revolutionary SOCIALIST
Issue No. 3 November/December 2011 Price: Donation
Working Class Monthly Published by the Revolutionary Socialist Organization
The Worker’s Power;
Strike! November the 30th will see the largest, coordinated industrial action in Britain for decades. 26 Unions have balloted for strike action and up to 3 million workers could be on strike . This day could become a major stepping stone for organising the resistance against the savage cuts the ConDem Government is pushing through. But this immediately depends on the workers being able to take the fight back into their own hands.
This summer on the 30th of June around 750 000 public sector workers went on strike and showed the workers’ determination to take action against the ConDem government’s cuts. The main demand of the strike was that the government would take back their planned pension cuts, which would lower pensions as much as 25% for public sector workers. Pensions are still the main issue over which the unions take up the fight on November the 30th.
the fact that over 90% of the schools are expected to be closed on November the 30th, a lot of propaganda has been directed at dividing public and private sector workers by blaming “greedy teachers” for inconveniences due to school closings on the day. The government has even promoted the idea of working parents bringing their children to work. That is a more than a silly idea for employers wouldn’t be too happy about the extra distraction caused by “running children” in the workplaces. The question could easily be solved if private sector workers also decided to go on strike and took their children with them on pickets and demos, where of course they would be more than welcome.
The media create horror scenarios about the massive losses for the British economy due to the strike day. This is interesting because the same media weren’t concerned at all when British workers got a day off for the Royal Wedding in April. Some papers even Since the strikes were called there has campaigned to make it a proper holibeen a continuing campaign against day. Seems like the issue isn’t as much them in the bourgeois media. Due to the economic damage workers might
cause on a day off, but rather the political damage that concerns the right wing media. And rightly so, once the workers take collective action together they might (or better, will) discover that they are strong together and that they can bring the system to a standstill and so the workers have the bosses and capitalists and all those siding with them by the balls. Another issue is statistics showing up saying that a lot of people in Britain do not support the strikes. The question is what is it that people are unhappy with? Is it not in most cases simply the fact that the strike will cause certain inconveniences (as those in childcare mentioned above?) And aren’t most people much more upset with the current economic climate, where they are threatened with losing their jobs, having less and less money and having to work harder and longer? The problem with opinion polls like these is that people will answer them differently when not taking into consideration all the other factors and circumstances influencing the matter. It is quite sure, that if people were asked “Do you
think something has to be done against the policies of this government?” most of them would answer, “yes”. And it is time that something is done. The livelihood of most working class people in Britain is decreasing. Inflation is eating away more than pay rises are making up for. In many industries there are even pay freezes. Unemployment has reached record highs, the public sector has been cut back massively and those people suffering most are, of course, members of the working class. Those people who have nothing to live off, except for selling their own labour power on the market for a meagre wage. And while the living standards of the working class worsen day by day, on the other side the wage cuts help the bosses, the bankers and the capitalists to increase their profits many fold. These groups live a parasitic live scrounging of the working people who produce the wealth. And this system of exploitation is guarded by the capitalist state, controlled by parties who all have only one goal, to guarantee the profits of the capitalists and help them to squeeze the workers
more and more. So what is the answer to this problem of those who claim themselves to be on the side of the workers, the trade union bureaucrats? Wasn’t it the TUC that called for coordinated strike action? Aren’t they starting to fight back? It seems so but that is not actually what is on their agenda. What the union bureaucrats are concerned with the most is getting the Labour party back into government. Already the last Labour government was pushing through massive cuts, and the trade union bureaucrats simply let them pass. It is now, under a Tory government, where the union’s bureaucrats are less directly involved that they “start to resist”. So for example, why is this strike only one day long? The capitalists won’t be very impressed by that. And why are the union bureaucrats themselves dividing public and private sector workers and not calling on them to take on the fight as a united class? And why is the issue of the strikes simply pensions, probably the least mobilising factor, far less dangerous to the workers then pay freezes and job cuts? Is it, in fact, that the trade union bureaucracy is not really interested in fighting back? Do they just want to flex their muscles a little to improve their position in the green room? Do they just want to mobilize their basis to get them to vote labour in the next election? Facts suggest very much so. But there are massive issues at stake. The working class is facing a direct attack. The capitalist crisis is threatening the very existence of many working class people and capitalist madness is literally killing thousands of people every day. This whole capitalist system, the bosses and the bankers and their corrupt politicians have nothing what so ever to offer the working class except for more and more misery. The
working class has all the strength to defeat the capitalists and to establish a new, socialist, order that will guarantee everybody a decent life and be based on human needs instead of the need of the capitalists to produce more and more profits. November the 30th is the first step in the right direction, collective action by the workers. But the workers must free themselves of those who pretend to be on their side only to sell them out time and time again. The ideas of Marxism provide the tools the working class needs to understand its historic course and follow it to its culmination, and the complete emancipation of humankind.
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Defend Civil Liberties:
Political Status for Irish Republican Prisoners The situation of Irish Republican prisoners in the north of Ireland continues to deteriorate; they are subject to frequent beatings and brutal strip and searches in Maghaberry. From May 2011, some have been on dirty and noshave protest, evoking memories of the blanket men and hunger strikers of the late 70’s and early 80’s. (According to the Irish Freedom Committee – POW List of 28/8/2011, more than 13 years after the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) on 10 April 1998, there are still 62 Irish Republican Prisoners in Ireland and 2 abroad, not counting remand prisoners.) They have been imprisoned because they oppose the partition of Ire-
land via the British occupation of the six north eastern counties by Britain, and the GFA, which they contend merely seeks to legitimize this partition and occupation. (None would be in jail if Britain did not occupy the six north eastern counties of Ireland.) Under the terms of the GFA, those republicans still opposing the GFA and continuing to fight for a united Ireland have lost their special category status and are treated more or less as common criminals. In August 2010, after a protest that went on since Easter of that year, an agreement was reached and signed by the prisoners representatives and by the prison authorities in Maghaberry
Prison. The agreement conceded the two demands of the prisoners, freedom of movement and an end to strip searching. A body scanner was provided instead. But the screws broke the agreement within weeks. The first prisoners to go to court were brutally strip searched. Colin Duffy was strip searched 8 times for a 4 day court hearing, so brutally that he had very obvious injuries and appeared in court naked from the waist up because he refused to wear a prison uniform top. Marian Price, a founding member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, is one of a number of political activists held without trial. To be a member of the 32 County Sover-
Unemployment on the Rise The latest unemployment figures have revealed that the number of people unemployed in the U.K now stands at 2.62 million, the highest number of people out of work since 1994. This number includes over 1 million people aged 16-24 which means that 1 in 5 young people are unable to find work. This is nothing less than a historic crime for unemployment inevitably implies poverty and poverty in this day and age is criminal. People unable to find work are forced to survive on subsistence handouts, the government having deemed that £53 a week is enough for a human being to live off. To live off of such a paltry sum is just about man-
ageable if the individual is willing to forgo taking any enjoyment out of life and endure a life of constant miserable struggle. The saddest fact of all though about the unemployment figures and the related poverty is that things do not have to be this way. Unemployment is a product of the capitalist system that we toil under. In this system we the working class do not own the means of production, the machinery and the natural resources, to produce the things we need. Instead the capitalist class owns these things. To buy the things we need we are forced to sell our ability to perform work to the capitalist who then pays us a small fraction of the
money they have made off of our work. However when the capitalist doesn’t believe that they can make money for themselves by hiring workers, then they don’t hire anyone and often they sack workers they no longer need. The workers are then unemployed which is bad for them but still good for the capitalists. This is because the capitalists can then drive down the wages of the workers they employ and exploit them even more to make even more money for themselves. If the workers resist these attacks on their living standards the capitalists say “well if you don’t like it don’t work here, there are plenty of other people unemployed who would
eign Movement is by no means illegal, nor is it a criminal offence to support or join this organization. It is not proscribed by law, nor is the Irish Republican Prisoner’s Welfare Association which Marian Price helped found, and was until her arrest and illegal detention, the group’s secretary. Her apparent ‘crime’ is that she ‘poses a significant threat to society!’ She held a piece of paper for a masked man who read a speech from it. Marian’s case is but one of many examples of the full frontal assault on civil liberties that threaten the liberty of every serious trade unionist and political activist.
gladly take this job on the conditions I offer”. The worker is thus forced to accept the worse terms. Therefore high unemployment as we are facing now is great for the capitalist class but disastrous for the working class. Unemployment also means that people who are in work are forced to work harder and do the work that was previously done by the people who are now unemployed. This increased workload can lead to disastrous consequences. Workers become worn out and die younger, strains are put on relationships and higher pressure leads to a higher likelihood of, often deadly, accidents in the workplace.
We therefore support the demands of the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group for: 1. Immediate implementation of the agreement of August 2010 granting freedom of movement and an end to strip searching. 2. Restoration of Political status to all Irish Republican political prisoners in the North of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and abroad. 3. Repatriation of Michael Campbell and no extradition to Lithuania of his brother Liam, framed by the same secret intelligence agencies. 4. Release of Marian Campbell and Martin Corey and an end to arrest using the excuse of revoking the GFA license – this amounts to political censorship and the reintroduction of internment in another name.
seize control of the means of production and start using them in the interest of the great majority of the population rather than for the lecherous, pilfering, selfish interest of the tiny few. There is plenty of work to be done in the world to improve it. People need better housing, better food, better educational opportunities, easier transport, beautiful art and stimulating entertainment. These things are not available to the vast majority in capitalism because they don’t make profits for the capitalists. In socialism everyone who wants to work will be able to contribute to building this better society and unemployment will be a concept understood only from the pages of history books.
There is but one solution to the problem of unemployment and that is socialist revolution. The working class must
Who we are A brief summary of the political positions of the RSO The Revolutionary Socialist Organization (RSO) is fighting against capitalism and for a new socialist economic and social order. Every day it becomes more evident that the so-called “free market” has nothing to offer for most of the world’s population. Capitalism means hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, war and misery. Even in the richest countries in the world, millions live at or below the poverty line. In contrast, a small portion of the population owns the majority of the assets; in Britain 1% of the population owns more than a third of all assets. Two classes are facing each other in the capitalist society. On one side are the capitalists who own the means of production. They are faced by the wage earners who are forced to sell their labor power. Many workers today are isolated, discouraged, and full of capitalist political ideas and filled with capitalist prejudices. Nevertheless, only the wage
earners through strikes and other collective forms of struggle can bring the capitalist mode of production to a halt and hit the capitalist class at the critical point, their profits. Capitalism in its neoliberal phase after the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91 is politically and militarily on the rise world wide. The working class of the European countries is subject to massive social attacks. Trade unions and social democratic parties are unable to oppose this, but are perfectly integrated into the system. Their representatives participate in cutting public services and creating racist divisions. The Green Parties are not an alternative, they are bourgeois parties, some of which have a progressive rhetoric on human rights issues, but, where they participate in government, show that they are part of the normal capitalist state. The different imperialist blocs are arming themselves. The imperialist “global player” is still the United States. But the EU is trying to downsize the military gap with the United States and is also
more and more acting as a militarily independent bloc. In contrast, we support the resistance against imperialist wars and occupations and combine this with the slogan: “The main enemy is at home.” To secure its domination, capitalism is (also) using and fostering the division of the working class. We are fighting against the oppression of people because of their ethnicity, gender, age or sexual orientation and we oppose these divisions with the unconditional support of every fight for equal rights. We are for the socialization of large corporations and their transformation into co-operatives under democratic workers’ management and control. Capitalism can not be eliminated by a few votes or parliamentary reform. All attempts to overcome capitalism through reforms have failed (and have often led to bloody defeats). Only a fundamental upheaval, a revolution based on the active participation of large segments of the population can destroy the state of the ruling class, eliminate the bases of
inequality, oppression and exploitation and create a free society. We are Marxists and follow in the tradition of the “left opposition” against Stalinism by Leon Trotsky. Our alternative is socialism. Our socialism is a free, democratic society built on elected councils. We refer positively to the Russian October Revolution of 1917. This revolution has indeed failed in the Stalinist degeneration in the twenties, but the idea of an alternative to capitalism retains its validity. Our socialism has thus nothing to do with the “social” democratic parties, or with the Stalinist dictatorships in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Cuba and China. Capitalism is internationally organized and networked. Therefore, our revolutionary alternative has to be international
Contact: If you want to know more about the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation go to the English language part of our international web page : www.sozialismus.net or e-mail us at:
[email protected] or just simply talk to the person who sold you this paper.
and internationalist. The RSO is not “the” revolutionary party. None of the currently existing organizations can claim that for themselves. A new revolutionary party will emerge from a process of transformations and mergers. The RSO will try to play a positive role in this process to build such a party and therefore put forward a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. If you are interested in this project, then get in contact with us and support us in building a revolutionary and socialist organization!
