008. It was our first public meeting in this city and was made possible by the development of a milieu sympathetic to left communist positions. A small group of workers have been meeting at Kanpur now for more than one year and discussing left communist positions. ICC has intervened in the meetings of this milieu from time to time. When these comrades invited the ICC to hold a public meeting at Kanpur we took up their offer. The meeting therefore was made possible by the efforts of these comrades at Kanpur who, a week prior to the public meeting, had distributed our leaflet on crisis of capitalism in Kanpur. They also did the organization and publicity for the meeting.

The topic of discussion at the meeting was ‘Capitalism is a bankrupt System; another world - Communism - is possible!" 

The meeting was opened with a presentation by an ICC comrade. The presentation spoke of the depth of the present crises hitting world capitalism, the avalanche of attacks that the bourgeoisie is mounting against working class and pumping of massive sums of money by the bourgeoisie to avert the complete collapse of its system. The presentation further spoke of the need for working class to develop its class struggle and class solidarity - the only way in which it can respond to the attacks of the bourgeoisie. The presentation essentially expressed the concerns of our leaflet on crises.

After the presentation, everyone was invited to intervene on the subject. 

One of the participants, a woman comrade from another town, was the first to make an intervention. The intervention explained that the capitalist system the world over has been a decadent system since the 1914 and that the decadent was the result of saturation of the world markets. The present crisis and chaos in the world capitalist system must be placed in this framework of decadence. The intervention further developed that the funds being poured into the banks by the bourgeoisie will not solve the crisis and conditions of working class will worsen in the coming period. The comrade stressed the need for the working class to develop its reactions against the crises.

This intervention was followed by other interventions during the meeting that lasted for more than five hours. Some of the questions that came up for discussions were: 

• Is the crisis limited to America and Europe only? Or does it impact Asia, above all China and India, too?
• What are the expressions of the crisis in China and India?
• Will the state interventions in the economy happening today all over the world be able to avert the further fall of the capitalist economy?
• If Keynesian policies worked for the bourgeoisie earlier, why not now?
• Crisis has been massive and dramatic. Working class should have reacted massively and dramatically against the crises. Why its reaction is not equal to the attacks?
• What should we do?

A detailed discussion developed on the impact of crises on India and China. 

This discussion showed that the impact of the crisis has been equally dramatic on China where manufacturing sectors has been hit hard in a couple of months alone. A comrade explained that China's roaring industrial economy has been abruptly quieted by the effects of the global financial crisis. Rural provinces that supplied much of China's factory manpower are watching the beginnings of a wave of reverse migration. As per one estimate crores of migrant workers are being cast out of urban jobs in factories and at construction sites in China. As this poses a risk of social explosions for the Chinese bourgeoisie, the state is monitoring the people returning to countryside and keeping a watch over them. Like Americans, the Chinese bourgeoisie is also planning to pump billions of dollars to save the Chinese economy.

Exactly the same situation, at a lower level, prevails in India where a massive construction activity has suddenly come to a halt. Till some time ago construction sites everywhere were beehives of activity round the clock with construction going on all the time. Now all this has suddenly become quite. The same impact can be seen throughout the economy where millions are loosing jobs in textiles, IT, auto, cement, diamonds and other sectors. What distinguish the situation in India is that unlike USA the bourgeoisie here does not report number of jobs being lost. 

There was a common view that all the money being poured into the economy by all the capitalist states the world over is not going to save the economy. The present crisis of capitalism is the result of the saturation of world markets that the bourgeoisie have been trying to overcome by creating markets through massive expansion of debts. It is these debts that have now been choking the system. New debts that are being floated today are more of the same medicine that is already killing the patient. While bourgeoisie has no choice but to resort to more Keynesian measures, these are not going to solve the crisis, at best these will stave of a sudden collapse of the economy.

These discussions did not really brought out any major differences during the meeting. The point on which there were differences of views was the response of the working class. 

Some participants thought that the working class should have reacted to the crises in the same dramatic manner in which the crisis has unfolded. But this has not happened and working class is not responding at the required level. Also, the more hardly hit and poorest workers are responding less. In this the comrades gave examples of huge number of extremely pauperized and unorganized workers employed in small scale businesses in Kanpur and elsewhere. Despite their worsening situation they are not really fighting back.

ICC intervened on the several points raised this discussion. The ICC tried to explain that extreme poverty of a section of the working class does not make it more capable of fighting the bourgeoisie. Often, despite their poverty workers employed in petty business find it difficult to fight as they lack the collective strength of the workers of bigger companies. 

We should not be surprised at the present response of the working class to the crisis. The link between the level of crises and class struggle is not mechanical. Specially, in the face of the present sudden worsening of the crises, the first reaction of the working class would be one of bewilderment and uncertainty and not that of jumping into struggle. The response of the class develops only by a process of assimilation of the gravity of the situation and drawing lessons from it and from its past experience.

ICC further intervened that while there has been a dramatic acceleration of crises in the last few months, the struggles of the working class have already been in a process of resurgence. Last few years have seen the rise of class struggle globally. In India itself, last few years have seen an important rise in class struggle exemplified by struggles of Honda workers, Airport workers, transport workers in UP, Bank Employees and numerous other sections of the class. While class struggle may not show dramatic development, we are seeing a constant rise in the struggles of the workers struggle and these are going to accelerate in the coming period. 

At the end of the meetings many participants, who were previously part of the leftist milieu, expressed satisfaction at the discussions. Many thought that despite all their years with leftists, it is only through discussions with left communists that they have really understood the roots of the capitalist crises and the need of working for the destruction of the capitalist system. Participants invited the ICC to hold more public meetings at Kanpur in the futures.

Harish, AM, 6 Jan 2009

The terrorist slaughter in Mumbai at the end of November 2008 left nearly 190 people dead. On the first night of the attack, within few minutes, 70-80 migrant workers waiting for a long distance train on CST railway station were butchered. When the slaughter finally ended on 29th Nov 2008, there were more than 100 rotting dead bodies of hotel employees and guests scattered all over the attacked hotels and other buildings.

Even in a country racked by regular terrorist attacks, this was unprecedented. It was not a regular hit and run attack by unidentified terrorists. Instead a band of gunmen carried out well planned attack for 60 hours in different part of the city challenging forces of the Indian state. In many ways it was like open war.

The terror strike instilled fear among the working classes and once again brought to the fore the fragility of daily life in the face repression by the state, terrorist carnages and communal slaughters. It provoked huge anger and outrage among the Indian bourgeoisie. In its expression of ‘outrage against terrorism' Indian bourgeoisie was joined by many major factions of the global bourgeoisies, particularly the US, British and the French. These factions of the global bourgeoisie were not moved by killings of the innocent people but how to further their own sordid imperialist interests in the midst of escalating tensions between India and Pakistan.

Even the Indian bourgeoisie is least concerned by the death of the working people or for that matter any innocent person. Death of two hundred persons is nothing for the Indian state. In Mumbai alone 4000 working class men and women gets killed every year while commuting to work in horribly crowded suburban trains - they fall off the trains, get pushed out while jostling, get stuck by railway poles while hanging out. A case pending in a Mumbai court for this is stuck since several years with state doing nothing. And thousand more die or commit suicide, as the impoverished farmers do everyday, in the face of poverty and misery imposed by the Indian bourgeoisie. Indian state is least bothered by these deaths of working people.

To use the words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Indian bourgeoisie is outraged because the terrorist attacks in Mumbai were an attack on ‘ambitions' of Indian state. The bourgeoisie is outraged as these attacks showed vast chaos and incompetence of its state and hollowness of its imperialist dreams.

Poverty, Misery and the Fear for Life

Despite all talk of last few years of great economic boom, a talk heard no longer, vast majority of working class have seen only increasing misery and poverty. Mumbai, which is home to the largest slums in the world, housing many million people, has seen its largest industry, the textiles, disappear. Maharashtra, the state of which Mumbai is a part, has seen the maximum number of suicide deaths by farmers. This grim reality of poverty is not unique to Maharashtra. This has continued to be the reality of working classes and rural poor in India despite boom years. In addition, the last couple of years have seen proliferation of terrorist attacks tearing apart human lives at all places and at all hours of the day and night. Year 2008 alone have seen more than half a dozen major terrorist attacks killing hundreds of people in major cities - Delhi, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, Surat, near Guwahati and now this latest carnage in Mumbai. Year 2007 saw similar number of terror attacks - bombing of train going to Pakistan, serial blasts in Varanasi, terrorist bombing in Hyderabad twice in the span of 4 months. July 2006 saw massive bomb blasts on trains in Mumbai itself killing 190, mostly working people traveling by suburban trains, and injuring 600. In between these terrorist slaughters there have been huge communal carnages some time against the Christians, as in Orissa and Karnataka, at other time against Muslims.

For the working class it is not only poverty and misery that is their lot, a lot which is becoming more difficult with economic burst. It is also the constant fear of death, of being victim of terrorist killings that happen with clockwork regularity and of communal slaughters and repression by the state.

Terrorism - an expression of Decomposition of Capitalist Society & State

Even before the latest collapse that struck world capitalism in Sept 2008, this system has been hurtling down the abyss for four decades. This has been pushing lives of the working people on the planet into poverty and misery and has been spreading wars and chaos. This process accelerated with the collapse of eastern bloc. The collapse of the eastern bloc and with it of western bloc eliminated the discipline that the bloc leaders could impose on lesser imperialist powers. This and accelerating decline of capitalism intensified the decomposition of capitalist society and the tendency toward ‘every man for himself'.  ‘Every man for himself' does not express only in the imperialist appetites of petty states and the wars that result from this. It also express itself in proliferation of terrorist gangs, some aligned and controlled by competing imperialist states, other acting as independent perpetrators of war and barbarism in the name of religion, national independence or anti-imperialism.

While terrorism, this offspring of decomposing capitalism and often instrument of competing capitalist states, is a global phenomenon it expresses itself differently in different countries as per their history and society.

Given extreme decomposition of capitalist society and state in Pakistan, terrorism there is a dominant reality. The state has been so thoroguly enmeshed in it, that it is some time difficult to distinguish where the boundaries of the terrorist gangs end and that of certain organ of state begins. This expresses a great weekness and fragility of the Pakistani bourgeoisie and its state. It expresses dangers that this level of decomposition of the state could lead different factions composing it to fall on each other and could tear the state apart.

Indian state, though not in the same situation, is not far behind. Every aspect of social life in India is strongly marked by chaos and decomposition. The ‘mainstream' politics of the bourgeoisie, of the managers of its state often base itself on violent and bitter confrontations between castes, communities, religious and linguistic groups. There are myriad terrorist gangs that hold sway in different parts of the India - north east, Assam, Andhra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, MP, Bihar and many other provinces. Then there is Kashmir, a permanent theatre of war and terrorist actions. In addition, last few decades have seen emergence of Islamic terrorist groupings at the heart of India that are often trained, controlled and manipulated by Pakistan. They have become important actors in politics of terrorism in last few years. A new acceleration of decomposition of Indian state is expressed by the emergence of Hindu terrorist gangs that have carried out a number of terrorist attacks in India recently. The recent unmasking of Abhinav Bharat, a Hindu terrorist organization, that have civilian Hindu fundamentalist elements as well serving and retired army officers as its members, expresses the spread of decomposition to the very heart of the Indian state -its army, the bastion of its solidity and cohesion. It foretells the dangers of greater barbarism to come and underline the fact that while Indian state may not be in the same situation as Pakistan, it is set on the same course.

Terrorism - a tool of imperialist war

While terrorism is a product of the rotting of the capitalist society, it has been systematically engendered, nurtured and used as a tool of imperialist war against each other by India and Pakistan. This is not something new. It has been going on now for many decades. The Indian bourgeoisie never misses an opportunity to congratulate itself of having split Pakistan. Nor do they miss to boast of their success in 1980's when Indian supported Mohajir militias were on the rampage in Karachi and Sind with horrific violence. One of the ‘success stories' for which the Pakistani bourgeoisie gives a pat to itself is Khalistani movement that for years threatened Indian control of Punjab. Another prime example of this is Kashmir where they were able to push the Indian bourgeoisie to the wall before the ‘war on terror' came to its rescue. Apart from these ‘great' examples, terrorism has been used by both states against each other on continuous  basis whether it is regular terrorist attacks in India or fanning of terrorism and separatism by Indian state in Pakistan's Baluch, Pashtun or Sind provinces.

Since last more than one decade, this permanent conflict between Indian and Pakistan has been joined by another conflict, that between India and China and between China and US in which the US and India has tried to make a common cause.

There is no Peace in Capitalism

After a decade of insurgency, in 2001 Indian bourgeoisie, despite having deployed more than half a million soldiers in Kashmir, was at its wits end. With start of the ‘war on terror' the situation changed for the better for the Indian bourgeoisie and for worse for its Pakistani counterpart. The later lost its control over Afghanistan. The pressure that Americans brought to bear on Pakistan and its army at the time forced it to roll back its infrastructure of terror.

In the face of this, there was a lull in imperialist confrontation between India and Pakistan publicized by the bourgeoisie as a ‘peace processes between the two. It also expressed in an absence or decrease in terrorist attacks in India between 2001 and 2005 and in ‘pacification' of Kashmir. But it was a situation of major setbacks for Pakistan. It felt, and rightly so, that it has been forced to abandon positions it has gained over decades and to sacrifice its long standing interests in the face of threats by the Americans.

As soon as Pakistani bourgeoisie found that American were in trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, it started its efforts to regain lost ground. While it continued to support Americans, it protected fugitive leaders of Taliban who were now once again active in Afghanistan and gaining influence. This strategy, even if dangerous, has worked well for Pakistan. Today the NATO forces are compelled to think of engaging the ‘moderate' Taliban, a situation which is an important gain for the Pakistani state. Similarly there was a revival of terrorist actions in India toward the end of 2005 and early 2006. As we said at the time of serial bomb blasts on trains in Mumbai in 2006, it marked a major escalation of imperialist confrontation between India and Pakistan. Since then there have been an endless stream of terrorist attacks in India. While some have been the work of Hindu fundamentalist groups, some possibly of the state itself, most have been situated on terrain of inter imperialist conflict between India and Pakistan. Similarly Pakistan has been accusing India for much of the separatist violence in Baluchistan and other provinces and for bombing in its cities.

Different bourgeois factions push their imperialist agendas

The latest attacks in Mumbai have been the work of terrorist forces originating from within Pakistan. This action and its aftermath  fits well with efforts of Pakistan over the last many months to show the Americans that danger from India make it impossible for them to support ‘war on terror', that presence of Indian state in Afghanistan constitute a danger for Pakistan. That Americans must solve the Kashmir problem for Pakistan to fully support ‘war on terror'. These attacks are squarely set in this whole framework - conflict of India and Pakistan, efforts of Pakistan to re-gain more space in Afghanistan and regain a better leverage with Americans. These attacks also fit well with Chinese efforts to limit Indian aspirations to south Asia and unsettle Americans in Afghanistan. These attacks mark a major escalation in imperialist confrontations in this whole region.

Indian bourgeoisie tried to use these attacks to stir patriotic fever in which it has succeeded. It also tried to mount a global offensive against Pakistan. In this it gained some success in the beginning, especially at the level of posturing, when the American and British supported Indian pronouncements. But it soon became clear that American interests in relation to Pakistan and Afghanistan does not coincide with Indian interests. Since the start of Dec 2008, the Americans, and the British, have been telling the Indian state to cool down while at the same time making sympathetic noises. The reason is simple - a war between India and Pakistan at this moment does not suit American interests in this region. At the same time, the Americans are doing everything to use these terror attacks to force Pakistan to fall in line with their own agenda in Afghanistan.

Smarting under its humiliation and its ‘world power' pretensions deflated, Indian bourgeoisie has now been forced to cool down. But let us have no doubt. The fact that open war has been averted at the moment means that war by other means - fanning of terrorism by both countries - will only intensify.

For the working class - the only alternative is class struggle

Poverty and misery has continued to be the lot of working classes both in India and Pakistan. This has been compounded by every sort of repression and obscurantism. With the whole economic edifice of world capitalism crumbling, the situation today has become grimmer for workers in South Asia. Pakistan has been tottering on the brink of bankruptcy now for some time. The bourgeoisie in South Asia is daily mounting more attacks on the working class - more workers are loosing jobs, more bosses are declaring wage cuts and pushing workers into increased poverty. In addition, capitalist system breeds war. For the working class in India and Pakistan, the imperialist confrontations of their masters mean increased poverty, increased misery, increased violence and increased uncertainty about being able to return home safe from a day of capitalist exploitation.

The choice for the working class in India and Pakistan is not to support ‘their own' country in its war mongering. Rather, it can defend itself only by developing its class struggle against its bosses, against the bourgeoisie of its own country and by extending its hand of class solidarity to workers across the borders. Only world wide development of working class struggles and working class unity can pave the way for the destruction of capitalism, this system of war and barbarism. Only then it can put an end to terrorism.