INTERNASYONALISMO

All wage labour is exploitation

After a six-year campaign the TUC and the CBI, with government prompting, have recently agreed that 1.4 million temporary and agency workers should, after 12 weeks, have equal rights with full-time and permanent workers. Dave Prentis, the TUC President, said that "This is good news for agency workers, particularly those in workplaces where low pay, long hours and exploitation are the norm" and that "The abuse of temporary agency workers is a shameful relic of another age".

In a report for the TUC on ‘vulnerable workers’ there was shock that "employment practices attacked as exploitative in the 19th century are still common today". It highlighted "extreme abuse of the rights of migrant workers, including levels of exploitation and control that meet the international legal definition of forced labour." It gave the examples of "employers illegally retaining workers’ passports, threats or actual physical violence to workers and debt bondage - where a worker is forced to pay off debts accrued by inflated accommodation and food costs and is not therefore paid for their work."

Speaking of an earlier study, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said "Too many unscrupulous bosses are getting rich by exploiting migrant workers", but "Unions are working hard to recruit migrant workers to protect them from rogue employers who seek to deny their workers a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay." After all, "exploitation is not necessary for the operation of the British economy".

We work in order to live

The "good news" for agency and temporary workers is something that the TUC hope to bring to other ‘vulnerable workers’ (migrant workers, home workers, informal workers, younger workers, unpaid family workers etc). By acquiring the rights of permanent workers it is implied that they will no longer be so shamefully exploited.

With the growth of part-time, temporary, illegal and other precarious forms of employment there are an increasing number of people who find themselves in insecure, hyper-pressurised or otherwise dodgy working situations. ‘Exploited’ is a word commonly used to describe workers who work in the worst conditions. From a marxist understanding of the relationship of the working class to its capitalist employers, all wage labour - no matter what conditions it takes place in, whether it’s done with extreme reluctance or is the fulfilment of a childhood dream, whether it’s down a mine, in a factory, shop or comfortable air-conditioned office - it’s all exploitation.

For workers to be able to use their labour power, in exchange for wages, they need to be able to function at various levels, depending on the job. However, every worker needs food, sleep, clothing and some sort of shelter. These are the basics. The wages that you receive are intended to ensure that you will be ready for work on every day you’re needed. If employers provide food, accommodation, somewhere to sleep, healthcare, training etc, it’s so that you can work for them.

Whether bought with your wages, or provided by an employer/state, everything that enables you to reproduce your labour power helps your availability for work. Fundamentally we all work to live. We work for the necessities that keep us alive. Things like holidays are something that employers know are essential if workers are not to get completely burnt out. You might have a car, where your grandparents might not have, but, with the decline in public transport and the necessity to carry children or shopping about, it is by no means a luxury any more. You might ‘own’ your own home, but in reality you will have this absolutely massive debt (with the fancy name of mortgage) that you will spend decades paying off, and comes with the assumption that you will be in reasonably well-paid employment for most of your working life. At root the resources invested in the working class are to ensure we can continue to work. Anything beyond the basics, then you’re lucky that your employer maybe wants to keep you on for the foreseeable future - but we are all dispensable.

Wage labour works for capital

Having said that, let’s return to our valuable labour power. For a certain amount of the time you will be working just to reproduce your labour power. However, at a certain point, the work you are doing is beyond the value of what is required to keep you functioning. This surplus value comes from labour time workers put in for free, and it goes to the exploiting class. Whether we call them bosses, the bourgeoisie or the capitalist class, they are the ruling class in capitalist society and the surplus value from unpaid labour-time is theirs to do with what they will. Some might wear smart suits and hang out in Mayfair or Manhattan, while others wear less fashionable suits, combat jackets or tunics and call themselves ‘Communists’ in Beijing, Havana or Pyongyang: what they have in common is their relationship to surplus value. They are the exploiting class that pays the wages and the working class is the exploited class that creates all value.

Of the surplus value, after a part that’s invested in new machinery, raw materials etc, (as Bukharin wrote in 1919 in The ABC of Communism) "Part goes to the capitalist himself, in the form of entrepreneur’s profit; part goes to the landowner; in the form of taxes, part enters the coffers of the capitalist state; other portions accrue to merchants, traders and shopkeepers, are spent upon churches and in brothels, support actors, artists, bourgeois scribblers, and so on. Upon surplus value live all the parasites who are bred by the capitalist system".

This is the secret of all wage labour. "The fact that capitalist production is precisely the extraction, realisation and accumulation of this stolen labour makes it by definition, by nature, a system of class exploitation in full continuity with slavery and feudalism. It’s not a question of whether the worker works for 8, 10 or 18 hours a day, whether his working environment is pleasant or hellish, whether his wages are high or low. These factors influence the rate of exploitation, but not the fact of exploitation. Exploitation is not an accidental by-product of capitalist society, the product of individual greedy bosses. It is the fundamental mechanism of capitalist production and the latter could not be conceived without it" (chapter 7 of ICC publication Communism: not a nice idea but a material necessity).

So, when Brendan Barber makes remarks on ‘rogue employers’ and commends the unions’ campaigns, we follow the ideas of Marx in Wages, Price and Profit when he said that "Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’" we should have "the revolutionary watchword ‘Abolition of the wages system’", as it is the only thing that corresponds to the interests of the working class. This is revolutionary because it requires the destruction of the state by the working class, the overturn of the capital/wage labour relationship, and the building of a communist society where everyone contributes according to their abilities, and receives according to their needs.

Car 1/6/8

From the International Communist Current

Food Crisis: The Price of Capitalist Greed that Kills

The world food crisis hit the center stage of media attention only very recently, but it is a phenomenon that has been building steadily for decades. The food riots from Haiti to Bangladesh, from Pakistan to Egypt may have brought forth the issue of the soaring costs of basic commodities to the forefront of the world’s attention, but the fact remains that they were all direct result of years of accumulated ravages of capitalism. For a time, national governments like the Arroyo regime tried to ignore the signs of the looming crisis, even when the prices of rice in public markets have soared to a 34-year high in the Philippines. The Philippine president even quipped that there is no such thing as rice shortage because it is “a physical phenomenon where people line up on the streets to buy rice. Do you see lines today?”¹

The world is in the midst of an unprecedented worldwide food price inflation that has driven prices to their highest levels in decades. The increases affect most kinds of food, particularly the most important staples like corn, rich and wheat. According to UN Food and Agriculture Organization, between March 2007 and March 2008 alone prices of grains increased 88%, oils and fats 106%, and dairy 48%. A World Bank report on the other hand pointed out that in the 36 months ending last February 2008, overall global food prices increased by 83% and it expects most food prices to remain well above 2004 levels until at least 2015.²

In Thailand, the most popular grade of rice that sold for $198 a ton five years ago was quoted at a record high of more than $1,000 per ton on April 24, 2008 and it is expected to continue to rise according to traders and exporters due to tight supply.³ The same phenomenon is repeated all over the world. In the Philippines alone, from the retail price of 60 US cents a kilo a year ago, the price of rice rose up to 72 US cents a kilo today. And in a country where 68 million of its 90 million inhabitants live on or under US$2 a day⁴, this has become a nightmare of horrific proportions.

The world food crisis is the inevitable result of the permanent crisis of capitalism since the late 1960s. Various national economies battled to stay a float in a world of intense competition and capitalist profiteering in an already saturated world market. As a result, governments adopted economic policies that are geared towards encouraging the growth of industries that will inject more dollars into their respective economy rather than meeting the needs of their people. Combine that with unsustainable use of natural resources and the onslaught of industrial production for profit that is aggravating pollution levels and the emission of green house gases worldwide, humanity is now faced with the accumulated concoction of capitalist recipe for its own destruction.

In the field of agricultural production, the use of nitrogen and the over-aeration of soils to boost capitalist agricultural productions have destroyed the total productivity of the once fertile centers of agricultural production. And while it is true that the application of advance farming methods at the onset of green revolutions worldwide brought about initial increases in productivity, we have also seen the gradual drops of agricultural production in many parts of the world. According to a report by the London-based Institute of Science in Society:

“In India, grain yield per unit of fertilizer applied decreased by two-thirds during the Green Revolution years. And the same has happened elsewhere.

Between 1970 and 2000, the annual growth of fertilizer use on Asian rice has been 3 to 40 times the growth of rice yields [8]. In Central Luzon, Philippines, rice yield increased 13 percent during the 1980s, but came at the price of a 21 percent increase in fertilizer use. In the Central Plains, yield went up only 6.5 percent, while fertilizer use rose 24 percent and pesticides jumped by 53 percent. In West Java, a 23 percent yield increase was accomplished by 65 and 69 percent increases in fertilizers and pesticides respectively.

However, it is the absolute drop in yields despite high inputs of fertilizer that finally punctured the Green Revolution bubble. By the 1990s, after dramatic increases in the early stages of the Green Revolution, yields began falling. In Central Luzon, Philippines, rice yields rose steadily during the 1970s, peaked in the early 1980s, and have been dropping gradually since. Similar patterns emerged for rice-wheat systems in India and Nepal.

Where yields were not actually declining, the rate of growth has been slowing rapidly or leveling off, as documented in China, North Korea, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Since 2000, yields have fallen further, to the extent that in six out of the past seven years, world grain production has fallen below consumption.”⁵

The penchant for profit of a decadent system that is caught up with its own web of contradictions has resulted in the destruction of natural soil fertility to the point of exhaustion. While it is true that the world economy still produce more food than the world needs, a lot of what is produce and distribute through global capitalist trade perishes before it reaches the market and when it does arrive, millions of people just cannot afford to buy it anymore. In the final analysis, the endpoint of this crisis is the pauperization of the working class and the subjugation of the greater portion of humanity into abject poverty and destitution. Capitalism after all is primarily concern about accumulation of surplus value and never the satisfaction of the needs of society.

The “Rice” Crisis in the Philippines

According to Arturo Yap, the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines, "We don’t have a food crisis but, rather, a rice price crisis. All of us are looking for innovative solutions in our countries–how to address not only the issue of supply but also the issue of prices, how to [ensure] that poor families can eat.” He said there are 5 five critical reasons behind the current “rice” situation in the Philippines that the government needs to address: First, there is a supply largely affected by an increased demand resulting from rising population; Second, the effects of climate change; Third, the booming demand for bio-fuels; Fourth, continuous conversion of agricultural lands to non-agriculture use; And finally, there is a neglect of irrigation facilities.

At first glance, one may find the so-called causes of the Philippine “rice” crisis as valid on its own. But the fact behind it all is the undeniable truth that the very framework from which those enumerated causes arose is the ultimate caused of them all – the capitalist framework of production worldwide. First, the supply that is supposed-to-be affected by the increased of demand from rising population is but an excused of the fact that what has been produced by the world capitalist economy is more geared towards the production of surplus value than satisfying the needs of humanity. Second, the effect of climate change to agricultural production is by itself also a direct result of the capitalist framework of production. For instance, it is not industrialization itself that is responsible for changes in climate patterns, but "capitalism’s overriding quest to maximize profits and its consequent disregard for human and ecological needs, except insofar as they coincide with the goal of wealth accumulation."⁶ There is no doubt that there has been an appalling degradation of the environment at the hands of a world capitalist system driven by the relentless quest for profits and economic expansion. But the fact is, all bourgeois states, including the Philippine state that is recognizing the heavy costs of environmental degradation, are the same states that are protecting the profit motives of their respective national capitals and their political puppets to sabotage research and development of more environmentally friendly alternative fuel sources to power industrial production. Third, the so-called adverse effect of the booming demand for bio-fuels to agricultural production is by itself an outcome of all the states’ policy, including Arroyo’s government,  to search for alternative fuels to ease the burden of the their industries’ dependence on foreign oil supply. In addition to this, lowering the cost of oil expenses for “social” purposes also increases the capacity of each state for military production and war. It is not as much as environmental concerns that drives the policy of bio-fuels development, but the need of each national capital to insulate itself against the rising prices of crude oil in the world market and even to the extent of “aiding” the war efforts of all bourgeois states. It is interesting to note that as early as the Second World War, bio-fuels have already been used in the war efforts of the both the Allied and Axis powers like the United States and the Nazi Germany. In the case of the Philippines, the logic of redirecting farm produce from the table to the needs of the bio-fuels industry is in consonance to the efforts of the Philippine government to produce more high value cash crops that can help sustain its own quest for additional sources of dollar revenues. Fourth, the continuous conversion of farmlands into subdivisions, golf courses, malls and industrial complex is also a direct result of government policies in agriculture, especially in the Philippines. The decades old Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of the Philippine government was a both a failure and a disaster. It is not only that CARP is a mystifying and reactionary program of the Filipino bourgeoisie that is supported by some Leftist organizations, but also because it is not an economically viable program. In the age and time where intense capitalist competition in the world market destroys small agricultural producers due to high cost of farming and rising debt, farmers are either forced to abandon their lands or submit themselves into precarious arrangements as contract growers of big corporations, a practice that is prevalent in Mindanao region of the Philippines.⁷ As to the perennial problem of the utter neglect of irrigation systems in the Philippines, it is more a question of government mismanagement and corruption, an expression of the decomposition of ideological forms in capitalist decadence, where self-indulgence and the “every man for himself” mentality reigns supreme.

As what can be expected from a bourgeois state confronted with a crisis of great magnitude in stage of capitalist decadence, the Philippine state through the Arroyo regime responded to the crisis in the form of active state intervention - a move that is supported and fiercely advanced by all Leftist formations in the Philippines together with their effort to call for a legislated wage increase. As the pangs of the crisis intensifies, so as the mystifying efforts of the state to contain it. The Left and Right of the capital are one in raising the specter that “only the state” can save the workers and the poorest of the poor from the pangs of hunger and destitution. They completely ignore the fact that the state that they encourage to intervene more is the very organ that imposes the bourgeois dictatorship that is protecting the very source of enslavement and suffering - capitalism. In trying to be more “radical” in form and substance, various leftist currents pressed for the absolute and aggressive control of the state to society.

The Leftists “criticism” that what the state is doing is “not enough” – “raising” budget for agriculture, giving “rice subsidy” to the “poorest of the poor and the state competing with private traders in buying and selling rice – and it lacks “political will” clearly show that the former want absolute state control. They even go to up to the point of brandishing their age-old dogma of party dictatorship and totalitarianism - the complete and all encompassing control of the state like the so-called socialist countries that they defended as the “remnants” of the October Revolution.

There is no Solution to the Crisis within Capitalist System

The Right and Left of the capital are one in advancing programs of mystification that hides the fact that there is no solution to the crisis within the system. The contradiction between the forces and the relations of production is already at its peak. No reformist and temporary interventions by the state can alter the fact that whatever solution it can formulate within the bulwarks of capitalism will only lead to more intense crisis and destruction of the environment. Every effective solution that it can formulate will only mean a much heavier burden to the working class and the toiling masses. Even if the state will exercise absolute control of the economic life of society, the crisis will continue to intensify as a result of the saturation of the world market and inability of the population to absorb the excessive production of commodities within a system that owes its life to competition and profit. History has already proven that state capitalism and totalitarianism are futile reaction of capital faced with permanent and intensifying crisis. The fall of USSR and Eastern Europe in 1990s bears witness to this fact.

The solution of the crisis is not within the dying system but outside of it. It is in the hands of the only revolutionary class bearing the seed of future communist society – the working class. The solution is not within the bulwarks of capitalism, nor is it in the path of reforms and peaceful transformation of capitalism to socialism. The solution is not within absolute control of the state of the economic life of society, but in the destruction of capitalism itself along with the bourgeois state that serves as it machinery of domination.

In other words, the solution of the food crisis is the destruction of the system of production based on market and profit and establishing a system based on the absolute production of human needs. And the first step towards this direction and toward the revolutionary transformation of society is not in the legalistic and reformist approach of various leftist organizations, nor is it in the hands of an absolute state intervention. It is not through the peaceful and “legalistic” road of “lakbayan” (protest caravans and long marches) popularized by Leftist formations in the Philippines. It is not through the road of trade unionism either. It is in the hands of the working class itself⁹ that is confronting the attacks of the capital in its own terrain through its own unitary organs of struggle – the workers’ assemblies, the prefiguration of the workers’ councils.

Workers of the world, unite! It is only through this path of class unity that will usher in the inevitable culmination of the proletarian movement: the world proletarian revolution.

—–

¹ Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., Arroyo warned on rice crisis, Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 24, 2008

² “The rising trend in international food prices continued, and even accelerated, in 2008. U.S. wheat export prices rose from $375/ton in January to $440/ton in March, and Thai rice export prices increased from $365/ton to $562/ton. This came on top of a 181 percent increase in global wheat prices over the 36 months leading up to February 2008, and a 83 percent increase in overall global food prices over the same period.(…) The observed increase in food prices is not a temporary phenomenon, but likely to persist in the medium term. Food crop prices are expected to remain high in 2008 and 2009 and then begin to decline as supply and demand respond to high prices; however, they are likely to remain well above the 2004 levels through 2015 for most food crops” (Rising Food Prices: Policy Options and World Bank Response, p. 2, our emphasis)

³ “Bangkok, April 24 - Benchmark Thai rice prices leapt more than 5 percent to a record high above $1,000 a tonne on Thursday, and traders in the world’s top exporter warned of further gains if buyers Iran and Indonesia step into the market. (Reuters, Thai Rice Climbs to New Record Above $1,000 a Tonne, 24/04/2008 – posted on Flex News)

⁴ National Statistics Office, 2006 Family Income and Expenditure Survey, Released Date: January 11, 2008

⁵ Beware the New “Doubly Green Revolution”, ISIS Press Release 14/01/08

⁶ Como, Imperialist chaos, ecological disaster: Twin-track to capitalist oblivion, International Review no. 129 – 2^nd Quarter 2007, p.2

⁷ “The Soyapa Farms Growers Association employs 360 contract workers, both adults and children. The association was formed at the initiative of Stanfilco six years ago, when it convinced members to grow bananas. It’s not a cooperative—each grower retains ownership of their individual plot, and each has an individual contract to sell their bananas to Dole.” (Banana War in the Philippines - Posted on July 8th, 1998 by Melissa Moore at www.foodfirst.org)

⁸ “That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves, that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule;” (The International Workingmen’s Association, General Rules, October 1864, our emphasis)

Diwa ng Mayo Uno: MAGKAISA AT MAKIBAKA LABAN SA KAPITALISMO!

Dineklara ng lahat ng manggagawa sa mundo ang Mayo Uno bilang Internasyunal na Araw ng Paggawa. Isa lamang ang ibig sabihin nito: Ang mga manggagawa ay isang internasyunal na uri at pareho ang mga interes at pinaglalaban kahit saang bansa man sila. Iisa lamang ang kaaway ng mga manggagawa sa buong mundo – ang uring kapitalista at ang bulok na sistema nito.

Subalit hindi pagbubunyi ang ginagawa ngayon ng naghihirap na mga manggagawa sa kanilang Internasyunal na Araw kundi mga kilusang protesta. Nagdurusa ang mga manggagawa, sa mga atrasadong bansa man gaya ng Pilipinas o sa mga abanteng bansa gaya ng Amerika sa mataas na presyo ng mga batayang bilihin laluna ng bigas, mababang sahod, di-makataong kalagayan ng trabaho, walang katiyakan ng trabaho, pagkalubog sa utang, kawalan ng permanenteng tirahan at marami pang iba.

Daang libong mga manggagawa ang nagwelga sa France, Germany, Amerika, Britain, Greece, Bangladesh, Egypt, Dubai at iba pang bansa laban sa mga atake ng kapital sa kanilang pamumuhay mula 2003. Malawak na mga welga ang sagot ng mga manggagawa laban sa krisis ng kapitalismo. Sa mga welgang ito temporaryong napahinto ng mga manggagawa ang mga atake ng kapital at nakamit ng masang anakpawis ang ilang mga temporaryong tagumpay.

Ang kalagayan ng manggagawang Pilipino

Magkatulad ang kalagayan at kahirapang naranasan ng manggagawang Pilipino at ng kanilang mga kapatid na manggagawa sa ibang mga bansa. Isang malaking KASINUNGALINGAN ang propaganda ng mga kapitalista at ng gobyerno na magkaiba daw ang kalagayan ng mga manggagawa sa Pilipinas at sa ibang mga bansa laluna sa mga abanteng bansa gaya ng Amerika. Sapat na ang mga karanasan ng ating OFWs at ng mga welga mismo sa naturang mga bansa para makita natin ang katotohanan mula sa kasinungalingan.

Subalit maraming hadlang sa pag-unlad ng pakikibaka ng manggagawang Pilipino na nagbunga ng demoralisasyon at kawalang tiwala sa lakas ng sariling pagkakaisa.

Ano ang mga hadlang sa pag-unlad ng pakikibaka ng manggagawang Pilipino?

Una, pag-asa na mayroong “tagapagligtas” sa kanila mula sa kahirapan at pang-aapi ng kapitalista at ng gobyerno. Ang inaasahan nila ay ang mga unyon, mga abogado, mga relihiyoso, panggitnang uri, mga politiko at mga elektoral na partido. Ang iba ay umaasa sa mga armadong gerilya at mga rebeldeng militar.

Pangalawa, paniniwala na ang pagkatalo at kabiguan ay isang “tagumpay”. Ang mga pangako at panlilinlang ng kapitalista at gobyerno ay iniisip na “tagumpay”. Ang settlement ng DOLE at NLRC ay pinaniwalaang “tagumpay ng pakikibaka”. Ang malaking perang binayad ng management bilang separation pay ay iniisip  na “tagumpay” ng mga kaso sa NLRC at DOLE.

Pangatlo, pag-iisip na walang magandang ibubunga ang paglaban sa kapitalista at gobyerno dahil siguradong talo pa rin. Kaya mabuti pang tiisin ang kahirapan at patayin ang katawan sa trabaho para lalaki ang kita. Pag-iisip na walang magagawa ang pagkakaisa at mabuti pang magkanya-kanya ng paghahanp-buhay. 

Dalawang hakbang tungo sa tagumpay ng pakikibaka

Ang unang hakbang tungo sa tagumpay ng pakikibaka ay hawakan mismo ng mga manggagawa ang pagsusuri sa kanilang kalagayan at ang pagdesisyon kung ano ang dapat gawin at HINDI aasa sa mga “tagapgligtas”. Ang kongkretong ekspresyon nito ay ang mga ASEMBLIYA o malawak na pulong ng mga manggagawa — hindi lang sa loob ng pabrika kundi ng iba’t-ibang pabrika para mag-usap, magdiskusyon at magdebate hanggang makamit ang kolektibong pagkakaisa kung ano ang dapat gawin. Pero magagawa lamang ito kung independyente ang mga ASEMBLIYA mula sa kontrol ng anumang tipo ng unyon o elektoral na partido. Hinati-hati at pinahihina lamang ng mga unyon at elektoral na partido ang ating pagkakaisa.  

Ang mga ASEMBLIYA ng lahat ng manggagawa (dadaluhan ng mga regular, kontraktwal, unyonista at di-unyonista, empleyado ng publiko o pribadong empresa, walang trabaho, at mga indibidwal na totoong tumindig para sa interes ng manggagawa) ang epektibong organisasyon ng pakikibaka laban sa pagsasamantala ng mga kapitalista at ng gobyerno sa kasalukuyang panahon at hindi ang mga unyon at elektoral na partido.

Ang mga ASEMBLIYA ng manggagawa ng iba’t-ibang pabrika ang tunay na ekspresyon ng pagkakaisa. Kung hindi pa kakayanin ang mga asembliya ay maaring magsimula sa mga grupo ng diskusyon at talakayan upang pag-usapan at suriin ang kalagayan at karanasan sa loob ng pagawaan.

Dapat nating muling isabuhay ang kasabihan na napatunayang wasto sa mahigit 200 taon na pakikibaka ng manggagawa sa buong mundo: ANG EMANSIPASYON NG MGA MANGGAGAWA AY NASA PAGKAKAISA MISMO NG MGA MANGGAGAWA.

Ang pangalawang hakbang tungo sa tagumpay ng pakikibaka ay ang pagtanggap sa katotohanan na WALANG maibigay na matagalang kagalingan ang kapitalistang gobyerno at sistema para sa mga manggagawa hawak man ito ng administarsyon o oposisyon, ng Kanan o Kaliwa ng burgesya. Ang tanging maibigay lamang nila ay panlilinlang at mga pangakong hindi matutupad, ibayong pang-aapi, pagdurusa at kahirapan. Nasa permanenteng krisis na ang kapitalismo at para makahinga pa ito, kailangan nitong ilublob tayo sa kahirapan. WALANG MAAASAHAN SA GOBYERNO. Para makaraos sa kahirapan, kailangang magkaisa at lumaban ang mga manggagawa sa buong daigdig.

INTERNASYONALISMO
Mayo 1, 2008

Contact us: internasyonalismo@yahoo.com

Strikes on April 24: For a common struggle across all divisions

This article is available as a leaflet to download and distribute here:

http://en.internationalism.org/files/en/April-24-leaflet.pdf

On 24 April 250,000 teachers will be staging a one day strike against the government’s latest pay offer. They will be joined by further education lecturers, civil servants, and council workers. Marches and rallies will be held in a large number of cities.

There are certainly any number of reasons for taking action, not only in these sectors, but right across the working class:

All these and many other attacks on workers’ living standards are being supervised or directly imposed not just by individual employers but by the state, whether in its national or local guise. Faced with a mounting economic crisis that is clearly global in scope, the national state is revealing itself more and more as the only force capable of organising the response required by the capitalist system: reducing labour costs to compete for markets and preserve profits. Therefore the state steps in to bail out failing banks in Britain and the US, forces public sector workers to accept ‘pay restraint’, introduces cuts in health, welfare and education (in other words, reductions in the social wage), introduces new laws reducing pensions and lengthening our working lives. And when economic competition gives way to military competition, as in the Balkans, Afghanistan or Iraq, it’s the state which diverts vast amounts of social wealth into building weapons and waging war.

These polices are not the result of evil individuals or of particular governmental parties. Governments of the right or the left carry out the same basic policies. In North America the Bush government extols free enterprise and presides over an economy in which 28 million need food stamps to survive. In South America, Chavez denounces Bush, talks about ‘21st century socialism’ - and dispatches squads of ‘Bolivarian revolutionaries’ to suppress striking steel workers.

Faced with this centralised, statified attack on their living and working conditions, workers everywhere have the same interests: to resist wage cuts and job cuts, to react against inroads on their social benefits. But they cannot do this by fighting separately, sector by sector, workplace by workplace. Faced with the power of the capitalist state, they need to form a power of their own, based on their unity and solidarity across all divisions into trade, union, or nationality.

After years of dispersal and disarray, workers are only just beginning to rediscover in practice what unity and solidarity mean. They need to take every opportunity to turn these general principles into practical action. If the unions are calling for strikes and demonstrations around issues of direct concern to them, as on April 24, workers should respond as massively as possible - go to the mass meetings, join the marches, take part in the pickets, discuss and exchange ideas with workers from other sectors and workplace.

Workers’ unity cannot be organised through the unions

But beware: the trade unions, who present themselves as the representatives of the workers, in reality serve to keep us divided.

This is nowhere clearer than in the education sector. The strike on 24 April involves the NUT members in primary and secondary education. It doesn’t involve teachers in sixth form colleges who have ‘different’ employers. Neither does it involve teachers from other unions, such as the NAS/UWT which says the issue isn’t pay, but workload. Nor does it involve thousands of education workers who aren’t teachers, such as learning support assistants, site staff, cleaners, caterers etc, even though they have plenty to be aggrieved about. And though the NUT seems to be talking tough today, when many of these educational support workers came out on strike in 2006, the NUT told its members to cross their picket lines.

The same story can be repeated in the civil service, in the local authorities, on the tubes and railways, and any number of other industries where workers are divided up into different categories and unions. The state in Britain has long made it illegal for those who work for different employers to strike in solidarity with each other. By keeping workers in the framework of these laws, the unions do the work of the state on the shop floor. The same goes for the laws that forbid workers to decide on strike action in mass meetings. Union ballot rigmaroles tie workers’ hands behind their backs and prevent them from making decisions as a collective force.

It follows that if we are to become such a force, we have to start to take the struggle into our hands, and not leave it in the hands of the union ‘specialists’. Council workers in Birmingham voted in mass meetings to take part in the strikes around April 24. It’s a good example to follow: we need to hold meetings in every workplace where all workers, from all unions or none, can take part and take the decisions. And we need to insist that decisions taken in mass meetings are binding, not dependent on ballots or private meetings of union officials.

Unity at the workplace is inseparable from building unity with workers from other workplaces and other industries, whether we do it through sending delegations to their meetings, by joining their picket lines, or gathering together at rallies and demonstrations.

Calling on all workers to assemble, strike and demonstrate together for common demands is, naturally, ‘illegal’ in the face of a state which wants to outlaw real class solidarity. This may seem daunting at first, too big a step to take. But it’s in the very act of taking matters into our hands and uniting with other workers that we develop the confidence and courage to take the struggle even further.

And given the bleak prospects offered by the world capitalist system - a future of crisis, war, and ecological disaster - there’s no doubt that the struggle has to go further. It has to go from the defence of our basic living conditions to questioning and challenging this entire social order. Amos 5/4/8

How Stalin wiped out the militants of the October 1917 revolution

On the occasion of the anniversary of the October 1917 revolution in Russia, the scribblers of the ruling class regularly serve us up with the same refrain: the dictator Stalin is the heir of Lenin; his crimes were the inevitable consequences of the policies of the Bolsheviks of 1917. The moral? The communist revolution can only lead to the terror of Stalinism.

Men make history, but they do so in definite circumstances that necessarily weigh on their actions. So, the principal cause of the emergence of a regime of terror in the USSR was the tragic isolation of the 1917 October revolution. Because, as Engels said in 1847, in his Principles of Communism, the proletarian revolution can only be victorious at the world level: "The communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries…It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace. It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range."

The Russian revolution wasn’t beaten by the armed forces of the bourgeoisie during the civil war (1918-1920), but from the inside, through the progressive identification of the Bolshevik Party with the state. That is what allowed the bourgeoisie to spread its historic big lie, either presenting the USSR as a proletarian state or spreading the idea that any proletarian revolution can only end up with a Stalinist-type regime.

The politics of Stalin weren’t those of Lenin

Contrary to what the ideologues of the bourgeoisie affirm, there is no continuity between the politics of Lenin and those undertaken after his death by Stalin. The fundamental difference that separates them rests in the key question of internationalism: the idea of ‘socialism in one country’, adopted by Stalin in 1925, constituted a real betrayal of the basic principles of proletarian struggle and the communist revolution. In particular, this thesis, presented by Stalin as a ‘principle of Leninism’, meant the exact opposite of Lenin’s position. The intransigent internationalism of Lenin, his total adherence to the cause of the proletariat, was a constant throughout his life. His internationalism wasn’t dimmed with the victory of the Russian revolution in October 1917. On the contrary, he saw this as the first step of the world revolution: "The Russian revolution is only one detachment of the world socialist army, and the success and triumph of the revolution that we have accomplished depends on the action of this army. This is a fact that no one amongst us forgets (…). The Russian proletariat is conscious of its revolutionary isolation, and it clearly sees that its victory has the indispensable condition and fundamental premise of the united intervention of the entire world proletariat". (Report to the Factory Committees of the Province of Moscow, 28 July, 1918).

It’s for that reason that Lenin played a decisive role, with Trotsky, in the foundation of the Communist International (CI) in March 1919. In particular it was Lenin who drew up one of the fundamental texts of the founding congress of the CI: the ‘Theses on the democratic bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat‘.

At the time of Lenin, the CI no connection with what it was to become under the control of Stalin: a diplomatic instrument of Russian state capitalism and the spearhead of the counter-revolution on a world scale.

Contrary to Lenin, Stalin affirmed that it was possible to construct socialism in a single country. This nationalist policy of the defence of the ‘socialist fatherland’ in Russia constituted a betrayal of the proletarian principles enunciated by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto: "The proletarians have no country. Proletarians of all countries unite!" The politics of Stalin served to justify the strengthening of state capitalism in the USSR with the accession to power of a privileged class, the bureaucracy, living on the ferocious exploitation of the working class. Stalin was the iron fist and the figurehead of the counter-revolution.

If he was able to be the hangman of the revolution, it’s because he had certain personality traits that rendered him more apt than other members of the Bolshevik Party to fulfil this role. It was exactly these traits of personality that Lenin had stigmatised in his ‘last testament’: "Comrade Stalin in becoming General Secretary has concentrated an immense power into his hands and I am not sure that he always knows how to use it with sufficient prudence."

And in a post script, drawn up on the eve of his death, Lenin wrote: "Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General Secretary. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a minor detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance" ( 4 January 1924).

From the middle of the 1920s, Stalin oversaw the ruthless liquidation of all the old comrades of Lenin, using the organs of repression that the Bolshevik Party had originally put in place in order to resist the White Armies (notably the political police, the Cheka).

The great Stalinist purge within the Bolshevik Party

After Lenin’s death in January 1924, Stalin was quick to place his allies in key posts within the Party. He took his aim at Trotsky principally, the alter ego of Lenin during the revolution of October 1917. Opportunistically, Stalin allied himself with Bukharin who committed the fatal error of theorising the possibility of constructing socialism in one country (later, Stalin had no scruples about executing Bukharin).

From 1923-24, a whole series of divergences appeared within the Bolshevik Party. Several oppositions were constituted, the most important of which was led by Trotsky, later joined by other militants of the Bolshevik old guard (notably Kamenev and Zinoviev). With the growth of bureaucracy within the Party, the Left Opposition had understood that the Russian revolution was degenerating.

Stalin occupied a key post. He controlled the apparatus of the Party and even the promotion of its leadership. This is what allowed him to put his men in place and transform the Bolshevik Party into a deadly machine. He particularly favoured the entry into the Party of a great number of ambitious arrivistes. The latter, whom Stalin supported, were only looking for a career within the state apparatus.

Henceforth, he had a free hand to undertake the great purge of the Party, with the principal aim of removing from the leadership the principal figures of the October revolution (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and above all Trotsky) in order to finally liquidate everyone.

Progressively Stalin withdrew all political responsibilities from Trotsky up to the time he was expelled from the Party in 1927 and from Russia in 1928. This is the period where all oppositions to Stalin and all suspects filled up the Gulags. The Moscow Trials (1936-1938) allowed Stalin to liquidate the Bolshevik old guard under the fraudulent pretext of hunting ‘terrorists’, following the assassination of the party chief of Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, on 1 December 1934.

Dozens of Bolsheviks were persecuted, imprisoned, and finally exterminated in terrifying conditions. It was the time of the great Stalinist campaign against the "Hitlero-Trotskyists". Accusing them of a lack of ‘loyalty’ towards the ‘Socialist Fatherland’, Stalin also executed thousands of Bolshevik militants who had been the most implicated in the October revolution. It was necessary to definitively muzzle all those who had kept their internationalist and communist convictions. It was necessary to wipe out for ever all the witnesses capable of contradicting the ‘official’ history, by exposing the great lie: the idea that Stalin was the executor of Lenin’s will, the idea of a direct continuity between Lenin and Stalin[1].

The complicity of the democratic bourgeoisie with Stalin

Faced with the barbarity of Stalinist repression, what was the reaction of the great democracies of the West? When, from 1936, Stalin organised the wretched ‘Moscow Trials’, when the old comrades of Lenin, broken by torture, were accused of the most abject crimes and themselves ended up asking for exemplary punishment, this same democratic press in the pay of capital let it be known that ‘there was no smoke without fire’ (even if some newspapers made some timid criticisms of Stalin’s policies, affirming that they were ‘exaggerated’).

It was with the complicity of the bourgeoisies of the great powers that Stalin accomplished his monstrous crimes, that he exterminated, in his prisons and concentration camps, hundreds of thousands of communists, more than ten million workers and peasants. And the bourgeois sectors that showed the greatest zeal in this complicity were the democratic sectors (and particularly Social-Democracy); the same sectors that today virulently denounce the crimes of Stalinism and present themselves as models of virtue.

It’s only because the regime that consolidated itself in Russia after the death of Lenin and the final crushing of the German revolution (1923) was a variant of capitalism, and even the spearhead of the counter-revolution, that it received such warm support from all the bourgeoisies that only a few years earlier had ferociously fought the power of the Soviets. In 1934, in fact, these same ‘democratic’ bourgeoisies accepted the USSR into the League of Nations (ancestor of the UN), an institution that Lenin had called a "den of thieves" at the time of its foundation. This was the sign that Stalin had become a ‘respectable Bolshevik’ in the eyes of the ruling class of every country, the same rulers who had once presented the Bolsheviks of 1917 as barbarians with knives between their teeth. The imperialist brigands recognised Stalin as one of their own. Henceforth, the communists who opposed Stalin submitted to the persecutions of the entire world bourgeoisie.

It was in this international context that Trotsky, expelled from country after country, under police surveillance at all times, had to face a campaign of shameless Stalinist lies, which were obligingly repeated by the bourgeoisies of the western democracies.

But where the complicity of the big democratic powers is most evident is in the fact that no one would give Trotsky asylum when he was expelled from Russia. The old leader of the Red Army was considered persona non grata everywhere. For Trotsky, the world became a planet without visa.

At the time of his stay in France in 1935, journalists, members of the intelligentsia, and some members of the Academie Francaise (like Georges Lecomte) went as far as circulating rumours that Trotsky was planning a terrorist ‘coup d’état’. Following these rumours, Trotsky was expelled by the French democratic state. To prevent him being delivered to the Stalinist political police, the Norwegian government offered him provisional asylum, before expelling him.

After wandering for more than ten years, Trotsky was finally welcomed by the Mexican government in 1939 thanks to the painter Diego Rivera who had some sympathy for Trotskyism. After a first murder attempt from a squad led by the Stalinist painter Siqueriros, Trotsky was assassinated on 20 August 1940 by an agent of Stalin, Ramon Mercader, who infiltrated his entourage by seducing one of the old revolutionary’s collaborators.

Trotsky succumbed to the blows of Stalinist repression at the very time when he was beginning to understand that the USSR wasn’t a "proletarian state with bureaucratic deformations" so dear to the epigones of the Fourth International (to which many of today’s Trotskyist organisations give allegiance).

Today’s democrats can shout as loud as they like about the abominable crimes of the Bolshevik Party. They will not wipe out our memory of these historic facts: it is with the blessing and complicity of their predecessors that Stalin was able to carry out his dirty work.

This reminder of one of the most tragic episodes of the 20th century reveals, if it’s needed, that there was no continuity but a radical break between the politics of Lenin and those of Stalin. On his death-bed Lenin had seen correctly: Stalin had concentrated too much power in his hands[2]. Replacing him wouldn’t have changed the course of history: another leader of his stamp would have taken on the role of hangman of the revolution. Stalin’s personality was suited to take on this role, as was that of Hitler, himself benefiting from the favours of a German bourgeoisie avid for revenge after the defeat of 1918 and shaken to the core by the revolutionary wave of 1918 and 1923.

Contrary to the lies spread by democratic propaganda, the worm wasn’t in the fruit of October 1917. Bolshevism did not contain in itself the terror of Stalinism. It was the crushing of the revolution in Germany that opened the royal road to the counter-revolution in Russia, the same as the death of Lenin on 20 January 1924 removed one of the last obstacles to Stalin’s grip on the Bolshevik Party. The latter became a Stalinist party with the adoption of the theory of ‘socialism in one country.

Bolshevism belongs to the proletariat, not to its hangman, Stalinism.

Sylvestre, 20/1/08.

[1] In order to wipe out any trace of the past, all testimony, Stalin even tried to liquidate foreigners residing in Russia, such as Victor Serge who was imprisoned. He was quite a well-known writer and was only saved thanks to a large international campaign.

[2] It’s for that reason moreover that Lenin’s doctor, under orders from Stalin, estimated that it wasn’t necessary to prolong his agony and proceeded with his euthanasia (this ‘humanitarian’ gesture had the ‘merit’ of preventing Lenin giving his last directives about the weaknesses of the Party).

Mahalagang mahalaw ng mga kabataang Pilipino ang pinakahuling karanasan ng pagkakaisa ng mga kabataan at manggagawang Pranses laban sa estadong Pranses at sa pagtatanggol ng uring manggagawa laban sa atake ng mga kapitalistang Pranses. Ang mga atake ng kapital sa Pransya ay nangyayari ngayon sa lahat ng mga bansa kabilang na ang Pilipinas.

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Workers’ struggles in Dubai: an example of courage and solidarity

In mid-November, as the workers of Dubai went back to work after a massive and spontaneous revolt, the press and the TV was headlining the story of the nephew of Dubai’s king Abdallah, Al Walid Ibn Talal, who had just bought an Airbus A380 for his personal use.

Not a word about this massive strike movement! Not a word about this open rebellion by hundreds of thousands of super-exploited workers! Once again the bourgeoisie clamped a blackout on its international media.

Against the inhuman exploitation of the bourgeoisie….

Dubai has, over the last few years, become an immense building site, in which vast skyscrapers, each one more unbelievable than the one before, have sprung up like mushrooms. This Emirate is one of the bourgeoisie’s symbols of the ‘economic miracle’ of the East and the Middle East. But behind this shop window lays a very different reality: not the reality presented to tourists and businessmen, but the reality of the working class which has to sweat blood and tears for these ‘architectural dreams’.

Out of the million inhabitants of the Emirate, more than 80% are workers of foreign origin, the majority Indian but also Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and, recently, Chinese. It seems that they are cheaper than Arab workers! They keep the building sites going 24/7 for practically nothing. They earn the equivalent of 100-150 euros a month. They build these prestigious towers and palaces but they live in cabins, several to a room and parked out in the desert. They are taken to work in cattle trucks they call buses. All this without medical care or pensions… and to prevent any danger of resistance, the employers hang on to their passports, just in case. Naturally, no account is taken of the workers’ families who have to stay back at home. The workers can only see them every 2 or 3 years because it is so difficult to find the money for the trip.

But you can’t treat human beings like this indefinitely and get away with it.

….the massive struggle of the proletariat

In the summer of 2006, the workers of Dubai already showed their ability to enter massively and collectively into struggle. Despite the repression which followed, they have today again dared to stand up against their exploiters and torturers. Through these struggles, they have shown their courage, their extraordinary fighting spirit, uniting against this life of misery and slavery. Like their class brothers in Egypt, they have braved the established power despite the risks involved. Because in the Emirates, strikes are forbidden and punishment is immediate: withdrawal of work-permits and a life-time ban on working there.

And yet, fed up with not having been paid for several months, "On Saturday 27th October, over 4,000 building workers came out onto the street, blocked the roads leading to the industrial zone of Jebel Ali, and threw stones at police vehicles. They demanded more buses to take them to work, less overcrowded lodgings and wages that would allow them to live in dignity" (Courrier International, 2.11.07). Recognising themselves in this massive struggle, thousands of workers from other enterprises joined the strikers.

Unsurprisingly, the bourgeoisie and its state responded violently. The anti-riot squad used water-cannon to disperse the demonstrators and threw many of them into police vans. "Denouncing this ‘barbaric behaviour’, the minister of Labour told them to chose between going back to work and the abrogation of their contracts, deportation and a loss of compensation" (http://www.lemaroc.org/economie/article_8622.html ). Despite this police repression, and the government’s threats, the strike movement continued to spread to three other zones in Dubai. According to a line in Associated Press on 5 November, there were up to 400,000 workers on strike!

The threats of punishment and repression were issued on the pretext that police vehicles had been damaged, something quite unacceptable for bourgeois order! But who was responsible for the worst of the violence? The answer is clear: those who turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of worker into a veritable hell.

What is the perspective for such struggles?

In Dubai, the proletariat has shown its strength and determination. The bourgeoisie was actually forced to take a temporary step back, putting aside its purely repressive tactics. Thus, after announcing the expulsion of the 4,000 Asian workers who initiated the movement, "the tone was rather one of appeasement on the following Wednesday" (AFP). The massive scale of this struggle had "made the Dubai government bend somewhat, ordering the ministers and the enterprises to review wages and install a minimum wage"….officially of course. In reality, the bourgeoisie will continue with its attacks. The sanctions against the ringleaders seem to have been maintained. And there is no doubt that the bourgeoisie will keep a tight grip over this and try to maintain the ferocious levels of exploitation it imposes in Dubai.

Nevertheless, the ruling class has had to take account of the rise in militancy amongst this section of the working class, despite its lack of experience in the struggle. This is why it is tying another string to its bow: as well as repression, it is also seeking to use more ideological means. The first attempt at this, however, has been rather ludicrous and ineffective. Faced with the multiplication of conflicts in the last two years, "the authorities have created a commission in the police force which has the job of dealing with questions from the workers, and have given the workers a freephone number to use for complaints, most of them relating to the non-payment of wages". Make your complaints directly to the forces of repression - you could hardly be more provocative! Rather more adroit than this is the government’s efforts to form a trade union in the enterprises in order to control future struggles ‘from the inside’.

The question is not so much the perspective for the struggle in a mini-state like Dubai, but the fact that this struggle is part of a much wider movement: the international struggle of the working class. "The workers have no country" said Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. The present struggles of the proletariat are part of the same chain of struggles against capitalist exploitation. From India to Dubai, via Egypt, the Middle East, the African continent or Latin America, to the countries of Europe and North America, the workers’ struggle is on the rise. The international development of the class struggle is a massive encouragement for workers wherever the movement breaks out. In particular, the emergence of massive movements like the ones in Dubai, Bangladesh or Egypt must act as a stimulus for the workers of the most advanced countries, while the latter must assume a particular responsibility in announcing the perspective of a struggle against the whole system of exploitation, sharing their accumulated historical experience, showing in practice how to take the struggle in hand and explaining why we cannot count on the unions and the left to do that for us.

The bourgeoisie and its media do all they can to stifle the news of workers’ struggles around the world to prevent this sharing of experience, this development of consciousness. The struggles in Dubai are the proof that everywhere the working class is suffering the devastating effects of the world economic crisis, and that everywhere it is sharpening its weapons of consciousness and solidarity in response. Map, 18th November 2007.