The internationalists

The First Step Forward is to Unite and Fight · The Crisis is Global · Now the election is over nobody is denying that capitalism faces a global crisis. In fact we are now being prepared by our rulers for an “era of austerity”. There was an initial shiver of panic amongst the ranks of the capitalist class as the financial meltdown of two years ago dramatically revealed the prospect of complete economic collapse. We’ve all heard the comparisons with 1929 and the Great Depression. Suddenly media pundits began to wonder if, after all, there was something in what Karl Marx had said about capitalism’s inherent tendency to crisis and self-destruction.

Since early February the crisis, which has been developing over the sovereign debts of some of the weaker countries of the Eurozone, has brought the Eurozone countries in particular and the EU in general to a crossroads. · The Eurozone is now faced with the choice of either going forward to real economic federation or seeing the Euro collapse as a shared currency. · If the currency were to collapse the entire European project would be placed at risk. · A Minor Greek Debt Crisis Explodes · Initially the crisis was considered a fairly minor one affecting Greece, which is only a small country in the Eurozone.

Our comrades in Turkey at the previously state-owned tobacco and alcohol concern have been in struggle for months, despite massive repression, against wage-cuts, the loss of contractual and social rights and the loss of jobs. Two of the strikers report on their struggle. · Monday 21st June, 19:30 · Galerie Kraftwerk - Rungestr. 20 - 10179 Berlin - Mitte (S-Bahnhof Jannowitzbrücke or U-Bahn Heinrich-Heine- Straße)

As we go to press it has been announced that 7 Indian executives have been found guilty of “criminal negligence” over the Bhopal gas leak which killed between 8 and 15,000 people, and left a further 500,000 suffering from its toxic effects in 1984. They will face a maximum of 2 years in gaol and a fine of £2,100. It is a reminder of just how little capitalism cares about the consequences of its actions in search for profit. The US Chief executive of Union Carbide at the time, Warren Anderson, remains free from prosecution in the US. Union Carbide gave a derisory $470 million in compensation against the $3.3 billions claimed by the Indian government. Today however environmental disaster due to the blind search for capitalist profit has come home to America.

It is class war at BA. Unfortunately, on our side, the war is being lost because the Unite union calls the shots for the workers. · BA cabin crew, currently striking as we go to press, are under enormous pressure to cave in to the BA management’s demands for job and wage cuts. The capitalist press is constantly attacking them for refusing to see sense and bow to the inevitable or lose their jobs. And yet, until the last few years, this was a group of very non-militant workers. Today they keep on voting for strike action in massive numbers. No worker actively seeks out a strike for the sake of it; all strikes mean less money while the strike is going on, and threats and intimidations from bosses are generally increased. And so it has been with the BA dispute.

(Talk from Manchester meeting 23 Jan 2010) · Introduction · The title of this meeting is “Unions - Whose Side Are They On?” If you were to ask that question to any worker passing this building now it is likely that they would think you were being stupid as the answer is so obvious. · After all the unions are the only organisations in capitalist society which can claim to be mass workers bodies with millions of members. · They have been the target of capitalist laws restricting their ability to defend their members and the worst firms in Britain, from Asda to Orange, to Eddie Stobart, all have no union policies in order to impose their own rates of pay and conditions.

(At their most recent congress, the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP), changed its name to Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT). The ICT is an international grouping which places itself in the tradition of elements in the post WW2 Italian communist left. In the last issue of their periodical prior to adopting their new name, the group published a brief article on The Commune, and invited us to reply. Joe Thorne responds, discussing our politics in several areas.) · Comrades, Thank you for taking the time to review the politics of The Commune in issue 50 of Revolutionary Perspectives, and thank you in particular for your positive comments.