Fifteen years ago, in 1989, the 'Soviet' imperialist bloc fell apart. This event, which was basically the fruit of the world economic crisis of capitalism, was to have immediate and extremely important repercussions on the life of this social system. The working class should recall that at that moment the leaders of the world bourgeoisie promised us a new epoch of peace and stability: the collapse of Stalinism would mean the end of barbarism. The bloody evolution of the real world would soon show exactly the opposite. Right from the start of the 1990s, barbarism more and more became a permanent fact of life, generalising itself across the planet, from the weakest parts of the capitalist system to the most advanced industrialised countries. The new epoch we saw was actually one in which capitalism entered into the final phase of its decline - the phase of decomposition. In place of an imperialist conflict which had been contained inside the iron corset of the competition between the US and Russian blocs, a new military logic came to the fore, a logic in which each capitalist country would defend its interests outside of any stable alliance under the rule of a dominant imperialism - the result being an accelerating slide into chaos.
In 1991, the first Gulf war opened the door to the new world disorder, even though this conflict briefly allowed the USA to reaffirm its role as the world's leading power. The US government had pushed for this war. It used its ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, to give Saddam the impression that any conflict between Iraq and Kuwait was an "internal Arab problem" and that the US was not really interested in the question. In fact this was a trap for Saddam that conned him into invading Kuwait, thus giving the US the pretext for a massive military intervention. For US imperialism, this war was the means to brutally reassert its authority over its main rivals, in particular Germany, France and Japan. Since the collapse of the Russian bloc, these powers had been increasingly defending their own interests and challenging US leadership.
There is no doubt that the US achieved an important victory at this point. It even gave itself the luxury of allowing Saddam Hussein to remain the master of Baghdad, in order to avoid Iraq sinking into total chaos (like it has today). But this was also a short-lived victory. There could be no real softening of competition at the economic level, while on the military level the tendency towards 'every man for himself' was even more pronounced, forcing the US again to resort to its military superiority and so counter the challenge coming from the other powers. In 1991 we could already point out that "whether on the political/military level or the economic level, the perspective is not one of peace and order but of war and chaos between nations" (International Review 66, 'Chaos'). The process of the decomposition of capitalism, and with it the weakening of US leadership, was to continue and advance throughout the 90s. Only a few months after the 1991 Gulf war, the same major powers were responsible for a new round of slaughter, this time in the Balkans. Now it was Germany, which by pushing Slovenia and Croatia to proclaim their independence from the Yugoslav federation, played a key role in unleashing the war. In response to this thrust by German imperialism, the four other main powers (USA, Britain, France and Russia) encouraged the Belgrade regime of Milosevic to wage a particularly murderous counter-offensive. But the historic weakening of the USA was already a factor in the situation, and this resulted in successive shifts in alliances: thus the USA supported Serbia in 1991, Bosnia in 1992 and Croatia in 1994. Like Afghanistan soon afterwards, the Balkans became a theatre of almost permanent civil war. To this day in Afghanistan, no authority, whether local or American, can impose itself outside of Kabul.
The slide into anarchy and barbarism has accelerated even more dramatically since the events of September 2001 and the USA's 'war on terrorism'. After the Balkans and Afghanistan, Iraq today has become the most eloquent expression of this. It is hard to convey the reality of life in Iraq today. Thursday 24 June, one week before the 'transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people', is a graphic example. On that day there were no less than seven terrorist bombs in Moussul alone, leaving at least 100 dead. At the same time there were armed confrontations in numerous Iraqi towns, such as Bakuba and Najaf. The country is in such a state of chaos that the political and military authorities can only control limited geographical areas. The new Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has announced with great aplomb that he will personally take charge of the struggle against violence. Meanwhile the confrontations continue, and there is a rising number of kidnappings, usually ending in brutal murder. The decapitation of hostages, transmitted to computer screens all over the world, has become a common practice, just another instrument of war like the terrorist attacks which aim simply to kill as many people as possible. Torture and terrorism have always been part of armed conflicts in history, but they were secondary phenomena. The fact that they are now so central is yet another expression of the advanced decomposition of the capitalist system.
The perspective in Iraq can only be one of growing instability. The USA's loss of control is obvious. The New York Times has declared that "the Coalition forces have not only failed to ensure the security of the Iraqi population, but even to realise the objective identified as a priority by the provisional administration: the total re-establishment of electricity before the heat of the summer". In Iraq today, everything is lacking, including water, and the population faces a terrible struggle for survival. Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis are more and more pulling in opposing directions. And a new phenomenon is spreading: the appearance of fanatical armed gangs taking action against American interests, operating outside of any control by the official religious or ethnic bodies. Even before it took over, the provisional government has been shown to be impotent and discredited.
The Washington Post writes that "Although the Bush administration has promised over and over again that the Iraqis will recover complete sovereignty, it's clear that American officials will maintain their grip over the key question of security". The USA has no escape route from the Iraq quagmire. It is unable to control the situation, even on the purely military level. The weakening of US power is expressed in particular by the fact that the USA has had to go to the UN with a US-British resolution which envisages the setting up of a multinational force with an American command. This recourse to the UN shows the limits of its ability to ensure its domination through the force of arms, even in a weak country like Iraq. And despite the initial declarations of satisfaction by all the members of the Security Council, this has only whetted the appetite of the other great powers, who aim to take advantage of every set back for the US. On 27 May, China, supported by Russia, France and Germany, distributed a document raising objections to the resolution and proposing major changes. In particular, it was demanded that the new Iraqi government should enjoy "full sovereignty on questions of the economy, security, justice and diplomacy". These powers also insisted that the mandate for the multinational force should end in January 2005 and that the provisional government be consulted on military operations except for measures of self-defence. This document was aimed directly against the US and shows that the objective of the other powers is to weaken the US as much as possible, whatever the consequences for the Iraqi population and the region as a whole.
Today the whole of south west Asia is being destabilised. There have been more and more terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, expressing growing tensions between the Ryad regime and increasingly fanatical Wahabi gangs. The virulent stance of some of the Shiite leaders in Iraq is also having repercussions on the stability of Iran. Conflict is also hotting up in Turkey. On June 1, the Kurdish PKK announced a unilateral end to the ceasefire with the Turkish state. The Neue Zuerische Zeitung reported on 3 June that "Turkish army circles think that hundreds of armed PKK rebels have infiltrated Turkey from the north of Iraq in the last few weeks. The Turkish government has accused the Americans of doing nothing against the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq". The same Zurich daily observes that "a new outbreak of the war would be disastrous for the whole region".
Meanwhile, since the formation of the Sharon government in Israel, there has been a state of permanent war in the Middle East region. Sharon's plan for a 'retreat' from Gaza while maintaining control of most of the West Bank is basically a recipe for endless conflict; the logic of war has left behind any other approach to defending Israel's national interests. This ultimately suicidal policy has resulted in an increase in tensions between Israel and Egypt, which apart from Israel has been one of the USA's few reliable allies in the region. And in fact the US administration has less and less say about what Israel does - yet another expression of the inability of the USA to carry on acting as the world's gendarme. Furthermore, America's loss of control is only one expression of a more general loss of control by all the imperialist powers. The continuing conflict in Chechnya, which is now starting to spread into neighbouring Ingushia, poses a threat to Russia's control of its outlying republics; the resurgence of warfare in the Congo is revealing the incapacity of France to dominate its former dependency in that region of Africa. However much the other powers try to profit from America's weaknesses, they too are unable to stem the mounting tide of chaos.
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the USA declared that it would hunt down the terrorists and bring freedom and democracy to the world. The real results of the 'war against terrorism' are being written today in letters of blood. The dynamic of war and social breakdown displayed in Iraq, Sudan or the Congo is only a dramatic example of what lies in store for humanity as a whole if the working class allows capitalism to have its way. Furthermore the barbarism sweeping through these areas is also rebounding into the heart of Europe and of the European working class: the March 11 bombings in Madrid were deliberately aimed at killing as many Spanish workers as possible.
It is vital that workers understand that this slide into war and chaos is not due to this or that world leader. For example, it is evident that the Democratic candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections in the USA, John Kerry, has no alternative foreign policy to offer. Whoever wins the election, the implacable logic of imperialism will continue to determine US foreign policy. Neither is the current world disorder caused by a religious fanatic like Bin Laden. It is the irreversible bankruptcy of the capitalist mode of production which drags it into war; it is the total irrationality of capitalist war which more and more gives rise to fanatical factions of the bourgeoisie, whether terrorist war-lords like Bin Laden or the neo-Conservative fundamentalists around the current US administration. The only force which can oppose the mad logic of capitalism is the international class struggle. Workers must remember that it was the revolutions in Russia and Germany which put an end to the First World War. Today the communist revolution is more than ever the only alternative to capitalism's flight towards mass destruction.
Tino, 3/7/04.
London, 6/7/04.
Dear Antagonism,
On your website we see that you have some material on Stinas and Castoriadis. Under "Articles by or about Stinas" you mention the Trotskyists of Revolutionary History but not the ICC. In fact, in 1993 in International Review 72 [2] we published some extracts from Stinas' Memoires together with an introduction that showed the evolution of Stinas and the ICU that lead to the final break with Trotskyism in 1947.
In the material on Castoriadis you refer to "a very favourable obituary". A more critical notice appeared in World Revolution 213 (April 1998) under the title "Bourgeoisie pays homage to one of its servants [3]".
Under the heading "Revolutionary Opposition to World War Two" you mention the books on The Italian Communist Left 1926-46 and The Dutch and German Communist Left. These were originally published in French by the ICC when the author was one of our militants. They were conceived, prepared, discussed and published as the collective work of the ICC with the complete agreement of the author. He has not been in the ICC since 1990 and any subsequent editions and 'correction' of the books have been linked to his political evolution.
For communism,
World Revolution, Section in Britain of the ICC.
The bourgeois press, especially in France, has made a certain amount of noise about the death of Cornelius Castoriadis. Le Monde referred to it in two successive issues (28-29 December and 30 December 1997) and devoted a full page to it under a significant title: 'Death of Cornelius Castoriadis, anti-marxist revolutionary'. This title is typical of the ideological methods of the bourgeoisie. It contains two truths wrapped around the lie that they want us to swallow. The truths: Castoriadis is dead, and he was anti-marxist. The lie: he was a revolutionary. To shore up the idea, Le Monde recalls Castoriadis' own words, "repeated until the end of his life ". "Whatever happens, I will remain first and above all a revolutionary".
And indeed, in his youth, he had been a revolutionary. At the end of the 1940s he broke with the Trotskyist "4th International" in company with a number of other comrades and animated the review Socialisme ou Barbarie (1). At this time SouB represented an effort, albeit confused and limited by its Trotskyist origins, to develop a proletarian line of thought in the middle of the triumphant counter-revolution. But in the course of the 1950s, under the impulsion of Castoriadis (who signed his articles Pierre Chaulieu, then Paul Cardan), SouB more and more rejected the weak marxist foundations on which it had been built. In particular, Castoriadis developed the idea that the real antagonism in society was no longer between exploiters and exploited but between "order givers and order takers". SouB finally disappeared at the beginning of 1966, hardly two years before the events of May 68, which marked the historic resurgence of the world-wide class struggle after a counter-revolution of nearly half a century. In fact, Castoriadis had ceased to be a revolutionary long before he died, even if he was able to maintain the illusory appearance of one.
Castoriadis was not the first to betray the revolutionary convictions of his youth. The history of the workers' movement is littered with such examples. What characterised him, however, is that he dressed his treason in the rags of "political radicalism", in the claim that he was opposed to the whole existing social order. We can see this by looking at an article written in Le Monde Diplomatique in response to his final book, 'Done and to be done', 1997.
"Castoriadis gives us the tools to contest, to build the barricades, to envisage the socialism of the future, to think about changing the world, to desire to change life politically... What political heritage can come from the history of the workers 'movement, when it is now obvious that the proletariat cannot play the role of motor force that marxism attributed to it? Castoriadis replies with a superb programme that combines the highest demands of human polity with the best of the socialist ideal.. .Action and thought are in search of a new radicalism, now that the Leninist parenthesis is closed, now that the police-state marxism of history has fallen into dust..."
In reality, this "radicalism" that makes highbrow journalists drool so much was a fig leaf covering the fact that Castoriadis' message was extremely useful to the ideological campaigns of the bourgeoisie. Thus, his declaration that marxism had been pulverised (The rise of insignificance, 1996) gave its "radical" backing to the whole campaign about the death of communism which developed after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes of the eastern bloc in 1989.
But the real test of Castoriadis' radicalism had already taken place in the early 80s, when under Reagan's leadership the western bourgeoisie launched a deafening campaign against the military threat of the "Evil Empire" of the USSR in order to justify an armaments drive unprecedented since the second world war. And it was precisely during this period that
Castoriadis published his book 'Facing war' where he tried to demonstrate that there was a "massive imbalance" in favour of Russia, "a situation that was practically impossible for the Americans to amend". What's more this "analysis" was frequently cited by Marie-France Garaud, an ideologue of the ultra-militarist right and mouthpiece in France for the Reaganite campaigns.
At the end of the 80s, reality demonstrated that Russian military power was actually vastly inferior to that of the US, but this didn't puncture Castoradis' self-importance or silence the journalists' praise for him. Neither was this new. From 1953-4, even before he openly abandoned marxism, Castoriadis developed a whole theory that capitalism had now definitively overcome its economic crisis (see 'The dynamic of capitalism' in SouB 120. We know what happened after this: capitalism's crisis returned with a vengeance in the late 60s. So when a pocket collection (Editions 10/18) of the works of Castoriadis was published in 1973, it missed out certain not very glorious writings, which allowed his friend Edgar Morin to say at the time: "Who today can publish without shame, indeed with pride, the texts that marked his political road from 1948 to 1973, if not a rare spirit like Castoriadis?" (Le Nouvel Observateur).
The same Edgar Morin (who today is a very important person, an adviser to the Minister of National Education in France) went further in the 30 December article published in Le Monde: Castoriadis was not only a "rare spirit" but a "Titan of the spirit" (front page title).
For us, the only thing in common between Castoriadis and the Titans of myth is that they were both Greek. In any case, Castoriadis has had the homage he deserved: the unrestrained praises of the "politically correct" bourgeois press.
F, 2/4/98.
Footnote
(1) In 1960 a British group, Solidarity, inspired by Socialisme ou Barbarie and Castoriadis, was formed. Although claiming to have gone beyond the "traditional left", Solidarity was never able to break definitively with leftism, whether its Trotskyist or anarchist varieties. It was initially active in the extreme left of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; it defended the shop stewards against the leaders of the trade union apparatus; and it took an ambiguous position on the Vietnam war. Nevertheless, at a time when there were no organised forces of the communist left in Britain, Solidarity's proximity to certain class positions did attract elements looking for a revolutionary coherence, as well as providing a retirement home for burnt out Stalinists, Trotskyists, and anarchists. It was those genuinely seeking clarification who, freeing themselves from Solidarity's swamp of confusion, were able to connect with the historical left communist tradition and form Revolutionary Perspectives (now the Communist Workers Organisation) and World Revolution. But the appearance of these groups also marked the end of Solidarity's temporary relevance. The reappearance of the economic crisis of capitalism, the resurgence of the class struggle, and the sharpening of imperialist tensions brutally exposed the theories of Castoriadis, while the groups of the communist left were able to provide a coherent marxist framework for understanding them.
Solidarity's death was, however, long and lingering. In 1976 it was given a certain transfusion of blood by amalgamating with a split from the SPGB to become Solidarity for Social Revolution. By 1980 it had reformed itself to become plain Solidarity once again, but the contents of its journal became increasingly apolitical. But it could not escape politics: it proved unable to survive the exposure of Castoriadis as an adviser to western imperialism, and finally expired in 1988.
The results of the Euro elections have been portrayed as a sign of the importance the 'British people' give to maintaining national independence and sovereignty against a European superstate. The fact that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) rose from obscurity to take 12 seats and 16% of the vote, slightly more than the Liberal Democrats, is presented as evidence. At the same time, both Labour and Tories suffered significant losses. But this would be to ignore the reality of the way these elections were widely used as a protest vote against government parties across Europe. It would also be to ignore the statistics that show almost nowhere was there a turnout of much over 40%, except where voting is compulsory, indicating that the electorate regards these elections as just as irrelevant to government policy as local council elections. In Britain the turnout was raised to almost 38% only by instituting postal ballots in several areas, despite the risk of fraud.
One argument put forward for Britain to remain aloof from Europe is the success of 'UK plc' relative to the rest of Europe. The 'sick man of Europe' in the 1960s and 1970s has become the success story of the 21st Century. But what none of the parties contesting the Euro elections will tell us is that this 'success' has been bought at a very high price paid by the working class in increased exploitation, or that it is largely built on a mountain of debt that can only temporarily disguise the real state of the economy. "In spite of the healthier growth rates and lower unemployment rates of the British economy in comparison with other European powers recently, Britain hasn't permanently arrested the long term decline of the former 'workshop of the world' in relation to its main competitors� In short, the British economy is, for the moment, getting richer overall compared with its major rivals, while its population is relatively poorer than those of these rivals, and purchasing power per head of population is weaker" (WR 275). Yet the consumer sector remains buoyant due to debt, because the bourgeoisie's "own austerity policies make growing indebtedness inevitable."
However many votes it may have taken this time, UKIP does not represent the future for British capitalism. Whatever their rhetoric, governments have remained in the EU for the 30 years since Britain joined. Sensible bourgeois commentators know this: "The European election results have shown how narrow the terrain is in which British politicians have to operate� The real debate is on the nature of our membership" (Peter Riddell, The Times 15.6.04). This has been borne out by Blair's negotiation of the constitution, with his 'red lines' on control of tax, social security and foreign policy. The promised referendum has been delayed and will only be needed if all the other 7 countries that want one accept the Treaty in its present form.
On the economic level, the key sectors of the British economy have a vital interest in preserving their European markets, and the British economy as a whole needs the EU umbrella to defend itself against competition from the USA and Japan.
Nevertheless, Britain really does have a problem with its policy in relation to Europe, above all at the level of imperialist rivalries, which don't always coincide with immediate economic interests. The fact that both Labour and Conservative parties have a significant Euro-sceptic wing, with UKIP largely taking the votes of Tory sceptics, reflects the difficulty Britain has making its way as a declining, second rank power caught between the rock of the USA and the hard place of a resurgent Germany. Britain needs its close relationship with America to counter the threat of a German-dominated Europe. Remember Thatcher's seminar at Chequers after the collapse of the Russian bloc, fearing the danger that reunification would represent. At the time Nicholas Ridley was forced to resign for condemning European integration as "a German racket to take over the whole of Europe" (The Sunday Times 20.6.04) but his crime was one of spilling the beans: opposing German power in Europe still underpins British strategy. This is the real meaning of the policy of remaining 'at the heart of Europe', where it can play the different European states against each other and thus prevent any of them from getting too strong.
At the same time, if Britain gets too close to the USA - as it undoubtedly has over the Iraq war - it risks being seen as no more than America's agent in the EU, not to mention compromising its own independent interests in a 'special relationship' that is heavily weighted in favour of the US. The British bourgeoisie is well aware of this latter danger - witness the unprecedented public rebukes the government has received on the issue of the Iraq war, first from a letter by senior diplomats and more recently in a letter from the Anglican bishops. Its economic weakness in relation to Germany, and its military weakness in relation to the USA, puts British imperialism into the dilemma that is creating difficulties for the Blair government just as it did for John Major and Margaret Thatcher before. This, not some EU constitution or fictitious superstate, limits its policy choices.
Alex, 3.7.04.
Europe was the main military theatre in both world wars; it constitutes the epicentre of the world's imperialist tensions and it has never had any real possibility of overcoming the contradictory interests of each national bourgeoisie. In fact, "because of its historic role as the cradle of capitalism and of its geographic situation (�) Europe in the 20th century has become the key to the imperialist struggle for world domination" (International Review 112, 'Europe: economic alliance and field of manoeuvre of imperialist rivalries'). The EU, an expression of post-World War II tensions
In the Cold War, when the EEC (European Economic Community) was the instrument of the United States and of the western bloc against its Russian rival, Europe could have a certain reality. Following the Second World War, the construction of the European Community was supported by the United States in order to form a bulwark against the USSR's desires to make headway in Europe. It was set up in order to strengthen the western bloc. Although restrained and disciplined by American 'leadership', which was accepted because the European powers needed to form a united front against the common enemy, important divisions had never ceased to pit the main European powers against each other.
The collapse of the eastern bloc in 1989 led to the dissolution of the opposing bloc and the reunification of Germany, which thus acceded to the rank of a superior economic power. Its new aim was to profit from this opportunity and assume the leadership of a new bloc opposed to the United States. The reasons which had obliged the states of Europe to 'march together' broke into pieces; and this phenomenon has been brutally aggravating for fifteen years. Contrary to the whole barrage about the inexorable forward march towards a greater European unity, the real trend is towards sharpening tensions and a growing divergence of interests between the various European powers.
This historic upheaval has re-launched the struggle for world hegemony and the redistribution of the cards on the European continent. The desperate race between all these champions of peace and democracy to grab the spoils of the ex-Russian bloc has led, for the first time since 1945, to the return of war in Europe. At the beginning of the 90s open imperialist conflict broke out in ex-Yugoslavia, culminating with the NATO bombing of a European capital, Belgrade, in 1999. France, Britain and the United States, themselves rivals, used their local allies to oppose German expansion towards the Mediterranean, via Croatia. The war in Iraq has again shown the fundamental absence of unity and the profound disagreements and rivalries between European nations.
Since 1989 Germany has been clearly pursuing its imperialist ambitions in its traditional area of expansion of 'Mitteleuropa', under the cover of building a united Europe. It hopes to use its unrivalled economic power within the principal countries of eastern Europe, as well as the institutional proximity created by EU enlargement, to draw these countries into its sphere of influence. The German bourgeoisie is however faced with major obstacles to its ambitions: on the one hand, the 'everyman for himself' attitude of these different nations, and on the other hand, the determination of the United States to develop its influence in these areas, particularly through NATO. "Five new members - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia - have been welcomed, with great pomp on March 29 in Washington, into the ranks of NATO, one month before their integration into the EU. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic have been part of the Alliance since 1999. The United States is already campaigning for Bulgaria and Romania, the other two new partners of NATO, to be admitted, in their turn, into the EU" (Le Monde 29.4.04). The United States is counting on the countries of the 'new Europe' to help it paralyse its most dangerous rival. It calculates that "the more the EU extends, the less it deepens, and that complicates the formation of a political counter-weight to American power" (Le Monde, 4.5.04). This view is confirmed by all the wrangling over the adoption of the new European Constitution.
Despite the reign of everyman for himself and the counter-moves of the US, Germany is still strengthening its imperialist influence to the east. To the west, on the other hand, it comes up against both France and Britain, who can only react to this developing potential of German imperialism.
Britain, in line with its diplomatic traditions, uses every means at its disposal to sow discord between the European powers. But as the main supporter of American military action in Iraq, it suffers from the discrediting of US policy and finds itself more and more isolated in Europe. The impact of the mess in Iraq has shattered the 'pro-American' coalition formed by London, Madrid and Warsaw against Franco-German opposition to the United States. The adoption of a pro-European orientation by the new government of Zapatero, which has announced its retreat from Iraq, deprives it of its main ally in Europe. This defection has dragged Poland, shaken and divided on the choice of imperialist orientation, into a political crisis that has led to the resignation of the Prime Minister and the implosion of the party in power. Despite the difficulties that it is encountering, Britain will be obliged to continue its work of sabotaging any durable continental alliance in Europe.
For France, which has longed to emancipate itself from American tutelage since the 1950s, there's no question of allowing Germany to totally dominate Europe. Neither does it relish the subaltern role that Germany has reserved for it in the framework of European enlargement. That is why it hopes to find in the strengthening and enlargement of the EU the means to guarantee a 'collective' control capable of restraining the ambitions of Germany. We can also see with the reactivation of its historic links with Poland and Romania and, more recently, the development of ties with Russia in order to oppose US intervention in Iraq. On this subject, we should underline that the latter is quite interested in this 'alliance' with France, since it is extremely concerned about being dispossessed of its former zone of influence in eastern Europe, and about the EU and NATO advancing up to its frontiers. All this is aimed at creating a counter-weight to Germany as well as to the USA. At the same time, within the EU, France is again attempting to recapture its influence with the countries of southern Europe, notably Spain, against the hegemonic position of Germany. Finally, if it responds to Britain's advances about developing European defence and constructing a common aircraft carrier, it's because it needs to play the trump card of military power, which is Germany's main weak point.
What then is the real meaning of this campaign about a 'united Europe'? It can only be to serve as ideological propaganda and to maintain illusions about a capitalist world which can never overcome its imperialist divisions.
The tendency towards chaos and 'every man for himself' is not limited to the countries of the ex-eastern bloc or of the 'Third World'. The end of the division of the planet into two blocs, by unleashing the war of each against all, has placed Europe itself at the heart of imperialist antagonisms and already shows that any idea of unity among the national capitals which compose it is a complete fantasy. Between the determination of the United States to maintain its supremacy over the world (backed up by Britain, which also seeks to defend its own particular interests), and the growth of the power of Germany, which tends more and more to pose as a rival of the United States, Europe can only become the ultimate stakes in this confrontation.
Scott, 3/7/04.
The electoral circus in the 'biggest democracy in the world' is now over. Over also is the drama about who would be Prime Minister after Congress leader Sonia Ghandi turned down the job. The new parliamentary circus has also completed its first shows with a 'Communist' presiding over the proceedings. A really unique historical situation, likely to be counted among the wonders of the world! All factions of the Indian bourgeoisie are very happy, as its democratic credentials have been satisfactorily substantiated and its stature as a worthy member of the 'international community' has been elevated a lot in comparison to its principal competitors, China and Pakistan.
Almost as soon as the elections results were known, the media took upon itself the holy task of strengthening the mystification about the 'anti-capitalist' leanings of the new Congress-led government. The media focused attention on the negative response in the shares market and on various statements by leaders of the most important left wing parties of India like the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India. Their statements against privatisation, the selling of profit-making public sector enterprises, restructuring, globalisation, IMF, WTO etc. were given maximum publicity.
In reality, the bourgeoisie seems to be unperturbed by the new left government. It has seen the left in power in three states of India for quite a long time. It must now be quite confident about the essentially capitalist credentials of these 'anti-capitalists'! It only has to look to China to see how Stalinist 'Communism' is entirely compatible with competition on the world market. The majority of the bourgeoisie might have preferred the continuation of the old government, but it is not unhappy with the new one also. Mr. Anil Ambani, who has been judged the best businessman in Asia in the last year, has asserted that the Indian left will put the Chinese 'Communists' to shame in the near future and that the CPI(M), the biggest and strongest Stalinist party in India, is a great patriotic party. Can there be any better certificate for the capitalist credentials of the leading party of the left?
Important leaders of the left parties have also started asserting that they are not against reform, restructuring, 'foreign investment', privatisation, globalisation, 'automatic' hire and fire etc, as such. They are insisting only on putting a 'human face' on all these things. They would like to resort to privatisation and even to hire and fire, not with a crude method and a jubilant mood of celebration as in the case of the old government, but with political prudence, sophistication and a soothing ideological balm.
Moreover, the main political party in the new ruling coalition has been the traditional party of Indian national capital ever since the 'independence' of India in 1947. It served the national and international interests, including inevitably the imperialist interests, of Indian national capital in a very satisfactory way for a very long period of time. It has been responsible for the enhanced stature and confidence of the Indian bourgeoisie in the 'international community'. So the Indian bourgeoisie has little to be worried about when the Congress Party is the leader of the new ruling coalition baptised as the United Progressive Alliance. Mr. Chris Patten, the European Union external relations commissioner said in a statement in Brussels on 16th June, 2004, '"I look forward to working with the new Indian government, to deepening our relationship". According to a report in The Statesman of 11th June, 2004, one of the most sophisticated and reliable newspapers of the Indian bourgeoisie, the World Bank's India chief, Michael Carter, has welcomed the common minimum program of the United Progressive Alliance government. So there can be no doubt at all about the capitalist essence of the new government. The fact is that bourgeois democracy, elections and parliament cannot fail to produce a bourgeois government, whatever its ideological whitewash. So there is little possibility of any significant change in the economic sphere, although there may be a little change in the balance between privatisation and statification, in the limits to participation by 'foreign' capital in the enterprises of India. On the international front also the same imperialist policy of the Indian bourgeoisie will continue, with just a few more outbursts about anti-imperialism (anti-American imperialism as a rule). But the existing relations with the USA are most likely to continue, perhaps with a little more assertiveness as regards the 'independent' imperialist stance of the Indian bourgeoisie. The imperialist conflict with China is bound to remain and intensify despite the dependence of the new ruling coalition on the 'Communist' parties. The imperialist conflict with Pakistan is also bound to be unresolved, in spite of the pledge of continuing and deepening the 'peace process' made by the new government. The new government: better for the bourgeoisie, not the workers
It is now crystal clear that the support of the left parties does not in any way change the class character of the new government, which is capitalist from head to foot like the old one it has replaced. On the contrary: with all their propaganda about putting an end to indiscriminate privatisation, uncontrolled reforms and restructuring, unbridled 'foreign' investment in the country, kowtowing before the dictates of the IMF, WTO, American imperialism etc., the left parties are best placed to have a strong ideological impact on the working class and exploited masses. This will be a very big obstacle in the way of coming to consciousness. Moreover the decision of the left parties to support the government from the outside and not to have ministerial posts in the government will increase their mystifying power at a time when the scramble for ministerial berths among all the other political parties of capital is being looked upon with extreme abhorrence by the mass of the working class. This is likely to add to the credibility and acceptability of the left parties. Thus while there will be little change in the economic and foreign policies of the new governing team, the accession to power of Congress, supported by the left parties, could, in the short term at least, have definite political advantages for the ruling class, given that the more openly brutal approach of the previous right wing government has become increasingly unpopular.
In the period ahead, we will probably see a strengthening of the illusion that the new government is at least not so harshly capitalist as the old one and that there may be a little improvement in living and working conditions. The overwhelming majority of the working class has been trapped in the politics of false alternatives which the world bourgeoisie has been very consciously, deliberately and consistently pursuing in every part of the globe. But the determining factor at this level is not the good will or the populist statements of political leaders. It is the material condition of capitalism. Faced with a historic crisis of the system, every capitalist country and its government is bound to increase the attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class.
If it is to defend itself from these attacks, the working class will have to rid itself of all illusions. It will have to recognise that all the political parties participating in the elections and involved in the government are political parties of capital. The same also applies to certain extreme leftist parties like the Maoists who are boycotting the elections and claiming to be the true revolutionaries. The present political scenario in this part of the world has increased, to a significant extent, the mystifying power of those Maoists who are carrying on an 'armed struggle' against the state. Of course their sole aim is to capture and erect a new bureaucratic military machinery which resembles the old ready made state machinery in all fundamental aspects, and to clear the way for the further development of capitalism in the backward countries.
Political parties like the BJP, Janata, etc. are the right hand of capital, and parties like the Stalinists, Trotskyists, Socialists and Maoists are the left hand of capital. Both are serving capital in different ways as the right hand and left hand of any human being serve the same body in different ways. The working class has to be clear that in any conflict for power among the political parties of the right and left of capital, it cannot take sides. Its only task is to launch, intensify, extend and unify its class struggle against all attacks on its living and working conditions and against all the factions and political parties of capital.
Communist Internationalist.
30,000 killed, 1,200,000 driven from their homes, "Water systems, food stocks and agricultural tools have been destroyed, cattle looted, thousands of villages burned, men executed, women and girls gang-raped" ('Sudan: Without help, a million could die in Darfur', International Herald Tribune. 11.6.2004). This policy of terror is being carried out by the Sudanese state in its Darfur region. The state has used the army and the feared Janjaweed militias to 'pacify' the offensive by the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equity Movement (JEM). The SLA and JEM for their part have used the population as cannon fodder in order to further their own sordid nationalist aims. These massacres are only the latest in 30 years of civil wars that have left up to three million dead and millions displaced. Wars in which all sides depopulated their rivals' areas: "Population displacement on a large scale has become a major feature of the war. It is not an incidental outcome of the fighting but is one of its objectives; it involves not just the removal of whole groups and individuals from their home areas, the incorporation of those populations either into competing armies, or into a captive labour force" (The root causes of Sudan's civil wars, D H Johnson, The International African Institute, 2003, p.155). This barbarism has been conducted in the name of Allah, Christ, ethnic and regional freedom and democracy, but its cause is imperialism.
Sudan was the creation of the scramble for Africa in the 19th century. British imperialism brought it into being in order to stop the advance of its French, German and Italian rivals and to increase its domination of North, central and Eastern Africa. Sudan has borders with Egypt, Libya, Kenya and Uganda, all of which were British colonies. It also had frontiers with its rivals' colonies: the Belgian Congo, French-controlled Chad and Italian-ruled Abyssinia (Ethiopia). In order to establish its rule British imperialism ruthlessly crushed the population when it rose up in rebellion, such as at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 when primitively armed rebels were massacred by the latest hi-tech weapons of British imperialism. This 'democratic' and 'civilising' imperialism maintained its position by its classic strategy of divide and rule. In this case, that meant maintaining the economic and political domination of the predominantly Arab and Muslim North over the mainly African South. Britain allowed the northern dominated army to continue the northern merchants' traditional domination of the South through slave raids, cattle rustling etc. "In response to local defiance, or even local indifference, the troops of the new government burnt villages, seized cattle as 'fines', and carried off war captives and hostages to distant prisons or for conscription in the army, all in the name of establishing government authority" (Johnson, p.10). Today's government and the rebel gangsters in the North and South have clearly learnt a lot from the 'civilising mission' of British imperialism.
In the imperialist redivision which followed the Second World War, British imperialism was forced to abandon its African empire by US imperialism, which demanded that the former colonies 'independently' come under its economic and military domination. In this way Africa became one of the main battlefields of the Cold War. Sudan was fully part of this, especially from the 1960's. The Russian bloc made full use of the discontent of the southern nationalist factions to try and destabilise the pro-US ruling faction. This support became more substantial when the Russian-backed wing of the Ethiopian ruling class overthrow Haile Selassie in the early 1970's. The main Southern fraction, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was armed and trained in Ethiopia. In response the US and the Western Bloc armed and trained the Sudanese state in order not only to repress the SPLA but also to support rebel forces in Ethiopia. This proxy war cost over a million lives and displaced whole populations.
With the collapse of the Ethiopian government in 1991, which itself was linked to the collapse of the Russian bloc as a whole, the SPLA was left without a local backer. However, it soon found new backers in British and US imperialism. In the 1990's the Sudanese government tried to break from the US tutelage and pursued its own imperialist policy, which included supporting terrorist war lords such as Bin Laden against their regional rivals. In response the US placed sanctions on the government and supported the SPLA. After 9/11, the Sudanese government, in order to avoid being placed within the axis of evil, began to make up with the US. It has supplied intelligence and allowed the US military to train in Sudan.
This renewed relationship with the US led to a push for the signing of a peace agreement with the SPLA and other southern groups at the beginning of 2004. The US wants to stop the civil war and the growing chaos that has gone with it - the SPLA has split into numerous factions that have turned on each other and almost every region now has its own 'liberation' movement. This profound instability is undermining the USA's effort to establish its military domination over northern and eastern Africa. The White House also desperately needs a foreign policy success at a time when its international leadership is weakening.
In this situation "Khartoum believes that it can continue to act with virtual impunity in Darfur because upcoming elections and Iraq will not permit the US and others to apply meaningful new pressure" ('Sudan: Now or never in Darfur', the International Crisis Group, www.icg.org [9], 23 May 2004). The Sudanese state has also taken full advantage of the tensions between the main imperialist powers. Faced with the US's efforts to dominate the region, both French and British imperialism fear losing their influence. Even before the rapprochement between the US and Sudan, the European powers were seeking to gain influence in Khartoum by establishing diplomatic and business relations - for example, European oil companies have offered their 'help' to develop the oil fields in Sudan. These tensions have allowed Khartoum to pursue its massacres in Darfur "the Western states mainly had themselves to thank for their relative lack of influence. 'The process had too many players', an observer said. 'It was too hard to keep the international actors united. They were a fractured, agenda-ridden group. It was a political catfight. The observers never settled their own differences'". The Sudanese regime knew that none of the main powers would criticise its actions at a time when they were all courting it for their own imperialist ends.
The SLA and JEM have also gained in their bloody campaigns through the discrete support of Chad and its French ally, which have armed them in order to put pressure on Khartoum and Washington. However, France and Chad have also supported the Sudanese state's military actions in Darfur because the war there threatens to spill over into Chad: the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army have made raids into Chad to pursue the SLA.
If the main powers are now pouring forth humanitarian crocodile tears over the suffering of the population of Darfur, it is because it serves their own ends. By condemning Khartoum and supporting the peace deal with the SLA and JEM, they can appear to having nothing to do with the barbarism that is taking place. But as we have shown these 'civilised' gentlemen and their imperialist ambitions have supported and encouraged the lesser gangsters on the ground. And if today there is talk of humanitarian intervention in the wake of the visit by Colin Powell and Kofi Annan in June, with parts of the left beginning to support this call, we should recall who it is they are asking to intervene for good and honourable reasons: the very same powers which today are revealing their profoundly dishonourable intentions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Any intervention, any eventual 'peace' deal, will only pave the way for new wars that will explode tomorrow in another part of Sudan where local war lords and their regional and international backers think they can gain advantage or destabilise their rivals.
Imperialist powers aren't brutal bullies in one situation and heroic good guys in another. They have no choice but to be vicious and ruthless because any other approach will leave them at the mercy of their equally ruthless rivals.
Phil, 3/7/04.
When a Parliamentary select committee and the tabloid press joined forces to condemn childhood obesity, using the example of a 3 year old who 'choked on her own fat', they did not care one jot for either the truth that she was suffering from a genetic condition, nor for the feelings of her parents. When other journalists scooped the fact that the campaign had been whipped up using the case of a victim of genetic disease and not bad parenting, this only served to keep the issue in the public eye for longer, and with it the condemnation of poor families.
A brief investigation of the facts of the question shows that obesity is a product of poverty, hunger and stunted growth; that it is associated with low birth weight and chronic disease as well as behavioural dysfunction. "The underlying issue is the malnutrition of vulnerable families in both senses, not enough and the wrong sorts of food. The malnourished conception, pregnancy and low birthweight of the babies of poor mothers are scandalous examples" (Prof Michael A Crawford, Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, letter to The Times 7.6.04). "Obesity is usually now associated with poverty, even in developing countries. Relatively new data suggest that abdominal obesity in adults, with its associated enhanced morbidity, occurs particularly in those who had lower birth weights and early childhood stunting " (James et al, Obesity Research November 2001).
The reason for obesity lies in economic necessity: "poverty and food insecurity [hunger] are associated with lower food expenditures. A reduction in diet costs in linear programming models leads to high-fat, energy-dense diets that are similar in composition to those consumed by low income groups" (Drewnowski and Specter, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, January 2004).
These professionals have collated the statistics that show the relationship between poverty, obesity and ill-health; they may even rail against the inadequacy of 'minimum incomes'. However, it is necessary to understand that the causal chain between poverty, poor diet, inadequate clothing and disease is a product of capitalism, as Marx had already shown in the middle of the 19th century. "The use of products is determined by the social conditions in which the consumers find themselves placed, and these conditions themselves are based on class antagonism.
Cotton, potatoes and sprits are objects of the most common use. Potatoes have engendered scrofula(1)� finally, spirits have got the upper hand of beer and wine, although spirits used as an alimentary substance are everywhere recognised to be poison. For a whole century, governments struggled in vain against the European opium; economics prevailed, and dictated its orders to consumption.
Why are cotton, potatoes and spirits the pivots of bourgeois society? Because the least amount of labour is needed to produce them, and, consequently, they have the lowest price� in a society founded on poverty the poorest products have the fatal prerogative of being used by the greatest number" (The Poverty of Philosophy).
Technological development may have led to potatoes, cotton and spirits being replaced by crisps, nylon and fizzy drinks, scrofula with obesity and heart disease, but the capitalist relation remains. The answer lies not in a campaign to educate the poor, nor even an appeal for higher 'minimum incomes' but, as Marx showed, the struggle for a new society: "In a future society, in which class antagonism will have ceased, in which there will no longer be any classes, use will no longer be determined by minimum time of production; but the time of production devoted to different articles will be determined by the degree of their social utility."
Footnote
(1) We now know that scrofula is a form of TB, but it is still associated with poverty, overcrowding and poor diet. Since the re-emergence of the open crisis at the end of the 1960s, TB has again been on the increase in Britain's inner cities, but also across the world. It is just one example of the return of 19th century diseases today, along with new ones such as AIDS.
Alex
"Iraq is sovereign" declared Condoleza Rice on 29 June in a note to President Bush when the US coalition officially handed over to the new provisional government of Iraq. "Let freedom reign" was Bush's triumphant note in the margin.
So few words, so many lies!
Iraq's sovereignty is a lie because a central aim of the US invasion was to turn Iraq into a reliable American outpost and thus enable the US to control the strategically vital Gulf region. Whatever happens in the months ahead, America will not relinquish direct military control over all the key decisions of the Iraqi state, and it has plans to maintain a major US force on the ground there for the foreseeable future.
But the direct interference of the US in Iraq's governing apparatus is not the only reason why Iraq's sovereignty is a lie.
National sovereignty is a lie for Iraq because it is a universal lie. In a world dominated by a handful of great imperialist powers, the weaker countries have no choice but to subordinate themselves to the global designs of the stronger. In the end it makes little difference whether this subordination is maintained through economic, political or directly military means. Even second order imperialisms, like France, Britain or Russia, have the greatest difficulty in maintaining an independent course for themselves. During the 'Cold War', there was only room for two superpowers. Today there is only one, the USA; and only Germany can entertain the ambition of becoming a second.
It is also a lie that national sovereignty is a noble aim which serves the cause of human freedom. In a world where all countries are compelled to be imperialist, the struggle for national sovereignty can only be a struggle by each country to defend its interests by gaining the upper hand over its neighbours or rivals. This struggle was the basis for all the wars and genocides of the 20th century. Today this 'war of each against all' is taking the form of an unprecedented number of open military conflicts in South America, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, Kashmir, Indonesia... It is threatening to overwhelm humanity in a tide of bloody chaos.
It is also a lie to pretend that national sovereignty means the freedom of the 'people' to control their own destiny. We live in a class-divided society where the decisions that govern the lives of the vast majority of the world's population are taken by a tiny, exploiting minority. This is true in all countries, regardless of whether the political structures in place are 'democratic' or 'dictatorial'.
'Freedom for the people' is a lie because there is no such thing as the people. There are social classes with antagonistic interests. Above all, there is the ruling capitalist class and the exploited working class. The ideology of national independence, national pride, national solidarity is used by the ruling class to prevent workers from seeing that they have the same interests in all countries. It is used to dragoon the exploited into the wars of the exploiters. It is used to prevent the proletariat from recognising that class solidarity, not national solidarity, is the only starting point for building a truly free society.
Those who fight for a free society - revolutionaries, internationalists, communists - denounce the patronising and hypocritical 'sovereignty' offered by the US empire in Iraq. But we do not therefore call on the Iraqi workers to fight for a 'real' independence, to join with the nationalist 'Resistance' against the US and its local gendarmes. The armed conflict going on in Iraq today is not heading in the direction of a new society; it is a product of the extreme decay of this present order; it does nothing to help Iraqi proletarians discover their authentic class identity, but dissolves them in a false national or religious identity and leads them into a fruitless slaughter.
By the same token, we do not ask workers in Britain to demonstrate or vote for independence from the USA or from a German-dominated Europe. We call on them to develop their independence as a class by resisting the attacks of their exploiters, by raising their own demands in the struggle to defend their living standards. Such a movement of resistance begins with the struggle against our own 'national' ruling class and its state; but in the end, if it is to avoid defeat, it will have no choice but to spread across all borders and unite with the struggles of workers in other countries. And if it is to achieve final victory, if it is to save the human race from the madness of capitalism in its death throes, it will have to dismantle the global structure of competing nation states and create a unified human community on the scale of the entire planet.
The day of the nation state is done. Either humanity will live as one, or it will not live at all.
WR, 3/7/04.
In early June the Office for National Statistics issued the official government figures for 'industrial action' in 2003, highlighting a record low in the number of strikes. Some commentators pointed out that the early 2004 figures for 'working days lost' were more in tune with the rest of the decade, and that, so far, this is up on the 1990s. The ONS, however, made sure that all media outlets could compare the 1990s' yearly average figure of 600,000 with 7.2 million for the 1980s and 12.9 million for the 1970s. Drawing attention to such statistics is intended to feed the idea that the struggle between classes is dead. We are being asked to believe that Margaret Thatcher's dream has come true and finally "there is no such thing as society", no class conflict, just individuals and their families.
Ever since the beginning of workers' struggles the capitalists who exploit them have tried to obscure the reality of class society, the struggles between classes with opposing interests. Marx once quoted a letter from Disraeli in which the new Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer said "We shall endeavour to terminate the strife of classes which, of late years, has exercised so pernicious an influence over the welfare of the kingdom" (Marx to Joseph Weydemeyer, 3/5/1852). Yet the 'strife of classes' has stubbornly remained at the centre of capitalist society, resistant to all the bourgeoisie's words and deeds.
In the 1950s sociologists said that the working class had been 'bought off' with cars, washing machines and TVs; in the 60s they said that workers had become 'bourgeoisified' because of the advent of package holidays, consumerism and the general fear of nuclear war. Despite the extent of struggles in the 70s and 80s the propagandists of the ruling class still found reasons to show that the working class somehow had a stake in its own exploitation, with such things as the sale of council houses (now often with central heating) putting ex-tenants into the property market. In the 1990s the continuing decline in manufacturing industries along with the rise of the 'cyber economy' was offered as further proof that the working class was a thing of the past.
Yet the fundamental reality of capitalist society has not changed. More than 150 years after the Communist Manifesto capitalism now covers the face of the world; the role of the state has become utterly central to the bourgeoisie's attempt to manage the economy; imperialist war has given rise to a continuing series of catastrophes unimaginable to any previous society: yet the basic capitalist relationship remains the same. The working class sells its labour power to the capitalist class, and the capitalist class does everything it can to maximise the surplus value that comes to it, that is, the value created by labour which is over and above what is required for the workers' wages. In the process of capitalist production the interests of worker and capitalist are in opposition - the latter wants to intensify the rate of exploitation, while the former needs the material means to survive in a crisis-ridden economy.
There are many obvious examples of the clash of class interests. It is commonplace to hear of the high-paid executives who are munificently rewarded for laying off thousands of workers. Or take the international phenomenon of pensions: the funds that workers have expected to draw on are disappearing while their bosses generously prepare for comfortable retirements. These inequalities, and more importantly the fact that capitalism increasingly can't afford to fund pensions at all, is not only a demonstration of the bankruptcy of the system, but shows once again that it's the exploited class which has to pay for the crisis of the exploiters' system. Attempts in Britain to minimise the pension crisis only show the scale of the problem. A recent survey of 200 major companies revealed that the average deficit in each pension fund was "only" �280 million. Many companies could supposedly eliminate shortfalls with less than 10 months profit, but there's no evidence that this will ever happen.
Tony Blair constantly trumpets the strength of the British economy, in particular low inflation rates and declining unemployment, and these claims are also made in order to obscure the reality of class contrasts. As far as the unemployment figures are concerned, most of the Tories' administrative measures to keep the numbers down are still in place and the real figure could well be more than two million higher than the official one ; no one has any real job security; and also, today, families often need two or more incomes coming in, where one was adequate 25 years ago. But most significantly any 'success' in the economy has been financed by debt. The attempt to keep the inflation rate low partly stems from its importance as a factor that stimulated the struggles of the 1970s. Similarly, the reason that they want the unemployment figures to look healthier is because the threat of job losses lay behind many of the struggles of the 1980s.
Because of the depth of capitalism's economic crisis it can only temporarily postpone the effects it will have on the working class. Revolutionaries would be the first to admit that changes in economic indices can't automatically be translated into expressions of class struggle, but workers do respond to attacks on their material conditions of existence. As Engels put it in The condition of the working class in England, workers are driven to struggle "because they feel bound to proclaim that they, as human beings, shall not be made to bow to social circumstances, but social conditions ought to yield to them as human beings"; workers "must rebel so long as they have not lost all human feeling". The question is not whether the working class struggles, but understanding what are the circumstances in which its struggles are restrained.
One of the most important obstacles to the development of workers' struggles is the overwhelming individualism of capitalist culture. Problems are experienced as individual misfortunes, with, possibly, individual solutions. Despite two hundred years of workers' class struggles, militant solidarity with those who share real common interests is undermined by social atomisation. This aspect of capitalist society is further exacerbated by the period of social decomposition into which the bourgeois order has plunged. As we say in the 'Report on the class struggle' in International Review 107: "the effects of decomposition�have a profoundly negative effect on the proletariat's consciousness, on its sense of itself as a class, since in all their different aspects - the gang mentality, racism, criminality, drug addiction, etc - they serve to atomise the class, increase the divisions within its ranks, and dissolve it into the general social rat race".
Also the factor of unemployment has had some negative effects on the working class because "The process of disintegration created by massive and prolonged unemployment, particularly among the young, by the break up of the traditional combative concentrations of the working class in the industrial heartlands, reinforces the atomisation and the competition among the workers (...) The fragmentation of the identity of the class during the last decade in particular is in no way an advance but a clear manifestation of the decomposition which carries profound dangers for the working class" (ibid).
The threat of unemployment can also hold back the development of the class struggle when workers only see it as an individual problem and are weighed down with worry about how they're going to pay the bills or deal with their debts if they haven't got a job. This concern should not be underestimated when trying to understand why the official strike figures are even lower than those for either of the two world wars.
But if the lack of a sense of class identity undermines the ability of workers to act as a class, for those who do see the need for a collective struggle there is the ever-present danger of the unions.
In Britain in particular many unions have made a point of distancing themselves from the Blair government. Some have cut off funding to the Labour Party, others are questioning its usefulness and there is widespread unhappiness expressed with government policy - at home and abroad. For those who want to struggle the unions appear to be a possible vehicle for expressing discontent; and the unions put forward initiatives that can draw in militant workers, even though they don't really advance the development of confidence or solidarity in the ranks of the working class.
For example, over the last fifteen years the rail unions have staged a sporadic series of one-day strikes and other limited actions. Recently they took up the question of pensions, divisively deciding to settle for some workers while going ahead with a tube strike. On the other hand, in May there were a series of unofficial actions by firefighters across the country in solidarity with workers suspended in Salford. Also, where last year there was a lighting strike by staff at Heathrow, action is threatened at airports this summer firmly under the control of the GMB union which has made a point of going through all the official pre-strike procedures of balloting etc.
But despite the lack of a sense of class identity, and the union traps lying in wait for workers who want to struggle, the working class has certain factors on its side.
Most importantly the imposition of massive economic attacks, in particular the dismantling of the 'welfare state', contributes to a sense in the working class that it has interests in common with others who work for wages and have no control over any of the decisions that affect their conditions of life. Also, the proliferation of wars across the globe is a stark demonstration of the only direction in which capitalism can go. If a basic class solidarity is needed in the development of the class struggle, the expression of solidarity with those caught in imperialist conflicts is a sign of the development of class consciousness.
Barrow 30/6/04.
This series of articles has argued that, as a result of its failure to respond adequately to the First World War and the revolutionary wave that followed, the SPGB moved into the political no-man's land between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The third part of this article in WR 274 developed this analysis, showing that the SPGB's inability to make a critique of democracy pushed it into confusion faced with the war in Spain and into a virtual accommodation with the bourgeois state during the Second World War, when it was used by the ruling class as a safe channel for the questioning and anger provoked by the war. This final part takes this analysis up to the present.
Post war decline
Immediately following the war the membership of the SPGB continued to rise, reaching 1,000 in 1948(1) and 1,100 the year afterwards, and it maintained a large number of outdoor speaking pitches. However, in the 1950s the membership began to fall and attendance at its outdoor meetings declined. A resolution adopted at the 1961 Conference deplored "the low level of propaganda in 1960" while subsequent conferences called repeatedly for greater efforts to be made (see Conference Decisions and Party Poll Results 1959-1972 on the Socialist Standard SPGB website: www.worldsocialism.org [15]). Internally, a number of controversies developed in the party, as certain elements questioned the need for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and argued for a gradualist amelioration of the conditions of humanity as a whole, while speculating on various aspects of the socialist society of tomorrow (see Barltrop, The Monument, chapter 15 and 'Getting Splinters' in the June 2004 centenary issue of the Socialist Standard). Amongst those questioning the SPGB's very foundations was Tony Turner, one of the leading figures of the party, who called for a return to pre-industrial methods of production and rejected the role of the working class, arguing that a socialist party "appeals to mankind, not to capitalists, nor to wage-workers" (quoted in Barltrop, p. 147). These developments were fundamentally an expression of the weight of the defeat suffered by the working class. Physically, millions of workers had been slaughtered while ideologically the proletariat was crushed by the victory of democracy and Stalinism. The lie that the working class had in some way gained from the experience of the war, typified in the propaganda of the post-war Labour government, seemed to erase the true perspective of communism.
The internal crises of the SPGB were an expression of this general loss of perspective; but they were also the price of its wartime accommodation with the bourgeoisie, when it effectively contributed to the ideological victory of the ruling class by suspending its activity. One consequence seems to have been an erosion of the militant and personal conduct of some members. Barltrop recounts how one of the factions, after it had left the SPGB, infiltrated members back into the party to cause disruption. Even worse, he suggests that some developed antipathy towards the working class and engaged in petty crime and fraud while one couple ran a call-girl agency. Although many in the party strongly opposed such conduct a proposal that members' 'private' lives could be investigated was heavily defeated.
The end of the counter-revolution, marked by the mass strike in France in 1968, saw the emergence of a new generation questioning capitalism and looking for a revolutionary analysis. "During the 1960s the Party was enthused by a healthy influx of new recruits initially politicised by the CND marches, Vietnam and the May Events of 1968" ('Getting Splinters', Socialist Standard, June 2004, p.40). An analysis of the strikes in France argued that there were "vital lessons" to be learnt from the strike, such as "the complete bankruptcy of the 'Communist' parties" and "the way in which the universities and factories were organised", but rejected the notion that there was any kind of near-revolutionary situation because none of the workers' demands really went beyond the capitalist system. While formally correct, this fails to grasp the historical significance of the strikes: the emergence of a new undefeated generation of workers and the end of the counter-revolution. In short, the SPGB missed the bigger picture, focussing, as it did with regard to Russia in 1917, on immediate aspects of the situation in isolation. Thus it concluded: "If there was a working class committed to Socialism in France the correct method of achieving political power would be to fight a general election on a revolutionary programme without any reforms to attract support from non-socialists" ('How close was France to a Socialist Revolution?' Socialist Standard, July 1968, reprinted in Socialism or your money back, 2004).
Faced with the resurgence of the working class, the SPGB's fixation on democracy and its mechanistic conception of the development of consciousness rendered it blind to the developments taking place and resulted in it increasingly being a radical echo of the ideological campaigns of the bourgeoisie
The SPGB was unable to avoid being affected by the intensification of the class struggle that took place in the decades after 1968. The annual conferences in this period repeatedly adopted resolutions that reiterated the SPGB's basic positions on the use of parliament, and the necessity for a majority of the working class to be socialists before the introduction of socialism. Some elements within the SPGB began to question its positions, leading to a number of expulsions, including in the mid-1970s members of the group that produced Libertarian Communism: "This supported the idea of workers' councils. It openly attacked as 'Kautskyite' the Party's traditional conception of the socialist revolution being facilitated through 'bourgeois' democracy and parliament" ('Getting Splinters', Socialist Standard, June 2004, p.40). Elements from this group were subsequently involved in Wildcat and Subversion.
At the same time it also felt the pressure of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces. In 1974 it declared that "membership of Women's Liberation Organisations is incompatible with membership of the party" (Conference Resolutions 1973-1988, SPGB, Socialist Standard, website).
While it was able to resist these more obvious challenges, it seems that there were other developments taking place that led to increasing conflict within the party. For example, the 1980 Conference adopted a resolution that stated "this conference views with displeasure the abusing of members by other members that has been a feature of the Party in the last three years. It considers that letters, circulars and other statements naming members as liars and rogues, denying their right to be members, disparaging and interfering with Party activity, have caused and still cause grave harm to the Party" (ibid). In 1991 a substantial minority of members were expelled for 'undemocratic behaviour'. The expelled members promptly 'reconstituted' the SPGB, resulting in a legal battle over the name and accusations from the expelled minority of attempts at sabotage.
The reconstituted SPGB, which publishes the journal Socialist Studies, accuses the Socialist Standard SPGB, or what it calls the "Clapham-based Socialist Party", of reformism and anarchism. They trace the dispute back to the difficulties faced by the SPGB in the 1950s and argue that there were "20 or more years of endless disputes against factions determined to take over the Party" (SPGB - Socialist Studies, 2002, Preface to Socialist Policies and Principles - Setting the Record Straight). The struggle became more acute in the early 1970s with the appearance of critical factions as described above. One of these factions produced a manifesto, Where We Stand, in 1973, amongst whose signatories was A. Buick, one of the current leading figures in the Socialist Standard SPGB (ibid, p3). The Socialist Standard centenary issue only seems to hint at this when it notes "Members whose disagreements with the Party were less serious and fundamental stayed in, working for the creation of what they hoped would be a more tolerant, and in their view, less 'sectarian' organisation" (Socialist Standard, June 2004, p.40). Around the time of the split in the early 90s a member of the SPGB was reported as saying "most of the break-away group were 'in their eighties and nineties' and tended to be dismissive of feminist, gay and black issues the party had increasingly taken up in recent years" (The Socialist of March 1992, quoted in Socialist Studies, no.5, p.14). This suggestion of a change in the SPGB gains some support from a Conference Resolution of 1994, rescinding the resolution taken 20 years ago opposing membership of women's liberation organisations (Conference resolutions 1989-1994 and Party Poll results 1986-1991, SPGB website); from the willingness of figures like Buick and Coleman to participate in joint publications (2); and, most recently and clearly from Perrin's The Socialist Party of Great Britain, which contains direct criticism of the traditional positions of the SPGB (3).
There is thus some truth in the Socialist Studies group's accusation that the Socialist Standard group has moved away from the SPGB's original positions. But the problem goes deeper than this. What lies behind this evolution is the contradictory position that the SPGB has occupied since the First World War and, in particular, its accommodation to bourgeois ideology. While the Socialist Studies group remains a stalwart of democracy in its most obvious parliamentary form, the Socialist Standard group has adapted to the weight of a more pervasive and 'flexible' democratism that has developed since 1968.
One expression of this was the declaration of support by the SPGB for the growth of Solidarity in Poland in 1980. For Socialist Studies this amounted to a betrayal of principles because they classified Solidarity as a reformist movement rather than simply a union. In fact, the expression of support was a logical consequence of the SPGB's position that democratic rights, including the right to organise in trade unions, are a precondition for socialism.
This became much clearer and of greater significance after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989. The SPGB saw the collapse as wholly positive: "The Socialist Party welcomes the collapse of Russian-style 'communism' as a significant step in clearing the way for genuine communism to which it has been a serious obstacle for over 70 years" ('The end of utopia?', Socialist Standard, December 1991). It echoed the bourgeoisie's talk of popular 'revolution': "In Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania despite the intimidation, the workers took courage into their hands, came into the streets and openly defied their oppressors. When we see these oppressive structures collapsing what is being demonstrated is the power and force of popular consciousness" ('The Lessons of East Europe', Socialist Standard, February 1990). It agreed with the superiority of western bourgeois democracy: "Unquestionably it is better to live in a society where there is some degree of democracy than in one where opposition to the regime is not tolerated" ('What price democracy', Socialist Standard, September 1992). Even if imperfect the democratic freedoms granted by the bourgeoisie make socialism possible and should be supported: "to establish the majority socialist consciousness that must necessarily underpin Socialism, it is important to struggle for our voice to be heard; for the limping democracy of capitalism to become more than a mere numbers game for pollsters and politicians" (ibid). And it contributed to the bourgeoisie's campaign against communism, which always insists that the October 1917 revolution led directly to Stalinism: "A state-managed economy, one-man management at work, and the political dictatorship of a single party which imprisons its members who oppose its leadership, what is that if not Stalinism? Yes, Lenin did lead to Stalin. Both were opponents of the self-emancipation of the working class" (SPGB leaflet). For the SPGB, it was a chance to grow and gain influence: "the fact that ours is a movement with a clean and honest record where Leninism and dictatorship are concerned - our critical stance maintained over many decades has been shown to be right - will surely open many doors for us in Eastern Europe and Russia at this time of change" ('From privilege to profits', Socialist Standard, March 1990).
The changes made by the Socialist Standard group can also be seen by comparing different issues of one of its key documents, Socialist Principles Explained, which aims to clarify the Object and Declaration of Principles:
In 1981, the ICC criticised the SPGB's inability to see the significance of the mass strike of the Polish workers: "The significance of their fight is, for the SPGB, not that they have placed themselves in the advance guard of the international workers' struggle with self-organisation and generalised strikes outside of the unions. Rather they have shown that they are a rearguard - having just obtained trade union rights" 'SPGB salutes trade unionism', WR 37, April 1981). This has been the case in 1917, 1968 and 1980. Always the working class is seen statically, as not containing the right quantity of consciousness because it has not mustered under the SPGB's banner. The result is to push the revolution ever further over the horizon.
The SPGB's position places consciousness outside the working class. It is not a process but an accomplished fact embodied in the SPGB. The SPGB has been right for 100 years - it's just that the working class can't or won't see it. The SPGB rejects 'vanguardism' but its position places it outside and above the working class as its self-appointed educator.
This attitude will certainly prevent the SPGB as a body from participating in any future massive struggles of the working class. But its palpable concessions to bourgeois ideology - above all, to the central capitalist myth of democracy - could lead it to side directly with the bourgeoisie when the working class is concretely faced with the necessity to destroy the whole apparatus of the capitalist state, not least its parliamentary façade.
North
Footnotes
In April the ICC's section in France held its 16th Congress. This Congress was a very important one for our whole international organisation. Two years ago, the 15th Congress of RI was transformed into an Extraordinary Conference of the ICC owing to the fact that our organisation had gone through the most serious crisis in its history, with the constitution of a parasitic group in its own ranks. This group, which called itself the 'Internal Fraction of the ICC', was formed on the basis of secret meetings held behind the organisation's back and was devoted to destroying the ICC's unitary and centralised principles of functioning.
This Extraordinary Conference allowed all the militants to measure the gravity of the destructive activities carried out by this 'Internal Fraction', in particular the circulation of rumours that the central organs of the ICC were being manipulated by a cop; the theft of money belonging to the ICC and of internal documents susceptible to falling into the hands of the police (especially the addresses of our militants and subscribers). But what really convinced comrades who had doubts about the disturbing and destructive character of the 'IFICC' was its act of kidnapping two delegates of our Mexican section at Roissy airport. Although these delegates had joined the 'Fraction', they had agreed to participate in the Extraordinary Conference in order to defend their disagreements. Even though their trip had been paid for by the ICC, these two delegates were picked up at the airport by two members of the IFICC who prevented them from taking part in our Conference. The IFICC refused to reimburse the ICC for the cost of the two plane tickets. This behaviour, worthy of petty gangsters, as well as the circulation of slanders throughout the ICC with the aim of sowing mistrust and confusion, fully justified the RI Congress being transformed into an Extraordinary Conference whose principal objective was to save the ICC and its organisational principles.
Two years later, the first job of the section in France, on the occasion of its 16th Congress, was to draw up a balance sheet of this organisational struggle. The re-establishment of confidence and solidarity within the organisation
Like all RI Congresses, this one had an international character because all the sections of the ICC were represented there. The section in France, supported by all the international delegations, drew up a very positive balance sheet of its activity over the past two years.
Despite the attacks it has been subjected to by the IFICC, which have obliged the ICC as a whole to mobilise itself for the defence of its main section, RI has been able to carry on its activity within the working class. It has succeeded in closing ranks in the battle against the parasitic manoeuvres of the IFICC, publicly denouncing it for behaving like a bunch of informers (see the article 'The police-like methods of the IFICC' in WR 262). This battle could only be waged thanks to the re-establishment of confidence and solidarity within the organisation, based on a collective re-appropriation of the principles of the workers' movement.
The Congress highlighted the fact that the section in France is today more united and solid than ever. In the last two years it has been tested in its ability to defend the organisational principles of the ICC, especially the principle of centralisation, and it has passed this test.
The RI Congress also drew a positive balance sheet of the work of its new central organ; the preparatory texts for the Congress were proof that it has lived up to its responsibilities.
Today the ICC's largest section has totally rid itself of clans and of divisions based on a purely sentimental loyalty to this or that individual.
Thus the activities resolution adopted by the Congress affirmed that:
"The section in France has emerged strengthened by this crisis, which has enabled it to rediscover the spirit of fraternity and to understand in depth how denigration and slander can poison the organisation's tissue. Divergences and disagreements can be expressed in a climate of mutual confidence without leading to personal attacks and conflicts (point 3). Centralisation is the organised expression of the unity of the organisation. In this sense, it is tightly bound up with solidarity and confidence, which are the two basic principles of the class which is the bearer of communism. It is equally thanks to the strengthening of centralisation at all levels (international, territorial, local) that the section has been able to mobilise itself to support and defend the Northern Section of RI against the IFICC's attempted encirclement; this has been a definite factor in making confidence and solidarity between comrades a living reality.This ability of the section to strengthen its centralisation in order to develop solidarity in its own ranks and to respond as a unit to the IFICC (especially by banning informers from coming to our public meetings) has also helped to strengthen our contacts' confidence in the ICC. Far from sowing distrust, doubt and suspicion, this centralised policy of defence of the organisation and of the proletarian political milieu has on the contrary strengthened the credibility of the ICC. Our ability to show clearly what confidence and solidarity in our own ranks really mean has allowed our contacts to assimilate more deeply the elementary principles of the revolutionary class. This is proved today by the fact that a number of sympathisers have become closer and more loyal to the organisation, some of them expressing a desire to join it".
In this context of reinforcing the unity of the organisation, of re-establishing the confidence and solidarity which have to link the militants of a communist organisation, the section in France has been able to integrate new comrades into the organisation and live up to its responsibilities towards new elements coming towards the ICC or asking to join it.
While the Extraordinary Conference held two years ago was entirely polarised around the question of the defence of the organisation against the threat posed by the activities of the IFICC, the 16th Congress of RI was able to return to analysing the evolution of the international situation, with the aim of drawing out perspectives for the activities not only of the section in France but of the whole ICC.
Reports had been prepared and discussed in all the sections on the three basic aspects of the international situation: the economic crisis of capitalism, imperialist conflicts and the class struggle. However, the Congress made the decision to concentrate on the latter point, given that the two other aspects had been amply discussed at the last International Congress, and that the preparatory discussions for the Congress had not raised any major new issues. This was not however the case with the evolution of the class struggle. In particular, the Congress ratified the view, adopted by the ICC's central organ last autumn (see the report in International Review 117), that over the past year we have seen a turning point in the class struggle, the most obvious expression of which were the strikes in the spring of 2003 in France against the attack on pensions. The debates at the Congress were particularly rich and animated. They enabled the organisation to go more deeply into the connection between militancy and class consciousness. In particular, the section in France and all the international delegations took a clear position on the need to throw off the schemas of the past in order to understand the real dynamic of the balance of forces between the classes. The Congress thus arrived at a homogeneous recognition that while the current struggles have not in themselves been at the same level as the massive attacks launched by the bourgeoisie through the dismantling of the welfare state, they contain a very significant potential at the level of in-depth reflection about the historic bankruptcy of capitalism and the necessity to build another kind of society. It is precisely this potential, the result of the objective impasse reached by the capitalist system (simultaneous aggravation of the crisis and of military barbarism), which explains why the bourgeoisie, in order to undermine the stirrings of consciousness within the proletariat, is today obliged to get ahead of the game by putting forward a false alternative: the mystification of 'alternative worldism' (not only in France but internationally).
In this sense, the debates which animated the 16th Congress allowed our organisation to grasp what's at stake in this turning point in the class struggle. Although the revival of class militancy has not yet led to the proletariat rediscovering its class identity and regaining its self-confidence, the fundamental questions being raised today (where is society going? What future can this system offer our children? Is another world possible? etc) are harbingers of a much deeper development of class consciousness than was posed in the waves of struggles in the 70s and 80s.
In particular, the Congress clearly showed that the emergence of minorities (often breaking from leftism and anarchism) who are searching for class positions in all countries, and who are making contact with the ICC in order to participate actively in the struggle of the revolutionary organisations, is an especially eloquent illustration of this maturation of consciousness within the working class.
The Congress agreed that one of the organisation's main priorities is to adapt its intervention in line with this analysis of a turning point in the class struggle. In fact it has already begun to do so, for example through the determined intervention against 'alternative worldist' ideology at the most recent carnivals of the bourgeoisie (the European Social forum in France and the World Social Forum in Mumbai, etc). Within the struggles themselves, the task that the ICC has to carry out can't be limited to an immediatist intervention, which brings the risk of falling into workerism and playing the game of the leftists; its major aim is to help develop the reflection taking place within the class, pushing workers to become aware that the present system has nothing to offer humanity expect growing barbarism.
It is with this historical, long-term vision that revolutionaries must examine the changes in the balance of class forces. This requires patience because it is evident that the struggles which the working class has been engaged in since the spring of 2003 (in France, Britain, Austria, etc) are mere skirmishes when you consider the scale of the attacks being launched - and yet they are still important signs of this shift in the general dynamic of the class struggle.
The work of the 16th Congress, the richness of the debates which took place, and in particular the fact that all the militants were able to express themselves in a climate of confidence, including comrades who have only recently joined the ICC, all testify to the vitality of our organisation and the redressing of our section in France. The discussions on the international situation showed a will to go deeply into the historical method which revolutionaries have to use when they examine the class struggle. The Congress was thus able to draw out clear orientations for activity in the current period. The turning point in the class struggle "demands that revolutionaries are at their posts in order to be an active factor in the development of workers' struggles and in stimulating the reflection and evolution of young elements looking for a class perspective. This is a heavy responsibility, but being aware of this is no reason for folding our arms. On the contrary it must be a permanent stimulus for our activity. It must strengthen the conviction and determination of the militants to continue the combat (including the struggle against the slanders of parasitism). Today what Marx wrote 150 years is as valid as ever: 'I have always noted that well-tempered natures, once they have embarked upon the revolutionary path, constantly draw new strength from defeat and become more and more resolute as the flow of history takes them further forward' (Letter to Philip Becker)", Activities Resolution point 14.
RI.
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/collapse-eastern-bloc
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/specialtexts/IR072_stinas.htm
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/213_castoriadis.htm
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/councilism
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/elections
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/european-union
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/61/india
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/20/parliamentary-sham
[9] http://www.icg.org
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/africa
[11] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[12] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/22/national-question
[13] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/18/proletarian-struggle
[14] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/19/union-question
[15] http://www.worldsocialism.org
[16] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/political-currents-and-reference/spgb
[17] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/congress-resolutions