Notes on In Defence of Marxism

Trotsky mural

Trotsky's writings collected in In Defence of Marxism showed that the degeneration of the Fourth International [FI] was already well under way in the late 30s before his assassination in 1940. Trotsky had to fight against the petty bourgeois opposition which refused to regard a state ruled by Stalin as a degenerated workers state. Underlying this fight was the capitulation of the opposition to US social chauvinism in the labour aristocracy. But even more telling, this capitulation resulted from the abandonment of dialectics or what Trotsky called the ‘Crisis of Marxism’. The FI did not have the social base in the working class nor the leadership cadre capable of sustaining a true internationalism in the face of imperialist war. Thus, already at the time of Trotsky’s death, the leading section, the Socialist Workers' Party [SWP] in the heart of the leading imperialist country, the USA, was set on a course of self-destruction. 
 
Social chauvinism however, was not confined to the US section. Vietnam showed already during the 30s that the FI French section in Vietnam was opportunist towards the Stalinists after the popular front period began in 1936. Conversely the ICL group in Vietnam was sectarian. Thus even before the war and Trotsky’s death the roots of the FI were already degenerating.

During the war the tiny FI split into opportunist and sectarian wings under the pressure of Stalinism. The US section buckled in the face of fascism and defended US ‘democratic’ imperialism. Trotskyism in Europe and in the colonies split along the same lines. This in itself was hardly surprising as the Stalinist parties had to impose ruthless discipline, including assassinations to keep its own ranks from rebelling against its popular fronts propping up the imperialist regimes in pressing revolutionary uprisings.

During the war the imperialist powers used the Stalinist popular front to good effect to behead and destroy working class revolutions in Europe and the colonies. Trotsky’s prognosis that the war would see workers rally behind the FI so that either the imperialists would be defeated along with Stalinism by the socialist revolution, or, that imperialism would win and create a new situation of global barbarism not yet foreseen, was proven wrong. Imperialism survived thanks to the Stalinists. This disoriented the FI. Some like Cannon of the US SWP believed that the war was continuing, while others like Pablo believed that Stalinism was a historically progressive force in the defeat of fascism. Of course had Trotsky survived the war he would certainly have recognised reality and rallied the FI to fight its degeneration and liquidation into reformism.

Weakened by the wartime struggles, the FI failed to recognise or correct the material causes of these weaknesses. Trotsky had made the exposure of the causes of these flaws his main task before his death. At their roots, so Trotsky said, was the failure of the FI to embed itself in the working class (including the colonial and semi-colonial working class) so that it could not function as a truly revolutionary Marxist international party.

A world party of revolution would have to draw on the experience of the struggles in every part of the world; imperialist, semi-colonial and in the degenerated workers states. This would allow the experience of objective reality of these struggles to interact with the subjective experience of the party so that it could correct any errors in its program. For Trotsky, unless the objective and subjective realities were united in the democratic centralist party there could be no application of dialectics. There was no unity of theory and practice.

Without this global grounding in the proletarian and peasant struggles the party would be sucked into the petty bourgeois milieu of the big cities in the imperialist countries. This would result in the over-representation of the petty-bourgeois in the composition of the party in the imperialist sections and huge pressures to capitulate to social chauvinism and Stalinism.

This was the twin crisis of leadership and of Marxism that Trotsky warned of before his death. The crisis of leadership was the failure to build a healthy world party of revolution. The crisis of Marxism naturally flowed from that as Marxism would cease to be a living Marxism and become bogged down in dogma.

Thus the key to understanding the significance of the twin crisis is that any failure of a leadership (and party) to be able to apply the dialectical method in relation to objective and subjective reality must lead to failure and defeat. No wonder Trotsky called Schachtman’s rejection of dialectics a “betrayal of Marxism”.

But without Trotsky the FI leadership succumbed to national chauvinism. The majority ultraleft line taken by the US SWP put the US working class, the most privileged labor aristocracy in the world, at the head of the fight in the ongoing world class war. Trotsky had called the US working class the most backward in the world because its class consciousness was held back by the labour aristocracy living off colonial super-profits. Yet Cannon thought it the most advanced proletariat and the leader of the world revolution.

The majority opportunist line in post-war Europe adapted to not only the survival but victory of Stalinism and liquidated the FI into Stalinism. It called Tito an “unconscious Trotskyist” and saw the expansion of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe where it smashed workers uprisings as creating ‘deformed’ workers states that could be ‘reformed’ by bourgeois parliaments.

Neither the US or European sections based in the biggest imperialist powers took any notice of the mass Trotskyist sections in the colonies of Asia and semi-colonies of Latin America. In Ceylon, India and Indo-China where were mass Trotskyist sections which had fought bloody wars against the colonial powers aided by the Stalinists who eliminated the Trotskyist leaderships. The lessons of this physical ‘liquidation’ at the hands of the Stalinists would have corrected the ‘ideological’ liquidation of imperial-centric Trotskyism.

Nor after the war was there was there any attempt to draw on the experience of the colonial and semi-colonial Trotskyists to produce an honest balance sheet of the wartime defeats and capitulations. We won’t call these ‘betrayals’ since it was clear that the FI lacked the capacity to prevent defeats and capitulations. But we can conclude that the history of Trotskyism since 1946 was one of almost universal liquidation making the crisis of leadership and of Marxism extreme.

Conclusion

So Trotsky was absolutely correct to spell out in In Defence of Marxism the real problem underlying the ‘Russian Question’. It was the rejection of dialectics which had its material roots in the petty bourgeois composition of the FI leadership in Europe and the US. Dialectics in relation to the defence of the USSR meant understanding that workers property must be defended from capitalist restoration despite the Stalinists. Dialectics explained that the workers states had degenerated so that a parasitic bureaucracy took control of workers property in much the same way as the labour bureaucracy controls the unions in the capitalist countries. Therefore the bureaucracy was a caste inside the working class and not a class antagonistic to workers property unless it was able to defeat workers and restore capitalist social relations. Therefore the working class had to make a political revolution to remove the bureaucracy and restore workers control over it's class property.

Trotsky warned that the petty bourgeois leadership was exposed to the pressure of the social chauvinist labour aristocracy in the lead up to war and during wars. The FI had to confront and counter this. When Trotsky suggested that the SWP call for a vote for the CPUSA in 1939 the SWP leadership refused. Yet when the war began and the SWP leaders were arrested Cannon publicly said that fascism and not the US ruling class was the main enemy of US workers. So the SWP capitulated to the social chauvinism of the labour aristocracy during the war, and after the war refused to recognise it as a backward element in the world working class. In the American Theses Cannon said that the US labour aristocracy was the most advanced in the world and has not prevented the more oppressed layers of the working class from moving upward into the labour aristocracy.

The split in the FI before and during the war was to become congealed as a split between those who revised the bureaucracy from caste to class exploiting the workers in the SU and the other ‘Stalinist states’, and those who revised the character of the bureaucracy as parasitic on workers property, to defenders of workers property. But in both cases these one-sided apparently opposite positions, had a common unity. The subjectivity of the working class (the revolutionary party) was replaced by an objective process of revolution. This subordination of the subjective agency of the proletariat to the objective process of history has a name. It’s called Menshevism.

All currents in the post-war FI liquidated the party of the proletariat into the petty bourgeoisie in the form of one, the social democratic parties of the US and European labour aristocracies; two, the ‘anti-imperialist’ leaders of the colonies and semi-colonies; and third, the Stalinist leaders in the degenerate workers states.

Petty bourgeois parties while masquerading as the champions of the working people, all serve the interests of the ruling class since they are bought and paid for by the imperialist bourgeoisies.

In a future issue of Class Struggle we will look at each in turn.

Leon Trotsky: Learn To Think

A Friendly Suggestion to Certain Ultra-Leftists
(May 1938)

CERTAIN PROFESSIONAL ultra-left phrase-mongers are attempting at all cost to “correct” the thesis of the Secretariat of the Fourth International on war in accordance with their own ossified prejudices. They especially attack that part of the thesis which states that in all imperialist countries the revolutionary party, while remaining in irreconcilable opposition to its own government in time of war, should, nevertheless, mould its practical politics in each country to the internal situation and to the international groupings, sharply differentiating a workers’ state from a bourgeois state, a colonial country from an imperialist country.

The proletariat of a capitalist country which finds itself in an alliance with the USSR [1] [states the thesis] must retain fully and completely its irreconcilable hostility to the imperialist government of its own country. In this sense its policy will not differ from that of the proletariat in a country fighting against the USSR. But in the nature of practical actions considerable differences may arise depending on the concrete war situation. (War and the Fourth International, p.21, § 44.)

The ultra-leftists consider this postulate, the correctness of which has been confirmed by the entire course of development, as the starting point of ... social-patriotism. [2] Since the attitude toward imperialist governments should be “the same” in all countries, these strategists ban any distinctions beyond the boundaries of their own imperialist country. Theoretically their mistake arises from an attempt to construct fundamentally different bases for war-time and peace-time policies.

Let us assume that rebellion breaks out tomorrow in the French colony of Algeria under the banner of national independence and that the Italian government, motivated by its own imperialist interests, prepares to send weapons to the rebels. What should the attitude of the Italian workers be in this case? I have purposely taken an example of rebellion against a democratic imperialism with intervention on the side of the rebels from a fascist imperialism. Should the Italian workers prevent the shipping of arms to the Algerians? Let any ultra-leftists dare answer this question in the affirmative. Every revolutionist, together with the Italian workers and the rebellious Algerians, would spurn such an answer with indignation. Even if a general maritime strike broke out in fascist Italy at the same time, even in this case the strikers should make an exception in favor of those ships carrying aid to the colonial slaves in revolt; otherwise they would be no more than wretched trade unionists – not proletarian revolutionists.

At the same time, the French maritime workers, even though not faced with any strike whatsoever, would be compelled to exert every effort to block the shipment of ammunition intended for use against the rebels. Only such a policy on the part of the Italian and French workers constitutes the policy of revolutionary internationalism.

Does this not signify, however, that the Italian workers moderate their struggle in this case against the fascist regime? Not in the slightest. Fascism renders “aid” to the Algerians only in order to weaken its enemy, France, and to lay its rapacious hand on her colonies. The revolutionary Italian workers do not forget this for a single moment. They call upon the Algerians not to trust their treacherous “ally” and at the same time continue their own irreconcilable struggle against fascism, “the main enemy in their own country”. Only in this way can they gain the confidence of the rebels, help the rebellion and strengthen their own revolutionary position.

If the above is correct in peace-time, why does it become false in war-time? Everyone knows the postulate of the famous German military theoretician, Clausewitz, that war is the continuation of politics by other means. This profound thought leads naturally to the conclusion that the struggle against war is but the continuation of the general proletarian struggle during peace-time. Does the proletariat in peace-time reject and sabotage all the acts and measures of the bourgeois government? Even during a strike which embraces an entire city, the workers take measures to insure the delivery of food to their own districts, make sure that they have water, that the hospitals do not suffer, etc. Such measures are dictated not by opportunism in relation to the bourgeoisie but by concern for the interests of the strike itself, by concern for the sympathy of the submerged city masses, etc. These elementary rules of proletarian strategy in peace-time retain full force in time of war as well.

An irreconcilable attitude against bourgeois militarism does not signify at all that the proletariat in all cases enters into a struggle against its own “national” army. At least the workers would not interfere with soldiers who are extinguishing a fire or rescuing drowning people during a flood; on the contrary, they would help side by side with the soldiers and fraternize with them. And the question is not exhausted merely by cases of elemental calamities. If the French fascists should make an attempt today at a coup d’etat and the Daladier government found itself forced to move troops against the fascists, the revolutionary workers, while maintaining their complete political independence, would fight against the fascists alongside of these troops. Thus in a number of cases the workers are forced not only to permit and tolerate, but actively to support the practical measures of the bourgeois government.

In ninety cases out of a hundred the workers actually place a minus sign where the bourgeoisie places a plus sign. In ten cases however they are forced to fix the same sign as the bourgeoisie but with their own seal, in which is expressed their mistrust of the bourgeoisie. The policy of the proletariat is not at all automatically derived from the policy of the bourgeoisie, bearing only the opposite sign – this would make every sectarian a master strategist; no, the revolutionary party must each time orient itself independently in the internal as well as the external situation, arriving at those decisions which correspond best to the interests of the proletariat. This rule applies just as much to the war period as to the period of peace.

Let us imagine that in the next European war the Belgian proletariat conquers power sooner than the proletariat of France. Undoubtedly Hitler will try to crush proletarian Belgium. In order to cover up its own flank, the French bourgeois government might find itself compelled to help the Belgian workers’ government with arms. The Belgian Soviets of course reach for these arms with both hands. But actuated by the principle of defeatism, perhaps the French workers ought to block their bourgeoisie from shipping arms to proletarian Belgium? Only direct traitors or out-and-out idiots can reason thus.

The French bourgeoisie could send arms to proletarian Belgium only out of fear of the greatest military danger and only in expectation of later crushing the proletarian revolution with their own weapons. To the French workers, on the contrary, proletarian Belgium is the greatest support in the struggle against their own bourgeoisie. The outcome of the struggle would be decided, in the final analysis, by the relationship of forces, into which correct policies enter as a very important factor. The revolutionary party’s first task is to utilize the contradiction between two imperialist countries, France and Germany, in order to save proletarian Belgium.

Ultra-left scholastics think not in concrete terms but in empty abstractions. They have transformed the idea of defeatism into such a vacuum. They can see vividly neither the process of war nor the process of revolution. They seek a hermetically sealed formula which excludes fresh air. But a formula of this kind can offer no orientation for the proletarian vanguard.

To carry the class struggle to its highest form – civil war – this is the task of defeatism. But this task can be solved only through the revolutionary mobilization of the masses, that is, by widening, deepening, and sharpening those revolutionary methods which constitute the content of class struggle in “peace”-time. The proletarian party does not resort to artificial methods, such as burning warehouses, setting off bombs, wrecking trains, etc., in order to bring about the defeat of its own government. Even if it were successful on this road, the military defeat would not at all lead to revolutionary success, a success which can be assured only by the independent movement of the proletariat. Revolutionary defeatism signifies only that in its class struggle the proletarian party does not stop at any “patriotic” considerations, since defeat of its own imperialist government, brought about, or hastened by the revolutionary movement of the masses is an incomparably lesser evil than victory gained at the price of national unity, that is, the political prostration of the proletariat. Therein lies the complete meaning of defeatism and this meaning is entirely sufficient.

The methods of struggle change, of course, when the struggle enters the openly revolutionary phase. Civil war is a war, and in this aspect has its particular laws. In civil war, bombing of warehouses, wrecking of trains and all other forms of military “sabotage” are inevitable. Their appropriateness is decided by purely military considerations – civil war continues revolutionary politics but by other, precisely, military means.

However during an imperialist war there may be cases where a revolutionary party will be forced to resort to military-technical means, though they do not as yet follow directly from the revolutionary movement in their own country. Thus, if it is a question of sending arms or troops against a workers’ government or a rebellious colony, not only such methods as boycott and strike, but direct military sabotage may become entirely practical and obligatory. Resorting or not resorting to such measures will be a matter of practical possibilities. If the Belgian workers, conquering power in war-time, have their own military agents on German soil, it would be the duty of these agents not to hesitate at any technical means in order to stop Hitler’s troops. It is absolutely clear that the revolutionary German workers also are duty-bound (if they are able) to perform this task in the interests of the Belgian revolution, irrespective of the general course of the revolutionary movement in Germany itself.

Defeatist policy, that is, the policy of irreconcilable class struggle in war-time cannot consequently be “the same” in all countries, just as the policy of the proletariat cannot be the same in peacetime. Only the Comintern of the epigones [second-rate imitator or follower] has established a regime in which the parties of all countries break into march simultaneously with the left foot. In struggle against this bureaucratic cretinism we have attempted more than once to prove that the general principles and tasks must be realized in each country in accordance with its internal and external conditions. This principle retains its complete force for war-time as well.

Those ultra-leftists who do not want to think as Marxists, that is, concretely, will be caught unawares by war. Their policy in time of war will be a fatal crowning of their policy in peace-time. The first artillery shots will either blow the ultra-leftists into political non-existence, or else drive them into the camp of social-patriotism, exactly like the Spanish anarchists, who, absolute “deniers” of the state, found themselves from the same causes bourgeois ministers when war came. In order to carry on a correct policy in war-time one must learn to think correctly in time of peace.


COYOACAN, D.F.
May 22,1938
Leon TROTSKY

Source: New International, Vol.4 No.7, July 1938, pp.206-207.
Transcription/Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Trotsky Internet Archive.

Footnotes

1. We can leave aside then the question of the class character of the USSR. We are interested in the question of policy in relation to a workers’ state in general or to a colonial country fighting for its independence. So far as the class nature of the USSR is concerned we can incidentally recommend to the ultra-leftists that they gaze upon themselves in the mirror of A. Ciliga’s book, In the Country of the Big Lie. This ultra-left author, completely lacking any Marxist schooling, pursues his idea to the very end, that is, to liberal-anarchic abstraction.

2. Mrs. Simone Weil even writes that our position is the same as Plekhanov’s in 1914-1918. Simone Weil, of course, has a right to understand nothing. Yet it is not necessary to abuse this right.

South Africa: State of Nation address shows the ANC is still pro-imperialist

The state of the nation address by the new President, Zuma, shows that the ANC's pro-imperialist role is set to continue and that the working class will carry the burden of the crisis of profits of the capitalists.

1. Municipal work is privatised on a mass scale by the implementation of the so-called public works programme; instead of employing full-time municipal workers, temporary work is created. Although within weeks these jobs are over, the ANC government (with the full support of Statssa) somehow counts these as 'jobs' created, even misleading the public that 4 million jobs will be created until 2014. This makes a mockery of the supposed commitment to 'sustainable' jobs. The Cosatu leadership are cheerleaders of this type of privatization of municipal work.

2. More sinister, though, is that this provides a cover for the monopolies to continue to retrench ( they may be asked to keep workers on for some weeks with a nominal training).

3. The food gang (Pick 'n Pay, Woolsworths, Shoprite, Spar, Tiger Brands, Pioneer, and others) are making billions in profits out of deliberately starving the masses, and to this, the ANC has no plan in place. International prices of wheat, rice and maize have fallen by 40% in recent months but food prices still continue to rise. The FAO (Food and Agricultural organization of the UN) admits that there is enough food but almost 1 billion people are starving purely because they cannot afford the high prices. The capitalists are reported to continue to create an artificial scarcity in food by deliberately planting less this year. The government is more worried about sports achievements than the hunger of the masses.

4. The National Health Insurance is another scam to extend the role of the private health sector into the public sector. This is another scheme to enrich the banks that thrive on control of private health care. In the USA over 34 million people are excluded from health insurance as their income is too low. The onset of the health insurance in the US led to a rise on health costs as the private sector that was tasked with handling major sections of the implementation, simply increeased their fees. The Cosatu leaders are once again cheerleaders of this attack by imperialism on our already collapsed health system. The health sector needs to be completely nationalized under workers'control, not further privatised through this health insurance scam.

5. The over R700 Billion for infrastructure will not be for needs of the working class but will act as a cash cow for imperialist companies- nowhere is this massive sum linked to houses for all, of for setting up of a national non-profit food distributor, etc. This money will go to imperialist companies who will build power stations that pollute and in fact capacity that is not needed.

6. Not surprising is the ANC continued commitment for a bantustan for Palestinians (a so-called 2 state solution)- in this the ANC are the direct mouthpiece of imperialism, against the Palestinian masses. The recent study by reformist Levine shows that any '2-state' proposal is not possible.

7. Nowhere does the ANC tackle Anglo American for their role in the war in the DRC- how many people must die before the working class takes international action against imperialism. [already over 4 million people have died since 1996 in the war in the DRC).

8. The ANC repeats the Millienium goals, which are excuses of imperialist agencies like the UN to provide a cover to postpone meeting the needs of the working class now, while capital makes massive profits. Trillions of dollars are used to bail out the greedy banks but the few billion needed to feed the world, no-one is prepared to part with. 'Let them die' is the message from the capitalists and their agents in government.

9. The ANC is pledging to support agents of imperialism to suppress the masses in Madagascar; where is the Cosatu leadership in supporting the heroic fight of the working class in Madagascar.

We need to unite the working class, both employed and unemployed to continue the fight against capitalism and their system. Clearly a new leadership is needed in Cosatu, who is prepared to fight in a real way, and not just symbolically. Activists are being arrested on false charges of public violence, in the middle of winter the homeless in Delft are left to freeze on the pavement, activists are being shot at in the night by veiled gunmen; the working class must get organised, nationally and internationally to fight.

Our demands are:
• Decent Houses for all! Occupy vacant buildings and land!
• Share the work among all who can work, without loss of pay!
• No to retrenchments and closures! Sack the bosses! Occupy! Expropriate!
• Increase all wages by a minimum of 30%, wages to increase when prices do;
• Expropriate all the food producers and distributors, under workers’ control!
• Establish a national non-profit food distributor, under workers’ control!
• Expropriate and centralise all banks, under workers’ control!
• Replace all union leadership with representatives who are prepared to fight the capitalists! Call a national council of workers’ delegates and unemployed to co-ordinate the fight
• Establish workers’ defence committees against attacks by the state
• Capitalism is the crisis, working class power the solution!



Organise or starve

Workers International Vanguard League
1st Floor, Community House, 41 Salt River rd, Salt River, South Africa 7925

FLT: International Solidarity with the Kliptown 5

Comrades and friends of WIVL,

We have received your letter dated on March 10th, where you tell us about the charge “of public violence” against 5 activists who belong the Anti-Privatization Forum.

Of course, in representation of the Secretariat of International Coordination and Action –SCAI- of FLT, we call on you to launch together a true international campaign to prevent the South African worker and popular fighters from being put in prison.

Besides, we also take as ours the demands: Forward to decent houses for all! Organise or starve! Since these are slogans and demands of the entire international working class.

As you may see in the Argentine LOI-CI paper we sent you, with an international campaign, we helped to free the worker oil fighters of Las Heras (southern Argentina) from prison after three years of rotting in the jails of the bourgeois regime of Argentina.

Comrades, your call and campaign has been already sent to all the groups of FLT and International groups with whom we have a relationship with the aim of starting fast a campaign of pronouncements of all the world worker organizations.

We should not expect less than that. In the secret CIA jails the combatants of the Afghan and Iraqi resistance are rotting in there. Meanwhile the Guantanamo prisoners are kept in jail and thousands of Palestine fighters are kept like hostages in the prisons of the murderous Zionist State of Israel. Two Afro-American workers, leaders of Oakland dock workers have already been prosecuted for leading the struggle against the imperialist war within the heart of United States.

From FLT, we affirm that the prosecution and conviction of 5 worker fighters of South Africa is part of the repression against the anti-imperialist and popular workers in the whole world side by side with the brutal attack launched against the working class’ labor conquests at worldwide level by the imperialist bourgeois front in bankruptcy whose crisis is shifted on to the backs of the masses with starvation, misery, unemployment, high cost of living and as it couldn't have been any other way, with repression and counterrevolutionary wars.

In advance, comrades, we are with you in your struggle. We‘ll publish your letter to be known by all the worker organizations where our groups fight along side the exploits in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and Central America.

Only an International campaign of the World working class can overturn the charges against the 5 South African activists and free from the jails the Iraqi and Palestine resistance, the worker fighters against the war in USA and the more than 4000 prosecuted immigrants separated from their children who are in prison under the yoke of the imperialist US regime.

Release from the jails of the Zionist state the thousand of Palestine prisoners and non-prosecution and unconditional freedom to the 5 worker fighters of South Africa who face the cynicism and cowardice of building 4 stars hotels which cost $2.3 million alongside the shacks of the slave workers in South Africa!

• For a single International campaign of the worker organizations to liberate from the jails all fighters who confront the capitalist barbarism, its repression and its counterrevolutionary wars!

• Freedom for the prisoners of the combative Oakland dock workers who fight in USA against the imperialist war of extermination and genocide launched by the butcher Bush over Iraqi nation!

• Long live the South African working class!

• Long live the Afro-American workers who confronted the imperialist counterrevolutionary Wars!

• Freedom to the prisoners of the Iraqi and Afghan and Palestine resistance!

• Freedom to the more of 4000 Hispano-American immigrants who are in Obama’s jails separated from their families!

As WIVL of South Africa says: Organise or starve!

For the internationalist unity of the world working class!

11/03/09

Carlos Munzer, Laura Sánchez y Martín F. for the Secretariat of International Coordination and Action (SCAI) of the Fracción Leninista Trotskista (Leninist Trotskyist Fraction)

Socialist Fight: No support for these chauvinist, xenophobic strikes

We reprint the leaflet of the British Trotskyist group Socialist Fight opposing the recent strike wave in defence of "British Jobs for British Workers". We publish it in the interests of furthering discussion and debate between our tendencies, though we differ on some aspects of Socialist Fight analysis (see comment below leaflet).

“A trade union led by reactionary fakers organizes a strike against the admission of Negro workers into a certain branch of industry. Shall we support such a shameful strike? Of course not. But let us imagine that the bosses, utilizing the given strike, make an attempt to crush the trade union and to make impossible in general the organized self-defence of the workers. In this case we will defend the trade union as a matter of course in spite of its reactionary leadership.” Trotsky 1939

Socialist Fight (SF) unequivocally opposes the current ‘wildcat’ strikes because they were called on the reactionary basis of ‘British jobs for British workers’ (BJ4BW), it was on this xenophobic basis they were spread, with the assistance of the right wing media and on this basis they were tacitly endorsed by the entire Unite and GMB leaderships. We place the blame for this situation squarely on the backs of the reactionary Labour movement leaders; Gordon Brown and the Labour party leaders for endorsing the reactionary slogan, borrowed from the BNP, the Unite, GMB and other TU leaderships for tacitly endorsing and pursuing negotiations on that basis. A major weight of responsibility also rests on the shoulders of those left groups and organisations, the Communists Party of Britain (CPB), the Socialist Party of England and Wales and others who have acted as left apologists for these bureaucratic misleaders of the working class. When similar demands were made on the French TU leadership they immediately rejected them as reactionary chauvinism and insisted on the demands like ‘we will not pay for the bankers/capitalism’s crisis’.

We reject the compromise of Keith Gibson of the Lindsey strike committee and the SPEW. This does not repudiate the original BJ4BWs demands, which were displayed so openly on the pickets. It is rather a cover for it, hoping we will forget, or close our eyes, to what it is really about. Gibson says that “Stewards and Union Officials asked to meet with IREM a.s.a.p. after Christmas to clarify the proposal i.e. would IREM employ British labour?” Then it explains that the walkout took place when “Shaws’ workforce were told by the Stewards that IREM had stated they would not be employing British labour.” (rb on SU Blog 3 Feb) He admits here that the initial walkout was about the nationality of the workforce, not about wages, conditions or any of the other red herrings he and his apologists have been trying to drag across the trail ever since.

The SP motion, now the property of the strike committee and the mass meeting, but not the property of the Unite leadership – Simpson, Woodley or Jerry Hicks – says “Union controlled registering of unemployed and locally skilled union members, with nominating rights as work becomes available”. That is simply BJ4BWs in another form. We reject the notion that “Union control of hiring is always preferable to the bosses controlling hiring. Enforcing an illegal closed shop would be a massive advance for the working class movement in this country”. On what basis would the union nominate people for jobs? The only issue that may be in question is equal access to jobs, but that is down to the subcontracting system itself, not nationality. When socialist in British trade unions fought discrimination against nationalists in the north of Ireland they were always referred back to the Irish Region (Region 11, Northern Ireland in the case of the TGWU). Here, in the best workers’ traditions, Loyalist craft engineering unions (like we have here), with all the history of privilege and empire loyalty had contempt for other workers and ensured they (nationalists) did not get to join the craft unions and did not get jobs.

Discrimination proceeded swimmingly, all in the name of the best trade union practices, the power of the unions was consolidated and the NI 'troubles' ensued. This ‘union control’ is only a demand for 'local' communalist discrimination; the predecessor of the SPEW in Ireland was quite comfortable with that. And British and Irish based union leaders turned their heads away and pretended they just did not see. In a certain sense this demand is more reactionary than national chauvinism; presumable workers from the south of England, Wales and Scotland, let alone Ireland, would quickly be sent packing by our ‘local’ TU registrar of jobs.

As one comrade said, “But the SPEW states that it is the bosses who are setting one nationality against another. Yes but why play the same game? It is the BNP, say the SPEW, who are attempting to sever fraternal relations between workers from different nations, but the SPEW want union control of a register of locally skilled workers presumably to facilitate local jobs for local people. Some are trying to find socialist gold under this militant dross of nationalism. But that seems like an attempt at alchemy’ (BB). You cannot endorse the strikes and repudiate the aims, they are the same. If you endorse and seek to spread these strikes you are dealing a crippling blow to the British Labour movement.

The Socialist Workers Party (SWP), Workers Power (WP) and SF are not siding with the Gov/bosses. The line-up is clear. The strikes have the enthusiastic support of the BNP, they have the support of the capitalist media, more enthusiastic the more you move to the right. The TU bureaucracy as a whole who would scarcely lift a finger to fight job losses or pay constraints while countless billions are handed over to bankers almost without conditions are enthusiastic supporters of these illegal but highly reactionary strikes.

The CPB, the SPEW and the TU bureaucracy are supporting it for entirely reactionary reasons. The bosses are 'opposed' because that is in their immediate short tern financial interests, but they are not anything like as opposed as they would be if the plant was occupied, and the right of private property was thereby challenged, as in Waterford Glass. The government are 'opposed' but really not like they would oppose a real workers action, in the long term interests of the class as an international whole, like Gate Gourmet. They are for ‘law and order’ and against ‘trouble’ in general but if they have to have ‘trouble’ they could not get better than this from their point of view. Where are the threats to sequestrate the union funds, where are the high court judges injunctions, where are the brutal police attacks? Where is the class consciousness of those who cannot see the difference? And we reject with contempt those backward workerists who say we are siding with the Tories because Kenneth Clarke made an anti-racist statement criticism of the strikers. Tory anti-racism bad, workers racism good, declare these political idiots.

It was entirely correct of the Campaign against Immigration Controls (CAIC) to picket the Unite HQ and SF endorses the action. The prejudices of localist craft trade unionists would have been easily overcome and the strike orientated in a healthy direction if it had got a lead from the top. But Unite gave them their head. Principled socialists would seek to argue and struggle politically with these workers to explain that workers cannot win in national, let alone local isolation. No, we need a rank-and-file movement in the unions to combat this. It is entirely nonsensical to talk of the form being reactionary and the content being revolutionary as if this was some kind of Marxist dialectic.

These are reactionary strikes for reactionary ends which can only win by driving foreign workers out of the country and setting in train the destruction of the entire working class and its organisations and all their historical gains. Fight them now, fight the reactionary leadership of the class who are responsible for this appalling situation or it will get worse. Do not try to find the silver lining; it is not there. They do mean what they say. If they occupied the plant and forged international solidarity that would be an entirely different strike, with entirely different leaders. To pretend otherwise is to defend the existing leaders and to prepare more defeats. This is differentiating the left in Britain; it goes to the core of class politics. Fight the reaction without reservations and you will find new revolutionists who will come forward to champion the interests of the class as an international whole.

In conclusion we quote from an Italian socialist group, the Communist Workers Party, “Our hope is that the SWP may be physically present in the struggle to denounce what is becoming a falsified reality i.e. that by which Great Britain is being occupied by foreigners, and British workers are being forced out of jobs because of them”.
Yours Ottaviano Scipione, PCL-Partito Comunista dei Lavoratori - Italy (Abruzzi Region)

• Occupy to prevent plant closures and job losses!
• For a comprehensive programme of public works, council house and infrastructure building to overcome unemployment!
• The trade unions must take responsibility for organising the unemployed now, before they fall prey to fascism!
• For a militant ‘no platforming’ of fascists combined with United Front demands on workers leaders to fight capitalism AND fascism!
• No to Popular Fronts compromises with capitalism like the Peoples Charter!
• Make the bosses and the bankers pay for the crisis – not the workers!
• For a rigorous progressive taxation system, comprehensive prevention of tax avoidance scams by transnational companies and the rich and a wealth tax to make the capitalists pay for the crisis!
• For a genuine rank-and-file movement in the trade unions to fight the bureaucratic labour lieutenants of capital who lead today’s trade unions!
• For direct employment by all firms of all labour, end the pernicious system of sub-contracting and agency working!
• For an open conference of all those political groups and individuals who oppose these reactionary strikes!
• Build a revolutionary socialist leadership to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism internationally!

Contact: Socialist Fight: PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ. Email: Socialist_Fight@yahoo.co.uk

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Socialist Fight sees the workers involved in these strikes as "craft workers" while we would see them as part of the "labour aristocracy" that benefits from the privileges of skilled workers who share in some of the super-profits of British imperialism. Labour aristocrats have history of social imperialism supporting their imperialist ruling class in return for the defence of their privileged jobs. It is the breakdown of this historic partnership as British bosses are looking for cheaper EU and other contractors employing non-British workers that explains why these workers took 'wildcat' action. The role of the 'left' bureaucracy of the Communist Party and Socialist Party is to cover the naked chauvinism of British Jobs for British Workers is part of the international left aligned to the World Social Forum and the Bolivarian revolution that brings together Stalinist, Castroists, Maoists and fake Trotskyists. The role of the 'left' bureaucracy is to use the unions to pressure the bourgeois state to the left rather than call for independent unions, occupations, and the general strike. It is the left leg of the Menshevik International aligned to "socialism in the 21st century" that has abandoned Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism and the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

SOUTH AFRICA: WIVL ELECTION MANIFESTO - PARLIAMENT IS ON THE SIDE OF THE CAPITALISTS

Break the alliance with the ANC and SACP!

The capitalists and their parties claim that there is a world economic crisis and they use this to justify mass retrenchments, cuts in social expenditure and a drive to attack and undermine workers gains that have been won through centuries of struggle. But what is the nature of the crisis and who is responsible for it? More importantly what can be done about the crisis?

Workers International Vanguard League (WIVL) has been excluded from the April elections

One of the rights that has long been fought for, has been the right to organise, form political parties and to contest elections. Even this right is under threat. All the parties in parliament sat on their own and set the deposit for taking part in all provinces and at national level at R540 000. WIVL submitted all the requirements, including a list of 29 candidates from 5 provinces, from urban and rural areas. All the Electoral Commission (IEC) was interested in, was if we had the deposit. The IEC, set up by the ANC Popular front government, acted on behalf of the monopoly capitalists to exclude working class organizations such as us. Many capitalist countries simply require a list of signatures to show some support, in order to take part in elections. Such a simple provision is denied to the working class here.

The only way forward for the working class is to organise independently of the capitalists and of parliament; we must build workers’ defence committees to defend ourselves from the ongoing attacks by the capitalist class and their agents. Now, more than ever, we need to build an independent revolutionary working class party. We invite working class fighters and activists to join us in the fight against the world system of capitalism-imperialism.

Why are we participating in these elections?

Many people have asked us why we are participating in the elections when we believe that Socialism will not come through parliament. We are participating in these elections because many people have the illusion that parliament can bring about an improvement in their lives. Our main aim by participating is to confront the representatives of the capitalist parties head on. We will put forward proposals and demands of the working class. The very responses of the representatives of the capitalist parties will help reveal to the mass of the working class what the true role of parliament is. The role of parliament is to give the masses the illusion that we have a real say in the running of the country, when in fact, we are being ruled by the dictatorship of the class of capitalists.

It is because the capitalist parties realise that they will be exposed by us, that they will try everything to keep our representatives out of parliament.

We have strict conditions on our representatives to ensure that they advance the working class struggle and do not get co-opted. Our representatives will sign pledges in advance that they will be subject to instant recall, they will receive the average wage of a skilled worker; they will only serve 6 months (representatives will be rotated); they will place the struggle of the working class outside of parliament above any parliamentary work.

So what is the cause of the so-called crisis of the bosses?

Their drive to increase profits has hit a major obstacle. Their profits have begun to fall more sharply because they cannot extract enough surplus value from the world working class. This has led to capitalists diverting their money from investing in production into speculating in housing, food, shares, derivatives, etc. It is the collapse of this speculative bubble that has sparked off the current crisis, which is but a symptom of falling profits in productive sectors. Over the years, they have so cut down on workers to increase their rate of profit that a point has been reached that there are too few buyers (too few in employment to buy commodities) so the rate of profit has started to decrease more rapidly. The capitalists are so used to making massive profits that a slight decrease is for them a ‘crisis’. The supermarkets are full of food, the car dealers are over-stocked with cars, but there are too few buyers to purchase at the high level of prices. Thus the crisis is not that there is too little, but too much! Capitalism means the wealth of the world is in the hands of a few capitalists, while the working class of the world is kept in starvation.

Imperialist Capitalist monopolies continue to make huge profits

Last year, the SA government collected R161Billion in company taxes on profits. This was at 28%, which meant that companies made profits of R580 Billion last year. If we consider these are only declared profits then it is safe to assume that the real company profits were closer to at least R700 Billion. So clearly, there is no crisis of profits in South Africa. The rate of profit in the neo-colonies like South Africa, have always been much higher than in the imperialist centres. Now the imperialists are demanding even greater profits from the neo-colonies to offset their falling profits at home.

When the big bosses talk about crisis and when workers talk about crisis, we are talking about different things. When the bosses talk about crisis they mean that instead of making 3000% profit their level of profit has come down to 2500%. When workers talk about crisis, we mean high unemployment, starvation and early death of millions of workers.

Superprofits come from commodities sold way above their real cost of production

The real cost of a bag of cornflakes is 30 cents. But will the giant food producers or retailers reduce prices so that the millions of starving can eat? No, because it means that their rate of profit of 5700% would come down to 100% or 200%- this they are not prepared to do.

Not too long ago the price of Platinum was $440, then speculation drove up the price to over $2000. Now that it has dropped to $1000, Anglo Platinum wants to retrench 10 000 workers, yet they were quite comfortable with the same number of workers when the price was $440. They have become used to a higher profit level and are not prepared to sacrifice this.

Over 40% of petrol used in SA is locally produced at less than $20 per barrel by Sasol. When the company was starting up, the working class, through our taxes subsidised them but now they are making massive profits they continue , with the active help of the ANC government, to keep the price of fuel artificially high. The main shareholders today of Sasol are US banks such as the Bank of New York, JP Morgan Chase, SSB, State Street.

Why doesn’t the ANC impose higher taxes on imperialist monopolies?

It is possible to raise company taxes

In the days of ‘apartheid’ the company tax rate was 48%. The ANC government alliance has reduced company tax to 28%. As a measure within the capitalist system, the government could easily raise the company tax rate to 50%. This would raise an extra R200 billion per year for social expenses and the companies would still be making R350 billion profit per annum. In several European countries the rate of company tax is 48%. The rate of company tax in the USA is 35%. So why does the ANC government not raise company taxes? The excuse that the company would just up and run does not hold water as they pay much more in tax in other parts of the world.

The truth is that the ANC government, with the active support of the Cosatu and SACP leadership, are fundamentally pro-capitalist. They are the junior partners in the imperialist exploitation of SA. When capitalism is in crisis, with the masses in uprising, as they were here in 1985-1994, the capitalists sometimes rule through a Popular front. This Popular front is a multiclass alliance, which generally has the support of the trade union leadership, which ties the working class movement to support the capitalist system. In essence the leaders of the ANC-Cosatu-SACP popular front pose as pro-worker, but divert the struggles of the masses into a dead-end, away from a struggle to overthrow capitalism, that is, away from the struggle for Socialism.

Popular fronts have a history of betrayal of the working class

The popular fronts of the MDC in Zimbabwe, of the MAS in Bolivia and the PSUV in Venezuela are similar examples where the struggles of the working classes are diverted away from struggling for power. Recently the miners of Huanuni in Bolivia rose up to demand that pension age be dropped to 55. The army of Morales (the supposed left leader) was set upon the workers to crush them. Two miners were killed and the leadership of the trade union federation sat with folded arms while the workers were put down. These miners have adopted a resolution calling for the immediate replacement of their sellout trade union leadership. On the other hand when US-imperialist back fascist bands took over almost half the country, Morales did nothing to stop them, hundreds of workers and peasants have gone missing, several were killed. The workers were kept disarmed while the fascist bands operated freely. Such were the anti-working class steps taken by a Popular front in Bolivia, from which the world working class should draw strong lessons.

A brief analysis of the recent budget

All parliamentary parties, without exception, generally welcomed the budget. The Cosatu leadership had warm words of praise for the budget. The Cosatu and SACP leadership justify support for the ANC because we have a ‘developmental’ state. The Cosatu and SACP leaders believe we have to go through a period of ‘democratic capitalism’ to build conditions for Socialism. This is a smokescreen to hide the real aim of the ANC-SACP-Cosatu popular front alliance, namely that a section of the black middle class becomes the junior partners of imperialism, at the expense of the demands of the working class. Let us examine a few areas:

a] Housing

It is estimated that the current housing backlog is 1.5 million houses. Due to population growth the number of houses needed each year just to keep pace with this is 200 000. Let us assume that a decent home is 90 square metres. Each house would cost R270 000, then with a budget of R19,6 Billion only 73 000 houses can be built. This is not even enough to cover population growth. This means that the current 7.5 million people without housing will always remain homeless and the number of homeless people will increase each year by 600 000. Even if the small RDP houses are built it will only amount to 163 000, still less than population growth; still the number of homeless will grow by 180 000 every year. To completely wipe out the backlog in housing requires R400 Billion (at today’s over-inflated housing prices). When the government talks about R700 Billion for infrastructure, they clearly do not have housing in mind.

Most of the R700 Billion will be used for the Eskom scam (which we have written on extensively – see our website). In summary, the government plans to double the electricity generation capacity within 20 years. ‘Growth’ in the economy has come from public works, financial services and tourism. How many power stations are needed to power the smile of a tour guide? The companies who will benefit are the shareholders of General Electric and Murray and Roberts (with the major shareholders such as Bank of New York, State Street, JP Morgan Chase, SSB, etc).

Most of the budget deficit of R90 Billion is not for housing or any social need, but for building power stations that are not needed, even by capitalist industry. The ANC government is prepared to borrow from imperialism to fund projects of imperialism but are not prepared to go to the same extent to put the millions of shack dwellers in proper houses. Their stated commitment to abolish slums is a lie, proven by their own budget figures.

b] Unemployment

By September 2008, the number of formal jobs was put at 8.4 million. This figure has dropped over the past 10 years from over 9 million. This means that the supposed job increase of 2 million jobs since 2002 have not been formal jobs and in fact have been largely confined to public works. These ‘jobs’ have already disappeared. Since 1994 half the number of 50 000 commercial farms were wiped out and over 1.5 million farmworkers lost their jobs. Every year there are 500 000 school leavers. Thus the number of unemployed increase at least by 200 000 every year. Yet the government plans only to create 400 000 ‘fulltime- equivalent’ jobs through public works schemes over the next 3 years. Instead of employing 400 000 new municipal workers with benefits, the government chooses to privatise municipal services through these casuals in public works.

The Cosatu leadership fully supports this casualisation of the public sector. The government has redefined the meaning of who is unemployed to exclude millions who have given up looking for work and the millions who starve in the informal sector. Last year they even redefined the meaning of ‘discouraged’ to exclude a further million workers from their books and put them in the general category of ‘not economically active’. The government claims unemployment has come down when in fact it has not only gone up but will always keep increasing under the current government plans.

c] A further tax for low-wage workers is being planned

The ANC government is planning to introduce an extra tax of 12-15% for all workers. This is supposedly to go for workers’ pensions. When a worker leaves a job, you will not be able to claim any of the money, you must wait until you go on pension. The average life expectancy is less than 50 and 3 out of every 10 workers will die before the age of 40. This means that the ‘pension’ deduction will go to the banks and that most workers will not even see this money. But what will happen is that your take-home pay will be reduced by 12%. For example, if your wage is R2500 per month, your take-home pay will be R300 less.

d] Cuts in pensions and grants

Pensions and grants rose by 5% or less. This means that in real terms the government cut pensions and grants, ie with the new level of R1010 and R240 pensioners and grant holders can buy less than what they could last year. Yet, the Cosatu leaders and all the parliamentary parties hailed this budget as pro-poor. Pensions are cut, while at the same time the government is bailing out the mining monopolies by R2 Billion and the motor bosses by hundreds of millions of Rands. The 310 000 that are currently being retrenched by the monopolies are not being bailed out at all.

e] Education

Education is being privatised and many of the school leavers can hardly read or write. In addition about 4 million youth between 7 and 24 years are not attending any educational institution.

f] Health

From 1994 to date, the number of hospital beds per 1000 people has dropped from 27 to 17. Two-thirds of health expenditure goes to the private sector. Cosatu unions have investments in privatised health care.

g] Ongoing neglect of the rural areas

The budget allocates R1.8 Billion to ‘rural development’ while R179 Billion is allocated to ‘economic services’. The government spends more on spying on the resistance to big capital (the Intelligence budget is R3 Billion) than on the millions in the rural areas. The ‘bailout’ by government of the monopoly capitalists receives hundreds of billions (2010 stadiums, Eskom, etc) while the rural poor are left to die of starvation and unemployment. Clearly, under the Popular front government of the ANC-SACP- Cosatu alliance, the rural poor face only further starvation and early death.

All the parliamentary parties are capitalist

The international prices of wheat, maize and sunflower seeds has dropped by over 40% in recent months, yet the major retailers and food producers have not lowered food prices on this scale. Not a single parliamentary party has waged a campaign for food prices to come down. Not a single one of them opposed the Eskom scam; not a single one of them demanded that the price of bread should be dropped, after Tiger Brands and other producers were found guilty of collusion over raising the price of bread since 1994. The Cosatu leaders have waged no centralised campaign against the current bloodbath of retrenchments, yet they praise a capitalist budget that supports profiteering by the bosses. They should have called a general strike to stop the retrenchments but do nothing because they are too busy campaigning for the election victory of the capitalist ANC. The fight against high food prices was reduced to a one-day strike for workers’ to blow off steam- no prices have come down. Workers’ sanctions should have been called in support of the masses in Zimbabwe, Swaziland, the DRC and Gaza, but only irregular pickets and once-off stoppages have been held.

Palestine

Both DA and ANC have similar positions on Palestine, calling for a 2-state Bantustan for Palestinians. Not a single parliamentary party has been prepared to call for a decision of parliament to implement sanctions against Israel. The Cosatu leaders support a campaign of boycott and sanctions only in so far as it leads to a 2-state Bantustan for Palestinians.

We expose the DA's plans to starve the working class

The DA claims that it has a 'plan' to address unemployment. For this they put forward the setting up of Export processing zones (EPZ's).

The reformist ILO has done a study over 20 years of EPZ's and concludes that these are areas of low wages and high exploitation. Today there are over 27 million workers in 850 EPZ's worldwide, 90% of these workers are women. These are areas where there are regular mass dismissals, child labour, no minimum wages, where security guards and paramilitary are used to bash even the right to belong to a union. Worker leaders have been murdered, such as in Bangladesh; often police use physical violence to crush union organization; there are no minimum conditions such as the right to overtime pay and a limit on the working day; in Thailand, long promoted as an Asian Tiger, child labour works for 90 cents per hour- this is what the DA wants to reduce the working class to- absolute slaves.

The worst capitalists like Coca cola, Nike are serial perpetrators of human rights abuses in the EPZ's; if the capitalists do not like the conditions, if for example the government wants to clamp down on their practices, they just leave; this happened in Malaysia where a few years ago when workers wanted more rights, 60% of the EPZ bosses left overnight. What is more, EPZ's are like another country- not covered by any local law (or any law for that matter); the capitalists there pay no tax at all.

The DA reflects the worst side of the current capitalist crisis: the capitalists have made massive profits for many years, now that their profits are falling slightly, they want us to bail them out. They want to shift the burden of their crisis onto the working class by taking back what little rights we have. They want to reduce our wages and crush the unions. Every year the capitalist companies in South Africa repatriate over R200 bn in profits to their principals in the imperialist centres. For years while the tax rate was reduced from 35% to 28%, the capitalists continued to mass retrench workers. They have failed to produce jobs and what the DA wants for them is to further reduce the company tax rate. This is an obscene way to increase profits as the capitalists will just continue retrenching. The DA says ‘we are one nation’ when they want our votes, but when it comes to sharing company profits, they believe in a 2-tier labour market. No to the bailout of the capitalists- retrench the bosses!

We expose the attempt by COPE to split the working class

Workers International Vanguard League condemns the attempts by COPE (Congress of the People) to split the workers'movement by wanting to form a new trade union and/or new federation. Belatedly this splinter of the black middle class has discovered that they have no base among the working class. As is typical of the middle class they want to use the working class to fight their battles for them; they want to use workers for votes in the April elections.

Their manifesto is based on 'macro economic stability' that the country has énjoyed' (read: they support the GEAR economic policy responsible for opening the working class to increased exploitation, increased suffering and starvation); they believe the key is 'enterprise development' (read: more black capitalists to share in the exploitation of the working class); they believe in joint decision-making with big business in all that government does. Let's put it clear: big capital is retrenching 310 000 workers, they have deliberately starved us through high prices and kept us homeless by profiteering on housing. This is the same big capital that COPE wants to have a joint decision -making over government.

In other words, the programme of COPE is to become the new boss boys of imperialism in South Africa, they want to become the South African MDC. With a capitalist programme, what sort of union can these opportunists build? Only monopoly capital will gain from having the working class even further divided.

Now is the time we need working class unity against high prices, against retrenchments, against imperialist backed war in the DRC, in Gaza, against the ongoing imperialist plunder of Zimbabwe. If the trade union leadership are not advancing working class leadership, let us mobilise to change them; but let this be on a clear working class programme, and on the basis of working class unity.

We call on the working class to reject COPE and their opportunist 'trade unionism'.

What do we propose?

• Put up company tax to 50% now! This will lay the basis for immediate building the houses for all and other social needs.

• break the alliance with the ANC and SACP; Replace the Cosatu leaders with working class fighters who will advance working class interests and who will pursue real working class independence.

• expropriate all the banks, place them under working class control and centralise them into one entity.

• The SA revolution is part of the world socialist revolution: The SA economy and the ruling classes are connected by a thousand threads to the world economy and imperialism. The highly developed division of labour in the epoch of imperialism excludes any notion of a successful revolution in one country. The success of the SA revolution will be absolutely dependent on successful revolutions in one or more advanced imperialist-capitalist country and the tangible support of the international working class. The best solidarity with the SA revolution would be a successful socialist revolution in one or more of the imperialist centres.

• Jobs for all: reduce the working week, without loss of pay to 35 hours, share the work among all those who can work ; those in the mining and dangerous industries to a 30 hour week (without loss of pay); all work should be divided among all those who can work. In the case of retrenchments the relevant company should be expropriated and placed under workers control [wherever we speak of expropriation in this programme, we mean expropriation without compensation]

• A sliding scale of wages and price controls: Presently, the enormous jump in food and energy prices is wreaking havoc to the point of desperation in the lives of the employed and unemployed workers and their families. The capital-labour relations has always been characterised by starvation wages, high prices and exorbitant profits. We demand that wages should increase whenever there are price increases (a sliding scale of wages). No to one- or multiple year agreements. There should be the establishment of workers committees to monitor high prices in every workplace and in every area. reduce the price of basic food by 50%; expropriate without compensation and place under workers’ control all food retailers and producers.

• Good Housing for all: Housing provision has been privatized and left in the hands of the banks. The state subsidy supports privatized housing as it is completely inadequate for the necessary housing needs of the working class. The profiteering by the developers and the credit Act excludes the vast majority of the working class from adequate housing. Under these circumstances mass homelessness will not only be a permanent feature of capitalist SA but will continue to increase every year. We demand the immediate provision of adequate, low rental housing for all (pensioners, the unemployed and extremely low waged workers to be exempt from rent payment). We demand that all vacant buildings, offices, hotels be expropriated and made available for housing; we demand that vacant office space of big capital, insurance companies, lawyers, accountants be expropriated and made available for housing need; mansions and large estates of the capitalists and the upper middle class be expropriated and made available for housing; dismantling of the group areas and the resettlement of the working class near places of work and in the urban centres; the rural working class should be given permanent security of tenure, the immediate upgrading of their dwellings and expropriation of the buildings of the capitalist landowner and the resettlement of the rural working class in appropriate dwellings.
  

• Expropriate monopoly land owners: 90% of the agricultural land belongs to the commercial monopoly capitalists; the immediate task is to expropriate (without compensation) of all this land and the establishment of workers control; nationalization of the land in the former Bantustans and the return of such land to those who want to continue subsistence farming, with the support of the state through increased allocation of land, implements, credit and seeds, with the vision of encouraging such farmers to form co-operatives and eventually collectives that would be incorporated into the socialist farming collectives.

• For a United Palestine: the calling of a debate on sanctions against Israel and promoting immediate workers’ sanctions against Israel, Zimbabwe and Swaziland; forward to a united Palestine; forward to working class power in Palestine, Zimbabwe, DRC, Swaziland.

• Free liberatory, universal, compulsory Education: The current schooling system is a mechanism for maintaining the class domination of the capitalist class. It places obstacles in the way of the working class as a whole from acquiring scientific knowledge. Universities and their professors currently play the role, by and large, of justifying the system of capitalist exploitation. The first demand on education is that the schooling/education system becomes an organ for the complete abolition of the division of society into classes; it should be an organ of communist regeneration of society. The struggle for this fundamental change of the basis of education goes hand in hand with the struggle for free, compulsory, general and technical education from crèche, kindergarten, pre-school, primary to secondary school. The freeing of women and a special emphasis that the education of children is a social responsibility. All pupils should have their food, clothing, shoes and scholastic equipment provided free by the state. Support for students, especially for working class students to enable them to attend universities; many-sided state aid for the workers, semi-peasants and peasants (such as there are): further education institutions, libraries, adult schools, open universities, courses, lectures, cinemas , etc. The extensive scientific and technical, professional training of all students above the age of 17.
  

• Abolishing of segregated areas: The interconnection of the banks and housing provision means that under capitalism the segregated group areas will remain. This is the objective reality that underlies and perpetuates racism. Side by side with the integrated housing demands as set out in demand 4 above, the demand is made for integrated schools and social amenities and services.

• Free universal Health care: Over 70% of the national expenditure on health goes into the private sector. Only 7 out of 45 million people benefit from this. The rest of the people (38 million) face a collapsed health system that makes profits more important than health. We demand that all private hospitals and clinics be expropriated and free health care be provided to all. There needs to be a speedy training of a new generation of socially conscious health workers.
  

• End to Privatization of state assets: In the current period of capitalist decay, the profiteers desperately seek new fields to exploit as they struggle to overcome falling profits. Electricity, public land, schooling, water, health care, social welfare, etc all become targets of the capitalists. We demand the expropriation of all privatized state assets (without compensation) and for them to be placed under working class control.
  

• An end to the stranglehold of imperialism over the economy: All the banks, the major food companies, the big mines, in fact over 80% of the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) are controlled by imperialist banks and monopolies. These imperialist companies are therefore the primary reason for the mass unemployment, low wages, high prices, mass homelessness, collapse of what little health care there was, super-exploitation of the working masses and oppression of the peasantry across Africa. Imperialism made massive profits during the period of National Party rule, on the back of the most brutal exploitation and slavery of most of the working class. Only when imperialist rule was threatened by revolution in the 1980’s did they accept a transition to a limited, bourgeois democratic rule. Now they continue to profit at a rate higher than ever before. We demand the immediate expropriation of all imperialist assets and for them to be placed under working class control.
  

• An end to tribalism and regionalism: For hundreds of years the capitalist class has depended on the mechanism of ‘divide and rule’. One such mechanism is the promotion of tribal divisions. The overall result, irrespective of some privileges to one or other group, is the continued poverty of the masses. We demand an end to all tribal councils and their replacement with workers councils, where leadership is elected, subject to instant recall and who receive the average wage of a skilled worker. In fact all elective structures should be on the same basis. All provinces should be disbanded (they are modelled on the lines similar to the ex-Bantustans) and a new system of central planning introduced so that the differences between urban and rural are abolished.

• Away with xenophobia: The development of the SA economy has always been based on the labour of workers from all over the world. Workers from Malaysia, China, India, southern Africa, Europe, etc have from time to time played a role in building the economy. Once again, the media and institutions of the capitalists play up artificial, national differences to divide the working class, with the sole objective of maintaining control, ie of ensuring the continuation of exploitation of the entire mass. There are only 400 capitalist families that control the bulk of the world’s wealth. The same imperialists who are behind the wars in Africa and South America, in the Middle East, who are behind the exploitation of workers in every country, are also responsible for the exploitation of the working class in SA. We have more in common with the migrant worker than with the local capitalist. We reject the notion of ‘illegal migrants’. We stand for international working class unity in struggle against our common enemy- world imperialism-capitalism. Workers have no country and indeed the world is our home. Our struggle for Socialism cannot be separated from the world struggle for Socialism. In this struggle we stand shoulder to shoulder with all workers of the world.

• Equal rights for women: To solve the Gender question we believe that what has been traditionally regarded as ‘women’s work’ should be socialised: We thus demand cheap, public laundries; cheap public restaurants/eating houses; child care and education should be a social responsibility. Nursing mothers should have crèches at their workplace. Light duties should be prescribed pre and post-birth for an adequate period. Housing cleaning should be a collective responsibility.

• For the formation of workers’ defence committees: The capitalists and their agents are launching ongoing attacks against the working class, through high prices, mass retrenchments. The capitalists’ desperation for greater profits is increasing. This means that attacks on the working class will intensify and as in the case of Bolivia, may mean the possibility of workers facing armed fascist gangs. It is necessary for workers to become organised in our workplaces and in our communities through setting up of rank-and file defence committees. These committees may become the embryos of workers councils that reflect workers’ democracy outside of parliament, and will be the basis of building local, regional, national and international struggles and campaigns.

• For the Dictatorship of the proletariat: Change will come outside of and against parliament: In essence, what we stand for is the total transformation of the political-economic-social relations- ie the establishment of working class power. The transition to Socialism can only be through the dictatorship of the proletariat (the dictatorship of the majority), organised in soviets (workers councils), with delegates subject to instant recall, earning the wage of average skilled workers, the disbanding of a standing army and the rule of the armed working class; as opposed to bourgeois parliamentary ‘democracy’ (in reality the dictatorship of the handful of capitalists) we propose workers councils which will be legislative and executive at the same time.

• Federation of Southern African Socialist states: Due to the inter-connection of the Southern African region we stand for the establishment of a federation of Southern African Socialist states as a transition towards a Union of Soviet Socialist states in Southern Africa. At the same time we stand for the establishment of a United Socialist states of Africa. The broader context however, must always be the advancing of the world Socialist revolution, which will not proceed in a straight line but will open up various possible combinations that cannot be determined in advance. At the same time it is imperative to realise that any revolutionary overthrow of capitalist relations in Africa, or anywhere in the neo-colonial world, cannot be sustained without a successful Socialist revolution in one or more of the imperialist centres.
  

Issued 21.02.09 Workers International Vanguard League, 1^st Floor, Community House, 41 Salt River rd, Salt River, 7925 ph 021 4476777 email workersinternational@gmail.com website www.workersinternational.org.za Gauteng: ph 0834832038; Free State ph 0761866147; Eastern Cape ph 0734751732; Western Cape: ph 0822020617; Mpumalanga ph 0766462481 Kzn: ph 0763657361