The ICC Section in France held its 20th Congress recently. Like all RI congresses, this plenary gathering of our territorial section had, of course, an international dimension. This is why delegations were present from different sections of the ICC, composed of comrades from several countries and continents, who were able to actively participate in the discussions. Also present at this Congress were a number of contacts and supporters of the ICC, invited to the various discussions (except those dealing with our internal functioning).

As with the plenary gatherings of our other territorial sections, an important part of the work of the RI Congress was devoted to the discussion of the activities of the ICC. Moreover, in the way in which in recent years our organisation has devoted its congress debates to analysing the evolution of the economic crisis and the class struggle in particular, this Congress of RI gave itself the task of conducting a specific discussion on the dynamics of the imperialist conflicts by placing them in a historical and theoretical framework.

The balance sheet of our analysis on the unfolding imperialist conflicts

The report and discussion on the imperialist conflicts gave itself the objective of making a balance sheet of the events that have unfurled since the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989 to see if it confirms the validity of the ICC's analyses.

After the collapse of the USSR, the ICC had asked the following question: with the demise of the Eastern bloc, would we now see the hegemony of one imperialist bloc and a decline in military conflicts? The ICC replied: No! Indeed, we have always rejected the thesis of ‘super-imperialism’, developed by Kautsky before the First World War, which was opposed by revolutionaries in the past (including Lenin). This thesis has been disproved by the facts themselves. "It was just as false when it was taken up and adapted by the Stalinists and Trotskyists claiming that the bloc controlled by the USSR was not imperialist. Today, the collapse of this bloc is not going to revive this kind of analysis: as a consequence of its collapse, the Western bloc is tumbling too." (International Review n ° 61, January 1990).

The debates at the congress showed that events have fully confirmed the validity of marxism: the disappearance of the Russian imperialist bloc was not going to open up an ‘era of peace and prosperity’ for humanity as claimed by the western ‘democratic’ bourgeoisie. Since 1989, the militarist barbarism of capitalism continued to unfold in the Middle East, in Africa, Pakistan, and even in Europe with the war in the former Yugoslavia.

The congress also examined the other analysis that the ICC had developed in 1989: if the historical tendency for the formation of imperialist blocs (characteristic of the period of capitalist decadence) was still correct, only Germany could be a new bloc leader opposing the United States because of its economic power and its strategic geographical location. But, as we said at the time, this hypothetical perspective could not be realised in an immediate sense, particularly because Germany has little military strength; it does not have nuclear weapons, needed to become the leader of a new imperialist bloc. Twenty-three years after the collapse of the USSR, the RI Congress noted that Germany has not emerged as a rival to challenge American power on the world stage (therefore this ICC hypothesis has not been verified). By contrast, it is China that is emerging as the main rival of the first world power. The congress has clearly stated that this is a new element that the ICC had not expected (and could not have foreseen) when the USSR collapsed. Nevertheless, although China increasingly shows its commitment to be a world power, it does not have the military might to oppose the imperialist aims of the United States. Its aggression towards the United States is expressed mainly on the economic and strategic level (as confirmed by the global competitiveness of its goods, its extensive international relations and its presence on the African continent).

The debates at the congress recalled that, although the military conditions for a Third World War have disappeared with the collapse of the USSR (which led to the collapse of the former American bloc created after the Second World War), armed conflicts haven't at all gone away and the death tally continues to rise globally. The only difference lies in the fact that these conflicts are no longer contained by a bloc discipline, as was the case during the period of the Cold War. Our analysis of the decomposition of capitalism, the final phase in the decadence of this mode of production, has also enabled the ICC to say that the tendency towards 'every man for himself' and the instability of the military alliances would form an obstacle to the formation of new imperialist blocs. If the militarist barbarism of capitalism has continued over two decades in the form of 'every man for himself' (including the emergence of terrorism as a weapon of war between states), it is precisely because no world power has been able in this time to play the role of world policeman and impose a new 'world order' as claimed at the time by U.S. President George Bush. The congress demonstrated that the predictions of the ICC and of marxism are totally confirmed: peace is impossible under capitalism. This is what we have seen since 1989 with the two Gulf wars, the massacres in the Middle East and in Africa, the conflict between India and Pakistan and for the first time since 1945, the outbreak of a European war, in the former Yugoslavia.

If the 20th RI Congress has found it necessary to remind us of the framework of analysis of the ICC, it is also to convey to young militants the method of marxism. Only this historical method and the scientific verification of the facts can enable us to avoid the pitfalls of empiricism based on a purely photographic picture of events from day to day.

The analysis of the situation in France

The second discussion that animated the debates at the Congress was focused on the situation in France and led to the adoption of a resolution published in RI no.438. The 20th RI Congress was held shortly after the recent presidential elections in which François Hollande was the victor. The debates in the congress affirmed that this change of government would further increase the difficulty of the French bourgeoisie to manage the national capital. There is now a "socialist" government that will have to deal with the inevitable worsening of the global economic crisis. This "left-wing" government (that has moreover inherited the blunders of "Sarkozyism") can only continue to intensify the attacks against working class living conditions. The only "change" can come in the language and types of mystification used to implement the austerity policies of the new government, as the Resolution adopted by the congress clearly spelled out [1].

The debate on the report on the situation in France presented to the Congress also dealt with the dynamics of the class struggle. It showed that, despite the depth of the economic crisis and the significant deterioration of living conditions of the working class in France, as in all countries, the proletariat has not, as yet, launched itself into large scale struggles since the movement against pension reform in the autumn of 2011: "If, as in other countries, expressions of combativity are characterised by a dispersion of struggles, the brutal attacks on working class living standards that results from the economic crisis, will force workers into developing their struggles on a much broader scale. This is true for the working class of all countries but it is particularly true for France because the working class of this country has a long tradition of mobilising en masse. This tradition explains why, unlike what occurred in countries such as Spain and the United Kingdom, movements such as the Indignados or Occupy Wall Street have not taken place in France. The reason lies in the fact that, unlike the other countries, the militancy of the working class of this country had already produced massive mobilisations such as the struggle against the CPE in 2006 and more recently the one against pension reform. Thus, there was less of a feel for the need of such movements to express the discontent inside the working class, which tells us that the lack of movements similar to that of the Indignados in France, does not mean that the working class here is lagging behind, especially when compared to other developed countries. Despite the big handicaps that hinder the working class (loss of class identity and lack of perspective), the speed with which living conditions will continue falling in France, as in other countries, is going to push the exploited to try and develop their combativity in the manner we've seen recently with the massive protests that took place in Portugal, Spain and Greece. Even if the ideological garb which the bourgeoisie uses to push through its attacks will delay and make the explosion of struggles more difficult, it will not be enough to prevent them." (Resolution on the situation in France, Point 7).

Developing the "culture of theory" in preparing the future

The plenary assembly of our section in France is also the time when it must draw a balance sheet of its activities from the previous RI congress and draw up perspectives for the next two years. And, of course, in a centralised international organisation like the ICC, the activities of its territorial sections can only be examined in the general framework of the activities of the whole organisation. This is why the congress gave an important place in the discussion to the ICC activities (which we will report on eventually in our press after holding our next international congress).

On the basis of the report submitted by the central organ of the section in France, the Congress drew an undeniably positive balance sheet of all the RI activities (including its intervention in the class struggle, and among the politicised minorities). It was on the basis of this review that the Congress also had to examine with the utmost clarity the weaknesses and challenges that the ICC section in France had come up against in the last two years, and how it might overcome them:

• the ‘routinism’ which had given rise to an underestimation of the need for theoretical deepening (especially on organisational questions);

• a difficulty in conveying to new militants the lessons of all the accumulated experience of the ICC in building the organisation and the party spirit (the fight to defend the Statutes of the ICC, against centrism and opportunism, against the circle spirit which reduces organisational relations to links based on personal affinity).

The debates at the Congress, which took place mainly around the adoption of the Activities Resolution, gave an orientation for our section in France of improving its internal functioning to meet the challenges that lie ahead: the need to transmit to the new generation of militants the method of marxism and the acquisitions of the ICC at the political and theoretical level, as well as the organisational level. To ensure this transmission and the ‘organic’ link between generations, the Congress noted that the older generation is engaged in a permanent fight against the tendency to lose sight of its acquisitions (which we have already noted on several occasions previously). As the ICC has existed longer than any other international organisation in the history of the workers' movement, it is ‘normal’ that the acquisitions of its past experience can tend to be forgotten over time.

The Congress of the section in France adopted the perspective of having a better balance in its activity in order to allow all its militants to find time to read and reflect so that the entire organisation can collectively develop its theoretical debates (especially on new questions that can't be entrusted to ‘specialists’).

In the framework of rationalising our activity, the Congress also had a discussion on our territorial printed press and the Internet, and the role of these two media. Given that today our website is our main tool of intervention (our articles are put on line as soon as they are written), the Congress began a reflection about the reduction in the frequency/ regularity of the publication of the RI paper (whose sales only increase with interventions at demonstrations, while the numbers reading our articles on our website is not dependent on the vagaries of the class struggle).

Faced with the danger of immediatism, the Congress recalled that intervention in the ongoing struggles of the working class, as indispensable as it is, is not however our main activity. Like all revolutionary organisations of the past, the primary responsibility of the ICC is to prepare the conditions for the proletarian revolution, and in particular the conditions for the formation of the future world party. This is why our long-term work of building the organisation, must remain at the centre of our activity.

The Activities Resolution, adopted by Congress after a long debate (where all the militants were involved) said: "The activity of revolutionaries is not limited to the intervention in the immediate struggles of the working class and its minorities, but lies first of all in the ‘political and theoretical clarification of the goals and methods of the proletarian struggle, of its historic and its immediate conditions’. (see the point about our activity in our basic positions published on the back of our publications) (...) Our work of theoretical elaboration is by no means complete, far from it, and will never be completed. This theoretical clarification is still ahead of us and must remain our priority in the fight to build the organisation and in continuing to fulfill our responsibility as a vanguard of the proletariat. " (Point 14).

"...The struggle for communism doesn't just have an economic and political dimension, but also a theoretical dimension ("intellectual" and moral). It is by developing 'the culture of theory'; that is to say, the ability to permanently situate all aspects of the organisation's activities in a historical and /or theoretical framework, that we can develop and deepen the culture of debate internally, and better assimilate the dialectical method of marxism."

Clearly with this approach the ICC section in France has provided itself with the perspective of strengthening its organisational tissue and improving its functioning by developing a theoretical debate on the roots of its present and past difficulties.

"This work of theoretical reflection cannot ignore the contribution of science (and notably the social sciences, such as psychology and anthropology), on the history of the human species and the development of civilisation. In particular the discussion on 'marxism and science' was of utmost importance for us and we should continue with it and build on it in our reflections and in our organisational life." (Activities Resolution, Point 6).

The invitation of a scientist to the 20th Congress of RI

As our readers know, in the year of the celebration of the ‘Darwin anniversary’, the ICC revived a tradition of the past workers' movement: an interest in scientific research and the new scientific discoveries, including those that provide marxism with a better understand of human nature. For it to build communism in the future, the proletariat must go to the "root of things" and, as Marx said, "the root of things for man is man himself." This is why we have conducted a discussion on "marxism and science" and have invited scientists to the last two ICC congresses.

Our interest in the sciences continued in the 20th RI Congress. A small part of this work was devoted to a debate with a scientist around a topic chosen by us: "Confidence and solidarity in the evolution of humanity: what distinguishes our species from the great apes?".

Camilla Power, teacher of anthropology at the University of East London (and collaborator with Chris Knight), had agreed to come to the RI congress and lead a discussion on this topic. In her very interesting and well-illustrated presentation, she explained the development of solidarity and confidence in the human species by recalling the Darwinian theory of evolution.

Everyone at the congress, including our contacts and the invited sympathisers, appreciated the materialist approach and the scientific rigour of the presentation, as well as the quality of the debate. For her part, Camilla Power warmly thanked the congress with these words before her departure:
"I just want to say thank you; it was very exciting for me to come to your congress. I learned a lot from the questions and answers from the different contributors. I was very impressed with the reading you have done, and what you have learned. I have always felt very committed to marxism and to Darwinism. I'm an anthropologist. We must combine an understanding of the natural history and social history. And anthropology is central to this. Marx and Engels spent a lot of time towards the end of their lives doing research in anthropology. It happened very late in life, but it shows that they recognised how important it is. It's very exciting to meet people who want to think scientifically about what it means ‘to be human’. This is a very important issue for everyone, for the international working class. For us, it is about rediscovering the nature of our humanity. We must not be afraid of science, because it is science that will give us revolutionary answers. Thank you very much, comrades."

We can now make a very positive assessment of the invitation of a scientist to our congress. It is an experience that our organisation will try and repeat as much as possible in future congresses.
The road leading to the proletarian revolution is a long, difficult and fraught with pitfalls (as Marx underlined in The 18th Brumaire [2]).

The work of the ICC is just as long and difficult as the struggle of the proletariat for its emancipation. It is all the more difficult as our forces remain extremely limited today. But the difficulties facing the communist organisations in carrying out their work has never been a factor of discouragement, as we see in this quote from Marx cited at the end of the Activities Resolution adopted by the 20th Congress of RI: "I've always found it in all those truly steeled characters, that once they have engaged in revolutionary work, they will continually draw new strength from defeat and become even more committed as the tide of history sweeps them along"(Marx, Letter to Philip J. Becker).

RI 22/12/12

At the start of 2013 the UK’s Coalition government voted in the latest tranche of austerity measures aimed at reducing the budget deficit. The Spending Review put forward by George Osborne factored in the planned attacks on welfare benefits and pensions. These attacks have been phased in by the British bourgeoisie over a number of years and didn’t start with the Lib-Cons coming to power. The attacks are plainly focussed on the working class.

To start, the government has placed a cap of 1% increase per annum for a period of three years on all welfare benefits. This has jettisoned the link of benefits to inflation that had previously been in place. When we consider that the present level for JSA is £71 (if you are 25 or over, £56.25 if under), an already impoverished situation is bound to get worse. The Department of Works and Pensions has insisted that this is not a cut, but is committed to establishing a further £10 billion ‘saving’ in the welfare bill in the coming period.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Works and Pensions, has promised to introduce a ‘Universal Benefit’ which will impose a £500 ceiling on all benefits for every household. This is currently being trialled in different boroughs in the country because the DWP does not have in place the infra-structure to implement it immediately. However, the cuts will still take place. These cuts will affect JSA, working tax credits, and pension credits. The Disability Living Allowance will be replaced by a ’Personal Independence Payment’.

The cuts to child credit payment will affect 2.5 million single women workers and a further million whose partners are in work. This in effect will be throwing millions of children into poverty. The Child Poverty Action Group has said that these changes will cut 4% from benefits over the next three years. The overall plan is to subsume all payments into the one ‘Universal Benefit’ payment. The government will thus cut its welfare bill. All the guff about lazy ‘shirkers’ versus hard-working ‘strivers’ is just so much camouflage to hide the attacks. According to another report, this time by the Children’s Society, “up to 40,000 soldiers, 300,000 nurses and 150,000 primary and nursery school teachers will lose cash, in some cases many hundreds of pounds” (Guardian 5/1/13) So much for targeting ‘shirkers’!

Housing benefits: cut

The government has placed a cap of £500 per household per week on the rent of a family home. In places like London this is impossible for many to find. According to the government’s own figures on risk assessment, this will affect some 2.8 million people. 400,000 of the poorest people will be included. 300,000 households stand to lose more than £300 per week.

The government in its ‘war on welfare dependency’ will hit the young hardest. The government intends to refuse housing benefit to the under 25’s. This is to effectively throw thousands of young people onto the streets.

Council tax benefits: cuts

The government is cutting its subsidies to local councils by 10% while leaving local authorities to implement the cuts in Council Tax payments. This will mean an average £10 per week that social tenants will have to find to supplement their rents. Those occupying dwellings which have a spare bedroom will have to find a minimum of £10 per week under the so-called ‘Bedroom Tax’ since they now fall into the “over occupancy” category. This will again hit young people the hardest. The homeless charity Shelter say that only 1 in 5 of rental homes are affordable to single people on benefits.

The Labour Party’s alternative workfare scheme

The Labour Party, far from being opposed to the cuts, have declared that they agree with the ‘basic principle’ that work for the jobless should be encouraged and should be part of a package for welfare benefits. In response to the government attacks Liam Byrne (shadow employment secretary) has come up with his own ‘workfare’ scheme. This scheme would see every claimant under the age of 25 who has been unemployed for more than two years forced into compulsory jobs. These workers would be paid the minimum wage only. Anyone who refused such Mickey Mouse ‘jobs’ would, under the Labour Party scheme, lose 13 weeks of benefit for the first time and 26 weeks of benefits for the second time. This would not only be a way of reducing the welfare benefit costs but would also force unemployed workers into the hands of unscrupulous bosses. It is reminiscent of the ‘Dole Schools’ of the 1930s where, to claim the dole, you had to attend ‘schools’ to perform menial work or lose what little benefit you could receive.

This Labour party scheme will only mean jobs for six months, after which workers will be back on the dole - and unemployment will still remain at the same massive levels, since most workers won’t qualify for the scheme anyway.

General attack, general response

The attacks are only just beginning. The benefit cuts are part of a wider push to make the working class pick up the bill for their crisis. Governments all around the world, particularly in the centres of the Eurozone like Greece and Spain, are doing the same.

If the working class is to mount any resistance to this offensive, it must reject out of hand all attempts to make it feel responsible for the crisis of capitalism, and all the nauseating campaigns about shirkers and strivers, which are aimed at dividing the working class. Unemployment and poverty are the product of capitalism in crisis and the working class can only defend itself by developing its unity in the struggle against this system.

Melmoth 12/1/13

In September 2012 legislation came into force that made squatting in the UK a criminal offence. At the end of the month the first person was convicted under the new legislation and sentenced to 12 weeks in prison. He had come from Plymouth to London looking for work and had occupied a flat owned by a housing association.

Prior to this a number of Tory MPs and newspapers made much of cases where homes that were lived in had been squatted and used this to justify the new law, despite knowing that there were a number of laws already in place aimed at preventing squatting. This suggests that the new law is actually aimed at keeping squatters out of unoccupied houses, offices and other buildings, which are those usually squatted. It is also part of the wider campaign to divide and control the working class. This was given a new boost at the start of 2013 with the spat over ‘scroungers’ versus ‘strivers’ that preceded the vote to limit increases in most benefits to 1% a year.

No official figures on the number of people squatting have been collected since the mid 1980s, but a recent article in the Guardian reported that there are between twenty and fifty thousand people squatting, mostly living in long-term abandoned properties.[1] This is part of the larger picture of increasing numbers struggling to keep a roof over their heads. For example, the figures gathered about homelessness show increases in the last few years: in England 110,000 families applied to their local authority as homeless in 2011/12, an increase of 22% over the preceding year. 46% of these were accepted by the local authority as homeless, an increase of 26% over the preceding year. The figures for Wales and Scotland also show increases in both the numbers applying and being accepted.

The charity Crisis, from whose website the figures above are taken, underlines that these official figures are likely to be very inaccurate since the majority of those who are homeless are hidden because they do not show up in places, such as official homeless shelters, that the government uses to gather its data. Another indicator that housing is becoming an increasing problem is provided by the data about the numbers sleeping rough. In 2011 official figures show that over two thousand people slept rough in England on any one night in 2011, an increase of 23% over 2010. However, once again, the real figure is probably far higher as non-government agencies report that over five and a half thousand people slept rough in 2011/12 just in London, an increase of 43% over the previous year.

Globally, it is estimated that at least 10% of the world’s population is squatting. Many of the slums that surround cities such as Mumbai, Nairobi, Istanbul and Rio de Janeiro are largely comprised of squatters.[2] The types of accommodation, the services, or lack of them, available to inhabitants, the type of work undertaken and the composition of the population all vary, but collectively they show that, for all the goods produced and all the money swirling around the world, capitalism remains unable to adequately meet one of the most basic of human needs. The purpose of this article is to try and examine the reasons for this.

The starting point is the recognition that the form the housing question takes under capitalism is determined by the economic, social and political parameters of bourgeois society. In this system, the interests of the working class, and of other exploited classes such as the peasantry, are always subordinated to those of bourgeoisie. At the economic level there are two main dynamics. On the one hand, housing for the working class is a cost of production and thus subject to the same drive to reduce the costs as all other elements linked to the reproduction of this class. On the other, housing can also be a source of profits for part of the bourgeoisie, whether provided for the working class or any other part of society. At the social and political level, housing raises issues about health and social stability that concern the ruling class, while it can also offer opportunities for both physical and ideological control of the working class and other exploited classes. This was true in the early days of capitalism and remains true today.

Housing and early capitalism

The situation in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a consequence of the full unfolding of the capitalist system that had been developing for several centuries previously. The industrial revolution that was a consequence of these early developments led to a transformation in all areas of life within the capitalist world, in the economy, in politics and in social life. The development of large factories led to the rapid growth of cities, such as London, Manchester and Liverpool, and drew in millions of dispossessed peasants, transforming them into proletarians. Advances in productivity and the cyclical crises that typified early capitalism periodically ejected hundreds of thousands of workers from employment while the expansion of production and its extension into new fields, driven on by the same crises, drew them back in. For the bourgeoisie this meant there was a readily available workforce: the reserve army of those ejected from work or newly driven from the land, that tended to help keep the cost of all labour down. For the working class the result was a life of exploitation, poverty and uncertainty.

The Condition of the Working Class in England [6] written by Engels after he moved to Manchester in 1842 and published in German in 1845, revealed the true face of the industrial revolution. A central theme of the work is an examination of the living conditions of the working class. Drawing on various official reports as well as his own observations he described the accommodation endured by workers in cities such as London, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds: “These slums are pretty equally arranged in all the great towns of England, the worst houses in the worst quarters of the towns, usually one or two-storied cottages in long rows, perhaps with cellars used as dwellings, almost always irregularly built…The streets are generally unpaved, rough, dirty, filled with vegetable and animal refuse, without sewers or gutters, but supplied with foul, stagnant pools instead. Moreover, ventilation is impeded by the bad, confused method of building of the whole quarter, and since many human beings live here crowded into a small space, the atmosphere that prevails in these working-men’s quarters may readily be imagined.”[3]

He notes the gradations of misery within this overall picture. In St Giles in London, which was near Oxford Street, Regent Street and Trafalgar Square with their “broad, splendid avenues”, he distinguishes between the dwellings located in the streets and those in the courts and alleys that ran between them. While the appearance of the former “is such that no human could possibly wish to live in them” the “filth and tottering ruin” of the latter “surpass all description”: “Scarcely a whole window-pane can be found, the walls are crumbling, door-posts and window-frames loose and broken, doors of old boards nailed together, or altogether wanting in this thieves quarter…Heaps of garbage and ashes lie in all directions, and the foul liquids emptied before the doors gather in stinking pools. Here live the poorest of the poor, the worst paid workers with thieves and the victims of prostitution, indiscriminately huddled together, the majority Irish, or of Irish extraction, and those who have not sunk into the whirlpool of moral ruin which surrounds them, sinking daily deeper, losing daily more and more of their power to resist the demoralising influence of want, filth, and evil surroundings.”[4] In the new factory towns industrialists and speculators threw up houses that were poorly built, overcrowded and lacking in ventilation. Within a few years most had become slums, albeit profitable ones. From these and many other descriptions of the environment Engels goes on to consider the consequences on the physical and mental health of the inhabitants. He shows the link between mortality, ill health and poverty, examines the poor quality of the air breathed by the working class, the lack of education of their children, and the arbitrary brutality of the conditions and regulations of employment.

The pattern set by Britain was quickly followed by other countries such as France, Germany and America as they industrialised. Everywhere that capitalism developed the working class was housed in slums and in most of the great cities the working class areas were places of poverty, filth and disease from which the new bourgeoisie drew the wealth that allowed them to live comfortably and moralise according to their various tastes about the immorality and fecklessness of the working class.

Bourgeois solutions to the housing crisis

In The Housing Question [7], published 27 years after the Condition of the Working Class in England, Engels acknowledges that some of the worst slums he described had ceased to exist. The principal reason for this was the realisation by the bourgeoisie that the death and disease that reigned in these places not only weakened the working class, and thus the source of their profits, but also threatened their own health: “Cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, small-pox and other ravaging diseases spread their germs in the pestilential air and the poisoned water of these working class districts… Capitalist rule cannot allow itself the pleasure of generating epidemic diseases with impunity; the consequences fall back on it and the angel of death rages in the ranks of the capitalists as ruthlessly as in the ranks of the workers.”[5] In Britain this resulted in official inquiries, which Engels notes were distinguished by their accuracy, completeness and impartiality compared to Germany, and which paved the way for legislation that began to address the worst excesses.

This was the era that saw the building of sewerage and water systems in towns and cities in Britain. If the impulse for these reforms came specifically from the self-interest of the bourgeoisie and more indirectly from the pressure of the working class and the need to manage the growing complexity of society, the possibility of realising them was due to the immense wealth being produced by capitalism. Engels notes that the interests of the bourgeoisie in this matter are not only linked to issues of public health but also to the need to build new business premises in central locations, to improve transport by bringing the railways into the centre of cities and building new roads, and also by the need to make it easier to control the working class. This last had been a particular concern in France after the Paris Commune and resulted in the building of the broad avenues that still characterise much of this city.

However, Engels goes on to argue that such reforms do not eliminate the housing question: “In reality the bourgeoisie has only one method of settling the housing questions after its fashion – that is to say, of settling it in such a way that the solution poses the question anew.”[6]  He gives the example of a part of Manchester called Little Ireland that he described in The Condition of the Working Class in England. This area, which was “the disgrace of Manchester”, “long ago disappeared and on its site there now stands a railway station”; but subsequently it was revealed that Little Ireland “had simply been shifted from the South side of Oxford Road to the north side.”[7] He concludes: “The same economic necessity which produced them in the first place produces them in the next place also. As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist it is folly to hope for an isolated settlement of the housing question or of any other social question affecting the lot of the workers.”[8]

Subsequent developments in Britain seem, ultimately, to refute this since the slums of the 19th and early 20th century are gone. The First World War left a shortage of 610,00 houses with many pre-war slums untouched. In its aftermath local authorities were given powers to clear slums and to build housing for rent. Between 1931 and 1939 over 700,000 homes were built, re-housing four fifths of those living in slums.[9] Many of the new houses were built in large estates on the outskirts of major cities including Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and London. Some local authorities experimented by building blocks of flats. However, these efforts were dwarfed by the two and half million homes built privately and sold to the middle class and better off parts of the working class. Nonetheless, this did not mark the end of slums and severe overcrowding remained common in many working class areas. The Second World War saw a regression as house building all but stopped and inner city areas were exposed to bombing. The post war period witnessed the most concerted house building programme by the state in British history, which reached its peak under the Tory government of the late 1950s when over 300,000 council homes were built annually. The building of large tower blocks was a more prominent feature this time. Support was also given to private building and by 1975 52.8% of homes were privately owned, compared with 29.5% in 1951 (private rented properties fell from 44.6% to 16% during the same period).[10]

However, these developments were the product of their time and reflect the prevailing economic situation. In Britain and the other major capitalist powers, the post war period allowed some significant changes in housing. The post-war boom that was based on the very significant improvements in productivity that followed the destruction of the war gave the state the means to increase spending in a range of areas, including housing. As already noted, some important working class areas in cities that had been centres of production had been destroyed or damaged by bombing. The industries that developed after the war, such as car making, led to the building of new factories, often outside the old concentrations. This required the building of accommodation for workers. There was also a political motive in meeting social needs in order to reduce the risk of unrest following the war. In this the state drew on the failure of the policy of ‘Homes fit for heroes’ proclaimed after World War I, a failure that had helped to discredit the post-war government of Lloyd George.

However, the post war boom did not reach many parts of the world. These included some countries in the west, such as Ireland where severe poverty and slums remained until the economic boom that developed there in the 1980s. Above all, it encompassed what has been called the ‘Third World’, which essentially comprises those continents and countries that were subject to imperialist domination by the major capitalist countries. In short, most of the world. Looked at from this perspective it becomes evident that Engels’ argument is not just confirmed but confirmed on a scale he could not have imagined.

Housing in late capitalism

The present global situation is shaped by the structural crisis of capitalism that lies behind both the open recessions and the booms of the last 30 to 40 years, including the astonishing levels of growth seen in China, India and a number of other countries. This period has seen a reshaping of the whole world and its full analysis is far beyond the scope of this article. For many on the left this reshaping is a consequence of the triumph of neo-liberalism with its doctrines of reducing the state and supporting private enterprise. This is frequently presented as an ideologically based strategy and the crisis of 2007 as being of its making. While the critique of neo-liberalism and globalisation may describe aspects of the changes  that have taken place in the global economy, it tends to miss the essential point that this transformation is the result of the response of capitalism to the economic crisis. It is the result of the unfolding of the immanent laws of capitalism rather than the outcome of ideology. It is this that links the situation in the old heartlands and the periphery, in the Third World and the first, in the countries experiencing economic growth and those not. The housing question everywhere has been posed anew by these developments.

Today, one billion people live in slums and the majority of the world’s population is now urban. Numbers continue to grow every day and the slums that surround cities of all sizes in these countries grow ever-larger. Most of these slums are in the third world and, to a lesser extent, parts of the old eastern bloc (what was once called the Second World). This is a new situation. In the book Planet of Slums, published in 2006, the author, Mike Davis, argues that “most of today’s megacities of the South share a common trajectory: a regime of relatively slow, even retarded growth, then abrupt acceleration to fast growth in the 1950s and 1960s, with rural immigrants increasingly sheltered in peripheral slums.” [11] The slow or retarded growth in many of these cities was a consequence of their status as colonies of the major powers. In India and Africa the British colonial rulers passed laws to prevent the native populations moving from the country to the city and to control the movements and living arrangements of those in the cities. French imperialism imposed similar restrictions in those parts of Africa under its control. It seems logical to see these restrictions as linked to the status of many of these countries as suppliers of raw materials to their colonial masters. However, even in Latin America, where the colonial hand was arguably less severe, the local bourgeoisie could be equally opposed to their rural countrymen and women intruding into the cities. Thus in the late 1940s there were crackdowns on the squatters drawn to urban centres such as Mexico City as a result of the policy of local industrialisation to replace imports.

This changed as colonialism ended and capitalism became ever more global. Cities began to grow in size and increase in number. In 1950 there were 86 cities in the world with populations of over one million. By 2006 this had reached 400 and by 2015 is projected to rise to 550. The urban centres have absorbed most of the global population growth of recent decades and the urban labour force stood at 3.2 billion in 2006.[12] This last point highlights the fact that in countries such as Japan, Taiwan and, more recently, India and China this growth is linked to the development of production. One consequence of global significance is that over 80% of the industrial proletariat is now outside Western Europe and the US. In China hundreds of millions of peasants have flooded from the countryside to the cities, principally those in coastal regions where most industrialisation has taken place; hundreds of millions more are likely to follow. By 2011 the majority of China’s population was urban.[13]

This can give the impression that the process seen in the 19th century is continuing; that the early chaotic development will be replaced by a more steady progression up the value chain of production with resulting increases in wages, prosperity and the domestic markets. This is used to support the argument that capitalism remains dynamic and progressive and that in time it will lift the poor out of poverty, feed the starving and house the slum dwellers.

However, this is not the full story of the current period. In many other countries there is no link between the development of cities and the slums that go with them and the development of production. This can be seen by comparing cities by size of population and GDP. Thus, while Tokyo was the largest by population and by GDP, Mexico City, which was the second largest by population, does not figure in the top ten by GDP. Similarly Seoul, which is fourth largest by population also does not appear amongst the top ten by GDP. In contrast, London, which was sixth by GDP, is 19th by population.[14] Population growth in these cities seems more a consequence of wider economic changes, such as the reorganisation of agriculture to meet the requirements of the international market and fluctuations of the price of raw materials on the one hand and the often linked impact of war, ‘natural’ disasters, famine and poverty on the other. In some cities, such as Mumbai, Johannesburg and Buenos Aires there has actually been de-industrialisation. Davis also highlights the neo-liberal policies of the IMF as having a particular role in this process and in the impoverishment of many of the recipients of its ‘aid’ and ‘advice’.

The consequences can be seen in the shanty towns that encircle many cities in the south. While it is the megacities that hit the headlines, the majority of the urban poor live in second tier cities where there are often few, if any, amenities and which attract little attention. The accounts of the living conditions of the inhabitants of these slums that run through Planet of Slums echo parts of Engels’ analysis. In the inner cities the poor not only crowd into old housing and into new properties put up for them by speculators but also into graveyards, over rivers and on the street itself. However, most slum-dwellers live on the periphery of the cities, often on land that is polluted or at risk from environmental disaster or otherwise uninhabitable. Their homes may be made of bits of wood and old plastic sheeting, often without services and subject to eviction by the bourgeoisie and exploitation and violence by the assorted speculators, absentee landlords and criminal gangs that control the area. In some areas squatters progress to legal ownership and succeed in getting the city authorities to provide basic services. Everywhere they are subject to exploitation.

As in England in the 19th century there is money to be made from misery. Speculators large and small build properties, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally, and receive rents, which for the space rented are comparable to the most expensive inner city apartments of the rich. The lack of services provides other opportunities, including the sale of water. The inhabitants within the slums are divided and sub-divided. Some who rent shacks may rent a room to someone even poorer. Some may have jobs that are more or less precarious, others scrape a living through petty trading or providing services to their fellow inhabitants. This mass of proletarians, semi-proletarians, ex-peasants and so on constitute a reserve army of labour that helps to lower the cost of labour regionally, nationally and, ultimately, globally. They also pose a threat to capitalist order and offend the sensibilities of the bourgeoisie just as the slum-dwellers of Britain did in the 19th century.

The bourgeoisie continues to try to ‘solve’ the housing crisis that its society creates. Today as in the past this is always circumscribed by what is compatible with the interests of the capitalist system and of the bourgeoisie within it. On the one hand, there have been attempts simply to bulldoze the problem away, evicting millions of the poor, whether workers, ex-peasants, petty-traders or the cast-offs of society, and dumping them in new slums, or in the open countryside, away from the eyes, ears and noses of the rich. On the other hand, a whole bureaucracy has grown up aimed at solving the housing problem, including the IMF, the World Bank, the UN as well as both international and local NGOs; but they always do so within the framework of capitalism. Thus, new housing often benefits the petty-bourgeoisie and better off workers who have the contacts or can pay the bribes or afford the rent, rather than those it was nominally intended for. A priority is usually to keep costs low, resulting in either barrack-like housing schemes or reforming the slums without ending them. The latter has seen a particularly unusual alliance between would be radicals who want to ‘empower’ the poor and international capitalist bodies such as the World Bank who want to find a market solution that encourages enterprise and ownership.

Finally, there is the unspoken but ever-present objective of dividing the exploited through the usual mix of co-option and repression. Thus bodies that begin with radical demands, such as squatters’ groups, often end up collaborating with the ruling class once they have been given a few concessions. Amongst some ideologues there are even echoes of the past, such as the idea that the solution lies in providing the poor with legal entitlement to the land on which they are living. This echoes the ideas that Engels combated in the first part of The Housing Question that deals with the claims by a follower of the anarchist Proudhon that providing workers with the legal title to the property they are living in will solve the housing question. Engels shows that this ‘solution’ will rapidly lead back to the original problem since it does not change the basic premise of capitalist society that “enables the capitalist to buy the labour power of the worker at its value but to extract from it much more than the its value…”[15]

In the old capitalist heartlands of Western Europe and the US, the return of the open economic crisis at the end of the 1960s led to two major changes that impacted on the provision of housing for the working class. The first was the need to reduce the expenditure of the state, and especially the social wage paid to workers; the second was the shift of capital from productive investment to speculation where the returns seemed higher. We will focus on Britain in examining this, as we did at the start of this article, mindful of the fact that the particular form taken varies from country to country.

The tightening of state spending led first to a slow down in the number of council houses built and then, under Thatcher, to the selling of the council housing stock and the restriction of further building by local authorities. This is frequently portrayed as an example of Thatcherite dogma and it is indeed true that it was partly an ideological campaign to promote home ownership. But none of this began with Thatcher. We have already noted the efforts to promote home ownership by both Tory and Labour governments both before and after the Second World War, principally through tax relief on mortgages. The selling of council houses not only reduced the capital costs of building homes but also the revenue costs of maintaining them, since the new owner assumed individual responsibility for this. The idea that owning property would help to curtail the threat from the working class goes back further still. In The Housing Question Engels quotes one Dr Emil Sax’s paean to the virtues of land ownership: “There is something peculiar about the longing inherent in man to own land…With it the individual obtains a secure hold; he is rooted firmly in the earth…The worker today helplessly exposed to all the vicissitudes of economic life and in constant dependence on his employer, would thereby be saved from this precarious situation; he would become a capitalist…He would thus be raised from the ranks of the propertyless into the propertied class.”[16]

Financial speculation became ever more feverish as the struggle to find a profitable return on capital became more intense over the last 40 years. The financial deregulation that was a feature in both Britain and the US in the 1980s allowed the bourgeoisie to develop ever more complex forms of speculation. In the 1990s money flowed into a range of new instruments based on the extension of credit to ever larger parts of the working class. The development of sub-prime mortgages in the US typified this approach. Speculators thought they were safe because of the complex nature of the financial instruments they were investing in and the high rating given to them by rating agencies such as Standard and Poor. The collapse of the sub-prime market in 2007 exposed this as the illusion it always was and laid the foundations for the wider collapse that followed, whose effects are still with us. In Britain ever-larger mortgages were offered with ever-smaller deposits and relaxed financial checks. The result was that mortgages made up the majority of the growth in personal credit that helped to underpin the ‘booms’ of the 1990s and early 2000s (the longest period of post-war growth as Gordon Brown used to claim).

The first housing bubble burst in the 1990s and plunged many into negative-equity, resulting in a high level of repossessions. This time round the bourgeoisie has managed to limit the impact so there are less repossessions. However, housing has now become less affordable due to a combination of the lasting increases during the bubbles and the tightening of credit following 2007, with the result that many young people can no longer afford to buy. At the same time, the rented sector has reduced. Council provision is limited and tightly controlled, with eligibility criteria that condemn younger people to small and poor accommodation if not to B&B. The new limits on Housing Benefit will also force families to move away from their home area or face being thrown on the street where one of the few options is to squat one of the thousands of empty properties. Thus we return to where we began.

The answer to the housing question

The housing question that confronts workers and other exploited classes around the world takes quite different forms in one country or another and often divides the victims of capitalism against each other. Between a young worker squatting on land prone to flooding or subject to industrial poisons on the margins of a city like Beijing or Mumbai and a young worker ineligible for a council flat in London or unable to get a mortgage on a house in Birmingham there can seem to be an unbridgeable gulf. Yet the question for all workers is how to live as a human being in a society subordinated to the extraction of profits from the many for the few. And for all the changes in the form and scale of the question the content remains the same. Engels’ conclusion remains as valid today as it was over a century ago: “In such a society the housing shortage is no accident; it is a necessary institution and can be abolished together with all its effects on health etc., only if the whole social order from which it springs is fundamentally refashioned”[17]  

North 11/01/13

On 11 January 2013, the French president François Hollande launched Operation Serval to wage the ‘war against terrorism’ in Mali. Planes, tanks and men armed to the teeth are now being employed in the southern Sahel. As these lines are being written, bombs and machine guns are speaking and the first civilian victims have fallen. The British bourgeoisie has pledged planes and logistical support to the French effort, and Cameron has not ruled out the deployment of British troops. And the ‘blow back’ from this conflict has already appeared in the shape of the blood-soaked hostage crisis in Algeria.

Once again the French bourgeoisie has thrown itself into an armed conflict in Africa. Once again, it is doing it in the name of peace. In Mali, it’s presented as a fight against terrorism and thus for the protection of the population. Quiet clearly, there’s no doubt about the cruelty of the armed Islamist gangs which reign in the north of Mali. These warlords sow war and terror wherever they go. But the motives behind the French intervention have nothing to do with the suffering of the local peoples. The French state is there only to defend its sordid imperialist interests. It’s true that the inhabitants of Mali’s capital, Bamako, have, for now, joyfully welcomed Hollande as their saviour. And these of course are the only images of this war which the media are disseminating right now: happy populations, relieved that the Islamist mafia’s advance towards the city has been halted. But this mood is not likely to last long. When a ‘great democracy’ passes through with its tanks, the grass is never green afterwards. On the contrary: desolation, chaos, and misery are the legacy of their intervention. The attached map shows the main conflicts which have ravaged Africa since the 90s and the famines which followed in their wake. The result is evident: each war – often carried out under the banner of humanitarian intervention, like in Somalia in 1992 or Rwanda in 1994 – has resulted in serious food shortages. It’s not going to be different in Mali. This new war is going destabilise the whole region and add considerably to the chaos.

An imperialist war

“With me as President, it’s the end of ‘Francafrique’”. François Hollande’s blatant lie would make us laugh if it didn’t mean a new pile of corpses. The left has never failed to talk about its humanism but for nearly a century the values it drapes itself with have served only to hide its real nature: a bourgeois faction like all the rest, ready to commit any crime to defend the national interest. Because that’s what we seeing in Mali: France defending its strategic interests. Like François Mitterand, who took the decision to intervene militarily in Chad, Iraq, ex-Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda, Hollande has proved once again that the ‘socialists’ will never hesitate to protect their values – i.e. the bourgeois interests of the French nation – at the point of a bayonet.

Since the beginning of the occupation of the north of the country by the Islamist forces, the big powers, in particular France and the USA, have been egging on the countries of the region to get involved militarily, promising them money and logistical aid. But in this little game of alliances and manipulations, the American state seemed to be more adept and to be gradually gaining influence. Being outwitted in its own hunting ground was quite unacceptable for France. It had to react and react with some force: “At the decisive moment, France reacted by using its ‘rights and duties’ as a former colonial power. Mali was getting a bit too close to the USA, to the point of looking like the official seat of Africom, the unified military command for Africa, set up in 2007 by George Bush and consolidated since then by Barack Obama” (Courrier International, 17.1.13)      

In reality, in this region of the world, imperialist alliances are an infinitely complex and very unstable web. Today’s friends can become tomorrow’s enemies when they are not both at the same time! Thus, everyone knows that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the declared allies of France and the USA, but they are also the main suppliers of funds to the Islamist groups operating in the Sahel. It was thus no surprise to read in Le Monde on 18 January that the prime minister of Qatar had pronounced himself against the war France is waging in Mali and had questioned the pertinence of Operation Serval. And what can be said about superpowers like the USA and China who officially support France but have been whispering in the corridors and advancing their own pawns?

France will be bogged down for a long time in the Sahel

Like the USA in Afghanistan, there is every possibility that France is going to get stuck for an indefinite  period in the quicksand of Mali and the Sahel in general (“for as long as necessary”, as Hollande put it). “While the military operation is justified because of the danger represented by the activities of the terrorist groups, who are well armed and increasingly fanatical, it is not exempt from risk in terms of getting bogged down and of instability throughout West Africa. Its difficult to avoid comparison with Somalia. Following the tragic events in Mogadishu at the beginning of the 90s, the violence in this country spread to the whole of the Horn of Africa and 20 years later stability has not returned there” (A Borgi, Le Monde, 15/1/13). This last point needs emphasis: the war in Somalia destabilised the whole of the Horn of Africa and “20 years later stability has not returned there”. This is what these ‘humanitarian’ and ‘anti-terrorist’ wars are really like. When the ‘great democracies’ brandish the flag of military intervention in defence of the ‘wellbeing’ of the population, of ‘morality’ and ‘peace’, they always leave ruin and the reek of death in their wake.

From Libya to the Ivory Coast and Algeria, the generalisation of chaos

“It’s impossible not to notice that the recent coup in Mali was a collateral effect of the rebellions in the north of the country, which were in turn the consequence of the destabilisation of Libya by a western coalition which strangely enough has shown no remorse or sentiment of responsibility. It’s also difficult not to recognise that this khaki harmattan[1], which has swept through Mali, has also passed through its Ivorian, Guinean, Nigerian and Mauritanian neighbours” (Currier International, 11.4.12). Many of the armed groups who fought alongside Gaddafi are now in Mali and elsewhere, having stripped bare the arms caches in Libya.

In Libya too the ‘western coalition’ claimed that it was intervening for justice and for the good of the Libyan people. Today the same barbarism is being experienced by the oppressed of the Sahel and chaos is spreading. Alongside the war in Mali, it’s Algeria’s turn to be destabilised. On 17 January a battalion organised by an offshoot of Al Qaida in the Maghreb kidnapped hundreds of employees of the gas plant at In Amenas. The Algerian army’s reaction was to rain fire on both kidnappers and hostages, leaving dozens dead. After this butchery, Hollande spoke like any other warmonger in defence of ‘his’ side “a country like Algeria has responses which, it seems to be, are the most suitable because there could not be any negotiation”. This spectacular entry of Algeria into the war in the Sahel, saluted by a head of state caught up in the logic of imperialism, is an expression of the infernal cycle into which capitalism is falling.  “For Algiers, this unprecedented action on its own territory has plunged the country a little deeper into a war which it wanted to avoid at all costs, out of fear of the consequences inside its own frontiers” (Le Monde, 18.1.130).

Since the beginning of the crisis in Mali, the Algerian regime has been playing a double game, as can be shown by two significant facts: on the one hand it is openly ‘negotiating’ with certain Islamist groups, even supplying them with a large amount of fuel during their offensive towards the conquest of Konna on the road to Bamako; on the other hand, Algiers has authorised French planes to fly over its air space to bomb the jihadist groups in the north of Mali. This contradictory position, and the ease with which the jihadists gained access to the most securitised industrial site in the country, shows just how much the Algerian state is succumbing to a process of decomposition. Like the states in the Sahel, Algeria’s entry into the war can only accelerate this process.

All these wars show that capitalism is descending into a very dangerous spiral which is a threat to the very survival of humanity. More and more zones are sinking into barbarism. We are witnessing a nightmarish brew made up of the savagery of the local torturers (warlords, clan chiefs, terrorist gangs...), the cruelty of the second string imperialist powers (small and medium sized states) and the devastating firepower of the big nations – all of them ready to get involved in any intrigue, any manipulation, any crime, any atrocity to defend their pathetic, squalid interests. The incessant changing of alliances gives the whole thing the look of a danse macabre, a dance of death.

This moribund system is going to sink deeper, these wars are going to spread to more and more regions of the globe. To choose one camp against the other, in the name of the lesser evil, is to participate in this dynamic which has no other outcome than the destruction of humanity. There is only one realistic alternative, one way to escape this hellish forced march: the massive, international struggle of the exploited for a new world without classes or exploitation, without poverty and war

Amina 19.1.13

In December 2012, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on a visit to Greece.

“In October 2012 the trauma therapist Georg Pier made the following observations in Greece: ‘Very pregnant women hurried desperately from one hospital to the next. But since they had neither any medical insurance nor sufficient money nobody wanted to help them give birth to their children. People, who until recently were part of the middle classes, were collecting residues of fruit and vegetables from the dustbins. (…) An old man told a journalist, that he could no longer afford the drugs for his heart problems. His pension was cut by 50% as was the case with many other pensioners. He had worked for more than 40 years, thinking that he had done everything right; now he no longer understands the world. If you are admitted to a hospital, you must bring your own bed-sheets as well as your own food. Since the cleaning staff were sacked, doctors and nurses, who have not received any wages for months, have started to clean the toilets. There is a lack of disposable gloves and catheters. In the face of disastrous hygienic conditions in some places the European Union warns of the danger of the spreading of infectious diseases.” (FAZ, 15/12/12).

The same conclusions were drawn by Marc Sprenger, head of the European Centre for the Prevention and Control of Diseases (ECDC). On 6 December, he warned of the collapse of the health system and of the most basic hygiene measures in Greece, and said that this could lead to pandemics in the whole of Europe. There is a lack of disposable gloves, aprons and disinfectant sheets, cotton balls, catheters and paper sheets for covering hospital examination beds. Patients with highly infectious diseases such as tuberculosis are not receiving the necessary treatment, so the risk of spreading resistant viruses in Europe is increasing.

A striking contrast between what is technically possible and capitalist reality

In the 19th century many patients, sometimes up to a third, died due to lack of hygiene in hospitals, in particular women during childbirth. While in the 19th century these dangers could be explained to a large extent through ignorance, because many doctors did not clean their hands before a treatment or an operation and often went with dirty aprons from one patient to the next, the discoveries in hygiene for example by Semmelweis or Lister allowed for a real improvement. New hygiene measures and discoveries in the field of germ transmission allowed for a strong reduction in the danger of infection in hospitals. Today disposable gloves and disposable surgical instruments are current practice in modern medicine. But while in the 19th century ignorance was a plausible explanation for the high mortality in hospitals, the dangers which are becoming transparent in the hospitals in Greece today are not a manifestation of ignorance but an expression of the threat against the survival of humanity coming from a totally obsolete, bankrupt system of production.

If today the health of people in the former centre of antiquity is threatened by the lack of funds or insolvency of hospitals, which can no longer afford to buy disposable gloves, if pregnant women searching for assistance in hospitals are sent away because they have no money or no medical insurance, if people with heart disease can no longer pay for their drugs … this becomes a life-threatening attack. If, in a hospital, the cleaning staff who are crucial in the chain of hygiene are sacked and if doctors and nurses, who have not been receiving any wages for a long time, have to take over cleaning tasks, this casts a shocking light on the ‘regeneration’ of the economy, the term which the ruling class uses to justify its brutal attacks against us. ‘Regeneration’ of the economy turns out to be a threat to our life!

After 1989 in Russia life expectancy fell by five years because of the collapse of the health system, but also due to the rising alcohol and drug consumption. Today it’s not only in Greece that the health system is being dismantled step-by-step or is simply collapsing. In another bankrupt country, Spain, the health system is also being demolished. In the old industrial centre, Barcelona, as well as in other big cities, emergency wards are in some cases only kept open for a few hours in order to save costs. In Spain, Portugal and Greece many pharmacies no longer receive any vital drugs. The German pharmaceutical company Merck no longer delivers the anti-cancer drug Erbitux to Greek hospitals. Biotest, a company selling blood plasma for the treatment of haemophilia and tetanus, had already stopped delivering its product due to unpaid bills last June.

Until now such disastrous medical conditions were known mainly in African countries or in war-torn regions; but now the crisis in the old industrial countries has lead to a situation where vital areas such as health care are more and more sacrificed on the altar of profit. Thus medical treatment is no longer based on what is technically possible: you only get treatment if you are solvent![1]

This development shows that the gap between what is technically possible and the reality of this system is getting bigger and bigger. The more hygiene is under threat the bigger the danger of uncontrollable epidemics. We have to recall the epidemic of the Spanish flu, which spread across Europe after the end of WW1, when more than 20 million died. The war, with its attendant hunger and deprivation, had prepared all the conditions for this outbreak. In today’s Europe, the same role is being played by the economic crisis. In Greece, unemployment rose to 25% in the last quarter of 2012; youth unemployment of those aged under 25 reached 57%; 65% of young women are unemployed. The forecasts all point to a much bigger increase – up to 40% in 2015. The pauperisation which goes together with this has meant that “already entire residential areas and apartment blocs have been cut off from oil supplies because of lack of payment. To avoid people freezing in their homes during the winter, many have started to use small heaters, burning wood. People collect the wood illegally in nearby forests. In spring 2012 a 77 year old man shot himself in front of the parliament in Athens. Just before killing himself, he is reported to have shouted: ‘I do not want to leave any debts for my children’. The suicide rate in Greece has doubled during the past three years” (op cit)

Next to Spain with the Strait of Gibraltar, Italy with Lampedusa and Sicily, Greece is the main point of entrance for refugees from the war-torn and impoverished areas of Africa and the Middle East. The Greek government has installed a gigantic fence along the Turkish border and set up big refugee camps, in which more than 55,000 ‘illegals’ were interned in 2011. The right wing parties try to stir-up a pogrom atmosphere against these refugees, blaming them for importing ‘foreign diseases’ and for taking resources that rightfully belong to ‘native Greeks’. But the misery that drives millions to escape from their countries of origin and which can now be seen stalking the hospitals and streets of Europe stems from the same source: a social system which has become a barrier to all human progress.  

Dionis 4/1/13

For a long time sport has represented a phenomenon that cannot be ignored from the fact of its cultural breadth and its place in society. A mass phenomenon, it's imposed on us through the tentacles of many institutions and results in a permanent hammering from the media. What significance can we give it from the point of view of a historical understanding and from the point of view of the working class?

In this first part we are going to try to give some responses by looking at the origins and function of sport in ascendant capitalist society.

A pure product of the capitalist system

The word "sport" is a term of English origin. Inherited from popular games and aristocratic entertainments, it was born in England with the beginnings of large capitalist industry.

Modern sport clearly distinguishes itself from the games, entertainments or physical activities of the past. If it inherited practices from them, it's because it oriented itself exclusively towards competition: "It was necessary that the development of the productive forces of capitalism were important enough for the abstract idea to make itself apparent to the masses from concrete works (...) similarly it was necessary for the long development of physically competitive practices so that little by little the idea of physical competition became generalised"[1]. The horsemanship of the aristocracy ended up with racecourses. It's around this that the stopwatch was invented, in 1831. From 1750, the English Jockey Club promoted numerous racecourses whose appearances continued apace. It was the same with running and other sports. Football came from the matches of Cambridge, 1848, and the Football Association appeared in 1863; tennis was transformed much later providing the first tournament in 1876. In brief, the new disciplines were all geared towards competition: "Little by little, sport broke free from the confused chaos and complexities of the time in order to form a coherent and codified body of highly specialised  and rationalised techniques adapted to the mode of capitalist/industrial production"[2]. In the same way that wage labour is linked to production in capitalist society, sport incarnated "abstract materialisation made flesh"[3]. Very quickly the search for performance and records, along with bookmakers and betting, fed a diversity of sporting activity which became a real, popular infatuation, allowing the factory to be forgotten for the moment. This was the case for example with cycling and the Tour de France (a sort of a "free party") from 1903, boxing, football, etc. In line with the development of the  capitalist system, transports and communications, sport took off in Europe as in the rest of the world. The extension and institutionalisation of sport, the birth and multiplication of national federations, harmonised with the heights of the capitalist system from the 1860s, but above all in the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth. It's a time when sport really internationalised itself. Football for example, was introduced into South America by European workers who were employed in the railway workshops. The first international sporting grouping was the International Union of Yacht Racing in 1875. Then others appeared: International Horse Show Club in 1878, International Gymnastic Federation in 1881, bodies for rowing and skating in 1882, etc. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894, FIFA (International Federation of Associated football) in 1904. Most of the international bodies were set up before 1914.

Contrary to accepted opinion, the capitalist version of sport doesn't represent a simple continuity with the ancient games. The Olympianism of the ancient Greeks was not at all based upon the idea of records or the obsession with performance against the clock. While confrontation with adversaries took place, it was connected with religious ceremonial and myth which had nothing to do with the material and mental universe of the contemporary games - even if the military aspect, the war between cities, and even the mercantile dimension. However, the modern Olympic Games, like those of Paris in 1900 or London in 1908, were already major commercial fairs. But, above all, these games took place in the context of the growth of imperialist tensions and thus helped to feed the ambient nationalism. The institution of the Olympic Games created in 1896, presented as a continuation of the tradition of the ancient Greeks, or corresponding to the democratic ideals displayed by Pierre de Coubertin and his celebrated saying, "the main thing is to participate", was just a con-trick. These modern games, reactivated in order to propagate chauvinist hysteria and militarism, are situated within the framework of capitalist alienation where everything rests on elitism and relations of domination linked to the production of commodities.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, sport is an almost exclusive practice reserved for the bourgeois elite, mainly around boarding school education. It's the occasion for the bourgeoisie to show-off, amuse itself and compete while allowing its ladies to ostentatiously exhibit their new outfits.  It's the time of the big meetings at racecourses, aquatic sports. the first winter sports as at Chamonix and the proliferation of golf clubs. These creations are reserved for the bourgeoisie which then forbids access to them by the workers.[4]

From the very conditions of capitalist exploitation at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the workers had neither the means nor the time to engage in sport. The frantic exploitation of the factory or the mine and the miserable state of daily life hardly allowed the reconstitution of labour power. Even the workers' children, frequently struck by rickets, had to be sacrificed in the factories from the ages of 6 or 7. The ten-hour day was introduced only later, not before 1900, and a day of rest was only obtained in 1906.

An issue for the class struggle

Initially the workers' movement showed a distrust towards the sporting practices of the bourgeoisie and kept a certain distance from them. But in striving to constitute itself into an autonomous class and with the development of its struggles for improvements and social reforms, the working class succeeded in wresting from capitalism some sporting activities which had been forbidden or inaccessible to it up until then.

The sport of the workers was born somewhat tentatively before the workers' sporting federations and clubs obtained through large-scale struggles were constituted[5]. Originally any gathering outside the factory, even of small numbers, was illegal. Popular games that risked disorder, like football, were forbidden by the authorities on public roads (the British Highway Act of 1835). The least attempt to play games appeared suspect and dangerous in the eyes of the bosses. The police saw them as 'troubling public order'. Initially confined to closed and discreet spaces, the sport of the workers was really born in the trade union movement and only developed after the Victorian era. In the workers' districts, sport was part of a whole ambiance of culture and sociability, a sense of belonging to a class. Physical activity was connected to the need to feed social bonds.

In a certain way, the workers associated sporting activity with a fraternal spirit which gave birth to mutual aid. On these grounds, workers' clubs multiplied (football and cycling) from the 1890s, and developed later in the 'red districts'. For the workers who were constituting themselves into an autonomous class, it was all associated with the struggle against the brutalisation of work, with the need to come together to educate themselves and develop their consciousness through political activity and propaganda. Thus in France, from its creation in 1907, the Socialist Sporting Union affirmed the necessity to "lay claim to the (...) the party, by organising sporting festivals and taking part in athletic events...". The Socialist Athletic Sporting Federation said the following year: "we want to create for the working class centres of amusement which will develop alongside the Party, and which will also be (...) centres of propaganda and recruitment"[6]. Through these sporting activities, militants of the working class were at the same time conscious of conducting a preventative struggle against the damage of alcoholism and the ravages of delinquency. For example, in its platform, the USPS (Sporting Union of the Socialist Party) underlined the necessity "to develop the muscular strength and purify the lungs of proletarian youth and give to young people healthy and agreeable amusements which can be a palliative against alcoholism and the bad habits among a part of young comrades (...) and develop among the young socialists the spirit of association and organisation"[7] .

In Germany, these same preoccupations were shared in the years between 1890 and 1914 by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which was very influential in the education of workers, supporting the setting-up of clubs and sporting federations as well as union structures and labour exchanges. In 1893, the Gymnastic Union of the Workers came into being and was a counterweight to the ambient nationalism. Within a concern for unity and internationalism, the workers were even led to create a Socialist International of Physical Culture in Belgium in 1913.

Sport becomes a real means of social control

Faced with these initiatives of the workers the bourgeoisie didn't stand with folded arms and looked to draw the workers, notably the youngest, into its own structures. The workers' movement was perfectly conscious of this as we see in France in an article of Humanité published in 1908: "The other political parties, above all those of the reaction, try by all means to draw youth towards them by creating patronages where athletics has a large role"[8]. For bosses with a paternal attitude, recuperating the physical activity of the workers to turn it to its profit rapidly became a major concern, notably in big industry. The baron Pierre de Coubertin was maddened by the idea of a 'socialist sport'. From this, in order to re-establish submission to the established order, sport became one of the major tools to hand. Thus the bosses created clubs in which the workers were invited to get involved. The mining clubs in England, for example, allowed for the stimulation of a spirit of competition between workers, of preventing political discussion and contributing to breaking strikes in the making. With the same spirit, bosses in France developed clubs like the cycling club of the enterprises of Lyon (1886), the football team of Bon Marché (1887), the Omnisport club of the motor factories of Panhard-Levassor (1909). There's also the case of Peugeot at Sochaux, of the Stade Michelin at Clermont-Ferrand (1911), etc: clubs intended as a means of social control, a way of policing the workers. We can note for example the boss of the Saint-Gobain mines "who wrote in its company notebooks who was present, attitudes during gymnastic work and political opinions". In the same spirit, the founder of Paris Racing Club in 1897, Georges De Saint Clair, thought that it was important to occupy sporting youth rather than "leave them to the taverns where they occupy themselves with politics and foment strikes"[9].

Much more fundamentally, and in a codified framework, sport allowed a body of workers to much more easily become an appendage to the machine and its nascent technologies. The body of the sportsman, like that of the workers, was in some way mechanised, fragmented, as in the various training moves. It was the mirror image of the division of labour and the movements inside the factory. The energy of the sportsman was like labour power in the factory; divided by discipline, and submitted to the rhythm of industrial time: "competition...presupposes that labour as been equalized by the subordination of man to the machine or by the extreme division of labour that men are effaced by their labour; that the pendulum of the clock has become as accurate a measure of the relative activity of two workers as it is of the speed of two locomotives. Therefore, we should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing; he is, at the most, time’s carcass."[10]. Modern sport fully participates in transforming man into a "carcass", into a record-breaking production machine. It allows the boss to exercise pressure over the worker which, at the same time, intensifies the discipline which tends to render the worker more docile and liable to forced labour. The workers' movement was capable of revealing and denouncing this capitalist reality of sport. It would do so for example regarding English football (professional since 1885) which was already becoming a form of commercial enterprise. The conditions of the players was seen as unacceptable and was compared to a kind of slavery[11].

Sport mobilises and prepares for war

Sport, as a cog of capitalist society, was also a privileged means of the dominant class in developing patriotism, nationalism and military discipline in the ranks of the workers. We already mentioned this with regard to the first Olympic games. If, on the margins, a public health current developed - under the impulsion for example of the Dr. Ph. Tissie (1852-1935) - concerned about the health of the population and more or less in line with eugenics, sport above all was used to strengthen the patriotic spirit and prepare for war. In Germany, 1811, Ludwig Jahn founded the Turplatz (gymnastic club) in a marked patriotic and military spirit. It succeeded in secretly creating a real reserve army, aiming to get around the lack of military manpower imposed by the French state. In the 1860's, the scholarly institutions militarised gymnastics and inculcated "order and discipline" (zucht und ordnung).

In France things went the same way with a chauvinist, military culture. L'Union des sociétés de gymnastique de France was created in 1873. And it's no accident that shooting developed as a complementary discipline at the same time (l'Union des sociétés de tir en France was founded in 1886). By June 26, 1871, Gambetta was already declaring that "We should have everywhere the gymnast and the soldier" in order to make "the work of patriots"[12].

After the defeat of Sedan and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the French bourgeoisie prepared its revenge. Gymnastics entered schools through a law of January 27 1880. The famous Jules Ferry went on to be a great promoter of military education for the young sons of workers. From July 1881, the Parisian authorities organised children of communal boy's schools into 'scholarly battalions'. Four 'battalions' equipped (with uniform, berets of the fleet and blue jumpers) and armed, manoeuvred on the boulevard Arago surrounded by "a battalion chief of the territorial army" and 4 gymnastics teachers. On July 6 1882, following a decree legalising these practices, Jules Ferry addressed these children with the following: "Under the appearance of a trifling thing you are fulfilling a profoundly serious role. You are working towards the military force of tomorrow"[13].

This "military force of tomorrow", with all sporting forms, is what was served up as cannon fodder in the butchery of 1914. This led Henri Desgranges, the director of l'Auto to declare, flippantly and cynically, on August 5 1914: "All our little troops who are at the frontier at this time in order to defend the soil of our country, are they not re-living the adversity of international competitions?"[14].

During the massacres, we can recall an episode long passed over in silence, but depicted in the film Joyeaux Noël: an improvised football match in no-man’s land, between German and English soldiers who were trying to fraternise. They were brutally deported and repressed: this sort of sport the bourgeoisie and its officers did not want! The sole sporting 'contribution' to this monstrous war was to be the import by American troops in 1917 of volleyball and basketball. A poor consolation for more than ten million dead.

WH, October 29, 2012

Coming Soon! "Sport in Decadent Capitalism (1914 to today)".

In the first article we saw that sport was a pure product of capitalism and that it had a real weight in the class struggle.  In this part we will see that in the period of the decadence of this capitalist system it is an instrument of the state which is used to repress and keep down the exploited.

State capitalism generates mass sport

At the time of World War I, sport already had a global dimension. In a few decades it became a real mass phenomenon.

From 1914, in a totalitarian fashion, the state took charge of the great sporting events in each nation while at the same time organising, under the flags of the time, the mobilisation for global conflict: "World sport as a whole has become a vast organisation and administrative structure, a national business taken in control by the states regarding their diplomatic interests"[1]. Thus the states constructed and financed massive structures: the sporting complexes, stadiums of 80 to 100 thousand places, the biggest of which reached 200,000 (Maracana in Brazil), gymnasiums, race tracks and circuits (as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway its 400,000 places), etc. Real giant parks, cathedrals of concrete and steel rising up, full of supporters or "fans", as at the Olympic Games, football World Cups, or automobile Grand Prix, etc., each time using military organisation and the logistics of a real army in order to produce the spectacle. Means of transport and communication under the control of the state are used to channel the crowds towards the new, modern temples. A specialised sporting press was developed on an industrial scale in the 20th century, covering even the most minor sporting events. Radio, then television, became the privileged tool of propaganda to popularise sporting practices, to better promote the spectacle/merchandise and betting games. One of the symptoms of this reality is also the bureaucratisation of widespread sporting institutions: "to the point that today one cannot at all talk of sport without talking about sporting organisations (federations, clubs, etc.)"[2].

The  change of towards mass sport from the 1920s thus operates in a context where state capitalism "has become this monstrous machine, cold and impersonal, which ends up devouring the very substance of civil society"[3]. Events are real commercial fairs of the state which each time is covered by a near-hysterical media. This explains the explosion of sporting players and spectators over the last 30 years. In France for example, there were only a million sporting licences in 1914. Forty years later these figures had doubled. They reached 14 million in 2000, seven times more than in the 1950s![4]. Today, some spectacles such as the Olympic Games can mobilise and hypnotise more than 4 billion television viewers in the world!

The capitalist states are the high priests of this new, universal religion of sport; a real 'opium of the people', a drug brought in over several decades with higher doses. In antiquity, the ruling class affirmed itself through religion and 'bread and circuses'. In the period of capitalism's decadence and mass unemployment, sport and its merchandise is itself a real religion aiming to console, distract and control pauperised working class families. More games and less bread, that's contemporary capitalist reality! For the populations and the working masses who still have the chance of a job, submitting to the timetables of the office or the factory, to the hell of exploitation and the depersonalisation of the large urban centres, the spectacle of sport or the practice of sport becomes, thanks to propaganda and marketing, 'indispensable leisure time'. Sport constitutes one of the privileged means to abandon oneself to the 'invisible forces of capital'. Thus sports, assimilated to 'free time', is only finally limited to a narrow simple means of subsistence and physiological conservation: "by degrading to the average the creative free activity of man, alienated work makes of his generic life an instrument of his physical existence"[5]. Lived as a sort of 'necessary de-stressing' for workers, sporting activity is only in reality a means of reconstituting the force of labour, as is sleep, food and drink! Moreover sport allows the workers to physically better resist the infernal timetables of the job. It thus allows one to face up to the conditions of exploitation, to 'forget' in the space of a moment the torments of capitalist society. The real paradox is that sport itself appears as hard work, timed by a clock, voluntary suffering closely linked to industrial rhythms and performance. For a growing number of adepts it's becoming a real addiction. Some workers even dedicate part of their holidays to collective sporting activity the content of which is close to army-type training. One again, sport expresses one of the realities of alienation by becoming, through its massive scope, almost indispensable and ends up generating a greater submission to capital. It's recognised that sport permits the growth of productivity and encourages the spirit of competition. From the daily grind  of working to schedules, repetitive labour where workers are tired right out there's a real enterprise of guilt-making which is further accompanied by a moral lecture on 'health' and the necessity to 'fight against obesity' through sport. One should be 'competitive', 'dynamic' and 'performing'. This lecture is perfectly in tune with the necessities of the competitiveness of industry, which sponsors sporting clubs while, at the same time, looking to sell their cheap slimming products or other merchandise glamorised through the image of sport. During the summer of 2012 for example, at the Olympic Games in London, the British capital was turned into a massive commercial fair, a real hypermarket drowning us with all sorts of products. Everywhere in the stadiums and other sports complexes, the remotest corners were lit up with placards and publicity screens. The sportsmen and women were the sponsored sandwiches covered with publicity slogans for the big names and posed to show them off in the best light to the photographers and TV cameras. This mercantile exhibition was an integral part of the preparation for the games, in the same way as physical exercises. Sport is a product at the service of the casino economy, with TV rights, derivative products, managers, clubs close to the market, betting, etc. The increase in the number of competitions corresponds to an arena where the states and groups confront one another directly on a saturated market. Sport is no more about men and women, these are performing commodities who flit between clubs or federations, sometimes for astronomical sums without having a say. This commercialisation of depersonalised sport, where individuals are turned into  deified stars, strengthens the cult of celebrity and is one of the expressions of the fetishism of the market. Whether he’s treated as a god or a mere thing, an object to be exchanged or exploited as capital, the professional sports-person is drastically subjected to the law of the market and profitability with the obligation of getting results. They are pushed towards a permanent extreme exploitation, pressured and constrained towards doping and planned self-destruction (we will confront these issues in a third article).

These robotic sports machines, in a context where the state plans de-politicisation and subservience, feed the grandiose spectacles to the extreme, for a sort of glorification, an apology for the established order and the ruling class. In all the big sporting spectacles, the politicians and people of the state are in the front rows in order to reap the political fruits of these stupefying grand-scale programmes. From the grand Nazi spectacles to the Stalinist exhibitions of yesterday, going into the mega-shows of the democracies today, these sporting masses conjure up a dream,  facilitate idolatry, by promoting the effort of muscle and sacrifice. They serve above all to fog the spirits, as does religion, and divert all reflection on the conditions of exploitation under capitalism. They're often aimed at obscuring truths which might result in criticism or class struggle, even to the point of acting as recruiting sergeant for war, as was the case in the 1930s.

Sport is clearly a counter to any form of subversion, aimed mainly at youth, notably in schools where it's used as a form of brain-washing. If this was done to the point of caricature in the Nazi and Stalinist regimes, it is presented much more subtly in the democracies. After May 68 in France, "the short-lived Minister of Sport, M. Nungesser, explained (...) that it was necessary to make sport compulsory in schools" in order to maintain social peace. In the same sense, M. Cornec, president of the student parent federation, stated in 1969: "In just a year France has been overturned by the revolt of youth. All those looking for solutions to this complex problem should know that no equilibrium can be found without the preliminary solution of school sports"[6]. In the same vein, the journal explains that it's better "to be involved in sport" than "to physically confront the police and the CRS". Subduing youth, using sport through its symbols and its universe of superstitions  - all that is very much in the optic of official democratic bourgeois ideology, with its myth of the "self-made man", of someone who can individually bring out his own qualities thanks to a military discipline. This egalitarian perspective, where 'everyone has a chance' conditional on their own work, can only dull the senses of those looking for a radical critique of society and those looking to develop a political critique of the established order.

Sport at the service of repression

At the same time as contributing to dulling the senses, sport prepares for a more direct repression. Sporting occasions have become pretexts for the deployment of imposing police forces in the name of the defence of public order and security. In the context of urban populations already submitting to a real police state, a total surveillance with the presence of armed police and soldiers regularly patrolling public places, stations for example, this strengthening of manpower around stadiums appears normal. Through the regular presence of cops and their vehicles, the state has gradually got people used to accepting the massive presence of the forces of repression of which it has the monopoly. We should remember that in the 1970's, the democratic states of western Europe didn't have words harsh enough to stigmatise the 'fascist regimes' and the 'dictatorships of Latin America' for organising the visible presence of the forces of order and the military in public places, notably around sports stadiums, as was the case in Argentina, Brazil or Chile at the time. In 1972, at the Winter Olympics of Sapporo in Japan, the presence of 4000 soldiers quartering the area was already noted. Today these same practices have not only been surpassed long ago in the lesson-giving democratic countries, but strengthened still more by much more draconian measures. It's no longer possible to go to a stadium without going through a real cordon sanitaire of cops, being hassled, body-searched and accompanied by security.

The Olympic Games of London in the summer of last year gave an illustration of this militarisation with the image of a real situation of war. Twelve thousand police and 13,500 military were active, that's to say more British troops than deployed in Afghanistan (9,500). More than the 20,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht at Munich in 1936! To the British figures we can add another 13,300 private security agents. A ground-to-air missile was openly set up on top of a residential building in a densely populated zone for use as an armed air-shield. On the streets, special lanes were arranged for the official vehicles and forbidden to the hoi-polloi (with a fine of £135, 170 euros if you crossed the line). Finally, the security controls were worthy of the ordinary paranoia of all states: systematic body-searches on entering all sites, forbidden to bring water, drinks, etc., into the controlled zones, tweeting banned, sharing or posting photos of the event in whatever manner forbidden![7]

If one looks back, history shows that sporting complexes are real nerve centres allowing a part of the population to be penned in for repressive and even murderous ends. One of the most famous of these is the "Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv'" in France, a round up of Jews organised by French police and militias during summer 1942. This celebrated cycle-racing track thus served as a fortified camp where the Jews were penned in and held before their deportation to the extermination camp of Auschwitz where they were to meet the summits of horror. After the Second World War there are numerous examples of sporting enclosures at the service of death and state repression. In France, after the Vel' d'Hiv', other sporting installations were used for massacres of the Algerian opposition in October 1961. About 7000 of them were taken by force to the Palais des Sports de Versailles and the Pierre de Coubertin stadium in Paris, to be beaten up with a good number ending up as bodies thrown into the Seine! In June 1966 in Africa, opponents of the Mobutu regime were executed in front of a crowd in the stade des Martyrs in Kinshasa. In Latin America, stadiums weren’t only used as outlets for hungry populations. The Stadio nacional in Chile was also used a place for interrogations and a sorting-centre for the concentration camps after the coup of General Pinochet (September 1973). In Argentina at the time of the World Cup in 1978, with the military junta in power, the amplified noises of the terraced speakers covered up the screams of those being tortured. Still today a good number of stadiums have a macabre history. In 1994, the Amahoro stadium of Kingali was one of the theatres of the Rwandan genocide in which France was a big accomplice. This is shown in the witness of the commandant, R. Dallaire: "When the war began, the stadium was full and, at a given moment, there were up 12,000 people, 12,000 people trying to live. Everywhere you looked there were people and clothes, and the situation seemed to escape any control. It became like ... a concentration camp... We were there to protect them, but at this time they were dying in this great stadium of Rwanda"[8].

More recently still, the football stadium in Kabul has see numerous horrors: hangings from the crossbars, mutilations for those accused of thieving, women accused of adultery stoned on the ground, etc.[9] In South Africa, the new Cap stadium, inaugurated for the 2010 World Cup, includes cells to imprison 'agitated' supporters! 

Even if sporting practice is not always directly implicated, there does exist some sort of link between control of the spirit by sport, the sporting infrastructures and the barbarity of decadent capitalism. The exacerbation of the contradictions between the classes means that the stadiums are more and more often places of confrontations and tensions, even during the course of sporting events. We've thus seen real killings, revolts break out  in football stadiums. In Argentina, portraits of the disappeared have certainly been quietly brandished on the terraces at the time of matches. But as often, almost everywhere open tensions are expressed with violence, particularly at the stadium exits. Many are the situations where the worst ideologies, xenophobia and the most unbridled nationalism, have led to the real acts of barbarity..

In the next and last article in this series we will come back to these aspects in order to deepen the analysis.

WH (November 8 2012)

In the previous article in this series, we saw that sport concentrates nationalist ideology and that it is an instrument at the service of imperialism. It expresses all the monstrosity of decadent capitalism.

The "political neutrality" of sport is a myth! Along with the media, sport never ceases to cultivate the identification with chauvinism and nationalism. Sport is even a privileged means for distilling this noxious poison. After the trauma of the First World War, "the gap between the private and the public world was (...) filled in by sport. Between the two wars, sport as a mass spectacle was transformed into an interminable succession of gladiatorial combats between persons and teams symbolising the nation states"[1] .

Sport: a concentration of nationalism

Nationalism has thus been permanently maintained against the exploited by the rituals and symbolism which surround sporting encounters. Using sport for propaganda ends, contrary to what official history tells us, is not a particularity of Nazism or Stalinism, but a practice generalised throughout every country. To be convinced of it we only need to recall the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 or London 2012, or the entry of the national football teams at big matches. The grand sporting spectacles provoke strong, collective emotions that are easily manipulated towards the universal codes of national symbols: "Which gives to sport a unique effectiveness in inculcating nationalist sentiments (...) it is the facility with which individuals (...) can identify themselves with the nation being symbolised"[2]. International competitions are often accompanied by military music and are systematically preceded or closed by hymns: "These matches are confrontations where the national prestige is at stake"[3]. In brief moments of sacred unions social classes are 'dissolved', denied, as spectators openly called to stand up and sing with their eyes fixed on the national flag or on the team which embodies it through its colours.

In South Africa for example, in the name of the fight against Apartheid, the colours of the rugby team were thus used by Mandela's ANC to channel the class struggle towards the national mystification[4]. Great sporting victories can also prolong this principle of blind submission in a sort of collective hysteria (as was the case with the victory of the Spanish team during the football World Cup of 2010, that of Italy some years earlier, or those of the French team in 1998...). The celebrations of these occasions are infested by flags and prefabricated national myths[5]. Finally, the war of titles, medals, nation against nation, tries to maintain, as at the front during military conflicts, this mental dependence by sowing the seeds of xenophobia and nationalist violence. Sport embodies the spirit of the state and is accorded the same ritual as the army: decorations, citations, medals, march pasts... As Rosa Luxemburg said during World War I: "The national interests are only a mystification having the aim of putting the labouring masses at the service of their mortal enemy: imperialism"[6].

An instrument at the service of imperialism

Sport has always been used in imperialist confrontations. The Olympic Games in Berlin 1936, for example, were the spearhead of the militarisation prefiguring the aggression of the Axis military bloc which fought for its 'vital space'. For the Nazis, the champions had to be "warriors for Germany, ambassadors of the 3rd Reich". According to Hitler, the sporting youth of Germany should be "as resistant as leather, as hard as Krupp steel"[7]. Sport prepared you for imperialist war and thus justified the "superiority of the Aryan race", despite the victories of the black American sprinter Jesse Owens, who made the Fuhrer explode with anger[8]. Every sporting meeting was a means for the Nazi regime to symbolically wave its flag over its coveted territories.

For the opposing military camp, sports meetings were also a way to physically and mentally prepare the resistance. Stalinist and social-patriotic organisations tried to organise a 'counter-Olympics' in Barcelona in July 1936, aiming to dragoon proletarians behind the flag of anti-fascism. If this sporting project didn't happen, due to the Francoist coup d'etat, it didn't stop the ideological adhesion to the future bloc of the Allies. Sport thus made its own small contribution, in one way and the other, to what was to become a new world butchery resulting in over 50 million deaths!

On the still-smoking ruins of this terrible conflict, the world sporting arena would then be dominated by the Cold War right up to the end of the 1990s. International competitions were now marked by the context of East-West opposition, the latter not that far from turning into a nuclear holocaust. During the whole phase of decadent capitalism, sports meetings had all been marked by tensions of an imperialist nature. The universality symbolised by the Olympics is a sinister piece of hypocrisy; these games represent a real basket case of divergent capitalist interests. In the 1920s for example, the vanquished, like Germany, were removed from the Games through revenge and reprisal. In 1948, Germany and Japan were excluded. At the Games of 1956 in Melbourne, the boycott by some countries (Holland, Spain, Switzerland...) was allowed, demonstrating a political reaction against Russian tanks in Budapest and feeding Cold War tensions. Let's note, on the other hand, that at Mexico in 1968, during the massacre of 300 students at the Place of Three Cultures, the great democracies were allowed to participate without any concern for the Games! In 1972, the Olympic Games in Munich were the theatre of acts of war. The Israeli team was taken hostage by Palestinian commandos: the outcome was a bloodbath, the massacre of 17 people! In the 1980's, the Moscow games, a real military hymn to the glory of the Stalinist regime, was boycotted by a   good number of western allies of the rival American bloc, including China, this time in opposition to the Russian intervention in Afghanistan! Balanced on the side of American imperialism, China also made use of the political dimension of sport with its "Ping-Pong" diplomacy. Today, the growth of the power of China onto the world imperialist scene, especially faced with the United States, is accompanied by very aggressive sporting records, revealing its heightened ambitions.

Every time, the states engaged have always presented athletes doped to the eyebrows as if they were 'at war', with 'the enemy', whether in the framework of rival military blocs, within the same bloc or, after their disappearance, between nations. Football has largely illustrated these tensions, feeding the climates of hatred in the crowds. Among the plentiful examples we can take up is the tragic episode of the match between Salvador and Honduras in 1969 for the 1970 World Cup qualifiers. This match was the prelude to a war between the two countries which ended up with at least 4000 deaths!

A mirror of the barbarity of decomposing capitalism

Sport more and more clearly expresses the rottenness of a bourgeois society without a future. The absence of perspectives, unemployment and misery gave birth in the 1970's, and above all the beginning of the 80's, to hordes of xenophobic hooligans under the influence of alcohol, sowing terror and hatred, particularly in the stadiums of the big cities hit by the crisis. They have regularly infested football matches in Britain and elsewhere, as was the case for example in May 1990 with the match of Dynamo Zagreb against Red Star Belgrade which ended up with an arranged battle resulting in hundreds of injuries and several deaths. This in itself contributed to the aggravation of the already existing nationalist tensions which eventually unfolded in the war in ex-Yugoslavia. Among the most radical Serb supporters was their war boss Arkan, specialist of ethnic cleansing and the nationalist later looked for by the UN for crimes against humanity.

Outside of this episode, of which there are many more examples, popular bourgeois sense has it that this growing violence comes from the fact that sport is more and more "gangrened by money and mafias". This obscures the reality that sport is itself a mafia and a pure product of capitalism! Football receives massive investments from a financially hypertrophied sector, from billionaires and broadcasting companies, behind which, in the final analysis, is the state itself. In the context of a catastrophic economic crisis, sport becomes a real casino game, the very symbol of a bankrupt mode of production. The big international sporting authorities, as the IOC (International Olympic Committee) or FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations), the big clubs that feed the hooligans and gangsters, some of which play the role of eminent representatives, the politicians and shady speculators, are involved in one scandal after another where the embezzlement of funds is only the tip of the iceberg[9]. Some brutal financial operations for building sporting complexes, as in China and South Africa in these last years, also witness the widespread violent practice of the expropriation of people living in misery who are thrown out onto the street for the occasion.

Every state and every kind of mafia speculates in the economic sector of sport and gambling. Some even buy entire clubs, like Qatar’s purchase of Paris-Saint-Germain, putting a great deal of money into this unproductive sector. It's the same in Britain for the big clubs. During the transfer window, a real 'meat market' of footballers, the transactions regularly serve to launder 'dirty' money. According to Noel Pons (a specialist in criminality): "Football clubs are of a type CAC 40, the phenomenon of money laundering must thus be at the same level as it can be for these enterprises"[10].

The other side of this coin is super-exploitation: aside from the overpaid stars and the shady agents, thousands of young sportsmen find themselves without contracts and pauperised. This is notably the case with some very young Africans who have been enticed with wonderful promises of life in Europe, who are then unscrupulously thrown onto the streets and who sometimes become paperless. Then there are the fixed matches which have affected an incalculable number of European and world matches. Italian football, which has a lot to answer for, shows that numerous players and leading figures are clearly linked to the political world and organised crime. Even sports which are presented as clean by the media, such as handball in France, are subject to some fixing and corruption. It's more the case with tennis, where the players paid in the corridors do not hesitate to lose matches in order to get more money.

All these gangster practices, which in the last instance are those of the state, don't stop there. They sometimes even threaten the security of the spectators, as for example in 1985 tragedy of the Heysel Stadium in Belgium. Here, under the weight of excited supporters, barriers gave way killing 39 with more than 600 injured! These tragedies are not unique. Built at low cost, overcapacity and crowd movement lead to catastrophes such as at Hillsborough, Sheffield in April 1989: 96 dead and 766 injured. At the Furiani Stadium in Bastia on May 5 1992, down to a question of profitability, a temporary terrace suddenly collapsed just before kick-off leading to 18 deaths and 2300 injured.

Doping: a pure expression of this decadent world

We don't want to finish without raising the frantic and scandalous exploitation of the athletes themselves, in particular being doped to their physiological limits and even to death. At the beginning of the last century, doping substances such as strychnine was already commonplace. Very soon, for the state, "sport became the experimental science of body output which demanded the creation of laboratories of sporting medicine, perfecting experimental material and various tools and opening specialised sporting institutes"[11]. In 1967, everyone was shocked by the death of the British cyclist Tom Simpson on the slopes of Mount Ventoux, but doping had been institutionalised for a long time. As the old doctor of the Tour de France, Jean-Pierre Mondenard underlined: "At this high level sport is a school for cheating". Today the medical aspects and doping are intimately linked. Steroids, anabolics, EPO, blood-transfusions are used all the time in competitions, surrounded by the medical teams of all the big stables. It goes without saying that this phenomenon affects all sports at the highest levels. Rugby for example is concerned with the formation of young players. This is shown in the testimony of a young player of 24 years old, today sick, his career broken: "We arrive at the training centre. Here there's much talk about ‘real’ doping. Some of my team-mates are injecting themselves with substances, some veterinary products provided by a doctor who tours around the club. There's talk of clenbuterol and salbutamol, calf and bull anabolics. You don't buy anything on the internet but try to meet the right person. The doctor makes the first injections and you do the next". He adds precisely: "Omerta is already very strong in the sporting milieu and it's even more so when it concerns adolescents"[12]. Used up and prematurely ruined, sports people suffer from very serious troubles: cardiac and circulatory incidents, renal and hepatitis insufficiencies, cancers, impotence, sterility, problems for pregnant women, muscular-skeletal sicknesses, etc. A good number of athletes of the highest level die before forty! The example of the East German women swimmers, which already revealed all the brutality and capitalist horror of state planning, has since been largely surpassed. All the same, we can recall that like other athletes, these swimmers were doped by force, unknown to themselves. Watched by the special services (Stasi, KGB) in all their movements, these athletes could not communicate with people in the west on pain of reprisals against their families. Some became 'men' on the hormonal level (strong pilosity, libido trouble, hypertrophied clitoris...) thanks to pills and daily injections given by specialised doctors[13]. They were subjected to all sorts of blackmail and to silence by the state. One survey counted more than 10,000 victims! Today we have the very well known case of cycling, the Festina affair[14]. Here the deception of the riders is as much as victims and scapegoats, as the cyclist Lance Armstrong who has recently been stripped of his titles with the loss of 7 of them including the Tour de France and his yellow jerseys. This is witness to the fact that the laws of capital stop at nothing in front of profit.

The 'sporting ethic' is that of capitalism! It can be summed up in a few words: ambition, cheating, corruption, hypocrisy, fight to the death, violence and brutality! The paraplegic sports and games show the same logic of a sordid competition unfolding into a sort of 'war of the prostheses'.

Sport today reveals itself only a pure illusion. It is at best a reactionary utopia and at worst a real swindle.

Conclusion: sport and communism

The attempts to utilise sport in decadence to promote workers' struggle has only accentuated an opportunist gangrene and stimulated conservative forces. There can't be any 'proletarian sport'. At the time of the world revolutionary wave of 1917-23, the setback of the programme of the Red Sport International (founded in 1921) was linked to the historical and political conditions of the moment, those of decadent capitalism and the tragic isolation of the revolution in Russia. The sporting Central Asian Games, organised in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) by the Bolsheviks in 1920, aroused nationalist sentiments and strengthened the local states, a real mosaic of the ex-Russian empire, which only increased political confusion. Worse, it solidified the cordon sanitaire of the Entente troops around the besieged Russian soviets. The Spartakiades of Moscow in 1928, completed the defence of the 'socialist country' through sporting games which already embodied the counter-revolution. The only real 'triumph' was that of Stalinism, exhibiting with pride his 'Bolsheviks of Steel'! Marx underlined that communist society would make "the practical demonstration of the possibility of uniting learning and gymnastics with work and vice-versa". This in the perspective of realising "the complete man"[15]   If Lenin and the Bolsheviks defended such a vision at the beginning, they didn't have the time or the possibility of seeing this work accomplished. Stalinism created the opposite: a medicalised caricature of monstrous robots! It's naturally difficult to glimpse the communist society of the future. But it is certain that sport, such as it exists now, will disappear in a society without social classes. It's much more difficult for an amateur to conceive of that today because it's dependent on seeing a world without addictions[16]. To all sorts of artificial separations between physical and intellectual activity, to forced opposition between players and spectators, must be substituted a human world, unitary, creative and free. Thus, "the complete man" dear to Marx, will find in communism his true social nature: “Only through the objectively unfolded richness of man’s essential being is the richness of subjective human sensibility (a musical ear, an eye for beauty of form – in short, senses capable of human gratification, senses affirming themselves as essential powers of man) either cultivated or brought into being…Just as through the movement of private property, of its wealth as well as its poverty – of its material and spiritual wealth and poverty – the budding society finds at hand all the material for this development, so established society produces man in this entire richness of his being produces the rich man profoundly endowed with all the senses – as its enduring reality.”[17]. This 'rich' man will thus express his true individuality within a superior harmony, through the dialectical unity of body and mind.

WH (December 20, 2012)

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne restarted an old ‘debate’ when he said that all those dependent on the welfare state for their existence were ‘scroungers’. The Labour party along with some of Osborne’s LibDem coalition partners, were astonished at the apparently provocative outburst, which relegated the greater part of the working population to the same status as the unemployed. For Osborne, the unemployed are shirkers by definition of course, and most of his critics have difficulty distinguishing their position from his. It has become fashionable to be tough on the unemployed, and the Labour party is making sure that it fits in with the fashion. This means that in contemporary public discourse everyone has to look as though they believe that unemployment is always a matter of choice.

Thus the Labour party has launched its latest idea of giving some of the longer-term unemployed 6 months of guaranteed work experience. This is not a fixed idea – they are just talking about it. And it only actually seems to apply to a little over 100,000 of the unemployed. But the basic idea is to show how hard they are being on the unemployed, by insisting that anyone offered the opportunity will have to take the job. All media presentation concerning this initiative made it very clear that the purpose was to present the Labour party as just as unyielding as the Tories in attacking the unemployed.

But the main thrust of Labour’s response to Osborne has been to say that the majority of recipients of benefit are not unemployed and not feckless shirkers. It might seem very reasonable and persuasive to argue that those who are working for a living are not shirking and so should not be denounced as scroungers. But we should note that this argument contains, albeit very quietly, the implication that there is indeed a fundamental difference between unemployed and employed workers, and carefully does not address the question of whether unemployment is voluntary. Otherwise they would have to address the issue of how unemployment actually does arise – which is a very awkward question, since it puts into question the very viability of capitalism.

We can note, in passing, that in the 1930s, when the crisis was much less developed than it is now, but when unemployment was at a much higher rate in terms of the working population, the bourgeoisie were braver than they are now. They actually did have a real, public discussion on this very question. Keynes took the view that massive, long term unemployment could not be put down to workers refusing to accept lower wages, pointing out that workers could not actually negotiate their wages individually with a prospective employer as was assumed in the economic models of the time. It was this insight that was the foundation of the Keynsian revolution in economics. In his general theory Keynes tried to show that a capitalist crisis such as the Great Depression of the 1930s was actually possible. This was ‘revolutionary’ from the bourgeoisie’s point of view, because the economic theory of the day said that such a crisis was impossible. Keynes thought the conventional view unsatisfactory given the empirical reality of the Great Depression.

The reason that the bourgeoisie have to avoid the question today, as far as possible, as to whether unemployment is voluntary or not, is that they no longer have a perspective of doing anything about the gradually unfolding drama of mass unemployment (as to whether the unfolding is indeed ‘gradual’, it rather depends on which country one is living in – Greek, Spanish or Irish workers, for example, might not see matters that way). Keynes proposed a series of remedies to try and avoid a repetition of the nightmare of the 1930s. For several decades it looked as if unemployment had been dealt with in the major countries. It was certainly reduced to lower levels after the Second World War, whether due to Keynsian policies of ‘full employment’ or to other factors.

The re-emergence of the open crisis in the late 60s and early 70s saw the re-emergence of long-term mass unemployment and an explicit abandonment by the bourgeoisie of the perspective of full employment. Once it arrived at that point it paid the bourgeoisie, obviously, to be as evasive about the issue as possible. Since they cannot avoid referring to the problem of unemployment altogether, the only remaining option is to blame the phenomenon on its victims. Hence the pervasive implication in the pronouncements of the bourgeoisie, without being too explicit, that unemployment is indeed voluntary.

This takes us back to the situation before Keynes, except that there is no question now that the bourgeoisie knows that it is trapped by the crisis and it just has to make the best of it as far as ‘explaining’ what is going on. The British bourgeoisie can see that the early promises of the current government about a ‘recovery’, following stern measures to get the state’s deficit under control, have been swept away by the reality of the crisis, so that entire line of argument is dead in the water. The Labour party might like to say ‘we told you so’, but they dare not do this seriously because they may actually have to take over the responsibility of managing the crisis again quite soon. There is no point building up expectations that they could do better in terms of running the economy. There is so little room for manoeuvre, whoever is in charge. The bourgeoisie is already muttering about the possibility of a ‘triple dip recession’.

Having said all this about the bourgeoisie’s evasions, there is one true point in what Osborne said that we should note. All workers are indeed in the same boat. If the unemployed are scroungers then so are the working population. Destitution, in other words, is completely general. It affects all workers to more or less an extent, and it affects a great many employed workers profoundly as well as the unemployed. Many employed workers – especially in London where the price of accommodation is exceptionally high and getting higher – are completely dependent on state hand-outs to live at all. The rent for a modest flat for a family in London, even in the less expensive parts, is as much as two thirds or even the whole of the wages of many workers.

Even Labour leader Ed Miliband, despite his efforts to divide the working class into the deserving and undeserving poor, is right to point out that the majority of benefits go to those in work. We should follow Marx and always note when the bourgeoisie speaks the truth – they cannot always avoid it. The reason that workers are reduced to living on benefits is because their wages are below the level required to maintain the reproduction of labour power. In other words wages are not enough to live on. It is really as simple as that, and this is not an exaggeration. The London Evening Standard was shocked to discover that there are children in London who are actually starving. The dozens of soup kitchens set up across London don’t only feed those sleeping rough or in hostels for the homeless.

Marx, let us note, was well aware of these issues and how they affected the working class. In Capital Marx deals with employers who rely on the workers subsisting on ‘relief’ as it was then called, provided by the local councils, to be able to afford the required amount of bread for their families that was regarded as the subsistence level. Similarly Trotsky in the 1930s denounced the situation where workers in the US who were actually employed nonetheless had to live on charitable hand-outs because their wages were insufficient to maintain life. Neither Marx nor Trotsky deal with such employers kindly. But both these marxists were realistic – they knew that the first response of the bourgeoisie to a crisis is to try and reduce the wages of the workers below the level required to reproduce labour power – at least below the currently accepted level.

It is a pity that Marx did not live to pronounce on a state controlled system which, in a period of almost permanent crisis, has more and more been given the task of maintaining wages permanently below the basic requirement to maintain life for a great part of the working class. This is the system we now refer to as the ‘welfare state’. The product of the period of expansion after the Second World War, the welfare state was initially a vehicle for some significant improvements in working class living standards. But it was established at a considerable price: not only the horrors of the war itself, but a considerable increase in social control, since the mechanisms of welfare aim to reduce the working class to a mass of individuals whose well-being is confided to the paternalism of the state.

It is reasonable to think that Marx’s polemics against such a system, whereby the bourgeoisie foist their welfare and dependency culture on the working class, would be something to read – and no doubt he would be particularly scathing about those ‘radicals’ and leftists who never tire of telling us that the welfare state is a gain won by the workers in struggle and even a ‘socialist’ sector of the economy. The bourgeoisie’s supposed ‘denunciations’ of the welfare state – of their own monstrous system that reduces the workers to the status of permanent beggars – would pale beside the denunciations of the workers’ movement if the workers were better able to affirm themselves politically than they are at present. It is only the working class, after all, that contains within itself the historical perspective of ridding us of the capitalist state altogether. 

Hardin 11/1/13

After the ill-treatment of people with learning disabilities was filmed by Panorama, Winterbourne View has been closed, more inspections have taken place, and 11 care workers have been convicted. Between 400 and 1200 ‘excess’ and ‘unnecessary’ deaths between 2005 and 2008 at Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust have been investigated and reported on. Health minister Jeremy Hunt and the Chief Nursing Officer for England have emphasised the need for “care” and “compassion”.

The scandals have been exposed and investigated, scapegoats tried and convicted, platitudes uttered, and future inspections will be carried out by a new body with a new name, the Care Quality Commission. So we can all sleep confident in the safety and compassion of our health and care services … except for the small detail that the whole process takes us no closer to understanding why such things happen.

‘Nurses who don’t care ‘’should resign’’[1]’

When things go wrong the ruling class are always quick to blame workers, whether they are nurses and care workers, as in these scandals, or train or coach drivers following an accident. This hypocrisy is truly nauseating.

When NHS services are shut down months before the end of the financial year (such as i-Health in East London) because there is no more money, leaving patients suffering from their illnesses for longer, where is the ‘compassion’ in that? When new treatments – that can protect sight in macular degeneration, or give a cancer sufferer a little longer – are judged on cost through the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, where is the ‘compassion’ in that?

Then there is the effect of all the targets that have to be achieved in the NHS: “For every condition there is a guideline to follow, a reward for doing so scrupulously, and a penalty for falling short. Patients matter less as individuals than they do as units in a scheme with a public health objective in mind.” (BMJ 18/12/12).

There was no golden age in the NHS. The British state only became interested in the health of the working class when it discovered they were unfit to fight in the Boer War. The NHS grew out of the Beveridge Report in World War II, and the need for labour in the years that followed. It was always limited by delays and underfunding. Now it is no longer in their interests to spend so much money on it.

Jeremy Hunt wants a special sort of compassion from nurses and doctors in order to be able to live within the limits on the NHS, and deny services that are not funded, in a kindly and considerate way. No wonder communication skills are now taught and examined – including, for GPs, the skill of saying “no”.

And no wonder burnout is such an important problem. This is not just a question of overwork but above all stress, which includes the stress of feeling unable to do the job as it should be done. Burnout makes it much more difficult to feel compassion, even if a professional is expected to behave in a proper professional manner regardless of how they feel at the time.

When doctors, nurses and care workers are unable to show appropriate compassion this is most often the result of the conditions they are working in, whether through lack of resources to make their compassion count, or the destruction of their normal compassion by years of working in a system characterised by daily banal and bureaucratic inhumanity.

As for resigning due to lack of compassion – just imagine trying to get Job Seekers Allowance after leaving, or refusing to take, a job on such grounds.

Not just Winterbourne View, not just private hospitals

“Mencap and the Challenging Behaviour Foundation have just published a report ‘Out of Sight’ which details a number of serious incidents of abuse at other private hospitals including physical assault, sexual abuse and over medication. The report calls for the government to close these large institutions which are mostly operated by the private and not for profit sector”[2]. In other words the same lesson about care of people with learning disabilities and large impersonal institutions as was drawn from similar problems 30 years ago. The difference is that the institutions today tend to be privately run, with only 10% of those in residential care run by social services. Today it is all too easy to equate economy with private profit: “The private sector in particular recognised there was money to be made if you set up nice looking purpose-built homes for some of the most dependant and challenging people. The care could be provided more efficiently (cheaper) in large institutions. A simple case of the economies of scale that could be achieved in catering, care and management costs by replacing a dozen small homes each providing care for four or five people with a ‘hospital’ providing beds for 60 or more residents.” The use of such facilities, with their economies of scale, results from the need for social services departments to keep costs down in line with stretched budgets.

With the British economy, being much stronger than the Greek, we do not face the same level of cuts (see Curing the economy kills the sick [100]). Nevertheless, if we look at the plans to save money in the NHS being rolled out at the moment, we can see that the difference is one of degree and not principle. The plan is to make £20 billion in savings in the 4 years to 2014/15, with an estimated £5.8 bn saved in 2011/12. However despite freezing pay, freezing what Primary Care Trusts pay for healthcare and cutting back office costs (i.e. administration jobs), the National Audit Office has estimated that the real saving is more like £3.4 bn. Because of this shortfall, the cuts to come, we can be certain, will hit both patient care and healthworkers’ pay, conditions and jobs. It will also involve the regulation of health care assistants – people employed to take on aspects of the nursing role that used to be the province of more qualified staff. It used to be called ‘dilution’, now it’s called ‘skill mix’. All this will come in whatever compassion nurses and doctors have for their patients, or indeed the compassion the sick may feel for their carers.

Preparing the ground for the next attacks

Nurses compassion will be measured, according to Jane Cummings, chief nurse for England! As if you could trust the capitalist state to measure such things in a meaningful way! The Prime Minister wants patients in hospital to use the “friends and family test”. “Mark Porter, chairman of council of the BMA, said, ‘Doctors and the NHS, generally, welcome feedback from patients and their families. However, the friends and family test that has been piloted so far is based on a model developed to test satisfaction with consumer products. We would like to see a full evaluation of the pilot before it is rolled out more widely, as there may be better ways of getting useful information from patients in a form that allows the NHS to improve services’.” (BMJ 7/1/13).

These ‘reforms’ will do little if anything to improve care. They certainly won’t overcome the effects of the planned ‘efficiency savings’. But the media concentration on these scandals, and the campaign about ‘care’ and ‘compassion’, can undermine the confidence we feel in our doctors and nurses in the NHS, and create a climate in which they can be blamed for the inevitable failings that will happen as cuts in the health budget are rolled out.

Alex 12/1/13

The 1980s was a period of important working class struggles in Britain as well as in the rest of Europe and the world. The ‘Thatcherite revolution’, capitalism’s response to the inability of Keynesian economics to deal with the economic crisis, was a means of ruthlessly culling unprofitable industrial sectors and involved a brutal assault on workers’ jobs and living conditions. The classic expression of this policy was the decision to decimate the UK mining industry, which provoked the year-long Miners’ Strike of 1984-5. This struggle was a focus for the whole working class in Britain, but although its defeat came as a bitter blow, the effects of which would make themselves felt even more strongly in the longer term, it did not bring an end to the wave of struggles in Britain. Between 1986 and 1988 there were widespread movements involving printers, BT workers, teachers, health workers, postal workers and others.

Given the historic strength of the trade unions in Britain, none of these struggles gave rise to independent forms of working class self-organisation on the scale of the movements of education workers in Italy or rail and health workers in France during the same period[1]. But even so, just as in other parts of Europe, these movements played a part in stimulating small groups of militant workers to get together outside of the union framework. As in Italy, France and elsewhere, communists often played a significant role in these groups, even if they were expressions of a wider process. But inevitably it is the communist minority – since it tends to have a more permanent existence than workers’ groups produced by the immediate struggle - which has taken on the task of preserving the memory of these experiences and drawing out their principal lessons.

What follows does not in any way claim to be a complete reconstruction of the experience of workers’ groups in the UK during the 80s. It is based mainly on articles published in World Revolution at the time, although the libcom library also contains articles written by other participants in the process and copies of bulletins and leaflets produced by these groups. Obviously we are writing it from our own political viewpoint, but we welcome further contributions, especially by others who can bring first hand knowledge from the time, in order to develop a broader discussion at a time when the formation of similar groupings is once again on the agenda.

Picket and the print strike of 1986

Coming in the wake of the defeat of the miners, the 1986 Fleet Street printers’ strike was another major test in the battle between the classes. It was provoked by the attempts of Murdoch’s News International group to introduce new technology and working practices which meant job-losses and tighter work discipline. As in the miners’ strike, when the NUM concentrated the workers’ energies on achieving a total shut-down of the mining sector rather than going directly to other workers who were also on the verge of struggle (dockers, steel workers, car workers), the print unions kept the struggle locked up in one part of the newspaper industry by insisting on the tactic of closing down NI’s Wapping plant. But whereas in the miners’ strike there was little overt criticism of the NUM by the workers involved in the strike, the effective sabotage of the strike by the print unions was rather easier to see, especially their specious argument that the strike should not be spread to the rest of Fleet Street because by allowing the other newspapers to carry on and capture NI’s sales, the blockade of Wapping would force Murdoch to his knees.

It was in this atmosphere that the unofficial strike bulletin Picket appeared. Compiled by both printers and others, it provided regular updates on the progress of the strike and ran to 43 issues, all of which can be found in the libcom library[2]. It was very quickly condemned by the union officials, prompting the ICC (WR 95, June 1986) to publish an article expressing its solidarity with the bulletin:

Picket: the need for a break with unionism

At a time when the police and the print unions are trying to ram home the isolation of militant printworkers and complete their defeat, it’s no accident that they should create a minor witch-hunt against the comrades who produce Picket, a bulletin that’s a direct product of the printers’ strike. For months the TUC, the NGA and SOGAT[3] have tried to blame violence at the Wapping demonstrations on outside agitators (ie revolutionaries, workers, the unemployed expressing their solidarity). Now they have discovered an “enemy within”.

Bill Freeman, the print unions’ ‘national picket co-ordinator’ has said he “deplored its contents” and that “steps were being taken to locate its authors and prevent its publication” (Guardian 12/5/86). With the print unions more and more in collaboration with the police, militant pickets had better watch out for repression from the unions who won’t hesitate to finger them to the cops. We solidarise with Picket against any attempts by the unions or the police to silence it.

The hostility of the union leadership to Picket is a class hostility to any attempt by the workers to break from the hegemony of the left and the trade unions. That the leftist press has totally ignored Picket is characteristic, as it is not an ‘official’ trade union organ, nor the product of a leftist sect, nor a rank and file front group.

As they say themselves, Picket is produced by “printworkers”, “SOGAT/NGA pickets” and is “not connected to any group or party”. It is a workers’ bulletin which expresses criticisms of the TUC and the print union leadership at a national and branch level. It contains descriptions of the activities of the pickets in the print strike, letters from supporters and critics, tenants in Wapping and other practical information. While this kind of information is a vital component of any strike bulletin, this emphasis is at the expense of any analysis or attempt to use the bulletin as a focus for the organisation of militant printworkers.

Picket is not a political group with political positions and an orientation for the struggle, but an expression of militants who are trying to fight back against the capitalist offensive. However, hostility to the TUC, the police, the print unions and the bosses is not enough, nor is combativity on its own. But Picket refuses to offer any slogans, “which have come to be the method of hypocrisy”. This comes from a fear of being like the unions or the left whose slogans are not hypocrisy but lies to disorientate the working class. In fact Picket do have a perspective, that “the strike will be won by picketing”. This fixation on one form of action ignores the need to extend the struggle to workers in other sectors.

They criticise the TUC for having “worked overtime to contain the strike, stop it and then sink it. They want to get control over the growing picketing movement in order to demobilise it”. But there is no criticism that could not be found in the more extreme leftist press. In the end the touchstone of a working class orientation is the push for extension and self-organisation, which inevitably means outright opposition to the whole union apparatus. Picket says “the sacked printworkers need to build on their own organising abilities to picket. It remains for ordinary pickets to take complete control of the strike”. We agree with this, but Picket undermine their position by putting self-organisation as only rank and file action against union “sell-outs”. Today the production of Picket is a thorn in the side of the union leaders, but without an attempt to go beyond being just an information sheet with militant comments, tomorrow it could well end up as just another voice for rank and file unionism. RJ (address for contact with Picket supplied).

In World Revolution 103, April 1987, with the definitive defeat of the printer’s strike we published a balance sheet of Picket’s activities:

Picket: balance sheet of a struggle group

One of the most significant expressions of the maturation of the present international wave of workers’ struggles is the appearance of small groups of militant workers organising outside the unions in order to push forward the extension and self-organisation of the struggle. With the official winding down of the printers’ strike in Britain, it is an appropriate time to draw a balance sheet of the group Picket which emerged from this struggle.

The appearance of struggle groups is intimately bound up with workers’ growing distrust for the trade unions. After the railway strikes in France, for example, a group of workers from the electricity industry produced a leaflet ‘To all electricians and gas workers, to all workers and unemployed’ in which they showed how the railworkers’ general assemblies had functioned, and how the unions kept the strike isolated in one sector.

The ICC’s section in France pushed for the formation of such groups. In particular our militants in the post office participated in a group which put out a leaflet showing “it is necessary to prepare the struggle:

- by establishing contacts and information between different centres

- by preparing the largest possible unification at the base, between unionised and non-unionised

- by proposing the most unifying demands for all workers”

Membership of the group was open to all who agreed on the main lessons of the rail strike:

 - that general assemblies take the decisions, elect the strike committees and the revocable delegates

- that it’s the general assemblies which are charged with extension to other sectors

These struggle groups are not new unions. They aren’t nor can they be the embryo of future general assemblies or strike committees.

However, such groups can play a very important role:

 - making contact and forging links between different sectors during and even before struggles;

 - drawing lessons from previous struggles;

 - defending the need for all to struggle and not to stay isolated in one sector;

 - not leaving the unions the monopoly of information.

Picket: a gain of the struggle

The group Picket formed by printworkers and others around the struggle at Wapping was an expression of the same process within the class. It was by no means as clear about the anti-working class role of the unions as the groups in France, But precisely because of the strength of trade unionism in Britain it was of considerable significance that such a group should appear outside the structure of the unions, and that so many of the printworkers involved in the struggle should look to it as a valuable source of information and encouragement to their fight.

Picket above all reflected the workers’ distrust in the official structures of the unions. In contrast to the miners’ strike, which was characterised by a loyalty to the NUM, the print strike ended with the workers expressing a strong feeling of having been ‘sold out’ by the print unions, even if this was largely put in terms of criticisms of the Dean-Dubbins leadership of SOGAT and the NGA. The pages of Picket were thus frequently given over to bitter criticisms of the print union hierarchy and the TUC and other unions for sabotaging any solidarity with the printers.

In the same way, just as the printers’ strike in its most dynamic phase contained a real push towards solidarity and unity with other workers, so Picket expressed a certain understanding of the necessity for the extension of the struggle. In one issue, for example, they recognise that a weakness of the miners’ strike was that “most activists were sucked into the fund-raising circuit”; in another they insist, in response to a letter advising the printers to rely on the leadership of the London branch representatives, that “the pickets are the leadership of the strike...Extending the strike will be done by picketing, not as you outline it. And it is necessary to link the strike to other workers. Ours in a common struggle”.

Picket’s fatal flaw

It cannot be said, however, that this call for extension was central to Picket’s activities. On the contrary, the fundamental weakness of Picket was that it never seriously challenged the printers’ illusions that their demands could be won if only they could mount a really effective blockade of News International.

Unlike the leftists, Picket did not ask the workers to put their trust in union officials even at the most ‘rank and file’ level. But publishing page after page celebrating the initiative and self-activity of the pickets was completely inadequate when that activity was caught up in dead-end strategy. In fact, it could only mean tail-ending the most radical postures of the unions.

As one unattributed letter Picket received rightly said: “the organisation and activity of the strikers has contained elements both of autonomy from the structures and processes of capital, and of dependence on them”.

This equally applies to Picket itself, which on one page could attack ‘the unions’, on another criticise only ‘the leadership’ and very uncritically advertise the activities of rank and file union bodies; which could talk about extending the struggle while at the same time tirelessly propagating all the fixations on blockading Murdoch’s publications, on the battles with the police at Wapping, on abusing scabs – all of which became part of the union trap to prevent the extension of the struggle.

The need for a balance sheet

Such ambiguities are inevitable in a grouping thrown up by the immediate struggle. They can only be overcome through a continuous process of discussion and confrontation of ideas within the class. The last words of the last known issue of Picket (no 43) seem to indicate the beginning of an attempt to draw some lessons after the set-piece confrontations at the ‘anniversary’ celebrations: “But the real cause of it all, Murdoch’s production and distribution, continued totally unhindered, certainly making more than a few pickets go away thinking that they should have a rethink of strategy”.

Unfortunately, Picket itself does not seek to stimulate any such a rethink. In the previous number, months after the struggle has been effectively defeated, and two weeks before it was officially called off, Picket continues with its usual triumphalist proclamations: “we raised the stakes” and “if NI think they can beat is , they take on not just us, but our history”. Workers can hardly draw lessons from their defeats if they can’t recognise defeat when it’s staring them in the face! In fact this blindness was conditioned by Picket’s unwillingness to raise a discussion about the real needs of the struggle.

Symptomatic of this was that Picket never called for the holding of general assemblies to discuss the aims and methods of the strike. Equally significant was Picket’s extreme reluctance to engage in discussion with proletarian political organisations – those who most unambiguously defended the necessity for the struggle to break out of the Wapping trap. It is positive that Picket reprinted articles on the print strike or on Picket itself from World Revolution, Workers Voice and Wildcat. But these were printed without comment and without any attempt to distinguish them from similar reprints of articles from the leftist press.

In a previous article on Picket (WR 95) we said that if it did not seek to provide a focus for discussing and analysing the printers’ struggle, it could end up as another voice for rank and file unionism. Picket was indeed drawn deeper and deeper into this trap. But, at the time of writing, the main danger of this inability to draw out the lessons of the struggle seems to be that Picket will simply vanish without trace – precisely at the time when the most militant workers need to reflect on the causes of the defeat at Wapping and the perspective for participating in future struggles. This need exists not only in the print, but at British Telecom, among the miners, the teachers and throughout the class. Picket itself may not be equal to the task. But its very appearance shows that the development of other workers’ groups and struggle committees is now definitely on the horizon in Britain as elsewhere.   L’A

In the second part of this article we will look at initiatives to form workers’ groups in others sectors during this period: health, post, and education.

It’s always difficult - and unwise - to make precise predictions about the international situation, particularly as imperialist tensions and conflicts take on a more irrational and chaotic character. However, we can say with some certainty that, whatever the specifics of events in Syria, whether the regime falls or not, there will be more fighting, more bloodshed and the greater likelihood of the war worsening in Syria itself and extending beyond its borders. To a large extent outside forces are already involved in the dynamic towards greater bloodshed and instability: Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah on one hand backing the regime, and on the other a whole basket case of interests, rivalries and potential conflicts: Turkey, the Gulf states, France, Britain, the USA, Germany, Jordan, Egypt, to name the major players, alongside, and often manipulating, the various rebel forces and factions, and then throw in al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Kurds and the Palestinian factions. The intervention of all these imperialist gangsters, big and small, augurs badly for the populations and stability of this region.

The regime fights on

Various countries and bodies have been predicting the fall of the Assad regime for many months now. We are not military experts and we cannot draw on first-hand information from within the country, but the fall of Assad still doesn’t look imminent. On 6 January, in a Damascus opera house, Assad put forward what was billed as a ‘peace plan’ that was really a call to his military, which his clique is totally identified with, to deepen the war. He looks set to stay on whatever, to the point of implementing a scorched-earth policy, which would only be an extension of what’s already really happening. While his regime has been increasingly threatened and undermined by the rebels’ offensives against its positions, so far this has led to a contradictory situation. On the one hand Assad is more and more under pressure; at the same time, the more his falls seems likely those forces and groups (the Alawite, Christian, Druze and Shia elements) who fear that a take-over by the rebels – among whom the Sunni fundamentalist element has gained considerably in strength - will result in pogroms against them have been driven into a desperate attempt to cohere behind Assad.

What remained of the protests of 18 months ago has been broken. His military seems to be generally in control of the densely populated south-west, the main north/south highway and the Mediterranean coast. Although the opposition have taken some, the Syrian military hold bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can destabilise rebel-held areas at will, making territorial gains for the latter tenuous. Another aspect of Assad’s speech that wasn’t directed solely towards his army was the overtures made towards the Syrian Kurds in order to strengthen their position, if not their full allegiance, against his own enemies. But the major backer of the regime is Russia and despite some diplomatic noises against their man (played up by the west), the Russians remain fully behind the regime for the foreseeable future. They, like the Iranians, have to cling to him desperately, and do so with some very heavy ordnance. The Guardian, 24/12/12, reported that Russian military advisers and crews are manning a sophisticated missile defence system, making a western ‘no-fly zone’ and the general situation even more problematic. These defences have been strengthened since the Israeli strike on the nuclear site of al-Kibar in 2007 and again at the start of the genuinely popular Syrian uprising in March 2011: “... the air defence command comprises two divisions and an estimated 50,000 troops - twice the size of Gaddafi’s force - with thousands of anti-aircraft guns and more than 130 anti-aircraft missile batteries”. The placement of long-range S-300 Russian missiles is a possibility but not confirmed. For the Russians, Syria also holds their largest electronic eavesdropping base outside its territory in Latakia and it has a naval base on the Mediterranean at Tartus. The Russians will not give up easily on the present Syrian regime and the assets it provides .

Unlike Libya, Germany was quick to become involved here, placing Patriot missiles and its troops on the Turkish border. These were followed by the USA, Dutch and Norwegians under the NATO umbrella. NATO is is hiding behind the defence of its member Turkey which itself is becoming more aggressive. American and European forces are thus getting directly involved, with differences amongst themselves, in a confrontation with not just Syrian forces but Iranian and Russian interests which have formidable military force to back them up. Germany increasingly has its own imperialist ambitions to put forward, even though it may antagonise Russia, and Britain and France have been at the forefront of promoting the opposition forces, including, along with the CIA, the use of their special forces and intelligence services. Again there seem to be rivalries here, expressed in diplomatic circles, between France, Britain and the USA - with the latter getting a freer hand now that the ‘fiscal cliff’ problem has been temporarily shelved and new foreign and security bosses have  been put in place by the Obama clique. The appointment of Chuck Hagel to head the Pentagon and ‘terrorism adviser’ John Brennan to lead the CIA not only reinforces clandestine operations, special forces work, drone attacks against army ‘boots on the ground’; it also seems to be more bad news for Israel. Hagel has been accused by Republicans of being soft on Iran and weak defending Israel. This comes on top of the destabilisation of Syria, which is the last thing that Israel wanted to see; and now the latter is planning a wall on its borders along the Golan Heights to keep out the jihadists who are swarming into Syria. The recent Egyptian/Iranian intelligence services rapprochement must also be a worry to Israel and the United States.

Britain promotes its imperialist interests

Along with France, Britain has played a leading role in the anti-Assad front. In order to help reconstruct the discredited opposition forces of the Syrian National Council, and quickly following a conference in Doha, Qatar, meetings across several government departments were held in London in late November, including representatives from France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and US military personnel, with the aim of forming a general strategy and helping to reorganise the Syrian ‘revolutionaries’[1]. According to official accounts alone Britain has provided aid amounting to £57 million to the rebels up to October last year. This obviously doesn’t include the vast amounts spent on undercover activity, logistics and surreptitious provisions. The British army, under its chief of defence, General David Richards, is or has drawn up contingency plans to provide Syrian rebels with maritime and air support (Guardian, 12/1212), but given the obstacles outlined above this would be a major escalation of danger. One thing for sure though is that as British troops are being ‘drawn-down’ in Afghanistan, many are going to the Gulf, reinforcing British land and naval bases in Bahrain, strengthening forces in Qatar and the UAE and “forming close tactical-level relationships” in Jordan. And although there’s a great deal of state secrecy around the issue, there’s no doubting growing British support for the Muslim Brotherhood which is very active in the Syrian opposition and across the wider region (not least Egypt). Britain, along with the other western protagonists, has raised and kept the issue of Syrian chemical weapons alive in order to provide a possible motive for direct intervention. But even if intervention happens this can only lead to a further bloody fiasco.

The Syrian opposition

The old Syrian opposition of the Syrian National Council, with its long-term exiles and links to the CIA and the US State Department, was totally discredited. The new opposition, to give it its full title, the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, is now recognised as ‘the legitimate representative of the Syrian people’. This new bunch of gangsters, formed in late November in a conference at Doha and consolidated at a meeting in Morocco on 12 December, from which the Free Syrian Army network was sidelined, and which was recognised by more than a hundred countries, reflects many of the problems of the current situation, including faction fights between the major powers of France, Britain, the USA and Germany, and the fact that Syria is a prized strategic crossroads. The most controversial aspect of the new opposition is its fundamentalist leanings, which shows the west, once again, playing with the fire of ‘holy war’. The nature of the opposition more closely reflects its masters in Saudi, Qatar and the other Gulf states where these Sunni leaders promote radical, religious-based ideologies that have fuelled anti-western sentiments for some time now. These regimes, as autocratic and vicious as Assad’s, have no time for the ‘democratisation’ process that the USA is attempting to foist on them and this represents a further division among the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’.

Al-Qaeda’s dead, long-live al-Qaeda

In Syria, jihadists are pouring in from everywhere, different poisonous fractions representing the interests of different countries; some brought in by the intelligence services of the US and Britain, some from the Gulf states, and a multitude of ‘freelancers’ from countries including Libya, Tunisia, the Balkans, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq. The most ruthless, organised and efficient of these groups has been Jahbat al-Nusra. These fighters were declared a ‘foreign terrorist organisation’ by the US State Department on 10 December. Despite promises made to the US by the opposition to break with them, “...coordination continued on the ground. This is why the US deputy secretary of state found himself isolated in Marrakech when he classified al-Nusra a terrorist organisation. The British and French remained silent, as did the EU” (The Guardian, 18/12/12) . We’ve underlined this last bit because of the clear divisions it shows between these countries and the USA. The leader of the new Syrian opposition, Mouaz al-Khatib, has even lectured the US on the merits of al-Nusra and the virtues of martyrdom. The Muslim Brotherhood also condemned the US decision as “wrong and hasty”. Al-Nusra, which has led the fighting in Aleppo and in the suburbs of Damascus, the overrunning of the Sheik Suleiman base in the north while spearheading gains elsewhere, is an al-Qaeda front. It has indiscriminately targeted all non-Sunnis, military or not, and in Syria we see a sort of Sunni accord with them, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists for the time being. The Gulf states are supporting all three with the British and French their silent partners. It’s long been thought that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the expanding Sunni terrorist organisation, would get involved in Syria and now they have and are in the forefront of it. The leader of al-Nusra is Abu Du’a who is also the emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The perspectives are grim

We haven’t even begun to mention the Kurds who also play a major part on the imperialist chessboard in and around Syria. Just like al-Qaeda coming from Iraq to Syria, so too are Iraqi Kurds training Syrian Kurds to fight (New York Times, 7/12/12). This itself presents the prospects of a wider conflict with sectarian strife, pogroms and ethnic conflict among people who previously lived side by side. The working class exists in numbers in this region but it is weak and has been further weakened by this conflict which, far from being a ‘revolution’, is a bloody imperialist war. Tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands wounded and traumatised, possibly millions displaced and people in Syria starving to death or dying for lack of care. The more immediate successes that there are for the ‘rebels’, the more they are falling out amongst themselves: looting in Aleppo for example, assassinating and killing each other over the spoils. While the regime deals out its own form of death and destruction, the opposition have been engaged in their own atrocities, beheading and massacres. To call this inter-imperialist nightmare a ‘revolution’, as groups like the Socialist Workers Party have done, is obscene but this is not the first time that such groups have supported Islamic fundamentalism for their own sordid ends - just like the British government. 

Baboon 9/1/13

(This article was contributed by a close sympathiser of the ICC.)

There is much talk now in all sorts of bourgeois media all over the world about the glory and resurgence of the ‘emerging’ countries and their economy. The media is never tired of highlighting that these countries are turning out to be the new locomotive of the global capitalist economy. The significance of their role in resolving the intensifying crisis of world capitalism is also being asserted ceaselessly. There is also talk of the shifting of the balance of economic power and importance towards the emerging countries such as China, India, Brazil etc. These countries are becoming more and more important to world capital.

But it is becoming more and more impossible for the bourgeoisie to keep intact the mask over its inherent hypocrisy. The material conditions of world capital are forcefully tearing asunder this mask more and more each passing day. Its inhuman inner reality is being more and more exposed. The bourgeoisie, its scholars and apologists, never tire of boasting about its commitment to humanitarianism and its achievements in ensuring human rights and values everywhere in the world. Perhaps these human rights and values are not meant for the working class! To the bourgeoisie they seem to be nothing but parts in the machinery for commodity production for more profit!

Height of hypocrisy exposed!

Not caring a straw for all this bourgeois propaganda, boasting and tall claims, a devastating fire broke out in Tazreen Fashions, the biggest garment factory  in Bangladesh on 24th November, 2012. This factory is situated in a place very near to the capital of the country. According to official reports 112 workers were burnt to death in this inferno. But this crime of Bangladeshi capitalism was aided and abetted in every way by the so called ‘civilized’ and developed fractions of world capital. The reality of the actual fatality and  the casualty figures is very likely to be much higher and different from the official estimates, figures and reports. Fire service officials have found that the nine storey factory building had no valid safety license and it had permission only for three floors. 

A high-power government investigation committee has concluded that it was a case of sabotage. The chief of this committee has told PTI ( Press Trust of India) that the workers were told to stay inside for a “fire drill” and were killed in the horrific blaze. According to him “it appeared a case of arson. It was a case of sabotage when the victims were forced to stay inside to be burnt to death"*.According to Mr. Khandker, an additional secretary of the home ministry,  “The iron gates were closed immediately (after the fire broke out) so the workers could not run out to safety and they (culprits) asked workers to stay inside for ‘fire drill’ …..if it was really a fire drill, it would have required the workers to evacuate the scene in quickest possible time”*.  Mr. Khandker did not suggest the motive behind it despite speculation that the country’s fast growing crucial garments sector was exposed to an international conspiracy.  

According to  international labour activists the garment factories in Bangladesh produce clothes and garments for global clothing brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Gap and those sold by Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco. This fatal accident in the workplace by the breaking out of a devastating fire is no exception. Such fatal accidents in workplaces are quite common not only in Bangladesh but in most of the ‘emerging countries’ and rising economic powers such as India, China etc. The worsening working and living conditions of the overwhelming majority of working class people, and decreasing expenditure for adequate safety measures, are  the most important conditions for their emergence as rising economic and military powers.

As these emerging bourgeoisie are rising, working class people in the ‘emerging countries’ are suffering and dying more and more due to increasing poverty, misery, starvation,  worsening living and working conditions and increasing indifference to adequate safety measures. The developed parts of the world bourgeoisie and their scholars very often pretend to be sharply critical about the ‘inhuman’ conditions of the work place in the ‘emerging’ countries and blame the bourgeoisie of those countries. But the more ‘civilized’, developed, ‘humanitarian’ and democratic parts of the world bourgeoisie are gleefully utilizing this precarious, pathetic  situation of the working class in the emerging countries to maintain the rate of profit and the share of the world market! What a height of hypocrisy!

Economic conditions today and capitalism's response

World capital has been passing through its phase of permanent crisis since the early thirties. The definitive proof of this phase was forcefully announced by the great depression of 1929. The relative saturation of the world market is at the root of this. Capitalist production can be increased in geometric progression but the indispensable market can expand only in arithmetic progression. So there is every possibility of  a gap between the total amount produced and the total amount the market can absorb. This situation is worsened further when the capitalist production and market has established itself and become more predominant in each and every part of the world, pushing the pre-capitalist sector of commodity production and exchange to a more and more insignificant position. This worsening of the situation was suppressed to some extent in the wake of the second world war, the great devastation that it caused and the increasing state intervention in the economic life of society. But the permanent crisis raised its ugly head again towards the end of the sixties. Since then it has been continuing almost unabated with temporary recovery through the policy of debt and the artificial creation of markets. Continuation of this policy has landed capitalism in an even more precarious situation. It has been able to find no real solution but only two actually ineffective solutions which are being implemented  alternatively or both at the same time in different degrees. These are the polices of more debt and more printing of paper money on the one hand and the policy of austerity and curtailment of expenditure in the social sector on the other. Various capitalist factions are also intent on the curtailment of expenditure for the necessary safety measures in the workplace. Capital can not do otherwise in today’s situation.

Why this frequent recurrence of work place accidents?

As we said above capital cannot but spend less and less for safety measures and resort to further worsening of living and working conditions. This is one of the most important  conditions of its continued existence in this advanced phase of decadence. Running after and maintaining the rate of profit and capturing an adequate portion of the relatively saturated world market by lowering the cost of production and increasing further the intensity of exploitation and work load can only lead to increasing numbers of fatal accidents in the workplace including the transport sector. So what has happened to the hapless workers in the garment industry in Bangladesh can very likely befall working class people in other parts of the world sooner or later. Such accidents and killing of workers are likely to increase in the coming period everywhere in the world. So there is every possibility of the increasing number of fatal accidents both in the productive sector and transport sector which is mostly used by working class people. Accidents in the transport  sector are on the increase in the European countries also.

Effective foolproof measures for the  prevention of accidents or putting an end to their fatality  do  not at all depend on the good will or responsibility of  this or that faction of capital or this or that capitalist state. It is the inevitable consequence of the compulsion of the material conditions of capitalism in this phase of its life. Not only that, diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, plague etc., which were thought to have been banished from society in the European countries, are returning again.

Resorting to increasing attacks on the living and working conditions in such a fully fledged, unhampered  way  is a little bit difficult to practice immediately in the heartland of capital. The advanced fractions of capital need to do this for their survival. But they also need to do it in a very sophisticated, selective  way with high doses of mystification. With this end in view they are shifting more and more of the productive apparatus, particularly the manufacturing sector, to the backward areas of capital. The availability of cheap labor power and worse working conditions in abundance in the emerging economies is pushing them towards the emerging countries. Thus not only the Bangladeshi fraction of capital but the fractions of developed western capital are equally responsible for this workplace massacre of the hapless workers. Thus  they are all most ferocious hypocrites, culprits and murderers.

Mystification galore

The government, media and various sectors of the state apparatus are all busy finding out some scapegoats responsible for this most barbarous burning and killing of such a large number of workers in the garment factory. They are also floating various conspiracy theories against various fractions of native or international capital. All these may be there in one form or another. But indifference to the safety and wellbeing of working class people, and conspiracy and scapegoating are inseparably linked with capital, particularly in this advanced phase of its decadence. All of them are trying their best to hide the truth from the working class people that the world capitalist system today is the real killer. It is everyday killing thousands of people in all parts of the world through poverty, misery, starvation, famine, unemployment, homelessness, exposure to extreme vagaries of weather conditions, intensifying pollution of air, water, environment, disease, pestilence, suicides, drug addictions, drunkenness, terrorism and war. It is also killing hundreds and thousands of people through frequently occurring apparently natural disasters in the root of which is in reality the intensifying greed and competition for more profit of all fractions of international capital.

The sole task of each and every capitalist state today in each and every part of the world is to defend the interest of national or native capital in whatever way possible. The state controls the management of the national economy not only politically but also economically today. State intervention and interference in the economy is indispensable for the survival of each and every national fraction of global capital now. Further intensification of exploitation and worsening of living and working conditions is part and parcel of state policy today. But the state feigns ignorance and resorts to scapegoating of this or that faction of capital or concocts various conspiracy theories.

Did the state of Bangladesh not know that the factory in question produced garments for  the renowned multinational brands mentioned above and resorted to super exploitation for more profit and violated the safety rules? It must have known. But ironically this very  capitalist state has declared a national day of mourning for the workers burnt to death solely for keeping the rate of profit high. Does this not very vividly reflect the height of hypocrisy of the capitalist governments whose raison d’être is nothing but the defense of the interest of capital?

Are these steps not being resorted to with the sole purpose of  mystifying the struggling masses of workers and derailing the process of coming to consciousness?

Working class movements in Bangladesh

There have been reports of vigorous and violent protest movements of the working class people that have taken place in Bangladesh against this enormous death and devastation inflicted on the working class people quite often. They have raised their voice against the extreme negligence of the authority, lack of proper safety measures, lack of concern for the life of the workers and worsening living and working conditions. They seem to have realized that the sole concern of capital today is nothing but more profit and an increased share of the world market through the intensification of their exploitation.

What the working class should do

Working class people should seriously reflect on all these events, in order to clarify about what is really responsible for the frequent recurrence of workplace accidents resulting in the death and maiming of increasing numbers of workers in all parts of the world particularly in the areas of historically backward capital. This reflection will push them towards the conclusion that there is no solution to the frequent recurrence of workplace accidents and massacres within the confines of the present day world capitalist system.  The only solution lies in the ability of the international working class to rise in struggle against  the real monstrous enemy and killer, the global capitalist system. The immediate  struggles against the increasing attacks of capital on living and working conditions all over the world have to be internationally united. These immediate struggles have to be developed into conscious political struggles against the capitalist states. These political struggles have to be further developed to confront and oust the capitalist states in each and every part of the world. There is no other way.

S

This article was written by the ICC's section in India.

* Quotes from The Statesman of 26th December, 2012 from the news report titled ‘Bangla factory fire victims locked inside’.

We are publishing below an article by a close sympathiser of the ICC in India, responding to the notorious rape and murder of a young student in Delhi. It is followed by comments by two other women.

They decided to marry in February, 13. They were returning after enjoying a cinema show. They were waiting for transport on a city highway in Delhi. It was not dead of night. It was only 9.30 p.m. at that time. But just at that evening hour for metropolitan Delhi that heart rending, most pathetic, painful incident took place. They boarded an empty bus; just after getting on it they realized their mistake. But they had already been entrapped by the miscreants. There was no other way out. Six young miscreants got on the bus, beat the partner of the unfortunate girl severely and made him unconscious. Then all those beasts jumped on the helpless girl and sexually assaulted her one after another. Not only that. They struck forcefully the lower abdomen portion of her body with a heavy rod. This damaged seriously many organs in that portion. The inhuman activity did not stop there. The miscreants made her unconscious and tried to throw her out and kill her by running her over.  However she was still alive, somehow enduring all such severe sexual and physical assaults. She was taken to a city hospital in a seriously injured and traumatized condition. After several days spent in the most advanced AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) and several surgical operations  she was transferred to a hospital in Singapore in a most unstable condition. There the hapless girl passed away on 26th December, 2012.

Perhaps that extremely barbarous incident has violently upset the human essence of the inner world of everyone. As a member of the species Homo Sapiens  I am also extremely pained, perturbed and saddened. As a woman I am being obsessed with a sense of tremendous helplessness and lack of security. Since 16th December for quite a number of days I turned my eyes willingly away from the TV set or the newspapers. As if I was trying to flee away from all this. Tears are welling up in the eyes while I am trying to write this. Again and again I am automatically seeing myself in the pathetic condition of that hapless medical student of 23 years. Her unarticulated messages of unlimited mental pain and trauma and protest against the assault seem to appear before me in the form of clearly visible material forms. I am trying to realize the depth of her pain and trauma. Many people are eager to see the photograph of that unfortunate victim of unlimited barbarism. I think of telling them to hold the mirror in front of their own faces. This will enable them to see her photograph.

Every moment our feeling, emotion and creativity is being raped. We cannot transmit the experience and education that we want to the students. We cannot build our life in the way we like. We cannot see the world with the form and content in which we want to see it. This constant suppression of feeling, desire and dream is nothing but another name of rape to me. After struggling against death for ten days the girl passed away. The central government adorned her posthumously with some well chosen and calculated adjectives to show its ‘humanitarian’ concern.

In the heart of Delhi, the Indian capital, hundreds of thousands of aggrieved people, particularly the youth, assembled in the streets spontaneously and demonstrated against this act of unimaginable barbarism. The demand for exemplary punishment for the culprits has been raised from all quarters. Maybe they will be punished very severely. A media hype will be launched by the government, its ‘scholars’ and ‘experts’. TV channels will be involved in competition in holding talk shows, delivering some nice ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’. All this will come to an end sooner or later. This heinous act of barbarism will culminate in ‘history’ one day. And that history will again be repeated, I believe.

Long accumulated anger and grievances burst out in the form of spontaneous, massive demonstrations in response to this incident. Lots of people participated in the silent candle light march and thus articulated their helplessness. Different types of reactions have also been expressed from various other quarters. The leader of the RSS (Rastriya Swayam Sevak Sangha), an ultra rightist militia organization, has said that the western lifestyle of women is responsible for such incidents. A spiritual guru, Asharam Bapu said “she could have stopped the attack if she had chanted God’s name and fallen on the feet of the attackers”. Last year an incident of rape took place in the Park Street area of Calcutta. At that time the government in West Bengal run by a woman chief minister remarked that the character of the woman who went out alone to celebrate the New Year at dead of night was bad.

But in any case there is no doubt that the incident is most contemptible and we cannot but denounce it thoroughly and as strongly as possible. But is it the first? Can we classify the incidents of rape into more or less important?  All incidents of rape are equally contemptible and have to be equally condemned. According to the 2007 report of NCRB (National Crime Record Board) the number of incidents of rape in India is 21,397 whereas that for the USA is 89,241. But a correct assessment and comparison is not possible on the basis of numbers alone. In a country like India where women are held responsible for being raped, many women prefer not reporting the incidents of sexual assault. On the other hand such complaints from those raped women who dare to go the police station are not very often duly recorded by the police officers. In the last month a 17 year old girl from a remote village in Punjab went to the police station to lodge a complaint after being raped. The police refused to record that complaint. After this the girl committed suicide. So we can easily understand that the number of incidents of rape in India will be much more. On the average an incident of rape takes place every 20 minutes in this country. In 2011 numbers of brutal assaults on women were reported in Uttar Pradesh, and according to the report of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) the majority of those assaulted were poor women from remote areas, many of them Dalits (“untouchables”). Political leaders and parties use these incidents solely for political gain.

In spite of all this it seems from the reaction of the government and the political spectrum as if this incident of rape in Delhi has taken place for the first time in India. All leaders and ministers have at present articulated apparently very humanitarian reactions. They have all demanded punishment for the culprits. Chief minister Shila Dikshit of the ruling Congress party has said that she did not have the courage to meet the victim. Sushama Swaraj, a BJP leader, has asserted that the rapists should be hanged. As if hanging the rapists will put an end to the incidents of rape in the future. I am confused. I am not clear about what sort of punishment should be demanded for the culprits. Moreover to whom should we demand this punishment?  Can those people who are themselves drowned in the sea of corruption, crime and falsehood give any justice?

In December 2009 a Russian woman was raped by a state politician, and Santaram Naik, a Congress M.P. from Goa made a vigorous defence of the rape, blaming the victim. In 2011 Bikram Singh Brahma, a Congress M.P. from Assam was accused of rape in the Chirang District. In 2004 in the Manipur region in the north east of India, Indian soldiers picked up Manorama, a thirty two year old woman from home at dead of night, took her forcibly to the nearby military camp, raped her and then killed her. Later on it was reported by the military authority that she was killed in a military ‘encounter’. She was alleged to have been associated with an armed extremist group. The state and government authority is never tired of singing hymns of praise for its military as it is said to be engaged in the defense of the country and security of the people. The military is depicted to be patriotism incarnate by the authorities and the media! This patriotism is nothing but a powerful weapon of the capitalist ruling class to keep the capitalist system intact. That is why this very military is raping and killing innocent women in  the name of ‘encounters’ in various parts of India wherever there is a strong protest movement against the exploitation and repression of the authority. Is there anybody who can be in the seat of judgement in these cases of rape and murder by the state’s armed forces? Is it possible that the culprits will punish themselves? Is any true justice for the exploited and oppressed people possible in this social system? If a decision to punish the culprits is taken at all that will solely depend on the calculation of political gain or loss and the social status of the culprits. There will never be any punishment solely for the tremendous humiliation and mental pain caused to the raped women! The key to the continued existence of the system is the destruction of all human feelings, sentiments, social solidarity and confidence. So is it possible for persons in the top positions of authority to bother about such ‘insignificant’ incidents of rape of unknown, innocent helpless women by its own beloved military personnel?

This extreme degradation of human values is nothing but the manifestation of the advanced phase of decadence of the present day world capitalist system. We can not keep the greenery of the tree intact for any length of time, a tree whose roots have rotted, simply by sprinkling water on the leaves.  In the same way it is not possible for the social system and its different parts, whose roots are also rotten, to do anything correct and justified.  Human values are always being raped by this system. So the roots of the various problems such as rape, barbarous torture in police custody, custodial or ‘encounter’ death, or terrorist attacks very often lie deep inside the whole socio-economic, political, cultural structure  and the dynamics of this society passing through its advanced phase of decadence. This started in the beginning of the twentieth century. This system is absolutely unable to provide the young generation with any positive orientation and perspective. So in the midst of their increasing unemployment, poverty, misery and mental agony sexual perversion turns out to be the only orientation.  The very media, print as well as electronic, which is highlighting this incident of gang rape so much, organizing protest meetings against it  and delivering high sounding sermons for respecting human values and rights of women, doesn’t hesitate to make the physical features and postures of women attractive commodities for more profit in their pages for advertisement. These contradictory roles prove in reality that they are solely concerned with their sordid self interest and nothing else. This may be called ‘media prostitution’.

These incidents manifest nothing but the decomposition of the whole system. We say very often that there are two alternatives in the world today: socialism or barbarism. We are drowning more and more deeply in the expanding ocean of barbarism. Is that not enough for us still now?  So now the only remaining alternative is socialism. We have no other way but to fight for the achievement of the goal of socialism with all our physical and mental capability, time and energy. This is the only way to save humanity from total destruction and put an end to all sorts of exploitation, repression, sexual assaults and violence, not only against women but all human beings.

 PB, 29.01.13

Additional comments

K:  Was there any necessity for sending the gang raped and seriously injured girl to a Singapore hospital in the most unstable condition? Some doctors of AIIMS have pointed out that the arrangements for adequate and effective medical treatment are equally good or better in AIIMS. Is it not a cruel mystification of the Indian government and ruling class to show that they are very concerned and worried about the worsening health condition of the hapless rape victim and arranging for better foreign treatment? This shifting of the girl in the much worsened condition of her health might have contributed to her death. Why was she not transferred to a much better hospital in Europe or USA in the very beginning? It cannot be anything but a mystification. Everything is being done for the political gain of the ruling class.  It is a very traumatic and tragic situation. Not only are the women being victimized but those socially related with the women such as father, husband, brothers are also being victimized and seriously injured or murdered by the miscreants.

The ruling class needs to maintain a very close relation with antisocial elements.  Political parties, police and anti-social elements are in a close alliance.  There is a crisis of the heart everywhere and it is deteriorating each passing day. Lack of security of not only women and young girls but all working class people is increasing. This insecurity has intensified so much that women do not want to have girl child. The ruling class cannot serve humanity in any way today. They cease to remain human beings once they are in power and authority.  So it makes no difference whether the ruling person is a man or a woman.

R (daughter of K): Being a girl I am always worried about  the situation of insecurity. Once I thought that if there is some companion with me when I go out for study this can save me but the reality is that our companion is also being attacked by criminals and they are being attacked first and seriously injured, made unconscious or murdered before attacking the real target, the helpless girl.

At the beginning of the year the scandal of beef products adulterated with horse meat broke, leading supermarkets across Europe to withdraw affected products, particularly processed and ready meals, some of which contained up to 100% horse instead of beef. Horse is of course much cheaper.

For the ruling class the duty to maximise profit and grow capital is a far higher ethic than the health of workers or anyone else who doesn’t own anything – or even simple honesty. In any case, we have been reminded that horse is safe to eat and this is an issue of fraud rather than public health – which ignores the fact that the suppliers have not taken the necessary care to avoid carcasses contaminated by veterinary medicines such as ‘bute’ (phenylbutazone, which was banned from human use due to a fairly rare but very dangerous side effect). If the risk to anyone who has consumed this horse meat is extremely small this is not due to any particular care on the part of the ruling class. Toxic oil syndrome which killed 600 people in 1981 in Spain was due to colza oil intended for industrial use being sold as olive oil. A recent US study[1] showed 69% of imported olive oils were not what they purported to be.

Adulteration of food is nothing new in capitalism and became a particular problem with industrialisation and the growth of towns which needed to be supplied with food. In the 19th Century many substances, including poisons, were added to bread or beer, including alum, plaster of Paris, sawdust, and strychnine. Decades passed, long after the danger of these substances was shown, before legislation was enacted against this practice in the UK in 1860.

Today we have reason to be even more worried about pollution of our food, whether from normal waste or accidents such as Fukushima. Studies have shown high levels of heavy metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, zinc, lead and copper, in water and vegetables due to pollution from mining, smelting and other industrial processes in Turkey, Greece, Nigeria, Egypt and New South Wales in Australia. Whether the ruling class have had any interest in studying it or not we have no doubt that there is even worse industrial pollution in India, China and other ‘developing’ countries. In the 1950s up to 50,000 people were poisoned by mercury in fish at Minamata in Japan, and 5,000 died. There continue to be warnings by the US Food and Drug Administration to avoid eating fish with the highest levels of mercury such as shark and swordfish.

Whatever prompted the media and politicians to get so excited about horse meat labelled as beef  – whether to get the consumer to buy one brand rather than a competitor’s, or for political advantage – it gives us a glimpse of a far wider problem: how the search for profit damages our food.

Alex  28.2.13

A leading figure in a nationwide institution has been accused of rape and sexual harassment. This has shaken many of those who had confidence in the organisation, although others have rallied round to defend him.

This is not a reference to a Scottish Cardinal and the Roman Catholic Church, nor to a Liberal Democrat peer, nor to a dead DJ and the BBC. The latest scandal concerns the ex-National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party.

A Disputes Committee of the SWP (made up mostly of those who knew the accused, but not the victims) decided that no offences had been committed and this decision was ratified by a National Conference of the SWP.

The different institutions have different functions, but they have bred creatures who seem to behave in very similar ways. As a DJ Jimmy Savile seemed to assume that constant access to young girls meant they were available for sexual abuse. Lord Rennard, a Liberal activist since the age of 12, credited with his ability to manipulate the electoral game over a period of thirty years, was accused of “inappropriate behaviour” with at least ten women. He was defended by some LibDems out of loyalty to a man who helped them gain prized parliamentary seats. There was also relief when Eastleigh was retained. Cardinal O’Brien, a vociferous opponent of gay marriage, has been accused of “inappropriate acts” towards fellow priests, an interesting variation of the usual accusations against Catholic clerics. Although nothing has been proved the Church thought it best for the Cardinal not to play a role in the election of a new pope.

While some have resigned from the SWP, Martin Smith continues to function as a leading figure in organisations such as Love Music Hate Racism and Unite Against Fascism. Critics have used the accusations to renew the usual criticisms of the SWP – it’s a cult, they’re Leninists, they oppose feminism. But this is not something new to this political milieu, or specific to the SWP. Back in the 1980s there were all the accusations against Gerry Healy of the WRP - twenty years of gross sexual abuse of women members.

What is significant is how those with power and influence appear to have been able to get away with ‘inappropriate’ behaviour for so long. In reality there’s not a contradiction between the roles of entertainer, spiritual leader, political strategist, leftist functionary, and the behaviour which the bourgeois media currently chooses to vilify. At other moments, in other situations, a blind eye is turned. The leering figure of Silvio Berlusconi is an easy target for ridicule, but variations on his behaviour permeate the corners of all manner of organisations of the capitalist status quo. Ultimately, organisations that have no quibbles with the barbarities of imperialist war are likely to be at ease with their leaders taking personal advantage of their position. In this the SWP (advocates most recently of war in Libya and Syria, as they have been over the decades elsewhere in the Middle East and internationally) are natural bedfellows with parliamentarians, the church and salacious entertainers. 

Car  2.3.13

A billion human beings suffer from malnutrition[1]. To that we must add the increasing misery of a growing mass of impoverished people, a majority of the world population. In spite of technical progress and unprecedented productive capacity a large number of people are still dying of hunger!

How can we explain this paradox? The ruling class has its answers. This tragedy is linked to “running out of resources”[2] and the “population explosion”[3].

In reality the chronic shortage of food spreading like a plague is the product of the capitalist system, of its law of profit. This law leads to an absurdity in the market itself and for humanity: the overproduction of goods. This is the basis of an irrational and scandalous phenomenon that the bourgeoisie largely passes over in silence: waste.

The report of a recent study reveals that “it is estimated that 30-50% (or 1.2-2 billion tons of all food produced) never reaches a human stomach”[4]. Since the study cannot bring to light the profound causes of waste without putting the capitalist system in question, it stays on the surface of the phenomenon, explaining that in Europe and the USA consumers themselves throw food into the bin  as a result of product packaging and marketing (such as  ‘buy one get one free’ promotions). The study does not dare to reveal that waste is above all generated by overproduction and the search for short term profit, leading the industry to make increasing use of inadequate infrastructure and inefficient storage areas with the most significant failures downstream of the production chain. This study forgets to mention that products of poorer and poorer quality cannot be sold for lack of buyers and are piled up in places that are happily neglected if it costs too much to shift them. In order to make economies, and profit, speculative capitalists often end up deliberately destroying goods, particularly foodstuffs. For the same motives “up to 30% of the UK’s vegetable crop is never harvested”. So products are often destroyed in order to prevent the market price falling. For example, some producers who cannot sell their fruit or vegetables, even at a loss, use petrol to burn them to artificially maintain their price.

The same phenomenon exists in the so-called ‘developing’ countries, amplified and even aggravated from the start of the production chain. Here “wastage tends to occur at the farmer-producer end of the supply chain” due to “Inefficient harvesting, inadequate local transportation and poor infrastructure”, leading to colossal losses. The “deficiencies” can be such that “In South East Asian countries for example losses of rice can range from 37% to 80% of total production depending on development stage,…In China, a country experiencing rapid development, the rice loss figure is about 45%, whereas in less developed Vietnam, rice losses between the field and the table can amount to 80% of production”.

The report underlines the sombre reality: “Cumulatively this loss represents not only the removal of food that could otherwise feed the growing population, but also a waste of valuable land, energy and water resources. In the case of water for example, about 550 billion cubic metres is wasted globally in the growing of crops that never reach the consumer…”

According to the engineers writing this report, a simple rational exploitation of existing resources would create “the potential to provide 60-100% more food for consumption … Furthermore, due to the large demand that food production puts on other natural resources including land, water and energy, such an approach offers significant benefits in terms of sustainability and reduced environmental risk.” This ‘common sense’ perspective is impossible to realise within the capitalist system. The problem does not lie in a lack of competence or of will: it lies above all in the contradictions of an economic system which does not produce to satisfy human needs, for which it doesn’t give a fig, but for the market, to realise a profit. This rolls out the worst absurdities, complete anarchy and irrationality.

One of the most scandalous examples is that of children suffering severe malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa, while milk quotas and farm set-aside are imposed in Europe. Meanwhile charities and NGOs are mounting costly advertising campaigns, based on feelings of guilt, to raise funds for milk powder for the starving children who are also without … water! If this were not so tragic it could almost be a joke in very bad taste.

Capitalism is an obsolete mode of production which has become a destructive force menacing civilisation. It generates and activates all the deadly drives and passions. Faced with the growing tragedies which it engenders, its contradictions exacerbate the most irrational and antisocial behaviours. Famine and waste, poverty and unemployment, like wars, are its offspring. But within it grows it negation, its gravedigger, the working class, the exploited class which alone has a perspective for the future. Only the working class can put an end to this rotten system. More than ever the alternative is “socialism or barbarism”.

WH January 2013

Explaining why it decided to downgrade Britain’s AAA credit rating, the credit agency Moody’s tells us that Britain’s “sluggish growth” will in all probability “extend into the second half of the decade”, resulting in a “high and rising debt burden”. And indeed, Britain’s borrowing is already forecast to be £212 billion higher than planned over this parliament.

Britain is therefore facing not just a triple-dip recession, with the economy shrinking in five out of 10 quarters since the summer of 2010 but an out-and-out depression. Britain’s poor performance is second only to Italy’s among the countries of the G7. Investment in the UK economy is 15% below what it was before the open financial crash of 2007.

The human cost of these dry figures? A fall in living standards unprecedented since the 1920s. The average worker has lost around £4,000 in real wages over the past three years. In 2017, real wages are predicted to be no higher than their 1999 level. And although there has recently been a 7.8% fall in official unemployment figures, there has been an increase in involuntary part-time working and a sharp drop in productivity.

The government’s response to this disaster? That the loss of the AAA rating, maintaining which was a central justification for the Coalition’s austerity programme, only goes to show that we must press on regardless. The Tory-LibDem medicine is accelerating the patient’s decline into depression and failing to shrink the UK’s gigantic tumour of debt. And these wise doctors reply: ‘more of the same’.

So the economic policies of the right are proving their utter worthlessness. And less and less people are fooled by the excuse that ‘we are only making up for the 13 years of Labour misrule’ which preceded the present Coalition.

All these points are taken from the article ‘Osborne hasn’t just failed – this is an economic disaster’ by Seamus Milne, published in the Comment pages of The Guardian on 27 February. Milne is one of the most left-wing of The Guardian’s regular commentators. His article demonstrates very clearly the bankruptcy of the government’s economic solutions. But his ‘alternative’ programme no less clearly demonstrates the bankruptcy of capitalism’s left wing.

“The shape of that alternative is clear enough: a large-scale public investment programme in housing, transport, education and green technology to drive recovery and fill the gap left by the private sector, underpinned by a boost to demand and financed through publicly-owned banks at the lowest interest rates for hundreds of years”.

These apparently radical measures go hand in hand with a criticism of the hesitations of the Labour Party. For Milne, Ed Miliband is faced with a “crucial choice”, since the fall in living standards is greatly increasing Labour’s chances of re-election: “So far Miliband has backed a limited stimulus, slower cuts and wider, if still hazy, economic reform. Given the Cameron Coalition’s legacy and the cuts and tax rises it’s planning well into the next parliament, the danger is that Labour could lock itself into continuing austerity in a bid for credibility. As the experience of its sister parties in Europe has shown, that would be a calamity for Labour – but also for Britain”.   

It is arguments like these which show that Milne’s starting point is a fundamental premise of bourgeois ideology: that capitalist social relations, and the political state which maintains them, are eternal, the only possible basis for organising human society.

This is clear at the ‘political’ level: a solution to the economic disaster can be found by pushing the Labour Party further left and engaging in the alleged choice offered by parliamentary elections. The existing system of bourgeois democracy is not to be questioned.

And the state system which was born and has its being in the needs of the exploiting capitalist class is also proclaimed as the instrument which will defend the needs of the vast majority: public investment, public banks, Keynesian policies of stimulating demand. And all within the framework of ‘Britain’, of the nation state. These policies can all be summed up in the phrase: state capitalism.

So just as Cameron, faced with the slide into depression, advocates policies that can only make it slide faster, so Milne, like the TUC in its ‘Alternative for Growth’, advocate the same measures which provoked the ‘debt crisis’ in the first place: economic growth fuelled by vast injections of fictitious capital.

Neither the right or left wings of the official political spectrum are capable of admitting that today’s economic depression is, just like the depression of the 1930s and the world wars that preceded and followed it, confirmation that capitalist social relation as such – the exploitation of wage labour, production for sale and profit, the division of the world into competing nation states armed to the teeth – have become an obstacle to human progress. Neither the right nor the left will admit that we are witnessing the bankruptcy not just of this government or that country, but of the capitalist phase of human civilisation, and on a worldwide scale; that this civilisation has outlived its usefulness and its capacity to be reformed. This is why the only genuine ‘alternative’ is for the exploited of the world to struggle together against all attacks on their living standards, preparing the ground for a social revolution that will halt the accumulation of capital and replace it with a real human community – with communism. 

Amos 2/3/13

“The discovery of gold and silver in America; the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in the mines of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India, and the conversion of Africa into a preserve for the commercial hunting of blackskins, are all things which characterise the dawn of the era of capitalist production.”[1]

In bourgeois mythology the first settlers to America were free men and women who built a democratic and egalitarian society from scratch in the New World.

The reality is that the American proletariat was born into bondage and slave labour, faced barbaric punishment if it resisted, and was forced to struggle for its basic rights against a brutal capitalist regime that most resembled a prison without walls.

Capital’s slave labour colonies

Eager for their share of the spoils, at the end of the 16th century the mercantile capitalists of the City of London set out to plunder the natural resources of the New World. The first English colonies in North America were capitalist enterprises from the start, where even the Puritan pilgrims who embarked on the Mayflower were expected to turn a profit for their wealthy backers. But to exploit this New World capital needed labour.

In Central and South America the Spanish enslaved millions in their thirst for gold. Not finding the expected mineral riches, English capital was forced to turn to the cultivation of the tobacco plant, and for this it needed a huge regimented workforce. The local indigenous people proved too difficult to enslave in sufficient numbers and resisted the violent invasion of their homeland, but fortunately for England’s merchant adventurers a supply of labour existed much closer to home; over the preceding centuries the English peasantry had been driven off its land and, in Marx’s description, “turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded, tortured by grotesquely terroristic laws into accepting the discipline necessary for the system of wage labour.”[2]

These terroristic laws were used to banish so-called “persistent rogues” to “parts beyond the seas”, which meant that tens of thousands of men, women and children deemed a threat to social order and surplus to domestic capital’s needs were simply rounded up and shipped off to work in the tobacco fields of Virginia, where many were worked to death or tortured if they tried to escape. Among the first to be sent were children, half of whom were dead within a year. The largest single group were convicts; and since hanging was the standard punishment for the most trivial offences there was no shortage of ‘criminals’ who could be granted royal mercy in exchange for transportation to the colonies – although death rates were so high that some pleaded to be hanged instead. Others were in effect political prisoners of the English bourgeoisie in its ruthless struggle for domination of the British Isles. In an operation that bears striking similarities to the 20th century Stalinist gulag, royalist prisoners of war, Quakers, English rebels, Scottish Covenanters, Irish Catholics, Jacobites and dissidents of all kinds were disposed of by being forcibly transported to America to be worked to death as slave labour. Ireland had long been singled out by the English ruling class for this kind of treatment and unknown numbers of Irish men, women and children were sold into slavery before and after Cromwell’s bloody conquest and ethnic cleansing.

Nearly two-thirds of all white immigrants to England’s American colonies – some 350-375,000 people – arrived as indentured servants, required to work for anything from three up to eleven years or more in return for their passage and basic needs. Indenture is often presented as a benign contractual system. In reality it was a form of time-limited slavery, as well as a highly profitable business for the merchants involved, who employed recruiting agents to waylay, kidnap or lure the unsuspecting into boarding ship for America, where they became the personal property of their owners and could be bought and sold, punished for any disobedience, whipped and branded if they ran away. Many were children. Even if they survived to the end of their bondage they were far more likely to join the ranks of the proletariat than to own one square inch of the New World. [3]

In its insatiable appetite for profit, capital enslaved anyone it could get hold of without discrimination: Africans, Native Americans, English, Scots, Irish, French, Germans, Swiss... The first African slaves arrived in 1619 but until the end of the 18th century the majority of slaves in America were European.

At first, African slaves were treated more like indentured servants and black and white worked side by side in similar conditions. That fraternization between the two was a real tendency is shown by the early laws passed to expressly forbid it, and the ruling class lived in constant fear of a collective uprising of its slave army, especially on the plantations of Virginia.

Despite the harshness of the punishments they faced, black and white slaves showed their refusal to submit by running away together, engaging in acts of sabotage, strikes, slowdowns and other forms of resistance, including attacks on their oppressors. Discontent grew. In 1663 white servants and black slaves in Virginia plotted an insurrection with the aim of overthrowing the governor and setting up an independent republic.[4] This ended in betrayal and the execution of the leaders, who were ex-Cromwellian soldiers sold into servitude.

Veterans of Cromwell’s New Model Army were said to be involved in all of the servant uprisings in Virginia,[5] and the persistence of radical ideas from the English revolution was an important influence on the early class struggle in America. “Levelling [that is, attacks on the property of the rich with the aim of equalizing wealth] was to be behind countless actions of poor whites against the rich in all the English colonies, in the century and a half before the Revolution.”[6] In 1644, for example, during a Puritan-led coup in Catholic Maryland, tenants and servants, both Protestant and Catholic, took the opportunity to expropriate the landlords and divide their property for their own use.[7]

Insurrection and civil war in Virginia

The influence of the English revolution was clearly shown in the 1676 insurrection in Virginia known as ‘Bacon’s Rebellion’. About a thousand poor white frontiersman, joined by white and black slaves and servants, marched on the capital Jamestown, torched it, and overthrew the colonial government, denouncing its former leaders as “Traytors to the People” and seizing their property. This was by far the largest and most significant struggle in colonial America before the 1776 Revolution, at its height threatening to become a full-blown civil war and spread across the entire Chesapeake region. England almost lost control of its colony and had to send ships and 1000 troops to re-impose imperial rule. In a show of force 23 rebel leaders were hanged.

The immediate cause was the refusal of the colonial governor to retaliate against Indian attacks on frontier settlements, and the insurgents launched their own violent attacks on even friendly Indian tribes. Bacon himself was a landowner and member of the governor’s council, and the rebellion was led by planters who found their advancement blocked by the more than usually incompetent and corrupt clique of landed interests around the royalist governor. Other grievances included heavy and misappropriated taxes, low tobacco prices and English restrictions on colonial trade (the Navigation Acts).

But the rebellion also expressed the resentment of poor white frontiersmen, many of them former servants, who had been excluded from lucrative land grants by the greed of the big landowners and gone west, where they inevitably encountered the Indians. The deep (and justified) fear of the ruling faction was that any attempt at retaliation would instead provoke an armed uprising by the labouring classes who, due to a deepening economic crisis, were facing dire poverty and hunger. According to one member of the ruling class at the time the “zealous inclination of the multitude” to support Bacon was due to “hopes of levelling”.[8]

White and black slaves and servants also joined the insurrection and were among the last to hold out against English forces; the final surrender of the rebels was by “four hundred English and Negroes in Armes” at one garrison, and three hundred “freemen and African and English bondservants” in another. About 80 black and 20 white slaves refused to give up their weapons.[9] But there were also mass desertions by the rank and file of both opposing armies, suggesting the proletariat did not unambiguously support either side in this struggle.

As far as it had any coherent ideology or programme, the leadership of ‘Bacon’s Rebellion’ was closest politically to the Independents, the left wing of the bourgeoisie in the ‘English Civil War’,[10] and saw the insurrection as part of a wider attack on monarchy. Bacon himself appears to have argued for the expulsion of English troops, the overthrow of royal government and the founding of an independent republic with help from England’s Dutch and French rivals.

Not surprisingly the insurrection has been seen as a precursor of the American Revolution and we will return to this in the next article. At the time its real significance was as a warning to whole ruling class about the need to deal with the growing threat from the American proletariat. To this end the ruling faction was first allowed to wreak its revenge on the insurgents and indulge in an orgy of executions. Then, with bourgeois order safely restored and the proletariat re-enslaved, the English state removed it from power, curbed the colony’s political autonomy and imposed a military-backed government directly controlled by London.

Racism – a deliberate strategy to divide the American proletariat

The ruling class was forced to recognise that its dependence on indentured labour, combined with the greed of the local ‘plantocracy’ for the best land, was creating a dangerous and ever-expanding class of armed, discontented landless labourers in America. Its longer-term response was therefore to drive a wedge between white and black workers by re-defining slavery in purely racial terms, deeming that black slaves were the property of their masters for life, sanctioning a whole array of barbaric punishments for resistance or escape, including whipping, burning, mutilation and dismemberment. Having institutionalised the racist idea that whites were superior to blacks, it placed white workers in positions of power over black slaves and passed laws to provide white indentured servants who had served their time with supplies and land, in this way hoping to encourage the growth of a new middle class of small planters and independent farmers who would identify on racial grounds with their exploiters and provide a vital buffer against the struggles of black slaves, frontier Indians, and very poor whites.

Thus, racial divisions between black and white were not based on any supposed natural differences but part of a deliberate strategy by the ruling class to prevent the very real threat of black and white workers fighting side by side against their exploiters.

The numbers of African slaves grew rapidly after 1680, spurred by the enormous profits to be made from the Atlantic slave trade, the lower cost to planters of using black slaves, and the dwindling supply of indentured labour as the industrial revolution finally began to absorb landless labourers into domestic capitalist production. By 1750, African slaves had almost entirely replaced European slaves. In fact in some colonies like South Carolina they outnumbered the white population and the ruling class was acutely aware of its precarious position, which demanded not only ruthless suppression of any sign of resistance but also high levels of surveillance and control, together with policies designed to keep its enemies permanently divided.

The methods the bourgeoisie used to control its growing black slave army built on all the lessons it had learned from the previous wave of struggles of servants and slaves, but refined into a system of much greater and more sophisticated barbarity, specifically designed to ensure the slaves’ psychological destruction, demeaning, degrading and humiliating them in every way to prevent them from identifying with their own interests against their exploiters:

“The slaves were taught discipline, were impressed again and again with the idea of their own inferiority to ‘know their place,’ to see blackness as a sign of subordination, to be awed by the power of the master, to merge their interest with the master’s, destroying their own individual needs. To accomplish this there was the discipline of hard labor, the breakup of the slave family, the lulling effects of religion (which sometimes led to ‘great mischief,’ as one slaveholder reported), the creation of disunity among slaves by separating them into field slaves and more privileged house slaves, and finally the power of law and the immediate power of the overseer to invoke whipping, burning, mutilation, and death.”[11]

Despite all these obstacles to organising resistance, however, there were around 250 uprisings or plots involving a minimum of ten African slaves before the American Revolution. These were not all simply desperate bids for freedom; some involved white workers as well and were reported as having conscious political aims such as the levelling of property and the overthrow of the master class.[12]

But the efforts of the ruling class to divide the American working class along racial lines ensured that when a wave of black slave uprisings began in the first half of the 18th century it was effectively isolated from the struggles of the rest of the proletariat and white colonists themselves were now targets of black anger.

In the first large-scale revolt in New York in 1712, about 25 to 30 armed slaves set fire to a building and killed nine whites who came on the scene. Most were captured by troops after 24 hours and 21 were executed by being burnt, hanged, or broken on the wheel, with one hung alive in chains as an ‘exemplary punishment’.[13]

Further planned or actual uprisings followed, particularly in South Carolina and Virginia, fuelled by famine and economic depression. There are also reports of communities set up by escaped African and Native American slaves in remote areas, such as the settlement in the Blue Ridge Mountains crushed by militia in 1729.

The largest black slave uprising in America before the 1776 revolution was at Stono in South Carolina in 1739. About 20 armed slaves, possibly former soldiers, joined by others until there were perhaps 100 in all, “called out Liberty, marched on with Colours displayed, and two Drums beating” heading for Spanish Florida until they were intercepted by the militia. About 25 whites and 50 slaves were killed and the decapitated heads of the rebels were mounted on stakes along the roads to serve as a warning.[14]

The ruling class deliberately provoked such an atmosphere of suspicion and fear in order to keep black and white proletarians at each others’ throats, so that even today it isn’t clear whether some slave ‘conspiracies’ were real or not. But the repression was real enough:

“In New York in 1741, there were ten thousand whites in the city and two thousand black slaves. It had been a hard winter and the poor – slave and free – had suffered greatly. When mysterious fires broke out, blacks and whites were accused of conspiring together. Mass hysteria developed against the accused. After a trial full of lurid accusations by informers, and forced confessions, two white men and two white women were executed, eighteen slaves were hanged, and thirteen slaves were burned alive.”[15]

There were further organised slave rebellions during the 1740s but then a marked decline, probably due to a combination of exhaustion after the failure of earlier struggles and the ruthlessness and efficiency of the ruling class in suppressing and controlling its ever growing army of African slaves.

The struggles of ‘free’ wage slaves

Of course, some did go to America of their own free will. Due to the scarcity of labour, particularly skilled labour, workers could command wages 30 to 100 percent higher than in England. This meant it was often possible for them to win demands for higher pay and better conditions, or, if not, to simply ‘desert’ and find work elsewhere. But the fear of revolt, and the attempts of the bourgeoisie to control the working class and keep wages low, meant that struggling workers, especially in the cities, quickly came up against the force of the state:

“As early as 1636, an employer off the coast of Maine reported that his workmen and fishermen ‘fell into a mutiny’ because he had withheld their wages. They deserted en masse. Five years later, carpenters in Maine, protesting against inadequate food, engaged in a slowdown. At the Gloucester shipyards in the 1640s (...) the ‘first lockout in American labor history’ took place when the authorities told a group of troublesome shipwrights they could not ‘worke a stroke of worke more.’”

“There were early strikes of coopers, butchers, bakers, protesting against government control of the fees they charged. Porters in the 1650s in New York refused to carry salt, and carters (truckers, teamsters, carriers) who went out on strike were prosecuted in New York City ‘for not obeying the Command and Doing their Dutyes as becomes them in their Places.’”[16]

The only attempts at permanent organisations in this period were ‘friendly societies’ along craft lines which often included employers as well as workers. Nevertheless the ruling class viewed these with extreme suspicion and as early as 1680 a combination of coopers in New York City was prosecuted as a criminal enterprise.[17]

With the emergence of the urban working class in the rapidly growing cities, the bourgeoisie increasingly deployed its strategy to reinforce divisions between white and black workers, cultivating the support of white skilled workers by protecting them against competition:

“As early as 1686, the council in New York ordered that ‘noe Negro or Slave be suffered to work on the bridge as a Porter about any goods either imported or Exported from or into this City.’ In the southern towns too, white craftsmen and traders were protected from Negro competition. In 1764 the South Carolina legislature prohibited Charleston masters from employing Negroes or other slaves as mechanics or in handicraft trades.”[18]

In this way the bourgeoisie hoped to recruit skilled workers into a new white middle class along with small planters and independent farmers in order to prevent a generalised struggle across racial barriers.

Conclusions

England’s first American colonies were clearly established on a capitalist basis; indeed, in Marx’s view, societies like North America began at a higher level and developed more rapidly than in Europe, where the rise of capitalism was more encumbered by the social relations of decaying feudal society.[19] If the American proletariat was born into bondage and subjected to forced labour and barbarous treatment, this was nothing exceptional at the rosy dawn of the capitalist mode of production described so vividly by Marx. Early capitalism in North America was based firmly on the regime to control the emerging proletariat already existing in Tudor England, and if Marx spent so much time in Volume 1 of Capital cataloguing the ‘terroristic laws’ that accompanied the expropriation of the English peasantry and its preparation for the world of wage labour, this is because England offered the first and best example of the genesis of industrial capitalism. For capital, the systematic use of the most barbarous methods was absolutely essential to its survival in America given the harshness of conditions, the chronic shortage of labour and the external threats to its existence.

What is distinctive about the early class struggle in America, although not unique, is the institutionalisation of black African slavery that led to the division of the early working class along racial lines and the consequent isolation of its struggles. This racial division remained as a hugely significant barrier to the unification of the American proletariat and to its ability to assert its own common interests as a class in capitalist society.

Nevertheless, from its birth the American proletariat showed its willingness to fight back against this terroristic capitalist regime, displaying not only an often desperate courage against all the odds, but also a real capacity for solidarity across racial barriers in the face of common exploitation and oppression, and a developing political consciousness of itself and the ultimate aims of its struggle – which is precisely why the ruling class was forced to adopt such sophisticated strategies and tactics of divide and rule.

The next article will examine the class struggle in America in the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the United States of America.

MH (14/1/2013)

(This article was contributed by a close sympathiser of the ICC)

David Cameron has had a busy start to the year. In early February he visited Libya and Algeria. A couple of weeks later he was in India with the largest trade delegation ever assembled by a British Prime Minister. Before that he had given the long-awaited speech on Europe in which he finally promised a referendum after the next election. What does all this tell us about British foreign policy?

Following the last election, in the resolution on the British Situation adopted by the Congress of World Revolution in the autumn of 2010,[1] we noted that the coalition government had already begun to explore how to escape from the impasse in foreign relations that was the result of the adventures of Blair. We identified two strands to this, firstly, an attempt to cultivate new relationships with countries such as Turkey and India, while still trying to balance between the US and Germany and, secondly, a more vigorous effort to build up trade to help the recovery from the economic crisis. In April last year, we noted that Britain had notched up a success with its intervention in Libya and that Cameron had effectively managed the European situation, both in terms of resisting proposals that would have affected the financial sector in Britain and in terms of keeping the Euro-sceptics in his party more or less in line.[2]

The foundations of British foreign policy

The starting point for an understanding of British policy is the material interests of the ruling class. At the economic level, as we showed in World Revolution no. 353, Britain has strong trade links with Europe (its main partner) and the US (its most profitable partner) but also important links to the rest of the world. The present situation is one where there continue to be significant shifts, with Europe’s share of global production (currently 25% according to Cameron’s speech on Europe) set to decline significantly. China is continuing to increase its share as part of the wider shift of production from the old centres of production in Europe and the US and is likely to become the biggest producer in the world in the near future while India is predicted to move into third position. These developments have been underlined by the latest report on Britain’s trade by the Office for National Statistics: “By area, there has been a shift in the pattern of the UK’s trade over the past 10 years. In 2002, around 62% of the UK’s exports went to the rest of the EU… 59% of our imports came from the EU. In 2012, those proportions had been reduced to 51% and 50% respectively… Trade with France also grew modestly over this period; at around one-quarter the rate of growth of trade with Germany, which became our largest trading partner (taking exports and imports together) in 2012, supplanting the United States.”[3]

Within this shift the group of countries known as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have a particular significance, with exports to the whole group increasing by 37.6% since 2008. This is led by exports to China, which have grown more than fivefold between 2001 and 2011,[4] while exports to India have also risen significantly.

The question of Europe also has a weight. While the danger of an immediate collapse of the Eurozone seems to be passing, the longer-term and more significant legacy is what the crisis reveals about the historic decline in Europe’s status within the global economy.

Such economic factors do not translate in a straightforward manner into foreign policy. Rather, they help to shape the context within which that policy is developed.

At the imperialist level, some of the members of the BRICS have also assumed a greater significance. Again, this is first and foremost the case with China, which is using its economic power to build up its global strategic weight and is aspiring to become a global power capable of challenging the US. The British ruling class is alive to these real and potential shifts in the global balance of power, while remaining pragmatic enough to know that it still has to take account of the US and Europe.

The consequence of these economic and geo-political developments, which contribute to the uncertainty and complexity of the international situation that has developed since 1989, is that the interests of the British bourgeoisie currently seem to be best met by a policy of flexibility. The changing global situation offers the British bourgeoisie scope for action beyond the confines of recent years, although this in no way implies that it can escape its past and the historic decline of its power and status on the world stage.

The economic dimension of foreign policy

The changing global economic context referred to above was at the heart of Cameron’s speech on Europe: “The challenges come not from within the continent but outside it. From the surging economies in the east and south”; “The map of global influence is changing before our eyes”; “Taken as a whole, Europe’s share of world output is projected to fall by almost a third in the next two decades.”[5] It is important to acknowledge this reality. The shift in the global economy encapsulated in the term globalisation is real, albeit that it takes place in the period of decadence, which means that it unfolds in a different manner to capitalism in its period of ascendancy. In particular, the changes of recent years do not mean that capitalism has overcome its structural crisis or that it can do so. Indeed, it is the crisis that drives forward the global changes as capital moves restlessly around the world in the search for profit and as nations jostle for position in a world unbound from the ties of the old blocs.

In his speech Cameron put forward five principles “for a new European Union, fit for the 21st century”. The first two of these were competitiveness and flexibility: “Competitiveness demands flexibility, choice and openness – or Europe will fetch up in a no-man’s land between the rising economies of Asia and market-driven North America.”[6] What Cameron means by such ‘competitiveness’ and ‘flexibility’ can be seen in the changes in the labour market where significant steps have been taken over the last 30 or more years to reduce the cost of labour and make it fit in with the needs of capital. The result has been the increase in part time and temporary working, the replacement of higher paid jobs with lower paid ones, the changes in pensions, sick pay and other benefits that most of us have experienced in one form or another. It can also be seen in the relative freedom given to the financial sector with the easing of old regulations and the protection given to the largest institutions.

This is why Britain is unwilling to accept the constraints of the EU, in particular in relation to financial matters given the importance of this sector in generating profits (these may be fictitious at the level of the global economy, but they are fairly real for British capitalism – the price is paid elsewhere). It also makes Britain resistant to the social aspects of Europe that regulate labour and seem to reflect the dominance of the German economy, which has managed to retain a strong and productive manufacturing base in contrast to many other of the advanced economies. This makes it clear that Cameron’s efforts to reshape Britain’s relationship with Europe is not simply an expression of the weight of the Euro-sceptics in the Tory party but is part of the effort to maintain the freedom of action of British capital.

Cameron’s call for greater flexibility also reflects the effort to build up links beyond Europe, which at the economic level means developing relationships with those countries that are gaining economic significance. As we noted above, Cameron marked the start of his premiership with efforts not just to drum up trade, something all Prime Ministers do, but also to build links with the rising economies in the East: “This was evident in the trip to India in July 2010 when a deal to sell military equipment was signed, and has been confirmed in the visit to China in November 2010 with the proposed signing of deals to supply the Chinese market, reportedly worth several billion pounds.”[7]

Cameron has continued this effort with a significant number of trade missions around the world over the last two and a half years. In 2011 he visited Egypt and Kuwait and in 2012 Saudi Arabia (twice), Indonesia, Japan, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman. Much of this activity was directed towards selling arms, an area where Britain really does still play a global role. In 2011 Britain had 15% of the world export market for arms second only to the US. It is reported that the arms industry supports 300,000 jobs, but other estimates are much lower and the government has now stopped recording these statistics.

The visit to India in mid-February was just the latest of these missions, albeit the largest with over one hundred companies and other organisations accompanying Cameron. On arriving in India, he declared that he wanted Britain to be India’s “partner of choice” and for the two countries to develop a “special relationship”. He has set a target of doubling Britain’s trade with India between 2010 and 2015 and seems on course to achieve this. According to the Export-Import Bank of India,[8] between 2006 and 2012 India’s merchandise trade increased threefold, from $252bn to $794bn. Britain is the eighth most important destination for Indian exports, accounting for 2.89% of exports in April to September this year and the 21st largest source of imports. British statistics show exports and imports of both goods and service rising three or four fold over the last decade and roughly balancing each other. In 2011 exports of goods totalled £5.69bn and imports £6.09bn with the same figures for trade in services being £2.63bn and £2.45bn. To put this in context, exports of goods to India accounted for just 1.9% of total British exports and exports of services just 1.4% of the total.

One area where Britain hopes to do well is arms sales So important is this that Cameron has had no qualms about announcing that part of the aid budget can be used to fund the military, with the usual hypocritical caveat that it would not be used to funding combat operations or equipment. India is a very tempting market and has been significantly increasing the amount it spends on armaments. A dozen firms linked to arms production were part of the trade mission that accompanied Cameron, including Rolls-Royce and BAE. Britain is not alone in these efforts. The week before Cameron’s visit, President François Hollande of France had spent two days in India failing to finalise a deal worth $14bn to sell French fighters. Cameron made no secret of his intention to persuade India to buy the Eurofighter Typhoon instead, commenting “I think the Typhoon is a superior aircraft”.[9] However, India is aware of the strength of its position and had no hesitation in threatening to cancel a deal to sell helicopters agreed in 2010 because of allegations that bribes were paid to Indian government officials, or in applying pressure for Britain to relax its visa system.

The strategic dimension of imperialist policy

Britain has experienced considerable difficulty in pursuing its strategic interests. There is no simple overlap between strategic and economic interests. For example, as we have just seen, Britain will not hesitate to snatch an arms deal with India from under the noses of the French despite the closer military co-operation since the last defence review.

As we mentioned at the start of this article, since coming to office Cameron has looked for ways to escape from the impasse that was the legacy of New Labour’s more grandiose imperialist efforts. One aspect of this has been the closer military co-operation with France, which also has the effect of counter-balancing Germany’s dominance in Europe (a dominance it has sought to advance on the back of the economic crisis, albeit with some genuine reservations about the cost of doing so). The successful intervention in Libya was the first fruit of this approach, although the increasing violence and factionalism has tarnished this somewhat. The recent intervention in Mali to support the French military action, and the visit to Algeria in the aftermath of the hostage crisis in January, were both opportunities seized to continue this effort. The intervention in Mali was obviously the more carefully planned of the two and, in addition to the logistical and training help that has been announced, it is quite possible that British special forces are on the ground. While Britain does not have the same historic interests in the region as France it certainly has some current economic interests in the Algerian energy resources, as well as a more general strategic interest in having a presence in a continent that is gaining in strategic importance. These are steps to help Britain reassert its claim to be a global player and this may explain why Cameron chose to echo Blair with talk of a generational struggle against terrorism, despite the evidence that the groups in Algeria and Mali have only limited links to al-Qaida and far more local aspirations.[10]

The visit to India was also about more than trade, since India has regional aspirations of its own and is part of the increasing imperialist tensions across Asia that are driven in particular by the growing international assertiveness of China.

This is not a break from the idea of the independent course which in our analysis has been defended by the majority of the British bourgeoisie over the last two or more decades. Rather it represents its adaptation and continuation within the current international situation. This situation has become more complex and more uncertain in recent years as a result of the economic crisis, the growth of imperialist rivalries and changes within the ruling class of some countries, notably those affected by the ‘Arab spring’ but also those, such as Mali, where the ruling faction is losing its grip. This complexity, while challenging and dangerous, also offers opportunities for a secondary power like Britain which, while it can no longer aspire to dominate any significant geographical area, can still draw on the strength of its military forces and the depth of its historical experience to try and carve out a niche for itself. There is nothing certain about this and Afghanistan and Iraq stand as warnings about having pretensions that no longer match reality. The British ruling class is still struggling to come to terms with these facts, even if Cameron has so far appeared more realistic than Blair. But then Blair also seemed quite realistic until 9/11.

Differences within the British bourgeoisie

The flexibility of Britain’s imperialist and global economic policy is an intelligent and pragmatic response to its situation, which, despite Cameron’s successes, remains very difficult. But it also underlines the fact that there is significant scope for differences within the British bourgeoisie. In the 1990s we noted the existence of a pro-US faction within the British ruling class at the imperialist level and contrasted it with the independent line favoured by the majority. In hindsight, this was probably too simplistic an analysis, since the differences were probably more nuanced than being simply pro-US and anti-US and the factions more balanced that we assumed at the time. Today, it is clear that this debate continues and has been reinforced both by the failures under Blair and the changes in the international situation.

A division has now opened up over economic policy that did not seem to be there yesterday, with the Tory party largely dominated by the Euro-sceptics and a minority more and more openly calling for Britain to leave the EU. However, on the whole this is not an outright rejection of all things European but an expression of genuine differences of view about how Britain’s economic interests can best be served. Even those who want to leave the EU still want to maintain strong trade and financial links, but they also want to be free to reinforce links elsewhere in the world. Cameron shares some of these aims but not the approach to realising them, possibly because he sees the risks in doing this: for all the changes referred to the current reality is that Europe is Britain’s largest trade partner and is likely to remain so for some time. Thus, leaving the EU could have serious consequences.

In this light the promise, or threat, of a referendum on the EU is a way through the current pressures. On the one hand, it is a bargaining chip in negotiations with Europe, on the other, it is a bargaining chip to maintain the unity of the Tory party. Cameron was also quite explicit in his speech on Europe that he wants to delay the referendum to see how the crisis in the Eurozone is resolved: “A vote today between the status quo and leaving would be an entirely false choice. Now – while the EU is in flux, and when we don’t know what the future holds and what sort of EU will emerge from the crisis – is not the right time to make such a momentous decision about the future of our country.”

Nonetheless, the promise to hold a referendum has prompted a response from pro-Europeans, both from within the Tory party and from within big business, for whom the single market and the single currency is seen to be in their interests. There has also been a response from the US for whom the British presence within Europe acts as a counterweight to Germany. In short the question of Europe, like the wider questions of Britain’s economic and imperialist future is not settled. 

North, 28/02/13

The defeat of the miners and printers in Britain did not bring the wave of class struggles of that decade to a close. 1987 saw a nationwide strike of British Telecom workers. In February 1988, there was a real wave of struggles involving car workers, health workers, postal workers, seafarers, and others. Internationally the movement also continued, with important struggles in the education sector in Italy and among healthworkers in France.

These movements showed a number of signs of a process of maturation in the working class. The struggles in Italy and France, for example, saw the emergence of general assemblies and revocable committees to coordinate the struggle, and in several cases members of revolutionary organisations (the ICC and others) were elected as delegates.

There was also a small but potentially important development of organisation among unemployed workers. WR 92 (March 1986) contained reports of our participation in meetings of unemployed committees in France Germany, and the UK.

In the strikes in Britain, there was less direct evidence of independent self-organisation, but there was certainly a growing distrust of the unions, and we saw some encouraging signs of workers taking charge of the extension of the struggle. For example, the nurses who sent large delegations to the car factories and bus garages and asked them to come out in solidarity.

A further expression of this process was the attempts by a minority of workers to form workplace-based struggle groups. In the last issue of WR we looked at the Picket group which appeared during the printers’ strike, but the groups which emerged after 1987 went further than Picket in their attempts to break from the unions.  In this issue we will return to the pages of our paper in the late 1980s to look at some examples of how we covered this phenomenon at the time

From WR 112, March 1988

This issue of the paper contained articles on the February strike wave, but it also pointed to evidence of independent organising among a militant minority. WR 110 had already published a letter from a postal worker in London on how the Union of Communication Workers collaborated with management in the imposition of ‘Improved Working Methods’. This comrade was a sympathiser of the ICC and became involved in both the Communication Workers’ Group and the Action Group for Workers’ Unity. WR 112 contained a letter from a Bristol postal worker who was also a member of the CWG. This letter, as we said at the time, showed “how the UCW attempts to deal with unofficial actions. Although this is a particular local example of what a union has done in a specific industry, it is typical of what workers experience in an epoch when unions can do nothing but serve the interests of capital. The issue of casual workers was brought up in the letter in WR 110 and this is a classic example of the unions’ attempt to sow divisions in the working class.....”

Letter from a postal worker

Dear comrades

As a postal worker in Bristol, I thought it might be of interest to outline our recent experience with the UCW.

The recent wave of wildcat strikes over the ‘Xmas’ bonus hit the main Bristol office on the 14th. It started with a 24 hour stoppage, and even as this local area union man was pleading to the press that it would go no further than the sorters at the main office, and not “spread” to people not “involved”, it did.

Basically, by the mass meeting three days later, the dispute involved most grades – sorting, driving, part-time, catering etc, many of which had ‘different’ bonus schemes, or, like the part-time workers, none at all. Of course this wasn’t about to lead to a more generalised struggle, but the UCW were going to make damn sure that it didn’t! The fact that the strike was ‘unofficial’ forced the union to reveal its true nature – after all it was they who negotiated the bloody deal in the first place! So, the man from the UCW picks up the megaphone and his first words were “there will be no debate on this, I’ll give you the facts, and then you will vote on them”. The following lack of ‘debate’, despite interventions to the contrary, included the method by which we were to return to work – so the vote was for a return to work. It then emerged that the trade union ‘solidarity’ that we had been thanked for had been very selective indeed! The union was in fact only interested in pickets stopping full UCW members from crossing the lines – temporary workers (after all only associate members of the union) were told to cross the line, to work twelve hour shifts (nice one!). This is the nub of the whole problem. The Bristol Area, unlike others, has reached a series of agreements with the bosses to use part-time workers, casuals and temporary workers. Then adding all this to the differences between the eleven different grades in the UCW, the idea of ‘divide and rule’ has been introduced by the union and now they can try and apply these differences to control discontent.

Anyhow, this sort of action by the UCW has opened up the eyes of many workers to the role of ‘our union’

Yours

Bristol Postal Worker

On the same page of WR 112 we also published the founding statement of a ‘Workers’ Action Group’ formed in a school in east London (the WAG later changed its name to Action Group for Workers’ Unity). 

An action group for workers’ unity

We have decided to form a Workers’ Action Group because we recognise that

-            faced with the growing attack on all workers being launched by the state (whether through central government, local councils or private employers)

-            faced with a widening response to these attacks (Fords, NHS, ferries, mines, ILEA, etc) there is an increasing necessity for all workers to fight together, to forge a common front against this erosion of our living standards.

But in this school, as throughout the working class, workers are divided by job categories and union affiliations. These divisions can only undermine our collective strength, especially at a time when all of us – teachers, canteen workers, caretakers, technicians – are equally threatened by council job-cuts.

The two general meetings, open to all workers, that have been held in this school to discuss these cuts show that there is a real will amongst us to get together to discuss our common concerns. But such meetings can’t confine themselves to discussion alone. They must be able to make decisions and to organise effective actions in defence of our class interests.

The Workers’ Action Group does not intend to take the place of such meetings or to try to become the ‘representative’ of the workers. Its aims will be:

-            to regroup all those who see the need for workers’ unity across the division of category, workplace or union

-            to call for general meetings whenever there is a need for us to gather together

-            to intervene on all the basic issues facing us, always insisting on the unity of workers’ interests and the need for workers to organise themselves to defend them

-            to form direct links with workers in other schools and workplaces in the area

-            to provide a forum for discussion on the lessons and perspectives of the class struggle

(There follows an advertisement for a workplace meeting to discuss the strikes that were going on at the time this statement was put out)

 WR 113, April 88, contained a more general assessment of this phenomenon:

Towards workers’ struggle groups

One of the fruits of the recent outburst of workers’ struggles in Britain has been a small but significant development of efforts by militant minorities of workers to regroup outside of the unions or across union divisions in order to act on the wider struggle.

In WR 112 we published the statement of a ‘Workers’ Action Group’ formed by education workers in London’s Waltham Forest. Subsequently this group, in which an ICC member participates, produced a leaflet in response to the various ‘days of action’ called by the unions last month around the question of the NHS. Having pointed out that the attack on health services wasn’t the only attack workers faced, and that in February we saw “thousands and thousands of workers – healthworkers, car workers, seamen and others – entering directly into the struggle without any prearranged ‘plan’ by the trade union bureaucracy”, the leaflet warns workers against the unions’ attempts to create confusion and demoralisation in the class through a series of disorganised, symbolic marches and 24-hour strikes. It concludes by saying that “what workers really need to do at this time is to meet together across the boundaries of sector and union and discuss the real lessons of the February strikes and how to take them further next time”. The leaflet was distributed to education and health workers in London[1].

The last two issues of WR also contain letters from postal workers, one in London and one in Bristol, describing the discontent in that sector and the efforts of the Union of Communication Workers to head it off. More recently the following letter was sent via WR to the London postal worker:

“Dear Bro/Sis, thanks for your letter, I am writing to you as a sympathiser of Wildcat and member of ‘Communication Workers’ Group’. The CWG is a group which has/is moved/moving away from rank-and-filism towards a more revolutionary perspective. In the most recent meeting it made clear its position on the unions (against them) and also its position on making economic demands (that it is not for a small group of people to do what must be done by the workers through their own organs of struggle). Does this make us a struggle group? I don’t know. I have enclosed our last four bulletins as an example, none of them are politically perfect (example ‘Why the rank-and-file’ in no 4 with its talk of sell-outs etc or the article on the pay deal in no.7 which only calls for a rejection of any offer that comes up). However it does contain some strong political articles (see ‘What the bosses are up to’ in no 4 and ‘The British disease is back, let’s make it fatal’ in no. 7, for example). I think that these articles show the way in which the group could move...

If you are interested in discussion/working with us, then write back or ring me...and come to our next meeting on March 14th.

Lastly, if you don’t decide that we’re worth it, write to me and tell me why. I’ll be interested in your reason. In solidarity, MP”

The articles referred to in the letter, particularly the one in CW 7 which talks about the struggles gong on throughout Britain, certainly do seem to represent an attempt to break away from rank and filism, with its emphasis on attacking union leaders and on militancy in the context of one corporation, and to adopt a real class position criticising the unions as a whole and insisting on the need for all workers to fight together. Whether these developments are restricted to particular individuals or express a more collective evolution remains to be seen. A rank and file union group as such can’t turn into a workers’ struggle group, but its structures may be loose enough to permit a significant number of its participants to find the workers’ terrain.

Clearly there is a process of maturation going on here, and as well as seeking to push it forward ourselves, we can only encourage other militant workers to intervene in the process. Genuine workers’ struggle groups have no interest in being bottled up in one sector: on the contrary, one of their main tasks is to provide workers from all sectors with a focus for contact, discussion and intervention

MU (addresses for WAG and CWG included)

Relations between the ICC and the struggle groups of the time

As can be seen from the article in WR 113, our initial reaction to the CWG was positive. However, subsequent articles showed that we were not very clear about its basic nature: WR 118 announced that the CWG had been recuperated by the rank-and-filists, then in WR 119 we said that “recent meetings of this group and the latest issue of their bulletin have shown that this is not the case. While there are still those who want to create a rank and file union group (to work within the existing unions, or to create new ones, but ‘not for the moment’), the life of the working class is still very much present in the group”. Finally, in WR 121 (February 1989), following the dissolution of the CWG, we changed position again and concluded that the CWG had been an expression of rank and file unionism from the beginning, although we saw the formation of a new group by the ‘anti-union’ comrades as a positive development.

To some extent these uncertainties reflected the real evolution of the CWG, which appeared to be breaking from trade unionism but foundered on the anarcho-syndicalism of the Direct Action Movement, resulting in a split, with the DAM and the anti-union tendency proving unable to work together, as can be seen from ‘A brief history of the Communication Workers’ Group’ written by one of the ‘anti-union’ tendency and published below.

But there was also a problem with our view of anarcho-syndicalism, which, we argued, had in its entirety been in the camp of the bourgeoisie since the civil war in Spain.  In particular, we saw the anarcho-syndicalists as no more than an ‘extreme’ expression of the rank-and file trade unionism which was developing as a response to the workers’ growing distrust of the official unions[2]. And there is no doubt that the Direct Action Movement was indeed unclear about the danger of radical trade unionism and leftism in general. We had already come against both its ideology and its methods of debate in the Health Workers Action Group (see article below), while in another article we showed how the DAM had formed a united front with the Trotskyists at the Conference of Support Groups[3].  But we were also ignorant of the historical origins of the DAM, which, as we show in our more recent article ‘Internationalist anarchism in the UK’[4], came from a tendency which had taken an internationalist position against the Second World War; and although an understanding of this issue would not have altered our opposition to the DAM’s trade unionist conceptions, it would certainly have led us to be more cautious about dismissing the group out of hand[5]. 

In another history of this period, ‘Death to Rank and filism!’[6] written in 1990 and republished on libcom, another member of the ‘anti-union’ tendency in CWG (the comrade from Bristol whose letter we published) argues that

-            AGWU (which was the name later adopted by the WAG) was an ICC front

-            that it (or the ICC) argued that it was counterrevolutionary to organise in one sector

-            that both CWG and AGWU were in fact reformist/rank-and filist and would have ended up as alternate unions if they had been successful.

We think it’s worthwhile responding to these accusations. First of all, the AGWU was not an ICC front. Formed in one workplace it was made up of one ICC member and three other employees who were very distant politically from the ICC. The group tried to expand to other elements in London workplaces and it’s true that most of its participants – a postal worker, a bus worker, an unemployed comrade etc – were politically close to the ICC or were members, and we were unable to expand beyond that base. It’s also true that we had very little prior experience of this kind of activity, and in our work towards the AGWU we made some errors based on the ‘routines’ of involvement in a communist political organisation (for example, we convinced the group that it should call a local meeting and argued that specific invitations be sent to other proletarian political groups, rather as if AGWU was itself a political organisation). This problem was not limited to the ICC however: the letter from the CWG comrade in WR 113 also tends to see the group as something that can base itself on a “revolutionary perspective”.

Second, it has never been the ICC’s position that organising in one sector is counter-revolutionary. The workplace is the natural starting point for workers to organise and this applies as much to general struggles as to groups of militants. But we certainly argued that it was necessary to go beyond the workplace or sector. Our view was that struggle groups should as much as possible organise on a local basis, establishing links between militants in different workplaces, rather than organising ‘nationally’ sector by sector, which seems to us to be the anarcho-syndicalist view.

Third, groups that organise to defend workers’ interests in the defensive struggle are not ‘reformist’. They correspond to the fact that the trade unions not only don’t defend the revolutionary programme, they no longer even defend the immediate needs of the class. The author talks about forming workplace groups composed only of revolutionaries, and defending the revolutionary programme as the only guarantee against reformism, but there is no reason why communist groups of this kind should be based specifically on the workplace, since by their very nature they are obliged to analyse and respond to developments in the whole of social reality. Workplace struggle groups (or committees, as our French comrades prefer to call them) obey a different dynamic from the political organisation properly speaking.

Despite the advances made in the late 80s, the class struggle came to a rather abrupt halt at the end of the decade and were followed by a long period of retreat during the 90s. In our view, a key element in this retreat was the spectacular collapse of the eastern bloc and the vast ideological campaigns which the ruling class unleashed around this historic turning point. Faced with these bourgeois political campaigns, the political gains made by the working class in the previous twenty years proved to be insufficient and it has taken a long time for new politicised minorities of the working class to emerge.

It was inevitable that during this phase of retreat, the development of struggle groups and committees also came to a halt. Such groups do not have the programmatic and organisational solidity which can enable them to maintain their activities through periods of class quiescence, although they can in some cases transform themselves into discussion circles with a longer term view of their activity.

In the last few years, however, as the class struggle has slowly regained its lost impetus, we have also seen the re-appearance of the phenomenon of struggle groups, and new debates among revolutionaries about how they should relate to such formations and more generally about the problem of intervention at the workplace and in the immediate struggles of the class. We will look at some of these experiences and debates in future articles.

Amos 28.2.13      

Appendix 1: A brief history of the Communication Workers’ Group, 1987-89

This article, written by one of the CWG’s members, Devrim, was first published on libcom. If you go to https://libcom.org/tags/communication-workers-group [280] you will also find a partial archive of the group’s bulletins.  Devrim was very active in the postal strikes of this period. He has remained a left communist ever since, and was for a while a militant of the ICC, playing a central role in the formation of our section in Turkey.

The CWG group was formed in early 1987 by three members of DAM (Direct Action Movement- now SolFed) working in the London Post Office. It was in existence for over two years, and issued fifteen national bulletins, by the end publishing 8,000 an issue, and was involved in various strikes in the Post Office including the 1989 national strike.

Its formation was influenced by DAM’s adoption of a ‘Rank and File’ strategy, by the number of young enthusiastic workers coming into DAM at the time (possibly as a result of the miners, and Wapping strikes), and to a certain extent through contacts with the remnants of what was left of what had been the SWP’s rank and file movement (e.g. the Building Worker Group). At the time DAM launched groups in a few different industries, but I think that Communication Worker was the only one that actually took off. It adopted a set of aims, and principles, very much influenced by the previous ‘Rank and File’ groups, but against the electoralism of the Broad Left (BLOC).

Its first publication was a 12 page A5 bulletin published in April 1987 during the Post Office-UCW (Union of Communication Workers, now CWU) pay talks. This was distributed within the Post Offices in London and nationally by DAM groups dropping them into postboxes. This was actually a very successful tactic, and got us quite a large number of contacts.

In one sense although it had contacts nationally, and the magazine was distributed across the country, CWG was never a national group. It was a magazine produced by a group in London, and with sympathisers in different cities, most of whom we never actually met, and a group in the Midlands. We did however travel to Bristol and the Midlands to hold meetings with sympathisers in those areas.

The group had lots of contacts in London especially amongst ‘branch reps,’ union officials who still worked, but did have some facility time, and attracted some new members, people’s workmates as well as members of the ACF (Anarchist Communist Federation, now AF, who at the time had a very strong anti-union position, especially the members of CWG), and even a sympathiser of the ICC (International Communist Current).

As time went on, and the group became more prominent, people’s positions began to diverge. Of the three original members, one remained with DAM, and was a traditional anarcho-syndicalist, one moved towards a group called ‘Workers Power’ (a Trotskyist grouping), and one joined ‘Wildcat’ (a left communist group, which has since plunged into ‘primitivism’). Of course this gave rise to political disagreements especially within a very small core group.

The first of these was around the group’s orientation towards the union with the member of ‘Workers Power’ insisting that we ‘put pressure on the union leadership.’ The left communists, the ACF, and the DAM people were all united against this so this led to the first resignation from the group. I think that the comrade went on to join the ‘broad left’.

As the struggle in the Post Office developed in the run up to the national strike, the divergence between the anarcho-syndicalists and the ACF/left communists became greater. As the union constantly sabotaged the attempts by the workers to defend their living standards, the ‘lefts’ became more and more anti-union, and began to criticise the whole nature of trade unions whilst the anarcho-syndicalists continued to put forward their line of why we need a democratic union.

This tension finally came to a head after the 1989 national strike when the ‘lefts’ split from the anarcho-syndicalists and formed a new grouping, rather than haggle over the name, the Postal Workers Liaison Committee (PLC).

The anarcho-syndicalists did not continue to function as CWG, and the PLC, reduced to an even smaller group by people leaving the Post Office after the defeat of the strike, published three issues of its bulletin before dissolving itself over arguments over whether ‘branch reps’ should be allowed to join, and whether they should ‘put pressure on the union leadership’, both of these positions supported by an ex-member of Solidarity from the Midlands, who hadn’t been in the original core (London) group.  Devrim, January 2007

Appendix 2:Rank and filism scuppers HWAG, WR 109

This article was the third and final article published in WR on the subject of the Health Workers Action Group[7]. Several members of WR who worked in the health sector took part in its meetings. It gives a clear account of the way that the DAM members within the group prevented any serious discussion of the trade union question. However, as we have already said, it suffers from the rather black and white approach encapsulated in the notion that the only two views contained within the group were the ‘bourgeois’ one and the ‘ICC’ one. In reality any workers’ group will contain a variety of views on the trade union question. The clarity of the communist left and the bourgeois views of the Trotskyists and other leftists may constitute its two diametrically opposed poles, but between these two there may well be a number of ideas which express at worst confusion and, more positively, an effort to develop towards proletarian positions.  

On Tuesday 29 September the Health Workers’ Action Group excluded militants defending ICC positions, with great ‘concern’ expressed that we might be wasting our time and theirs. The rank and filists in the majority were not prepared to publish articles taking a clear anti-union position, or even worse, from their point of view, putting forward alternative forms of organisation. In this they made clear they had no intention of participating in an open forum of discussion for workers, particularly those who are grappling with the problem of how to struggle despite union sabotage and isolation.

The HWAG was started at a meeting called by health workers in or around the anarcho-syndicalist Direct Action Movement with the aim of forging a “rank and file (ie trade unionist – WR note) organisation to fight for healthworkers’ interests”. However, the advert also said “Labour governments close as many hospitals as the Tories and both keep healthworkers’ pay down. NUPE and COHSE don’t oppose the exploitation but participate in it”. All those who responded to this call expressed suspicion of the unions, but with two distinct views on how to approach the problem:

-            the bourgeois view that workers cannot struggle without unions, and therefore that struggle and extension of struggle can only be organised through rank-and-file union groups;

-            the ICC position that the immediate need of all struggles is to extend and unify and that the first obstacle to this is the trade unions.

At the first meeting militants from the ICC argued for the formation of a struggle group to discuss past and present struggles, particularly the issue of the unions and to intervene within them. At this meeting we successfully prevented the formation of a rank and file unionist group (see WR106), a leaflet was produced calling workers to another meeting:

“Some workers have been fighting back but their struggles remain isolated. The unions aren’t defending us. We all need to get together to organise how best to win the struggle”.

At the second meeting, however, a rank-and-filist platform ‘Where we Stand’ was adopted and was published in issue number one of the group’s bulletin. A struggle group can certainly put forward demands rooted in the struggle – in response to a particular attack, or expressing a genuine discontent among the workers. But the HWAG demands were not rooted in a developing struggle: they were purely abstract, and included the leftist demand ‘against privatisation’. Worst of all, ‘Where we Stand’ said nothing about the need for the extension and unification of struggles. At this stage we were told by the convinced rank and filists that we must put disagreements in the bulletin and not waste the time of the meeting in such discussion.

The bulletin produced was criticised by the HWAG (see WR 108) because of its lack of contact with the class struggle, and a decision was taken that in future it should contain an account of the discussion in the group itself.

When we wrote articles proposing ways of organising outside and against the unions and criticising the demands in ‘Where we Stand’, we were excluded. At this meeting the rank-and-file unionists of the DAM, who make much noise about their opposition to the bureaucratic methods of Trotskyism, et al, conducted their manoeuvres with all the astuteness of experienced leftists. Their number one concern was to censor discussion, to prevent any expression of debate in the bulletin which they said must put forward a ‘line’ or look ridiculous. 

Discussion of the real issues facing the class is indeed a danger to the rank-and-filists. Their task is to attract the growing numbers of workers who are disaffected with the unions, in order to win them back to left-wing opposition within the unions. But determined discussion of the role of unions in sabotaging struggles and of ways to extend them outside the unions will totally undermine the rank-and-filists’ role.

A struggle group, on the other hand, must be open to all workers who want to draw lessons from past and present working class struggles in order to strengthen the movement of the future. And, as the experience of the HWAG shows, it is essential that such groups confront the ruling ideology in its extreme forms (leftism, rank-and-file unionism) in drawing these lessons.

Throughout the existence of the HWAG there has been a constant tension between the aim for a ran-and-filist group, and an attempt to keep the group alive as an open forum of discussion for the working class. In this case the group has become a rank-and-file organ, dead to the working class. But the experience of resisting rank-and-file unionist manoeuvres within it can and must become part of the raw material for the constitution of genuine struggle groups in the future. 

AF (Nov 1987)

By announcing the forthcoming adoption of a law authorising gay  marriage, the French government has provoked a series of mobilisations and media debates where everyone is asked to choose their camp : ‘for’ or ‘against’ gay marriage.  The same thing has happened in other countries: in Britain David Cameron’s proposal to legalise gay marriage has created deep divisions in both the Tory party and the Anglican Church (which had already been convulsed by the scandalously radical idea of allowing gay priests and women bishops).

Homophobic demonstrations are an expression of capitalist decomposition

The repulsive demonstrations organised by various homophobic organisations like ‘Civitas’ or ‘Famille de France’ were shockingly large. If the fundamentalist Catholics, with their monkish garb and massive crucifixes were the main troops, the breadth of these mobilisations shows how far decaying capitalism is spreading irrationality, dehumanisation and the hatred of the ‘other’. Under the cover of slogans about ‘defending the family’, the demonstrators hardly hid their racist and homophobic prejudices.

In the face of these manifestations of hatred and collective delirium, organised in the name of an inhuman ‘normality’, the proletariat must affirm its attachment to sexual freedom, the respect for differences, but from the starting point of its own class struggle. Because the struggle for communism is not just a combat for bread to eat and for a roof over our heads. It is above all a combat for the emancipation of human beings, for “an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (Communist Manifesto).

Marriage serves the interests of the possessing class

A question remains however: will the legalisation of homosexual marriage take society towards greater sexual freedom? Leaving aside the idea that ‘marriage for everyone’ is a way of fighting against discrimination – insults, aggression, homophobic bosses won’t unfortunately disappear with the wave of a magic wand – and all the waffle about ‘human rights’ and ‘equality before the law’ – the arguments used in favour of gay marriage reveal the reactionary nature of this new contract: the bourgeoisie, and especially its left parties, present gay marriage as a social advance which will allow people to benefit from the ‘financial advantages’ and ‘rights of inheritance’ enjoyed by heterosexual couples, in particular with regard to children who can only inherit from one of their parents. These arguments are a perfect illustration of the fact that marriage is nothing but a money relation.  As Marx put it in the Communist Manifesto:  “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie”.

Of course many workers get married to sincerely express their love and to benefit from the meagre financial and administrative advantages that go with it. But marriage is an institution which is fundamentally linked to class societies. For the bourgeoisie, marriage has little to do with love. It is above all a contract for the conservation and transmission of private property: “this marriage of convenience turns often enough into crassest prostitution-sometimes of both partners, but far more commonly of the woman, who only differs from the ordinary courtesan in that she does not let out her body on piece-work as a wage-worker, but sells it once and for all into slavery”[1]

This is the nature of the ‘social progress’ promised by the left: a reform based on the commodification of human beings and on capitalist production, a system which lies at the root of all the discriminations and all the harassment and pogrom-type behaviour towards gay people.

El Generico 24/1/13

During the past months tensions between North and South Korea and the USA have once again been on the rise. Repeated missile tests, threats of missiles, artillery and even nuclear attacks against South Korea as well as targets in Japan, Hawaii or Guam have been in the centre of the North Korean war rhetoric. South Korea, the USA and Japan have in turn declared their determination to strike back militarily against North Korea. Once again the ruling class of these countries is ready to threaten the life of millions of people in order to defend their sordid national interests.

Faced with the threat of war it is the fundamental responsibility of those who fight for the interests of the exploited and the working class:

• to affirm very clearly the internationalist position against all forces of capital which are trying to push the exploited into the massacre hanging over them,
   
• to analyse the real issues hiding behind the smokescreens of the speeches of the leaders of the ruling class.

The internationalist position

In October 2006, following a nuclear test by North Korea, a meeting of internationalists from South Korea and other countries adopted the following statement:

Following the news of the nuclear tests in North Korea, we, the communist internationalists meeting in Seoul and Ulsan:

Denounce the development of a new nuclear weapons capability in the hands of another capitalist state: the nuclear bomb is the ultimate weapon of inter-imperialist warfare, its only function being the mass extermination of the civilian population in general and the working class in particular.

Denounce unreservedly this new step towards war taken by the capitalist North Korean state which has thereby demonstrated once again (if that were necessary) that it has absolutely nothing to do with the working class or communism, and is nothing but a most extreme and grotesque version of decadent capitalism's general tendency towards militaristic barbarism.

Denounce unreservedly the hypocritical campaign by the United States and its allies against its North Korean enemy which is nothing but an ideological preparation for unleashing – when they have the capacity to do so – their own pre-emptive strikes of which the working population would be the principal victim, as it is today in Iraq. We have not forgotten that the United States is the only power to have used nuclear weapons in war, when it annihilated the  civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Denounce unreservedly the so-called "peace initiatives" which are bound to appear under the aegis of other imperialist gangsters such as China. These will be concerned not with peace, but with the protection of their own capitalist interests in the region. The workers can have no confidence whatever in the "peaceful intentions" of any capitalist state.

Denounce unreservedly any attempt by the South Korean bourgeoisie to take repressive measures against the working class or against activists in their defence of internationalist principles under the pretext of protecting national freedom or democracy.

Declare our complete solidarity with the workers of North and South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia who will be the first to suffer in the event of military action breaking out.

Declare that only the world wide workers' struggle can put an end for ever to the constant threat of barbarism, imperialist war, and nuclear destruction that hangs over humanity under capitalism.

The workers have no country to defend!

Workers of all lands, unite!

https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2006-north-korea-nuclear-bomb [378]

In the face of the present situation the declaration of October 2006 remains totally valid.

Understanding the rising military tensions

In order to analyse the recent escalation between North Korea and its rivals, and the perspectives which flow from this, we must place this conflict into the broader historical and international context.

The sharpening of tensions between North Korea and its rivals is part of a more general sharpening of tensions in the Far East. During the past months the two major rivals of the region, China and Japan, have repeatedly claimed control over the Senkaku/Diayo islands and whipped up patriotic campaigns (URLlink to statement).  During the past years China and several states surrounding the South Chinese Sea have been colliding over territorial claims in the South China Sea. South Korea and Japan regularly quarrel over Takeshima/Dokdo island. The recent escalation crystallises a global trend of sharpening imperialist tensions in the region. At the same time, the conflict between North and South Korea is also one of the longest standing conflicts in East Asia[1]

 The roots of the conflict

In World War 1 East Asia was basically spared from the atrocities of the war. However, in World War 2 East Asia became one of the major battlefields between all imperialist powers (more than 20 million people lost their lives). As soon as the Nazi regime in Germany was defeated and Europe divided up amongst the winners of the war in May 1945, the Soviet Union and the USA clashed with each other over the control of Asia in several zones. Fiercely determined to prevent Russia from grabbing parts of Japan, the USA dropped the first nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after having flattened Tokyo with fire-bombs in the winter of 1944/1945. In China, Russia supported Mao’s Red Army and the USA Chiang Kai-shek. China was the first country to be divided between a pro-Russian (People’s Republic of China) and a pro-American part (Taiwan), leaving behind a deadly division which still exists today, with the two sides pointing a heavy arsenal of weapons at each other. And in 1945, after the defeat of the Japanese occupiers, while Russian troops prepared to take over the entire Korean peninsula, the USA forced Russia to accept a joint occupation of Korea, which led to the division of Korea along the 38th parallel in 1945. Thus since 1945 East Asia has constantly been marked by a confrontation between the USA and its allies on the one hand, and China and Russia and other allies on the other. It is no coincidence that the Korean war 1950-1953 was the first and one of the bloodiest phases in the Cold War between the two blocs, pitting a coalition of US-led forces against North-Korean forces supported by Chinese and Russian troops. During the Korean war, more than 3 million people died. Many got killed in massacres perpetrated by both sides. The war itself left behind a destroyed country, with Seoul and Pyongyang heavily bombed on a number of occasions. The country remained divided, with a very high level of militarization: it was one of the “best defended” military zones in the world and the armies have been pointing their weapons at each other for more than 60 years.

The present escalation is thus an expression of this continuity and an intensification of the series of conflicts which have gripped East Asia since the end of WW2. Its roots lie in the imperialist carve-up, the fragmentation of the world into nations, which are engaged in deadly struggles for survival, threatening each other with annihilation. Korea is no exception. The whole of Europe was divided after 1945 between two blocs, Germany remained divided until 1989, the entire Indian subcontinent was carved up between Pakistan/Bangladesh and India, Vietnam was divided, in the 1990s, former Yugoslavia torn apart by a number of secessionist wars. The territories of the former Ottoman Empire in the Middle East were broken up into a number of small and constantly warring nations, with the additional factor of the foundation of Israel in the midst of this landscape, leaving behind another permanent war zone. All this shows that the formation of new nations no longer offers any progress for humanity. They are a deadly trap, a cemetery for the working class.

In the same way as the Korean war in the early 1950s was already a direct confrontation between the USA and China, the present escalation also opposes the same “staunch defenders” of their allies.

The imperialist chessboard

The North Korean regime has been supported to the hilt by China from its first day of existence. The geographic-strategic position of Korea means that the country is both a target for all neighbouring rivals, as well into a precious buffer. In particular China sees North Korea as a buffer between itself and Japan and the USA.

• China is an emerging power and has constantly been challenging the USA and extending its influence internationally. The country has been modernising its armed forces and trying to set up a string of bases in the whole of Asia to expand its position – at the expense of the USA. The USA, aware of the danger that this new challenger poses in the long term, has declared its intention to mobilise the major part of its troops in East Asia to contain China. The USA is trying to rally as many countries as possible behind itself. Thus any conflict in East Asia is not only overshadowed but becomes more or less directly a part of this global power struggle between the USA and the newly rising China. China could not tolerate a collapse of the Pyongyang regime, because North Korea’s bellicose stand polarises tensions with Japan and South Korea and above all it ties down the US military arsenal aimed against North Korea, which otherwise would be directed even more against China. The idea of a reunification of North and South Korea (under South Korean domination) and the prospect of US military bases near the Chinese border can only increase Chinese determination to defend North Korea. Although it is impossible to assess the degree of influence and control China has over North Korea, a defeat of the North Korean regime in a military confrontation with the USA would mean a significant weakening of China. Thus China has to try and “restrain” North Korea, yet at the same time let North Korea “tie down” US troops.
   
• Russia, as in many other zones of conflict since 1989, has been in a contradictory position. On the one hand, Russia has been a rival of China since the 1960s after their initial alliance in the Cold War, but since the rise of China as an “emerging power” during the past decade, Russia has tended to take sides with China against the USA. At the same time it does not want China to become too assertive. Concerning North Korea, Russia does not want the USA to increase its presence in the region.
   
• The USA has never been ready to let Korea fall into the hands of China or Russia. In the present stand-off they are again the staunch defenders of South Korea and Japan. Of course their major motive is to contain China. To a certain extent the North Korean military threats are a welcome justification for the USA to increase their arsenal of weapons in the Pacific (they have already moved more weapons to Guam, Alaska, and Korea itself). Of course these can be used against North Korea but also against China. At the same time, any country that directly threatens US bases in Guam or Alaska, or the territory of America’s allies, is a challenge to US domination. Thus in addition to the weakening of the US position by China, North Korea’s threats to use nuclear weapons cannot be tolerated by the USA. The US policy of containing China in turn contributes significantly to the tensions with North Korea.
   
• Japan, the old arch-enemy of China, feels most threatened by China and its ally North Korea. At the same time, Japan has a conflict with South Korea over the Dokdo/Takeshima islands. Since the demise of the Russian bloc after 1989, Japan has been aiming at loosening the USA’ regional grip. At the same time, due to the emergence of China and the repeated and escalated conflicts with North Korea, Japan has not been able to reduce its dependency on US military might. And if Korea was reunited, Japan would face another major rival in the region. Japan, which occupied Korea for more than three decades, would also – paradoxically – regret to see disappear the North Korean buffer state. The recent increase of tensions with China and North Korea has been a welcome pretext for the Japanese government to increase its arms spending.

Thus almost exactly 60 years after the end of the Korean war in 1953, not only are the same forces opposing each other, but now we are seeing nuclear, conventional missile or artillery threats from North Korea and vice versa against some of the biggest metropoles of the world (Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang). With the growing polarisation between China and the USA, the two biggest economic nations, East Asia has become another permanent zone of conflict, with consequences for the whole world.

Two regimes - two arch-enemies of the working class

The North Korean regime, which claims to be socialist, came to power not through a workers’ uprising, but  thanks to the military help of Russia and China. Entirely dependent on its Stalinist patrons, the regime has been focussing its resources on maintaining and expanding the military apparatus. As a result of the gigantic militarisation, out of a population of 24.5 million, the country claims to have a standing army of 1.1 million plus a reserve of up to 4.7 million men and women. Similar to all the former Stalinist ruled countries of Eastern Europe, the North Korean economy has no competitive civilian products to offer on the world market. The hypertrophy of the military has meant that during the past 6 decades there has been frequent if not permanent rationing of food and other consumer goods. Since the collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 industrial production has fallen by more than 50%. The population was decimated by a famine in the mid 1990s, which apparently was only halted after delivery of food supplies from China. Even today North Korea imports 90% of its energy, 80% of its consumer goods and some 45% of its food from China.

If a ruling class has nothing to offer its population but scarcity, hunger, repression, and permanent militarisation, and if its companies cannot compete on the world market with any product, the regime can only try to gain “recognition” through its military capacity to threaten and blackmail. Such behaviour is a typical expression of a ruined class, which has nothing to offer humanity but violence, extortion and terror. The posture of threatening its rivals with all kind of military attacks shows how unpredictable and lunatic the situation has become. Faced with a growing economic impasse, the regime for some years has been trying to introduce limited economic measures of “liberalisation”, hoping to improve the supply situation. Some believe that the present sabre rattling is a mere diversion from economic problems and a manoeuvre of the young successor Kim Jong-un to impress the army. While we cannot speculate about the political stability of the regime, we think it would be mistaken to underestimate the real dangers of escalation of the situation. The rise of imperialist tensions is never just “bluff” or “bluster” or a mere diversion and political theatre. All governments in the world are forced to intensify the spiral of militarism – even if this may appear to be working against their own interests. The ruling class has no real control over the cancer of militarism. Even though it is obvious that in the case of a North Korean attack against South Korea or the USA, this would lead to a considerable weakening if not even collapse of a whole regime and state, we must know that the ruling class knows no limits to the policy of scorched earth. In many places of the world, people commit suicide attacks, killing and wounding an endless number of people and sacrificing their own life. The case of North Korea shows that an entire state is threatening to commit massacres and is ready for “suicide”. And even though North Korea is extremely dependent on China, China cannot be sure of being able to “rein” in the regime in Pyongyang, which has shown a new dimension of insanity. During the Korean war both China as well as North Korea were ready to sacrifice millions of soldiers as cannon-fodder. The present North Korean regime is no less ready to sacrifice its “own” cannon-fodder and annihilate as many lives on the enemy side as possible. The North Korean regime thus illustrates the what fighting for your own national interests really implies. As a result this leads to more chaos on the imperialist chess-board.  The policy of threats and blackmails by the North Korean regime is no exception but a caricature of the perspectives of the capitalism system as a whole, which is pushing humanity into an ever growing barbarism.

With a regime in the North so openly threatening South Korea, Japan and the USA, South Korea can present itself as “victim” and “innocent”. But the South Korean ruling class is no better and not less ferocious than its counter-part in North-Korea.

In May 1948 in the South the US-supported Rhee government organised a massacre of some 60.000 people in Cheju (a fifth of the island’s residents). During the war the South Korean government massacred with the same intensity as Northern troops. During the reconstruction period, the country was run by governments which exercised dictatorial rights either indirectly as under Rhee or directly under Park Chung-Hee for more than 4 decades. Whenever workers’ or students’ protests flared up, the regime used repression. In 1980 a popular rising with a strong working class participation in Kwangju was crushed in blood. However, in the reconstruction period after the Korean war, above all since the 1960s thanks to a harsh exploitation of its workforce, South Korean capital managed to get access to the world market through the low price of its goods. South Korea boasts one of the world’s highest percentages of precarious, temporary contract labour[2]. However, with or without a “dictator” as president, all the governments have maintained their policy of repression. The National Security Law gives the government the authority to hunt down any voices critical of the South Korean regime, accusing anybody of being an agent for North Korea. And in so many strikes and protests by workers or students or even “ordinary citizens” (see for example Sangyong or the “candle light protests”), the South Korean State constantly uses repression against the working class in particular. While the media ridicule the way the different generations of the Kim dynasty in North Korea pass on power, the recent election of Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the former dictator Park Chung-Hee shows a remarkable continuity of power transmission under “democracy”. Moreover, the common exploitation of the North Korean work force in the industrial zone of Kaesong shows that the South Korean capitalists are perfectly able to cooperate with any North Korean clique. And the South Korean ruling clique is as determined to use any military means against its Northern rival. Recently Seoul has been aiming at developing nuclear weapons itself.

Class war against imperialist war

History has shown: the two types of regime are basically the same: arch enemies of the workers. The workers cannot take sides with either of them. The recent sharpening of tensions in East Asia crystallises the destructive tendency of capitalism. But the recent conflict is not just a repetition: the dangers have become much bigger for humanity. This time the most powerful rivals are clashing with each other, the USA and China, China and Japan, all heavily armed and committed to speeding up the arms race. During the time of the Korean and Cold War the working class was defeated and unable to raise its head. Only a very small number of revolutionaries of the communist left defended an internationalist position at the time of the Korean war. Today, the proletariat in East Asia is not willing to sacrifice its life in the deadly spiral of capitalism. Only the working class can save humanity from sinking into an ever deeper barbarism. In order to do so the working class must reject patriotism and the spiral of militarism.

 No to a “united front with the government”! The only solution for the working class is to resolutely fight against their own bourgeoisies – in the North as well as in the South.  For revolutionaries today this means we must continue to defend the internationalist tradition of Lenin, Luxemburg, and Liebknecht during World War 1, of the Communist Left during World War 2 and during the Korean War –a tradition that was defended again in the 2006 internationalist statement on the threat of war in 2006.   

ICC, 8.4.2013

It is now one week since two crudely made “improvised explosive devices” tore through the crowd near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon killing three people and injuring dozens of others, many suffering severe and traumatic injuries including the loss of multiple limbs. What was supposed to be a day of celebration of one of the oldest sporting events in the country had become the backdrop for one of the worst terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11. The bomb remnants investigators discovered in the aftermath of the blast appeared to have been made from pressure cookers and stuffed with nails and ball bearings so as to maximize casualties from shrapnel. Inspired by similar devices used by insurgents to wreak havoc on American and allied troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, it appeared that the chickens from US imperialism’s adventures abroad might have once again come home to roost. Trauma surgeons who treated the wounded at local hospitals described the injuries as “combat like,” just as images of the blast sight showing sidewalks stained with blood filled the airwaves and streamed across WiFi connections. America, and especially the city of Boston, appeared to be in a state of disbelief and shock.

Nevertheless, only days later the FBI was able to identify two suspects using footage from the now ubiquitous surveillance cameras that look down on pedestrians and vehicles from the rooftops and traffic signals of just about every major city in the world. And, as the FBI, Governor Patrick and President Obama all boldly promised in the aftermath of the attacks, the state was quickly able to put the pieces of the investigative puzzle together and identify the supposed culprits. By the end of the night on Friday, April 20th,, 26 year old Tamerlan Tsarneaev, a resident of a Boston suburb with a passion for boxing, was dead, killed in a violent shoot-out with police. His badly wounded 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar would be captured, weakened and incoherent from blood loss caused by a hail of police bullets. As this is written, the younger Nasaraev remains in serious condition in a Boston hospital, unable to communicate we are told. Still, the US federal state proudly proclaims, in a tone that appears designed to reassure us of something, that once he comes to they won’t even bother to read him his Miranda rights before the federal government’s “high value interrogation team”1 goes to work.

In the interim period between the attacks and the dramatic events of Friday night, the US state and its media apparatus went into full propaganda mode, exploiting the attacks for all they were worth. On Thursday, President Obama travelled to Boston to speak to an “interfaith service,” loudly stating his resolve that the perpetrators would face the “full weight of American justice.”2 Although, the scale of destruction in Boston was nowhere near as severe as what occurred on September 11th, 2001(nor as grave as that which US imperialism continues to visit upon civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere), the U.S. state wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to once again beat the drums about the need for national unity in the face of terrorism and run a massive media campaign trotting out all kinds of talking heads from “terrorism experts” to criminal profilers, various psychologists and beyond; all designed, they said, to help an anxious public understand what had happened and reassure them that in the end justice would be done American style.

In Boston itself, the city was kept on high alert for the entire period. Just as the media spouted their drivel about how the city would refuse to be terrorized, Governor Patrick pleaded with residents to stay in their homes, revealing the ease with which the bourgeoisie talks out of both sides of its mouth in the pursuit of a patriotic narrative. On Friday, with Dzhokhar still on the loose, the state put the city on “total lock down” reducing much of the Boston area to a ghost town. The media announced that police were performing door-to-door searches; the city had been divided up into “zones”; Blackhawk helicopters were flying overhead and high tech military equipment would be deployed. The language of military occupation and prison discipline was now flippantly applied to the very American city in which the struggle against British military occupation had been launched two and a half centuries before—all in the pursuit of a wounded and almost certainly terrified 19-year-old kid who appeared to have no real plan for how to elude authorities other than to conceal himself under a boat tarp.

All of this should make it abundantly clear that terrorism, in whatever form, can only ever serve the interests of the bourgeois state—whether this takes the form of giving the state the opportunity to practice the militarization of a city, allowing the media to beat the drums of patriotism, or creating the excuse for the politicians to propose legislation to “beef up security.” This was made evident in the aftermath of the arrest of Dzhokhar when local residents spontaneously assembled on neighborhood sidewalks to cheer the police as a parade of squad cars left the scene. Later that night, in the heart of the city a “celebration” broke out that witnessed ordinary working people spontaneously hugging and shaking the hands of the cops sent there to keep order. One is tempted to compare the spectacle of Friday night to Eastern European civilians cheering the arrival of the Soviet army in 1945 – but how quickly do tonight’s liberators become tomorrow’s jack booted thugs? If there is one thing terrorism generally accomplishes, it is to drive the population into the hands of the state, goading them to identify with its repressive forces as their only protection against the irrational violence of terrorism unleashed in their communities.

Of course, the sense of relief that Bostonians felt once it was clear that the alleged perpetrators had been rendered incapable of causing further damage to their city is understandable; it is a genuine tragedy when working people come to identify with the state, rather than their own struggles, as their best protection against the growing decomposition of society. It is for this reason that anyone concerned with creating a better world—a world beyond the exploitation and violence of capitalism—must categorically reject terrorism as a tactic for pursing that goal. It accomplishes nothing other than to drive the working class—the only social force capable of offering humanity a real future—into the hands of the very state that represses it.

Nevertheless, the Boston events simply do not have the same scale that the 9/11 attacks did, so it seems likely that the celebratory fervor whipped up by the media will eventually fade. However, the state did manage to take one of the alleged perpetrators into custody, so we can certainly expect quite the media circus surrounding his trial (if he survives his police perpetrated injuries). Where will he be prosecuted? Will he be treated as an “enemy combatant” or will he be given a civilian trial? Will the federal government go for the death penalty, even though there is no death penalty under Massachusetts state law? How much was the young Dzhokhar under the influence of his older brother? To what extent was he really a hardened terrorist? Will he ask for forgiveness or will he mock the victims? All of this will keep the media buzzing for quite some time.

But underneath all these surface questions lies a more fundamental one: what would drive two young men who had lived most of their lives in the United States towards such violence against their neighbors? There will, of course, be a temptation by some of the cruder elements in the media to blame it all on the brothers’ Chechen background and Muslim heritage. “Muslims simply can’t be trusted,” they will say; “We should be much more circumspect about who we let into the country.” International terrorism experts might even tell us that Putin is right to take a hard line with such ruthless and unscrupulous people.

Others will blame the Internet as an “ungoverned” space that allows foreign terrorist organizations to “radicalize” vulnerable youth across national and continental borders. Undoubtedly, the media’s hired shrinks, in violation of just about every canon of their profession, will probe deep into the psyches of these two young men they have never met and tell us all about how their inability to fully integrate into American society left them isolated and in search of a purpose beyond themselves,3 which they found in radical Islam or Chechen nationalism or some such archaic ideology. Perhaps the more farsighted elements in the US bourgeoisie will come to recognize that, like most of the Western European countries, they now have their own problem with “home grown” Islamic terrorism that cannot be solved with repression alone and which demands serious sociological and psychological research to address.

But whatever “answers” the bourgeois commissions and academic investigations will come up with, it is highly unlikely they will be able to hit on the real answer as to what fuels such violence and destruction: the decomposition of capitalist society itself, which more and more pushes some young people into a state of desperation and alienation so painful that lashing out at society in one last blaze of violence seems the only answer to their profound existential crises.

The bourgeois experts probably won’t see any connection between the violent, but calculated, actions of the Tsarnaevs and the less political, more desperate, but just as nihilistic outbursts of an Adam Lanza, James Holmes, or Jared Lee Loughner. Islamic terrorism is fundamentally different from these kinds of mass shooting they will tell us. One is fueled by a foreign political ideology that exploits vulnerable young people, the other by “mental illness” or the easy availability of guns. But is there any really tangible difference between the Tsarnaev’s case and the violent outbursts perpetrated by these young, white, “American” men? Is it not the case that the only difference is that the Tsarneaevs—perhaps as a tangential result of their Chechen heritage or Muslim background—fell under the influence of a sick ideology (itself the product of social decomposition) and thus were able to, in their own minds, rationalize their homicidal rampage as politically necessary? But this does not explain why two young men, in the supposed prime of their lives, supposedly living the American dream, would be in such a state of mind to begin with where such ideologies could even appeal to them. How can such ideologies come to speak to young men growing up in the heart of a supposed capitalist “democracy”?

What are the underlying social, economic and psychological injuries that drive such young men to identify with a suicidal ideology that grows out of political struggle thousands of miles away from them and that has no direct affect on their daily lives and which they can only experience as an abstract fantasy?4 Could it be that the political extremism of the type that appears to have subsumed at least the older Tsarnaev is only the last exit off the highway before one’s desperation arrives at the kind of nihilist insanity that engulfed Lanza, Holmes and Loughner? Maybe the Tsarnaev’s route to political extremism was not so different from these three white “American” young men’s route to violent insanity?5 If this is the case, we must look beyond simplistic explanations that would understand these attacks as a result of the young brother’s ethnicity and religion and look instead to the social decomposition of capitalist society in the United States itself and the accompanying ethos of “no future” that increases many in the younger generations (in particular young men) today.

What, then, are some of the features of the objective social and economic situation facing the younger generations today that underlie the repeated violent outbursts we have witnessed? First, it should be acknowledged that the effects of capitalism’s economic crisis that accelerated in dramatic fashion in 2008 have so far fallen disproportionately on the younger generation. To begin with, unemployment is much higher among younger workers today than their older class peers.6 Many younger workers are simply unable to find a job that would pay them enough to live an “adult lifestyle” and thus complete the psychological transition from adolescence to adulthood in a more or less healthy way. The percentage of college educated young people who continue to live with their parents has increased dramatically as a result of the crisis.7 Moreover, as the job market continues to stagnate, many younger people find that they can only survive the crisis by prolonging their post-secondary educations and thus get sucked deep into the educational debt trap. Many young people are leaving college (with or without a degree) with staggering debt loads, fueling a sense of not being to get ahead or to even establish oneself as an independent and autonomous person in this world.

It is not a long jump from understanding these objective phenomena to appreciating the psychological toll this can take on young people, many of whom are increasingly thrown into a deep identity crisis. The burden can be particularly hard on young men, who still tend to be socialized in the model of the bourgeois “bread winner.” The frustration from the inability to find a meaningful and sufficiently remunerative job, the sense of uselessness that comes from prolonged periods of unemployment, the embarrassment of having to move back home with one’s parents, the reversal of standard gender roles that often occurs when a female partner works, but the male is stuck at home, is often an “emasculating” experience that fuels a profound identity crisis, which can cause some young men to lash out at the women in their lives and the broader society that appears to send mixed messages about masculine identity.

The older Tsarneaev is reported to have been charged with domestic violence in the past—a fact that may have caused the immigration authorities to deny his application for US citizenship.8 It has also been reported that his partner worked, while he was staying home and caring for their child. While it would be extrapolating too much at this stage to say we know the precise role these factors played in his “radicalization,” it seems reasonable to consider whether Tamerlan’s strained relationship with his partner was one of the factors which made radical Islam, a philosophy in which gender roles are not so ambiguous and women are supposed to know their place, attractive to him. Can the attraction of these kinds of ideologies, in part, be the sense of male empowerment they can give to young men struggling with their inability to live up to traditional notions of masculinity?

But, even if this is the case, it should be clear that this does not so much represent the penetration of some archaic foreign way of thought into American society, as much as it expresses the breakdown of traditional bourgeois family and social roles and the resultant crisis in male socialization that is a function of capitalist decomposition. While as communists we do not lament the decline of traditional bourgeois gender values, we can still recognize the part this might play in fueling the social crisis before us and how it could contribute to the repeated outbursts of irrational violence that continue to dominate news reports on what seems like a regular basis.

Undoubtedly, some critics will not find our attempt to understand the roots of these violent outbursts convincing. The less forgiving of them will tell us these kinds of attacks can only be condemned, not “understood.” We won’t spend much time responding to this line of argument, as it is not very serious. However, a more sophisticated challenge might say that not all unemployed or debt ridden young people resort to this kind of violence—so we cannot use such objective social conditions to explain these attacks. While it is indeed true that the vast majority of young people will never even consider engaging in this kind of violence, this kind of criticism rather misses the point. Pushed to the edge inevitably some people are bound to go over it and lash out at society in a violent way; and as recent events have shown, it only takes a handful to cause carnage and heartache on a massive scale.

Nevertheless, the critics may have a point in that there are alternatives to such a violent response to alienation and economic stress. Pointless violence is not the only option. Just within the last several years, we have seen several examples of young people coming together in solidarity to discuss an alternative to this society. For all their warts, movements like Occupy and the Indignados in Spain are powerful evidence that there is another way to express frustration and anger at this society that is far more powerful than any individualized violence. It is the collective solidarity forged in struggle that shows us the way forward and demonstrates to us how a world beyond the pain and suffering of the damaged individual ego is possible. Still, these movements cannot be willed into existence. They are themselves products of deep social and historical forces that are thus beyond the power of isolated individuals, or small groups, to create ex nihilio. The burning question thus becomes: how to we channel our frustrations in the meantime?

As far as US internal politics go, it is likely that, whatever their initial propaganda value, these bombings will not work in favor of the Obama administration. With reports surfacing that the FBI interviewed the older Tsarnaev brother two years ago at the bequest of Russian intelligence and concluded he was not a threat, it seems inevitable that this will fuel Republican-led investigations on Capitol Hill and accusations that the Obama administration simply cannot keep us safe from terror. With Senators McCain and Graham already calling on Obama to declare the younger Tsarnaev an “enemy combatant” and forego any of the legal niceties supposedly afforded by the US Constitution,9 there promises to be another round of heated disputes ahead. The only real question seems to be whether or not the Republicans will overplay their hand.

Moreover, although the Boston bombings momentarily distracted the media’s attention, away from the defeat of gun control legislation backed by President Obama, this defeat only seems to have emboldened the President’s opponents. Already, despite the apparent willingness of many Republicans to relent to comprehensive immigration reform, there is talk of strengthening right-wing resistance to any bill that would grant anything remotely resembling “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. Clearly, the rancor and furor that has characterized the internal life of the US bourgeoisie over the last several years has not subsided as much as the media would have had us believe the last three months. In line with the nature of the period, it seems likely that these bombings will only become more fodder in what seems like inexhaustible infighting among the various factions that comprise the bourgeois state. What a reversal of fortune for the US bourgeoisie from 2001, when it was able to utilize the 9/11 attacks to forge a national consensus for war.

In the end, even if we have the ability through the Marxist method to begin to understand the underlying social and economic factors that can drive some alienated youth towards acts of terrorism, or other acts of desperate violence, we have to be clear that these can never be a tactic for the emancipation of the proletariat. Terrorism and irrational violence only end up serving the interests of the state, and thus the entire capitalist system, as they are exploited to drum up propaganda and fear campaigns that push significant parts of the working class, even if only temporarily, into the arms of the state. Still, in the context of capitalist decomposition, in which the system is increasingly unable to offer the younger generation any real perspective for their future, regardless of what country they come from, what ethnicity they are or what religion, creed or ideology they are influenced by, we can likely only expect more of these outbursts of irrational violence in the future.

The only hope humanity has to avoid the twin pillars of senseless violence and state repression lies in the independent and autonomous struggle of the working class to defend its standard of living against capital’s attacks. Only this struggle can render the communist perspective visible and offer the younger generations hope for an alternative to the life of frustration, despair and seeming randomness that characterizes capitalism in decomposition.

Henk

Following the successful meeting we had last year, the ICC invites you to another day of discussion in London, on 22 June 2013.

The main focus of the day will be a discussion around the theme:

Capitalism is in deep trouble – why is it so hard to fight against it?

In this session, we will consider questions such as: is it accurate to say that capitalism is in terminal decline? What is really at stake in the struggle of the working class to defend itself? What are the main obstacles to the development of the struggle?

We have published a great deal about the crisis in our press but we recommend the following one to give a general overview of the situation confronting capitalism:

https://en.internationalism.org/internationalreview/201203/4744/economic-crisis-not-never-ending-story [395]

Regarding the problem of responding to the crisis, we think the following article, and the discussion on our internet forum that it stimulated, provide a good starting point:

https://en.internationalism.org/worldrevolution/201211/5284/why-it-so-difficult-struggle-and-how-can-we-overcome-these-difficulties [396]

/forum/5293/why-it-so-difficult-struggle-and-how-can-we-overcome-these-difficulties [397]

In the afternoon we are planning to organise a discussion around the theme:

How do we get from capitalism to communism?

What does a revolution look like? What is the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’?  How can capitalist relations of production be overturned? How will the working class deal with the huge problems posed by capitalism’s destruction of the environment?

As with last year’s meeting, we hope that the presentations will be given by comrades who are not ICC members.

We think that these discussions will be of interest to comrades in or around revolutionary political organisations, to people who have been actively involved in the class struggle, and to anyone asking questions about the nature and future of present-day society – and about the feasibility of getting rid of it.  

If you are interested in attending, please let us know in advance, especially if you have any accommodation, transport or other problems that might make it difficult for you to come along.

The venue is upstairs at the Lucas Arms, 245a Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8QZ. The first session will go from 11-2 and the afternoon session from 3-6. We will arrange for food at lunch time but we are also planning to go to a nearby restaurant after the meeting. The meeting is free but we will ask for contributions for the food and the room.

Contact us at [email protected] [398] or at BM Box 869, London, WC1N 3XX

In early August 2012, an international anarchist meeting was held in the commune of St Imier (Swiss Jura). One of the speakers was the spokesperson of Fekar[1]. The initiative to let this person speak at the meeting was taken by the Swiss group of the Forum of German-speaking Anarchists, which aims to bring together Turkish/Kurdish anarchists in a single federation.

According to the speaker, the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party, a party with Stalinist origins, in Kurdish: Partiya Karkarên Kurdistan) “concluded, in the late ‘eighties, that even if the Kurds did not yet have their own state, they already presented problems with authority in their own movement that correspond to those within a state. The PKK has therefore moved far from a ‘proletarian orientation’ and from a model of an independent national state with its own government, and therefore from an authoritarian state form. It is now a model for forms of ‘communal’ social life iin which the freedom of women, but also of ‘transsexuals’ and basically every individual is paramount, in which there is respect for differences and where the aim is to achieve a good ecological balance in nature.” It is this which is reproduced synthetically in the report of one of the participants[2]. Jan Bervoets, a member of the editorial board of the Netherlands anarchist journal Buiten de Orde (Out of Order), expressed his reservations about the Fekar spokesperson’s statement. He questioned whether "Őcalan has been illuminated, or if it is rather the adage 'when the fox preaches passion, farmer, watch the geese' that applies here”. But at the same time, he suggested that it is not entirely impossible that the PKK is actually developing in the direction of an organisation with anti-authoritarian and communitarian principles, in which the individual is paramount: “Have we all witnessed a historic moment, or an illusionist trick? History itself will tell.” Despite the reservations expressed here, this is once again the height of political naivety which so often characterises anarchism. The desire among anarchists to see in some way expressions of anarchist principles is so great, that a mere ghostly outline of anarchist principles (anti-authoritarian, communitarian, federalist, the primacy of the individual) is sufficient to create an atmosphere of jubilation among many (ibid.). On the occasion of this discussion in the anarchist milieu, a participant in the 'summer day' of the ICC in Belgium asked us: what is the position of the ICC in relation to recent developments in the PKK? It is clear from the contribution below that the PKK, whatever the positive image drawn by the conference speaker, still has nothing to do with the struggle for the emancipation of humanity and its liberation from the yoke of class society.[3]

The origins of the PKK

The PKK was founded on 27 November 1978 in the village of Fis (Diyarbakir) by Abdullah Öcalan, Mazlum Dogan and 21 disciples. His goal was to put an end to Turkish 'colonialism' in Turkish Kurdistan and the realisation of an independent and united Kurdish state.[4] Since its inception, Öcalan (Apo) has been the undisputed leader of the PKK.

At the ideological level, the PKK was inspired by Stalinism (what the guest speaker at St Imier calls “a proletarian orientation”). Arguing for reconciliation between the so-called socialist countries, mainly Russia and China, while being materially much more tied to Russian interests, they were closer to the position of the North Korean and Cuban Stalinist than any of the others. On the one hand, power could be conquered through a popular guerrilla army; on the other, allies should be sought on the imperialist chessboard of the Eastern bloc against the Western bloc as well as among the Kurdish landowners against their Kurdish rivals. To achieve this goal, the PKK declared itself willing to use any means, however terrible certain acts may be. It launched an armed struggle with numerous attacks, including against other Kurdish political fractions. Some insist, however, that the PKK has given Turkish Kurds their self-esteem and made them aware of their Kurdish identity. For its part, Turkey, where most Kurds in the region live, has always been opposed to any form of autonomy and has practiced the policy of assimilation as well as more open forms of repression such as police violence, torture, forced immigration and open massacres. The strategic importance of the region, much more than its economic importance, has been crucial here. The Kurds were officially called 'mountain Turks' and their language was considered a Turkish dialect. They were kept in poverty and had to stay in line.

The civil war:: battleground of world imperialism

On 15 August 1984, the PKK attacked police stations in the villages of Eruh (Siirt) and Şemdinli (Hakkari), actions in which two Turkish officers were killed. This was the beginning of a whole series of paramilitary actions. As a counter-measure, the Turkish authorities decided to recruit thousands of Kurds who, in exchange for money and weapons, were stationed as village guards against the PKK.

The PKK was initially ruthless towards the village guards, and towards all Kurds who showed any sympathy with the Turkish central authority, in addition to their attacks against certain landowners. So the PKK lost the sympathy of a part of the Kurdish population. Relations were generally quite intense with other Kurdish fractions as well, such as that of Massoud Barzani in northern Iraq. The population of Kurdistan was thus squeezed by PKK guerrillas on the one hand and the Turkish army on the other. The nationalist party, organised on a Stalinist basis, was also supported strategically in this conflict by other imperialist forces in the region, who used it as leverage against Turkey.

Just like other bourgeois parties of the left, the PKK presented itself as the defender of 'socialism'. Through the armed struggle against the cruel Turkish government at the time, the PKK could attract some of the workers and poor masses who were desperate or had illusions, to drag them into a nationalist and imperialist struggle. In March 1990, at Kurdish New Year, funerals of PKK members killed in the struggle resulted in massive demonstrations. But after the collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 and the disintegration of its Western bloc rival, the pieces on the imperialist chessboard were shaken up and the PKK lost some of its former allies. The Gulf War in 1991 in Iraq opened the door to a 'new world (dis)order’, in which Kurdish nationalism was used for the umpteenth time as bait to recruit cannon fodder. In the growing chaos, with the development of 'every man for himself', where all the imperialist powers, large and small, want to increase their influence in the Middle East, whose importance is strategic as much as economic, the PKK continues to play on the imperialist contradictions in the region, having received support from governments such as those of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Greece and other imperialist countries, including Russia.

To survive, the PKK had to change its tune; it could no longer present itself as a purely Stalinist formation. And while, in the early 90s, some three thousand PKK guerrillas had captured de facto power in parts of Turkish Kurdistan, at the same time Öcalan sought other political opportunities to be able to maintain it. From then, military confrontations have alternated with periods of cease-fire and negotiations. A first round occurred in the early 90s, when the Turkish President Turgut Ozal agreed to negotiations. Apart from Özal, himself half-Kurdish, few Turkish politicians were interested, nor was more than a part of the PKK itself, and after the president’s death on 17 April 1993, in suspicious circumstances, the hope of reconciliation evaporated. In June 1993, Öcalan called again for 'total war'. Other episodes followed in 1995 and 1998 ending each time in failure. When the armed struggle took a more and more intense form, Turkey forced Syria to expel Öcalan. He ran away, but was eventually arrested by Turkish agents on 15 February 1999. He was sentenced to death for treason but this was commuted to life imprisonment under pressure from the European Union. Turkey had in fact applied for accession to the EU and had to promise to improve the situation of Kurds at the level of humanitarian rights. Since then, Öcalan has tried to lead his party from prison, through his lawyers. From August 1999, PKK guerrillas withdrew from the region and a series of initiatives was taken to develop the so-called ‘process of peace and democracy'.

Political manoeuvres to hide their true nature

The strategy to conquer their place within the dominant bourgeoisie had to be changed, and after much (bloody) struggle between fractions within the movement, the card of autonomy and federalism was played to get out of the political impasse. The eighth party congress of the PKK approved on 16 April 2002 the so-called 'democratic' transformation. Hence, the party would seek 'liberation' through political rights for Kurds in Turkey and renounce violence, even though the current leader of the PKK, Murat Karayilan, still declared in 2007 that an independent state remains the principal objective of the organisation. At this congress, the PKK transformed itself and a new political branch was created, even if this was a purely tactical act: it was baptised the Congress for Freedom and Democracy in Kurdistan (KADEK). The PKK reported at the time that it would continue the fight with democratic means alone. A spokesman for the PKK/KADEK said, however, that it would not dissolve its armed wing, the People's Defence Forces (HPG) or surrender its weapons, for reasons of 'self-defence'. The organisation wanted to maintain its ability to conduct military operations in order to establish itself as a full partner in the negotiations. In April, KADEK elected a governing council, but the members were almost identical to those of the presidential council of the PKK. On November 15 2003, KADEK was in turn transformed into a more 'moderate' fraction, the People's Congress of Kurdistan (KONGRA-GEL), in an attempt to make it more acceptable at the negotiating table and for a parliamentary mandate. Eventually, the name PKK reappeared as the 'ideological guiding light' of the general movement, which took the form of KCK, the Confederation of Kurdish Communities (Koma Civakên Kurdistan). Being the proto-state of the Kurdish nationalist movement, technically speaking, this formation serves as the umbrella body for every organ of the movement, such as the politico-parliamentary formation Kongra-Gel (Congress of the People), the PKK as its ruling party, the military wing HPG (People's Defence Forces, Hezen Parastina Gel); The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) in Iranian Kurdistan, the Party for a Democratic Solution to Kurdistan (PÇDK) in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syrian Kurdistan, in addition to all sorts of other bodies and organisations which perform various functions of a state.

Negotiations with the Turkish government did not have the expected results, and in June 2004 Öcalan made a call through his lawyers to take up arms again; but to maintain the democratic image he hastened to add that this was not a declaration of war but of 'self-defence'. Between 2004 and 2009, the PKK carried out regular attacks and the Turkish army repeatedly attacked PKK fighters in northern Iraq. Thus, both sides kept up the pressure.

Since 1990, the Kurdish nationalists had been trying legal means to participate in Turkish parliamentary politics, a process in which six Kurdish legal political parties, nominally independent while maintaining ties with the PKK, were formed and banned one after another. A highlight of this process was the electoral alliance of the first of these parties, the Popular Labor Party (HEP) with the left-Kemalist Social Democratic People's Party (SHP) and the arrest of the deputies from the former Popular Labor Party (they had to join a back-up Kurdish nationalist party called the Democratic Party – DEP – by then, since the original party had been banned). In 1999, the Kurdish nationalists participated for the first time in the municipal elections with their own party and won a large majority in Turkish Kurdistan and they've been maintaining this status in the region ever since. In 2005, the Kurdish nationalists re-launched their efforts to obtain a place in the Turkish parliament by legal means. To this end, a large and nominally renewed pro-Kurdish party called the Democratic Society Party (DTP) was founded to replace the recently banned party of the same affiliation, the Democratic Popular Party (DEHAP). This party, affiliated to the PKK like all the others before it, managed to send several deputies to parliament, elected as independents due to the unusually high election threshold of 10% in Turkey, installed by the junta following the 1980 coup d'etat to prevent the entry of any undesirable elements into the parliament. This party too was in turn banned by the Turkish authorities because of its close links with the PKK and was replaced in 2009 by the Party for Peace and Democracy (BDP) (in Turkish: Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, in Kurdish: Partiya Aştî û Demokrasiyê), itself created somewhat before the DTP was banned, just in case. This is now officially recognised as a social democratic party by the Socialist International as DTP was before. 36 delegates supported by them have sat since the last election, elected as independents again in the Turkish parliament. Many prisoners arrested due to the KCK operations are members of this party as well.

To cut the feet from under the PKK, in July 2009 the Turkish government began a new counter-offensive, this time presented as 'democratic': the Kurdish Reform Plan. The Kurds would get their own public broadcasting, new rights such as the right to take Kurdish lessons, Kurdish political parties would participate in trips abroad. As a recent example, we can mention the attempt to win the sympathy of the Kurdish masses by charitable distributions of food, fridges, ovens etc.

The PKK leader, Öcalan, responded from his prison cell with a new version of his 'Road Map to Peace' in 2003 (the publication of which is not authorised by the Turkish authorities)[5]. The PKK announced that it would abandon the armed struggle and send ‘peace brigades’ across the border to support the 'democratic' solution of the conflict that the Turkish government had begun. The first brigade, composed of 8 PKK fighters and 26 Turkish Kurdish citizens who had fled to Iraq in the 90s, crossed the border from Iraq on 19 October and were met with Kurdish flags by thousands of Turkish Kurds.

Now, both sides hide their true intentions. Their capitalist, nationalist and imperialist interests are disguised by a pacifist and democratic discourse that fits better in the new world view. Both sides also seek to introduce religious motives and thus respond to emerging political Islamism.

But it is in the context of the many tensions in the Middle East and the ravages of the global economic crisis that we need to understand the efforts of the Turkish and Kurdish bourgeoisie, who use the 'freedom' of the Kurds as a negotiating card.

What does Kurdish autonomy and federalism represent?

While the strategy of the AKP (Party of Justice and Development) government remained basically the same as that of previous governments, its tactics were markedly different. Representatives of the Kurdish movement in Turkish politics were full of intrigues and false gestures, while in the background lay the three years of negotiations with representatives of the PKK in Europe in the Norwegian capital Oslo, while the government continued its repression. Thousands were arrested during this process in the action against the KCK, hundreds of Kurdish guerrillas were killed as they retreated during the 'cease-fire', demonstrations were severely repressed with many injured and dead, social repression was encouraged in Turkish cities against the Kurds who lived there, with attempted lynching as a result.

The nationalists of the PKK responded to the tactics of the AKP government with their plan for democratic autonomy for the region. At the fourth DTK congress[6] in August 2010 in Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of Kurdistan, the co-president Ahmet Turk presented a project for a free and autonomous Kurdistan through the creation and definition of autonomy at the juridical level within the Turkish Constitution. No separatism therefore. With regard to the historical question of the use of the Kurdish language, it would be taught to all age groups, from primary school to university locally and in all Kurdish cities. In a free and autonomous Kurdistan, Kurdish would be the official language, alongside Turkish and local dialects. The economic exploitation of resources in the Kurdish regions would be in the hands of the Kurdish leaders of free and autonomous Kurdistan. There would also be representatives of free and autonomous Kurdistan in the Turkish parliament to discuss issues of equal rights and related discussions. Finally, the free and autonomous Kurdistan would have a flag that differed from the flag of the Turkish Republic, namely a Kurdish flag with its own logos and symbols based on the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan. The debate evolved in the direction of a confederation of the different Kurdish regions in the area. According to the convention, the people and the Kurdish regions in countries such as Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran undoubtedly belonged to the fabric of Kurdistan.

“The model of democratic self-government is the most reasonable solution, because it corresponds to the history and political circumstances in which Turkey finds itself. In fact, the Kurds enjoyed an autonomous status within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. Hence this proposal is not based on separatism. Instead, our people will determine their reciprocal relationship based on free will and voluntary union in a common homeland. The model does not envisage the abolition of the state, nor a change of borders. Democratic Turkey and democratic autonomous Kurdistan are a concrete formula for our peoples to govern themselves with their own culture and identity and their right to live freely." (PKK Press Statement 13-08-2010)[7]

But faced with continuing repression, it was trumped again, and on 14 July 2011 the 5th Kurdish DTK congress approved a declaration in which it audaciously and unilaterally declared ‘democratic autonomy’ for the Kurds in Turkey, and called for this to be recognised internationally. Pressure from Ankara was intensified and on July 24 the DTK unilaterally announced elections in 43 provinces. The mayor of Diyarbakir saw these elections as an important step towards autonomy. Bengi Yildiz, parliamentary deputy and delegate of the BDP in the DTK, declared that the autonomous region would no longer pay taxes to Ankara.

The recent Sixth DTK Congress, on 15 and 16 September 2012 in Diyarbakir, was held under the slogan “democratic autonomy towards national unity". The main task was to strengthen the bases of the PKK against the Turkish authorities' attempts to isolate and weaken it. The DTK was to become the parliament of all those who live in Kurdistan, Kurds or not Kurds. The situation in Syria was also an important point on the agenda. It should indeed not be forgotten that the PKK is part of the Confederation of Kurdish Communities (KCK) with four major military sister organisations in the region: the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) in Iranian Kurdistan, the Party for a Democratic Solution in Iraqi Kurdistan (PÇDK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syrian Kurdistan, which had taken control of this region with the tacit approval of Assad.[8]

Neither the ten principles of the PKK roadmap in 2003 or 2009, nor the declaration of the PKK in 2010, nor the practice of 'free and autonomous' Kurdistan up to the present, prove that “the PKK is actually developing in the direction of an organisation with anti-authoritarian and communitarian principles where the individual is paramount.” No illusions, comrades, the strategy of the Kurdish bourgeoisie, of the PKK which is a major representative, consists of integrating into the Turkish state to govern Turkish Kurdistan as a local apparatus of the Turkish state. This strategy has forced it to follow blow by blow the many dirty manoeuvres of its rival, as the only way to be able to stay at the negotiating table. The peace negotiations that the AKP government will begin directly with Öcalan in January 2013 are only a logical step in this process, which does not prevent military clashes between the two parties continuing.

In fact, “The PKK, although it hasn't succeeded in becoming an actual state, is acting as the main apparatus of the nationalist Kurdish bourgeoisie in Turkey; it attempts to realise its interests in its area of activity as if it is an actual state and it is bound to rely on the direct or indirect support of this or that imperialist state, the interests of which rival those of Turkish imperialism at this or that point. As such, although its forces are weaker compared to those of the imperialist Turkish state and its interests narrower, the PKK is as much a part of world imperialism as the Turkish state.” (Paragraph 1 of the resolution adopted by our section in Turkey about developments in Kurdistan, in February 2012, cf. Footnote 3)

The Kurdish bourgeoisie wants to survive and increase its power and influence, and to do this capital must be attracted to the region. On this basis, the Kurdish bourgeoisie and the Turkish bourgeoisie have mutual interests. This also includes the transformation of Turkey into a paradise for cheap labour. Needless to say a good part of this will consist of Kurdish workers. They are already working for very low wages in many sectors. The implementation of this policy is already in full preparation in Kurdistan with the new regional policy of minimal wages. The two bourgeoisies have an interest in the normalisation of the situation to ensure stability, in particular not to endanger the important strategic-economic Nabucco project[9]. But the game to advance their interests between them is played very hard, in the image of ruthless capitalism.

Is there a reason to rejoice about 'the freedom of women' advocated by the PKK?

The PKK says that within the organization men and women are treated equally and that women adhere to the PKK on a voluntary basis. The question is to know whether this is a desirable principle, inherited from its ‘proletarian orientation', or a deceptive illusion.

Numerous accounts mention that many women members of the PKK were fleeing oppression by the family, especially the risk of forced marriage and honor killings in the traditional Kurdish territories and in Turkish society. But contrary to what our speaker from Fekar stated, these women were also victims of male violence in PKK camps and by none other than the great leader himself.

The source of such information is not the propagandists of the Turkish state but several founding members of the PKK itself who left the organization in disgust over the years. Mehmet Cahit Sener, one of the founders of the PKK who led an early and short-lived split called PKK – Vejin[10] wrote in 1991, a year before being killed on a joint operation of the Syrian intelligence and the PKK[11]: “Apo has forced dozens of our female comrades to immoral relations with him, defiled most and declared the ones who insisted on refusing to be people 'who haven't understood the party, who haven't understood us' and has heavily repressed them, and even order the murder of some claiming they are agents. Some of our female comrades who are in this situation are still under arrest and under torture, being forced to make confessions appropriate to the scenarios that they are agents (…) The relations between men and women within the party have turned into a harem in Apo's palace and many female comrades were treated as concubines by this individual.”[12]

Another founding leader of the PKK, Selim Curukkaya, who did actually manage to escape from Apo's grasp to Europe a few years later, wrote in his memoirs of countless incidents supporting Sener's general statements, further elaborating the repressive measures towards women in particular and in regards to the relations between men and women in general. According to Curukkaya's memoirs sexual relations were banned for the entire membership, and those caught were severely punished – tortured, imprisoned and even declared traitors in some cases which led to their executions – male and female alike. One striking example in Curukkaya's memoirs was the imprisonment of a couple of young guerrillas for no reason other than practicing ‘adultery of the eye’, in other words looking at each other. In contrast, the great leader of the PKK had the right to any women in the organization, and the rest of the leadership were rewarded if they proved obedient and useful[13]. Other founding leaders who have left since have admitted that these testimonies were indeed correct.

Not that Ocalan himself hasn't been as open as he could've been in his own speeches, texts, books, declarations and so on and so forth over the years. In a book written by him in 1992 titled Cozumleme, Talimat ve Perspektifler (Analyses, Orders and Perspectives), he stated: “These girls mentioned. I don't know, I have relations with thousands of them. I don't care how anyone understands it. If I've gotten close with some of them, how should this have been? (…) On these subjects, they leave aside all the real measurements and find someone and gossip, say 'this was attempted to be done to me here' or 'this was done to me there'! These shameless women both want to give too much and then develop such things. Some of the people mentioned. Good grace! They say 'we need it so, it would be very good' and then this gossip is developed (…) I'm saying it openly again. This is the sort of warrior I am. I love girls a lot, I value them a lot. I love all of them. I try to turn every girl into a lover, in an unbelievable level, to the point of passion. I try to shape them from their physique to their soul, to their thoughts. I see it in myself to fulfill this task. I define myself openly. If you find me dangerous, don't get close!” [14]

In a pamphlet he wrote more recently, Ocalan called Toplumsal Cinsiyetciligin Ozgurlestirilmesi (The Liberation of Social Sexism), he says: “In the ranks of the PKK, a true love is possible by a heroism proving itself with success. And what can we call the many female-male runaways? Frankly, we can call them the lapsed Kurdish identity proving itself (…) Besides myself and our martyred comrades have heroically been workers for the road to love. If those who supposedly fell like experiencing love haven't understood the value of such efforts, they are either blind, or evil, or scum or traitors. What else can be expected of us for love? You won't run to any successes in your revolutionary duties, and then you'll say you feel like having a relationship! It is clear that this is a shameless approach (…) Even birds make their nests in places untouched by foreigners. Can love build homes in lands and hearts occupied till the throat? Any force you'll take shelter in will do who knows what to the lovers. My experience has showed this: Living with a woman of the order isn't possible without betraying revolutionary duties.”[15]

The talk of freedom of women advocated by the PKK today is rather a cruel irony.

Nationalism against internationalism

This text aims to expose the hypocrisy and bourgeois practice of the nationalist PKK. And it is illusory to think that such an organization, which since its foundation has simply posed strategic and tactical questions in order to conquer its place among other nation-states, and which to gain this place has used a ruthless terror towards everyone (including against the Kurds themselves in their own country and in neighboring countries), could be transformed into an internationalist organization.

In the current era of capitalism, all ethnic movements fighting for self-determination or national liberation, are reactionary movements. Participation in or support for such movements amounts to approving the actions and goals of capitalism, sometimes in open collaboration with different imperialist forces, if not in a disguised way. As Rosa Luxemburg said clearly in the early 20th century, the idea of an abstract 'right' to national self-determination has nothing to do with marxism, because it obscures the fact that each nation is divided into antagonistic social classes. If the formation of some independent nation states could be supported by the labor movement at a time when capitalism still had a progressive role to play, this period ended definitively - as Luxemburg also showed - with the First World War. The working class today has no more 'democratic' or 'national' tasks to complete. Its only future lies in the international class struggle, not only against existing national states, but for their revolutionary destruction.

“In a world divided up by the imperialist blocs every ‘national liberation’ struggle, far from representing something progressive, can only be a moment in the continuous conflict between rival imperialist blocs in which the workers and peasants, whether voluntarily or forcibly enlisted, only participate as cannon fodder.”(Platform of the ICC, ‘The counter-revolutionary myth of national liberation’)

“This point reached as a result of all these reforms and negotiations has demonstrated once again that only war can come of the bourgeoisie's peace, that the solution of the Kurdish question can't be the result of any compromise with the Turkish imperialist state, and that the PKK is in no way a structure even remotely capable of offering any sort of solution whatsoever. The Kurdish question can't be solved in Turkey alone. The Kurdish question can't be solved with a war between nations. The Kurdish question can't be solved with democracy. The only solution of this question lies in the united struggle of the Kurdish and Turkish workers with the workers of the Middle East and the whole world. The only solution of the Kurdish question is the internationalist solution. Only the working class can raise the banner of internationalism against the barbarism of nationalist war by refusing to die for the bourgeoisie."(Paragraph 8 of the resolution adopted by our section in Turkey about developments in Kurdistan in February 2012 - see note 3)

Rosa / Felix / Lake - 03-01-2013

We are publishing a contribution to the discussion about the development of class consciousness by comrade mhou who regularly contributes to our internet forum. We agree with its approach but welcome further contributions, either as articles or on the forum. The comrade also has a blog where he further develops his ideas: occupythecpusa.com.

"At all times the economic and social relationships in capitalist society are unbearable for the proletarians, who consequently are driven to try to overcome them. Through complex developments the victims of these relationships are brought to realize that, in their instinctive struggle against sufferings and hardships which are common to a multitude of people, individual resources are not enough. Hence they are led to experiment with collective forms of action in order to increase, through their association, the extent of their influence on the social conditions imposed upon them. But the succession of these experiences all along the path of the development of the present capitalist social form leads to the inevitable conclusion that the workers will achieve no real influence on their own destinies until they have united their efforts beyond the limits of local, national and trade interests and until they have concentrated these efforts on a far-reaching and integral objective which is realized in the overthrow of bourgeois political power. This is so because as long as the present political apparatus remains in force, its function will be to annihilate all the efforts of the proletarian class to escape from capitalist exploitation.

The first groups of proletarians to attain this consciousness are those who take part in the movements of their class comrades and who, through a critical analysis of their efforts, of the results which follow, and of their mistakes and disillusions, bring an ever-growing number of proletarians onto the field of the common and final struggle which is a struggle for power, a political struggle, a revolutionary struggle." - Amadeo Bordiga, Party and Class Action, 1921

A number of views have been put forward in recent discussions about consciousness in the ICC’s internet discussion forum1. From the common starting point of the necessity of communism, of the proletariat's agency, it was agreed that there is such a thing as class consciousness, and that this consciousness is necessary for the transformation of existing social relations and the capitalist mode of production. One aspect of the theory of class consciousness which brought a lot of disagreement in the course of discussions on the ICC's forum was the theory of the subterranean maturation of consciousness. This theory was developed by the ICC in the wake of the mass strikes in Poland in 1980-1981. The crux of the theory is that the working class develops class consciousness in its struggles with capital, and that the collective experience and memories of these struggles inform the thoughts and actions of workers in their future struggles. With this theory, it is possible to analyze and understand the appearance of seemingly spontaneous yet advanced and militant forms of struggle containing class conscious content. The example of the time it was developed was the appearance of the mass strike in Poland, which shook the geopolitical world, the opposing imperialist blocs, and the international working class at the time. Polish workers developed a system of revocable worker-delegates, workplace committees, and inter-profession assemblies, encompassing workers from a variety of industries and geographic locations into one unified struggle. To understand this phenomenon, the history of the Polish working class in the years leading up to the outbreak of advanced forms and content of struggle were analyzed; the forms and content of struggles in 1956, 1970 and 1976 were viewed as stepping-stones or building blocks for the upheaval of 1980. French and English workers in similar industries (such as steel, on the docks, rail) had also been engaging in similarly militant and advanced struggles throughout the 1970's, informing the thoughts and actions of the workers in Poland- giving the struggles of the proletariat an international dimension (and the communist minority a reference point for being in advance of generalized international struggle). The emergence of pro-revolutionary minorities is another facet of the subterranean maturation of consciousness.

"The misery of the miners, with its eruptive soil which even in ‘normal’ times is a storm centre of the greatest violence, must immediately explode, in a violent economic socialist struggle, with every great political mass action of the working class, with every violent sudden jerk which disturbs the momentary equilibrium of everyday social life." - Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, 1906

In the accelerating centralization and globalization of capital since the late 1960's, the echoes of forms and content of struggles appears to be informing workers all over the world at a faster rate than ever before- such as the outburst of struggle in Northern Africa during the Arab Spring, where workers struck and swarmed the public squares in constant protest. This form of struggle was picked up by American workers in Wisconsin when teaching assistants occupied the capital building and inter-profession crowds of public sector workers occupied the public square around the capital building in constant protest- in short order, signs began showing up in Tahrir Square with slogans like, "Solidarity with Wisconsin Workers". In this instance, the history of struggle informed future praxis, which also informed the thoughts and actions of workers internationally, while also being recognized by the initiators of the forms and content of struggle in that period. All of which is indicative of the subterranean maturation of consciousness. Leading up to the Arab Spring, the most advanced section of the Egyptian proletariat had been the public sector textile workers in the industrial city of Mahalla. Their cycle of struggles began in 2006 during the anti-Dutch cartoon Islamist protests, with reactionary strikes based on religious dogma and sectarian rage. However, from this ideological and reactionary starting point, the textile workers of Mahalla began combining in struggle across public and private sector divisions, winning demands repeatedly as the state thought the textile workers could be appeased with mild reform and increased wages.

"Faisal Naousha, one of the leaders of the walkout at Misr Spinning and Weaving, said the factory was running again after the strikers’ main demands were met.

Around 15,000 workers from the plant which employs 24,000 people in the Nile Delta city of Al-Mahalla Al-Kubra, 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Cairo went on strike last week.

‘We ended the strike, the factory is working. Our demands were met,’ including a 25 per cent increase in wages and the dismissal of a manager involved in corruption, Naousha said.

Misr Spinning and Weaving is the largest plant in the Egyptian textile industry, which employs 48 per cent of the nation’s total workforce, according to the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services."2

Over the course of the next 6 years, both public and private sector textile workers engaged in escalating mass strike tactics, forming workplace committees, refusing the promises of concessions from the state and disregarding the advice of union leaders (when the workers weren’t physically ejecting them from the factory):

"Al-Mahalla witnessed a successful strike in September 2007, with workers demanding a greater share of the company’s annual profits and removal of company management. The strike ended in victory, with the government succumbing to the workers’ demands after six days.

The head of the local union resigned after he was hospitalized by the strikers while trying to persuade them to disband the strike. The CEO was removed a month later." (ibid)

The public sector textile workers at Misr Spinning & Weaving led the struggle against the state, realizing that as its employer they were in direct conflict with the state (which would sporadically send security forces to clash with striking workers) rather than individual managers and executives. By 2011, the Arab Spring movement which would topple authoritarian regimes all over the Middle East (including and especially in Egypt) was incubated in Mahalla, where the textile workers acted as the advanced section of the reaction against the Mubarak regime. Yet even after the de-legitimization of the Mubarak government and the spectacle of a new ‘democratic’ state, they renewed their struggles against the state for its inability to provide promised reforms and against the bourgeois apologists of the ‘official Opposition’ parties and trade union apparatchiks telling them to give the state more time to meet their demands. In the latest round of mass action, the Mahalla workers declared their forms of self-organization (encompassing the geographic area of the city) independent of the Morsi state, while at the same time chasing political representatives of the opposition and Muslim Brotherhood out of the city and taking over the offices of the city council.

". . . thousands of protestors in the industrial city of Mahalla al-Kubra were reported to have announced the city 'independent', and planned a revolutionary council. "We no longer belong to the Ikhwani [Brotherhood] state." The protestors or insurgents seized the City Council building and blocked roads into and out of the city." 3

This escalation of struggle, development of the forms and content indicative of growing class consciousness, and learning from the events during struggles, is a perfect example of the subterranean maturation of consciousness. However, there are many communists who do not consider such phenomena to be indicative of growing class consciousness. Some argue that it is simple mysticism to theorize the existence of something that cannot be empirically observed and documented; that it relies entirely on subjective interpretation of events and actions. That if we can't measure it, it cannot be considered part of the science of Marxism ('Scientific Socialism'). While demanding verifiable proof before accepting the possibility that a theory may be valid may seem reasonable, in practice it would paralyze the creative energies and capacities of the communist minority to act in the class struggle or (more importantly) when the proletariat turns the capitalist crisis into a revolutionary crisis - the time when the historic role of the communist minority becomes necessary. The methodological tools of Marxism enable us to better understand the world around us, with a conscious understanding of history and a vision for the future. When the objective situation changes in favor of proletarian offensive, our ability to interpret events becomes paramount; without such an understanding of what is happening around us, we would be unable to understand the changes in the balance of class forces and to act in accordance with the movement of the class- in short, unable to be in advance of this movement of the class. Demanding a high threshold of hard facts before accepting any changes in the objective socio-political conditions of the classes would lead to simply tail-ending the real movement of the proletariat; the history of proletarian offensives and revolutionary attempts, even in the time of Marx and the Paris Commune, shows us that events move quickly, as do changes in the trajectory of revolutions and offensives. The actions of the ‘center’ of the Bolshevik Party of 1917 (embodied in members like Kamenev) show us what happens when sections of the communist minority hesitate and doubt the advance of the proletariat; putting forward (now outdated) theories and tactics and not up to the tasks of the hour (it is the difference between ‘The Democratic Republic’ and ‘All Power To The Soviets!’).

Our analysis of class consciousness and use of theories related to it is to advance our understanding of the real movement of the proletariat in its mission to carry out the historic task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie and abolishing all classes. Either a theory can aid our understanding and allow us to be in advance of events, or it cannot. The subterranean maturation of consciousness is a useful tool, the way many psychologists believe psychoanalysis is a useful tool, for accomplishing specific ends. 

"In a revolution we look first of all at the direct interference of the masses in the destinies of society. We seek to uncover behind the events changes in the collective consciousness...This can seem puzzling only to one who looks upon the insurrection of the masses as ‘spontaneous' - that is, as a herd-mutiny artificially made use of by leaders. In reality the mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection, if it were, the masses would always be in revolt...The immediate causes of the events of a revolution are changes in the state of mind of the conflicting classes... Changes in the collective consciousness have naturally a semi-concealed character. Only when they have attained a certain degree of intensity do the new moods and ideas break to the surface in the form of mass activities." Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution

Utilizing the theory of the subterranean maturation of consciousness allows the communist minority to clearly analyze and understand the state of the class struggle at a given time. Since the latest manifestation of the crisis of capital in late 2007, the working class response has taken similar forms internationally: of which the Arab Spring and the struggles in Mahalla are but one facet. The emergence of the General Assembly form has been seen in diverse regions of the world, applied in workplaces, in the streets, in occupied buildings and spaces, all in a specific time frame. The assembly, whether general or specific to a group of workers (of one workplace, one company, one industry), is one of the most basic forms of proletarian self-organization. Doubt has been brought up as to whether we are still living through the downward spiral of retreat and defeat for the working-class; despite the explosion of large strikes, extra-parliamentary activity, and the wave of struggles during the Arab Spring-Occupy-Indignados troika. 

"If, in a single large factory, between May 16 and May 30, a general assembly had constituted itself as a council holding all powers of decision and execution, expelling the bureaucrats, organizing its self-defense and calling on the strikers of all the enterprises to link up with it, this qualitative step could have immediately brought the movement to the ultimate showdown, to the final struggle whose general outlines have all been historically traced by this movement. A very large number of enterprises would have followed the course thus discovered. This factory could immediately have taken the place of the dubious and in every sense eccentric Sorbonne of the first days and have become the real center of the occupations movement: genuine delegates from the numerous councils that already virtually existed in some of the occupied buildings, and from all the councils that could have imposed themselves in all the branches of industry, would have rallied around this base." - The Beginning of an Era, Internationale Situationniste #12, 1969

This is where the distinction between the subterranean maturation of consciousness and the spontaneism of councilism becomes most apparent. When the view of class consciousness is that it is the immediate product of escalating struggles, a linear advance (and if mass action is defeated, a linear reflux), the perspective of the trajectory of the struggle, the existing conditions, leads to tunnel-vision. If there are mass struggles of the working-class, they think there is always a chance at the movement for communism and turning the capitalist crisis into a revolutionary crisis of capitalism. In May 1968, the Situationists clearly defended the councilist position, succinctly captured in the passage quoted above. While the mass action of May 1968 was an historic series of struggles of the proletariat, the potential of the struggle was vastly overestimated. A new generation of young workers had entered the factories during the 1960's, who were critical of the Machiavellian hold the Stalinist parties and Stalinist unions held over the central working-class. Just prior to this return of the proletarian offensive, ushered into history in May 1968, the deepest depths of the counter-revolution still prevailed, where the 'official Opposition' to capitalism, recognized by the Situationists as the 'pseudo-Communist parties of the spectacle-commodity society', continued to mystify the proletariat from Moscow (and later Peking). This was a working class without a connection to the revolutionary principles and positions of the communist wing of the worker's movement; a link broken by the failure of the revolutionary wave of 1917-1923 and the victory of the counter-revolution for over 40 years. The connection between the communist minority and the working class is organic, the former developing from the class consciousness of the latter within the class. The subterranean maturation of consciousness allows us to understand the events of May 1968 (the return of the economic crisis after the post-war boom, the experience of the post-war escalation of struggles in Western Europe- such as major strikes at Renault and Fiat in the 1950's), as well as the context of the struggle- which did suggest further escalation of struggles of a young proletariat, and the creation of a new revolutionary minority in the midst and as a result of these struggles (evident in organizations born after the ferment of 1968- such as the ICC and other organizations of the communist milieu). However, for the councilists of the Situationist International, the May movement had as much a chance at the transformation of all things in the movement for communism as the revolutionary wave 50 years earlier; and afterward, saw in it only a failed revolutionary attempt, rather than an important moment in the resurgence of the working-class, a change in the balance of class forces. So for the councilists, any large struggle has the potential to 'boil over' into proletarian revolution, if only the workers form councils. The form of the soviet becomes more important than the actual content of the struggle or its context and trajectory- leading to confused intervention and an inability to absorb the lessons if struggles are defeated and consciousness goes into reflux (which happened to the Situationists in 1972 with their organizational implosion and dissolution). Such a conception of class consciousness loses perspective and obstructs the communist minority's ability to properly interpret, theorize and intervene in the struggle. Without such an understanding and ability to draw the appropriate lessons, we are less capable. The theory of the subterranean maturation of consciousness improves our capabilities, which is the necessity of any theoretical or methodological tool in the arsenal of the working class and its most advanced fraction.

M.Lida

When Margaret Thatcher died we were told that, as in life, her death had polarised and divided Britain. On the one hand there were the parliamentary tributes, the claims for her greatness as a woman and principles as a politician, and a funeral with dignitaries arriving from all over the world. Against this there were the street parties celebrating her death, the singing of “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead”, and the outpouring of vitriol against ‘Britain’s most-hated Prime Minister’. More than twenty years after she left power Thatcher was still able to play a role in the false ideological alternatives of different factions of the ruling class.

For a start, US President Obama called Thatcher “one of the great champions of freedom and liberty”. This curious description involves a revival of the language of the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher had as much to do with ‘freedom’ as the Stalinist leaders of the USSR had to do with communism. What she did do during her time in office was ensure that British imperialism sustained its role as a loyal lieutenant to the US leader of the western bloc. And when the Russian bloc fell apart, and the British bourgeoisie wanted British imperialism to pursue a more independent orientation, the ‘men in grey suits’ arranged for her replacement. There was no longer a place for the hard-line Cold War rhetoric. Thatcher was clearly dispensable.

On the level of the economy, the denigrators of Thatcher blame her for the increase in unemployment in the early 80s, the decline in the steel, car and shipbuilding industries, and the attack on coal mining. These were not the individual responsibility of one person. The decline in many major industries was felt internationally, not because of the whim or personality of individual politicans but because of the deepening economic crisis of capitalism. In that context, British capitalism was particularly burdened by outdated and uncompetitive industries. The laws of profit demanded the vicious pruning pushed through under Thatcher’s government. 

In terms of the specific role of government, the attacks that characterised the 1980s did not start with the Conservative government but with the preceding Labour government of Callaghan and Healey. After all, the working class struggles, the strikes and massive demonstrations of 1978-79 that became known as the ‘winter of discontent’ were against the cuts imposed by Labour. And when John Major left office in 1997 the incoming Labour government explicitly committed itself to the Tory spending plans. And when Gordon Brown’s Labour government was replaced by the Cameron-led Coalition the same basic regime continued.

Under Thatcher and Major the Left denounced the way that the unemployment statistics were continually being manipulated. Yet, apart from a couple of tweaks, the unemployment figures have never been recalculated so that accurate comparisons over recent decades can be made. There are in the UK officially nearly 9 million people of working age that are described as ‘economically inactive.’ Whatever numbers you subtract from this figure mass unemployment in the UK didn’t go away in the thirteen years of Labour rule. It’s been with us, without interruption, for thirty years. This is not the fault of any individual, nor any government or government policy. It’s an expression of the depth of the crisis of capitalism.

Back in the 1980s there were Tories who thought that more government investment could change things, as well as the whole of the Left who proposed different degrees of state intervention. None of these amounted to an ‘alternative’. In that sense, when Thatcher said ‘There is no alternative’ she was right. The economic crisis was a crisis of state capitalism, something that no amount of resort to debt could do anything other than worsen.

But what of the class struggle of the 80s in Britain? Surely it’s clear that Thatcher and the hated Tories were the sworn enemies of the working class, and showed this blatantly during the miners’ strike of 1984-85? Yes, the state was prepared for the miners’ strike and used repression and propaganda against the year-long strike. But that’s only part of the equation. The job of ensuring that the miners remained isolated was the responsibility of the unions. The potential was there for the struggle to extend to dockers and to car workers, but the unions kept the workers divided. Throughout the 80s the Left and the unions played their role, as part of the political apparatus of capitalism, in putting forward false alternatives. This involved not only ‘alternative’ economic policies but also campaigns around issues such as the threats to local government or the presence of American weapons on British soil. Ultimately, during the 80s, workers in Britain came up against not just the material attacks backed up by the state, but the whole range of lies put out by the Left. Tony Blair has recently said that Labour must not return to being a ‘party of protest’. In fact, under Thatcher, Labour played an absolutely crucial role by being just that. You might have hated the Tories, but Labour, the Left and the unions were ready and waiting to embrace you … and undermine any developing militancy.

One of the things that Thatcher will be remembered for is the Falklands war against Argentina in 1982. To this day it remains a focus for propaganda campaigns. Some say that the Falkland Islanders’ wishes should be considered first, for others, it’s a typical episode in the history of British imperialism. Looked at in the context of the time you see something different. The Falklands were, and remain, of no strategic or material importance. In the early 1980s Argentina was an ally of the UK in the US bloc. Moves were already underway to change the status of the Falklands. The war over the Falklands can not be understood as a military matter, it can only be understood at the social level. The stimulation of such a nationalist campaign (with Labour leader Michael Foot prominent in the chorus) was a massive diversion at a time the different class interests within the British population were becoming so sharply posed.

Thatcher, because of her constant invective against the Russian bloc, became known as the Iron Lady. Her reputation as a warmonger is undisputed. Yet, if you look at the deployments of British armed forces during her period of office (Falklands, Northern Ireland etc) it’s on nothing like the scale of the operations carried out by Labour under Blair and Brown with Afghanistan, Iraq etc.

In parliament Glenda Jackson criticised the “social, economic and spiritual damage” inflicted by Thatcher. Lives that were devastated during the 1980s suffered the impact of the capitalist economic crisis. In opposition to Margaret Thatcher, marxists say that there is such a thing as society. And the capitalist society in which we live is not just economically destitute; it has developed a culture of each against all, of atomised, alienated individuals, of emotional impoverishment. Throughout her adult life Thatcher certainly played her role for the ruling class, but she was only one, admittedly important, cog in the whole capitalist state machine.  

Car 12/4/13

ICC statement

For over a year now the ‘Aufhebengate’ affair has been causing major divisions in the libertarian communist wing of the proletarian political movement. The affair raises a number of important issues for revolutionaries, and although we have held back up till now (for reasons we will explain below) from saying anything about it as an organisation we feel it is necessary for us to make this statement on how we see it.

Aufheben is an annual journal produced by a group based mainly in Brighton in the UK. Its politics are a fusion of anarchist, autonomist, left communist and other political traditions. An archive of its publications, going back to 1992, can be found on libcom1. Aufheben has for some time played the role of a kind of theoretical vanguard of a wider libertarian communist movement, its journal eagerly awaited to provide analysis of contemporary events and more general or historical political questions. The ICC has never shared this admiration and has written some sharp polemics against the group’s most defining notions, in particular its series on the theory of capitalist decadence which many in the libertarian milieu have seen as the definitive critique of this theory, but which we saw as a sophisticated way of rejecting the foundations of marxism2. 3But despite these criticisms, we have not considered the Aufheben group to be outside the frontiers of the proletarian movement.

The Aufhebengate affair began in October 2011 when the Greek group Ta Paidia Tis Galaria (‘Children of the Gallery’, but more generally known as the TPTG) published an ‘Open letter to the British internationalist/antiauthoritarian activist/protests/street scenes (and all those concerned with the progress of our enemies)’.4

Whereas we have seen Aufheben as essentially a magazine circle strongly marked by academicism (although this has not prevented its individual members participating in a number of activist campaigns), we regard the TPTG as a serious communist group, one which has consistently tried to defend revolutionary positions in the social movements that have convulsed Greece in the last few years. This is why we have published contributions by or about them on our website5. Although the TPTG defines itself as the communist wing of the anti-authoritarian movement in Greece, their activity corresponds much more closely than that of Aufheben – which to our knowledge has never engaged in any specific group intervention in the class struggle apart from its journal - to our conception of what a militant communist organisation exists to do: participate as a distinct and organised tendency in the movements of the working class.

The content of the open letter

In its open letter of October 2011 the TPTG announced that one of the members of Aufheben, JD, a social psychology lecturer at Sussex University, had written and/or co-written a number of articles, in particular ‘Knowledge-Based Public Order Policing: Principles and Practice’, which was featured in Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, analysing police tactics at demonstrations and other manifestations of public ‘disorder’. He had also participated in conferences and ‘professional development’ training programmes dealing with the same or similar issues (such as the response of ‘emergency services’ to public disasters). This body of ‘academic work’ has often been carried out by a team composed of academics such as C Stott and S Reicher who have made no secret of the fact that their work has been aimed at, and certainly used for, assisting the police to develop more ‘friendly’ and intelligent tactics for containing social protests. These academics have on several occasions referred to JD as part of the team or have acknowledged the contribution made by his research.

The TPTG were deeply alarmed by this discovery – they had hitherto taken Aufheben seriously as a group and been influenced by some of its output. More to the point, directly facing police repression at public demonstrations in Greece, and aiming to participate in social movements on an international level, the question of how the police deal with popular protest is for them one of very immediate as well as more theoretical concern. The idea that a member of a group which they had always seen as part of the internationalist movement might be implicated in improving police tactics was seen as a betrayal of basic principles.

Aufheben’s response

The response of Aufheben was published on the internet forum www.libcom.org [445] shortly after the Open Letter6: it strongly criticised the TPTG for ‘outing’ one of their members without asking them for their version of the facts and described the Open Letter as a smear. Aufheben acknowledged that JD is required by his university job to share platforms with police sometimes but these events have been essentially focused on emergency situations rather than social protests or revolts. Regarding the particular article on the containment of political demonstrations and social movements, JD didn’t write the article in question. His name was simply added by Stott and Reicher as a favour. Aufheben accept that it was an error on JD’s part to allow this, but insist that he entirely rejects the content of this text. Furthermore, the aims of Stott and Reicher were essentially “liberal reformist” and largely harmless, based as they were on the illusion of reducing police violence against demonstrators. Furthermore, the recommendations of these liberals were of limited usefulness to the police.

This text provoked a second open letter by the TPTG7, which subjects Aufheben’s response to a scathing and in our view justified criticism.

In this text, the TPTG recount how their efforts to get in touch with Aufheben prior to publishing their first open letter had been thwarted by the fact that the group’s official email address had in the past always been answered by JD himself, and pointed out that they had been unable to obtain the email addresses of other members of the group.

They then attack the idea that Stott and Reicher are harmless reformists and show how pernicious their approach is. Not only does it offer advice to police on how to make best use of divisions among the ranks of protesters, but clearly puts forward targeted repression as a last resort if all other methods of containment fail. They also reject the argument that it was merely a question of academic politeness to include JD’s name at the end of the text, since Stott and Reicher had plenty of reason for considering that JD was indeed part of their team, and provide a number of other examples of JD’s work which have similar implications to the ‘Knowledge-based public order policing’ article, much of which has now disappeared from JD’s online profile8. Far from these studies being of little use to the police, the TPTG see the research carried out by these academics as being of real interest to a repressive apparatus which, confronted with growing social rebellion, cannot afford to use outright violence as a first response – and this is precisely why research into more ‘knowledge based’ methods of police control is generously funded by the state.

Finally, the second letter challenges Aufheben’s claim that there can be any hard and fast separation between emergency situations and the problem of social control, since the ‘team’ itself argues that lessons drawn from one area can easily be applied to another, as stated in the 2009 article ‘Chaos Theory’ published in Jane’s Police Review.

The TPTG succinctly summarise Aufheben’s argument: “while we prove that one of their members has been heavily involved in consulting the police how to repress struggles ‘correctly’, instead of just refuting this, they also feel obliged to both present such expert intervention as harmless and to relativise police repression (soft or hard) as if it had no importance at all”.

Impact on the libertarian milieu

The TPTG’s initiative provoked a veritable storm of accusations and counter-accusations on various threads on libcom in 20119 and resurfaced recently, as well as being raised on other forums such as red-marx10.

The ‘defence’ of Aufheben was taken up by the libcom collective and in particular by JK, a former member of Aufheben.

Initially the libcom collective accused the TPTG of engaging in smears and lies and then, after consulting Aufheben, offered some very unconvincing arguments, essentially repeating the weirdly contradictory points made in Aufheben’s reply (JD didn’t write the articles, and in any case these people are indeed ineffectual liberals, etc). The TPTG’s second open letter responds to a number of libcom’s arguments.

Libcom’s defence of JD looks much more like a response of ‘standing by my mate’ than one of defending political principles. This is not altogether surprising given that membership of the libcom collective seems to be based much more on friendship links than on an agreed political perspective.

However, one point they made does need careful consideration and we will return to it: the way the TPTG brought up this matter broke libcom’s rules about naming individuals; and JK in particular insisted on the seriousness of making public accusations against an individual in the movement for collaborating with the police

The libcom collective’s arguments were answered in some detail by other contributors: Samotnaf (who had played a central role in bringing up this issue in the UK11) ocelot, blasto, avantiultras etc. There were some posts by our comrade Leo on libcom and revleft which expressed basic agreement with the TPTG’s position Eventually threads were locked, and after most of those criticising the libcom collective quit the site the issue died down. It flared up again briefly in January 2013, but the debate was at a very low level12: for example, with numerous posters assuming false or spoof identities to ridicule others’ points of view, making it impossible for others to even follow the disagreements being expressed. The issue was also raised on red-marx by a member of the Internationalist Communist Tendency in Italy and the response by Alf of the ICC was discussed collectively before being posted.

The affair is therefore not likely to go away and it has created a very toxic legacy in this milieu. An example: in February 2013 the anarchist Freedom bookshop in Whitechapel, London, was firebombed. This was probably the work of fascists or Islamists but a poster on indymedia had this to say:

“Cop collaborators 01.02.2013 17:01

Freedom is the headquarter of cop-collaborator libcom. If they work with police they deserve all the fire”

Obviously Freedom has never been the HQ of libcom and there are two long leaps from criticising libcom’s evasions regarding JD to first branding the entire site as “cop collaborationist” and then advocating terrorism against them...We refer to this incident not because we want to get drawn into speculation about the motives of the indymedia poster but because it is an illustration of the kind of atmosphere Aufhebengate has produced. The charge of cop collaborators (though not the call for violence) is more widespread and is irresponsible. Whatever criticisms we have of its politics and its attitude to debate, libcom is an important resource for the proletarian movement, both as a discussion forum and as a library of material; and for that very reason the serious mistakes it has made in this affair need to be discussed in a calm manner, as part of a more general debate about the issues of ethics and principle which this business has posed.

How we see it

Given this atmosphere, it has been difficult for ICC comrades say anything about this issue on libcom itself, especially given the hostility towards us that can be expressed by some of the participants on both sides of the debate. At that stage we felt that anything posted ‘officially’ by the ICC would merely pour oil on the fire. But both because we feel the issues are as relevant as ever and because there is perhaps a greater possibility for considered reflection, we feel the need to elaborate our point of view in this statement.

It is not possible to go into the various arguments and counter-arguments that have been aired, especially on libcom, in any depth or detail, not least because a lot of the incriminating articles linked to JD can no longer be found on the web. Nevertheless we think we have understood the issues sufficiently to conclude that the TPTG were quite right to raise this issue. The involvement of the police in the revolutionary movement is not at all a product of fantasy, as recent revelations about the British state’s infiltration of ‘activist anti-capitalist groups’ confirm (see for example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21316768 [446]). By the same token, any concession to collaboration with the police by elements within the movement means the flouting of a class line, a point that we ourselves have been obliged to make in previous crises in our organisation13. And in this case, it seems to us that there is substantial evidence that JD has crossed the line between the inevitable compromises forced on any worker by his job, and a real collaboration with the forces of repression.

At the same time, the libcom collective, which has strict rules about using people’s real names on their forum, were right to point out that accusing someone within the movement of collaborating with the police is a very serious matter and should not in the first place be done in public. But aside from their contingent difficulties in contacting Aufheben as a group, the TPTG were faced with the fact that, in contrast to the past workers’ movement, solidarity between its different components has become extremely tenuous, and there are certainly no structures which might allow the question of police involvement or unacceptable behaviour by revolutionaries to be discussed and resolved in a more discrete and responsible manner. The TPTG did propose in their first open letter a ‘proletarian counter-inquiry’ into this matter and to this extent they were reviving a rather buried tradition of the movement. However, the aim of this proposed inquiry was largely one of researching the general problem of police reactions to social unrest rather than examining the specifics of the JD case.

During the course of the exchange on libcom14, the poster ‘proletarian’ made a rather interesting point:

“I can't see what actually can be done to rectify the situation. I would argue he should be 'disassociated from revolutionary circles' - you know what I mean. But I'm not sure there is the organisation or structure to do this. And there certainly doesn't appear to be the will. I don't really want to bring this up (but I will) because it looks like I'm antagonizing people but the ICC and their calls for a Jury of Honour or whatever were ruthlessly taken the piss out of but wasn't there some 'method in the madness'? There needs to be some kind of way of dealing with these and similar incidents. And I think it's worth looking at how previous workers struggled with difficult questions like this. (I obviously think the guy has crossed a class line)”

We obviously agree with the comrade that there was “method in our madness” when, during some painful crises in our organisation, we called for the establishment of ‘juries of honour’ to look into some of the serious accusations that we ourselves had felt compelled to make against former members of the ICC whose behaviour we found unacceptable. And we did so precisely because these proletarian courts or juries were the method used by the past workers’ movement to investigate such issues.

In an article entitled ‘Revolutionary organisations struggle against provocation and slander’15 we pointed out how dangerous the spreading of suspicion about individual comrades can be, not just for the individual concerned, but for the whole fabric of the organisation and the workers’ movement as a whole. The article cites Victor Serge in his book What everyone should know about state repression, published in 1926:

“Accusations are murmured about, then said out loud, and usually they cannot be checked out. This causes enormous damage, worse in some ways than that caused by provocation itself (...)This evil of suspicion and mistrust among us can only be reduced and isolated by a great effort of will. It is necessary, as the condition of any real struggle against provocation - and slanderous accusation of members is playing the game of provocation - that no-one should be accused lightly, and it should also be impossible for an accusation against a revolutionary to be accepted without being investigated. Every time anyone is touched by suspicion, a jury formed of comrades should determine whether it is a well-founded accusation or a slander. These are simple rules which should be observed with inflexible rigour if one wishes to preserve the moral health of revolutionary organisations”.

However, what was common practice in the past workers’ movement has been all but forgotten in the movement today, which has on its shoulders the trauma of decades of counter-revolution, the weight of sectarianism and the spirit of the circle, a series of divisions which affect the whole internationalist movement – divisions not just between the libertarian/anarchist wing and the communist left, but among the groups of the communist left itself. The ICC’s own experience in this regard has also not been particularly fruitful: in 1995, when we pressed for a jury of honour to look into the ‘Simon affair’ (a militant expelled for engaging in secretive and manipulative practices inside the organsiation), the only organisation of the communist left that was prepared to take part was the IBRP( now the ICT); a few years later, following the 2001 crisis which gave rise to the ‘Internal Fraction of the ICC’, whose members we had expelled for theft and informer-like activities, there was virtually no response at all to our appeal for a new ‘jury of honour’, with relations between the ICC and the IBRP being progressively soured by the latter’s own relationship with the IFICC. Given the difficulties of the communist left to renew its links with the past movement in this area, we don’t have any illusions in the capacity of the libertarian milieu to deal with the ‘Aufhebengate’ affair. Nevertheless these questions will become more acute if revolutionary movement grows and is seen as more as a threat. A wide-ranging and inclusive discussion on the question of solidarity between revolutionary organisations, both at the theoretical/historical level, and at the level of its more immediate and practical implications, is clearly long overdue.

What are the immediate implications?

‘Proletarian’ also raises the question of the immediate implications of this matter: he argues that JD should be 'disassociated from revolutionary circles', but doubts whether there is the organisation, structure, or the will to do this. We could raise a further question: should Aufheben itself be ‘disassociated from revolutionary circles’ until this issue is clarified? But again the problem is the lack of any collective structure capable of making such decisions, or even of any shared agreement about what the diameter and circumference of the ‘revolutionary circles’ might be. This is why for us the prerequisite for any such common structures emerging is the beginning of a serious debate about the basic principles of the internationalist camp: not only at the level of general programmatic positions, but also at the level of behaviour and ethics. This debate, which already exists in a very tentative form through various internet forums, would need to incorporate face to face meetings and conferences at various levels and in different areas of the world. The Aufhebengate affair has highlighted the degree to which today’s internationalist milieu is immature, divided and cut off from the traditions of the past. But perhaps some serious reflection on its implications can constitute a first step towards moving beyond this state of dispersal, which in the end can only help “the progress of our enemies”.

ICC, April 2013

The verbals around the question of the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Assad regime and its possible consequences have been wound up by the western wing of the 'international community', i.e., Britain, America, France, followed by some of the Gulf States, Israel and the wings of the Syrian opposition. Last week, US Secretary for Defence, Chuck Hagel, said that Sarin had been used in some attacks in Syria by the regime. Without at all underestimating the brutality of this regime, why would they use chemical weapons when their positions are consolidating and they are on the offensive? Maybe that's why the west is raising the stakes. Dr. Sally Leivesley, a chemical and biological analyst who has worked for western governments said, in The Independent, 27.4.13: "There are things here which do not add up. A chemical attack using Sarin as a battlefield weapon would leave mass fatalities and very few people alive". But, as our leaders insist 'with caution', some elements of some chemical and biological agents have been found. In the southern town of Daraya on April 25, two rockets released a gas that affected about a hundred people, according to the opposition, and there were reported attacks in other areas. There was a report from Alex Thomson on Channel 4 from the Al-Bab district close to Aleppo, where the al-Nusra Front is in control, that Syrian soldiers were among the 26 killed from a chemical attack. There are a number of secret services and special forces here with all their various agendas, including the Qataris who were particularly ruthless in Libya. It's possible that some elements of the regime have used chemical weapons, as have the rebels.

Overall, this current farce echoes the tragedy of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction and the blatant lies of the British government and US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN just over 10 years ago about the 'evidence' thereof in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. Great parts of Syria are now being destroyed in an imperialist war. Bombs are falling on factories, rockets fired at utilities and all sorts of toxic combinations are brewed up by the explosives, which people have no choice but to breathe in. Building material dust can be toxic in the atmosphere and there's plenty of that about. And this is quite apart from the destructive power of the explosives themselves - the chemical fall-out is a sort of imperialist bonus.

There's no doubt that the Syrian regime has one of the largest, if not the largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the Middle East. The town of al-Safira, close to Aleppo, holds one of Syria's main facilities for the production of chemical weapons, including the nerve gas Sarin. Commentators in the west say that there is a concern that these will fall into the wrong hands, that is into the hands of rebels who are being directly or indirectly supported by the west and the Gulf States.  Weapons falling into the 'wrong hands' has been one of the consequences of the actions of western imperialism from Afghanistan in the 1980's to the spread of decomposition in Mali this year. Prime Minister Cameron, despite his 'caution', has already decided that Assad has committed a 'war crime' (Telegraph, 26.4.13). The Obama administration has been more circumspect but says it "retains the ability to act unilaterally" and talks about 'red lines' and 'game changers'. The Israeli government has said that Assad has used chemical weapons and a 'red line' has been crossed. Israel has an interest in US imperialism adhering to 'red lines' in relation to the war it's building up for against Iran. The US and Britain are demanding, through their spokesmen in the UN, that the Assad regime grant "unconditional and unfettered access" to test for WMD in Syria. Such an inspection would be nothing less than an American and British spying mission, which is exactly what it was in Iraq with its cover of lies and misinformation.

 And there's the hypocrisy of it all: Israel with its use of phosphorous against the tightly-packed civilians of Gaza. Witness the use of the same chemical weapons by the US in Fallujah, Iraq, where birth defects are still on the rise. Another example is Desert Storm in 1991, where napalm, fuel-air explosives, cluster bombs and uranium-tipped shells were used by the British and Americans. And before that, when Britain and the US were supporting Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran in the 1980s (and he was a "good friend" of France), they looked the other way when he used chemical weapons (most of them provided by the west) against the Kurds, killing at least five thousand in Hallabjah alone. But Britain had already found that dropping chemical weapons from warplanes on the Kurds was very useful in the 1920s.

The western bourgeoisies are banging the war drums and feel that they have a free hand to up the ante around the question of chemical weapons. What their precise reaction will be can take a number of escalating forms through the already existing military/intelligence set ups that they have in place both within Syria and in the wider region. We can be certain though whatever course is taken it will further exacerbate the immediate and potential instability, just as the misery imposed on the working class and the masses is increasing. The destruction of Syria, as an expression of militarism in decomposition, apart from the immediate death and devastation, is a further attack on the whole working class.

Baboon. 29.4.13 (this article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)

It’s not only the hierarchy of the Venezuelan state that lamented Chávez’s demise, but also in many Latin American governments and others around the world, who have said their ‘last farewells’ to the leader of the “Bolivarian revolution”. Several of those attending the funeral did so because of commercial and political agreements, such as the members of ALBA1, along with those benefiting from oil agreements. But they were all united in their grief at the loss of the state boss in whose name a ‘struggle against poverty’ and for ‘social justice’ took place, who, over the course of 14 years, carried out a project in the interests of a good part of the bourgeoisie, aimed at attacking the proletariat's living conditions and consciousness. They, along with the leading representatives of the national capital, whether officials or ‘opposition’, recognised that this was an excellent opportunity to make propaganda about ‘the world's solidarity with the Venezuelan people’ and to puff themselves up by exalting the international significance of their ‘great leader’.

The proletariat has its own historical experience to draw on in order to reject and unmask this torrent of bourgeois and petty bourgeois sentimentality and hypocrisy. Chávez is a myth created by capitalism, nurtured and strengthened by the national and international bourgeoisie, a figure who came to their rescue with the bourgeois hoax called “21st Socialism”. The international bourgeoisie, principally its left tendencies, want to keep this myth alive. The proletariat however needs to develop its means of struggle against Chávist ideology in order to show the most impoverished layers of society the real road to socialism.

The emergence of Chávismo: a project of the nationalist bourgeois left

Chávez first came to public notice when he led the attempted military coup against the Social Democrat Carlos Andrés Péres in 1992. From then on his popularity underwent a spectacular growth until he was elected President of the Republic in 1999. During this period he capitalised on the discontent and lack of trust across broad sectors of the population towards the Social Democratic and Christian Democratic Parties who had alternated power between themselves since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1958. This discontent was particularly marked amongst the most impoverished masses affected by the economic crisis of the 80s, who were the main protagonists of the 1989 revolt. The two main political parties were undergoing a process of disintegration, characterised by corruption at the highest levels and the neglect of government tasks. This was an expression of the decomposition that had engulfed the whole of society, principally the ruling class, which had reached such levels that it was impossible to cohere its forces in order to guarantee reliable governance and ‘social peace’.

Chávez's charisma and his ascendancy amongst the most impoverished masses, his ability to convince them that the state was there to help them, enabled him to strengthen his hold on various sectors of the national capitalism: the armed forces and above all the parties of the left and the extreme left. The latter in particular changed their political programme from one based on 60's ‘national liberation’ struggles against ‘Yanqui imperialism’, to one in favour of the creation of a real national bourgeoisie, ideologically supported by the Bolivarian myth of the ‘great South American fatherland’, and materially sustaining its aims with the important income from the export of oil. To this end various leaders and theoreticians of the Venezuelan left and extreme left (amongst them ex-guerrilla fighters and members of the Venezuelan Communist Party) set about the task of visiting various ‘Socialist’ and ‘progressive’ countries in order to understand which model to implement in Venezuela when Chávez came to power: China, North Korea, Libya, Iraq, Cuba etc...There is no doubt that from the very beginning the Chávist project was understood as a bourgeois project by the nationalists of the left, based on civil-military unity, taking as its reference points the most despotic regimes in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, many of them allies from the old imperialist Russian bloc.

Throughout his 14 years in government, Chávez was developing his government project that came to be known as “21st century Socialism”, based on the exclusion of and confrontation with those sectors of national capital that had held power until 1998, and sectors of private capital who opposed him; this went together with an aggressive regional and world geopolitics based on radical anti-Americanism. His great secret, recognised by a good part of the world bourgeoisie, was that he was able to renew the hopes of the immense masses of the abandoned poor in Venezuela, bring them in from the cold, making them believe that one day they would be able to get away from their poverty. In reality, what has happened is that the whole population has become impoverished, the workers above all, through the application of the left's principal of ‘levelling from below’. In this way Chávismo managed to contain the social unrest of the mass of the poor, a social layer produced by the course of decadent capitalism throughout the 20th century, when it has been increasingly impossible to incorporate them into productive work. But he also achieved an aim that was the envy of other bourgeoisies: he gained the support of an electoral mass which allowed the new civil and military elites of the ruling class to perpetuate themselves in power. It is not by accident that during 14 years in power the Chávists won 13 of the 15 national elections that took place.

Chávismo is a product of the decomposition of capitalist society

Chavismo's rise was not due to the failures of the preceding governments, nor to Chávez's charisma (an idea typical of the bourgeoisie which sees personalities as the motor force of history). Rather it was the expression of the decomposition of the whole capitalist system. The collapse of the Russian bloc at the end of the 80s marked capitalism's entry into this new phase in its decline, the phase of decomposition2. The events which broke up the imperialist blocs that had been in existence until then had two main consequences: the progressive weakening of US imperialism at a world level and an attack on the proletariat's class consciousness, around the campaign developed by the international bourgeoisie identifying the collapse of the Stalinist bloc with the ‘death of communism’. The left wing of capital, in order to be able to carry on their task of containing the working class and the impoverished masses, had to generate ‘new’ ideologies. This led to the emergence in the 90s of the “third way” in Europe, and left wing movements in the countries of the periphery. It was from this seedbed, the product of the decomposition of the capitalist system, that Chávez and his project emerged, along with other leaders and left movements in different Latin American countries. There was Lula with the support of the Workers' Party, the MST and the Social Forums in Brazil; Evo Morales in Bolivia with the indigenous movement; the Zapatistas in Mexico with the support of indigenous and peasants movements, etc.

The significance of Chávez from the beginning was that his project was seen as a movement for Latin American integration (sustained by Bolivarian thinking) founded upon radical anti-Americanism. From this point of view, he was seen as a second Fidel Castro, but who substituted the ‘social movements’ of the workers and socially excluded masses of the region for the 60s ideology of ‘national liberation’. Chávez's Venezuela of the 2000s was transformed into the shop window for the benefits of ‘real Socialism’ that Cuba had been in the previous century. With the importance difference that Chávism was able to finance the franchise of “21st century Socialism” through the large incomes from oil exports.

The Chávez regime however could not stop the overwhelming advance of social decomposition in Venezuela; rather it was turned into an accelerating factor at the internal and regional level. It replaced the old business and state bureaucrats with a new civil and military bureaucracy who have amassed great fortunes and properties inside and outside the country, who have superseded their predecessors in government in the levels of corruption. Chávism has bought loyalty for its ‘revolutionary project’ by sharing out the oil incomes. This method was used to replace the old military High Command and to buy the necessary loyalty of the Armed Forces, principally after the 2002 coup which removed Chávez from power for a few hours. In fact the Armed Forces have been transformed into the regime's ‘Praetorian Guard’, and it carries a lot of weight in the regime.

The hegemony of the Chávista bourgeoisie is based on the reinforcing of the state at all its levels and through a permanent confrontation with the sections of the national capital that are opposed to the regime, principally against the emblematic representatives of private capital, who have been subject to expropriations and controls. A form of government justified to its followers as a struggle against the ‘bourgeoisie’, when in reality many of the Chávistas used to be ‘leading members’ of private capital. Thus the confrontation between fractions of the national capital has dominated national politics throughout Chávez’s time in power. In this struggle each fraction tries to impose its own interests, thus dragging down the whole of society and affecting every level of society. At the economic level, the general crisis of the system has inevitably evolved and a high price has been paid for making Venezuela a ‘regional economic power’. This can be seen in the abandoning of the industrial infrastructure of the country (even affecting the ‘the goose that lays the golden egg’, the oil industry); the roads infrastructure and power services (one of the best in Latin America only two decades ago) are practically on their last legs; at the level of telecommunications Venezuela is technologically lagging behind the rest of the countries in the region. The main drama has been at the social level: the deterioration of public health and education services (which Chávez has sold as one of the great ‘gains’ of the revolution) is much worse than a decade ago; public safety has been practically abandoned (although this has not stopped the police repression of protests by workers and the population); in the 14 years of ‘Socialist’ government more than 150,000 people have been murdered, which has given Venezuela (above all Caracas, the capital) one of the highest crime rates in the world per 100.000 inhabitants, surpassing Mexico and Colombia3.

At the time of the death of the great leader of the “Bolivarian revolution”, the homeland of “21st century Socialism” found itself in a serious economic crisis. In 2012 all the indices showed that the economy was as ill as the President: high fiscal deficit (18% of GDP, the highest in the region), the result of public spending reaching 51% of GDP; imports were the highest in 16 years, at $56 billion, equal to 59% of exports; 22% inflation, the highest in the region. State spending which up until now has been covered by internal and external debt, which have grown steeply in the last years, has reached 50% of GDP; the printing of money has led to the highest inflation rates in the region, seriously undermining workers' wages, pensions and the crumbs distributed by the state. The economic crisis can no longer be hidden and cheated by the state's control of the economy: 2012 began with the devaluation of the Bolivar by 46%in order to try and cover part of the immense public spending and shortage of products (of the order of 22% according to the Central Bank of Venezuela), mainly food items; inflation is estimated to be going to increase to 30%. China, an important lender to the Venezuelan state in recent years, is now making matters worse by refusing to give more resources to an economy that looks like a bottomless pit. Doubts about the health of the economy have made the issuing and realisation of shares more difficult, and the activity that does take place is done at a high price, a premium of 13.6%.

The Chávist project of “21st century Socialism” is another bourgeois failure: a version of state capitalism in the 21st century that engulfs workers and society in poverty whilst enriching the bourgeoisie, which includes the Chávist elites. It shows that neither right nor left, nor the leftists represent a way out of the poverty and barbarity that capitalism subjects us to.

The myth of reducing poverty

One of the things that the top representatives of organisations such as the UN or the World Bank have stressed since Chávez’s death has been his concern for the cause of the poor, which according to them allowed the reduction of levels of poverty in Venezuela. The representatives of the left parties, the leftist groups and social movements, have acted as the mouthpieces for the manipulation of statistics and the well-thought out propaganda of Chávism in order to show the world the great gains made through a ‘redistribution of riches’ by orientating the state’s food, health, and education resources towards the parts of the population most in need. According to the figures of the INE, the organisation charged with collecting the statistics to show the ‘gains of the revolution’, the number of households living in poverty in Venezuela was reduced from 47% to 27.4% between 1998 and 2011 (about 4 million people). This in turn is part of the 37 million people who have been lifted out of poverty over the past decade in Latin America, according to the World Bank. The international bourgeoisie need to exalt any countries under the capitalist regime that have been able to ‘overcome poverty’ and are near to achieving the “Millennium Goals” proclaimed by the UN.

The reality is that the Chávez regime widened poverty, maintaining the poor in poverty, worsening the living conditions of employed workers and the lower layers of the middle class. Chávism carried out a programme of social engineering, taking part of the mass of surplus value produced by the workers to provide social benefits and directing it towards the most desperate sections of society. What this did was to worsen the precariousness of work that already existed before Chávez came to power: non-official studies from 2011 show that 82% of the employed population are in precarious jobs4. The government claims to have increased employment (an increase of 1 million jobs in the public sector) while the official propaganda show how unemployment has grown in the US and Europe. Employment has certainly grown in Venezuela, along with other countries in the region; but it is a question of precarious work, without fixed contracts or only part time, violating the state’s own employment laws and depriving workers of basic social benefits (health, help with education for workers and their children, etc). The state has created parallel health, education and other services, whilst worsening workers’ living conditions in these sectors and throughout the public sector, to the point where they accumulated vast debts, to the sum of thousands of millions of dollars. This social engineering has been a real bloodletting for workers in the productive sectors, driving down wages to around the minimum wage ($300 if the official amount is applied or $100 in the informal sector).

Chávism has rejected workers' demands, saying that they will worsen the ‘people’s’ living conditions. But this is the great lie: through states social plans (which to a greater or lesser extent each national bourgeoisie tries to implement in order to maintain ‘social peace’) the bourgeoisie has tried to redistribute some of the crumbs from oil profits to a limited part of the poor, whilst the majority are left to hope that one day that they too will also benefit from this or that plan for social assistance. The reality of this can be seen with the distribution of price-regulated food, which can only be obtained after long queuing and only in limited quantities; or the limited amount of housing built by the state (constructed in high visibility areas in order to show off the ‘gains of the revolution’), which are given to a few government supporters and without any deeds. Others receive money benefits, pensions, scholarships etc from the state but this money does not cover the cost of food. On the other hand, inflation (the highest in the region) generated by the incessant costs of the state, make these hand-outs worthless overnight, whilst further undermining workers’ wages. According to official figures over the last 14 years of the Chávez government there has been an accumulated inflation of 1500%, which has meant a real cut in wages over this period.

The franchise of “21st century Socialism” which is sold by the left, the leftists and leaders of ‘social movements’ in the region, has fed the illusions of the weakest parts of the proletariat about the creation of a model of the capitalist state – one that in reality is just as savage as the state in other countries.

Strengthening the state

Chávez gave a new life to the democratic mystification with the idea of ‘participatory democracy’. This has allowed the state to penetrate and place under its control the poorest sections of the population and their social movements, through the use of such organisations as the Bolivarian Circles and more recently the Communal Councils. In this way Chávism appeared to carry out the egalitarianism promoted by the left as ‘levelling from below’, which means the spreading of poverty to the whole population, above all the working class.

Chávez's government has also brought about a major strengthening of the state against society, which corresponds to the left's vision that ‘Socialism’ means more state. The state has not only been reinforced at the economic level through the expropriation of businesses and land from sections of private capital opposed to the regime, but it has also fortified the totalitarian state: making it all pervasive in society. Chávez has militarised society and expanded the political character of the state in order to control and repress the population, principally the working class.

At the internal and external level, Chávism, like the Cuban and other bourgeoisies in the region, has used the scapegoat of ‘North American imperialism’ to justify its own imperialist policies. Historically the Venezuelan bourgeoisie has not hidden its intention to be a great regional power, an orientation intensified by Chávism with the weakening of the USA in the world and in its own backyard. With the excuse of the ‘threat of the Empire’ Chávism has justified increased arms spending, to such a point that according to the Report on the Tendencies in the Arms Sales 2012 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Venezuela is the main importer of conventional arms in South America, despite its constant talk about peace and unity. This swelling of the arms sector is part of the growth of militarisation of the bourgeoisies in the region and contributes to regional destabilisation. This arms spending represents greater indebtedness and directs of society's riches against society itself. It is more likely to be used for controlling social discontent than for confronting the ‘Empire’.

The Chávez regime has carried out a more aggressive geo-political policy than any of its predecessors. With the end of the construction of ‘Bolivar's great fatherland’ and using oil incomes as the means of penetration, it has become a factor of destablisation due to its competition with the other aspiring regional ‘little’ imperialists, principally Brazil and Colombia. With Cuba it has formed the ALBA, which brings together countries who have bought into the “21st century Socialism” franchise; it has set up “Petrocaribe” in order to penetrate the Caribbean and made agreements with the countries of Mercosur, principally with Argentina. These countries receive benefits in the form of oil exports and ‘aid’ from the Venezuelan state. In this manner Chávism has bought loyalty at a regional level through investing a good part of oil profits – and this policy has further worsened the living conditions of the proletariat in Venezuela.

The trivialisation of socialism and the attack on class identity

For over two decades the international bourgeoisie has proclaimed the ‘death of Communism’ following the collapse of the Stalinist bloc in 1989, with the aim of trying to weaken class consciousness and the proletariat's struggle for a new society. Chávism has reinforced this campaign by trivialising and undermining of the idea of socialism, with the aim of destroying its real proletarian essence. The sections of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie who are opposed to the regime have also have contributed to this, calling the regime ‘Communist’ or ‘CastroCommunist’. This is one of the major contributions of the Chávist bourgeoisie and its counter parts in the rest of the bourgeoisie, since it represents a direct attack on the proletariat's class consciousness, not only in Venezuela but at the regional and international level.

This was not the development of a ‘revolution’, but the implementation of ‘Socialism in one country’ by a handful of military and leftist adventurers taking control of the capitalist state and strengthening it. The ‘overcoming of poverty’ was by achieved through state hand-outs, which has been presented as being against capitalism and imperialism because of the regime’s diatribes against the US. To present it as a ‘revolution’ is to repeat in the 21st century the tragedy that was the so-called ‘Cuban revolution’ and its impact upon the development of class consciousness amongst the proletariat in Cuba, Latin America and the world. Thus it is no surprise that Chávism has close links with the Castro brothers and their clique. The Chávist regime has been maintaining them in their 50 year rule through paying for their ‘advice’ in oil.

The so-called “Bolivarian revolution” has nothing to do with socialism. The Communist Manifesto, the first political programme of the proletariat, in 1848 proclaimed “the proletariat has no homeland or national interests to defend”, whereas Chávism is a patriotic and nationalist movement. The Chávist ‘revolution’ dreams of going back to pre-Colombian society and is based on the thinking of Bolivar, which was already reactionary at the time since his struggle against Spanish rule could only replace it with a creole oligarchy. It is a bourgeoisie project that has nothing to do with the workers' struggles, but everything to do with sections of the leftist, civil, military and petty bourgeoisie, who are full of social resentment for having been excluded from power following the fall of the dictatorship in 1958. It has also been sustained by the impoverished masses and the weakest sections of the proletariat who the Venezuelan bourgeoisie have manipulated for decades through a policy of hand-outs and cronyism, since they are vulnerable to the crumbs thrown to them by the state and the illusions that go along with this. The organisation of the Bolivarian Circles and the Communal Councils, which can be mobilised against the employed working class worse (whom they accuse of being the ‘aristocracy of labour’), and even confront them with armed gangs, are the continuation of this policy. The Chávist project is an integral partof the ‘social movements’ promoted by the left and leftism which use the most impoverished masses, those who are accustomed to living in poverty and precariousness, and who are not united with the struggles of the proletariat – a class which produces in an associated way, which uses strikes as the means for confronting capital, which can become conscious of the social force it represents and which is capable of struggling to overcome the poverty that capitalism subjects it to.

Chávism has used the full strength of the state in order to confront the workers' struggles, which have been obscured by the intense political polarisation introduced by the bourgeoisie. It has had recourse to the most barbaric means to attack the proletariat: in 2003, following the strike in the oil industry promoted by bourgeois fractions opposed to Chávez, a veritable pogrom was unleashed against the workers, using unemployed workers and supporters of the government. Not content with laying off 20,000 oil workers, the government made it impossible for them to find work inside or outside the state enterprises and subjected them to permanent harassment. This has been an important attack on class solidarity amongst the proletariat in Venezuela, which has accentuated divisions and polarised politics within the working class. Chávism has weakened class solidarity and consciousness.

Chávist ideology seeks to trivialise the class struggle, presenting it as a struggle of the ‘poor against the rich’. In his frequent speeches on TV and radio Chávez constantly repeated that “to be rich is bad”, with the intention that workers should passively accept a precarious life, whilst at the same time the hierarchy and the state bureaucrats, along with their families, disport themselves as the new rich . Chávez constantly went on about how he was struggling against ‘the bourgeoisie’, presenting his government as being the government of the poor, because he came from a poor background. In this way he tried to hide from the workers that the capitalist system is based on antagonistic social relations between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and that those who govern the state are part of the bourgeois class.

The response of the proletariat

Chávez's death does not mean the end of Chávism. Chávez has not been nor will he be the only populist leader in Latin America. The 20th century gave birth to various leaders with a similar profile, which were thought to now be an extinct species. The bourgeoisie needed Chávez in order to maintain control of and spread illusions amongst the most impoverished masses, including the weakest and most atomised sectors of the proletariat, sectors which will inevitably continue to grow as long as the capitalist system sinks into decadence and decomposition.

This drama poses a historic challenge to the proletariat, to develop its struggles and transform them into a reference point for the masses that have placed their hopes in the state and the Messiah Chávez. The proletariat in Venezuela has struggled, despite the weight of ideological poison and state repression, and the political polarisation created by the different factions of capital. Workers in the industrial and public sectors have used the strike weapon and protests in order to confront the state; despite many of them being sympathetic to Chávism, they have thus shown a lack of trust in the State-boss. The constant attacks by the ‘Socialist’ state have obliged them to resist, and they have had no other road5. This has also happened in sections of the most impoverished where the proletariat is weakest, although to a much more limited extend due to their atomisation and not being integrated into the productive apparatus.

Faced with the Leftist ideology of Chavism and the other ideologies that are generated and will be generated in order to preserve the system, the proletariat in Venezuela and internationally need to develop their struggle against capital, going beyond immediate demands, developing their consciousness and organisation as an autonomous class, which also means a development on the theoretical level, based on historical materialism. This task places a great weight on the most politicised minorities of the class – those who have already recognised that our struggle is for communism on a world wide scale.

Internacionalismo (Venezuela) 24/03/2013

On the morning of Saturday 16 March, the radio informed the million inhabitants of the island of Cyprus that a European aid plan had been agreed for the country that included the introduction of a tax of 6.75% on bank deposits up to €100,000 and 9.9% for deposits above that amount. Obviously, everyone rushed to the banks to withdraw their money. In vain! Banks and markets were closed, withdrawals from ATMs were limited. For more than a week, the country was at a standstill, with the population not knowing what tomorrow would bring. Finally, after many twists and turns (a rejection of the European plan in the Cypriot parliament, many official, behind-the-scenes negotiations...), the tax targeting the small investors was cancelled, but instead, accounts of more than €100,000 were hit harder (eg those of the Bank of Cyprus - the first bank in the country – would lose amounts between 30 and 40%) and the second largest bank, Laiki Bank, was declared bankrupt.

We have had no end of explanations to explain this disaster. ‘It’s Merkel’s fault!’ ‘It’s the fault of the European Union!’ ‘It’s the fault of the IMF!’ That’s what the victims (and those who showed solidarity with the families of workers affected) were told. And ‘It is the fault of irresponsible Cypriots!’ ‘It is the fault of international capital laundering its money!’ ‘It’s a healthy and necessary fight against harmful excesses of the financial world!’ These explanations for the catastrophic state of the Cypriot economy were offered elsewhere.

In reality, all these explanations are not only crude and pathetic lies, they are particularly poisonous for working class consciousness and struggles because accepting them would imply that:

• either the fight is against Merkel, the EU or the IMF;
• or the fight is against ‘irresponsible leaders’, ‘corrupt financiers’ or ‘capitalist excess’.

In either case, the anger and reflection are deflected away from what is the real root of the current dramatic situation: capitalism. And worse! By blaming only certain parties (this individual, that government or that institution), by making believe that a more humane form of capitalism is possible, the bourgeoisie ultimately leads the exploited into defending the system that is attacking it!

To support its propaganda, the bourgeoisie draws on the appearance of things, on what seems obvious, on basic common sense. Or, in the words of Albert Einstein, “What we call common sense is actually all the ideas we have been taught up to the age of 18” (and even later, we should add). So, we must make a real effort theoretically to go beyond appearances to discover the real cause of the current downturn that’s not just in Cyprus but all over the world.

The history of Cyprus

Owing to its geographical position, Cyprus has always been a highly coveted and fought over transit point1. So the island was one of the first points of contact between East and West in prehistoric times. It was independent in the Middle Ages and it became successively the flagship for the republics of Genoa and Venice. In 1571, Cyprus came under Ottoman domination.

There then followed a long period of decline until, in the nineteenth century, a new master, Great Britain, arrived. Cyprus was added to Gibraltar and Malta on the maritime route leading to Egypt and the Levant. It took advantage of this, waking from its torpor, but without really making a big leap forward. It gained its ‘independence’ in 1960.

In 1963 and 1964, the Turkish community was the victim of atrocities. On 6 August 1964 the Turkish air force bombed Tillyria. In the context of the Cold War when Americans forces were based in the area of their Turkish and Iranian or Iraqi allies, there could be no question of letting Cyprus become the Cuba of the Mediterranean.

Washington and Ankara, fearing a Soviet intervention on the island, agreed to the unification of Cyprus with Greece, provided that the Turkish army had a base there the same size as the English bases. But against all odds, President Makarios, who had, in the 1950s, defended the idea of enosis, the union of Greece and Cyprus, but had become a staunch defender of the independence of his country, refused to play ball. The Turkish army intervened, communities were uprooted and populations relocated. Shortly afterwards, the United States, worried about the weakness of Greece and always fearing a Russian intervention, colluded in deposing the monarchy, establishing a military dictatorship on 21 April 1967.

However, these same generals, supporters of a Cyprus united with Greece, did not go along with Makarios’s desire for independence and, moreover, the Americans didn’t trust him, fearing that he took his reputation as the ‘Castro of the Mediterranean’ too seriously. On 15 July 1974, the ‘colonels’, with no opposition from Makarios, launched a coup d’etat. Then, fearing Cyprus’s integration with Greece, Turkey landed 7,000 soldiers on the island on 20 July to ‘protect’ the Muslim community. The Turks wanted to have two geographically and ethnically distinct states, united under the authority of a federal government with limited powers, and organised the removal of the Christians to the south and the Muslims to the north. The southern Christian part claimed to represent the whole of Cyprus and was recognised by the international community. The northern Muslim part, took the step, in 1983, of declaring itself independent, but the international authorities consistently ignored this decision.

Thus, since 1989, Cyprus is the last European country with a dividing line and a capital divided by a wall. Cyprus would ‘benefit’ from another regional conflict, the Lebanon war. Lebanese capital, fleeing the war-torn country, invested in and dramatically transformed the southern region for a decade. When peace returned to Lebanon, Cyprus was fearful of a decline in foreign investment, but Soviet Perestroika and the revival of the Russian economy would provide new financial support.

First lesson: national economy, a product of the world market

According to some journalists and PhDs in economics, Cyprus’s ‘delicate’ position is due to the irresponsibility of its leaders (and therefore ‘the people who elected them’) that have transformed the island, out of pure greed, into a place for massive speculation and even into a giant laundry room for dubious capital, especially that from Russia. In fact, the brief history of this country shows the extent to which the current situation is the product of the history of world trade and imperialism.

With the Turkish invasion of 1974, some sectors and whole parts of the national economy were lost. With no agriculture, with no heavy industry, the Cypriot bourgeoisie had to find a new sector for capital accumulation, or perish. But which one? As a former colony, Cyprus had had a close historical relationship with Britain for over a century: English, for Cyprus, is still the lingua franca and the language used in education. It is used within and between its major institutions. This British culture is surely what explains why Cyprus spends 7% of its productive capacity on education, putting the country in the top three of the European Union. Lots of Cypriots go to study in universities in the UK or North America: nearly 4 out of 5 Cypriots study outside their island. And 47% have a graduate degree, the highest rate in the EU. Cypriots are an educated and mobile people. This is why they are uniquely positioned to provide accounting, banking and legal services of a high quality. In addition, they are members of the EU with all the benefits that come with the free flow of payments, capital and services, and have an exchange taxation treaty with Russia and low taxes.

Adding all this together, it explains its success hitherto as a European centre for trade and services. ‘Yes, but to then become a tax haven!’ exclaim all those who refuse to see that it’s not this or that leader, this or that financier who is in the dock but the world capitalist system as a whole. If tourism, chartering sea vessels and banking have gained an excessive weight in relation to the real economy of this small island, if all the banking facilities and charges have been introduced to encourage the development of foreign financial investments, the economy would no doubt have collapsed without it. If this tax haven had not been created, its current bankruptcy would have been avoided because ... it would have occurred much earlier!

Moreover, the entire global economy actually needs this ‘haven’. Since 1967, capitalism has suffered recession after recession, crisis after crisis. The real economy, industry, has become more and more lethargic. Investing in new plant is more and more risky; investments can be lost. That is why today, many investors are putting their money into loans to states at rates that are zero or negative. In other words, they have nothing to gain! Why? Because by investing elsewhere, they risk losing everything. This means that finding a profitable investment has now become incredibly difficult. Speculative bubbles (property, stock exchanges …), like sifting money away into the countless tax havens, are a necessary product of the global economic crisis of capitalism. Otherwise, the Cypriot bourgeoisie, like all others, would be unable to make a profit from its capital. This explains the existence of speculation.

But why is the world dotted with major financial centres which respect no law other than the lack of transparency? Is this not, on this occasion, the product of the immorality of the investors and their insatiable greed for money? Well no! Again, this is only how it looks on the surface. So let’s dig down a little.

With the real and legal economy being less and less profitable and more and more risky because of the severity of the global economic crisis, financial profits in capitalism tend to come increasingly from illegal activities. Drugs, arms trafficking, prostitution, trafficking in women and even children are all now an important part of the global economy. All funds invested in these obnoxious and inhuman activities must seem to come from out of nowhere and the mass of profits that they bring must be ‘laundered’ before being put back, when needed, into circulation. But capitalism’s greed doesn’t end there. All over the planet there are millions of human beings labouring in workshops manufacturing flasks or shoes; a whole multitude of workers reduced to slavery with no ‘legal’ sanction.

This shameful economy, this hidden economy, is a source of huge profits that get channelled via thousands of invisible links to the largest banks and financial institutions in the world. All the profits from the blood of the exploited must be first of all be carefully hidden and after long cycles of ‘cleansing’ in laundries like Cyprus, then brought back into general circulation, in the banks on the high streets or in the official stock markets. At this level, the ‘skulduggery’ of capital holds no bounds. A very large part of global speculation is therefore placed out of view, outside of any regulation, any law, or any control. This hidden and illegal ‘black’ economy has spread throughout the capitalist economy.

Today, leaders complain when states are facing bankruptcy; because all of the money that is going untaxed. But this also plays a particularly important role in bolstering profits, in the way a drug addict needs a regular supply of drugs. This is why all the slogans such as ‘Clean up capitalism!’ ‘Close the tax havens!’ ‘Impose stringent regulation!’... are nothing but expressions of outrage! Capitalism is sick, its real economy is not running smoothly; to survive, it is forced to more openly cheat its own laws. The rhetoric of the political leaders on the need for ‘economic morality’ is therefore a bluff! Neither Cyprus, nor Luxembourg, and even less the City of London is actually going to be forced to stop their speculative activity

Second lesson: major imperialist stakes

The endless negotiations between Cyprus, the EU and Russia over an aid package can only be understood through the prism of the imperialist tensions that have shaped this small island. First, its military geo-strategic position is of the highest importance. NATO has a base there as well as Britain. Moreover, Cyprus is recognised as Europe’s Mediterranean aircraft carrier. The only Russian naval base is located in a country which, to say the least, is unstable and looks out towards Cyprus ... Syria! The problem here is that Russia, which supports Bashar Assad, is in danger of having to leave Syria in the event that the current regime is defeated. If the Russians were to leave Syria, Cyprus, located a hundred kilometres away, could make the ‘move’ much easier by letting Moscow retain a base in the Mediterranean. Europe, dependent to a large extent on Russian gas, would then, in exchange for financial support, be eager to partake (out of necessity) in the exploitation of Cypriot gas resources estimated to be several hundred billion cubic metres. Obviously, the Russian leaders would see this as a threat to their capacity to negotiate with Europe since Cypriot gas would allow Europe to counter any Russian ‘blackmail’ with regard to gas supplies. Finally, Cyprus has become a haven for twenty years for the more or less secret funds of the Russian oligarchs and manages tens of billions of Russian euros! Russia also has, in this respect, every reason to support Cyprus or to ‘buy’ Cyprus. Obviously, there is no clear agreed approach within Europe. The Cypriot economy will be ‘rolled over’ if necessary but Europe will not lose Cyprus or only at the cost of a bitter struggle.

It’s always the working class that pays the price. Taxing accounts of more than €100,000 is only one of the consequence of Cyprus’s bankruptcy. Taxes and charges of every kind will rise dramatically, austerity will increase sharply, and recession will worsen the economy, unemployment and poverty will spread like the plague. In fact, like those living in Greece or Spain before them, the workers in Cyprus are today suffering the fate that capitalism has in store for the world’s working class. One myth, the belief, deliberately cultivated by leaders across the world, has just been toppled: ‘Do not worry, whatever happens, the money in your bank is safe!’

The initial proposal to tax all Cypriot accounts has destroyed this illusion. The idea of the EU agreeing to this measure of direct theft was that it was the peculiar product of a tax haven that for years was granting dividends on savings that had been excessive, immoral and unbearable for economy. Cypriots had thus benefited unfairly from the system, and as a result they had to accept responsibility for the ‘repairs.’ But you can see right through this! Especially in Europe, the dominant idea was not ‘Cyprus is an exception’ but rather ‘It can happen to us too tomorrow,’ ‘They are thieves’, ‘They have no right to interfere in our economies’. It was necessary to stem a possible run on the banks on the island and also possible contagion: the EU backtracked and spared the ‘small fries’. But the out and out guarantee for the bank accounts has to be taken for what it is: an illusion. This is what is in store for the entire working class tomorrow: in order to replenish the coffers, States, regardless of the colour of the governments in place, in every country, will not hesitate to take money from us, to reduce us to poverty, to throw us into the street. Cyprus is not an exception! If it isn’t seizing hold of our bank accounts, we’ll be robbed with higher taxes and larger bills, or by soaring prices due to rampant inflation. Under capitalism, all roads lead to poverty. Our trust in the future remains firmly with the struggles of the working class and their increased unity and solidarity in confronting the capitalist state in all the countries of the world.

T and P (20/4/13)

The justification declared by one of the Woolwich “jihadis”, David Adebolajo, was anger at what the British state is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Carnage on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul doesn’t make the headlines, even though its toll is far worse than what has just happened in London, or even what happened on 7/7/2005. And the USA and Britain have played a central role in all this. Their intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan has brought chaos and bloodshed on a huge scale. Both states are responsible for massacres and torture, like the decimation of Fallujah, or the atrocities in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Camp Nama.

But the methods of al-Qaida and other jihadis are not in any way a barrier to the killing. On the contrary: with their indiscriminate suicide bombings in market places and Shia mosques, the majority of  al-Qaida’s victims are Muslims, which makes a mockery of their claim to be defending Islam against the western invaders. 

Adebolajo also wanted to tell passers -by that the British government “doesn’t care about you”, that we should “remove them”. The British government certainly doesn’t care about the majority of its citizens, nor does it care about the soldiers it sends to their graves in endless wars. But murdering individual soldiers, who are not the architects of these wars and are also its victims, does anything but inspire the population to overthrow their government. On the contrary, it drives people to look for the state to protect them and fuels the worst kind of nationalism.  Already there has been a spate of attacks on mosques and Muslims and new life has been breathed into the ultra-patriots of the EDL and BNP.

Is this Islam?

The respectable Muslim institutions have condemned the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby and insist that Islam is a religion of peace. For the EDL and BNP, on the other hand, what happened in Woolwich is indeed Islam, a religion based on violence and hatred.

Both views are entirely misleading.  Islam was born out of rebellion and war in the 6th century. But in those days, there was something revolutionary in Islam: it stood against the old pagan despotism of Mecca, it wanted an “umma” or community of believers that would cross racial boundaries, it significantly improved the status of women.  Even when it became a state power and an empire, it had its epoch of progress, where science and philosophy were held in respect and which served as a bridge to the Renaissance in Europe. But that was a long time ago. Today, when the time has come for humanity to finally free itself from the old mythologies, all the world’s religions can only pull us backwards.  In its moderate forms, Islam, like Christianity, teaches submission to the state and thus participation in the wars of the state. In its “radical” forms, like all the Christian end-of- the- world sects, it has become a true cult of death, an expression of the growing tide of nihilism and despair which has affected the younger generation in particular. This sense of hopelessness is the reflection of a social system which has reached a total dead-end. The Woolwich jihadis embodied this very clearly: after the murder, they waited for the police to arrive and when the armed units came, they rushed forward to embrace death. 

Pretexts for war and repression

It’s pretty obvious that the Islamists and the EDL/BNP are mutually interdependent. They feed each other’s rage and their ideologies mirror each other perfectly. The EDL/BNP worship the sacred ground of Britain, as though it truly belonged to the people and not the tiny minority of exploiters who actually run the country.  For them, this sacred land has been polluted by the invasion of foreigners, a position crudely disguised as opposition to militant Islam.   But when the militant Islamists talk about the invasion of “Muslim lands” by the “Jews and crusaders” they reveal that their vision of the world is as racist and as nationalistic as that of the far right.  

Those who defend the democratic centre ground, the main political parties and the dominant media, can’t find enough words to denounce the action of the Woolwich murderers, while distancing themselves from the likes of the EDL/BNP. They love to talk about the liberal, tolerant traditions that supposedly characterise the “British way of life”. But those who manufacture mainstream democratic opinion are by far the most adept at using the actions of the “extremists” to justify the nation’s imperialist wars and to strengthen state repression. The horror of 9/11 gave the US state the excuse it needed to invade Afghanistan and crack down on domestic dissent. The activity of the 7/7 bombers or the Woolwich duo enables the government to whip up support for the “mission” in Afghanistan or Iraq. At the same time it enables them to bring in draconian anti-terrorist laws and to send police and security agents into colleges and universities to sniff out signs of “radicalisation” among students.  This kind of snooping can be used not only against potential Islamists, but against those who really do make a “radical” critique of society – one that goes to the root, which is the total obsolescence of capitalist social relations.

The political and social atmosphere created by the Woolwich killings is putrid through and through. We are asked to take sides for one form of nationalism against another, one justification for war and murder against another. Even acts of genuine humanity, like that of Ingrid Loyau-Kennet who approached the knife-wielding Adebolajo to try to help the victim and avert further violence, have been taken up by the politicians for their own ends.

The voice of the working class

In the cacophonous ranting of the dominant ideology, one voice is rarely heard: the voice of the working class, of its movement for emancipation.

Some of course claim that right wing groups like the EDL and the BNP are the voice of the “white working class”. But the working class has no colour and no country, because it is everywhere subject to the same system of wage slavery. Those who stand on the “left” of the political machinery, like the SWP or George Galloway, also pretend to speak for the working class, for socialism and internationalism. But their “socialism” means giving more power to the state, and their “internationalism” means supporting the smaller imperialist state or armed gang against the bigger: Saddam against Bush,  Hezbollah against Israel (although now they have to choose between Hezbollah and the Syrian opposition), Russia or China against the US..... 

The real tradition of the working class is internationalism, based on the simple premise of the Communist Manifesto: the workers have no country, because they own nothing but their labour power. The interests of the workers, whether employed or unemployed, “native” or immigrant, black, white, yellow or brown, are the same in all countries. They are directly opposed to the interests, and policies of all states, all governments, all bosses, all capitalist parties, all popes, bishops and ayatollahs. And against the methods of bourgeois violence and warfare – indiscriminate massacre, state terror, or the terrorism of small gangs – the working class has its own methods of struggle. And they are genuinely radical because they point towards a profound re-organisation of human society based on solidarity rather than division: such methods as wildcat strikes, general assemblies, mass pickets and demonstrations calling on other workers to join the movement. And at a higher stage:  councils of delegates, fraternisation with the troops of “enemy” armies, mutiny against military commands, armed insurrection organised by the workers’ councils: in sum, the proletarian revolution.   

Amos 25.05.13

Just how quickly a modern capitalist state can descend into a devastating imperialist hell-hole is demonstrated by the war in Syria. We horror we view the growing death and mutilation of men, women, children, endless atrocities and the destruction of whole areas on televised reports; these are followed by the thoughts of 'experts', the think-tanks that inform the governments, then the nauseating speeches and policy decisions of politicians; and not only is there no end to all this carnage and the hypocrisy surrounding it, but it threatens to get worse. The social revolt in Syria of March 2011 is buried under the debris and devastation of this country and the present bloody stalemate of the military forces involved, as well as their different imperialist backers, threatens not just more of the same but increases the dangers of this war spreading - an extension of war and instability that is already underway.

One of the factors explaining this stalemate is, against all the propaganda to the contrary, the cohesiveness of the Syrian military, fear-driven support from large elements of the population for the Assad regime, and the military support to the latter from Russia and Iran. On the other side, the Free Syrian Army and the jihadists have been strengthened by the military support of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, Britain, the USA, Jordan and Turkey. Britain and France have been particularly active in stepping up economic, military and diplomatic support recently, with both looking to alter the terms of the UN arms embargo, and Foreign Secretary Hague saying at the beginning of March that Britain was considering arming the rebels in order to 'save lives'. In a sign of its growing weight Germany has, for the moment, firmly blocked any attempt to ease any restrictions of arms to the rebels wanted by France and the UK. In fact Britain, along with France, the USA, Turkey, via Jordan, as well as the arms deliveries by Qatari and Saudi forces, are already providing lethal assistance to opposition forces along with direct military training. Britain has also shown a propensity to support the Muslim Brotherhood in various Arab countries in the past and throughout the "Arab Spring" and we should assume that the same is happening here as they are a significant element in the Syrian opposition forces.

On April 10, a BBC report stated that the Syrian al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) has been confirmed from Iraq to be part of al-Qaida in Iraq[1]. Somewhat embarrassingly for the freedom-loving west this has been a fact on the ground for the last six months or more; but backing elements of Islamic fundamentalism has a long tradition from British imperialism, imperialism in general in fact. There's no doubt that al-Nusra is a well-armed and cohesive fighting force. It has had major successes around Aleppo and is reportedly instrumental in the constant fighting in and around Damascus where it's used car bombs and rockets against civilian targets. It looks like that it's also used chemical weapons with devices improvised from chlorine used for water disinfection[2]. Not that there's any moral high ground in this war which, from the most rabid fundamentalist to the most well-spoken democratic politician, shows their dedication to defending their own sordid and bloody imperialist interests. The external opposition forces, the "government-in-waiting", conjured up by the US, France and Britain, and largely based in Turkey, has undergone change to yet another "legitimate representative of the Syrian people". First it was old, long-term Syrian exiles from the US with links to the CIA and various US state organisations, then the President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the preacher Moaz al-Khatib, who lectured the US on the merits of martyrdom (he's gone) and now Ghassan Hillo, another long-term US exile. Hague met Hillo and this new "interim government" on April 10 at the Foreign Office, where he once again talked about what help Britain could give them in order to "save lives"  (gov.uk, April 10). Increasing killing to "save lives" is part of the normal doublespeak of politicians.

The regime itself has been strengthened by the interests of Russian imperialism which has provided it with diplomatic and military support as well as the diplomatic and economic support that it gets from China. In some sense this echoes the old Cold War proxy wars but it's much more unstable and chaotic than that, given that we are living in a period of decomposing entities, the weakening of the US and tendencies to everyman for himself. An example of this is the pro-opposition "allies" of Turkey and Saudi Arabia having diverging and opposing interests in the war and their own role as aspiring regional powers. The Syrian ally Iran has recently (Press TV, 16.4.13) reaffirmed its long-term support for Syria and calls for the deepening of "cooperation between the two countries to boost the resistance front against the Zionist regime of Israel". And here Iran is asserting itself, via its Sh'ite identity with Iraq, Hezbollah and the Syrian Baathist Party, against Turkey, Saudi Arabia and, most importantly, the leading military power in the region, Israel.

Threat of escalation

The potential for escalation is clear. In early April Syrian jets fired rockets 3 miles into Lebanese territory, the first direct attack since the war began. This has further destabilised the fragile state of Lebanon as Sunni-Shia tensions are on the rise and there's a wider destabilisation in relation to Israel. Israeli territory has been fired on from the increasingly "hot" area of the Golan Heights, and Israel as returned fire into Syria. Israel was also involved in the bombing of a suspected Hezbollah-bound arms convoy near Damascus on January 30. The Israeli resort of Eilat was also hit by rockets from jihadists active in the similarly unstable region of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula this week where, worryingly for the Israelis, their "Iron Dome" missile protection system failed to respond. And the background to all this is the continuing Iranian-Israeli tensions which this week were expressed in threats of the latter to invade the former with Israeli Chief of Staff, Lt. General Gartz saying "we have our plans and forecasts... if the time comes we will decide" (on military action) (AFP, 16.4.13). Israel is concerned about weapons going into and coming out of Syria, about threats against it from all sides; and a further concern must be, if it needed any, the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood from elements such as Britain.

 The US is "leading from behind" in this war and just to make its position clear NATO's top commander, US Admiral James Stavridis, on a visit to Turkey this month, described Turkey as "Nato's border with Syria" (Reuters, 17.4.13). On the same day, the Los Angeles Times reported that 200 US military officials would be going to Jordan, where the British army has a presence, and adds that plans have been made for the extension of this force. In the meantime Assad's artillery and jet bombers are pounding civilian areas, often populated by refugees who are fleeing previous attacks (when the war started there were already two million Palestinian and Iraqi refugees living in Syria). Similarly, when they are not carrying out direct massacres of civilians as al-Nusra have done, the rebels have ensconced themselves in civilian areas from which they launch attacks, inviting retribution from the regime's forces. And for these civilians there is no end to their misery, hunger and terror which, if anything, threatens to spread beyond the borders of Syria with the complicity of the local, regional and global imperialist powers, all of which contains no perspective whatsoever for the working class.

Baboon. 19.4.13 (this article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)

The death toll from the Rana Plaza factory building collapse in Dhaka has gone past 1000. Another 8 people have been killed in a fire in the Mirpur area of the same city – the death toll would certainly have been higher if the fire had broken out during the day, as it did last November at the Tazreen garment factory where 112 workers died1.

These ‘accidents’ are nothing short of industrial murder. There is no hiding the fact that there is a total disregard for the safety for the Bangladeshi garment workers who toil in appalling conditions for miserable wages. But this is not a regrettable excess to be blamed on a few rogue employers. It is inscribed into the very structure of the world economy. Cheapening the costs of labour power benefits not only the local gangsters who own the factories, but also the big international clothing companies like Primark who have swelled their profits on the cut-price labour they can find in the ‘third world’.

Furthermore, despite all the alleged reforms and advances of industrial production in the ‘west’, capital everywhere puts profit high above human life. Almost simultaneously with the terrorist attack on the crowds attending the Boston marathon, a fertiliser plant in West, near Waco in Texas, was destroyed in a huge explosion which left 14 dead and 200 wounded and levelled five city blocks. At the time, this was described as an accident. More recently, a paramedic who went to the scene has been arrested on suspicion of causing the explosion. But whatever the truth, the West explosion reveals the profound irresponsibility of capitalist production, since this plant containing such highly volatile materials was situated close to a nursing home, a school and a number of residential buildings. It brings to mind the Toulouse fertilizer factory explosion in early 2000 where 28 workers were killed plus one child. Ten thousand five hundred were injured, a quarter of them seriously. Total, who ran the plant, was cleared of all responsibility in subsequent proceedings. We could equally point to the siting of the Fukushima nuclear plant in an area highly vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis and again situated far too close to residential areas……

Sickened by the latest reports from Bangladesh, a sympathiser posted these observations on our discussion forum. We can only say that his anger is totally justified:

“the Bangladesh situation is reaching grotesque proportions,  with horrific disasters - industrial murder - happening with sickening regularity. Why does anybody still bother to go to work in Bangladesh at all? God knows they barely even get paid!  So why go? The answer of course is that under capitalism we all need even the most ridiculous and tiny amount of money the bourgeoisie can spare  - wages: “a just wage for a just day’s work” or some such crap - just to keep going from day to day.  We live on pittances squeezed out of the capitalists in circumstances that often threaten our very lives.  And the threats don’t all have to be physical (fires and building collapses, or poisoned polluted surroundings) they can be psychological too, producing appalling miseries and unhappiness.  Oh! How grateful we all should be, to the bourgeoisie; its generosity and love of humanity; its endless concern for the planet and the reign of peace world-wide!  Where would we be without them? How could we manage without them, enforcing their extortionate mode of life on our existence, just so they can make their profit? And fight their vicious wars!  If you don’t get crushed in a collapsing badly built factory, or burned to death locked inside one, there’s always the possibility of slow death at the hands of radioactive tsunamis, sudden extinction by remote bombings, rockets or drones, distasteful and agonizing elimination via chemical weaponry,  or sudden erasure at the hands of sharp shooters from one side or another of their perpetually warring gangs: official or otherwise. 

 It isn’t just ‘industrial murder’ the bourgeoisie have invented, they have turned mass murder into an industry. It’s the only thing they’re good at now”.  Amos 11.5.13

One of our sympathisers - who posts as "Fred" on the ICC forum - sent us this article, exposing the British bourgeoisie’s cynical response to the “bee crisis”. But as Fred would certainly agree, the issue of “bee die off” is a global problem and not just a British one, and is yet another sign that capitalist production is incompatible with the health of the planet. 

It isn't only proletarian workers under attack from a greedy bourgeoisie. Our friends and comrades, the hard working bees. are also under attack  and in danger of extinction in the UK. This as a result of the bourgeoisie's love of insecticide as a means of upping food and flower production. It is thought - mainly on the continent of course, that great centre of crackpot and "foreign" ideas - that the spraying of gallons and litres of poisonous insecticides, meant to ensure the improved growth of  food products for sale,  could be hazardous to the bees. But what about the profits which accrue from the production and sale of these agricultural products? How would "no spraying" interfere with this? Never mind the bees!  Not that the food and flowers are intended for those our rulers exploit. The working class wouldn't know what to do with flowers even it got some. But in the EU the idea has spread that the mass spraying of insecticides is dangerous.  Does this mean that those of us with shares in the chemical producing industry are suddenly at risk?   

Though reliant on the exploitation of workers including bees for their profit, the bourgeoisie also resent and "have it in" for those who produce their life of leisure; and seek to make all workers' lives as hard and as miserable as possible while retaining them in exploitable chains. This tendency may stem from guilt feelings hidden somewhere in the bourgeoisie's consciousness, whereby they angrily dislike that on which they depend.  So our UK ruling class displays little in the way of affection for either the human working class, or our hard working bees, without whose effort we would soon be in material difficulties, particularly in regard to food. 

 Recently The Independent newspaper commented on the bee crisis as follows:

"'Victory for bees’ as European Union bans neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for destroying bee population ... 15 of the 27 member states voted for a two-year restriction on neonicotinoids despite opposition by countries including Britain"

So plucky little UK, always ready to tweak the EU's tale, stands alone, so to speak. It's just like 1940 again.  Remember those hellish days?  Well...probably not. But the right wing of the Tory Party certainly does, and a challenge to 'socialist' Europe, especially as it goes to the defence of worker bees, is just the ticket. Win this one, these Tories think, and we'll have fox hunting back in no time; for no one loves the countryside and its furry creatures more than the British ruling class.

So while Europe bans the sprays, Britain goes it alone.  Spraying will continue. Elimination of pests that eat or destroy our rulers' profits before the goods even hit the market will not be tolerated, even if it threatens the existence of a few measly bees.  And of course, good old bourgeois science hasn't actually proved that insecticides kill the bees, anymore than it's proved that global warming  (a) is a reality and (b) is caused by capitalism anyway.  If we all succumb to glacial entombment, or disappear under encroaching oceans, well isn't this the Deity's, or Mother Nature's fault; nothing to do with the bourgeoisie and their maniacal economic system, whereby they are privileged now  to enjoy almost permanent wars of one kind or another, and impose the most appalling way of life on the majority of the planet's human population, and all the animals too, including bees. 

By the way, thinking again of the bees, it is to be noticed that the inner cities of London and Paris are centers of flourishing bee life. The roof of the Chamber of Deputies in Paris is a veritable bee keeper’s paradise. The Parisian surroundings of parks and avenues, glowing bright with a flowering display, are absolute heaven for our bee friends, and they love it. The happy contented buzzing on the roof of the Parisian parliament, as the bees do their work, is in sharp contrast to the loud mouthed bellowing and cacophony of the elected deputies below, as bourgeois democracy plays out its useless role.  

So the EU takes on an experimental period of "no spraying" and hopes to save its bees. The UK, however, is inclined to think of bees in the same way it thinks of all outsiders; immigrants legal or otherwise; and essentially anyone who missed the blessing of being born in the UK, and born white, and, if working class, born permanently submissive.   It's hard to say where bees fit in. Are they sufficiently submissive? They're all very well as long as they stick to the job, don't cause trouble, and don't complain.  That they are interfering in matters that don't concern them, like the profits that appear to accrue from a good spraying campaign in the countryside, is inconvenient. That they are now dying off is inconsiderate and tantamount to treasonable activity. 

Fred 22/6/2013

A wave of protests against the increase in public transport fares is currently unfolding in the big cities of Brazil, particularly in the Sāo Paulo, but it’s also been happening in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Goiânia, Aracaju and Natal. This mobilisation has brought together young people in particular, students and school pupils, and to a lesser extent but still very significantly, wage workers and people on benefits, all fighting against the increases in what is already a poor quality and overpriced service, and which will add to the decline in living standards for huge layers of the population.

The Brazilian bourgeoisie, headed by the Workers’ Party (PT) and its allies, have been insisting that everything is fine in Brazil, despite the evidence of mounting difficulties in controlling inflation, which has been brought about by the measures of boosting consumption in order to avoid the country going into recession. Lacking any margin of manoeuvre, the only way the bourgeoisie can try to limit inflation is to increase interest rates while at the same time reducing expenditure on public services: education, health and social security, all of which can only lead to a further deterioration in the living conditions of those who depend on these services.

In the last few years, there have been many strikes against falling wages, increasingly insecure employment and cuts in education and social benefits. However in the majority of cases the strikes have been isolated behind a cordon sanitaire set up by unions linked to the PT government, and the discontent has been contained so that it doesn’t challenge social peace at the expense of the national economy. This is the context for the transport price increases in Sao Paulo and the rest of Brazil: the demand for more and more sacrifices in favour of the national economy, i.e. national capital.

Without any doubt the movements which have exploded around the world in the last few years, with the strong participation of young people, are proof that capitalism has no future to offer humanity other than inhumanity. This is why the recent mobilisation in Turkey had such a strong echo in the protests against fare increases. The young people of Brazil have shown that they are not willing to accept the logic of sacrifices imposed by the bourgeoisie and have joined in with the struggles that have shaken the world recently, like the struggle of the children of the working class in France (the struggle against the CPE in 2006), of youth and workers in Greece, Egypt and North Africa, the Indignados in Spain and Occupy in Britain and the US.

A week of protests and brutal reactions by the bourgeoisie

Encouraged by the success of the demonstrations in the towns of Porto Alegre and Goiânia, which had to face up to harsh repression and which, despite that, managed to obtain a suspension of the fare increases, the demonstrations in Sāo Paulo began on 6 June. They were called by the Movement for Free Access to Transport (MPL, Movimeto Passe Livre), a group formed mainly by young students influenced by the positions of the left, and also by anarchism. The MPL saw a surprising increase in the number of adherents, between 2 and 5 thousand people. There were other mobilisations on the 7th, 11th and 13th of June. From the start, the repression was brutal and resulted in numerous arrests and injuries. Here we must stress the courage and fighting spirit of the demonstrators and the sympathy they rapidly inspired in the population, something which took the organisers themselves by surprise.

Faced with these demonstrations, the bourgeoisie unleashed a level of violence unprecedented in the history of these kinds of movements, with the total complicity of the media who rushed to describe the demonstrators as vandals and irresponsible people. A high ranking spokesman of the state, the Public Prosecutor, advised the police to club and even kill protestors:

“I’ve been trying for two hours to get back to my home but there is a band of rebellious apes blocking the stations of Faria Lima and Marginal Pinheiros. Someone should inform the Tropa de Choque (an elite unit of military police) that this zone is part of my jurisdiction and they should come and kill these sons of whores and I will instruct the police inquiries… I feel nostalgic for the time when these sorts of things would be resolved by a rubber bullet in the backs of these shits”

On top of this, there has been a succession of speeches by public figures belonging to the rival parties, like the state governor Geraldo Alckmin from the PSDB (the Brazilian social democratic party) and the mayor of Sāo Paulo, from the PT, both of them equally vociferous in their defence of police repression and in condemning the movement. Such harmony is not very common, given that the political game of the bourgeoisie typically consists of attributing responsibility to the party in power for whatever problems come up.

In response to the growing repression and the smokescreen created by the main newspapers, TV and radio channels, which resulted in more and more people taking part in the demonstrations (20,000 on 13 June, a figure that has now been far surpassed, translator’s note). The repression was even more ferocious and led to 232 arrests and numerous injuries.

It’s worth underlining the appearance of a new generation of journalists. Although a minority, they have clearly shown solidarity with the movement by exposing police violence, many of them falling victim to it themselves. Conscious of the manipulative methods of the big media, these journalists have to some extent managed to recognise that the acts of violence by the young are a reaction of self-defence and that the depredations inflicted on government and judicial buildings are uncontained expressions of indignation against the state. What’s more, acts carried out by provocateurs, which the police use in demonstrations as a matter of course, have also been reported.

The exposure of a whole series of manipulations and lies by official state sources, the media and the police, aimed at demoralising and criminalising a legitimate movement, has had the effect of increasing the level of participation in the demonstrations and the support of the population. Here it’s important to highlight the major contribution made on the social media by elements active in the movement or sympathetic to it. Fearing that the situation could get out of control, certain sectors of the bourgeoisie have begun to change their tune. The big communication companies that own newspapers and TV channels, after a week of silence on the police repression, finally began to talk about the ‘excesses’ of the police action. Certain politicians have also criticised such ‘excesses’ and said they are going to investigate them.

The violence of the bourgeoisie through its state, whatever face it wears, ‘democratic’ or ‘radical’, is based on totalitarian terror against the classes it exploits or oppresses. With the ‘democratic’ state this violence is not so open as it is in naked dictatorships; it’s more hidden, so that the exploited accept their condition of exploitation by identifying with the state. But this does not mean that the democratic state will renounce the most varied and modern methods of repression when the situation demands it. It’s therefore no surprise that the police should launch this kind of violence against the movement. However, as in the case of the biter bit, we have seen that stepping up repression has only provoked growing solidarity in Brazil and even elsewhere in the world, even if he latter has only been among a small minority. There have been a number of solidarity demonstrations outside Brazil, animated mainly by Brazilians living abroad. It has to be clear that police violence is part of the nature of the state and is not an isolated case or an ‘excess’ as the bourgeois media and authorities claim. It’s not due to a failure on the part of the leaders and we will get nowhere by demanding ‘justice’ or more polite behaviour by the police: to face up to repression and impose a balance of forces in our favour, there is no other method than the extension of the movement to wider layers of workers. To do this, we can’t address ourselves to the state and ask for charity. The denunciation of repression and of the fare increases has to be taken in hand by the working class as a whole, by calling for an increase in the protest actions and a common struggle against repression and precarious living conditions.

The demonstrations are far from over. They have extended to the whole of Brazil and they were protests at the beginning of the 2013 Confederations Cup: the state president Dilma Rousseff was booed as well as the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, before the opening match between Brazil and Japan. Both of them were unable to hide how uncomfortable they felt with this display of hostility and cut short their speeches in order to limit the damage. Around the stadium there was a demonstration of 1200 people in solidarity with the movement against fare increases. They too were vigorously repressed by the police who injured 27 people and jailed 16. In order to further reinforce the repression, the state declared that any demonstration near the stadiums during the Confederations Cup was forbidden, on the pretext of preventing any disruption to the tournament, to traffic and the functioning of the public services.

The limits of the movement for free transport and some proposals

As we know, this movement has attained a national scale because of the capacity for students and high school pupils to mobilise against the fare increases. However, it is important to bear in mind that the medium and long term aim of the mobilisation was to negotiate free transport for the whole population, to be provided by the state.

And this is exactly where we see the limits of the main demand, since universal free transport cannot exist in capitalist society. To provide it the bourgeoisie and its state would have to further accentuate the exploitation of the working class by increasing taxes on their wages. We have to recognise that the struggle can’t be one for an impossible reform, but should rather be aimed at forcing the state to back down.

Right now, the perspectives for the movement seems to be going beyond simple demands against the fare increases. Already demonstrations have been called for next week in dozens of large and medium sized towns.

The movement has to be vigilant towards the left of capital, which specialises in recuperating demonstrations and leading them into a dead end, as for example with the call for the laws courts to resolve the problem so the demonstrators can go back home.

For the movement to develop, we have to create spaces where we can collectively listen to and discuss different points of view. This can only be done through general assemblies open to all, where the right to speak is guaranteed to all demonstrators. In addition, it is vital to call on the employed workers to join the assemblies and protests because they and their families are equally affected by the price increases.

The protest movement developing in Brazil is a clear answer to the campaign of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, backed up by the world bourgeoisie, according to which Brazil is an ‘emerging country’ on the way to overcoming poverty. This campaign was promoted in particular by Lula, who is known around the world for supposedly having succeeded in pulling millions of Brazilians out of poverty, when in reality his big service to capital was to have shared the crumbs among the poorest masses in order to maintain their illusions and further accentuate the precarious situation of the Brazilian proletariat as a whole.

Faced with the worsening of the world crisis, and capital’s attacks on proletarian living conditions, there is no way out except to struggle against the whole capitalist system.

Revoluçāo Internacional (ICC in Brazil) 16.6.13

2011 was marked by a huge wave of social revolts which spread from Tunisia and Egypt to other countries of the Middle East – including Israel – and to mainland Europe, in particular Greece and Spain, and the US with the ‘Occupy’ movement. These movements all had their own particular features depending on local conditions, and all of them suffered from strong illusions in ‘democracy’ as the answer to all social ills. But what was most important about them was what they expressed at the most profound level: the response of a new generation of proletarians to the deepening world crisis of the capitalist system; and for all their illusions, all their difficulties in understanding their own origins and nature, they belong to the working class and its halting, painful effort to recover an awareness of its real methods and goals.

The revolts in Turkey and Brazil in 2013 are proof that the dynamic created by these movements has not exhausted itself. Although the media puzzle over the fact that these rebellions have broken out in countries which have been through a phase of ‘growth’ in recent years, they have given vent to the same ‘indignation’ of the mass of the population against the way this system operates: growing social inequality, the greed and corruption of the ruling class, the brutality of state repression, a collapsing infrastructure, environmental destruction. And above all, the inability of the system to offer the younger generation a future.

A particular significance of the revolt in Turkey is its proximity with the murderous war in Syria. The war in Syria was also presaged by popular demonstrations against the regime in place, but the weakness of the proletariat in that country, the existence of deep ethnic and religious divisions within the population, enabled the regime to respond with the most ruthless violence. Fissures within the bourgeoisie widened and the popular revolt was – as in Libya in 2011 – drowned in a ‘civil’ war which has in fact become a proxy war between rival imperialist powers. Syria today has become a showcase of barbarism, a chilling reminder of the ‘alternative’ capitalism holds in store for the whole of humanity. Turkey on the other hand, like Brazil and the other social revolts, points to the other road opening up in front of humanity: the road towards the refusal of capitalism, towards the proletarian revolution and the construction of a new society based on solidarity and human need.

The article that follows was written by the comrades of our section in Turkey – a young section, both in the history of the ICC and in the age of its members. Both as revolutionaries and as part of the generation that has led the revolt, these comrades have been actively involved in the movement on the streets and this represents a first report ‘on the spot’ and a first attempt to analyse the significance of the movement.

On the “Chapullers”1 movement: The cure for state terror isn't democracy

“We made a general strike out of our tears to a friend today,
We took down his smiling corpse from a tree
How hard he'd hugged it, how he'd know his duty, how he'd given branches...”2

The movement that began against the cutting of the trees as a part of the plans to tear down Gezi Park in Taksim, Istanbul, and assumed a massiveness unseen in the history of Turkey so far, is still ongoing. Analyzing this movement is of vital importance for class struggle. For this reason, it is necessary for us to base ourselves on a class perspective while defining and politically understanding this movement. Also, there is a need to draw the balance sheet of the process so far. When analyzing the movement and drawing its balance sheet, despite the indignation we feel against the state terror applied against it, and the massacre of three demonstrators, we do not have the luxury to let go of caution and cool-headedness. For getting too caught up in the atmosphere created by the movement and making hasty analyses would risk making serious mistakes in regards to the positions of the class struggle.

Without doubt, since this is an ongoing movement, what we are doing is, in essence, a primary evaluation. Besides, we have to point out that we are continuing our discussions on the movement among ourselves.

The background to the movement

The ruling AKP party and its government had been preventing demonstrations from taking place in Taksim Square, using the urban development projects launched in this area as an excuse. Another intense discussion which occurred on these projects was on the demolition of the Labour Movie Theater, also in the Taksim area. During this process, the police had provoked reactions from popular cultural icons as a result of the attacks made on the protesters who were trying to prevent the demolition of the movie theater. The rearrangement of Gezi Park as a shopping mall, the rebuilding of the historic Gunner Barracks demolished decades ago and the cutting down of the trees was also on the agenda during this process. On these grounds, certain dissident neighborhood associations, non-government organizations, trade-unions and leftist parties had formed the Taksim Solidarity Platform with the slogan “Taksim is Ours”. The desire to hold May Day demonstrations in Taksim was also to start a discussion focused on Taksim.

In this framework, the officials of the bourgeois state were to declare that Taksim wasn't suited for May Day demonstrations and they would not allow such demonstrators to take place in there, claiming that the excavation works in the area would risk the safety of the people who would participate. The May Day demonstration in Taksim was prevented with the state terror used by the riot police. The 'area and demonstration' problem used by the bourgeois left as a policy of finding a way out of its political dead-end once again dominated the agenda after 2007. The insistence on holding May Day demonstrations in Taksim instead of any other area had assumed a highly symbolic character, given the memory of the famous May Day demonstration held in this square in 1977 where 34 people were massacred. Additionally, new regulations introduced by the AKP against abortion legislation and the ban on alcohol sales between 10pm and 6pm also continued to provoke reactions. Also the approach of the current government on art and history followed a similar course, with the demolition of the 'freakish statue' in Kars, the opening of Hagia Sophia to services and similar policies dominating the public mind. Especially in Istanbul, the construction plans made as a part of urban transformation policies, demolitions and the intent to name the Third Bridge planned to be built on the Bosphorus after Yavuz Sultan Selim, an Ottoman Sultan notorious for the massacres of the members of the Alevi sect in Turkey, caused a lot of anger. Additionally, the anti-war feeling against the Syria policies of Erdogan and his government had become increasingly wide-spread, especially after the bombings in Reyhanli and the collapse of the AKP government’s line of blaming the Syrian government about it. And lastly, the 'disproportionality', as the common saying in Turkey goes, of state terror and police violence had started to cause enormous indignation. Furthermore, the youth described as the 90's generation, as apolitical and not wanting to get involved in anything until these demonstrations, had started feeling they didn't have a future as the part of society most affected by the impact of the international economic crisis in Turkey.

The emergence of the movement

On May 28th, a group of about fifty environmentalists started demonstrating in order to prevent earth movers from entering Gezi Park to cut down trees. The response of the police to the demonstrators was violent from the beginning. Especially after the police burnt down the tents of the demonstrators on the morning of May 30th, a serious reaction started to develop. By May 31st, the demonstrations organized against the violent police terror using social media had assumed a generally anti-government quality transcending the question of trees. It had spread out to virtually all the large cities in the country and was getting more and more massive. With the protests in many cities involving large scale clashes with state forces, the slogan “Everywhere is Taksim, resistance everywhere” assumed a real meaning for the first time. When Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “Where the opposition gather a hundred thousand, we can gather a million people” on June 1st, a mass of two million people was to take over Taksim Square, forcing the police to back off. Aside from state terror, the arrogant attitude of Prime Minister Erdogan and the censorship of bourgeois media also caused serious indignation among the masses. In the following days, demonstrations were to take place in 78 of 81 Turkish provinces and solidarity demonstrations were to be organized in every corner of the world. Furthermore, soon the movement which emerged in Brazil against the increase in transportation prices and also assumed an anti-government character was to express the inspiration it took from the demonstrators in Turkey with the slogan “Love is over, Turkey has arrived”. The movement in Turkey was not to remain limited to the squares and demonstrations, with demonstrations of thousands, even tens of thousands and people supporting them making a noise by hitting pots and pans. The movement that begun in Istanbul was to express itself as a reaction against the massacre following the bombings in Reyhanli in Antakya. In Izmir the demonstrations took place under the domination of a nationalist tendency. In Ankara, due to the fact that this city is the bureaucratic and administrative center of the bourgeois state, militant clashes of the masses subjected to intense state terror took place. The expression, “chapullers” used by Erdogan to describe the demonstrators was widely welcomed by them. Without a doubt, one of the most colorful scenes of the clashes throughout the country took place when football fans demonstrating took over a bulldozer and for hours chased the police IVSEs (Intervention Vehicles to Social Events) which had been terrorizing the masses. The demonstrators meaningfully gave the bulldozer they had captured the name IVPE (Intervention Vehicle to Police Events).

Another important factor which influenced the course and slogans of the movement was the fact that police and state terror claimed the lives of three demonstrators. On June 1st, Ethem Sarisuluk, an industrial worker, was shot in the head by the police with a real bullet in Ankara. Ethem was to pass away in the hospital he was taken to in the following days. On June 3rd, in the May Day neighborhood in Istanbul, a young worker called Mehmet Ayvalitas was to be killed as a result of a vehicle deliberately hitting the demonstrators. Again on the night of June 3rd, a student, Abdullah Comert, was also shot and murdered by the police with a real bullet. These three demonstrators massacred by the state were claimed by the movement as a whole and were seen as martyrs of the struggle. The ten thousand demonstrators who shouted “Mother, do not weep, your children are here” in front of Ethem's mothers house after his funeral in Ankara, who chanted “The murderous state will pay” during Mehmet's funeral in Istanbul and who decided to leave gillyflowers where Abdullah was murdered in Antakya, saying “We won't forget, we won't let anyone forget”, proved this. Aside from the murders of Ethem, Mehmet and Abdullah, over ten demonstrators lost their eyes as a result of the police aiming pepper gas canisters and plastic bullets at the faces of the demonstrators. Tens of thousands of people were wounded, dozens of whom are still in a critical condition. Thousands were taken in custody.

The 5th of June strike

After the masses took over Taksim Square from the police on June 1st, the question of what the course of the movement will be started being asked within the movement itself. The prominent question, as expressed in social media, was 'Will we go to work tomorrow after all these events?' Also, aside from those asking the question, a significant portion had started to feel the need for a stronger force than street demonstrations against the state terror still practiced in cities such as Ankara, Antakya, İzmir, Adana, Muğla, Mersin, Eskişehir and Dersim as well as some parts of Istanbul, although police presence had ceased in the Taksim area. These two factors met in the spontaneous call for a general strike which emerged and especially on June 2nd rapidly expanded on social media. As the first impact of this call, the university employees in Ankara and Istanbul declared that they will be going on strike on the 3rd of June. Also in Ankara where the clashes continued intensely, doctors and nurses in some hospitals declared that they would only be treating emergencies and demonstrators. On the same day, Istanbul Stock Market dropped by 10,47 %, the largest drop in the last ten years, and the Taksim Solidarity Platform put forward certain demands. These were democratic demands such as asking for Gezi Park to be preserved as a park, the governors and police chiefs being replaced, the use of tear gas and similar materials to be banned , the release of those taken into custody and the obstacles to the freedom of expression to be diminished.

Eventually the leftist KESK union reorganized its previously planned public sector workers’ strike for June 5th to take place on the 4th and the 5th of June due to the pressure of the workers who are members. On June 4th, DISK, TMMOB and TTB declared that they too were to support the strike on the 5th of June. The strike on the 5th of June took place with a significant participation of public sector workers. In Istanbul alone, 150,000 workers marched to Taksim and about 200,000 workers went out. It is estimated that between 400,000 and 500,000 workers participated in the strike throughout the country. On the other hand, the atmosphere of the strike was under the control of the unions, and the democratic demands of the Taksim Solidarity Platform blurred the workers’ perspective, overshadowing demands such as “No to the performance law” and “Right to strike with collective bargaining”. At this point, it would be appropriate to give the details of an incident which took place in Ankara during the 5th of June strike and exposed the true colors of KESK. During the demonstration in Kizilay Square in Ankara KESK had made an agreement with the police that the police wouldn't attack the demonstrators as long as KESK was there, and had got a permit to demonstrate until six o'clock in the morning. Nevertheless, at around six thirty in the evening, KESK, fearing losing control due to the interaction of the workers in the area with the wide masses who would have come to the square after work, suddenly withdrew from the area without informing anyone. A violent police attack took place right after KESK withdrew. KESK had subjected the masses who'd come to demonstrate for the strike to the violence of the police.

The attitude of the government

As the movement reached a serious scale, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan went to a visit to North African countries after giving the riot police the directive “End this business by the time I return”. When Erdogan was abroad, President Abdullah Gül stated “We got the message” about the protests and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said the environmentalists were right, and agreed to meet the Taksim Solidarity Platform, giving the signals of a different approach compared to Erdogan's strict and arrogant attitude. Violent police attacks against the protesters kept occurring in many cities, above all in Ankara as the Taksim Solidarity Platform met with Arinc, and Sirri Sureyya Onder, an MP from BDP and one of the supposed 'symbolic' names of the movement met with Gül in the capital. A significant tendency among the demonstrators had no trust in the sincerity of figures such as Gül and Arinc and had had the impression that the government was applying 'good cop, bad cop' tactics.

Regardless, before the negotiation process caused a significant loss of momentum within the movement, Erdogan who continued his harsh remarks from North Africa, subtly criticizing even President Gül, returned to the country. With the return of the Prime Minister, the attitude of the government was to get stricter. Moreover, in the light of Erdogan's remark “We are only just holding back fifty percent of the people in their homes”, his supporters in the AKP started organizing welcome demonstrations which were meant to appear as spontaneous. However the fact that the welcome demonstrations took place with the participation of a few thousand people, organized in quite an amateur manner was to show that half the population had no real difficulty staying home. In the welcome demonstrations, Erdogan was to announce that they were to organize two large meetings on the 15th and 16th of June in Ankara and Istanbul respectively. Yet, despite the rather outrageous claims of the government officials, the number of people in the meeting in Sincan, Ankara was to be below 40,000 and in Kazlicesme, Istanbul below 295,000.

At this point, the question of whether there is a crack within the government would be in order. Despite the fact that we can't really talk about a crack, taking into consideration that the AKP is actually a coalition made up of different interest groups, factions, sects and cults, it can be said that this social movement created the potential of a crack for the first time within the AKP. Tayyip Erdogan gave order after order for police attacks against a movement which could die out, be absorbed or at least prevented from radicalizing, risking losing the 2020 Olympics from being given to Istanbul, which is so important to the AKP government, and becoming the target of mockery throughout the world, including that of the Syrian state which warned its citizens not to go to Turkey because it is dangerous! This attitude, which seems irrational, can't be explained by looking at Erdogan's character alone. Erdogan had been able to hold the AKP together so far with his authoritarian attitude of never backing down and if retreating, retreating aggressively, and with the appearance of invincibility created by this attitude. If he was now seen to taking back the words he spat out in the face of such a movement and appeared to have bowed down to the demonstrators, he would lose his invincibility as well. The result of this failure would sooner or later lead to his demise within the AKP. This is why Erdogan doesn’t dare to back down: Not because he is certain that he will defeat the movement he keeps pressing, but because he is certain that if he backs down, sooner or later he will lose.

Negotiations, attacks and the work stoppage action of June 17th

During the week prior to the AKP's 15th-16th June meetings, Erdogan declared that he was to talk to a delegation of demonstrators while he continued to issue harsh messages. At the same time, attacks against Taksim were re-launched in Istanbul in line with the government’s attempts to sow seeds of division among the protesters by claiming there are 'outside provocateurs' among them. The fact that among the people who first met Erdogan about the demonstrations were celebrities such as Necati Sasmaz and Hulya Avsar, who had nothing to do with what was going on, as well as people known for their pro-government stance, caused a serious reaction and eventually forced Erdogan to meet with representatives from the Taksim Solidarity Platform. Although this was a tough meeting, afterwards Taksim Solidarity Platform and a majority of its components began working towards making the protesters go back to their homes, 'continuing' the struggle in Gezi Park symbolically, with a single tent. However, these efforts were rejected by the masses. Thus Erdogan declared in his June 15th demonstration in Ankara that, if the demonstrators do not leave Gezi Park, the police will attack and evacuate them, using his own demonstration in Istanbul the next day as an excuse. At the night of the same day, Gezi Park was attacked and dispersed again with a horrible police terror. This time, the military police was also mobilized to give open support to the police.

Especially after the prospect of a police attack on Gezi Park came back to the agenda, the calls for a general strike, as well as a reaction to the insufficiency of the 5th of June strike and against the unions, were reignited. Eventually this reaction forced KESK to declare that they would have another general strike if there is an attack on Gezi Park. After the evacuation of the park on June 15th, this reaction increased further and KESK, DISK, TMMOB, TTB and TDHB declared that they were going to go do a work stoppage action on the 17th of June. However, BDP admirably served the AKP government with which it had entered a peace process by forcing its members in KESK to break the strike. Thus, participation in the work stoppage action on June 17th was considerably lower compared to the 5th of June strike. Another significant incident was that this time in Istanbul also, the police attacked the demonstrators after the union representatives left the area.

The protests which involved millions of people throughout the country as well as police violence and state terror against the demonstrators still continue.

The class character of the movement

When analyzing the Taksim Gezi Park movement, without a doubt the first question that needs to be asked is how we can define this movement, what its class character is.

At first sight, this looks like a heterogeneous social movement, made up of different classes. Within the movement are people from a lot of sections of the population discontented about the latest policies of the government from the petty bourgeoisie such as shopkeepers to lumpen elements such as neighborhood roughnecks, from people from non-exploiting strata who aren't directly exploited such as artisans and street vendors to administrators with high incomes. Moreover, there are certain bourgeois elements among the supporters of the movement, such as Cem Boyner who posed with a banner saying “I am neither rightist nor leftist, I'm a chapuller”, and Ali Koc who owns Divan Hotel in Taksim where the demonstrators took refuge. Although he later denied it, Koc allegedly said “If the doors of the hotel are closed; if the police is allowed in the hotel and the help given is stopped, I will fire everyone working there”.

Nevertheless, we can only understand the real character of this movement by placing it in its international context. And viewed in this light, it becomes clear that the movement in Turkey is in direct continuity not only with the revolts in the Middle East in 2011 – the most important of which (Tunisia, Egypt, Israel) had a very strong imprint of the working class – but in particular the movement of the Indignados in Spain and Occupy in the US, where the working class makes up a large majority not only of the population as a whole but also of the participants in the movements. The same applies to the current rebellion in Brazil and it is equally applicable to the movement in Turkey, where the immense majority of the movement’s components belonged to the working class, above all the proletarian youth.3 Women had a visible numerical significance as well as a symbolic importance in the protests. Both in the clashes and in the local pot and pan demonstrations, women were in the front lines. The widest participation was shown by the strata called the 90's generation. Being apolitical was a label imposed on the demonstrators produced by this generation, some of whom couldn't remember the period before the AKP government. This generation, who were told not to get involved in the events and to look to save themselves, had noticed that they had no salvation alone and were tired of the government telling them what they should be and how they should live. Students, especially high school students, participated in the demonstrators in massive numbers. Young workers and unemployed were widely a part of the movement. Educated workers and unemployed were also present. In certain areas of the economy where mostly young people work under precarious conditions and it is difficult to struggle under normal conditions – especially in the service sector – the employees organized on a workplace-based way which transcended single workplaces, and participated in the protests together. The examples of such participation were delivery boys in kebab shops, bar employees, call center, office and plaza workers. On the other hand, the fact that workplace-based participation didn't outweigh the tendency of workers to go to the demonstrations individually was among the significant weaknesses of the movement. But this too was typical of the movements in other countries, where the primacy of the revolt on the street has been a practical expression of the need to overcome the social dispersal created by the existing conditions of capitalist production and crisis – in particular, the weight of unemployment and precarious employment. But these same conditions, coupled with the immense ideological assaults of the ruling class, have also made it difficult for the working class to see itself as a class and tends to reinforce the protesters’ notion that they are essentially a mass of individual citizens, legitimate members of the ‘national’ community, and not a class. Such is the contradictory path towards the proletariat re-constituting itself as a class, but there is no doubt that these movements are a step along this path.

One of the main reasons behind the fact that such a significant mass of proletarians discontented about their current living conditions organized protests with such a great determination was the indignation and the feeling of solidarity against police violence and state terror. Despite this, various bourgeois political tendencies were active, trying to influence the movement from within in order to keep it within the boundaries of the current order, to prevent it from radicalizing and to keep the proletarian masses who'd taken to the streets against state terror from developing class demands around their own living conditions. Thus while it isn't possible for us to talk of a single demand the movement has agreed on without question, what commonly dominated the movement were democratic demands. The line calling for 'More Democracy' which was formed on an anti-AKP and in fact an anti-Tayyip Erdogan position in essence expressed nothing other than the reorganization of Turkish capitalism in a more democratic fashion. The effect of democratic demands on the movement constituted its greatest ideological weakness. For Prime Minister Erdogan himself built all his ideological attacks against the movement around the axis of democracy and elections; the government authorities, though with loads of lies and manipulations, often repeated the argument that even in the countries considered most democratic, the police use violence against lawless demonstrations – on which they were not wrong. Moreover the line of trying to get democratic rights tied the hands of the masses when faced with police attacks and state terror and pacified the resistance.

Organized tendencies within the movement

As we have said, the Gezi struggle included many different tendencies from the beginning. It would be in order to shortly go through the substance, weight and effects of the different organized tendencies within the movement, which of course at some point overlapped among themselves, as well as the tendencies among the unorganized masses.

First of all, we need to mention the democratic tendency which for the most part managed dominate the movement with its slogans. This tendency, embodied in Taksim Solidarity Platform and BDP MP Sirri Sureyya Onder, unites trade union confederations, leftist, social democratic and nationalist political parties, radical leftist magazine circles, non-government organizations, professional unions, neighborhood associations, environmentalists and similar foundations and organizations. Currently, among the components of Taksim Solidarity Platform are, aside from organizations such as KESK, DISK and the Syndical Power Unity Platform, parties such as CHP, BDP, the Workers’ Party and nearly all leftist parties and magazine circles. However the most active element within the democratic tendency which seems to have taken control of the Taksim Solidarity Platform is left-wing trade-union confederations such as KESK and DISK. Of course, this unity made up at the top levels of bourgeois parties and foundations has serious cracks at their bases. The true base of the democratic tendency is not made up of its component organizations but of the pro-civil society, pro- passive resistance and liberal sections of the movement. Taksim Solidarity Platform and thus the democratic tendency, due to the fact that it was made up of the representatives of all sorts of foundations and organizations, drew its strength not from its organic connection with the demonstrators but from the bourgeois legitimacy, mobilized resources and support of its components. This being said, the democratic tendency has a weakness, namely that of being cut off from the masses due to lacking an organic connection with the demonstrators, even its own base among them. Nevertheless the fact that there is a significant spontaneous dynamic expressed by the slogan “Tayyip resign!” among the masses, strengthens the democratic tendencies’ hand, despite the fact that Taksim Solidarity Platform never put forward such a demand.

Secondly, we need to mention the nationalist tendency which got very excited when the movement first began but whose expectations weren't met and who remained a side tendency. Among this tendency, the CHP should be evaluated separately from the Workers’ Party and the TGB. The CHP's efforts to orient the movement when it begun remained fruitless and later on, Kilicdaroglu's call for the protesters to disperse didn't result in the CHP's own base withdrawing from the area. In fact, there were protesters who expressed anger towards CHP deputies in Istanbul. As for the radical nationalists such as the Workers’ Party and the TGB, their attempts to turn the movement into ‘Republican’ demonstrations, despite having an effect in some localities, didn't bear significant results. A separate effort of the nationalists was to separate the police from the AKP government with lines such as “There are youths of the same age in both sides”, trying to portray the police in a sympathetic fashion. Yet the sheer brutality of the police violence prevented this line from being accepted for the most part. The most common slogan of the nationalists was “We're Mustafa Kemal's soldiers”, and they tried to get Kemalist anthems sung by the demonstrators. Nationalists, whose attempts to react against the Kurdish demonstrators and the general line they tried to impose on the demonstrations were disliked by the masses, owed the limited influence they enjoyed to the Kemalist education system the newly politicized generation came out of.

The bourgeois left is another tendency worth mentioning. The base of the leftist parties who we can also describe as the legal bourgeois left was for the large part cut off from the masses. Generally they tailed the democratic tendency. BDP, while appearing to support the democratic tendency, also tried to prevent Kurds from participating in the movement, though not so successfully in the big cities, giving covert support for the government with which it is involved in a peace process. Stalinist and Trotskyist magazine circles, or the radical bourgeois left, was also for the large part cut off from the masses. They were influential in the neighborhoods where they were traditionally strong. While they opposed the democratic tendency at the moment it tried to disperse the movement, they generally supported it. The analyses of the bourgeois left was, for the most part limited to expressing how happy they were about the 'popular uprising' and trying to present themselves as the leaders of the movement. Even the calls for a general strike, a traditionally memorized line of the left, wasn't really felt among the left due to the atmosphere of blind happiness. Their most widely accepted slogan among the masses was “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism”.

The tendency which had the most impact and enjoyed the most sympathy among the base of the movement was the football fans. Although the administrators of the football ultras did not act separately from the democratic tendency, the effect of these administrators on their own base was limited. Football fans who have gained an experience not weaker than that of the leftists when it comes to acting together, going to demonstrations and even clashing with the police, were the only more or less organized tendency which wasn't cut off from and acted comfortably among the general mass of protesters. They were prominent especially in the clashes. In a way, it was meaningful that the football fans were the part of the movement the protesting masses who'd been apolitical until the day the demonstrations began felt closest to. Turkey is a country where the line 'I am neither a rightist nor a leftist, but a footballist' is quite popular. Their most memorable slogan was “Spray it, spray it, spray your tear gas! Take off your helmet, leave aside your baton, let us see who are the real roughnecks!”.

The proletarian tendency and the movement’s relationship to the class

In addition to the tendencies mentioned above, it is possible to talk about a proletarian tendency or proletarian tendencies within the current movement. We are saying tendency or tendencies, for the proletarian tendency was unorganized and scattered as opposed to the tendencies we've defined above. The proletarian tendency put forward slogans such as “We are not anyone’s soldiers” and also “We are Mustafa Keser's soldiers” and “We are Turgut Uyar's soldiers” against the slogan of the nationalist tendency, “We are Mustafa Kemal's soldiers”. Slogans from the days of the Tekel struggle such as “We are resisting with the stubbornness of the Kurd, the enthusiasm of the Laz and the patience of the Turk” came back. The trees in Gezi Park were named after the Kurdish victims of the Roboski massacre and the Turkish and Arab victims of the bombing in Reyhanli. Moreover, many defended standing up to state terror against the passive resistance line of the democratic tendency. Against attitudes trying to portray the police in a sympathetic fashion, there was the slogan “Police be honorable, sell pastries”. The legitimacy of the demands put forward by the Taksim Solidarity Platform was questioned. The tendency towards vandalism common among the protesters was opposed, not by being declared as the action of provocateurs as the democratic tendency did, but by being reminded that they shouldn't harm the means of living of the poor, by trying to convince. In general, a significant amount of demonstrators defended the idea that the movement should create a self-organization which would enable it to determine its own future.

The section of the protesters who wanted the movement to get together with the working class was made up of elements who were aware of the importance and strength of the class, who were against nationalism yet who lacked a clear political stance. They were the ones who initiated the calls for a general strike. Essentially, although this expressed an awareness of the importance of the participation of the working section of the proletariat, it also carried democratic illusions. For the experience of June 5th was to demonstrate that pressuring the unions for a general strike wasn't a very effective strategy. On the other hand, one of the most important gains of the movement was the fact that this section of the protesters drew the lessons of their experience. In the calls made after the 5th of June, the idea that showpiece strikes for one or two days weren't sufficient had become quite common, and calls for an indefinite general strike had widened. Moreover, the number of people who said that unions such as KESK and DISK who were supposed to be 'militant' were no different from the government was far from negligible. Lastly, against the standing still actions which emerged recently and was pushed forward by the media and the democratic tendency alike to imprison the movement in an individualistic and passive ground, the idea that these actions can only be meaningful if they are done in the workplace emerged.

A certain part of the working section of the proletariat also participated in the movement and constituted the main body of the proletarian tendency within the movement. The THY strike in Istanbul tried to join with the Gezi struggle. Especially in the textile sector where heavy working conditions are common, certain local voices were raised. One of these protests took place in Bagcilar – Gunesli in Istanbul where textile workers wanted to express their class demands as well as come out in solidarity with the struggle in Gezi Park. The textile workers, forced to live under harsh conditions of exploitation, held a demonstration with banners saying “Greetings from Bagcilar to Gezi!” and “Saturdays should be holidays!” In Alibeykoy, Istanbul, thousands of workers had a march with banners saying “General strike, general resistance”. The plaza and office workers who came to Taksim together carried banners saying “Not to work, to the struggle”. In addition to all these, the movement created a will to struggle among workers who are union members. Without a doubt, KESK, DISK and the other organizations that went out on strike had to take such decisions not just due to social media but because of the pressure coming from their own membership, as perfunctory as these decisions were. Lastly, the Platform of Branches of Turk-Is in Istanbul, made up of all the union branches of Turk-Is in Istanbul, called for Turk-Is and all the other unions to declare an all-out strike against state terror from the Monday after the attack on Gezi Park took place, and it would be a mistake to think that these calls were made without a serious indignation among the workers at the base about what was going on.

Despite all this, it is difficult to say that the current movement has widely recognized its own class interests and headed in the direction of a fusion with the general struggle of the working class. . The fact that the proletarian tendency among the movement couldn't express itself enough was mainly a result of the emphasis made on democracy in opposition to government policies. As this axis dominated the movement, the tendency of the worker elements became a backup and its channels of maturation were blocked. Thus, the democratic tendency managed to keep the movement within its own framework. Besides, despite the fact that a majority of the movement was made up of proletarians, they only constituted a part of the class – not its entirety. What brought this section on the streets was state terror and the same state terror is causing a stir among other sections of the working class. On the other hand, the fact that the demands and slogans the democratic tendency put forward to dominate the movement, as well as the fact that the proletarians tendency hasn't been able to develop class demands with a focus on living and working conditions, poses a serious obstacle to the movement to form strong bonds with masses of workers.

The movement’s means of mass discussion

The common weakness of the demonstrations all across Turkey is the difficulty of creating mass discussion and gaining control over the movement through forms of self-organization on the bases of these discussions. The mass discussion that has manifested itself in similar movements throughout the world was notably absent in the first days of the movement. Limited experience of mass discussion, meeting, mass assemblies and alike and the weakness of a culture of debate in Turkey were undoubtedly influential in this weakness. On the other hand, the movement felt the necessity for discussion and the means for such a discussion started to emerge.

The first expression of the feeling of necessity of discussion was the formation of an open tribune in the Gezi Park. The open tribune in Gezi Park did not attract a great deal of attention or continue for long, but still the experience of the open tribune had a certain effect. In July 5th strike, university workers that are members of Eğitim-Sen suggested setting up an open tribune. However, the KESK leadership not only rejected the proposal for an open tribune in favor of a May-day style, leftist trade-union tribune whose speeches were not even listened to, it also isolated the Eğitim-sen Branch No 5 to which the university workers belong. Thereupon, the Eğitim-sen Branch No 5 attempted to set up an open tribune but it did not work out. Again, taking inspiration from the open tribune, popular tribunes have been formed in Gazi, Okmeydanı and Sarıyer that are in the neighborhoods of Istanbul, Güvenpark and Keçiören in Ankara, Gündoğdu square and Çiğli in İzmir, in Mersin, Antalya, Samsun and Trabzon. Even though in some of these popular tribunes, the participants mentioned their problems about 4+4+4, the minimum wage and health system and proposed the formation of a resistance assembly, the formation of these tribunes by the bourgeois left constituted a significant limitation.

Apart from the experiences of open and popular tribunes, other experiences that have emerged in the succeeding days were forums that have been organized and held by mass participation. These forums that were set up with the purpose of discussing the future course of movement were planned to be held from the beginning of the week until June 15 – the day of the attack on Gezi Park. Indeed, the call for these forums were made by Taksim Solidarity, whose intention was to employ these forums as a means for convincing people to ‘include’ the resistance within a single symbolic tent; that would be another way of convincing people to end the struggle. The forums did not assume or claim any decision-making authority; their function was envisaged as a means for Taksim Solidarity Platform to hold the pulse of the masses. This case paved the way for the masses getting stuck with the practical questions, especially what to do in case of police intervention. Nevertheless, in the discussions, there emerged some participants proposing that the masses should take charge of the movement via the setting up of assemblies, sharing experiences from the movement in Barcelona, and stating the need to spread the movement to the poor neighborhoods. More significantly, by stating the will to maintain the demonstrations, the masses spoiled the game of Taksim Solidarity aimed at phasing out the movement.

On the other hand, if we have a look at the movements countrywide, the most crucial experience was provided by the demonstrators in Eskişehir. Through a general meeting in Eskişehir Resistance Square, committees were set up in order to arrange and coordinate demonstrations. These committees were the Demonstration Committee for choosing and determining routes and slogans of demos; the University and Education Committee for arranging meetings, briefings, and discussions in the square; the Proposal and Opinion Committee for generating suggestions and ideas for the resistance; the Cleaning and Environment Committee for cleaning and tidying up of tent settlements; the Press Committee for shooting videos, publishing online photos and news, and submitting their news to the mass media; the Coordination and Communication Committee for coordinating between committees; the Security Committee for protecting the square from the attacks within and outside; and the Emergency Committee set up by medicine students and medical experts for medical aid to those injured. What is more significant is that it was decided that a general meeting would be held every day for monitoring and discussing the practices of these committees. With these experience, the masses in Eskişehir were able to assume the control of the movement by establishing their self-organization. In a similar vein, in Antakya, the popular meeting took its own decisions concerning the trajectory of the movements in June 17.

Finally, from June 17 onwards, in various neighborhood parks in Istanbul, masses of people inspired by the forums in Gezi Park set up mass assemblies under the name of forums. Among those neighborhoods setting up forums, there were Beşiktaş, Elmadağ, Harbiye, Nişantaşı, Kadıköy, Cihangir, Ümraniye, Okmeydanı, Göztepe, Rumelihisarüstü, Etiler, Akatlar, Maslak, Bakırköy, Fatih, Bahçelievler, Sarıyer, Yeniköy, Sarıgazi, Ataköy and Alibeyköy. In the forthcoming days, others would be held in Ankara and various other cities. Thereby, in order not to lose control over these initiatives, Taksim Solidarity Platform began to make calls for these forums itself. Nevertheless, it is a strong possibility that these forums may assume more serious roles in the near future. Furthermore, there are some ideas expressed in these forums about the setting up of workplace and neighborhood committees. The call to avoid racist, sexist, and homophobic discourse, and to commemorate the Roboski and Reyhanlı massacres, and the water treatment workers of Muğla who died from inhaling methane gas, has been expressed widely within the forums.

Similarities, differences, and relations with other social movements

Although in many ways, the Gezi Park resistance is in continuity with the Occupy movement in the USA, the Indignados in Spain, and the protest movements that overthrew Mubarak in Egypt and Bin Ali in Tunisia, it also carries its own peculiarities. As with all these movements, in Turkey, there is a vital weight of the young proletariat. Egypt, Tunisia and Gezi Park resistance have in common the will to get rid of a regime which is perceived as a ‘dictatorship’. As in Egypt, protesters circled around those engaged in Muslim prayers to protect them from attacks; at the same time, the most active participants in Turkey have, as in Egypt, expressed a strong opposition to the interference of clerics and fundamentalists in their daily lives. On the other hand, whereas Tunisia experienced massive strikes with thousands of workers, and Egypt experienced the Mahalla and other strikes, Turkey has only gone through a couple of work stoppage protests...On the more positive side, whereas in Egypt, as the movement gained strength they turned towards to the army for help, in Turkey there has been a reaction against the image of this key state institution.

Contrary to the movement in Tunisia that organized local committees, and in Spain and the USA in which masses generally assumed the responsibility of the movement through general assemblies, in the beginning in Turkey this dynamic has remained highly limited. In Spain, amidst the crisis of capitalism, with the impact of rising unemployment, the Indignados movement was able to affect the orientation of discussions. However, in Turkey, rather than problems about living and working conditions, the practical questions of the movement have occupied a dominant place. The pre-eminent questions were the practical and technical problems of the clashes with the police. Besides, although in Spain the proletarian tendency raised class demands against the democratic tendency in the movement, in Turkey this process has been seriously lacking. The similarity with Occupy in the USA was that an actual occupation occurred; yet in Turkey the occupations were seriously outnumbered by its massive participation compared to the USA. Likewise, both in Turkey and the USA, there is a tendency within the demonstrators that understands the significance of involving the working part of the proletariat into the struggle. The movement in the USA did not succeed in involving the working proletariat despite its face-to-face calls to dock workers in Oakland – as well as calls via social media – to go out to strike in the Western shores of the country. In spite of this, despite the movement in Turkey failing to establish a serious bond with the whole working class, even the calls for strikes via social media were met with more work stoppages than in the USA experience.

But despite these particularities, there can be no doubt that the ‘Çapulers’ movement was a part of the chain of international social movements. Although it did not attract attention in the beginning, this dynamic would become evident in the succeeding days. It turned out that though these movements seemingly had not attracted any attention when they took place, they left strong traces among the masses in Turkey. This movement too, similar to other international waves of struggle, is directly related with the crisis that capitalism has been going through worldwide. One of the fundamental reasons that have held the AKP government in power for 10 years is that it has conducted the process of restructuring capitalism in Turkey. The reaction against this pressure began as a reaction to the AKP’s practices. One of the best indicators that reveal the movement to be part of the international wave was its inspiring of Brazilian protesters. The Turkish protesters saluted the response from the other shore of the world with the slogans of “We are together, Brazil + Turkey!” and “Resist Brazil!” (in Turkish). And since the movement inspired protests with class-based demands in Brazil, in the forthcoming process it may positively affect the flourishing of class demands in Turkey.

The experience gained by the movement

The Taksim Gezi Park movement corresponds to the anger against state terror, police violence and the repressive and prohibitive policies of the AKP government and prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan. Within this time period, masses that have perhaps never participated in a demonstration or walked together with people that share their views, and participated a struggle that was defined as apolitical, have been politicized. Masses of people have experienced solidarity, taken up their own agenda, talked about the lives they want in Gezi Park and other occupied parks. The movement made a difference with the foundation of free soup kitchens, free libraries, treatment centers for the injured by voluntary health workers and common living space in which anyone could come and stay. It was one of the most of the important reasons for the maintenance of support for the movement in the forthcoming days of the movement. They also experienced how to fight against the police tear gas.

People became aware of the power of a massive movement through the will to resist the physical power of the state. It can stated that social media have been effectively utilized for the organization of gatherings and demonstrations. Social networks were also used to prevent the arrest of demonstrations and to provide accommodation for them. To make up for the street lamps being turned off during the clashes, people turned on the lamps of the houses; there was free provision of medication by the pharmacies: these were important details of the movement. The young generation of participants that clashed with police responded to the attacks by using the language of music and humor. This resulted in attracting people’s sympathy. Named in the state’s language as marginal the ‘chapulers’ have been embraced even by people that did not get involved directly with the movement.

Our perspectives

Even though contrary to similar movements there are no illusions among the masses that this movement is a revolution, the most excited participants of the movement identify the protests as a revolutionary situation. The first thing to recall when responding to such ideas is the insistence by revolutionaries of the past, such as Lenin or the Italian communist left, that a revolutionary situation can only be the product of a maturation of objective and subjective conditions at the international level. And despite the clearly international dynamic of the revolts of 2011 and 2013, which are in turn a response to the deepening of the global crisis of the capitalist system, they still don’t add up to a revolutionary situation. At this point, it is important to remember what Lenin said: “What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the “upper classes”, a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for “the lower classes not to want” to live in the old way; it is also necessary that “the upper classes should be unable” to live in the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in “peace time”, but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the “upper classes” themselves into independent historical action.”4

The movements in the Middle East, Spain, Turkey, Brazil and elsewhere do not contain any of these three characteristics. Yes, the ruled do not want to be ruled but the rulers can maintain their rule qualitatively in the way they used to. The poverty and misery of the oppressed classes do not come up the accustomed levels. One of the greatest trumps of the government in Turkey is to refer to the ‘promising’ development of the Turkish economy in the last few years..

Perhaps most significant of all is the fact that in none of these struggles have the masses become independent of the bourgeois democrats In this dead end of capitalism when social oppression is rising, workers’ living and working conditions are getting increasingly worse, wars are getting chronic, peoples’ living spaces are being destroyed, the problem of shelter is common, bourgeois democracy can only be bourgeois dictatorship. Regardless of whether right wing or left wing governments are in power, in this period where it is getting increasingly difficult for state capitalism to obtain capital and get a share of the pie, all governments will practice such policies against the masses. Democracy is pepper gas, democracy is police batons, democracy is IVSEs, Scorpion vehicles. Democracy is bourgeois terror massacring three children of our class without blinking. The democratic tendency dominant within the movement and the political quality of its demands correspond to the democracy which is merely a tool to develop the rule of the bourgeoisie and the lie of development. Behind the slogan “Tayyip resign” chanted during the demonstration, the illusion that many ills will be made up for by any bourgeois power which will replace Erdogan if he resigns. Yet we know that no such thing is possible today.

What is more, the democratic tendency within the movement as well as certain bourgeois writers and journalists describe the movement as a democratic reaction to what is not going right in the country, and intend the movement to take a parliamentary road. Indeed, when we look at Taksim Solidarity Platform, it reminds us of the Olive Branch coalition which came to power opposing Berlusconi. Without a doubt, such a course of events would be a tragic end for the movement, meaning it is dead for the working class. In the coming period, this may well prove to be a greater danger to the movement than state terror.

And yet, despite all the weaknesses and dangers facing this movement, if the masses in Turkey had not succeeded in becoming a link in the chain of social revolts shaking the capitalist world, the result would be a far greater feeling of powerlessness. The outbreak of a social movement on a scale not seen in this country since 1908 is thus of historical importance.

The future of the movement depends on whether the proletarian part of it which form its majority will be able to express class demands arising from its own living and working conditions and on whether it can take the control of the movement in its own hands with mass discussions and spread the movement to the whole class on a workplace basis rather than by trying to pressure the unions into it.

Dünya Devrimi, ICC Section in Turkey

21.06.2013

Germany's tormented 20th century history is rich in dramatic and terrible themes, as a number of successful films that have hit the screens over the last few years demonstrate: The pianist, for example1 (on the Warsaw ghetto), or Goodbye Lenin and The lives of others (on East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall). The producer Margerete von Trotta has already drawn inspiration several times from these deep waters, and has not hesitated to deal with some difficult subjects: witness Two German sisters (Die Bleieme Zeit, 1981), a dramatised version of the life and death (in Stammheim prison, in circumstances which were never completely clarified) of the Red Army Fraction terrorist Gudrun Ensslin; a biopic of Rosa Luxemburg (1986); Rosenstrasse (2003), on a demonstration against the Gestapo in 1943 of German women protesting at the arrests of their Jewish husbands. In her new film, Hannah Arendt (2012 in Germany, 2013 in the USA and Britain), von Trotta returns to the subject of the war, the Shoah, and nazism, through an episode in the life of the eponymous German philosopher, remarkably played by Barbara Sukowa, who also played the role of the young Rosa Luxemburg twenty years ago.

Hannah Arendt was born into a Jewish family in 1906. As a young student, she attended the classes of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, with whom she had a brief but intense love affair. The fact that she never disowned either the relationship or Heidegger himself, despite the latter's joining the NSDAP2 in 1933 was to be harshly criticised later; her ties with Heidegger and his philosophy were undoubtedly complex, and would almost merit a book in themselves, and the flashbacks to her encounters with Heidegger are perhaps the least successful in the film, the only scenes where von Trotta seems less sure of her film's theme: the "banality of evil".

Arendt fled Germany in 1933 with Hitler's coming to power, and moved to Paris where she worked in the Zionist movement despite her critical attitude towards it. It was in Paris that she married, in 1940, her second husband Heinrich Blücher. Following Germany's invasion of France she was interned by the French state in the camp of Gurs, but managed to flee and – not without difficulty – reached the United States in 1941. Penniless on her arrival, she managed to earn her living and finally succeeded in winning an appointment to the prestigious Princeton University (she was the first woman to be accepted as a professor by Princeton). By 1960, when the film opens, Arendt was a respected intellectual and had already published two of her most famous works: The origins of totalitarianism (1951) and The human condition (1958). Although she was certainly not a marxist, she was interested by Marx's work, and by that of Rosa Luxemburg.3 Her husband Heinrich had been a Spartakist, then a member of the opposition to the Stalinisation of the KPD during the 1920s, joining Brandler and Thalheimer in the KPD-Opposition (aka KPO) when they were excluded from the party.4 The film makes a passing reference to Heinrich's party membership: we learn from one of the couple's American friends that "Heinrich was with Rosa Luxemburg to the end". And Arendt's philosophical work, especially her analysis of the mechanisms of totalitarianism remains relevant to this day. Her rigorous thought and her integrity allowed Arendt to pierce the clichés and commonplaces of her epoch's ruling ideology: she disturbed by her honesty.

The film's first moments evoke Adolf Eichmann's kidnapping in Argentina by the Mossad. Under the Nazi regime, Eichmann had occupied several important positions, organising first the Jews' expulsion from Austria, then the logistics of the "Final Solution", in particular the transport of European Jews to the death camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and others. The intention of David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel and so responsible for the Mossad operation, was clearly to mount a show trial which would cement the foundations of the young state, and where the Jews themselves would judge one of the authors of their genocide.

On learning of the coming Eichmann trial, Arendt volunteered to report on the trial for the literary review The New Yorker. Her detailed and meticulous report on the trial appeared first as a series of articles, then in book form under the title Eichmann in Jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil. The publication caused a huge scandal in Israel and even more in the United States: Arendt was subjected to a violently hostile media campaign – "self-hating Jew" and "Rosa Luxemburg of nothingness" were only two of the more sober epithets aimed at her. She was asked to resign her university position, but refused. This period, the evolution of Arendt's thinking and her reaction to the media campaign, provide the material for the film. And when you think about it, it's a tall order to make a film of the contradictory and sometimes painful evolution of a philosopher's thinking, without trivialising it – and von Trotta and Sukowa rise to the challenge with brio.

Why then did Arendt's report create such a scandal?5 Up to a point, such a reaction was understandable and even inevitable: although Arendt wields criticism like scalpel, with all the skill of a surgeon, but for many the war and the abominable suffering of the Shoah were still too close, the trauma too recent, to be able to distance themselves from events. But the loudest voices were also the most interested: interested above all in drawing a veil of silence over the uncomfortable truths that Arendt's critique revealed.

Arendt cut to the quick when she took apart Ben-Gurion's attempt to make a show of Eichmann's trial, to justify Israel's existence by the Jews' suffering during the Shoah. For this to work, Eichmann had to be a monster, a worthy representative of the Nazis' monstrous crimes. Arendt herself expected to see a monster in the dock, but the more she observed him, the less she was convinced, not of his guilt but of his monstrosity. In the trial scenes, von Trotta places Arendt not in the tribunal itself, but in a press room where the journalists watch the trial over CCTV. This device allows von Trotta to show us, not an actor playing Eichmann, but Eichmann himself; like Arendt, we can see this mediocre man (Arendt uses the term "banality" in its sense of "mediocrity"), who has nothing in common with the murderous madness of a Hitler, or the no less mad coldheartedness of a Goebbels (as they have been brilliantly interpreted by Bruno Ganz and Ulriche Mathes in Downfall). On the contrary, we are confronted with a petty bureaucrat whose intellectual horizon barely extends beyond the walls of his office and its good order, and whose perspectives are limited to his hopes for promotion and bureaucratic rivalries. Eichmann is not a monster, is Arendt's conclusion: "it would have been very comforting indeed to believe that Eichmann was a monster (…) The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal" (p274).6 In short, Eichmann's crime was not to have been responsible for the Jews' extermination in the same way as Hitler, but to have abdicated his capacity for thinking, and to have acted legally and with a quiet conscience as a mere cog in a the totalitarian machine of a criminal state. The undoubted "good sense" of "prominent personalities" served as his "moral guide". The Wannsee conference (which set in place the operational mechanisms of the "Final Solution") was thus "a very important occasion for Eichmann, who had never before mingled socially with so many 'high personages' (…) Now he could see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears that not only Hitler, not only Heydrich or the 'sphinx' Müller, not just the SS or the Party, but the elite of the good old Civil Service were vying and fighting with each other for the honor of taking the lead in these 'bloody' matters" (p111-2).

Arendt explicitly rejects the idea that "all Germans are potentially guilty", or "guilty by association": Eichmann deserved to be executed for what he had done himself (though his execution would hardly bring the millions of victims back to life). That said, her analysis is a courageous slap in the face for the anti-fascist ideology which has become official state ideology, notably in Israel. In our view, the "banality" that Arendt describes is that of a world – the capitalist world – where human beings, reified and alienated, are reduced to the status of objects, commodities, cogs in the machine of capital. This machine is not a characteristic of the Nazi state alone. Arendt reminds us that the policy of "Judenrein" (making a territory "Jewless") had already been explored by the Polish state in 1937, before the war, and that the thoroughly democratic French government, in the person of its foreign minister Georges Bonnet, had envisaged the expulsion to Madagascar of 200,000 "non-French" Jews (Bonnet had even consulted his German opposite number Ribbentrop for advice on the subject). Arendt also points out that the Nuremberg tribunal is nothing less than a "victors' tribunal", where the judges represent countries which were also responsible for war crimes: the Russians guilty of the deaths in the gulags, the Americans guilty of the nuclear bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nor is Arendt tender with the state of Israel. Unlike other reporters, she highlights in her book the irony of Eichmann's trial for race-based crimes by an Israeli state which itself incorporates racial distinctions into its own laws: "rabbinical law rules the personal status of Jewish citizens, with the result that no Jew can marry a non-Jew; marriages concluded abroad are recognized, but children of mixed marriages are legally bastards (…) and if one happens to have a non-Jewish mother he can neither be married nor buried". It is indeed a bitter irony that those who escaped from the Nazi policy of "racial purity" should have tried to create their own "racial purity" in the Promised Land. Arendt detested nationalism in general and Israeli nationalism in particular. Already in the 1930s, she had opposed Zionist policy and its refusal to look for a mode of life in common with the Palestinians. And she did not hesitate to expose the hypocrisy of the Ben-Gurion government, which publicised the ties between the Nazis and certain Arab states, but remained silent about the fact that West Germany continued to shelter a remarkable number of high-ranking Nazis in positions of responsibility.

Another object of scandal was the question of the "Judenrat" – the Jewish councils created by the Nazis precisely with the aim of facilitating the "Final Solution". It occupies only a few pages of the book, but it cuts to the quick. Here is what Arendt has to say about it: "Wherever Jews lives, there were recognized Jewish leaders, and this leadership, almost without exception, cooperated in one way or another, for one reason or another, with the Nazis. The whole truth was that if the Jewish people had really been unorganized and leaderless, there would have been chaos and plenty of misery but the total number of victims would hardly have been between four and a half and six million people (…) I have dwelt on this chapter of the story, which the Jerusalem trial failed to put before the eyes of the world in its true dimensions, because it offers the most striking insight into the totality of the moral collapse the Nazis caused in respectable European society" (p123). She even revealed an element of class distinction between the Jewish leaders and the anonymous mass: in the midst of the general disaster, those who escaped were either sufficiently rich to buy their escape, or sufficiently visible in the "international community" to be kept alive in Theresienstadt, a kind of privileged ghetto. The relationships between the Jewish population and the Nazi regime, and with other European populations, were much more complicated than the war victors' official manichean ideology was prepared to admit.

Nazism and the Shoah occupy a central place in modern European history, even more today than in the 1960s. Despite the best efforts of the authors of The black book of communism, for example, Nazism remains today the "ultimate evil". In France, the Shoah is an important part of the school history programme, along with the French Resistance, to the exclusion of almost any other consideration of the Second World War. And yet on the level of simple arithmetic, Stalinism was far worse, with the 20 million dead in Stalin's gulag and at least 20 million dead in Mao's "Great leap forward". Obviously, this owes a good deal to opportunist calculation: the descendants of Mao and Stalin are still in power in China and Russia, they are still people with whom one can and must "do business". Arendt does not deal directly with this question, but in a discussion of the charges against Eichmann, she insists on the fact that the Nazis' crime was not a crime against the Jews, but a crime against all humanity in the person of the Jewish people, precisely because it denied to the Jews their membership of the human species, and transformed these human beings into an inhuman evil to be eradicated. This racist, xenophobic, obscurantist aspect of the Nazi regime was clearly proclaimed, which indeed is why a part of the European ruling class, and of the peasant and artisan classes ruined by the economic crisis, could get along with it so comfortably. Stalinism on the contrary always claimed to be progressive: it could still sing that "the Internationale shall be the human race", and indeed this is why right up to the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and even afterwards, ordinary people could continue to defend the Stalinist regimes in the name of a better future to come.7

Arendt's major point is that the "unthinkable" barbarity of the Shoah, the mediocrity of the Nazi bureaucrats, is the product of the destruction of an "ability to think". Eichmann "does not think", he executes the orders of the machine, and does his job diligently and conscientiously, without any qualms, and without making the connection with the horror of the camps – of which he was nonetheless aware. In this sense, von Trotta's film should be seen as an elegy to critical thought.

Hannah Arendt was not a marxist, nor a revolutionary. But by posing questions which undermine official anti-fascist ideology, she is the enemy of commonplace conformism and the abandonment of critical thought. Her analysis has the merit of opening a reflexion on the human conscience (rather in the same way as the work of the American psychologist Stanley Milgram on the mechanisms of the "submission to authority" amongst torturers, dramatised in Henri Verneuil's film I comme Icare).

The publicity given to Arendt's work by the democratic bourgeoisie and its intelligentsia – for whom she has become something of an icon – is not innocuous. The recuperation of her analysis of totalitarianism clearly aims at establishing a continuity between Bolshevism and the Russian revolution of 1917, and the totalitarian machine of the Stalinist state: Stalin was only Lenin's executor, the moral being that proletarian revolution can only lead to totalitarianism and new crimes against humanity. This is what some established bourgeois ideologues like Raymond Aron have not hesitated to exploit Arendt's analysis of the Stalinist state's totalitarianism to feed their campaigns for the Cold War and the "collapse of communism" following the break-up of the USSR.

Hannah Arendt was a philosopher, and as Marx said "The philosophers have so far only interpreted the world. The point however, is to change it". Marxism is not a "totalitarian" doctrine but the theoretical weapon of the exploited class for the revolutionary transformation of the world. And this is why only marxism is truly able to integrate the contributions of art and science, and of past philosophers like Epicurus, Aristotle, Spinoza, Hegel... as well as those of our own time like Hannah Arendt, with her profound and critical view of the contemporary world, and her elegy to thought.

Jens

“I feel that I have been raped by the state”.

This powerful statement sums up the real nature of the recent revelations concerning the use of undercover police to penetrate and manipulate various protest movements. It was made by one of the women with whom various agents of the Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS) deliberately established relationships in order to gain wider acceptance in the protest movements they wanted to infiltrate. The motto of the SDS was “by all means necessary” and this sums up the general attitude of the capitalist state to maintaining its dictatorship. Human feelings and dignity mean absolutely nothing to the ruling class and their servants.

This was further underlined by the revelations concerning the efforts of SDS and Special Branch agents under the direction of the Metropolitan Police to discredit the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence. Only weeks after the brutal racist murder of this teenager in 1993, an SDS agent was assigned to uncover anything that could discredit the Lawrence family. Special Branch used the police family liaison officer - who was supposed to befriend the family - to spy on all those who came to the family’s home.

The cold and calculating way in which various state agencies use and abuse people is shocking. However, this is the nature of the rule of capital. Nothing is too sacred to be ground under the iron heel of the state. The Lawrences’ grief and anger at the police’s racism showed the reality behind the image of the police in capitalist democracy. The women used by the SDS, had the audacity to “want to bring about social change” as one of them said. A questioning of the system, no matter how mild, is something that the state cannot tolerate.

There has been a whole frenzy from politicians, journalists, and even the police, about ‘rogue’ units, abuses of the democratic system, and the need for democratic control of the police. We heard exactly the same piteous laments two years ago following the exposure of the undercover activity of the agents of the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOI) who had infiltrated various anarchist, animal rights and environmental groups in the 2000s[1] Once the noise died down about these ‘abuses of police powers’, it was rapidly replaced by calls for more police powers to carry out systematic surveillance of all telecommunications. It is the same now: despite these revelations, we hear calls for more police powers to ‘fight domestic extremism’.

Hypocritical cant from the politicians

The politicians’ talk about abuses of democracy is as devious as the actions of the SDS, because it seeks to hide the true nature of the capitalist state and its democratic window dressing: “So-called democracy, i.e. bourgeois democracy, is nothing but the veiled dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The much-vaunted ‘general win of the people’ is no more a reality than ‘the people’ or ‘the nation’. Classes exist and they have conflicting and incompatible aspirations. But as the bourgeoisie represents an insignificant minority it makes use of this illusion, this imaginary concept, in order to consolidate its rule over the working class. Behind this mask of eloquence it can impose its class will” (Platform of the Communist International, 1919).

The imposition of this "class will" is precisely the role of secret police units such as the SDS and the NPOI, along with Special Branch, MI5, etc. The Special Demonstrations Squad was formed in the late 60s in order to infiltrate the growing protest movements, and then expanded into infiltratinging animal rights and environmental groups, anarchist and Trotskyist groups in the 80s and 90s. The SDS was part of the Metropolitan Police. In 1999 the NPOI was set up to coordinate and organise nationwide networks of undercover operations and surveillance, The NPOI broadened its remit to include “campaigners against war, nuclear weapons, racism, genetically modified crops, globalization, tax evasion, airport expansion and asylum law, as well as those calling for reform of prisons and peace in the Middle East”, all of which are now defined as 'domestic extremists'[2]. Thus, anyone who opposes or questions what the state does is now an 'extremist' and implicitly linked to 'Muslim' extremists and thus terrorism. This expresses the state’s concern about growing social discontent, even when confined to relatively harmless forms of protest. However, involvement in such movements can and does lead to a wider questioning of the system and the state wants to be able to follow and counter such questioning. It also wants to manipulate such movements in order to generate fear of any form of dissent.

The extent that the state is willing to go to manipulate such groups has been demonstrated in the recent book Undercover: the true story of Britain’s secret police. It claims that the SDS infiltrated an agent into the anarcho-syndicalist Direct Action Movement between 1990-93; two others were sent into the anarchist group Class War, one of them working closely with MI5 who were investigating Class War at the time. The authors say that the NPOI is currently running between 100 and 150 agents. The book also argues that the NPOI has officers or links with polices forces in cities and towns across the country, and that they use infiltration in small local protest groups in order to get agents into national groups and movements. The NPOI itself was placed under the management of the National Domestic Extremism Team in 2005, which the Labour government set up to centralise the various domestic forces of repression.

This centralisation was put to full use in 2011 when hundreds of people who had been arrested, stopped or filmed on demonstrations received letters from the Metropolitan Police, warning them that if they attended the November student demonstration in London they would be arrested.

These claims are certainly informative but unless understood in the context of the dictatorship of capital it can lead to paranoia and mistrust.

One of the reasons for the success of these state agencies in penetrating various movements has been the naivety of those involved, a result of the weight of democratic illusions. The idea that ‘the state is not interested in us because we are too small’ is very widespread, not only amongst environmentalists but even amongst revolutionary groups and individuals. There are also illusions that the state would never infiltrate someone for years, even allowing them to live with a militant. There needs to be a conscious effort to understand and draw the lessons from the actions of these agents, not to become paranoid, but to be aware that the state is interested in any organisation or individual who is against this system, and will use any means necessary against them.

This can be seen in the example of a 69 year old GP place on the list of ‘domestic extremists’ because of his involvement in a campaign to stop ash from Didcot power station (Oxfordshire) being dumped in a nearby lake!

Confronted with the state’s complete disregard for the slightest aspect of human dignity, its willingness to violate even our bodies in order to defend itself, we can only express our solidarity with those women who were used by the state but who are now openly talking about what happened to them, even to the extent of meeting their abusers to challenge what they did. But above all we have to be conscious that the ruling class will go to any length to undermine the revolutionary alternative and reject any illusion that their state can be controlled, reformed or made more accountable. It is our main enemy in the class war and our goal is to destroy it once and for all.  

Phil 2/7/13

It is one of the ironies of the spending review that when so much of the pain is directed towards benefits, George Osborne should claim that the well-off will suffer most. Next year the chancellor will announce a 5 year benefit cap, excluding pensions. Welfare payments will be harder to claim - for instance anyone losing a job will have to wait 7 days before claiming jobseekers allowance. This will be particularly hard on those on the lowest pay scales or in precarious work. This 7 day wait will save £245m, a very modest amount compared to the £11.5 billion which will be spent on more frequent surveillance of the unemployed (meetings every week instead of less frequently, compulsory English lessons, etc). Ed Balls, by contrast, claims that he would like to spend the money on providing a job for every young unemployed person. While Osborne is reminding us that the point of laying workers off is to save capital the cost of maintaining them at all, it seems Balls wants us to forget that the whole point of capital employing anyone, young or old, is to extract surplus value, to make a profit.

Public sector workers are also going to suffer from the spending plans: pay will continue to be curbed, pay progression seniority payments ended, and 144,000 can expect to lose their jobs. While the NHS and schools will not have their cash budgets cut, this has to be seen in the context of growing need. Health needs (so-called ‘demand’) increases 4% a year due to demographic changes and innovation. £3bn of the health budget will be shared with local authority social care, and we know how squeezed the local authorities are. Hospital stays and admissions are being cut. Whole layers of health service workers are employed or incentivised to keep people out of hospital as much as possible – while, of course, remaining responsible for admitting them to hospital when necessary. Others have the job of cutting the prescription budgets. At the same time, previous levels of social care - put in place when the economy was short of labour and women and immigrants were being encouraged into the workforce (in the 50s and 60s particularly) - are being dismantled or charged to the recipients, with much more responsibility falling on the relatives whether or not they are capable of taking it on.

How long will these cuts go on?

The UK economy, regardless of quibbles about single, double or triple dip recession, remains to recover from the 2007/8 recession, with GDP still 3 or 4% below the previous peak. This creates a problem for an economy trying to reduce the proportion of direct state spending – from 46% to 40% as Osborne intends – and pay back debts that were greatly increased at the time of the banking crisis. Hence the IMF reminder earlier in the year that this will not be achieved without growth. This puts any state on the horns of a dilemma, with the need to both rein in spending and ease up the availability of money to encourage growth. It’s a bit like walking in two opposite directions at once. It was left to Danny Alexander to announce the bulk of the capital spending plans for road and rail, housing and schools, while day to day spending is restricted. How well this spending will encourage growth in the medium term we will wait and see. More roads suggest a promising growth in CO2 emissions at any rate.

Other spending beneficiaries give us more idea of what the state intends. Extra spending for spying suggests an interest in both internal and external security – fundamentally to further Britain’s imperialist interests abroad and to maintain social order at home. Ring-fencing overseas aid also suggests the importance of pursuing the national interest abroad – and in a way less likely to cause unpopularity at home than foreign military adventures such as Iraq.

The latest scapegoats

A few years ago it was the bankers that were blamed for the crisis, pilloried by press and politicians alike for their excessive pay and bonuses. Now it seems it is the unemployed and benefit claimants who are responsible for the national debt. The bankers provided a good scapegoat for the crises, particularly when it took the form of the credit crunch. They had the advantage of being rich, and right at the centre of the storm, as well as distracting us from asking questions about the nature and role of capitalism itself. But the demonisation of the unemployed, and the lowest paid and most precarious workers who also rely on benefits such as tax credit or housing benefit, has a longer term aim in persuading us to accept attacks on these benefits, with their horrendous effects on the quality of life of an important part of the working class.

The ruling class are playing up any kind of division they are able to impose on the working class, not only between the ‘hard working’ and the ‘skivers’ (i.e. employed and unemployed), but also between public and private sector employees. This divide is important when the state is involved in attacking the pay and conditions of those employed in the public sector, particularly those usually held in high esteem such as teachers and nurses. Hence the media attention to scandals in hospital care, undercover reporters sent to see what abuses they can detect and film. But not a word on the cuts and increasing demands that make humane care so difficult.

These campaigns tell us much of the direction of the austerity measures the ruling class is bringing in, centralised through its state. That they are cautious, that they prepare each attack with a campaign of vilification, shows just how much they are aware of the possibility of working class resistance to further austerity.  

Alex 13/7/13

We are publishing below impressions of our Day of Discussion held in London on 22 June, written for her own blog by a comrade who posts on our internet forum but who had not previously met the ICC ‘face to face’. The presentations given on the day can be found on this thread on our forum [507]. We intend to group together and publish all the presentations and write ups of the discussions in one file in the near future.

The original piece can be read on the contributor's blog here:

https://disillusionedmarxist.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/icc-meeting-on-why-is-it-so-hard-to-struggle-against-capitalism/ [508]

Well yesterday I went to the Day of Discussion put on by the International Communist Current. They are a left-communist  [509]group. People reading this might not know what that is (and probably don’t tbf) so I will explain quickly what my understanding about the communist left is.

The communist left basically originated in the Russian revolution, supporting Lenin and the Bolshevik Party initially and rapidly getting disillusioned. They didn’t make Lenin particularly happy. They were the ones that Lenin was on about when he wrote his  notorious “Left-wing communism – an infantile disorder [510]” pamphlet, because they were complaining that the revolution was degenerating (which it was) becoming more and more like capitalism again and becoming more and more authoritarian – basically coming to resemble, what we know now as state capitalism or “stalinism” betraying the russian workers they claimed to lead and distorting Marxism into an authoritarian doctrine. One of the founders of it was a guy called Herman Gorter who wrote an “open letter to Comrade Lenin [511]“.

They think that the Russian revolution degenerated back before Lenin’s death (and also that nationalisation etc is not necessarily a step on the way to socialism or even necessarily an improvement to “normal” capitalism) rather than the Trotskyist view which was that this only happened after Lenin’s death and that what happened in the Soviet union and other “communist” countries was that they were “deformed workers’ states” despite the fact that they were a nightmare for huge numbers of working class people. And therefore that despite the criticisms Trotskyists had of them somehow their governments were usually worth defending.

Lenin and Trotsky were mates and Trotsky had a high position in the Bolshevik hierarchy and he could never bring himself to see the full extent of the wrongness of the Soviet regime.

The communist left on the other hand were closer to the anarchist position in that they believed that the revolution started going very very wrong within a year or two of 1917. There’s loads of stuff, Kronstadt, the fact that they made it very difficult for workers to go on strike, they introduced one-man management (bringing back the old bosses that the workers had overthrown during the revolution)

“what? why do you want to go on strike eh, we have socialism now and “the working class” are now in power?”

I was really pleasantly surprised by the meeting. I had expected it to be a really small meeting full of party hacks but actually around 20 people were there and probably around half of them weren’t ICC members but from other organisations or not in an organisation at all. And most of them were pretty normal and had a good sense of humour (no offence but you’d have to have a good sense of humour to be part of the communist left!).

The topic of the meeting was “why is it so difficult to struggle against capitalism”. I’ve got my own ideas (some of which were sadly reflected in some of my observations that day, although i don’t think this was intentional) and in my next post I’ll do like a summary of that debate.

The good points were that I didn’t see any sectarianism on the level of what you would get in trot groups (there was one guy who made a dig about the SPGB which was out of order and he was swiftly shouted down), not many weirdo party hacks, most of the participants seemed to want to learn from other people rather than just promoting the views of their own organisation. And people with opposing views weren't shouted down or told they were wrong.

There was also free food.

The bad points could apply to most left-wing organisations. One of the problems is that they assume a certain level of knowledge about terms like “decomposition” and things like that but they are hardly the only offenders for that. It also wasn’t as well publicised as it could have been and most of the people there (although not all) seemed to have all been involved in the “mileu” for a long time rather than people who had never been involved in politics. There were a few young people there but not many and some of the contributions at times seemed to be a bit vanguardist talking about how “we” will do this and that and “we” will integrate people into productive communism etc. I dont think that’s exactly what was meant but that’s how it came across but at least they were willing to take criticisms when I and others pointed this out.

I was actually really pleasantly surprised. I have a lot of differences with the ICC, one of them is my opinion about anti-fascism, as they see it purely as a distraction from class struggle. I can see their point but I still think that it is part of the class struggle. that is the main one i guess.

The other criticism I have got is about their papers, as I said they do assume a level of knowledge, it seems a bit stupid but there should be more pictures in the papers and sometimes the print is too small and a bit hard to read because the articles are so long.

I did pick up a lot of their literature, their paper “World Revolution” their theoretical journal “International Review” and a book called “Communism is not a nice idea but a material necessity”, and a pamphlet called “Trade unions against the working class”. I have read some of the anti-trade union pamphlet online but i find it easier to read books on paper rather than online.

The other left communist organisation that was there. the ICT, printed some articles in their magazine that were about Bordiga and Damen and I think some basic introductions to these people could be useful rather than immediately assuming that everyone knows who they are already (because i know who bordiga is but not really familiar with his writings or that much apart from that really) but that is part of my point about language I suppose.

The other bad thing was the fact that it was in London and therefore cost a lot for me to get to (which i can afford at the moment, but I probably won’t always be able to). I’d love to be able to organise or get involved in something that’s more local but at the moment I don’t have the time and I think a lot of people probably feel the same way.

I am quite wary of getting involved in any organisations these days but I was glad I went to this because it’s very rare that I actually get to discuss anything with people these days apart from the internet. And afterwards we all had a drink together and went for a curry, I thought it was great that we got a chance to talk about stuff afterwards and get to know each other a bit as people!

Hundreds of thousands, even millions, have come out to protest against all manner of ills: in Turkey, the destruction of the environment by unrestrained ‘development’, authoritarian religious meddling in personal lives, the corruption of the politicians; in Brazil, transport fare increases and the diversion of wealth into prestige sporting events when health, education, housing and transport are left to fester – and the corruption of the politicians. In both cases, the initial demonstrations were met by brutal police repression which served only to widen and deepen the revolt. And in both cases, the revolts were spearheaded not by the ‘middle classes’ (for the media, that’s anyone who has a job), but by the new generation of the working class, who may be educated but have little prospect of finding stable employment, who may be living in ‘emerging’ economies but for whom a developing economy means mainly the development of social inequality and the repulsive affluence of a tiny elite of exploiters.

In June and July it was again the turn of Egypt to see millions on the street, returning to Tahrir Square which was the epicentre of the 2011 rebellion against the Mubarak regime. They too were driven by real material needs, in an economy which is not so much ‘emerging’ but stagnating or even regressing. In May, a former finance minister of the country and one of its leading economists warned in an interview with The Guardian that “Egypt is suffering its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, In terms of its devastating effect on Egypt’s poorest, the country’s current economic predicament is at its most dire since the 1930s”. The article goes on to say that:

“Since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Egypt has experienced a drastic fall in both foreign investment and tourism revenues, followed by a 60% drop in foreign exchange reserves, a 3% drop in growth, and a rapid devaluation of the Egyptian pound. All this has led to mushrooming food prices, ballooning unemployment and a shortage of fuel and cooking gas… Currently, 25.2% of Egyptians are below the poverty line, with 23.7% hovering just above it, according to figures supplied by the Egyptian government”[1].

The ‘moderate’ Islamist government led by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (backed by the majority of the ‘radical’ Islamists) has rapidly proved itself to be no less corrupt and cronyist than the old regime, while its attempts to impose its stifling Islamic ‘morality’ has, as in Turkey, created huge resentment among the urban young.

But while the movements in Turkey and Brazil, which are in practice directed against the power in place, have created a real sense of solidarity and unity among all those taking part in the struggle, the situation in Egypt is faced with a much more sombre prospect – that of the division of the population behind rival factions of the ruling class, and even of a bloody descent into civil war. The barbarism which has engulfed Syria is a graphic reminder of what that can mean.

The democratic trap

The events of 2011 in Tunisia and Egypt were widely described as a ‘revolution’. But a revolution is more than the masses pouring onto the streets, even if that is its necessary point of departure. We are living in an epoch where the only real revolution can be worldwide, proletarian and communist: a revolution not for a change in regime, but for the dismantling of the existing state; not for a ‘fairer’ management of capitalism, but for the overthrow of the whole capitalist social relationship; not for the glory of the nation, but for the abolition of nations and the creation of a global human community.

The social movements we are witnessing today are still a long way from achieving the self-awareness and self-organisation needed to make such a revolution. They are certainly steps along the way, expressing a profound effort by the proletariat to find itself, to rediscover its past and its future. But they are faltering steps which can easily be derailed by the ruling class, whose ideas run very deep and form a huge obstacle in the minds of the exploited themselves. Religion is certainly one of these ideological obstacle, an ‘opiate’ which preaches submission to the dominant order. But even more dangerous is the ideology of democracy.

In Egypt in 2011, the masses in Tahrir Square demanded the resignation of Mubarak and the fall of the regime. And Mubarak was indeed forced to go – especially after a powerful wave of workers’ strikes spread across the country, bringing a new level of danger to the social revolt. But the capitalist regime is more than just the government of the day. On the social level it is the whole relationship based on wage labour and production for profit. On the political level it is the bureaucracy, the police and the army. And it is also the facade of parliamentary democracy, where the masses are given the choice every few years to choose which gang of thieves is going to fleece them for the next few years. In 2011, the army – which many protesters thought was ‘one’ with the people – stepped in to depose Mubarak and organise elections. The Muslim Brotherhood, which drew massive strength from the more backward rural areas but which was also the best organised political party in the urban centres, won the elections and has since worked very hard to prove that changing the government through elections changes nothing. And meanwhile, the real power remained what it had always been in Egypt, and in so many similar countries: the army, the only force really capable of ensuring capitalist order on a national level.

When the masses surged back to Tahrir Square in June they were full of indignation against the Morsi government and the daily reality of their lives faced with an economic crisis which is not merely ‘Egyptian’ but global and historic. But, even though many of them would have had the opportunity to experience the true repressive face of the army back in 2011, the idea that the ‘people and the army are one’ was still very widespread, and it was given new life when the army began to warn Morsi that he must listen to the demands of the protesters or else. When Morsi was overthrown in a relatively bloodless coup, there were big celebrations in Tahrir Square. Did this mean that the democratic myth no longer held the masses in its grip? No: the army claims to act in the name of ‘real democracy’ which has been betrayed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and immediately promises to organise fresh elections.

Thus the state’s guarantor, the army, again intervenes to ensure order, to prevent the discontent of the masses turning against the state itself. But this time it does it at the price of sowing deep divisions in the population. Whether in the name of Islam or the name of the democratic legitimacy of the Morsi government, a new protest movement is born, this time demanding the return of the regime or refusing to work with those who have deposed it. The response of the army has been swift: a ruthless slaughter of protesters outside the headquarters of the Republican Guard. There have also been clashes, some fatal, between rival groups of demonstrators.

The danger of civil war and the force that can prevent it

The wars in Libya and Syria began as popular protests against the regime. But in both cases, the weakness of the working class and the strength of tribal and sectarian divisions quickly led to the initial revolts being swallowed up by armed clashes between factions of the bourgeoisie. And in both cases, these local conflicts immediately took on an international, imperialist dimension: in Libya, Britain and France, quietly supported by the US, stepped in to arm and guide the rebel forces; in Syria, the Assad regime has survived thanks to the backing of Russia, China, Iran, Hezbollah and other vultures, while arms to the opposition forces have flowed in from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere, with the US and Britain in more or less covert support. In both cases, the widening of the conflict has accelerated the plunge into chaos and horror.

The same danger exists in Egypt today. The army has shown its total unwillingness to loosen its effective hold on power. The Muslim Brotherhood has for the moment pledged that its reaction against the coup will be peaceful, but alongside Morsi’s ‘you can do business with me’ brand of Islamism are more extreme factions who already have a background in terrorism. The situation bears a sinister resemblance to what happened in Algeria after 1991 when the army toppled a ‘legally elected’ Islamist government, provoking a very bloody civil war between the army and armed Islamist groups like the FIS. The civilian population was, as always, the main victim in this inferno: estimates of the death toll vary between 50,000 and 200,000.

The imperialist dimension is also present in Egypt. The US has made some gestures of regret about the military coup but its links to the army are very long-standing and deeply implanted, and they are not in the least enamoured of the type of Islamism proclaimed by Morsi or Erdogan in Turkey. The conflicts spreading out from Syria towards Lebanon and Iraq could also reach a destabilised Egypt.

But the working class in Egypt is a much more formidable force than it is in Libya or Syria. It has a long tradition of militant struggle against the state and its official trade union tentacles, going back at least as far as the 1970s. In 2006 and 2007 massive strikes radiated out from the highly concentrated textile sector, and this experience of open defiance of the regime subsequently fed into the movement of 2011, which was marked by a strong working class imprint, both in the tendencies towards self-organisation which appeared in Tahrir Square and the neighbourhoods, and in the wave of strikes which eventually convinced the ruling class to dump Mubarak. The Egyptian working class is by no means immune from the illusions in democracy which pervade the entire social movement, but neither will it be an easy task for the different cliques of the ruling class to persuade it to abandon its own interests and drag it into the cesspit of imperialist war.

The potential of the working class to act as a barrier to barbarism is revealed not only in its history of autonomous strikes and assemblies, but also in the explicit expressions of class consciousness which have appeared within the demonstrations on the streets: in placards proclaiming ‘neither Morsi nor the military’ or ‘revolution not coup’ and in more directly political statements like the declaration of ‘Cairo comrades’ published recently on libcom:

“We seek a future governed neither by the petty authoritarianism and crony capitalism of the Brotherhood nor a military apparatus which maintains a stranglehold over political and economic life nor a return to the old structures of the Mubarak era. Though the ranks of protesters that will take to the streets on June 30th are not united around this call, it must be ours- it must be our stance because we will not accept a return to the bloody periods of the past”[2].

However, just as the ‘Arab spring’ took on its full significance with the uprising of proletarian youth in Spain, which has given rise to a much more sustained questioning of bourgeois society, so the potential of the Egyptian working class to stand in the way of a new bloodbath can only be realised through the active solidarity and massive mobilisation of the proletarians in the old centres of world capitalism.

One hundred years ago, in the face of the First World War, Rosa Luxemburg solemnly reminded the international working class that the choice offered it by a decaying capitalist order was socialism or barbarism. A century of real capitalist barbarism has been the consequence of the failure of the working class to carry through the revolutions which it began in response to the imperialist war of 1914-18. Today the stakes are even higher, because capitalism has accumulated the means to destroy all human life on the planet. The collapse of social life and the rule of murderous armed gangs – that’s the road of barbarism indicated by what’s happening right now in Syria. The revolt of the exploited and the oppressed, their massive struggle in defence of human dignity, of a real future – that’s the promise of the revolts in Turkey and Brazil. Egypt stands at the crossroads of these two diametrically opposed choices, and in this sense it is a symbol of the dilemma facing the whole human species.

Amos 10/7/13

The Unite union was accused of cramming the Falkirk constituency with new members, a little bending of the rules to install one of its favoured candidates. Nine Unite-supported candidates have already been nominated as Labour candidates for the next election, with 19 more selections still to be decided. Labour leader Ed Miliband has said that he intends to end the automatic affiliation of union members to the Labour Party, making it a positive individual decision to join the party. While this might cut down the union funds available to the party, it is likely that the unions would just increase funding through other means. That’s certainly what the Tories say, and who’s to say that, in this instance, they’re not right?

Miliband’s proposals are supported by ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Other proposals, such as the holding of US-style primaries have been saluted as a sound democratic innovation for British politics. Meanwhile, Bob Crow, leader of the RMT transport union, along with various leftists, thinks that there should be a new Left party that represents working class interests. The Unite union claims that its activities are aimed at ensuring that there are fewer middle class and more working class Members of Parliament. Against this, out-going Falkirk MP Eric Joyce said “The people that Unite want to put into those seats are of course, guess what? Parliamentary researchers, middle class union officials and exactly the same type. The reality is this is an ideological fight. It’s not between the trade unions and Ed Miliband, it’s between Len McCluskey and a few of his anarcho-syndicalist advisers and the Labour party”.

All this is good knockabout stuff and guaranteed to fill the columns of the right-wing press, who insist that Labour hasn’t changed, that it’s a monster from the past. The one thing that it isn’t is a dispute over fundamental questions of principle. All the different Labour and union factions are agreed on essential policy questions. Some accept the argument for the cuts imposed by the Coalition, while others have different state capitalist measures that they think should be employed in the running of the British economy. But these differences are all a matter of degree, differences in emphasis on what the capitalist state should do in maintaining social order, ensuring the most effective exploitation of the working class, surviving in the cutthroat rivalry of capitalism internationally.

While the right-wing media tries to undermine the image of Labour and the unions, the left-wing tries to convince us that there is something to be defended in these capitalist institutions. Don’t be taken in. The differences are only superficial. 

Car  13/7/13

This article was written several months ago in response to the annointing of Nelson Mandela in the world media earlier this year when his health took a turn for the worse. Now that news of his death has been announced, it seems appropriate once again to counter the suffocating propaganda of the capitalist class.

In the latter part of his life Nelson Mandela was widely considered to be a modern ‘saint’. He appeared to be a model of humility, integrity and honesty, and displaying a remarkable capacity to forgive.

A recent Oxfam report said that South Africa is “the most unequal country on earth and significantly more unequal than at the end of apartheid”. The ANC has presided for nearly twenty years over a society that threatens still further deprivations for the black majority, and yet, despite having been an integral part of the ANC since the 1940s, Mandela was always seen as being somehow different from other leaders, throughout Africa and the rest of the world.

A true Christian?

His 1994 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (LWF) is an invaluable guide to Mandela’s life and views. Even though it is likely to portray its subject in a favourable light, it shows the concerns and priorities of the author.

For example, after 27 years of imprisonment, when Mandela was released in February 1990 he showed no sign of personal vindictiveness towards those who had kept him captive. “In prison, my anger towards whites decreased, but my hatred for the system grew. I wanted South Africa to see that I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one another” (LWF p680). If this sounds like a Christian saying ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’ it’s partly because it is. When two editors from the Washington Times visited him in prison “I told them that I was a Christian and had always been a Christian” (LWF p620).

You can also see how this trait in his personality proved useful to South African capitalism. After Mandela left prison one of the main tasks of the ANC was to reassure potential investors that a future ANC government would not threaten their interests. In ‘Mandela Message to USA Big Business’ (19/6/1990)[1] you can read something he said on a number of occasions “The private sector, both domestic and international, will have a vital contribution to make to the economic and social reconstruction of SA after apartheid… We are sensitive to the fact that as investors in a post-apartheid SA, you will need to be confident about the security of your investments, an adequate and equitable return on your capital and a general capital climate of peace and stability.” Mandela might have spoken as a Christian, but a Christian who understood the needs of business.

Consistent nationalist

Mandela was certainly consistent, able to look at the present in its continuity with the past. When, for example, the ANC sat down for the first official talks with the government in May 1990 Mandela had to give them “a history lesson. I explained to our counterparts that the ANC from its inception in 1912 had always sought negotiations with the government in power” (LWF p693).

Mandela often referred to the ANC’s Freedom Charter adopted in 1955. “In June 1956, in the monthly journal Liberation, I pointed out that the charter endorsed private enterprise and would allow capitalism to flourish among Africans for the first time” (LWF p205). In 1988, when he was in secret negotiations with the government he referred to the same article “in which I said that the Freedom Charter was not a blueprint for socialism but for African-style capitalism. I told them I had not changed my mind since then” (LWF p642).

When Mandela was visited in 1986 by an Eminent Persons Group “I told them I was a South African nationalist, not a communist, that nationalists come in very hue and colour” (LWF p629). This nationalism was unwavering. When the 1994 election was approaching and he met President FW de Klerk in a television debate “I felt I had been too harsh with the man who would be my partner in a government of national unity. In summation, I said, ‘The exchanges between Mr de Klerk and me should not obscure on important fact. I think we are a shining example to the entire world of people drawn from different racial groups who have a common loyalty, a common love, to their common country’” (LWF p740-1).

From the mid 1970s Mandela received visits from the prisons minister. “The government had sent ‘feelers’ to me over the years, beginning with Minister Kruger’s efforts to persuade me to move to the Transkei. These were not efforts to negotiate, but attempts to isolate me from my organisation. On several other occasions, Kruger said to me: ‘Mandela, we can work with you, but not your colleagues’” (LWF p619).

The South African government recognised that there was something in his personality that would ultimately make some sort of negotiations possible. And, in December 1989, when he first met de Klerk he was able to say “Mr de Klerk seemed to represent a true departure from the National Party politicians of the past. Mr de Klerk …was a man we could do business with” (LWF p665).

Ultimately this mutual respect led in 1993 to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded jointly to Mandela and de Klerk, in the words of the citation “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa”. This long term goal was not something personal to Mandela but corresponded to the needs of capitalism. After the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, “The Johannesburg stock exchange plunged, and capital started to flow out of the country” (LWF p281). The end of apartheid started a period of growth for foreign investment in South Africa. Democracy did not, however, benefit the majority of the population. In the fifties Mandela said that “the covert goal of the government was to create an African middle class to blunt the appeal of the ANC and the liberation struggle” (LWF p223). In practice ‘liberation’ and an ANC government has marginally increased the ranks of an African middle class. It has also meant repression, the remilitarisation of the police, the banning of protests, and attacks on workers, as in, for example, the Marikana miners’ strike in which 44 workers were killed and dozens seriously injured.

Mandela was able to say that “all men, even the most cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their hearts are touched, they are capable of changing” (LWF p549). What might be true of individuals is not true of capitalism. It has no core of decency and cannot be changed. The faces of the ANC government are different to their white predecessors, but exploitation and repression remain.

Means to an end

The ANC in their ‘liberation’ struggle used both violence and non-violence in its campaigns. When non-violent tactics were proving unsuccessful the ANC created a military wing, in the creation of which Mandela played a central role. “We considered four types of violent activities: sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism and open revolution”. They hoped that sabotage “would bring the government to the bargaining table” but strict instructions were given “that we would countenance no loss of life. But if sabotage did not produce the results we wanted, we were prepared to move on to the next stage: guerrilla warfare and terrorism” (LWF p336).

So, on 16 December 1961, when “homemade bombs were exploded at electric power stations and government offices in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban” (LWF p338) it did not mean that the goals of the ANC had changed – democracy was still the aim. And after May 1983, when the ANC staged its first car bomb attack, in which nineteen people were killed and more than two hundred injured, Mandela said “The killing of civilians was a tragic accident, and I felt a profound horror at the death toll. But disturbed as I was by these casualties, I knew that such accidents were the inevitable consequences of the decision to embark on a military struggle” (LWR p618). These days such ‘accidents’ are often referred to by the more modern euphemism of ‘collateral damage’.

Man and myth

In the 1950s Mandela’s first wife became a Jehovah’s Witness. Although he “found some aspects of the Watch Tower’s system to be interesting and worthwhile, I could not and did not share her devotion. There was an obsessional element to it that put me off” (LWF p239). In the arguments they had “I patiently explained to her that politics was not a distraction but my lifework, that it was an essential and fundamental part of my being” (LWF p240).

These differences led to “a battle for the minds and hearts of the children. She wanted them to be religious, and I thought they should be political” (ibid). And what politics were they exposed to?

“Hanging on the walls of the house I had pictures of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Gandhi and the storming of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in 1917. I explained to the boys who each of the men was, and what he stood for. They knew that the white leaders of South Africa stood for something very different” (ibid).

There is an interesting contrast here. On one hand, there are four leading members of the ruling capitalist class (and not so different from the South African bourgeoisie) and, on the other, one of the most important moments in the history of the working class.

Mandela said he had little time to study Marx, Engels or Lenin, but he “subscribed to Marx’s basic dictum, which has the simplicity and generosity of the Golden Rule: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’” (LWF p137). He might have ‘subscribed to the dictum’, but the history of the ANC has shown it for a century in the service of South African capitalism. Whether in protests or guerrilla struggle, the goals were nationalist, or just for people to let off steam, because “people must have an outlet for their anger and frustration” (LWF p725). In government, the faces changed from Mandela to Mbeki to Motlanthe and now Zuma, but there were no changes in the lives of the majority. The only difference in the Presidents was that Mandela had the best image.

Mandela was very aware of the myth of Mandela. He made a point of saying that he was not a ‘saint’ nor a “prophet”, nor a “messiah” (LWF p676), in a world where most politicians seem to be devoted to self-promotion and enrichment. This modesty was one of the appealing characteristics of Mandela. It could be explained by his Wesleyan background. In his 27 years in captivity he only once missed a Sunday service, “Though I am a Methodist, I would attend each different religious service” (LWF p536).

Whatever the origins of Mandela’s modesty and seeming decency, he is clearly going to be the face of the ANC’s 2014 election campaign. And, beyond South Africa, the Mandela myth will continue to be one of the pillars of modern democratic ideology.

In his career as a lawyer Mandela “went from having an idealistic view of the law as a sword of justice to a perception of the law as a tool used by the ruling class to shape society in a way favourable to itself” (LWF p309). He did not make a similar critique of democracy. In his 1964 court statement he expressed himself as an “admirer” of democracy.  “I have great respect for British political institutions, and for the country’s system of justice. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration. The American Congress, the country’s doctrine of the separation of powers, as well as the independence of its judiciary, arouse in me similar sentiments.” (LWF p436) Whatever the character of the man, his life’s work was in the service of capitalist democracy. For its part, capital will certainly continue to make use of his better qualities for the worst possible end: the preservation of its decaying social order.  

Car 13/7/13

A comrade in the US reflects on the way different factions of the American bourgeoisie have responded to the ‘spying scandal’

Over the last several weeks the bourgeois media has been engaged in intense coverage of the so-called NSA (National Security Administration) spying scandal. Reports issued by the Guardian and the Washington Post have revealed, through information delivered up by a 29 year old systems manager for NSA contractor Booz Allen, Hamilton, that the United States government has been keeping a phone log of all telephone calls made in the United States, tracking every number dialed, the location of the party called and the call duration. Subsequent reporting revealed that in addition to this log of phone records, the NSA, through its so-called Prism program, has been directly tapping into the servers of the very companies that form the backbone of the World Wide Web: Facebook, Google, MSN, Apple, to name just a few.

According to the so-called whistleblower, Edward Snowden, the technical abilities the NSA now has at its disposal are profound. He claims to have been able to tap directly into any email anywhere, including even President Obama’s. According to his description of the Prism program, the technology is so powerful that an NSA analyst can tap into whatever instant message conversations he/she wants to at any moment. As a part of the story, we also learned that these programs appear to have been given the cover of legality by a sweeping Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) Court warrant allowing the government to “legally” collect this data.

It has been quite clear that the release of this information has been very uncomfortable for the US bourgeoisie. It hasn’t been a good period for the democratic illusion in the United States—the capitalist nation state that champions itself to its own citizens and the world beyond as the foremost guarantor of democracy and civil rights. The revelations about the NSA’s spying programs are only the latest in a series of embarrassing episodes that cast growing doubt on the ability of the US bourgeoisie to credibly proclaim America as a democracy guided by the rule of law. When these revelations hit the news, there was already a build-up of questioning about the Obama administration’s continued use of pilotless drones to kill suspected terrorists, including American citizens, as a matter of executive fiat without even the hint of due process.

Just weeks prior to Snowden’s confession, Obama had been forced to make a nationwide address defending his drone program and excusing the state murder by drone of an American citizen without trial (alleged terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki). Although he has pledged to close the gulag at Guantanamo Bay, the continued hunger strike and force-feeding of the remaining detainees has been a major blemish on the image of American democracy abroad. While on this issue, Obama has tried to play himself as the good guy working to close the prison in opposition to a hostile Republican dominated Congress, his inability to close Guantanamo and thus fulfill a promise from his first campaign, is a major stick in the craw for his liberal base. While it would be an exaggeration to say that the US’s international image has sunk as low as it did during the Bush administration, it has certainly declined since the days of joyous celebrations following Obama’s initial election.

However, the revelations about the NSA spying programs strike much deeper at the heart of the illusion of American democracy and civil liberties than any of these other issues, as they affect the entire American population writ large. No longer are the excesses of the “surveillance state” directed only at shadowy dark-skinned foreigners or traitors who have gone over to the other side, but at every single American regardless of whether or not they are suspected of any wrongdoing. The worst Orwellian fears appear to have been realized. We are all being tracked, pretty much all the time and there appears to be nothing we can do to hold the state accountable for it. What kind of “democracy” is this?

The Confused Reaction of the Bourgeoisie

Just how uncomfortable Snowden’s revelations have been for the US ruling class was evident in the rather unusual and stumbling reaction of the various bourgeois factions. Many top congressional figures professed to know nothing about these programs and claimed to be deeply concerned by them, or—at the very least—slighted that they weren’t told about them. Judging by how uncoordinated the bourgeoisie’s initial response to the news appears to have been, there is reason to believe that they were not just making this up.

Still, the various heads of the Congressional intelligence committees were quick to react with anger to the release of this classified information. As they clumsily tried to assuage the public by telling us that this stuff had been going on for quite some time and it was nothing new under the sun, etc., their furor was palpable with many calling for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Snowden as a “traitor.” President Obama himself, forced by the growing media frenzy to make a statement, attempted to assure Americans that these programs were vital tools in the fight against terrorism that had stopped terrorist plots in their tracks and that in reality nobody was really listening to their phone calls, at least not without a warrant.

One of the most striking features of the bourgeois response was the unlikely coalitions that emerged. Supposed Liberal Senator from California Diane Feinstein was on the same page as militarist Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham in defending the programs and calling for Snowden’s swift prosecution. Meanwhile right-wing crackpot radio host Glenn Beck and progressive documentarian Michael Moore each declared Snowden a hero.  Similarly, while Ron Paul wondered out loud if Snowden would be taken out by a cruise missile, liberal/progressive radio host Ed Schultz—using language typically employed by right wing bullies—aggressively called the leaker a “punk.”

The bourgeoisie have been unable to find a coherent political narrative in which to situate these revelations. The familiar left/right division of ideological labor simply isn’t working out on this one. On the left, the progressive/liberal talking heads are put in a corner. Whatever their level of personal discomfort with these programs, they are obliged to defend a scandal-plagued Obama administration from yet one more embarrassment. On the right, there is a clear divide between the authoritarian hawks who proudly declare (as any good fascist would), “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”, and a libertarian element who see everything the state does as a plot to construct a tyrannical fascist/socialist Leviathan.

Clearly, the bourgeoisie is having difficulty getting its ducks in a row in order to present a coherent binary narrative to the public through which to explain this one in comfortable and familiar terms. It is likely for this reason that once the identity of the leaker became known, the media quickly attempted to change the story to make it all about the personality of Mr. Snowden. Just who was this guy? What was his story? Why did he do it? In a painful ode to the celebrity spectacle that today defines American pop culture, the media turned a story about the world’s most powerful “democratic” state spying on every single one of its citizens into a psycho-drama about Snowden’s supposed megalomania, naivety and youthful hubris.

The message was clear: the government may be spying on you, but at least now there is a new celebrity villain/hero personality to delve into and probably an exciting court room drama coming up in the future if/when the US state finally lays it hands on him! That is, if he isn’t extraordinarily rendered somewhere or mysteriously dies of a heart attack while holed up in the Ecuadorean ambassador’s residence. It’s international intrigue worthy of a Le Carré novel!  It seemed, as in a modern day twist on the famous words attributed to Marie Antoinette, the bourgeoisie told the public, “If you can’t get openness in government, transparency and all the other mush that is supposed to go along with democracy, well, at least you can eat drama.”

Nevertheless, the bourgeois reaction to this story, as incoherent as it was, stands as a clear illustration of the rifts that have been tearing into the fabric of the US ruling class. Forced to keep the left of its political apparatus in executive power over concerns about the Republican Party’s ability to rationally steer the economy and the ship of the state, the Obama administration has had to govern in a way that puts its “left” credentials into severe question.[1] Already before these revelations, rumblings about Obama being just a kindler gentler version of Bush were rampant among many of the President’s erstwhile supporters.

Contrary to its traditional ideological role as the questioners of repressive power, key elements in the Democratic Party have had to come out in support of these massive spying programs. Meanwhile, law and order Republicans, who on any other day would probably prefer to see Obama join the millions of other African-Americans in prison, have come out as among the administration’s loudest cheerleaders in favor of keeping these programs in full force. The US political crisis continues. In sharp contrast to the image of overwhelming technical power wielded by its intelligence agencies, it’s the sad case that US bourgeoisie can’t even get its messaging straight on how to sell these programs to the public.

The “Democratic” State and Civil Liberties: Illusion Or Structure?

One of the more frustrating features of the media’s coverage of this story was the constant “man in the street” interviews with supposed ordinary citizens, asking their opinion about the revelations. How did the common man feel about the fact that the government was logging his calls and monitoring his IMs? Inevitably, the media would trot out some poor sap who would declare, “I don’t care. I have nothing to hide. Security comes first.” This mentality was a clear reflection of the official line frothed up by the technocrats and politicians: “These programs, this technology, have stopped terrorist attacks. Discontinuing them would make us vulnerable.”

In not so many words, this was President Obama’s approach to the controversy, despite the fact that this attitude stood in open contradiction to his previous positions, stated with force during his 2009 inauguration speech. Referencing previous revelations that the Bush administration had been tapping Americans’ phone calls without a warrant, President-elect Obama loudly declared that the American people should not accept the government prying into its personal affairs in the name of safety.  But how quickly the tide turned once he found himself in the chief executive’s mansion!

However, whether or not Obama actually believed what he was saying in 2009 is patently irrelevant. Once he found himself at the head of the state, the overwhelming weight of the surveillance/homeland security apparatus was bound to exert its centrifugal pull. Besides, there was no way a black Democratic President, fighting for legitimacy in the eyes of half the nation, could afford to have a terrorist attack on US soil take place on his watch, without having appeared to exhaust whatever means at the disposal of the state to stop it.  One can only imagine the uproar from his Republican opponents had another mass terrorist attack taken place and it was learned that Obama had cancelled these surveillance programs. He really had little choice but to continue and expand the Bush administration’s surveillance activities.

Of course, anyone who has taken a civics class in a US junior high school can tell you that what the US state was doing under these programs is highly illegal and unconstitutional according to the very principles the US state is supposed to uphold.[2] “Once security trumps individual liberty, the road to tyranny and enslavement is open” is one of the first principles drilled into the heads of the youth about why there is such as thing as a “Bill of Rights” at all.  And while there were certainly elements within the US bourgeoisie, from left leaning civil rights activists to right wing libertarians, who attempted to make this very point, it was largely drowned out by the louder message emanating from the state apparatus that these programs keep us safe.

 Nevertheless, given the level of ideological decomposition that has gripped US society over the preceding years, it was never going to be the case that this message would convince everyone. For every “authoritarian personality” that said he had nothing to hide, there seemed to be five paranoid conspiracists (left or right) who said the state can never be trusted, always lies and forever exercises power in violation of the rule of the law and the nation’s professed commitment to civil liberties. For this segment of the population, everyone in Washington is a forked tongue snake. Obama’s promises that nobody was listening to our phone calls without getting a warrant, or that the Prism program was only tracking foreign nationals, weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. The state always does what it wants, when it wants to, regardless of whether or not it is “legal.” If the state wants to make you disappear, it can probably do so with impunity.

Of course, there is much in this story that actually supports such a view. If the intention was to keep these programs secret in perpetuity, how can we ever be sure the state isn’t doing something else illegal that we just haven’t found out about yet? Obama says these programs are legal because they need a warrant to listen to calls. Anyone who watches Law and Order knows how easy it is to get a warrant—basically, all it takes is having a judges’ phone number.  Of course, in the case of the NSA spying programs, it is a secret court, issuing a secret warrant that the targets are never allowed to see or even know exists. Moreover, at the end of the day, even if the state couldn’t get a warrant, what’s to stop it from carrying out the surveillance anyway? The answer is, of course, absolutely nothing at all.

What a curious picture of “democracy” this all is. Not only is the state’s official discourse cynically hypocritical, intellectually bankrupt and disturbingly Orwellian, but also the much-vaunted “civil society” that is supposed to be the lifeblood of liberal democracy appears to have completely broken down. How is the citizenry supposed to hold the government accountable for programs they don’t even know about and which they can only discover through the efforts of leakers and whistleblowers prepared to face the cruelty of the American criminal justice system?

In the view of many somber analysts, the citizenry itself seems to have been turned into such passive or paranoid sheep that they are simply incapable of exercising any “democratic control” over the military/intelligence/technology complex that is now intertwined with our daily lives. The American population appears hopelessly segmented into a false opposition between authoritarian lemmings that don’t care what the government does and those whose anxious paranoia moves them to see a government conspiracy around every corner they look. Whatever the differences in these two worldviews, the content is essentially the same: the state can do whatever the hell it wants—one side doesn’t mind, while the other can’t relax about it. One can only imagine the exasperation of eighth grade civic teachers all across the nation. If this is democracy, who wants it?

Some of the more sophisticated bourgeois think tank/media outlets have attempted to delve deeper into these issues. One of the main themes of this exploration has been the role of the new communication technologies and social media in shaping a public that supposedly does not care about privacy. We can all blame the young generations for this we are told; they simply cannot appreciate the importance of privacy to the formation of the stable identities that democratic citizenship requires. 

Picking up on various themes being developed in the halls of academia, we are told that the youth’s obsession with Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets has completely rewired their brains to the point where the very interiority of the self has virtually disappeared. We are in the process of being transformed into an interconnected system of deconstructed selves that bleed into one another like ink from the now obsolete fountain pen. Personal identity, the bedrock of the liberal democratic state, will soon no longer exist. We will all be reduced to mere nodal points in a vast network of data signifiers. It’s possible, some say, that we won’t even be totally human anymore. Perhaps we will become just one big vast cybergenetic “desiring machine” or maybe its “bodies without organs” (to use some of the postmodern jargon), incapable of forming the requisite subjectivity to make liberal democracy function.

In line with all this, more and more members of the chattering classes openly imply that certain civil liberties are now simply technologically obsolete. Such was left/progressive talk show host Bill Maher’s rumination about the fate of the 4th amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure: “If the 4th amendment is now obsolete, why isn’t the 2nd amendment also?”, Maher pondered, in what appeared to be intended as a liberal/progressive rebuff to the Republican right-wing’s intransigent opposition to gun control.[3]

Of course, all of this paints a very gloomy picture of American “democracy.” Images of Marcuse’s “one -dimensional man,” Adorno and Horkheimer’s “administered society," Reich’s “mass psychology of fascism”, Wolin’s “inverted totalitarianism,” or Star Trek’s Borg are conjured up by these dismal assessments of the condition of American civil society in the age of Facebook. Perhaps what Maher really meant to ask was if liberal democracy itself was what was now obsolete?

Whatever the veracity of all of this, regardless of how much the academics overstate the psycho-analytic and sociological consequences of the Internet, the fact that these themes are now openly discussed is a powerful symbol of a supposedly “democratic” society now suffering a profound crisis of confidence in itself. Capitalist democracy now seems afraid of its youth; they represent something strange and inscrutable, perhaps even dangerous. One of the lessons Senator Mikulski of Maryland drew from the revelations was that regardless of their technical skills, it is not always in the best interest of the state to give young people the keys to the intelligence vault.[4] They are too unpredictable, lack the necessary moral commitment to the nation, have no personal discipline, are too easily led astray by unscrupulous hucksters, etc.

For us Marxists, these developments do raise very important questions about the nature of the so-called democratic state. Regular readers of the ICC press will know that we regularly produce critiques of democracy that show how, despite whatever fealty it once had to its own principles, the democratic state is now, as a result of capitalism’s decadence, become a totalitarian arm of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. There is essentially no tangible difference, as far as the proletariat is concerned, between the bourgeoisie in its various democratic, authoritarian, fascist, Stalinist, etc. forms. All factions of the bourgeoisie are equally reactionary in their commitment to the maintenance of the capitalist system, continuing the exploitation of the working class and engaging in the imperialist project.

But in saying this are we agreeing with the deep conspiracists that the structures of the democratic state are not “real”—that they are a pure “illusion,” beyond which lies only a “wild zone” of unchecked state power that is impervious to popular control?[5] Are all the political machinations of the President and Congress just window dressing or totally irrelevant and not worth paying attention to because the real power lies elsewhere?

Is it the case that we have been living in a full-stop totalitarian system since the entry of capitalism into decadence, and now, with the development of these new technologies, it has become safe for the state to emerge in its full horror, show its teeth and dispense with the illusions of democratic processes and the appearance of respecting civil liberties?

Regular readers of the ICC press will also recall articles reflecting on the “structure of the state”  as an important factor in how the bourgeoisie orders its internal political life and also in how some of the various social movements we have witnessed since 2011 have unfolded. For example, in the ICC’s analysis of the way that the ‘Arab spring’ turned out in Libya, where the army was deliberately kept in a weakened state. So, is the idea that the democratic state is of no fundamental difference from authoritarian ones at odds with an analysis that take into account the “structure of the state”?

These are all very difficult questions that demand much further discussions by left communists and all those committed to ending capitalist exploitation. We can’t pretend to be able to give a definitive answer to all these questions here. However, a few preliminary observations can nevertheless be made:

The structures of American liberal democracy were very much “real” when they were designed in the late eighteenth century. The Bill of Rights was a function of the need of the American ruling class to devise a state structure that could protect their overall class rule, while at the same time preventing the state power from arbitrary and extra-judicial interference in commerce, property rights and political organization. However, even in this era, it is clear that these rights were unevenly enforced. Whatever the tangible nature of liberal democracy for the bourgeoisie, the US state has been among the most violent in its suppression of dissent from below. While it is true that democratic civil liberties may have been guaranteed to all white men, these guarantees are useless if the state is not committed to enforcing them or if one cannot afford a competent lawyer to fight for them in court.

Later, at the turn of the twentieth century, with industrial capitalism in full swing, a proletariat developing its struggle, and a World War in the offing, the US state was not shy about openly scrapping its commitment to freedom of speech and organization, imprisoning Socialist leaders such as Eugene Debs for violation of various sedition acts, when they urged resistance to the war. In the later part of the twentieth century, the developing national security state showed little concern for the rule of law in launching the blatantly illegal COINTELPRO operation designed to disrupt and discredit various civil rights, anti-war and Black Power organizations.[6]

Therefore, the new laws put into force in the aftermath of 9/11 (such as the Patriot Act)—while draconian in nature and shameless in their legalization of various activities that seem a blatant contradiction to the 18th century Bill of Rights—do not mark a fundamental departure from the normal practices of the “democratic” state. The US state has shown its willingness to act outside the boundaries of the rule of law numerous times in the past in order to crack down on dissent and pursue various individuals and organizations it has (rightly or wrongly) deemed a threat. When it comes to the cover of legality for its repressive and surveillance activities, the attitude of the U.S bourgeoisie seems to be that it’s nice to have, but not strictly necessary when it is for whatever reason unattainable.

But does all this mean that the US democratic state is a pure “illusion,” that power lies somewhere other than the visible structures of the state? Perhaps with the intelligence agencies or some other “deep structure”[7] that remains hidden in the shadows? The answer to this has to be: yes and no. It is true that the development of state capitalism has produced alternate centers of power that are outside the constitutional structures of the state. These have been known for some time: the military industrial complex, powerful industrial lobby groups, the homeland security/intelligence apparatus, Halliburton, the Cargill Group, etc. Moreover, it is true that these various loci of power can, at times, exert a strong enough influence over the formal structures of the state to the point where it can be accurate to say that they have “captured” some part of it and are molding for their own particular interests. This has been a major problem for US state capitalism as of late in its tendency to obstruct the state from operating in the overall interests of the national capital rather than various particular factions of it.

However, the formal structures of the state remain the primary terrain through which the US bourgeoisie fights its factional battles. The structure of this state may be two and a half centuries old now, and parts of it are clearly showing their age and obsolesce, but in many ways the US bourgeoisie is stuck with it for the foreseeable future. The ideological decomposition of US society (which is in some ways itself a function of the political pluralism built into the US state) means that it is unlikely the US bourgeoisie will be able to make any substantive changes to this structure anytime soon. It is for this reason that the fight over civil liberties will continue to have some salience well into the future, as a tool with which the various bourgeois factions can protect themselves from one another.

However, as to the extent to which the US state will respect these rights in reference to those it considers outside the arena of acceptable politics or bourgeois respectability, the examples of Al-Awlaki, Bradley Manning, Dzhokhar Tsarneaev and the millions of indigent criminal defendants who are denied effective legal counsel every day are powerful evidence of how these so-called protections can be ignored with relative impunity. [8]

These cases stand as evidence that whatever the structure of the state, whatever limitation the bourgeois class attempted to place on its growth two centuries ago, the state itself has a nature, an interest, and a social weight all of its own, which drives it to swallow civil society and establish the measures of efficiency, security and order—against the protections of rights, freedoms and liberties—as its legitimating principle. If the burgeoning bourgeois society of the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century was able to keep this tendency in check for a period, it’s clear that the social conditions that permitted this have long since expired with the closing of the period of capitalist ascendancy and the development of a universal tendency towards state capitalism.  

If the bourgeoisie, or this or that faction thereof, has seen fit at times to attempt to restrain the natural growth tendencies of the state, it has only been in order to secure its own class interests, as when the eighteenth century US bourgeoisie established liberal democracy as a remedy against the British parliamentary-monarchial state’s tendency to obstruct the development of the (sub) national capital with arbitrary laws that imposed unrepresentative taxation, excises, customs, tariffs, etc.

The Cult of the Hero Whistleblower

In the weeks since the emergence of these revelations, the media’s attention has quickly turned away from any substantive discussion of the surveillance programs towards a personality study of the self-professed leaker/whistleblower. Depending on whose talking, Snowden has been portrayed as either a brave hero, willing to risk his personal safety to alert the public to this egregious government overreach, or a devious villain who has damaged national security in order to aggrandize his already oversized ego.

In all likelihood, there is some truth to the criticisms of Snowden.  In his video interview with the Guardian, he does appear to have a vastly over-inflated image of himself as a martyr before the fact. It also appears likely that at least some of his claims about what he had the ability to do in his position with the NSA are overstated. Nevertheless, it is clear that whatever his exaggerations, Snowden’s reports have struck a nerve with the US state, indicating that the capabilities of these surveillance programs may be even more extensive than has been yet been revealed. In fact, the Guardian reporter who first broke the story, Glenn Greenwald, has promised more disturbing revelations to come.[9]

For all those who continue to believe in the promise of civil liberties, Snowden has become the celebrity hero du jour. He has assumed the mantle of Julian Assange, the embattled Wikileaks founder, as the international symbol of resistance to government secrecy and defender of democratic civil rights and freedom of information.[10]  So what about these claims? Does the fact that the state’s violation of its own legal principles CAN eventually be brought to light by a whistleblower mean that democracy is capable of being saved? Can the state be won back for the democratic project?

We don’t think so. First, one would be forced to admit that the emergence of these leaks resulted not from the system working as it was supposed to (through transparency, accountability, and the democratic citizenry holding state power in check, etc.), but through a breakdown in the system of state secrecy and security. It was the failure of the security state that brought this information to light, not the triumph of the democratic citizenry through its elected representatives. While this may prove that even this behemoth state is not without its cracks, it should do little to assuage us that the democratic system can function according to the myths we are taught in school.

While the release of this information, just like Wikileaks’ previous release of secret diplomatic cables, may have caught the state with its pants down and may have embarrassed the Obama administration, there is no indication that the state is going to stop these activities anytime soon. All indications are that these programs, and whatever else they are doing that nobody knows about yet, will continue in earnest. The surveillance state is here to stay, regardless of what the public thinks about it. What better evidence is there than the fact that previous revelations of warrantless wiretapping by the Bush administration did absolutely nothing to dissuade the state from actually expanding these programs, despite a change of the political party in charge in the White House?

While we certainly feel some sympathy with Mr. Snowden’s plight as he is now a fugitive from US justice, it is utterly naive to think that we can depend on leakers and whistleblowers to defend democratic rights which the state will simply ignore if it finds it necessary to do so.

On the contrary, the only protection we can have against the ominous expansion of the surveillance state is to tear down the decomposing capitalist society upon which its foundations rest. The only way this will happen is for the international working class to develop its own autonomous struggle to defend its living and working conditions against the constant attacks capital will be forced to launch against them. Once this struggle reaches a certain level of development, the proletariat will inevitably be brought into direct conflict with the many tentacles of the capitalist surveillance state. The technologies revealed by Snowden, and undoubtedly many others we simply don’t know about, will most certainly be used against the working class, in particular its revolutionary minorities, as this struggle moves forward. The best we can do is to remain aware that we will have to confront them.  However, we cannot defeat them by hoping for the revival of a democratic state, which was never entirely real to begin with, and whose time has long passed.

--Henk

06/27/2013

The surveillance can be aimed at any citizen, whether or not they are involved in subversive or illegal activities. And not just at US citizens: the scandal has exposed the very close cooperation between the NSA and the British GCHQ, and Snowden has claimed that the NSA is in bed with a whole number of other western states. But that doesn’t make these states immune from being spied on themselves: the US uses the same techniques of mass surveillance to spy on other states, including those once deemed to be its allies, like Germany and France.

The startling development of electronic communication in the last few decades has of course taken the technical capacities of such spy agencies to a new level. But there is nothing new in any of this, and it’s certainly not limited to the US.

The British state, for one, used to lead the field in international spying technology. When it was the most powerful capitalist country it was the centre of the international network of telegraph lines, a similar position to that of the US in relation to the internet. In the First World War British imperialism used this position to tap into the international communications networks of German imperialism. It cut the main cables between Germany and the US, but was able to monitor the other networks Germany had to use. It also got its hands on the wireless facilities of the Post Office and Marconi to monitor German wireless traffic. This was done by Navy Intelligence from Room 40 at the Admiralty Building. Following the war it continued to use and develop these abilities. Today, despite no longer being a superpower, it can use its hundred year history of spying through communications systems to punch above its weight in the espionage game.

As for France, which has protested loudly against the violation of its sovereignty by the NSA, the French newspaper Le Monde has recently published information about the vast data collection and electronic surveillance operations being carried out by the national intelligence service, the DGSE. The French Republic is almost as hypocritical as Putin’s Russia, which is regularly suspected of assassinating journalists who ask too many awkward questions, posing as the defender of freedom and considering offering asylum to the fugitive Snowden.  

In sum: they are all at it, and they are all at it more than ever before. They spy on their own citizens because their rule is fragile, undermined by its own social and economic contradictions, and they live in constant terror of the danger of revolt from below. They also spy on each other because these same contradictions push each nation state towards incessant warfare with its rivals, and in this war of each against all, today’s ally can be tomorrow’s enemy. And only one organ is capable of organising spying and surveillance on such a gigantic scale: the capitalist state, which in the age of capitalist decline has truly become a cold inhuman monster which tends more and more to swallow the civil society it is supposed to ‘protect’.  

Amos/Phil 13/7/13

The war in Syria is an example of the decomposition and growing irrationality of capitalism as expressed through its capitalist war machines. We can trace this descent if we go back a couple of decades to the ‘Cold War’ period from 1945 to 1989. The two-bloc system, while threatening incidental nuclear annihilation, was, in a perverse way, the height of geo-military organisation and cooperation of capitalism. All the national states involved were subservient, willingly or unwillingly, to the aforementioned bloc leaders and to the interests of the bloc. This was the apogee of imperialist 'stability' even with the brutal carnage that it involved and the risks that it carried.

When the USSR collapsed in 1989, this two-sided bloc “coherence” collapsed with it and the vacuum was filled with centrifugal tendencies, each man for himself and growing tendencies towards the break-up of established nations, a process which goes on to this day. This was evidenced in some of the ex-satellites of the Russian Republic in Europe, Asia and the Caucasus; also in Yugoslavia where, in 1992, the dissolution of this country into opposing fiefdoms, tripped by Germany and manipulated by Britain, Russia, France and the USA, brought the first war in Europe for nearly fifty years. We see tendencies in the same direction today in Libya, Iraq and Syria - all countries war-torn by capitalism. In Africa, Ethiopia is fractious, Sudan split in two, Somalia on the edge and the Congo a death camp of imperialism. The war in Libya has fuelled separatist tendencies in Mali and Niger, with Nigeria affected. Rather than the constitution of viable states we see them splitting into fragments, and further developments of decomposition are expressed in the spread of gangsterism, warlordism, religious fanaticism and that abortion of internationalism - global jihad. All these features have been aroused, fed and inflamed by the wars of the major imperialisms in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria.      

Syria: “Every scenario a nightmare...”

According to The Observer, 16.6.13, quoting a western official in Beirut (“western official” in this context is either a senior British diplomat or intelligence agent): “Every scenario is a nightmare now”. This came after the US said it would provide arms to the rebels now that it was proved that chemical weapons had been used by the Assad regime. This is another Iraq/ WMD farcical lie. The New York Times has exposed the case of the chemical weapons 'red line' supposedly crossed by the regime which, incidentally, the UN has refused to endorse, in that it rests on the exposure of two individuals to sarin which, as even the White House said: “... does not tell us how or where the individuals were exposed, or who was responsible for that dissemination”. There’s also some doubt amongst experts that it is sarin poisoning, with some suggesting exposure to chlorine gas, which has very similar symptoms.

The subsequent convoluted statement from the White House about directing arms to some of the rebels can be taken with a pinch of salt. The US 'chemical weapons red line' is code for getting more fully involved, the consequences of which can only contribute to further bloodshed and chaos. The US administration, through its agencies, along with Britain and France, have been providing arms and training (as well as stashes of money) to rebel groups via Turkey and Jordan, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, since November 2012 (Los Angeles Times, June 20). The US presence in Jordan has been beefed up after military exercises with British forces in June, leaving in place CIA operatives, special forces, a dozen F-16 fighter jets, Patriot missile batteries and one thousand troops on the ground. After this deployment, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, said that military assistance, in the form of 'training teams', could be sent to Iraq and Lebanon. The New York Times gave some detail about the amount of arms that the rebels have received since the beginning of 2012: possibly as much as 3,500 tonnes of weapons. In Afghanistan, when the west was arming the fundamentalist Mujahideen they were getting one cargo a month - the Syrian opposition has been receiving one every other day. The Financial Times in May reported that Qatar alone had supplied $3 billion worth of weapons, showing something of the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in this war, while their rival, Saudi Arabia, has provided shoulder-held anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to its Islamist groups in Aleppo. Weapons have been collected from all over Libya and sent by the Benghazi regime, with their stamp of approval, to the rebels - apparently paid for by Qatar under cover of humanitarian aid. Since the EU arms embargo was lifted in May, there’s been a free-for-all in arms provision with Israel also getting in on the act. And, on the other side of the war, there’s the massive weaponry and support provided by Russia and Iran to the Assad regime.

The rebels are a growing part of the imperialist chaos

The western-backed Free Syrian Army described as a “corrupt failure” by the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra and, more accurately, as “a rhetorical construct” by Reuters, 19.6.13, is an opposition manufactured from outside Syria by the west. Many of its fighters have been killed and their units disbanded by al-Nusra and many have deserted to its side. Chechen-dominated Sunni rebel jihadi groups in the north have aired a video showing that they have shoulder-launched SA-16 missiles, capable of posing a threat to most war planes and helicopters. These are precisely the weapons that the CIA has tried to keep out of their hands, blocking them from the Jordanian and Turkish border but the jihadists have clearly got them from somewhere. The Chechen fighters command a large group solely composed of foreigners who see the war as global jihad. Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, says: “There is increasing evidence that foreign fighters are gathering under a more unified umbrella in Syria and that the umbrella organisation may have a strong Chechen leadership” (The Observer, 16.6.13).

Oliver Holmes and Alexanda Dziadosz wrote up some good research for Reuters on June 18 from on the ground in Aleppo. They talk about there being 2000 fighters there, originally around the leading group of Ghurabaa al-Sham. This moderate Islamist opposition group was defeated and disbanded overnight by the hard-line Islamists of al-Nusra at the end of last April. The jihadists confiscated all their weapons, ammunition and transport. This pattern has been repeated throughout Syria where groups wanting a supreme religious leadership are overwhelmingly the moderates, they being no match for the hard-line jihadi units. The Reuters reporters go on to say that: “on the ground there is little evidence to suggest that the FSA actually exists as a body at all”. Ghurabaa al-Sham - the so-called democratic resistance - was, in the very words of its leader in Aleppo, made up of “outlaws and reprobates”. They had no support from the majority of the population previously involved in protests against the regime - far from it, as they were thieves and looters who were shipping their booty back to Turkey. Similar stories of looting and theft at the beginning of the war are emerging now and increasingly we are hearing that the jihadis have brought 'order', if only their particular kind of capitalist order. And weapons trading and in-fighting goes on between all these groups and particularly the four Islamist brigades running Aleppo including the al-Qaida linked al-Nusra and the Saudi and Qatari backed factions. The non-jihadi factions, such as the US and the Istanbul-based, Syrian National Council-backed “Falcons of Salqin”, are themselves involved in looting and theft as well as the trading of weapons. The US and the 11 nation “Friends of Syria”, meeting under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood government of Tunisia, have now set up the grand sounding “Supreme Military Council” under which to organise, arm, train and direct its rebel forces. The British and the Americans have put their weight behind the Muslim Brotherhood, but these 'friends of Syria' all have their own tensions with each other and their own agendas for the region, particularly the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey. At the moment they look extremely unlikely to forge an effective anti-Assad force.

The 'search for peace' charade while the war spreads

On July 2, US Secretary of State, John Kerry, after meeting his Russian counterpart, said that a “Geneva II” meeting would be convened as soon as possible in the search for peace and “to stop the bloodshed” in Syria. The meeting had been scheduled for June but is now put off until after August because of the holidays! The chemical weapons red line - a line pushed by Britain and France - was called a step too far by the US administration and the “clarifying moment” vaunted after talks with Putin showed that there was no agreement. But the real clarification was made by Hezbollah (“the army of God”) in taking the strategic town of Qusair from the rebels and opening up battle lines from Iran all the way to the Israeli border. This is what is drawing in the Americans. Many Hezbollah fighters have been battle-hardened in fighting against Israel but thousands are regularly sent to Iran for training. It’s this force, as well as Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have repulsed the rebel push and gone onto the offensive. And, just as they all talk of peaceful solutions, the war spreads ever wider: Lebanon is now involved with the highly populated areas of Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon affected by RPG and machine-gun fire. Sixteen Lebanese soldiers were killed by Sunni Islamists on June 23 in Sidon, which The Times of Israel called a “war zone”. The Lebanese government is weak, the state is faction-ridden and hardly recovered from its own 15-year-old civil war with its hundred thousand dead.

The war is also deepening in the US and British-made disaster of Iraq. Paramilitaries and militias rule the streets of this country where, despite its oil wealth, there’s no constant water or electricity and poverty, terror and insecurity reigns. The busiest places in Iraq are the emigration offices where many, mostly unsuccessful, are trying to get out of the country. Prime Minister Malaki has been accused of working with the Iranians (which he does) and of opening up a land corridor with Iran in order to channel fighters and weapons into Syria (which he probably has). Hundreds of Iraqi civilians are being killed and mutilated by car bombs weekly in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk and Tigrit, mostly set by Sunni Islamists and related to the war in Syria. Both pro- and anti-Assad forces are moving backwards and forwards from Iraq and into Syria and have been for some time now.

The human cost in Syria grows ever greater. US news agencies report one hundred thousand dead - a third of them civilians; 40% loss of GDP; 1 in 5 schools and 1 in 3 hospitals closed; lack of power and water; 2.5 million unemployed; millions unable to buy enough food and refugees, internal and external, running into millions. Billions of dollars are spent on the means of destruction but the Geneva I meeting promised $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid, most of which will not appear and a large slice of which will go directly to the military factions. There’s half-a-million refugees in Lebanon alone. Some refugees have been forcibly turned back from the Jordanian border straight into Syrian gunfire. At the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan many have returned to Syria because they would rather live in a war-zone than these filthy, crime-ridden camps bearing the logo UNHCR which are run by mafias, smugglers and people traffickers.

Capitalism’s New World Chaos

This is the new world order of decomposition and imperialism, where a militarily resuscitated Russia aligns with China in order to protect Iran and all their interests, economic and strategic, in the Middle East. Unlike the conflicts of the cold war, limited, confined, understood by the two blocs, this is a war of decomposing capitalism, with more variable components and thus more dangerous. As well as the major players, there are the diverging interests of Iran, Turkey, Israel, along with Qatar, Saudi and Egypt. As well as irrationality the war also shows the weakening of US power - as great as it still is and, on an imperialist level, this will only contribute to the chaos. As much as they say that they don’t want it, there is the danger here of the US, Britain and France getting drawn in behind the jihadists - if this hasn’t already happened. This is not a war of Sunni against Shia, but a war of capitalism taking over these religious strains and playing up sectarianism, feeding, prolonging and spreading the conflict. Iran for example has used the Shia brand for its own purposes and it’s Iranian imperialism, not Iranian religion, that is in play here. The defence of national capitalist interests in an increasingly contested world arena is the essence of imperialism and it applies to Iran, to the rest of the local states, and their big power backers.

Against the imperialist carnage in Syria, contrast the protests in Turkey and Egypt which, though part of an international phenomenon, are important local expressions that carry the seeds of a movement away from and against imperialist war. These movements are not immune from attempts to open up another path to imperialist chicanery and butchery, but at the moment such mass protests - which have economic considerations at their basis - are not welcome by any side[2]. These mass movements, at the moment lacking a clear class consciousness and organisation, begin to pose an alternative to imperialist war in Syria, a war that is tending to get more dangerous and out of control.

Baboon 5/7/13 (this article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)

The study of warfare in archaic and prehistoric societies has enjoyed something of a fashion in recent years, even including the thesis that warfare played a critical role in the evolution of humanity.[1] In the scientific literature (or at least in the literature of scientific vulgarisation), Lawrence Keeley’s book War before civilization has achieved a certain status as a work of reference.[2]

Keeley begins by situating two opposing views of primitive human society that have emerged in Western social theory since the Renaissance: on the one hand that of Hobbes, who famously described the primitive condition of man before the emergence of the state as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, and on the other that of Rousseau, who was one of the first and most influential exponents of the idea of the original “noble savage” corrupted by civilisation.

As Keeley points out, the Hobbesian view of man provided a useful subtext for European colonial powers who argued that by policing the inter-tribal relations of primitive peoples they were bringing peace where none had been before. This situation changed radically after World War II: the two world wars shattered the confidence of intellectuals in the old colonial powers in the superiority of Western civilisation; the unparalleled barbarity of Nazism, arising in one of the greatest and most cultured European nations, as well as the disintegration of the colonial empires in bloody conflict (Dien Bien Phu, the war in Algeria, the suppression of the Mau-Mau revolt in Kenya) made the Rousseauesque view suddenly far more attractive. As a result, anthropological and archaeological studies tended to ignore or misinterpret the evidence for violent conflict contained in ethnographic studies or archaeological fieldwork: fortified settlements, for example, were interpreted as religious sites and the frequent appearance of weapons in burials as mere symbols of prestige. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Keeley does not ask whether the new approach to violence in archaic societies might be related to the current fashion for justifying the old colonialism and even proposing a return to a new pax americana (see especially Niall Ferguson’s Empire and Colossus).

This said, Keeley’s statistical approach, both in living archaic societies and in the archeological record, leaves little doubt that warfare has been prevalent throughout human history, and that it has often been every bit as bloody and cruel as the battles of World War II, or the martyrdom of Vietnam. He demystifies the relatively “harmless” nature of archaic societies’ “set-piece” battles which generally end with a minimum of casualties, pointing out the far more murderous, and frequent, nature of ambushes and surprise attacks which can sometimes result in the extermination of entire settlements or even societies. The statistical approach, while it can open our eyes to the basic facts, nonetheless has definite limits when it comes to understanding them: the reductio ad absurdum of this approach can be seen in his remark that in one of the “peaceful” societies that he mentions – a polar Inuit group of 200 people who, until they were contacted at the beginning of the 19th century, were so isolated that they believed themselves the only humans in existence – a homicide every 50 years would equal the homicide rate of today’s United States. The mere fact that archaic and modern warfare both involve killing by no means makes them identical. As Marx remarked in another context: “Hunger is hunger; but the hunger that is satisfied by cooked meat eaten with knife and fork differs from hunger that devours raw meat with the help of hands, nails and teeth. Production thus produces not only the object of consumption but also the mode of consumption, not only objectively but also subjectively.”[3] For one thing, archaic societies are classless, there is no constraint involved in the decision to go to war and military aggression is not undertaken by forced armies of conscripts:[4] the very nature of primitive communist societies means that warfare depends entirely on volunteers. Nor is there anything like the privileged officer caste which remains safely behind the lines, as was notoriously the case in World War I, and indeed in all modern warfare: archaic war chiefs lead from the front and share the same risks as those they lead. Nor does the “primitive” warrior experience the depersonalisation of much modern warfare: nowhere in archaic societies, for obvious reasons, will we find the equivalent of the B52 bomber pilot in Vietnam or Iraq who rains death with impunity on an entire population, much less the modern drone pilot in a Nevada military base whose experience of warfare resembles nothing so much as a video game. Indeed, one of the reasons Keeley evokes for the low rate of casualties in primitive set-piece battles is that they often set face to face warriors related by marriage or blood – a warrior will take his place in the battle line with the deliberate intention of avoiding the risk of injuring or killing a relative. Primitive warfare, in short, is less “inhuman” in the proper sense of the term.

For us, the main interest in Keeley’s book is twofold:[5] first, in his analysis of the reasons for the “peaceful” or “warlike” nature of different archaic societies, and second in his exploration of the attitudes of these societies to war and to warriors themselves.

One point to emerge clearly from Keeley’s study is that, while wholly peaceful archaic societies may be rare, all are by no means equally violent. We cannot do justice here to Keeley’s interesting discussion of the various anthropological theories advanced to explain why war breaks out between different groups – the issue of vendetta, for example, would merit a study in itself – rather we will limit ourselves to highlighting the role of “disaster-driven warfare”: “it is becoming increasingly certain that many prehistoric cases of intensive warfare in various regions corresponded with hard times created by ecological and climate changes” (Chapter 9, “Bad Neighbourhoods”). In other words, archaic societies tend to resort to warfare when the carrying capacity[6] of their local environment changes for the worse and they are unable to adapt to the change quickly enough through the development of technology.

One thing often missed in studies of archaic warfare is the question of how war is viewed by the participants themselves, and this to our mind is one of the most interesting aspects of Keeley’s book, so much so that we will quote it at some length. Keeley’s discussion of this topic can be grouped under the following headings:

1. People’s view of the activity of war itself,

2. The attitude towards warriors and killing,

3. The warrior chief.

It comes as little surprise that in general, women have a wholly negative view of war: in the case of defeat they often stand to lose the most with the least chance of resistance, in the case of victory they stand to gain the least, and their economic activity (gardening, etc.) is more vulnerable to pillage. “Representing the unanimous opinion of her sex in a society where land disputes were the most common cause of fighting, one Mae Enga woman protested: ‘Men are killed but the land remains. The land is there in its own right and it does not command people to fight for it’”. As far as men are concerned, Keeley goes on to note that “At some level, even the most militant warriors recognised the evils of war and the desirability of peace. Thus certain New Guinea Jalemo warriors, who praised and bragged about military feats and who took great pleasure in eating both the pigs and the corpses of vanquished enemies, readily confessed that war was a bad thing that depleted pig herds, incurred burdensome debts, and restricted trade and travel. Similarly, despite their frequent resort to it, Kapauku Papuans seem to hate war. As one man put it: ‘War is bad and nobody likes it. Sweet potatoes disappear, pigs disappear, fields disappear, and many relatives and friends get killed. But one cannot help it. A man starts a fight and no matter how much one despises him, one has to go and help because he is one’s relative and one feels sorry for him.’”. An ethnographic study of New Guinea warriors known for bravery found that without exception they suffered from nightmares and exhibited forms of neurosis comparable to those observed in modern combatants.

This negative attitude to warfare is strikingly confirmed by the idea, common the world over according to Keeley, that a warrior who had just killed an enemy was “regarded by his own people as spiritually polluted or contaminated. Often he had to live for a time in seclusion, eat special food or fast, be excluded from participation in rituals, and abstain from sexual intercourse” (Chapter 10, “Naked, poor, and mangled peace”). Keeley goes on to give concrete examples: “Because he was a spiritual danger to himself and anyone he touched, a Huli killer of New Guinea could not use his shooting hand for several days; he had to stay awake the first night after the killing, chanting spells; drink ‘bespelled’ water; and exchange his bow for another. South American Carib warriors had to cover their heads for a month after dispatching an enemy. An African Meru warrior, after killing, had to pay a curse remover to conduct the rituals that would purge his impurity and restore him to society. A Marquesan was tabooed for ten days after a war killing. A Chilcotin of British Columbia who had killed an enemy had to live apart from the group for a time, and all returning raiders had to cleanse themselves by drinking water and vomiting. These and similar rituals emphasize the extent to which homicide was regarded as abnormal, even when committed against the most bellicose enemies”.

Despite these misgivings (to put it mildly) about killing, courageous and skilful warriors were universally esteemed. This is hardly surprising: in a situation of endemic warfare, the warriors’ success could be all that stood between the tribal group and extermination by the enemy. What is more surprising is that, according to Keeley, even warlike societies reserved their greatest esteem not for warriors but for their “peace chiefs”, whose desired qualities had nothing to do with warfare: “The six desired characteristics of an Apache headman, for instance, were industriousness, generosity, impartiality, forbearance, conscientiousness, and eloquence (…) Among the Mae Enga, it was recognized that ‘rubbish men’ – those with the least wealth and the lowest status – were often the most effective warriors”. Where Keeley falls down, is in his (in our view) rather facile comparison with the attitude of modern societies towards returning soldiers: he ignores the class division of modern society, which means that the mass of the armed forces come from the working class and share the contempt and exploitation of the ruling class with their civilian class brothers and sisters.[7]

Is man violent by nature? Perhaps we can be permitted to conclude with a hypothesis. In nature, all animals are contradictory: on the one hand, violence is to be avoided because it puts at risk the individual’s survival, hence its ability to reproduce; on the other, violence is a necessary and inevitable part of life because every animal is in competition with others both to survive and to reproduce. Man shares this natural heritage, but he is also different. Man’s capacity for cultural adaptation, his capacity for mutual solidarity which is one of the foundation stones of his culture, has made him the most successful predator on the planet and to this extent he has freed himself from nature’s obligation to violence. We are not then surprised, on reading Keeley’s work, to discover this contradiction between on the one hand man’s capacity for violence when confronted with the struggle for survival, and on the other so widespread and so powerful a revulsion at the exercise of violence against his fellows. This contradiction will only be resolved by the removal of one of its terms, by the disappearance of the need to compete with his fellows in a society where the division among different tribes is replaced by the participation in a worldwide human community: in short, in communism. Yet the disappearance of violence will not come about through an ecumenical realisation of our common humanity, but through “the negation of the negation”: “force plays yet another role in history, a revolutionary role; in the words of Marx, it is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one, it is the instrument with the aid of which social movement forces its way through and shatters the dead, fossilised political forms”.[8]  

Jens, 09/05/2013

Against Morsi, against the military: for class struggle!

In our previous article analysing the situation in Egypt, we wrote in our conclusion:

“capitalism has accumulated the means to destroy all human life on the planet. The collapse of social life and the rule of murderous armed gangs – that’s the road of barbarism indicated by what’s happening right now in Syria. The revolt of the exploited and the oppressed, their massive struggle in defence of human dignity, of a real future – that’s the promise of the revolts in Turkey and Brazil. Egypt stands at the crossroads of these two diametrically opposed choices, and in this sense it is a symbol of the dilemma facing the whole human species”[1].

The tragic events which have taken place and accelerated during the month of August in Egypt following the reactions to the army coup against former president Morsi, in particular the bloody repression of the Muslim Brotherhood which peaked on the 14th August, bear witness to the whole gravity of this historic situation and confirm this idea of a “crossroads” for the whole of humanity.

Getting caught up in the logic of civil war

The quagmire of decomposition, of economic and social crisis, the corruption and disastrous policies of the Morsi government (elected in June 2012) led the population back to the streets to express their discontent with growing poverty and insecurity. It was this deteriorating situation, aggravated by the political irrationality and endless provocations of the Muslim Brotherhood, which pushed the Egyptian army to carry out the coup of 3 July, deposing president Morsi from office. Parallel to this, the social agitation continued, stoking up very dangerous tensions and some bloody confrontations. This was nothing less than a juggernaut heading towards civil war. The only force capable of holding society together, the army, was compelled to step in and prevent it from breaking apart. The strongman of the hour is therefore the head of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. The latter was obliged to impose a policy of brutal repression, mainly using the civil police against the Muslim Brothers and the pro-Morsi forces. Throughout the summer, there was a growing number of clashes between the pro and anti- Morsi elements, resulting in a number of deaths, particularly among the Muslim Brotherhood. The pro-Morsi demonstrations and sit-ins, which gathered together men, women and children, were dispersed in a violent manner. The army assaults left over a thousand dead. Martial law, in the shape of a state of emergency and a curfew, was imposed in Cairo and 13 provinces. A number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and activists  (over 2000) were arrested, including the ‘supreme leader’ Mohammed Badie and many others, some of whom died in prison after an escape attempt.

Since then, the demonstrations, targets for the bullets of the police and the army,  have become less numerous. In maintaining order in this manner, the army and the police have won the support of the majority of the population who see the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists. This support for the army and the state, mixed up with a growing anti-Islamist feeling, but tainted with nationalism, can only weaken the proletariat, which risks being caught up in the negative logic of the situation. This is all the more true in that the rejection of religious fundamentalism is fed by the democratic mystification which still retains a great deal of strength.

Unlike the great demonstrations in Tahrir Square which led to the downfall of Mubarak and where the political presence of women was tolerated and where they were relatively protected, the terror reigning today has led to a spectacular moral regression, such as the collective rape of women in the middle of demonstrations, and the pogrom atmosphere against the Copts (hundreds of churches have been burned and a number of Copts have been killed).

As we wrote in our previous article:

“The working class in Egypt is a much more formidable force than it is in Libya or Syria. It has a long tradition of militant struggle against the state and its official trade union tentacles, going back at least as far as the 1970s. In 2006 and 2007 massive strikes radiated out from the highly concentrated textile sector, and this experience of open defiance of the regime subsequently fed into the movement of 2011, which was marked by a strong working class imprint, both in the tendencies towards self-organisation which appeared in Tahrir Square and the neighbourhoods, and in the wave of strikes which eventually convinced the ruling class to dump Mubarak. The Egyptian working class is by no means immune from the illusions in democracy which pervade the entire social movement, but neither will it be an easy task for the different cliques of the ruling class to persuade it to abandon its own interests and drag it into the cesspit of imperialist war”.

It’s also true that there have been some new expressions of the class struggle, notably in Mahalla where 24,000 workers came out on strike after half their wages were not paid[2]. There have also been strikes in Suez. And while some demonstrators have held up banners proclaiming ‘Neither Morsi nor the military’. But these rare voices have been stifled more and more, just as the courageous struggles of the workers have been increasingly isolated and thus weakened. While the situation has not reached the tragic level it has in Syria, it is becoming more and more difficult to break out of the deadly logic leading towards such barbaric outcomes.

The threat of violent chaos and instability in the region

The internal instability that has been aggravated by recent events is not taking shape in a secondary country of the region. Egypt is a turning point between North Africa and the Middle East, between Africa and Asia. It is the most populous country of the Muslim world and Africa and its capital, Cairo, the biggest metropolis of the continent. The country is part of a Sunni arc opposed to the Shiite countries, notably Syria-Lebanon and Iran, the sworn enemy of the US and Israel in the region. From the geographical point of view Egypt therefore occupies a major strategic position, in particular with regard to the interests of the USA, the world’s leading, but declining, imperialist power. During the Cold War, Egypt was an essential pawn guaranteeing the stability of the region to the benefit of the US. This advantage was consolidated with the Camp David Accords of 1979, sealing the rapprochement between Egypt and Israel and the US. The relative stability linked to the balance between the rival military blocs of east and west made it possible contain and tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood even though they were kept under constant state surveillance – in the epoch of Nasser they had been banned outright. Today the disappearance of the bloc discipline  and the development of every man for himself, of social decomposition, is accentuating centrifugal tendencies and especially the rise of radicalised factions like the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Mubarak had already seen as a ‘state with the state’[3].

The international context, above all the free for all between the big global powers, is now serving to exacerbate all these inherent tensions. In the Middle East itself, the growing cleavage between Qatar and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, which are close to the US despite their extreme Wahabite ideology, and Egypt on the other, is pouring oil on the fire. This is why the US can’t draw back from financing the Egyptian army (to the tune of at least 80%), even though it can see that the situation is getting more and more out of its control.

Capitalism has nothing to offer but poverty and chaos. Whatever bourgeois gang is in power, the situation of the mass of the population can only get worse. But contrary to what the bourgeoisie and its media would have us believe – that the failure in Egypt is indubitable proof that any uprising can only end up in religious obscurantism or in dictatorship - the historic perspective of the proletarian revolution, even if it’s not an immediate one, is the one and only alternative to barbarism. It is the responsibility of the proletariat to become aware of this and to express its class solidarity in order to offer a real perspective for all the struggles going on in the world. Only the decisive intervention of the world proletariat, above all its most experienced fractions in the old European industrial centres, can open the road to the future – world revolution

WH 28/8/13

The alternative to capitalism is published by Theory and Practice [534] whose website contains a broad range of texts from political currents such as the SPGB, left communism and situationism. The book contains essays by Adam Buick and John Crump which were first published in 1986 and 1987. It’s not presented as an official publication of the SPGB, although the book was sent to us for review by comrades who are members of the organisation. In any case, while Adam Buick is a longstanding member, John Crump left the SPGB in the 1970s, criticising the party’s parliamentary conception of revolution and arguing – as we shall see – that the SPGB was by no means the only authentically socialist organisation in the world, in opposition to the ‘hostility clause’ contained in its 1904 statement of principles[1]. Despite these criticisms, relations between Crump and the SPGB seem to have remained fraternal until his death in 2005, and it would also seem that one of the reasons why the Socialist Studies group split from the party (or as it sees it ‘reconstituted the SPGB’) in 1991[2] was the influence of Crump’s efforts to push the SPGB in certain untraditional directions.

The first part of the book is a straightforward account of what capitalism actually is, a task that it is as necessary as ever given the immense sea of confusion which surrounds the term. The idea that capitalism can be defined as individual enterprise or ownership, a conception shared both by the openly capitalist right and the allegedly anti-capitalist left, still has to be confronted and rejected: it was central to the ideology pervading the ‘Occupy’ movements of 2011, where notions of making the rich pay their taxes, abolishing bankers’ bonuses, defending public ownership etc were extremely tenacious despite the waning influence of the established organisations of the left within these movements. The essay was originally published as ‘State capitalism: the wages system under new management’ and the central aim of this return to basics is to show that state capitalism, whether in its Stalinist, social democratic or other political forms, remains capitalism because capitalism is not at root a form of property but a social relation, where the mass of producers are compelled to sell their labour power, and a capitalist minority (private or state) accumulate the value extracted from this inherently exploitative relationship. It then goes on to do what the SPGB has been doing for over a hundred years now: defend the fundamental principle that socialism (or communism, it rightly sees the terms as interchangeable) can only be based on the abolition of the wage relationship, and is a stateless, moneyless world community.

We have few criticisms of this section of the book, except to say that it has a somewhat timeless approach which doesn’t really explain why state capitalism has become the most important form of capitalist ‘management’ for the entire period of the SPGB’s history. For us, this can only be understood with reference to the passage of the capitalist mode of production from its ascendant to its decadent phase: in a system faced with near permanent war and economic crisis, and dangerous outbreaks of revolutionary class struggle, state capitalism - the state’s totalitarian grip on social and economic life - becomes a condition for ensuring the survival of the system. Although the SPGB has always rejected our conception of decadence, it holds some conceptions which are not far from it in practice, such as the idea that from the beginning of the 20th century capitalism had created the material conditions for abundance and thus for the socialist transformation, rendering capitalism ‘obsolete’. But the full implications of the system becoming a barrier to human progress have never been drawn by the SPGB, even if in conversations with individual members there is obviously a serious interest in this question.[3]

It also seems evident to us that there are many comrades in the SPGB who feel somewhat embarrassed by the idea that ‘electing a socialist majority’ to parliament could be at least part of the revolutionary process. We will come back to this, but for now we want to turn to two of the ideas contained in the essay by John Crump, who was, as we have already noted, a critic of the parliamentary road: the idea of the ’thin red line’, and the idea that socialism could be achieved without an intervening period of transition.  

The essay ‘The thin red line and non-market socialism in the 20th century’[4] complements the essay by Adam Buick in the sense that it shows that most of the officially accepted varieties of ‘socialism’ are actually proponents of state capitalism and can thus be seen as a left wing of capitalism. Crump terms them ‘social democratic’ and ‘Leninist’, the latter referring mainly to the Stalinist regimes of the eastern bloc which were still in existence at the time of writing. We reject the term Leninist to describe these regimes, since this equates the Stalinist parties which managed them with the revolutionary Bolshevik party of 1917, but we don’t intend to enter into that debate right now.

Overall, we find this essay to be based on a positive and constructive premise: that throughout the 20th century, a genuine vision of socialism has been maintained by a number of political currents which have shared five key points in opposition to the false conception of socialism propagated by the left wing of capital:  production for use; distribution according to need; voluntary labour; a human community; opposition to  capitalism as it manifests itself in all existing countries. He categorises these currents as follows: anarcho-communism; impossibilism (groups like the SPGB) ; council communism; Bordigism; situationism. These groups make up the real socialist tradition of the 20th century.

We could object to the categories or see the need to update them: there are plenty of anarcho-syndicalists today who fulfil the criteria; there’s no space for left communist groups like the ICC and ICT which are neither council communist nor Bordigist; situationism is hardly a political movement these days while on the other hand there are a number of groups which belong to the ‘communisation’ current which certainly fit the overall category. And we could add various other political animals to the ark.

We could also say that the criteria for marking off a genuine socialist/communist movement from the left wing of capital should lay much more emphasis on the last point, which seems to be added as an afterthought. This is essentially the question of internationalism, and it’s the only one which actually refers to present day political issues rather than the programme for the future. And we have seen in the past how this criterion, above all when concretised by the question of imperialist war, has been a true dividing line between loyalty to and betrayal of the socialist cause. 

However, as we said, the basic approach is a fruitful one. In opposition to the sectarianism of the ‘hostility’ clause, Crump is arguing that there something like a ‘proletarian political camp’ which shares certain common principles despite their many differences (such as the parliamentary question, the role of the vanguard party, etc). Crump even defends the Bordigists against the charge that their position on the party makes them indistinguishable from leftist groups like the Trotskyists. We don’t know where the SPGB officially stands on this idea of the ‘thin red line’. We do know that the Socialist Studies group specifically cited Crump’s views on this issue as a revision of the SPGB’s principles. The SPGB has always been prepared to debate with anyone, irrespective of their class nature. But this recognition of a wider milieu than the party itself demands something a bit more: it demands a recognition that we are comrades who should have an attitude of mutual solidarity towards each other, an attitude that is sadly missing in today’s proletarian political movement.

At the end of the essay Crump speculates that it might in future be necessary to add a sixth criterion: opposition to any notion of a transitional society. In his view socialism must be introduced straight away or not at all:

“One feature which capitalism and socialism have in common is their all-or-nothing quality, their inability to coexist in today's highly integrated world, which can provide an environment for only one or other of these rival global systems. In the circumstances of the twentieth century, the means of production must either function as capital throughout the world (in which case wage labour and capitalism persist internationally) or they must be commonly owned and democratically controlled at a global level (in which case they would be used to produce wealth for free, worldwide distribution). No halfway house between these two starkly opposed alternatives exists, and it is the impossibility of discovering any viable 'transitional' structures which ensures that the changeover from world capitalism to world socialism will have to take the form of a short, sharp rupture (a revolution), rather than an extended process of cumulative transformation....”

 Here Crump is very much on the same lines as the SPGB (and others such as the communisation tendency).

We agree with Crump and the SPGB that state capitalism is not a transitional stage towards socialism, and that the economic programme of a victorious working class does not consist of ‘accumulating’ value to the point where here is a sufficient level of productive capacity to make abundance possible. Capitalism has already developed a huge overcapacity and what is required is the transformation of the productive apparatus rather than its ‘development’ in any capitalist sense.

But what strikes one is how superficially optimistic Crump’s vision is. He admits that capitalism has bequeathed us a bit of a mess which will have to be cleared up, and that some temporary measures may be needed to deal with shortages, but at the same time we will almost overnight (a few months, or at most a few years) have eliminated markets, nations, and all the rest of it, and be living in a world of free access communism.

It seems like a vast underestimation:

-          Of the dire material consequences of capitalism surviving a hundred years into its epoch of senility, at the level of ecological damage, the waste and irrationality of a productive apparatus geared to competition and war;

-          Of the inevitable brutal reaction of the ruling class which will not recognise any legal niceties in attempting to suppress a revolutionary movement;

-          Of the near impossibility of the revolution being simultaneous in all countries at once, and thus the necessity to subordinate any economic measures taken in the area controlled by the working class to the number one priority of spreading the revolution internationally;

-          Of the ideological poison distilled not only by a hundred years of barbarism but also of thousands of years of class society, of alienated social relations which will constantly hold back humanity’s efforts to become self-aware and self-organised[5];

-          Of the inability of capitalism to create a world limited to bourgeoisie and proletarians, which means that the proletarian revolution will be faced with the task of integrating millions of individuals who belong to other non-exploiting strata and who will not have the same material interest in communism. Exchange will still exist with small property owners for example, hence the law of value will not vanish until all these social layers have been incorporated into the working class.

It’s of course true that to make the revolution in the first place the working class will have to confront and overcome many of the ideological obstacles which hold it down, as well as the physical barriers erected by the bourgeois state. But class consciousness is not something that is downloaded for good - it evolves through advances and retreats and there is no guarantee that even after the first victories of the revolution, initial difficulties in taking the communist programme forward will not result in regressions and even counter-revolutionary moods. The struggle for communist ideas will be every bit as intense after the revolution as before it. For all these reasons, a phase of transition between capitalism and communism will be inevitable.

This is a major discussion and we can’t hope to take it very far here[6]. But one thing does need to be said. Crump considers that the rejection of a transition period could be a sixth key point demarcating real socialists from apologists for capital, but we would suggest that some of the other differences among the ‘non-market socialists’ could become much more crucial well before the working class had assumed political power: in particular, we would expect that communists would be involved in a real political struggle against organisations and tendencies who argued that the councils should submit to this or that party ‘by right’ – or against those who argued that instead of being diametrically opposed to each other , councils and parliament can co-exist, a fatal error that helped bury the German revolution (and thus the Russian revolution as well) in 1918-19.

Amos

In this article, one of our sympathisers (who posts as "Fred" on the ICC forum), makes an analysis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein [545] and relates the symbolism of this classic novel to the struggles of the working class of the time and their impact on bourgeois ideology.

Everyone has heard of Frankenstein. He is an ugly and destructive monster, concocted by his mad -scientist creator from bits of dead bodies, and beloved by Hollywood film-makers and audiences alike. Anything nasty and unpleasant, like nuclear bombs, can be referred to as "frankensteinian" ; AIDS could appropriately have been called as such.   But there's a flaw in all of this. Frankenstein, in Mary Shelley's novel published in 1818, is not the name of the monster, or "the creature" as she preferred to name it, but of the rich bourgeois medical student who manufactured  it,  after bouts of grave robbing, and whose name was Victor Frankenstein. 

A recent viewing of the film Mary Shelley's Frankenstein gave this viewer a shock. The "creature" is played by an unrecognisable ......... so ugly is his face with its stitches.   In one scene, in the depths of a very hard winter, he secretly assists a poor peasant family in whose barn he  is hiding, by pulling turnips out of the frozen ground,  which they can no longer manage themselves so hard is the frost. The creature himself has a massive strength and great reserves of energy. He leaves the turnips by their door.  They in turn place food for "the spirit of the forest".  And then it struck me. The "creature", the product of the bourgeois Victor Frankenstein's efforts, is none other than the working class.  And the whole story can be read as a myth about the creation by the bourgeoisie of the labouring class, on whom it depends, and of which it is so fearful and sees as something necessary, yes, but unpleasant, ugly, frightening and uncivilized.  Have things changed since then? (NB. A little research on the web confirms that this "Marxist" interpretation of the story has been around for some time.) 

But, if this is the case, and i think it must be, the question arises as to whether Mary Shelley knew what she  was doing, or whether the imagery of the story emerged from a subconscious response.  Well we don't know of course.  The story is set significantly in a revolutionary age at the time of the French Revolution, which was before Mary's birth.   But there were certain dramatic events nearer home during the years leading up to her story (1812-1817) that might well have put an awareness of the emergence and growing strength of the working class into her mind.  These events involved the Luddites, who doubtless struck fear into the hearts of the bourgeoisie with their machine breaking, potential for rioting, burning down buildings, and even dressing up as women in the streets. What monstrous horror it all was! What was happening to respectable society?  Did the lower classes no longer know their place?  

The bourgeoisie’s fear of the lower orders

The historian Eric Hobsbawm has pointed out that Britain had more troops fighting against the Luddites than it had fighting Napoleon in the Iberian peninsula. Parliament in Britain had a law imposing death on machine breakers, so seriously were the Luddites taken.  Byron, the poet and friend of both  Mary and Percy Shelley, in whose house they had been staying when the question of writing a horror story had first come up (Byron producing a draft of a story about Vampires - to be developed later by others into the Dracula and Vampire film industry) was moved to sympathize with the Luddites, saying they deserved pity not punishment, so miserable was their plight  as their jobs were taken over by cheaper unskilled labour using the new machine technology.  

Communists today may regret that the Luddites resorted to rioting and destruction, as not being best the way forward for the growth of proletarian solidarity and consciousness. But as Hobsbawm has also noted: there was no question of hostility to machines as such.  "Wrecking was simply a technique of trade unionism in the period before and during the early phases of the industrial revolution."   Yet such a technique may not have augured well for the development of the movement.   And then there is the question of revenge.   To lose your job is no fun, and to lose it to machinery and cheap labour an insult needing a vengeful act. Or so it can seem.  The Luddites took revenge.  The "creature", Frankenstein's monster, also takes savage revenge,on his creator and his creator's relatives.  It is truly a horror story.  But then everything involving the bourgeoisie is a horror story is it not, and even more so today? 

In The Luddites 1811-1816  Marjie Bloy writes: 

“Stocking knitting was predominantly a domestic industry, the stockinger renting his frame from the master and working in his own 'shop' using thread given to him by the master; the finished items were handed back to the master to sell.  The frames were therefore scattered round the villages; it was easy for the Luddites to smash a frame and then disappear. Between March 1811 and February 1812 they smashed about a thousand machines at the cost of between £6,000 and £10,000. In April 1812 the Luddites burned the West Houghton mill in Lancashire. Samuel Whitbread, an MP, said of the event ‘As to the persons who had blackened their faces, and disfigured themselves for the purposes of concealment, and had attended the meeting on Deanmoor, near Manchester, it turned out that ten of them were spies sent out by the magistrates... These spies were the very ringleaders of the mischief, and incited the people to acts which they would not otherwise have thought of’. [Parliamentary Debates, lst Series, Vol. 23, Col.1000, (l8l2)] The authorities were incapable of stopping the attacks so the government felt obliged to put in place special legislation.  Machine-breaking had been made a capital offence in 1721; in 1811 a special Act was passed to secure the peace of Nottingham.  At the Nottingham Assizes in March 1812, seven Luddites were sentenced to transportation for life; two others were acquitted”.

It's worth noting here that "the blackened faces" contained government spies, an historic confirmation of the great duplicity of the ruling class and their penchant for Machiavellian strategies, even at the beginnings of the workers' movement. Did they dress as women too? 

So, to return to Mary Shelley and her frankensteinian creature. Given the public activities of the Luddites, she may well have seen in her "scientifically" produced creature at least a reflection  of the emerging and if-it-did-but-know-it all powerful working class.  As the author of the novel, or perhaps as a woman, she does not find her "creature" as obnoxious as do most of the other characters in the story.  As one commentator has said: the monster is the nicest person in the book. But then if he is "the working class" and most everyone else in it is bourgeois, and pursuing somewhat selfish interests as they do, then this is no surprise.  In the middle of the novel Shelley undertakes to educate her creature, allowing him to learn to speak and then undergo a ferocious course of reading, centered largely on Milton's Paradise Lost which introduces the idea of the creature being an Adam who really requires an Eve. Perhaps what he really required was an Edward had he but known it.  But this is a complication I will not be taking up here. The story ends in the frozen Arctic wastes, where both master and slave are cremated on the same funeral pyre. The creature by choice burned alive. 

Working class, or capital itself?

You might of course interpret this story in a different manner, and see the creature not as the embodiment of the working class but as the materialized form of capitalism itself: ugly, frightening and immensely powerful. Yet even in this latter understanding the creature remains the product, the creation of the bourgeois Frankenstein; as is capitalism itself the uncontrollable and unwitting creation of the bourgeoisie as a class.  Is such ambiguity the sign of good story? 

But why is the tale so full of fear?  The creature himself is fearsome to behold; strong and inclined to violence if frustrated.  What he seeks is love and understanding; a very human requirement, and not one we would associate with unfeeling and relentless capitalism the system.  Then there is science and the scientific endeavour. It is Frankenstein's ill-considered attitude to science which allows him to invent something he comes very much to regret.  Rather like later scientific inventions such as the nuclear bomb and chemical and biological weaponry.  Is science, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, another matter to be feared?  Is the bourgeoisie always an irresponsible and immature class only capable of acting responsibly in the realm of profit pursuit where of course anything goes?  

And then there are the Luddites.  Not mentioned as such in the novel, but then neither are the bourgeoisie or working class.   Is it from the Luddites that the initial fear underpinning  the story originated?  I speculate of course.  But the Luddites were not typically working class as we understand that class now. They were an early manifestation of working class protest.  You might even see them as having aspects of terrorism in their behaviour.  They blackened their faces, cross dressed, smashed machinery and burned down factories. They doubtless instilled fear in the bourgeoisie.  Who exactly were they? What did they want? Why did they behave in such a frightening and theatrical manner?  We might compare them in some ways in their activity, to the Mau Mau in Kenya, using fear, secrecy and terrorism in pursuit of their aims, and installing an  inexpressible anxiety in their bourgeois suppressors.  But the example doesn't properly hold - the Mau Mau being an aspect of the bourgeoisie themselves, looking for national liberation, which the Luddites were certainly not - only the form of protest may be compared. 

That the creature represents Napoleon, as seen by the English bourgeoisie, is not I think one we can go along with.  Pulling turnips, living with peasants, learning to read surreptitiously, these are not things easily associated with Bony, though he was of course, through and through, a manufactured creature of the  bourgeoisie himself! 

Fred

The rise in the use of food banks has reached huge proportions. The food banks, originally intended for the most destitute within society, are starting to be used across all sectors of the working class, often including those parts who might have previously seen themselves as belonging to the ‘middle class’. The figures produced by the Trussel Trust (a charitable organisation) are revealing: in Britain in every town and city we have seen the opening up of food banks, and the number of people needing the banks to feed themselves and their families has gone up as follows:

It’s not just in Britain where we’ve seen populations resorting to food banks. Over this past year in Greece and Spain we have seen the same situation: workers being forced into queuing for food hand-outs in order to live. However, these are economies which are openly bankrupt and these are emergency measures, are they not? But even in a much more prosperous country and economy such as Canada we are seeing the same thing:

 “Last year Mr. De Schutter (a UN official) completed an 11 day mission to Canada, his first to a developed country. He reported ‘very desperate conditions’ in a country where 850,000 rely on food banks and condemned the Canadian government’s ‘self-righteous’ failure to acknowledge the scale of the problem on its doorstep” (‘UN Official alarmed by Food Banks in UK’, Independent 17.02.13) 

Chronic and society-wide hunger used to be associated with the countries of the ‘Third World’, but it’s now spreading in the bastions of the ‘Rich World’ as well. It’s the same the whole world over under austerity.

Melmoth 1/9/2013

We publish below an appeal by the Hungarian bookshop Gondolkodó Autonóm Antikvárium that we received with the request to support them and to spread the appeal. The ICC has known and appreciated this bookshop for more than 15 years. Our press is available at this address, as well as a lot of other internationalist publications in different languages. We have also been able to take part in different discussions organised in Budapest by the bookshop.[1] In fact it is one of the rare bookshops with this proletarian (and not left bourgeois) focus in the East Central European region, even though we don’t know if it is the only one which has been functioning continuously for many years as the comrades write in their appeal.

A bookshop can be a place for distributing revolutionary positions and – even more important – for discussions about them in search for political clarification and theoretical coherence. The comrades of Gondolkodó Autonomous Bookshop and the ICC agree on the necessity to overcome the capitalist mode of production and national states, even if we have divergences about other issues, namely about the role of the revolutionaries and how to organize as such. However this is not an impediment to spreading this solidarity appeal but a stimulus for further debate – in Budapest or elsewhere, on the internet or in personal meetings.

ICC, 26/07/13

Solidarity appeal for the renovation of Gondolkodó Autonóm Antikvárium (Gondolkodó Autonomous Bookshop) 2013 Summer.

The Gondolkodó Autonomous Bookshop is the only workers’ movement distribution place, library and meeting-place in the East Central European region (namely in Hungary) which has been functioning continuously for many years (now for 20 years). Now this place must be renovated because the walls are wet and mouldy, the mortar has been falling, the sets of shelves are rickety, the drainpipe is often clogged up etc. The condition of the library has been worsening gradually and also the distribution of publications is harder under these circumstances.

Since we can not pay for all the costs of the general renovation we ask for your financial help in order that we could do the renovation during the summer. Please support this aim according to your possibilities (if you can send 10 Euros then do it, but if you have more money you can send a bigger amount).

Comrades, activists and sympathisers, please spread our solidarity appeal and support us!

Thanks for your help in the name of internationalist proletarian solidarity!

GONDOLKODÓ AUTONOMOUS BOOKSHOP

Hungary- Bp-1012 . Logodi Utca 51

website : gondolkodo.mypressonline.com [548]

e-mail: [email protected] [549]

https://www.facebook.com/gondolkodo.antikvarium [550]

Raiffeisen BANK

Name : Tütö László 

Iban : HU 3912 0101 5401 3152 1900 2000 06 

Swift code : UBRTHUHB

The closeness of the vote expressed just how deeply conflicted the British ruling class is, and not only over Syria but its whole imperialist strategy.

Once British imperialism had its empire. Following the loss of Empire as the result of two world wars, it became the USA's loyal lieutenant during the Cold War. This meant that despite being a second rate military power it could have a place at the top table, or as parts of the ruling class like to say: punch above its weight.

With the disappearance of the old bloc system British imperialism has been faced with the increasingly complex problem of how best to defend its own interests. Should it simply remain loyal to the USA? Move more towards Europe, or somehow try to maintain an independent course adapting itself to challenges as they arrived? This strategic choice has become increasingly problematic as the world has sunk deeper and deeper into evermore chaotic international relations. In 1991 it was a pretty easy decision for the British ruling class to go along with the USA in attacking Iraq. There were parts of the ruling class that warned about the dangers of the new world order. British imperialism however did not come out of this war too badly. Only 12 years later however the decision to back the US in the 2nd Gulf war was more problematic because parts of the ruling class feared the chaos that would follow and the danger of linking the national interest so closely to that of the US. Blair and the pro-US fraction that he represented drove through the decision however, using every devious trick in the book to get support. However, far from furthering the national interest it suffered a bitter humiliation as Iraq, and Afghanistan, sunk into chaos and British armed forces were exposed as being dependent upon the US. Blair, and thus the British ruling class, became linked with George W Bush and a visibly declining US imperialism. Supporting the US has become extremely costly.

On the other hand, not supporting US military action means accepting not being able to punch above one’s weight, and being a secondary power. Also where do you turn for alliances? There are those who say closer relations with Europe are the way forwards, but this increasingly means a complex game of alliances against the rising power of German imperialism. The Cameron team with the backing of much of the ruling class had been pursuing a policy of seeking to build relations with the growing powers such as India, Brazil, Turkey, as well as commercial relations with China.

However, all the relations that the British bourgeoisie build in Europe and beyond are increasingly unstable because of its increasing inability to use its close relations with the US to counter-weigh the actions of its rivals.

It is in this context that we have to understand the events around the vote on Syria. The divisions went across party lines and reflected the deeper division in the whole ruling class.

To go along meant being pulled further into the consequences of the US declining status ie desperate military action in Syria in order to try and display US military superiority but at the possible cost of being sucked into another war. Former military leaders openly stated their opposition to becoming involved: “A former head of the navy, Lord West, and a former head of the army, Lord Dannatt, reflected widespread criticism within the military and defence circles by pouring scorn on claims by ministers that military strikes did not mean the UK or the US were taking sides in the civil war. ‘As regards a limited strike, this was always an impossible notion,’ said Dannatt. ‘Any use of explosive ordnance by the west, for whatever purpose, would have committed us to participation in the Syrian civil war irrevocably’.” (The Guardian, 31.8.2013). The historical significance of not supporting the US was clearly stated by a former adviser to the Foreign and Defence secretaries, Crispin Blunt, who said “he hoped the vote would relieve Britain of its ‘imperial pretension’ and stop it trying to punch above its weight on the world stage” (ibid).

It was the loss of this role on the world stage that concerned those in favour of supporting the US’s action. This was made clear by Michael Clarke, the director general of the Royal United Services Institute (one of the British imperialism’s main think tanks): “...there is a danger it could become a tipping point where the UK falls into strategic irrelevance in US eyes. We can all be friendly, well respected, kith and kin, etc -like the Dutch- but just not be taken seriously as a strategically significant player in security matters” (ibid).

The events around the US’s announcement that it was going to strike Syria have thus placed the British ruling class on the rack.

The US however, also suffered through these events. Its international authority was further undermined by its inability to get the support of its partner in the ‘special relationship’. French imperialism may now be the US’s “oldest ally” but it is clear to everyone that John Kerry only said that to insult the British ruling class. For US imperialism having to rely on a country which only a few years ago it was pouring scorn on for not supporting the 2nd Gulf War, is not a sign of strength but historical weakness.

The US will not forgive British imperialism easily. Obama’s refusal to hold a meeting with Cameron at the G20 meeting in Russia was a very public snub, which very visibly demonstrated the price of not supporting them. The other major imperialist powers will also take note of this.

This decision not to back the US whilst being fundamentally a matter of how best to defend the national interest, also reflected a self-inflicted wound. The blatant manipulation of public opinion over the 2nd Gulf war, Blair’s talk about Weapons of Mass Destruction etc, and the trouble and tragedy that unfolded in Iraq afterwards, badly dented confidence in politicians. This meant that the public was highly sceptical of any claims made by the government. The vote against military action has certainly boosted the idea that parliament has some power, and thus strengthened democratic illusions. If the most powerful parts of the ruling class had wanted to support the US, they would have done so but it would have been at the cost of a further weakening of any confidence in the ruling class.

Cameron et al may have wanted to use the US insistence on action as a means to push the rest of the ruling class to support such action and thus the special relationship, but it is clear that important parts of the ruling class refused to go along with this. This is an event of historical importance because it expresses a further step in the decline of British imperialism. A decline that will exacerbate the divisions in the ruling class, and push it to take up more military actions where it can in order to make a display of its power, no matter how limited. There may be a resurgence of the pro-US fractions as this historical weakness becomes clearer, but the US will be extremely wary of the British ruling class. British imperialism is being pushed further onto the side lines. 

Phil, 6.9.13

The hideous spectacle of the children’s bodies exhibited after the chemical attacks of 21 August on the outskirts of Damascus didn’t truly move the world leaders, whose hypocritical reactions were dictated solely by their imperialist interests. The use of gas by both sides during the First World War, the unleashing of chemical agents in Vietnam and of the atomic bomb against Japan are all proof that our wonderful democracies have never hesitated to resort to the most murderous weapons. The declarations coming from the government offices are all the more hypocritical because the bombing and massacre of the Syrian population, the over 100,000 deaths since the war began, the flight of millions of refugees fleeing the carnage have, up till now, not been a ‘red line’ as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned. 

An aggravation of imperialist tensions

It’s possible that the use of chemical weapons was a Syrian/Russian provocation (Assad had been warned several times by Obama in 2012 that he must not cross this ‘red line’) in the direction of rival powers, principally the USA and France. But in any case the ‘red line’ was never more than more than a highly mediatised pretext to prepare ‘public opinion’ for an eventual military intervention. In the face of the growing tragedy, all the comings and goings between the various states are no more than a jockeying for imperialist interests in which the populations on the ground are of no importance . And it’s precisely the relations between the rival powers which explain the length of the conflict and the atrocious suffering of the populations: by comparison, other regimes swept away by the ‘Arab spring’, like Libya, didn’t last anything as long because it was less crucial as a focus for inter-imperialist rivalries.

Russia scored a diplomatic coup when it proposed placing Syria’s chemical weapons under “international control”; this produced a flurry of further diplomatic initiatives by its rivals, which have not hidden the impotence of the latter, and of the USA in particular. But whatever the outcome of this latest crisis and the decisions taken in government ministries, and whether or not there is a direct military intervention in Syria, we are seeing a spectacular rise in warlike tensions against a background of mounting chaos, of an increasingly uncontrollable situation which has made the clash of arms more and more widespread. The use of chemical weapons on several occasions already, the extension of the conflict to Lebanon, the presence of all kinds of vultures in the region, from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to Turkey and Iran, whose involvement in the conflict is a particular source of anxiety for Israel, are all evidence that the conflict reaches well beyond the borders of Syria. Even more significant is the presence of the bigger imperialist powers, which illustrates the level reached by imperialist rivalries since the end of the Cold War. Thus, for the first time since 1989, we are seeing a major political confrontation between the old bloc leaders, the USA and Russia. Although very much weakened by the disintegration of the eastern bloc and of the USSR, Russia has been going through a revival, after carrying out a scorched earth policy in Chechnya, Georgia and the Caucasus during the 1990s. For Russia, Syria is vital for ensuring its presence in the region, holding on to its strategic links with Iran, restricting the influence of the Sunni Muslim republics on Russia’s southern borders, and maintaining a port to the Mediterranean.

This sharpening of tensions can also be measured by the fact that China is much more openly opposing the US than in the past. Although during the period of the blocs China moved very far from Russian influence, having been neutralised by the American camp following the bargain struck with Nixon over the war in Vietnam, it is now becoming a major opponent which is worrying the USA more and more. With its meteoric rise on the economic level, China has also been advancing its imperialist interests in Africa, the Far East, and Iran, a primary aim being to ensure its access to energy. As a late arrival on the scene it is a major factor in the further destabilisation of imperialist relations.

The strengthening of these two powers has been possible, above all, because of the increasingly evident weakening and isolation of the USA, whose attempts to play the role of world cop have met with utter failure in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can get some idea of how difficult things have become for the US by comparing its ‘intervention’ in Syria with the role it played in the first war against Iraq, back in 1991. Using Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait as a pretext for a huge display of its military superiority, it succeeded in building a military ‘Coalition’ involving not only a number of Arab countries, but also the principal members of the western bloc which were already tempted to break free of the USA’s grip following the disintegration of the eastern bloc. Germany and Japan, though not involved militarily, bankrolled the adventure while Britain and France were directly ‘called up’ for the fighting. Gorbachev’s ailing USSR did nothing to stand in America’s path. Just over a decade later, with the second invasion of Iraq, America had to deal with active diplomatic opposition from Germany, France and Russia.   And while in both in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003, America could count on the loyal support, diplomatic and military, of Britain, the latter’s defection from the planned military intervention in Syria was key to the Obama administration’s decision to call off the intervention and to listen to the diplomatic option put forward by Moscow. The vote in the Commons against Cameron’s proposal to support military intervention is testimony to deep divisions in the British bourgeoisie resulting from the country’s involvement in the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq[1], but above all it is a measure of the weakening of US influence. The sudden discovery that France, which continued to support the push to intervene, is America’s “oldest ally” should not give rise to any illusion that France is going to take on the role of loyal lieutenant which Britain has (notwithstanding its own ambitions to seek a more independent role) played in most of the USA’s imperialist enterprises since the end of the Cold War.  The alliance between the US and France is much more circumstantial and thus unreliable as far as the US is concerned. To this we can add the discretely discordant notes coming from Germany, whose quiet rapprochement with Russia is another concern for Washington. 

At the time of the first Gulf war in 1991, President George Bush Senior promised a New World Order, with the US Marshall keeping things nice and peaceful. What we have actually seen is a growing imperialist free for all, dragging the world towards barbarism and chaos.   

The strategic importance of Syria

In the context of this new battleground, Syria is a very important strategic prize. Modern Syria emerged early in the 20th century with the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. During the First World War, Britain mobilised Syrian troops with the promise that the country would be granted independence after the war was won. Britain’s aim was of course to maintain its control of the region. But already in 1916, following the secret Sykes/Picot accords, Britain ceded control of Syria to France. The main aim of this agreement was to block the ambitions of Germany, which had already envisaged the construction of the Baghdad railway in order to “bring Constantinople and the military strongholds of the Turkish Empire in Asia Minor into direct connection with Syria and the provinces on the Euphrates and on the Tigris”[2]  Today, because of the instability of the traditional maritime routes through the Persian Gulf, Syria has become one of the terrestrial routes for the transport of hydrocarbons. Opening onto the Mediterranean through a corridor on the Levant (which is also used for the transfer of weapons from Russia) and to the east towards the oil-producing countries, this will be an increasingly important factor in the politics of the region.

The tensions developing today are this to a large extent linked to Syria’s historic importance in the region. They are also fuelled by the role played by Israel, whose threats against Syria and Iran[3] are a further source of disquiet for the large imperialist powers. Regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are deeply involved, being the main purveyors of arms to the ‘rebels’, while Turkey is also seeking to defend its interests by playing on the presence of a Kurdish minority in northern Syria.

And there is also a major polarisation around the Shia regime in Iran, which controls the strategic oil route through the Straits of Hormuz. This is intimately linked to the naval build up in the area, particularly of the US fleet. It also explains Iran’s commitment to its nuclear programme, which Putin provocatively supports, calling for “aid for the construction of a nuclear power station”.

Towards unprecedented chaos

Up till now, the blood-soaked Assad regime has been seen by all the imperialist powers as one that ensures a certain stability and predictability, as something less worse than what might take its place. Today, if the Syrian opposition ended up on top, there’s no doubt that there would be a chain reaction leading to incredible chaos and all kinds of unpredictable scenarios. The Free Syrian Army is a real patchwork and there is no truly united opposition. This weak political conglomeration, despite the discrete support of pro-American and pro-European forces, who have been ensuring the flow of arms without any ability to control their circulation, has been infiltrated, or at perhaps flanked by jihadi terrorist groups, many of whom have come from outside Syria and are acting for their own interests like the warlords who flourish in Africa today. There is more or less zero possibility of the western powers being able to rely on a real opposition that can offer an alternative to the regime.

This is a wider phenomenon which we can see in all the other Arab countries that were faced with similar events during the Arab Spring: no real bourgeois opposition able to offer a ‘democratic alternative’ and a minimum of stability. All these regimes have only been able to survive thanks to the strength of the army, which has tried to hold together the numerous clans of the ruling class and prevent society from falling apart. We saw it in Libya and more recently in Egypt following the army coup d’État against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. All this is the expression of a real impasse, typical of capitalist decadence and especially of its final phase of decomposition, where all that can be offered during an economic crisis is poverty, the brute force of the army, repression and bloodletting.

And this situation is all the more disquieting because it is feeding religious divisions which in this part of the world are among the sharpest: divisions between Christians and Muslims, Shia and Sunni Muslims, between Muslims and Jews, between Muslims and Druze, etc. Without being directly at the root of the conflicts in the region, these fractures are deepening the hatreds and hostilities of a society which has no future. This is also a region which in past has been marked by numerous genocides, as in Armenia, by the expulsion of populations, by colonial massacres which have left a legacy of hatred that in turn serves as the source of new massacres. Syria in particular is a focus for these divisions (Alawite/Sunni, Muslim/Christian, etc) and under the cover of war there have been innumerable cases of pogroms against this or that community, with the influx of fanatical jihadis, some backed by Saudi Arabia, making the situation worse than ever.

The catastrophe is all the more serious in that the US, a military super-power in decline, has been spearheading the descent into chaos. It has gone from world cop to pyromaniac fireman. In 2008, when Obama triumphed over Bush, it was in no small measure due to his image as an alternative to the unpopular warmonger Bush. But now the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama has shown himself to be no less of a warmonger, despite his talents as a politician, something his predecessor didn’t possess. Obama is more and more losing credibility. He has to deal with public opinion which is increasingly opposed to war, increasingly affected by the Vietnam syndrome, while at the same time facing an unbearable economic crisis which makes it more and more difficult to lavish money on military crusades. For the moment, the USA’s retreat from punishing the Assad regime with military strikes can be explained by invoking very real geo-strategic difficulties, but this has also led Washington into resorting to new contortions, such as the hypocritical and ridiculous distinction between “chemical weapons” and “weapons which only use chemical components”. Some nuance!

With the increasing number of quagmires, the mystifications which served their purpose in justifying the military crusades of the 90s – “clean war”, “humanitarian intervention” etc  - have lost their impact. The USA is facing a real dilemma which is undermining its credibility with its allies, especially Israel, which has become more and critical of the Americans. The dilemma is this: either the US does nothing, and this can only embolden its rivals and encourage new provocations on their part; or they strike out and his only increases hostility and resentment towards them. What is certain is that like all the other imperialist powers, they can’t escape the logic of militarism. Sooner or later, they can’t keep out of new military campaigns.

The only alternative: socialism or barbarism

The infernal spiral of these military conflicts once again highlights the responsibility of the international proletariat: even if it is not in a position to have an immediate effect on the growing military barbarism, it is still the only historic force that can put an end to his barbarism through its revolutionary struggle. Since the beginning of the events, and above all from the moment when the open armed conflict began to overwhelm it, the weakness of the proletariat in Syria has meant that it is not able to respond to the war on its own class terrain.  As we have already pointed out,    “the fact that the manifestation of the ‘Arab Spring’ in Syria has resulted not in the least gain for the exploited and oppressed masses but in a war which has left over 100,000 dead is a sinister illustration of the weakness of the working class in this country – the only force which can form a barrier to military barbarism. And this situation also applies, even if in less tragic forms, to the other Arab countries where the fall of the old dictators has resulted in the seizure of power by the most retrograde sectors of the bourgeoisie, represented by the Islamists in Egypt or Turkey, or in utter chaos, as in Libya”[4]. 

Today, the course of events fully confirms the perspective which Rosa Luxemburg put forward in The Junius Pamphlet:

“Friedrich Engels once said: ‘Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.’ What does “regression into barbarism” mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then when the period of unlimited wars begins it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war. This is a dilemma of world history, an either/or; the scales are wavering before the decision of the class-conscious proletariat. The future of civilization and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales”.

WH, September 2013

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Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, the massacres keep spreading. The horror of capitalism accelerates, deaths pile up. A continuous carnage that no one seems able to stop. Capitalism in utter decomposition is dragging the world into generalised barbarism. The use of chemical weapons as in Syria today is unfortunately only one of the instruments of death among many others. But there is nothing inevitable about this perspective, which left to itself will result in the destruction of humanity. The world proletariat cannot remain indifferent in the face of all these wars and massacres. Only the proletariat, the revolutionary class of our epoch, can put an end to this nightmare. More than ever humanity is faced with one choice: communism or barbarism.

The Syrian population is being sacrificed on the altar of imperialism

On Monday 21 August an attack with chemical weapons left hundreds dead in an area close to Damascus. On the internet, on TV screens and the newspapers there were unbearable images of men, women and children in agony. The bourgeoisie, without any scruple, has seized on this human tragedy to advance its sordid interests. The regime of Bashar al Assad, a butcher among butchers, has, we are told, crossed a red line: you can use any weapons to slaughter people, but not chemical ones. These are ‘dirty’ weapons, as opposed to the ‘clean’ ones like conventional bombs and mortars or even the atomic bombs the Americans dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945. But the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie has no limits. Since the First World War of 1914-18 where poison gas was used massively for the first time, killing several hundred thousand people, chemical weapons have been continuously perfected and used. The superficial agreements about their non-utilisation, especially after the two world wars and in the 1980s, were just empty declarations, which were not meant to be applied[1]. And many theatres of war since this time have seen these kinds of weapons being used. In North Yemen between 1962 and 1967, Egypt used mustard gas without restraint. In the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, towns like Hallabja were bombarded with chemical weapons, leaving over 5000 dead, under the benevolent gaze of the ‘international community’ of the US, France and all the members of the UN! But they are not just the speciality of small imperialist countries or dictators like Assad or Saddam Hussein, as the bourgeoisie would like us to believe. The most massive use of chemical weapons, alongside napalm, was carried out by the USA during the Vietnam war. Vast amounts of herbicide contaminated with dioxin were used to destroy rice plantations and forests in order to reduce the population and the Vietcong to famine. This scorched earth policy, this deliberate desertification, was the work of American capital in Vietnam, the same which today, alongside supporters like France, is getting ready to intervene in Syria, allegedly to defend the population. Since the start of this war in Syria, there have been over 100,000 deaths and at least a million refugees fleeing to surrounding countries. Looking past the discourse being poured out by the bourgeois media, the working class has to know the real causes behind this imperialist war in Syria.

Syria: it’s decadent capitalism which is responsible

Syria is currently at the heart of the imperialist tensions and conflicts which are extending from North Africa to Pakistan. If the Syrian bourgeoisie is tearing itself apart inside a country which is now in ruins, it has been able to rely on the insatiable appetites of a whole number of imperialist powers. In this region, Iran, Hezbollah from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey are all more or less directly involved in this bloody conflict. The most powerful imperialisms in the world are also defending their squalid interests. Russia, China, France, Britain and the USA are playing their part in the continuation of this war and its extension across the region. Faced with their growing incapacity to control the situation, they are more and more just sowing death and destruction, according to the old scorched earth policy (‘if I can’t dominate this region, I will set it on fire’).

During the Cold War, the period which went officially from 1947 to 1991 and the fall of the USSR, two blocs confronted each other, led by Russia and the USA respectively. These two superpowers directed their ‘allies’ or ‘satellites’ with an iron hand, forcing them to fall in line in the face of the enemy ogre. This ‘world order’ was based on the discipline of the bloc. It was a historical period that was full of danger for humanity, because if the working class had not been able to resist, even passively, the ideological march towards war, a third world conflagration would have been possible. Since the collapse of the USSR, there are no longer two blocs, no more threat of a third world war. The discipline of the blocs is in pieces. Each nation is playing its own card; imperialist alliances are increasingly ephemeral and circumstantial. As a result conflicts are multiplying and in the end no bourgeoisie can control it. This is chaos, the growing decomposition of society.

Thus the accelerating weakness of the world’s leading imperialist power, the US, is an active factor in the whole Middle East plunging into barbarism. Immediately afterthe chemical attack on the suburbs of Damascus, the British and French bourgeoisie, followed much more timidly by the American bourgeoisie, declared loudly that such a crime could not go unpunished. A military response was imminent and it would be proportionate to the crime. The problem is that the American bourgeoisie and other western bourgeoisies have been through a serious reverse in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries which are also in a total mess. How could they intervene in Syria without finding themselves in the same situation? This has resulted in some very significant foreign policy differences within the ruling class, and the recent rejection of Cameron’s call for military action in the UK parliament was a graphic expression of these divisions. On top of this, these bourgeoisies also had to deal with what they call public opinion. The population of the west doesn’t want this intervention. The majority no longer believe the lies of their own bourgeoisies. The unpopularity of this proposed intervention, even in the form of limited bombings, has posed a problem for the ruling class in the west.

The British bourgeoisie has thus had to renounce its initial bellicose declarations and move away from the path of military intervention. This expressesthe fact that all the bourgeoisie’s solutions are bad ones: either it doesn’t intervene (as Britain has just decided to do) and this is then a big statement of weakness; or it does intervene (as the US and France are still planning to do) and they risk stirring up more chaos, more instability and incontrollable imperialist tensions.

Only the proletariat can put an end to this barbarism

The proletariat cannot remain indifferent to all this barbarism. It is the exploited who are the main victims of the imperialist cliques. Whether it’s Shia, Sunni, secular, or Christian being massacred, it makes no difference. There is a natural and healthy human reaction to want to do something about this right away, to stop these abominable crimes. It is this sentiment which the grand democracies are trying to exploit, justifying their warlike adventures in the name of ‘humanitarian’ causes. And each time the world situationgets worse. This is clearly a trap.

The only way that we can express real solidarity towards all the victims of decaying capitalism is to overthrow the system which produces all these horrors. Such a change can’t happen overnight. But if the road towards it is long and difficult, it’s the only one that can lead to a world without wars and countries, without poverty and exploitation.

The working class has no national flag to defend. The country where it lives is the place of its exploitation, and in some parts of the world, the place of its death at the hands of imperialism. The working class has a responsibility to oppose bourgeois nationalism with its own internationalism. This is not an impossibility. We have to remember that the First World War was brought to an end not by the good will of the belligerents, or by the defeat of Germany. It was ended by the proletarian revolution.

Tino 31/8/2013

For several weeks there has been such a torrent of unexpected good news about the British economy that our rulers have become quite excited. It has given a shot in the arm to the markets, because of an expectation of an earlier than predicted rise in interest rates. And it has helped push the IMF to a humbling re-appraisal of the criticisms it has previously made of the British government’s economic policy. In fact the IMF is now praising the British government’s approach to economic management as the light of the world, replacing the old fashioned idea that China and the other emerging countries offered hope to us all.

The bourgeois media’s commentary on this alleged recovery has been quite informative, and we can largely let them tell the story in their own words. Unfortunately for the bourgeoisie, it’s a recovery that turns out not to have lasted very long. 

When Cameron and Osborne came to power, they gave the impression that a short but severe bout of austerity measures would be sufficient to rein in the deficit and pave the way to recovery in fairly short order. Therefore, although austerity is not enjoyable in itself, the rewards would soon be available and effectively cancel out the necessary reductions in living standards. As the bourgeoisie themselves admit, the reality has been that they have not managed to steer the economy even back to the level of economic output that prevailed prior to the financial crisis of 2007. An important consideration that partially accounts for the governing team in particular now talking confidently about ‘recovery’ is that they could foresee getting back to that level of output prior to the next election. That would have given them enough to suggest that the original promises of the government were not completely hollow.

Except during the admittedly extended periods when it was actually in recession, there has not been an absolute lack of good news about the British economy since the outbreak of the financial crisis. The difficulty for the bourgeoisie in creating a convincing story of good news about the economy is that each piece of good news has been followed almost straight away by bad news. If industrial output was up, services were down, and vice versa. If exports were up, consumer demand was down. If employment was up, unemployment (surprisingly) was not down. And so on, along those lines, the evidence has gone for years.

The difference over recent weeks was a series of reports on different aspects of the economic situation that all tended to exceed the rather cautious expectations of forecasters who were used to getting their fingers burnt by over-optimistic predictions. As the Financial Times said on September 5th:

“Expert economic opinion regularly bends with the wind. Rarely has it been blown so far so quickly. Talk of a ‘flatlining’ economy was universal until the spring, when fears of a ‘triple-dip’ (recession) disappeared. But after a string of good economic figures and the release of an extraordinarily strong services sector business survey yesterday, economists rushed to judge that growth was running at boom-time rates. …

If the economy is growing at 1 per cent this quarter  ... that rate of growth is roughly the pace of former rapid recoveries from recession. If sustained, output would finally climb back above the level of its previous peak (before the financial crash) in spring 2014, a year before the general election.…

Civil servants and central bankers know that the speed of recovery says little about its breadth or durability and are still struggling to explain the turnaround. Before they swap caution for confidence, they will want to take stock of the wider picture which remains mixed.”

Without going through the FT’s retailing of the mixed evidence, we can skip to the following day, September 6th when the run of good headline news fell apart:

“A damper was put on rapid recovery hopes today with disappointing industrial production figures and a widening of Britain’s stubbornly high trade deficit in July.

Industrial output was flat over the month after a healthy 1.1% expansion in June. Economists had expected production to edge up slightly. The trade in goods deficit rose to £9.8 billion, considerably larger than City traders’ forecasts of 8.15 billion.

The monthly gap was higher than the £7.3 billion deficit recorded in July 2012. There were also signs of problems in emerging markets beginning to affect British firms, with export to non-European countries plunging by almost 16%.” (from The Evening Standard)

The fact that “problems in emerging markets” are affecting the hopes of the bourgeoisie for a broadly based recovery in the British economy should give the International Monetary Fund pause for thought. Again we can refer to an article in the FT of September 5th:

“Turmoil in emerging markets this summer has forced the IMF into a humbling series of U-turns over its global assessments.

In a confidential note seen by The Financial Times, the IMF has dropped its view of emerging economies as the dynamic engine of the world economy, instead noting that ‘momentum is projected to come mainly from advanced economies where output is expected to accelerate’.”

This is very sound, except for the last point. Presumably we are due to hear much less, at least from the IMF, about China, the Brics and ‘globalisation’ being the light of the world in economic terms. That’s a relief! As the ICC has always pointed out, the basic foundations of globalisation, of a world economy, had already been achieved by the end of the ascendant period of capitalism, i.e. by the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was precisely at this point that the system entered into its historic crisis. 

The bourgeoisie have essentially come to use the term globalisation to express their (ill-founded) hope that huge dynamic growth in emerging economies and China in particular will somehow succour the stagnating economies of the west. But since the rise of China, in particular, underlines precisely how uncompetitive the western economies are, it is difficult to follow this line of reasoning. Of course, the west has sold huge volumes of raw materials to China and also sophisticated engineering (even Britain sells in the latter category to China).  But the overall trade deficit of the west with China shows the real balance of economic power and the decline of the older industrial economies.

At the same time, countries like China are highly dependent on the western countries as markets for the mass of commodities that they have been churning out at a frenetic rate thanks to the brutal exploitation of their workforce. With the recession in the west, China and the other Brics are now beginning to falter in their turn.

Faced with this rather worrying scenario, the IMF is proposing now to institute British economic management as the new beacon of the world to replace China! This is quite a turnaround:

“In April, Olivier Blanchard, IMF chief economist, singled out the UK as a country that should lighten up on austerity, but the fund now recommends that countries follow the British policy of ‘achieving structural fiscal targets and allowing automatic stabilisers to play freely’.” (FT)

But, as The Evening Standard commentators note, discussing the retardation in Britain’s export performance, the “problems in emerging markets” are very likely to undermine the objective of the British bourgeoisie to achieve a balanced and durable recovery. The fact that the world economy is indeed interconnected is not some kind of automatic solution to the crisis as so many bourgeois commentators placidly assume. On the contrary, it is the guarantee that all the components of the capitalist system are doomed to sink together. 

Hardin, 6.9.13

There is nothing really new about revelations that our rulers are a ruthless, murderous, Machiavellian, conspiratorial class. It would be naive for revolutionaries to think otherwise because this would directly lead to fostering illusions in the democratic state and the idea that this state would abide by the rules or operate fairly. In general, throughout history, the workers’ movement has tended to underestimate the Machiavellianism of the bourgeoisie and it has paid a great price for doing so. The enormous reach and depth of state surveillance that has recently been unmasked is thus not an exception and not really a scandal, but the true face of a capitalist society which is driven by the cancers of militarism, terrorism (for the most part fostered directly and indirectly by the major powers) and competition as well as the imperative need to use its spies, police and secret agencies as weapons of repression and oppression against the working class or any elements that come up against the system. This is just as true of the velvet-glove democracies as of the iron-fist totalitarian regimes - they are all expressions of the dictatorship of capital and they provide themselves with the tools to maintain that dictatorship, of which spying is just a part. Behind all the fuss about state surveillance, despite all the outrage and protest from left to right, these are the very principles of capitalist society being put to work and the outrage tends to cover up this reality. Spying has always been an important tool in class societies, all the more so in capitalist society and particularly a capitalist society in its decadent phase where the size and intensity of the state’s espionage machine reaches new extents and depths.

The basis and continuity of capitalism’s spying game

There are at least three factors that underlie the spying activities of the capitalist state:

- the economic competition which breeds industrial espionage - the more frantic and desperate the competition, the more so the spying around it. The recent revelations showed that this includes the NSA spying on embassies and other institutions of its so-called allies (such as France and Germany) as well as its more traditional imperialist foes;

- military confrontations and the developments of imperialism. These are unthinkable without ‘intelligence’, spying, undercover agencies at work;

- the maintenance of class domination. Class society compels the ruling class to use repression, secret police, undercover agents, all kinds of observations and spying on the working class and on any oppositions or protests. This is particularly the case with the working class, the revolutionary class in capitalist society. Here the spying had to become systematic.

To express outrage that governments, the US in the case of the NSA, or Britain in the case of GCHQ, use their spying agencies against economic or military rivals, or populations at large, is just hypocritical. The same British media outlets and liberals today bleating about a “free press” and censorship are the same ones that joined in the vilification and demonisation of the miners during their pivotal strike of 1984/5, and the same ones that repeated the state’s lying propaganda about WMD in Iraq in 2003. All countries are forced to spy and lie and there is no state, no ruling class without its secret services, machines of surveillance and undercover operations. The democratic New Zealand government has just passed a new spying bill giving the state more power over its population (Guardian, August 20), and its police and intelligence services have direct access to US surveillance networks such as PRISM; meanwhile a ‘national liberation’ organisation such as the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank has 7 different police/security bodies. This hypocrisy is also endemic to the system itself with the call from the White House last year for an international convention to regularise “consumer data privacy in a networked world” (Guardian, 27.4.13). This was just another weapon in the USA’s cyber-warfare, particularly involving China. Scandal after scandal has emerged in the countries that the US and Britain were spying on but all of them are at it. Germany’s BND intelligence agency has used “massive amounts” of daily intercepts from the NSA (Der Spiegel, 7.8.13) and they have been working closely together for decades. It’s a similar story from France whose politicians like to boast about the independence of their country. And while they are cooperating at one level, at another they are all spying on each other.

While they existed during capitalism’s rise as a dynamic system, while they even pre-date capitalism itself, spying activities take on a new dimension in capitalism’s decadence. This is because of permanent war and imperialist conflict; increased commercial rivalry and competition which also tend to overflow into the realms of military developments; and, above all, because of the need to keep a tight watch and control over the working class. Those are the main reasons why we see such a strong growth in these parasitic bodies and their activities. Even in the period of counter-revolution when the working class was more or less absent as a fighting force - indeed arising from it - came the most developed means for permanent surveillance. The totalitarian regimes of the Nazis and the Stalinists built the most secret and fearsome apparatus for spying and repression: the Gestapo and the Russian GPU. From the Second World War, where the spying activities of all the belligerents were vital for victory or defeat, these machines developed further during the Cold War where they were again intensified by technological means along with a considerable growth of the CIA and other such organisations. There are also developments in the closeness between the head of the state and the secret services. In Russia every president bar one, Boris Yeltsin (who was close to them), came directly from the KGB or their predecessors; President  Bush Senior was previously the head of the CIA and Klaus Kinkel, the former German Foreign Minister, was head of the German secret services In 1981, the Thatcher clique, which had links to the secret services, set up the shadowy MISC 57 unit, three years before taking on the miners, and secret service bosses in many Middle East countries are very close to the head of government and the forces of direct repression.

1917: Revolution

There’s an idea among some revolutionary elements, an idea that sits side-by-side with the rejection of an analysis that the bourgeoisie is an intelligent and conspiratorial class, that the police “won’t bother with the likes of us - we’re too small, too insignificant”. Such ideas are concessions to democracy which also underestimate the fact that the bourgeoisie has often been clearer about the crucial role of revolutionary organisations than the working class (See the article in WR 252 ‘Revolutionary organisations struggle against provocation and slander’[1]). Mussolini’s secret police maintained a spy in the very small left communist group Bilan in the 1930’s and the nascent group of the ICC in France in the early 70’s was watched over by the police. These are things that we know.

Just one time in history have the real details and methods of the political police been examined and exposed by revolutionaries. This was when the archives of the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, fell into the hand of the Bolsheviks and were analysed by the revolutionary Victor Serge, which resulted in his book What everyone should know about repression (first published in 1926)[2]. In it he is clear that the state apparatus is not just a war machine for competing groups, but a machine for the repression of the exploited. This is an incredible read for what Serge describes as the “prototype of the modern political police”. By 1900, the Okhrana was organised internationally and by 1905 it was engaging in highly sophisticated levels of espionage across Russia with extensive spying networks. To keep track of all this, spies would spy on spies and spies would spy on them, and informers, secret agents, provocateurs, police spies were everywhere in Russia: “The police had to see everything, know, understand and have power over everything. The strength and perfection of their machinery appears all the more terrible because of the unsuspected forces they dragged up from the depth of the human soul”. You can see from reading the book how paranoid the bourgeoisie was about the working class, and we have had a hundred years of state capitalism since then to reinforce and refine their fears and their machines of repression.

Serge denounces “legality” and the respect for it as an element of class collaboration in much the same way as “accountability” and “transparency” - and indeed “legality” - are used around the NSA issue today. This naivety “ignores the real role of the state and the deceptive nature of democracy; in short, the first principles of class struggle”. He doesn’t at all underestimate the “powerful and cunning adversary” and from this denounces the idea of the “idyllic revolution”. In respect of the undercover forces at work today, Serge gives some considerable insight: “Police provocation is above all the weapon - or the curse - of decomposing regimes. Conscious of their impotence to prevent what is going on, the police incite initiatives which they can then repress. Provocation is also a spontaneous, elementary action resulting from the demoralisation of a police force at its wits’ end, overtaken by events, which cannot perform tasks infinitely above its capacities, and nonetheless wants to justify the expectations and expenditure of its masters”. And finally on Serge, in line with our position above: “There is no force in the world which can hold back the revolutionary tide when it rises and all the police forces, however Machiavellian, scientific or criminal, are virtually impotent against it”.

“1984”: Counter-revolution...

There’s been lots of talk in the media about these leaked secrets showing how we have arrived at George Orwell’s nightmare vision of 1984 and “Big Brother is Watching You”; with some saying that we have gone well beyond it. Orwell’s 1949 book, with its story of the state overlooking every aspect of one’s life, every corner of it, was a horror story of the counter-revolution. It’s a story of perpetual warfare generated to keep the population behind the state, of the national socialism of Big Brother and the hopelessness of rebellion. The rebel hero, Winston Smith, eventually has all the spark of revolt snuffed out of him and any hope of a different society is completely extinguished. This book was a reflection of the counter-revolution, of the dark days leading up to and coming out of the Second World War when the working class seemed totally helpless, impotent and atomised vis-a-vis the state. But, in reality, even in the depths of this period of counter-revolution, even in places like Nazi Germany or the police states of the eastern bloc and the militarised democracies, there were still acts of revolt, compassion, solidarity, protests and strikes, some major, some very minor in character but all the more significant given the period that they took place in.

It’s true that today Orwell’s nightmare vision of a citizen’s every step being followed by the state is very much a reality. But we have more than enough evidence that all the state’s surveillance and all the state’s bloodhounds cannot control a population in revolt and particularly the working class. The recent demonstrations and protests across the world, even if greatly facilitated by an electronic field that can be switched off, show the potential difficulties for the ruling class. There were very strong strikes in the eastern bloc countries, Hungary, Poland, Russia in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, despite the all-pervasive nature of the state apparatus, particularly their interior ministries and their trade union spying networks. In East Germany the 1953 workers’ strikes knocked the repressive apparatus of the state, including the unions, sideways, despite its reliance on one of the biggest bodies of secret police in the world, the Stasi - an organisation that went to the extent of collecting sweat samples from people and storing them in tubes in order to identify them later. The workers’ self-organisation in the MKS in Poland, 1980, shows even more clearly how to fight state repression: the ruling class, consisting of the army, party, security services and the official trade unions, wanted to cut off the phone-line between the MKS in Gdansk and the rest of the country, i.e. the other workers’ assemblies. But the workers met up and responded with a force that pushed back the arm of repression. It was the general assemblies - where workers of several cities and towns were united and debated and decided together - which held the forces of repression at bay. The elected strike committees also used the company/union PA address system to broadcast talks between the workers and the politicians directly to the workers. This is a question of the historic course, of an undefeated working class and we have the more recent example of the self-organisation of the proletariat in China in the face of formidable state repression. Unlike the vision of “1984”, today a massive and widespread mobilisation of the working class cannot easily be contained. Thousands, millions of protesting workers, especially if centralised through general assemblies or even at well-organised and pointed demonstrations, cannot easily be corralled, let alone overcome. From this perspective we begin to understand a bit more here about the unions being the state’s police of the working class.

But if we can take heart from the actions of our class we mustn’t console ourselves with a false sense of security. In relation to the proletariat and its revolutionary minorities, there can be no doubt about the determination, ruthlessness and cold-bloodiness of the ruling class in wanting to destroy and eliminate their threat and this inevitably leads to harassment, imprisonment and assassinations, as we saw even in the heights of class struggle in Germany during the revolutionary wave of 1918/19. Deportations, the kidnapping of thousands of opponents by innumerable regimes, the pogromist campaigns against revolutionaries all bear witness to the consciousness of the ruling class. The bourgeoisie has never been nice to the working class when it dares to raise its head against capitalism in any effective manner.

The next part of this series can be read here [560].

Baboon 6.9.2013 (This article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)

We are publishing here an article by our comrades in Brazil, analysing the major social movement that took place there in June.

The crisis of capital and austerity unleash the indignation of the masses

A ‘spectre is haunting the world’: the spectre of indignation. Just over two years after the ‘Arab Spring’ which shook and surprised the countries of North Africa, and whose effects are still being felt; two years after the movement of the Indignados in Spain and Occupy in the USA; and at exactly the same time as the movement in Turkey, the wave of demonstrations in Brazil has mobilised millions of people in over a hundred cities and shown characteristics which are unprecedented for this country.

These movements, taking place in very different countries and very far apart geographically, nevertheless share some key common features: their spontaneity; their origins as a reaction brutal repression by the state; their massive nature; the fact that the majority of the participants are young people, especially via social networks. But the most important common element is the powerful feeling of indignation about the deterioration of living conditions provoked by a profound crisis which is sapping the bases of the capitalist system and which has significantly accelerated since 2007. This deterioration has taken the form of a growing level of precariousness throughout the proletariat and enormous uncertainty about the future among young people who have become proletarian or are in the process of proletarianisation. It is no accident that the movement in Spain took the name of ‘Indignados’ and that in this wave of massive social movements this was the one which went furthest in questioning the capitalist system and in its forms of organisation through massive general assemblies[1] .

A proletarian movement

The social movements of last June in Brazil, which we welcomed and in which we intervened as far as our means allowed, have a particular significance for the proletariat of Brazil, Latin America and the rest of the world, and a large extent went beyond the traditional regionalism of the country. These massive movements were radically different from the ‘social movements’ controlled by the state, by the PT (Workers’ Party) and other political parties, such as the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST); similarly, it is different from other movements which have arisen in various countries of the region in the last decade or so, like the one in Argentina at the beginning of the century , the ‘indigenous’ movements in Bolivia and Ecuador, the Zapatista movement in Mexico or Chavism in Venezuela, which were the result of confrontations between bourgeois or petty bourgeois factions, disputing control of the state and the defence of national capital.

In this sense, the June mobilisations in Brazil represent the most important spontaneous expression of the masses in this country and in Latin America over the past 30 years. This is why it’s crucial to draw the lessons of this movement from a class standpoint.

It is undeniable that this movement surprised the Brazilian and world bourgeoisie as well as revolutionary organisations[2] inside and outside Brazil and the groups and organisations which had initially facilitated it. The struggle against the public transport price rises (which are negotiated each year between the transport chiefs and the state ) was just the detonator of the movement. It crystallised all the indignation which had been brewing for some time in Brazilian society[3] and which took shape in 2012 with the struggles in public administration and in the universities, mainly in São Paulo and the big building sites in the programme for accelerating growth (PAC). There were also a number of strikes against wage cuts and insecure working conditions and against health and education cuts over the last few years.

Unlike the massive social movements in various countries since 2011, the one in Brazil was engendered and unified around a concrete demand, which made it possible for there to be a spontaneous mobilisation of wide sectors of the proletariat: against the rise in public transport fares[4]. The movement took on a massive character at the national level from the 13th June, when the demonstration in São Paulo against the fare increases called by the Movimento Passe Livre – Movement for Free Access to Transport[5] - was violently repressed by the police. However, for five weeks, as well as in São Paulo, there were demonstrations in many different towns and cities across the country, to the point where, in Porto Alegre, Goiãnia and other towns, this pressure forced the local governments to give in over the fare increases, after hard struggles and heavy state repression.

This was expressed clearly through the social movement in Goiãnia on 19.6.13:

“In Goiãnia after five weeks of demonstrations, and one day before the sixth big gathering, which confirmed the presence of tens of thousands of people on the street, the Prefecture directed by Paulo Gracia (of the PT) and the governor Marconi Perillo (of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, the PSDB – centre right) held a joint meeting and decided to revoke the fare increases. We know that this decision was the product of the pressure of over a month of mobilisation and of the fear that things would escape the control of the provincial government and the contractual enterprises”[6]

The movement straight away situated itself on a proletarian terrain. This was expressed through the extension and breadth of the movement and, although on a minority scale, by taking a distance from nationalist slogans. In the first place, we should underline that the majority of the participants belong to the working class, mainly young workers and students, mainly coming out of proletarian families or those undergoing proletarianisation. The bourgeois press has presented the movement as an expression of the ‘middle classes’, with the clear intention of creating a division among workers. In reality, the majority of those catalogued as middle class are workers who often receive lower wages than skilled workers in the country’s industrial zones. This explains the success of and the widespread sympathy with the movement against the transport increases, which represented a direct attack on the income of working class families. This also explains why this initial demand rapidly turned into the questioning of the state, given the dilapidation of sectors such as health, education and social assistance, and increasing protests against the colossal sums of public money invested in organising next year’s World Cup and in the 2016 Olympics[7]. For these events the Brazilian bourgeoisie has not hesitated to resort to the forced expulsion of people living near the stadia: at the Aldeia Maracanã in Rio in the first part of the year; in the zones chosen by construction firms in São Paulo, who have been burning down favelas in the way of their plans. This situation was expressed clearly by the Bloco de Lutas Pelo Transporte 100% in Porto Alegre on 20.6.13:

“The struggle is not just for a few centimes and is not only about Porto Alegre since the mobilisation has taken on a national dimension and goes beyond the demand about the fare increases. Today over ten cities have announced a reduction in transport fares. Now there are hundreds of thousands of us in the streets of Brazil, fighting for our rights. The theme of the World Cup is already present in the demonstrations. The same popular mass which is questioning the transport system is also questioning the investment of millions of public money in the stadia, in displacing families by urban planners for the needs of the World Cup, the power of FIFA and the state of emergency which is going to restrain the rights of the population”[8]       

It is very significant that the movement organised demonstrations around the football stadia where Confederation Cup were being played, in order to get a lot of media attention and to reject the spectacle prepared by the Brazilian bourgeoisie; and also in response to the brutal repression of the demonstrations around the stadia, which resulted in a number of deaths. In a country where football is the national sport, which the bourgeoisie has obviously used as a safety valve for keeping society under control, the demonstrations of the Brazilian proletariat are an example for the world proletariat. The population of Brazil is known for its love of football, but this didn’t prevent it from rejecting austerity imposed to finance the sumptuous expenses devoted to the organisation of these sporting events, which the Brazilian bourgeoisie is using to show the world that it is capable of playing in the premier league of the world economy. The demonstrators demanded public services with a ‘FIFA type’ quality. The movements of June spoiled the party of the Brazilian bourgeoisie.

With regard to the demands, the movement showed its indignation about the effects of decomposition on the Brazilian bourgeoisie, attacking the most representative expressions of its corruption, indolence and arrogance: in Brasilia, the capital, they took over the installations of congress and attempted to enter the Itamaraty palace, the symbol of the state’s foreign policy; in Rio de Janeiro, they tried to enter the legislative assembly, and residents of the favelas, such as Rocinha, protested in front of the residence of the governor of Rio; in São Paulo, they tried to enter the Prefecture and the provincial legislative assembly and in Curitiba they tried to get into the seat of the provincial government. An extremely significant fact was that there was a massive rejection of the political parties (especially the PT) and union and student organisations that support the power: in São Paulo a number of their members were excluded from the demonstrations because they held up banners showing that they belonged to the PT or the CUT, or to other organisations and parties of the left, electoral or not, like the PSTU (Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificados), the PSOL (Partido Socialismo o Liberdade) , the Brazilian CP and various unions.

Other expressions of the class character of the movement were shown, even though in a minority. There were a number of assemblies held in the heat of the movement, although they were not the same as the ones in Spain. For example the one in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, which were called ‘popular and egalitarian assemblies’ which proposed to create a “new spontaneous, open and egalitarian space for debate”, in which over 1000 people took part.

These assemblies, although they demonstrated the vitality of the movement and the necessity for the self-organisation of the masses to impose their demands, revealed a number of weaknesses:

• Even if several other groups and collectives took part in organising them, they were animated by the capitalist left, who mainly kept their activity to the periphery of the cities
• Their mean aim was to be organs of pressure on and negotiation with the state, for particular demands for improvements in this or that community or town. They also tended to see themselves as permanent organs;
• They claimed to be independent of the state and the parties, but they were very well infiltrated by the pro-government or leftist organisations which annihilated any spontaneous expressions;
• They put forward a localist or national vision, struggling against the effects of problems rather than their causes, without questioning capitalism.

In the movement there were also explicit references to the social movements in other countries, especially Turkey, which also referred to Brazil. Despite the minority character of these expressions, they were still revealing about what was felt to be shared by the two movements.

In different demonstrations, you could also see banners proclaiming “We are Greeks, Turks, Mexicans, we have no country, we are revolutionaries” or placards saying “It’s not Turkey, it’s not Greece, it’s Brazil coming out of its inertia”.

In Goiãnia, the Frente de Luta Contra o Aumento, which regrouped various base organisations, underlined the need for solidarity and for debate between the different components of the movement:

“WE MUST NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE CRIMINALISATION AND PACIFICATION OF THE MOVEMENT! WE MUST REMAIN FIRM AND UNITED! Despite disagreements, we must maintain our solidarity, our resistance, our fighting spirit, and deepen our organisation and our discussions. In the same way as in Turkey, peaceful and militant elements can co-exist and struggle together, we must follow this example”[9]       

The great indignation which animated the Brazilian proletariat was concretised in the following reflections by the Rede Extremo Sul, a network of social movements on the outskirts of São Paulo:

“For these possibilities to become a reality, we can’t allow the indignation being expressed on the streets to be diverted into nationalist, conservative and moralist objectives; we can’t allow these struggles to be captured by the state and by the elites in order to empty them of their political content. The struggle against the fare increases and the deplorable state of services is directly linked to the struggle against the state and the big economic corporations, against the exploitation and humiliation of the workers, and against this form of life where money is everything and people are nothing”[10]

The political re-organisation of Brazilian capital

The Brazilian bourgeoisie, like all national bourgeoisies, has for decades been hoping that Brazil could become a continental or world power. To achieve this, it’s not enough to dispose of an immense territory which covers almost half of South America, or to count on its important natural resources. It has also been necessary to maintain social order, above all control over the workers, less through the military yoke than through the more sophisticated mechanisms of democracy. Thus in the 1980s it carried out a relatively smooth transition from military dictatorship to republican democracy. This objective was attained on the political level with the formation of two poles: one regrouping the forces of the right, formed by two parties set up in the 80s: the PSDB composed of intellectuals from the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, and right wing groups linked to the dictatorship (PMDB, DEM, etc); the other of the centre left, structured round the PT, with an important popular influence, mainly among workers and peasants. In this way a kind of alternation between right and centre left governments was established, based on ‘free and democratic’ elections. All this was indispensable for strengthening Brazilian capital on the world arena.

The Brazilian bourgeoisie was thus better place to reinforce its productive apparatus and face up to the worst of the economic crisis of the 90s, while on the political level, it succeeded in creating a political force around the PT, which because of its youth as a party, was able to integrate union organisations and leaders, members of the Catholic church adept at ‘liberation theology’, Trotskyists who see the PT as a mass revolutionary party, intellectuals, artists and democrats. The PT was the response of the left wing of the Brazilian bourgeoisie after the collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 which had weakened the left of capital on a global scale. It was able to do something which was the envy of the other bourgeoisies of the region: create a political force which could control the impoverished masses, but above all maintain social peace among the work force. This situation was consolidated with the accession of the PT to power in 2002, making use of the charisma and ‘working class’ image of Lula.

In this way, during the first decade of the new century, the Brazilian economy raised itself to seventh place on the world ladder, according to the World Bank. Today it is part of the ‘cream’ of the so-called ‘group of emerging countries’, the so-called BRICS[11]. The world bourgeoisie has hailed the ‘Brazilian miracle’ carried out under Lula’s presidency, which has supposedly pulled millions of Brazilians out of poverty and allowed more millions to enter this famous ‘middle class’. What no one ever mentions, neither the PT, nor Lula, nor the rest of the bourgeoisie, is that this ‘great success’ has been achieved by distributing a part of the surplus value as crumbs to the most impoverished, while at the same time the situation of the mass of workers has become ever more insecure.

The crisis at the roots

The acceleration of the economic crisis became evident in 2007 and this is still affecting the world economy six years later. Lula, like other regional leaders, declared that the Brazilian economy was ‘armoured’ against it. While the other economic powers faltered, the Brazilian economy was satisfied with its performance. But while Brazil is not at the eye of the economic storm, it is undeniable that given the interdependence of the world economy, no country can escape its effects, still less Brazil which is highly dependent on exports of its raw materials and services. We see the proof of this with China, Brazil’s great partner among the BRICS: the Chinese economy is now strongly affected by the world crisis.

The crisis still remains at the root of the situation in Brazil. To try to attenuate its effects, the Brazilian bourgeoisie has been stimulating the internal economy through a policy of major works, provoking a construction boom in both the public and private sectors, extending to the renovations and new builds of the sporting infrastructure for 2014 and 2016. At the same time it has been facilitating credit and debt among families to stimulate internal consumption, especially in the area of housing and electronic goods. This policy has led to an increase in public expenditure and a rise in taxes.

The limits of this are already tangible at the level of economic indicators: a balance of payments deficit estimated at 3 billion US dollars in the first quarter of this year – the worst result since 1995 – and a slow-down in growth (predicted at 6.7% in 2013). But it can be felt above all in the deterioration of the buying power and living conditions of the working class as a result of the rising prices of consumer goods and of services (including transport). There has also been a strong tendency towards the reduction of jobs and an increase in unemployment.

Thus, the protest movement in Brazil doesn’t come from nowhere. There are a whole number of causes which lie behind it, and they are being aggravated by the development of the economic crisis. As a result of the protests the state has been forced to augment social spending at a time when the economic crisis is obliging it to take measures to reduce such spending. President of the republic Dilma Rousseff has already declared that such spending has to be cut.

The traps of the bourgeoisie

As we might expect, the Brazilian bourgeoisie has not stood with its arms folded in the face of the social crisis which, although it has eased off, remains latent. The only result obtained by mass pressure was the suspension of the very elevated fare increases[12] which the state has made up for by using other means to finance the transport enterprises.

At the beginning of the wave of protests, to calm things down while the government worked out a strategy to control the movement, president Rousseff declared, via one of her mouthpieces, that she considered the population’s protests as “legitimate and compatible with democracy”. Lula meanwhile criticised the “excesses” of the police. But state repression didn’t stop, and neither have street demonstrations.

One of the most elaborate traps against the movement was the propagation of the myth of a right wing coup, a rumour spread not only by the PT and the Stalinist party, but also by the Trotskyists of the PSOL and the PSTU. This was a way of derailing the movement and turning it towards supporting the Rousseff government, which has been severely weakened and discredited. In reality the facts show precisely that the ferocious repression against the protests in June by the left government led by the PT was equally if not more brutal than that of the military regimes. The left and extreme left of Brazilian capital are trying to obscure this reality by identifying repression with fascism or right wing regimes. There is also the smokescreen of ‘political reform’ put forward by Rousseff, with the aim of combating corruption in the political parties and imprisoning the population on the democratic terrain by calling for a vote on the proposed reforms.

To try to regain an influence within the movement on the street, the political parties of the left of capital and the trade unions announced, several weeks in advance, a ‘National Day of Struggle’ for the 11 July, presented as a way of protesting against the failure of the collective labour agreements. In this simulated mobilisation, all the trade union organisations and those both close to government and opposition lent a helping hand.           

Similarly, Lula, showing his considerable anti-working class experience, called on 25 June for a meeting of the leaders of movements controlled by the PT and the Stalinist party, including youth and student organisations allied with the government, with the explicit aim neutralising the street protests.

The strengths and weaknesses of the movement

The great strength of the movement was that, from the beginning, it affirmed itself as a movement against the state, not only through the central demand against the fare increases but also as a mobilisation against the abandonment of public services and the orientation of spending towards the sporting spectacles. At the same time the breadth and determination of the protest forced the bourgeoisie to take a step back and annul the fare increases in a number of cities.

The crystallisation of the movement around a concrete demand, while being a strength of the movement, also put limits on it as soon as it was unable to go any further. Obtaining the suspension of the fare increases marked a step forward, but the movement did not on the whole see itself as challenging the capitalist order, something which was much more present in the Indignados movement in Spain.

The distrust towards the bourgeoisie’s main forces of social control took the form of the rejection of the political parties and the trade unions, and this represented a weakness for the bourgeoisie on the ideological level, the exhaustion of the political strategies which have emerged since the end of the dictatorship, the discrediting of the teams which have succeeded each other at the head of the state, in particular as a result of their notoriously corrupt character. However, behind this undifferentiated rejection of politics stands the danger of the apoliticism, which was an important weakness of the movement. Without political debate, there is no possibility of taking the struggle forward, since it can only grow in the soil of discussion which is aimed at understanding the roots of the problems you are fighting against, and which cannot evade a critique of the foundations of the capital.

It was thus no accident that one of the weaknesses of the movement was the absence of street assemblies open to all participants, where you could discuss the problems of society, the actions to carry out, the organisation of the movement, its balance sheet and its objectives. The social networks were an important means of mobilisation, a way of breaking out of isolation. But they can never replace open and living debate in the assemblies.

The poison of nationalism was not absent from the movement, as could be seen from the number of Brazilian flags displayed on the demonstrations and the raising of nationalist slogans. It was quite common to hear the national anthem in the processions. This was not the case with the Indignados in Spain. In this sense the June movement in Brazil presented the same weaknesses as the mobilisations in Greece and in the Arab countries, where the bourgeoisie succeeded in drowning the huge vitality of the movements in a national project for reforming and safeguarding the state. Nationalism is a dead-end for the proletarian struggle, a violation of international class solidarity. In this context, the focus on corruption in the last analysis also worked for the benefit of the bourgeoisie and its political parties, especially those in opposition, and gave a certain credibility to the perspective of the next elections..

Despite the majority of participants in the movement being proletarians, they were involved in an atomised way. The movement didn’t manage to mobilise the workers of the industrial centres who have an important weight, especially in the São Paulo region. It wasn’t even proposed. The working class, which certainly welcomed the movement and even identified with it, because it was struggling for a demand which it saw was in its interest, did not manage to mobilise as such. This question of class identity is not only a weakness at the level of the working class in Brazil, but on a world scale. It’s a characteristic of the period that the working class is finding it hard to affirm its class identity; in Brazil this has been aggravated by decades of immobility resulting from the action of the political parties and the unions, mainly the PT and the CUT.

This situation explains to some extent the emergence of social movements we have seen in Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Egypt etc, where new generations of proletarians, many of them without work, have revolted with the understanding that capitalism is shutting off any possibility of having a decent life, and feel in their bones the insecurity of their daily lives.

Nevertheless, the mobilisations in Brazil are a source of inspiration and contain many lessons for the future unity of the Brazilian and world proletariat. They show that there is no solution to our problems within capitalism and that the proletariat must assume its historic responsibility of struggling against capital; that the proletariat in Brazil must seek its class identity not only through solidarity at the level of the country, but worldwide. In this way its struggle will converge with that of all the young proletarians who are now mobilising against capital.

Revolução Internacional (ICC in Brazil) 9.8.13      

As austerity bites and capitalism shows its teeth in its relentless quest for profit and for ways to offset its crisis onto the working class, the recent revelations of the explosion in so-called zero hour contracts have filled the newspapers and our television screens. Signing up to a zero hours contract is a condition that can mean no wages or little wages at the end of the week. In the hope of gaining some employment many workers wait at the end of a phone for whatever an employer or an agency offers. This uncertainty, the knowledge that perhaps you won’t have a job next week or the week after, is profoundly demoralising for workers and isolates them into individual units competing on the job market. In many cases of the zero hours contract the national minimum wage applies but they are being applied across the board, both in the private and, increasingly, the public sector - social and care workers, in the NHS. Health authorities have introduced zero hours which have also affected professional higher paid staff. The employers or agencies offering these contracts are not obliged to offer sick pay or holiday pay and they can usually be terminated at will. There can be no doubt that there has been an explosion in all kinds of precarious work, including the phenomenal rise in part time and casual work at the minimum wage or lower, as well as zero hours. This is a huge attack on the living conditions of the working class.

Zero hours contracts are clearly one of a number of ways of making jobs more precarious and are greatly advantageous to the bourgeoisie in reducing the cost of labour. So why the huge media publicity? Why has Vince Cable announced a government review (even if Ian Binkley of the Work Foundation has pointed out that this review is totally inadequate)? Why has the Labour Party apologised for not spotting it sooner? Why has Edinburgh University felt ‘shamed’ into agreeing to end its 2,712 zero hours contracts? Reports don’t tell whether the new arrangements will be any better for the workers!

“The greater use of zero hours contracts is taking place against a background of falling real wages, high levels of workplace fear of the consequences of redundancy and unfair treatment for a significant minority, and an employment recovery where permanent employee jobs have been in a minority” (https://www.theworkfoundation.com [573]). Apart from the implication that capitalist employment is ‘fair’ for the majority, the Work Foundation report gives a good idea of the wider context of the increase in zero hours contracts. And also the motivation for all this publicity: while politicians hypocritically wax indignant about these contracts, they hope to divert our attention from the overall worsening of conditions for the whole working class. This issue also has the advantage of being one where we can be encouraged to demand the protection of the state through legislation against abuses by private employers, although this is an illusion as the situation of health and care workers shows. Meanwhile Vince Cable can bleat that - “well it’s not ideal, but at least it allows for ‘flexibility’” for employers and workers.

Damn lies and statistics

The official statistics on zero hours are rubbish, as we can see from the ONS (Office of National Statistics) estimate of 250,000 on such contracts which is less than the number affected in the care sector alone. The Work Foundation estimates there are one million, and Unite has now estimated 5.5 million based on a survey of 5,000 of its members. Whatever the true figure zero hours and other precarious and flexible work practices create a vast reserve pool of labour which nominally can appear as employed, allowing Cameron to boast of ‘creating’ thousands of new jobs.

One million or 5.5, the figures for the growth in zero hour contracts are definitely on the up. This has been the case for many years in the fast food industry. The opt out clause when there is criticism of the low pay and work precariousness in this industry is that they are ‘franchised ‘ out and the contracts have nothing to do with the major fast food chains. Even so, McDonald’s have admitted that 90% of their employees, that’s 82,200 staff, are on 2 hour contracts; Burger King (a franchised operator) employs all of its 20,000 workers on zero hour contracts. Likewise Domino Pizza - similarly a franchised operation - has 90% of its 23,000 staff on zero hours.

The rise in zero hours contracts has been particularly marked among care workers, with a majority now on zero hours, with an increase in the proportion of their contracts being zero hours “from 50% in 2008/09 to  60% last year. The government has estimated that there are 307,000 care workers on zero hour contracts, despite estimates from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) that Britain’s zero hour workforce is 250,000 people” (The Guardian: 27.08.13.).

This trend towards zero hours contracts has not just affected ancillary staff and primary care staff, who often work through bank agencies: many health care professionals such as radiologists, psychiatrists, and heart specialists are also being offered zero hour contracts by the Health Trusts.

The education sector has also seen implementation of zero hours:.

“More than half the 145 UK Universities and nearly two thirds of the 275 Further Education Colleges said that they used the contracts, which do not specify working hours and give limited guaranties on conditions” (Guardian: 05.09.13).

Bleats from the Labour Party

The Labour Party is shedding crocodile tears on the iniquities of the zero contracts. Chuka Umunna (the Shadow Business Secretary) has said, “Flexibility works for some, but the danger today is that too often insecurity at work becomes the norm”.  Ground-breaking stuff!  To show its seriousness the Labour Party brought together a conference of employers and unions: “This is why Labour has convened this important summit bringing together representatives of employees and employers to consider what action must be taken. In contrast this Tory led government has refused to have a proper and full consultation on the rise of zero hour contracts or to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves” (Guardian: 20.08.13).

Up until this statement and the occasional bleats from Andy Burnham, the Labour Party has remained extremely quiet on the issue of zero hour contracts. The Labour Party made much about introducing the minimum wage in its election manifesto of 1997 and indeed introduced the Minimum Wage Act of 1998. However, within this act was contained the retention of zero hour contracts. Legally, the Labour government had to retain the right for agencies to impose flexible work contracts. Firms and agencies have exploited this right from the last Labour government and of course the Tory and Lib-Dem government didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth!

The development of the recession and the austerity that has been imposed since the crisis of 2008 has seen a massive use not just of zero hour contracts but of part-time work, of firms and agencies using insecurity and precarious work to the hilt.

The fight back

We can see with the Hovis workers (Premier Foods) in Wigan the beginnings of a fight back. After 400 fellow workers at Hovis in London were given redundancies at the beginnings of this year, the Wigan bakery workers began a series of strikes at the beginning of August.

30 Wigan Hovis workers were given redundancies and management announced that hourly pay was being reduced from £13 per hour to £8.60 an hour and working hours cut, while management brought in agency staff to take up the short fall. In an interview with Socialist Worker (03.09.13) one worker said: “We’re not having it. They always want something from us - pensions, wages, conditions. It’s time to draw a line.”

The Wigan bakery workers have embarked on a series of one-day strikes. Their picketing had been positive, with lorry-drivers and other workers refusing to cross pickets. However, there are inherent dangers in this tactic of rolling strikes (as the last postal workers’ strike demonstrated). The union, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) has demonstrated its ability to negotiate the 400 London redundancies and were quick to demand rolling strikes.

The use of agency staff at the same time as redundancies and other attacks has the potential to cause divisions among the workers to the benefit of the employers and unions. Therefore it is encouraging to read “Agency workers have joined the picket line” in the same Socialist Worker article. 

Other sectors have entered into struggle against the imposition of zero hour contracts. In Liverpool on the 9th of August we saw 400 council workers (street cleaners and road maintenance and ground staff) go on strike against imposed redundancies and new contracts. In London at the beginning of the year we saw London Underground Piccadilly line tube drivers’ strike against planned new contracts.

Workers today face widespread attacks through precarious work, falling real wages, reductions in benefits, reduced health and social care. In order to push these through the bosses and the state use all sorts of tricks to isolate and divide workers as much as possible. What workers need is unity, solidarity and confidence in our ability to fight. 

Melmoth, 7.9.13

"What's the name of Mohamed's mother?" asked the al-Shabab fighters of some poor innocents out shopping; and when the answer wasn't forthcoming, men, women and children were lined up and executed. Such is the twisted, depraved and gruesome logic of these religious fighters that, even in the face of the daily global horrors of decomposing capitalism, such events still shock and sicken us. Executed by members of al-Shabab, who seem to have come from Kenya, Somalia and further afield, for not knowing the name of Mohamed's mother or not being able to quote from the Koran shows the depth of the depraved horrors that capitalism serves us up on a plate[1].

But al-Shabab, like the terrorists who attacked the Ain Amenas gas plant in Algeria last January killing 38 people, picked their target with care. Nairobi is East Africa's most prosperous hub full of western tourists, business interests - both regional and international, diplomats, military agencies, spies and aid operations. From this there's no doubt that the intensity of the news coverage in Britain about the attack by al-Shabab militants on the Nairobi shopping centre is reflective of the number of western victims[2]. The sort of numbers affected, at least 70 killed so far and possibly up to 200 still missing, is around the almost daily casualties and wounded in terrorist attacks in Iraq, the less frequent but regular attacks in Pakistan, not to mention the now "international community" sanctioned daily killings and destruction in Syria. But this doesn't at all mitigate the horror of the Westgate attack where men, women and children, along with around 200 workers in a supposedly safe and benign environment, had to face the sudden, deadly and frightening prospect of all hell breaking loose.

What this attack ultimately demonstrates is a further example of how the greatest achievement of the "War on Terror" is the generalisation of terror, terrorists and terrorism. It's a further example of the how the Clinton/Bush/Obama policy of US imperialism directly contributes to aggravating and spreading the very problems that this policy is supposed to deal with. To that extent it's also illustrative of the growing historical weakness of US imperialism despite it being the most powerful military force on the planet by far. The whole region around the Horn of Africa and down into central Africa is an imperialist battlefield and contains multiple bases and special forces of western countries, the USA, Britain, France and Israel particularly. Given its strategic importance this region must be among the most heavily surveyed and tracked on the planet and still they were unable to pick up or stop this well-organised and ruthless attack. British and American security officials are now suggesting that they knew an attack was coming but didn't know exactly where - but anyone with any interest in the region would be aware of that.  There's no doubt that the Kenyan security forces are inept and corrupt, more concerned with lining their own pockets; but fundamentally they are just pale reflections of their more efficiently provided western counterparts.

The responsibility for the devastation of the whole region around Somalia and the rise of even more irrational forces lies fundamentally with the major imperialisms whose frequent actions and incursions here contribute to the growing instability and chaos which then demands further actions and incursions which contribute further to growing instability and chaos.... and so it spirals outwards and downwards. Of course it is mainly the poor and the masses that pay. There are around half-a-million Somali refugees in the biggest such compound in the world in Kenya, with another 500,000 reckoned to be outside. Here the usually optimistic NGO's comment that the situation is hopeless. Amid all the misery, famine, deprivation and poverty of the region are corrupt local bourgeois and western special forces bases bristling with the latest weaponry and technology. The US has set up its "Africa Command Post" in Kenya backed up by British and Israeli intelligence and special forces.

Obama said on September 23 that he was committed to "dismantling these (terrorist) centres of destruction" but the fact is that the general decomposing conditions of capitalism and US attempts to deal with them creates such phenomenon, spreads them and fosters a steady and growing stream of recruits, local and international, to the jihadi causes. Since operation "Restore Hope" and the battle of Mogadishu in 1993, from which US forces had to retreat, greater instability has spread through the entire region. Even when it looked like there was a relatively stable government in Somalia, with the moderate Islamic Court Union a few years ago, any attempt at stability was destroyed by the US counter-offensive in firstly backing the Ethiopian army's invasion of December 2006 and then the US and British backed African Union body which forced the overthrow of the ICU, the setting up of the Transitional Federal Government (now the US-backed Federal Government of Somalia) charade. This in turn provoked the descent into greater chaos and the rise of al-Shabab. Up until then the force was a hybrid movement subject to infighting, which it remains to some extent, and was finding it difficult getting recruits in Somalia, often reduced to  press-ganging or bribing unemployed youngsters to join. The dearth of pro-western targets in Somalia, and Ugandan and Kenyan involvement in the Africa Union (AMISON) army sent to Somalia, along with US drones, to rout these rebels, led al-Shabab to undertake two attacks in Uganda in 2010 on people watching World Cup matches outdoors (killing over 70 and injuring hundreds), previous border attacks on the Kenyan army (there's been two more in the last couple of days) and then the Westgate atrocity. The al-Shabab group went from a moderate Islamic force to a ruthless media-wise affiliated al-Qaeda global jihad outfit which, to the great concern of western intelligence agencies, has attracted a considerable number of foreign fighters, particularly American and British, with easy access across western borders and potential access to western targets. Paradoxically this threat becomes even greater if al-Shabab is defeated in Somalia.

Most of the funding for al-Shabab comes directly from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states and the strident and aggressive Saudi brand of Wahabi Islamism is more and more being forced on the relaxed and open Somali religious expression - the same Saudi imperialism that is inextricably linked to the major western powers. But al-Shabab had its own lucrative activity in the charcoal business and revenues from Somali ports. They don't seem to have been involved in the piracy that stalks these waters, which looks to be made up of impoverished fishermen and local gangsters. But that hasn't stopped these waters from being turned into a sea of militarism, with warships from all over Europe, China, Russia, NATO and India all in competition. At any rate al-Shabab was kicked out of Mogadishu and the Somali ports by 2011. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia estimated that in 2011, before mainly Kenyan forces took it from them, al-Shabab was earning $50 million a year from Somali port activity in Kismayo (Bloomberg, 22.9.13). After the Kenyan takeover of this port - where, in an echo of the Assad regime’s economic dealings with al-Nusra - there are reports that Kenyan authorities continued to work with contacts of al-Shabab that remained in order to keep the money flowing. But resentment of this grab of Kismayo and its riches by Kenyan imperialism was sorely felt by the rebels and they promised retribution which, in the inhuman logic of imperialist war, they have delivered.

The Kenyan regime of President Uhuru Kenyatta has recently been at odds with Britain and America over its human rights record and both the latter criticised it and loosened political ties with it somewhat, while military and intelligence cooperation continued. But the Kenyan regime played the Chinese card, warming up relations with Beijing and forcing Washington and London to resume their full backing of the regime. Kenyatta, and senior Kenyan politician William Ruto, were both due to face charges at The Hague criminal court for encouraging murder, rape, deportation and persecution when they both unleashed their thugs on the population at the time of Kenyan elections six years ago. The official figures from this blatant democratic terror was one thousand one hundred dead, tens of thousands of wounded and 250,000 people displaced. Kenyatta and Ruto have now been excused from the court so that they can help their country!

There have been reports about the incompetence of the Kenyan security forces in handling the attack and it's true that incompetence goes hand in hand with the corruption and gangsterism that is the hallmark of politics in this region. The first police on the scene at Westgate have been criticised for not knowing what to do, but these lowly police officers wouldn't normally be allowed in the upmarket mall. Kenyan security forces then arrived and, according to some reports, began to shoot each other and, one can imagine, innocent people panicking. Then the heavy mob of US and Israeli commandos entered the scene and while we don't know who set them off, subsequent explosions brought down the ceiling of the building crushing an unknown number underneath.

What's likely to happen now, apart from pogroms and harassment against the Somali population in Kenya, is a very forceful response of the Kenyan military on the still-remaining al-Shabab positions in Somalia. As said above, this could turn out the worse possible option out of any number of bad options, scattering the foreign jihadis around and back to their own countries to seek further revenge. More Boston-like attacks are both the nightmares and creation of the western regimes. This region of Africa, in and around the Rift Valley, was the birthplace of humanity. It's the place where our ancestors began their struggle for survival against all the odds. Today, along with the permanent and depraved battlefields of the "Democratic Republic of Congo" where child soldiers, mass rape, warlordism, religious irrationalism and disintegration are overlooked and manipulated by the major powers, the whole region is increasingly an imperialist free-for-all where any atrocity goes, a true crucible of capitalist barbarism.

Baboon. 28.9.13

(This article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)

Below is the translation of an article written by our comrades in Mexico and published in Spanish in number 133 of Revolución Mundial (March-April 2013).

The terror and the degeneration of the Russian Revolution are often explained solely through the personality of Stalin, an uncouth individual, a careerist and an adventurer. It is certain that his character was an important factor in the historical role played by Stalin, but not the only one.

60 years ago, on 6 March 1953, the world press announced the death of Stalin. “The mad dog is dead, the madness is over”, was the popular adage employed in Spanish-speaking countries. But in the case of Stalin, such a statement was unjustified. If Stalin was at the helm of the physical and moral destruction of a whole generation of revolutionaries, if he openly contradicted all the internationalist principles of marxism and if he has been the leader of one of the major imperialist powers that presided over the division of world, his death in no way eliminated or halted the counter-revolutionary dynamic that he largely contributed to in his lifetime. This confirms that his role as a major player in the counter-revolution was made possible by the failure of the world revolution to extend. It was the isolation of the revolution that directly produced the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party and its transformation into a state party putting national interests above those of the world revolution.

The grim legacy of Stalin has served and continues to serve the interests of the ruling class. Winston Churchill, a well known figure of the exploiting class and bitter enemy of the proletariat, paid tribute to the services rendered by Stalin to the bourgeoisie, saying he “will be one of the great men in Russian history”.

Stalinism, the incarnation of the bourgeois counter-revolution

In the revolutionary wave that emerged during and after the First World War, it was the Russian proletariat at the head of the revolution of 1917 that produced the most powerful dynamic of the international wave. The process continued in 1918 when the battalions of the German working class rose up, seeking to spread the revolution, but they were ruthlessly crushed by the German bourgeois state led by Social Democracy with the broad collaboration of the democratic states. Attempts to spread the proletarian revolution were thus stifled and the triumphant Russian revolution became isolated. The bourgeoisie of the whole world then erected a cordon sanitaire around the proletariat in Russia, making it impossible to hold on to the power it had seized in 1917 It was under these conditions that the counter-revolution arose from within: the Bolshevik party lost all its working class vitality, fostering the emergence and dominance of a bourgeois faction that was lead by Stalin.

Therefore, Stalinism is not the product of the communist revolution but rather the product of its defeat. Following to the letter the advice provided by Machiavelli, Stalin had no hesitation in resorting to intrigue, lies, manipulation and terror to install himself at the head of the state and to consolidate his power, strengthening the work of the counter- revolution by resorting to acts as ridiculous as rewriting history, doctoring photos by eliminating from them certain personalities he regarded as ‘heretics’ because of their oppositional stand. At the same time he promoted the cult of his personality and distorted the truth about the scale of repression and making this the core of his policy. This is why Stalinism is in no way a proletarian current; it is quite obvious that the means used and objectives pursued by Stalin and the group of careerists he surrounded himself with were overtly bourgeois.

With the ebbing of the revolutionary wave of 1917-23, the counter-revolution opened the door to the actions of Stalin. Thus, persecution, harassment and the physical elimination of combative proletarians were the first services he rendered to the ruling class. The world bourgeoisie applauded his methods, not only because an important generation of revolutionaries was wiped out but also because it was done in the name of communism, tainting its image and throwing the whole working class into total confusion.

The charges trumped up by the political police, the use of concentration camps and other atrocities, were supported by all the democratic states. For example, even before the trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev (in 1936) in which threats against their families and physical torture were used, the democratic states applauded the services that Stalin rendered to their system: through the medium of their ‘worthy’ representatives assembled at the League of Human Rights (headquarters in France), the bourgeoisie approved the perfect ‘legality’ of the purges and the trials. The declaration of the novelist Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize for Literature winner in 1915 and distinguished member of this organisation, is indicative of the attitude of the ruling class: ‘“there is no reason to doubt the accusations against Zinoviev and Kamenev, individuals discredited for quite some time, who have twice been turncoats and gone back on their word. I do not know how I could dismiss as inventions or extracted confessions the public statements of the defendants themselves.”

Similarly, before the forced exile of Trotsky and his subsequent hounding across the world, the Social Democratic government of Norway and the French government, in total complicity with Stalinism, did not hesitate to harass and ultimately expel the old Bolshevik.

‘Socialism in one country’ - the negation of marxism

The full extent of the decline of the Bolshevik Party was revealed in when Stalin introduced the doctrine of the possibility of building socialism in one country.

Immediately after Lenin’s death in January 1924, Stalin hastened to place his pawns into key positions in the party and to focus his attacks on Trotsky, who was, after Lenin, the most respected revolutionary, and in the front line of the organised mass mobilisation of October 1917.

One proof of the departure of Stalin from the proletarian terrain is in formulating, along with Bukharin, the thesis of ‘socialism in one country’. (Let’s not forget that, some years later, Stalin would have Bukharin executed!). As the self-proclaimed ‘supreme leader of the world proletariat’ and the official voice of marxism, the best service that Stalin provided to the bourgeoisie was precisely this ‘doctrine’ that distorted and perverted proletarian internationalism, that had always been defended by the workers’ movement. This policy discredited marxist theory, spreading and sowing confusion not only among the generation of proletarians of that period but also today amongst the current generation. For example, we are cynically presented with facts like the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968), the crushing of the Hungarian uprising (1956), or the invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, as expressions of ‘proletarian internationalism’. A character like Che Guevara claimed that the shipment of arms to countries like Angola was a demonstration of proletarian internationalism. This is not at all a confusion but is a deliberate policy aimed at demolishing this central pillar of marxism.

In the Principles of Communism (1847), Engels clearly defended the internationalist argument attacked by Stalin : “Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone? No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilised peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilised countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilised countries (…) It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range”.

The Bolsheviks, with Lenin at the helm, conceived the revolution in Russia as a first battle in the world revolution. That is why Stalin was lying when, to validate his thesis, he said it was a continuation of the teachings of Lenin. The bourgeois nature of this ‘theory’ dug the grave of the Bolshevik party and also that of the Communist International by subjecting these bodies to the defence of the interests of the Russian state.

Stalinism, an important pillar in the reconstruction of the bourgeoisie in the USSR

The growth of terror through the concentration camps and the surveillance, control and repression organised through the NKVD (the secret police), etc., symbolise the counter-revolutionary juggernaut oiled by Stalin. But this is only the backdrop to the profound role it would fulfil: permitting the reconstitution of the bourgeoisie in the USSR.

The defeat of the world proletarian revolution and the disappearance of all the proletarian life from the Soviets provided the conditions for the establishment of a new bourgeoisie. It is true that the bourgeoisie was defeated by the proletarian revolution of 1917, but the subsequent ruin of the working class allowed Stalinism to rebuild the ruling class. The bourgeoisie’s reappearance on the social scene did not come from the resurrection of the remnants of the old class (except in a few individual cases), or from the individual ownership of the means of production, but in the development of a capital that would appear depersonalised, with no individual faces, only in the incarnation of the party bureaucracy merged with the state, that is to say, under the form of state ownership of the means of production.

For this reason, assuming that the nationalisation of the means of production is the expression of a society different to capitalism or that it represented (or represents) a ‘progressive step’ is a mistake. Thus when Trotsky in The Revolution Betrayed explained that “state ownership of the means of production does not change cow dung into gold and does not confer an aura of holiness on the system of exploitation”, he went on to insist on the fact that the USSR was a ‘degenerated workers’ state’, which was an implied appeal for its defence. This was from the outset a profoundly confused conception. Trotskyism, above all after Trotsky’s death, pushed this logic to its extreme by dragooning the working class behind the defence of one imperialist camp, that of the USSR, during the Second World War, which demonstrated the Trotskyist current’s abandonment of the proletarian terrain.

In fact, the behaviour of Stalinism during the Second World War openly demonstrated its bourgeois nature: in 1944 ‘the Red Army’ cynically stood by while the Nazis crushed the Warsaw Uprising and, together with the Allies, participated in the re-division of imperialist spoils at the end of the war.

The bourgeoisie pays tribute to the butchers of the imperialist war

As we said above, the world bourgeoisie has received and still benefits from the great service provided by Stalinism, even if hypocritically, it distanced itself from Stalin, calling his government evil, while not hesitating to use it to fuel patriotism and to justify the imperialist war of 1939-45. This policy has by no means exhausted itself.

The year 2012 was marked by an acceleration of the struggle in Georgia (formerly part of the USSR) between bourgeois factions. As part of this bourgeois quarrel, there was a return to invoking Stalin to feed a nationalist campaign .

At the end of 2012 and the first months of this year, the Georgian bourgeoisie, under the pretext of recovering its historical legacy, restored statues of Stalin to several cities. The Georgian bourgeoisie (mainly the ultra-nationalist party Georgian Dream) revived his memory for the sole reason that he was born in this region, but more particularly to spread numbing propaganda among the exploited and chain them to the defence of the local bourgeoisie.

Similarly, changing the name of the city of Volgograd to Stalingrad for six days during the festive commemoration of ‘the defense of Stalingrad’, more than just a provincial act, must be understood as a justification by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist war which ennobles the role played by butchers like Stalin.

But if the bourgeoisie pays tribute to the memory of its bloody guard dogs, the working class needs a better understanding of the world and how to change it. It needs to reclaim its own history and learn from its own experiences and to better recognise the anti-proletarian profile of Stalin and Stalinism; it has, above all, to discover the internationalist principles of marxism that the bourgeoisie has persistently distorted and attacked, because they are the key to real class action. 

Tatlin, February 2013

When the state cuts benefits, when politicians or the media make a big scandal about how much those not in work are getting, it is always in the name of fairness. For Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, the long term unemployed will have to accept work placements, training, or just turn up and hang around in an office all day if there is no work or training for them, in order to be “fair for those who need it and fair for those who pay”. That’s when they are not claiming that toughness and a punitive approach is the kindest thing for those who are sick, disabled or unemployed. But is it true?

Trying to make us forget there is a working class

The attacks on benefits have accelerated since the recession of 2008, so that we have seen the cap on benefits, the bedroom tax, and the vilification of claimants. The economy has not yet recovered from that recession, with GDP still more than 3% below the level of the first quarter of 2008. And it certainly isn’t only the unemployed who face attacks. The whole working class is facing a rise in the state pension age, with teachers and firefighters the latest to face a rise in the occupational pension age as well as greater costs and reduced pension benefits. Young adults will no longer get housing benefit at all – adding to the number forced to continue living with their parents. The whole public sector is facing a 1% pay cap, with NHS staff facing a pay freeze. Many workers face the threat of their firm being shut down if they don’t accept worse pay and conditions and a number of redundancies, most recently those at Grangemouth. And we all face a rise of approximately 10% in energy prices from all the main suppliers – so much for competition and shopping around.

This is the ruling class idea of fairness – every part of the working class is affected by crisis, it’s tough, but it’s tough for everyone. In order for this argument to work we have to forget that we are part of the working class and accept the divisions and competition imposed on us: ‘strivers’ (those fortunate enough to have a job) against ‘shirkers’ (the unemployed); public sector against private sector; teachers against NHS workers in the struggle for scarce budgetary resources.

The reality is that we do have a common interest as workers. Let us take the example of making the unemployed work for their benefits and its so-called fairness to those who ‘pay’ because they are in work. If my job can be done by one of the unemployed on work placement, how soon do I either have to do the work for less or even lose my job? In capitalism there is always a larger or smaller number of unemployed, and every ‘striver’ with a job is also at risk of being forced into becoming an unemployed ‘shirker’.

It’s the same with every attack. If 18-25 year olds cannot get housing benefit that means very often they cannot get independent housing whether or not they have a job, especially in high cost areas such as London. This affects the whole family with the parents putting up their adult children.

Attacks on those in work are no exception. If the state caps pay rises at 1% in the public sector, significantly below the official inflation rate of 2.7%, then through competition this has a downward effect on wages and salaries in general. Of course, when it comes to the pay freeze in the NHS this has a much wider effect. Just like the attacks on the unemployed, it comes with a pretence of fairness and a vilification of the victims. The excuse is that those working in the NHS already get an annual increase due to seniority, which is doubly dishonest – firstly because Agenda for Change is being imposed to introduce performance related pay, and secondly because the annual increases only apply to some of the staff for part of the time; and overall as older staff retire they are replaced by younger on the lower pay scales. The vilification comes in the form of blaming those who work in the NHS for the deterioration that comes from poor staffing levels, poor training and perverse incentives imposed by the latest targets.

With the whole working class under attack, we cannot fight back piecemeal

The attacks affect us all, so how can we all fight back against them? Recent strikes by school teachers, firefighters, and university lecturers and support staff show that there is a great deal of discontent. The issues are very similar when not exactly the same: an increase in pension age for both firefighters and teachers; the question of pay in schools, where performance related pay is being brought in, and universities, where a 1% offer goes nowhere near overcoming the 13% deterioration in real pay; as well as the issue of increased workload for teachers. Meanwhile the CWU has called off strike action in the Post Offices and Royal Mail in a joint statement with management about future negotiation over the threat to jobs (about 1,500 under threat with the proposal to shut 75 offices) and to pay and terms during the Royal Mail privatisation.

But the actual strikes have seen the workers kept completely separate from each other. The NUT and NAS/UWT teaching unions called a series of regionally divided, one day strikes in October, calling off further action for negotiation. The university unions and Fire Brigades Union called one day and 4 hour demonstration strikes respectively in the same week but on different days. As usual with union strike action workers have been kept separate even when fighting on the same issues at the same time. The strike has been taken out of the hands of workers and made into an adjunct to union negotiation.  The chance for workers to meet and discuss with others facing similar attacks in different industries has been avoided – because what is a necessity for the workers in taking their struggle forward is a danger for the forces of the ruling class ranged against them, the bosses, the state and the unions.

Alex 2.11.13

The following article was written by a comrade in North America in the midst of the US federal government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis. While the immediate crisis has now passed with another temporary deal to kick the can down the road, the underlying tensions remain, virtually ensuring that the US political system will suffer further convulsions in the period ahead.

On October 1st, the US federal government entered a “partial shutdown” after Democrats and Republicans in Congress failed to reach an agreement on a continuing budget resolution (CR) to keep the government running for another six weeks. As a result of the shutdown, 800,000 federal workers are on furlough, national parks and memorials are closed and most ”non-essential” government functions have come to a halt. As we write, federal small business loans are not being processed, student loans are on hold and money appears to be running out for many federal “safety-net” programs, such as the WIC program, which provides emergency assistance to pregnant women and those with infant children. Bourgeois economists now worry that the shutdown is costing the US economy $160 million a day. 1

At this time, there appears to be no clear end to the shutdown in sight. Republicans, whose original rationale for not agreeing to fund the government was to defund “Obamacare,” seem unlikely to surrender without extracting some sort of concession from the Democrats, while President Obama says he simply will not negotiate with Republicans at the point of a hostage-taker’s gun.

What’s worse is that the shutdown is occurring as the deadline for the United States to raise its “debt ceiling” once again approaches. If Congress does not raise the nation’s statutory borrowing limit by October 17th, the United States will shortly thereafter default on all or part of its national debt, something which most professional economists agree would be the beginning of a global economic catastrophe. While elements of the Tea Party seem to be intent on forcing the issue, there are some recent signs that the Republican Party may soften its stance on the debt ceiling and agree to a temporary increase in the nation’s borrowing limit. Still, as we write, the resolution of this crisis is far from settled, and—as numerous analysts have pointed out—whatever the real intent of the Republicans, the closer the nation gets to the October 17th deadline without raising the debt ceiling, the chances of some kind of unintentional disaster increase. As one commentator put it, “If you keep wrestling at the edge of the cliff, eventually you will go over it.” The American bourgeoisie seems locked in a game of nuclear financial chicken with itself, putting an already fragile global economy at risk of a complete meltdown.

However this situation resolves, regardless of whether or not the more rational elements of the Republican Party win out over the Tea Party wing, this episode marks yet one more step into a deepening political crisis that has rocked the American ruling class since Obama’s election in 2008. Moreover, these events are just one more embarrassment for the United States on the international stage, coming on the heels of the revelations about NSA spying this past summer. Already, the Chinese officials have publicly called for “de-Americanizing” the global economy and suggestions have been floated of creating a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar, based on the Chinese Yuan but managed in London.

While it would be a mistake to overstate the nature of the political crisis—the American state is not on the verge of collapse just yet—it would also be an error to chalk these events up to just another contentious partisan fight over how to manage the nation’s deepening economic and imperialist difficulties. More than a mere policy dispute between various bourgeois factions, these events could possibly presage a major realignment in the American political system, potentially calling into question the stability of its two party structure and division of ideological labor.

So what is the nature of this political crisis and what does it say about the position of the United States in the context of continuing global economic difficulties? How does the political crisis of the US bourgeoisie fit with the theory of capitalist decomposition? In what follows, we will explore these questions, pointing out the danger for the proletariat in falling behind any faction of the bourgeoisie, even if the Democrats appear for the moment on the surface as the embodiment of order and rationality against the ideological decomposition of the Republican Party.

Origin of the Current Crisis

Although the political difficulties of the US bourgeoisie originate from at least the failed impeachment of President Clinton in the late 1990s and the botched presidential election of 2000, the current situation of Tea Party inspired mayhem stems from the election of Barack Obama as President in 2008. As we have analyzed in previous articles, although the main factions of the US bourgeoisie were behind Obama’s meteoric rise to the Presidency as a kind of anti-Bush, his election was not greeted with universal acceptance.2 Even before he was inaugurated, conservative groups were organizing to oppose his Presidency. The Tea Party, a loosely defined marriage of grassroots conservative organizations and corporate sponsors, rode white racist resentment of the first African-American President and paranoid fears of impending socialism to reach national prominence in 2009 and 2010.

Stoked by establishment Republicans who sought to use the grassroots energy of the movement to regain control of Congress, and by corporate money in search of a low regulation, anti-union business environment, the Tea Party had become a major player in national politics in advance of the 2010 mid-term elections. Although used by the Republican establishment to further its electoral agenda, the Tea Party clearly represents an element of the US bourgeoisie that is not traditionally counted among its “main factions.” Regionally, it is based in the South with some allies elsewhere, particularly in suburban and ex-urban regions of the Mid-West and West. Sociologically, it mostly represents small bourgeois and petty bourgeois elements with local and regional power that previously did not exert much influence on the national level. These are mostly small and medium sized business people: car dealers, doctors, etc, who feel shut out by the growth of federal authority in their regions and who were resentful of the giant federal bail-outs given to Wall Street in the aftermath of the 2008 meltdown. For many of them, the mandate contained in Obamacare - that certain businesses provide health insurance to their employees - feels like an onerous intrusion of the federal government into their local and regional economies.

Politically, the Tea Party counts on the “white backlash” against mass immigration, continuing white racism against African-Americans and anti-welfare and anti-tax demagoguery to stoke up a passionate electoral base among parts of the petty bourgeoisie and white working class with their talk of resistance and no compromises with the forces they oppose with religious like fervor. Ideologically, they represent a hodge podge of libertarian, authoritarian and traditionalist themes, united by a Manichean tendency to view their struggle as a kind of crusade and their opponents as the embodiment of societal decay, treason and foreignness. While the roots of the Tea Party go back generations, even to the reaction by local white elites against the rights won by African Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War, this faction of the American bourgeoisie has not enjoyed this level of political influence at the national level since their defeat during the Civil Rights era.

It was with this faction, which had gained a new insurgent energy in the wake of Obama’s election, that the establishment Republicans made a Faustian bargain in advance the of the 2010 mid-term elections. Moreover, Wall Street used the Tea Party as a hedge against any possibility that the Obama administration and its Democratic allies may develop a taste for raising taxes and imposing too many regulations on their casino economy in the wake of the 2008 meltdown. The Republican establishment legitimated the Tea Party, while Wall Street bank rolled it all the way to a Republican take-over of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterms.

Since the 2010 midterms, despite President Obama’s successful re-election bid in 2012, the Tea Party caucus in the House of Representative has wreacked havoc within the US bourgeoisie. Now beholden to the “radicals” in his caucus, House speaker John Boehner has had to toe their ideological line, already taking the nation close to default in 2011.3 While the weight of the Tea Party within Congress has been useful for the main factions of the bourgeoisie in pushing an austerity agenda, including the painful sequester cuts that took effect earlier this year, the Republican refusal to compromise with the President has prevented a “grand bargain” that would attack the national deficit by cutting Social Security and Medicare and raising certain taxes. Moreover, the visceral hatred felt by many in the Tea Party caucus for immigrants has prevented any deal for comprehensive immigration reform from coming to fruition, frustrating the main factions of the US bourgeoisie’s search for a solution to these burning problems for the national capital.

However, perhaps most contentious has been the attempts by the Republican Party to undue President Obama’s signature health reform legislation.4 Despite its modest effect in mitigating the drag on the national capital represented by runaway health care costs, the Republican Party has fought tooth and nail, although so far unsuccessfully, to prevent the implementation of this law, leading to the current government shutdown. This is despite the fact that the law was a brainchild of Republican think-tanks and initially implemented on the state level by the Republicans’ last Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

It is difficult to see the “material interests” at the level of the national capital that the Republican Party is defending with their opposition to the implementation of this law, leading many to conclude that their obstructionism is driven by the extent to which their party has been “captured” by Tea Party ideologues hell bent on repealing a law they see as a form of “socialism.” Whatever the small benefit to the national capital of Obama’s reform efforts, the implacable opposition to it from the right seems mostly to be an effect of ideological decomposition on the small bourgeoisie, enabled by the increasingly short-term political maneuvering of Wall Street and their Republican allies.5

While it may be the case that Tea Party positions are “locally rational” in the political context of their gerrymandered districts, this means little on the level of the national and global economies. In fact, one of the main features of the current crisis is the rise to power within the US ruling class of elements that appear to have no idea how a modern capitalist state must function or the requirements of remaining a hegemonic power in a globally integrated economy.

While there may be some long term “rationality” in the Tea Party’s concern about the US national debt (in the way a broken clock is right twice a day), this in no way legitimizes a seemingly suicidal opposition to raising the debt ceiling. If the US wants to maintain its global hegemony, it will simply have to continue to borrow money—such are the contradictions of a globalized decadent capitalism. Of course, the Tea Party may be right in one sense—it is indeed absurd that in order to maintain its global position the US must continue to sink further into debt. This fact only illustrates the historical bankruptcy of the entire capitalist system. Still, from the perspective of the national capital, this in no way legitimates the Tea Party’s seemingly self-destructive death wish with ending US foreign borrowing overnight, or the ridiculous obsession of the Paul family with abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Is the American State Structure Obsolete?

Now that the American political system has wound itself into a position of “governing through crisis,” passing from one deadline crisis to the next, it is reasonable to ask, just as the more sophisticated bourgeois analysts do, if there is a way out of this mess? It is in the process of addressing this question that the American media has recently discovered the work of the Spanish political scientist Juan Linz.6 Linz, recently deceased, based his career on the comparative studies of democracies, arguing for the superiority of Westminster style parliamentary democracy over the Presidential system. Indeed, in the academic field of comparative politics the question of why many Presidential systems have been prone to collapse has been a burning issue for decades, particularly in the study of Third World “democracies,” many of who adopted a Presidential system only to shortly thereafter experience political impasse and a military coup. In Presidential systems, in which it is possible for the chief executive and the majority in the legislature to be from different parties, a crisis of democratic legitimacy, it was argued, was an inherent threat to the continuity of the state as neither the President nor the legislature could claim a full “democratic” mandate.

Of course, there was always one glaring exception to the tendency towards instability in Presidential systems: The United States of America, which despite experiencing a Civil War over slavery, had maintained a functioning and stable Presidential system for over two centuries. In the United States, the “checks and balances” inherent in the separation of powers appeared to work, preventing momentary majorities from enacting radical changes to the social and economic order. However, Linz argued that the exceptional nature of the United States was due more to the character of American political parties than a unique political culture. American parties have historically not been very well sorted according to “ideology.” Both the Democratic and Republican parties have tended towards pragmatism as each represent broad coalitions, which can recognize and act on common interests with elements of the other party. Should this change and the parties develop an ideological character, the United States would be prone to the same kind of political crisis that has led to the collapse of democratic state structures in other nations.

From the perspective of the current impasse in US politics, there is much to support in Linz’s analysis, in particular the increasing tendency towards “ideological sorting” in the US political parties. In many ways this analysis fits with our own, which has described an increasing “ideological hardening” in US society. However, from a Marxist perspective this only begs the question of what is driving this ideological sorting? In our analysis, it all comes back to the forces of capitalist decomposition and their reciprocal effect on the US political structure.

However, it is important to note that this process of ideological sorting has, to this time, disproportionately affected the Republican Party. Its bargain with the Tea Party—itself a reflection of an increasing tendency towards short term thinking—has allowed the forces of ideological decay to assert themselves in such a way that today the US bourgeoisie faces a virtual civil war within one of its major political parties, between the Tea Party insurgency and the remaining figures of the Republican establishment. Earlier this year, this war was expressed in the fight over immigration reform, in which it was expected by most pundits that the Republicans—out of electoral self-interest—would cut a deal with Democrats to overhaul the immigration system. Unfortunately, for the main factions of the US bourgeoisie in both parties, this has failed to transpire, mostly out of strong resistance from the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party who simply will not allow the US state to grant anything smacking of amnesty to those who have violated the law.

Although the Tea Party caucus in the House of Representatives constitutes only a minority of members, they have been able to direct Republican policy over the past several years through the threat of a primary challenge from the right to any Republican who appears too soft in negotiations with Democrats or who fails to toe the Tea Party line on important issues. The primary threat is enabled by increasingly gerrymandered electoral districts, in which Republicans face no real competition from the left and therefore are forced to lurch ever further to the right. Moreover, the influx of unregulated campaign money, coming mostly from right-wing billionaires like the Koch Brothers, which is now allowed under recent Supreme Court decisions, makes it possible for political neophytes from the right to upset many establishment Republicans in primary elections, drawing on the energy of an increasingly radicalized activist base intent on fighting back against the demographic change symbolized by the Obama Presidency.

Nevertheless, for all the triumphant media talk following Obama’s reelection about the demographic tide that is supposed to herald a new error of Democratic political dominance, the US bourgeoisie seems unable to surmount the difficulties posed by the right wing backlash. While the Democrats may now have a natural advantage in Presidential elections, this has not yet translated to off year and down ballot races. Couple this fact with the gerrymandering carried out by Republican controlled state legislatures and the Republican Party can continue to win control of the House of Representatives. Much dismay has been heard in the bourgeois media that however much the public at large is angry with Republicans over the government shut down and threat of default, the GOP is unlikely to feel much political pain at the ballot box.

Safe in their gerrymandered districts, Republican legislators have little to fear from Democrats at the same time they face an existential threat from a right-wing primary challenger should they stray too far from right-wing orthodoxy. Others argue that the Republican Party has basically given up trying to win the Presidency, preferring to enact its agenda through other means by weakening the office of the Presidency, using whatever tactics are necessary, including holding the global economy hostage. 7

There seems to be few good ways out of this impasse for the US ruling class. Although it is certainly possible that some temporary compromise will relieve the immediate threat posed by the debt ceiling limit and the government shut down, this will unlikely do anything to transform the underlying structural problems dogging the US bourgeoisie. Once again, the best the main factions of the bourgeoisie will likely be able to do is to kick the can down the road. The US ruling class is stuck with the fact that its state structure seemingly promotes a system of “locally rational, nationally foolish” for much of the Republican Party, and the traditional means for keeping the perverse incentives towards extremism under control have mostly broken down.

Perhaps the most damaging prospect for the US bourgeoisie of this political crisis is the calling into question of its traditional two-party democratic illusion and division of ideological labor. If ideological decomposition has turned the Republicans into an openly reactionary party representing a demographically doomed constituency, the Democratic Party is itself increasingly losing its image as the “party of the working class.”

Pushed by the Republican Party’s increasing rightward lurch, the Democratic Party has been forced to try to be both the party of the labor unions and at the same time that of neo-liberal corporatism. Within the broad Democratic coalition must co-exist such diverse political stances as the furthest left of the established unions like the Service Employee’s International Union (SEIU) and the so-called urban education reformers who push charter schools, merit pay and openly demonize the teachers’ unions. More and more, while the Republican Party enacts an enforced ideological purity, the Democratic Party appears to stand for nothing, except compromise itself, elevating deal making into an end in itself. In order to appear as the rational, “grown-up” party, nothing is off the table, not even Social Security and Medicare. But how can a party that acquiesces so easily to cuts in the meager social wage serve as a buttress against any social unrest that may emerge in the future? While for now, the Democrats can use the Republican Party’s meltdown as political cover, it is unclear for how long it can keep this charade going, especially when Obama is no longer the face of the party after 2016.

It is clear that the American state system is under severe stress at this time. Its two party democratic illusion is in jeopardy: one of its major parties is experiencing a serious upheaval that could possibly result in a split, while the other is increasingly called upon to shed its image as the protector of the working class. There appears to be fewer and fewer options open to the American bourgeoisie to repair the situation within the current structures of the state. While it is impossible to predict precisely how this will play out, it is important to note that each time the punditry has predicted that the Republican Party will come out of its ideological stupor in order to protect its electoral interests, it has only tended to dig in its heels further. While this allows the Democratic Party to claim to be the rational party, workers should have no illusions about what this means. For the Democrats, rationality means compromise, with each new compromise requiring the working class to bear the brunt of the pain. We should remember that in the current fight over the government shut down, the Democratic Party has already accepted the Republicans’ painful budget numbers. The budget, which is ostensibly at the heart of the current stand-off, is only several billion dollars more than that proposed by the Republican Party’s chief of austerity Paul Ryan. With each substantive crisis, the Democrats’ opening gambit is often already a restatement of its “opponent’s” position, revealing the true nature of both parties as enemies of the proletariat.

This should leave us with few doubts that in this contest between thieves both parties have austerity for the working class in mind. Thus, however more “rational” the Democrats claim to be compared to their Republican counterparts, it is necessary to grasp the meaning of their "rationality" in context. If rationality means enacting those polices that serve the interest of the US national capital, this will ultimately mean more austerity for the working class even if a deliberate blow up of the global economy is avoided.

Compromise As An End in Itself

All the political drama and media spectacle over these crises seems to include an important message that the media has tried to reinforce: the key to the functioning of any democratic political system is that all sides must be willing to compromise. Thus, compromise is set-up as an end in itself; it becomes the litmus test for rationality and good governance. Those who take a principled stand in favor of one position or another are ultimately painted with the brush of “extremism” and are said to act outside the boundaries of “democratic norms.” As a result of its recent behavior, many analysts have decided that the Republican Party is no longer a “normal” political party, but one bent on chaos and destruction. However much this is true, we have to be clear to separate this discussion from any attempt to turn this critique back on revolutionaries.

As descendants of the communist left, we are well aquatinted with the critique of those who refuse to compromise. Many of the charges thrown around by the pundits at the Republican “radicals” today are very similar to things Lenin said to dismiss the Dutch and Italian lefts within the Comintern. The refusal to compromise is labeled “juvenile,” “absolutist” and “impractical.” Compromises are supposed to be necessary in order to avoid premature confrontations, which one is likely to lose (as appears to be fate of the Republican Party today).

While we think any attempt to associate the communist left with the kind of intransigence at work in today’s Republican Party is not historically appropriate, it may very well be the case that the media is using the current crises to transmit a broader lesson about “radicalism” to the general population. Perhaps it is not for nothing that the phrase “Tea Party radical” has gained such currency? The message appears to be that anyone who steps outside the boundaries of normal politics is simply irresponsible, if not downright crazy, and should be summarily dismissed. “Grown-ups compromise.” They don’t refuse to negotiate when the pain for not doing is mutual ruin.

From our point of view, it is one thing to hold firm to the principles that delineate the boundary of bourgeois from proletarian politics as the historic communist left did, and another altogether for one bourgeois party to threaten the blow up the global economy if it doesn’t get its way. The communist left was a reaction to the growing political degeneration of the Comintern (as a result of the failure of the world revolution to spread from it Russian bastion) and its progressive reintegration into the state apparatus of capital. Today’s Tea Party intransigence is a reflection of the decomposition of the capitalist system and its centrifugal action upon the bourgeois political apparatus, which in turn pushes the underlying economic system to the brink of catastrophe.

For the working class, the lesson in the current crisis is clear. The bourgeois political apparatus is reaching the point of breakdown. While for now this process may be affecting one party more than another, there is no reason to expect deliverance from the Democrats. While the Democrats may not be interested in provoking a national default, they will most likely avoid this through a “compromise” that includes more attacks against the working class’s standard of living.8 There is only one way out of this morass and it starts with the working class returning to the path of its own autonomous struggles outside of the control of all capitalist political parties.

Henk, 10/14/2013

3 For our analysis of the first debt ceiling crisis of 2011 see: U.S. Debt Ceiling Crisis: Political Wrangling While the Global Economy Burns https://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201108/4459/us-debt-ceiling-cr... [580]

4 For our analysis of “Obamacare” see “Obamacare”: Political Chaos for the Bourgeoisie, Austerity for the Working Class. [581]

5 For an analysis that attempts to find the rational interests in Tea Party antics see this blog by Michael Lind: Tea Party Radicalism is misunderstood: Meet the “Newest Right” [582].

The media are full of unbearable images of children and whole families dying of starvation in a world where vast amounts of food are being thrown away. The violence of this absurd poverty seems to have no limits. 10,000 people die of hunger every day. A child under 10 dies of starvation every 5 seconds. 842 million people are suffering from severe undernourishment. And this misery is spreading throughout the world, reaching part of the population of the ‘rich’ world, where food banks are becoming increasingly common. And if we are not immediately faced with hunger, we are being made to feel culpable for the horrors stalking the ‘third world’.

The false explanations of the bourgeoisie

The ‘experts’ give us the most unbelievable explanations for all this. There are too many people. Our food regime is not adapted to the resources of the planet. We don’t have enough respect for these resources. In short, everything is geared to making us feel as guilty as possible, while those who are really responsible for this are never denounced. Is it their fault that modest families in the ‘Northern’ countries have to buy food at the lowest prices at the supermarkets? Shouldn’t we blame the ‘consumers’ for buying products made in the most dubious conditions? There are those who repeat this endlessly, and many of them tell us if we ‘consume in a different way’, everyone will be better off, including those in the poor countries.  Our problem is that we are not being responsible. We eat too much and we eat badly, so it’s all our fault if others are going hungry.

There’s not much doubt that we eat badly, given all the colourings, sugars, and pesticides in our food. We will come back to that later on. But for now the question is this: how can we really understand this situation? Our planet is a very fertile place, blessed with an extremely rich and diverse ecosystem which contains vast potential. With more than 10Gha (10,000,000,000 hectares) of potentially cultivable land, it seems inconceivable that with the current technology so many people should be facing starvation. And yet they are. If we compare the resources available on the planet with the actual use being made of them today, we can see immense contradictions, contradictions which are threatening the very survival of our species.

Let’s look a bit more closely at these contradictions. As we said, the planet disposes of 10Gha of potentially cultivable land. According to a report published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in Britain[1], the total amount of land actually being cultivated today represents 4.9Gha, i.e. around half of what is available for the production of food. This same report indicates that the average capacity of a one hectare field to produce grain or maize would make it possible, given current means, to feed between 19 and 22 people for a year, whereas the exploitation of a hectare destined for producing beef or lamb for human consumption makes it possible to feed around 1.5 people a year.

The existing productivity in the agro-food sector thus makes it possible to feed the whole world population. If millions of human beings are dying of hunger every day, the cause is this ignoble system which does not produce to satisfy the needs of humanity but to sell and make a profit. Here is the big difference with the famines of the Middle Ages: these were a result of the limited development of tools, of techniques, of the organisation of land and labour. Human beings continued to exploit every inch of land in order to make up for this lack of productivity. Today, under capitalism, humanity possesses extraordinary capacities which it is not using. Worse than that: the race for profit leads to immense waste:

“In South-East Asian countries for example, losses of rice can range from 37% to 80% of total production depending on development stage, which amounts to total wastage in the region of about 180 million tonnes annually...The potential to provide 60–100% more food by simply eliminating losses, while simultaneously freeing up land, energy and water resources for other uses, is an opportunity that should not be ignored.” [2]

In Europe, 50% of food products end up in the bin – 240,000 tons every day.

In response to famines, putting a stop to such waste, to the destruction of unsold food, would appear to be the immediate measures that need to be taken, even if they are largely insufficient. But even these basic measures can’t be taken by capitalism because in this society human welfare and the satisfaction of needs, even the most basic ones, is not at all the goal of production. Factories, machinery, capital only exist to make a profit and the workers are only fed so that they can produce surplus value, the source of profit. Measures that might seem simple and obvious can only be adopted by the proletariat in a revolutionary situation.

This said, in the long term, a society free from social classes and capital will have to take much more radical measures than this. The capitalist mode of production ravages nature, exhausts the soil, poisons the air. The majority of animal species are threatened with extinction if the destructive madness of this system isn’t halted.

Those who are conscious of this situation can only react with indignation. But many claim that the way forward is to reduce consumption, and to practice negative growth. But the solution is neither ‘productivist’ (producing more and more without concern for the aim of production), or negative growth (producing less so that each human being lives just above the poverty line, which is impossible under capitalism with its inevitable class inequalities). It has to be much more radical and profound than that. If production is no longer spurred on by the hunt for profit but by the satisfaction of human need, then the conditions of production will have to change completely. In the realm of food production, all research, the whole organisation of labour and the soil, the process of distribution...will be guided by the respect for humanity and nature. But this implies the overthrow of capitalism.

From scarcity to overproduction

From what we know today, agriculture first made its appearance around 10,000 years ago, somewhere around the south east of what is today Turkey. Since then, techniques have continued to develop, sometimes resulting in major leaps in output. The use of animals to pull the swing plough became general in antiquity, while the development of the wheeled plough and of three crop rotation around the 10th century AD led to definite improvements in production. However, it is important to remember that despite the advances that marked this long period[3], the technical knowledge of the time did not make it possible to generate stable harvests from one year to the next. There were many examples of great famines that decimated the population: in 1315 for example, as a result of a particularly cold and rainy year, harvests in France were 50% below that of previous years, resulting in the deaths of between 5 and 10% of the population. To a lesser extent the same phenomenon could be seen in 1348, this time followed by the Black Death which struck an already weakened population. To simplify, during the 14th and 15th centuries when the climate was less favourable than in the previous period, there was a terrible famine every 20 or 30 years. It wasn’t until the mid-19th century that agricultural production ceased to suffer so severely from blows delivered by the climate. The progress in machinery and the use of fossil fuels (coal and oil), the advances in inorganic chemistry and the introduction of mineral fertilisers led to a considerable increase in output. With the development of capitalism, agriculture became an industry, in the image of the textile industry, or transport. Tasks were rigorously planned and the concept of the manufacturing process, with the scientific organisation of labour, permitted an unprecedented increase in productivity. All this led people to believe that periods of crisis and famine would give way to centuries of abundance. Most of the scientists of the day swore by the progress of science and thought that the development of capitalist society would be the remedy for all ills. Most, but not all. In 1845 for example, when capitalism was in full expansion, a terrible famine struck Ireland. Mildew and humid weather led to a fall in the potato crop of nearly 40%. The consequences for the population were dramatic – it is estimated that there were a million deaths between 1846 and 1851. But even if the techniques of the day were still fairly rudimentary, it would be a mistake to see the potato blight as the sole cause of the catastrophe. In contrast to what happened in 1780, Ireland’s ports remained open due to the pressure of Protestant negotiators and Ireland carried on exporting food. While whole families on the island were dying of hunger, convoys of food belonging to the landlords, escorted by the army, set off for England. This is how England’s capitalist development took place. The boundless cruelty of the capitalist system led Engels to write in 1882:

“In the advanced industrial countries, we have subdued the forces of nature and harnessed them to the service of man; we have thus infinitely multiplied production to the point where a child today can produce what once took 100 adults. And what are the consequences? Growing over-work and mounting poverty for the masses, and every ten years, a huge debacle” (Dialectics of Nature).   

In the next article [586]we will examine this subject in the context of the decadence of capitalism.

Enkidu 20/10/13

In the aftermath of the general elections of 22 September 2013 in Germany, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic, Angela Merkel and leader of the Christian Democrats, is presently negotiating the formation of a Grand Coalition with the Social Democrats. The new government will be the third in a row under the Chancellorship of Merkel. The first one was also a Grand Coalition with the second largest party in the Bundestag, the SPD. The second one was a coalition with the small liberal partner, the FDP. One of the results of the recent elections was that Merkel lost her coalition partner. For the first time since the foundation of the Federal Republic after the Second World War, the Liberals failed to gain entry to parliament. At the moment of writing, the formation of a coalition of the Christian Democrats with the SPD appears to be by far the most likely outcome. The course of the negotiations between these two parties already indicate that, although the Christian Democrats have a much bigger share of the seats in parliaments, the new coalition with the SPD, if it comes into being, will be “written in the handwriting of the Social Democrats”, as the media have already declared. In other words: the programme of the new government will not be to immediately and frontally attack the working class, although these massive attacks will of necessity follow in the course of time.

By far the most remarkable result of the recent elections however was the fact that the Chancellor and her party, who have already ruled the country for two full terms of office, could celebrate such an electoral triumph. In a country which, since the war, has, with one brief exception, always been ruled by coalition governments, Merkel came close to gaining an absolute majority – for Germany a sensation. This is all the more remarkable since, in most of the other countries of Europe, the economic situation is so serious, and the need to attack the working population so acute, that any government, whether of the left or the right, tends to rapidly lose popularity and even credibility and thus to be sent back into opposition at the next elections. This at least is the form which the social safety valve of capitalist democracy presently takes in Europe: The anger of the population is canalised and neutralised into a “protest vote”, which, for the “political class” has the consequence that the long-term continuity of a given governing team becomes increasingly unlikely. A dramatic example of this development is France, where the left wing government of Francois Hollande, not long ago celebrated by the media as the new hope for the working people of the whole of Europe, has suffered after only one year in office an all time loss of public sympathy. But what we see in Germany is the contrary development, at least for the moment. The question is: how is this to be explained?

Merkel profits from the heritage of the Schröder government

Perhaps the most important “secret” of the lasting electoral strength of Angela Merkel lies in the fact that it was not necessary yet, under her chancellorship, to massively attack the population. And one of the reasons for this is that her predecessor, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and his left coalition of the SPD and the Greens, already did this so successfully that Merkel is still reaping the rewards. Schröder’s so-called “Agenda 2010”, unleashed at the beginning of the new century, was a huge success from the point of view of capital. It succeed in reducing the global wage bill of the country so radically that its main rivals in Europe, such as France, publically protested against the “wage dumping” of the continent’s leading economic power. It also succeed in enforcing an unprecedented “flexibilisation” of the work force, in particular through a breathtaking development of precarious employment, not only in traditionally low wage sectors, but at the heart of industry. Thirdly (and this was not the least of Schröder’s achievements) all of this was achieved through an attack which was absolutely massive, but not generalised. In other words, instead of attacking the proletariat as a whole, the measures were designed to create deep visions within the class, between employed and unemployed workers, between workers with regular contracts and those without. In the big factories a veritable apartheid system was established between the regular employees and the “casuals” doing the same job for only half or even only a third off the wage; in some cases they were not even allowed to use the company canteen. As a result, whereas in many other European countries such massive attacks had to be implemented without much previous planning under the hammer blows of the so-called financial crisis from 2008 on, Merkel was in the comfortable position that in Germany these measures were already in place and bearing their fruits for capital.

Another specificity at this level is that the attacks in Germany were not hatched out, for instance, by one of the infamous neo-liberal “think tanks”, but first and foremost by the trade unions. Agenda 2010 was worked out by a commission led by Peter Hartz, a friend of Schröder at the Volkswagen concern,  with the direct participation of the trade union factory council of Volkswagen and the IG Metall, the metal workers’ union, the most powerful trade union in Europe, which (as many employers have publically admitted) understands more about successful management than the managers themselves. No wonder that today the majority of the German bourgeoisie, including the employers’ federations, is eager to have the Social Democrats (and with them the unions) join Merkel in a coalition government. And no wonder that Merkel, after losing her liberal coalition partner, is presently distancing herself increasingly from the ideology of neo-liberalism, singing songs of praise for the good old German model of the alleged “social market economy” (where the trade unions directly participate in running the country) and even beginning to advocate the extension of this model to the rest of Europe.

The competitive edge of German capital

Another reason for Merkel’s success story lies in the strong competitive edge of the German economy. If this competitive edge were based solely on the wage dumping explained above, it would now be melting away in face of the drastic attacks elsewhere in Europe in recent years. But in reality it has a much broader basis in the economic structure of the country itself. There is a danger for marxists, confronted by the abstract mode of functioning of capital, of themselves being mesmerised by this abstract character, and thus falling for the impression that the relative strength or weakness of a national capital depends solely on abstract criteria such as the development of the organic composition of capital or the rate of indebtedness in relation to GNP etc. This leads to a purely schematic vision of the capitalist economy, where political, historical, cultural, geographical, military and other factors disappear from sight. For instance, if you look at the growth rates or the level of debts of the USA and compare them with those of China, you can only conclude that America has already lost the race against its Asiatic challenger and might even end up with some kind of third world status.  But this forgets that the USA is still the capitalist paradise of innovative “start ups”, that it is no coincidence that the centre of the new media is the United States, and that the political culture of a Stalinist led country like China prevents it from emulating its rival.

In her polemic with the revisionist Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg (in her book Reform or Revolution?) explained that the “laws” discovered by Karl Marx concerning the rising organic composition and the centralisation of capital do not mean the necessary disappearance of middle sized enterprises. On the contrary, she explains, such smaller companies necessarily remain the heart of the technical innovation which is at the hub of an economic system based on competition and the obligation to accumulate. Germany is not a paradise for capitalist start ups like the United States (the heavy weight of its bureaucratic traditions prevent this). But it remains to this day the Mecca of the world engineering and machine construction industries. This strength is based on highly specialised, often family led companies, who pass their skills on from generation to generation, and on a highly qualified work force based on a unique apprenticeship system and on traditions which go back to the Middle Ages. In the past 20 years, in a coordinated operation between the employers’ federations, the government, the banks and the trade unions, these small and middle size machine-constructing enterprises, without necessarily increasing their size, have been transformed into world-wide operating businesses. But their base of operation remains Germany. Here again, the signature of the trade unions is evident. Whereas an employer will tend not to mind whether profits come from a plant in Germany or abroad, as long as there are profits, the thinking of the trade unions is almost viscerally nationalistic, since their primordial task is to control the work force in Germany itself, in the interests of capital, and this can best be done by maintaining industry and jobs “at home”. The metal workers’ union directly concerned, the IG Metall, is a fanatical defender of Germany as an industrial base (the “Standort Deutschland”).

State capitalism and the difference from 1929

All of this helps to explain why Germany, at least to date, has been better able to resist the terrible deepening of the world economic crisis of capitalism since 2008 than most of its rivals. But none of these advantages would have helped much had the structure of the capitalist economy not radically changed since the days of the terrible depression which began in 1929 and which ended in World War Two. At that time, the heartlands of capitalism, the most developed countries of the day, Germany and the United States, were hit first and were the worst affected. This is no coincidence. The crises of decadent capitalism are no longer crises of expansion, they are crises of the system as such, developing at its heart and naturally afflicting the centre directly. But as opposed to 1929, the bourgeoisie today is not only much more experienced, it above all has a gigantic state capitalist apparatus at its disposal, which cannot prevent economic crisis, but which can prevent the crisis from taking its natural course. This is mainly why, since the re-appearance of the open crisis of capitalist decadence at the end of the 1960s, the economically and politically strongest states have been the ones best able to resist. None of this prevents the crisis not only from coming ever closer to the historic centres of capitalism, but also from affecting these centres in an ever more serious manner. But this does not necessarily mean that there will be a partial economic collapse there in the near future like in Germany or the USA after 1929. At all events, the international and European management of the “Euro-Crisis” in recent years clearly demonstrates that the state capitalist mechanisms of pushing the worst effects of the crisis onto weaker rivals still function. Both the property and finance crisis which began in 2007/2008, and the crisis of confidence in the joint European currency which followed it, directly menaced the stability of the German and French banking and finance sector. The main results of the different European salvation operations, all the money so generously lent to Greece, Ireland, Portugal etc, was the shoring up of the German and French interests at the expense of weaker rivals, with the additional result that the workers of those countries had to bear the main brunt of the attacks. And whereas the reasons we gave at the beginning of this article to explain the electoral success of Merkel were not of her own doing, concerning this question it certainly was Merkel and her finance minister Schäuble who defended the German interests tooth and nail, so that the European partners were often driven to the brink of exasperation. And here it is clear that behind the high vote for Merkel there is a nationalist impulse which is very dangerous for the working class.

The German bourgeoisie assumes its responsib​ilities

There are thus objective reasons which help to explain the electoral triumph of Angela Merkel: the relatively successful resistance of Germany, at least to date, to the deepening of the historical crisis, and Merkel’s capacity to defend German interests in Europe. But the most important single reason for her success was that the whole German bourgeoisie wanted her success and did all it could to promote it. The reasons for this do not lie in Germany itself, but in the world situation as a whole, which is becoming increasingly threatening. At the economic level, the crisis of the European economy, and the wavering confidence in the Euro, are far from over – the worst is yet to come. This is why the phenomenon of Mutti Merkel, the “wise and caring mother” in charge of the German state, is now so important. According to a popular school of thought within modern bourgeois economic “theory”, economics is to an important degree a question of psychology. They say “economics” and mean capitalism. They say “psychology” and mean religion, or should we say: superstition? In Volume One of Capital, Marx explains that capitalism is based to an important degree on the belief in the magic power of persons and objects (commodities, money) invested with purely imaginary abilities. Today, the confidence of the international markets in the Euro is mainly based on the belief that somehow the involvement of “the Germans” is a guarantee that all will be well. Mutti Merkel has become a world-wide fetish.

The problem of the common European currency is not peripheral, but absolutely central, both economically and politically. In capitalism, the confidence between the actors, without which a society with a minimum of stability becomes impossible, is no longer based on mutual confidence between human beings, but takes the abstract form of confidence in money, in the existing currency. The German bourgeoisie knows from its own experience with the hyper-inflation of 1923, that the collapse of a currency lays the basis for explosions of uncontrollable instability and insanity.

But there is also the political dimension. Here Berlin is extremely anxious about the long term development of social discontent in Europe, and about the immediate situation in France. It is alarmed by the incapacity of the bourgeoisie on the other side of the Rhine to come to terms with its economic and political problems. And it is worried about the prospect of social unrest in that country, since the German working class in the past decades has developed a particular admiration for the French proletariat and tends to look to it for leadership.

It is with full consciousness of its international responsibilities that today, with the results of the recent elections, the German bourgeoisie has chosen a government which embodies and symbolises strength, stability and continuity, and with which it hopes to face up to the coming storms.

Weltrevolution (the ICC's section in Germany).  4th of November 2013.

Our sympathiser, Baboon, analyses the recent struggle at Grangemouth.

The price for keeping the Grangemouth petro-chemical section, indeed the whole refinery, from shutting down: a no-strike agreement, a 3-year pay freeze, cuts in shift-pay and bonuses, less favourable conditions for new workers, “limited redundancies” and an end to the Final Salary pension scheme (more contributions from the workers, less pay out), has been “embraced, warts and all” by Len McCluskey and his Unite trade union. When asked on the BBC if this wasn’t a humiliation, McClusey said no, “we sort out problems like this all the time”. And indeed the actions of the trade union Unite go hand in hand with the bosses’ attack. The workers at BA will attest to this where, a few years ago, the Unite union brought in a two-tier wage system, divided workers at Gatwick from Heathrow and cut wages and conditions to the extent that some workers and stewards tore up their union cards in angry meetings with the union representatives. Like BA, the events around Grangemouth demonstrate both the attacks raining down on the working class and, at the very least, the uselessness of the trade unions in representing the interests of the working class.

Much is made by papers like the Trotskyist Socialist Worker and the Stalinist Morning Star about the billionaire boss of Grangemouth “blackmailing” the workers and about the “greed” of the owner, but this is what capitalism does as a matter of fact and is increasingly forced to do as the crisis deepens and its profits are threatened. For those on the Left one answer is the nationalisation of the plant, as if that would in any way attenuate the exploitation of the workers. One of the first coordinated actions of the banks nationalised after the 2008 crisis was the sacking of tens of thousands of workers. One might think that the oil industry would be profitable, but this is far from the case as it constantly tries to lower costs through reducing wages and making inroads on working conditions and safety measures (look at BP in the US and the neglect that resulted in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010). The Swiss-based, half Chinese-owned Grangemouth oil refinery, like many in Europe and Latin America, is suffering from the intense cut-throat competition with the US and Middle Eastern refineries on the oil market-place, while local demand has declined because of the recession.

This free-for-all also makes a mockery of the Coalition’s recovery talk about new investments and bold energy policies. The writing was on the wall with the so-called ‘unthinkable’ closure of the Coryton oil refinery in Essex over a year ago despite a Unite spokesman saying at the time that “it was a going concern ready to make a profit” (BBC Business News, 24.1.12). 850 jobs went here when the plant shut down despite more generalised protests from workers that included those of Grangemouth and the Lindsey refinery in Lincolnshire – protests that Unite disowned. Quite a few Coryton workers went to Saudi Arabia but many upped and moved to refineries around the UK, including Grangemouth. The Coryton plant was run on such tight margins that the whole place was a disaster waiting to happen and it did on October 31, 2007, where a fire and massive explosion shook homes fourteen miles away. Luckily for the workers it happened out of working hours, though the cloud of poison given off was toxic for miles around. Since that incident the plant saw over 20 “serious” (Health and Safety Executive) incidents up until it closed last year.

The fragility of the oil industry is by no means confined to Britain as is shown by the strike by 40,000 Petrobas workers in Brazil against attacks on their wages - which the union turned into an argument about nationalisation - and strikes and protests by petro-chemical workers in Portugal against cuts in their wages and conditions. It’s the brutal logic of capitalism: if a firm doesn’t make the required profits then the business shuts down and the workers are thrown out of a job and possibly out of their homes. Not only are the trade unions unable to confront the laws of capital, they are complicit in their functioning as well as the policing of the workers under their joint agreements, procedures and ever-extending commitments to ‘flexibility’. The trade unions represent a completely false opposition to the bosses while being complicit in their attacks. What did the Unite union do at Grangemouth?

The threat to close the Grangemouth petro-chemical division would have cost over 800 jobs immediately and threatened another 2600 direct and contractor jobs if the closure extended to the refinery, i.e., 8% of Scotland’s manufacturing industry would have gone up in smoke. The company, Ineos, has been trying to change workers’ terms and conditions since it bought the plant from BP seven years ago, so it’s not like the unions were not warned of the impending attack. In April 2008, Grangemouth workers were involved in a strike over attacks on their pensions - the first strike at Grangemouth for 73 years. But here, this month, a clique of the Unite shop stewards organised a vote in one shop of a hundred workers, not against the attacks of the company, but against the actions of Ineos in enquiring into the time the union convenor was spending on Labour Party politics in Scotland. The attack on the workers was entirely secondary to the union which was more concerned with defending one of their own who was said to be involved in ballot rigging and other machinations around the corrupt politics of the Falkirk Labour Party. It’s often said that the union leadership is ‘out of touch’, ‘bureaucratic’ and the ‘rank-and-file’ is the real union. There’s something inescapably and intrinsically Stalinesque about the trade unions in that their structures and frameworks give rise to cliques and cabals of small minorities even with the best will in the world. They, and their practices, are the antithesis of the mass, open meetings of workers that can point the way forward.

The rank-and-file apparatus was indeed ‘the real union’ here at Grangemouth, reflecting the in-fighting and political machinations of the union leadership, which has nothing to do with the class struggle. Eighty-one of the workers balloted voted to strike for the steward and the other 1300 direct workers and more than a thousand contractors who were Unite members didn’t get a say. There’s no wonder there was a lot of residual anger amongst the workers against the union for its actions and its non-action. When the boss threatened closure the union called off its pathetic forty-eight hour strike, and the work-to-rule and overtime ban that the workers were carrying out “in the interests of maintaining production”. And when the closure threat was maintained the union capitulated, as evidenced by the words of Unite boss, McCluskey above and Unite’s Scottish secretary, Pat Rafferty, pleading for talks (Guardian, 21/10/13) and agreeing to the no-strike agreement the previous day.

The rejection of the company plan didn’t come through a Unite ballot but, as many reports said, from individual workers, about two-thirds of them, returning a ‘no’ to the company’s plans. This at least showed a combative potential of the Grangemouth workers who were involved in solidarity actions with Coryton (above) and also involved in solidarity actions with the 2008 Tanker Drivers’ strike. As the plant was ‘saved’ (for how long?) the TV concentrated on the justly relieved workers (though some criticism of the trade union came through), but there is a large core of workers here that have experience of solidarity actions and sometimes illegal struggle, who were clearly against the ‘survival plan’. In the summer of 2008, Grangemouth workers showed solidarity with Shell tanker drivers as picketing and ‘secondary actions’ took place from Plymouth, through Wales and Somerset up to Cheshire, Lincolnshire and Scotland. The victory trumpeted by Unite here was a deal stitched-up by them and the bosses which resulted in a pay offer just 0.7% more than the original offer to the Shell drivers. The real victory was in the often illegal solidarity actions of the workers across union divisions.[1]

Attacks have been raining down on oil industry workers, just like all workers, since the 90s particularly and we will see more Grangemouths and Colytons in the years to come as capitalism’s crisis intensifies. It is very difficult for workers to struggle effectively in today’s conditions, particularly when the firm is about to close down and your job is on the line, or in the face of what seems overwhelming odds and isolation. But these questions won’t go away for the working class because the attacks of capital will become relentless. At Grangemouth the workers had the whole gamut of the state ranged against them: the ‘evil’ boss, Alex Salmond and his brand of Scottish nationalism, Westminster politics and Falkirk Labour Party plotting and scheming, the Trotskyists and Stalinists denouncing “fat cats” calling for nationalisation and ideas of ‘workers’ control’ - and the Unite trade union also singing the left’s tunes with its leader Len McCluskey saying on BBC News (24/10/13) that “the future of this plant is paramount to the shop stewards (pause) and the workers” and that he wouldn’t allow “the future of Scotland to be put in peril”. And so he puts himself and his union, and his compromised clique of shop stewards, at the service of the company in its ongoing attacks on the working class.  

Baboon 29/10/1 (This article was contributed by a sympathiser of the ICC)

The stabbing of Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September by a self-confessed member of Golden Dawn has led to a wave of official actions against the neo-nazi party. Members, deputies and its leader have been arrested on charges of belonging to a criminal organisation, following the lifting of its parliamentary immunity. Individuals have been charged with murder, attempted murder, sex trafficking, money laundering, benefit and tax fraud. Its state funding has been suspended. Witnesses have given evidence of the involvement of the party in attacks on immigrants, extortion and arms smuggling.

Political parties have shown themselves united in their support of the measures taken, all agreeing that Golden Dawn (GD) is a serious threat to democracy. Alexis Tsipras, the leader of left wing opposition party Syriza supported the repressive measures: “The intervention shows that our democracy is standing firm and it is healthy”  while suggesting that the ‘intervention’ had not gone far enough as Syriza called for all GD members to be arrested. The Greek Socialist Workers’ Party saw the actions of the coalition government as a “victory” and declared “We celebrate this development”, while demanding that there should also be a “cleansing” of the police.

The divisions in Greek politics have always run deep. Yet, on the economic level, the conservative New Democracy and the social democratic PASOK, after more than 35 years of alternating in government denouncing each other’s every move, joined together in a coalition government in November 2011 in order to impose even tougher austerity measures. Similarly, for all the different views of the economic calamity that Greece has been in over the last six years - whether or not, for example, to leave the EU - the parties have united in their defence of democracy. This is not before time for the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner Nils Muiznieks who produced a report in April this year which said that Greece had perfectly adequate legal grounds to ban Golden Dawn. In February he had called on Greece to do more against offences committed by GD and its links with the police. He also recommended investigations into police brutality.

Democratic backsliding

The state of democracy in Greece has been a preoccupation of the international bourgeoisie for some time. In a recent report from the Demos think tank Backsliders: Measuring Democracy in the EU,  Greece and Hungary come out as the most serious causes for concern. Greece is seen as “overwhelmed by extremely high unemployment, social unrest, endemic corruption and a severe disillusionment with the political establishment”.

On every count the report sees Greece coming out badly. It’s the most corrupt country in the EU, “… in countries like Greece and Italy corruption has risen in line with sluggish economic fortunes”. The catastrophic state of the economy is linked to widespread discontent – another recent report found Greeks now the most unhappy people in Europe. In the face of discontent “Some have argued that freedom of assembly has been challenged repeatedly by the Greek police, who have been accused of the use of teargas and violence against peaceful protestors and the incitement of riots since 2008”. The emergence of Golden Dawn is seen as pointing to a failing of the whole Greek ‘political class’. The links between GD and the police disturb the report’s authors.

The report is also concerned at the decline in turnout at Greek elections, although that is seen as a general problem: “countries across Western Europe are experiencing a sustained decline in voter turnout over the past 50 years, seemingly driven by increased apathy and a perceived absence of political choice.” In Greece, superficially, there might seem as though there was a tremendous range of choice, with a generous variety of parties from left, right and centre. However, as is seen elsewhere, the perception that in reality all parties stand for much the same has been dawning over a long period.

Although the Demos report is supposedly focussed on democracy, it has a wide-ranging brief. The treatment of immigrants is highlighted. “They can face tough conditions on arrival. Amnesty International has accused Greece of treating migrants like criminals and disregarding its obligations under international law. In January 2011 the European Court of Human Rights found Greece had violated Article 3 of the ECHR, which requires member states to prohibit torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, because of its poor asylum procedures”. Here the respectable parties of Greek democracy meet up with the neo-nazi Golden Dawn. Members of GD have physically attacked migrants, while the Greek government has undertaken an official campaign.

In August 2012 the Greek coalition government launched Operation Xenios Zeus. Tens of thousands of people, supposedly illegal undocumented migrants, have been subjected to abusive stops and searches on the streets, and hours-long detention at police stations. Of 85,000 detained about 4200 (about 6%) have been faced with charges of unlawful entry. Many have been sent to the Amygdaleza detention centre in northern Athens (the ‘Greek Guantanamo’). Here, officially, 1600 migrants are held, forced to live in inhuman conditions, subject to police abuse, denied proper health care, with Muslims being attacked while at prayer, until they are deported. The head of the Greek police union said that conditions were inhuman and unacceptable for the guards as well. Xenios Zeus is the Greek patron of hospitality.

Blaming foreigners

While Golden Dawn have attacked migrants on the streets, there are other foreigners who are more generally blamed for the current situation in Greece. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is widely described as the ‘new Hitler’ because of the role of Germany in the imposition of austerity measures. The Left is only marginally more sophisticated when it attacks the Troika of the EU, IMF and European Central Bank, while calling for withdrawal from the EU. As government repression cracked down on Golden Dawn its spokesmen hinted at ‘foreign influences’ or compared Greek Prime Minister Samaras to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. The parties of the bourgeoisie have a similar approach in practice and in rhetoric.

What concerns the bourgeoisie outside Greece is the potential for instability and the unpredictable role of Golden Dawn. In the democratic campaign GD can be portrayed as the force that goes beyond the framework of parliamentary democracy. But what Greek history of the last hundred years shows is that it has not only been under the dictatorship of Metaxas and the rule of the Colonels that the repression has been a central concern for the ruling class. In 1929 the Liberal government of Eleftherios Venizelos, for example, introduced the Idionymon law. This was aimed at “a minority that seeks the violent overthrow of the established social status quo by disseminating its principles and attracting followers, often through essays and underground means, and  has put in danger the security of society”. The penalty for those found guilty of having subversive ideas was imprisonment for six months or more, often on one of the islands of exile. Strikes effectively became illegal affronts to social peace. Venizelos specifically excluded using the law against fascists, and Metaxas used it as part of the legal apparatus of his own regime. Also, in the 1950s and 60s, in the period between the Greek Civil War and the advent of the Colonels, parties of the centre continued to preside over an apparatus that retained the camps and other instruments that had been used by the authoritarian dictatorships.

The rise of Golden Dawn was tolerated by the other parties of the Greek bourgeoisie until the killing of Pavlos Fyssas. GD had killed others before then, but the pressure to reinforce the apparatus of democracy became overwhelming. The new-found unity of the bourgeoisie against Golden Dawn has given an impetus to Greek democracy. However, this is not going to last forever. The early November killing of two members of Golden Dawn provoked much speculation on what would follow. One approach saw it as retaliation for the death of Fyssas and anticipated an escalation of tit-for-tat violence. This would not necessarily lead to greater instability as the Greek state would be in a position to say that further repression was required against other extremists, not just neo-nazis. It is a commonplace in Greek ‘moderate’ politics to see all ‘extremists’ being essentially the same. Not only are Golden Dawn portrayed as a threat to democracy, there are other forces that can be labelled ‘extreme’ in order to be confronted by the state. These will certainly include militant workers and revolutionary groups.

The bourgeoisie in Greece has shown how its major parties can be united to impose harsh economic measures. It has rallied to the democratic capitalist state in the name of anti-fascism. Its biggest enemy is the working class. When the bourgeoisie unites against protests and struggles that are impelled by discontent, the state is prepared for physical repression, while others will pose as the friends of the exploited. In struggle you can expect to be attacked by nazi thugs – the democratic state has a far wider weaponry, both repressive and ideological, and it is sophisticated enough to use the threat of fascism to bolster its own power. 

Car 2/11/13

At the beginning of October, an overloaded ship went down near Lampedusa in Italy. More than 350 immigrants died. A few days afterwards, another boat carrying migrants sank, and another ten people drowned. Every year in the Mediterranean 20,000 people lose their lives on the verge of reaching the sought-after Fortress Europe. Since the 1990s, the corpses of human beings fleeing from poverty and war have been piling up at the frontiers, along the coasts, in the deserts of the Sahara – like the 92 women and children from Niger abandoned by people smugglers to die of thirst and exhaustion in the Sahara at the end of the same month.

The hypocrisy of the ruling class

The ruling class has shed copious crocodile tears about the Lampedusa tragedy because its scale, and its proximity to ‘home’, made it impossible to ignore. To have done so might have stirred up too much anger, too much thinking.

The sordid polemic about the failure of Italian fishermen to help the victims has also served to divert people’s attention towards the hunt for scapegoats – even though the current laws actually criminalise those who help illegal immigrants and in previous cases captains of fishing vessels have already been prosecuted for trying to “give assistance to illegal entry”.

The grand media coverage of the Lampedusa tragedy is aimed at creating a mental fog and obscuring the huge repressive apparatus set up by in a coordinated manner by the states. The ideological trap is made up, on the one hand, of overtly xenophobic propaganda and, on the other, by ‘humanitarian’ speeches which, by emphasising the ‘rights’ of the victims, serve to separate immigrants from other proletarians.

One thing should be clear: capitalism in crisis and its politicians are indeed responsible for this new tragedy. It’s they who compel thousands of hungry people to embark on ever-more suicidal adventures to get round the obstacles placed in their path. It’s therefore not surprising if these same politicians were jeered at the airport by a shocked and disgusted local population[1].

The proletariat is a class of immigrants

Like these immigrants, all proletarians are really those who have been ‘uprooted’. Since the beginning of capitalism, they have been torn away from the land and from artisan labour. In the Middle Ages the majority of the exploited remained tied to the land; the rising power of capital subjected them to a violent exodus from the countryside

“The proletariat created by the breaking up of the bands of feudal retainers and by the forcible expropriation of the people from the soil, this ‘free’ proletariat could not possibly be absorbed by the nascent manufactures as fast as it was thrown upon the world. On the other hand, these men, suddenly dragged from their wonted mode of life, could not as suddenly adapt themselves to the discipline of their new condition”.[2]

Historically capitalism developed on the basis of free access to labour power. To extract surplus value it generated enormous population shifts. It was the unity of the new conditions of the exploited that led the workers’ movement to recognise that “the workers have no country!”

In addition, without the slave trade from Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries, capitalism would not have been able to develop so quickly in its industrial centres and through the slave ports of Liverpool, London, Bristol, Zeeland, Nantes and Bordeaux. In the 19th century, with the black labour force ‘freed’ into wage labour, economic growth fuelled even more massive displacements of populations, especially towards the American continent. From the early 19th century until 1914, 50 to 60 million Europeans headed towards the USA in search of work. At the beginning of the 20th century, nearly a million immigrants entered the USA every year. For Italy alone, between 1901 and 1913, nearly 8 million people became immigrants. During the ascendant phase of capitalism the system was able to absorb this mass of workers whose labour power was needed by an expanding economy.

In decadent capitalism, the state becomes a bunker

With the historic decline of the system, migration and the displacement of populations have not stopped. On the contrary! Imperialist conflicts, especially the two world wars, economic crises, and disasters linked to climate change have fed ever-growing migrations. In 2010, it was estimated that there were 214 million migrants in the world (3.1% of the world population[3]). On the basis of climate change alone, certain projections estimate that there will be between 25 million and one billion extra migrants by 2050[4].

Because of the permanent crisis of capital and the overproduction of commodities, migrants have come up against the limits of the market and the increasingly brutal rules imposed by the state. Capital can no longer integrate labour power on the same scale as before. Thus, in contrast to the period prior to the First World War when it opened its doors to the ‘huddled masses’, the USA has set up a whole system of quotas to drastically restrict entry, and is now building walls to halt the flow of migrants from Latin America. The economic crisis which opened up at the end of the 1960s has led all governments, especially in Europe, to set up heavy-handed patrols around the southern Mediterranean, employing an armada of boats to control the flow of migrants. The undeclared aim of the ruling class is clear: migrants should stay at home and rot. To ensure this, the good democrats of Europe, and notably France, have not hesitated to use the muscular services of a Gaddafi in Libya or the authorities in Morocco to make sure that those trying to reach Europe don’t get through the desert.

These controls at the frontiers, which have got tougher and tougher, are the product of decadence and of state capitalism. They are not new. In France for example:

“The creation of identity cards in 1917 really overturned administrative and police practices. Today we are habituated to having our passports stamped and we no longer think about the police origins of the process. But it was by no means neutral that the institution of identity cards was initially aimed at the surveillance of foreigners in a period of open war”.[5]

Today the paranoia of the state towards foreigners suspected of being troublemakers has reached unprecedented heights. Huge metal or concrete walls at the frontiers[6], topped with barbed wire or electrified, are a sinister reminder of the death camps of the Second World War. In 1989, the European bourgeoisies celebrated the fall of the ‘Berlin Wall’ in the name of freedom. This was indeed a barbaric materialisation of the ‘Iron Curtain’; but those doing the celebrating have shown that they too are builders of walls!

The tragic fate of the immigrants

The decadence of capitalism has become a period of vast displacements which have to be ‘controlled’. It’s the era of deportations, of concentration camps, of refugees (the number of Palestinian refugees went from 700,000 thousand in 1950 to 4.8 million in 2005). The genocide of the Armenians in 1915 led to the first mass movements of refugees of the 20th century. Between 1944 and 1951, nearly 20 million people were displaced or evacuated in Europe. The partition of states and other divisions have also resulted in massive displacements. While the ‘Iron Curtain’ blocked an exodus from Eastern Europe, the search for cheap labour power led the European countries to draw on the southern Mediterranean and Africa. Economic impoverishment and the ‘national liberation’ struggles produced by imperialist conflicts during the Cold War also fed the distress and displacement of a ruined peasantry, serving to create vast megacities surrounded by slums in the peripheral countries. These have become breeding grounds for mafia gangs involved in prostitution and the traffic of arms and drugs. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, refugee camps have sprung up like mushrooms, especially in Africa and the Middle East, where the population lives on the edge of survival, prey to famine, illness, and gangsters of all stripes.

The explosion of ‘illegal’ work

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the eastern bloc, two major events have intervened, on top of the growth of military conflicts, to weigh on the labour market and increase the flow of migration:

• the deepening of the economic crisis, especially in the central countries;
• the emergence of China.

For an initial period, workers from the eastern countries went west; this coincided with the first relocations of industry and it helped to exert a powerful pressure on wages. In addition, countries which had previously been on the margins of the world market, such as India and China, opened up the possibility of uprooting millions of workers who had come from the countryside, swelling the ranks of a reserve army made up of unemployed proletarians who could be dragooned for work when needed.

The very low level of wages paid to these workers in the context of a saturated world market makes it possible to put further pressure on wages and results in even more relocations. This explains the fact that in the central countries since the 1990s the number of illegal and clandestine workers has exploded in certain sectors, despite the strengthening of controls. In 2000 there were about 5 million clandestine workers in Europe, 12 million in the USA and 20 million in India. The central states make ample use of this workforce, generally poorly qualified and without official papers, and whose extremely precarious position makes them ready to do pretty much anything for very low wages. Under the watchful eye of the state a whole parallel market has been created, sustained by workers who are subject to all kinds of blackmail and live in atrocious conditions. The majority of agricultural harvests are now being taken in by foreign workers, many of them illegal. In Italy, 65% of the agricultural labour force is illegal. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, 2 million Romanians migrated to southern Europe for agricultural work. In Spain, the housing ‘boom’ which came before the crash was to a large extent based on the sweat of underpaid clandestine workers, often from Latin American countries like Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, etc. To this we must add the grey areas of the economy, such as prostitution. In 2003, in a country like Moldavia, 30% of women aged between 18 and 25 had gone missing! In the same year, 500,000 prostitutes from eastern Europe were working in western Europe.

In Asia and in the Gulf monarchies, we see the same phenomena for domestic workers and building workers. In Qatar, immigrants make up 86% of the population, and, as the recent scandal about the preparations for the 2022 World Cup has revealed, many are working in conditions of near slavery.

Today, with the development of military tensions, we can already seeing an influx of people escaping war zones, especially from the Middle East and Africa.

The proletarian combat

In the face of growing barbarism, of brutal police measures against immigrants and the xenophobic campaigns disseminated by the ruling class, the proletariat can only respond with indignation and with international class solidarity. This means rejecting any idea that immigrants and ‘foreigners’ are the cause of crisis and unemployment.

The media, especially those aligned to the Right, are constantly bombarding us with images of immigrants who foment crime and disorder and live as parasites from the ‘generous’ benefits handed out by western countries. In reality, it’s the immigrants who are the first victims of the system. This nauseating right wing propaganda has always been used to divide workers. But the more insidious traps are the ones laid by the ‘humanitarian’ Left, with its false generosity and good old common sense, which also divides the working class by treating immigrants as a special case.

Today, when factories are closing one after the other, when the order books are getting thinner despite all the talk of ‘recovery’, it is becoming increasingly clear that all proletarians are being hit by the crisis and growing poverty, whether immigrants or not. What meaning can there be in the idea of competition for jobs from illegal workers when jobs for everyone are disappearing?

Against this ideological offensive, against the policy of repression, the working class has to reaffirm its historical perspective. This begins with basic solidarity and advances towards recognising its own revolutionary strength in society.  

WE 21/10/2013

The headline of the Mail article was ‘The man who hated Britain’ and the question of patriotism, of ‘love for one’s country’, was the central issue being debated by left and right. In an intelligent article published in The Guardian at the height of the furore[1], Priyamyada Gopal duly notes the squalid nature of the Mail article, with its subtly anti-semitic and anti-immigrant undertones, but she also asks some questions about the standard line of defence against the Mail’s attack.

“The defence of Ralph Miliband runs along wearyingly familiar lines – that he unambiguously proved his patriotism by fighting in the anti-Nazi war, which along with ‘no apology for the empire’ has become the principal litmus test for love of Britain. His lifelong commitment to a supple Marxism is noted but quietly skimmed over as an embarrassingly anachronistic aspect of an otherwise decent and loyal man. Yet a defence of Miliband senior which does not also challenge the red-bashing that often goes hand in hand with antisemitism is, at best, equivocal. More perniciously, it accepts the distorted terms set by the rightwing press which defines patriotism narrowly through obedient adulation of monarchy, militarism and elitism”.

You might think that the author is going to challenge some very big shibboleth’s here: patriotism itself, the Second World War.... But then you would have to have missed the article’s headline (‘The Daily mail may not realise, but Marxists are patriots’) and the argument developed in the ensuing paragraph, which is a left-wing apology for ‘real’ patriotism:

“Ralph Miliband was not a patriot because he served in the navy. He was a lover of this country and its people precisely because he understood that institutions like the monarchy and the House of Lords symbolise and perpetuate inequality, and that militarism usually encourages the poor to die defending the interests of the privileged. His patriotism has more in common with long progressive patriotic traditions in Britain, from the Diggers and Levellers to the Chartists and anti-privatisation campaigners. It was about claiming land and country for the majority of its labouring denizens rather than the plutocrats and the powerful who live off the fat of the land while spouting an insincere ‘nationalism’ which serves less to create collective wellbeing than to prevent their privileges being questioned”.

It’s true that the young workers’ movement was often tinged with patriotic ideas. This was entirely understandable in an epoch (from the 17th to the 19th centuries) in which the formation of nation states contained a progressive element, because capitalism itself was an advance over feudalism and other outmoded social systems. But what was essential to formations like the Diggers and the Chartists was their vigorous defence of the exploited against the exploiters, which cannot but challenge all divisions among them and thus tend towards affirming the international unity of the class struggle. This was already explicit with the Communist Manifesto of 1848, which proclaimed that “the workers have no country” and looked forward to a global association of the producers.

At that time, the Manifesto still foresaw the possibility of temporary alliances with the more forward looking elements of the bourgeoisie. But this kind of alliance lost all meaning as the entire capitalist system entered an epoch of permanent, world-wide inter-imperialist conflict, announced most definitively by the outbreak of the First World War. At this point, marxists pronounced the death sentence on the nation state:

“The nation state has outgrown itself – as a framework for the development of the productive forces, as a basis for class struggle, and especially as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” (Leon Trotsky, Nashe Slovo, 4 February, 1916)

In the last hundred years, humanity has been faced with a situation where it can only survive and move forward by breaking the chains of the nation state and rejecting all appeals to fight in its defence. This is why the question of internationalism has been such a fundamental dividing line in the history of the workers’ movement in this century. Support for the First World War was the end of the line for the majority of the social democratic parties. Support for its re-run in 1939-45 marked the death of many of the political currents whose origins lay in a reaction against social democracy’s betrayal in 1914: the Communist Parties, now entirely rotted by Stalinism, and even the majority of the Trotskyist organisations which had advertised their internationalism against Stalinism’s nationalist abortions, ‘socialism in one country’ and the Popular Fronts.

Marxists are therefore not, in any shape or form, patriots.  To love one’s country, for the Daily Mail means loving the Queen, the church, the armed forces – evidently the ‘country’ of a small elite. But the left version of this patriotism is no less faithful to key institutions of the capitalist state: the nationalised industries, as well as the unions and the rest of the so-called labour movement, which have long been integrated into the present social system.

Ralph Miliband was by all accounts a very good university teacher and he certainly had a thorough grounding in the writings of Marx. But his ‘supple’ marxism never challenged the notion that the working class had something to defend in the existing state. Politically he acted as a critical supporter of the Labour left and even his more theoretical contributions on marxism and the state end up enlisting Marx into the defence of the democratic republic. In an article on Lenin’s State and Revolution, for example, he argues that Marx’s writings could be interpreted in different ways – some statements pointing to the need to smash the old state, others towards its radical democratisation[2]. This is true – even after the Paris Commune, Marx did not entirely abandon the idea that the revolution could take place in the framework of the democratic republic. But Miliband, rather than grasping the historical significance of Lenin’s ‘update’ on this position in the period of unbridled imperialism, takes Marx’s imprecisions out of their historical context and uses them to speak in favour of a policy of democratising the existing state rather than destroying it. 

In this sense Gopal is correct (but not for the reasons she thinks) to link Miliband’s patriotism with his essentially democratic programme for capitalism:

“It is time to junk the cheap and facile propaganda that socialism is reducible to Stalinist depredations. In Ralph Miliband’s own anti-Stalinist understanding, socialism was about ‘the wholesale transformation of the social order’ by giving ordinary people control over the economic system, fully democratising a political system in which ordinary citizens feel disenfranchised and helpless, and ensuring ‘a drastic levelling out of social inequality’. It is the abandonment of these democratic aspirations for the craven pieties of the Daily Mail that must really ‘disturb everyone who loves this country’”.

In World War One, the idea of defending the democratic gains of the workers’ movement inside capitalism was used to justify the war against German militarism (or Russian Czarism); the same ideology was used on a much vaster scale to mobilise the working class for the Second World War. In the day to day struggles of the working class, slogans based on the same basic concept – defence of the nationalised industries like the NHS, defence of ‘trade union rights’ and all the rest – are used to line workers up behind one part of the bourgeoisie against another.

Gopal argues that “Ralph Miliband would also have found his son’s claim that capitalism can be ‘made to work for working people’ incoherent, and wilfully ignorant of how capitalism actually works”. But in reality, Miliband Senior himself never broke from the idea that the capitalist state and capitalist social relations – suitably nationalised and democratised – can be made to work for working people.

 Amos 31/10/13

Jean-Pierre left us during the night of 13 September, following a long and incurable illness whose fatal outcome was recognised by everyone, including himself. For more than two years our comrade, who had greatly enjoyed playing sport, little by little lost the use of his limbs, his breathing and finally his speech. During this process, Jean-Pierre was always perfectly conscious of every moment in the evolution of his illness and its consequences. This lucidity obviously affected him profoundly because he knew he would have to give up so much of what he loved: physical activity, a direct contact with nature, in particular the mountains where he used to go on long rambles (he lived in the Alps), cooking....But he didn’t accept this fatalistically. He wanted to stay at home for as long as possible and no one could make him change his mind about this. He firmly insisted on staying in this familiar, human space to maintain the closest possible links with his family, friends and comrades. This space was his access to the world, the place where he had his books, the place where he could talk about politics and current events until the last moment, the place where he could watch a film and talk about it, the place where he could read the poetry he liked. His strongest wish was to put limits on the medical procedures aimed at keeping him alive. He struggled to the end for these wishes to be respected. A few weeks before his death Jean-Pierre agreed to go to hospital for palliative care. He knew that he wouldn’t be coming back home. Our comrade didn’t submit to this, he chose it and assumed it. But always his concern was to give the maximum space to those close to him, to his children and his comrades, and to continue the political struggle. The hospital staff and the militants who shared his last moments testified that our comrade departed “with great serenity” despite the considerable suffering which gripped him to the end. We, his comrades, know that developing this serenity was the last work in his life. He was one of those personalities who demand admiration because of their tenacity and the courage with which they face the end. We were all happy to be able to enter the personal and political space he so generously set aside for us. It gave us great pleasure and provided us with major lessons for our lives and our militancy. For all that, Jean-Pierre, we are infinitely grateful.

An exemplary fighter

Jean-Pierre joined the ICC relatively late in his life. After being mobilised for the war in Algeria, which he experienced as a moment of unacceptable and unspeakable barbarism, he never stopped working for the perspective of constructing another society where these kinds of horrors would be banished forever. Holding on to this notion, he went through May 68 with all his hopes and all his confusions, in particular his communitarian ideas. He didn’t discover the ICC until the 1990s. There he found the theoretical and practical coherence of marxism, which enabled him to make a real political break with the confused ideologies he had maintained up until then. This encounter rooted him firmly in the “passion for communism” (according to his own terms). His indignation towards a world full of barbarism had finally found the meaning he had been looking for, the combat for the world proletarian revolution.

After that our comrade situated the political struggle at the forefront of his life until his last moments. He was animated by a deep conviction and despite the fatal advance of his illness, every visit to him included a political discussion. As long as he could he participated in the regular meetings of the ICC and carried out his responsibilities as a militant. At the end, from his bed, he did it via the internet. He was especially insistent on paying his financial contributions so that he could still be part of the functioning of the organisation as much as his means allowed.

But above all, his concern to be rigorous was shown by his determination to defend organisational principles and their spirit by taking position on this difficult political question throughout the last few years. The comrade was convinced that the construction of an organisation of the proletariat is a difficult art which has to be learned and transmitted thanks to a theoretical effort. Convinced as he was of the necessity for revolution, he sought to fight against all the obstacles that stand in the way of our class carrying out its task of emancipating humanity. He was always aware of the titanic, planetary dimension of this battle. A daily defensive battle, of course, but above all one that required a conscious approach, with a cultural element which can strengthen us for the offensive needed to overthrow the capitalist system. He was also profoundly aware of the weight of the dominant ideology pressing on the organisation and on the individuals within it, and of the perverse effects of social decomposition on relations between human beings. He knew that the real way to resist this pressure is to be found in the collective strength of debate in the organisation, based on moral principles and an intellectual depth. This concern never left him: how to struggle effectively, how to live up to your responsibilities, both as an individual militant and as an organisation, as a collective and associated body. It is because he had these concerns that he was so consistent at the level of the functioning of the organisation, always fighting against what as early as 1903 Lenin called the ‘circle spirit’, the vision of the organisation as a sum of individuals who come together purely on the basis of affinity. Such a vision was for him clearly and diametrically opposed to the real needs of a revolutionary organisation which can serve as a bridge to a real proletarian party in the future. The work of building the organisation thus has to be carried out in the ‘party sprit’. He always took a position against the temptation to get together on an affinity basis. For him the organisation could not be reduced to a ‘band of mates’, a circle of friends, even if he maintained warm and fraternal relations with all his comrades and had strong ties of personal friendship with some of them. To use his expression, he contributed to this combat “with just a little thread of a voice” to his final breath.

His devotion, his tenacity, his commitment remains alive in all his comrades. He was an example for us of what a convinced militant can be.

A remarkable and engaging personality

Jean-Pierre’s personality was so engaging that you can’t pass over it in silence. He was always curious, his mind was always developing and he had a lot of empathy not only for those closest to him but for others he met on the way. His company always testified to these qualities. He knew that everybody evolves, that everybody is in constant movement and goes through crises which can be moments for going forward. He recognised this in himself and often gave the evidence for it. He was happy to talk about his long, complex and chaotic journey towards marxism and class positions. It was by no means a tranquil river and no doubt this is what sustained his interest in others, his respect for their contradictions, which he always saw in a positive light as a potential for advance. He always had this vision of the future which went beyond any easy criticisms.

Jean-Pierre was a great admirer of Rabelais. He loved the frankness that his work exudes, his sensual, crude and even brutal love for life. A good meal, generously shared, was something sacred for him, as a precious moment of conviviality. He often opened up his universe through reading out the texts and poems he admired. Those who knew him were privileged to share his great pleasure in this. The silences which sometimes followed also had an active content, the sense of mutual communication through listening. Jean-Pierre was an example of a fighter devoted to the organisation and the perspective of the revolution, and his temperament was that of a person animated by the love of freedom. He has left us his passion, his tastes, and in doing so has drawn us a sketch of what it is like to be a human being who sees the other as an integral part of his own happiness, who participates in the artistic and scientific dance of humanity.

The militants of the ICC share deeply the pain of his children, of his family, of his friends. We have lost our comrade Jean-Pierre, but his memory is ever-present for those who have had the good fortune to know him and work by his side.

The ICC salutes you, comrade, as an exemplary militant for the cause of communism, to which you gave the best of yourself.

ICC  15.10.2013    

We are publishing here an account by one of our comrades, who posts on our forums as Demogorgon, of his experience of the recent national strike in the Higher Education sector.

I work in Higher Education in a low-grade administrative function. My workforce is ‘represented’ by three unions: Unite, Unison and UCU. On the 31st October, and for the first time ever, all three unions called a sector-wider strike over the issue of pay.

The majority of workers in my office are not in any of the unions. One colleague, a member of the UCU, did support the ballot and voted to strike. As the strike neared it became clear that there was no effort whatsoever on behalf of the unions to publicise it to non-members. A Unison notice-board remained absolutely devoid of any information. My main source of information as to what was going on was my UCU colleague who forwards me anything she receives.

The response of the University was interesting, however. A couple of weeks before the strike date, they announced they were introducing the “Living Wage” for lower paid staff and that the senior management team were generously rescinding their “contractually and legally agreed” bonuses so that the Christmas bonus for staff could be reintroduced this year.

Nonetheless, it was only a week before the strike that any real awareness of it began to circulate in my office and that was mainly because I talked about it. The general response was negative. Most colleagues couldn’t see the point of action. Even the colleague who had voted for the action was beginning to have doubts. She still agreed with the action, but her issue was the workload that she had to deal with.

It’s difficult to convey the pressure our office is under this time of year. My UCU colleague is starting at 8 in the morning and leaving gone 6 at night, every day for months, then doing work at home evenings and weekends. Because of the nature of our functions, if we don’t do the work that’s assigned to us, it just doesn’t get done. And it doesn’t stop coming in if we’re not there. Going on leave is now a nightmare because you come back to the two weeks of work which isn’t even touched in your absence. She simply felt terrified at the thought of having to work another weekend to catch up if she missed a day in the office.

Two days before the strike, the unions issued a joint statement to all workers, relying on their members to distribute it around the offices. This is despite the fact that they are fully aware that many offices have no members.

The letter set out the reasons for the action but contained a shocking (if you don’t understand the true nature of the unions, that is) claim that non-members could not participate. It is, of course, something of a joke among left-communists that it is actually the unions that enforce all the anti-strike legislation.

In a previous UCU strike over pensions, I went to a mass UCU meeting to show solidarity and said I would not cross the picket line. The response of the presiding official was to tell everyone that people not involved in strike must go into work! I ignored the advice and joined the picket where I was welcomed - even the branch secretary was impressed enough and whenever I saw him always asked to make sure I had not suffered any reprisals. The regional official actually refused to speak to me on the picket!

In any case, while it is customary for the unions to enforce anti-strike legislation they are also in the business of enforcing anti-strike legislation that doesn’t even exist! In fact, non-union members can join strikes and, as long as the strike itself is a “protected action”, they enjoy the same right not to be dismissed as union members.

In response, I decided to issue my own leaflet. I kept it to one side of A4 and did not give 12 paragraph treatises on the role of the unions in decadence! I simply tried to answer the concerns of my colleagues and persuade them to strike. I challenged the assertion about non-member participation from the unions, but did not go further than that.

I distributed the leaflet, leaving copies on everyone’s desks first thing in the morning and waited somewhat nervously for my colleagues to come in. Several picked it up and read it and said nothing. As more arrived some discussion began. I was, naturally, teased a fair bit! My favourite comment was from our team manager who said while the University had asked people to report their strike status by 10am on the day, I had shown my dedication to the institution by doing it well in advance! It was meant in jest and I took it in that spirit.

Most colleagues were confused but there was some talk about the issues of the strike and although most agreed the cause was just either felt it didn’t affect them (we have a high proportion of young, temporary staff) or that striking would make no difference. My overworked UCU colleague was unable to overcome her ambivalence.

Then another colleague came to speak to me and she was clearly disturbed by my leaflet. Originally she hadn’t planned to join the action, but was no longer sure. She basically went through all the points in my leaflet and we discussed each of them. She was deeply disturbed that the unions would say something that was apparently not true (the point about protection for non-union members). She even thought I was a union rep and was a little confused when I said I wasn’t and I certainly wasn’t trying to sell the union! She asked me why I thought they had said what they said - she was clearly doubtful of my point but at the same time wasn’t able to rebut it as I’d sourced my claim. I replied - prefacing it by making it clear I was wearing a cynical hat! - that they didn’t really seem to be interested in pushing the strike and were more interested in making themselves the vehicle for discontent and hoovering up potential members than actually defending us. She was clearly disturbed by this (at one point I actually thought she was close to tears!) and said in her previous work-place she’d watched the unions do nothing while pay freezes were imposed and people continually laid off and that was why she hadn’t joined here. I agreed with her points and said this was why I wasn’t a member of the union, but that we still had to take a stand and this was an opportunity to do so.

The day of strike came and I went to one of the pickets, getting there early. While others picketed in shifts, I stayed for the full duration. Contrary to the union statement, I was not turned away. One member remembered me from the previous strike and welcomed me.

There was an initial tendency for people to picket in their own unions. I joined a UCU one and suggested moving to join a Unite picket further down the road but this was met with a bit of confusion and concern about the picket being “too big”. Over the course of the day though, we were joined by Unison and Unite members so the picket took on a far more mixed quality.

There was not a great deal of discussion. Throughout the morning I managed to put a few points about effective struggles into conversation organically and people listened although I’m not sure they understood. The most in-depth discussion was with an NUT functionary who turned up to show solidarity and I chatted to her about unions. She was saying it must be tough when we’re all in different unions, to which I pointed out I wasn’t in a union at all unless you count the biggest group ... workers! She was a bit taken aback but accepted all the points about being divvied up as she had raised them herself.

When the picket ended, I went to the rally. There were between 100 and 150 people there and it was the usual format of 45 minutes of branch secretaries and local and national functionaries giving more-or-less predictable speeches: workers are being dumped on, greedy bosses, greedy government, the unions have done a lot for everyone, get everyone to join the union!

The last 15 minutes was opened to the floor and more contributions from other officials and someone from the Socialist Party continued in the same vein. I finally plucked up courage to speak and asked a very simple question: are the unions going to carry on striking together or were they going to revert to the usual strategy of split strikes and instructing members to cross each others’ picket lines?

Embarrassed silence and ironic smiles from the panel followed. After what seemed like a very long awkward moment and after banging on for over half-an-hour about how the unions were standing together, the UCU national official finally said he had no information about that at the moment but the line at present is to stand together. The meeting was then wound up.

Back at work the next day, I learned that I had been the only one to join the strike. I wasn’t at all surprised, of course. My friend told me she had sat in her car overcome with guilt for 45 minutes before finally going in. Although everyone came in, the atmosphere was subdued. I told her I understood and I do - and the important thing wasn’t to cry over what was done but to understand what’s being done to us.

What did my small action achieve? On the face of it, very little. None of my colleagues were persuaded to join the strike. But I was able to prevent them from sleepwalking into their decision - they were forced to make a conscious choice about their decision. A tiny seed of consciousness that may, one day, flower into something more significant.

I also showed that being a marxist is more than “reading clever books at lunchtime” which is often how people see me. It means standing up for something, even if only in a very small way. I also showed that it’s possible to do so without brow-beating or being accusatory. At root, my colleagues were frightened and I understand because I was frightened too. I cannot judge others for crossing picket lines when I cannot honestly say if I will always have the courage not to.

Would my action have been any more effective had I been in the union? I can’t see how. I would still have spoken against them both in my leaflet and at the meeting. And, more importantly, why would I give money to organisations that tell workers to cross picket lines? 

Demogorgon 2/11/2013

The Leaflet

Official Strike Action 31/10/2013

As I’m sure you’ve heard, all three unions have called official strike action on Thursday this week. After considering the matter, I have decided to support our colleagues in their decision to strike.

As the unions have already argued, pay in Higher Education has been eroded by 13% in the last four years. In fact, the wider situation is much worse and has been going on for far longer: “Median wages in the UK were stagnant from 2003 to 2008 despite GDP growth of 11 per cent in the period. Similar trends are evident in other advanced economies from the US to Germany. For some time, the pay of those in the bottom half of the earnings distribution has failed to track the path of headline economic growth”[1].

Employers have been able to get away with eroding our working conditions for years because we have passively accepted it. As long as we continue to accept it, our pay will decline, our pensions will continue to be eroded and our workloads will increase. Taking strike action can send a powerful message that we won’t accept these things any longer. But it will only be effective if we all stand together.

I understand that many of you will feel uneasy about taking strike action.

Going on strike means losing a day’s pay and after years of declining pay, this is not a small problem! But we’ve already lost much more than that. How much more will we lose if we don’t fight back?

Others are concerned about their workload and having to catch up after a day out of the office. As we all know, things are frantic this time of year! But how did we get to this state? As real wages have gone down, work-loads have increased. And every time we accept extra work we encourage the University to push more onto us further down the line.

If low-pay and high workloads are such a problem then there is even more reason to take a stand!

I know some will be afraid that that going on strike may result in losing their job. Because this is an official action, you cannot be dismissed for joining it. This protection also extends to non-union members who participate. Although the unions claim in their recent letter that “non-members are not allowed to participate in the strike”, this is not true. In fact, according to the www.gov.uk [598] website, non-union members are allowed to join a strike in their workplace and receive the same legal protections: “Non-union members who take part in legal, official industrial action have the same rights as union members not to be dismissed as a result of taking action”[2].

It should go without saying that all workers, regardless of their union-membership, have the same problems and should fight together to solve them.

I hope that you will support my decision and, if you feel able, join our colleagues so we can resist the erosion of our pay and conditions together.

Me

The opening line from L. P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between seems strangely appropriate when reflecting on the recent accusations of slavery made against Aravindan Balakrishnan (aka ‘Comrade’ Bala) and his wife, and 'comrade', Chanda. Since the news broke of three women, a 57-year-old Irish woman, a 69-year-old Malaysian and a 30-year-old British women, being rescued, following a series of clandestine phone calls to the Freedom Charity from a flat in Brixton, one of the places they had been held captive for 30 years, there has been a catalogue of increasingly bizarre headlines and revelations that, rather than clarifying the events surrounding the case, serve to further confuse and obstruct our ability to understand the strange case of ‘comrade’ Bala.

What initially appeared to be a depressing, but not wholly unfamiliar, tale of domestic servitude became something akin to a soap opera with each day bringing the latest twist in the form of another lurid headline. First we learnt that the women had met through a “shared political ideology” and had lived collectively. Rumours of the involvement of a 'cult' were rife. Once the accused had been named we were introduced to the Maoist, Workers Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought who, were are told, were the inspiration for the Tooting Popular Front in John Sullivan's 1970s TV sitcom, Citizen Smith.

Led by Bala and with a membership of around 20 members that included two of the alleged slaves, they operated a bookshop, or collective/squat depending on who you read, the Mao Zedong Memorial Centre in Brixton in the mid-1970s. It was closed following a police raid in 1978 and, although it did continue to be active in to the mid 1980s publishing, for example, notices in the CPGB's Morning Star, the Institute appeared to have 'gone underground'. It now seems that Bala and a handful of supporters maintained their commitment to collective living and spent the last 30 years moving around South London occupying as many as 13 - again, the number varies depending on who you read - different addresses.

Once these 'facts' had been established the floodgates opened, stories concerning secret love letters to neighbours, long lost sisters, foreign gurus who proclaim themselves Christ, brainwashed ex Cheltenham Ladies College 'high-flyers', estranged daughters of code breaking war heroes, lost inheritances, the mysterious parentage and lack of education of, and documentation for, the 30-year-old British women and disturbingly a suspicious death following a fall from a window of a property occupied by the group, all appeared within a matter of days alongside a copious amount of 'comment' from both the left and right. But with Bala and his wife now on bail until January 2014 and more up to date and equally salacious stories to replace it, this case, which the Metropolitan Police described as “a complicated and disturbing picture of emotional control over many years, brainwashing would be the simplest term” (Guardian 23/11/13), already appears to be fading from view before we can even begin to make sense of it.

So, rather than getting caught up in all the speculation around these three women, what we can we say now about the questions raised by this case?

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s tens of thousands of young people influenced by the wave of strikes, anti-war actions and student occupations that occurred internationally during this period began to look for alternatives to the future offered by capitalism. This led to a significant growth in the number of organisations who identified themselves as ‘Marxist’ and ‘revolutionary’. The Workers Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought were just one example of this general tendency.

Just how 'revolutionary' these groups were can be seen from looking at their own propaganda. The Workers Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, like the Communist Party of England (ML) who had expelled Bala in 1974 for the “pursuance of conspiratorial and splittist activities and because of their spreading social fascist slanders against the Party and the proletarian movement”[1] and all other 'good' ‘anti-revisionists’ at the time, claimed affiliation to the Communist Party of China and slavishly supported the Chinese state (in the majority of cases their loyalty was later transferred to Hoxha's Albania). For all their reckless, confrontational behaviour towards the state and their radical language of “building a red base in Brixton to encourage the People's Liberation Army to liberate the area”, of being 'devoted soldiers of Chairman Mao' and calls of 'death to the fascist British state', the Institute's framework, the belief of the possibility of socialism in one country, was a nationalistic, state capitalist one. To use an uncomplicated word it was 'reactionary'. They may have exchanged Moscow for Beijing but there were still hand in hand with Stalinism, as Tariq Ali, apparently without irony, wrote in the Guardian (27/11/13), “[reproducing] the model of a one-party state within their own ranks”. 'Power to the people' may have been the slogan but it was the party, not the working class, led by its well-trained cadre, that would take power 'come the day'. With this mind set the step, morally and ethically, from being a sect worshipping the 'great helmsman' to a tight-knit commune following a 'Christ like' guru doesn't seem that big.

For all those other left-wingers who ridiculed the Institute, smirking at their leaflets over a pint, the idiom 'people in glass houses... ' springs to mind. The Institute may have been an extreme example, even for a milieu not known for its restraint or modesty[2], but there were instances of equally questionable behaviour and morality amongst, for example, the Trotskyist left, who largely shared the Stalinist's illusions that the 'deformed workers' states' or 'bureaucratic centralism' found in the so-called socialist countries was somehow 'progressive'. Gerry Healy's sexual abuse of young women in the Workers' Revolutionary Party during the same period is an object lesson in the sort of behaviour you could expect from the leader of an organisation that was ultimately loyal to capitalism and its state. This behaviour was not restricted to the 'unenlightened' 1970s, as the recent revelations of the conduct of a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party also demonstrates.

Of course, all of this supports the bourgeoisie’s contention that, (to paraphrase a poster that was popular in the 1970s): ‘you don’t have to be mad to be a Marxist, but it helps’. The ruling classes of all nations have campaigned against the workers' movement from its inception. Whether it be Churchill's concerns over the Bolshevik ‘conspiracy’ in the 1920s, McCarthyism in the 1950s or the triumphalism over the ‘death of communism’ in the 1990s their attempts to rid the world of the 'red menace' have continued unabated. The ideological weight of the collapse of the eastern bloc has begun to slowly shift over the last ten years so the appearance of 'Maoist slaves' and 'manipulative gurus' will only be welcomed. What better way to discredit an idea, a movement than question its sanity. The members of the Institute were/are clearly 'mad', 'weird' or 'brainwashed' when compared with the rest of society who live 'normally', weren't they?

Well, if we ignore, as the bourgeois press does, the fact that we live in a society where all relationships are subject to a range of stresses, pressures and inhuman ideologies, that would suggest that the tens of thousands of young people who joined organisations like the Institute throughout the 1960s and 1970s were equally as mad, wouldn't it? And that the tens of thousands of people who are participating in the emerging social movements from Brazil to Turkey today are also 'mad', after all that isn't 'normal' behaviour either, is it? All of this is, of course, nonsense. The cynicism of the arguments used by the bourgeoisie against those who, however confused, question its rule tells us more about the period we're living in than it does about the individuals involved. As Brendan O'Neill wrote in the Daily Telegraph (27/11/13), rather than asking “how could a seemingly odd, one-off couple manage to mistreat three women like this? They're saying: this is where ideological commitment gets you”. He continues, and this is worth quoting in full, “at a time when everyone is encouraged to obsess over their personal identity, to nurture their self-esteem, to devote more energy to narcissistic pursuit of therapeutic self-improvement than to any big political project, the whole of the seventies and eighties look increasingly odd to us. We can't believe people lived and breathed politics. We can't believe people sacrificed some of life's pleasures in the pursuit of political ideals. We can't believe those things happened because they seem so alien in this era of navel-gazing selfie-taking, in which writing a Tweet is considered political activity and all big systems of meaning – whether left-wing, right-wing or religious – are seen as foolish, dangerous and corrupting”.

It is not commitment to a political, or any other, ideal that is at fault here. It's rare that we find ourselves agreeing with Tariq Ali but he is correct when he writes, “young women and men who joined far-left groups did so for the best of reasons. They [just like young women and men today] wanted to change the world” (Guardian 27/11/13). Just to be clear, this doesn't mean that we think 'anything goes', any response to capitalism is positive. We just don't think, for the simple fact that the society we live in is 'complicated', that those we disagree with politically necessarily, automatically, set out consciously to be 'tyrants'. To echo Brendan O'Neill, it is the, alleged, manipulation and abuse of three women by someone at least two of whom thought of as their comrade, as an ally in their fight to 'change the world', it is this betrayal of trust and respect that appears to be at the heart of this sad case. Unfortunately, the capitalist press, and its bourgeois sponsors, can't or doesn't want to, make this important distinction. There can be no discussion, no ambiguity, for them Marxism will always be mad or bad or, as in the case of Bala, a bit of both.

There is one final thing we can say about the strange case of ‘comrade’ Bala and that concerns the role of the police and, for want of a better term, 'the care industry'. Any regular reader of the British press will be familiar with the 'moral hysteria' that has permeated political discourse over recent years. This has intensified following the revelations concerning Jimmy Savile. The response to these three women's request for help is yet another example of the disregard shown to any attempt to uncover, in a sensitive or thoughtful way, the facts, the 'truth' of the case in question. As soon as the story broke the 'great and the good' were queuing up to have their say, this was 'Britain's worst ever slavery case', these three women were 'the tip of the iceberg' with thousands being held against their will in Britain, 'modern slavery is all around us'. But this household was well-known to the state with Bala, Chanda and two of the alleged ‘slaves’ all having been arrested numerous times in the 1970s and the remaining members of the ‘commune’ were rehoused by Lambeth Council five years ago. The police took a month after the initial tip off to raid the property and the accused are on bail. Despite attempts to compare this case with other recent slavery cases the available 'facts' don't appear to support the claims of campaigners, and comments made by police support this, “we do not believe that this case falls into the category of sexual exploitation, or what we all understand as human trafficking” (Guardian 23/11/13). The video that has emerged of two of the women along with their alleged captors attending the inquest in 1997 of their housemate who died after falling from a window also raises questions about just how these women were enslaved. At the risk of speculating, the footage suggests a 'Stockholm Syndrome' scenario that has gone stale over time, with Bala's promise of revolution having vanished long ago; all they're left with is 'revolutionary discipline'.

As we have already said, the ‘truth’ of what happened in this Brixton flat will not be revealed for some time, if indeed it is ever truly revealed. We don't deny that forms of slavery undoubtedly exist in Britain today but this story isn't about understanding why, which would surely pose the question why and how vulnerable people from poorer countries end up in Britain. While the bourgeois press, charities and government agencies are pursuing their own agendas these women’s lives appear only as symbols or statistics of society’s ills. They are living 'evidence' of the ‘care industry’s’, unsubstantiated, claims of widespread abuse and slavery. We can only end by saying that, whatever the outcome of this case, we wish these women well as they try and make sense of their lives. It’s probably too late for Balakrishnan to appreciate what he’s done, to practise some old fashioned ‘self-criticism’. In buying wholesale into the myths of Maoism he acquired a set of ideas that could justify everything from imperialist wars to domestic servitude.

Kino 2/12/13

We are publishing here - rather belatedly due to technical issues - a series of texts that have contributed to the public Day of Discussion held by the ICC in London, in July 2013.

The day was divided into two sessions, morning and afternoon: the morning session was titled "Capitalism is in deep trouble. Why is it so hard to fight against it?", and we are publishing three short introductory presentations, followed by a brief summary of the discussion. Our readers can also listen to the audio transcript of the morning session.

The afternoon session was on the transitional period from capitalism to communism, a subject which has long been a matter of intense debate among communists, but also historically between communists and anarchists. This session only had one presentation, this too is followed by a brief summary of the discussion. Sadly, the audio recording was of too poor a quality for us to put it online.

All these presentations and summaries were produced by comrades who are sympathisers or contacts of the ICC. We couldn't have done it without them, and we thank them warmly for their efforts.

Those interested can also see a comment on the day of discussion posted on our forum [603] shortly after the event.

Two presentations introduced the morning discussion focusing on class struggle and crisis.

The first presentation on crisis by Link put forward a view of the development of an understanding of crises by revolutionaries. It traced, over the period of decadence, militants’ understanding of different phases of crises and growth and posed a number of questions raised by the last two decades of austerity and increased exploitation which were accompanied until recently by a lack of class struggle.

The second presentation by KT discussed the struggles between two classes in the recent period. It reviewed the bourgeoisie’s austerity attacks on the working class as well as its ideological attacks in the wake of the collapse in Russia and addressed the working class response. Neither the apparently passive class in Europe nor the appearance of the violent social revolts in various countries over the past 5 years suggest a historic defeat such as in the 1930s.

A third contribution “Is capitalism in terminal decline? Where is the working class? [507]” by baboon was posted in advance on the ICC discussion forum.