Revolutionary Perspectives

Revolutionary Perspectives - 45

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:59 +0100

US Imperialism’s Hundred Years War?

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:58 +0100

Imperialism: Five Years since the Invasion of Iraq

The Costs of the War

Since the US invasion Iraq five years ago this month almost 4000 US military personnel have been killed and another 29 000 wounded. Against that, almost 1 200 000 Iraqis have been killed and 4.5 million Iraqis are refugees. Of these, 2 million are outside the country (60% of them in Syria) and 2.5 million are Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who survive on UN handouts and the remnants of their own dwindling savings.

International aid agencies have recently launched a new appeal for $265 million dollars in aid for these victims. In financial terms, the military cost of the war alone is already over $600 billion for the United States, despite a Bush promise when it started that it would cost no more than $50 billion.

Despite the so-called surge, the number of US personnel killed in Iraq reached a record 901 last year and the number of IDPs continues to grow at 50,000 a month.

Capitalist Equality Means Low Pay for All

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:57 +0100

Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wages system!”

Marx, Value, Price and Profit

Reformism, as the old saying goes, is a great idea in theory, it just doesn’t work in practice. It has now been thirty eight years since the introduction of the Equal Pay Act and inequality is as widespread as ever in both the public and private sectors. Capitalism may be many things but you could never accuse it of being fair. Despite having the right to equal pay under the law, 75% of women workers in Government run councils are still underpaid and inequality in the private sector is as rife as ever. The legislators of the Equal Pay Act would no doubt be horrified to learn their law has been completely ineffectual. The trouble is, as soon as the bourgeoisie pass a law for equality they find a way to get round it.

Death at Work: Capitalism is Bad for Your Health

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:56 +0100

The following article was inspired by the paper of the Italian affiliate of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party, Battaglia Comunista (January 2008). It reported on the dangers faced by miners around the world, every day. Much of what follows is directly translated from the article. However, the very direct threat of working underground and relying on the capitalist bosses to ensure one’s safety is only a more visible manifestation of a general reality that faces all workers. The fact that our work is directly related to an early grave is not only a problem for miners, construction workers, blue-collar labourers et al.

Murderous mines

The job of the miner is still one of the most dangerous in the world; in December several serious incidents took place in China and the Ukraine that caused the death of hundreds of workers.

These are only two amongst the most dramatic cases of recent times, death in a mine is still an everyday fact all around the world.

Germany: Solidarity with our Transport Worker Comrades

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:55 +0100

Striking is the Only Language the Bosses Understand!

We translate below a leaflet produced by the GIS (Gruppe Internationalister SozialistInnen), a group in Germany with which we have fraternal relations. It concerns a strike on the BVG (Berliner Verkehrsgesellschaft, which runs local transport in Berlin). In Germany, as elsewhere, the bosses use all sorts of tactics to push down wages and worsen conditions, and the unions help, rather than hinder, them in this. In this particular instance, the KAV (Kommunale Arbeitgeberverband — Municipal Employers’ Organisation) and the Senate of the City of Berlin are trying to split the workers by treating new workers differently to long term ones.

Food and Fuel Price Rises: Inflation Returns to Centre Stage

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:54 +0100

Whatever else has changed with the advent of today’s global, supposedly free-market capitalism, in-built inflation remains a fact of life. It was the “runaway” inflation of the 1970s and 1980s which encouraged the advanced capitalist states — those with the lowest rate of accumulation — to go global and abandon attempts to shore up the national economy by ever-larger injections of state aid. The myth that Keynes had found a way to overcome capitalism’s cyclical accumulation crisis simply by resorting to the printing press was shattered, or as the UK prime minister at the time, James Callaghan, announced:

We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession — that option no longer exists.

Re-reading Marx in the Light of the Sub-prime Crisis

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:53 +0100

From Prometeo 16 Series VI (2007)

Despite the central banks literally bleeding themselves white to satisfy the financial markets’ demands for liquidity, the financial crisis which exploded last August has now engulfed the world economic system.

Previously optimistic forecasts for the future of the global economy have been replaced by pessimism. One and half points have already been written off global GDP next year, with the year after dropping a further percentage point. However, in the light of the few statistics available, even these predictions are riddled with problems.

Indeed, at the beginning of the crisis Bernanke — head of the Federal Reserve — predicted losses in the sub-prime market of around $100 billion.

Environmental Debate: “Do you have to be Red to be Green?”

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:52 +0100

A World to Win

In February the CWO were invited to participate in a discussion at Sussex University on the question, “Do you have to be red to be green”. The discussion was called by the student ”Environmental Society” and “Socialist Students Society”.

Speaking on the issue were representatives of the “Green Party”, the “Brighton and Hove Transition Towns Movement” [1], the “Socialist Party” [2], the CWO and a student who had written a dissertation on the impending environmental catastrophe.

None of the invited speakers produced a defence of the view that capitalism could be reformed to become green. The notion of a “green capitalism” which is the policy of the Green Party was only mentioned in passing. There thus appeared to be general agreement that capitalism was, in theory at least, incompatible with sustainability and in consequence was incapable of saving the planet from disaster.

Italian Communists Inside Stalin’s Gulags

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:51 +0100

Translated from Prometeo 15, June 2007

1936, 1937, 1938 … it was during the course of these three years that the Stalinist regime wiped out the entire Bolshevik old guard as well as every form of class opposition by means of its notorious show trials. In fact, the obscure work of the “troika”, or rather the threemember commissions charged with prosecuting, judging and condemning the accused, had begun well before and would continue long after. This historical course had already opened a decade earlier with the ejection of Trotsky from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and his subsequent banishment. They were the years Victor Serge memorably defined as “The Midnight in the Century”.

Italian communist émigrés to Russia were caught up in all these trials. Their history has often been conveniently underreported or misreported, in line with the opposing though convergent interests of Italian Stalinism and the anti-communist bloc.

Housing - A Few Notes from the Inner City

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:50 +0100

Correspondence — The following letter is a reader’s response to the article Housing – A Never-ending Crisis under Capitalism in Revolutionary Perspectives 43

I must admit I was gladdened by the article on housing. Personally I suffer in terms of housing needs. I have the joy of living in an inner city area of a northern city, not on a sprawling and unkempt estate, but an area noted for its turnover of successive waves of immigration and its pernicious poverty.

Currently we have new friends arriving – Poles, Albanians, Kosovans, Slovaks and so on. We also have that unfortunate new breed, certainly for this area, the gentrifying lower professionals. They have most definitely driven up house prices locally.

We also have our very own crop of buy to let landlords, my own included. There are one or two points I would like to make, though, in terms of personal experience.

First of all, rents in the area are being forced upwards.

The First Years of Soviet Rule in Petrograd

webmaster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:59:49 +0100

A review of Alexander Rabinowitch’s The Bolsheviks in Power (Indiana University Press, hardback, 494 pages, published December 2007)

We have had to wait 35 years for this sequel to Professor Rabinowitch’s The Bolsheviks Come to Power. This earlier work was enormously influential and when the CWO produced its pamphlet 1917 [1] back in the 1980s it owed a great debt to The Bolsheviks Come to Power. The chief reason for this is laid out in the Preface to the latest Rabinowitch book.

The Bolsheviks Come to Power, together with Prelude to Revolution [2] challenged prevailing Western notions of the October revolution as no more than a military coup by a small, united band of revolutionary fanatics brilliantly led by Lenin.

Revolutionary Perspectives - 44

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:59 +0100

Public Sector Workers Have the Strength if They Unite to Fight

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:58 +0100

Pay Cuts for the Producers

Anyone who insists we no longer live in a class society would have some difficulty in explaining what we have just witnessed this year. It began last March when public sector workers, after three years of below inflation pay rises (i.e. pay cuts), were again slapped in the face by Gordon Brown.

The Government’s own pay review body had recommended an ungenerous rise of 2.5%, but Brown (at the time still Chancellor of the Exchequer), personally stepped in to stagger this increase over two years so that this year the average pay rise will be 1.9%. His argument was that wages rises were threatening to fuel inflation and this would upset Government inflation targets. This was a barefaced lie.

The Consumer Price Index at the time was 2.7% and the Retail Price Index (which used to be the measure of inflation and includes mortgage payments and rents) was 4.2%.

The Rotten State We’re In

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:57 +0100

To paraphrase Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of Britain. Of course, this is nothing new, but a number of recent events have brought this rottenness to the fore. As the world economy plummets deeper into crisis, as manifested by the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market and its Northern Rock spin-off in Britain, this is also reflected in growing corruption and repression at the heart of the state.

Killing With Impunity

No-one denies that Islamic jihadist perpetrated terrorism poses a threat in Britain, albeit a threat exacerbated by the vicious and stupid actions of the British state in the Middle East. However, this threat is massively exaggerated to justify ever increasing state repression. One victim of this was the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes, gunned down by the Metropolitan Police at Stockwell tube station for the crime of bearing a passing resemblance to a terror suspect.

Britain’s Poorest Towns: Inequality and Division are the Realities of Capitalism

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:56 +0100

Readers of the CWO press are well aware that we have focussed much effort in providing direct evidence from the contemporary situation in order to prove the continuing validity of the Marxist critique. For us Marxism is not a completed religious text, but a means to understand reality as it unfolds, it is a means to understand the trends which shape the future, and the task of building on Marx’s heritage is vital if we are to have a role in ushering in a future beyond capitalism’s lingering funeral rites. One of Marx’s major contentions was that society cannot but help, under the capitalist mode of production, becoming increasingly polarised, increasingly divided between the two major contending classes of the modern epoch, bourgeois and proletariat, whose glaring antagonism and diametrically opposed interests can only become more apparent.

Recently we have illustrated this scenario on an international level [1].

Britain, France and Germany – Same Fight, Same Problems

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:55 +0100

After decades of submitting to layoffs, speed ups, real wage cuts and a general reduction of the standard of living so that two wages are needed where one almost did before, workers in many regions of the planet but particularly in Europe are saying enough is enough. British workers, after their epic defeats in the 1980s have been particularly slow to recover but they have one lesson for the rest of the working class in Europe. The bourgeoisie never halt their attacks. As labour creates the real wealth of society the capitalists can only get more of that wealth by reducing its costs and increasing its productivity.

The working class can accept defeat and wait for better times only to find that better times never come as all passivity invites is yet another attack. In the fightback in Britain, Germany and France the themes are unremarkably similar.

...and in Egypt Workers Win by Going Beyond the Unions

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:54 +0100

Battaglia Comunista 10 (October 2007)

The powerful struggle that the Egyptian proletariat is waging shows yet again how the conditions of life for workers around the world are increasingly unbearable.

The situation in Egypt has been made worse by the policy of privatisation of public services and has revealed once again how the union organisations openly side with the bosses.

The turning point of the struggle came on the 25^th of September at Mahalla al-Kubra, when thousands of textile workers decided they could no longer put up with the false promises their leaders had been making for months.

The dispute in fact began last December when the workers, driven by rising inflation (estimated around 12%), began to fight to obtain a substantial wage rise. The casus belli was the question of the annual bonus for public sector workers and which is worth about two months wages.

Turkey, Pakistan and Iran: Squaring the Circle of US Imperialism

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:53 +0100

Turkey, Pakistan and Iran: Squaring the Circle of US Imperialism

Behind the Misery of War — Imperialist Rivalry

The area of direct confrontation between the imperialist powers in the Middle East/Central Asia/Northern East Africa is spreading like an inkblot on wet paper. From Darfur to Daghestan, from Aden to Almaty the conflict zone is widening and intensifying.

To those who believe everything they are told, there is no connection between these conflicts over this vast region. Our media always portray each conflict as the result of local causes. Tribal or ethnic warfare in Darfur, Islamic extremism in Iraq, Lebanon or wherever, and local rivalries as a result of the collapse of the USSR, are all given as the main reasons behind the conflicts.

In reality these wars are the product of rivalry between the major powers who, in this epoch of imperialism, are determined to gain as much of the world’s wealth for their own interests and aggrandisement.

Capitalist Financial Crisis: The Worst is Still to Come

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:52 +0100

When we last went to press, the global fall-out from what began as a crisis of mortgage defaults in the US had begun to reach dramatic proportions. Faced with the possibility of leading banks and financial houses being unable to honour their immediate “obligations” the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank injected liquidity into their financial systems to the tune of $64bn (between 9-13^th August) in the case of the Fed and a sum of around €263bn by the ECB (9-14^th August).

Technically, these are very short-term loans (sometimes overnight) to tide over the banks when they have to pay money out and don’t have enough funds to do so until they get more income from payment transactions.

In normal circumstances the banks would be inclined to lend to each other for such purposes. However, when each bank knows the others are doing what they themselves are doing — i.e.

Ninety Years On: The Lessons of the Russian Revolution for Today

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:51 +0100

Ninety Years On: The Lessons of the Russian Revolution for Today

This article is based on the introductory talk given at the CWO Public Meeting in London on November 10^th 2007

If the Russian Revolution were overthrown by violence on the part of the bourgeois counterrevolution, it would rise again like a phoenix; if, however, it lost its socialist character and by this disappointed the working masses, this blow would have ten times more terrible consequences for the future of the Russian and international revolution.

Karl Radek in Kommunist, journal of the Russian Left Communists No. 1 (April 1918)

Why Do the Bourgeoisie Hate the Russian Revolution?

A decade ago, and seven years after the collapse of the USSR, we reached the eightieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917. You might have expected that, with its imperialist adversary gone, and the Cold War won, the ruling class in the West would have no reason to even notice it.

Letters - The NHS is like a battlefield...

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:50 +0100

The NHS is like a battlefield, the fighting and war being waged between the managers, who are wanting more and more for less and less on one hand, and the workers, nurses, on the other. Although there are other workers in the hospital, its the nurses that run things on a day to day basis on the wards.

Managers are honed in the ruthless and mercantile academies of business and have little or no grasp of human essence, nor do they care. Nurses are caring, hard workers, little schooled in business or management, however they are promoted into positions of management without any training, where they often take some of the worst aspects of the bullying class to their nature. Resistance however is not futile, we now have a specialist unit for our sicker patients and we are expected to work in there now, although most staff have been taken off agreed training that would give us just the basic skills to work there.

A Worker Informs Us of a Spontaneous Strike at FIAT

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:49 +0100

The following letter was received by our comrades in Italy and printed in Battaglia Comunista 10. It deals with a small but significant episode of class struggle in which the workers for once broke out of the union cage, and were thus able to put the defence of their own interests first. Their anger had built up in the long period in which they had to put up with vicious attacks on their wages and working conditions, with ever-increasing speed ups. It exploded in an spontaneous fashion creating, if only for a few hours, panic amongst union shop stewards and the company management. But as the letter rightly indicates it is not enough to struggle to defend immediate economic interests, it is also necessary to develop that class consciousness which is capable of transforming a single episode of struggle into a political fight which puts in question the entire capitalist system.

Comrades

Iraq - US Imperialism in Disarray

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:39 +0100

“Web special” article for RP 44

For the US ruling class Iraq has become a quagmire in which it remains firmly stuck. On the one hand it must find a way out of the Mesopotamian quicksands, but on the other any exit must not undermine its position and its strategy in the Middle East as a whole. During the last year the impossibility of achieving both these goals has become increasingly apparent.

Neither the more far-sighted sections of the ruling class, who openly call the war a “disaster”, nor the Neanderthals, grouped round the Neo-conservative standard, have a clear idea about how to escape from this dilemma. While there is an argument between the two camps on shorter-term tactics, both hold fast to the overall US ambition which is the domination of the oil producing regions of the Middle East and Caspian basin. Iraq remains a key part of this overall strategy and a genuine military withdrawal, such as occurred at the end of the Vietnam war, is therefore highly unlikely.

1905-2005: A Century of the IWW

webmaster — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:59:38 +0100

“Web special” article for RP 44 — Originally published on Prometeo 12 (2005)

This year is the centenary of the historic American union, the Industrial Workers of the World. We can do a re-run of their history through the biography of one of their founders: William “Big Bill” Haywood (1869-1928).

From his early childhood he travelled through many states of the western USA first with his family, and then by himself, but always for the same reason – to look for work.

As teenager he got to know some old Red Indians who told him the history of their people and their genocide by white men. Moreover he was there when some “good white” citizens beat and killed some blacks, hanging them, because they’ve dared to claim those rights which the law gave them (we’re talking here about after the abolition of slavery.)

Revolutionary Perspectives - 43

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:59 +0200

The Postal Workers are Struggling for More Than a Living Wage

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:58 +0200

As we go to press, the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) have called off the latest one day strike by postal workers planned for August 9^th. They have entered into a deal with management to halt all further action until September 4^th. In the meantime, the CWU leaders have committed themselves to reaching a “negotiated settlement”.

In some ways this is a surprising turn of events. All the signs were that the Royal Mail management, especially hand-picked by the Labour Government to restructure Royal Mail, were intent on aping the policy of the so-called private equity capitalists, i.e., selling off as much of the real estate assets as quickly as possible and then cutting the work force and wage bill to get a high headline profit, before the consequences of what they had done began to bite and the business ran into more difficulties later. At the same time, they were awarding themselves huge bonuses for their actions.

Brown Premiership: New Leader, Same Agenda

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:57 +0200

On 27^th June, Gordon Brown finally reaped the reward for 10 years of loyal service to the Blair regime. The much-anticipated handover of power has generated considerable excitement in the popular press that the Brown premiership will herald a change of direction and that Brown represents some sort of return to traditional Labour social democratic values. As the second most important minister in the Blair government and the only one to retain the same position since 1997, it is clear that Brown has played a pivotal role in the Blairite New Labour project. By and large, the much publicised friction between Brown and Blair has been a manifestation of the power struggle between the two rather than any profound difference in policy so that in reality any debate about whether Brown is more social democratic than Blair is rather like a discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Housing: A Never-ending Crisis under Capitalism

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:56 +0200

Housing: A Never-ending Crisis under Capitalism

The ideology of the free market, beloved of politicians from Thatcher to Blair, frequently clashes with the reality of modern capitalism. An economy based on huge amounts of state regulation propped up by debt is not the free market Adam Smith had in mind. Nevertheless, the ideology generally trots along until it is slapped in the face by reality. The housing market in Britain, especially England, is a case in point. The free market, rather than creating the mythical balance of supply and demand, has instead created a monster in the shape of a hyper-inflated housing boom as even the most modest ex-council house is put out of the reach of many first time buyers. One of Blair’s legacies has been to leave Britain a far more polarised society than even Thatcher and her successors managed to do, with the gap between rich and poor widening at alarming rates. The current state of housing illustrates this clearly.

China: Hundreds of Protests a Day Against the Super-exploitation by Capital

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:55 +0200

Economic Boom Widens the Class Differences in this Huge Asian Country — From Battaglia Comunista 4 (April 2007)

One dead and 60 injured: that was the outcome of clashes between March 10^th and 12^th in central China. The protest, involving 20000 demonstrators faced by thousands of police and soldiers, was caused by revelations of corruption and above all by the doubling of the price of bus tickets arbitrarily applied on the Chinese New Year. [1]

On Tuesday March 13^th the entire area was surrounded by roadblocks. The little information that has filtered through tells us that the military now

… are taking control of the area, inch by inch, interrogating citizens and asking that anyone who started the protest give themselves up to the authorities.

Meanwhile the local authorities revoked the contract of the bus company Anda, which had provoked the violence when it raised the price of the bus tickets to $1.90. The cost has now been fixed at $0.65.

Cajo Brendel (1915-2007)

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:54 +0200

Cajo Brendel died on June 26^th. He was over 90 years old but remained committed to the emancipation of the working class until the last. One of the last of the Dutch Left who was an associate of Anton Pannekoek he was also the animator of the Dutch councilist group Daad en Gedachte.

Although we opposed his councilism (which denied the party was also a necessary instrument in the liberation of the proletariat and, which we considered to be an unfortunate reaction to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution), we salute his integrity and his commitment to the cause of the working class. A longer appreciation will appear in our French language publications.

Russian Imperialism on the March

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:53 +0200

After the Soviet Union

Since the collapse of the USSR the USA has celebrated “the end of history” by trying to cash in on a “peace dividend” which allowed it to mop up the peripheral areas of the former Soviet Empire. The US-led war in Afghanistan was preceded by the establishment of air bases in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. The US was even more quickly into the Ukraine and the Caucasus where support was given to anti-Russian movements to further weaken the Kremlin. The result was that there were five wars in the Caucasus in the 1990s and the Russians were unable to have a decisive say in any of them. In response, all they could do was support one side or another or promote even smaller separatist movements, such as that in Abkhazia, to add to the general chaos. Yeltsin’s Russia could not even end the resistance in Chechenia and suffered a further military humiliation in the retreat from Grozny in 1995.

Reflections on the Samara Summit between the European Union and Russia

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:52 +0200

New Imperialist Fronts on the Horizon

Comrade Mauro Stefanini wrote in an article in Prometeo, June 2003:

The objective of the now desperate war policy of the ruling clan of the USA is to hold up, if not to avoid, the joining together of the Euro-zone and Russia.

This is where one must begin if one wishes to fully understand the outcome of the Samara summit last 17-18^th of May. The twice-yearly summit, which did not set off in the best of circumstances, thus rendering optimistic expectations somewhat out of place, confirmed the objective tendency towards the re-shuffling of imperialist fronts. This has obviously accelerated a whole series of processes of re-composition, especially after the creation of the euro, which, although characterised by an evolution which is anything but linear, together form the framework of future imperialist confrontations/conflicts.

The Recent Turkish Parliamentary Election

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:51 +0200

An Article from the Enternasyonalist Komünist Sol

CWO Introduction — In Revolutionary Perspectives 41, we published correspondence with the EKS on imperialism (at the end of 2006) and a leaflet that they wrote on the war in Lebanon (in the summer of 2006). Since then, we have had the oportunity to meet and directly discuss with comrades of the EKS and hope to continue our mutual cooperation. In this instance, we are grateful to the comrades of the EKS for contributing this short article on the situation after the elections in Turkey which have strengthened the rule of the AKP. The article has the merit of revealing how this was done. We look forward to hearing how the Turkish working class responds in a future issue.

Ecological Disaster Cannot be Solved by Capitalism

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:50 +0200

CWO Introduction

We are reproducing below an article on the environment by our fraternal organisation within the IBRP, Battaglia Comunista.

With the recent UK floods, the G8 summit and the all too obvious gift wrapping of all things capitalist in the aura of green respectability, the question of the environment, particularly climate change is becoming more central, especially as the scientific consensus that this change is caused by humanity hardens.

However, capitalism’s political class remains divided. Although, the majority line take the view that the scientists are correct and that warming is caused by the “greenhouse effect”, due to human emission of CO2, and call for measures to solve this problem, a minority believe what is in the interest of their masters in the oil and automotive industries must be true.

Private Equity Scuppered by Subprime Fallout

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:49 +0200

As we go to press, the stock market has just recorded its greatest fall since 9/11. It is timely, therefore, that we had already prepared the following article explaining how the crisis has come about. The devaluation of capital is inevitable, and the collapse of prices on world stock markets on August 9^th 2007 has only wiped off the equivalent of 5% of world GDP. It certainly won’t be enough to start a new cycle of accumulation and it certainly won’t be the last.

For a short spell this year headlines announcing the sale of big-name companies to private equity consortiums were matched by outrage at these “predatory” capitalists making quick-kill fortunes from their lucrative deals.

The Dynamic of Capitalism and Its Crisis - A Reply to the ICC - Part One

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:48 +0200

The Evasions and Sophistry of the ICC

Introduction

It is no secret that one of the factors in the formation of the Communist Workers’ Organisation in 1975 was the failure of the precursors of the International Communist Current (ICC) to take seriously, let alone address, the issues we raised about the real cause of capitalist crises. Even after the formation of the ICC, the CWO comrades were dismissed as “the political economists of the communist movement”, demonstrating that this whole issue was still not taken seriously by them. However, our understanding of how capitalism functions, and the perspectives we base on this are critical to any organisation which claims to make a revolutionary contribution to the future emancipation of the working class.

The Accumulation of Contradictions or The Economic Consequences of Rosa Luxemburg

webmaster — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:59:47 +0200

Published as a “web special” article for RP 43

The revolutionary basis of Marxism rests on its ability to prove that capitalism is not only a crisis-ridden system, but that as a mode of production it also faces objective limits to its own self-expansion. On this rests the view that communism is not only desirable (the position of utopians, past and present) but an absolute necessity. In the era of decadent capitalism, in this century, this necessity has become increasingly urgent, as the method by which capitalism today resolves its crises through the physical destruction of value (i.e. through war), threatens to extinguish humanity itself.

One writer who had the merit of realising the need for an objective understanding of the limitations of capitalism was Rosa Luxemburg.

Revolutionary Perspectives - 42

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:59 +0200

Political Leaders Change, Policies Demanded by Capitalism Continue

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:58 +0200

Editorial

The recent changes of the political leadership in France and the UK are being presented as a “rupture” with the past, by the new leaders and their political machines. This is not true. The new leaders, like the ones they have replaced, will simply pursue the policies dictated by the needs of capitalism. In France these policies will simply be pursued with more determination, while in the UK they are only likely to be repackaged.

France

Civil Service Workers: the Attacks Continue

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:57 +0200

The attack on public sector pay continues with Brown imposing the worst pay settlement on the sector for a decade. More than one million workers were offered average increases of 1.9%, (though for some the increase will only be 1.5%) in April with the balance worth up to 2.5% coming in November. With inflation currently running over 4% and rising, the cuts will, as ever, hit the poorest workers hardest. Despite Labour’s promises to bolster the NHS, nurses will not be offered above 1.9% and junior doctors 2.2%. Members of the armed forces though will get an average of 3.3% in full from April, an indication of where Labour’s priorities really lie.

End poverty now?

Iran: Imperialist Aspirations Mask Economic Decline

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:56 +0200

Of sailors, Shias and Sunnis

The recent incident of the Iranian capture of British naval personnel in the Shatt-Al-Arab waterway showed the world that the British military are either liars (if they were in Iranian waters) or incompetent fools (for allowing themselves to get caught if they were in Iraqi waters — apparently those fiendish Iranians have developed the technology to materialise out of thin air). Either way, it was a clear propaganda victory for Iran, symbolic of Iran’s growing influence as a regional superpower in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The US-led invasion and subsequent destruction of Iraq has in several different ways bolstered Iran’s fortunes as a regional player. It should not be forgotten that Saddam Hussein’s regime was sustained by the Western backing it received to wage war on Iran for several years after the so called Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The Barcelona May Days of 1937

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:55 +0200

Last year was the 70^th anniversary of the war in Spain. The Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 has evoked more political comment and historical reflection than almost any other event in modern times. With each passing decade, the myths of Spain do not diminish as the supporters of the various protagonists in that war all vie to have their version of events dominate political discourse.

This year sees the anniversary of the events of May 1937 which many wrongly see as the end of the revolution in Spain. As the article about those events which we have translated and are reprinting here from Bilan 41, monthly theoretical bulletin of the Italian fraction of the Communist Left, shows, there was at least one current within the working class which defended the independent interest of the working class.

Bullets, Machine Guns and Prison

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:54 +0200

… That’s the Popular Front’s Response to the Workers Who Dare to Resist Capitalist Attacks.

From Bilan, Theoretical Monthly Bulletin of the Italian Fraction of the Communist Left , No. 41 (May-June 1937)

Proletarians!

On July 19^th 1936, the workers of Barcelona crushed the attacks of Franco’s battalions who were armed to the teeth with their bare fists.

On May 4^th 1937, these same workers now supplied with weapons left more of their number dead in the streets than they did in July, when they had to repel Franco, but now it is the anti-fascist government — containing the anarchists, with the indirect support of the POUM — which has unleashed the scum of the repressive forces against the workers.

Global Capitalism in Crisis

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:53 +0200

The More it Grows, the More Unequal it Gets

For billions, especially in Africa and the Islamic world, poverty is spreading, and per capita income is falling. This growing divide between wealth and poverty, between opportunity and misery, is both a challenge to our compassion and a source of instability.

President George Bush, speech to Inter-American Development Bank, prior to Monterrey summit on Financing for Development, March 2002

The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses as opposed to the drive of capitalist production to develop the productive forces as though only the absolute consuming power of society constituted their limit.

Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 3 p.484

Against Red Carnations and Left Necrophilia! For Communism!

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:52 +0200

What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarising it.

Zimbabwe - As Economic Collapse Looms the Vultures Gather

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:51 +0200

Introduction

The recent police repression in Zimbabwe has again exposed the desperate economic and social situation in the country. In mid-March an opposition “prayer meeting” was attacked by Zimbabwe police; one young man was shot dead and the leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic change (MDC) who were going to the meeting were severely beaten.

The country appears to be on the brink of economic breakdown and conditions of life are now similar to what a population experiences under siege in conditions of war. The present critical situation in Zimbabwe is a direct result of the regime breaking the rules of western imperialism and trying to live with the results. The main crime, which the regime committed, is that of breaking the terms of IMF loans in the late 90s. Since 1999 the IMF and other international lenders cut off funding to the country and waited for Mugabe or his successor to come to terms.

Centre of steelmaking shifts to Asia

webmaster — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:59:50 +0200

We are publishing below a discussion text on the Tata takeover of Corus. The text deals with some of the consequences of globalisation and its implications for imperialism and the working class. The conclusions both explicit and implicit are the subject of discussion in the CWO. More will be published on this issue in future editions of RP.

Tata Takes over Corus

In February the Indian steelmaker “Tata” took over the Anglo Dutch steelmaker Corus, paying £6.7bn for the company. This takeover represents a further consolidation of the global steel industry and continues the trend set in 2006 by Mittal Steel’s takeover of the European steel giant Arcelor. It also illustrates the gradual shift of the main centres of steelmaking and control of the industry from Europe and the US to Asia. However, in addition, this takeover also represents a significant export of capital from a country on capitalism’s periphery to countries at its centre.

Revolutionary Perspectives - 41

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:59 +0100

BA and Civil Service Fight

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:58 +0100

Workers’ Resistance Grows Despite Union Sabotage

As we go to press, 200 000 Civil Service workers are taking part in a one-day strike whilst British Airways workers have just had their strike called off by Tony Woodley, once Trotskyist militant, now boss of the TGWU. Over 100 000 jobs are still at risk in the Civil Service, and a further 5% cut in staff costs is planned by the Treasury from 2008-11. British Airways staff have been fighting the imposition of a new sickness policy which cabin crews say forces them to work when they are ill, as well as reductions in rates of pay.

University Top-up Fees

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:57 +0100

We are publishing a leaflet which was distributed at a number of universities in November last year. The proposed increases in top-up fees, will hit students hard and most will have 5 figure debts before they even start their first job. When New Labour said in the 1997 election that they believed in “education, education, education” they forgot to mention that they also intended to make students pay for it. The increased charges for education are clearly preventing poorer students, namely those from the working class, from going to university.

Trident and the “Faslane 365” Protest

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:56 +0100

Trident and its replacement — Nuclear Weapons

In December, the government introduced a White Paper recommending the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear missile system. The Trident system, which is a submarine launched, nuclear armed, ballistic missile system, is due to end its operational life in about 2025. The new system would, we are told, last to the 2050’s.

The Trident system consists of three parts, nuclear powered submarines, Trident rockets, and nuclear warheads carried by the rockets. The submarines and the nuclear bombs are made in the UK. However, the Trident missile and the arming, fusing and detonating systems for the bombs are made in the USA. The US has supplied key elements of Trident under the 1958 UK/US “Mutual Defence Agreement”. In 2004, the Labour government extended the period during which the US would share nuclear technology with the UK to 2014.

Is “The Falklands’ Factor” Still With Us?

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:55 +0100

Introduction

It is 25 years this spring since the start of the Falklands War and the Government has announced four days of commemoration to mark the anniversary of the final victory in June. This seems extravagant for a war which was ostensibly one of the most pointless in modern history. All this attention underlines that this war has had an impact on British ruling class thinking which has never gone away. And given how the war ideologically helped the British ruling class step up their attacks on the working class we could even say that the “Falklands factor” lives on.

The capitalist crisis

Falklands Balance Sheet

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:54 +0100

What we said at the time… — From Workers’ Voice 8 (second series) August 1982

The re-taking of the Falkland Islands was a major military and propaganda victory for the British ruling class. The victory was also achieved without damage to the interests of US imperialism, which at first seemed threatened by the conflict with Argentina. The latter remains a member of the US bloc, chastened for its attempt to break the rules of bloc behaviour and as militarily and economically bound to the US as ever. Despite some wild talk by Galtieri and the Junta, there was never a prospect of Argentina moving towards Russia. The Russians themselves were so clear on this that they used the conflict to try and force down to their advantage Argentina’s asking price for its grain, rather than trying to make practical capital out of their verbal support for Argentina’s “rights”.

Lebanon: The Next War Won’t Be Just a Civil War

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:53 +0100

We are publishing here an article by our comrades in Battaglia Comunista analysing last summer’s war between Israel and Lebanon. Since it was written, the crisis in Lebanon has taken a new turn. During the war against Israel, the various Lebanese factions of the bourgeoisie rallied to each other in resistance to Israel (unlike in 1982 during the first invasion, when Christian militias were unleashed by Sharon’s Israeli Defence Force on the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila).

Palestine: More Imperialist Misery

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:52 +0100

The recent faction fighting between the Fatah supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the militias supporting the democratically elected Hamas government is a the latest manifestation of the spiral into barbarism in Gaza, the world’s largest prison camp. This represents a fragmentation of the Palestinian bourgeoisie under the pressure of ongoing Israeli military incursions, despite the so- called withdrawal of the occupation forces in 2005 and, the Israeli imposed economic blockade. The split within the Palestinian camp also opens up a new imperialist fault line between in which Fatah and Hamas serve as proxies for more powerful imperialist interests, where Fatah is receiving support from the US and even Israel whilst Hamas is being backed primarily by Iran.

Iraq: The Debacle of US Imperialism

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:51 +0100

Iraq occupation backfires

In the last few months, the US ruling class has finally come to realise that its adventure in Iraq is facing defeat. The mid-term elections in October reduced the pro-war camp to a minority in both the US Congress and Senate, while the cross-party Baker/Hamilton report on the war is basically an attempt to prepare the ground for the least damaging method of retreat.

Another US War in the Horn of Africa

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:50 +0100

Imperialist confrontation is hotting Up

Imperialist competition and confrontation is hotting up. Wherever you look, where there are huge energy or mineral resources there are clashes now hidden, now open, not only between the Great Powers, but also between their smaller surrogates. From Eastern Europe to Afghanistan, from Azerbaijan to Sakhalin Island there are struggles over oil and gas rights between the major powers backing their leading companies. The blackmailing of Shell by the Putin Government into giving shares in Sakhalin oil was quickly followed by the Russian demand for a 200% increase in payments for gas to Belarus. [1]

International Attacks on Workers Require an International Response!

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:49 +0100

As the tendency for the rate of profit to fall exerts itself, the ruling class is forced to prop up their profits at the expense of the working class, by extending the working day, putting downward pressure on wages and generally reorganising production to get more from fewer workers.

What is true of the bourgeoisie in general, is also true of the German bourgeoisie. And, at least in the short-term, the German bourgeoisie has succeeded. According to figures from the Bundesbank, published in the Financial Times (5^th December 2006), over the last six or seven years, the mass of profit has gone up by between 25 and 30% while the mass of wages has increased by barely 5%.

Solidarity with our comrades at Volkswagen!

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:48 +0100

Against Nationalism and the Logic of Profit!

On 17^th November, the Volkswagen management announced the transfer of Golf production from Brussels to the Mosel and Wolfsburg factories. Because of this, 4 000 jobs in Brussels were in danger. Thousands more, in suppliers like Meritor and Johnson Control, and also at VW-Pamplona (Spain) and VW-Palmela (Portugal), were threatened. In view of this declaration of war by the VW management, our Brussels comrades did the only thing there was to do: Without waiting for any union pronouncements, they spontaneously went on strike and occupied the works. The important approach roads were blockaded and plant security and civil police were thrown out of the workers’ assemblies. Since this, our comrades have been in struggle for their jobs and thus stand in the front line against the bosses’ accelerating international attacks on our living conditions.

Bangladesh - Garment Workers Struggle against Vicious Exploitation

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:47 +0100

The struggles of 2006

In 2006, Bangladeshi garment workers launched a series of fierce struggles to improve their conditions and pay. These struggles were joined by other workers from industries such as jute, sugar and transport and at their height involved tens of thousands of workers. In May, workers from the garment factories launched a series of strikes at factories in the capital, Dhaka. The government responded by arresting workers and sending in police and army units to protect factories and blockade areas of the capital. Workers fought back by attacking police and the garment factories, many of which were burnt.

Correspondence with the Enternasyonalist Komunist Sol (Turkey) on the Nature of Imperialism

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:46 +0100

It is not every day that a new force of the working class appaers on the international arena but in 2006 we were contacted by the comrades of the Enternasyonalist Kommunist Sol of Turkey. We had then intended to publish their leaflet on May day and their declaration of principles but lack of space at that point prevented us. The leaflet and other documents have since been re-published by World Revolution. [1] Since then the comrades sent us their documents on the Lebanon war one of which we publish here. We totally share the intention of this leaflet to underline the message that the workers have no nation and that they cannot identify one fraction of the bourgeoisie as “progressive” against any other fraction.

Correspondence on the Tasks of Communists Today

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:45 +0100

We are including here a short correspondence we have recently had via our webmail with Sander Hewitt. It was not originally intended for publication but, as we explained to Sander when asking his permission to publish this correspondence, the issues he raises are also issues which other correspondents have recently raised with us (but not as bluntly) in this very difficult period for the working class. We invite other readers to send their comments on this exchange, or on issues which might have been provoked by it.

Letter from Sander

Dear IBRP,

From Worker Aristocracy To Insecurity

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:44 +0100

Imperialism’s New Course

Introduction

The article below is taken from the latest edition of Prometeo, the theoretical journal of the PCInt (Battaglia Comunista), our sister organisation in Italy. It was originally translated for publication on the IBRP’s (International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party) internet site (http://www.ibrp.org) as part of our policy to make more of Battaglia’s articles available to a wider audience. In this instance, From Worker Aristocracy to Insecurity… provides a wider, global context for situating the ‘new economy’ of the UK — something which has concerned these pages for the past year or so.

The article is a reminder, if we needed it, that not just here, but throughout the advanced capitalist world, post-2^nd World War conditions of employment and social services that a whole generation had once taken for granted have either already been thrown out of the window or continue to be dismantled.

The Revenge of Russian Imperialism?

webmaster — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:59:43 +0100

Introduction

Two years ago, in a note on Russia [1], we made the observation that the Russian bourgeoisie’s new course, in the incarnation of the old KGB man Putin, was aiming to rebuild its imperialist power which had been seriously compromised by the last phase of the “Soviet” era and the devastation of the Yeltsin epoch. It was and is — we said — a matter of a course counter to the tempo imposed by the increasing gangrene of capitalism’s world crisis and by the differences between the small and large imperialist bandits.

But the very same contradictions of capital which had produced the precipitous collapse of “Soviet” society and, initially, had brought about the victory of Uncle Sam, its historical antagonist, are now creating, from a certain point of view, conditions favourable for the revenge of the Russian Bear, which draws strength from its enormous natural resources, primarily, it goes without saying, its energy resources.

Revolutionary Perspectives - 40

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:59 +0200

October 2006

Afghanistan - Still the Crucible of Imperialist Struggle

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:58 +0200

Recent months have seen an escalation of the fighting in Afghanistan with NATO taking military control, first of the southern province of Helmand and then — at the end of September — of the whole country. The difficulties NATO is encountering militarily and the high casualties have brought with them the realisation that the Afghan war is far from over and may yet be lost. Very public attempts by Pakistan and the Kabul regime to blame each other for this situation indicate things are going badly. Over the last 5 years the invaders of 2001 have lost the support of much of the country.

The international think tank Senlis Council, in a September report described the situation as follows:

Our Last Salute to Comrade Goupil

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:57 +0200

As we were going to press we learned of the death from cancer of our comrade Andre Claisse (alias Goupil). Our website will contain further tributes to him but here we record his contribution to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class which he maintained to his dying day through a brief biographical sketch written by Jean-Louis Roche which Goupil himself approved of. This was translated in haste under an impending deadline for our printed magazine. This version contains some corrections sent by other comrades of the Bureau.

Andre Claisse (1918-2006)

Goupil, as he was known, was born on July 16^th 1918 in Paris’ 14^th arrondisement. He became a member of the CGTU in 1933 and a member of the Young Communists in 1934. He later became a railway worker.

Terrorism in the UK - The Plot Thickens

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:56 +0200

There can be no doubt that the actions of the Labour government in taking Britain into war in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as it’s policy in the Middle East have heightened the chances of a terrorist attack in the UK. The recent terror alert which brought chaos to airports over the summer is said to have been in response to a plot to hijack and then crash several passenger planes bound for the US, with a potentially catastrophic loss of life. A little bit of disruption is undoubtedly a price worth paying for greater security. Cynics, however, point out that the high profile security alert came at a time when Britain and the US were under pressure internationally for their support for the Israeli onslaught in the Lebanon.

Capitalism’s New Economy - The Case of the UK

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:55 +0200

Part Five: The Working Class

A knowledge of proletarian conditions is absolutely necessary to be able to provide solid ground for socialist theories, on the one hand, and for judgements about their right to exist, on the other; and to put an end to all sentimental dreams and fancies pro and con.

Engels, Preface to the German edition of ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’, 1845

With this final part of the investigation into contemporary capitalism’s self-styled ‘service’, supposedly ‘knowledge-driven’ economy it is time to turn to the current situation of the working class.

Global Warming - Socialism or Ruin

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:54 +0200

Introduction

During the last decade environmental degradation and in particular global warming have been propelled to the centre of capitalist politics. The rise of the green parties and their participation in governments, in countries such as Germany, is a reflection of this. Major bourgeois political figures, such as Al Gore, the ex vice president of the US, have become environmental campaigners. His new film, An Inconvenient Truth, describing the damage being done to the planets ecological system has just been released in the UK. Ex-President Clinton has recently launched a global initiative to raise money to combat global warming and signed up Richard Branson, the Virgin Airlines tycoon, who has pledged £1.4bn to the fund.

The Widening Conflict in the Middle East

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:53 +0200

We are reproducing here the statement issued by the Bureau during the latest Israeli attack on Lebanon which represented another step in the direction of a much wider war and not only in the Middle East. The blue helmets of the UN may now be gradually replacing the Israeli invaders and the rocketing of civilians by Hezbollah may have stopped, but this is a truce not a peace. It is a pause whilst both sides regroup and manoeuvre for position.

Our original statement called the war in Lebanon a crisis on two levels but suggested that the local and the international struggle were deeply intertwined. The ferocity of the Israeli response to the capture of two of its soldiers was understandably not expected by Hezbollah.

Behind the Smell of Blood in Darfur Lie Imperialist Interests

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:52 +0200

The horrors inflicted on largely non-combatant people in Darfur over the last three years have been largely overshadowed by the more public atrocities being played out in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet in terms of numbers the crisis in Darfur is worse than anywhere. Between 2 and 3 million people have been uprooted from their homes in the face of strafing by helicopter gunships and bombing by Antonov bombers of the National Congress party Government in Khartoum. At the same time they have been faced on the ground with the looting, raping and pillaging of the Government-backed Janjaweed militias.

The deployment of an African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) of 5000 troops and 2000 civilian monitors has not altered the situation much in the last twelve months.

The Suez Fiasco

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:51 +0200

The Day the British Ruling Class Realised the Empire Was Over

England, unlike junior nations,
Wears officers’ long combinations.
So, no embarrassment was felt
By the Church, the Government or the Crown.
But I saw the Thames like a grubby old belt
And England’s trousers falling down.

Remember Suez? by Adrian Mitchell

The Decline of the British Empire

When, on the eve of the Battle of Britain in 1940 Churchill delivered his famous “Finest Hour” speech few actually focussed on the opening words of the famous sentence which started:

If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say this was their finest hour.

Funny that thousand years.

50th Anniversary of Hungarian Workers’ Uprising

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:50 +0200

Its Significance for Workers Today

It is now well over a decade since the collapse of the USA’s first arch enemy, the ‘Empire of Evil’ that was the Soviet Union. The Cold War between the two imperialist blocs ended when the economically weaker and most fragile of the two, the Soviet bloc, was unable to withstand the force of the economic crisis that was pummelling world capitalism, both east and west. Whilst western states divested themselves of unprofitable industries and embarked on a course of ‘globalisation’ this option proved too difficult to engineer for the ruling class of the relatively closed, state capitalist soviet bloc.

For Polish Workers the Path to Socialism is One of Armed Insurrection

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:49 +0200

From Battaglia Comunista Number 6, July/August 1956

Workers!

Three years after insurrection in East Germany, the Polish proletariat has resorted to arms to defend its right to life and liberty.

The workers who were beaten on the streets of Poznan and mown down by the armed tanks of the ‘communist’ government have risen up against the regime of exploitation and servitude imposed by the iron laws of state capitalism and not against the idea or institutions of a socialism which doesn’t exist in Poland, which doesn’t exist in Russia, which is non-existent in all the countries conquered…

Hungary 56 - The Myths and the Reality

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:48 +0200

Introduction

The 25^th anniversary of the workers’ rising in Hungary of October 1956 gives us the opportunity to demolish both the myth of reactionaries that it was simply a nationalist rising without any particular working class content, and that of the libertarians who blind themselves to its failure and to its reactionary national aspect in order to praise the councilist form it took. It also gives us the opportunity to draw some lessons for the class struggle today. These lessons apply not just to the workers of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, but to the entire world working class.

Background

Latin America: Between Populism and Imperialism

webmaster — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:59:47 +0200

Part Two: The Working Class in Latin America

Article continues from #38

Marx always recognised that the basis of the proletariat’s antithesis to capitalism was forged on a daily level in the struggle for immediate economic goals. He recognised that if the working class did not fight in this way then it would not develop the collective sense to organise and overthrow capitalism at a later stage. Worse still they would become in his words, reduced to the status of “mere degraded wretches”. Striking and organising collectively is not easy. Apart from the ideological domination of the capitalist class which allows it to propagandise against class solidarity (indeed the BBC has banished the word “class” from its bulletins) and persuade workers to stay at work no matter what, there is also the simple material fact that workers have families and a prolonged struggle, especially if it gains nothing, can lead to disaster.

Revolutionary Perspectives - 39

webmaster — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 13:59:59 +0200

August 2006