May Day 2006

Against War, Against Capital, Workers of the World Unite!

Between fragile recoveries and severe recessions, the world capitalist crisis continues to tighten in on itself. So year after year the international proletariat, the penniless masses, find themselves locked in the grip of exploitation, poverty and war. There are no alternatives for the bourgeoisie since its margin of manoeuvre in managing the crisis is diminishing all the time.

Before one war is over a new act of aggression is already being prepared, naturally under the pretext of bringing freedom and democracy. The US imperialist beast, which has transformed Iraq into a slaughterhouse in order to defend the supremacy of the dollar on the international exchanges, securing control for itself of that most important of raw materials - oil - and which continues to survive by means of debts accrued at the expense of the international proletariat, is raising the spectre of an attack on the clerical-fascist regime in Iran. But the real enemy is not so much the fundamentalist Islamic bourgeoisie - who in their turn are hungry for profits and oil revenues - as those rival imperialisms which, even though they are not politically or military powerful enough today, could become a serious threat to the US superpower. Behind the war for control of Middle East oil there is also the Euro, China and Russia, just as the immense reserves of raw materials in Latin America lie behind Chavez and Morales, reserves which are being massively plundered by the North American multinationals and the local bourgeoisie alike.

In this gloomy context the proletariat has so far largely played the part of a boxer who is ‘out for the count’. On top of the assault on real wages and the robbery of the social wage - the welfare state where it exists - come job cuts, mounting insecurity and unemployment. Governments of all persuasions and in whichever country are implementing the same aggressive policies against wage labour because they all essentially represent the interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole.

Moreover the unions everywhere are using the excuse of the ‘lesser evil’ to get workers and the unemployed to swallow more exploitation: longer working hours for less pay and more insecurity. The boss may wave the stick but it is the union that keeps the workers down.

Here and there, throughout the world notable outbursts of anger and social struggle have broken this dismal scenario. From the French banlieues to the battle against the CPE, from the strikes in various large factories in Germany to the titanic demonstrations against the reactionary anti-immigration laws in the USA, parts of the proletariat (and also of the petty bourgeoisie who are threatened with being reduced to wage workers) have rebelled against a life of poverty, insecurity and humiliation. But these remain episodes which are generally politically confused and with only a limited perspective. Or rather they are limited to aims which are taken over by the traditional capitalist left, when they haven’t already come from the more ‘far-sighted’ part of the bourgeoisie.

And when the traditional left does not appear there is always radical reformism, with its childish magical solutions, sowing illusions about a ‘compassionate capitalism’ and heralding certain, demoralising defeat. How and from who would you decide to get money out of for a ‘citizen’s wage’? And then would it only be for casual workers and the unemployed? - What about the others who are working like mules to produce surplus value for everyone else? - You can’t be serious!

However, this situation doesn’t mean that nothing can be done. On the contrary, what’s needed more than ever today is a return to class struggle. But a real struggle outside and against trade union logic, even the so-called rank and file unions. What’s needed is a struggle that is self-organised, directed by workers’ assemblies, which goes beyond company or sectional horizons and takes in the whole of the working class.

No less crucial is the reconstruction of an authentic communist party: a party which is international and internationalist, which has long ago settled its critical account with Stalinism and its historical followers and which can give continuity and a coherent anti-capitalist political perspective, so as to finish once and for all with exploitation, poverty and war. In other words to put an end to capitalism in all its forms, each one of which is deadlier than the other.

IBRP