At the time the papers said that “they came in triumph”; Cameron and Sarkozy went to Tripoli and Benghazi around a year ago in order to accept the cheers of a war-weary crowd and to “hail a new dawn for Libya”. This after supporting both anti and pro-Gaddafi factions of the Libyan state and shortly after killing an unknown number of Libyans as they “liberated” them from the grip of Gaddafi with bombardments from the air and their special forces on the ground. The war, contrary to early reports, was fully backed by American imperialism from the beginning, who, “leading from behind”, pushed the British and French to secure this vital oil region for their own interests while also opening up a further scramble among the other imperialist players to gain what influence they could. Germany, who played a back seat role during the war, seems to have done particularly well from Libyan contracts by dint of its economic clout and contacts; and German economic strength is a growing factor on the imperialist chessboard. The local and wider spread of imperialist barbarity goes beyond any possible economic advantages coming from the Libyan war. Another factor in pushing forward this war forward that must have weighed on the imperialist scales from the US point of view was the growing instability in the eastern Mediterranean with the post-Mubarak regime in Egypt suddenly ambiguous towards Israel and allowing Iranian warships to pass through the Suez Canal.

It's not that the first anniversary celebrations of such an important event have been muted; the one year on celebrations of the “triumph of liberation” from Cameron et al have been non-existent. Not surprising really. This was supposed to be the war where they finally learnt the lessons about Iraq in securing and rebuilding the nation after the fall of a tyrant. But, for the greater population of Libya, the “liberation” and its aftermath has brought nothing but more misery, with terror, intimidation, shortages, inflation and unemployment – one of the triggers of the original uprising – higher than it's ever been. The country itself is riven by various warring factions including a resurgent jihadist force linked to al Qaida. On August 27 the US State Department issued a statement warning US citizens against unnecessary travel in Libya adding: “Political violence, including car bombings in Tripoli and assassinations of military officers and alleged former regime officials in Benghazi, has increased. Inter-militia conflict can erupt at any time or any place in the country”. Simon Tisdall, who gave the quote in The Guardian on September 13, goes on to say about the breakaway army in Misrata controlling 30,000 small arms with “revolutionary brigades” controlling “more than 820 tanks, dozens of heavy artillery pieces and more than 2,300 vehicles equipped with machine-guns and anti-aircraft weapons”. Looking further afield in the region, the fallout of the war in Libya has spread more war and bloody instability throughout Mali and the Sahel giving a “new dawn”, if you like, to the Islamic fundamentalists of al-Qaida in the Maghreb. In Libya itself, the British Consulate in Benghazi had already been hit in June this year with the ambassador lucky to escape alive. It's these sorts of events that could well presage an Iraq-style breakdown along with an unremitting Afghan-type war. It's not a matter of America, Britain, etc., “learning the lessons” from their disastrous wars of the recent past, because imperialism generally, and these imperialisms in particular, can, whatever their intentions, only spread more chaos, instability and war.

Embassy killings

The killing of US ambassador Stevens and three other embassy staff in Benghazi, September 11, is being put down by the US administration to reactions to a now notorious film denigrating Muslim beliefs. But the date is the clue and the way the supposed secret US safe house in Benghazi was also targeted, as well as the previous unpublicised warnings from the US Bureau of Diplomatic Security, suggest a much deeper and more worrying plot for the Americans and their allies. The attack was thought to be a pre-emptive assault against a CIA operation, which then necessitated a large number of US personnel to get out of the country quickly – according to officials in Washington.

It's more or less established that the al-Qaida linked Islamist brigade of Ansar al-Sharia was responsible for the US killings. The acting president of Libya's parliament, Mohamed al Magriaf, said he would be considering action against the militants and went on to say that this, the fifth attack on diplomatic targets in Benghazi since April, was “part of a wider campaign to destabilise Libya” (The Guardian, September 17). Magriaf was a leader of the National Front for the Liberation (Salvation) of Libya since 1981. He has historic links to the American and British establishment and his group was reportedly funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. It had hardly any support in Libya and this victor of the liberation and friend of the western coalition is presently president of the National Transitional Council government – a clear indication of the extent of western implantation in this so-called liberated country. But while Magriaf was “considering” action against the Islamists a quite extraordinary uprising of the local population took things into their own hands on September 22. After a demonstration of over 30,000 people in the afternoon against the militias, many hundreds, mostly unarmed young men, took on the militia at their compound, resulting in about 20 of them being killed, but driving the hated militias out. It wasn't just the anti-American Ansar al-Sharia that was attacked but the pro-government, pro-American Islamist militiamen of Rafallah al-Sahiti which was licensed by the government and answered to the Libyan Ministry of Defence. Since the end of the war there have been a small number of strikes and demonstrations in the country against the appalling conditions and there's been particular anger against the Islamist militias (and other militias) with their check-points, searches, kidnappings, swaggering around pointing their guns at anyone. But while there was certainly a kernel of social discontent underlying this mass movement, it has already been recuperated as “support for the army and the government” and in the west, reported as a “pro-democracy movement” (Channel 4 News, 23.9.12). Jihadist militias were also attacked and driven out of Derna in the east by the local population. Derna has long been a hot-bed of Islamic fundamentalism, tolerated, perhaps encouraged by the Gaddafi regime with the idea of creating a problem that it can then be seen “dealing with” in order to curry favour with the Americans and British.

The recent history of British imperialism's manoeuvres in Libya is marked by its particular low cunning and ruthlessness in dealing with the “Arab World”. Britain welcomed and sheltered anti-Gaddafi terrorists in the 1990's and paid large sums of money to an anti-Gaddafi al-Qaida cell in Libya in 1996. Then after Tony Blair's embrace of Gaddafi in 2004 the former British terrorist allies were delivered up, rendered in fact, to the Libyan regime's torturers. The deadly imperialist circus lurches around and once again the western powers backed the fundamentalists in the war against Gaddafi and now begin to reap the whirlwind. There's nothing new about this, it's just that it get progressively worse and more dangerous. It was the CIA and MI6 that set up the fundamentalists and the Taliban for the war across the AfPak border. The Americans and British in Iraq worked alongside the forces of Islamic fundamentalism in order to pursue their own aims and protect their own backs. In Basra particularly, the British used the Shia fundamentalists for both self-protection and to keep the local population under control. It was the Americans that funded, trained and armed the Chechen jihadists for their war in Bosnia in the 90s. And today, in Syria, the Americans and British are once again using the forces of Islamic fundamentalism to further their own aims. There have already been links here between the Foreign Office and the Muslim Brotherhood and the US has transported Libyan elements, some religious, through Turkey and into Syria. It's not that they keep on making the same mistakes, or that they don't learn from their mistakes – it's that imperialism has nowhere else to go except to arouse and utilise the forces of reaction, death and destruction. Imperialism is itself the condemnation of the impasse of decadent capitalism. And the forces of Islamic fundamentalism are particularly useful to the major imperialisms. There's something distinctly ironic in that while a large number of mainly peaceful protests by Muslims are taking place against another crap movie, the activities of the governments of Britain and America have been engaging in the financial, military and political support of the worst kind of Islamic fanatics across the most sensitive regions of the world. We have the Orwellian vision writ large of the bourgeoisie actively promoting the very forces of destruction that we are supposed to be at war with.

The famous film, or rather the clip of it, debasing the prophet Mohamed, has been used by all sides. It's been used by local religious and political leaders to shore up their support base by mobilising demonstrations and in one case a Pakistani minister offered a bounty on the film-makers' head. Over twenty people were killed in Pakistan in demonstrations against the film and the perceived insult. It isn't too difficult to raise a demonstration against the US in Pakistan given the pounding the country is receiving from the US military[1]. On the other hand, in the west, the issue around the film (or its trailer) has been turned into one of the defence of “our way of life”, “freedom” and “defence of free speech” with Salman Rushdie and various other artistic personalities wheeled out to testify in favour of democracy.

There is another, growing, factor of the decomposition of capitalism here that the ICC has long analysed: the historic weakening of US imperialism following the collapse of its Russian adversary and the appearance of the “New World Order” of 1990. The centrifugal tendencies of an imperialist free-for-all are increasing as are the challenges posed to US domination. Relations between the US and Israel are growing ever more estranged and bitter, and with a US ally like Pakistan who needs enemies? Despite their apparent rapprochement, there are tensions between the US and Turkey and its role in the region. The governments, such as they are, of Iraq and Afghanistan tend to go their own way and despite a $1.2 billion “grant” to it every year, a week ago Obama refused to describe Egypt as an “ally”. And despite enormous, sustained, high-level diplomatic efforts, the USA's “Asia/Pacific Vision” is already being seriously undermined by the actions of Chinese imperialism. As the “triumph of the liberation of Libya” turns rancid, it offers one more example of the weakening of US imperialism and its British and French allies – for now - and a further twist down in the spiral of imperialist chaos, instability and war.

Baboon. 25/ 9/12

On 15 September, 700,000people hit the streets of Lisbon and 30 other towns and cities in Portugal to demonstrate against the austerity policies of the new government of Pedro Coelho. The 7% increase in the TSU – Single Social Tax – for the workers, together with a 5.75% reduction in the contributions of the bosses, was behind this spontaneous outbreak of anger which outflanked the official unions. The demonstration had been organised largely through social networks. Faced with the massive scale of these demonstrations, the government temporarily appeared to retreat. But there should be no illusions: this will only be to come back more effectively tomorrow with the same measures, and more besides, with the assistance of unions like the CGTP (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers), who next time will be better placed to occupy the terrain, as they have been doing for more than a year, and make their own contribution to getting the austerity measures through. The CGTP reacted fast to regain control of the movement. It immediately called for a new demonstration policed by its own stewards and under its own slogans for the 29 September...a demonstration which was much less well attended.

In Greece, following the third general strike called by the unions, the Pame union in particular, there were new demonstrations on 26 September in Salonica and Athens, drawing over 30,000 workers. The anger was such that we once again saw new violent clashes with the police, including between striking policemen and other forces of order!

In Spain, tens of thousands of demonstrators came to express their rage on 25 September in front of a parliament protected by 2000 police officers. There were outbreaks of wild police violence “like in the days of Franco” according to many witnesses. 5 days later, on 29 September, parliament was again surrounded.   

In Italy, 30,000 civil servants were on the streets of Rome on 28 September to protest against a new series of austerity measures dealing with pensions and “re-grading”.

In short, the last week of September has seen rising anger in a number of European countries in response to the brutality of the attacks and the endless succession of austerity plans.

These struggles are OUR struggles

The governments as well as the opposition parties and unions pin responsibility for these measures on the ‘Troika’ composed of the EU, the Central European Bank and the IMF. All these people want us to believe that the problem of the crisis can be solved country by country and try to fill our heads with the illusion that the whole world is not in the same boat, that some countries can avoid the worst, can get their economy going again if they make the necessary effort. The reporting on the economic situation of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) has the aim of reinforcing the false idea that things aren’t so bad in Britain or France, who are in fact carrying out the same kinds of attacks on our living and working conditions. And this is the lot of the working class all over the world: increasing exploitation, a growing battle to survive, and the whip of repression if we revolt.

The bourgeoisie does all it can to prevent us becoming aware that workers are under attack everywhere, to block the development of an understanding that we belong to one international class. This is why the media say very little about movements of resistance against austerity, unless they become too big to hide. And then they focus our attention on scary images of violence or on this or that weakness of the movement. And this is why it’s all the more important for us, the exploited, to look beyond the frontiers, to discuss these experiences, these present and past struggles, and draw the lessons for the struggles that lie ahead.   

Who are our enemies?

There is no way out of this crisis. This has to be clear and unambiguous. Although everyone wants a brighter economic future, this capitalist system can offer us only poverty and misery. For 30 years now they have been telling us that things will be better tomorrow, if only we agree to sacrifices today. But then every sacrifice just opens the door to the next one, which is even worse! It’s not simply a matter of the bad intentions of the bosses or the state. It’s the inexorable plunge into bankruptcy which imposes this implacable logic on the entire system[1]. 

So what can we do, how can we fight?

Despite the growing anger, expressed by increasingly regular confrontations with the police, the official ‘days of action’ have proved to be useless. For decades we have seen that this kind of ‘action’ serves as a means of sterilising and containing the class struggle, lining us up behind union banners, dividing us up into different sectors, trapping us between police lines and union loudspeakers which prevent any real discussion.

The working class more or less knows this, but if it doesn’t affirm consciously and massively a clear understanding that it has to take charge of its own struggles, put forward its own demands, any advances in the movement will come to nothing.

Here the example of Spain is very striking. Last year, the movement of the Indignados was a real and powerful demonstration of the will of the population and of the working class to come together in a collective way, outside the trade unions, to look for and discuss the way to fight against the attacks and express disgust with the miserable conditions being imposed by the Spanish state. The most significant aspect was the creation of spaces for discussion in the street through a whole number of general assemblies, open to everyone, and to all the struggles being waged across the world. In Spain, when a worker from ‘abroad’ took the mic to bring his/her solidarity to the movement and sometimes to describe what was happening in the country they were from, the sympathy was immediate and palpable, the welcome warm and enthusiastic. At that point few national or regional flags were in sight and those who wanted to limit the struggle to the demand for regional independence were not especially welcome; in any case their speeches were not widely supported. And the Indignados movement did not stay locked up inside the borders of Spain. It had children in many countries from Israel to the USA and the UK with the Occupy movement.

The bourgeoisie itself is well aware of the potential danger in the ripening of such preposterous ideas in the minds of the exploited: from its point of view, it’s never a good thing for feelings of solidarity to be born in the course of workers’ struggles, above all when this happens on an international scale. We are now seeing a counter-offensive by the bourgeoisie, aimed at instilling the poison of nationalism and regionalism in the whole working class. Thus during the day of action on 15 September, the ‘social summit’ (CO, UGT[2] and 200 other platforms) was called in Madrid under the slogan “we mustn’t let them steal the country from us”. On 25 September an umbrella of organisations made up of a whole series of groups, from the classical left of capital like the CP to the decomposed remnants of the 15M movement, organised an action to protest “against the sequestration of national sovereignty by the markets” in front of the Chamber of Deputies. All this ended in confrontations with the cops (in which provocations by shady elements was obvious). The day after that, the most radical trade unions (in other words, the CGT and the CNT[3])  called, alongside nationalist unions like ELA, LAB, etc[4], for another general strike in certain parts of the state, and in others a day of struggle. In other words, calling on workers to struggle behind nationalist interests, which are not theirs. The real and serious danger of this kind of recuperation was underlined by the fact that on 15 September we had seen a million people taking part in a Catalan nationalist demonstration.

What was most promising about the Indignados movement and the discussions that took place within it was the hope for a different world. This hope, this self-confidence that the working class needs to develop, are powerful levers to breaking out of the traps set by a desperate bourgeoisie. This will make it possible to go beyond methods which can only end in demoralisation.

This will not come about through the touch of a magic wand but through a profound understanding that the only perspective for humanity is the one offered by a working class that is united internationally and heading towards the overthrow of this decaying social order. The gravity of the crisis brings with it a huge amount of anger, but it also has a terrifying aspect: it makes it clear that it’s not a question of beating this or that boss, kicking out this or that minister, but of a radical change in the system, of struggling for the liberation of the whole of humanity from the chains of exploitation.

Are we capable of doing that? Can we, the working class, carry out such a task? How could it come about? Given that capitalism can offer us nothing but mounting barbarism, all these questions are being raised in our minds, whether consciously or not.  The proletariat does have the ability to unite, to make solidarity something real, but the path is never an even one, as Karl Marx noted in the early years of the workers’ movement:

“proletarian revolutions....constantly criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of their own goals – until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves call out:

Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
 - Here is the rose, here dance!”

Wilma 28/9/12

The film that appeared on Youtube on September 11, The Innocence of Muslims, is by all accounts a very poor and extremely stupid one, the product of a small-time Californian fraudster who claims to be a Coptic Christian. But for two weeks it was at the centre of the world’s attention. This denunciation of the prophet Mohammed and his followers, presented, among other caricatures, as immoral, brutal paedophiles, has provoked reactions throughout the Muslim world. Angry demonstrations have led to confrontations and violence aimed mainly at the USA, including the murder of the US ambassador to Libya.

These mobilisations, led by Salafist radicals, have been given a lot of coverage in the western media. But we are talking about a maximum of some tens of thousands of protesters scattered over a number of countries from Tunisia to Pakistan via Yemen. This isn’t really a lot when you consider that there are hundreds of millions of Muslims in the Arab countries alone, not counting the millions of Muslims who live in Europe or America.

It’s not a question of minimising the violence which took place, but these events have been deliberately played up to fuel the idea of the ‘Muslim danger’. In Germany Angela Merkal expressed her “great disquiet”, while in France Manuel Valls was shaken by “threat to the Republic” contained in the tiny demonstration at the Élysée which took place “without official permission”. In the US, we heard Hilary Clinton declare that “the Arab countries did not swap the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of the crowd”, referring to the “Arab revolutions” of spring 2011. And then we had the Pope calling for the eradication of fundamentalism (Muslim, obviously)!

In this concert of concern by the politicians, a few commentators did point out the evident ideological manipulation going on here, on both sides:

• on the one hand, the fact that such a film[1] should come out in the context of growing war tensions with Syria and Iran, but also with the radical Islamists in Mali and the Sahel, and what’s more that it appeared on September 11, the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, which resulted in 4000 deaths and then the American invasion of Afghanistan, was clearly aimed at pointing the finger at ‘Islamic extremism’ around the world;
• on the other hand, the Islamic extremists fell right into the trap, once again revealing their destructive potential and their determination to face up to America and the western powers in order to assert themselves over rival bourgeois cliques.

It’s clear that there was an escalation on both sides at a time when new military interventions and massacres are on the horizon. These kind of campaigns serve to prepare the ground on the ideological level.

The ruling class and all its fractions, whatever their religion, will use events like this to divide and intimidate the exploited. But above all, for all their hypocritical appeals for calm and reason, their aim is to justify new steps towards the barbarism of war.

Mulan 28/9/12

According to the TUC’s pamphlet ‘A future that works’, to the Labour party, to François Hollande in France, to the whole ‘left’, the present economic crisis is the fault of the bankers and need never have happened; but then again, getting into debt isn’t as bad as all that and by using a bit more of it we can grow the economy out of the recession.  

We want to argue against all these ideas, not from a conservative point of view, but from a revolutionary one.

“Growth” is the problem, not the solution

According to the TUC, the answer to the present recession and the accompanying austerity is to go for economic growth.

But ‘growth’ in this society (by which we mean the whole world economy, not just Britain) can only mean the accumulation of capital, the hunt for profit. And it is this growth which is at the root of the crisis.

• Capitalist growth means more machines, less labour. But because living labour alone produces extra value, accumulation inevitably results in declining rates of profit
• Capitalist growth means production outstripping the market, which is limited by the meagre buying power of the vast majority of us. Accumulation leads to overproduction and depression.

Capitalism’s crisis is the product of its own contradictions, which would still be there even if there were no bonuses for the bankers and all the billionaires paid their taxes.

The TUC also talks about investing in a ‘green economy’, but a capitalist economy can never be green. Remorseless rivalry between companies and countries means that if you don’t go for all out growth, you get destroyed by the competition.

As for the idea that “there’s nothing dangerous” about countries being in debt, this not only plays down the astronomical, impossible to repay levels of debt weighing on the world economy, but ignores the fact that for several decades now, capitalism has been injecting itself with debt to keep itself from collapsing altogether. What happened in 2008 was just the point where the medicine of debt turned poisonous from over-dosing.

Labour and the TUC are not on our side

Capitalism has actually reached a historic dead-end. If it goes for ruthless austerity, it further restricts the market and makes the recession worse. That much in the TUC pamphlet is true. But if it follows the lead of Obama and the ‘left’, and tries to pay its way out of the crisis by printing money and racking up even more debt, it will pave the way to even bigger credit crunches while generating huge pressures towards runaway inflation.

If by some miracle capitalism was able to start ‘growing’ again it would pose an even greater threat to the natural environment which sustains our very existence. And increasing capitalist competition not only pollutes the planet, it accelerates the drive to war between capitalist factions and nations.  

Wherever it turns, capitalism is faced with crisis and self-destruction. And whether the management team is ‘right’ or ‘left’, the system can only protect its dwindling profits by attacking the living standards of those who actually create wealth – the working class – through unemployment, precarious work, wage freezes, cuts in pensions and social benefits, the deterioration of housing, and all the rest of it.

Almost a hundred years ago, when they were faced with the choice between supporting the capitalist world war and defending the interests of the workers, the Labour Parties and TUC’s of the world chose the side of capitalism and war. When the working class in Russia, Germany and elsewhere tried to make a revolution against this barbarism, the Labour Parties and the TUC’s of this world chose the side of the counter-revolution. They have remained on that side ever since, and that is why we cannot look to them for honest answers to the present crisis of the system.

Faced with the austerity policies of the ruling class, the working class needs to respond. It can’t just lie low and hope the storm will pass. But to respond effectively we can’t use the old, outworn institutions that pose as our friends but in reality keep our enemies alive. We need forms of organisation that can unite us across divisions of job and union, where we can debate about the best methods of fighting and the overall goals of our fight; where we can make and enforce decisions, where we can exert our real power.  The movement of the ‘Indignados’ in Spain or similar revolts in Greece and the Middle East have given us a glimpse of what happens when thousands of the exploited – students, unemployed, precarious workers -  assemble on the streets, seek to take control of social life, and recognise that they are part of a world-wide struggle. But these kinds of movements can only move onto a new level if the employed working class adds its decisive weight by taking up the challenges they posed: self-organisation in assemblies; extension of resistance across all national borders; a struggle not just against this or that aspect of capitalism, but against capitalism as a system, against wage labour and production for profit.   

Revolution will be dismissed by the ‘realistic’ politicians of the left as a utopia. But the utopians are those who think that capitalism can be saved, reformed, or improved. Revolution is not only possible: it’s a necessity if humanity is to have any future at all.

International Communist Current

Write to us: [email protected] [11] or BM Box 869, London WC1N 3XX

Visit our website and discuss with us on our online forum: www.internationalism.org [12]

This article is available as a leaflet here [10] to download and distribute. If you wish to help us distribute it during the TUC rally on October 20th in London then please get in touch via email [13]. 

We are publishing below the translation of an article written by Internacialismo, our section in Venezuela, which was written before the election result was announced.

The presidential elections of 7 October in Venezuela represent a moment of heightened tension between bourgeois factions: the ‘Chavistas’ and the opposition parties. The latter, grouped together in the Platform of Democratic Unity have chosen Henrique Capriles as their candidate, while the official power is counting on its perpetual candidate, Hugo Chavez, who disposes of his party apparatus and hundreds of millions of bolivars1, to win votes, mainly among the working masses, who have been ground down since the arrival of the Chavista regime and before that by thirty years of political confrontations.

Decomposition and crisis behind the ‘final battle’

The rise of Chavez was the product of the decomposition of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, in particular the political forces which governed the country prior to his coming to power in 1999. Because of his strong popularity, various sectors of capital supported him, with the aim of struggling against very high levels of corruption, of re-establishing the credibility of official institutions and above all of the government. In other words, of improving the system of oppression and exploitation in the interests of the nation and thus of the bourgeoisie. The opposition forces, though weakened, quickly entered into a trial of strength with the regime, most notably at the time of the coup d’Etat in 20022 and the blockade of oil production at the end of the same year. This proved fruitless in the end and merely reinforced the power of Chavez, who was re-elected in 2006.

After more than a decade of Chavismo, the crisis has pushed the different factions of the bourgeoisie into dispute over the central state power. The opposition forces are benefiting from the regime’s loss of popularity, which can be traced to two main causes;

• the growing decomposition of the Chavista regime, which we characterised in a previous article in Internacialismo: “New civil and military elites have been formed and divided up the posts at the top of the state bureaucracy. They have failed in their aim of overcoming the problems accumulated by previous governments since they are much more concerned with their personal interests and with dividing up the booty from the oil industry, resulting in an exponential growth in corruption and a progressive abandonment of serious state management. This situation, intensified by the megalomania of the Chavez regime which has the ambition of extending the “Bolivarian revolution” to the whole of Latin America, has little by little emptied the state coffers. It has also exacerbated the political and social antagonisms which have raised the inability to govern to a level even worse than it was in the 90s”.

• the intensification of the crisis of capitalism in 2007 acted against the aspirations of the Chavez regime to develop its project of “21st century socialism”. Although Chavez, like other governments, declared that the Venezuelan economy was “armour-plated”, in reality the world crisis of capitalism has shown up the historic fragility of the national economy: it is utterly dependent on the price of oil. To this can be added the fact that the regime’s populist schemes have been made possible by attacks on wages and the reduction or suppression of ‘gains’ like the collective agreements which Chavismo has got rid of, referring to them as ‘tips’ for the workers.

The strategy of the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, based on daily ‘house to house’ tours trough the towns and villages of the country, is to exploit the failures of Chavismo and widespread feelings of social abandonment. According to the opinion polls there has been a sharp rise in his popularity. His tactic is to propose social, populist programmes similar to those of Chavismo, while avoiding direct confrontation, and it has brought results. Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has put a lot of emphasis on the (pseudo-)success of his projects towards the poor and on his quality as the “guardian or order” against the anarchy threatening Venezuelan capital as a whole.

Despite all its weaknesses (losing control of provincial governments, conflicts of interests in its own ranks, the illness of Chavez, etc) Chavismo does not intend to abandon power and in the last few month has not neglected any details in areas where the opposition might draw an advantage: it has introduced obligatory membership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (the Chavista party) for public sector employees; placed obstacles against votes from abroad, especially from Miami and Spain; neutralised the parties which support the opposition (PODEMOS, PPT, COPEI) through convictions pronounced by the supreme court, etc. To which can be added the control exercised over the media and the means of communication which gives Chavez a decisive advantage at the level of election propaganda.

Chavez has also elaborated other strategies aimed at helping him win. He as already announced that the opposition has a plan for denouncing electoral fraud. To carry through this strategy, he is relying as always on the state power and especially the army, which has abandoned its status as “professional force at the service of the nation, non-decision making and apolitical” in favour of being “a patriotic, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and Chavista force”. We can understand from this what lies behind the frequent threats made by Chavez and his entourage against opponents.

The party in power also accuses the opposition of refusing to recognise the results that are due to be announced by the National Electoral Council (NEC): this is why the government is issuing an alert to prevent opponents from agitating the population when the NEC announces the triumph of Chavez. For its part, the opposition has explained that it can’t give a blank cheque to the NEC, which is both judge and participant, and which has issued sanctions against the opposition without criticising the government’s manipulation of the rules. To sum up: this is simply a confrontation between bourgeois parties in which each clan is using the tricks typical of that class to boost its bid for power.

The workers must reject all divisions among themselves

The Venezuelan proletariat has to stay on its guard and not become the victim of this ‘final battle’ between the forces of national capital, who are trying to mobilise it behind their power struggles.

Chavismo has some very powerful ideological weapons for mobilising the “poor” and the “excluded” who still hope that Chavez will keep to his promises, especially those about the “Missions”, which are in theory directed “against the predatory bourgeoisie, who want to go back to the past”. But Chavez is also preparing for an armed confrontation if that proves necessary. He knows he can count on the Bolivarian militia and on the shock troops constituted in various “collectives”, both in Caracas and in the interior of the country, and which are armed by the state.

The opposition forces, for their part, although they don’t have a public strategy in case there is a show of strength, won’t stand with folded arms. They include traditional parties like the social democratic Democratic Action, which has decades of experience in the organisation of armed “collectives”. In the ranks of the opposition, there are also organisations of the left who supported Chavismo in the beginning and are well acquainted with its methods of confrontation.

The workers must be aware that it is impossible to fight against precarious work and exploitation by changing the government. The crisis of capitalism will remain and deepen whoever wins, Chavez or Capriles. Both will bring in austerity programmes.

We must not fall into the ideological trap being dug by those who claim that this election is about ‘communism vs democracy’ or ‘the people against the bourgeoisie’. Chavez and Capriles both defend state capitalist programmes that can only be based on the exploitation of the Venezuelan proletariat.

The electoral dispute is just a moment in the confrontation between different factions of national capital. The proletariat must refuse to let itself be pulled into the conflicts between bourgeois gangs. It has to break with democratic ideology, draw the lessons from its own struggles, continue its efforts to rediscover its class identity, its unity and solidarity.

Revolucion Mundial, October 2012.

The article we are publishing below appeared in Acción Proletaria, the paper of the section of the ICC in Spain.

In September 2011, the education sector workers in Madrid reacted to 3000 layoffs and the lengthening of the working day with mass general assemblies that united teachers, students and all the workers in the education sector. The five unions in the field of education did their best to stifle the initiative and to control the struggle. What was the outcome? The mass assemblies were replaced with "inquiries" and with meetings of union committees, keeping the teachers isolated, and successive demonstrations got progressively smaller. In the end, the struggle was terminated and the measures of the regional government eventually prevailed.

In February 2012, the students of Valencia, who had experienced brutal repression, went out onto the streets each day and called for workers' solidarity. This movement spread across Spain and the central government had to withdraw its repressive measures. The unions were quick to take control of the struggle against repression and against reform of the Labour Code. They organised a one-day "general strike"- to let off steam – for March 29th, which was a huge con. Deceiving many workers, they promised new mobilisations. They limited themselves to calling for demonstrations at the end of April and on May 1st. The result: the state introduced the reform of the Labour Code with all its dramatic consequences.

On July 11th, the government of Rajoy adopted the worst austerity program for over fifty years. The unions remained silent. But on the same day spontaneous demonstrations broke out, especially in Madrid. After this, the unions "woke up" and offered their "loyal services": they called for demonstrations across Spain on July 19th. But in view of the support and the rage inside the population, the unions - once again - postponed the action to a later date, and as far away as possible:  a march on Madrid for September 15th, a referendum for October, a new one-day "general strike" scheduled for who knows when. This amounted to throwing a bucket of cold water over the struggle and the workers' anger!

Secret meetings between the unions and the government

A few days after the (postponed?) demonstration on July 19th, we learned that the leaders of the CCOO and the UGT had met Mrs Merkel in early July. This visit was combined with another one to the Moncloa Palace to discuss with Rajoy. We are left in no doubt about the purpose of these secret meetings: Merkel, the Spanish government and the unions in all probability agreed on a strategy against the workers.
And, before the March 29th strike, Rajoy had met separately with each union leader. The Vice-President of the Government even acknowledged holding 33 "technical meetings" between government representatives and the unions!

This is nothing new. Throughout history, many blows have been struck against workers through secret meetings between its enemies (governments) and its false friends (the unions and left parties). In 1980-81 when Poland was hit by a massive strike, at the time of the supposedly "Communist" regime, the trade union Solidarity gradually demobilised the workers to make the coup de grace possible: the martial law declared by  General Jaruselski, the then Head of State, on December 13th 1981. However, two days before the coup, a secret meeting was held between the general, the Cardinal Primate of Poland and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa![1] You don't have to be especially clairvoyant to see that this cabal prepared the repression, sending hundreds of workers to their deaths and thousands of others to prison, with the army flooding the mines with the miners trapped inside!

Unions mobilise in order to... demobilise

We know perfectly well what the governments and employers do. Nobody has any illusions where they are concerned. They don't even attempt to hide their desire to impose the worst sacrifices on workers. But what do the unions do? What is their role?

A first task of trade unions is to organise mobilisations which, in reality, only demobilise and divide workers. The "struggles" led by the CCOO and UGT only serve to dampen their spirits. The union appeals are systematically inopportune: when people are eager to struggle, the unions demobilise and make no appeals, whereas when people are tired and disoriented, they want to step up the "militant activity". Many people are sick of the posturing with the "general strike days", the "protest marches", the isolated struggles confined to one particular sector or to one particular company.

This is the problem that the miners' strike had to face. The miners were trapped in a struggle to "save the nation's mines". All the combativity and all the anger were channelled into sterile confrontations with the police to block the rail lines or highways. However, on July 11th during the miners' march on Madrid, many workers in the capital joined the demonstration in solidarity and entered the struggle on their own account. The unions then hastily sent the miners back to where they had come from, cancelled the appeals for support and promised some future mobilisations but on dates far into the future.

The nationalist trap

The unions called for the demonstration on July 19th with the slogan: "They want the country to fail!" They say that Merkel wants to see Spain suffer and the Rajoy government behaves like a willing servant. The aim of the struggle should be to "save the country" from Merkel and Rajoy.

Machiavelli, the philosopher who inspired governments of successive generations since the sixteenth century, said that a good statesman should make the state appear to defend its subjects. One of the best lies the exploiting minority uses to establish its domination is the assertion that the nation belongs to all of us, that the exploiters and the exploited are part of a community that share a common interest and a common bond. This "common interest" is the disguise for the specific and selfish interests of the capitalists.

What is the nation? The nation is the private property of a group of capitalists who conduct their operations from within a country. Defending the nation means defending private property. In other words, we, the workers, set aside our own interests and the future of all mankind to serve as pawns of the capitalists, and sometimes as cannon fodder in their wars against other capitalist states.

Rajoy continues repeating the claim that the austerity measures are being taken "for the good of all Spaniards." Each time, fewer people believe this lie. So, how is it possible to further credit the mystification that the national interest is "everyone's interest"? This is where unions play their part by deflecting the workers towards inter-classist demands, alongside the police, the "honest" politicians, the business leaders, the "entrepreneurs", etc.., demands which are based on saving the country.

Struggling in defence of the national interest is the best way to submit to austerity, layoffs, unemployment, evictions, and what is the ultimate sacrifice, war.

Just as they bind us to the national capital, the unions divide us from and oppose us to workers the world over, the only people on whom we can rely, the only people with whom we can forge a united front and solidarity against capital with a view to creating a new society, free of classes, states and national borders, a global human community.

The referendum trap

Before the budgetary cuts, the unions proposed an alternative: a referendum on the Rajoy government. They argued that Rajoy has committed a fraud on the voters, he was elected on one programme and once in government, he adopted another. They are right, but this is what all governments do, not just Spain's, but in every country of the world! Elections are always a fraud because all parties promise things and are quick to do the opposite when they are in power. When they are in opposition, they claim they will do what nobody else will do, and when they are in government, they do what nobody else says they would do. This is the essence of the democratic state: the party that wins continues the work of its predecessor, just as the one that succeeds it will do too... And the alternative offered by the unions is a referendum to topple Rajoy for the fraud of the new government and for a new fraud! That would mean we are drawn into a permanent fraud! How can we break this endless chain of fraud?

Firstly we should break with the union proposal and refuse to participate in the referendum and in elections. The vote is always a trap and always a con. It is based on a supposed “free vote" exercised by a sum of supposed sovereign citizens. But it is a deception! Because we are subjected to alienating and atomising living conditions that put us in competition with one another; because we suffer from the  intoxicating daily media and propaganda that condition our thinking; because the dominant ideology produces conflicts amongst us, which mean fighting for the interests of a minority instead of struggling for our own interests. Under such conditions, there is no other choice but to elect those that capital and the state have chosen for us. The vote given to one party or another will, no matter who is elected, only serve the needs of capital.

Also, voting only consists in delegating the management of our affairs to a minority of professional politicians and union leaders who are given a blank check to "defend us", when what they always do - and it can't be otherwise - is to defend the interests of capital and the state.

By setting the referendum as the goal of the struggle, the unions divide us and sabotage what would be the source of a solution to the serious problems facing workers and humanity: the general assemblies and the united, direct and massive struggle. These assemblies rely on the strength that comes from association: building unity on the basis of solidarity and empathy so that everyone can give the best of themselves for a common goal, debating, taking joint decisions and taking responsibility for all those decisions. The alternatives are clear: the struggle inside the unions, with its demobilisation and its traps, or the autonomous struggle of the exploited class.

Acción Proletaria, 31/08/12.

Over the last several months, the bourgeois media has been in an uproar over the efforts of a number of Republican controlled state governments to restrict access to the ballot box in this November’s Presidential election. According to many analysts, there appears to be an orchestrated campaign by the national Republican Party to use Republican controlled state governments to impose new legal requirements for voting. Typically, this has involved passage of a new “Photo ID” law, which—under the guise of preventing voter fraud—requires voters to produce a state approved photo identification in order to cast a vote. Other tactics involve using federal government immigration records to purge the voter rolls of suspected non-citizens (Florida) or passing confusing restrictions on early voting (Ohio).

Many of these laws have been passed in staunchly conservative states such as Texas and Georgia (states that Republican Mitt Romney would almost certainly win anyway), but what seems to concern the main factions of the bourgeoisie is that these laws, and other tactics, are also being put into place in many of the “swing states” that will ultimately decide the Presidential election in November. Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida have all been in the headlines recently over the efforts of Republican controlled state governments to implement various measures to “suppress the vote.” According to the analysis, the Republicans are out to make it much more difficult for traditionally Democratic constituencies to have their votes counted. The photo identification requirements would almost certainly impact the poor, minorities, and the young (particularly students attending college out-of-state) the most—groups that tend to vote for Democrats. One Republican legislator in Pennsylvania is even on record as saying that the new photo identification law is what is going to allow Mitt Romney to win Pennsylvania and become the next President of the United States. [1]

For their part, the main factions of the bourgeoisie (centered in the Democratic Party)[2] have counterattacked against these Republican tactics with a concerted campaign around defending the right to vote, protecting the foundations of American democracy and preventing the Republicans from “stealing the election.” According to this narrative, many of these new voting restrictions, in particular the requirement to produce a photo ID, which can be very costly to procure for lower income voters, amounts to a “poll tax” reminiscent of efforts by racist authorities to prevent African Americans from voting in the pre-civil rights era South.

So, how should revolutionaries interpret these events? The ICC has long argued that voting in bourgeois elections is a complete distraction for the working class that ties it to the bourgeois state and prevents it from finding its own class terrain. We have often maintained that, under the conditions of state capitalism, bourgeois elections are mere moments through which the state manages society by keeping up the appearance of democracy, an illusion that keeps the working class from searching out its own answers for the burning problems that plague humanity. Bourgeois elections tend to be decided well in advance of Election Day, mainly through well–coordinated media campaigns that tend to bring the consensus candidate of the main factions of the bourgeoisie to power. While sometimes mistakes can happen (such as the fiasco of the 2000 Presidential Election), and sometimes election campaigns have been used to decide real differences within the bourgeoisie, under the conditions of state capitalism they tend to be mostly managed events that the working class would do best to avoid. [3]

So what about this current furor over “voter suppression”? What exactly is happening here? Is this a mere ideological campaign to try to reinforce the importance of participating in the “democratic process” among the working class or is there something deeper taking place that reflects a significant level of difficulty on the level of the cohesion of the US state? Do these events call into question the way revolutionaries have conceptualized bourgeois elections in the period of state capitalism?

The Growing Political Crisis of the US Bourgeoisie

First, in order to understand the nature of these voter suppression efforts, we need to review some of the main developments in the life of the bourgeoisie over the last 12 years (since the Bush-Gore election fiasco of 2000). While we cannot get into depth of detail here, it would be useful to review some of the main features of this period:

·        The 2000 election was a total disaster for the US bourgeoisie. The consensus candidate of the main factions of the bourgeoisie, Al Gore, lost the election in the Electoral College despite winning the popular vote. This brought the clumsy, inarticulate and mostly incompetent George Bush into office, while it also called the democratic process itself into question among a significant percentage of the population. While Bush did not necessarily represent the right wing of the Republican Party, his cavalier style and lack of diplomatic skill would soon become a major problem for US imperialist relations. [4]

·        In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration launched the very unpopular invasion of Iraq, sparking major civil war in that country, bogging down the U.S. military in what many believed was an unnecessary war and completely alienating foreign governments and international public opinion.

·        In the 2004 Presidential election, the main factions of the US bourgeoisie, despite the need for a major course correction, failed to unite behind John Kerry with enough time and resources to allow him to win the Presidency. Bush was thus reelected. Nevertheless, allegations of Republican “voter suppression” first came to the surface in this election with reports of poor and minority voters being forced to wait in line for hours to cast their votes in Ohio.

·        Bush’s second term was characterized by continued chaos in Iraq and the completely botched response to Hurricane Katrina that saw a major US city completely devastated. In the 2006 mid-term elections, under a major media campaign around “changing the course”, the Democratic Party won control of both houses of Congress, with the intention of acting as a counterweight to a rapidly deteriorating Bush administration.

·        As the 2008 Presidential election approached, the main factions of the bourgeoisie united around Barack Obama—a candidate with “rock-star” appeal—who it was thought could reignite the population’s enthusiasm for democracy after eight disastrous years under Bush. After a tough primary campaign against Hillary Clinton[5], Obama surged to the Presidency, just as the global economy entered the worst crisis in its history since the Great Depression.

·        Although the Obama election provided a major boost to the Democratic illusion, over the course of his first term he has faced trenchant opposition to his policies from an increasingly belligerent and aggressive Republican Party, which after 2010 controlled the House of Representatives. In the 2010 mid-term elections, the Republicans road the Tea Party wave to power in Congress, but just as importantly, it won the governorship and control of state legislatures in a number of states that are considered toss-ups in Presidential elections.

·        Since the 2010 mid-term elections, Obama has faced increased opposition to his agenda, including a strenuous legal campaign to have his signature health care reform legislation thrown out by the courts. Although Obama would ultimately prevail on this score in the Supreme Court, the Republican Party continues to vow to repeal it at the first opportunity.

This context suggests that the current furor over voter suppression is not simply an ideological campaign to reinforce the democratic illusion. It may have that effect, but the main factions of the bourgeoisie, who are now united behind Obama’s reelection, really do fear that Republican voter suppression tactics could ultimately throw the election to Mitt Romney. In a close election, in which the country is already mostly divided up into ideological camps, the success of this or that party ultimately lies in voter turnout. In high turnout elections, the Democrats will have an advantage (Obama’s victory in 2008), while a low turnout election will favor the Republicans (the Tea Party wave of the 2010 mid-terms). Although the key to the election is now voter turnout, this only makes the fight over the dwindling number of persuadable voters that much more intense.

Under the conditions of state capitalism, in which the state has tended to structure the political life of the bourgeoisie into more or less stable and predictable structures, it could be expected that getting the “wrong result” in an election probably would not have been a total disaster for the bourgeoisie. Both candidates would have been carefully vetted to prevent this and each party could be more or less trusted to pursue a broad general program that worked in the overall interests of the national capital as a whole. However, since the 2000 election, the US bourgeoisie is finding that this is less and less the case. While Bush’s incompetence may have been more of a personal flaw than a reflection of an overall crisis of the political system, today the US bourgeoisie is more and more finding out that the structures of its state, and most importantly its electoral process, no longer function as they used to.

Over the last decade and a half, the forces of social decomposition—which emanate from the inability of the bourgeoisie to find a solution to the economic crisis which dogs its system—have begun to work their effects on the bourgeoisie’s own political structures. In the United States, this has mostly been manifested as an ideological decline of the ruling class. While no faction of the bourgeoisie has been immune to this process, it has disproportionately affected the Republican Party to the point where it has been mostly taken over by its Tea Party right wing.

More and more, the Republican Party is becoming unable to function as a credible party of bourgeois government.  Increasingly, it puts its own confused ideology ahead of attempting to solve the burning problems facing the entire national capital in a rational way. It is for this reason that the main factions of the ruling class have united behind Obama’s re-election. While Mitt Romney may not be a feverous right-wing ideologue on the order of Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich, in order to win the Republican primary he had to move dramatically to the right and openly embrace some of the more extreme elements of Tea Party ideology. While this may not be who Romney is on a personal level, for the main factions of the bourgeoisie it is clear that he simply cannot be trusted. At this point, there is no telling what a President Romney, faced with a Congress beholden to the Tea Party, that would expect to get its way, might be compelled to do. Would he repeal Obamacare? Would he fail to address the need for comprehensive immigration reform? Would his campaign clumsiness on foreign policy issues carry over into office? Would he be forced to implement some of the more extreme attacks to Medicare and Social Security, as advanced by his Vice Presidential running mate Paul Ryan, too quickly?  For the main factions of the bourgeoisie, there are just too many questions about what a possible Romney Presidency would mean to comfortably support his candidacy.

The Structure of the US State and the Crisis of State Capitalism

Whatever the preference of the main factions of the bourgeoisie for a second Obama term, they are growing increasingly concerned that their efforts to bring this about may actually come to naught. Although Romney has, so far, proven himself to be something less than a blockbuster candidate, making one mistake after another on the campaign trail—something which the bourgeois media has relished in documenting—there is a growing realization that a concerted media campaign may no longer be enough to determine the outcome of a Presidential election.[6]

Today, when it comes to manipulating the outcome of Presidential elections, the American bourgeoisie is being haunted by two key developments:

·        The ideological decay of a significant part of the ruling class (particularly the Republican Party), which correlates with the ideological hardening of society in general. More and more, American society is divided into two ideological-political blocs, each counting for slightly less than half of the voting population. Increasingly, society is divided into two opposed cultural narratives, between which little rational discourse and exchange is possible. As a result, politics degenerates more and more into a pure power contest. There are so few voters left that are “persuadable,” that each side engages in a increasingly fierce contest over the few remaining “undecideds” in which fewer and fewer tactics are ruled out.

·        In the context of these ideological developments, the federal structure of the US state is now making it more and more difficult for the main factions of the bourgeoisie to dominate politics and set the agenda for the entire nation. State and local politicians are becoming increasingly emboldened in challenging federal authority, leading to an increasingly chaotic situation in which state and local officials can actually impact national politics.[7] In a situation in which the country is so closely divided, the most important figure in the Presidential election may not be President Obama or Mitt Romney, but the Secretary of State of Ohio—in whose hands rests the administration of the electoral process in his state.

It is in this context that the trend towards voter suppression in Republican controlled swing states has the main factions of the bourgeoisie so concerned. If these laws are enacted, it could exclude enough Democratic leaning voters to actually throw the election to the Romney against the preferences of the more rational elements of the ruling class. However, more and more they are beginning to realize that the structures of the US state they have inherited from the late 18th century mean that there may be little they can do about it. The Presidential election may be to decide the leader of the world’s last remaining super power, but the elections themselves are run by state and local officials. In the past, when the main factions of the bourgeoisie were capable of building a more unified national narrative about where the country should go, this might not have been such a problem. However, today, in the context of ideological decay, it is becoming a big impediment.

Fortunately, for the main factions of the bourgeoisie, the courts have taken a grim view of these Republican voter suppression efforts and many of these new laws have been invalidated or put on hold. Still, a great deal of concern remains that the mere fact that these laws were put forward will confuse enough voters that they will in the end have their desired effect, even if they do not reflect the current law. For example, although the courts in Pennsylvania have ruled that voters do not need to produce an ID to vote this November, they are still allowing local election officials to ask voters to produce an ID! This alone may be enough to dissuade enough voters to make a difference in a close race.

We appear to have reached a critical point in the evolution of the crisis of US state capitalism. Over the course of the twentieth century the trend in most of the central countries has been to extend the franchise as deeply as possible throughout society in order to give the working class the feeling of having a stake in national politics and to enroll them in the electoral circus. The more workers became enrolled in the electoral process, the less likely they would be to search for solutions to their problems on their own class terrain. As state capitalism became more entrenched over the course of this period, elections became more and more moments of a predetermined process. Extending the franchise was no longer dangerous to bourgeois class rule and in fact actually buttressed it. The bourgeoisie has every reason to make sure as many people are participating in the electoral process as possible, and certainly that is what we have seen: endless campaigns about “Rocking the vote,” commandments from hip hop moguls to their fans to “Vote or Die!,” voter registration drives in minority and poor neighborhoods, etc.  In decadence, under the managed conditions of state capitalism, the extension of the franchise has been in fact, one of the central weapons of the bourgeoisie against the development of proletarian consciousness.

Today, however, the tables seem to have been partly turned on their head. A militant and aggressive faction of the bourgeoisie is now engaging in a more or less open campaign to suppress the vote, to make sure as few minorities, poor and young people vote as possible in order to reap the short-term electoral benefits for their preferred candidate. The furor over voter suppression thus reflects a very real concern on the part of the main factions of the bourgeoisie that the sanctity of the electoral process is now being put into question—by a faction of their own class!

This furor is thus another example of the increasing “short-termism” of much of the bourgeoisie faced with the deepening crisis of the society they preside over. In the case of US politics, this is manifesting itself in the increasing decay of the Republican Party, as it is more and more taken over by an extreme right-wing element that appears to have lost any serious consideration of the long and medium term needs and goals of the national capital. [8]

While the main factions of the bourgeoisie are certainly exploiting this situation to run a countervailing campaign on the terrain of bourgeois legalism about protecting the right to vote, this situation reflects more than a mere attempt to revive the democratic illusion.  It is also an inter-bourgeois fight about what constitutes acceptable means for settling differences within its ranks. The main factions of the bourgeoisie must attempt to reinforce a level of respect for certain boundaries. After all, it was not that long ago that the main factions of the US bourgeoisie fought a long and messy campaign with certain retrograde elements in the South to fully extend the vote to African Americans, making sure that they would be included with the electoral process. Today, the fruits of that campaign are spoiling with the putrid air of ideological decomposition as an insurgent faction of the bourgeoisie puts the very right to vote itself into question. In the end, this fight is ultimately about the continuity of the bourgeois state and its policies.

The furor over voter suppression reflects the growing crisis of US state capitalism as a result of the reflexive effects of social decomposition on the life of the ruling class itself. While the main factions of the bourgeoisie continue to attempt to manage the economic crisis and national politics the best they can, they are increasingly hampered in this travail by the deepening fracturing of society under the weight of social decomposition. Just as society itself more and more splits apart, the bourgeoisie itself appears to be losing its discipline and the state is less and less able to enforce the level of unity necessary for it to act in the overall interests of the national capital.

While we should be careful not to overstate this process—there will certainly be moments in which the main factions of the bourgeoisie will be able to enforce its will—it is very real and is causing increasing difficulties in the functioning of US state capitalism.

When it comes to the electoral circus, these developments do not change the fundamental message of revolutionaries since the entry of capitalism into its decadent phase: the working class should have nothing to do with the bourgeois electoral process. The problems that continue to haunt capitalist society cannot be solved there. The road forward for humanity can only lie in a world beyond capital and this can only come from the working class struggling on its own class terrain. Participating in bourgeois elections can only distract us from this goal.

Part of the bourgeoisie may be currently attempting to keep us from voting, but this is not because the nature of the bourgeois electoral process has changed. It is only because they think this gives their faction a better chance of sniffing power. This is not our fight. Our struggle must take place outside of the electoral arena. Only our massive struggle, through general assemblies and workers’ councils can pose any real alternative to this system.

For revolutionaries, the developments in the internal life of the US bourgeoisie are not without significance. They stand as powerful evidence of the deepening crisis of bourgeois society, which more and more manifests itself as a crisis of state capitalism. While the fundamentals of the revolutionary analysis of state capitalism have not changed, we do need to be more attuned to the new realities of a period in which the reflexive effects of social decomposition pose novel developments that may not appear to fit some of our past schemas.

The nature of the electoral process itself may not have changed, but this does not mean that all factions of the bourgeoisie are united in the foresight that the extension of the franchise is in the overall interests of all those fighting to preserve bourgeois rule. While the old dictum, “If voting changed anything, they would outlaw it” remains true—this doesn’t mean that, today, some factions of the bourgeoisie might not want to outlaw it regardless, if it fits their short-term political interests.

--Henk

10/06/2012