workers of the world, unite!

International Communist Current in Britain September/October 2013 Nº362 £1 en.internationalism.org world revolution

Syria: imperialist war or class solidarity

Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Syria, the massacres keep spreading. The horror of capitalism accelerates, deaths pile up. A continuous carnage that no one seems able to stop. Capitalism in utter decomposition is dragging the world into gener- alised barbarism. The use of chemical weapons as in Syria today is unfortunately only one of the instruments of death among many others. But there is nothing inevitable about this perspective, which left to itself will result in the destruction of humanity. The world proletariat cannot remain indifferent in the face of all these wars and massacres. Only the proletariat, the revolutionary class of our epoch, can put an end to this nightmare. More than ever humanity is faced with one choice: communism or barbarism.

The Syrian population is being men between 1962 and 1967, Egypt used mus- sacrificed on the altar of imperialism tard gas without restraint. In the Iran-Iraq war in On Monday 21 August an attack with chemical 1988, towns like Hallabja were bombarded with weapons left hundreds dead in an area close to chemical weapons, leaving over 5000 dead, un- Damascus. On the internet, on TV screens and the der the benevolent gaze of the ‘international com- newspapers there were unbearable images of men, munity’ of the US, France and all the members women and children in agony. The bourgeoisie, of the UN!But they are not just the speciality of without any scruple, has seized on this human small imperialist countries or dictators like Assad tragedy to advance its sordid interests. The regime or Saddam Hussein, as the bourgeoisie would like of Bashar al Assad, a butcher among butchers, us to believe. The most massive use of chemical has, we are told, crossed a red line: you can use weapons, alongside napalm, was carried out by any weapons to slaughter people, but not chemi- the USA during the Vietnam war. Vast amounts less directly involved in this bloody conflict. The es are increasingly ephemeral and circumstantial. cal ones. These are ‘dirty’ weapons, as opposed of herbicide contaminated with dioxin were used most powerful imperialisms in the world are also As a result conflicts are multiplying and in the end to the ‘clean’ ones like ‘conventional’ bombs and to destroy rice plantations and forests in order to defending their squalid interests. Russia, China, no bourgeoisie can control it. This is chaos, the mortars or even the atomic bombs the Ameri- reduce the population and the Vietcong to famine. France, Britain and the USA are playing their part growing decomposition of society. cans dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945. This scorched earth policy, this deliberate deserti- in the continuation of this war and its extension Thus the accelerating weakness of the world’s But the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie has no lim- fication, was the work of American capital in Viet- across the region. Faced with their growing inca- leading imperialist power, the US, is an active fac- its. Since the First World War of 1914-18 where nam, the same which today, alongside supporters pacity to control the situation, they are more and tor in the whole Middle East plunging into bar- poison gas was used massively for the first time, like France, is getting ready to intervene in Syria, more just sowing death and destruction, according barism. Immediately after the chemical attack on killing several hundred thousand people, chemi- allegedly to defend the population. Since the start to the old scorched earth policy (‘if I can’t domi- the suburbs of Damascus, the British and French cal weapons have been continuously ‘perfected’ of this war in Syria, there have been over 100,000 nate this region, I will set it on fire’). Continued on page 3 and used. The superficial agreements about their deaths and at least a million refugees fleeing to During the Cold War, the period which went offi- non-utilisation, especially after the two world surrounding countries. Looking past the discourse cially from 1947 to 1991 and the fall of the USSR, Inside this issue wars and in the 1980s, were just empty declara- being poured out by the bourgeois media, the two blocs confronted each other, led by Russia Talk of recovery masks the underlying disease 2 tions, which were not meant to be applied. And working class has to know the real causes behind and the USA respectively. These two superpow- Syria vote: impasse of British imperialism 2 many theatres of war since this time have seen this imperialist war in Syria. ers directed their ‘allies’ or ‘satellites’ with an iron Zero hours: insecurity faces the whole working these kinds of weapons being used. In North Ye- hand, forcing them to fall in line in the face of the class 3 Syria: it’s decadent capitalism which enemy ogre. This ‘world order’ was based on the Hunger in the ‘rich world’ 3 . The ‘Greatest Briton’ of all, Winston Churchill, discipline of the bloc. It was a historical period From the ICC congress resolution: imperialist certainly never stopped arguing for and even is responsible sanctioning their use, whether against ‘primitive Syria is currently at the heart of the imperialist that was full of danger for humanity, because if tensions in the phase of decomposition 4 tribesmen’ in rebellion against the Empire, the tensions and conflicts which are extending from the working class had not been able to resist, even Egypt: against Morsi, against the military: for revolutionary workers of Russia, or the German North Africa to Pakistan. If the Syrian bourgeoisie passively, the ideological march towards war, a class struggle! 5 proletariat during the Second World War: see, for is tearing itself apart inside a country which is now third world conflagration would have been pos- Extracts for the ICC online discussion forum 5 example, http://en.internationalism.org/wr/265_ in ruins, it has been able to rely on the insatiable sible. Since the collapse of the USSR, there are no Book review: The alternative to capitalism 6 terror1920.htm, http://www.theguardian.com/world/ appetites of a whole number of imperialist pow- longer two blocs, no more threat of a third world Life of the ICC 7 shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking- use-chemical-weapons; http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/ ers. In this region, Iran, Hezbollah from Lebanon, war. The discipline of the blocs is in pieces. Each The spying game 8 v06p501b_Weber.html Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey… are all more or nation is playing its own card; imperialist allianc- Australia A$2.25, Canada C$1.50, Europe €1.3, India 10 rupees, Japan¥300 USA 90¢  Britain Economic crisis Syria intervention vote Talk of recovery masks the Impasse of British imperialism underlying disease

or several weeks there has been such a expected production to edge up slightly. The trade arliament’s rejection of the government’s use of explosive ordnance by the west, for what- torrent of unexpected good news about in goods deficit rose to £9.8 billion, considerably motion supporting military intervention in ever purpose, would have committed us to par- Fthe British economy that our rulers have larger than City traders’ forecasts of 8.15 billion. PSyria was seen by many as a reassertion of ticipation in the Syrian civil war irrevocably’.” become quite excited. It has given a shot in the The monthly gap was higher than the £7.3 bil- democracy, Labour showing a bit of backbone at (The Guardian, 31.8.2013). The historical signifi- arm to the markets, because of an expectation of lion deficit recorded in July 2012. There were also last and Cameron being cut down to size. Indeed, cance of not supporting the US was clearly stated an earlier than predicted rise in interest rates. And signs of problems in emerging markets beginning the vote in Parliament attracted a lot of attention by a former adviser to the Foreign and Defence it has helped push the IMF to a humbling re-ap- to affect British firms, with export to non-Euro- not only in the media but also amongst the popu- secretaries, Crispin Blunt, who said “he hoped the praisal of the criticisms it has previously made of pean countries plunging by almost 16%.” (from lation. Faced with the terrible slaughter in Syria vote would relieve Britain of its ‘imperial preten- the British government’s economic policy. In fact The Evening Standard) many are deeply concerned about what is going sion’ and stop it trying to punch above its weight the IMF is now praising the British government’s The fact that “problems in emerging markets” to happen in Syria and the Middle East. However, on the world stage” (ibid). approach to economic management as the light of are affecting the hopes of the bourgeoisie for a the vote in parliament was not the manifestation It was the loss of this role on the world stage that the world, replacing the old fashioned idea that broadly based recovery in the British economy of the ‘popular will’; rather it graphically illus- concerned those in favour of supporting the US’s China and the other emerging countries offered should give the International Monetary Fund trated the impasse of British imperialism. action. This was made clear by Michael Clarke, hope to us all. pause for thought. Again we can refer to an article The closeness of the vote expressed just how the director general of the Royal United Services The bourgeois media’s commentary on this al- in the FT of September 5th: deeply conflicted the British ruling class is, and Institute (one of the British imperialism’s main leged recovery has been quite informative, and “Turmoil in emerging markets this summer has not only over Syria but its whole imperialist strat- think tanks): “...there is a danger it could become we can largely let them tell the story in their own forced the IMF into a humbling series of U-turns egy. a tipping point where the UK falls into strategic words. Unfortunately for the bourgeoisie, it’s a re- over its global assessments. Once British imperialism had its empire. Fol- irrelevance in US eyes. We can all be friendly, covery that turns out not to have lasted very long. In a confidential note seen by The Financial lowing the loss of Empire as the result of two well respected, kith and kin, etc -like the Dutch- When Cameron and Osborne came to power, Times, the IMF has dropped its view of emerg- world wars, it became the US’ loyal lieutenant but just not be taken seriously as a strategically they gave the impression that a short but severe ing economies as the dynamic engine of the world during the Cold War. This meant that despite be- significant player in security matters” (ibid). bout of austerity measures would be sufficient to economy, instead noting that ‘momentum is pro- ing a second rate military power it could have a The events around the US’s announcement that rein in the deficit and pave the way to recovery in jected to come mainly from advanced economies place at the top table, or as parts of the ruling class it was going to strike Syria have thus placed the fairly short order. Therefore, although austerity is where output is expected to accelerate’.” like to say: punch above its weight. British ruling class on the rack. not enjoyable in itself, the rewards would soon be With the disappearance of the old bloc system The US however, also suffered through these available and effectively cancel out the necessary British imperialism has been faced with the in- events. Its international authority was further un- reductions in living standards. As the bourgeoisie creasingly complex problem of how best to defend dermined by its inability to get the support of its themselves admit, the reality has been that they its own interests. Should it simply remain loyal to partner in the ‘special relationship’. French impe- have not managed to steer the economy even back the US? Move more towards Europe, or somehow rialism may now be the US’s “oldest ally” but it is to the level of economic output that prevailed try to maintain an independent course adapting clear to everyone that John Kerry only said that to prior to the financial crisis of 2007. An important itself to challenges as they arrived? This strate- insult the British ruling class. For US imperialism consideration that partially accounts for the gov- gic choice has become increasingly problematic having to rely on a country which only a few years erning team in particular now talking confidently as the world has sunk deeper and deeper into ev- ago it was pouring scorn on for not supporting the about ‘recovery’ is that they could foresee getting ermore chaotic international relations. In 1991 it 2nd Gulf War, is not a sign of strength but histori- back to that level of output prior to the next elec- was a pretty easy decision for the British ruling cal weakness. tion. That would have given them enough to sug- This is very sound, except for the last point. class to go along with the US in attacking Iraq. The US will not forgive British imperialism gest that the original promises of the government Presumably we are due to hear much less, at There were parts of the ruling class that warned easily. Obama’s refusal to hold a meeting with were not completely hollow. least from the IMF, about China, the Brics and about the dangers of the new world order. Brit- Cameron at the G20 meeting in Russia was a very Except during the admittedly extended periods ‘globalisation’ being the light of the world in ish imperialism however did not come out of this public snub, which very visibly demonstrated the when it was actually in recession, there has not economic terms. That’s a relief! As the ICC has war too badly. Only 12 years later however the price of not supporting them. The other major im- been an absolute lack of good news about the Brit- always pointed out, the basic foundations of glo- decision to back the US in the 2nd Gulf war was perialist powers will also take note of this. ish economy since the outbreak of the financial balisation, of a world economy, had already been more problematic because parts of the ruling class This decision not to back the US whilst being crisis. The difficulty for the bourgeoisie in creat- achieved by the end of the ascendant period of feared the chaos that would follow and the danger fundamentally a matter of how best to defend ing a convincing story of good news about the capitalism, i.e. by the beginning of the twentieth of linking the national interest so closely to that the national interest, also reflected a self-inflict- economy is that each piece of good news has been century, and it was precisely at this point that the of the US. Blair and the pro-US fraction that he ed wound. The blatant manipulation of public followed almost straight away by bad news. If in- system entered into its historic crisis. represented drove through the decision however, opinion over the 2nd Gulf war, Blair’s talk about dustrial output was up, services were down, and The bourgeoisie have essentially come to use using every devious trick in the book to get sup- Weapons of Mass Destruction etc, and the trou- vice versa. If exports were up, consumer demand the term globalisation to express their (ill-found- port. However, far from furthering the national ble and tragedy that unfolded in Iraq afterwards, was down. If employment was up, unemployment ed) hope that huge dynamic growth in emerging interest it suffered a bitter humiliation as Iraq, and badly dented confidence in politicians. This meant (surprisingly) was not down. And so on, along economies and China in particular will somehow Afghanistan, sunk into chaos and British armed that the public was highly sceptical of any claims those lines, the evidence has gone for years. succour the stagnating economies of the west. But forces were exposed as being dependent upon the made by the government. The vote against mili- The difference over recent weeks was a series of since the rise of China, in particular, underlines US. Blair, and thus the British ruling class, be- tary action has certainly boosted the idea that par- reports on different aspects of the economic situ- precisely how uncompetitive the western econo- came linked with George W Bush and a visibly liament has some power, and thus strengthened ation that all tended to exceed the rather cautious mies are, it is difficult to follow this line of rea- declining US imperialism. Supporting the US has democratic illusions. If the most powerful parts expectations of forecasters who were used to get- soning. Of course, the west has sold huge volumes become extremely costly. of the ruling class had wanted to support the US, ting their fingers burnt by over-optimistic predic- of raw materials to China and also sophisticated On the other hand, not supporting US military they would have done so but it would have been at tions. As the Financial Times said on September engineering (even Britain sells in the latter cat- action means accepting not being able to punch the cost of a further weakening of any confidence 5th: egory to China). But the overall trade deficit of above one’s weight, and being a secondary power. in the ruling class. “Expert economic opinion regularly bends with the west with China shows the real balance of Also where do you turn for alliances? There are Cameron et al may have wanted to use the US the wind. Rarely has it been blown so far so quick- economic power and the decline of the older in- those who say closer relations with Europe are the insistence on action as a means to push the rest of ly. Talk of a ‘flatlining’ economy was universal dustrial economies. way forwards, but this increasingly means a com- the ruling class to support such action and thus the until the spring, when fears of a ‘triple-dip’ (re- At the same time, countries like China are high- plex game of alliances against the rising power of special relationship, but it is clear that important cession) disappeared. But after a string of good ly dependent on the western countries as markets German imperialism. The Cameron team with the parts of the ruling class refused to go along with economic figures and the release of an -extraor for the mass of commodities that they have been backing of much of the ruling class had been pur- this. This is an event of historical importance be- dinarily strong services sector business survey churning out at a frenetic rate thanks to the brutal suing a policy of seeking to build relations with cause it expresses a further step in the decline of yesterday, economists rushed to judge that growth exploitation of their workforce. With the reces- the growing powers such as India, Brazil, Turkey, British imperialism. A decline that will exacerbate was running at boom-time rates. … sion in the west, China and the other Brics are as well as commercial relations with China. the divisions in the ruling class, and push it to take If the economy is growing at 1 per cent this now beginning to falter in their turn. However, all the relations that the British bour- up more military actions where it can in order to quarter ... that rate of growth is roughly the pace Faced with this rather worrying scenario, the geoisie build in Europe and beyond are increas- make a display of its power, no matter how limit- of former rapid recoveries from recession. If sus- IMF is proposing now to institute British econom- ingly unstable because of its increasing inability ed. There may be a resurgence of the pro-US frac- tained, output would finally climb back above the ic management as the new beacon of the world to to use its close relations with the US to counter- tions as this historical weakness becomes clearer, level of its previous peak (before the financial replace China! This is quite a turnaround: weigh the actions of its rivals. but the US will be extremely wary of the British crash) in spring 2014, a year before the general “In April, Olivier Blanchard, IMF chief econo- It is in this context that we have to understand ruling class. British imperialism is being pushed election.… mist, singled out the UK as a country that should the events around the vote on Syria. The divisions further onto the side lines. Phil, 6.9.13 Civil servants and central bankers know that the lighten up on austerity, but the fund now recom- went across party lines and reflected the deeper speed of recovery says little about its breadth or mends that countries follow the British policy of division in the whole ruling class. durability and are still struggling to explain the ‘achieving structural fiscal targets and allowing To go along meant being pulled further into the turnaround. Before they swap caution for confi- automatic stabilisers to play freely’.” (FT) consequences of the US declining status ie des- dence, they will want to take stock of the wider But, as The Evening Standard commentators perate military action in Syria in order to try and picture which remains mixed.” note, discussing the retardation in Britain’s export display US military superiority but at the possible Without going through the FT’s retailing of the performance, the “problems in emerging markets” cost of being sucked into another war. Former mixed evidence, we can skip to the following day, are very likely to undermine the objective of the military leaders openly stated their opposition to September 6th when the run of good headline news British bourgeoisie to achieve a balanced and du- becoming involved: “A former head of the navy, fell apart: rable recovery. The fact that the world economy Lord West, and a former head of the army, Lord “A damper was put on rapid recovery hopes to- is indeed interconnected is not some kind of auto- Dannatt, reflected widespread criticism within the day with disappointing industrial production fig- matic solution to the crisis as so many bourgeois military and defence circles by pouring scorn on ures and a widening of Britain’s stubbornly high commentators placidly assume. On the contrary, claims by ministers that military strikes did not trade deficit in July. it is the guarantee that all the components of the mean the UK or the US were taking sides in the Industrial output was flat over the month after a capitalist system are doomed to sink together. civil war. ‘As regards a limited strike, this was healthy 1.1% expansion in June. Economists had Hardin, 6.9.13 always an impossible notion,’ said Dannatt. ‘Any Britain 

Zero hours Insecurity faces the whole working class

s austerity bites and capitalism shows its a good idea of the wider context of the increase in This trend towards zero hours contracts has not The fight back teeth in its relentless quest for profit and zero hours contracts. And also the motivation for just affected ancillary staff and primary care staff, We can see with the Hovis workers (Premier Afor ways to offset its crisis onto the work- all this publicity: while politicians hypocritically who often work through bank agencies: many Foods) in Wigan the beginnings of a fight ing class, the recent revelations of the explosion wax indignant about these contracts, they hope to health care professionals such as radiologists, back. After 400 fellow workers at Hovis in Lon- in so-called zero hour contracts have filled the divert our attention from the overall worsening psychiatrists, and heart specialists are also being don were given redundancies at the beginnings of newspapers and our television screens. Signing of conditions for the whole working class. This offered zero hour contracts by the Health Trusts. this year, the Wigan bakery workers began a series up to a zero hours contract is a condition that can issue also has the advantage of being one where The education sector has also seen implementa- of strikes at the beginning of August. mean no wages or little wages at the end of the we can be encouraged to demand the protection tion of zero hours:. 30 Wigan Hovis workers were given redundan- week. In the hope of gaining some employment of the state through legislation against abuses by “More than half the 145 UK Universities and cies and management announced that hourly pay many workers wait at the end of a phone for what- private employers, although this is an illusion as nearly two thirds of the 275 Further Education was being reduced from £13 per hour to £8.60 ever an employer or an agency offers. This uncer- the situation of health and care workers shows. Colleges said that they used the contracts, which an hour and working hours cut, while man- tainty, the knowledge that perhaps you won’t have Meanwhile Vince Cable can bleat that - “well it’s do not specify working hours and give limited agement brought in agency staff to take up the a job next week or the week after, is profoundly not ideal, but at least it allows for ‘flexibility’” for guaranties on conditions” (Guardian: 05.09.13). short fall. In an interview with Socialist Worker demoralising for workers and isolates them into employers and workers. (03.09.13) one worker said: “We’re not having it. individual units competing on the job market. In Bleats from the Labour Party They always want something from us - pensions, many cases of the zero hours contract the national Damn lies and statistics The Labour Party is shedding crocodile tears wages, conditions. It’s time to draw a line.” minimum wage applies but they are being applied The official statistics on zero hours are rubbish, on the iniquities of the zero contracts. Chuka The Wigan bakery workers have embarked on across the board, both in the private and, increas- as we can see from the ONS (Office of National Umunna (the Shadow Business Secretary) has a series of one-day strikes. Their picketing had ingly, the public sector - social and care workers, Statistics) estimate of 250,000 on such contracts said, “Flexibility works for some, but the danger been positive, with lorry-drivers and other work- in the NHS. Health authorities have introduced which is less than the number affected in the care today is that too often insecurity at work becomes ers refusing to cross pickets. However, there are zero hours which have also affected professional sector alone. The Work Foundation estimates the norm”. Ground-breaking stuff! To show its inherent dangers in this tactic of rolling strikes (as higher paid staff. The employers or agencies of- there are one million, and Unite has now esti- seriousness the Labour Party brought together the last postal workers’ strike demonstrated). The fering these contracts are not obliged to offer sick mated 5.5 million based on a survey of 5,000 of a conference of employers and unions: “This is union, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union pay or holiday pay and they can usually be ter- its members. Whatever the true figure zero hours why Labour has convened this important summit (BFAWU) has demonstrated its ability to negoti- minated at will. There can be no doubt that there and other precarious and flexible work practices bringing together representatives of employees ate the 400 London redundancies and were quick has been an explosion in all kinds of precarious create a vast reserve pool of labour which nomi- and employers to consider what action must be to demand rolling strikes. work, including the phenomenal rise in part time nally can appear as employed, allowing Cameron taken. In contrast this Tory led government has The use of agency staff at the same time as re- and casual work at the minimum wage or lower, to boast of ‘creating’ thousands of new jobs. refused to have a proper and full consultation on dundancies and other attacks has the potential to as well as zero hours. This is a huge attack on the One million or 5.5, the figures for the growth in the rise of zero hour contracts or to treat the is- cause divisions among the workers to the benefit living conditions of the working class. zero hour contracts are definitely on the up. This sue with the seriousness it deserves” (Guardian: of the employers and unions. Therefore it is en- Zero hours contracts are clearly one of a num- has been the case for many years in the fast food 20.08.13). couraging to read “Agency workers have joined ber of ways of making jobs more precarious and industry. The opt out clause when there is criti- Up until this statement and the occasional bleats the picket line” in the same Socialist Worker ar- are greatly advantageous to the bourgeoisie in cism of the low pay and work precariousness in from Andy Burnham, the Labour Party has re- ticle. reducing the cost of labour. So why the huge me- this industry is that they are ‘franchised ‘ out and mained extremely quiet on the issue of zero hour Other sectors have entered into struggle against dia publicity? Why has Vince Cable announced the contracts have nothing to do with the major contracts. The Labour Party made much about in- the imposition of zero hour contracts. In Liverpool a government review (even if Ian Binkley of the fast food chains. Even so, McDonald’s have ad- troducing the minimum wage in its election mani- on the 9th of August we saw 400 council workers Work Foundation has pointed out that this review mitted that 90% of their employees, that’s 82,200 festo of 1997 and indeed introduced the Minimum (street cleaners and road maintenance and ground is totally inadequate)? Why has the Labour Party staff, are on 2 hour contracts; Burger King (a fran- Wage Act of 1998. However, within this act was staff) go on strike against imposed redundancies apologised for not spotting it sooner? Why has chised operator) employs all of its 20,000 workers contained the retention of zero hour contracts. and new contracts. In London at the beginning of Edinburgh University felt ‘shamed’ into agree- on zero hour contracts. Likewise Domino Pizza Legally, the Labour government had to retain the the year we saw London Underground Piccadilly ing to end its 2,712 zero hours contracts? Reports - similarly a franchised operation - has 90% of its right for agencies to impose flexible work con- line tube drivers’ strike against planned new con- don’t tell whether the new arrangements will be 23,000 staff on zero hours. tracts. Firms and agencies have exploited this tracts. any better for the workers! The rise in zero hours contracts has been par- right from the last Labour government and of Workers today face widespread attacks through “The greater use of zero hours contracts is taking ticularly marked among care workers, with a course the Tory and Lib-Dem government didn’t precarious work, falling real wages, reductions in place against a background of falling real wages, majority now on zero hours, with an increase in look a gift horse in the mouth! benefits, reduced health and social care. In order high levels of workplace fear of the consequences the proportion of their contracts being zero hours The development of the recession and the auster- to push these through the bosses and the state use of redundancy and unfair treatment for a signifi- “from 50% in 2008/09 to 60% last year. The gov- ity that has been imposed since the crisis of 2008 all sorts of tricks to isolate and divide workers as cant minority, and an employment recovery where ernment has estimated that there are 307,000 care has seen a massive use not just of zero hour con- much as possible. What workers need is unity, permanent employee jobs have been in a minority” workers on zero hour contracts, despite estimates tracts but of part-time work, of firms and agencies solidarity and confidence in our ability to fight. (http://www.theworkfoundation.com). Apart from from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) that using insecurity and precarious work to the hilt. Melmoth, 7.9.13 the implication that capitalist employment is ‘fair’ Britain’s zero hour workforce is 250,000 people” for the majority, the Work Foundation report gives (The Guardian: 27.08.13.).

Continued from page 1 Syria: imperialist war or class solidarity Hunger in the ‘rich world’ bourgeoisie, followed much more timidly by the Only the proletariat can put an end to American bourgeoisie, declared loudly that such this barbarism a crime could not go unpunished. A military re- The proletariat cannot remain indifferent to all sponse was imminent and it would be proportion- this barbarism. It is the exploited who are the The rise in the use of food banks has reached huge “Last year Mr. De Schutter (a UN official) ate to the crime. The problem is that the American main victims of the imperialist cliques. Whether proportions. The food banks, originally intended completed an 11 day mission to Canada, his first bourgeoisie and other western bourgeoisies have it’s Shia, Sunni, secular, or Christian being mas- for the most destitute within society, are starting to a developed country. He reported ‘very desper- been through a serious reverse in Afghanistan sacred, it makes no difference. There is a natural to be used across all sectors of the working class, ate conditions’ in a country where 850,000 rely and Iraq, countries which are also in a total mess. and healthy human reaction to want to do some- often including those parts who might have previ- on food banks and condemned the Canadian gov- How could they intervene in Syria without find- thing about this right away, to stop these abomi- ously seen themselves as belonging to the ‘middle ernment’s ‘self-righteous’ failure to acknowledge ing themselves in the same situation? This has nable crimes. It is this sentiment which the grand class’. The figures produced by the Trussel Trust the scale of the problem on its doorstep” (‘UN resulted in some very significant foreign policy democracies are trying to exploit, justifying their (a charitable organisation) are revealing: in Brit- Official alarmed by Food Banks in UK’,Indepen - differences within the ruling class, and the recent warlike adventures in the name of ‘humanitarian’ ain in every town and city we have seen the open- dent 17.02.13) rejection of Cameron’s call for military action in causes. And each time the world situation gets ing up of food banks, and the number of people Chronic and society-wide hunger used to be as- the UK parliament was a graphic expression of worse. This is clearly a trap. needing the banks to feed themselves and their sociated with the countries of the ‘Third World’, these divisions. On top of this, these bourgeoisies The only way that we can express real solidarity families has gone up as follows: but it’s now spreading in the bastions of the ‘Rich also had to deal with what they call ‘public opin- towards all the victims of decaying capitalism is World’ as well. It’s the same the whole world over ion’. The population of the west doesn’t want this to overthrow the system which produces all these 2008/9 26,000 under austerity. intervention. The majority no longer believe the horrors. Such a change can’t happen overnight. Melmoth lies of their own bourgeoisies. The unpopularity But if the road towards it is long and difficult, it’s 2011/12 128,697 of this proposed intervention, even in the form of the only one that can lead to a world without wars limited bombings, has posed a problem for the and countries, without poverty and exploitation. 2013 200,000 (estimated for this ruling class in the west. The working class has no national flag to - de year so far) The British bourgeoisie has thus had to renounce fend. The country where it lives is the place of its its initial bellicose declarations and move away exploitation, and in some parts of the world, the It’s not just in Britain where we’ve seen popula- from the path of military intervention. This ex- place of its death at the hands of imperialism. The tions resorting to food banks. Over this past year presses the fact that all the bourgeoisie’s solutions working class has a responsibility to oppose bour- in Greece and Spain we have seen the same situ- are bad ones: either it doesn’t intervene (as Brit- geois nationalism with its own internationalism. ation: workers being forced into queuing for food ain has just decided to do) and this is then a big This is not an impossibility. We have to remember hand-outs in order to live. However, these are statement of weakness; or it does intervene (as the that the First World War was brought to an end economies which are openly bankrupt and these US and France are still planning to do) and they not by the good will of the belligerents, or by the are emergency measures, are they not? But even risk stirring up more chaos, more instability and defeat of Germany. It was ended by the proletar- in a much more prosperous country and economy uncontrollable imperialist tensions. ian revolution. Tino 31 August such as Canada we are seeing the same thing:  20th Congress of the ICC Extract from the resolution on the international situation Imperialist tensions in the phase of decomposition

We are publishing the point on imperial- ist tensions from the resolution on the in- come a decisive element in the life of the whole This said, the irrational character of war tragic forms, to the other Arab countries where the ternational situation adopted by the last of society. has gone on to a new level in the period fall of the old dictators has resulted in the seizure international congress of the ICC. The 5of decomposition. This has been clearly il- of power by the most retrograde sectors of the whole resolution, and a balance sheet of The area where the decomposition of capi- lustrated by the American adventures in Iraq and bourgeoisie, represented by the Islamists in Egypt our 20th congress, will soon be available talist society is expressed in the most spec- Afghanistan. These wars also had a considerable or Turkey, or in utter chaos, as in Libya. on our website. 3tacular way is that of military conflicts and cost, notably at the economic level. But their bene- international relations in general. What led the fits were severely limited, if not negative. In these Thus, Syria offers us today a new example of the ICC to elaborate its analysis of decomposition in wars, the American power was able to display its barbarism which capitalism in decomposition is A century ago the capitalist mode of produc- the second half of the 1980s was the succession of immense military superiority, but this did not en- unleashing on the planet, a barbarism which is tak- tion entered its period of historical decline, murderous attacks which hit the big European cit- able it to obtain the objectives it was seeking: sta- ing the form of bloody military confrontations but 1its epoch of decadence. It was the outbreak ies, especially Paris – attacks that were not carried bilising Iraq and Afghanistan and forcing its old which is also affecting zones which have avoided of the First World War which marked the passage out by isolated groups but by established states. allies of the western bloc to close ranks around the war but where society is sinking into growing from the ‘Belle Epoque’, the high point of bour- This was the beginning of a form of imperialist US. Today, the phased withdrawal of American chaos, as for example in Latin America where the geois society, to the ‘epoch of wars and revolu- confrontations, later described as ‘asymmetrical and NATO troops from Iraq and Afghanistan is drug gangs, with the complicity of sectors of the tions’ described by the Communist International warfare’, which marked a profound change in re- leaving these countries in an unprecedented state state, have imposed a reign of terror in a number at its first congress in 1919. Since then, capitalism lations between states and, more generally, in the of instability, threatening to aggravate the instabil- of areas. has continued to sink into barbarism, most notably whole of society. The first historic manifestation ity of the whole region. At the same time, the other in the shape of a Second World War which cost of this new and final stage in the decadence of cap- participants in these military adventures have But it’s at the level of the destruction of 50 million lives. And if the period of ‘prosperity’ italism was the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in jumped or will jump ship in dispersed order. the environment that the short term conse- which followed this horrible butchery could sow Europe and of the eastern bloc in 1989. Straight 8 quences of the collapse of capitalist society the illusion that this system had finally been able away the ICC pointed out the significance of this During the last period, the chaotic nature takes on a totally apocalyptic quality. Although the to overcome its contradictions, the open crisis of event in terms of imperialist conflicts: of the imperialist tensions and conflicts has development of capitalism has from the beginning the economy at the end of the 1960s confirmed 6 been illustrated once again with the situa- been characterised by the extreme rapacity of its the verdict which revolutionaries had already pro- “The disappearance of the Russian imperial- tion in Syria and the Far East. In both cases, we search for profit and accumulation in the name of nounced half a century before: the capitalist mode ist gendarme, and that to come of the American are witnessing conflicts which bring with them the the ‘conquest of nature’, the depredations reached of production could not escape the destiny of the gendarme as far as its one-time ‘partners’ are threat of a much wider extension and destabilisa- by this tendency over the last 30 years have reached modes of production which had preceded it. It too, concerned, opens the door to the unleashing of a tion. In the Far East we’ve seen rising tensions levels of devastation that are unprecedented wheth- having constituted a progressive step in human whole series of more local rivalries. For the mo- between the states of the region. Thus in recent er in previous societies or at the time of its birth ‘in history, had become an obstacle to the develop- ment, these rivalries and confrontations cannot months there have been tensions involving a num- blood and filth’. The concern of the revolutionary ment of the productive forces and the progress of degenerate into a world war…. However, with the ber of countries, from the Philippines to Japan. proletariat faced with the destructive essence of humanity. The time for its overthrow and its re- disappearance of the discipline imposed by the two China and Japan have been in dispute over the capitalism is as old as the threat itself. Marx and placement by another society had arrived. blocs, these conflicts are liable to become more Senkaku/Diyao islands, Japan and South Korea Engels already warned against the negative impact frequent and more violent, especially of course in over the island of Takeshima/Dokdo, while there both on nature and on human beings – of the ag- At the same time that it showed the histor- those areas where the proletariat is weakest. (In- are other tensions involving Taiwan, Vietnam and glomeration and confinement of people in the first ic dead end that the capitalist system now ternational Review no 61, ‘After the collapse of Burma. But the most spectacular conflict is obvi- industrial concentrations in Britain in the mid-19th 2faced, this open crisis, like the one in the the eastern bloc, destabilisation and chaos’). ously the one ranging North Korea against South century. In the same spirit, revolutionaries have in 1930s, once again placed society in front of the al- Korea, Japan and the US. In the grip of a dramatic different epochs understood and denounced the ternative between generalised imperialist war and Since then the international situation has only economic crisis, North Korea has upped the stakes ignoble nature of capitalist development, showing the development of decisive proletarian struggles confirmed this analysis: on the military level, with the aim of putting pres- the danger that it represents not just for the work- with the perspective of the revolutionary over- - Gulf war in 1991 sure on the others, and especially the USA, in or- ing class, but for the whole of humanity and now throw of capitalism. Faced with the crisis of the - War in ex-Yugoslavia between 1991 and der to gain a certain number of military advantag- for its very survival on the planet. 1930s, the world proletariat, which had been ideo- 2001 es. But this adventurist policy contains two very logically crushed by the bourgeoisie following the - Two wars in Chechnya (in 1994-95 and serious elements. On the one hand, the fact that it The current tendency towards the definitive and defeat of the 1917-23 revolutionary wave, had not 1999-2000) involves, even if in a an indirect manner, the Chi- irreversible degradation of the natural world is been able to come up with its own response, leav- - War in Afghanistan from 2001, which is nese giant, which remains one of North Korea’s frankly alarming, as shown by the constant terrible ing the bourgeoisie to impose its own: a new world still going on 12 years later only allies, and which is more and more pushing scenarios of global warming, pillage of the planet, war. By contrast, with the first blows of the open - The war in Iraq in 2003, the conse- forward its imperialist interests wherever it can, deforestation, soil erosion, destruction of species, crisis at the end of the 1960s, the proletariat had quences of which continue to effect this country in the Far East of course, but also in the Middle pollution of water sources, seas and air and nucle- launched very widespread struggles: May 1968 in in a dramatic way, but also the initiator of the war, East, through its alliance with Iran (which is its ar catastrophes. The latter are an example of the France, the ‘Hot Autumn’ in Italy 1969, the mas- the USA main supplier of hydrocarbons), and also in Africa latent danger of the devastation resulting from the sive strikes of the workers in Poland in 1970, and - The many wars which have ravaged the where a growing economic presence is aimed at potential that capitalism has put at the service of many other combats, less spectacular but no less African continent (Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, Su- preparing the ground for a future military presence its mad logic, turning it into a Sword of Damocles significant as signs of fundamental change in soci- dan, Ivory Coast, Mali, etc) when it has the means to establish it. On the other hanging over the head of humanity. And although ety. The counter-revolution was over. In this new - The numerous military operations by Is- hand, the adventurist policy of the North Korean the bourgeoisie tries to attribute the destruction of situation, the bourgeoisie did not have a free hand rael against Lebanon or the Gaza Strip in response state, a state whose brutal police rule is evidence the environment to the wickedness of individuals to head towards a new world war. There followed to rocket attacks from Hezbollah or Hamas of its basic fragility, contains the risk of things get- ‘lacking an ecological conscience’ – thereby creat- more than four decades marked by the world econ- ting out of hand, of an uncontrolled process creat- ing an atmosphere of guilt and anguish - the truth omy getting more and more bogged down and by In fact, these different conflicts graphically ing a new focus for direct military conflicts whose revealed by its vain and hypocritical attempts to increasingly violent attacks against the living con- illustrate how war has taken on a totally irra- consequences would be hard to predict but which resolve the problem is that this is not a problem of ditions of the exploited. During these decades, the tional character in decadent capitalism. The we can already say would be a further tragic epi- individuals or even of companies or nations, but 4 th working class waged many resistance struggles. wars of the 19 century, however murderous they sode to add to the long list of expressions of mili- of the very logic of devastation inscribed in a sys- However, even though it did not suffer a decisive may have been, had a rationality from the stand- tary barbarism ravaging the planet today. tem which, in the name of accumulation, whose defeat which could have overturned the historic point of the development of capitalism. Colonial principle and goal is profit, has no scruples about course, it was not able to develop its struggles and wars allowed the European states to establish em- The civil war in Syria followed on from undermining once and for all the material prem- its consciousness to the point of offering society pires where they could obtain raw materials or as the ‘Arab spring’ which, by weakening the ises for metabolic exchange between life and the the outline of a revolutionary perspective. outlets for their commodities. The American Civil 7Assad regime, opened up a Pandora’s Box Earth, as long as it can gain an immediate benefit War, won by the north, opened the door to the full of contradictions and conflicts which the iron hand from it. ‘In this situation, where society’s two decisive industrial development of what would become the of this regime had managed to keep under control - and antagonistic - classes confront each other world’s leading power. The Franco-Prussian war of for decades. The western countries have come out This is the inevitable result of the contradiction without either being able to impose its own de- 1870 was a decisive element in German unity and in favour of Assad’s departure but they are quite between the productive forces- human and natu- finitive response, history nonetheless does not just thus in creating the political framework for the fu- incapable of coming up with an alternative, given ral- which capitalism has developed, compressing come to a stop. Still less for capitalism than for ture powerhouse of Europe. By contrast, the First that the opposition is totally divided and that the them to the point of explosion, and the antagonis- preceding social forms, is a “freeze” or a “stag- World War bled the countries of Europe dry, both preponderant sector is made up of the Islamists. At tic relations based on the division between classes nation” of social life possible. As a crisis-ridden the ‘victors’ and the ‘vanquished’, above all those the same time, Russia has given unstinting military and on capitalist competition. capitalism’s contradictions can only get deeper, which had been the most ‘warlike’ (Austria, Rus- support to the Assad regime, which has guaranteed the bourgeoisie’s inability to offer the slightest sia and Germany). As for the Second World War, it the capacity to maintain its war fleet in the port This dramatic scenario must also stimulate the perspective for society as a whole, and the pro- it confirmed and amplified the decline of the Euro- of Tartus. And this is not the only state supporting proletariat in its revolutionary efforts, because letariat’s inability, for the moment, openly to set pean continent where it had begun, with a special the regime: there are also Iran and China. Syria only the destruction of capitalism can enable life forward its own can only lead to a situation of gen- mention for Germany, which in 1945 was a pile of has thus become the stakes of a bloody conflict to flourish once again. eralised decomposition. Capitalism is rotting on ruins, as was the other ‘aggressor’ power, Japan. involving multiple imperialist rivalries between its feet’ (‘Decomposition, final phase in the deca- In fact, the only country which benefited from this powers of the first and second order – rivalries dence of capitalism’, International Review 62). war was the one which had entered it later on and which have exacted a heavy price from the popula- which, because of its geographic position, meant tions of the Middle East for decades. The fact that Thus a new phase in the decadence of capitalism that the war was not fought on its territory – the the manifestation of the ‘Arab Spring’ in Syria has opened up a quarter of a century ago, the phase USA. However, the most important war waged resulted not in the least gain for the exploited and where the phenomenon of decomposition has be- by the US after the Second World War, the war in oppressed masses but in a war which has left over . The question of imperialism is the first Vietnam, certainly showed its irrational character 100,000 dead is a sinister illustration of the weak- question taken up in this resolution. It is followed because it brought nothing to the American power ness of the working class in this country – the only by the destruction of the environment, the despite a considerable cost at the economic and force which can form a barrier to military barba- economic crisis and lastly the class struggle. above all human and political levels. rism. And this situation also applies, even if in less Egypt 

Against Morsi, against the military: for class struggle!

In our previous article analysing the situation in the pro and anti- Morsi elements, resulting in a which eventually convinced the ruling class to Muslim Brotherhood even though they were kept Egypt, we wrote in our conclusion: number of deaths, particularly among the Muslim dump Mubarak. The Egyptian working class is under constant state surveillance – in the epoch “capitalism has accumulated the means to de- Brotherhood. The pro-Morsi demonstrations and by no means immune from the illusions in democ- of Nasser they had been banned outright. Today stroy all human life on the planet. The collapse of sit-ins, which gathered together men, women and racy which pervade the entire social movement, the disappearance of the bloc discipline and the social life and the rule of murderous armed gangs children, were dispersed in a violent manner. The but neither will it be an easy task for the different development of every man for himself, of social – that’s the road of barbarism indicated by what’s army assaults left over a thousand dead. Martial cliques of the ruling class to persuade it to aban- decomposition, is accentuating centrifugal tenden- happening right now in Syria. The revolt of the law, in the shape of a state of emergency and a don its own interests and drag it into the cesspit of cies and especially the rise of radicalised factions exploited and the oppressed, their massive strug- curfew, was imposed in Cairo and 13 provinces. A imperialist war”. like the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, gle in defence of human dignity, of a real future number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and activ- It’s also true that there have been some new ex- which Mubarak had already seen as a ‘state within – that’s the promise of the revolts in Turkey and ists (over 2000) were arrested, including the ‘su- pressions of the class struggle, notably in Mahalla the state’. Brazil. Egypt stands at the crossroads of these two preme leader’ Mohammed Badie and many oth- where 24,000 workers came out on strike after half The international context, above all the free for diametrically opposed choices, and in this sense ers, some of whom died in prison after an escape their wages were not paid. There have also been all between the big global powers, is now serv- it is a symbol of the dilemma facing the whole hu- attempt. strikes in Suez. And some demonstrators have held ing to exacerbate all these inherent tensions. In the man species”. Since then, the demonstrations, targets for the up banners proclaiming ‘Neither Morsi nor the Middle East itself, the growing cleavage between The tragic events which have taken place and bullets of the police and the army, have become military’. But these rare voices have been stifled Qatar and Saudi Arabia on the one hand, which accelerated during the month of August in Egypt less numerous. In maintaining order in this man- more and more, just as the courageous struggles are close to the US despite their extreme Wahabite following the reactions to the army coup against ner, the army and the police have won the sup- of the workers have been increasingly isolated and ideology, and Egypt on the other, is pouring oil on former president Morsi, in particular the bloody re- port of the majority of the population who see the thus weakened. While the situation has not reached the fire. This is why the US can’t draw back from pression of the Muslim Brotherhood which peaked Muslim Brotherhood as ‘terrorists’. This support the tragic level it has in Syria, it is becoming more financing the Egyptian army (to the tune of at least on the 14th August, bear witness to the whole grav- for the army and the state, mixed up with a grow- and more difficult to break out of the deadly logic 80%), even though it can see that the situation is ity of this historic situation and confirm this idea ing anti-Islamist feeling, but tainted with national- leading towards such barbaric outcomes. getting more and more out of its control. of a “crossroads” for the whole of humanity. ism, can only weaken the proletariat, which risks Capitalism has nothing to offer but poverty and being caught up in the negative logic of the situa- The threat of violent chaos and chaos. Whatever bourgeois gang is in power, the Getting caught up in the logic tion. This is all the more true in that the rejection instability in the region situation of the mass of the population can only get of civil war of religious fundamentalism is fed by the demo- The internal instability that has been aggravated worse. But contrary to what the bourgeoisie and The quagmire of decomposition, of economic and cratic mystification which still retains a great deal by recent events is not taking shape in a secondary its media would have us believe – that the failure social crisis, the corruption and disastrous policies of strength. country of the region. Egypt is a turning point be- in Egypt is indubitable proof that any uprising can of the Morsi government (elected in June 2012) led Unlike the great demonstrations in Tahrir Square tween North Africa and the Middle East, between only end up in religious obscurantism or in dicta- the population back to the streets to express their which led to the downfall of Mubarak and where Africa and Asia. It is the most populous country torship - the historic perspective of the proletarian discontent with growing poverty and insecurity. It the political presence of women was tolerated and of the Muslim world and Africa and its capital, revolution, even if it’s not an immediate one, is was this deteriorating situation, aggravated by the where they were relatively protected, the terror Cairo, the biggest metropolis of the continent. the one and only alternative to barbarism. It is the political irrationality and endless provocations of reigning today has led to a spectacular moral re- The country is part of a Sunni arc opposed to the responsibility of the proletariat to become aware the Muslim Brotherhood, which pushed the Egyp- gression, such as the collective rape of women in Shiite countries, notably Syria-Lebanon and Iran, of this and to express its class solidarity in order tian army to carry out the coup of 3 July, deposing the middle of demonstrations, and the pogrom at- the sworn enemy of the US and Israel in the re- to offer a real perspective for all the struggles go- president Morsi from office. Parallel to this, the mosphere against the Copts (hundreds of churches gion. From the geographical point of view Egypt ing on in the world. Only the decisive intervention social agitation continued, stoking up very dan- have been burned and a number of Copts have therefore occupies a major strategic position, in of the world proletariat, above all its most expe- gerous tensions and some bloody confrontations. been killed). particular with regard to the interests of the USA, rienced fractions in the old European industrial This was nothing less than a juggernaut heading As we wrote in our previous article: “The work- the world’s leading, but declining, imperialist centres, can open the road to the future – world towards civil war. The only force capable of hold- ing class in Egypt is a much more formidable force power. During the Cold War, Egypt was an essen- revolution. WH 28 August ing society together, the army, was compelled to than it is in Libya or Syria. It has a long tradi- tial pawn guaranteeing the stability of the region step in and prevent it from breaking apart. The tion of militant struggle against the state and its to the benefit of the US. This advantage was con- strongman of the hour is therefore the head of the official trade union tentacles, going back at least solidated with the Camp David Accords of 1979, army, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. The latter was obliged as far as the 1970s. In 2006 and 2007 massive sealing the rapprochement between Egypt and . The Muslim Brotherhood, constituted by Hasan to impose a policy of brutal repression, mainly us- strikes radiated out from the highly concentrated Israel and the US. The relative stability linked to al Banna in Egypt in 1928, quickly implanted itself ing the civil police against the Muslim Brothers textile sector, and this experience of open defiance the balance between the rival military blocs of east in a number of Arab countries. It had a retrograde, and the pro-Morsi forces. Throughout the summer, of the regime subsequently fed into the movement and west made it possible contain and tolerate the traditionalist ideology, based on the project of a grand there was a growing number of clashes between of 2011, which was marked by a strong working Sunni Caliphate, the logic of which came up against all class imprint, both in the tendencies towards self- . http ://english.ahram.org.eg/ the countries which had already been formed as national . http://en.internationalism.org/ NewsContent/3/12/79967/Business/ entities. See http://en.internationalism.org/ir/109_islam. organisation which appeared in Tahrir Square and worldrevolution/201307/8946/egypt-highlights- Economy/Egypts-Mahalla-textile-workers-onstrike- html alternative-socialism-or-barbarism the neighbourhoods, and in the wave of strikes again.aspx

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At the time of writing, one of the liveli- forces in a progressive fashion. I think this is On the same thread A. Simpleton takes and making it possible for them to pour still more est threads on our English-language where the sticking point on Chinese development up a question about ecology: furious torrents on the plains during the rainy sea- forum is ‘Decadence after 1968’ (http:// comes into play. How can capitalism be decadent sons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/ if is now developing China towards a more modern It took more than a minute :@- and of course not aware that with these farinaceous tubers they mhou/9035/decadence-after-1968?), capitalist economy, creating a new major power, a misses your date by 6 years :@{ ...but do I get a were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus at which has had over 100 replies and new national capital and a new national proletariat consolation prize or badge or something? every step we are reminded that we by no means over 2,000 views. It is raising questions in the world’s most populous country (I am not ‘ I suppose someone will come up with a citation rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign about what we mean by the decadence arguing that this is what is actually happening). I about a revolutionary who saw an ecological crisis people, like someone standing outside nature – but of capitalism, about the relation between think the way some comrades has dealt with this in 1870 any minute now! cheeky’ that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to na- economic crisis and decadence, be- is to focus on the “progressive fashion” in the con- ‘Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch ture, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery tween ecological crisis and decadence, struction “development of the productive forces on account of our human victories over nature. consists of, is in the fact that we have the advan- about the significance of the rise of in a progressive fashion.” Is what is happening in For each such victory nature takes its revenge on tage over all other creatures of being able to learn China and so on. The following extract China progressive from the standpoint of human- us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings its laws and apply them correctly.’ from a post by jk1921 gives the flavour: ity as a whole? about the results we expected, but in the second Engels, The Part Played by Labour in the Transi- This seems to raise a new issue. It’s not just that and third places it has quite different, unforeseen tion from Ape to Man (1876) I think it’s clear that we all more or less agree “growth” can be illusory, but now so can “devel- effects which only too often cancel the first. The that decadence is not the same as the crisis, but we opment”? Can there be something like “excess de- people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Mi- Less superficially, it does prefigure ecological all also seem to agree that it must be related some- velopment”? Can there be too much capitalism in nor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain considerations - though note the ‘who could have how. The question is in what way? Does capital a global context? Capitalism has become decadent cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing guessed’ tone. It does factor in human choice viz accumulation have to be in a “permanent crisis” before it even got around to really transforming the along with the forests the collecting centres and ‘correct application’ of human invention to redress for decadence to occur (even if this permanent cri- world’s most populous country in its own image? reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis such environmental degradation as he cites. I do sis is punctuated by periods of fictitious growth)? Perhaps, but this seems very uncomfortable for for the present forlorn state of those countries. get the sense that he warns against taking inex- Or can capital accumulate “normally” even in Marxists who are used to arguing that capitalism is When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine for- haustible natural supply for granted. However, decadence? obsolete because it can no longer develop the pro- ests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished although never one to underestimate the ruthless- My sense is that decadence is a qualitative mea- ductive forces in the Third World condemning it to on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by ness of Capital - it doesn’t sound as if knowing, sure not a quantitative one. Decadence means that backwardness. This would all seem to require us doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy blithely indifferent devastation of the whole planet the capitalist system has reached a point where it to revise some of the assumptions Marxists have industry in their region; they had still less inkling ever figured in his worst nightmare. no longer serves a progressive historical mission, traditionally made about growth, development, that they were thereby depriving their mountain because it can no longer develop the productive historical progress etc. springs of water for the greater part of the year, en.internationalism.org  Book review

The alternative to capitalism

The alternative to capitalism is published by The- It also seems evident to us that there are many At the end of the essay Crump speculates that barriers erected by the bourgeois state. But class ory and Practice whose website contains a broad comrades in the SPGB who feel somewhat em- it might in future be necessary to add a sixth cri- consciousness is not something that is download- range of texts from political currents such as the barrassed by the idea that ‘electing a socialist ma- terion: opposition to any notion of a transitional ed for good - it evolves through advances and re- SPGB, left communism and situationism (www. jority’ to parliament could be at least part of the society. In his view socialism must be introduced treats and there is no guarantee that even after the theoryandpractice.org.uk). The book contains revolutionary process. We will come back to this, straight away or not at all: first victories of the revolution, initial difficulties essays by Adam Buick and John Crump which but for now we want to turn to two of the ideas “One feature which capitalism and socialism have in taking the communist programme forward will were first published in 1986 and 1987. It’s not contained in the essay by John Crump, who was, in common is their all-or-nothing quality, their in- not result in regressions and even counter-revolu- presented as an official publication of the SPGB, as we have already noted, a critic of the parlia- ability to coexist in today’s highly integrated world, tionary moods. The struggle for communist ideas although the book was sent to us for review by mentary road: the idea of the ’thin red line’, and which can provide an environment for only one or will be every bit as intense after the revolution as comrades who are members of the organisation. the idea that socialism could be achieved without other of these rival global systems. In the circum- before it. For all these reasons, a phase of transi- In any case, while Adam Buick is a longstanding an intervening period of transition. stances of the twentieth century, the means of pro- tion between capitalism and communism will be member, John Crump left the SPGB in the 1970s, The essay ‘The thin red line and non-market so- duction must either function as capital throughout inevitable. criticising the party’s parliamentary conception of cialism in the 20th century’ complements the es- the world (in which case wage labour and capitalism This is a major discussion and we can’t hope to revolution and arguing – as we shall see – that say by Adam Buick in the sense that it shows that persist internationally) or they must be commonly take it very far here. But one thing does need to the SPGB was by no means the only authentically most of the officially accepted varieties of ‘social- owned and democratically controlled at a global be said. Crump considers that the rejection of a socialist organisation in the world, in opposition ism’ are actually proponents of state capitalism level (in which case they would be used to produce transition period could be a sixth key point demar- to the ‘hostility clause’ contained in its 1904 state- and can thus be seen as a left wing of capitalism. wealth for free, worldwide distribution). No halfway cating real socialists from apologists for capital, ment of principles. Despite these criticisms, rela- Crump terms them ‘social democratic’ and ‘Le- house between these two starkly opposed alterna- but we would suggest that some of the other dif- tions between Crump and the SPGB seem to have ninist’, the latter referring mainly to the Stalin- tives exists, and it is the impossibility of discovering ferences among the ‘non-market socialists’ could remained fraternal until his death in 2005, and it ist regimes of the eastern bloc which were still any viable ‘transitional’ structures which ensures become much more crucial well before the work- would also seem that one of the reasons why the in existence at the time of writing. We reject the that the changeover from world capitalism to world ing class had assumed political power: in particu- Socialist Studies group split from the party (or as term Leninist to describe these regimes, since this socialism will have to take the form of a short, sharp lar, we would expect that communists would be it sees it ‘reconstituted the SPGB’) in 1991 was equates the Stalinist parties which managed them rupture (a revolution), rather than an extended pro- involved in a real political struggle against or- the influence of Crump’s efforts to push the SPGB with the revolutionary Bolshevik party of 1917, cess of cumulative transformation....” ganisations and tendencies who argued that the in certain untraditional directions. but we don’t intend to enter into that debate right Here Crump is very much on the same lines as councils should submit to this or that party ‘by The first part of the book is a straightforward ac- now. the SPGB (and others such as the communisation right’ – or against those who argued that instead of count of what capitalism actually is, a task that Overall, we find this essay to be based on a posi- tendency). being diametrically opposed to each other , coun- it is as necessary as ever given the immense sea tive and constructive premise: that throughout the We agree with Crump and the SPGB that state cils and parliament can co-exist, a fatal error that of confusion which surrounds the term. The idea 20th century, a genuine vision of socialism has capitalism is not a transitional stage towards so- helped bury the German revolution (and thus the that capitalism can be defined as individual- en been maintained by a number of political currents cialism, and that the economic programme of a Russian revolution as well) in 1918-19. Amos, terprise or ownership, a conception shared both which have shared five key points in opposition victorious working class does not consist of ‘ac- September 2013 by the openly capitalist right and the allegedly to the false conception of socialism propagated cumulating’ value to the point where here is a suf- anti-capitalist left, still has to be confronted and by the left wing of capital: production for use; ficient level of productive capacity to make abun- rejected: it was central to the ideology pervading distribution according to need; voluntary labour; dance possible. Capitalism has already developed . For a more global view about why periods of the ‘Occupy’ movements of 2011, where notions a human community; opposition to capitalism as a huge overcapacity and what is required is the transition between one mode of production and another of making the rich pay their taxes, abolishing it manifests itself in all existing countries. He cat- transformation of the productive apparatus rather are necessary, see: http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_ bankers’ bonuses, defending public ownership etc egorises these currents as follows: anarcho-com- than its ‘development’ in any capitalist sense. problems_mc.htm were extremely tenacious despite the waning in- munism; impossibilism (groups like the SPGB); But what strikes one is how superficially opti- fluence of the established organisations of the left council communism; Bordigism; situationism. mistic Crump’s vision is. He admits that capital- within these movements. The essay was originally These groups make up the real socialist tradition ism has bequeathed us a bit of a mess which will published as ‘State capitalism: the wages system of the 20th century. have to be cleared up, and that some temporary ICC Online: under new management’ and the central aim of We could object to the categories or see the need measures may be needed to deal with shortages, this return to basics is to show that state capital- to update them: there are plenty of anarcho-syn- but at the same time we will almost overnight (a recent ism, whether in its Stalinist, social democratic or dicalists today who fulfil the criteria; there’s no few months, or at most a few years) have elimi- other political forms, remains capitalism because space for left communist groups like the ICC and nated markets, nations, and all the rest of it, and capitalism is not at root a form of property but a ICT which are neither council communist nor be living in a world of free access communism. additions social relation, where the mass of producers are Bordigist; situationism is hardly a political move- It seems like a vast underestimation: compelled to sell their labour power, and a capi- ment these days while on the other hand there are - Of the dire material consequences of talist minority (private or state) accumulate the a number of groups which belong to the ‘com- capitalism surviving a hundred years into its ep- value extracted from this inherently exploitative munisation’ current which certainly fit the overall och of senility, at the level of ecological damage, NSA Spying scandal: relationship. It then goes on to do what the SPGB category. And we could add various other political the waste and irrationality of a productive appara- the democratic state shows its has been doing for over a hundred years now: animals to the ark. tus geared to competition and war; teeth defend the fundamental principle that socialism We could also say that the criteria for marking - Of the inevitable brutal reaction of the (or communism, it rightly sees the terms as inter- off a genuine socialist/communist movement from ruling class which will not recognise any legal changeable) can only be based on the abolition of the left wing of capital should lay much more em- niceties in attempting to suppress a revolutionary the wage relationship, and is a stateless, money- phasis on the last point, which seems to be added movement; Frankenstein and the Luddites less world community. as an afterthought. This is essentially the question - Of the near impossibility of the revolu- (an article by our sympathiser We have few criticisms of this section of the of internationalism, and it’s the only one which tion being simultaneous in all countries at once, book, except to say that it has a somewhat time- actually refers to present day political issues rather and thus the necessity to subordinate any eco- Fred looking at the symbolism of less approach which doesn’t really explain why than the programme for the future. And we have nomic measures taken in the area controlled by ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ in the state capitalism has become the most important seen in the past how this criterion, above all when the working class to the number one priority of light of the class struggle in the form of capitalist ‘management’ for the entire pe- concretised by the question of imperialist war, has spreading the revolution internationally; riod of the SPGB’s history. For us, this can only been a true dividing line between loyalty to and - Of the ideological poison distilled not early 19th century) be understood with reference to the passage of the betrayal of the socialist cause. only by a hundred years of barbarism but also of capitalist mode of production from its ascendant However, as we said, the basic approach is a thousands of years of class society, of alienated to its decadent phase: in a system faced with near fruitful one. In opposition to the sectarianism of social relations which will constantly hold back Solidarity appeal for the permanent war and economic crisis, and danger- the ‘hostility’ clause, Crump is arguing that there humanity’s efforts to become self-aware and self- ous outbreaks of revolutionary class struggle, something like a ‘proletarian political camp’ organised; renovation of Gondolkodó state capitalism - the state’s totalitarian grip on which shares certain common principles despite - Of the inability of capitalism to create Autonóm Antikvárium social and economic life - becomes a condition their many differences (such as the parliamen- a world limited to bourgeoisie and proletarians, (Gondolkodó Autonomous for ensuring the survival of the system. Although tary question, the role of the vanguard party, which means that the proletarian revolution will Bookshop), the SPGB has always rejected our conception of etc). Crump even defends the Bordigists against be faced with the task of integrating millions of decadence, it holds some conceptions which are the charge that their position on the party makes individuals who belong to other non-exploiting Budapest not far from it in practice, such as the idea that them indistinguishable from leftist groups like the strata and who will not have the same material from the beginning of the 20th century capitalism Trotskyists. We don’t know where the SPGB of- interest in communism. Exchange will still exist had created the material conditions for abundance ficially stands on this idea of the ‘thin red line’. with small property owners for example, hence and thus for the socialist transformation, render- We do know that the Socialist Studies group spe- the law of value will not vanish until all these so- Prehistory: a contribution to ing capitalism ‘obsolete’. But the full implications cifically cited Crump’s views on this issue asa cial layers have been incorporated into the work- discussion of the system becoming a barrier to human prog- revision of the SPGB’s principles. The SPGB has ing class. Article by our sympathiser ress have never been drawn by the SPGB, even if always been prepared to debate with anyone, irre- It’s of course true that to make the revolution in Baboon in response to the in conversations with individual members there is spective of their class nature. But this recognition the first place the working class will have to con- obviously a serious interest in this question. of a wider milieu than the party itself demands front and overcome many of the ideological ob- articles on ‘Woman’s role in the something a bit more: it demands a recognition stacles which hold it down, as well as the physical emergence of human culture’ in . http://revolutionarytotalitarians.wordpress. that we are comrades who should have an attitude . There is a debate on the question of transition on the com/2012/04/01/john-crumps-critique-of-the-spgb/ International Reviews of mutual solidarity towards each other, an atti- SPGB internet forum here. One of the SPGB’s posters . http://www.socialiststudies.org.uk/ – ALB – expressed surprise at the emphasis the ICC 150 and 151 polemic%20john%20crump.shtml tude that is sadly missing in today’s proletarian comrade (Alf) placed on the subjective elements of the . See also this recent contribution by Binay Sarkar of political movement. revolutionary process and the necessary but difficult the Indian affiliate of the World Socialist Movement. . http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/thin-red-line- struggle against alienation: http://www.worldsocialism. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general- non-market-socialism-twentieth-century-john-crump- org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/icc-way-and-our- en.internationalism.org discussion/ascendancedecadence-capitalism 1987 way Life of the ICC 

Continued from page 8

The spying game

Just one time in history have the real details and a spontaneous, elementary action resulting from electronic field that can be switched off, show the vision of “1984”, today a massive and widespread methods of the political police been examined and the demoralisation of a police force at its wits’ potential difficulties for the ruling class. There mobilisation of the working class cannot easily exposed by revolutionaries. This was when the ar- end, overtaken by events, which cannot perform were very strong strikes in the eastern bloc coun- be contained. Thousands, millions of protesting chives of the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, tasks infinitely above its capacities, and nonethe- tries, Hungary, Poland, Russia in the 50’s, 60’s workers, especially if centralised through general fell into the hand of the Bolsheviks and were ana- less wants to justify the expectations and expendi- and 70’s, despite the all-pervasive nature of the assemblies or even at well-organised and pointed lysed by the revolutionary Victor Serge, which ture of its masters”. And finally on Serge, in line state apparatus, particularly their interior minis- demonstrations, cannot easily be corralled, let resulted in his book What everyone should know with our position above: “There is no force in the tries and their trade union spying networks. In alone overcome. From this perspective we begin about repression (first published in 1926). In it world which can hold back the revolutionary tide East Germany the 1953 workers’ strikes knocked to understand a bit more here about the unions be- he is clear that the state apparatus is not just a war when it rises and all the police forces, however the repressive apparatus of the state, including the ing the state’s police of the working class. machine for competing groups, but a machine for Machiavellian, scientific or criminal, are virtually unions, sideways, despite its reliance on one of But if we can take heart from the actions of our the repression of the exploited. This is an incred- impotent against it”. the biggest bodies of secret police in the world, class we mustn’t console ourselves with a false ible read for what Serge describes as the “pro- the Stasi - an organisation that went to the extent sense of security. In relation to the proletariat totype of the modern political police”. By 1900, “1984”: Counter-revolution... of collecting sweat samples from people and stor- and its revolutionary minorities, there can be no the Okhrana was organised internationally and There’s been lots of talk in the media about these ing them in tubes in order to identify them later. doubt about the determination, ruthlessness and by 1905 it was engaging in highly sophisticated leaked secrets showing how we have arrived at The workers’ self-organisation in the MKS in cold-bloodiness of the ruling class in wanting to levels of espionage across Russia with extensive George Orwell’s nightmare vision of 1984 and Poland, 1980, shows even more clearly how to destroy and eliminate their threat and this inevita- spying networks. To keep track of all this, spies “Big Brother is Watching You”; with some saying fight state repression: the ruling class, consisting bly leads to harassment, imprisonment and assas- would spy on spies and spies would spy on them, that we have gone well beyond it. Orwell’s 1949 of the army, party, security services and the of- sinations, as we saw even in the heights of class and informers, secret agents, provocateurs, police book, with its story of the state overlooking every ficial trade unions, wanted to cut off the phone- struggle in Germany during the revolutionary spies were everywhere in Russia: “The police aspect of one’s life, every corner of it, was a hor- line between the MKS in Gdansk and the rest of wave of 1918/19. Deportations, the kidnapping of had to see everything, know, understand and have ror story of the counter-revolution. It’s a story of the country, i.e. the other workers’ assemblies. thousands of opponents by innumerable regimes, power over everything. The strength and per- perpetual warfare generated to keep the popula- But the workers met up and responded with a the pogromist campaigns against revolutionaries fection of their machinery appears all the more tion behind the state, of the national socialism of force that pushed back the arm of repression. It all bear witness to the consciousness of the rul- terrible because of the unsuspected forces they Big Brother and the hopelessness of rebellion. The was the general assemblies - where workers of ing class. The bourgeoisie has never been nice to dragged up from the depth of the human soul”. rebel hero, Winston Smith, eventually has all the several cities and towns were united and debated the working class when it dares to raise its head You can see from reading the book how paranoid spark of revolt snuffed out of him and any hope and decided together - which held the forces of against capitalism in any effective manner. the bourgeoisie was about the working class, and of a different society is completely extinguished. repression at bay. The elected strike committees Baboon 6.9.13 we have had a hundred years of state capitalism This book was a reflection of the counter-revolu- also used the company/union PA address system since then to reinforce and refine their fears and tion, of the dark days leading up to and coming to broadcast talks between the workers and the In a second part we will look at the development their machines of repression. out of the Second World War when the working politicians directly to the workers. This is a ques- of the fortress state, the “war on terror” used to Serge denounces “legality” and the respect for it class seemed totally helpless, impotent and atom- tion of the historic course, of an undefeated work- justify spying, Britain as an example of spying as an element of class collaboration in much the ised vis-a-vis the state. But, in reality, even in the ing class and we have the more recent example of and policing by a democratic state, and the use of same way as “accountability” and “transparency” depths of this period of counter-revolution, even the self-organisation of the proletariat in China in counter-espionage and intelligence by the work- - and indeed “legality” - are used around the NSA in places like Nazi Germany or the police states the face of formidable state repression. Unlike the ing class. issue today. This naivety “ignores the real role of of the eastern bloc and the militarised democra- the state and the deceptive nature of democracy; cies, there were still acts of revolt, compassion, in short, the first principles of class struggle”. solidarity, protests and strikes, some major, some He doesn’t at all underestimate the “powerful very minor in character but all the more signifi- Donations and cunning adversary” and from this denounces cant given the period that they took place in. the idea of the “idyllic revolution”. In respect of It’s true that today Orwell’s nightmare vision of the undercover forces at work today, Serge gives a citizen’s every step being followed by the state Unlike the bourgeois press, revolutionary politics, see the importance of the intervention some considerable insight: “Police provocation is is very much a reality. But we have more than publications such as World Revolution have no of a communist press. above all the weapon - or the curse - of decompos- enough evidence that all the state’s surveillance advertising revenue, no chains of news agents ing regimes. Conscious of their impotence to pre- and all the state’s bloodhounds cannot control a and no millionaire backers. We rely on the sup- Donations are always welcome. vent what is going on, the police incite initiatives population in revolt and particularly the work- port of our sympathisers, and those who, while which they can then repress. Provocation is also ing class. The recent demonstrations and protests they might not agree with all aspects of our . http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1926/ across the world, even if greatly facilitated by an repression/

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The spying game

he recent revelations about the extent of The basis and continuity of surveillance by the capitalist state, as ex- capitalism’s spying game Tposed by the former National Security There are at least three factors that underlie the Agency operative Edward Snowden, shouldn’t spying activities of the capitalist state: really surprise us. There are certain technical in- - the economic competition which breeds indus- novations which are quite revealing about the way trial espionage - the more frantic and desperate the state uses the development of technology, but the competition, the more so the spying around it. in essence this latest scandal just confirms what The recent revelations showed that this includes we already know about the development of state the NSA spying on embassies and other institu- capitalism and the paranoia of the bourgeoisie; and tions of its so-called allies (such as France and we can probably assume that many of the tech- Germany) as well as its more traditional imperial- nicalities revealed have already been superseded ist foes; by even more refined methods. The Wikileaks re- - military confrontations and the developments of lease of classified US documents three years ago, imperialism. These are unthinkable without ‘intel- giving rise to a world-wide media frenzy, amply ligence’, spying, undercover agencies at work; demonstrated that spying and lying are part of the - the maintenance of class domination. Class so- stock-in-trade of the ruling class. ciety compels the ruling class to use repression, There is nothing really new about revelations secret police, undercover agents, all kinds of ob- the US and Britain were spying on but all of them head of the state and the secret services. In Russia that our rulers are a ruthless, murderous, Machia- servations and spying on the working class and are at it. Germany’s BND intelligence agency every president bar one, Boris Yeltsin (who was vellian, conspiratorial class. It would be naive for on any oppositions or protests. This is particularly has used “massive amounts” of daily intercepts close to them), came directly from the KGB or revolutionaries to think otherwise because this the case with the working class, the revolutionary from the NSA (Der Spiegel, 7.8.13) and they have their predecessors; President Bush Senior was would directly lead to fostering illusions in the class in capitalist society. Here the spying had to been working closely together for decades. It’s a previously the head of the CIA and Klaus Kinkel, democratic state and the idea that this state would become systematic. similar story from France whose politicians like the former German Foreign Minister, was head of abide by the rules or operate fairly. In general, To express outrage that governments, the US to boast about the independence of their country. the German secret services In 1981, the Thatcher throughout history, the workers’ movement has in the case of the NSA, or Britain in the case of And while they are cooperating at one level, at clique, which had links to the secret services, set tended to underestimate the Machiavellianism of GCHQ, use their spying agencies against econom- another they are all spying on each other. up the shadowy MISC 57 unit, three years before the bourgeoisie and it has paid a great price for do- ic or military rivals, or populations at large, is just While they existed during capitalism’s rise as a taking on the miners, and secret service bosses in ing so. The enormous reach and depth of state sur- hypocritical. The same British media outlets and dynamic system, while they even pre-date capital- many Middle East countries are very close to the veillance that has recently been unmasked is thus liberals today bleating about a “free press” and ism itself, spying activities take on a new dimen- head of government and the forces of direct re- not an exception and not really a scandal, but the censorship are the same ones that joined in the sion in capitalism’s decadence. This is because of pression. true face of a capitalist society which is driven by vilification and demonisation of the miners during permanent war and imperialist conflict; increased the cancers of militarism, terrorism (for the most their pivotal strike of 1984/5, and the same ones commercial rivalry and competition which also 1917: Revolution part fostered directly and indirectly by the major that repeated the state’s lying propaganda about tend to overflow into the realms of military de- There’s an idea among some revolutionary ele- powers) and competition as well as the imperative WMD in Iraq in 2003. All countries are forced to velopments; and, above all, because of the need ments, an idea that sits side-by-side with the re- need to use its spies, police and secret agencies as spy and lie and there is no state, no ruling class to keep a tight watch and control over the work- jection of an analysis that the bourgeoisie is an weapons of repression and oppression against the without its secret services, machines of surveil- ing class. Those are the main reasons why we see intelligent and conspiratorial class, that the police working class or any elements that come up against lance and undercover operations. The democratic such a strong growth in these parasitic bodies and “won’t bother with the likes of us - we’re too the system. This is just as true of the velvet-glove New Zealand government has just passed a new their activities. Even in the period of counter-rev- small, too insignificant”. Such ideas are conces- democracies as of the iron-fist totalitarian regimes spying bill giving the state more power over its olution when the working class was more or less sions to democracy which also underestimate the - they are all expressions of the dictatorship of population (Guardian, August 20), and its police absent as a fighting force - indeed arising from fact that the bourgeoisie has often been clearer capital and they provide themselves with the tools and intelligence services have direct access to it - came the most developed means for perma- about the crucial role of revolutionary organisa- to maintain that dictatorship, of which spying is US surveillance networks such as PRISM; mean- nent surveillance. The totalitarian regimes of the tions than the working class (See the article in WR just a part. Behind all the fuss about state surveil- while a ‘national liberation’ organisation such as Nazis and the Stalinists built the most secret and 252 ‘Revolutionary organisations struggle against lance, despite all the outrage and protest from left the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank has 7 fearsome apparatus for spying and repression: the provocation and slander’). Mussolini’s secret po- to right, these are the very principles of capitalist different police/security bodies. This hypocrisy Gestapo and the Russian GPU. From the Second lice maintained a spy in the very small left com- society being put to work and the outrage tends is also endemic to the system itself with the call World War, where the spying activities of all the munist group Bilan in the 1930’s and the nascent to cover up this reality. Spying has always been from the White House last year for an internation- belligerents were vital for victory or defeat, these group of the ICC in France in the early 70’s was an important tool in class societies, all the more al convention to regularise “consumer data pri- machines developed further during the Cold War watched over by the police. These are things that so in capitalist society and particularly a capitalist vacy in a networked world” (Guardian, 27.4.13). where they were again intensified by technologi- we know. society in its decadent phase where the size and This was just another weapon in the USA’s cy- cal means along with a considerable growth of . http://en.internationalism.org/wr/252_slander.htm intensity of the state’s espionage machine reaches ber-warfare, particularly involving China. Scan- the CIA and other such organisations. There are new extents and depths. dal after scandal has emerged in the countries that also developments in the closeness between the Continued on page 7

organisation, whether ‘official’ or ‘rank and file’, serve factor in the generalisation of class consciousness only to discipline the working class and sabotage its within the proletariat. Its role is neither to ‘organise Political positions of the ICC struggles. the working class’ nor to ‘take power’ in its name, but World Revolution is the section in Britain of the the international arena. These wars bring nothing to * In order to advance its combat, the working class to participate actively in the movement towards the International Communist Current which defends the humanity but death and destruction on an ever-increas- has to unify its struggles, taking charge of their ex­ unification of struggles, towards workers taking control following political positions: ing scale. The working class can only respond to them tension and organisation through sovereign general of them for themselves, and at the same time to draw through its international solidarity and by struggling assemblies and committees of delegates elected and out the revolutionary political goals of the proletariat’s * Since the first world war, capitalism has been a deca­ against the bourgeoisie in all countries. revocable at any time by these assemblies. combat. dent social system. It has twice plunged humanity into * All the nationalist ideologies - ‘national in­ * Terrorism is in no way a method of struggle for the a barbaric cycle of crisis, world war, reconstruction and dependence’, ‘the right of nations to self-determination’ working class. The expression of social strata with no OUR ACTIVITY new crisis. In the 1980s, it entered into the final phase etc - whatever their pretext, ethnic, historical or historic future and of the decomposition of the petty of this decadence, the phase of decomposition. There is religious, are a real poison for the workers. By calling bourgeoisie, when it’s not the direct expression of the Political and theoretical clarification of the goals and only one alternative offered by this irreversible histori- on them to take the side of one or another faction of permanent war between capitalist states, terrorism has methods of the proletarian struggle, of its historic and cal decline: socialism or barbarism, world communist the bourgeoisie, they divide workers and lead them to always been a fertile soil for manipulation by the bour­ its immediate conditions. revolution or the destruction of humanity. massacre each other in the interests and wars of their geoisie. Advocating secret action by small minorities, Organised intervention, united and centralised on * The Paris Commune of 1871 was the first attempt exploiters. it is in complete opposition to class violence, which an international scale, in order to contribute to the by the proletariat to carry out this revolution, in a * In decadent capitalism, parliament and elections derives from conscious and organised mass action by process which leads to the revolutionary action of the period when the conditions for it were not yet ripe. are nothing but a masquerade. Any call to participate the proletariat. proletariat. Once these conditions had been provided by the onset in the parliamentary circus can only reinforce the lie * The working class is the only class which can The regroupment of revolutionaries with the aim of of capitalist decadence, the October revolution of 1917 that presents these elections as a real choice for the ex- carry out the communist revolution. Its revolutionary constituting a real world communist party, which is in Russia was the first step towards an authentic world ploited. ‘Democracy’, a particularly hypocritical form struggle will inevitably lead the working class towards indispensable to the working class for the overthrow of communist revolution in an international revolutionary of the domination of the bourgeoisie, does not differ at a confrontation with the capitalist state. In order to capitalism and the creation of a communist society. wave which put an end to the imperialist war and went root from other forms of capitalist dictatorship, such as destroy capitalism, the working class will have to over- on for several years after that. The failure of this revo- Stalinism and fascism. throw all existing states and establish the dictatorship OUR ORIGINS lutionary wave, particularly in Germany in 1919-23, * All factions of the bourgeoisie are equally re­ of the proletariat on a world scale: the international condemned the revolution in Russia to isolation and to actionary. All the so-called ‘workers’, ‘Socialist’ and power of the workers’ councils, regrouping the entire The positions and activity of revolutionary or­ a rapid degeneration. Stalinism was not the product of ‘Communist’ parties (now ex-’Communists’), the leftist proletariat. ganisations are the product of the past experiences of the Russian revolution, but its gravedigger. organisations (Trotskyists, Maoists and ex-Maoists, * The communist transformation of society by the the working class and of the lessons that its political or- * The statified regimes which arose in the USSR, official anarchists) constitute the left of capitalism’s workers’ councils does not mean ‘self-management’ ganisations have drawn throughout its history. The ICC eastern Europe, China, Cuba etc and were called political apparatus. All the tactics of ‘popular fronts’, or the nationalisation of the economy. Communism thus traces its origins to the successive contributions of ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ were just a particularly ‘anti-fascist fronts’ and ‘united fronts’, which mix up requires the conscious abolition by the working class the Communist League of Marx and Engels (1847-52), brutal form of the universal tendency towards state the interests of the proletariat with those of a faction of of capitalist social relations: wage labour, commodity the three Internationals (the International Working- capitalism, itself a major characteristic of the period of the bourgeoisie, serve only to smother and derail the production, national frontiers. It means the creation men’s Association, 1864-72, the Socialist International, decadence. struggle of the proletariat. of a world community in which all activity is oriented 1884-1914, the Communist International, 1919-28), * Since the beginning of the 20th century, all wars are * With the decadence of capitalism, the unions every­ towards the full satisfaction of human needs. the left fractions which detached themselves from the imperialist wars, part of the deadly struggle between where have been transformed into organs of capitalist * The revolutionary political organisation constitutes degenerating Third International in the years 1920-30, states large and small to conquer or retain a place in order within the proletariat. The various forms of union the vanguard of the working class and is an active in particular the German, Dutch and Italian Lefts.