We are told that terrorism is a threat to civilised values; that all freedom-loving and civilised nations must unite against it. In truth, the multiplication of terrorist attacks, from New York to Moscow, from Bali to Tel Aviv, reveal how absolutely rotten present day civilisation has become.

Terrorism was once - at best - a misguided response of the oppressed against the rich and powerful. Today it hafs become a major weapon in the arsenal of the state - an instrument of imperialist politics, of inter-capitalist war. Terrorism today is not only an arm of weak and 'failed' states like Afghanistan under the Taliban, or Iran under the Mullahs, or occupied Chechnya, not only of aspiring would-be states like the Palestinian Authority or the IRA, but also and above all, of the world's most powerful, most democratic, most civilised states.

• Of France, for example, which has links to the Basque terrorists of ETA, and is even more notorious for its sponsoring and training of the Hutu death squads which massacred hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda.
• Of Germany, which armed the Croatian ethnic cleansers in Bosnia or the Albanian UCK in Kosovo.
• Of Great Britain, whose secret services are involved in a dark web of intrigue with the paramilitary loyalist killers in Ulster.
• And last but not at all least, of the USA, which uses the IRA to prod at Britain's flank, which has set up veritable universities for training Latin America's covert death squads, and which created Osama bin Laden in its war against the USSR.

In short, every capitalist state, involved in an insane war of each against all, no longer has any hesitation in employing the most insidious, ruthless and murderous methods in the defence of its national interests. And the victims of these methods are always the civilian populations - whether, like the Palestinians, they are blown apart by the missiles and shells of official armies, or, like the Israelis, by suicide bombers manipulated by shady terrorist gangs which in turn act in the interests of various regional or global powers. The chief victims of the September 11 attacks in the USA were the mass of employees working in the vertical factories of the World Trade Center. The majority of the victims of the USA's brutal response in Afghanistan were unwilling conscripts in the Taliban armies, civilians buried under the rubble left by US 'smart' bombs, or starved to death in panic flight from the cities and farms. Today the US prepares another war against another sponsor of terrorism, Saddam Hussein, and once again the principal victims will be Saddam's own principal victims - the exploited and the oppressed of Iraq. At the moral level there is absolutely nothing to choose between the terrorist gangs and the official masters of state violence. Between Hamas and Sharon. Between Bush and bin Laden. Between Tony Blair and Saddam Hussein. The sinister conspiracies of imperialist states

But there is more and there is worse. Not only do all the civilised states use terrorist groups and terrorist methods against the populations of rival states. There is growing evidence that they are perfectly prepared to turn their own populations into hostages and victims of terrorist attacks.

September 11

The notion that the US state 'allowed' September 11 to happen in order to whip up support for its global 'war against terror' - a war planned long in advance of the assault on the Twin Towers - is no longer in the domain of outlandish conspiracy theory. The Observer (27.10.02) published a four page feature by Gore Vidal cataloguing the succession of 'errors', 'breakdowns in communication' and 'failures to act' by the US military and security services which add up to a case so damning that mere incompetence or negligence cannot explain it. The German weekly Die Zeit published an article on the same subject, concluding that "the American investigators knew that terrorist attacks were being prepared, but they let the suspects act�" (cited in Le Monde, 5 October). As Vidal notes, there is a historical precedence for exactly such intrigues: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which again was 'allowed to happen' so that the US could mobilise a reluctant American population for war.

Bali

As we show in the article on page 4, there are equally suspicious circumstances surrounding the terrorist bombings in Bali, which left nearly 200 dead and many more gravely injured. Our article focuses on the 'benefits' these events can provide to Australian imperialism, but it also points out that behind Australia stands the USA, which in addition has plans to establish a much more direct presence of its own in the region. In the period leading up to the bombings, there were a number of visits to Indonesia by top US officials, including Colin Powell and the director of the FBI; moreover, well-known 'hawks' like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. have been demanding an official resumption of US military aid to Indonesia, which was suspended in 1992 following massacres by the Indonesian forces in East Timor. In October the issue was debated in Congress, having received a letter from Indonesian human rights organisations opposing the resumption, given that there was no improvement in the country's human rights record. The letter also argued that the threat of terrorism - which the Bush administration was citing as the main reason for unblocking restrictions on military aid - was "very much exaggerated".

Add to this the fact that there have long been very tight connections between the radical Islamist groups and the Indonesian secret services and military forces, then suspicions can only increase that the bombings are extremely 'timely' for US imperialism, enabling it to strengthen its arguments in favour of military aid, of using Australia as a local gendarme, and of establishing a much more direct presence itself. This would allow the US to impose its version of 'stability' on a political entity which is vital strategically but divided up into a myriad of islands, many of which are agitating for independence from Jakarta; at the same time a direct military presence in the region would allow the US to begin the effective encirclement of its principal imperialist rivals in the region, China and Japan. Little wonder that the Bush administration wants to blame the bombings on groups linked to al Qaida and thus integrate its Indonesian strategy into the global 'war on terrorism'.

Moscow

In a parallel way, there is every reason to suppose that Russian imperialism will be the first to profit from the recent terrorist crimes in Moscow. The fact that 40 heavily armed Islamic fighters found it so easy to drive through Moscow and take over a theatre in the centre of the city already poses serious questions, especially when we recall that the most recent Russian offensive in Chechnya was justified as a response to a previous terrorist outrage: the mysterious bombings of apartment buildings in the capital which killed hundreds of workers; to this day there are plenty of reasons to think that these bombings were a provocation by Russia's secret services. If the Russian forces again step up their bloody 'pacification' of Chechnya, this would only make it more likely that the hostage crisis in Moscow was indeed "our September 11" as Russian politicians put it.

The comparisons with September 11 have another purpose, as do the efforts to find links between the Chechen gangs and al Qaida: Putin's regime is very anxious to get the Americans to recognise the Chechen war as the equivalent of the USA's 'war on terrorism'. In other words, he wants some underhand deal whereby Russia will not act as too much of an obstacle to US military adventures like the proposed attack on Iraq, if the US keeps quiet about Russian atrocities in Chechnya. He has good reason to put his hopes in such a deal; two years ago, when the Russian offensive was at its bloody height, both Clinton and Blair made it plain that they supported Putin, since they had no wish to see a succession of independence movements pulling the Russian Federation to pieces; and already both the US ambassador in Moscow and Tony Blair have expressed their approval of Russia's handling of the latest crisis, despite the high death toll among the hostages.

What the outcome of the crisis really showed is that the Russian state cared as little for the fate of the hostages as did the Islamist terrorists who were no doubt ready to slaughter them all. The revelation that the vast majority of the hostages who died were killed by the opiate gas used to prepare the storming of the theatre; the failure to provide adequate emergency aid to the victims of the gas; the refusal even to release details of the gas to medical staff so that they could treat the victims with a suitable antidote�all of this was testimony to the brutal indifference of the Russian state to the welfare of its own citizens.

The media in the west has blamed this on the fact that Russia still hasn't completely thrown off its 'Communist' habits. It's quite true that the corpse of Stalinism still infects the structure of the present regime. But when it comes to the state callously sacrificing its own citizens in order to advance its imperialist interests, Russia is a rather crude amateur compared to the professionals in the democratic west.

The truth is this: in all countries, the proletarians and the oppressed are permanent hostages of capital, which in its death throes is spreading war and chaos across the planet. Today, no less than at the time of the Cuba crisis which took place precisely 40 years ago, capitalism holds a gun to the head of humanity. And there are no 'special forces' waiting in the wings to set us free. The proletariat must itself break the chains that bind it, by waging a revolutionary struggle against this entire system of war and terror.

WR, 2/11/02.

When horrific terrorist outrages occur, it's useful to ask who benefits from them. The answer usually sheds light on who could be responsible for these deeds. The Bali bombing on 12 October is no exception to this rule. The accused Indonesian Islamists certainly do not benefit from the Bali bombing. Abu Bakar Bashir, spiritual leader of one of the country's principal Islamist organisation, has been arrested and faces a possible death penalty for alleged complicity. New 'anti-terrorist' laws have been announced in Indonesia, after these were demanded by Australia in the wake of the bombing. Some 400 Australian Federal Police and some FBI agents have rushed to Bali and are working in 'partnership' with Indonesian police investigating the bombing. Australia has also donated A$10 million in 'counter-terrorism aid' - allegedly to assist Indonesia to build an effective 'counter-terrorism' capacity, but really to institutionalise an Australian security presence there and to bring Indonesia closer to Australia's expanding sphere of influence.

To ask the question of who benefits is to answer it. The answer is clearly neither the Islamists nor even the Indonesian state, but, most directly, Australia, but also, indirectly, the United States. The bombing provides Australian imperialism with a golden opportunity to impose itself directly on Indonesia in an unprecedented manner. And back in Australia, the bombing has provided the most warlike fraction in the bourgeoisie with a very big stick to cow and morally blackmail workers not convinced of the need to wage all out war on Iraq in the near future. A relentless media campaign from the bombing onwards keeps the horror of this outrage constantly in public consciousness, accompanied by injunctions to "get the bastards who did this" (Prime Minister Howard's words) and to enthusiastically prosecute the 'War on Terror'.

Opinion polls taken just before the Bali bombing indicated that a majority of the population did not support a new Gulf war. Although new polls have not been taken since the bombing, it is clear that there has been a certain shift in opinion in favour of war. A majority of workers probably still do not support the war, but the number who do has probably risen.

So who did carry out the Bali bombing? Given the facts stated above -and the precedents of Pearl Harbor and the US World Trade Center attacks, it is quite possible that this horrendous crime was at least perpetrated with the full knowledge of the Australian and US bourgeoisies, in order to obtain the political results listed above. Was it carried out by Islamists as the bourgeois media alleges? Possibly - but then, the Australian and US bourgeoisies, not to mention the Indonesian bosses, have been manipulating various Indonesian Islamist fractions since at least the 1950s. In Indonesia's recent history, Islamist fractions have been used to first bring the last Indonesian President, the 'moderate' Islamist Abdurrahman Wahid, to power in October 1999 and then to help throw him unceremoniously out again less than 2 years later.

Furthermore, there is something decidedly fishy about the wealth of information now flooding out of the Australian media - most of it openly acknowledged as being from 'security specialists', if not from actual intelligence agencies. These include extremely detailed accounts of numerous alleged meetings of Islamist terrorist leaders in South-East Asia, to plot various atrocities. According to Australia's most respected current affairs programme Four Corners on 28 October, one such meeting was held in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in January 2000. According to Four Corners:

"The CIA got wind of it ahead of time and tipped off Malaysian intelligence, which carried out video and photo surveillance. The meeting was attended by some of Osama bin Laden's most trusted operatives, including two of the hijackers who would die in the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"The gathering was hosted by Hambali [who is now accused by Australia of being Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant in South-East Asia], who'd come from Indonesia. Bin Laden's man in Manila, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was there as well. Among the others present were the September 11 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who were at the controls of the plane that hit the Pentagon. Also there was another al-Qaida bomber later accused of the attack in Yemen on the warship 'USS Cole'".

The meeting is thought to have been a key planning session for those attacks.

The purpose of these claims by Four Corners was to garner support for Australian imperialism's new imperialist ventures in Indonesia, as well - in a turnaround from its attitude prior to the Bali bombing - to build support for the US push for war against Iraq. But perhaps Four Corners tells us too much. For, if the CIA had indeed got wind of the Kuala Lumpur meeting ahead of time (and the meeting did actually take place), why did it not intervene to have the terrorists plotting against it arrested and nip these plots in the bud? Of course, it could be that the meeting did not take place at all, and that this is just one more strand in the mendacious web being woven by the pro-US bourgeoisie to transfer real working class hostility to its war plans into enthusiasm for new imperialist war. But if Four Corners is actually telling the truth, it surely lends considerable weight to the argument that the Bali bombings were carried out with the full knowledge of the Australian and US bourgeoisies, in order to benefit from the bombing's political fallout.

Other evidence tends to support this last, chilling conclusion. Despite claims by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer that warnings were given to Australians intending to travel to Bali before the bombing, cautioning them against the strong possibility of terrorist attacks on that island, this is simply a lie. Downer's department issued travel advice on 20 September, warning of such a danger in Jakarta - but adding in bold type that tourist services in Bali were 'operating normally'. A further statement, issued this time by the Australian Embassy in Jakarta on 3 October, repeated the earlier advice.

This also fits into a pattern. Just as US governments were warned before both Pearl Harbour and September 11 that massive attacks were imminent, so it appears that the Australian Government knew what was afoot in Bali but sat on its hands, in order to make political gains from the ensuing carnage.

The upshot of all this is that Australia now has the biggest presence in Indonesia since that country's independence in the 1940s. Australia's Prime Minister John Howard has been able to cobble together a new 'anti-terrorist' alliance with Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. The new alliance is officially intended to guarantee the safety of regional trade against terrorist attacks. But there can be no doubt that this scheme will be used to force more active support for the US' war plans. This will be particularly useful against Malaysia (whose fiercely nationalist President has denounced the US war drive against Iraq) and Indonesia (whose current President, Megawati Sukarnoputri, has tried to balance between Islamist forces opposed to the US war plans and pro-US elements in another section of the local bourgeoisie). Howard will visit the Philippines and Vietnam in the New Year, to twist these countries' arms to be more active at the regional level in the 'War on Terror'.

The various Asian and Western governments involved and the assorted Islamist fractions are all equally reactionary. Neither 'democracy' (or 'anti-terrorism') nor the US' 'War on Terror' will put an end to the fundamental cause of terrorist atrocities such as the Bali bombing, for the simple reason that it is decomposing capitalism which is producing such massacres across the globe. Just like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the forces most likely to have been behind the Bali atrocity are former clients of the United States. And just as in the cases of Pearl Harbour and September 11, the country whose citizens were the main victims of this particular massacre (Australia) almost certainly conspired to stifle warnings of the impending atrocity from reaching the light of day. In other words, whatever the particular details, innocent people are once again the victims of decomposing capitalism, which is everywhere and in all its forms (Third World, terrorist and democratic) prepared to commit the most horrendous deeds to extend its bloody rule.

Dawson, 29/10/02.

In the last two issues of World Revolution we have published articles concerning discussion groups: in WR 257 we reproduced a text on the Paris Commune of 1871 that introduced a discussion in the Midlands Discussion Group; in our previous issue, WR 258, we published a brief history of the MDG [4]. In the following article we want to look at some more general aspects of what a discussion group is, what function it fulfils and what in our view a discussion group is not, and what objectives it shouldn't try to serve.

In our previous articles we have explained the context in which discussion groups emerge. The MDG was first formed in the wake of the NATO intervention in the Kosovo war, reflecting a need to clarify, in the face of all the justifications by different sectors of the bourgeoisie, the nature of the war and the working class response to it. Discussion groups have emerged in other countries around different events or sometimes have been created without a specific impetus. In our view these groups are one aspect of the coming to consciousness of the working class in a period that is historically favourable to the development of class confrontations. This phenomenon also reflects the relative weakness of the forces of revolutionary organisations, since they tend to emerge in countries or regions where the latter are absent or lack a regular presence. The emergence of discussion groups in the recent period also corresponds to another factor: despite the undefeated nature of the working class today, the period since 1989 and the collapse of Stalinism has led to a profound disorientation within proletarian ranks that echoes the bourgeoisie's deafening propaganda campaigns about the death of communism and marxism and the disappearance of the working class, and the growth of all sorts of radical campaigns along populist lines (the so called anti-capitalist one for example) and the development of anarchist trends that reject a clear class perspective.

The appearance of discussion groups are also a reaction to this disorientation and an attempt to overcome it.

Discussion and class consciousness

Human consciousness is essentially a product of social interaction and language has been its main vehicle. Discussion, the debate of different ideas and thoughts between individuals, is in turn a powerful driving force for the development of consciousness, for the clarification of human goals and objectives, and is therefore indissolubly linked with human action and practical activity.

The discussion of working class interests and aims represents a particular development of consciousness corresponding to a particular phase of human history.

The working class, in distinction from all previous revolutionary classes, has no economic or institutional power within the old society and so its main weapons of social transformation are consciousness and organisation. In addition, as a non-exploiting revolutionary class it has no new relations of exploitation to create; thus its consciousness tends toward dispelling all the mystifications that the bourgeoisie has used to its advantage. It must also extend class consciousness to the whole of the proletariat whereas previous revolutionary classes have left the theoretical and political defence of their interests to a minority of intellectual specialists.

In contrast with previous exploited classes, working class consciousness cannot limit itself to the immediate struggle of any particular moment but has to be historical and global. Discussion about the future, even the distant future, is extremely concrete and practical for the working class.

A gigantic task! Proletarian consciousness must become historically precise and accurate enough to be a principal means for the overthrow of capitalist society, and it must extend throughout the whole class.

We don't of course expect discussion groups to take this entire work on their shoulders, but it indicates the seriousness and importance of their work. It shows that they are not 'talking shops' and correspond to a real need in the proletariat. The revolutionary nature of class consciousness means that these groups are far from academic in preoccupation, since academicism is not synonymous with discussion without an immediate practical outcome, but means trying to stand above classes and pretending to have an objectivity that is really the defence of the status quo. Thus the activist denial of the role of discussion groups as 'academic' expresses an ignorance of what the working class must become; which is why, when activists wax theoretical, it is they who fall into academicism.

The ICC, basing itself on the above conception of class consciousness, has always insisted therefore that discussion groups take themselves seriously and thoroughly prepare for discussions: the quality and coherence of the text on the Paris Commune is an indication that the discussion group is not about talking for the sake of it. The ICC has also insisted, not always successfully, on the need for a systematic study and discussion of the history of the workers' movement within the discussion groups, since this is the only sure means of arriving at a self-awareness of the working class.

Discussion groups are not schools of the party

If the preparation for discussion requires serious study of the workers' movement and its theoretical riches, this doesn't imply that they are a forum of pedagogy where the political organisation or party is the teacher of unquestioned truths. On the contrary the revolutionary nature of class consciousness demands that all militants have a highly critical attitude to the patrimony of the revolutionary movement, must question everything, express their doubts and arrive at a solid conviction in class positions instead of a passive consumption of them. This is why the ICC believes that the discussion group should be open to all those, irrespective of their political persuasion, who want to discuss class politics, and has opposed a political delimitation of the discussion group. In the MDG it successfully opposed the attempted exclusion of those who considered themselves to be councilists, sympathisers of ecologism or the cooperative movement.

Nor does the ICC consider that the discussion group is a sort of 'transmission belt' to the party, a kind of political group that is easier to get into than the party because it has less of a programme to agree with. Such a conception falls between two stools; neither fulfilling the tasks of a discussion group which is to explore class consciousness in depth, nor the tasks of a real political organisation which has to delineate itself completely from bourgeois ideology and opportunism as a whole.

In our opinion the Sheffield No War But The Class War group (NW), influenced by the proletarian group, the Communist Workers Organisation, has fallen into this conception since it has defined itself according to a mini-platform of seven points, which on the one hand limit the group as a forum for discussion, and on the other give it political tasks that it is poorly equipped to carry out. In particular, as the last Stop the War march in London showed, it made the group particularly vulnerable to the leftist carnival around this effectively pro-war parade (see WR 258). The Sheffield NW group unfortunately participated in a march where its slogans of proletarian internationalism were drowned out by the deafening chants of 'Allah Akbar' from the reactionary Islamist supporters of a Palestinian state and of Iraq.

The temptation for a discussion group to try and become a political group is very strong today. But rather than a 'natural' tendency, this expresses a widespread disorientation in the proletariat as a whole about the conditions for the creation of the revolutionary vanguard. The latter is a historical product and must be in continuity with the revolutionary parties of the past; it must be a part of a trend towards the centralised international unity of this vanguard since the working class has no local or national interests. Its platform and statutes must therefore be highly developed. Moreover, it must be able to accurately analyse the conditions and balance of class forces within which it operates. The Sheffield NW group is not only ill-equipped at the programmatic level to carry out this political role, but seems to have also significantly overestimated the possibilities of its influence in the current conditions.

While the MDG hasn't fallen into this trap of trying to become a political group, its preoccupation with having public meetings imply a political unity that it can't have.

Discussion groups, like revolutionary organisations, must modestly carry out what is possible in the present period and beware falling into the trap of localism and activism, the privileged terrain of leftism and opportunism. [1]

No doubt our differences with the CWO about discussion groups reflect wider differences between our organisations on the questions of class consciousness and the role of the party which we will touch on below. But there is a fundamental agreement between us on the indispensable role of the party within the development of class consciousness and the need for the discussion groups to be open to their intervention. That's why whatever differences that might exist, the Sheffield NW group has been open to the participation of members of the MDG and of the ICC, and the meetings of the MDG open to the interventions of the CWO.

If there is a danger of discussion groups losing their compass as a result of trying to be political groups, there is a far greater and more immediate danger of losing their class identity, a danger which has at times taken the form of efforts to exclude the intervention of revolutionary organisations. And we don't say this out of self-interest!

Discussion groups and the intervention of revolutionaries

The liberation of the working class is the task of the working class itself, said Marx, in helping to construct the Ist International. He meant that the working class had to become politically independent of all bourgeois parties and form its own political party. Anarchism has always given a different spin to this famous slogan: the working class liberates itself without a party, and without politics, which can only be the expression of the ultimate evil of 'authority'. For anarchism (in all its various guises) class consciousness and therefore discussion can only develop autonomously from the political organisations and their 'dogmatism'. This way of thinking can only, if it is taken to its logical conclusion, close up the discussion group in a clique defined by personal interests and deliberately prevents the quest for clarity and coherence that is an essential component of the development of class consciousness. [2]

The latter inevitably has a political character because it expresses the historical process by which the proletariat overthrows the bourgeois state and installs its own class dictatorship. The formation of a class political party is therefore an indispensable expression of class consciousness, indeed its highest expression, since it must delineate in a global and historical way the parameters of the proletariat's interests and goals. However, given the mass character of the proletarian revolution, the party cannot be the 'general staff' of the working class, as Zinoviev proclaimed at the 2nd Congress of the Communist International. The party doesn't take power on behalf of the working class.

The existence of discussion groups is an expression of the fact that the party is not the sole repository of class consciousness.

Nevertheless the development of the latter can only proceed along certain common political bases that are shared both by discussion groups and the revolutionary organisation: separating the latter two expressions of class consciousness inevitably puts these common bases in question.

A concrete example of this danger is provided by the evolution of the London No War But The Class War group that first appeared at the time of the Kosovo war and subsequently excluded the ICC from its discussions (see WR 228, October 1999, 'Political parasitism sabotages the discussion'), even though the ICC had up till then been the most intransigent defenders of internationalism within the group against the 'right of oppressed nations to self-determination', and the need for a militant discussion instead of academicism and activism. The justification for this expulsion - narrowly agreed to by the group - was the supposed dogmatism and domineering tendencies of the ICC in the discussion.

The London NW resurfaced after the September 11th attacks and the preparation for the US war in Afghanistan. Again we participated in this group, believing that it could be a forum for class debate. The CWO also took part in the discussions. But now, once again, the ICC has been excluded, and seemingly also the Sheffield NW group from their deliberations.

But this time there has been even less attempt to explain the reason for the exclusion, which was realised by simply no longer informing us and the Sheffield group of where their meetings were to take place, nor supplying information about their discussions.

We think that behind the accusations of 'dogmatism' there is the attempt to portray the revolutionary organisation as intolerant of opposing points of view, when in fact the ICC wants to see the widest possible debate of different viewpoints. In reality what the London NW group wants, by excluding revolutionary organisations, is the freedom to express incoherent points of view without being criticised for it, a closed environment where discussion is simply the exchange of individual opinions instead of the search for a common clarification. They are looking for personal autonomy not class autonomy, the right to one's own consciousness instead of class consciousness.

The consequences of such a policy, which is certainly influenced by political parasitism, is not only a short circuiting of political discussion, but also a betrayal of their supposed class opposition to imperialist war, and a growing espousal of the worthy pacifist sentiments of the leftist coalition that they claim to oppose [3]. Not surprising the London NW group also ended up traipsing behind the pro-war march, but unlike the Sheffield group is cutting itself off from the means of correcting such errors.  

Como, 2/11/02.

---

1. Its worth noting that while the CWO sees, mistakenly in our view, the possibility of creating a broad internationalist anti-war coalition of various disparate forces, it presumably still doesn't accept the necessity for the existing groups of the communist left to make common statements against imperialist war, as the ICC proposed to it, without success, at the time of the war in Kosovo.

2. The predominance of personal interests over the political needs of discussion, can threaten the existence itself of a discussion group, as the MDG discovered, (see history of the MDG in WR258).

3. See the London NW leaflet given out at the march 'War, what is it good for?', which fails in the crucial task of criticising the 'pacifist' (in fact, pro-war) ideology of the Stop the War Coalition and other sponsors of the march.

Communist Workers Organisation: P.O. Box 338, Sheffield S3 9YX

Sheffield No War But the Class War: [email protected] [5]

Midland Discussion Group: c/o Little Thorn Bookshop, 73 Humberstone Gate, Leicester

London No War But The Class War: [email protected] [6]

For the first time in 25 years there is the threat of a national fire-fighters' strike. This prospect has been the focus of workers' attention in Britain for months. As with nurses and ambulance workers, fire-fighters are respected by other workers for doing an important job which can involve saving lives. This strong feeling of support for the fire-fighters has tended to take the form of sympathy for a 'special case'. The work of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has helped undermine prospects of sympathy being transformed into real working class solidarity. Attacks on the fire-fighters

At present a full-time fire-fighter, after four years, earns £21,531, and receives no extra pay for extra hours or overtime. The union demands are for a 40% pay rise to £30,000, for the same rate for those who do not work full time, but do other jobs and can be called on when necessary (the 'retained' fire-fighters), and the Emergency Control Staff and for a future pay formula. What the union has put forward has got a positive response from the membership, but in reality these demands are aimed at dividing the workers

The desire for equal pay levels is a mark of real solidarity among workers, and the 9-1 ballot for strike action shows that the fire-fighters realise they have to fight to defend their interests, to improve their pay and conditions. However, the level of the pay demand has acted as the pivot for a formidable deployment of forces against the fire-fighters and the rest of the working class.

The government has used the 40% pay claim to launch a vicious attack on the fire-fighters in order to set other workers against them. In Blair's words: "No government could yield to that without putting up people's interest rates and their mortgage rates and causing havoc across the public sector, because other people in the public sector would say: If they are getting 40 percent, I want 40 percent.". Right from the beginning there is the propaganda that a pay increase for one sector has to lead to economic hardship for other workers - rather than the truth that workers' impoverishment comes from the crisis-ridden nature of the capitalist mode of exploitation.

The government has also denounced the fire-fighters for putting the public at risk, and used this as a justification for the use of the army to break possible strike action. Just as the Labour government did in 1977.

In addition, the government, along with all the media, has constantly been comparing today's situation to that of the 'winter of discontent' of 1978-79. The message being put across is that workers' militancy can only lead to workers being worse off - just look at what happened then: workers' struggles led to 18 years of Thatcherism. This message was also pushed during the council workers' strike in the summer. It is a very poisonous campaign because it reinforces the widespread feeling in the working class that it is not able to do anything to defend itself. This is a disorientation that has dominated the working class for more than a decade, and is particularly dangerous because many workers under 35 years old won't remember the important struggles of the 70's and 80's.

We do not have space to go into detail about the real nature of the 'winter of discontent', apart from to say that it was not the workers who brought Thatcher to power, but the ruling class who needed to replace the increasingly threadbare Labour Party, whose image as a 'workers' party' was wearing very thin due to its massive attacks against the working class. False friends

Adopting a more 'conciliatory' stance for the government we have seen the intervention of the Deputy Prime Minister (and veteran trade unionist) John Prescott. Union and local authorities (who run the Fire Service) have begun negotiations and made 'progress' (at time of writing). Prescott let it be know that there was more money for pay but "In reality, 40% was just too high". This was a very clever move because the talks were halted with the bosses having offered a 16% rise (with 'strings' of course). The union leadership went back to 'consult' the membership about calling off the proposed 8-day strike in the first week of November, in order to allow more talks. The only aim of this 'consultation' was to create division among the fire-fighters with all the false alternatives (stick to the 40% claim, accept the 16% offer, continue negotiations, go ahead with the strike etc).

The image of the FBU is of a 'militant' union. Its leader, Andy Gilchrist, appears to be the model of a real fighting trade unionist. On the FBU's website it states that "the Fire Brigades Union is part of the working-class movement and, linking with the international trade union movement, has as its ultimate aim the bringing about of the Socialist system of society". This 'radicalism' has been reinforced by Gilchrist's apparent 'intransigence' in the defence of his members interests, and the attacks on him by Blair and throughout the media.

However, behind the image, the FBU is the same as any other union, existing to control the struggles of the working class. Central to this control is the attempt to divide and rule. This was well demonstrated in the initial reports of the fire-fighters' response to the leadership's proposal to suspend the strike. Powerful divisions were created amongst the fire-fighters. These divisions were planned by the union, which knew that for many fire-fighters the link to the increase in pay for retained and control room staff was more important than the 40% pay demand. The fact that the bosses have agreed to this link, along with the rumoured 16% offer, has been an ideal way of sowing division. Some fire-fighters are for settling, while others will be for continuing the strikes (or the negotiations) because the deal offered is tied to 'modernisation' measures, that is, cuts and other measures which mean higher levels of exploitation.

These divisions have been exacerbated by the differences between 'militant' and 'moderate' regional union bodies putting forward differing recommendations - for or against calling off the strikes, whether to focus on non co-operation with future reviews of pay and conditions, whether to concentrate on demonstrations or other local initiatives. The fire-fighters are divided between 'militant' and 'moderate' regions, stations and individuals, as the union shows its effectiveness in policing the workers and thereby defending the national capital.

The fire-fighters are caught between the hammer of the government and the anvil of the unions. The government has made an offer, but with 'strings attached', while the union sows divisions among the workers with the false alternatives of negotiations or strikes or strikes under certain conditions etc.

This situation reflects the wider problems facing the working class. There is a general discontent faced with the mounting attacks on living and working conditions, but also wide-ranging illusions that somehow the unions will defend workers interests. These illusions have recently been reinforced by the election of more 'militant' figures to the leadership of several major unions. The current campaign of attacks on the fire-fighters shows that holding such illusions can only lead to workers being defeated.

The fire-fighters have been set-up - the 40% demand, the months of union/government preparation, the campaign about the 'winter of discontent'. In particular, the question of sympathy for the fire-fighters as a 'special case' - because they do a very dangerous job - has been used to separate and isolate them from other workers. Instead of seeing that the whole working class face the same attacks we have had the barrage of propaganda comparing different pay rates. This is an essential part of the union work of encouraging this sectoral isolation. The only way that workrs can defend their interests in the long term is to extend their struggles. In order to prepare the ground for this there is an urgent need for reflection and discussion throughout the working class - on the means of struggle and the union obstacles that have to be overcome.

Phil, 2/11/02.