Class Struggle No 78 May-June 2008
Riots
and Revolution
Socialising Health
Revolting
Unions
African
Unrest
Survival
Socialism
Debating
Worker Control
Riots and Revolution
The
financial crisis that began with the
On top of that the speculation in (not demand for) oil which
plays an important part in food production and distribution also pushes up food
prices.
This proves that
capitalism only produces for profit and not the need of the masses, and must be
replaced by socialism that produces for need. It also proves that workers who
riot for food are capable of organizing to overthrow capitalism. In all of the
countries in which food riots have taken place, the main demands of the people
will turn to the overthrow the political regimes that they see as responsible
for starving them.
That is why these regimes are desperate to subsidize food
prices or increase wages to forestall revolution. But these are paper napkins
over the explosive force building in the masses.
The sellout WSF and left bureaucrats
around the world can hold hands and have many solidarity visits, but they and
the reformist populist regimes they support cannot prevent the coming
catastrophe. [See article
on Nepal under the Maoists] They cannot
defeat the causes of mass poverty and starvation that is the inevitable result
of capitalism.
What they can do is weaken an confuse the masses so that
instead of uniting to attack the system which is killing them they are
pressuring into killing one another as a form of capitalist divide and rule
[see article South Africa and Zimbabwe].
Revolutionaries must intervene in these riots to ‘turn the
guns’ on the ruling class. In this
current crisis this means occupying the farms and factories, putting them under
workers’ control, forming workers militias to defend them, and uniting the
workers and poor farmers of all countries to overthrow the capitalist regimes
that exploit and oppress them, creating a federation of socialist republics on
every continent. Such a program must be
implemented internationally under the leadership of revolutionary Marxists
forged in the struggles to expose and defeat all the treacherous leaders that
seek to divide and rule workers in every country. [see
Survival Socialism below]
Brief stuff
Children of the Poor miss budget goodies
CPAG report on child poverty is no
surprise since income gaps have been widening in NZ since the 1970s. The biggest gaps occurred under the impact of
the Rogernomics revolution in the 1980s and got worse
in the 1990s under National’s new right policies.
The shift from Keynesian income redistribution to market
forces setting wages levels could only work if the social wage was cut and
benefits fell below market minimum wage.
This reflects one of the first principles of capitalism that workers
must be forced to offer their labor for sale on the free market without any
other means of subsistence.
Labour
Governments since 1999 have attempted to restore bargaining power to workers by
encouraging the revival of the unions. But they have compromised with the new
right to accept the principle of market wages and allowed the minimum wage to
fall below inflation. Increases in the nominal minimum wage have been the
result of organized union protests and pressure from the Greens.
Keeping benefits below the legal minimum wage has meant that
income top-ups have come in the form of negative income tax subsidies to the
employers to keep wages down. This is a
selective form of the old universal social wage. But today it is targeted to
‘working’ families. The social wage going to beneficiaries has not made up for
the Ruthonomics cuts of the 1990s and this shows up
in the poverty statistics and the health and other social risks facing the
children of the poor. But under capitalism this is normal for the children of the reserve army of labor.
Debating Free Trade and Lost Sovereignty’
Union Democracy and
Revolutionaries want
the maximum independence of organised workers from
the capitalist state. Workers
independent of capitalist influence will be better able to fight to turn the
unions into militant democratic organizations in the interests of all
workers. As Marxists, we know the
capitalist class fights to retain its hold on power, and one aspect of its
class preservation is to try to try to precontrol all
independent workers organisations.
Too frequently in NZ history union officials
have worked to put unions under the control of the capitalists through their
laws. That is why no independent workers
organisation can allow union leadership positions to
be held by any member or official that is compromised by the rules of the
capitalist class.
The first major attack
on union independence came during the period of the Industrial Conciliation and
Arbitration Act (ICAA) from 1894. But in 1908 some strong unions –which came be
known as the ‘Red Fed’ –deliberately “deregistered” from the ICAA in order to
have greater independence from the bosses’ state. Those unions had the worksite
power to force the bosses to the table on their terms. Those workers knew these rules were tying
them to the capitalist system. So the ICAA was known as “Labour’s Leg Iron”
because it held back the class struggle within the legalities of the ICAA.
Today’s labour law is no less a “leg iron” in its effect on
workers. Fluffy language about “good
faith” bargaining does not disguise the reality that the law ties workers into
the Employment Relations Act (ERA) just like a leg iron!
At the recent Workers
Party ‘Marxism’, Unite! National Secretary Matt McCarten acknowledged the
limits of the labour law . . . for union
officials! The ERA says they must act in “good faith” and allows capitalists or
the ERA “Authority” to penalise officials that don’t
stick to the ERA rules. McCarten’s solution is to protect the union officials - by
side stepping the ERA - and not having any employees of the union. In that way officials couldn’t be sued by the
capitalists, or pursued by the ERA.
We agree that the
independence of union needs to include financial independence but not by paying
the officials under the counter. The point is that as soon as unions begin to
fight seriously they will break the bosses law, not just the ERA, but every
other law against picketing, freedom of speech, anti-terror laws etc. There is
no shortage of laws to penalize unions and criminalise
class struggle.
What McCarten is
talking about is a union where the officials are fined or jailed to stop the
rank and file from mobilizing. But no union leader worth his or her salt is
jailed without the ranks mobilising and breaking many
laws. [See the Appeal of the Las Heras political prisoners].
In NZ the biggest and
most effective industrial action ever was the 1951 lockout which was illegal
from the start. By refusing to work overtime the workers were locked out. The
dispute lasted 151 days and was defeated only by the state forces using fascist-type
laws and repression to divide and weaken the workers.
Thus the power of the labour movement cannot be developed inside the labor law.
The arrest of unionists has to be met with rejection of the legal penalties and
mobilization of the power of the whole labour
movement.
Meanwhile, there is no
point having assets and funds that can be easily seized by the state. The
independence of the unions must also include their finances and assets. Where
possible the union should put its funds into unofficial accounts under rank and
file control. The union should have no legal assets that can be seized, or have
any income from assets that can be abused by the bureaucracy.
An independent union
will have funds available to members in struggle – but out of reach of the ERA
or capitalists who might try to sue or seize those funds. Those funds are built
up from the members’ dues. The collection of those dues should be under the
control of the members and not deducted by the employer so as the money is never
touched by the bosses or the state!
For revolting unions
In the imperialist epoch the unions
cannot be politically
neutral. They cannot stay within the
limits of the bosses’ state. That is, they
cannot be reformist unions because the conditions of rotten imperialist capitalism leaves no room for lasting
reforms.
Either the
unions, in the hands of the union
bureaucracy and reformists
of all kinds, become an auxilliary
part of the capitalist state used to subordinate
the workers and prevent the revolution;
or, under a revolutionary leadership that has won its place in the struggles of the workers and exploited people, they become an
instrument of the workers’ revolutionary movement,
The fake Trotskyists have become reformists
and now manage ‘statised’ unions as a ‘left’ bureaucracy. They keep workers
under the control of the bosses’ state
by means of the legal framework within which the union
bureaucracies function.
Against all of these traitors,
we fight, for the total, unconditional independence of the unions from the
capitalist state, and to transform the
unions into organs of the majority
of exploited masses and not of the ‘middle
class’ labour aristocracy.
Down with the ERA! Out with
the bosses state from the
workers’ organizations!
Down with all bourgeois laws that regulate how workers must organize:
we workers must organize ourselves
as we want!
We fight for the
maximum workers democracy inside the unions, and against the labour
bureaucracy and aristocracy.
For revolutionary leaders in the unions!
Down with the labor bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy! Down with bosses deducting
union dues! End the priviliges of the leaders of the unions!
For leaders mandated and recallable at any time by the assemblies of the rank and file, paid no more than the average wage of the workers,
and on ending their term in office, returning to work!
What price Suicide?
A
recent book tells you how to kill yourself painlessly and panics the right to
lifers. But all this information is already on the internet. It’s easy to kill
yourself. Living is the difficult bit.
Capitalism kills in countless ways, but euthanasia is now a business. Is
this one industry we should ban? No. But we should ban capitalism and make life
much easier for the living. [SST 11 May]
What people fear about suicide is that it shows
that capitalist society destroys our lives. They
cannot conceive of suicide as other than a ‘consumer choice’. Life becomes
reduced to the commodities you consume and death is just another commodity you
buy. What this reflects is that capitalism values people according to their
market worth.
Rejecting this valuation of
your ‘self’ questions the basis of capitalism’s ‘value’. If you are ‘devalued’ in life then it means
that you are only valued in death, like the Aboriginal kids who grab high
tension wires because they will win momentary fame when they are dead. Or the
17 Welsh teenagers in Bridgend whose looked for a brief celebrity in death.
As Spiked
Online says: what does this tell us about life?
“What’s striking
about the Bridgend suicides is that far from feeling forlorn, family and
friends frequently talk about how happy or content the young people seemed. To
fear the reporting of suicide, or even a fictional portrayal, tells us as much
about an anxious perception of the social world as it does about the individual
suicides.
Ultimately, the
fear of glorifying suicide, or of offending the sensitivities of the bereaved,
is not about the Bridgend suicides and their bereaved families at all. The
media’s anxiety draws not from moral scruples, but from a broader cultural
uncertainty. So demoralised have we become, so
unable, it seems, to offer a compelling vision of the good life, that we fear
that the merest evocation of suicide, romanticised or
not, will persuade people to choose death over life.”
But suicide is not a rational consumer choice.
It’s a killing of the ‘self’ by capitalism. Win or die. Take the case of Toran Henry, the
Then NZ
Herald columnist Noelle McCarthy commenting on this case said that there
have always been those “outside the herd” and the only way out for them is to
join the herd. Talk about the herd mentality? This is caving in to the ‘winners
and losers’ culture that capitalism forces on young people.
What is
to be done? The Greens are calling for an inquiry into the school and Marinoto (Waitakere youth mental
health). This is like saying vote for your life! Don’t put your hope in the vote! We say kill
capitalism not yourself!
Socialising
Health
The Labour-led
government’s budget announcement was $750 million extra per year for health
services. $250 million of this money is promised to specific new projects the
most necessary is $40 million for so called “elective” surgery to reduce
waiting lists. Great for those who can
get onto a waiting list now the administration of health services are so highly
skilled at dropping people off waiting lists – ‘referred back to their
GP’. The same amount; $40million is for
the DHB administration to use to “improve efficiency” – unfortunately the only
efficiency they seem to come up with is throwing people off waitlists onto the
scrapheap.
After all the new
projects are accounted for that actually leaves only $500million is to cover
increasing inflation at 4.5%. Costs in
the health sector increase above the rate of general inflation, since health is
a field where technology is expensive and new drugs are expensive, and the
costs of training the health workforce have increased in part due to student
fees and loans, and also through increased specialisation
meaning longer years of training.
Also the quality
control processes in the health sector add costs, eg.
funding of the Health and Disability Commission,
Mental Health Commission and all the Auditors, Quality managers, etc. So
government funding has not kept pace with the rate of inflation, this means
Health services are lost and District Health Boards (DHBs) are set up to fail
to provide adequate healthcare to their regions. The Labour-led
governments have been as guilty of this as any since they have continued
underfunding health by not keeping running costs up to the rate of health
sector inflation.
The pseudo-democracy of
voting for DHB members at local council election time is fake
in many ways. For starters the
Government still holds the purse strings so the DHB has no control over its income. The central government has the power to throw
out an entire local DHB; and they did recently to Hawkes
Bay DHB, in spite of recent elections.
Workers need to reject this capitalist bullshit democracy:
·
For
workers “councils” based on workers who are organised
in unions, i.e. local workers to create set up meetings of unionised
workers.
Across unions all members in the region would
have the right to elect our own workers’ “councils”. These councils would have to be “off the
books” because capitalism would try to prevent workers organising
independently. Just like the capitalists
try to control the union officials through laws – the employment relations act
ties union leaders to the system.
·
For
workers independence of action and organisation,
avoid any compromise with the laws of the capitalists!
Increasingly health work has been contracted out to
the private sector. In Counties Manukau district private sector has taken 11% of ‘elective’
surgery and this will be going up to 14%. That is, about 1800 patients for $6.6
million of our money, will be going in towards the
profits of private hospitals.
·
For
workers councils to stop the privatisation of health services:
·
Demand
the opening of the DHB books. Set up workers’ “councils”, including rank and
file members of health workers’ unions, with mandated delegates to inspect the
DHB’s books.
·
Fight
bulk funding of health services: No contracting out to private health
profiteers – end existing contracts without compensation, and under control of
the delegates of frontline health workers.
·
Build
workers councils to prepare for workers industrial action - prepare for workers
occupation against contracting out services.
·
Prepare
for workers control of all health services, public and private.
·
Socialise health care under workers control: No compensation
to private health profiteers.
The outrage directed at
The capitalist ruling classes in the West know
this, and are trying to divert this fear and loathing onto
Imperialism which has imposed its capitalist
brutality on the East for 300 years is now hypocritically trying to shift the
blame onto the former colony for not living up to a mythological set of Western
values such as ‘democracy’, ‘human
rights’ and a cynical self-serving interpretation of the right of nations to
self-determination.
This rage is real because neither capitalism nor
the brand of bureaucratic socialism practiced in the former
In
Today, the costs of the capitalist crisis are
being imposed on workers in
It is necessary to resist the capitalist
offensive with our own counter-offensive, to organize ourselves to fight for
socialism to stop capitalist barbarism. Socialism takes all that is good from
capitalism in its efficient organization of production and subordinates it not
to private profit, but to the needs of the masses as determined by democratic
organizations of the masses. All the food, all the energy, all the resources
needed to satisfy those needs will be harnessed to the collective will of the
masses.
The masses in
·
·
·
·
We do
not recognize the ‘government in exile’ of the Dalai Lama, since there is no
evidence that it represents the popular will of the Tibetan masses.
·
The
exaggerated response to the protests and police actions by the Chinese regime
can only be explained by a US imperialist campaign for a ‘color’ revolution to
embarrass China, to weaken the bloc between China and Russia, and ultimately to
gain unchallenged control of Central Asian oil.
·
It is
hypocritical for the ‘Western’ left to blame
·
We do
not support the campaign to protest the human rights abuses of the Chinese
state by boycotting the Olympics. This is the task of the Chinese working
class.
·
The
right of self-determination for Tibet can only be advanced when it is taken up
by the workers of China who make the Tibetan cause, like that of every other
national minority, their own cause; and by workers in the imperialist countries
who reject the cynical manipulation of Tibetan national rights and the government
in exile of the Dalai Lama to advance the US imperialist agenda in Asia.
·
For a
Federation of
Race
riots in
On
the contrary we see that it is the ANC betrayal of the South African masses
that has left them without jobs and housing and primed them to blame the
Zimbabwean and Mozambican migrant workers who have flooded into South Africa to
find work. It is not the business of Western liberals to point the finger at
South African workers since they share in the benefits of the
super-exploitation of that country. This is a problem that these workers must
solve for themselves. The solution lies
in a revolutionary leadership building an internationalist movement that
mobilizes workers to root out the basic cause of the problem, capitalism and
imperialism in
Similarly, in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s restrictions on the NGOs
food aid during the current election is an understandably reaction to the way
imperialism, not content with imposing
sanctions to ruin the economy, is using the NGOs as an internal political
opposition.
Like South Africa, the solution to Zimbabwe’s problems are
not the business of the same Western imperialism that refused to allow that
country full economic independence and used Mugabe as their agent to block any
real fight for independence. Mugabe’s ‘break’ with imperialism has nothing to
do with belatedly fighting for independence but everything to do with
desperately holding onto power. It is the task of the Zimbabwean workers and
poor peasants to throw out Mugabe, not imperialist powers or their stooge NGOs
inside
Before these workers and poor peasants can unite to
overthrow the national bourgeoisies that act as a barrier between them and
independence from imperialism, a revolutionary left must come into existence
with a program for revolutionary struggle based on the lessons learned of what
is necessary to win.
First among these
lessons is recognizing the hostile class interests of the national bourgeoisies
that have acted as the agents of imperialism and betrayed the hopes of workers
and peasants for real independence and for economic security in an African
Federation of Socialist Republics.
ANC betrays South African workers and peasants
In
The result has been more than a decade of open collaboration
with imperialism to super-exploit
Once this lesson has been learned, it is necessary to
mobilize workers and poor peasants to unite all workers, across nationality,
ethnicity, gender etc to fight for jobs, land and decent housing and social
services. In the process of these struggles the proletariat will build the
unity and develop the consciousness necessary to overthrow the South African
pro-imperialist regime, form a Workers and Peasants’ Government and create a
socialist economic powerhouse that will provide resources and inspiration for
the rest of
ZANU-PF betrays
In
He turned to
In the face of an US and British imperialist
campaign to isolate Zimbabwe and shift all the blame for its economic collapse
onto the Mugabe regime, Zimbabwean workers must organize in solidarity with
South African workers to build a movement to challenge both wings of the
national bourgeoisie who are no more than junior partners for this or that
imperialist power, or in the case of China, a powerful emerging market economy.
Their program must
be for occupations of land and of industry under workers and peasants control
and for the socialization of the banks and all the key sectors of the economy
.
The election victory of the Communist
Party of
Historic betrayal in the making
In
Maoists around the world hail the election results in
Trotskyists have rejected this two-state theory as a
Menshevik policy of class collaboration with an almost non-existent national
bourgeoisie to boost the strength of that class in relation to imperialism. Yet
in the epoch of imperialism the national bourgeoisies in former colonies and
semi-colonies cannot be more than small junior partners of imperialism.
We agree. Given a Maoist mass movement that has overwhelming
popularity and its own People’s Liberation Army, it is a crime not to nationalise the land and socialise
all capitalist industry such as it is. Not only a crime against the people of
Nepal but of India and all Asia, and Latin America, where workers and poor
peasants will look to each and every socialist revolution as inspiration to
drive them on to their own, and ultimately, world socialist revolution.
The only
explanation for this betrayal can be that the Maoist leadership wants to
position itself to become part of the Nepalese bourgeoisie, and do deals with
the various capitalist and imperialist powers that may have an interest in
exploiting the workers and peasants of
It is therefore necessary to condemn the Stalinist two-stage
policy of the CPN (M) and call on the masses to break with this treacherous
leadership. Only the overthrow of the national bourgeoisie and creation of a
workers and peasants government can create the conditions for social
development.
The Bolshevik Revolution proved that anything short of a
socialist revolution would fail to complete the bourgeois revolution. Every
other revolution since has confirmed this fundamental Marxist truth, either in
victory like the Cuban revolution, or in defeat, like every other revolution.
History lessons
In
In
In
In
In
In every case the national bourgeoisie, even as a tiny force, remained in control of the ‘patriotic front’ of all
classes, and sooner or later disarmed and defeated the popular masses. In
Most recently, in
A Republic under the Maoists
Unless the masses wake up to their betrayal by
the CPN (M) leadership and fight to take over the leadership of the revolution,
in the coming months and years the CPN (M) leadership will write a new
bourgeois constitution, do deals with imperialist monopolies, and constitute
itself a new state bourgeoisie. The only question left is which road to ‘market
socialism’ will it take; the Chinese road, the Venezuelan road, the Cuban road,
or the road of Indian or Malaysian ‘social democracy’?
The Nepalese revolution takes place at a time when the
global capitalist economy is heading for a period of instability. The
In this global situation it appears to Maoists that one isolated and backward country cannot
have a successful socialist revolution now. There is no developed industry, no
majority working class, and so no possibility of the pre-conditions for
socialism being present. This was also the situation in
The revolutions in
So the Chinese road or the Cuban road would only be an
option for
But under the Maoists today, this is highly unlikely since
imperialism is just as keen to exploit
What will the workers get out of such collaboration? Under Maoist
rule, Nepal can’t follow the Venezuelan
road unless it finds oil, gas or other mineral wealth that it can use as
leverage to drive hard bargains with the imperialist monopolies.
This means Nepal
will probably go down the road taken by other Maoist dominated regimes in India
that are today closely collaborating with the neo-liberal policies of
imperialism.
Inevitably, the National Democratic stage
envisioned by Prachanda and will be a form of market
socialism in which the market will be dominated by imperialism and the workers
and poor peasants subjected to super-exploitation and oppression.
Permanent Revolution
The Menshevik
theory of stages is an historical schema, an ideal model, a caricature of
Marxism. Marxism claims that socialism
cannot arrive before capitalism has exhausted all of its potential to develop
the forces of production. However how do
we know when this situation has been reached? The Mensheviks filled in the
blanks with a checklist that said the working class must be the majority class
which meant that capitalist agriculture and heavy industry must have
developed.
When the Bolsheviks led a victorious revolution in
When the February revolution succeeded in
This breakthrough proved that in a backward country in the
epoch of imperialism the national bourgeoisies were in bed with the
imperialists so that only the workers and poor peasants could complete the
bourgeois revolution in the form of a socialist revolution. Lenin called this the ‘uninterrupted’ revolution and Trotsky called it the ‘permanent’ revolution.
However, turning the national revolution into a socialist
revolution was one thing, building socialism was another. The Bolsheviks always
said that the revolution in
But Lenin in ‘Imperialism’ had already explained that the
epoch of imperialism was the last stage of capitalism in decline. The forces of
production could not be developed further without massive crises, wars,
colonial super-exploitation and oppression. How long must workers in the
imperialist countries wait; how long must the oppressed colonial peoples wait?
Until the Menshevik professors said capitalism’s time was up? NO! Revolt, try
it, do it, you have nothing to loose. Even if the revolution fails and you die
standing up, this inspires the next revolution!
Permanent Revolution in
The failure of the
German revolution prevented the Russian revolution from building a socialist
society. But the Bolshevik revolution, even as a degenerated Stalinist
dictatorship, survived as workers’ property. It would take a political
revolution to remove the bureaucracy to open the road to socialism, and that
would not come without socialist revolution in the more advanced capitalist
countries.
This still holds true today. In the epoch of imperialism,
socialist revolution in any backward country, including
What this means is that the Nepalese people do not have to
tick off some Menshevik checklist of hoops they have to jump through to
complete capitalist development in their own country to prepare for socialism.
Instead they must take the power, socialize the economy and
spark the revolution in surrounding countries and in the imperialist
powers.
The Nepalese Maoists look to capitalist
No! The Nepalese masses must look to
Survival
Socialism
For the workers to live, capitalism
must die! Our immediate needs demand a
revolutionary program. No fake market socialism, no fake Marxism, no reforms
that cannot change anything –like carbon trading which is business as usual. As
we have argued before, the costs of carbon credits will be passed onto the
workers as lower wages and higher prices. But hey! Carbon trading has been
upstaged by human starvation. We need a ‘food revolution’ say the Greens. Is a
‘food revolution’ better than a ‘food riot’? No because the Greens only want to
reform capitalism. What if the stink is not methane released by global warning,
but the stink of human corpses. Who’s going to clean up the stink? Well the
workers are not dying on their bellies holding out their hands to parliament,
but dying on their feet facing the riot cops and the bosses’ armies. What they
want now is food, houses, and jobs. They are rapidly learning that what they
will have to do to survive is overthrow the capitalist system and replace it
with socialism.
Emissions are the not problem, starvation is the problem.
And the cause is not global warming but global profiteering. The cost of food
is not due to any shortage but the failure of capitalist production to meet
demand for food when it can profit from biofuel, or
speculating in hoarding food and fuel. To get the food and the fuel we need to
get control of the production system. There is no way we can do this without
destroying the market which puts profits before people, and replacing it with a
planned socialist economy.
Socialist planning
can start to cut carbon emissions the day after the capitalist system is
overthrown. First on our list is big oil and gas, second agriculture, third banks and
fourth industry. Attempt to tax big oil and gas to force them to adopt clean
renewable energy is utopian. They will not do it as the decline in investment
in alternative fuels by big oil shows. Big oil and gas must be nationalized
without compensation under workers control.
Food can be
provided immediately by nationalizing the food multinationals and expropriating
the large landholdings under workers control. Energy and land can be developed
under a socialist plan by nationalizing the banks and the major sectors of
industry.
To do this we need
a party and a program that is capable of leading the proletariat in its
struggles against capitalism all the way to the socialist revolution.
Action Program on food and fuel
The Trotskyist Transitional Program has the method we
need to make an action program for workers to fight for our needs today. By
fighting for food, fuel, housing, jobs, wages, workers will learn that to win
these demands we must mobilize the working class and its allies as a force
capable of taking power.
The main
transitional demand to face falling wages and rising prices is the sliding scale of wages and hours. Wages
must be pegged to inflation and hours reduced without cuts in pay to provide
jobs for the unemployed. However, these are not enough to confront rapid
inflation such as workers face with rising food and fuel prices.
Food prices are rising because of increased demand in
Fuel prices are rising rapidly because of demand but mainly
because of speculation in oil as a commodity of value.
·
For state subsidies all food and fuel prices so they can be
afforded. While some regimes (Egypt etc) have introduced subsidies, no nation
state can keep the price affordable to the masses. In NZ the unions should
demand that the Labour Government immediately remove
GST (goods and services tax) from food and fuel.
·
Workers committees to confiscate and distribute food and
fuel supplies. Where food is being hoarded, exported or destroyed, workers must
demand that this food is nationalized under workers control. Small producers
and transport owners who are bankrupted by prices should be compensated.
Supplies of fuel should be nationalized and the distribution of fuel put under
workers control. Oil and gas production in NZ should be nationalized under
workers control with no compensation.
·
Nationalise large capitalist
agricultural businesses under workers control. Large capitalist corporations
that employ managers and wage workers should be nationalized without
compensation and placed under the management of the workers. In NZ, Fonterra and other cooperatively owned
companies would not have their producer shareholdings nationalised,
but they would operate in partnership with a state shareholding that reflects
the real level of state investments in food production.
Statement of Leninist-Trotskyist Fraction
An international campaign
to reinstate a leading member of the UNT (National Workers
Return Chirino to his job!
·
The
quickest way to achieve this is for the the UNT to break all its links with the
bourgeois state and Chavez'es bourgeois
government!
·
For
the UNT to set in motion the Venezuelan working class armed with an independent
class strategy and program!
From
the Leninist Trotskyist Fraction we demand the immediate reinstatement of Orlando Chirino,
a leader of the UNT and memeber of the UIT, who has been sacked under Chavezs
orders, to his job and workplace in the PDVSA.
As a member of a workers organization being
attacked by the bosses' state, we defend Chirino unconditionally, and we fight
for his reinstatement in the same as we do in the case of any worker who has
been sacked and attacked by the bosses. This is for us a fundamental question
of principle.
At
the same time, we cannot let it pass without saying that that unfortunately
this attack on Chirino by Chavez and the "Bolivarian bourgeoisie"
comes as a logical consequence of the policy of the UNT leaders' policy of
Chirino himself. This includes the subordination of the UNT and the whole
Venezuelan proletariat to the bourgeois state and Chavez government.
Chirino Chavez man on PDVSA
As Chirino explains in a letter to the PDVSA chairman,
he (Chirino) was appointed by Chavez as a member of the PDVSA board of
directors, along with other union leaders, after the defeat of the bosses'
lockout in 2002. Chirino says they were appointed
"to constitute a team of
labor and political consultants, in order to advance a plan for getting rid
definitively of the old pro-coup, corrupt, bureaucratic union leadership [that
of the former central union CTV] and from
SINUTRAPETROL [oil workers union] to
build a new leadership committed to the revolutionary process of the workers,
and to continue to advance the battle against the pro-coup partisans, so
providing a guarantee of "gobernabilidad" [that
is, the ability of the government to rule without any threat to its legitimacy] of political and labor stability, and also
providing a defence of the company (PDVSA) against further attempts at sabotage".
So it was Chirino in his capacity of a UNT leader who
headed the Venezuelan delegation to the 91st Conference of the ILO
(International Labor Organization) in 2003. Moreover
he was the chief delegate at the meetings of that gang of bureaucratic labor
traitors chaired by the AFL-CIO in the following years (2004-2006).
Chirino was,
along with Stalin Perez Borges and other leaders of the UNT, one of the main
promoters of the “10 million votes for Chavez” campaign for 2006 presidential
election.
For this reason, while we demand the immediate
reinstatement of Chirino to his job at the PDVSA, we affirm that the only way
to achieve that is through the UNT breaking every link with the Venezuelan
bourgeois state.
It must also break with Chavez bourgeois regime and
call for a Congress of rank and file delegates of the UNT to make the
Venezuelan proletariat take up an independent working class strategy.
This is
the shortest road to win the reinstatement of
Appeal to Workers of the World
Free the Political Prisoners of Las Heras
We reprint here an edited version of an appeal from
Workers Democracy of
A
little over two years ago, in February 2006, the oil workers in the south of
This strike had its
epicenter in the
Equal pay
and conditions for all
The main demand of the strike was for equal wages and
working conditions for all oil workers. That is, equality between the workers
"directly" employed by the big oil companies (Repsol,
Vintage, Panamerican, etc.) who are members of the
Oil Workers Union (benefiting from the relatively better working conditions,
benefits, wages, etc.), and "the rest" of the oil workers, who work
for the subcontractors (but alongside the "direct" workers, doing the
same jobs).
The
Oil Workers Union does not recognise the subcontracted workers as "oil
workers", so does not recruit them or defend them. This plays directly in
the hands of the bosses who say these workers are "construction
workers" who get lower pay and worse conditions in
Moreover,
while the Oil Workers Union members has some job security, the "rest"
of the workers were contracted as temporary or part-time workers, alongside
permanent workers with the same hours, but were not paid extra hours, and are
even "in black" (undocumented). Despite this distinction all the
workers went on strike shouting "We are all oil workers!"
Down with the tax on wages!
The other important demand of the strike was the
rejection of the tax on wages at the same rate as the bosses’ profits. As well
as the devaluation of 70% of the Argentine peso en 2002, and the high real
inflation rate of 20% that year the “better paid” workers were not exempt from
the wage tax. The taxes made their devalued wages worse than ever. This is
particularly unbearable in the Patagonian region, where the cost of living is
much higher than in the rest of
The
struggle around the demands for "equal pay for equal work”, and "down
with wage taxes", united all the oil workers and threatened to spread to
the workers in the rest of the country. The strike posed a threat to the Social
Pact signed by the treacherous union leaders, the bosses and its government, to
keep the workers quiet in spite of the loss of their wages and conditions, and
to legitimate the repression of demonstrations and strikes.
It would challenge the Social Pact precisely
because it is based on the divisions between workers on different wages and
work conditions in the same job, the wage tax imposed on "privileged"
workers, and the demand that workers increase productivity before they got wage
rises. Its was also a rebellion against the against the role of the union
bureaucracy that was preparing to sign a new condition in the Social Pact that
would have capped wages at 16,5% annually, in two or three instalments, well
under the rate of inflation.
Regime
represses strike
The oil workers were striking at a very critical time
for the economy and they had every chance of winning. Their victory would have
opened the door for the rest of the working class. That is why the bosses and
the government stroke back furiously, with the complicity of the union bosses
of the Oil Workers Union.
The
latter announced they did not back the strike and the demands, and left the
Patagonian workers to fight alone without support from the many other oil
workers in
The
government declared the strike was illegal and sent the police to arrest the
delegates and take them to Las Heras (a small town of
about 7.000 people). The workers of the nearby oil fields and plants rallied
together with hundreds of other exploited people at the gates of the police
station, to demand freedom for their representatives. The police responded with
a brutal repression, with tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds fired over
the heads of the people, who defended themselves by any means at their
disposal. But after a long battle they could set their leaders free. But in the
middle of the fight, a policeman was left dead.
The
response of the oil companies and the Kirchner government, with the open and
total support of the oil workers union bosses, was repression, like that of the
state terrorism of the '70s. Workers and their families were attacked by armed
troops and dogs in house by house raids, beaten and abused. Not even children, women or old people were
spared. Arrests were made without warrant and without the right to a lawyer.
Some
people were "disappeared" for a time. Undercover and intelligence
agents were used. In the nights cars without
registration plates filled workers neighbourhoods shooting indiscriminately to
intimidate the people...
Political Prisoners not criminals
...The authorities applied the entire weight of the
state repression on the strikers. On order of the oil companies they arrested
dozens of activists and delegates, including their wives, partners and
children. All of them were beaten and tortured in the police stations.
While
they were charged with “murder" and locked up indefinitely without right
of bail while the state looks for evidence to prove the charge. The oil workers
had some of their demands partially met to defeat the struggle. As a result the
prisoners were then isolated and apparently forgotten in their jails.
Meanwhile
the prisoners were labelled "common criminals" and the union leaders
made a public apology for the death of the "poor boy, that
policeman", as if he had not been engaged in suppressing the strike!
The
six main political prisoners have been jailed far from their homes to
demoralize them and their relatives even more, under subhuman conditions, and
are beaten, abused and harassed by the police daily.
Their
families are also being harassed, and they along with their class brother in
jail are strong because they are principled fighters and have the support and
solidarity of those militant workers that did not abandon them.
Militant solidarity with the Six
The oil workers, despite the threats, the layoffs, the
deployment of more police and gendarmerie to persecute the activists and their
families in their homes, have not abandoned the fight. Yet while their struggle is supported by
sectors of workers all over the country, the leadership of the main unions and
those of the central unions have done nothing but keep silent or pay lukewarm
lip service in their defence.
The
Six comrades of Las Heras are held hostage by the
same oil companies that lock up and torture the workers, exploited and
anti-imperialist fighters, including children and old people, in the jails of
The
Kirchner government also imprisons many other workers for similar causes, for
example, Jose Villalba (head of an organization of
unemployed that were demanding real jobs and not humiliating petty handouts).
It is prosecuting more than 5000 workers under serious criminal charges.
Their
only "crime" is opposing the interests of the bosses and the
transnationals: striking, protesting in rallies and demonstrations against the
governments starvation policies, demanding better conditions of work and
transport, and rejecting the brutal increase in the cost of living while our
rights are violated one by one.
Regime’s ‘double standards’
The Kirchner government boasts that it is a champion
of Human Rights. To prove it they have put some of the killers during the
dictatorship under ‘home detention’ in luxury homes or hotels. They have
everything they want and can be visited freely by their families and
associates, despite the fact that they have already been convicted of murders,
torture, mass disappearances, baby kidnapping, etc.
The regime
has done nothing to find Julio López a key witness to
the trials of those charged with the "disappearances" during the
dictatorship, who was himself taken more than a year ago. It has done nothing
to protect other witnesses who have been attacked or threatened.
On
the contrary, it has ordered the police, the gendarmerie and the coast guard to
attack workers’ strikes with live ammunition, as was in the case with the
teachers, state workers and civil servants, fish canning workers, etc. This
resulted in the death of History teacher Carlos Fuentealba
in 2007, and many other workers were seriously wounded, imprisoned and
persecuted. Again, their only "crime" was to demand a living wage to
allow their families to survive.
And
where they have not send their direct agents to repress the workers struggles,
they have not stopped the criminal activities of the gags of thugs paid by the
treacherous union bosses, who have smashed with clubs, knives and guns the
assemblies of striking workers, terrorizing the workers and their families,
destroying their camps outside the locked out workplaces, such as at the French
Hospital and the Boat Casino in Buenos Aires City, the workers of the fish
packing plants in Mar del Plata, the metal processor and Dana auto parts in
Buenos Aires, and many more.
Held as political ‘hostages’
Meanwhile, the prisoners are kept in the worst
conditions, in bare, tiny and dirty jails in police stations or in local
courts, where they are beaten daily, and their relatives are humiliated and
abused and often denied visiting rights.
The
families of the imprisoned workers live in a dismal poverty, full of suffering,
especially in Patagonia where the temperatures can go as low as minus 22
Fahrenheit with winds up to 180km/hour and sometimes they don’t have money for
fuel. They only survive thanks to the solidarity of their class brothers and
sisters.
The
government keeps them imprisoned in an attempt to terrorize other militant
workers. They are held hostage by the bosses' state, by the transnationals and
the national bosses, in order to prevent the workers from breaking the
notorious Social Pact that was signed with the treacherous misleaders of the
unions.
They
are prisoners of the class war that the bosses have unleashed on us, to keep
wages low, destroy the few social and labor benefits that we still have, and to
increase their
billions in profits, and forcing us onto starvation wages that
cannot even buy the basic food and clothes we need.
They
are held hostage to discipline us to accept job "flexibilization",
work "in black"(undocumented), long working hours, and dangerous
working conditions that every day cause deaths among the workers.
They
want us to accept the 19th century conditions in health, education
and housing conditions, under conditions that can only get worse with the
developing world economic crisis and the skyrocketing of the prices of food and
oil all over the world.
The
social pact between the Cristina Kirchner government and the treacherous union
misleaders, all of them servants of the transnationals and their junior
partners, the local bosses, is so bad that it asks us to put up with an annual
rate of inflation of 40% while our wages are capped and paid in instalments
that are limited to 12% annually. This peg on wages is imposed on top of wages
that have been falling behind inflation for many years.
They will not intimidate us!
Meanwhile the regime, the multinationals and the
national exploiters take away our country's resources to make them huge profits
for their businesses. Do get away with
this they have to keep our best fighters in jail, and held hostage, humiliated,
brutalized and on the verge of suicide. They have to starve their families and
terrorise the working class to divide it and prevent it from acting on the most
basic principles of class solidarity and internationalism. To do this they have to launch on us the
thugs of the union bureaucracy, the police, the gendarmerie and the corrupt
judges that "administrate justice" on the orders of the companies.
Yet
they will not win! We are convinced that our class brothers and sisters all over
the world will come to our aid, and with our united forces we are sure to set
the imprisoned workers free, just as we will then free the imprisoned workers
and freedom fighters all over the world, by means of international solidarity
and struggle!
We
ask that you make solidarity statement s, distribute widely the appeal of the
workers and their families, and make financial contributions and messages of
solidarity (letters, e-mails, fax, telegrams, messages, voice messages, etc.,)
to the campaign, and address your demands for the freedom of the imprisoned
comrades to the addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc., that we have
made available below.
LOI
(CI)-Workers Democracy,
28 May
2008
1) Casa de la Provincia de
25 de Mayo 279 CP (1002ABE) – Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires -
Telfax: 4343-8478 / 4342-7756
2) Gobernación de
Alcorta 231 CP (9400) - Río Gallegos –
Conmutador (02966) 420421-422291-422757
Sitio oficial
Gobernador: Daniel Peralta: Tel.
(02966) 420187 Fax (02966) 420139
e-mail: [email protected]
Vicegobernador: Luis Hernán Martínez Crespo:
Alcorta 431 – Río Gallegos
Tel. (02966)
422922
Secretario Privado: Juan Francisco Lagos
Saavedra: Tel. (02966) 420187
Fax (02966) 420139
Asesoría de Asuntos institucionales (Vacante):
Tel. (02966) 420139
Escribana Relatora (Vacante):
San Martín y Mitre - Río Gallegos
Tel. (02966) 420051
Secretaría Legal y Técnica:
Alcorta 231 CP (4900) Río Gallegos
Conmutador (02966) 420421-422291-422757
Director Provincial de Investigaciones
Administrativas:
Dr. Arturo Pedro Froment:
Comodoro Rivadavia Nº 185 - Río Gallegos
Tel. (02966) 422000-423090
Dirección de Ceremonial y protocolo
RRPP: [email protected]
3) Gobierno Nacional – Ministerio del Interior
25 de Mayo 101/145 (C1002ABC) – Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires -
Tel.: 011- 4339-0800
4) Secretaría de Derechos Humanos – Gobierno Nacional
25 de Mayo 544 – (C 1002ABL) - Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires -
Tel.: 011- 5167-6500
5) Secretaría de Derechos Humanos - Provincia de
Secretario: Alberto Marucco
Edificio Galeria: Av. Roca 952 2º piso, of. Nº 26 – Río Gallegos
Tel-fax (02966) 435517-423578 R.P.V. 1521
6) Juzgado Federal de 1º instancia
de Río Gallegos (
San Martín 709 - Río Gallegos
(9400)
Telefonos: (02966) 420269/420037/420170
Juez Camaño - Tel. : (02966) 420253
Secretaría Penal Hebe Álvarez de Ramírez -
Tel: (02966) 420253
Secretaría Civil Ana Álvarez - Tel.: (02966) 420256
Secretaría Electoral - Sofia Viritilne - Tel: (02966) 421790
7) Ministerio Público ante el Juzgado de Río
Gallegos (
Fiscal Dr. Miguel Segovia
- >Tel.: (02966) 420377
Defensoría Pública Oficial - Dr. Santiago Fassi - Tel.: (02966) 420376
8) Juzgado de Primera Instancia Nº 1 de Instrucción de Pico Truncado (Juzgado de la causa)
Seminario y Urquiza - CP (9015) – Pico
Truncado
T.E.: (0297) 4992193/4992687
e-mail: instruccionpt.com.ar
Secretaría de Instrucciòn
Dra. Griselda Rosana Revai
Secretaríaa de Instrucción Dr. Miguel
D. Hubert
9) Ministerio Publico
Sarmiento y Urquiza – CP (9010) –
Pico Truncado
T.E.: (0297) 4992697
Agente Fiscal: Dr. Sergio Armando Gargaglione
10) Comisaría de Pico Truncado
T.E.: (0297) 4993405
Review
Maurice Brinton on
The Bolsheviks and Worker Control
Red and Green 1975. Reproduced at
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html
The
document has become a standard anarchist text on the subject of workers control
during the early days of the Russian Revolution. It makes all the usual
arguments that the Bolsheviks were always an elitist vanguard expropriating the
democracy of the workers. The long drawn
out ‘crisis of Marxism’ that Trotsky spoke of in 1940 continues. Today its main
result is a debasement of Marxism to an anti-capitalist exchange theory that we
have referred to many times in Class Struggle as the basis of the WSF
theory/program of ‘market socialism’. Another effect of the crisis of Marxism
is to give anarchism a new lease of life among young people who swallow
bourgeois lies about Marxism. Thus the ‘Leninist Party’ is portrayed as a
‘dictatorship’ over the workers. What Brinton’s article reveals is that his
Leninist party ‘conspiracy’ is nothing other than a defense of bourgeois
democracy against workers democracy.
In his Introduction to this document
Brinton states:
"Two possible situations come to mind. In one the
working class (the collective producer) takes all the fundamental decisions. It
does so directly, through organisms of its own choice with which it identifies
itself completely or which it feels it can totally dominate (Factory
Committees, Workers' Councils, etc.). These bodies, composed of elected and
revocable delegates probably federate on a regional and national basis. They
decide (allowing the maximum possible autonomy for local units) what to
produce, how to produce it. at what cost to produce
it, at whose cost to produce it. The other possible situation is one in which
these fundamental decisions are taken 'elsewhere'. 'from
the outside', i.e. by the State, by the Party, or by some other organism
without deep and direct roots in the productive process itself. The 'separation
of the producers from the means of production' (the basis of all class society)
is maintained. The oppressive effects of this type of arrangement soon manifest
themselves. This happens whatever the revolutionary
good intentions of the agency in question, and whatever provisions it may (or
may not) make for policy decisions to be submitted from time to time for
ratification or amendment."
Here Brinton is
setting up an abstract template of the 'good' and the 'bad' of workers control.
'From below’ is good and 'from above’ is bad. Notice how he
builds an anti-party anti-state state ideology into the definition. Party and
the state are 'outside' alien institutions which are separated from the working
class. They do not have "deep and direct roots in the production process
itself", but instead separate the workers from the 'means of production'. Notice too that this separation does not mean
'exploitation' by the party or the state but 'oppression'. I suppose that’s
because the party is not located at the ‘point of production’ so we have to be
thankful for that!
Brinton gives us a
running account of events year by year. In June 1917 at a conference of
"Lenin's address to the Conference contained a hint of
things to come. He explained that workers' control meant "that the
majority of workers should enter all responsible institutions and that the
administration should render an account of its actions to the most
authoritative workers' organizations". (13)Under 'workers' control'
Lenin clearly envisaged an 'administration' other than the workers
themselves."
Brinton seems to
think that 'authority' cannot be delegated by workers if it is in a party or
state. Yet he quotes with approval a resolution passed by the conference that
states in part: "for a proletarian majority in all institutions having
executive power".
He also quotes Lenin producing a draft [!] for a new Party program on
'workers democracy' in the previous month
[May]:
"The Party fights for a more democratic workers' and
peasants' republic, in which the police and standing army will be completely
abolished and replaced by the universally armed people, by a universal militia.
All official persons will not only be elected but also subject to recall at any
time upon the demand of a majority of the electors. All official persons,
without exception, will be paid at a rate not exceeding the average wage of a
competent worker".
Here Brinton
introduces another little preconception and snide remark:
"At the same time Lenin calls for the "unconditional
participation [my emphasis] of the workers in the control of the affairs of the
trusts" - which could be brought about "by a decree requiring
but a single day to draft". (8) The concept that 'workers
participation' should be introduced by legislative means (i.e. from above)
clearly has a illustrious ancestry."
For Brinton, it
seems that workers are too stupid to be able to delegate 'authority' in a party
or a state to 'legislate' (i.e. from above) without losing control of the party
or the state.
Brinton then moves
on to look at the unions and the struggle for control inside them.
“On
the one hand the unions were the auxiliaries of the political parties, which
utilized them for recruiting purposes and as a mass to be maneuvered. On the other hand the union movement, reborn
in a sense after February 1917, was pushed forward by the more educated
workers: the leadership of the various unions reflected the predominance of a
sort of intellectual elite, favorable at first to the Mensheviks and Social
Revolutionaries, but later won over, in varying proportions, to the Bolsheviks.
It is important to realize that from the beginning of the
Revolution the unions were tightly controlled by political organizations, which
used them to solicit support for their various actions. This explains the ease
with which the Party was able - at a later date - to manipulate the unions. It
also helps one understand the fact that the unions (and their problems) were
often to prove the battleground on which political differences between the
Party leaders were again and again to be fought out.
Taken in conjunction with the fact that the Party's whole
previous development (including its tightly centralized structure and
hierarchical organizational conceptions) had tended to separate it from the
working class, one can understand how heavily the cards were stacked against
any autonomous expression or
even voicing of working class aspirations. In a sense these found a freer
expression in the Soviets than in either the Party or the trade unions.”
So unions were
politicized. If the Bolsheviks didn’t fight to win control this would leave the
Mensheviks (reformists) or SRs (petty bourgeois peasantry) in control. What to
do? Fight for ‘autonomy’! But from what? From
class! Why? Because the party is centralized and
hierarchical it cannot represent a class.
But these are scare words that patronize workers as led by
the nose first by reformists and liberals and then by revolutionaries. Too bad
workers are so easily led. Repeat after me, Party bad, Union good. How come
workers don’t get the message? OK let’s see if things go better in the soviets
where the parties are not so firmly established.
Meanwhile before things got out of hand completely the Second Congress of Factory Committees
resolved to pay 0.25% of their wages to support the ‘Central Soviet of Factory
Committees’. Surely this was a mistake, due to the undue influence of that
Bolshevik hierarchical party? What was going on?
“The Conference
resolved that 1/4% of the wages of all workers represented should go to support
a 'Central Soviet of Factory Committees', thus made financially independent of
the unions. (23) Rank and file
supporters of the Factory Committees viewed the setting up of this 'Central
Soviet' with mixed feelings. On the one hand they sensed the need for
co-ordination. On the other hand they wanted this co-ordination to be carried
out from below, by themselves. Many were suspicious of the motives of the
Bolsheviks, on whose initiative the 'Central Soviet' had been bureaucratically
set up. The Bolshevik Skrypnik spoke of the
difficulties of the Central Soviet of Factory Committees, attributing them "in
part to the workers themselves'. Factory Committees had been reluctant to free
their members for work in the Centre". Some of the Committees "refrained
from participation in the Central Soviet because of Bolshevik predominance in
it". (24) V. M. Levin, another
Bolshevik, was to complain that the workers "didn't distinguish between
the conception of control and the conception of taking possession".
In other words the
majority supported funding the Central Soviet, but some (“many”) expressed
doubt about the role of the Bolsheviks who had “bureaucratically” set up the
soviet. Once again, the stupid workers
pay for something that was bureaucratically set up by the Bolsheviks. What were
they thinking?
When the Bolshevik, Levin, ventures to suggest that some
members of factory committees were jealous in guarding their “possession” of
the factories, and that they were uneasy about handing over this new property
right and sending members to help administer this property right at the center!
In other words the center stood for subordinating the factory committees to a
centralizing of all factories, and this ran into the petty bourgeois concept of
the factory committees being all powerful on their own factory floor!
We might call this
conception of factory committees ‘workshop parochialism’, or more generously,
‘socialism in one factory’.
Brinton does not make this connection. When he wrote the
pamphlet in 1975 the question of factory occupations and the question of
coordination between factories, regions and nations (the world!), was barely on
the agenda. Today is certainly is, in
But
back to
“Golos
Truda, in a famous article headed 'Questions of the Hour', wrote: "We
say to the Russian workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionists: above all, continue the revolution. Continue to
organize yourselves solidly and to unite your new organizations: your communes,
your unions, your committees, your soviets. Continue, with firmness and
perseverance, always and everywhere to participate more and more extensively
and more and more effectively in the economic life of the country, continue to
take into your hands, that is into the hands of your organizations, all the raw
materials and all the instruments indispensable to your labor. Continue the
Revolution. Do not hesitate to face the solution of the burning questions of
the present. Create everywhere the necessary organizations to achieve these
solutions. Peasants, take the land and put it at the disposal of your
committees. Workers, proceed to put in the hands of and at the disposal of your
own social organizations - everywhere on the spot - the mines and the subsoil,
the enterprises and the establishments of all sorts, the works and factories,
the workshops and the machines". A little later, issue No. 15 of the
same paper urged its readers to "begin immediately to organize the
social and economic life of the country on new bases. Then a sort of
'dictatorship of labor' will begin to be achieved, easily and in a natural
manner. And the people would learn, little by little, to do it"
Notice that while you are grabbing your factory or farm there is no talk
of coordination, of the central soviet, of any organized workers’ or peasants’
militias or peoples’ army. The “organizations” are all of the same weight. Somehow they are going to
‘self-administrate’. Workers and peasants, but…no soldiers! This is at the same
time that General Kornilov is marching on
Brinton has left out a little
bit of history [quite a large chunk if you read Trotsky’s History of the
Russian Revolution] here, all to do with the centralized, coordinated and
hierarchical ‘top-down’ central soviet of Petrograd making the defeat of the
counter-revolution possible. Each factory and farm that the
anarcho-syndicalists had occupied could now live another day and “the people
would learn, little by little”. Just as
well some other people at the center learned a hell of a lot in one hell of a
hurry!
Part of that rapid
learning curve at the center was the planning of the insurrection by the
Bolsheviks who had won a majority for “all power to the soviets” in the …
soviets. The actual seizure of power was the result of a conspiracy by the
Military Revolutionary Committee led by Trotsky (not as Stalin would have it,
himself). Like all military campaigns, the authority to make the battle plan
was in the hands of a few experts, linked by a chain of command to the most
loyal elements of the armed forces such as the sailors of the Kronstadt fortress. The insurrection was as a result of
this secret, centralized planning and coordination of the revolutionary
workers, peasants and soldiers soviets already
won over to the revolution, victorious and almost bloodless.
Meanwhile Lenin’s mind
is racing ahead. While writing The State
and Revolution which was rudely interrupted by the revolution, Lenin was
also thinking of how the revolution would survive the first rough months and
years. In 'Can the Bolsheviks retain
State power?' published on October 1 just before the insurrection,
Lenin states:"When we say workers' control, always associating that
slogan with the dictatorship of the proletariat, and always putting it after
the latter, we thereby make plain what state we have in mind... If it is a
proletarian state we are referring to (i.e. the dictatorship of the
proletariat) then workers' control can become a national, all-embracing,
omnipresent, extremely precise and extremely scrupulous accounting of the production and
distribution of goods".
Brinton thinks that these passages are very revealing of
the top-down state dictatorship of the party in the making.
“In the same pamphlet
Lenin defines the type of 'socialist apparatus' (or framework) within which the
function of accountancy (workers' control) will be exercised. “Without big banks socialism would be impossible of
realization. The big banks are a 'stable apparatus' we need for
the realization of socialism and which we shall take from capitalism ready made. Our problem here is only
to lop away that which capitalistically
disfigures this otherwise excellent apparatus and to make it still bigger, still more democratic, still
more comprehensive..." "A single huge state bank, with
branches in every rural district and in every factory - that will already be nine-tenths of a socialist apparatus".
According to Lenin this type of apparatus would allow "general state book-keeping, general state accounting
of the production and distribution of goods", and would be "something
in the nature, so to speak, of the skeleton
of a socialist society".
Brinton comments; “No one disputes the importance
of keeping reliable records but Lenin's identification of workers' control in a
'workers' state', with the function of accountancy (i.e. checking the
implementation of decisions taken by others) is extremely revealing. Nowhere in Lenin's writings is workers'
control ever equated with fundamental decision-taking (i.e. with the initiation of decisions) relating to
production (how much to produce, how to produce it, at what cost, at whose
cost, etc.).”[CS emphasis]
Well of course not. The
soviets have taken over as the representative organizations of the workers. The
soviets have taken power and now are the basis of the state. The dictatorship
of the proletariat is exercised through the soviets. Here the planned socialist
economy will take shape. The factory committees never coordinated anything
before, during or after the revolution, and preferred their autonomous
‘socialism-in-one-factory-or-farm’ everywhere. They were admirably suited to
their basic duty– to administer and control their factory or farm production
according to the overall plan. Why, once a plan is underway should factory
committees have any say in whether they fulfill it or not – especially since
the economy is almost wrecked by war and headed for a civil war?*
Brinton semi-recognizes these problems in a back handed
way.
“Other writings by
Lenin in this period reiterate that one of the functions of workers' control is
to prevent sabotage by the higher bureaucrats and functionaries."As for
the higher employees... we shall have to treat them as we treat the capitalists
- roughly. They, like the capitalists, wiill offer resistance... we may succeed
with the help of workers' control in rendering such resistance impossible".
(36)
He goes on: “Lenin's notions of workers' control (as a means
of preventing lock-outs) and his repeated demands for the 'opening of the
books' (as a means of preventing economic sabotage) referred both to the
immediate situation, and to the months
which were to follow the revolution. He envisaged a period during
which, in a workers' state, the bourgeoisie would still retain the formal
ownership and effective management of most of the productive apparatus. The new
state, in Lenin's estimation, would not be able immediately to take over the
running of industry. There would be a transitional period during which the
capitalists would be coerced into co-operation. 'Workers' control' was seen as
the instrument of this coercion.”
Brinton still can’t see it. He is so enraged by the party
conspiracy of the Bolsheviks to impose a party dictatorship on the workers, he
overlooks that what is going on is a class war in which the vast majority of
workers are fulfilling their various tasks, authorized by the soviets. The factory committees
are not rendered powerless by this, but able to exercise their power at the
point of production in fulfilling their assigned tasks. In other words we have
a semi-militarization of industry in which the factory committees are the
workers brigades on the front line of production in the overall battle plan of
the transition to a socialist economy. And Brinton is still moaning about
book-keeping!
To prove the Bolshevik conspiracy that he his hunting out,
Brinton writes:
“As
already pointed out, the Bolsheviks at
this stage still supported the Factory Committees. They saw them as
"the battering ram that would deal blows to capitalism, organs of class
struggle created by the working class on its own ground". (38) They also saw in the slogan
of 'workers control' a means of undermining Menshevik influence in the unions.
But the Bolsheviks were being "carried along by a movement which was in
many respects embarrassing to them but which, as a main driving force of the
revolution, they could not fail to endorse". (39) During the middle of
1917 Bolshevik support for the Factory Committees was such that the Mensheviks
were to accuse them of 'abandoning' Marxism in favor of anarchism. "Actually
Lenin and his followers remained firm upholders of the Marxist conception of
the centralised state. Their immediate objective,
however, was not yet to set up the centralised
proletarian dictatorship, but to decentralise as much
as possible the bourgeois state and the bourgeois economy. This was a necessary
condition for the success of the revolution. In the economic field therefore,
the Factory Committee, the organ on the spot, rather than the trade union was
the most potent and deadly instrument of upheaval. Thus the trade unions were
relegated to the background..." (4) [Pankratova]
Did Brinton want
the revolution to fail? Note 39 is a quote from EH Carr, a bourgeois professor of
history and an acknowledged authority on…what? That the Bolsheviks had planned
a top down revolution and were ‘embarrassed’ by the bottom up groundswell? The
only embarrassment here surely, is that Carr can be taken at his word by a
libertarian socialist. The reason is that they share the same anti-Bolshevik
prejudice. The only time the Bolsheviks were embarrassed was when they were
lagging behind the workers, something Lenin commented on frequently.
The quote from Pankratova states the obvious. How could the Bolsheviks
take power and form a dictatorship of the proletariat without the proletariat?
You can only think it strange that the Bolsheviks first
tried to promote the Factory Committees, and then seize power, if you think
that they were planning to manipulate not only the Factory Committees but the
Soviet majorities in a cynical exercise of substituting of party for class.
Where were the workers while this maneuver was going on? These same workers,
who ran rings around Kornilov and were voting for the
seizure of power in the soviets, were simultaneously blind to their status as
the puppets of Lenin and Trotsky etc. Who has an interest in promoting the
ridiculous view that Lenin and the party necessarily rode roughshod over
workers democracy? Only the bourgeoisie who promote their brand of democracy, one man-one vote! No wonder the
organizers of the Kronstadt rebellion wanted to
return to the ‘constituent assembly’.
Brinton concludes with a flourish
“This
is perhaps the most explicit statement of why the Bolsheviks at this stage
supported workers' control and its organizational vehicle, the Factory
Committees. Today only the ignorant or those willing to be deceived can still
kid themselves into believing that proletarian power, at the point of production was ever a
fundamental tenet or objective of Bolshevism.” Yeah right.
The ‘point of production’ is a romantic conception of the
shop floor, abstracted from ‘production, distribution and exchange’ which has to
be taken as a whole, not only in Russia and the other socialist republics that
made up the USSR, but most immediately in Europe, where socialist revolution
would have created a continental division of labor capable of meeting the needs
of all European and Asian workers and thus overcoming the ‘scarcity’ which was
the root cause of the degeneration of the revolution in Russia.
This brings us to the seizure of power
– another supposed top-down stunt behind the backs of the masses.
Watch out for Part 2 coming to a
computer near you.
Part 2: October 1917 next Issue
What we Fight For
Overthrow Capitalism
Historically, capitalism expanded world-wide to
free much of humanity from the bonds of feudal or tribal society, and developed
the economy, society and culture to a new higher level. But it could only do
this by exploiting the labour of the productive
classes to make its profits. To survive, capitalism became increasingly
destructive of "nature" and humanity. In the early 20th century
it entered the epoch of imperialism in which successive crises unleashed wars,
revolutions and counter-revolutions. Today we fight to end capitalism’s wars,
famine, oppression and injustice, by mobilising
workers to overthrow their own ruling classes and bring to an end the rotten,
exploitative and oppressive society that has exceeded its use-by date.
Fight for Socialism
By the 20th century, capitalism had created the
pre-conditions for socialism –a world-wide working class and modern industry
capable of meeting all our basic needs. The potential to eliminate poverty,
starvation, disease and war has long existed. The October Revolution proved
this to be true, bringing peace, bread and land to millions. But it became the
victim of the combined assault of imperialism and Stalinism. After 1924 the
Defend Marxism
While the economic conditions for socialism
exist today, standing between the working class and socialism are political,
social and cultural barriers. They are the capitalist state and bourgeois
ideology and its agents. These agents claim that Marxism is dead and capitalism
need not be exploitative. We say that Marxism is a living science that explains
both capitalism’s continued exploitation and its attempts to hide class
exploitation behind the appearance of individual "freedom" and
"equality". It reveals how and why the reformist, Stalinist and
centrist misleaders of the working class tie workers to bourgeois ideas of
nationalism, racism, sexism and equality. Such false beliefs will be exploded
when the struggle against the inequality, injustice, anarchy and barbarism of capitalism
in crisis, led by a revolutionary Marxist party, produces a revolutionary
class-consciousness.
For a Revolutionary Party
The bourgeois and its agents condemn the Marxist
party as totalitarian. We say that without a democratic and a centrally organised party there can be no revolution. We base our
beliefs on the revolutionary tradition of Bolshevism and Trotskyism. Such a
party, armed with a transitional program, forms a bridge that joins the
daily fight to defend all the past and present gains won from capitalism, to
the victorious socialist revolution. Defensive struggles for bourgeois rights
and freedoms, for decent wages and conditions, will link up the struggles of
workers of all nationalities, genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations, bringing
about movements for workers control, political strikes and the arming of the
working class, as necessary steps to workers' power and the smashing of the
bourgeois state. Along the way, workers will learn that each new step is one of
many in a long march to revolutionise every barrier
put in the path to the victorious revolution.
Fight
for Communism.
Communism stands for the creation of a
classless, stateless society beyond socialism that is capable of meeting all
human needs. Against the ruling class lies that capitalism can be made
"fair" for all; that nature can be "conserved"; that
socialism and communism are "dead"; we raise the red flag of
communism to keep alive the revolutionary tradition of the' Communist
Manifesto of 1848, the Bolshevik-led October Revolution; the Third
Communist International until 1924, the revolutionary Fourth International up
to 1940 before its collapse into centrism. We fight to build a new, Fifth,
Communist International, as a world party of socialism capable of leading workers
to a victorious struggle for socialism.
Class Struggle is
the Bi-Monthly paper of the Communist Workers’ Group of New Zealand/Aotearoa, a
member of the Leninist Trotskyist Fraction [LTF]
The other LTF
members are the International Workers League (LOI-CI)
and the
Trotskyist Fraction (FT)
Email
[email protected]
Class
Struggle is also on our
website http://www.geocities.com/communistworker/
Red
rave blogspot http://redrave.blogspot.com