May Day 2008 - Against Capitalism’s Onslaughts, International Class Struggle

webmaster — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:00:00 +0200

Statement of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party May 1^st 2008 — This English language version is produced by the Communist Workers’ Organisation, the British affiliate of the IBRP

Another May Day surrounded by conflict: imperialist wars between capitalist rivals and class war, with the world’s rulers united against the working class and the poorest people on the planet.

Peace, prosperity and freedom – heavy sacrifices are demanded for these objectives in the form of blood, sweat, and a reduced quality of life. Not only are these ideals more distant with every passing year, but time reveals them for what they are: a cynical deception. However, things cannot be otherwise since we are witnessing the effect of the crisis in the cycle of capital accumulation which has been with us now for more than thirty years. In fact the crisis is tightening its grip.

Since Thursday April 10, 2008, the FIAT factory of Pomigliano (NA) is blocked

webmaster — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:00:00 +0200

TV, mass media and newspapers are saying nothing, because of FIAT opposition. Help us diffusing news to other workers. Publish on blogs, lists, forums. Let’s break this wall of silence!

Communique from the Internationalists of Battaglia Comunista

Since 10.00 p.m. Thursday April 10^th the Fiat Factory of Pomigliano has been forced to halt production

A workers committee formed independently of the trades union apparatus organised the mobilisation.

Until Sunday the workers’ pickets had ensured that the strike was supported by 99% of the workforce

It was only decided on Monday April 14^th to block the passage of goods which would force the factory to shut down.

The dispute is about 316 workers claimed to be “awkward” by the firm which has decided to farm them out to the logistical centre at Nola which everyone knows is just a waiting room to redundancy.

With the Tibetan and Chinese Workers

webmaster — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:00:00 +0200

Against All Imperialisms and All Racial, Religious and Nationalist Traps

The recent violent explosions in Tibet have to be understood on different levels. This demands a deeper analysis than the clichés we have been offered, which either talk about the repression of popular demands for religious liberty and a return of an idyllic society based on the peaceful precepts of Buddhism, or about foreign manoeuvres aimed at one of the principal bulwarks of anti-imperialism.

It is no secret that the protests, which began on the 49^th anniversary of the 1959 revolt [1] had been prepared a long time before. According to the http://pahyul.com website, a conference of the “Friends of Tibet”, held in June last year in New Delhi, with US diplomats participating, discussed how the Olympics might provide the only chance for Tibetans to come out and protest for independence. The march of monks and exiled Tibetans from India to Tibet was proposed at the same conference.

Anti-workers’ attacks in Greece

webmaster — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:00:00 +0200

The capitalists and their government reinforce the anti-workers’ attacks in Greece — Total war against the working class!

Letter from a young comrade from Greece

In the last few months the Greek capitalist government has carried out a great massive on the social security rights of the working class. The government party presented a bill which effectively plans to reduce pensions, the prolongation of work to 68 years for working men and women, the reduction of the supplementary benefits and of wages. That’s a terrible shock for the workers, especially the young and women. It’s very important to remember that in Greece 25% of the population live below the poverty line. With this bill the capitalists and their government want to force the workers to work until they die.

The announcement of the government’s plans provoked a considerable resistance from many sectors of the workers.

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.

Five Years since the Occupation of Iraq

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

Capitalist Terror: War Without End

Five years ago 10 million people around the world marched against the impending war in Iraq. An unprecedented 2 million marched in London alone. It was a massive rejection of all the lies spread by the Bush and Blair regimes. People then did not have to wait for “dodgy dossiers” to know that there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no support for Al Qaeda by Saddam Hussein. Nor was the lie that the aim was to overthrow a tyrannical regime accepted (since Saddam Hussein had been a loyal supporter of the West in the Middle East until 1989). But despite this massive demonstration of our rejection of these lies the war went ahead one month later.

The consequences have been predictable and appalling. In five years the human and material costs have been enormous (see panel on far side).

Only the World Working Class Can Halt Imperialist War

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

February 15^th 2003

Reflecting on the failure of the huge demonstration in 2003 to stop Britain going into Iraq, Andrew Murray, Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, argued that even though the demonstration had not stopped this war it might stop the next. It would be comforting if it were true, but unfortunately it is not. Worse, he is fostering illusions that our ruling class’ concession of the right to demonstrate is anything other than a safety valve for the system.

In fact the truth is the opposite. The biggest demonstration in British history on February 15^th 2003 exposed the hollowness of capitalist democracy’s claim to be “free”. As the two main political parties both supported the war this was the only way in which opinion could be expressed but the Government went ahead with the already planned attack and over a million people have since lost their lives.

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.

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.

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.

The Sub-prime Crisis Shakes the World Economy

webmaster — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:00:00 +0100

An August Bank Holiday Explosion on the Stock Exchange but Its Nothing to do with the Weather – From Battaglia Comunista 9, 2007

Last month’s crisis shook the stock exchanges and the whole world financial system, though according to international monetary authorities, governments, and the majority of economic analysts, the crisis should be over in a few months without too many hold-ups.

Thanks to the supply of abundant liquidity by the world’s most important central banks, headed by the US Fed and the European Central bank (ECB), the markets, famous for their presumed extraordinary capacity for bringing order back to the system, should not have to work too hard to find the right balance especially because there is a widespread conviction that the fundamentals of the so-called real economy are very sound.