Write-up by CM of the discussion, 3 July 2008, which followed KX’s introduction.

Present: GB, CM, GX, MX, BE, DP, SX, MsX, KX, JX

KX spoke to his paper.

Group discussion

DP: Please clarify what you said about the Dubai strikes and CPE in France.

KX: In Dubai, huge numbers of people from the Third World are taken on as construction workers, and their living conditions are appalling, like concentration camps, and there is oppression, and imprisonment. In 2006 there was a big protest movement for two weeks, and in 2007 four thousand workers protested about layoffs, which led to 400,000 protesting, which was so important it was reported in the media.

On CPE in France, in May 2006 there was huge attack on young workers, in the form of legislation such that they can be sacked within two years with no compensation or justification. There was a huge reaction in universities, mass assemblies, radicals sent delegations to the young workers, who were very open to listening to the experiences of people who were involved in struggles in 1968.

1968 was about the past, now the young want to learn from older people.

Demos now include every generation, not just youth. Renault workers went on strike and electrical workers. Railway workers had mass assemblies organised by unions, but open to others. There is a change in the atmosphere. There are young workers with experience of organising themselves.

BE: In Brazil there was an opposition movement which broke away from the official unions. The state put military forces on the streets. Increasingly the military take the function of the police, because the police are corrupt.

CM: would you explain the ICCs opposition to TUs?

GX: I will affirm the general framework. In Dubai, Bangladesh, Vietnam etc there have been massive strikes. They have been presented as the action of victims, not as labour organising itself. Also in Russia, where the unions are very weak. So the struggle took on a self-organised form. At the periphery, they knocked unions out of the way. In democratic countries, unions are more effective.

DP: Over the last 20 years of action in the workers movement, there has been no sense at all of a new wave greater than there was in the 1980s. There have always been big struggles. In Argentina in the 90s there were strikes and protests. This happens. This is part of the nature of capitalism. There will always be class struggle, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes organised. This is nothing particularly new.

On the industrial centres and periphery, a serious factor has been that the American economy is down the tubes. If America catches cold, everyone else is ill, especially in the periphery. Recession leads to mass unemployment in the peripheral centres which are temporarily included in the class struggle, but mass employment always lessons the class struggle.

In Egypt, the cause was food, which is slightly new. There were huge piles of food available, but beyond the average wage. This had big effects in the periphery, especially.

BE: Geographically, the struggle is taking place where there is no history, such as in Dubai and Vietnam.

In Britain, the TUs have been neutered, they roll over, no particular determination, and the Labour Party is beyond belief. And in France, they will always have a go.

GB: There is a crisis. America is the world’s Banker, and it has been borrowing.

China has a peripheral economics, a small range of exports, workers keep quiet while living standards rise, or there is oppression.

In Britain and America, there is the threat of losing homes and jobs – this doesn’t lead to instant revolution. The success of Thatcher was a rise of individualism, leading to anger and frustration.

Students now go to counsellors because they cannot cope.

After the anti-war protests, there were ‘social forums’. There was something new in those movements, but having developed a way of coming together, they went away.

It’s worth thinking again about the poll tax protests because there is currently a crisis over taxation, which is underestimated. There is a new reluctance to pay taxes, and the state finds itself unable to raise taxes, and a new paralysis.

Revolutionary issues pop up in weird ways, but they are not close to revolution.

What proportion are the ICC of the world?, or are we of Exeter? What social weight does political movements have?, what radio stations do we run?, what power have we to change the situation?

There are TUs in Britain trying to link up with the Third World.

KX’s take on trade unions is demonisation. They are not wicked or traitors.

JX: On DP’s comments: on the effects of unemployment, there is an inflationary factor pushing struggles, such as the teachers struggle, due to the decline of real wages.

Unemployment can weigh down workers in struggle.

The ruling class does not have much room to manoeuvre.

“We’re so tiny” – that’s true of the revolutionary minority, but it is growing. Difficulties and disagreements on the nature of TUs, and what’s happened to the Labour Party, neither of which have represented the working class for a hundred years, is giving rise to new interest in the communist left.

There is development of consciousness. Once workers are able to move, they will act, since they will see that there is no future in this system.

However small we are, there is hunger for clarity, and it is up to revolutionaries to push forward the advance of consciousness.

MX: On the Labour Party argument, this is really important, because it is now obvious that they don’t represent the workers.

DP: I agree, and that there has been a qualitative change. The idea of a mass strike is not as in something for such as the TUC to call, it is a movement spreading from the grass roots up. Does it need to spread country to country?

KX: Yes, it would be fantastic if that happened.

DP: Rosa Luxemburg wrote about all this. There was the movement in May 68 in France. Now: specifically, there is anger at the French government, but I cannot see that spreading. There are no historic examples.

BE: On the Labour Party, the ultimate was Dennis Skinner voting for 42 days, having done a deal about compensation for miners with chest problems.

MsX: I have been reading about an organisation of small farmers and peasant communities, in eight regions, getting together and campaigning internationally. The source was the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC).

GX: Massive resurgence of class struggle, since the 1989 collapse of the Eastern bloc.

This gave rise to a massive campaign of the capitalist class to promote the idea of the collapse of socialism and the ‘end of history’. But the workers didn’t think that 1989 was the end of communism. It was a counter-revolution, and a celebration. It was an attack on the working class. The question of socialism is now back on the agenda.

The mass strike is a matter of simultaneity like in 1905 in Russia. This was an effect of the decomposition (decadence) of capitalism. Workers everywhere will react to that in the same way, not country by country.

2006 France, anti-CPE employee hiring laws are elements of mass strike. It’s the simultaneity of struggles which will be more interesting.

KX: On CM on TUs and the ICC: TUs in the 19th century were “schools of communism”. They served the new working-class, which was emerging from the peasantry, and they were a huge step forward. The bourgeoisie were totally mystified. The workers paid their dues to the organisation, to unions, with no expectation of a return, except to those who were unemployed.

They achieved reforms: on the labour of children, female labour, night-time labour.

The TUs then were proletarian organisations. They enabled the working class to move forward, make gains from the bosses.

From 1868 into the 20th century wages doubled.

The question is, did that function continue when capitalism decayed after World War I?

There was the syndicalist movement. Were TUs winning the struggle?

In 1905 in Russia, the real working class was in the Soviets, not by representation in this or that union. This clearly showed the way forward. The ruling class is not worried by unions in the way they were by the Soviets.

TUs kept going for a hundred years, but became ineffectual, no longer had a function.

For full strength as a class, it is necessary to go beyond unions, which have become integrated with the state.

There are genuine militants working in the TUs – that’s the source of their power. But the structure is part of the State, not the people.

On what DPs said: on the 1968 mass strike, in some ways, yes. Like Poland in 1980, 1976 as well, they elected national and regional assemblies. Organised distribution of food.

American TUs sent messages to Poland to say “You need a union,” which gave rise to Solidarity, which was the death of real protest and organisation.

In Poland, they tried to spread the struggle, to Germany, but a big barrier was made around it and stopped it. But it showed the working class can organise in struggle.

Politicisation: this is usually thrown at the ICC. Yes, we are very small, but it doesn’t determine the revolution.

The characteristic of this movement is solidarity. ’68 was not uniting in struggle, the bourgeoisie was able to stop it.

There were still illusions about capitalism in the 1970s, and the feeling that it was possible to do something. Now the workers are under no illusions. Now pensions, and homes, are going out of the window around the world, and people are disillusioned.

Countries like the Philippines are becoming aware of the left communist presence – they found the ICC and other websites.

GB as chair: We need to have time for business, BE first.

BE: I need someone to take over as treasurer. It takes at most 15 minutes per month. We have a few hundreds in the bank. The payments for the meeting room are up to date.

Are we meeting in August?

BE: cannot make the first Thursday

Can we make it to the second Thursday? Agreed. We discussed the topic, and agreed on “The Decomposition of Capitalism?” (with a question mark).

BE: Can you put something on the website about us needing a new treasurer?

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