What’s happening to the ‘economic boom’, led by the US and the internet, that we have heard so much about recently? Dot com companies are going to the wall, prestigious US banks are wobbling, manufacturing – especially the car industry – is slowing down, and there are fears of a return both of recession and inflation in the world’s biggest economy. For the ideologues of the ruling class, these are just temporary blips in an otherwise healthy world economy. But as we argue in this article, they are in fact pointers to the real state of the capitalist world economy, and a warning of savage attacks on the living standards of the working class, which have in any case continued to worsen throughout this period of phoney boom.

Since the end of the 1960s, when capitalism once again entered into an open crisis of overproduction, the ruling class has seized on any subsequent period of growth – even if each growth – even if each one is shorter than the last, and is followed by phases of ever more devastating recessions – to fuel its ideological campaigns about capitalism’s new-found prosperity. And there is no doubt that it has had some success in masking the real degradation of the economic situation over the past 30 years.

But haven’t things really changed since the recession at the beginning of the 90s? Hasn’t capitalism in this period shown that it can still be a factor of progress? Certainly the USA has just been through nine years of positive growth, without any interruption. This hasn’t been seen since the Second World War. The European powers have also registered growth since 1994. As for the ‘Asian crisis’ of 1997-8, it didn’t have the devastating effects on the world economy that were at first feared. Could that have been a crisis of growth rather than a sign of the system’s insurmountable contradictions? What’s more, isn’t capitalism proving that it regenerates itself through the development of new technologies? And finally, doesn’t the present fall in unemployment in the industrialised countries constitute definite proof that we really have entered a period of prosperity?

All these supposed expressions of capitalist prosperity are based on indicators created by the bourgeoisie itself. If we are to take them into account, we have to place them in their proper context – in other words, after examining the real evolution of social conditions.

What has been the real situation of the working class during the 90s?

In the 19th century, while showing that the contradictions of capitalism had no ultimate solution, marxists also showed that this system of exploitation was capable of playing a progressive role for humanity. It was able to accomplish a considerable development of the productive forces and of the working class, on the basis of a real prosperity.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, revolutionaries have been pointing to a new reality, one which the bourgeoisie has constantly tried to hide: the decline of the capitalist mode of production, which among other things has been characterised by a deterioration in working class living conditions and a tendency to exclude a growing mass of proletarians from the process of production. The reappearance of the open crisis of overproduction at the end of the tion at the end of the 1960s (1) is an illustration of this tendency since it has brought about a major regression in the situation of the working class in the industrialised countries, notably in the form of massive unemployment and the development of absolute pauperisation. Its consequences have been even more dramatic in the so-called third world countries, where a huge mass of people live without work in the most inhuman conditions. And it was the aggravation of this crisis which was at the root of the collapse of the Stalinist regimes as well. Finally, the economic impasse has seen its destructive effects considerably amplified by the headlong rush of the different states into wars and environmental destruction. In sum, the economic crisis is at the core of an unprecedented social crisis which threatens the very existence of humanity.

The ‘years of growth’ over the past decade are in no way an exception to this dramatic picture (2), since they have been accompanied by an aggravation of the situation at all levels: proliferation of wars and ecological catastrophes, the intensification of poverty all around the world, including for the working class of the central countries of capitalism.

As for the diminution2>As for the diminution of unemployment which the bourgeoisie has boasted about so much, this has been brought about by statistical manipulation on the one hand, and by the explosion of part-time and short-term work on the other. Although the number of such precarious jobs created has been higher than the number of stable jobs suppressed, the overall balance sheet in terms of workers’ living standards has been largely negative. This situation is illustrated in particular by the fact that, in the USA, more and more people with jobs can’t afford to house themselves.

What has been the reality of growth in the 90s?

The crisis is above all a crisis of overproduction, the result of a lack of solvent markets to absorb capitalism’s production. In their efforts to palliate this problem, from the end of the 60s (as during the 1930s), the different states have created an artificial market by running up massive debts. And since this remedy is no real solution, every time that economic activity starts to stumble, the system has had to pile up even greater debts, which on the world level have now reached astronomical proportions. These are debts which can never be repaid and which constitute an ever-increasing threat to the stability of the worhe stability of the world economy.

If, despite all the contradictions assailing capitalism, the crisis has only deepened at a relatively slow rhythm, this is because the most powerful states have done everything in their power to postpone its effects at the centre of the system – and debt has been the main instrument for achieving this. The policy of the ruling class has been aimed in particular at preventing sudden accelerations of the crisis from provoking large-scale workers’ reactions to massive and brutal attacks. Such reactions could lead to the working class developing an understanding of the necessity to do away with this system. But while the bourgeoisie can influence the pace of the crisis, it can’t stop it from getting deeper. Even during so-called phases of growth, the crisis has been getting worse and worse, as can be seen for example from the process of industrial desertification which hit the central countries of Europe and the USA during the 80s; or again by the savage amputation of the productive apparatus in certain countries on the periphery of capitalism, including some of the most industrialised ones, such as Korea, in the second half of the 90s.

In fact the indicators used by the bindicators used by the bourgeoisie are a deception. For example, when it measures growth, it throws in all sorts of unproductive expenses, as well as those which do produce wealth, but which have to a large extent been paid for through debts that will never be reimbursed.

When capitalism is no longer able to hide its contradictions

At the time of the ‘Asian crisis’ in 1997-8 we were told that it was basically the result of the irresponsibility of certain sectors of the bourgeoisie who had run up ‘shady’ debts; debts that had no chance of being repaid. To avoid the bankruptcy of countries which were unable to repay their debts to the big industrial powers, huge salvage plans amounting to billions of dollars had to be set in motion. In fact, here once again, this explanation was distorted for propaganda purposes, so that it could appear that the collapse of certain Asian countries, which resulted in millions of redundancies, was caused not by the crisis of capitalism but the bad management of a few greedy and irresponsible leaders and bosses. Today reality is putting paid to all these lies, in the shape of two significant events. The first is the financial crisis in Argentina and Turkey. The first country had been touted as a model whi touted as a model which conformed in every respect to the rules for managing capital laid down by the IMF. And yet we have recently seen new salvage plan brought into effect to prevent Argentina from going bankrupt, a plan consisting of new debts and new attacks on working class living conditions. The scenario is very similar in Turkey. The second is the ‘discovery’ of dubious debts contracted in the US itself. If growth there comes to a halt, we are now being told that it’s the European banks which will pay the heaviest. The USA is not going to go through a purge like certain Asian countries did three years ago. But it still shows that American economy, like that of all the big powers, is not as healthy as the bourgeoisie has been claiming. And this at root is because the world economy has not been cured of the disease of which the Asian crisis was but a symptom.

On top of this, a number of important indicators which the bourgeoisie has been presenting as signs of economic health over the past six years or more are beginning to point in the opposite direction. In the USA, the index of values for the ‘old economy’, the Dow Jones, has fallen by over 9% since January 2000. In the same period, the index of the ‘new economy’, the Nasdaq, has loste Nasdaq, has lost 43% of its value and 53% over the last 8 months (figures from Le Monde, 1 and 22 December 2000). And more generally “most of the world’s major stock exchanges fell during 2000. There hasn’t been a similar result since the beginnings of the 90s in the US and since 1994 in Europe” (Le Monde 2 December).

“No one is prevented from getting rich” (French ad); “Either you’re rich, or you’re a cretin” (Business). These media slogans, which reveal the profound cynicism of the bourgeoisie towards those who ‘don’t succeed’, were based on the share performances of the ‘new economy’. As even the bourgeoisie is beginning to admit that the new economy wasn’t a miracle cure after all, such slogans are becoming totally out of synch with reality for the vast majority of people.

Although the optimism of the official version hasn’t altered, the American bourgeoisie has accepted that growth is slowing down, that unemployment and inflation are on the increase. Faced with new threats of recession, there is no alternative but to resort even more to the drug of debt. But this is not a neutral procedure. Among other things Among other things it opens the door to the spectre of inflation. This is causing great unease among those in charge of economic policy: the bourgeoisie fears open recessions because they tend to give an impetus to the class struggle. But it also fears inflation because it can push the working class as a whole to fight for the defence of its purchasing power.

Even if it is difficult to be precise about the form that the new acceleration of the economic crisis will take, it is clear that this is what is already happening. Further signs of this are the job cuts in important industrial sectors in France 2000 at Bull, 2700 at Gilette; in the USA 15,000 at General Motors, between 75,000 and 80,000 following General Electric’s acquisition of Honeywell, 26,000 at DaimlerChrysler, 16,000 at Lucent technologies, 7700 at WorldCom, 5300 at J.C.Penney, 1300 at Amazon.com; in Britain threatened closure of Vauxhall in Luton, and of steel plants in South Wales, etc… But while the crisis means the worsening of an already unbearable situation for millions of people, it is also the best ally of the proletariat, because it compels it to engage in massive struggles against the attacks of the bourgeoisie and, in the longer term, to develop the perspective of the overthrow of capitalism.

(1) See the articles in the series ‘30 years of the open crisis of capitalism’ in International Reviews 96, 97 and 98.

(2) See the article ‘The abyss behind “uninterrupted growth in International Review 99 [1].

(3) The control of the rhythm of the crisis demands a degree of international cooperation between the big industrial countries but, among the latter, there is a balance of forces which obviously acts in favour of the most powerful ones, enabling them to take the decisions which are less unfavourable to themselves.

The ideology of globalisation has generated many myths - as much by its ‘opponents’ as by its advocates. In particular there is the idea that multinational corporations are out of the control of nation states and can move capital to wherever they can make the most profit, regardless of the local circumstances. Ralph Nader wants to save capitalism from the big corporations. Noam Chomsky denounces unaccountable private power and the international institutions which impose the ‘Washington consensus’ of ‘neo-liberalism’. The power of ‘international capital’ (which can be used to mean the US, or big corporations, or the biggest powers, or just an abstract ‘evil’) is presented as being so great that it can even overcome the drive of national capitals towards war. In the words of a leftist group, the “pillage” of the poorest countries continues, not in the same way as the 19th century, but with “the urbane international banker replacing the colonial soldier and tax collector” (Workers Liberty, July 2000). To back up this view that the big global corporations now rule the world, it has been said that t has been said that ‘no two countries with a McDonalds have ever gone to war’.

Reality lies elsewhere. Not just because the handful of McDonalds in Belgrade did not prevent the bombing of Serbia by US-led forces, nor simply because of the sheer number of imperialist conflicts either in progress or simmering across the globe. Since the start of the twentieth century, the marxist current has developed its understanding of the intimate relation between the concentration of national capital in the hands of the capitalist state, and the tendency for all states to be pushed into pursuing imperialist policies. This was analysed at the time of the First World War by revolutionaries such as Lenin, Bukharin, Luxemburg and Gorter. They all demonstrated the tendency towards state capitalism, where all enterprises follow the dictates of the national state, and the tendency towards imperialist conflict, all within a capitalist system that had reached its historic limits once it covered the planet. If ‘globalisation’ means anything, it’s what capitalism achieved at the beginning of the 20th century, by creating a world economy. It did not remove the basis for imperialist conflict, as Kautsky argued with his theory of ‘ultray of ‘ultraimperialism’, (“the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital in place of the mutual rivalries of national finance capitals”, as Lenin cited Kautsky in Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, 1915). No, it brought these conflicts to a veritable paroxysm.

Today, at the start of the 21st century, while much has changed - imperialist blocs have come and gone, forms of state control have changed - the essential framework established by the marxist movement has been verified by history.

The influence of globalisation myths

Unfortunately, while the ICC is convinced of the validity of the marxist framework for understanding today’s imperialist conflicts, this is not shared throughout today’s proletarian political milieu. In particular, the Communist Workers Organisation, and the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party of which it is a part, have, in recent years, made a number of concessions to globalisation ideology.

In the 1997 revision of the IBRP’s platform we read that imperialism as a process “recognises no state frontiers and commands no national loyalties from the indigenous bourgeoisie of the peripheral zones. These latter are part of an international capitalist class and are just as enmeshed in the machinations of international finance capital as the bourgeoisie of the traditional capitalist metropoles.” The conclusion drawn from this is that “the modern capitalist state is national only in the sense that it is dominated by the bourgeoisie of a certain nationality. In other respects it remains an agent of international capital and the particular imperialist grouping to which it is presently allied.” (Revolutionary Perspectives 14, p28). While initially it did not seem that this applied to a major power such as Britain, this is not now so clear. In RP 19 they write: “Globalisation has further made protection of national interests virtually impossible for a single second order state such as Britain. These can only be protected by a larger grouping of states. The actual nature of ‘National Interests’ has also changed. Globalisation of production has produced such a penetration of foreign capital that it is no longer shat it is no longer strictly correct to speak of ‘British Capital’ and British Capital’s ‘interests’” (RP 19, p 29)

The danger is that, in doing away with ‘British Capital’, the CWO remove the basis for the very existence of British imperialism. For the IBRP “the WTO [World Trade Organisation] is part of the club run by the richest capitalist powers and their multinationals. Its purpose is to oversee the pulling down of any national barriers that might impede the creation of a true global economy for today’s giant monopolies” (Internationalist Communist 18). The role of such as the British state has changed as “governments now find that the way to defend the interest of the national capital is to play the role of broker and creator of political and social stability for international finance capital” (Revolutionary Perspectives 17). It appears that British national capital (if it exists at all) is only a facilitator for unidentified (but probably US dominated) international capital. Logically, this would undermine any foundation for British imperialism.

Conflict in Ireland. Or not.

Any analysis has to be tested in practice. The ICC’s insistence on the break-up of the western bloc following the collapse of the bloc once dominated by Russia, the end of the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US, the pursuit of an independent imperialist orientation by Britain, and the retaliation by the US, give a framework for understanding the events of recent years in Northern Ireland. In particular, the Good Friday Agreement has broadly benefited the US at the expense of British imperialism, which has put forward many obstacles to its imposition.

For the CWO, what’s been going on in Northern Ireland has involved rational decisions, based on almost exclusively economic considerations, made by powers almost without conflicting interests. In RP 9 (winter 98) they identify a coincidence of US and British interests in the unfolding ‘peace process’. “The US was decisive in originating and maintaining the process... A major aim is to expand investment opportunities... The British state wishes to disentangle itself from its military commitments in Ireland” (p6).

In RP 11 they insist that “the economic motives for Britain to cut itself free of the burden of Northern Ireland are obvious and far outweigh any benefits she might derive from holding onto the province” (p15). Delving into demography, they see the ‘obvious’ implications of the erosion of the Protestant majority and argue that “the more farsighted leaders of Unionism can see this and the majority of their supporters have now concluded that greater co-operation and greater integration with the South is in their best interests” (p15) In this view the rational Unionists and their supporters have accepted integration with the South and only “the Neanderthal rump of Unionism around Paisley will not accept this”, (ibid).

The verdict of the CWO on the Good Friday Agreement is that “in practice Irish Nationalism and Ulster Unionism have been superseded. Both the British and Irish bourgeoisies see their interests as being better served by prostrating themselves at the feet of international capital. Their aim is primarily to create the best conditions for attractonditions for attracting international capital to both the Northern and Southern parts of the island. The godfather of this deal and the main beneficiary will be US imperialism” (RP 11, p13). The comrades admit that “under capitalism there can be no lasting peace” (ibid), but it is difficult to square that assertion with their view of Ireland, where the US is the main beneficiary, ‘international capital’ is happy with its investment opportunities, and the British and Irish bourgeoisies are grateful for any crumbs left on the table. While the CWO say that periods of peace “will become less frequent” and that “ultimately capitalism offers us ideologies which lead to the barbarism of war” (ibid p16) it is hard to see how that applies to Ireland where the bourgeoisie has ‘superseded’ the main nationalist ideologies.

In RP 15, they return to the inevitability of the ‘Anglo-American’ peace process. While acknowledging that the Unionists/loyalists oppose the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, this is a minor matter, as “the outdated Unionist resistance clinging to forms and relationships which no longer harmonise with the needs of imperialise needs of imperialism will be swept aside - only the timescale is in doubt” (p7). The implications of this remark are not dwelt on. The Unionist parties and loyalist terrorists are vital instruments of British imperialism in Northern Ireland, particularly against the possibility of an independent united Ireland. As Trotsky said in 1916 “an ‘independent’ Ireland could only exist as an outpost of an imperialist state hostile to Britain”. To say that unionist resistance will be inevitably swept away by the US is to imply that Britain is incapable of defending its interests in its own backyard.

Possibilities for ‘normalisation’

As time has passed the CWO have become more aware of the ‘obstacle’ of Unionism. In RP 18, while they see a narrow majority of the Official Unionists following the Good Friday Agreement, they acknowledge that “this is a very fragile arrangement and the position could collapse into chaos” (p29). But having used the awful c-word, which puts in doubt the smooth running of the US operation, they still insist that “the bourgeoisie, no matter how bigoted, invariably act ited, invariably act instinctively to maintain their own interests… the ‘hidden hand’ of profit-rates... is more than capable of countering residual attachments to the Union Flag” (ibid). If “dissident” Unionists don’t recognise what’s in their interests, then “immense pressure” will be brought to bear on them. What form would this pressure take? A strong lecture to Mr Paisley on ‘how to better recognise where your interests lie’ or maybe something more forceful?

No, the reason that the so-called ‘dissidents’ act the way they do is not because of ‘bigotry’ or ‘backwardness’, but because the disruptive actions of many in the loyalist camp serve the interest of British imperialism. Marxist analysis is a very concrete affair. If you examine the statements and activities of the Unionist parties, the loyalist terrorists and the British state in Northern Ireland, you’ll find that they are not identical. This either means that they have different interests to defend, which neither the CWO nor the ICC have ever suggested, or that they are different expressions of the defence of British imperialism’s interests. This is the ABC of marxism: idC of marxism: identifying the different forces in society and how their interests are advanced. After the Omagh bombing, for example, the CWO rightly talk of a “victory to the ‘forces of democracy’ - i.e to the capitalist state” (RP 12, p2). But, in starting the article, they describe the Omagh bomb as “pointless savagery” as if the devastating effect of a car bomb could not serve the interests of the ‘rational’ forces in capitalist society. In terms of the interests of the capitalist state it wasn’t “pointless”. Regardless of who exactly planted it, it helped to strengthen the state’s repressive apparatus.

In RP 18, the CWO repeat what they described in RP 15 as the central features of the “convergence” between US and British interests:

“ - The preparedness of the British bourgeoisie to abandon the state structures established in the early 1920s

- The desire to demilitarise the situation and to ‘normalise’ investment opportunities in an aopportunities in an area of low wages and a divided working class heavily imbued with varieties of bourgeois ideology.

- The absence of any significant imperialist power with the desire or ability to manoeuvre against the USA/Britain in the area

- The co-option of the bourgeoisie in the Irish Republic into the process

- The full agreement of the main Loyalist terrorist organisations - unsurprising given their links to the British state - to support the imperialist ‘peace’ process.” (p28)

The vision presented here is alarmingly close to the dominant one presented in the media in Britain. Press and TV say that, with sectarian prejudice put to one side, it has been possible, with the help of the US, to embark on a ‘peace process’ that will make Northern Ireland ‘normal’. The only problems are the dissidents and terrorists, but they have been marginalised by the others who are doing their best for ‘peace’. For the ’. For the CWO, the bourgeoisie, particularly the US, want to demilitarise the situation and to normalise investment opportunities. The only problems come from the outdated Unionists, and the US will marginalise them if they get out of hand. The CWO have crossed no class lines, but their analysis echoes strongly the propaganda of the bourgeoisie. For the capitalist media what has happened in Northern Ireland is the triumph of rational people in the pursuit of ‘peace’. For the CWO it is the triumph of rational capitalists in pursuit of profit.

Polemics should be used to clarify

It should be underlined that throughout their intervention the CWO have not neglected the wider imperialist picture. They have for some time asserted how “the bourgeoisie in both Britain and Ireland are caught, in more than the geographical sense, between a German-led Europe and their old American links” (RP 18, p29). While this is true, the comrades seem to think that the dominance of the US and Germany is so overwhelming that the lesser powers are no longer capable of struggling in defence of their own interests.

Britain is undeniably a 2nd-rate power, but still very much an imperialist force defending its interests in many regions across the planet. One of the main priorities of the dominant faction of the British bourgeoisie is how to do this independently of other powers, particularly the US. There is still a fundamental tendency towards the formation of imperialist blocs, and there are substantial elements within the British bourgeoisie that advocate a pro-US orientation; this has provoked a long history of tensions within the ruling class in Britain. But, for revolutionaries, identifying the main tendencies within the bourgeoisie is an important task, no matter how tedious it might seem. Class consciousness is not just a self-consciousness, it also means ‘know your enemy.’

In RP 18 the CWO refers to the “ICC’s ‘topsy-turvy’ interpretation of history” (p29) on the question of Ireland. They say that it is “obsessive” to see the dominant faction of the British bourgeoisie having an independent orientation. When they say that Britain is ‘caught’ between Germany and America, they are at least right in identif right in identifying the only two powers who, ultimately, have the capacity to dominate an imperialist bloc. What they miss out is the material reality that drives British capital to try and defend its own interests, against the encroachments of other major imperialisms.

They also criticise us for seeing “the Irish Republicans as reliable clients of the US bourgeoisie against the British state.” ‘Clients’ is the CWO’s word - we have tended to describe Sinn Fein and the IRA as pawns, agents of US imperialism. In the CWO’s analysis, their assertions point to most (or all?) forces in Ireland serving the interests of the US, the “main beneficiary” of the ‘peace process’. Yet the CWO seem to suggest that the mainstream republicans are ‘unreliable’ when, in practice, of all the different groupings, Sinn Fein and the IRA have been the most keen to stick to the spirit and the letter of the Good Friday Agreement, the best defenders of the ‘Pax Americana’.

So, when the CWO paraphrase our position as seeing that “‘part of the British state’ is now an agent of thes now an agent of the US and an irreconcilable opponent of the British bourgeoisie” (RP 18, p29) they are shocked by our “peculiar method”. Yet what could be more straightforward. Sinn Fein have ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive, which is an organ of British imperialism (albeit one taking a form forced on it by the US). So long as Britain and the US do not have shared interests then Sinn Fein will be “irreconcilable” to British interests at certain levels, while still prepared to implement policies for the Executive that satisfy capitalism’s needs in areas like Health and Education. It is difficult to know what most offends the CWO: that we identify British capital as defending its own interests, or suggest that the British state is not merely a conduit for ‘international finance capital’. And as for the IRA, do the CWO want us to believe that this republican faction is an instrument of something other than US imperialism? And if so, what?

The ICC’s analysis of Ireland is an attempt to identify the contradictory and antagonistic forces involved in the situation. When the CWO say that some Unionists are far-sighted enough to appreciate the necessity for a United Ireland, or that the Ireland, or that the British government wants to disentangle itself from Ireland, we disagree. We have consistently shown that the Unionists continue their virulent defence of the link with Britain, and that British governments (and oppositions) have not for a moment flinched from upholding the Union.

We will continue, at every opportunity, to insist on what the groups of the communist left have in common: the shared heritage, the basic positions of principle. It remains the case that the CWO and the ICC are the only groups in this country who consistently denounce all the bourgeois gangs involved in the carnage in Ulster, and who defend an internationalist orientation for the working class. At the same time, our differences in the analysis of an evolving situation do have important implications. The ICC has identified the tendency toward an imperialist free-for-all, and shown how the antagonism between the US and Britain lies behind the conflict over the ‘peace process’. The CWO denies there is any real conflict as “British and American interests are able to accommodate to each other” (RP 18, p29). Where the ICC has tried to demonstrate what the period following the break-up of the blocs has meant in terms of meant in terms of the intensification of imperialist antagonisms, the CWO has clung to a view of the rational bourgeoisie examining the state of its accounts in order to determine imperialist policy - in so far as any nation can even be called imperialist. For us this approach makes dangerous concessions to the bourgeoisie’s campaigns about globalisation, a central aim of which is to mask the reality of imperialist conflict in the period since the disappearance of the blocs. Globalisation ideology repeats Kautsky’s fantasies of a world unified and pacified by the pursuit of commerce. Real life demonstrates that since the collapse of the blocs imperialism has increasingly employed military force, countries have fallen apart or are divided by warring factions, and the bourgeoisie has more and more resorted to archaic and religious ideology in the reinforcement of nationalism. Capitalism is not calmly putting aside its divisions and proceeding with the rational process of capital accumulation. It is driven by the economic crisis into increasingly destructive imperialist conflicts, which only the revolutionary struggle of the working class can prevent from escalating into total barbarism.

On 5th December 2000, 600,000 postal workers in India went on a nationwide strike. All sections of postal workers, in all corners of India, were involved in this strike that lasted till 18th December 2000. From day one of the strike the entire media and state machine, including the highest courts, were directed toward attacking and discrediting the postal workers as a selfish and irresponsible sector holding ‘society’ to ransom. The state used all the tricks short of direct violence to crush the militancy of the workers. It declared the strike illegal, proclaimed no work, no pay, enforced the ESMA (Essential Services Maintenance Act), called paramilitary and military units to man postal services. All this was accompanied by propaganda about how private courier service operators were managing the situation very well and the government was not bothered about the strike.

The postal workers are a particul workers are a particularly exploited and militant section of public sector workers and have often fought the bosses for better living conditions and better pay. The last time they went on strike, in 1998, it was one of the major episodes of class combat at the time. But the recent strike was the biggest since their historic 15 days strike in 1969. In 1969 postal workers had gone on strike in a context of massive and militant struggles of many sectors of workers. Faced with the militancy of the postal workers, at the time, the state had used naked and brutal violence against workers and their families to suppress the postal strike. This time around, alongside the direct oppressive instruments of the state, the unions played an insidious role in defeating and demoralizing workers.

As part of a round of ‘economic reforms’, the bosses have been talking of new attacks on the jobs and living conditions of postal workers. In line with different estimates put out by the bourgeoisie, due to technological changes more than 30% of postal employees have become surplus to requirements, so that postal services need ‘restructuring’. In addition, the bosses speak of privatisation of segments of postal operations. The present strike and the ferocious response it provoked from the bossesvoked from the bosses needs to be understood in the context of the extremely bad working conditions of postal workers and above all of the proposed offensive of the bosses.

Union sabotage

From the start the unions tightly controlled the strike. It was called jointly by all three main postal unions - the leftist NFPE (National Federation of Postal Employees) and NPO (National Postal Organisation) that control the majority of the branches, and BPEF (Bharatiya Postal Employees Federation), the union of the ruling BJP. It is significant that very little initial mobilisation was done among the postal workers. When the strike started most workers were not even aware of the demands. On the first day the participation was very low, often limited to union cadres. It was only later that workers jumped into the struggle - they thought this a good opportunity to fight for better working conditions and above all against the threat of redundancies looming in the background.

The demands that the unions framed did not even raise the issue of the threat of redundancies that is the main agenda of the bosses. Moreover, they were framed in such a way as to sow mutual suspicion and divisions among and divisions among the workers, especially between the 300,000 full time workers and an equal number of part time rural postal workers. Clearly, the unions had started with an agenda of dividing and defeating the workers and laying the groundwork for the bosses’ coming offensive. The workers were full of anger and militancy and persisted in their fight despite all threats of the bosses. But they were not strong enough to defeat this trap laid by the bosses and unions.

From the very beginning of the strike, the bosses were determined that workers should come out of the strike with a sense of defeat and surrender. This was akin to what the bourgeoisie did during power workers’ strike in Utar Pradesh in June last year. The difference is that the power sector workers had struck against the bourgeoisie’s offensive (the ‘reforms’) and the bosses were determined to crush the workers and push through their offensive, which they did after crushing the strike. This time, they have taken recourse to demoralizing workers before initiating ‘reforms’.

The strike is defeated

Thus the government was not at all conciliatory - they proclaimed that they have imed that they have conceded what they could. And the strike finally ended, not as customarily happens, with a promise of ‘sympathetically considering’ workers’ demands. On the contrary, the government proclaimed the strike illegal and prepared to enforce the ESMA, which entitles it to imprison and sentence any and every striking worker.

Faced with these threats of the government, the BPEF, postal union of the ruling BJP, asked workers to go back to work on 18th December 2000. Next day the leftists followed suit and asked all workers to return to work.

In the aftermath of the strike, the postal workers find themselves bitter and demoralized. Unions are now going around hammering the message that if workers could not win with the recent strike, nothing can now be done. Clearly, workers need to understand that the bourgeoisie had laid a trap for them and that they are preparing for a bigger offensive. The communications minister, Mr. Paswan has been saying that postal services need to be restructured to remain profitable. In these conditions, workers need to draw lessons from their recent experience and prepare to confront the bosses by breaking the union stranglehold and uniting with other sectors ofth other sectors of workers. It will be a difficult task given the recent setback, but it will be the only way.

Communist Internationalist, ICC nucleus in India