So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 222 26 October 2011 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

Elections in Greek workers AWL conference Tunisia page 3 fight back page 10 pages 6-7 Bosses’ Europe in chaos

See page 5

WORKERS MUST REMAKE EUROPE Strike on 30 November! Fight the cuts! INTERNATIONAL

What is the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty? Friends in high places By Tom Unterrainer He put himself on the regime. Today one class, the working class, lives by selling “lecture circuit” where he Exactly how is Blair to its labour power to another, the capitalist class, Since leaving office in imparts his wisdom at the “finesse” these realities? which owns the means of production. Society 2007, former prime min - cost of $250,000 per ninety He could simply lie or ex - is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to ister Tony Blair has, ac - minutes. plain such state driven increase their wealth. Capitalism causes cording to the Daily Now he has set himself measures as people traf - poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by Telegraph , amassed a up as a “friend for hire”. ficking as geographical overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the £20 million fortune (esti - According to the Telegraph and cultural quirks. But a environment and much else. mates vary). How’s he Dale he “developed a relation - simply internet search Against the accumulated wealth and power of the done it? Selling himself ship” with Kazakh presi - would reveal these facts capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. to the highest bidder. dent Nursultan very quickly. The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity Nazarbayev when he was Farm On the very same day he But Blair will not have to through struggle so that the working class can overthrow prime minister. Now handed over to Gordon “explain away” the reali - capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership Nazarbayev is paying Blair Brown, Blair stepped into ties of Nazarbayev's des - of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy the job of official represen - to “improve [Kaza - eviction much fuller than the present system, with elected khstan's] standing in the potism. The people tative to the Middle East Nazarbayev wants to do representatives recallable at any time and an end to for the UN, EU, USA and West.” By Gerry Bates business with are not trou - bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. Russia. Nazarbayev runs one of bled by such things. We fight for the labour movement to break with “social He then set about col - the world’s most oppres - Police and bailiffs finally partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly lecting a series of consul - sive governments. Accord - Nazarbayev needs Blair to succeeded in breaking against the bosses. tancies, advisory positions ing to diplomatic cables open doors to the JP Mor - the resistance of traveller families and their sup - Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, and board memberships released through Wiki gaWn’isthoffrthieisndwsolrilkde. Tony porters and, on Wednes - supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, for institutions like JP Mor - Leaks, torture, abuse, sup - Blair, Nazarbayev will be day 19 October, began helping organise rank-and-file groups. gan Chase, Zurich Finan - pression of democracy, the going places. With cial Services and the UI death penalty, political op - clearing plots at the Dale We are also active among students and in many campaigns friends like Nazarbayev, Farm campsite. and alliances. Energy Corporation — a pression, arbitrary arrest, Blair will continue to line South Korean oil firm that corruption and discrimina - his pockets. Over 100 riot police were We stand for: operates in Northern Iraq. tion are hallmarks of his mobilised to aid with the G Independent working-class representation in politics. eviction and tasers were G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the used on travellers and ac - labour movement. Wage cuts tivists defending the site. G A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to Electricity to the cara - strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. vans was disconnected, en - G Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, for 90% dangering the life of a man education and jobs for all. whose defibrillator stopped working. He was later G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. rushed to hospital. Full equality for women and social provision to free women of us 34 people were arrested. from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full Bailiffs also breached a equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Black and white A study conducted by High Court order stipulat - workers’ unity against racism. the GMB union has re - ing that they must give 48 G Open borders. vealed that real wages hours’ notice before com - G Global solidarity against global capital — workers No to “work for your dole” have fallen for 90% of mencing any demolition of everywhere have more in common with each other than with the UK workforce since carAacvtaivnis tosr wchilallmetse. et on their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. 2007. On 19 October the Boy - Saturday 5 November in G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest Seekers Allowance could cott Workfare coalition The study provides a Whitechapel to discuss workplace or community to global social organisation. now be mandated to un - protested outside a con - breakdown of by occupa - building ongoing solidar - G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal dertake up to 30 hours un - ference for businesses tion, and reveals that ity with traveller commu - rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big paid work per week for up involved in implementing workers in energy and nities. That task now and small. to four weeks. the government’s Work skilled manufacturing looks ever more impor - An artist also invited G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. Programme and other workers such as moul - tant. passers by to take part in G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity welfare reforms. ders, core makers and die to sell — and join us! her installation about casters have suffered • For more information, Dressed as prisoners in a mandatory work activity, losses of more than 20%. see bit.ly/rQIz9H 020 7394 8923 [email protected] chain gang, adorned with paying them 3p a minute to Company secretaries 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, corporate logos, the protest undertake repetitive tasks and printing workers Lambeth: save was to to highlight how big suTchiassilsittthere-psiacmkinegr.ate as have also seen their London, SE1 3DG. business “gets something people forced to do wages fall by between 15- children’s for nothing” under the new workfare in the UK cur - 20%. measures rently receive in benefits. • More information: see services! People claiming Job tinyurl.com/gmbstudy The London borough of GET SOLIDARITY • www.boycottworkfare.org Lambeth has some of the worst levels of child Post-riots clampdown is class-hate orgy poverty and youth unem - EVERY WEEK! ployment in the UK.

Special offers By Colin Foster access to a decent life even Yet the local Labour Council are slashing serv - G Trial sub, 6 issues £5 more solidly, by extra-long  New government figures jail sentences. ices for children and young show that the clamp - people. G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  Last month the Guardian down by police and reported that 315 of 1,715 Those services have al - G 44 issues (year). £35 waged  £17 unwaged  courts after the August defendants from the riots ready been cut by over £12 riots has been a class- had so far been sentenced. million worth of cuts in G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues)  or 50 euros (44 issues)  hate orgy. Other cases are going to 2010-11. They have almost the crown courts, with destroyed the Adventure The riots didn’t help the longer delays and longer Playground Service, re - Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: working-class areas in jailed terms to come. stricted opening hours in 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG which they took place. The Even so far, the average One O’clock Clubs and car - clampdown is doing Cheques (£) to “AWL”. sentence for violent disor - ried out mass sackings. We worse. der has been 10.4 months are now facing a further Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. 66% of the school-age Rioters were people who are compared with 5.3 last £1J3ominilltihoendinemcuotsn. stration, people arrested in the riots getting the roughest deal year. The average for theft to demand Lambeth stop were officially classified as from the system has been almost three making cuts! Name ...... having special educational times longer than last year. needs. 33% of those aged system — young people During 2010, just under Address ...... between 10 and 17 had Save Youth Services, whose families are losing a quarter of all burglaries been excluded from school jobs, living standards, de - dealt with at magistrates' Save Children’s Services, during the previous year...... cent housing, benefits, and courts in England and Save Free Education. Only 13% have been offi - access to education Wales led to an immediate cially tagged as “gang Saturday 19 November ...... through the Government's jail sentence. members”. These are not cuts. For those arrested in 1.30pm, Windrush the riots, the percentage I enclose £ ...... hardened anti-social thugs: The response of the cops Square, Brixton. March just young people getting jailed has been double and the courts has been to to Max Roach Park the roughest deal from the block these young people's that.

2 SOLIDARITY NEWS Islamists gain in Tunisian elections

which persist despite the After elections in Tunisia Tunisian society contained groaning under the odious the mobilisations are con - fall of Ben Ali. the neo-liberal, Islamist a level of obscurantism that debt acquired by Ben Ali. tinuing, even if they are party Nahda will probably Press reports about the dictatorship covered up Ben Ali and Co’s ill-gotten still dispersed. be the biggest party in the Tunisia only concern the by force and repression. wealth has still not been Strikes in the banking new Constituent Assem - Salafist demonstrations. This episode worked to handed over to the popula - sector, among artisans in bly. As of 25 October the The broadcasting on a pri - the advantage of Nahda tion. the Medina of Tunis, in tex - votes are still being vate TV channel of the (close to the Muslim Broth - In this context, the provi - tile factories, in the post counted, but Nahda is esti - erhood), which appears — sional government is com - movie Persepolis by and the rails are still de - mated to have won around by comparison [to the mitting the country to the French-Iranian Marjane manding an improvement a third of the vote. Salafists] — to be moderate “Jasmine Plan”, a five-year Satrapi was the pretext for in working conditions and The following article and non-violent! “relaunch” plan, of €60bil - an increase in salaries. was written by Wafa violent demonstrations at The struggle against ob - lion, with a top-to-bottom The return of students to Guiga, a Tunisian activist first by dozens and then by scurantist ideas is urgent restructuring of work. A university in October saw and member of the Nou - hundreds of Salafists, who today, in a country where plan which will force the veau Parti Anticapitaliste went so far as to threaten the Islamists are trying to country further into debt… students fighting in several (NPA) living in France. the Chief Executive of the take over the revolutionary the example of Greece campuses to get rid of old RCDist university man - TV channel with death. process. Meanwhile, the Unemployment is as shows us what the conse - Some days away from One week before the agers. manipulation of the iden - grave as ever in Tunisia. quences could be! The leadership of the the election of the Con - election, the public debate stituent Assembly, the tity issue, using the far Record inflation is affecting Police repression is [also] [trade union federation] was reduced to the ques - right, is a well-known going on, with arrests and political debate is fo - staple food prices. All sorts UGTT is calling for the tion of religious identity. method! We know how attacks on political ac - cused on the question of of speculation has created a strikes to stop until 23 That the representation useful it is for maintaining tivists. The media is still October, entertaining religious identity, in order milk shortage in a country to hide the social and of God as an old bearded the established order and running official propa - some illusions in the re - which has exported it for democratic problems man should provoke such for making people forget ganda. sults of the elections. violence shows that economic and social issues. 20 years. The country is Faced with this situation, Qaddafi, looter and US troops to quit Iraq despot, dies By Colin Foster By Martin Thomas tricity was available 19.5 Lindsey German of the hours a day in Baghdad, Stop The War Coalition, On Friday 21 October US up from a low of 4.4 hours Muammar Qaddafi, who quoted approvingly by the Morning Star , saw “little president Barack Obama in January 2007, and out - was killed by Libyan reason for triumphalism” announced that the put has continued to in - rebels on Thursday 20 about the death of the des - 46,000 US troops still in crease. As of early 2011, October after 42 years pot. Like many on the left, Iraq (down from a peak about 70% of the popula - ruling the country as a STW and the Morning Star of 170,000) will all leave tion had access to drink - despot, had more than $200 billion stashed in allowed their concern to the country by 31 De - able water, up from 22% in bank accounts, invest - strike a pose against NATO cember 2011. early 2008. ments, and property to drown any sympathy A new Iraqi state has The US had been negoti - around the world, or they had for the Libyan begun to consolidate. But: ating to keep 30,000 troops about $30,000 for every people. • it is dominated by a and some bases in the child, woman, and man Socialist Worker was a bit country, and then at least patchwork coalition of sec - in Libya. better, noting that “the fall to keep 3,000 trainers. In tarian-based Islamist par - of Qaddafi was welcomed the end it has had to com - ties, which draw their That is the latest esti - across the Arab revolu - Obama’s withdrawal of troops coincides with the relative votes heavily (though not mate, from the Los Angeles ply with the letter of the decline of the US economy tions, with celebrations in deal which George W Bush entirely) through sectarian Times (21 October). Yemen, Egypt and Syria”. signed with the Iraqi gov - quagmire, to reduce the able to govern Iraq. headcounts; The death of Qaddafi, in Rightly so. Qaddafi’s ernment in late 2008 after USA’s clout in the world. Iraq fell into sectarian • many unresolved Sirte, led the National dictatorship crushed all first and unsuccessfully (in Writers have been pro - civil war in 2006. The US flashpoints remain, partic - Transitional Council to de - political organisation in summer 2008) trying for a claiming the relative de - troop “surge”, in 2007, and ularly in disputes about clare final victory in the Libya, and that makes the deal which would license cline of the USA since the deals made by the US with demarcation between the war which has raged in Libyan revolution vulnera - US troops to remain in Iraq early 1970s. Despite a rela - Sunni Arab forces anxious autonomous Kurdish area Libya since protests began ble to confiscation by con - for many years, in large tive decline on many eco - about Shia domination in of northern Iraq and the there on 15 February, in - servative forces such as numbers and with large nomic measures, in fact the Iraq, helped calm that. mainly-Arab south; spired by the upheavals in Islamists. The fall of powers. USA retained or even in - The result was to deliver • social conditions, Tunisia and Egypt. Qaddafi is only the start of The aim of the arrogant creased its global strategic, an at least semi-governable though less hellish than in On 22 October, the gen - a fight for democracy and and over-confident US political, financial, and Iraq to a coalition of Shia 2006, are poor; many peo - eral secretary of NATO an - workers’ rights in the nounced that its air government which in - technological clout into the Islamist parties and Kur - ple who fled their homes coBunutriyt. is also a boost to campaign in support of the vaded Iraq in March 2003, first years of the 21st cen - dish nationalists. in the worst times remain people fighting dictator - rebels will wind down and and then held it under US tury. Iraqi oil revenues have displaced; ship in Syria and Yemen. military occupation for The USA is still the been running at an aver - • the new trade unions close completely on 31 Oc - several years, was to estab - world’s biggest economy, age of about $33 billion a developed since 2003 still tober. lish a regime there which and by far its biggest mili - year since mid-2007, com - rely only on de facto toler - would be a stable US ally tary power. But relative pared to about $12 billion ance, since the anti-union Libyan women oppose Sharia in the Middle East and a decline now seems estab - in 2003-7. laws of the old Saddam Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, bridgehead for US efforts Azza Magrur, a Libyan lished. Civilian deaths from Hussein dictatorship have chair of Libya’s National in the region. woman lawyer, riposted: US influence in Iraq will militia violence total 1,105 still not been repealed and Transitional Council, has It failed. Iran has more “Whatever we gained in not vanish. The US em - so far in 2011, as against replaced by a democratic declared that after the influence in today’s Iraq the past era we should not bassy in Baghdad is gigan - 2,500 in 2010 and 34,500 in labTohuerulanwio. ns are heavily fall of the Qaddafi dicta - give it up. We don’t want than the USA has. tic, covering an area 2006. torship the country will harassed, and need our what happened in Iraq... That spectacular failure roughly equivalent to the As of March 2010, elec - now be governed by Is - solidarity. There, women lost a lot. has broken a cycle of US whole space between Par - lamic Sharia law. policy which started, as liament Square, Charing We should try for more". Stalinism in Europe col - Cross, and Buckingham Without any consulta - Alaa Murabit of the lapsed, with the USA’s Palace, and surrounded by Demonstration in solidarity tion or democratic deci - Voice of Libyan Women easy victory in the Kuwait high walls five metres sion, he announced on 23 said: “Women started this war in 1991. The cycle pro - thick. Thousands of pri - with the Syrian uprising October that current laws revolution. And suddenly ceeded through its fairly vate US security guards restricting (though not they were now limited to easy victory over Kosova will continue to operate in Saturday 29 October banning) polygamy will be wives, mothers, and sis - in 1999 and what seemed, Iraq. scrapped, and that banks ters... I was extremely at first sight, to be another But the USA could not Assemble 12 noon, Paddington Green, will be banned from charg - upset by this”. easy victory in govern a large urbanised ing interest. The overthrow of Afghanistan in 2001. country by direct military London W2 According to Associated Qaddafi means that The impact of the eco - rule, in the manner that Press, “already several at - Libya’s women, workers, nomic crisis since 2008, the old British Empire ran Arrive at Syrian Embassy in Belgrave tacks have occurred on and democrats have space heavier in the USA than in many countries. It never shrines in and around toAfibgdhut lf-oJrarliigl'hsts.tatement other countries, has com - even tried to do that. And Square 2.30pm Tripoli belonging to Mus - indicates that they have bined with the USA’s fail - it did not have enough lim sects [presumably Sufi] a formidable fight on ure in Iraq, and the clout and influence to de - Called by Solidarity for Syria whose practices are seen as their hands, and need collapse of its intervention velop a reliable and solid sacrilegious”. our solidarity. in Afghanistan into a pro-US Iraqi political force SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS As Greece’s rich flee, will the workers rush in?

ever that means. An amendment urging everybody to be nice to their mum didn’t make it into the final draft, appar - ently. The Synaspismos leadership is heavy on rhetorical attacks on neoliberalism, but in practical terms, seems to see the Dave Osler issue of eurobonds as a workable solution. Even the internal opposition tendency around Panagiotis Lafazanis restricts It’s not often that data from upmarket estate agents itself to demanding an exit from the euro. Given the profun - features prominently in Trotskyist newspapers. But dity of the debt crisis, that seems astoundingly moderate. comrades will thank luxury residential property special - Beyond Synaspismos? From what I can make out, the far ist Knight Frank for the news that wealthy Greeks have left is a splintered as it is throughout the rest of the conti - spent £250 million on homes in London over the last Greek youth in action. But what happens next? nent. There is a section of the Fourth International, groups year. aligned with the SWP and SP in Britain, some sort of Healyite outfit, and no doubt other Trot organisations. That’s just for houses and flats worth £2 million and Greek riot cops. And as we know from this country, even There are also some Maoist currents; apparently it is an above, mind you. No doubt others will be slumming it in mass demonstrations and one-day stoppages organised unforgiveable faux pas to confuse the Communist Party of the kind of hovels that a measly £1 million buys you in the through official trade union channels often function as Greece (Marxist-Leninist) with the entirely distinct Marxist- capital these days, but you get the general picture. safety valves as much as protests. Leninist Party of Greece. It’s a safe bet that the story is the same in Paris and New It is also a necessary corrective to point out that opinion Are any of them serious political projects, or at least capa - York and other cities favoured by the world’s super-rich, polls demonstrate majority support for the pro-austerity ble of becoming serious political projects? Are they simply too. Anyone would think these guys are running away from parties. No doubt many of those directly suffering from “talk a good game” sectarians, or can they articulate social - something. mass job losses in the public sector, 42% youth unemploy - ist politics in even an approximately adequate fashion? Few So why is a substantial proportion of the Greek bour - ment, pension cuts and tax rises and three successive an - of us in this country will have even the foggiest idea. But in geoisie so obviously preparing to decamp? My guess would nual declines in GDP still buy into the line that this kind of the struggles ahead, we will no doubt find out. be that they have looked at the range of possibilities for their economic medicine is unavoidable. While a re-run of 1917 is not inevitable, a number of main - home country over the coming period, and decided that By contrast, the scores for the communist KKE and the stream Greek politicians privately view revolution as a dis - from their point of view, none of them are good. more radical Syriza/Synaspismos coalition add up to tinct possibility, and some figures in both governing Like many socialists, I have been transfixed by the media around 20%. Seen from Britain, that might look substantial, centre-left Pasok and centre-right opposition New Democ - reports coming out of Athens in recent weeks. For the first but in the context, it is still limited. racy have even said so in public. Even if things don’t go the time since Portugal in 1974, an advanced European capital - So attempts to paint Greek society as one seething mass of whole nine yards, revolutionaries could hardly ask for cir - ist country is gripped by a textbook prerevolutionary situ - unfocused discontent, just awaiting the intervention of a cuMmestaannwcehsilme,otrheecvoenrdyurciicvheatoregvrowtinthg. with their feet and ation, of the kind debated at length in Comintern Trot sect lucking out by tabling the right transitional de - setting up bolt holes should their worst fears be con - documents in 1920s. This sort of stuff isn’t supposed to hap - mand at the right time, are probably wide of the mark. firmed by events. If you have ever considered opening pen nowadays. Nor will the policies advanced by the traditional left bring a Greek delicatessen in Mayfair, Knightsbridge or St It would be wrong to read too much into footage of a few revolution any closer. The Stalinists endlessly reiterate the John’s Wood, now could be the time to act. hundred youth in black balaclavas lobbing firebombs at slogan of “popular power and a popular economy”, what -

back-up staff.) In Queensland, state high schools take only ist” policies adopted by Stalin as he swung away from the about 60% of students, the better-off 40% going to private influence of Bukharin, Rykov and the pro-peasant wing of schools (which get partial government funding). the party. State schools with fewer classroom management prob - Neither the capitulators nor Trotsky saw what was really lems save money by not adopting the scheme; some with happening — the revolution had been betrayed (but from Letters problems use cut-down versions of the scheme to reduce within, not without) and it had no specific ideology except costs. The cut-down versions work much less well. that of a peculiar, monstrous, bureaucratic “socialism”. Even there, though, the approach is much less punitive Thirdly, the key point, Stalinism was an extension of Oc - than what I’ve seen in British state schools. Sending “misbe - tober in new directions and not a counter-revolution. Octo - Schools without having” students to stand in the corridor, for example, ber was an adventure and a gamble. It failed and the tiny seems to be routine in London schools. Teachers in Queens - working class which had forged that revolution was de - land are not allowed to use humiliating punishments of that stroyed creating a monstrous, hybrid social formation that punishment sort. could not move forward to socialism. Others, like Luxem - Martin Thomas, Islington burg, warned of imminent despotism. As the revolution Some readers have found Jayne Edwards’ opposition fought for its life it committed crimes and a nascent totali - to punishment in schools ( Solidarity 220) naive and un - • The scheme was described in articles in the TES in 2005: tarianism was born in the cellars of the Cheka. realistic. bit.ly/nopunish1, bit.ly/nopunish2, bit.ly/nopunish3 Perhaps the only hope for this revolution in 1921 was to combat these tendencies within the party as the party began Yet, in Queensland, Australia, many of the most stressed to be taken cell by cell by the Stalinist bureaucracy: with po - schools use a student discipline scheme which explicitly re - litical liberties, trade union organisation, the reform of the jects all punishment. party apparatus, and so on. The forms and trappings of rev - It does not abolish the dolours of capitalism and poverty, October and olutionary Marxism shrouded the deeper nature of the and it is far from perfect, but in my experience (across emergent class dictatorship of the bureaucracy; it was a dozens of state high schools in and around Brisbane) it its discontents summation and extension of all that had gone before, not works better than punishment-based systems. some kind of decisive break with the Bolshevik tradition. It If students disrupt classes, the teacher (using a prescribed Paul Hampton ( Solidarity 221) takes issue with my was a scene of almost tragic grandeur. The first workers’ script) asks them what they are doing, what the rule is about statement that Stalinism was born of the workers state destroying itself; a left opposition exemplifying the that, and what they will be choosing to do if they disrupt ‘movement. highest form of humanity dying in the prison camps of again. Generally, schools using the system have an ex - I’ll reply to the accusation that I am misrepresenting Serge Stalin; a revolution made by them and destroying them. tremely short list of school rules, rather than the longer in a forthcoming article on Serge, Trotsky and Kronstadt but The consequence was a century of almost complete de - codes which seem common in Britain. for now I would like to correct one misapprehension. Al - feat for the working class. In retrospect the filth that accrued If they disrupt again, the teacher (again using a prescribed though I think that Serge’s theoretical work on the USSR is to the Marxist tradition because of Stalinism was not the script) asks them what they are doing, what the rule is, and important, I think his critical analysis of Stalinism actually least important aspect of that defeat. Better that October had what they have now chosen to do. lies in his fiction — specifically The Case of Comrade Tulayev done without the Cheka and gone the way of the Paris Com - By disrupting they will have chosen to go to a special and Midnight In The Century ; the analysis of the rise of the mune — to a different defeat but one which inspires — classroom (usually called RTC) for the rest of that lesson. bureaucracy was in earlier novels such as Conquered City . As rather than paving the way for totalitarian darkness and (Next lesson is a clean slate: they go to class as normal). In Paul explicitly states I shouldn’t be using Serge as some genocide. Who knows? Much like Spain in 1936 an exten - the RTC the students work on plans to return to the class kind of mask for my own views. So here we go. sion of the libertarian and revolutionary gains may have they chose to quit. Firstly, I think that Trotsky never understood the nature of also led to a different kind of victory. After discussing their plans with the teacher, they return Stalinism. He simply couldn’t understand why the “high - I think one can be pro-October and still not believe that to class. est mediocrity” of the party [Stalin] and his acolytes could “rivers of blood” separate Bolshevism from Stalinism. But There are drawbacks. At the edges, students and teachers destroy a revolution from within. This is because he was there could have been so many different routes from that can slip into seeing the RTC as punishment. Sometimes (not viewing October through the lens of previous bourgeois moment in April 1917 when Lenin came to the Finland Sta - often, even in very difficult cases), students refuse to go to revolutions and of course how could he not? He was trying tion. Our tradition should know better than simply defend - the RTC, and then they will face consequences (in practice, to make a diagnosis and a prognosis with a model that his - ing the assaults on liberty that led to the final victory of the a discussion with a deputy principal) which they find hard tory had given him. This also led him to abdicate arrogantly bureaucracy. to tell apart from punishment. I often think that if you had a time machine and you from the struggle at decisive moments. The scheme, devised by an American psychologist, is ex - wanted to destroy a revolutionary, liberatory future or Secondly, the development of new class forces as Paul pensive to run (training for the teachers; a teacher to run the you wanted to destroy an imminent future totalitarian - rightly points out is critical. Classes are made and self-made RTC; back-up from school admin with the few students who ism you would choose the same people to go back and and constantly in a process of recomposition. However end up spending a lot of time in the RTC). eliminate — all of us in that tradition of Bolshevism. The what Paul conveniently tries to forget is that most of the Left Nevertheless, most harder-pressed state high schools use germs of both are embryonic in us today. Opposition came to see Stalinism as a bureaucracy which it, although they run on smaller budgets than British state had swung to the pole of the workers and the peasants by schools (fewer new buildings, no interactive whiteboards, the late twenties and that “primitive socialist accumulation” Martyn Hudson, Teesside fewer computers, many fewer teaching assistants and other and the dispossession of the kulaks were seen as “Trotsky - 4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE SAY Workers must remake Europe

What’s behind the series of crises in the many] have left no doubt that they are willing to support the system, but only up to a certain point. And we are well eurozone? beyond that point now... I believe... European leaders will agree a deal. My concern is not about failure to agree, but As Karl Marx explained over 100 years ago, a developed the consequences of an agreement....”, which he says, could credit system both gives greater elasticity to capitalist put the EU on course for a “catastrophic” outcome, “maybe production and accentuates capital’s tendencies to only a few weeks or months away”. overproduction and overspeculation. Moreover, given who is devising it, any deal is certain to From the early 1980s to 2008, global credit markets ex - include further attacks on workers’ conditions and rights, panded enormously. They developed a dizzying variety of and not only in Greece. The probability is a deal which at - new forms of credit, and a dizzying speed at which differ - tacks workers’ conditions and rights, but only delays the ent forms of credit could be exchanged with each other. criTshise. outside chance is a deal which patches things up That expansion helped propel the expansion and restruc - for a bit longer, but at the cost of even sharper attacks turing of capitalist production known as “globalisation”. It on workers’ conditions and rights. set the scene for a series of crises, but until 2007-8 the whirl by the French and German governments. of expansion was able to pick up again relatively fast after The French government’s credit rating has already been each crash. Won’t a breakdown of the capitalist EU put in doubt because of the mere risk of such a thing hap - The crash of 2008 was big enough that governments had pening. At the next step down the road, France would be - be a step forward for the opponents of to nationalise or bail out major banks — “socialism for the come another, but much larger, Greece. rich”, “socialising losses” after an orgy of “privatising Lenders in the global credit markets who have seen capitalism? gains” — and world trade shrank sharply in 2009. Greece go down will wonder who’s next, and become more A crisis, as Marx explained, brings “a tremendous rush reluctant to lend to, for example, the Italian government. No. It is not true that the worse for capitalism, the bet - for means of payment — when credit suddenly ceases and That will be self-reinforcing: because Italy won’t be able to ter for socialists. Anguish from crashes and crises may only cash payments have validity”. Except that in today’s get new loans, it will be unable to pay back old ones, and so provoke a fightback that brings great progress, but only capitalism there is no really “hard” cash. Every form of “cash” — US dollars, British pounds, it will be even less able to get new ones. Already Italy has to if the socialists are, and are seen to be, fighting for a ra - euros — is only an IOU issued by one government or pay interest rates well above the odds to borrow on global tional programme to mend things. another, or, for the euro, a group of governments. markets. A break-up of the existing economic coordination of Eu - rope will bring huge economic disruption, unemployment, But that’s three years ago... Can the eurozone and EU summits set for pauperisation, and a boost to right-wing, nationalist, back - ward-looking politics. It is not within the power of socialists Capital has been unable to go back to a more “sober” Wednesday 26 October fix things? either to prevent, or to provoke, such a break-up, but it is way of life. The lurch of capitalist policy away from neo- within our power to argue for a better form of economic co - liberalism which many predicted in 2008 has not hap - Such “crashes” would be much bigger than the col - ordination, rather than short-sightedly rejoicing at the pened. lapse of Lehman Brothers, which set off the global cri - break-up. sis in September 2008. Capital is still drunk on credit. The global amount out - The project of the European single currency was botched standing on foreign exchange derivatives rose from $14 tril - They could well lead to the collapse of the eurozone, and from the outset, in 1999-2000 — hurried through on the lion in 1999 to $63 trillion in mid-2008, then fell back to $49 a retreat by European governments back to national curren - wave of capitalist triumphalism typical of the time, and trillion (mid-2009), but has risen again to $58 trillion (mid- cies (or possibly smaller currency unions). The impact of with questions about how it would deal with tricky imbal - 2010). that on European capital, which depends day to day on the anAcegsaginlosstsreedgorevsers. ion to a Europe with new barriers be - Capitalist governments have more extensive credit than low costs of doing business across Europe, will be huge. Be - tween countries, we should counterpose European banks. They were able to intervene to save the banks in cause the costs of not doing so would be so big, European unity on the basis of democracy, social levelling-up, and 2008. But that intervention strained their credit, and in a leaders will come up with some scheme or another on 26 workers’ unity across the frontiers. time when global credit markets were becoming tighter. At OcTthobeeyrw. ill find some way to patch things up for a while. the same time governments’ incomes shrank because of the As the previous so-called “bail-outs” patched things up What would that mean? downturn in trade and production following the financial for a while, only to make them worse longer-term. crash. European high finance is endemically crisis-prone. Eu - Most governments now depend on getting credit in ropean banks have $55 trillion outstanding in loans, four global financial markets, not on siphoning savings from Just patch things up for a while, or solve times more than US banks do. their own citizens as they used to. For eurozone govern - ments the discipline is especially tight, since they cannot the crisis? To make those loans, they have borrowed $30 trillion from print their own money, and the European Central Bank was “wholesale” markets — essentially, from other banks and set up with rules that limit its assistance to governments. In principle the big powers of the eurozone have the fi - corporations, rather than less volatile borrowing from Some eurozone governments were bound to run into nancial clout to solve the credit problems of Greece and households — ten times more than US banks. credit difficulties. The first were Greece, Ireland, and Portu - even of Italy. The latest declaration by the European Trade Union Con - federation calls for: gal. For Greece especially, each “bail-out” (they are actually We should not underestimate the power and resourceful - “bail-outs” for the mostly French and German banks which “Eurobonds to facilitate investments for sustainable jobs, ness of capital. The cuts programmes in Ireland and Spain a financial transaction tax..., the end of tax havens, tax fraud have lent to the Greek government, not for the Greek peo - are brutal, but they are “working”, so far, in capitalist terms. ple) has only made things worse. and evasion, and a halt to tax competition”. That is too lit - Since the EU’s leaders know that the crisis is so danger - tle, too abstruse, too disconnected from action on the The cuts imposed on Greece have reduced production in ous, it is possible that on 26 October they will do something Greece, and hence the Greek government’s income, and ground. more radical than expected. But radical enough to restabilise Labour movements across Europe should unite to de - made it even more unable to borrow on global markets. government finances across Europe? That seems pretty mand, as an emergency measure, the expropriation of Euro - If the Greek government is left simply unable to make its much impossible, if only because the processes of compro - pean high finance, and its conversion into a Europe-wide due payments, then the consequences not just for Greece mise necessary for eurozone and EU decisions are too cum - baGnkreinegc,em’sodrtegbatgseh, aonudldpbeenscioancserllveidce,.and a new begin - but for capital across Europe will be huge. bersome. ning made. Social minima and workers’ rights should French and German banks which hold Greek government Wolfgang Münchau writes in the Financial Times (24 Oc - be levelled up across the continent. debt will become insolvent and need to be bailed out (again) tober): “The triple A rated [strong credit] countries [like Ger -

Is this as Good as it Gets? Is This as Good as it THE CASE FOR • Women against cuts Gets? CLASS-STRUGGLE FEMINISM • What kind of student women’s movement? • Migrant women’s struggles Speaker Saturday 26 November • Marxism and feminism tour 11.30-5.30, University College • Women in North Africa and the Middle East A series of discussion meetings London, Gower St, London WC1E • Fight for reproductive justice around the country... More details, or 6BT • Louise Raw on the Matchworkers’ Strike to organise a meeting at your college or union branch: Details: workersliberty.org/ workersliberty.org/feministtour Creche available • Evening social isthisasgoodasitgets 07883 520852. Tickets: £10/5/2 Tel: 07883 520852

SOLIDARITY 5 ANTI-AUSTERITY Greek strikes

By Theodora Polenta

After the two-day general strike on 19-20 October, strikes and occupations are continuing across Greece. Bus, tram, and tube workers strike for 24 hours on Tuesday 25 October. Transport workers strike for 24 hours on Thursday 27 October. Public sector workers have announced occupations of min - istries and public sector buildings for Wednesday 26 October. Protests continue in Spain. Valencia on 15 October Lawyers will have a four day strike on 26-27 October and 3-4 November. Teachers have a 24-hour strike on Wednesday 26 October. In the words of a transport worker: “Workers have the knowledge, the means, and the ability to overthrow this ugly reality”. Protests hit 719 cities Only the workers’ struggle can guarantee that the austerity packages and privatisation plans agreed in parliament cannot be implemented. Only the workers’ actions can invalidate and By James Bloodworth between 20 percent and 30 percent. trash the sophisticated economic modelling of the Troika (Eu - On October 15, demonstrations against capitalism took ropean Union, European Central Bank, and IMF), which has In reporting the recent occupy and protest movements place in 719 cities in 71 countries. not taken into account the most important parameter: the im - that have sprung up across the world, the bourgeois In Frankfurt, about 200 people camped in front of the Eu - pact of the growing militant working-class movement. media has focused most of its attention on develop - ropean Central Bank. The economic crisis has brought an unprecedented crisis of ments here and in the US. In Chicago, 175 protesters were arrested after refusing to political representation. The whole political mainstream spec - leave Grant Park when it closed at night. trum is discredited. On a European and worldwide scale, cen - However, discontent has reared its head internationally, The final tally of arrests in New York after last Saturday's tre-left and centre-right governments alike respond to the with unprecedented rebellion and protest erupting every - marches on Times Square, a Citibank near NYU and Wash - economic crisis with an autopilot program of cutbacks and at - where from Chile to Belgium to Mexico, to name but a few. ington Square Park, was 92. tacks on the welfare state and workers’ rights. They all follow In Chile, nearly six months after they began, student In Rome, there were 20 arrests but at least 100 people were policies that have resulted in the richest 10% of the population protests show little sign of abating. One of the demands of hospitalized after a protest near the famous Colosseum. owning 100 times more wealth than the poorest 10%. Chilean students is a not-for-profit education system that is In Spain, the 15-M Movement, also called the Spanish All factions of the ruling class are at meetings after meet - free for everyone. Chile’s education system is one of the Revolution, has been ongoing since May. ings, summits after summits, trying to gain some time and most privatised in the world, and the student protests in the In Japan, about 200 people recently marched through make political manoeuvres that will allow them to rescue country have seen universities occupied and huge protests Tokyo carrying various signs, including “No More Nukes” themselves and their class. on the streets of the capital, Santiago, and elsewhere. and “Free Tibet.” On several occasions, they have drawn 100,000 people on SCENARIOS Protesters in several countries have been ordered by po - to the streets. Different political scenarios of survival are being explored lice to dismantle their tent cities and have faced increasing Last Thursday, dozens of youths disrupted a Senate com - by the Pasok government, ranging from elections through repression from the authorities for refusing to do so. mittee hearing before occupying the Senate office building While the protests sweeping the globe are inevitably coalition governments, referendums, or governments with for eight hours demanding a referendum on how to resolve diverse in nature, there is one thing they all have in technocrats. Chile's social problems, especially education. common: In every instance people are rebelling against Parliament does not have the answers to the workers’ needs Chilean students have won sympathy from about 80 per - a ruling class that is demanding the full burden of the fi - and demands. The “betrayal” by the Pasok party is not just a cent of the population, according to opinion polls. Mean - nancial crisis be imposed on the working class. matter of of its leadership. The Pasok government is follow - while, President Sebastian Pinera's support has dropped to ing the choices of the capitalist class in an era of a global eco - nomical crisis. A government led by the main opposition party, New Workers’ Liberty at Occupy London Democracy (Greek equivalent of the Tories), or a national emergency coalition government, would follow exactly the same policies. By Ira Berkovic No. 1 branch, which organises workers at the nearby St. It falls to the left and the working class organisations to de - Paul's tube station. In discussions, there was substantial feat the ultra-right wing scenarios emerging across Europe. In Workers’ Liberty members have been participating in agreement for our idea that capitalism fundamentally “hap - Greece the ultra-right populist party LAOS (roughly similar the Occupy London protest camps (some staying semi- pens” in the workplace, and that while the occupation was to UKIP in Britain) has provided political support to the Pasok permanently and others visiting) at St. Paul's and Fins - hugely important, the system it sought to protest against government for the last two years. The possibility of a coalition bury Square. could ultimately only be disrupted and overthrown at its government with the participation of LAOS, in the name of nucleus — by workers, in workplaces. “rescuing the country” (i.e. crushing workers’ resistance) is The atmosphere at the camps is incredibly febrile — all As well as participating in that kind of practical activity under discussion. sorts of politics and perspectives are buzzing around, with and discussion, we’ve also held pop-up meetings to discuss LAOS politicians, members, and supporters have direct impromptu meetings and discussions springing up all the Marxist ideas. AWL members drew a crowd of nearly 50 links with Xrysi Aygi (the Greek equivalent of the BNP). De - time, and the daily General Assemblies taking in everything people for a performance of the “Great Money Trick” from spite their current political disagreements, LAOS and Xrysi from how to liaise with trade unions to setting up “healing Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists . We Aygi were united in previous years pogroms and mobilisa - spaces”. think this neat exposition of how capitalist exploitation tions against refugees. Some ideas in the camp AWL members disagree with — works can help occupiers build an understanding of what For the working class there is only one alternative: the con - there is a religious and spiritualist element, a strong pres - exactly it is we're fighting against. tinuation and escalation of the occupations and strikes. ence from the crypto-anti-Semites of the “Zeitgeist Move - The occupation is in many ways redolent of the Climate The working class should go further than one and two day ment”, and lots of people who think that the camp, rather Camps at their best. But while that movement contained an strikes. To the coordination of the ruling class attacks, the than a symbolic protest and space for discussion, is the ac - organised core of ideologues with an ingrained hostility to working class should respond with a coordination of its ac - tual embryo of a new society (effectively modern-day Marxist ideas and Trotskyist organisations (selling newspa - tions — with a general strike called and organised from below, utopian socialists). But our presence at Occupy London isn’t pers or other literature was formally forbidden), people at by workers, not relying on the union bureaucracy. about hectoring people we disagree with; it’s about adding Politically bankrupt and therefore dangerous, the Pasok OcTchuepycoLmonmdon acrreitoicpiesnmanodf tkheeenmtovdeismcuesnsti—deatsh. at it is our own — working-class, socialist — ideas to the mix and government has escalated its attacks by using the notorious negative and vague, positing only catch-all opposition attempting to persuade people about them. ELAS riot police. to “the system” (undefined) without proposing concrete On Saturday 22 October, when a zero-hours worker told On the first day of the protests, 19 October, as the demon - alternatives or any agency to achieve change — is not the General Assembly that her employers had stopped giv - strators arrived at Syntagma Square, in Athens, outside the without legitimacy, but it is not the case that occupiers ing her work with the claim that the toilets she cleans are parliament building, the police used gas. The square resem - want to turn that lack of concrete politics into a perma - blocked by the camp, AWL members helped facilitate a bled a war zone. nent state of affairs. Talking about ideas is very much large discussion about the occupation’s relationship to A lot of protesters were hospitalised with breathing prob - the order of the day. workers in nearby workplaces and workers more generally. lems. Doctors and ambulance drivers had to leave the demon - The following night, we participated in a working group stration to assist the injured protesters. on worker outreach and helped draft a leaflet for workers in • To join AWL members at the occupation, please email The protesters proved their resilience and determination by the cafés and restaurants (including multinational chains [email protected] or ring 07527 064326. For up - refusing to obey police orders and staying in Syntagma square like Starbucks) around the occupation. dates from the protests, see: twitter.com/occupylsx and for several hours. The group also agreed to seek links with RMT Stratford twitter.com/occupyfs The next day, 20 October, thousands of protesters flooded 6 SOLIDARITY escalate. Political alternative needed

Syntagma Square in Athens before the police moved in Black bloc actions have harmed the movement

the centre of Athens with banners saying: “We owe nothing. police to prevent the attack taking place by stopping the paramount duty is to politically speed up the self-organisa - We are not selling. We are not paying”. black bloc from approaching Syntagma Square. tion and radicalisation of the working class and contribute Tens of thousands of people assembled outside the Greek She claimed that police and members of the black bloc cel - to the build-up of a real revolutionary party around the or - parliament and the nearby streets as the cuts were about to ebrated together on the evening of 20 October), and that she ganised labour movement. be voted on. had photographic evidence of police changing into black bloc The solution lies in the power of workers’ struggles. As the Inside the Greek parliament heated discussions took place. gear. struggles evolve and escalate, the workers are looking for so - Despite cosmetic disagreements between the government Rizospastis , the KKE newspaper, has provided photo - lutions to defend their lives and rights, outside the “whole and the opposition, they were all in agreement on the prin - graphic evidence of the similarity of the weapons used by system” and its laws and structures. ciple: public spending cuts and privatisations demanded by the riot police and by the black bloc. It is essential for the revolutionary left, not only to partici - the French and German banks, President Sarkozy, Chancel - This has alarmed the Pasok government, and the secretary pate and observe the struggles, but to help organise, coordi - lor Merkel, and the Troika. of state has ordered a legal enquiry. nate, support, self-defend, escalate, and politicise the Some Pasok MPs raised verbal disagreements and differ - As well as infiltrators and provocateurs, for whom the struggles. entiations, reporting the effects of the second austerity pack - black bloc gives such easy openings, there are sections within age on people’s lives, feeling the pressure of their the movement influenced by anarchism who reduce the de - PROGRAMME constituencies. Former labour minister Louka Katseli voted feat of corporate capitalism to the smashing of corporate cap - The revolutionary left should be at the vanguard of all the against a key article of the bill and was subsequently ex - italism’s window screens. struggles and win the workers to a radical, anti-capital - pelled. The rest of the Pasok MPs were blackmailed to vote They reduce the defeat of the capitalist state to a guerrilla- ist program of transitional demands. in favour of cuts by the prime minister Georgios Papandreou type confrontation with the police. They believe that the gov - • Abolish the debt. Not a penny to the creditors and the economics minister, Evangelos Venizelos. ernment can be overthrown if only they get through the • Freeze and abolish workers’ debts The austerity measures passed by 154 to 144 votes in the police lines and break into the parliament building. They try • Civil disobedience and refusal to pay government-im - 300-member parliament. But the consensus of most of main - to artificially speed up the maturation of the working class posed taxes stream journalists and media is that the measures cannot be movement by acting for the working class but without the implemented with the majority of people in the streets and working. • Nationalisation under workers’ control of the banks and on strikes. They try to create “revolutionary situations” outside the the big business with no compensation needs and the level of struggle of the working-class move - • Workers’ control of prices, wage increases, reduction in CLASHES ment. They dismiss working-class structures, such as trade working hours, work for all The end of the two day general strike was dominated by unions, as hierarchical structures of power, oppression, and • Pension increases in line with wages, reduction in the the violence that erupted between the bloc organised by corruption. They oscillate between throwing Molotov petrol age of retirement PAME (a front organisation of the Greek Communist bombs and the comfort of their sofas. • Ban redundancies. Unemployment benefit in line with Party, KKE) and the so-called anarchist black bloc. A 53 The different political perspectives and ways forward for wages year old PAME construction worker died from heart fail - the working-class movement should be tested during the • For a public sector in the service of the people and soci - ure as a result of the attack, and 73 other protesters struggle and should be discussed and debated openly in gen - ety’s needs against today’s public sector tied up with corpo - were hospitalized with injuries. eral meetings, rather than bypassed and hijacked by arbitrary rations, contractors and corruption actions by the black bloc. Three or four hundred protesters of the so-called anarchist • For an extension of education, health, transportation and Even if we assume that the black bloc was not infiltrated by welfare state provision. black bloc had marched to Syntagma Square, unimpeded by the police, still their action did not advance the struggle. On It’s time for politics. Time for anti-capitalist revolutionary the ELAS police, and armed with Molotov cocktails. They vi - the contrary. It polarised the PAME workers and supporters working-class politics from a revolutionary left which is not olently attacked the PAME bloc. against the fictitious enemy of the “other left”, and rescued going to confine itself to being the left-wing version of the As the PAME workers and stewards fought off the attack, the KKE leadership from the pressure, exerted by the rank existing political establishment and the discredited and de - the black bloc anarchists responded with petrol bombs and and file, for a united workers’ front. caying parliament. rocks. The sophistication of the black bloc’s weapons betrays At the same time we should not fall into the trap of pretti - the premeditated nature of their attacks. fying the politics and tactics of the KKE. The KKE was trying From a revolutionary left which is going to place itself on The riot police subsequently got the excuse to intervene, to protect its bloc against all other blocs of demonstrators. the vanguard of struggles against the poverty and destitu - attacking PAME protesters and members of the black bloc KKE was not protecting the working-class movement. It was tion of the working class, with a revolutionary anti-capitalist alike. protecting the parliament against the anger of the majority manifesto, and a united-front logic and culture, in connec - The role of the Greek police and its “darker” not-so-legal of the working-class protesters. tion with the strategic aim of the revolutionary overthrow of parts, their relations with LAOS, and their use of infiltrators The Stalinists’ exclusivist claim that KKE is the sole con - the system. is up for investigation. (Compare the recent exposures of the sistent representative of the working-class movement and A revolutionary left which is going to reinvent politics not British police role in infiltrating the environmental move - KKE ‘s stridency against other tendencies of the movement as a technique to manipulate the masses but as a medium for ment, inciting and even committing acts of violence). have rightly angered big sections of the workers. selAf-tlitbheeraetinodn of tthheemAarsgseens.tinian revolution, a helicopter KKE secretary Aleka Paparyga has made serious accusa - However, KKE’s sectarian and opportunistic stance does rescued the president from the angry crowd. Let’s hope tions about the black bloc protesters. She pointed to web sites not justify the violent attacks of the black bloc that an helicopter will not be enough to rescue the Greek that predicted the attacks on the PAME block a couple of For revolutionary Marxists the confrontation with KKE’s ruling class. days in advance, and questioned the reluctance of the riot reformist politics is first of all a political confrontation. Our SOLIDARITY 7 FEATURE AWL conference: Learning to think in the crisis

By Stephen Wood, Hull AWL gued otherwise, the conference also concluded that we had been right to prioritise the survival of the Libyan uprising The conference of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, held above abstract “anti-imperialist” posturing and, while on 22-23 October, reflected on the state of our move - maintaining principled opposition to NATO, refuse to cam - ment and our organisation, and the impact of events paign against its intervention. like the Arab Spring and the Eurozone crisis on class Daniel Rawnsley (North East London AWL) urged com - struggle across the world. Discussions were sharp, rades to read Leon Trotsky’s article “Learn To Think”, which while remaining comradely over disagreements or dif - explains why socialists do not simply say the direct opposite ferences. of the ruling class in all situations. Daniel said we should be exhorting the left to “learn to think”. The conference started on a point of procedure: should The conference received solidarity messages from, among the AWL have a “nominating commission” (an elected others, the Greek Trotskyist group OKDE, Mauritian social - group that would recommend a slate) for our National ists Lalit, Raymond Adams on behalf of the NPA in France, Committee elections? Duncan Morrison (South London and David Finkel of the Political Committee of American AWL) argued that nominating commission recommenda - socialist group Solidarity. tions would not damage democracy — “off-slate” candi - Yves Coleman of French journal Ni Patrie, Ni Fron - dates would still be nominated and the vote would still be tières addressed the conference, criticising some of our free — but could help get a more balanced and focused Na - recent polemics against anarchism. Antonin from tional Committee. Cathy Nugent (also S London) argued L’Etincelle (a tendency within the NPA) and Gona Saeed that the commission would not ensure a better process and from the Worker-Communist Party of Kurdistan also could siphon off debate into a small group away from con - spoke. ference floor. Conference narrowly voted against setting up the commission. Martin Thomas (North East London) introduced the main Members’ views of conference perspectives document. In Britain there is a partial lull; but globally the crisis is entering new turmoil, which will rico - Three new members of Workers’ Liberty give their chet back into Britain. thoughts on their first conference. The debate also discussed our continuing attitude to the Labour Party. The document noted the survival of the link The student report built on last year’s perspectives and between the Labour Party and the trade unions into a pe - recognised the work we have carried out in the National Sarah Weston is from Merseyside AWL. She joined in riod of crisis and Tory offensive, the limited political align - Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC), as well as new August 2011. ment of the Miliband leadership with the union leaders attacks posed by the government’s Higher Education White “I found the level of discussion was really interesting, against the government (albeit it on a timid and inconsis - Paper and the mobilisation for the NCAFC/NUS demon - informative and educational considering the fact that tent basis), and the slow but significant stirrings within the stration on 9 November. most of it was based on lengthy texts. I felt like I was Labour Party structures. The documents from the AWL’s newly-refounded Indus - learning a lot from being there. The fractions were really Bruce Robinson (Manchester AWL) moved an amend - trial Committee highlighted the group’s perspectives for good for discussion, but perhaps it’d be more worthwhile ment that disputed some of this optimism. While recognis - building up rank-and-file confidence and power, particu - if they were longer.” ing that the link remained, he did not believe we could talk larly in the context of the public sector pensions fight. of realignment or much significant revival within the The AWL’s “inside organising” policy — about the sec - Harry Sinclair Waugh is from Brighton AWL. He joined Labour Party. The amendment was defeated, and the docu - tors and industries we encourage our comrades to seek in September 2011. ment as a whole passed. work in in order to maximise their potential as class-strug - “This was my first conference and I had a brilliant time. gle militants — was also debated for the first time since In a sense it was overwhelming because there was a lot to CONFIDENT 2007. The discussion included a call from Rosie Huzzard take in, but listening to and meeting other comrades re - Sacha Ismail (South London) moved a document on (Sheffield AWL) for more debate within the organisation ally inspired me and made me proud to be a member of building the AWL. In the discussion, comrades felt that about how unionised workers employed by parts of the the AWL. The discussion was constantly interesting and we are growing and becoming more confident in assert - armed state machinery (such as border agency staff or police informative and helped consolidate my support for the ing ourselves as AWL members. admin workers) fit into our understanding of class and the group. I didn’t speak much, but I felt that observing labour movement. helped me gain a wider understanding of the way the Our visibility as an organisation is increasing. Several group works. Conference made me excited for many speakers highlighted the need for consistent education of REVOLUTIONARY more and I look forward to spending the next year at - all comrades and especially those who have recently joined. The final document, moved by Clive Bradley (North East tempting to revitalise the AWL in Brighton and progress - A report on socialist-feminist work was moved by Esther London), dealt with the Middle East and North Africa in ing as an active socialist.” Townsend (South London). Esther reported on the relaunch - the context of the revolutionary wave dubbed “the Arab ing of Women’s Fightback as a bi-monthly socialist-feminist Spring”. Emily Muna is from North East London AWL. She newspaper and urged comrades to use it to discuss social - joined in September 2011. Clive argued that the development and growth of inde - ist ideas with working-class women drawn into activity “The conference was really inspiring. It was really in - pendent workers’ organisations, particularly in Egypt, is the against the cuts. “Is This As Good As It Gets?”, the AWL’s teresting to see live and active debate among members, most encouraging and important element in the situation upcoming class struggle feminist event on 26 November, and it was lovely to meet comrades from all over the from a socialist point-of-view. Although a message to the was also highlighted. UK.” conference from Olivier Delbeke ( Le Militant , France) ar - Measuring unions’ online “klout”

one purpose can be used for an entirely different one. Take, the IFJ (journalists), IMF (metal workers) and IUF (food for example, Klout (www.klout.com). Measuring our activ - workers), with ratings from 21-29. (The AWL rates higher ity on Twitter, Facebook Linked In and other social net - than all of those, with a score of 33.) works, it rates every user on a scale from 0 to 100. The In general the global trade union movement isn’t nearly average rating, they say, is about 20. Super-famous celebri - as influential — according to Klout — as national unions. Eric Lee ties can make it into the 80s or 90s. The International Trade Union Confederation, which repre - Klout claims to measure “true reach” (how many people sents 175 million workers, is rated as having less influence It’s a corporate dream come true: imagine if a company you influence), “amplification” (how much you influence in social networks than LabourStart. could find out exactly which customers — and potential them) and “network impact” (the influence of your net - Unions that use the net well are considered more influen - work). customers — could influence others. tial by Klout than unions that have massive numbers of So, how are trade unions doing? Oddly enough, not members. So the tiny Industrial Workers of the World gets If one could identify with precision those consumers who badly. Topping the list of a random selection of a couple of influence others in their buying decisions, one could make dozen major unions are three based in the USA — the AFL- a high rating than the Canadian Auto Workers. But in the a fortune. CIO (the American TUC), the Service Employees Interna - real world, the CAW is a far more influential group than the That’s the reasoning behind a number of new web-based tional Union, and Working America — an innovative IWW. projects that are basically watching all of us online, seeing community organizing project of the AFL-CIO. Those three Tools like Klout are going to get better, including more so - what we do on Twitter and Facebook, and attempting to are rated 70, 67 and 66. cial networks (Linked In was only recently added). Unions measure our influence. But just below them are two British unions -— UNISON will also get better about signing up their members a sub - These sites then find companies interested in knowing with 62 followed by PCS with 61. Unite is not far behind scribers to their Twitter feeds and as fans of their Facebook who are the “influencers” so they can tempt them with free with 58. These are quite high numbers. paWgehse. n that happens, the gap between real-world in - samples and other perks. Toward the very bottom of the list — though still with fluence and online “klout” will shrink. But, as if often the case on the net, what was intended for above-average numbers — are global union federations like 8 SOLIDARITY IN DEPTH Why anti-EUism is not left-wing

In the 1930s, when the Stalinised Communist movement responded to the rise of National Socialism in part by competing to out-do its nationalism, Trotsky explained what was wrong with that “national communism”. Those explanations are relevant today, with such things on the left as the Socialist Party promoting the “left” na - tionalist “No2EU” project.. “PEOPLE’S REVOLUTION”? In response to the fascist slogan of the “people’s revolu - tion” to win “national liberation” for Germany, the Ger - man Communists responded by saying that they too supported these things. In “Thaelmann and the People’s Revolution” (1931), Trotsky responded. His arguments are relevant to arguing against similar populist ideas put forward in a left-wing framework today. It is understood that every great revolution is a people’s or a national revolution, in the sense that it unites around the revolutionary class all the virile and creative forces of the nation and reconstructs the nation around a new core. The anti-EU populism of the left and some trade unions has nationalist implications. Proper campaigning against neo-liberal EU But this is not a slogan; it is a sociological description of policies (above) should not mean idealising pre-EU “national” British capitalism as a progressive alternative. the revolution, which requires, moreover, precise and con - crete definition. As a slogan, it is inane and charlatanism, market competition with the fascists, paid for at the price of step forward as compared with the existing situation, for it that the German proletariat which is split up, powerless, injecting confusion into the minds of the workers… would first of all create a unified, all-European material base and oppressed, is a ball in the hands of the German bour - “Now the new turn: the people’s revolution instead of the for the working class movement. geoisie. “The main enemy is at home!” Karl Liebknecht proletarian revolution. The fascist Strasser [leader of the The proletariat would in this case have to fight not for the [founder of the German Communist Party] taught at one ‘left’ Nazis] says 95 percent of the people are interested in return to “autonomous” national states, but for the conver - time. Or perhaps you have forgotten this, friends? Or per - the revolution, consequently it is not a class revolution but sion of the imperialist state trust into a European Republi - haps this teaching is no longer any good?... a people’s revolution. Thaelmann [German Stalinist leader] can Federation… [Nationalists attracted to the Communist Party] look sings in chorus. In reality, the worker-Communist should To view the perspectives of the social revolution within a favourably upon the cause of the Communist Party as the say to the fascist worker: of course, 95 percent of the popu - national framework is to succumb to the same national nar - direct continuation of the Hohenzollern war [World War 1]. lation, if not 98 percent, is exploited by finance capital. But rowness that forms the content of social-patriotism… Gen - To them, the victims of the hideous imperialist slaughter re - this exploitation is organized hierarchically: there are ex - erally speaking, it must not be forgotten that in main heroes who have fallen for the freedom of the German ploiters, there are subexploiters, sub-subexploiters, etc. Only social-patriotism there is active, in addition to the most vul - people. They are ready to call a new war for Alsace-Lorraine thanks to this hierarchy do the superexploiters keep in sub - gar reformism, a national revolutionary messianism, which and Eastern Prussia a “revolutionary” war. They agree to jection the majority of the nation. regards its national state as chosen for introducing to hu - accept – for the time being, in words – the “people’s revolu - In order that the nation should indeed be able to recon - manity “socialism” or “democracy,” be it on the ground of tion,” if it can serve as a means of mobilizing the workers for struct itself around a new class core, it must be recon - its industrial development or of its democratic form and their “revolutionary” war. structed ideologically and this can be achieved only if the revolutionary conquests. (If a completely triumphant revo - Their whole program lies in the idea of revanche [re - proletariat does not dissolve itself into the “people,” into the lution were actually conceivable within the limits of a single, venge]: if tomorrow it will seem to them that the same aim “nation,” but on the contrary develops a program of its pro - better prepared nation, this messianism, bound up with the can be achieved by another road, they will shoot the revo - letarian revolution and compels the petty bourgeoisie to program of national defence , would have its relative histor - lutionary proletariat in the back… By the cheap phrase of ical justification. But in reality, it does not have it.) revolutionary war, the Stalinist bureaucracy attracts dozens chTohoseesbleotgwaenenotfwthoerepgeimopelse. ’s revolution lulls the petty Defending the national basis of the revolution with such of adventurists, but repulses hundreds of thousands, and bourgeoisie as well as the broad masses of the work - methods as undermine the international connections of the millions of Social Democratic, Christian, and non-party ers, reconciles them to the bourgeois-hierarchical proletariat, really amounts to undermining the revolution, workers. structure of the “people” and retards their liberation. which cannot begin otherwise than on the national basis, “This means that you recommend to us to imitate the but which cannot be completed on that basis in view of the pacifism of the Social Democracy”’ some particularly pro - FOR A WORKERS’ UNITED EUROPE present economic and military-political interdependence of found theoretician of the new course will object. No, we are In “The Programme of Peace” (1915), Trotsky argued that the European states, which has never been so forcefully re - least of all inclined to imitation, even of the moods of the even a bourgeois united Europe achieved by militarism veTalheed sasloignatnh,istwhearU. nited States of Europe, gives ex - working class; but we must take them into consideration. would be a partial step forward, and socialists should not pression to this interdependence, which will directly Only by correctly estimating the moods of the broad want a return to more isolated national states. and immediately set the conditions for the concerted masses of the proletariat can they be brought to the revolu - action of the European proletariat in the revolution. tion. But the bureaucracy, imitating the phraseology of Let us for a moment grant that German militarism suc - petty-bourgeois nationalism, ignores the actual moods of ceeds in actually carrying out the compulsory half- the workers who do not want war, who cannot want it, and union of Europe, just as Prussian militarism once NATIONAL BORDERS who are repelled by the military fanfaronades of [Stalinism]. achieved the half-union of Germany, what would then In 1931, the German Stalinists supported the Nazi-initi - Marxism, of course, cannot fail to take into consideration be the central slogan of the European proletariat? ated referendum to overthrow the Social Democratic gov - the possibility of revolutionary war in the event that the pro - letariat seizes power. But this is far removed from convert - Would it be the dissolution of the forced European coali - ernment of Prussia, Germany’s largest state. Trotsky wrote ing a historical probability, which may be forced upon us by tion and the return of all peoples under the roof of isolated “Against ‘national communism’!” in response. the course of events after the seizure of power, into a fight - national states? Or the restoration of “autonomous” tariffs, Ideas have their own logic. The [so called] people’s rev - ing political slogan prior to the seizure of power. A revolu - “national” currencies, “national” social legislation, and so olution is put forth [by the Stalinists] as a subordinate tionary war, as something forced upon us under certain forth? Certainly not. method of “national liberation.” conditions, as a consequence of the proletarian victory, is The programme of the European revolutionary move - one thing. A “people’s” revolution, as a means for revolu - ment would then be: the destruction of the compulsory an - Such a statement of the question cleared a way to the tionary war, is something altogether different even directly tidemocratic form of the coalition, with the preservation and party for purely chauvinistic tendencies… you [the Nazis] opposite… furtherance of its foundations, in the form of complete an - have a people’s revolution and we have one, too; you have The revolution, to us, is not a subordinate means for war nihilation of tariff barriers, the unification of legislation, national liberation as the highest criterion, and we have the against the West but on the contrary a means for avoiding above all of labour laws, etc. In other words, the slogan of same; you have a war against Western capitalism and we wars, in order to end them once and for all. We fight the So - the United States of Europe – without monarchies and promise the same; you have a plebiscite [the Prussian refer - cial Democracy not by ridiculing its striving for peace, standing armies – would under the indicated circumstances endum], and we have a plebiscite, still better, a “red” one which is inherent in every toiler, but by revealing the falsity become the unifying and guiding slogan of the European through and through. of its pacifism, because capitalist society, which is rescued revolution... [Stalinist leader] Thaelmann put the idea that “Germany every day by the Social Democracy, is inconceivable without Precisely in case of a stalemate in the [First World] War, [it is today a ball in the hands of the Entente.” It is in conse - war. could be argued from a bourgeois point of view], the indis - quence primarily a matter of national liberation. But in a The “national liberation” of Germany lies, to our mind, pensability of an economic and military agreement among certain sense, France and Italy also, and even England, are not in a war with the West, but in a proletarian revolution the European great powers would come to the fore against “balls” in the hands of the United States. The dependence of embracing Central as well as Western Europe, and uniting weak and backward peoples, but above all, of course, Europe upon America… has a far deeper significance for the it with Eastern Europe in the form of a Soviet United States. against their own working masses. [This] would mean the development of the European revolution than the depend - Only such a statement of the question can unite the working establishment of an imperialist trust of European States, a ence of Germany upon the Entente. This is why – by the class and make it a center of attraction for the despairing predatory share-holding association. And this perspective way – the slogan of the Soviet United States of Europe, and petty-bourgeois masses. is on occasion adduced unjustifiably as proof of the “dan - not the single bare slogan, “Down with the Versailles In order for the proletariat to be able to dictate its will ger” of the slogan of the United States of Europe, whereas in Peace,” is the proletarian answer to the convulsions of the to modern society, its party must not be ashamed of reality this is the most graphic proof of its realistic and rev - European continent. being a proletarian party and of speaking its own lan - olutionary significance. If the capitalist states of Europe suc - But all these questions nevertheless occupy second place. guage, not the language of national revanche, but the ceeded in merging into an imperialist trust, this would be a Our policy is determined not by the fact that Germany is a language of international revolution. “ball” in the hands of the Entente, but primarily by the fact SOLIDARITY 9 FEATURE What is Marxist dialectical thinking?

Vasilis Grollios contributes to the discussion opened by ity into the logic of capital, into the logic of transforming our in contact with each other and with nature in order to satisfy Dave Osler in Solidarity 219 activity into abstract labour, into money. our most basic needs, then that means that we will no longer The core of socialist-Marxist thinking is its methodol - In the Marxian method, theory can be realised in a people produce under privately owned means of production in ogy, dialectical materialism. But the term was not sys - only insofar as it is the realisation of the needs of that peo - ordSetartteo,avcacluumeualsatme woneeayltha,nadndthteherefoprmesweniltlaatlivsoe cshyasntegem . tematically analysed by Marx or Engels. One has to ple. under the bourgeois form of democracy are the forms synthesise its meaning from thousands of pages of their “We are not to philosophise about concrete things; we are that correspond to a specific constant-essence, that of collected works. to philosophise, rather, out of these things” as “...dialectical capital. Defetishisation entails class struggle. logic respects that which is to be thought the object”. Thinking in terms of dialectical materialism means trying In the negative dialectics approach, the potential does not to identify the essence of the thing under consideration, to come from outside social reality but only from inside it. The Further reading: understand what the thing is in itself. It means that we try to untruth of identity is revealed because “...the concept does • From Marx, best read the introduction to the Grundrisse. bring to light the real content of each social form, whatever not exhaust the thing”. A remainder always remains. This is For me, the classical text in the 20th century is Adorno’s Neg - this might be – state, representative democracy in its bour - the potential we must focus on. ative Dialectics . Maybe one should read first his Lectures on geois form, value as money. It is the development and enforcement of the still unde - Negative Dialectics . Also: The real content of each form is nothing other than the veloped power of labour that can change the essence of the • Werner Bonefeld’s article Social form, Critique and Human way in which the most important of human relations, labour, society and thus also its form. That is why dialectics in its Dignity , bit.ly/bonefeld. is constructed. All social forms are the expression of class Marxian version embraces historical development, meaning • John Holloway’s latest book, Crack Capitalism . struggle, of exploitation. Dialectical materialism reveals that the social forms take their content by the advancement of • My own article: “Marx and Engels’s critique of democracy: social forms are products of the perverted form of our doing, the class struggle. the materialist character of their concept of autonomy”, Cri - of our everyday activity. Maybe the most important concept of dialectics is “non- tique , v. 39, n. 1, 2011. Since the antagonism between capital and labour is in the identity”. Forms such as the state, value as money, the bour - essence of the social form, contradiction is also in the essence geois form of democracy, appear as fetishes, as natural of the social form and permeates our existence. The logic of phenomena, as if they have always existed. the topsy-turvy world is dialectical since contradiction is in the essence of the inverted social forms. LIBERATE “What is As “personifications of economic categories”, we live It seems that we cannot liberate ourselves from them. It under the domination of these inverted, distorted forms that seems that we cannot stop being obliged to act as “per - express the perverted form — abstract labour — that our sonifications of economic categories”, to act according dialectics?” by doing must take in order to continuously beget money from to our class position, by taking roles that we have to, money. that we did not choose to take. Materialism’s “ad hominem critique” helps us understand Identity identifies the notion under consideration with its Edward Conze that in the capitalist system, our doing is restricted due to present appearance, its form. It sees only the form-fetish in the bonds of abstract labour. The transformation of doing in its appearance. It cannot penetrate this appearance and bring our everyday lives into abstract labour and into money com - to the fore its essence. It cannot reveal the fact that it is a his - A Workers’ Liberty pamphlet prises the content of different fetishes, the content of the torically created form, according to how people came in con - aforementioned different social forms. tact to each other and to nature in order to satisfy their most workersliberty.org/dialectics Although economic categories and social forms appear to basic needs. have a life of their own, they are in fact just manifestations Thus by thinking in non-identity terms we think in terms of our doing. of a dialectic between form and essence and of a dialectic be - The dialectical element within the Marxian notion of di - tween how the form-fetish appears and what it really is £2.50: pay online or send a cheque (payable alectical materialism is the negation of the subordination of when we see its historical creation and development. When our everyday activity in this totality. Negative dialectics are we do this we demystify that form-fetish and we defetishise to “AWL”) to 20E Tower Workshops, Riley the “dialectics of our misfitting”, “the negative restlessness it. Road, London SE1 3DG of misfitting”, unfolding in “the power of No” (as John Hol - By defetishising the form we realise that if we change the loway puts it). essence, the most important relation in society, how we come Our misfitting is the fact that we cannot fit our daily activ - Left must be clear against the Europhobes

To say you want to maintain or restore those barriers as a step to a socialist united states of Europe, as some would-be Trotskyists do, makes the argument more stu - pid, but not more left-wing. Left Much of the mainstream labour movement has cor - By Rhodri Evans rected itself on the issue, but in an unspoken way. Groups like the SWP and the Socialist Party have never admitted The Tory right mobilised on 24 October, with the help they were wrong. They have just gone relatively quiet, of the right-wing tabloid press, to demand a referen - presumably hoping that people will forget. dum on British withdrawal from the European Union. Logically they should applaud the 19 Labour MPs who They recorded 81 votes against the government. voted with the Tory right on 24 October. Logically they should applaud the People’s Pledge campaign, fronted by The Tory right resents the limited legal rights which former Labour left-winger Mark Seddon, though founded British workers get from European Union legislation by former Tory students’ chair Marc-Henri Glendenning driven by countries where labour movements are stronger and “pro-car” campaigner Stuart Coster, and boasting and less legally shackled than in Britain. sponsorship from many Tory right-wingers. In fact they They would like to see Britain become “offshore” from have been quiet on the Tory rebellion. Europe economically as well as geographically, offering Morning Star transnational corporations a low-cost production site close The usually shameless has been muted too. to Europe where exploitation can be carried on free from It quoted RMT rail union leader Bob Crow (who is politi - EU regulation. Many also want to see Britain more closely cally close to the Communist Party of Britain, the group linked to the free-marketing, low-welfare, weakly- behind the Morning Star , and supported a “No2EU” slate unionised USA than to continental Europe. in the 2009 Euro-election). Crow claimed that MPs’ choice The Tory right’s mobilisation displays the real meaning on the Tory right-wingers’ parliamentary motion had been of anti-EU agitation. It is not, except demagogically, a to “kowtow to your supine [party] leaders and endorse protest against the EU’s capitalist nature, or its lack of this drift towards fiscal fascism or stand up for democracy and represent the people that elected you”. (“Fiscal fas - democracy. Anti-capitalists and democrats can best fight The left should not give any cover to UKIP and the rest of the cism” presumably means cuts. As if the Tory right has any those issues by campaigns for social provision and for racist, anti-EU right democracy across Europe, not by striving to re-erect the objection to cuts!) barriers between countries. But the Morning Star noticeably did not quite endorse Labour left, and almost all left groups other than Workers’ The Tory right, and UKIP and the BNP, want a Britain Crow’s comment. It “balanced” it by quoting George Guy, Fight (forerunner of AWL) campaigned for Britain to keep outside the EU which will be more unrestrainedly capital - assistant general secretary of the construction union out of the EU and then for a vote to withdraw in the 1975 ist and whose international connections will be decided by UCATT, who “warned that David Cameron may try to ap - referendum. They dismissed the concurrence of their global markets with no democratic control at all. pease Eurosceptic backbenchers... by seeking to remove Yet some of the left and the labour movement still let views with the Daily Express and some right-wing Tories as a secondary detail. Britain from many of the existing EU directives on em - themselves be the “useful idiots” whom the Tory right can ployment, social affairs, and safety... UCATT said that the employ to give themselves cover as “patriots” and “de - It has long been clear that the alleged secondary detail was the truth of the matter. Maintaining or restoring barri - European legislation underpinned many of the most basic mocrats”. rights enjoyed by British workers”. Forty years ago, when Britain joined the EU, it looked ers between countries is a right-wing, not a left-wing, As the eurozone plunges into crisis, demagogic more as if “keep out of the EU”, or “get out of the EU”, cause, even when counterposed to a botched, bureau - right-wing nationalist responses are likely to flourish. were left-wing causes. Trade unions, the mainstream cratic, capitalist lowering of barriers like the EU. The left should clarify itself on the issue. 10 SOLIDARITY REPORTS

Tube bosses Rank-and-file must control plan new jobs massacre

By a Tubeworker the pensions battle supporter An “Operational Strat - egy” paper from Lon - don Underground By Stewart Ward some areas, activists are tion? Workers shouldn't Union members must they want to use it as a management, leaked by having to rely on link-ups have to rely on the house fight for control over their one-day-only posturing ex - tube union RMT, has re - Activists in “N30” unions with neighbouring paper of the bosses for in - own dispute. They must ercise in the hope of getting vealed plans for a radi - — the unions that are set branches (rather than their formation on the status of demand that the content of a few more crumbs from cal restructuring of the to participate in the mass national union) for materi - negotiations about their negotiations is made open, the table. Either way, the tube that could see public sector strike over als and support. There's an own pensions! TUC secre - so that workers can judge dispute is too important to 1,500 jobs axed. pensions reform — are effective radio silence on tary Brendan Barber is ask - for themselves whether any beGlerfatsisnrtohoetisr haacntidvsis. ts working hard to build for The plan, based on what's going on in the be - ing for further pressure from union lead - should link up within and 30 November. across-the-board finan - hind-the-scenes negotia - scheme-by-scheme negotia - ers to de-escalate the action across unions to deliver a tions. The Financial Times tions, but this framework comes on the basis of any cial cuts of 20%, would Most of the best work is monster strike, led from reported on 25 October that creates the danger that real concessions from gov - move the tube towards being driven locally by below, that will challenge the latest round of negotia - workers in one scheme ernment. greater automation, with reps and activists on the the power and control of tions “ended in an im - (NHS, civil service, local We can speculate about drivers replaced by train ground. The unions nation - the bureaucrats as well passe” — but what was government, teaching etc.) whether the union tops attendants. It would also ally are punching well as terrify the govern - discussed? What was the could be played off against would prefer the strike not see every single ticket of - below their weight; in ment. unions' negotiating posi - workers in another. to go ahead, or whether fice on the entire network close, with 30 “travel cen - tres” set up to replace them. Recruitment would be frozen, and the exist - Members take lead in Islington ing de-staffing pro - gramme escalated to leave dozens of stations By a Islington Local cided to hire a “battle bus” of people’s attention, in - across the network effec - Government Unison to go round workplaces cluding management! tively unstaffed. activist and organise for the strike, At a recent local rally, Coupled with the news and to design “why we’re senior Unison official that tube fares will rise My branch has produced striking” leaflets for the Heather Wakefield seemed by 7% in 2012, the plan a lot of material on pen - public. We’ve also offered to imply that a strong yes represents tube bosses to sions, including some support to local health vote might mean we make passengers and great postcards de - branches. wouldn’t even have to go workers take the hit for signed by a neighbour - I’m an area convenor, on strike. We also had the the financial crisis. And ing branch in Tower and my area (adult social local Labour councillors this is despite figures Hamlets. services) is one of the best queuing up to support us from Ken Livingstone organised areas of the even though they’re also (hardly a friend of tube We had an open branch council in terms of mem - attacking us through local workers) claiming that meeting with about 150 bers, though we’re fairly cuWts.e’ve passed a ver - Transport for London is people attending; still not short on stewards. Most of sion of the AWL model sitting on a “cash moun - great, but much better the offices now have motion on building for tain” of over £700 mil - than it’s been for years. monthly shop meetings. the strike, so we’ll con - lion. There was a good repre - I've been pushing a “run a tinue to focus on build - RMT General Secretary sentation from different safe service”-type cam - ing workplace meetings Bob Crow said: “This Use N30 to build local disputes areas of the council with paign which focuses on where members can document tells us every - lots of teams/offices send - caseload and workload have a say in the running thing we need to know levels and stress, and By Tom Unterrainer, five week term, which will ing one or two people. of the dispute, at least about the operational seems to have caught a lot Nottingham NUT and not only mean a shorter The branch has also de - locally. strategy of London Un - Notts Trades Council summer holiday but will derground — massive in - put the city out of synch crease in fares alongside (pc) with surrounding areas, an unprecedented attack causing massive complica - How to build the strike in your workplace on jobs and safety. Nottinghamshire Trades tions for any teacher with “Every single ticket of - Council has convened a children in different school fice would be closed, sta - series of meetings to dis - systems. By a PCS activist ity – where this is in place, Send press releases to tions left unstaffed and cuss arrangements for 30 The timeline for the bal - then staff should be local papers, and prepare a drivers would be thrown November. lot coincides with the As we run up to the 30 leafleted on the doors into leaflet for the strike that out of their cabs without November strike, union the work place. The forma - can be handed out to mem - a single thought for pas - These meetings act some - build-up for action at the end of November and any branches should be mak - tion of such “information bers of the public explain - senger safety. thing like a strike commit - ing their final prepara - lines” where activists stand ing what is happening. “This ill-conceived and tee, bringing together action will have to be taken before Christmas – that is, tions to win members outside the workplace talk - It would be a good idea finance-led document ig - representatives from the over to take action on the ing and leafleting is good to start to draw up picket nores reality in favour of unions set for action or bal - shortly after the national action. All indications from day. preparation for the picket rosters in the here and now. austerity and would im - loting the membership. lines to come. Of course a lot will change pact on every single staff the local NUT membership Members' meetings This set-up has limits, Union notice boards between now and 30 No - member on London Un - point towards large-scale should be happening now. specifically the lack of should be cleared of all old vember but early planning derground.” support. This situation is a This is not only to firm up Resisting the bosses’ rank-and-file involvement. material and only stuff con - hopefully will ensure a core lesson for other trade the members but also to plan is not enough; A focus on mobilising and cerning the 30th should be of people who can be de - unionists: in the current cir - beat the ban on such meet - tube unions and pas - organising larger layers of put up. PCS, as like many pended upon to turn up on cumstances, workers may ings being held in offices sengers’ groups should the union membership and other unions, has an order - the lines. be prepared to do things that many parts of the civil work together to pro - in recruiting new members ing system where branches If you find yourself short that in other circumstances service try to enforce closer duce a workers’ and must become a central part can order picket arms on numbers, then ask other they would be unlikely to to a strike day. passengers’ plan for re - of the committee's work. bands, posters etc. Orders local PCS branches if you consider. Wherever our If branches can have structuring the Tube on The Nottingham City for this material should be can borrow some of movement can build on the them in the workplace, so the basis of public branch of the National placed as soon as possible – “theirs” for the day. Of big explosions of activity much the better – if not, service and workers’ Union of Teachers (NUT) it is too late on the day to course it would be better if with supplementary local then meetings in car parks, rights. has already discussed plans find out that you don’t you could persuade your activity on a smaller scale, local venues etc. should for an education workers' have the right material. own members to sign up. •For more on tube work - we will be in a better posi - take place. rally in the run-up to the Research timings of If there is a local work - ers’ struggles, including tion to sustain any new or - All the way up to the strike day. The situation postal and other deliveries place where other public the campaigns for justice ganisation and structures. 30th branches must try and has been complicated – in a to your workplace; try to sector unions will be on for victimised drivers We will also be able to sus - recruit non-members; good way – by plans to bal - persuade postal and other strike as well then try and Jayesh Patel and James tain a mood for actively op - flooding workplaces with lot members for action on workers not to make deliv - make contacts with them. Masango and the battle poSsiuncghthoipspgoorvteurnnimtieesntm. ay recruitment forms and lit - If possible, hold all- the separate issue of eries on the 30th. Indeed if for workers’ rights dur - turn up in the most unex - erature as to why staff unions members' meet - changes to school holiday you can talk to the local ing the Olympics, see pected and unlikely should join the union. ings in advance of the patterns. Nottingham City CWU branch in advance workersliberty.org/ places! In many work places strike. Council is attempting to that would be good. twblog force through a change to a there is a ban on such activ - SOLIDARITY 11 University boss will now be NHS S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y privatiser-in-chief

By Sacha Ismail ing to outsource UCL cleaning work. Malcolm Grant, the The night Solidarity went Provost of University to press (25 October), the College London, has Student Union council of been nominated by UCL was due to discuss an health secretary Andrew emergency motion (sec - Lansley to head the new onded by NCAFC national NHS commissioning committee and NUS execu - board responsible for im - tive member Michael plementing the Tories’ Chessum). It comments: health “reforms”. “…the Provost has con - So Grant, who has dis - sistently lobbied for a lift - tinguished himself attack - ing of the tuition fee cap… ing students and workers the Provost was at the cen - at UCL, will now also be tre of a controversy about responsible for disman - the London Living Wage... tling the NHS. he described it as a “lux - He will remain “full ury” that could not be af - time” head of UCL, on a forded… in taking up the salary well above £300,000 position of NHS Commis - even after taking a 10 per - sioning Board Chair, Mal - cent pay cut. (He is the colm Grant is complicit in highest paid university the carving up of the NHS head in Britain.) as a public service… Grant After a hard fought cam - has developed a track paign by UCL cleaners and record of actively under - their academic and student miUnCinLgsptuubdleicnstearcvitciveiss…ts ” supporters, Grant prom - hope to hold a union ised more than a year ago general meeting in the to pay the cleaners the next couple of weeks to London living wage — but declare no confidence in is now stalling on imple - Grant. mentation, while continu -

Striking transport workers Greek workers stage biggest general strike

By Theodora Polenta of the Troika (European versity students joined the in a standstill. Every mode Union, European Central demonstrations. Ambu - of transport — buses, The two-day general Bank, and IMF). lances, lorries, tractors and trams, underground, strike on 19-20 October Many different sectors of taxis joined refuse work - trains, cargo ships, ferries, was the biggest of all the the working class partici - ers' vans at the front of tourists boats, taxis, trac - general strikes of the pated, from the relatively most demonstrations. tors, lorries, airplanes — last two years of strug - “privileged” workers of Public-sector, utility, and was brought to a halt. The gle in Greece. the ministry of foreign af - ministry buildings were only buses and trains mov - fairs to the minimum- occupied, with many ing were the ones that Over 500,000 public and wage private sector demonstrators going on transporting strikers and private sector workers, workers. At the front of the from the march into the oc - demonstrators. pensioners, students, self- Athens demonstration on cupied buildings to ex - Most small shopkeep - employed, community ac - 19 October were the refuse press their solidarity. ers closed their shops. tivists marched on Athens workers who have led a 50,000 workers demon - Some bakers decided to and over a million all over militant strike for the last strated in Thessaloniki, open their shops and Greece. The slogans three weeks. 20,000 in Hrakleio. 5,000 distribute their bread shouted by the strikers and Their banners read: “We people demonstrated on and buns free. demonstrators demanded are refusing to obey army the small island of Chios, the overthrow of the gov - orders. We are going to 4,000 in Rethymno, 3,000 • Strikes and occupations ernment and the with - carry on striking until we in Kozani, 2,000 in Agrinio are continuing across drawal of the austerity win”. etc. Greece. More: centre measures and the policies School students and uni - For two days Greece was pages. 30 November strike: rank-and-file must control pensions battle

Above: AWL members act out the “Great Money Trick” from Workers’ Liberty trade union activists have produced a model motion advocating a rank-and-file strategy for the 30 No - Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists at the vember pensions strike and beyond. Versions of it, or motions similar to it, have already been passed by Croydon NUT, Occupy London protest camp. More on the camp and the AWL’s Islington Local Government Unison, DWP East London PCS, Tate Museums PCS and Lambeth Local Government Uni - activities at it: pages 6-7. son. Find the text of the motion online at tinyurl.com/n30modelmotion. For more, see page 11.