One of the characteristics of the miners’ strikes in the United States was their deep rooted confidence in their unions as defenders of the working class. While this was true during the 19th century during the ascendant period of capitalism, by the beginning of the 20th century with the onset of capitalist decadence the unions were gradually integrated into the state machinery through regulation of working conditions and guaranteeing labor discipline, only ‘demanding’ the most modest and limited benefits. During the early 20th century, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was a proletarian response to the change in function and operation of the established labor unions and worker’s parties when capitalism entered the period of decadence. Though once the counter-revolution gained the upper hand after the decline of the first revolutionary wave (1917-1927) in the latter half of the 1920’s, the unions regained their grip on the working class and were able, with few difficulties, to aid in the militarization of labor for the war effort of World War II.

After the Second World War, the US lived through an important upsurge in class struggle that often moved outside of the union stranglehold and asserted itself as a class with its own interests separate from those of the state. One such experience was the miners’ strike movement of 1949-1950.

How Did It Start?

Following the imperialist world war the United States emerged as a world superpower and the leader of the Western imperialist bloc, a position which required it to assert strict discipline at home and imposed on its workers the Taft-Hartley Act (passed despite a veto from President Truman) in 1947; mainly to curb organized labor’s power and introduce a major provision that established an 80-day ‘cooling off’ period for strikes that could supposedly create a ‘national emergency’. A long established tradition of ‘No Contract, No Work’ had become part of American labor, and there had been mass rank-and-file opposition throughout 1947 and 1948 to the Act- which caused swift action to be taken by the Truman administration (since Truman had won the 1948 Presidential election under the promise to repeal Taft-Hartley). All through 1949 there was a back and forth fight between the administration and the President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), John L. Lewis. Although he is considered an important strategist, his actions against the US Direction of Mines always used the miners as a maneuverable mass in order to obtain some amelioration at the expense of any self-organization practiced by the workforce.

Two events that shook the miners were the wildcat strike of 62,000 Ford Rouge auto workers against speed-ups at the huge Detroit plant and the introduction of the ‘Continuous Miner’; a Caterpillar mining machine (called ‘man-killer’ by the miners) that would worsen labor conditions considerably (more dust, heat and danger of fires) and reduce the need for the current workforce to only one-third of its size compared to traditional mining practices.

Mid-September a strike had started as a result of an announcement by Lewis of the suspension of all payments by the UMWA Health & Welfare Fund because the coal operators were refusing to make their royalty payments and the Fund’s resources had been cut. It started in the largest captive mine in Barrackville and the state’s largest commercial mine, Grant Town, both in Northern West Virginia, where local union meetings were called. Almost immediately, union miners all over Northern West Virginia and Southwestern Pennsylvania had followed suit. Roving pickets mushroomed throughout the area to halt all production and transportation of coal, including non-union operations. Many of the miners were armed. The strike spread throughout the whole of Appalachia- West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Ohio- with Western miners also walking out to make the strike total. Lewis ordered the 78,000 Pennsylvania hard coal miners as well as the 22,000 soft coal miners west of the Mississippi back to work, whereas on the next day United Steelworkers (USW) President Murray called a steel strike following the collapse of mediation talks with the government. This was the first time that coal and steel were on strike at the same time, with over 900,000 workers walking out. During those same summer and fall months auto workers at Ford, Chrysler and GM also went on strike. But the rejection of a joint strike fund by American Federation of Labor (AFL) President Green and the separate agreement at the end of October with Bethlehem Steel thwarted the possibility of a General Strike.

Workers Overrun Union Strategies

With the Eastern miners ordered back to work to their three day work week by Lewis, the rest of the miners felt isolated and so the Consolidation Coal Company brought a court action against UMWA to fight the three day work week. But when Lewis called the six Consol mines in Morgantown-Fairmont out, most of the other area miners spontaneously walked-out as well. When they were called back to work by Lewis, they voted against it. There was mass spontaneous picketing and every picket line was honored. “Monday, the day Lewis had ordered us to go back to work, came and went. Not only did we stay out, we began to spread the strike.” (p.20). Union bosses, like Urbaniak and Cappellini, who tried to regain control of the strike movement were booed and in the meetings the miners re-affirmed their determination to spread the strike throughout the country and to stay out ‘until hell froze over’. “This turning point, begun at the Sunday Grant Town meeting, reached irrevocable completion at the Thursday Monogah meeting. The rank-and-file were now in control of the strike.” (p.21). As soon as Truman invoked the Taft-Hartley Act the union could be fined for contempt of court and so too could every miner that would try to influence any other miner to stay out on strike. But activists found out that it is against the Constitution of the United States for a law to be passed against an individual. So the miners found the answer when the cable came with Lewis’ back-to-work telegram. They said, “We have all heard the telegram. I can’t tell you what to do, but they can’t pass a law against an individual. You can do what you want, but I can’t tell you I’m not going back to work until we have a contract! Meeting adjourned.” (p.22). So the miners reconvened with the legal decision and continued the strike, but now they had to organize themselves if they were to be successful.

Workers Assert Their Own Class Perspectives

The ruling class was stunned by this loophole in the law and tried by all means to quell the strike and to starve out the miners and their families. This was the reason why so many miners’ wives participated in an important role during the mass picketing and the organizing of relief to the neediest families. Because the strike was declared illegal, “all established avenues of aid dried up or cut off, the top priority became massive relief to help the miners and keep the operators from starving us in defeat.” District officials tried to sabotage the setting up of a miners’ relief committee that would seek help from workers of other industries who were sympathetic to the miners and were anxious to help. Once the relief committee was approved in Grant Town, WV, “committee members were appointed to go out and get aid from other workers throughout the country (…) The following week, two miners headed East to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, and two others went North into Ohio and Michigan. All were totally committed to winning the strike, and no more effective speakers could have been sent out to do the job.” (p.25-28). One should not forget that, “the local press and company stooges tried to whip up anti-Red hysteria, accusing the strike leaders of being Communists or dupes of Communists and charging that Reds and outside agitators were infiltrating and taking over the leadership of the strike.” But the rank-and-file stood firm and defended their strike and relief committees. “The red-baiting and accusations took a particularly vicious turn when a van of relief collected in New York by a teachers’ union, the American Labor Party and the Progressive Party came into the Barrackville local union. Those who brought the good and clothing came with movie cameras and lights to photograph the delivery, and they in-turn were photographed and their visit reported in the local press (…) many blacks accepted the relief. The implication was that they were somehow un-American for accepting the ‘Red’ food (…) The press attacks became so vicious that many local union presidents publicly denounced the acceptance of any ‘Red’ food, some even declaring that ‘Red’ food sent to their locals should be dumped into the river.” (p.28). “It was in Detroit that autoworkers organized a city-wide relief program to help the miners with the giant Ford local 600 spearheading the effort. Food and clothing to fill five huge trailers were donated by the workers and others, including students, who contributed generously to the appeal.” (p.30). Another characteristic of how class solidarity works was shown “When the miners cheered the 12 tons of food that the auto workers had sent, and a check for $1,000 from United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600, and another $333 from Local 155, Joe Hogan (UAW) rose to say that the auto workers didn’t come ‘to get thanks from the miners, but to give thanks to the miners for their splendid fight,” which was not only on behalf of themselves but helped the whole labor movement.” (p.30). William Massey of the relief committee concluded: “Our victory shows what can be done when we fight together.” (p.30). “The relief committee, in operation for only two weeks, got over $6,000 in cash contributions from workers in other industries, plus the relief truck caravan. The relief pipeline was open. The operators and the government were not going to starve us into submission.” (p.31).

Not only did the miners win this strike but the experience they went through widened even further the gulf between the rank-and-file and the top of the unions, in the person of John L. Lewis. The next year, in 1951, a wildcat strike erupted in Northern West Virginia, where the miners demanded seniority rights; they knew that the ‘Continuous Miner’ would cause an enormous amount of layoffs and they wanted the seniority system to have protection from automation. “The wildcat strike centered on Consol’s 13 mines in Northern West Virginia, but quickly threatened to spread as miners from other areas began to plead for us to come and pull them out because they faced the same situation. So intense were the feelings of those of us on strike that we forced Lewis and Consol to negotiate a seniority protection clause without first going to work. This was the first time a provision was won while workers were on strike.” (p.31). Under the renewed pressure of these very militant wildcat strikes, the bosses from the mines and the unions had to give in. Recognizing the threat of these militant workers, the bosses chose to give-in in order to prevent these experiences of self-organization spreading through the wider working class.

Lessons For Today

The pamphlet from News & Letters from 1984 concludes as follows:

“Lewis and the operators had clearly understood the revolutionary implications in the 1949-1950 rank-and-file movement. That became the last great strike Lewis ever led, and never again directly involved the rank-and-file in any contract negotiations. All subsequent contract talks were held in secrecy, and we first learned of new agreements when they were reported in the press (…) Within 10 years, from 1950 to 1960, the nation’s miners were slashed from 500,000 to less than 175,000. The whole of Appalachia became a permanently depressed region for two decades.” (p.32).

“The historic significance of the 1949-50 strike, however, was not only that the miners had revealed the course of the strike that they were far ahead of their leaders (…) they had also demonstrated that to achieve their ends they had to create their own organization- the mass meeting. They made their own decisions, carried them out in opposition to the power of the government, coal operators, a hostile press and their own union leadership, and at the same time had directly involved broad segments of the working class in the nation. To some, many of the things the miners did seemingly spontaneous, as though the actions came from nowhere. Just the opposite was true. The spontaneity of the miners flowed from their own repeated collective thought and action that preceded their ‘spontaneous’ activity.”

We can only add that this experience, as many others confirm, of the working class since the onset of capitalist decadence can only achieve temporary victories and a rise in its class consciousness through self-organized struggles. It is the only way of developing its collective capacities of solidarity and the perspectives of a class that has the capacity to overthrow capitalist social relations. It has to rise up and affirm its historic role of freeing humanity from class based societies and capitalism (whose only solutions to its crisis of overproduction are austerity measures and war). The working class has a communist perspective for humanity, because in its radical struggle lays the germs of a strong solidarity and class consciousness that are totally opposed to the logic of capitalist society. Now that the working class in the United States is reacting to the crisis and austerity measures, it is very useful for the working class to remember its own capacities for self-organization and solidarity, largely unknown to the present generation.  

JZ  12/12/10

(1) The Coal Miners’ General Strike Of 1949-1950 And The Birth Of Marxist Humanism In The US by Raya Dunayevskaya.

 The shelling of the Yeonpyeong islands on November 23 by North Korea, killing two soldiers and two civilians, has brought tensions on the Korean Peninsula to a new height, with increasing worry throughout the world that the situation will develop into an explosive confrontation. Despite all the public displays of caution and concern for stabilizing the region, both the US and China have been playing a dangerous game of confrontations throughout East Asia over the past year, and each side is seeking to exploit the situation for the advancement of its own imperialist aims. The fact that North Korea, an isolated anachronistic state, is able to enrich uranium while the majority of its population is devastated by famines and droughts speaks to its strategic importance to China as a buffer against the South, where US troops have been stationed for almost 60 years. It is in this broader context that the conflict between North and South Korea must be understood.

A year of mounting tensions

Tensions on the Peninsula

The 2010 Mid-Term Elections have come and gone with disastrous results for the Democratic Party. The Republicans won a strong majority in the House of Representatives, giving them the ability to obstruct any legislation that must pass both houses of Congress. For the bourgeois media, these elections were nothing sort of a sea-change event putting the Republicans in the driver’s seat to defeat Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential Election. President Obama himself admitted to taking a “shellacking” in the elections and promised to do his best to work with the Republicans in Congress. Meanwhile, “progressive” Democrats sang a different tune, arguing that the election results were best explained by the collapse of the President’s electoral coalition due to his fecklessness in the face of Republican obstructionism, his sell-out on national healthcare and his pro-Wall Street agenda.

However, it was not all good news for the Republicans as the election served to highlight important and deepening fractures within the GOP. The growing weight of the Tea Party within Republican Party ranks probably cost their party control of the U.S. Senate. Although the Tea Party’s right-wing demagoguery was useful in rallying the party base in conservative House of Representative districts; it actually worked to turn voters off to the Republican candidate in a number of Senate races that they might have otherwise won. Still, a number of firebrand Republicans, such as the extreme libertarian Rand Paul of Kentucky, will take seats in the Senate when the new Congress convenes in January 2011. The GOP will enter the new Congress with growing divisions, as its insurgent right-wing faction often appears to be as much at odds with “mainstream Republicans” as with the Democrats.

It is clear that the bourgeois political system in the U.S. is under severe stress in the face of a persistent economic crisis that no matter what the bourgeoisie does just will not go away. Unemployment remains sky high, credit is still largely frozen, and businesses supposedly sit on mounds of cash that they simply cannot invest profitably, just as the consumption power of the working class is massively reduced by the collapse of the home equity/debt shell game. Meanwhile, the bourgeois class finally begins to take notice of the ominous national debt, at the same time state and local governments face severe budget shortfalls.

So what does all this mean for the working class? As we pointed out in the last issue of Internationalism[1] [12]the proletariat has no stake in the outcome of bourgeois elections. Elections are moments in the life of the bourgeoisie through which it attempts to tie the working class to the state through the electoral circus, settle internal disputes within its ranks and manipulate the machinery of the state and media to bring the best ruling team to state power for a given historical juncture. However, the working class does have a vital need to understand the political strategy of the bourgeois class as it attempts to utilize the state to manage the permanent economic crisis and suppress the mortal threat to its existence that emanates from the class struggle. As we have argued in Internationalism for some time now, the deadening weight of social decomposition on the bourgeoisie’s political apparatus has resulted in a growing difficulty for the ruling class to manage its political and electoral system to achieve the best possible results from the point of view of the national capital as a whole. The increasing tendency for “everyman for himself” in the arena of bourgeois politics, the growing number of factions, and movements and the increasing unpredictability of bourgeois elections are weighing heavily on the U.S. bourgeoisie at the moment. What depth has the political crisis of the bourgeoisie reached? This is the vital question facing the working class movement when it comes to analyzing bourgeois elections.

The Contradictions of Bourgeois Economic Policy: Austerity or Stimulus?

According to the bourgeois media, economists are divided on what should be the most pressing economic policy priority at the current juncture. On the one hand, the “deficit hawks” believe that the U.S.’s national debt has spiraled out of control threatening the nation’s long-term position as global imperialist leader. For these economists, the most-pressing need facing the state is to enact painful austerity measures to reduce federal spending, enact deep cuts in social programs, reduce the federal workforce, rationalize the tax code and make the state solvent once again. According to this line of thought, if the debt is not brought under control, the U.S. will eventually face a sovereign debt crisis on the order of what Greece and Ireland are now experiencing. Seeing the U.S. as a bad investment, unwilling to take the necessary measures to get its financial house in order, foreign investors will stop buying U.S. government bonds; pulling the rug out from under the “borrow and spend” model that has kept the U.S. afloat for at least the past decade. The recent report of the Presidential Debt Commission, operating in this vein, called for raising the Social Security retirement age, eliminating the mortgage tax credit, cutting the federal workforce and even certain reductions in the military budget in order to reduce the national debt.

On the other hand, economists on the left, such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, argue that concern over the federal debt—although a real problem—is overblown. The most pressing priority facing the state is to get the economy moving again by enacting expansionist stimulus programs in order to boost consumer spending and create jobs. According to this perspective, the U.S. economy is suffering from a massive problem of “underconsumption” in which the wages of the working class have been reduced so far in real terms that they simply cannot afford to buy what is produced. While this problem was suppressed during the last 20 years through a massive resort to consumer debt, this logic has now run its course. According to the Reich-Krugman thesis, another round of Keynesian stimulus is necessary to put more money in consumers’ pockets, eventually causing economic growth to resume and unemployment to drop. Only once a “normal economy” prevails again do followers of the Reich-Krugman thesis believe reducing the national debt should become a priority for the national state. To enact austerity too soon and too fast could be a disaster.

It doesn’t take much analysis to recognize that in the short-term these two policies are in complete contradiction to one another. One calls for contracting the economy in order to improve the long-term fiscal position of the state, while the other risks making the national debt worse in order to improve the economy now. However, it shouldn’t be surprising that two different factions of economists produce two contrasting visions of the most important policy priorities for the state. This simply reflects the fundamental contradiction that state capitalism finds itself in on the international level. After nearly one hundred years of full-fledged state capitalism, nearly all states find themselves faced with a fundamental choice in the face of the permanent economic crisis: attempt to stimulate the economy and risk further long-term fiscal damage or enact austerity now and potentially cause a weak economy to become comatose.

Nevertheless, we should not interpret the debate between these two policy positions as evidence of any real difference within the U.S. bourgeoisie over the need to enact austerity against the working class’ living and working conditions. All bourgeois factions recognize that the fiscal crisis of the state is real and will eventually need to be dealt with by making “painful sacrifices.” The policy debates within the bourgeoisie at the moment concern only the timing of austerity and the question of whether or not another round of stimulus—given the long term risks—will actually help the economy recover. Despite a concerted media campaign directed towards the working class around the threat to the nation posed by the national debt, a strong faction within the U.S. bourgeoisie believes that greater stimulus is needed. At the moment, this faction appears to have the ear of the Obama administration.[2] [13] The recent extension of the Bush era tax cuts, combined with another extension of the federal emergency unemployment compensation program and a cut in the Social Security payroll tax has been marketed by the administration as a “stimulus program” that they believe will add up to 1.3 million jobs in the next two years.[3] [14] Of course, all of the tax cuts and the extension of unemployment benefits will have to be charged on the national credit card.

The working class should not be fooled by the Obama administration’s continued resort to Keynesian policies. Behind these short-term policies, all factions of the bourgeoisie know that the day of reckoning is coming when the Scylla of debt and fiscal crisis will outweigh the Charybdis of unemployment and economic stagnation.[4] [15] The question facing the bourgeoisie at the moment is what political faction should hold state power when the assault on the social wage begins?

From the perspective of history, it would appear likely that the U.S. bourgeoisie would attempt to move the Democratic Party out of power so it could play the traditional role of the left in opposition when the Republicans preside over enacting the tough austerity measures that lie ahead. However, given the amount of turmoil that has occurred in the U.S. political system over the last decade; this is no longer either a straightforward decision or such a simple maneuver for the bourgeoisie to accomplish. While social decomposition has affected the entire bourgeois political spectrum over the last ten years, it has not affected both American political parties equally. Over the last decade the Republican Party has become increasingly penetrated by factions of the bourgeoisie that do not necessarily have the capacity to act in the overall interests of the national capital. The Republicans current coalition includes the obscurantist Christian Right, ideological libertarians who want to abolish the Federal Reserve, free-market fundamentalists, the most belligerent anti-immigrant factions the bourgeoisie has to offer and those who relish the legacy of Cowboy diplomacy from the Bush era. On top of this, we now have to add the Tea Party, many of whom are true ideologues who really believe the extreme philosophies they preach.[5] [16] While “mainstream Republicans” wise to the ways of Washington still control the levers of power in the Republican Party; they are under increasing assault from the right-wing insurgency in their ranks, causing them to pander to this constituency at the same time they manipulate it to improve their electoral position.

There are numerous risks for the bourgeoisie in the period ahead as it attempts to negotiate this difficult political situation. Should it move the Republican Party back into power in preparation for the tough austerity necessary, risking a repeat of the Bush years and empowering the ideological wing of the GOP? Should it rally behind Obama again in 2012 in the hopes of maintaining a more responsible and competent center-right Democratic administration, but risk upsetting the ideological division of labor against the working class?

The 2012 Presidential Campaign

In the days following the Mid-Term elections, Obama looked like a certain one-term President. His party had suffered an historic defeat at the polls. Democratic Congressional candidates in important industrial states Obama won in 2008, suffered defeat after defeat. The Democrats were even unable to hold Obama’s former Illinois Senate seat. The media called these elections a “Republican Tidal Wave.” It was billed as a total rejection of the Obama agenda, especially his controversial health care reform legislation. It was declared certain that the only way the Republicans would lose in 2012 would be to nominate an extreme Tea Party candidate like Sarah Palin. All the Republicans had to do to return to power in 2012 was nominate a credible candidate, who would promptly trounce a discredited and demoralized Obama. The Republicans would obstruct any and all legislation from making it through Congress for the next two years, leaving Obama looking weak and ineffective. The public would reject him for sure.

However, just two short months since the election, the political wind has seemed to change once again. Obama is fresh off a series of important legislative victories in the lame-duck Congress and he now looks Presidential once again. He pushed the New START treaty with Russia through the Senate against the obstinate obstructionism of certain Republicans. He has also pushed through legislation ending the “Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell” policy in the military, which caused many qualified gay people to be banished from service. The ending of this policy was endorsed by Obama’s Republican Secretary of Defense against the gratuitous objections of a number of obstinate Republicans, including Obama’s 2008 Presidential opponent John McCain.

Still, this did not stop a mini-revolt from taking place in the Democratic Party over the tax deal Obama struck with Republicans. So-called “progressive” Democrats rose in an angry revolt against their own President, accusing him of selling-out, compromising without fighting and caving into the Republican Party’s demands to continue irresponsible tax cuts for the richest Americans adding to the national debt.

For the better part of the week, left-wing blogs and the MSNBC network were ripe with calls for a 2012 primary challenge to Obama or the launching of a third party challenge from the left.[7] [18] Congressional Democrats vowed to vote against the tax compromise, while Bernie Sanders—the self-professed Socialist Senator from Vermont—grandstanded on the Senate floor with a mock filibuster against the tax compromise, railing against the decline in living standards of the American working-class, while the richest Americans keep on lining their pockets.[8] [19] During this period, a sense of shock and disbelief emanated from the base of the Democratic Party as they appeared to form an angry left opposition to their own President.

Nevertheless, quickly the hoopla died down and the tax compromise qua stimulus program won enough Democratic votes to pass both houses of Congress and become law. The drama over this legislation may be a preview of things to come. Should the bourgeoisie decide it is too risky to move the Republican Party into power, is it possible they could attempt to enact austerity through a center-right Democratic administration supported tacitly by “mainstream Republicans,” while the Democratic Congressional base plays the role of the left in opposition. At this time, we cannot say if this will occur. However, the controversy over the tax compromise gives some precedent for how such an arrangement might work.

Still, this governmental arrangement could risk further radicalizing the right-wing of the Republican Party and possibly evoking a split with the Tea Party and a third party challenge from the right. Many ideological Republicans in Congress will reject the attempts of their leaders to compromise with Obama.

Already a campaign is under way in the media—led by “responsible Republicans” to try to persuade Sarah Palin from running for President in 2012. While she may be useful for raising campaign funds for Republicans and rallying the conservative base to come out and vote, there is a general consensus among the main factions of the bourgeoisie in both parties that she would make a disastrous President—exponentially worse that Bush. Moreover, her candidacy could pose difficulties for moving the Republican Party into power in 2012, as she is likely to reenergize Obama voters from 2008.

In the final analysis, the U.S. political situation is currently characterized by the instability wrought by decomposition. All responsible factions of the bourgeoisie recognize the eventual imperative to enact austerity. However, there is little consensus at the moment about how to accomplish this at the political level. While history tells us that the bourgeoisie would seek to move the Democratic Party into opposition, so the Republicans can enact the needed cuts while the Democrats work with the unions to control the working class’ response; the current situation of decomposition makes this somewhat less than straightforward for the bourgeoisie. The ruling class could opt to try to enact these cuts with a center-right Democratic President in league with the Republican establishment, with the Congressional Democratic caucus, along with the unions[9] [20], playing the role of the left opposition. This course of action would come with the serious risk of upsetting the traditional ideological division of labor between the Democrats and Republicans. However, given the ideological deterioration of the Republican Party and the potential for a dangerous Presidential candidate emerging from its ranks, the bourgeoisie may have no other choice than to opt for such a policy.

Of course is it also possible that the effects of decomposition have already taken such a toll on the bourgeois political apparatus that in the end the main factions of the bourgeoisie cannot prevent a President Palin—or some similar right-wing cook—from taking office. If Palin decides to run, it is possible that the Tea Party insurgency will carry her to victory in the Republican primaries. As the Republican Party candidate, she may energize the Democratic base to come to the polls—but given the constraints of the American political system, in particular the anachronous Electoral College, it is possible that in a farcical repeat of the 2000 Election, Palin could win the Presidency, but lose the popular vote. While this is only remote possibility at the moment, we can be assured that it is an outcome the main factions of the bourgeoisie are preparing for and trying their utmost to avoid.

Henk 12/25/10
 

 The bourgeois press greeted the New Year with the usual celebratory narcissism. The carefully crafted rhetoric of the supposed “economic recovery” was continually punctuated by the tacit reminder that hard times are still ahead. The bourgeoisie’s calls for sacrifice are heard more thoroughly and the recent mid-term elections have potentially provided the bourgeoisie with the political pieces necessary to institute a harsher round of austerity. The incoming House majority leader, Mr. Boehner, has referred to the period ahead as an “adult” time for political leaders. Only time will tell whether or not the “freshmen” coming into office can pass the first major test of being responsible bourgeois managers of the US economy. Will they vote to raise the debt limit of the United States again (as is tradition) or will they act in accordance with the lunatic ideology they’ve espoused in the run-up to the election? The pressures upon the Republican Party from the right are analyzed deeper in another article within this issue of Internationalism that deals specifically with these elections. Instead, this article will turn its attention more pointedly towards the elements of austerity that the working class are faced with today and try to present these elements within a historical framework of global capitalism’s permanent crisis.

The Necessity of Historical Perspective

There are layers of mystification whenever the bourgeoisie attempt to analyze and represent the crisis to the working class. One of the first layers is through (mis)-classification. Case-in-point, the crisis as a “financial” crisis that has its roots in the 2008 bursting of the housing bubble and the meltdown of some of the largest financial institutions. This is a necessary layer of deception for the bourgeoisie, whose principle assault on revolutionary consciousness is the stripping away of any historical framework for analyzing the capitalist system. With a degree of calculation characteristic of the Machiavellian class, the reframing of the crisis as a financial one is directly in line with this tactic of isolating historical crises within a-historical frameworks. For revolutionaries, it is therefore necessary to establish and reiterate the historic nature of this crisis before diving into the austerity that the bourgeoisie find compelled to enact.

Who is to be the judge, jury and executioner?

The bourgeoisie only speaks in lies

There is no freedom in bourgeois democracy

 At the close of 2011, for a brief period of time, the “WikiLeaks affair” was at the center of every news media outlet in the States and, presumably, the whole world over. Although by now the barrage of media coverage of WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, have become a trickle, there is still a need to make some remarks about this event that has so much shaken the bourgeois media world.

What was all this excitement about?

The facts are well known. At the end of November, following a well prepared sensationalist media campaign, Wikileaks started to release some of the hundreds of thousands of classified US government diplomatic cables that it claims to have in its possession. At the same time several commercial news media organizations throughout the world (The New York Times, France’s Le Monde, Britain’s Guardian, Spain’s El Pais, and the German magazine Der Spiegel ), to whom WikiLeaks have given these files in advance of its own release, started running stories based on these documents. If someone had really been fooled into believing that the “State secrets” of the US were on the verge of being exposed, the reality is surely disappointing. Leaving aside the entertaining value of the quasi gossip-mongering of the US diplomatic cadres in their tiresome task of advancing American imperialist interests, from what has been made public so far these documents contribute little new to what is already widely known about the US policies around the world. Embarrassing as these diplomatic cables might be for some individuals caught off guard in their expressed opinions (both American and foreigners), they are far from being the “smoking gun” exposing the top secret policies of US government that some commentators in the left wing of the bourgeois political spectrum claim them to be.

Perhaps the best assessment (besides being remarkable for its brutal honesty) of the significance of the publication of these documents for the US bourgeoisie was made by the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who said:

But what really is WikiLeaks?