We have received the information published below from comrades in Korea. Independently of the events in themselves, their significance is also determined by the fact that they are taking place simultaneously with the movements in Spain and Greece, and reveal a certain number of similar features.

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Gatherings for the reduction of tuitionfees by half are taking place everyday in Korea but they have not been growing as big mass gatherings as Candlelight gatherings in 2008.

It is partly because the mass does not have yet enough force for going out to the streets, and partly because leading elements of the gatherings are limiting the issue only to the problem of tuition fees. In addition to these reasons, the participation of bourgeois parties such as Democratic Party in the gatherings prevents those gatherings from growing to mass struggles, too.  

On 26th June there was a gathering in the Seoul City Hall Square and the Kwanghwa Gate Square with ten thousands of participants, because KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) organized an all people meeting in which every social stratum was expected to join. All strata including Workers, Peasants and Students came to the gathering, and even it was daytime the streets of the Kwanghwa Tor Square were once occupied by the gathering participants.

In South Korea it was first time since long time to witness occupations of streets and gatherings in the centre of Seoul in daytime.  This gathering was possible because there have been the gatherings of university students for the reduction of tuition fees by half. Though in this sense, the gatherings for the reduction of tuition fees by half have to some degree a certain, limited meaning but it remains limited because it the movement has not (yet) expanded.

Meanwhile a new type of movements is being formed at almost the same time in South Korea.  In South Korea there is a ship constructing company with the name of Hanjin Heavy Industry. This company is located in Pusan, the second biggest city in South Korea. The Korean ship constructing industry is marking the first place in the world but the company, Hanjin Heavy Industry is middle to small sized, being pushed aside in the competition with other ship constructing companies.  This company constructed a new dockyard in the Philippines and is exploiting there Philipine workers by paying them very low wages. In order to eliminate its dockyard with high wage and Trade Unions in Korea, it is giving many orders for construction to Subik dockyard in Philippines. Early this year Hanjin Heavy Industry laid 400 workers off. In order to stop this, a woman worker occupied a crane and is struggling. Ordinary citizens and workers created a way to show solidarity to her, by now it is called “bus of hope”.  They determine a certain day, rent buses and go to the company, Hanjin Heavy Industry. Normally there is no workers´s struggle without gatherings organized by Trade Unions. But now a current is rising, a current which shows spontaneously their solidarity with the struggle in Hanjin Heavy Industry. On 11th June, even 3000 workers went to Pusan and entered into the factory. In this struggle not only workers but also ordinary citizens are taking part. Among those people there are famous actors and actresses. An actress named Yeojin Kim went there and happened to be taken to the police station. This news was reported through Twitter in real time base and is drawing attention of the people who did not participate in this struggle. The second ´bus of hope´ is now being prepared on the 9th July. Then 185 buses will be used.  

Like gatherings for the reduction of tuitionfees by half, this struggle is not a socialist struggle. Workers are not leading the struggle. The conservative tendency of Lee government is leading even Liberalists to be interested in workers´problems. Among them quite many people will turn their back to workers after the change of government.

Even with such a limit, we think, such processes are preparing a new but different form of movements to the 1980- 90´s.

We recently received this text from the comrades of the TPTG (‘Children of the Gallery’) in Greece, and are very pleased to publish it, because it represents one of the first clear statements on the ‘assembly movement’ in Greece, written by comrades who have been taking part in the movement. Their analysis of recent events in Greece corresponds very closely to what we have been saying about the ‘indignant’ movement in Spain which provided an immediate catalyst for the mobilisations in Athens and other Greek cities. Just as we identified a struggle ‘inside’ the movement in Spain between a ‘democratic wing’ which aims to recuperate the assemblies for the benefit of a project of capitalist reform, and a proletarian wing which stands for the development of self-organisation and a fundamental questioning of capitalist social relations, the TPTG text concludes by saying 

“One thing is certain: this volatile, contradictory movement attracts the attention from all sides of the political spectrum and constitutes an expression of the crisis of class relations and politics in general. No other struggle has expressed itself in a more ambivalent and explosive way in the last decades. What the whole political spectrum finds disquieting in this assembly movement is that the mounting proletarian (and petit-bourgeois) anger and indignation is not expressed anymore through the mediation channels of the political parties and the unions. Thus, it is not so much controllable and it is potentially dangerous for the political and unionist representation system in general… the multiform and open character of this movement puts on the agenda the issue of the self-organization of the struggle, even if the content of this struggle remains vague”.

In short: despite its many weaknesses (and the movement in Greece seems to suffer more heavily than its counter-part in Spain from the dead weight of nationalism), this whole experience is a very important moment in the emergence of a deeper form of proletarian class consciousness and organization, and one in which revolutionaries need to be actively involved.

Whatever disagreements may exist between our organisations, it is clear from this text that the principles we hold in common are even more significant: opposition to the manoeuvres of leftists and unions, complete rejection of nationalism, and a determined effort to contribute towards the emergence of what the comrades of the TPTG call a “proletarian public sphere” which will make it possible for growing numbers of our class not only to work out how to resist capitalism’s attacks on our lives, but to develop the theories and actions that lead to a new way of life altogether.         

ICC, July 2011

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Preliminary notes towards an account of the “Movement of popular assemblies”

The movement of the assemblies in the squares started completely unexpectedly on the 25th of May in Athens. It’s unclear which was the initial group of people that took the initiative to post a call for a rally in Syntagma square on Facebook to express their “indignation” and anger at the government’s austerity measures. It seems though that some people around a political group influenced by the later Castoriadis’ democratic ideology were involved among others in that initiative. The call was publicized favourably by the mass media and during the first days there was a reference in the media to a banner that allegedly appeared in the Spanish mobilizations: “Shhh, do not shout, we will wake up the Greeks” or something like that. Of course, no one could expect what would follow.

The initial call was a declaration of independence and separation from political parties, representation and ideologies. It also declared the will to protest peacefully against the state management of the debt crisis and “all those who led us here”. Furthermore, a main slogan was the call for a “real democracy”. The slogan of “real democracy” was quickly replaced after a couple of days by the slogan of “direct democracy”. The initial effort of the organizers to set a body of specific democratic rules for the assembly was rejected by the participants. However, certain regulations were established after some days concerning the time-limit of the speeches (90 sec), the way that someone can propose a subject for the discussion (in written form, two hours before the beginning of the assembly) and the way that speakers are being chosen (through a lottery).. We should also mention that around the core of the general assembly there are always plenty of discussions, events or even confrontations among the participants.

In the beginning there was a communal spirit in the first efforts at self-organizing the occupation of the square and officially political parties were not tolerated. However, the leftists and especially those coming from SYRIZA (Coalition of Radical Left) got quickly involved in the Syntagma assembly and took over important positions in the groups that were formed in order to run the occupation of Syntagma square, and, more specifically, in the group for “secretarial support” and the one responsible for “communication”. These two groups are the most important ones because they organize the agenda of the assemblies as well as the flow of the discussion. It must be noted that these people do not openly declare their political allegiance and appear as ‘individuals’. However, these politicos are unable to completely manipulate such a volatile and heterogeneous assembly since the delegitimisation of the political parties is prevalent. It is very difficult to participate as an individual in these specific groups though, since you have to confront the shadow party mechanisms of the leftists.

The rallies organized on a daily basis gradually became very massive and expressed the complete delegitimisation of the government and of the political system in general. In the most massive rally maybe 500.000 people participated (on Sunday 5/6).

The social composition of the mixed crowd that rallies everyday ranges from workers, unemployed, pensioners and students to small entrepreneurs or former small bosses hard hit by the crisis. In these rallies in the Syntagma square, a divide was formed from the first days between those who are “above” (near the Parliament) and those who are “below” (in the square proper). In the first category, some nationalist and extreme right-wing groups have been active from the beginning influencing the more conservative and/or less politicized people who participate in the demonstrations (being either proletarians or proletarianised former small entrepreneurs). It is quite common for most of them gathering outside the Parliament to wave Greek flags, make the open palm gesture against the MPs, cry out populist and nationalist slogans like “Traitors!” or “Thieves!” or even sing the national anthem. However, the fact that these people are more politically conservative does not necessarily mean that they are more controllable when the conflicts with the police escalate or that they can be counted to the lines of the organized extreme right-wing groups. On the other hand, the second group which forms the constituency of the assembly is much more oriented to the democratic left (patriotic, antifascist, anti-imperialist) as it can be seen by the voted communiqués (see https://real-democracy.gr [6]) and is also proletarian in composition (unemployed workers, civil servants, university students, workers from the private sector, etc.)

The leftists have managed to organize a series of discussion events about the “debt crisis” and about “direct democracy” with invited speakers coming from the left academia (e.g. left political economists like Lapavitsas) who are connected to various left political parties (mainly SYRIZA and ANTARSYA). The organization of these events reproduces and reinforces the divide between “experts” and “non-experts” and the content of the presentations of the invited speakers has been centred on an alternative political and economic management of capitalist relations and the crisis. For example, the main views expressed with regard to the issue of debt vary from proposals for the “debt restructuring” and the cancellation of the “odious part of the debt” to calls for an immediate suspension of payments on the part of the Greek state or exit from the Euro-zone and the EU. In any case, the political content expressed in these events is that of an alternative and more patriotic path for the “development of the country” and the creation of a real social-democratic state. In other words, these events try to direct the discussions towards an alternative path for the reproduction of capitalist relations in Greece that will be implemented by a different government in which the leftists will have assumed the role they deserve... Occasionally there have been criticisms by participants in the assembly of the prominent role of experts in panels as well as of the conception of the debt as a logistical, national issue. However they have been too weak to change the whole direction. The most well-known proposal for a left management of the “national debt” is coming from the Greek Audit Commission which consists of various left politicians, academics and union bureaucrats and favours the idea of the cancellation of the “odious part of the debt” following the Ecuador model. This Commission’s presence was established in the square in the first days against voted resolutions for the exclusion of political parties and organizations with the pretext of being a “citizens’ association”!

Some of us have been involved in a thematic assembly that has been formed by the general assembly around the issues of labour and unemployment called Group of Workers and Unemployed. In cooperation with other comrades, this assembly has tried to promote the self-organized practice of the proletarian “suspension of payments” from below for the direct satisfaction of our needs. Of course, the latter is completely at odds with the left political proposals for the “suspension of payments of the sovereign debt”. Towards this aim some interventions in unemployment offices have been organized calling the unemployed workers to join the group in Syntagma square and attempting to initiate discussions aiming at the organization of local assemblies of unemployed workers (the latter aim was unfortunately not successful). Also 3 direct actions in the metro station of Syntagma square have been organized where, in cooperation with a collective that is already active on this issue, the so-called “I don’t pay” coalition of committees, the ticket validating machines were blocked. The leftists who participate in this assembly have tried to confine its activities to left political demands of “the right to work”, “full, decent and stable work for all”, etc. without any real interest to communicate their struggle experiences (if they had any) and engage in collective direct action. The results of this confrontation are depicted in the communiqué which was produced and is available in http://real-democracy.gr/ [7]. But, the main problem is that apart from us, some anti-authoritarians/anarchists and the leftists, the participation of other people both in the discussions and the actions is almost non-existent, although the actions which were organized have been agreed upon by the general assembly.

This leads to another important observation about the assembly of the Syntagma square. Notwithstanding that the assembly has taken all these days decisions involving the organization of direct actions, in the end very few people really participate in them. It seems that the direct democratic process of just voting for or against a specific proposal in such a massive assembly tends to reproduce passivity and the role of the individualized spectator/voter.

This passivity and individualization of a significant part of the people was transcended on the day of the general strike (15/6) when the need to struggle against the attempts of the state to disband the demonstration and to reoccupy Syntagma square not only led practically to the participation of thousands of people in the conflicts with the police but also led to the expression of real solidarity between the demonstrators: people were freed from the hands of the cops by other protesters, the medical team helped anyone that was in danger because of the tear gas and the brutal strikes of the cops, the joyful dance of thousands of people amidst the tear gases, etc.

However, there were certain forces, i.e. the mass media, the left parties and the fascists, who tried to promote separations between the demonstrators around the issue of violence and through the accusation against some violent demonstrators of being instigated by police agent-provocateurs. When the anarchist/antiauthoritarian block and the blocks of the base unions arrived in Syntagma square and some of the comrades moved to the area in front of the parliament, a group of fascists exploited the throwing of a few (2-3) Molotov bombs by some individuals and started to shout through bullhorns to the demonstrators that the “kukuloforoi” (hooded persons) are undercover police provocateurs that should be isolated. This group started the attack against the anarchists/antiauthoritarians and managed to get other demonstrators involved in the attack as well. The anarchists/antiauthoritarians managed to face the attack and to respond successfully. However, the media exploited this incident by portraying it as an attack of the anarchists against the “indignants” (as the crowds demonstrating in the square are called) in order to promote the separation between “violent” and “peaceful” protesters within the movement. The video of this incident was played again and again for the rest of the day. However, on the level of street politics, this attempt was largely unsuccessful since when the police attacked later the demonstration they were confronted by a totally mixed crowd.

Apart from the media, the left parties tried as well to promote the separation between “violent” and “peaceful” protesters through their “provocateurology” and the continuous accusations and propaganda against the anarchist/antiauthoritarian milieu. Their aims are of course different: they want to restrain the movement to the limits of legality and peacefulness so that they will be able to capitalize on it politically according to their wishful thinking to participate in a future government that will follow an alternative left path for the development of Greek capitalism. We should add here that the Group of Workers and Unemployed of Syntagma square where some of us participate issued a resolution condemning provocateurology and false divisions within the movement but the text was never voted as a subject for discussion. This was the result of the leftist organizers’ intervention and manipulation combined with the weak support from other participants.

However, a lot of different views have been expressed concerning the issue of “provocateurology” and also the “violent or pacifist character of our movement”. The dynamic and contradictory character of the assembly can be traced to some of the assembly’s decisions two days before the 48-hour general strike on 28-29 of June. The left organizers managed to win a vote calling the police forces to “show respect to people's will and the constitutional right of people's sovereignty [...] and not to prevent the people from protecting its own Constitution”!At the same time, there was another resolution which condemned “the professionals of violence who serve the system and not the movement”, reflecting the leftist provocateurology against those who do not act according to the ideology of obedience to “law and order”. On the contrary, a day after, in another decision the assembly voted in favour of “those who clash with the repression forces. Nobody with a loudspeaker should speak against them”. On the same day, the proposal for “condemnation of any kind of violence during the coming 48-hour strike” was disapproved.

It must be noted that till now the “movement of the squares” has been really effective in the sense that it managed to widen the field of opposition to the government’s policy, something that the conventional general strikes and the isolated sectional strikes had not managed to do. It obliged the discredited GSEE to call for a 24-hour strike on the 15/6 and a 48-hour strike when the second “memorandum” was going to be voted and many workers took the opportunity to participate in the demos from morning till night. Although it did not manage to cancel the voting of the memorandum, it nonetheless managed to create a deep cabinet and political crisis. Never before, not even during the December 2008 riots, was the political system of representation so irretrievably delegitimised. However, the leftist organizers managed to preserve the mediatory role of unions -at least on an ideological level- through a common poster calling for the 48-hour general strike.

A first observation about this strike is that it’s impossible to make an accurate estimation of the number of people that took part in the events during these two days. There was a continuous inflow and outflow of people to and from the terrain of the struggle in the centre of Athens (i.e. the Syntagma square and the surrounding streets) and the number of demonstrators fluctuated from a few thousands to as many as 100.000 people. However, the participation in the strike, in the rally and in the conflicts was far lower on the first day than in the second day: the number of demonstrators in Syntagma square on Tuesday 28/6 did not exceed 20.000 people.[1] Both days, fierce clashes took place between demonstrators and the riot police over a large part of the centre of the city around Syntagma square. Thousands of chemical weapons were thrown by the riot police creating a toxic and suffocating atmosphere. Certainly, in the second day, the mobilization was more intense and more massive.

According to the police, 131 cops were injured, 75 persons were busted and charges were pressed against 38 people. According to the medical team of the Syntagma square, more than 700 people had been provided with first aid at the improvised medical centres in the square and inside the metro station of Syntagma and around 100 were transferred to hospitals. There were damages on banks, ministry buildings, luxurious hotels, the post-office of Syntagma square and a few commercial shops and restaurants.

There is no doubt that from the beginning the aim of the state was to evacuate the square, to terrorize and disperse the demonstrators.[2] However, the persistent and spirited stance of the demonstrators may be perfectly expressed by the slogan: “we won’t leave the square”. As a result, the confrontation with the police, material and verbal, was almost continuous. On the first day, most of the people were pushed further back in the streets surrounding the square, giving longer or shorter battles, until the police managed to create a cop-boundary around the square, preventing anyone from approaching. Despite that, a few hundreds remained in the square until late in the night.

On the second day, apart from the gathering in the Syntagma square, there were efforts to make blockades early in the morning in order to prevent the MP’s entrance into the parliament. This plan was voted by the Syntagma assembly as well as by the assemblies that have been formed in other neighbourhoods of Athens outside the centre. Unfortunately, only a few hundreds of demonstrators participated in those blockades which were immediately attacked fiercely, pushed away and quickly disbanded by the police. So, the plan to prevent politicians from getting into the parliament didn’t work. In the case of the blockade in Vasileos Konstantinou avenue, the demonstrators were pushed back to nearby streets were they erected barricades and after a few hours and some mild confrontations with the riot police they started a long demonstration that passed through the touristic parts of the centre to finally reach the big rally in Syntagma square. It must be noted that the organization of the blockades was totally inefficient since the leftist organizations that played an important role through their control of the main groups of the Syntagma assembly did nothing to ensure a greater participation and a real confrontation with the police. Of course, the leftists’ attitude is not an excuse for the inability of the assembly itself to implement its decisions and the passivity of a great part of its participants.

As far as the conflicts around the parliament are concerned, similar scenes of the first day took place on the second day as well but it was much more difficult for the police to accomplish its aims. Thousands of demonstrators participated in the clashes of the second day. Most of the demonstrators were prepared for the clashes wearing gas masks or other improvised protection equipment; many carried anti-acid solutions while some were fully equipped for fighting the cops. In most cases, there was a “front zone” where the battles evolved and a “rear zone” where people yelled slogans, gave help to those in need and even “provided” the “front zone” with new people.

The “peaceful people” backed those clashing with the police: the physical presence of the huge crowd itself was an obstacle to the manoeuvres of the police. Protesters blocked a group of motorcycles of the police infamous “DIAS” and “DELTA” forces by standing in front of them while the policemen were ready to launch an attack. “Peaceful” protesters weren't scared by the clashes and only the continuous massive and violent attacks of riot police and motorcycle police forced them to abandon the streets surrounding Syntagma. Contrary to what many were preaching during the previous days and especially during the clashes with the police on June 28th, the clashes didn't “frighten” the “people” but in a sense these clashes expressed the accumulated anger against a largely delegitimized government, the brutality of the police and the worsening of the living conditions of the working class.

Especially this day, there reappeared the insurgents of December 2008 (anarchists, anti-authoritarians, students, ultras, young precarious proletarians) in the streets of Athens alongside a considerable part of the more “respectable” and stable working class that protested against the austerity measures clashing with the police. It was the first time after May 5, 2010 that such a thing happened.

The 48-hour general strike had another similarity with the December 2008 rebellion: playfulness. Many slogans or chants of the protesters against the government and the IMF are based on slogans or chants from the terrace culture while during the confrontations with the police drummers encouraged the protesters and incited them to keep their positions.

Both days, the police eventually “cleared” the surroundings and the central streets late at night, and only few determined ones remained in the square overnight.

The thousands of people that participated in the clashes and their diversity defied in practice the conspiracy theories of the left organizations/parties and the media about “provocateurs” or “para-statal gangs” and proved how ridiculous similar mainstream propaganda about those “specific” groups who always “create chaos” is. Many people realized the necessity of throwing stones, lighting fires and barricading streets against armed, furious and ruthless cops who execute the orders of capital and its state.

This change was also the result of the overcoming of the (usually verbal) confrontations between the “non-violent” and the “violent” protesters during the last month’s mobilizations. Many “non-violent” protesters, especially the elder ones, realized at last that behind the “masks” of the “provocateurs” were mostly common young people, filled with rage. In a case, a sixty-year lady was talking in a friendly way with a “masked” 16-year old about the “right to fight back the cops” while at the same time well-dressed “indignant” protesters were disputing with “rioters” on similar matters. In other cases, “non-violent” people with breathing problems were helped by well-prepared “masked” demonstrators. Violence is just one issue in the continuous social and political discussions and disputes that emerge inside the mobilized crowd and play an important role in the shaping up of the mobilizations and the contradictory attitudes of many demonstrators. We can say that these disputes create a limited proletarian public sphere where theoretical and practical issues are posed.

Another prominent feature of the days of rage was the combination of rioting and celebration. During the fights there was live music, people sang and, as we mentioned before, in some cases drum players accompanied counter-attacks against the riot squads! During the afternoon of the 28th a concert was given despite the fights and chemical gases and the protesters were dancing while the police was tear-gassing the square. Expropriations of pastries, cakes and ice creams from a chain café in the square gave the struggle a sweet flavour on the 29th, although the food supply group later condemned lootings from the loudspeakers, probably after having been scolded by some left “organizers”. Later that afternoon a big group mainly of SYRIZA members tried to prevent people from piling up stones to be used against a possible attack by the riot squads, however, having no alternative plan to face the attack, they soon gave up their effort. Shortly after, the microphone equipment with the loudspeakers was removed from the square on the pretext that they could get damaged. The choice to take away the “voice” of the mobilization at that particular time, when clashes with the police in the surroundings of the square were still raging, was clearly undermining the defence of the square. Some minutes later a lot of riot squads invaded the square and in a particularly violent sweep operation managed to disperse the crowd down the metro station. Only some hundreds would return again and even less stayed in the square until late in the night.

We should also mention that the feeling of rage against politicians and the police is really growing. Except for the widespread clashes, this rage is also reflected in the verbal condemnations that one can catch here and there: “we should burn the parliament”, “we should hang them high”, “we should take up arms”, “we should visit the MP’s homes” etc. It’s remarkable that most of these declarations come from elder people. Several cases of “arrests” of undercover cops by loads of people are also revealing of the degree of anger mounting: in the evening of the 29th demonstrators got hold of an undercover cop inside the Syntagma metro station trying to detain him when the Red Cross rescuers intervened and helped him escape (according to some rumours, he had no gun when he left…).

As far as the role of the unions (GSEE-ADEDY) is concerned, except for their call for the 48-hour strike, which was more or less a result of the pressure of the “square’s movement”, they didn’t really play any important role. It is characteristic that their blocks attracted only few hundreds and on the second day, when the new austerity package would be voted, GSEE arranged its rally late in the afternoon in another square of the city centre (which was just a short stroll towards Omonia square which is in the opposite direction!)! In addition, on 30th of June, GSEE, faithful to the conspiracy theories, published a press release which condemned “the destructions and the pre-decided riots between “hooded people” and the police who co-operate against the workers and the demonstrators […] GSEE condemns any kind of violence wherever it comes from and calls the government to assume its responsibilities…”. On the other hand, ADEDY kept a more cautious stance: in its press releases on the 29th and the 30th of June, it condemned the “barbarism of the government” and “the police brutality” against the demonstrators and it even called for a rally on the 30th June on Syntagma square which it never organized!

Some general points concerning the movement against the imposition of the harshest austerity measures since the 2nd World War:

1) Nationalism (mostly in a populist form) is dominant, favoured both by the various extreme right wing cliques as well as by left parties and leftists. Even for a lot of proletarians or petty-bourgeois hit by the crisis who are not affiliated with political parties, national identity appears as a last imaginary refuge when everything else is rapidly crumbling. Behind the slogans against the “foreign, sell out government” or for the “Salvation of the country”, “National sovereignty” and a “New Constitution” lies a deep feeling of fear and alienation to which the “national community” appears as a magical unifying solution. Class interests are often expressed in nationalist and racist terms producing a confused and explosive political cocktail.

 

2) The manipulation of the main assembly in Syntagma square (there are several others in various neighbourhoods of Athens and cities in Greece) by “incognito” members of left parties and organizations is evident and really obstructive in a class direction of the movement. However, due to the deep legitimization crisis of the political system of representation in general they, too, have to hide their political identity and keep a balance between a general, abstract talk about “self-determination”, “direct democracy”, “collective action”, “anti-racism”, “social change” etc on the one hand and extreme nationalism, thug-like behaviour of some extreme-right wing individuals participating in groups in the square on the other hand, and all this in a not so successful way.

3) A significant part of the antiauthoritarian milieu as well as a part of the left (especially the Marxist-Leninists and most of the trade unionists) keep their distance from the assembly or are openly hostile to it: the former accuse it mainly for showing tolerance towards the fascists in front of the parliament or the members of the defence group of the assembly and for being a petty bourgeois, reformist political body manipulated by certain left parties. The latter accuse it for being apolitical, hostile to the Left and the “unionized, organized labour movement”.

One thing is certain: this volatile, contradictory movement attracts the attention from all sides of the political spectrum and constitutes an expression of the crisis of class relations and politics in general. No other struggle has expressed itself in a more ambivalent and explosive way in the last decades. What the whole political spectrum finds disquieting in this assembly movement is that the mounting proletarian (and petit-bourgeois) anger and indignation is not expressed anymore through the mediation channels of the political parties and the unions. Thus, it is not so much controllable and it is potentially dangerous for the political and unionist representation system in general. Therefore, the role of provocateurology is crucial: it serves as an exorcism, a slander against a growing part of the population which exiled in the no man’s land of “para-statal activity” should be rendered inert. On another level, the multiform and open character of this movement puts on the agenda the issue of the self-organization of the struggle, even if the content of this struggle remains vague. The public debate on the nature of the debt is a thorny question since it could lead to a movement of “refusal of payments” to the Greek state (an issue well beyond the political horizon of the parties, the unions and the vast majority of the extra-parliamentary left, statist as it is). After the bloody voting of the Medium-term Programme it is uncertain what direction the movement of the assemblies will take in an era where all certainties seem to melt into the air.

TPTG, 11/7/2011. 

We are publishing here the statement on the war in Libya put out by the KRAS, the Russian section of the anarcho-syndialist International Workers’ Association. The ICC warmly welcomes the internationalism which animates this statement. This doesn’t surprise us, because in the past the KRAS has consistently defended internationalist positions: in 2008 against the war in Georgia, and before that against the wars in Chechnya in the 1990s, rejecting any political support for the different warring bourgeois camps.

What we have in common, and what really counts for us, is the fact that an organisation like the KRAS places itself without any doubt in the camp of the international working class on a question of such fundamental importance : imperialist war.

While the war between the Russian and Georgian states, a great power and a micro-state, openly revealed its imperialist character as a confrontation between bourgeois gangs, the imperialist character of the war in Libya is veiled behind the lie that this is a ‘humanitarian’ intervention. The bourgeoisie of the states who have been intervening for weeks through massive bombing raids against the brutal and irrational Gaddafi regime have been taking advantage of workers’ sympathies for the revolts in North Africa in order to justify a war supposedly aimed at supporting the democratic wave against ‘dictators’ sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. This is a complete lie, as the KRAS statement clearly shows. Nevertheless, we want to make two short comments on the statement, essentially to stimulate discussion within our class.

We agree with the KRAS that in North African countries like Tunisia and Egypt there has been no proletarian revolution of the kind that came out of the First World War, when the working class was able to constitute itself as a class and, as in Russia, to take power. The situation in Egypt, for example, presented in the bourgeois press as a grand ‘revolution for democracy’, shows clearly that the bourgeoisie has held onto power by using an adroit strategy of dumping the Mubarak clan in favour of a government with a more democratic face. On the other hand, we think that even if the working class in these countries is still tied to illusions in democracy, nationalism and even religion, it has still been through an experience of struggle which is of considerable historical value. The methods of the working class had a real impact on the social revolts in the Arab world : tendencies towards self-organisation, occupation of central squares to assemble and organise on a massive scale, organisation of defence against thugs and police, rejection of gratuitous violence and looting, an effort to overcome religious divisions, attempts at fraternisation with rank and file soldiers… "It is no accident that these tendencies developed most strongly in Egypt where the working class has a long tradition of struggle and which, at a crucial stage in the movement, emerged as a distinct force, engaging in a wave of struggles which, like those in 2006-7, can be seen as “germs” of the future mass strike, containing a certain number of its most important characteristics: the spontaneous extension of strikes and demands from one sector to another, the intransigent rejection of state trade unions and certain tendencies towards self-organisation, the raising of both economic and political demands. Here we see, in outline, the capacity of the working class to come forward as the tribune of all the oppressed and exploited and offer the perspective of a new society"[1]

On the basis of political weaknesses, especially democratic and nationalist illusions, the situation in Libya went from an initial uprising of the population against the Gaddafi regime to becoming a war between various bourgeois cliques for the control of the Libyan state; and upon this was grafted the bloody imperialist action of the great powers. This transformation into a war between bourgeois factions was all the easier because the working class in Libya is very weak. Essentially made up of an immigrant work-force, it was mainly concerned to flee the slaughter because it could hardly recognise its own interests in a movement so dominated by nationalism. The example of Libya is a tragic negative example of the need for the working class to take centre stage in any popular revolt : its disappearance from the scene largely explains the way the situation evolved.    

Secondly, the statement from the KRAS calls on the workers of western Europe and the USA to demonstrate against this so-called humanitarian war. This call is fundamentally correct because only the working class in the countries taking part in the war in Libya could stop this massacre. For the moment however it has to be said that this option unfortunately doesn’t exist. Even if there have been protests against the NATO intervention, they have only been by a small minority. In France for example, the country most strongly involved in this war, the bombing has not been widely questioned. The war is also well supported by the parties of the left of capital. For the moment it is easy for the bourgeoisie to win acceptance for this war by speaking in the name of solidarity with those oppressed by the Gaddafi regime.

ICC, July 2011.

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Down with the new war in North Africa! Declaration of Russian anarcho-syndicalists KRAS-IWA against the war in Libya

The "humanitarian" intervention of NATO states in Libya, aimed at providing military assistance to one party in a local civil war, has once again proved: there are no “revolutions” in North Africa and in the Middle East. There are only a stubborn and bitter struggles for power, profit, influence and control over oil resources and strategic areas.

Deep discontent and social-economic protests by the working masses in the region generated by global economic crisis (attacks on the living conditions of workers, increase of unemployment and poverty, spread of precarious work) are used by oppositional political groups to carry out coups, overthrowing the tyranny of the corrupt, senile dictators and rising in their place. Mobilising the unemployed, the workers, the poor as cannon fodder, discontented factions of the ruling class distract them from their social and economic demands, promising them "democracy" and "change". In fact, the coming to power of this motley bloc of "backbenchers" of the ruling elite, liberals and religious fundamentalists, will not bring the workers any changes for the better. We know well the consequences of the victory of the liberals: new privatizations, strengthening of market chaos, emergence of the next billionaires and further aggravation of poverty, suffering and misery of the oppressed and the poor. The triumph of the religious fundamentalists would mean the growth of clerical reaction, the ruthless suppression of women and minorities, and the inevitable slide towards a new Arab-Israeli war, bringing hardships that would again lay on the shoulders of the working masses. But even in the "ideal" option of establishing of representative democratic regimes in North African and Middle Eastern countries, the working people will not win anything. The worker ready to risk his life for the sake of "democracy" is like a slave who vows to die for the "right" to choose his slaveholder. Representative democracy is not worth a drop of human blood.

In the struggle for power unfolding in the region, the European NATO states and the United States even more openly side with the oppositional political groups in the hope that the victory of these forces and the "democratization" model of political domination will bring them new benefits and privileges. Supporting "democracy" in Tunisia and Egypt, they hope to strengthen its influence there, to deliver their capitalist "investors" from the corruption of dictators and to take part in the upcoming privatization of the riches of ruling clans. Helping the liberal, monarchist and religious-fundamentalist opposition in Libya, which acts in conjunction with a number of former senior officials of the Gaddafi regime, they expect to take control of rich oil reserves. Along with them, some Arab states enter into struggle for influence, having their own ambitions in the region.

The powers-that-be are going in again with bombs and shelling to "save" lives of people and to "liberate" them from dictatorships, killing more people. The governments of Western European countries and the U.S. are lying and hypocritical: yesterday they helped dictators, hugged them and sold them weapons. Today they are demanding that dictators go, "listen to the demands of the people", but do not hesitate to suppress the protests of the population in “their own” countries completely ignoring its demands. When the vast majority of the inhabitants of France or Britain, Greece or Spain, Portugal or Ireland say they do not want to pay from their pockets for state aid to banks and businesses, and demand to cancel the austerity measures, anti-social pension and labor reforms, the authorities answer to them that democracy "is not ruled by the street".

A "humanitarian" intervention gives the rulers of Western Europe and the United States a great opportunity to distract the population of countries-in-their-power from the consequences of the current crisis. The “short victorious” war for “saving people and democracy” is designed to make the European and North American workers forget about the anti-social policies of governments and the capitalists and to experience again the pride in their "humane" and "fair" rulers in a new edition of the "holy alliance" between the oppressors and the oppressed .

We call on workers of the world not to yield to the "democratic"and "humanitarian" fraud and to oppose strongly a new escalation of capitalist barbarism in North Africa and the Middle East.

If we could bring our voice to the oppressed and exploited poor in the region, over thousands-kilometres-long distances and language barriers, we would encourage them to return to the initial social and economic motives and themes of their protest, to rebel, to go on strike and demonstrations against low wages, high prices and unemployment, for social emancipation - but not to allow  themsleves to be involved  in the political games of a power struggle between different factions of the ruling classes.

We call on the workers of Europe and America to go into the streets to protest against the new "humanitarian" war in the interests of states and capitalists. We appeal to sections of the International Workers Association to increase their internationalist and anti-militarist agitation and to initiate anti-war demonstrations and strikes.

DOWN WITH WAR!
DOWN WITH ALL STATE AND ARMIES!
NOT A SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD FOR DICTATORSHIP OR DEMOCRACY!
NO TO ALL GOVERNMENTS AND “OPPOSITIONS”!
FOR SOLIDARITY WITH WORKING PEOPLES STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL EMANCIPATION!
LONG LIVE THE GENERAL SELF-ADMINISTRATION OF WORKING PEOPLE!

Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists,
Section of the IWA in the Russian region
July, 2011.

 

2011 Introduction

Thirty years ago this summer over 40 British towns and cities were hit by a wave of social revolts as young people –often black but also white, mainly working class – fought back against police racism and repression. In Toxteth, Liverpool, police deployed CS gas for the first time in mainland Britain after almost losing control of the city. 

The following article, first published in WR 38 in May 1981, analyses the international significance of these events as a response by young people – one of the hardest pressed sectors of the proletariat – to the effects of the crisis and mass unemployment hitting the most advanced capitalist countries. As such they were ‘harbingers of the future’. This makes them of far more than just historical importance to us today, when the ‘spectre of social revolt’ has indeed returned with a vengeance to haunt the capitalist system; in North Africa and the Middle East, in Greece and Spain, France, in Britain itself with the student struggles last year...   

Of course a full comparison of the revolts and those of today would reveal many differences, not least in the depth and extent of the capitalist crisis, which despite 15 years of deepening in 1981 had yet to enter its final phase of decomposition; the Berlin Wall had yet to fall and the threat of a direct confrontation between the American and Russian blocs was still a real one. 

The sheer scale of the more recent social revolts – which in the case of North Africa and the Middle East is the most widespread, simultaneous wave since 1917-19 or even 1848 – also puts the events of 1981 into perspective. But some of the similarities are striking: for example, the tendency shown in some of the earlier revolts towards self-organisation, with the appearance of general assemblies and revocable delegates in Amsterdam and Zurich, has today become a much more widespread feature.

The article was right to emphasise the importance of the workers at the heart of industry to provide a way forward. In Britain, the extremely militant struggle of the miners in 1984-5 followed the ‘riots’ of 1981. This was eventually defeated of course, and the capitalist state mounted a concerted counter-attack on the working class that, along with the negative effects of mass unemployment, atomisation, the flood of cheap drugs into working class neighbourhoods, etc., helps to explain why we did not see further waves of similar revolts. Internationally the working class struggle suffered a deep reflux following the collapse of the blocs and the deafening ideological campaigns that accompanied it. 

But the article was absolutely right to focus on the threat of mass unemployment as the key underlying factor in the struggles. The reality of unemployment has become a central issue in today’s struggles, and a key factor in the explosion of revolts in North Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps the most positive difference between 1981 and today is the even greater potential for social revolts to link with the struggles of workers at the heart of production, and to generalise in a movement against the effects of the now chronic crisis of a decrepit world system.

ICC 7/7/11

 

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Far from being a purely local phenomenon, or something uniquely derived from racial problems, the Brixton riots were another episode in a series of social revolts which have erupted in the advanced western countries in the last few years: the ‘autonomous movement’ in Italy in 1977; mass confrontations between squatters and the police in Amsterdam and a dozen West German cities; the uprisings against police racism and repression in Miami, Bristol and Brixton; the ‘youth revolt’ in Zurich and other Swiss cities, which has been echoed in Oslo, Copenhagen, Vienna...

Despite all their particularities, all these revolts are a response to the effects of mass unemployment in the major western economies. Among the more concentrated sectors of the working class, really massive unemployment is a relatively ‘new’ experience. With certain important exceptions (e.g. the steelworkers in France and Britain, the miners in Britain), its initial effect has often been to intimidate workers, who fear that going on strike will only provoke further lay-offs. This is one of the reasons why working class struggle in western capitalism has yet to reach the heights of the gigantic class battles that are now going on in Poland.

But the fact that profound social tensions are building up in the west as well as the east is indicated by this series of revolts away from the point of production. In the absence of massive strike movements, the centre of social unrest has momentarily shifted towards those categories of the population who have been feeling the full blast of unemployment for many years, and who are most vulnerable to the bourgeoisie’s general assault on living standards: blacks, immigrants, youth, elements from intermediate strata (students, intellectuals etc), The problems facing these categories can be seen by looking at the immediate grievances behind the revolts:

• they can’t get decent housing, and so are forced to live in crumbling inner city areas, and many have no choice but to squat. Thus, in Holland and Germany, where rents are astronomically high, the housing question has been the main preoccupation of these elements;
• poorly paid or jobless young people are provided with the most miserable benefits and facilities, and are given no space to live their own lives. Hence the demand for an ‘autonomous youth centre’ in Zurich;
• people who are pushed to the margins of society are constantly confronted with police harassment. This is especially true for blacks, who have to put up with all kinds of racist treatment from the police, but resistance against police repression has been a central theme in all these movements. On every occasion that these movements have taken the form of riots, the immediate issue was the brutal intervention of the police, whether to evict squatters in Amsterdam, disperse demos in Zurich, or ‘clean out’ black districts in Britain.

In short, these categories constitute a sector of the population which is becoming more and more aware that it has NO FUTURE in this society, to use one of the slogans of the German squatters. Since capitalism has nothing to offer them but poverty and repression, they are beginning to feel that they have nothing to lose from violently resisting the present order.

A re-run of the Sixties?

Certain bourgeois commentators, observing the efforts to build a ‘counter-culture’ that have been particularly prevalent in the Zurich movement, have tried to write off these revolts as no more than a re-run of the student and hippy movements of the sixties.

It’s true that the Zurich rebels have revived the old situationist slogan “we don’t want a society in which the risk of dying of hunger is exchanged for the risk of dying of boredom”, which is a little passé in a world that really is threatened by starvation. But Switzerland is a relative newcomer to the crisis, and just as the youth rebellions against the ‘consumer society’ of the sixties actually signalled the onset of a crisis of the entire mode of production, so the protests against consumerism in ‘prosperous’ Zurich express the fact that no corner of the planet can escape the consequences of this crisis.

Besides, even in Zurich the movement is largely made up of young workers and apprentices who have little hope of enjoying the wealth of Swiss capitalism. In nearly all cases, the most militant protagonists of these revolts are made up of a sector of the working class: a sector that is weak, dispersed, inexperienced, but part of the proletariat nonetheless. This is clearly the case with the black youth who led the revolts in Bristol and Brixton: most of them are either unemployed children of workers, or workers themselves. And even if some of the European movements have a strong core of elements from intermediate and petty bourgeois strata, the fact remains that the majority of these elements are being made unemployed, and unemployment is itself a factor which tends to proletarianise the petty bourgeoisie and other strata, at least in countries where the working class has a preponderant weight.

The weaknesses of these revolts - and their strengths

These revolts cannot be written off as petty bourgeois convulsions which are no more than a diversion for the working class: they are essentially based on a sector of the class itself. But this isn’t to deny that these movements are strongly influenced by the attitudes and ideologies of the petty bourgeoisie, of the intermediate strata being driven towards the proletariat by the generalisation of unemployment. In Germany, for example, the ideology of terrorism still has a certain weight, and many elements in these movements still cling to the illusion of building islands of autonomy, of free relationships, within the existing system. Above all, since many of the young people involved in these movements have little experience of associated labour, they have great difficulty in seeing their struggle in class terms, and tend to identify themselves simply as members of a particular category: blacks, youth, squatters, etc. These weaknesses are not merely ideological; they have a material basis in the social position of these elements. Separated from the centres of production, they lack the means to decisively paralyse the mechanisms of the capitalist system. Lacking the focus of the workplace, it is extremely difficult for revolts away from the point of production to generate organisational structures which can unify the struggle against the state.

There can be no question of communists hiding the weaknesses of these movements, and still less of falling into the trap of theorising these weaknesses, as has been done by Toni Negri and other theoreticians of ‘autonomy’ in Italy. According to this current, the diverse categories involved in these revolts are the new revolutionary subject, replacing the ‘guaranteed’, employed workers who have been seduced into defending the system. Thus, the divisions between employed and unemployed, between the more concentrated and the more marginal sectors of the proletariat, are seen as something positive. So are the divisions within the marginal sectors themselves, because according to the autonomists, each category  ­– workers, women, gays, youth, etc. -  should be encouraged to organise itself ‘autonomously’.

Communists and workers have to fight these ideas, because they are a pernicious barrier against the unification of the class. It is important to point out the limitations of movements divorced from the point of production, to insist that there has to be a link-up with the workers in Industry. Otherwise these revolts will indeed have NO FUTURE: isolated from the most powerful battalions of the proletariat, they will remain vulnerable to police repression and could easily degenerate into nihilism and despair. As the Polish example has confirmed, the workers at the heart of industry are still the key to the whole situation. It is not the simple generalisation of revolts away from the point of production that will lead towards the revolution; rather it is the mass strikes of the industrial proletariat that can provide an organized and politically coherent framework for the struggle in the neighbourhoods and the streets.

Nevertheless, we can discern a number of positive aspects in these revolts:

• their practical rejection of legalism and pacifism;
• their hostility to the left parties, who, like the unions, tend to have a weak implantation among the elements involved in these movements. In fact, a number of these revolts have taken place in municipalities controlled by left parties, and the point has not been lost that it was the social democrats in Holland and Germany who used riot police and armoured cars against the squatters, just as the Communist Party sent in the tanks to crush the ‘disorders’ in Bologna in 1977;
• their refusal to delegate power to others, and their attempts at self-organisation: general assemblies with revocable delegates in Amsterdam, Zurich etc. The often quoted slogans NO LEADERS and NO POWER TO NO-ONE may reflect anarchist and apolitical prejudices, but they also show a healthy distrust of leftist manipulators and hierarchical approaches to organisation.

Above all, these movements are important as harbingers of the future. When Thatcher said that the issue behind Brixton wasn’t unemployment because there had been mass unemployment in the thirties, but no such riots, she was of course wrong on a number of counts. One of the main issues behind Brixton was unemployment, and there were unemployed riots in the thirties. But the general picture in the thirties was of a class that had been defeated and was allowing itself to be further pulverised by the crisis and marched off to war. Today, although capitalism objectively needs another war, it is going to have a hard time convincing black youth in Brixton, already bitterly hostile to the state, that their interests lie in fighting for Queen and Country. It will be equally hard to make good soldiers out of the German youths who recently scandalised the bourgeoisie by demonstrating against public ceremonies at which recruits to the army are sworn in. The violent insubordination shown by these hard-pressed sectors of the proletariat provide capitalism with a grim warning about what will happen as the most powerful concentrations of the class also come to the conclusion that capitalism has no future to offer them.

C D Ward 5/81